by Tim O'Rourke
“Only one of us can go forward,” Potter told him.
“Then it shall be me,” Seth said.
Realising that Seth wouldn’t give in to his demands that easily, Potter broke his arm free and threw his arms out to his side. His back arched as he rolled his head back and his wings unfurled from his back. Seth wasted no time in dragging his claws across his own face as he ripped his flesh away and his wolf’s head appeared from underneath. His baseball cap flew away, along with his long, flowing coat and jeans. As if reading each other’s mind, both sprang into the air within a fraction of a second. Potter roared and Seth howled as they collided with one another. I flinched backwards as lengths of black wolf hair sprayed into the air as Potter ripped at Seth with his claws. The werewolf released a howl that was so deep, it sounded like thunder. With his lips rolling back, Seth lunged at Potter and buried his teeth into him. Both were equal in strength and speed and each tried to tear the other apart. Potter rolled back one of his muscular arms and drove his claw straight at the werewolf’s colossal skull. There was a sickening crack of a sound and Seth shot backwards through the air.
“You cannot go forward from here,” Potter warned him, racing through the air in a blur of black shadows.
“Why you and not me?” Seth barked, landing on all fours on the floor of the hangar.
“Because I know you’re a killer and you betrayed Murphy,” Potter boomed as he raced through the air towards Seth.
“If there is no reasoning with you, Potter, then you must die just like Murphy did,’ Seth barked at the top of his voice. He then suddenly shot forward, raking at the air with his giant black paws.
Seth caught Potter, who stumbled backwards momentarily in mid-air, but that was all the werewolf needed to come racing forward, his jaws open and teeth gnashing. Potter was just as quick, and ducking out of Seth’s way, he dropped out of the air, rolled across the shiny surface of the hangar’s floor, and sprang to his feet. Seth came at him again and they fought each other. They rolled over and over, a blur of black fur and wings. They struck out at each other with such speed and ferocity that they became a blur like the rotary blades of a helicopter in flight. The sounds of their claws ripping and teeth tearing echoed off the metal walls of the hangar as the two of them leapt, spun, and dived at each other.
Sparks flew up from beneath the werewolf’s claws as he skirted across the floor of the hangar. The light from his eyes glittered and he came racing forward again. He thrust Potter backwards again and he flew through the air, smashing into the side wall of the hangar. Potter seemed to hover momentarily in midair, then rocketed back towards the ground, leaving the wall battered and bent out of shape.
Seth ducked and skidded around as Potter came screaming forward, lashing out at the wolf with his claws. They crashed into one another and more sparks flew into the air as they skidded down the length of the hangar.
“You can’t win!” Seth howled.
“Neither can you!” Potter roared back.
“Then we both die!” Seth barked and pounced at Potter again.
Potter sprang into the air to meet him head on, his wings pointed like arrows behind him. Their arms whisked through the air as they sliced at each other. Blood sprayed from Potter’s chest, and I slapped both hands over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. Their arms locked and they clashed heads as they tried to bite lumps from each other’s faces. Both pushed fiercely against each other. But they were equally matched – and I feared that perhaps Seth had been right, both of them would die.
From my hiding place, I knelt and watched as Seth suddenly whipped his giant tail from behind him, lashing Potter across his back. There was a crunching sound, then Potter collapsed onto the floor. He reached out with his arms as Seth came forwards, brandishing his razor-like teeth and snarling. I stared at Potter and he looked beat. Slowly, he lowered his arms, his shoulders sloped and he dropped his head. I wanted to scream at him to get up, to fight back, but my throat was locked and I felt as if I was suffocating. Then, to my amazement, he dragged himself into a sitting position and crossed his legs in front of him. He tilted his head back as if exposing his neck for Seth to bite.
