by Tim O'Rourke
Even before I’d truly had a chance to come to terms with the realisation that I was only half human, I had suddenly learnt I wasn’t half human at all. I was a half and half – half Vampyrus and half wolf. What did that make me? A freak – that’s what it made me. I was an abomination! I was born of a forbidden act. I was the result of a forbidden love affair between something close to a bat and a wolf. The Elders were right – such a creature like me shouldn’t be alive. Nature knew it, too – that’s why others like me – including Murphy’s daughters – had withered away, left to cling to life in some makeshift hospital hidden in the attic at Hallowed Manor.
Somehow the Dead Waters had saved me. They had brought me back to life. But why? What was the purpose? Was it so I could be tormented? Made to suffer? Or was there another reason? The Elders had said I’d been chosen to choose between the humans and the Vampyrus – only one race could survive. But there was a third race – the Lycanthrope. Even if I had chosen between the humans and the Vampyrus, there would have still been two races left – the second being the Lycanthrope. What about them? Did the Elders have any idea what I truly was? Or had Murphy covered his tracks so well, that they still believed me to be a half-breed? I doubted they knew my true heritage. If they did, I’d be dead already, and so would Murphy. I looked at myself once more, then making a fist with my hand, I smashed it into the mirror. The glass fractured, distorting my face into a million different pieces. Blood trickled from between my knuckles and I licked them clean.
I stepped away from the mirror. With my wings trailing behind me, I walked into what was the living room of the caravan. My clothes were still drying by the electric heater. I stood in the centre of the poky room and let my wings open on either side of me. In a strange way, I felt a certain kind of freedom being naked and in my true form. It was like I was no longer hiding what I truly was behind clothes, secrets, and lies. This was me – wings, claws, fangs and all. And what about the wolf inside of me? I didn’t know how I felt about that. Did it make a difference? It had always been there, right? I had just never known about it. But there was a part of me – somewhere down in the basement – which feared it.
Wanting to totally feel free, I took the coat from the chair and reached inside the pockets. They were empty.
“Where is it?” I fretted out loud. “Where is my iPod?”
I threw the coat to one side and checked the trouser pockets. Nothing. Then taking a deep breath, I realised I must have left my iPod in my other coat pocket – the coat that I had stuffed under the seat at the back of the police van. The police van that was now a day’s drive away.
I couldn’t go on without it. I would be lost without music. I needed those songs to listen to when I couldn’t sleep, when I felt unhappy, when I tried to make sense of each new day. I had to go back for it. I would fly if I had to. But what if I started to crack up again? What if I fell out of the sky like I had done before? Potter and Murphy wouldn’t know where to find me. I would tell them then.
“They’re not going to agree to go all the way back there,” I muttered, starting to feel panicked. “That place would be swarming with Skin-walkers by now. Murphy would say it was too dangerous.”
I looked at my claws, touched my face, and checked the flat of my stomach for any signs of those cracks. There weren’t any – but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t return at any time. I couldn’t risk dropping out of the sky like a stone. But I had to go back. I had to risk it. Turning, I reached for the door and opened it and gasped out loud. Potter was standing in the darkness outside my door.
“Where are you sneaking off to?” Potter asked.
Chapter Ten
Potter
Kiera stood in the open doorway. The dull light from within the caravan made her wings sparkle as if showered with glitter. She looked breathtakingly beautiful – like a dark angel standing before me. Her thick, dark hair shone blue, her pale skin like perfectly smooth marble, and her breasts so pert I could have hung my coat from them. The last time I had seen her look like this was when we had made love in the summerhouse back at Hallowed Manor. I just wanted to hold her in my arms again, to feel her soft skin and wings against mine. I desperately wanted for both of us to be together in our true form. Whatever Kiera truly was, half-breed, half and half, there was no mistaking she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.
Fighting my first instinct to race up the steps and hold her in my arms, I took a deep breath and said, “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere important,” she said.
“So unimportant you forgot to put your clothes on and hide your wings?” I half-smiled at her.
Realising she was standing naked in the doorway, Kiera gasped, letting her wings fold about her like a blanket. She stepped back inside. I climbed the steps, entered the caravan, and closed the door behind me.
“Did I invite you in?” she asked, standing before me, now hidden beneath her wings.
“I just wanted to talk, Kiera,” I said.
“Look, I don’t have time to talk now,” she said impatiently. “It will have to wait until tomorrow.
“What do you mean you don’t have time?” I asked with a frown, sensing that she wanted rid of me. “What else have you got planned in the middle of nowhere?”
“If you must know, I left my iPod back at the van and I’m going to go get it,” she said, staring at me.
“Have you lost your mind?” I asked, not wanting to sound belittling in anyway. I knew how important her iPod was to her.
“I can’t go on without it,” she said, a desperate look in her eyes. “I need it back.”
“You can’t, Kiera, that place will be swarming with wolves by now,” I tried to convince her.
