Glorious Appearing: The End of Days
Author: Tim LaHaye
Date: 2004-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Christian Fiction; Christian; Fiction; Religion; Fantasy; Faith; Christianity; Thriller; Apocalyptic; Spirituality
Description: Thousands of years of human history stained by strife, death, and sin come to an end when the King of Glory returns to earth. The satisfying conclusion of the seven years of tribulation covered by the Left Behind series portrays the return of Jesus Christ to earth in both glory and judgment at the height of the battle between the forces of evil gathered at Armageddon and the remaining Christian believers at Petra and Jerusalem. A repackage of the twelfth book in the "New York Times" best-selling Left Behind series. Book 12 in the 12-book series that has sold over 63 million copies! Read the bo
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers

Dead End

(Kiera Hudson Series Two)

Book 10

BY

Tim O’Rourke

First Edition Published by Ravenwoodgreys

Copyright 2014 by Tim O’Rourke

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is entirely coincidental.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Story Editor

Lynda O’Rourke

Book cover designed by:

Carles Barrios

Copyedited by:

Carolyn M. Pinard
www.cjpinard.com

For all of us who come to a dead end from time to time…

Thanks to:

Shana at abookvacation.com
bookwormbetties.blogspot.com

Caroline Barker at Areadersreviewblog.wordpress.com
claricesbooknook.blogspot.co.uk

Melly at the Vampire Forum

Who all took the time to review my books – Thank you!

You can contact Tim O’Rourke at
www.kierahudson.com

Or by email at Kierahudson91@aol.com

More books by Tim O’Rourke

Kiera Hudson Series One

Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 1

Vampire Wake (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 2

Vampire Hunt (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 3

Vampire Breed (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4

Wolf House (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4.5

Vampire Hollows (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 5

Kiera Hudson Series Two

Dead Flesh (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1

Dead Night (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1.5

Dead Angels (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 2

Dead Statues (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 3

Dead Seth (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 4

Dead Wolf (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 5

Dead Water (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 6

Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 7

Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 8 Coming December 2013!

Dead End (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 9 Coming Soon!

The Kiera Hudson Prequel Series

The Kiera Hudson Prequels (Book 1)

The Kiera Hudson Prequels (Book 2)

Kiera Hudson Series Three

Lethal Infected (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 1 Coming 2014!

The Jack Seth Novellas

Hollow Pit (Book One)

Seeking Cara (Book Two) Coming 2014!

Black Hill Farm (Books 1 & 2)

Black Hill Farm (Book 1)

Black Hill Farm: Andy’s Diary (Book 2)

A Return to Black Hill Farm (Book 3) Coming 2014!

Sydney Hart Novels

Witch (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 1

Yellow (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 2

Raven (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 3 Coming 2014!

The Doorways Trilogy

Doorways (Doorways Trilogy Book 1)

The League of Doorways (Doorways Trilogy Book 2)

The Queen of Doorways (Doorways Trilogy Book 3) Coming 2014!

Moon Trilogy

Moonlight (Moon Trilogy) Book 1

Moonbeam (Moon Trilogy) Book 2

Moonshine (Moon Trilogy) Book 3 Coming 2014!

Samantha Carter – Vampire Seeker Series

Vampire Seeker (Samantha Carter Series) Book 1

Vampire Flappers (Samantha Carter Series) Novella Coming July 2014!

The Vampire Watchmen (Samantha Carter) Book 2 Coming September 2014!

Unscathed

Written by Tim O’Rourke & C.J. Pinard

Flashes

Flashes (Book 1)

You can contact Tim O’Rourke at
www.kierahudson.com or by email at kierahudson91@aol.com

Authors Note

Now at this point I should be writing a little bit about what has gone before in both Kiera Hudson Series 1 and Series 2 as the book you now hold in your hands is the concluding part to both of them. This is the eighteenth book I have written about Kiera Hudson, which amounts to approximately one million words of reading. So when I set about thinking how can I sum that up, give everyone a little reminder of what’s happened in Kiera’s world before we got to this point, I sat and scratched my head. To sum up eighteen books and one million words would probably be another book! So I thought of my lovely friend Lisa. She is a wonderful poet, so I asked if she could write a poem about the Kiera Hudson series, which I could place into the book. To my delight she agreed and below is that poem Lisa wrote for me – for us. And it is way more interesting and beautifully written than any author note I could have come up with!

Thanks Lisa

Tim

Kiera Hudson

Kiera was a young woman starting out life with a big ambition

Her mum went missing and finding her was Kiera's life’s mission

Luckily she had a gift of seeing things in a way, which others could not

So she joins the police force in hope to find what she sought

As a recruit, Kiera's partner is Tom and they become a soulful team

But their sergeant separates them and sends them down the stream

Now a police officer, Kiera finds herself in a creepy town called Ragged Cove

Her incompetent and uncaring colleagues make her want to explode

Kiera soon discovers that she is submerged in a nightmarish world full of gore

Where humans aren't humans, but Vampyrus and lycanthrope who are at war

Kiera battles these beasts alongside the men she works with and grows to love

Loving one more than all, but he deceives her, so she gives him a hearty shove

Kiera learns she too is a Vampyrus as she fights to survive in this new world

And finds her mother who is evil, but there is so much more left to unfurl

Once again Kiera finds love in a man and in others who become her kin

Which makes it easier for her when she is killed and the push world begins

She and the other become dead angels and struggle not to turn into stone

Lot 13 is their saviour as the fight not to devour and savour flesh and bone

Deceit and pain consume Kiera as her dear ones die, lie, or vanish

My God, she has an unknown brother, the villain that causes her to perish

Kiera brings out the best in him and he sacrifices himself for the greater good

She seems to have that effect on people, she would do the same if she could

Kiera has grown into a Vampyrus warrior who fights for worlds and her loved ones

But, I don't think we've seen everything Kiera is made of, the best is yet to come

She is split in two, as is the world, being not only a Vampyrus, but a

Lycanthrope too

Kiera has leaned to trust and love, but the real lesson was to love herself true

Such a journey she has been on, I wonder if the pushed world will break or mend

I guess the wait is over for Kiera and her fans, for we have reached the Dead End

Poem by Lisa Ammari

Dead End

Chapter One

Kiera

However hard Meren tugged on my arm, I wouldn’t move. I couldn’t, I didn’t want to go on without Potter. Although my head swam with the sickening images of Potter being decapitated, then having his corpse thrown to the wolves to be ripped apart, there was a part of me that said he wasn’t dead. But however much I tried to convince myself that the man I was in love with was still somehow alive, the stark realisation that he wasn’t jabbed at my heart like a blunt blade.

“Kiera, please,” Meren begged, yanking at my arm again, desperate to get me to my feet.

A sudden roar of thunder caused Meren to flinch, her hand falling from my arm. Now that she no longer had hold of me, I slumped like a doll back onto the road that led out of Wasp Water. Thunder boomed again, like cannonballs being rolled across the floors of Heaven.

Meren grabbed my arm again, this time with more urgency. “Kiera, we can’t stay here. Something is very wrong…I think something very bad has happened.”

“I know,” I murmured through my tears, wanting to just curl up into a ball and be left to die on the road.

“I’m not talking about what happened…I’m not talking about Potter,” she said, kneeling down and talking into my ear.

The roar came again and Meren shuddered. Although I heard it, I was numb to it. “It’s just the wolves,” I whispered, hands over my face. “Let them come for me. I don’t want to go on…”

“It’s not the wolves,” Meren said, looping one of her arms through mine and again trying to hoist me to my feet. My legs felt like rubber and my heart like a dead weight. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw Potter looking at me just seconds before that blade…

“Look at the sky, Kiera,” Meren pleaded. “Just take a look.”

Slowly, I took my hands from over my face and peered upwards through my long black fringe. The sky was a deep indigo, the colour of fresh bruises. But it wasn’t just its colour. There were lines, hundreds – thousands – of them crisscrossing the cloudless sky. Screwing up my eyes and peering upwards, I could see that they weren’t lines at all, but fractures – cracks – the very fabric of the sky. It was like it was ready to break apart at any moment, showering the world below with shards of sky. The day had suddenly taken on an oppressive feel.

“What do you think they are?” Meren asked, head tilted back as she stared upwards. Her long black hair blew wildly about her pretty young face, her hazel eyes lacking some of the sparkle I had seen in them before. “What do you think’s happening?”

“I don’t know, and don’t care,” I mumbled, slumping forward again. But a part of me did care. That curios part of me – the part that thrived on solving mysteries – did care. I think Meren knew that too, as she suddenly took hold of me by the shoulders, dragging me to my feet away from the broken, weed-infested tarmac.

“What is wrong with you?” Meren suddenly screamed, her face just inches from mine as she held me up.

“I can’t go on – not without him…not without…”

“But you’re Kiera Hudson,” Meren said, scowling at me. “I believed in you – I followed you. I thought you were strong and courageous. That’s why we half-breeds followed you when we were nothing more than statues. Fucking hell, Kiera, I wanted to be you.”

“I’m no hero,” I said, breaking her stare and looking back along the desolate road toward the town of Wasp Water. The thunder boomed again and in the distance I heard the wolves howl. Had they finished ripping at and eating Potter? Then, looking back at Meren, I said, “Can’t you understand how I feel? I just lost…”

“Lost!” Meren said, lower lip trembling as if she were about to burst into tears either through frustration or grief. “Don’t tell me about loss. I watched Nessa, my twin sister, die. I watched her turn to dust and blow away on the wind. For months I could only look on hopelessly as she slowly broke apart. How do you think that made me feel?”

I looked away again.

Meren pushed me in the chest. “Look at me, Kiera, not back at Wasp Water. I know what loss feels like. But one thing I didn’t do was give up. You can never give up. That’s something we don’t do.”

“And who told you that bullshit?” I scoffed, turning on her.

Meren looked at me hard, her hazel eyes now blazing again. “You told me that, Kiera.” Meren took a deep breath, her lower lip still wavering. “You told me that, and I believed you. You told all of us not to ever give up and we all believed you.”

“Who’s we?” I said, not wanting to scoff and sneer, but it sounded like that.

“The half-breeds who just lost their lives in that helicopter attack. Alice, Peter, Gayle and my father, Murphy, who lay injured, back in the overhang. Potter believed you, and that’s why he’s dead.”

“So what happened to him is my fault?” I snapped, clawing stray lengths of black hair away from my face as the cold wind blew harder.

“Potter died because he believed in you, Kiera,” Meren said, standing her ground. “Potter died because he loved you. Not so long ago, I asked you if you would ever marry Potter. But you told me that would never happen, as men like him don’t get married. But guys like Potter, and I’m guessing there aren’t too many of them, followed you. He might never have asked you to marry him, but he fought for you, he protected you. And why? Because he wanted to help you push the two worlds back together again. He wanted to help you put things right. He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t have believed in you – he wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t have loved you. And this is how you’re going to repay him? Give up when he never gave up on you?”

I stared at her and felt like I’d had a verbal kick-in. “But…” I started.

“No buts!” she spat, jabbing her forefinger at me. Then staring into my eyes, she said, as if she too were now defeated, “Perhaps you weren’t the hero I thought you were. Perhaps you weren’t the hero I wanted you to be. I needed to believe in someone, Kiera, and I stupidly believed in you.”

Without saying another word, she turned and slowly headed up the centre of the deserted strip of road and back toward the woods that led to the overhang where Murphy and the others lay injured. I watched her go and knew now that she was more like her father, Murphy, than perhaps I’d first realised.

“Where are you going?” I called after her, another roar of thunder threatening to drown out my words.

“To help my father and my friends,” she said without looking back at me.

I glanced back over my shoulder at the town of Wasp Water. Meren was right, however much it made my heart ache; I knew there was no point in going back. Slowly, and with the chill wind drying the tears that dampened my face, I followed the path that led to the woods. Meren had waited for me after all.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Me too,” Meren said.

As if being able to read each other’s minds, we hugged each other.

“I know your heart is broken, Kiera, but all might not be lost,” Meren said. “If we find out how to push the two worlds back together then Potter might come back. Nessa, too.”

Looking at her and not wanting either of us to have false hope, I said, “Potter and Nessa are dead in both worlds. Pushing them back together won’t change that.”

Taking her hand in mine, I glanced up at the sky covered with thousands of opening scars. It really did look like the world – this world – was starting to break apart. Without saying another word, we entered the woods and headed back toward the overhang where our friends waited for us.

Chapter Two

Isidor

No sooner had Coanda dragged me down through the crack in the ground, I realised that the Vampyrus were no longer prepared to stay hidden in The Hollows. Coanda had explained, as he led me to the medical caves deep within The Hollows, how he had gathered an army on Luke Bishop’s orders and readied it for attack against the wolves. I knew at once that Coanda didn’t recognise me, even though we had travelled side by side in The Hollows once before. But I had to keep reminding myself that all of that had happened before the world got pushed. That was when Luke Bishop had been both our enemies.

I knew Melody and me were in danger in The Hollows. If the Vampyrus discovered that she was really a wolf, she would be dead. But in a strange way, I was glad to be back. This was where my auntie had raised me and I couldn’t help but wonder if she lived where we had once shared a small hollow cut into the side of the Ageless Hill. I couldn’t stop the sudden pang I felt in my heart as I stared across The Hollows at it and how I wanted to go there and see if my auntie was still there. But I couldn’t, as I feared that just like Coanda failed to recognise me, then so might she. I didn’t know if I could deal with that. It would hurt too much. I glanced upwards and saw the tree roots protruding through The Hollows above me. They had been the tree roots I had once climbed, searching for a way to venture out into the world above. The roots had been infested with Spiderpedes and Slugworms, and I couldn’t help but shiver as I remembered how they had fallen into my hair and slithered over my skin. But it had been worth it. If I hadn’t have ventured above ground, then I would have never met Melody Rose. I would have never known what true love was. Potter would cringe if he could ever look into my heart and see the feelings I had for Melody. But I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone, and I wasn’t ashamed for thinking that.

But even though a part of me was fearful to be back deep within The Hollows, it was good to feel the thick carpet of lime coloured moss beneath my feet. It felt soft and spongy, just like it always had. It never hurt when I fell over as a boy, while playing a game of Blast with my friends.  There were thousands of trees, each looking as if they had been planted into the ground upside down. Their roots hung like vines. They were orange, brown, yellow and red, and from a distance they shimmered as if ablaze. The giant granite rocks I had climbed over as a small boy reached upwards like cathedral spires. They disappeared high up into the darkness and were the very pillars that supported the world and home I originally came from. And despite the beauty of The Hollows, I couldn’t help but feel a dark current of excitement – anticipation – ebbing and flowing all around me.

In the distance I could see swathes of male and female Vampyrus swooping through the air. They raced between the stalagmites that hung from the darkness. They zipped between them, diving and darting at speed, and I knew what they were doing. They were practicing for war. The war that Luke was planning to rage above ground. The war that the wolves had no idea was coming and would destroy all of them. With the humans weakened, there would be no one to stop Luke now from wiping out the wolves and taking the world for the Vampyrus – for himself.

Coanda left me at the medical caves and set off again to ready his soldiers for war. Doctor Ravenwood looked just how I’d remembered him to be. Like some kind of owl. But the last time I had seen him, Ravenwood had been lying dead on the floor of his tiny cottage in the grounds of the hangar where Luke had been carrying out his freakish experiments on the half-breeds. It was in that hangar I had been disturbed so much by the discovery of deformed looking doubles of me. I’m glad that nightmare was over, but was it any worse than the nightmare I was living now.

Ravenwood wore blue scrubs and his large, claw-like hands were covered in a pair of latex gloves. Glasses were perched on his pointed nose and his face was covered in lengths of thick white hair. He was plump and aged about fifty, and his long, mottled wings trailed behind him as he shuffled across the cave that doubled as some kind of emergency room. The walls were made from rock, the floor was stone, and torches flickered in each corner, casting the room in a warm glow. There was a wooden trolley and a table near to the bed where Melody lay bleeding. On the trolley was an array of tools, some were knives, others rusty-looking saws. They were the kind of tools someone would use to create Frankenstein. He glanced up at me, then down at Melody. Blood ran from the gunshot wounds that covered her body. The red stuff oozed over the pink roses that tattooed her skin from head to toe.

“My name is Doctor Ravenwood,” he said.

I knew he didn’t recognise me, just like Coanda hadn’t. It was like he had never seen or met me before. In this pushed world, he hadn’t. We were nothing more than strangers. In this world, Ravenwood was just like all the other Vampyrus, he lived underground where the Elders had shut them away. I looked with horror at the contraption Doctor Ravenwood had placed on the table next to Melody. It looked like some kind of ancient camera, but I knew exactly what it was. The front had a long protruding lens which stuck out like an accordion with handles. He picked it up.

“What’s that?” I asked. My heart started to race.

“It’s just like a camera, really, but it takes pictures of what’s going on inside…” he started.

“Like an x-ray?” I asked.

He glanced at me over the top of his glasses. “You’ve spent too much time above ground, boy.”

Had I said the wrong thing? Put my foot in it? Then remembering how Coanda had jumped to the conclusion that Melody and I had been scouting above ground, I said, “I’ve learnt a thing or two about the wolves and humans.”

Ravenwood picked up the camera. If he used that on Melody, he would soon discover she wasn’t a Vampyrus, but a wolf. He would see that she didn’t have wings hidden inside of her.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked, taking a step closer to the bed where Melody lay. Her eyes were closed and I doubted she knew how much danger she was in.

“I’m going to take some pictures of your friend’s wounds,” he said, lifting the camera and pointing it toward Melody.

“Is that really necessary?” I asked, beads of sweat starting to break out on my brow. The atmosphere in the cave felt suddenly suffocating. Pointing at the gunshot wounds peppering Melody’s body, I quickly added, “Can’t you see the wounds clearly enough?”

“I need to take a look inside and see what damage the bullets might have caused,” he said, taking aim with the odd-looking camera.

“The wounds look as if they are healing already,” I blustered. “Some of them have started to scab over already. My friend is a quick healer. She’ll be back on her feet in no time.” I leant over Melody and shook her gently by the shoulders. I wanted to wake her, just in case we had to make our escape, but more than that, I wanted to block Ravenwood from getting a clear shot of her with his camera. Melody stirred at my touch, her eyelids flickering open.

“Isidor…” she murmured as if coming awake.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Sore,” she groaned, her full lips now looking cracked and dry.

“See? She’s feeling better already,” I said, looking back over my shoulder at Ravenwood, who was now spying through the camera lens at us.

“Can you please get out of my way?” he ordered. “I’m trying to take a photograph of my patient. If you don’t move, I’ll have to ask you to leave and come back when she’s feeling better.”

“But she’s already feeling better,” I said, trying to ease Melody into a sitting position on the bed.

She cried out in pain, winced, and grabbed her side.

“Will you please leave the girl alone?” Ravenwood said stiffly, peering over the top of the camera he held before his face. “Her wounds might be healing on the outside, but I need to see if she has damaged her wings. The membrane can take longer to heal, and if the humerus or the radius and ulna have been shattered then I need to know, as her wings could be damaged beyond repair. We need as many fit and able Vampyrus we can find if we are to launch our attack from Snake Weed within the next two days.”

“Snake Weed?” I said with a frown. “Why the town of Snake Weed?”

“Bishop has a vast number of wolves gathered at Wasp Water,” Ravenwood started to explain, the camera still in his hands. “That’s where the original treaty between the wolves and the humans was signed. He has already caught one of the Dead Angels and has executed him...”

“What was this Dead Angel’s name?” I asked fearful for my friends.

“Porker…I think,” he said, sounding distracted.

“Don’t you mean, Potter?” I asked, hoping that he had been mistaken.

“That’s the one. Now if you don’t mind, could you move out of the way? I’m trying to take a picture here,” he said, flapping one of his giant latex covered claws at me.

Although I felt suddenly ill and in shock at the news that Potter was dead, I tried to hide my growing emotions and said, “So what exactly is Luke Bishop’s plan?”

“The Vampyrus are going to go above ground in the town of Snake Weed. Some have already started to gather there. Snake Weed is hidden in a valley and protected on all sides by hills and mountains. Here he can prepare his armies safely and away from the wolves. The town is in easy striking distance of Wasp Water. The Vampyrus will be able to sneak up on the wolves and surround Wasp Water on all sides and from above.” He peered at me over the top of his glasses again and added, “I thought you would have known all of this, seeing as you and your friend have been acting as scouts above ground. Now let me take this photograph. We’re wasting valuable seconds.”

Knowing I needed to buy myself some more time, I lingered in front of Melody again and said, “What about this Potter – the dead angel? Why kill him?”

“It’s just another part of Bishop’s trap. He knows that the dead angel, Kiera Hudson, will go to Wasp Water to avenge the death of the man she loves. The wolves know this too. They want her dead, as it has been prophesised that she has come back to destroy the wolves; that’s another reason that the wolves have gathered there. They want to see their nemesis die.”

“But it isn’t Kiera Hudson who is going to destroy the wolves, it’s Bishop, who they believe is the wolf man,” I said, glancing down at Melody. Her eyes were now fully open as she lay and listened to how her race was going to be slaughtered.

“We know that, but the wolves don’t,” Ravenwood grinned, looking suddenly evil. “Bishop has been using this dead angel – Kiera Hudson –
as bait too. He has it all figured out.”

Coming forward, Ravenwood pushed me aside, and before I’d had the chance to stop him, he had taken a picture of Melody with his weird-looking camera. The cave flashed bright with blinding white light and both Melody and I covered our eyes with our hands. The camera made a whirring noise, followed by a series of clicks. Taking my hands from over my eyes, I looked at Melody and she stared back at me. We both knew that it was only going to be moments now before Ravenwood discovered that Melody wasn’t a Vampyrus, but a wolf. Melody still looked too weak to escape. She might be able to get up and hobble a few steps, and although some of the gunshot wounds covering her body looked to have scabbed over, some still looked open and raw.

I feared that we were now trapped in The Hollows.

Chapter Three

Potter

“Those cracks are growing bigger and deeper,” Kayla said over the rumbling boom of thunder.

I followed her stare and looked up at the darkening sky. It was mauve and the cracks were black, like deep fractures. We had been walking in silence since leaving the woods where Kayla and Sam had gone through the crack with who they believed was Sam’s mother. But it had really been Jessica Hudson, the woman who had once ripped out my heart in The Hollows. I’d now ripped hers out, so I guessed that made us both even. I think, like me, Kayla had been trying to make sense of everything we had both learnt, passing back and forth through the cracks, taking photographs and playing errand boy while delivering those lover letters I had once written to Sophie. I wished now that I had never written those fucking letters. They had caused nothing but heartache to both me and Sophie, but most of all to Kiera. But back then, just after Sophie had broken my heart, how was I supposed to have known that I would have met Kiera and truly known what love was? I knew now that what Sophie and I had once shared was nothing more than an infatuation, or more aptly put, I couldn’t keep my pecker in my pants.

I glanced at Kayla and she at me as the sky shook overhead and those cracks grew ever bigger. Kayla didn’t look scared at the thought that this pushed world might be falling apart, she just looked sad.

“What are you thinking?” I asked, setting off back across the field we were standing in. It was cold and I wrapped my coat about me. It flapped about my legs like a tattered cape.

“I’m not thinking about anything,” Kayla said, setting off after me.

“Liar,” I said, taking a cigarette from my pocket and struggling to light it in the howling wind. “Are you upset about Sam?”

“About him dying, you mean?” she asked, drawing alongside me, as I finally got my smoke to light.

“Yeah,” I said, looking at her.

“I wish he was with us now,” she said, combing her bright red hair behind her ears. “But I can’t believe that he is dead. I know I will see him again.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked, leading her to the edge of the field and into a crop of trees where the wind wasn’t blowing so hard.

“He told me that we had once met before, remember?” Kayla said.

And I did remember. Kayla had told me how Sam had been convinced he had met Kayla on some beach. It was the day that Luke Bishop and Jessica Hudson, the people who had stolen him as a baby, had disappeared from his life during some boating trip. It all sounded a bit fucking odd, if I were to be honest. I never thought the boy, Sam was too bright and spent most of his time with his head up his arse, but I didn’t want to tell Kayla this. If believing that she would someday meet Sam again and it was that which helped her grieve, I wasn’t going to piss all over it. Besides, what the fuck did I know? Things were changing in this pushed world by the hour. Anything seemed possible now. But there was still a part of me that believed false hope was a bad thing and she would someday have to confront the fact that Sam was dead.

“If it helps, keep believing that, Kayla. But remember me and you know better than most now that there are plenty of different whens and wheres, and Sam seeing you on that beach could have been in any one of them,” I said, desperate not to break her heart, but not wanting her to put all her faith in something that might never happen either. What sort of friend would do that? Kayla was my friend – more than a friend after everything we had been through – she was like a kid sister to me.

“No, it definitely happens in this where and when,” Kayla insisted as we made our way through the crop of trees which led into a dense and overgrown wood. “He told me he saw me just before his father – Bishop – disappeared on that boat and he got sent to Ravenwood School.” Kayla reached into her coat pocket and pulled something out. “He showed me this newspaper cutting, which had the story about me and Isidor being killed by our father. Sam said that when he saw me arrive at the school, at first he thought he was seeing a ghost as he knew I was dead, which I was in this pushed world. On that beach, apparently, I tell Sam everything is going to be okay. But I don’t remember ever meeting Sam before going to Ravenwood School, so it couldn’t have happened yet which means that one day, in this where and when or another, I know I will meet Sam again.”

“So I was right then,” I said, smoking my cigarette. “You have been thinking about Sam.”

Kayla shook her head. “No, I’ve been thinking about Isidor.”

“Isidor?” I frowned.

“Don’t you remember what we heard Luke saying about Isidor?” she said, still clutching the newspaper cutting. “Luke was pissed off that Sam had come back with a picture of Jack Seth and his brother Nik and not Isidor and Melody Rose.”

“So?” I asked, fearing where this might be leading.

“So, perhaps the reason Sam snapped a picture of Jack and Nik and not Isidor and Melody was because something changed somehow. And that change might mean that Isidor is still alive. Even Luke thought that.” Then, glancing up at the sky through the leafless branches, Kayla added, “Perhaps that’s why the sky is cracking. Perhaps Jack changed something? Maybe Jack took Isidor’s place?”

Flicking the smouldering butt of my cigarette away, I said, “If you really believe that piece of murdering scum would give his life to save Isidor, than you’re out of your tiny mind, Kayla. Jack wouldn’t save Isidor’s life, he would take it.”

“But you said Nik swapped places to save you,” Kayla reminded me.

“That wasn’t to save me, that was to save Kiera,” I told her.

“Then perhaps Jack saved Isidor to help Kiera?”

I stopped and looked at her. “Kayla, you need a serious reality check. Wolves don’t help people. They kill them. Take a look around. Think back to what the wolves have been doing to all those human kids they rounded up and placed in that school. They’ve been stealing their skins, they’ve been stealing their souls. For as long as I can remember, the wolves have been nothing but child murdering scum, and they wouldn’t help the likes of us.”

“Sam helped us, and he was a wolf,” Kayla said with defiance. “He looked for the crack which helped us escape Luke, Phillips, Rom, and Taylor. If it hadn’t have been for Sam showing me that crack, we would be dead right now.”

“Big deal,” I said, shrugging my shoulders and lighting another smoke.

“Pen helped you, and she’s a wolf,” Kayla said, jabbing at my conscience.

“The jury is still out on her,” I remarked, chewing the butt of my cigarette between my front teeth.

Then taking me by the arm and turning me so I had to face her, Kayla slowed and said, “You told me that Kiera is half wolf. Do you hate her, too?”

“That’s different,” I barked, shrugging her hand free of my hand and striding away.

“Why’s it different?” she yelled, coming after me through the trees.

“Kiera isn’t no child killer,” I shouted back over my shoulder.

“Neither was Sam, and neither is Pen – Lilly Blu,” Kayla reminded me. Then snatching hold of my arm again so I couldn’t go on, she spun me around to face her again. “Not all wolves are the same. Just like we’re different from Luke Bishop and the other Vampyrus that have always wanted to kill humans and not protect them. Not everyone is the same.”

I looked at Kayla and I knew deep down that she was right, about Sam and Pen at least.

“I think Isidor is still alive. And if he is, we should go after him,” Kayla said, her voice calmer now that she had my full attention.

“No way, Kayla,” I said. “We go to the Dead Waters where you can bathe. It’s the only way your skin will stop cracking, and to beat your thirst for the red stuff, and then we head straight for Wasp Water. Kiera believes I’m dead…”

“Please, Potter,” Kayla said, her eyes dark and round. “My brother could be in danger. I don’t want to lose him again.”

“Kayla, take a look at yourself,” I said, grabbing hold of the hand that held the newspaper cutting. “Your skin is starting to harden and crack, and before long you’ll be climbing the freaking walls in need for the red stuff. We need to get you to the Dead Waters. And besides, where would we start looking for him? Who knows with Isidor…”

“He’ll go looking for Melody Rose,” Kayla said, holding up the slip of newspaper. “We know she is alive in this pushed world, as she is the reporter who wrote this story about mine and Isidor’s deaths.”

“And where are we going to find her?” I sighed in frustration.

“The town of Lake Lure, because that’s where she lived before the world got pushed. Isidor told us that,” Kayla explained.

“But that doesn’t mean she’ll be living there now,” I tried to convince her. But I knew I was pissing against the wind.

“It doesn’t matter if she lives there or not, I’m trying to find my brother, not Melody Rose,” Kayla said.

“So what’s the fucking point in going to Lake Lure?” I wanted to scream.

“Because that’s where Isidor will head for!”

“It’s too much of a risk,” I said. “We keep to our plan and head for the Dead Waters, then onto Wasp Water.”

“Our plan?” Kayla scoffed. “Don’t you mean your plan?”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” I shot back.

“If it was anyone else other than Isidor, say, Murphy, or Kiera, then you’d be off like a shot looking for them,” Kayla shouted. “But it doesn’t matter about Isidor, does it.? You never liked him…”

“Now hang on,” I cut in. “I was just as upset as everyone else when he decided to stay back at that railway station. Just because I don’t throw myself all over the fucking show screaming and crying, it doesn’t mean that I wasn’t cut up inside that Isidor died.”

“You never really cared about him…” Kayla started.

“How would you know how I feel about anything, Kayla?” I barked.

“So why don’t you try telling people how you feel sometimes? We ain’t fucking mind readers!” Kayla screamed, then turned and marched away in the direction we had come.

What was she expecting me to say? What was anyone ever expecting me to say? Tossing my cigarette away, I raced through the trees after her. I grabbed Kayla by the arm and spun her around.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” I said, trying not to raise my voice. I wasn’t mad at her, just frustrated. How much more did I need to do for my friends before they realised how much I cared about every single one of them?

“Get what?” She eyed me with a frown.

I took a deep breath, blowing out my cheeks. “It doesn’t matter.” Then, shaking my wings free of my back, I shot up into the air.

“Where are you going?” She looked at me as I tore through the tree branches.

“Going to save your brother’s dumb arse!” I shouted, and then raced away. Within moments, I heard the soft hum of wings beside me.

Glancing right, I saw Kayla racing through the sky, just feet away. “Thank you,” she said.

“If we don’t get to the Dead Waters soon, you might not be thanking me,” I said, and glided away toward the town of Lake Lure. The cracks from up here looked deep, like giant wounds that opened up to reveal nothing but darkness beneath.

Chapter Four

Kiera

“If you had been gone any longer, I would have come looking for you both,” Murphy growled. He didn’t sound angry, just uncomfortable due to the pain from where he had been shot when fighting the Skin-walkers in the helicopters.

I watched Murphy pull himself up from off the dusty floor of the overhang. He clutched his side and winced. There was a large dark patch of dried black blood on his torn shirt. It was unlike Murphy to look so dishevelled. He usually took such pride when wearing his police uniform. He looked tired. His black hair seemed to be flecked with more grey streaks than ever, and his chin was covered in a spray of dark whiskers. Gayle had been keeping guard at the entrance to the overhang as promised, and she looked tired, just as Murphy did. Gayle stepped aside as Meren and I entered the overhang. It was cold inside and no fire had been made. It was too risky to do so as the flames might have attracted the attention of the Skin-walkers combing the surrounding fields looking for us. Peter sat against the far wall, his sister’s head in his lap. Alice’s eyes flickered open as she heard us arriving. Seeing that it was only Meren and me returning from Wasp Water, she closed her eyes again and continued to rest. Her tattered wings looked as if they had started to heal already. That was good, as we wouldn’t be going far if she was unable to fly.

