Wolf House (Potter's Story)

by Tim O'Rourke

  Starring at me with his rodent eyes, he reached into his pocket and produced his police badge. Shoving it only inches from my face, I read what was written on it. Detective Sergeant Harker.

  I looked over the rim of his badge and back at him.

  With a look of superiority on his face, he said, “As you can see, I’m D.S. Harker. You do know what D.S. stands for, don’t you?”

  “Dog shit?” I smiled back at him.

  Detective Sergeant Harker’s eyes bulged in their sockets and for the briefest of moments I wondered if they weren’t just gonna pop right out of his face. I mean it was pathetic; couldn’t this Beetlejuice wannabe take a joke? The way he was looking, anyone would think I’d just pissed all over him. But then again, I probably had.

  Flabbergasted by what I’d said, Harker looked back at Constable Drake and said, “I want these men arrested.”

  “Arrested for what?” I asked with mock surprise on my face. “For saying dog shit?”

  “Arrest them!” Harker screeched at Constable Drake who was passing the clipboard from one hand to the other.

  Murphy suddenly reached out and grabbed hold of Detective Harker’s arm. Turning slightly as to have his back to the uniformed officer, Murphy looked into Harker’s eyes. Curling up his top lip, he gave Harker a grim smile and flashed the tips of his fangs at him. Harker blinked as if not sure what he had seen, and tried to pull his arm free of Murphy’s grip. But he was held fast and couldn’t break free.

  “You don’t need to know who we are,” Murphy whispered with a smile, and his voice seemed to rattle in the back of his throat. “Now do me a favour, Detective Sergeant Harker, go and find something to occupy yourself with, while my colleagues and I here go and take a look at the crime scene.”

  Harker looked back at Murphy as if caught in a trance. It was like Murphy had performed some kind of David Blaine mind-bending trick on him. Either that, or the fleeting flash of Murphy’s fangs had totally messed with his head. Whatever the reason, as soon as Murphy released him, Harker looked at the young officer and said, “Constable Drake let these…these men in, I’m going to lie down.”

  “Lie down?” Drake asked, bewildered.

  “Just let them in,” Harker barked, heading away across the car park.

  Frowning, Drake raised the police tape and said, “I guess it’s all yours.”

  4

  “That was impressive,” Luke said to Murphy as we followed him through the small booking hall and out onto the platform.

  “Yeah, what did you do to him?” I asked.

  “Dunno,” Murphy shrugged, re-lighting his pipe.

  I watched Murphy glance in either direction up the platform. As I would have expected at a crime scene, the station was deserted. It was tiny with just one ticket office, a bike rack, and two platforms – one of which we were standing on. The second platform was opposite and they were connected by an underpass that ran beneath the tracks.

  “This way,” Murphy said, and a small cloud of blue smoke seeped from his pipe and floated away into the night. Without speaking, Luke and I followed Murphy along the platform and down a short flight of stairs which led into the underpass. Even though it was dimly lit with a series of overhead lights, I didn’t need a spotlight to see the corpse lying face-up a few feet away. The underpass stank of urine and the walls were covered with graffiti.

  Without hesitating, Murphy strode towards the body and stood over it, sucking on the end of his pipe. I looked down at Murphy’s boots and could see he was standing in a black puddle of blood that was ebbing away from beneath the body. Luke made his way over towards Murphy, and I followed. The victim was male, about thirty-years-old, I guessed. His eyes were still open and they stared blankly up at the strip lighting which made a buzzing sound like a swarm of flies. His face was contorted and forever locked in a permanent state of fear. The victim’s mouth was open, and his tongue lolled over his bottom lip like a purple slug. I could see that his clothes were nothing more than shreds of blood-stained material which hung from his body. Because of the little amount of remaining clothes, I could clearly see his naked torso – or what was left of it. The whole chest cavity and stomach was empty, his heart, liver, and lungs were gone, as if removed by a giant-sized ice cream scoop.

