by Tim O'Rourke
I glanced at the crucifix as she slowly raised it until it was all that filled the small space between our faces. She looked into my eyes – like she was trying to see into me somehow – see what made me tick. If she doubted that I was human, I could easily prove that I was. My heart was racing so fast and loud I was surprised she couldn’t hear it. The dead didn’t have heartbeats, did they? How I wished now that I had listened more intently to the stories my uncle had told me as I sat as a small girl and watched him print his newspaper. How I wished I’d actually read the freaking newspaper.
A deep, booming howl came from outside, and in that moment, I saw the woman flinch, then jump as the door to pub flew suddenly open.
Chapter Three
With guns in fists, both the woman and Calix spun around. A man stood in the open doorway. I had never seen him before. He looked to be the same age as Calix, although better looking. His face wasn’t drawn into a scowl. In fact, he had the cutest smile I had ever seen stretched across the lower half of his rugged face.
“What?” He smiled at Calix and the woman.
“What did you come barging in here like that for?” the woman scowled at him. “You could’ve got yourself shot.”
“Sorry, Rea,” he said, stepping into the pub and closing the door behind him. “The wind nearly blew the door right out of my hand. There’s a storm…” Then seeing me for the first time standing near to the bar, he added, “Who is she?”
“That’s what we were trying to find out,” Calix grunted, holstering his guns in one smooth, liquid-like movement.
“More like what she is,” the woman named Rea said, sliding her gun back beneath her coat. She still held the crucifix in her other hand. She passed it to Calix. He took it from her and placed it on a shelf above the bar. It was the first time I had noticed the array of other crucifixes. There were hundreds of them crammed onto the shelf. Some were made of wood, others silver, brass, and even plastic. One was made of some kind of luminous material and it glowed sickly green in the dim glare of the candlelight. Why so many crucifixes, and where had they come from? From other travellers who had been unfortunate enough to stumble across the village of Shade and meet Rea and Calix? Did they keep them as some form of protection against vampires? Was it vampires and not werewolves these people feared? Rea had thrown the silver bullets into the fire after all, I reasoned.
“I’m Harvey Rush,” a voice said.
“Huh?” I said, glancing away from the shelf above the bar to find the guy with the infectious smile standing before me. He held his hand out for me to shake.
“My friends just call me Rush,” he said, his strong-looking mouth turned up at the corners. He gripped my hand in his. His hand felt rough and his handshake firm as he pumped my arm up and down. And even though I feared that my arm might just pop out of its shoulder socket at any moment, I couldn’t help but feel relieved that someone in Shade was prepared to be friendly and welcoming to me.
“What do I call you?” I asked, looking into his eyes which were grey but flecked with mesmerising streaks of hazel.
“Rush, I hope – that’s if you want to be friends,” he said, letting his hand slide from mine.
“I don’t believe you,” Rea said.
Calix took what looked like a jam jar full of water from beneath the bar. He unscrewed the lid.
“Believe what?” Rush asked, loosening the front of his long, black coat. And just like the others, I could see that he too had a holster with two gleaming pistols hanging about his waist. He raked one hand through his sandy coloured and windswept hair. “Give me some of that.” He took the jar of liquid from Calix. “Ouch, that’s hot!”
“Been warming it up for you.” Calix winked, turning and searching through my belongings that still lay scattered across the bar.
“When you two have stopped with the schoolboy pranks,” Rea cut in, “I was about to say that I don’t believe how you can be so calm about…”
“About what?” Rush said, raising the glass jar to his lips but not taking a drink.
“Her,” Rea snapped, jutting her thumb in my direction. “She’s a complete stranger. We know nothing about her. Who or what she is. Calix found her hiding in the alleyway…”
“I do have a name, you know,” I spoke up. I was tired of listening to them talk about me rather than to me.
“I bet you do,” Calix sighed.
I looked at him. Calix had found a pair of my panties amongst my belongings. He brought them up to his face. Sniffing them, he peered at me, pale eyes gleaming.
