by Tim O'Rourke
With the muscles in my jaw beginning to ache, I knew that it would only be moments before I lost my hold on him. Then, from the corner of my eye I saw Isidor sweeping across the hall, his crossbow trained on McCain. If he fired, I knew that McCain would be dead and I didn’t want that. So, removing my fangs from McCain’s shoulder, I screamed, “No, Isidor. Don’t kill him!”
McCain seized his chance and lunged at my face, his teeth like spikes. I shut my eyes and waited for the pain, but it never came. Suddenly, I felt weightless as I was dragged out from beneath the wolf and thrown backwards through the air. Without having to even think about it, my wings sprung open, those little black claws opening and closing, as if glad to be free again. Hovering in the air, I looked down to see that it was Potter who had yanked me from beneath McCain. In the flashes of light, Potter seemed to flit to and fro around McCain. I could see that his chest looked like it had been almost ripped to pieces. He was soaked in blood and his wings looked as if Edward Scissorhands had been at him. But still he didn’t stop fighting with the last remaining wolves. His arms worked like pistons as he punched, swiped, and stabbed at the wolves that lunged for him.
From above, I watched as one of the wolves, that just moments ago looked as if it was dead, scrambled back to its feet and raced across the chapel towards Potter. With my wings pointed behind me, I dropped through the air like a stone. When I was within reaching distance, I raked my claws down the length of the wolf’s back, removing a ragged flap of fur-covered flesh. I spun away, and glancing back over my shoulder, I could see the wolf’s spine and ribcage glistening wetly up at me. Then, the wolf collapsed, as if its legs had just been kicked from beneath it.
Spinning around amongst the wood beams that held the ceiling together, I looked down to see McCain roll over onto his paws. He spotted Isidor and bounded towards him. Isidor instinctively raised his crossbow. Then, as if remembering that I’d told him not to kill McCain, he lowered it again. In that moment of hesitation, McCain was on him. With one mighty swipe, McCain knocked him from his feet and sent Isidor smashing into the chapel wall. The whole building shook, sending dirt and dust showering down from the beams above me. Stunned, Isidor slid down the wall and onto the floor as McCain smothered him. I shot down and arrived on the floor just as Potter saw the trouble Isidor was in. Within an instant, he was on McCain, who had opened a hole in Isidor’s chest with one of his giant claws. Isidor cried out and dropped to the floor, blood pumping from him.
Potter looked down at Isidor as he lay bleeding. Looking at McCain, Potter shook his head, and said, “Big mistake. The kid’s my friend.” Then, he went berserk.
As a wolf, McCain was a giant, as big as a bear. His head sat between two colossal shoulders that rippled with muscle. His eyes seared like two burning moons in his skull. His gaping jaws hung open, revealing his blood-stained teeth. Potter launched himself at McCain with such ferocity that the wolf flew backwards through the air. Before McCain had even landed, Potter was racing towards him with his tattered wings. He grabbed hold of McCain in mid-air and spun around. The wolf’s long, bushy tail whisked upwards as if trying to knock Potter free of him. He rolled his head back, his ferocious teeth gnashing just inches from Potter’s face.
Isidor groaned beside me, a claw pressed to his chest. “Help Potter,” he said.
“Are you okay?” I asked, watching the blood begin to congeal around the claw covering his chest.
“Just help him,” he said, closing his eyes.
With my wings spread, and their little claws grabbing at the air, I shot towards Potter as he continued to struggle with McCain.
“What kept you?” Potter growled, as he tried to drag McCain back towards the dance floor.
“You looked like you were having such fun!” I shot back, gripping McCain’s tail and dragging him down. The wolf kicked wildly with its powerful back legs. I dodged left and right to avoid them striking me.
The three of us smashed into the floor, the sound of wooden boards splintering beneath us. Taking McCain’s skull in his claws, Potter smashed it repeatedly into the dance floor. Dust and splinters of wood shot up like there were a series of timed explosions going off beneath us. I looked into the wolf’s eyes and could see that the light in them was fading. McCain’s tongue lolled from the corner of his mouth as he howled in pain.