  “Jeez,” Luke said, as he bent closer to get a better look.

  “What do you think did this?” I asked Murphy.

  But before he had the chance to answer me, someone said from behind us, “I did.”

  We spun round to find Detective Sergeant Harker, Constable Drake, and the pretty officer who I had bumped into standing at the foot of the stairs leading into the underpass.

  “I thought you’d gone for a nap,” I said, as he stared at us with his rodent-like eyes.

  “What did you say?” Murphy asked Harker.

  “I said, I did it,” he smiled. “I killed him.”

  I glanced at Luke and his face had taken on a grim look as he stared back at Harker, then at me and Murphy.

  “Why?” Murphy asked, taking the pipe from his mouth.

  “To bring you here,” Harker said, the overhead lighting glinting off his bald spot.

  “You know you really didn’t have to go to all the trouble of disembowelling that guy. There are such things as telephones,” I said. “You could have just called.”

  “Be quiet!” Murphy growled. Then tapping the hot ashes from his pipe, he looked at Harker and said, “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “You’re not exactly the easiest people to find,” Harker said, walking past us to go stand near the body. He looked down at it and said thoughtfully, “It’s such a shame that someone had to lose their life to flush you three out from wherever it is you hide, but let’s just put it down to a mere necessity.”

  “A mere necessity?” Luke said in disbelief. “You’ve murdered someone.”

  Glancing around, then to Luke, Harker fixed him with an icy stare and said, “I know, it’s very sad, but his life was not taken in vain, I can assure you of that. Hopefully his death with save many more lives. Let’s just say he was a sacrifice.”

  Taking a step closer to Harker, Murphy said, “Okay, I’ve had enough of your fun and games, how about you tell us what’s really going on here before me and my friends tear you a new arsehole.”

  “Don’t try and threaten me, Murphy,” he hissed. “Yes I know your name, I know all of your names, Vampyrus. You should be nice to me, because it is I who holds the solution to all your problems.”

  “Problems?” Murphy roared. “What problems?”

  “Let’s see,” Harker said, rubbing his hands together. “How about murder?”

  “Murder? What murder?” I snapped, taking a step closer towards him. I glanced at Luke and could see that he had hung back as to keep one eye on Drake and the pretty police officer who stood silently at the foot of the stairs.

  “Why, the murder of this poor man of course,” Harker said, steepling his fingers beneath his chin.

  “Oh this is such a load of old bollocks,” I groaned. “We don’t have to stand here and listen to this crap.”

  Then, raising his hand as if to hush me, Murphy looked at Harker, and frowning, he said, “What are you talking about?”

  “When the official police arrive, because let’s be honest, you’re no more part of the official police force than I or my colleagues over there are,” he said, “But when the genuine boys in blue arrive, they are going to find your bloodied footprints all over the crime scene.” Then bending down, he hooked a finger and ran it down the length of the corpse’s tongue. Standing, he reached out and dragged his finger down the front of my coat. Smiling he said, “And they’ll find the victim’s DNA all over Potter’s coat.”

  “Why you sick son-of-a-bitch -” I started, but was cut short as Drake lunged forward at an incredible speed and pushed Luke hard in the chest. Before he knew what was happening, he was pinwheeling his arms and stumbling backwards, then forward. I watched in slow-motion as Luke f
ell face-first towards the corpse. As he went down, Luke stuck out his hands to break his fall, and I watched them disappear into the gapping hole in the corpse’s torso. Luke was up in a second, his hands covered in blood. But as he stood, he slipped momentarily and steadied himself by placing one of his hands against the wall of the underpass.

  “Fingerprints in the victim’s blood as well,” Harker said, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “It just gets worse and worse. The evidence just keeps mounting against you guys. Forensics will have such fun!”

  “You don’t really think you’ll get away with this, do you?” Murphy said, his voice low and calm. “We have friends, you know,” and I knew he was referring to Chief Inspector Rom, a Vampyrus who had managed to secretly work his way up the ranks of the police force.

