Dead Statues (15 page)

“Release me, Seth!” I screamed at him, his crazy yellow eyes glowing from the two deep holes in his face.

“I don’t think so,” he smiled, coming to stand in front of me.

Strapped to my chair, he towered over me like a giant stick insect. His body was so painfully thin, I wondered how it managed to keep him upright. He was dressed in a denim shirt and jeans, a baseball cap perched on his head. A red coloured bandanna was tied about his scrawny throat.

“Why are you doing this?” I cried, and again I yanked against my restraints. A bolt of pain splintered up my arms and across my shoulder blades as I tried to pull my hands free of the chains.

“Why am I doing this?” he said, kneeling down so he was staring straight into my face.

“Because you failed to make your choice.”

“You said that back at Hallowed Manor,”

I said. “That’s why you tricked me into believing McCain was a killer. The Treaty has failed because of what happened to McCain. Isn’t that enough?”

“No, no, no!” he smiled, wagging one long finger from side to side just inches from my face.

“I won’t be happy until I’ve repaid you for what you did to me in The Hollows. I want to see the great Kiera Hudson make a choice.”

“But I have,” I shouted at him. “The Treaty failed because of me. I chose not to save McCain.”

“That wasn’t a real choice,” he smiled, but behind it I could see a wall of rage. “Not like the choice you were chosen to make by the Elders in The Hollows. You could have set me free, Kiera Hudson, but you didn’t. You used me because you were so fucking weak. Because you couldn’t decide between the humans and the Vampyrus, you punished me!”

As he spoke, his smile faded into a grimace and his voice got angrier. Then standing, he stood in the middle of the room. “I helped you, and that’s how you repaid me.”

“You didn’t help me,” I shouted back at him. “You just helped yourself!”

“I saved you and your friends’ lives!” he roared, spit flying from his face and splashing the dried-out floorboards. “Your back was against the wall in The Hollows. The half-breeds and Vampyrus

had

beaten

you.

You

were

outnumbered, outwitted and out-fucking-classed.

If it hadn’t have been for me leading the Lycanthrope to help you, you and your friends would have all been dead.”

“Don’t stand there like some kinda freaking martyr!” I yelled at him. “You only saved me to save yourself. You needed me to lead you to the Dust Palace and the Elders, so they would lift your curse.”

“And they were so close in doing so when you had to go and throw yourself at me!” he screamed, his fist clenching in and out, and the tendons on his neck pulsing beneath his wrinkled flesh.

“You didn’t have to kill me!” I roared at him. “Just like me, you had a choice.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” he screeched at me. “That’s the curse. The moment you threw yourself into my arms – the moment you offered yourself to me, I had to kill you. I had to take you.

I didn’t have a choice. Why can’t you understand that?”

“I wasn’t talking about that choice, you piece of shit!” I screeched back at him, my hair falling over my face. “I’m talking about the choices you and your race made before you were cursed. I’m talking about the reason you were cursed. You didn’t have to go around raping and killing children and woman. You chose to do that, and that’s why you were doomed to live as Lycanthrope.”

“I can’t be blamed for the choices my ancestors made, you stupid bitch,” he spat. “I was cursed before I was even born.”

“That’s no excuse,” I shouted back. “We all have a choice – that’s what separates us from animals.”

“So at last the great Kiera Hudson agrees that we all have a choice to make!” Then leaning in close to me again, the tips of our noses touching, he hissed, “So why did you fail to make yours?”

I looked into his crazy eyes, and again I saw us together in them. Me and him as lovers. I looked away.

“Like what you see?” he whispered into my ear. “Turn you on, does it? Want a piece of little old Jack, do you?”

“Go fuck yourself,” I spat, fighting the urge to look into his eyes again.

“You were so sweet,” he said, pressing his nose into my cheek as if sniffing my flesh.

“It doesn’t take much of a man to rape a corpse,” I hissed, the smell of his breath turning my stomach.

