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  “But they’re vampires, right?” Winnie said back, her mind scrambling. She didn’t know much about the whole vampire thing, but she had once seen a film called Near Dark with some of the older kids at one of the many care homes she had been passed around. She hadn’t seen much from behind the pillow she’d been hiding behind. Winnie saw enough to know that vampires didn’t like sunlight. “They’ll go away in the morning, won’t they? We can escape then.”

  “If I don’t die now, we will both be dead by the morning,” he barked at her.

  “But how, if they can’t come in unless we invite them?” she said. Then, as if in answer to her own question, Winnie suddenly caught the smell of burning. She turned to look at Thaddeus and said, “They’re going to burn the house down, aren’t they?”

  Pulling her close so their faces were just an inch apart, he stared at her and snarled, “You’ve got to kill me.”

  “I’m not killing you,” she snapped, pulling away.

  “Listen to me!” he barked, pulling her close again. “It’s the only way you’re going to survive this. If you kill me, then they will see you had no feelings for me – that you played no part in Frances’s death...”

  “But I didn’t,” Winnie cut in.

  “But they don’t know that,” he said. “But if you kill me...”

  “If you want to die, why don’t you just let them in,” Winnie cut in again.

  “If I die from a vampire bite, I burn in Hell for eternity,” he said, his yellow eyes seething. “But if you kill me, I pass over peacefully, and there may be a chance I could be with Frances again.”

  “I’m not going to kill you,” she breathed. “You’ll have to kill yourself.”

  “Werewolves can’t kill themselves,” he said. “It’s part of the curse we have to live with.” Thaddeus then grabbed her hand, and raced into the lounge.

  He went to the fireplace, where he removed one of the large granite stones away, revealing a deep hole. He reached inside with one of his claws. The smell of burning was stronger now. Winnie looked back over her shoulder and could see wisps of black smoke filling the hall, the glow of flames reflecting in the lounge windows.

  She looked back at Thaddeus, who was now standing before her with a pistol in his claws.

  “What the...” Winnie stared, but before she’d had a chance to finish, Thaddeus had shoved the gun into her hands.

  “You must shoot me,” he snarled at her. Then, leaping over to the windows, he threw the curtains back and barked, “And they must see you do it if you are going to live.”

  The gun felt heavy in Winnie’s trembling hands. She looked at Thaddeus as he kneeled before her. There was a sound at the windows, and Winnie glanced up to see the three vampires leering excitedly through at them, looking different than they had the night before. Whereas then she had thought they had all looked quite beautiful, now they looked hideous, and she recoiled backwards. With their faces pressed against the windowpane, Winnie thought at first that they had put on those creepy clown masks. In the moonlight and the glow of red and orange flames that now licked the side of the house, she realised that it was, in fact, their own faces she could see. She stared in horror at their eyes, which now looked as if they had sunken into black pits. Their mouths were huge and red. They spread right across their faces, from ear to ear, like a jagged gash. Behind the wide smiles were swollen, black gums and rows of jagged yellow teeth.

  Snapping Winnie out of her petrified trance, Thaddeus gripped her wrists and pointed the gun at his own head.

  “Shoot me!” he screamed.

  “I can’t!” Winnie shouted back.

  Then, staring up at her, Thaddeus said, “See those faces out there with those giant mouths? Well, if you don’t kill me – if they believe you are a part of all of this – they will rip you to pieces with those mouths. They will suck the flesh from your body. They will rip your heart out and share it between them.”

  Even though Thaddeus had hold of her wrists, her hands shook so much, the end of the barrel kept sliding across his forehead where he had placed it. “Why didn’t you get Frances to kill you?” Winnie whispered, her lips trembling. “If you loved each other so much, why didn’t she kill you so you could be together?”

  Then opening his eyes, Thaddeus stared up into hers and said, “I can’t be killed by someone who loves me.”

  Winnie looked back over her shoulder and could see the hallway was now a wall of thick, dense, black smoke. It smelt acrid and was choking. She glanced at the window where the vampires, with their hideous faces, stared excitedly in at her. She could hear the sound of the eaves above her snapping and hissing as flames took hold of them. She looked down at Thaddeus.

