Vampire Hollows Read Online Free Page A

groaned.
    Hunkering down, I looked in to his bloodshot eyes and whispered, “Sparky, this lot only needs one little excuse to rip you in half. I can only hold them off for so long. So tell me what you know.”
    “I don’t know anything!” he cried.
    “Liar,” I hissed and punched his wounded leg.
    Sparky’s leg jerked and went rigid and I could see the pain in his eyes. They seemed to spin in their sockets. “Tell me, Sparky.”
    “I don’t…” he started, but I hit him again, this time harder.
    “Okay!” he screeched, phlegm spraying from his lips as he gripped his leg. “I know where you can find this invisible man, Elias Munn!”
    “Who is he?” I demanded my heart racing.
    “I didn’t say I knew who he was,” Sparky wailed in pain. “I said I know where he is heading – where you can find him.”
    “Where?” I breathed, feeling nervous at the thought that I might actually be able to catch this man once and for all.
    “The Hollows,” Sparky said, through gritted teeth.
    “We already know that,” I told him, hoping for his sake that he wasn’t messing with me.
    “But you don’t know where in The Hollows,” Sparky grimaced.
    “Where?” I shouted, raising my hand as if to strike his wounded leg again.
    “The Dust Palace!” Sparky whispered as if giving away a deadly secret.
    “Impossible,” someone said from behind us.
    I spun round to see Potter standing beneath the shadows of a solitary tree that stood some feet away. Beside him stood someone else. Peering through the gloom, my heart lept at the sight of Luke. Potter had rescued him.
    Standing slowly, I watched as both of them walked out from beneath the low-hanging branches of the tree and came towards me. As usual, a cigarette dangled from the corner of Potter’s mouth, the blue smoke trailing away into the night. He looked at me, but it was more than looking at me; it was like he was searching my eyes, looking into me.
    I broke his stare and turned towards Luke. He came towards me. His jet-black hair was longer than I remembered and hung around his shoulders. The lower half of his face was covered in a scruffy-looking beard, but this only accentuated his brilliant green eyes. His rugged good looks were still visible from beneath his beard, and although he looked as if he had lost some weight, the dirty shirt he wore still showed off his muscular chest and arms.
    Luke stopped just a few inches away and looked at me. His eyes seemed to glimmer. I glanced over at Potter who had his eyes fixed on me. I quickly looked away and back at Luke. I remembered the last time that I had seen him – being kicked and beaten before me as my mother offered me a fist full of the red stuff. I had eaten it to save his life. There was an uncomfortable silence, not just between Luke and me, but throughout all of us. No one said a word and I knew without even turning to face them, they were all watching me.
    My heart raced in my chest like a trip hammer and those feelings that I had felt so passionately when with Luke came rushing back. But it was more than that. The feelings which were making my heart race were not of lust or desire, but guilt and betrayal. While Luke had been suffering at the hands of Phillips, Sparky, my mother, and God knows who else, I had been making love to his friend – I had fallen in love with his best friend.
    Every part of me wanted to look at Potter again, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to look into his eyes. What would I see there? So, very slowly, I walked towards Luke and hugged him.
    Brushing his bristly cheek against mine, Luke whispered in my ear and said, “I never thought I would see you again, Kiera.”
    “I didn’t think I would ever see you again either,” I told him as he held me tight. I could feel his body against mine, and just as I had remembered it, it felt as hard as stone.
    “What did they do to you?” I whispered, still not able to look into his face.
    “It wasn’t so bad,” he said.