by Stead, Nick
Those hate-filled eyes were already fixed on me. I gulped, but stood my ground as Ulfarr strode towards us, cutting down any humans stupid enough to get in his way. He attacked with a ferocity that rivalled my own, his blade flashing and his fangs bared. The remaining humans never stood a chance. Their swords couldn’t touch him, their bullets stopping short as though they’d hit an invisible wall, and falling harmlessly to the floor. I doubted he really needed the help of the vampires he’d brought with him, but they rushed at the Slayers anyway, engaging more of them in combat.
In that moment, Ulfarr was the most impressive figure in the room, and in the primal joy of hacking and slashing his enemies to pieces, he seemed to become almost one with the werewolf pelt he wore. He could have used his powers to deliver quick, clean deaths to his enemies, but instead he chose to wield his blade, the sword carving through flesh and bone as easily as it sliced through the air around us. Limbs flew and heads rolled. And one by one the humans began to fall.
My attention snapped back to Leon and the danger he was still in. His opponents had yet to regain their wits, and I took advantage of the distraction to charge them. In a flash of claws, two fell back clutching ruined throats. I grabbed the outstretched arm of a third and ripped it clean out of its socket, tossing it aside and leaving the woman to stumble away in shock as I pounced on a fourth.
Ulfarr reached us then, which meant it was all over for the humans. And while he killed them in a similarly brutal fashion, that gave me the time to focus on healing my injuries, using the regenerative power of the transformation but without the need to actually take it all the way to either my human or wolf form. I’d long since learnt how to heal myself without having to undergo a full change, and it was only the severest of wounds that required a complete transformation to heal. Then I gave in to the hunger and tore into the body at my feet.
Finally the room was still and quiet around me, every last human turned into a part of the ghastly mosaic we’d created. One of the vampires had guided Leon to feed, and with the fresh blood in his system his own healing powers began to kick in.
His face had become a hideous mess of melted flesh, the holy water creating bloody rivulets as it ran down, eating right through to the bone of his skull in places. Two gaping craters were all that remained of his eyes, and his nose was all but gone. Part of his lips were missing, revealing the grinning jaw bones beneath. But as I watched, the ruined flesh began to reform. A jelly like substance filled the empty eye sockets until it became two eyeballs, and eyelids re-grew around them. It seemed the vampire’s vision had been fully restored, his new eyes sweeping across the room to take in the carnage, before fixing on Ulfarr.
Cartilage swelled up to form a new nose. Skin stretched across it, and new flesh covered his skull, until the same face I’d grown to know so well looked across at the Elder, as flawless as ever. But Ulfarr’s eyes were still locked on me. The anger blazing in them was plain to see, and I felt the strong impulse to flee coming from my lupine half. I might have been spared the death I was facing at the hands of the Slayers, but I was far from safe yet.
“You fools!” Ulfarr spat. “What did you really hope to accomplish here? We have survived the last century by keeping to the shadows, only killing to feed or in self-defence. But you had to go and poke the wasps’ nest and stir them into a frenzy. Now humanity will surely be more diligent in their quest to wipe us out.”
He motioned to two vampires and they came forward to seize me. Instinctively I started to struggle, but they each held one of my arms in a vice-like grip, the strength I could feel from them suggesting they were both centuries old. And at the first hint of resistance from me, Ulfarr again used his powers to force me back into human form. It was just as excruciating as it had been the previous time, and I couldn’t help but roar in agony. Then my vocal cords became fully human, and it turned to a scream. I slumped between my two captors, shaking from the pain and reluctantly accepting that I had no hope of escaping through brute strength.
“As for you, wolf,” Ulfarr continued. “You are found guilty of the murder of six vampires, the penalty for which is death.”
“It wasn’t him, Ulfarr,” Leon said. “And as for the Slayers, they will come for us anyway – it is only a matter of time. You may have lost your nerve, but some of us would rather die fighting than cowering like whipped dogs.”
Ulfarr’s face twisted into a snarl as feral as my own, his fangs bared. “You will be quiet! You have no authority here, Leon; you are not an Elder. I am this close to charging you along with the wolf. Do not test me.”
Leon fell silent. I caught a flash of something in his newly formed eyes, but I couldn’t say what. Anger? Hate? I didn’t know. Otherwise his face was a blank mask, powerless to do any more than watch as I was led away.
I’d thought I’d seen Lady Sarah in the initial charge, but I couldn’t see her amongst the other vampires on our way out. It looked like I was to die at the hands of my former allies, and there was no one left to save me.
I was taken to the same abandoned warehouse the vampires had imprisoned me in before, and once again they chained me in there. Ulfarr let the two vampires who’d apprehended me fasten the shackles around my wrists and the iron collar around my neck, but he stayed to oversee my incarceration. Only once he was satisfied I was secure did he turn his back, but I called out to him “If you want me dead, why not just let the Slayers do it for you?”
He faced me once more, his expression harsh and his eyes full of contempt. “And risk either of you being taken alive by our enemies? Who knows what information they could extract to use against us. Leon especially knows too much.”
“So why not just kill me now, instead of going to all this trouble to keep me here?”
He rested a hand on the hilt at his hip. “Because I promised my people justice, and they are entitled to seeing that justice carried out.”
“This isn’t about justice. You want to make a spectacle of my execution. You want everyone to watch as you put an end to werewolf-kind.”
