Vampire Hunt (Kiera Hudson Series #3) by Tim O'Rourke Read Free Book Online Page B

had to be so difficult. Then realising that he might be of some use, I said, “Potter, take off your coat.”
    “Easy, tiger,” Potter grinned. “This isn’t the time or the place, sweet-cheeks, maybe later -”
    “Just take it off!” I yelled at him.
    “I never had you down as the dominant type…” he started.
    “Just do it!” I shouted again. Then turning on the rest of them, I shouted, “All of you!”
    Without question, Murphy, Potter, Luke, and Isidor, began to strip to the waist. As their coats and shirts fluttered to the floor, their giant black wings unfurled from the backs of their pale bodies.
    Then I heard Potter say, “I don’t think she meant you, dude.”
    Following Potter’s stare, I turned around to see that Kenner was unbuttoning his shirt too, his oversized belly spilling into his lap like a pile of white dough.
    “What are you getting undressed for?” I asked him, shaking my head from side to side.
    “You said we all had to take our shirts off,” Kenner replied, his lower lip trembling. “You’re not all…you know…kinky, are you?”
    “Kinky!” Potter barked as if he had just been deeply insulted. “Who are you calling kinky? I’m not kinky!”
    “Oh please!” I groaned. “I wasn’t talking to you, Mr. Kenner. And they’re not kinky, as you like to put it, they are Vampyrus.”
    “Vampyrus?” Kenner asked, buttoning up his shirt and looking past me at my friends who now stood before him. “What’s Vampyrus?” Then, seeing them standing there with their long black wings trailing behind them, and Isidor’s wings hanging between his arms like the webbing between a ducks toes, he started to scream all over again.
    “Now look what you’ve gone and done,” Potter snapped at me.
    “I just wanted to show him that you were monsters – but good monsters if you understand that,” I said, hoping that I hadn’t hurt their feelings.
    “You’re a monster too,” Isidor said pulling his shirt and coat back on. “Don’t forget that, Kiera.”
    How could I? I thought to myself. Then turning on Kenner, who sat quivering in the armchair, I said, “Well?”
    “Well, what?” he mumbled.
    “As you can see, these guys here are… different from you…but they never killed those people on the London Underground,” I told him. “and they’re not going to kill you.”
    “But how can I believe you?” Kenner whimpered, unable to take his eyes off them.
    “If they were going to kill you, wouldn’t they have done so by now?” I said. “They’ve had plenty of time and reason, what with you waving that shotgun around. And let’s face it – you’re pretty remote all the way out here – I mean who’s going to hear you scream?’”
    “Can you see now that we are not the enemy?” Luke asked, standing by the fire. The light from it made the scars on his chest and face glow. Flapping his wings gently, as if to show Kenner that they were real and not some party-trick, he came forward and said, “Kiera is right, we are different…monsters, if you like, but that doesn’t mean we are killers. We are in as much danger as you and your family are.”
    “Danger?” Kenner asked his eyes wide.
    “We don’t have time to explain now, but leave this place,” Luke told him, pulling his coat back on. “Go to your wife and child and get as far away from here as possible…and don’t come back.”
    “But why?”
    “Look,” Murphy said, buttoning his shirt, “Your race is in danger and we are the only ones, at this moment in time, who can help you. It’s those who you see and hear calling us killers who are the real enemy. We don’t intend on harming any human. We just want to leave here and continue with our mission. So do we have your word that as soon as we are out of the door, you won’t go calling…?”
    “It’s too late for that,” Kenner said sheepishly. “I called the police as soon as I saw that you had broken into my home!”
    And no sooner had those words left