Dead Flesh Page 25

  Potter pushed his chair back and jumped up, his claws out.

  “Sit down, Potter,” Seth grinned, flapping a long fingered hand at him. “I haven’t come here to scrap with you.”

  “So why are you here?” I breathed, getting up and standing next to Potter. “I thought you were dead – I thought you died in The Hollows.”

  “Sorry, but no,” Seth sneered, taking a seat and putting his feet up the table. “It seems that the Elders had other plans for me.”

  “Like what?” I asked, still reeling with shock at the sight of him.

  “For nearly two hundred years, I’ve waited for this moment, Hudson,” he smiled at me, but I knew it was false, I could see rage seething in his eyes.

  “What are you yapping on about?” Potter snapped.

  “The Elders brought me back, just like they did you,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs at the ankles. “But my punishment was far greater than any of yours.”

  “Punishment?” I asked him, his burning eyes never leaving mine.

  “I’d resisted you, Hudson,” he said, and rubbed his bony temples with his fingers. “I’d resisted a lot. All I wanted was my curse to be lifted. I didn’t want to be a Lycanthrope anymore. I hadn’t killed in lust for years. I’d paid my dues for what I’d done, and all I wanted was to reach the Dust Palace and have my curse lifted by the Elders.”

  “And you really thought they were going to do that...” Potter started.

  But before he’d finished, Seth had sprang from his chair. Smashing one of his skeletal-like fists down onto the table, he screeched, “I helped you!” Then, looking around the room, he seethed, “I helped all of you.” Spittle swung from his mouth and dribbled down his chin. “All you had to do, Kiera Hudson, was make one simple decision, and I could have been free of my curse.”

  “The decision I had to make wasn’t simple,” I tried to remind him.

  “You used me!” he roared, his eyes blazing. “You threw yourself at me – you made it impossible for me not to kill you.”

  “Once a killer always a killer,” Potter barked at him.

  “Not true!” Seth shrieked, punching the table so hard with his fist again that the TV Potter had placed on it actually bounced up and down. Then, coming around the table, Seth looked into my eyes. I saw Isidor and Kayla jump up, fearing that Seth might strike me, but he brushed them aside. Standing before me, he looked into my eyes and I stared into his. “I resisted you right up to the last,” he whispered, and it was like there was only us in the room – in the world. “How I fought my desires to take you, Kiera. It drove me half insane to be near you and not be able to take you then kill you.” And in his eyes, I could see myself as he hurt me. And although I was in pain and just wanted to scream over and over again until my throat was raw, I let him do those unspeakable things to me. It was like I was unable to resist him. His naked form was disgusting, like a skeleton that crows had picked the flesh from. In his eyes, I could see myself groaning with desire as I pulled him on top of me. He had me locked in his stare and I would have done anything for him, I would have let him do anything to me – kill me. My desire for him was unimaginable and I wanted him more than I had ever wanted...

  ...Potter dragged me backwards and spun me around. “Don’t look into his eyes, Kiera!” he barked. “Don’t look into his eyes.”

  Seth began to chuckle, then took his seat back at the table next to Elizabeth and the burnt-looking boy that Kayla had called Dorsey. “But you weren’t looking into my eyes in The Hollows, were you, Kiera?” Seth grinned and I caught a glimpse of those rotting stumps that protruded from his black gums.

  “I didn’t have to,” I whispered.

  “You didn’t have to because you used me,” he said, and I could hear his anger again boiling beneath the surface. “You knew that if you threw yourself at me, told me that you wanted me, I’d be unable to resist you.”

  “I couldn’t make the choice that the Elders said I had to,” I said. “It was impossible. The only way out was for me to die. All of my friends had died and I didn’t want to be alone...”

  “So you got me to make the decision for you!” Seth roared. “You coward – you silly little bitch.”

  “Get out of here!” Potter barked at him, heading around the table. Seth seemed unmoved by Potter’s display of anger and he remained seated.

