by Tim O'Rourke
He came toward me. I stood stock still, shivering with cold and trepidation. I wanted to run toward him – I wanted to turn and run far away. I could feel my claws growing from the tips of my fingers. I remembered the times I had dragged them down his back as he moved faster and faster above me. I screwed my eyes shut, desperate now to push those memories away.
Potter came closer still. I could feel the warm sensation of his breath against me just like I had so many times before. I screwed my eyes shut tight still as the sound of my racing heart matched that of the rain thumping against the leaves overhead. He was so close now, I curled my hands into fists, fighting the desperate urge to pull him to me, let him smother me – never wanting to let him go. I felt his hands fall gently against my hips. He eased me toward him, my shivering body against his. I could feel his heart racing too. What was happening here? It was wrong.
“Stop,” I whispered against his chest.
“Come into the summerhouse, Kiera,” he whispered in my ear. My skin prickled with excitement. I crossed my arms about his back. A sudden memory of feeling the warm sensation of his blood beneath my claws burst into my mind. That beating inside me grew faster as I remembered pulling him down on top of me, never wanting to let him go.
“Lets’ get into the warm, you’re soaked through and freezing cold,” he said, holding me tighter still against him.
I wanted to open my eyes and look into his, but I knew not to, for fear of succumbing to my feelings. To do so might lead to happiness, but it would be fleeting. It wouldn’t be true. This was not my Potter, I kept telling myself over and over again. If I told myself that often and loud enough then it might stop those memories flooding my mind.
With my head spinning and my skin feeling as if it was on fire, I fought the urge to lunge forward and sink my teeth into his neck. I wanted to feel his blood gush into my mouth. I wanted him to bite me too. I wanted my blood to wash away Sophie’s from his lips. I felt my fangs slide out. Readying myself to bite. But I couldn’t. I mustn’t. I bit down into my bottom lip. A thin trickle of blood ran from my mouth. I felt the tip of Potter’s tongue as he licked it away. His lips brushed over mine. I could feel my blood rushing through my veins. I wanted to let him take me. But I couldn’t.
“Stop,” I said, pushing him away, still unable to look into his dark unforgiving eyes. “You love someone else.”
“It’s you I’m in love with, Kiera Hudson,” he whispered. “And a part of me says that it’s always been you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Potter closed the door on the summerhouse. I stood with my arms by my sides, rain dripping from my bedraggled fringe and down the sides of my ashen face. I shivered. Potter came toward me, his suit soaked through. I stepped backwards, into the centre of the summerhouse. He sensed my hesitation and stopped just short of me. I looked at him.
“What did you mean when you said you were in love with me?” I asked him. Half of me now wondered if he had said it at all. And if he had was it just his way of regaining my trust in him so we could relive those few stolen moments we had shared in the corridor back at the offices of The Creeping Men?
Potter stood stock still, his face lined with water, his eyes darker than I had ever seen them. Rain pelted the windows of the summerhouse. “I meant what I said.”
“But you’re in love with Sophie, aren’t you?” I looked hard at him, my chest hitching up and down as I tried to steady my breathing and rapidly beating heart.
“I thought I was,” he said.
“You bit her tonight, didn’t you?” I reminded him. “You turned her. Why do that if you don’t love her?”
He drew a deep breath, as if trying to steady his own nerves, then said, “She’s carrying my child…”
“Then why are you here with me?” I breathed. “You should be with her. This is wrong…”
He came forward, taking one of my hands in his. “It doesn’t feel wrong to me…”
I pulled my hand away.
“I didn’t plan any of this…” he said.
“Any of what?”
“Falling in love with you…” he said as if struggling to make sense of this himself.
“In love with me?” I scoffed. “You don’t even know me.”
“But I feel as if I do…” he said, scratching his head. “I don’t know how to explain it, Kiera. I can’t find the right words. I’ve not felt anything like this before.”
