Twisted Heart

  Jarrold grinned at me from beneath his yellowish wolfskin. ‘Walk,’ he ordered. And Channing and Ziegler dragged me forward.

  We came at last to the Spider Rock, which stood on a ledge overlooking the lake – me and my two wolf-man jailers, together with Aurelie and Jarrold and the four she-wolves. The narrow finger of weathered pink sandstone pointed skywards, looming over us as we sought shelter from the wind and snow. Below us, the floodwater charged like a freight train through the valley. Despair blasted through me like the north wind.

  There was a shelter by the rock, evidently built by the Wolf band after I left them.

  ‘Channing, go inside the tipi,’ Aurelie ordered. ‘Tell Holly to bring Aaron and Orlando.’

  Dark and silent as a shadow, he vanished into the shelter.

  I recognized that here was another lie that had spilled from Jarrold’s honeyed lips – that Orlando and Aaron had made it safely to Spider Rock. The fact was, they’d been tricked then captured, just like me. But the dread in my heart lifted a fraction, knowing that I wasn’t so alone.

  Channing came out again with Holly, but minus Orlando and Aaron. I felt a heavy thud of disappointment then a glimmer of hope.

  ‘What happened to the guys?’ Aurelie demanded sharply – wolf woman with a bark in her voice.

  ‘Holly says one had a knife hidden in his belt. Orlando – he cut himself free then did the same for his buddy.’

  ‘They won’t get far in this blizzard,’ Aurelie decided quickly. ‘Ziegler, track them down. Kill them and throw their corpses into a crevasse, where the ice will form over them and they will never be found.’

  Straight away Ziegler left with two of the wolves. Noses to the ground to pick up Orlando and Aaron’s scent, they soon disappeared along the ridge.

  ‘Sorry, Tania.’ Jarrold gave a careless shrug. ‘Looks like your boyfriend didn’t care enough about you to hang around and help.’

  I stared back at him, my heart in my mouth as we waited for Aurelie’s next move.

  ‘We go ahead with the celebration for Holly,’ she decided calmly. ‘Tania, we’d be so pleased if you would join us for your friend’s initiation.’

  I groaned and took a few steps towards Holly, who stood alone in the snowstorm, still in the lightweight tunic and skirt she’d worn for Amos’s birthday party, and still deep in the wide-eyed trance I’d witnessed inside Ziegler’s cabin. Channing had spun his web of flattery and lies and Holly was trapped, seeming to see nothing, hear nothing of what was taking place around her.

  ‘Holly, don’t do this!’ I pleaded. But Jarrold held me back while Channing took his place at Holly’s side.

  ‘Spider Rock is as good a place as any,’ Aurelie went on, her voice simultaneously soft and threatening. ‘Papa always told me it’s a sacred place where boys from the Navajo and Avesta tribes came on their quests. It is where the earth, air, fire and water join together to cleanse the spirits of young warriors.’

  ‘A spiritual place, then.’ Jarrold seemed to enjoy the irony. ‘We’re here on a different spiritual quest. No cleansing involved.’

  ‘The opposite,’ Aurelie agreed. Her arms and torso were pale and her eyes glinting beneath the dark wolf mask that she pulled up over her head. ‘This is the moment when Holly leaves behind her old life and steps over on to the dark side for ever.’

  Jarrold’s grip on my arm tightened. The roar of the water in the valley grew louder.

  ‘Bring Holly to me,’ Aurelie murmured, from beneath the black wolf’s head. She stood at the very edge of the ledge overlooking the valley then raised both arms towards the sky.

  Deep in her nightmare trance, Holly allowed Channing to steer her towards Aurelie. She teetered on the ledge, gazing down at the flood and swaying. At the same moment, more wolves crept out from behind the trees. I counted twelve, thirteen, fourteen as they formed a silent, crouching pack.

  ‘Holly, listen to me!’ Desperately I tried to prise myself free.

  But again Jarrold held me fast. His hands had grown long, curved nails – the black claws of a wolf; his hot breath carried the stink of dead flesh.

  And before my eyes Aurelie gathered herself then stepped from the ledge into thin air. She seemed to hover, her wolfskin cloak spread like wings behind her. Then she turned and spoke again.

  ‘Holly, it is time,’ she whispered eagerly. ‘Join us, walk with us.’