  “Have you any idea what you put me through?” Seth screeched, spittle flying from his lips again. “The Elders punished me all over again for killing you, Hudson. But this time their curse was so much worse than the original curse of the Lycanthrope. They sent me back to that night – nearly two hundred fucking years ago, made me re-live it all over again. Only this time, as a Shape-Shifter.”

  “A Skin-walker?” Kayla cut in.

  “More than a Skin-walker,” Seth hissed. “I don’t need to steal skins like them. I can change into any living creature.”

  “Cool,” Isidor breathed.

  “Cool!” Seth bellowed, his wrinkled lips curling back. “It’s a fucking curse, I tell you! I don’t want to live under this spell anymore. I want to be a man again – just man.”

  “You were never a man,” Potter spat. “You were a filthy murdering killer.”

  “I know I was,” Seth hissed. “And maybe I deserved the curse of the Lycanthrope. But I had tried to change. I was so close to having the curse lifted, until she set me up in the Dust Palace.”

  “So the last two hundred years hasn’t mellowed you then?” Potter asked him.

  “I’ve had two hundred years of waiting until we met again,” Seth said. “I didn’t know when you would all put in an appearance, but I’ve bided my time. It gave me years to make plans, get myself ready for your return.”

  “What plans?” I asked him.

  “How I would finally get the great Kiera Hudson to make a choice,” he grinned at me, and his eyes spun in their sockets. “But first I had to flush you out. I got myself in with the wolves, as I can look like one of them at will – and I don’t need no children’s soul to look like a human, either. I took it upon myself to name a certain school after a certain Doctor Ravenwood. An unusual name that I knew you would be drawn to. But still you didn’t come. I thought and thought of how I could flush you out, and knowing how much you hate injustice, it was me who suggested the matching between humans and wolves when the Treaty was drawn up.”

  “So you’re this Wolf Man that we’ve heard so much about?” Potter sneered at him.

  “No,” Seth grinned back at him. “I am not he. So, the Treaty was signed and I waited and waited. Then, I read a very interesting news article about a young woman who had sat bolt upright during an autopsy and fled into the night with three strange-looking friends. One of which carried a crossbow,” he explained, eyeing Isidor. “I tracked down that pathologist, and very wild she was too. She enjoyed me so much, that she would have told me anything. And she did.”

  “What did she tell you?” I asked him, feeling sickened at the thought of him tricking that pretty young pathologist into bed with him.

  “What she told me, although it was hard for me to understand her as there was a lot of moaning and groaning going on at the time,” he winked at me, “is that as you fled the mortuary, she asked you your name, and you told her.”

  I remembered that.

  “I had you at last,” Seth said, rubbing his long hands together. “Knowing that it wouldn’t be too long before you started sticking your nose into why, and how the world had been changed, my good friend here got herself employed at Ravenwood School, as I guessed the name would arouse your interest.”

  “But it was your sister, Emily, who was employed at Ravenwood school,” I said, looking at Elizabeth.

  “I have no sister,” Elizabeth smiled. “I have no twin. There is only me. I’m Emily.”

  “But we saw you being murdered on that video footage,” Isidor said.

  “It was all just an act,” Seth chuckled. “Skin-walkers –
wolves - can heal very quickly.”

  “You’re a wolf?” Kayla gasped, staring at Emily.

  “I prefer Skin-walker,” Emily smiled quite sweetly back at Kayla. “But, yes under this human skin I am a wolf. I was matched some years ago...”

  “Look, this is all very interesting,” Potter snapped. “So McCain didn’t actually murder anyone?”

  Sighing, Seth looked at Potter and said, “Coming back from the dead hasn’t sharpened your brain at all, has it? McCain didn’t know anything about anything. As far as he was concerned, Emily Clarke was just another teacher who decided to leave, albeit leaving her room in a rather bloody mess.”

  “That’s why he was in her room that night, sniffing the walls,” Kayla breathed. “He was trying to figure out what had happened to her.”

  “But we saw McCain on the video...” Isidor started.

