by Tim O'Rourke
“Thanks for helping me then,” he said.
“I’m not doing it for you either, Potter.” I told him. “I’m doing it for me.”
“For you?” he frowned.
“Despite how I feel about what happened here tonight and so many other things, I have to be true to myself,” I explained. “It’s not in my nature to stand aside and not give my help to someone who needs it – even if I don’t like that person very much right now.”
“That person is me, isn’t it? I have a knack of angering people,” he half-smiled. Then seeing the stern look on my face, his cocky smile faded and he quickly added, “So how are we going to catch this killer?”
“Follow me,” I said, turning my back on him and walking away.
Chapter Seventeen
Potter picked up two candles from a nearby table. He handed one of them to me.
“I don’t think candlelight is going to be adequate if we’re looking for clues, do you?” I said, crossing the hall to the light switch on the wall. “The party is over after all.” I pressed the switch with my finger expecting the chandelier hanging overhead to sparkle with light. Nothing happened. I hit the switch again. Nothing. Just the light from Potter’s flickering flame.
“Perhaps the bulb has blown?” he said, standing close.
“What – all two hundred of them?” I sighed.
“Okay, smartarse,” Potter said right back. “Maybe the fuse has blown?”
“Where’s the fuse box?”
“This way,” he said, heading across the hall to the kitchen. I followed the trail of light from his candle. He pushed open the kitchen door and we stepped inside. I pressed the light switch on the wall, but the overhead lighting didn’t flicker on either. Rain lashed the windows as the wind picked up force outside in the grounds of Hallowed Manor. Side by side we crossed the kitchen. It was just as I remembered it to be. One long wooden table running down its centre, with enough chairs and room to feed a small army. The floor was made of stone and it felt cold against my bare feet. Cupboards lined the walls and there was a huge stove.
At the furthest end of the kitchen, Potter stopped. There was a wooden door that I remembered led out into the grounds. I gripped the handle and rattled it.
“We don’t need to go outside,” Potter said. “The fuse box is right here.”
“I just wanted to see if the door was locked,” I said.
He glanced at me. “Why?”
“Why not?” I shrugged, reaching up and pulling open the door of a tin box attached to the kitchen wall. The door made a creaking sound.
Potter stood behind me, the candle over my shoulder casting light into the fuse box. I brushed my fingers over the mass of tiny switches. “None of them have shut down… hang on…” I breathed. “Look at this.”
“Look at what? You’ve got your head in the way,” Potter groaned, brushing me aside.
“The wires to the lights have been cut,” I said.
Reaching in, Potter gripped the ends of the wires.
“Don’t do that…!” I tried to warn him, but it was too late.
The room lit up like lightning as a series of sparks shot from the wires and up Potter’s arm. “Fuck!” he roared, his dark eyes bulging, and leaping backwards.
“I told you not to touch them,” I said, trying to hide a very satisfied grin. Right now Potter deserved some pain, I thought. Then snatching the candle from him, I said, “Give me that before you get us both killed.” I shut the door to the fuse box.
“Who cut the wires?” Potter winced, flexing the fingers of his left hand as if trying to dispel the last of the electric shock.
“Whoever poisoned Sophie,” I said, walking away.
“Why?” Potter asked, coming after me.
“I don’t know, perhaps they didn’t want to be seen,” I said sarcastically. “Most killers walk about with a big neon sign flashing above their head saying ‘It was me! I did it!’” I wasn’t going to make any of this an easy ride for Potter.
“Okay, so are you going to be like this from now on?” he said, catching up with me at the kitchen door.
“Like what?” I glared at him through the candlelight.
“Like you hate me,” he said.
“I do hate you,” I said, turning and heading back into the hall.
“Why, what have I done?” he asked, following me and lighting a smoke.
“You bit a human and turned her into a freaking vampire,” I said, stropping across the vast hall to the foot of the stairs.
“Apart from that?” he asked.
I whirled around to face him with such speed that the flame nearly snuffed out. “And that isn’t bad enough?”
“I told you why I did it,” he said, the end of his cigarette glowing nearly as bright as the candle in the darkness.
“Yeah, don’t remind me,” I huffed, turning away again and marching up the stairs.
“You’re just being jealous again,” he said, coming after me.
“You’re the one who’s jealous,” I said, heading to my right at the top of the stairs and into the narrow corridor I knew would lead into what was the forbidden wing.
It was so dark in the corridor that the gloom almost seemed to reach out and touch me. It felt suffocating. Even the flame from the candle and my ability to see into the darkness did little to penetrate the blackness. I hadn’t gone very far when I felt a hand close about my arm. I gasped out.
“Who says I’m jealous?” Potter said, pulling me toward him. The flame danced between us, casting him in shadow then light again.
I thought of what Murphy had told me. “You only came and dragged me out of that restaurant tonight because you couldn’t bear the thought of me on a date with…”
“Not only are you jealous, you’re deluded, too,” he spoke before I could finish.
“So what’s your excuse going to be the next time me and Nev go on a date?” I pushed back. “Are you going to storm in and tell me you’ve arranged an urgent fancy dress party you need me to go to…?”
