by Tim O'Rourke
Annora took a step backwards, deeper into the elevator. As she did so, she saw Jake Stranger slowly raise his hands. At first, Annora thought that perhaps it was a trick of the blue moonlight that was making his hands and fingers glow. But as he fully extended his fingers and unleashed a stream of electric blue light, Annora couldn’t help but be reminded of her own hands in the video she had watched.
As blue streams of light continued to leak from Jake’s fingers, Annora glanced at Franziska. If Kiera and Potter were some kind of mutated breed of vampire bat, and Jake Stranger was a wizard, what did that make Franziska? And what Franziska did next made Kiera’s and Potter’s wings, and Jake Stranger’s glowing fists, seem like little more than cheap party tricks.
Chapter Twenty
The year 2067
Karl leapt over the dead man, who was once again dragging himself to his feet. Out of bullets and fast growing out of luck, Karl headed out of the shipping crate and back onto the gangway. The wind had picked up, driving sheets of rain against the shipping crates. The gangway swayed precariously beneath his feet. The patrol vehicle was hovering in the air on the other side of the scaffolding. The emergency lights fixed to the vehicle’s roof continued to flash, illuminating the night like a lightning storm. Selina had turned the vehicle so the driver’s door was adjacent to the gangway. Although Selina had manoeuvred the patrol car like she had intended to, Karl could see no sign of her. The driver’s seat was empty.
As Karl raced along the swaying gangway with the dead man at his heels, he hit the talk button on his comlink attached to his vest. He hollered into it. “Officer Riley! Officer Riley if you’re receiving me, I need immediate backup now. Return to the vehicle ASAP!”
The comlink omitted a series of squawking noises as if it was transmitting from deep beneath water. Karl glanced back to see that the dead man—Night Diner—was within touching distance. With no intention of becoming anyone’s dinner, Karl scrambled over the rail that ran between the gangway and the patrol vehicle. The scaffolding creaked and groaned as Karl gripped it with both hands. But the steel poles were slick and wet with rain. His fingers slid down the greasy pole and he lost his footing. With arms wind-milling through the air, Karl lurched over the gap between the gangway and the vehicle. He hit the bonnet of the car with an audible thump. The front of the vehicle rocked forward and down. Karl slid across the bonnet, his fingernails scraping against the wet paintwork in search of any kind of hold. With his legs dangling over the front of the car, he glanced down at the Outpost way below. The headlights from the cars below looked like pinpricks of light. Karl glanced to his left to see the vampire climbing the scaffolding as it prepared to launch its self across the gap and onto the floating car.
With all the strength he could muster, Karl clawed his way up onto the bonnet. With the vampire perched on the nearby scaffolding, and readying itself to strike, Karl scrambled over the bonnet of the vehicle. The emergency lights continued to spray their red and blue glow like lightning strikes into the night. With rain beating off him, Karl swung over the windscreen as he reached down for the driver’s door handle. With teeth clenched as he held onto the car for his life, he popped the catch and the driver’s door swung open. Gripping the metal casing that held the emergency lights in place on top of the patrol vehicle, Karl swung his legs over the side of the windscreen and into the car. He dared to let go and dropped down into the driver’s seat. He shot a sideways look to see the vampire leaping off the scaffolding. Karl swung the door shut as the vampire collided with it. The creature screamed as it bounced off the door and disappeared from view beneath the car.
“How did you like that, huh? Sucker!” Karl roared in triumph.
He peered out of the window in the hope that he might see the Night Diner falling to its death below. But he could see no sign of the creature falling like a stone through the air. The car suddenly began to rock, the nose tilting forward. Karl instinctively reached for the joystick that protruded up from the floor between his knees. He tried to level out the front of the car. As he did so, he saw the ashen face of the vampire appear over the bonnet. It sunk its spike-like claws into the front of the car as it began to scamper at speed toward the windscreen.
