Forbidden - The Vampire Hunter

Chapter Eighteen

Eighteen

          Ouch, my head is killing me! It’s like someone’s hacking away at the sides of the skull with pick-axes and driving tanks into them. A warm liquid was dripping down my face, soaking my hair. I felt a cold metal grasping my hands, locking them into place. Not that I had the strength to try and get away. I tried to remember what had happened and where I was. After a minute, I did.

          My eyes flickered open and I was squinting into darkness. There was a window opposite me, the midnight moon shining in slightly. It was enough for me to see the light flicker off something metallic. I was in handcuffs. That’s what was cold and metal. I was sitting on a chair. I tried to move my legs to try and kick it away from me but rope was twisted around my shins, tying them to the wooden chair legs. I licked my lips, tasting the liquid which turned out to be my copper-tasting blood.

          Clinton, is Clinton alright? I craned my neck around, looking for Clinton or Mark but finding a desolated room. I let out a scream, echoing through the walls, bouncing against each one like a game of tennis. I needed to get out. I wasn’t sure whether I’d been bitten but I felt no pain in my neck so it was unlikely. If I had been, I would be in the painful process of changing at the moment. I was glad that I wasn’t.

          A door creaked open behind me before closing. A single light came on, blinding me momentarily before I got my vision back. I realised where I was now. It was Henry’s English classroom, in school. How had I gotten in here? Oh yes, my dead Mother had kidnapped me and locked me here. How could I have forgotten?

          She came into my view, standing before me, under the light. I gasped again at how different she was, gone from the painter to the immortal. She was stunning, looking ten years younger than she had when she’d been changed but it wasn’t in a good way. Her teeth had whitened, along with her skin. Her eyes held something else. They had been a warm brown, looking at the world as a kind person did but now, even though they were the same color, they held no compassion, hospitality or kindness. They looked at everything coldly. This is how I knew that she survived; feeding from humans, not animals. The Hawthorne’s eyes held emotion. Hers didn’t. She wasn’t capable of it.

          “Jade, you haven’t changed at all.” She smiled, but it wasn’t very kind, despite her attempts for it to be.

“You have.” I spat. My dress was ripped at the legs and side and the heels had snapped off the bottom of my shoes. That was a lot of money wasted.

“Yes, well. I’ve changed into something better.” She crossed to my Dad’s desk, pulling out the leather chairs and moved it across from me, sitting down on it.

“You should be dead.” I told her.

“Maybe. So should you. You’ve been dicing with death for years. Your name has been on the top of the grim reaper’s list since the age of fourteen.”

I waited for her to continue.

“I was lucky that Tom didn’t kill me at that holiday camp, all those years ago, he changed me. Into something better. You killed Charlie, along with many more of my employees.”

“You got the vampires down here to kill us?” It didn’t add up. Why would she send vampires to go on killing sprees down here?

“That was me. I didn’t know that you were part of that wasteful group of hunters. I presumed that you would just be in school, most likely moved on after the incident. So when I hear that all nine of the vampires that I’d hired have been defeated, what do I do? I get down here straight away, to find you out partying down at the beach, with a vampire. I did a double take as well but when you punched that Jessica girl in the face, I knew that the only girl reckless and wild enough to do that was you.