Dead Flesh (10 page)

“Do you see
it?” I whispered, reaching for the cross.

“See what?”
Potter hissed.

“Murphy’s
cross,” I said back, taking it from over the girl’s head.

“Maybe you
should leave it,” Potter said.

“Why?” I asked
him, but then I saw something that told me that perhaps he was
right. It could have been just the rain, or just my imagination,
but as I lifted the cross away, tears seemed to roll from the part
of the statue’s face where its eyes should have been.

With the tip of
one finger, Potter wiped away what looked like tears and held his
finger up. “Put the cross back,” he whispered over the distant
rumble of thunder. “They ain’t tears – they’re drops of blood.”

“The statue’s
bleeding?” I asked him, quickly replacing the crucifix. “But that’s
impossible, right?”

Then looking at
me, Potter said, “Yeah and we’re dead. Like I keep trying to tell
you, Kiera, this isn’t the world that we left – everything has been
pushed.”

We made our way
back to the manor in silence. The only sound was the rain slicing
through the treetops overhead. Potter carried the holdall with my
belongings. I had tucked my police badge into the back pocket of my
jeans. I didn’t know if it would be of any use in the future, but I
was glad I had it back all the same.

Before we had
left the summerhouse, I had asked Potter not to say anything to
Kayla or Isidor about the statue. He had asked me why not, and I
told him that things were already complicated enough without
throwing the wandering statue into the mix. But at the sight of the
blood weeping from the statue, I couldn’t help but make a
connection from somewhere deep inside of me. I had seen myself
almost turned to stone as I had stood before my mirror, my body
covered in cracks, just like the statue that now had Murphy’s
cross. Whoever that girl was – had been – perhaps she had once been
like me? Maybe that girl had started to see cracks in her flesh.
Maybe she had been stronger than me and resisted the red stuff and
she had completely turned to stone. But not completely, because it
was like when she wasn’t being watched, she moved somehow.

As we stepped
from between the trees and onto the rain-soaked lawn that lay
before the manor, I could see by the lights burning dimly in the
windows that Kayla and Isidor had returned. The electricity worked
in the part of the huge house that we occupied, but there was still
no light in the ‘forbidden wing’ as Mrs. Payne had liked to call
it.

Potter pushed
open the giant front door and we had barely had the chance to shake
the rain from our wet clothes when Kayla rushed into the hallway.
She was excited and skipped from foot to foot as she told us about
what she and Isidor had seen and heard in the little town of Wood
Hill.

Isidor joined
her, and passing Potter and me a fresh towel each, I rubbed my damp
hair with it. While Potter dried his chest and forearms, Isidor
told us about the owner of the shop.

“He said that
they had taken their children,” Isidor explained.

“Taken them
where?” I asked him.

“They’ve killed
them already,” Potter cut in. “I told you they wouldn’t change. The
Lycanthrope are murdering scum.”

“They’re not
called Lycanthrope any longer,” Isidor said, looking at the both of
us.

“What are they
called then?” Potter growled. “You’re not the only one who has left
the grounds of the manor. I’ve seen the wolves too.”

“They look like
wolves,” Kayla said, “and just like the Lycanthrope did, they can
look like humans and then change into wolves. But this time around,
they are different.”

“Different?” I
quizzed. “How?”

“Come and have
a look at what Isidor has found on the Web,” Kayla said, leading us
into the large kitchen.

We followed
her, and sitting before the laptop that was on the table, Isidor
started bringing up pages of information. With Potter beside me, we
peered over his shoulder and looked at the screen.

“See,” Isidor
said, pointing at the laptop, “the werewolves aren’t called
Lycanthrope in this version of reality. They’re called
‘Skin-walkers.’”

“Skin-walkers?”
Potter spat, lighting a cigarette. “What the fuck are
Skin-walkers?”

“Shape-shifters,” Kayla cut in, not trying to impress, but more out
of fear.

“See here,”
Isidor said, pointing at the screen again. “They are trapped
permanently as wolves – that was their curse.”

“They were
captured,” I whispered to myself as I remembered how Nik had been
trapped as a wolf.

“Captured?”
Potter quizzed me.

“They can’t
change from wolf back into human form,” Isidor said on my
behalf.

