Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series Two (Book 8)) (18 page)

“Luke!” Jessica screamed, releasing her hold on Sam.

He slumped to the floor.

“Look what you’ve done!” Jessica screeched as Luke floundered about, holding the side of his head where he’d only moments before had an ear.

“Why don’t you just shut your fucking face,” Potter groaned, shooting out his arm and driving his fist straight into Jessica’s chest. With one swift movement he removed her heart. It pumped like a big, black prune in his fist. Open-mouthed, Jessica Hudson glanced down at the gaping hole in her chest.

“Now, I think that does make us even,” Potter said, gripping her face in one hand, and filling her mouth with her own heart. She slumped down onto the platform.

While Potter flicked Jessica’s blood from his fingers, I knelt down beside Sam. I cradled him up in my arms. His face was swollen and distorted out of all recognition. It was puffed blue, mauve, and black.

“Sam,” I whispered. “Sam it’s me, Kayla.”

Sam stared out of his swollen eyes at me. It was like he was looking straight through me, like he couldn’t focus. Delicately, I brushed his curly hair from his brow. “I’m gonna get you out of here. I promise.” Hot tears splashed onto my cheeks as my dead heart told me that Sam would never leave this underground station.

“You just don’t get it,” I heard Luke roar.

I glanced up to see him staggering toward Potter, his hands still pressed to the side of his face. His fingers were stained crimson with his own blood, like he had dipped them into a jar of blackcurrant jam.

“I get that you’re one twisted fuck who ain’t gonna leave this station alive,” Potter said, striding across the platform toward Luke.

“You can kill me, but my death won’t change what’s coming,” Luke said. And even through his pain, he managed to grin insanely back at Potter.

“What’s coming?” Potter asked.

“The Vampyrus,” Luke said.

“Bullshit,” Potter spat.

“Is it?” Luke grinned again. “Then what are they doing here?” Luke pointed into the mouth of the tunnel.

Both Potter and I glanced back. There were three figures standing in the shadows at the mouth of the tunnel. Slowly they stepped forward and revealed themselves. All three men were stripped to the waist, and all had long, black wings trailing behind them. Their bodies were white and lean.

“Inspector Rom, Sergeant Phillips, and Father Taylor,” Potter said, watching them spring up onto the platform. “Fuck me, it looks like an 80’s boy-band reunion. No, on second thought, let’s make that the 70’s.”

“Always the wise guy,” Rom said, coming down the platform toward Potter. His bald head glistened in the overhead strip lighting. Rom, Phillips, and Taylor had their claws raised.

“Kill him,” Luke ordered. Then, looking at me, he added, “Kill both of them.”

“With pleasure,” Taylor said, running a grey tongue over his pale, cracked lips. He looked at me cradling Sam in my arms. Taylor’s body was painfully thin, and I could see his bony ribcage jutting out. His face was wrinkled like every other part of his flesh that I could see.

Potter backed up the platform toward me as the three of them approached. I glanced down into Sam’s face. His eyes were wide open, staring blankly over my shoulder. Believing him to be dead, and knowing I soon would be, I held him tight. It was then I heard what sounded like the distant rumble of thunder. I jerked my head to the right. It was the sound of an approaching tube train.

I looked back down into Sam’s bloody and battered face and thought that perhaps his lips had moved. I looked closer as Potter drew level with me.

“Get up!” Potter hissed at me.

Ignoring him, I continued to stare down at Sam’s mouth. His lips twitched again as he stared blankly over my shoulder. His lips moved again. It was like he was trying to say something.

Leaning in close, and gently pressing my ear to his lips, he whispered with his last breath, “Behind you.”

I looked into his dead eyes and knew that he hadn’t been staring over my shoulder at all, but had been searching for one of those cracks Jessica had taught him how to see using his
peripheral vision.

Realising that even as he had been dying, Sam had still been trying to save
me, I leant forward and kissed his bleeding mouth.

“Thank you, Sam,” I whispered, laying him down on the platform.

“Get up!” Potter warned me again.

With the Vampyrus just feet away, I gripped Potter’s hand.

“I don’t know how the fuck we’re going to get out of this one,” he said.

“I do,” I whispered, dragging him from the platform edge and leaping into the path
of the approaching tube train.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Isidor

I felt the cold touch of hands as I was dragged below ground. Still clutching Melody Rose to my chest, earth and dirt rushed into my mouth, up my nose, and into my ears. My descent was rapid, like I was on a slide that snaked its way between large tree roots and over rocks and boulders. I stopped falling and found myself skidding over rough ground. I opened my eyes and could see mud spraying up from my boots as I tried to bring myself to a stop. A pair of hands gripped me about the shoulders, bring me to a halt. I spat earth from my mouth and shook dirt from my hair. Blinking, I looked up to see I was in a dark, gloomy cavern. The only light came from a torch that was attached to the wall. Its flames flickered back and forth. A man appeared from the darkness. He had wings like me, although they were holey and covered in fur, like that of a giant moth. His skin, like all Vampyrus, was chalk-white. This Vampyrus had a blue tinge to his lips and he had a mounting of uncombed black hair. His fangs were dagger-like, and his eyes shone a bright cool blue. Even before he had a chance to introduce himself, I knew who he was.

“Felix Coanda,” he said, jutting out his hand and helping me to my feet as I held onto Melody. “I’m not sure I’ve seen you before.”

