Kiera Hudson & The Adoring Artist (Kiera Hudson Series Three Book 3) (3 page)

Chapter Four

I woke on the floor, curled up on my side. The strip of moonlight had been replaced with sunlight. Its bright rays warmed my body. The wolf had gone and I didn’t doubt for one moment that it had been there. Reaching for the edge of the desk that was close by, I pulled myself up. My legs no longer felt weak, and the fever, if that’s what it had truly been, had passed. In fact, my whole being seemed to tingle with an underlying energy. It was like the moonlight had energised me, woken a part of me that had laid dormant my whole life – the side of me that I got from my true mother Kathy Seth and my brothers Jack and Nik. But why had the wolf come forward now? And did I feel happy that it had? In fact, I felt great. I’d never felt so freaking hungry in my life, but other than that I felt like an unknown part of me had suddenly been woken up – had come alive. Were these feelings going to stay – was the wolf? Why else had it come to me?

When first being
pushed
into this
where
and
when,
it was as if my
ability to change into my other self – the Vampyrus – had been slow at coming forward. Only had I been able to do so by looking deep inside myself and searching her out. Had the same thing happened with the other part of me – the wolf? I wasn’t aware that I had gone looking for her. Picking up my iPhone from the floor where it must have dropped from the bed last night, I searched through the music tracks in search of the song that had played as I fell asleep. The song had been
Bad Moon Rising
by John Fogerty, but it wasn’t one of the tracks listed on my iPhone. How then had I heard it? Just like how I’d heard the song
Heroes
by David Bowie before dreaming about my brother Jack. Had the music bled through from some other
where
and
when
and pulled me in? 

Dropping my iPhone onto the bed, I went to the bathroom. And it wasn’t only thoughts of the wolf that lingered at the corners of my mind. Thoughts of the young woman I’d dreamt about were vaguely there too. What had her name been? Sam… Sammy… Samantha Carter? Yes, Samantha Carter, that had been her name. But was she real or was she just part of some dream? I’d come to learn that my dreams were not just some random mishmash of ideas and thoughts, they seemed to have some significance in my life of events that had taken place or more often events that were yet to happen. But who was she, and who were the people that she travelled with? Had there been a preacher man in my dream? And although I struggled to remember now what my dream had been about, something told me that perhaps I should try and hold on to whatever fragments I could find in the corners of my mind – like the fact that Potter had been in that dream.

Heading into the bathroom and running a bath, I stood and looked at myself in the mirror fixed to the wall above the sink. But it wasn’t my reflection that I was interested in. I wanted to see deeper than that. I wanted to see beneath my skin. With water tumbling from the taps and filling the bath behind me, I closed my eyes and sought out my other self – the creature with the wings, fangs, and claws. And just like she always did, she came forward out of the darkness, her hair blowing long and black behind her, face so pale it was the colour of snow, lips blood red and eyes blazing. Her wings fluttered about her bare shoulders, claws at her sides. I looked deeper, past her into the darkness. There was something there at her side. The wolf came forward and I stumbled backwards, the backs of my legs colliding with the edge of the bath. I kept my eyes closed, my internal eyes fixed on both of my other selves. It was the first time that the wolf had come forward. It stood black and sleek as my other self with the wings as she reached down, losing one of her claws in the wolf’s fur as she stroked it. And as I stood and looked at them standing before me, I didn’t feel scared like I always feared I would. For the first time in my life, I felt complete.

With what sounded like rain falling and my feet suddenly feeling wet, I opened my eyes.

“Shit,” I gasped, seeing bathwater dribbling over the edge of the tub and onto the floor. I twisted the taps until they stopped. Taking a fresh towel, I moped up the water. Once the floor was dry, I climbed into the bath and sunk beneath the water.

With my stomach crying out to be filled, I threw on a pair of jeans and a hoodie and headed down into the bar area, stuffing the key that Ravenwood had slipped me and my iPhone into my pocket. For once I would try one of Uri’s breakfasts. I was starving. Just as always, Phebe was tinkering behind the bar. She always looked like she was doing something very close to nothing.

“Hey, Kiera,” she smiled, glancing up at me.

I smiled back and took a seat at the table nearest to the window. There were four other guests at the tables dotted about the small dining area. They were too engrossed in their food and the morning newspapers to pay any attention to me, and why should they? It was nice to be able to sit and eat without being gawped at. That was something close to impossible to do when I had stayed at the Crescent Moon Inn before. Then, the locals had done nothing but stare. There was something nice about going unnoticed, getting lost in the crowd.

