by Tim O'Rourke
“Why not?”
“He’s very badly burnt,” Murphy explained. “He doesn’t want you to see him like that.”
“I thought the girls all loved a guy with a scar,” Potter laughed.
“Put a sock in it, Potter,” Murphy growled without looking at him.
“Please tell me where he is?” I said, my voice softening. “I just want to see him. I don’t care what Luke looks like. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Ain’t that sweet,” Potter smiled.
“I won’t tell you again, Potter,” Murphy said over his shoulder. “I promised him, I wouldn’t say -”
“He’s in the forbidden wing, isn’t he?” I asked.
“Where?” Potter scoffed.
“The wing of the house that Mrs. Payne has forbidden me to enter,” I said, staring at Murphy and then at Potter. “That’s who you’ve been taking food to, isn’t it?”
Before Potter could confirm or deny my accusation, Murphy turned on him, and chucking his tinted glasses across the room, he shouted, “I can’t trust you to do anything without screwing up!”
“Don’t you go blaming me for this!” Potter moaned. “It wasn’t me who wanted to bring her here. I told you she would only go poking her nose around -”
“Look, I’m not interested in whose fault this is,” I cut in. “I just want to see Luke.”
Then from the doorway someone said, “I don’t believe what I’m seeing!”
Turning, the three of us looked towards the open doorway of the gatehouse to find Kayla standing there.
“What you doing here?” I asked her, not knowing how long she’d been listening to our conversation.
“I thought you were my friend, Kiera,” she said, sounding angry.
“I am,” I told her, feeling confused.
“So why have you been keeping secrets from me?” she seethed. “Why have you been spying on me with them?”
“I don’t understand,” I said, going towards her.
“Those are the two guys who came looking for me when I ran away. The ones I told you about,” she said. “And all the time they’ve been disguised as my mother’s chauffeur and handyman, when really, she’s had them down here watching me – spying on me - and you’ve known about it all along!”
“No Kayla,” I said, reaching for her. “You don’t understand.”
Pushing my hand away she looked at me and I could see the hurt in her eyes. I could see that she thought I had in some way betrayed her. “I understand, Kiera. Everything I’ve shared with you – everything I’ve shown you – told you – you’ve been secretly telling them.”
“I haven’t,” I insisted. “I promise you, Kayla. It’s not what it looks like.”
“They work for my mother and so do you,” she said, her voice flat, just simmering with anger and hurt. “Why have they been in disguise if they haven’t been here spying on me? I trusted you, Kiera, I really trusted you.”
Before I had the chance to explain, she was gone, running back across the grounds to the manor. I went to go after her, but Murphy gripped my arm and pulled me back.
“Leave her be for now,” he said. “She’s confused and angry at the moment and not in the right frame of mind to listen or understand what you have to tell her.”
“What is it I have to tell her?” I said, eyeing him.
“I’ll let Luke explain,” he said. “It will sound better coming from him.”
“What will?” I asked.
“He’s in the ‘forbidden wing’ as you like to call it,” Murphy said. “First room on the right.” I turned to go and as I did, he pulled me back again and said just above a whisper, “Nothing will be the same for you, Kiera, after you see what’s in the forbidden wing.”
Turning away, I started back towards the manor and as I did, Potter called after me and said, “Don’t worry, sweet-cheeks, I won’t tell Luke how happy you were to see me again. It will be our secret.”
Jerk! I thought as I headed into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty
Taking a candle from the table in the enormous hall, I made my way to the foot of the stairs and began to climb. Knowing that Luke hid above in the darkness made me want to run up them, but another part of me wanted to hold back. Murphy’s warning that nothing would ever be the same for me made me nervous. Why would everything be different for me after my visit to the ‘forbidden’ wing? What secrets could it possibly be hiding? And if those secrets were so bad, what was Luke doing hiding amongst them? Biting my lower lip, I continued to climb.
Reaching the landing where the staircase split left and right, I turned and shone the light from my candle up into the darkness at the top of the right-hand staircase. Even with the candle flame flickering before me, it did nothing to penetrate the blackness that lurked at the top of the stairs like a monstrous fog. Taking a deep breath, I started to climb. The stairs seemed to go on forever, each step taking me further away from the world below. With my heart racing in my chest like a trip hammer, and my stomach somersaulting, I stepped onto the landing. With my arm outstretched, I stared into the wall of blackness ahead of me.
