“Come here, Alice.”

As bidden, I stepped closer, so that I was standing in front of the Hannah-alike.

She knelt down in front of me, pushed down by Kane’s hand, then turned her head to reveal her neck. Kane pulled her hair back. The girl was no longer looking at me, her eyes downcast.

“You see this vein here?” Kane pointed at the girl’s neck. “This is the easiest way to drain a human. Bite into the jugular and the blood will flow. You take your fill. She won’t feel a thing.”

Kane returned to his armchair, legs crossed, as if he had never left it. Watching with keen eyes.

The whole thing felt almost ceremonial. The willing victim, the observing High Priest who had engineered the whole situation.

Kane was enjoying this.

My lips curled away from my teeth. I hadn’t realised how strong the craving for human blood was until this moment when I could sense it travelling through the girl’s veins. I leant forward, eyes closed, and felt my canine teeth stretch and turn to sharp points.

I bit into the girl’s neck.

Blood spurted from her veins and into my mouth, trickling down my throat. It tasted like nothing I’d ever tasted before. The rough blood I’d licked from the carpet was nothing compared to this pulsing, gushing, living fountain.

As soon as I started, I realised I wouldn’t stop until I was satisfied. I could hear the girl’s heartbeat, enjoyed the slight whimper she let out as my teeth sank into her.

I felt the predator within take over, and all my concerns about not taking a life vanished as I sucked and swallowed. The girl crumpled in my arms and I had to lean forward, hugging her to me so that she wouldn’t fall to the floor. Strength flowed through my veins as it left hers. My thoughts became so clear, so illuminated, it was like a thousand watt light bulb switching on.

The girl’s eyes closed. I could feel her emptying, her organs struggling to function, and I removed my teeth from his neck, clamping my mouth shut. My jaws twitched as the urge to continue drinking almost overpowered me.

No, I told myself.

She was still alive.

I could save her if I stopped now.

I sensed movement behind me. Kane knew I’d stopped feeding, and he must have also known that I hadn’t drained my victim.

I didn’t have any time to reconsider my next move.

I dropped the girl and lunged at Kane with a front kick that got him straight in the diaphragm. I followed this up with a jab to the face and another to his lower jaw. Bones cracked as my fists made contact. My moves had never had so much energy behind them or been so swift and streamlined.

Kane span and fell backwards to the floor with a roar of fury.

This is the moment in the tv show where the girl has got the upper hand but turns to run instead, I thought. What’s the rule?

Just keep hitting him, you moron, until he can’t get back up!

I didn’t stop.

I leapt on top of him and I punched again, desperate to keep up the assault and hoping it would be enough.

The problem was, I didn’t think it will be. As fast and strong as I was now, I knew Kane was faster and stronger. All I could do was keep him off-balance, keep punching and kicking, keep hoping it was enough.

Kane lashed out with an enraged backhanded slap, sending me spinning off him. He leapt up to face me as I recovered faster than I’d ever done in my life.

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If I gave him a second, he would win.

I launched another kick at him, putting all my newfound strength behind it.

I got lucky.

Kane was more outraged than injured by my assault and wanted to say something. Throw in a threat or do a villain monologue. It was only a split second hesitation, but it was enough.

My kick sent Kane flying into one of the ceiling-to-floor curtains, and through the other side. The curtains went down with him as the glass shattered and he rolled into the garden outside.

Into sunlight.

Kane screamed and leapt back into the room. His flesh burned and withered where the sunlight had hit him. I jumped backwards, out of the light, Kane rolled to the right and just like that, sunlight streaming into the room separated us.

The sun had hit me briefly as well, and although it stung, it hadn’t anything like the dramatic effect it had on Kane. The half of his face touched by sunlight was wrinkled, burnt, and ancient. Wisps of smoke rose from his also withered arms and hands. He coughed, snarled, but was too afraid to cross the sunlight to attack me again.

This is the real Kane, I thought.

“You’ll regret this, you little fool,” he spat.

“Maybe. But not today.”

“I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth,” he screamed at me. “I’ll make sure you spend an eternity in hell!”

I ignored him. The sunlight streaming into the room neutralised him. I couldn’t get to him and he couldn’t get to me.

So I would have to run after all, breaking my rule.

Kane would have to be tomorrow’s problem to deal with. Right now, there were more pressing issues. There wasn’t much time. The sun was setting. It wouldn’t be long before the bars of light that were keeping Kane from reaching me vanished.

I picked up the unconscious girl as if she was no heavier than Tilly. I kicked the locked door, sending it flying off its hinges. Outside was a long corridor. I turned left and ran, carrying the girl with the fading heartbeat over my shoulder. At the end of the corridor, I reached the stairs, and I raced down them, taking the steps four at a time, and smashed through the heavy wooden front door with a kick. I didn’t even bother to check if it was locked or not. I just needed to get out as fast as possible.

Outside, I got lucky. The sun wasn’t hitting the driveway.

There was a car on the drive, a black BMW 7 series. I opened the door. The keys were in the centre console. “Far too trusting, Kane,” I mumbled to myself. I settled the girl in the passenger seat and strapped myself into the driver's seat.

I typed the name of the hospital into the onboard satnav and hit the accelerator hard.

When I found a parking space at the hospital carpark, I felt the girl’s pulse. Her face was pale, her lips tinged blue, but there was a faint beat.

It was already dark when I pulled her out of the car and raced into the hospital, dropped the girl in front of the reception desk and got out of there as fast as I’d got in.

I ran out again with my head down, hoping that would be enough to save the girl’s life.

I didn’t know where to go. I couldn’t go home. That was the first place anyone would look for me.

I ran through the information that I had gleaned from Section 13’s database. All the known sightings of werewolves, vampires, ghosts, demons, and other supernatural creatures had been covered up, but there were also humans on the Section’s watch list. Humans who were linked to these occurrences or supernatural beings.

My almost photographic memory was also heightened – something else Kane hadn’t known about me – and I could access the information as if I was holding my laptop in front of me and reading from the document itself.

There’s a name I was looking for. One that featured on the watch list as being an expert in the supernatural field. Section 13 was keeping her under surveillance. I didn’t know if this was because they planned to use her to hunt supernatural beings or if they planned to detain her and keep the story all hush-hush like all the others.

There it was.

I stopped walking whilst I found the information stored in my memory. A name.

Victoria Pryce.

According to the document emailed from Major Wilson, the section’s head, to another government division, Victoria Pryce used to be employed by Section 13 in the now-defunct science department. She lived in a mansion outside of Avebury; the address disclosed in the top-secret file now stored inside my head. There was a suspicion that she was harbouring supernatural creatures.

Offering them sanctuary.

And sanctuary was what I needed right now, more than anything else.

Someone whistled, and I glanced across the street to a guy in leathers about to mount a motorbike.

“Wanna ride, babe?” he yelled.

He leered at me, making it clear exactly what kind of ride he meant. He didn’t even bother waiting for an answer, just got ready to move away.

I was across the road and putting on his helmet, while he was flat out in someone’s front garden, before he even saw me coming.

I’d ridden a motorbike once in my life. It was enough.

The sun had set. I knew Kane would hunt me now. Just as bad, if Section 13 somehow found out about me, they’d have no hesitation in killing me, either. And then there was Kane’s threat about other vampires wanting me dead as well. How many were there? How organised were they? All questions I needed answers to.

With nowhere else to turn, I had one option.

Head to Avebury and Victoria Pryce and pray that she was one of the good guys.

“Avebury, here we come,” I muttered.

I rolled the bike’s throttle and rode into the night.

--------------------------------------------End of Book One--------------------------------------------