Dead Seth (19 page)

So I took Father Paul gently by the shoulders and stared into his eyes. It was then that I saw everything.”

“What did you see?” I asked him.

Staring at me through the semi darkness, Jack said, “I saw my mother crying out in pain….

Jack

…There was so much blood. The baby had been born premature. Even though Lycanthrope and Vampyrus females only gestate for about six weeks, the baby had come too early and Father Paul looked petrified. It was dark and the trees of the forest towered above them.

“What should we do?” Father Paul said, looking up at his brother who had blood over his hands and down the front of his police shirt.

“You’re a fucking idiot, little brother!”

Murphy barked.

“Help me, pleeassee!” my mother screamed, lying on the forest floor, her dress hitched up her thighs. “Is my baby dead?”

“Yes, it’s dead,” Murphy barked at her.

“This is what happens when a Lycanthrope and Vampyrus mix. Why do you think the Elders have forbidden mixing between the two species?

Because it ends in death for everyone involved.”

“Please help us, Murphy,” Father Paul begged his brother.

“You should never have gotten me involved in this, Paul!” Murphy roared. “I’m as good as dead as you now if the Elders ever find out what has happened here tonight.”

“Please!” Father Paul pleaded, taking hold of his brother.

Murphy looked down at my mother, then back at Father Paul. Then bending down, he snatched up the lifeless baby in his arms. “This never happened. There was never any baby. We go back to our lives and never breathe a word of this again. And you, little brother, rid yourself of this Lycanthrope woman. She is nothing but trouble.”

Then, turning his back on them and leaving them cradling each other on the forest floor, Murphy raced away, deeper into the forest with the dead baby. He came upon the shore which surrounded the great lake. Then removing his blood-soaked shirt, he filled the pockets and sleeves with rocks. He wrapped this around the baby, and waded out into the lake. When the red waters were waist high, he placed the baby and his shirt into the water. He let go and watched the tiny bundle sink beneath the water. With his heart racing, and looking around to make sure he hadn’t been seen, he made his way back towards the shore. He hadn’t gone very far, when he heard what sounded like the cries of a baby.

Murphy turned around to see that the tiny little bundle had resurfaced and was now floating on top of the red, bloody waters. Carefully, he untied his shirt to find that the baby was very much alive. Panicked by this, and not knowing what he should do, he snatched the baby out of the water and cradled it against his chest. Murphy knew that his brother and my mother believed the baby to be dead and raced back through the forests. He took the child to a young Vampyrus cop who he trusted with his life. He didn’t tell her where the baby had come from, or who and what its parents were. He asked if she could keep the baby safe for just a few days until he had decided what to do next. Days rolled into weeks, and the young female Vampyrus cop fell in love with that baby and told Murphy that she would raise it as her own, never telling anyone how she had come by it.

With no better plan in mind, and both my mother and Father Paul believing the baby to be dead, he decided to let the baby stay with the young female Vampyrus, who was totally unaware that the baby was the result of the forbidden mixing between a Vampyrus and Lycanthrope. But what Murphy didn’t know, was that my father knew about the birth of that baby.

He had been hiding in the woods that night. When Murphy raced away with the dead baby in his arms, my father crept from his hiding place and confronted my mother and Father Paul.

“Get your brother off my back, Blackcoat, and withdraw the charges, Kathy, or I go to the Elders and tell them about what I have seen here tonight,” he threatened them.

Knowing that they had no other choice but to give in to his demands, Father Paul carried my mother back through the forest where she hid in his house for the next week, while she recovered and regained her strength. Despite everything that had happened, and Murphy’s warning to keep away from my mother, Father Paul couldn’t, he was hopelessly in love with her. So as you know, Father Paul went one last time to his older brother for help and was refused. When Murphy realised how deep his brother’s love was for my mother, he paid her a secret visit. He threatened that if she didn’t cut Father Paul out of her life, he would kill her himself.

Kiera

“So that is why your mother was so angry when she discovered you had secretly been seeing Father Paul?” I asked Jack.