Seth seemed to wait several moments before coming forward again, as if he suspected a trap of some kind. Potter remained still, his head back, throat exposed. Seth finally sauntered forward, brandishing his teeth and snarling. Before I’d even had a chance to register what had happened, Potter had snatched hold of the werewolf’s giant head and twisted it violently to the right sending Seth spinning through the air. Before Seth had a chance to react to what had happened, Potter launched himself off the ground and had him in a headlock. Seth tried to bark, but all that came out was a series of coughing sounds as Potter tightened his arms around the wolf’s throat. Seth kicked out widely with his back legs, his claws making a scraping sound across the floor and his huge, fleshy tongue rolled from the corner of his mouth.
“You helped kill my friend Murphy and if I leave you alive, you’ll kill Kiera, too,” Potter growled into one of Seth’s pointed ears.
Seth began to make a final struggle and he kicked out wildly with his paws, as Potter tightened his grip further.
The wolf made a panting sound, and his eyes started to close, and just when I thought that it was over, something huge and grey came leaping into the hangar through the gap in the open doors. Glancing down, I gasped at the sight of Nik standing over Potter as he gripped Seth on the floor.
“I killed those women,” he yelped at Potter. “It was me you and your friends were chasing back then. I was the one who butchered and tortured all of those women, not Jack Seth!”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“What are you talking about?” Potter growled, refusing to release his grip on the dying werewolf. “Who in the hell are you?”
“My name’s Nik Seth,” he barked at Potter, “And it was me who committed those murders, not my father.”
“I don’t believe you!” Potter growled, as blood ran from the claw marks which now covered his body.
“It’s true,” Nik howled. “Jack Seth is my father. He discovered it was me who was killing those women. He tried to stop me, but I couldn’t be stopped, not back then. He followed me one night as I picked up another woman from a bar and headed back to her apartment. We went to her room, and as she got undressed, I took my skin off and revealed my other self to her. She wanted to scream – God how she wanted to scream – I could see it in her eyes. But she looked into mine and I had her. She was transfixed by my stare and I could do anything I wanted to her, and believe me, I did. But my father knew that you were hunting me down and were close by that night. He reached me first and told me to go so he could be in my place when you, Murphy, and Luke came crashing through the door. My father took the blame for those killings, but I didn’t go unpunished. He cursed me, leaving me captured in the wolf’s form until I redeemed myself. He never wanted me to entice a woman away again, place her in a trance and then kill her. He knew, looking like a wolf, I’d never be able to trick another woman to go with me again.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?” Potter said, as Seth stopped twitching in his arms and fell still. “Any son of Jack Seth’s has got to be lying scum.”
“It’s true,” a voice said, and I looked down to see Eloisa walk across the hangar floor towards Potter. Her long, blond hair bounced beautifully about her shoulders and her eyes glimmered like crystals. “Jack took the blame for his son; he took his place in the cells down in The Hollows.”
“So you’re this wolf’s mother?” Potter said.
“I’m not his mother,” Eloisa smiled with her perfectly formed lips. “Nik’s mother died when he was just a baby. I am Jack’s lover, that is all.”
Potter stared into her eyes, then slowly released his grip on Jack. He stood, then looking down at the wolf, he rolled the giant beast away with his foot.
“Father,” Nik howled, then licked Jack’s face with his giant tongue. “Wake up, father. I
’ve done good this time.”
Seth made a gurgling sound in the back of his throat and lifted his head an inch off the floor. Nik licked his fathers face again. “Father, wake up, please,” he said. “I want you to see that I’ve done good for you.”
Seth’s mighty flanks began to heave up and down as he started to draw air through his snout. Potter stood and looked down at the wolf, then at Eloisa. Then, Seth was getting up, staggering onto all fours. He sniffed the air and looked at his son.
“What are you doing here, boy?” Seth woofed.
“I came to save you,” Nik barked softly.
“I told you I never wanted to lay eyes on you again,” Seth said. Now get out of my sight.” Then looking at Potter with his yellow eyes, he added, “It looks like your friend, Murphy, was right about me all along.”
