The Hybrid Series | Book 2 | Hunted

by Stead, Nick

  The feeling of being followed brought me to a stop. I turned my head to the wind, listening and scenting the air. Nothing. No hint of gunpowder or hearts pumping adrenaline round bodies fired up for fight or flight. I glanced around me but the street was empty as far as my eyes could see. Was my mind playing tricks on me again?

  I resumed my hunt, yet still the sense of being followed persisted. It didn’t deter me. The rage left no room for fear or uneasiness. Only Death would stop me from taking my next victim.

  Footsteps sounded on a nearby street. I paused again and smiled. They were more regular than the drunken swaying of the clubbers staggering from place to place, and I didn’t smell any alcohol mixed in with her natural scent. This was the victim I’d been waiting for.

  My face twisted into a snarl, bestial and inhuman, teeth and nails lengthening to become fangs and claws as I stalked towards my prey. Minutes later she was within sight. Blonde hair fell across a skinny frame, but I didn’t care about the lack of meat – I just wanted to kill.

  There was something else about the woman my crazed thoughts barely registered. The glint of metal from her belt revealed a partially concealed weapon, and there was the crackle of a walkie-talkie, both of which marked her as a Slayer. I couldn’t see a gun and I still didn’t smell gunpowder, but she no doubt had one somewhere about her person, maybe hidden under her jacket. I let this knowledge fuel my rage to new heights. They’d given me plenty of reasons to hate them in my relatively short time as a werewolf. I wanted to believe that my lupine half would have remained dormant if only we weren’t so near to extinction, if only we’d numbered enough that there was no real need to create any more of us. The Slayers had much to answer for, and that made this woman the perfect target to unleash my fury on.

  Shadows concealed my face as I closed the distance between us. The woman came to a stop, sensing something was amiss. She was too slow. I pounced on her with all my inhuman speed and strength, and she never had the chance to draw her weapon or call for back-up. We hit the floor and I pinned her down, rage sweeping away my exhaustion and bringing new strength.

  I could’ve killed her quickly but only violent deaths would feed the bloodlust, and I was keen to obey it, intent on keeping the emptiness at bay for as long as possible. She was already panicking, writhing beneath me in a desperate attempt to break free. One hand lashed out while the other reached for her belt, and the blade now pressed between my leg and her hip. A few blows landed on my upper body but I barely noticed the pain. My fingers were creeping into her mouth and she gave up on hitting me in favour of trying to push me away.

  I held her jaws apart with one hand and gripped her tongue with the other, filled with dark glee at the sight of her eyes widening and the garbled “No, no!” escaping her throat. The muscle ripped as I pulled it away from the surrounding tissue, blood gushing down the back of her throat and spilling out over my hands and onto the pavement.

  Most people would probably have been too busy retching and sobbing to put up much more of a fight, but this woman was tough. She tried again to reach for her weapon, her eyes filling with hate and determination. It did her no good. I snarled and caught her hands in my own, squeezing until bones splintered and popped out of their fleshy wrapping. She did her best to scream through the blood in her throat and went back to writhing. Then her face changed. She was no longer the blonde haired woman but Lady Sarah, refusing to help as Ulfarr tormented and accused me.

  With a roar, I grabbed her by the hair and smashed it into the concrete. Gore exploded out from the impact and the spluttered screams came to an abrupt end. I didn’t notice. The bloodlust had me firmly in its grip, driving me to savage her body with new ferocity.

  I ripped her torso open and lowered my face to the bloody hole, crunching through her bones and feasting on her organs. She was nothing but an empty shell when I was done, and I moved on to her limbs, stripping the bones of their meat. Her tongue lay by her body like a slug at the end of a bloody trail, and I ate that too. Then the walkie-talkie crackled to life again and I crushed it.

