by Nick Stead
I could only watch as the human raised his gun once more, yet he didn’t fire at the vampire’s head this time either, instead aiming at the ceiling. A net large enough to capture an entire pack of undead fell on top of us, the sheer size of it ensuring it would ensnare us both, despite the speeds we could move at. If it had been any smaller the mortals would have had to get their timing just right, but the man shot the catch to release it the instant he could see the vampire’s blurred form moving towards him, and Zee had run right into its path before he’d even had chance to register its descent.
At first the net didn’t seem to be made from anything special. The material might have been too tough for a mortal creature to tear its way through but it shouldn’t have been enough to hold us, and at first I expected Zee to break his way out of it and kill the human who remained just out of the reach of my broken body. I soon realised something was wrong though, and I was powerless to help him.
Steam rose off the vampire’s writhing form as he screamed in agony, the net seeming to sink into his skin as if the tissue had turned to molten wax. The stench of it sloughing off him would have been enough to make a human gag, blisters forming around the material where skin and fat melted away, like the net had been coated in acid. And yet I couldn’t feel any indication that it was eating through my flesh in the same way, which meant it could only be one thing to cause such damage to the vampire and render him as helpless as I was with my shattered spine: holy water.
I snarled at the human and thrashed my head and forelegs in an attempt to rip through the net and help the vampire somehow, yet without my back legs it was useless. I was able to bite through the material round my jaws but I couldn’t pull the entire thing off my friend to save him from the torment it was exacting on his body, and I was struggling to drag my own damaged form through the hole I’d created. Changing back to human form would leave me vulnerable while my flesh shifted but I decided it was my only option, since I was helpless anyway. So I let the transformation take hold again, even though I knew the human wasn’t likely to just stand back and let me use it to heal when he had us both at his mercy. And he proved me right, switching the gun he’d been using for something bigger. He shot me before my body could become visibly more human, the stab of a needle piercing the muscle of my shoulder and making me growl again, but then I felt a metallic taste on my tongue and in a matter of seconds I slipped from consciousness.
Chapter Eight – Unseen Threat
I awoke to find myself back in darkness, wreathed in the same foul stench of the earlier parts of the dungeon, made all the worse for the underlying smell of rotting flesh coming from the vampire who seemed to be lying nearby. His wounds hadn’t healed, the Slayers presumably knocking him out while he writhed on the floor in a similar way as they’d done to me (though I had no idea if the tranquiliser they’d used on me also worked on vampires or whether they’d used some other method to render him unconscious). Denied the chance to feed on more human blood, his body hadn’t been able to recover from the damage done by the holy water.
Instinctively I tried to get to my feet, despite being groggy from the after effects of the drug the Slayers had dosed me with, but it seemed the tranquiliser had counteracted my body’s ability to shift forms and heal whilst unconscious because I found I was still in wolf form, still paralysed. It took my sluggish mind a few moments to latch onto the reason why my back legs weren’t responding, then the sensation of nausea rose up from deep in my belly, forcing me to lie still until it passed. As I lay there I realised I could also detect Hannah in whatever new part of the dungeon we’d been taken to, which I found curious. It seemed the Slayers did deem her important to their game somehow, but why that might be was beyond me, especially after Zee had questioned her while she was under his spell, when she couldn’t have lied. But if she wasn’t working with them then what part could they possibly intend her to play in this sadistic game? Unless we were right to suspect her blood of being laced with some kind of poison just as the coloured water I’d drunk had been, and they wanted her in here to increase our torment. It was the only thing I could think of that made any sense.
Once the feeling of sickness faded I was finally able to make the change back to human form, without interruption that time. Relief washed over me as my spine fused back together, complete with all the nerve connections responsible for sending the messages from my brain down to my legs. I stretched and wiggled my toes as the transformation finished, enjoying the feeling of being complete and able bodied again.
I sensed Hannah regaining consciousness nearby. Her heartrate increased the moment she realised she was lying in pitch blackness so complete it was claustrophobic, the crushing weight of it coupled with the stench of the dungeon creating a sense of despair and impending doom. If two predators had been feeling the effects of whatever creature that stench came from, I couldn’t even begin to imagine the impact it must be having on a human.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice high with fear, despite still being under Zee’s spell. “I can’t see!”
“Me neither. I guess we’re back in the dungeon,” I answered her.
“Nick? I saw that man shoot you! Are you okay? You sound human again.”
“Yeah, I needed to change back so I could heal the damage. I’m fine now.”
“So what now, try and find another way to escape?”
“Well, when I was first captured they had me in a dark room and I had to feel around to find the exit, so I guess they want us to do the same again to discover whatever’s hidden in this darkness. This feels different to that first challenge though; the stink in this place didn’t hit me until I’d got the door open for one thing.”
My bare skin registered the same smooth and uneven surface as in the first room I’d been imprisoned in, but the wall seemed to be stretching on forever. I could hear Hannah working her away along the opposite side, and judging from the short distance between us I began to suspect we weren’t in a room like I had been before but in another tunnel, with the lights switched off. There did feel to be lights along the walls, again shaped to mimic the burning torches of fantasy or medieval dungeons. I couldn’t find any evidence of a button or another pressure pad to turn them on though, forcing us to continue blindly on, discovering what little we could by touch alone.
