by Tim O'Rourke
I could see Potter way ahead in the distance as he dangled beneath the Vampyrus, his arms and legs waving and kicking desperately about. Tucking my arms in beside me, the little black fingers at the tip of each wing clutching at the air, I shot after him. I banked to the left a little then to the right to avoid approaching Vampyrus. Then, with my wings beating so fast on either side of me that they were just a haze, I zoomed after Potter.
Giant Vampyrus dived towards me on either side. As I grew more confident in flying, I tried to do a back flip out of their way – but I still had a lot to learn. The aerial-acrobatic move I performed was more like a cartwheel, and I came crashing down on the approaching Vampyrus. With my claws extended before me to break my fall, I unintentionally skewered one of the Vampyrus in its fury belly. There was a popping sound, and I looked down in disgust to see the creature’s entrails spill from it. They flew out behind the Vampyrus in a black stream, like an aircraft ditching its fuel. It screamed in pain and dropped through the air like a stone.
I glanced up to see Potter was only feet away from me now. I swooped along beside the Vampyrus that had hold of him and began to slash at it with my claws. The Vampyrus turned to look at me, its face contorted in a mask of rage. Its jaws flapped in the rushing wind and its eyes grew fat and wide.
“You can’t win, Kiera Hudson!” the creature screamed at me, and hearing it say my name made me falter.
“Elias Munn has led you into a trap!” it roared.
“Where is he?” I screamed back over the roar of the wind that whipped all around us, and I clawed at the creature again.
Then, shaking Potter so savagely with its talon-like claws, the Vampyrus sent Potter flying through the air. I watched him spin away, and instead of unfolding his wings and soaring up, he continued to fall towards the lava below. He looked to be unconscious. The Vampyrus who had flung Potter through the air started to change shape. I watched in horror as its body rippled, its coarse, black hair fell away to reveal Phillips.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Oh Kiera, don’t look so surprised,” he mocked. “We knew you were coming. Do you really think we would protect the Light House with just a handful of us? The Light House is the heart of The Hollows.”
“Who is he?” I screeched and flew at him, my claws tearing at his eyes. Smiling he flicked me away. I somersaulted through the air and came at him again.
“Look all around you, Kiera,” he smiled. “You’re trapped. You can’t possibly win.
I looked around to see a mass of black clouds racing through the sky towards us.
Clouds? I wondered. Do they have clouds in The Hollows?
Looking up again, I saw that they were changing, breaking apart, becoming smaller. But as my heart began to race in my chest, I could see that these weren’t harmless pieces of vapour. Each tiny piece had formed into the shape of a winged creature, a Vampyrus. Then, as if being punched in the face, the nightmare I’d had back in the Ragged Cove where I’d been fleeing along the shore hit me. In that nightmare, or as I now realised it to have been a vision, the clouds had broken up into pieces, thousands of pieces, each one taking on the form of a Vampyrus, just like they were now. Everything that I’d seen in my nightmares – visions – was now finally coming true. And in that instant, I could see running feet – they were booted. I was in a car and there were sirens wailing all around me. There were scratch marks, screaming – oh my god there was so much screaming. I was being swept up into the air. I was falling, I was being chased and the visions faded.
I looked down at the hard-packed ground and in the distance I could see shadows racing across the wasteland that we had crossed. But just like the approaching clouds, these weren’t really shadows. And as they raced forward, I could see their white faces, their red, burning eyes that gleamed like brake lights in a traffic jam. They were stripped to the waist and their chests looked bony and bent out of shape. A series of sharp, pointed ribs protruded through their pale, yellowy-white skin. These creatures were so sickly-looking, I thought they were ill in some way.