Without saying a word, Potter walked directly towards Eloisa. She smiled at him and her eyes twinkled. Potter’s face looked grim and his eyes a dull black. Then, so quick if I’d blinked I would have missed it, Potter shot his arm out and thrust his claw into Eloisa’s chest. It all happened so fast that Eloisa still had that smile on her face as Potter ripped out her heart. She looked at him as if to say something, but all that came out of her mouth was a thick jet of black blood. Eloisa fell forward, crashing face first onto the floor of the hangar.
With her heart still beating in his fist, Potter walked back to Seth. Holding the heart out in front of Seth’s huge face, he said to the wolf, “You might not have murdered those women, but you helped take the heart of somebody I loved.” Then, dropping Eloisa’s heart on the floor in front of Seth’s giant paws, Potter looked into the wolf’s eyes and said, “I guess that makes us just about even.”
I couldn’t believe what I had just seen and those words from Ravenwood’s message swam sickeningly in the front of my mind.
“… Elias Munn plunged his fist into her chest and tore her heart out…”
“No!” I screamed over the edge of the walkway. “Potter, what have you just done?”
No sooner had those words left my mouth, Isidor and Kayla came running down the stairs above me. “What’s happening?” Kayla called out.
Potter glanced over his shoulder and saw me standing on the walkway above him. Within an instant, he had flown up to join me.
“What did you just do?” I gasped.
He looked into my eyes and said, “You asked me last night if I had feelings. Murphy was my friend – like a father to me – and I loved him. Do you really think that I’d let his death go unpunished?”
“But you just ripped her heart out,” I said still in shook at what I’d just witnessed.
“And they took Murphy’s,” he said flatly.
I looked into his eyes and they looked dead and heartless. “You’re scaring me,” I told him, blinking away the tears that were standing in my eyes.
Coming closer, Potter said, “Now go straight to The Hollows and wait for me. I’ll come back with Luke, I promise.” Then leaning in, he kissed me on the cheek and at the same time, he whispered in my ear, “It’s not me you have to be scared of, sweet-cheeks.”
He turned away, leapt over the edge of the stairs and landed on the ground in front of Seth. Leaning forward, he said something to the werewolf, then strode purposefully between the gap in the hangar doors and out into the dawn.
I looked over my shoulder at Kayla and said, “Did you hear what he said to Jack Seth?”
Kayla looked at me and nodded.
“What did he say?” I snapped at her.
“If Seth harmed as much as one single hair on your head while he was gone in search of Luke, he would rip his heart out with his teeth and…” Kayla stopped.
“And what?” I demanded.
“Potter said that he would eat Jack Seth’s heart,” Kayla shuddered.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
With my head spinning, I made my way down the stairs to the ground floor, Kayla and Isidor close behind me. Eloisa’s body lay to one side, and a thick pool of blood trailed from beneath her. I looked away. Seth was twisting and contorting from a werewolf back into human form. His limbs almost seemed to stretch as if made from putty and his head looked as if it was being sucked in on itself. When he had completed his metamorphosis, he looked down at his son.
“You’re not welcome here,” he hissed.
“But I saved your life,” Nik yelped like a lost puppy.
“And took countless others,” Seth said.
“So have you,” Nik suddenly snarled. “You have murdered hundreds.”
“Not for many years,” Seth shouted back. “I’ve been trying to redeem myself – to lift the Lycanthrope curse.”
“You seem to have a funny way of showing it,” Isidor suddenly cut in.
“And what’s that supposed to mean, boy?” Seth turned on him.
“Betraying Murphy like you did beneath the mountains,” Isidor said standing firm against the serial killer. “He was our friend and he trusted you.”
Glancing over at Eloisa spread face down on the floor, Seth said, “And it looks like I’ve paid for that too.”
Nik came forward, his giant tail swishing behind him. “But I have changed, father,” he said. “It’s not only your life that I’ve saved. I helped Kiera escape from her cage and her friends, too.”
