Moonlight (20 page)

“That’s not true,” he whispered. “I admit that when I first asked you to come here I was only thinking o
f myself and own survival. N
ow I feel differently. You’ve made me feel different.”

“And do you really think I’m stupid enough to believe that crap?” she snapped back at him.

“But that’s the point I’m trying to make,” Thaddeus said, his voice still low, still soft. “You’re not stupid. You showed me that living locked away in my room isn’t the answer. You showed me I can have a new start – you’ve made me believe that, Winnie.”

Looking straight back at him, she said, “And the only way you’ve made me feel, is scared.”

“I didn’t mean to
.”

“You’ve put me in danger,” she said, tears starting to burn in the corners of her eyes. “You are no better than those men who wanted to use me on the streets.

“No, listen to me,” Thaddeus begged her. “You were never in any danger.
Never.
Nate wouldn’t hurt you. That’s the last thing he would do.”

“You mean, he would never hurt Frances,” she said, a thin line of tears rolling silently down her face. “But I’m not Frances, and he knows that now.”

A heavy silence fell over them, which was only broken by the sound of fingernails tapping against the window.

“They’re back!”
Winnie hissed, springing away from the door. She looked at Thaddeus, and his yellow eyes blazed as he instinctively raised his claws. A low snarling sound came from deep within the back of his throat, making him sound like a wolf waiting to strike.

“
Lycanthrope
!” someone suddenly screeched, and Winnie recognised it to be Nate’s voice that she could hear. “Come out
,
W
olf’s
- H
ead. Come out and let us settle the agreement you have broken.”

Thaddeus said nothing. He stood back, stooped slightly forward, legs bent at the knees, and snarled. Winnie saw his lips roll back, and his long
,
pointed teeth glistened. Even though Thaddeus was with her, she felt just as petrified as she had been the night before at the sou
nd of the vampires
outside in the moonlight.

“Come out!” Nate roared, and the front door bowed inwards under the weight of him crashing against it.

Thaddeus saw Winnie flinch backwards and throw her hands to her face in fear. “Don’t worry
;
you’re quite safe in here. They’re vampires.”

“That’s what scares me,” she whispered back at him, eyes wide.

“They can’t come in unless we invite them,” he snarled back at the door.

As if hearing what he had said, Michelle cooed from beyond the lounge window and said, “You can’t hide in there forever, wolf.”

Winnie glanced at Thaddeus as Michelle slowly began to drag her long fingernails down the length of the windowpane again. Howling, Thaddeus covered his ears with his claws. Then sinking to his knees, he howled again, his booming cries seeming to make the very foundations of the house shudder. It was as if the sound of Michelle’s fingernails being dragged down the windowpane was agonising for him. Hearing his howls of pain, the vampires became excited. Again
,
Winnie could hear the sound of them scampering up the walls and over the roof. The front door shook in its frame, as all of them began to screech,
“Come out! Come out! Come out!”   

   Using the banister, Thaddeus pulled himself to his feet. Then taking Winnie by the shoulders, he looked into her eyes and said, “You are never going to be free of them unless I’m dead.”

“But they’re vampires
,
right?” Winnie said back, her mind scrambling. She didn’t know much about the whole vampire thing, but she had once seen a film called
Near Dark
with some of the older kids at one of the many care homes she had been passed around. She hadn’t seen much from behind the pillow
she’d been hiding behind. W
innie saw enough to know that vampires didn’t like sunlight. “They’ll go away in the morning
,
won’t they? We can escape the
n
.”

“If I don’t die now, we will both be dead by the morning,” he barked at her.

“But how, if they can’t come in unless we invite them?” she said. Then, as if in answer to
her
own
question, Winnie suddenly caught the
smell of burning. She turned to look at Thaddeus and said, “They’re going to burn the house down
,
aren’t they?”

Pulling her close so their faces were just an inch apart, he stared at her and snarled
,
“You’ve got to kill me.”

“I’m not killing you,” she snapped, pulling away.

“Listen to me!” he barked, pulling her close again. “It’s the only way you’re going to survive this.  If you kill me, then they will see you had no feelings for me
–
that you played
no part in Frances
’s
death...”

“But I didn’t,” Winnie cut in.

“But they don’t know that,” he said. “But if you kill me...”

“If you want to die, why
don’t you
just let them in,” Winnie cut in again.

“If I die from a vampire bite, I burn in
H
ell for eternity,” he said, his yellow eyes seething. “But if you kill me, I pass over peacefully, and there may be a chance I could be with Frances again.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” she breathed. “You’ll have to kill yourself.”

“Werewolves can’t kill themselves,” he said. “
It’s
part of the curse we have to live with.” Thaddeus then grabbed her hand, and raced into the lounge.

He went to the fireplace, where he removed one of the large granite stones away, revealing a deep hole. He reached inside with one of his claws. The smell of burning was stronger now. Winnie looked back over
her shoulder and could see wisps of black smoke filling the hall, the glow of flames reflecting in the lounge windows.

She looked back at Thaddeus
,
who was now standing before her with a pistol in his claws.

“What the...” Winnie stared, but before she’d had a chance to finish, Thaddeus had shoved the gun into her hands.

“You must shoot me,” he snarled at her. Then, leaping over to the windows, he threw the curtains back and barked, “And they must see you do it if you are going to live.”

