Kiera Hudson & The Lethal Infected (8 page)

Chapter Fourteen

“Sophie?” I gasped under my breath. This was all for her? Potter, Murphy, and the others had all gathered here to welcome her into The Creeping Men? I felt as if someone had snuck up on me and punched me hard in the guts. It was like I’d had the wind knocked from me. I felt stupid and embarrassed for even thinking that this party had anything to do with me. Why would any of them want to throw a party for me? I wanted to leave. I wanted to get out. Turn my back on the lot of them. I felt tears burn like fire in the corners of my eyes. I wanted to run and never stop running. My heart felt crushed. I felt like I had been torn apart.

What should I do? Turn and flee? Make my escape? But what would that make me look like? Jealous? Make me look a fool? And if I showed how devastated I felt inside, wouldn’t that show the group that I had secret feelings for Potter when he obviously didn’t have any for me? How was I going to spend the rest of the night watching Potter and Sophie together and pretend that it didn’t bother me? How was I going to hide from the others that my heart was breaking inside? And what were they doing inviting Sophie into the ranks of The Creeping Men? She was human. But what had Potter meant when he had said they were going to make Sophie one of us?

Those gathered along each side of the table began to clap as Sophie walked toward Potter. But she didn’t walk, it was like she glided and shimmered in her long, flowing dress. It sparkled like a thousand stars trapped in the candlelight from the table. Her thick, blond hair hung in ringlets down her back. Her blue eyes shone and she smiled at Murphy, Uri, Phebe, and the others. Her dress made mine look like something I had dragged from the trash. The diamond necklace that hung about her neck gleamed like cat’s eyes. I put my fingers to the one Nev had made me.

Reaching the end of the table, Sophie folded her slender fingers around Potter’s hand. He looked down into her eyes and pulled her close. My heart felt like it was being strangled in my chest. To watch was unbearable. They kissed each other, and I glanced down at the floor. I couldn’t watch. To do so was breaking my heart. I felt a tear break free and drop onto my cheek. I brushed it away.

“Tonight is a special occasion for two reasons,” Potter said.

And not one of those reasons is because it’s my birthday,
I thought.

“Not only does Sophie become one of The Creeping Men, she becomes one of us,” he said.

Hearing this, I jerked my head up. Was he serious? What did he mean one of us? He couldn’t turn her. It was forbidden. It wouldn’t work. She’d become a
vampire
. She’d become like one of those vampires that had once terrorised the Ragged Cove. I had to stop this madness.

“Won’t that be dangerous?” I spoke up, my voice sounding shaky and breathless. 

Everyone in the room turned to look at me.

“Once perhaps,” Potter said, eyes fixed on mine.

“You can only change her if you bite her,” I said, looking straight back at him. “Your bite will poison Sophie.” 

“Doctor Ravenwood and Lord Hunt have created an antidote,” Potter said. Then looking at Hunt, he added, “Tell Kiera what it is you have developed here at Hallowed Manor.”

Reaching into his suit jacket pocket, Hunt pulled out a bottle identical to the one that had been left in my room. It had a cork in it, but I could see the contents looked different. It wasn’t thick and red, but watery and black. It sloshed about the inside of the bottle as Lord Hunt held it in his hands. “This is called Lot 12,” Hunt started to explain. “A synthetic blood that will stop any cravings for human blood once Sophie has been turned by Potter.”

“Sophie won’t be a Vampyrus, she will become a
vampire.
This is madness,” I gasped.

“What is mad about wanting to spend eternity with the man I love?” Sophie spoke up.

“Because you’re human,” I tried to reason with her. “We’ve always been monsters – it’s what we are…”

“And it’s what I want to become,” Sophie insisted, sounding a little like a spoilt child.

“But being immortal comes at a heavy price,” I tried to warn her. Did she really have any idea the life she was preparing to embark on even if Hunt’s Lot 12 – or whatever they called it in this
where
and
when
– did take away her cravings for human flesh and blood?

“It’s a price I’m willing to pay to be with Sean,” she said, turning to gaze up into his eyes.

Sean?
No one called Potter “Sean.”

“Potter, you can’t do this,” I said, trying to get him to see sense even if Sophie wouldn’t.

“Don’t get out of you pram, Kiera,” Potter smiled.

“This isn’t some kind of game,” I warned him. 

What about Murphy? He had warned me not to go mixing it up with Nev because he was human, but he was here now as Sophie became a vampire. Vampires weren’t really like us – they were dangerous. Couldn’t he make Potter come to his senses?

“Murphy, you can’t agree with this?” I pleaded. “What would Lois Li say about this? What’s going on here is forbidden, isn’t it?”

