“What are you talking about?” Potter growled, refusing to release his grip on the dying werewolf. “Who in the hell are you?”
“My name’s Nik Seth,” he barked at Potter, “And it was me who committed those murders, not my father.”
“I don’t believe you!” Potter growled, as blood ran from the claw marks which now covered his body.
“It’s true,” Nik howled. “Jack Seth is my father. He discovered it was me who was killing those women. He tried to stop me, but I couldn’t be stopped, not back then. He followed me one night as I picked up another woman from a bar and headed back to her apartment. We went to her room, and as she got undressed, I took my skin off and revealed my other self to her. She wanted to scream – God how she wanted to scream – I could see it in her eyes. But she looked into mine and I had her. She was transfixed by my stare and I could do anything I wanted to her, and believe me, I did. But my father knew that you were hunting me down and were close by that night. He reached me first and told me to go so he could be in my place when you, Murphy, and Luke came crashing through the door. My father took the blame for those killings, but I didn’t go unpunished. He cursed me, leaving me captured in the wolf’s form until I redeemed myself. He never wanted me to entice a woman away again, place her in a trance and then kill her. He knew, looking like a wolf, I’d never be able to trick another woman to go with me again.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?” Potter said, as Seth stopped twitching in his arms and fell still. “Any son of Jack Seth’s has got to be lying scum.”
“It’s true,” a voice said, and I looked down to see Eloisa walk across the hangar floor towards Potter. Her long, blond hair bounced beautifully about her shoulders and her eyes glimmered like crystals. “Jack took the blame for his son; he took his place in the cells down in The Hollows.”
“So you’re this wolf’s mother?” Potter said.
“I’m not his mother,” Eloisa smiled with her perfectly formed lips. “Nik’s mother died when he was just a baby. I am Jack’s lover, that is all.”
Potter stared into her eyes, then slowly released his grip on Jack. He stood, then looking down at the wolf, he rolled the giant beast away with his foot.
“Father,” Nik howled, then licked Jack’s face with his giant tongue. “Wake up, father. I’ve done good this time.”
Seth made a gurgling sound in the back of his throat and lifted his head an inch off the floor. Nik licked his fathers face again. “Father, wake up, please,” he said. “I want you to see that I’ve done good for you.”
Seth’s mighty flanks began to heave up and down as he started to draw air through his snout. Potter stood and looked down at the wolf, then at Eloisa. Then, Seth was getting up, staggering onto all fours. He sniffed the air and looked at his son.
“What are you doing here, boy?” Seth woofed.
“I came to save you,” Nik barked softly.
“I told you I never wanted to lay eyes on you again,” Seth said. Now get out of my sight.” Then looking at Potter with his yellow eyes, he added, “It looks like your friend, Murphy, was right about me all along.”
Without saying a word, Potter walked directly towards Eloisa. She smiled at him and her eyes twinkled. Potter’s face looked grim and his eyes a dull black. Then, so quick if I’d blinked I would have missed it, Potter shot his arm out and thrust his claw into Eloisa’s chest. It all happened so fast that Eloisa still had that smile on her face as Potter ripped out her heart. She looked at him as if to say something, but all that came out of her mouth was a thick jet of black blood. Eloisa fell forward, crashing face first onto the floor of the hangar.
With her heart still beating in his fist, Potter walked back to Seth. Holding the heart out in front of Seth’s huge face, he said to the wolf, “You might not have murdered those women, but you helped take the heart of somebody I loved.” Then, dropping Eloisa’s heart on the floor in front of Seth’s giant paws, Potter looked into the wolf’s eyes and said, “I guess that makes us just about even.”
I couldn’t believe what I had just seen and those words from Ravenwood’s message swam sickeningly in the front of my mind.
“… Elias Munn plunged his fist into her chest and tore her heart out…”
“No!” I screamed over the edge of the walkway. “Potter, what have you just done?”
No sooner had those words left my mouth, Isidor and Kayla came running down the stairs above me. “What’s happening?” Kayla called out.
Potter glanced over his shoulder and saw me standing on the walkway above him. Within an instant, he had flown up to join me.
“What did you just do?” I gasped.
He looked into my eyes and said, “You asked me last night if I had feelings. Murphy was my friend – like a father to me – and I loved him. Do you really think that I’d let his death go unpunished?”
