Vampire Hollows (21 page)

“Faster!” Coanda shouted. “Fill the hole!”

Like desperate animals in their burrows, we raked at the walls with our claws, and I shot a sideways glance to see Seth pounding away at the rocks with his giant paws. It showered down in jagged lumps until we had closed the entrance to the tunnel and sealed ourselves inside. I could hear the half-breeds on the other side scrambling and scratching, desperate to find a way into the tunnel.

“We’ve got to keep moving!” Coanda barked from within the darkness.

I narrowed my eyes into slits and peered through the dark and could just make out his outline as he moved slowly into the tunnel. Then I heard the sound of fabric being torn. Within moments there was a flash of orange light as Potter flipped his Zippo lighter to life. He had ripped the sleeve from his overalls, wrapped this around a large splinter of wood that had come from the planks I had pulled down. I watched his face glow yellow as he held the flame to the torch he had made.

Smiling, he looked at me and said, “A smoker’s way saves the day.”

“That stuff will kill you,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, and so will a lot of other things,” he winked back at me.

Luke brushed quietly past us and began to follow Coanda down into the tunnel. Seth began to twitch and spasm beside us as he changed back into his human form. He looked at me, his yellow eyes glowing as fiercely as the torch that Potter held in his hand. Then, pulling the beak of his baseball cap down over his eyes, he walked away.

“C’mon, sweet-cheeks,” Potter said to me and I followed him into the tunnel.

We hadn’t walked far, when a dirty yellow fog began to swirl up from the ground and surround us. It had a bitter smell and choking quality. I covered my mouth and nose with my hands and coughed. But, the deeper we went into the tunnels, the thicker the fog became and even the light from Potter’s torch failed to light the way. Something scuttled over my feet and I gasped.

“Take it easy, tiger,” Potter whispered from within the fog,” It was just a rat.”

“I don’t like rats,” I told him. “And besides, it felt way too big to be a rat.”

“God knows what’s lurking down here,” Luke suddenly said from beside me, the fog now so thick, I hadn’t even been aware he had been there.

“That’s just your imagination,” Potter said back.

“Is it?” Seth grinned as he loomed up so close to me, that I could see the giant rat he held in his fist. It was the size of an overweight cat. The rat kicked wildly in his grip, its unnaturally long tail swishing back and forth. With his eyes spinning like two suns, Seth rammed the rat’s head into his mouth and snapped his jaws closed. The sound of the rat’s skull being crushed by Seth’s teeth made me gag.

“You’re so disgusting,” I heaved and moved away, losing sight of him again in the yellow fog.

I continued forward, and as I did I was sure I could hear the sound of voices. It was faint at first, like children whispering behind their hands. Someone brushed past me, but I didn’t know who.

“Potter?” I called out but he made no reply.

“Can anyone else hear those voices?” I asked, as the fog swirled all around me.

Silence.

Then, those little voices came again. It was definitely the sound of children – I was sure of it.

“Can anyone else hear those children?” I called out.

There was no answer, only the touch of someone as they hurried past me, as if running.

“Who’s there?” I shouted, now beginning to feel panicked and lost. Then, there was the sound of a scuffle, like two people fighting.

“What’s going on?” I called out, my heart racing as I spun around on the spot trying to locate the sound.

There was a sudden cry as if whoever had made it was in pain. I turned towards the sound. There was more running as someone pushed past me, shoving me against the wall of the tunnel.

“Help me!” a voice sounded from somewhere in the fog. “Come quickly! He’s dead!”

Chapter Thirty-Five

With my hands held out before me and my heart thumping, I staggered through the fog towards the sound of the voice that kept shouting over and over again, “He’s dead! He’s dead!” My ability to see through the dark had no effect down in Murka Tunnels. The fog was so thick and dirty I could just make out my own hand in front of my face.

I headed towards the voice as I cut my way through the murkiness. As I drew nearer, it lost its muffled quality and I realised it was Potter who was calling for help. I made my way as fast as I could towards him. And then through the smog, I could just make out the glow of his torch as he waved it back and forth through the air.

I reached him, and standing so close that we almost touched, he looked through the haze at me and said, “Coanda’s been murdered.”

“What?” I gasped.

“Take a look for yourself,” Potter said, bending down.

