The Hybrid Series | Book 1 | Hybrid

by Stead, Nick

  She’d been given her own room – another stroke of luck for me. I went in to find her asleep in her bed, her swollen eye already returning to normal, the bruising lighter and more of a yellowish green. Her lips looked to be healing nicely too and her face had more colour to it than the night I’d rescued her.

  I made my way over to the bed and tried giving her a gentle shake, but there was no response. Panic surged through me. Had they drugged her? But then her arm flinched beneath my fingers and she opened her good eye, frowning in confusion.

  “Nick? What are you doing here?”

  “I heard about what happened so I came to check you were okay,” I said.

  “I’m fine.” She smiled, but it turned to another frown.

  “You look like you’ve been through Hell. Are they looking after you in here? Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No, honestly, I’m fine. Just a bit confused about how I got here.”

  “Oh, why? What do you remember?”

  “I don’t know. I came to warn you about those people, then I think they knocked me out. When I woke up I was tied to a chair and they were asking me all these questions. They hit me when I wouldn’t answer them. Aughtie was there, would you believe? I know it sounds crazy. They kept asking me about you though.”

  No mention of any monsters. That was a relief. “Shit, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have got mixed up in this – it was me they were after.”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I can’t. Trust me, you’re better off not knowing.”

  She didn’t look happy with my answer. “These people kidnapped me, Nick. I want to know why.”

  “I can’t tell you that,” I insisted.

  “Are you going to the police?”

  “No, we can’t.”

  “They kidnapped me. We have to go to the police, Nick. They could have killed me!”

  “We can’t go to the police. Some of them are involved in this. They won’t help us.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t understand you anymore. And I don’t know what shit you’ve got yourself into, but I wish you’d tell me. You know you can talk to me. I’m here for you. And I need to understand. I need to know why those people took me. If you won’t tell me, I’ll look for answers elsewhere, but either way I need to know.”

  “No, the less you know the safer you’ll be. Please, just forget about it. For me, for whatever remains of our friendship, just forget it,” I pleaded.

  “I can’t.”

  She wouldn’t say anything else then, not unless I told her the truth. At least she didn’t seem to remember too much. I hated to leave her like that when it might be the last time I ever saw her, but what more could I do? I couldn’t tell her anything else in case it put her in more danger, and she ignored me when I tried talking to her about other things. I had no choice. I just hoped she’d forgive me after I was gone and that she wouldn’t regret leaving it like this for the rest of her life. At least she would be okay. I was pretty sure once I was gone the Slayers would leave her alone since she’d be no further use to them, and I convinced myself she would never find any answers without me. She’d be okay.

  The next day passed quickly. Most of it I spent with my family, trying not to think about the fate that awaited me that night.

  I did my best to make things work with Dad, but I ended up avoiding him for the most part so we didn’t argue. It was the best I could do when he was being so unreasonable. He was going away that night anyway, to work in some other part of the country for a few days, and he went early evening.

  Darkness fell and I slipped away, looking for somewhere safe to shift. A damaged building I’d passed countless times before looked like the perfect place, the hole boarded up by plywood which itself had a hole in now. Little did I know it had been the site of one of my kills.

  I crawled inside and stripped off, letting the transformation take hold. Minutes later I crawled back out on all fours, my clothes bundled into a pile and grasped between my jaws as I set off at a run.

  A ghastly crowd awaited in the field – more than I’d expected. Dead faces turned to look at me, some with apparent interest, others with distaste. Some I couldn’t read at all, not because they hid behind impassive expressions like Lady Sarah was wont to do, but because they didn’t have much in the way of an expression left to them.

  Rotting corpses made up most of the assembly, their skin greying and stretched tight across the bones beneath, their faces little more than skulls. Ribs were obvious beneath their chests and their nails were more like claws, making it easier to rip apart the flesh of their victims. Some of them were covered in tattered remains of the clothes they’d been buried in. Others were naked. All of them were too far gone to identify as either male or female. The ghouls, I presumed.

