Vampires of Maze (Part One) (Beautiful Immortals Series Two Book 1)

by Tim O'Rourke

  “Then I say we stop chatting about it and start moving,” Rea said, blowing warm breath over her hands.

  “I think we should check out that old farmhouse over there,” Trent said, pointing in the direction of the house I had seen earlier.

  “Why?” Rush asked. “Shouldn’t we head for the town of Maze?”

  “We’re not far from town,” Trent said, looking back in the direction we had come, then front again. “We might be able to find something in that farmhouse which could give us some indication as to what we might find in Maze – better to have as much information…”

  “What makes you think the house is deserted?” I asked.

  “Who would live in a place like that – it’s a shit heap,” Calix said. He stood away from the rest of us, sheltering from the snow beneath a nearby tree. Unlike the others, his coat was open and the tails flapped about his knees. He didn’t seem to be affected by the cold and the snow.

  “I’m not so sure that house is derelict or empty. I think I saw smoke coming from the chimney…” I started.

  “I don’t see any smoke,” Rea said, brushing past me. Her shoulder connected with mine with such force that I stumbled forward. “Sorry,” she smiled, glancing back at me.

  With thoughts of the conversation I’d overheard between her and Trent still fresh in my mind, I simply shrugged and said, “No worries.”

  “When did you see the smoke, Julia?” Rush said, coming alongside me. Warm breath billowed from his mouth in tiny clouds.

  “When we arrived,” I said.

  “We’ll I don’t see any smoke,” Calix said, stepping out from beneath the tree and setting off in the direction of the farmhouse in the distance.

  “No, wait!” I called after him.

  “What do you think, Trent?” Rea said, staring at him. “Listen to Julia’s warnings about the smoke she claims to have seen or follow Calix?”

  Trent shot me another sideways look then back at Rea. “We follow Calix,” he said, before setting off across the field.

  I looked at Rea as snow spun about her head and shoulders. She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Got a problem with that?”

  “No problem,” I smiled back. With my head bowed against the snow, hands thrust deep into my coat pockets and rucksack slung across my back, I set off. I wasn’t going to let myself be drawn into Rea’s games. I had to keep my eyes firmly on the mission ahead. But I knew that I was walking a fine line. I needed Trent and the others to trust me. If the vampires sensed that the werewolves I travelled with didn’t have faith in me – then how would they? How could I ever be a credible negotiator – the bringer of peace – if the very people I travelled with didn’t believe in me? But perhaps Rea had been right? Maybe Trent did like me more than he should. That was a start, wasn’t it? Trent was these people’s leader. If I could get him to trust in me, then surely the others would follow, even if Rea didn’t. But wasn’t that a dangerous game to play? Would I make an enemy in Rea? And if I did, how dangerous might that enemy become?

  By the time I reached the farmhouse, Trent and Calix had already been and carried out a full sweep of the outside. I looked down and could see where they had trampled the fresh snow – their footprints disappearing around the side of the farmhouse. Rush and Rea joined me as we stood in what was little more than an overgrown front garden. The thorns and nettles were now covered in a fresh blanket of crisp, white snow as it continued to seesaw all around us in thick, white flakes. The windows had been boarded over with planks of wood. I crept toward one of them and pressed my eye to a gap that I found. Whatever lay beyond the covered window was shrouded in darkness.

  “I told you the place was deserted,” Calix said, suddenly appearing from around the side of the stone farmhouse. His black hair was now almost white with snow. He looked at me, his stare suddenly as intense as it had been when he had woken from his nightmare. Had the nightmare been about me? I looked away.

  “Where is Trent?” Rea asked, waving snow away from in front of her face so that she could see Calix.

  “Around the back. I’ll show you,” he said before disappearing again. We snuck around the side of the farmhouse and followed Calix to a door set into the wall. Trent was standing before it. The collar of his coat was turned up and he peered over it as he watched us approach him through the driving snow and wind.

