Bloodlines (30 page)

“I’ll go and have a look before it gets dark.”

We carried on making general chit-chat. Nobody really knew what else to say to one another for fear of upsetting someone. I spent most of my time staring at the town below us. I wanted everyone to be ok, and be able to move on a little. Not forget her, just try and put our lives back together. She wouldn’t want us all to be like this; she would have wanted us to remember the good times and get on with our lives. But even though I knew that’s what we should be doing, I found it really difficult. I would go off in my own world for hours and hours at a time, just thinking about her. About what we’d all be doing if she was here now. How she would have been waiting for something to attack us so she could kill it once and for all.

“Lucian?” My mom said. “Are you ok, darling?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I told her. “What have you been doing with yourself lately?”

“Not a lot to be honest. I’ve no interest in things at the moment. I’ve cleaned the house from top to bottom, just to keep myself busy.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Have you opened the store again yet?” Jason asked Lily and Jake.

“Not yet, no, but I think we’ll have to next week,” Jake told him.

“Neither of us has been in the right frame of mind,” Lily said.

“I understand, but it may take your mind of things,” Jason said softly.

“We’ll see how we feel next week.”

I turned my attention back to the view and went into my own world again. A few minutes later I started to get the shivers, first just down my spine, and then through the whole of my body. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I turned to look at the others and noticed they were shivering too, well, all the men were. The women hadn’t noticed anything. We all stood up and looked around us.

“What’s wrong?” Lily asked.

“Sush, stay quiet and don’t move!” I whispered.

The ground started to shake, not violently, just like a continuous little tremor.

“Can you feel that?” Danny asked.

“Earthquake maybe?” My dad suggested.

The temperature dropped. The women could feel it now, too. They all started to shiver and moved closer together. Then we saw shadows moving up the hill. Hundreds of them, moving at a running speed.

“It’s started!” I declared

“They’re coming!” Jake shouted.

“Evelyn, take everyone inside the church. The door will be open when you get there. Do not come out. Hide!” My dad told her.

“Lily!” Jake shouted.

He walked over to her and took her hands in his.

“I need to tell you something, I need you to know in case anything happens…”

“What is it?” She asked.

“I’m in love with you. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you, and I will always love you.”

She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him.

“I love you,” she told him as the kiss ended.

“Lily, come on!” My mom said.

She grabbed Lily’s arm and dragged her towards the church.

“Watch your backs! Keep your eyes open! Kill or be killed!” David cried.

“God help us all!” Jake said.

We all stood in a line, eyes as black as coal – waiting.

Chapter 27

Lucian’s Story – It Begins

We stood there waiting for what seemed like a lifetime, watching as the shadows came closer and closer. They weren’t all together, which was good for us. They seemed to be split up into groups of, at a guess, fifty. It was as though they had set off running at us at different times. But why? Surely if they wanted us dead they would have all been coming at us at once. We heard the doors of the church behind us slam shut. The women were safe and knowing that made me a lot happier.

“Keira if you’re watching, please give us the strength to get through this,” Jake prayed.

“Please give us a sign you’re watching over us,” I asked, looking towards the sky.

“Here they come!” Danny said, developing two energy balls, one in each hand.

I looked in front of me. I could see them properly now. All of them looked human, but their eyes were glowing green, a sure sign they were possessed. Lifeless, soul-less bodies that had been taken over by demons. They were puppets.

“Everybody stay close to one another,” Jason said. “Watch out for yourselves and everyone else.”

Once the first group of puppets were only a few feet away from us, Jake, Corey and Tyler threw shockwaves at them, while the rest of us continuously threw energy balls at them. Some of them were thrown backwards a few feet while others just fell to the ground. None of them stayed down for long though. Within seconds they were on their feet again and attacking us. I sent another shockwave at the three that were coming for me, but found myself slammed in the chest by another one’s fist. I stumbled back a little – they were so strong and I wasn’t expecting that.

“Lucian, catch,” I heard Danny say.

I looked over at him as he threw a lighter to me. I lit the flame and manipulated it so it soared out in front of me. It seemed to keep them at bay for a few minutes. The ones who got too close had their clothes set alight and rolled on the ground trying to extinguish the flames. The others started circling me. I could see the other guys fighting. Corey was surrounded by five of them – he punched and sent energy balls at them but they kept coming back at him. Danny was doing the same as me with his other lighter. Jason was using telekinesis to throw some of the rocks from the field at them. Some of the puppets blasted them with their own energy balls, smashing the rocks into bits. Others were hit by them, but not hard enough to stop them.

I watched as Jake grabbed one of them, restraining them while David snapped its neck. But the puppet just laughed before sending a burst of electricity through its whole body, blowing Jake about ten yards across the field. David tried to attack it again but it punched him and knocked him to the ground. I saw my dad run over and grab the lanterns they had brought out with them. They were filled with petrol. He unscrewed them all quickly and threw the petrol out at some of the puppets, drenching their clothes.

“Lucian, throw the flame at them,” he shouted.

I made the fire travel further out and set a large group of them on fire just before the lighter ran out of fluid. I sent more shockwaves out and energy balls. We all used telekinesis to throw some of them away from us. But it didn’t matter what we did to them – they kept coming back for more.

Tyler came running over to me. “How the hell are we supposed to win this when they won’t die? How can we kill something that’s already dead?” He asked out of breath.

“I don’t know.”

“Lucian, we need to run – we’ll die if we stay here.”

Just as he said that we saw a larger figure walking towards us. He was even taller that Danny, and twice the width of me. His eyes were bright orange.

“He must be the one,” I said to Tyler.

“We won’t stand a chance. If we can’t kill these, what chance do we stand against him?”

“You’re right.”

I looked at the tall figure again. He was glaring at me now, showing his rotten teeth.

