Excerpt from HUNTED
Book 3 in the Marchwood Vampire series
Tommo took his mug of Cheerios over to
his desk and began eating. Over the crunch of cereal, he heard
distant fireworks. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, and already
people were celebrating the New Year. Why was everyone so eager to
get to next year, anyway? Were their lives really so bad that they
needed to constantly look forward to tomorrow and next week and next
month and next year?
Hold on… that noise? He had thought it
was fireworks, but… The hair on the back of Tommo’s neck began to
prickle. He realised that the popping sound might not actually be
distant fireworks. It might be something a lot closer – like maybe
a light tapping at his window.
Tommo placed his mug and spoon down on
the desk, and carefully finished chewing the contents of his mouth.
From the dark window, his own scared reflection stared back at him.
Surely he must have imagined the noise. His apartment was four floors
up, and there was no balcony. No tree with branches that could be
scraping against the window. But, there it was again. A rhythmic tap,
tap, tap.
Tommo pushed himself away from the
window, his chair rolling backward over the parquet floor. The
tapping had now been replaced by a squeaking sound. What the… Was
that a circle appearing on the window? Yes, someone was drawing a
large circle on the window with their fingernail! He had to be
hallucinating. Maybe the milk was off and he was coming down with
food poisoning.
Just then, the circle of glass moved. It
tipped out of the window and crashed onto his computer monitor. Tommo
jumped up in terror, as the glass slid down and landed with a thud on
his desk, unbroken. A rush of frigid air flew into the apartment.
Tommo gasped, too scared to run or even scream.
He had to get out of here. He had to
leave the apartment. But he hadn’t left the apartment in months.
Someone or something was out there in the darkness. An arm came
through the empty circle of air. Tommo panted in fear, pushed the
chair out of his way and backed up against his front door. Someone
was climbing through the window. Coming to get him.
In the blink of a cursor, that someone
appeared in front of him, staring down at his face with murderous
eyes. Tommo shrank back even further, trying to melt into the wooden
door, wishing he had the courage to open it and run away from whoever
this
was.
‘Who are you?’ he squeaked. ‘What
do you want? Take whatever you need. Just, please, don’t hurt me.’
‘Tommo,’ the man said. How did he
know his name? This man wasn’t like anyone Tommo had ever met
before. He was blonde and pale, with piercing eyes and the whitest
teeth. He looked like a character from one of his games. He wasn’t
quite a man
either. More, a boy. But the scariest boy he’d ever seen. Young and
old at the same time. Like an angel, or a devil. Not… human.
‘You had a visitor today,’ the
man-boy continued, his voice a hissing whisper. The trace of a
foreign accent.
‘A visitor?’ Tommo repeated. He felt
as though he was watching himself from above, his mind divorced from
his body.
‘Yes. A girl.’
‘She came here, yes,’ Tommo
stammered.
‘She asked you to do something for her.
But you said no. Why did you say no?’
‘I… I… can do it. If you want me to
do it. I can do what she asked.’
‘Now.’
‘Yes, yeah, sure. It… it might take a
while, though. A few hours at least.’
‘A photograph has been sent to your
phone and to your email,’ the man said. ‘Email back when you find
a match for the girl in the photo.’
‘What happens if I can’t find a
match?’
The man bent down, so his face was
millimetres from his own. ‘Do you see the hole I made in your
window, Tommo?’
Tommo nodded.
‘Look at it,’ the man said. He took
hold of Tommo’s chin and turned his face toward the window, to the
newly made hole. The man’s hand was hard and cold like ice. Not
like a human hand at all.
‘I can see. I can see the window, and I
can see the hole.’
‘Good,’ replied the man. ‘It’s a
long way down, Tommo. A long way down.’
Tommo felt sick. He felt the Cheerios
working their way back up his gullet.
‘Remember,’ the man said, letting go
of Tommo’s chin. ‘Find the girl in the photo.’
And then the man was gone. Just like
that. Gone. And Tommo’s Cheerios finally made a reappearance all
over the parquet floor.
Be swept away in this heart-pounding tale
of ancient legends,
star-crossed love and nail-biting
supernatural adventure.
This is the climatic finale of The
Marchwood Vampire Series!
Hunted is now available to preorder:
