Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series Two#7) Read online

  Dead Push

  (Kiera Hudson Series Two)

  Book Seven

  BY

  Tim O’Rourke

  Copyright 2013 by Tim O’Rourke

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Story Editor (Hacker)

  Lynda O’Rourke

  Book cover designed by:

  Tim O’Rourke

  Copyedited by:

  Carolyn M. Pinard

  [email protected]

  Happy Birthday to the ‘Kiera Hudson Fanzine’ competition winner

  Courtney Jackson!

  Thanks to:

  Shana at bookvacations.wordpress.com

  Braine & Cimmaron at Talkingsupe.com

  Nikki Archer at vampsandstuff.com

  Bella at paranormal book club

  Suemcg-delirium.blogspot.com

  Caroline Barker at Areadersreviewblog.wordpress.com

  Melly at the Vampire Forum

  Who all took the time to review my books – Thank you!

  You can contact Tim O’Rourke at

  www.kierahudson.com

  Or by email at [email protected]

  More books by Tim O’Rourke

  Kiera Hudson Series

  Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 1

  Vampire Wake (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 2

  Vampire Hunt (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 3

  Vampire Breed (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4

  Wolf House (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4.5

  Vampire Hollows (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 5

  Dead Flesh (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1

  Dead Night (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1.5

  Dead Angels (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 2

  Dead Statues (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 3

  Dead Seth (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 4

  Dead Wolf (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 5

  Dead Water (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 6

  Black Hill Farm (Books 1 & 2)

  Black Hill Farm (Book 1)

  Black Hill Farm: Andy’s Diary (Book 2)

  Sydney Hart Novels

  Witch (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 1

  Yellow (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 2

  The Doorways Trilogy

  Doorways (Doorways Trilogy Book 1)

  The League of Doorways (Doorways Trilogy Book 2)

  Moon Trilogy

  Moonlight (Moon Trilogy) Book 1

  Moonbeam (Moon Trilogy) Book 2

  Samantha Carter – Vampire Seeker Series

  Vampire Seeker (Samantha Carter Series) Book 1

  You can contact Tim O’Rourke at

  www.kierahudson.com or by email at [email protected]

  Dead Push

  Chapter One

  Potter

  We were led by three wolves through the long stone corridors and back towards the custody block beneath Wasp Water Police Station. Jack walked beside me, head bent low on his scrawny neck. His long, drawn face looked more emaciated than I’d ever seen before. He was looking tired and old. He had been back in this pushed world for two hundred years – so I guess he had every right to be fraying around the edges. His long arms didn’t swing loosely by his sides like they so often did, as his wrists were manacled behind him, as were mine. Jack stared down, rays of bright orange light seeping from his eyes and onto the stone floor, as if lighting our way through the intricate maze of stone corridors we were being led through. His stare was fixed and I wondered what the murderous giant was thinking. I had seen him kill those wolves in the room above, and even by my own standards his actions had been savage – way beyond anything I had seen before. He had ripped the flesh and fur from those wolves like some kind of crazed butcher. But he had saved me. Why? Jack had said he had done so not for me – but for his sister – Kiera. Jack said he hadn’t wanted Luke Bishop to use me as bait to trap her. Kiera had gotten to him – she had managed, somehow, to get beneath his weather-beaten, wrinkled skin. If anyone could change Jack Seth, maybe prod at his rancid, black heart – it would be Kiera. Was this another gift she had – just like her ability to see? I didn’t think so. Kiera’s special gift was making you see things differently. Kiera was petite and beautiful. She didn’t look strong or scary – but she had this other kind of strength. Kiera was like one of those fucking kids’ toys – a Weeble – it didn’t matter how many times you pushed her over – she always got up again. She had more fucking bounce than a rubber ball. But it was more than that – she wouldn’t be turned, either – manipulated – or pushed. It was like she had this inner compass, but instead of having a ‘north’ point, hers always pointed in the direction of what was right – the most honest thing to do. And it didn’t seem to matter however much she was spun around and pushed off course – Kiera always did what was right, even if it meant that she would suffer herself somehow.

  I hadn’t always understood that, but as I now walked to my death beside this brutal, savage killer of women and children, I could see that she had gotten to him. Jack had claimed many times he wanted to beat the Lycanthrope curse, and to do that he had to stop his killing, but this had always eluded him. He had never been able to kick the habit. But he had saved me – or tried to. It didn’t matter whether I lived or died from this moment on – what mattered was the fact that he had tried. Had he ever tried to save a life before? Probably not. Whatever had happened between Jack and Kiera while he held her hostage in that house at the top of the hill, it had started a change deep within Jack. Had he hoped to have broken her in that house? I guessed that had been his plan. But it was Kiera who had broken Jack, even though she had been his prisoner. Perhaps she had got him to see stuff differently – to see that there was another way.

