Read Online Adrift 2: Sundown by K.R. Griffiths - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: K.R. Griffiths
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Thanks to Herb’s insistence on placing Bellamy in the hold and locking the door, Jeremy hadn’t been able to retrieve the phone for several frustrating hours.
So much time already wasted.
He paused for a moment, listening carefully to make sure there were no footsteps headed in his direction. After a few seconds, he switched the phone on and punched a number into the keypad.
The compound needed to be warned, but not just about the possibility that the nest in southern England might rise in a matter of hours. They also needed to be warned that Herb had taken charge; that he needed to be controlled before he threw a light on the Order for the whole world to see.
The phone rang.
And rang.
Jeremy frowned.
Hung up.
Dialled again.
Still no answer.
It could mean only one thing. There was no way a ringing phone at the compound would go unanswered, not on this of all days. Not unless they couldn’t answer.
The vampires had risen already. Jeremy knew it was the truth as soon as the thought occurred; felt it squirming in his gut like a tapeworm.
How could that be possible? How could the vampires know that their kin had died? The creatures had psychic abilities far beyond Jeremy’s understanding, but could they really communicate with each other over such vast distances?
Jeremy terminated the call again, and for a few moments, he just stood there, staring at the wall and seeing a dark future written in the dull, dented metal.
There was nothing else for it. Herb wanted to rally humanity to fight the monsters, but there was no way his story would be believed. Not until the vampires rose and splattered the truth across the TV news. By then, it would be too late.
He gritted his teeth. It was daylight back in the UK now. If the vampires had surfaced in the night, they would surely have retreated underground until nightfall. Just a matter of hours. Everything was moving too fast, and Herb was dangerously volatile. Matters had to be taken out of his hands.
He dropped his gaze to the keypad once more, punching in a different number. This time, the phone rang just once before a voice answered in a rich American accent.
“Yes?”
Sorry, Herb.
“I need to speak to Jennifer Craven,” Jeremy said.
7
Jennifer Craven terminated the unexpected call and felt a thrill coursing through her body like nothing she had experienced in sixteen long years; not since she first peered into a hole in the ground in northern Kentucky and saw the truth staring back at her.
The British man on the other end of the line had sounded scared, as well he might, but more importantly, what he had told her confirmed as fact something that she had long suspected: none of the other families that the Order comprised really did have any idea that the vampires could be killed, or that there might once have existed humans who were able to resist their will.
Jeremy Pruitt had sounded shocked and uncertain as he informed her that the Rennick nest in England had demanded sacrifice, and that the sacrifice had failed in the most spectacular way possible. The discovery that the buried gods were mortal had come as a monumental surprise to the English; that much was clear from the man’s tone.
Jennifer had fabricated a little surprise of her own for his benefit.
Unlike the Rennicks, the Craven family had nurtured suspicions about the vampires that stretched back centuries, ever since one of Jennifer’s distant ancestors had discovered a clay tablet buried in northern Africa. That tablet, which appeared to depict a human striking down a vampire beneath a word which translated roughly into English as hermetic , was assumed for a long time by her forebears to be simply a product of hope; just some poor barely-evolved bastard doodling a daydream before the monsters took him. Yet, when Jennifer’s own father had the tablet carbon dated back in the eighties, the scientist he had persuaded to carry out the test reported that the clay had definitely been
So much time already wasted.
He paused for a moment, listening carefully to make sure there were no footsteps headed in his direction. After a few seconds, he switched the phone on and punched a number into the keypad.
The compound needed to be warned, but not just about the possibility that the nest in southern England might rise in a matter of hours. They also needed to be warned that Herb had taken charge; that he needed to be controlled before he threw a light on the Order for the whole world to see.
The phone rang.
And rang.
Jeremy frowned.
Hung up.
Dialled again.
Still no answer.
It could mean only one thing. There was no way a ringing phone at the compound would go unanswered, not on this of all days. Not unless they couldn’t answer.
The vampires had risen already. Jeremy knew it was the truth as soon as the thought occurred; felt it squirming in his gut like a tapeworm.
How could that be possible? How could the vampires know that their kin had died? The creatures had psychic abilities far beyond Jeremy’s understanding, but could they really communicate with each other over such vast distances?
Jeremy terminated the call again, and for a few moments, he just stood there, staring at the wall and seeing a dark future written in the dull, dented metal.
There was nothing else for it. Herb wanted to rally humanity to fight the monsters, but there was no way his story would be believed. Not until the vampires rose and splattered the truth across the TV news. By then, it would be too late.
He gritted his teeth. It was daylight back in the UK now. If the vampires had surfaced in the night, they would surely have retreated underground until nightfall. Just a matter of hours. Everything was moving too fast, and Herb was dangerously volatile. Matters had to be taken out of his hands.
He dropped his gaze to the keypad once more, punching in a different number. This time, the phone rang just once before a voice answered in a rich American accent.
“Yes?”
Sorry, Herb.
“I need to speak to Jennifer Craven,” Jeremy said.
7
Jennifer Craven terminated the unexpected call and felt a thrill coursing through her body like nothing she had experienced in sixteen long years; not since she first peered into a hole in the ground in northern Kentucky and saw the truth staring back at her.
The British man on the other end of the line had sounded scared, as well he might, but more importantly, what he had told her confirmed as fact something that she had long suspected: none of the other families that the Order comprised really did have any idea that the vampires could be killed, or that there might once have existed humans who were able to resist their will.
Jeremy Pruitt had sounded shocked and uncertain as he informed her that the Rennick nest in England had demanded sacrifice, and that the sacrifice had failed in the most spectacular way possible. The discovery that the buried gods were mortal had come as a monumental surprise to the English; that much was clear from the man’s tone.
Jennifer had fabricated a little surprise of her own for his benefit.
Unlike the Rennicks, the Craven family had nurtured suspicions about the vampires that stretched back centuries, ever since one of Jennifer’s distant ancestors had discovered a clay tablet buried in northern Africa. That tablet, which appeared to depict a human striking down a vampire beneath a word which translated roughly into English as hermetic , was assumed for a long time by her forebears to be simply a product of hope; just some poor barely-evolved bastard doodling a daydream before the monsters took him. Yet, when Jennifer’s own father had the tablet carbon dated back in the eighties, the scientist he had persuaded to carry out the test reported that the clay had definitely been
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