Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series Two#7) (22 page)

“Sweat!
That’s what I could smell, Potter,” she laughed. “You hadn’t showered in days. You stank!”

“Thanks,” I muttered, looking out of the window and into the dark. Not wanting to discuss my personal hygiene – or lack of it – I said, “Do you think Sparky will be surprised to see me again?”

“I guess, you’ve been away for more than a year,” she said. “He won’t be as surprised as I was when I found you sitting in my apartment.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” I muttered, flicking the cigarette end through the gap in the window. “So where are we meeting up with Sparky?”

“Just on the outskirts of town,” she said, driving the car through the night.

“Out of town?”
I frowned. “What’s there to rob in the middle of nowhere? If a place was going to be hit, then wouldn’t it be a bank, or…”

“It’s Bleak Point Railway Station,” she said.

“A railway station?” I asked. Now why wasn’t I surprised about that? It kinda made sense in a perverted kind of way.

“I know, you would never have guessed it,” she said. “That’s why this team of robbers have been so freaking hard to catch. They’re not committing their crimes in town, but out of town in the remotest of
places. Churches, farmhouses, and now a remote railway station.”

“What are they gonna find to steal at a railway station?
A bunch of goddamn tickets?” I said.

“The ATM,” she said. “It will be full of cash.”

“Will it?” I said, not convinced. “If I were gonna go to all the trouble of ripping out an ATM, I would do it at a gas station.”

“You would,” she laughed softly.

“Think about it for a minute,” I said. “Hit a gas station in town and you could be on a motorway and miles away from the scene of the crime in minutes. Hit a place in the middle of fucking nowhere, and you could spend the next six hours or so driving around with your thumb up your arse because you’ve got lost – especially in the dark. It’s pitch black out here.”

“I guess that’s what they like about it,” she said, peering into the darkness ahead of us. Then, slowly she steered her car down a narrow overgrown dirt track. Wild undergrowth scratched the sides of her car. Ahead, I saw the red reflectors of a car shining back in Kiera’s headlights. “There’s John,” she whispered, bringing the car to a stop.

The driver’s door swung open ahead of us down the track. Both me and Kiera got out and walked towards the tall figure that loomed ahead of us in the darkness. I approached the man who was investigating my murder. I glanced at Kiera, then ahead again.

Sparky stepped out of the darkness. His face was nothing more than a red rash of spots. His glasses sat lopsided across the bridge of his
nose, one arm held together with a sticking plaster. His black greasy hair was smeared to one side across his brow.

“This is a surprise,” he said, offering me his hand to shake.

I lit a cigarette, and peering through the smoke at him, I smiled and said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Sparky.”

Jack

I’d gone back to the grate and waited for either Isi-bore, Melody, or perhaps even the photographer to show up. I no longer really cared which. I’d had enough of this world and wanted to go back. But what did I have to go back to? My brother had gone – sacrificed himself for our sister – a sister who would never want anything to do with me. And could I blame her? No – not at all. I had held her captive and forced her to watch me torture her father to death, for fuck’s sake. How did anyone ever begin to forgive something like that? All they would ever want is revenge. But Kiera had had her chance for revenge. She could’ve given me over to Murphy and Potter. Kiera hadn’t, though. Kiera had let me go. I had wanted her to make her choice and as I sat in the wood and stared at the grate, I knew in my twisted little heart what that choice had really been about. I had wanted her to choose me. I had been so desperate for Kiera – my sister – to choose me over her own father, her lover Potter, and her friends. No one had ever chosen me. Even the man I had loved as a father had chosen Kiera over me. Fuck, that hurt and I wanted her to hurt, too. If she felt the hurt I had, then perhaps she would become a monster too – just like I had. But she hadn’t become a monster, even after everything I had put her through. Why hadn’t she given in to the curse like I had? She was half wolf too. What was so different about Kiera and me?

“She chose differently to you, Jack,” the voice said.