Murphy limped toward me, hand pressed to his side. He looked at me, then at his daughter, and back at me again. He sensed that something terrible had happened.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I tried to form the words, but couldn’t. My lower lip trembled and I bit into it, willing myself not to burst into tears again.

“Potter’s dead,” Meren explained to her father on my behalf.

“Dead?” Murphy breathed deeply as if catching his breath. “There must be a mistake. Potter can’t be dead.”

“It’s true,” I said, tears threatening to spill onto my cheeks again.

“How?” Murphy mumbled, sounding confused, as if he couldn’t comprehend what he was being told.

Meren went to speak again, but I cut over her. It was only right that I explained to Murphy how his best friend had died. Unable to meet his piercing stare, I whispered. “The wolves executed him.”

“I don’t believe it,” Murphy said, his voice growing deep.

“I saw it happen with my own eyes,” I said, now unable to stop the silent tears that spilled onto my cheeks again. “They decapitated him.”

“Who did?” he asked, coming closer so we were almost touching.

I tried to form the words, but couldn’t.

“The wolves did,” Meren explained for me.

I looked up and could see that Gayle had stepped away from the entrance to the overhang, and Alice was now sitting up. All of their faces looked pale, as if all the blood had been sucked out of them.

Then, as if what he had been told had finally hit him, Murphy let out a gut-wrenching wail. The sound of his sudden grief was terrifying. Both Meren and I flinched backwards, and Gayle went back to cowering by the entrance to the overhang.

“Tell me it’s not true!” Murphy roared with grief.

His face seemed to contort out of shape and his wings shot from his back, the last remains of his shirt falling away in threadbare strips. He threw his head back and roared like a savage animal, the wound in his side opening again, and blood gushing over his rock-hard stomach and down the front of his trousers.

“I should have gone with you,” he wailed. “I should have been there to save him.”

“There was nothing you could have done,” I cried. That rush of grief I had felt earlier washed over me again, but this time it was worse, because I was now hurting for Murphy. It was horrendous to witness his grief and anguish at the loss of Potter. I knew that however much Murphy had bickered and argued in the past with Potter, I didn’t doubt that Murphy had loved him, but not as a friend, but a son. The last time I had seen such grief was when Potter had witnessed the death of Murphy in the caves beneath the Fountain of Souls. Potter’s grief for his friend had been just as real as Murphy’s now was.

With his wings bristling out behind him, claws out like a set of blades, Murphy pushed me aside, heading out of the overhang.

“Where are you going?” I said, snaking the tears from my face with my arm.

“To slaughter every fucking wolf in Wasp Water,” he roared.

“There are too many of them, Dad,” Meren said, racing toward her father and taking him by the arm. And just like she had tried to drag me off the road, she now tried to drag her father back beneath the overhang. “Please, Dad, they will kill you, too.”

“So what are we to do, sit here and let them come for us, too?” he shouted, thrusting a claw in the direction of the fields where he knew the wolves were searching for us. “I’d rather die avenging Potter’s death than just sit here.”

“Dying won’t bring Potter back,” Meren tried desperately to reason with him.

And however much I wanted to rip the throat out of every wolf in Wasp Water for what they had done to Potter, I knew what Meren said was right. “Meren, is right, Murphy,” I whispered through my tears. “We might kill a few wolves before they kill us. And besides, Alice is still injured and needs to rest. And even if she wasn’t injured, there are not enough of us.”

“I will be okay,” Alice said, pulling herself up with the help of her brother.

“I’m ready to fight alongside you, too,” Gayle said, stepping forward. I could see the desire to fight in her eyes.

“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “I have lost too many friends already, and I’m not prepared to lose anymore.

Murphy glanced at me and I could see that his eyes looked like glass, wet with tears. “And that’s why we should kill some of these fuckers. They have murdered Isidor, Kayla, Sam, and now Potter.”

“We can’t be sure that Sam and Kayla are dead,” I said.

“They went missing, didn’t they?” Murphy barked at me. “What else could have happened to them?”

“When we went back and searched for them, I found their tracks in the snow, remember?” I said. “There was no blood or any sign of a fight. It was like they had just disappeared. Kayla and Sam could be out there somewhere. They might need our help. It might be better if we went in search of them instead of undertaking a suicide mission into Wasp Water.”

“What do you think happened to your friends?” Meren asked

“I think the wolf man led them away, perhaps he will use them as bait. And to act as bait, we need to be alive,” I said.

“So who is this wolf man?” Peter asked, helping his sister forward, arm around her shoulders.

“It’s Jack Seth,” Murphy said. “He’s behind this. He’s wanted both me and Potter dead since we burst in on him and found his snout buried in the guts of some woman he had just butchered. He killed me beneath the Fountain of Souls, before the world got pushed…”

“It wasn’t Jack who killed you,” I reminded him, never believing that I would be defending Jack Seth.

“It might not have been him who ripped my heart out,” Murphy shouted, “but it was him who tricked us. It was Jack who led me to my death and your capture. Or have you forgotten all that, now that you’ve discovered he’s your brother?”

The others all turned to stare at me on discovering this news. Why was Murphy being so cruel to me? Did he blame me for Potter’s death? Did he secretly feel that I didn’t try and save him? Did he believe I was protecting Jack over Potter?  I tried to not let his comments hurt me, I was already hurting enough. Swallowing hard, I looked right back at Murphy and said, “I suspect that Luke Bishop is the Wolf Man.”

“Bishop!” Murphy laughed deep in the back of his throat. It was an unkind, mocking laugh and I hated it. “He’s a Vampyrus, not a fucking wolf.”

“This is exactly what Bishop did before in The Hollows,” I said, holding back the urge to walk away. Why did I always have to be the one to figure stuff out.  “He picked us off one by one. He broke us down until there were hardly any of us left – until we were all dead. He turned us against each other – made us suspicious of each other. It was Luke who masterminded your death, not Jack. It was Luke who coaxed Kayla away and murdered her. It was Luke who killed Isidor. This is his M.O. It’s what he does – it’s what he is – a killer. Luke Bishop isn’t his real name, and neither is it the Wolf Man. They are just masks. If you look behind them, you’ll find Elias Munn.”

Murphy looked at me, his claws swinging by his sides, and wings flapping behind him. He really did look like a monster, but weren’t all of us monsters, too? “So what if you’re right. What if this wolf man is Elias Munn… what are we going to do about it? What do you suggest, eh? After all, it is you who is meant to see everything. How do you see us getting out of this mess we’re in?”

I looked across the overhang at Murphy. I could see the hurt and the pain in his eyes. I knew that’s why he was angry. If he couldn’t take his anger out on the wolves, then he seemed to have decided to take it out on me. But I didn’t need his pain; I had enough of my own to deal with. So, lowering my head, I stormed across the overhang and toward the entrance. I just wanted to be alone. Before I’d had the chance to leave, I felt Murphy’s claw curl around my wrist.

“So what do you see, Kiera Hudson?”

I yanked my arm free and looked at him. “I see a man grieving for his best friend – for the man he loved like a son. But that doesn’t mean you can dump all the grief over me. I never asked to be able to see things, and right now I wish I was as blind you, Murphy.” Unable to hold back a fresh wave of tears any longer, but refusing to let Murphy see them, I turned and fled the overhang.

Chapter Five

Isidor

Ravenwood placed the camera back onto the wooden table next to the bed where Melody lay. He flipped a switch on the side of it, with one hooked thumb. The odd camera made a purring noise and a bright cone of brilliant white light shone from the lens. It reminded me at once of the camera the Vampyrus named Burton used to show his magical moving pictures against the cave walls. And just like those magical moving pictures, an image now shone against the wall of the cave we stood in. It glowed brightly with an image of Melody’s insides. I could clearly see her skeleton. It was like looking at a photographic negative. As if the picture was somehow blurred or out of focus, Ravenwood stared at it, then scratched his head. He leant forward and adjusted a series of dials on the side of the camera.  But it did nothing to make the wings appear that Ravenwood was expecting to see. I could clearly make out her ribcage and the long, sharp claws hidden beneath the flesh of her hands and feet. I could see the protruding stub of bone at the base of her spine where her tail snaked from, but there was no sign of any wings.

Slowly, Ravenwood turned and looked at Melody lying injured on the bed.

“You’re not a Vampyrus, you’re a wolf,” he seethed, lips curling back to show his fangs and disgust at the creature lying before him. He looked suddenly repulsed at the sight of her. But I was sure I also saw a flicker of fear in his eyes.  He then looked at me, taking a careful step backwards. “Are you a wolf, too?”

Tearing off my coat and letting it drop to the ground, I opened my arms and revealed the black tattered wings that hung beneath them. My claws sprang from my fingertips. I kept them by my sides, as I wanted to prove to Ravenwood that neither Melody nor I were a threat to him.

“I’m a Vampyrus, just like you, Ravenwood,” I said.

“Then what are you doing with that?” he hissed, pointing one claw at Melody, who still lay on the bed recovering from her injuries.

“That has a name,” I corrected him. “Her name is Melody Rose…”

“What are you doing in the company of a wolf?” Ravenwood asked, still sounding shocked and as if he were trying to get his head around what he had just uncovered. He glanced back at the picture still illuminating the wall, then back at us.

I had moved close to Melody, and standing next to the bed, I took her hand in mine. “We are in love,” I said, proudly.

“In love?” Ravenwood grimaced. “But that is unnatural. For a Vampyrus to love a wolf is forbidden. Is she some kind of spy? Are you both spies?”

“We’re not spies,” I said.

“Then why has a wolf infiltrated The Hollows?” he stared hard at me.

“Infiltrated?” I said. “That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it? Melody just needs your help.”

“I don’t help wolves,” Ravenwood said, brushing past me toward the door. “I’m going to report this to the guards.”

I gripped his arm, just as he reached the door. I couldn’t let him warn the other Vampyrus. They would kill Melody, and probably me, too. “Please, if you won’t help her, just let her rest for a while. Once my friend is feeling better, we will leave The Hollows.”

He looked into my eyes as if searching them. Was there a flash of recognition? Were the memories of me being held in that zoo before the world got pushed coming back?

Then that flash was gone. “You’re a traitor. You’ve come to find out our plan of attack against the wolves, and now that you know you’ll tell them everything.” He inched closer toward the door.

I curled my claw tighter about his wrist. “You remember me, don’t you?”

“Remember you?” Ravenwood blinked as if pinched.

“My name is Isidor Smith…” I started.

“Isidor…?” he whispered, his eyes never leaving mine. “Isidor Smith, now that name does sound familiar.”

“You knew me once…you knew my father…” I tried to get him to remember me.

He blinked again, and his eyes grew wide behind his glasses. “I remember that name. That is the name of a Dead Angel.” He yanked his arm free of my grasp and fell back toward the door. “We were warned that you might come. You’re with her – the Dead Angel named Kiera Hudson.”

In his desperation he clawed for the door handle so he could warn the other Vampyrus. I grabbed him again, pulling him close. “I can’t let you raise the alarm,” I whispered into his face. “Don’t make me hurt you, Ravenwood. It’s the last thing I want to do, but I can’t let my friend Melody be captured down here.”

If only I could get him to listen to me – to remember. Doctor Ravenwood wasn’t my enemy. He had once been my father’s friend. But that had been before the world got pushed. He had once helped Kiera Hudson. He had left the note hidden in the pages of the book The Wind in the Willows, which warned Kiera about Elias Munn. He had wanted to help her back then, but now he feared her. Elias Munn had poisoned his mind in this world.

“Please listen to me…” I tried again. Before I’d the chance to finish, Ravenwood had broken free of my grip and yanked open the door. His mottled-looking wings flapped all around him as he raced into the tunnel outside.

“Guards! Guards!” he roared.

With his back to me Ravenwood was unprotected – defenceless – and I could easily have taken his head off with my claws. But I couldn’t. He feared me because of ignorance, nothing else. That wasn’t reason enough for me to kill him. Even though he couldn’t remember me, I remembered him, and he was a good man.

With the sound of approaching guards thundering down the tunnel, I span around. I picked up my coat, tying the arms about my waist, then threw my rucksack over my back. With crossbow in one claw, I reached down for Melody. Slipping my free arm beneath one of hers, I hoisted Melody to her feet. She stumbled forward. I held her tightly to me.

“I’ll slow you down like this,” she said. “It will be less painful as a wolf.”

Before I could tell her that was like a really bad idea and the Vampyrus would freak if they saw a wolf for real deep within The Hollows, she had pulled away from me. Lurching forward and dropping onto all fours, Melody shook all over like a giant beast shaking water from its coat. With every violent shake, her body took on the form of a giant wolf, sleek-looking, with silky white hair, blazing orange eyes, jagged paws, and ferocious-looking jaws.

Standing in the middle of the cave, Melody made a deep woofing noise in the back of her throat. Ravenwood looked back and saw the wolf. He raised his claws, as if to attack. Over his shoulder I saw three guards. And just like Ravenwood and myself, their wings flapped behind them, fangs and claws glinting in the flickering torchlight.

“Kill them!” Ravenwood boomed.

The Vampyrus sprang into the room. I raised my crossbow. My first shot screamed across the room, burying itself in the forehead of the first Vampyrus. He flew backwards into the cave wall with such force that a shower of rock dust exploded into the air. I heard Melody howl. I glanced back to see her lunge at one of the Vampyrus guards. His wings were strong and powerful. As they beat up and down behind him, they filled the cave with rock dust. With one arm raised to protect my eyes from the swirling dust, I fired my crossbow again. I shot the second guard as he came toward me, claws raised. There was a thick gurgling sound, as I saw Melody tear the throat from the Vampyrus she had attacked. Blood splattered the walls of the cave in a wide arc, and the Vampyrus threw his hands to the gaping wound in his throat. He made a gargling sound, then slumped forward onto his knees, then his face. His wings beat feverishly, then fell still.

I looked at Ravenwood. He stood by the door, claws raised.

“You have to let us go,” I pleaded.

“I can’t,” he said.

I headed toward the open door.

“I’ll kill you if you step outside,” he warned me.

“No, you won’t,” I said, pausing to look at him. “Somewhere deep inside, you’re starting to remember. And when you do, tell the Vampyrus that their enemy isn’t the wolves, and it’s not Kiera Hudson. Tell the Vampyrus the only person they have to fear is Luke Bishop.”

Without looking back again, I raced into the tunnel and Melody followed. We hadn’t gone far when I heard Ravenwood screaming “Guards! Guards!” again at the top of his deep, booming voice.

Knowing the maze of tunnels would soon be full of Vampyrus, I yelled, “Run, Melody!”

I glanced back, and although Melody was bounding behind me, she was lagging and I could see she was limping on one of her back legs. I knew that she was still suffering from the gunshot wounds she had received while we’d been escaping the Skin-walkers above ground. And I knew that was going to be our next problem. The only exit from The Hollows I knew of in this world was the one Coanda had pulled us through. All the others had been sealed when the Elders had pushed the two worlds. There were others now – the exits the Vampyrus had been making through the cracks so they could attack the wolves at Wasp Water, but that was too far and too risky. Even if Melody was fit enough to travel such a distance, the Vampyrus there would soon figure out what she was, just like Ravenwood had. Our only chance of escaping the Vampyrus I could now hear thundering behind us was to go back to the crack that Coanda had pulled us through and hope that the Skin-walkers above had stopped searching for us and moved on.

I glanced back and could see Melody now hobbling behind me. Her orange eyes lit the narrow confines of the tunnels we ran through. Behind her I could see the black fluttering shadows of the Vampyrus’ wings as they gained on us. I slowed and ran alongside Melody.

“I’m slowing you down, Isidor,” she howled. “Leave me.”

“Are you nuts?” I smiled. “I’ve already told you, I’m never leaving you again.”

Ahead I could see the tunnel mouth widening into a clearing. It was the vast open area of The Hollows that Coanda had led me across as we had made our way to the medical caves. I knew the area would be full of the Vampyrus that were getting themselves ready for war with the wolves. But we would have to get across it somehow. Reaching the clearing, I felt my feet trample over the soft lime coloured moss that stretched away into the distance and back toward the Ageless Hill. Melody limped to a halt beside me. I glanced down at her and could see her long pink tongue hanging from the corner of her jaws as she panted for breath. I looked back into the tunnel and could see the approaching Vampyrus just feet away now, their eyes glowing red out of the darkness, the beat of their wings sounding like a frantic heartbeat. “Change, Melody,” I roared at her.

Howling and shaking her head from side to side, Melody sprang into the air, her body twisting and contorting, lengths of hair falling away like a wolf shedding its winter coat. And as the fur fell away in clumps, I could see the pink rose tattoos shining through as she once again took on her human form. With my arms open wide, I shot into the air and took hold of Melody. I pressed her against my chest and soared upwards. Looking down, I saw the Vampyrus fly from the tunnel and come racing after us. Twisting round and rolling over and over like a crocodile in the throes of a death roll, I propelled myself through the air and toward the tunnel on the other side of the clearing where I knew the exit to above ground was. I felt the warm air of The Hollows press against my flesh and wings as I raced faster and faster through the sky. Melody clung to me, her head buried against my chest. Glancing back I could see the Vampyrus racing toward us in thick, black streaks. They swept through the air at a terrifying rate, and I knew that I couldn’t go as fast as them, however hard I tried while I carried Melody in my arms. Ahead I could see stalagmites hanging from the rocky roof of The Hollows. From a distance they looked like mountains that had been turned upside down. I raced toward them, the Vampyrus within reaching distance of me and Melody now.

I banked sharply to my right, zipping around several of the stalagmites. I heard a thunderous crash, and watched large lumps of rock fall to the ground below as a Vampyrus approached the stalagmites too fast, not giving himself enough time to manoeuvre and crashing straight into them. I twisted left and right as the remaining Vampyrus chased me through the razor-sharp pointed stalagmites. They twinkled in the light that shone from the Light House deep within the heart of The Hollows. I darted forwards, always twisting, ducking, diving, and spinning to outrun the Vampyrus that chased me. My arms were beginning to tire and I was slowing as the Vampyrus were gaining. There was a large, jagged stalagmite ahead and I raced toward it. I swooped around, and hiding in the darkness of its shadow, I took Melody in one arm and raised my crossbow with the other. The Vampyrus appeared from the other side of the stalagmite and paused, hovering in the air as they searched for any sign of me. From my hiding place, I tore off a volley of shots at them. The bolts sliced into them. The ones that I hit hurtled toward the ground, kicking and wailing, wings fluttering as they raced to their deaths.

Drawing a deep breath, I shot forward, Melody still pressed to my chest as I made upwards and into the tunnel where the exit to above ground lay. I swooped into the tunnel, my wings humming beneath my arms. I raced toward the exit that I knew Coanda had filled in with earth. Reaching it, I placed Melody on the ground and began to frantically claw upwards at the earth. It showered down onto me, covering my hair, face, and tattooed shoulders. I could hear the Vampyrus enter the tunnel. I worked my claws harder and faster as I dug away at the earth. I scrambled up the walls, holding on with one claw while I sliced away with the other. Then my claws broke through the ground above. I felt cold air brush over them. I punched through the earth with my fist, and blinked into the pale winter light from above. With the sound of the Vampyrus growing closer still, I punched and clawed at the earth for my life. With the hole now big enough to escape through, I looked down at Melody.

“Hey, take my hand,” I yelled at her.

Pulling herself up, Melody reached out. Our fingers brushed. The Vampyrus rushed forward, and I pulled Melody through the hole. We were above ground! Swopping Melody up into my arms, I glanced left and right amongst the trees. In the distance I could see the pulsating flash of emergency lights and I knew then that Skin-walkers were still combing the woods for us. I felt a hand grip my ankle. I looked down to see a long, white claw. I tried to shake it free, but with Melody in my arms it was impossible to do so. Teetering, I fell backwards, falling onto my arse and spilling Melody from my arms. I heard the yap-yap sound of Skin-walkers in the distance as they searched for me and Melody. I struck out at the claw gripping my ankle, but just couldn’t shake it free. The hole I had made suddenly broke apart as if caving inwards, and I saw that it was Ravenwood who had hold of me.

“Let me go!” I roared, driving the heel of my free foot into his face as it appeared out of the hole in the ground.

His hand loosened around my ankle and I made to scramble away. Lifting Melody once again, I started off through the trees. I had no idea where I was going. I seemed to be surrounded by danger on all sides. But I wouldn’t give up. Never. Kiera had told me that, and I knew I had to get to her and warn my friend that she was heading into a trap at Wasp Water.

“Isidor!” I heard someone call out.

Spinning round, I could see that Ravenwood had now cleared the hole. He was standing just behind me, glasses cracked where I’d kicked him in the face. Blood trickled from his nose and onto the white fur that covered his upper lip and chin.

“Don’t make me kill you,” I pleaded with him, cradling Melody tight.

Thunder crashed overhead, and I couldn’t stop myself from flinching.

“I remember now, Isidor,” he said. He shuffled forward, long, white feathered wings trailing in the snow that covered the ground. “Now that I’m above ground, everything seems clearer somehow.”

I glanced up through the branches of the trees at the cracks that still covered the sky. I remembered how I had angled the aerial on my radio at Melody’s cottage in the nearby mountains so we could listen to that song Heroes by David Bowie. Perhaps Ravenwood’s memories were seeping through the cracks just like that song had.

“What do you remember?” I asked him, wanting to know if he was trying to deceive me – to trap me.

“I remember your father, Lord Hunt,” he said thoughtfully. “He was my friend. I remember the half-breeds we nursed in a makeshift hospital in a place called Hallowed Manor. I remember your sister…what was her name…?”

“Kayla,” I breathed, suddenly excited that Ravenwood had started to remember. If he remembered everything, then perhaps he could tell Coanda and the Vampyrus. They might be able to stop this war that Luke was planning.

“What else do you remember?” I asked him, as the sky overhead suddenly grew dark, like a shadow had fallen over us.

Ravenwood opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words coming out, a jet of hot, black blood shot from his mouth and splattered the snow at his feet.

“No!” I roared as Ravenwood’s head was sliced from the rest of his body.

Chapter Six

Potter

I suspected that looking for Isidor was going to be one big fucking waste of time, but I knew Kayla was right. If there was a chance that Isidor was still alive, then we should go in search of him. But was Lake Lure the right place? I didn’t know. We’d probably have more chance finding him in the local library; after all, he always had his head stuck in a book if not up his own arse. But if he was still alive and Jack had swapped places, then it would be good to see him again. Although I would never admit this to anyone, fuck knows it was difficult admitting even to myself – I had missed Isidor. The team hadn’t been the same without him. But as I glanced sideways at Kayla and saw the cracks fast appearing in her flesh, I still couldn’t help but feel that searching for Isidor right now was a big mistake. We should be heading for the Dead Waters, finding Kiera and the others, then go looking for Isidor. I knew though, that if I hadn’t have agreed to Kayla’s demands, she would have just been in one big fuck-off sulk, and I couldn’t bear that.

I’d noticed that for the last few miles, Kayla had been losing altitude. I knew that as her body stiffened and turned to stone, her wings would become less supple until eventually she was nothing more than a giant stone. The sky was still purple and the cracks seemed to be growing in number and deeper with every passing moment. Some were so big that I could see right through them. It was fucking freaky because there didn’t seem to be anything on the other side. But there had to be something. There was always something – a colour at least. But there wasn’t. It was like staring headlong into the time and place before we were born. Was there even a place? If there was, I couldn’t remember it because it was nothing. Just an empty vastness. And that’s what looking through those cracks was like. No time. No space. No sense of feeling. It was like what was on the other side of those cracks hadn’t been created yet. It was just waiting to happen.

The thunder was so loud and violent at times that it seemed to go right through us, shaking our very core. I swooped in close to Kayla, and I could see just like the cracks in the sky were growing deeper, so were the ones now covering Kayla’s hands and face. I reached out with my hand and took hers as we soared over the patchwork of snow-laden fields way below us. Kayla’s hand felt cold and hard – almost brittle. I feared that if I squeezed too hard then her fingers might just crumble away into dust. She glanced sideways at me, when feeling my hand take hers. She smiled and I saw more of those cracks form around the corners of her red lips.

I knew that sooner or later I would have to take charge and insist that we turn back and head for the Dead Waters. Perhaps I would wait until the skin around her mouth went a little harder so I wouldn’t have to put up with her fucking nagging. I’d decided that we would give our search for Isidor just ten more minutes, when in the distance, I saw the sparkle of emergency lights. They were close to the trees that surrounded Lake Lure. I pointed in the direction of the police vehicles and Kayla nodded. We dropped out of the sky and swooped toward the lake. From above and through the leafless trees, I could see cops with berserkers on leashes. But they weren’t real cops, they were the wolves with stolen human skins – they were the Skin-walkers and the berserkers were their freaky fuck-ups at trying to match human kids with wolves. They seemed to be searching for someone, and I wondered who. Keeping high enough in the sky so as not to be seen, Kayla and I circled the woods and the lake from above. Then, tugging at my sleeve, Kayla pointed below.

“There’s Isidor!” she shrieked with excitement, a fine spray of dust leaking from the corners of her cracked lips.

I looked down, and could see Isidor on his back as he kicked at something that was trying to pull him back underground. There seemed to be a small bed of roses sticking up out of the snow beside him. The bright splash of pink looked like a splash of blood in the snow. As we raced toward the ground, I could see that the roses weren’t real at all but an intricate maze of rose tattoos covering a young woman from head to toe. Isidor had done what he had set out to do, and that was find the girl he loved – Melody Rose. I suddenly felt very proud of Isidor. It was a feeling I’d never felt before about him. But I feared that his success might be short lived as he tried to free himself from the pale claw that had hold of his ankle.

As we raced toward the ground, I saw Isidor break free, scramble to his feet and carry Melody away in his arms. Was she injured? I wondered. The creature that had had hold of Isidor broke free of the ground and I could see it was a Vampyrus. It went after Isidor. I glanced at Kayla, long red hair flying out behind her as she almost seemed to fall out of the sky. I looked down again to see that Isidor had stopped and was now facing the Vampyrus. He wouldn’t be able to defend himself while holding Melody Rose in his arms. I would have to do that for him.

In a blaze of fluttering black shadows, I shot out of the sky, slashing my claws across the Vampyrus’ throat. Rocketing upwards, I looked back to see the Vampyrus’ head spill from its body and drop into the snow at its feet. Banking hard to my right, I turned, raced back toward Kayla, both of us landing in the snow before Isidor.

Isidor stood opened mouth and looked at us.

“Surprise,” I grinned at him.

“What did you do that for?” he gasped.

“To save your life, numb-nuts,” I said. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t look pleased to see me.

He looked at the blood dripping from my claws. “That was Doctor Ravenwood,” Isidor said, as if still in some kind of shock. “He was just starting to remember.”

“Remember what?” I said, popping a cigarette into the corner of my mouth and lighting it.

“That we were the good guys…” Isidor muttered, still holding Melody Rose in his arms. He looked down at Ravenwood’s head, then back at me.

“Did he try and kill you?” I asked.

“Well, yeah…but that was before he started to remember…” Isidor started.

“Okay, so I made mistake,” I shrugged.

“A mistake,” Isidor said. “You just killed him.”

“Look, I don’t have magic fucking claws,” I snapped, “It’s not like I can stick his fucking head back on. He’s dead. Get over it. He would’ve gotten over you if it had been you lying there without a head. So quit your bitching…”

“I thought you were dead,” Isidor cut in.

“I could say the same about you,” I said back. Then, nodding at the girl he still carried in his arms, I added, “Who’ the bit of skirt?”

“Melody Rose,” Isidor said, easing her down out of his arms and resting her against the trunk of a nearby tree. He untied his coat that hung about his waist and covered her with it to keep her warm.

I remembered Isidor telling me that she smoked. I offered my packet of cigarettes.

“I don’t smoke,” she half-smiled back at me.

“Not in this world perhaps,” I said.

“Isidor,” I heard a weak, fragile voice.

I turned to see Kayla, her face now like a slab of crazy-paving, before she collapsed.

“Kayla!” Isidor said, racing toward his sister, as if noticing her for the first time.

“A hello would have been good,” I said, brushing Isidor out of the way. “She risked her life coming in search of you, but all you’ve done since we got here is bitch about Ravenwood.”

“I’m sorry,” Isidor said, looking with concern at his sister as I scooped her up into my arms.

“You will be if we don’t get her to the Dead Waters – and fast,” I said, spreading my wings and soaring up into the sky.

Another blast of thunder rocked the darkening sky all around me. I looked down to see Isidor racing up toward me, Melody Rose in his arms. It was then I saw a set of white claws reach up out of the hole in the ground, and refill it with earth, so you would’ve never known it was there.

By the time we reached the shores of the Dead Waters, it was night and Kayla felt like stone in my arms. I headed over the sand and toward the crimson waters that sloshed against the shoreline.

“Hey!” I heard Isidor call out.

I looked back. Melody was sitting further along the shore where Isidor had left her. Isidor heaved Kayla from my arms and into his.

“Let me take her,” Isidor said. “When she wakes, I want to be the first person she sees.”

I stood with the blood red tide sloshing around my boots, and watched Isidor carry his sister out into the middle of the lake. I turned my back on them and slowly headed up the shore, picking up driftwood as I went. Reaching Melody, I knelt in the sand next to her and started to build a fire. It was cold, and when I glanced up at the night sky it was starless. There was no moon – just the cracks. I lit the fire and Melody shuffled closer to it to keep warm. She pulled Isidor’s coat tight about her shoulders.

I lit a cigarette. “Are you sure you don’t want one?”

“Sure”, she said, looking out across the lake. I followed her stare and could see Isidor lowering Kayla into the water like he were baptising her. Kayla was only beneath the water moments before the surface of it began to ripple and stir. Then, very slowly, Kayla’s head and shoulders appeared from beneath the water. She looked at her brother and he stared back at her. They flung their arms tightly about each other and even from the shoreline I could hear the unmistakable sound of Kayla’s happy sobs. If nothing else, that made going to find Isidor worthwhile to me.

I glanced at Melody as she watched Isidor and Kayla in the water.

“Are you feeling stronger?” I asked. I had noticed what looked like gunshot wounds on her back earlier.

“Yes,” she nodded. “I’ll be fine tomorrow. I heal quickly.”

“I didn’t know you were a Vampyrus like us,” I said, surprised by her remark.

She looked at me. “I’m not a Vampyrus. I’m a Lycanthrope – a wolf,” she said.

I was even more shocked by this comment and I think Melody sensed this. “Does Isidor know?”

“I would’ve thought so, wouldn’t you?” she came back at me, her long, pink hair draped over the collar of Isidor’s coat.

I looked back out across the water. Isidor and Kayla were now splashing each other with handfuls of water. My first instinct was to tell Melody to fuck off – we didn’t need another wolf tagging along. They just brought trouble with them. But as I watched Kayla laughing as she splashed her brother with the blood red waters, I thought of what she had said about each wolf being different. Just like my own race, the Vampyrus, there was good and bad.

So, flicking ash from my cigarette into the fire, I glanced sideways at her and said, “Do you love him?”

“With all my heart,” she said, looking at me, the glow from the fire making her pretty eyes sparkle with light.

“I’m glad to hear it, because that boy loves you,” I told her. “He risked his life – he risked everything to find you.”

“Isidor explained,” she said, looking back across the waters at him. “I know what he did, and that’s why I love him.”

Then, dropping my voice low, I said, “I’m not the biggest fan of the wolves, but I’m happy to give you a chance for Isidor’s sake. But if you so much as harm one hair on that boy’s head, I promise I will rip your fucking heart out without even blinking.”

Melody turned to look at me from beneath her pink fringe. “I think me and you are going to be great friends, Potter.”

“Oh yeah, and what makes you think that?”

“Because we both have something in common,” she said.

I raised my eyebrows. “Such as?”

“We obviously both love Isidor very much. The only difference is that I am not too scared to show it,” she smiled, turning and looking back at Isidor and Kayla splashing happily about in the Dead Waters.

Chapter Seven

Kayla

Even over the splashing of the water, and being in the middle of the vast lake, I heard the warning Potter had given Melody.

Smiling to myself, I looked at Isidor and said, “Potter has just told Melody that he’s going to rip her fucking heart out.”

“What!” Isidor gasped, wiping away the dead waters that dripped from his soaked hair and onto his face.

He turned and started to wade back toward the shore. I gripped his arm. “Wait, Isidor, it’s not what you think. He only said it because he cares about you.”

“Cares about me?” Isidor spluttered, looking back at me.

