Opening my eyes, it took a moment for me to realise that I was lying on the bed back in my room at the Crescent Moon Inn. The lamp on the desk had been switched on and my room was bathed in a warm orange glow. I didn't know how long I'd been unconscious, and my shoulders felt raw. Touching them, I remembered the vampire digging his claws into me. Then I remembered being rescued by that winged creature and I sat up. It was then that I noticed someone sitting in the shadows in the corner of the room.
"Who's there?" I asked, and my throat felt sore from all the screaming I'd done earlier that night.
"It's just me," the figure said, standing up and moving into the light.
Watching Luke step from the shadows, I groaned, "What do you want?" I still felt angry towards him for what had happened at the police station.
"I just popped by to see that you were okay," he said, coming closer.
Laying back down and turning away from him, I said, "Well, now that you can see I'm fine, you can go - I have nothing to say to you."
"I thought you were leaving town?" he said.
"It didn't quite work out that way," I said, my back still facing him. "Anyway, how did you know I was here?"
"I drove past and saw the lamp on in your room, so I thought..." he started.
Rolling over to face him, I said, "How did you get in here?"
"Your door was open," he told me.
"Well if you don't mind," I said, "you can go now and close the door behind you."
"What's wrong with you?" he asked, looking down at me.
"What's wrong with me?" I hissed and sat up on my bed. "You lied back there at the station. You could've got me out of trouble."
"How?"
"You said that you didn't see anything," I started. "You claimed that you only saw me drive away in the police car, then you came running after me once I'd crashed the car."
"That's right," he said, trying to hold my stare.
"You didn't run anywhere that night," I told him. "You must have been right on top of me when that car crashed, which means that you must have seen that vampire."
Luke shook his head in denial.
"It was raining that night Luke," I reminded him. "There were mud and puddles everywhere. If you'd ran down that road like you claimed to have done, then the bottoms of your trousers would've been splashed with mud." Then looking down at the hems of his trousers, I added, "See, there's not a fleck of mud on them."
Looking down, then back at me, he said, "These are a different pair of trousers."
"Liar," I snapped. "They're the trousers you had on last night up at the graveyard."
"How do you know that?" he asked me.
Pointing to his right thigh, I said, "Egg and ketchup - that's how I know!"
"What?" he asked, sounding baffled.
"Last night in the police car, I said I knew that you had an egg sandwich for your dinner because you had dripped egg and ketchup down the front of your tie and trousers," I said. "The stains are still there Luke, but I can't see any mud."
Glancing down at the stain, then back at me, he said "You don't miss a trick, do you Kiera?"
Thinking for a moment, I said, "Perhaps I do."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if you didn't run down that lane, how did you get to me and the car so quickly?" I said. "That's what I can't figure out."
Staring at me with his pale green eyes, Luke said, "Kiera, I can't lie to you anymore." Then taking off his jacket, he unbuttoned his shirt and let it flutter to the floor.
Holding up my hand, I said, "I'm flattered Luke, but I'm not sure if this is such a good idea."
Then staring at me with such intensity, it felt as if he were looking into my very soul, he said, "No, Kiera. You don't understand."
"Understand what?" I started, unable to take my eyes off his well-defined chest and flat stomach.
"This," he said turning around.
Shrinking back on my bed, I watched as Luke's shoulder blades rippled beneath his pale skin. The tissue and muscles on his back shifted and stretched as what looked like a series of black bones grew from his back. Luke rocked forward as if in pain, the black-looking bones reaching up out of his ribcage and shoulders. A thin, silky membrane hung beneath the bones and I could see that he was growing a pair of wings.
They reminded me of the pterodactyl dinosaurs my father had shown me in picture books as a girl. Each wing seemed to have a long bony shoulder and arm that was about six feet in length. Beneath this arm hung the wing, which was a see-through, stretchy-looking membrane. At the end of each arm protruded a wrist and attached to these were three skeletal-looking fingers.
Covering my mouth with my hands, I watched in disbelief and wonder as Luke shook from head to foot, the metamorphoses complete. His huge, black wings stretched out on either side of him. Turning around, his arms by his sides, Luke looked at me.
