Dead Flesh (15 page)

“Have you had
dealings with him before?”

“Never,” he
said, combing his overgrown moustache with his fingers.

“So how can you
be sure that he’s not capable of murder?” I said defensively.

“Well damn me,”
he chuckled.

“Look, I can
see that you find this all very amusing, but are you gonna help me
or not?” I asked him.

“Listen,
Karen...”

“Kiera,” I
corrected him.

“Kiera, for a
cop, you ain’t half naive. These people...wolves...Skin-walkers,
whatever you want to call ‘em…they don’t live like us,” he warned
me in an almost fatherly tone.

“What do you
mean?” I asked him.

“You know…they
don’t live by the same rules as us. People may not like it, but
that’s the way it is. It’s been like it for hundreds of years.”

“So they are
allowed to get away with murder?” I said sarcastically. “My
understanding of the Wasp Water Treaty is that they can
match
with children every five years,
although that is bad enough. But are they allowed to murder
innocent people? I thought that’s what the treaty was brought in
for – to end the killing.”

“Look, what
goes on behind the walls of that school is wolf business,” he
said.

“So that makes
it all okay then?” I argued.

“All I’m saying
is that your friend…Emily…has probably found herself another
teaching post and moved on.”

“So what you’re
saying is, Emily just woke up one morning and left her home, her
job and hasn’t been in contact with her sister since?” I pushed
him.

Realizing that
he wasn’t going to change my mind, Banner sighed deeply and said,
“What’s a pretty young copper like you gone and got herself caught
up in something like this for?”

“What, police
work you mean?”

“Wolf
business,” he said, staring at me from across his desk.

Without
breaking his stare, I said, “Look, one cop to another…are you gonna
help me or not?”

Banner pulled a
notepad and pen from beneath the mountain of rubble on his desk.
“Who does she bank with?” he asked.

“What’s that
got to do with anything?”

“She’s gotta
eat, ain’t she? Fill up her car with petrol?” he said as if he was
teaching me something new. “I’ll run a few checks to see if she
used her bank cards in the last few days; that should tell us where
she is.” He tossed the pad and pen across the desk at me.

I scribbled
Emily’s full name, date of birth, address, and banking details onto
the pad. I was just about to hand it back when I paused and then
added the address of where I was staying. I then pushed it back
across the desk towards Banner.

“Thank you,” I
said.

“I ain’t
promising you nothing. If it wasn’t for the fact you’re a cop, I’d
kick your arrogant arse outter here!”

I got up and
left his office.

Kayla

I was relieved
to discover not only was I sharing many of the same classes as Sam,
but we had rooms next to each other. Sam seemed friendly enough,
and I guessed I would need a friend at Ravenwood. My room was
little more than a box, three floors up in one of the school’s
winding towers. To get to the room, I had to navigate a set of
stairs that spiralled upwards like a corkscrew. The stairwell was
dark and the steps echoed with each snap of my heel.

A metal framed
bed lent against the far wall of my room, and the sheets were rough
and made my skin itch. It was like falling asleep in a bed of
stinging nettles. The walls were made of stone and a desk crouched
in one corner.

I intended to
stick close to Sam, as I tried to find my way around Ravenwood and
understand many of the odd rules that seemed to be at its heart. On
my first night I took my iPod and sent a brief message to Kiera. I
told her about the freaky Greys and how I had made a friend who
might be able to give me information about what had taken place at
the school. I stressed that I needed to be careful as I didn’t want
to draw attention to myself. Within minutes of sending my message,
Kiera sent one back explaining that she and the others had arrived
at the nearby farmhouse. I took comfort from knowing that. Kiera
also said that she had made a visit to the local cop shop, but
wasn’t holding out too much hope that they would help her.

Once I had read
her message, I deleted it as she had told me to do. Should my iPod
be found and the messages read, then that would have given our
whole plan away.

Was there a plan?
I wondered, hiding the iPod into a
gap in the seam of the bag that Potter had sliced open for me with
one of his claws. With the iPod hidden again, I reached into the
bottom of my bag and took out a bottle of Lot 13. During the day,
my cravings had progressed from feeling like a mild itch to an
aching need in my stomach. Potter had given me enough bottles of
Lot 13 to last me seven days. I unscrewed the cap and gulped down
the slimy pink liquid. It coated the inside of my mouth and throat.
I swallowed the bittersweet fluid and those cravings for the red
stuff eased.

