Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series Two (Book 8)) (10 page)

“You know if we go down there we’re gonna have to kill them,” Potter said, his claws now springing from his fists.

“Every fucking last one of them,” I smiled, showing him my fangs.

“Can’t afford to leave any witnesses,” he smiled back.

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” I said, a nervous excitement now rushing through me. “Oh, my God, I fucking love this so much.”

“Love what?” Potter asked.  

“This,” I snarled, suddenly releasing my wings from my back and crashing through the window and out into the night. Shards of glass rained down on the surprised, upturned faces of the cops below. At once, the sound of gunfire thundered through the night as wave after wave of bullets screamed past me. I banked right, then left, followed by a backflip. With my fangs dripping with a hungry lust for blood, I dropped out of the night like a rock, tearing the face from one of the cops. He screamed
, throwing his hands up. Jets of blood shot between his fingers. I sucked his flesh up into my mouth and swallowed. It tasted sweet. Arching around high above them so I could go in for another attack, I looked down to see where the cop once had a face, now had a protruding, long, bloody snout.

“Skin-walkers,” I smiled to myself, swooping back out of the night sky. Nothing made me happier than executing some of those fuckers. The cops below looked up at me, tearing their human skin into bloody strips. Hair bristled beneath the bloody flesh they tore from their bodies. The Skin-walkers howled up at me. Two of them sprang onto the roofs of the police cars and tried to swipe at me with their huge claws. I raced teasingly close above their heads. They were so fixated on me; they failed to notice Potter leap out of the broken window. His wings stretched out on either side of him as he scurried up the front of the building and perched on the roof. I knew Potter was waiting for the right time to attack. It was like he wanted to savour the moment. I raced around and around in a circle above the wolves’ heads as they barked, snapped, and leapt up into the air to reach me. Their thick, bushy tails wagged back and forth. Watching them from above, I’d actually forgotten how big these wolves were, once free of their human skins. They were the size of freaking bears. One of them leapt onto the bonnet of a police car, and at once it started to buckle out of shape beneath the weight of the wolf.

I glanced up at Potter, who was still unseen by the wolves. Then screaming at the top of my voice, I raced out of the sky. I felt the cold night air slam against my face, and my cheeks ripple as I moved at such a terrifying speed. To the wolves below I couldn’t have been anything more than a blur. Without the wolf even knowing it, I had sliced its giant head from its shoulders. I flew back up into the night with it clutched between my claws. The smell of the blood pumping from the arteries that trailed from its torn neck was intoxicating. My stomach lurched with hunger. Unable to resist, I sunk my face into the throat of the wolf and began to suck the hot, black blood from the arteries as if I were sucking on a straw. The blood gushed into my mouth and down the back of my throat. It felt so good. Once I was done, I tossed the wolf’s head away into the night. I didn’t know where it would land and I didn’t care. I spun around, my wings beating on either side of me.

“Now let me see,” I mused, looking down at the
snarling wolves’ way below in the street. “Which one shall I have next?” I was still undecided as I raced back toward the ground. 

As I approached, one of the wolves leapt from the roof of the police car. The blue and red flash of the emergency lights lit up his giant fangs. With my claws outstretched, I swooped low, dived beneath him, and opened up his belly. I heard the splatter of his innards as they cascaded onto the roof of the police car as I sped away.

“Yes!” I cheered, punching the air. The sense of joy I now felt was exhilarating. The wind rushed through my long, red hair and rippled over my wings. I soared over the houses that lined both sides of the streets. I watched the upturned snouts of the four remaining wolves as they looked at me swoop high above them. Still they hadn’t seen Potter crouching on the roof of Kiera’s apartment. But they would any time now, as I watched him drop from off the roof. His wings were closed behind him and he dropped so fast, I wondered if he would have time enough to open them and swoop away before hitting the ground. But flying away wasn’t his plan. He crashed into one of the wolves that had climbed onto the bonnet of the car. The wolf seemed to disappear into the engine block, as Potter pounded down into him. With his arms thrashing through the air, Potter tore the wolf to pieces. Chunks of flesh and matted fur sprayed up into the night, spattering the windows of the nearby houses. The wolf hadn’t even had the chance to let out a howl before Potter had ripped out its throat.

Licking his claws clean, Potter sprang toward the next wolf that was only just figuring out what had
happened. He clattered into the creature, his claws like giant fists as he went swinging in. This wolf did howl as Potter tore out its tongue. It flew into the air looking like a thick, long, purple snake. The wolf threw its paws to its throat and made a gargling sound. Potter crushed its giant skull between his fists. The wolf’s brains spurted from its ears, spraying the windscreen of a nearby police car. It collapsed at Potter’s feet, its tail jerking back and forth. He stamped on what was left of the wolf’s head, and the tail fell still.

Potter glanced up at me, a grim smile on his ashen face. He brushed his fringe from out of his eyes. “One each,” he said, referring to the two remaining wolves.

“Sounds good to me!” I cried, rocketing out of the sky and back toward the ground. I landed in the centre of the road next to Potter.

The wolves stood just feet away, snarling and snapping their huge jaws at us.

“Feeling good?” Potter asked, without looking at me.

“Oh yeah,” I sighed,
then sprang forward at the wolves.

One of them raised itself on its giant back legs, swiping at me with his razor-sharp paws. In a blink I had dropped to the ground, and skidded between the wolf’s legs. With my claws outstretched, I sliced them through the wolf’s legs just below each knee. I looked back to see the wolf sinking to the ground. It rolled onto its back, clutching at the bleeding stumps where its lower legs had been just moments before. The creature howled in agony, and I walked slowly toward it. I wouldn’t end its misery too soon.