“Yes,” he nodded slowly, the thick streams of blood now looking like a crusty scab around his nose and mouth. “She feared that if Murphy discovered I had been going to his brother, then he would believe she had broken her promise and would come for her.”

“But Murphy wouldn’t have really killed her,” I breathed, “He isn’t like that.”

“I know that now,” Jack said, the chains binding his wrists clinking.

“How come?” I asked him.

“It wasn’t Murphy who killed my father,”

he said.

“Who was it then?”

“When I searched Father Paul’s eyes, I saw it was him who killed my father,” Jack said bitterly. “He suspected I was meeting someone, as each afternoon I left for the forests. He knew I was lying about going to paint. Stupidly, I never took my rucksack with me. So he followed me from afar, hiding in the shade beneath the trees.

Then when he heard my father begin to tell me about his and my mother’s secret, he flew from his hiding place, and silenced him before he had a chance to tell me. But that wasn’t his only treachery I discovered.”

“What else did you see in his eyes?” I pushed.

“On returning to his house, Father Paul found Murphy waiting for him,” Jack explained.

“Murphy saw the blood on his brother’s hand, wrist, and forearm and demanded to know where it had come from. Father Paul confessed and they fought, that’s why Murphy had blood on his shirt.

Then, from below, they heard me call out.

Panicked, and fearing that I knew Father Paul had murdered my Dad, Murphy told his younger brother it was his last chance to rid himself of the curse he believed my mother had bewitched him with. Murphy told Father Paul to sit in the chair and not move an inch, whatever happened. Father Paul demanded to know why. His brother looked at him and said, ‘The child you had with the Lycanthrope lives. It is not dead. Do as I say and you can be a father to it.’ The chance of being with that baby was too much for him to resist, so he did as his brother said.”

“So Father Paul tricked you then – gave you up – so he could be with this child?” I said, again feeling the hurt Jack must have felt.

“The whole thing was a lie,” he spat, his eyes bright again. “The coffin, the funeral – everything was an act. And to think I stood at the back of the church crying my eyes out for that man. They lowered Father Paul into the ground where waiting Vampyrus smuggled him away, letting me, the Lycanthrope, and the Elders believe he was dead. After some time hidden in The Hollows, and enough time for everything to settle and move on, Father Paul reappeared from beneath The Hollows, with a new name and identity, and was reunited with the child which came from the mixing he shared with my mother.

Murphy forbade him to ever reveal that he was a Vampyrus and to cut all ties with his brother.

Father Paul loved the child deeply, and the young female Vampyrus and he fell in love and raised the child, while I, consumed by hate, led a life unaware of what truly had gone on.”

With his story told, Jack lowered his head again.

“What did you do to Father Paul when discovering the truth?” I dared ask, suspecting Jack had already murdered him.

Jack raised his head, just enough so he could see me, then said, “I stripped him to his underwear, dragged him up to the room where I used to paint as a boy, and tied him to a chair. I then lured that child to the house.”

“What house?” I whispered, confused.

“Who is this child?”

“The child in the photographs I told you about,” he said. “I lured it to this house.”

“
This
house?” I gasped, shaking my head, wondering if Jack hadn’t completely lost his mind.

“This is the house where I spent so many hours with Father Paul,” he said with a smile.

“The house at the top of the hill, and the church below. This was my room.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”

I mumbled, a sick feeling rising in my stomach. “If this is the house, then where is Father Paul?”

“Lying on the floor next to you,” Jack began to laugh.

“But he’s my father,” I breathed, looking down at him, lying unconscious beside me.

“And you are my sister,” Jack grinned.

“You are that child born from my mother after mixing with the Vampyrus Blackcoat. You are that baby Murphy smuggled away.”

“You’re a liar!”
I roared, jumping to my feet and racing across the room towards him.

“I found it hard to believe myself when I saw those pictures of you two together,” Jack said, and now he wasn’t laughing or smiling. He looked deadly serious. “I couldn’t understand why there were pictures of you and Father Paul together – not until I looked into his eyes did I understand the reason why.”