“Lois Li has given her consent,” Murphy grunted, but he wouldn’t meet my stare. He took his pipe from his pocket and propped it in the corner of his mouth. He didn’t light it.

“Consent?” I gasped. “No one in their right mind would give their consent to this. It’s too dangerous.”

“Lot 12 has been rigorously tested,” Ravenwood spoke up, pushing his glasses onto the bridge of his nose, looking down the length of the table at me.

“Yeah? On who?” I shot back.

“Are you sure there’s not another reason you don’t want tonight to go ahead?” Sophie asked me.

“Like what?” I breathed.

“Like you’re just the tiniest bit jealous?” She half-smiled at me.

“Jealous of what, exactly?” I shot back at her.

“That Potter wants to spend the rest of eternity with me,” she said.

“Oh, please, you must be as dumb as
Sean
if you think that,” I lied. I was as jealous as hell and she could sense it.

“Then it really is none of your business,” she said, turning her stare from me and up at Potter, who still held her in his arms. “I’m ready, my love.” Sophie smiled at him.

Pulling her closer still, Sophie, tilted her head back, offering Potter her neck. From the end of the table I could see her veins running dark blue beneath her soft flesh. Potter lowered his face, stealing one quick glance at me. Our eyes met.

No! Don’t do it!
I screamed inside.

Potter looked away, sinking his fangs deep into Sophie’s neck.

I watched in numb horror as his firm jaws moved slowly up and down as he drank from her. Thin rivers of blood ran from the corners of his mouth, over his chin, and down Sophie’s neck. She shuddered in his arms and made a sound like something close to ecstasy in the back of her throat. I couldn’t bear it. It reminded me too much of the times Potter and I had drank each other’s blood while making love. Then, just as I was about to turn away, Potter withdrew his fangs from her throat. She lay draped, dizzy, and weak-looking in his arms.

Hunt shot forward, thrusting the bottle of black stuff into Potter’s hand. “Now get her to drink this. It will neutralise your bite before it has a chance to infect her.”

Pulling the cork from the bottle with his fangs, Potter spat it away. He brought the bottle up to Sophie’s lips. “Drink this,” he whispered.

With trembling fingers, she took the bottle, pouring its contents into her mouth. I watched her throat bob up and down as she drained the black contents from the bottle. When she had guzzled down the last of it, Potter gently took the bottle from her. He eased her up in his arms, propping her against him. The others around the table were unable to take their eyes off her, as was I. It was as if we were all waiting for some kind of reaction. The room was so silent all I could hear was the sound of rain pelting against the long, narrow windows.  

“Are you okay?” Potter whispered.

“I feel just a little dizzy, that’s all,” Sophie murmured, opening her eyes. She pressed one hand against her temple as she gazed about the room.

We all remained silent, my heart beating in my ears, part of me still unable to believe what I had just witnessed. I kept my eyes on Sophie. Her skin looked suddenly very pale – worse than pale. It was beginning to turn grey – the colour of stone. I had seen that colour before. It was the colour of paving – the colour of cracked paving stone.

“What’s happening to me?” Sophie suddenly gasped, raising both hands before her face, as if inspecting them.

From the opposite end of the room I could see the faintest of cracks start to appear in her flesh. They slowly began to cover the backs of her hands, arms, and face like an intricate spider’s web.

Chapter Fifteen

Sophie pushed Potter away with such force that he flew backwards, losing his balance and falling to the floor. The others pushed their chairs back as Sophie sprang up onto the table. As if her spine was twisting out of shape beneath her flesh, Sophie lay contorted on her front.

“What the fuck is happening here?” Potter demanded, shooting to his feet.

There was a tearing sound as Sophie’s back opened in a fine spray of blood. A pair of bedraggled and half-formed wings rippled from her back. She wailed in agony. I was surprised to see that vampires had wings in this
where
and
when
. Didn’t that make them even more dangerous? Sophie lifted her head, throwing it back as a pair of pointed fangs protruded from her gums. Her cracked-looking hands twisted into claws. She scraped her dagger-like fingernails down the length of the table, forming deep, ragged grooves in the surface. 

“What the fuck have you done to her?” Potter roared, springing over the table and grabbing Hunt by the throat. “You said that black shit would work.”

“I don’t understand,” Hunt choked in Potter’s grasp. “Lot 12 does work.”

Sophie screeched again, leaping away from the table at Murphy. He stumbled backwards on his injured leg, then drove his fist forward into Sophie’s face. She shot back through the air, her stubby, half-formed wings fluttering on either side of her.

“You didn’t have to fucking punch her!” Potter shouted at Murphy.

