"Covering your back," Sergeant Phillips groaned, looking up at me from beneath the hood.
"Why?" I said, still shocked at discovering the hooded man was my sergeant from training school.
"Why do you think?" he said, getting up off the floor. "You might have noticed that this town ain't exactly normal."
"Then why send me?" I asked, sitting on the edge of my bed.
"No one sent you," Phillips said. "You volunteered, remember?"
"With plenty of persuasion from you," I reminded him as he sat down at the desk.
"Okay, okay," he said, "However it happened, you're here now and in incredible danger."
"I've worked that out for myself," I told him.
"You only know the half of it," he said, his voice lowered.
"What do you mean, sarge?" I said, fearing what he had to tell me.
"For starters, stop calling me sarge," he half-smiled. "We're not at training school."
"Sorry, Craig," I said, feeling odd calling him by his first name. He was a handsome man, in his mid-thirties, but he had gone prematurely grey-white if I were to be honest - but it kind of suited his rugged looks and gave him a look of authority - almost imposing. I hadn't exactly had a thing for him as a recruit, but I had made a complete fool of myself on graduation day. I'd been upset and hurt that my father had died just a few months before my passing-out parade. At the evening function, the women dressed in their gowns and the men in their tuxedoes, I'd consumed one too many glasses of wine and my grief had overtaken me.
Wanting to be held and comforted, I'd smooched up to Craig and dropped my arm around him. The rest is kind of a blur, but I did have vague memories of trying to entice him onto the dance floor. When he'd refused, I told him how hot he looked in his tuxedo and asked if he had a wife. The next thing I remember was waking the next morning in my small room, lying on top of my bed, still wearing my ball gown and cradling a picture of my father to my chest.
Embarrassed, I'd asked my colleagues what had happened and they told me that I'd collapsed in the middle of the dance floor, where I'd sat and cried for my father. Swooping me up into his arms, they told me how Craig had carried me back to my room and put me to bed. For the next few days, it was hard looking him in the eyes, but he had been decent about it and hadn't mentioned it since.
"How much do you know?" he asked, yanking me from my memories of him.
"I know that this town isn't normal," I told him.
"What do you mean?" he asked, leaning forward in his seat.
"The cops in this town - how can I put this?" I said, knowing that what I had to say would seem unbelievable. "Well they're not like regular cops. They're not like you and me."
"Of course they are," Craig said. "I've known Sergeants Murphy, Potter, and Bishop for years."
"You don't know them as well as I do then," I assured him. "and besides, if you know and trust them all so well, why did you leave me a note telling me that I shouldn't trust Luke?" I asked him, needing to know what it was that Luke had to feel guilty about. But more than that, I needed to know if my trust in him had been misplaced - and if his feelings for me had been real.
Shifting in his seat, Craig lent into me, as if what he had to tell me was such a grave secret, he couldn't afford to let anyone else overhear it.
"It has to do with your mother," he said, just above a whisper.
Believing that I'd misheard him, I said, "Sorry, what did you say?"
"It is believed that Luke Bishop played some part in your mother's disappearance," he said, searching my eyes to gauge my reaction.
"But how?" I mumbled, desperate to make sense of what he was telling me. Knowing that Luke was a Vampyrus, I said to Craig,
"Did he murder her?"
"Not exactly," he said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped, jumping up from the edge of my bed. "What was my mother doing in this town anyhow?"
Seeing that I was getting stressed, Craig looked at me, and in a calm and almost soothing voice, he said, "Please Kiera, sit down and I'll tell you everything that I know."
Sitting again, Craig said, "There have been killings taking place in this town for a few years now. At first they were sporadic and believed to have been committed by wild animals, the wounds inflicted on the victims all suggested that. Then the grave desecrations started occurring and people started to go missing. The stories started to get a lot of media attention and the whole thing turned into some kind of circus for a while. Rumours started to spread that the town was infested with vampires but of course this theory was never taken seriously.
"Murphy and his small team were posted here. It became obvious they weren't making much progress. So it was decided that some of our most brightest and resourceful officers should be posted here to help investigate the crimes. But one by one, they went missing - seeming to disappear off the face of the Earth. Headquarters was at its wits' end. Your mother had gained herself a reputation as being a maverick who had the uncanny intuition to solve crimes that had left other officers - often more experienced and senior in rank - baffled and confused.
"Many times your mother had been approached to join the National Crime Squad, but each time, she had declined, saying that although she loved her job, her main love was for you and your father and she didn't want to do anything that might cause her to spend too much time away from you both.
