Dead Flesh (17 page)

“I just thought
you could send someone down to the store to check…” I started

“Listen here,
smartarse, you’ve got a badge…fucking use it!” and he hung up the
phone.

“Who was that?”
Potter groaned from beneath the blankets. Then, snaking one arm
around my waist, he tried to drag me back under the covers with
him.

“Banner,” I
said, taking his arm from around me. “The copper I spoke with at
the police station yesterday. The one who couldn’t give a shit
about what’s happening at Ravenwood.”

“What did he
want?” Potter asked, poking his head from beneath the blankets.

“He reckons
Emily Clarke is alive and well and buying chocolate in the local
Seven-Eleven,” I told him, throwing on my dressing gown and heading
for the door.

“How does he
know that?” Potter mumbled, still half asleep but already reaching
for his cigarettes and lighter.

“He doesn’t
know for sure,” I said looking back at him. “But he’s too lazy to
go and check it out.”

“Do you want to
check it out?” Potter asked, peering at me bleary-eyed through a
haze of blue smoke.

“Straight
away,” I said, heading out of the room and across the landing to
the bathroom.

I shut the door
and ran a shower. As the water warmed, I dropped my dressing gown
and stood naked in front of the mirror. I didn’t want to release my
claws, fangs, or wings, but I had to know. With my wings fluttering
behind me, and those little black claws rolled into three-fingered
fists, I stared at my reflection. I felt sick as the cracks
appeared around my eyes and the corners of my lips. They spread
like wild ivory down my neck, over my shoulder, and across my
breasts. They covered my stomach, my hips, and the length of my
legs down to my toes. I looked like an ancient statue, like the one
outside the summerhouse back at the manor. As I stepped closer to
the mirror, I felt a slight relief to see that the cracks weren’t
as deep and ragged as they had been. The blood I had sucked from
Potter’s neck had worked in filling the cracks for a while, but now
the effects were fast wearing off.

Then, from
behind me, I heard a noise and gasping out loud, I spun around.
Potter was standing naked in the bathroom with his back to the
door. Without saying anything, he came towards me. He held his
wrist up to my mouth. I looked down and could see the green and
blue veins beneath his skin.

“I can’t,” I
whispered, tears beginning to stand in my eyes. “I feel like some
kind of drug addict.”

“Stop thinking
of it like that, Kiera,” Potter said gently, holding out his arm.
“Are the living addicts because they need air to survive?”

“But they’re
not hurting anyone by breathing in air,” I said, looking into his
black eyes.

“And neither
are you,” he said back. “You can’t hurt me, Kiera, I’m already
dead, remember?”

“But you might
not always be here,” I said. “What happens then? I might have to
hurt someone to survive.”

“Kiera, I’m
never going to leave you,” he whispered, brushing his wrist against
my lower lip, and the smell of blood was almost intoxicating. It
made me feel as if I was losing control – losing my mind. He looked
into my eyes and said, “Kiera, the cracks are back and they will
only get worse. Then what? They become so bad that you crumble into
a pile of dust. What happens to me? I wouldn’t want to spend the
rest of eternity here without you. I couldn’t do that. I know
taking my blood isn’t perfect, but until we figure this whole thing
out, it’s the best that we can do.”

“And what if we
don’t figure it out?” I whispered, the smell of his blood driving
me half-crazy.

“Tiger, you
have the knack of figuring everything out,” he half-smiled. “You’re
Kiera Hudson.”

Then, unable to
fight the urge anymore, I lunged forward, sinking my fangs into the
fleshy part of his wrist. His blood exploded into my mouth and I
gulped it down. It felt hot as it splashed over my tongue and down
the back of my throat. I heard Potter making a hissing sound, as if
in some small way he was in pain. But even though I knew that, I
just couldn’t stop until I was full.

With my head
feeling dizzy and light, I loosened my jaws around Potter’s wrist
and withdrew my fangs. He gripped his arm with his free hand and
held it high above his head to slow the flow of blood that oozed
between his fingers.

“Did it hurt?”
I asked, wiping his blood from my lips with my fingertips.

“I’d be lying
if I said it didn’t sting a bit.”

“You didn’t say
it hurt last time,” I said, feeling a little guilty.

