by Nick Stead
The Welsh man finished dressing and strode forward to pat me on the shoulder. “No sense in brooding, Nick. It gets old after a couple hundred years.”
A spasm from Amy’s prone body pulled me back to the dire reality of her current situation. Air rattled out of her lungs with a terrible finality, and her body settled into that horrible stillness normally only encountered in the dead.
“No!” I roared, rushing to her side.
I sank to my knees beside her, clawed fingers shaking with a fear that was at odds with my monstrous form as I reached for her throat to feel for a pulse. My heart thundered so loudly that once again I couldn’t hear anything above the rush of my own blood, unable to detect any signs of life through my sensitive ears as I might normally have done. But relief flooded through me when I found there was indeed a pulse. Her heart was still beating but it was so faint now, almost gone completely. I imagined she was caught somewhere between living and dying, as I had so often felt since the curse had taken so much from me. And now it threatened to claim the life of my sister as what precious little was left of her life continued to fade from the horrific gashes my own claws had made.
Gwyn padded over to me and I rounded on him, snarling “How much further to the witch?”
“Easy, mate. Anger won’t save your sister now. We’re almost there I promise; the room they’re holding her in is just down this passage.”
“Then lead on,” I growled.
“It’s just down here,” he repeated. “There’s no more surprises waiting for us, as far as I know.”
The Welsh man seemed to be telling the truth as we progressed through the tunnel without any further hold ups, though it seemed to stretch on forever as the minutes ticked by with no end in sight. Eventually I began to get the impression of a wall looming up ahead, but my heart sank when we drew close enough to see clearly what the shadows had obscured.
A large grim reaper grinned morbidly at us from the apparent dead end, painted in the kind of gothic style I’d favoured as a human – it could even have been a design taken from one of my many gothic t-shirts I’d thought I’d left behind with everything else from that past life. But while my teenage human self might have considered such artwork cool, this likeness of Death was far from welcome in the present circumstances and its presence only stoked the fires of my rage. Worse than the reaper’s presence, however, was the object propped up against the wall beside it. The style was old fashioned and looked like it belonged in a Hammer Horror movie, but there was no Hollywood version of Dracula resting inside. No, it stood open and empty, but its purpose was clear. The size even seemed to have been picked with a specific occupant in mind, as if David had planned for us to make it this far all along, only for Death to prevail at the final hurdle. And to rub more salt in the wound, he’d left the coffin designed for my sister.
There was nothing to suggest that there was another hidden door in this length of passage, which meant that Gwyn had lied. The coffin turned out to be fixed against the wall, and I could see no evidence of any doors or anything to either side of it.
I turned back to the Welsh man, snarling “What is this?”
“What, have you never seen a coffin before?”
Luckily for him I didn’t dare place my sister back down on the ground unless I had to, afraid moving her any more than necessary would only cause more damage in her critical condition. But I took a step towards him and moved my bloodied muzzle closer to his face, fangs bared to make my message clear.
“You know, the modern age has these things called breath mints. You might want to invest in some when we get out of here,” Gwyn said, seemingly unfazed by my unspoken threat, though he did back away slightly. But he relented as I continued to invade his personal space, until he was backed up against the wall. “Okay, okay. The witch is just on the other side of that wall, I swear.”
“And what good is that when it’s a dead end?” I growled.
“Dead end,” Gwyn laughed, quickly growing serious again when I growled louder. “Oh come on, you have to admit that was a good pun. Anyway, there is a way to get your sister through to her, but you have to place her in the coffin.”
“No.”
“Well, you can either waste time raging and trying to force your way through, and it seems like your sister is living on borrowed time already, or you can trust me. But you should know, this is pretty thick stone separating us from the one hope left to save your sister. I don’t think you have any other options here, matey.”
The fact that he was right only made me more stubborn and unwilling to do as he said, but I couldn’t afford to let such feelings rule me when it could very well rob me of my one chance to save Amy. So with great reluctance, I took a step back from him and faced Death once more. Morbid thoughts crossed my mind that I was only delaying the inevitable, even if this did work and the witch could restore the life force my claws had torn from my sister. Even if she lived to see the light of another day, she would still be mortal, and there would still come a day when the reaper came for her and she was placed in a coffin for good. But I was her big brother and through the blood ties of family and the sense of duty that came from being the eldest sibling, I felt I had to do everything in my power to keep Death at bay for as long as possible. She deserved a chance at a long and happy life, and I couldn’t be the one who’d taken that away from her. After everything else I’d been through, I wasn’t sure my sanity could take it.
Full of doubt, I placed my sister inside the wooden box as gently as I could, holding her upright so she stayed inside as Gwyn had instructed, her feet limply resting on what was the bottom in its vertical position. At first it didn’t look like anything was going to happen, but as the seconds ticked by a mechanism sprung into life, hidden restraints shooting out from the sides and snapping across her limp form to hold her in place. With a grunt of surprise, I took an involuntary jump backwards, instinctively reacting to the unexpected. The coffin tilted into the wall, revealing there had been a hidden panel there all along. And through the widening crack I was just able to glimpse a humanoid shape sat hunched within, who I could only hope was indeed Selina as I’d assumed when Gwyn had first told me there was a witch, but as fate would have it I wasn’t going to get the chance to enter the room myself and find out.