  Amongst them floated five similar beings, except their bodies appeared as insubstantial as mist. They had to be wraiths, shimmering in the moonlight.

  Then there were the beautiful faces of the vampires, pale and too perfect to be human, and no more than ten in total. Not one of them looked happy to see me, and I was reminded of Lady Sarah’s warning that many still nursed centuries old hatred for my kind.

  Lady Sarah took me to one side before I could do anything else.

  “They are growing restless,” she said as I shifted back to human. “I have tried addressing them but they want to hear of your experiences with the Slayers firsthand. If we are going to convince them it has to be now.”

  I nodded and pulled on my clothes, feeling the need to feed but knowing it would have to wait. The starvation the Slayers had put me through had done one thing for me at least – it seemed to have made me stronger than ever. There wasn’t the same weakness as before.

  Turning to face the crowd, I could see they’d started arguing amongst themselves. From the looks on the faces of the vampires, each one was voicing their doubts. The ghouls were just looking forward to flesh as far as I could tell, many of them drooling with a hunger I imagined must be similar to my own. I found the wraiths hardest to read, but I guessed they were ready for revenge, judging from the way they balled their bony, ethereal hands into fists.

  All those voices were rising to a din which I was sure would lead our enemies right to us. I had to shout to be heard.

  “How many of you have been hunted by the Slayers?”

  I was never much good at speeches, and I didn’t have time for pleasantries. Nobody answered but at least I had their attention. Silence fell, and every face turned back towards me, the vampires regarding me with disdain now, the ghouls with more interest, and the wraiths with indifference. Or at least that’s what I felt the spirits were showing me. They alone had nothing to lose, the only ones beyond further harm and the deadest of us all. But I reminded myself that didn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t be stopped. Overconfidence could get us killed.

  “How many have suffered at their hands?” I continued. “I look out at you now and I see a dying race! Look at me. I may be the last of my kind. The Slayers know who I am. They’ve already captured me once and I’m lucky to be alive. We have become the hunted, the night no longer ours. Our time is running out. Do you want to spend it cowering in the shadows? Or will you fight?”

  I paused, waiting to see if any of them would argue. The faces of the vampires had grown no warmer to me, but they weren’t being instantly dismissive of my words either. At least they seemed prepared to hear me out.

  “Yes, we are outnumbered,” I said, “but humans die far easier than we do. And if we are going to die anyway, what do we have to lose? At least this way we have a chance of survival, and if not then it’s better than waiting for the slow process of extinction.”

  “This is madness,” one vampire shouted. Others agreed with him. “Many of us have survived for centuries, even with the threat of the Slayers. We still have our lives, our eternity! Would you have us cast them away like so much worthless junk? Are they nothing to you? Wel
l I for one will not throw that away to save one doomed werewolf.”

  All the vampires were shouting at me then, and even a few of the ghouls, and looking out at their angry faces I felt my hope die. Nothing I could say was going to convince them. Still, I had to try.

  “Life,” I laughed, the shouts dying down to angry muttering. “You call this life? What life is this for us, we who are the greatest predators ever to walk this earth? Mankind used to fear us! What life is this, living in fear of them – they who should be no more than prey! Without the technology they hide behind, they would be no match for us. Are we so afraid of them we won’t even fight to take back what’s rightfully ours? Will we not make a stand like the great predators we are, instead of running and falling into extinction?”

  “You’re talking about a fight we cannot win,” argued another vampire. “Better to stay in the shadows and continue to elude our hunters, than throw away what years remain to us in one rash move.”

  “Tell them what you witnessed after they captured you,” Lady Sarah said with a quiet urgency.

  I knew she wanted me to shock them with what I’d seen, so I searched my memories of the grisly experiments. Most of those memories were vague, but one came to me, sharper and more graphic than anything else from the night I’d escaped. If this didn’t convince them to fight then nothing would.