I glanced to my right to see Potter playing something close to football with the other wolf’s head. Reaching the wolf that now howled in torment, I looked down into its gaping jaws. It would have been those jaws that would have happily ripped me to pieces if I had given the creature half a chance. Without saying anything, I raised one foot and drove the heel of my boot down into one of its bright yellow eyes. I twisted my ankle, driving the heel deep into his brain. The wolf let out one more agonising howl, then fell still.

I pulled my boot free from its face. Potter came and stood next to me and we watched together as the dead wolves slowly returned to their human forms – the humans the wolves had matched with and stolen their
souls, lives, and skins. At least they were free to pass on now – get
pushed
someplace else, perhaps back to the world that it had once been.

We turned our backs on their lifeless and mutilated bodies.

Closing his fist over mine, Potter looked at me and said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Tilting our heads back and spreading our wings, we shot up into the night sky.

 
Chapter Sixteen

Isidor

The fire crackled in the grate. Melody poured more tea from the pot into my cup. The metal spoon rattled against the side of it as I stirred in the milk. Wind gusted against the remote cottage, and snow now sat thick against the window frames. Melody sat opposite me on the sofa, her knees drawn up as she sipped her tea.

I looked at her. “The Melody Rose I fell in love with wasn’t a wolf. But then again, perhaps she was? Maybe she didn’t know herself. Perhaps she was murdered before she’d had a chance to find out who or what she really was.”

“She was murdered?” Melody asked.

“By her mother –
your
mother – if that makes sense,” I said, taking another sip of tea.

“My mother is dead,” Melody said.

“So is Melody’s mother,” I told her. “She hung herself.”

Melody’s cup rattled against the saucer as she almost seemed to flinch. “Hung
herself?”

“I think so – although I can’t be sure,” I tried to explain. “She was a wicked woman. She was cruel to Melody and eventually murdered her.”

“How do you know she murdered the Melody you speak of?” she asked, watching me over the rim of her cup.

“Her mother was some kind of religious nut,” I said. “She had the basement decked out as some kind of makeshift chapel. The day Melody went missing, I went to that basement and hid in the shadows. I listened to her mother tell God in a prayer how she had rid the devil from Melody by killing her.”

“Did you report her to the cops?” Melody asked me.

I shook my head. “There was no point. The only laws she feared breaking were God’s. Knowing she would’ve never seen anything like me before, I stepped out of the shadows in the chapel. My wings trailed from beneath my arms and she must have heard the gentle hum of my wings, as she glanced up at me. I told her not to look at me, and she dropped to her knees in fear. ‘What did you do?’ I asked her. ‘I killed the demon within my child by
sacrificing her,’ she’d confessed.  

“I dragged Melody’s mother to her feet and held her by her arms. She stared at my wings and asked me if I was an angel. I told her that I was and her Lord had sent me to deliver a message to her. Melody’s mother cowered before me. I told her God was angry with her for what she had done to her daughter and he would never forgive her. She must have believed I was an angel, as she begged for forgiveness. I think she feared that her soul was doomed. I told her the only way she would ever find
God’s forgiveness was if she were to sacrifice herself. I left her sobbing on the chapel floor. Sometime later, I discovered she had hung herself from beneath the staircase in that chapel.”

Melody didn’t say anything to what I had told her, and a heavy silence fell over the room. The wind screamed outside as it blasted snow against the cottage in mountainous drifts. I got the feeling that something in what I had just said had connected with Melody on some level. I stirred my tea again, the spoon clinking against the china cup. The noise sounded as loud as gunfire in the silence.

“My mother hung herself,” Melody suddenly whispered.

I looked at her. Was I surprised by what she had just said? Not really.

“My mother raised me alone, and like me, she was a wolf,” Melody started to explain. “We had a basement at home, just like the one you described, and she could always be found down there surrounded by hundreds of candles as she prayed to the Black Coats and the Elders. But it was during one Candlemas that she came screaming and howling up from the basement, locking the door tight behind her. She looked terrified.”

“What scared her so much?” I asked. 

Melody stared across the small sitting room at me. “She claimed to be haunted by a vision of a winged creature.”

I lowered my cup, placing it down on the table. “Did she say what this creature looked like?”

“A teenage boy, naked to the waist and long, black wings trailing beneath his arms,” Melody said. “Sobbing, my mother would explain how this ghostly apparition would flutter all around her as she tried to pray in the basement. Sometimes I would stand silently at the top of the stairs leading down into the basement and listen to her howl. I couldn’t tell whether they were howls of fear or remorse. Then one day I returned home to find her hanging from beneath the stairs. She left no note or any reason as to why she had done what she had. But from that moment on, I decided I would spend as long as it took – my whole life if necessary – to find out if winged creatures like the one she had described really existed. So I have spent the last five or six years chasing down every story, whisper, or rumour that I’ve heard about winged creatures. Then yours and your sister’s bodies were discovered up here on the mountainside and I covered the story of your murders. I was fascinated by how your father believed that you had wings hidden inside of you. Why would he have thought such a thing about his two children? He took his own life before anyone had the chance of asking him. So here you now sit, Isidor, and he was right, you did have wings.”

“Do you blame me for your mother’s death in this world?” I asked her.

Melody looked at me. “Should I blame you?”

“No more than I should blame your mother for the death of the Melody I knew and loved,” I said. “No more than I should blame my real father for the death of the Isidor in this world. The father I knew wasn’t a killer.”

“But you said that we are all one in the same, just that we had been…
pushed
?” she said.

“We are the same, but there are differences, too,” I tried to explain. “You look and sound identical to the Melody Rose that I knew, but you claim not to be her. You claim that you have no memories of me or what we once shared together. But I think your mother remembered her other life – her other self. She might not have realised that they were memories – she thought they were ghosts come to haunt her – but it was just the two worlds overlapping. It was the other world seeping into this one through the cracks.”