“This is useless, it all feels the same to me,” Hannah said.
“Wait, I think I’ve got something,” I replied, my fingers finding a slight indentation in the stone and passing over a different surface, one that felt smooth and flat. “It feels like there’s a pane of glass here.”
That entire part of the wall seemed to have changed from stone to glass, but it was far too wide to be a door. It reminded me of the kind of zoo enclosures that had large viewing windows built into the wall for visitors to get a closer look at the animals from behind the safety of the thick, reinforced glass, and I suddenly had a bad feeling about what might be on the other side. Expecting another pack of ghouls or zombies to come crashing through at any minute, I backed away from the surface until my back pressed against the opposite wall.
“If it’s only glass, can’t you break through?” Hannah asked.
Before I could answer, the vampire finally began to stir. And it was at that moment the Slayers chose to turn on the lights, blindingly bright after the complete darkness just as I’d found before. I raised a hand to my eyes as if to ward off the brightness and squinted at the window opposite, but we might as well have still been in the total blackness while my vision was adjusting, whatever new horrors awaited hidden now in light instead of shadow.
A hiss distracted me and I turned to look back down the corridor, my eyesight just starting to adapt to the change in conditions enough for me to make out the gruesome spectacle my friend had been reduced to. Then he charged.
A blur of rotting flesh and blazing fury hurtled down the corridor, hunger once again devouring all ability to reason. I realised Zee was heading for Hannah who was sto
od slightly further on from me, the damage done by the holy water leaving him in a primal state of rage and bloodlust. I also knew it would be his undoing, if the human did prove to be poison to us.
In human form I was no match for the frenzied vampire but I didn’t want to see him test my theory about Hannah’s blood, only to die if I was proved right. So I rushed forward to intercept him before he could sink his fangs into the human girl, crashing into him with enough force that we both fell to the ground, new cuts and grazes opening up on bare skin as we skidded over the stone. Somehow I managed to keep my head from banging against any of the hard surfaces, well aware I’d have cracked it open with the speed we’d been moving at. Even if it hadn’t killed me from the impact, being knocked unconscious may well have spelt my doom, since I’d have been left defenceless against the vampire.
Zee was quicker to recover from the fall than I was, but I’d succeeded in distracting him from Hannah. Unfortunately, that meant he was focussed on me instead, and he was too far gone that I couldn’t trust him to take enough blood from my veins to heal his wounds without going so far as to drain me dry. In a matter of seconds he had me pinned down on my back, the hideous visage his ruined face presented filling my field of vision as I struggled to wriggle out from his grasp. The holy water had done such horrific damage to his flesh that I’d have wondered if his body would even be able to heal the damage through feeding, if I hadn’t already seen Leon recover from similar damage just a few nights ago. But until he had fresh blood inside him the wounds would remain, red raw and probably agonising to bear.
The imprint of the netting made his skin look like a kind of gory chessboard, bloody tracks crisscrossing over his face, so deep in places that the white of bone showed through. One eye had been injured, the lids gone and the white of the eyeball turned to blood red, the iris dulled. Gunk from the damaged tissue stuck to his skin around the indentations where the purified liquid had eaten into it, rotten and stinking as if it had been there for days, the smell from the burns so bad that there wasn't even anything appetising about it to my lupine hunger. If he’d still had lips they would probably have been pulled back in a feral snarl, but they’d been completely eaten away, leaving him with a terrible grin that would no doubt make a reappearance in my nightmares at some point. And that gruesome face was made all the worse for the fury and the bloodlust burning in his one good eye, which was fixed solely on me.
Rage made up for any weakness the wounds had caused, giving the vampire enough strength to keep me pinned down as he lowered that hideous mouth to my throat. I felt his fangs pierce my skin for the second time in what was probably only a matter of hours, and all I could do was gasp his name in the hope I’d somehow get through to him before he dragged me into darkness through blood loss. But it was no use and I soon slipped back into unconsciousness.
My eyes snapped open and fixed on the vampire’s face hovering above me, now healed and flawless as ever. I was back to being weakened and hungry after the transformation to heal my own wounds and then having to donate more blood to Zee, but at least he hadn’t completely drained me for which I supposed I should be grateful.
“How long was I out this time?” I growled, accepting the vampire’s hand to help me up.
“Not long,” he answered.
Hannah was still stood a little way off from us but when she saw me getting back up she started to walk over, slow and unsure but still calmer than she perhaps might have been if it hadn’t been for the vampire’s spell she was under. It seemed she’d guessed some of what had just happened because she asked “Why did you save me?”
“Honestly? I think the Slayers want you in here with us for a reason and I still suspect if either of us tried to feed on you it would go badly for us, somehow. And who knows, maybe you’ll prove to be of some help when it comes to finally getting out of here. Or if nothing else, at least you’ve not really been in the way so far.”
