Werewolves of Shade (Part Four) (Beautiful Immortals Series Book 4) Page 3

  So why then had Rush told me that the teacher was just some old woman who had died many years ago, as if she had been nothing more than a complete stranger to him? Had Rush and the others been in Shade longer than he wanted me to believe?

  Not knowing what to think, I stepped into what was Julie Miller’s cottage, closing the door shut tight behind me. With the key still in my hand, I locked the door.

  Chapter Four

  Heading along the narrow hallway, I passed the foot of the stairs and went into the kitchen. I switched on the light, but nothing happened. It seemed that the electricity had gone. This didn’t overly worry me as the lights often went out in Maze. I could remember seeing a box of candles and matches in one of the kitchen cupboards. With my hands outstretched before me, I made my way slowly across the kitchen. In the near dark, I struck my shin against a chair leg and cried out.

  “Blast,” I muttered under my breath, a spike of pain shooting up my leg.

  Feeling the cupboard door beneath my fingertips, I yanked it open and blindly reached inside for the candles and book of matches. With them in my hands, I lit a match then one of the candles. I took a saucer, dripped some warm wax onto it, then fixed the candle firmly in place. I took off my coat and shook the rain from it. I then draped it over the back of the chair I’d clattered into in the dark.

  With the candle wavering in my hand and throwing eerie shadows over the kitchen walls, I heated some water on the agar stove that Calix had earlier filled with coals. I heaped a spoonful of coffee into a mug and dropped a piece of what looked like steak into a pan and flash fried it over the stove. I wondered if the bloody red meat that Calix had brought me had come from the butcher’s shop owned by Annabel and Clarabel’s father. If my stomach hadn’t ached so much with hunger, then perhaps I would have put the meat to one side and forgotten all about it, but it smelt too good to waste.

  The gun still swung from my thigh and I kept it in place. I decided that from now on I would keep the gun close to me. Never again did I want it to be out of reach should I need it. Never again did I want to be accused of letting one of the school children die, or anyone else for that matter. But more than that, I wanted to protect myself from whatever had killed Annabel. Werewolf or not, someone or something had killed her – torn open her throat. Then with a sudden spark of panic stabbing at my heart, I wondered for the first time if whoever or whatever had killed Annabel had seen me. If it had, then perhaps it feared that I had seen it. Did it wonder whether I could identify it? Tell Rea and the others who or what it was that had killed Annabel. If it believed I could identify it, wouldn’t it then want to silence me? Would it come looking for me – come to the cottage – come and rip out my throat just like it had ripped out Annabel’s?

  Folding the piece of meat up in a slice of bread, I took it along with the mug of black coffee and the candle up to my room. Closing the door behind me and setting the plate, mug, and candle down, I took off my clothes and threw on a nightdress that I had found in the set of drawers. I wouldn’t ever sleep again naked out of the fear that I might wake one morning to find Calix sitting at the end of my bed and perving over me again. Another reason to keep the gun close. I took it and placed it beneath my pillow. Dressed in the nightie, I sat cross-legged at the end of the bed. I blew out the candle. The only light now came from the half-moon that peeked around the edges of the rain-swollen clouds that scudded across the night sky. Taking a bite of the sandwich, I washed it down with a swig of the coffee. I was waiting to see if the wolf came back again tonight. It been there for the last two nights, so why not again? And if it did return, I wanted to see from whereabouts it came. And if it was a werewolf, I wondered who it was hiding beneath the fur. I could remember enough of my uncle’s tales about the Beautiful Immortals to know that werewolves could look human too.

