The Hybrid Series | Book 2 | Hunted

by Stead, Nick

  Gunshots rang in my ears but I’d already anticipated it and darted to the side. Bark shattered, the bullets piercing the tree behind where I’d been standing. I didn’t give the men chance to fire again, grabbing the nearest and throwing him against the same tree the bullets had lodged in. He fell to the ground, screaming in agony from numerous broken bones, including an open fracture in his upper arm where chalky white poked through shiny red. Like the other survivor I’d left alive for the time being, he was too lost in the world of pain I’d thrown him into to be a threat. I was free to take my time with my final victim.

  His gun flew from his hand as I pounced. He landed on his back, fingers grasping for the weapon with a cry of frustration. It was just out of reach.

  I allowed him a moment of false hope, a dark smile on my face as I watched him struggle. He soon gave up on his gun and tried for the knife at his belt, but I caught his arm as he brought it back up in an attempt to slash at me. The limb twisted in my grasp with the snap of another broken bone.

  More screams rent the air and he dropped the blade. Only then did I give myself completely over to the bloodlust, savaging him with tooth and claw like the monster I truly was, and gulping down chunks of flesh. After the dried meat of Lady Sarah’s leftovers, it tasted divine. Rich juices spilled across my tongue with intense flavour and drove me into a greater frenzy. There was little left of him when I was done.

  I went back to the man lying broken and bloody at the base of the tree he’d collided with. The pain had proven too much and he’d slipped into unconsciousness, but the new sensation of my fangs sliding into the exposed muscle of his fractured arm brought him back. I ripped the meat from his broken bones until he took his last laboured breath.

  Panting, I rose from his body and glanced around the woodland, feeling the anger draining away now my dark needs had been satisfied. Burning amber softened to calmer hazel and the sharp predatory points of my teeth and nails receded into bluntness once more. With the retreat of my rage, only emptiness remained in its place, despite the moonrise being only a few hours away.

  Beads of red rolled down my body as if I’d just bathed. But rather than cleansing, the liquid only dried and added to the layer of filth which already caked my bare skin. A chill breeze passed through the woods then, ruffling my hair and stirring the bodies littered around me in some poor imitation of life.

  I’d ripped the cheek off one of the men I’d savaged. Bloody tatters waved in the wind across bare jaw bones grinning morbidly. The breeze was strong enough to cause ripples across the pools of blood surrounding the remains, as if there were still some life in the liquid, despite the dead hearts that it had come from which would pump it no more. Then the wind died down again and all was still. No scavengers descended on the grisly feast I’d left for them, no living thing daring to come close to the unnatural predator in their midst. All was still, save for the one human I’d left alive.

  The man whose stomach I’d ripped open sat propped against another tree, grunting and shaking with pain, his hands still pressed to his belly to hold his guts in place. My hunger for killing now satiated, I decided I should keep him alive long enough for Lady Sarah to wake. She must surely be craving human prey as well. But his ripped shirt was soaked with blood and I knew he’d never last that long if I left his wounds open.

  “Don’t die on me,” I growled. “I need you to hold on till dusk.”

  The Slayer was conscious enough to give a hate-filled glare, but he didn’t speak.

  I turned away from him to search the bodies of his comrades. The smell of smoke was heavy on two of the men and sure enough, in one of their pockets I found cigarettes and a lighter. Taking the lighter, I then retrieved one of their knives and held the blade to the small flame. Then I stalked back over to the Slayer.

  I made no effort to be gentle as I pulled his hands away from his wounds. He realised what I was about to do and began to struggle, his eyes wide, but I was too strong for him.

  Before I could tend to the gashes my claws had made, there came the crackle of a walkie-talkie and the voice on the other end asked “What’s your status? Report.”

  I glanced at the device, then looked back at his face. “Tell them it’s all clear.”

  The man gave a bitter smile. “You’re going to kill me anyway, so why should I obey you?”

  “Tell them it’s all clear,” I snarled, digging my fingers into his wounds. “Or I’ll make your last hours agony.”

