Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series #1) (3 page)

When Potter had stopped laughing, he flicked his cigarette away into a nearby bush and Sergeant Murphy stepped towards me.

“I admire your enthusiasm Kiera, but Sean is right, this ain’t no T.V. program, this is real life. Being a police officer in the real world ain’t like what you’ve been watching on T.V.”

Although Murphy was trying to comfort me, I couldn’t help but feel that he was patronising me.

“I haven’t been watching -” I started.

“Kiera, this is a well-walked route by hikers and ramblers. Those footprints could have been left here by anyone. And so what if there aren’t any tracks leading to and from the murder scene? As far as we know, it could have been a really hot day and the earth could’ve been as dry as a bone.”

I wanted to tell him, that in the cool shade of the trees, it was very unlikely that the ground would’ve been rock hard, but I knew there was little point. He didn’t want some newbie coming into his town and telling him how to do his job. So, however much it pained me, I kept quiet.

I was damp from the rain and cold. Not being able to hide my shivers any longer, Luke approached me, and wrapping an arm about my shoulders, he said, “C’mon, let me get you to your room.”

Without any resistance, I let Luke guide me away from the mutilated body of the boy. As I went, I looked back to see Potter lighting up another cigarette. Looking at me, he smiled and blew a cloud of smoke up into the night. I watched the smoke rise upwards, and as it dispersed, I noticed something. Aiming Luke’s torch up into the trees, I could see that the branches above the boy were snapped and broken as if someone or something had crashed through them.

Turning away, I let Luke lead me to my car. Ten minutes later, I was pulling up outside the Crescent Moon Inn.

“Is this it?” I asked, looking out of the window at the weary-looking building. It almost seemed to lean to the right, as if at any moment it was going to topple over. The roof was thatched and the windows were lattice in design. Wild ivory climbed over the front of the Inn, and up across the roof like a giant green claw. The windows glowed orange from within and a sign which read
The Crescent Moon Inn
wailed back and forth in the wind.

Swinging open the passenger door, Luke went to climb out, but then stopped. Looking back at me he said, “You weren’t making that stuff up back there were you?”

“No,” I said.

“So how did you figure it all out?” he asked, staring at me again and making me feel uncomfortable. “How did you know how tall they were, the fact that one of them had arrived before the others, his brand of cigarettes and that the female had black hair which she had dyed blonde? You musta been guessing some of that.”

“I wasn’t guessing,” I told him. “What then? Are you some kind of psychic?” and he half laughed. “It doesn’t matter,” I told him, and climbed from the car.   Putting his helmet onto his head and pulling the collar of his police coat up about his neck, he said, “So long Kiera Hudson. I’ll see you tomorrow night at seven.”

Then turning towards the Inn, just wanting to get out of the rain, I stopped. Seeing as I now knew where the Inn was, I should really have offered him a lift back to the police station. But as I turned back towards him, I was surprised to see that he had already gone.

Chapter Three

Carrying the little belongings that I’d brought with me, I went into the Inn. A crescent-shaped bar stood along the far wall. The Inn wasn’t very busy, and those that huddled around the small fire and the tables fell into a hushed silence and looked at me. As I crossed the floor to the bar, I could feel their eyes staring at me. It was so quiet that I could hear the wood snapping and crackling as it burnt in the fireplace. I looked across at it and noticed that someone had engraved a five-pointed star into the plaster above the fireplace. Then in the far corner, I noticed a figure. He sat alone at a table which was lit with a candle and he warmed a glass of whiskey in his hand. The male had a hood pulled so low over his head that it concealed his face. Although I couldn’t see his eyes, I knew he was watching me.

Trying not to make eye contact with those gathered in the Inn, I reached the bar. I had never felt so uncomfortable in my life, and I wondered why Sergeant Phillips had decided to rent me a room in such a godforsaken place. When I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer and was just about to pick up my case and run from the place, an elderly-looking woman appeared from a small office behind the bar. White lengths of wispy hair protruded from her head, and her face was haggard and lined with deep, ragged wrinkles. She looked like a corpse that had been warmed-up.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her voice sounding weak and broken.

