Page 5 of Exposed

that.”

  “Now that isn’t a very sensible attitude.” Julian still had hold of the knife he had buried in Mike’s stomach and he wiggled it slightly, just enough to remind Mike that it was there.

  Less than two minutes later he walked out of the alley with the information he was after, and with a portion of his need for blood satisfied.

  A little over a quarter of an hour later Julian reached the address he had been given - he could have gotten there quicker, but not without attracting attention, which he didn’t wish to do. When he arrived, he stopped in front of the small block of flats where the trouble twins lived to survey the building for a few moments; he then walked up the short path to the doors. Once inside he bounded up the stairs to the second floor, and then strode quickly along the passage to Flat D.

  Placing his ear to the door, he listened for a minute, until he was sure that he could only hear two people in the flat with his sensitive hearing. He took a step back then and kicked the door, it flew open to crash into the wall of the passage and he rushed through.

  His intention was to catch the trouble twins by surprise, and that proved easier than expected because they were both smoking dope. It was clear they had been for some time. Several long moments passed before they realised their flat had been invaded, and another before they reacted to the invasion.

  “Y-you’re dead,” Adam, whose elbow was swathed in bandages, said when he recovered from the shock. “We-we shot you.”

  “So you did,” Julian agreed as he walked slowly across the room towards the sofa, where the two would-be murderers were.

  He was halfway there when Harry surged to his feet. In his hand was the gun that had sent him to the morgue the night before. Unlike the last time, however, Julian was ready for the gun, and he reacted the moment he saw it, moving almost faster than either of the twins could see.

  Grabbing hold of the hand the gun was in, Julian pushed it away from him, at the same time he curled his finger over Harry’s on the trigger. He swung Harry round until the gun was pointing at his friend, who could only gape, and then forced him to squeeze the trigger. The report was loud in the small room, and Julian was positive that it would have been heard in the neighbouring flats, though he wasn’t as certain that the police would be called to check it out; he doubted they would hurry to do so if they did respond – they didn’t hurry to respond to any reports they received from the estate, doing so had proven dangerous to them in the past.

  Julian ignored Harry’s efforts to free himself from the hand encompassing his and forced him to squeeze the trigger a second time. The first bullet had taken Adam in the shoulder, knocking him back down onto the couch he had been struggling to push himself up from; the second was more aimed and it shattered his knee.

  As Harry continued to struggle, Julian turned the gun in his hand on him, and forced him to squeeze the trigger on himself. The bullet splintered his shin and he fell to the floor.

  “What are you?” Harry gasped the question between quick, shallow breaths as he fought the scream that welled up and threatened to erupt out of him. “You’re not human, you can’t be human, what are you?” He was almost drowned by the screams from his friend, who made no effort to hold them in. “I kilt you last night, I know I did - I shot you three times, and ain’t no human can move that fast.”

  “I was human once,” Julian said matter-of-factly as he wrenched the gun from Harry’s hand and tossed it away. “But now…” He bared his fangs. “I’m so much more.” Taking out the knife that Mike had tried to stab him with, and which he had used to get the trouble twins’ location from the drug dealer, he knelt at Harry’s side. “I’m not usually a vindictive or cruel person, I prefer to make my kills nice and quick, as painless as possible, but you and your friend have exposed me; I’ve got to leave town because of you, and I’m not happy about that. I can’t let what you’ve done go unpunished.

  “It’s just a shame I can’t get some use out of your deaths, but your blood’s useless to me, thanks to all those drugs the two of you like to take. Still, I’m sure there’s something around here that’ll help make up for all of this, even if only a little.” He started straight into Harry’s eyes, so he could watch them grow wide with pain that the drugs he was on couldn’t mask, as he slowly pushed the knife into his belly.

  A quarter of an hour after bursting into the trouble twins’ flat, Julian left it, without bothering to even try and close the broken front door. In the distance was the sound of approaching police sirens, obviously responding to a report about the gunshots and the screams of pain from the flat he had just left. He smiled at the thought of what the police would find when they entered the flat; he wished he could be there to see their reaction, but it was time for him to leave, both the area and the town. He had a long way to go before dawn, and a lot to arrange.

  About the author

  Alex R Carver has worked in the clerical, warehouse and retail industries over the years, without gaining much satisfaction, and has now quit to become a full-time writer. Where There’s A Will is the first in his Inspector Stone series, with the second book due out in 2017, along with a serial killer thriller, Written In Blood.

  You can find out more about his writing on his blog https://arcbookblog.wordpress.com/ including previews of the novels he is working on, short stories and reviews.

 
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