  I suspected now that Rush had lied to me more than once. He had lied about Annabel and about Julia Miller. Was there an innocent explanation as to why he hadn’t been totally honest with me? Even if there was, what else had Rush told me that wasn’t the truth – or simply omitted to tell me? I didn’t trust Calix as far as I could throw him. But knowing Rush hadn’t been entirely straight with me had rattled me somehow. Was it because deep down somewhere I quite liked him? Was it because we had shared that kiss? I’d shared a kiss with Calix too – but that didn’t count. He had taken advantage of me while I’d been sleeping. He was always taking advantage. That kiss had meant nothing to me – the only feelings it had stirred in me were those of revulsion. But the kiss with Rush had been different. It felt like it had meant something not only to me – but to Rush too. So why had he lied to me? Was the word lie too strong? I wondered, taking another bite of the sandwich. My stomach welcomed it with a cry of joy. I sipped more of the hot coffee. Was I just making excuses for Rush because I liked him? And what of Rea? I wasn’t sure what to make of her. She had raised Rush and Calix, led them to safety when only my age. That had been a noble and courageous thing for her to do. A lot of young women might not have wanted to take on the responsibility of looking after two young brothers. She had all the same. So didn’t that suggest at least that she had a good heart? But what about those noises I had heard coming from the pub? They had been the unmistaken sounds of two people having sex. I’d believed it to have been Rea and Calix going at it, but he had denied it. But he would deny such a thing, wouldn’t he? Perhaps his younger brother Rush didn’t know about what he got up to with Rea when he was sent into the woods to look for holes in the wall? Of course Calix wouldn’t admit to such a thing. I had seen his reaction when discovering that Rush had told me about how badly he had been treated as a boy by their father. He had attacked Rush for telling me about that. Calix was the type of guy who liked to keep his secrets closely guarded. But didn’t everyone? I had been horrified when I realised my uncle had known about what Flint and I got up to when he was away from Maze. I was even more mortified when I learnt that mine and Flint’s relationship had been the cause of much gossip amongst the townsfolk. So could I really blame Calix for wanting to keep his relationship with Rea a secret? And what business was it of mine? What did it matter to me if Rea and Calix were lovers? As long as he kept his grubby hands off me from now on, I would be happy.

  There was a noise so sudden from outside, that I nearly spilt the coffee all over me. Pushing the last corner of the sandwich into my mouth, I peered from the window. The giant wolf raised its head and looked up at me. How had I missed it? How hadn’t I seen it slink across the park and up to the front gate – it was big enough. Because I’d been sitting in the dark thinking about Calix – about Rush – and not staying focused. Putting the mug down, I climbed from the foot of the bed and peered back at the wolf from the open window. What was the point in hiding in the dark anymore? The werewolf had seen me.

  The rain had stopped now and a chill breeze swept across the park that stretched away from the front of the cottage. I looked down into the wolf’s eyes. Its coat was a maze of dazzling white and grey fur, its eyes a brilliant furnace-like orange. It sat on its huge hindquarters and watched me. It didn’t snarl or howl. It just looked at me. Our eyes locked. Strangely, I didn’t feel scared like I had before. Had there ever been any reason to be scared of the creature that came and sat at the end of my garden path each night? It hadn’t attacked me. It looked big enough and powerful enough to tear my front door to nothing more than splinters if it wanted to. But it hadn’t. It was like it had kept what it considered to be a respectful distance. But I should be scared, shouldn’t I? If I was right in my beliefs, the creature was a werewolf. It was one of the Beautiful Immortals and I believed it to be responsible for the death of that little girl, Annabel. It had been the werewolf sitting watching me from the darkness that had killed her and not me. Killer or not, the creature, as it sat in the moonlight looking up at me, did look so incredibly beautiful. We humans had been right to name them the Beautiful Immortals.

  I blinked and shook my head from side to side. W
hat was I thinking? The creature staring back at me from the darkness was just that – a monster. It was a killer – one of the Beautiful Immortals that had destroyed much of my world – the human world. How could I even, for one moment, believe it to be beautiful? It was nothing more than a killer. That’s all any of the Beautiful Immortals had ever been. They would have killed all the humans if it hadn’t have been for the young witch. And what was this werewolf doing sitting and watching me from the end of my garden path? Hadn’t the witch banished all of them – the werewolves and vampires?

