Chapter One
There was only silence, darkness, and pain. I eased my eyes open – just a fraction – not too wide. There was a splinter of white light and I shut my eyes against its glare. The pain twisted and burned inside my skull then clawed its way down one of my legs. I wasn’t sure which one – the pain was agonising and it consumed me. The darkness came again and took the pain away.
The grunting noise woke me. The grunts came in deep, booming waves, causing my whole body to rattle. I forced my eyelids open and they felt heavy. Shiny black hair brushed against my cheek and it felt brittle and coarse. There was a smell too – not the sweet scent of flowers but the smell of animals and sweat. I was yanked across a rough stone floor by my ankle and a bolt of pain exploded inside of me. It felt as if my spine were being twisted out of shape. I cried out, my throat dry and sore. There were several more grunts and then the blackness took me again.
My tongue felt swollen and stiff. I ran the tip over my lips and they were cracked and sore. The need for water was overwhelming. I opened my eyes and I could see a small silver dish sitting a few feet away from me on the grey stone floor. Too weak to stand, I slowly inched my way towards it. There was water in that dish. I knew it because I could smell it and nothing had ever smelled so good.
I dug my fingers between the gaps in the floor and dragged myself towards it. My legs felt heavy and unmoveable. I looked back at them and they looked fragile and bare. There was a bandage wrapped around my right calf just below my knee. As I crawled towards the dish, pain seeped from beneath the bandage and scampered through my whole body with every inch I covered.
The dish was only millimetres away now and I plucked at it with the tips of my fingers. I nearly had it – it was within my grasp. The darkness was coming again. I could feel it.
I made a desperate lurch forward with my hand and took hold of my prize. But in my haste, I flipped the dish over. The water poured out and splashed across the stone floor. Tiny little rivulets snaked away from me and I looked at them longingly. The darkness was nearly upon me again.
I feebly prodded at the upturned dish and as I did, a thin stream of water came running towards me across the filthy floor. I pressed my head flat against the ground and licked up the drops that trickled amongst the grooves and cracks. Those drops of water tasted wonderful, but there was something else – something my body craved for.
Then the blackness took me again.
My whole body felt warm. It was soothing. I looked up and a chink of sunlight was pouring through a square hole in the ceiling above me. The hole was covered with wire mesh. I looked down at my leg. The bandage was grey and filthy-looking. The pain that radiated from it had eased; instead of feeling like someone had submerged my leg into a burning furnace, it just throbbed like a steady heartbeat.
The silver dish still sat upturned and to look at it reminded me of my thirst. I hoisted myself up onto my elbows and looked around. I was in a room made of grey stone. It looked like a prison cell without any windows. Set into one of the walls was a small wooden hatch and I wondered where it led to. On the opposite side of the cell, there was a hole in the floor. From the putrid smell wafting from it, I guessed it was the toilet. In the centre of the wall which faced me was a large black, rusty-looking iron door.
Where am I? I wondered. Am I still in the caves beneath the mountains or have they moved me to a new location?
Where was Potter? Where was Luke?
The only thing that I could be certain of was my name – I knew I was Kiera Hudson and I was thirsty.
Chapter Two
There was a noise coming from the other side of the rusty, black door. It sounded like somebody was moving around outside. Whoever it was sounded huge and heavy, their feet thundering into the ground, making the whole cell shake.
Then, the booming sound came again and it was similar to howling. The kind of noise that a large dog, no, a wolf would make.
I inched myself away on my elbows, my legs too weak and painful to carry me. There was a rattling and clanking sound as keys were turned in the lock. The door slowly swung open and Phillips came striding in. He looked different in his Vampyrus form.
Phillips stood in the doorway, huge and dominant. He was stripped to the waist, and his torso was ripped with muscle which was covered in fine, silver hair. He stared at me with his dark eyes and puckered his lower lip into a grimace. Then, without warning, he threw his arms into the air and let out a terrifying roar. The sound was deafening and I flinched backwards, sending a bolt of pain up my back and down through my bandaged leg. Brandishing a set of yellow dagger-shaped teeth at me, he slammed his claws together. My cell became filled with a deafening boom-boom-boom, and I stared at his giant black wings as he flapped them together. I‘d never seen Phillips in his true Vampyrus form before, and he looked even more intimidating than ever. The last time I could remember seeing him, was when he had ripped Murphy‘s heart from his chest and then set about Luke on the floor of my cell.
I scuttled backwards as fast I could, pressing myself against the far wall. Seeing this, Phillips lowered his arms and sauntered towards me. As a Vampyrus, Phillips looked primitive and savage - like an animal. Covering my head with my hands, I turned away. I knew what Phillips had been capable of in human form - but as a Vampyrus, I knew that anything could be possible. Although I couldn’t see him – I dare not look at him – I knew he was right on top of me. The sound of his breathing was deep and menacing and I could feel his breath, hot against my flesh.
