I reached the bottom of the stairs, and as I passed the dinning area, I heard raised voices coming from the small office behind the bar. Stepping into the shadows by the door, I tried to listen to what was being said. The voices were that of the old woman and her son, Roland, and they were arguing.
"I've had enough, Roland," the old woman croaked. "I can't take it anymore."
"Mother, I've already told you, I can handle it, okay?" Roland snapped.
"We need to leave here," she said, almost seeming to plead with him.
"How many ways have I got to tell you ma? I've got everything under control!" Roland shouted.
"But what if they come for us?" she said, and she sounded frightened. "What if we're next?"
"They won't," he said. "We're safe here."
"There are only so many cloves of garlic I can put up, only so many crucifixes and bottles of holy water I can sell before -" she started.
"Before what, ma?" he cut over her.
"Before there aren't any more people left in this town to protect from -" she hissed and again he shouted her down.
"I'm done talking about this with you!" he barked. "I know what I'm doing."
Without warning, the office door flew open, and he stormed from around the bar, heading straight towards me. Slinking back into the shadows, I made myself as small as possible. He passed within a few inches of me. He was so close, I could smell the sweat leaking from his pores.
Once I was certain he'd gone, I crept from my hiding place and headed towards the door. Pulling it open, I heard the old woman's voice behind me. "Don't be forgetting this," she said, throwing me another bottle of holy water.
Snatching it out of the air, and not knowing if she was aware that I'd been eavesdropping, I said, "Thank you."
"You never know when you might need it," she said, without smiling.
Turning back towards the door, I heard her say, "If you had half the sense I think you have, you would leave this town and never come back."
Without looking at her, I pushed open the door and sneaked out into the snow, with the old woman's warning ringing in my ears. She was right, I should leave, run and keep running and never look back. But I couldn't and that reason was Luke. Everything he had told me last night had turned my world on its head. Everything that I had learnt - everything I thought I knew - was now gone. It was like I was learning from scratch. What I'd seen last night was the stuff of horror movies and fairy tales. But I knew it was all real. I had been part of it - I had become part of it. Luke was a vampire bat or a Vampyrus as he liked to be known. But was there really a difference? There was so much more that I needed to know about him. But wasn't that what had hooked me, the fact that he was a mystery?
When I'd been with Luke the night before, as he revealed his true self to me and told me about his world, it was like he had me under a spell and I kind of just accepted everything he had told me. But now that I was alone and he was away from me, that spell had been broken - a little at least.
Trudging through the snow, hundreds of questions now spiralled through my mind and I didn't have the answers. Was Luke immortal? If not, did he age like a human? Was I safe with him? Then the note, which had been left for me, came to the forefront of my mind. Could I trust Luke Bishop?
Not knowing the answers to any of these questions, I struggled on towards the town. The pale winter sun was setting, and wanting to be at the police station before nightfall, I quickened my pace. I'd walked a mile or so, when in the distance, I could see something black running towards me in the snow. Stopping, I crouched low, immediately on guard. With my heart racing, I burrowed into a nearby hedgerow. Whatever it was, it was panting as if exhausted and out of breath. With my curiosity getting the better of me, I peeked from my hiding place and almost gasped in relief when I realised what it was coming towards me. Crawling from the snow-laden bush, I stood up and said, "Here boy! Come here!"
Seeing me, the Labrador came bounding forwards, its huge pink tongue lolling from the corner of its mouth. Recognising it as belonging to the old man I'd spoken with the day before outside the police station, I took the dog by the collar and patted him. The dog whined and pulled away from me.
"What's up, boy?" I asked it.
Again it wined and pulled in the direction that it had appeared from. Then pulling free of me, it ran back down the road. I chased after it, taking each step as carefully as I could, not wanting to slip and break an arm, or worse, a leg. I didn't fancy lying out in the snow with a broken leg as night started to fall. I thought of those vampires again, and my skin crawled.