“We all care about you, Isi,” I said. “That night you stayed back at the station broke all of our hearts. Even Potter’s. He told me as much. You know what he can be like at times. He doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just his way. We all thought you had died.”

Isidor waded closer to me, taking my hands in his. “I’m sorry, Kayla. I’m sorry for hurting any of you, but I had to go and find Melody.”

“I understand now, but back then, it hurt so much to think that I’d lost you. For so long I’ve believed that you were dead.”

“And I would’ve been if it hadn’t have been for Jack Seth,” Isidor explained.

“So it was Jack who saved you?” I said, and for the first time since being pushed into this world, I felt my heart start to be beat. It was starting again in a quick series of flutters, then it sped up and I staggered forward as if being shoved from behind. Isidor steadied me.

“Is your heart beating again?” he asked.

“Yes,” I breathed, looking at him.

“Mine started as soon as I stepped into the waters,” he said. “Feels strange, doesn’t it? And to think I never noticed it before. I guess it’s like breathing. You do it hundreds of times a day without even noticing. You’ll get used to the sensation again. In a few hours it will be like your heart had never stopped beating.”

I looked at my hands and the skin was pale and soft to the touch. I felt my cheeks, water dripping from the tips of my fingers. The flesh covering my face felt supple once again. “How do I look?” I asked him.

“As beautiful as ever,” he grinned at me.

“I missed you, Isidor,” I said.

“Well I’m back now,” he smiled again. Then looking over at the shore, he said, “Where’s Sam? Where are the others?”

“Sam’s dead,” I told him.

“How?” Isidor asked, his smile now gone.

With the water lapping about us, I told Isidor how Sam and I had been tricked by Luke Bishop to travel back through the cracks and take photographs. “That’s how I guessed that you were still alive,” I explained. “We were sent to times and places where we knew each of you would be. But Sam never came back with a picture of you and Melody like he was supposed to. Instead, Sam came back with a picture of Jack Seth and his brother Nik. Luke was furious and beat Sam to death. But it got me wondering if perhaps somehow Jack had intervened and taken your place.”

“Jack showed up just moments after you left that station waiting room,” Isidor said over another deep rumble of thunder. “He said he was saving my life and that I was to go and search for Melody Rose. I still don’t understand why he swapped places with me. Why would he sacrifice himself for me?”

“I think he did it for his sister,” I said thoughtfully, looking down at my hands again.

“Sister?” Isidor frowned.

“Kiera,” I said, glancing up at him. Then seeing the look of bewilderment on his face, I realised that Isidor had no idea that Jack and Kiera were related. Isidor had missed so much. Taking Isidor by the hand, and wading back through the red waters toward the shore, I explained as much as I knew about Kiera, Jack, and how I believed I would one day see Sam again.

We reached the fire where Potter and Melody sat. Potter looked as moody and as sullen as ever. Melody smiled at me as I sat next to her before the fire. I could already feel the heat from the crackling flames drying my hair, skin, and clothes. Isidor sat next to Potter.

“Hey, Melody,” I said. “I feel like I know you already, as Isidor has told us all so much about you.”

Snuggled before the fire and wearing Isidor’s coat, I could see why Isidor took such great risks to be with her again. She was real pretty with her long, pink hair, and the rose tattoos that covered her neck and the backs of her hands and feet. She looked a little uncomfortable as we all knew each other well and she only knew Isidor.

“I’ve heard so much about you, too, Kayla,” Melody said. “It’s great to finally meet you.”

“So what about the cracks?” Isidor asked, looking up at the fractured night sky.

I heard someone coming and looked up to see a woman standing just at the edge of the treeline that circled the Dead Waters.

“What about them?” the woman said.

She was wearing a long, white fur coat, her hair was white-blonde and she had full red lips. She was stunningly beautiful and shared a striking resemblance to Marilyn Monroe. She sauntered slowly down the shore toward us.

Stopping before the fire, hands on hips, she glared down at Potter and said, “I thought I told you not to change anything. Didn’t I warn you that to do so would be very dangerous indeed?”

“Stop getting your knickers in a twist, Blue-eyes or whatever your name is this week, and take a seat by the fire,” Potter grunted, lighting another cigarette.

Reluctantly, the woman sat down next to Potter.

Chapter Eight

Kiera

I sat alone on a plateau of rock that jutted out of the side of a small hill. I took my iPod from my pocket, pressed the earphones into my ears and listened to the song Only Love Can Hurt Like This by Paloma Faith. It was cold and I pulled my coat tight about me. I let the wind dry the tears that had stained my cheeks. The night sky looked like a giant cracked piece of dark granite stone above me. The distant boom of thunder sounded like bombs exploding over the horizon.

Below I could see the cones of torchlight sweeping back and forth over the rugged countryside as the Skin-walkers searched for us. They were relentless in their search and I knew they would never give up. Perhaps they sensed too that all of this – this pushed world – was going to come to an end soon. It looked like it was falling apart. Breaking away, piece by piece. I glanced up at the night sky again. The song came to an end and I heard a sudden noise behind me. I looked back, claws out.

“It’s just me, Kiera,” a voice said.

I screwed my eyes tight and peered through my long lashes and into the dark. Murphy was coming toward me. His wings were gone, so were his claws and his mean expression had evaporated. He looked like the Murphy I really knew and loved. His shredded shirt was missing, and he wore only his trousers and worn out slippers.

“Budge up,” he said, sitting down beside me on the lip of rock.

I looked out across the vast countryside, the torchlight still weaving to and fro below.

“I’m sorry, Kiera,” Murphy whispered. “I didn’t mean what I said back there. If I could take it back, I would. You were right about what you see in me. I’m just hurting and I’m angry, but I should have never taken it out on you. I know none of this mess rests entirely on you.”

“But I feel it does,” I said, his apology accepted but still unable to look at him. It was difficult seeing such pain in the eyes of the man who I loved like a father. Murphy had usually been so strong and I relied on that strength. It kept me strong, too. Meren had said on the road that she had believed in me. Watching me struggle had made her stronger. And I had drawn strength from watching Murphy face down his demons too.

“Why do you think this all rests with you?” Murphy asked, sitting shoulder to shoulder with me.

“The Elders told me that I wouldn’t be going back with you – with any of you,” I said.

“The Elders can say what they want, but no one is getting left behind, Kiera. We’re family. All of us,” Murphy said. Placing his hand gently over mine, he added, “Ever since I saved you as a newborn baby from the Dead Waters, I’ve watched over you. It might sometimes have been from afar, but I’ve always had your back. You might have not always known it – but I’ve always been there.”

I laced my fingers through his and gently squeezed his hand. “Like when?”

“Do you remember that creepy priest you investigated while still at police training school? His name was Father Rochford,” Murphy said.

“Vaguely,” I said, now glancing at him in the dark. That life seemed like it had taken place a hundred lifetimes ago. Perhaps it had.

“Well, I’d gone that day to lay flowers on my brother’s grave – your father’s grave – and you showed up. The Vampyrus had been watching that freak for a while, he was just like those other fuck-wits Taylor, Phillips and Rom. Rochford was a Vampyrus too, but one that wanted to suck the blood from humans. But you seemed to have stumbled across him too, so I sat back and watched. I wanted to see if you would suss him out. And you came close – you did pretty good. But he eventually had you trapped in those corridors and I couldn’t let him kill you, so I killed him. Do you remember that?”

I closed my eyes and could see myself being suffocated by a man in a narrow corridor. But I sensed there had been someone else in that corridor with me. Someone who had taken the bad man away. But trying to remember it now was like trying to watch an old black and white movie through a shattered TV screen. I opened my eyes. Murphy was watching me.

“You don’t really remember, do you?” he said. “It doesn’t matter now, but what I’m trying to say, Kiera, is that I’ve always been there for you, even when you didn’t know it, and I ain’t going to stop being here for you now.”

“I don’t think it’s down to you – it’s down to me. The Elders told me so,” I said.

“Those twisted fuckers are just playing games,” Murphy grumbled. “They’re punishing you for not choosing between the Vampyrus and humans, we all know that.” He pulled his pipe from his back pocket, cupping his hand around the bowl as he lit it, shielding the flame from the wind and the Skin-walkers who searched for us below. He pumped wispy clouds of smoke into the night. The tobacco smelt stale and old.

“And that’s why the buck does stop with me,” I said. “This time I’m not choosing between the Vampyrus and the humans – or even the wolves. This time, my choice is letting you all go back to happy lives and me staying here alone. That’s my punishment. That’s why you were all brought back. I’m the only one who can end this nightmare for you all. It’s not my own suffering I can’t bear. It’s your suffering and that of all my friends. They are dying because of me.”

“That’s not true,” Murphy said, slipping one strong arm about my shoulders and pulling me close. “You’ve got to stop thinking like that, Kiera.”

“What I say is true,” I told him, feeling secure and safe next to him. I wanted that feeling to last forever, but I knew that was an impossible dream. But I would cherish the moment now and forevermore. “I know how I can end my friends’ suffering. I think I’ve known for a while now.”

“What is it you think you know?” Murphy asked me, the pipe drooping from the corner of his mouth.

“When I went in search of my father just after we lost Isidor, I came across a graveyard. The Elders were waiting for me there. They showed me several statues. There was a statue of you, Murphy, and you were with Meren and Nessa. There was a statue of Isidor and Melody, Sam and Kayla, and Potter and Sophie Harrison. All of you looked so happy. Even though you were all just statues, I could see the joy in your eyes. The Elders told me that all of you could be happy with the people you loved but you would all forget me. It would be like I had never touched your lives. But I’ve been selfish.”

“Kiera, you are the most unselfish person I’ve ever met,” Murphy said. “You are always putting others first. Christ, you even gave up your own life to save the humans…”

“But I have been selfish,” I cut in. I didn’t want him to think that I was some kind of saint when I really wasn’t. “I could have ended your suffering some time ago. I could have prevented Potter’s death…if only I had said I’d give you up and send you back to the world before it got pushed…or to some other happier place. But I pretended I couldn’t see the choice I was being asked to make. I couldn’t choose to let any of you go because I didn’t want to be alone. But more than that, I didn’t want to see Potter in the arms of another. I didn’t want him to be with Sophie. I wanted him to be with me. But I’ve lost him anyway now. I fear that I will see all of you die one by one, until only I’m left. And that is how the Elders will truly punish me for deceiving them in the Dust Palace.”

Murphy looked at me. “Kiera, I’m not going back without you. Do you think I would be happier in a world where you played no part? Haven’t I already told you that I’ve been a part of your life since the day you were born? I’ve been there for you since you took your first breath, and I’ll be at your side holding your hand when you draw your last. The Elders are lying. How could any of us be happy if you weren’t part of our lives?”

“The Elders said you would forget me,” I reminded him. “They said it would be like you had never known me – like I’d never been part of your lives. So what would there be to miss? Why then would you be unhappy without me?”

“I still don’t believe it,” Murphy said. “So if this is true, when do you make this choice? When and how do you send us back?”

“The Elders said that there is one who finally gets me to make my choice, but I have no idea who that might be.”

“Luke-fucking-Bishop, that’s who,” Murphy snapped.

“Perhaps?” I said, glancing up at those cracks again. I wasn’t so sure.

Murphy knocked the smouldering ash from his pipe and jumped up.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To Wasp Water,” he growled. “I’m going to find Luke Bishop and put an end to this once and for all.”

“But it’s too dangerous,” I said, clambering to my feet and heading off into the darkness after Murphy as he made his way back toward the overhang. “We’ll die if we head back there.”

“And we’ll die if we don’t,” he said. “What have we got to lose?!”

Chapter Nine

Potter

Pen – or did she prefer to be called Lilly Blu – I didn’t much care, sat next to me before the fire. Her slender legs poked out from beneath the hem of her long, white fur coat. Her toenails were painted fire-engine red. She crossed her feet at the ankles. Pen looked about the group. Did she need introducing to any of them, or did she already know their names? What part had she really played in this whole twisted game? Murphy had once trusted her, so perhaps I should, too.

“I’m Kayla, and this is my brother, Isidor,” Kayla said, smiling across the fire at Pen. Then gesturing toward Melody, she added, and this is Melody Rose.”

Pen nodded. “And I’m Lilly Blu.”

Kayla shot me a quick glance. I had told Kayla all about Lilly when we went through the cracks. She knew Lilly was the wolf who had sent me and Jack back through the cracks to unmask the photographer. I’d also told her that she had once been Murphy’s lover and was Meren and Nessa’s mother. Lilly knew that Murphy was back in this world, but she didn’t know that one of her daughters, Meren, was back too.

Fearing that Kayla might say something that perhaps she shouldn’t, I quickly said, “So what the fuck is going on with all these cracks?” I said, gesturing heavenward with my thumb.

“They happened because you and Jack went and changed stuff,” Lilly said, scowling at me. She still looked pretty even when she frowned. That old fart Murphy was going to have a fucking heart attack when he discovered Lilly was back. Had Murphy confessed to Meren that her real mother was a wolf? I didn’t envy the guy. As far as I knew, Murphy had told his daughters that their mother was some tart named Chloe. She had been responsible for giving Murphy those shitty old slippers he mooched about in. I looked at Pen, then through the flames at Melody as she sat with her head resting against Isidor’s tattooed shoulder. We Vampyrus guys certainly liked mixing it up with wolves. That half of the species did tend to be rather freaking hot, I hated to admit. But Kiera was the best of both Vampyrus and wolf, and I knew deep down that made me a lucky guy.

Ignoring Lilly’s scowl, I said, “So how did I fuck up?”

“You should’ve never got involved with the Kiera from this world,” she said. “I warned you!”

“She ended up dead, didn’t she?” I said, glancing across the fire again at Kayla. She broke my stare and looked down into the fire. I turned my attention to Lilly again. “That’s what was meant to have happened.”

“But by even speaking to her was dangerous,” Lilly said.

“What was I meant to have done? I went through the cracks on that train and woke up in her fucking living room!” I snapped at her. “Was that meant to have happened?”

“The cracks aren’t entirely stable,” she said.

“And neither are you!” I snipped.

“But from the very moment you interacted, you started to change stuff…the cracks started to appear. Things that happened or are yet to happen started to bleed through…” she tried to explain, stumbling to find the right words.

“Like what?” I asked. I was starting to grow impatient with the cryptic bullshit she kept giving as answers.

“Did you see a little girl?” she asked.

“Well, yeah,” I shrugged, remembering the pretty little girl who had seemed to haunt me on the other side of the cracks. “So what?”

“Her name was Abbie…” Lilly started, then stopped.

“Who the fuck is Abbie?” I asked, taking a smoke from my pocket and sparking up.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lilly said with a shake of her head. Her thick white hair coiled about the collar of the fur coat she wore.

“So why mention it?” I said, feeling fucking frustrated with her.

“You delivered the photograph okay,” she said, changing the subject. “But it was the letters…the letters you were meant to deliver to Sophie…”

“I did deliver them,” I said. “I left them in the fucking morgue where I woke to find some tosser had stolen all of my clothes.”

“Really?” Isidor suddenly sniggered from the other side of the fire.

“Yeah, it was so funny,” Kayla giggled. “I’ve got a picture here somewhere.” She began to rummage through her coat pockets for it. Finding the photograph I remembered her taking of me naked in the morgue, Kayla pulled it out and handed it to Isidor and Melody.

“Oh. My. God!” Isidor chuckled with delight.

“What’s that little thing hanging down?” Melody asked.

“You cheeky cow!” I barked, reaching for the picture.

“I’m talking about that tag hanging off your toe,” Melody smiled.

Kayla snatched the photograph away, placing it back into her coat pocket and out of my reach. “Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, whoever it was that undressed Potter obviously thought he was a woman because they wrote the name Jane Doe on the I.D. tag that they attached to his big toe.”

“That is too funny!” Isidor burst into laughter, clapping his hands together. Melody started to laugh too, covering her broad smile with her rose covered hands.

“I’m beginning to wish I’d fucking left you two in the woods for the Skin-walkers to find,” I shouted at them.

“What a bunch of complete jokers you lot really are,” I heard Lilly suddenly say. I glanced back at her as she stared at me and my friends with a look of disbelief on her face. “No wonder you screwed the mission up, you’re nothing but a bunch of morons.”

“Who are you calling a moron?” I glared at her.

“Do you think this is funny?” she said, pointing up at the sky and the cracks.

“Oh shut your face and stop moaning and groaning. What’s the point of being full of doom and gloom the whole time?” I said. “Besides, I thought you and the wrinkled ticket seller said that the cracks were a good thing.”

“Noah and I were talking about little cracks, not huge gaping holes,” Lilly snapped at me, clenching her hands into fists. The cracks are meant to be subtle – act like a sieve – so memories could slowly seep through to the humans and gradually remember what the world was like before it got pushed.  The layers are now breaking up - tearing themselves apart. The layers were meant to overlap – not completely collide.”

“So what does that exactly mean?” Kayla asked her.

“The humans from the world before it got pushed could start slipping – tripping – falling into this world. But it could work the other way too and the Skin-walkers and the berserkers could take a trip into the world before it got pushed. But not only that, humans, wolves, and vampires could start bleeding through from other wheres and whens that shouldn’t mix with this one or another.”

“So that girl you mentioned – Abbie – I was able to see her because she was seeping through from another layer...?” I was trying hard to make sense of what Lilly was telling us.

“Exactly,” Pen said, driving her fist down into the sand.

“So who was she?” I asked again. “Is she important?”

“I’m not sure,” Lilly said, shaking her thick head of white-blonde hair again.

I couldn’t help but feel she was keeping something important from me, but before I’d the chance to press her, Melody said, “Can all of this be put right again?” Glancing up at the sky, she added, “Can we close those cracks?”

“I’m not sure that we can,” Pen said. “The mission was a failure.”

“Despite the cracks, I don’t think the mission was quite the failure you believe it to be,” I told Lilly.

“How do you figure that out?” she asked right back, needing some convincing.

“We discovered the identity of the photographers,” I said. “There were two. Kayla, and her friend, Sam.”

“Why you?” Lilly asked Kayla.

“We were tricked by Luke Bishop to go and take the photographs,” Kayla started to explain.

“But why would Luke want more cracks?” Lilly said confused. “Why would he want the humans to remember what the world was like before it was pushed? Why would he risk them rising up and turning on him and the wolves? I don’t get it?”

“He doesn’t want to make cracks so the humans remember anything,” Isidor suddenly spoke up. “It’s the Vampyrus’ memories he wants to jog. Luke has been making cracks so the Vampyrus can return above ground from The Hollows where they have been sealed since the world got pushed. He has set a trap at the town of Wasp Water for the wolves and Kiera.”

“What kind of trap?” I asked, hearing this for the first time, and jumping to my feet.

“Luke is amassing an army of Vampyrus in the town of Snake Weed. They are coming up through the cracks that have started to appear in the ground. He wants the Vampyrus back to slaughter the wolves and those humans the wolves haven’t already matched with.”

“But why would Bishop want to kill the wolves when he’s a wolf himself?” Lilly asked, sounding more confused than before.

“But Luke isn’t a wolf,” I told her. “The Luke Bishop from this pushed world might have been a wolf, but Luke from our layer killed him years ago.”

“But we must capture him…unmask him!” Lilly gasped, jumping to her feet. “We must reveal his treachery to both the wolves and the humans…or better kill him.”

“Good luck, sweetheart,” I said. “You will never get close enough to Luke. He is too well protected. He is surrounded by his allies, like Phillips, Taylor, and Rom and that’s not to mention the army of Vampyrus he seems to be building for himself.”

“I must warn the wolves of Luke’s treachery and how he has tricked them,” Pen said. “You must come with me.”

“No, I’m going to Wasp Water,” I said. “Warning Kiera of the trap that is awaiting there is my only concern now.”

“Find Kiera, then meet me on the outskirts of Snake Weed,” Lilly said, turning and heading back up the shore. “I will bring wolves.”

I gripped her arm. “I will have Murphy with me,” I warned her.

She held my stare. Then pulling free, she said, “I will meet you there. Murphy was always good in a fight. It will be good to see him again.”

I wanted to tell her that one of her daughters would be there too, but didn’t. I looked back at my friends. They were gathering their kits together by the fire, readying themselves to leave for Wasp Water.

Lilly headed away and I went after her. Drawing alongside her, I said, “Who was that girl?”

“What girl?” she said.

“You know what girl,” I said, gripping her by the arm again. “The girl named Abbie.”

Lilly stopped in the sand, turning to face me. “Abbie is your daughter,” she said.

“But I don’t have a daughter,” I stared at her.

“Not here and now. Not in this where and when,” Pen said. “When you opened those cracks parts of another life – a life led by another Potter – came seeping through. That other Potter has a daughter, and her name is Abbie.”

Lilly turned once more and walked away up the beach, stepping over the red waves that raced up it.

“Who is this girl’s mother?” I called after her, knowing in my heart the name she was going to say.

“Sophie Harrison,” Lilly said back as she retreated into the distance.

That wasn’t the name I’d been hoping to hear.

Kayla, Isidor, and Melody came to stand by me as I watched Lilly cut across the beach and disappear into the woods that surrounded the lake.

“Are you okay?” Kayla asked, tugging on my hand.

“Huh?” I said. “Yeah, sure.”

“Let’s get going then,” Kayla said, her wings springing from her back. She flew up into the night.

“How will we know where to look for your friend, Kiera Hudson, in Wasp Water?” Melody asked.

“My friend Murphy is with her,” I said.

“How does that help us?” Melody asked.

“Just look for the trail of destruction he tends to leave in his path,” I said, opening my wings and launching myself into the sky.

Chapter Ten

Kiera

The decision whether to go marching into Wasp Water or not was taken out of our hands. I had followed Murphy back through the darkness to the overhang where we had made our camp. The thunder still growled like a ferocious beast in the distance. But with each terrifying boom, it sounded as if it were inching closer. I tried to reason with Murphy that storming into Wasp Water wasn’t the smartest move, but he appeared to be deaf to my reasoning. Murphy was convinced that there was no other way. I doubted that, but I needed time to come up with a better plan – if there was one.

We reached the mouth of the overhang, and at once I sensed there was something wrong. The earth around the entrance seemed to have been trampled over by many feet. I knelt down, inspecting the ground and the…paw prints!

“Murphy, wait!” I hissed.

But I was too late. Before I’d had a chance to warn him, they had leapt from the dark and taken hold of us. The Skin-walkers’ filthy hands groped and pawed as they restrained us. I kicked out with my feet as my hands were bound with chains behind my back. Murphy roared, his fangs slicing from his gums as he gnashed at the faces of those that fought with him. But their number was too great, and both of us were swiftly overpowered by the Skin-walkers who had been lying in wait for us. A low, rumbling growl came from within the darkness beneath the overhang and at first I thought that perhaps the thunder had gathered overhead already. But I was wrong. Six berserkers pounced from the overhang, their dog-like faces spitting and yapping as they yanked at the tethers their keepers had them fastened to. The berserkers threw back their long, pointed skulls and howled, desperate to rip the flesh from our bones. Their long claws scrapped over the ground. The chains about their scrawny throats rattled like glass as they fought with their masters to get at me and Murphy. It was hard to imagine that these terrifying creatures were once human children that the wolves had tried to match with, but had failed.

With our hands fastened behind us, and severely outnumbered, I could feel a feverish excitement growing amongst the Skin-walkers. I tried to see past them and into the overhang. I peered through the darkness, but couldn’t see Meren, Gayle, Alice, or Peter. Had they managed to escape…?

“Looking for the half and halfs?” one of the Skin-walkers asked with a lecherous leer. His breath stank of decomposing flesh. I turned my head away. Was that my friends I could smell?

“If you’ve touched my daughter, you’re all fucking dead!” Murphy roared, wrestling franticly against the chains that secured him.

“She’s not dead yet,” a Skin-walker said, dressed in his smart black police uniform. “But if we hurry back to Wasp Water, you might be just in time to see her execution.”

I knew that this was no idle threat on the part of the Skin-walkers. I’d had to endure watching Potter being executed in that town square, jam-packed with baying wolves. They were going to die. We all were.

Both Murphy and I stumbled forward as we were shoved in the backs and away from the overhang. Murphy was ahead of me, and I watched him stagger forward, left then right as the Skin-walkers manhandled him. They pushed and shoved me, too, and it was hard to keep my balance. Several times I fell forward, and with my hands tied behind my back, I landed on my face in the dirt and slushy snow. The Skin-walkers dragged me to my feet again by my hair. I cried out in pain, and Murphy made more threats of what he was going to do when he was free of his chains. The Skin-walkers kicked and punched him in retaliation, but Murphy wouldn’t stay quiet. Even when blood was gushing from his nose and mouth, he still wouldn’t give up. The berserkers howled and barked at the smell of his hot blood. Their eyes rolled in their sockets as if being driven half-crazy by the smell. I knew it wouldn’t be long before Murphy’s flesh would satisfy their hunger. I knew mine would be, too. I wasn’t scared of dying – I knew now that death wasn’t the end. It was the thought of those wolves tearing my flesh from my bones that scared me more than where I would be pushed to next. I considered these thoughts as we were dragged across the barren fields and back to Wasp Water. Did everyone who was being led to their execution have the same thoughts I was having now? Did they wonder whether they had lived the best life that they could’ve? Had they had the courage to live the life that they had wanted to live, or had they lived the life that others had wanted for them? Had they had the courage to express themselves and their innermost feelings? Had they been happy with their lot, or had they yearned for more? If so, had they been brave enough to go and get it? In my heart I knew I could answer yes to some of these questions, but others not. I wished I’d had the courage to let my friends go. I wished I’d been brave enough to put an end to their unhappiness and misery instead of thinking about my own.

With my head down, the Skin-walkers led me back into Wasp Water. The streets were lined with wolves. Some hid behind the humans skins they had stolen. Others had shed those and were in their Lycanthrope form. There was a carnival-type atmosphere. The air seemed to be charged with electricity, despite the thunder that boomed above the town. Wolves reached out with their claws, raking skin from my hands and face. I felt the warm gush of blood drip down the length of my face. The monsters clawed at Murphy too, but he was still fighting. I raised my head just enough to see him kick out, his slippered foot slamming between the legs of one of the wolves that lined the street. The wolf howled in agony.

“Have some of that, you ugly fucker!” Murphy roared.

I smiled to myself and lowered my head.

We were jostled and shoved through the town square. Glancing sideways, I could see that many of the wolves were holding sacks soaked red with human body parts. They would soon be thrown at me and my friends, just like they had been thrown at Potter before his execution. The square was flood-lit with several large lights erected on nearby stands. They obviously didn’t want to miss a single moment of our degrading deaths. I looked up and could see the stage ahead of us and the true realisation of what was about to happen hit me. Standing on the stage and shackled just like me, was Gayle, Alice, Peter, and Meren, and all of them looked terrified. Alice was sobbing as her brother, Peter, was saying something to her, but I couldn’t hear what over the sound of the wolves howling and woofing. I guessed he was trying to offer her some kind words of comfort.

Murphy and I were shoved up the stairs at the side of the stage. I saw Alice look up, as did the others, their eyes now wide and full of expectation. Did they believe that we had come to save them? The stage was as it was before. The guillotine was positioned at its centre, the blade gleaming like glass above it. The hooded executioner was standing to one side, but the announcer was centre stage. This time his face was hidden behind a hood. There were two small round slits for him to see through. On the other side of the stage there was a priest. I couldn’t see his face as he was bent forward, hands clasped together as if in prayer. Was he praying for our souls? I doubted it.

We were roughly shoved in line next to our friends.

“Dad!” Meren exclaimed on seeing Murphy. “They’re going to kill us, aren’t they? Just like they did to Potter,” she said.

“Don’t worry about a thing. We’re all going to be just fine,” he tried to comfort her. But I could tell by the waver in his voice that he didn’t really believe that.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer suddenly roared. “Welcome to the main event!”

The wolves, packed into the town square, began to howl and bark. It was so loud that it drowned out the sound of the now constant thunderclaps. I looked up and out across the sea of excited wolves. Some of them waved the arms of human corpses above their heads like supporters waving scarves at a football match. I looked away.

“Show us your face,” Murphy demanded. “If you have the guts to kill us, then show us our executioner’s face. Or are you the cowards I know you are?”

“Is it my face you want to see?” the announcer asked, and although I couldn’t see it, I knew he was smiling behind the mask. He came forward, coming toe to toe with Murphy. Then, reaching out with his hand, the announcer yanked off his hood.

“Rom,” Murphy spat. “Why?”

“I have a score to settle with you!” Rom said, his bald head glistening with sweat beneath the floodlights. He mopped it away with the hood he now held in his hand.

“What score?” Murphy asked.

“Do you not remember killing me in the St. Mary’s Church graveyard back in the Ragged Cove?” Rom said, his gaunt face twisted with hate.

“But you were being an arsehole,” Murphy reminded him. “You let yourself be twisted by Bishop. You were killing humans…turning them into vampires. That was forbidden. It was against the law – Vampyrus law. You knew the penalty for that was death.”

“You executed me that night. Ripped me to pieces and tossed me in the fire,” Rom snarled.

“Bishop also took part in your execution…” Murphy tried to remind him.

“It was a sacrifice I was prepared to make for the greater good, so future generations of Vampyrus could live above ground and not cower beneath the feet of humans like you wanted them to,” Rom argued.

“Bishop used you back then, and he will use you now,” Murphy shot back. “He’s the traitor.”

“No, you’re the traitor!” Rom shouted, his pale face now blushing red with rage. “I trained you, Murphy. I had your back more times than I can care to remember – and what did you do? You ripped my body to pieces and then chucked it in the fire!”

“You might kill me now – take your revenge, but Luke can’t win,” Murphy told him.

“It’s not about winning,” Rom said back, his voice just a whisper now, so the wolves gathered in the square couldn’t hear him. “It’s about surviving. And the one thing I know for sure is, it won’t be the humans or the wolves that survive; it will be the Vampyrus who survive.”

“So where is Luke now?” I asked, looking at the executioner who still hid behind the hood. Was it him? How would I feel about seeing the man who had murdered so many of my friends?

As if in answer to my question, the executioner pulled off his hood, like a magician doing some cheap party trick.

“Phillips,” I said. Was I surprised? No not really. They were Luke’s allies and always would be. I looked across the stage at the priest who still knelt as if deep in prayer. I didn’t have to see his face to know that it was Father Taylor.

As if being able to read my thoughts, Murphy said, “Well it’s nice to see the old team back together.”

“But there is one missing,” I said dryly. “Where is Luke?” I suspected that he was lurking somewhere close by. Looking at Rom, I said, “It’s me Luke wants so let my friends go. He can take me this time. I won’t put up a fight. Just release my friends.”

Stepping away from Murphy, Rom came and stood before me. He stared into my face with his rodent-like eyes.

Rolling back his thin dry lips and looking at me, he sneered and said, “Don’t flatter yourself, Hudson. All Luke has ever wanted from you in this pushed world is to see you dead.”

“That’s because he fears me,” I smiled. “That’s because he knows I’m a threat to him. He knows I can beat him like I did once before. He knows that I’ve come back from the dead to stop him again.”

Wheeling around, Rom faced the crowd. “You’ve just heard it from the Dead Angel we have been searching for. This is Kiera Hudson, who has come back from the dead to kill Luke Bishop – our leader – the wolf man!”

The wolves broke out in a frenzy of excitement. The body parts they had brought with them were now cartwheeling through the air toward me. A lump of flesh hit me in the chest, slid down the front of my coat, and hit the stage with a sickening plop. This was a sound that was repeated over and over as arms, legs, fingers and entrails splattered me, my friends and the stage.

“If Bishop wants me dead, why isn’t he man enough to come here and do it himself?” I hollered at Rom.

“The wolf man has far more pressing matters to deal with than killing you,” Rom grinned with a knowing smile.

“He’s not even a fucking wolf!” Murphy roared at him, but over the sound of the seemingly never-ending stream of body parts and flesh falling onto the stage, the wolves couldn’t hear what Murphy had just said.

And the wolves’ howling drowned out Rom as he hooked his thumb over his shoulder at them and with a smile said, “And they don’t know Luke isn’t a wolf either. But they will soon find out for themselves.”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” Murphy shouted.

Ignoring him, Rom roared at the ground and said, “I think it’s time we had ourselves an execution!”

The sound of howling became almost deafening.

Leaping across the stage, coattails flapping like the wings I knew he had hidden under it, Rom snatched hold of Alice.

“No!” Peter cried out, watching his sister being dragged across the stage toward the guillotine.