I pulled the
blanket made of stinging nettles over my head. The feelings of
uncertainty and loneliness that I suddenly felt as I lay in the
dark were almost suffocating.

Had I done the right thing by putting myself in the middle of
Ravenwood?
I couldn’t help but now wonder, as I lay and
listened to the way off sounds. The background noise seemed almost
deafening. None of the sounds were familiar to me – not like
sleeping at the manor where I had grown up. I had gotten used to
the noises back there. But at Ravenwood, as I lay in the dark, I
could hear the sound of the Greys’ robes swishing across the cold
stone floors as they patrolled the corridors in the dark. I could
hear the sound of sobbing as if coming from some far-off place. But
above all, I could hear the sound of wolves howling.

Unable to bear
it any longer, I reached for my bag, slipped my fingers into the
tiny tear in the fabric and pulled out my iPod again. I wore the
earphones and scrolled through the tracks I’d downloaded during my
last night at Hallowed Manor. I dragged my fingernail down the
screen until I found the song that I was looking for. With the
blanket over my head and my eyes closed, I listened to
Ugly
by The Sugababes. It was the song that I had
often cried myself to sleep listening to during my time spent at
boarding school. Ugly and Stickleback were the names that the other
girls there had called me. The song was one constant in this new
world that I now found myself in. I don’t know how long I had lain
awake listening to that song, but eventually I fell into a restless
sleep where I dreamt of those girls that had bullied me and made my
life a misery for so long. I had been their dumping ground. Every
school had one, even Ravenwood School, as I was about to find
out.

Alan Dorsey was
small for his age and very burnt. The rumour was that his parents
had been killed in a house fire, a fire that Dorsey had managed to
escape from; but the flames had left their mark, a permanent
reminder of what had taken place that night. His face was scarred,
the skin stretched tight across his face, and in places it looked
as if it had run like melted candle wax. Dorsey’s eyes were two
narrow slits, his nostrils looked like two puncture wounds in the
middle of his face and his mouth was pulled into a permanent
grimace. Dorsey knew that the other kids at Ravenwood stared at
him, and I guess he didn’t blame them. No more than I now blamed
those girls who had stared at me. After all, wasn’t it human nature
to stare at the freaks?

On my first
morning at Ravenwood, I had overslept. Fearing that I would be in
trouble with the Greys for being late for class, I showered in the
communal girl’s bathroom and hurried down to join the queue for
breakfast, which snaked across the schoolyard. The day was overcast
and dull-looking again, but at least the rain had stopped. It was
still very cold, though. I found Sam, propped up against a
wall.

“What you
doing?” I asked him. “Not joining the line for breakfast?”

“Waiting,” Sam
said, and it was only in the pale winter light that I realised how
good looking he actually was. It wasn’t only his thick, black curly
hair, it was his eyes; they were a brilliant blue that had such a
look of mischief in them.

“Waiting for
what?” I asked, looking over his shoulder at the other kids on the
schoolyard. Some of the girls stood chatting, while a group of boys
kicked a scruffy-looking football about.

“For the fight
to start,” Sam said.

“What
fight?”

Sam nodded in
the direction of the boy who I had caught staring at me from the
back of the class the day before – the one with the scrunched up
face and Marine haircut. “See Pryor over there? He’s gonna smash
Dorsey,” Sam told me.

“How do you
know that?”

“He’s been
winding-up that kid for weeks,” Sam said. “Pryor’s a bully - an
animal.”

“What makes you
think he will -” I started, but before I could finish, Sam stepped
away from the wall.

“Watch,” he
whispered.

I looked at
Pryor amongst the crowd of boys with the football. He stood amongst
them and watched Dorsey walking alone. I saw Pryor’s eyes narrow as
he followed Dorsey’s progress. Unaware that he was being watched,
Dorsey made his way towards the school building, his head bowed,
chin almost touching his chest. Pryor broke away from the pack.
Slow at first, and I could hear his shoes whispering against the
concrete. Then, he was running, narrowing the gap between himself
and Dorsey.