“Do you mind!” I said, storming forward and snatching them away from his face.
“Not at all,” he grinned back at me.
“Pervert,” I growled, shoving my underwear and my other belongings back into my rucksack and out of Calix’s reach.
“So what is it?” Rush asked.
“What is what?” I scowled back at him. He still wore that smile and I felt bad for losing it with him, when it was that jerk Calix I was mad at.
“Your name?” Rea asked for him.
“Mila Watson,” I said.
“Watson?” Calix asked.
“Not only a pervert but deaf, too?” I grumbled, tying up the neck of my bag.
But Calix wasn’t looking at me. None of them were. They were looking at each other. Had it been something I had said?
“She said she saw a wolf,” Rea told Rush.
“Hello?” I cut in. “I do have a name – it’s Mila…”
“A wolf?” Rush said, wheeling around so fast that some of the liquid spilt over the edge of the jar he was holding and spattered my hand.
I cried out in pain as the scalding hot liquid touched the skin covering the back of my hand. Glancing down, I could see that the skin had turned red.
“I’m so sorry,” Rush said, placing the jar down onto the bar and striding toward me. “It was an accident. I never meant to hurt you.”
Then gently taking my burnt hand in his, he led me nearer to the fire. “Let me take a look,” he soothed.
I could feel tears stinging in my eyes and I bit into my lower lip.
“Calix, get me a jug of cold water,” Rush said without glancing back as he inspected the red patch of skin now covering the back of my hand. “It looks like it might blister a bit. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered, teasing my hand away. But Rush held it firmly in his. He looked up at me, our eyes meeting. The glow of the firelight made those sparks of hazel now look like flames. I blinked, then looked again. He smiled as he slowly drew his thumb gently over the back of my hand. Were we having some kind of moment? I thought of Flint and this time I did free my hand from Rush’s hold.
Calix appeared beside us, a clay jug of water in his hand. Rush took it from him, then poured just a few drops at first over the back of my throbbing hand. I gritted my teeth. The burn stung as Rush poured more water over the burn.
“Take this,” Rea said, handing me a thin strip of cotton cloth. “You can use it as a makeshift bandage. It will do for now.”
I couldn’t help but notice some of the frostiness had left her voice. “Thank you,” I said, taking it from her. The water had cooled off the burn and it felt a little better. I turned my hand before the fire and could see that the skin shone an angry red.
“I’m sorry,” Rush said again, taking the strip of cloth and gently winding it around my hand.
“It was an accident, right?” I assured him. “I’m sure I’ll live.”
Once my hand was fully covered, I held it against my chest. The others were gathered about me before the fire.
“You told my friends that you saw a werewolf…” Rush started.
“I never said werewolf,” I corrected him. “I saw a wolf – it was big – but not a werewolf.”
“If you’re not a hunter, then how do you know the difference?” Calix asked, hands in the pockets of his jeans as he stood sloped against the bar.
“I don�
�t know the difference,” I told him, then quickly added, “why, do you?”
With a smirk playing over his lips, he simply shrugged and said, “I might.”
I looked at Rush as he seemed the most reasonable of the trio. “I’m not sure what I saw if I’m to be honest,” I said, scratching my head with my free hand. “It was dark in the alleyway, but whatever I saw…”
“Oh great, so it could have been a goddamn cat…” Calix groaned.
“I know I saw something and it was real big,” I said to Rush, ignoring Calix. “And it leapt at me…”
“Well, I didn’t see anything,” Calix said, refusing to be ignored. “If there was a wolf, I didn’t see it.”
“But you must have done,” I said, a knot of anger forming deep inside of me. The wind began to howl outside, the dirty windows rattled in their frames. Was Calix lying about not seeing the wolf? But why would he? I didn’t know him well enough to understand the reason he might lie about such a thing – I didn’t know any of them or their genuine motives about anything.
“If there’s a wolf in town we’ll need to get the sheep in off the fields,” Rea said. “The last time a wolf got into Shade it killed six sheep and several lambs.”