Without even looking up, I knew the bride was close again. I didn’t want to see her standing there all in white, that veil flapping about her face. 

“Go away,” I whispered, my head hung low.

“Poor little Jack,” the bride said with a sneer. “Poor little boy who got left behind by his mummy. Poor little Isi-bore who can’t read and write and was given up by his mummy. Poor little Melody Doze who was whipped by her momma and will be killed by her. Poor little Kiera Hudson who was deceived by her mother and betrayed by you and her friends. You’re all the same, but with one difference, Jack.”

“Shut the fuck up!” I seethed, prodding at my temples with my fingertips again.

The bride continued, despite my protests. “Every one of you had a choice to make. You could let your past with all its pain defeat you or make you. Kiera and the others got back up every time they were knocked down. But you chose not to get back up, Jack.
That’s
the difference between Kiera and you. Kiera is a fighter and you’re a killer. There is a big difference, Jack.”

Snarling, I lept from the base of the tree. I grabbed hold of the bride’s throat with my claws. I ripped back the veil, wanting to look upon her face, but there was nothing there. My claws were clutching at air. I
dropped to my knees and howled. Why was I being haunted like this? But I now understood I had been haunted by nothing more than my own guilt and shame.

With my claws covering my emaciated face, I howled in rage. The pain and anger I felt only ate the more of me up, just like it always had and always would. The curse’s grip on me was undeniable. It had taken hold of me like a cancer and it was terminal. There was no cure and there was definitely no hope for me. If I had no hope for myself then who would? I staggered to my feet and looked back at the grate. I just wanted to finish what I had come to do and leave this place. I was about to go, when I heard the sound of sobbing. More ghosts, I feared.

“I’m sorry, Momma,” the voice pleaded.

I spun around and spied through the trees to see Melody being dragged through the woods by her mother.

“Please, Momma!” Melody cried out, trying to pull herself free of her mother’s grip.

“Shut your evil mouth!” her mother barked. “I don’t want to hear the devil talking to me.”

“No, Momma,” Melody begged. She stumbled forward and over into the leaf-covered ground. Her bonnet came free, and I staggered backwards. Melody’s head had been shaved. Gone was her pink hair. Melody was dragged, kicking and screaming, into a small clearing.

Springing into the air, I became the monster which lurked inside of me and raced towards them. From a nearby tree, I watched her momma
snatch up the fallen bonnet. Melody lay at her momma’s feet sobbing.

“Please let me go, Momma,” she begged, lacing her fingers together as if in prayer.

“Don’t speak to me,” her mother hissed, pulling the black cords free of the bonnet she held in her hands. “It is my daughter’s lips that move, but the devil’s voice I can hear.” 

“Please…” Melody started. But her last word was strangled into nothing as her mother wrapped the cord from the bonnet around her daughter’s throat.

Melody threw her hands into the air and clawed at her neck. It felt odd watching Melody and her mother struggle together – it was like watching two nuns having a fight. Melody kicked her legs out as her mother forced her flat onto the ground. I stuck my long snout around the edge of the tree, my eyes blazing almost red. I wanted to lunge from my hiding place and stop this. I wanted to save Melody.

Don’t change anything
… I heard Lilly Blu whisper in my ear.

So it was the mother who killed Melody Rose and I had to just sit back and watch that happen. Was this some kind of punishment for all the lives I had taken… was this in some way to illustrate to me the futility of killing?

With my heart racing in my chest, and fighting the unbearable urge to stop Melody from being strangled to death, I slipped back behind the tree before I was seen. I lay on my front, giant paws over my ears, as I tried to block out the sound of Melody gasping and fighting for air. I could hear her hands slapping against her mother, and her feet thrashing against the leaves as she fought for her life. After what seemed like an eternity, the sounds of Melody’s fight began to lessen until they finally stopped. Peering around the edge of the tree, I watched Melody’s mother climb off her daughter’s lifeless body. She looked down at Melody, and lacing her fingers together she silently prayed.

