“You’re so disgusting,” I heaved and moved away, losing sight of him again in the yellow fog.

I continued forward, and as I did I was sure I could hear the sound of voices. It was faint at first, like children whispering behind their hands. Someone brushed past me, but I didn’t know who.

“Potter?” I called out but he made no reply.

“Can anyone else hear those voices?” I asked, as the fog swirled all around me.

Silence.

Then, those little voices came again. It was definitely the sound of children – I was sure of it.

“Can anyone else hear those children?” I called out.

There was no answer, only the touch of someone as they hurried past me, as if running.

“Who’s there?” I shouted, now beginning to feel panicked and lost. Then, there was the sound of a scuffle, like two people fighting.

“What’s going on?” I called out, my heart racing as I spun around on the spot trying to locate the sound.

There was a sudden cry as if whoever had made it was in pain. I turned towards the sound. There was more running as someone pushed past me, shoving me against the wall of the tunnel.

“Help me!” a voice sounded from somewhere in the fog. “Come quickly! He’s dead!”

Chapter Thirty-Five

With my hands held out before me and my heart thumping, I staggered through the fog towards the sound of the voice that kept shouting over and over again, “He’s dead! He’s dead!” My ability to see through the dark had no effect down in Murka Tunnels. The fog was so thick and dirty I could just make out my own hand in front of my face.

I headed towards the voice as I cut my way through the murkiness. As I drew nearer, it lost its muffled quality and I realised it was Potter who was calling for help. I made my way as fast as I could towards him. And then through the smog, I could just make out the glow of his torch as he waved it back and forth through the air.

I reached him, and standing so close that we almost touched, he looked through the haze at me and said, “Coanda’s been murdered.”

“What?” I gasped.

“Take a look for yourself,” Potter said, bending down.

I got down onto my knees, and put my hands to my face in shock. Spread-eagled against the wall of the tunnel was Coanda. He was slumped forward, his chin resting against his chest. Gently, I raised his head, and could see his dead eyes staring back at me through the yellow fog that swirled all around him. I looked down at the ragged hole in his chest and could see that his heart had been removed.

“Who did this?” I whispered, glancing over at Potter.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But take a look at this.”

Holding up the torch, he passed it close to the wall just above Coanda’s corpse. Written in blood above his head was this:

Kiera follow the sound of the children

“What do you think it means?” Potter asked me.

“Haven’t you heard them?” I whispered.

“Heard who?”

“The children.”

“What children?” he pushed.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said standing.

“What’s going on here?” Potter asked me as he stood up, and as he did, I saw the hand that he held the torch with was smeared with blood.

“You tell me,” I shuddered.

Potter glanced at his hand, and realising that I had seen the blood, he sighed and said, “When I found Coanda, I touched him. I thought he had stumbled and tripped in this goddamn fog – that was all. I must have got some of his blood on me.”

Before I had a chance to say anything, Seth and Luke appeared from the smog. To be able to see each other clearly, we had to stand almost side by side. I felt Seth brush against me and I recoiled. He felt me flinch, and his eyes shone at me from within the gloom and I could just make out his rotting teeth as he smiled with pleasure at the thought of repulsing me.

“What was all the shouting about?” Luke wheezed as if choking on the fog.

Potter held the torch over Coanda’s head. “Now we are three,” he said.

“Four,” Seth corrected him.

“I’d forgotten all about you,” Potter said dryly.

“Who killed him?” Luke asked.

“I wonder?” I said, peering at Potter. With our number depleting by the hour, the list of suspects was growing smaller and smaller. I didn’t have to see anything to know that the killer – this Elias Munn – was either Luke or Potter. But to even think that made my heart ache. How could either one of them be Elias Munn? It couldn’t be possible – I would’ve seen it. But there was one other, and I glared at Jack Seth through the smog. I had believed him to be dead after Potter had pushed him over the cliffedge. But he had survived and had followed us. Maybe that’s who Kayla had heard following us. But would Kayla have fallen for Seth? He was an ugly, disgusting child killer. Then, seeing his eyes spinning through the fog, I understood how he got Kayla to fall in love with him.

