Pulling open his overalls, Coanda looked at us and said, “I count twenty, but there could be more. With the element of surprise on our side and if we act fast, we can take them.” Then, flexing his back muscles, his wings unfolded from his back. Shaking his wrists, his claws sprang out, and when he glanced at me again, I could see that he now had fangs. “What are you both waiting for?” he barked at Luke and me.
Just like Coanda had done, Luke pulled the top half of his overalls apart, revealing his muscular chest and stomach. Arching his back as if in pain, Luke’s wings sprang from his back and the tips trailed in the ash. Clicking his knuckles like a boxer preparing for a fight, his long, ivory-like claws shot from his fingertips. Luke could see me watching his transformation and it was as if he knew I was remembering those stolen moments we had shared together. Luke looked divine in every way. He half-smiled at me, and I saw his fangs glisten. I looked away, reached round, produced my claws and ripped the back of my overalls open. As if desperate to be released, my wings thumped out of my back and fluttered open on either side of me. Those black, bony claws snatched at the ash that fell all around us. Running the tip of my tongue over my front teeth, I could feel that my fangs had also come through.
Luke stood watching me, my wings rustling in the wind, my hair flowing back off my face. His eyes glowed green. “You look beautiful,” he whispered.
“Oh please,” Coanda cut in. “You’re gonna make me puke in a minute. Save the lovey-dovey stuff for later, pretty boy.” Then, without another word, he was rocketing away through the sky.
I smiled back at Luke and those feelings of guilt gnawed at me again. “Watch your back,” I said in warning, and then I too was racing towards the top of the Light House.
I drew level with Coanda, and as he looked at me, he shouted, “Drop!”
Looking left, then right, I saw two of the Vampyrus zooming in at us from either side. Luke swooped over me as I shot downwards. Banking, I immediately climbed sharply again, the wind and ash rushing past me. The two Vampyrus that had been heading in our direction zoomed beneath me and smashed into each other. On impact, the Vampyrus’ wings became entangled and they spun out of control towards the ground way below. They screeched frantically as they fought to untangle themselves, all the while plummeting to their deaths.
Luke spun around in the air and roared, “Coanda, there are too many of them. This is crazy!”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth, when Coanda grabbed both of us and we were corkscrewing through the air in a desperate attempt to avoid another onslaught. I screwed my eyes tightly shut and gripped hold of Luke.
As we spun through the air, I heard Luke shout, “We’re gonna die!”
“Stop whining and fight or I’ll kill you myself!” Coanda roared at Luke. Sensing that we were both out of immediate danger, Coanda let go of us and said, “Now fight!”
I sped away, through the air in pursuit of a Vampyrus that had just raced past me. I looked back and could see Luke sweeping away after another Vampyrus. Looking front again, I screamed, as a black shadow raced towards me. Before I had a chance to react, it had hold of me. The shadow stopped fluttering and I could see who it was.
Potter winked one of his black eyes at me, and said, “Sweet-cheeks, two o’clock!”
“What’s happening at two o’clock?” I breathed, shocked at seeing him.
“I’m holding a tea party,” he smirked. “What do you think I mean when I say ‘two o’clock’?”
I spun around in mid-air to face two o’clock. Without realising it, my claws were pointed out before me and I swiped them at one of the approaching Vampyrus. The sound of its bony ribcage snapping against my long, pointed fingernails made me wince as it flew backwards, spinning towards the molten lava. I watched as it plummeted through the sky and thumped into another of its kind which soared below. This Vampyrus fell backwards, pin-wheeling through the sky, the claws at the tip of each wing frantically clutching at the air as if in some way they could hold onto nothing and save itself.
My attention was drawn away from the freefalling Vampyrus as one of Potter’s claws went soaring past my face.
“Whoa!” I yelled, spinning around to see Potter tearing away in a spray of black shadows. As he snaked back and forth through the air, he screamed in rage, and as he did, I prayed he wasn’t Elias Munn. As if being able to hear my thoughts, Potter snatched a quick look back over his shoulder at me with his dead, black eyes. He grinned, then sliced off the head of an approaching Vampyrus. A jet of blood shot up into the air, then showered down again, covering Potter’s naked chest.
Still, another and another came at him. I watched as Potter’s claws ripped into the Vampyrus. They shrieked in agony and spun away. One of them almost seemed to roll onto its back as it clawed at the wound that Potter had opened in its swollen-looking belly. Its wings fluttered uselessly on either side as it spiralled through the air towards the ground. Another of the Vampyrus zoomed in close, banked sharply as if needing to gain momentum, then came racing back towards us.