  “You think you can survive much longer?” I tried again. “You think you will live out the rest of your years in freedom? When the Slayers took me, they starved me to the point of madness – almost to the point of no return. But I escaped and I destroyed their base. And while I searched for the way out, I saw enough to know I was one of the lucky ones.”

  I took another moment to look out at the dead faces, checking I had their attention again. The vampires still appeared doubtful, but they were listening at least.

  “Did any of you know they’ve been capturing us alive so they can experiment on us? A vampire lay on an operating table, his chest sliced open, his heart and lungs visible. A young boy, possibly the only other living werewolf besides myself until I freed him from his suffering, had a dead wolf’s head sewn to his neck. Maggots were eating the rotting head, and I watched them spread to living flesh. They were eating him alive, and the Slayers had scientists making notes, testing how much he could endure. They were testing things on him, things I have no name for, trying to find the best way to kill us, the best methods of torture.”

  Finally I had their interest. Some of the vampires still looked scornful, but most of the undead seemed more willing to listen.

  “Will you stand by and let this happen? If we do nothing, you could face the same fate. Is it not better to die fighting than spend the last of our days, maybe even years, as playthings of the Slayers?”

  “Well spoken, Nick.” The voice came from the woods, one I knew I’d heard before but couldn’t quite place. It sounded familiar, yet different to how I remembered it. Whose voice was that? “But you know, there is another option. All you offer is death. I can offer you more, all of you. You can still have eternity, if you are willing to make a few changes, to embrace the new world and let go of the past. The world of men is changing, and we must change with it. I offer you a third choice, one which guarantees your survival.”

  A dark figure stepped out of the treeline. He had been shouting to be heard above the others, until silence fell. The last was a low hiss, yet it carried to us on the still night air, as he entered the moonlight. “Join with us!”

  Lady Sarah gasped. I gawped stupidly. It must have been a good few minutes before I recovered enough to find my own voice. “They killed you! I buried your body. How can you be alive? No one could survive what they did to you.”

  The vampire looked at me and laughed, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognised him sooner. “Ah, so young and foolish. How could you ever think you could lead us into another battle against the Slayers? You are still a child.”

  He walked forwards, his face filled with a new fervour, and his voice rang out once more. “None of us can stand against them. We must join them or die.”

  “But they killed you!”

  He smiled at that and shook his head. “No, mate, they did not kill me. The vampire you buried had just outlived his usefulness, and it was my idea to put the pendant on the corpse, knowing you would assume it was me. You’re still too human to ever survive this war, even now. If only you’d embraced your lupine side like we advised you, you’d have seen through my trick. And that little mistake almost cost you your life.”

  “You,” I said, my face twisting into a snarl as understanding dawned. I’d let myself forget what Aughtie had said about a contact since I’d escaped, but her words came back to me as I fought to make sense of what was happening. “It was you who told her what I was.”

  “Yes, me. I betrayed you to her. It was I who set up the little trap with the mist. An old power of mine, controlling the weather. We didn’t expect to capture your friend instead, but it worked just as well. I brought the storm that night when you discovered the corpse and I caused the bulbs to blow in the outside lights. And now I have brought the Slayers to your little gathering. Join us, or die. There is no escape.”

  I looked out into the darkness of the woods and saw more figures moving towards us. “Don’t listen to him! The Slayers want us dead. If you join them they’ll only betray you! Now is the time to fight – your lives depend on it.”

  That brought the crowd out of their confusion. They hadn’t really been following the last few minutes, but they knew Vince for what he was then, a traitor, and they were looking at him with disgust. He could see they were never going to join him and hissed “Fools!” before melting back into the shadows. But I knew we hadn’t seen the last of him that night.

  A gunshot sounded and a bullet thudded into a vampire’s shoulder. Her lips pulled back in a cat-like hiss, and she charged. Others followed, clashing with the Slayers in a bloodlust fuelled frenzy of slashing claws and gnashing teeth.

