Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series #1)

by Tim O'Rourke

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you being serious?” I said. “What about footprints?”

  “Well to be honest, after you had stomped all over it in your boots, it was hard to see anything. But after a careful and thorough examination, the only footprints I could find were yours and Luke’s. So if this vampire-girl had chased you across the graveyard, I found no footprints – only yours,” he smiled at me.

  “What about the damage to the car?” I asked him.

  “What about it?”

  “The broken windscreen?”

  “By the state of your face tonight, it looks like you’re the one who smashed through it,” he said. “As for the scratches across the bonnet and sides of the car, it is my opinion that they were caused by your reckless driving as you scraped against the stone walls up at the church and the branches and thorns from the overgrown hedgerows.”

  “What about the acid burns?” I asked.

  “You’ve already admitted to driving the car straight into the wall up at the graveyard, and in doing so, you crushed the battery which ruptured and sprayed the bonnet with battery acid,” he smiled.

  “I don’t believe this,” I groaned.

  “No, we don’t believe you,” Sergeant Murphy said.

  Turning to Luke I said, “You were up there. You must have seen something?”

  Looking at me, his eyes almost grey, Luke slowly shook his head and said, “I’m sorry Kiera, but all I saw was you driving away at a high speed from the church and crashing the car.”

  “So you didn’t see the girl?” I asked, almost pleading with him.

  “Sorry Kiera, I didn’t see any girl,” he said. “As soon as I saw you racing away in the police car, I came running after you.”

  I glanced down at his trousers and knew that he was lying. Knowing that whatever I said wouldn’t be believed, I looked at Sergeant Murphy. “So what happens now?”

  “You go back to headquarters,” he said. “I don’t have room for a liar in my station.”

  “But…” I began.

  “Don’t worry about your precious record, I’ll tell them that you were homesick – the climate down here didn’t agree with you. I won’t drop you in the shit. I’m not that kind of bloke.”

  Hearing this made my blood boil, and I could feel tears standing in my eyes. They had no right to treat me like this. Clenching my fists by my side, I took a deep breath and then let loose. “You make me laugh. You couldn’t solve a game of Cluedo, let alone a series of brutal killings,” I seethed. “For the last few years, you’ve had people go missing, graves desecrated, over twenty brutal murders, a string of police officers have disappeared off the face of the Earth, and you have the nerve to stand there and tell me I’m no good at my job!”

  “Hang on a minute!” Potter said coming forward.

  “Let her say her piece,” Murphy said. “Because when she’s finished, she’s out of here.”

  “You accuse me of destroying crime scenes, when you let that cretin stand and smoke over the mutilated body of an eight-year-old child. And as for you,” I said, looking Murphy up and down, “you’re the most unprofessional sergeant I’ve ever come across. You’re meant to be representing the police service and you lounge around the office in jeans and slippers, with a pipe hanging from your mouth. And as for calling Force Headquarters – go on – I dare you. Or perhaps you haven’t noticed that none of the telephones work in this godforsaken place. Nothing works! The shops hardly ever open, the streets are pretty much deserted and you can only speak with a police officer at night. Now I don’t know about you – but this place seems fucked-up!”

  “What’s the point in being on duty during the day – when most of the crime in this town happens at night?” Potter cut in. “That’s just good police work.”

  “Good police work!” I laughed at him. “I haven’t actually seen you do any police work since I arrived. If your idea of good police work is smoking yourself to death in this office, then you’re very good at it.”

  Then pausing to draw breath, someone cut in and said, “Have you finished constable?”

  Spinning around to see who had spoken, I was shocked to find a tall, lean-looking man standing in the corner by the passageway that led to the cells. He hadn’t come in via the front entrance and I knew from the tour Luke had given me the night before that there was no other way into the station.

