Werewolves of Shade (Part Two) (Beautiful Immortals Series Book 2)

by Tim O'Rourke

  Rush stopped, and holding his lantern at eye level, he peered into the slices of darkness between the knotted tree trunks. The light from both our lanterns did little to penetrate it. It was like the darkness was absorbing the light – sucking it up.

  Swallowing hard as I remembered the sound of whatever had been following me through the woods, I said, “You know, perhaps we should wait until morning. You know, when it’s lighter. I’m not so sure I will be able to find my way back to that hole in the wall in the dark.”

  “We can’t wait until morning,” Rush said. “If one wolf has found that gap in the wall, more of them will soon follow and that could be dangerous, not only for the livestock but the others, too.”

  “Others?” I frowned at him.

  Rush looked at me, somewhat surprised. “Rea, Calix, and I aren’t the only people who live in Shade,” he said. “There are others.”

  He then stepped into the darkness that stretched deep into the wood.

  Chapter Five

  “How many more people live in Shade?” I asked, tentatively following Rush into the dark. I was surprised by what he had told me.

  “There are just over one hundred of us,” he said, stooping to avoid a low hanging branch. The wind whipped the arms of the trees back and forth overhead. “One hundred and six – seven if I count you.”

  So many, I thought. “But where are they all? Where do they live?” I started to gabble again, more questions to add to the others on my list. “The village looks deserted…”

  “Not all of Shade is deserted,” Rush cut in.

  That wasn’t what I had been led to believe, I wanted to tell him, but I bit the tip of my tongue to stop me from doing so. I still hadn’t figured out how much I should let on that I already knew about Shade. “So where do these other people live?” I finally asked.

  “On the other side of the village,” Rush explained as we made our way deeper into the wood.

  As we spoke, I couldn’t help but swing my lantern left, then right, as I glanced in every direction. I tried to listen for any sound of whatever had followed me earlier. But had I really been followed? Hadn’t it just been my imagination, stirred up by my own fears and anxieties? I was starting to wonder now if I really had seen a wolf in the alleyway next to the pub. Calix had been there – right there. If there had been a wolf, wouldn’t he have seen it, too?

  “Is that where you live?” I asked Rush, brushing aside some brambles that threatened to scratch my face as I passed too close to them.

  “Where?” Rush asked.

  “On the other side of the village with the others?”

  “No,” he said. “There are some rooms above the pub. I live in one of them. Rea and Calix live above the pub, too.”

  “You and Rea…?” I asked, wondering if they were together in some way.

  As if being able to read my mind, and with that smile playing on his lips again, Rush shot me a sideways glance in the glare from his lantern and said, “Just friends, that’s all.”

  “It doesn’t bother me… I mean, it’s none of my business…” I tripped over my words.

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?” I asked, my rucksack starting to feel heavy on my back. I rolled my shoulders forward, trying to spread the weight of it.

  “Do you have a friend?” he asked, now looking ahead, staring into the darkness.

  “A boyfriend you mean?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I guess,” I said, thinking of Flint.

  “You don’t sound so sure,” Rush said, climbing over a thick tree trunk that had fallen some time ago, but was blocking our path.

  “It’s complicated,” I said.

  “Okay,” Rush said, reaching out, taking my hand and helping me over the felled tree. His fingers curled around mine. In the dim light cast by the lantern, I hadn’t noticed that the trunk was covered in large patches of moss. It was slippery underfoot, sending me sprawling forward and into Rush’s arms. He held me close. Too close. At least he hadn’t grabbed my arse like Calix had.

  “Thanks,” I said, easing myself from his hold.

  “No problem,” he said, finally letting me go.

  There was a silence which felt a little uncomfortable. One of those silences where neither one of us knew what to say. He had only stopped me from falling flat on my face and making a complete tit of myself. What was the problem with that? Why had that left me feeling so tongue-tied?

  Breaking the silence first, Rush said, “So which way now?”

