‘“And what about my father? Is he alive, too?’ Sam had asked her, and he looked close to tears.
She told him that like her, his father was alive, and when Sam eventually introduced me to his mother, she said that she already knew who I was,” I explained to Potter.
“How come?” Potter asked.
“She never did say, as our time with her was short,” I said. “But I’m sure she will tell us everything when we all meet up again.”
“That will be interesting,” Potter mumbled, taking another puff on his cigarette.
“You can trust her,” I tried to assure him. “She’s a human and so is Sam’s father.”
“I thought you said you’d never met him?”
“I haven’t, but Sam told me,” I said.
“So it must be true then,” Potter said, rolling his eyes.
I knew Potter disliked Sam because he was half wolf. “Look, Sam wasn’t born a wolf,” I reminded him. “He is only the way he is now because that wolf tried to match with him at Ravenwood School. If it hadn’t have been for me and Isidor saving him, he would be just like one of those Skin-walkers we killed tonight.”
Potter looked at me and sucked on the end of his cigarette. “So what happened next?”
“Sam’s mum led us away from the fight you and Murphy were having with the wolves,” I continued. “When we were at a safe distance away, she stopped just ahead of us between two large trees.”
“So how did you all suddenly vanish?” Potter asked.
“She opened one of the cracks I told you about,” I said.
“How?”
“Sam’s mother said there are cracks appearing all over the world, but most of them are invisible. Some are large, but most wolves and people pay them no attention, as they are just believed to be cracks in the ground, in walls, doorways, and broken windowpanes. But some of these cracks just appear in the air. Again, they are so fine they would never be seen unless you knew what to look for – unless you had been trained to know that they were even there.”
“So how do you see these cracks or even know that they are there?” Potter asked, sounding bemused by what I was telling him.
“You know how sometimes you think you’ve seen something in the corner of your eye?” I tried to explain it just how Sam’s mother had explained it to us. “Like some kind of blur or shadow in your peripheral vision?”
“I guess,” Potter said, flicking his cigarette end down onto the tracks where it smouldered.
“Well, wolves have excellent peripheral vision and their eyes are optimized to detect motion, far greater than humans can,” I said. “These cracks shimmer, as they are unstable fault lines in the very fabric of existence. The wolves, if they know what to look for, can focus on these cracks and then open them.”
“But Sam’s mother wasn’t a wolf and neither was his father,” Potter reminded me.
“And that’s why they had come back for their son,” I said. “They had discovered that he was now part wolf and would be able to detect these cracks that were appearing. Sam would be able to help the human resistance his parents had gathered together.”
“So they were using him?”
“No, they had always loved him…” I started.
“So much so they faked their own deaths,” Potter sneered.
“Yes, in a way,” I said. “However much it hurt them, they wanted Sam to believe they had very little regard for him and that they were dead. They didn’t want him to go searching for them, as it would have been too dangerous for Sam. The wolves had heard about the human resistance that had started to grow, and if they discovered Sam’s parents, they discovered him too. They needed the wolves and the world to believe they were dead so they could work in secret.”
“So how were they planning on destroying the wolves?” Potter asked me, lighting another cigarette.
“They figured out that every time a human remembered their past lives, another crack would appear. It didn’t matter how small or invisible these cracks were, as long as they kept forming. In the end, they hoped that there would be so many cracks, that this pushed world would break apart letting the other world – the real world – show through. But it was taking too long, and when the Wasp Water Treaty broke down after it was discovered that McCain was secretly killing humans at Ravenwood School, Sam’s parent knew that they had to somehow make more cracks – bigger cracks. Like the wolves, they too had heard the rumours and legends about a winged Dead Angel named Kiera Hudson coming to destroy the wolves. When they read the newspaper reports and heard the eyewitness accounts from the children at Ravenwood School who claimed they had been rescued by several winged creatures, Sam’s parents suspected Kiera Hudson and her Dead Angels had arrived in this world. From a distance they had watched their son, who was last seen leaving Ravenwood School unconscious and in the arms of one these winged creatures – me.
“Believing that Kiera and the rest of us held the key to the fate of the wolves, Sam’s parents suspected that just like everyone else in this pushed world, we would have previously shared lives with some of the people now living here. Everyone seemed to have a double – a reflection – which was connected to those who had come from the world before it got pushed. Sam’s parents, therefore, came to suspect that if they could mix things up a bit, get those living in this pushed world to remember us, then this new world would break apart like the cheap illusion it really is.”
“So that’s why they got you and Sam to take those photographs and post my letters, to get those we had once loved or shared our lives with to remember us?” Potter asked.
“Exactly,” I sighed, glad that he had understood me. “Because if those we had once loved remembered us, they would also remember what we truly are and where we came from.”
“The Hollows,” Potter breathed.
“Yes,” I nodded. “And that is something the wolves do not want anyone to remember for fear that the Vampyrus might return and overrule them like they did before the world got pushed.”
Potter looked at me thoughtfully, then said, “Noah and Pen, who I told you about, are also creating cracks, but they’re not part of this human resistance.”