  The man was about six-foot-four, with steely-white hair that was combed back off his narrow forehead. He looked as if he were in his late fifties but was in good shape. I could tell by his tanned and dry looking skin he had recently come back from his holidays, which had been spent in a hot climate. He had strong, muscular hands. His thumbs were looped through his belt loops. He wore a police uniform, and by the three silver pips on each shoulder, I knew that he was a chief inspector.

  “I said, have you finished constable?” he asked me again, and his bright blue eyes bored straight into mine.

  “Yes, Sir,” I said.

  “Then let me introduce myself. I am Chief Inspector Rom. And this station and its officers are under my charge,” he said in a low, grim-sounding voice. “If you feel that you have a complaint on how my officers perform then feel free to raise your concerns with me.” Then coming forward, his eyes never leaving mine, he stood before me and whispered, “But one thing I do know, is that I don’t need some snotty-nosed recruit coming into my kingdom and telling me how to run things. Do you understand?”

  Looking up at him, I said, “Yes sir, I understand.”

  “Now if you would be so kind as to gather up your uniform, leave this station and don’t ever come back,” he said. “Tomorrow morning you are to travel back to force headquarters where you will be assigned a new posting. And believe me when I tell you that the report I will be sending about you, won’t be as charitable as Sergeant Murphy’s. Now get out of my sight.”

  Feeling as if I’d been kicked in the guts, I picked up my jacket and made my way around the front desk and left the station. As I went, I couldn’t help but notice they were all staring at me, Luke included. Stepping out into the cold, flakes of snow stung my face and covered my hair and shoulders. Climbing into my car and slamming the door shut, the tears that I’d been fighting back in the office, now ran down my cheeks in warm streams. Jumping, I looked up as someone appeared at the window. Luke stood beside my car, his black hair now looking white with snow. He knocked on the glass.

  “Kiera!” he shouted.

  Wiping away my tears with the back of my hand – I didn’t want him to see me crying – I opened the window an inch and said through the gap, “What do you want?”

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “I’m going home,” I told him.

  “I’ll come up to the Inn and see you before you go,” he said.

  “Don’t bother. I won’t be there.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m going home now,” I told him. Then looking through the gap in the window at him, I said, “You know what Luke? I thought we were friends. I thought we had a connection. I mean, you stayed with me last night.”

  “I am your friend,” he said, brushing snow out of his eyes so he could see me.

  “It didn’t seem like that in there!” I snapped.

  “What could I say?” he said.

  “You could’ve told the truth.”

  “I did!”

  “You’re a liar, Luke Bishop,” I said, looking straight into his green eyes. Then winding up the window, I said, “Goodbye.”

  Without looking back at him standing in the oncoming blizzard, I pressed my foot down hard on the accelerator and headed out of The Ragged Cove.

  Chapter Eleven

  The engine of my little car groaned as I forced it up the narrow snow-covered roads and away from the town below. Fierce gusts of wind shook its very frame and the wipers worked overtime to clear the snow.

  I’d cranked the heater up to full blast, but
it did nothing to take away the freezing chill. Even inside the car, wispy plumes of breath escaped from my mouth and nose and covered the windscreen in a misty film, making visibility almost zero. Leaning forward, I peered out, desperate not to steer off the road and into some ditch. I knew that if I could just reach a main road, the chances were that it would have been gritted with salt and I would be able to make my way home to Havensfield without incident. Even if I had to drive all night, I was determined to get there. I hadn’t even stopped at the Crescent Moon Inn to collect my stuff – I would pay to have it forwarded to me at a later date.

  I just wanted to be away from The Ragged Cove; but more than that, I wanted to be as far away from Luke as possible. I didn’t care if I ever saw him again. I felt crushed inside at how he had treated me back at the station and how he’d lied about what had taken place up at the graveyard. I knew that he had seen that girl – I knew it!

  Wiping at the inside of the windscreen with the back of my hand, I could just make out a sign fixed to the side of the road. As my car crawled towards it, my heart almost leapt with joy. The sign read:

  You are leaving The Ragged Cove

  Please drive carefully!

