by Tim O'Rourke
“Where is this statue?!” I cut in, impatient to know where it was.
“Believing in my heart that your mother was innocent of the crime she had been executed for, I crept out of Shade the very next night,” Calix said. “I went in search of Sidney Watson. Like me, he believed your mother was innocent too. I told him what I’d done and that I believed your mother was still alive beneath the stone shell – just like that fly had been. So together, we snuck back into Shade and stole the statue of your mother away. Using your uncle’s truck we took the statue to the only place I could think of where I believed it would be safe from the werewolves and the vampires…”
“And where was that?” I cut in again.
“We took the statue to the town of Twisted Den,” Calix said. “But even though I had the spell book, I couldn’t reverse the spell I’d cast over your mother. Maybe the spell can’t be reversed at all. Maybe the werewolves are right and the witch – your mother – did turn into a statue in death?”
“Why would you believe that?” I asked, fearing that any hope I had that my mother might still be alive would soon be crushed.
“Because there were five other statues in Twisted Den,” Calix said, his voice just above a whisper, shooting a glance in the direction of Flint then back at me again.
“So what if there were five other statues?” I said. “What does that prove?”
“These weren’t just any old statues,” Calix said. “The statues had once been the Witches of Twisted Den.”
Before I could press Calix any further on the matter, the sound of keys jangling in the door lock echoed about the cell. All of us looked up as the cell door swung slowly open. Trent came into the cell, carrying a wooden tray. He placed it on the floor and I could see that there were bowls of food and mugs filled with water. Even though my hands were chained at the wrists, I would still be able to eat. But Flint was still muzzled and he wouldn’t be able to do so. Without saying a word to any of us, Trent turned his back and headed once more toward the door.
I called after him. “Remove Flint’s muzzle’s so he can at least eat.”
Trent looked back at me. “If I remove the vampire’s muzzle, the only thing he’ll be eating is you.”
“Oh please,” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “I’ve known Flint my whole life and he never laid a finger on me.”
Rea appeared in the doorway, a cigar smouldering between her fingers. “Only when he dragged you into the woods and tied you to the stake.”
“Like you did to my mother, you mean?” I shot back at her.
“Have it your way,” Trent said, heading back across the cell toward Flint. I sat and watched him remove the muzzle. He tossed it into the corner of the cell before going back to the door. As I watched him go, I couldn’t help but feel that sense of anger, frustration, and hurt unravel itself inside me once more at the thought that this man had been my mother’s lover and was my father.
“So is this any way to treat your daughter?” I called after him.
Trent stopped in the doorway. He looked at Rea then back at me. “You’re not my daughter.”
“My mother thought so,” I told him.
“Your mother was deluded and not just in believing that I was your father,” Trent said.
“How else was she deluded?” I sneered at him. “Oh, I know, like me she was stupid enough to believe that you were a good bloke.”
As if Trent had suddenly lost his tongue and could no longer speak for himself, Rea spoke for him and said, “Julia was stupid enough to believe she could find a truce between the vampires and the werewolves.”
“I thought you found a truce,” I reminded her. “Didn’t the murder of my mother and my kidnapping find the peace she wanted? But that has now come to an end, hasn’t it.”
With a smile playing across her lips, Rea said, “Don’t worry, we’ll find another truce…”
Before she could finish, Trent was ushering her out of the door, slamming it shut, and locking it behind him.
“What did she mean by that?” I asked, looking down at the gruel and cloudy water Trent had brought for us.
To my surprise Flint spoke for the first time. Both myself and Calix looked at him. His voice was easy and as soft as it always had been. “They will hand you, Mila, back over to the vampires who will take you back to Maze.”
Trying to sound tougher than perhaps I really was or even felt, I shrugged my shoulders and said, “That doesn’t sound so bad. I want to go back to Maze – I want to speak to Sidney…”
“You can’t speak to Sidney,” Flint said.
“Why not?” I asked him.