With my heart racing into my throat, I realised they looked strangely familiar. They looked like deformed copies of Kayla, Isidor, and me. They were the half-breeds Elias Munn had manufactured. Somehow, he had managed to produce them; not perfect copies, but grotesque imitations of us, like the reflections you see in those distorted mirrors at the fairground. That’s why the facility had been deserted and only a few left behind. He had known we were coming and had moved them. The disc! How had I been so blind? On the disc there had been drawings, diagrams of glass-like coffins – pods – there had to be another facility where these half-breeds had been kept. Like Hunt had been used as a decoy, Munn had led us to Ravenwood and the deserted facility so his army could be hidden and a cure for the virus could be found. But whatever he had used, the cure hadn’t been perfect.
The half-breeds’ skin looked oily, almost greasy, and I imagined that it would be slippery to touch. Their heads were long and narrow, with eyes fixed into the sides of their faces like birds. Their mouths were stretched open as if they were permanently screaming and they were crammed full of black, razor-sharp teeth. From the tops of their heads sprouted large, black, silky feathers, which they wore like Indian headdresses, and I wondered if this hadn’t been a side effect of the half-human and half-Vampyrus DNA not being decoded properly. Munn had created a tortured-looking race – mutants – that bore some tragic resemblance to Kayla, Isidor, and me.
“What have you done, you sick fucker!” I screamed and grabbed hold of Phillips.
“I think they look quite beautiful,” Phillips smiled, looking pleased with himself as he started to wrestle with me.
“What did you use?” I screeched at him. “The DNA that Hunt used was corrupted with a virus. What did you use?”
“Don’t you think we knew Hunt had deceived us? In your desperate attempt to leave the zoo, you cut your hands, remember?” he beamed. “You left some of that blood behind. We only needed a few drops, Kiera.”
“But they’re mutants! Freaks!” I roared at him in horror as we grappled with one another. “They’re nothing like me!”
“And that’s just how we want them,” Phillips leered. “Jesus, I couldn’t think of anything worse than an army of do-gooders like you, Kiera Hudson. We don’t want our army to be weak like you! What happened to you, Kiera? You were meant to be the chosen one, a great leader, a warrior who was going to lead us above ground and destroy the humans. But instead we were sent some bleeding heart, someone who loves humans. You might have been raised by humans, but you are not one of them!”
“And I’m not a Vampyrus either, Phillips!” I spat, trying to claw at his face, but he was too strong and knocked my hand away. “I’m a half-breed!”
“And like your friends, Kayla and Isidor, you will die a half-breed,” he barked. “You had it in your power, Kiera, to make your friends great, but instead you led them on this pointless journey. You could have made them true Vampyrus!”
“What, and end up like you?” I hissed, my face inches from his. “Bitter and twisted and full of hate? I’d rather they be dead, and so would I!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Coanda sweep in beneath Phillips.
“Dead, you say?” Phillips laughed. “I can arrange that!” And then he was lunging for my face, his fangs spraying hot bile.
With one deadly swipe of his claw, Coanda separated Phillips’ his head from the rest of his body. Immediately, his head spun away, but it was as if for just a few fleeting seconds he was unaware of what had just happened to him. As his head flew away, Phillips’ mouth was opening and closing as if he were trying to say something to me.
“It’s a trap!” I roared at Coanda, pointing to the mass of Vampyrus that raced towards us through the sky, and the thousands of half-breeds that charged across the wasteland beneath us.
“I think you will find it is they who have been trapped,” Coanda grinned back at me with a wild look in his eyes. T
hen, without wasting another moment, he reached into one of the many pockets of his combat trousers and pulled out a small, brass horn. Raising it to his lips, he tilted his head back and blew into it. To my surprise, no sound came out.
“Sonar,” he winked back at me and blew on the horn again.
Glancing down, I could just make out Potter as he clung weakly to a piece of rock jutting from the side of the Light House. As I watched, a Vampyrus swept in and knocked him from his perch.
“Potter!” I screamed, dropping like a stone through the air after him. I didn’t know if I would be able to catch him before he crashed into the burning lake below. The approaching Vampyrus raced towards me from both sides. Lowering my head and tucking my arms in beside me, I leant forward and raced towards him in a complete nosedive. My descent was so rapid that I could feel my flesh rippling against my skull. But I was catching up with him, and the world around me, the red rocks and the Light House, became a blur as if I had left time and space. With only inches to go before I was racing alongside Potter, another one of those giant Vampyrus swept in and clutched at me.
