by Tim O'Rourke
“No, you’re dead,” somebody howled from the darkness.
Before Winnie truly knew what was happening, Thaddeus had bounded like a giant hound from the dark. With one fleeting swipe of his claw, Michelle’s head was spinning away through the air. Her torso stood where it was, twitched, and then toppled over. Thaddeus glanced at Winnie. His shirt had been torn free, and bloody streaks covered his chest. His arms looked taut, and he flexed his claws open and closed.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he snarled at Winnie.
She looked back at him and nodded.
“Then do it, Winnie,” he barked at her. “Run! Run! Run! And never look back!”
Looking at him one last time, dripping with blood in the moonlight, Winnie turned and ran.
Chapter Thirty-Two
With the vampire’s blood hot beneath his long fingernails, Thaddeus stood and looked at his burning house in the distance. It had been consumed by flames and it burnt like a torch on the horizon. Clouds of black smoke billowed up into the night sky. He knew whether it burnt to the ground or not, he would never be able to return there. His life in Cornwall was over. His life was over. He waited, drenched by moonlight. He wanted Nate to find him. He wanted it to be over at last.
Then, silhouetted by the red of the flames in the distance, he saw Nate coming across the fields towards him. With his claws hanging low by his sides, he breathed deeply and waited for the inevitable. He couldn’t kill himself. Winnie, just like Frances, hadn’t been able to do so either, but for the same reasons, he couldn’t be sure. That didn’t matter now. He watched Nate approach him, each step slow and deliberate, as if he were savouring every moment.
The thought of dying now didn’t matter. He could kill Nate as easily as he had killed the others. What was the point? There would only be others. Word would soon get back to Nicodemus that his daughter was dead, killed by the wolf. Enraged with grief, and feeling betrayed, he would only send more, who would hunt him down. Thaddeus knew that it was over. He couldn’t go on moving from one place to another, living a life where he was constantly looking back over his shoulder, reading mountains of foreign newspapers, trying to work out where his enemies would come from next. That wasn’t a life – that was a living hell. He had tried to trick them and what had he achieved? For his own selfish gain, he had deceived a young girl, he had brought a young girl to his home, placed her in mortal danger and what for? So he could put off the inevitable for another year – another three or four perhaps? They would have caught up with him soon enough, and even if he had managed to trick Winnie into staying with him all that time, they would have killed her, too.
He knew he had felt something for her, however small, but to let those feelings grow and mature would have been another selfish act on his part. She would have exchanged one life of constant running for another. Winnie was free now, not of her own ghosts, but of his.
As Thaddeus watched Nate take his last few steps towards him, and as they stood eye to eye at last, Thaddeus, dropped to his knees and lowered his head.
“If you truly felt anything for Frances, make this quick for me,” Thaddeus said. “As I sat and watched her fade away, we both knew this moment would eventually come. She wouldn’t have wanted me to suffer.” He then reached into the back of his waistband and removed the gun he had earlier tried to get Winnie to kill him with. Looking up into Nate’s dead black eyes, he offered him the gun.
Nate slowly took the gun and turned it over in his hands. “A murderer and coward,” he sneered. “A true Lycanthrope.”
“I’m neither,” Thaddeus whispered to himself more than to his executioner.
Nate heard him all the same, and whipped him across the side of the face with the butt of the gun. Thaddeus howled in pain, as his head rocked to the left.
Throwing the gun into the grass, Nate towered over Thaddeus and said, “I’ve waited three hundred years for this moment. Three hundred years!” he screeched, spit flying from his lips and spraying Thaddeus’s naked chest. “And for every one of those days, I’ve tormented myself – driven myself half-mad - thinking of how when I sink my fangs into your putrid heart, I want to feel it still beating.”
“Whatever you think happened to Frances, I’m not going to spend my last few moments trying to convince you otherwise,” Thaddeus said calmly, “we loved each other more than you’ll ever know.”
“You don’t have the faintest idea what true love is, wolf!” Nate screeched at him. “You’re nothing but an animal. It was I who truly loved Frances.”
