Werewolves of Shade (Part Four) (Beautiful Immortals Series Book 4) Read online

  “Really?” Rush said, eyes searching mine.

  Did he believe me?

  “It’s true,” I insisted. “It was there again last night – right outside. I watched it from my window.”

  “It could have just been another of those wolves that have broken into Shade through the gap in the wall,” Rush said. “But you don’t have to worry. We’ll catch them all in the end. I’ve been out today in the woods looking…”

  “It wasn’t any ordinary wolf I saw from my window,” I said, desperate for him to believe me. “It changed shape…”

  “Changed shape?” Rush asked. Was he starting to believe what I was telling him?

  “The wolf changed into a man,” I started to explain, trying to gather my thoughts and not garble my words so I lost track and sounded like nothing more than an idiot. “But not any ordinary man – he still looked like a wolf somehow.”

  “And what did this wolf-man do?” Rush asked, his face blank – unreadable.

  I took a deep breath before speaking again. “He leapt up through the night and onto my window ledge. He came into my room…”

  “Weren’t you scared?” Rush asked. “Didn’t you cry out at seeing such a creature?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head, for the first time wondering why I hadn’t screamed at the sight of the wolf-man coming into my room, up onto my bed.

  “Why not?” Rush pushed.

  “Because although this man was a beast – half man and half wolf, he looked… he looked…” I trailed off.

  “Looked like what?” Rush asked.

  “He looked beautiful,” I whispered. “He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. I think he was one of the beautiful imm…”

  “More beautiful than me?” Rush cut in, smiling.

  “You think I’m lying?” I gasped, my heart feeling crushed.

  “I think you were dreaming,” Rush said. “It was late, wasn’t it? You had gone to bed?”

  “I wasn’t dreaming,” I snapped at him.

  “So what did this wolf-man do?” Rush asked.

  Wanting to prove that I was telling him the truth – wanting to prove that the people of Shade were in danger and that it was only a matter of time before another person was snatched and killed just like Annabel had been, I pulled my hoodie from over my head. I stood in just my bra before him. Rush glanced down at my breasts, then back up and into my eyes. Covering my chest with my arms, I turned around. With my back facing Rush, I said, “He did this to me.”

  Glancing back over my shoulder, I watched Rush come slowly toward me. Thunder roared closer now from outside and the night sky exploded in zigzagging bolts of blue and mauve.

  “He did what?” Rush said, placing his hands on my shoulders and staring down at my back.

  “He made those scratches with his claws,” I said.

  “What scratches?” Rush frowned back at me. “There are no scratches on your back, Mila.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said, pulling away from him. Twisting my head on my neck as much as I could, I glanced over my shoulder and at my back. From what little I could see, there were no scratches there. Reaching around with my hands, I drew my fingertips down the length of my spine. The skin felt silky smooth and unblemished. There was no pain either. “I don’t understand…” I mumbled at Rush as he stood watching me.

  “Just a dream,” Rush said, reaching for me.

  I slapped his hand away. “It wasn’t a dream. It was real. It happened.”

  “What happened?” Rush asked.

  What did I tell him? Did I tell Rush that I feared I had welcomed the beautiful-looking wolf-man into my bed as easily and as eagerly as I had once welcomed Flint into it? Wouldn’t he believe that I had completely lost my mind? Perhaps I had?

  “You’ve got to believe me, Rush,” I said. “Stay with me tonight and you’ll see the werewolf – you’ll see him…”

  “I can’t,” Rush said, coming forward and wrapping me in his arms.

  “Why not?”

  “I have work to do for Rea,” he said, staring down into my upturned face.

  “Looking for more holes?” I asked, sounding more sarcastic than perhaps I had intended.

  “Looking for those wolves,” he said.

  “Then I’ll come with you,” I said, slipping from his arms and pulling the hoodie back over my head.

  “It’s too dangerous,” he said, stepping away and turning toward the kitchen door.

  “Too dangerous for me, but not for Rea,” I said. “We’re both females, you know.”

  “It has nothing to do with what sex you are,” Rush said, turning to look back at me.

  “What has it to do with?”

  “Rea is a better shot than you, that’s the difference,” Rush said with a brutal honesty that stunned me.

  I shook it off as best as I could, not wanting Rush to see that his last comment had hurt me. I gripped the butt of the gun strapped to my thigh. “I’m a better shot than you think,” I said. “Calix has been teaching me…”

  “Perhaps after a few more lessons,” Rush said, looking back at me. As if sensing how crushed I felt inside, he added, “Look, Mila, I’m just trying to protect you…”

  “That’s what Flint and my Uncle Sidney say the whole time, too,” I said.

  “That’s funny,” Rush said, fixing me with his cool stare.

  “What is?”

