Kiera Hudson & The Man Who Loved Snow Read online

  As the witches and wizards came forward, coils of light leaking around their fingers and from the tips of the staffs some of them carried, Araghney whispered one word under her breath: “Sex.”

  At once, the witches and wizards who had streamed into the hall turned on each other as they fell under Araghney’s spell. At first Jack thought that the witches and wizards were attacking each other. But as he continued to stare at them, he could see that, in fact, they were frantically pulling their robes from each other. They were no longer interested in the two wolves and the witch, but fondling and kissing each other.

  “See, this is much more fun.” Araghney almost seem to giggle with delight. “I always knew that the Wicce preferred to be lovers rather than fighters, but this is something else.”

  She continued to chuckle to herself as the witches and wizards removed the last of their flowing robes. Now that all of them were completely naked, they wasted no time in starting to have sex with each other.

  Go on, Jacky boy, get stuck in, the wolf taunted Jack.

  Jack dug his claws into the stone paving beneath his paws. The urge to race forward and join in the orgy of flesh that lay before him was overwhelming. He watched the naked bodies writhe together like a sea of limbs. His ears pricked up as they absorbed the sounds of moaning and groaning as the wizards and witches lost themselves in wild abandonment and pleasure.

  Go on, Jacky boy, treat yourself, the wolf teased. You deserve it.

  Jack’s twisted black heart began to race as he watched the men and women, men and men, women and women, pleasure themselves and each other on the floor of the grand hallway spread before him. It was as if the wizards and witches were now so consumed with their own depraved lust and pleasure, it was like Jack, Roc, and Araghney were not even there. But that was the whole point of the spell, wasn’t it? Jack wondered.

  Unable to defy his own growing lust and excitement and the wolf snarling inside of him, Jack put one paw forward.

  “No!” Araghney screeched at him. “Control yourself, Jack Seth. This is not what we have come here for. We have to set the prisoner free.”

  Araghney’s voice was so shrill and piercing, it was as if she had climbed down off Roc’s back and struck him.

  Returning to his senses once more as the wolf retreated back inside, Jack turned his blazing stare on Araghney.

  “This way,” she said, tugging on Roc’s chain again.

  The wolf bounded away and Jack followed them along a twisting corridor. Those Talismen, witches and wizards, who dared to approach, Araghney simply struck down with another of her demonic spells. Jack heard screams and cries all around him, as witches and wizards turned on each other, killed each other, and themselves, all under Araghney’s command.

  At the end of the corridor they had been bounding along, they came upon a set of stone stairs that spiralled downwards into a well of darkness.

  “The cells are this way,” Araghney said, urging Roc down into the narrow stairwell.

  Jack followed behind, Roc’s tail swishing just inches from his face. At the bottom of the stairs, they found themselves in the cellblock. There were six cells in all, three on each side of the passageway. Gas lights flickered from the walls. Jack could hear the sound of dripping water coming from somewhere close by.

  Araghney dismounted Roc. She released the chain that was wound about her fist. With her dress swishing out behind her, she hurried along the passageway, glancing through the iron bars of each cell in turn. Reaching the last of the cells, Araghney stopped. Both Roc and Jack sauntered forward, stopping on each side of her. Jack peered through the narrow bars and could see a young woman asleep on a cot on the opposite side of the cell. The stone floor was covered in straw. There was a porcelain pot in one corner, which Jack guessed the prisoner used as a toilet.

  Araghney grabbed the lock attached to the cell door. Extending her index finger, she placed it against the hole where a key would have fitted. Her fingertip glowed blue before a streak of light fizzed into the lock. An audible clicking sound echoed along the cellblock. Smiling to herself, Araghney pushed the cell door open and stepped inside. She stopped beside the bed where the young woman slept.

  “Wake up,” Araghney said, a soothing tone to her voice.