The side of my face exploded in pain as Seth drove his fist into my cheek. There was a cracking sound as my head snapped to the side under the weight of his blow. “You were very much alive and enjoying every minute of it,” he whispered in my ear. “You
loved
me.”

“I know what true love is,” I whispered back into his ear. “You have no idea what that is like.”

Seth pulled away and stood up. He looked down at me, a smile forming on his thin, bloodless lips. “You speak of Potter, don’t you?”

I ignored him and looked away.

“Potter! Potter! Potter!” he said, clapping his hands together. “What a silly little bitch you really are. The great Kiera Hudson who can
see
all.” Then, leaning close again, he smiled and said, “You don’t see shit, little lady.”

“I
see
enough,” I said back.

Then, reaching into the breast pocket of his denim shirt he said, “I want you to see this. I want you to see what your beloved Potter is really all about.”

Seth thrust an iPod under my nose. I saw the crescent-shaped moon logo, then looked away.

“Frightened of what you might
see
?” Seth taunted me. “Told you about Sophie, did he?”

“Yes,” I nodded, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of thinking Potter had kept secrets from me. “They used to be lovers – he told me that.”

“Did he tell you that he went looking for her as soon as he came back to this world?” Seth teased.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Did he tell you what fun they had?”

“He told me she was dead,” I said.

“Before that?” he pushed.

“I don’t care,” I lied, and he knew it.

Seth chuckled, making that sound again, as if he were choking on straw. “Did he tell you why he killed Eloisa?”

To hear her name, I couldn’t help but turn to face Seth again.

“Potter didn’t tell you why he ripped her heart out, did he?” he smiled just inches from my face.

“He told me he killed her because she was a child killer,” I breathed, feeling sick.

“I’m supposed to be a child killer and he didn’t rip my heart out, did he?” Seth said, and this time he didn’t smile, he looked intently at me.

“What other reason could there be?” I asked him, fearing that I already knew the true reason in my heart.

“Because they had been lovers,” he said softly. “Potter was scared you might find out that he had had sex with her. He didn’t want to destroy the illusion he had created for you.”

“You lie,” I whispered, but all the while remembering how Eloisa had always seemed to hang around Potter in the town of Wasp Water. I tried to push the memories I had of seeing them together away, but I couldn’t. As if those light bulbs were popping inside my head again, I saw...

...Potter leaning against the custody
block wall. Eloisa towered behind him, her
perfectly shaped legs seeming to go on forever
in a pair of tight-fitting jeans. Her long, blond
hair spilled over her shoulders and down the
front of the black jacket she wore. Her skin
was pale, but this only highlighted her blood-red lips and golden eyes. I couldn’t help but
notice how close she stood beside him, and I
didn’t like it.

“Good to see you back in the world of
the living, sweet-cheeks,” he said, coming
towards me.

When he was close enough, I rolled my
arm back, then punched him straight in the
face.

His head rocked back on his neck, and
the cigarette which had dangled from the
corner of his mouth span away. “What was
that for!” he snapped. “I’ve been trying to
save you!”

Then, gently touching Potter on the
shoulder, Eloisa said in the sickliest sweetest
voice that I’d ever heard, “Sean, I’ll go and
find Jack, you two look as if you need to talk.”

Then she was gone, striding away on those
damn legs of hers.

“Sean!” I hissed. “No one ever calls
you Sean!”

“It’s my name,” he snapped back.

Those memories I had of Potter and Eloisa at the police station flashed brightly inside my head. I closed my eyes, screwing them shut, hoping they would go away. The bulbs of light inside my mind popped and flashed as if blinding me. In them I saw me and Potter standing alone in the police station at Wasp Water...

... “What’s gotten into me?” Potter
scoffed. “If I remember rightly, you smacked
me in the face the moment you laid eyes on
me!”

“Where do you get off on making
decisions for me without even asking?” I
roared.

