The Angelic Chronicles

Dead Friends- Chp 14

Gabriel began a sigh, but Alec's hand shot up and wacked him the face. "Ow! Fu--"

"Language!!" Alec yelled, before coming to a complete halt. "I heard something."

"Yeah, and you bashed my face in!" Gabriel whispered harshly, slamming his fist into Alec's shoulder.

"Ow!" Alec bit his lip to keep from screaming. "Quit hitting me and be quiet!" Alec heard Kyran snicker in the background.

Gabriel snorted and crossed his arms, willing himself to silence. He moved to the side to let Kyran push forward, the other boy maneuvering around Alec and planting himself in front.

Kyran closed his eyes, listening for a shudder of a sound amongst the pool of silence. It was like his ears were scanning their surroundings, and just as he was about to tell Alec that he was delirious had had slowed them down, he heard something.

A whimper, originating from the end of the hall.

Kyran's eyes shot open, spying a finger curled up in a ball, lying beside the right side door. Kyran jumped in his skin as he saw the orange light escaping the cracks in the left side door.

"I see something." Kyran whispered. "A figure. Someone at the end of the hall, crying." he breathed in. "I smell burning flesh."

This seemed to switch on Alec's leadership skills. "We have to go see who's down there! Someone could be hurt!" and with that, Alec took off down the hall, the need to be quiet seeming to leave his mind.

Kyran heard Gabriel mutter to himself. "Here we go again."

The remaining boys scrabbled after Alec, who was already halfway to the doors.

Kyran rolled his eyes and sped up. He reached the doors within the next three seconds.

At his feet was a girl, which Kyran could see perfectly in this close proximity. She looked up at him, and he caught the pure distress on her face as she saw him. She was covered in dirt, scars, blood and ash. Ash.

Fire.

Kyran whipped around to face the left door. He smelt fire. He reached out his hand, resting it on the knob of the door. Kyran turned it, using a lot of effort to do so.

Alec and Gabriel caught up to him, dropping down by the girl. But Kyran wasn't paying attention; his jaw dropped as the door swung open.

There was a bed, burning with a mound of ash engulfed in the orange flames. To the foot of the bed was the most awful sight he'd seen in the fifty years of his vampiric life. 

Heads. Human heads skewered with pikes that protruded out of the ground like thorns off a rose. Male, female, beautiful, ugly. But all dead; each ones face twisted into a frozen expression of terror. There was about fifty of them; Kyran, if he physically could, would empty his stomach on the floor.

He turned away, unable to bare looking at the dead. Kyran recognized some of those faces; Carlia James, missing for twenty-four years, search abandoned after three. Kyran had spotted, also, a male that he had known through Gregori. Stefan Azeal, the blue eyed troublemaker that Katarina hated for his anti-vamp exploits [such as finding miraculous ways out of the Dead Lands and mingling with humans, even getting involved with a human woman]. Stefan as said to have left one day and never came back.

Stefan had been his friend. 

Stefan was dead. What was worse was he had an idea of who did it.

Kyran's breath hitched, as his mind switched off. His vision blurred with tears, clouding to the point of the people in front of him resembled shapeless masses.

One, that Kyran suspected must have been Gabriel, attempted to stand and go to him, but was pulled back by the girl sobbing on the floor.

"He's a vampire." she spluttered between sobs.

"Yeah, well, he saved my life." Gabriel responded, trying to yank his wrist free from the girl's grip.

Alec spoke up. "Nadia." he said softly. "Let go."

The girl, Nadia, the one that had landed in Kyran's estate, looked as if she was about to protest, but something in Alec's eyes made her stop. She reluctantly removed her hand, and Gabriel shot up and stared at Kyran for a moment, then wrapped his arms around Kyran, embracing him in a hug.

From behind his shoulder, Gabriel must've seen the heads because Kyran felt his body noticeably tense.  

Nadia cried harder. "It's Cassie." she wept. "She's in there!"