…the door to the room slowly swung closed. I rolled onto my side expecting to find Potter, but he had crept away while I’d been asleep. I got out of bed and hurriedly put on my clothes and boots. I eased the door open an inch and peered through the gap to see Potter walking away down the corridor. Without making a sound, I slipped out and closed the door behind me.
Potter walked some way ahead and I pressed myself close to the wall where the shadows fell and followed silently behind him. He walked confidently and with purpose as if he knew exactly where he was going and what he was going to do once he got there. Was this the secret that he had spoken about? If so what was it? I intended to find out.
From the shadows, I watched as Potter climbed the stairs down to the wide, open area on the ground floor of the hangar. He stopped before the giant sliding doors as if waiting to meet someone. The doors were still slightly open and outside all I could see was the night sky and a crust of a moon. The snow looked as if it had stopped for the time being.
I tiptoed halfway down the stairs to a small landing, and crouching down, I tried to make myself as small as possible. I waited only a few minutes until a long stretch of a shadow fell across the hangar floor. I knew who that shadow belonged to; I had seen it before when spying on Murphy in that derelict farmhouse.
Seth appeared below me and approached Potter. At first they didn’t speak, they just looked at one another. Potter spoke first, but I was too far away to hear what it was that he was saying. I wished that I had Kayla with me, but I sensed that I didn’t have time to go searching for her now. Leaning forward, but not too much for fear of them seeing me, I strained to hear what they were saying to one another. Every so often, a snippet of their conversation would float back towards me but it wasn’t enough to truly understand what they were talking about. Although they showed no emotion in their voices, I could see that the conversation had grown heated by the way they gestured at one another with their hands.
So, crawling on my hands and knees, I inched myself along the walkway above them, and stopped when I had reached a discreet place but could hear their voices.
“You can’t stop me from going to The Hollows,’ Seth said. “Eloisa and I are in as much danger as you and your friends.”
“Well go and find somewhere else to hide,” Potter snapped.
“There is no other place, the town has been sealed off!” Seth barked. “You know we can’t escape from here.”
“Not my problem,” Potter replied. “Murdering scum like you doesn’t deserve the protection of The Hollows.”
“I didn’t kill those women,” Seth insisted. “It wasn’t me who tortured them.”
“You seem to be forgetting that I caught you at the crime scene of the twelfth victim,” Potter hissed. “You were leaning over her body with blood all over your muzzle.”
“Murphy wasn’t convinced,” Seth said, and smiled.
From my hiding place, I could see Potter tense as Seth said Murphy’s name. Then, stepping closer to Seth, Potter said, “You might have fooled Murphy but you’re not fooling me. You took advantage of a grieving man. Murphy had just lost his daughters, he wasn’t thinking straight. If he had of been, he would’ve never come to you for help in the first place.”
With that crazy look in his eyes and the sinister grin playing on his lips, Seth looked down at Potter and said, “Murphy believed me. He trusted me.”
“Yeah, and look where it got him,” Potter growled, going toe to toe with Seth. “You tricked him, led him to Phillips who ripped his heart out! I’m not as trusting as Murphy. Do you really think that I would’ve let Kiera go with you into The Hollows – a perverted serial killer who gets his kicks out of murdering children and women?”
“You don’t have a choice, Potter,” Seth sneered. “You can’t stop me.”
“No, it’s you who doesn’t have the choice,” Potter said, unfastening the front of his shirt. “Leave now voluntarily and go find some other place to hide or you don’t leave at all.”
“Don’t you threaten me…” Seth started, but then, without warning Potter reached out with breathtaking speed and reached for Seth’s throat. Seth was just as quick and seized Potter’s arm. Both of them stared blackly into each others eyes.
“Only one of us can go forward,” Potter told him.
“Then it shall be me,” Seth said.
Realising that Seth wouldn’t give in to his demands that easily, Potter broke his arm free and threw his arms out to his side. His back arched as he rolled his head back and his wings unfurled from his back. Seth wasted no time in dragging his claws across his own face as he ripped his flesh away and his wolf’s head appeared from underneath. His baseball cap flew away, along with his long, flowing coat and jeans. As if reading each other’s mind, both sprang into the air within a fraction of a second. Potter roared and Seth howled as they collided with one another. I flinched backwards as lengths of black wolf hair sprayed into the air as Potter ripped at Seth with his claws. The werewolf released a howl that was so deep, it sounded like thunder. With his lips rolling back, Seth lunged at Potter and buried his teeth into him. Both were equal in strength and speed and each tried to tear the other apart. Potter rolled back one of his muscular arms and drove his claw straight at the werewolf’s colossal skull. There was a sickening crack of a sound and Seth shot backwards through the air.