“It’s true,” I said to Seth. “Your son helped me – I think we helped each other in some strange way. We were both fighting our cravings for human flesh together. Nik could have killed me at any time, believe me, he had plenty of opportunities. But he didn’t. Instead of killing me, he helped me and my friends. And even when I’d escaped, he kept watch over me and guarded me. I think it’s time you lifted the curse.”
“Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do with my son!” Seth roared and spittle flew from his lips. He then came towards me, his eyes spinning in his sunken eye sockets like two burning planets.
Before he could reach me, Kayla had stepped into his path. “I so wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she hissed. “I heard what Potter said to you before he left. So back-off, wolf man!”
“Potter doesn’t scare me,” Seth smiled grimly.
“Oh, no?” Isidor said, coming to stand next to his sister. “It certainly smelt like Potter scared you. You don’t just talk shit – you smell of it!”
Seth looked at Isidor, and for the briefest of moments I thought that his eyes were going to pop from those sunken sockets. Without giving him the chance to reply, Kayla quickly added, “So as far as I can see, Jack Seth, you have two choices. You can either crawl back under whichever rock you came out from, or you can keep your freaking face shut, get in line, and follow Kiera into The Hollows.” Then, in a spray of shadows, she was hovering in the air just inches from his emaciated face. “Because I promise you, one more threat – just one more – and you won’t have to wait for Potter to come back and eat your heart out, I’ll hit you so freaking hard that it will explode out of your arse!”
Without saying anything, Seth smiled and turned to walk away. I couldn’t believe the change in Kayla and Isidor. Maybe Potter had been right after all; perhaps what they needed was to toughen up. However harsh he had been to them, it had changed them. For the better? I didn’t know. But they both seemed ready to confront whatever lay ahead for us.
Nik bounded after his father, and almost seeming to yap at his heels, he said, “Please, father, lift the curse.”
“No! Not ever!” Seth roared at him. “I took the blame for you – I’ve done what any father would do for their son, but now you are on your own.”
“But it isn’t just your life that I’ve saved,” Nik barked. “I’ve come with some news – news that could end all of this today.”
Hearing this, I went to Nik, and said, “What news? What are you talking about?”
“The invisible man,” he started, “the one who’s behind all of this has made a mistake. He’s visiting a site not too far away from here. He wants to oversee the site the Vam
pyrus are building to stage their attack against the humans.”
Isidor and Kayla came rushing over, and Seth stopped dead in his tracks and looked back at his son.
“How do you know this?” I asked him.
Looking at his father than back at me, he said, “I tortured two of the Vampyrus that had come to prepare the way for him. I’m sorry father, but it was the only way. I had to kill them.”
Seth grunted and looked at his son. “Go on, what else do you know?”
“Not much,” Nik said. “Only that he is coming above ground. I know where he is going to be, so this is our chance to take him and end this today.”
“Where is this site?” I asked him.
“About two miles from here,” Nik said. “It’s set between two mountains.”
“We should wait for Potter to return,” I said.
“It will be too late by then,” Nik said, looking at me. “We only have one shot at this.”
“I don’t know…” I started.
“If no one is going to rip my throat out for speaking,” Seth said and glanced at Kayla, “I think Nik is right. We should go now and end this. Look on the bright side, once this is all over, you’ll never have to see me or my kind again.”
“I hate to agree with him,” Isidor said, “But I think he’s right. We should go – it might be the only chance we ever have of defeating this invisible man.”
“Elias Munn,” I said.
“Who?” Kayla asked.
“That’s his real name,” I said looking at them. “That’s what this invisible man is really called. Whether he still goes by that name now, I don’t know – but his true name is Elias Munn.”
“How do you know that?” Kayla asked me.
“Ravenwood wrote it in that message he left for me,” I explained.
“What else did he say?” Isidor said.
“I’ll tell you another time,” I said. Changing the subject, I looked at Nik, “How long will it take to get to this place between the mountains? Remember, there’s a storm blowing out there and we’re vulnerable in the open from Vampyrus attacks during daylight.”