  Reaching him, I pointed to the footprints in the snow. “Were all of these tracks made by you and Calix?”

  “Yes, why?” Trent asked me.

  “It’s just that some of these look too small to be made by you and…”

  “What are you trying to say?” Calix said, puffing out his chest. “Don’t you think we know how to scope a place out?”

  “What I’m trying to say is that some of these tracks couldn’t have been made by you…”

  “What are you talking about?” Rea cut in, her tone dismissive like I was some child who had no idea what I was talking about.

  Bending at the knees, I crouched low to the tracks in the snow that led to and from the backdoor of the farmhouse. I pointed to several of them. “Look, some of these have been made not by boots but bare feet and the tracks look pretty fresh.”

  Kneeling beside me, Trent inspected the footprints I had pointed out to him. When he was finished, he stood up once more. “Julia is right,” he said to the others, who stood shivering in the cold. “This place might not be deserted as we first thought.”

  Rea spoke in that dismissive tone again. “Those tracks could have been left by anyone or…”

  “And until we find who or what exactly left them, we press on with caution,” Trent said, cutting over her. Glancing at me, Trent smiled and added, “You did good, Julia.”

  I could feel Rea’s eyes boring into me and my skin prickled with gooseflesh. The temperature surrounding us had just dropped several more degrees and not because of the weather.

  Saying nothing more, Trent took the door handle in his fist and twisted it. I heard a clicking sound, but it hadn’t come from the door. I looked back to see that both Calix and Rea had drawn their guns and cocked the hammers.

  “Problem?” Rea asked, gun in her fist.

  “No problem,” I said, turning away.

  Trent pushed against the door, but it was jammed tight. He pressed his shoulder against it but it refused to open. He stood back from the door when a sudden shot rang out. I threw my hands to my ears as the doorknob and lock exploded in a shower of twisted metal and splinters.

  Chapter Six

  With the sound of gunfire ringing in my ears, I spun around to see Rea standing just feet away, gun raised and smoke spiralling up from the end of the long silver barrel.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Trent snarled, springing through the air toward her. “You’ll get us all killed.”

  Rea didn’t flinch away from him. She simply slid the gun back into its holster. “I was trying to open the door that was all.”

  “But your gunshot will be heard for miles!” Rush said.

  “In this weather?” Rea asked. “I don’t think so. The snow will muffle the sound.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Trent barked at her.

  “Then we get our friend, Julia, to negotiate a truce for us,” she said, turning to look at me. “That’s what you’ve come to do, isn’t it?”

  I said nothing and simply stood looking at her.

  “Enough of this, Rea,” Trent warned, his eyes fixed on her.

  “I was trying to help, that was all,” she shrugged. “Or perhaps you don’t need my help anymore…”

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m cold and hungry,” Calix said, brushing past Trent and Rea. “You can stand out here if you want to, but I’m going to find something to eat.” I watched him head into the farmhouse through the door that now hung open in its frame.

  Rush approached the door too, but before stepping inside, he looked at me and said, “C’mon, Julia, you look freezing cold. Let’s see if we can’t find something t
o eat in here.”

  I glanced back just once more to see Rea and Trent staring each other down in the falling snow. Perhaps my mission would have been easier if Rea hadn’t come. But she had and I was just going to have to deal with that any way that I could. Turning, I headed into the farmhouse. I found myself in a small kitchen. Calix had lit a candle that was on the table. The flame licked to and fro, casting our long dark shadows up the cracked stone walls. I could see a cooker and a fridge which stood with its door open. It looked like it had been a very long time since it had been used. Black mould had grown on the inside of it. There was a wooden table and chairs in the centre of the room. Calix held up the candle and I could see a half-eaten plate of food and a knife and fork. The plate was covered in a reddish meat that looked as if it had hardly been cooked. It sat in a pool of what looked like blood. My stomach lurched in disgust. Without hesitation, Calix picked up the slab of meat, tearing it into two bloody chunks. He handed a piece to his brother and wedged the other into his mouth. Red juices ran from his mouth and onto his chin. Smacking his lips together, he wiped them clean with his arm, then let out a thunderous belch.

