Kiera Hudson & The Man Who Loved Snow Read online

  “You’re free of it,” he said. “Now get out of here.”

  Someone shouted. “Hey, you!”

  Carol glanced along the alleyway. While she had been distracted by Jake, two police vehicles had arrived and were now parked at the opposite end of the alleyway to her. The vehicles’ emergency lights flashed red and blue in the darkness.

  Carol turned to face Jake once more, but he was no longer there. It was like he had simply vanished. Before she’d had a chance to figure out where Jake had disappeared to, Carol felt a hand fall on her shoulder. Fearing that perhaps it was a police officer who had crept into the alleyway from the other end, she spun around. At first, she believed the man in the blue uniform who was stepping out of the shadows was, in fact, a police officer.

  But as Carol looked closer still, she could see that it wasn’t a police uniform the man was wearing, but a tatty old railway man’s tunic and cap.

  Chapter Seven

  The year 2067

  As Kiera Hudson raced into the night with her arms held tight about Annora’s waist, she felt a sinking feeling in her heart. Kiera knew some of Annora’s story, but not all of it. And once she had started to fill in some of the gaps for Annora, the young woman that clung tightly to her now would probably want to get as far away from Kiera as possible. The truth that Annora faced would be unbearable for her. It would change everything. Annora would look to Kiera for answers, but she didn’t know all of them herself. She only partially knew who and what Annora was. And just like Kiera had once done, Annora would have to find out the truth for herself. She would go off in search of answers, but Kiera couldn’t let Annora stray too far. Selfishly, Kiera would have to keep Annora close for the sake of her son.

  Annora buried herself close against Kiera as they raced through the rain-drenched clouds. And just like her own, Kiera’s long black hair, which was flecked with blue streaks, twisted and curled out behind as they raced through the sky at a terrifying speed. Annora looked down, through the gaps in the clouds, but the world below was little more than a fleeting blur as they soared above it. She turned her head sideways and stole a glance at Kiera. The young woman was truly beautiful, and Annora hoped that Karl had inherited not only Kiera’s features, but her personality, too. She prayed that Karl, who she had allegedly once been in love with, didn’t have his father’s attitude. As Annora continued to steal a look at Kiera, she found it hard to believe that this young woman, who looked no older than Annora herself, could be the mother of Karl Potter. It seemed unnatural. But then again, wasn’t the whole situation she now found herself in more than a little unnatural? Noah, if she could believe what he had told her, had said that creatures—Vampyrus—like Kiera and Potter didn’t age the same way as humans did. Annora found it hard to reconcile that she would one day look older than the woman she was now holding onto as they sped through the night sky.

  Annora felt as if her stomach was in her throat as Kiera dropped out of the sky, just as Potter did, who was a little ahead of them. The wind and the rain spiralled about them like a mini tornado as they swooped out of the sky and down toward the ground. Both Kiera and Potter hit the ground with such force, that the damp earth split and cracked beneath their boots before spraying grit and dirt up into the air. Annora felt as if every bone in her body had been shaken about as Kiera slid her arm from around her waist and set her free.

  Kiera saw Annora wobble precariously from side to side. She took hold of Annora’s arm and asked, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Annora replied, as the world appeared to come into focus once more about her. She looked front and could see they had come to land in front of the mountains that she had seen from a distance on the outskirts of Outpost 71. Whereas once they had looked like nothing more than a charcoal smudge on the horizon, they now towered tall and huge above her like giant ogres. They looked dark and intimidating. Their jagged black peaks looked like a set of spiked jaws stretched out against the night sky.

  “We don’t have time to stand and admire the view,” Potter said, striding forward toward the rocky landscape stretched before them. Annora could see cigarette smoke streaming out behind him. It smelt pungent on the clean night air. As he walked away, Annora saw his wings withdrawing into his back like the roof of a soft-top car. Within mere moments, it was like they had never been there at all. She glanced sideways at Kiera, whose wings were also disappearing beneath her coat.

  Kiera caught Annora staring at her. “What?” She smiled.

  “Where do those things… those wings… disappear to?” Annora asked, sounding a little out of breath.

  “Inside of me,” Kiera said, remembering how she had first discovered that she had wings. It had been up in the attic at Hallowed Manor, where Doctor Ravenwood had set up a makeshift hospital for the dying half-breeds. He’d used some ancient-looking camera to x-ray her ribcage. It was only then, as she sat wide-eyed and in horror staring at the x-ray plates, that she realised she wasn’t entirely human. And as Kiera now stared at Annora, she knew that Annora, too, was going to soon discover she was not entirely human, either.

  “Doesn’t it kind of freak you out to know that those wings are inside of you?” Annora asked.

  “It did once,” Kiera confessed. “If I’m being honest, I hated them. The thought of those wings, with their tiny black claws, sickened me. But they don’t anymore.”

  “So what changed?” Annora asked, opening the umbrella once more, and holding it over both their heads to protect them from the rain. They walked behind Potter in the direction of the nearby mountain range.

  Knowing that Annora would soon be experiencing the same feelings of repulsion and self-loathing that she once had, Kiera chose her next words with care. “My feelings changed when I realised I could not spend the rest of my life—and in my case, the rest of eternity—hating myself. At some point in our lives, we have to reconcile with ourselves who and what we truly are. It doesn’t matter what’s inside of you. All that matters is what you choose to do with what you keep deep within yourself. You can either let it break you or make you.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out,” Annora said thoughtfully. And she was beginning to sense that, despite Kiera’s youthfulness, she had a wise head on her shoulders. Kiera appeared to have knowledge that belied her young appearance. “It seems you have mastered the one thing that we all seem to be looking for.”

  “And what’s that?” Kiera asked.

  “Being comfortable in your own skin,” Annora said.

  Staring ahead, Kiera’s smile faltered a little. Although she had come to accept who and what she was, Kiera doubted she would ever come to terms with the mistakes she had made. Kiera had made plenty of those on the journey she had taken to find the peace of mind Annora spoke of. Regaining her composure and forcing a slight smile, Kiera said to Annora, “Your skin is just the wrapping, it’s the gifts that lie beneath that really count. It’s those gifts we have to learn to be comfortable with.”

  Annora thought about what Kiera had just said, but before she had a chance to get Kiera to elaborate any further, she heard Potter shout out ahead of them.

  “Perhaps when you two are finished with the girlie chat, you might want to hurry up,” Potter said, staring back over his shoulder at them. The end of the cigarette that dangled from the corner of his mouth winked brightly on and off in the dark, giving his face an eerie glow. He then faced front again before disappearing into a narrow gap in the mountainside.

  Annora shot Kiera a sideways glance. “Is he always like this?”

  “Pretty much.” Kiera smiled.

  “Poor you.” Annora smiled back.

  “A lot of it is just bluster,” Kiera said, looping one arm through Annora’s as they headed toward the gap in the rock face. “Potter has a big heart, he just has a problem showing it.”

  “And Karl, your son?” Annora asked, wanting to know as much as she could about the man she had travelled through time to be with.

 
“What about him?”

  “Is he more like you or Potter?” No sooner had the question escaped Annora’s lips, she noticed a look of sadness mask Kiera’s face. She looked suddenly crestfallen. Then, remembering how Noah had told her that neither Kiera nor Potter had seen their son for several years, she thought that perhaps Kiera had no true idea what kind of man her son had become. But this simple point raised another difficult question in Annora’s mind: Why had they let their son believe that they were dead all this time?

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” Annora said.

  They reached the narrow gap in the mountainside. Before stepping through, Kiera turned beneath the umbrella and looked at Annora. “It’s okay, you haven’t upset me. But I won’t lie, I really can’t tell you who Karl takes after—me or his father. Neither one of us has had any contact with our son since just before his eighteenth birthday.”

