C H A P T E R 1
‘You’re home,’ Justin Enos said, leading me through
the great stone towers of Wickham Boarding School.
I hesitated once I crossed the threshold, stopping at
the main path that led past Seeker dorm and to the
many halls and lanes of campus. In the distance,
the tall street lamps lit up the brick buildings like
tiny beacons.
Only four days ago, I was so sure that this world
was no longer my own. I had performed the ritual
for Vicken, my friend, my confidant, also a vampire.
I performed this ritual to turn him human.
‘I can walk, you know,’ I said, though I stumbled
and Justin had to grab on to my arm. He gave me
a knowing glance. My thighs trembled, the result
of lying unconscious in a hospital bed. It had been
four days since my best friend, Tony, had been
killed in the art tower, and since I had believed I
too would die.
‘It’s a beautiful night,’ I said, leaning into Justin’s
arm as we walked. He matched my baby steps,
holding a bag of my possessions on his other arm.
Lovers Bay, Massachusetts, was blooming in June,
hydrangeas and roses all around us. Coupled with
smells from the cafe and the restaurants behind us
on Main Street, scents distinct to me in my newly
regained humanity filled the air: sauces, perfumes
and fragrant flowers.
After everything that had happened, Wickham
Boarding School campus seemed like an imaginary
place. It lived somewhere locked in both dream and
nightmare.
The night was quiet. The trees swayed lazily in
the June air and I watched students meander across
the campus, talking quietly to one another. The
moon broke through the clouds and when I looked
back down to the earth, far down the path towards
Wickham beach, a figure leaped over the path and
into the woods. Blonde tendrils of hair flew behind
her in the wind.
I chuckled at first, imagining a student sneaking
off campus to find something decadent to eat or
to meet a boyfriend. Then something about the
figure’s movements caught my eye. She jumped
with the ease of a dancer but with the charge
of pursuit. She was lean and swift. Too lean . . . too
swift.
Alarmed, I scanned the school grounds.
‘What’s wrong?’ Justin asked.
‘Want to go down to the beach?’ I asked, stalling
for time.
Justin took my bag to the guard at the dorm and
I waited alone, staring down the pathway. If she
came back out of the woods, then I would know if
she was an ordinary human. Students passed by me,
calling out:
Hey, Lenah!
How are you? Feeling better?
I kept my gaze forward. ‘Word got around fast
when you went to the hospital,’ said Justin, nuzzling
my neck.
We passed the union and Justin’s dorm. I couldn’t
explain it – the knowing that she was strange, that
the blonde might not be human. Perhaps I was just
being paranoid. Of course I was being paranoid.
I was an ex-592-year-old vampire. Oddities and
strange creatures had been an everyday part of my
life for nearly six centuries.
We walked down to Wickham beach. I took off my
shoes, leaving them by the steps, and sat down on
the cool sand. Sitting there, leaning against Justin’s
warm chest, and marvelling at the ocean stretching
beyond us, I tried to forget about the wisp of blonde
hair and the unnaturally agile jump.
Justin’s hand wrapped around mine. We watched
the bay, and I replayed the memory of the first time
I met him. During my first week reborn as a human,
he had walked out of the water, glimmering and
golden.
I leaned my head on his shoulder, breathed and
listened to the water lap lazily on the beach.
Except . . .
A horrific knowing sent a shiver through me. I
shuddered and Justin looked down at me.
‘Hey . . . are you OK?’
Look left . . . my mind said.
But Justin felt it too. He looked away from me
and his fingers dug into the sand and he rose up on
to his knees.
Death is coming, the voice inside my mind said. The
voice of the vampire queen. The hunter of hundreds.
You know this trouble, the voice slithered.
I looked slowly down the beach.
‘Do you see that?’ Justin asked.
I did. My heart was a cello string, vibrating as
though a bow drew across it – wavering. Someone
was running towards us from very far down the
beach. A girl – not a child, but not a grown woman
either. A student? Her slight frame swayed as she
ran, zigzagging across the sand and then hitting
the ground as she fell. She pushed herself up from
the sand but her arm gave out and she went down
again.
‘I think it’s . . .’ Justin’s voice trailed away.