  Feeling as if I were returning to civilisation – the real world – where mobile phones worked, radios got a signal, shops stayed open, and vampires didn’t chase you around graveyards in the middle of the night, I almost felt like punching the air with joy. Taking one hand from the wheel, I switched on the radio and my heart sank as the sound of static hissed through the speakers.

  But then, as my car inched towards the sign, I heard something faint – a sound within the static and it sounded like music. Turning the dial on the radio, I lent forward and to my joy, I could hear the sweet voice of Adele singing ‘Someone like you’.

  “C’mon,” I said aloud. “I want to hear you!”

  Her voice was faint, almost like she was lost somewhere within the static, but with every inch my car took towards that sign, her voice became clearer. Turning the dial in the hope of picking up a clearer signal, I took my eyes off the road for what seemed just like a second. But in that moment, I hadn’t seen the sheet of black-ice covering the road. The back end of my car skidded right, then left as I gripped the wheel and screamed, “No!”

  The Mini spun out of my control and headed for a huge drift of snow. Thumping into the ancient stone wall that lined the road, the car tilted right, and for a moment I thought it was going to tip over onto its side. Slamming my hands against the dashboard to steady myself, the car nose-dived into a ditch, its rear wheels lifting off the road. Leaning forward in my seat, my chest pressed against the steering wheel, the voice of Adele began to fade until the sound of static seemed almost deafening.

  Pushing against the car door, I clambered free of the car and fell into the snow outside. At once, my nose, ears and hands began to sting with the cold. Shielding my eyes against the blizzard, I looked around, trying to get some bearings. The sign telling me that I was so close to escaping The Ragged Cove was behind me and it seemed to taunt me. Turning my back to it, I peered in the direction that I had come, and some miles in the distance, I could just make out the twinkling lights of the town. Looming up into the night like a twisted finger, I could see the steeple of the church in the dark. Cupping my hands, around my mouth, I blew into them. They were fast going numb. Turning to look at my car sticking up out of the ditch, I lent against the boot and tried to force the rear wheels back onto the road.

  “Please!” I groaned. “I just wanna get out of this godforsaken place. Is that too much to ask?” I shouted into the dark.

  The car rocked up and down like a seesaw, but however much I tried, I couldn’t get the car out of the ditch. With each passing minute, the snow grew deeper and deeper around my shins.

  Knowing that I had to make a decision as to what I was going to do, I considered my options. I could stay in the car and hope that someone came by and helped me, but the chances of anyone being out on a night like this was remote. The roads were fast becoming impassable, so I knew there was little chance of being rescued by a passer-by. I could stay in the car with the heaters running, but I doubted they could melt an ice cube, and I would more than likely freeze to death. I didn’t have any blankets or warm clothing in the boot, and the rate that the snow was coming down, my little car would be covered within a couple of hours. I didn’t fancy dying entombed in a 1960’s Mini, buried beneath a mountain of snow.

  Then remembering my mobile phone, I rummaged for it in my pocket. Pulling it out, I looked at the signal bar which continued to glow red. Holding the phone above my head, I tried to search for a signal.

  “Please!” I hissed. “Just give me a break. I deserve one with everything that I’ve been through!”

  But however much I turned and moved towards the border, the signal bar remained that constant, angry red.

  Putting the phone away, I looked back at the town below me. I figured that if I crossed the fields, it could be no more than a couple of miles away. I could stick to the road, but it wasn’t as direct with all its twists and turns and would probably double the distance of my journey. But however much my life depended on it, I really didn’t want to go back there. What was I going back to and how many days would I have spend there before the snow eased and I could get my car back onto the road? I really didn’t want to go back to that Inn, and now that I’d been banned from the police station, I had no reason to be there. I didn’t know if I could face any of them again – I didn’t know if I could face Luke again. But I couldn’t stay out on the road. Not only was I exposed to the freezing weather, I was a sitting target for vampires.

