by Tim O'Rourke
“Like I said, the lot of you couldn’t solve a game of Cluedo,” and I smiled.
Then staring at me as if he was about to say something, he suddenly let go of my hand and stood up.
“What were you going to say?” I asked him, a nervous feeling passing through me.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, turning his back towards me, his wings making a soft whispering sound.
Standing, I went to him. I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder, but I didn’t know if I should. To do so, I would’ve had to touch his wings.
“It does matter,” I said.
Turning around, Luke moved closer, his naked chest inches from me. “I was wondering if there was another reason why you might want to stay?”
Knowing exactly what he meant, I lied, “I don’t know what you mean,” and lent in towards him.
“I was hoping…” he said, but didn’t finish.
“Hoping what?” I pushed.
“You’re trembling,” he smiled, bringing his face closer to mine.
“Am I?”
“Are you afraid?” he whispered, his lips hovering over mine.
“No,” I smiled. “But you should be.”
“And why’s that?” he asked.
“Because I’ve got a bottle of holy water and a crucifix in my pocket,” I whispered.
“They only work on vampires, I’m a bat,” he smiled, then taking me in his wings, he kissed me.
Chapter Thirteen
Luke left me just before dawn. As I had lain wrapped in his wings, I’d asked him where it was that he lived. He explained that he slept during the day, along with the other Vampyrus – Murphy and Potter – in the cells at the station. He told me that it was close to their hatch – should they need to go back beneath ground in a hurry. When I asked about Chief Inspector Rom, he said that Rom spent most of his time below ground, but didn’t explain why.
I’d asked where this hatch to The Hollows was and Luke reminded me of the padlocked grate in the corridor that led to the small cellblock back at the station. I was surprised by this – not about its location – but by its ordinariness. It was nondescript, black metal, with a big rusty-looking padlock. Leaving me feeling sleepy and the most at peace that I’d felt since arriving in The Ragged Cove, Luke told me to meet him at the police station at seven that night.
“But I thought I was banned?” I said, feeling half asleep.
“I’ll speak to the others,” he assured me.
Then taking my face in his hands, he kissed me. His lips were full and soft, and they lingered over mine. Kissing him back, I could feel his fangs, but in a strange way it didn’t seem unnatural. When he kissed me, the feelings I felt were so intense, they almost consumed me. To feel those soft wings around me, I felt protected – safe. Enclosed in them, my skin against his, I felt as if everything outside of them didn’t exist. It was that moment that mattered – nothing else.
Not wanting him to leave me, I clung to him. “Stay,” I whispered.
Brushing his lips over mine, he said, “I can’t Kiera, I need to get back.”
Releasing him from my grasp, I watched as he rolled back his shoulders and his wings disappeared back between his shoulder blades. Putting his police shirt back on and buttoning it up the front, it seemed hard to believe what he kept hidden beneath it. Back in his uniform, he looked like any regular cop. Smiling at me, he headed towards the door.
“See you tonight, beautiful girl,” he said, and then he was gone, closing the door behind him.
Rolling onto my back and pulling the covers over me, I drifted into sleep imagining those soft but powerful wings all around me, brushing against my skin and making me feel safe.
I found myself running along the shore of the cove. I was out of breath. The sea crashed against the sand in thick, black, oily waves. Smashing against the rocks, giant sheets of freezing cold water sprayed into the night. Ahead there were two huge cliffs, stretching up into the sky like deformed monsters. Behind me there was a noise and it sounded like a frantic heartbeat. Gasping for breath, I could see a cloud. It was dark and moved across the night sky at a great speed. The sound of the racing heartbeat came from it.
Turning, I ran hard, clambering over the rocks that jutted from the sand like broken gravestones. Seaweed covered them like black veins. I lost my footing and slipped, falling face-first into the sand. Waves rushed at me, soaking my clothes, face and hair. The heartbeat sound grew louder. Looking back over my shoulder, I could see the cloud was getting nearer, as if it were following me.
Dragging myself to my feet, I ran on, a stitch burning in my side like a stab wound. Giant waves rushed me again, as if wanting to drag me under. Reaching a huge slick-looking rock, I climbed on top. Looking into the distance, I could see a cave set between the two cliffs ahead of me.
The sound of the heartbeat was louder, almost deafening now. Glancing back again, I screamed. The cloud was almost above me, and I could see that it wasn’t a cloud at all, but a thousand winged creatures racing towards me. The heartbeat was the sound of their wings beating together as one.
Scrambling down the other side of the rock, I raced as fast and as hard as I could towards the cave. Sand kicked up from beneath my trainers, and my jeans felt heavy and wet against my legs, making any movement sluggish. I pushed on, my lungs burning inside me. Looking back, I could see thousands of vampire bats swooping towards me. But they weren’t normal vampire bats –they were men and women with black wings that looked as if they were made of stretched leather. They were so close that I could see their green eyes, and the saliva dripping from their razor-sharp teeth.
Turning my back on the Vampyrus, I rushed towards the mouth of the cave. My heart felt like it was going to explode, but I pushed myself harder – faster! The safety of the cave was within touching distance, but as I reached it, I could see that it had been sealed over with a metal grate. I yanked on it, but it was locked fast and wouldn’t open.