  “He’s slow to catch on, isn’t he?” Seth smiled. Then, looking at Potter, he added. “You two aren’t related by any chance, are you?”

  “That was you on that video,” I said, fitting all the pieces of the jigsaw together. “You said that you were a Shape-Shifter. You could look just like him at will.”

  “Not totally at will,” Seth smiled. “It’s a little bit more complex than that. I needed some of McCain’s blood. Not much, just a drop and that’s where Dorsey fit in so nicely. McCain had no idea that he was Emily’s son, he thought he was just another student.”

  I glanced at the burnt-looking boy.

  “It wasn’t very hard for me to find myself in trouble with McCain.” Dorsey said. “That prick Pryor was always ragging on me, so I spent a lot of time in McCain’s office being punished. But I didn’t care that Pryor beat me, teased me, it didn’t hurt none. In fact, the more that he beat up on me, the more chance I had of stealing what Mr. Seth needed from McCain.”

  “And what was that?” Kayla asked curiously.

  “That freak was always suffering from nosebleeds,” Dorsey said. “He couldn’t breathe properly half of the time. McCain was always ramming one of those little bottles of medicine up his nose. So, one day as he punished me, I took my chance and stole one of those medicine bottles from his pocket. And just like I knew it would be, the tip of the bottle was covered in blood from one of his nosebleeds.”

  “A drop was all I needed,” Seth smiled. “I licked the end of the bottle clean and I became him. Not for long, just for a few days. Long enough to make it look like McCain had murdered Emily Clarke in front of the camera, which we set up.” Then, reaching inside his shirt, he produced a packet of Cadbury’s chocolate fingers and threw them onto the table. “Sorry, I couldn’t think of what else to buy.”

  “So it was you who used the credit card?” I gasped.

  “Yes,” Seth smiled. “Emily lent it to me. I knew you would check that out. I wanted you to see McCain using her card – it just made the whole thing more believable and stacked the evidence nicely against him. And the rest you know.”

  “But why frame McCain?” I asked him. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense,” Seth hissed at me. “I knew that if I sent my friend Emily to you with some mystery murder, you wouldn’t be able to help yourself from investigating. I knew that if Emily mentioned the camera, you would go snooping for it. Although I must say, I was surprised you used the girl. I thought you liked taking all the glory.”

  “I couldn’t very well disguise myself as a school teacher,” I snapped at him.

  “I was hoping that you were going to dress up as a school girl,” Seth smiled back at me. “That would’ve been worth catching on camera. I could have watched it over and over again. I would have gotten a kick out of that.”

  “Shut your filthy mouth, child killer!” Potter shouted.

  “Not anymore,” Seth grinned. “I haven’t killed anyone for years. I wish the same could be said for your lover over there,” and he looked at me.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him.

  “You’re just about to let McCain die, aren’t you?” he grinned back at me, and I had to fight the urge to knock his crumbling teeth down his throat. “I think the execution is just about to start.” Seth, then lent forward and switched on the TV.

  The screen flickered into life and revealed an aerial shot of Wembley Stadium, where the execution was to take place. A news reporter was chatting excitedly about how people, most of them parents, had queued through the night to get tickets to watch McCain’s beheading.

  “But he hasn’t actually murdered anyone,” I breathed, and looked at the so-called victim, sitting across the table from me.

  “I know,” Seth chuckled. “What a dilemma you face.”

  “Dilemma?” I quizzed him.

  “So, what is the great Kiera Hudson to do?” Seth hissed, his anger simmering again. “Sit back and watch an innocent man die or...”

  “I can’t do that,” I said, looking at the TV which now showed a close-up of McCain. He was stripped to the waist, hands tied behind his back, his right foot sticking out at an odd angle. They hadn’t even bothered to fix his broken foot, I realised. Behind him stood his hooded executioner, sword in hand.