Once Potter had McCain subdued, he coiled his arms around his neck and held him in a headlock. McCain’s tongue twitched like a rattlesnake as Potter applied pressure to the wolf’s throat.
“Don’t kill him,” I shouted. “We need him alive.”
Potter glared up at me, his teeth locked together as he tightened his grip.
“Potter!” I hissed. “Don’t you dare.”
“He’s a murderer!” Potter roared. “He steals the souls of children!”
“Killing him won’t stop that,” I shouted. “We have to get Banner to show the world that video. Show them what the wolves, like McCain, have been doing – what they are capable of.”
Potter locked eyes with me, then slowly he loosened his hold on McCain and as he did, the wolf began to change. I watched as its face twisted and contorted. Its legs shrunk in size and took on human form. McCain cried out as if in pain and his eyes rolled in their sockets. His claws looked like they were being sucked back into his fingers. Potter released him. We both looked down at McCain as he lay panting, his hands to his throat.
“I haven’t murdered anyone,” he snarled.
“Well I’ve got evidence that says different,” I spat.
“What now?” Potter asked me.
“We take him to Banner,” I said.
Holding out his hand, Potter looked at me and said, “Handcuffs?”
“You know I don’t have any handcuffs,” I said, flashing him a false smile.
Then, without warning, Potter stamped down on McCain’s leg. The sound of his ankle snapping was sickening. “What did you do that for?” I gasped.
“It’s a long way back into town. We don’t want him running away from us.” Then reaching down, he dragged McCain to his feet.
McCain screamed out in pain, the tendons in his neck standing out through his white skin.
I stood and watched Potter drag McCain across the dance floor and out towards the splintered doorway. McCain’s screams were deafening, and the thumping music did nothing to mask them. I turned and ran back across the chapel to Isidor, who had managed to pull himself up into a sitting position.
“How are you doing?” I asked, wrapping my arm around his shoulder.
“Okay, I guess,” Isidor winced. “I think the wound is healing.
“Let me have a look,” I said, opening his coat. Where there was once a gaping hole, was now a purple and black knotted lump of dead flesh. But there was something else. The skin around the wound looked as if it were cracking, like a shattered piece of stone.
Covering it with his coat, I hoisted Isidor to his feet and helped him from the chapel. We stepped out into the night, to find Potter holding onto the groaning McCain, and Kayla who was holding an unconscious looking boy in her arms.
“I haven’t murdered anyone,” McCain continued to protest.
“Shut the fuck up or I’ll break your other leg,” Potter snapped. “Christ, I need a cigarette,” he added.
I headed towards Kayla who held the boy. His face was hideously disfigured. “This is Sam, the boy you told us about, isn’t it?” I asked her.
She nodded her head, and looked down at him. “Can we take him with us?”
Before I’d had a chance to say anything, Potter shouted, “No way. No more hanger-ons.”
Ignoring him, Kayla looked up into my eyes and said, “Please, Kiera, we can’t just leave him.”
“We’ll take him to the nearest hospital, but that’s as far as we take him,” I told her softly. “Potter is right, we can’t...”
“But he knows about me,” Kayla cut in. “He knows what I am.”
“And so do I,” McCain groaned
, as if somehow trying to bargain his release with us.
“And who is going to believe a freaking murderer?” Potter said. “No one will believe a word you say after that video has been shown...”
“What video...?” McCain started, but stopped when Potter’s fist broke his nose.
“Sorry,” Potter shrugged, looking at me. “He was getting on my tits.”
Over the sound of McCain’s groaning, I looked back at Kayla and said, “What do you mean, he knows what you are? Did you tell him?”
“I didn’t have to,” Kayla started to explain. “He said that he had seen me before – on a beach, and that I’d known his name. But he doesn’t understand how, because he knows that I was murdered.”