  When the young woman didn’t stir, Araghney placed one hand on her shoulder and gently shook her. The young woman rolled onto her back before opening her eyes. Seeing Araghney peering down at her, she sat bolt upright. She peered over Araghney’s shoulder and saw the two giant wolves crammed in the narrow passageway.

  She looked back at Araghney. She didn’t look scared nor intimidated at the sight of the wolves. “Who are you?” she asked Araghney.

  Instead of answering her question, Araghney asked one of her own. “Are you Clarabelle?”

  The young woman nodded her head, her long blonde hair swishing about her shoulders. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” she asked again. She glanced at the wolves once more, then back at Araghney.

  “My name is Araghney,” she said. “My companions and I have come to rescue you from this prison.”

  “Why?” Clarabelle asked, throwing back the blankets and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

  “Because we all have one thing in common.” Araghney smiled down at her.

  Clarabelle got to her feet. Jack peered through the cell bars and could see she was wearing a black top and trousers that were made of a rough-looking weave. He thought she looked to be in her mid-twenties. She wore nothing on her feet, and just like Roc’s, they were grey and dirty. She didn’t look undernourished like him, but had a good figure. She was very attractive and looked like many of the previous young women he had murdered.

  I know what you’re thinking, Jacky boy, the wolf whispered inside of him. Naughty boy! We’ve come to rescue her, not kill her. Perhaps when all this is over, huh?

  Jack ignored the wolf and continued to peer through the bars at Clarabelle.

  “And what is it we all have in common?” she asked Araghney.

  “We want to find then kill the railway man,” Araghney said. “Would you like to kill the man who stole your baby daughter from you?”

  Clarabelle stared at Araghney then smiled. “More than anything,” she whispered.

  “Perfect.” Araghney smiled back.

  Without further discussion or comment, Clarabelle followed the witch and the two wolves from the cellblock. They ignored the other prisoners who begged to be released. They headed up the spiral staircase, through the maze of narrow passageways, and into the grand hallway. Clarabelle looked bemused at the sea of writhing bodies that stretched before her. Araghney and the others stepped around the naked wizards and witches, as they continued with their sexual depravity.

  Outside, Clarabelle drew in a lungful of clean, night air. It was her first taste of freedom and it felt good. A few of the Talismen who Jack and Roc hadn’t butchered were still blindly crawling around on their hands and knees searching for their eyes. Some lay on their backs, having either given up their search or had simply died.

  “What’s their problem?” Clarabelle asked, stepping over one of the Talismen as he continued to bleed from his empty eye sockets.

  “They didn’t see us coming,” Araghney chuckled to herself. “That was the problem.”

  At the foot of the steps, Araghney turned to face the Talisman Institute. Jack and Roc took on their human-looking forms once more. And as they changed, Clarabelle looked at them both and said, “I can do that.”

  “Cool.” Roc sniggered.

  Jack wasn’t surprised by what Clarabelle had said, he was more surprised by what Roc had said. It was the first time Jack had heard the pathetic-looking young man speak.

  The three of them stood at Araghney’s side as she continued to stare at the Institute. Through the open doorway, they could hear the frantic moaning and groaning of those witches and wizards who continued to mindlessly fuck each other.

  “Burn!” Araghney spat through
gritted teeth.

  At once, the Talisman Institute burst into a ball of seething flames. Jack no longer heard the sound of frantic lovemaking, just the sound of agonising screams.

  “Come on, our work is done here,” Araghney said, turning her back on the burning Institute. She pulled Roc’s chain, and he obediently followed her once more.

  In silence, the four of them left the grounds of the Talisman Institute and began their hunt for Noah, the ancient railway man.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The year 2067

  Karl swung his legs over the side of the bed. His throat still felt sore, and in the dull grey light that illuminated his room, he could see that the backs of his hands were covered in faint red welts. At first, he had no idea what they were. He wondered if perhaps they were some kind of a rash. But as he stared down at his hands, it wasn’t only the nightmare he had recently woken from that ran amok at the back of his mind, but faint memories of the accident he had been in last night. And as he sat forward on the edge of his bed, he thought of the nightmare he’d just woken from. He couldn’t help but see the similarities of the accident he had dreamt of, and the one he had been involved in last night.