She finally got to her feet and started running
again. The next time she collapsed to the sand, a
few moments later, she cried out. It was a scream
that snaked in a long wail down the beach, hissing
her terror into our ears. Goosebumps erupted over
my arms.
I knew this kind of cry well.
‘She needs help,’ Justin said, taking a step
towards her.
‘Wait,’ I demanded in a whisper, grabbing his
arm. I narrowed my focus into the darkness.
‘Are you crazy? She’s hurt,’ Justin said. ‘What are
we waiting for, Lenah?’
My terror was a heartbeat quickened. A dry
mouth. Words stuck in my throat, trapped by fear. I
couldn’t move my eyes.
For there was someone behind her.
This someone threw her hips confidently side
to side. A model’s walk. A saunter of death. The
woman grabbed the girl by her ponytail. There was
a quick yank, animalistic and brutal.
The wind came through the trees, which shivered
unnaturally in the summer breeze.
‘Justin,’ I said. ‘We have to go. Now.’
‘But, Lenah!’ Justin said my name again and I
pulled him to me so we could speak very close.
‘Silence,’ I said. ‘Or we’ll both be dead.’
Justin didn’t reply, but an understanding passed
over his eyes.
I had to be calculated, purposeful. I could not
let the human inside overwhelm me. I turned and
scrambled up the steps, turning into the woods that
ran parallel to the beach. My legs ached from the
days in the hospital and every few paces I grabbed
on to trees for balance.
‘Lenah! We have to call for help!’ Justin whispered
loudly from behind me. I spun around to face him.
‘Didn’t I tell you? You must be silent,’ I hissed.
‘And don’t say my name again.’
I fell to my knees and crept to the edge of the
woods where the dirt and beach storm wall met,
and stared at the scene unfolding below. I gasped
as I recognized the girl.
Kate Pierson, my friend. A member of the Three
Piece – the group of girls at Wickham whom I’d
unexpectedly grown to love over the last year.
Kate was the youngest of all of us, barely sixteen.
Innocent, beautiful and now in grave danger.
This changed the circumstances.
We would have to do something. I immediately
ran through our options.
We didn’t have a dagger or sword to pierce the
vampire through the heart, so we would have to
frighten her with strength, which Justin had.
‘Please stop,’ Kate cried to her attacker.
We lay stomach down and I clawed my fingers
into the sandy grass.
The woman sauntered behind Kate, stepping
over the darkened sand as though she was simply
out for a night stroll. She wore all black. Thick,
blonde, beautiful hair flowed and waved behind
her in the wind.
She smiled, her mouth stained red with blood.
I drew in a long breath. ‘I know her,’ I hissed to
Justin.
My home in Hathersage, England, swept into my
mind along with a memory of the staircase that led
to the attic.
The maid.
The friendly maid with rosy cheeks.
Now she was whiter than stone and very angry.
Below us, Kate tried to wriggle away from the
vampire, but now I could see the extent of her
wounds I knew Justin and I were too late, much too
late.
I gulped as the blonde grabbed Kate by the front
of her shirt and bit into the crook of her neck. Kate
cried out, a familiar, hollow scream. This was one of
finality. Her small mouth opened and she hollered
into the night.
‘How?’ Justin whispered. ‘How do you know her?’
‘I –’ a shiver rolled over me – ‘I made her.’
Justin slowly, ever so slowly, turned his eyes back
to the beach without speaking.
Congealed blood caked the sand as Kate kicked
and flailed. She bled from her arms and her neck.
This was a killing of strength. A vampire death can
be one bite and virtually painless, but this was a
death like Tony’s, a ruthless killing, not done out of
hunger or need but out of power. Out of joy.
Kate brought her fingers to her throat to try to
stop the bleeding.
Useless. I had seen this too many times.
‘I don’t want to die,’ begged Kate. ‘Please . . .’
My heart ached, but the once powerful vampire
queen inside me told me that this blonde vampire
was strong. She was unyielding in her desire for
blood.
Justin and I could not run. We could not help.
We would die at her hands if we made a sound.
We could do nothing until the horror was over.
There was one more fading scream from the
beach.
And Kate Pierson was no more.
ORDER STOLEN NIGHT