“How did he know that?” Isidor cut in.
“He read it in a newspaper,” Kayla said. “He showed it to me. It said that my dead, naked body was discovered on the side of a mountain, and Sam thinks I then showed up on some beach, then at this school.”
I couldn’t make sense of what Kayla was telling me. In the distance I could hear the whoop-whoop sound of approaching police vehicles. I looked up and could see the night sky was alight with strobes of blue and white. Knowing that the official police were on their way, I looked down at the boy in Kayla’s arms, then at her.
“Okay, we take him back to the manor, but only until we find out what he knows, then we cut him loose,” I said.
“Thanks, Kiera,” Kayla whispered.
“Oh great,” Potter snapped. “Just another one to add to the already overcrowded Mystery Machine.”
“Give Isidor your lighter,” I said to Potter, ignoring his remark.
“Why?” Potter asked, fishing it from his trouser pocket.
Isidor took it from Potter. “Now set light to that chapel,” I ordered.
“Why?” Isidor asked.
“To destroy any trace that we’ve ever been here,” I said. “When they find a room full of disembowelled wolves, they’re gonna know that no human did that.”
Without saying another word, Isidor set the chapel ablaze. The sound of the approaching sirens grew louder and with the chapel burning behind us, we made our way back down the gravel path towards the school gates.
Looking like humans again, we stood and watched Banner bring his unmarked police car to a screeching halt. The door flew open and he climbed out.
“I watched the tape,” he shouted as he came running towards me. Several other police cars pulled up behind his vehicle. “You were right, Hudson, McCain is a piece of murdering scum.” Then, spotting the raging fire behind us, McCain limping and crying out in pain as Potter held onto him, Banner looked at me and said, “What in the name of sweet Jesus has gone on here?”
I looked into Banner’s eyes and said, “You told me once that I had a police badge, and that I should use it. Well I just have.”
Then, Potter shoved McCain into Banner’s arms, and we left the grounds of Ravenwood School and made our way back to Hallowed Manor.
Chapter Forty-Five
Kiera
The next few days were spent locked away at the manor, giving our bodies the chance to heal and recover from what had happened at Ravenwood School. On the very next morning after handing McCain over to Banner, I telephoned Elizabeth Clarke and told her what I had discovered. She wept over the phone, as she had been unable to come straight down to see me. I didn’t want Elizabeth to find out what had happened to her sister by watching the news or reading it in a newspaper.
Elizabeth said that she needed just a couple of days, then she would come to Hallowed Manor to find out everything that I had discovered. Over those few days, Kayla spent most of her time looking after Sam, who we had placed in one of the many spare rooms. Potter seemed less agitated than before. Isidor seemed quiet and content as he sat quietly in the study and passed his time by reading. If he had noticed the cracks around his healing wound, he didn’t say anything. I considered talking to him about it, but I felt the time wasn’t quite right. I didn’t understand it myself.
Several times I went back to the summerhouse, but the statue had gone. I went to the tiny graveyard hidden beneath the willow trees, and to my surprise, I found Murphy’s crucifix hanging from the cross that Potter had made for his friend. Taking the crucifix in my hands, I listened to the wind rustling through the willows, then hung the cross back around my neck.
I was glad I had told Elizabeth about her sister when I had, because the news of McCain’s arrest and what had happened at Ravenwood was front page news, and occupied hours of airtime on the TV. The Council of Wolves and the United Nations Commission of Wolves held emergency meetings. The video was undeniable proof, that a werewolf – Skin-walker – had breached the Treaty of Wasp Water by murdering a human. The punishment for McCain, for the breach, was to be sentenced to death. The Council of Wolves was enraged by this, and threatened to walk away from the Treaty if McCain was executed. But the United Nations held firm and said that all parts of the Treaty had to be adhered to, and that McCain would be sentenced to death for his crime. McCain continued to protest his innocence. But beneath the grounds of Ravenwood, forensic teams had found a chamber where the teachers and some parents had been held. A shack was found on the grounds of the school, where children claimed they had been held prisoner for days, fighting off giant rats that came to feed on them. The children had given this shack a name – they had called it the Rat-House. McCain didn’t deny this, but he continued to protest that he was innocent of the murder of Emily Clarke. His lawyers persisted that a body had never been found, but the prosecution said that the video evidence and the amount of blood found at the scene was enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Emily Clarke was indeed dead.