  With Spider Rock behind her, Holly stared at Aurelie, mesmerized.

  ‘I am the dark power,’ Aurelie chanted. Her voice chilled me, and her cold female presence.

  In all of my nightmares I had envisioned a male figure like Zoran Brancusi – tall and lithe, with his shaven head and rock star swagger, or Antony Amos, whose quiet voice and charismatic beliefs drew you unquestioningly to him. Amos acted like a messiah. He was a movie maker and illusionist – a good candidate. But I never foresaw that my dark angel was a woman.

  The shock of the unexpected blasted my mind – here was graceful, delicate Aurelie inviting Holly to step off the rock, over to the dark side.

  She was my dark angel. I missed the clues but they were there.

  A woman with short dark hair wearing sunglasses, capri pants and a pink shirt walks with Amos on to the lake shore.

  A hellish vision slams into me, like a car crash. I see bodies beneath the lake.

  I know my dark angel has shape-shifted and is lying low. She has forced my attention on to Amos and I don’t recognize her, but she is rising again.

  Another flashback – Aurelie stands with her feathered staff at the exit to the Explorers’ parking lot at the start of our wild walk. ‘Open your hearts,’ she chants as we pass by. The feathers brush my cheek. I feel a bitter wind, I am blinded by snow and a sweating wolf man emerges from his lair of thorns with blood-stained claws.

  These were the dreams, the sharp shards of evidence that had lodged in my brain but which I was too blind to see.

  ‘I hold sway over everything you see,’ Aurelie murmured. With a wide sweep of her arm she gestured towards the dark forest and mountain peaks, along the ridge to where the wolves lay in wait and down from the ledge towards the rushing torrent.

  Facing the enemy, alone on the cold ledge, Holly swayed forward – shivering in her white dress, a sacrifice.

  ‘Reach out your hands,’ Aurelie commanded. ‘Step across.’

  Slowly, with great stealth, the wolves closed in.

  Obediently Holly reached out to take Aurelie’s hands. Her head was tilted back and there was a look of ecstasy on her face as the dark powers whispered and urged her to join her new mistress.

  Step out. Feel the air beneath your feet. Do not be afraid.

  Aurelie’s wolf-eyes gleamed with victory. ‘Hell is close to where you stand. Evil rises,’ she gloated, holding out her hands, palms upwards. ‘Our army is strong. We are everywhere!’

  More wolves emerged from the forest, their coats darkened and matted with clumps of ice. They brought the night and a hot, sharp stench.

  ‘You are innocent and loving, and now you are mine!’ Aurelie whispered into Holly’s ear. Holly shifted her weight, ready to move out into nothingness.

  I’m not afraid! I thought. Suddenly, at the very last moment, I found my courage, broke free of my helpless dread and found new strength.

  ‘The four winds are blowing,’ a spirit voice reminds me. I’ve heard it before but I can’t put a face to the voice – not Zenaida, not Conner or Maia. ‘Call for the guiding spirit of the hawk or the swift crow. Call for the dove, who is your angel of light.’

  The courage of the army of light flowed through me. ‘You think you’ve won but you’re wrong!’ I told Jarrold, Channing and Aurelie – all of the dark spirits who could hear me.

  High in the sky, a grey dove soared. And through the trees behind us a figure appeared surrounded by light. He strode towards Spider Rock, thrusting aside the wolves who snarled and leaped at his throat to drag him down.

  ‘Stand fast,’ he tells me. Now
I know the voice of this new angel of light. It is Regan.

  Regan! With his bare hands he fought the dark spirits. The wolves howled, leaped again to tear at his face and neck. Jarrold released me. He and Channing ran to repel the intruder.

  I heard more swift footsteps; a second then a third figure appeared from the forest – Orlando and Aaron! They stood beside Regan, Orlando carrying the knife with the long blade.

  Orlando had stayed. He didn’t flee the mountain. He loved me more than anything – my one fixed point in this dangerous world!

  But now the wolves regrouped, ready to attack, and Regan gave orders to Orlando and Aaron. ‘Stay back,’ he warned. ‘Let me deal with this.’

  Already there was blood seeping into the snowy ground. Three wolves lay dead. Regan took Orlando’s knife, thrust the blade into the chests of two more victims. The rest whined and retreated along the ridge, where they crouched and panted.