A flash of light forced my eyes from my sister and what little I could see of the gloom her coffin was sliding into, drawing them upwards to the words that sprung into being at the very top of the wall, above the picture of Death. There they blazed their ghastly message like Hellfire, sending a stab of cold fear through veins that had just moments before been blazing with their own fires of rage, turning my core to ice. A portent of doom, I could only gape in disbelief. For all the strength and power of my lycanthropy, it seemed I was in fact powerless, my fate not even my own. Too late, I was beginning to understand the depths of David’s madness, given shape in this sick game he’d clearly planned so carefully, making certain every decision I made ultimately led to the same torments he’d intended me to suffer. His voice over the tannoy might even have been staged to keep me from guessing the truth any earlier than he’d planned. And here was the message to drive my grim reality home.
You are already too late. Death takes her.
I’d just had time to process that when I felt movement beneath my feet, and I tore my gaze away from those words of despair, looking down to see the stone shifting as a hidden trapdoor slid into action. Then the ground opened up beneath me and I fell into darkness.
For a brief moment my mind flashed back to the classic cartoons I’d grown up with, and I had the feeling I was a certain unfortunate coyote. But there was no moment of being stood in mid-air before my fall, and when I hit the ground I knew there would be no wolf shaped indent for me to climb out of with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises and an ‘ouch’ sign. The one thing I had going for me was that I was dropping feet first, since I’d gone from standing to falling without any steps in between. And though falli
ng from height with minimal damage hadn’t been part of my training with either Lady Sarah or Leon, common sense dictated that landing on my feet was probably my best bet.
I had that sensation of the foul air rushing upwards through my fur as my body plunged down, the smell of fresh death strong in my nostrils as if David’s trap had recently caught more victims and their bloodied, broken bodies lay waiting to welcome me to a similar fate. I couldn’t help but feel that I was falling down into Hell itself, which is probably what David had intended. And yet, in truth the fall wasn’t actually that far and was over in a matter of seconds, even though it felt much longer.
Instinct had me land in the same crouched, cat-like position I’d favoured every time I’d jumped the last two stairs of my human home. Unfortunately, this was one instance where instinct failed me. Pain exploded through my limbs from the impact with the ground, the dull, persistent ache of broken bones and the sharper, stinging pulse of torn skin screaming its message along damaged nerves. An animal yelp was torn from my throat as I fell to my side, unable to keep my weight on my ruined arms and legs, where I lay whimpering pitifully in blackness every bit as complete as I’d started off in when I’d first woken up in that accursed place. I might have developed a greater pain threshold from suffering the agony of the transformation on a regular basis, but even so, I still had my limits. And at that point, after everything my body had been through over such a relatively short period of time without the chance for sufficient rest or to replenish my body’s reserves, it proved to be too much. The blissful freedom from the ache of my flesh beckoned in the form of unconsciousness once again, and I gladly sank into it, desperate for the brief respite it offered.
I found myself floating back in that darkness that seemed to be of my own inner being, some part of me conscious despite having just blacked out. It was just like when I’d been fatally wounded by the gunshot to my heart out on the moors and snatched from Death’s grasp by witchcraft. And just as I’d experienced then, another presence invaded my own little pocket of reality where I existed apart from the rest of the universe, free of my own earthly body and all its aches and pains. Except this time I recognised the voice and I welcomed the presence of the woman it belonged to.
“Nick,” Selina said.
“Selina?” I replied, unsure if she could hear me. I hadn’t attempted to speak to her before and I was aware I wasn’t really speaking, so much as I was projecting my thoughts in the hopes she could pick up the telepathic communication.
“I’m here.”
“Thank God for that! What about my sister – the girl in the coffin, is she in that room with you?”
“She is. The Slayers have us trapped in here, not just by physical barriers but mystical ones as well. They had a competent spellcaster helping with the design of this place.”
I’m not sure if it’s accurate to say my heart sank, given the state of being I’d entered into, but I had some kind of mental equivalent to that emotional reaction. “Then you’re cut off from your witchcraft?”
“Not entirely. I can still work spells, just not anything that could break me out of this prison. The warding they’ve used will counter my magic if I try to use it against the walls of my cell.”
“Then you can use witchcraft to help Amy?” I asked hopefully, feeling the mental equivalent to relief rushing over me.
“I’m sorry, Nick. She’s too close to death; there’s nothing I can do.”
“Can’t you do for her what you did for me?”
“No. And besides, you would not want that for her.”
“Why, just what exactly did you do to me? No forget it, I don’t want to know. But you better do something for Amy or I’ll kill you along with every other being in this place or die trying, ally or not.”
“If I had access to all the tools of my craft and a sacrifice, maybe it would be possible, but while I’m trapped in this room there is little I can do.”
“Little? So there is something?”
She paused and for a moment I feared she’d left me, but then came the question “Is my sister here? Have you seen Sarah?”
“Yeah, Lady Sarah is here.”