"But with pressure on us to solve the murders in The Ragged Cove, a certain amount of pressure was put on her to change her mind," he said.
"What sort of pressure?" I asked him.
Looking down at his feet as if he were ashamed of what he had to tell me, he said, "Some drugs that had been recovered from a raid a few weeks before where found in her locker."
"But my mother wouldn't have ever taken -" I shouted in her defence.
But before I'd the chance to finish, Craig said, "You don't have to try and convince me. Your mother was set up - blackmailed into coming down here. It was explained to her that if she came to The Ragged Cove, then the drugs found in her locker would magically disappear and nothing more would ever be said about them. But if she refused, then she would be arrested and charged, leaving her career in ruins. Your mother was switched on enough to know that if she were imprisoned for drug possession, not only would it have had a damaging effect on your father's reputation, but it would have also destroyed you.
"So having no real choice, she agreed to go to The Ragged Cove, but on the condition that it would be for two weeks only. It was agreed, and knowing your mother's ability to solve the most complex of crimes, two weeks was considered to be long enough. But she was sworn to secrecy. Your mother was to tell no one where she was going or what she was doing," Craig explained.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Each of the other officers sent had gone missing as you know," he said, "so we wondered if there was some link between force headquarters and whoever was committing the murders in the town. We needed it to look like she had just been sent as part of a routine attachment. We changed her name and number, and she even changed her appearance. No one was to know that she'd been sent as part of the investigation team. That's why your mother had to vanish that day three years ago," he explained.
"So if you knew that my mother had gone on some undercover assignment here, why was my father arrested, our home and garden searched?" I asked, growing evermore angry in the knowledge that we had been lied to all these years.
"Only a few people knew at headquarters," he said, "so your mother's disappearance was treated just like any other."
"But they arrested my father!" I almost screamed at him. "He was never the same man after that. My father had been a proud man, but after the finger-pointing and accusations, he changed. And I think it was that stress and not knowing what had happened to my mother - his wife - that led to him dying so young."
"You've got to understand, Kiera, it wasn't my decision," Craig said, and he didn't look me in the eyes.
"No, but you knew about it!" I hissed at him, any respect that I'd previously had for him, fast disappearing. "You went along with it!"
"No one could've known what would've happened to your mother," he said.
"Oh, come on!" I said. "You must have had a pretty good idea - after all, every other cop that you sent to this godforsaken place had gone missing."
"But we believed it would be different this time around - your mother was different," he insisted, looking up at me.
"So what did happen to her?" I asked.
"We're not exactly sure"' he confessed.
'Not exactly sure?' I roared. "This just keeps getting better and better!"
"We suspect Luke Bishop was involved," he said.
'How?' I snapped, part of me not wanting to hear that Luke could have somehow been involved in my mother's disappearance.
"He was crewed up with her the night that she vanished," Craig said. "He was interviewed but could give no explanation as to what had happened to her. He said they attended the scene of one of those murder victims. Apparently, he had gone off into the woods on his own to investigate some noises that he'd heard, leaving your mother at the scene. He said that he returned a short time later, only to find that she had gone," Craig said.
Then remembering how Luke had suddenly disappeared on the night we'd been at the graveyard, my heart sank. "He did the same to me," I told Craig. "We went up to St. Mary's Church to investigate a grave that had been desecrated. I climbed down into the hole to take a better look, but when I came up he'd gone. In his place was a young girl. I called over the radio for him, but he never answered. Time and time again, I called for him to back me up, but he was nowhere to be found. Not until it was all over did he reappear."
"Why were you calling for back up?" Craig asked.
"The girl was a vampire," I told him, not caring if he believed me or not.
"Did I hear you right?" he said. "Did you just say vampire?"
"You heard right the first time," I said. "Believe it or not Craig, this town is teaming with them."
"Half of me had begun to suspect the rumours were true. That's why I left you the crucifixes...but..." he started, then trailed off as if lost for words.
"I know - it's the stuff of horror movies and nightmares. I didn't believe it myself at first, but when you have one climbing all over your police car and trying to rip your face off - it gives you a different perspective on things," I said.
Craig must have seen the haunted look in my eyes as I recalled what happened at the graveyard, because he looked at me and said, "You're not kidding, are you?"
"Why would I want to lie about something like that?" I asked. "I risk my whole career just by telling you."
Craig slumped forward on the chair and studied my face. The silence seemed to stretch out forever. When I thought he was just about to get up and leave, he said, "Kiera, if anybody else had told me such a thing, I'd be taking their badge and telling them to get themselves some therapy. But I know you, I know how methodical your mind works and how you are only ever interested in the facts, in what you can see and touch."
