Kiera Hudson & The Creeping Men (9 page)

I wanted to tell Potter that he was wrong. But he would only ask why I thought so. I would then have to tell him about how I really got the scratches to my face and dirt on my clothes. He was mad because I was late for work. If he thought I’d gone snooping around behind his back, he’d be shoving me out of the door, not standing in front of it. And that was probably the real reason he didn’t want me to leave just yet. He wanted me to stay around long enough so he could prove me wrong about Locke. He wanted his ego massaged.

But after reading the newspaper report, I was not only convinced that something terrible had happened to Amanda Lovecraft, but the murder of the girl, Emily Cartdew was also in some way connected to the bizarre events that had taken place at Bastille Hall. How could I tell Potter about the footprints and claw marks I had found? How could I tell him that I was beginning to suspect that Sir Edmund was a werewolf and that he had killed his own daughter and now Emily Cartdew? The Potter from this world had told me he didn’t believe in such things.

“So?” Potter asked, dragging me from my thoughts.

“So what?” I asked.

“Am I right, or am I right?” he said. “You’ve got to give me credit, I’ve got it all figured out and I’ll prove it to you.”

It was on my lips to tell him my suspicions – to tell him the truth and about everything that had happened to me at Bastille Hall, when the door to the office flew open.

We both looked up to see Ms. Heather Locke stagger inside. She looked close to collapse. Leaping from my seat, I took hold of her before she dropped to the floor.

Gripping me tightly by the arms, she looked at me, her eyes wide with terror and gasped, “You’ve got to help me, Kiera Hudson. I fear for my very life.”

“Here, have one of these,” Potter said, waving a pack of cigarettes beneath Ms. Locke’s nose like they were a bottle of smelling salts.

“Disgusting,” she gasped, pushing them away with one weak hand.

“Suit yourself,” Potter said, dropping back down into his seat, feet up and lighting himself another smoke. “Just trying to calm you down that was all.”

“Nothing will calm me down, Mr. Potter,” Locke breathed deeply. “Nothing will ease my nerves until I know what has happened to Miss Amanda and I have answers to the strange happenings that have occurred at Bastille Hall.”

“How about a cup of tea?” I asked, easing her down into nearby chair.

She nodded her head, the palm of one hand pressed flat against her chest as if catching her breath. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Get Ms. Locke a cup of tea,” I said, glancing up at Potter.

With a sigh, he got up from his chair, picked up the cup that I had been drinking from, and thrust it into Locke’s hands. “Get that down your neck,” he said, casually walking away, back toward his desk where he sat scowling at me.

If possible, our client’s face looked more drawn than it had the night before. Dark rings circled her tired eyes like smudges. Her hands trembled around the cup of tea Potter had given to her.

“You have to help me,” she said, looking up.

“I will do my best,” I said. “Has there been new developments?” I knew that there had been, and I suspected that I had played a part in them.

Locke took a sip of the sweet tea, then started to talk in a voice that sounded frail and nervous. “When I returned to Bastille Hall after our meeting last night, I found the house in complete darkness. As there were no lights burning, I suspected that Sir Edmund had retired for the night, so I went to my room. As I explained last night, I have to pass by Miss Amanda’s bedroom to reach mine. As I did, I heard movement from inside her room. I lingered outside, wondering whether I should go in or not. No light shone from beneath the door, so I knew her room was in darkness just like the rest of the house. Fearing that it might be Sir Edmund in the room and not wanting to surprise him, I knocked twice at the door before I entered. Taking a deep breath to steady my already frail nerves, I pushed on the door, but it was locked. I had a key to the room on my keychain, but in all the time I’d lived at Bastille Hall, I hadn’t ever had occasion to use it, as the room was always left unlocked.

“So taking the key from my pocket, and as quietly as I could, I unlocked the door. To my surprise, the window was ajar and a breeze was blowing back the curtain. Slowly I crossed the room to it, wondering why the window had been opened. I suspected that Sir Edmund had done so, as I’m the only other person living at the house. But why open the window? Miss Amanda’s room hadn’t been occupied for nearly four weeks and didn’t need to be aired. Reaching the window, I was distressed to see that in fact the window had been forced open and the lock had been broken. Who would have done such a thing? Had someone tried to break in? But the window is high up from the ground and there was no ladder at the wall. I closed the window over and tried to secure it as best I could with a piece of cord used to keep the curtains in place. But I was convinced that someone had been into Amanda’s room, as when I turned to leave, I saw the most curious of things. Miss Amanda has a huge wardrobe in her room, and as a child she would often hide in it for hours. Sometimes she would go missing all day and when she finally did reappear, she would tell me with a smile that she had been hiding in the wardrobe the whole time. I knew she had other hiding places, as I’d often pulled back the clothes in the wardrobe to search for her, but she was never there. It was obviously a game that she liked to play. So long as Miss Amanda was happy, then so was I,” Ms. Locke explained.

“Look, I love the whole lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe angle you’ve added to your story, Ms. Locke, but…” Potter started.

“What did you see?” I asked Ms. Locke, daring to cut over Potter.