  “We all have friends in high places,” Harker grinned. “You don’t think the Vampyrus are the only ones that can infiltrate positions of power within the human society, do you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Luke asked, wiping the victim’s blood from his hands.

  “Some of us Lycanthrope are good at fooling humans too,” Harker beamed. “Why, only one of my species has recently been promoted into the House of Lords.”

  “Okay, so we’re not the only ones who have managed to live undercover amongst the humans in the police force,” Murphy said. “But we have done this for a reason.”

  “And what might that be?” Harker asked.

  “To hunt down and kill child-murdering scum like you,” I told him.

  “Apart from him,” he said, glancing down at the dead body, “I haven’t murdered for years. None of my pack has. We have been trying to live in the sleepy town of Little Hope in peace, hoping that if we do, the curse that was placed upon us centuries ago will finally be lifted. We policed this town for many years and there has been peace here until…”

  “Until what?” Murphy asked, his silver eyebrows making a V-shape in the centre of his brow.

  “Until the children started going missing,” the pretty police officer said as she stepped forward.

  “Constable Madison,” Harker cut in, “Please be quiet. I am quite able to explain the situation here. Thank you.”

  I looked over at her, and she seemed to blush again, walking backwards into the shadows by the foot of the stairs. This was the second time I’d seen her blush and the rose-coloured tint only highlighted the prettiness of her face. But it didn’t matter how attractive she was, Constable Madison was a Lycanthrope and I knew what hid beneath that pretty face. Hadn’t Murphy told me once that female Lycanthrope had hairy tongues? Despite her obvious attractiveness, I had no intention of ever finding out.

  “As I have already said,” Harker continued, “my pack has lived amongst the humans peacefully for many years in Little Hope, until recently, when a number of the town’s children have gone missing. As part of the police force for this town, we have investigated these disappearances, but to our horror, we discovered the bodies of these children hidden in an empty house in the remotest part of town. The injuries are such that it became obvious to all that these children have been slaughtered by some wild animal. It hasn’t taken long for rumours of werewolves to spread amongst the townsfolk. At the moment they are just rumours, but it won’t be long before those rumours start to take hold and the official police and authorities start to investigate deeper into these killings. The site where the bodies have been found has already been named the ‘Wolf House’ amongst the residents of Little Hope.”

  “So why get us involved?” Murphy asked.

  “Because you are hunters – that’s what you do,” Harker said, and now his smile had gone, replaced by a grim look of despair. “I need you to track this rogue Lycanthrope and kill it before its crimes bring attention to my clan, or worse, reveal our true identities.”

  “And remind me again why we should help you?” Murphy said. “After all, aren’t you trying to frame us for murder?”

  “Find this werewolf for me and I will clear this murder away. It will be like it never happened,” Harker said.

  “And if we refuse?” Murphy asked.

  “Then it will be you who is blamed, not only for this murder but the others too,” Harker warned him.

  “No one will believe that,” Luke said. “Apart from your pathetic attempt to frame us for the murder of this poor man, you have no evidence against us for the deaths of the children.”

  “When the official police realise that you are not human, but Vampyrus, a freak breed of vampire bat which have wings, claws, and fangs, they’ll believe that you killed those children,” Harker smiled again. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t pin every unsolved murder that has occurred over the past fifty years on you.”

  “And how are they ever gonna know that we are Vampyrus?” I said. “It’s not as if we don’t look human. We don’t go around brandishing our fangs and flapping our wings for the fun of it.”

  “They will know when they carryout x-rays on good Sergeant Murphy here,” Harker beamed. “They’ll take one look at those x-rays and see that his bone structure is nothing like that of a human being.”

  “Now why would they want to x-ray me?” Murphy growled at him.

  “So they can find the bullet,” he said, snatching a gun from his waistband and shooting Murphy with it.

