Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series #1) (18 page)

Then as quickly as they had come, those snapshots were gone and it was like I couldn’t
see
anymore. Dazed and confused by what had just happened, I steadied myself against the mouth of the tunnel. Father Taylor and Craig were coming towards me, the candles that they were holding lighting up there faces like Halloween pumpkins.

Looking at Craig, I said, “I trusted you! I thought you were my friend! You didn’t leave those crucifixes because you cared – you just didn’t want the vampires to get me before you did!”

Turning, I raced into the tunnel. Within seconds my candle had snuffed out and I ran blindly into the darkness. Behind me, I could hear the sound of running feet and screeching. Snatching a quick look back over my shoulder, there was only blackness again. Facing front, I raced on, my hands stretched out before me as I felt my way out. The sound of racing footsteps and screaming got closer and I pushed on. My lungs felt as if they were ablaze inside me and my heart pounded against my chest.

Faster!
I screamed inside my head.
Faster!

Adrenaline surged through my whole body, as the sound of those chasing me grew ever nearer. But it wasn’t just the sound of feet and shrieking that I could hear echoing through the tunnel behind me – there was a scratching, scuttling noise too, as if some of those that raced after me were crawling along the walls and the ceiling of the tunnel.

Something struck my foot and I fell forward onto the ground. Blindly reaching out with my hands, I felt the first step of the spiral staircase. Realising it was that which had tripped me, I scrambled up them. Trailing my fingers along the wall so as to keep my bearings in the complete darkness, I headed upwards. The sound of feet on the stairs coming after me grew ever closer. My calf muscles throbbed as I tried to leap two of the steps at a time. But I was slowing, and those behind me sensed it and sped up.

Fingers curled around my ankle and yanked me backwards. Spilling forward, I slammed into the stone steps, squeezing the air from my lungs.

“Kiera,” I heard Craig whisper from out of the darkness.

Kicking out frantically with my legs, I screamed, but my lungs were still empty and the noise that I made sounded as if I was being strangled. My foot connected with something in the darkness and I heard Craig shriek out in pain and anger. His fingers loosened around my ankle, and seizing my chance, I pulled away and started back up the stairs on my hands and knees.

Feeling my way around the curved wall of the stairwell, my heart raced at the glimmer of light coming from above me. Knowing that it was the church, I made one last desperate surge upwards. As I got nearer to the light, the darkness around me began to fade, and illuminated the true horror of what was behind me.

Looking back over my shoulder, I could see Craig charging up the stairwell, followed by a hoard of frenzied-looking vampires. Some of them ran, but others scurried up the walls like freaky-looking spiders. Their jaws snapping open and closed, spraying the walls with spit and froth which hung from their razor-sharp teeth. I launched myself up the last few steps and bounded into the church. Racing towards the door, I heard the sound of the creatures pouring out of the stairwell behind me. Pews were pushed out of the way and reduced to splinters, the sounds of their screams deafening.

Reaching the church door, I fumbled for the handle. Yanking on it with all my remaining strength, I stumbled out into the graveyard. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw Craig and the vampires appear in the open doorway. I raced away from them. Before I knew what had happened, someone had taken hold of me. Snapping my head round, I looked into the face of Potter. With a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, he smiled and said, “What’s the rush?”

I blinked and when I opened my eyes, I saw those snapshot images again, popping on and off like flashbulbs just behind my eyes. But this time they weren’t of vampires, but of cigarette ends lying beneath a tree next to the dead body of Henry Blake; glimpses of Potter’s mouth as he blew smoke from between his lips.

Then they were gone and Potter was smiling at me as if he knew what I was thinking.

Chapter Twenty

“Get off me!”
I roared, throwing a punch at Potter. But with lightning speed, he snatched hold of my wrist and pulled my arm down by my side.

“That’s no way to treat a friend and colleague,” he said, blowing cigarette smoke out of his nostrils.

“You’re no friend of mine,” I spat. Trying to yank myself free of him, I could see that Potter was in his police uniform and I thought how he wasn’t fit to wear it.

“But he’s your friend, right?” Potter asked, looking over my shoulder. I looked back to see Craig just outside the church door, twenty or so vampires standing behind him.

“I thought he was,” I whispered to myself.