  “I’m sorry for making you a part of this,” he whispered, then closed his eyes. “Shoot me.”

  With tears streaming from her eyes, Winnie closed them and placed her finger on the trigger.

  Chapter Thirty

  “I’m not going to kill you,” she whispered down at Thaddeus, and pulled her hands free of the gun.

  “You must...” Thaddeus started.

  But Winnie had turned and fled, disappearing into the bank of black smoke that filled the hallway and was now wafting up the stairs. With her hand over her mouth and nose, Winnie raced through the hall. The air felt burning hot as it touched her face, hair, and hands. Coughing and choking, she made her way into the kitchen. Orange flames danced up the walls and across the ceiling. Peering through her fingers, Winnie tried to see through the intoxicating smoke and flames. Crouched low, she stumbled across the kitchen, striking the corner of the table with her thigh. She cried out in pain, sucking in a throat full of black air. The smoke hit the back of her throat, and it felt scorching hot. Winnie tried to cough the smoke up out of her lungs, tears streaming from her eyes, and drool hanging from her mouth and nose. She dropped to her hands and knees, and feeling as if she were going lose consciousness, she crawled across the kitchen floor. On the other side of the room, she reached up and gripped the edge of the sink. She pulled herself up, and trying desperately not to breathe in, she climbed onto the counter. Through the window she had cleaned, she could see the fields stretching away at the back of the house towards the sea.

  With the window seeming to soar before her burning eyes, she hoisted it open. Sucking in a mouthful of cold night air like a drowning fish, she forced her way through the open window. Winnie hung upside down momentarily, her jeans snagging on the window lock. Crying out, she wriggled her leg left and right, desperate to free herself before the smoke and fire took her, or the vampires realised that she was making her escape.

  At the front of the house, Michelle heard Winnie cry out. With her long blue hair fanning out behind her, and her jagged teeth gleaming in the light from the flames, she raced towards the back of the house. Nate stared through the window at Thaddeus, who still knelt on the floor. He wasn’t interested in the girl, the Frances imposter; Claude and Michelle could fuck with her. Nate wanted Thaddeus. The hatred he felt inside for the wolf burnt as greedily and as hot as the flames which now clawed their way up the front of the house. He would avenge Frances’s death. He owed it to her, to Nicodemus, but more importantly, to himself.

  No one could have known the torment he had lived through for the last three hundred years. Each day and night, every second had been consumed with the thought of his beloved Frances sharing her bed, her life, her soul, with a Lycanthrope. Had anyone known the pain he had felt as he watched Frances from afar, once a year, as she stood alone for him in the moonlight? Did they know that the anguish he felt at being forbidden to talk to her, to hold her? It had driven him half-mad with jealously and rage. However, it was more than that – it was the fear he felt in his heart for her. He knew that Thaddeus would one day kill her. Nate knew in his heart that Thaddeus was only keeping her alive to torture him. How could any man live a happy life, knowing that the person they loved, the person they would give their life for, was with another?

  As Nat
e stood amongst the smoke and flames and stared in at Thaddeus on his knees, he remembered the terrible nights he watched Frances in the moonlight, knowing that she would soon be returning to the Lycanthrope’s bed, where it would make love to her. Nate would sit with his head in his hands as he pictured the wolf’s claws caressing her beautiful body. He could hear Frances crying out with pleasure. Some nights, Nate hated Frances as much as the wolf. How could she have fallen in love with him? But the wolf had tricked her, bewitched her. Nate had heard that some Lycanthrope could do that. So his hatred for Frances would melt away, and only grow stronger for the wolf. It had become like a poison inside of him, which seethed through his veins and blackened his heart. Tonight, at last, Nate would unleash that fury eating away inside of him, and kill the wolf. At last he would be able to take the wolf’s head back to his home, hidden deep within the Carpathian Mountains, and hand it to Nicodemus. The last of the Lycanthrope would be dead. Their species snuffed out of existence, like a candle flame.