“Sidney Watson is dead, Mila,” Flint said. “Sidney was murdered.”
Although I clearly heard what Flint had just said, the words seemed to make no sense to me. “What do you mean Sidney is dead? Murdered?” And even though since leaving Maze I’d learnt that Sidney Watson was not in fact my uncle, I couldn’t help but feel grief-stricken at hearing of his death. He might not have been my real uncle, but he had acted like one. As I sat in the cell, looking agog at Flint, memories of helping my uncle in his old shack as he printed off his newspapers, of him giving me that book for my nineteenth birthday came flooding back. And despite knowing that he had been involved in some way in taking me from my true mother, I knew that deep down Sidney Watson had been a good man. He hadn’t deserved to be murdered. And if what Calix said was true, Sidney had helped him take the statue of my mother to a safe place.
With tears blurring my vision, I looked at Flint, and said, “Who murdered him? Why?”
Sitting against the wall in his black hooded robes, Flint said, “I don’t know who murdered him. But I guess it was one of the night-watchmen…”
“But why?” I sniffed, a line of salty tears pooling at the corners of my mouth.
“To punish him for letting you leave our home, the town of Maze,” Flint said.
“You’re a night-watchman too,” I reminded him. “So you must know who murdered him.”
“I’m not a night-watchman anymore,” Flint said. “I stopped being one of them the moment I came to Shade to rescue you, Mila.”
Behind me, Calix began chuckling to himself. “Rescue? You tied her to a freaking tree.”
Ignoring Calix’s remarks and continuing to look at me, Flint said, “I had my reasons for doing that…”
“Like what?” I snapped at him.
Sounding a little rattled for the first time, Flint said, “Look, I don’t have time to explain now…”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Calix cut in. “Looks like we’ve got all the time in the world.”
Sounding exasperated, Flint said, “Don’t you realise what’s going on down here – what the wolf’s friends have planned? They are going to hand us all over to the night-watchmen, who will take us back to Maze. I’ll be killed because I betrayed my own kind, the wolf-man over there will be killed as some kind of sacrifice – a gift from the rest of the wolves to the vampires – and you, Mila, if you refuse to help my people, the vampires, they will kill you, too.”
Wiping the tears from my cheeks with my fist, I said, “Help them to do what?”
“Help them to become all-powerful,” Flint said. “The vampires have just been waiting for the day for you to start showing your powers. With a Wicce at the head of their army they believe they will be invincible.”
“Army?” I gasped. “Why do the vampires need an army? There are only a handful of werewolves left in Shade.”
“There is a whole world beyond Shade, Maze, and England,” Flint said. “There are other wolves gathering in Europe. They are breeding, growing stronger and larger in number. The war between the Beautiful Immortals isn’t over, Mila. It hasn’t even begun. The vampires have just been waiting out in Maze, waiting for you to grow into the all-powerful witch that will lead them into battle and defeat the wolves once and for all.”
“I’m not leading anyone anywhere,” I spat at him. “I’m not going to war!”
“Then you will die at the hands of the vampires just like me and your friend when the wolves hand us over to the night-watchmen tomorrow.”
Huffing out loud, I turned my back on him. I lay on the filthy floor and curled up into a ball. I didn’t feel like talking anymore. My head hurt. There was too much for my mind to process. I wasn’t going to war. Using my fists as pillows, I closed my eyes.
Chapter Six
Mila Watson
The group of women circled me. I had the unnerving feeling that I had seen them some place before, but I couldn’t be sure. Perhaps it had been in another dream – another nightmare – where I had seen them? Their long black hair spilt over their porcelain-white shoulders and the long lace dresses they wore whispered in the hush of the wind that snuck between the narrow streets that led into the town square I now found myself in. I looked back over my shoulder and in the centre of the square there was a statue. The statue looked just like me. It was as if some master sculptor had created my identical twin out of stone and placed it in the centre of the strange town I now found myself in. The buildings that surrounded the square were like no others I had ever seen. All of the houses were narrow with dirty lattice windows. The doors were black, as were the slate roofs, which were twisted into points and reached high up into the night sky. I looked once more at the statue and could see that it was holding out one hand toward me. In the statue’s hand, she gripped a silver goblet. And however much the statue resembled me, I knew that it wasn’t. I knew that the statue was of my mother.
