Her Vampyrrhic Heart (30 page)

Helsvir surged through the undergrowth; maybe thirty paces separated them.

Owen stood his ground, not budging an inch. Showdown. This felt like destiny.

Helsvir rushed forward. He could see the heads that budded from its flesh. The eyes blazed – and in each and every eye, a craving to hurt him. If he couldn't stop Helsvir now, he would be broken apart. He'd be incorporated into that thing; his own head would join that vile array.

When he'd fired at the creature in the house he'd aimed for the faces. He'd destroyed a good many, too. Now, however, he targeted its legs.

Carefully, he aimed the shotgun at the front legs that supported the beast. As accurately as he could he fired the first round. One of the legs took the full force of the shot. Everything beneath the knee was smashed to pulp. The injury threw the creature off balance. The mouths roared in pain. Helsvir blundered off course to smash into a tree. For a second it seemed stunned, but only for a second. It recovered enough to lunge at him again. And again he fired. The animal rolled sideways. Once more, he won a brief respite as the creature struggled to recover its balance.

Owen Westonby continued to target the legs with well-aimed shots. Each shot bought his friends time. By now, they must be approaching his brother's cottage.

He had one shell left. When he'd fired that the creature would have lost perhaps six or seven legs. Unfortunately for Owen it still possessed another twenty or so.

Owen fired the last of his ammunition. After that, he calmly turned his back on the monster and started walking. He knew he couldn't outrun the thing. However, he decided not to watch its final approach. What had been a chaotic rustling behind him turned into a rhythmic drumming sound of feet striking the dirt.

‘Here it comes,' he murmured as he thought about his friends. ‘I hope I gave you enough time to reach Tom's house.'

T
he monster created from the bodies of the dead crashed through the bushes. With every second it grew closer. Owen Westonby closed his eyes.

I wish I'd saved one of the shells for myself
, was Owen's last thought before he heard the shout.

‘Helsvir! It's me that you're wanting, isn't it?'

Owen recognized the voice. ‘Tom!'

His brother stood beside an oak tree at the edge of the clearing. His breath burst in gusts of silver in the moonlight. Straight away, Owen saw that Tom carried a diver's harpoon gun. The barbed spear glinted as Tom aimed.

Helsvir bellowed – this was savage triumph rather than rage. Instantly, it swerved away from Owen in order to hurtle towards the newcomer. Tom coolly aimed the harpoon gun until the last possible moment. When a gap of no more than a dozen yards remained between Tom and Helsvir he fired. Compressed gas, contained in a small canister attached to the gun, propelled the spear at lightning speed. What was more, that slender but lethally sharp missile was connected to the harpoon gun by a strong nylon cord. Divers used the weapons to hunt fish, and of course they didn't want to lose the spear if an injured fish swam away with it embedded in its body.

Then Owen noticed Tom's streak of genius. He'd tied the nylon cord to a tree. In a flash the harpoon penetrated Helsvir's body. Or, more accurately, the harpoon penetrated one of the human faces that poked outward from its body. The barb caught fast, resulting in the creature being fixed to the tree by the cord. Now the monster was hooked. All the faces that bristled from Helsvir screamed at the same time. Each expression was the same – rage and hurt and frustration.

Tom raced along the path to Owen. ‘You're not hurt?'

‘No.'

‘Then run like hell. I reckon that harpoon will hold for ten seconds max.'

Owen didn't need to be told twice: he ran like hell. Or more precisely ran like the beasts of hell were just about to start pursuing him.

Owen panted, ‘Tom, you've seen that thing before?'

‘Five years ago. It tried to kill me back then.'

‘It's Helsvir, isn't it? From the carvings at your house?'

‘Yes, and he's as real as you or me.'

They bounded over a rotting log. Moonbeams penetrated the branches overhead, glittering bone-white fingers of illumination.

‘That thing moves fast.' Owen sucked in a lungful of air. ‘We were lucky to keep ahead of it.'

Tom shot him a grim look. ‘If that thing had wanted to catch you, it would have done.'

‘No, we managed to outrun it.'

Tom shook his head. ‘Helsvir wasn't trying to hunt you down, he was herding you.'

‘Why?'

