Dead Flesh (32 page)

Isidor groaned
beside me, a claw pressed to his chest. “Help Potter,” he said.

“Are you okay?”
I asked, watching the blood begin to congeal around the claw
covering his chest.

“Just help
him,” he said, closing his eyes.

With my wings
spread, and their little claws grabbing at the air, I shot towards
Potter as he continued to struggle with McCain.

“What kept
you?” Potter growled, as he tried to drag McCain back towards the
dance floor.

“You looked
like you were having such fun!” I shot back, gripping McCain’s tail
and dragging him down. The wolf kicked wildly with its powerful
back legs. I dodged left and right to avoid them striking me.

The three of us
smashed into the floor, the sound of wooden boards splintering
beneath us. Taking McCain’s skull in his claws, Potter smashed it
repeatedly into the dance floor. Dust and splinters of wood shot up
like there were a series of timed explosions going off beneath us.
I looked into the wolf’s eyes and could see that the light in them
was fading. McCain’s tongue lolled from the corner of his mouth as
he howled in pain.

Once Potter had
McCain subdued, he coiled his arms around his neck and held him in
a headlock. McCain’s tongue twitched like a rattlesnake as Potter
applied pressure to the wolf’s throat.

“Don’t kill
him,” I shouted. “We need him alive.”

Potter glared
up at me, his teeth locked together as he tightened his grip.

“Potter!” I
hissed. “Don’t you dare.”

“He’s a
murderer!” Potter roared. “He steals the souls of children!”

“Killing him
won’t stop that,” I shouted. “We have to get Banner to show the
world that video. Show them what the wolves, like McCain, have been
doing – what they are capable of.”

Potter locked
eyes with me, then slowly he loosened his hold on McCain and as he
did, the wolf began to change. I watched as its face twisted and
contorted. Its legs shrunk in size and took on human form. McCain
cried out as if in pain and his eyes rolled in their sockets. His
claws looked like they were being sucked back into his fingers.
Potter released him. We both looked down at McCain as he lay
panting, his hands to his throat.

“I haven’t
murdered anyone,” he snarled.

“Well I’ve got
evidence that says different,” I spat.

“What now?”
Potter asked me.

“We take him to
Banner,” I said.

Holding out his
hand, Potter looked at me and said, “Handcuffs?”

“You know I
don’t have any handcuffs,” I said, flashing him a false smile.

Then, without
warning, Potter stamped down on McCain’s leg. The sound of his
ankle snapping was sickening. “What did you do that for?” I
gasped.

“It’s a long
way back into town. We don’t want him running away from us.” Then
reaching down, he dragged McCain to his feet.

McCain screamed
out in pain, the tendons in his neck standing out through his white
skin.

I stood and
watched Potter drag McCain across the dance floor and out towards
the splintered doorway. McCain’s screams were deafening, and the
thumping music did nothing to mask them. I turned and ran back
across the chapel to Isidor, who had managed to pull himself up
into a sitting position.

“How are you
doing?” I asked, wrapping my arm around his shoulder.

“Okay, I
guess,” Isidor winced. “I think the wound is healing.

“Let me have a
look,” I said, opening his coat. Where there was once a gaping
hole, was now a purple and black knotted lump of dead flesh. But
there was something else. The skin around the wound looked as if it
were cracking, like a shattered piece of stone.

Covering it
with his coat, I hoisted Isidor to his feet and helped him from the
chapel. We stepped out into the night, to find Potter holding onto
the groaning McCain, and Kayla who was holding an unconscious
looking boy in her arms.

“I haven’t
murdered anyone,” McCain continued to protest.

“Shut the fuck
up or I’ll break your other leg,” Potter snapped. “Christ, I need a
cigarette,” he added.

I headed
towards Kayla who held the boy. His face was hideously disfigured.
“This is Sam, the boy you told us about, isn’t it?” I asked
her.

She nodded her
head, and looked down at him. “Can we take him with us?”

Before I’d had
a chance to say anything, Potter shouted, “No way. No more
hanger-ons.”

Ignoring him,
Kayla looked up into my eyes and said, “Please, Kiera, we can’t
just leave him.”

