Werewolves of Shade (Part One) (Beautiful Immortals Series Book 1)

by Tim O'Rourke

With the light held up before him, it was impossible to see beneath the hood draped about his head. “Who are you?” I whispered.

  Letting go of my wrist, he pulled back the hood and revealed his face.

  “Flint?” I gasped, wanting to feel relieved that it had been him all along, but I was shocked by what he had done to the man and his dog.

  Flint looked back at me, his light green eyes shining with sparks of light from the glow of the lantern. I looked away, back down at the floor. It was then that I saw the true horror of what had taken place in the darkness. A breath hitched deep in my chest as I surveyed the carnage. The man lay in blooded chunks about the room, as did the once terrifying dog.

  “You did this?” I breathed, feeling confused and shocked all at once. Had Flint really been capable of such violence? The guy who had treated me so tenderly?

  “He was going to hurt you bad, Mila,” Flint said. “Just like the others.”

  “The others?” I asked, staring back at Flint, unable to look at the bloodied mess anymore.

  “This guy has been killing women in this town for months now and you would have been next…” Flint started.

  “But how… why… my uncle would have written about it in his newspaper…” I tried to make sense of what Flint was telling me.

  “The head night-watchman went to your uncle and asked him not to write about it in his newspaper,” Flint said, his untidy blond hair sticky up now that he had pulled back the hood. His face, with its firm jaw, looked tired. He looked suddenly older than his twenty years.

  “Why would he not want my uncle to report about such a thing… the people of Maze had a right to know,” I said.

  “What, and spread panic?” Flint said.

  “But women would have kept off the streets – stayed at home and been safe…” I said.

  “What, like you?” The corners of his soft mouth turning up into a half smile.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, realising that not only had my uncle been keeping secrets from me but Flint had been too.

  “I tried to warn you,” he reminded me. “I told you the streets of Maze weren’t safe at night. And besides, there was another reason that your uncle was asked not to report on this killer. We were getting close to him and we didn’t want to scare him off.”

  “It looks as if he had good reason to be scared of you,” I muttered, watching another piece of flesh slide from the wall over Flint’s right shoulder.

  “What do you mean?” Flint asked.

  Again, I glanced down at the carnage. I couldn’t believe Flint could be responsible. It was like I was standing before a complete stranger – not my friend. “I can’t believe you did this,” I muttered.

  “He would have killed you, Mila,” Flint insisted.

  “No, I didn’t mean that,” I said, looking at him again. “I understand why you killed him, but what I don’t understand is how you killed him. I mean, he’s been cut to pieces.”

  Slowly, Flint reached within the folds of the long dark cloak he wore and produced something close to a samurai sword from beneath it. The long, silver blade sparkled in the light from the lantern.

  “I didn’t know you carried a sword or knew how to use one,” I said, eyeing the sword that he now held against his leg.

  “How did you think us night-watchmen protected ourselves?” Flint asked, staring at me.

  “What’s so dangerous out here that you need a sword like that?” I asked.

  “Bad men like him,” Flint said, glancing down at the blooded remains of the killer. Then placing the sword back beneath his long cloak, he added, “Come on, I’ll walk you home. You look soaked through.”

  “I’m not going home,” I said.

  “Where then if not home?” He frowned.

  “I’m going to a village called Shade,” I told him.

  Chapter Eight

  “Where?” Flint frowned, following me across the room to the passageway. He lit our way with the lantern that he swung before him.

  “A village called Shade,” I repeated myself.

  “Where’s that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know that yet,” I said, knowing that I sounded stupid.

  “You don’t seem to know much,” he said, taking me by the arm as I stepped from the doorway and back into the street.

  “Don’t patronise me,” I snapped, yanking my arm free. “I’m not that little girl you used to pull the pigtails of.”

  “I know you’re not,” Flint said. Then reaching out and taking my hand again, but this time more gently, he added, “Look, I’m sorry, Mila. I never meant to hurt your feelings. It’s just that I worry about you.”

  “You have no need to concern yourself,” I said, letting my hand slide free of his. “I can look after myself.”

  “Really?” he said. He hooked his thumb in the direction of the disused shop. “It didn’t look like that back there.”

  “He was a freaking serial killer, for crying-out-loud!” I snapped.

  “And there’s a lot worse than that out in the big, wide world,” Flint said.

  “See, there you go again,” I hissed.

  “There I go again what?” he said, looking affronted.

  “Treating me like I’m some dumb kid. Like this world is some big, bad place that is far too scary for little-old-Mila-Watson to explore.”

  “I’m just watching out for you, that’s all,” Flint said.

  “Yeah, that’s what my uncle said,” I sneered.

  “He cares about you, that’s all,” Flint said. “I care for you.”

  “Yeah, well perhaps I don’t want you to care for me,” I said. “Perhaps I don’t want my uncle to care.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Flint said.

  “How do you know what I mean?” I shouted, screwing my hands into fists at my side.

  Flint looked surprised by my sudden outburst. “What’s happened, Mila? I thought we were friends – I thought we were more than friends. I saved you back there.”

  “When are people like you and my uncle going to get it into your thick heads that I don’t need saving – that I don’t want you protecting me?”

