The Hunted (27 page)

Lisa smiled back at me as both Lucas and I rose from our seats and made our way quickly to the end of the room, leaving the two party poopers behind to continue on with algebraic equations.

We stopped at the door and glanced up into the passage. No one was there. ‘Hang on,’ Lucas said, tugging at my shirt sleeve.

‘What?’ I said, slapping his hand away impatiently.

‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘What is it?’

‘Just don’t move okay? I’ve never tried this on a living thing before, so I’m not one hundred percent sure if it will work.’

‘Lucas, what are you talking about?’

‘I’m going to make us invisible.’

I backed away. ‘Hang on a second. What if you turn my insides into my outsides?’

He grinned. ‘I’ll try really hard not to let that happen.’

I slapped him on the side of the head. ‘It won’t work anyway, you dumb ass. Protector’s can see through the magic, remember?’

He smoothed his long blonde hair back into place and scowled at me. ‘Okay, so I forgot. No need to slap me.’

‘Well don’t say stupid shit.’

I grabbed his hand before he tried to argue the point and dragged him behind me down the passageway. We stumbled up the stairs and hurried down the short passage. Both subsequent passages leading away from this intersection led to the training rooms, as well as the sleeping quarters.

This was where we knew that everyone must have gathered. If they weren’t in the library, then the training rooms were the only option left.

Lucas suddenly slapped a hand across my chest and slammed me hard against the wall, all before I had a chance to protest. Apart from scaring the crap out of me, the air rushed out of my lungs from the impact. I gave him a filthy look as he clamped his hand over my mouth and mouthed the words ‘shut up’ to me. I would have decked him one if that wouldn’t have given away our positions.

He pressed his back up against the wall and kept his hand clamped around my mouth. We heard Kim and Sarah stalking up the passageway that ran parallel to this one and talking rather loudly.

‘I can’t believe George just let them in here,’ Kim whined. ‘This is the IMI, not a bloody safe house for stray vampires.’

Lucas and I looked at each other, our eyes widening in excitement.

‘I know,’ Sarah answered. ‘It’s bad enough we have Elena running around the halls, let alone inviting more of her lot down here.’

Lucas pressed his hand tighter around my mouth and warned me with a look to keep my temper in check. He knew me well. I nodded.

‘I don’t care if they were hunting vânâtors up the coast,’ Sarah continued. ‘This is our territory. If there are more of those creatures invading our state then it is our job to clear up the mess.’

‘Quite right, Sarah. I know we have an alliance with these creatures, but I simply can’t stand to be in the same room as them. I know this is a slight subject change, but would you care to join me for afternoon tea?’

‘Where? In the library?’

Lucas and I shot each other a panicked look. No matter how quiet we were being, if they decided to turn down our passage and head for the library then we were about to be busted.

‘No. How about we get out of here?’ Kim answered. ‘We’ll go into town somewhere and far away from here, while it’s being infected by those creatures.’

Sarah chuckled. ‘This branch of the IMI has been infected for the last sixteen years.’

I gave Lucas a droll look. It looked like I was back to being painted as a disease again. Looks like I didn’t push her quite hard enough from the grandstand.

‘Quite right,’ Kim answered, laughing in return. ‘But that infection might turn out to be useful to us in the future.’

‘Perhaps. But let’s not discuss this here. We shall go and have ourselves some afternoon tea where we can complain until we are blue in the face.’

Their voices faded down the passage and then the sound of a wooden door closing drowned out the rest of their conversation.

Lucas lowered his hand from my mouth and then set his palm to my cheek in a reassuring gesture. He smiled dimly, brushing his thumb across my jaw, making sure I was okay.

‘I’m okay,’ I muttered. ‘It’s nothing I haven’t heard Sarah say before.’

He smiled and dropped his hand from my face so that he could gather my hand in his warm one instead. ‘Next time, you should just kick her fat ass her off the grandstand instead of pushing her.’

I frowned. ‘She fell remember?’

‘Ahh, yes,’ Lucas said chuckling, ‘she fell. How could I forget?’

I shrugged. ‘It was karma.’

Lucas sniggered. ‘No. It was the double F-cups and a little shove that did it, but who’s keeping score?’

‘You, apparently.’

‘Oh come on, E, you have to admit, it was pretty bloody funny.’

I grinned and winked at him. ‘I’m admitting to absolutely nothing.’

He laughed again and then cupped a hand over his mouth to quiet the sound. ‘Come on. Let’s go and find out what’s going on.’ He tightened his grip on my hand and then, at first hesitating, led me around the corner and down the first passageway, towards the first training room.

‘I don’t think they’re in this training room, Lucas,’ I whispered.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘Maybe they’re all dead.’

‘That’s not funny.’

‘Okay, then they’re in the other training room. Let’s go.’

We took off back up the stairs and through the passage again, coming to the junction and heading left down the last remaining passage.