  “That’s better,” he said, patting his hard flat stomach.

  “Would you like some?” Rush said, offering me a piece of the meat.

  I shook my head. “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Have one of these.”

  I looked up to see that Calix was tossing an apple through the air at me. I snatched hold of it. “Thanks.”

  He shrugged. “No problem. There are some more over there.” He hooked his thumb at a collection of fruit that had been piled in one corner of the kitchen.

  Why was he being nice to me all of a sudden? His moods seemed to change quicker than the weather. I took a bite of the apple and my stomach lurched once more. Not in disgust but delight.

  As we stood chomping on the food that we had found, Trent appeared in the open doorway. Rea stood just behind him, the end of a freshly lit cigar winking on and off in the gloom. With snow blowing in over his shoulder, Trent came into the kitchen, Rea at his heels. They seemed to have sorted out their differences once more.

  “This place is empty then?” Trent asked.

  “For now,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Rea asked, and I couldn’t help but notice that her voice was no longer tinged with the frostiness that had once been there.

  “It looks like someone was halfway through eating a meal,” Rush said.

  “Probably heard us coming and did a runner,” Calix added.

  I licked the apple juices from my fingers and placed the core onto the plate that was covered in the remains of the bloody meat.

  “I don’t suppose you left any food for us,” Trent said, coming toward the table.

  “There’s some apples in the corner,” Calix said.

  “Apples!” Rea said. “I need something much fleshier. Apples won’t sedate my hunger.” Plucking up the plate, she tossed the apple core to one side, then licked the remaining meat juices from the plate. Her tongue looked long, pink, and fleshy. When the plate was clean, she licked her lips.

  I turned away and saw what looked like some kind of newspaper on the table and picked it up. In the darkness I struggled to read what was written across the front page. As if able to see the difficulty I was having, Calix placed the candle on the table next to me. That was twice now in a matter of minutes that he had helped me. I didn’t know whether to be grateful of suspicious.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “No problem,” he said, standing just behind me and peering over my shoulder and down at the newspaper. Again, it felt like he was just too close, but I fought the urge to move away. Instead, I read the headline that was written across the front of the newspaper.

  Vampires Conquer Maze. Reporter: Sidney Watson.

  Chapter Seven

  I read the headline aloud, but before I’d had a chance to read any further, Rea had snatched the paper away from me. She began to inspect the newspaper, thumbing through the pages. I wasn’t going to get into a fight with her over it. Instead, I pretended that I wasn’t bothered. I would read the paper later when she had finished with it. Besides, that one headline had told me everything I needed to know about Maze. It was now infested with vampires. Despite now knowing that, I knew we would still have to head to Maze if I was ever going to find the truce I had come in search of. But would the werewolves I travelled with agree to such a thing? They were going to be vastly outnumbered. They would surely have to put all of their trust in me if I could ever convince them to follow me into Maze. But I wasn’t sure that I would be able to achieve that. I knew that Rea didn’t like me at all and Calix blew hot and cold whenever the mood took him. But I sensed that I had two of the wolves on my side – Trent and Rush. I knew that if I could convince both of them, the other two would surely follow. Rush and Calix were brothers and I doubted very much that one wouldn’t go into Maze without the other – so therefore, I guessed that if Rush followed me into Maze so would Calix. From the conversation I’d overheard between Trent and Rea, I knew enough to know that she had strong feelings for him – feelings of love. So she would therefore follow Trent. She had followed him to England after all.

  “What was that?” Rush suddenly whispered, looking up at the ceiling.

  “What was what?” Calix shot back, guns in his fist once more.

  “I thought I heard something,” Rush whispered.

  “Me too,” Trent said.

