Killer Cruise (Project 26 Book 11)

by Mark Woods

Before he knew it, several hours had passed and it was early evening.

  The Halloween Ball would be starting soon, in just a couple of hours, Henry thought. Knowing Charlotte wouldn’t want to miss that, he briefly considered going back down below decks and waking her up; but then he thought again about how tired and exhausted she had looked earlier when he’d left her in their cabin, and decided to give her a few more minutes before he went back down and disturbed her.

  Standing at the far end of the ship, Henry gazed out across the ocean.

  The moon, just coming out, was full, casting its reflection across the gently moving waters, sending a shiver down Henry’s spine.

  A bad omen if ever I saw one, Henry thought, thank god I decided to up her medication for the duration of this trip.

  With any luck, the extra dose of Aconitum he had administered to her earlier this evening would be enough to stop her going through the transformation and changes she alwaysseemed to go through once a month, normally around the same time as her menses.

  If not, he would just have to secure her and tie her down, just as he had been forced to do on numerous previous occasions before.

  In the excitement of their wedding and the start of their honeymoon, he had lost track of the phases of the moon – an error in judgement that he hoped and prayed he would not have cause to regret. If he had known the full moon was so close, he thought, he might well have postponed their trip.

  Henry thought again about her strange behaviour earlier, and hoped it was not a sign that he would have yet more problems to deal with on this cruise.

  He had thought he’d seen her staring at someone, just before she had so suddenly been ‘taken ill’, but when he had questioned her about it later, back in their cabin, she had insisted it was nothing.

  Eventually, after much persistence, Henry had finally gotten the truth out of her.

  Charlotte had confessed that she had thought she had seen her ex-lover, Lukaas, aboard the ship. The same Lukaas she still believed to have been the father of her child all those years ago; that same monstrous child of hers, that awful monstrosity, that Henry had helped bring into the world, and then just as swiftly helped back out of it – but that was impossible, right?

  It had to have been a coincidence; the man she’d seen back on deck couldn’t possibly have been Lukaas.

  Right?

  Right?

  What were the chances of that?

  It was Lukaas, I’m sure of it, Charlotte had insisted.

  The same Lukaas, Henry thought now, whose child he had murdered. The same Lukaas who had abandoned his wife, just as she needed him the most, leaving her still carrying that foul abomination Henry had ended up being forced to kill because he couldn’t bear to stand by and allow such a hideously deformed creature to live.

  That child had been an affront to God, Henry thought, remembering back to what he’d done all those years ago. It hadn’t deserved to live.

  In many ways, Henry believed he had been doing all of humanity a great service when he had bashed its brains out against the hearth – downstairs, away from Charlotte, where she had no way of seeing what he’d done.

  Henry had told her later that the child had died shortly after birth, but not how – that it had been born already dead and had never stood a chance of surviving – and that had been the end of the matter. He had known that Charlotte simply would not have understood; would’ve wanted to keep and take care of the baby and raise it as her own if she had known the truth, even despite the absolute horror of it. That was just how she was, and one of the many reasons why he had come to love her so.

  He had told the couple who had wanted to buy the baby from her the same thing - that the baby had died during birth – and given them a fair few pounds in way of compensation for the child that they had been promised but would never receive so that they would not ask too many questions and not kick up too much of a fuss, and after that, everything had all been fine.

  It had taken Charlotte a while to get over the experience, and a short stay in an asylum, but eventually she had started getting better and in time, with his help, had even started to move on with her life.

  But as Henry continued to care for her, and look after her, in the aftermath of all that had happened, something unexpected happened. Somehow, at some point, he had found himself falling in love with her, and it had not been long after that that he had found himself proposing and Lottie had agreed to marry him.

  Now, here they were, on the last leg of their honeymoon, just a few short weeks after their wedding and now, for some bizarre reason, suddenly Charlotte was convinced she had seen her ex-lover, Lukaas, travelling here on their ship with them, sharing their voyage back to England.

  Henry was sure she must have imagined it – there was no way it could really possibly be Lukaas, not after all these years – but a part of him also wondered if she were right.

  If she is, Henry thought, it could be a good thing.

  It gave him a chance to finish what he’d started all those years ago when he’d killed that damned abomination of a baby Lukaas had left her carrying in her womb. It also gave a chance for him to give her something else – something that he had never been able to give his wife until now and that had been missing in their relationship all this time since they had first gotten together.

  Closure.

  Armed with a description of the man Charlotte thought she’d seen, and that she was still convinced had been Lukaas even after he had tried to persuade her she must have been mistaken, Henry had left his new wife sleeping back in their cabin about an hour ago now, and gone looking for the man on the ship.

  He had searched across the whole of The Bellastaria, if only to rule out any chance she might have been right, but so far, up until now, his search had proved fruitless.

  Henry wasn’t sure yet what it was he actually intended to do, even if he did discover the man and it did turn out to be Lukaas, but he did know he needed to do something. If it was Lukaas Charlotte had seen, Henry knew he needed to confront him or else Charlotte would never be able to relax for the rest of the trip and if it wasn’t – well, Henry knew he needed to make certain for himself.

