“Who?” I asked him, my mouth turning dry.
“The one and only human the wolves have welcomed into their pack,” the man explained.
“What’s his name?” Isidor pushed.
With his jowls wobbling from side to side, the man shook his head and said, “No one knows his name – not his real name. Where have you two been for the whole of your lives? I can’t believe you’ve never heard of the Wolf Man – the only human to live amongst the wolves. Now get out before I change my mind.”
“About what?” Isidor asked him.
“Putting your advert up in my window,” he barked.
“But I thought you said it was weird,” I said.
The man glanced up from the words written on the advert and said, “Maybe it’s time I pushed back?”
Chapter Twelve
Kiera
“Potter!” I gasped. “You scared the hell out of me!” and although he had scared me, I was so glad to see him again. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. He kissed me back, but there was something wrong, it was like he was holding something back somehow.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him, looking into his dead, black eyes. Rain dripped from his chin and ran over his naked chest and down his stomach.
“Let’s get out of the rain,” he said, leading me towards the summerhouse. We climbed the steps. Potter pushed against the white wooden door and it squealed on rusty hinges as it opened. He closed it behind us and for a moment, I stood in the centre of the small, wooden building and listened to the sound of the rain drum against the roof. Potter came towards me, and with the flat of my hand, I brushed the raindrops from his face, shoulders, and chest. His skin seemed to tighten and mine tingled as I touched him. He took my hands in his and bringing them up to his mouth, he kissed them. It had been a while since I had sensed such emotional sentiment from him.
“Potter, what’s wrong?” I breathed.
“The world really has changed since we left it, or came back to it,” he said. “I don’t really know which it is.”
“What’s happened?” I asked. “Apart from the name changes and the logo on my iPod…”
“That’s nothing,” he cut in. “I mean, the world has really changed.”
“How?” I asked, my heart now beginning to race.
Potter let go of my hands and ran his fingers through his hair. Then staring at me, he said, “It’s my worst nightmare.”
“What is?” I almost screamed at him, just wanting to know what he had seen on the other side of the manor walls.
“Wolves are living amongst the humans,” he whispered.
“But they always have,” I reminded him. “Just like the Vampyrus lived amongst the humans.”
“Those Vampyrus and Lycanthrope that lived amongst the humans before, lived in secret,” Potter said. “The humans never knew of their existence. The humans never knew that the people who were murdering them and their children were Lycanthrope who were living in secret amongst them. Only the Vampyrus knew that, and it was my job to track them down and punish them for their crimes. But there aren’t any Vampyrus anymore and it’s like there never was.”
“How do you mean?” I asked him, the sound of the rain beating off the roof of the summerhouse now growing louder.
“It’s like the Elders changed history somehow when they snatched all the Vampyrus back and sealed The Hollows forever,” Potter started to explain. “With no Vampyrus to keep the Lycanthrope in check, they’ve left their hiding place beneath the Fountain of Souls and now live openly amongst the humans as their equals somehow. Where the Vampyrus had once worked as doctors, police officers, formed bands like U2, and helped design the iPod, this world, or this version of it, everything that the Vampyrus achieved, every little influence that they had, is now down to the Lycanthrope.”
“So what does that exactly mean?” I asked him, sensing his concern – or was it fear?
“It means we’re in deep shit!” he snapped. “The Lycanthrope are killers…” he started.
“But maybe they’re different now,” I said, but not really believing it myself. “Maybe they’re not a race of serial killers…”
“Yeah and perhaps the tooth fairy really exists,” Potter growled. “They can’t help themselves, you should know that – you were murdered by one of them – Jack Seth killed you, remember?”
“He had no choice,” I said, pulling Potter close.
“And that’s what I’m trying to tell you, Kiera. They have no choice. They kill, that’s what they do. Even though Seth must have known that by killing you he would die beneath The Hollows, he still couldn’t resist you. He couldn’t stop the urge of ripping you to pieces,” he said, taking my face gently in his strong hands.