“Peter!” Alice screamed, looking back at her brother, eyes wide and desperate looking. She dug her heels into the wooden board. But with her hands and ankles manacled, she was no match for Rom.

“Stop! Please stop!” Peter begged. “Don’t hurt my sister!”

Driving his fist though the air, Phillips punched Peter squarely in the face. His head rocked to the right, blood spraying from his nose. He staggered then fell down.

“Peter!” Alice screamed again, as Rom forced her into a kneeling position over the guillotine. Father Taylor stepped forward and began to whisper over and over, his thin twisted lips open and closing. Was he actually praying for her? Giving Alice her last rites?

“Stop this, you sick fuckers!” Murphy roared, his voice sounding hoarse and broken.

The crowed howled with delight as Phillips reached up and wrapped his hands around the lever that would release the glinting blade above.

With her head over the block and being held in place by Rom, I heard Alice scream, “Please don’t…please…I’m sorry.”

And I knew in my heart what Alice was saying sorry for. She was apologising for being different. She thought that if she were like them then they wouldn’t kill her.

“Don’t be sorry Alice!” I screamed in anger. I wasn’t angry with Alice but with the wolves. “Alice you are different, but that’s what makes you better than them!”

“I’m sorry…!” Her last cry was cut short as the blade came slicing down. Her head simply dropped onto the stage and rolled over. Her blank eyes stared up at the cracks into the sky.

With Peter screaming, Gayle sobbing, and Meren and Murphy making all kinds of threats, I blinked away the tears that were pricking my eyes. I looked at Alice’s face as it started to crack, break apart until it was nothing but a white pile of ash. Rom let go of her body and took a step backwards. He looked down at his hands with disgust. They looked to be covered in a fine white powder. Rom wiped the ash down the front of his coat, then looked back at Alice’s lifeless body as it started to crumble and break apart. The crowd of wolves suddenly fell silent as they watched the pile of ash that had once been Alice stir, as if caught in a sudden gust of wind. Then, as if being sucked upwards, the ash floated up into the night. It twinkled as if someone had thrown a handful of glitter up into the air. Then it spiralled upwards. I tilted my head back, we all did, and watched the twinkling ash disappear through one of the cracks.

Alice had been pushed through the cracks, and I hoped that wherever she ended up, the people there would love her for being different.

“You bastards!” Peter roared, staggering to his feet.

Peter’s cry had broken the spell that Alice’s execution had cast over all of us. The wolves started to howl, bark, and woof again, as Rom reached for Peter and dragged him to his death. Peter fought less than his sister, his head tilted back and looking up at the crack that his sister had disappeared through. With his fist knotted in Peter’s blond hair, Rom forced him into a kneeling position over the wooden block. The wolves went crazy all over again. Peter seemed deaf to their excitement. With his head over the block, he twisted it to one side so he could keep looking at the crack in the sky. Phillips released the blade and Peter smiled.

Just like Alice had, Peter broke apart into a mound of white-looking ash. It started to shift and ripple across the stage until it shot up into the night sky where it shone brightly before disappearing through the crack his sister had passed through.

Rom reached for Gayle and she struggled the least as she was forced toward the block. Slowly she glanced sideways looking at Murphy, Meren, then at me. It was like she knew what was about to happen. She had a look of relief in her eyes, and I understood that. Relief that this nightmare was finally nearing its end for her and there was a hope of something better on the other side of the cracks. Refusing to cry out, and without having to be forced by Rom, Gayle calmly knelt over the block. Rom gave Phillips a nod of his head. Taylor continued to chant as the blade sliced through Gayle’s neck. Within moments, her head and body were twinkly clouds of ash that went racing away up into the night. It swept through the sky like the tail of a blazing comet and disappeared through the crack her friends had.

The wolves jeered and hollered as they threw the last of the body parts up onto the stage and at Murphy, Meren, and me. With blood trickling down my face, I watched as Rom reached for Meren.

“Get your dirty fucking hands off her, Rom,” Murphy warned him, his voice a deep, threatening rattle. There was a look in my friend’s eyes that I had never seen before. He stared at Rom with pure hatred and loathing.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to give orders,” Rom sneered, dragging Meren toward the block.

“Get off me!” Meren screeched, twisting and fighting as best as she could while restrained so securely.

With his eyes fixed on Rom, like they were piercing his very soul, Murphy said in a voice that was calm but sinister and chilling, “Let my daughter go, and I promise I won’t tear your heart out. I’ll just eat your fucking face off.”

Then the floodlights suddenly went out and the town of Wasp Water was thrown into total darkness.

Chapter Eleven

Potter

We raced toward Wasp Water. Kayla flew to my right, and Isidor, with Melody in his arms, to my left. The night was cold and my heart beat in my chest. Isidor had said that Luke had set some kind of trap there for Kiera and my friends. I could only take comfort in the knowledge that the last time I had seen Kiera was on the road on the outskirts of Wasp Water. That was soon after she had seen who she believed was me get executed. I had stood on a nearby hill and looked down at her as Meren tried to drag her away. It had broken my heart to see her in such despair and I’d wanted to go and tell her that I wasn’t really dead. But Lilly had insisted that I didn’t. Kiera’s grief had to be real or the Elders might suspect that something was wrong. Lilly had explained to both me and Jack that the Elders fed off Kiera’s sadness, that it made them strong. It’s what kept them alive. Some Vampyrus feed off human blood to keep alive, but the Elders sucked up something completely different; something much more sinister. But were the Elders even Vampyrus? I had stolen a look beneath their hoods just once, and they seemed like nothing more than skeletons covered in white leathery skin that was held in place by a patchwork of ragged stitches.

I placed my arms tight into my sides to give me greater propulsion. The three of us flew so fast that the noise we made as we tore through the night drowned out the thunder now crashing all around us. Some of the cracks looked as if they were getting bigger – deeper. I glanced up at them and stared at the nothingness behind them. It scared me a little. I looked front and shot forward, my wings pointed back like jet fighter wings as I sped through the sky. Kayla and Isidor matched my speed. I glanced at Melody as she held onto Isidor. Was I doing the right thing by taking a wolf into Wasp Water? She was one of them.

But that doesn’t mean she is like them… I heard Kayla whisper in my ear.

I wanted to trust Melody for Isidor’s sake, but trusting people – not just wolves – didn’t come easy to me. I’d been let down in the past and my mind turned to Sophie. I tried to push thoughts of her away, but I couldn’t get what Lilly had said from my mind. Did Sophie and I really have a daughter named Abbie in another layer – another where and when? There had been another Kiera and Potter in this world – but they’d had a completely different kind of relationship to the one me and the Kiera I was in love with had. The Kiera from this pushed world had murdered my other self to prove to Luke Bishop that she wasn’t the Dead Angel he was searching for. But how many layers – how many wheres and whens were there? Did they have no end like the universe itself? And what would happen if they all collided, collapsed on each other if the cracks in the layers became too many and weakened them? Lilly had said that’s why I had seen my daughter from a different when, but was there a place where another me existed with Kiera – where we were happy and had a daughter of our own?

Thinking about the whole thing was beginning to put me on a bit of a mind-fuck and I tried to clear my head of any thoughts of whens and wheres. What was the point in worrying about what my life was like in a different layer when I couldn’t even sort out the life I had in this one?

We were nearing Wasp Water and in the distance I saw what looked like a firework go shooting up into the night sky and disappear through one of the cracks. I glanced sideways at Kayla and she back at me. What looked like another firework fizzed up into the night sky. It shone brightly like a star before being engulfed by the crack.

“What’s that sound?” I heard Isidor yell. “It sounds like thunder, but…”

“It’s not thunder,” Melody said knowingly. “It’s wolves.”

I looked back in the direction we were heading, just as another of those odd-looking fireworks trailed up into the night sky. “What, are they throwing some kind of party? What would a bunch of wolves have to celebrate…?” Remembering the excited howls I had heard as Nik had been executed in the town square, I knew Kiera and the others were in trouble.

Dropping out of the sky, we raced over the hills and treetops toward Wasp Water. Within seconds we were swooping over the roofs of the houses and shops that lined the streets of the ancient town. Bright lights lit up the square and we darted toward it at speed. With my heart racing, I saw Kiera and Murphy shackled on the stage. I could see Rom, too, and he was dragging Meren toward a block of wood that was beneath a gleaming guillotine. Soaring over the square, but unseen by the wolves below, as they were too enthralled by what was taking place on stage, we perched on the rooftop of a nearby house. I knew we didn’t have much time to save our friends and any rescue would have to be quick. Again I glanced at Melody as she clung to Isidor.

“Can I trust you?” I asked. “You’re going to see some wolves die here tonight.”

“I’m not like these wolves,” Melody said, her eyes shining brightly back at me.

I didn’t have time to press her any further. “Isidor, you take out the lights. Melody, you take the stage and stop any of the wolves clambering up onto it. Kayla…Kayla do what you do best.”

“I fucking love this part,” she said grinning, her fangs and claws already out.

Isidor sprang into the sky and Melody crept from the roof. I glanced back at the stage just as Murphy looked up. He saw me and his eyes widened. He opened his mouth as if to call out to me. I placed one finger over my lips and winked back at him. Masking his surprise, and as if understanding what was coming next, he called out to Rom. I couldn’t hear what he said over the roar of the wolves below.

I looked down to see Melody easing her way through the crowds and toward the stage. Then, glancing at Isidor and Kayla who were hovering in the air next to the nearby lights, I nodded my head and said, “Let’s do this.”

The lights went out.

Chapter Twelve

Kiera

I stared through the darkness and wondered if I wasn’t dead already. Had my head been sliced from my shoulders without me realising it? Why else would I be seeing Potter racing through the sky toward me, tatty-looking wings spread out on either side of him like some avenging angel? Had I died and disappeared through one of those cracks to find Potter waiting for me?

Before I’d had the chance to figure out exactly what was happening, Potter was behind me, slicing his claws through my shackles and setting me free.

“How you doing, sweet-cheeks?” he whispered, his mouth brushing against my ear. His breath was warm. It wasn’t cold like that of a living corpse. As if to wake me from my trance, he squeezed my arse and said, “That still feels as cute as ever.”

Then he was gone, throwing himself across the stage and sinking his claws into Phillips’ face.

Still in shock, and still not sure whether I was dead or seeing a ghost, I watched Kayla come screaming out of the sky. With claws out before her like a set of blades, she buried them deep into Father Taylor’s chest. Blood pumped over and up her forearms as Taylor convulsed before her, his mouth open and eyes bulging wide. With one swift movement she had yanked the priest’s heart out. He dropped to the floor, one leg twitching uncontrollably. Holding his pumping heart in her fist, Kayla took a bite from it as if it were nothing more than a juicy red apple. Kayla saw me staring at her wide-eyed.

“Hey, Kiera,” she said around a mouthful of heart. It was like we had never been parted. “We’ve come to rescue you.”

I blinked as if struggling to take everything in. “Is that really Potter?” I gasped.

“The one and only,” Kayla smiled as she swallowed the last chunk of heart and licked her blood-stained claws clean.

“But I thought he was dead,” I said, struggling to make sense of watching Potter tearing and biting out Phillips’s throat. “I saw him die…”

Before Kayla had had a chance to say anything, there was a roar and scrambling sound coming from the front of the stage. The wolves were trying to get onto it. There was a young woman standing at the front of the stage and she was trying to shoo them back by waving her hands at them. The wolves clawed at her, sinking their long, broken nails into her thigh. She cried out. It was shrill at first, then gradually turned into a deep roar. The girl covered in roses suddenly changed shape. It was like a giant wolf had burst from within the roses that covered her skin. It seemed the monster had always been hiding amongst the beautiful flowers, but was just waiting to be set free. Now that it was, it snapped its giant jaws at the wolves clambering up onto the stage.

“Is that Melody Ro…?” I started to ask, turning to look at Kayla again. But she had gone, and was helping to release Murphy with the aid of Isidor…Isidor!

Isidor is alive too! I must be dead. I wanted to touch him, hug him, to make sure that he was really there. As I crossed the stage, I saw Meren lying on her side, hands still secured with chains behind her back. A wolf had managed to slip past Melody. It slinked forward, heading toward Meren. Drool swung from the creature’s jaws. It raised one giant paw. With my wings tearing from my back and those little claws at each tip opening and closing, I flew across the stage. Quicker than a blink, my fangs had burst from my gums and my claws had slid from my fingertips. I pounced onto the back of the wolf. Howling, the beast threw its head backwards in an attempt to chuck me clear. But with my claws dug into his fur-covered flanks, I held tight. I could feel the wolf’s blood pumping over my fists as I tore and stabbed at its internal organs. Wrapping my claws around its slippery guts, I yanked as hard as I could. The wolf bucked so violently beneath me, that this time I was thrown clear. I clattered across the stage, rolling to a stop next to Meren.

I looked back at the wolf to see it writhing in agony. Blood gushed from its long snout like a river of black tar. Knowing that I was safe – for now at least – I crouched beside Meren, rolling her over onto her front. With my claws out, I slashed at the chains. They came away, rattling to the ground. I helped Meren to her feet.

“Thanks, Kiera,” she said before springing away, wings beating furiously.

She landed on the stage next to her father. I looked at Murphy. He had Rom pinned down, while he bit and tore at his face. His fangs peeled the flesh from Rom’s bald head, slicing it away from his skull like skin coming away from an overripe fruit. Rom tried to fight back as blood gushed down his face and into his arms. Murphy pinned him flat as he savagely chomped away at Rom’s face with his jaws. He bit off each of Rom’s ears and tore off his nose, spitting them from his mouth in a pool of blood. Murphy was keeping the promise he had made to Rom.

With Rom falling still, the fight now gone, Murphy swung back his arm so he could drive his claw into his enemy’s chest. Meren grabbed his fist. Murphy looked up at her.

“Let me do it,” she urged her father. “Let me do it for Alice, Peter, and Gayle.”

Murphy lowered his claw and moved aside so his daughter could get at Rom. Meren pulled back her claw, then screaming, she drove it into Rom’s chest. Rom bucked beneath her, then fell perfectly still as Meren ripped his heart from his chest. She stood, panting, blood dripping from her fist that held Rom’s heart. She took one last look at Rom, then let his heart slide from between her claws and splatter wetly onto the stage. Coolly, she simply turned and walked away.

I had been right about Meren. She was very much like her father.

Looking in the direction of the crowds, I could see that Potter and Isidor had now joined Melody in preventing the wolves from climbing up onto the stage. They slashed their claws back and forth, slicing and cutting at the wolves that dared come too close.

“Do we have everyone?” Potter yelled back over his shoulder. He caught my eye and smiled, then looked away.

“We’re done here,” Murphy shouted.

“Then let’s fuck off out of here,” Potter yelled back, spreading his wings and soaring up into the night. Isidor threw one arm around Melody as she changed back into that innocent-looking young woman covered in roses. Isidor launched into the sky with her, followed by Meren. Murphy followed and so did I.

We didn’t fly for long, only as far as the next town I knew to be called Snake Weed. We hovered over the hills surrounding the town that lay at the bottom of a deep valley. Potter swooped in beside me, reaching for my hand. I let him take it. I didn’t know what to feel or what to say. A part of me still felt like this was some dying dream I was having as my head rolled away on that stage beneath the guillotine. I couldn’t believe it was real. I didn’t want to believe that Potter was alive – just in case I did wake up to discover that this was all some dream. But his touch felt so real – so warm – and I so wanted to believe. If this was real, why hadn’t Potter swooped me up into his arms and kissed me passionately? Why had he instead called me sweet-cheeks and slapped my arse? Because that’s exactly what Potter would have done in real life. Only in my dreams would he have swept me from off my feet.

Still holding my hand, Potter swept down out of the sky, taking me with him. The others followed. All of us stood on the crest of a hill, the town of Snake Weed stretching out in the darkness below us. I had my eyes fixed on Potter. I wanted to ask him how? Why? But I couldn’t. My head thumped and I felt suddenly sick and dizzy. The world seemed to be caving in on me.

“We thought you were dead,” Murphy said to Potter.

“Well I’m not,” Potter grinned.

Murphy strode forward, punching Potter straight in the face. Potter dropped to his arse.

“What was that for?” Potter groaned, throwing his hand to his now bleeding nose.

“For being a complete and utter nob-end!” Murphy barked at him. “Do you have any idea how much hurt and pain you’ve caused?”

“Well, I fucking do now,” Potter said, pulling himself to his feet, while trying to stem the flow of blood from his nostrils. “To be honest, I didn’t think anyone would really give a shit.”

“Give a shit…?” Murphy breathed, then without saying another word, he pulled Potter close and hugged him tight. Then as quickly as he had taken hold of Potter, Murphy let his friend go again, then walked away, wiping his eyes as he went.

“How? Why?” I whispered, looking at Potter, while the others all watched me in silence.

“Nik took my place,” Potter said, arming away the blood that covered his top lip. He took the cigarette that he had parked behind his ear and lit it. “It wasn’t me you saw die, it was Jack Seth’s brother.”

“Jack?” I breathed, my head feeling as if it were spinning.

“He took my place,” Isidor said, stepping forward. “Jack Seth died saving my life.”

I stared at Isidor, then back at Potter. He seemed to flicker in and out of focus before me. I was right, he was a ghost after all. Suddenly my legs buckled beneath me and the world went black.

Chapter Thirteen

Kiera

My eyes flickered open. I was sitting on a wooden bench. It had once been painted green, but the paint had long since come away, just leaving crusty flakes of colour. It was cold and I shivered, pulling my coat about me like a blanket. I couldn’t be sure of the time. The sky had that white colour – the colour that threatens snow. But there were no cracks above me at least. They had all gone now. I glanced about and could see that I was in the middle of a village – sitting in the town square. Was I back in Wasp Water? No, it looked different. There was a sign poking up out of the ground to my right. It swayed gently from side to side in the breeze. It read: Snake Weed.

Snake weed? Why was I here alone? Weren’t my friends meant to be here too? Was this where Potter had led us? If so, why wasn’t he here too? But there was someone. There was a person standing in the centre of the town square. Their back was to me and I could see wings protruding from their back. The figure was too slender – too short to be Potter. It was a female Vampyrus.

“Hello!” I called out. No response – not even a flinch. Their wings didn’t even flutter in the growing wind.

Standing, hands in coat pockets, I made my way across the abandoned town square and toward the figure. As I neared, I could see that it wasn’t a person at all, but a statue.

I stood in front of it and looked into its face. My heart suddenly felt as heavy as the statue standing before me. It was a statue of me. I was naked, my hair coiling over my shoulders and covering my stone breasts. My head was tilted slightly to one side, as if I was about to ask a question, and my hands were placed over my lap, to give me some modesty at least. One of my legs was slightly bent at the knee. There was a wooden plaque beneath my feet.

Before I’d had a chance to read it, I heard the sound of footsteps behind me. I spun around to see my friends now standing before the statue just like me. How had they managed to creep up on me?

“Hey,” I smiled, glad to see them. Perhaps they could explain why there was a statue of me in the middle of Snake Weed.

They said nothing, like they hadn’t heard me.

“Hey,” I said again, this time louder. Again they ignored me. It was like I wasn’t there. And then I got the sinking feeling in my heart that perhaps I wasn’t. But they were looking right at me. Why then wouldn’t they answer me?

I went to speak to them again but my lips wouldn’t move. They wouldn’t open. What was happening to me? I tried to look down at myself, but to my horror I couldn’t. It was like I had become solid. Unmoveable, like a statue.

I looked at my friends again and realised that I was the statue. It was as if I were trapped inside of it. I could see and hear my friends but I couldn’t talk to them or touch them. My hands were entwined over my lap, my head tilted slightly to one side as I stared down at them staring up at me. I could see Murphy. He stood arm in arm with a woman with thick white curly hair and full bright red lips. Meren stood with them and there was another girl who I guessed was her twin sister, Nessa. Isidor and Melody were staring up at me too. They were holding hands and looked so in love. Kayla! I could see Kayla and Sam. And just like Isidor and Melody Rose, they too were holding hands. Then I saw Potter. I wanted to call to him – reach for him, but I just couldn’t move. There was a woman standing by his side and she was truly beautiful. I had seen her before. She had been the pathologist who had carried out the post-mortem on my body when I got pushed into this world. I knew it was Sophie who stood with Potter. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and the end of it swished about her shoulders. Her blue eyes were piercing yet kind, and her lips were so full, the kind that any man would find very kissable. With her pretty face staring up into mine, Sophie slowly snaked her arm through Potter’s and he pulled her close. Potter and Sophie looked truly happy together – they looked very much in love.

I wanted to turn my head and look away. I didn’t want to see Potter with another woman. I didn’t want to see him with Sophie. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. Statues didn’t cry. They were nothing more than hollow husks with no soul and no feeling. But why then did my heart ache so much?

“She looks like an angel,” I heard Isidor say, looking up at me.

“Whoever she was, she was very beautiful,” Sophie added.

“Look, there’s a plaque,” Kayla said, pointing at my stone feet.  “What does it say?”

Squinting, Potter lent forward and read what was inscribed across the chiselled scroll at my feet.

“It says Kiera Hudson,” Potter said.

“Never heard of her,” Murphy grunted.

“Those wings are so pretty,” Melody said. “I wonder what those claws are for?”

“She was probably some kind of monster,” Pen chucked in.

“I don’t think she was a monster,” Meren said.

“Me neither,” Nessa added. “Why would they make a statue of a monster? They only ever make statues of people if that person was kind, did something incredibly brave, or impacted on other’s lives in a good way.”

They were discussing me as if I wasn’t even there. But to them I wasn’t. I was just a piece of rock that had been sculpted to look like a woman named Kiera Hudson who none of them seemed to have ever met or known.

“Whoever she was,” Potter shrugged, “its’ going to start snowing soon and the drive back to the Ragged Cove is a long one. I don’t want to be caught in some storm and spend the night freezing my nuts off and having to listen to Murphy fucking moaning.”

“I don’t moan,” Murphy moaned.

“Yeah, you do you, old fart,” Potter said, turning away arm in arm with Sophie.

I stood helplessly and watched my friends walk away – back to the lives they had in the Ragged Cove – a place where it appeared I had never existed. Snow began to seesaw from the sky in large fluffy flakes. I felt the dampness against my cheek. But it wasn’t snow that I could feel running down the length of my face, but tears. Perhaps statues did cry after all.

Potter! I desperately wanted to call out but I had no voice.

Potter…

“…Shhh, I’m right here, Kiera,” I heard Potter whisper in my ear.

I opened my eyes and found myself looking into his. I was lying down on a bed in a snug-looking room. It was dark and I couldn’t be sure where I was. All I cared about was that I felt safe in Potter’s arms. The song All of Me by John Legend was quietly playing, and I guessed Potter had been messing with my iPod again.

“Hello again, sweet-cheeks,” he said, placing the softest of kisses on my mouth.

With fragments of my nightmare still slicing away at the corners of my mind, I held him tight. “I love you. I love you,” I gasped.

“I love you, too,” he smiled, kissing away the tears that covered my face. “Why are you crying?”

“I thought I’d lost you,” I cried.

“Never,” he said and began to slowly undress me.

Chapter Fourteen

Potter

We lay naked in each other’s arms on the bed in one of the upstairs rooms in the abandoned farmhouse we had found after Kiera had fainted. I could hear rain pelting against the sash windows over the sound of us catching our breath. My chest hitched up and down as Kiera rested her head against me. I ran my hands slowly through her hair. It felt pretty fucking amazing to be with her again. Not because of our lovemaking, but because she was my best friend and it was impossible for me to imagine life without her. It was as we clung to each as we’d made love, I truly understood the hurt she had suffered while believing I was dead. I understood how she felt, as I knew the pain I would suffer if Kiera were to ever leave me. She took me someplace else. Kiera had shown me what true love really was and she was all I ever needed.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” I said, letting my fingers stray from her hair so I could gently stroke her face.

“Why pretend that you were dead?” Kiera asked. She didn’t sound angry, just confused. “Why let me believe you had been pushed again? Why let Nik take your place?”

“I’m not passing the buck here,” I started, not wanting to sound like a little kid who had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar, “but it was Pen’s idea.”

“Pen?” she said, lifting her head from off my chest so she could look at me.

“Lilly Blu. Murphy’s bit of skirt that he used to knock about with. Meren’s mother,” I said.

“Does Murphy know that Lilly is back?” Kiera asked me.

“Yes, I told him, while you were sleeping,” I said. “I’m not sure what he thinks about that. He didn’t say much. But I guess he’s got some explaining to do to Meren. She thinks her mother is someone else.”

“I know how much that hurts,” Kiera said.

“Murphy is going to have to go easy with Meren as she has been blubbing over the loss of her friends in Wasp Water,” I explained.

“She did witness her friends being decapitated,” Kiera reminded me. “She just needs time – she needs her mum.”

I gently eased Kiera on top of me. Her body felt warm against mine and I pulled the blankets over us. She propped her head in her hands, resting her elbows on my chest so she could look down into my face as I explained what had happened to me after I’d been captured in the woods that surrounded the Dead Waters.

“Lilly Blu led me and Jack to this railway station. It was full of dead people – at least I think they were dead. There was this old guy named Noah who was punching out tickets and sending people back through the cracks to their past lives.”

“Why?” Kiera frowned.

“He wanted the humans to remember their past lives – the lives they led before the world got pushed,” I said, not knowing if I was explaining what I had discovered very well. “If the humans could remember then they’d realise what the world was like – should be like – and go fuck with the Wolf Man. They would stop letting their kids being taken to those schools where they get matched.”

“The Wolf Man is Luke Bishop – Elias Munn – isn’t it?” Kiera said.

“How did you guess?” I asked her.

“Just a hunch,” she shrugged. But I knew it was more than just a hunch. She had seen it somehow. “So why did Lilly and this old guy Noah want you and Jack to go back through the cracks?”

Staring up into Kiera’s beautiful face and combing the fringe from her eyes with my fingertips I told her how they had wanted us to unmask the photographer. I explained that there were in fact two photographers – Kayla and Sam.

“Kayla and Sam?” Kiera sounded surprised. “But why them?”

I took a deep breath and said, “The woman who you grew up believing was your mum, Jessica, and Luke, they tricked them…”

“My mother is here, too?” Kiera cut in.

This was going to be difficult, so much of what I had to tell Kiera was going to be difficult, but I wasn’t going to lie to her again to protect her. I’d done that before and it had only caused her more pain. “I killed her,” I said, looking straight into her eyes. “But just like she was in the world before it got pushed, Jessica Hudson had been turned by Luke. She was evil. She helped kill Sam. She held him down while Luke beat him to death. She would have done the same to Kayla if I hadn’t killed her. You’ve got to believe me, Kiera, if there had been another way… but there wasn’t. I had no choice.”

“I believe you,” Kiera said, but I could still see the sadness in her eyes.

Not wanting either of us to dwell on the subject of her mother, and knowing how much more uncomfortable truths I had to tell her, I said, “When I went back through the cracks, I met up with you – well, not you exactly – the Kiera Hudson of this pushed world. I had to place that picture of you and your father in your flat – her flat – so I could later find it and give it to you. But the other Kiera…”

“I don’t want to know what she was like,” Kiera said softly. “She isn’t me and I’m not her.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” I said.

Kiera gently nodded her head. “I’m sure. What else did you have to do?”

“I had to deliver some letters to Sophie…” I started.

Kiera gently placed her fingertips over my lips. “I don’t want to know about that either,” she said

“Why?” I asked. “Nothing happened…Kayla was there…”

“I know nothing happened,” Kiera whispered. “I just don’t want to be reminded of a nightmare I recently had.”

“Nightmare?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said with another gentle shake of her head. “What I want to know is, why didn’t you let me know somehow that you weren’t really dead?”

“For the same reason I had to leave you that picture in your flat of you and your father,” I told her.

“How come?” Kiera frowned.

“Because that picture would remind you of your father,” I tried to explain. “It would stir up all those feelings you had for him. You’d have to know if your father was alive in this pushed world. The needing to know would be so great that you would have to go looking for him. And you did. But when you found him again, did it make you happy?”

“No,” Kiera said. “It broke my heart, because not only did I have to watch him die all over again, I found out the truth about him. The truth that he had been keeping from me my whole life, and discovering that was more painful than watching him die.”

“And that’s what Luke and the Elders wanted,” I told her.

“So Luke and the Elders are working together?”

“Luke thinks they are, but the Elders are just using him, just like they are using you,” I said.

“How are they using me?” Kiera asked.

“They feed off your pain. Kiera, they feed off your misery,” I said. “They’re like fucking leaches, but instead of sucking up your blood they feed off your heartache. The more pain you feel, the stronger they become. That’s what the choice you had to make down in The Hollows was really all about. They couldn’t give a toss whether the humans, Vampyrus, or even the wolves lived. They just wanted you to choose. Because they knew that whatever way you chose, that decision would haunt you for the rest of your life. You would agonise over the thought that you had been responsible for destroying a complete race of people. And if your pain or guilt ever began to weaken over time, they would just give you another impossible choice to make.”

“But why not get you to choose?” she asked. “Why did it have to be me?”

“Do you really think I’d give a fuck if the wolves were wiped from the face of the Earth?” I shot back. “No, it had to be someone who cared. Someone who had reason enough to care. In the world before you got pushed, when you believed yourself to be half Vampyrus and half human, the choice you had was between those two species. How could you make that choice? But here, and now that you understand where you truly came from, I bet they will want you to choose between the wolves and the Vampyrus.”

“But there are no Vampyrus in this world,” Kiera reminded me.

“Not yet,” I said. “But they’re on their way. Luke has been gathering an army to come up from The Hollows and through the cracks he has been making. He has already manipulated the wolves to bring the humans to their knees. So it’s now only the wolves standing between him and having a world dominated by Vampyrus – which has always been what he’s wanted – even before the world was pushed. But the most unlikely of people has gone and made a hole in Luke’s plans. Quite a few holes in fact.”

“Who?” Kiera asked.

“Your brother, Jack Seth,” I told her with a smile.

“Jack?”

“When he took Isidor’s place in that railway station waiting room and saved his life,” I said. “It should have been Isidor who died that night, but Jack changed that, and by doing so he caused those cracks to appear in the sky. But it’s not only Luke’s plans he’s fucked up – this whole world is gonna fall down around our ears and destroy everything.”

“Can we stop it?” Kiera asked.

“Lilly believes if we can reveal to the wolves that they have been deceived by Luke Bishop, then perhaps the cracks will close or war will be prevented at least. But I’m not convinced. It looks to me as if the damage has already been done.”

With her head still propped in her hands, Kiera looked thoughtfully down into my eyes.

“What are you thinking?” I asked her.

“Why do you think Jack saved Isidor’s life?”

“Perhaps you were right about him,” I said. “Perhaps he wasn’t the true monster I believed him to be.”

I glanced over at the window and looked up at the cracks. They were still there. The sky was growing lighter and I knew that dawn was just an hour or two away. “We should get some sleep,” I said, looking back at Kiera. “We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

Kiera leant down and gently kissed me. Her lips were moist and sweet. “I don’t want to sleep just yet,” she whispered, rolling over onto her back and pulling me on top of her.

Chapter Fifteen

Kiera

I woke to find myself alone. Potter had slipped from my arms sometime before dawn. Pulling the blankets up beneath my chin, I shivered without Potter’s strong arms to keep me warm. I could see that I was in a poky room, with wooden floorboards and white walls. There was a wardrobe against the far wall and a dressing table and mirror. I remembered Potter telling me how my friends had discovered an abandoned farmhouse in the hills above the town of Snake Weed. I guessed the farmhouse had once been the home to humans before the wolves had chased them away or worse. My clothes were strewn across the floor where Potter had cast them away during the night. The first time we had made love had been frenzied and full of passion. But the second time had been slower, each taking our time to explore each other. But it was more than that for me. I’d wanted to make the most of our time together. I hadn’t forgotten the nightmare I’d had before waking to find Potter lying next to me. I feared that perhaps it wasn’t a nightmare at all, but a premonition of what was yet to come. And if it had been a vision then I wanted to make the most of the time I had left with Potter.

I rolled onto my back and looked at the fine web of cracks that covered the ceiling. It looked like the sky on the other side of the window. I thought of everything Potter had told me and how the Elders were living and breathing off the hurt and pain they had caused me. But I knew it wasn’t just my own pain they fed off of, but the agony I felt knowing that my friends were trapped in this world with me. Knowing that I could end their suffering was what hurt me the most. But I knew if I let them go, they would forget me, just like they had in my nightmare. Potter would be in love with Sophie, and I didn’t know if I could bear the thought of that for the rest of my life. But Potter was wrong about one thing. The Elders weren’t going to get me to choose between the Vampyrus and the wolves this time. My choice this time was a far simpler one, but more painful. I had to decide whether to keep my friends with me in this pushed world and prolong their suffering and misery, or to let them go back to the world as it was before, leaving me here alone without them.

