Chapter Thirty-Four

Kiera

“So that is why your mother was so angry when she discovered you had secretly been seeing Father Paul?” I asked Jack.

“Yes,” he nodded slowly, the thick streams of blood now looking like a crusty scab around his nose and mouth. “She feared that if Murphy discovered I had been going to his brother, then he would believe she had broken her promise and would come for her.”

“But Murphy wouldn’t have really killed her,” I breathed, “He isn’t like that.”

“I know that now,” Jack said, the chains binding his wrists clinking.

“How come?” I asked him.

“It wasn’t Murphy who killed my father,”

he said.

“Who was it then?”

“When I searched Father Paul’s eyes, I saw it was him who killed my father,” Jack said bitterly. “He suspected I was meeting someone, as each afternoon I left for the forests. He knew I was lying about going to paint. Stupidly, I never took my rucksack with me. So he followed me from afar, hiding in the shade beneath the trees.

Then when he heard my father begin to tell me about his and my mother’s secret, he flew from his hiding place, and silenced him before he had a chance to tell me. But that wasn’t his only treachery I discovered.”

“What else did you see in his eyes?” I pushed.

“On returning to his house, Father Paul found Murphy waiting for him,” Jack explained.

“Murphy saw the blood on his brother’s hand, wrist, and forearm and demanded to know where it had come from. Father Paul confessed and they fought, that’s why Murphy had blood on his shirt.

Then, from below, they heard me call out.

Panicked, and fearing that I knew Father Paul had murdered my Dad, Murphy told his younger brother it was his last chance to rid himself of the curse he believed my mother had bewitched him with. Murphy told Father Paul to sit in the chair and not move an inch, whatever happened. Father Paul demanded to know why. His brother looked at him and said, ‘The child you had with the Lycanthrope lives. It is not dead. Do as I say and you can be a father to it.’ The chance of being with that baby was too much for him to resist, so he did as his brother said.”

“So Father Paul tricked you then – gave you up – so he could be with this child?” I said, again feeling the hurt Jack must have felt.

“The whole thing was a lie,” he spat, his eyes bright again. “The coffin, the funeral – everything was an act. And to think I stood at the back of the church crying my eyes out for that man. They lowered Father Paul into the ground where waiting Vampyrus smuggled him away, letting me, the Lycanthrope, and the Elders believe he was dead. After some time hidden in The Hollows, and enough time for everything to settle and move on, Father Paul reappeared from beneath The Hollows, with a new name and identity, and was reunited with the child which came from the mixing he shared with my mother.

Murphy forbade him to ever reveal that he was a Vampyrus and to cut all ties with his brother.

Father Paul loved the child deeply, and the young female Vampyrus and he fell in love and raised the child, while I, consumed by hate, led a life unaware of what truly had gone on.”

With his story told, Jack lowered his head again.

“What did you do to Father Paul when discovering the truth?” I dared ask, suspecting Jack had already murdered him.

Jack raised his head, just enough so he could see me, then said, “I stripped him to his underwear, dragged him up to the room where I used to paint as a boy, and tied him to a chair. I then lured that child to the house.”

“What house?” I whispered, confused.

“Who is this child?”

“The child in the photographs I told you about,” he said. “I lured it to this house.”

“This house?” I gasped, shaking my head, wondering if Jack hadn’t completely lost his mind.

“This is the house where I spent so many hours with Father Paul,” he said with a smile.

“The house at the top of the hill, and the church below. This was my room.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”

I mumbled, a sick feeling rising in my stomach. “If this is the house, then where is Father Paul?”

“Lying on the floor next to you,” Jack began to laugh.

“But he’s my father,” I breathed, looking down at him, lying unconscious beside me.

“And you are my sister,” Jack grinned.

“You are that child born from my mother after mixing with the Vampyrus Blackcoat. You are that baby Murphy smuggled away.”

“You’re a liar!” I roared, jumping to my feet and racing across the room towards him.

“I found it hard to believe myself when I saw those pictures of you two together,” Jack said, and now he wasn’t laughing or smiling. He looked deadly serious. “I couldn’t understand why there were pictures of you and Father Paul together – not until I looked into his eyes did I understand the reason why.”

“It’s not true!” I screamed into his face.

“This is just some fucked up game you are playing with my mind!”

“Kiera, although you are dominantly a Vampyrus, haven’t you wondered why you are the only one of them with hazel – or should I say yellow eyes? Haven’t you wondered why you can see in the dark like a wolf? Bats can’t see in the dark – they’re blind…”

“Stop it!” I screamed, punching him in the mouth.

His head snapped back. Jack spat out a globule of blood, then looked straight back at me.

“Ever wondered why you bleed from the eyes?

When Murphy placed you in the lake – or should I say the Dead Waters – your soul soaked up the blood which had been shed by the Vampyrus that the Lycanthrope had slaughtered. It was their blood – their perished souls – which still haunt those fountains which brought you back to life.”

“No!” I cried, dropping to my knees. “It’s not true. I refuse to believe it.”

“Ask your beloved friend, Murphy,” Jack teased. “That’s the real reason he didn’t want you coming to look for your father again – just in case I’d gotten to him first. The man at your feet I knew as the Blackcoat Father Paul and you know him to be called Frank Hudson – but they are both the same man. He didn’t cry out in pain as he was dying – he cried out through fear of what the Elders would do to him on the other side.”

“He didn’t do anything,” I sobbed. “He was a good man. He was my father.”

“He was no different to our mother, Kiera,” Jack said. “Like her, he was a killer who lied and cheated to help themselves. Neither of them cared about the hurt or the harm they caused. You take the side of the Vampyrus instead of the Lycanthrope – but why? They are no better than us.”

“Don’t say that!” I screamed at him, slamming my fists into the floor. “There is no us.

I’m not one of you.” I dropped my head forward, feeling as if my very soul had been ripped apart.

“So, now you understand your true choice, Kiera,” Jack said, almost as if he cared. “You can save the murderer you call your father, the lying, cheating excuse of a lover, Potter, or me – your brother.”

I covered my ears with my hands and screamed, blocking out the sound of Jack’s hysterical laughter.