by Tim O'Rourke
I reached Calix at the wall that surrounded the field. Before climbing over the stile, Calix closed one hand around mine, and pulled me close to him. I looked up into his face and he kissed me again. But this time there was no hunger. His kiss was soft against my lips.
I turned away. “I’m not sure that we should… I’m not sure that what happened today should ever happen again.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because I get the feeling that deep down you’re a bad man and women like me only end up getting hurt…”
“Women like you like bad men like me,” he said, before turning away and climbing over the stile and into the lane on the other side of the wall.
Chapter Thirteen
Calix had told me he cared. Was that enough for me to care back? Or had he only said such a thing so as to be able to climb into my bed? Flint had said that he loved me – but I hadn’t loved him back – not the way that he had wanted me to. Maybe I’d been right not to do so? As Calix had so often enjoyed reminding me – where was Flint now? I’d asked him to come with me but he hadn’t. The people of Maze needed him – or so he believed. But I’d needed him too – once. I wasn’t so sure of that now. The more time I spent away from Maze – my uncle and Flint – the more independent I became – the stronger I felt despite the chaos all about me. Was that not what I was truly searching for – the truth about who I was and what I wanted – not what others like my uncle and Flint believed I was and had wanted for me.
I could see the church spire poking through the treetops in the distance. It was almost full dark now, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, there were no rain clouds threatening overhead. Instead the moon was up and looking blue and round. Trotting along the narrow path, I caught up with Calix. With each step I took, I couldn’t help but feel myself growing more anxious. I wanted to feel as brave as Calix looked, but was that just a front. I knew that he feared the vampires – if he didn’t then he wouldn’t have seemed so insistent on helping to make me a better shot. Calix had said that he would need me to watch his back as much as he was going to watch mine.
“Do you feel scared, Calix?” I asked.
“Shitting myself, if I’m to be honest,” he said with a grim smile.
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Really?”
“Really,” he said. “And you should be, too. It’s your fear that will keep you sharp – keep you alive tonight. There is no shame in ever feeling scared. Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t,” I whispered, letting my hand hover just above the hilt of the gun that slapped in the holster against my thigh. Was I really going to fight and try and kill vampires tonight? What had they ever done to me? Rea and the others had said that it was a vampire that had killed Annabel, but did that make the vampires my enemy too?
“Are the vampires really our enemy?” I asked Calix, nearing the gate set into the graveyard wall. “I thought it was the werewolves that the vampires hated…”
“You saw what a vampire did to Annabel, didn’t you?” Calix grunted.
“How can I forget,” I said, remembering how she lay spread dead in the wood, her throat a shredded hollow.
“Then don’t ever forget,” Calix said. “Remember how she looked with her throat ripped out, her white dress turned red with blood…”
“The blood!” I cut in.
Calix glanced at me through the dark, his eyes bright and as blue as the moon. “What about it?”
“There wasn’t any on the ground where Annabel lay,” I said picturing her lifeless body.
“Because the fuckers suck it all up,” Calix said, his face now a grim mask of hate.
“The wolf you shot on the hillside the other night…” I started.
“Killed by a vampire too,” Calix said.
“Why didn’t you say?”
“Didn’t want to scare you off,” Calix said pushing open the gate in the wall.
“And I thought you wanted me to leave Shade?” I reminded him.
“It was Rea who didn’t want to frighten you – not me,” he said. “I didn’t agree with it. I thought you should’ve been told the truth. I thought keeping secrets from you was a bad idea. I said as much, remember?”
And I could remember Calix saying letting me stay in Shade was a bad idea. But I thought it was because he disliked me – not because he was trying to protect me. He said that he had never lied to me, so perhaps he had been telling the truth when he said that he cared. But why did he care about me? He didn’t know me. The gate wailed on its rusty hinges as it swung closed behind us. Side by side we made our way amongst the headstones. We hadn’t gone far when I heard the scrape-scrape sound of a spade being dragged over dirt. I shot a look to my left and saw the stooped frame of Morten as he stood digging a fresh grave in the darkness.
“What’s he doing?” I asked Calix.
“I guess he suspects that not all of us will return from the woods tonight,” Calix said.
“Charming,” I grimaced.
Hearing our voices, Morten looked up in our direction. He said nothing, just tipped the rim of his bowler hat at us, then went back to his grave digging. To watch him dig reminded me of what I had discovered in Annabel’s grave last night.
Knowing that Calix had said he had never lied to me, and over the last few hours he had gone someway in telling me the truth about the witch and the village of Shade, I glanced sideways at him and sucked in a lungful of breath. “Where is Annabel’s body buried?”
“Over there somewhere,” he said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder.
“Where is she really buried?” I pushed as we neared the edge of the graveyard and the wood.
“What are you talking about?” he frowned.
“You know what I’m…” but before I could say anything more, Calix had clamped one hand over my mouth.
“Shhh,” he hissed, sliding one gun from its holster. Taking his hand from over my mouth, Calix drew his second gun. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I whispered, easing my gun from its holster. Was I ready for what was coming next? Now that I stood in the dark at the edge of the graveyard with the sound of Morten digging fresh graves, I wasn’t so sure that I was. My heart raced in my chest and my legs felt as unstable as a pile of building blocks.
