Kiera Hudson & The Lethal Infected (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

As if being shaken awake from a deep sleep, Potter staggered backwards.

“Was that a scream?” he said.

“It sounded as if it came from the manor,” I said, brushing past him and heading for the summerhouse door.

The rain had eased a little and the clouds had parted to reveal one half of a pale blue moon. With my dress still clinging to me and my hair trailing down my back in rattails, I yanked the awkward shoes from my feet and dashed down the steps leading from the front of the summerhouse. Potter was at my heels and soon overtook me as he ran back into the wood in the direction of Hallowed Manor. Had he been trying to play me? Was everything he had said true? Was there a part of him that remembered me from another time and place? He had definitely acted strange. Was he really in love with me like he claimed or was he hoping I was just dumb and he could have Sophie and keep me on the side lines for fun? But Sophie was going to die. There was no saving her. Where did that leave me and Potter then? Did it leave us free to be together? Did he know there was no way back for Sophie so he was therefore getting ready to replace the hole in his love life with me? Murphy had warned me that Potter liked his eye-candy.

With my shoes hanging from my first, I shot after Potter. Together we burst from the treeline and out onto the moonlit lawn. Hallowed Manor loomed before us. We raced toward it, the sound of screams tearing the quiet of the night in half.

“That’s Sophie,” Potter said, setting off again at speed.

I chased after him. At the top of the steps, Potter hit the front door with his shoulder, throwing it open. Mrs. Payne was making her way down the stairs toward us. Her hair stuck out from the sides of her head, like she had just been woken. She was tightening a grey dressing gown about her. I glanced up to see Uri and Phebe appear at the top of the stairs. They were peering over the top of the banister at me and Potter as we raced into the hallway toward Ravenwood’s study door. Sophie continued to scream from the other side of it. Her screams seemed different than before. They had taken on a new vigour.

Snatching the key from around my neck, I slipped it into the lock, pushing the door open. The candle, which had earlier been alight on the table, had long since burnt out.

“Someone get me some light,” I shouted over my shoulder.

“Here,” Hunt said, as if appearing from nowhere and taking a candle from the table in the hall.

“Thanks,” I muttered, taking it from him. I held the candle up, casting light into the study. 

Barging past me at the door, Potter entered the study, crossing it to where Sophie still lay restrained on the couch. She had drawn her knees up. As I joined Potter beside the couch, I could see in the candlelight that the skin covering her legs was now flaking away in large chunks. Her dying flesh covered the couch and the floor in a grey dust.

“Is she dying?” I heard someone ask.

I turned around to see Murphy standing in the open doorway. Ravenwood and the others were gathered behind him.

“I think so,” I said to Murphy heading back to the door.

“I knew no good would come of it,” Murphy grunted, standing at the door in just boxer shorts and slippers. “I never have agreed with turning humans.”

“I think we should leave Potter and Sophie to have some time alone,” I whispered.

“The others can go, but I’d like you to stay, Kiera,” I heard Potter say from the other side of the room.

“If you need anything just let me know,” Murphy said, turning his broad back to me.

I watched the others turn away from the door and head back through the darkness to the foot of the stairs. Which one of them had poisoned Sophie? I wondered, as I closed the door. From the other side of it, I heard the sudden boom of Murphy’s voice.

“No, Mrs. Payne!” he roared. “How many ways have I got to tell you? Now fuck off back to bed and leave me alone!”

Turning my back on the door, I slowly crossed the room to where Potter knelt on the floor next to the couch. Sophie screamed again, her eyes wide, cracks appearing in the flesh all around them. It fell away like grey dried-up tears. Deep grooves had appeared around her mouth and down her neck.

“Shhh,” Potter soothed, gently brushing her now brittle-looking hair from her brow.

Sophie made a retching noise in the back of her throat, as if drowning on a mouthful of chalk. She rolled back her flaky lips to reveal a set of black gums. The fangs jutting from them looked like ancient pieces of ivory.

“I’m so sorry,” Potter whispered, looking down at her.

