Kiera Hudson & The Adoring Artist (Kiera Hudson Series Three Book 3) (8 page)

Chapter Fifteen

“Lycanthrope?” Potter said, a look of disgust on his face. My Potter or not, he still hated the wolves. “Impossible.”

“Why?” I asked.

“They don’t leave their caves,” he said. “The Creeping Men have made sure of that. The wolves have their own world – they don’t venture into ours.”

“Well, they have, and they took Nev,” I said.

“How can you be so sure wolves took him?” Potter said, eyes narrowing.

“The tracks,” I said, turning around and looking back at the small camp Nev had made. “There were four of them. They came as wolves but left as men. The prints suggest that they came into the camp as wolves. They circled the tent, sniffing out their prey. Nev must have heard them, looked out and seen them not as wolves but men. I believe he knew they were going to take him – perhaps he heard them saying so.  It was then he sent the message for help to me.”

“Why not just call you – speak to you?” Potter asked.

“Because he had something else on his mind,” I said.

“Like what?”

“Leaving some kind of trail for me to follow. The paint brushes told me that,” I explained.

“Paint brushes? What the fuck are you talking about?” Potter moaned. “What have paint brushes got to do with anything?”

“This is what happened,” I said, heading toward the tent. I walked around and around it as I relived what had happened. “Nev heard the wolves approach. There are Lycanthrope tracks here, here, here, and here,” I said, pointing to the ground on all four sides of the tent. “But the tracks then become that of men. One of them was at least six feet tall. The gait between his strides tells me that. Knowing that they had come across a lone camper, they decided to take him. They must have discussed their intentions or why else would Nev have set a plan in place in the short time he had remaining before his was captured? He used those last few remaining moments to send a message to alert me he was in danger, then he snapped his paint brushes into pieces,” I explained.

“You know what, if I thought I was just about to be taken by a bunch of filthy wolves, I wouldn’t be sitting there working on my next masterpiece,” Potter cut in.

“Not a masterpiece, but master plan,” I smiled back at him.

“Look, this is all very interesting but can you just stop talking in riddles and explain what the fuck is going on?” Potter said, fast running out of patience with me.

“At first I didn’t see it myself,” I started to explain. “The biggest of the group took Nev from the tent. That was where the struggle took place. There are no scuff marks on the ground outside the tent. The clothes that lay scattered about are because the wolves were probably looking for anything of any value before leaving camp. The tallest of the group carried Nev away. This is obvious because there are no signs of tracks left by Nev. He carried Nev so we wouldn’t know which direction to head…”

“We just follow the footprints, don’t we?” Potter sighed.

“Which ones?” I said. “The wolves split up so anyone searching for Nev wouldn’t know which direction to head. One went toward the stream and left the camp that way. One headed east, the other west, and the tallest of the group to the north.”

“So how can you be so sure that the wolf that headed north carried Nev away?” Potter asked.

“Because of this,” I said, opening my fist to reveal the end of one of Nev’s paintbrushes. “I found it over there to the north. And the piece fits like a jigsaw to this.” I took one of the broken paintbrushes that I had found on the floor of the tent and put them together. They fit perfectly. I glanced at Potter. “Don’t you
see
?”

“See what?”

“When Nev realised he was going to be snatched, he broke the brushes into small pieces and concealed them in his fist or pocket – it doesn’t matter which. What does matter is that Nev dropped a piece just outside of camp. So I headed in that direction and found another piece. He has left a trail for me – us – to follow.”

“But won’t Nigel finally run out of pieces?” Potter asked, as if looking for some kind of hole in my theory.

“So what if he does?” I said. “All we need to know is what direction he was taken in. When the trail of paintbrush pieces runs out, we simply follow the tracks left by the wolf. It’s so simple, it’s perfect. And his name isn’t Nigel or Neville or anything else, it’s Nev,” I reminded him.

“Well you seem to have it all figured out,” Potter said, stooping low and heading into the tent.

“What you are you doing?” I asked him.

“Going to bed, we can set off at first light,” Potter said, disappearing into the tent.

“We don’t have time to sleep, we need to go now,” I said, pulling back the flap and peering at him. Potter was already lying on his back, feet crossed at the ankles and hands laced behind his head. There was space beside him if I wanted to take it.

“Look, if you’re right about the magic trail of paint brushes, then we can pick up the scent tomorrow,” he said.

“But the wolves…”

“And if you’re right about them, Nev is probably already dead,” he said.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I snapped at him.

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“You’re jealous of him,” I said. “You just can’t bear the thought that he might still be alive and that I want to save him.”

“Listen, Kiera,” Potter said, shooting up into a sitting position. “If that was really true, what am I doing here right now?”

“Getting ready to sleep!”