‘To keep you moving towards those.' As he ran, he nodded to where pale figures stood beneath the trees. ‘Those are vampires, Owen. You would have provided them with food. And then you would have joined them – recruits for the vampire army.'

‘How do you know all this?'

‘There's a lot that happened five years ago that I never told anyone about … listen to that. Big, bad old Helsvir's broken free.'

Once again, Owen heard that distinctive crashing sound as Helsvir sped through the trees towards them.

‘What now?' panted Owen.

‘Head for the cottage. Your friends should be there by now. See you later.'

‘Wait! Tom! Where are you going?'

Tom took off along another path. ‘I caused Helsvir a lot of trouble last time. He'll want to deal with me first before he comes looking for you.'

‘Tom?'

‘Trust me, bro. I'll meet you at the cottage as soon as I can.'

With that, Tom raced away into the gloom. Helsvir veered to the right, following the man. Owen saw that Helsvir must have snapped the cord attached to the harpoon, thus freeing itself from the tree. The harpoon itself hadn't dislodged and still remained embedded in the face of a man that Owen now recognized. Tony had been a passenger on the doomed minibus. The man's head had been pinned to the side of the monster by the spear in the same way a picture might be pinned to a corkboard. Tony's eyes bulged at either side of the steel shaft. Even though the spear-point must have passed completely through his brain, he still roared with bloodlust and fury.

Owen hoped his brother was wrong about humans not being able to outrun Helsvir. Because Tom Westonby would need to move very quickly indeed, if he was going to stay out of Helsvir's many hands.

T
he moon lit their way through the forest. At last, Kit Bolter could see the pale stonework of Tom Westonby's cottage. Owen had phoned his brother; therefore, the man would be expecting them. What he wouldn't expect was the state of Owen's friends. Kit glanced at Eden with her tousled hair. Jez Pollock lurched along, holding his arm in its now not-so-bright orange cast. Every step hurt the guy. His face bled sweat. Kit knew that he, himself, must be a shocking sight, too. Exertion had caused the pellet wounds in his face to bleed again. Blood stained his clothes. And all three were frightened and exhausted.

No wonder
, he thought.
We've been hunted by a monster.

And possibly that monster had now got hold of Owen. Mental images of Owen being mauled by the thing made Kit shake so violently he could barely keep walking. Jez was in trouble, too. The lurching grew worse; he swayed from side to side before suddenly dropping to his knees.

Kit murmured, ‘It's OK, I've got you.'

What happened next went so fast he wasn't sure who had appeared to help him. A pair of hands gripped Jez's other arm, while Kit put his arm around his friend's waist.

Kit glanced up at the individual who had helped him. ‘Freya?'

Those eerie white eyes gazed at him. She said nothing as they both gently lifted Jez to his feet. Then they walked at either side of Jez as they helped him along the path.

Just a few paces ahead, Eden watched the pair supporting the sixteen-year-old. Eden's expression said it all. She'd seen so much tonight that she accepted the appearance of this unearthly creature without a word. As long as the strange woman didn't attack them, then that seemed OK by her.

During the last few yards to the cottage Owen Westonby joined them.

‘I'll tell you everything later,' he said by way of explanation.

They all accepted this, too. After that, four humans and one vampire passed through the stone archway that bore the image of Helsvir, and walked up to the cottage door. Whether being here would bring protection from Helsvir or not was another matter. But at least they were here. Now they would have to prepare themselves for whatever happened next.

T
om Westonby wasn't usually a gambling man. Tonight, however, he was gambling with his life. He hoped he could lure Helsvir away from his brother. It was only a short while since Tom had run through the forest, drawn by the sound of gunshots. There in the moonlight, he'd watched as Owen fired at the creature's legs. Owen must have realized he couldn't kill a monster of that huge size with only a shotgun. Instead, the sixteen-year-old had attempted to slow it down by shattering its front legs.

The problem was that Helsvir moved on twenty legs or more. A problem that Tom was only too aware of as that ugly behemoth pursued him through the forest. Tom ran hard. Every breath hurt his lungs – the ice-cold air felt like shards of broken glass when he inhaled. Nevertheless, he kept running. Because if he stopped now Helsvir would pounce.