“Please!” I begged. “Please let me in!”
Peering over my shoulder, eyes bulging in fear, I could see the Vampyrus racing towards me, soaring just inches above the sand. Turning to face the grate, I pulled on it with what little strength I had left.
“Please open!” I screamed.
Sand and seawater sprayed up all around me under the force of the beating wings of the vampire bats that were now within touching distance of me. Pulling on the grate one last time, it opened and I stumbled through it and into the waiting arms of my…
“…mum!” I yelled, bolting upright in my bed. My heart was racing in my chest, and I felt breathless. A thin layer of sweat covered my brow and my black hair clung to my face in damp streaks. Throwing back the covers, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. They felt shaky and unstable. Going to the bathroom, I poured myself a glass of water from the tap and drank it down without stopping until the glass was empty.
The dream about my mother had upset me, and as I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink, I brushed away the tears that were rolling down my cheeks. I hadn’t dreamt of her for a while now and if at all possible I tried not to think about her. It wasn’t that I hated her – it was the opposite – I loved her deeply. But to be reminded of her was agony.
The last time I’d seen my mother had been as she’d left the house to go and buy me a birthday cake for my seventeenth birthday party, three years ago. Wearing her favourite summer dress, her black hair swishing about her shoulders, she had waved goodbye to me as she passed through the front garden gate.
“See you later, alligator,” she had smiled.
“In a while, crocodile,” I smiled back and then added, “I love you!”
Blowing me a kiss, she said, “I love you more.” Then she was gone, never to be seen again. By ten o’clock that night, after my father had made several frantic phone calls to friends and family, he called the police. At first they treated her sudden disappearance as a missing person’s inquiry, but the longer she staye
d away, the more suspicion fell upon my father. She was a cop after all, and they looked after their own. He was taken in for questioning and they kept him there for nearly three days. While he was away, police officers in white suits came to the house and I watched them quietly as they examined every inch of our home. Police officers in black boiler suits turned over the back garden, pulled open the drains, and confiscated our trash. But they found nothing.
Father returned home, looking tired and drawn, white whiskers protruding from his chin. With my arm around him, he sat and sobbed into his hands and I will never forget that. Apart from the disappearance of his wife, he hated being under suspicion of harming her in any way. My father had been devoted to her and as far as I can recall, they had always been close. But more than that, I knew he was hurt by how the police had been so quick to doubt him. For years he had worked along side them, helping to shed light on the murder victims that so often ended up in his lab.
It was after this that my father was never quite the same. He was often quiet and he seemed to have lost his appetite and passion for his work. Sure, he still talked about his cases when I asked him, but I could feel that his passion for it had gone.
One day as we sat and watched the T.V. together, I looked up at his tired-looking face and said, “You know how you say I can see things?”
“Your gift,” he half-smiled. “What about it?”
“Well it would be a shame if I didn’t ever put it to some good use, wouldn’t you say?” I asked him. “It sure would,” he said. “What are you planning on doing with it?” “I’m going to be a cop,” I told him, and I’d never been more serious about anything in my life. “A cop. Just like your mum…was,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “She would’ve been proud of you. Why do you want to be a cop?”
“Because when I do, I’m going to reopen mum’s case and I’m gonna find her for you,” I told him.
For a moment or two, my father looked as if he didn’t know what to say. At first he looked kind of angry and then his face softened and he just looked sad. “That’s a wonderful idea, Kiera, but if all those detectives haven’t been able to find her after – what’s it been now?”
“Eleven months and six days,” I said.
“How do imagine that you will be able to find her?” he asked. He wasn’t belittling me, he was trying hard not to raise my hopes – and his own, I think.
“Those other detectives might have missed things,” I told him. “They might not have seen all of the clues.” “What clues?” he asked. “There were no clues.” Sitting next to him on the sofa, I said, “There are always clues – you told me that.” “I know, but this is different -” he started. Cutting over him, I said, “I know that mum went missing before she even reached the end of our street,” I told him. Pulling away so he could look at me, he said, “Oh, come on Kiera, how could you possibly know that?” Looking him straight in the eyes, I said, “Mum left the house in her summer dress that day.” “So?” “Well I remember that day as clearly as if it were yesterday,” I told him. “Within a minute or so of her leaving the house, the heavens opened and there was a terrible storm. It lasted a good hour or so. I hadn’t seen such heavy rain for a long time. Then there was this really loud thunderclap followed by lightning. It was so loud that I was worried for mum because I knew how scared she got during thunderstorms.”
“So knowing that she had only been gone a minute or so and couldn’t have even got to the end of the street, I guessed she would’ve come running back to the house. You know, to either get changed into something waterproof or wait for the storm to pass. But she didn’t come back. And taking into account how fussy mum was about keeping her hair nice, the least I would’ve expected her to do, was to come back for a hat. But she didn’t. Mum would’ve never stayed out in that thunderstorm – she would have come back home,” I said, looking at him.
Staring back at me, with a sudden look of realisation on his face, he said to me, ”My god Kiera, you’re right. So whatever happened to your mum, happened before that storm started?”