  “What do you need?” Flint asked, looking lost and confused.

  “I need to get out of this town,” I said, turning on my heels and marching away.

  “Hey!” Flint yelled, coming after me. Catching up, he gently took my arm. This time I didn’t pull away.

  There was the sudden sound of running feet from ahead. I looked up to see several of the night-watchmen come running into the street, each of them carrying a lantern just like Flint. Their hoods were pulled up, making their faces unclear despite the glow of the lanterns.

  “Did you catch him?” one of them panted, reaching us as we stood in the street and the driving rain. “Where is he? Is anyone hurt?”

  “He’s back there in that shop,” Flint said to the night-watchmen who now gathered about us. “And no one got hurt apart from the killer,” Flint added, gently squeezing my hand. “I got here just in time.”

  “Good job, Flint,” one of the night-watchmen said, coming forward and placing one hand on his shoulder. He spoke with an authority that the others didn’t seem to possess and I guessed he was in charge of the others.

  “Thanks,” Flint said.

  “And was this young lady the killer’s next intended victim?” the night-watchman asked, raising his lantern as if to inspect me.

  With his lantern held high, I could just make out the rugged features of the face beneath the hood. He was so very pale, like that of the moon. His eyes looked like two sunken holes in the shadows beneath the hood. I felt uncomfortable being stared at, so I looked away.

  As if being able to sense how uncomfortable I was feeling, Flint said to the night-watchman who was staring at me, “Do you mind if I walk my friend home? She’s obviously had a very bad scare.”

  Ignoring Flint’s request, the night-watchman continued to stare at me from beneath the hood of his cloa
k. “You’re Sidney Watson’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  “His niece,” I corrected him.

  “Very good,” the night-watchman said. Then turning to look at Flint, he added, “Make sure the girl gets home safely to her uncle.”

  “I’m not a girl,” I said.

  “C’mon,” Flint whispered in my ear, pulling me away from the other night-watchmen who were now heading toward the shop where the scattered remains of the man and his giant dog lay.

  “I’ve told you I’m not going home,” I reminded Flint.

  “Then come back to mine,” Flint said, rain streaking his handsome face like tears.

  “You have a place?” I cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “Of course I have a place,” Flint half smiled at me. “Where did you think I went at night?”

  “That crumby place you used to live in with your father as a kid,” I said, then regretted it almost at once, knowing that his father had died of bronchitis several months ago.

  “I still live in that crumby place,” Flint said, looking a little hurt.

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” I said, squeezing his hand in mine. “I don’t mean to be mean about the place you grew up in with your father.”

  Snaking an arm about my waist, Flint pulled me close. “I’ll forgive you, if you forgive me.”

  “Forgive you for what?” I frowned, our faces just an inch apart.

  “For being an arrogant jerk at times,” he smiled, leaning forward and gently kissing me.

  “You’re forgiven,” I whispered.

  Chapter Nine

  How could I not forgive Flint? He was my best friend. My only friend. I wasn’t really mad at him. It was my uncle I was mad at. But was that really true? Wasn’t it the truth that I was mad at my parents for being stupid enough to go to the village of Shade? Didn’t they know the risks they were taking? Didn’t they realise that they might never come back – that they might never see me again? Didn’t that matter to them? And what did they go for? To find out what had really happened to the werewolves and vampires? No, it was more than that. They had gone to find out the truth about this young woman – the woman some say had been a witch. And deep down, despite what my uncle said, both my mother and father had wanted to prove to their nine-year-old daughter that they hadn’t been wasting their lives in pursuit of the truth. What had really driven my parents to the village of Shade was the desire to return as heroes. Not heroes to the world, but heroes in the eyes of their young daughter. It was me who had driven them away. It was myself I was angry with, not Flint and not my uncle.

  Hand in hand, Flint and I walked toward the small house where he had been raised as a boy with his father. I’d never asked what had happened to his mother. I’d always been too scared to. Flint had never said, and whenever I had spoken about my own mother, he had always changed the course of the conversation. I therefore got the feeling, even as a young girl, that Flint hadn’t wanted to talk about her, so I had respected that. Taking a key from the pocket of his jeans beneath his cloak, Flint pushed open the front door. It was dry inside at least, but still cold. Flint closed the front door behind me, then crossed the living room, setting the lantern down on a table that wobbled on uneven legs. Folding my arms about my wet clothes, I shivered.

  “Cold?” Flint asked.

  My teeth chattered. “Freezing.”

  Stooping down, Flint set about lighting the fire. Within moments warm and hungry flames were licking at the logs in the grate. “I’ll get some blankets,” Flint said, leaving the room.

  While he was gone, I moved closer to the fire, kneeling on the stone floor. There was a threadbare rug, but it did little to keep the cold seeping up from beneath it. I rubbed my hands briskly together, blowing warm air from my lungs over them.

  “Here, take one of these,” Flint said, coming back into the room and tossing me a thick blanket. I caught it. The material was soft. Flint came across the room, and stopping before the snapping, hissing fire, he removed his cloak. I watched in the firelight as he undressed.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “Don’t get excited,” he smiled, “I’m just getting out of these wet clothes. You should do the same.”

