Chapter 10 #2
I shuffle my hands through my pockets, finding the vial of alphemera petals and slip a sliver onto my tongue.
It dissolves quickly, and I hope it has countered the poison in the tube.
It can’t have been carrow in that concoction; the plant that is scentless, tasteless, as I suspected from the unharvested plant in the poison garden, because I’m still alive.
My heart still beats, unlike Kipling, who just died at my feet.
There’s no way I’m going to risk waiting for Alden to find me with the antidote.
At least all that careful studying by moonlight in the poison garden and the deal I made with Tessa was some use in the end.
Now all that’s left is to find Alden and double back to the mirrors together.
Opening my switchblade, I fall into the habits of my training with the Collector, sawing a branch from a tree that’s two fingers thick, then watching the woods around me, making short work of whitling the end until it’s sharp enough to pierce flesh.
The switchblade is useful for close combat and stealth, but I’m taking no chances with what may be lurking in such an ancient place.
I press a hand into the gnarled bark of the nearest tree, a memory emerging unbidden.
The last time I was in woodland just like this one, I was twelve and locked in a hunting lodge.
This woodland feels so familiar. Turning, I breathe in the scents lacing the air again, the damp catching in my throat, cool as a still lake.
‘The Morlagh Woods,’ I whisper, knowing it’s the same place.
It has to be. The Great Wood, the Crown’s woodland, is south, near the city, and no lichen grows there.
Pendle Wood is like a vein, run ning through the middle of Kellend, intersecting private ancestral lands, cluttered with manicured trails for visitors to enjoy but the Morlagh is sprawling and mostly wild.
A few hunting lodges are the only mark of civilisation in miles and miles of loam and green.
Here, tree and rock are patterned with lichen like pale lace.
This, the northernmost woodland of Kellend, is ancient and misty, bordering the sea on one side and boggy moorland on the other.
I was here in a hunting lodge for five days and nights.
The Collector brought us here, me and Dolly, leaving Banks for some reason in the city.
I remember Dolly stroking my hair as howling peppered the night outside, the full moon too big and too bright to be able to sleep.
She told me not to be afraid. That it was the safest place I could be.
The Collector sitting by the door, a rifle in his lap, knives whittled from wood, encased in iron beside him.
He barely ate, did not appear to sleep and gave no reason for why we were there.
When we left the hunting lodge, I was allowed a short walk to see the trees brushing the sky with their spindle branches, half an hour to drink in the misty air, before the Collector took us back to the city in a bumpy, cramped motor car that smelled of wet dog.
It’s not something I’ve thought of in years.
I rise quickly as a sound reaches me, fracturing the memory, dragging me back to the present. Breathing. Heavy, laboured breathing.
I’m not alone.
Footfalls, inconsistent and thudding, even on the soft ground, echo in the mist. I bite my lip, taking a few careful steps backwards and release a quiet, relieved breath when I find a tree at my back.
The bark rasps against my jacket and I grip the stake I’ve made tighter, raking my gaze back and forth.
If it’s another hopeful, they could have a weapon like me, they could be searching for easy prey to whittle down our number.
The fog seems to be clearing, the outline of other trees emerging from the gloom.
The person, close to me begins to whimper and I realise it must be another hopeful.
And they’re terrified.
The clouds above shift as the breeze rattles through the tree limbs and silvery light cascades down.
Glancing up, I find a full, perfect moon suspended in the heavens.
Time has somehow wound forward to night as we stepped through the portal at Killmarth, and out into the Morlagh.
I’m at the edge of a clearing. And lumbering across it, hand clutched to his side, panting and heaving is someone I recognise.
‘Greg,’ I hiss, stepping away from the tree. ‘Greg!’
He stutters to a halt, turning towards me and manages a few more swaying steps before collapsing.
I frown, peering left and right, checking he’s not been followed before darting out.
But when I’m a pace away from him, I stop dead.
He moans fitfully, staring upwards at the moon, and I notice the gash in his side and …
the bite mark at his throat. This isn’t the work of the poison they handed to half of us.
In fact, I’m fairly certain Greg was in Alden’s line, and Tessa was in mine.
And if he’s been bitten, it can’t have been an opportunist hopeful.
He tries to say something, swallowing then wheezing out some words.
I fall to my knees, assessing the gash in his side, the blood loss. It reminds me too much of Dolly and I have to brace myself, leaning closer to hush him as I assess how deep it is. ‘This looks like a claw mark … Greg, what …’
He swallows again, eyelids peeling back as he turns his face skyward and cold fear trickles through me. ‘You need to run. Find Tessa and get out. Take the antidote for her. It’s in my pocket.’
‘Stop that right now. What did this?’ I rummage through my knowledge of creatures, of the wild things lurking at the edges of our world.
Most have been hunted to extinction, some kept as curiosities in private collections.
But there are some that still inhabit the forests and mountains.
Places most people no longer linger for long. ‘Greg, what did this to you?’
His eyes roll back, the whites gleaming horribly. ‘It’s … it’s coming. Not the one that did this. The one that came afterwards.’
A howl splits the night, honing my fear to a knife edge. I grip my switchblade in one hand, stake in the other and crouch low, raking my eyes across the edges of the clearing.
Then out steps a woman. A smiling, pale woman.
She wears a perfectly pressed skirt and blouse, pearl drops glinting at her ears.
There’s a spray of scarlet across her chest, more at the corner of her mouth, and as she takes a step, she wipes at it with a handkerchief.
Her features are so strange, so slender, so hungry .
Greg whimpers again and she sniffs the air, gaze snapping to us.
Then I realise what she reminds me of. What she looks like.
The monster, that vicious, vile monster that killed Dolly. Could it be the same kind of creature?
Greg whimpers again, but this time it sounds more like a growl. A shiver, like the brush of fingertips lingers on the back of my neck and there’s a snapping, squelching sound. Like bone breaking, like flesh and blood spilling out.
‘Sophia, you have to run. I can’t control it, I can’t—’
Ice douses my veins, but I chance a look at Greg behind me, heart pounding like a fist in my chest, and find he is gone. In his place, grey fur and lupin eyes. Teeth like fangs and a huge hulking shape.
‘Oh gods …’ I choke, stumbling back as this creature, as Greg bolts past me, straight for the woman, the pale monster, so fast I can barely draw breath.
He’s a werewolf.