I stared at him as he stood before me. He looked suddenly lost and bewildered. Was this my Potter after all? Was there a part of him that was starting to remember? But was he beginning to remember too late? And what if he did? What would happen then? How would that change this – not just for the both of us – but for this where and when? Potter wasn’t meant to remember – that had been part of the plan.
“How do you feel? I dared ask him, my voice barely a whisper.
“Like we go together,” he said. “Like we’re a team.”
“We are a team,” I said. “We work together.”
“More than that – much more than that,” Potter said, sounding frustrated. I’d never seen him like this before. “From the moment you arrived at the office, I felt it…” he trailed off as if once again he was struggling to put his feelings into words.
I was desperate to know more. “You felt what?”
“Like there was another part of – another Potter inside of me that was struggling to get out – come forward and have his feelings heard.” He looked at me. “That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
What did I say? Dare I tell him everything? Tell him all about what we had once shared – what we had once meant to each other? Although I desperately wanted to, I was also terrified. What would happen if I did? I’d pushed my friends away so that they could be happy – so that I could defeat the Elders for all time.
“Yes, it does sound crazy,” I lied to him, and as I did, a little piece of me felt like I was dying. “You’re happy with Sophie, remember…”
“I thought I was,” Potter said. “I really did. But since you came to work for The Creeping Men, I’m not so sure. It’s like there has been this other side of me hiding away, but the moment you showed up, that other part of me came alive. And that’s the thing, Kiera, I’ve never felt so fucking alive as I do right now – standing here with you – my heart racing – not being able to find the right words – feeling as if I’m losing my fucking mind…”
“Stop,” I whispered. Although I’d longed to hear Potter say these things to me – it wasn’t right. This was a different where and when. This time around he was with Sophie and they were having a child together. I couldn’t come between that. After all, it had been me who had pushed them together. “This has to stop.”
“Part of me says you’re right,” Potter said. “But that other part – that other me…”
“She’s having your baby, Potter,” I suddenly felt like screaming at him. “Aren’t you happy about that?”
“Sophie didn’t think I was at first,” Potter said. “But I was. The day you arrived at the office and caught us arguing, she had just told me she was pregnant.”
“Weren’t you happy then?” I asked.
“Yes, I was happy, but I was scared, too,” Potter started to explain. “Sophie knew what I was. She arrived early one morning at the office. I had no idea she was there. I’d been sleeping in the cellblock, my wings were out…”
“Wasn’t she scared?” I asked, remembering how Sophie had once rejected him because he was a Vampyrus. She had called him a freak and a monster.
“Quite the opposite,” he said. “I’d never seen a woman so excited…”
“Please,” I said, looking away. “Spare me the details. I don’t need to know.”
“So when Sophie came to the office that day you showed up, she told me that she was pregnant, and yeah, I was scared,” Potter said. “Not because she was carrying my child, but what that child might become. I’ve heard of other children that had been born out of Va
mpyrus and human mixing. They’re called half-breeds. They are born weak and sick. They don’t live for very long. There is a whole fucking graveyard on the other side of the wood full of dead half-breed children. But Sophie mistook my fear for regret. That’s why she stormed off that day – throwing the ring back at me. But I wasn’t unhappy about the child – I was scared for it. I’d heard that Hunt and Ravenwood had been trying to develop a cure – something that would help the half-breed children survive and have good lives. But they hadn’t succeeded yet. So when we had killed the Leshy at Bastille Hall, I brought Sophie here. I told Hunt and Ravenwood everything.”
“You said you’d only told me about the baby,” I reminded him.
“I promised that I would never tell anyone that they knew,” he said. “They feared that if the agency ever found out that they had helped me they would be… well, let’s just say they wouldn’t be part of The Creeping Men anymore.”
“So how did they plan on helping you?” I asked.