“You might be able to crawl around on your hands in the dark and fit together a few broken pieces of paint brushes, but you don’t know the wolves like me. There is only the two of us here and you don’t go wandering off in the dark when there are wolves about.”

I wanted to tell him that I did know what the wolves were like. I wanted to tell him how we had once fought against them side by side. I so wanted to remind him that I was half wolf and that one lived deep inside of me. But I knew I couldn’t.

“Yeah, okay, so I don’t like the idea that you might be interested in Nev – that you might like him enough to come all the way out here to rescue him, but that doesn’t mean I want to see him dead. That’s not the sort of guy I am,” Potter said. “Why do you think I’m here right now?”

“You didn’t come out here to save Nev. You came out here so you could be with me…” I started.

“I came out here to protect you, Kiera,” Potter said. “Does that make me so bad? Does that make me some kind of monster? The only reason I’m saying that we should wait until morning is because it will be safer – safer for you. As far as we know, Nev could be dead, and I don’t want that. But if I’m to be brutally honest, I’d rather him be dead than you.”

I stared through the opening in the tent at Potter. He looked back at me. I knew he was right and I was glad he had come with me in search of Nev.

“What is the point of both of you – all three of us – ending up dead?” Potter said, his dark eyes searching mine. “Why don’t you just come and lie down and get some rest.” He inched further to one side, making room for me next to him in the confines of the narrow tent.

“Perhaps it would be better if I sleep outside of the tent,” I said.

“Don’t you trust me?” he half smiled up at me.

If I was to be honest with myself, it wasn’t Potter I didn’t trust, it was myself.

“Okay,” I sighed, crawling into the tent, the flap falling shut behind me. I lay down next to him. “But no funny stuff, okay?”

“I didn’t realise I was a comedian,” he smiled sideways at me.

“You know exactly what I mean,” I scowled, curling up beside him and closing my eyes.             

Chapter Sixteen

“Hey, sis,” I heard someone call to me. Even though the voice was nothing more than the faintest of whispers, I knew who it was even with my eyes closed. I opened them. Potter lay next to me, on his side, one arm draped protectively over me. His eyes were closed as he slept.

“Hey, sis, wake up.” Jack’s voice came again.

Carefully as I could, I slid out from beneath Potter’s arm. He murmured, then rolled onto his back, chest rising slowly up and down. I crawled to the entrance of the tent and pulled back one the flaps. It was still dark and I peered out. Jack sat on the opposite side of the stream that babbled just feet away. It was then for the first time, I suddenly realised that I had seen the stream before. I had seen it in a dream. Jack had been sitting on a piece of rock and washing blood from his feet in the water. He was doing the same thing now.

“Good to see ya, Kiera.” He grinned at me from the opposite side of the stream. Moonlight cut through the canopy of misshapen branches above our heads and made the flowing water sparkle.

Crawling from the tent, I stood up, brushing dead leaves and mulch from the knees of my jeans. There was a warm breeze and my hair drifted in from off my shoulders. I walked slowly toward the edge of the stream. Jack sat and looked at me as he washed blood from his long, white feet. His worn jeans were rolled up to each knee and his scuffed boots were beside him on the bank of the stream. The red bandana fluttered about his throat and his blond hair was long and thick, tied into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. And just like before, when dreaming about us together at that remote railway station, Jack looked younger. He no longer looked emaciated like some ancient man who was very close to death. The deep grooves about his eyes and mouth had gone and so had the scars that had once crisscrossed his face. Jack’s eyes shone like they always had, but they no longer held that crazy and terrifying stare. My brother looked no older now than twenty-five years.

“You’re looking good, Jack,” I said, sitting down on the opposite side of the stream to him.

“So do you, sis,” he grinned.

“Really?” I sighed. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Don’t let the fuckers get you down,” Jack said.

I sat and watched him wash the last of the blood from between his toes. “Are we sharing the same dream again?”

“Looks that way,” he said, taking hold of one boot and pulling it on.

“But why?”

“Beats the shit out of me, but I’m not complaining.” He looked up at me. “I like seeing you, Kiera, even if it is only in my dreams.”

“But you’re way ahead of me – in your layer,” I said, remembering what he had told me the last time we had come together in sleep. “You said the statue was in your past where you are.”

“That’s right,” Jack said, stretching his other leg out straight and pulling on the last boot.

“But you could be wrong,” I said.

“Wrong?” He glanced across the stream at me.

“You said that Potter and I were going to have a child,” I reminded him. “I’m not the mother – not here at least.”

“Who is?”

“Sophie Harrison,” I said.

“Didn’t I kill that bitch once?” Jack said, scratching his head. “I’ve killed so many that it’s hard for me to remember. So Potter slipped her a length, did he?”

