Stolen Nights Read online

  For Ryan Quirk, who is brave

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  EPILOGUE

  An ancient parchment lies in a darkened, sacred place. Its location unknown, its maker anonymous. It is legend. On it is described a ritual, its words inscribed in blood. This ritual requires the deepest love and ultimate sacrifice – death. It will transform a vampire into a human again. My love, Rhode, had performed this ritual for me, and died. I performed it only days ago. And I survived.

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘You’re home,’ Justin Enos said, leading me through the great stone towers of Wickham Boarding School. I hesitated once I crossed the threshold, stopping at the main path that led past Seeker dorm and to the many halls and lanes of campus. In the distance, the tall street lamps lit up the brick buildings like tiny beacons.

  Only four days ago, I was so sure that this world was no longer my own. I had performed the ritual for Vicken, my friend, my confidant, also a vampire. I performed this ritual to turn him human.

  ‘I can walk, you know,’ I said, though I stumbled and Justin had to grab on to my arm. He gave me a knowing glance. My thighs trembled, the result of lying unconscious in a hospital bed. It had been four days since my best friend, Tony, had been killed in the art tower, and since I had believed I too would die.

  ‘It’s a beautiful night,’ I said, leaning into Justin’s arm as we walked. He matched my baby steps, holding a bag of my possessions on his other arm.

  Lovers Bay, Massachusetts, was blooming in June, hydrangeas and roses all around us. Coupled with smells from the cafe and the restaurants behind us on Main Street, scents distinct to me in my newly regained humanity filled the air: sauces, perfumes and fragrant flowers.

  After everything that had happened, Wickham Boarding School campus seemed like an imaginary place. It lived somewhere locked in both dream and nightmare.

  The night was quiet. The trees swayed lazily in the June air and I watched students meander across the campus, talking quietly to one another. The moon broke through the clouds and when I looked back down to the earth, far down the path towards Wickham beach, a figure leaped over the path and into the woods. Blonde tendrils of hair flew behind her in the wind.

  I chuckled at first, imagining a student sneaking off campus to find something decadent to eat or to meet a boyfriend. Then something about the figure’s movements caught my eye. She jumped with the ease of a dancer but with the charge of pursuit. She was lean and swift. Too lean . . . too swift.

  Alarmed, I scanned the school grounds.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Justin asked.

  ‘Want to go down to the beach?’ I asked, stalling for time.

  Justin took my bag to the guard at the dorm and I waited alone, staring down the pathway. If she came back out of the woods, then I would know if she was an ordinary human. Students passed by me, calling out:

  Hey, Lenah!

  How are you? Feeling better?

  I kept my gaze forward. ‘Word got around fast when you went to the hospital,’ said Justin, nuzzling my neck.

  We passed the union and Justin’s dorm. I couldn’t explain it – the knowing that she was strange, that the blonde might not be human. Perhaps I was just being paranoid. Of course I was being paranoid. I was an ex-592-year-old vampire. Oddities and strange creatures had been an everyday part of my life for nearly six centuries.

  We walked down to Wickham beach. I took off my shoes, leaving them by the steps, and sat down on the cool sand. Sitting there, leaning against Justin’s warm chest, and marvelling at the ocean stretching beyond us, I tried to forget about the wisp of blonde hair and the unnaturally agile jump.

  Justin’s hand wrapped around mine. We watched the bay, and I replayed the memory of the first time I met him. During my first week reborn as a human, he had walked out of the water, glimmering and golden.

  I leaned my head on his shoulder, breathed and listened to the water lap lazily on the beach.

  Except . . .

  A horrific knowing sent a shiver through me. I shuddered and Justin looked down at me.

  ‘Hey . . . are you OK?’

  Look left . . . my mind said.

  But Justin felt it too. He looked away from me and his fingers dug into the sand and he rose up on to his knees.

  Death is coming, the voice inside my mind said. The voice of the vampire queen. The hunter of hundreds.

  You know this trouble, the voice slithered.

  I looked slowly down the beach.

  ‘Do you see that?’ Justin asked.

  I did. My heart was a cello string, vibrating as though a bow drew across it – wavering. Someone was running towards us from very far down the beach. A girl – not a child, but not a grown woman either. A student? Her slight frame swayed as she ran, zigzagging across the sand and then hitting the ground as she fell. She pushed herself up from the sand but her arm gave out and she went down again.

  ‘I think it’s . . .’ Justin’s voice trailed away.

  She finally got to her feet and started running again. The next time she collapsed to the sand, a few moments later, she cried out. It was a scream that snaked in a long wail down the beach, hissing her terror into our ears. Goosebumps erupted over my arms.

  I knew this kind of cry well.

  ‘She needs help,’ Justin said, taking a step towards her.

  ‘Wait,’ I demanded in a whisper, grabbing his arm. I narrowed my focus into the darkness.

  ‘Are you crazy? She’s hurt,’ Justin said. ‘What are we waiting for, Lenah?’

  My terror was a heartbeat quickened. A dry mouth. Words stuck in my throat, trapped by fear. I couldn’t move my eyes.

  For there was someone behind her.