“Take the goblet and drink from it,” I heard a voice say.
I looked back at the strange, yet beautiful women who circled me. I knew that it had been one of them that had spoken.
“Who are you?” I asked them.
The one standing directly opposite me smiled, her pale lips forming a crescent shaped moon beneath her perfect nose. She fluttered her long white eyelashes at me before saying, “We are the witches of Twisted Den and we are all so very happy to meet you, Mila Watson.”
“How do you know my name?” I asked her.
“Because you look so much like your mother,” she smiled back at me. But however beautiful her smile looked, I felt that there was a slight wickedness behind it.
“Is that my mother?” I asked, pointing back over my shoulder and in the direction of the statue.
“Yes,” the witch said. “And she has something for you.”
“What?”
“Just something to cure your thirst,” she said, dark eyes gleaming.
And she was right, I did feel incredibly thirsty. So thirsty that my mouth and throat felt dust dry. I thirsted for more than just water but I didn’t know what. The thirst that I now felt made every one of my taste buds ache. My mouth was so dry, I was nauseous. I felt weak as if I was near to collapse from dehydration.
“Why not go and quench your thirst, Mila?” the witch said, the others still circling me, dark eyes wide with expectancy. And as each of them smiled at me, I noticed that their teeth were razor sharp and pointed. “Go on, take a drink from the goblet before you faint.”
Turning, I stepped out of the ring the witches formed around me and made my way across the town square to the statue. As I went, the sound of my boots slapping off the cobblestones beneath them ricocheted off the twisted-looking houses that surrounded the square on all sides. Reaching the statue, I stood before it and looked at the goblet that the statue of my mother was offering me. With the inside my mouth and throat now feeling raw with thirst, and my knees threatening to buckle beneath me, I reached for the goblet. As I took it from between her stiff fingers, I looked into my mother’s face. Even though her eyes were two blank spheres, I couldn’t help but sense that she was trying to give me a warning of some kind. I peered down into the goblet and could see that it was full of thick, red liquid. It smelt sweet – so sweet – I couldn’t wait to let the red stuff wash over my tongue and down the back of my throat, believing that it would quench the burning thirst inside of me. I raised the goblet to my lips and swallowed. The liquid was warm and gloopy in my mouth but it tasted sweeter and more delicious than anything I’d ever drank before. And no sooner had the first drops of this red stuff, which I now knew to be blood, hit the back of my throat that thirst began to cool inside of me. Throwing my head back, I gulped down the rest of the blood from the goblet. My greed for it was so great that it leaked from the corners of my mouth and dripped from my chin. I drained every last drop of the blood from the goblet. And I wanted more. Although the blood had quenched my thirst it had been replaced with a gnawing itch – desire – for more of it. The need for more blood was now greater than my thirst had ever been. I looked once more at the statue of my mother but she was gone. I spun around in search of the witches to ask them to refill the goblet for me, but they had vanished, too. In their place stood a hooded figure. Its dark robes fluttered like raven’s wings. And even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew it was Flint. He was a vampire. He only survived – stayed alive – by drinking a constant supply of blood. I knew that perhaps he could help me silence this raging desire for blood that now consumed me.
“Flint,” I said, holding out the empty goblet to him. “Help me find more blood.”
Without saying anything, Flint turned his back and then ran across the square in the opposite direction from me.