“We’ll take him
to the nearest hospital, but that’s as far as we take him,” I told
her softly. “Potter is right, we can’t...”

“But he knows
about me,” Kayla cut in. “He knows what I am.”

“And so do I,”
McCain groaned, as if somehow trying to bargain his release with
us.

“And who is
going to believe a freaking murderer?” Potter said. “No one will
believe a word you say after that video has been shown...”

“What
video...?” McCain started, but stopped when Potter’s fist broke his
nose.

“Sorry,” Potter
shrugged, looking at me. “He was getting on my tits.”

Over the sound
of McCain’s groaning, I looked back at Kayla and said, “What do you
mean, he knows what you are? Did you tell him?”

“I didn’t have
to,” Kayla started to explain. “He said that he had seen me before
– on a beach, and that I’d known his name. But he doesn’t
understand how, because he knows that I was murdered.”

“How did he
know that?” Isidor cut in.

“He read it in
a newspaper,” Kayla said. “He showed it to me. It said that my
dead, naked body was discovered on the side of a mountain, and Sam
thinks I then showed up on some beach, then at this school.”

I couldn’t make
sense of what Kayla was telling me. In the distance I could hear
the
whoop-whoop
sound of approaching
police vehicles. I looked up and could see the night sky was alight
with strobes of blue and white. Knowing that the official police
were on their way, I looked down at the boy in Kayla’s arms, then
at her.

“Okay, we take
him back to the manor, but only until we find out what he knows,
then we cut him loose,” I said.

“Thanks,
Kiera,” Kayla whispered.

“Oh great,”
Potter snapped. “Just another one to add to the already overcrowded
Mystery Machine.”

“Give Isidor
your lighter,” I said to Potter, ignoring his remark.

“Why?” Potter
asked, fishing it from his trouser pocket.

Isidor took it
from Potter. “Now set light to that chapel,” I ordered.

“Why?” Isidor
asked.

“To destroy any
trace that we’ve ever been here,” I said. “When they find a room
full of disembowelled wolves, they’re gonna know that no human did
that.”

Without saying
another word, Isidor set the chapel ablaze. The sound of the
approaching sirens grew louder and with the chapel burning behind
us, we made our way back down the gravel path towards the school
gates.

Looking like
humans again, we stood and watched Banner bring his unmarked police
car to a screeching halt. The door flew open and he climbed
out.

“I watched the
tape,” he shouted as he came running towards me. Several other
police cars pulled up behind his vehicle. “You were right, Hudson,
McCain is a piece of murdering scum.” Then, spotting the raging
fire behind us, McCain limping and crying out in pain as Potter
held onto him, Banner looked at me and said, “What in the name of
sweet Jesus has gone on here?”

I looked into
Banner’s eyes and said, “You told me once that I had a police
badge, and that I should use it. Well I just have.”

Then, Potter
shoved McCain into Banner’s arms, and we left the grounds of
Ravenwood School and made our way back to Hallowed Manor.

Kiera

The next few
days were spent locked away at the manor, giving our bodies the
chance to heal and recover from what had happened at Ravenwood
School. On the very next morning after handing McCain over to
Banner, I telephoned Elizabeth Clarke and told her what I had
discovered. She wept over the phone, as she had been unable to come
straight down to see me. I didn’t want Elizabeth to find out what
had happened to her sister by watching the news or reading it in a
newspaper.

Elizabeth said
that she needed just a couple of days, then she would come to
Hallowed Manor to find out everything that I had discovered. Over
those few days, Kayla spent most of her time looking after Sam, who
we had placed in one of the many spare rooms. Potter seemed less
agitated than before. Isidor seemed quiet and content as he sat
quietly in the study and passed his time by reading. If he had
noticed the cracks around his healing wound, he didn’t say
anything. I considered talking to him about it, but I felt the time
wasn’t quite right. I didn’t understand it myself.

Several times I
went back to the summerhouse, but the statue had gone. I went to
the tiny graveyard hidden beneath the willow trees, and to my
surprise, I found Murphy’s crucifix hanging from the cross that
Potter had made for his friend. Taking the crucifix in my hands, I
listened to the wind rustling through the willows, then hung the
cross back around my neck.