The urge to
bound into the clearing and rip the woman to pieces was almost too much to bear. I wanted to kill this woman more than I’d ever wanted to kill anyone. But I knew I couldn’t. However much agony Melody’s mother had caused, I was unable to do anything about it – just like I had been unable to prevent it. I heard the sound of rustling and looked back around the tree. The mother was heading out of the clearing, leaving Melody’s body on the ground amongst the fallen leaves and twigs. Once her mother had gone, I crept into the clearing. Rearing up on my back legs, I changed back into my human form.

Melody lay outstretched on the ground before me. One hand clutched her purple and bloated face. Her lips were blue, and her tongue snaked from the corner of her mouth looking black and bloated. Melody’s knees were drawn up where she had kicked out wildly with her legs. The hem of her dress had been hitched up, revealing her tattoo-covered thighs. I knelt down beside her, and lowering her skirt to cover her legs, I gently took her into my arms.

Memories of how I’d cradled my own dead sister, Kara, in my arms crashed over me. Throwing my head back, I howled in agony and despair. I had never felt so much pain and sorrow. It was like the pain of all my victims eating away at my black heart. Melody hadn’t deserved to die, nor had my sister and neither had any of my victims. With bright golden tears streaming from my eyes and down the length of my gaunt face, I howled and howled. I held Melody’s shaven head against my chest, my body racked with gut-wrenching sobs.

Very gently, I lay her back on the ground. I folded Melody’s hands over her chest and closed the lids over her bulging eyes. I hear
d the sound of approaching footfalls amongst the leaves. I sprang to my feet to see Melody’s mother approaching, carrying a spade in her hand. I headed back out of the clearing. I looked back just once more at Melody lying dead on the ground. Her mother stood over her dead daughter’s body and placed the blade of the spade against Melody’s neck. Then, lifting her foot, she stomped down on the spade, cutting off Melody’s head.

My first thought was of Isi-bore and I guessed he would be frantically looking for Melody by now. Did he know that she had been taken by her mother? Perhaps, but I doubted he knew where Melody had been taken. If Isi-bore did know, then I figured he would be in the woods already. I headed down to the shore by the lake. I checked out the bush Melody and Is-bore had spent so much time in together. He wasn’t there. Perhaps he had gone back into The Hollows, but I doubted it. I made my way along the shore, then in the distance I saw him talking to the boy he had argued with a few days before. Crouching low, I watched them talk, although I couldn’t hear what was being said. It didn’t look like they were arguing this time around. After a short conversation, I saw Isi-bore run away from the other boy in the direction of town.

I fo
llowed at a distance and I knew that he was heading for Melody’s home. The sun was starting to fade as the day grew gradually to a close. Isidor pushed open the front gate and raced up the garden path. I could see no sign of the mother’s car, and I guessed she was still burying her daughter in the woods. I wanted to leap from the bushes and tell Isi-bore he was in the wrong place, I wanted to tell him where he would find the body of the girl he loved, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t meant to change anything, I reminded myself.

Isi-bore yanked on the front door and it rattled in its frame. Discovering it was locked, he went around the side of the house. I waited several minutes to see if he would come back. When he didn’t, I snuck from my hiding place. I bounded over the wall and then looked back at the dirt track as the sound of an approaching car could be heard from the distance. Bent double, I crept around the side of the house and dropped over the stone wall, where the window led into the basement. I peered inside to see Isi-bore.

At first I thought I startled him, as he jerked his head up. But he didn’t turn to face the window. Just like me, Isi-bore had heard the sound of the car approaching, and both of us knew it was Melody’s mother. But instead of running like I thought he would, Isi-bore headed over to the large cross and stood in the shadows before the altar. There was a metal chain, and pulling on it, he hoisted himself up, so it looked as if he had been crucified. I heard the car door slam, the sound of the mother’s shoes crunching over gravel as she made her way up to the front door. It opened then closed.