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

by Tim O'Rourke

  “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 Ha
rrison,” 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…

  Chapter Seventeen

  …sat up. I was in the tent. Potter was no longer beside me. One of the flaps to the tent was open and I could see that it was light outside. My hair hung over my face and I clawed it away. I wanted to lie back down, go back to sleep into that dream which I had shared with my brother. I wanted to know more – I wanted to talk to him more about the wheres and the whens and about the one person who really understood them – Lilly Blu. But I didn’t have time to rest. I had to go in search of Nev. I’d already been persuaded by Potter to hold off my search for my friend until first light. It was light now.

  I crawled forward, poking my head out through the flaps at the front of the tent. Someone had lit a fire and a skinned rabbit had been skewered above it. The smell of the meat wafted beneath my nose from a trail of smoke and my stomach lept with joy. I felt suddenly ravenous. I looked through the smoke and could see Potter standing on the bank of the stream. He had his back to me and it was as if he were staring at the spot where Jack had been sitting washing his feet in my dream. But he wasn’t looking where my brother had been, Potter was taking a pee. Hearing the rustle of the tent flaps, Potter looked back over his shoulder at me.

  “I didn’t ever think you were going to wake up,” he said, shaking himself off and re-zipping his fly. He came toward me, sitting down by the fire and crossing his legs.

  I looked at the meat that was cooking above the fire. “I’m starving,” I said, feeling my fangs poking through my gums.

  “Here, have one of these,” Potter said, tossing me an apple that he took from his coat pocket.

  It was the meat that I wanted – the wolf deep inside of me wanted – but the apple would do for now. It was food. I sank my fangs into it, tearing away half of it in one large bite.

  “Fuck me, you are hungry,” Potter smiled. He took another apple from his pocket and placed it on the ground before me. “You’d better have another one.”

  “How long have you been awake?” I asked him around a mouthful of fruit.

  “Long enough to catch that rabbit in the woods and pick those apples,” he said. “Besides, you woke me.”

  “I woke you?” I asked wide eyed. Had I been talking in
my sleep? If so what had Potter heard?

  “Don’t worry, you weren’t grabbing for my cock in your sleep or anything – although I couldn’t think of a nicer way to be…”

  “How did I wake you?” I cut in.

  “You shouted out a name,” he said.

  “Whose name?” I dared to ask.

  “Lilly Blu,” he said, hitting me with his dark stare. “Did you know her?”

  “Did you?” I gasped, finding it hard to hide my surprise at what he had asked me.

  “Once,” Potter said, taking the rabbit from above the fire. “Fuck that’s hot,” he grimaced.

  “What do you mean, once?” I asked, tossing the apple core away and looking at the strips of meat Potter was now tearing from the rabbit carcass.

  “Lilly Blu is dead,” Potter said, handing me several strips of the meat. They felt hot in the palms of my hands and the thick, meaty juices ran down over my wrists. Raising my hands to my face, I greedily licked them away with the tip of my tongue.

  “Dead?” I spat, knowing that Lilly Blu, if she were in this layer, may be the one and only person who might be able to help me unravel what was going on here. “How did she die?”

  “Murphy killed her,” Potter said, before tilting back his head and dropping some of the shredded meat into his mouth.

  “Murphy?” I said, my heart scrunching up in my chest. “Why?”

  “Because she was a wolf,” Potter said, looking at me again with those dark eyes.

  But he loved her. They had children together, I wanted to tell him. Lilly Blu had meant everything to Murphy, and so too had his daughters, Meren and Nessa.

  “So he killed her just because she was a wolf?” I asked, swallowing down the last of the meat. I wrapped my arms about me, not because I was cold, but as if hiding – protecting – the wolf that lurked inside of me. Would Murphy kill me so readily if he knew what I was? But he was my friend.

  “Lilly Blu wasn’t just any wolf,” Potter said, licking the last of the meat from his fingers and smacking his lips together. “She was their leader – their Queen, some called her. The wolves were getting out of control and it was the job of The Creeping Men to get them back in line. So as a warning to the rest of them, Murphy killed the bitch. He took off her head then buried her human remains on un-sacred grounds. Some say that the ghost of her wolf still roams free – the white wolf they call it – but that’s just a bunch of superstitious bullshit. Lilly Blu is dead. Murphy saw to that.”