As we neared the bottom of the stairs the voices grew more distinct. We flattened our backs against the wall again and stayed at least a good couple of metres away from the doorway. From this angle we could see the wall of armoury but nothing of the grandstand—but if we could not see any of them, then they could not see either of us.

‘Lovely to meet you, Susan,’ a male voice with a familiar British cadence said politely. ‘These are my travelling companions, Thomas and Marianne Woodland.’

‘Brother and sister?’ I heard Susan enquire.

‘Yes. Twins, actually.’ There was a pause.

‘My husband tells me that you have travelled here from London, is that correct?’

There was a silence which I assumed entailed either a nod or a shake of the head. ‘I’m English, born and bred,’ the strange voice answered. ‘My companions and I have been living in London for the past three years. During that time we’d been tracking a rather large pack of vânâtors. Between myself and Thomas, we have slowly whittled away their number from fifty to about five.’

‘It took three years?’ I heard Malcolm ask in disbelief.

There was a slight pause. ‘Yes. They are getting a lot more intelligent as time goes by. They learn, and they remember where the dangerous areas are to avoid detection. Plus, London, as I’m sure you can understand, is a very heavily populated place and the Vânâtors are exceptional at blending in.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Malcolm interrupted again. ‘Did you just say that the Vânâtors were getting smarter?’ He chuckled quietly. ‘They are
just
animals.’

Lucas and I looked at each other again excitedly and took a couple of steps further down the passage. It was obvious that beyond the doorway of this training room there were three bona fide vampires talking to the adults, and both Lucas and I were dying to get a look at them.

‘Forgive me if I sound rude when I say this,’ the stranger continued, ‘but living in Australia you are not aware of how the European packs are starting to mobilise, changing territories to avoid detection. Their breeding process may have slowed down over the last few years, causing less concern for minority branches of the IMI like yourselves, but I myself have seen how clever they can be. They may just be animals as you say, but these animals have had over three hundred years to evolve, learn and hunt.’

‘If that is true,’ Vincent interrupted, ‘then why are you here? If the problem in Europe is as bad as you say, then what has made you stray to sunny Australia?’

‘Vânâtors—the rest of the London pack, to be precise.’

‘We took care of that problem,’ George countered.

‘Again, please do not take offence, but I’m afraid that can’t be true.’

‘What are you saying?’ Susan asked defensively.

‘Have you read the papers lately?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then you would have noticed that women are going missing from every major town the entire way up to Cairns.’

‘There is no proof that it’s werewolves,’ George answered, slightly agitated.

‘You are right,’ the stranger answered, ‘but we have an obligation to see this thing through. Our noses have led us to Cairns. There has to be a reason for that.’

‘What obligation?’

‘To kill the rest of the pack.’

‘You say there are five remaining?’ Vincent asked.

‘We feel certain of it.’ He paused. ‘The pack that we had been hunting in London dispersed once it learned that we were killing them off one by one. We’re pretty sure that an alpha is leading this pack, hence why they’ve been able to stay just out of our grasp for so long. We followed their scent to the docks in London, discovered they had hitched a ride on a cargo ship heading for Australia. We intercepted at least three different ships on the way here, worried that they had split up or fooled us with false directional scents.’

‘Are you saying they laid a false trail for you to follow?’ George asked.

‘We’re not one hundred percent certain about that, but we think so. We found the scented remains of the two dead vânâtors you killed in Brisbane and then located another live one ourselves in Rockhampton that we took care of. But from there we’ve simply been following their numerous trails, trying to locate the Alpha, but all of them so far appear to be bogus.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Malcolm breathed. ‘They’re smart enough to lay false trails?’

‘It’s certainly starting to look that way, though it appears that they leave all of the decision making up to their pack leaders—the Alphas. Hence why we’ve managed to deplete their numbers and why you were able to capture and kill the two in Brisbane.’

‘Well that’s something, I suppose,’ Susan countered. ‘It would be horrifying to think that they were
all
capable of coordinating a decent defence. At the moment, the Vânâtors we have encountered have all been relatively easy to subdue and defeat, but we’ve never been witness to the efficiency of an alpha before.’

Lucas looked at me excitedly. ‘Can you believe this?’ he whispered. ‘We’re actually only a couple of metres away from real, live vampires!’

I slapped him gently on the arm. ‘I’m a vampire, remember?’

He frowned. ‘You don’t count. You’re not even a proper one yet, anyway.’

‘Hello,’ a soft, melodic voice said from behind us.

We jumped in fright and then turned to stare in pure, unadulterated shock at one of the most beautiful women that either one of us had ever laid our eyes upon. She was the same height as me, but a slightly bigger build and a few more curves that filled out nicely in all the right places. Her hair was the colour of wheat and was styled into a short collection of ringlets that fell just above her shoulders, almost like Shirley Temple. Her eyes were the colour of sapphires, deep, dark pools of navy blue that were both frightening and enticing all at the same time. Her skin reminded me of fine porcelain that was both fragile and beautiful, despite her pale pallor and the almost translucent appearance of her soft, smooth flesh.