The gun felt heavy in Winnie’s trembling hands. She looked at Thaddeus as he kneeled before her. There was a sound at the windows, and Winnie glanced up to see the three vampires leering excitedly through at them,
looking
different than they had the night before. Whereas then she had thought they had all looked quite beautiful, now they looked hideous, and she recoiled backwards. With their faces pressed against the windowpane, Winnie thought at first that they had put on
those creepy clown masks. I
n the moonlight and the glow of red and orange flames that now licked the side of the house, she realised that it was
,
in fact
,
their own faces she could see. She stared in horror at their eyes
,
which now looked as if they h
ad sunken into black pits. T
heir mouths
were huge and red. They spread right across their faces, from ear to ear
,
like a jagged gash.  Behind the wide smiles were swollen
,
black
gums and rows of jagged yellow teeth.

Snapping Winnie out of her petrified trance, Thaddeus gripped her wrists and pointed the gun at his own head.

“Shoot me!”
he screamed.

“I can’t!”
Winnie shouted back.

Then, staring up at her, Thaddeus said, “See those faces out there with those giant mouths? Well
,
if you don’t kill me
–
if they believe you are a part of all of this
–
they will rip you to pieces with those mouths. They will suck the flesh from your body. They will rip your heart out and share it between them.”

Even though Thaddeus had hold of her wrists, her hands shook so much, the end of the barrel kept sliding across his forehead where he had placed it. “Why didn’t you get Frances to kill you?” Winnie whispered, her lips trembling. “If you loved each other so much, why didn’t she kill you so you could be together?”

Then opening his eyes, Thaddeus stared up into hers and said, “I can’t be killed by someone who loves me.”

Winnie looked back over her shoulder and could see the hallway was now a wall of thick
,
dense
,
black smoke. It smelt acrid and was choking. She glanced at the window where the vampires
,
with their hideous faces
,
stared excitedly in at her. She could hear the sound of the eaves above her snapping and hissing as flames took hold of them. She looked down at Thaddeus.

“I’m sorry for making you a part of this,” he whispered, then closed his eyes. “Shoot me.”

With tears streaming from her eyes, Winnie closed them and placed her finger on the trigger.

“I’m not going to kill you,” she whispered down at Thaddeus, and pulled her hands free of the gun.

“You must...” Thaddeus started.

But Winnie had turned and fled, disappearing into the bank of black smoke that filled the hallway and was now wafting up the stairs. With her hand over her mouth and nose, Winnie raced through the hall. The air felt burning hot as it touched her face, hair, and hands. Coughing and choking, she made her way into the kitchen. Orange flames danced up the walls and across the ceiling. Peering through her fingers, Winnie tried to see through the intoxicating smoke and flames. Crouched low, she stumbled across the kitchen, striking the corner of the table with her thigh. She cried out in pain, sucking in a throat full of black air. The smoke hit the back of her throat, and it felt scorching hot. Winnie tried to cough the smoke up out of her lungs, tears streaming from her eyes, and drool hanging from her mouth and nose. She dropped to her hands and knees, and feeling as if she were going lose consciousness, she crawled across the kitchen floor. On the other side of the room, she reached up and gripped the edge of the sink. She pulled herself up, and trying desperately not to breathe in, she climbed onto the counter. Through the window she had cleaned, she could see the fields stretching away at the back of the house towards the sea.

With the window seeming to soar before her burning eyes, she hoisted it open. Sucking in a mouthful of cold night air like a drowning fish, she forced her way through the open window. Winnie hung upside down momentarily, her jeans snagging on the window lock. Crying out, she wriggled her leg left and r
ight, desperate to free
herself
before the smoke and fire took her, or the vampires realised that she was making her escape. 

At the front of the house, Michelle heard Winnie cry out. With her long blue hair fanning out behind her
,
and her jagged teeth gleaming in the light from the flames, she raced towards the back of the house. Nate stared through the window at Thaddeus
,
who still kne
lt on the floor. He wasn’t interested in the girl,
the
Frances imposter
;
Claude and Michelle could fuck with her. Nate wanted Thaddeus. The hatred he felt inside for the wolf burnt as greedily and as hot as the flames which now clawed their way up the front of the house.  He would avenge Frances’
s
death. He owed it to her, to Nicodemus, but more importantly
,
to himself.

No one could have known the torment he had lived through for the
last three
hundred years. Each day and night, every second had been consumed with the thought of his beloved Frances sharing her bed, her life, her soul, with a
Lycanthrope
. Had an
yone known the pain he had felt
as he watched Frances from afar
,
once a year
,
as she stood alone for him in the moonlight
?
Did they know that the anguish he felt at being forbidden to talk to her, to hold her? It had driven him half
-
ma
d with jealously and rage. However, i
t was more than that
–
it was the fear he
felt in his heart for her. He knew that Thaddeus would one day kill her. Nate knew in his heart that Thaddeus was only keeping her alive to torture him. How could any man live a happy life
,
knowing that the person they loved, the person they would give their life for, was with another?

As Nate stood amongst the smoke and flames and stared in at Thaddeus on his knees, he remembered the terrible nights he watched Frances in the moonlight, knowing that she would soon be returning to the
Lycanthrope
’s bed
,
where it would make love to her. Nate would sit with his head in his hands as he pictured the wolf’s claws caressing her beautiful body. He could hear Frances crying out with pleasure. Some nights
,
Nate hated Frances as much as the wolf. How could she have fallen in love with him? But the wolf had tricked her, bewitched her. Nate had heard that some
Lycanthrope
could do that. So his hatred for Frances would melt away, and only grow stronger for the wolf. It had become like a poison inside of him, which seethed through his veins and blackened his heart. Tonight, at last, Nate would unleash that fury eating away inside of him, and kill the wolf. At last he would be able to take the wolf’s head back to his home, hidden deep within the Carpathian Mountains
,
and ha
nd it to Nicodemus
. The last of the
Lycanthrope
would be dead. Their species snuffed out of existence, like a candle flame.