  This someone threw her hips confidently side to side. A model’s walk. A saunter of death. The woman grabbed the girl by her ponytail. There was a quick yank, animalistic and brutal.

  The wind came through the trees, which shivered unnaturally in the summer breeze.

  ‘Justin,’ I said. ‘We have to go. Now.’

  ‘But, Lenah!’ Justin said my name again and I pulled him to me so we could speak very close.

  ‘Silence,’ I said. ‘Or we’ll both be dead.’

  Justin didn’t reply, but an understanding passed over his eyes.

  I had to be calculated, purposeful. I could not let the human inside overwhelm me. I turned and scrambled up the steps, turning into the woods that ran parallel to the beach. My legs ached from the days in the hospital and every few paces I grabbed on to trees for balance.

  ‘Lenah! We have to call for help!’ Justin whispered loudly from behind me. I spun around to face him.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? You must be silent,’ I hissed. ‘And don’t say my name again.’

  I fell to my knees and crept to the edge of the woods where the dirt and beach storm wall met, and stared at the scene unfolding below. I gasped as I recognized the girl.

  Kate Pierson, my friend. A member of the Three Piece – the group of girls at Wickham whom I’d unexpectedly grown to love o
ver the last year. Kate was the youngest of all of us, barely sixteen. Innocent, beautiful and now in grave danger.

  This changed the circumstances.

  We would have to do something. I immediately ran through our options.

  We didn’t have a dagger or sword to pierce the vampire through the heart, so we would have to frighten her with strength, which Justin had.

  ‘Please stop,’ Kate cried to her attacker.

  We lay stomach down and I clawed my fingers into the sandy grass.

  The woman sauntered behind Kate, stepping over the darkened sand as though she was simply out for a night stroll. She wore all black. Thick, blonde, beautiful hair flowed and waved behind her in the wind.

  She smiled, her mouth stained red with blood.

  I drew in a long breath. ‘I know her,’ I hissed to Justin.

  My home in Hathersage, England, swept into my mind along with a memory of the staircase that led to the attic.

  The maid.

  The friendly maid with rosy cheeks.

  Now she was whiter than stone and very angry.

  Below us, Kate tried to wriggle away from the vampire, but now I could see the extent of her wounds I knew Justin and I were too late, much too late.

  I gulped as the blonde grabbed Kate by the front of her shirt and bit into the crook of her neck. Kate cried out, a familiar, hollow scream. This was one of finality. Her small mouth opened and she hollered into the night.

  ‘How?’ Justin whispered. ‘How do you know her?’

  ‘I –’ a shiver rolled over me – ‘I made her.’

  Justin slowly, ever so slowly, turned his eyes back to the beach without speaking.

  Congealed blood caked the sand as Kate kicked and failed. She bled from her arms and her neck. This was a killing of strength. A vampire death can be one bite and virtually painless, but this was a death like Tony’s, a ruthless killing, not done out of hunger or need but out of power. Out of joy.

  Kate brought her fingers to her throat to try to stop the bleeding.

  Useless. I had seen this too many times.

  ‘I don’t want to die,’ begged Kate. ‘Please . . .’

  My heart ached, but the once powerful vampire queen inside me told me that this blonde vampire was strong. She was unyielding in her desire for blood.

  Justin and I could not run. We could not help. We would die at her hands if we made a sound.

  We could do nothing until the horror was over.

  There was one more fading scream from the beach.

  And Kate Pierson was no more.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘We have to tell someone,’ Justin said as we stepped out of the woods and on to campus.

  ‘No. We can’t,’ I replied. We stood under the lamplight on the pathway. I held a hand over my stomach. ‘What we have to do is get inside. I have to think this through.’

  I needed help. I needed someone who understood vampires.

  I wanted Rhode, but he was dead.

  ‘We can’t just leave her on that beach!’ Justin said, as a girl from the sophomore class and a security officer passed by us on the pathway. Ms Tate, the science teacher, followed closely behind them.

  ‘You said you heard screaming?’ the security guard asked the sophomore.

  ‘A couple of times, sir. Down here.’

  Ms Tate hesitated next to us.

  ‘Lenah, good to see you, dear.’ She touched my shoulder lightly. ‘Did you two hear anything near the beach?’ she asked as we stopped next to the greenhouse. ‘Someone said they heard a fight or argument.’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘We were just in here.’ I gestured to the greenhouse.

  She nodded and followed behind the security guard and the student towards the beach. It would only be moments before the sirens began.

  My thoughts were at war with one another. What was a vampire doing here in Lovers Bay? A vampire I’d made. The name Vicken pulsed through my mind.

  Vicken. My faithful Vicken. I’d created him in such darkness and pain. He was my compatriot. But a vampire no longer. I had performed the ritual, releasing him from the endless bloodlust and setting free the human inside.

  What if the ritual had failed? What if Vicken had remained a vampire and was working with this blonde?

  ‘Lenah, what are you thinking about?’ Justin asked.

  ‘Vicken,’ I said, blinking quickly and focusing on Justin’s face. ‘What happened to Vicken after I performed the ritual?’

  A muscle twitched in Justin’s jaw and he crossed his arms over his chest.