“Someone had taken Miss Amanda’s clothes from her wardrobe, cut them into strips, and left them in disarray upon her bed,” Locke said, eyes growing wide. “Convinced that we’d had an intruder, I fled the room. With my fists clenched, I hammered on Sir Edmund’s door, desperate to raise the alarm. He appeared at the door almost at once. He had not been sleeping as he was fully clothed and wore his boots on his feet. Glancing past him, I could see that a chair had been drawn up close to his bedroom window, and his shotgun was resting against it.

“‘What is the matter, woman?’ he shouted at me.

“I explained to him what I had discovered, and to my surprise, the first thing he demanded to know was how I had gained entry to Miss Amanda’s room. I reminded him that he had given me a spare key to the room years ago, when I had first come to be in his employment.

“‘Give me back the key,’ he demanded, hand out.

“I fumbled it from my pocket and he snatched it free from the chain it hung from. Then, with his eyes bulging with fear, he looked at me.

“‘Did you lock Amanda’s bedroom door behind you?’ he demanded to know. ‘Did you lock it?’

“‘No,’ I mumbled, feeling scared and confused.

“‘Stupid woman,’ he hissed, snatching up his gun. Forcing me roughly aside, he raced back down the landing. ‘Go to your room and lock your door. Don’t dare unlock it again until morning!’ he roared over his shoulder.

“I watched him go into Amanda’s room, slamming the door closed behind him,” Locke continued to explain, so caught up in telling her story that the tea had long since gone cold and forgotten. “I did as Sir Edmund said. I went straight to my room and locked the door. But no sooner was I in my room, I could hear Sir Edmund shouting and hollering from the grounds below. How he had fled Amanda’s room so quickly and be in the grounds of Bastille Hall, I had no idea. Despite what some might think,” she added, glancing up at Potter, “I am a rational woman, but I was beginning to wonder if some black magic wasn’t at work. How else had Sir Edmund reached the grounds so quickly?”

“Perhaps he jumped out of the window?” Potter remarked casually.

“But he would surely have broken both his legs,” Locke said. “And besides, I had secured the window with ties from the curtains. They are thick and not easy to cut through without some kind of sharp instrument, and I tied them up into many knots.”

“Maybe he shot the ropes apart with his gun?” Potter said.

“I heard no gunshot,” Locke said, understanding enough to know that Potter was patronising her. So turning her full attention to me, she continued. “I went to my window, and daring to look out, I saw Sir Edmund once again outside the outhouse. And again he had that giant hound tethered to him by a leash. There was more of a full moon than the previous night, so I had a better view of this creature. It moved oddly back and forth along the treeline.”

“Oddly?” I asked, remembering the footprints I had earlier discovered. “What do you mean?”

“The only way I can describe it is…” she paused, looking at Potter again.

“Go on,” I gently urged her.

“It looked as if the creature walked backwards,” she said. Then swallowing hard, she added, “But there was something else. It was the strangest thing of all.”

“What?” I asked, my eyes now as wide as hers.

“For some unknown reason, Sir Edmund had dressed this terrifying beast in Miss Amanda’s clothes,” she whispered.

“Sorry, sweetheart, but we don’t do kinky,” Potter said, standing up.

“Kinky?” I said, staring at him.

“Dressing a dog up in women’s clothes,” Potter said, scowling at Locke. “What sorta place do you think this is? If that’s how this Edmund guy wants to get his kicks, fair enough – but don’t get me involved. I might be a lot of things, but I’m not a perv.”

“Sir Edmund is not a pervert if that’s what you mean,” Ms. Locke gasped, mortified at the suggestion. “He is an honourable man.”

“That’s why he’s kicking you onto the streets in just a few days’ time, is it?” Potter shot back.

“I admit that Sir Edmund hasn’t been himself as of late,” Locke said. “But that’s why I need your help. I feel that something terrible has happened to Miss Amanda which has caused him to lose his mind…”

“I don’t think you hear too good,” Potter said. “I don’t do kinky and I’m definitely not interested in men going through a mid-life crisis. Now unless you can tell me that some real kinda crime has been committed, other than the sexual harassment of Sir Edmund’s poodle, then I’m not interested…”

“I’m interested,” I said, speaking over Potter and looking at Locke. Potter might be my boss, but he was wrong. I thought the Potter I knew and loved could be an overbearing jerk at times, but this Potter took things to a whole new level.

“I think me and you need to have a word in private,” Potter said, taking hold of my arm. He yanked me across the office to the corridor that led to the cells. I shook his arm off me. “Have you lost your mind?” he almost snarled.

The corridor was as I remembered it to be – narrow and poorly lit. The walls were made of slabs of grey stone as was the floor. Potter loomed just inches before me, broad shoulders masking me in shade. I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me. I didn’t let him do so during my first visit to the Ragged Cove, and I wouldn’t let him do it now. I knew Potter well enough that if I were ever to gain his respect, his trust or anything more, then I had to be strong. Stand my ground. He would never admit it, but he liked that.

