Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series Two#7) (3 page)

Then as if in answer to my own questions, Jack said to Nik, “I won’t let you take Potter’s place beneath the guillotine.”

“There isn’t any other way,” Nik said as I watched them. “Luke has to believe – the world has to believe – that both you and Potter are dead. If they think you have simply escaped, they will come looking for you – they will hunt you down.”

To look at them was like having some kind of out-of-body experience as I watched myself deep in conversation with Jack Seth.

“Nik is right,” Lilly said, looking up into Jack’s wizened face. “If Luke believes you are both dead, it will give us the breathing space we need to try and unmask this photographer.”

“You don’t know who it is?” Jack glanced at her.

“No,” she said with a shake of her thick head of white hair.

Jack looked at the both of them and said, “I won’t let my younger brother pay the price for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“But you did the same for me, before the world got pushed,” Nik reminded him. “You let Potter and the others believe it was you who murdered all of those young women, but it was me. You went on trial before the Elders to protect me.”

“I was given twelve life sentences, not the death sentence,” Jack reminded him.

“For a wolf to be imprisoned deep within The Hollows amongst those Vampyrus is worse than death, and you know it,” Nik said, looking and sounding exactly like me.

“But there was always a chance of escape,” Jack said.

“I’ve escaped death once before, Jack,” Nik said. “Perhaps I can do it again.”

“Then let Potter take that chance,” Jack said, as if I were no longer present in the cell. Then looking at Lilly, Jack added, “Is there an escape for my brother if he does this? You understand the
wheres
and
whens
better than anyone.”

“There is no coming back – not to this when,” Lilly said, shaking her head.
“Maybe not to any
when,
not ever again.”

“Did you hear what she said?” Jack said, turning on his younger brother. “I won’t let you take Potter’s place.”

“I don’t need anyone to stand in for me,” I said, hooking a piece of red thread from between my teeth with my little finger. “I ain’t no coward.”

“It’s not about who has the biggest set of balls,” Lilly said, glaring at me. “It’s who serves more purpose here – in this when.”

“Well if you speak to most of the people who know me, they’d tell you I served no fucking purpose at all, so I guess it’s me who should go to the guillotine,” I said, keeping one eye on my lookalike.

“I want to do this,” Nik said, looking back at his brother.

“But why?”
Jack demanded. “You’re my brother.”

“And Kiera is our sister,” Nik reminded him. “We’ve already had two lifetimes together, it’s time you shared one with Kiera.”

“What makes you so sure that I want to?” Jack growled at him.

“Because you haven’t led her to Luke Bishop like you were meant to,” Nik said. “Jack, apart from me, you’ve never helped anyone in your life. She must mean something to you as you’re facing the guillotine because of her.”

Jack lowered his head, then said without looking at his brother, “I can’t choose between my brother and sister.”

“Nobody is asking you to choose,” Nik said. “It’s my choice. I want to do this for you and Kiera, Jack. I was lucky enough to have spent time with Kiera in that zoo, and I wish I had known then that she was my sister. But you know what? In a way I’m glad I didn’t know back in that world. If I’d known, I might only have helped her because of that fact. But in my heart I know I helped Kiera because she was worth helping – she was worth saving, Jack. And she’s worth saving now. But this time
, it’s your chance to save her.”

I watched silently as Jack raised his head and looked at his brother.  Even though Nik now looked identical to me, Jack slowly drew one bony thumb down the side of his brother’s face.

“Thank you, Nikolaou,” Jack whispered.

Feeling as if I should say something too, after all, the wolf was saving my arse, I said, “Yeah, thanks Niko-whatever-your-name-is.”

“I’m not doing it for you,” Nik barked back at me.

“Sure,” I said, biting my tongue so I wouldn’t make some cocky comeback.

From deep within the cellblock, the silence was suddenly broken by the rattle of keys.

“They’re coming for you,” Nik said, pushing his brother towards the open cell door. “Go!”

Lilly crossed the cell, came up behind me, and swiped away the chains which bound me. They clattered to the floor. “We’ve got to get moving,” she breathed in my ear.

I headed towards the cell door,
then looked back. “No offence or anything, and I don’t want to piss all over your plan,” I said, “but I get the whole creepy lookalike thing with me, the wolves are gonna think they are executing me when really it is you, but what about Jack? Aren’t they gonna wonder where he’s disappeared to?”

Without saying anything, Nik bent down and covered his hands and forearms in the flesh and fur that he had cast aside when removing his wolf skin. With his hands and arms bright red with flesh and blood, he
smeared some across his chin. Then, standing and looking at me, he said, “Knowing that death was near, and unable to control your hatred for the wolves, you killed and then ate your cellmate, Jack Seth, as your last supper.”

“Nice,” I said, furrowing my brow. “You sure got it all figured out.”

“There is nothing more cunning than a wolf,” Nik said, staring back at me.

“That’s for sure,” I said, turning my back on him and leaving the cell.

Jack

I waited for Lilly and Potter to leave the cell. The sound of approaching cops was ringing louder in my ears with every passing moment. Still I stopped at the door and looked at my brother. He sat on the bed, looking identical to the man I’d spent most of my adult life hating and wanting to kill. But under that skin, I knew it was Nik who sat there waiting to take my enemy’s place beneath the guillotine. He looked up at me and stared through Potter’s dead black eyes.

“You don’t have to do this,” I told him, swallowing the lump that had suddenly appeared in my throat.

“Yes, I do,” he said, sounding just like that dick Potter.

“But…”

“Jack, they’re coming, and if they catch you here then we will all die and all of this would’ve been for nothing,” he said.

