What was that?

Then the pathologist said, “I’m now going to start the internal examination. Is everyone in the room happy?”

“HAPPY?” I screamed inside. “YEAH I’M OVER THE FREAKING MOON! YOU’RE ABOUT TO OPEN ME UP AND…

“Wait a minute!” The police officer said. “I think I saw her eye move!”

“Impossible!” The pathologist said. “I’ve checked for all vital signs of life and…”

“I think you’d better check again, sweetheart,” the police officer’s voice came again, this time from the right-hand side of me.

“Yeah that’s right! LOOK! LOOK! My eye’s moving!” I yelled inside and moved my eye frantically from side to side and as I did the enormous shape of the police officer appeared like a giant red shadow beside me.

“Oh Sweet Jeezus!” The police officer hollered. “She’s alive I’m telling ya!”

“Yes! Yes!” I’m alive I wanted scream but…

Chapter Fifteen

…a hand fell over my mouth and I woke with a start. It was pitch-black and I was cold. With my heart thumping in my chest, I stared through the darkness and could see Potter leaning over me, his hand clasped over my mouth.

“Shhh!” he whispered in my ear. “I want to show you something.”

Gently, he removed his hand from over my mouth.

“What in the hell…” I started.

Then placing his forefinger against his lips, he stared hard at me and said, “Shhh!”

Taking me by the hand, he pulled me to my feet. I placed my iPod into my pocket and went with him.

I followed him in silence until we were far enough away from the others to not be overheard. I then asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“I want to show you something,” he whispered back at me. “What?”

“You’ll see when we get there,” he said, leaping from the side of the mountain and dragging me with him. We plummeted into the night sky, opening our wings and soaring into the night.

“We shouldn’t be flying,” I said as I glided next to him. “Coanda said that the Vampyrus could pick us up using their echo -”

“The guy’s a Muppet,” Potter grinned back at me. “It’s not far, and if we keep low we should be okay.”

“But…”

Then Potter was banking away so I followed. We skimmed just inches over the red, hard-panned landscape. Dust blew up in our wake, and my hair tossed out behind me. In the distance I could see an orange glow, like a crack in the night. As we drew closer, the crack grew bigger and it no longer looked like a mere split but an opening in the centre of the Earth. We raced towards it and the air grew warmer.

Potter began to slow, and I spread my wings to keep alongside him. Arching his wings back, Potter hovered in the air, then taking hold of my hand, we gently floated towards the ground.

Leading me over to the giant fracture in the rocky ground, I watched as bright orange lumps of what looked like molten lava shot up into the night like a series of fireworks. Taking me towards the very edge, the air blew hot and arid. Dust swirled around us and it was as if we had become separated from the rest of the world. I looked at him, and his rugged looks glowed red and orange from the light that seeped from the abyss beneath us.

“Where are we?” I breathed, feeling breathless at the sight before me.

“A promise is a promise,” he smiled back at me, and I loved that smile. It wasn’t his cocky smile, the one I’d so often wanted to wipe from his face, but it was the nice smile – the one that I had so often wanted to kiss, the one that made my heart race.

“What are you talking about?” I asked him.

“Remember in the caves beneath that fountain I told you about that canyon?” he asked me. “Talles Varineris. I made you a promise that one day I would take you to see it. Well, this is it.”

I looked down into the abyss, and it was like staring down into an erupting volcano. Red, yellow, and orange lava bubbled, hissed, and spat way below me.

Taking a deep breath, Potter said, “The canyon runs for miles, it’s a fracture that runs across the centre of the Earth. Like I told you before, some Vampyrus have undertaken expeditions to try and find its start and its end, but none ever returned. Some say that they fell in or went mad and got lost in the millions of gorges and tunnels that twist and turn through the Talles Varineris.”

Unable to take my eyes off the sight before me, I said, “I remember you telling me that if you stand right out on the very edge and stare down into the canyon, it’s like looking into the Earth’s soul. I didn’t know what you meant back then, but I do now.” I continued to watch the lava shift and move below as it took on the most incredible shapes of beauty. It was like my mind was playing tricks on me. The flames looked like horses galloping through hot orange waves, dolphins diving up into the air then melting into a spray of boiling lava. It shifted and rolled, and it was as if I could see all of Earth’s creations bathing in the great, writhing sea of lava below. It was like the whole of creation had started down there in its depths and with each plume of lava that shot up into the air, it carried the spirit of that creature up into The Hollows, soaring higher through the layers of the earth and above ground.

