The male cut in and his voice was riddled with confusion. “That can’t be possible! She didn’t have any eyes an hour or so ago!”

“You must be mistaken,” the female said. “She couldn’t be growing her eyes back. Could she?”

“You tell me! You’re the pathologist!” The male said.

PATHOLOGIST! I screamed inside my head. That one word sent a stream of vivid images through my brain. My father had been a pathologist. I saw myself as if from above, looking down at the scene. Lying on a mortuary table…

That’s why I’m lying down. The surface is hard and cold because it’s made of metal…and the female is a pathologist, recording every detail of the body on the slab before she starts her…that’s why she was prodding me…she’s carrying out an external examination…that’s why they’re photographing me so she has pictures of my condition before she starts…the internal examination! “They think I’m dead! They’re gonna open me up because they think I’m dead!” I screamed inside.

The pathologist continued her external examination, but her voice had changed. There was a tremor to it. All I could do was lay and listen.

“The deceased has no nasal cavity or nose. The cause of this is unknown at this time. The mouth is only partially formed…”

“She’s growing a mouth now?” the male cut in.

“Shhh!” the female hissed. “If you can’t keep quiet, I’ll have to ask you to wait outside!”

“You can ask, lady, but I ain’t going anywhere,” the male spat. “I’m the lead police officer in this case and until I hear otherwise, I’m staying put. Look, I turned down a perfectly good steak ‘n fri…”

“The deceased has no lips and the jaw line is swollen,” the pathologist cut over him. “This is not the cause of death but may suggest that she was involved in some type of violent episode.”

“So what is the cause of death?” I heard the police officer ask.

“Well, I think the fact that she’s had her heart ripped out gives us a pretty good idea,” the pathologist said dryly.

“So who is she?” the male voiced asked.

“I’m Kiera Hudson!” I wanted to scream at them.

Chapter Ten

“So you’re Kiera Hudson? A voice asked.

I opened my eyes to see Coanda looking down at me. “Where am I?” I asked him, and I could still feel some of that rock dust in the back of my throat and between my teeth.

Handing me some water that came in a brown clay mug, Coanda said, “You’re in The Hollows.”

Sipping the water, which had a strange but sweet taste like candy floss, I looked about the small room that I now found myself in. It was lit by a series of small lamps that had been fastened to the walls. The room was in fact not a room at all, but more like a small cave that had been dug into the side of some giant red-coloured rock. There was a front door, and part of the room had been portioned off with a drab-looking curtain and from the bed that I was lying on, I couldn’t see if anything was hidden behind it.

Across from me was a small wooden table which was covered with odd-looking maps and plans. Beside this table was a chair and Coanda lowered himself onto it. In the light of the lanterns, his face took on an almost florescent glow and his black, spiky hair appeared to shine like those models in the shampoo commercials. He was no longer stripped to the waist but wore a black combat-style jacket that was covered in a mass of pockets which bulged with whatever he had hidden inside them.

“Where are my friends?” I asked him. “Are they safe?”

“They’re safe, for now” he said matter-of-factly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped, sitting up on the bed.

“Don’t get yourself excited,” Coanda said, waving at me to settle back down. They’re quite safe. They are getting ready for the journey ahead.”

“What journey?” I asked him. “How long have I been unconscious?”

“Not long, just a couple of hours,” Coanda informed me. “But long enough for me and my team to brief the others.”

“Team? Journey? Briefings?” I groaned. “You’re going to have to slow down.”

With a smile that bordered on satisfaction spreading across his face, Coanda looked at me as if marveling some rare find and said, “Ravenwood told me you were feisty, strong-willed, a go-getter, if you like.”

“What else did he tell you about me?” I asked, peering at him over the rim of the clay mug.

“That you were the one,” he said, his eyes growing wide. “The one that would bring peace to The Hollows and stop the annihilation of the human race.”

“As far as I can understand from the letter Ravenwood left me,” I started, “One race, either the Humans or the Vampyrus, have to be annihilated, as you describe it.”

“Ravenwood was right in what he told you,” Coanda said, and he looked at me with his big, cold blue eyes. “One of the species has to cease to exist, but they can die without the suffering that war brings. As soon as you decide which race goes, they just fade away, like shadows. There will be no pain, no suffering for them.”

Staring back at him, I said coolly, “I couldn’t care what happens because I’m not making any choice. I refuse to be the one who wipes out an entire race of people.”

Strumming his fingers against his thigh, Coanda looked at me thoughtfully and said, “I don’t think you understand, Kiera…”

“No, it’s you who doesn’t understand,” I said, placing the mug on the table with the maps. “I am not making any decision. I didn’t ask for this.”

