Vampire Breed (Kiera Hudson Series Book Four)

by Tim O'Rourke

  “Watching your back,” he woofed, and he glanced at the message about the talking wolves.

  “Why?” I asked him, still startled by his sudden appearance.

  Then, staring at me with his crazy yellow eyes, he barked, “Like I said, Kiera, it’s all about redemption.”

  Breaking his stare, I picked up one of the radio handsets, which was attached to the array of control panels.

  “What are you doing?” Nik asked.

  “Calling for help!”

  “But -”

  “Look, there are dead police officers in here,” I cut in, “And they only died in the last few days, which might mean that they were able to tell the rest of the world that exists on the other side of these goddamn mountains, what’s been going on here.” Then, turning my back on him, I pressed the talk button on the handset and spoke into it.

  “Help! Somebody help us! If anyone is receiving this please come back to me!” I released the talk button and waited – no prayed - for a response.

  Nothing, only static.

  “If anyone can hear this, please help us!” I said again into the handset and again there was only silence.

  There was a dial attached to the control panel so I turned it from left to right, hoping that I would tune into another signal – one that had a voice at the other end of it.

  I pressed the talk button again and this time I said, “My name is Kiera Hudson and I’ve been locked up in a zoo…I’m in a town called Wasp Water set amongst the Cumbria mountains. There are dead people here – hundreds of them…please…”

  Then suddenly, I heard a snapping sound and I looked round to see Nik chewing through the wire that led from the handset and into the control panel.

  “What are you doing!” I screeched in disbelief. “Don’t you want me to be rescued?”

  “And that’s exactly why I’ve bitten through the wire,” he barked.

  “What are you talking about?” I cried.

  “Because those who come to save you might not be your friends,” he said.

  I was speechless and just shook my head in disbelief as Nik continued. “Doctor Hunt told me that one of your friends is a traitor- that they are working for this invisible man…”

  “Look you’ve already told me this and…”

  “Your friend Murphy was reluctant to believe what Doctor Hunt said and it cost him his life,” Nik stared at me, his eyes wide and fiery.

  “Look, Hunt got it wrong. None of my friends are working for this...invisible man,” I snapped at him. “I trust them – all of them!”

  “And so did your friend, Murphy,” Nik said.

  To hear those words made me realise that Nik was right. He was right because in my heart I knew that Murphy had come to suspect that one of us was a traitor. I could remember the conversation that I’d heard between Murphy and Potter in the signal box next to the disused railway line. Potter had been mad at Murphy as he believed that he suspected him of being the traitor. But knowing this, I still glared back at Nik, and said, “You’re wrong about my friends and so was Doctor Hunt – none of them are traitors. I trust all of them with my life.”

  Nik shook his giant head and said, “Why don’t you do what you believe is best, Kiera?”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” I snapped and then threw the radio set onto the floor.

  I stormed past Nik and left the control room.

  “Where are you going?” he called out.

  “To find a safe place for me and my friends to sleep!” I hollered angrily back over my shoulder. It was then that my head began to feel light and weightless. I started to retrace my steps back down the stairs, but halfway down, my stomach knotted and a searing bolt of pain cut through me. Gripping the handrail, I staggered down another two steps or so. The handrail felt ice cold against the burning skin of my hand. The world turned black, then came back into focus again and I could hear the sound of running in the distance. I glanced behind me and back up at the stairs. Nik stood at the top and silently looked down at me. I held out my hand towards him, as the sound of approaching feet grew louder. Everything swayed before me, and my whole body seemed to lock and go rigid as the cravings for blood consumed me.

  With my hands outstretched before me in a feeble attempt to fight off whoever or whatever it was running loose in the police station, I lurched down the last few stairs. In the corridor, a figure loomed up in front of me and grabbed me by the arms. Too weak to fight them off, I collapsed against them, and as the lights went out inside my mind, the last thing I heard was someone whisper in my ear, “Take it easy, tiger!”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I woke to find the door to my cell open. The wire mesh was hanging from the hole in the concrete ceiling just like I’d left it, before making my escape.

  But what was I doing back in my cell? Had I been recaptured?

  My head hurt, and it felt as if my skull was being crushed in a vice. There was a dull thud behind my eyes, my throat was burning raw, and my stomach felt as if my intestines were being strangled by an invisible pair of hands.

  Praying that no one would hear me, I crept towards the open door and out into the corridor on the other side. It was then that I noticed I was wearing the clothes that I’d taken from the store.

  The sound of barking rebounded off the walls all around me. It made my heart beat so fast with fear that it felt as if it were trying to punch its way out of my chest. I tiptoed around a bend in the corridor. I stopped immediately and jumped back in the direction which I had come and pressed myself flat against the wall.

  There was a wolf down there! And it was Sparky. How did I know that? I just did. I waited several seconds just to make sure that I hadn’t been hallucinating and peeked around the edge of the wall. Sparky was still there, but now he was pacing back and forth outside an open door further down the corridor.

  “I don’t know how the doctor could have escaped,” he whined.