  My eyes blazed amber as I rose from the grisly mess on the pavement. I didn’t know how long it would take for more Slayers to come looking for her, but with my energy restored and still in the grip of the bloodlust I felt invincible. I stalked off at a leisurely pace, leaving them to clean up what was left.

  The sensible thing would have been to return to Lady Sarah after feeding, but I didn’t want to face her again that night. So I deliberately remained in the city, wandering the streets and embracing my reawakened rage for as long as it lasted. Part of me still wanted to transform now I’d fed, and enjoy the feeling of my body growing stronger and more powerful. But even with the full moon overhead, something held me back, keeping me in human form and the human part of my mind in control, at least for the time being.

  My stolen clothes were beyond uncomfortable now they were soaked with my victim’s blood. They clung to my skin, ushering in the cold and bringing fresh shivers to my limbs. I considered ditching them, but as with the desire to transform something held me back. Maybe it was the delight at keeping my prey mostly unsuspecting, subconsciously aware that something was amiss yet not quite grasping it until I drew too close. Though in wolf form I could potentially have passed for a large stray dog, so perhaps that wasn’t quite it either. I didn’t really know my own mind that night or why I was choosing one decision over another, and looking back now I still don’t have any answers.

  That sense of being followed only grew stronger the longer I walked the streets. The night was almost spent when finally I picked up the footfalls of some human foolish enough to tail me. My rage blazed in response, expecting to find another Slayer trying to take me by surprise, and I spun round to face them, fangs bared in a snarl.

  “Woah, wolf boy, take it easy,” Luke said.

  I relaxed. “Tell me again why I shouldn’t just kill you. How do you even keep finding me?”

  “You’re not a happy wolf, I can see that. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” I growled, turning my back on him and resuming my hunt for more victims.

  His footsteps sounded again and I rolled my eyes as he fell into step beside me. “Let’s talk about other stuff then. I don’t even know your name yet!”

  “Nick,” I grunted, without looking at him. In my current state of mind he was an annoyance, one I was sorely tempted to obliterate. But, again, something held me back.

  “That’s cool. Do you have a wolf name as well?”

  “No.”

  “You should call yourself Darkfang or something. That would be a cool werewolf name. Or not!” he added, when I glared at him.

  “I need to kill again. If you won’t leave me in peace then at least be quiet and stay out of the way, or I will make you my next victim.”

  Luke took the hint and fell silent, but I could tell his curiosity was far from satiated.

  I killed twice more. The third murder was less savage than the other two, and to my dismay the fires of my anger had already begun to die down. I continued to wander the streets with Luke by my side, keeping my thoughts on Lady Sarah and Ulfarr, and the Slayers. But it wasn’t enough to reignite my rage.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to talk, dude?” Luke tried again. “You seem even more troubled than that night in the pub.”

  His eyes shone with such warmth and friendliness. But could I really trust him? Perhaps I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t deny the need for a friend, and he was so much easier to talk to than Lady Sarah.

  “Have you ever been betrayed by someone you thought you could count on?”

  “Yes,” he said simply, waiting for me to go on.

  “I don’t know how much you know, or how it is you could possibly know about the Slayers. Unless you’re one of them, but then, why would you be letting me kill without trying to intervene?”

  “Relax, man, I’m not with them. Werewolves are awesome; I wouldn’t want to see you get killed by tho
se misguided bastards.”

  Whether it was wise to confide in him or not, I couldn’t seem to stop myself once I’d started. I told him everything, from the torment I’d suffered at the hands of my ‘fellow’ undead and how Lady Sarah had let me down, to my struggles to adjust to my new life away from humanity.

  “The only good thing to come out of tonight was my rage being brought back to the surface, but now I can feel it slipping away again and without it I’m nothing. See what I meant by you don’t want this? I was always a fan of werewolves an’ all, but if I could go back to that night I was bitten and change things, I’d do it without a second thought.”

  “Hey, freak!” a boy shouted, interrupting us.