  “So what are you going to do, Hudson?” Seth gloated. “Only you can stop this from happening. You could call your friend Banner right now and tell him that you’ve made a mistake, and get McCain a stay of execution. But if you do that, everything goes back to the way it was before. McCain goes back to being in control of the matching, and we all know what will happen to those poor little children. On one hand, you could sit back and let him die. I mean the guy isn’t entirely innocent of child cruelty and playing mind tricks with all of those parents. On the other hand, you could let the execution take place and the wolves will react with violence. The Treaty that has kept an uneasy peace over the last two hundred years will fall apart, and the wolves will go back to killing indiscriminately, and this time around, there are no Vampyrus to stop them. The humans will fight back and there will be war between the wolves and the humans again.”

  Realising the decision that he was forcing me to make, I looked at him and said, “You bastard, Seth.”

  “What will it be, Kiera?” he screeched at me. “Time is running out!”

  I looked at the TV screen at the eighty thousand people crammed into Wembley Stadium, as the billions of people and wolves around the world watching the TV waited with drawn breath for the sword to fall against McCain’s neck.

  “Choose!” Seth screamed at me. “Make your choice, like the choice you should have made in The Hollows!”

  I looked at the TV again and with gooseflesh crawling all over me, I watched in horror as I realised I was too late to make my choice; McCain’s head was sliced from his neck. It spun away, and the crowds in the stadium went into a frenzy. They roared with delight but others roared in anger. These were the Skin-walkers who, hidden beneath their human skins, had snuck into the stadium. McCain’s head hadn’t even stopped spinning across the ground when the Skin-walkers changed back into wolves and started to devour the humans cheering all around them.

  Wembley Stadium erupted into something that looked close to a bloody slaughterhouse. The screen then flickered and changed shot, as other news reports started to come in from across the country, as wolves took to the streets and ripped the first human they came across to pieces.

  Seth stood and snapped off the TV. Then, turning to look at me, he began to slowly applaud. “Kiera Hudson, you really are something else.”

  I just looked back at him, the consequences of what was now unfolding, barely comprehendible.

  “I’ve got to give it to you and your merry team of misfits,” Seth sighed, heading for the door. “You‘ve been back such a short time, and already you’ve destroyed a Treaty that had been working to keep peace for the last two hundred years, and reignited the war between humans and the wolves. And for every human woman, man, and child that dies, their blood will be forever on your hands.”

 
I watched speechless, as Emily and Dorsey stepped out into the hall, leaving Seth alone with us.

  “I should rip your fucking head off,” Potter roared at him.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Seth smiled at him.

  “Give me once good reason why not,” I spat.

  “Because only I know the secrets of how to put this whole mess right again. You were right, Kiera, the world has been pushed, but you’ve just gone and knocked it over!” Seth laughed, staring into my eyes again. “And besides, Kiera, I know you don’t want me dead just yet.”

  “How do you figure that?” I asked, using every ounce of willpower to not leap across the room and rip his crazy-looking eyes from his skull.

  Looking at me, Seth said, “You don’t remember how I killed you back in The Hollows, do you?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head.

  “But you do want to know,” he said, running his grey tongue over his cracked lips. “And one day I will tell you. But for now, let’s just say that you loved every moment of it.”

  “Get out of here!” I screamed at him.

  Smiling one last time at me, Seth said, “I’ll be in touch.”

  Then, he was gone, and all I could hear was the sound of him laughing as he made his way down the hall. I turned to face Potter and whispered, “Oh my God, what have I done?”

  To Be Continued in ‘Dead Angels’

  Book Two Coming Soon!

  Also by Tim O’Rourke

  ‘Vampire Shift’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 1)

  ‘Vampire Wake’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 2)

  ‘Vampire Hunt’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 3)

  ‘Vampire Breed’ Kiera Hudson Series One Book 4)

  ‘Wolf House’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 4.5)

  ‘Vampire Hollows’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 5)

  ‘Black Hill Farm’ (Book One)

  ‘Black Hill Farm: Andy’s Diary’ (Book Two)

  Doorways (Book One)