"I've seen and touched things that I would never have believed possible," I told him. "But it's not only that, I have feelings for Luke."
Craig didn't say anything. He just sat and stared, leaving me to come to my own conclusions. "If you don't trust him," I said, "If you think that in some way he is involved in the killings, why is he still a cop?"
"We have no proof," Craig said. Then staring me straight in the face, he added, "That's where you come in." "How?" "You weren't just chosen to come to The Ragged Cove because of the abilities you share with your mother," he said. "Why else then?" I asked him. "Kiera, you're a beautiful woman. Most men would give up their souls to be with you," he said. "Take a look at yourself. You've long jet-black hair, eyes the colour of honey, and a mouth that most men would happily die trying to kiss."
His compliments didn't embarrass me or make me blush, they made me angry. "So what you're saying is - I was nothing more than bait!" I said, through clenched teeth. "You got me down here to flush him out. You hoped that we would fall for each other and he would open up to me?"
"And has he?" Craig asked. "Is he the link between the disappearing officers and these vampires?"
Looking at Craig with a wistful smile on my lips, I said, "Oh yeah, he opened up alright but not in the way you think." "What do you mean?" Craig asked, looking confused. "Luke Bishop isn't human!" I shouted at him. "He's a Vampyrus!" "What's that?" Craig asked. "Some kind of vampire?" "No, he's not a vampire. He did tell me the proper name - desmondus something-or-another - I can't remember now," I said. "But anyway, translated it means the Vampyrus are a breed of vampire bat!"
Standing, Craig said, "You're joking, right? I mean you're making this up?"
"Look, I don't have time to stand here making up fairy-tales," I snapped. "He showed me his wings -"
"Wings?" Craig cut in.
"Listen to me!" I yelled at him. "He can fly at incredible speeds, he's strong - I mean I saw him tear vampires in half like they were scraps of paper!"
"Look, I'm getting lost here," Craig said. "So what's the difference between a vampire and whatever you say Bishop is?'
"The Vampyrus have always been here," I tried to explain. "What I mean is, they were here before us - humans. They live beneath us in caves and caverns. But during the course of human history, some have come above ground and have decided to live among us. But like vampires, they do crave human blood, but usually they go back beneath ground whenever the hunger is on them and sweat it out."
"Like a drug addict going cold turkey?" Craig asked.
"I guess," I said. "Anyway, some of them have given into those cravings and have started to kill and feed off humans. But the humans they kill, don't really die, they come back as vampires - like a mutant form of the Vampyrus. They don't have wings like Luke...'"
"Kiera, how can I put this," he said, "I've never seen Luke Bishop with wings. I'm sure I would've noticed..."
"You're not listening to me!" I yelled, slamming my fists against my thighs with frustration. "They change! You can't always see their wings. Most of the time they look just like us."
"Their wings?" Craig said.
"Luke's not the only one." "There are others?" Craig asked, as if he were trying to catch up with what I was telling him. "Murphy, Potter, and Rom - they're all vampire bats." "Rom?" Craig gasped. "You must be mistaken." "I'm not," I insisted. "I saw him only a couple of hours ago and he looked like he had wings to me." "But Rom is the one who sent your mother here," he told me, his eyes growing wide. "He was the one who blackmailed her..." "Believe me now?" I asked, as everything seemed to fall into place for him. "I don't want to," he whispered. "It's just that..." "What?" "This is a lot worse than I could've ever imagined," he said and looked at me. "It gets a lot worse," I told him. "How?" "I think I've worked out where the vampire's lair is," I said. "It's at -" But before I could finish, Craig cut in and said, "The church?" "How did you know that?" I asked. "I'm one step ahead of you, Kiera," he half-smiled. "You saw me up at the graveyard the other day, right?" "Right." "Well, while I've been down here keeping an eye out for you, I've been doing some investigating myself," he told me. "After I learnt about the girl's grave being desecrated, I decided to stake it out, just in case there was any truth in these vampire rumours. The priest, Father Taylor, caught me in the graveyard and asked what I was doing. I told him that I had an interest in church architecture. I asked him if I could have a look around, but he said it was inconvenient as he was about to attend mass. Anyway, he agreed to show me around today, but he never showed up. I waited for an hour or more. His rapidly depleting parishioners showed up for afternoon mass, but he didn't. I'm beginning to fear that he has become another victim or these vampires."
"Or Vampyrus," I added.
"Fancy checking it out?" he said, his eyes wide.
"One step ahead of you, sarge," I said, pulling on my coat. "I'd already decided to go up there just before you showed up."