  With my head pressed flat against the wall, I watched from my hiding place as a winged man appeared from the room and approached Sparky. “We need Ravenwood!” he said, his voice low and husky, but there was a hint of anger.

  I tried to stare at him, but his face seemed to be cast in shadow. But that couldn’t be right? There were no shadows in this brightly-lit corridor. So how was it that I couldn’t see his face? His upper body was naked, and I could see that it was taught with muscle. His legs were covered in a black pair of combat trousers, and his feet hidden by thick boots.

  “I have hunters looking for him, but -” Sparky started.

  “I don’t want to hear excuses!’ the man snapped. Sparky flinched backwards, his claws clacking on the tiled floor.

  “They’re not excuses, my -”

  Before Sparky had a chance to finish, the man with the long, black wings and the face masked in shadow gripped him by the throat. “Close this place down. The half-breeds are no good to me in this state. We’ll move our work to The Hollows.”

  “But what about the half-breeds we’ve been breeding?” Sparky asked, and it sounded somewhere between a bark and grunt, unable to speak properly with the man gripping him by the throat.

  “Turn off their life supports like we did with the half-breeds at the facility,” the man said, releasing his grip on Sparky.

  What facility? I wondered. Was that the place where I’d been operated on?

  “But what about the virus?” Sparky asked.

  “Once we have Ravenwood again, we’ll have the cure,” the man said, and his voice was low, almost a whisper again.

  “What about Hudson and the others?”

  Hearing Sparky mention my name, I slid round the edge of the wall, not because I feared that I might be seen, it was the thumping of my heart that I hoped they wouldn’t hear.

  “They couldn’t have gotten far, not in their conditions,” the man said, and the tips of his wings made a whispering sound as they brushed against the ground. “Don’t concern yourselves with them, I’ll worry about K
iera and her friends.”

  “What about us?” Sparky chipped in nervously.

  “What do you mean us?”

  “If you’re heading back to The Hollows, where does that leave me and the rest of the Lycanthrope?”

  “I need you to stay here and prepare for the final attack,” the man said, and he sounded as if he were growing tired of Sparky’s questions.

  “But…”

  “I’ve told you, I’m not interested in excuses. What happened in Wasp Water was just the start – a practice if you like, for when we attack the bigger towns, cities - London,” the man said, in his low husky voice, as if speaking from behind a mask.

  “If only we had…” Sparky started, “Somebody like Kiera. Now she is loose, she’ll go looking for Ravenwood. She’s not stupid – she’ll know that he holds the key to breaking the code – she’ll find him and the code. That’s what she does, that’s what she’s good at – I’ve seen her in action.”

  “And so have I,” the man said. “Don’t you think I know that she’ll go looking for the doctor? Why do you think her escape was made so easy?”

  “So you let her escape?” Sparky sniggered.

  “Of course – I needed someone to find the good doctor and she won’t go far – she’ll never even get out of Wasp Water,” the faceless man said.

  “And then you want us to go after her and bring her and the doctor back…”

  “There will be no need for that,” the man said, with a certain air of confidence.

  “How can you be so sure?” Sparky asked.

  “Because Kiera and I are friends now,” the man said. “She’ll bring Ravenwood to me of her own free will.”

  “Why would she do that?” Sparky barked, and like him I was curious to know why I would do such a thing.

  “Because, Kiera trusts me,” the man whispered.

  “So she knows you then?” Sparky asked. “But nobody knows you – no one has ever seen your face.”

  “Kiera has seen it,” the man almost seemed to laugh. “Kiera sees everything!”

  Hearing a noise behind me, I wheeled round and shrieked in terror as I found myself staring into the menacing face of a Vampyrus. Stumbling backwards, I moved away from it. The Vampyrus came forward brandishing two hooked claws. Its muscles rippling beneath its black and silver flecked fur.

  “I’ve found her!” he roared triumphantly.

  Before his deep, menacing voice had stopped reverberating off the corridor walls, Sparky and the man with the shadow across his face were coming towards me.

  “She knows where the code is!’ the Vampyrus hissed.

  My lower jaw began to chatter uncontrollably as I continued to move backwards up the corridor. My stomach began to cramp again, and I suddenly felt hot – as if I were edging my way backwards into a furnace.

  I wanted to speak –but my lips flapped together as if I were blowing a raspberry.

  “What is it you are trying to say?” Sparky asked smugly.

  “R – R – RUN!” I screamed as I turned on the spot and raced away up the corridor.

  I ran as hard and as fast as I could and for a moment – just the briefest of moments - my legs seemed to take on a life of their own as they began to propel me forwards at an incredible speed. But out of my peripheral vision, I saw something big and dark leap from one of the rooms that I sped past and come crashing into me. Whatever it was hit me with such force that I slammed into the corridor wall. I gasped as my head made contact with the floor with a sickening thud. I opened my eyes and screamed as I stared into the face of that man. But I couldn’t see his face, not really. It was as if he were wearing a wide brimmed hat which cast a dark shadow across his features. But the shadows moved, twisted and contorted out of shape, as if whatever hid beneath them was writhing back and forth in pain.