  “Erm,” I said, holding the lantern up, trying to look as if I had some vague notion of which direction we should be heading. Then pointing my finger straight ahead, I made a guess and said, “That way, I think.”

  Rush set off again, and I followed. Not wanting to have to try and explain further about the relationship with Flint – and why should I, I had only just met Rush and he was a virtual stranger to me – I changed the subject and said, “So how long have you been living in Shade?”

  “Pretty much my whole life,” he said, heading in the direction I had aimlessly pointed.

  His reply surprised me, as that would mean he had been living in Shade when everyone went missing. But if that was the case, then not everyone had gone missing – he was proof of that and so were the others he said still lived in the village. I had guessed that Rush was about twenty-two years old, so that would have made him about ten when everyone had been reported missing. He would have been old enough to remember such a thing happening. Perhaps he did remember? Perhaps Rush, Rea, Calix, and the other hundred villagers were all that remained. Perhaps my uncle had been wrong in what he believed had taken place here. But why then hadn’t my parents ever returned?

  With so many questions clawing at my mind, I didn’t know what to ask next and even if I should so soon after arriving in Shade. But before I’d had the chance to saying anything more, Rush pointed straight ahead.

  “You were right, Mila. There’s the wall and I can see the gap in it from here!” He rushed forward, the lantern swinging to and fro in his fist. And in the light that lit the darkness between the trees in sudden bursts, I saw what looked like two bright eyes watching me. I blinked and they were gone again. But they had been there, I was sure of it. Rooted to the spot, I raised my own lantern, showering light into the dark where I had seen those two eyes staring at me. They had been at waist height, two seething pools of red floating in the black.

  “Hey, Mila, give me a hand over here,” I heard Rush call out.

  I looked in his direction. Rush was kneeling before the gap in the wall. Looking back one last time where I had seen those eyes, I made my way toward Rush.

  “Here, take this,” he said, handing me his lantern.

  I took it.

  “Throw some light on this, will you, so I can see what I’m doing?” he said, taking the hammer and nails from his pocket.

  I held both lanterns up in my fists. I wanted to look back over my shoulder again. The feeling that I was being watched was like a hot blade sliding into the back of my skull. But I didn’t look back, however much I wanted to, the fear of seeing those eyes again was almost crippling.

  “Are you okay?” Rush asked, a loose plank of wood in his hand and hammer poised. He was watching me.

  “I’m fine,” I lied, fighting the urge to look back in search of those red eyes. Instead I stared down at the gap I had climbed through into Shade.

  Rush looked at the hole, then back at me. “Do you want to leave?” he suddenly asked. “I won’t stop you if that’s what you want, Mila.”

  I fought the desire to race toward that hole, run to my uncle’s truck, and drive home as fast as it would go, not stopping once until I was safely back in my bed in Maze and wrapped securely in Flint’s arms.

  “I want to stay.” The words travelled up out of my throat and over my lips before I had the chance to suck them back and swallow them whole.

  “Sure?” Rush asked.

  “I’
m sure,” I whispered.

  Placing the loose plank of wood back over the hole, Rush hammered in the first of the nails, sealing my escape from Shade.

  Chapter Six

  I stood and watched Rush cover the hole. And as I stood in the near darkness, that urge to turn around and look for those eyes I believed had been watching me slowly began to fade. Had those feelings faded because the creature they belonged to had slinked away, back to where it had come from? Had there even been a creature at all? Had those deep red eyes, glowing like the brake lights on my uncle’s truck, been something else? Like what, exactly? I asked myself.

  “All done,” Rush said, standing up and brushing earth from the knees of his jeans with his hands. Placing the hammer back into his pocket, he took the second lantern from me. “We should be getting back.”

  Not wanting to be alone in the wood in the dark for one second more than I had to, I started after him as he turned, heading back in the direction we had come.

  As we passed the tree where I believed I had been spied on, I drew close to Rush and said, “Where will I sleep tonight? At The Weeping Wolf?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “Oh,” I said, wondering why I felt disappointed by that.