“But Kiera, you have to,” he said. “That’s why you were chosen. A half-breed…half of each race…someone who can really see - feel - which species deserves to go on.”

“I know of two other half-breeds you could have chosen,” I snapped at him. “Why not let Kayla or Isidor make the decision?”

Looking at me as if I was failing to understand something, Coanda said, “Kiera, would you really want to pass such a burden to your young friends? Do you really think that either of them would want to…or be strong enough to make that choice?”

“What makes you think that I’m strong enough to choose?” I said, fighting the urge to scream at him.

“I don’t think anything, Kiera,” Coanda said calmly, “It’s the elders who have chosen you.”

“But why me?” I pushed.

Coanda shrugged at me and said, “You’ll be able to ask them soon enough.”

“How come?”

“That is the journey that we have to make,” Coanda started to explain.

“Before I go anywhere with you,” I said, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up, “I want to know exactly who you are.”

“Isn’t Ravenwood’s word enough?” Coanda asked, standing up.

“Let’s just say I’ve got trust issues,” I said with a wry smile. “Now tell me, why was there a locker back at that facility with your name on it?”

“Is it still there?” Coanda grinned as if remembering happier times. “I don’t suppose you came across my flight goggles, did you?”

“Flight goggles?” I asked bemused and wondered if he wasn’t just stalling me.

“Believe it or not, I used to be a Royal Air Force test pilot,” he said, sitting again on the chair. “Not wishing to brag, but I was pretty awesome. Women love a test pilot you know,” he said glancing up at me.

“Do they?” I said, cocking an eyebrow.

“Some do,” he half-smiled. “I think it was the uniform and all the danger.”

“Danger?” I asked him.

“Believe me, Kiera, I flew some of the most dangerous planes they secretly designed in that place,” he began to explain. “See, that facility was once owned by the Military of Defence. It was a secret test site for experimental planes they were working on, it was my team’s job to fly those machines that those crazy sons of bitches dreamt up. But being a secret Vampyrus, I had my own little secret, which gave me an advantage.”

“Wings?” I cut in.

“You’ve got it,” he smiled with a look of satisfaction. “I pushed those machines harder and faster than any other test pilot. I knew that if those planes broke up mid-flight, I could always just fly away.” And he made a swooping motion in the air with his hands. “Humans have this fascination with wanting to be able to fly; I was interested to see if they could ever design anything that could fly as fast as I could. I got a reputation of being a bit of a madman, a risk taker, but they always let me be the first to test the machines that they dreamt up. But then everything changed. They got rid of the planes and started doing other sorts of tests there. Tests that I wanted no part of.”

“What sort of tests?” I asked him.

“They were messing with DNA and trying to breed…”

“Half-breeds,” I finished for him.

“You got it, Kiera,” he said. “That’s where I first met Doctor Hunt and Doctor Ravenwood. It didn’t take them long to realise that the Vampyrus who had taken over the facility weren’t interested in finding a cure for the half-breeds, but a way of enhancing their abilities to become some deadly race they could help to overrun the Earth with. As soon as we discovered what was being planned, both Ravenwood and Hunt left and I went back down into The Hollows.”

“Didn’t you try and stop them?” I asked him. “Destroy the work that they’d been doing?”

“Not at first,” Coanda said, and he looked away as if ashamed. “But things started to change in The Hollows. There were rumours that Elias Munn was real, that he was behind the rise in crime in The Hollows, the murders, and steadily increasing lawlessness. Rumours started to spread that the humans were planning to come and ravish The Hollows, ruin it, and take whatever they could find; that our women and children would be taken back to the surface for their own perverted pleasures. But some of us knew this wasn’t true. Those of us who had lived amongst the humans knew that they didn’t even know of our existence. They were too busy killing each other to worry about a race of hairy winged freaks beneath them. But the lies were spread by Munn and his agents and those lies took root in the hearts of many Vampyrus. They started to hate the humans, even though most of them had never stepped foot above ground. But if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. So when Munn’s agents started to spread the word that the Vampyrus should fight back, invade above ground before the humans got below ground, there was no shortage of volunteers to go to war. Most of the murders were blamed on the humans. The story spread that human spies were sneaking below ground and killing Vampyrus. But I knew that it wasn’t true and there were plenty of others who felt the same way I did. The fear was and still is that if the Vampyrus attacked the humans, then they would counter attack and the wars that were fought thousands of years ago by our two races would come of age again.”