“Flint, come back!” I shouted, my voice sounding thin and stretched as it travelled across the empty town square. I waved my hand in the air and could see that, just like my mother and the witches had, the goblet had now vanished too. With my stomach cramping and burning for more of the red stuff, I raced after Flint across the square. I ran as fast as I could, despite my legs feeling as if I was wading through water. I could see Flint ahead of me, zigzagging at speed amongst the narrow and winding streets that led away from the square. The out of shape and twisted-looking houses that towered above me were vacant and unwelcoming. Reaching a fork in the road, I looked left and right. My heart sank when I realised I’d lost sight of Flint. With the need for the red stuff clawing away inside of me, I was suddenly snatched and dragged through the door of one of the nearby buildings. Even though the inside of the building was in darkness, I could see that it was Flint who had grabbed me by the arm. The building smelt old and musty and I sensed it had been a very long time since anyone had occupied it.
Flint kicked the door shut. It was now so dark it was almost blinding. And as my eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light, I could see that Flint was pulling open the black robes he wore. He turned his head to one side, exposing his neck to me. At once, I could smell the blood pumping through the veins that lined the side of his neck. Every single one of my senses became so heightened and raw that even though I was standing in utter darkness, I could see his dark blue and green veins standing proud beneath his pale flesh. Needing to sedate the desire for blood, I raced across the room, sinking my teeth into his neck. At once, his blood gushed into my mouth. And just like the blood had been in the goblet, it was thick and sweet. My eyes rolled back in my head with delight as I felt his blood wash over my tongue and splash against the back of my throat. As his blood hit my stomach, the aching cramps I felt there began to ease. I drank from Flint’s neck and he held me tight in his arms, until slowly, he tried to push me away. But I didn’t want to stop, not just yet. I hadn’t had enough and I tried to sink my teeth into his flesh once more. It was then I noticed that my teeth were pointed and razor-sharp just like the witches’ teeth had been who I’d met in the town square.
The ache for the red stuff became less, but still I knew it wasn’t just Flint’s blood I wanted – needed. But it seemed that Flint wanted and needed something from me, too. Losing his fingers in my long, blonde hair, he turned my face away so my neck was now exposed for him. Pressing his lips against my flesh, he sunk his teeth into me. And as he began to drink from me as I’d drank from him, he started to loosen my clothes with his hands. I felt my sweater, jeans, boots, and underwear f
all away. And as he continued to feed on me, I felt a different kind of desire begin to burn within me. When I felt so lightheaded that I feared I might just faint, Flint took his lips from my neck and placed them over mine. With his hands on my breasts, he pushed me against the wall of the disused building. As we continued to kiss, I unfastened the buckle of his belt and worked his trousers down.
He broke our kiss and whispered, “You need me, Mila. You need me now as much as I need you.”
“Yes, I need you,” I whispered back, loving but also hating the idea that I now needed Flint to help me quench the desire for blood and to put out the other fire that he had always managed to set alight inside of me.
Gripping my thighs, Flint lifted my leg slightly, easing himself into me. The sex was hurried, bordering on frantic. It was as if feeding on each other had heightened our senses and turned us both on like never before. Even though our lovemaking was harried there was an intimacy that seemed only to bring us closer together. The peak of our lovemaking resulted in a rush of unbearable pleasure racing through our bodies. But yet, it seemed that Flint’s desire had not been quenched just yet. Turning me around to face the wall, I felt the stubble from his chin prickle the length of my back as he covered my shoulders, spine, and hips in kisses. Knowing that our lovemaking was not yet done, I turned around. Placing my hands on his shoulders, I pushed him down onto the floor. I lowered myself onto him, dragging my now claw-like fingers over his firm chest and stomach before covering him in kisses. Riding my hips slowly back and forth on him, Flint sighed with pleasure as the ends of my long hair brushed over his chest. Knotting his fingers in it, he pulled me forward, covering my breasts once more with kisses. The flick of his ice-cold tongue felt delicious. Locking his arms about me, he rolled me over and onto my back. He took control once more and continued to make love to me. But this time each movement of his hips was perfectly slow and precise. Drawing my knees up, I pulled him deeper into me. Nothing in the world, not even my mother, the witches, or the Beautiful Immortals seemed to matter. Even Calix had been forgotten – for now.