“But you just ripped her heart out,” I said still in shook at what I’d just witnessed.
“And they took Murphy’s,” he said flatly.
I looked into his eyes and they looked dead and heartless. “You’re scaring me,” I told him, blinking away the tears that were standing in my eyes.
Coming closer, Potter said, “Now go straight to The Hollows and wait for me. I’ll come back with Luke, I promise.” Then leaning in, he kissed me on the cheek and at the same time, he whispered in my ear, “It’s not me you have to be scared of, sweet-cheeks.”
He turned away, leapt over the edge of the stairs and landed on the ground in front of Seth. Leaning forward, he said something to the werewolf, then strode purposefully between the gap in the hangar doors and out into the dawn.
I looked over my shoulder at Kayla and said, “Did you hear what he said to Jack Seth?”
Kayla looked at me and nodded.
“What did he say?” I snapped at her.
“If Seth harmed as much as one single hair on your head while he was gone in search of Luke, he would rip his heart out with his teeth and…” Kayla stopped.
“And what?” I demanded.
“Potter said that he would eat Jack Seth’s heart,” Kayla shuddered.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
With my head spinning, I made my way down the stairs to the ground floor, Kayla and Isidor close behind me. Eloisa’s body lay to one side, and a thick pool of blood trailed from beneath her. I looked away. Seth was twisting and contorting from a werewolf back into human form. His limbs almost seemed to stretch as if made from putty and his head looked as if it was being sucked in on itself. When he had completed his metamorphosis, he looked down at his son.
“You’re not welcome here,” he hissed.
“But I saved your life,” Nik yelped like a lost puppy.
“And took countless others,” Seth said.
“So have you,” Nik suddenly snarled. “You have murdered hundreds.”
“Not for many years,” Seth shouted back. “I’ve been trying to redeem myself – to lift the Lycanthrope curse.”
“You seem to have a funny way of showing it,” Isidor suddenly cut in.
“And what’s that supposed to mean, boy?” Seth turned on him.
“Betraying Murphy like you did beneath the mountains,” Isidor said standing firm against the serial killer. “He was our friend and he trusted you.”
Glancing over at Eloisa spread face down on the floor, Seth said, “And it looks like I’ve paid for that too.”
Nik came forward, his giant tail swishing behind him. “But I have changed, father,” he said. “It’s not only your life that I’ve saved. I helped Kiera escape from her cage and her friends, too.”
“It’s true,” I said to Seth. “Your son helped me – I think we helped each other in some strange way. We were both fighting our cravings for human flesh together. Nik could have killed me at any time, believe me, he had plenty of opportunities. But he didn’t. Instead of killing me, he helped me and my friends. And even when I’d escaped, he kept watch over me and guarded me. I think it’s time you lifted the curse.”
“Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do with my son!” Seth roared and spittle flew from his lips. He then came towards me, his eyes spinning in his sunken eye sockets like two burning planets.
Before he could reach me, Kayla had stepped into his path. “I so wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she hissed. “I heard what Potter said to you before he left. So back-off, wolf man!”
“Potter doesn’t scare me,” Seth smiled grimly.
“Oh, no?” Isidor said, coming to stand next to his sister. “It certainly smelt like Potter scared you. You don’t just talk shit – you smell of it!”
Seth looked at Isidor, and for the briefest of moments I thought that his eyes were going to pop from those sunken sockets. Without giving him the chance to reply, Kayla quickly added, “So as far as I can see, Jack Seth, you have two choices. You can either crawl back under whichever rock you came out from, or you can keep your freaking face shut, get in line, and follow Kiera into The Hollows.” Then, in a spray of shadows, she was hovering in the air just inches from his emaciated face. “Because I promise you, one more threat – just one more – and you won’t have to wait for Potter to come back and eat your heart out, I’ll hit you so freaking hard that it will explode out of your arse!”
Without saying anything, Seth smiled and turned to walk away. I couldn’t believe the change in Kayla and Isidor. Maybe Potter had been right after all; perhaps what they needed was to toughen up. However harsh he had been to them, it had changed them. For the better? I didn’t know. But they both seemed ready to confront whatever lay ahead for us.
Nik bounded after his father, and almost seeming to yap at his heels, he said, “Please, father, lift the curse.”