“What do you want?” I whispered without looking at him.
Suddenly, he grabbed hold of my bandaged leg and yanked me towards him. Although I hadn’t drunk anything in God knows how long, I felt my bladder begin to sting as if I desperately needed to pee. Peeking through my fingers at him, I could see that he was now studying my damaged leg. He prodded at the bandage with a hook-shaped finger. Pain exploded in my calf like a firecracker going off. The pain rushed through my veins, and I feared that I was going to lose consciousness again.
Don’t you dare black out! I screamed inside. Go to sleep now and you will be defenceless – Phillips’ play thing!
But I was just fooling myself. I knew deep down that awake or asleep he could snap me in half like a twig if he wanted to.
He ripped the bandage free from my leg and I let out an agonising scream. Looking at me, he simply grunted in response to my obvious pain, and turned his back on me. Gripping the soiled bandage in his hand, he ambled back towards the cell door. I pulled my leg against my chest as I rocked back and forth in pain. Tears streamed from my eyes and gathered at the corners of my lips. I poked my aching tongue from my mouth and licked them away.
I looked up and could see him watching me from the doorway.
“I’m thirsty,” I whispered, my voice sounding broken and raw.
“Thirsty for what?” he asked, and I could see a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“You know what,” I snapped, my throat feeling as if I’d swallowed broken glass.
“Tell me.”
“I can’t,” I whispered, bowing my head in shame.
“There’s no shame in wanting what you need,” Phillips almost seemed to gloat.
With my body aching with cravings, I screwed my hands into fists and said, “I want blood!”
Looking at me, Phillips seemed to smile as he said, “I‘ll see what I can do.” Then slamming the door behind him, he left me alone in my cell.
Chapter Three
I pulled myself up onto my elbows and peered down at my leg. There was a deep cut running from my shin to my knee. Although it looked as if it had begun to heal, it didn’t look good. A long, black crusty scab had formed over some of the cut, but other parts still looked open and wet. It made me feel sick. It wasn’t just how it looked - it was the odour – it smelled bad. I desperately fought to remember how it had happened, but I had no real memories of anything after that night I had been taken kicking and screaming from my cell hidden beneath the mountains. But how long ago that had been, I didn’t know. My back hurt, too. I didn’t want to think about that because when I did my mind was full of the memories of Kayla telling me how Doc Ravenwood had cut those little black bones from her back.
So instead, I looked down at my hands and inspected them. They were covered in dirt, and my fingernails were black. They reminded me of Luke as he had clawed at the cave floor beneath the mountains when Phillips and Sparky had beaten him.
“Whatever had happened to Luke?” I wondered aloud as broken images and memories came flooding back to me. I hadn’t seen him since Phillips and Sparky had…but my mother had been there too.
And what about Potter? Had he escaped? I prayed that he had. Snapshot images of our last stolen moments together swept across the front of my mind and I pushed them away. Not because I regretted what had happened between us, but it was just too painful to remember them.
Suddenly the hatch in the wall – the one I’d noticed earlier – was forced open. Without thinking, I scuttled backwards again and pressed myself against the wall, wincing at the bolt of pain that flashed up my back. I watched as a bony hand with long misshapen fingers shoved a bowl of food and a fresh dish of water into my cell. With an ear piercing screech, the metal hatch was slammed shut.
With my leg trailing painfully behind me, I crawled over to the food and water. Without even looking at the food, I raised the dish to my mouth and gulped down the water. It was cold and crisp and it tingled in my mouth and down the length of my dry throat. I drank so hard and fast that some of the water oozed from the corners of my mouth and splattered the grubby looking hospital gown I was wearing.
Hospital gown? I briefly wondered, but the water was too precious to waste. So turning my thoughts back to that, I slowly pulled the dish from my mouth and placed it back on the floor. I had no idea how long it might be before I had water again, so I decided to drink it sparingly – just small sips when I could no longer stand the thirst.
But it wasn’t water that would cure the real thirst - the thirst inside of me that made my stomach cramp with pangs of hunger and made my skin burn hot as if I had a fever. It was what lay in the second dish that would do that. I turned towards it and stared at the large slab of meat. It hadn’t been cooked. It was raw and blood oozed from it forming a little red lake in the dish. Not able to resist it, my stomach flipping with excitement, I began to wolf the food down in large, succulent handfuls. Tearing it apart with my fingers, I stuffed handfuls of the pink-red meat into my mouth. At first my stomach began to tighten but then welcomed it. Blood streamed from the meat and ran off my chin, splashing the floor of my cell. I ran my tongue across my lips, then sucked the blood from my fingers.
