Kiera Hudson & The Lethal Infected

by Tim O'Rourke

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said, wiping away the last of my tears and heading for the door.

  “What about clues?” Potter said. “I thought we were meant to be searching…”

  “I’ve seen enough,” I said, heading down the ward, past the rows of empty beds.

  “So you know who poisoned Sophie then?” he said, stopping me before I could leave the secret ward and head back down the stairs.

  “I have some theories,” I told him.

  “Feel like sharing them?” he said, staring at me through the candlelight.

  “Not really,” I said, skulking away down the stairs.

  “I thought we were meant to be a team?” he called after me.

  “We were once a lot more than that,” I whispered.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I headed back along the corridor, down the main staircase, and into the hall. Potter followed. With the candle flickering in my hand, I went to the dining room, pushing open the doors.

  “At last,” Uri said, jumping to his feet. “We were all beginning to feel like prisoners.”

  “You’re all free to leave,” I said, stepping aside and away from the doorway.

  “What, go back to the inn?” Phebe asked, standing up next to her boyfriend.

  “No,” I said, as Potter came into the room. “You can go to your rooms for now and get some sleep. But tomorrow morning at first light, Potter and I will carry out a thorough search of the Manor.”

  “And what exactly will you be looking for?” Ravenwood asked.

  I looked down the length of the table where he sat. Did he remember me at least? Did he really not remember that he had been the person responsible for telling me what I really was? Did he not remember leaving that letter for me to find in that copy of The Wind in the Willows, hidden in his cottage on the outskirts of Wasp Water? He had warned me that one of my friends was a traitor. Did he know who the traitor was here and now? It had been Ravenwood, knowingly or unknowingly, who had pointed me along the right path that would eventually lead to the truth. Could he help me now?

  “We will be searching for the missing bottle of Lot 12,” I told him. “One of you has it.”

  “Well, we can sort that out right now,” Hunt said, jumping up and turning out his suit pockets. “Look, you can see I don’t have it.”

  “I doubt very much that the person responsible for poisoning Sophie would be in possession of the bottle of Lot 12 now,” I half-smiled.

  “But the bottle of Lot 12 could be anywhere,” Mrs. Payne sighed, as if she was already bored by the whole affair. “This place is huge. I should know, I’m the one who has to clean it.”

  “I think we should do as Kiera suggests,” Murphy said, pushing his chair back from the table. His pipe hung from the corner of his mouth, even though it was unlit.

  “And what are you going to be doing while we are all sleeping?” Hunt asked, coming from around the table and toward the door.

  “I’ll be catching up on some sleep too,” I smiled.

  “Does she have any clues?” Mrs. Payne asked Potter as if I’d suddenly disappeared into thin air.

  “Beats the shit out of me,” Potter shrugged, glaring in my direction.

  “Well, I’m going to bed,” Ravenwood said, brushing past me and out into the hall. I watched him go. He stopped for a moment outside his study door. Sophie cried out from behind it. He flinched then moved away toward the stairs and out of sight.

  “Me too,” Murphy said, limping away.

  At the door, Mrs. Payne rested one hand on Murphy’s arm. “What with your limp and all, Jim, I was wondering if you needed any help getting to your room. I could help to turn down your sheets and…”

  “No, I don’t need any help,” Murphy grunted. “Now fuck off.”

  I looked over at Potter, who now had a big grin spread across his face. “I told you,” he winked at me. “Murphy’s just pissed off because the only thing Mrs. Payne offered to pull down was his sheets.”

  “I heard that, you arsehole,” Murphy snapped without looking back.

  Without saying anything, and with her head down, Mrs. Payne fled the room.

  “You really enjoy being cruel, don’t you?” I said to Potter once everyone had gone.

  “I was just teasing the miserable old-fart,” Potter smiled to himself and popped a cigarette into the corner of his mouth. Then reaching out, he closed his hand around mine that held the candle.

  I tried to pull my hand away.

  “Don’t get excited,” he smiled through the flame at me. “I just want to light my cigarette.”

  “Where’s your candle?” I asked, his hand still around mine.

  “Somebody blew out my flame,” he said.

  “Then perhaps you should find someone else to relight it, because it isn’t going to be me,” I said, yanking my hand away. Stooping down, I reached beneath the table, snatching up my shoes from where I had earlier left them. Potter stood in the door smoking and watching me.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked, as I put on my shoes.

  “To bed,” I said, heading into the hall.

  “What about Sophie?” Potter asked.

  “What about her?” I glanced sideways at the locked study door.

  “I thought we were meant to be saving her,” he chipped in.

  “And that’s why I’m going to bed,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” I said, trying to be difficult again. “We’ve got a long day tomorrow…”

  Stepping forward, Potter gripped my arm. “Listen here, hot-lips, I’m getting tired of this,” he said. “I know you’re pissed off with me because of what happened here tonight, but I’ve tried to play nice. Now I just want some answers. What have you seen so far?”

  “Everything you’ve seen but you just don’t know how to put it all together,” I said over the sound of Sophie crying out behind the door just a few feet away. Her cries were no longer shrieks and screams. It was as if the fight was slipping from her.