  So taking my torch from the car, I pulled the collar of my jacket up and set off across the fields, back towards The Ragged Cove.

  Bent forward at the waist to protect myself from the freezing wind and falling snow, I trudged across the fields. The snow was falling so hard and fast that when I glanced back at my car in the distance, I could hardly see its little red frame and my tracks had already been covered. Ahead and to the right, I could see what looked like a wooded area. So cutting diagonally across the field, I made my way towards it, hoping that the trees would offer me some shelter.

  The snow whipped and howled all around me, and in the noise of the wind, I was sure that I could hear the far off sound of screaming. Looking in the direction of those cries, I thought I saw shadows flitting back and forth across the skyline. Turning around in the snow, trying to locate those sounds was disorientating and it wasn’t long before I had lost all sense of direction. Peering into the distance, I was sure that I could see a dark smudge on the horizon, and hoping that it was the wooded area, I set off towards it.

  I hadn’t gone far when I noticed the dark smudge had changed and now looked like three dark shapes in the distance.

  “What’s that?” I said, shielding my eyes with my hands, trying to workout what the shapes were. With every second they seemed to get closer and they were coming straight towards me. As they got closer still, I thought that perhaps they were three people, but that couldn’t be right – they were travelling too fast – no one could move with such speed and agility in the heavy snow.

  Then with my heart almost stopping, I realised that the shapes coming towards me were people, and they weren’t walking – they were running towards me at an incredible speed, as if they were soaring just inches above the snow. Realising that I was in incredible danger, I ran as fast as I could, hoping that I was heading towards the shelter of the trees.

  My progress was slow, hampered by the deepness of the snow, which was now level with my knees. Looking back, the three figures were now so close that I could hear the sound of the rushing wind their speed created, whipping up the snow beneath them and spraying it into the night.

  “No! Please God, no!” I cried, staggering forward and losing my footing. Panicked, I clawed myself back onto my feet. My whole body trembled – not because of the cold – but in fear. My legs felt as
if they were going to give way at any moment and I desperately needed to pee. Not sure in which direction I was headed, I stumbled on, tears running down my face through sheer terror.

  Sucking in mouthfuls of freezing cold air to try and calm myself, I turned around to see the three vampires racing towards me, their gleaming white teeth glistening like razors in the night. Standing rooted to the spot, I screamed. Within touching distance of me, one of them darted left and the other right, so as to surround me.

  “Stay away from me!” I screamed.

  They circled me, zipping back and forth as if examining their prey. The third one raced forward, its eyes burning red and mouth drooling. Shrieking, it grabbed for me, its claws skimming just inches from my face. I ducked, dropping into the snow. Glancing up, I watched as it raced away. My heart almost stopped. The vampire was wearing what appeared to be a ripped and dishevelled looking police uniform. Without having time to comprehend what I’d seen, the vampire lept into the air, corkscrewed around, landed and raced back towards me.

  Knowing I had nowhere to run or hide, I covered my face with my hands and prayed that my death would be quick. The sound of its screaming, coming out of the dark at me, I closed my eyes and waited to be taken. Then there was another sound, almost deafening. It was like the loudest thunderclap I’d ever heard.

  “What was that?” I shouted in shock, snapping open my eyes. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a winged creature soar across my eye line, snatching away the vampire who was just about to take hold of me.

  Pulling myself out of the snow, I looked up to see what it was. But it moved with such speed and agility, it looked like nothing more than a fluttering blur of shadows. The vampire in the police uniform was yanked this way and that in the sky just above my head.

  It tried to fight back against whatever it was that had hold of it. Shielding my eyes against the snow, I could see that whatever it was, appeared to be stripped to the waist. The creature’s skin was as pale as the snow that fell all around it. Its hair was black, just like the wings that protruded from its back. But it moved too fast for me to really see it. Not knowing if this creature were my saviour or if it had its own plans for me, I turned and fled.