“Sergeant Phillips isn’t you’re friend,” said a voice to the side of me and I turned round to see Murphy. “And he certainly isn’t a friend of ours.”

Looking between the three of them, I said, “What’s going on here?”

“Phillips went missing three years ago,” Murphy said. “He used to be one of my constables.”

“But that’s impossible,” I said. “He was my sergeant at training school.”

“So that’s where you’ve been hiding?” Murphy called out to Craig.

“Had someone looking after you? Protecting you?” Potter said, over my shoulder.

Stepping away from the front of the church and coming towards us, Philips smiled and said, “Not protecting – more like guiding – showing me how things should be.”

“So what did you do with her?” Murphy asked. “I mean, that’s why you went missing, wasn’t it?”

“Who are you talking about?” I asked them. I didn’t mind who provided the answer, I just wanted to know what was going on.

“Your mother, Kiera,” someone said from behind me, and glancing back over my shoulder, I watched as Luke stepped from the shadow of a large tree and into the swirling snow.

At the sight of him, my heart lept and my first instinct was to go to him. Out of everyone here, he was the one I wanted to trust. Then I remembered what Phillips had told me about him, how suspicion had fallen on him after my mother’s disappearance.

“Phillips told me that it was your fault that my mother vanished,” I shouted.

“I should’ve been there for her,” Luke said coming towards me. “I was meant to have been crewed with her that night, but I was sent back beneath ground on a false errand by your friend over there,” and he looked at Phillips. “When I’d realised that I’d been tricked, I rushed back above ground, but I was too late – Phillips had vanished and taken your mother with him.”

With my head spinning and not knowing who or what to believe, I looked at Craig and asked, “Is this true?”

“Poor, beautiful Kiera,” Craig smiled. “Can’t you
see
the truth for once?”

“Tell me!” I snapped.

“Your mother was the best,” he said. “Her ability to
see
was so superior to yours – you’re almost blind compared to her. She had me and what was going on in this town all figured out within days of her arriving and we couldn’t let that be.”

“Who’s
we
?” I shouted.

Then there was the sound of thunder overhead and we all looked up to see a winged figure falling like a stone from the sky. Snow flurried all around it, making it difficult to see who it was. The creature landed with a thud, their huge black wings drawn around them like a cloak. Then, as if shuddering, the wings unfurled to reveal Rom. Stepping forward, Craig came to stand beside him, and it was then I realised it was them I’d overheard in the corridor at the police station earlier that night. Pulling off his coat and tearing his shirt away, Craig threw back his shoulders and as he did, his wings sprang from his back.

Understanding how cruelly he’d tricked me and had tried to lead me to my capture at the church, I sprang forward, wanting to get at him. But Potter had hold of my arm and yanked me back.

“Easy tiger,” he whispered in my ear. “All in good time.”

“Rom?” Murphy breathed, and he sounded genuinely shocked and hurt. “So you are one of them?”

“If you mean by
them
, the Vampyrus that are sick and tired of living beneath the ground while the humans tread on us under foot – then yes, I’m one of
them
,” he said, and his voice was calm but stern.

“But you’ve fed on humans. Look at the result of your actions!” Murphy said, pointing to the vampires that crowded behind Rom and Phillips. “Look what you’ve done!”

“You’ve broken the Vampyrus’ rules of coming above ground,” Luke said.

“Oh the
rules
,” Rom said. “Stupid me.”

“Why don’t you join us?” Craig grinned. “You really don’t know what you are missing.”

“No thanks,” Potter said, behind me. “I hate the sight of blood.” And without having to look back at him, I knew he would have that wise guy smile of his spread across his face.

“You’re pathetic, Potter,” Rom almost seemed to growl. “You’re all pathetic. How long do you think it will be before the humans invade The Hollows? Look at what they’ve done up here. Look at the chaos and devastation they’ve caused.”

“And by feeding off them and turning them into some half-breed of us is making things better, is it?” Luke asked.

“For centuries there have been what the humans call ‘vampires’,” Rom said, as if justifying his actions. “Since the dawn of civilisation, Vampyrus have come above ground and fed, creating these vampires.”

