Wolf Castle

by Heather Walker

  Bryce staggered backward to his men. He got to them just in time to warn them of their impending peril, but most of them never saw the vampires that assailed the Tower House all these weeks. The few who survived to evacuate Moy Castle understood the danger. The rest faced these bloodsuckers for the first time.

  Sadie recognized the terror in their eyes. They had no idea how to fight these things. That came only from bitter experience. Sadie called up all her terrible experience at the Tower House and on the march here to face these things now. Even a dirk in her hands was better than a saber in the hands of a frightened foot soldier who didn’t know his enemy.

  She had no time to enlighten them before the fiends closed in. She struck the first blow and stabbed a vampire in the neck. After that, the fight turned into a blood-soaked haze. The rubbery sponge of bleeding flesh, the splatter of brains dashed against stone, the satisfying crunch of breaking bone—these were her food and drink now. They turned her into a vampire who lusted after blood.

  Blood saturated her dress and hair. It dripped off her face and drenched her arms to the elbow where she slashed and stabbed and rent and ripped. Bodies clustered around her feet. She stepped on them to reach her next victim, but more and more vampires washed over the battlements every second. No amount of killing could stem the tide.

  She spun right, and her eye danced over the horizon far and wide. More and more vampires rose out of the sea and the land. They marched across the promontory toward the castle walls. The Highlanders rushed through the castle entrance to meet them and fight them, but no one on the ground seemed to realize the enemy was closing in from the castle’s other three sides.

  Sadie looked around for Bryce. This couldn’t go on. Half the bodies under her feet belonged to the castle’s own defenders, and no more reinforcements would come from downstairs. All the fighting men rushed out to defend the castle the only way they knew how: from the front.

  Sadie kept up her steady beat of stabbing and cutting. She severed any limb that came near enough to touch her. She caught up a saber from a Highlander fallen at her feet. That helped. She alternated between that and her dirk if one of the demons came too close.

  Then she spotted Bryce. He backed into a corner with vampires all around him. Over his shoulder, three more vampires climbed over the battlements. They grabbed him from behind and bared their teeth to put an end to him.

  Sadie exploded in rage. She flew across the roof and slashed her way through the throng to get to him before they killed him. She chopped heads and crushed the fiends under her feet. She hated them for what they did, not only to the McLeans, but to her. They turned her from a mild-mannered doctor into this monster. She couldn’t tell herself apart from them anymore. She used to value life above all else. Now she understood only death. She craved it and worshiped it.

  A cry from Bryce caught her attention. She looked up to see another two vampires piling onto his shoulders. He dashed away from the wall, but they held on. They sank their teeth into his flesh and ripped great holes in his skin.

  He ran in circles. Sadie couldn’t get near him. She made a few cuts with her saber, but he always moved away at the last moment. Her weapon whistled past his assailants without harming them.

  At last, he came to a standstill in the center of the roof. He whirled right and left trying to get the things off. He dropped his saber and pulled a dirk out of his belt. He stabbed two in rapid succession, but his actions only spurred the others to greater fury.

  Sadie took her opportunity. She ran at him and chopped one vampire off him. She hauled back her saber to make another cut. One of the vampires climbed up onto Bryce’s shoulder. It craned its neck around in front of him to latch onto his throat.

  Sadie brought her weapon down hard against the thing’s neck. Her blade severed its head from its body, but the thing still clung on with all its strength. The mouth sank its teeth into Bryce’s jugular, and its lips formed a suction around the wound.

  Sadie charged the thing. She grabbed it by the shoulder and yanked. The beast’s body came away and left the head still attached to Bryce’s neck. He waved his arms and flailed in all directions. Sadie stared at the thing. She couldn’t bring herself to touch the disembodied head. It sucked and swallowed, and Bryce’s blood poured from the vampire’s stump neck along with its own. How long would it go on if she didn’t act?

  At that moment, something hit her from behind. She collided with Bryce, and they both somersaulted over each other across the roof. Sadie turned all her attention to two vampires pinning her down. She lost sight of Bryce.