“It’s not true!” I screamed into his face.

“This is just some fucked up game you are playing with my mind!”

“Kiera, although you are dominantly a Vampyrus, haven’t you wondered why you are the only one of them with hazel – or should I say yellow eyes? Haven’t you wondered why you can see in the dark like a wolf? Bats can’t see in the dark – they’re blind…”

“Stop it!”
I screamed, punching him in the mouth.

His head snapped back. Jack spat out a globule of blood, then looked straight back at me.

“Ever wondered why you bleed from the eyes?

When Murphy placed you in the lake – or should I say the
Dead Waters
– your soul soaked up the blood which had been shed by the Vampyrus that the Lycanthrope had slaughtered. It was their blood – their perished souls – which still haunt those fountains which brought you back to life.”

“No!”
I cried, dropping to my knees. “It’s not true. I refuse to believe it.”

“Ask your beloved friend, Murphy,” Jack teased. “That’s the real reason he didn’t want you coming to look for your father again – just in case I’d gotten to him first. The man at your feet I knew as the Blackcoat Father Paul and you know him to be called Frank Hudson – but they are both the same man. He didn’t cry out in pain as he was dying – he cried out through fear of what the Elders would do to him on the other side.”

“He didn’t do anything,” I sobbed. “He was a good man. He was my father.”

“He was no different to our mother, Kiera,” Jack said. “Like her, he was a killer who lied and cheated to help themselves. Neither of them cared about the hurt or the harm they caused. You take the side of the Vampyrus instead of the Lycanthrope – but why? They are no better than us.”

“Don’t say that!”
I screamed at him, slamming my fists into the floor.
“There is no us.

I’m not one of you.”
I dropped my head forward, feeling as if my very soul had been ripped apart.

“So, now you understand your true choice, Kiera,” Jack said, almost as if he cared. “You can save the murderer you call your father, the lying, cheating excuse of a lover, Potter, or me – your
brother
.”

I covered my ears with my hands and screamed, blocking out the sound of Jack’s hysterical laughter.

‘Dead Water’

(Kiera Hudson Series Two) Book 5

Coming Christmas 2012!

Also available by Tim O’Rourke
‘Vampire Shift’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 1)

‘Vampire Wake’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 2)

‘Vampire Hunt’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 3)

‘Vampire Breed’ Kiera Hudson Series One Book 4)

‘Wolf House’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 4.5)

‘Vampire Hollows’ (Kiera Hudson Series One Book 5)

‘Dead Flesh’ (Kiera Hudson Series Two Book 1) ‘Dead Night’ (Kiera Hudson Series Two Book 1.5)

‘Dead Angels’ (Kiera Hudson Series Two Book 2)

‘Dead Statues’ (Kiera Hudson Series Two Book 3)

‘Black Hill Farm’ (Book 1) ‘Black Hill Farm: Andy’s Diary’ (Book 1) ‘Doorways’ (The Doorways Trilogy Book 1) ‘The League of Doorways’ (The Doorways Trilogy Book 2)

‘Cowgirls & Vampires’ (Book 1) ‘Moonlight’ (The Moon Trilogy Book 1)

About the Author
Working away in the dead of night, Tim has written many short stories, plays and novels. Tim is the author of the bestselling'Kiera Hudson series', the two paranormal romance books entitled 'Black Hill Farm' and the 'Doorways' Trilogy.

The world publishing and movie rights to Tim's latest novel 'Flashes' have just been signed by Chicken House.

Tim is currently working on his new series 'Cowgirls & Vampires'. The first book is now available.

Tim's interests other than writing, include watching South Park, Vampire Diaries, True Blood and listening to Pitbull, LMFAO, Jennifer Lopez, David Guetta, Bruno Mars, Rihanna and Adele. Tim is never happier than when reading The Twilight Series, Vampire Diaries and writing his own Vampire series 'Kiera Hudson'.

Don't be shy; feel free to contact Tim at [email protected] - Tim would love to hear from you. Website: www.Ravenwoodgreys.com