  A large group of school kids had appeared on the opposite side of the road, and I’d been so caught up in trying to explain things to Luke that I’d barely noticed. The boy who’d shouted out couldn’t have been any older than twelve. Cocky little bastard. He was looking for a fight and with all his mates around him, clearly he felt unbeatable. There were a couple of girls in the group he was no doubt looking to impress, or why else would he pick on someone nearly twice his height? Having suffered at the hands of bullies for most of my human years, there was little wonder why Ulfarr had re-awoken my rage. I tried to embrace it again to brandish against these insolent little kids.

  “What did you call me?” I snarled.

  Dawn was fast approaching which explained why the kids were out on the streets, though it was still a little early for them to be setting off for school. Common sense told me to flee the city before I lost the cover of darkness and the streets became alive with thousands of witnesses. I ignored it. I was too desperate to rekindle my anger, and these school bullies seemed like my last hope.

  “You starting on me now?” he challenged, strutting across the road as if he seriously thought he could beat me in a fair fight. There was a time when I might have found it funny, and I did laugh, but there was no humour in it. If the kid had any brains he would have backed off at the harsh sound, but of course he didn’t. “Hey, where are your shoes, freak? And what’s all that spilt down you?”

  “You started it, you little prick,” I said, ignoring his questions. “Now fuck off back to Mummy and Daddy before I send you home crying.”

  “Oh yeah? I’ll break your nose, dickhead.”

  “Do you want a stepladder to do that or shall I kneel for you?” I sneered. I might not be the tallest of guys, but he really was that short. A few years can make a big difference in height at that age, after all.

  Clearly a good comeback was beyond him, since he tried to kick my feet out from under me. Presumably so he could reach my nose which he was so intent on breaking. Maybe he would have succeeded if I’d been human, especially if his friends joined in. But with all my supernatural power, he would meet the same end as my other prey.

  I easily dodged the kick, the group gawping as I moved faster than they knew should be physically possible. My fingers wrapped around his collar and I threw him to the ground. He hit the concrete hard, and I smelled blood as the force ripped away layers of skin. Tears welled up in his eyes and he cried out. His friends never moved. As with any bullies they were cowards, unwilling to go to his aid now they knew they were no match for me.

  I knelt over my latest victim, pinning him to the ground. He shook and sobbed beneath me, pathetic now he was on the receiving end of pain. My teeth had elongated into fangs once more and I tried to be especially cruel to keep the anger alive for a while longer, but my heart wasn’t really in it.

  “You’ve got balls, kid,” I whispered in his ear. “Maybe I’ll rip them off.”

  His face turned paler and he screamed again, louder this time, while fear robbed him of control of his bladder. I forced another laugh and rose off of him as he wet himself, turning my gaze on the rest of the group. Some part of me continued to nag about the danger of lingering in the human world any longer, and again I thought of what would happen if hundreds of witnesses began to appear on the streets. I glanced at Luke who stood back, seemingly happy to watch me commit more murders. The kids were all focused on me, perhaps having just enough brains not to goad a fully grown guy who was even taller than I was.

  “Do what you need to do,” Luke said quietly, so only I could hear. There was no judgement in his eyes, no hatred like everyone else seemed to have for me. No, I thought I saw understanding in his face this time. Had he been the victim of bullying too?

  I hesitated, still aware of the dangers of being caught out on the streets. Aughtie had been conducting horrific experiments on any undead she’d captured alive back in my hometown. I was willing to bet there were plenty of facilities just like the one I’d briefly been imprisoned in. Maybe not every leader among them would agree with her methods, but there was enough fear and hate among their ranks that the majority would be quite happy to carry out such torture in the name of ‘science’. That had to be a fate worse than death.

  So I was caught in another inner struggle. Some part of me still cared about survival, or at least not meeting a particularly painful and bloody end at the hands of the Slayers. But there was still the need to find a way to allow the tide of my bloodlust to wash over me once more, before the emptiness could re-open enough for me to fall back into it.

