“Elias loves you, Kiera, but you’ve just been too blind to see that,” she said.
I looked down at Potter’s face as he stared blankly back at me from my lap. “But it’s Potter that I love,” I screeched. “What have you done? Oh my god, what have you done to him?” Not needing any answer from her, I pulled Potter up and cradled him against my chest. “No! No! No! Wake up, goddamn it!” I cried, tears falling from my eyes onto his upturned face. But Potter just flopped lifelessly back in my arms. “You can’t die!” I screamed at him. “We were going on our first date when this was all over. You promised me! You were going to tell me what your favourite food was!” I shook him again, hoping I could make him come alive, but in my heart I knew he was gone. He had left me and I just wanted to curl up and die.
“He could never have made you happy,” my mother said, as she looked down at me, her face pale, older-looking, and the ends of her raven black hair turning grey.
I looked at her and the sight of her disgusted me. With tears rolling down my cheeks, I sobbed, “Potter did make me happy. So happy you could never know.”
“Nonsense,” my mother snapped at me and I just wanted to rip her fucking throat out. “Your destiny lies with Elias.”
“Who is he?” I roared at her.
“I’m Elias Munn,” a voice said, and I turned to see Luke looking down at me. “I love you, Kiera, I always have.”
I laid Potter’s body on the ground, then springing to my feet, I lunged at Luke. “You!” I screamed. “It was you the whole time!”
“I love you, Kiera,” he said again, grabbing hold of me. “We are meant to be together.”
“Get off me!” I screamed at him. “Get your fucking hands off me!”
“Kiera, I know you love me too,” he smiled. “You were so close to telling me in the underground lake. You know it in your heart to be true.”
“I hate you!” I screamed into his face, spittle flying from my lips and showering him. “I hate you! I want to rip your fucking heart out!”
Then, gripping me like a bear, he leant forward and kissed me on the mouth. I tried to resist but my attempts to fight him off were fruitless. It was like he was sucking my strength from me. I kicked wildly against him at first, but my legs grew weaker and weaker until eventually I closed my eyes and just let him kiss me.
Just as if a thousand flash bulbs were popping inside my head, I saw myself in Kristy Hall’s open grave. I called for Luke but he was gone. Where was he? I wondered. Shadows flickered above me as I climbed from her grave. Then as if watching from above, I saw myself being chased across St. Mary’s graveyard by Kristy Hall. Then I was in the police car trying to escape as she smashed the windscreen with her face, desperate to get me.
But where was Luke? I wondered again.
Then, I could see him. There he was, watching from the doorway of St. Mary’s church, but he was with someone else – Father Taylor.
“Let’s see if Kiera is as resourceful as we’ve been led to believe,” Taylor said to Luke. But Taylor had been deceived too, he didn’t know who it was that hid in the shadows next to him, for Luke’s face was masked in that shadow I had seen so many times in my nightmares.
Then, Kristy Hall was exploding in a shower of dust, as I watched myself thrust the crucifix into her tongue.
“She’s good,” Taylor smiled at the figure that loomed beside him. Then Luke was fluttering away in a spray of shadows and I could see him running to my rescue. I could see his black police boots in the rear view mirror as he approached the police car.
Another of those flash bulbs popped inside my mind. I could see myself staggering away from my little red Mini that had become stranded on the road that led from The Ragged Cove. I was running away from vampires in the snow as they were chasing me. There was a shadow in the sky and it was moving fast. It was killing the vampires, it was Luke and he was rescuing me. But he wasn’t really rescuing me, he was stopping me from leaving The Ragged Cove; he was taking me back there so he could get me to fall in love with him. He needed me to love him so that the decision I had to make could be his.
The flash bulbs went pop again, and I was being dragged through the sky above St. Mary’s Church by Phillips. We were diving towards the burning steeple and I saw Luke take his chance. He could save me, but that meant sacrificing one of his agents, but what did he really care, he had armies of them. So saving me and scolding himself, he made me think that he was selfless, that he truly loved me. And he sacrificed Rom too as he ripped him to shreds in front of the church – how would I ever expect that he was one of my enemies if he slaughtered one in front of my very eyes?
Then I was in Hallowed Manor, and I could see him through his window as he skulked in the darkness of the attic. He wasn’t hiding because of the burns he had received saving me at St. Mary’s Church, he was sneaking away at night, returning back to The Hollows to organise his agents as he knew the time was close. He had to pretend he was hiding away up there or his friends would have wondered why he kept disappearing. But all the while keeping me close, that’s why I was really brought to the Manor – I could see that now.
