Vampire Wake

Puling the blanket around me like a shawl, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and went to the bathroom. Taking a piece of tissue paper, I dabbed the corner of my left eye and wiped away the crimson smear that ran down the length of my cheek to my chin.



"So you're a cop?" the girl said from the other room.



Flushing the bloodied piece of tissue down the toilet, I went back into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Looking at the girl, who was stil rummaging through my belongings, I said, "Do you mind?"



Ignoring me, the girl said, "Where's your gun?"



"I don't have a gun," I told her.



"Taser?"



"I don't have one of those, either."



"CS spray?" she asked, looking almost hopeful.



I shook my head.



"Cuffs?"



"Nope," I said, holding out my hand for my belongings.



Tossing the rucksack to one side and crossing to the window, she said, "What sort of cop doesn't have a pair of handcuffs?"



Smiling inside, I said, "I'm sorry, but I didn't realise I would need a ful arsenal of weaponry to babysit you - you're not that bad are you?" It must have come out sounding al wrong because she turned back from the window and scowled at me.



"Listen lady, or whatever your name is, I don't need no babysitter."



Taking a T-shirt from the rucksack, I puled it over my head and said, "My name's Kiera. I take it you're Kayla."



"Yeah, so?" she said taking a piece of gum from her jeans pocket and popping it into her mouth. Like her mother, she had stunning looks, with a mass of auburn hair that curled around her shoulders, an impish- looking face, and icy-blue eyes. Her skin was the colour of cream and she had a spattering of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She was already beautiful, but give it another couple of years, and most men wil find her drop-dead gorgeous. I wondered if Kayla knew that, but her confident manner suggested that she already did.



Matching her stare, I said, "So what?" and smiled.



"I don't need this shit," she scowled and stormed towards the bedroom door.



"That's cool," I said. "I don't need this shit, either."



Reaching the bedroom door, she turned and looked at me, and I couldn't help but notice the slight look of surprise on her face. Maybe she was expecting some kind of rebuke for swearing and going through my rucksack without permission. I knew she was testing me. Perhaps Kayla had been expecting some hard- nosed copper who was going to lay down the law, but that wasn't me. I had a week with her and I'd already made up my mind that I wasn't going to spend it fighting. She glanced down at my iPod that lay on the floor where she'd left it. Music hissed from the speakers, sounding faint and far off.



"Can I borrow that?" she asked, her voice stil sounding stubborn and cold. "Mine's broken."



Snatching it up off the floor, I tossed it at her.



"Knock yourself out," I said.



Catching it out of the air, she turned away, back towards the door. But before she had a chance to disappear, I asked, "What time's breakfast around here? I'm starving."



Without looking back she said, "I'l wait down the hal for you." Then she was gone.



I went to the bathroom, stripped off my T-shirt and underwear, and jumped in the shower. That ever-so- deep bath looked so inviting but I'd just have to try it out later. I didn't want to leave Kayla waiting. Getting on her good side was going to be difficult enough. The water was warm and I hoped it would help wash away the images that I stil had in my mind from the nightmare that I had woken from.



Why had I dreamt of Philips ransacking my flat? It wasn't the first time that he had made a guest appearance in my nightmares since leaving The Ragged Cove, but they had never seemed so vivid - so real.



And why did my eye keep bleeding? Like the visions of the plane crash I'd seen yesterday - had the pilot realy been screaming that the cockpit had been breached by them before it had falen out of the sky and nose-dived into the sea? I wanted to keep teling myself that it was my imagination working overtime - that perhaps what had happened in The Ragged Cove had disturbed me more than I first had thought, and the nightmares and visions were a consequence of that. Maybe Dr. Keats had been right. No, she thought I was raving mad but I knew I wasn't.



If the nightmare had been some kind of vision, then had Philips realy been to my flat and ransacked it? But why? What had he been looking for? If it had been some sort of premonition, that would mean Philips was stil alive and Taylor would be close by. And if they were together, Luke, Potter, and Murphy would be hot on their tail. After al, didn't they say they were going to track them?



Stepping from the shower and toweling myself dry, I wondered if coming to the Halowed Manor had been such a good idea after al. For months, I'd been looking for - searching - each and every newspaper and news report for anything that might suggest their return and as soon as I turn my back....



Kiera, what are you thinking of? I scolded myself. It was just a dream. It had been the first night away from my flat since leaving The Ragged Cove and somewhere deep inside I was probably feeling insecure.



That was al I was feeling - I was being paranoid that now I had left Havensfield behind, Luke was going to put in an appearance and I wouldn't be there. I was two hundred and fifty-five-and-a- half miles away staying on some godforsaken moor. How would he ever find me?



"Stop it!" I groaned to myself as I puled on a pair of jeans, boots and jumper. "Stop torturing yourself."



But I couldn't stop. I needed to know if the nightmare I'd had about Philips burgling my flat had been some vision or just a dream. How would I know?



I stil had a whole week down here. So taking my mobile phone from my bag, I went to 'contacts' and scroled down to 'Sparky'. Hitting 'message' with my fingernail, I wrote the folowing text: Had to go away 4 wk can u check on flat?



Thanx. Kiera. x After hitting the send button, I tucked the phone into my jeans pocket and left my room in search of Kayla.