  By the time she got herself dislodged from those two attackers, more vampires piled on top of her. Desperate terror gripped her heart. She fought harder than ever, but she watched herself from a remove. She couldn’t win this fight. Whatever dreadful force compelled these creatures to attack the McLeans, it would never stop. It would go on and on until it destroyed the McLeans and everyone around them.

  What was the point of fighting them? Why should she spend her life’s energy fighting them if she was only going to die anyway? Her strength started to wane. She struck back with less and less energy. One of these times, she wouldn’t bother. The vampires would descend on her neck, and that would be it.

  She looked up at their snarling faces. They slathered their hideous fangs inches away from her eyes. She almost smiled at them. She would make a good meal for them. That’s what her life and her career and her medical aspirations came to. She was a meal for vampires in some long-lost corner of history.

  She thrust her dirk upward into the ribcage of the vampire closest to her face. It bellowed in rage. She twisted the knife a little harder. That one wouldn’t be the one to enjoy her blood. She kicked it away, and another one took its place. No matter what she did, another one always appeared. They would keep appearing forever, and she didn’t care anymore.

  She tightened her grip on her dirk to strike, but she lacked the energy to lift her arm. Exhaustion weighed her down. She gave up the ghost and lay still. She turned her head aside to expose her jugular.

  At that moment, the vampire leering in her eyes sailed off her. The sky blinded her. Another vampire appeared, but that one disappeared the same way. She didn’t have to raise her weapon at all.

  All of a sudden, instead of a vampire face looming above her eyes, a different head moved into her line of sight. She blinked before she recognized it. It was Bryce. He grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet.

  She couldn’t believe what she saw. No vampires remained on the roof. They were all dead. Bryce rushed to the battlements and pointed down on the ground. “Look!”

  More vampires rose out of the sea. They sprouted up out of the ground in front of the defenders, but they didn’t try to storm the castle walls anymore. They all concentrated on the ranks of fighting men lined up to meet them.

  The Highlanders closed with their old enemies. The clang of steel striking bone, the shriek of men in mortal combat, and the howl of vampires rushing their enemies in bloodthirsty fury drifted on the wind to the battlements.

  Bryce whipped around. “I’m goin’ down there. I cinnae….”

  He didn’t get the words out before a lone vampire launched itself off the wall in front of him. It caught him by the shirt collar and yanked him back over the side. In a split second, he pitched backward and vanished in a headlong dive for the ground far below.

  Sadie stared out over the scene. She should get down there, too. She should expend her last breath defending this castle and all its innocent inhabitants from these monsters, but she couldn’t move. She could only stand and stare at the devastation all around her.

  She never asked for this. She wanted nothing more than to live a life of service in medicine in her own home town. Why did she have to get transported here in the first place, only to die?

  She used her last ounce of willpower defending this roof, this small section of territory thousands of miles and hundreds of years away from the place she really
belonged. She couldn’t do it anymore. She would rather die.

  She fought to save Bryce, and now he was dead. She gave her all to the McLeans, and now she was utterly, irrevocably alone.

  Chapter 20

  Callum dusted himself off and took a look around the cellar. He expected this misguided adventure to end in something like this. He was no closer to freeing Sadie, and now he was a prisoner himself.

  No matter. He would shift into his dragon from, and these walls would crumble when they tried to contain him. He would bring Duart to the ground himself. Just then, a faint ray of light flashed through the high window over his head. He peered through it to see legs running past on the ground up there.

  He climbed up a shelf to get a better look. Kilted legs ran by, along with some other brown, dirty legs. He recognized them They were vampires, and they ran the other way, toward the south.

  Callum frowned. That could mean only one thing. The vampires were coming from the sea. They came from the sea around Moy, too. Now they came from the sea here. They would keep attacking the McLeans until someone broke the curse.

  He pushed himself higher on the shelf until he came level with the window. He had to get out there. He had to…what? What would he do when he got out there?