“Even though my feelings were all over the place since meeting you – since kissing you – I knew that I had to do the right thing – by the child at least. I know I can be a real jerk at times, and most people despise me, but I’m not the sort of man that would shirk his responsibilities when it came to a child. I’m not the kind of guy that would ever walk way – I could never stand back and let a child suffer. And suffer the child would if I didn’t try and do something. It was then that Hunt suggested that I turn Sophie. That if she was like us, had Vampyrus blood running through her veins, then perhaps the baby would be born healthy. It was designed to help humans who had been bitten by a Vampyrus to turn without the lust for human flesh and blood like other vampires had. I knew it was a risk and so did Sophie. But she was adamant that she wanted to take the chance if it meant saving our child. Ravenwood wanted to make sure that the baby was healthy enough to survive Sophie’s change. So while Hunt and I put the rest of the plan in place, Ravenwood carried out an examination of the baby by using that weird-looking camera of his.”
“How did you get the others – Murphy, Uri, Phebe, and Mrs. Payne to go along with you plan if mixing between humans and Vampyrus is forbidden by the agency?” I asked Potter.
“It’s not forbidden as such, just frowned upon,” Potter said. “But sometimes, an exception is made for a Turning Ceremony to take place. Only one takes place each year, a kind of amnesty. It’s usually only the people at the very highest ranks of the agency who get permission from Lois Li to do so. Perhaps I’m not as hated as I first thought. Someone somewhere must like me.”
“Or not,” I added.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Somebody tried to murder Sophie,” I reminded him.
“And what about you?” he said. “How do you feel about me?”
“It doesn’t matter how I feel about you,” I said, wrapping my arms about my bare shoulders as if hugging myself. I shivered again with the cold and damp.
“It matters to me,” he said, inching closer again, closing down that gap between us.
“Sophie matters,” I said, flinching as he held me in his arms again.
“There is a part of me that says you matter more,” he said.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, you said that yourself.”
“I made a mistake…”
“And you said in the grounds of Bastille Hall that people have to live by the mistakes that they make…” I whispered, my head resting now against his chest. I knew I had to let go of him. He wasn’t mine to hold onto.
“I was trying to convince myself when I said that,” Potter confessed. “I was angry with myself. If only I hadn’t met Sophie, if only I had waited to look for love until you had come into my life. I knew that as I saw you for the first time as your true self when we fought the Leshy. I knew you were like me more than Sophie could ever be. And if I’m to be honest with myself, that’s one of the reasons I jumped at the chance to turn Sophie. I knew she could never be a Vampyrus like us – but a vampire is the next best thing. I thought that if she was more like me, I would be happy to be with her. I hoped that my feelings for you were nothing more than an infatuation and they would pass. And at first, during the few days we’ve spent apart, I thought my feelings for you were growing less, but when Murphy told me about your date, I couldn’t bear the thought of you with someone else.” Then easing me away from him so he could look into my eyes, Potter added, “You were right about me, Kiera. I was jealous. I hated the thought of you being with another man.”
“But…” I whispered.
“My feelings for you aren’t fading, Kiera, they grow stronger with each passing moment I’m with you,” he said, leaning forward and crushing his lips over mine.
However much I wanted Potter to kiss me, I turned my head away. I wasn’t going to be the other girl, not in this where and when or any other. Before I’d had a chance to slip from his arms, the sound of screaming came from the direction of Hallowed Manor.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As if being shaken awake from a deep sleep, Potter staggered backwards.
“Was that a scream?” he said.
“It sounded as if it came from the manor,” I said, brushing past him and heading for the summerhouse door.
The rain had eased a little and the clouds had parted to reveal one half of a pale blue moon. With my dress still clinging to me and my hair trailing down my back in rattails, I yanked the awkward shoes from my feet and dashed down the steps leading from the front of the summerhouse. Potter was at my heels and soon overtook me as he ran back into the wood in the direction of Hallowed Manor. Had he been trying to play me? Was everything he had said true? Was there a part of him that remembered me from another time and place? He had definitely acted strange. Was he really in love with me like he claimed or was he hoping I was just dumb and he could have Sophie and keep me on the side lines for fun? But Sophie was going to die. There was no saving her. Where did that leave me and Potter then? Did it leave us free to be together? Did he know there was no way back for Sophie so he was therefore getting ready to replace the hole in his love life with me? Murphy had warned me that Potter liked his eye-candy.