Then there was a brilliant flash of white light and I closed my eyes. Those flashbulbs popped on and off inside my head like a thousand cameras and in those sparks of light, I could see the twisted shapes of people cowering in the darkness ahead of me, their bodies bent out of shape as if not properly formed. But these visions didn’t scare me or make me want to run. The sight of these hideous creatures overwhelmed me with sadness. I wanted to seek them out in the darkness and tell them that everything would be alright – that I would save them. But who and what were they – they looked half human and half…
As soon as they had come they had gone again – those flashbulbs blinking out and leaving me to the blackness that clung to the walls on either side of me. Brushing the tips of my fingers against the wall to feel my way, I was aware of that tacky substance that coated the walls. Then my hand brushed against something cold, and at first I just wanted to snatch my hand away. But after shining my candle in that direction, I could see that I had come across a big brass door handle. The door that it was attached to was white – nondescript – and if what Murphy had told me was true, than Luke was hiding behind it. Against the wall next to the door was a chair and on it was a silver tray. Casting my candle over it, I could see the remains of a half eaten fried egg sandwich. Remembering back to The Ragged Cove and how I had first spotted egg on Luke’s tie, I smiled to myself. In my mind’s eye, I could see him standing in the front office at the police station, his thick black hair dripping rainwater all over his coat, his boyish grin and those green eyes staring at me. As I remembered him, he looked almost kind of vulnerable. But then I thought of him racing through the night sky, his sturdy arms gripping me, his naked chest cold like iron against me, and he didn’t seem vulnerable at all – he was like a god. Twisting the door handle, I pushed the door open.
If I thought the passageway was dark, then the room was a vast open hole of blackness that seemed to reach out and grab for me. With the candle shaking in my hand, I stepped into the room.
“Luke?” I whispered, a slight tremor in my voice.
Then there was movement in the darkness, the light from my candle just catching a fleeting glimpse of something that darted across the room in front of me.
“Luke, is that you?” How I hated that wavering sound in the back of my throat.
The sound of movement came again, but this time from behind. Spinning around so fast that my candle almost flickered out, I could see that the door to the room had now been closed.
“Luke?” I whispered again.
“Why have you come here?” a voice said from within the darkness. Even though I couldn’t see him, I knew that the voice belonged to Luke.
“From what Murphy and that clown Potter told me, you guys brought me here,” I said into the darkness. “You didn’t really think that you could all keep this pretence up, did you? It was only go
ing to be a matter of time before I figured out what -”
“I mean, why have you come to this room?” his voice came again from the blackness, and it sounded almost angry.
“They told me you were hiding here,” I told him. “And I wanted to see you, Luke.”
“I don’t want to see you,” he said, his voice almost a growl which made me want to cringe away from it.
“What are you scared of?” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“I’m scared of nothing!” he snapped.
“You’re scared of me seeing you,” I told him, taking a step closer to his voice.
Sensing my movement, Luke shouted, “Keep away from me, Kiera!’
“I can’t,” I said, moving closer still. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since leaving The Ragged Cove. My life isn’t too good either at the moment if I’m to be honest. I became obsessed with finding you – that’s all I thought about. Night and day I watched the news for any reports that might suggest you had come up from The Hollows. My flat looks like a frigging newspaper, it’s covered with so many -”
“Go away, Kiera,” his voice broke over mine. “Forget about me and don’t come back.”
“Then why bring me here?” And it was my turn to sound angry.
“To protect you – to keep you safe while we deal with -” he started.
“Deal with what?” I demanded. “I’m part of this, Luke; don’t you think I know that? I’ve changed since the Cove. I have nightmares almost every night, I wake up crying blood and I see things. You’re not the only one who’s suffering. But I figure you’re too wrapped up in your own self-pity to see that!” Then with my candle held out before me I raced back towards the door. Just as my fingers curled around its cold handle, I felt a hand reach out of the darkness and grip my shoulder.
“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 too
k 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.”