by Tim O'Rourke
“So you can never go back?” I said, shocked by what he had just told me.
“Never,” Luke said, his voice sounding broken. “We had to leave then and there. We had no choice. We weren’t even allowed to say goodbye to our friends. It wasn’t so bad for Potter – he didn’t really have anyone. If you hadn’t already noticed, he doesn’t seem to make friends that easily.”
“What about you?” I asked, placing my arm about his shoulder. Cocking his head, he looked into my eyes and said, “I was the lucky one. The person I love lives above ground, Kiera.”
To hear this and see the intensity of his stare made butterflies swoop about in my stomach. But before I’d the chance to respond to what he’d said, he continued.
“I came above ground too soon, my wounds hadn’t healed properly. I can’t stand the daylight at all, and to be uncovered in it for a moment makes my skin smoke and blister until it feels raw. My wings are still in tatters and flying is difficult.”
“Will it always be this way?” I asked him, my heart aching.
“As long as I keep out of the sun and in near darkness, the scars will eventually heal. That’s why this part of the manor is covered in tarpaulin,” he explained. “For the first few days, we hid above ground by travelling at night and sleeping the days away in cheap hotel rooms. But the Sarge, Potter. and me soon realised we were being pursued by the agents of the man that had issued our death warrants.”
“How did you know?” I asked him.
“In the towns that we left behind, we heard that there had been reports of people being mauled by animals. The Sarge and Potter went to investigate one day, while I rested in the darkness of some hotel room. The authorities believed that the victims had been killed by animals but Murphy and Potter knew better, they could see the signs.”
“Signs?”
“Most people killed by animals don’t usually spring from their graves a few days later,” he said with a grim smile on his face. “There were Vampyrus behind us and they were feeding and creating vampires in their wake. So one night, when the moon was out and the air was cool, we went in search of these Vampyrus. You could say that the hunters became the hunted that night. Potter was really pumped up. I’d never seen him so agitated. I think he was craving for blood and not being able to go below ground, the flesh of his own kind was going to have to be good enough. There were two of them and we tracked them to a car parked at the rear of a bar. They waited in the shadows for the bar to close for the night and the last of the staff to leave. We waited in the treetops of a nearby park and waited for the hunters to strike. And we didn’t have to wait long. I was glad that the wait was short because Potter had begun to twitch and shake with hunger.
“ ‘C’mon, show yourselves!’ ” he kept saying over and over. “ ‘Let’s just get this over with.’
“Then we saw her, this petite barmaid locking the door to the bar behind her and stepping out across the desolate car park. Before she even had a chance to reach her car, the hunters had raced in a blur of shadows and were upon her. But just as quick, Potter had raced across the sky and before I’d the chance to blink he had pulled the girl free of her attackers. The Sarge was close behind her, snatching her away and laying her on the ground. With my wings still tattered and torn, I leapt from the tree and see-sawed towards the unconscious barmaid. Making sure that she was okay, I carried her to her car. Finding the keys in her bag, I laid her on the backseat of the car, out of harms way.
“Turning away from the car, I watched as Potter tore apart one of the assassins sent to kill us. He showed no mercy. I’d never seen Potter like that before. His arms seemed to be pumping up and down in a blur as he pulled away chunks of the hunter beneath him. Then he set about his face with his teeth and in seconds it would have been hard to believe that the creature had ever had a head, let alone a face. With thick lumps of flesh and sinew swinging from his chin, he turned, looking for the other assassin.
“Murphy had hold of him. The assassin was knelt forward, his head cast low like someone about to be beheaded. Potter strode towards him, his thirst for blood still not quenched.
“ ‘What do you want from us?’ Potter roared into the face of the hunter. ‘Is it not enough that we have been banished from The Hollows?’
“The kneeling man made no reply, but Potter wouldn’t let up.
“ ‘Tell me what you want?’ he screamed, his face only inches from that of the assassin. Again he kept his head bowed and said nothing.