Pushing myself forward, my bones were rattling beneath my skin so much that I thought they were all going to snap. I inched towards Potter, but the Vampyrus wouldn’t give up and within moments, he was on me again. I reached out with my claws and thrust them between the Vampyrus’ ragged-looking ribs. A jet of black liquid spurted from the wound and the creature let out an agonising moan. I withdrew my claws and the Vampyrus slowed, leaving me the opportunity to grab hold of Potter and yank him free of the lava that bubbled and seethed just feet below us.
I put one arm tightly around him. He seemed dazed and disorientated.
“Are you okay?” I shouted at him.
Potter looked at me and to my complete surprise, he lent forward and kissed me on the cheek.
“Thank you, sweet-cheeks,” he smiled.
I looked at him numbly and with my free hand, I touched my cheek where he had kissed me.
“Why did you come back?” I whispered.
“I told you I was watching your back and you looked to be in trouble,” he said.
“Isidor is dead,” I told him.” He was murdered.
“By who?”
“You tell me?” I asked him, not taking my eyes from his, looking for any reaction.
“Is this like one of those pop quizzes?” he asked. “Because if it is, Kiera, I don’t know the answer. I didn’t kill him. Why would I?”
“Because he was just about to tell me who Elias Munn was,” I told him. “Apparently, Kayla got close to him just before she died.”
“That’s impossible,” Potter snapped, pulling away from me, so he could fly solo. “I was looking out for her. She was with me most of the time.”
“And that’s what scares me,” I told him.
But before Potter had a chance to say anything back, Coanda came racing towards us.
“Look, Kiera! Look!” Coanda was shouting.
I turned to see what appeared to be another giant wave of Vampyrus swoop down. But these were different, they weren’t attacking us, they were attacking the other Vampyrus. And unlike the others, these Vampyrus hadn’t taken on their natural form, they still looked human – well humans with wings – just like I did. They swept through the sky with the grace of eagles.
“Who are they?” I asked him.
“The resistance!” he laughed. “Damn! Have you ever seen such a beautiful sight!”
And they did look beautiful as they swept through the sky, their wings shimmering, muscles rippling as they attacked the Vampyrus. Within seconds, the sky above surrounding the Light House had become a battleground as Vampyrus fought with Vampyrus. Their fangs and claws sprayed blood as they tore and ripped at each other.
Then I saw him, Luke being chased by a flock of those black, bristling Vampyrus. They snatched and bit at him. He struggled with them, but he was outnumbered, and within moments he was spiralling out of the sky. A black shadow swooped in and snatched Luke away from the screaming half-breeds that waited below to tear him to pieces.
“What was that?” I asked breathlessly.
“Potter,” Coanda said, as he hovered beside me.
I turned to where Potter had been floating just seconds before, but Coanda had been right, he had raced forward to save his friend. Again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Coanda and I raced towards them as Potter carried Luke to a rocky hill away from the battle that was now raging. Some of the resistance had now leapt from the sky and were now battling with the mutant-looking half-breeds that rampaged across the wasteland surrounding the Light House.
As I soared over them, my heart raced like a trip hammer in my chest as I saw all those distorted imitations of my dead friends, Kayla and Isidor. They were hideous, and to look at them made me shudder.
They raced around at incredible speeds, leaping and throwing themselves at the members of the resistance. All of them had fangs in their misshapen mouths. Their eyes swivelled in pockets of blood. Their heads were kind of pointy in shape and some of them had gaping wounds that looked open and raw. I remembered the ‘Isidor’ half-breed I had seen in the facility and how it had something close to an umbilical cord protruding from the crown of its head. To see those mutants below me with those fleshy holes made me wonder if that’s where their ‘umbilical cords’ had been ripped out.