“So how do we
defeat them?” I asked, for the first time realising the true nature
of our enemy.

“Not easily,”
Kayla answered.

“It will be
piss-easy. I’ve killed plenty of wolves in my time,” Potter said,
blowing a cloud of blue smoke into the air.

“Don’t be so
sure,” Isidor said, looking back over his shoulder at Potter.
“These Skin-walkers have the power to steal the body of any person.
So how do you know if you’re killing a Skin-walker or an innocent
human?”

“Bullshit,”
Potter snapped. “How do you steal another person’s skin? There’d be
blood, piss, and snot everywhere. These Skin-walkers would stick
out like sore thumbs.”

“They don’t
actually steal the skin and wear it like a coat, silly,” Kayla
giggled. “By looking into your eyes, they can absorb themselves
into you. It’s like they take you over – control you and your
soul.”

“Just like the
Lycanthrope could stare into your soul and control you,” I said,
thinking of how Jack Seth had tried to control my mind with those
depraved images of him taking me.

“But they do
have a couple of weaknesses,” Kayla explained.

“Like what?”
Potter snapped, as if eager to know so he could start hunting these
creatures.

“They don’t
like the sunlight very much,” Isidor said. “They much prefer the
night. And secondly, when they are in human form, they only have
the strength of a human.”

“So what do
they hunt?” I asked Isidor, my stomach tightening as the enormity
of what they had discovered became clear.

“Just like the
Lycanthrope, they love to hunt children,” Isidor said, his
already-pale face turning grey.

“Different
name, but the same scum,” Potter said.

“But what I
don’t understand,” I said, “is if all this information is readily
available on the internet, why don’t the humans stop them?”

Kayla pulled up
a chair alongside me and sat down. “The guy in the store back in
that creepy town told us that the humans and wolves – these
Skin-walkers – had signed some kinda treaty over two hundred years
ago.”

“And guess
where that treaty was signed?” Isidor quizzed, looking at Potter
then at me.

“Where?” I
breathed.

“Wasp Water,”
Isidor said.

“You’re
shitting me!” Potter exclaimed, cigarette dangling from the corner
of his mouth.

“Nope,” Isidor
said, turning back to face the laptop. “I looked it up and
basically the humans fought with the Skin-walkers for as long as is
recorded. But a truce was made two hundred years ago between them.
The Skin-walkers got tired of being hunted and the humans grew
tired of having their children snatched and slaughtered in the dead
of night. It seemed that no side could win.”

“So what was
this treaty that both sides were happy with?” I asked.

“That every
five years, the Skin-walkers would be free to take the children
from one village of their choice,” Kayla explained. “If the parents
resisted, then they too would be slaughtered.”

“So they just
arrive in the village, round up all of the children and kill them?”
I gasped in disbelief.

“Not exactly,”
Kayla said. “There were some rules negotiated during the treaty.
The wolves couldn’t take children under the age of thirteen or over
the age of eighteen. They could pick one village at random, but
they couldn’t kill the children. There were certain
conditions.”

“What
conditions?” Potter snapped.

“The children
would be housed at the nearest school,” Isidor said. “Held
prisoner, I guess. And here they would be matched.”

“Matched?” I
asked.

“Because the
Skin-walkers are captured as wolves and unable to shape-shift back
into human form, they are matched with human children,” Isidor
said.

“But why?” I
asked him.

“Because once
the wolves grow from yearlings into juveniles they are the same age
as teenage humans,” Kayla explained. “So each juvenile wolf that is
ready to leave their pack comes to the school and seeks a match – a
human child that they can steal the skin from – absorb themselves
into. Any human teenagers who aren’t matched are set free.”

“And what about
the ones who aren’t freed?” I asked her.

“The wolf
spends the rest of its life living inside of them – inside their
skin,” Kayla said.

“So why every
five years?” Potter asked, grinding out his cigarette end on the
stone kitchen floor.

“That is the
time that it can take a yearling Skin-walker to reach the juvenile
stage,” Kayla continued, her eyes growing wide. “This is the treaty
that the Wolf Man negotiated.”

“Who is this
Wolf Man?” I asked her.