  “So why have you pretended to be dead all these years?” Annora asked.

  “Sometimes the only way to save the life of the person you love is by not being a part of their life at all,” Kiera said before stepping out from beneath the umbrella and disappearing into the gap set into the rock face.

  Chapter Eight

  The year 2067

  Selina Riley pushed open the bathroom door and peered inside. She could see Karl bent forward over a wash basin. His dark-black and blue hair was plastered to the sides of his pale face. She could see that he had been splashing his face with water.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, teasing the door open another inch or two.

  Like you really give a crap, Karl thought to himself. “I’m fine. Really.”

  “You don’t look okay,” Selina said, pushing the bathroom door fully open and staring in at him. “You look like shit.”

  Karl straightened up and stepped away from the basin. Snatching up some paper towels, he dried his face. “Are you always so brutally honest?”

  Selina shrugged, her helmet still under one arm and supported against her hip. In the other hand, she still held the comlink she had earlier offered to him. It was now making squawking and hissing sounds. “Perhaps you should call it a night and head back to your room at the Night Diner?”

  Karl screwed the damp paper towel into a ball before tossing it into a nearby bin. “It’s nothing serious. I’ll be fine. I’ve probably eaten something that didn’t agree with me, that’s all. Have you seen the shit they have for food in the vending machine at the Night Diner?”

  “Can’t say that I have,” Selina said, still watching him from the open doorway. Despite his pale complexion, she could see that Karl was tall and strong-looking. The likeness to his mother was striking, although he had his father’s flippant and cocky manner.

  “What you gawping at?” he said, straightening his uniform and checking it for splashes of vomit. He was relieved that he couldn’t see any. It was embarrassing enough that he had nearly collapsed in front of Officer Riley, he certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of the night shift working alongside her covered in vomit.

  Pushing thoughts of Kiera Hudson and Sean Potter from her mind, Selina said, “That’s the second time you’ve fainted in front of me.”

  “Well don’t go getting yourself all excited,” Karl grunted, “it wasn’t your dazzling good looks that knocked me off my feet.”

  She smirked. “So you think I have dazzling good looks?”

  “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, if that’s how you get your kicks,” he said, heading toward her. He snatched the comlink from her hand.

  “So why did you faint?” she asked, watching him attach the comlink to the front of the ballistic vest he was wearing. “Was it another one of your blackouts?”

  Karl cocked an eyebrow at her. “How do you know about the blackouts?”

  “Lisa told me,” Selina said, a knowing smile spreading across her pretty face.

  Karl thought that in the bathroom light her auburn hair and pea-green eyes looked beautiful. But he sensed she already knew it. “What else did Lisa tell you?” He brushed past her and back out into the corridor.

  “Enough,” she said.

  Karl turned to face her, that permeant, all-knowing smile on her lips. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of asking her exactly what else Lisa had said. He would find out by asking Lisa himself when they were next alone together. He felt annoyed and disappointed that Lisa had spoken about him to Selina. He’d asked Lisa to keep what he had told her to herself for the time being. But perhaps that’s what Selina was trying to do—play them off against each other. Selina seemed like the type who would get some kind of warped satisfaction out of that. Trying to hide his disappointment and annoyance, he ignored Selina’s last remark and said, “Are you going to finish giving me the grand tour of this place, or what?”

  “We don’t have time,” she said, snatching another comlink from the wall. “Besides, you’re not missing much. There are only some cells, a changing room, and a place to smoke out back that you haven’t seen.” She headed away from him, back along the corridor in the direction of the main office.

  “So what’s the rush all of a sudden?” he asked, chasing after her.

  As she reached the office, she stopped, looked back, and watched him come toward her. “While you were chucking up your guts in the bathroom, a job came in.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “Another body has been found at the apartment block,” she said, placing her helmet on her head. She kept the visor up so her face was still visible.

  “At the same place Lucy May’s body was found?” Karl asked, picking up his own helmet.