  ‘I left him in your apartment when I took you to the hospital. I have no idea if he’s alive or dead. I haven’t been back.’

  The thought of a decaying Vicken on my Wickham apartment bed wasn’t an encouraging thought, but I’d have to see for myself. We walked towards Seeker, pretending we weren’t shaking as we went. Just as I was about to go up to my room, a police car screamed on to campus.

  It had begun.

  As the car shot by, it left in its wake an unnerving feeling that wrapped around me from my head to my toes. A knowing within my bones, for the second time that night.

  Someone was watching me.

  The blonde? Had she been looking for me? Is that why she had killed Kate?

  Dozens of students were making their way to the beach to investigate the chaos. I looked past the union and up the long slope of an enormous hill that led to the archery plateau.

  Atop it stood a familiar figure, and hope immediately rushed through me. He would be able to explain everything.

  Suleen. The oldest vampire.

  He stood dressed all in white with a turban fitted tightly to his head. He lifted his arm and motioned for me to follow him, then turned and walked on to the archery plateau, disappearing into the shadows.

  I ran, trying to ignore the weakness in my legs as I sped up the hill. Justin followed behind me.

  ‘Lenah, wait! What’s going on?’ he called.

  I tallied the horrors of the last day as I ran. Kate’s murder, the blonde vampire and now Suleen’s arrival? All of this was undeniably connected.

  ‘Something is very wrong. He wouldn’t be here otherwise,’ I said.

  ‘What’s wrong? Who is that?’ he asked.

  We crested the archery plateau, the line of targets in the distance highlighted by the moonlight. Suleen was not alone. A figure stood beside him in the middle of the field, clad in black trousers, black boots and black spiky hair.

  My God.

  The young man turned and his eyes bored into mine – blue. Blue. Blue.

  My hand flew to my chest and I stumbled back.

  Rhode. My Rhode. His whole body was surrounded by a halo of silver. The light that emanated from his black hair, his blue eyes and the curve of his face was nothing compared to the beauty that radiated from within him.

  How could it be? I had run my fingers through his gritty vampire remains that first day at Wickham. I’d been so sure he was dead.

  Of course . . . the realization pulsed through me. If I had survived the ritual with Vicken . . . why wouldn’t he survive the ritual as well?

  I ran to him. He watched me, completely still. The shock of seeing Rhode coursed through me, over and over again, making my mortal heart race. I was a step from him, close enough to reach out and touch his skin.

  I would touch him! Feel his skin with fingertips that were alive with nerves and pulsing with blood. Suddenly Suleen stood between us. I stepped to the left to avoid him but Suleen blocked my way. I moved to the right – blocked again. Rhode kept his eyes locked on mine, but didn’t take so much as a step towards me.

  My fingers shook as my hand stretched out to him. ‘Rhode . . .’ I whispered. ‘You’re not dead. You’re not dead.’

  He blinked sparingly, marvelling at me as if I was an unknown creature or some rare bird.

  ‘Rhode?’ I said, panic rising from my stomach to my chest.

  ‘Lenah . . .’ Suleen’s slo
w voice broke my gaze. ‘We haven’t much time.’

  ‘Damn it, Rhode, speak to me,’ I commanded.

  Rhode closed his eyes for a moment, seemingly gathering strength to speak. Instead he took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes to look at me, I nearly fell back from their coldness.

  ‘Rhode?’ I said. ‘Do you know how long I’ve dreamed of this?’ He didn’t respond. ‘I love you!’

  A pressure on my arm fell away. Justin. I had almost forgotten he was there. His cheeks were streaked with dirt, and when I moved my gaze to his hands, those too were caked in mud and sand. It reminded me of our terror that night, of what we had been through in the last few hours. And Kate Pierson had died.

  ‘This is Rhode?’ he said faintly. The wonder and hurt in his tone made me want to clamp my hands over my ears.

  Rhode stared at Justin with the same curiosity he had for me, as if we were some strange animals. Justin reached for me again.

  ‘You don’t want to be here, Lenah,’ he said.

  At this, Suleen stepped between Justin and me.

  ‘What are you . . . ?’ I started to say as Suleen opened his hand, palm facing Justin. A great gust came over us all at once. Trees swayed back and forth so their branches curled and creaked. There was a loud pop as Suleen thrust his arm forward. In a blink, a wide vertical whirlpool of water separated Justin from Suleen and me. This watery shield hovered in the air between us. I reached out, extending my fingers, and ran them through the whirlpool suspended in the air. They made lines where they broke through the water.

  I had never – ever – seen a vampire with that kind of power.

  ‘Lenah!’ Suleen said from behind me. ‘Rapidement.’ Quickly. He turned back to Rhode and left the swirling shield hanging in the air as though it had always been there.

  ‘Lenah!’ Justin banged a fist on to the watery barrier, then stepped back. He rose on to his tiptoes, trying to see over the water, but the barrier simply stretched upwards too. Our eyes met through the water, his face rippling strangely.

  ‘Lenah!’ He yelled my name again, and the sound of his voice breaking made a knot form in the centre of my chest. I could not go to him. Not even after everything that had happened that night.

  I turned to Suleen in frustration. ‘What the hell is going on?’