Playing Dead: Book One of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 42

"You know for a split second there, I thought you might wimp out on me," Harper said, his eyes like emerald fires behind his long dark lashes.

I stood, wiping the knife on my jeans, staining my thigh with thick sticky blood and grinned. "You really should learn to have more faith in me."

"Touché, angel," he nodded and I raised a hand to his face, feeling the damaged skin and the slickness of his blood under my fingertips. He winced slightly.

"That's got to sting," I noted, touching my fingers to my lips, unable to resist a little taste. He moved closer, pulling me against him, his hand firm on the small of my back.

"Enjoying my pain? My, my, we really have come a long way haven't we?" he mused, raising an eyebrow. "Next thing I know, you'll be throwing me around your basement."

"That's not a bad idea," I murmured, tracing my lips lightly against his and feeling that familiar tingle shoot down my spine and the warmth nestle in the base of my stomach. "But we need to get out of here first, the stench of this place isn't exactly doing it for me I'm afraid."

"Couldn't agree more," he replied and grabbing my hand we ran from the room, heading back up the long corridor.

I could hear the howls and screams of battle, the sound of bodies slamming together with force, voices of those in pain and those exultant in triumph. I could sense the overwhelming smell of Varúlfur flesh and the crushing scent of vampire blood. Fear hung in the air like some huge black storm cloud threatening to burst and engulf Gravestock House, only this time the deluge was not just the disabling fear of the vampires, but also the ever increasing odour of the Varúlfur in panic and disbelief that we would dare bring this battle to their door. They weren't ready. How could they have been? Just like the Great Cleansing we had taken them by complete surprise, descending upon their haven, their home, and now we were ripping them from it in the same way they had torn us from our slumber and thrown us to the merciless sun.

The fight was still mostly outside, churning up the delicately landscaped gardens and spraying blood across the clean stone of the driveway leading up to the main doors and as we fled through those doors, I was almost stunned into immobility at the sight that beheld us.

Monstrous dark shapes thrashed and spun in a frenzy, surrounded by the vampire cells who darted in and out, trying to weave out of the way of those deadly claws, some unfortunate enough to receive the blows that would send them crashing to the floor and fall prey immediately to the snapping, slavering jaws of the beasts. So many bodies dancing in the moonlight to the sound of the war, slick with sweat and blood, wearing their injuries like macabre costumes.

I recognised Edward's cell, the one that Harper had joined, surrounding two Varúlfur who fought back to back, successfully fending off every attack and then one vampire, a woman I remembered from The Box, all punk hair and athletic build, mistimed her assault and ended up sprawling at their feet only to be picked up and subjected to the most vicious tug of war. With little effort, I heard the splintering of bone and the sickly squelch of ripping flesh and soon she was in pieces with the Varúlfur feasting on whatever remained clutched in their lethal grip. Her death, however, only seemed to spur on the rest of the cell, who renewed their assault with effective vigour and took advantage of the fact the beasts were seemingly too busy devouring their prize. With an awesome speed, soon they too were devoured, overwhelmed by the rising tide of vampires who swarmed over their bodies and refused to give in.

Suddenly, we heard a loud agonised cry to our left and looking over I saw Garrick's cell, with Garrick in the middle of the maelstrom of Varúlfur and vampire, desperately scrambling away from an advancing beast, his knives lost to the deep mud that sucked at the feet of every warrior as if revelling in the injured and fallen and attempting to take the bodies down into the sodden earth.