  “There are no spare rooms. Just enough for Rea, Calix, and me.”

  “So where then?” I asked, reaching the felled tree trunk again. This time I was careful not to slip.

  “There are plenty of spare houses in Shade,” he said, letting go of my arm once I was clear of the trunk.

  “Why are there empty houses?” I said, taking the opportunity to ask one of the many questions burning away inside of me. “Where have the people gone?”

  “Don’t you have plenty of houses in the town where you come from?” he shot back just as quickly.

  I thought of the maze of empty streets crisscrossing my hometown. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “And what happened to the people who once occupied them?” he asked. “Didn’t they all die because of the war between the beautiful immortals?”

  “Well, yes,” I said.

  “Then that’s your answer,” he said.

  Not wanting to be put off – for I believed that’s what Rush was doing – I persisted and said, “So what do you know about that war? What stories have you heard about what happened…”

  The last part of my question was drowned out by what sounded like three rapid explosions in the distance.

  “What was that?” I gasped, coming to an abrupt halt.

  “Gunfire,” Rush said, drawing one his guns with dizzying speed and racing away in the direction the sound of gunfire had come from.

  With my rucksack bobbing up and down against my back and lantern in hand, I made after him. He moved fast, the light from his lantern becoming little more than a blazing trail in the distance as he zigzagged between the trees.

  “Wait for me!” I gasped, already feeling breathless and unable to match Rush’s speed. He must have heard me cry out over the sound of the nagging wind that sent shudders through the branches overhead, as he stopped ahead of me.

  “C’mon, Mila,” he called, holstering his gun and stretching out his hand. Running as fast as I could, I raced toward him.

  Snatching hold of my hand, he led me at speed through the wood in the direction of the hill. We moved so fast, it felt my feet were barely touching the leaf-covered ground. Wispy streams of breath escaped my lungs and drifted away. Glancing sideways at Rush, it didn’t appear that he was out of breath at all. His eyes stared front, his smile now gone, replaced with something close to a scowl. I had seen such a look before on Calix’s face as he had warned me to leave Shade. And for the briefest of moments I thought I saw a certain likeness between them both. Were they related? Brothers? No, they had different surnames. Cousins then?

  Rush slowed as we reached the treeline. “There!” he said, pointing into the distance.

  I peered in the direction he was pointing. To the east and further along the treeline, I could just make out two lights wavering in the distance. Without knowing exactly what they were, Rush pulled me in that direction as he set off again. I raced alongside him, those lights growing brighter and nearer with every stride. With the glow from my lantern lighting the way, we dodged ditches and ducked to avoid branches that stretched beyond the treeline as if making a grab for us. They reminded me of the trees that lined the road as I’d skirted around the edges of Twisted Den.

  Drawing closer to those lights, I could see that they were in fact burning lanterns just like mine, and they were being held by what looked like moving shadows. But of course they weren’t shadows, I insisted, fearing that I was just going to spook myself all over again. It was Rea and Calix I could see ahead in the dark. Hearing the sound of our footfalls, they both looked up as we neared them. They were standing before what looked like a heap of old washing that had been left out to dry on the ground.

  Coming to a stop beside them, I couldn’t help but notice how Calix glanced down, noticing how Rush had his fingers entwined with mine. Rush must have noticed Calix’s look too, as he let my hand fall away.

  “What’s happened?” Rush asked as I stood gasping for air beside him. He didn’t sound out of breath at all.

  “That’s what happened,” Rea said, pointing down at the ground.

  I looked and could see that what I had first thought was a bundle of clothes, was in fact a dead sheep. Its short, black legs were jutting up into the air. They looked stiff and brittle. Calix stood with his gun pointing down at the dead animal.

  “Why did you shoot it?” I panted, still trying to catch my breath.

  “I didn’t shoot it,” Calix snapped. “I was shooting at the creature that was ripping its fucking throat out.”