“You can’t be serious about this Neville guy…”
“It’s Neev,” I hissed, pushing him away from me and heading into the darkness.
“Kiera!” Potter called after me.
Not stopping to look back I reached the foot of the wooden staircase I knew would lead me up into the secret hospital wing and Hunt’s laboratory.
“Watch your step,” I heard Potter say as he took my arm. “The staircase is ancient and…”
“I can manage,” I said, flicking his hand from my arm.
“I’m only trying to help.” His voice was softer somehow. The fight gone out of it. And that was Potter. Light and shade. On and off. One moment he was utterly impossible and the next endearing. I hated and loved him all at once. I always had.
“I don’t need your help,” I said, climbing the rickety staircase. I reached out with my hand to steady myself as I worked my way up the spiralling staircase. My fingertips brushed the wall and I remembered how they had once been sticky to touch, covered with a mixture of queets and garlic. It had been Luke leading me up to the makeshift hospital back then.
“What is that sticky stuff on the walls?” I’d asked him. “It stinks.”
“Oh, that,” he had said over his shoulder. “I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t even notice it now.”
“Lucky you,” I had muttered. ‘“But what is it?”
‘“It’s a mixture of garlic and queets, which is a herb only found in The Hollows. Lord Hunt discovered that when the two are mixed together it forms a powerful paste that sends vampires completely nuts. They hate the stuff – won’t come anywhere near it,” Luke had explained.
Remembering that conversation I’d had with Luke, I stopped halfway up the stairs. Potter knocked into me from behind.
“Why have you stopped?” he asked.
“Shhh,” I said. “I’m thinking.”
“About me?” He wasn’t joking.
“Shhh,” I hissed a
gain, without looking back. Luke had told me it had been Hunt who had created the mixture of queets and garlic. Luke had also said that queets could only be found in The Hollows. But if what Murphy said was true, the Vampyrus in this where and when knew nothing of The Hollows. But one of the Vampyrus must know The Hollows existed and how to reach them. Otherwise, how then did this person get the queets to poison Sophie? Was that person Hunt? He knew that queets mixed with garlic was poisonous to vampires. But why would he want to kill Sophie?
Slowly, I started to climb the stairs again.
Chapter Eighteen
Reaching the top of the stairs, I paused outside the door. What would I find in there? More half-breed children dying in their hospital beds? Would they be attached to machines that kept them alive while Lord Hunt searched for a cure?
“Are you okay?” Potter asked, joining me outside the door.
“Don’t concern yourself about me, Potter,” I said, taking a deep breath and pushing open the door. “You seem to have enough of your own problems to deal with.”
“See, there you go again,” he sighed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, peering around the edge of the door and into the darkened room on the other side.
“Yeah, you do,” he said, brushing past me and stepping into the room. “I was just trying to be nice…”
“I think you should stop trying to be nice and be professional, if you can manage that,” I said. “I think we should keep our relationship entirely work-based. It will probably be easier.”
“Easier for who?” he asked.
Ignoring him, I shone the candlelight about the room. There was a table nearby with an opened box of candles on it. Next to it was a candle that had burnt right down to the wick. I went to the table and picked it up. I studied what was left of the small piece of wax. I then took a fresh candle from the box, lit it, and handed it to Potter. “Do you often use candles at Hallowed Manor?” I asked him.
“Only on special occasions,” he said.
“Like tonight,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, like tonight.”
“So the lights don’t often fail or go out?”
“Not that I can remember?” he said.
“Who would usually keep charge of the candles?”
“Mrs. Payne, I guess,” he shrugged. “She’s the housekeeper after all. Why, is it important?”
“Perhaps,” I said, moving away and going deeper into the room. We were now in the very roof of Hallowed Manor and the wind sounded louder – fiercer – up here as it gusted about the ancient eaves. Rain drummed off the roof like thunder. Just as I remembered the room to be, there were no windows. As I peered around the makeshift hospital, my stomach knotted as the light from my candle fell over several hospital beds running down each side of the room. But there were no machines with flashing lights beside them or any half-breed children in them. But why have the beds if there weren’t any sick half-breed children in this where and when?
“Why are there beds in here?” I asked Potter.
“In case we get sick.”
“Sick?” I glanced at him.
“We can’t very well go to a human hospital when we get ill, can we?” Potter remarked. “Our DNA would blow the doctor’s and nurse’s fucking minds.”
“So who nurses you here?”
“Hunt and Ravenwood, I guess,” he said.
“You only guess?” I said.
“I’ve never needed to stay here. I’m a picture of health,” he said, drawing deeply on his cigarette. “And besides, I’ve heard that Mrs. Payne’s bedside manner ain’t all that. Murphy stayed here once. Problems with his hip. I heard that Mrs. Payne tried to find any old excuse to give him a bed bath. Dirty old cow. But then again, it’s the closest thing that old fart Murphy has got to getting blown…”
“I think I get the picture,” I shuddered, turning away.
“I’m just saying that I’d rather die than let that old cow try and jerk…”
“What’s through here?” I said, changing the subject and heading for the door at the end of the ward. I knew exactly what was on the other side of the door. It was the laboratory. It was the place where Doctor Ravenwood had told me that I wasn’t human - that I was a monster.
