Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series #1) Read Online Free Page A

thought I couldn’t bear it any longer and was just about to pick up my case and run from the place, an elderly-looking woman appeared from a small office behind the bar. White lengths of wispy hair protruded from her head, and her face was haggard and lined with deep, ragged wrinkles. She looked like a corpse that had been warmed-up.
    “Can I help you?” she asked, her voice sounding weak and broken.
    “I have a room booked…” I started.
    “Name?” the old woman asked, thumbing through a dusty-looking ledger behind the bar.
    “Hudson,” I said. “Kiera Hudson.”
    The woman sniffed, and taking a key from a series of hooks on the wall behind her, she placed it on the bar and said, “Room number two.”
    Taking the key, I said “Thank -”
    “Top of the stairs and turn right,” the old woman cut over me. “Breakfast is between six and seven, and dinner between eight and ten.”
    Looking at my wristwatch, I could see it had just gone ten. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of something to eat?” I asked her.
    “Dinner is between eight and ten,” she repeated without looking up at me.
    “I know, but it’s only just a couple of minutes past, so I was wondering -” I began.
    “Between eight and ten,” the old woman said again, but this time she looked up at me. Her eyes were milky-coloured and clouded with cataracts.
    Shrugging my shoulders, as if I didn’t really care, I picked up my case and as I did, I noticed something rather odd. All the way along the old oak beams that supported the bar, someone had tied reams of garlic bulbs. There were hundreds – no thousands of them. And as I looked up, I could see they hung from the ceiling, at the back of the Inn door and walls.
    “What’s with the garlic?” I said, turning towards the old woman, but she had disappeared back into her tiny office. Turning my back on all those watchful eyes, I made my way up the stairs to my room. Holding onto my case, I fumbled with the key as I slipped it into the lock. Hearing it click, I pushed the door open and shut it behind me. The room was in darkness, so I ran my fingers blindly along the wall in search of the light switch. Finding it, I flipped it on, and the room lit up with a dim bulb that hung from the centre of the ceiling. I looked around my new home and understood why none of the other recruits had stayed a full year in this place.
    There was a narrow-looking bed wedged in the far corner, an old fashioned looking wardrobe, and a desk with a lamp. The carpet looked threadbare, and the walls were a dingy grey colour. There was a small bathroom, which had a toilet and bath. I didn’t know how much headquarters were paying the old woman downstairs, but whatever it was, they were being ripped off.
    Placing my case onto the bed, I went to the bathroom and ran myself a bath. While it was running, I unpacked my stuff and hung it in the wardrobe. When I was all fixed up, I got undressed and climbed into the hot water. Closing my eyes, I lent my head back against the rim of the bath. I thought about everything that had happened since arriving at The Ragged Cove and my mind soon wandered to Luke Bishop. Out of everyone that I had met so far, he seemed the nicest. He had a kind and honest way about him, and I was grateful that he took my side over that of Potter, who seemed like a real prick. Loved himself, too, by the way he was acting all cocky. Sergeant Murphy, I was still to make up my mind about. He seemed set in his ways and I guessed he didn’t want some young cop coming in and telling him how to run things. But I wasn’t trying to do that. I didn’t care that he wanted to lounge around the police station all night in his slippers, smoking a pipe. But what did trouble me was his apparent disregard for properly investigating a crime scene. And not any old crime scene. That was the murder of an eight-year-old child and he was letting that idiot Potter smoke and trample all over it.
    If only they’d taken