  With my mind full of thoughts of Kiera, I looked ahead at the wolves that led us back to our cells, and feared that I would never see her again. I could hear the distant sound of the wolves whopping it up at the thought of mine and Jack’s public execution. The sound of their bloodthirsty howls rumbled like thunder from above ground. The town of Wasp Water was full of the fucking things – the wolves had taken it over – it was their home now, and Luke Bishop was their king. He ruled them. Did these wolves know they were being governed by a freaking bat? I guessed not. He was known as the Wolf Man – not the Wolf Bat. But then again, anything seemed possible in this fucked up world we were now all trapped in. Ahead, I could see an open cell door and the wolves led me and Jack towards it. One of the wolves was a Skin-walker cop. He looked human enough in his starched police uniform, but a wolf lived beneath it. Whoever the poor bastard had once been, he had long ago been matched by the wolves in a school similar to that of Ravenwood. Would I have ripped his fucking head off if my hands were free – yes, I sure would. The human didn’t exist anymore. His brain had been pushed flat somewhere at the back of his skull to make room for the fucked up mind of the wolf. Our other two jailers were still in their wolf forms and they sauntered ahead, their long, bushy tails swishing from side to side. One was covered in a sleek coat of brilliant white fur and the other a dull
, washed-out brown. They woofed and sniffed the air as their huge bodies brushed either side of the pale green walls of the cellblock. I had been in many cellblocks as a cop and they all stank of the same thing – sweaty socks, piss, and shit. The wolves’ giant heads jutted from between mighty-looking flanks and it was only in such a confined space you realised how big these fuckers truly were. I glanced sideways at Jack and again remembered how he had only minutes before ripped several of them to pieces as if they were nothing more than arse-paper.

  Jack Seth stooped his bony shoulders and lowered his head as he stepped into the cell. I followed him. The cell was lit with a torch, which burned in one corner. The flames flickered, casting shadows over the stone walls. There was a bed in one corner with what looked like a urine-stained mattress. The Skin-walker in the cop uniform stood in the open cell doorway and looked at us. The other two wolves stood just behind him in the corridor.

  “Don’t bother to make yourselves comfortable,” the Skin-walker said, eyeing us with his bright, crazy eyes. “You’ll be taken above ground for your execution within the hour.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather we just got it over with. All this excitement is killing me,” I quipped back at him.

  “You’ll be dead soon enough,” The Skin-walker snarled, its lips rolling back to reveal its dagger-sharp teeth.

  “No chance of one last meal? A cheeseburger, perhaps?” I said with a smile.

  “This isn’t some kind of a fucking hotel…” the Skin-walker started. Before he’d had the chance to finish, the Skin-walker shot violently forward into the cell. As if anticipating this somehow, Jack quickly stepped to one side in the narrow space. The Skin-walker’s head smacked sickeningly off the cell wall and he spun around with a kind of bewildered, vacant look on his face. With the same kind of stunned expression of my own, I looked across the cell at Jack. Jack looked sideways at the open cell door. One of the wolves, the one with the brown fur, crept into the cell on his massive paws. Its long, sharp claws made a clacking sound, like high heels on the stone floor.

  The Skin-walker put one hand to his forehead and wobbled like a drunk as his brain scrambled to work out exactly what had just happened. With his other hand, he fumbled for the Taser-stick that swung from his utility belt. Before he’d had the chance to release it, the wolf reared up on its back legs, opened its colossal jaws, and closed them completely over the head of the Skin-walker. My skin went cold at the sound of a muffled scream from deep within the wolf’s mouth as the Skin-walker suddenly realised his fate. The Skin-walker momentarily thrashed his arms about, then stopped, just like my own heart nearly did at the cracking sound as the wolf tightened its jaws around the Skin-walker’s skull. The sound of bones being crunched was deafening, and if my hands hadn’t been restrained behind my back, I would have placed them over my ears. The munching and crunching was followed by a gut-wrenching slopping sound as the wolf took off the Skin-walker’s head as easily as sucking a ripe cherry from its stalk. The Skin-walker’s body almost seemed to stagger backwards two paces, then slide down the cell wall. The wolf worked its mighty jaws up and down as it chewed on the head now encased inside its mouth. Blood, snot, and fuck knows what else – it looked like brains – swung from the corners of the wolf’s jaws as it swallowed the last of the Skin-walker’s head.

  I glanced back towards the open cell door to see the white fur-covered wolf step inside. With the other wolf woofing down the last of the Skin-walker’s brains, the white wolf stood up on its back legs and howled. With one long claw, it made a cut from just beneath its neck and all the way down the underside of its body to its belly. Then, pulling the giant wound open in a spray of red blood and fur, the wolf seemed to step out of its very own skin to reveal a naked woman. I blinked twice, not believing what I was seeing. It was like there had been this beautiful woman standing there the whole time wearing a white fur coat and I hadn’t been able to see it. Naked, she crossed the cell to the bed. She knelt, reached beneath it, and pulled out a bundle of clothes which must have been hidden there at some earlier point in time. The clothes were tied with a length of string which the female unknotted. She unravelled the clothes and pulled on a pair of blue jeans, sweater, and a long white fur coat. She tightened the coat at the waist and pulled the collar up about her neck. The woman looked at me, then at Jack. Just like the fur coat this woman wore, her thick, shoulder-length hair was just as white. Her piercing eyes twinkled yellow and her full lips were blood red.