  A smarter man than he was would NOT go out there. A smarter man would escape into the castle itself. A smarter man would find Sadie, grab Jamie, and split. A smarter man would leave the McLeans to fight their own battles. That’s what a smarter man would do.

  Callum Cameron was not a smarter man. He proved that time and again. He didn’t have Angus’s brains, or even Robbie’s, and he certainly didn’t have Fergus’s power or Jamie’s charm. He was just stumpy old Callum. He might not make the best decisions all the time, but he did what he thought was right.

  He couldn’t ditch the McLeans, no matter how bad they were. If this thing really came from the same curse he and his brothers battled all these months, he had to help them. He couldn’t leave them to die, which is what would happen if someone didn’t find a way to stop these bloodsuckers.

  He pulled back his fist and smashed the window to pieces. Glass rained into his face, but he kept his eyes shut and held his breath. He punched out the window and climbed through it into the open air.

  The vampires ran straight past him in their mad rush to engage the McLeans. He ran after them until he broke into the choppy land separating the castle from the rest of Mull. For what seemed like ages, he surveyed the pandemonium all around him. His hand flew to his saber hilt, but the next moment, it fell at his side.

  Highlanders, mostly McLeans and Montgomerys, battled vampires by the dozens. Ten to fifteen vampires crowded around every man and pressed them to the point of collapse. One man after another went down on that field, and more vampires rushed to the spot every second.

  He couldn’t allow this. He couldn’t let these men die such a hideous death when he possessed the power to save them. They might be his enemies, but they were still people. Calm spread over him. He knew what he had to do.

  He cast a glance over his shoulder. Duart Castle rose tall and inviolate against the sky. A solitary figure stood high on the battlements. The wind caught her hair and her dress. It was Sadie. She saw him, and she recognized him. She watched to see what he would do.

  She would see, and she would finally understand, but he didn’t care. If she couldn’t accept him for being an Urlu, he would be better off without her. The sooner she saw, the better.

  He took a deep breath. Now that he made up his mind to do it, all the tension of the last few days evaporated. The decision felt good in his heart. He faced his enemy. Once he showed his hand, the battle would end in a matter of seconds, so what was he waiting for?

  He threw out his chest, balled his hands into fists, and craned back his head to roar to the skies. He let all his power rip out of him in one massive eruption of seething volcanic energy. His neck arched at a dangerous angle. It stretched backward and curved. Wicked black spikes burst from his spine.

  He spread his wings, and the sun glinted on his copper scales. He screeched out loud. His neck slithered around, and he aimed his arrow-sharp head at the vampires scurrying for cover in all directions.

  The instant he changed into his dragon form, the vermin abandoned the Highlanders en masse. They rushed across the field for the sea and the forest from whence they sprang, but Callum had enough.

  He whipped his head to one side and let loose a withering jet of flame to mow the fiends down. They writhed in the inferno for a few seconds and went up in smoke before his eyes. He didn’t stop. He cut them down all over the field. He walked around in a circle and annihilated them by the hundreds when they came out of the sea to run around the castle.

  The McLeans cheered, but he didn’t hear them. He heard only the thunder of his own pulse in his ears. He unloaded all his frustration and anger on their insignificant bodies. He tolerated their attacks one too many times, and now he returned it tenfold—a hundredfold, even.

  He reared back on his hind legs and beat the air with his leathery wings. He sent torrents of wind at the burning vampires. They collided into each other flapping their burning arms. They stumbled in all directions, and then they ceased to be.

  He watched their ridiculous antics through his rage-fueled haze. He waited far too long to teach them a lesson. He should have taken Jamie’s advice and torched them back at the Tower House. He never should have allowed the McLeans to flee the way they did.

  Either way, he was here now, and the whole world could taste his fire. When he finished with the vampires on the ground, he launched himself into the air. He flew around the castle and eyed the terrain through his flinty eyes. He spat flame here and there to finish off the last remaining monsters. They offered no resistance. They would never bother him again. That was certain.