  Then, everything seemed to swirl in and out around me – from light to dark and back again as I fought to remain conscious. I dragged myself along the floor by my fingertips, desperate not to be caught by him. And then I screamed, the pain exploding like a bomb going off in my leg. I glanced back in horror to see that a wolf had sunk his razor-sharp teeth into my leg and was now slowly dragging me back towards him. But it wasn’t just any wolf – it was Nik who was taking me back to my captors.

  “What about your redemption?” I screamed at him.

  I shut my eyes against the sight of his drooling and grinning jaws.

  “No Nik,” I pleaded. “I thought you had my back!”

  My leg felt as if it was on fire. I could hear the grunts and the growls of the others as they approached. I needed to look…I needed to find out what they were going to do to me. I opened my eyes to see the Vampyrus bring his meaty fist down towards me. Everything went black and…

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  …there was a red light winking on and off in the darkness.

  “Who’s there?” I croaked, sitting up on a bed. My body shivered uncontrollably, and I had never felt so ill. My skin was burning up, stabbing pains knifed through my stomach, and my back ached as if it had been stamped on. Crying out in pain, I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and the floor felt cold against my burning feet. That red light winked on and off again from the corner, but as my bleary eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I could see a square of pale light just ahead. I stumbled towards it, my legs buckling beneath me. With my hands stretched out, I felt like someone trying to find their way blindfolded. Then my fingers brushed against something hard and cold – it was metal. A door. That square of pale light was coming through a hatch set into it. I was in a cell.

  Had I been captured again? Was I back in my cell in the zoo?

  My brains felt scrambled, and my heart thumped so hard that it felt as if my eyes were going to explode in their sockets.

  I banged weakly on the door with my fists, and a dull thud echoed back at me. The red winking light moved in the darkness – it was coming towards me, then dropped to the floor and disappeared.

  “Where am I?” I whispered, and knocked the cold sweat out of my eyes.

  “You’re somewhere safe,” a voice said, and a strong set of arms wrapped themselves around me and held me close. My head rested against their chest, and the faint smell of tobacco coming from their shirt made me realise that the red light I had seen had been the end of a cigarette being smoked in the dark.

  “Potter?” I barely managed.

  “I’ve got you, sweet-cheeks,” he whispered, guiding me back towards the bed in the corner of the cell.

  “Where am I?” I asked again as he gently laid me down.

  “In the cells beneath the police station,” he answered, his voice was soft, like a dream floating over me.

  “Police station?” I mumbled.

  “That’s right.” he said, his voice still a whisper. “We’re safe here.”

  “I’m thirsty,” I told him.

  “I’ll get you some water,” he said.

  “I don’t want water,” I groaned as the pains in my stomach twisted like a corkscrew. “I want some…”

  “No, Kiera,” Potter said, and I could feel one of his strong hands stroke my sweat-dampened hair from my brow.

  With my eyes closed against the pain, I gripped his arms and pulled him close. “Please Potter,” I begged. “Just a little – it will take the pain away.”

  “No,” he said firmly and pushed me down onto the bed.

  “Please…”

  “No,” he insisted.

  “I hate you!” I spat.

  “Don’t most people?” he said, and as I flopped back onto the bed, I could picture his face with that wry smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

  I opened my mouth to speak and said…

  “…What are the odds of me escaping a cell only to find myself freely sleeping in one on my first night of freedom?”

  “I’m sorry,” I heard Nik say.

  I opened my eyes to see him standing in the doorway. His giant fur covered frame almost blocking o
ut the pale light that came from the corridor outside.

  “Sorry for what?” I asked him.

  “For biting through that wire,” he grunted.

  “Let’s just forget it and get some sleep,” I said. “Tomorrow I’m going to go and get my friends I left by the fountain and then go and find Doctor Ravenwood. You and me can both go our separate ways.”

  Nik came into the cell and lay on the floor beside my bed.

  “Why don’t you just run, Kiera – save yourself?” he asked.

  I reached down and from my rucksack I pulled out a can of the tinned fruit that I had taken from the supermarket. On the front of the tin was a picture of a ripe juicy apple that had been cut in half.

  “See that apple, Nik?” I asked.

  “What about it?”

  “You see those seeds? If you took them and planted them in the ground each one would grow into another apple tree. In turn those trees would produce apples and each apple would be full of seeds which again if planted would make several more apple trees and so on it goes.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” he said.

  “Well if you just kept on planting those seeds, in the end you would end up with a world covered in apple trees. That’s just the same as the vampires. The more the Vampyrus feed on humans, the more vampires will just keep on multiplying until in the end…I won’t need to run, because there will be no place left to run to. The world will be infested with vampires. I will have to stop running someday – so today seems as good a day as any.” Closing my eyes, I turned towards the wall, and added, “Instead of having a world of apple trees there will be a world of…

  “…pain,” somebody said.

  “Hopefully her pain has gone,” another voice said.

  I opened my eyes to see a teenage boy and man standing in the doorway of my police cell staring in at me. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, not believing what I was seeing. The boy was Isidor and he didn’t look like a boy at all really, it was just that he looked dwarfed by the height of Jack Seth who stood beside him.