“Exactly,” I said. “That’s how I know she went missing on our very street – just yards from our front door.”
“But what could’ve happened – where could she have gone in such a short space of time?” he asked.
“That’s what I plan to find out,” I insisted. “When I become a cop, I’m going to check out her case and read all the statements that were taken from the neighbours in our street. Then when I’ve read them, I’m going to go visit the neighbours and re-interview them. I know I will see something – some small piece of detail – inconsistencies – that those other cops didn’t see. God is in the detail.”
“God is in the detail,” he repeated, then added, “Did I tell you that?”
“No, mum did,” I said and hugged him. “And I promise I will find her for you.”
But my father never saw me become a police officer. He died of pancreatic cancer two months before my passing out parade at training school. And that hurt more than everything – it felt as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest. But I intended to keep my promise to him – however long it took me, I would find out what happened to my mother. She was out there somewhere, I knew she was and my dream only reminded me of that.
Washing away my tears, I left the bathroom. I had to be at the station within two hours. How well Murphy, Potter, and Rom would take my return I didn’t know. I would just have to put my trust in Luke.
Remembering that my car still lay in the ditch up on the road, I went to the window to see if the snow had stopped. It had, but it lay in thick drifts along the road and fields that stretched out in front of the Inn. Leaving my police uniform hanging off the back of my chair – not knowing whether to wear it or not after being kicked off the team – I wrapped up warm, in a sweatshirt, jeans, and boots. Hitching on my coat, I left my room and immediately noticed the envelope tacked to my door. Taking it down, I opened it and pulled out the folded piece of paper from inside. It was written by the same hand as before. This is what it said:
Luke Bishop is not to be trusted, Kiera.
Folding the note in half, I tucked it into my pocket and headed downstairs.
Chapter Fourteen
I reached the bottom of the stairs, and as I passed the dinning area, I heard raised voices coming from the small office behind the bar. Stepping into the shadows by the door, I tried to listen to what was being said. The voices were that of the old woman and her son, Roland, and they were arguing.
“I’ve had enough, Roland,” the old woman croaked. “I can’t take it anymore.”
“Mother, I’ve already told you, I can handle it, okay?” Roland snapped.
“We need to leave here,” she said, almost seeming to plead with him.
“How many ways have I got to tell you ma? I’ve got everything under control!” Roland shouted.
“But what if they come for us?” she said, and she sounded frightened. “What if we’re next?”
“They won’t,” he said. “We’re safe here.”
“There are only so many cloves of garlic I can put up, only so many crucifixes and bottles of holy water I can sell before -” she started.
“Before what, ma?” he cut over her.
“Before there aren’t any more people left in this town to protect from -” she hissed and again he shouted her down.
“I’m done talking about this with you!” he barked. “I know what I’m doing.”
Without warning, the office door flew open, and he stormed from around the bar, heading straight towards me. Slinking back into the shadows, I made myself as small as possible. He passed within a few inches of me. He was so close, I could smell the sweat leaking from his pores.
Once I was certain he’d gone, I crept from my hiding place and headed towards the door. Pulling it open, I heard the old woman’s voice behind me. “Don’t be forgetting this,” she said, throwing me another bottle of holy water.
Snatching it out of the air, a
nd not knowing if she was aware that I’d been eavesdropping, I said, “Thank you.”
“You never know when you might need it,” she said, without smiling.
Turning back towards the door, I heard her say, “If you had half the sense I think you have, you would leave this town and never come back.”
Without looking at her, I pushed open the door and sneaked out into the snow, with the old woman’s warning ringing in my ears. She was right, I should leave, run and keep running and never look back. But I couldn’t and that reason was Luke. Everything he had told me last night had turned my world on its head. Everything that I had learnt – everything I thought I knew – was now gone. It was like I was learning from scratch. What I’d seen last night was the stuff of horror movies and fairy tales. But I knew it was all real. I had been part of it – I had become part of it. Luke was a vampire bat or a Vampyrus as he liked to be known. But was there really a difference? There was so much more that I needed to know about him. But wasn’t that what had hooked me, the fact that he was a mystery?
When I’d been with Luke the night before, as he revealed his true self to me and told me about his world, it was like he had me under a spell and I kind of just accepted everything he had told me. But now that I was alone and he was away from me, that spell had been broken – a little at least.
Trudging through the snow, hundreds of questions now spiralled through my mind and I didn’t have the answers. Was Luke immortal? If not, did he age like a human? Was I safe with him? Then the note, which had been left for me, came to the forefront of my mind. Could I trust Luke Bishop?
Not knowing the answers to any of these questions, I struggled on towards the town. The pale winter sun was setting, and wanting to be at the police station before nightfall, I quickened my pace. I’d walked a mile or so, when in the distance, I could see something black running towards me in the snow. Stopping, I crouched low, immediately on guard. With my heart racing, I burrowed into a nearby hedgerow. Whatever it was, it was panting as if exhausted and out of breath. With my curiosity getting the better of me, I peeked from my hiding place and almost gasped in relief when I realised what it was coming towards me. Crawling from the snow-laden bush, I stood up and said, “Here boy! Come here!”