Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series #1)

by Tim O'Rourke

  Seeing me, the Labrador came bounding forwards, its huge pink tongue lolling from the corner of its mouth. Recognising it as belonging to the old man I’d spoken with the day before outside the police station, I took the dog by the collar and patted him. The dog whined and pulled away from me.

  “What’s up, boy?” I asked it.

  Again it wined and pulled in the direction that it had appeared from. Then pulling free of me, it ran back down the road. I chased after it, taking each step as carefully as I could, not wanting to slip and break an arm, or worse, a leg. I didn’t fancy lying out in the snow with a broken leg as night started to fall. I thought of those vampires again, and my skin crawled.

  Catching up with the dog by a gate in the wall, it stood and barked at me. As I neared it, the dog bounded off again, as if it wanted me to follow. So I did. Making my way across the field, I could see the dog had stopped by something lying stretched out in the snow. As I drew near, I could see the Labrador prodding it with its snout. He looked back at me and whined.

  Approaching the dog, I could see that it was its owner lying face up in the snow. At first, I thought that perhaps the old man had lost his footing while out walking and had collapsed. But as I drew closer, I could see that the snow around him was stained crimson. Following the bloody splash marks, I made my way towards the dead man. I could see tracks around the body, and I was careful not to destroy them. Placing my hands over my mouth, I looked down at the mutilated body. Straightaway, I could see that this attack had been far more frenzied than the attack on the Blake boy. That had been bad enough – but this was something else. At least the boy had been left with his face.

  The old man lay spread-eagle in the snow. Most of his face and neck had been ripped off. I could see the sinews and muscles that his face had once been attached to. His eye sockets were empty, just two black holes looking back at me. The man’s teeth were still intact, but without any lips, he looked as if he were grinning. His jacket and shirt had been slashed in two, revealing his torn open chest cavity. Several of his ribs had been broken and they stuck out of his chest like white-coloured fingers. His lungs had been half eaten and what was left looked like a pile of pink blancmange. The dog looked at me and whimpered. Reaching out for it, the dog licked what was left of his owner’s face, then ran off into the distance.

  Kneeling down, I ran the tips of my fingers over the corpse, my eyes flitting back and forth – unconsciously taking in every minute detail. I dabbed at the blood around the main wound, then the blood further out around the edges, and then blood sprayed over the snow. I got up and paced around the man laid before me. Looking left and right, up and down, noting every little thing I could see, almost without knowing that I was doing it. Within seconds, I knew how long ago the killing had taken place, four people had taken part, the same three as before, but this time there had been someone new. And the tracks they had left were different – somehow odd. But it wasn’t just that. There was something missing. With the light fading fast, I set off back across the field and towards town.

  Pushing open the door to the police station, I rushed in. Stomping the snow from my boots and brushing it from my hair and shoulders, I looked up to see Sergeant Murphy and Constable Potter standing in the office, on the other side of the counter.

  “Bishop told us you would come back,” Potter said. “He also confessed that you know about…us.”

  “I don’t have time for that now…” I started, still out of breath from my hike across the fields to the station.

  “He hasn’t done you a favour revealing himself to you,” Murphy said, coming towards me, in that lopsided way of his. “In fact, he’s put you in even greater danger.”

  “I’ll worry about that later,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I’ve found another one.”

  “Another what?” Potter said, coming closer.

  “Victim,” I wheezed. “This one’s bad though. It’s not like before.”

  “How?” Murphy asked, his face looking worn and serious.

  “They took his face. I’ve never seen anything like it. The attack was frenzied – savage,” I said, and just recalling that mutilated man lying in the snow, made my legs want to buckle beneath me.

  Pulling up a chair, Murphy told me to sit down and calm myself. Potter handed me a cup of water and I noted that this was the first kind thing he had done for me since taking up my post in The Ragged Cove.

  Once I’d caught my breath, I looked at them and said, “There were four of them. They left tracks in the snow. I could have only just missed them.”

  “By how long?” Potter asked.

  “Five minutes,” I said, looking at him. Again he rolled his eyes as if dismissing what I’d just said. “Look, blood behaves like many other salty solutions and freezes at between minus two and minus three degrees Celsius,” I explained, not wanting to sound as if I were patronising him. “Blood starts to coagulate after less than ten minutes outside of the body, although if you had a shallow pool of blood, it would start to congeal more rapidly around the edges. Temperature also plays a big part – the warmer it is, the slower the coagulation – the colder it is, the faster the coagulation.”

  Potter and Murphy looked at me blankly.

  “It’s freezing out there, right?” I said, exasperated. “So if we know that blood clots in less than ten minutes, but more quickly in the cold, the blood on that man was still tacky. My guess is that he couldn’t have been murdered more than five minutes before I found his body.”

  “Where did you learn all this shit?” Potter said.

  “It’s not -” I started.

  “What else did you see?” Murphy asked me, glancing at Potter as if to tell him to be quiet.

  “Like I said, they left footprints – four individual sets. But there was something wrong with one of them, I think they had an injury but I can’t be sure,” I told them.