Pushing those thoughts from my mind, and sensing that the time was soon coming when I would have to make that choice, I threw back the blankets and climbed out of bed. I snatched up my clothes from the floor. They were smeared with the human remains that had been thrown at me by the wolves. I dropped them and went to the wardrobe. I searched through the clothes I found hanging there. Removing a black fitted shirt, a pair of blue jeans, and a long, black leather coat, I left the room and went in search of the bathroom. After I’d showered and dressed, I headed downstairs. I could hear the low rumble of chatter and followed the sound across a small living room. Someone had lit a fire in the hearth, warming the sparsely furnished room. I stood by the kitchen door, unseen by my friends, and listened to them discussing their plans to attack Snake Weed that night. I pushed open the kitchen door. My friends were gathered around a kitchen table. There was a steaming pot of tea in the middle of it. One of them had obviously caught some rabbits as three half-eaten carcasses lay on plates on the table. Potter sat at the table, an overflowing ashtray before him. Murphy sat beside Meren, pumping clouds of smoke from his pipe. I was surprised that anyone was still able to breathe. Seeing me standing in the kitchen doorway, both Isidor and Kayla jumped to their feet. They came from the other side of the table and hugged me. It was so good to see them both again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t really get to say hello last night,” Kayla said, “but it was a bit hectic – what, with having to escape from Wasp Water and everything.”

I remembered watching her tucking into Father Taylor’s heart and smiled, “It’s okay, Kayla. I understand. I’m just glad that you are okay.”

I turned to look at Isidor. He smiled, those black flames crawling up his neck and licking his chin. “You’re looking good,” I said, squeezing him again.

“Never as good as you,” he smiled.

Isidor hadn’t seemed to have lost any of his boyishness. I was secretly glad that his ordeal hadn’t hardened him – changed him.

“Hey, I want you to meet someone,” he beamed, the piercing fixed into his eyebrow glinting in the grey light that seeped through the kitchen window. “This is my friend I told you about, Melody Rose.”

“Hey, Melody,” I said across the table at her. She no longer wore Isidor’s coat, and like me had probably rummaged through the drawers and wardrobes in the bedrooms upstairs and found herself some clothes that had been left behind by the humans. She wore a violet coloured top, which only made her hair and the rose tattoos that climbed the length of her arms and neck look all the pinker. She wore blue jeans and trainers. She was prettier than Isidor had described her to me.

“Thank you,” I smiled at her.

“What for?” Melody smiled back.

“For coming to rescue me and my friends last night,” I said. “I saw you fighting back the wolves and it must have taken a lot, as I know you’re a wolf too.”

“I wanted to. I grew up hearing the stories that the Dead Angel, Kiera Hudson, was coming to kill the wolves,” Melody said. “But Isidor said that was a lie. He described you as being too beautiful inside to want to hurt the wolves. He said that you were an angel – and there had never been a more precious one.”

“Fuck me, I think I’m gonna puke in a minute,” Potter said from the other side of the table. Then looking at Isidor, he added, “You really do talk a load of old bollocks.”

“It’s not bollocks,” Kayla said, coming to her brother’s defence. “I think it’s a nice thing to say. And it’s true.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed and on the spot. I glanced at Potter and he winked at me. He was back to teasing Isidor again already.

“If you’ve finished with all the reunions, we have more important things to discuss, like attacking Snake Weed,” Murphy said, placing his slippered feet up onto the table and leaning back in his chair.

“How are we going to attack Snake Weed if it’s full of Vampyrus?” I said, sitting at the table and pouring myself a cup of tea from the pot.

“They will be outnumbered,” someone said, and we all glanced up at the kitchen door. I took one look at the woman standing in the long, white fur coat to know it was Lilly Blu, also known as Penelope Flack.

I couldn’t help but notice how Murphy’s and Lilly’s eyes locked at once across the room. Murphy took the pipe from the corner of his mouth and slid his feet from off the table. He didn’t get up to greet her. He just sat looking at Lilly.

Lilly broke Murphy’s stare and glanced at Meren, who sat next to him. Was that a look of regret I could see in her crystal blue eyes? Did she know that she was looking at her daughter – the daughter she gave up as a baby? I glanced sideways at Meren. Did she know that the woman who stood in the open doorway was her mother?

Lilly came onto the kitchen, but didn’t take a seat at the table. She stood before it and said, “The wolves will join us tonight before we go down into the valley and into Snake Weed.”

“Would they be the same wolves that wanted to cut our fucking heads off less than twenty-four hours ago?” Murphy grunted. I got the feeling that Murphy seemed angry and resentful at Lilly’s sudden appearance in his life again.

“No,” Lilly said.

“How many are coming?” Potter asked.

“Six,” she said.

“Sorry, but am I going deaf, or did you say six?” Potter shot back, his face agog.

“I went to the council of wolves who signed the treaty of Wasp Water,” Lilly started to explain. “I’ve told them that Luke Bishop isn’t the man he claims to be. I’ve told them that he had deceived us all and is planning to invade the world with Vampyrus from The Hollows. They didn’t believe me at first, and when I told them where the information had come from, they believed me even less.”

“Cheeky bastards,” Potter said. “I’m not a liar.”

“You’ve got to remember that for hundreds of years, the wolves have believed that the Dead Angels were coming to destroy them – not save them,” Lilly said in her species’ defence. Then looking at me, she added, “You are coming to save us, Kiera Hudson, aren’t you? I can trust you, can’t I?”

“I don’t know if I will be able to save the wolves,” I said. “But you can trust me.”

As if satisfied by my answer, Lilly looked at the rest of my friends gathered around the table. “When the six wolves from the council arrive tonight, we will take them down into Snake Weed. When they see for themselves the traitor that Luke Bishop really is, they will send out the order for reinforcements.”

“And how long will that take?” Potter asked. “Once Luke discovers us in Snake Weed, it won’t take long for all hell to break loose.”

Glancing again at me, she said, “The wolves will come. I trust you, Kiera Hudson. Do you trust me and my fellow wolves?”

I met her stare. “Yes,” I said.

Murphy pushed his chair back and stood up. “Now that we have that sorted, I think we should all get some rest. It sounds like we’ve got a long and dangerous night ahead of us.” Taking Meren by the hand, he led her out of the kitchen and out into the yard at the back of the farmhouse.

No sooner had Murphy and Meren gone, then all eyes fell on Lilly. She stood before the table looking incredibly uncomfortable. I felt kind of sorry for her. Standing up, I reached out and offered Lilly my hand.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Lilly Blu. I’ve heard so much about you,” I said, offering her a friendly smile.

“Likewise,” she said, taking my hand in hers and gently shaking it. She let her long, slender fingers slide from mine, placing her hand into the pocket of her fur coat. Taking her hand out almost at once, she said, “This is for you.”

I looked down at the white envelope she was holding. Taking it from her, I said, “What is it?”

“It’s a letter from Jack Seth,” Lilly said. “Before he went back through the cracks, he asked me to give it you.”

I turned the sealed envelope over in my hands. My first instinct was to rip it open so I could read what was written inside. But not here. Not now. Not in the kitchen with my friends all around me. I wanted to wait until I was alone. I slipped the letter into my jacket pocket and looked up to thank Lilly for looking after my brother’s letter for me. But Lilly was heading out of the door, the bottom of her long, white fur coat swishing about her ankles. I watched her go past Murphy and Meren, her head down so as not to catch their eye. Through the kitchen window, I saw her head for the wooded area that stretched away from the back of the farmhouse. Just as she reached the treeline, I heard Meren call out after her.

“Mum! Wait!”

So Murphy had told Meren the truth about who her mother really was.

Pen stood dead still. Slowly, she turned and looked back at Meren. Not taking her eyes off Lilly once, Meren walked toward her and stopped. They stood looking at each other without speaking for what seemed like an eternity. Murphy headed over to them, his slippers splashing through the puddles left by the rain that had fallen during the night. The three of them stood looking at each other as if taking part in some kind of stand-off. Slowly, Lilly opened her arms wide and Meren fell into them. Murphy then wrapped his arms around the both of them. I looked away with a smile, praying deep within my heart that the three of them would find happiness together this time.

Chapter Sixteen

Kiera

“What are you looking at?” Potter asked, spying over my shoulder.

I hadn’t heard him get up from his chair and come and join me by the window. Catching sight of Murphy hugging Meren and Lilly, I thought that perhaps he was going to come out with one of his sarcastic comments, but instead he said, “Good luck to the old fart. He deserves a bit of happiness.”

“Going soft in your old age?” I said, reaching up on tiptoe and planting a kiss on his cheek.

“I’m never soft when you’re around,” he grinned.

“Pervert,” I scowled, and headed back to the table. I slipped my hand into my pocket and touched the letter Jack had sent me. I would spend some time with my friends, then sneak off and read it alone.

“I’m sorry to hear about Sam,” I said, sitting down next to Kayla and tenderly squeezing her shoulder.

“I know I will see him again,” she said, more out of hope than a real belief I suspected. But I could remember the nightmare I’d had where Kayla and Sam had been together again and I wondered if perhaps she was right in her belief.

I looked across the room at Potter. He was leaning back against the sink, a smoke dangling from his lips.

“Just don’t build your hopes up,” Potter warned her.

“You never know,” Isidor cut in. “Life can be like a rollercoaster – you’ve just got to ride it.”

“That’s rather philosophical, Isidor,” Melody said. “Did you come up with that, or was it some great philosopher?”

“I guess you could call him a philosopher,” Isidor said thoughtfully.

“Who?” Potter asked.

“Ronan Keating,” Isidor said. “It’s a line from a Boyzone song.”

“Boyzone!” Potter spat, the cigarette nearly falling from between his lips. “How the fuck can you be comparing Sam getting kicked to death to a Boyzone song? Sam didn’t even look like Ronan-fucking-Keating!”

“I don’t think Isidor meant to say that Sam looked like…” Melody started, coming to Isidor’s defence.

“He’ll be quoting songs by The Back-passage Boys next,” Potter said over her.

“I think you’ll find they were called The Back Street Boys,” Isidor said.

“Not in this world they’re not,” Potter informed him.

“Do you all mind? That’s Sam you’re talking about,” Kayla said, pushing her chair back and running from the room.

“Nice one, Isidor!” Potter scowled. “You’ve upset your sister now.”

“It wasn’t me who upset her,” Isidor said, jumping up and heading for the door.

“Yeah, it was. You started comparing Sam’s death to having some kind of jolly on a rollercoaster,” Potter said.

But Isidor was gone in search of Kayla. Melody glared at Potter, then left the room too.

“What did I say?” he asked, raising both eyebrows.

“You know what,” I said.

“I was just trying to have a few laughs,” Potter shrugged. “There hasn’t been that many lately.”

I got up from the table and went to the kitchen door.

“Are you mad at me too?” he asked.

“No,” I said, looking back at him. “I just want to be on my own for a while.”

“What am I meant to do?” he asked.

“How about finding Isidor and Kayla and saying sorry for being a jerk?” I smiled back at him, closing the kitchen door on my way out.

With my hand closed around Jack’s letter that was tucked into my jacket pocket, I made my way across the yard and into the woods. As I went, I caught sight of Murphy, Meren, and Lilly sitting on a dry patch of grass beneath one of the trees. They were lost in conversation and didn’t see me pass by. I headed away in the opposite direction. Finding myself a similar dry spot beneath a large tree, I sat cross-legged in the fallen leaves. Slowly, I took Jack’s letter from my pocket. There was no writing on the front of the envelope. I turned it over in my hands, and with my heart racing, I opened it. I pulled out the folded sheets of paper tucked inside and began to read the spidery writing that had been scribbled across the pages.

Kiera,

If you’re reading this letter then you have met up with Lilly Blu and she kept her promise to me. Better still, if you’re reading this then you’re alive – you haven’t been pushed. The reason I’ve written this letter is because I’m too much of a coward to say the things I have to say to you in person. I wish we could be sitting somewhere – perhaps in some nice park with the heat of the sun on our faces – just like a brother and sister should. I guess things weren’t meant to have been like that for us. But you know what? I really fucking wish they had. I’m not gonna bullshit you here – I fucking hated you once. I would have ripped your throat out just as soon as look at your scrawny arse – but things changed. I changed. Maybe not fully – but enough to know that I need to. Even as I sit and write this to you, I’m already itching to make my next kill. I’m wondering where I might come across her. What will she look and taste like? Damp and sweet, I hope.

When I discovered that you were my sister I hated you more than I’d ever hated anyone. I was so fucking jealous, as your life seemed to be so fucking good – so fucking straight. You had friends, someone to love and someone who loved you – that’s why I took you, locked you in that room, and forced you to watch your father die. That’s why I got you to watch Potter make out with that wolf. I wanted you to hurt as much as I fucking did – as much as all my victims had. But the longer I spent with you in that room, the more I realised your life wasn’t as straight and as happy as I first thought. You had your demons just like I had. But the difference – the difference was that you hadn’t given in to them. You didn’t let them turn you into some monster – a monster like me. I saw that I could be happy too – if only I wasn’t so fucking weak.

I’ve been an evil motherfucker my whole sorry life but I realise that hasn’t anything to do with how our mother treated me, or how Father Paul, your father, rejected me; the only person I have to blame is myself. You have been let down and rejected too, but you never let it destroy you. You chose not to let it.

If I could go back and change the terrible things I have done, then I would – but it’s too late for that. Besides, there is another part of me that wouldn’t want to change a thing and that’s the side I just can’t silence. The wolf just keeps yackety-yacking in my ear. It’s never truly silent. But it’s not too late for you, Kiera. We all have choices to make – you know that better than anyone. For what it’s worth, and if you want to listen to your brother’s advice – and why would you – I say follow your heart. Believe it or not, there is a part of me that wishes I had followed mine. I haven’t always been the monster you know. I was once that boy who loved to sit and draw and paint – that kid who just wanted to be praised – to be loved. I had dreams of wanting to be an artist, to create instead of destroy. But my anger and resentment blinded me. The wolf blinded me. But you haven’t let your demons blind you. Kiera, you see – and to see is the only way you’re going to survive. Look into your heart and what do you see? I know what I saw in it when I had you trapped in that room.

Nik saw it too during the time he spent with you in the zoo before the world got pushed. That’s why he wants to help you by taking Potter’s place beneath the guillotine. I know that however much we struggle, we both want to change. We both want to lead better lives and I hope we can help each other as brothers to do so.

But all changes are small and start within, so the words I’m going to write now I have never uttered to anyone. I guess that’s why I’m writing them for you to read instead of saying them to you. I’ve always been too scared to say these words to anyone – yes, even a monster as ugly as me gets scared from time to time. But nothing scares a monster as much as showing their weaknesses and how vulnerable they really are. But is it a weakness to tell someone you love them? You taught me not. You showed me to love is a strength, not a weakness. So feeling stronger than I ever have, I want to say, I love you, sister.

If we were together now, I would say those three words to you. But that’s not going to happen now. Not in this pushed world – but perhaps another. And that’s why I’m going to go and get myself pushed again. I want to start all over and have a shot at beating my demons so that if we should ever meet again, I will be able to look you in the eyes without feeling scared or ashamed and say, I love you, Kiera.

But until that day – and I pray that it comes to pass – I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for helping me to see. Because when I open my eyes now, I don’t always see the world as being grotesque, but I sometimes see the beauty in it too. So for the first time since I was a boy, I created something – I drew something beautiful. I drew a picture of you.

I’m going to leave you now and I hope that if I can beat my curse, one day we will be pushed back together.

Jack.

Chapter Seventeen

Kiera

I held the letter and picture. Tears pricked my eyes and they glazed over. I felt a sudden pang of regret stab my heart as I wished that it had worked out between me and Jack. Between both of my brothers. They were my real family and I felt I had been robbed of them. Jack was right, we’d missed out on doing all the good stuff that brothers and sisters share together. Our mother had robbed all of us of that. Her acts of cruelty and selfishness had driven a void between us that became so wide we could never cross it – not even meet halfway. That was my biggest regret. Like Jack had found the courage to write that he loved me, I loved Jack too. But I would never know how telling him that might have changed him. Jack wrote he had never told anyone he loved them and I feared he had never had those words said to him. Perhaps if our mother, Kathy Seth, hadn’t succumbed to the curse then I would have been raised with my brothers and we could’ve been a real family.

“What a waste,” I whispered, staring down at the letter and picture, those tears now rolling silently down the length of my face.

I wished I’d had one last chance to see Jack before he’d gone and got himself pushed again. I would have wanted to look into his eyes, for I suspected that for the first time I wouldn’t have seen myself in them. I wouldn’t have seen myself suffering in them. And why? Because he said he loved me and I believed him. That was the reason he swapped places with Isidor. He knew I loved Isidor as a brother, so Jack was giving me something he thought he could never be. He was giving me a brother. I’d learnt your family didn’t have to be those who raised you – but those people who love you.  And I knew that the ragtag group of Vampyrus, wolves, and half-breeds who were now gathered at the farmhouse waiting to go down into Snake Weed at nightfall were my family. We quarrelled amongst ourselves at times, we had different opinions and likes and dislikes, but the one thing that we did have in common was that none of us had family. Potter’s father had been a violent drunk and his mother had walked away when he was just a boy. Murphy had buried both his daughters and lost the woman he had loved. Isidor had been given away as a small boy by his father, Lord Hunt. Kayla had fled to London, driven away by bullies, and Melody’s mother had physically and emotionally abused her. None of us had much – but in a way we had everything – we had each other. We were a family.

Staring down at the picture Jack had drawn of me, I hoped that wherever he was now, he was with Nik and they were happy. I prayed that they were both beating the curse that had tormented them their whole lives. I had only ever spent a very short time with Nik. He had kept me company during my captivity in that zoo on the outskirts of Wasp Water. He had helped me to escape. So I knew there was good in him too. I hoped that he would show Jack the way. Nik was the killer he was because Jack had raised him from a small boy. And maybe some of my tears stung so much because secretly, in a very small part of my heart, I was grateful Jack hadn’t raised me too, as I feared that perhaps I would have turned out just like they had. We were just different sides of the same coin.

But the regret I felt wasn’t just for me and my brothers; it was for my friends too. In this world, we had all somehow been pushed back together again. Murphy had been reunited with Lilly Blu and his daughter Meren. Isidor had found Melody Rose. Albeit for a short time, Kayla had found love with Sam, but she believed she would someday meet him again. Potter…Potter had found…

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” I heard someone say.

I looked back over my shoulder to see Potter standing amongst the trees.

“What’s that?” he said, stepping forward and looking down at Jack’s letter and drawing.

“It’s nothing,” I said, placing them back into the envelope and sliding it into my jacket pocket.

Potter cocked one eyebrow at me, but didn’t mention the envelope again. Sitting on the grass next to me, he noticed the tears drying on my cheeks and said, “Are you okay, Kiera?”

“I’m fine,” I smiled, wiping the tears away. “I’m just being stupid. Really.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” he said, eyes full of concern for me.

“Sure,” I said. “Did you manage to track down Isidor and Kayla?”

“Yeah,” he said, taking out a smoke and lighting it. “You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve made my peace with them.”

“You apologised? Are you ill?” I teased.

“Well, I told Isidor not to be such a touchy-sod, and for Kayla to get a life, and Melody not to poke her freaking nose in, and…”

“So you didn’t say sorry?” I said.

“They know I’m just fucking with them,” he smiled.

I looked at Potter as we sat beneath the tree. The wind blew dead leaves all around us, and the bare branches overhead creaked like old floorboards. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Why do you think we’ve all been brought back together in this pushed world? What I mean is, we’ve all met up with people we’ve lost at some point in our lives before we got pushed. Why do you think that’s happened?”

“So the Elders can fuck with us,” he said, blowing smoke out of his nostrils.

“But how is that fucking with us?” I frowned at him. “I saw Murphy, Meren, and Pen. I watched as Meren finally met her mother. Isidor has found Melody again. I’ve never seen him look so happy.”

“Yeah, but he’s always had a stupid fucking look on his face…”

“I’m being serious,” I cut in.

“Even Kayla, who met and then lost Sam, looks the happiest I’ve ever seen her,” I reminded him. “I thought we were meant to be unhappy here. I thought that was the whole point of being brought back. Aren’t the Elders meant to be punishing us – not rewarding us?”

“Who knows how those twisted fuckers like to work,” Potter said, flicking the butt of his cigarette away where it lay and fizzled in the damp fallen leaves. “But maybe we should make the most of it while it lasts.” Potter glanced up through the branches at the cracks that covered the sky.

Not realising that he had done it, Potter had confirmed what I feared inside. Had the Elders engineered all of us being reunited with the people we had once loved, just so they could tear us apart again? Potter said that the Elders feed off pain, and what could be more painful for my friends than to lose each other again? To have that family torn apart. But to watch that happen would be my pain. My pain would be greater as I secretly knew that I had the power to stop that from happening. I had the choice to send them all back where once again they would all be together – where they would all be happy. I couldn’t rid my mind of those statues the Elders had shown me in the graveyard. The statues of my friends with the people they most loved. I remembered the nightmare I’d had where they were all together and I played no part in their lives. I was a statue, unable to tell them that I was their friend and how much I loved each of them. I had to stand back, forever more unable to be a part of their lives. That was what the Elders had planned for me, or the agony of leading my friends into Snake Weed where I feared they would lose their lives and be pushed apart again. That was the choice the Elders were asking me to make.

Standing, I held out my hand for Potter to take. Closing his fingers around mine he pulled himself up. Silently, I led him deeper into the woods.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“I’m looking for something,” I told him.

“What?”

“A few last moments of happiness,” I said.

Chapter Eighteen

Kiera

Without talking, I led Potter deeper into the woods. I just wanted to be alone with him away from my other friends for a while. Potter laced his fingers through mine. The thunder that continued to rumble in the distance matched the speed of my thumping heart. I could hear the sound of running water. It was too loud to be that of a brook or small river. I made my way toward it. The trees thinned out ahead of us. We found ourselves standing on a chip of rock and looking down into a pool of water that came tumbling from a nearby waterfall. Spray from the water caught the last of the fading sunlight, casting a rainbow over the pool. The water was surrounded on all sides by tall firs and spruces. There was a fresh scent of faint lemon in the air.

With my fingers still entwined with Potter’s, I led him down over the rocks and to the water. With the waterfall now just feet away, my skin and hair became damp from the spray. I turned to look into Potter’s face. Without saying anything, I closed my eyes and kissed him gently on the mouth. He kissed me back, and I felt his hand slip from mine and slide to my waist. Breaking our kiss, I eased back so I could see into his dark eyes.

“I love you,” I whispered and slipped his jacket from his back. He wore no shirt underneath and I looked at the old scars that covered his chest, stomach, and shoulders. I lightly caressed them with my fingertips. Then, slowly, I leant forward and kissed each and every one of them. I wished I could kiss away the pain that had caused them.

I felt Potter slide my jacket from me. It fell to the rocks. With his eyes locked with mine, he silently popped open each button on the front of my shirt. My heart sped up and I reached out, placing my hand against the hard flesh of his chest. I could feel his heart racing as fast as my own. With my shirt fluttering to the ground, and now standing half-naked before him, I rolled back my shoulders and released my wings. They flapped open on either side of me, each of them sounding like a fresh sheet being shaken open. The claws at each tip open and closed, as if clutching at the air.

“You look perfect,” Potter smiled, shaking his own wings free.

They rolled open from his back, their giant wingspan almost blocking out the light. The edges of them were frayed and tatty – but in a way, perfect.

Loosening my trousers, I slid them along with my underwear over my hips and let them slide down my legs to my feet. I stepped out of them and stood naked before Potter. I felt suddenly very free. Like me, Potter removed his jeans and boots. Slowly, he closed the last of the gap between us, folding his arms, then his wings about me. I lay the side of my face against his chest. How I wished I could stay locked in his embrace forever.

“I love you, Kiera,” he whispered. He led me down into the water.

Together we swam out to the middle of the rock pool, stopping just beneath that rainbow. Its colours were almost suddenly blinding.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed.

“Like you,” he said, snaking his arm about my waist beneath the water and pulling me close again. I felt his body press against mine as he kissed me.

Taking his hand in mine again, I swam toward the waterfall. We passed through the torrent of water that fell from above to find a small alcove. We climbed from the water, lying side by side on our wings. I looked back at the rock pool and the trees that surrounded it, but the waterfall hid them from my view. But more importantly, it hid Potter and me from the rest of the world. It felt like we were the only two creatures that now lived in it. And that’s what I’d wanted when I led Potter through the woods. I wanted us to be alone one last time. I wanted us to be how we were truly meant to be. Two beautiful monsters.

Turning to look at Potter, I said, “Make love to me.”

Without saying anything, Potter brushed my damp fringe from my brow.

“Close your eyes,” he hushed.

I did as he said.

With my heart beating faster still, I felt Potter cover my face in the softest of kisses. He started at my forehead, slowly and deliberately working his way down over my face, his lips brushing over my eyelids, cheeks, tip of my nose, chin and mouth. I then felt his warm breath against my neck and I shuddered. He pulled me close as if trying to warm me. But it wasn’t the cold that had caused my skin to breakout in gooseflesh, but his touch. I felt his mouth and the gentle flicker of his tongue travel over my breasts, then stomach. He took his time as if relishing every moment he spent kissing me – every moment we now shared together. I pushed the realisation that it might be the last time we spent together from my mind. I wanted to forget what I feared lay ahead for us both. I wanted this moment to be so precious, that if the nightmare I’d had came true, and I was left alone, then I would have this time between us to treasure until the end of time.  If I could somehow capture it, keep it locked in my heart, then I might never feel the loneliness I knew I would have to endure if I let him go.

I felt Potter’s lips brush over my thighs as he worked his mouth down my legs. He placed soft kisses all over them. My skin tingled and stomach tightened. Potter took each of my feet into his hands and kissed my toes. It tickled just a little and I couldn’t help but wiggle them. I giggled. Opening my eyes, I looked down the length of my body. Potter smiled back at me. “Easy, tiger. Don’t get so excited.”

He came forward, and reaching out with his hands, I pulled him over me. As we became one at last, I pulled him closer still, burying my claws into his back. Potter moved slowly at first. I arched my back off the ground. Knotting one claw in his damp hair, I pulled his face down over mine. I kissed him, but it wasn’t his lips I wanted. I pressed my mouth over his neck. I could feel the blood racing through his veins as he began to work his sturdy hips faster and harder. My eyes rolled back as I smelt the blood just beneath his flesh. Crushing my lips over his neck, I broke the skin with my fangs. Within an instant, my lips were covered with his hot blood. It gushed into my mouth and down my throat. I drank it down as Potter continued to make love to me. As he did, he sank his fangs deep into the side of my neck. I felt a warm and dizzy sensation as he sucked my blood into him. I raked my claws up and over his back, criss-crossing his shoulders as we shared our blood and our deep and everlasting love for each other.

When I felt drunk on him, I withdrew my lips from his neck and cried out. Potters mouth shone black with my blood as he threw his head back, wings spread wide as his own body rocked violently. Both trembling and hearts racing, we fell into each other’s arms. With chests rising up and down, we gasped for breath.

“I love you so much, Kiera,” Potter panted in my ear. “I will never stop loving you.”

I closed my eyes and wanted to believe that was true.

Chapter Nineteen

Potter

I kissed my blood from Kiera’s lips. I felt the warm trickle of it down the length of my neck, but the puncture marks left by Kiera’s fangs would soon heal, as would the ones I left on her.

I rolled onto my back, chest rising, then falling again. Glancing sideways, I looked at Kiera’s beautiful profile. She had her eyes closed, but still I could see a sadness about her. It was like she had got some crazy idea into her head that our time together was coming to an end. Perhaps her believing I was dead had affected Kiera more than I first feared it had. But I wasn’t going anywhere without a fight. Kiera couldn’t get rid of me now from her life, even if she wanted to. Whether she liked it or not, she was stuck with me for the rest of her life – and probably several more. As I lay and studied her face, I wondered how I could ease her fears, prove to her that I wasn’t going to leave her ever again.

I thought of the other Potter Lilly had talked about. The Potter who had a daughter named Abbie with Sophie. How I’d wished that Lilly was going to tell me that the little girl I had seen bleeding through the cracks was mine and Kiera’s daughter. Instead she had said Sophie. But that was another Potter, in another where and when. I hoped he was happy with Sophie, because one thing was for sure, Sophie hadn’t made me happy. She had just caused me a whole load of fucking heartache. But if that Potter was happy, then why couldn’t I be? And I knew what would really make me happy and how I could prove to Kiera that I was going nowhere fast.

Propping myself up onto my elbow, I looked at Kiera and said, “Kiera, when this is all over. When we get pushed back…well…I was wondering…erm…”

Kiera’s eyes flickered open and she looked at me. “Yes?”

“Look, don’t have a heart attack or anything, but I was wondering…if you…well you know…” I struggled to find the right words.

“Know what?” Kiera said.

“Don’t make this any harder for me than it already is…” I mumbled.

“What are you trying to say?” she asked.

“I’m trying to ask you to marry me,” I blurted out.

“What?” Kiera shot up.

“Well, don’t look so fucking pissed off about it…perhaps I shouldn’t have…” I started.

“I’m just shocked, that’s all…” Kiera now seemed to be struggling for the right words as much as I was. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m fucking serious,” I said. “It’s not a hobby of mine to go around asking women to marry me…”

“It’s just that…” Kiera said, but I could see more than just shock in her eyes. I could see sadness too.

“Look forget I asked,” I said, getting up. “We should be getting back. The others will be wondering…”

“It’s not that I don’t want to marry you,” Kiera said, springing to her feet and coming toward me.

“What is it then?” I felt confused.

“Why ask now?” she said, taking my hands in hers.

“Why not?” I said. “It’s as good a time as any.”

“It’s not a good time,” she said, shaking her head. “Why couldn’t you have asked me before the world got pushed?”

“Because I was too busy fighting for my fucking life if you remember,” I reminded her. “And besides, I thought you were in love with Luke.”

“I was never in love with Luke,” Kiera said. “It’s you I loved and still do.”

“So what’s the problem then?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kiera said, letting my hand go and turning away.

“It matters to me,” I snapped, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around to face me again. “What’s wrong?”

She looked at me, then away again. “If and when we manage to get the world pushed back, I don’t think I’ll be coming back with you.”

I sighed and pulled her close to me. “Kiera, you’ve said this all before, remember? You told me about those statues the Elders showed you. It’s just a bunch of bullshit. They’re trying to fuck with what’s in here.” I tapped her temple with my forefinger.

“But how can you be so sure?” she asked.

“Because we’re still here, aren’t we?” I tried to convince her. “And like I said to you once before, I’m not going anywhere. I go where you go. I’m like a fucking fart in an elevator. I linger!”

Kiera smiled.

“See, you know what I say is true,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere, other than Snake Weed where we put an end to this bullshit once and for all.”

I turned toward the waterfall. I could see that it was dark outside and we needed to get back.

“Yes,” Kiera said suddenly.

“Yes, what?” I glanced back at her.

“Yes, I would love to marry you,” she smiled that gorgeous smile of hers, hazel eyes gleaming.

“Are you for real?” I beamed, unable to believe my luck.

“For real,” she said, leaning forward on tiptoe and kissing me on the mouth.

“I wonder what Murphy will say?” I said out loud.

“About what?” Kiera asked, still smiling.

“Will he be my best man?”

“I was planning on asking him to give me away,” Kiera said. “I’ve always seen him as a bit of a father figure. Can’t you ask Isidor to be your best…?”

“You’re joking right?” I sighed with disbelief. “I picture him more as maid of honour. Can you imagine what my stag night would be like if I entrusted him to arrange it? We’d spend the night reading Now we are Six and listening to New-Kids-On-The-Fucking-Block! No thanks, I’d rather chew broken glass.”

“Don’t be such an old misery guts,” Kiera laughed. “Isidor would be over the moon if you asked him.”

“We’ll see,” I said, suspecting I wouldn’t have very much choice in it. “Besides, Murphy might not be able to be best man or father of the bride. It could be a double wedding.”

“What do you mean?” Kiera asked.