“I’ve found a
picture of a Wolf Man on the web,” Isidor said, clicking on a new
page on the screen before him. “I think this could be him. Scary,
isn’t he?”

Potter leaned
forward and stared at the screen, then said, “Are you taking the
fucking piss?”

“No, why?”
Isidor said staring blankly back at Potter.

“That’s Michael
Jackson for crying out loud,” Potter snapped, his cigarette almost
falling from the corner of his mouth. “That’s him dressed up in the
Thriller video.”

“Is it?” Isidor
asked, squinting at the screen. “It says he is the Wolf Man.”

“Do you think
this Wolf Man would run around in a red and yellow jacket, blue
jeans, and white socks while he grips his crotch and moonwalks?”
Potter asked in disbelief. “This Wolf Man is stealing children’s
souls, not running around the place in a sequined glove for
Christ’s sake!”

“He looks
pretty scary to me,” Isidor said studying the picture that he had
found on the web.

Then, looking
at Kayla and me, Potter gasped, “Is it just me or is the kid taking
the piss?”

“Okay, keep
your wings on, Gabby,” Isidor shot back. “So I made a mistake, how
was I s’posed to know that wasn’t the Wolf Man…”

“And stop
calling me Gabby,” Potter barked at him. “My name’s not Gabriela,
Gabriel or anything else, it’s Potter…”

“But the Elder
said your new name was…” Isidor started.

“I couldn’t
give a monkey’s toss what the Elders said!” Potter barked, the
veins on his neck bulging through his skin.

“Can we just
stop this bickering?” I snapped at the both of them. “This isn’t
helping.”

“Well, he winds
me up,” Potter shot back. “Here we are trying to figure out what
the fuck has happened since coming back from the dead and you’ve
got numb-nuts over here Googling the greatest hits of Michael
Jackson…”

“It’s called
Toogling now,” Kayla cut in.

“Whatever,”
Potter hissed.

“Look,” I said,
taking a deep breath. “So Isidor made a mistake, it’s no big deal.
He found out a whole bunch of other stuff. But what we really need
to know is, who is this Wolf Man?”

“That’s the
problem, Kiera, no one knows,” Kayla said back. “He is believed to
be a human. He negotiated the treaty on behalf of the Skin-walkers
and in return, they cast a spell that has given him unnaturally
long life. He has been around for over two hundred years. The
treaty says that if his identity is ever revealed then the uneasy
truce is over and the humans win. The Skin-walkers have to return
to their caves beneath the Fountain of Souls and leave the humans
and their children in peace.”

“So I guess we
try and find this Wolf Man,” Potter said. “Let’s be honest, it
shouldn’t be that hard, we’ll spot his sparkling glove a mile
off.”

Ignoring him, I
looked at Isidor and Kayla and said, “So do we know where the
children of Wood Hill are being held?”

“In a remote
boarding school on the outskirts of the town,” Isidor said,
bringing up another page on the screen before him. “But I bet
you’ll never guess what this school is called?”

Then, with a
sense of dread falling over me as I remembered my dream of the girl
falling from the sky and being chased to that big building, I
looked at Isidor and whispered, “Ravenwood.”

“How did you
know that?” Kayla asked me in shock.

“I had a dream
about it,” I told her.

“Ravenwood?”
Potter cut in. “What’s that old fart got to do with this?”

“I don’t know,”
I said back, wondering if Doctor Ravenwood were still alive in this
reality.

“What sort of a
screwed up world have we come back to?” Potter said, lighting
another cigarette. “And I thought things were bad when the
Lycanthrope were out on their killing sprees.”

“Why do the
authorities stand by and do nothing?” I said, feeling numb at what
Kayla and Isidor had discovered.

“Like Potter
said,” Kayla almost seemed to whisper to herself, “we’ve come back
to a different world than the one we knew. And somehow, I think by
coming back, we are to blame.”

But I knew in
my heart that it was my fault. “I’m to blame,” I told them.

“How do you
figure that?” Isidor asked me.

“If I’d made my
choice back in The Hollows like I was meant to, then none of this
would have happened,” I said, lowering my head in shame.

“You don’t know
that,” Kayla said, placing a hand gently on my shoulder.