“Where have you two been?” I heard someone hiss.
I spun around to find Rea peering at us from the darkness of the wood. Her pale face was splashed with moonlight that shone in bright rays from above.
“Come, come, quickly,” she whispered, beckoning us forward with one slender hand. In it she gripped one of her gleaming pistols.
Without hesitation, Calix followed her into the darkness. I glanced back just once and couldn’t help but fear that I might not ever return alive from the wood. I heard the scrape-scrape sound of Morten’s spade and my blood ran cold in my veins. If I was going to run – now was my last chance. But where was I going to run back to? Maze? To my uncle’s house, so I could work on his newspaper and print even more inaccuracies about the world? Run back to Flint – become his wife while he followed his life’s dream of being a night watchman? And what of my dreams? Where exactly did they lay?
Turning, I followed Calix and Rea into the wood, gun gripped tight in my fist. We hadn’t gone very far, when just ahead I could see the outline of two other figures. As we drew closer still, I could see that it was Trent and Rush. Both had their guns drawn. Seeing me stepping through the gloom, Rush came forward. He gently squeezed one of my hands with his and kissed me softly on the cheek. I glanced at Calix. Our eyes met briefly before he looked away.
“I didn’t ever think you were going to show up,” Rush said. “But I’m glad that you have.”
“Okay, knock it on the head, you two lovebirds,” Trent said. “They’ll be plenty of time for the lovey-dovey stuff later.”
I let my fingers slide from Rush’s without saying anything.
“Just stick close to me and you’ll be fine,�
� he whispered, standing tight next to me.
“Shhh,” Rea suddenly hissed, raising her gun and staring into the darkness that shrouded the wood. “I hear movement.”
Over the beating thump of my racing heart, I could hear the sound of movement ahead of us. I raised my gun as Trent stepped forward.
“Form a line,” he said, back straight. In one swift movement he threw open the flaps of his long coat and drew his guns.
I looked along the line that we had formed between the trees. Rush was to my left, Rea, then Calix to my right. Each one of us had our guns held tight in our fists. My stomach clenched and I felt that sudden and overwhelming sense of rage spiral through my body. It raced toward my fingertips again like an electric current. I had never felt so scared yet excited before. I glanced at Calix. His face was a grim mask of determination. The sound of movement came again and I snapped my head front.
“Hold the line,” Trent whispered. “Hold the line.”
“Come on, you fuckers,” I heard Calix whisper to my left.
“Stay close to me, Mila,” Rush whispered to my right.
“I can see them!” Rea breathed.
I looked in the direction that her gun was pointing and stifled the scream that raced into my throat. Out of the darkness between the trees I could see the outline of several approaching figures. At first I thought they looked like monks as they came forward dressed in flowing black robes and hoods pulled up. But they were not monks and there were more than seven. They came at us from each side. We were surrounded. My gun shook in my hand and I tried to steady it as I took aim at the approaching figures. One by one they pulled back the hoods of their cloaks. The faces they revealed from beneath those hoods were more beautiful than anything I had ever seen before. How could I, like Calix had suggested, shoot and destroy such striking beauty? I felt suddenly stunned and I lowered my gun.
“Their beauty is their armour, Mila,” Rush whispered, noticing me lower my gun. “It’s blinding, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I whispered, staring at the faces that had been revealed to me in the darkness.
“Don’t let them deceive you,” Rea warned me, her gun unwavering as she continued to hold her aim at the approaching vampires.
“Hold onto your fear and see through their beauty,” Calix said through clenched teeth. “See through it.”
As the creatures crept further forward and their faces were struck by the shafts of moonlight that seeped through the branches of the trees in blue shafts, I saw the vampires for what they truly were. It was like the moonlight had stripped away their beauty and the illusion it created. For the faces that the moonlight had unmasked would haunt every remaining moment I would spend alive in Shade.
“Fire!” Trent suddenly roared, racing forward, guns blazing.
Without hesitation we advanced as one, guns thundering in our fists as the vampires came screaming toward us.
To be continued…
‘Werewolves of Shade’ (Part Six)
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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
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)
Werewolves of Shade (Part Six)
Moon Trilogy
Moonlight (Moon Trilogy) Book 1
Moonbeam (Moon Trilogy) Book 2
Moonshine (Moon Trilogy) Book 3
The Jack Seth Novellas
Hollow Pit (Book One)
Seeking Cara (Book Two) Coming Soon!
Black Hill Farm (Books 1 & 2)
Black Hill Farm (Book 1)
Black Hill Farm: Andy’s Diary (Book 2)
Sydney Hart Novels
Witch (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 1
Yellow (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 2
The Doorways Saga
Doorways (Doorways Saga Book 1)
The League of Doorways (Doorways Saga Book 2)
The Queen of Doorways (Doorways Saga Book 3)
The Tessa Dark Trilogy
Stilts (Book 1)
Zip (Book 2)
The Mechanic
The Mechanic
The Dark Side of Nightfall
Book One
Unscathed
Written by Tim O’Rourke & C.J. Pinard
You can contact Tim O’Rourke at
www.kierahudson.com or by email at [email protected]