Looking close to tears, Kiera said, “But I’m lost without being able to listen to music.”
I put my hand in my pocket and wondered if for once I hadn’t been cut a break. I had planned to use the iPod I had found to hopefully woo Kiera back, but this turn of events was working out far better than I could have ever imagined.
Slowly, I took my hand from my pocket and said, “You don’t have to feel lost anymore, Kiera.” I uncurled my fist to reveal the iPod.
Kiera looked down at it then back at me. “Where did you get that?” she breathed.
“The wolf-boy who helped set me up with that teacher, Emily Clarke, had it. He used FaceTime on it so you could see me with her,” I explained, offering it to Kiera.
Slowly, Kiera reached out and took it from me. She turned it over and over in her hands. She dragged the tip of one claw over the crescent moon logo on the back of it.
“There weren’t any songs on it,” I told her. “So I downloaded one for you.”
Kiera looked at me. “Really? What song?”
“Listen to it when I’m gone,” I said, fighting the urge to break her stare. I was never very good at this sort of thing. But I kept hearing Murphy’s gruff, angry voice in my ears. “The song says how I feel.”
“About what?” Kiera pushed.
“You,” I said back.
“Why can’t you say it?” Kiera asked.
“Because I don’t know how many ways I can say I’m sorry to you for what I’ve done,” I started to explain. “Murphy says words aren’t good enough. He said I have to show you, but I don’t know how, Kiera.”
“You’ve spoken to Murphy about us?” Kiera asked, sounding cross.
“No, he spoke to me about us,” I said. “I guess he was sick of seeing me wandering around like a tit in a trance.”
“What did he tell you?” Kiera asked, some of the frostiness leaving her voice.
“The truth,” I said, looking straight back at her. “It was only what I already knew in my heart, but was too arrogant to admit. I haven’t treated you right, Kiera, and I’m ashamed of that. But although I’ve hurt you, I never meant to. That was the last thing I wanted to do.”
“And what about now?” Kiera asked, her voice soft like a whisper.
&nb
sp; “What do you mean?” I said.
“Now that you know I’m half wolf – doesn’t that change how you feel about me?” she asked, her voice sounding kind of scared. “I know how much you hate wolves.”
“But I don’t hate you,” I tried to convince her.
“I’m not who you thought I was,” Kiera said, a single tear spilling onto her cheek and sliding slowly down her face.
I wanted to go to her, but I stopped myself. I didn’t know if she was ready to be held by me just yet – if ever again.
“I was stupid to have given you my heart,” Kiera whispered.
“Don’t say that,” I said, I couldn’t bear it. “Never say that, Kiera.”
“Why not?” she asked, arming away that single tear from her chin.
“Because I couldn’t give a crap if you were half toad and half orangutan, I would love you all the same,” I desperately tried to convince her. “I might not have a heart anymore, Kiera, but it aches all the same to see you so sad. I’m so sorry for how I have treated you.”
Kiera looked at me, her face now streaked with silent tears. “You think you can come in here and say all the right words and it will make it all better? It doesn’t work like that,” she whispered.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because I’m scared,” she said.
“Of what?”
“Of giving you everything, only for you to hurt me again,” Kiera said, choking back her tears.
“But I’m scared, too,” I told her.
“What have you got to be scared of?” she asked me, her wings gleaming black and folded tightly around her like a shield.
“Of never being able to hold you again,” I confessed. “I’m so fucking scared, Kiera, I might have to spend the rest of my life without you being the most beautiful part of it. Over the years I’ve been hunted, chased, beaten, even murdered, but nothing has made me feel as scared as I do now. I should have known better than to break your heart. But it’s done now and I don’t know how to mend it.”
Slowly, I turned away. I couldn’t bear to look upon her tear-stained face anymore, knowing it was me who had made her cry. I opened the door, stepped back out into the night and left Kiera alone.
Chapter Eleven
Kiera
With my wings still folded around me, I went to the bedroom and lay down on the bed. I drew my knees against my chest beneath my wings. My body shook with sobs. Half of me wanted to go to the door and call Potter back. I wanted to take him beneath my wings and let him make love to me. But the other half of me, the half that was scared of the hurt that being in love could bring, refused to give me the courage to go after him, however much I wanted to.
As if my wings were a blanket, I hid beneath them, too scared to come out again. Being in love with Potter was so hard. It was like an obsession, and that’s what I truly feared. I knew I would never stop loving him, but that just opened me up to a world full of hurt. That’s what guys like Potter brought to the party. But I couldn’t imagine my life without him. My feelings for him hadn’t really changed. If I searched them, I knew I had fallen in love with him the moment he had opened his arrogant mouth and called me Miss Marple. Luke had been nothing more than a distraction for me – a Band-Aid temporarily holding back the flood of feelings I secretly had for Potter. Potter had always been the man I had wanted. And I still wanted him now – the pain he had caused me hadn’t changed that. I hated myself for feeling how I did. So why didn’t I just take him back? Because I knew Potter wasn’t mine to have. He was Sophie’s – he always had been, and always would be. The Elders had told me I wouldn’t go back with the others. This was a one-way trip for me. They had shown me those statues of my friends. I had seen Isidor with Melody, Murphy with his daughters, Kayla with Sam, and Potter with Sophie. Ultimately, they were going to be together. Not in this pushed world, but the one they were going back to when I put this mess right.