  In that accident, his car had burst into flames. He slowly raised his hands and realised that they weren’t covered in a rash, but burns. And as he stared wide-eyed at his hands, Karl remembered the flames that consumed the patrol car and he thought he saw Annora in them just like he had seen her in his dream. The dream where coils of blue and purple light leaked from her fingers, and her hands that had suddenly looked like claws.

  “What the fuck is happening to me?” Karl groaned as he stood up from the edge of the bed. He glanced down to see he was wearing nothing more than boxer shorts. But who had undressed him? And who had rescued him from the seething ball of flames? And how had he got back to his room at the Night Diner?

  As he stumbled and staggered toward the bathroom, the memories of what had happened the night before gradually began to break through the fog in his mind and the last remaining shards of the nightmare. He turned on the shower, then pulled off his shorts. Naked, Karl stepped beneath the warm running water that sprayed from the showerhead. With hands pressed flat against the tiles of the shower stall, Karl hunched his shoulders and lowered his head forward as the water beat against his back. With eyes closed, Karl fought to remember everything that had happened to him the night before. It wasn’t long before he remembered how the corpse in the shipping crate had sprang back to life. He remembered with horror how his bullets seemed to have had no effect on the dead man. With eyes screwed shut, Karl wasn’t so sure that the man he’d shot was human at all. The man had had wings, hadn’t he? Hadn’t that winged man—creature—chased after Karl as he tried to flee Outpost 71? But not only had the dead man had wings, but fangs just like a vampire, too. Karl remembered that if it hadn’t been for the small umbrella that the Sex Bot had given to him, he might never have survived the attack from the vampire. With thoughts of that umbrella at the forefront of his mind, Karl suddenly remembered that it was the Bot—the one who had stolen Annora Snow’s identity—who had saved him from the car crash last night. Was that the reason he had dreamt of the car crash he’d been in with the real Annora Snow? Somehow, had the two incidents blurred into one in his mind as he had slept? Was that why he’d dreamt of streaks of light streaming from Annora’s hands? Was it not the flames that had been eating the patrol vehicle that he had seen?

  Karl turned off the water and stepped from the shower. As he stood and toweled himself dry, he remembered how the Bot had carried him back to his room. He remembered half opening his eyes and seeing the Bot sitting in the chair by the window, looking identical to Annora Snow. And in his semiconscious state, Karl had believed the Bot to truly be her. He’d beckoned her over to the bed where he lay. And that’s when unconsciousness had finally taken him—as he lay next to the Bot believing that he was once more in the arms of the woman he loved, Annora Snow. But now, in the cold light of day, Karl realised that it hadn’t been Annora he’d been holding, but the Bot.

  He stepped back into his room, and as he got dressed, he wondered where the Bot was now. Why had it slipped away in the middle of the night? And why had it tried to warn him against the Night Diner? Or had the Bot really been warning him against vampires that had once been known as the Night Diners because they had fed on humans at night? And why had the Bot given him the umbrella, which undoubtedly had saved his life? Was the Bot his self-appointed protector? If so, why?

  Needing answers to his questions, Karl headed out of his room in search of the Bot. He had begun to suspect that perhaps the Bot knew more about what was happening at Outpost 71 than he had first believed or had given it credit for.

  Karl made his way along the narrow passageway, passing the doors to the other rooms on his left and right. Once more, the Night Diner, during daylight hours, seemed deathly quiet. Karl headed downstairs and was somewhat surprised to find the Bot not waiting in the shadows at the bottom of the staircase. It was the place where it seemed to like to hang out. But not today. As Karl headed past the vending machines, he wondered if the jukebox had been fixed. A light flickered intermittently behind its glass paneling. Maybe Hex had been true to his word and had had the jukebox mended. Hex just had to fill the vending machines with some decent-looking food.