“I love you,” she had said to whoever had been hiding behind the weeping willow. Seth had entranced her with his stare. Isidor had said how he couldn’t understand how Kayla had grown close to this person. She hadn’t fallen in love with him at all. Seth had tricked her like his son had tricked his victims – those women he had butchered. With my heart racing in my chest, I understood why Kayla had undressed just before being murdered. Seth had seduced her with his stare. He had made her want him, just like he had made me desire him when I had looked into his eyes in the caves beneath the Fountain of Souls. Even though I could see him torturing me, hurting me, I had still seen myself undress for him, lay down for him and let him take me.

“And what does that message mean?” Luke suddenly asked, but I hardly heard it. I couldn’t take my eyes off the murdering Lycanthrope.

“Maybe you should ask him?” I said, pointing at Jack Seth.

“Me?” Seth sneered, with a bemused smile on his face.

“Or perhaps I should call you Elias Munn?” I whispered in shock.

“What are you going on about,” he barked. “I know these tunnels are believed to be filled with a fog that can drive you insane, but I had no idea the effects would take hold so fast.”

Ignoring Seth, Potter looked at me and said, “What are you talking about, Kiera?”

“Jack Seth is the killer -”

“We’ve known that for years,” Luke cut in.

“No!” I snapped. “He’s responsible for killing Kayla, Isidor, Coanda, Murphy and all the others that have lost their lives…”

“I didn’t kill Murphy,” Seth spat. “That was Phillips, you saw him…”

“No, but you led us to him,” I cut over him. “It was you who told Murphy that we should pay a visit to that monastery where we all nearly lost our lives. How have I been so dumb? How have I not seen it?”

“I don’t have to stand here and listen to…” Seth started, but before he’d had the chance to finish, Luke and Potter had taken hold of him. “This is an outrage,” he struggled.

“That’s the real reason you wanted to get to the Dust Palace because you haven’t been able to get me to fall in love with you,” I said. “So many times you’ve looked into my eyes and shown me the perverted pleasures you have to offer. You hoped that I would fall for you. But each time I’ve resisted, so now your last chance is to get inside the Dust Palace and kill the Elders.”

Then, fixing me with his stare, he looked into my eyes and said, “You stupid girl, you didn’t resist me. It was I who resisted you. You couldn’t have stopped me from taking you if I’d really wanted you. Nothing could have stopped that. But you were my test, Kiera Hudson. To be able to resist you, to not take you, rip you apart, eat you every time I laid eyes on you, told me that I could be redeemed, that I could fight my desire to kill and butcher.”

“I don’t believe you could resist killing anyone,” I hissed. “Potter was right, you are murdering scum and you deserve to die for what you’ve done.”

“Then kill me,” he suddenly growled, and struggled free of Luke’s and Potter’s hold. “If you really believe that I’m Elias Munn, kill me now.” Ripping his bandanna from his throat, he threw it at me and bared his neck. “Go on, suck the life out of me, you bloodsucking vampire bat, because that’s what you are!”

With images of Kayla and Isidor racing across my mind, I lunged at Seth and sunk my fangs into his ropey-looking neck. His hot blood washed over my tongue and down my throat, where it burnt like acid. Then, as Seth writhed against me as if gaining some morbid pleasure from me feeding off him, I heard those children’s voices again. But this time they were closer, as if whispering in my ear.

“No, Kiera,” their voices sung softly all around me. “Bring the Lycanthrope to us and you will see all.” Then, those children, if that’s really what they were, giggled and were gone again.

Opening my eyes, I took my mouth from Seth’s neck.

“What did you hear?” he asked me as I stepped away, wiping his blood from my lips with his red bandanna and placing it in my pocket. Continuing to stare at me, he said, “You heard them, didn’t you? You heard the children.”

“What children?” I gasped, feeling out of breath.

“You heard the voices of the gods,” he said.

“The gods?” I asked, feeling light-headed.

“I heard them once before,” he said. “The day they cursed me and my race. And that’s my reason for wanting to seek an audience with them; I want to beg them to lift the curse they placed on us all those years ago.”

And then as if being haunted by ghosts, I heard the sound of those children’s voices again, whispering and playfully giggling amongst the fog. I turned my back on Seth and peered into the yellow vapour that swirled all around me. The voices came again, but this time they were fainter as if moving away from me. I followed the sound through the tunnel.