The Wereling 1: Wounded

by Stephen Cole

  ‘Your mom must’ve known we’d come here,’ Tom said quietly. ‘She must’ve known that I still had hopes of finding a cure. So they got here first, and took it.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kate rattled some empty hangers in a closet. ‘Jicaque’s clothes are all gone, all his potions and lotions too. I think maybe he knew they were coming for him and got away in time.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Blood said, checking through the window for any signs they were being watched. ‘I think it’s time I got the hell out of here myself.’

  Blood took them to a smart, newly-converted warehouse apartment out in Gretna. He left them a bundle of keys, told them to take their pick of his empty properties until they figured out what to do next. He insisted too that they take five hundred dollars for new clothes and essentials.

  ‘I never thought you’d wind up my sugar daddy,’ grinned Kate, back at the Bloodlettings office.

  ‘I never thought I’d wind up a troll lover,’ he deadpanned.

  ‘But you’ve done so much for us already,’ Tom said. ‘We can’t take your money like this.’

  ‘You’d better,’ Blood told him. ‘I’m damned if I’m lending you any more of my clothes. Go and get your own.’

  Tom smiled. ‘Thanks.’ He offered Blood his hand.

  ‘I told you to thank me when this was over,’ Blood replied. ‘And it’s not. Not by a long way.’ But he shook hands just the same, kissed Kate on the cheek, then gathered up his luggage. ‘Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I always thought that saying was bollocks. But, you know, there might just be something in it. Don’t you think?’

  With that, he turned on his heel with his bulky suitcases and left.

  The apartment seemed a different place once he’d gone; its bare white walls like bone, its clean, modern lines unwelcoming and severe.

  Kate dumped the bundle of house keys on an ultra-cool but hopelessly uncomfortable couch, and perched herself beside them. She started scrutinising the tags.

  ‘Where do you fancy staying,’ she asked Tom. ‘LaFayette, Vermilionville … ?’

  ‘We can’t linger here, that’s for sure.’ Tom sighed as he flopped down beside her. ‘Your mom will be better soon, and really out for blood. The ’wolves will be hunting us wherever we go.’

  ‘And we’ll be hunting Jicaque,’ Kate murmured. ‘We’ll get you cured, Tom. We will.’

  Tom wanted to believe it could be true. ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘I just wish … ’

  … that you’d kiss me, he thought.

  … that I had the guts to kiss you.

  … that all this horror wasn’t the only thing keeping us together.

  ‘What do you wish?’ Kate asked him.

  Tom smiled and shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  Through the window, the sky was violet as the sun sank beneath the low-rise skyline. Soon, the moon would hold court over the city once again. Tom wondered what the days and nights ahead would hold for them. ‘D’you think we’ll ever feel safe again?’ he murmured.

  Kate half-smiled. ‘Remember when my mother made me dress up and pose for you on the couch, back home?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tom replied quietly. ‘It seems a long time ago.’

  Kate looked at him. ‘Even with all the fear and the uncertainty … with all the running I know we’ll have to do … I feel a million times safer here on this dumb, uncomfortable couch with you now. So that’s got to be a good thing, right?’

  Tom decided to take a chance. He took one of Kate’s hands in his own. She didn’t move it away. He smiled. ‘Right,’ he agreed.

  They sat together in the darkening apartment, waiting for night to fall.