Taking a deep breath and a gamble, I said, “If anyone has lost their mind around here, it’s you. I don’t believe you can’t see what’s going on here.”

“And what might that be, little miss know-it-all?” His voice was low but deep.

“That woman is scared,” I said. “Whether you believe her not, something has spooked her real bad and we need to find out what that is.”

“I’d be scared if the person I lived with started dressing the pet up in women’s clothes, but I don’t deal with that kinda shit,” he said.

Glancing down, I could see that we were standing on the hatch that I knew in another
where
and
when
led to The Hollows. A place where the supernatural thrived in tunnels and caves. A place so beautiful that the Vampyrus who lived there raged a war above and below ground to protect it. A war that both me and the man standing before me fought in. Did he really not know that? Did he really not remember? So taking another deep breath and another roll of the dice, I looked at Potter. So I couldn’t be overheard by Locke in the outer office, I whispered, “I think Sir Edmund or his daughter – perhaps both of them – are werewolves.”

I saw Potter’s eyes momentarily grow wider. “Now I know you’ve lost your mind,” he whispered, heading back down the corridor.

I shot my hand out, gripping his arm so he couldn’t just walk away. “So you really don’t believe then?” I asked, searching his eyes for any sign – any spark – that he did believe – that he did know such creatures existed. He had fought them. Torn them limb from limb. He had even had a
thing
with one of them. Her name had been Eloisa Maddison and I had been as jealous as hell. He looked blankly at me.

“You must remember, Potter,” I breathed.

“Remember? Remember what?” he said. “You must be thinking of someone else, sweet–cheeks.”

And he was right. I was thinking about someone else. The Potter I was thinking of looked the same and acted the same as the man standing before me – but it wasn’t him. However much I hoped that perhaps it was, I had been fooling myself. This was a different
where
and
when
– this was a different
Potter
.

“You look upset?” he suddenly asked. “You’re not going to start crying, are you? Because I don’t think I can deal with two hysterical women in one morning.”

“Listen to me,” I said, jabbing him in the chest with one finger. “From the very first moment I walked into this place, you were acting the tough guy, telling me that you investigated the crimes that the police didn’t want – that you dealt with vampires, werewolves, and the undead. The only dead thing around here is you. Where’s your sense of adventure? Where’s your backbone?”

“Hang on…” he cut in.

“No, you hang on! I haven’t finished yet,” I hissed, prodding him in the chest again. “You had the nerve to sit whining about how you’d like a proper case to investigate, and when one does come along you can’t
see
it. Open your eyes, Potter. That woman is scared. A young girl has gone missing, a room has been broken into, clothes have been torn to pieces, a giant hound has been seen on the grounds of Bastille Hall and another girl has been found mutilated not too many miles away from here. And all of that doesn’t make you just a little bit curious?”

“I can explain it…” he tried to talk again.

“Oh yes, how silly of me. I was forgetting,” I scoffed. “Ms. Locke is a delusional housekeeper who needs to take a holiday, find herself some stud, get laid, and have a kid of her own. And Sir Edmund is on the verge of bankruptcy and someone who likes making up lies by telling head teachers of Swiss schools that his sixteen-year-old daughter is dead while having a fetish for dressing his pet dog up in women’s clothes. Jesus, Potter. Can’t you see how dumb that all sounds? Have you actually ever solved any cases?”

“Plenty,” he shot back.

“Like what?” I asked.

Leaning in so close to me that our noses were almost touching, Potter breathed, “You’d have fucking nightmares if I told you what I’ve seen, the places I’ve gone, and the crimes I’ve solved.”

“Tell me,” I whispered, desperate to know.

“No,” he said, eyes dark and boring into mine. I could feel his breath against my face. His lips were within kissing distance. My heart was racing. He placed one hand against the wall behind me, as if blocking my escape again. I wasn’t sure that I did want to escape now. Not ever.

“Why not?” I asked, searching his eyes again with my own.

“I want to see if you’re right about Locke and Edmund,” he whispered, his breath on my neck, skin tingling there. I momentarily closed my eyes, and in that single moment, I felt Potter sinking his fangs into my neck. I sank mine into his. We fed from one another as we made love, our bodies locked together as one. I opened my eyes again. The memories were too much. They reminded me of a time and a man I was now learning I had lost forever. I couldn’t help but shrink back from him, pressing myself flat against the wall, turning my head slightly away from his stare. I think Potter sensed this as a sign of weakness in me – that perhaps I was scared or intimidated by him. I was scared, but not how he might think. I was scared that I might pull him into me, kiss him, hold him. And I knew that once I had done that, I would never want to let go. But he wasn’t mine. Not here. Not now.

“And if I solve the case?” I whispered.

“We’ll see,” he said, stepping away from me. I suddenly felt as if I could breathe again.

“Why are you giving me a chance?” I asked.

“Because there is something different about you, Kiera Hudson,” he said, face unreadable. “The agency hasn’t ever sent me a temp like you before.”

Potter walked away back down the corridor and into the office. I didn’t stop him this time and watched him go. When he had disappeared from view, I couldn’t help but glance down again at the hatch I was standing on.