I got down onto my knees, and put my hands to my face in shock. Spread-eagled against the wall of the tunnel was Coanda. He was slumped forward, his chin resting against his chest. Gently, I raised his head, and could see his dead eyes staring back at me through the yellow fog that swirled all around him. I looked down at the ragged hole in his chest and could see that his heart had been removed.

“Who did this?” I whispered, glancing over at Potter.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But take a look at this.”

Holding up the torch, he passed it close to the wall just above Coanda’s corpse. Written in blood above his head was this:

Kiera follow the sound of the children

“What do you think it means?” Potter asked me.

“Haven’t you heard them?” I whispered.

“Heard who?”

“The children.”

“What children?” he pushed.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said standing.

“What’s going on here?” Potter asked me as he stood up, and as he did, I saw the hand that he held the torch with was smeared with blood.

“You tell me,” I shuddered.

Potter glanced at his hand, and realising that I had seen the blood, he sighed and said, “When I found Coanda, I touched him. I thought he had stumbled and tripped in this goddamn fog – that was all. I must have got some of his blood on me.”

Before I had a chance to say anything, Seth and Luke appeared from the smog. To be able to see each other clearly, we had to stand almost side by side. I felt Seth brush against me and I recoiled. He felt me flinch, and his eyes shone at me from within the gloom and I could just make out his rotting teeth as he smiled with pleasure at the thought of repulsing me.

“What was all the shouting about?” Luke wheezed as if choking on the fog.

Potter held the torch over Coanda’s head. “Now we are three,” he said.

“Four,” Seth corrected him.

“I’d forgotten all about you,” Potter said dryly.

“Who killed him?” Luke asked.

“I wonder?” I said, peering at Potter. With our number depleting by the hour, the list of suspects was growing smaller and smaller. I didn’t have to
see
anything to know that the killer – this Elias Munn – was either Luke or Potter. But to even think that made my heart ache. How could either one of them be Elias Munn? It couldn’t be possible – I would’ve seen it. But there was one other, and I glared at Jack Seth through the smog. I had believed him to be dead after Potter had pushed him over the cliffedge. But he had survived and had followed us. Maybe that’s who Kayla had heard following us. But would Kayla have fallen for Seth? He was an ugly, disgusting child killer. Then, seeing his eyes spinning through the fog, I understood how he got Kayla to fall in love with him.

“I love you,”
she had said to whoever had been hiding behind the weeping willow. Seth had entranced her with his stare. Isidor had said how he couldn’t understand how Kayla had grown close to this person. She hadn’t fallen in love with him at all. Seth had tricked her like his son had tricked his victims – those women he had butchered. With my heart racing in my chest, I understood why Kayla had undressed just before being murdered. Seth had seduced her with his stare. He had made her want him, just like he had made me desire him when I had looked into his eyes in the caves beneath the Fountain of Souls. Even though I could see him torturing me, hurting me, I had still seen myself undress for him, lay down for him and let him take me.

“And what does that message mean?” Luke suddenly asked, but I hardly heard it. I couldn’t take my eyes off the murdering Lycanthrope.

“Maybe you should ask him?” I said, pointing at Jack Seth.

“Me?” Seth sneered, with a bemused smile on his face.

“Or perhaps I should call you Elias Munn?” I whispered in shock.

“What are you going on about,” he barked. “I know these tunnels are believed to be filled with a fog that can drive you insane, but I had no idea the effects would take hold so fast.”

Ignoring Seth, Potter looked at me and said, “What are you talking about, Kiera?”

“Jack Seth is the killer -”

“We’ve known that for years,” Luke cut in.

“No!” I snapped. “He’s responsible for killing Kayla, Isidor, Coanda, Murphy and all the others that have lost their lives…”

“I didn’t kill Murphy,” Seth spat. “That was Phillips, you saw him…”

“No, but you led us to him,” I cut over him. “It was you who told Murphy that we should pay a visit to that monastery where we all nearly lost our lives. How have I been so dumb? How have I not seen it?”

“I don’t have to stand here and listen to…” Seth started, but before he’d had the chance to finish, Luke and Potter had taken hold of him. “This is an outrage,” he struggled.