“You’re dead!”
Pryor screamed, leaping through the air and crashing into
Dorsey.

The first
Dorsey knew that he was under attack was when the back of his head
bounced off the ground and the air from his lungs belched out
through his burnt and twisted lips. Dorsey looked up to see who it
was that had knocked him off his feet, his eyes wide and full of
bewilderment.

“You fucking
freak!” Pryor roared, straddling Dorsey.

From where I
was standing, I could see the loathing Pryor had for Dorsey in his
eyes. Dorsey could see the hate in them too and he knew he was in
trouble. Throwing his hands in front of his face, Dorsey managed to
block the first wave of blows that Pryor threw at him.

“Freaks like
you should be caged!” Pryor spat, smacking Dorsey up the side of
his head.

“What have I
done?” Dorsey cried out.

“You should be
in a circus!” Pryor said, punching Dorsey in the face.

I stepped away
from the wall. The first thing that struck me was the sound Pryor’s
fists made as they pounded into Dorsey’s face. They didn’t make the
crunching
noise that I had so often heard
in the movies, but more of a
Whap!
Whap!
sound. Seeing Pryor’s fists raining down on Dorsey made
me feel as if I had a heart that was beating, but not in my chest,
in my stomach. Those sounds made me feel sick.

I wanted to
stop Pryor. Not for Dorsey’s sake but for my own. I couldn’t bear
that
Whap! Whap! Whap!
sound. If I had to
listen to it for much longer, I believed that I might just go
insane, right there on the edge of the schoolyard.

Pryor must have
been at least fourteen-stone and over six-foot in height. Although
I was way smaller than him, I knew I could kick his arrogant
fucking arse all over the schoolyard– but that would’ve just
brought me unwanted attention to myself and my abilities. But I
couldn’t bear to watch Dorsey taking a beating.

Maybe I could go and get one of the teachers. Wouldn’t they
put a stop to Pryor?
I wondered. But I knew that they
probably wouldn’t be interested. I glanced at Sam, who stood beside
me, his face grim and pale. The spark in his eyes had faded and he
looked as sick as I now felt.

“We can’t just
stand and watch!” I said.

Sam didn’t say
anything. He stood and continued to watch the fight and the large
group of boys and girls who had gathered like vultures around Pryor
and Dorsey.

Whap! Whap! Whap!

Pryor looked
down into Dorsey’s tear-stained face. “What’s the matter with you?”
Pryor roared. “Why do you have to

look like
that?” And he punched Dorsey in the face again.

Whap!

The sound of
that last punch made my stomach cartwheel. Without considering what
I was about to do or the shit I could be getting myself into, I
raced towards Pryor. Pryor’s back was facing me, and it looked as
broad and as sturdy as a dining room table propped on its side.
With my fists clenched so my claws wouldn’t spring out, I focused
in on my target.

Some of the
other kids who were gathered around the fight saw me coming and
parted like waves so I could get at Pryor. Raising my fist above my
head like a hammer, I swung it down in a swooping arc. But before
it connected with the space between Pryor’s shoulder blades, a hand
gripped my wrist and yanked my arm backwards.

I spun around
to find myself looking into Sam’s face.

“No, Kayla.
Pryor won’t give a crap that you’re a girl. He’ll smash your face
in, too.”

“But I can’t
just stand by and do nothing,” I told him.

“You might have
to,” Sam warned.

Then, the air
was ripped apart with the ear-splitting sound of the sirens from
the search towers. It sounded like an air raid was underway. The
kids swarming around Pryor and Dorsey split to the four corners of
the yard.

Sam yanked on
the sleeve of my blazer and said, “C’mon. They’re coming!”

I followed Sam
as he darted away across the yard. Before we reached the other
side, I glanced back. Several of the Greys were racing towards
Pryor and Dorsey. Their robes fluttered like wings as they swooped
down on the two boys who still rolled around on the ground. I
turned front and followed Sam around the corner of the school wall
and the
Whap! Whap! Whap!
sound was
replaced by
Zap! Zap! Zap!