“Erm…” I wasn’t sure what to say. It was like he didn’t recognise me. 

He glanced down at Melody curled up in my arms. Then he clicked his fingers, and shouted, “Get this girl some medical attention!”

From the shadows appeared several Vampyrus. Gently, they eased Melody from my arms, and between them, they carried her away and back into the shadows.

“Where are they taking Melody?” I asked, wanting to go after her.

“For some medical attention,” he said again.

“I fear it might be too late,” I said.

“Nonsense,” Coanda said. “I counted five gunshot wounds. Doctor Ravenwood will have them out in no time at all.”

“Ravenwood?” I gasped.

“That man’s a miracle worker,” Coanda said. “He’ll have your pretty friend back on her feet in no time. Strange though…”

“What is?” I asked him.

“Never seen a female Vampyrus with so many tattoos before,” he said striding away. Then eyeing me, he said, “What were you two doing above ground?”

“Erm…”

“Scouts?” he asked.

“Erm…” I didn’t have the faintest idea as to what he was talking about.

“Never mind, you’re safe from those wolves, for now,” he said striding away.

“Hang on…!” I called after him.

“Don’t have time,” he hollered back as he strode into a tunnel burrowed into the wall of the cavern. “But I’m so glad you showed up. We can do with all the strong, young Vampyrus we can find.”

“Why?” I said, catching up with him.

Coanda stepped out of the tunnel and onto a rocky ledge.

“Why?” he frowned at me. “So you can join our army,” he smiled with a glimmer of excitement in his eyes.

“What army?” I frowned back at him.

“That army,” he said, pointing over the edge of the rocky ledge we were now standing on.

I looked down to discover we were standing above a sprawling canyon. It stretched away into the distance for as far as the eye could see, and so did the army of Vampyrus that filled it.

Taking a deep breath, and unable to stop staring down at the masses of winged creatures below, I said, “Why do you need any army?”

“To invade, of course,” Coanda said. 

“Invade where?” I breathed.

“The wolves that live above us, of course,” Coanda said, looking at me as if I should have already known this.

Then, turning to face Coanda, I said, “Who asked you to gather this army?”

“Luke Bishop,” he smiled back at me.

     
Chapter Twenty-Nine

Kayla

I opened my eyes to find myself at the very same spot from where I had started my journey. Potter was standing next to me in the gap between the two old oak trees. There was still snow on the ground. I pulled my hood up and put my hands in my trouser pockets.

“I’m sorry,” Potter said, looking at me.

“For what?” I asked him, plumes of breath pouring from my nose and mouth.

“That we couldn’t bring Sam back with us,” he said, fishing a cigarette packet from his pocket.

I knew in my heart that despite Potter’s constant bitching about Sam, he meant what he said. I had seen how he had wanted to save Sam in the underground station.

“I know you are,” I said.

“You know if you want to talk…” Potter started.

“No,
it’s okay,” I said, believing in my heart I would one day see Sam again. Probably on a beach somewhere, I half-smiled to myself with tears stinging in the corners of my eyes.

With a cigarette dangling once again from the corner of his mouth, Potter looked up at the sky. Dark clouds skidded slowly across it. “Cracks,” he said.

“Huh?” I asked, looking at him.

He pointed upwards. “More cracks.”

“Didn’t Luke say the cracks in the sky were a very bad thing?” I said, staring up at how they spread out across the sky like fractures in a sun-dried bone.

“Very bad for
him
,” Potter corrected me with a smile.

Then, looping one of his arms through mine, he led me out of the woods.

“Where are we heading for?” I said.

“To find the only person I know who can figure out this fucking mess,” he said, blowing cigarette smoke from the corner of his mouth.

“And who’s that?” I asked him.

“Kiera Hudson,” he smiled.

To be continued in ‘Dead End’ – The final book in Kiera Hudson Series Two.

Coming Soon!

Turn over to read the first three chapters from

‘Stilts’

(Tessa Dark Trilogy)

Book 1

By Tim O’Rourke

Stilts

(Tessa Dark Trilogy)

Book One

BY

Tim O’Rourke

www.hashtagbooks.co.uk

Copyright 2013 by Tim O’Rourke

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is entirely coincidental.

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My elbow crunched into his face. Beau Harris floundered momentarily on his stilts, but was quick to regain his balance. His eyes narrowed as he strutted at speed after me. I raced away, taking giant strides atop of my metal stilts. I covered the ground, circling the inside of the prison walls at an exhilarating pace. With each giant stride, I dashed over the cracked and splintered concrete. The metal soles of my stilts, kicked up plumes of grey dust, as I raced away from Beau. Glancing back, my heart leapt as he bounded after me. The lower half of his usually handsome face was now covered black with blood as it gushed from his nose where I had struck him. His pale blue eyes looked darker now as he raced after me with a grim look of determination on his face. I looked front again just in time to see Chrissie Hucks come leaping at me from my left. I stumbled, trying to dart out of her way. But she was quick. Raising one of her stilts high in the air, she swiped at mine. The sound of metal scrapping against metal was drowned out by the roar of the prisoners who watched the race from the prison walls, the watchtowers, or through the bars of their prison cells – anywhere they could get a good view. The Prison sat high on top of a slither of rock that jutted out of the ocean. Our only connection to the mainland was a narrow bridge of stone, which stretched across the water like a brittle finger. We called the prison the Razor. Waves crashed against the black rocks below, in competition with the roar of the crowd.