was his hair, which was spiked and unkempt.
I blinked, and he was gone. I searched the square as others appeared, all with the same pale skin and haggard gaze. They circled the group in the middle, their faces twisted into a mixture of amusement and disgust. They appeared from nowhere, darting from one side to the other at inhuman speed, vanishing and emerging within a second. I rubbed my eyes, convinced that I was just too tired to focus. They couldn’t be moving that fast.
The boy with the flaming hair appeared again, leaning against the fountain as though standing at the bar. Near him stood a young man with sandy-blond hair who I thought I recognized as the one who had sprung from behind me.
In total there were five of them, casually herding the group of brown-coats into the centre like animals. The tanned men’s faces were contorted into a picture of fear and loathing as they broke their ranks, stumbling back a few steps with their stakes lowered. Only the leader remained unmoved, his smile becoming a smirk as he clasped his baton to his side and jerked his head upwards.
Suddenly, a man dropped from the column – all one hundred and sixty-nine feet of it. He plummeted faster and faster towards the ground, surely to his death. But I watched, amazed, as he landed nimbly on the stone, dropping to a crouch in front of the gang’s leader.
The square stilled and the leader, for the first time, stirred. ‘Kaspar Varn, such a pleasure to see you again,’ he said, his voice tinged with an accent I couldn’t place.
The man, Kaspar, straightened up, his face blank and unreadable. He was as tall as the leader but his bearing and well-built, muscled stature made the other man seem a lot smaller.
‘The pleasure’s all mine, Claude,’ he answered coolly, his gaze sweeping right to left. He gave a curt nod to the sandy-haired boy and I managed to steal a look at him.
He, like the others, had pallid, slightly sallow skin, devoid of any colour or blush. His dark, almost black hair was streaked with shades of brown and was windswept, his fringe falling across his forehead. If anything, his features were gaunter than any of the others; his face shadowy as though he had not slept for days.
Perhaps he doesn’t sleep, a voice in my head muttered. As the thought crossed my mind, he seemed to look past the sandy-haired boy, his brow creasing a fraction. I held my breath, realizing he was looking directly at me. But if he saw me, he chose to pay no attention as he turned back to the leader, his face clearing and becoming impassive again.
‘What do you want, Claude? I have no time to waste on you and the Pierre clan,’ the darker haired man said, addressing the other.
Claude’s smile widened, running a single finger down the sharp edge of his stake. ‘Yet you came.’
Kaspar waved his hand dismissively. ‘We were hunting anyway; it was no great distance.’
I shuddered. What is there to hunt in a city?
Claude chuckled darkly. ‘As are we.’
In a flash, he brought the stake up to the other man’s chest, thrusting forward. But it never found its mark: Kaspar reached up and brushed it away. It seemed to take no effort; he hardly blinked, but Claude lurched backwards as though a truck had hit him. The stake clattered to the ground, the metallic ring echoing in the silence.
Claude staggered, tripped, then clumsily regained his balance and straightened himself up. His narrow eyes darted towards the stake and then back to the man stood in front of him. His lips curled back into a smile.
‘Tell me, Kaspar, how is your mother?’
Out of nowhere, the pale man’s hand snatched forward, seizing Claude’s throat. Horrified, I watched as his eyes bulged and his feet left the floor, the colour draining from his face. He coughed and spluttered, his feet writhing in midair. His hands grappled with Kaspar’s wrists, but he soon began to give up as slowly, agonizingly slowly, he turned purple.
Without warning, the pale man let go. Claude crumpled to the ground, gasping for breath, feverishly rubbing his neck. I breathed a sigh of relief, but the man collapsed on the ground didn’t. His whimpers became pleas and his face seemed to show some sort of recognition as he stared up at the maddened face of Kaspar. He shuffled back, squirming and grabbing the hem of a coat one of his men was wearing. The man did not move.
Kaspar’s chest was heaving and a deranged, sick expression was twisted onto his face. He lowered his hand, clenching it into a tight fist.
‘Do you have any last words, Claude Pierre?’ he growled, the menace in his voice barely restrained.
The leader drew in several long, shaky breaths. He wiped away the sweat and tears on his sleeve, bracing himself. ‘I hope you and your bloody Kingdom burn in hell.’
Kaspar’s lips widened into a smirk. ‘Wishful thinking.’
With that, he pounced forward, his head ducking behind Claude’s neck. There was a sickening crack.
I gagged. My hands instinctively clapped to my mouth as bile rose in my throat. With it, came fear. Tears leaked from my eyes, but I knew that if I made any noise I would be next.
Self-preservation kicked in as Claude’s lifeless body dropped to the stone. I was witness to a murder and I had watched enough of the six o’clock news to know what happened to witnesses who stuck around. I have to get out of here. I have to tell someone.
If you ever get out of here, said that same, niggling voice.
I hated to admit it, but it was right: all hell had broken loose.
The pale skins jumped onto the men, a huge, bloody fight breaking out, if you could call it a fight. The men barely had time to use their stakes to defend themselves against these killers: like lambs to the slaughter, their tanned bodies dropped to the floor, blood splattering everywhere.
My stomach clenched and I swallowed hard as I felt burning in my throat. Unable to look away, I watched as Kaspar yanked yet another of the men towards him. My mind told me he must have a weapon; my eyes saw none. Instead, he sank his mouth into the flesh above the man’s collar and tore. I caught a glimpse of twisted sinew before the man collapsed to the ground, shrieking. His killer followed him, dropping to one knee and wrapping his lips around the wound, cradling the man in his arms. Drops of blood pooled on the stone beneath them and into the cracks between the paving. My eyes followed it as it seeped outwards, forming a bloody grid, joining with the blood of another man, and another, until my eyes had risen to take in the full carnage they had created.
Every one of the tanned men was dead, or dying, their necks broken or bleeding; several had sunken to the bottom of the fountains, staining the water a grim red. One man near me lay on his back, his head so contorted his ear rested on his shoulder.
Six teenagers had just slaughtered thirty men.
I whimpered on the bench, drawn as far into the shadows as I could possibly get, praying to every deity alive that they wouldn’t see me.
‘Kaspar, are we going to clean this one up or just leave it?’ said the one who stood nearest the fountain, even his fiery red hair dull compared to the water he swirled his fingers through.
‘We’ll leave it as a little message for any other hunters who think they can cross us,’ he replied. ‘Scum,’ he added, spitting on the nearest limp body.
His
