by Tim O'Rourke
Over the sound of the gunfire, the screeching vampires, and the continuous wail of the alarm, I heard another sound. I shot a look to my right and could see the giant hangar doors beginning to slide open. They hadn’t been opened very far when a wave of vampires began to stream inside. Just like the other vampires, they each wore long, black hooded cloaks. These I guessed were the Night Watchmen that Morten had described. They wasted no time in leaping toward us. Despite having come into this layer to find some kind of peace and forge a truce between the vampires and werewolves, I knew that if I didn’t fight now, there might not be any more werewolves to negotiate with or on behalf of. My companions – friends – were vastly outnumbered. I knew I had to help them. So with those loose strands of energy beginning to unravel deep inside of me and spread out through my body like twitching and convulsing tentacles, I slowly raised my hands where my fingers twitched and jerked uncontrollably. And as my hair began to billow back from off my shoulders and fan out behind me, I glanced down to see Morten, still crouching on the floor behind the crates. I was just about to tell him to run – to find some safe place to hide – when I saw him begin to unfasten the buttons running down the front of his shabby suit jacket. Once it was open, I could see that beneath each arm hung a small leather holster. Crossing his arms in front of himself, Morten reached inside his suit and pulled out what looked like two pieces of sparkling silver metal. On first sight, I thought he too had been carrying guns. But as I took another look, I realised that what he was holding in both his fists were not guns at all but two knives. The blades were long and pointed, curved into sharp hooks. Surprising me again, Morten leapt from behind the crates with an athleticism that I wouldn’t have thought possible for such an old and decrepit looking man. With the bowler hat still wedged firmly on top of his emaciated skull, Morten launched himself at the attacking vampires.
“Holy shit!” I whispered to myself as I watched Morten spin through the air, the coattails of his suit jacket flapping. Within a heartbeat, he had decapitated two of the vampires with the knives he was now brandishing.
With blood dripping from the blades, Morten wasted no time in driving one of them into the skull of another vampire who dared to get too close to him. If my friends were as surprised as I was by Morten they didn’t show it as they continued to fight off the vampires who were now not only raining down from above, but charging through the open hangar doorway.
With my arms outstretched and fingers extended, I released a volley of energy bolts. Blue and purple flames shot from my fingertips like lightning strikes, disintegrating the vampires into nothing more than flakes of powdery dust and vapour. But I knew that with every vampire I destroyed, my hopes and chances of finding a truce diminished and grew ever more unlikely. I knew the vampires – I understood them better than most. I knew that they would want revenge. My mind worked overtime as I searched for another way of escaping from the hangar with my friends and without greater loss of life. So, just as I promised I would, I began to speak to the shadows. Not the shadows that lurked in the corners of the hangar or up in the cavernous roof, but the shadows that follow each and every one of us not only into light but into the darkness, too.
Opening and closing my hands into fists, I looked at the shadows my friends and the vampires cast across the floor and up the walls of the hangar as they fought with each other. Closing my eyes, I pictured the shadows as they mimicked the werewolves’ and vampires’ actions. Blindly, I reached out to them with my hands. Opening and closing my fists, I drew them toward me and away from the physical presence that they merely reflected. Opening my eyes once more, I looked out across the hangar from the crate I now stood on. In my head I whispered to the shadows, coaxing them away from the vampires and my friends. Raising my hands, the shadows stood up as if taking on a life of their own – no longer just dark reflections of the creatures they had spent a lifetime mimicking. It was as if the shadows now had independence – a life of their own.
With my hair now floating upwards as if standing on end in long thick black strands, I began to move my hands and arms frantically back and forth through the air. As I continued to whisper to the shadows, it was like I was controlling them – like a puppet master would control his puppets but without any visible strings attached. And the faster I waved my arms back and forth the quicker the shadows moved until it looked as if they were dancing. I watched the black lifeless figures jerk, twitch, and revolt at speed as they became little more than a blinding blur around the vampires who continued to launch themselves and attack my friends. The faster the shadows began to swirl like smoke, the faster the vampires became disorientated and confused. Instead of solely concentrating on attacking my friends, the vampires had begun to turn and attack their very own shadows.
From my elevated vantage point on top of the crates, I watched as one by one, the vampires began to slice at the air with their swords and claws. They screeched and roared in confusion as they failed to cut down the black shadows that now cavorted and swept amongst them. I could see it wasn’t only the vampires who now looked bewildered but my friends too, as their shadows came to life all about them.
“What the fuck?” Calix shouted, releasing a thunderous roar of shots into his own shadow, which was now twisting and contorting all about him.
“What’s happening?” Rush cried out, his eyes wide with fear as his shadow ran at him. But of course, the shadow couldn’t hurt Rush, there was no life or substance to it. It was magic.