  Whatever training the Slayers put their forces through evidently didn’t include withstanding torture, because my captive couldn’t take the pressure on the damaged nerves already sparking and throbbing for more than a few seconds. Once I withdrew my fingers he did as instructed, grunting “All clear. Targets had already moved on some time before dawn.”

  “Roger that. Return to base,” came the reply.

  “Tell them you’ve picked up our trail and you’re in pursuit.”

  The man co-operated a second time.

  “Roger that. If you don’t find them before dusk, abort the mission till we send back-up.”

  “Good,” I said, satisfied that would buy us enough time before they sent any more hunting parties out to try and take us unawares.

  I went back to delaying the man’s death long enough for Lady Sarah to make a meal of him. A flame sparked into life on the end of the lighter and I held the knife to it again, then pushed the guts back into the man’s abdomen and pressed the blade to the torn flesh, cauterising each one like I’d seen in the movies.

  The woodlands rang with the man’s screams until he passed out from the pain. A peaceful quiet settled over the area again. But my thoughts threatened to turn back to the emotional pain my family were likely still going through, so I heated the knife a third time and pressed it to his cheek. He awoke with another scream.

  “Since I need you alive, you might as well keep me company for the rest of the day,” I said.

  The man sneered. “I have nothing to say to you, monster. You might as well kill me now; I won’t be your chew toy.”

  I gave another dark smile. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you came here.”

  The man looked away, face filled with stubbornness. “I won’t deal with monsters.”

  “Monsters? I suppose that’s what I am now, but only because your kind turned me into one.”

  “Your curse did that.”

  “Oh the curse changed me, sure, it made me a killer. But humans pushed me over the edge. All that violence and aggression that came from the curse only grew at the hands of your kind. The bullies at school, you Slayers, even my own father, you all had your part to play in making me the monster I am today. You all fed my rage until it took over.”

  “You could have fought the curse.” He faced me once more, his eyes full of disgust and perhaps a little contempt. Did he think I was weak? “You didn’t have to give in to your hunger or your rage. Look at what you’ve done, look at all this carnage you’ve caused, and tell me you deserve life. They were good men; they didn’t deserve to die like this, savaged by some mindless beast.”

  “So you think I should fight my nature, rather than embracing it? Maybe I would have kept on fighting, but you people calling yourselves Demon Slayers didn’t exactly give me much choice. You’ve made it a game of kill or be killed, so here we are. And if you really think fighting the hunger is so easy, if you think you could do better, maybe you should become one of us. You might not have the wolf blood for me to make you a werewolf, but I could let the vampire turn you.”

  “I’d rather die than be one of you.”

  “So noble. So righteous. And yet you people are just as monstrous as we are. How many innocent lives have you taken in your quest to wipe us out? How many fellow humans have died simply because they got in the way, while you wage this war with us in the shadows? Perhaps not you personally, but one of my closest friends was taken by your people purely to get at me. She would have died at the hands of you Slayers if
I hadn’t got to her when I did. My friend, a human who knows nothing of this war. Why should you people be allowed to murder and go unpunished, and we undead be killed for the lives we take to survive?”

  He had no answer to that.

  “I wonder how you found us so quick,” I continued. “It’s only been days since I left home and I didn’t think we’d left any of you alive in the area to follow us. But a group of you tried to catch us unawares the other night, and then today, even though I’m pretty sure we weren’t seen entering this old campsite, your group attacked. Can your pet spellcasters track us, I wonder? But surely if it was through their magic then there would be another witch or warlock with your group, and I sense no other humans nearby. So how did you find us?”

  “I have nothing to say to you,” he repeated.

  I stayed by him for the rest of the day, though I could get nothing more out of him without resorting to more torture. That was something I wouldn’t do. Not out of any squeamishness or sense of morality – I was more worried about it being too much of a strain on his body.