  He knew he couldn’t just leave this hanging over them for the rest of the cruise without at least making sure one way or the other. If he could just deal with this on his own, without having to involve Charlotte in any way, then maybe, just maybe, he thought, it might be enough to help settle her and the pair of them could finally just forget all of this and get on with their own lives.

  Without the shadow of Lukaas constantly hanging over them.

  Henry was just about to call it a night, give up on his search, turn around and go back down below to wake Charlotte so she could get ready for the ball, when suddenly he saw him. The man Charlotte claimed to have spotted earlier, exactly as she had described him, walking along the lower deck just below him, headed towards a door that, Henry knew, would eventually, lead him back to the very same cabin where Henry had left Charlotte sleeping earlier.

  Got you, Henry thought, and quickly headed for the nearest staircase to cut the man off so he could intercept and question him, find out whether Charlotte had been right about his identity and who he was, before the man – Lukaas, he was sure of it now – could reach their cabin.

  He saw the man glance back at him briefly as he came down the stairs behind him, but other than that, the man seemed to pay him no mind. He didn’t seem to notice as Henry discretely began to follow him, at a distance, waiting for the perfect moment to confront him…but he would soon, Henry thought.

  He and the man in front of him were about to become very well acquainted.

  Very well indeed…

  ***

  Lukaas sensed the man behind him the minute he started following, and knew instantly who he was - the man with whom he had seen Lottie standing earlier, several hours before.

  The man Lukaas quite rightly presumed was her new lover….

  Lukaas did not
have any idea who this man was, other than he was here with Lottie on this trip. He had no idea what it was the man might want from him either, but surmised Lottie must have told the man something about him and that was why her new lover was now following him.

  Having confirmed with his Alpha that everything was in place for later this evening, and having confirmed that all his fellow wolves were ready to play their part in the slaughter soon to follow, Lukaas had left the bridge earlier and had decided to try and re-locate Lottie again. He hoped he could try to get her alone, warn her she was in danger, and hopefully help escort her off The Bellastaria before everything kicked off, but it had taken him until now to track her down to this part of the ship.

  His senses felt dulled somewhat – sluggish, and the only thing that he could put that down to was the herbs his fellow wolves were using to mask their scent ahead of proceedings later tonight.

  He had no way of knowing Henry had drugged Charlotte earlier, and in actual fact it was this that was dulling the mark he had put upon her, making her hard to track, not the herbs his fellow wolves were using.

  Finally, he had managed to locate her to this end of the vessel - but under no circumstances, he thought, was he about to confront her with her new man on his trail.

  No, if he were going to talk to Lottie, convince her that her life was in danger and that she needed to leave the ship – and now – he needed to do it alone. Somehow he had to ditch this new guy of hers first, Lukaas thought, and then double back to speak to her.

  It was going to be awkward enough seeing Lottie again after all these years with nary a word spoken between them, let alone trying to convince her that her life was in danger and that he spoke the truth with her new man present for that conversation. That was if her new lover even let Lukaas speak to her in the first place.

  No, he had to get rid of this new man of hers first, ditch him, and then head back to try and talk to her alone.

  Easier said than done, Lukaas thought, and time is a-wasting...

  Lukaas had no idea yet what he intended to do with the man when he confronted him, but knew that he needed to disable him and quickly, preferably without causing him any lasting harm. If he did hurt the man, Lukaas knew, and Lottie ever found out, she would never forgive him for what he’d done and then he would stand even less chance of her listening to anything he had to say than he did already.

  No, probably best, Lukaas thought, to lead the man back to his own quarters, bushwhack him, and then tie him up there until he had managed to convince Lottie she needed to depart the ship. Then, and only then, could Lukaas come back for him and send the two lovers off on their merry way together while all hell continued to break loose back here on the ship.

  It wasn’t an ideal plan, but at least it was a plan of sorts.

  All Lukaas had to do now was pull it all off successfully.

  There was still at least another couple of hours before the Halloween Ball started and the slaughter began; still plenty enough time to deal with this little annoyance first and then come back to warn Lottie…but he couldn’t mess about, he needed to get this done.

  Lukaas looked back to make sure the man was still following him, and then started to lead him away from the cabin he had tracked Lottie down to and where he could sense she was still currently sleeping.

  They reached the crew quarters and Lukaas’ cabin a few minutes later.

  “Can I help you?” Lukaas asked, turning to the man and starting a conversation with him as he opened his cabin door with an air of politeness that, just as he’d hoped it would, caught the other man entirely off guard.

  Henry stared at him, and seeing the wolfish grin on the other man’s face and suddenly realising where they were, suddenly came to the realisation he’d just been played.

  “I know who you are,” he said, certain now that this man in front of him was Lukaas and that Charlotte, his Charlotte, had been right. “I know who you are and I know what you are.”