“You cannot go forward from here,” Potter warned him, racing through the air in a blur of black shadows.
“Why you and not me?” Seth barked, landing on all fours on the floor of the hangar.
“Because I know you’re a killer and you betrayed Murphy,” Potter boomed as he raced through the air towards Seth.
“If there is no reasoning with you, Potter, then you must die just like Murphy did,’ Seth barked at the top of his voice. He then suddenly shot forward, raking at the air with his giant black paws.
Seth caught Potter, who stumbled backwards momentarily in mid-air, but that was all the werewolf needed to come racing forward, his jaws open and teeth gnashing. Potter was just as quick, and ducking out of Seth’s way, he dropped out of the air, rolled across the shiny surface of the hangar’s floor, and sprang to his feet. Seth came at him again and they fought each other. They rolled over and over, a blur of black fur and wings. They struck out at each other with such speed and ferocity that they became a blur like the rotary blades of a helicopter in flight. The sounds of their claws ripping and teeth tearing echoed off the metal walls of the hangar as the two of them leapt, spun, and dived at each other.
Sparks flew up from beneath the werewolf’s claws as he skirted across the floor of the hangar. The light from his eyes glittered and he came racing forward again. He thrust Potter backwards again and he flew through the air, smashing into the side wall of the hangar. Potter seemed to hover momentarily in midair, then rocketed back towards the ground, leaving the wall battered and bent out of shape.
Seth ducked and skidded around as Potter came screaming forward, lashing out at the wolf with his claws. They crashed into one another and more sparks flew into the air as they skidded down the length of the hangar.
“You can’t win!” Seth howled.
“Neither can you!” Potter roared back.
“Then we both die!” Seth barked and pounced at Potter again.
Potter sprang into the air to meet him head on, his wings pointed like arrows behind him. Their arms whisked through the air as they sliced at each other. Blood sprayed from Potter’s chest, and I slapped both hands over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. Their arms locked and they clashed heads as they tried to bite lumps from each other’s faces. Both pushed fiercely against each other. But they were equally matched – and I feared that perhaps Seth had been right, both of them would die.
From my hiding place, I knelt and watched as Seth suddenly whipped his giant tail from behind him, lashing Potter across his back. There was a crunching sound, then Potter collapsed onto the floor. He reached out with his arms as Seth came forwards, brandishing his razor-like teeth and snarling. I stared at Potter and he looked beat. Slowly, he lowered his arms, his shoulders sloped and he dropped his head. I wanted to scream at him to get up, to fight back, but my throat was locked and I felt as if I was suffocating. Then, to my amazement, he dragged himself into a sitting position and crossed his legs in front of him. He tilted his head back as if exposing his neck for Seth to bite.
Seth seemed to wait several moments before coming forward again, as if he suspected a trap of some kind. Potter remained still, his head back, throat exposed. Seth finally sauntered forward, brandishing his teeth and snarling. Before I’d even had a chance to register what had happened, Potter had snatched hold of the werewolf’s giant head and twisted it violently to the right sending Seth spinning through the air. Before Seth had a chance to react to what had happened, Potter launched himself off the ground and had him in a headlock. Seth tried to bark, but all that came out was a series of coughing sounds as Potter tightened his arms around the wolf’s throat. Seth kicked out widely with his back legs, his claws making a scraping sound across the floor and his huge, fleshy tongue rolled from the corner of his mouth.
“You helped kill my friend Murphy and if I leave you alive, you’ll kill Kiera, too,” Potter growled into one of Seth’s pointed ears.
Seth began to make a final struggle and he kicked out wildly with his paws, as Potter tightened his grip further.
The wolf made a panting sound, and his eyes started to close, and just when I thought that it was over, something huge and grey came leaping into the hangar through the gap in the open doors. Glancing down, I gasped at the sight of Nik standing over Potter as he gripped Seth on the floor.
“I killed those women,” he yelped at Potter. “It was me you and your friends were chasing back then. I was the one who butchered and tortured all of those women, not Jack Seth!”
Chapter Thirty-Seven