“So why are they doing it then?” I asked.
“Pretty much for the same reason, I guess,” he said.
I looked at Potter and couldn’t help but feel he was troubled in some way by what I’d told him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s nothing,” he said. Then, changing the subject, he pointed into the distance and said, “It looks like our train is coming.”
I went to the edge of the platform and peered into the darkness. I could see the headlamp approaching. The tracks made a warbling noise as the train headed into the station. Just like the one I’d caught before, the driver’s windows were blacked out so I couldn’t see into the cab. But unlike the other train, this one was electric and not steam. It wasn’t painted black, either, but bright red and had the words Royal Mail written in gold lettering down the side of the engine.
It slowed long enough for Potter to reach out and yank open a sliding door set into the side of one of the carriages. It was full of grey coloured mailbags. Both of us leapt inside. Potter pulled the door closed and we both collapsed onto the mailbags.
“I don’t know about you, Potter,” I yawned, “but I’m so tired.”
“Me too,” he said, his eyes looking suddenly dark and heavy.
Before I could open my mouth to say another word, my own eyelids had drooped shut. I opened them almost at once and glanced about. Although we were both lying down, neither me nor Potter were still on the train. I couldn’t help but fear that perhaps someone had pushed a signal point somewhere and sent us drastically off course.
Sitting bolt upright, I stared at all the dead people lying around us.
Chapter Eighteen
Isidor
Melody kissed me with such passion, I nearly stumbled backwards. The room seemed to spin three-sixty all
around me as I felt her lips smother mine. I kissed her back as she pressed herself against me, her arms snaking around my neck, her fingers becoming lost in my hair. Melody ran her tongue over mine as she devoured my mouth. This was nothing like the kiss we had shared on the shore all those years ago. That had been full of innocence.
She broke the kiss, but her face still hovered within an inch of mine, noses almost touching. I could feel her breath against my lips as she let out a soft sigh in my arms. Melody’s eyes shone a fierce orange.
“So you do remember…” I said.
“Shhh,” was all she said back, before she was kissing me again.
I felt her hands tug at my coat as she blindly pulled it free of me. She threw it to one side and her fingers glided over my chest as we continued to kiss. My heart should have been racing inside of me, instead it stayed dead still. But my stomach churned over with excitement and my legs felt suddenly weak. I ran my hands down her back when really I wanted to pull her shirt off as quickly as she had removed my coat. I so much wanted to feel her naked against me. My hands trembled as I drew them over her denim-clad hips. I reached up and tried to unbutton the front of her shirt, but my fingers twitched uncontrollably as if they weren’t my own. Sensing my nervousness, Melody gently broke our kiss. Taking my hands in hers, and her eyes looking into mine, she slowly helped me un-pop the buttons running down the front of her shirt. It fell open and I caught a sudden glimpse of her breasts and I let out a gasp. They were covered in rose tattoos just like the rest of her. They looked firm – they looked beautiful.
“Is this your first time?” she whispered, taking my hand in hers.
Swallowing hard, I stared back into her eyes and said, “Yes. I wanted my first time to be with you, no one else.”
“Don’t be afraid, Isidor,” she whispered. “You’ll be my first and last. I know now I’ve been waiting my whole life for you, too.”
To hear her words filled me with a sense of joy I had never felt before. For so long I had dreamt of Melody being mine. I had never felt the kind of deep love I felt for her and I knew I would never feel the same for anyone else ever again. My love for her was overpowering and tore at every one of my senses. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I loved her and always would.
“I meant what I said before. I do love you,” I whispered.
“In this life or the one before?” she smiled.
“I’ve been in love with you in both worlds and I’ve crossed both of them to be with you,” I told her. “And I’d cross a thousand more just to be with you.”
“I love you, too, Isidor,” she said, sliding the shirt from her rose-patterned shoulders. It made a whisper sound as it fell to the floor. “Hold me, Isidor.”
I took Melody gently in my arms, and held her against my chest. “I feel suddenly scared,” she whispered.
“I thought you said there was nothing to be scared of,” I whispered back, stroking her long, pink hair with my hands.
“I’ve been scared my whole life,” she said, looking up at me. “From the moment my mother complained of seeing a winged boy, I started to remember, just like she did. My dreams became haunted by you. I started seeing you everywhere I looked. I saw you in strangers’ faces and in unfamiliar places. You were always there, Isidor. But when I called out to you, you would disappear. It was like you were always just beyond my reach. I tried to convince myself I was going mad because that was easier than…” she trailed off.
“Easier than what?” I asked, looking down into her upturned face.
“Than believing my nightmares were true,” she said, silent tears spilling onto her cheeks.
I gently leant forward and kissed them away.
“What did you see in your nightmares?” I asked her.