  Our force was considerably smaller, if it could even be called an army, and I could only assume Aughtie had managed to bring in reinforcements. There had to be over a hundred of them – far more than I’d encountered in the base – while we numbered thirty five at best.

  I didn’t instantly join the fray, standing to one side with Lady Sarah. She seemed to be in shock over Vince’s betrayal, and I couldn’t even begin to guess at what was going through her mind, her gaze fixed firmly on the battle unfolding before us. It was an impressive sight. What we lacked in numbers we made up for in supernatural fury, ripping our way through the humans in a blur of movement and gore. Even wounded, that first vampire had proven too fast for our enemies. Flashes of gunfire lit up the darkness as they tried to pick her off, then she was on them, felling one Slayer with a swipe of her nails and killing another with telekinesis – one moment he was alive and lining up another shot, the next his hands were around his throat and he was sinking to his knees, choking.

  A few bullets looked to find their mark, blood spraying from undead flesh, but they were merely painful rather than deadly and only served to heighten the bloodlust. One passed through a ghostly skull, causing the wraith’s head to explode into shapeless mist. The wraith didn’t even slow, and within seconds the mist had regained its shape.

  Guns clicked empty and a number of Slayers dropped them in favour of their blades – swords rather than knives now. Their blades proved just as ineffective against our ethereal soldiers, and once those tormented spirits reached their targets, it was over for the humans. Ghostly hands reached into chests and squeezed the life out of their enemies, one of them even ripping the beating organs out in a shower of gore.

  Screams had replaced the sound of the gunfire. The ghouls fell on our enemies much like I had in the base, ripping out throats and biting into flesh. Many were drawn to the wounded, feeding on ruined bodies with wild abandon.

  The battle seemed to be going so well, but then a sword cut through one of the
wraith’s outstretched hands, temporarily preventing it from killing its victim, and a man produced a book from an internal jacket pocket. He began to intone some kind of incantation, causing the wraith to utter a terrible shriek born of centuries of pain and torment. It was as if that pain had suddenly become too much for the spirit to bear – it floated backwards with its skull in its hands, retreating from the battlefield. Thus repelled, the wraith was rendered useless.

  There were a handful of other Slayers working on the remaining four wraiths, and I had to wonder if I was witnessing a few of the last witches and warlocks left in the modern world. I felt a wave of despair as I watched them choosing to use their powers to serve the Slayers, no doubt in exchange for their own lives, as Vince had done. I just hoped these were the only humans with supernatural powers in their service. If not, if there were groups of them in each area throughout the country, or even the world, and we faced witchcraft as well as human technology, then we really were doomed.

  The vampires also realised the threat the spellcasters presented. Most of our army fought with our bare hands but three of the vampires had swords of their own. Judging from their skill with a blade they were from a time before guns, when cold steel was all they had to rely on as humans. One of those vampires I recognised as the first who had spoken out against facing the Slayers in open battle, and he cut his way through to the man who’d repelled the first wraith. The warlock, if that’s what he truly was, had no choice but to abandon his chanting and turn his attention to the vampire advancing towards him. As soon as his concentration was broken, the wraith was able to rejoin the fighting. I would later learn wraiths could be banished from the mortal realm, but it was not an option in the heat of battle, so repelling them was the best counter available to the Slayers that night.

  I was beginning to feel the battle would go in our favour again. In that initial charge we’d already killed around forty of the Slayers, while they’d only felled the female vampire who’d been shot, and a handful of the ghouls. I’d seen the vampire go down, her wound appearing to sap her strength. The telekinetic bursts grew less frequent and she’d picked up a sword, trading blows with another enemy, but she looked to be moving slower than before, weaker. Intent on cutting down the man in front of her, she never saw the Slayer taking aim at her from behind and seconds later she was dead, blood running down her face from the hole in her forehead.