  “Could you see where the tracks led to and from? If we’re quick enough, we might be able to track them,” Potter said, pulling on his jacket.

  “No, it was like before,” I said. “There were only tracks around the body – so they must’ve flown in and out of the crime scene.”

  “Vampires!” Murphy seethed.

  Then looking at the both of them, I said, “Who said anything about vampires?”

  “What you talking about?” Potter said, fixing his utility belt around his waist.

  “That man wasn’t killed by vampires,” I said.

  “Who then?” Murphy snapped, desperate to find out what I knew.

  “Vampyrus,” I said. “That man was murdered by bats.”

  “Ridiculous,” Potter scoffed. But I noticed the look of concern that flashed between him and his sergeant.

  “How can you be certain?” Murphy asked, and I detected a tremor in his voice.

  “Like I told you, that man was murdered not long before I discovered him,” I started to explain.

  “So?” Potter said.

  Standing and slapping the palms of my hands against my brow in frustration, I said, “My god, you just don’t see it do you?”

  “See what?” Murphy shouted, sounding pissed at me all over again.

  “It was still daylight when the killing took place!” I almost screamed at them. “Vampires can’t live in the light – but Vampyrus can. But not only that – vampires can’t fly!”

  “But there was only meant to be the one!” Potter said, looking at Murphy. “We were here to track just the one!”

  Sergeant Murphy looked at Potter and seemed to be taking in what I’d just said. He was quiet and thoughtful for a moment, then said, “If the girl is right and we have more than one Vampyrus addicted to the blood of humans – then we’ve got problems.”

  “Problems?” Potter roared. “If we don’t find them – we could have an epidemic!”

  “The matter is far worse than I first thought,” Murphy said, sucking on the end of his pipe. “Where did you find this body?”

  “Do yo
u have a map?” I asked.

  Without saying anything, Potter pulled one from a desk drawer and spread it out flat.

  Looking at the map, I got my bearings, then tracing my finger across it; I stopped at a field about a mile and half from the Crescent Moon Inn. “There,” I said. “That’s where the body is.”

  Pulling on his jacket and taking some large flashlights, Murphy and Potter made for the police station door.

  “Hang on!” I said to them.

  “For what?” Potter asked, looking back at me.

  “Where’s Luke?”

  Glancing at one another, Murphy turned to look at me and said, “He’s gone under.”

  “Under where?” I asked, my heart beginning to race.

  “To the caves,” Murphy said, sloping back towards me.

  “Home?” I asked, realising that they were talking about The Hollows. “But why?”

  “When Rom discovered that he had told you everything,” Murphy explained, “he sent Luke back below ground.”

  “But he saved my life,” I said.

  “He broke the rules,” Potter cut in.

  “What rules?” I snapped. “That he shouldn’t have helped me – saved me?”

  “He shouldn’t have told you about us,” Murphy said. “He had no right.”

  “But he did what he thought was right,” I said, trying to defend him.

  Then coming towards me, his eyes fixed on mine and his voice low, Potter said, “Don’t be fooled to think that Luke Bishop loves you, Kiera.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked staring back, trying not to let the hurt I was feeling show.

  “He saved your life to ease his guilty conscience,” he said, and half-smiled.

  “What’s he got to feel guilty about?” I asked, now feeling confused.

  Before Potter had a chance to reply, Murphy barked, “Enough Sean! Enough, already!”

  Slinking away from me as if he’d been bitten, Potter went back to the door where Murphy was waiting for him. “Let’s go and sort this mess out,” Murphy said.

  “What about me?” I asked as they went to leave.

  “What about you?” Murphy asked.

  “Aren’t I coming with you?”

  “No,” Murphy said. “You’ll only slow us down.”

  “I can lead you straight to the body.”

  “You don’t really think we’re going to walk in this weather do you?” Potter said, then gave me a knowing wink.

  God, I hated that guy. “But what am I meant to do here, all on my own?”

  “Turn off all the lights and lock all the windows and doors,” Murphy said, as they stepped out into the night. Racing around the counter, I yanked open the door, but the street was deserted, they’d already gone. Then in the distance, I heard what sounded like two loud thunderclaps.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Locking the station door behind me, I went back around the front desk to the office. Going to the grate that Luke told me led beneath ground, I stood and looked at it. I could see that the hatch had been fastened with a rusty-looking padlock. Was there really another world on the other side of it? A world thousands of years old where these Vampyrus lived in the utter darkness of caves and caverns?

  Stepping away, I saw something glint on the floor just beside the hatch. Bending down, I picked up something small and silver. Half expecting to find another small crucifix, the hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end as I looked at the tiny silver pair of metal wings in my hand. My skin flushed cold as I realised where I’d seen that little parachute regiment tiepin before. It had belonged to the old man that I’d met in the street the day before – the old man that now lay dead and mutilated beyond recognition in the field.

  But how had it ended up in the police station, just outside the hatch that I had been told led to The Hollows? It was then that I realised what it had been that had been missing when I’d examined the body – the tiepin. But how then had it ended up here? Who had brought it to the station and why? Knowing that the four creatures who’d butchered that poor man had all been Vampyrus – my list of suspects wasn’t very long.