“I saw my mother driving me out to the woods at the foot of this mountain and strangling me. And if that wasn’t enough, and her murderous appetite hadn’t been satisfied, she removed my head with a spade. I didn’t want to think of my mother doing such a thing to me, regardless of what where and when I was in. So when she too lost her life, I set off in search of proof. I wasn’t looking to prove your existence, Isidor; I was looking to prove that you didn’t exist. In the end it would have been easier for me to believe myself mad than my mother had murdered me. But I also didn’t want to believe I had lost…”
“Lost what?” I whispered.
“Lost you,” she said and shivered against me.
With my arms still about her, I eased Melody down onto the floor. We sat and cuddled each other before the fire.
“So why did you act so cool toward me today?” I asked.
“As I’ve already said, Isidor, I’ve been seeing you in my dreams – just out of reach – for the last four or five years,” Melody explained. “The closest I’ve got within touching distance was when I saw your dead body being carried down off the mountain. That’s why I rent this little place up here.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I thought that if you did ever come back, then you might come back to the place where you died. That’s what ghosts do, isn’t it?” she said.
“But I’m not a ghost,” I reminded her, pulling her close again as if to prove this.
“But I couldn’t be sure when I caught that fleeting glimpse of you in the glass,” she said. “You have no idea how many imaginary conversations I’ve had with you, Isidor, as I’ve sat up here alone in my cottage. But today, for the first time, you answered back when I spoke to you. At first I couldn’t be sure if you were really real, or my madness had stooped to a new level of depravity. But you drank the tea and you said that naff joke, and all the while I was watching you – staring at you – asking questions, trying to trip you up, wondering if at any moment you would disappear as quickly as you’d appeared.”
“So when did you start to believe that perhaps I was real and you weren’t mad?” I asked.
“When you kissed me,” she said, looking into my eyes. “That felt real. But then you were walking out of the door – disappearing again. And that’s why I came after you. I thought that if I asked you about the Melody Rose I had seen in my dreams, then I would know for sure if it was really me. And you told me all about my mother and what had happened to me – that other Melody. It was exactly as I had seen in my nightmares. It was then I knew we had been in love before and that love I had for you had never faded in my heart.”
We held onto each other, and I could feel Melody shiver in my arms again. Still cold?” I asked her.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Should I throw another log onto the fire?” I asked her.
“No,” she smiled, taking my hand in hers and gently pulling me to my feet. “Let’s go up to bed. We’ll be warm up there underneath the blankets.”
Turning, she led me across the sitting room and up the small winding staircase to her bedroom.
Chapter Nineteen
Kayla
“Potter! Wake up, Potter!” I hissed in his ear. I shook him violently. He grunted and rolled over onto his side and started to snore all over again.
“Pig!” I grumbled and shook him again.
He stirred, slowly opening his eyes to look at me. “What’s the time?” he groaned.
“Time we were fucking out of here,” I said.
“Outta where?” he groaned, pulling himself up onto his elbows and glancing around. “What the fuck?”
“Is that all you can say?” I said.
“What do you expect me to say, Kayla? I‘ve just woken up to find myself lying stark-bollock naked on a fucking mortuary slab with an I.D. tag hanging from my toe!”
To be honest, I hadn’t even noticed the I.D. tag, but he was right, there was one. Cupping his hands over his private parts, he said, “Well don’t just stand there, go get me some clothes!”
“From where?” I shot back. “Every one of these stiffs is freaking naked, just like you.” I pointed around the room at the corpses lying face-up on the surrounding mortuary slab
s. Most of the dead had been opened up down the front and stitched back together again. The black stitching looked frightening and ugly against their white marble-like flesh.
“I see you’ve still got all your clothes on,” he said bitterly.
“What’s that s’posed to mean?” I said, glancing back at him as he continued to cover his bollocks with his hands.
“Why does this shit always happen to me?” he moaned. “For all I know, you could’ve taken my clothes as some kinda warped joke.”
“I’d rather chew broken fucking glass than undress you,” I snapped back.
Still shielding himself, he swung his legs over the side of the mortuary slab. “Well, I can tell you something for nothing, I’m getting pretty fucking sick and tired of this constant bullshit I have to put up with. I mean, this shit just keeps happening to me over and over again.”
“What, you spend a lot of time hanging out in morgues swinging your dick, do you?” I said. “Jesus, Potter, I thought sniffing old women’s knickers was bad, but necrophilia takes the fucking piss.”
“Yeah, that’s right, Kayla, have a good laugh at my expense, why don’t you?” he said, sliding off the mortuary slab and standing up, his back to me. And despite what I’d previously said, I couldn’t help but notice that he did have a nice firm-looking arse.
“But I’m done. I can’t put up with this bullshit any longer,” he continued to moan on.
“Oh, quit complaining,” I said, yanking a sheet from off a nearby corpse and chucking it at him. “Cover yourself up with that. I was just having a laugh – you know – yanking your chain.” I stared to giggle.
Potter scowled at me, wrapping the sheet about his waist. Once the lower half of his body was covered, he strode barefoot across the morgue to a nearby door. He stopped, bent down, and yanked off the I.D. tag from around his big toe.
“And what the fuck is this meant to mean?” he said, glaring down at the toe-tag.
Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series Two (Book 8)) Page 9
