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FORTY-TWO | OF CASTLES AND KINGS
I stared at the tyre tracks carved into the ground. There were two sets – proof of my encounter with Cyrus – yet the entire event felt utterly fabricated.
Despite his strange behaviour, I felt waves of calm wash over me. If meeting Cyrus had been the beginning of the end of my relationship with Harper, then today’s kiss had been the cement that sealed our joined fates. I was no longer dancing in a grey area; I had stepped out into the sunlight, no matter how shadowed and dappled the greener grass may be.
I stumbled back to my car, leaning heavily on the bonnet. My neck ached, and in the silence of my abrupt loneliness, I realised how bizarre my afternoon had been. With the blood pounding against my temples, I slithered into the driver’s seat. In my haste I’d left the door open, and as my strength left me I was grateful for my earlier hurriedness.
I wilted against the seat, closing my e
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“An ‘accident’?” Paps repeated, his eyebrows raising. His fingers jerked into air quotes around the word accident, and I couldn’t help but smile at him.I’d driven straight back to my Dads’ house. I needed to speak to Harper as soon as I could, but a mysterious accident just outside of Seafall felt too important to put off investigating. Besides, I told myself, it was safer for Harper if I focused on finding and eliminating the vampires. If the accident at Blackwood Castle was a clue, then telling my Dads about it was a priority. For now, my questions about Cyrus and his sudden upheaval would have to remain unanswered. Regardless of his behaviour, my choice was made. I could find out where it was, exactly, that he stood in due course.They’d both eyed my bruise with mild suspicion, but neither of them commented on it. They’d also avoided asking why I’d been driving towards
The Hunter and the Vampire FORTY-FOUR | UNKNOWN
As the car hurtled back towards Seafall, I wanted to bang against the windows, to smash the glass and throw myself out of the vehicle. I wanted to sprint, to feel the pull of my muscles and the stretch of my lungs.I didn’t want to be trapped inside a car, unmoving save for the steady rise and fall of my chest, stuck with questions I had no answers to. The world flashed by outside, and I wished I could blur with it.Not Veronica. This was no accident, and this was final. Veronica, limp and bloodied, her soft, delicately rounded body torn apart, was dead. There were no second chances, and I’d wasted my first.“I don’t see why she’d have gone to the castle,” Paps muttered. He shook his head, and then turned to stare out at the careening trees and verges. Perhaps he wished the same as I did.Veronica worked full time at Waypavers, but it would make sense that she’d fini
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I was filled with a sudden sense of urgency, which did not abate even as I threw back more whiskey and allowed myself to be prodded upstairs to bed. The alcohol dulled it, but my stomach churned as I considered all of the possible ways that Veronica could have died.Could Cyrus have done it? Or was I simply fixating on him as the only possible suspect? Our other leads had gone nowhere, yet I kept circling back to him.I wanted to admonish myself for feeling fear towards him, but this was a new, strange circumstance for me. My life, and morals, had always been black and white: monsters were evil, humanity was good. I fought to protect the good, the innocent, and I fought against the evil.I rolled over in bed, facing the window. I’d left my curtains open, and my body was like lead against the mattress now; they would have to remain open tonight. The sky was moonless, clouded, and even the pinprick stars had disappea
The Hunter and the Vampire FORTY-SIX | TEMPEST
The rain thundered down as I drove to the house I shared with Harper. The familiar roads felt alien to me, shrouded in darkness by the thick grey clouds. Raindrops lashed at my windows, and my wipers struggled to keep up with the onslaught.My Dads had wanted to take me shopping for a Christmas tree this morning, but I’d been insistent that I had to do this first. Then the drizzle, remnants of last night’s storm, turned to a downpour, and they decided that Christmas shopping was best left for another day.To distract myself from what was to come, I imagined running my fingers down the lengths of pine trees, their needles pricking my fingertips. I pictured the three of us struggling to force the tree into my Dads’ car – no matter how big their behemoth car was, somehow we always found a tree that was bigger.The picture morphed as I neared our house. It was no longer my Dads by my side; in their pl
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A coarse wind howled outside, but it was drowned out by Harper’s abrupt, gut-wrenching sobs. I’d expected tears, but this was worse; guttural, world-ending tremors that wracked his body. I held him tight in my arms, fearful that he might splinter across our old, worn sofa.The firelight felt less dangerous, now. It was just firelight, and I was just a girl. The room opened up, warm in its familiarity, and as I tucked Harper’s head beneath my chin I felt wholly at home. Perhaps it was strange, to feel so welcome in the face of such anguish, but it felt as though, at long last, my life was beginning to align. Harper’s, too, though he did not know it yet.I’d had time to process this decision. He had not.His lips quivered as he rose from my embrace, but his eyes held mine with a strength I had not anticipated, but was grateful for. I loved him; crushing his spirit had never been my inten
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Lightening split the sky overhead, and the rain continued to fall. It shone purple for an instant, and then, once more, darkness overcame the world. I gripped the wheel with white-knuckled, trembling hands. My heart clenched, and my lungs shivered with sobs.I sped away from my old home, and I tried not to look back. I knew that, if I did, I would only see heartbreak in its purest form, and Harper’s cries would overwhelm me. I stared forwards, my eyes fixed on the rain-drenched road, and despite my tremors I kept my foot steady on the accelerator. My numb hands began to loosen as I drifted further away from Harper, from my raw past, and my jaw hardened and set. I would not look back.I had to focus if I was going to go through with it. I had to, if I was going to confront Cyrus. I didn’t know what he was for sure; this was the only way to know. I’d taken too many chances, let too many people die.Despit
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The hour between the phone call and the meeting slipped through my fingers, too fast to hold on to. I sped to my Dads’ house, desperate for a hot shower, no matter how quick, and a hot drink to take with me. The endless rain had settled with a chill deep into my bones, and I didn’t want to see Cyrus with bedraggled hair and sodden clothes.I was not, however, desperate to talk to either of my Dads about the breakup, or where I was going in such a rush. I barged through the door, winced as it slammed behind me, and sprinted up the stairs, barely taking a second to kick off my wet boots.“Callie?” My Paps called up after me. “Is that you?”I scrubbed at my sore eyes, certain that, one way or another, I’d come face to face with him before I was ready. I raked my windswept hair back into a straggly ponytail, and ran to the bathroom to splash my face with cold water. I’d already
The Hunter and the Vampire FIFTY | MIST
There was a light, somewhere deep within, shining through the fog and reaching towards me. It was a reminder, though I could not draw myself away from Cyrus’s lips for long enough to register it.But it continued to nag and, eventually, I peeled myself away. Gasping for breath, I placed a hand on his chest to steady myself. Similarly dishevelled, he smiled down at me.“Am I forgiven?” He asked, his voice dark and teasing.I scoffed, but I was grinning, too. The push and pull of duty and (potentially fatal) attraction toyed with me, and I found that touching him was the opposite of grounding. Reluctantly, I slipped my hand away.The water roared behind us, frothing at the mouth as it tumbled into the darkness below. Up here, it was timeless: the sun hadn’t managed to break through the cloud cover, and the constant grey made it impossible to know if it was morning, noon, dusk, o
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