“What decisions?” he shouted back.

“Deciding that I’m to go off hand in
hand into The Hollows with that killer, while
you go off to rescue Luke with that walking
pair of breasts on legs!” I hissed.

“Breasts on legs?” Potter said, nearly
choking on a throat full of cigarette smoke as
he stifled his laughter. “You mean Eloisa?

You’re jealous and that’s what this is all really
about,” Potter smiled. “You’re pissed because
I’ve been spending time with her.”

“Oh, please,” I groaned, “Why don’t
you take your head from out of your own arse
and...

...In those flashes of light I saw Potter lean in to kiss me, but then at the last moment, before our lips had met, he turned, as if to look at another. Lights flashed inside my mind and...

... Without saying a word, Potter
walked directly towards Eloisa. She smiled at
him and her eyes twinkled. Potter’s face
looked grim and his eyes a dull black. Then, so
quick if I’d blinked I would have missed it,
Potter shot his arm out and thrust his claw into
Eloisa’s chest. It all happened so fast that
Eloisa still had that smile on her face as Potter
ripped out her heart. She looked at him as if to
say something, but all that came out of her
mouth was a thick jet of black blood. Eloisa
fell forward, crashing face first onto the floor
of the hangar...

...I felt my face being slapped. I opened my eyes to see Jack Seth staring at me.

“You remember, don’t you,” he breathed into my face, and I recoiled at the stench of his hot breath. “You are
seeing,
aren’t you? You know what I say is true. Your beloved Potter and Eloisa were lovers.”

“You lie,” I said, feeling sick and faint.

“It’s not true.”

“Did Potter ever tell you what happened at the Wolf House?” he smiled at me.

“The Wolf House?” I asked, feeling numb and confused.

“Of course he didn’t,” Seth said. “Why would he? Because that’s where Eloisa and Potter first met. Where they first had sex together. How happy he must have been when the gorgeous Eloisa walked back into his life. And where were you when that happened? In a fucking zoo – being treated like an animal. Why didn’t Potter come and rescue you like he promised? Because he was too busy fu...”

“Shut your face!” I shouted at him, not wanting to hear any more. If my hands were free I would have covered my ears so as not to hear what he said. Deep inside of me I remembered asking Potter why he hadn’t come to save me from that zoo...

... “Now I can see why you took so
long in coming to find me!” I shouted. “You
were living it up with her!”

“Her?” Potter said, looking now
somewhat bemused. “Eloisa, you mean? She’s
not so bad.”

“Well you’ve definitely changed your
tune,” I spat. “Only a few weeks ago you were
babbling on about how you could barely
forgive a girl for having hairy armpits let
alone a hairy tongue!”

...How had I been so blind? I screamed inside. Seth had been right – I hadn’t
seen
shit. If Seth had been right about that, was he also right about what he had told me about Potter and Sophie?

“You know I’m telling you the truth,” he said. “You feel it in your heart.”

“I don’t have a heart,” I whispered back.

“And neither can Potter for hurting you like this,” Seth said, his voice now sounding as if he actually cared for me. “But still he hurts you and you just don’t see it, Kiera Hudson.”

“What do you mean?” I said, lifting my head to look at him.

“Look,” he said, holding up the iPod for me to see. “Again, you are trapped and in pain, desperate for the help of the man you love. But just like Potter left you in that zoo so he could be with another, he once again betrays you.”

“With who?” I breathed looking at the little flat screen which had been set to face time.

“Take a look,” Jack sighed with a smile.

Kiera

The screen flickered into life. I could see what looked like an empty barn. Whoever was filming the scene was doing so covertly and was hidden. The door to the barn swung open and I saw Potter. Someone followed him inside. The light was poor, and at first I couldn’t see who it was. They were female. I watched in silence as Potter went to a stack of hay, reached up and took two bales of hay which he scattered on the floor to make what looked like some kind of bed.