  ‘You see!’ I yelled at Aurelie, who still held out her hands to her dazed convert. ‘You haven’t won. We won’t let you take Holly.’

  My dark angel smiled and waited.

  And now Jarrold and Channing launched their attack on Regan, Aaron and Orlando. With terrible howls of fury they flung themselves at my secret angel of light who had lived undetected at New Dawn.

  ‘Stay back,’ Regan said again to Orlando and Aaron. He kicked out at Channing, caught him in the stomach, toppling him and making him roll in agony. Then, as wolf-man Jarrold bared his teeth and pounced, Regan grabbed him by the throat and throttled him. Choking, Jarrold staggered back against a tree.

  There was a pause.

  ‘The wolves!’ I pointed along the ridge to where two more hunters had gathered. Their hackles were up. They were back on the attack. But worse – a silent, shadowy figure crept up from behind. A third wolf man made his stealthy way out of the forest.

  ‘Ziegler!’ I cried.

  19

  Ziegler crept out of the forest.

  We teetered on the ledge that separated dark from light, evil from good. Below us, the icy flood waited to sweep us all away.

  Ignoring Regan’s order to stay back and yelling their war cries like warriors of the plains, Aaron and Orlando sprang forward to drive back the snapping, snarling wolves. As the dark, feral hunters leaped for their throats, they wrestled them to the ground.

  Meanwhile, Regan seized his chance to grab hold of Holly and draw her back from the ledge. He pushed her into my arms and told me to find shelter under Spider Rock.

  ‘Stay strong,’ he reminded me. ‘Whatever happens, be brave.’

  There was no time for more. As he finished speaking, Ziegler came from behind and hooked an arm around Regan’s neck. He bared his teeth and gave a snarl, using his savage strength to wrestle Regan to the blood-soaked ground. Dark versus light.

  They wrestled and rolled towards the ice-covered ledge. Orlando yelled a warning before Jarrold closed in on him. Shoving the palm of his right hand under Orlando’s chin, he jerked his head back, exposing his throat. Orlando staggered against a tree, where Jarrold trapped him and paused to mock him.

  ‘How much does your girlfriend love you?’ he mocked, sweat running down his painted face. ‘A little – a lot?’

  Orlando grunted and fought to free himself. He tore at Jarrold’s wolf cloak, ripped the head from the pelt and threw it to the ground.

  ‘Not as much as you’d like to believe,’ Jarrold laughed. ‘Give me one extra day – twenty-four short hours – and she’d have forgotten all about you, lover boy. She’d have crossed to the dark side.’

  Enraged, Orlando found fresh strength and forced him backwards across the killing ground towards the ledge where Aurelie stood, still unmoved. Face to face, Orlando and Jarrold struggled on the brink.

  Among the slain wolves, Aaron fought Channing. He sent him stumbling over a grey corpse, watched him regain his balance but didn’t give him time to relaunch his attack. Instead, Aaron went in kicking and punching so fast and hard that Channing was forced towards Jarrold and Orlando on the ledge.

  Hearing Holly give a thin, childlike wail as she made a move to join Channing, I held her back.

  ‘Bring me the courage to stand in the blizzard and not to run from the wolf,’ I plead.

  My grey dove flies in a serene ark across a cloudless sky.

  Orlando and Jarrold, Aaron and Channing were locked in combat. They slipped on the ice, wrestled and rolled closer to the edge. Fear gripped me by the throat, made it impossible to breathe.

  And then the mightiest rivals of all – Regan and Ziegler – clashed again.

  Regan’s glowing light that I’d noticed as he emerged from the forest grew brighter, more intense, as if he’d summoned strength from Zenaida and all the angels of light to overcome Ziegler, who was darkness and torment. Angered, Ziegler summoned the remaining wolves and sent them in on the attack. One after the other they threw themselves forward, sometimes losing their footing on the ice, sliding over the edge of the cliff and disappearing with anguished yelps and howls. Regan was unharmed.

  So Ziegler saw that it was down to him alone. Gathering black shadows around him like a cloak, he advanced. I stared at the narrow wolf-face and the blood-streaked torso, remarking the columbine eyes that had first grabbed my attention on the lake shore – the only reminder of the human shape Ziegler had once adopted. Now he was dark and savage, intent on destruction.