So however much my body ached for Potter, I knew, just like I had fought my cravings for the human red stuff in the zoo, if I gave in to them, it would only lead me down a nightmarish road of despair. However hard it was for me, I had to let go of Potter – he wasn’t mine to take. I could give in and be happy with him again for a time, but that would be selfish of me. My friends would never go home; they would never get the chance of being together again. I wanted that for them. The hardest thing for me to do was to give away the man I loved to another, but harder still would be to see my friends unhappy.
Deep down, I knew I couldn’t really hate Potter for going in search of Sophie again. It just proved to me, just like the Elders had said, they were meant to be together. Did he really choose to go in search of Sophie? Or was it just the world trying to push itself back into place again? Potter just didn’t realise that yet.
Beneath my wings, I uncurled my claws from around the iPod that Potter had given to me. I pressed the ‘Music’ icon. Just like Potter had said, there was only one song downloaded onto it. It was the song Potter had chosen for me. I slowly unwound the earphones that had been wrapped around the bottom of the iPod and pressed them into my ears. With my eyes shut tight to stop the on flood of tears, I listened to ‘Annie’s Song’ by John Denver.
With the song set on repeat, I listened to the words of that song, which Potter had so carefully chosen. The music spoke of forests. In my sleepy mind I pictured the secret forest we were heading to and the Dead Waters which were hidden there. John Denver sung about mountains and I could see them in my mind. The peaks were dusted white with snow. Set between the mountains there was a small town. The streets were narrow and cobbled. I had been there before...
Chapter Twelve
Kiera
...I made my way through the throng of people who crushed themselves in the town centre. There was a fountain, and I’d seen it before. I had been here with Kayla and Isidor after escaping that zoo. I was once again in the town of Wasp Water.
Tudor-style houses lined each side of the narrow streets. People leant out of the upper windows, all looking in the direction of the town square. What was drawing their attention to it? What were they so desperate to see? The others crowding the narrow streets were just like me. All of them had bright hazel eyes, which burned in their sockets. All of them were wolves. I blended in with them. None of them knew they were being infiltrated by me.
I wedged my slender frame through the crowds, slipping beneath waving arms, and between bustling bodies. The crowd buzzed with an excitable current, and in the distance I could hear a voice bellowing through a loudhailer. The voice sounded hissy and broken. But it stirred the crowds, bringing them to a feverish excitement. Desperate to find out what was causing such elation, I forced my way into the town square. The fountain had been reduced to rubble, and in its place had been erected what looked like a raised wooden stage. In the middle of this there was a guillotine. It stood tall, its silver blade gleaming in the morning light. Dried blood covered the edge of it, the sides, and the floor of the wooden structure. Before the guillotine sat a large metal bucket. It was then I understood why the crowds of wolves were so excited; they had gathered to witness an execution.
I glanced left and right at their human-looking faces. But they were not really human; they just hid beneath human skin. They were Skin-walkers. With my eyes as yellow as theirs, I looked just like one of them. They did not suspect there was a traitor amongst their number. I looked back at the stage.
There was a man standing to the right, a loudspeaker pressed to his lips.
“Okay, my friends, please get ready for today’s main event!” he roared through the speaker. His voice sounded broken and high-pitched.
The crowd whooped and punched the air.
“Please welcome to the stage, our executioner!”
The crowd erupted again, whistled and cheered as a hooded man stepped onto the stage from the right. His black mask had two narrow slits cut in the front. I could see his eyes blazing out of those two holes like headlamps. He waved at the cro
wed as they waved back at him. I looked over my shoulder. There was a sea of arms waving back and forth in the air. I looked back at the stage. The guy with the speaker spoke into it again and said, “So who are you going to be beheading for us today?”
“A killer!” the executioner roared at the crowd from beneath his hood. “A killer of wolves!”
The crowd roared angrily, punching the air with their fists.
“But he is not just a killer of wolves, this man is a traitor, too!” the executioner barked, whipping the crowd into a frenzy.
The Skin-walkers hissed and booed.
“He is one of us, but has deceived us all!” the guy with the speaker almost screeched. The loudhailer made an ear-splitting whining sound and I covered my ears.
“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!” the crowd started to chant.
Who was this traitor the crowd so wanted to see beheaded? I wondered. Then, from the right, another hooded man was shoved onto the stage. Unlike the executioner, this man didn’t have eye slits cut into his mask. He staggered blindly across the stage. His arms were secured behind his back with chains. The executioner grabbed him roughly by the arm.