Unlike Kayla, Isidor, and me, these mutant half-breeds didn’t appear to have wings. Instead, their corrupted DNA had produced a cluster of black feathers that protruded from the backs of their heads, arms, and shoulders. They looked like a mass of crows that had been savagely plucked. Some of them obviously sensed that they should be able to fly as they launched themselves into the air at the resistance that rocketed above them. But their tatty-looking feathers were unable to keep them in the air, and they fell back to the ground in frustration. I even saw a few that didn’t have hands at all, but three of those little black, bony fingers. All of them looked gaunt, ashen, and ill – like corpses that had been brought back to life.
Several had clumps of red flame-coloured hair, just like Kayla’s, but it stuck from their heads in dry tufts. There were others that were a shattered reflection of me and they raced across the wasteland with streaky black hair flowing from them, but instead of it growing from the tops of their heads, it grew from their faces, necks and arms. They were all an abomination – creatures that had no place in The Hollows – no place in any world. I swept from the sky with Coanda and we landed next to Potter as he was getting Luke to stand on his feet.
Realising it was Potter who had rescued him, Luke pushed him aside. “Get out of my way, friend!”
“I just saved your bacon,” Potter said.
“I was doing just fine,” Luke snapped, unable to bring himself to look at Potter.
“Didn’t look like that to me,” Potter corrected him.
“Do me a favour, Potter, stop acting as if you are my friend,” Luke snapped. “You’re no friend of mine.”
Potter glanced at me, and I said, “Luke knows about us.”
“Oh,” Potter said and looked at Luke.
“Yeah that’s right, friend!” Luke almost seemed to snarl, showing his fangs. “I know all about you and Kiera.”
“I’m sorry,” Potter said going to Luke, and I could see that he looked concerned by Luke’s obvious hurt.
Luke turned to face Potter and knocked his hand of friendship away. “How could you treat me like this?”
“I didn’t plan this you know – it just kinda happened,” Potter said.
“Exactly how did it happen?” Luke stared at him. “When did it happen?”
“Back at Hallowed Manor,” Potter confessed. “In the Gate House.”
“The Gate House?” Luke gasped. “I see – how very romantic. While I was healing up in the attic, you were making a play for my girl.”
“Your girl?” Potter said, now sounding frustrated. “It wasn’t like you and Kiera we
re engaged or anything.”
“No, but you knew I liked her, though,” Luke said, moving toe to toe with Potter.
Oh my God, they’re going to start fighting in a moment, I thought and wedged myself between them.
“Just stop it!” I shouted at the both of them. “I’m not some possession, you know. This macho shit-head stuff isn’t going to solve anything. If you two haven’t noticed, we’re in serious trouble here!”
“Well, just don’t expect me to like it,” Luke barked. “Don’t expect me to like him!”
“The feeling’s mutual,” Potter quipped.
“Look around us – can’t you see what’s happening here?” I yelled. “We’ve lost friends, The Hollows is at war, and the Earth is soon to be invaded. You need to put your differences aside, for now at least, because we either stand and fight as one or we die alone.”
“You need to listen to her,” Coanda said, coming forward. “Take a look around you. My resistance is outnumbered; they will only be able to protect the Light House for so long. We need to get to the Dust Palace and fast. Only there will Kiera be able to tell the Elders her decision and end this.”
Scowling, Luke and Potter stepped back from each other.
“Let’s just get through this if we can,” I said to them. “We can save our differences for another day – another time.”
Potter took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it and drew in a deep lungful of smoke. “Whatever you say, sweet-cheeks.”
Hearing Potter call me “sweet-cheeks”, Luke shot a quick glance at him and snarled.
Potter shrugged back and said, “Well she has got the sweetest…”
“Stop it!” I shouted at him, knowing that he was just trying to bait Luke.
“Okay! Okay!” he half-smiled, holding his hands up as if in surrender. “I won’t say another word.”
“That will be a first,” Luke cut in.
“And that goes for you too!” I yelled at Luke. “God almighty – it’s like I’m hanging out with a couple of kids.”