“But you can’t be sure that they are still killing,” I said. “The humans wouldn’t put up with it.”“What if they didn’t have a choice?” he asked me. “What if the humans had struck some kind of deal with the Lycanthrope?”
“Why would they do that?” I asked him.
“Perhaps the Lycanthrope didn’t give them a choice,” he said, his eyes growing dark. “And we all know how they keep to their word. Remember the deal that they struck with Murphy? Look what happened to him. They killed him.”
I looked at Potter and I could see that anger, frustration, and hurt in his eyes again as he remembered how Murphy had been betrayed. “What would Murphy say if he were standing here right now?” I asked him.
With a wry smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Potter said, “Let’s go and catch us some wolf.” Then the smile faded and he added, “But Murphy isn’t here any longer. There are no Vampyrus left – it’s like they never existed. I am all that is left of them.”
“So what are you going to do?” I asked him, hoping that some of his fight was coming back – that spark which had drawn me to him in the first place.
“I’m going to stop them,” he said. “That’s what I did before, with Murphy and Lu…that’s all I know – it’s what I do best.”
“But there is only you left.” I pushed him. “How are you going to do it all on your own?”
Then, turning his back to me, he went to the corner of the summerhouse and reappeared with a holdall in his hands. He threw it at me. I snatched it from the air.
“What’s this?” I asked him.
“You said that you missed your old life, that you wanted to be Kiera Hudson again,” he half-smiled and his jet-black eyes twinkled. “So I went and got you some of your stuff from your flat.”
“It’s still there?” I asked him, wondering if parts of my old life had been pushed too.
“Kind of,” he said, lighting a cigarette, watching me unzip the bag.
“What’s that mean?” I asked him.
“Your flat is four streets along now,” he said. “At first I couldn’t understand why your underwear drawer was full of thick, old woolly knickers and bras that the SAS would have been happy to use as parachutes. Then the old woman started whacking me with her walking stick.”
“Old lady?” I laughed. “What old lady?”
“The old lady who lives in your flat, the flat that you used to live in before everything got pushed,” he explained. “She caught me rifling through her knickers – I thought they were yours. Anyway she whacks me over the head and calls me kinky. I tried to tell her that I wasn’t kinky and she said she was going to call the cops.”
“So what did you do?” I said, my hand over my mouth as I tried to stifle a fit of the giggles.
“I ran, that’s what I did,” he snapped, unable to see the funny side of the story. “And don’t you dare breathe a word of this to Isidor. I’m fed up already with him calling me Gabriel every five minutes.”
“I promise,” I said, unable to hide my laughter anymore.
“It’s not funny,” he barked. “I didn’t have to go and get that stuff for you.”
I looked in the bag and could see that it was full of my own clothes, underwear, perfumes, make-up. Just beneath a pile of T-shirts, I found a photograph of my father. I brushed the tips of my fingers over his face.
“I thought you might like that,” Potter said softly, coming to kneel next to me on the floor. “There was a picture of your mother, but I didn’t bring it. Apart from her ripping my heart out, I didn’t think you would want…”
“The picture of my dad is enough,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
As if sensing the picture of my dad was upsetting me, Potter reached inside the bag and said, “And look what else I found.”
“What?” I whispered unable to take my eyes from the picture of my dad.
“Your police badge,” he said, waving it before me.
I placed the picture gently back into the bag and took my badge from Potter. Constable Hudson it read in silver letters on the front. “Why did you bring this back with you?” I asked him.
“You said that you missed being a copper,” he said. “And besides, if you’re going to start investigating stuff again, I thought it might come in handy. You never know.”
“But I thought you said the whole Miss Marple thing was a waste of time,” I said, looking at him.
“That’s before I realised the Lycanthrope were back,” he said. Then, taking my hands in his, he said, “Kiera we’ve got to find out what they are up to. And if they are still killing, somehow we’ve got to find a way of stopping them.”
“Just like the old days, huh?” I said, staring down at my badge again.
“Me and you, Kiera,” he whispered. “The old team back together.”
“Kayla?” I asked him.