  When he finished with them, he made another lap around the battlements. The McLeans raised their arms and hooted from the ground. They waved their weapons at him, but he didn’t see Lachlan anywhere.

  Sadie stood in the same place. She gazed up at his burnished sides and his enormous wings spread across the sky. The wind blew her hair out of her face, and the sun glowed on her skin. She never looked more beautiful to him than she did right now, but he couldn’t go near her. He couldn’t tell how she reacted to his transformation, but he no longer cared. This was him. For the first time, she saw him for what he truly was.

  He pumped his wings one more time. He let out a piercing shriek and headed south, into the forest. He landed on the shores of the lake. For some reason, this place attracted him like no other. It soothed his mind, but he didn’t change back. He didn’t want to be stumpy old Callum Cameron—not now. He didn’t want to be a man Sadie couldn’t love, and he dreaded finding out if she still cared about him at all.

  Maybe she would still want him. He couldn’t even care about that. He enjoyed his dragon form, and he didn’t want to be anything else. Right now, it satisfied him to look out on the world through his reptilian eyes. Nothing on this cursed island could stand up to him. He could rest assured of that.

  A quick, short noise caught his attention. He turned around to see a bunch of wolves lined up against the trees beyond the beach. He narrowed his eyes at them, and his long tail scratched his scales across the rocky shore.

  He faced them and lowered his head in menace. The biggest wolf stepped forward and hopped up on its hind legs. In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a man.

  Lachlan held out his hand to the dragon. “Will ye no come and talk tae me, mon tae mon?”

  Callum growled deep in his throat. His reptilian mind couldn’t forgive this man so easily.

  Lachlan advanced on him, and Callum hissed. He couldn’t hurt this man, though. Lachlan had the brains to come unarmed. If Callum knew anything about the man, the others would be unarmed, too. Lachlan knew the art of diplomacy if he knew nothing else.

  “Come back tae the castle, mon,” Lachlan murmured. “Do ye
wish tae hear me say I’m sorry? Very weel. I’m sorry. I treated ye beastly, and I deserve yer wrath fer’t. But I’m mon enough tae say so, and tae come out ’ere and ask ye tae return. We need ye, and I should ha’e said so from the beginnin’ instead o’ tryin’ tae muscle it out o’ ye. There. I said it. Come back. Please. I’ll no use me muscle on ye again. I swear’t.”

  Callum walked away down the beach. He didn’t look back. Lachlan remained standing where he was. He already knew he’d won. Whatever else Callum Cameron might be, he was a creature of company. He couldn’t go it alone. He never could. He always did everything with his brothers.

  Lachlan said nothing. He must have given orders to his brothers to keep back while he reasoned with Callum. The wolves sat on their haunches and waited. They showed no sign of moving until their leader gave them the word.

  Callum halted farther down the shore. He listened to the breeze lap the water against the stones. It settled his mind. He could forget the noise of battle, the screams of roasting vampires, and the shouts of men.

  He would have stayed by that lake until dark if Lachlan hadn’t approached him one more time. He stood behind the dragon’s tall shoulder and murmured in his ear. “It’s Sadie ye want, am I right? Ye dinnae ha’e tae tell me.”

  Callum closed his eyes. Lachlan couldn’t see him, but somehow it didn’t matter anymore. No matter what happened, this lake always told him the same undying truth. He had to go back. He had to go back for Sadie. Jamie could take care of himself. Sadie was back at Duart, and all roads led to Sadie.

  Callum sighed, and that sigh deflated all his energy. He collapsed on himself into plain old Callum Cameron once again, but he kept his back to Lachlan. He couldn’t look the man in the eye, not when he just saved Lachlan’s life and the lives of all his people.

  “Awright,” he murmured. “Ye go alaing.”

  Lachlan said no more. He turned on his heel. The crunching noise of his feet told Callum how far he moved off down the beach. In an instant, the noise vanished. Callum didn’t have to turn around to know what happened to Lachlan and his brothers. They shifted, and they ran off home like good little wolves.