Fearing I might be seen or my scent picked up, I slunk down back behind the tree trunk as carefully and as quietly as I could. I rolled myself amongst the bed of leaves covering the ground, then lay perfectly still. I heard the Skin-walkers approach with their tethered berserkers on the other side of the tree trunk. They stopped, and my body went rigid with fear. Had they seen me? Had one or both of the berserkers picked up my scent? I then heard the sound of running water against the other side of the fallen tree trunk. It sounded as if someone was emptying a bottle of water. As I listened to the constant stream beat against the tree trunk, I realised the Skin-walkers had stopped so one of their berserkers could take a leak.
“The baby was snatched right from beneath its mother’s nose,” I heard one of the Skin-walkers say. “She had only left the kid’s room for a second and came back to find that the baby had been snatched right out of its crib. Wrapped in a yellow blanket it was.”
“That’s the third in as many months,” the other said, and I heard the sound of a match scraping against something rough. This was followed by a waft of cigarette smoke. Good I thought. It will mask my scent from those berserkers.
“If the killer follows the same MO, then he’ll dump the body out in these woods like he’s done with the others,” one of the Skin-walkers said.
“That reporter reckons it’s one of those winged creatures she spent her life writing about who are doing the killings,” the other remarked.
I watched a trail of thick cigarette smoke coil up between the branches of the tree. It was so overpowering and made my sensitive nose twitch and wrinkle.
“There ain’t no winged creatures,” one of them scoffed. “That reporter is as crazy as the fucker who’s killing these kids.”
The berserker stopped peeing and I heard the Skin-walkers move on again. Over the sound of their yapping, I overheard the last of the Skin-walkers’ conversation. “She ain’t the only crazy thing that’s happened in this town – I mean, what the fuck are those crazy looking cracks that have suddenly appeared in the sky?”
“Beats the shit outter me,” the other said as they headed away.
Chapter Seven
Kayla
As we stood staring at each other in the dark, it started to rain. The narrow lane that we stood in soon became awash with muddy puddles. Rain thrummed against the roof of Kiera’s battered old Mini. With our hair and clothes growing wetter by the second, Potter pulled open the passenger door.
“Get in,” he said.
He closed it behind me, then came around the front of the car and got in, sitting behind the steering wheel.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Nowhere,” he said, wiping rain from his face. “You’re going to tell me all about these cracks and what happened that night when you and Sam disappeared.”
Staring out of the rain-covered windscreen, I thought back to that night in the field. I could remember Potter screaming. Wolves were screaming too, and me, Sam, and Murphy had killed them.
Twisting in my seat so I could look at Potter, I said, “When we had killed the last of the Skin-walkers, I saw Murphy leaning over you as you lay bleeding in the snow. You looked a real mess. You two started bitching at each other almost right away. I heard you tell Murphy that someone wanted you dead, that they were trying to frame you for the murder of some teacher and kid. I thought perhaps you were talking about Dorsey and Miss. Clarke, from Ravenwood School.”
“Yeah, it was them,” Potter said, winding down the car window just an inch. He lit another cigarette and blew the smoke through the gap. “As you know, Kayla, they were both freaking wolves.”
“I heard you tell Murphy that one of them tried to seduce you,” I asked him. “Which one…?”
“Which one?” Potter cut in. “For fuck’s sake, Kayla. The teacher! Miss Clarke! Jesus, I sometimes wonder if you’re not too tightly wrapped.”
“But they were Skin-walkers…”
“Look, just get on with the story, will you?” Potter snapped.
“I heard Murphy say something about you previously getting it on with that girl Sophie you told me about. The one who wrote these letters,” I said, taking the bunch from my pocket and placing them on the dashboard.
Potter shot a quick look at them, then back at me. “Then what happened?”
“Murphy started to shout at you because you had been tricked by another wolf – Miss. Clarke – and he wanted to know when you were finally gonna learn your lesson, that’s when I heard Sam gasp out loud.
“Why?” Potter asked.
“Sam had seen someone standing beneath some trees on the other side of the field. I followed him over there.”
“Who was it?”
“Some woman with dark hair. I asked Sam if he knew who she was.”
“And did he?” Potter pushed.
“Yes, it was his mother,” I said.
“What’s so bad about that?” Potter shrugged, staring at me through a haze of blue smoke that was starting to fill the car.
Winding down the window just enough to let out some of the smoke, but not let in the rain, I looked at Potter and said, “Sam told me back at Ravenwood School that his parents were both dead – drowned in a boating accident – their bodies missing.”
“So what the fuck was his mother doing hanging out beneath the trees in that field?” Potter asked, flicking his cigarette through the gap in the window. He lit another almost at once.
“That’s what Sam couldn’t understand and neither could I, because that wasn’t the only strange thing Sam had once told me about his parents,” I said.
“Strange?” Potter peered through the smoke at me. “How strange?”