“I have a room booked…” I started.

“Name?” the old woman asked, thumbing through a dusty-looking ledger behind the bar.

“Hudson,” I said. “Kiera Hudson.”

The woman sniffed, and taking a key from a series of hooks on the wall behind her, she placed it on the bar and said, “Room number two.”

Taking the key, I said “Thank -”

“Top of the stairs and turn right,” the old woman cut over me. “Breakfast is between six and seven, and dinner between eight and ten.”

Looking at my wristwatch, I could see it had just gone ten. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of something to eat?” I asked her.

“Dinner is between eight and ten,” she repeated without looking up at me.

“I know, but it’s only just a couple of minutes past, so I was wondering -” I began.

“Between eight and ten,” the old woman said again, but this time she looked up at me. Her eyes were milky-coloured and clouded with cataracts.

Shrugging my shoulders, as if I didn’t really care, I picked up my case and as I did, I noticed something rather odd. All the way along the old oak beams that supported the bar, someone had tied reams of garlic bulbs. There were hundreds – no thousands of them. And as I looked up, I could see they hung from the ceiling, at the back of the Inn door and walls.

“What’s with the garlic?” I said, turning towards the old woman, but she had disappeared back into her tiny office. Turning my back on all those watchful eyes, I made my way up the stairs to my room. Holding onto my case, I fumbled with the key as I slipped it into the lock. Hearing it click, I pushed the door open and shut it behind me. The room was in darkness, so I ran my fingers blindly along the wall in search of the light switch. Finding it, I flipped it on, and the room lit up with a dim bulb that hung from the centre of the ceiling. I looked around my new home and understood why none of the other recruits had stayed a full year in this place.

There was a narrow-looking bed wedged in the far corner, an old fashioned looking wardrobe, and a desk with a lamp. The carpet looked threadbare, and the walls were a dingy grey colour. There was a small bathroom, which had a toilet and bath. I didn’t know how much headquarters were paying the old woman downstairs, but whatever it was, they were being ripped off.

Placing my case onto the bed, I went to the bathroom and ran myself a bath. While it was running, I unpacked my stuff and hung it in the wardrobe. When I was all fixed up, I got undressed and climbed into the hot water. Closing my eyes, I lent my head back against the rim of the bath. I thought about everything that had happened since arriving at The Ragged Cove and my mind soon wandered to Luke Bishop. Out of everyone that I had met so far, he seemed the nicest. He had a kind and honest way about him, and I was grateful that he took my side over that of Potter, who seemed like a real prick. Loved himself, too, by the way he was acting all cocky. Sergeant Murphy, I was still to make up my mind about. He seemed set in his ways and I guessed he didn’t want some young cop coming in and telling him how to run things. But I wasn’t trying to do that. I didn’t care that he wanted to lounge around the police station all night in his slippers, smoking a pipe. But what did trouble me was his apparent disregard for properly investigating a crime scene. And not any old crime scene. That was the murder of an eight-year-old child and he was letting that idiot Potter smoke and trample all over it.

If only they’d taken the time to study it then they would have
seen
the things that I had. It wasn’t magic – the clues were there if you looked for them. I’d always been like that. My father had called it my
‘
gift’
– but it wasn’t really – I just had a knack of noticing things that others seemed unable to see. I saw stuff that other people missed. But it wasn’t magic and it wasn’t a ‘gift’, I called it ‘seeing’.

But what about Luke? What could I
see
about him? Nothing. He was like a blank sheet of paper. Apart from his obvious good looks and incredible smile, it was the fact that he was a mystery that I found so attractive.

Sinking beneath the hot water, images of the Blake boy lying dead with his throat ripped out rippled across the front of my mind. There were two things that troubled me. My father had often told me that you could tell a lot from a crime scene by the pattern of blood left behind. But that was the problem – there was very little blood for such a gaping wound. The brachiocephalic artery had been ripped apart and I remembered my father telling me once how he had worked on a murder where the victim had had their throat cut. Their life blood had pumped away through the wound in that particular artery.