"Please don't freak out," he said.
"Whoa," I breathed.
"Is that all you have to say?" he asked me, and it was as he spoke that I noticed his two front incisors had grown into two long sharpened points.
"What do you want me to say?" I whispered in awe. Although I should've been terrified by the creature that stood before me, I wasn't. Luke looked like an angel - a dark angel. If it were possible, his eyes glowed greener than before, his skin looked as smooth and as white as marble, and his lips were a dark blood-red. His jet-black hair shone like an onyx stone.
"How long have you been able to do that...that thing with the wings, exactly?" I said.
"Forever," he said. There was a moment's silence, neither us not knowing what to say next.
"How do I look?" he suddenly asked with a nervous smile, still unsure of what my reaction was going to be at seeing him like this.
"You look stunning," I breathed.
"Stunning?" he smiled. "Shouldn't that be 'handsome'?"'
"No, you look more than that," I told him, a warm sensation flowing over me. "It was you?"
"What was?"
"It was you who saved me from those vampires tonight?" I asked.
"Yes, it was."
Curious as to what that made him, I said, "So are you like them? A vampire, I mean?"
Coming towards me, Luke sat on the edge of my bed, and I couldn't help but notice how his wings seemed to tremor as he moved. Looking into my eyes, he said, "Some would call me a vampire, but I'm a Vampyrus."
"A Vampyrus?" I asked, confused.
"The Vampyrus are what humans would commonly call Desmodus Rotundas."
"The what?"
"Vampire bats," he said.
Trying to understand what he was telling me, I said, "So where do you live - hang out? Where do you come from?"
"I come from The Hollows," he said, and his voice sounded distant as if he were picturing it in his mind. "The Hollows are the caves and the caverns beneath us.''
"So you live underground then?" I said, confused. "So like there's a whole race of you living down there?"
"There always has been," he explained. "Even before humans, the Vampyrus have lived in the holes, the tunnels, and the caverns that exist beneath the Earth."
"So why are you masquerading as a police officer up here?" I asked him, and if it wasn't for the fact that I had a winged man sitting at the foot of my bed, I wouldn't have believed a word of what I was being told.
"We've come to hunt out one of our own," he told me, and his eyes had grown dark, their spark faded.
"Why? What has this Vampyrus done?"
"Kiera," he said, "for hundreds of years our race has been travelling up to the surface. Some of us have managed to secretly work our way into the highest levels and positions in your society. But all of us, up until now, have respected your rules, your laws and your world. But there is one who has broken those rules, and instead of returning to The Hollows to satisfy their hunger, they've given into their desires and taken human blood. By doing this, they created a mutant breed - half-human and half-Vampyrus - they are what your race calls vampires. They are the dead - the undead."
"Who is this Vampyrus?" I asked him.
"We don't know," Luke confessed. "But we have managed to track him down to The Ragged Cove. It is somewhere here that he hides."
"But he can't be that hard to find," I said. "I mean, you must be able to recognise one of your own when you see them."
"But how?" he asked. "Didn't you believe me to be human? Could you tell by looking at me that I was not one of you?"
Shaking my head, I said, "Well no, I guess."
"Then you can see the challenge that faces us," he said. "But the longer it takes us to find him, the more he will feed and the more vampires will be created - until one day your world will be infested with them."
"Why doesn't he just stop?" I asked. "If he can see the damage he is causing, why doesn't he go back underground until his hunger passes?"
"Once tasted, human blood becomes an unbreakable addiction," he told me. "And that need - desire - never goes away. I've heard it described as being like a fire in your soul that can't be put out."
"So he can't be cured of this craving?"
"There have been others throughout history that have come and fed," he said just above a whisper.
"And they were cured?" I asked.
"Yes."
"How?"
"Like me, Vampyrus were sent to hunt them down and destroy them," he told me, his eyes turning dark.
"So you're not like a regular vampire - what I mean is, you can go out in the light?" I asked him.
"Our natural habitat is darkness, but some of us can tolerate daylight," he explained. "As for me, I'm not a great lover of the sun. I can put up with it for a few hours before my skin starts to itch and blister. Others last only minutes, before their skin starts to smoke."