  “You never mentioned that you had an uncle named Sidney. You told me that all of your family were dead, that’s why you fled Twisted Den,” Rush said. “It looks like I’m not the only one who has been keeping stuff back – keeping secrets.”

  Without saying anything more, Rush turned and headed into the hallway. Standing alone in the kitchen, I heard the front door open then slam shut. I flinched as thunder banged and crashed overhead and the night sky flashed bright with lightning.

  Chapter Eleven

  I paced back and forth across the kitchen floor. I was infuriated with Rush, but more so with myself. I was angry with Rush because he was treating me just like Flint and my uncle both had – like I was some fragile child that was too delicate to go out into the world and take risks – have an adventure of her own. But I was mad at myself for mentioning my Uncle Sidney to Rush. That had been a slip-up on my part. I’d wanted to tell Rush everything about me and why I’d really come to Shade, but I had been side-tracked from doing so as Rush had started to talk about werewolves. And now Rush had gone and I suspected that he believed me to be a liar – just like I had first believed him to be. And how stupid had I made myself look by showing him those scratches – what freaking scratches?! There weren’t any. Had there ever really been? If that wolf-man had truly been real – if he’d really come into my room and my bed – why couldn’t I remember it? Had Rush been right? Had it all just been a dream – some torturous nightmare? But the scratches had been real. And not just the scratches down my back but around the window frame, too.

  Snatching a candle from the table, I raced upstairs and back into my bedroom. I went straight to the window, candlelight flickering up the walls and reflecting back at me from the glass. Reaching out, I pushed the window open just a little. The first drops of icy cold rain spattered my face as a gust of wind blew in at me. Cupping my hand around the flame, I peered at the window frame. It was jagged with splinters just like I had remembered it to be. I could clearly see where the wolf-man had sunk his claws into the wood surrounding the window. I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or scared. Wouldn’t it have been easier if they hadn’t been there? Because that would mean Rush had been right and the wolf-man had been nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Was a figment of one’s imagination easier to reconcile and deal with than something that turned out to be very real? A dream could haunt me, but it couldn’t hurt me – not physically.

  I heard a sudden bang. A nervous gasp escaped my throat, snuffing out the candle. The only light now was the random flashes of lightning that cut across the nigh
t sky. The bang came again. At first I thought it was thunder. But it wasn’t. The noise came again. Bang. Bang. Bang. It wasn’t gunfire, either. It was coming from the other side of the park, echoing off the trees that surrounded it.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  It sounded like a door slamming open and closed in the wind. But there was only one building in the park and that was the old schoolhouse. I could remember seeing the door shut tight as I’d passed by it earlier in the day. If it was the sound of the school door that I could hear, who had opened it, and why? The school was closed for the next two days.

  Shutting the bedroom window, I left my room and headed downstairs. Pulling my hood up over my head, I stepped out in the dark, wind, and rain. Glancing up, I looked along the path. There was no werewolf tonight. Not yet. Reaching down, I closed my fingers around the butt of the gun strapped to my thigh. I pulled the gun from the holster and set off across the park. Rain lashed forward in the screaming wind. The sky banged and clashed with sudden spikes of illuminating lightning. In those moments of light, I saw the swing swooping back and forth in the wind. There was no sign of Clarabel tonight.

  Peering out from beneath my hood, and gun held tight in my fist, I made my way toward the schoolhouse. As I drew closer, I could see that the door was open. And just how I imagined it to be, the door was swinging open then shut in the wind. Inching my way toward it, I could see no sign of light through any of the windows. I reached the door. With gun raised, I peered inside. Lightning broke overhead, showering the small lobby with pink light. All I could see were the coat pegs fixed to the wall, and the doors leading into the boys and girls toilets.

  “Hello?” I called out. “Is there anyone here?”

  I was met with only the fierce roar of thunder from above me.

  With my arm outstretched just like Calix had taught me, I headed into the schoolhouse. I crossed the small lobby area. With the tip of one boot, I toed open the doors that led into the main hall. Just like the lobby it was empty. All I could see were the ten desks and ten chairs. The chair from where Annabel had been pushed from by Suzanne still lay on its side. Next to it was Annabel’s schoolbook. Holstering my gun, I crossed the hall. I righted the chair, then picked up the schoolbook. Just as I remembered it, the front was covered in the same writing I had seen scrawled across Calix’s body. I thumbed through the pages. Something caught my eye. I went back a few pages. Something had been scrawled in child-like handwriting across the page. Crossing the hall to the nearest window, I held the book up. In the flash of lightning that soon followed the boom of thunder, I read what had been written.

  No humans

  With my flesh turning cold, I knew that was what Annabel had said to me moments before she had been snatched away and into the woods by those long, thin, white hands. Had she also written this in the book for me to find? Had it been some kind of warning? Had Suzanne seen what Annabel had written in her schoolbook and that’s why she had attacked her? But why had Annabel run when outside of the school? Why had she run into the graveyard? If she had wanted to give me some kind of warning, why hadn’t she just stopped and told me? Had Annabel been scared that she might have been seen talking to me? Had she been leading me into the woods so we were out of the sight of prying eyes?