  Thaddeus looked at the thick, black smoke rapidly coming towards him, then at the window. He saw Nate staring back at him, his eyes blood-red with fury. He would have to wait, Thaddeus thought. Nate could have him, but first he had to get Winnie to safety. He had done terrible things to get Winnie into this, and she had been right – he had put her life in danger. Before he died, before he was sent back to Hell where he knew perhaps he deserved to be, he wanted to help Winnie escape. Thaddeus wanted to do that one last thing. Not because he felt he had to, not because he thought he might be looked more favourable upon in the next life – he had done enough to know that would never happen – but because he did have feelings for her. However unexpected those feelings had been, however sudden they had grown inside him, he did hope that somewhere inside of her, she felt the same. Winnie hadn’t been able to kill him, no more than Frances would have been able to.

  He looked back through the window at Nate, and flashing his teeth and snarling, Thaddeus leapt into the smoke in search of Winnie.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Winnie pulled her leg free from the lock and collapsed in a heap in the grass beneath the window. Gasping for air, she knew she didn’t have long to put as much distance between her and the house. With mud and grass seeping beneath her fingernails, Winnie clawed forward, her chest heaving up and down as she tried desperately to catch her breath. With her head and lungs beginning to clear, Winnie got to her feet. Stumbling forward like a drunk, she made her way into the dark and towards the sea. She could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs in the distance, hoping that she might be able to find someplace to hide amongst the rocks.

  Winnie glanced back over her shoulder in panic, just to make sure she wasn’t being followed. The huge house looked awash with flames. They twisted and ravaged their way across the roof and up the walls. Thick plumes of smoke twisted up into the night, blocking out the moon like a black cloud. Then she saw the vampire, Claude leap from the burning roof. Even without the light of the moon, his razor-sharp teeth glistened in his huge, twisted mouth. He landed in the long grass and came towards her. Winnie spun around, and with her lungs screaming for more clean air, she raced away. With arms pumping up and down by her sides, and her heart slamming in her chest, Winnie frantically pushed herself forward. She could hear the sound of racing footsteps behind her. How had he covered the distance between them so quickly? Her mind screamed. Again she looked back and saw Claude’s grotesque face looming out of the darkness at her. With a scream tearing its way up her throat, Winnie stumbled backwards and onto the ground with a thump. What little good air was in her lungs was forced out of her. Eyes wide with terror, Winnie kicked out at him.

  “Get away from me!” she screamed, but her voice came out sounding like an out of breath gasp.

  Claude looked down at her. Watching Winnie try and defend herself excited him. He had longed for one of the females to fight back. The feeding would be so sweet. Her heart would still be racing fast as he plucked it from her chest. The thought of her hot blood pumping into his mouth made him shudder with expectant pleasure.

  Suddenly he lunged at her, and then pulled back again, like he was teasing Winnie. She scrambled backwards, thrashing out with her arms and legs. He lunged again, and then pulled back. He was enjoying watching her panic. Claude loved seeing the terror in her eyes. It was beautiful.

  “Don’t hurt me!” she screamed.

  He loved hearing her say that, because it was so dumb. Of course he was going to hurt her. He was going to teach her what pain was.

  Winnie dug the heels of her trainers into the ground and pushed herself away from him. He lunged at her again, his ragged claws just inches from her eyes. Then he was joined by another. Michelle suddenly appeared beside Claude like a flickering shadow. Her long, blue hair flowed out behind her, like a streak of lightning. This close, Winnie could see that Michelle’s mouth looked as if someone had slit her face open. Her lips looked like two slices of raw meat. Her dead, black eyes stared down at Winnie.

  “What are you waiting for, Claude?” she whispered. “Take her.”

  Claude couldn’t bear the sense of excitement and urgency he felt inside of him any longer. So with his long, white claws clacking together like a set of knives, he lowered himself over Winnie.

  Seeing this, Winnie scrambled backwards and both vampires laughed. Suddenly, she heard another sound behind their shrieks of joy. It was the sound of howling. A black shadow streaked before her eyes. Then both Claude and Michelle flew backwards off their feet and into the air. The black shadow seemed to pause – take form – before her. It was Thaddeus. He looked back at her, his eyes bright yellow, messy hair blowing in the wind, and claws swinging by his sides.