“What can I get you?” Phebe said, appearing at the table. She handed me a breakfast menu. “Remember you can have anything you like. The Creeping Men…”

“Are paying,” I finished for her. Then smiling back at her, I said, “Okay, I’ll have two large steaks – very rare – and a pot of tea.”

“But steaks are only on the dinner menu,” she said.

“But you said I could have anything,” I reminded her with another smile. “And I’m starving.”

“Okay,” she sighed with a shrug, taking the menu from me.

I watched Phebe head back across the dining area and into the kitchen where the door swung shut behind her. Looking away, I stared out of the window as my stomach flipped and somersaulted at the smell of bacon coming from the plates of the other diners. I stared out across the fields that spread out on the other side of the road opposite the inn and couldn’t help but wonder if Kayla and Isidor were out there somewhere. Both Murphy and their father Lord Hunt had told me that they had simply gone away, but both had been vague at best as to where exactly they had gone and why. Why was my friends’ whereabouts such a secret? Murphy had told me that Kayla hadn’t liked Sophie. Part of me could understand that – or was I just being mean? I’d found stories written by Isidor in his locker at the offices of The Creeping Men. When I mentioned these to Murphy, he’d said that Isidor had often written stories about a girl with pink hair who was covered in tattoos. I knew those stories were about Melody Rose. Were those stories Isidor’s memories of a girl that he had once loved – is that how he had come to be inspired to write them? And what of Murphy, Pen, Meren, and Nessa? Murphy seemed not to have any memory of them whatsoever. He claimed to have woken up in the back of some police van after being shot by Potter. Both seemed to have a vague notion that they had once been friends, but could remember very little else. Neither seemed to have any knowledge of The Hollows. But what then lay hidden beneath the hatch back at the office? Did it lead down into The Hollows like it had once done so before? I’d tried to find out but it was locked. It wouldn’t take much for me to buy myself some bolt cutters and remove the lock and see what lay beneath. I could do it undisturbed as Murphy lay at the mercy of Mrs. Payne in the hospital wing at Hallowed Manor and Potter was there too, nursing Sophie as her body adapted to becoming a vampire. What would they think on their return to find that the hatch had a new lock? They would know it had been me who had been snooping. Did I really care about that? Not really. But what really deterred me from opening it was what lay beneath it. What if I pulled that hatch back to reveal some tunnel that led to that secret world below? What then? Did I go and get Potter and Murphy and say, “Hey look, guys, you don’t remember, but this is where you really come from! Why don’t you climb down and have a look inside?” And what if they did, what would they find – what would be lying down there for them? They obviously didn’t remember for a reason. Who was I to break that spell? What damage could I cause if I did? What cracks might start to appear?

“Here’s your tea and steak,” Phebe suddenly said, placing down a plate and pot on the table before me.

I turned my attention from my thoughts and back to her. “Thanks,” I said looking down at the two large steaks she had placed before me. They swam in a pool of blood red gravy on the plate. My stomach lurched with greed.

“Are you really going to eat all of that?” Phebe asked. “You’re so small.”

“Small, but with a big appetite,” I mused, eyeing the food before me.

Phebe poured some tea from the pot into a cup for me. I added a splash of milk and stirred it. She stood and watched me as I cut off a chunk of the meat and forked it into my mouth. Blood oozed from the meat and down my throat. My stomach swallowed it up.

“Well, if you want anything else, just let me know,” Phebe said, heading away from the table.

“There is just more thing,” I said. I washed down the piece of steak I’d been chewing with a gulp of hot tea.

“What’s that?” she said, pausing mid-stride and looking back over her shoulder at me.

“How far away is Snake Weed from here?” I asked her.

“Why do you want to know about Snake Weed?” she said. “There’s nothing there.” 

“I heard there’s a statue there that’s worth checking out,” I said, pushing more of the bloody steak onto my fork.

“I’ve never been to Snake Weed,” Phebe said.

“So how do you know there’s nothing there?” I said, turning to look out of the window again.

Chapter Five

Feeling as if my stomach was going to burst, I left the inn and walked to my car. I climbed inside and sat with the engine running idly. It coughed and spluttered as its rusty frame shook all around me. There seemed so much to investigate and I was itching to start – but where to go first? For the first time in my life I was blind to the clues. There didn’t seem to be any. My strongest instinct was to find out who Lois Li really was. But where to look? She seemed not to have a single clue for me to follow. I had a phone number that when I called no one ever answered. All I got was a series of clicks and finally an automated voice. The letter that I’d arrived with had no email or contact address. When I’d asked Murphy about her, he had said that he’d never met this elusive Lois Li either. All contact appeared to be made by sending a series of beige envelopes back and forth. There didn’t seem to be anything tangible for me to get ahold of – a series of clues for me to follow. Not one.