“But how would it have got in?” Rush asked, looking at Rea.
“Through the hole she made in the wall,” Calix said.
“I didn’t make any hole,” I glared at him. “It was already there.”
“However it got there, it needs to be closed off,” Rea said.
“I’ll go and do it,” Rush said.
“And I’ll go with Calix and check on the livestock,” Rea said.
“What about me?” I said, looking at the three of them.
“What about you?” Calix said.
“Well, what am I meant to do?” I asked, looking at Rush then at Rea. “Do I stay? Do I go? What?”
Rea stared at me for what seemed like forever. And in that long, drawn-out silence, I knew that whatever the relationship was between these three people, she was in charge. It was Rea who made the decisions for them. “You go with Rush and show him where the hole in the fence is.”
“Then…?”
“Then you can stay in Shade for tonight.” She glanced at the other two, then back at me. “I’ll make my decision tomorrow about what to do with you. Now let’s get going.” She stepped outside. Rush followed, leaving Calix and me alone in the pub.
Breaking his stare, I placed my rucksack over my shoulder and headed for the door. Before reaching it, I felt his hand take hold of my arm again. He turned me to face him.
“Haven’t you forgotten something?” he asked.
“Like what?” I sighed, fearing that he was going to whip a piece of my underwear from his pocket so he could have another laugh at my expense and embarrass me all over again.
But to my surprise, instead, he placed my gun into my bandaged hand. Before I’d had a chance to say anything, he placed six bullets into my other hand. “No silver ones this time around, we don’t want them whizzing all about the place, someone or something might get hurt,” he said.
Not knowing or understanding what he meant, I reloaded the gun with the bullets he had given me and slid it into the waistband of my jeans. “Thank you,” I said, wondering if that deep down somewhere, Calix did have one or two redeeming features. I turned toward the door again to join the others outside, but before I’d even taken a step, I heard Calix say over my shoulder:
“Perhaps when you get back to that hole in the wall, you might decide to climb back through it and never look back,” Calix said.
I glanced back at him.
“Go back to Twisted Den or wherever it is you say you came from,” he said.
“I can’t – it’s too dangerous,” I told him.
“There is no place in this world more dangerous than Shade,” Calix half smiled, his pale blue eyes staring out of his even paler face.
Chapter Four
“Is he always such a jerk?” I asked.
“Who?” Rush said, leading me through the narrow streets of Shade, back in the direction I had come from.
“Calix,” I said.
“Owen, you mean? That’s his first name,” Rush explained.
“Yeah, him,” I said. It was dark now and with the village apparently deserted, there was no light to guide our way. Rush seemed to have no problem navigating his way through the village and back to the field that led to the top of the hill. How long had he been living in Shade? He appeared to know the streets well, even in near darkness. How long had Calix and Rea known each other? Had they always been friends, and why were they hiding out in Shade? My mind spun with questions and however much I yearned for the answers, I knew I had to be careful. If I started to gabble off a series of questions at Rush, he might become suspicious of me. He might start to wonder if I really had stumbled across Shade in my desperation to leave Twisted Den. He might begin to suspect that there was a different reason I had come to Shade. I also hadn’t failed to notice how Rush and his friends had glanced at each other when I had said my surname. Had they recognised it? Had they known my parents? I had to tread carefully – for all I knew, they could have played a part in my parents’ disappearance.
“Don’t pay too much attention to Calix, his bark is worse than his bite,” Rush said, the corners of his mouth tipping upwards into a smile. There was a single track lane I hadn’t seen before, and guessed I would have missed it again in the dark. I followed behind Rush as he walked toward a small building a short way off in the distance. From my view over his shoulder, the building stood like a small, dark shadow at the end of the track.
“So what’s with the deal with Rea, is she like yours and Calix’s auntie or something?” I asked in an easy-going manner, like I was merely trying to engage Rush in casual conversation rather than some kind of interrogation.