With one hand gripping the joystick, he hit the talk button on his comlink again. Where was Selina? What the fuck was she playing at? “Officer Riley! Officer Riley! I need immediate backup!” When no reply came from Selina, he barked into the comlink again. “Sergeant Shaw! Officer Scott! If anyone is receiving this, I need urgent assistance—”
Before Karl had had the chance to transmit his location, the vampire was smashing its face into the windscreen. The glass began to splinter, forming something close to a spider’s web of cracks.
“This shit can’t be happening!” Karl groaned in fear and disbelief. But he knew that it was happening, and if he didn’t react fast, the vampire would soon break through the windscreen and be sitting in his lap.
“Okay, you want to play, do you?” Karl roared through the shattered windscreen. “How do you like this for fun?”
Karl yanked the joystick to the left. The car rolled over in the air high above the Outpost. The engines whined as it performed a death-defying roll mid-air. Without his seat straps on, Karl bounced out of his seat, helmet crunching against the roof of the car. Once the car had performed a complete mid-air spin, Karl righted it once more. He peered through the splintered windscreen. To his delight, he could see no sign of the vampire.
“Yeah!” Karl hollered, punching the air with one fist. “How did you like that, sucker!” He glanced again out of the side window and his eyes grew wide.
He watched the vampire soaring out of the night and back toward the patrol vehicle. How was such a thing even possible? Then, as the vampire shot up in front of the car, Karl realised how the vampire had managed to perform such a feat.
“Seriously? You have fucking wings now?” he shouted in disbelief.
Chapter Twenty-One
The year 2018
In a disused barn on the bleak moors that surrounded Hallowed Manor, Noah kept vigil over Carol. Although Noah knew that he could push back and forward through time, he also knew that he couldn’t afford to spend too long with the young woman he had turned. Never before had Noah juggled and manipulated so many situations in so many different wheres and whens and layers. But this time, it wasn’t just his friend’s lives that were at stake, but his, too. As he had pushed through the different layers and wheres and whens, he had made many enemies. And now those enemies were circling, coming together and joining as one to hunt him down. The hour was fast approaching when he would have to confront his enemies one last time. All he could hope was that his friends would unite around him, not only for his sake, nor their own, but for the sake of all the layers and the wheres and whens.
As Carol slept, her pale skin coated in a feverish sweat, Noah would creep from the disused barn and go in search of food for her. Her recovery would be quicker if he returned to the barn with human remains to feed on, but to do so would make her a greater addict than she already was. The addiction she had once had to the shit she enjoyed putting in her veins would seem like a mere itch if she ever became hooked on human blood and flesh.
So in the shape of a freakishly big wolf, Noah would hunt down wild deer, which he would drag back to the barn. Human once more and using his claws like knives, he would butcher the dead animals and feed it in long bloody strips to Carol. In her delirium, she would gobble the meat up without question. And when her burning thirst was not yet sated, Noah would squeeze the blood from the deer’s heart into her mouth. And with each passing hour, Noah sensed that Carol was becoming stronger—was becoming the vampire he had turned her into. He felt no guilt about what he had done. The name of the game to him was survival. It always had been and always would be. He couldn’t have risked leaving Carol back in 1985 after what she had witnessed Jake Stranger do. It wasn’t just humans that Noah couldn’t risk finding out about Jake Stranger,
but his enemies, too.
There was a part of Noah that believed he had done Carol a favour. It hadn’t been Jake Stranger who had saved her, but him. He knew that despite Jake sucking the poison from her veins and leaving her free of her addiction, she would soon return to it. All Noah had done, was change what she craved for. And in time, Carol would come to see that. She would understand why he had turned her. And then, she would become an ally, a friend to him, someone who would stand at his side and face down his enemies just like he knew Kiera Hudson, Potter, and others would.
On the third evening, Carol woke. Although she still trembled with a fever, she seemed able to focus on her surroundings. The first question that came across her lips was, “Where am I?”