  “Okay?” he asked Winnie.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  Before she could say anything else, he was leaping through the air and swiping at Michelle and Claude with his claws. His long, curled fingernails shone like silver as they sliced through the air. He howled so loud that the ground shook beneath Winnie. Pulling herself up onto her elbows, she watched in horror as Thaddeus clattered into Claude, sending them both sprawling to the ground. With his muscular arms just a blur in the moonlight, Thaddeus slashed, tore, and ripped at the vampire screeching in agony beneath him. Within seconds Thaddeus had opened up Claude’s stomach, throwing lengths of oily black entrails into the air. Claude made a gargling noise as if being strangled. Winnie turned away as Thaddeus drove his claws into the vampire’s throat. Something heavy thudded into the ground next to Winnie. Peeking through her fingers, she looked with revulsion at a long pointed-looking slab of meat, which had landed just inches from her. It twitched like a giant worm, and Winnie got up and ran as she realised it was Claude’s tongue she could see wriggling about in the grass.

  With the sound of Claude’s agonising shrieks, and Thaddeus’s booming howls in her ears, Winnie failed to hear Michelle racing up behind her. It wasn’t until the vampire had leapt onto her back that Winnie realised that Michelle had been charging after her. Winnie spun around as Michelle dug her claws into her shoulders. Winnie screamed out in pain. The vampire’s claws felt like ten burning daggers slicing into her flesh.

  “Get the fuck off me, bitch!” Winnie screamed, bucking like a donkey, desperate to throw Michelle free.

  But the vampire’s grip was unbreakable. Winnie threw herself backwards, crushing Michelle beneath her. The vampire shrieked, withdrawing her claws from Winnie as she tried to free herself from beneath. The pain of the claws being withdrawn from her flesh was just as painful as them going in, and a blinding bolt of pain shot through her shoulders and into Winnie’s brain. In agony, she rolled off Michelle onto her hands and knees, and tried to get to her feet. The vampire had only been momentarily stunned, and pouncing to her feet, she kicked out at Winnie and sent her sprawling into the ground. Winnie’s chin struck a rock jutting out of the grass, and a jet of blood burst from the gash it had made in her face. With the air now full of the sweet sme
ll of blood, Michelle ran her tongue over her raw-looking lips and threw herself at Winnie.

  She rolled over just in time to see the vampire’s fangs come rushing out of the darkness at her. Winnie threw her hands in front of her face, and she felt Michelle’s fangs sink into her forearm. The pain, like before was excruciating, and Winnie thought she might just puke. With bile burning in the back of her throat, Winnie screamed in pain as she pulled her arm free of Michelle’s jaws. Blood sprayed into the air, covering Winnie’s face with her own blood. With her arm spurting a constant stream of thick, black blood, she tried to beat off Michelle, who lunged at her over and over again.

  Screaming, she tried to fight the vampire off, but Winnie knew it was only a matter of seconds before she became too consumed with pain to fight on. Then, with Michelle’s hideous face swimming before her, Winnie thought she saw a flash of red cloth go racing past. If Michelle hadn’t seen it, she must have felt something, as she momentarily looked in the direction that the red streak had gone. With the vampire’s head turned away, Winnie seized the moment and drove both sets of her fingernails into the creature’s eyes. Michelle’s eyeballs felt soft and wet beneath Winnie’s fingernails. Knowing that this was her last chance, she drove her fingers as far and as deep as she could into the vampire’s eyes. One of them squirted onto Michelle’s cheek in a thick, gloopy white-coloured mess. It felt hot as it ran over the back of Winnie’s hand and down the length of her wrist.

  Twisting her back like a corkscrew, the vampire screeched in agony as Winnie pulled her fingernails from her eye sockets. “I’m blind!” she screamed. “I’m fucking blind!”

  “And I’m bleeding!” Winnie roared back scrambling to her feet. Holding her arm tightly to her chest, to try and slow the blood gushing from the rips in her flesh, she watched Michelle stagger blindly about.

  “I’m blind!” she screamed again, her long, blue hair blowing in the wind.