She looked hurt that my answer hadn’t been something more heroic or altruistic but we didn’t have time to worry about her feelings, given the potential dangers lurking behind the window I’d found. And besides, in ordinary circumstances she would have been just another human to prey on. If she wanted to survive the experience then she needed to understand the harsh truth of our predatory nature and remain wary of us, no matter how friendly we might seem at times.
“What’s on the other side of that glass, have any of you checked yet?” I said, changing the subject.
“I think you should see for yourself,” Zee answered me.
“Why, is it bad?”
He didn’t respond out loud, instead motioning for me to go look. That feeling of dread I’d had when I’d first felt the glass there returned as I made my way over to the transparent section of the wall, certain it would look into a room full of more monsters the Slayers were pitting us against. But what I saw in there was possibly worse than anything I’d imagined.
The zoo style viewing window looked into a large room which seemed to be empty for the most part, though that didn’t mean there weren’t more nasty surprises hidden in there. The one thing I could see was a slab of stone big enough to lie a body on, and there was indeed a body on there, utterly still and seemingly devoid of life. Cold fear stabbed through me as my eyes took in the features of that body, recognising one of the two faces I’d been hoping to find ever since I’d first woken up in the dungeon.
I strained my hearing for any sounds of breathing or a heartbeat, but I could detect neither. Though for a vampire that didn’t necessarily mean anything. There was a chance Lady Sarah was still one of the undead and not the true corpse she appeared to be, and was just in need of fresh blood to heal from the gunshot wounds she’d sustained when we’d been captured, which were still apparent through the holes the bullets had made in her dress. Neither looked to be killing shots but if they hadn’t found their mark in her heart, then why had she gone down to them in the first place, and why was she not awake in the chamber she’d been placed in? I refused to believe she was truly gone, and even though we’d argued a lot over the last year and still had a lot of bonding to do in the way of becoming true friends, she had tried to help me as much as she could without going against the wishes of not just an Elder but the vampire who’d made her, so I felt I owed her my help in return.
Weakened from the loss of blood as I was, I summoned what strength my body still had without making another kill and prepared to break through yet another barrier the Slayers had put in my way. But before I could throw myself against the glass, I felt Zee’s hand on my shoulder.
“We have to get to her,” I snarled angrily, trying to shake him off.
“And we will – I know Lady Sarah of old and would not leave her in the hands of the Slayers either. But look to your left; there is an open doorway set in that wall and if you look closely you can just make out the top of a staircase leading down from it, and also to your right; there’s another open doorway there. I don’t think we’re meant to break through here; I think they want us to go round and probably battle through more enemies to gain access to one of those doorways and reach her that way. Save your energy for any more fights we have ahead.”
He made a good point so reluctantly I turned away from the window, growling “Come on then.”
We were in a long tunnel but it felt to stretch even further now that I was in a hurry to work through the level and reach my mentor and ally, and friend of sorts. As with the section of the dungeon I’d started in there was only one direction to go in this new passage: straight ahead. Whatever lay behind was blocked off, with no evidence of any doors the Slayers might have brought us through. The only other thing of interest in this tunnel was more words on the wall, this time proclaiming us to have reached ‘Level Three’.
It seemed like an age for us to reach the next chamber, and the moment we passed through the doorway the lights went out again, casting us back into darkness. A small whimper escaped Hannah’s lips, the fear of the unknown made wor
se in total blackness for a species that relied so heavily on eyesight, plus after my earlier comment she was under no illusions as to what she was to the monsters lurking in this place she’d found herself in. We bid her to stay by the door while we felt our way forward, equally uneasy at the lack of light, given some of the challenges the Slayers had put us through so far.
Once again I strained my senses but I could detect nothing in the blackness: no faint traces of any scents underneath the overpowering stench that reigned in the dungeon, nor any sounds of movement. And yet I had the distinct feeling that we weren’t alone. It was kind of like that sense of someone watching you, even when you can’t see anyone around, and after facing Selina’s barghest familiar I knew that the lack of life signs didn’t necessarily mean there were no beings of any kind lurking in the room with us. The barghest had been of another realm, seemingly made from shadows and yet very much there when it had attacked. In my mind’s eye I found myself back out on the moors that night when I’d first encountered it, recalling then how the only thing to give it away had been its glowing red eyes. And in the darkness of the chamber we were currently trapped in I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of similar glowing eyes in my peripheral vision, though when I tried to get a proper look there was only that impenetrable blackness pressing against my eyeballs, and the occasional flash of light that was nothing more than my mind playing tricks.
Even though we each followed a wall on opposite sides as I’d done out in the passage with Hannah and thus had something to guide us along, I still hated having to walk blindly forward with not even a good mental image of my surroundings put together through scents and sounds. It might have been the third time the Slayers had forced me to feel around in darkness but that didn’t mean it was getting any easier. And I kept expecting an attack at any moment, meaning I was as tense as ever. I wished they’d just put the lights back on and get the inevitable torment over with, be it another fight against more undead or more flesh and blood sacrifices to open the door on the other side.