“Then completely freaking out, I watched Potter grab the assassin by the hair and drag him across the car park to the remains of his partner. Leaning in close, so as only the assassin could hear, Potter said something. I don’t know what it was, but the assassin began to scream and beg for his life. And as he sobbed like a baby, I heard him say a name that sent a chill down my spine,” Luke said.
“Whose name was it?” I asked Luke. Looking at me, his eyes gleaming like cat’s eyes in the gloom, he said, ‘Kiera Hudson.’ It was your name that he said.” “But why me?” I asked, gooseflesh scampering up my spine. “What did they want with me?” Ignoring my question, Luke said, “Murphy and me watched as Potter tortured a confession out of the assassin. It wasn’t nice to see and I was shocked at Potter’s sheer brutality, but he got the assassin to tell him that Taylor and Phillips were coming for you.”
“But why?” I asked, and again Luke ignored my question.
Staring into the darkness in the corner of the room, Luke said, “Once Potter had all the information that he was going to get, he ripped the assassin to pieces. Murphy and me were stunned by the sheer ferocity and speed of his attack. Within seconds he had beheaded the Vampyrus sent to kill us, and had his head buried in his chest cavity like a wild dog and eating as if he were ravenous.
“ ‘We’ve got to get him some help,’ Murphy said to me just above a whisper. ‘If we don’t, it won’t be long before he’s attacking humans to satisfy his hunger. Vampyrus blood won’t keep him going for long.’
“I argued with Murphy, Kiera,” Luke said. “I wanted to come straight to Havensfield and get you. But the Sarge said that we should stay together, not split up. I was still weak and with Potter being driven insane by his hunger, Murphy said we should go into hiding – we wouldn’t be able to help you if we weren’t keeping it together ourselves,” Luke explained.
“So what did you do?” I asked him.
“We came here,” he said. “Murphy had some connection to Lord Hunt. They had grown up together in the same part of The Hollows. But Lord and Lady Hunt were reluctant to help us. The news about our banishment from The Hollows had seeped above ground. And knowing that a threat of death had been made to anyone that helped us, they really just wanted to get rid of us. But Murphy spoke to Michael Hunt in private and whatever it was they discussed, he agreed to let us stay, but on the understanding that we helped him.”
“How?” I said, wondering what agreement had been made between them.
“His daughter Kayla had gone missing, so in return for sanctuary, Murphy and Potter agreed to track her and bring her home. I was too weak to go and would only have slowed them down. So it was decided that I would hide out in this wing of the house,” Luke explained, and he said it as if he’d let his friends down in some way.
“But what about Potter and his thirst?” I asked. “Come to think of it, how are you all coping?” “Did Lady Hunt tell you what her husband did as a job?” Luke asked me. “She said he owned a company that was developing renewable genetics,” I told him. “But I’m guessing now that that was a lie?” “Kind of,” Luke half-smiled, as if being caught out. “What then?” “He was a chemist – a bit like a doctor really. He was working on renewable genetics of a sort. He was developing a synthetic blood that would ease the cravings for human blood.” Luke explained. “But it would only have been a temporary substitute if for any reason a Vampyrus couldn’t get below ground. The plan was for each of the Vampyrus to carry around a small bottle of the stuff t
hey could use in case of an emergency. Like if you were on a flight that got delayed and you were forty-thousand feet above ground when the cravings started. Instead of feeding on the flight crew and other passengers, the synthetic blood was to hold back the thirst. A bit like giving a heroin addict methadone. It’s not the real thing, but it’s meant to help for a while. Hunt called it Lot 13.”