  Without warning and as if being able to read my mind, the wolf stood up on it back legs. As it did, its body began to shape-shift – take on the form of a man. But with the moonlight behind him, it was hard to see his face. In one quick leap, the wolf-man sprung from the path and up to my window. With a scream trapped in the back of my throat, I stumbled backwards and onto the bed. The man sat perched in the open window, his claws sunk deep into the frame. Throwing back his head, he released a guttural howl. With moonlight splashed over him, I could see that the creature had a face that I could only describe as being half-man and half-wolf. It was like the two species had been moulded together. His eyes looked very human, although they glowed as if a spark burnt deep within them. His dark eyebrows came together as one over the bridge of his nose. The werewolf’s hair was long and thick, now black and not the shimmering white and grey I had seen before. It covered the sides of his face and neck, chest, arms, and legs. His ears were stretched into points on either side of his face. His mouth was fixed into what looked like a snarl, pointed teeth bared as he sprang from the window ledge and into my bedroom.

  Chapter Five

  It felt cold. I was cold and lying on my front. I opened my eyes. My bedroom swam before me. I closed them again. The daylight that shone through the window was just too bright. My mouth and throat felt dry and my whole body ached. I felt like I’d been in some kind of fight. A fight so fraught that I’d had to use every ounce of my strength to survive. Slowly, I opened my eyes again. Everything seemed to look as it always had. Nothing had been disturbed or knocked over. The cup, plate and candle that I’d brought up to bed with me last night was still on the set of drawers by the window where I’d left them. The window! The werewolf! I shot up and it was then I realised that I was naked. Covering my breasts with my arms, I shot a look at the door, half expecting to see Calix grinning from around the edge of it. But he wasn’t there. The door was still closed, just as I had left it. The nightdress that I’d put on the night before now lay on the floor. Leaning over the edge of the bed, I picked it up. Holding it out before me, I looked at the tattered mess that it now was. It had been ripped to nothing more than tangled shreds.

  “What the fu…” I gasped, scratching my head.

  Throwing what was left of the nightdress to one side I pulled a sheet free from the bed and wrapped myself in it. I looked back at the window, which was now closed. Through the fog that now clouded my mind, I remembered watching the wolf from the window last night. It had sat as usual at the end of the front garden path. It had been watching me. We had been watching each other. But something different had happened. The wolf had changed. With one hand holding the sheet tight about me, I edged my way to the foot of the bed. I sat and stared up at the window. I could see the wolf there. Closing my eyes, I remembered it springing up out of the darkness at me. It looked half man and half wolf. He had looked strangely beautiful, with his bright glowing eyes and long thick hair. But the werewolf had also looked fearsome as it had sat perched in the open window, head thrown back as it had howled, long jagged claws scratching at the window frame. Had it been there at all? Had I not just fallen asleep on my bed while waiting for the wolf to appear at the end of my path?

  Opening my eyes again, I took another look down at the torn nightdress where it lay on the floor.

  “Who then had ripped that to pieces?” I whispered to myself. Had I done it? I looked at my fingertips. My nails were long, but not that long – not long enough to rip the nightdress to pieces. And why would I? And in my sleep? I looked back toward the window. Holding the sheet tight with one hand, I climbed from the bed and crossed the room. The window was closed, so perhaps I had dreamt the whole thing? I pressed my fingertips against the windowpane and pushed. The window swung slowly open. It wasn’t locked. A cold blast of air rushed in, blowing my long, blonde hair from my bare shoulders. I reached for the window to close it and saw the splintered window frame. My hand fell away and went to my face. Both sides of the window frame were covered in deep scratch marks, like claws had been dragged over them. I stumbled back from the window and spun around. I looked at the bed. Had there been a werewolf in my room with me last night? Had it been responsible for tearing my nightdress from me? If so, what else had the werewolf done? I looked back at the window, then at my fingernails again. Had I made those scratches around the window frame? No way! They were too deep. If I had, my fingertips would be bloody and raw. And why was I standing in my room trying to come up with reasons as to why it might have been me who had ripped off my own nightdress and caused the damage to the window? Because if I admitted to myself that it couldn’t possibly have been me, then it meant that a werewolf really had come into my room last night. But why couldn’t I remember? Why did my brain feel like it had been put through my uncle’s printing press? Maybe I didn’t want to remember. Perhaps what the werewolf had done to me had been so horrific that my mind had blocked it out. Put a barrier between me and it to stop me from going completely mad. Had I been right in my fear that the werewolf that had killed Annabel had seen me and it knew I had seen it? Had it come to me like I feared it would to give me some kind of warning? Then why couldn’t I remember? And why hadn’t it killed me? Apart from every muscle in my back, arms, and legs aching, I was unharmed.