  Clouds began to amass in the sky, obscuring the sun and making it difficult to judge the time. Eventually I sensed the onset of dusk, after what felt like several long hours. As the sun set, those clouds turned red. It was as if there’d been so much bloodshed that afternoon, it had been absorbed and the sky was now heavy with it.

  The moon wasn’t visible behind such thick cloud cover, but I could sense it up there and I felt the wolf’s yearning to run free. I wanted nothing more than to obey its call, and I had to fight the urge to let the transformation take hold. Lady Sarah would want me to wait.

  She didn’t take long to appear. “Good, you’re still human. And you’ve been busy, I see.”

  At first she sounded relieved she’d reached me in time, no doubt believing she’d been too late when she’d awoken and I’d not been in the building with her. But there was disapproval and a hint of anger in her second observation.

  “They attacked first,” I said, feeling defensive. “If I hadn’t engaged them they’d have found and killed you, so what was I supposed to do?”

  “You were lucky there was no spellcaster with this group. We cannot afford to move from here until after your full moon, but as soon as it has passed we will have to flee this place.”

  “I took care of it,” I growled, giving her a quick run through of what had happened while she slept. “And I left this one alive for you to feed on. You could show me some gratitude.”

  “Forgive me, Nick, I just worry you underestimate our enemies. When the time comes we will make a stand again, but until then we cannot afford for you to throw yourself into every little skirmish they send our way. You did make the right choice today though, and I do thank you for thinking of me.”

  My anger threatened to engulf me again, despite her apology, so I merely nodded. But while we’d argued, the Slayer had also been busy. Blood spilled from his mouth where he’d bitten through his own tongue, fearing we would question him some more. He might have been able to refuse me, but he’d known he would be at Lady Sarah’s mercy if she used her hypnotic powers to place him under her spell. It was a drastic move and one I’d not expected after he’d been unable to deal with the pain I’d inflicted on him earlier. Short of getting him to write in the dirt, we weren’t getting any answers out of him now. And he knew as well as we did that there wasn’t time for that when the moon could break through the clouds at any minute, which would bring on the transformation, whether I was ready for it or not.

  “Clever human,” Lady Sarah hissed. Since he was no longer useful as anything other than prey, she wasted no more time, feeding so long and deeply that he was nothing but a dried husk when she’d finished. The pleasure and satisfaction the human blood gave her was plain to see. “I must thank you again, Nick. Now, if you can just hold on to your human form for as long as the moon remains hidden behind the clouds, it will be safer for both of us.”

  But my attention was already turned to the sky. A brighter patch had appeared amidst the blackness where the moon hung overhead. No sooner had she spoken than the pale orb slid into view, bathing us in its ghostly light. My eyes became lupine, my voice already growing wolfish. “Too late.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lost in the Rage

  The moon called and I obeyed. I felt the usual pain in my stomach and the feverish symptoms of my flesh burning, my blood boiling, a primal fire blazing through me in response to my lunar master. And to think I had once fought this, not so long ago. Now I embraced my true nature, revelling in the power of the transformation itself, so much more potent for the full moon overhead.

  My skin itched as fur sprouted. A deep ache ran through my entire skeleton and muscles throbbed as bone and flesh stretched out or shortened as necessary to take on the anatomical shape of the wolf. I welcomed that pain, crouched on all fours and giving myself fully to the shapeshift. As intense as it was, I could feel my body growing stronger for the changes it endured and it gave rise to a savage joy once more.

  The transformation completed, all physical traces of my humanity lost to my lupine side. I answered the moon’s call with an excited howl, and the wolf seized control.

  “Nick?”

  My howl tailed off. I was about to bound into the night, but I paused on hearing my name.

  “Remember what is at stake,” Lady Sarah growled at me in the wolven tongue. “It is too dangerous to run wild with the Slayers on our trail. Fight it, Nick. Fight it if you want to live to see the morning.”

  I met the vampire’s gaze with all the boldness of a dominant animal. Her words were a mere whisper of suggestion in my moon-crazed mind. With my human side closer to the surface than in the early days of the curse, my hunting instincts had become that much harder to resist.