“Alive?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Can’t you sense her with your magic?”
“It’s hard to tell with vampires; they so often appear dead to my witch’s senses, even when the state of undeath goes on.”
“She was lying in a room I passed a while back but I never found the way in before winding up here.”
“Then I will make you a deal. I will risk everything to save your sister, if you will risk everything for mine.”
“I can’t abandon Amy. I need to find my way back up to you. We save her, then we’ll go find Lady Sarah.”
“No. If I do this, you must leave Amy in my hands and go to Sarah. I believe the Slayers will have kept her alive, since we all yet live. I will save your sister, if you will save mine. Those are my terms.”
It didn’t seem like I had much choice, though I was loathe to entrust Amy’s life to the witch when I knew so little about her. Not that my being there would make either me or my sister any safer, since I was as vulnerable to witchcraft as any human and since I knew nothing about the workings of spells – I wouldn’t know what she was casting until it was already too late and it began to take effect. But I didn’t want to leave Amy’s side when she was so close to death, and it was with great reluctance I agreed.
“Okay. What about Gwyn, is he with you?”
“Gwyn? I do not know anyone by that name, but whoever he is, he is not here. There is only your sister in the coffin that brought her through to my prison. I sense no other beings in this room with me, and the wall has resealed since the coffin slid inside.
“No more questions now. Time is short. I will tend to Amy and do what I can to keep Death at bay. But you should know, I can’t guarantee I will be successful in saving her. We could both die. I’ll do everything in my power to uphold my end of the bargain though; I give you my word.”
With that, the presence withdrew. I wanted to call her back, shout for her not to leave me, but I knew I had to let her go for Amy’s sake. That left me stuck in wherever it was I currently floated, unsure how to re-enter my body, as physically painful as I knew that would be with all the damage it had just endured. But I had to find a way back and face the agony of my flesh once more, if I wanted the witch’s help. I felt certain she’d know if I didn’t honour our deal, which meant I had no option but to return to my body, if I’d ever really left.
When I’d found myself in this state before, it had been Selina who’d led me back into my physical self and life on the mortal plane. Without her guidance I was lost, but continuing to just float in that blissful nothingness devoid of everything but my own thoughts wasn’t an option, so I started trying to mentally reach out for something other than that blackness. I felt like a blind man feeling his way along unfamiliar territory again, but just as I was starting to feel like it was hopeless and I’d be trapped in that state until Selina came back for me, it was like the tendrils of thought I was casting out brushed against whatever it was that usually anchored me to my physical self. I thought I could see a light, though whether it was really there was anyone’s guess. It seemed like the only way forward, however, so I floated towards it, bracing myself for the shock of the painful reality crashing back over me when my consciousness reconnected with all those damaged nerves.
The pain didn’t come. A deep breath sighed through me as if I’d merely been asleep and was waking from a normal dream, the feeling gradually spreading through my body from my head down to my toes, as if I’d become a spirit and was now re-entering through my skull and slowly stretching out and refilling all the corners of my fleshy home. There was no blinding white light as there had been when Selina had saved my life from the bullet in my heart that should have killed me, and when I opened my eyes it was to blackness once more. But the agony of my broken limbs seemed to be gone.
Gi
ngerly I flexed my fingers, expecting the pain to return at any moment. When it didn’t I became bolder and got to my feet, only then realising I was in human form. I must have gone through another unconscious transformation again, though I was surprised I was human and not wolf since my body had been mostly humanoid when I’d damaged it. I would’ve thought the bones would need to become lupine to heal. Unless I’d somehow managed to allow the change to go just far enough to wolf to heal the damage and then reverted back to human form, but God only knew how I’d managed that if it were the case when I’d not been conscious and in full control over my shifting flesh and bone. Not that it mattered. I was healed and free of pain, and I was grateful for it, though the even greater increase to my hunger was a discomfort I could’ve done without.
My thoughts turned to Gwyn and I tried calling for him, wondering if he’d followed down in his spirit form and was lurking somewhere in the darkness, or whether he’d forsaken me. There was no answer. Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing, though I would’ve been glad of his guidance to reach Lady Sarah as quickly as possible and take her back to Selina, so I could get back to my sister’s side and watch over her while the witch worked her magic, if she hadn’t already finished whatever spell she was going to attempt to save Amy’s life by the time I got there. But then again, he’d obviously known about there being some trigger in the coffin which would spring the mechanisms that had resulted in my sister being sent through to Selina and me falling down into this new chamber. Had he known the mechanism would open a trapdoor beneath my feet? I still didn’t know why he had such in depth knowledge of this dungeon we were trapped in but if he’d known there was a trigger in the coffin, I felt it was unlikely he hadn’t known that it would both send Amy through to Selina’s prison and send me down to wherever I was now. So if he had known, why hadn’t he warned me? The only explanation I could think of was that he was in league with the Slayers after all, despite the apparent help he’d given. Maybe it had been David’s plan all along, to give me some false hope of saving Amy, only to find out it was too late for her as the message had said. If that was true, he’d clearly underestimated Selina’s power, since not all hope was lost yet.