“Look at her!” Murphy bellowed back. “She ain’t Sophie no more. Can’t you see that?”

A giant plume of grey dust shot up into the air as Sophie crashed into the dining room wall under the sheer force of Murphy’s punch. I couldn’t be sure if the dust had come from Sophie’s cracked skin or the wall fragmenting beneath her. Dropping to the floor, she shook all over, then was up again, claws and fangs out as she leapt back across the room. Her shrieks were so deafening that I threw my hands to my ears. Both Uri and Phebe, dived at her – their own claws out now and fangs glistening in the candlelight. They clattered into her, pulling her from out of the air, her claws just inches from Mrs. Payne’s throat. But the old woman didn’t cower backwards; she too raised her gnarled-looking hands as they turned into a set of claws that looked something close to a set of knives.

“Help us restrain her!” Uri roared, as both he and Phebe fought to keep Sophie under control.

She threw her head forward over and over as she snapped at Uri’s and Phebe’s throats with her fangs. Ravenwood came rushing forward, his white mop of hair flopping over his brow like coiled springs. He gripped Sophie by the shoulders. Feeling his touch, Sophie drove her head backwards, slamming the back of her skull into the bridge of his nose. His glasses skittered away and he threw his giant hands to his face. Blood spurted through his fingers, staining the white hair that covered them scarlet.

“Don’t hurt her,” Potter barked again, rushing forward. He caught me watching him, then looked quickly away. I wanted to rush across the room and slap his face. I wanted to scream at him that this was his entire fault. That he shouldn’t have bitten Sophie. But what right did I have to say any of that? I was fast beginning to wonder if any of these people were the friends I had once known.

Together, Potter and the others brought Sophie under some kind of control as they pinned her to the floor. She hissed and spat beneath them, never tiring of trying to bite and claw at them.

“We need to get her to the attic – to the medical wing,” Hunt shouted, sounding out of breath.

“What, so you can poison her properly and finish her off?!” Potter spat at him as he pinned Sophie’s arms to the floor.

“It was you who bit her!” Ravenwood shouted at him, wiping blood from his nose.

“Only because you two said you had a way of stopping this sort of shit from happening!” Potter shouted back.

“Arguing isn’t going to sort this mess out,” Murphy said, turning and limping from the room.

Where was he going? I wondered as he headed out of the room and into the hall. Had Murphy seen enough? Did he not want to take any further part in this nightmare? Could I blame him if he didn’t? I looked back at the others as they were now trying to lift Sophie from off the floor. Kicking off my heels, I crossed the room to them. Taking hold of one of her legs, I helped to lift her. She kicked out at me and at Mrs. Payne, who had hold of the other. Sophie was strong and I had to use all of my strength to keep hold of her. The flesh covering her leg felt ice cold and dry. I looked at it in the wavering candlelight and could see that it was cracked and broken in places, just like her hands, arms, and face.

“Let go of me, you fuckers!” Sophie screeched as she thrashed up and down. “I’ll kill every one of you fucks!”

“Get her up to the hospital wing!” Hunt shouted again as we carried Sophie from the room and out into the hall.

She fought with us like a wild animal. Her strength was like nothing I had known before. The six of us could barely keep a grip on her. I glanced up at the staircase and knew that there was no way we would make it without losing our grip on her and setting her free once more. We passed one of the many doors set into the hall wall. Kicking out with my foot, it flew open.

“In here,” I shouted over Sophie’s constant shrieks and threats.

“But that’s my private study,” Ravenwood cried.

“Too bad,” I told him. “We won’t get her up those stairs without a fight or without killing her.”

Hearing this, Potter said, “Take her into the study. C’mon. Move it” move it!”

“But…” Ravenwood continued to protest.

Ignoring him, we manhandled and fought with Sophie as we dragged her into the study. A candle had already been lit on the table and the flame flickered as we raced past it toward a large couch in the far corner of the room. As a group, we carried Sophie, who continued to hiss and spit, bite and lunge, toward it. We smothered her so she couldn’t move, dropping her down onto the couch.

“Now what?” Phebe gasped, out of breath.

“We can’t just leave her,” Uri insisted.

“Put these on her,” I heard someone say.

I looked over my shoulder to see Murphy, two sets of handcuffs swinging from his fists. “I kept these back after leaving the police force,” he said. “I guessed they might come in handy one day, and I was right.”