  “Yeah, that’s right, but don’t go getting all excited, it’ll probably be another overdose or suicide,” she said, turning and heading for the door.

  As she reached it, she felt Karl’s hand fall on her arm. She turned to face him, searching his hazel eyes with her own. She found it suddenly uncomfortable to be so close to him, knowing that Karl had no idea as to what she really was or what was really happening in Outpost 71. But more than that, she pitied Karl Potter, because he was yet to discover who and what he truly was.

  “You don’t really believe Lucy May took her own life, do you?” he asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  “No, I bloody don’t,” he shot back.

  “Why not?” she asked, wondering whether he would give the same explanation to her as he had given to Lisa. Would he really tell her that, during his blackout, he had seen Lucy May’s killers? She hoped he would. But he didn’t.

  Instead, he said, in his usual cocksure manner, “You go and find me the twelve foot-fucking-long syringe that she supposedly hacked her head off with, and then I might believe you.”

  Before Selina had a chance to make a pithy comeback of her own, Karl had swung the office door open and was heading out into the night. But Karl’s arrogance didn’t annoy her or get under skin. Perversely, it pleased her. It reminded her of Karl’s father, Sean Potter. And that made her secretly happy, because she had once loved that man.

  Chapter Nine

  The year 1973

  “What the fuck is that knocking noise?” Nik asked, glancing at his brother, then back at the wardrobe.

  “I guess there’s only one way of finding out,” Jack said, reaching for the wardrobe door handle with one claw.

  His brother stood at his side, his own claws raised, as Jack wrenched open the wardrobe door. He pulled it open with such force, the door rattled and banged in its frame. Standing shoulder to shoulder, both brothers peered into the wardrobe. But all they could see was a series of shirts and trousers dangling from hangers. Reaching inside, Jack pulled aside the clothing with his claws. His long, jagged nails scraped down the back of the wardrobe.

  “There’s nothing there,” he said, the frown that now creased his brow masked by the scars that covered his face.

  The knocking suddenly came again.

  “Is there someone behind the wardrobe?” Nik asked, stepping back
and peering around the side.

  He heard his brother gasp, which sounded like a rattle in his bony chest. “That’s where the knocking is coming from,” Jack said, raising one skeletal finger and pointing it at the mirror that was attached to the back of the wardrobe door.

  Nik positioned himself in front of the wardrobe once more. His mouth fell open as he peered into the mirror. But it wasn’t his nor his brother’s reflection he could see staring back at him. Both brothers had seen plenty of crazy shit in their time as they travelled through the layers, but this was something different.

  Staring back at them from the other side of the mirror attached to the wardrobe door was a beautiful young woman. She had long, raven-black hair that flowed about her shoulders. Her eyes were the clearest of blues, and framed by a set of long black lashes. Her lips were blood-red and full in shape. Her skin was creamy white and seemed to have a translucent quality about it. She was tall and slender and wore a scarlet dress that hung low off her shoulders and just above her ample breasts. The dress was drawn in at the waist to accentuate her full hips. The bottom of the dress looked as if it was made of fine lace that was interwoven with silk feathers. The dress was so long and flowing that her feet were hidden beneath its hem. Although the woman in the mirror was heart-stopping beautiful, the man that cowered behind her wasn’t so. He looked so emaciated, it was difficult to tell his age. His hair was dark and sparse, his face gaunt and pointed. His eye sockets were almost as sunken as Jack’s. He was stripped to the waist, and he was so thin that it was possible for Jack and his brother to clearly see his ribcage. The bones poked through his skin like the rungs on a ladder. He wore a pair of faded blue denim jeans, which were way too big for him, as they sat low about his waist, revealing his bony hips. He wore nothing on his feet, and his toes were covered in dirt. Around his neck was a leather choker. Attached to this was a chain, which the woman in the mirror had wrapped about one of her long, slender hands. The scrawny man peered around the woman and through the mirror at Jack and Nik.