Then, slowly lifting his head, Thaddeus looked into Nate’s eyes. “If you truly had loved Frances, you wouldn’t have asked her to stand in the moonlight. You would have set her free.”
With a rage which paled anything he had felt before, Nate raised his claws in the air and brought them slicing down. Thaddeus threw back his head, exposing his neck, waiting for the vampire’s claws to slice open his throat and at last set him free. Thaddeus didn’t know what came first, the warm splatter of blood across his upturned face, or the sound of the gun firing.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Thaddeus opened one eye to see Nate slump face first into the ground. He then opened the other, and saw Winnie standing with the gun wavering in her trembling hands. Blood and lumps of Nate’s brain slid done the length of Thaddeus’s face like giant black tears. He armed them away, unable to take his eyes off Winnie.
“What have you done?” he howled.
“Saved your life,” Winnie breathed, dropping the gun as if it now carried some disease she might catch.
“Why?” he barked. “After everything I have put you through.”
“Because you saved my life,” Winnie whispered, holding her bleeding arm against her chest.
“But you haven’t saved my life, Winnie,” he snarled at her.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, unable to figure out why he seemed so angry. Then, looking at the scattered remains of the vampires, she added, “They’re dead, aren’t they?”
“They’re dead,” Thaddeus growled. “But there will be others. It won’t take long for Nicodemus to figure out what went on here. Just like Nate, he will come after me to avenge the death of Frances.”
“I’m sorry,” Winnie said, looking back at the house which was now nothing more than just a raging inferno.
“I had set you free. Why did you come back for me?” Thaddeus barked at her.
“Because you said we were friends,” she breathed, looking back at him. “That’s what friends do, isn’t it?”
Thaddeus looked back at her, not knowing what to say or do. With his temper calming, and seeing the blood funnelling from the cut in Winnie’s face and leaking down her arm, he went to her and took her in his arms.
Slowly, Winnie folded her arms around him and held onto Thaddeus. Resting her tired head against his shoulder, Winnie looked into the distance. Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, she saw a little figure wearing a blood-red coat standing atop a grassy knoll in the distance.
Ruby Little raised one pale hand into the air and slowly beckoned Winnie with it.
“I don’t know what we do now,” Thaddeus whispered into Winnie’s ear as he held her.
“We do what I do best,” she whispered back. “We run.”
Winnie glanced up at the grassy knoll again, but Ruby Little had gone. In her place, was a pool of moonlight.
‘Moonbeam’
Book tow in the Moon Trilogy
Coming soon!
Also available by Tim O’Rourke
‘Vampire Shift’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 1)
‘Vampire Wake’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 2)
‘Vampire Hunt’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 3)
‘Vampire Breed’ Kiera Hudson Series One Book 4)
‘Wolf House’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 4.5)
‘Vampire Hollows’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 5)
‘Dead Flesh’ (Kiera Hudson Series Two Book 1)
/> ‘Dead Night’ (Kiera Hudson Series Two Book 1.5)
‘Dead Angels’ (Kiera Hudson Series Two book 2)
‘Black Hill Farm’ (Book 1)
‘Black Hill Farm: Andy’s Diary’ (Book 1)
‘Doorways’ (The Doorways Trilogy Book 1)
‘The League of Doorways’ (The Doorways Trilogy Book 2)
‘Cowgirls & Vampires’ (Book 1)
‘Moonlight’ (The Moon Trilogy Book 1)
About the Author
Working away in the dead of night, Tim has written many short stories, plays and novels. His most recent book 'Dead Angels' (Book Two in Kiera Hudson Series Two) is now available. Tim is also the author of the paranormal romance series entitled 'Black Hill Farm' and ‘Doorways’ – A book of Vampires, Werewolves & Black Magic.
Tim's interests other than writing, include watching South Park, Vampire Diaries, True Blood and listening to Pitbull, LMFAO, Jennifer Lopez, David Guetta, Bruno Mars, Rihanna and Adele. Tim is never happier than when reading The Twilight Series, Vampire Diaries and writing his own Vampire series “Vampire Shift.”
Don't be shy; feel free to contact Tim at [email protected] - Tim would love to hear from you. Website: www.Ravenwoodgreys.com