“And does it?” I asked, wondering how his cravings were doing. “Does it what?” he asked. “Help?” “Yes,” he smiled. “You’re safe with me. It doesn’t totally get rid of the thirst but it helps – it becomes manageable.” “So what about me?” I asked him. “Sorry?” he said. “You never answered my question.” “What question was that?” he said, looking away from me again. “Why were Taylor and Phillips coming after me?” Luke didn’t say anything, he just looked ahead. Grabbing him by the shoulder and forcing him to look at me, I said, “They’ve taken, or worse…killed anyone that I’ve had contact with since returning from The Ragged Cove. Some of these people were my friends and they’ve suffered because of me. I think I have a right to know why I’m being hunted!”
Standing, Luke took me by the hands and said, “Kiera, come with me and I’ll show you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Picking up the lantern, Luke led me from the room where he had been hiding for so long. In the passageway, he turned right, leading me away from the landing and further into the darkness. Even with the lamp held before him, the passageway was dark and suffocating. Being with Luke did nothing to ease the creepiness that I felt.
“Watch your step,” Luke whispered over his shoulder as he led me up a narrow staircase. Reaching out with my hand, I brushed the wall for balance. Again, I could feel that sticky, tacky substance on the walls and its smell became almost overpowering as we climbed.
“What is that sticky stuff on the walls?” I asked him. “It stinks.”
“Oh, that,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t even notice it now.”
“Lucky you,” I muttered. “But what is it?”
“It’s a mixture of garlic and queets, which is a herb only found in The Hollows. Lord Hunt discovered that when the two are mixed together it forms a powerful paste that sends vampires completely nuts. They hate the stuff – won’t come anywhere near it.”
“But why is it all over the walls?”
“Hunt had every wall, door, and window frame coated with the stuff,” he explained. “Should vampires ever get past the moat and into the grounds, then it’s a final layer of protection from them.”
“What’s so special about the moat?” I asked. “It doesn’t even look that deep.”
“The water’s blessed – holy water if you like,” he said, and his voiced echoed back down the staircase. “It acts like a ring of steel around the entire manor. The vampires would never be able to cross it.”
“Why did Lord Hunt fear an attack from vampires” I asked. “What was he trying to protect?”
Reaching the top of the stairs, Luke stopped outside a door and looking at me from the darkness, he said, “This is what he was trying to protect.” Pushing open the door, Luke stepped inside.
I followed him into a vast room, which I guessed was somewhere hidden inside the roof of the giant manor. There were no windows that I could see and the room was lit by many tall candles that had been fixed into silver-coloured candlesticks. There were so many that the light filled the room with a dim orange glow. As I peered around the room, my stomach began to tighten as I saw what looked like several hospital beds running down each side of the room. Beside the beds stood machines that blinked on and off in the gloom. They buzzed and beeped and luminous green monitor screens cast eerie shadows up the walls.
“‘What’s -?” I started.
“Shhh,” Luke whispered placing a finger against his lips.
Leading me down the aisle between the two rows of beds, I counted ten in all, and in each one, to my continuing dismay, I could see a child. Each of them was connected in some way to the machines that stood beside them. Tubes and wires coiled from their nostrils, arms, and fingertips which all fed back into the monitors and strange looking apparatus. Peering through the candlelight at them, I could see that there was a mixture of boys and girls and I guessed they were aged between thirteen years and sixteen years old.
I couldn’t remain silent any longer; I had to know what these children were doing, hidden in this makeshift hospital, in the attic of the manor. “What’s going on here?” I asked Luke. “Who are these children?”
Luke just looked back at me, and I could see sadness in his eyes. Then from the shadows in the far corner of the room, a voice said, “They are half-breeds, Kiera.”
Peering into the gloom, I saw a figure walk from out of the darkness and towards us. As he stepped into the candlelight, I knew at once that he was the doctor who tried to remove the black bony fingers from Kayla. He looked just how she’d described him. He did look like an owl. He wore blue scrubs and latex surgical gloves. His forearms were muscular and covered in so much white hair, that he would have made a polar bear envious.
“My name is Doctor Ravenwood,” he smiled and pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. His voice was deep, but somehow gentle – caring. His tone of voice was like all doctors, who had bad news to break to you.