It was on the tip of Noah’s tongue to tell her that she was in the future—that he had brought her forward from 1985 to 2018. But he didn’t have time to answer the flood of questions he knew would come from her. Those questions would have to be answered by another. Someone else who he trusted enough to call a friend.
So as Carol sat and shivered with fever in the corner of the barn, Noah handed her several more strips of bloody meat. Greedily, she gobbled them down, smacking her lips together and licking the blood from her fingers.
“Are you still hungry?” Noah asked her. “Would you like some more?”
Pulling her knees up beneath her chin, Carol stared wide-eyed at Noah. She still felt a little afraid of him. He could sense her fear.
“You have no reason to be scared of me,” he told her. “My name is Noah.”
“What have you done to me?” Carol asked. Although she was struggling to remember exactly what had happened, she remembered enough to know that Noah had bitten her. She knew that she felt feverish and sick because of him.
“Although you may not realise it,” Noah started explain, “I have given you a gift.”
“What kind of gift?” Carol scoffed.
Noah wanted to tell her he had given her the gift of immortality, but in his heart he knew that some people saw that as a curse. Not everyone wanted to live forever. Some people, however happy they believed their lives to be, felt weak at the thought that life could be never-ending. Life had its happy moments, but it was also filled with pain, too. Some couldn’t bear the thought of living forever and enduring the pain that so often accompanied their lives. But Noah knew that these people were just deceiving themselves. Because there was no end—not really. Just another push—a different where and when waiting for them.
So instead of answering her question truthfully, Noah answered it in another way. “When you are stronger, you will see that you are now walking a different path. A path with no limits and no end. You will go to places, see things, and be able to do things that most people only ever dream of. You will learn that the path of true life does not head in a straight line. You will soon learn that you don’t always have to head forward, but it’s okay to head backwards, too. You’ll meet others like you—like me. And despite our unique gifts and powers, every single one of us has struggled to come to terms with what and who we are. But in time you will, and it will be at that moment—at your awakening—that you really will appreciate the gift that you have been given.”
“I’m not sure I understood any of that,” Carol said. Despite her thirst being quenched for now, her throat still felt raw.
“You’re not meant to understand just yet,” Noah said with a knowing nod of his head. He smiled. “And I don’t have time to tell you everything you need to know. But there is someone, a very dear friend of mine, who will be happy to answer all of your questions and guide you through your change.”
“What do you mean, my change?” Carol asked him. “How have I changed?”
“Do you remember Jake Stranger?” Noah asked, reaching down and offering her his hand.
Carol was reluctant to take it. She stared up at him and said, “Yes, I remember him. The guy with the glowing hands.”
Noah gestured for her to take his hand again. “Did Jake Stranger mention magic?”
“Yes,” Carol said, finally giving in and closing one hand around Noah’s.
He gently eased her up onto her feet. At first, her legs felt weak at the knees. Noah placed one arm around her shoulder to steady her. Once she was on her feet and standing independently of him, Noah took a step backwards. He looked at her in the shafts of moonlight that broke through the holes in the barn roof above them. Her skin was so smooth and white, it glowed like porcelain. Her impish face was framed by a luscious mop of thick black hair. He knew that she truly would be a beautiful vampire.
“Magic,” he whispered, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Yeah, so you keep saying,” Carol said, feeling a little awkward beneath Noah’s gaze. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “So what’s with all the magic stuff? Can I do magic now?” She scoffed.
Noah slowly nodded his head. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “In your own very special way.”
Before Carol had a chance to ask exactly what he had meant by that, Noah was guiding her toward a hole in the barn wall where there had once been a door. He pulled a piece of scrap paper from his tunic pocket and handed it to her. He then pointed out across the bleak and barren moors.
“If you head in that direction for about a mile or so, you’ll come across a large manor house, which is surrounded by a giant wall,” Noah began to explain. “The place is called Hallowed Manor.” He gestured at the scrap of paper he had handed to Carol. She looked at it. “I’ve written down the name of the person who lives there. This person will help you until I return. You will be perfectly safe in their company and at Hallowed Manor.”