Then looking at
me, Potter smiled and said, “Sweetcheeks, the last time you did
that to me, we were making love and I was so turned on, you
could’ve ripped my freaking head off and I wouldn’t have felt a
thing.”

“It didn’t hurt
me, either,” I winked back at him.

Potter glanced
at the shower then back at me. “Fancy having your back washed?” he
asked me.

Then, pushing
him gently in the chest and guiding him back to the bathroom door,
I smiled and said, “I’d rather have a coffee.”

I closed the
door and stood alone, those little black claws opening and closing
at the tips of my wings.

Although what
Banner had told me wasn’t conclusive proof that Emily Clarke was
still alive somewhere, it did raise my hopes that she was perhaps
safe and well. Perhaps she had rented a room? But what I couldn’t
understand was why she hadn’t contacted her sister, Elizabeth.

With these
thoughts clawing away at me, I took my shower and got dressed.
Potter had made me a coffee and he sat at the kitchen table
smoking. I took my iPod and checked it for any messages from Kayla.
There weren’t any. Should I be worried? Not yet, perhaps. It was
just short of ten o’clock, so maybe she had been in class all
morning? Did these ‘Greys,’ as Kayla described them, even bother to
teach the kids at Ravenwood?

Isidor came
into the kitchen and waved away the smoke that lingered like a
cloud above Potter and the kitchen table. “What’s the plan?” he
asked me.

“I’ve got a
lead I want to follow up in town,” I explained. “I thought Potter
and I would go and check it out.”

“Okay,” Isidor
shrugged. “What do you want me to do?”

“Use the laptop
to Toogle for any information on Ravenwood School.” I said. “Find
out its history. We all used to know Doctor Thaddeus Ravenwood and
he was a friend of your father’s. See if you can’t find a
connection between Ravenwood and this school.”

“Do you think
it might be connected to my father in some way?” he asked me.

“I don’t know
what to think,” I told him honestly. “But have a look and see what
you can dig up on McCain.”

“No worries,”
Isidor said, booting up the laptop.

“And if you
come across any pictures of werewolves wearing sparkling gloves,
try not to get too excited,” Potter said, getting up from the table
and heading for the door.

“You’re so
funny,” Isidor sighed.

“I know,”
Potter smiled without looking back. “It’s one of my many
charms.”

I crossed the
kitchen, and pecking Isidor on the cheek, I said, “Keep safe.”

“Why, are you
expecting trouble?” he asked, cocking the eyebrow with the
piercing.

“That copper,
Banner knows that we’re staying here,” I explained. “I’m not sure
that I can entirely trust him.”

“Don’t worry
about me,” Isidor said, suddenly brandishing his claws and fangs.
“I know Potter thinks I wander around with my head up my own arse,
but I can look after myself.”

“Want to know a
secret?” I whispered.

“What?” he
whispered back, his fangs and claws disappearing.

“Potter was cut
up real bad when you were murdered back in The Hollows,” I told
him, leaving the room.

Kayla

“I’ve never
seen anything like that before,” Sam whispered as the Greys led us
back through the maze of winding corridors to our rooms.

“Like what?” I
whispered back, checking out the burns on the palms of my
hands.

“The way you
stood there and got zapped without even making a sound. I mean, you
took some pain there!” Sam said, heading up one of the narrow,
winding staircases.

I tried to hide
my hands from him, but I knew he could see the inflamed skin and
the liquid-fat, which had started to congeal and harden between my
fingers.

“Doesn’t it
hurt?” he asked, wincing just at the sight of them.

“Not really, I
can’t feel anything,” I told him.

“Are you
crazy?” Sam said, as the Greys led us higher up into the gloom of
one of the school’s many turrets. I couldn’t help but wonder about
McCain and wanted to question Sam about him, but he wouldn’t stop
going on about my hands.

“Crazy - how?”
I asked.

“This whole
thing is
crazy
!” Sam said.

“Oh,” I
replied, starting to pick away at some of the scabs that had
already started to form on my hands.

“Is that all
you’ve got to say?” Sam whispered, keeping one eye on the Greys who
walked only a few feet ahead of us. “We’re living in a prison run
by a bunch of freaky-looking hoodies, there’s search towers and
sirens, a sadist for a headmaster, and I’ve just witnessed the new
girl get her hands fried without so much as a whimper and all you
can say is ‘OH’!”