With my shoes hanging from my first, I shot after Potter. Together we burst from the treeline and out onto the moonlit lawn. Hallowed Manor loomed before us. We raced toward it, the sound of screams tearing the quiet of the night in half.
“That’s Sophie,” Potter said, setting off again at speed.
I chased after him. At the top of the steps, Potter hit the front door with his shoulder, throwing it open. Mrs. Payne was making her way down the stairs toward us. Her hair stuck out from the sides of her head, like she had just been woken. She was tightening a grey dressing gown about her. I glanced up to see Uri and Phebe appear at the top of the stairs. They were peering over the top of the banister at me and Potter as we raced into the hallway toward Ravenwood’s study door. Sophie continued to scream from the other side of it. Her screams seemed different than before. They had taken on a new vigour.
Snatching the key from around my neck, I slipped it into the lock, pushing the door open. The candle, which had earlier been alight on the table, had long since burnt out.
“Someone get me some light,” I shouted over my shoulder.
“Here,” Hunt said, as if appearing from nowhere and taking a candle from the table in the hall.
“Thanks,” I muttered, taking it from him. I held the candle up, casting light into the study.
Barging past me at the door, Potter entered the study, crossing it to where Sophie still lay restrained on the couch. She had drawn her knees up. As I joined Potter beside the couch, I could see in the candlelight that the skin covering her legs was now flaking away in large chunks. Her dying flesh covered the couch and the floor in a grey dust.
“Is she dying?” I heard someone ask.
I turned around to see Murphy standing in the open doorway. Ravenwood and the others were gathered behind hi
m.
“I think so,” I said to Murphy heading back to the door.
“I knew no good would come of it,” Murphy grunted, standing at the door in just boxer shorts and slippers. “I never have agreed with turning humans.”
“I think we should leave Potter and Sophie to have some time alone,” I whispered.
“The others can go, but I’d like you to stay, Kiera,” I heard Potter say from the other side of the room.
“If you need anything just let me know,” Murphy said, turning his broad back to me.
I watched the others turn away from the door and head back through the darkness to the foot of the stairs. Which one of them had poisoned Sophie? I wondered, as I closed the door. From the other side of it, I heard the sudden boom of Murphy’s voice.
“No, Mrs. Payne!” he roared. “How many ways have I got to tell you? Now fuck off back to bed and leave me alone!”
Turning my back on the door, I slowly crossed the room to where Potter knelt on the floor next to the couch. Sophie screamed again, her eyes wide, cracks appearing in the flesh all around them. It fell away like grey dried-up tears. Deep grooves had appeared around her mouth and down her neck.
“Shhh,” Potter soothed, gently brushing her now brittle-looking hair from her brow.
Sophie made a retching noise in the back of her throat, as if drowning on a mouthful of chalk. She rolled back her flaky lips to reveal a set of black gums. The fangs jutting from them looked like ancient pieces of ivory.
“I’m so sorry,” Potter whispered, looking down at her.
She jerked her arms up and down as if suffering a sudden seizure. The handcuffs rattled against the lead piping Murphy had attached them to. Chunks of her dead flesh fell away from her wrists. I couldn’t help but remember how Jack had once had me handcuffed to a chair in that upstairs room at my father’s house. I had been dying too as I sat and slowly turned to stone. I looked away, I didn’t want to be reminded of that day – of how Jack had made me sit and watch my father bleed to death. I didn’t want to remember Jack like that. He had changed. As I turned away from the couch, I saw the curtain hanging at the study window flutter. Was there someone hiding behind it? The curtain twitched again. Slowly, I made my way toward it, candle held out before me to cast light into the shadows that saturated the corner of the room.