"So are you like those other vampires?" I asked him, remembering how he had reacted to my cut wrist and how I'd seen him sniff the blood stains on the sweatshirt. "What I'm trying to say is - do you need blood - human blood to survive?"
"It depends," he said.
"On what?" I asked, letting go of his hand.
Sensing my concern, Luke said. "You don't need to be scared of me. Very much like the sun, it's different for each of the Vampyrus. Some of us hunger for human blood as soon as we come above ground, some of us can last hours, days or weeks without feeling the hunger - but when it comes, we have to go back below until the desire for blood fades. Then we can come back again."
"So what about you?" I asked him. "How long can you last, before your hunger becomes too much?"
"About six weeks," he said.
"So how long before you have to go back?"
"About a week," he smiled, "so you're safe for the moment. I felt it the other day when you cut your wrist. The smell of it made me feel crazy for a moment. That's why I didn't want to get too close to you."
"I saw you sniffing the bloodstains that I'd left on your sweatshirt," I confessed.
Turning away with an embarrassed look upon his face, he said, "I couldn't help myself. The smell of your blood was beautiful - intoxicating."
Wanting to know more about him and his life below ground, I asked, "So how do you come above ground - how do you get here?"
"We come up via wells that humans have dug, potholes and drains. Luckily for us. you don't yet have the ability to reach the thousands of miles and network of tunnels and caves beneath your feet. But mostly, we burrow our own way out and protect it with a trap door, which we lock, until we're ready to go back - then we fill it in again."
Sitting quietly for a moment, trying to absorb everything he had told me, I looked at him and said, "Who's we?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, looking as if he had slipped up in someway.
"You said, 'We lock it.' Who's we?" I asked again.
Looking me straight in the eyes, he smiled, "Murphy, Potter and Rom."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "So you're telling me that Sergeant Murphy, Chief Inspector Rom, and that dickhead-Potter are all like you - vampire bats?"
Laughing, Luke said, "I know it's hard to believe but they're not really all that bad."
"They seemed pretty bad today," I reminded him.
"Believe it or not, they were just trying to protect you," he told me.
"Protect me!" I scoffed. "They had a funny way of showing it."
"We knew that once you'd killed that vampire last night, they might come after you," he said, and this time he took my hand in his. "We were sending you away from The Ragged Cove for your own safety - we knew that we had to get you away from here.'"
"I don't need your protection," I said. "I can look after myself."
"And what about tonight?" he reminded me. "If I hadn't shown up, you would be dead by now or one of them."
Sitting silently for a moment, I looked at him and said, "Well, I'm staying. I can't go back now."
"That's your choice, Kiera. But what lies ahead will be dangerous. Not only for you for but my people as well," he warned me. Then reaching out and brushing a wisp of hair from my face, he said, "You know you don't have to stay - I could get you out of here if you really wanted me to."
Cupping my hand around his, I smiled, "You need me."
"How do you work that out?"
"Like I said, the lot of you couldn't solve a game of Cluedo," and I smiled.
Then staring at me as if he was about to say something, he suddenly let go of my hand and stood up.
"What were you going to say?" I asked him, a nervous feeling passing through me.
"It doesn't matter," he said, turning his back towards me, his wings making a soft whispering sound.
Standing, I went to him. I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder, but I didn't know if I should. To do so, I would've had to touch his wings.
"It does matter," I said.
Turning around, Luke moved closer, his naked chest inches from me. "I was wondering if there was another reason why you might want to stay?"
Knowing exactly what he meant, I lied, "I don't know what you mean," and lent in towards him.
"I was hoping..." he said, but didn't finish.
"Hoping what?" I pushed.
"You're trembling," he smiled, bringing his face closer to mine.
"Am I?"
"Are you afraid?" he whispered, his lips hovering over mine.
"No," I smiled. "But you should be."
"And why's that?" he asked.
"Because I've got a bottle of holy water and a crucifix in my pocket," I whispered.
"They only work on vampires, I'm a bat," he smiled, then taking me in his wings, he kissed me.