“We must bring Kiera here,” he had told Potter and Murphy. “She isn’t safe without our protection.”
So Potter and Murphy agreed to his plan and tricked me to going to Hallowed Manor on the pretext of watching over Kayla.
But why hide away at the Manor? Because that’s where Doctor Hunt and Ravenwood were working on the cure for the half-breeds. He had positioned himself close at hand to steal it when their work was complete.
But Doctor Hunt suspected a traitor was close by so he had to be disposed of. Luke had him kidnapped, but left Ravenwood to work on the cure. But Taylor was a wild card and didn’t follow the plans that Luke, as Elias Munn, had ordered. Taylor had started to bring vampires to the Manor and the situation became dangerous. So from his hiding place and unaware of his true identity, Luke manipulated Taylor and Phillips to invade the Manor, this would give Luke a smokescreen to slip away, meet with Sparky, kill the half-breeds and take Ravenwood back to the facility where Hunt was being forced to work on the cure. He gave Phillips instructions to take Kayla, as he needed a healthy half-breed to test on.
When the fight was over, I watched from above as Luke came back to the Manor, pretending that he had flown after Phillips in an attempt to rescue Kayla. He had deceived us all. But not Murphy.
The lights flashed inside my head again, and I was in the signal box next to the disused railway line. I was secretly awake and listening to Murphy tell Potter that he suspected a traitor amongst them. But I hadn’t been the only one pretending to be asleep that night – Luke had been awake, too. Knowing Murphy suspected a traitor, he knew he had to have him killed. With time running out and still desperate to get me to fall in love with him, he tried again to seduce me in the lake beneath the caves.
“Tell me you love me,” he said, as I now watched like a secret spectator from the shore of the lake. But, I’d started to fall in love with Potter by that time, and I couldn’t tell Luke that I loved him.
Frustrated and fearing that Murphy might discover his true identity at any time, he engineered his disappearance when the vampires attacked at the Fountain of Souls. Luke couldn’t risk being anywhere near when Murphy’s life was taken, so, pretending he had died at the hands of vampires, he skulked away until his agent, Phillips had murdered Murphy.
Fearing he might never be able to get me to truly fall in love with him, Luke decided that if he could dehumanise me, to get me to see humans as nothing more than food, or better still, get me addicted to their flesh, then I would surely choose the Vampyrus to survive over the human race when the time came for me to make my choice.
So, revealing his true self to my mother and only her, Luke seduced her into feeding me that flesh – knowing that if I had one mouthful I would become an addict. I watched from above as Luke promised her a position of power in his new kingdom , and as he did he fed her own addiction with thin slithers of human flesh.
“You like this, don’t you?” I saw him smile at her as she grabbed the meat from his fingers.
“Yes,” she groaned as she gorged on the flesh.
“You wouldn’t ever want me to take this away from you,” he teased her.
“Never,” she moaned.
“And you only want what’s best for Kiera, don’t you?” he whispered in her ear, as he fed my mother more of the flesh.
“Yes,” she whispered, sounding intoxicated.
“Then help me,” he smiled. “Help me to get Kiera to forget her human self and become a Vampyrus like us. You must feed her the flesh.”
“I will,” she smiled, as he brushed his lips over hers, and the sight sickened me. How could my mother have been so weak? She had become nothing more than a junkie, prepared to sell her daughter to get her fix.
But she hadn’t been the only one. With those flash bulbs still popping inside my head like paparazzi cameras, I saw Luke visiting Kayla in her cell at the zoo. Instructions had come to Phillips for her not to be given any of the red stuff, even though they had made her an addict. At night Luke would creep into her cell and supply her with some, pretending that he was putting his own life on the line by sneaking from his cell to help her.
“I risk everything to come here each night,” he told her. And Kayla was grateful for his help. I could hear him warn Kayla not to tell anyone – not even me.
“Why not Kiera?” Kayla had asked him around a mouthful of flesh.
“Kiera wouldn’t understand,” he said. “Kiera is special – she is unique. She can fight her cravings and she will expect you to do the same. I don’t blame Kiera as she is strong and beautiful, but we are not like her. We are weaker, we crave the flesh, but she will be able to fight it. So please, Kayla, don’t tell her I’ve given this to you or I won’t be able to get you any more.”