But what really sealed his fate was how he rambled on and on about a group of winged creatures who had killed thirteen wolves at the chapel during the matching ceremony. His talk was brushed aside as nothing more than the insane ramblings of a killer. Justice proved swift in this new world that had been pushed, and McCain’s execution was going to be televised live across the world. It was to be shown on the night that Elizabeth Clarke was coming to visit.
I didn’t want to watch McCain be beheaded live on TV, but Potter did and he brought a portable television into the study, which I had prepared for Elizabeth’s visit.
“You are kidding me?” I breathed as he placed it on the table.
“No, why?” he asked, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
“Do you really think Elizabeth is going to want to watch McCain being beheaded on TV?”
“She might,” Potter said, positioning the television. “It’s all part of the healing process, sweetcheeks.”
Before I’d had the chance to object further, the door was opened as Isidor and Kayla led Elizabeth Clarke into the study. Again, I could see that Isidor was struck by her beauty.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed this, as Potter looked at him and said, “For crying out loud, kid, put your tongue away as you’re gonna trip over it.”
Isidor flushed red and took a seat at the table, next to Kayla. Elizabeth sat down, her thick long blond hair resting on her shoulders, lips painted bright red. She didn’t look like someone who was in mourning.
“Thank you for coming down to see us,” I said.
“No, thank you, Miss Hudson, for uncovering the truth about what happened to my sister,” she smiled, her eyes almost seeming to sparkle. “He was right about you; you don’t leave any stone unturned in your search for the truth.”
“Sorry?” I asked, starting to feel confused.
“The person who recommended you to me,” she smiled back.
“But I thought you said you saw Kiera’s advert in that shop window?” Kayla asked.
“Yes, yes,” Elizabeth said. “But it was a friend of mine who actually recommended you.”
“Who’s your friend?” Potter asked her, his voice flat. Like me, he sensed that something wasn’t quite right.
“I can
introduce him to you, if you’d like,” she smiled again, taking a mobile phone from her pocket.
I looked at Potter and he glanced back at me. Where was this going? I wondered.
With the phone to her ear, Elizabeth said into it, “Come in, they’d love to see you.”
Then, whoever it was she had brought with her must have been waiting on the other side of the door the whole time, as it slowly opened.
“Hey, that’s the Oompa Loompa we saw help McCain carry Emily’s body from her room,” Potter snapped, as the burnt little boy from the video stepped into the study.
“Dorsey, what are doing here?” Kayla gasped.
“This is my son,” Emily said.
“He’s that burnt kid?” Potter sniped, looking at me in disbelief.
“They are not burns,” Elizabeth said, standing and placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “They are the result of a bad matching.”
“Apart from seeing your son on that video helping to carry your murdered sister from her room, I’ve never seen him before,” I frowned, realising that there was now more to this murder than I had first seen. “How could he have recommended me?”
“Oh no, it wasn’t my son who gave you such a glowing report,” she smiled down at me.
“No, it was me, Kiera Hudson,” someone said, and I looked up to see Jack Seth stroll into the room.
Chapter Forty-Six
Kiera
Jack Seth towered over us. His rake-thin figure was covered by a loose-fitting denim shirt and jeans. Around his scrawny neck was tied his red bandana. His face was as emaciated as ever, and on his head he wore a baseball cap. The beak was pulled down low over his brow, and his crazy yellow eyes burned in their deep, sunken sockets. The lines around his mouth looked like valleys and his teeth were nothing more than brown rotting stumps.