  Lizzy appeared. “Just walk away, Nick. You know killing him won’t bring you any enjoyment now the rage has died back down. Just walk away this time.”

  It was at that point one of the girls found the courage to shout out to me, but she made no move to help the pathetic boy still sobbing and whimpering at my feet.

  “Oh my God, what’s wrong with you?” she said. “He never even did anything.”

  That should have been enough to feed the rage. How could she defend him when he’d started it? He was the one who’d provoked me. He’d been the one to physically lash out first. And I’d spared him his life; what more did she want? He’d been lucky not to encounter me a few hours earlier, when I wouldn’t have wasted time with threats.

  “How old are you?” she continued.

  “Nearly seventeen,” I growled as I turned to face her, which was true, even if I hadn’t aged physically at all since being bitten. “Why, what’s it to you? Are you into older lads?”

  She knew something was very wrong, even if she didn’t really understand what was happening. Yet still she wouldn’t just walk away, and the rest of the group seemed frozen in place. Light was just starting to spill onto the street. I was standing in shadow but I wouldn’t be for much longer. Soon they’d see exactly what was staining my clothes and skin.

  “I think you should grow up,” she said, trying to put on a brave face, even though her doubts and fear were evident.

  “Mouthy little gits, take your friend and go before I tear out your tongues.” I wished I felt the anger I tried to maintain in my words.

  “Go on, bro, it’ll make you feel better,” Luke whispered.

  “Not helping,” I growled at him, while Lizzy continued to play the role of my conscience, and I still struggled with conflicting thoughts of survival versus more bloodshed.

  “Freak,” the girl shouted again, but she did run over to help the boy up then, and they fled. I watched them go. Despite my best efforts, my rage had left me. My anger had burnt out again and my bloodlust was but a distant memory.

  “I have to go,” I told Luke.

  “No worries, man, I understand. I’ll find you again.”

  There was nothing more for me in the city, so at last I ripped off the bloody clothes and transformed, taking it all the way to wolf this time. Then I took my leave, as swiftly as I was capable of.

  I made it out of the city without event, glimpsed by the general public only once or twice. But no one cried wolf. Once I was back in the wilderness I caught a deer, then I made my way to the moors and Lady Sarah.

  Dead inside again, my anger reduced to ashes, I was no longer mad at her. Forgiving her was another story. Ulfarr might have been the most powerful
being in the room, one she couldn’t hope to stand against if it came to a fight, but she could have spoken out for me at least, if only to be shot down and left resigned to watch events play out. The fact that she would have at least tried to help would have meant something. And who could say whether any attempt to defend me would’ve been unsuccessful? She seemed to be treated by other vampires with respect, which suggested her words would carry some weight at these gatherings. Yet she’d remained silent and unwilling to take any action on my behalf. It had taken a stranger to save me, one whose motives were even more puzzling than Lady Sarah’s. I couldn’t just forget the night’s events and carry on as if nothing had happened. And yet, even though part of me wanted nothing more to do with her, I knew she remained my best hope at survival for the immediate future. I’d already established I wasn’t willing to die at the hands of either the vampires or the Slayers if I could help it, and I had even less reason to trust the new vampire I’d met that night. So that meant I was stuck with Lady Sarah for the time being.

  I picked up her scent and found my way back to the area we’d made our home. The blanket was exactly where I’d left it, weighted down with rocks to keep it from blowing away. I lifted them off with my jaws and nestled inside, drifting off to sleep with only that thin layer for shelter. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Chained Fury

  Earth shifted, dragging me from the nightmares and back to the waking world. A pale hand broke the surface moments later. Still in wolf form, I stretched and waited. The other hand was close behind, then Lady Sarah’s arms were sliding free, followed by her head. She pulled herself up in a cascade of dirt, wrinkling her nose with disgust as she picked a worm out of her hair and wiped at her eyes.