“When I came looking for you, I came across Meren,” I started to explain. “I asked her where Murphy was. She said that Murphy and Lilly had wanted some time alone, as they had a lot to talk about. Talk, my arse! When I stumbled across them in the woods, they were going at it like a couple of rabbits. I say one thing though, Murphy might be an old-fart but he sure has some stamina.”

“Don’t be so disgusting,” Kiera said.

“I’m not being disgusting. I had no idea the old-sod was so flexible what with his dodgy hip,” I laughed. “Some of the positions he was getting himself into made my eyes water. Fuck me – he should join a circus! What a freak!”

“You mean you stood and watched!?” Kiera gasped.

“I couldn’t move from off the spot I was so shocked,” I said. “At one point he even…”

“I’m not listening,” Kiera said, placing her hands over her ears, trying desperately not to laugh. “I don’t want to know what Murphy and Lilly were doing.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “I’m going to be having fucking nightmares for weeks after what I saw. And don’t be fooled by that Lilly. She isn’t as innocent as she makes out after what I saw her doing. Jesus, I’m sure that sort of shit is against the law. I wouldn’t be surprised if Murphy hasn’t got a limp in both legs when we next see him. In fact, I’d be surprised if he could walk at all, the dirty-old-fucker.”

“Potter!” Kiera cried, hands still pressed over her ears. “I really don’t want to know.”

Laughing to myself, I took her by the hand. “C’mon, let’s get back.”

We slipped into the water, swimming beneath the waterfall. The sky was black. And just like on other nights since the cracks had appeared, there were no stars. Just the distant rumble of thunder. Climbing back onto the rocks, we gathered our clothes together and got dressed.

“Ready?” I smiled at her.

“Ready,” she smiled back, but I was sure I could see that look of fear in her eyes again.

So slipping my arm about her shoulder and drawing her close, I led her back into the woods and toward the farmhouse. We hadn’t gone very far, when I said, “I can’t believe we’re actually going to spend the rest of our lives together.”

“I can’t believe it either,” she said thoughtfully.

Chapter Twenty

Kiera

I let the idea of Potter and me living happily ever after run around my mind. The thought of it made me incredibly happy; however, I feared that it was nothing more than a fantasy. Like I had said to Potter, I feared his proposal had come too late. It was too late for us. There was only one way this nightmare was going to end and that was for me to make my choice. I knew what that choice was now. But had I decided.

But there was something that kept niggling away at the back of my mind. Meren had asked me as we’d made our way into Wasp Water, if I would ever marry Potter. I told her I thought not, and when she had asked why, I told her with some confidence that Potter would never ask me to marry him. I had been sure that men like Potter didn’t ask girls like me to marry them. But Potter had just proved me very wrong about that. Could he yet prove me wrong about my belief in what the Elders had shown me? Could I be needlessly worrying about the statues I had seen in the graveyard? I had outwitted the Elders before and not made the choice they had wanted me to. Why couldn’t I outsmart them again? I found a way last time. Perhaps there was a way my friends and I could go back together? If I went back with them, Potter and I could share the life together that we dreamed about. There must be a way. I just had to see it.

Feeling more confident now in the belief that I could go back to my old life and be with Potter and my friends, I squeezed his hand tight. We stepped clear of the woods and I could see the farmhouse just a short distance away. The windows glowed orange from where the fire still flickered in the hearth. It was eerily quiet outside. Even the wind had dropped. The only sound was that of thunder. I had become so used to it now, I really no longer noticed it. It was like it had always been there. We approached the farmhouse, Potter pushing the kitchen door open. Everyone was gathered around the table eating pheasant that had been cut into slices and placed on three large plates in the centre of the table. Potter reached out and snatched up a fistful of meat and woofed it down in one mouthful. Juices ran over his chin and he armed them away. Those gathered around the table sat and stared at him.

“What?” he said around a mouthful of food.

“Pig,” Kayla said.

“I’m starving,” Potter groaned, taking a seat at the table. I sat down next to him.

“We thought you two had gotten lost,” Murphy said, puffing away on his pipe.

“And you look exhausted,” Potter grinned. “What have you been up to?”

I gave him a sharp jab in the ribs with my elbow. Murphy glanced at Lilly, then back at Potter.

“Hanging around here with my thumb stuck up my arse waiting for you,” Murphy barked at him across the table.

“Are you sure it was your arse you had your thumb…” he started.

I jabbed him in the ribs again, this time harder. Potter sniggered like a juvenile.

“What’s so funny?” Murphy asked, glancing at Potter then at me.

“It’s just that we have some good news.” I said. I hadn’t planned on saying anything at all about Potter’s proposal of marriage to me just in case it never happened. But something told me that it just might.

“What’s that?” Isidor asked.

“Potter has asked me to marry him,” I smiled happily.

“I wouldn’t be laughing about that,” Murphy grunted.

“And why shouldn’t Kiera laugh with happiness about that?” Potter shot back at him.

“I guess she either laughs or cries,” Murphy muttered. “So, s’pose when this is over, I’d better start writing my speech. Now that will be funny.”

“Speech?” Potter asked him.

“The best man speech, of course,” Murphy said.

“Sorry, Murphy, but I was hoping Isidor was going to step up to the plate and do that honour for me,” Potter said, looking across the table.

I saw the sudden flash of hurt in Murphy’s eyes, and the look of shock in Isidor’s.

“Really?” Isidor said, open-mouthed. I could see the half-chewed pheasant. Melody looked excited for him. “You want me to be your best man?”

“Sure,” Potter shrugged.

The widest smile I had ever seen spread across Isidor’s young, handsome face. “I’ll arrange the best stag night ever and the wedding will be…”

“Let’s get one thing straight, Isidor,” Potter said, “You don’t arrange anything. You just show up.”

“Okay,” Isidor said. “But I can do the best man speech, right? I’ve got so many things to say.”

“Like what?” Potter crowed at him.

“Well, there’s that picture of you naked in the morgue,” Isidor said as if deep in thought. “I could maybe get it blown up, printed on some balloons and stuff…that would be funny.”

“Naked in a morgue?” I asked, glancing sideways at Potter. “When did this happen?”

“It’s not what you think,” Potter protested, shooting Isidor a resentful look.

“Take a look for yourself,” Kayla laughed, reaching into her pocket and taking out a photograph. She tossed it across the table at me.

Potter made to grab for it, but was too slow. I snatched it up.

I looked at him standing naked in a dimly lit room surrounded by dead bodies all stretched out on cold metal trolleys. Potter had a dumb look of surprise on his face, where Kayla had obviously surprised him when the flash went off on her camera. With a huge smile on my face, I said, “I’m not even going to ask what you were doing, but what I do want to know is, what’s that little thing I can see?”

Melody broke into fits of giggles on the other side of the table. Lilly smiled, too. She seemed so much more relaxed. Meren sat at her side, laughing.

“It’s a toe tag!” Potter snapped at me, trying to snatch the photograph.

Holding it out of his reach, I looked at Kayla and said, “Do you want it back?”

“No, thanks,” she grimaced. “You keep it.”

Before Potter had the chance to stop me, I had placed the photo into my jacket pocket, next to the letter Jack had written to me.

“Naked in a morgue, huh?” Murphy tutted. “Even I didn’t think you could fall to such sexual depravity. That is a new all-time low, even for you, Potter.”

“Sexual depravity!” Potter snapped with disbelief. “How do you have the nerve to sit there and say that after what I saw you and…”

“I was hoping you would do me the honour of giving me away on my wedding day,” I cut over Potter and looked at Murphy. Although he looked genuinely shocked by what I’d just asked him, I could see the flicker of delight in his eyes too.

“It would be an honour,” Murphy smiled, puffing his chest out with pride.

“And I’d like Kayla and Meren to be my bridesmaids,” I said.

Before they’d had a chance to say anything at all, the kitchen door suddenly opened. We all glanced up to a stranger standing in the doorway.  He had long, black hair and a goatee beard. His face was broad and handsome, with keen blue eyes and a stern-looking mouth. His shoulders were round and muscular and looked as if they might just burst through the long, dark, leathery coat he wore. With no shirt beneath his coat, I could see his chest was as muscular as his shoulders threatened to be. His body was covered in coarse hair as were the backs of his large hands. I could see five other men of the same build standing behind him in the shadow cast by the doorway.

The stranger looked at each of us in turn, until his eyes locked with Lilly’s.

“Bruce,” Lilly said, standing up. She went to the door. Looking back at us, she added, “Let me introduce you to Bruce Scott – Chief of the Wolf Council.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Kiera

We all stood. Not because we were paying him any kind of reverence, but because Bruce Scott’s arrival, along with the other five wolves, said the time had come for us to make our way down into the valley and to Snake Weed. Scott’s giant frame filled the doorway. Again he glanced around the kitchen, this time his keen eyes settled on me.

“Are you Kiera Hudson?” he asked, his voice as deep as the thunder in the distance.

“Yes,” I nodded, holding his stare.

Glancing at my friends gathered around the table, he said, “And these are the rest of the Dead Angels?”

He looked kind of disappointed, as if he were expecting some group of mighty warriors. Instead he found himself in the company of a motley-looking group of teenagers and twenty-somethings. “We are the Dead Angels,” I said with something close to pride. “I know that legend says we have come to destroy the wolves, but we haven’t.”

“So why have you come?” Bruce asked.

The eyes of the other five wolves standing outside glowed in the darkness. “We have come to stop Luke Bishop – the person you call the Wolf Man.”

“Stop him from doing what, exactly?” Bruce asked, folding his thickset arms across his chest. His giant frame cast an even bigger shadow over the kitchen table.

“We are going to try and stop him bringing his Vampyrus army above ground to destroy you and the rest of the wolves,” I explained.

Bruce furrowed his broad forehead. “And what are these Vampyrus, you speak of. What do they look like?”

“Like this,” Potter said, throwing clear his coat and releasing his wings.

I couldn’t help but notice Bruce flinch backwards at the sudden sight of the winged and fanged creature now standing in the kitchen. Bruce quickly recovered his dominant stance in the doorway.

“And do you all look like this?” he asked. The wolves outside now gathered closer into the doorway. I could see their bright eyes peering over his shoulders, keen to see what we looked like.

One by one, we released our wings, claws, and fangs. He glanced around the room again. “And what about you?” he said to Melody Rose. “Where are your wings? Aren’t you a Dead Angel, too?”

“No,” she said. “I’m a wolf, just like you.”

“A wolf keeping the company of angels,” he said, glancing at Lilly then back at Melody. “Why so?”

“Because they haven’t come to kill us like we have been told,” Melody said. “Each of them has had the opportunity to kill me if they really wanted to. But they haven’t. They have shown me friendship.” Melody looked sideways at Isidor. “In fact, one of them even saved my life.” She faced Bruce again. “We have all been deceived by Luke Bishop.”

“Deceived?” Bruce asked. “How so?”

“Bishop isn’t a wolf. He killed the real wolf man many years ago,” Melody started to explain. “He got us to enslave the humans. And now that they are weakened, he will destroy and take the world for himself and the Vampyrus.”

“The humans,” Bruce laughed, a deep rattle coming from the back of his throat. “They are nothing but a sub-species. We won’t be defeated so easily.”

“But you don’t mind wearing human skins,” I said, staring at him. “It hasn’t stopped you from stealing their children and matching with them. Why cloak yourself with such inferiority if you are so sure of your own strength?”

“This is nothing more than a disguise,” Bruce said, raking one claw up his forearm, splitting the skin to reveal the thick, black fur beneath.

“Only those who have something to hide conceal their true identity,” Murphy put in. “What is it you have to hide? Is it fear?”

Bruce turned to him. “I could ask the same question of you. I can see that you masquerade as humans too.”

“We were born with this flesh,” Potter said. “We didn’t have to steal it off some kid’s back.”

“Enough of this,” I said. “This isn’t the time to go pointing the finger of blame. How are we ever going to stop Luke if we can’t work together?”

“Kiera’s right,” Isidor suddenly spoke up. “If we have any chance of stopping Luke from bringing the Vampyrus up from below ground, we have to move now.”

“Why the urgency?” Bruce asked. “I need proof before I go marching into Snake Weed. The Treaty states…”

“You might as well wipe your arse on the Treaty for what it’s worth,” Potter spoke over him. “Stop standing here chatting shit and grow some balls, for Christ’s sake. Bishop is planning on fucking with you. So unless you want to roll over and be his bitch, I’d wolf-out or whatever it is you do and come down into Snake Weed and see Bishop for what he really is.”

“This could be some kind of trap,” Bruce said dismissively. “How do I know you won’t kill us?”

Murphy leapt across the room, placing one of his claws against Bruce’s throat. “If I were gonna kill you; I would’ve happily done it already.”

The other wolves spilled into the kitchen. Each of them male with long lengths of hair swinging from the lower halves of their faces. Their hair was thick and braided. Kayla sprang onto the table, claws raised before her. “Hey, back off!” she snarled at them.

The wolves eyed Kayla and the rest of us with suspicion and fear. Their eyes blazed. The wolves looked at Meren’s and Melody’s raised claws and down the barrel of Isidor’s crossbow that was now just inches from their faces.

“Go on, I dare you,” Isidor smiled at the wolves, his finger hovering over the trigger.

“Enough already,” Lilly said, forcing herself between Murphy and Bruce. Despite what Potter claimed to have seen Murphy and Lilly up to in the woods, her white-blonde hair was immaculate, as was her bright red lipstick and fur coat. She looked completely unruffled, like she had just stepped off a catwalk. Lilly eased Murphy and Bruce apart. Then turning to look at the Bruce, she said, “We don’t have time for this. What Isidor says is true. We have to act now. The Vampyrus have gathered an army ready to bring from below ground.”

“Then they could already be here,” Bruce said, glancing around the kitchen at me and my friends.

“They haven’t come above ground yet,” Isidor spoke up. Luke has no idea that we know what he is planning. The Vampyrus are going to make their attack tomorrow night. So we might have a chance of stopping Luke.”

“But only with your help, Bruce, and the rest of the wolves,” I said, stepping forward.

Turning to look at me, Bruce said, “We will come into Snake Weed with you, but I’m not prepared to risk the life of my fellow wolves until I know that Luke Bishop really is my enemy.”

Taking another step closer to him, I said, “Your problem is that you’ve been fed a lie for so long that you now accept it to be the truth.”

“And what might that be?” he asked.

“That I have come to kill you,” I said. “But the truth is, I’ve come to save you.”

Brushing past him and the other wolves, I left the farmhouse.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Kiera

In a line, stretching out on either side of me, we made our way through the darkness and down into the valley. Snake Weed lay at the floor of the basin, shrouded in darkness. Potter walked beside me to my right and Kayla to my left. Isidor walked beside her with Melody. Murphy flanked Potter with Meren and Lilly. Bruce and the rest of the wolves followed close behind. We Vampyrus had our wings, claws, and fangs out. We had been called the Dead Angels by Luke and we didn’t want to disappoint him. Melody and Pen stayed in their human forms.

A thick silence hung heavy about us. Not one of us spoke. To do so would break the focus that each of us had. As we headed further down into the valley, I looked up. The cracks in the sky were now so vast that I feared it might just shatter at any moment. Thunderclaps broke in the distance and the whole world trembled. We reached the road that led into Snake Weed and made our way toward town. The wind blew hard now into the valley, and our wings flapped like sails in a storm.

We reached town and the first thing that struck me was the putrid stench emanating from it. The smell was wafting on from the sea of human corpses stretching away from us. There had been a massacre here. No one had been spared. Dead men, women, and children covered the streets like a carpet of broken bones and rotting flesh. Maggots writhed over the dead, looking like a sprinkling of shifting snow. Rats scurried over the dead faces, driving their snouts into the sunken eye sockets and racing away with spongy mouthfuls of brain. The insects and the rats appeared to be the only living things in Snake Weed. But in my heart I knew that not to be true. I knew Luke Bishop was here somewhere and he had caused this carnage. Never before had I seen such slaughter and wanton waste of life. And why? What had any of these people ever done to him? Was this still his sick and twisted attempt at seeking revenge at the human girl who had once rejected him?

We tried to step around and over the dead, but there were too many of them. My skin broke out in gooseflesh and I gagged every time I heard the crunch of bone beneath my boots. The deeper I went into Snake Weed, the angrier I became with Bruce Scott and the other wolves who followed behind us. They had been a part of this madness. They might not have personally slaughtered these people but they had stood by and let it happen. To do nothing, to say nothing, to turn a blind eye was just as bad as taking part. The wolves’ silence had drowned out the screams of every human who had died in Snake Weed. Why then should I help to save them? Why not let Luke and his Vampyrus army now slaughter the wolves, just like he had slaughtered the humans? It would be revenge for the humans, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t that be justice if the wolves perished, too? I glanced to my right and looked at Melody and Lilly. Neither of them were like these other wolves. I suspected there were others like them who were repulsed just as much as I was at the way humans had been enslaved, butchered, and matched. But while there were wolves like Lilly and Melody – even if there was just one – the wolves had a chance of being better than this. There was a chance of reconciliation between wolves and those humans that remained. I had to hope that there was a chance of a truce – peace. If I didn’t believe that could happen then I may as well lie down in the street and die like the humans at my feet had. I may as well let the maggots and the rats take me. But I could never give up. I must never give in. It wasn’t in my nature to do so – not now – not ever.

We entered the town square, and the carpet of corpses thinned out here. I looked around and recognised it at once. It was the town square I had seen in my nightmare. It was surrounded by Tudor-style houses and shops. Each of them had thatched roofs and was supported by ancient wooden beams. Over the tops of the roofs and in the distance, I could see the peaks of the hills and the mountains that surrounded Snake Weed. The town square was cobbled with grey stone, but unlike my nightmare, there was no statue of me at its centre. There was a stone wishing well. Perhaps I had been right in my beliefs that my destiny was not yet set and I could once again change things. I could change the choice the Elders had set for me to make.

“Welcome,” a voice said.

The sound of it was so sudden in the gloom that it made me jump. I looked across the square and could see the bench I had sat on in my nightmare. But it wasn’t me who sat on it now. Luke had his arms stretched out across the back of it, his legs crossed at the knee. He looked very relaxed and unconcerned by our arrival in Snake Weed. He wore that charming smile that he’d always had. His shoulder-length black hair was swept back off his brow and his green eyes sparkled in the darkness. He wore a white shirt open at the neck and dark grey trousers. He looked as if he were going out for dinner than going to war. Perhaps they were both the same thing to him.

“Hey, Bruce.” Luke grinned as if genuinely pleased to see the wolf. “What are you doing with the Dead Angels?”

Bruce stepped forward and spoke, his voice booming across the square. “Is there any truth in what these Dead Angels have said about you?”

“It all depends on what they have said,” Luke smiled, getting up from the bench. He sauntered across the square, hands in his trouser pockets. He stopped beside the well.

“They say you’re not a wolf,” Bruce said. “Kiera Hudson says that you are really like her – a winged creature from below ground who has come to destroy us.”

Luke looked at me, his smile growing broader. “Hello again, Kiera.”

I said nothing.

“Well?” Bruce said.

“Huh?” Luke said, looking back at him. “I’m sorry. I was just looking at Kiera and remembering some intimate moments we once shared.”

Potter stepped forward as if to strike. I placed my hand over his to stop him from doing so.

“Are you truly a wolf?” Bruce asked, sounding as if his patience with Luke was fast running out.

“Of course I am,” Luke smiled.

“I have never seen you as a wolf,” Bruce said. “Show your true self now so that we can settle this matter.”

“As you wish,” Luke said, unbuttoning his shirt and letting it flutter away on the wind. But instead of a coat of fur appearing, two black wings unfurled from his back, just like I knew they would.

“We must warn the wolves,” Lilly said, turning on Bruce. “Everything Kiera Hudson has said is true.”

Laughing softly as if almost to himself, Luke said, “It’s too late to warn the wolves now.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, still confident that his army wasn’t ready to strike just like Isidor had informed us.

“Oh, come on!” Luke said as if his intelligence had been insulted. “Don’t you think I knew it was you who killed Rom, Phillips, and Taylor in Wasp Water last night? I must give you credit for showing so much resilience and an uncanny knack for staying alive, but it matters not now. Your luck is about to run out.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it,” Potter said.

“Do you really think I would be so stupid as to not know that you would come for me?” Luke said, his smile fading now. His fun and games were over. “The Vampyrus are ready to strike. In fact, they are already here.”

We glanced up to discover row after row of Vampyrus now perched on the roofs of the houses and shops that surrounded the square. There must have been a hundred at most, but not an army.

“Is that the best you can do?” Murphy said, looking back at Luke only to discover he had gone from beside the well.

“No, I can do so much better,” I heard Luke whisper from behind me.

All of us span around to see Luke standing behind Bruce, his long jagged claws at the wolf’s throat. With a vile grin on his face, like he was bordering on madness, he drove his claws into Bruce’s throat. The wolf threw his hands up, a gargling and wheezing sound coming from the jagged hole in his neck. Blood gushed from his mouth, nose, and throat. With one last thrust of Luke’s claws, Bruce’s head came free. Dangling it from his fist, Luke raised Bruce’s head into the air and screamed in triumph.

The cobbled ground beneath our feet began to rumble and shake so violently that I nearly toppled over. I gripped Potter’s arm to stay upright. A noise seemed to race forward beneath our feet, heading in the direction of the well. I glanced back and watched in horror as Felix Coanda shot from the mouth of the well and up into the night sky. He was followed by so many Vampyrus that they covered the sky with their beating wings.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Kiera

The other members of the wolf council that Bruce had brought with him sprang through the air toward Luke. He shot away and up into the air, soon surrounded by those other Vampyrus led by Coanda. Roaring and howling, the wolves ripped their human flesh free in thick, bloody strips. They shook all over as they released their snouts, claws, and pointed tails. When fully formed, they stood as big as bears in the town square. Throwing back their colossal skulls, they howled up into the night. The windows in the nearby shops and houses blew out, showering the square in glass. I covered my face with my wings. The sound of the Vampyrus swooping overhead was deafening, but I was sure that I could hear another sound too. At first I thought it was the thunder coming closer, but it wasn’t. Looking up at the hills and mountains in the distance I could see what looked like a river of black cascading over them and down into the valley.

“Wolves,” I breathed.

“Thousands of the fuckers,” Murphy grunted.

“Never did I think I’d be so glad to see them,” Potter said.

I felt something bristle against my leg. I looked round to discover that both Pen and Melody were as wolves. Just like the others from the council, they raced into the centre of the square and began to howl for help from their kind. The Vampyrus saw them approach and waves of them swooped away to meet the oncoming onslaught of wolves. Within seconds I could hear the sound of howling, screaming, and the clash of claws in the distance.

I looked up and could see Luke buzzing left, then right through the sky as he let Coanda give orders to his army of Vampyrus. Pointing my wings and throwing my head back, I shot like an arrow up into the night sky. With fangs bared and claws out I raced toward Luke. Within touching distance of him, something slammed into my side and I went cartwheeling backwards through the air and away from Luke. Regaining my composure, I saw one of the Vampyrus, his claws swiping down toward my face. Then he was gone in a spray of blood and intestines as Potter almost seemed to burst through the creature, obliterating it on impact.

“Okay?” Potter roared over the boom of thunder and the howl of the approaching wolves.

I made a circle with my thumb and forefinger and raced away in pursuit of Luke, while Potter happily buried his claws, then fangs into an approaching Vampyrus.  As I raced over Snake Weed, I saw the wolves reach the town. They raced through the narrow streets like a wave of fur and claws to where Melody, Pen, and the other wolves hailed them. Glancing up, I could see Luke racing away into the distance. I sped after him. Then as if appearing out of nowhere, Kayla clattered into Luke. He span through the air, his wings flapping like two black kites on either side of him. Luke flipped over and went screaming through the air toward Kayla. With her fangs gleaming like pearls in the dark, Kayla raced forward to meet him. I knew she still felt she had a score to settle with him. But I feared that her anger alone wouldn’t be enough to beat Luke. They crashed into each other. Kayla screamed out in pain, spinning away. I shot forward, Luke unaware that I was so close, his full attention on Kayla. I grappled with him, burying my claws into his back. He swiped at me, swatting me away. The wind rushed through my hair as I spun over and over. Luke gripped me, his claws slicing into my shoulder like five red hot pokers. I screamed in agony.

“You don’t get to make a choice this time,” he spat in my face, his eyes no longer green but black with anger and hate for me.

“I do have a choice!” I roared back, my shirt now sticky wet with my own blood.

“I don’t need you like I did before,” he hissed. “I can destroy the humans and the wolves without you, Kiera Hudson. I don’t need you to love me. I don’t need anything from you.”

My arm felt as if it were on fire as Luke sunk his claws deeper into it. Screaming in pain, I raised my right claw, dragging it across his face. I felt his flesh peel beneath my long nails. He threw his head back, lips snarled up, and fangs drooling. I seized my chance by pulling free of him. I felt his claws slide from my flesh. They hurt just as much coming out as they did when he drove them into me. Clutching my arm, I fell backwards through the sky, wings whipping all around me. I looked up to see Luke surrounded by several Vampyrus. His claws were to his face. I could hear his screams over the sound of the battle raging below and in the skies around me. I knew I’d hurt him, perhaps he had lost an eye and ear, but I knew the injuries were not fatal. As I dropped through the air I watched the Vampyrus who had come to aid Luke take hold of him. They shot through the night, taking their leader back to the safety of The Hollows. Not only was Luke now safe, he was unreachable by us hidden below ground.

I spun around in mid-air, my left hand pressed against the bleeding wound at the top of my right arm. Feeling sick with pain, I swooped over the town and my heart sank. I saw Murphy fighting desperately as he tried to stem back the flow of Vampyrus that still poured from the well. His face, arms and chest were covered black with blood. I wondered how much of that was his own. I saw Potter drop out of the sky and take the heads of two Vampyrus that were slicing open an injured wolf. Melody and Lilly were leaping and biting at the Vampyrus that attacked from above. I saw a Vampyrus swoop down, dragging its claws along Melody’s fur-covered flanks. She howled in pain and rolled over. She snapped her head back, biting and snarling at the Vampyrus who was attacking her. She chomped her powerful jaws through one of the Vampyrus’ legs. She shook her head from side to side, tearing the leg free. The Vampyrus screamed in agony and flew away, blood spraying down from the stump like rain. From nowhere, Isidor sprang out of the darkness, a volley of bolts ripping from his crossbow and into another Vampyrus heading in the direction of Melody. It flew backwards, its chest riddled with bolts.

Dropping from the sky, Isidor helped Melody to the edges of the town square. I went to help him. Landing, I could see several rakish-like cuts down the length of Melody’s side.

“There just scratches,” she panted. “I’ll be okay.”

“We’re out numbered,” Isidor yelled, fearing another attack from above.

I looked back and knew that he was right. Even though the Vampyrus and wolves were now evenly matched in number, the wolves couldn’t win. The Vampyrus were taking aim, dropping out of the sky like giant bats, and killing their prey. The wolves were defenceless and at the mercy of the winged creatures who had the aerial advantage.

Near to the bench where Luke had been sitting, I saw Kayla drag herself to her feet. She looked dazed and held a hand to her head. One of the Vampyrus saw her staggering forward. Sensing she was easy prey, the bat pounced. I was quicker, spiralling across the square and burying my claws into the crown of the Vampyrus head. I twisted my wrist like a corkscrew being driven into a cork. I felt the creature’s brains turn to a mangled mush around my claws. I yanked my hand free, the Vampyrus slumping forward. Throwing my arm around Kayla, I swooped across the square to where Isidor guarded Melody while her torn flesh had a chance to heal.

“Are you okay?” I shouted at Kayla. She wobbled in my arms and I could see a thin line of blood coming from a cut on her right temple.

“We’re fucked,” I heard someone say.

Spinning around, I saw Potter soar out of the sky and land next to me. His chest, back, and face was covered in cuts. Blood ran into his eyes and he gouged it away with his thumb.

“Are you okay?” I gasped.

“No worse than you,” he said, eyeing the blood that ran from the puncture wounds left by Luke.

I touched my arm. “I’ll survive.”

“We can’t win,” Potter said over the cries of fighting.

“Our only chance is to find Luke and kill him,” Isidor said. “Only his death can stop this.”

“We’ve lost him,” I said, my heart sinking in my chest. I looked across the square and saw Murphy and Meren being forced back toward us, unable to fight off the onslaught of Vampyrus that raced across the sky.

“Where’s Lilly?” Murphy roared as he joined us. He looked beat and tired. And just like Potter, his body bled from an array of deep cuts and gashes.

“I’m here,” Lilly howled, bounding forward. Her white fur was now pink with blood. She had lumps of Vampyrus flesh around her snout and over her paws. Standing up on her back legs, she changed shape, her thick, white fur almost seeming to fall away until she was standing before us once again in her long fur coat. It was that which was now splattered with blood.

“Meren,” she cried, pulling her bloodied and battered daughter into her arms.

“I’m okay,” Meren said.

I looked at my friends and the battle between the wolves and Vampyrus still raging all about us.

“We need somewhere to shelter so we can figure out what to do next,” Isidor said, his voice thick with urgency.

“In here,” I said, forcing open a nearby doorway of an empty house.

Still breathing heavily, Melody moved toward the doorway. As we all sheltered inside, Melody changed shape before us. It was like she was shrinking somehow, her hair shedding to reveal the rose tattoos beneath.

“We’ve got to find Luke,” Murphy barked.

I looked at him. Over his shoulder and through the open doorway, I could see something that caught my eye. I saw four hooded figures standing on the crest of the nearest hill. The Elders stood and watched the battle rage below. And even though their hoods were up, I knew they had smiles stretched across their decaying faces. They could feel the desperation and fear in my heart. They felt my anguish as I knew the battle was lost. There was no way we could win. We were beaten. We were defeated. Tonight I would watch my friends die. And the pain in my heart knowing that they were going to die because I had been too selfish to send them home was crippling me. It felt like my heart was shrinking, being crushed inside my chest as the Elders sucked my unhappiness from it.

“Kiera…where is Luke?” Murphy bellowed.

“Huh?” I said, taking my eyes off the Elders in the distance.

“Where is Luke? Have you seen him?” Murphy shouted.

“It’s too late,” I said, glancing back over his shoulder to discover the Elders had now gone. “Luke has escaped back into The Hollows.”

“Then we go after him,” Potter said.

“It’s pointless,” Murphy groaned. “We all know The Hollows are a maze of caves and tunnels. We would never find him. It could take days, weeks, and months before we even came close to finding him. And even if we did, Luke will be too closely guarded.”

“Then it’s over”, Meren said. “We die here tonight.”

I felt my heart tighten as if being strangled. I should’ve let my friends go. I should have sent them back and they would be happy now with the ones they loved, not facing death in some…

“I know where to find Luke Bishop,” a voice said.

I glanced up to see Kayla, the palm of one hand pressed against the cut on her forehead.

“Fuck, she’s hit her head harder than we thought, she’s hallucinating,” Potter groaned. He put his arm around her shoulder. “Here come and sit down…”

Kayla pushed him away. “I do know where to find Luke Bishop. I know where he will be unguarded. I know where I can kill him.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Kayla

“Where?” Kiera asked, coming toward me, eyes wide and hopeful.

“I need to go back through the cracks,” I said, my head throbbing.

“What are you talking about?” Murphy said gripping me by the arms and staring into my eyes. I knew he was making sure that I wasn’t suffering from concussion and just talking nonsense.

I pushed his hands away just like I had Potter’s. My head did hurt, and I felt a little wobbly on my feet, but I wasn’t hallucinating. “Sam told me that he met me once before on a beach in Cornwall. I thought he had gone mad, because I had never met him before, not until I went to Ravenwood School. But now I see that he wasn’t going mad. I was on that beach, or I’m going to be.”

“This is like a really nice story, Kayla, and one I’ve heard you say before, but what the fuck has this got to do with Luke?” Potter sighed with frustration.

I looked at him. “Luke is on that beach with Sam,” I said. “They take a boat trip. Luke is unprotected. He doesn’t have an army of Vampyrus around him. If I can get to that beach, I can kill Luke…”

“This sounds just like some big fantasy…” Potter started.

“Shut your face,” Murphy barked at him. “Go on, Kayla.”

I looked at Kiera. If I was going to convince anyone of my plan it would be her. “If I can kill Luke back on that beach, then none of this will happen. The cracks, the war with the wolves and the Vampyrus, none of it will ever happen.”

“How can you be so sure?” Kiera asked me.

