Forever Night (Darkness Falls Book 3)

Chapter Six

The vampire lowered his fangs to my throat, stretching open his mouth to take a huge bite. I rammed a fist into his ear. It was enough to knock his head away from mine, but not enough to dislodge him entirely.

From my position on the ground, I could see Georgia hovering nearby, her face a mask of horror. While I appreciated that she hadn't run and left me, there was nothing she could do here. She'd only get in my way.

"Run," I yelled. "Georgia, get out of here."

She didn't need telling twice. Her feet thudded on the pavement as she took off, the bright stripes of her uniform quickly swallowed up by the shadows.

I had only seconds before the vampires trapped in the diner remembered that the front door was still open and made their escape that way. Then I'd have all seven to deal with – or eight if the one that Georgia knocked out with the jug had regained consciousness by now.

I dug my thumbs under the vampire's jawbone, pushing until pain from the pressure points caused him to howl and rear back. It gave me just enough room to wriggle out from under him. I scouted about for the knife, but it had disappeared in the darkness and there was no time to find it. Flight was my best chance of survival.

Energy flooded my limbs as I broke into a steady run. Running for your life isn't the same as running for the sheer enjoyment of it, but I was good at it either way.

It wouldn't take long to run home and arm myself properly, and that was assuming the vampires would even chase me that far. I wasn't sure what game Rachel was playing, but I doubted that these vampires were here to kill me. That was a privilege Rachel would reserve for herself. Their orders had to be either to bring me to her, or simply to frighten me - to let me know that I wasn't safe anywhere.

A scream split the night and I almost tripped over my own feet. My heart hammered in my chest and it had nothing to do with exercise. The scream came from the direction Georgia had taken.

I could have ignored it. I could have carried on heading home, confident that I'd make it back safely. It wasn't as if I owed Georgia anything, especially not since she'd been nothing but nasty to me from the moment we met. But she wasn't a bad person, not at heart. She was a defenceless teenage girl, and she was out here with creatures that could rip her apart without thinking twice. I couldn't just leave her.

I ran in the direction of the scream.

My search for Georgia led me away from the more brightly lit residential streets, and down a gloomy side-street hemmed in by a towering brick wall on one side, and a scraggly line of trees on the other.

This was where Rachel was waiting for me.

I slowed when I saw her, the adrenaline in my veins transmuting to something that was either fear, anger, or both.

The last time I'd seen her, Rachel's face had been a blackened ruin, her hair melted to her head, and one of my knives buried in her chest. But three weeks was more than enough time for a vampire to heal those kinds of injuries, and now Rachel looked just as she had the first time we'd met; waves of blonde hair framing a porcelain-skinned face. Her eyes were like chips of ice glaring at me. One hand was clasped around Georgia's throat, her sharpened nails digging into the girl's skin.

I stopped a metre or so from Rachel, not daring to get too close while Georgia was in this kind of danger. I had no weapons, and I knew from previous experience that I couldn't beat my nemesis hand-to-hand.

"Hello, little Kiara," Rachel purred. "It's nice of you to join us." She nuzzled the side of Georgia's face. A tear spilled down Georgia's cheek and Rachel caught it on her tongue.

Revulsion curled through me. "Let her go," I said.

Rachel put her head on one side as if she was considering it, then she laughed. The familiar, horrible sound of it scraped along my skin.

"Did you receive my gift?"

I wished I had something clever to throw back at her, but my mind was too full of fire.

"He cried before I killed him, you know." Rachel's voice was as light and conversational as if we were discussing the weather rather than the fact that she'd murdered and beheaded someone I knew. "Blubbered and whined and begged. It really wasn't very dignified."

I swallowed, trying to keep control of the rage pounding through me. She was trying to goad me, to trick me into lashing out. But I wouldn't achieve anything by doing that, and my recklessness might cost Georgia her life.

My eyes met hers, seeing the abject terror there, the silent pleading for me to get her out of this. She didn't know what was going on, but she knew I was involved, and after seeing me hold my own against the vampires back at the diner, she saw me as the person who could save her.

"Let her go," I said again.

"Oh, I don't think I'll do that." Rachel cheerfully shook Georgia until she gagged for breath.

"You don't need her," I snapped "I'm the one you want and I'm standing right here."

I took a step forward and Rachel tightened her grip, hoisting Georgia onto her toes. She choked and slapped at Rachel's arm, but the vampire was too strong.

My mind raced. If I attacked Rachel, she'd either kill Georgia before I got there, or toss Georgia aside to get to me. I didn't want to leave Georgia to die, but equally I wasn't prepared to die for her.

Putting aside the fear and rage, I tried to think logically. Rachel wanted to kill me herself, but she could have done that back at the Waffle House. She knew that her vampires outnumbered me, but if she'd ordered them to kill me, they'd have tried harder to do so. Rachel might be in the habit of getting other people to help with her dirty work, but she saved the best bits for herself. That meant she wanted me alive. The vampires attacking me at work was a warning, I was sure of it – the same as Leon's head had been.

When Rachel had first arrived in Dalwick, she left me regular gifts of dead rats – skinned, impaled, dismembered – to symbolise that I, as a human, was nothing more than vermin. Now she hadn't given up her twisted games; she'd just upped the ante. This standoff right here, it was for her own entertainment. And Georgia was just a toy, a rag doll in the jaws of a pit bull.

But that didn't help me decide what I should do. I didn't want to risk Georgia's life by charging Rachel, but how long could we stand in this cold strip of street, like two gunslingers from an old western? The knife I'd taken from the Waffle House was still lost somewhere by the back door, which meant I was completely unarmed. I did not want to try taking on Rachel without any weapons.

I forced myself to uncurl my fists and hold up my hands so I looked as unthreatening as possible. Georgia's eyes burned into me, tearful and desperate. Her life was literally in my hands and I didn't know how to save it.

"Just let her go," I repeated. "She doesn't have anything to do with this."

Rachel smiled, a cold flash of teeth. "I know," she said, and ripped out Georgia's throat.