  Henry had been covering up Charlotte’s late night excursions, ever since they had begun following the troubled birth of her child. Her sister, Elizabeth, had reluctantly confided in him that it wasn’t the first time Charlotte had indulged in such behaviour, and had told him all about how, back when Charlotte had first discovered she was pregnant, she had regularly gone out late at night, only to return drenched in blood.

  Henry had cleaned poor Charlotte up on too many nights to mention when she had returned to his house in a similar state. He’d cleared away the messes she left behind so no-one was any the wiser on just as many occasions and after talking to her sister, thought he had a pretty good idea what stood in front of him now.

  Though there were many who thought werewolves just to be myths, or urban legends, made up just to scare people, Henry knew only too well Lycanthropes were real. He had seen them for himself on many an occasion during his secret studies into the Preternatural, originally conducted in a bid to try and discover what might possibly lie behind his wife’s ailment, and had seen what happened to Charlotte each full moon unless he kept her drugged up and medicated.

  It was the reason why he always kept her dosed up on Wolfsbane, given to her in the form of pills, in a bid to try and help suppress the changes she always seemed to go through - not physically, but mentally - whenever the moon was full. It was always around this time, every month, that Charlotte would regularly start turning feral; start becoming more savage, more deranged and beast-like than human, and much more prone and susceptible to the animalistic urges ordinarily she was able to deny.

  Thankfully this transformation of hers, when it came, would normally only ever last a day or two. It was always worse at night, and the pills he gave her did kind of help, even if they could not prevent the changes entirely.

  But now, here in front of him, here was the one responsible for putting her in that state in the first place – the one who had caused all this – and Henry was under no illusion what he was.

  This man in front of him was no man, despite his appearance; he was a werewolf…a Lycanthrope…and for that reason, if no other, could not be allowed to live.

  Henry pulled out his gun. The same one he always kept upon his person, already loaded with silver bullets, just in case...just in case there ever came a time when Charlotte ever lost control and decided to turn on him. Steadying his aim, Henry pointed the pistol directly at Lukaas.

  “You…you left her with child,” Henry said, speaking the words slowly and concisely in an attempt to try and stay calm. “And for the monstrosity that you left inside of her, and the changes that you wrought upon her, I have always sworn that one day I would track you down. And now, now it seems I don’t have to because…what would you know? Now, just like that, here you are…some might even call it fate. Any last words, Wolf?” he asked, spitting out this last word.

  “Pregnant?” Lukaas said, genuinely surprised; the words coming like a shock to him for he had never known, never even suspected she might be with child when he had abandoned her. “Lottie was…Lottie was pregnant when I left her?”

  For a minute, Lukaas stood there, stunned.

  He had never even known, he thought, and would never in a million years have ever left her if he had, but it certainly explained some of the changes he had sensed inside her earlier.

  The baby that had been growing in her womb for all those months, combined with the twin marks that he and the Vampyre had left upon her, must surely be what was responsible for all the chemical changes he had sensed in her earlier, he realised now. Not to mention the explanation for all the changes he knew her body must have undergone and that she’d no doubt had to endure since the last time he saw her, he thought.

  There was simply no other explanation.

  She would never be a full wolf, nor a full Vampyre - the marks he and the Vampyre had placed on her simply did not work that way – but when combined with the hormones naturally released during pregnancy, both marks had obviously helped her to become something else ins
tead.

  Something much rarer – something in between their three species.

  Something new.

  Something different.

  Something more than human, but not fully preternatural either...

  Something that could only be described as a hybrid.

  “Lottie...was…with child when I left her?” Lukaas repeated again. “What… what happened to it?”

  “I killed it,” Henry said, speaking with smug satisfaction. “Just like I’m about to kill you!”

  “No, wait...” Lukaas started to say, but he was already too late.

  Before Lukaas could move, the gun in Henry’s hand went off…

  ***

  Contrary to popular belief, silver didn’t kill Werewolves. Instead, in the majority of cases, it only caused an allergic chemical reaction that weakened them.

  Not so with Lukaas.

  Lukaas was one of the rare 10% of werewolves that was actually immune to silver.

  Instead of killing him – or at the very least mortally wounding him – in Lukaas, the silver instead triggered his change unexpectedly; helped release his inner wolf before Lukaas was ready for it, or had time to prepare for it.

  As the silver bullet penetrated his skin, Lukaas’ body immediately went to work, starting to transform.

  Before he could even attempt to try and stop himself, Lukaas felt himself being taken over by the changes inside of him and fell upon Henry, ripping out the man’s throat with his jaws even as he pushed him to the floor.

  Henry had awoken the beast, and now was about to pay the price.

  He never even got a chance to fire a second shot.

  ***

  Back in their cabin, Charlotte awoke, and wondered where her husband had gone – the smell of burning incense all around her making her feel foggy and more than just a little bit light-headed. The last thing she remembered was coming back to this cabin, and then reluctantly confessing to her husband who she thought she’d seen back on deck. For a moment, she felt surprised and more than a little betrayed that he had abandoned her – for normally Henry liked to watch over her while she slept – but then she knew.