“And they’ve had to be hunted and destroyed,” Murphy said. “Our history has proven that this is not the way. We have to find unity with the humans – find a way of living together.”

“What, by sneaking around?” Phillips hissed. “Secretly living among them and scurrying back beneath ground every time you hunger for one of them? You’re a disgrace to the Vampyrus if that’s what you think. We should be able to fly and soar through the air – we should be
free
.”

“And what about them?” Luke said, pointing at the vampires. “Are they free?”

“We’ve given them new life,” Rom said. “They are better than they were before. They are like us.”

“They’re nothing like us,” Murphy said. “They’re mindless animals. Their only want and desire is to kill and destroy. We are better than that.”

“Then join us,” Rom spat. “Let us be the most powerful race on the planet.”

“No thanks,” Murphy said, unbuttoning his shirt.

Sensing that Murphy was readying himself to do battle, Rom and Phillips arched their wings high above them. “Give us Hudson and we will go,” Rom said, as if suggesting a truce, using me as some kind of peace offering. “That’s all we want. Let us have her.”

“Never!” Luke roared, running towards them and flinging his shirt away in torn strips. Leaping into the air, his back twisted as his wings ripped through his flesh and fanned out on either side of him. I watched as he swooped upwards, racing towards Rom at a terrifying speed. In a blink, Rom shot from the ground and flew into the sky, clattering into Luke.

I looked at Murphy, who was now also stripped to the waist, and was neatly folding his police shirt in two.

“Don’t you think you should go and help him or something?” I shouted.

“Okay, don’t rush me,” he grumbled. “I’m not as young as I used to be.” For his age, like Rom, he was in pretty good shape. He wasn’t exactly muscle bound, but he was toned. The only thing that gave his age away was the silver hairs that covered his chest. Placing his shirt on top of a nearby grave, he looked at me and said, “Make sure that doesn’t get dirty.”

Before I’d had a chance to say anything back, he was gone, his giant bony black wings propelling him through the night sky towards Luke and Rom. Then from behind me, I heard a roaring sound. Spinning round, I watched Potter spring into the air, and while airborne, he flung away his police jacket and shirt as his wings ripped out through his back. Within an instance, he was on Phillips. They spun and tumbled through the air as they grappled with one another.

There was a swooping sound above me and I looked up to see Rom plummeting through the sky. He had hold of something and whatever it was, it was thrashing about. As Rom whisked closer, I could see that it was Murphy who was struggling with him. Then in a spray of shadows, I saw Luke appear as if from nowhere. There was another sound similar to that of thunder, and he spun through the air at Rom, his wings pinned back making him look like an eagle. Snatching hold of Rom’s wings, he yanked him back and upwards into the sky. Rom lashed out with his fists, and in doing so, he dropped Murphy, who fell towards the ground. He dropped at such an incredible speed that I thought he would smash straight into the gravestones beneath him. But within inches of hitting them, he spread his wings open like two black sails and soared upwards again.

There was a noise just behind me. Twisting around, I could see the vampires charging towards me. Stumbling backwards knowing that I only had seconds to react, I grabbed two bottles of holy water from my coat pocket. Snatching off the lids, I held a bottle in each hand and squeezed. Jets of water shot from the ends of the bottles and straight into the faces of two approaching vampires.

They were running at me so fast that they didn’t have time to stop or react. The holy water splashed off their faces, and at once they threw their claw-like hands over their eyes. The vampires screamed, and above their cries, I could hear the sound of hissing and spitting. Then the most disgusting thing that I’d ever seen happened. Their faces started to dribble through their fingers in thick, gloopey streams. One of them pulled its hands away, and I could see its left eye ooze from its socket and slide down its cheek.

“What have you done!” this one screeched.

“Have some more,” I shouted, and emptied the bottle at him.

Within seconds his face, ears and nose were nothing more than a crimson red mess that was now sliding off its neck and down its chest. Clutching at the air, the vampire collapsed onto its knees, then went down completely.

Looking up, the second vampire still had its face covered with its hands. Seeing my chance, I sprayed the last of the holy water at him. I could see the skin on his face bubbling and sizzling, and he pushed his hands against his head as if trying to hold it together. But within seconds it had collapsed inwards like melting putty. Staggering for just a moment, the vampire stumbled over and was still.