Carol stared down at the piece of paper in her hands and read the name written across it. She looked up to find Noah had disappeared once more.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The year 2067
From behind the cracked windscreen, Karl watched open-mouthed and wide-eyed as the vampire hovered in the air above the patrol vehicle. Two tatty and torn-looking wings beat feverishly on either side of its bony shoulders. The urge to call for backup was overwhelming. But what would be the point? No one seemed to be tuned into him. And if they were, for whatever reason, they refused to answer his call for assistance. But what if Selina was under attack, too? What if the flying freak outside of the patrol vehicle wasn’t the only one?
Folding its wings back, the vampire shot like an arrow at the car. It smacked into the windscreen, spraying Karl in shards of broken glass. With one hand, he swiped down the visor attached to the front of his helmet. With the vampire’s head and shoulders now breaking through the glass, Karl pressed himself flat against his seat. The vampire jerked and twisted its head from side to side. Its mouth snapped open and shut like that of a ravenous piranha.
“Thirsty!” it screeched. Spit and blood sprayed from its mouth, splattering Karl’s visor with some kind of sticky venom.
Karl knew that if he didn’t react fast, the vampire would soon break free of the windscreen and would be fully inside the vehicle with him. Rocking back his head, he then drove it forward, smashing the brow of his helmet into the vampire’s face. He hit the creature with such force that it jerked backward and away from the windscreen. Screeching, the vampire slid over the front of the bonnet before throwing open its wings and hovering mid-air.
Karl seized the moment to yank hard on the joystick. At speed, he turned the vehicle around. He couldn’t be sure what had happened to Selina or whether she was in danger or not, but one thing he knew for certain was that if he stayed a moment longer he would surely be dead. And what then? The vampire would be free to attack those who went about their business below in Outpost 71. While the vampire was fixated on him, he had to coax it away from the Outpost where it couldn’t harm anyone but him.
With fingers gripping the joystick, Karl pushed forward on it with all his strength. Travelling bullet-fast and with emergency lights flashing, the patrol vehicle blazed across the night
sky, and the vampire followed. Karl glanced into the rearview mirror and could see that the vampire had taken the bait.
“Come on, you fucker,” Karl hissed through gritted teeth.
He pushed down on the joystick until he feared it might just break free of its housing and come away in his hands. The patrol vehicle’s engine whined as Karl worked it to its max. Rain splashed through the broken windscreen and spattered his visor. He pushed it up and blinked against the rain. He reached the outer limits of the Outpost, but still refused to slow the vehicle. He glanced down and saw the grey and featureless landscape whisk past beneath him. Now that he could no longer see the twinkling lights of Outpost 71 below, he pushed down on the joystick. The car groaned as it dropped through the air like a stone. Karl’s stomach shot up into his throat and he was momentarily relieved that he had emptied his guts earlier that evening. When he was within feet of the rugged ground below, he pulled up on the joystick to break his rapid descent. The patrol vehicle levelled out as he shot forward just feet above the earth, a funnel of dirt and grit streaming in its wake.
Karl glanced into the rearview mirror once more. He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or not when he could see no sign of the winged creature. He glanced front again and immediately fought the urge to hit the brakes. The vampire was no longer behind the vehicle but in front of it. But instead of hitting the brakes, he pushed the joystick forward. The nose of the car punched through the air and into the vampire. It flew backwards and flipped over in the air before racing forward at the car again.
The vampire thrust its head through the windscreen with such force that what remained of it shattered completely. Now that the windscreen had gone, the vampire was free to get at Karl. With its jaws snapping open and closed, spiked teeth just inches from tearing Karl’s face clean off, he yanked the joystick left and right in a desperate attempt to shake the vampire free of the vehicle. But the bloodthirsty creature clung on stubbornly, refusing to be thrown clear.