How then had there been so little blood at the murder scene of the Blake boy? Where had all the blood gone? It was almost as if it had been siphoned off. And what about the lack of footprints leading to and from the scene? I didn’t buy Murphy’s theory about the ground being too dry for any prints to be left. If prints could be lifted from carpets and lino floors, they could be seen in earth – however dry. But how had the killers got to the scene? The only clue was the hole made in the trees above, where the branches had been broken and smashed. It was almost as if someone or something had entered the crime scene from above. But that would be impossible, right?

As I tried to examine these theories inside my head, I was startled by the sound of someone outside my bedroom door. Leaping from the bath, I wrapped a towel around me and went into the bedroom. Tiptoeing to the door, I listened to the rustling sound. Screwing up my eyes, I could see a shadow fleeting back and forth in the gap beneath my door.

Reaching out for the key that I’d left in the lock, I called out, “Who’s there?”

There was silence.

“What do you want?”

Then I heard the sound of footsteps rushing away. Holding the towel tight about me, I yanked open the door and peered along the landing. And as I did, I caught the last fleeting glimpse of a shadow disappearing down the stairs. My instincts told me to run after them, to find out who it had been. But with nothing on except the bath towel, I reluctantly stepped back into my room, and as I did, I noticed a small white envelope tacked to the door.

Removing it, I went back inside. Across the front of the envelope someone had scribbled ‘Kiera’. Sitting on my bed, I opened it and a small silver crucifix fell out into my hand. Placing it on the desk beside my bed, I went back to the envelope. Studying it, my heart skipped a beat, as I could
see
from looking at it, that the person I’d seen sitting in the bar with their face hidden behind the hood, was the person responsible for leaving me the crucifix.

Chapter Four

I woke early, just before six. I didn’t want to miss breakfast, like I’d missed dinner the night before. The owner of the Inn seemed particularly strict on the rules surrounding meal times.

As I pulled on a sweatshirt, jogging-bottoms, and trainers, my stomach groaned. It was then I realised I hadn’t eaten anything since before leaving my home in Havensfield the day before. As I made my way down to the dining area, I switched on my mobile phone. I scrolled through my contact list, until I came across ‘Sergeant Phillips’. I pressed the call button, but all I got back was an unobtainable tone. As I reached the dining area, I noticed the signal bar on my phone was red, indicating that it was unable to find a signal.

Putting the phone in my pocket, I was frustrated that I couldn’t get hold of Phillips. I wanted to ask if he couldn’t find me some better accommodations. The old woman that I’d spoken with the night before trundled over to my table, which had been laid with a bowl, plate, and a mug. Apart from me, the small eating area was deserted.

“Tea or coffee?” the old woman croaked, not looking up from a small pad she held in her liver-spotted hands.

“Good morning,” I smiled, hoping to get off on a better footing with her than I had the night before.

“Tea or coffee?” the woman asked again, and her eyes met mine with her glazed stare.

“Coffee, please,” I told her, trying to keep my smile.

“Bacon and eggs?” the woman asked, the pen poised over her note pad.

“Just toast please.” Although I was hungry, I wanted to go for a run and I didn’t want to be bloated out with a stomach full of greasy bacon and eggs.

“Toast,” the woman said, turning away and shuffling towards the kitchen. The dining area, like the bar, was decorated with cloves of garlic, but with one difference. Along the far wall was a small coffee table which was covered with a white lace cloth. On top were an arrangement of crucifixes and small bottles of water. With a black marker pen, someone had written across each bottle the words
‘
Holy Water’.

Smiling to myself – I wasn’t superstitious at all – I got up from my seat and crossed over to the table. The crucifixes were identical to the one that had been left for me the night before. Picking up one of the tiny bottles of water, I heard the old woman speak to me as she shuffled towards my table with a plate of toast.

“They’re for sale, if you want one.” she said, placing the plate on the table.

Putting the little bottle of holy water back with the others, I crossed back to my table and sat down.

“Why would I want to buy a bottle of holy water?” I asked her, and took a bite of the toast.

“For protection,” she said, pouring a cup of coffee.