  I’d once considered Lady Sarah my alpha. But the moon was my true alpha, and its call was greater than any leadership the vampire could offer. I had only a defiant snarl in response to her.

  She must have realised she wasn’t going to get through to me because her form shifted and a she-wolf stood before me, snarling in return. The next thing I knew, her cold body was crashing into mine, seeking to wrestle me into submission. But I wasn’t about to roll over and submit.

  We grappled with each other, twisting and snapping. My fangs found their way past the protection of her fur and blood spilled. Devoid of any warmth, it brought me no pleasure, the taste bitter with the touch of the grave. She was a poor substitute for the living prey I longed to feast on.

  Stinging in my shoulder and a stream of warmth indicated she’d also bitten down to the skin beneath my pelt. The pain only drove me into a greater frenzy. Finally she succeeded in clamping her jaws around my snout, muzzling me like natural wolves. Still I writhed in her grip, desperately trying to break free. More blood spilled as her fangs carved deep gouges into my flesh. I paid the injuries little heed, struggling to break free. But the vampire held me firm and eventually I was forced to submit.

  Lady Sarah waited a few minutes to release the pressure on my muzzle, while I panted in her grip. My angry snarls faded to irritable growls, and then died into sullen silence. Only then did she let me go.

  In my mind’s eye, I could see my human side giving a dark smile as I readied myself for a renewed assault. My head lifted and its smile froze.

  An impressive figure stood over me, tall and strong as she raised the blade she’d retrieved from one of our dead enemies. In human form once more, her hands gripped the hilt so that the blade pointed downwards, hovering over my vulnerable flesh.

  “I am sorry, Nick,” she said. There looked to be genuine regret in her features, though I was still no expert on human expressions. Not that her emotions were of any importance. The blade came down, stabbing clean through the muscle of my upper left hind leg and deep into the soil, buried to the hilt and pinning me to the ground. What good did her regret do me after the damage of her actions?

  I yelped in agony but after th
e initial shock it only served to drive me into more of a frenzy. My body twisted in a futile attempt to pull the sword out, my jaws snapping at the metal. It was no use, I couldn’t get a grip on the hilt. After a few minutes I gave up and took to scrabbling at the ground with my front paws, trying to pull myself free. But the more I thrashed around, the more fresh blood leaked from the wound and the greater the pain became. Even in my crazed state it became too much, eventually forcing me back into submission. I grew still, gazing up at the moon and whining pitifully.

  A human corpse appeared in my field of vision, stiff and lifeless in Lady Sarah’s arms.

  “Eat,” she said, dropping it by my muzzle. “I suppose we were lucky they attacked you earlier. It might not be the fresh kill you crave but it is still human flesh.”

  I snarled at her. She called this luck? I should have been attacking the nearest town, chasing down all the fools stupid enough to walk the streets under my master’s gaze. But I was too ravenous to refuse the meat.

  The flesh was hard and tough with rigor mortis, as unappealing as the kills Lady Sarah drained of blood. I tried to trick myself into believing I was attacking a living creature, tried to let it satisfy the need to kill as well as the hunger for flesh. But it was no use. No matter how savagely I attacked the corpse, the bloodlust went unsatisfied.

  Little more than a broken skeleton remained when I’d finished. I continued to gnaw the bones, my hunger for flesh satiated at least. Then I grew still. It seemed the night held nothing more for me than the chance to rest, so I closed my eyes and tried to sleep through the throbbing in my leg and the continued torment of the urges I hadn’t been allowed to satisfy. With sunrise the transformation would heal the wound in my thigh, but until then I was stuck, and I could only dream of my freedom.

  Lady Sarah watched over me while I slept but the Slayers weren’t foolish enough to send another hunting party after us that night. She fled back to the darkness of the old store cupboard with the onset of dawn. I was left to transform whilst still pinned down by the sword, and my anger flared at the unfairness of it all.