“That’s the real reason you wanted to get to the Dust Palace because you haven’t been able to get me to fall in love with you,” I said. “So many times you’ve looked into my eyes and shown me the perverted pleasures you have to offer. You hoped that I would fall for you. But each time I’ve resisted, so now your last chance is to get inside the Dust Palace and kill the Elders.”

Then, fixing me with his stare, he looked into my eyes and said, “You stupid girl, you didn’t resist me. It was I who resisted you. You couldn’t have stopped me from taking you if I’d really wanted you. Nothing could have stopped that. But you were my test, Kiera Hudson. To be able to resist you, to not take you, rip you apart, eat you every time I laid eyes on you, told me that I could be redeemed, that I could fight my desire to kill and butcher.”

“I don’t believe you could resist killing anyone,” I hissed. “Potter was right, you are murdering scum and you deserve to die for what you’ve done.”

“Then kill me,” he suddenly growled, and struggled free of Luke’s and Potter’s hold. “If you really believe that I’m Elias Munn, kill me now.” Ripping his bandanna from his throat, he threw it at me and bared his neck. “Go on, suck the life out of me, you bloodsucking vampire bat, because that’s what you are!”

With images of Kayla and Isidor racing across my mind, I lunged at Seth and sunk my fangs into his ropey-looking neck. His hot blood washed over my tongue and down my throat, where it burnt like acid. Then, as Seth writhed against me as if gaining some morbid pleasure from me feeding off him, I heard those children’s voices again. But this time they were closer, as if whispering in my ear.

“No, Kiera,” their voices sung softly all around me. “Bring the Lycanthrope to us and you will
see
all.” Then, those children, if that’s really what they were, giggled and were gone again.

Opening my eyes, I took my mouth from Seth’s neck.

“What did you hear?” he asked me as I stepped away, wiping his blood from my lips with his red bandanna and placing it in my pocket. Continuing to stare at me, he said, “You heard them, didn’t you? You heard the children.”

“What children?” I gasped, feeling out of breath.

“You heard the voices of the gods,” he said.

“The gods?” I asked, feeling light-headed.

“I heard them once before,” he said. “The day they cursed me and my race. And that’s my reason for wanting to seek an audience with them; I want to beg them to lift the curse they placed on us all those years ago.”

And then as if being haunted by ghosts, I heard the sound of those children’s voices again, whispering and playfully giggling amongst the fog. I turned my back on Seth and peered into the yellow vapour that swirled all around me. The voices came again, but this time they were fainter as if moving away from me. I followed the sound through the tunnel.

“Hey, Kiera!” Potter called out from behind me. “What are we doing with the wolf man?”

“Bring him with you,” I said. “But don’t let him leave your side.”

“Easier said than done in all this fog,” I heard Luke say.

But I didn’t stop, I just followed those voices.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Through the tunnels I went, not knowing where I was going or what direction I was heading. It didn’t seem to matter to me. For some reason I trusted those innocent-sounding voices. I could hear Potter, Luke, and Seth behind me as they followed the sounds of my footsteps echoing back down through the tunnels. Could they hear the voices? I doubted it or they would have asked me about them. No, these children, whoever they were, were only talking to me – guiding me.

I don’t know for how long I followed the voices through the labyrinth of tunnels, but eventually the fog started to thin out and eventually evaporate. There was a dim, orange light at the end of the tunnel, and I sped up.

“Where are you taking us?” Potter called out.

Ignoring him, I raced forward towards the light. Stumbling out of the tunnel, I gasped in a mouthful of air, glad to be free of the suffocating smog. Blinking in the light that now bathed me, I looked ahead. The others stumbled into the light and coughed and sputtered as they gasped in lungfuls of fresh air.

We stood in a narrow valley which ran between two vast cliffs that towered above us on either side. But unlike the red rock that seemed to make up so much of The Hollows, the cliffs were a dull grey as if they had had their colour sucked from them. The sky above us was a black void. There were no twinkling stalagmites here. The orange glow that illuminated the valley came from the ground, which was covered in a similar type of moss I had seen back at the resistance camp. Just like the ground there, this was spongy, like a luxuriant carpet. At the opposite end of the valley, I could see what appeared to be four giant pillars sculpted into the rocks. Set between these pillars was a rusty-looking door that stretched up for as far as the eye could see.