She jerked her arms up and down as if suffering a sudden seizure. The handcuffs rattled against the lead piping Murphy had attached them to. Chunks of her dead flesh fell away from her wrists. I couldn’t help but remember how Jack had once had me handcuffed to a chair in that upstairs room at my father’s house. I had been dying too as I sat and slowly turned to stone. I looked away, I didn’t want to be reminded of that day – of how Jack had made me sit and watch my father bleed to death. I didn’t want to remember Jack like that. He had changed. As I turned away from the couch, I saw the curtain hanging at the study window flutter. Was there someone hiding behind it? The curtain twitched again. Slowly, I made my way toward it, candle held out before me to cast light into the shadows that saturated the corner of the room.

Taking a deep breath and reaching out with my free hand, I yanked back the curtain. There was no one hiding behind it. But there was something. Stepping closer, I inspected the window and the frame. I could see now what had caused the curtain to move. Part of the window frame had been broken, as if someone had tried to break into the study from the outside. Turning, I headed back across the study to the door.

“Where are you going?” Potter asked over the sound of Sophie choking on dust again.

“I think I know why Sophie started to scream all over again,” I said, glancing back as I pulled open the door.

“Because she’s dying, of course,” Potter said.

“I think someone has tried to break into this room to make sure of that,” I said. “The window frame has been broken away just above the lock.”

Potter glanced toward the window, then back at me. “Let’s go and take a look,” he snapped, shooting to his feet.

I handed Potter the candle. “No, you stay here with Sophie. She needs you. Besides, whoever tried to break in might come back and try and finish what he or she has started,” I said, slipping out into the hallway. I closed the door behind me. The hall was now deserted again, the others all returned back to their rooms. Or had they? One of them had snuck out and tried to break into the study. As quietly as I could I heaved open the huge front door and crept down the front steps. The rain had stopped now, and the lawn glistened like a carpet of diamonds in the moonlight. 

Turning to my right, my bare feet crunching over wet gravel, I made my way to the study window. I stepped carefully, crouched low to the ground, looking for any clues the killer might have left behind. There was a small flowerbed beneath the study window, but none of the flowers were bent over or had been crushed underfoot. Standing straight, and on tiptoe, I leant toward the window. I ran my fingers delicately over the window frame. The wood was smooth, the paintwork unchipped or damaged. But as my fingers neared the part of the frame adjacent to the lock fixed to the inside of the window, the wood became uneven and splintered. With my nose just an inch from the windowpane, I could see scratches and claw marks where someone had tried to break away the frame and reach inside to unfasten the lock. I guessed that the attempted break-in had disturbed Sophie and caused her to scream out. As I had the only key to the study, the window was the only other way for the killer to gain entry to the room. But why risk breaking in and being caught when Sophie would more than likely be dead by the morning? Couldn’t the killer have waited until then?

Stepping away from the window, I looked again for any signs of footprints. But would there be any, when the killer had a set of wings? I might not yet know the identity of the person who had poisoned Sophie, but I knew enough to know that he or she had wings just like me. Standing on the gravel drive, I looked up at the bedroom windows. Which one had the killer flown from, down to the study window, hovering just above the flowerbed so as not to leave any footprints, then on being disturbed, simply flown back to the safety of their room? All the windows were closed now and in darkness. Slowly, I turned and made my way back inside Hallowed Manor where I knew the killer waited for another chance to kill Sophie. 

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Did you find anything?” Potter asked as I entered the study, closing the door tight behind me.

I shook my head. “Only some claw marks, which only proved what I first thought, that someone has tried to break in here tonight and finish what they had started.”

“But why?” Potter said, aggravated by this new development. “She’ll be dead by morning.”

I stepped closer toward the couch. Sophie writhed, twisting like a snake in agony. Her eyes were open, but they were rolled back in her skull and I could only see the bloodshot whites.

“When I catch the evil fucker who did this, I’m going to rip their fucking heart out,” he said.

“Even if it’s Murphy?” I said, shooting him a look.

“Murphy wouldn’t have done something like this,” he barked in disbelief.

“All I’m trying to say is that we know someone here tonight wants Sophie dead, we just don’t know who or why,” I said. “But when we do catch whoever poisoned Sophie, don’t you think we should at least find out why before you go tearing them to shreds? After all, the killer is someone close to you. Someone you trust. One of The Creeping Men.”

