“I think it has something to do with what happened back at the chapel,” she hushed, fearful that she might wake the boy.
“The matching?” I whispered back, looking at the sallow colour of Sam’s flesh. It had a sickly yellow tinge to it, and was coated in a thin sheen of sweat.
“I guess,” she said, looking up at me. “You saw how his face seemed to get sucked into that wolf’s. It was trying to match with him. Take his soul.”
“But it didn’t happen – we stopped it,” I tried to convince myself more than her.
“Maybe we only half stopped it?” she mumbled, as if scared to say the words out loud for fear of it being the truth.
“What’s that s’posed to mean?” I asked, kneeling down beside the bed and handing her a wet towel.
Kayla took it from me, and as she dabbed it against his chest, I could see what looked like waves of steam seeping from his skin. “What if the wolf has infected him somehow? I mean, look at his face.”
In the pale light from the bedside lamp, I peered at Sam. His face looked swollen, as if he had been badly beaten. His eyes were swollen shut, the skin around them purple and bruised-looking. His nostrils were red and sore, and snot ran from them in thick streams. With each laboured breath he took, Sam’s throat and chest made a hideous rattling noise, like he had swallowed a child’s toy. Sam’s lips were blistered and puckered. As I looked upon his grotesque face, I realised how much Kayla musta cared for Sam. Most girls would have been too repulsed to even look at him, let alone sit in the semi-darkness throughout the night and mop the fever from his brow.
“We should get him to a hospital,” I told her.
“Potter says no,” she said, her eyes fearful.
“Why not?” I asked, frowning.
“He reckons it will draw unwanted attention,” she started to explain in such a tone that I knew she wasn’t convinced by what Potter had suggested. “The police might start asking questions as to how he came by his injuries, who we are...”
“Couldn’t we just drive him to the hospital and leave him...?” I started.
“No way,” Kayla snapped. “I promised Sam I wouldn’t leave him. “Besides, he knows what I am – what we all are. Potter’s worried that in his delirious state he might talk about what he saw – what he witnessed us do back at the school.”
“We can’t just sit back and watch him die,” I told her, the steam curling up from his body.
“He won’t die,” Kayla insisted. “I’m going to take care of him.”
But I hadn’t been so sure, and as I now followed Kayla through the dim narrow passageways towards Sam’s room, I was fearful of what we might find.
Chapter Three
Isidor
Kayla pushed Sam’s bedroom door open. The room was dimly lit, and being so high up in the manor, the wind blew around the eaves, sounding like a child crying as they woke from a nightmare. The bedroom window was open, and the curtains billowed out like two sails in the cold night air. Then, way off in the distance, I heard the rumble of thunder.
Sam lay on his bed in the far corner of the room, and even though it was bitterly cold, tendrils of steam coiled up from his body and leaked from his mouth and nostrils. He writhed about on the sheets, which were damp and clung to his body.
“Sam,” Kayla gasped as she crossed the room towards him, the heels of her boots echoing back from the bare wooden floorboards.
The boy made a growling sound in the pit of his throat, as thick lengths of ropey snot sprayed from between his lips and spattered the wall in black strips.
Kayla took him by the shoulders as if to restrain him, but his skin was so hot that she snapped her hands away.
“What’s happening to him?” she cried.
Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw something move in the shadows that darkened the other side of the room.
“Who’s there?” I called out, believing that I had seen someone hiding from us.
Sam cried out again, and this time he sounded like he was being strangled. I spun around to look at him, and as I did, I heard the sound of running from behind me. Glancing back over my shoulder, I caught just the briefest glimpse of what looked like someone sneaking out of the room and disappearing onto the landing.
“Who’s there?” I called out again, bolting towards the bedroom door. Believing that it might be Jack Seth, suddenly fearing that perhaps he hadn’t left the manor after all, I wished that I’d had my crossbow with me. With my claws springing from my fists, I peered left, then right, along the landing. There, just at the foot of the stairs, I saw the figure again. Almost covered completely by shadow, its skin looked grey – chalky like – and cracked.
A statue?
I wondered.
“Hey!” I called after it.