I was glad I
had told Elizabeth about her sister when I had, because the news of
McCain’s arrest and what had happened at Ravenwood was front page
news, and occupied hours of airtime on the TV. The Council of
Wolves and the United Nations Commission of Wolves held emergency
meetings. The video was undeniable proof, that a werewolf –
Skin-walker – had breached the Treaty of Wasp Water by murdering a
human. The punishment for McCain, for the breach, was to be
sentenced to death. The Council of Wolves was enraged by this, and
threatened to walk away from the Treaty if McCain was executed. But
the United Nations held firm and said that all parts of the Treaty
had to be adhered to, and that McCain would be sentenced to death
for his crime. McCain continued to protest his innocence. But
beneath the grounds of Ravenwood, forensic teams had found a
chamber where the teachers and some parents had been held. A shack
was found on the grounds of the school, where children claimed they
had been held prisoner for days, fighting off giant rats that came
to feed on them. The children had given this shack a name – they
had called it the Rat-House. McCain didn’t deny this, but he
continued to protest that he was innocent of the murder of Emily
Clarke. His lawyers persisted that a body had never been found, but
the prosecution said that the video evidence and the amount of
blood found at the scene was enough to prove beyond a reasonable
doubt that Emily Clarke was indeed dead.

But what really
sealed his fate was how he rambled on and on about a group of
winged creatures who had killed thirteen wolves at the chapel
during the matching ceremony. His talk was brushed aside as nothing
more than the insane ramblings of a killer. Justice proved swift in
this new world that had been
pushed
, and
McCain’s execution was going to be televised live across the world.
It was to be shown on the night that Elizabeth Clarke was coming to
visit.

I didn’t want
to watch McCain be beheaded live on TV, but Potter did and he
brought a portable television into the study, which I had prepared
for Elizabeth’s visit.

“You are
kidding me?” I breathed as he placed it on the table.

“No, why?” he
asked, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

“Do you really
think Elizabeth is going to want to watch McCain being beheaded on
TV?”

“She might,”
Potter said, positioning the television. “It’s all part of the
healing process, sweetcheeks.”

Before I’d had
the chance to object further, the door was opened as Isidor and
Kayla led Elizabeth Clarke into the study. Again, I could see that
Isidor was struck by her beauty.

I wasn’t the
only one who noticed this, as Potter looked at him and said, “For
crying out loud, kid, put your tongue away as you’re gonna trip
over it.”

Isidor flushed
red and took a seat at the table, next to Kayla. Elizabeth sat
down, her thick long blond hair resting on her shoulders, lips
painted bright red. She didn’t look like someone who was in
mourning.

“Thank you for
coming down to see us,” I said.

“No, thank you,
Miss Hudson, for uncovering the truth about what happened to my
sister,” she smiled, her eyes almost seeming to sparkle. “He was
right about you; you don’t leave any stone unturned in your search
for the truth.”

“Sorry?” I
asked, starting to feel confused.

“The person who
recommended you to me,” she smiled back.

“But I thought
you said you saw Kiera’s advert in that shop window?” Kayla
asked.

“Yes, yes,”
Elizabeth said. “But it was a friend of mine who actually
recommended you.”

“Who’s your
friend?” Potter asked her, his voice flat. Like me, he sensed that
something wasn’t quite right.

“I can
introduce him to you, if you’d like,” she smiled again, taking a
mobile phone from her pocket.

I looked at
Potter and he glanced back at me. Where was this going? I
wondered.

With the phone
to her ear, Elizabeth said into it, “Come in, they’d love to see
you.”

Then, whoever
it was she had brought with her must have been waiting on the other
side of the door the whole time, as it slowly opened.

“Hey, that’s
the Oompa Loompa we saw help McCain carry Emily’s body from her
room,” Potter snapped, as the burnt little boy from the video
stepped into the study.

“Dorsey, what
are doing here?” Kayla gasped.

“This is my
son,” Emily said.