Remembering the time me and Sam had spent at Ravenwood School together, I looked at Potter. “Sam didn’t think his parents really loved him. It was like they had always expected more from him somehow. He said both his mother and father were often away. He never understood what they did for careers, but his dad always seemed to be flying off here, there, and everywhere for meetings, and his mum would travel with him. Sam told me how people – strangers – would often visit his home – men in smart suits. He never got to see their faces, as his parents would always send him to his bedroom. Sam never heard what it was these men and his parents discussed as they always spoke in hushed voices,” I explained to Potter. “But this wasn’t what surprised me about Sam’s story.”
“Why not?” Potter asked.
“My father had been a Vampyrus, remember?” I said. “He kept that from me and my mum for years and the fact that I had a brother called Isidor. I’ve had secrets kept from me, too, by my parents, so I didn’t see it as much of a big deal.”
“So what was the big deal?”
“It was what happened the day his parents drowned or went missing,” I said. “They had taken him to Cornwall for a holiday and decided to take a boat trip around the coast. Sam said that the deck was packed with tourists and his parents had taken the last two seats. His mother had complained he was standing in her way and blocking the sun, so she told him to go and stand someplace else.
“Sam told me this pissed him off, so he went and stood at the other end of the boat. It was then he saw something odd.”
“Odd?” Potter said, over the continual strum of the rain beating off the roof of the car. “What did hawk-eye see?”
I looked at Potter. “Someone was standing in the sea.”
“So?” Potter lit another cigarette, blowing smoke from the corner of his mouth. “Sam was at the freaking beach, what did he expect? People go paddling all the time.”
“He said it was hot but this person was dressed in jeans and a blue hoodie, with the hood pulled up over their head,” I continued. “Sam couldn’t see this person’s face, it was covered by the hoodie. Then he said the screaming began.”
“Screaming? Who was screaming?” Potter asked, taking one quick puff on his cigarette after another.
“Someone was screaming ‘Man ove
rboard!’,” I told Potter, who was now listening intently. “Some guy told Sam his parents had jumped. Another said it looked like they had flipped over the side of the boat,” I explained. When the boat finally got back to the beach, Sam told me how he nearly fainted with shock but someone caught hold of him.”
“Who?” Potter quizzed.
“The hooded figure he had seen standing on the beach,” I breathed. “This person promised Sam that everything was going to be okay.”
“So did this person know Sam?” Potter said, flicking ash from the end of his cigarette into the foot well of the car.
“Yes,” I said back with a nod of my head. “But Sam said he needed to know who was beneath the hood so he called out to him. The stranger turned around and pulled back the hood.”
“Who was hiding beneath it?” Potter said.
“I asked Sam the same question,” I explained.
“Well? Who did Sam see beneath the hood?”
“It was me he saw,” I told Potter.
“You?” Potter frowned, a half smoked cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
“So Sam said.”
“But what would you have been doing standing on that beach?” Potter puzzled. “This happened before you had even met Sam.”
“I didn’t know the answer to that question either,” I said. “But Sam was convinced that it was me he saw. I tried telling him that I’d never even been to Cornwall.”
“What did Sam say to that?” Potter asked.
“That the first time he saw me at Ravenwood School was like seeing a ghost,” I said.
“Ghost?” Potter exclaimed.
“Sam was convinced I’d been sent to rescue him somehow,” I said. “I had been there for him when his parents had fallen over the side of that boat, and that I’d been sent to save him from the school. He said I was special. I tried to tell him he was mistaken, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Why not?” Potter asked.
“He told me I was an angel who had been sent to help him. He called me a dead angel. I told him that I wasn’t dead. Then, Sam pulled out a folded piece of newspaper. The headline read:
Murdered Girl Found on Side of Cumbrian Mountain
“I read the words underneath. It described how sixteen-year-old schoolgirl Kayla Hunt’s naked and mutilated body had been found partially covered by snow on the side of a mountain, her dead brother, Isidor, had been found beside her. I told Sam it wasn’t me and that he was mistaken. Although I knew he wasn’t.”
Potter looked at me, then reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a folded piece of newspaper. He opened it. Handing it to me, he said, “As we both know, Sam wasn’t wrong about you in the newspaper, so perhaps he was right about you being on the beach that day.”
Chapter Eight
Isidor
I stayed hidden until I was sure the Skin-walkers and their berserkers had moved far off deep into the woods. Standing, I brushed the dead leaves and pine needles from my clothes and out of my hair. I climbed over the fallen tree trunk and back toward the cracked area of earth I had discovered earlier. I thought about trying to stomp on those cracks again, but decided not to. Not for the moment anyhow. How much noise would I make? I couldn’t afford to be heard by those Skin-walkers. What if there were more on patrol in the woods looking for the killer I’d overheard them talking about? It sounded like some local reporter had made it her business to blame some kind of winged creature for a series of recent child murders. If I should be found, it wouldn’t take long for me to become the prime suspect. No, I would come back and inspect the ground at a later date, when Skin-walkers weren’t combing the woods for a killer. Besides, I’d come back to Lake Lure to find Melody Rose. That was the most important thing.