“It’s where Hunt and Ravenwood work on their potions or whatever they call them,” Potter said, striding past me and pushing open the door. As he went, I knelt down, holding my candle close to the floor. With my head turned sideways, I looked back down the length of the ward. I could see a trail of wax splatters. They were dry, so they hadn’t come from my candle.
“Lost another shell?” Potter said.
“Ha-ha, how very amusing,” I said, getting back to my feet and pushing past him into the laboratory.
“Where did you get it anyway?” he asked.
“Nev made it for me – it was a present,” I said, casting the room in candlelight.
“Buying you gifts now is he? Must be serious,” Potter said, trying to sniff out more information about Nev and I. “What’s the special occasion?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, peering about the room. But it did matter – it mattered to me that Potter had no idea that it was my birthday. It mattered that he had forgotten.
Just like the time Luke and Ravenwood brought me into this room, I could see a desk that was littered with pieces of paper covered with equations and handwritten notes. As before, there were files and medical instruments. I went to the table. There was a wooden rack that housed ten bottles, one that had contained the queets and garlic mix. The bottles were empty. I could see there were three vacant places on the rack where bottles had once been housed. They were now missing. One I suspected had housed the bottle of Lot 12. The second missing bottle had been used to carry the poison. And the third?
Turning on the balls of my feet, I saw the examination couch where I had once sat and let Ravenwood prove to me that I really wasn’t human. Next to it on a table was the clunky-looking camera he had used to x-ray me – to show me the wings hidden beneath my skin.
“Kiera, take off your top and go lay face-down on the couch over there,” I could remember Doctor Ravenwood saying.
“I’m sorry?” I’d said, feeling nervous at the time and pulling my top tight about me.
Seeing that I looked uncomfortable at his sudden request, Ravenwood had said, “It’s okay, Kiera, I’m a doctor. I just want to examine your back.”
“Why?” I’d asked. Luke had been with us in the room. I’d trusted him back then. I’d trusted both of them. I’d looked across the room at Luke, just as I was looking at Potter now.
“I want to prove to you one way or another that you are a half-breed,” Ravenwood had said.
“How?” I’d wanted to know.
“With this,” Ravenwood had said, holding up the huge camera. It looked just as it did now, like something that would’ve been used in the early nineteen-hundreds. The front of it appeared to have a long protruding lens which stuck out like an accordion, and it had handles on either side. The contraption wasn’t made of plastic or metal, but wood.
‘“What’s that?” I’d asked nervously.
“A camera of sorts,” Ravenwood had smiled. “You have nothing to fear, Kiera.”
As I now stood in the laboratory I could remember looking toward Luke. He had nodded and said, “It’ll be okay, I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.”
I now knew that had been a lie. Luke had hurt me. He had hurt all of us. He had never been a true friend to me.
But I had believed him back then – I had believed in him. So I had gone to the couch – the same couch I now stood and looked at in a different where and when.
In my mind’s eye, I could see Ravenwood coming toward me once again with the camera-type contraption in his hands. With my shirt removed, I had climbed onto the couch and laid on my front.
“This might feel a bit cold,” he’d warned, placing the end of the machine between my shoulder bla
des. The end of the device had felt ice-cold and I’d felt the skin on my back tighten with goose bumps.
With my shirt back on, I’d sat and watched Ravenwood place the camera-x-ray-thing back on his desk where he flipped a switch on the side of it. The machine had made a purring noise, as a cone of brilliant white light appeared from the lens. The light had shone against the wall and I could remember sitting agog as a series of pictures played out across the wall. It had been like watching an old black and white movie. I could see a picture that looked something like an x-ray of my spine and ribcage. But as I’d studied these images, with horror I had learnt that my spine and ribcage looked different – different than that of other humans. I had way too many bones and there was shading over my lungs.
“I’ve never seen such a developed set of wings that have yet to break through the skin,” Ravenwood had said.
I’d struggled to believe it then and part of me still struggled to believe it now as I stood once again in the laboratory and remembered how I had learnt what I truly was.
“Hey, Kiera, are you okay?” I heard someone ask.
“Huh?” I said, glancing up, being drawn out of the past and back into this where and when.
“You’re crying,” Potter said, coming forward and sliding his arm about my shoulder.
“Am I?” I whispered, brushing the tears away.
“Is it because of me?” he asked.
“Why does everything have to be about you?” I shouted, knocking his arm away.
“What is it about then?” he asked, looking and sounding confused.
How could I tell him that coming back to this room had reminded me of the pain I’d felt at discovering that my whole life had been a lie? That my father kept a secret from me? He had kept so many secrets from me. But even though I understood now why my father hadn’t told me the truth – why he hadn’t told me that he was a Vampyrus and my true mother had been a lycanthrope, it did nothing to take away that sense of bewilderment and betrayal I had once felt at discovering what I truly was.
I looked down at the camera – that x-ray-thing. What would it see in me now – in this where and when? Would it see how tattered and broken my heart must look? Or would it see something that it hadn’t seen before? Would it see the wolf that I now knew was a part of me?