“Half-breeds?” I said, feeling a little startled at his sudden appearance.
“Yes, I’m afraid,” he replied, looking at the children lying in their beds. “It’s a problem that arises when Vampyrus and humans produce children together.”
‘Like Kayla?” I asked, reminding myself of how her father had been a Vampyrus and her mother human.
“Yes,” he said, looking at Luke, then back at me. “Kayla has told you then?”
“She showed me her wings,” I told him. “Kayla told me how you tried to remove them – to stop them growing.”
“That’s right,” Doctor Ravenwood said.
“And these others,” I said looking at the children stretched out in their beds, “they are like Kayla?”
“Yes,” he smiled weakly, “but with a difference.”
“And what’s that?” I asked, glancing at Luke, who was standing with his head bowed and looking at the floor.
“She is only one of the few who has managed to live past the age of sixteen,” Ravenwood started to explain. “You see, for years – hundreds of years, the Vampyrus have been coming above ground and living in secrecy amongst -”
“She knows all this,” Luke cut in, without looking up from the floor.
Ignoring him, the doctor continued. “Anyway, some of the Vampyrus fell into relationships with humans – most of these humans were totally unaware of their lover’s true identity. They were naive to the fact that they were in love with and sharing their lives with a breed of vampire bat. Some even married and they had lives that to the world seemed normal. But these relationships were far from normal. They were marriages between two entirely different species. Fortunately, at first, it seemed that those Vampyrus and humans couldn’t have produced children. But over the centuries, some females of the two species gave birth and children were born out of these unions. It was a terrible tragedy as these children were born hideously mutated and they lived very short, and tragic lives. Relationships between Vampyrus and humans was therefore forbidden by the elders of our race, but like any forbidden fruit, some find its taste too hard to resist. So over the years these relationships have continued in secrecy and more children…half-breeds, have been born.”
“The graveyard,” I whispered aloud over the doctor.
“I’m sorry?” he said, looking put out that I’d interrupted him. “What did you say?”
“I found a graveyard in the grounds of the manor,” I told him. “They were all graves of children – they were the children born out of these relationships that you speak about.”
“That’s correct,” Ravenwood said, very matter-of-factly.
“B
ut some of them lived to the age of sixteen years,” I gasped. “You said that they died at a very early age.”
Then looking at the rows of beds in the makeshift hospital, Ravenwood said, “As you can see, Kiera, some live longer lives – but there have ever only been three that have grown past the age of sixteen. We do our best to make those who live longer comfortable.”
“Comfortable?” I sighed, looking at the figures sleeping all around me. I went to the foot of one of the beds and stared down at the girl who lay on it. She was about fourteen years old and curled on her side. The girl had long blond hair that curled down the length of her back. But between her golden locks I could see a series of black bones sticky out like a rack of ribs. Turning away, I looked at the boy in the bed next to her. He was about sixteen and with his eyes closed, he looked so peaceful. Tubes ran from each of his nostrils and into some type of breathing apparatus beside the bed. The machine made a wheezing sound as it helped him to breathe. The boy’s skin was as pale as chalk and had a translucent appearance, and as I stared harder through the candlelight at him, I could see his heart beating beneath his chest. I could see his veins and arteries, his bones and muscles. It was as if I were looking at a human-shaped jellyfish. The sight of him didn’t scare or repulse me, it just made me feel incredibly sad for him – for all them.
“Wouldn’t they be better off in The Hollows?” I asked Doctor Ravenwood.
“Oh no,” he said, coming to stand beside me at the foot of the boy’s bed. “We can’t take them home. Remember the relationships that these children were born out of are forbidden. Oh no, that wouldn’t do at all.”
“So what?” I snapped, “You just sit and wait for them to die?”
Looking at me over the rims of his glasses, Ravenwood said, “We are not ruthless, uncaring creatures, Kiera. Even though these children aren’t truly Vampyrus – we still want to look after them – to cure them.”