“It’s the witch!” I heard Rea shout over the continuous whine of the alarm. “The witch is doing this.” She glanced back at me, just once, before turning her full attention on the shadow that was running toward her, arms wide open as if wanting to embrace. Even though her shadow could do Rea no real harm, she wasted no time in emptying her gun into it. The bullets just rocketed away, zinging off the floor, burying themselves into the walls of the hangar in puffs of brick dust.
How long my magic would keep the vampires distracted I did not know. I suspected that it wouldn’t take them too long to figure out the shadows, however startling and unnerving they were, they really couldn’t do them any harm. Glancing back over my shoulder, I looked for any way of escape. Leaving the hangar by the main doors wasn’t an option as it was crowded with vampires. I had to find another way. On the opposite side of the hangar, I saw a metal staircase fixed to the wall. Where it led up to I did not know, but it seemed the only way out of the main part of the hangar. I called out to the shadows in my mind, telling them that they could once more return to my friends. I watched the shadows lay down on the floor as if going to sleep. But of course they weren’t, shadows never really went to sleep, they were forever mimicking our every move.
I called out to my friends. “This way! Follow me!”
Leaping from the crate, I landed on the hangar floor which was stained red with the blood from the butchered humans and the brains of the vampires my friends had killed.
“Follow you?” Rea said with disdain and distrust.
“I saved you, didn’t I?” I said.
“You really call this a rescue?” Rea asked.
“You’re alive, aren’t you?” I shot back.
“For now,” Trent said. “But we might not be for much longer if we don’t figure a way out of here.”
I pointed in the direction of the staircase I’d seen. “That looks like our best hope of escape.”
Trent looked in the direction I was pointing. “I think you’re right.”
“How did I know you were going to say that?” Rea groaned.
“Well I, for one, trust Julia,” Morten said, the first of the group to head across the hangar in the direction of the stairs, the knives he still held in his bony fists dripping with blood and leaving a trail behind him.
I looked at the rest of my friends. Calix locked eyes with me. I cocked an eyebrow at him. He nodded back at me just once before turning and racing across the hangar after Morten and in the direction of the staircase.
/> Rush looked at Rea. “Julia spoke to the shadows just like she said she would,” he said.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Rea asked.
“I don’t know,” Rush said with a shake of his head. He still looked slightly confused and dazed by what had happened. “The one thing I do know for sure is, Julia has bought us some time.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the vampires, who were still trying to fight off their very own shadows.
“That magic won’t last long,” I tried to warn them.
“What, it comes with a ‘use by date’, does it?” Rea sniped.
Trent looked at me as he spoke to Rea and Rush. “We can trust Julia.” Without saying another word Trent headed off across the hangar. Rush was next to follow, leaving me and Rea alone.
I looked at her and said, “Rea, you can trust me.”
“You might fool Trent. You might have him wrapped around your wand, but not me,” Rea said, before setting off across the hangar.
“I don’t have a wand,” I whispered. And as I watched her go, I knew my fears had been realised and I had made an enemy in Rea.
Chapter Eleven
We raced up the flight of stairs in single file. The sound of the alarm continued to wail all around us. I glanced back over my shoulder to see that some of the vampires had already stepped away from the many shadows as they began to figure out how they had been tricked and deceived. As they began to realise that the shadows were little more than ghostly apparitions and could not hurt them, the vampires once more turned their attention on me and my fleeing friends.
Facing front again, I shoved Calix in the back and said, “Faster! Move faster!”
Sensing that we were in danger once more, Calix glanced over the metal handrail that was attached to the staircase and looked down at the vampires. “Fuckers,” he snarled, before taking aim at them and firing the shotgun he held in his hands. Another of the vampires’ heads popped like a balloon that had been overinflated with raspberry jam.
“Nice,” I muttered with disgust under my breath.
At the top of the stairs there was a door. Trent rattled the handle but it was locked. Leaning back, he drove his shoulder against it but the door would not budge. Taking aim with his pistol, Trent fired one shot, the lock disintegrating in a knot of twisted metal. Wasting no more time, Trent threw the door open, and one by one we charged inside. I could hear the sound of scraping and I turned around to see Rea and Rush drag a desk from across the room and push it up against the door. I doubted it would keep the vampires out for very long, but it was something. Inside the room, we had found the alarm didn’t sound so high-pitched and shrill as it did in the hangar. But there was another sound coming from inside the room. Turning on the heels of my boots, I looked along the length of the room we now found ourselves in. Although the overhead lighting was dim and offered little more than a weak glow, I could clearly see rows and rows of children’s cots stretching away from me and down the length of the room. There was more than I could count. The sound I could hear over the alarm was that of small children and babies crying. I took a step further into the room and could see babies and small children in the cots. Some of the children had pulled themselves into standing positions, peering over the tops of the cots, curious to see what all the commotion was about. Their eyes were filled with fear as they watched me and my friends pass amongst them. However, one of the children reached for me with a chubby hand, curling its fingers around one of mine. The child who could have been no more than eighteen-months old, wore nothing other than a nappy, which I could see was swollen with urine and faeces. In fact, the whole room smelt pungent with stale human waste.