“Don’t you see, Kiera?” I said. “Sam said he met me on that beach before he got sent to Ravenwood School, before I went there, before we had met. So if I kill Luke back then, he won’t have been around to have caused the cracks, he won’t have been able to build his army, he won’t…”

“How do you go back to that particular point?” Kiera cut over me. I could see that she believed it was a chance worth taking, however mad it seemed.

I looked at Lilly and said, “Lilly’s a wolf, so she can see cracks we can’t. Lilly can send me back.”

“I can’t,” Lilly said.

“Why not?” Murphy asked.

“Because the cracks are unstable now – there is no telling where Kayla might end up. It’s too dangerous.”

Potter looked from the doorway where we sheltered in the shadows as the wolves continued to fight a battle they couldn’t possibly win. Looking back at Lilly, he said, “I bet that old git in the ticket booth could send her back.”

“Noah?” Lilly breathed.

“It’s got to be worth a try,” Potter said.

“But look what happened when you and Jack went back, it made the cracks worse, not better,” Lilly said.

“But I won’t mess up,” I almost pleaded with them. I had known in my heart I would one day see Sam again and this was my chance to do that and stop Luke.

“How do we find this Noah?” Kiera shot at Lilly.

“He’s at the station,” Lilly said.

“What station?” Kiera asked.

“The one full of dead people,” Potter put in.

“How do we get there?” Murphy asked, stepping forward.

“I’m not sure…” Lilly started.

“Please, mum,” Meren said, wiping blood from her face. “We all die if Kayla doesn’t try. I don’t want to lose you again.”

Lilly looked at her daughter, then back at all of us. “Follow me,” she said, racing out from beneath the shadows where we were hidden.

Knowing that time was running out for us, we followed Lilly. Isidor gently helped Melody along. Blood trickled from the scratches in her side, but I could see it had already started to congeal.

“Are you going to be okay Melody?” I asked.

“I’ll be fine, Kayla”, she said.

The Vampyrus still soared overhead and the remaining wolves fought a desperate battle. Standing on their back legs and thrashing their giant paws through the air, the wolves clawed at any Vampyrus who dared swoop out of the sky and attack them.

Following our friends, we crept out of the town square, careful to keep to any shadows. Lilly led the way, back through Snake Weed and over the rotting corpses we had passed before. But this time there were more than just human bodies. The streets were now littered with dead wolves and Vampyrus. I wanted to leave Snake Weed as quickly as possible, and not because I was too scared to stay and fight, not because the dead bodies troubled me, but because I wanted to see Sam again. But there was another reason, too. I wanted my chance to kill Luke. I wanted to kill him just like he had killed me in The Hollows. I wanted to end this nightmare for my friends, and I simply wanted my revenge. It had eaten away at me, driven me half mad since we had been pushed into this world. It had kept me strong here. Even when I thought I had lost Isidor and the temptation to give up had been almost overwhelming – the one thing that had kept me going was my hatred for Luke. He had stripped me naked, cut off my ears, and then killed me. What I had planned for him was so much worse.

Reaching the edge of town, Murphy looked up and across the valley. The sky was now split open in several places. The cracks looked like vast canyons which were full of nothing.

“How far is this station?” Murphy asked Lilly. “Time is running out.”

Thunderclaps broke in the distance and I’m sure I saw the sky shake and then crack some more.

“It’s hard to say,” Lilly said. She pointed in the distance toward some hills. “I know it’s in that direction, but how far I’m not sure. It shifts. It moves.”

Wrapping his arms around Lilly, Murphy said, “We’ll cover more distance if we fly.”

Within seconds, he was racing away into the night, just feet above the ground. Lilly held onto him as if fearing for her life.

“Ready?” Isidor asked Melody, snaking his arm about her waist.

She nodded and they were gone, Isidor, whisking her away. Leaping into the air, the rest of my friends and I raced after them.

We hadn’t even cleared the valley, when I heard Potter shout, “Kayla, behind you!”

I shot a look back in time to see a Vampyrus grab for me. I spun over onto my back, the edges of my wings scraping over the rocky and jagged terrain. I pulled my leg back, shooting my foot out and driving it hard into the face of the Vampyrus that was trying to take hold of me. It lurched backwards, momentarily stunned. I flipped over and raced forward. I could feel a rush of air as the Vampyrus drew close again. Spreading their wings wide and using them like brakes, Potter and Meren slowed, letting the Vampyrus whoosh past them. Once it had, Potter and Meren shot forward again, grabbing one wing each in their claws. Peeling away in opposite directions, they tore the Vampyrus’ wings from its back. The creature screamed, nose-diving into the rocks below in a gush of blood.

We dashed forward and over the hills that loomed up before us. I saw Lilly point into the distance, and I looked ahead. On the other side of the hills I could see what appeared to be a huge railway station. It had grey stone steps leading up to a giant set of wooden doors. There were white pillars out front. I had never seen such a grand looking station; not even the stations I had seen in London looked as spectacular as this. But as we drew closer, I could see what Lilly had meant when she said it shifted. The station looked as if it was moving – shimmering in the light that now seeped through the cracks in the sky above.

“There it is,” Lilly said. “There’s the station.”

“Watch out!” I heard Meren scream. Again I looked back to see that several Vampyrus had broken away from the battle in Snake Weed and had followed us. They raced out of the darkness.

There was a road where the tarmac had broken and weeds grew out of the cracks. It led to the steps and the front of the railway station. We landed on it. Lilly sprang from Murphy’s arms.

Potter looked at Kiera. “Go with Lilly into the station. Speak with this Noah and see if he can send Kayla back through the cracks.”

“What about you?” Kiera asked him.

“Me, Murphy, Isidor, and Meren will stop those Vampyrus from heading back to Snake Weed and telling the others where you’re at,” Potter said. “If they find out that you’re here, then this whole place will come under attack…”

“But…” Kiera started.

“No buts, Hudson!” Murphy barked at her, like she was a fresh-faced recruit again. “Go with Lilly, Kayla, and Melody. That’s an order!”

Before she had a chance to protest further, Murphy, Potter, Meren and Isidor were soaring back into the sky to seek out and kill the Vampyrus who had followed us to the station.

“Come on,” Lilly said, tugging at Kiera’s sleeve.

She looked back one last time and up into the sky as Potter disappeared from view. Running as hard and as fast as we could, we raced up the remote and desolate road toward the shifting railway station.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Kiera

The road that led to the front of the grand-looking railway station was nothing more than a strip of tarmac cutting across the fields and barren moorlands. It was like a small runway had been built for an airport that never existed. Just like the sky, it was cracked. There were no railway tracks that I could see, so how did trains arrive and depart from this remote station? I couldn’t hear the puffing and huffing of trains, or the clickety-clack of them racing over tracks.

Reaching the end of the road, I looked up at the front of the station. It towered over us at the top of a set of wide stone steps. The station almost seemed to blink in and out of existence. Light was now shining through the cracks in the sky, illuminating the station in a blue beam. A thunderclap sounded like an explosion in the distance and the whole world shook. The four of us lurched forward, instinctively reaching for each to keep balance.

Lilly looked up at the sky. “I don’t think we have very much time.”

“Until what?” Melody asked, her eyes wide and fearful.

“Until this world – the layers – all of them collapse and collide with each other.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Kayla said, setting off up the stone steps.

We raced after her. At the top I looked back. The sky did look lighter now – almost opaque. In the distance I could see Potter, Murphy, Isidor, and Meren soaring back and forth through the air as they fought with the Vampyrus.

I could hear a sound that was something close to a scream. I looked back to find Pen pushing open one of the towering wooden doors. I peered through the opening and could only see darkness. It was so black that even my eyes couldn’t penetrate it.

Lilly looked back at us, as we stood on the top stair. “Ready?”

Without answering, we followed her into the station. Almost at once
there was a burst of light. Like a flashbulb going off. Blinking, I opened my eyes to find myself looking down onto a vast sprawling station. I was standing at the top of a set of escalators that led down onto the main concourse.

“They’ve gone,” Melody whispered, looking back over her shoulder.

“Who have?” I asked, following her stare.

“The doors we just came through,” she said.

Where the doors had once been was now just a wall and a poster. The poster was a picture of a black coloured steam train. Thick, grey clouds of smoke pumped from its funnel. The cowcatcher at the front of the steam train looked long and pointed, almost giving the machine an angry grin. Ride The Scorpion Steam – There is no other way to travel! was written across the bottom.

I looked away to find Kayla halfway down the escalators already. Lilly was at her heels. Melody and I followed. The concourse was full of people. Some were sitting on seats as if waiting for their train to arrive. Others looked up at the row of luminous departure boards fixed to the far wall. Some purchased drinks and food from vending machines. Others were taking escalators which led down beneath the station. Was this where the trains arrived and departed from? I wondered. Were the platforms below ground just like the Tube in London? But none of these people seemed to be interacting with each other. They didn’t even glance up at one another as they crossed the concourse. It was like they didn’t exist to anyone other than themselves and whoever it was selling them tickets from a circular shaped office in the centre of the concourse.  Fixed to the top of this ticket booth was a clock, but it had no hands so it was impossible to tell the time.

Reaching the bottom of the escalators, I followed Lilly across the concourse and joined the line for the ticket booth. There was just two other travellers in front of us. Kayla stood on tiptoe, impatiently looking ahead to see how long the wait was going to be. She glanced up at the departure boards that were lit up with orange coloured writing. There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands of destinations you could travel to. I knew this to be the place that Potter had told me about. This was the station where Lilly had sent him and Jack back through the cracks. The people that rushed or lingered about the concourse were all dead, being sent back into the pushed world to remind themselves what the world was once like. But did we really need any more cracks? Weren’t there enough already? Outside the world looked fit to fall apart. Come crashing down all around us.

We reached the end of the line. As a group we stepped up to the ticket booth. Inside sat a very old-looking black man. His face was aged with wrinkles that were so deep they looked like hundreds of claw marks. He had a fuzz of white hair that almost seemed to sprout from the sides of his head. But even though he looked older than time its self, his eyes twinkled blue. They were very much full of life.

“What is your destination?” he smiled kindly at Kayla as if he somehow knew it was her that wanted to take a journey.

“I need to go back,” Kayla said.

“Back to where, exactly?” the old guy smiled again. On the counter beside him stood a bottle of Coke. The glass was dirty and the red and white label around the middle of it was faded and peeled back at the corners. He raised it to his puckered lips and took a sip.

“I need to go to the beach,” Kayla said.

“Ah, sun, sea, and sand,” the old man, who I now believed to be Noah, smiled. “Always such popular destinations.”

“But what train do I need to take?” Kayla said, now impatiently strumming her fingers against the glass.

“Why don’t you choose?” Noah said, glancing through the glass window of the ticket booth and up at the departure boards.

“But which one? There are so many,” Kayla said, looking up at them.

I looked too but couldn’t see any destinations named beach or anything else. Kayla stepped out of line, her eyes frantically roaming over the departure board. “Which one?” she whispered to herself. Then, with her eyes growing wide, she turned back to face the ticket booth and Noah.

“I want to go to Camp Brook,” Kayla said with excitement.

“Camp Brook?” Noah asked. “Are you sure about that?”

“I’m not sure about anything,” Kayla said. “But it’s the only destination that has any meaning to me.”

“We only have one shot at this,” I said to Kayla.

“Sam and I had a camp hidden on the other side of the walls that surrounded Ravenwood School. It was next to a brook and Sam’s surname is Brook. It has to be the right place,” she explained.

I couldn’t help but feel there was a sense of self-doubt in her voice and the explanation she gave was to convince herself more than it was to convince me. But before she had a chance to change her mind, Noah had stamped out a ticket for her. He slid it beneath the partition in the glass. Kayla picked it up, turning it over in her hands.

“It’s blank,” she said. “There isn’t any writing on it.”

“Have a safe and pleasant journey,” Noah smiled sweetly through the glass at her.

Lilly glanced up at the departures board again. “If you’re gonna go, you better go now,” she said. “Your train leaves from platform seventy-three.”

With the ticket gripped in her fist, Kayla set off across the platform to the escalators that led to platform 73. We all knew we couldn’t go with Kayla, but still we wanted to say goodbye, so we set off across the concourse after her.

“Kiera Hudson,” I heard a voice call after me.

I glanced back. It was Noah who had called out my name. “Yes?”

“You have your own journey,” he said. “Or should I say a journey that you have been on that is close to reaching its destination.”

I stopped to look at him. “And what might the name of that destination be?”

“You choose,” he smiled at me through the glass.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Kayla

I stepped onto the escalators and looked down into the well of darkness that awaited me. Lilly and Melody joined me. Where was Kiera? I looked back. She was standing before the ticket booth and looking at Noah through the glass. I wished she had come to say goodbye as I now feared that I might not come back. I’d been through the cracks once before and nearly didn’t make it back. If it hadn’t have been for Sam showing me the way before dying on that underground platform, then I might have died back there. And the very man who would have killed me on the other side of the cracks was the very man I was now going in search of. But if I could find him and kill him, then the cracks might close and my friends and I might be able to go home. I glanced back one last time at Kiera and hoped that I would complete the journey I was about to make so we could all take one last journey home together.

Knowing that time was against me, I raced down the escalators. Melody and Lilly followed close behind, and I was glad they were there. Halfway down, the darkness grew lighter. Lanterns were fixed to the walls, the flames of their candles flickered. I looked back, up from where I had come, and the concourse was nothing more now than a pinprick of light. I turned and stepped off the bottom escalator.  The platform was made from wooden planks of wood. It creaked beneath my boots. There was a small waiting room with flower baskets hanging just above the door. The flowers had wilted in the darkness and were now dead. The lantern light stretched our shadows up the station walls. They looked contorted and twisted out of shape. There was a noise, a chuff-chuff sound and a distant whistle. I faced the tunnel at the opposite end of the short platform to see a steam train chug out of it. With smoke pouring from its funnel and steam hissing up from its pistons, the train drew to a stop at the platform. There was only one carriage, it looked Victorian. The engine cab windows were black and mirrored so it was impossible to see who drove the train. From within the smoke that now clouded the small underground station I heard a voice cry out, “All aboard!” I couldn’t tell if the voice was male or female, but I got the creepy feeling it was the voice of a small child. I peered into the smoke, but all I could see was swirling shadows. I pulled open the carriage door, now just wanting to climb aboard and get my journey over with. If I ended up where I hoped I would, I would see Sam again. I would meet him on that beach, just like he said I had.

As I was about to step up into the carriage, I felt a hand on my arm. It was Melody who had reached for me.

“Be safe, Kayla,” she said, then hugged me.

“Thanks, Melody,” I said. Over her shoulder I could see Lilly watching us. She had the collar of her white fur coat pulled up.

“Remember, don’t change too much, only what you need to,” she said as if in warning.

“Gotcha,” I said, turning and climbing into the carriage. Looking, I added, “Can you say goodbye to Kiera for me?”

Closing the door, I slumped down into the seat. It was soft and so comfortable I could have easily curled up and fallen asleep. There was a screeching noise as the driver let off the brakes. The sound of the horn blasted as we slowly moved forward. I looked out of the window. Melody waved a hand at me and I waved back. Then they were both gone in a swirl of shifting smoke and steam. I sat back in my seat, eyes feeling suddenly heavy.

I blinked, fighting hard to keep them open. Now wasn’t the time to sleep. Opening my eyes again, I shot out of my seat. There was something sharp sticking in my arse. “Ouch!” I cried.

I reached round and pulled a thistle from the seat of my jeans. A thistle? Who left a freaking thistle on the seat? But I was no longer sitting on the soft cushions in the train carriage. I was sitting in the leaf-covered camp that Sam and I had once shared. But it was so overgrown and covered in wild ivy, bracken, and thorns that the arms of my hoodie had been ensnared by them. I bent forward, careful not to scratch my face, and yanked my arms free of the thorns that trapped me. Slowly, I crawled forward and out from the bushes. When I was clear of them, I stood up and brushed the dead leaves, twigs, and ivy from my clothes. Through the trees, I could see the granite wall that surrounded Ravenwood School. I was back – but was I in the right where and when?

There was only one way to find out. Pulling my hood over my head, I shook my wings free and shot up into the sky. I noticed almost at once that there were no cracks in the sky and there definitely wasn’t any thunder. In fact, the sun was up and the day was scorching hot. Even the wind that I raced through did little to cool me. The sky was cloudless too, and when I looked down I could see the sea sparkling beneath the summer sun. I could remember Sam telling me that the day his parents had vanished during that boat trip it had been very hot and the beach had been packed with sunbathers. Everything seemed to fit into place with what Sam had once described to me. As I swooped high above, I could see the beach below. I couldn’t afford to fly too low just yet for fear of being seen. If I was in the correct where and when, Vampyrus didn’t exist here. Luke had yet to unleash them from The Hollows.

Peering from beneath my hood, I saw a jetty sticking out from a stretch of beach that looked to be packed with holiday makers. There was a boat moored against it. I swooped down and my heart raced with joy. I could see Sam! He was following Luke Bishop and Jessica Hudson, whom he had been led to believe were his parents, along the jetty and toward the boat.

Now hovering high up in the sky, I watched them board the boat just like Sam had told me they had. I dropped further still and watched the boat cast off and head out to sea. Swooping out of the sky as my wings disappeared back inside me, I splashed down into the sea just feet from the shoreline. I dropped so fast that if anyone had even blinked they would have missed me. Seawater sloshed against my shins. I raised my head slightly, peering out from beneath my hood. Sam was standing at the aft end of the boat. He was staring at me.

I remembered me and Sam sitting in my room back at Ravenwood School.

“The boat left the jetty and we made our way out to sea. Peering over the edge of the boat, I glanced back at the beach as it slipped into the distance and I saw something odd.” I could remember Sam telling me.

“What did you see?” I’d asked him.

“It wasn’t a something, but a someone who had caught my attention. Standing on the shoreline was a figure, their feet were half in and half out of the water,” Sam had explained.

“So what was so odd about that?” I’d said.

“It was really hot and this person was dressed in jeans and a blue hoodie, with the hood pulled up over their head. I tried to see their face but I couldn’t, as it was covered by the hood,” Sam had told me.

And as I now stood in the sea and watched him, I knew it had been me he’d been talking about. Sam had been right. We had met before, just like he said we had. But not just yet. I had something else to do first. In the time it took Sam to blink, I had shot back up into the sky and soared away.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Potter

I raced through the light that was now streaming out of the cracks. It wasn’t warm like sunlight, but icy cold. It kind of made my skin feel dead and tight, like I was going to start cracking too. Murphy, Meren, and Isidor flew alongside me. Isidor held his crossbow in one hand, the other arm flung wide, his wing hanging from beneath it. He could be as dumb as fuck sometimes, but he was always good to have around in a scrap. He had as much fight in him as the rest of us. He probably wasn’t as savage as his sister, but he still didn’t take any prisoners. From what I witnessed in Snake Weed, Meren seemed to enjoy a good fight too, but then again she was Murphy’s daughter, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that she enjoyed a good kill.

“One o’clock,” Murphy roared over the howling wind. I looked to my right and could see several Vampyrus racing toward us. They swept just inches above the ground like we did. We shot toward them. I heard a thwaping sound as Isidor released a volley of bolts from his crossbow. Three of the Vampyrus shot backwards through the air as if suddenly going into reverse gear. Flying so close to the ground, they crashed, rolling over and over. I smiled at the sounds of their backs and necks snapping. Two of the remaining Vampyrus peeled off to the left and right. I went after one, Murphy the other. Meren and Isidor shot ahead to confront those coming at them.

Snarling, I clattered into the approaching Vampyrus. We grappled with each other as we spun out of control through the air. Our wings jostled together as we spun around and around, over and over. We raked at each other with our claws. I caught a glimpse of his eyes and they were as black as my own. He was strong and gnashed at my face with his fangs. I jerked my head backwards out of reach. He lunged at me again.  Raising my elbow, I drove it into his face. I felt his bloodless lips crush against his fangs. Hot blood jetted up my forearm. I pulled my elbow back and could see something long and white smeared with blood protruding from my arm. It was one of the Vampyrus’ fangs embedded in my flesh. Its mouth was now a gaping black hole, just one razor sharp fang jutting from its purple and swollen gums. Its eyes rolled wildly in their sockets as blood sprayed from its mouth. Taking my chance, I brought my face forward, driving my forehead into the bridge of its nose. I heard the sickening crunch of bone breaking. I glanced into the Vampyrus’ dazed and confused face, then sunk my fangs into its throat. I spat free its windpipe and Adam’s apple as the Vampyrus dropped from the sky, its wings fluttering uselessly on either side of its back.

Plucking its fang from my arm, I tossed it away, banked to my right, and went after my friends. Meren had somehow managed to climb onto the back of another Vampyrus. She almost seemed to ride it like some kind of freaky-looking glider. The Vampyrus shook violently, desperate to shake her free as she paddled her claws over and over through the air, stripping the creature free of its flesh. Realising that she didn’t need any assistance from me, as Meren seemed to be doing perfectly well on her own, I searched the skies for Isidor. I saw him soar close to a Vampyrus. As he shot past, he pressed the barrel of his crossbow against the Vampyrus’ right temple. Within a fraction of a second, the Vampyrus’ brains were exploding out of its left ear. Nice, I smiled to myself, now searching for Murphy. I looked back to see him up to his elbows in guts as he drove his claws into the stomach of a Vampyrus he was struggling with. He pulled his arm free, entrails swinging from it like snakes. The Vampyrus rolled over mid-air, then dropped like a stone.

With the Vampyrus now dead, I swooped in and hovered in the air next to Murphy. “Well that was easy enough,” I said.

“Oh yeah?” Meren said, pointing over my shoulder.

I glanced back to see what looked like a black storm cloud racing toward us. There must have been at least five hundred Vampyrus heading our way and toward the station.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Kiera

Noah opened the ticket booth door and stepped out onto the concourse. He wore a smart blue railway uniform. For someone who looked so old, I had expected him to walk with a stoop or at least a shuffle. But he came quickly toward me with his back straight.

“Kiera Hudson,” he almost seemed to marvel, looking me up and down. “You have no idea…” he trailed off.

“No idea about what?” I asked him.

“How much I have looked forward to this day,” he said with that big smile of his. “I knew that you would eventually find your way to this station. It was meant to be.”

“You said I was on a journey, and you said my destination was my choice,” I reminded him. “Well, I choose to go home.”

“Kiera,” he smiled again. “Let’s take a seat. I have so much to tell you.” He took my arm and gently guided me to one of the many benches scattered about the concourse. It was as I sat down, I noticed that everyone else had vanished. It was like they had simply evaporated. There was only Noah and me left.

“Where has everyone gone?” I asked him, my voice now echoing off the marble walls and floor of the vast railway station. The lights on the departure boards had also flickered out.

“There are no more journeys to be made,” Noah said. “Everything rests on your friend Kayla.”

“And if she fails?” I asked, scared of what his answer might be.

“Then we all do,” he said, his smile now faded.

“So there are no winners?” I said.

“There are always winners and losers, that is the way of things,” Noah said thoughtfully.

“So if we lose, who wins?” I asked.

“The Elders, of course,” he said, as if perhaps I should have already known this.

“And what about Luke?” I asked Noah, sensing he seemed to know – understand – this world.

“Luke is like you,” Noah said.

“I’m nothing like him,” I said, offended by his comment.

“I don’t mean like that,” Noah said, gently patting me on my knee with his wrinkled hand. “Like you, Luke is just another pawn in the Elders’ games. They feed off his misery just as they feed off yours. It’s what makes them strong – holds them together – is probably a better way of looking at it.”

I could remember Potter telling me that Lilly had explained to him how the Elders fed off my unhappiness. It was what kept them alive. So they were using Luke, too. I looked at Noah and said, “Why us?”

“Because you both are two different sides of the same coin,” Noah explained. “One side dark, the other light. You don’t need me to explain which of you is which.” He smiled, those wrinkles around his eyes and mouth as deep as the ones in the sky outside. “You both are being tormented, but in different ways. Luke’s struggle is hate, and yours is love. Don’t both emotions cause the greatest pain?”

“So I’m being punished because I try to be a good person – do the right thing?”

“There have been other people like you who have been punished because of their kindness,” Noah said.

“But why us?” I asked Noah. “Why me and Luke?”

“Why not?” Noah asked right back.

The Elders had said something similar once when I had asked them why. They had told me that all of us are chosen, but none of us ask to be. They said that not one of us had asked to be born, that decision had been made for us all.

“So we were chosen at random?” I asked.

“Like I’ve already tried to explain Kiera, your heart is full of love and Luke’s full of hate,” Noah said. “You could say that to some you are the embodiment of love, and that Luke is the personification of hate. The Elders chose you both wisely. They hoped that you would form a union before the world got pushed. But you fell in love with another. But if the Elders’ plan had been realised, then what a union you and Luke would have made. Both ends of the spectrum coming together – it would have been agony for both of you. But neither of you would have been able to walk away – break that union. Luke’s hatred and jealously would have stopped him from letting you go, and your love for him would have kept you at his side, despite your pain.”

“But what happens when I die? What happens if Kayla is successful in her mission and kills Luke?” I asked. “Will the Elders die too?”

“No, no, no,” Noah laughed kindly. “They will just move on. Choose another. But they can only choose another once you are both dead. They feed off all suffering, but by choosing you in particular, they have made a bond that can’t be broken until your death. The Elders will then choose another to suck pain and misery from. That is the way of things. That’s what they have done for as many years I can remember. The Elders have to be destroyed.” He winked at me.

“And how does someone do that?” I asked him.

“Just like you kill any other living thing, you cut off the one thing that keeps them alive,” Noah said. “For you and your friends it’s air. For the Elders, it’s pain.”

“And they have been feeding off mine and Luke’s?” I said.

“Exactly,” Noah smiled, rubbing his ancient hands together. “So they sent you into this where and when.”

“To punish us?” I asked.

Noah looked at me as if in deep thought. “What was the real reason you refused to make your choice in the Dust Palace?”

“Because I love my friends,” I said. “I knew that they loved the world, that’s why they had crept from The Hollows to live in it. I knew that they loved the humans, too, or why else did they spend their lives trying to protect them? If I chose the humans, then the Vampyrus would have died. If I had chosen them, then the humans would have died. I would have deprived my friends of those they loved as much as I did.”

“So you decided not to choose because you loved your friends?” Noah said.

“Yes,” I said. “My friends’ happiness means more to me than anything.”

“More than your own?” Noah asked.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“So now do you see why you were pushed here as I know you and your friends like to call it,” he smiled.

“The Elders saw the love I have for my friends as a weakness. They saw another way of hurting me other than making me choose between the humans and Vampyrus,” I breathed as if I was seeing clearly for the first time.

Noah nodded his head slowly up and down. “That’s why your friends were brought back with you,” Noah said.

“So I could watch them suffer?”

“No,” Noah said with a shake of his head. “So they could be taken away from you again. The Elders win either way.”

“How come?” I asked, but I already knew in my heart the answer. I just wanted him to speak it out loud. If he did then I could no longer deny what I already knew to be true in my heart.

“If you send your friends home, you lose them,” Noah said. “But if you keep them here, with you then you will continue to watch them suffer and then die. Either way you will lose them and the Elders know your pain will be beyond imagination.”

I looked at Noah. “My choice then is an impossible one, as it was before? Either way I lose and the Elders win.”

“Are you so sure about that?” Noah smiled back at me, his blue eyes glistening mischievously. “I think the Elders have underestimated you, Kiera Hudson. I think what they perceive as your weakness is really your strength.”

“And what is that?” I whispered.

“I thought being able to see was your gift, Kiera Hudson,” Noah said. “The gift of sight is more than seeing footprints, blood splatters, and other clues. The real gift of sight that you have is being able to see into the hearts of others. But more than that, it’s being able to see into your own. If you do, you’ll see how you can defeat the Elders.”

“If I see the answer I’m looking for, will I be able to go back home – to the world before it was pushed and be with my friends? The people I love the most?” I asked hopefully.

Noah looked at me and smiled.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Kayla

With my wings buzzing on either side of me, I moved so fast that I had dragged Jessica Hudson back off the boat and down beneath the sea before she even had a chance to cry out. Holding my breath and gripping her by the throat, I rammed her face into the spinning propeller beneath the boat. Chunks of flesh filled the water like red porridge as her face disintegrated. A stream of bubbles escaped her throat as she took her final breath. I let go of her lifeless body and watched it sink in the darkness below. That’s for what you did to me in The Hollows and for what you did to Sam on that station platform, bitch, I thought.

Shooting out of the sea in a spray of water, I sank my claws deep into the pits of flesh beneath Luke’s arms. I wasn’t going to kill him just yet, but I didn’t want him to be able to fight back. When I killed this fucking arsehole, I wanted him to be defenceless like I was when he murdered me. Before Luke had had a chance to realise what was happening, I was shooting up into the sky with him skewered to my claws. The blood that now pumped from his armpits spurted over my arms. He tried to twist himself free, kicking out with his legs. He looked back and saw that it was me who had so suddenly snatched him. I could see surprise in his eyes, but more than that, I could see fear. He thrashed about again, shooting his wings from his back. Their release threw me back, and I lost my grip on him. I spun around and raced back toward him as he tumbled through the air, blood streaming from beneath his arms. Losing blood fast and weakened, he was unable to fight me off as I took him again.

“Kayla!” he screamed with anger.

“Shut the fuck up!” I screamed back, thrusting my head forward and tearing one of his ears from the side of his head with my fangs. I spat the black lump of dead flesh away into the sea. I raced just inches over the surface, dragging him like a ragdoll behind me. I headed for a small alcove built into the side of the jagged cliff face. Here we would be unseen from the shore. Reaching it, I tossed him down onto the rocks, his body crashed against them. I heard bones break. Waves crashed against the rocks covering both of us in a white foam. Luke grovelled amongst the black rocks. I pulled back my hood, my long bright red hair fluttered like a flag behind me. I wanted him to see my face. I wanted him to look into my eyes as I killed him. The anger I had bottled up inside of me for so long now raced to the surface and broke free. Lunging forward, I drove my boot into his ribs. I heard several of them break like twigs.

“Not so fucking tough now, are you, sonofabitch?!” I kicked him again.

Luke screamed in pain, rolling over and clutching his sides.

Leaning forward, I tore his clothes from him. With trembling fingers, he tried to hold his trousers in place. I wanted him to be naked. I wanted him to feel just as vulnerable as I had when he had stripped me of my clothes and killed me. I tore his trousers to shreds with four quick swipes of my claws, then drove the heel of my boots down onto his fingers so he couldn’t use his hands or claws to cover himself up.

“Please, Kayla!” he screamed in agony. “I’m sorry. I did love you…”

“Liar!” I screamed back, driving my foot into him again. I kicked and kicked him. Something inside of me said I should stop before I lost all reason and any kind of humanity I had left in me. But all I could see was him ripping my ears off and placing them in my dead hands. All I could see was him kicking Sam to death on that tube station platform. But more than that, this was my chance to close the cracks and go home. I raked at his flesh with my claws and I knew that it was more than just hatred for Luke that drove me on. It was my fear of him, too. I knew how strong he was and how cunning he could be. I couldn’t risk giving him once chance to take me.

“I did love you…” he screeched, his voice now broken.

“You never loved anyone!” I roared. “You killed us all and you killed my friend Sam.”

“Sam…Sam?” he said, looking back at me through his black swollen eyes. “How do you know Sam?”

Gasping for breath, I looked down at his broken and twisted body. “I met him in my future, and that’s where you kill him…”

“Future?” Luke said, spitting a wad of blood from his mouth and onto the rocks. “How…?”

“Through the cracks you get me to make,” I said.

“Cracks?” Luke mumbled, rolling onto his side.

I stood over him. “You create cracks so the Vampyrus can come back above ground and…”

Luke shot to his feet, his broken fingers now reforming into claws, wings out and fast recovering from the injuries I thought I had caused him. He gripped me about the throat, driving me backwards into the rocks. With blood running down his face and fangs just inches from my throat, he said, “These cracks sound fascinating. Do tell me more about them and the rise of the Vampyrus before I kill you for a second time.”

I kicked wildly against him, twisting my face away from his. Had I inadvertently given him the idea about creating the cracks? Had I come back only to give Luke the idea that would seal all of our fates?

Don’t change too much…I heard Lilly whisper in my ear.

If I had never come back would Luke have ever had the idea to create cracks – to bring the Vampyrus back?

“Tell me!” he roared, his face beginning to heal. “Tell me now, Kayla!”

“Never!” I screamed, driving my knee up into his exposed groin.