I lowered my
hands and looking at Sam, I said, “What do you want me say? I
thought you were the one who said I’d get used to being at
Ravenwood.”

“Look, Kayla,”
Sam said, “I was ball-crapping ya, okay? You ain’t ever gonna get
used to this place – you just kinda look away – pretend it’s not
happening – it’s all just a bad dream. But what I saw today wasn’t
no bad dream. I was wide awake and I had that Grey prodding me in
the back with that sizzle-stick just to remind me.”

“To be honest,
I’m not too bothered about my hands,” I said. “Okay, so I didn’t
feel anything – maybe I was in shock or something. I don’t know.
But what does bother me is how McCain...” But before I’d a chance
to say anything more, one of the Greys stopped outside my bedroom
door and was shoving me inside.

“I’ll catch you
later, Kayla,” I heard Sam shout as he was thrown into his room
next to mine. The Grey slammed my door shut with such force that it
rattled in its ancient frame.

I pressed the
side of my head against the door and listened to the sound of the
Greys’ robes whispering over the stone floor as they made their way
down the corridor. When I was happy that they had gone, I went to
my bag, which I had stuffed beneath the rickety-looking excuse of a
wardrobe that lent against my bedroom wall.

I took out the
iPod and hurriedly typed a message to Kiera.
Met
McCain for the first time this morning,
I wrote. I wanted to
tell her about how he had Tasered me, but I decided against it. I
didn’t want to see Potter smashing down the school walls – not just
yet, anyhow. I needed to find out more about Ravenwood before that
happened.
I’ve made a friend called Sam
, I
wrote.
Seems okay – pretty hot as it goes! I’m
going to try and get him to tell me more about Ravenwood and what’s
going on here. I will update you later. Kayla X

I kept hold of
the iPod just in case Kiera got right back to me. But before I’d
the chance to find out, I heard someone outside my door. I threw
the iPod back into my bag and kicked it back beneath my wardrobe.
My bedroom door opened a gap, just big enough for Sam to creep
inside.

“I’ve got to
get outta here!” he said.

“What do you
mean?” I asked. “Escape?”

Shaking his
head, Sam said, “Not escape, I’ve got nowhere to go. I mean just
get out of Ravenwood for a few hours.”

“What, right
out of the school grounds?”

“Yeah, why
not?” Sam said.

“I can think of
one good reason,” I told him.

“What’s
that?”

“This place is
like a fortress! I’ve only been here five minutes and even I can
see that. Besides, even if we did get past the Greys, the
searchlights, and all that razor wire, where would we go? What
would we do?”

“I dunno –
anything!” Sam said. “I’ve been shut up in this place for months
now and I know it’s not going to be too long before I’m matched
with a wolf and then things will never be the same for me
again.”

“How does the
whole matching thing work?” I asked, sitting on the edge of my bed
and watching him cross my room to the window.

“You mean you
don’t know?” he asked, sounding shocked.

“No, not
really,” I said shaking my head.

“Where have you
been your whole life?”

Not wanting him
to grow suspicious of me because of my lack of knowledge of how the
world now worked since being pushed, I said, “I mean how does it
work here?”

“Every Friday
night, McCain holds the matching ceremony in the chapel at the back
of the school,” Sam started to explain, silhouetted by the milky
winter light which poured in through the window behind him. “McCain
watches us – studies us – as he looks for suitable students to be
matched with the juvenile wolves who arrive each Friday evening. As
far as I understand it, each of us are chosen carefully to make the
right match. It has more to do with our personalities than how we
look.”

“How come?” I
asked him, needing to know as much as possible about how this whole
matching thing worked.

“Just like us,
I guess each wolf is different,” Sam said. “Each one has a
different personality. If they’re gonna spend the rest of their
lives looking like a human, it makes sense, I s’pose, that they
feel comfortable in that skin. From what I can figure out, the
wolves are looking for teenagers who will succumb to the wolf that
takes them other. I’ve heard that if the human host is quietly
strong – rebellious by nature - then it’s harder for the wolf to
take over their soul and take complete control.”