“Enough already,” Potter suddenly said, taking my arm and pulling me back from the edge of the canyon. “I told you that many have gone mad, mesmerized by what they see down there.”

“But…” I started looking back over my shoulder at it, just wanting one last glimpse of its beauty.

“That’s a sacred place down there,” Potter said, turning my face in his strong hands. “It’s to be respected, not understood.”

Looking at him, I said, “You told me you came here with your mother and father.”

“Yes,” he said, looking away. “I don’t have many good memories of them, especially not my father. But this place seemed to ease his temper somehow.”

“You have a temper, Potter,” I said, now turning his face back to look at mine.

“What’s got into you?” he suddenly asked. “You’ve barely said two words to me since I came back from rescuing Luke.”

“Im scared of you,” I told him, as the sky lit up with jets of molten lava.

“Scared of me?” he scoffed. “Why would you be scared of me?”

“Why did you kill Eloisa?” I asked him straight out. The time for misunderstandings and untruths had passed. I wanted him to be honest with me.

“To get back at Jack Seth for playing his part in the death of Murphy,” he growled at me.

“I don’t believe you!” I yelled. “Stop lying to me!”

“She was a child killer, Kiera!” he shouted back. “Isn’t that enough of a reason?”

“It isn’t the reason why you killed her and I know it!” I raged at him, clenching my fists by my sides.

“What part of being a child killer do you not understand!” he roared, and the veins on his neck stood out like wires running beneath a carpet. “For hundreds of years, Eloisa and her kind have snatched children from their beds, strangled them, disemboweled them, fed on them, then discarded them like pieces of litter. For fuck’s sake, Kiera, stop being so naïve. She was nothing but child-murdering scum and she deserved to die.”

“Not like that,” I said, staring at him. “Not to have her heart ripped out and chucked on the floor at the feet of Seth. No one deserves to die like that.”

“That’s how Murphy died!” Potter almost seemed to scream at me. “Jesus, Kiera, you just don’t get it, do you!”

“Get what?” I hollered at him.

“You’ve never known what it’s like to have your father punch you in the side of the head and tell you that you’re a worthless piece of shit and that you would never amount to anything. You’ve never known what it’s like to see your father come home and beat up on your mum, to have to listen to her screams coming from the bedroom while you lay in bed feeling helpless. Murphy was more like a father to me than my own ever was.”

I watched Potter throw his hands over his ears, as if he could still hear his mother’s screams. In the glow of the light from the canyon, I saw tears glistening on his cheeks. Then, staring at me, he said, “That’s why I killed her, because she murdered children, she took their innocence – she took their lives! And however much she claimed to have made amends for her past, you can never redeem yourself for doing something like that. So, I’m sorry if I scared you, Kiera, but however scared you felt seeing that, it couldn’t come close to the fear she put into the hearts of the children she murdered.”

I looked at him as he took his hands away from over his ears, his mother’s screams now fading away. “I’m sorry,” I said, going towards him.

Holding out his hand as if to stop me from coming closer, Potter said, “Please, Kiera, just leave me alone.”

Ignoring him, I took his hand in mine and lowered it. “I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

“What do you care anyhow?” he asked, unable to look at me. “I’m just Potter, the hired muscle, the gopher, the joker in the pack.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“I’ve seen you and Luke having your private little chats since he came back,” he said. “I saw you walking hand in hand up that mountain.”

“We weren’t holding hands,” I said.

“Whatever,” he huffed, pulling away from me. “I won’t stand in your way now that Luke’s back. I know you’re in love with him and who could blame you? I mean that guy is the only one I know who can get the shit kicked out of him and still look good enough to appear in an Armani commercial! And then there’s me with the crooked nose from too many fights…”

“Will you just shut up before I break your freaking nose?” I hollered at him. “I don’t love Luke. It’s you I’m in love with, Potter!”