  Regan stepped between the bodies of the slain wolves, aware of Ziegler’s every move. His eyes flicked towards Orlando and Jarrold, Aaron and Channing, still wrestling close to the edge. Regan took in Aurelie standing to one side, expressionless. Then his gaze swung round to me and Holly. ‘The water is rising. Take her higher up the mountain,’ he urged.

  But I couldn’t leave Orlando.

  So I was there when Ziegler launched his final attack, surrounded by shadows, grappling with Regan, losing his footing on the ice, sliding into Channing and sending him skidding towards the edge. Channing whined as he scrambled for a hold, howled as he lost his grip. His own weight and the power of gravity pulled him down and he disappeared from sight. I held Holly back from running to the empty spot.

  Then Ziegler roared and viciously hurled himself at Regan. Regan gave him eye contact, waited for him to reach the cliff edge and at the last moment stepped sideways. It was too late for Ziegler to put on the brakes. He launched himself from the rock. For a few moments he hovered, calling upon his dark angel power to become weightless like Aurelie. But the action was too fast and unexpected for him and Ziegler too crashed out of sight.

  There was a long, high howl then only the roar of water.

  Jarrold broke free from Orlando. On all fours he crawled to the edge and peered over the cliff.

  Holly, Orlando, Aaron and I stared in horror. Two bodies had hurtled from the ledge into the rising water below Spider Rock, the place where air, fire, water and earth meet. Howling, they had disappeared beneath the dark surface. The flood water claimed them, dragged them down, would never let them go.

  Knowing this, Jarrold whined. His painted face was streaked with blood and sweat. He panted hard.

  ‘Tania, take Holly away from here!’ Regan said again.

  Still I delayed until I saw Jarrold retreat from the ledge and slink between the trees. Who was the coward now? Who but a treacherous, corrupted spirit would see his allies sacrificed and still want to protect his own tainted skin? Jarrold crawled away, head hanging in defeat – wolf man creeping back to his empty lair to lick his wounds, deserting his leader without a backward glance.

  Aurelie had waited. She’d watched her lieutenants fail and now it was time to act. With one sweeping gesture, she raised her dead wolf spirits and they sprang back to life. With gaping wounds and jaws trickling with blood, they crept stealthily, menacingly towards Holly and me, herding us and pushing us towards the ledge.

  ‘We are too many.’ Aurelie’s smile was cruel and unbending. ‘We rise from the dead.’

  An
d as Regan fought the wolves and Orlando and Aaron huddled by the ledge with Holly and me, only centimetres from the drop into the flood water of Turner Lake, Aurelie darted towards me, snatched me up and carried me far away.

  She flew me through the whirling blizzard, above the brown torrent, with wind tearing at me and my brain in turmoil, until we landed on the snow-bound island in the middle of the lake. Here she set me down.

  ‘Now who will help you?’ she demanded pitilessly.

  I gasped for air. I had no answer.

  ‘Look around, Tania.’

  I did as she said. We were alone on a snow-covered scrap of rock without trees or any kind of shelter. Heavy clouds clung to the mountains on either side and closed in on us, drifting as ice-cold mist against our faces. At our feet, the flood water raced by.

  ‘You see. There is nothing to be done.’

  ‘So do what you have to do,’ I challenged. If this was the end, at least it would be cold and quick.

  Aurelie’s blank expression changed. Her dark eyes sparked and she let her anger show. ‘Come, Tania – you’re not usually so stupid. Remember that when we come face to face at last, we go at my pace because I am the one who holds all the power.’

  I stared back, willing myself not to give in. ‘Face to face,’ I echoed with a faint smile of satisfaction. ‘All this time I’ve fought to know who will punish me and take revenge – and now I do.’

  Aurelie laughed. ‘Poor Tania, we really made life difficult. We tricked you and twisted your visions, we got inside your head so that you suspected my stepfather. You wasted so much time.’

  ‘But now I know,’ I repeated. No more disguise or deceit – now I was alone with my dark angel.

  A smile lingered – it contained mockery and suggested one last secret that she wouldn’t share. ‘You must be asking yourself – exactly what next? Look around again, tell me what you see.’