Catching up with the dog by a gate in the wall, it stood and barked at me. As I neared it, the dog bounded off again, as if it wanted me to follow. So I did. Making my way across the field, I could see the dog had stopped by something lying stretched out in the snow. As I drew near, I could see the Labrador prodding it with its snout. He looked back at me and whined.
Approaching the dog, I could see that it was its owner lying face up in the snow. At first, I thought that perhaps the old man had lost his footing while out walking and had collapsed. But as I drew closer, I could see that the snow around him was stained crimson. Following the bloody splash marks, I made my way towards the dead man. I could see tracks around the body, and I was careful not to destroy them. Placing my hands over my mouth, I looked down at the mutilated body. Straightaway, I could see that this attack had been far more frenzied than the attack on the Blake boy. That had been bad enough - but this was something else. At least the boy had been left with his face.
The old man lay spread-eagle in the snow. Most of his face and neck had been ripped off. I could see the sinews and muscles that his face had once been attached to. His eye sockets were empty, just two black holes looking back at me. The man's teeth were still intact, but without any lips, he looked as if he were grinning. His jacket and shirt had been slashed in two, revealing his torn open chest cavity. Several of his ribs had been broken and they stuck out of his chest like white-coloured fingers. His lungs had been half eaten and what was left looked like a pile of pink blancmange. The dog looked at me and whimpered. Reaching out for it, the dog licked what was left of his owner's face, then ran off into the distance.
Kneeling down, I ran the tips of my fingers over the corpse, my eyes flitting back and forth - unconsciously taking in every minute detail. I dabbed at the blood around the main wound, then the blood further out around the edges, and then blood sprayed over the snow. I got up and paced around the man laid before me. Looking left and right, up and down, noting every little thing I could see, almost without knowing that I was doing it. Within seconds, I knew how long ago the killing had taken place, four people had taken part, the same three as before, but this time there had been someone new. And the tracks they had left were different - somehow odd. But it wasn't just that. There was something missing. With the light fading fast, I set off back across the field and towards town.
Pushing open the door to the police station, I rushed in. Stomping the snow from my boots and brushing it from my hair and shoulders, I looked up to see Sergeant Murphy and Constable Potter standing in the office, on the other side of the counter.
"Bishop told us you would come back," Potter said. "He also confessed that you know about...us."
"I don't have time for that now..." I started, still out of breath from my hike across the fields to the station.
"He hasn't done you a favour revealing himself to you," Murphy said, coming towards me, in that lopsided way of his. "In fact, he's put you in even greater danger."
"I'll worry about that later," I said, trying to catch my breath. "I've found another one."
"Another what?" Potter said, coming closer.
"Victim," I wheezed. "This one's bad though. It's not like before."
"How?" Murphy asked, his face looking worn and serious.
"They took his face. I've never seen anything like it. The attack was frenzied - savage," I said, and just recalling that mutilated man lying in the snow, made my legs want to buckle beneath me.
Pulling up a chair, Murphy told me to sit down and calm myself. Potter handed me a cup of water and I noted that this was the first kind thing he had done for me since taking up my post in The Ragged Cove.
Once I'd caught my breath, I looked at them and said, "There were four of them. They left tracks in the snow. I could have only just missed them."
"By how long?" Potter asked.
"Five minutes," I said, looking at him. Again he rolled his eyes as if dismissing what I'd just said. "Look, blood behaves like many other salty solutions and freezes at between minus two and minus three degrees Celsius," I explained, not wanting to sound as if I were patronising him. "Blood starts to coagulate after less than ten minutes outside of the body, although if you had a shallow pool of blood, it would start to congeal more rapidly around the edges. Temperature also plays a big part - the warmer it is, the slower the coagulation - the colder it is, the faster the coagulation."
Potter and Murphy looked at me blankly.
"It's freezing out there, right?" I said, exasperated. "So if we know that blood clots in less than ten minutes, but more quickly in the cold, the blood on that man was still tacky. My guess is that he couldn't have been murdered more than five minutes before I found his body."
"Where did you learn all this shit?" Potter said.
"It's not -" I started.
"What else did you see?" Murphy asked me, glancing at Potter as if to tell him to be quiet.
