Vampire Wake (Kiera Hudson Series #2) (18 page)

“What do you
see
?” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear.

“Terrible things,” I whispered back, not turning to face him. “I’ve seen the world overrun with…”

“
What?”
he hissed.

“Vampire bats,” I said.
“Vampyrus.”

Then, slowly, I turned to face him, and however much I tried, I couldn’t hide the gasp of air that slipped from my lips as I looked at his face in the candlelight. The left half of his face was waxy and taut-looking, like Clingfilm that had been stretched too tight. His skin was pale, but the side of his face that had been burnt looked blue and purple – the colour of a ripe bruise. His left eyebrow had been burnt permanently away, and his left ear looked twisted and melted out of shape. My heart ached to see Luke like this.

“Scare you, do I?” he said, and his voice sounded almost resentful – bitter.

“No,” I said, pulling him close, hoping this would show that I didn’t fear him. “This is all my fault. If you hadn’t put your own life at risk to save mine -”

Then, placing one finger over my lips, he told me to hush. “You’re not to blame for this,” he said, his voice now softening, and I guessed that he must have felt some relief that I hadn’t run screaming into the darkness to be away from him.

“Why have you been hiding away up here from me?” I asked, pulling him so close that my cheek rested against his bare chest. “Were you afraid that I would be scared of you – not want to be with you?”

“Some of that is true,” he said, holding me tight against him. “But there are other reasons that I’ve been hiding – why we’ve all been hiding out at the Hallowed Manor.”

“Why?” I asked.

Then, leading me into the darkest corner of the room and sitting me down on a narrow bed that was concealed there, he said, “We’re all being hunted and they won’t stop until we’re all dead.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Luke took a lantern from a small table beside the bed and lit it. A milky-yellow light glowed, throwing long, deep shadows up the walls of the bare room. The floor was wooden and the boards looked rough and unvarnished. The walls were cracked and in some places, the plaster had fallen away, revealing the brickwork beneath it. Cobwebs hung from the corners of the room like dusty-looking chandeliers and I wondered how Luke had managed to hide away in such a place for so long. The room creeped me out and I shifted closer to him on the edge of the bed.

In the light from the lantern, I had a clearer view of Luke and his injuries. Apart from the burns on his face, his left shoulder was also marred by a long scar that ran from just under his chin, down his neck and across his chest. Like the burn on his face, the skin looked stretched and pulled out of shape as if someone had poured boiling wax over him. With a trembling hand, I gently reached out and stroked his chest with the tips of my fingers. He flinched and I snapped my hand away.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” he said. “I just worry that you will be repulsed by me.”

Without saying anything, I placed my hand against his scars. Looking into his sea-green eyes, I could feel his heart thumping away inside of him. “How could I ever be repulsed…scared of you?” I asked. “You got these scars saving me and I can never forget that…or repay you.”

Taking my hand, he removed it from his chest, bought it up to his mouth and kissed it. “You don’t have to repay me anything,” he said, staring into my eyes. He then added, “I haven’t saved you yet.”

“You said we were all being hunted?” I asked him. “I guess you’re talking about Phillips and Taylor.”

“Not just them,” he whispered as if someone might be eavesdropping. “There is another.”

“Who?”

Then placing his head in his hands, he looked ahead and into the darkness. I couldn’t ever recall Luke looking so demoralised. I remembered him to be strong and confident but now he just looked beaten and I guessed it wasn’t just his disfigurements that troubled him.

Running my hand down the curve of his spine, I said, “What is it, Luke? Tell me what’s happened.”

In a low, soft voice he said, “As you know, after leaving The Ragged Cove, Sergeant Murphy and Potter took me below ground – back to The Hollows. We stayed amongst our own while I rested and tried to heal. But word spread amongst the Vampyrus about what had happened above ground. It became common knowledge that we had killed Rom and Roland.”

“But they were killers,” I whispered, tracing small circles with my fingernails across his naked back.

“An emergency meeting was called by the elders of our race in the Great Caverns,” he explained. “Vampyrus came from every part of The Hollows. For as far as the eye could see, the caverns were packed tight with Vampyrus, never before in our history had there been such a huge gathering.”

“But why now?” I asked him.

“It has been feared for some time that some of the Vampyrus had been unhappy living beneath humans and some of them wanted more. No longer was it enough that they could come above ground and make a life for themselves amongst humans as long as they returned when the hunger was upon them. It wasn’t that the elders particularly cared for the human race; they just didn’t want attention drawn to our existence. The elders feared that if humans ever discovered us, they would come in search of us – that they would invade The Hollows, and just like they have done above ground, deplete our world of all its natural resources which would eventually result in the Vampyrus’ extinction. So a compromise had been made – Vampyrus could live above ground only if they didn’t draw attention to themselves and the rest of our race. The elders hoped that this would placate those Vampyrus who wanted more,” he explained.

Then turning to look at me, he continued, “But as you know, Kiera, Rom and his kind wanted more. They wanted to live above ground, as true Vampyrus. They believed they were better than humans. So that’s why the Sarge, Potter, and me were sent to hunt them. But our mission was to locate them, to gather evidence and report back. It was the elders who were to make the final decision as to their fate – but as you know, it didn’t work out that way. As far as the elders are concerned, we took the Vampyrus law into our own hands and in doing so, we risked drawing attention to ourselves and the rest of our race.”

“But they were killing people!” I said. “Rom and his merry men were creating vampires –
monsters!
If that isn’t drawing attention to your race, I don’t know what is!”

“It wasn’t just that,” Luke said, looking back into the darkness as if somewhere lurking within it were the answers. “Rom, Roland, Taylor, and Phillips are just the front men. Behind them in the shadows is another. He pulls the strings of those that want more.”

“Who is this Vampyrus?” I asked.

“Nobody knows his identity.” Luke whispered, again as if almost fearing that he might be overheard. “He hides behind his puppets – those who do his dirty work. They go before him, clearing a path. They brainwash and recruit other Vampyrus, telling them that their lives could be so much more above ground if we didn’t keep our identities a secret – if we revealed our true selves to the human race. But whoever he is, he is responsible for everything that is turning bad within The Hollows. Every crime that is committed, from murder to robbery, if you look deeply enough, he will be lurking in the background.”

“Can’t he be stopped?” I asked.

“How can we stop him if we don’t know who he is?” Luke said with a tinge of bitterness in his voice. “Assassins have been sent before to infiltrate his organisation but they have each been rooted out and killed. No one has ever got close to him – not close enough to discover his identity. But word got back to the elders via spies that Rom, Roland, Taylor, and Phillips were his four most trusted disciples and we had killed two of them and left the others close to death. Discovering this, he had marked us…issued a death warrant against the Sarge, Potter, and me. Word spread like fire that anyone who shielded us, anyone who offered us shelter, would be dead, too. So fearing that we had brought war and unrest to The Hollows, the elders offered a deal of peace to this faceless and nameless monster.”

“So what was this peace offering?” I asked.

“We were,” Luke said, and his shoulders shuddered in the gloom. “They banished us from The Hollows – the elders and our race washed their hands of us in an attempt to pacify this monster.”

“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.