The figure stopped, then peering back at me over its fractured-looking shoulder, it looked at me with its featureless face. Then, placing one broken finger over the area where its mouth should have been, it said, “
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Then, moving with the speed of a Vampyrus, it rushed away down the stairs. I raced down the landing after it, but before I’d even reached the top of the stairs, Kayla began to scream from behind me. Not knowing whether I should continue after the statue or head back to the bedroom, I hesitated.
“Oh shit,” I sighed aloud in the gloom, as I heard the sound of the statue’s footsteps fade away down the steps. Knowing in my heart that I had to go back for Kayla, I spun around and headed back in the direction of the way I had come.
“Did you see that?” I gasped as I raced back into the room.
“Have you seen this?” Kayla screeched.
Sam was kneeling on all fours on the bed. His arms and legs were locked rigid, his spine a series of white lumps glowing through the flesh that now seemed to stretch over his back. I took hold of Kayla’s arm and yanked her back, away from the bed.
“We’ve got to help him, Isidor!” she screamed.
“I don’t think we can,” I said, pulling her tight against me.
Sam dropped onto the mattress, where he rolled onto his back. He opened his mouth and released a series of painful sounding howls. His cracked lips started to bleed as they began to tear. Then, throwing his arms up into the air, we stood and watched as Sam’s fingers began to stretch and elongate. Turning his head in our direction, Sam snapped open his eyes and looked at us. They shone a bright yellow, and lit up the room.
“
Help me
,” he pleaded and clutched at the air with the claws that had now formed at the end of each of his wrists. It was the first time that I’d heard Sam speak since we had brought him to the manor, and his voice sounded deep, as if he were gargling on a throat full of gravel.
“Does he always sound like that?” I asked Kayla.
“No, Isidor,” she whispered, her own voice sounding confused and lost.
Then, over the sound of the approaching thunder and the roar of the wind, Sam began to howl as his whole body seemed to stretch and twist out of shape. His feet began to grow, each toe capped with an ivory-looking nail. Sam’s pyjama bottoms began to tear as his calf and thigh muscles rippled beneath the material.
A ‘V’ shape of fur broke out down the front of his chest and glistened in the glow of the lamp. Thick lengths of fur bristled down each of his meaty forearms, and thinned over the back of his new claws. Then, Sam’s face began to change shape. His nose grew longer taking on the shape of a snout. His ears stretched into points on either side of his face, and black hair grew from beneath his chin, giving him a beard that even I would have been proud of.
Once the transformation had taken place, Sam collapsed onto his side and lay panting like a tired dog on a hot summer’s day. He looked at us, and Kayla began to sob. Sam didn’t look like a wolf, but then again, he didn’t look like a teenage boy anymore – he looked half and half. He looked half boy and half wolf – a half breed – and if he survived, I understood the torment that he would go through. Maybe that’s why Kayla stood sobbing in my arms. Not because she feared him, but because she knew that living the life of a half-breed was a hard one. It was a curse.
Then, in a voice that sounded as if it was consumed with pain, Sam stared at us with his burning eyes and said, “Kayla, help me. Please.”
“How?” she whispered.
“Take me to the Fountain of Souls,” he pleaded.
Chapter Four
Kiera
Potter reached Sam’s bedroom just before me. With his long legs, he had climbed the stairs two at a time. As he charged at them, I saw his claws shoot from his fingertips. Halfway up the stairs, the sound of howling echoed around the upper reaches of the manor, and with a flick of my wrists, my own claws sprang out.
Inside the room, Potter suddenly paused, and I had to pull up sharp to stop myself from clattering into him. He stood next to Kayla and Isidor who were rooted to the floor and staring down at the bed. I looked to see what had drawn their attention, and was shocked by what I saw peering up at us from the glow of the lamp. Sam lay on his side, but he didn’t exactly look like Sam anymore. He had grown in size and two giant fur-covered feet hung over the end of the bed. His hands were huge claws, and his fingernails looked as sharp as a set of dinner knives. But it was his face. He looked half wolf and half boy. His eyes burnt a fierce yellow and they reminded me of Jack Seth’s – they reminded me of the Skin-walkers.
Part of me feared him, but another part of me pitied him, as he lay on his side panting and howling in agony. I don’t think Potter felt the same at all, as he lunged across the room at him.