  The floorboards creaked overhead. Rea dropped the newspaper that she had been holding. Before it had even fluttered to the floor, she had drawn her pistols from their holsters. The noise came again from above.

  “Someone or something is up there,” Trent whispered, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. I heard the sound of his leather holsters creak and he too eased his guns from them.

  Surrounded by my companions with their guns, I said, “Let me go and investigate.”

  “You?” Rea frowned. “You don’t have a gun.”

  “And that’s why it should be me who goes – that way nobody gets killed,” I said, snatching up the candle and heading for the door.

  “Wait,” Trent said. “I’m not so sure about this…”

  “I’ll be okay, I promise,” I said, smiling back at him.

  “She’ll be okay,” Calix smirked. “She’ll zap whatever’s up there with her magic wand.”

  “Knock it off, Calix,” Trent warned him. Then looking back at me, he added, “Okay, you take the lead, Julia, but we’ll be right behind you.”

  Rea shot Trent a look. “Who’s in charge here, anyhow?”

  “I am,” he told her, before heading across the kitchen to join me at the door.

  With a scowl on her face that did little to hide her beauty, Rea joined us. Rush and Calix crowded in behind her, guns held tightly in their fists. Knowing that now wasn’t the time to try and convince them that there was another way to solving problems without violence and killing, I eased open the kitchen door. It creaked, and the sound of footfalls came again from above. But this time they moved faster, like someone or something was moving at speed above our heads. I heard a clicking sound as the werewolves cocked their guns. With the candle raised before me, I crept from the kitchen and into the darkness on the other side of the door. We stood in a small hallway. There was a rickety-looking staircase that led up into more darkness. With the flame flickering back and forth before me, I crept toward the foot of the stairs, Trent and the others at my heels. So much for letting me lead. I knew that whoever was upstairs I would have to get to first before those guns were thundering in my companions’ fists. Reaching out, I took hold of the bannister and it swayed under my grip. I stepped onto the first stair and it creaked so loud that at first I thought that someone behind me had opened fire. The sound of running came again at the top of the stairs in the dark.

  “What the fuck was that?” Calix hissed.

  “What was what?” Rush asked. “I didn’t see
anything.”

  “Something moved at the top of the stairs,” Calix insisted.

  “Where?” Rea cut in.

  I held up the candle but it did little to light the way ahead. The darkness almost seemed to absorb the light.

  “Maybe I should lead,” Trent said, taking me by the shoulder. His hand felt large and strong.

  I brushed it away without looking back. “There is no need to concern yourself, Trent. I know what I’m doing.”

  I took another step and the wooden staircase cried out again. Whoever or whatever was upstairs knew that we were coming, so did it really matter if the stairs creaked? They had already given us away. I took another step and then another. Placing my free hand into my pocket, I let my fingers brush over the book of spells that I carried with me. My fingertips tingled. A warm sensation rushed over the back of my hand and all the way up my arm. My flesh began to prickle from head to toe. My hair began to shift about my shoulders as if caught in a warm summer’s breeze. I took another step, then another and another. I slid my hand from my pocket, fingers curled into a fist. It felt as if I was holding a ball of seething energy between my fingers. Reaching the top of the stairs, I looked left, down the length of the narrow landing I now found myself on. I felt Trent brush against me from behind as he reached the top of the staircase. I could see nothing but darkness to my left. With the candle in my hand, I looked to my right. The candlelight threw an orange glow along the landing and in the light that it cast I saw what it was that had been moving about in the darkness.

  Chapter Eight

  The young boy and girl screamed at the sight of us gathered at the top of the stairs. They turned and fled, racing away toward a door set into the far wall. Raising my free hand, I flung open my fingers and sent a wave of energy along the landing. As it reached the door, I made a fist again, pulling back the energy and slamming the door closed before the boy and girl could reach it. Colliding with the now shut door, they yanked and pulled on it, but I kept it closed from where I stood at the top of the stairs.