“Lucian,” my dad said, grabbing me. “We can’t win this.”

We ran quickly towards the church, throwing shockwaves out at the puppets so we could get past them. Corey put his hands up and the church door burst open. We ran inside slamming the large wooden doors behind us and bolting them. Lily and my mom came running towards us.

“We need to block the doors,” Jake told them.

Everyone started grabbing old chairs and stacking them behind the double doors.

“This church is big – there are places to hide. Take all the women and find somewhere you will go unnoticed,” I told Lily. “Do not come out – no matter what happens!”

“Ok,” she said, grabbing my mother.

I watched as they all ran down the long aisle towards the back of the church.

“There’s nothing else we can use,” David said as he put the last of the chairs behind the doors.

“Err, guys…I don’t think it would matter anyway,” Danny said.

We all turned around to see the puppets appearing between the church pews and in the aisle.

“They must be teleporting themselves inside,” Corey said.

“Shit, what now?” Jake asked.

But all the puppets were just standing there, still as statues, all of them facing us.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” My dad said.

“Jake!!” We heard Lily scream.

When we looked to the right of us we saw all the women. Each of them were being held by one of the demon-come-humans. Their arms were locked behind their backs, while each of the demons had one of their hands around the women’s throats, forcing their heads up slightly. We walked towards them.

“If you move any closer they will die,” a voice said.

The crowd of demons divided and the orange-eyed leader became visible.

“We wouldn’t want anything to happen to these lovely ladies now, would we? That would be terrible wouldn’t it?” He said with a horrible smirk on his face.

“Let them go!” I ordered.

“Ha, you telling me what to do, that’s hilarious,” he laughed.

“If you hurt them I swear…” Michael began.

“You’ll do what? Kill me? I hardly think so.”

“Who are you?” Tyler asked.

“Ah, so now you want a chit-chat…well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for you to know the name of the one who is going to kill you…” he laughed. “You can call me Argyle.”

“I’d prefer to refer to you as an asshole,” Danny shot bitterly.

“Call me whatever you want – your words do not offend me.”

As soon as he’d finished his sentence he raised his hand. All of us rose with it. He moved his hand towards his body and we all slowly began to float closer to him. All of the possessed corpses turned as we floated past them, never taking their eyes off us. None of us could move a muscle – we were powerless. I could see the women watching us in horror out of the corner of my eye, all of them struggling to try and break free. But the human puppets held them back with ease. When we were no more than three feet away from him we stopped moving.

“What a shame they have to watch you die,” Argyle said, looking at the women for a moment. “Oh well…”

He turned to face us and grinned. His appearance was shocking. He looked like he suffered from leprosy – all his skin was torn with parts of it hanging from his face and hands. His fingernails looked long and brown on the ends of his skinny fingers. Another larger creature appeared next to him.

“Do you want me to take care of the women?” The creature asked.

“No,” Argyle told him, “I do not!”

He must have been Argyle’s right-hand man in all of this. He wasn’t human. His eyes were a yellowy-brown color and simply had two small holes where his nose should have been. His lips were grey and his skin was a pale red. Instead of hands he seemed to have claws, similar to those of a raven. He was taller than Argyle, but not as broad.

“Stand down!” Argyle told him before turning to look at us again. “Now, where was I? …Oh yes.”

He shot a continuous wave of energy at us. We all cried out in pain as it tore through our bodies. The pain was unbearable. I could hear the women screaming and crying as Argyle attacked us. It was as though he was shooting an ever-lasting stream of plasma into us. My skin felt as though it was on fire, my eyes stung and I could feel blood starting to run down my nose. My energy felt like it was being taken away from me. I started to feel weak and very tired. This was it…this was how it was going to end. What would he do to the women once he had killed us?

Then to our amazement Argyle was hoisted into the air and thrown across the church. We all fell to the floor in agony.

I watched as he hit the wall about a hundred feet away from us before hitting the floor. He looked up towards us, furious. The large crucifix that was hung on the wall above him fell off. He rolled out of the way quickly before it hit the floor, smashing into pieces. All of the puppets and the creature looked around, trying to see who had done it to him. We did the same but there was no one else in there with us. He stood up and started towards us. The ground started to shake violently, making walking towards us so hard he had to stop. Some of the smaller statues around the edges of the church fell over and smashed. Only a few of the larger ones stayed upright. The creature held on to the pews to keep his balance.

“Who’s doing…?”

He was interrupted when all the stained-glass windows throughout the whole of the church imploded, sending shards of glass flying into the animated corpses. Argyle put his hands up to protect his face. A strong wind came rushing through the holes in the wall where the windows had been. It was so strong, that even though we fought to stand, our efforts were useless. The puppets held on to the pews to stop themselves being thrown around the church. None of us knew what was going on. All of us looked at each other, clueless.

We heard a strange noise, very loud, like the sound of a house collapsing, like wood being torn apart. When we looked up we saw the roof being torn off, bit by bit and flying up into the sky until it was no longer visible. Once the whole of the roof had disappeared the stone walls on the east and west of the church seemed to blow up – yet there was no fire or explosive. We struggled to look outside to see who was doing this, but there was no sign of anyone. I saw Argyle fighting against the wind, trying to walk towards us. The creature he had with him had been blown away from the pew and was holding on to one of the concrete columns that had until a moment ago supported the roof.

Suddenly a circle of earth and dust rose around the outskirts of the church, higher than my eyes could see. It was as though we were in the middle of an extremely large tornado. Thunder started to roar. When I looked up I could still see the sky, but only a circular part of it. The rest was blocked out by the swirling mass. Black clouds formed sending lightning crackling across the visible sky and illuminating the cyclone. What looked like a bright star in the middle of the sky started to get bigger and bigger. It was coming down to earth. Everyone was staring, including Argyle and his army.