While we continued to pin Sophie down, Murphy attached the first set of handcuffs to her left wrist. Then gritting his teeth, he yanked her arm up toward a lead pipe attached to the wall. As if sensing what was about to happen, Sophie made one last attempt at trying to break free from us. Pulling her right hand free, she drove her claw through the air. Her long, brittle nails snagged on the necklace Nev had made for me. The leather twine broke, casting the shells he had attached to it across the room. I heard the soft patter of them as they scattered over Ravenwood’s wooden study floor.

Hunt shot his hand forward, gripping Sophie’s wrist and yanking her free arm upwards. Murphy snapped the cuff about Sophie’s wrist, then secured it to the pipe bolted into the wall. Knowing that she was finally restrained, we all fell away onto the floor. While the others sat and gasped for breath, I crawled across the floor on my hands and knees in search of the shells that had fallen from the necklace Nev had made for me as a birthday present. A large patterned rug covered much of the floor, and on my hands and knees I inspected it. There was a trail of fresh candlewax that led to the table near to the door. It was then that I saw one of the pink shiny shells Nev had found on the beach. I reached for it, but before I’d had a chance to snatch it up, a large boot had stepped down on it, crushing it under foot.

“What did you do that for?” I yelled, springing to my feet and eyeballing Potter.

“Do what?” he scowled over Sophie’s shrieks and threats.

“You just crushed one of the shells that had fallen from my necklace!” I shouted.

“Shell?” Potter snapped. “Don’t you think I have more important stuff to think about than some shitty seashell?”

“Fuck you, Potter!” I said, rolling back my fist and driving it straight into his face.

With a look of shock on his face, he staggered backwards, tripping on the upturned corner of the rug and falling over. Turning, I fled the room, and as I did, I caught Murphy’s eye. He winked at me, then looked away. I stormed into the hall, desperately fighting back the flood of tears that now threatened. I hadn’t gone very far when I felt a hand grip my arm. I was spun around to find myself staring into Potter’s bloodied face.

“What the fuck was that for?” he growled.

“What do you think?” I snapped back, yanking my arm free.

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking,” he said.

“Well if you can’t figure it out, what’s the point in…”

“Is this about what happened between us?” he whispered, glancing back at the study door, “You know back at the office. I thought we’d agreed to forget about that.”

“You really don’t get it, do you?” I gasped in disbelief.

“Get what?” he said, wiping blood from beneath his nose.

“Can’t you see what you’ve done to Sophie?” I said. “Did you really have to turn her?”

“Yes,” he said, staring intently back at me. “I had no choice.”

“Bullshit,” I said, turning my back on him. “You did it so you have some bimbo to flatter your ego for the rest of eternity.”

Gripping me by both arms, Potter turned me around to face him again. “I did it to save my baby,” Potter whispered, just inches from my face, his eyes locked with mine.

“Baby?” I muttered, hoping that I’d misheard him.

“Sophie’s pregnant,” Potter said. “She’s carrying my child. A little girl. If I hadn’t have turned her, the baby wouldn’t have survived.”

“It’s not true,” I whispered, pushing him away and faltering backwards. “It wasn’t meant to be. The baby was meant to be ours…”

“What are you talking about?” Potter whispered, looking totally confused.

“Jack said…”

“Who’s Jack?” Potter said, closing the gap further still.

“You really don’t know, do you…?” I mumbled, barely able to make sense of what Potter had just told me.

“All I know is that Sophie is carrying my daughter who we plan to call Abbie…” he started.

“Abbie?” This was all too much. I turned away again, no longer able to fight back the tears. They gushed in hot streaks down the length of my face and dripped from the curve of my jaw.

“Kiera?” I heard Potter whisper over my shoulder. “What’s got into you?”

I had no idea how to answer that. Even if I could, I was crying so hard that I doubted I would have even been able to form the right words. This had meant to have been my birthday. My twenty-first birthday. One of the happiest days of my life. It had turned out to be my worst.

“Hey, Potter,” I heard Hunt say from the study doorway.

“What?” I heard Potter snap.

“This was no accident,” I heard Hunt say.

“What are you talking about?” Potter asked.

“Someone switched the bottle,” Hunt said.

Wiping my tears away, I glanced back over my shoulder. Hunt was standing just outside the study with the empty bottle of Lot 12.

“What do you mean switched?” Potter said, heading back across the hall toward him.

Hunt brought the bottle up beneath his nose and sniffed. “This bottle was filled with queets and a garlic mix,” Hunt said. “While not dangerous to Vampyrus, they are lethal to
vampires
, which Sophie now is because you bit her.”

“Who would have swapped them?” Potter asked, snatching the bottle from Hunt and sniffing the neck where the cork had once been.

“Whoever wanted to murder Sophie,” Hunt said.

“Why would anyone want to do that?” Potter whispered back.