I glanced back over my shoulder to make sure those Skin-walkers hadn’t tracked back and were now coming toward me. Unable to see any sign of them, I set off in the opposite direction toward the road. As I crept between the trees, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had been right about the cracks I had seen in the sky. Had Jack caused them by pushing on that lever back at the railway station? They certainly seemed to have appeared at the very same time. And from what I’d heard that Skin-walker say, the cracks in the sky had only just formed. Perhaps there was a link between what Jack had done and the cracks in the sky. But had Jack’s actions caused the cracks to appear in the ground where the grate leading down into The Hollows had once been? And if so why? What had Jack done and had it been the real reason he’d swapped places with me? With so many questions bubbling away in my mind, I headed toward the country road that would lead me into town. I had no idea what Melody did as a job or where I might even find her. But if she was living in Lake Lure, I guessed the house she had once shared with her disturbed mother might be a good place to start. Would her mother be there too, and if so, would she still be cruel and unkind to Melody? Then stopping dead in my tracks, I gasped out loud. What if these two worlds really did mirror each other and Melody had been murdered in this world by her mother? But that couldn’t be possible, I comforted myself and started walking again. I had seen that photograph. Melody was grown up – an adult in this world. Her mother had murdered Melody the day of that swimming gala when Melody had jumped into the pool covered in pink rose tattoos and bright pink hair. She had had both in that photograph. If Melody was to be murdered by her mother in this where and when then it was going to happen after I’d meet up with her again – the picture told me that. And this time, there was no way I was going to let Melody’s mother hurt her. Perhaps that’s why Jack had been so adamant that I had to find Melody again. Had he somehow seen the future and known that some terrible tragedy was going to befall Melody unless I came and rescued her. Jack had said that I was going to do something worthwhile with my life. What could be more worthwhile than saving the life of the girl I was in love with?
I reached the edge of the wood and stopped again. Not because I’d had some sudden thought, but because I could see several police vehicles parked, shutting off the entrance to the road I needed to follow into town. There was no way I could step out onto the road without being seen by them. I could see marked police cars with the lights flashing blue and red. There was also a police van and it rocked from side to side as the berserkers caged inside fought to be free. Crouching behind a nearby tree, I watched the Skin-walker cops as they talked into their radios, passing messages back and forth to the control room. I didn’t know whether to head back and risk coming across those Skin-walkers and their berserkers or wait, hidden in the undergrowth, until the cops packed up and went back to their station. I felt suddenly trapped and wasn’t sure what to do.
I watched one of the cops go to the boot of the police car and remove a roll of blue and white striped tape. He then cordoned off the entrance to the woods and part of the road. They weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. A child had been snatched and cops didn’t let that sort of thing pass without some attention. I doubted if all this effort was for a human child, so I guessed the baby that had been taken was a Lycanthrope.
As I watched the Skin-walker cops seal off the area, I saw another car arrive and stop on the other side of the blue police tape. I heard the driver’s door swing open, but from my hiding place, I couldn’t see who had gotten out. Crouching low, I inched my way nearer to the edge of the woods and the road. I peered through the bushes I had taken shelter behind and stifled a sudden gasp, clamping my hands over my mouth. A woman with long, pink hair was approaching the cops who protected the cordon. And even though she wore a warm-looking parka coat with the collar turned up against the wind, I could see pink coloured rose tattoos on the side of her neck.
With my hands covering my mouth, I watched Melody Rose stride toward the guards. Taking what looked like some kind of I.D card from her coat pocket; she waved it before the cops and said, “Press.”
Without argument, one of the Skin-walker cops raised the tape and let Melody Rose slide beneath it and into the woods.
Chapter Nine
Kayla
“Where did you find this?” I asked, looking down at myself staring out of the newspaper clipping.
“It was pinned to the wall in Kiera’s apartment,” Potter said, over the sound of the rain bouncing off the car we sheltered in.
“Which Kiera?” I asked, glancing up at him.
“The one you just shot,” he said.
“Why did she have it pinned to her wall?” I asked, remembering how our Kiera had often sat for hours cutting out newspaper clippings and tacking them to the walls of her bedroom at Hallowed Manor. “The Kiera Hudson I shot didn’t know me in this world.”
“The walls of her apartment were covered in thousands of these newspaper clippings,” Potter explained. “I guess the two Kieras were more alike than just in appearance.”
“Why this particular story, though?” I asked, looking back down at the piece of newspaper I held in my hand.
“Every cutting was about people who had been murdered in a hideous or strange way. You and Isidor had your backs ripped open in this world by your father, Lord Hunt, as he believed he would find wings hidden inside of you. Most of the other stories were about alleged sightings of winged creatures, or humans who claimed that they could remember having lived previous lives very much like the ones they were now living. Most of these people had been rounded up by the wolves and imprisoned or killed. I think the Kiera from this where and when perhaps remembered another life she had once lived.”
“Kiera’s life? The Kiera we love?” I asked him.
Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series Two (Book 8)) Page 4