“What happened next?” I asked.

“It was freezing cold, but I stayed wrapped in that old blanket for as long as I could,”

Pen said. “I lay there until I heard the engine of Steve’s truck start up then drive away.”

“What did you do then?” I asked incredulously.

“I went home,” Pen said. “Back beyond the Fountain of Souls.”

“But you said you would never go back there...”

“I know what I said, but I was desperate.

I was in pain, soaking wet and freezing cold. The night was fading and I knew that I had to get into hiding before it got light. Besides, my father had long since left the caves. I hadn’t been back since I was girl. No one knew me.”

“Why didn’t you come to me? I would have helped you. We could have got everything sorted out once and for all. You had the DVD of Marc attacking you, we could have taken it to my Inspector, just like you had planned, and that would have been the end of it,” I said.

Pen looked at me with her bright orange eyes and said, “I wanted Marc to pay, Jim. I wanted him to suffer for what he had done to me.

Together, Marc and his brother had ruined The Ooze Bar and they had ruined me. I knew that while they thought I was dead, I was safe. So like Dorothy, I went home.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Murphy

The night sky gave way and unleashed a blizzard of snowfall that almost engulfed us. Pen went back over to the bush and hurriedly yanked back the bramble and we forced our way back in.

We hunkered down onto the ground where we had earlier made love. Pen sat opposite me, her knees drawn up beneath her coat.

She looked at me, then said, “It was while I was hiding out in the caves for those few days, I hatched my plan.”

“And you decided to drag my sorry arse into this?” I whispered.

“I knew that if I could get you to realise I had suddenly gone missing, then you would start to nose around and ask questions,” she said.

“So how did you get the notes to me? And who did you get to write them, as it wasn’t your handwriting?” I asked her.

“In the dead of night, I would leave the caves. I would run through the forest, some blank sheets of paper, envelopes, and a pen in my pocket. I skulked about the back streets, keeping to the shadows and searching behind the stores, until I came across this old homeless guy hidden beneath a pile of cardboard boxes. He thought God had sent me from heaven when I offered him money to write me out four short notes. His spelling wasn’t up to much, so I had to write down what I wanted in each one and then he copied them word for word. I realised that by the morning, after he had finished off the liquor he would have bought with the money I had given him, he probably wouldn’t have even remembered me.”

I couldn’t believe Pen’s cunning but secretly admired her tenacity.

“While I still had the cover of darkness,”

she continued, “I headed over to your place and posted the first letter. And that was that, the ball was rolling and the rest was pretty much out of my hands.”

Pen sat and stared at me, waiting for me to speak, to say anything.

“So the note posted under my hotel room door, that was you, too?” I eventually asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“How did you know I was staying there?”

Pen cupped her hands around her mouth and blew warm air over them.

“It was simple, Jim,” she sighed. “There are only two hotels in town. One is a flea pit and the other half decent. I called the decent one, said I had a meeting with you but couldn’t remember your room number. Simple. Then all I had to do was deliver the note.”

“And the rest I know,” I said thoughtfully.

Then looking at her, I added, “So what happens now?”

“What do mean?” she asked right back.

“How are we gonna get outter this mess?”

“I’m not,” she said flatly, staring me straight in the face.

“Pen, you can’t go around for the rest of your life pretending you’re dead,” I snapped.

“Why not?”

“Because tomorrow night someone is gonna get their fucking head chopped off for a crime they haven’t committed,” I reminded her.

Pen looked away. “So what.”

“So what?” I gasped. “You can’t let Marc be executed for a crime he hasn’t committed!”

“Yes, I can,” Pen insisted. “He tried to kill me, and as far as he’s concerned, he did.”

“Are you fucking insane?” I exploded.

“There’s a world of difference between trying to murder you and actually murdering you!”

“Like what?” she asked stubbornly.

“Like you’re still fucking alive, that’s what!” I yelled at her.

“He deserves to die for what he did to me!” Pen hollered back.

“Look, Pen,” I said, trying to remain calm.