  Closing Annabel’s schoolbook, I placed it into my pocket and headed toward the door. Reaching it, I stopped and looked back at the desks.

  “Ten,” I whispered to myself. “Ten desks for ten children.”

  I went out into the lobby and counted the coat pegs. There were just ten. And as I stood and counted them again, I heard myself asking Rush how many children there were in shade. Ten had been his answer. I could remember asking Rea the same question. Ten, she had said, just like Rush had. How had both managed to get something so simple so wrong? Because if you counted Clarabel, who had suddenly appeared, then there were eleven children in Shade, not ten like Rush and Rea had said. So if there were eleven children, why only ten desks and ten coat pegs?

  With my heart slowing to a crawl and my flesh breaking out in gooseflesh, a terrifying thought screamed across my mind. There was no child called Clarabel. Annabel didn’t have a twin. They were both the same child. But Annabel had died – she had been murdered. I’d seen her mutilated body with my own eyes. It was something I would never forget. I’d seen Annabel’s grave too. I’d stood looking at it only this morning. But if Annabel wasn’t really dead – whose body had I seen stretched out in the woods? Could I really say that it had been Annabel? It had been dark beneath the trees. The only light had come from the small lantern Rush had had with him. The face of the person I had believed to be Annabel had been covered in blood. In fact, there hadn’t been much of her face and throat left. I closed my eyes and tried to remember exactly what I had seen. A small girl or person lying on their back, white dress soaked almost black with blood… blood. The blood. There hadn’t been any blood on the leaves or on the ground around the body. Just like there hadn’t been any blood surrounding the dead wolf on the hillside that Calix claimed to have shot. Had the body of the person lying mutilated beneath the tree been carried there? Had this person been killed someplace else? But if that hadn’t been Annabel lying dead beneath the tree in the woods, who had it been? And who had the villagers from Shade buried in the graveyard?

  Pushing open the schoolhouse door, I raced out into the night. Thunder crashed above me and the lightning strikes looked as if they were tearing the night in two. With the rain and the wind driving hard into my face, I ran across the park in the direction of the road that led up to the church. I scrambled through the bushes that lined the outer edge of the park and ran into the night. My heart beat in time with the gun that pounded against my thigh. I ran and ran, as fast as I could toward the church. Reaching the gate set into the wall, I pushed it open, barging my way into the graveyard. Instead of heading straight to Annabel’s grave – if that’s whose grave it really was – I made my way amongst the gravestones and toward the church. I darted around the side of it as the sky streaked pink and purple. I made my way to the door that led to the room from where Morten had fetched the boxful of those old bullets. Reaching in with one hand, I curled my fingers around what I had come in search of.

  With the spade gripped in my fist, I headed back into the graveyard. With rain lashing against the tilting headstones and thunder booming overhead, I made my way toward Annabel’s grave. I needed to know who the villagers had buried there. However grotesque the idea seemed, I had to do it. I had to know. The people of Shade blamed me for the death of Annabel, and I now suspected that she might very well be alive. My heart had ached with guilt because of what I had believed had happened to her. If I didn’t find out the truth, make a stand and defend myself, then I may as well leave Shade right now and head back to Maze – to the safety and comfort of my uncle’s love and Flint’s welcoming arms.

  With the hood of my sweatshirt blowing clear off my head, I reached the grave. Without deliberating any further about the enormity - abnormality – of what I was about to do, I drove the spade down into the mound of earth. I pressed down on it with the heel of my boot and began to dig. Throwing mud aside, I dug deeper still, the posy of blue flowered Wolf’s Bane became covered with the earth and dirt I shovelled from out of the grave. With the rain falling harder and faster, the mud became soggy and clay-like. I cried out as the work became harder and harder. But I would not give up or give in. I had to know who the villagers had buried in the grave. I had to shift that burden of guilt I felt swing about my heart.

  The edge of the spade hit something. I stopped, throwing the spade to one side. Dropping to my knees in the sodden earth, I began to claw away at it with my hands. Mud squelched between my fingers as I pulled fists of it away. My fingertips brushed over something stiff and cold that lay hidden beneath the dirt. I clawed more of it away, peering through the dark and rain at what I was slowly unearthing. The rain came down so hard now that it washed away the last of the mud. Shrinking back, my eyes a
nd mouth open in grim shock and horror, I looked down at the wolf that lay dead in the grave. It lay on its side, fur matted with dirt and a large rusty-looking nail protruding from each of its front paws where someone had hammered them into the ground.

  To be continued…

  ‘Werewolves of Shade’ (Part Five)

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  Werewolves of Shade (Part Four)