"Like I said, they left footprints - four individual sets. But there was something wrong with one of them, I think they had an injury but I can't be sure," I told them.
"Could you see where the tracks led to and from? If we're quick enough, we might be able to track them," Potter said, pulling on his jacket.
"No, it was like before," I said. "There were only tracks around the body - so they must've flown in and out of the crime scene."
"Vampires!" Murphy seethed.
Then looking at the both of them, I said, "Who said anything about vampires?"
"What you talking about?" Potter said, fixing his utility belt around his waist.
"That man wasn't killed by vampires," I said.
"Who then?" Murphy snapped, desperate to find out what I knew.
"Vampyrus," I said. "That man was murdered by bats."
"Ridiculous," Potter scoffed. But I noticed the look of concern that flashed between him and his sergeant.
"How can you be certain?" Murphy asked, and I detected a tremor in his voice.
"Like I told you, that man was murdered not long before I discovered him," I started to explain.
"So?" Potter said.
Standing and slapping the palms of my hands against my brow in frustration, I said, "My god, you just don't see it do you?"
"See what?" Murphy shouted, sounding pissed at me all over again.
"It was still daylight when the killing took place!" I almost screamed at them. "Vampires can't live in the light - but Vampyrus can. But not only that - vampires can't fly!"
"But there was only meant to be the one!" Potter said, looking at Murphy. "We were here to track just the one!"
Sergeant Murphy looked at Potter and seemed to be taking in what I'd just said. He was quiet and thoughtful for a moment, then said, "If the girl is right and we have more than one Vampyrus addicted to the blood of humans - then we've got problems."
"Problems?" Potter roared. "If we don't find them - we could have an epidemic!"
"The matter is far worse than I first thought," Murphy said, sucking on the end of his pipe. "Where did you find this body?"
"Do you have a map?" I asked.
Without saying anything, Potter pulled one from a desk drawer and spread it out flat.
Looking at the map, I got my bearings, then tracing my finger across it; I stopped at a field about a mile and half from the Crescent Moon Inn. "There," I said. "That's where the body is."
Pulling on his jacket and taking some large flashlights, Murphy and Potter made for the police station door.
"Hang on!" I said to them.
"For what?" Potter asked, looking back at me.
"Where's Luke?"
Glancing at one another, Murphy turned to look at me and said, "He's gone under."
"Under where?" I asked, my heart beginning to race.
"To the caves," Murphy said, sloping back towards me.
"Home?" I asked, realising that they were talking about The Hollows. "But why?"
"When Rom discovered that he had told you everything," Murphy explained, "he sent Luke back below ground."
"But he saved my life," I said.
"He broke the rules," Potter cut in.
"What rules?" I snapped. "That he shouldn't have helped me - saved me?"
"He shouldn't have told you about us," Murphy said. "He had no right."
"But he did what he thought was right," I said, trying to defend him.
Then coming towards me, his eyes fixed on mine and his voice low, Potter said, "Don't be fooled to think that Luke Bishop loves you, Kiera."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked staring back, trying not to let the hurt I was feeling show.
"He saved your life to ease his guilty conscience," he said, and half-smiled.
"What's he got to feel guilty about?" I asked, now feeling confused.
Before Potter had a chance to reply, Murphy barked, "Enough Sean! Enough, already!"
Slinking away from me as if he'd been bitten, Potter went back to the door where Murphy was waiting for him. "Let's go and sort this mess out," Murphy said.
"What about me?" I asked as they went to leave.
"What about you?" Murphy asked.
"Aren't I coming with you?"
"No," Murphy said. "You'll only slow us down."
"I can lead you straight to the body."
"You don't really think we're going to walk in this weather do you?" Potter said, then gave me a knowing wink.
God, I hated that guy. "But what am I meant to do here, all on my own?"
"Turn off all the lights and lock all the windows and doors," Murphy said, as they stepped out into the night. Racing around the counter, I yanked open the door, but the street was deserted, they'd already gone. Then in the distance, I heard what sounded like two loud thunderclaps.