  Then almost stumbling up the corridor, my heart racing in my chest and my stomach clenching, the final missing pictures of that crime scene fitted into place. Not only had the old man’s tiepin been missing, so had his walking cane, the one I’d seen him carrying the day before. But why would anyone what to take that? They would’ve only taken the walking stick if they had needed it to help them…walk!

  “The footprints! How could you not have seen it, Kiera?” I shouted at myself. That’s what was so odd about them. The right footprint of the fourth person present was different because he had been limping!

  Then hitting me like a flashback, I remembered all those times I’d seen Sergeant Murphy walking about the office with his right hip sloped down as if he were limping. Feeling as if I were going to collapse, I gripped the wall. I felt panicked – scared. Would Murphy suspect that I knew – and what would he do to me if he did? The same as he’d done to the other cops who had been posted here.

  Spinning round as if almost dazed, I knew that I had to get as far away as possible from the station – from The Ragged Cove. But how was I to escape and where was I to go? I had no car, the roads were blocked. The phones didn’t work so I couldn’t even make contact with the outside world and let them know what was happening. The only place I could go was back to the Inn – and lock all the windows and doors – as Potter had said.

  But what about him? Had he taken part in the killings? Then my mind turned to Luke – locked beneath that hatch. Was he like them too – just a killer? My head wasn’t sure but my heart told me no. He had saved me. He’d had plenty of opportunities to kill me if he’d really wanted to – but he hadn’t. And I didn’t care what Potter had insinuated about him, I knew that Luke had feelings for me. Admittedly last night had been weird – but it had been magical, too. I’d never felt before like I had with Luke, wrapped inside his wings, my head rested against his chest. The touch of his lips against mine and the way he had looked into my eyes – as if he were looking into my soul.

  But Luke wasn’t going to save me now. I would have to do that myself. Without a way out of The Ragged Cove, I would have to stay and fight. But to do that, I would need as much information as possible about the vampires that had infested the town and the Vampyrus that worked the vampire shift.

  Hurrying around the station – not knowing how long I had before Murphy and Potter returned, I pulled open desk drawers and filing cabinets. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but my instincts told me I would know when I found it. I didn’t have to wait long; pulling open a set of drawers beneath Sergeant Murphy’s desk, I found a bunch of brown cardboard files. Taking them out and placing them on the desk, I thumbed through them. The first had the name ‘Police Constable Cooper’ typed across the front. Opening it, I found a small picture of a police officer stapled to the paperwork inside. There were some reports and notes written about his service history, but at the back I discovered another sheet of paper that had ‘MISSING’ stamped across it in blood-red letters.

  Opening another, I found the same written about an officer named ‘Police Constable Munro.’ Again he had been reported missing. Another folder entitled ‘Police Constable Ford’ contained a picture, and looking at it, I thought I recognised him – but from where? Then, dropping the file as if it had stung me, I realised I had been looking at the human face of the vampire that had attacked me last night, the one in the tattered police uniform.

  Gathering the files together, I was just about to put them back where I’d found them, when I saw a folder with ‘Police Constable Reeves’ written across the front. Picking it up, I opened the folder expecting to find a picture, reports and service record. But to my surprise, the file was empty. I placed the folders back in Murphy’s drawer, exactly as I’d found them.

  Turning around, I crossed the office to a set of beat-up looking filling cabinets.
Opening them, I found another set of folders, but these were red in colour. Taking out the first, I opened it to find a series of disturbing photos of a woman whose throat had been shredded. She lay sprawled in a ditch, her hair splayed across her face, eyes open and staring up into the camera lens as if posing for some grotesque picture. In the file, I found some brief detail about her, like her name, address, and date of birth. Also recorded was the date and location of her death. The next file contained photos of another murdered victim. This one male, thirty-four-years-old. Again I noted the date and the location of the murder. There were twenty-three files in all, too many for me to read thoroughly. So taking a piece of note paper from a nearby desk, I scribbled down the date of death for each victim and the location their body had been discovered. Placing the folders back into the filing cabinet, I folded the piece of paper, along with the map, and placed them both into my coat pocket.

  Heading back down the corridor, I went to the female locker room. It was more of a cupboard really as it only had the one locker and the rest of the space was filled with old bikes and other bits of lost property. Reaching into my locker to make sure I’d left nothing behind, as I had no intention of coming back here, I checked each shelf. Then as I stretched my fingers into the furthest corners, I felt something. Pulling it out, I could see that it was a hairbrush. Knowing that it didn’t belong to me, I tossed it back onto the shelf, guessing that it had been left behind by a previous female officer based at the station.

  Turning away, I suddenly stopped. Taking hold of the hairbrush again, I held it up into the light and inspected it. The brush had several blonde hairs snagged around its bristles. Using my fingernails like a set of tweezers, I removed one of the hairs. Looking at it closely, I could see that just like the hair I’d found in the hand of Henry Blake, the hair had been dyed peroxide blonde and there was about half an inch of black hair leading from the root.