  “So enlighten me,” he said, his grip as tight as ever, pulling me within an inch of him. “Who says that it was even one of us that tried to kill Sophie?”

  “What time did it start raining today?” I asked him.

  “What the fuck has that got to do with anything?” he scowled.

  “What time?”

  “It’s been raining on and off all day here,” he said.

  “So we know then that it was no one from outside Hallowed Manor who swapped the bottles,” I said.

  “How?”

  “Like you said it’s been raining here today, the gravel path outside is waterlogged…” I started.

  “They could have come by car,” he shot back.

  “What – they parked it right outside the manor house and not one of you noticed it?” I came back at him. “If the killer had parked the car someplace close by, whoever swapped the bottles would have had to climb over the walls and into the grounds. He or she would’ve then had to make their way through the woods. The ground would have been muddy. The killer would’ve left dirty footprints everywhere. There aren’t any. Not in the hall, on the stairs, in the hospital wing or laboratory. And how did this mystery stranger get into the manor? Did they just walk right up to the front steps?”

  “The killer could have come in through the back door,” Potter said.

  “It was locked, remember?” I said, as Potter began to loosen his grip on me. “Locked from the inside. Whoever tried to kill Sophie was already in the manor. They were no stranger. They knew what you had planned for tonight.”

  “How come?” Potter said, his hand falling away from my arm, the realisation that someone he trusted – one of The Creeping Men would want to kill the woman he claimed to love.

  “When had you planned for the lights to go out?” I asked him.

  “The others were to give me an hour to fly to the Ragged Cove and get back with you,” Potter said. “They were going to light the candles and turn the light
s out forty-five minutes after I’d set off for you.”

  “So that would have only given the killer fifteen minutes to cut the wires to the lights, make their way in darkness up into the attic, switch the bottle, and get down again, before Hunt went to collect the bottle thinking that he had in fact taken the Lot 12,” I said.

  “But the killer wouldn’t have made their way up to the attic in the darkness, they would’ve had a candle,” Potter said.

  “Then why cut the lights?” I said. “Whoever it was didn’t want to be seen, they wouldn’t then have been carrying a candle. They made their way through the house and up to the ward in near darkness. You said yourself for me to be careful on those rickety stairs and I had a candle and my vision in the dark is better than most. No, whoever swapped the bottles had made the journey up those stairs many times before.”

  “But there was a box of candles on the desk in the attic,” Potter said, as if trying to find holes in my theory.

  “Precisely,” I said. “That was where the killer used a candle. They took one from the box and lit it to help them identify the right bottle. That was something he or she would’ve needed some light for. Before leaving they blew the candle out and left in darkness.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Potter quizzed me.

  “They left that used candle behind on the desk, it had burnt down almost to the wick,” I said. “They couldn’t have taken another from the box. The box was made to fit ten candles, there was nine left.”

  “That burnt down candle could be years old it doesn’t mean it was used tonight,” Potter said, trying to look for any remaining gaps in my theory.

  “You said yourself that the lights have never gone out before and you only use candles to light the manor on special occasions. When was the last time that happened?” I asked.

  “I can’t remember,” Potter said.

  “Exactly,” I smiled.

  “Whoever wanted Sophie dead snuck into the kitchen once the lights had gone out and the candles were being lit. He or she cut the wires so there was no chance that someone could turn the lights back on. In darkness, he or she took a box of candles from Mrs. Payne’s stores in the kitchen and crept up into the attic. There, the killer lit a candle so they could identify the right bottle and replace it with the poison. They then blew out the candle, left it on the desk with the box, and made their way back down the old staircase without being seen,” I explained. “Then just before we arrived, Hunt went to the laboratory as planned and collected what he believed to be the bottle of Lot 12.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t Hunt who swapped the bottles? He could have gone up there with a bunch of fairy lights wrapped about his head like a halo and no one would have given him a second look. He had every reason to go up to the attic,” Potter said.

  “Why would he then have cut the lights? What would have been the point of that?” I asked him. “And besides, Hunt’s candle is fixed into a holder. Any wax that dripped from his candle would have been caught by that. But there were spots of wax on the hospital floor leading from the table in the ward and into the laboratory. Those weren’t left by Hunt’s candle. They were left by someone in a rush. Someone who only had minutes to spare – someone who hastily lit the candle – raced down the ward and into the laboratory – swapped the bottles then fled. I did briefly suspect Hunt, but the clues don’t point in his direction.”

  Potter looked at me. “Who then?”

  “Who else have you told about Sophie carrying your child?” I asked him.

  “No one. Just you,” he insisted.

  “So you didn’t even tell Murphy?”

  “No,” Potter said. “You don’t suspect Murphy, do you?”

  “I’m just curious as to why you wouldn’t tell something like that to your best friend, but you would tell me, someone you hardly know,” I said, looking straight back at him.

  Potter took a deep breath. “We can’t talk here.”

  “Where then?” I asked.

  “Outside,” he said, taking me by the arm again.