There was the mystery of Doctor Ravenwood. What had happened to his body? Was he dead or still very much alive? And what did the key he had given me open? Before dying – or was that disappearing – he had whispered to me that he could hear the wind in the willows. Had that been some kind of clue for me to follow, or was he simply remembering that he had once left me a letter in a book with the same name in a previous
where
and
when
? If I could only find whatever it was the key opened, then I guessed that would be a start. But where did I start looking? Back at Hallowed Manor seemed the most obvious choice – after all, he had hidden the bottle of Lot 12 there. Perhaps he had some other secret place in his study that I had yet to discover? But going back to Hallowed Manor meant seeing Potter again. I wasn’t so sure that I was ready for that. My feelings were still very raw where he was concerned. I knew that for the next day or so at least, I needed to put some distance between myself and Potter. And I guessed that he needed some time away from me too. However much the thought pained me, I knew that he needed to be with Sophie and she needed some time with him. But was I really being so understanding out of charity for them? Or was I still so hurt by the fact he had turned her that I couldn’t bear to look at either of them until I had my feelings in check? To be near to Potter was like a constant battle raging inside of me. I couldn’t just switch off the feelings I had for him. Perhaps I never would be able to, but I would have to try. Nev had only seen Potter and me together once and for the briefest of time and he said he could see how much we loved each other. Murphy suspected it too – I knew he did by the odd comments he had made. It had been Murphy who had told me Potter had been filled with jealousy when discovering that I had gone out for dinner with Nev. Even Sophie had sensed my jealousy. She had remarked that the only reason I hadn’t wanted her to be bitten by Potter was because I was jealous. And she had been right. I really didn’t know if I could face going back to Hallowed Manor so soon and face them – I didn’t want them to see what was so obviously written all across my face.

So as I sat in my car outside the Crescent Moon Inn and drummed my fingers against the steering wheel, and for the first time in my life I felt like a spare part – like there was nothing for me to do. And that was the most frustrating thing, because there was so much for me to investigate but I just didn’t know where to start. But perhaps I was looking for stuff to investigate that didn’t really need to be investigated. So what if Kayla and Isidor had gone off? They weren’t my friends here. I was nothing to them. Perhaps they had gone travelling? A lot of young people did that – didn’t they? So what if Lois Li wanted to keep his or her identity secret? Did it make this mystery person some kind of criminal? Did it make him or her corrupt in some way? And what of Sophie’s turning? If it wasn’t for the fact that I was in love with the man that had turned her, would I have really cared? This wasn’t my world – it was theirs. They did stuff differently here. Was that so bad?

But however much I tried to convince myself that I was looking for stuff to investigate that didn’t need investigating, all my senses screamed that stuff was very wrong here in this
where
and
when
. Like who had left the bottle of Lot 13 in my room and why? Where had Ravenwood disappeared to and why had he tried to kill Sophie? What did he know that I didn’t?

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and with the engine of my car still farting and rumbling, I pulled it out. I had a text message from Nev. I was surprised to learn that he wanted to make contact so soon after what had happened between us yesterday. There was a part of me that was glad he did. Although my feelings for him only extended to friendship, I might not feel the same sometime in the future. And I’d meant what I’d said to him. If we’d met in some other place and time anything could have been possible. If I was to stay in this
where
and
when
forevermore, was I really going to spend it with my heart aching for Potter? Could I ever be really happy watching from afar as Potter led his life with Sophie? Would I ever be able to bear to watch him bringing up Abbie when I knew in my heart that in some other
where
and
when
he would be raising our daughter? Was I really prepared to torture myself forevermore like that? At some point I would have to let go. I’d have to hope that my feelings for Potter would lessen. They might not ever go, but fade over time. Could my feelings then change for Nev? Did I really want to push him away and regret it like I now regretted pushing Potter away? But I didn’t want to give Nev false hope either. That would be unkind and cruel of me. I couldn’t expect Nev to wait for me forever no more than Potter could expect me to wait for him. But who was I trying to kid? There was no hope for me and someone like Nev even if my feelings in some distant future did change toward Potter. How could I ever expect Nev to love me? I was a monster.

With a deep sigh, I tapped the screen of my phone with my thumb, and opened the message Nev had sent me.

Help me, Kiera
, it read.