I looked down at the torn pieces of flesh and fur that covered the cell floor, knowing that Luke and his merry band of Skin-walkers would believe it to be me – killed by Potter – my brother – before being taken to his death. The sound of heavy footfalls grew closer still, the
thud-thud-thud
of them echoing off the stone corridor walls of the custody block.

“Run, Jack!” Nik whispered.

I looked back at the cell door, then again at my brother. Reaching out with one long skinny hand, I ran my fingers through his short black hair. It didn’t feel like my brother’s hair and nor did it look like it. I closed my eyes and pictured Nik as a small boy, sitting on the rug before the fire at our mother’s house, as he played with his toy cars. I could see the light from the fire reflecting back in his almost white-blond hair and in his pale blue eyes. That was Nik – that was my little brother I could see, before like me, he turned into a killer – an animal.

“I love you, brother,” I whispered with my eyes closed.

With them still squeezed shut, I turned, so I didn’t have to see him sitting on that bed looking like Potter. I didn’t want to remember him like that. I stepped into the corridor outside the cell. I opened my eyes, and without looking back, I closed the cell door on my brother. I looked to the right, and could see Lilly and Potter hiding in the shadows further along the cellblock. I headed towards them. With my eyes fixed on Potter, I headed straight for him. Curling my bony fingers into a fist, I punched him squarely in the face. There was a cracking sound as my fist crunched into the flat of his nose and he shot back down the corridor, landing on the floor.

“What the fuck was that for?” he gargled as his nose and mouth filled with blood. 

“It made me feel better,” I grunted, walking on past him and into the shadows at the end of the corridor.

“No wonder my fucking nose looks the way it does,” I heard him mutter, pulling himself to his feet. “What, with Murphy’s driving
and people queuing up to take pot-shots at me the whole fucking time…”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be such a prick, and perhaps people wouldn’t feel the need to slap you so much,” I said over my shoulder at him.

“Who are you calling a prick…?” Potter started.

“Give me a break,” Lilly said, brushing past me and heading up the corridor. “We’re meant to be escaping! Save your differences until we’re out of here.”

I followed Lilly without saying another word, Potter moaning and groaning, puffing and panting behind us as he tried to stem the flow of blood gushing from his nose. I smiled to myself in the darkness, as Lilly rounded a bend in the corridor ahead. She led us into a narrow passageway. There was a gated door at the end, and weak streams of light poured in through the bars and lit the corridor. We headed towards the light.

I watched as Lilly fished a key from the pocket of her white fur coat. She slipped the key into a rusty-looking lock, and yanked the gate open. We spilled out into the light to find ourselves standing on what once must have been the exercise yard. The concrete was cracked and weeds grew tall out of them. The white markings of a basketball court were now almost faded away. Much of the fencing and razor wire had come down in places, and what was left was orange-brown with rust. Beyond the fence I
could see what looked like a piece of scrubland which led away to a more overgrown and hilly area.

“Follow me,” Lilly ordered, edging her way along the side of the cellblock and towards an opening in what was once the fence. I looked back to see Potter stagger out into the light. Thick clots of black blood had already formed around his nostrils. His coat flapped open and I could see that the wounds Nik had made on his chest had now healed completely. There was no sign of them.

Those Vampyrus fuckers heal quickly
, I thought, inching my way along the outside of the jail wall.
No wonder you have to take their heads off if you want to kill them.

Potter scowled at me,
then followed us along the wall. I could hear the sound of chanting coming from the main town square and I knew the wolves were getting excited for the execution. I had been to many myself and enjoyed each of them. But today it was going to be my brother they were executing. I tried to block out the sounds of the howling and whooping of the excited wolves in the town square.

Lilly hunkered down as we reached the hole in the fence. She looked back at us and said, “Head for the hill.”

Pulling back the rusty fence with her slender fingers, Lilly crawled through the hole and raced across the scrubland, disappearing behind some bushes in the distance. I followed, Potter at my heels. Reaching the bushes, I lay flat on the ground in the dust. Potter lay beside me. I didn’t look at him for fear of wanting to smash him in the face again. There was an ear-piercing wail from somewhere in the distance.

“What was that?” Potter whispered. “Is that an alarm or something?”

“It’s the DJ switching on his microphone,” I whispered from the corner of my mouth.

“DJ?”
Potter breathed. “I thought they had gathered for an execution – not a freaking party!”

“The party comes after,” I said, still unable to bring myself to look at him.

“Fucking wolves,” Potter grunted.

Before I’d had the chance to point out the many Vampyrus faults, the voice of the DJ, who whipped up the crowd, bellowed out through the speakers erected in the town of Wasp Water. 

“Welcome to today’s executions,” the voice echoed across the town. “Do we have a surprise for you all today!”

The crowd roared in the distance, their cheers of excitement sounding like an approaching storm. I knew at this point they would be shoving and pushing against each other to get as close to the stage as possible. I had been in there with them so many times before, and I couldn’t deny that it was fucking exciting. It was like the whole town square was charged with electricity. I knew each of the wolves would want the best possible view. To look into the eyes of the accused as the blade came down – there was nothing more exciting than that. To see
that realisation in the human’s eyes as they heard the screech and the scrape of the blade racing down towards their necks. The look of fear in their eyes would drive me insane with excitement. But it was more than excitement – that word didn’t do justice to how seeing a human die made me feel. It was a turn on – it was like having an orgasm that lasted all night long.

“Are you all right?” I heard someone whisper.

“Huh?” I said, glancing sideways and looking into Potter’s ugly face.

“You have a crazy kinda look on your face,” he said, staring at me with a frown from beneath the blood smeared over his face. “You look like you’re gonna come in your pants or something. That is your brother they’re gonna kill anytime now…”