  Unable to see any sign of the Bot, Karl headed into the main bar area. At first, he thought it was deserted, as there was no sign of anyone present. But as he made his way across the desolate dancefloor, he heard the clinking of glasses. Karl turned around to see Hex, the barman, replacing some of the empty bottles of whisky behind the bar.

  “Are you looking for something?” Hex called to him. “You look kind of lost.”

  Fearing how it was going to sound, Karl swallowed hard before saying, “I was looking for that Bot.”

  A slow smile crept across the barman’s face. “The Sex Bot, you mean?”

  “Yeah, if you say so,” Karl said nonchalantly.

  “You can’t leave that thing alone, can you?” Hex said, his grin widening.

  “It’s not what you think,” Karl said, growing tired of the barman’s continual comments about him and the Bot. “I just need to speak with it, that’s all.”

  Hex cocked an eyebrow at Karl. “Oh yeah? About what?”

  It was on the tip of Karl’s tongue to tell Hex about everything that had happened to him the night before. He momentarily considered telling the barman about the corpse and how it had become a winged vampire, and about how the Bot had saved his life. But before the words had a chance to pass over his lips, Karl bit his tongue. Despite him and the barman seeming to have reached some kind of understanding, Karl didn’t know for sure whether to trust Hex or not. He was little more than a stranger to him. And if the Bot’s warning about the Night Diner or Night Diners was correct, then perhaps Hex the barman was in some way embroiled in the mysterious happenings that were taking place in Outpost 71. In fact, Karl wasn’t sure who he could trust. Officer Selina Riley had seemed to have disappeared last night when he had been calling for backup. Sergeant Shaw and Lisa Scott seemed to believe that the first victim, Lucy May, had somehow overdosed, despite being found with her head hanging off. But it wasn’t just Hex that Karl wasn’t sure about confiding in regarding the vampire that had attacked him and how the Bot had come to his rescue. Karl now wasn’t so sure whether he should mention any of it to his colleagues when he next met up with them.

  But he knew he would have to say something. After all, the patrol vehicle he had been driving last night was now nothing but a burnt-out wreck in the wastelands that surrounded Outpost 71.

  “So what do you need to speak to the Sex Bot about?” the Barman prompted him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Karl said, turning away from the bar.

  “So what should I say to her?” Hex called after him.

  As Karl headed for the door, he stopped midstride and looked back. “Say to who?” />
  “Do you have a message for Sex Box, just in case I should see her?” the barman asked.

  “Yeah,” Karl said, “tell the Bot I said thanks.”

  “Thanks for what?”

  “I think she’ll know what I’m talking about,” Karl said, heading out of the Night Diner and into the cold morning light.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The year 2018

  Still wearing the black lace top, short skirt, and black boots that she had been wearing at the bar, Carol set off across the moors in the direction of the house that Noah had called Hallowed Manor. In the blue light of the moon, Carol tripped and stumbled across the moor until she reached a narrow track. Still shivering, and with her arms wrapped tight about her, Carol headed along the winding track until, in the distance, she could see a large stone wall. As she drew nearer, she could see a tall black iron gate set into it. Beside this there was what appeared to be some kind of gatehouse.

  Carol reached the gate and peered through the bars. The winding gravel path beyond them led away into the distance and toward the manor house that loomed like a giant in the moonlight. There was no bell pulley that Carol could see, so she pushed against the gate. It made a wailing sound on unoiled hinges. Carol slipped through the gap she had made and headed up the gravel path. Now that she was in the grounds of Hallowed Manor, she could see wide, moonlit lawns that were surrounded on all sides by tall dense trees. The drive led to a set of stone steps. At the top of them were a double set of wide wooden doors.

  Carol climbed the steps up to the front door. She closed her fist around the metal door knocker. It clanged like thunder. She waited in the dark and the cold, but there was no answer. As she raised her fist to knock on the door once more, it suddenly swung open.

  “Who are you?” the man who had opened the door asked.