“What are all these babies doing in here?” I whispered to myself more than to any of my companions.
I felt someone brush up close beside me. I glanced to my right to see that it was Morten who had joined me at the cot.
Morten looked down at the baby with his white eyes. “And this is why this place is called the human farm,” he said. “This is where the vampires breed humans. I’m sure if we look hard enough we will find another room here, but instead of it being filled with babies, it will be filled with expectant mothers.”
I felt numb – speechless. The only word I could conjure was, “Why?”
“Because although vampires can survive on animal meat, they much prefer human flesh,” someone said.
I looked up to see that it was Trent who had spoken. He looked just as appalled and sickened as I did – as we all did.
“The vampires are stronger when they eat human flesh and drink human blood,” Rush explained. He was standing over a cot and brushing the hair from the brow of a small child who was sobbing. “Animal meat is just a poor substitute to the vampires. Sure, it will keep them alive, but they won’t thrive on it.”
I didn’t know what to say. But what words were there to describe or even comprehend what was slowly unravelling before me in this world? Nothing could have prepared me for this.
The small child continued to clutch my finger as if never wanting to let go. I wanted to just pluck the baby from the cot and cradle it tight to me. Slowly, I eased my finger from the child’s grip and reached down with open arms. Before I’d a chance to take hold of the petrified looking child, Morten gently placed one hand on my arm.
He looked at me, slowly shaking his head. “No, you can’t.”
“What do you mean, I can’t?” I asked breathless.
“Are you going to rescue all of them?” Morten asked me, the corners of his thin lips pulled down by sadness and sorrow.
“If I have to, yes, I will save all of them,” I said.
“The only way to save these human children is by killing them,” Rea suddenly said.
I snapped my head around to look at her. “Have you lost your mind? Or are you really just the cruel bitch I believe you to be?”
“Uh-oh, cat fight,” Calix grimaced under his breath before skulking away.
“What would be cruel, would be to leave these children alive so they can be reared until they are old enough to be hung upside down and butchered in the hangar beneath us,” Rea said, unflinching.
“But we can save them, I can save them,” I insisted. “Or why else did we come here if not to save them?”
Rea looked at Trent them back at me. “Are you really that naïve, Julia?” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Did you really believe that we came here – risked our lives – to set these humans free?” Rea said.
I nodded my head. “Yes. Why else?”
Rea looked once more at Trent, Rush, and Calix, then back at me. Her eyes were very dark as they met mine. “We didn’t come to the farm to save them, Julia. We came here to kill them.”
I shook my head. “Kill them? I don’t understand.” I looked at Trent hoping he might have the answers. But he said nothing and let Rea do the talking. None of them said anything but her.
“Don’t you see, Julia? If the vampires don’t have any more humans to feed on – if we cut off their supply of human flesh and blood – the vampires might not die, but they will grow weaker,” Rea explained. “And once the vampires have grown weak they will become easier for us to kill.”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” I gasped. I looked at Trent once more. Tears had begun to build in my eyes. “Tell me you haven’t come here to kill these children. Please, Trent. I don’t believe you could kill them.”
Without answering my question, Trent drew his guns, took aim, then fired.
To be continued...
‘Vampires of Maze’
(Part Three)
Publishing April 2016!
More books by Tim O’Rourke
Kiera Hudson Series One
Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 1
Vampire Wake (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 2
Vampire Hunt (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 3
Vampire Breed (Kiera Hudson Series 1)
Book 4
Wolf House (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 5
Vampire Hollows (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 6
Kiera Hudson Series Two
Dead Flesh (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1
Dead Night (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 2
Dead Angels (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 3
Dead Statues (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 4
Dead Seth (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 5
Dead Wolf (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 6
Dead Water (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 7
Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 8
Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 9
Dead End (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 10
Kiera Hudson Series Three
The Creeping Men (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 1
The Lethal Infected (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 2
The Adoring Artist (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 3
The Secret Identity (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 4
The White Wolf (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 5
The Kiera Hudson Prequels
The Kiera Hudson Prequels (Book One)
The Kiera Hudson Prequels (Book Two)
Kiera Hudson & Sammy Carter
Vampire Twin (Pushed Trilogy) Book 1
Vampire Chronicle (Pushed Trilogy) Book 2
The Alternate World of Kiera Hudson
Wolf Shift
Werewolves of Shade
Werewolves of Shade (Part One)
Werewolves of Shade (Part Two)
Werewolves of Shade (Part Three)
Werewolves of Shade (Part Four)
Werewolves of Shade (Part Five)