When he reached a sharp bend in the woodland path he negotiated the curve easily. A loud crash from behind suggested that Helsvir hadn't been so nimble. Glancing back, he saw what had happened. Helsvir had rolled over on to its side. Despite being the size of a very large truck, Helsvir possessed an uncanny agility. At least it had in the past. The damage inflicted by those shotgun blasts had not slowed the beast down much, but it now found it difficult to keep its balance. Tom watched Helsvir struggle to its feet. Owen's perfectly aimed shots had ripped away flesh from some of the legs that had once belonged to human beings. Other legs had been amputated beneath the knee, forcing Helsvir to run on stumps.

Although Helsvir succeeded in getting itself back on to its many feet, it took a good five or six seconds to do so. Even then it waddled uncertainly for the first few steps before picking up speed.
Good!
Tom thought.
Now I've found your weakness I'm going to use it.

Helsvir charged after him again. Tom had to run as fast as he could. Two dozen arms still protruded from the underside of the creature like pale tentacles. If they got hold of him, they'd pluck off his limbs and his head as easily as he could pull the legs off a roast chicken. Yet he had one small advantage now. He made abrupt changes in direction as he ran. Every time he did so, Helsvir lost its balance and went crashing to the ground. This gave Tom precious seconds. The injured legs were making pursuit difficult for the creature.

Even though Tom did have that slight advantage, he knew he couldn't keep up this exhausting pace for much longer. He'd set out to lure Helsvir away from Owen. He'd succeeded in doing that. Now he had to find the fastest route back to the cottage. Although if Helsvir chose to attack, Tom was sure it would have no difficulty in tearing the place apart in order to reach its occupants.

Once again, Tom chanced his luck. Helsvir had never even touched the cottage as far as he knew. So Tom's big gamble was that the beast would leave the building alone.
How can
I can be sure that it won't attack it?
Tom asked himself as he leapt over a fallen log.
Everything changed when June Valko arrived. The vampires had never attacked me before. The night she came to the cottage I nearly drowned when one pounced on me. The damn thing even climbed down the chimney.

Helsvir slammed into the fallen log Tom had just jumped – the heavy body shattered a ton of oak into a blizzard of splinters. Tom knew that Helsvir had lost none of its strength. But he knew that Helsvir would need to repair itself soon. Owen's work with the shotgun had cost it half a dozen limbs. That meant Helsvir would need the body parts of men and women, which it could then weave into the obscene mass that formed its body.

Tom glanced back as Helsvir lost its balance at another turn in the path. With a tremendous thud it slammed into a tree. Of course, Helsvir wasn't fazed. Shaking itself, just as a dog does after coming in out of the rain, the animal started moving again. Relentlessly, tirelessly, it resumed the hunt. Tom Westonby was its prey.

All the more reason to run faster
, Tom thought. His feet pounded the frozen ground. He swerved to avoid a dead stag. Its neck had been torn open. Yet no blood had spilled from the wound. Straight away, Tom began noticing other dead animals – rabbits, badgers, foxes, wild boar – all with wounds on their throats. Yet not a drop of blood in sight – not so much as a red speck on the whitest patch of snow.

They've been drained …
And then he remembered what he'd told Owen just moments ago. That Helsvir could easily have caught Owen and his friends if it had really wanted to.

‘I'm not being hunted,' he gasped in astonishment. ‘I'm being herded! Helsvir's driving me into a trap!'

Tom saw figures ahead. They stood amongst the trees, white-skinned, mouths open, eyes gleaming. Tom's heart lurched with fear.

Helsvir drove him towards the vampires. They were waiting for the richest, most delicious blood of all. Human blood.

His blood.

T
om thought:
I'm in big trouble!

Panic exploded inside his body. Exhaustion made his legs heavy as concrete. His plan had been blown to pieces. He'd intended to race back through the forest to join Owen and the others at the cottage. Only he now realized that Helsvir had been in control of the situation all along. The creature had herded him, as if he was nothing more than a stupid sheep, towards the waiting vampires. Tom saw them standing there, waiting for him amongst the trees. Tall, stick-thin figures, with white, staring eyes.