  “But it’s raining,” I said as he released the catch on the front door, easing it open.

  “I know someplace dry that we can talk,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “There’s a summerhouse in the woods,” he said, taking me by the hand and leading me out into the night.

  Chapter Twenty

  Together we raced through the rain and across the lawns into the wood. Several times I tripped and slipped on the pencil-thin heels I was wearing. Twice I nearly went over and Potter had to take hold of me to keep me upright. He laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” I pouted.

  “You shouldn’t be wearing such impractical shoes,” he said.

  “I thought I was going on a date not a hiking trip,” I said, not wanting to see the funny side. I was still mad at Potter. I wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. The rain beat off the leaves and branches that swayed overhead. My hair and dress clung wetly to me. I looked ahead to see that the trees were thinning out. I knew we were close to the clearing were the summerhouse was. Like so many places at Hallowed Manor, the summerhouse held so many memories for me. It was where I had secretly sat and watched Kayla fly for the first time. It was where I first met Isidor as he saved Potter and me from the vampires that were hidden beneath the trap door in the floor. It was where Potter and I had made love. It had been raining that day too. He had ripped open my shirt with his claws and pushed me down onto the floor. It had been the first time we had made love together since returning from the dead. I had been too scared to let him anywhere near me up until that point. I feared that if he had seen all the cracks forming over my body that he would have loathed me – been disgusted and repulsed by me. My skin had looked like Sophie’s as she now lay imprisoned back at the manor. I tried not to think about her. I didn’t want to be reminded. For now, for this single moment, I wanted to remember that one time I shared with Potter in the summerhouse. Those memories were all I had left of us together. I wanted to remember how Potter hadn’t been turned off by me. Our lovemaking hadn’t been rushed or frantic like it had so many times before – stealing snapshot moments so that we could be alone together. As Potter had laid me back onto the floor of the summerhouse, any fears that I’d had back then of those cracks appearing all over my body had vanished, cast aside as he brushed his hands over my body. I could remember that Potter had been unusually gentle, covering my face, neck, shoulders, breasts, and stomach with soft kisses to the sound of the rain drumming against the summerhouse roof.

  “I love you, Kiera,” he had whispered against my cheek as he’d lowered himself onto me.

  “I love you, too,” I’d smiled, running my hands through his untidy hair. I’d dug my fingernails into the small of his back, a sudden urge to completely let go. Potter had gripped my wrists, pinning me to the floor, his mouth pressed over mine. I had been able to feel his fangs with the tip of my tongue. They had felt sharp. I’d gasped slightly at the warm sensation of my own blood spilling over my tongue. The coppery taste of it in the back of my throat had felt sweet. My whole body had shivered beneath him. I could remember it all – like it had only happened moments ago, not in some other time and place – not in another where and when.

  “You want the red stuff, don’t you?” Potter had asked me.

  With my arms and legs entwined around him, I’d murmured the word, “Yes.”

  Turning his neck so it brushed over my lips, Potter had said, “Well drink then…”

  The taste of him, the smell of him against my skin had made my head spin. It was spinning now as we raced tighter through the woods and toward the summerhouse. I tried not to dwell on the past, but it was impossible not to do so. It was like my memories were racing through my veins, coming alive with every step I took toward the summerhouse.

  I could feel a beating starting to build deep inside of me. It started in my head, down into my chest, racing toward my fingertips, and toes. As the be
ating grew faster and more intense, so did my desire to be with him again, like we had once been before. But I had to stop this madness, I tried to tell myself. This wasn’t my Potter. He belonged to someone else. He had bitten her and drank her blood, formed a union with her like I had once bitten him as we made love in the summerhouse. It was Sophie who now had cracks in her flesh. It was Sophie who needed our help.

  I could see the clearing now through the trees. At its centre was the summerhouse. Just as I remembered it to be, it was painted white in colour. The roof was pointed, giving it the appearance of a medieval chapel. At the front there was a small covered porch and a swinging couch. The porch was raised off the ground, and to get to it there were several wooden steps. Surrounding the summerhouse was a white picket fence. The summerhouse looked like something from a fairy-tale.

  “I can’t,” I panted, coming to a standstill at the edge of the clearing.

  “Can’t what?” Potter said, his hair and suit wet through with rain. The jacket was open down the front and I could see how the black shirt underneath was plastered like an extra layer of skin to his muscular chest and stomach. I watched how drops of rain ran down the length of his pale face. I saw them as if in close up as they dripped from the strong curve of his jaw. I wanted to hate him. I wanted to be repulsed by him for what he had done tonight – for how he had changed Sophie. But I couldn’t be disgusted by him, he hadn’t found me disgusting when my skin was scarred with cracks and I was breaking apart. He had loved me then, and I still loved him now. However hard I tried not to – I just couldn’t stop those feelings. It was agony seeing him standing there in the rain, just feet from the place where we had once made love. The memories, the feelings were just overwhelming. I wanted to run to him – pierce his skin with my fangs like he had pierced Sophie’s. I wanted that special union with him. And he was right. I was as jealous as hell. And somewhere deep inside, I knew he was jealous too.