  “The gun!” I suddenly cried out loud.

  Driving my hand under the pillow, I searched for it. My fingers brushed over cold metal. I pulled the gun out, holding it in my fist. The werewolf hadn’t taken it. Yet, again I had failed to reach for the one thing that my uncle said would keep me alive in Shade. When would I ever start to learn? Perhaps I should nail it to my hand? But just like Calix had gloated, what was the point in having a gun if I didn’t know how to use it? Was that why I failed to reach for it – because I didn’t know how to fire the damn thing? Well today, I would change that. There was no school over the weekend, so I would spend it teaching myself to shoot. I would go back to that hill where Calix had taken me. There had been some kind of old disused house there. It was a place I could practice without being seen. The old building would hopefully muffle the sounds of my gun firing. I could practice in private there.

  Gripping the gun and the sheet trailing out behind me, I left my room and headed down the landing toward the bathroom. Placing the gun down next to the bath so it was within easy reach, I turned on the shower. I waited for the pipes to stop banging and rattling deep behind the walls as the water chugged through them and out of the shower head. When the water was flowing fast and clear, I let the sheet fall away from around my shoulders and I stepped beneath the water. It wasn’t as cold as it had been before. The water wasn’t hot either, just lukewarm. Had the stove that Calix had filled with coals heated the water somehow? If it had I was grateful to him for doing that at least. Turning around beneath the water, I let it run through my hair and over my back.

  “Ouch!” I cried, springing out from beneath the water. My back felt suddenly painful, like it was burning. But the water was barely warm. All the same, the flesh covering my back now felt scorched. Standing before the cracked mirror fixed to the bathroom wall, I turned my back toward it and glanced over my shoulder.

  “What? How?” I gasped, staring at the claw marks that ran the length of my back.

  Chapter Six

  I looked at my back. I couldn’t stop looking at the jagged tears that stretched from between my shoulder blades all the way down to the groove of my arse. There were ten i
n all, like two sets of claws had been dragged down the length of me. The flesh was split in places and a bright red shone from beneath. The scratches looked so angry and raw that I was surprised that I wasn’t in complete and utter agony, but they did little more than sting, like I was suffering from sunburn.

  Leaning forward and arching my back, I reached around with my hands. I wanted to see if I could have somehow made the marks that now covered me. My fingertips could barely reach them, let alone make them. Standing straight again, I reached round over each shoulder. Looking back into the mirror I could see that my fingernails were just long enough to reach the top of the first cut, but no more. Lowering my hands, I knew that I hadn’t been able to make those scratches, however hard I tried.

  There was only one person – one thing – that could have put those scratches there. Plucking up the sheet again, I encased my damp body within it and shut off the shower. With my legs feeling weak, I dropped down onto the edge of the bath. I closed my eyes tight and tried to play out everything I could remember from the night before up until the point my mind had gone blank – to the moment I had woken to find myself lying naked face down on the bed. My heart raced in my ears as I tried to remember. I could see myself sitting at the foot of the bed, eating the sandwich and drinking the coffee I had made. I had been waiting for the wolf to return. I had been watching for it. But it had somehow suddenly appeared at the end of the front garden path, just like it had before. Our eyes had met – we had stared at each other – me from the window and the wolf from the end of the front path. Its eyes had blazed – been mesmerising somehow. The wolf had started to shift – change shape – become more like a man than beast. From the darkness it had sprung up to my window, hands twisted into claws, scratching and tearing at the window frame. Throwing back its head, face upturned toward the moon, it had howled before leaping into my room.