“We’re too outnumbered!’ I shouted at Potter. Then, scanning the sky, I added, “Where’s Luke and Coanda?”
Potter ignored me as he concentrated on killing the Vampyrus that sped towards us in unrelenting waves. I straightened myself and began to beat my wings, sweeping this way and that and clawing at anything that came near. I glanced at Potter and he looked wild – insane – and again I caught a fleeting glimpse of his dead, black eyes. They looked like they had when he’d killed Eloisa – soulless. He moved with such speed that he became almost a blur. Potter extended his arms on either side of his body and spun his claws like a set of helicopter rotary blades. He leapt through the sky, and as he went, he slashed at the air in several quick and precise movements, slicing through an approaching Vampyrus and removing its bony legs. The Vampyrus spat and hissed in anger as its legs floated harmlessly away. The loss of its legs caused the Vampyrus to fall into an uncontrollable spin, as if by losing them it had lost its ability to balance.
I searched the sky frantically for Luke and Coanda again, but couldn’t see them anywhere.
“We’ve lost Luke and Coanda!” I warned Potter as I raced towards him.
“No we haven’t, they’re over there!” Potter shouted back, pointing ahead of us with one hooked claw.
I looked in the direction he was pointing and could see Luke straddling one of the Vampyrus as his claws sliced and whooshed through the air. Coanda was zooming back and forth, lunging at passing Vampyrus and ripping lumps of black flesh from them with his fangs. As each of the Vampyrus screeched in agony, Coanda roared insanely with anger and punched the air with his claws. He looked as if he was enjoying every second.
Luke swooped through the air on top of the Vampyrus as he cut and thrust his way through any of the creatures that dared to fly too near to him. Luke’s arms moved with lightning speed. At no time, as he hacked and jabbed, did I see the slightest glimmer of emotion on his face.
My attention was drawn by the sound of screeching from above and I glanced up to see one of the Vampyrus racing above me. It was so close that I could see the long, black hairs that hung from its legs snagging in the wind. Before I had the chance to lash out with my claws, it snatched hold of Potter and was now racing away with him up into the air. Potter kicked out wildly with his legs, but he couldn’t work himself free from the creature’s grasp.
“Bring him back!” I hollered, as the Vampyrus soared away.
“We’ve got to get him back,” I heard Luke shout.
I looked to my left and could see that he had drawn level with me and was hovering only a few feet away. Then he was gone again, driving on ahead and dissecting anything that got too close to him.
“I thought you hated him!” I yelled.
Looking back at me, Luke half-grinned and shouted, “I don’t want them to kill him, I want to do it!”
I could see Potter way ahead in the distance as he dangled beneath the Vampyrus, his arms and legs waving and kicking desperately about. Tucking my arms in beside me, the little black fingers at the tip of each wing clutching at the air, I shot after him. I banked to the left a little then to the right to avoid approaching Vampyrus. Then, with my wings beating so fast on either side of me that they were just a haze, I zoomed after Potter.
Giant Vampyrus dived towards me on either side. As I grew more confident in flying, I tried to do a back flip out of their way – but I still had a lot to learn. The aerial-acrobatic move I performed was more like a cartwheel, and I came crashing down on the approaching Vampyrus. With my claws extended before me to break my fall, I unintentionally skewered one of the Vampyrus in its fury belly. There was a popping sound, and I looked down in disgust to see the creature’s entrails spill from it. They flew out behind the Vampyrus in a black stream, like an aircraft ditching its fuel. It screamed in pain and dropped through the air like a stone.
I glanced up to see Potter was only feet away from me now. I swooped along beside the Vampyrus that had hold of him and began to slash at it with my claws. The Vampyrus turned to look at me, its face contorted in a mask of rage. Its jaws flapped in the rushing wind and its eyes grew fat and wide.
“You can’t win, Kiera Hudson!” the creature screamed at me, and hearing it say my name made me falter.
“Elias Munn has led you into a trap!” it roared.
“Where is he?” I screamed back over the roar of the wind that whipped all around us, and I clawed at the creature again.
Then, shaking Potter so savagely with its talon-like claws, the Vampyrus sent Potter flying through the air. I watched him spin away, and instead of unfolding his wings and soaring up, he continued to fall towards the lava below. He looked to be unconscious. The Vampyrus who had flung Potter through the air started to change shape. I watched in horror as its body rippled, its coarse, black hair fell away to reveal Phillips.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Oh Kiera, don’t look so surprised,” he mocked. “We knew you were coming. Do you really think we would protect the Light House with just a handful of us? The Light House is the heart of The Hollows.”