  “Ripping its throat out?” I wheezed, holding my lantern up so I could get a clear view of the creature at our feet. I lowered the lantern almost at once. Not only had the sheep’s throat been torn apart, a jagged hole ran from its neck all the way down the length of its belly to its tail. What was left of its ribcage jutted out like white spikes, where they had been snapped and broken.

  “So Mila was right then,” Rush said.

  “Right about what?” Calix said, looking at me then at Rush.

  “There is a wolf in Shade…” Rush started.

  “There was a wolf in Shade,” Rea said, heading toward the treeline. Bending at the waist, she reached down, dragging something into the light of Calix’s lantern. Her long fingers were wrapped around a long, grey bushy tail. Attached to it was a dead wolf. I could see three black holes down one flank of the creature. Its tongue lolled from the corner of its gapping jaws like a black piece of steak.

  Puffing out his chest and holstering his pistol, Calix said, “I got the fucker. He won’t be killing any more of the livestock.”

  “Did you find the gap in the fence?” Rea asked Rush as I stood staring down at the butchered sheep.

  “Yeah, we found it. There won’t be any more wolves creeping into Shade,” Rush said as I continued to stare down at the ripped throat and jagged hole in the creature. Something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what.

  “Are you okay?” I heard Rea ask me.

  “Oh Christ, she isn’t gonna puke, is she?” Calix said, taking a step backwards. I glanced up at him and it was the first time since meeting the jerk that I had seen him smiling.

  “No, I’m not going to puke,” I assured him.

  “Why do you look like you’ve shit yourself then?” he teased further still. “Scared?”

  “It will take more than a dead sheep and dead dog to scare me,” I told him, unsmiling.

  “So what’s your problem?” he shot back.

  I wanted to scream that he was the fucking problem, but that would’ve been a lie. I could cope with a jerk like Calix. It was something else that had rattled me. Something about that dead sheep and that dead wolf.

  “Aren’t you gonna say thank you then?” Calix asked as I continued to stare down at the dead
creatures.

  “Say thanks for what, exactly?” I said back without even bothering to look up at him.

  “For killing the wolf that nearly attacked you back in that alleyway,” Calix said.

  “I’ll say thank you when you find enough backbone to apologise for calling me a liar,” I said.

  “I don’t need to stand and listen to this shit,” Calix said, lowering his lantern and skulking away. “I save her dumb little arse and this is the thanks I get…”

  The sound of his moaning and complaining faded as Calix made his way back down the hill.

  “Looks like you two have hit it off,” Rea said. I thought I saw the faintest smile tugging at the corners of her lips. I didn’t want to say anything more to her about Calix. They had seemed like good friends back in the pub. Both of them had treated me unfairly. “Calix has some trust issues,” Rea added.

  “Is that the only issue he has?” I said, wishing at once that I had bitten my tongue.

  But instead of getting defensive like she had in the pub, Rea said in a calm and even tone, “You’re a stranger here. It’s going to take a while for people to get to know you – to get to trust you. We can trust you, can’t we?”

  I met her stare. “Yes.”

  Rea then asked me a question I hadn’t been expecting. “Can you read and write – can you do arithmetic?”

  “Yes, but why?” I asked.

  “We’ll see,” she said thoughtfully, before heading back down the hill after Calix.

  Standing on the hillside, the wind blowing my long, blonde hair about my shoulders, I watched her go. Alone again, Rush came and stood at my side. “I think Rea is going to let you stay in Shade,” he said.

  “Really? What makes you think that?”

  “I dunno, just a hunch,” he smiled, before setting off down the hill.

  Alone, I took one last look back at the two dead animals by the treeline. And as I looked at them in the dying light from the lantern, I realised what was wrong with what I was seeing. If the wolf had really ripped the sheep’s throat and torn open its stomach, why wasn’t there any blood? There was none splashed over the ground and none staining the snow-white snout of the wolf. Where had all the blood gone?