“No!” Kayla screamed as she broke free of Isidor’s arms and snatched at Potter.
“Let go of me!” Potter barked at her, tugging his arm free. “He’s a wolf – a Skin-walker!”
“He’s my friend,” Kayla screeched at him.
“Not anymore,” Potter snapped. “He’s one of them.”
“No he’s not!” Kayla insisted. “Look at him. He hasn’t changed properly. The matching was broken halfway through.”
“And how do we know he won’t change fully one night and kill us all in our sleep?” Potter tried to warn her.
“
Please!
” Sam howled, and his cry for help sounded as raw as the growing wind outside.
“See, the boy’s begging me to kill him,” Potter said, staring down at the half-wolf. “He wants me to end his suffering.”
“No he doesn’t,” Kayla hissed, grabbing Potter’s arm again, and turning him around so he had to look at her. “He wants us to take him to the Fountain of Souls.”
“This just keeps getting better and better,” Potter groaned. Then, staring hard at Kayla, he added, “Do I have to remind you what happened the last time we went there?”
“Murphy died,” I whispered.
“Exactly!” Potter sighed. “Going back there is insane. How does the kid know about that place, anyhow?”
“Maybe he...” Isidor started.
“No one asked you,” Potter cut over him. “I’ll tell you how he knows, because the wolf living inside of him knows. That part of him wants us to go to the Fountain of Souls.”
“Please help me,” Sam howled again, closing his eyes in agony.
“I say we kill him,” Potter said. “It would be the best thing for us, and for him.”
“No!” Kayla shouted, scrambling between Potter and the bed. Holding out her arms, she added, “You’ll have to kill me first.”
“Kayla, if you think I’m taking the Michael J. Fox lookalike to the Fountain of Souls, you must be out of your freaking mind.”
Then, stepping forward, Isidor peered over Potter’s shoulder at Sam. “I guess he does look a little bit like a mouse,” he said.
Frowning, Potter turned to look at Isidor and said, “What are you talking about?”
“Michael J. Fox,” Isidor beamed. “Now I did Toogle him. He did the voice for that cute mouse, Stuart Little. And I can see what you mean; I guess Sam does look a little bit like Stuart Little, although his fur was white and...”
“I’m not talking about Stuart-
fucking
-Little you cretin,” Potter cut over him. “When I say he looks like Michael J. Fox, I’m talking about Teen Wolf, for fuck’s sake.”
“Teen Wolf?” Isidor asked, sounding confused. “But I thought you said the wolf was called Michael Jackson, not Michael J. Fox?”
“Is this some kinda hobby of yours?” Potter asked, sounding exasperated.
“Hobby?” Isidor frowned. “I don’t know what you mean?”
“I just can’t believe you thought that when I referred to the wolf-boy lying over there as Michael J. Fox, you honestly thought I was suggesting he looked like a three-inch computer-generated fucking mouse! You can’t be that thick.”
“I did think it was a little odd,” Isidor said thoughtfully as he looked down at Sam. “But he is covered in hair like Stuart Little, so I thought that’s what you meant.”
Throwing his arms up in the air, Potter cried, “I give up! I don’t know if I can do this shit anymore.”
“What shit?” Isidor asked, looking confused.
“Listening to the shit that comes out of your mouth...” Potter started.
“Enough already,” I cut in. “This isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
“He gets on my nerves,” Potter said, jabbing his thumb in Isidor’s direction.
“And killing Sam isn’t the answer,” Isidor said in his own defence.
“It isn’t Sam anymore,” Potter wheeled on him.
“That still doesn’t give you the right to decide on who lives and who dies,” Isidor said, standing firm.
“If that thing lives, then we will die,” Potter shouted, going toe to toe with Isidor.
Kayla cut in between them. “It is Sam. It’s the wolf that tried to match with him that we can see...”
“Help me, please,” the wolf-boy on the bed murmured.
Ignoring the others, I went to the side of the bed and looked down at him. “Who are you?”
“I’m Sam Brook,” he whispered, his voice deep, yet soft. “I know you fear me, but I’m not going to harm you.”
“How many times has a wolf told us that?” Potter reminded me.