  With my heart pounding in my chest, and pulling at the chains about my wrists, I looked back at Jack, and suspecting he was a part of what had just happened, I said, “So what’s with the Marilyn Monroe lookalike?”

  Jack ignored me. He looked at the woman and said, “Good to see you again, Lilly Blu.”

  I had heard that name before. Lilly Blu was the wolf Kiera said she had to find. But more important than that, Lilly Blu had once gone by a different name. That name had been Penelope Flack. And in the world before it had been pushed, she had been Murphy’s lover and the mother of his two daughters.

  Chapter Two

  Jack

  I ignored Potter and looked at Lilly Blu.

  “Good to see you again after so many years,” I said, not surprised by her appearance, but grateful for it at least. Just like the fucking humans and Vampyrus, wolves were becoming harder and harder to trust – but I hoped I could trust her. The world was no longer the same – not because it had been pushed – I’d had plenty of time to come to terms with that fact – the wolves in this new world were no longer the same. There seemed to be very little loyalty between them. Had there ever been much? Not really – but there had been some, and that had been enough. So I couldn’t give a shit about the Skin-walker that had just had its head bitten off. They weren’t really wolves anyhow. I had never been truly happy with that part of the deal when the Wasp Water Treaty had been made. There were very few wolves left that could change into human form at will – only those that had been pushed from the other world could do that. But with the help of Bishop they had found a way – by matching with human children. It wasn’t the matching that bothered me – I had killed plenty of those little fuckers throughout my time, but a wolf is a wolf, not some freaky forced mismatch, so wolves could masquerade as humans. And the process didn’t always work. The Berserkers were the result of that. Bishop had never understood my unease, taking pleasure in reminding me that I too had once been human until the Elders had cursed us. He could see no difference between those like me who had once been fully human and had been cursed, and those humans who had been matched with a wolf. He blurred the lines for me until I could no longer see the difference – but there was a difference – deep inside of me, I was sure of that.

  Over time, alliances change and I wasn’t so sure of my allegiance to Luke Bishop anymore. Two hundred years ago we both had a common goal – a purpose that drove us – and that was waiting for the return of Kiera Hudson to this new world we had been pushed into. We wanted to fuck with her like she had fucked with us in The Hollows. Me and Bishop had both wanted to make her and her friends suffer and watch each of them in turn die. But I felt differently now. Not about her friends – they could die for all I cared – but not Kiera. When I had made that pact with Bishop all those years ago, I had just wanted revenge. I had been happy to make a pact with Bishop with the intention we would torment, torture, and then murder Kiera Hudson. But that plan didn’t rest easy with me anymore, and that’s why I couldn’t let Bishop use Potter to ensnare Kiera. Bishop was still ignorant to the fact that me and Kiera were brother and sister and I needed to keep it like that – for now, at least.

  When Kiera had set me free from that room as Potter and Murphy approached, I knew she couldn’t let me die at the hands of those who sought me out, and I knew I could no longer lead her to Bishop. So my plans had to drastically change, but I feared I had already set too much in place – mine and Bishop’s plans were too far advanced. The photographer had alr
eady changed much, and I didn’t know if there was any way of unravelling that. So I had sent out the only wolf I still trusted with a message that I needed to speak with Lilly Blu. We had met only once before – many years ago – but she was known to have an understanding of the layers – the different whens and wheres. Where her knowledge came from, I didn’t know or care. That was her business – but she had an understanding, and that was enough for me. If anyone could seal the cracks that the photographer had created, then it was Lilly Blu. The one thing I knew for certain was she had very little love for Bishop and the Treaty. I didn’t know whether the photographer was a friend or foe, let alone the photographer’s identity. All I knew was that this photographer had an understanding of the wheres and whens just like Lilly Blu did.

  But would Lilly help me? I couldn’t be sure. But she was here now, wasn’t she? The wolf I had sent with the message had reached her. I broke Lilly Blu’s piercing yellow stare and looked at the other wolf. Just like Lilly had, the wolf stood up on its back legs and peeled back its skin of fur like a coat. But unlike Lilly, the other let their skin fall away so it formed a pile of bloody flesh and fur on the cell floor. The wolf stood naked before us in his human form.

  “Thank you, little brother,” I said, looking across the cell at Nik.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” he said, coming behind me and breaking my chains with his powerful claws. They clattered to the floor and I rubbed my wrists with my long skeletal fingers.

  “I fucking knew it,” Potter said, looking at Nik. “I knew I’d seen you before. In that hangar on the outskirts of Wasp Water…”

  “Where you murdered Eloisa,” Nik barked back at him.

  Potter shrugged his broad shoulders as if her death had meant nothing to him and said, “She had been the murderer.”