“You’re gonna have to think of something…some way of coming back from the dead.”

“Like what?” Pen sneered.

“I dunno…pretend that you’ve been suffering from amnesia for the last few months and you’ve only just remembered who you are,” I suggested. I knew it was a crap idea, but my mind was scrambling to think of a good one.

“I don’t believe you! Are you for real?”

she mocked. “Do you really think anyone will buy that?”

“Well you’d better think of something, Pen, because I don’t know if I can sit back and watch someone die – wolf or not – for something they haven’t done,” I warned.

“What are you saying? You gonna give me up?” she asked in disbelief.

“Have you got any idea what happens to someone when they go to the chopping block?” I whispered.

“They get decapitated!” she barked. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Don’t be such a fucking wise-arse!” I snapped. “Before they take them down to the block, the guards stuff tampons up their arse and make them wear a fucking nappy because most of them crap themselves in fear! Why do you think the condemned have to wear one of those black face masks?” I demanded.

“I don’t know?” she shrugged as if unbothered by what I was telling her.

“Because when the axe passes through their necks, their eyes explode right out of their fucking skull!” I told her.

Pen looked away again and said, “You expect me to have pity for that arsehole! He tried to kill me! It was only by some freak miracle I survived.”

“But that’s the whole point, Pen, you did survive!” I took a deep breath, then in a calmer tone of voice, I tried to reason with her one last time.

“Look, Pen, if you let him go to the block, you ain’t any better than him,” I said. “You become a killer – the curse will get hold of you.”

Pen remained quiet, and I hoped my reasoning had worked. Then after a moment or two, Pen screwed her hands into fists and shouted at me, “Fuck him! I’m not saying anything to help that son-of-a-bitch.” Pen got up and went back out into the snow. I took a deep breath and went after her.

The snow was racing down at a pace and it was so thick and heavy, it took me a moment to locate Pen’s whereabouts as she wore the white fur coat. I hurried over to her, snow pelting my face.

“Well, you’ve fixed this whole thing up real good, haven’t you!” I bellowed.

Pen turned to face me, and with a wry smile playing at the corners of her lips, and her arms outstretched at either side of her, she stared straight into my eyes.

“I told you I was The Wizard of Ooze!”

she laughed into the night.

“What do you mean?” I breathed, wondering if she hadn’t gone insane.

“I was the man behind the curtain, pulling all the levers, pressing all the buttons, just like the Wizard of Oz,” Pen said.

“This isn’t some sorta fairy tale, Pen, this is real life!” I barked at her. “You can’t go through with this! I can’t go through with it…I can’t stand by and let it happen.”

“If you’re worried about your job, I’ll never tell anyone that you knew!” she tried to bargain with me.

“It has nothing do with me being a cop!” I said, although in my heart I knew different.

I was a Vampyrus cop and that meant something to me. Just like my brother Paul had chosen to help others in his life, I wanted to do the same. I wanted to help the wolves stop killing – I didn’t want to be responsible for the death of one of them, not if they hadn’t committed the crime they had been accused of. That was breaking the rules and I didn’t want to be a part of that. I wanted to be better than that.

So looking straight into Pen’s eyes, I added, “I’ll know that Marc didn’t really murder you and I don’t think I can live with that on my conscience! Pen, please…I don’t want to have to give you up!”

Pen moved closer to me and touched my face with her hand. “Don’t betray me, Jim.”

“I love you, Pen. I always have, and for the last few months...every day I’ve wished you were still alive…but now I just wish you were dead.”

Pen held me against her. “Jim, you can’t mean that.”

“What, you think we can just pick up from where we left off? The Elders, my Inspector, they all think you’re dead and you may as well be. We can never see each other again if you go ahead with what you are planning to do,” I said.

“I’m sorry for ever coming back. I never meant to hurt you.” She wiped tears from her eyes.

Pen went to touch my hand but I pulled it away.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, turning to leave.

“I’m sorry, too,” I called after her.

Pen turned to look back at me. “What for?” she asked.

“For what I have to do,” I said.