“No, Rea isn’t our auntie,” Rush laughed. “She’s just a friend.”
“But she’s older than you, right?”
“I guess,” he said, reaching the small, squat shape we had been heading toward.
“How old?” Was that one too many questions? And it was a dumb one, too. Why did I care how old she was?
“I don’t know, I’ve never asked,” Rush said with a casual shrug.
He had led me to what looked like something close to the shack where my uncle printed his newspaper. Standing before it, with its slanted slate roof and walls made with planks of wood, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my uncle. I wondered if he was sitting in his study, writing the next article for the newspaper in the glow of candlelight. Or was he sitting in the dark and thinking about me? Wondering if I was safe? Wondering if he would ever see me again? I pushed thoughts of my uncle away. Not because I didn’t want to be reminded of him, but because of the sudden flare of homesickness I felt. I knew that if I dwelt too much on home, on my uncle and Flint, I might just take Calix’s advice and climb back through that gap in the wall and never look back. But I wouldn’t leave Shade, despite Calix’s warning. I wouldn’t leave until I had found out the truth about my parents and the young woman some had said had come and put an end to the war between the beautiful immortals.
Rush pushed open the door to the shack and disappeared inside. It was as if the darkness had swallowed him up as he completely disappeared from view. I stood alone in the dark. Glancing back over my shoulder, I looked back at the steep hill I had earlier climbed down. From this distance and in the darkness the treetops looked like a vast row of giants that were bent and twisted out of shape.
“Here, take this, Mila,” I heard Rush say. I couldn’t help but jump at the sudden sound of his voice. I spun around to find him standing in the open doorway of the shack, two burning lamps in his hands. They lit his pale face, those flecks in his eyes as bright now as the flames burning in the lanterns. With my eyes set on his, I took one of the lanterns from him.
“Thanks,” I said.
Breaking my stare, Rush turned and disappeared
back into the shack. I held the lamp above my head, shedding light into the darkness. The small building was home to different types of farming equipment. I could see rusty old shovels, forks, rakes, and a wheelbarrow that leant to one side because of its busted front wheel.
“This is what I was looking for,” Rush said, reappearing in the doorway. In the light from his lantern I could see that he was holding a hammer and some nails. “To fix the gap in the wall,” he added, placing them into his coat pocket.
After closing the door to the shack, Rush set off up the hill toward the wood. “Can you remember your way back to the hole?” he said over his shoulder at me.
“I think so,” I said, not knowing if that was true or not. I could remember feeling as if there had been something other than just me in those woods. If I were to be honest, I’d gotten lost.
“You don’t sound so sure,” he said as I drew level with him on the side of the hill.
“I got kinda lost in the wood,” I said, not wanting to sound dumb but guessing that I did.
“No problem, I’m sure we’ll find it,” Rush said in his easy way, immediately making me feel that perhaps I wasn’t as stupid as I first thought. I’m glad it was Rush I had been paired with and not Calix. If I’d told him that I’d gotten lost in the wood, he would have probably been calling me a silly bitch by now. But not Rush. He was kind of like Flint in a lot of ways. Not in looks, Rush was one of those guys you did a double-take when first seeing. Flint was easy on the eyes, too, but in a more unconventional way. Both had that easy manner – that nothing was really too much trouble. But there was a vast difference between Rush and his friend Calix. Although I didn’t know either of them, I suspected that Rush would be the more let’s-look-into-each-other’s-eyes-and-make-slow-love type of guy, while Calix would be get-on-all-fours-and-let’s-just-fuck-for-the-hell-of-it-type. I pictured him sorting through my underwear again and grimaced. What a freak!
Rush strode ahead, and I pretty much had to jog to keep up with him. As he walked, I could hear the sound of his guns slapping against his thighs. Shouldn’t I have my gun at the ready – within reach? I wondered as we approached the treeline. Perhaps I should warn him that I thought there was something lurking in those woods. What, and make myself look like some frightened child? No thanks.