“He won’t be doing any more creeping about when I catch him,”
Potter grumbled. “I’ll break the fucker’s legs, then tear his heart out.”

“Who says the killer is a
he
?” I said.

“You just said you thought it was Murphy.”

“I said, whoever the killer might be – it’s someone who you believe to be a friend and they must have a good reason for doing this,” I corrected him. “Don’t you want to find out what the reason might be?”

“What possible reason could there be for wanting to kill Sophie?” Potter grunted, taking a cigarette from a crumpled pack he’d pulled from his jacket pocket.

I glanced down back at Sophie. I knew the pain she was going through – the agony of turning into stone and the relief that Lot 13 used to bring when the cracks got bad.

“Lot 13,” I whispered to myself.

“What did you say?” Potter asked, kneeling down beside Sophie’s listless and tormented body again.

I didn’t answer him. All I could think about was that bottle of Lot 13 that had been left for me in my room back at the Crescent Moon Inn and the sudden realisation that I had it in my power to save Sophie’s life if I wanted to. Is that why the bottle of Lot 13 had been left for me? Was this some kind of test? Had it been left for me to prove that I could be true to the plan I had put in place? It had been me who had chosen for my friends to get
pushed
again without me. It hadn’t been their decision. It was a decision I had made alone. A decision that I had to live with, however much I now regretted it. Just like Potter had said, didn’t we have to live by the mistakes we made? But what if I didn’t have to? What if we could somehow change the mistakes that we had made? If Sophie died tonight then that would leave Potter free. He had said that it was me he loved. Perhaps Sophie is meant to die? Maybe it was meant to be, however cruel. Maybe the layers were trying to shift back into place again like they had before. Murphy had once said that the layers were like sheets of tracing paper that had been
pushed
so the image beneath was slightly out of kilter. Should I really stop those sheets of tracing paper from realigning? Who was I to stop that from happening if it was meant to be? I’d already changed too much. Perhaps Sophie’s death was meant to happen in this
where
and
when
so Potter and I could be together again like we had once been. I’d
pushed
Potter back, believing he would be happy – but he wasn’t. He’d told me that. Who was I to stop Sophie from dying if it was meant to be? Who was I to stop that from happening? Who was I? I was Kiera Hudson. And I knew in my heart that I couldn’t stand back and watch someone die if I could save them. Even if that person was standing in the way of my own happiness – standing between me and the man I was in love with.

“I’ve got to go,” I whispered.

“Go where?” Potter asked. “Please stay. I don’t think Sophie has long before she…”

“If I’m quick, I can save her,” I said, looking at him.

“Save Sophie? How?” Potter asked, jumping to his feet and grabbing my arm.

“I have to go now,” I said, pulling myself free. “Stay with Sophie, Potter. Don’t leave her side.” Then, leaning forward, I kissed him softly on the lips. “I hope what I’m about to do makes you happy.”

“What does that mean?” Potter called after me, but I was already out of the door.  

Outside, I raced down the drive, leaping into the air and letting my wings spring from my back. I sped up into the night, the sky releasing a thunderous boom in my wake as I raced back toward the Ragged Cove.

With my wings rippling on either side of me, I dropped out of the night, landing with a thump in the car park outside the Crescent Moon Inn. I wasted no time in racing toward the front door. No sooner had my wings disappeared beneath my pale flesh, I was pushing open the door and racing across the dining area and up the stairs to my room.

The bottle of Lot 13 was still on the desk where I’d left it. I picked it up. The red stuff sloshed up the side of the bottle. Why had it been left and by whom? Perhaps it had been given to me for some future event that I knew nothing of yet? Perhaps I would need it to save my own life. I really couldn’t be sure of anything other than a young woman lay dying and I could save her if I chose to. It was my choice.

Placing the bottle to one side again, I pulled off the pretty dress and threw it onto the bed. I plucked up my jeans and pulled them over my legs, then slid my feet into my well-worn boots. Throwing on a sweater then my long, black coat, I stood and looked at the dress I had bought to wear for my birthday. Snatching it up and screaming, I tore the dress to pieces with my claws.

Leaving the dress in a pile of tatty ribbons behind me, I snatched up the bottle of Lot 13 and left my room.