“He turned her,” I said.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t turned more women off men and into the arms of other women. What they see in him – what you see in him – beats the shit out of me,” Jack said, standing up. He pulled a baseball cap from the back pocket of his jeans and put it on.

“I meant, he turned her into a vampire,” I corrected him.

“Oh,” Jack said. “Walk with me for a while, Kiera. I want to enjoy some time with my sister. I don’t think either of us are going to wake for a while – so let’s make the most of now.”

“I’d like that,” I said, getting up and walking along the bank of the stream while Jack walked on the other side of it. The stream was like a visible barrier – like the layer that separated us.

“So perhaps you were wrong about us – about Potter and I having a child – a daughter,” I said as I ambled along.

“I’m not wrong,” Jack said, arms swinging loosely at his sides. He was still thin and very tall, stooping to avoid low hanging branches. “I’ve met her.”

“What is she like?” I asked.

“She’s a criminal,” Jack said without hesitation.

“A criminal?” I gasped. “What kind of criminal?”

“Well, she’s on trial for murder at the moment,” he said.

“Who did she murder?” I asked, feeling suddenly parental for a person I’d never met and probably never would.

“Kiera, don’t torture yourself like this,” Jack said, glancing sideways across the stream at me as we continued to walk.

“I’m not torturing myself, I would just like to know – that’s all,” I said, realising that Jack was right but I was just too stubborn to admit it to myself.

“I wish I hadn’t said anything now,” he said.

“But you did. Why did you?”

“Because I thought it was something that was going to happen in your future – in my past, if that makes sense. But now you’ve told me that Potter has gone and got that snooty-cow Sophie Harrison pregnant… and turned her into a vampire… let’s not forget that part. Really, Kiera, you could do so much better for yourself. Why don’t you just shake that jerk off and find a decent guy?”

“Like you, you mean?” I asked, a wry smile on my lips.

“I’m getting better,” he half-smiled back at me. “I’m trying.” 

I took a deep breath and said, “I can’t just shake Potter off, I’m in love with him. Besides, I’m not so sure if the Potter in this layer – in my layer – is the Potter I originally fell in love with.”

“What makes you think that?” Jack asked.

“I found that statue that you told me about,” I said.

“So I was right about that at least”

“It would seem so. But as I stood looking at it, I’m sure I saw Potter looking back out of the fountain as if he was trying to reach me.”

“Reach out to you from where?” Jack asked.

“From another layer,” I tried to explain. “We all got pushed – I pushed all of my friends to save them – to save all of us. But I got pushed separately from the rest of them and ended up here. Potter wasn’t meant to remember me; that was the plan. None of my friends were meant to remember me, so as to save them from any pain when realising that I had tricked them – pushed them all away. But I’m beginning to believe that wherever Potter – my Potter – ended up, he has started to remember and is trying to reach out to me. I believe that he is trying to reach me via the Potter from this where and when.”

“But what if the Potter from the layer you’re in now is your Potter, and he is just starting to remember you?” Jack said.

“You could be right, and if you are, then the young girl you claim is mine and Potter’s daughter can’t be. She must be the daughter of some other version of me and Potter in some other where and when – in the layer that you are in, Jack,” I said, trying to think it through, like I was solving some kind of puzzle. But it hurt so much to think that there was another Potter and I who had shared a life together – had lived a life that I could only now dream of.

“The whole thing sounds fucked up to me,” Jack said. “There was only one person who really understood how the layers worked. She didn’t seem to have any problems finding them. She had learnt how to do some crazy shit. She could see the gaps in the layers by using her peripheral vision or some other-fucking-thing. I dunno.”

“Lilly Blu,” I whispered as if to myself more than Jack.

“Yeah, Lilly Blu,” Jack said. “Another fine woman that fell in love with a complete and utter fuck-wit.”

“Murphy, you mean?” I said, looking sideways at him.

“Yeah, the old-git with the pipe and slippers,” Jack grunted.

“He’s not so old. And besides, Murphy is my friend,” I said.

“He ain’t one of mine.”

“Yeah, I remember how you tricked him into the caves beneath the Fountain of Souls and had him murdered,” I said, feeling suddenly defensive about my friend Murphy. He had been more than a friend to me – he had been like a father, and despite the fact Jack was my brother, I wouldn’t have a bad word said about Murphy.

“He threw me into prison in The Hollows,” Jack shot back. Then seeing the look of hurt on my face, he bit his lower lip as if to stop himself. “You certainly like your Vampyrus men,” Jack smiled.

“I’m half Vampyrus myself,” I reminded him.

“And half Lycanthrope,” he reminded me. “Legend is that you are the only half and half that ever lived.”

“Do you think that’s why they made that statue?” I…