  5

  The pop of the gun firing in the underpass was deafening and I couldn’t help but flinch backwards. The smell of gunpowder was overwhelming. Everything seemed to happen at once. Murphy spun around on the spot as if doing some weird Michael Jackson move and Luke shot forward in a spray of shadows, catching the Sarge in his arms before he hit the floor.

  Blood pumped from Murphy’s right thigh and he covered it with his hand. His already-pale skin seemed lighter, if that were even possible, and beads of sweat covered his brow.

  “What the fuck have you done?” I barked at Harker.

  “Back off, Potter,” Harker snapped, pointing the gun at my head, “or I’ll be decorating the walls of this underpass in a delicate shade of gray matter!”

  Despite his warning, I made towards him. Harker shook his head slowly from side to side, holding the gun steady and said, “Get back in your pram, Potter. I mean what I say,” as if to prove it, he fired another shot. I felt the bullet whiz past my right cheek and explode into the wall behind me.

  “You won’t have that gun forever, Harker,” I warned him, “and the moment you drop your guard, I’ll drop you.”

  “If you think your threats intimidate me, Potter, you must think I was born yesterday.” Harker smiled.

  “It’s a shame you weren’t, as we could have started your personality from scratch!” I spat. Then looking back over my shoulder, I could see Luke had rested Murphy on the floor.

  “You won’t get away with this,” Luke said, glaring up at Harker.

  “I already have,” Harker beamed, and I so much wanted to rip that smug look from his face.

  “If you think this is going to persuade us to help you catch your rogue Lycanthrope, Harker, then you’re crazier than I thought,” Murphy groaned as he applied pressure to the wound with his hands. I could see streams of black blood seeping through his fingers.

  Shaking his head, Harker stared down at Murphy and said, “You’re not going in search of this wolf, you’re just insurance.”

  “Against what?” Murphy breathed as he gritted his teeth in pain.

  “Potter retuning with the body of the wolf that’s been killing all the children of Little Hope,” he said.

  “You must be smacked up to your tits on drugs if you think I’m going to help you,” I barked. “I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.”

  “Maybe another bullet may make you reconsider,” Harker said, waving the gun before Murphy. “Let me see, where should I put the next one?”

  Covering Murphy’s body with his own, Luke raised his hand in the air and said, “Okay, Okay! We get the message. What’s the plan?”

/>   “Plan? You’re not really going to help Sweeny Todd over there, are you?” I choked, looking at Luke but pointing at Harker.

  “I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Luke shot back with a grim look in his eyes.

  “Listen to your friend,” Harker said, looking at me with his rodent-like eyes. “Now, this is what I want you to do...”

  “I don’t take orders from scum like you,” I hissed at him.

  “Listen to him, Potter,” Murphy groaned in pain.

  I looked down at Murphy and his blue jeans now looked black from the blood that continued to flow from the gunshot wound. His face glistened with sweat and he shivered in shock. Drake and Madison stood just behind him, their eyes fixed on mine. In the flicker of the light from above, their eyes appeared to change colour, blue, green, yellow.

  Turning, I looked at Harker and said, “This had better be good.”

  Knowing that he now had my full attention, Harker lowered his gun. He didn’t put it away altogether, but kept it pressed against his thigh. “You will go to the Wolf House with Madison and Drake,” he started.

  “Why them?” I cut in.

  “To make sure that once you are there, you don’t leave. But I also need to know that you’ve caught this werewolf,” he said.

  “What are you trying to say, that you think I’m dumb enough to dress up the first person I come across in a fur coat and try and pass them off as a freaking werewolf?” I snapped. “Give me some credit. Unlike you three jokers, I think I can catch myself a Lycanthrope.”

  “And your arrogance will be your downfall,” Harker said. “Don’t underestimate this wolf. We’ve tried to catch him for months but he has eluded us – kept one step ahead. This wolf is no fool.”

  “So what you’re trying to tell me is that this crazed, homicidal child killer – this piece of filth – is mentally superior to you?” I asked with a wry smile. “He inherited the one and only Lycanthrope brain cell then?”