  “I’m not getting excited,” I smiled, unbuttoning my shirt.

  “No?” Flint grinned boyishly, watching me remove my shirt. “I am.”

  “Pervert,” I grinned back, tugging my wet jeans and underwear over my hips and stepping out of them. I snatched the blanket up, wrapping it tight about me. Not to hide myself from Flint, just to keep warm. I sat on the floor before the fire and watched Flint remove the last of his clothes. Although I had seen his body many times before, it looked different in the firelight. He was on the slim slide, but his chest, stomach, and arm muscles were well defined. And in the red glow of the fire, they looked even more defined somehow. Shivering, he wrapped the other blanket about his shoulders. Then snatching up our damp clothes he hung them over the fire.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I know. You already said.” Flint smiled back over his shoulder at me.

  “Not about what I said about your father’s house, but what I said before – you know, about not wanting you to save me,” I said. “I’m glad you saved me. I’m glad it was you and not someone else.”

  “Are you sure?” Flint said, hanging the last of the clothes and coming to sit next to me in front of the fire.

  “I’m sure,” I said, looking at him. “Thank you.”

  “Well, I’m glad it was me who saved you,” he smiled. He took my hands in his. Spying the cuts at the tips of my fingers where I’d been dragged across the floor of the shop, he raised them to his lips and gently kissed them.

  “I didn’t mean to be ungrateful, it wasn’t you I was mad at,” I started to explain. “I got into an argument with my uncle. I had no reason to, really. If it hadn’t had been for him… well… he saved me, too. He took me in and gave me a home. He took care of me, and tonight I threw it all back in his face.”

  “What got you so mad?” Flint asked.

  “He had been keeping a secret from me,” I told him. “A secret about my parents and why they went away – why they vanished.”

  “What was the big secret?”

  “It has to do with that village I mentioned – a village called Shade,” I said. “About ten years ago, all the people who lived there went missing. They just vanished. My parents went there to investigate. They went to find out what had happened so they could report back and write about it in my uncle’s newspaper.”

  “Why were your parents so interested in this town – apart from the fact that everyone had gone missing?” Flint asked.

  “I think they believed the disappearance of all those people had something to do with werewolves and vampires,” I said, looking at him.

  “But the werewolves and vampires have all gone now,” Flint said.

  “But where did they go? What happened to them? That’s what my mother and father wanted to find out.”

  “Some say that a witch turned them to stone, but most right minded people believe the werewolves and vampires went back to the secret places they had originally come from,” Flint said.

  “And who told you that?” I asked.

  “My father,” he shrugged.

  “And who told him?”

  “I don’t know.” Flint shrugged as if he had never given it much thought. “Perhaps his father…”

  “See, no one really knows,” I said. “It’s all just rumour, myth, and legend.”

  “But what does it matter?” Flint asked. “The werewolves and vampires have all gone now. That’s all that matters.”

  Breaking his stare, I looked into the fire, watching the flames flicker off the lumps of wood that burnt in the grate. “I think my parents wanted to know the truth – what really happened to the werewolves and vampires – because they feared that perhaps one day they could come back. I think when they heard the news that everyone had gone missing in the
village of Shade, they thought it had something to do with what were once called the beautiful immortals.” Then turning to face Flint again, I added, “I think my parents believed they had come back.”

  Chapter Ten

  “What does your uncle say?” Flint asked me.

  “Not much,” I said, pulling the blanket tighter about my shoulders. “That’s the problem. That’s the real reason I got mad at him. He had known the true reason behind my parents’ disappearance but had never told me.”

  “Perhaps he was just trying to protect you,” Flint said, thoughtfully rubbing the lower half of his face with his hand. I could hear the rub of his stubble.

  “And that’s what pissed me off,” I explained. “I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t need my uncle to protect me from the truth. I have a right to know what really happened to my parents.”

  “Perhaps your uncle wasn’t trying to protect you from the truth,” Flint said, looking at me.

  “What then?”

  “Maybe he was trying to protect you from yourself,” Flint said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked with a frown.

  “What was the first thing you said you were going to do when you found out what had really happened to your parents?” he asked me.

  “To go in search of them,” I said, looking back toward the fire. “To go to the village of Shade.”

  “Exactly,” Flint said. “He’s just scared that you’ll go missing. And I’m scared, too.”

  “What have you got to feel scared about?” I asked, still looking into the fire.

  Gently, Flint took my face in his hands and turned me to face him. Looking right into my eyes, Flint said, “I’m scared of losing you too.”

  “Why should you be scared about losing me?” I asked.

  “Because I’m in love with you, Mila,” Flint said, covering my lips with his. As we kissed, I felt Flint slowly pull the blanket from about my shoulders. It fluttered to the floor. Before I’d had a chance to feel cold, Flint was wrapping his arms about me and pulling me close. I felt his hard chest against mine and my skin tingled. With his lips working their way down the curve of my neck, I pulled his blanket free too. Now that we were both uncovered and naked before the fire, Flint laid me back onto the blankets. Leaning over me, his face just inches from mine, I stared up at him, eyes half open.