He bulked forward, driving both hands between his legs. Seizing my chance, I knotted my claws in his hair and yanked his head back, exposing his throat.

“Tell me!” he screeched.

I looked into his eyes and he looked into mine.

“Push off,” I whispered, slitting his throat with my claws.

I held his head in my hands as his body slumped against the rocks. Holding his head up, I looked into his dead eyes. There was a rock pool nearby full of crabs. Suddenly feeling as if I no longer had a care in the world, I tossed Luke’s head into the rock pool. With a smile tugging at my lips, I stood and watched the crabs scamper greedily over his dead face.

I raced back through the air toward the beach, arriving on the shore just as the boat got back to the jetty. It was just how Sam had once described it to me. He was being led from the boat by the captain. Sam looked to be in shock. He had told me that his parents had fallen overboard and their bodies had never been found. Only I knew the answer as to why and what had really happened to them.

And just like Sam had said, police officers, paramedics, and members of the coast guard were gathered on the beach by the jetty. Pulling my hood up, I headed across the sand toward them. I knew exactly what happened from this point. I watched closely as Sam stood at the end of the jetty. He looked dazed and confused. As far as he was aware, his parents had just fallen overboard and drowned. His knees buckled. I stepped forward like I was meant to, and snaked my arm about his shoulders and held him up.

Sam glanced sideways, as if trying to peer beneath my hood.

I leant forward and whispered into his ear, “Everything is going to be okay. I promise,” I said, because I knew now that it was going to be.

“Who are you?” Sam whispered back.

One of the police officers stepped forward and said, “Do you know this boy’s name?”

“Brooke. Sam Brooke,” I said, sliding my arm from around Sam’s shoulders.

“Do you know him?” the police officer asked me.

I knew what I was meant to say next, but this time I went off script.

“Sam is my friend,” I said to the police officer. “I will look after him.”

We hadn’t gone far, when Sam, still looking dazed and confused, looked at me and said, “Who are you?”

Slowly I pulled back my hood. He looked at me with a blank expression. He didn’t yet know me, we had yet to meet. Had I done the right thing by changing events and leading Sam away up the beach with me?

Be careful what you change, I heard Lilly whisper in my ear again.

It was a bit late for me to heed her warning now. I had just killed Luke Bishop. I had changed everything. And, as if to prove me right, the world began to blink and so did I.

I opened my eyes. I was no longer standing on the beach and holding Sam’s hands. Instead I was holding his hand as I stood on the underground platform beneath the grand station. Melody and Lilly were standing in the exact same spot as where I had left them. It was like no time had passed at all.

“Kayla,” I heard Sam say.

I turned to face him. “You remember?” I smiled.

“Everything,” he whispered, leaning forward and crushing his lips against mine.

Chapter Thirty

Potter

No sooner had the words, “I think we’re in deep shit,” escaped from my mouth, things started to change.

I hovered just above the ground with Murphy, Meren, and Isidor and watched the hundreds and hundreds of Vampyrus flock toward us. It was then I realised that the thunder that had roared ever since I’d come back through the cracks with Kayla, had now stopped.

“Do you hear that?” I asked Murphy.

“Hear what?” he growled, his eyes focused on the approaching Vampyrus.

“Thunder,” I said.

“I can’t hear any,” Meren said.

“Me neither,” added Isidor.

“Exactly!” I said.

“What the fuck?” Murphy muttered, as if to himself.

“What?” I asked.

“Look at the cracks!” Meren yelled, pointing up at the sky.

We glanced up, and to my amazement, the cracks were closing. They were pulling back together. But that wasn’t the only change. With the flock of Vampyrus just feet away they started to fly upwards – or to be more accurate – they were being drawn upwards – toward the cracks that were closing fast. The Vampyrus tried to fight against it, but however much they kicked and thrashed their mighty black wings about, they were being sucked through the cracks and into what I suspected was oblivion waiting on the other side for them.

“What’s happening?” Meren gasped, her wings buzzing excitedly on either side of her.

“Kayla, that’s what’s happening,” I yelled in triumph. “Kayla did it. She fucking did it!” I punched my fist into the air over and over.

“How can you be so sure?” Meren said, sounding like she wanted to believe what I said was true.

“Because the cracks are closing and the Vampyrus are disappearing,” Isidor said, as if the penny was slowly dropping for him. “She must have killed Luke.”

“Hoo-fucking-rah!” Murphy roared with delight, back-flipping through the air and spreading his wings.

“Be careful, old man!” I laughed. “You’ll do yourself an injury!”

“Look, there goes the last of them!” Meren hollered, pointing up at the cracks.

Together, we watched the last of the Vampyrus get dragged beyond the cracks. With grins spread across our faces, we swooped through the air, the four of us coming together and wrapping our arms tight about each other.

“Kayla, you fucking beauty!” I roared with delight as the cracks continued to close, healing the sky once again above us. “Kayla, you did it!”

“What now?” Meren asked, fluttering all about us.

“We head for the station – and fast,” Murphy said. “I’ve got the feeling that we need to be on one of those trains before the last of the cracks close permanently, or we might not ever get home.”

“I think you might be right,” I said, watching the cracks close faster now.

“Of course I’m right, I’m the sergeant,” Murphy said, speeding away toward the railway station.

We raced after him, drawing level as we reached the road. Dropping out of the sky, we raced up the strip of tarmac. Bounding up the stone steps, I pushed open the door and we dashed inside.

Chapter Thirty-One

Kiera

“Here come your friends,” Noah said.

I looked back in the direction he was staring. I could see Potter, Murphy, Meren, and Isidor standing before the poster of the steam train. Seeing me in the centre of the concourse with Noah, the four of them came charging down the escalators toward me. At the very same time, Lilly, Melody, Sam, and Kayla raced back up onto the concourse via the escalators that led up from the platforms below.

I turned to look at Noah again.

“All of you are going to have to get back through the cracks before they close, or you will all be trapped here forever,” Noah said. “That’s what the Elders are hoping for. They still don’t believe you can see a way out of this. They still don’t believe you can destroy them.”

“But I have seen a way,” I said, looking back into his glass-like eyes.

“Then you know what to do,” Noah said. “You know the choice you have to make.”

I nodded, then turned to face my friends, who rushed toward me. Potter was the first of them to reach me. He scooped me up into his arms and spun me around. “The cracks are closing,” he said, holding me tight. “We can get the fuck out of here and get hitched.”

“I know,” I smiled at him.

He kissed me hard on the lips and I kissed him back. I looked over his shoulder and watched my friends backslap and embrace each other in the middle of the station. Hand in hand, Potter and I joined them. As a group we held each other, laughed and cheered.

“You have to go,” Noah prompted us.

I glanced back at him and he smiled. Then, pulling on Potter’s hand, I dragged him toward the escalators which would lead us down onto the platform and the train we needed.

“C’mon,” I said. “We have to go now, or we’ll get trapped here.”

We ran toward the escalators hand in hand, and our friends followed. We clambered down the stairs. knowing in my heart that we didn’t have a minute to spare. At the bottom we spilt onto the platform. It was dark, the only light coming from a tall, thin black gas lamp. A huge black steam train waited, almost identical to the one shown on the poster stuck to the concourse wall.

I looked back to make sure that everyone was on the platform. Noah stood silently watching on from the foot of the escalators. His eyes shone like two neon flashlights in the gloom. I looked away, and then back at my friends.

“Hurry,” I said, gesturing them toward the train. “Please hurry.”

I stood by the door as each of them climbed on board. I watched Lilly, Meren, Sam, and Melody go first. As they went, I found a reason to touch every single one of them. I let my hand brush over Kayla’s as she reached up and gripped the handrail. She looked at me.

“I’m so proud of you for what you did,” I said. “I just want you to know that.”

“I’ll tell you all about it when we get home,” she smiled, clambering on board.

“Hey, Isidor,” I said as he passed me at the door.

“Huh?” he said, looking back at me.

“You did good,” I smiled. “You always do good, don’t ever let anyone tell you different.”

“Try telling that to Potter,” he smiled, clambering on board.

Murphy came next. “I just wanted to say thanks,” I said.

“What for? he asked.

“To agreeing to stand in as my father at the wedding,” I said. “I only asked because I couldn’t have wished for a better father…not ever.”

“Well, we can sort it all out when we get back,” he said. Then leaning in close, he whispered into my ear and added, “Between you and me, I couldn’t have asked for a better daughter than you.”

He pressed something into my hand, then he was gone, climbing on board. I opened my fist to find the small cross he had once given to me and I had given to Meren.

Potter came last, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth as usual. I yanked it away, tossing it beneath the train and onto the tracks.

“What did you do that for?”

“So I can do this,” I smiled, reaching up on tiptoe and kissing him softly on the lips. “I love you, Potter, and I always will.”

“I love you, too, sweet-cheeks,” he grinned climbing on board. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Taking the deepest breath of my life, I slammed the door closed behind him – behind all of them. Potter glanced back at the sound of the door slamming shut. He looked back at me through the window.

“Goodbye, Potter,” I whispered.

“What the fuck is going on here?” he said, reaching for the door. He shook the handle, but the door wouldn’t open, just like Noah had told me it wouldn’t. “Kiera, stop fucking about. Open this door and get onto this train right now.”

“I can’t,” I said, tears spilling silently onto my cheeks.

“Kiera!” he roared as he now realised what I had done. “Open this fucking door right now!”

“The reason I can’t come back is because I love you,” I said, unable now to stop the tears that raced down my face.

Realising what was happening, Murphy, Isidor, and Kayla appeared at the carriage windows. “Kiera!” Murphy roared, banging his fists against the windows.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Kiera!” I heard Kayla cry out. I couldn’t bear to look at her. To hear the sounds of her claws scratching at the windows was enough.

“We’ve got to get off,” Isidor shouted from somewhere within the carriage. “We’ve got to stop the train. We can’t leave Kiera behind.”

I looked at Potter through the window. He hammered against it with his fists. The glass didn’t break – it didn’t even crack.

“You said you would marry me,” he said, no longer sounding angry, but just hurt and confused.

I looked into his eyes and saw the tears roll from them down onto his face. He didn’t even bother to wipe them away. He just stood watching me through the glass. The horn blew and the train lurched forward. As if knowing what came next, and for once he was powerless to stop it, he placed the flat of his hand against the window. I reached out and placed mine over his.

“I love you.” I smiled back through my tears.

“I love you more,” he said.

The train rolled forward, steam hissing and spitting up from beneath the wheels, smoke tumbling from the funnel.

I looked at Potter one last time.

“See you later, alligator,” he said through the glass.

“In a while, croc…” before I’d even finished, the train had gone… and so had my friends.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Kiera

With tears covering my face, I kept telling myself over and over that I had done the right thing. I had set my friends free so they could go back to their lives where I knew they would be happy and beyond the reach of the Elders. That was the choice I had to make. The other was to keep them in this pushed world with me. It didn’t matter that Luke had died and the cracks had been closed, my friends would be made to suffer because of me, and I couldn’t bear to watch that happen. I loved them too much to sit back and watch them suffer for my own selfish reasons.

Wiping the tears from my eyes, I turned to see Noah still standing by the foot of the escalators. But he was no longer alone. The Elders stood with him. They had their hoods pulled up, covering their wretched faces. I could hear them chuckling with delight.

“So you finally did it, Kiera Hudson,” one of them said, its voice childlike and unnatural. “You finally made a choice.”

“And not the one we were expecting,” said another with a dry rasp.

“Yes, you have surprised us,” said another.

I looked at them, and Noah looked at me.

The Elders began to laugh – or so I thought. At first it sounded like laughter, but it soon turned into something quite different. It changed into cries of anguish.

“What is happening?” one of them cried from beneath their long grey robes.

“She has tricked us. Deceived us!” another screeched.

Shooting forward, I pulled each of their hoods back in turn. I looked upon their emaciated faces. Potter had been right in his description of them. The Elders’ faces were nothing more than skulls covered in parchment-like flesh that was held together by a series of ragged black stitches. They threw their hands to their faces and cried out in dismay.

“What have you done to us?” one cried.

“Why can we no longer feel your unhappiness – your pain?” screeched another.

“Because you don’t know me!” I hollered at them, making fists with my hands. “You might have been feeding off my misery, but you don’t see what I see. You couldn’t truly see into my heart, because it isn’t as black and as twisted as yours.”

“What does she say?” the Elder standing nearest to Noah screamed.

Noah said nothing. He stood in his smart blue uniform, eyes twinkling.

“You underestimated me!” I yelled at them. “You thought I was just like you. But I’m not. You thought I would be screwed up with hatred and hurt if I sent my friends back. You thought I would be in agony without them. But you’re wrong. I would have been in agony if they had stayed – If I’d had to watch them get tormented by you every day for the rest of their lives. So I’m not sad that they’ve gone back. I’m happy because they’re now happy. That is what true love is all about. It’s not about jealously or possession. It’s about wanting those you love most in this world to be happy. I’m happy knowing that they are free of you and free to lead their lives.”

“But how will they be happy without you?” one of them cried, buckling forward at the waist as if tortured by pain.

“Because they won’t remember me,” I said, “You told me that in the graveyard when you showed me those statues. My friends can’t miss what they’ve never had. To them, I never existed. I was never a part of their lives.”

“But what about you?” one of them rasped, its voice growing weaker and fainter. “You will miss them. That will cause you pain.”

“That’s what you were banking on,” I shot back. “I know I will miss them with all my heart, but I won’t miss watching them suffer. And the joy in my heart knowing that they are happy blinds any sadness I might feel at their loss.” Reaching forward, I pulled free their robes. They stood huddled before me as if shivering. Their skeletal frames had no skin, no flesh. I could see right through them. They were empty souls, kept alive by mine and Luke’s misery. But Luke was dead now, and I wasn’t prepared to suffer anymore. They couldn’t yet feed off another because they had chosen me, and I was very much alive. The dead waters had given me life in this pushed world, just like they had when Murphy had placed my dead body into the dead waters as a baby.

I looked at the wretched creatures before me. I didn’t know what they truly were or where they had come from, and I didn’t care. What mattered was I no longer feared them. And if I didn’t fear them, they grew weaker. And as long as I continued to be true to myself, they had no power over me. As long as I treasured those memoires I had of my friends and the times we had spent together, I would always have that feel of love. That’s what I had seen in my heart.

Looking at the Elders one last time, I said, “You could only truly understand what I have said, if you each had a heart.”

There was a sudden noise and it filled the tiny underground station. I looked up to see a train roar out of the tunnel. The gust of wind it brought with it blew the Elders into a swirling cloud of ash that flew away into the darkness of the tunnel. The train slowed to a halt next to the platform. It wasn’t a steam train like my friends had boarded. It looked modern, with shiny steel sides, and it ran on electric.

“Hurry,” Noah said, pressing a button on the side of the train. Two doors slid apart. “The last of the cracks is closing.”

“Where will I get pushed to now?” I asked him.

“Somewhere nice, I hope,” he smiled, kissing me gently on the cheek. “You deserve some happiness.”

I stepped onto the train, then looked back at him. “Do you think my friends will ever remember – remember me?”

Before Noah had a chance to answer, the door slid shut. I looked at him through the carriage window. There were so many more questions I wanted to ask him. Who was he? What really was the station, and would I ever see him again? I felt there was so much more to learn – so much more for me to see.

The horn blasted and the train carriage rocked from side to side as it rolled out of the station. I dropped down onto the nearest seat. I suddenly felt very tired…

Epilogue

…the sound of the horn came again. This time it sounded different. Not like a shrill whistle of a train warning of its approach. It was shorter, sharper. I opened my eyes and swerved my battered old Mini out of the path of the oncoming car. The driver blasted the horn again as he raced past, throwing me an angry stare as he sped away up the winding country road. Avoiding a nearby ditch, I yanked on the steering wheel, then stomped on the brake. My tiny car came to a bone–rattling stop on the edge of a grass verge. My heart skipped in my chest and I took a deep breath. Where was I? When was I? I peered through the mud-splattered windscreen of my car and my heart raced faster too. I looked out across the rugged coastline and the small town that lay in a horseshoe shape in the distance. I had been here before. This is where it had all started for me. I glanced up at the road sign sticking out of the ground just a few feet from the nose of my car. “Welcome to the Ragged Cove. Please drive carefully,” it read.

I sat in my car and looked out across the cove. The last time I’d been here, the rain and wind had been battering my car. And although so much had happened to me and I’d learnt so much, it only felt like moments ago I’d been bouncing over the uneven country roads as I’d made my way down into the Ragged Cove for the very first time. But this time the sky wasn’t battered and bruised-looking with rain-filled clouds. and there was no howling wind. I inched down the car window and let the warm evening breeze caress my face. I could smell the sweet scent of honeysuckle and lavender. I looked again into the distance and down at the small town nestled amongst the jagged cliffs. Just like before, waves crashed against the shoreline, but the waves didn’t look black like pools of tar; they were a clear blue and inviting.

With my hands still gripping the steering wheel, I looked down at myself. Was I returning to the Ragged Cove to take up my post as a new police recruit again? Was I getting another chance? Another shot? I didn’t think so. It wasn’t only the weather that was different this time – I was dressed different. I wasn’t wearing my shiny new police uniform. I was wearing a white blouse, smart suit jacket, and a hip-hugging black skirt that stopped just above my knees. Gone were my boots and trainers. On my feet I wore small black heels. I was dressed like some kind of legal secretary. I pulled down the vanity mirror and looked at myself. My hair was thick and jet black, and my eyes sparkled a bright hazel, just like they always did. I pushed the vanity mirror back into place and it was then I noticed a brown coloured envelope on the passenger seat. I picked it up, pulling out the piece of folded paper that was tucked inside. It was a letter from what I guessed was some kind of temping agency. The letter was addressed to me. It gave clear instructions to attend a company named The Creeping Men. Here I was to be interviewed for the role as a secretary for the next two weeks until the vacancy was filled permanently. The letter was simply signed by someone called Ms. Lois Li. I had no idea who that was, and knew I had never come across someone with that name before. Did this Lois Li know me? She must if she had sent me to attend an interview. Hang on! What was I doing enrolled in a temping agency? Wasn’t I a police officer in this where and when? Where had Noah pushed me? Was it his decision where I got pushed to, or was it a random act like a spin of the wheel? Or was it fate?

I looked at the address of The Creeping Men, a faint smile tugging at the corner of my lips. Then, folding up the letter again, I slid it back into its envelope, placing it onto the passenger seat. Starting the car, the engine of my beat up old Mini spluttered into life and I headed once again down into the small coastal town named The Ragged Cove.

The narrow cobbled streets were no longer desolate like they had been before. This time they bristled with life. The townsfolk passed along the high street going about their normal lives. Some stopped to chat and pass the time of day, while others sat in the shade outside café’s and drank iced tea and lemonade in the warm summer evening breeze. The shops were open, and each of them thrived with activity. None of them were boarded up and closed like they had been the first time I had arrived in The Ragged Cove. That place had reeked with fear and desolation, and the people who had once lived there kept themselves to themselves as if petrified of their friends and neighbours. Unlike before, I didn’t need directions to where I was heading. I knew where to go. I had been there many times before.

I turned off the main high street and into a cobbled side road. The police station was where it had always been. But as I pulled up outside, I could see that it looked different – it looked as if it had been pushed. I killed the engine and climbed out. With my hands on my hips and standing in my heels, I looked up at what was once the police station. The blue police lamp was missing, but the grey stone steps and wide wooden front door were both still there. Above the door hung a faded and weather-beaten sign that read The Creeping Men.

Straightening my skirt and smarting down the front of my neat black suit jacket, I made my way up the stone steps and toward the door. The heels of my shoes made a clicking sound with each step I climbed. Why had I been sent here again and what would I find inside? My heart fluttered in the back of my throat, and I took a deep breath. I reached for the brass door handle, but before I’d had the chance to curl my fingers around it, the door burst open, knocking me back down the front steps and into the street.

Teetering on my heels – why was I wearing them – I’d never worn heels in my life – I looked up at the person storming down the steps.

“Sophie Harrison?” I gasped under my breath. What was she doing here?

Sophie stopped on the bottom step, and looking back at the door she screamed, “Jerk!”

Her long, blonde hair blew about her shoulders, and even though she looked angry, she was as stunningly beautiful as I knew her to be. No wonder Potter had…

“Who are you calling a jerk?” I heard someone say.

I glanced up to see Potter standing in the open doorway, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, black eyes as piercing as ever. I staggered backwards and off the kerb at his sudden appearance.

He glanced down at me, then paying me no mind, he looked back at Sophie.

“Where are you going?” he asked, blowing smoke from the corner of his mouth.

“As far away from you as possible!” she screeched. “I’ve had enough this time, Potter.”

“You said that last week,” Potter smirked.

“I mean it this time!” she hollered. Then yanking a ring from one of her fingers, she threw it at Potter. The ring bounced off his chest and lay twinkling halfway up the steps in the fading sunlight. “The engagement is off!”

Engagement! Potter and Sophie were engaged to be married in this where and when. But before I’d had a chance to even process that thought and my feelings about it, Sophie had spun around in a spray of thick, blonde curls and was skulking away up the street.

“Hey, Sophie…!” Potter called after her. Then, as if noticing me for the very first time, he scowled and said, “Who are you?”

Nervously straightening my skirt again over my hips, I said, “The temping agency sent me. I’m your new secretary for the next two weeks, but if now isn’t a good time, I can always come…”

“No, it’s fine,” Potter cut in.

I headed back up the steps. Halfway up, I stopped, bent down, and plucked up the ring. I could see that it was expensive. The array of diamonds flashed brightly. I placed it in the palm of my hand and offered it to Potter. He was watching Sophie disappear around the corner of the street. He glanced back at me then down at the ring. Without saying anything, he took it, sliding the ring into the pocket of his jeans. Turning his back on me, he made his way into what I had once known to be a police station. I followed him.

Closing the door behind me, I looked around the station – the office. It was similar to how I remembered it to be. There were a couple of desks, and both were piled high with clutter. I watched Potter go to one of the desks. With one swipe of his strong hands, he heaved a pile of paperwork into a nearby waste bin.

“Never was very good at filing,” he said, glancing back at me. “But now you’re here. You can keep an eye on all of that.”

“Is it just you working here?” I said, spying an upturned pipe on the other desk.

“There were others,” Potter said, grinding out the butt of his cigarette into an overflowing astray. He lit another cigarette at once.

“Where are these others now?” I asked, wondering if I might find more of my friends in this new world I now found myself in. I felt a sudden spark of excitement at the thought.

“They’ve gone away…” he started.

“Away?” I cut in.

“Yeah, away,” Potter said, his dark eyes watching me through the smoke that curled up from the end of the cigarette. I sensed he didn’t want to elaborate on where away might be, but I had a good idea where the others had gone.

I looked past him and into the narrow corridor where the hatch had once been – the hatch my friends had used to disappear back into the Hollows. “What’s back there?” I asked him.

With his eyes still fixed on me, Potter said, “Cells.”

“Cells?”

“Years ago this place used to be a police station, but not anymore,” he explained. “The cells and some other stuff are still here.”

“Why keep the cells?” I asked him.

“Sometimes they come in handy to sleep in,” Potter said, taking another drag on his cigarette.

“Don’t you have your own home…?” I wanted to know as much as possible about the Potter from this world. Was he anything like the one I had lost – was he the same one – just in a different where and when? But I knew I couldn’t ask too many questions at once.

“Yeah, I have a home,” Potter said, coming around the edge of the desk. He propped his butt against it, arms folded across his taut chest. It was like he was watching me. Summing me up somehow. “I take it you saw what happened outside?”

“Yes,” I nodded, glancing down and breaking his stare. I felt kind of embarrassed for him.

“Me and Sophie have…how can I put it?” he said, trying to find the right words. “A love and hate relationship. When she hates me, I sleep in the cells.”

“Will you be in the cells tonight?” I asked, glancing back up at him.

“It looks that way,” he said thoughtfully. Then, stepping away from the desk and shaking his head as if waking from a dream, he growled, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, it’s not as if I know you or anything.”

I stood silently and watched Potter bury the smouldering cigarette butt in the ashtray on his desk. The urge to reach for him – just to touch him was suddenly overwhelming. The atmosphere in the room suddenly felt thick and oppressive. As if feeling it too, Potter glanced up at me and said, “I haven’t got time to stand chatting-shit with you, I’ve got work to do.”

“What is it you actually do?” I asked, watching him pluck a jacket from the back of a chair and head for the door.

“Investigate,” he said. Potter opened the door. “Come back tomorrow morning and I’ll show you around – tell you your duties. But it won’t be much. Just some admin work and tea and coffee making.”

“Is that all?” I asked, feeling disappointed and slightly resentful that I had been pushed into a new where and when to be a general dog’s body.

With a cock of his eyebrow, and holding the door half open, Potter looked at me and said, “Why, do you have any previous investigating experience?”

“Some,” I shrugged, matching his stare.

“Oh yeah, like what, hot-lips?” he said, stepping away from the door and heading slowly toward me. He looked me up and down and I knew what he was thinking. How could I know anything about investigating crime?

“I guess it all depends what sort of things you investigate,” I shot back.

Standing just an inch apart and my heart starting to race again, Potter looked at me. Dropping his voice to just a whisper, he said, “I investigate the crimes the police don’t want – the crimes they can’t explain. The kinda crimes that are considered unnatural.”

“Like what?” I whispered back.

“Do you believe in vampires? Werewolves? The undead?” he asked, his eyes never leaving mine. “Ever investigated anything like that?”

“No,” I said, with a slow shake of my head. What else could I say?

“I thought not,” Potter said with a wry smile.

I watched him turn away and head back toward the door. With his hand on the door handle, he stopped and looked back at me. “Haven’t you got anywhere else to go? You can’t stay here all night. Not unless you want to share a cell with me for the night.”

“No thanks,” I said, although the idea sounded suddenly like heaven.

Potter followed me out onto the top step, locking the door behind us. “So where are you planning on staying for the next two weeks?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. I didn’t know very much about anything it seemed. Did I still have my rented rooms in Havensfield? Was that my home? Even if it was, Havensfield was miles away and the journey to and from the Ragged Cove each day for the next two weeks would be way too long.

“Didn’t the agency arrange a place for you to stay?” he asked, heading down the steps behind me.

That was something else I didn’t know. “I think they just find me jobs, not a place to stay,” I told him. “Do you know of any decent places in town?”

“There’s a place just outside of town,” Potter said, poking another cigarette into the corner of his mouth and lighting it. “It’s called the Crescent Moon Inn.”

Now how did I know he was going to say that? Smiling to myself, I said, “Never heard of it. You couldn’t show me where it is, could you?”

“Sorry, hot-lips, you’re gonna have to find your own way, I’m too busy. Got a job on tonight, and I got to be there before full dark.”

Without saying another word, he turned his back on me and headed down the street, a trail of smoke lingering behind him.

“If you’re running late, I could give you a lift to wherever you need to go in return for showing me where this Crescent Moon Inn is,” I said, although I knew exactly how to find it.

Potter stopped dead in his tracks, as if contemplating what I’d just said. Slowly he turned to look at me.

“You just want to get your nose stuck into one of my investigations,” he said, looking at me.

I shrugged. “Couldn’t I help out just a bit?”

Potter headed back up the street toward me, drawing level with my car. “Okay, but you don’t touch anything. Say anything. Or do anything. You just stand back and watch. You might learn something.”

Turning, desperate to hide the smile that was now crawling across my face, I went to the car door. “Whatever you say.”

I climbed inside, leant across the passenger seat, and popped the lock for Potter. He swung the door open and got in. “What a piece of junk. You really drive around in this?”

He saw me watch him flick ash from the end of his cigarette into the foot well of my car. “This car might look like a piece of junk, but I’d be grateful if you don’t flick ash all over it. It’s been with me for what seems like years. It’s the only thing I’ve truly come to rely on.”

“Christ, your love life sounds as fucked up as mine,” he remarked, taking another long drag on his cigarette then flicking the butt out of the window.

“Who says I was talking about my love life?” I said, starting the engine and steering away from the kerb.

“Weren’t you?” he said, throwing me one of his cocky smiles.

I didn’t say anything.

“So what was this guy like?” Potter pushed.

“Very much like you, I guess,” I said, looking straight ahead.

“You don’t know me.”

“I see a lot,” I said. Then changing the subject, I added, “So, where are we heading?”

“Just follow the coastal road to the outskirts of town,” he said. “There’s a remote little place.”

“And what’s there?” I asked him.

“Someone’s been infected,” he said, a grim look falling over his face like a shadow.

“Infected by what?” I asked, glancing sideways at him, that sense of excitement at the chance of another mystery to be solved.

“You’ll see,” he said, as if not quite ready to share the dark secret that only he knew about.

Marry You by Bruno Mars started to play on the radio. “I love this song,” Potter smiled, messing with the dial, cranking the volume up.

“That’s more like it,” he smiled to himself, sitting back in the seat.

With my hands gripping the steering wheel, I followed Potter’s directions as we headed into the darkening night. And was I happy? I was heading off into the dark and the unknown with Potter once again. So what was there to be unhappy about?

“You never told me your name,” Potter suddenly said.

I looked at him in the darkness and with a smile, I said, “My name is Kiera Hudson.”

The End

Kiera Hudson will return in ‘The Creeping Men’ Series Three (Book One) Coming Soon!

‘The Kiera Hudson Prequels’

(Books One & Two)

Now Available!

Amazon.com

Amazon.uk

Amazon.ca

Amazon.au

More books by Tim O’Rourke

Kiera Hudson Series One

Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 1

Vampire Wake (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 2

Vampire Hunt (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 3

Vampire Breed (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4

Wolf House (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4.5

Vampire Hollows (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 5

Kiera Hudson Series Two

Dead Flesh (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1

Dead Night (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1.5

Dead Angels (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 2

Dead Statues (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 3

Dead Seth (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 4

Dead Wolf (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 5

Dead Water (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 6

Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 7

Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 8 Coming December 2013!

Dead End (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 9 Coming Soon!

Kiera Hudson Series Three

Lethal Infected (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 1 Coming 2014!

The Jack Seth Novellas

Hollow Pit (Book One)

Seeking Cara (Book Two) Coming 2014!

Black Hill Farm (Books 1 & 2)

Black Hill Farm (Book 1)

Black Hill Farm: Andy’s Diary (Book 2)

A Return to Black Hill Farm (Book 3) Coming 2014!

Sydney Hart Novels

Witch (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 1

Yellow (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 2

Raven (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 3 Coming 2014!

The Doorways Trilogy

Doorways (Doorways Trilogy Book 1)

The League of Doorways (Doorways Trilogy Book 2)

The Queen of Doorways (Doorways Trilogy Book 3) Coming 2014!

Moon Trilogy

Moonlight (Moon Trilogy) Book 1

Moonbeam (Moon Trilogy) Book 2

Moonshine (Moon Trilogy) Book 3 Coming 2014!

Samantha Carter – Vampire Seeker Series

Vampire Seeker (Samantha Carter Series) Book 1

The Vampire Watchmen (Samantha Carter) Book 2 Coming 2014!

Unscathed

Written by Tim O’Rourke & C.J. Pinard

Flashes

Coming 2014!

You can contact Tim O’Rourke at
www.kierahudson.com or by email at kierahudson91@aol.com

Table of Contents

- Copyright
- More books by Tim O’Rourke
- Authors Note
- Kiera Hudson
- Chapter One Kiera
- Chapter Two Isidor
- Chapter Three Potter
- Chapter Four Kiera
- Chapter Five Isidor
- Chapter Six Potter
- Chapter Seven Kayla
- Chapter Eight Kiera
- Chapter Nine Potter
- Chapter Ten Kiera
- Chapter Eleven Potter
- Chapter Twelve Kiera
- Chapter Thirteen Kiera
- Chapter Fourteen Potter
- Chapter Fifteen Kiera
- Chapter Sixteen Kiera
- Chapter Seventeen Kiera
- Chapter Eighteen Kiera
- Chapter Nineteen Potter
- Chapter Twenty Kiera
- Chapter Twenty-One Kiera
- Chapter Twenty-Two Kiera
- Chapter Twenty-Three Kiera
- Chapter Twenty-Four Kayla
- Chapter Twenty-Five Kiera
- Chapter Twenty-Six Kayla
- Chapter Twenty-Seven Potter
- Chapter Twenty-Eight Kiera
- Chapter Twenty-Nine Kayla
- Chapter Thirty Potter
- Chapter Thirty-One Kiera
- Chapter Thirty-Two Kiera
- Epilogue