He offered only a cold smile in reply, from beneath the lupine head of what could well have been one of my ancestors. Then he swept away, to wherever his daylight refuge might be. The door to my prison swung shut with an awful finality. It felt like it had already become my tomb.
The vampires had gone to the trouble of cleaning up the mess I’d made when I’d last been chained in the building, but there still came the scent of old blood and death – neither of which did anything to help my troubled mind.
At first the rage surged up and I embraced it gladly, though it still wasn’t enough for me to break free. I was angered by the fact the vampires were so ruled by their prejudice that they’d been quick to sentence me to death, when the Slayers were a far greater threat than I could ever have been. I was angry that my allies had been quick to turn on me, especially Lady Sarah, when we needed to stick together if we were ever going to have any hope of survival – especially at a time when the Slayers seemed to be making increasingly determined efforts to wipe us out. And most of all, I was angry that they were going to kill me and call it justice, when I wasn’t even the killer.
“How can you say this isn’t justice?” came a voice from behind. It was a child’s voice, and yet the words felt more adult.
I turned to find one of my victims from the playground massacre. At first she appeared like a normal, healthy little girl, but then blood blossomed over the dress she was wearing, a loop of intestine slipping through a gash which opened up in the material and her flesh underneath. I quickly turned away, my head in my hands as if that was all it would take to keep the horrors of my guilty conscience contained within my skull. But more hallucinations of my victims appeared, torn flesh flapping as they moved to confront me. The little boy whose head I’d bitten off came forward, holding his head in front of his torso like the decapitated ghosts of horror films.
“You might not have killed the vampires, but you’re still guilty of murder,�
�� the severed head said. “Do you even remember how many of us you slaughtered in cold blood? And what meaning did our deaths have, when you came to realise your existence was equally as meaningless? All the massacres you committed this past year, and they were nothing to do with hunger or survival. Why should you go unpunished for the futures you denied us, the lives you cruelly ripped from our mortal bodies?”
“What do you want from me?” I snarled, raising my head to look at the faces of so many of those I’d sent to an early grave. “My death won’t bring you back, and it won’t bring peace to your living relatives, since they’ll never know the truth of the monster that killed you, or what became of him. We don’t execute human murderers in this country, so why should I pay with my life?”
My conscience didn’t answer and the grisly hallucinations vanished. I turned my thoughts to how I might escape this new predicament I’d found myself in, but as before I could find nothing left lying around on the floor to use as a lock pick. There was only the bowl of fresh water and a bucket like I’d been provided with last time, so I was left praying that maybe Leon might find a way to help me. With nothing better to do, I clung to the hope he’d find a way to rescue me that night, until exhaustion claimed me and I fell through the portal of horrors, into the waiting nightmares.
I awoke to find I did indeed have a visitor, but the last vampire I’d been expecting to see was Lady Sarah.
“What do you want?” I growled.
She seemed saddened by the recent turn of events, her eyes downcast and her tone melancholy. “I came to check you were as comfortable as possible.”
“What do you care? You haven’t bothered to help me at all since Ulfarr last locked me in here, so why bother making an effort now, when I’ll be dead soon anyway?”
“I did not wish for it to play out this way, but there are things you do not understand.”
“If you really care, go tell Ulfarr about the witch who’s really behind the killings, like I told you before.”
She gave a slow shake of her head. “He will not be swayed without any evidence. I am sorry, Nick. Truly I am. But there is nothing more I can do for you.”
“Fuck off then,” I snarled. “You haven’t been there for me when I needed you most, and I don’t want you here now.”
So she took her leave, turning to look back at me in the doorway but saying nothing. Then she bowed her head and stalked out into the night. I caught the scent of two more vampires outside, guards no doubt, before the door closed behind her. That only made my situation seem more hopeless. If I was going to escape, it would have to be during the day somehow.
The next vampire to visit me was Ulfarr again.
“Elder Ulfarr,” I said, trying to be respectful despite the rage. Fortunately I wasn’t fully ruled by it that night. “You have to believe me, I didn’t kill any of your kind. But I saw who did and I’m telling you, there’s a witch out there with a black dog familiar – a barghest, Leon called it. She’s sending that thing out to kill vampires and make it look like werewolf kills, to frame me. I’m guessing she’s working for the Slayers, getting us to turn on each other when we should be allying together to fight them again. Question me under your spell if you don’t believe me.”
He laughed. “Is that really the best you can do? If the Slayers were behind this, why would they still be trying to kill you? Do you not think they would want you alive for as long as possible, if the goal was to make us fight amongst ourselves?”
I realised he had a point. “Well maybe she has some other reason for murdering vampires, but the witch is the real killer. Maybe she needs your hearts to fuel some ritual she has planned!”
“And maybe you would say anything to save yourself. But I did not come here to listen to such unlikely stories. You are to be executed in two nights’ time, to give the vampires who wish to be present the chance to travel here. I thought you would want to know.”
“So kind of you,” I growled, expecting his own anger to rise in response. But he didn’t reply, and soon I was alone again.
I continued to hope Leon would be able to help me escape, but when he came to visit the next night it wasn’t to bring the news I’d been hoping to hear.
“Took you long enough,” I said, as he walked over to where I was chained. “Please tell me you have a plan to get me out of this mess.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, my friend, there’s nothing I can do. Ulfarr has seen to it that I’m watched until after your execution, and I can no more walk through direct sunlight than they can to free you while they sleep.”
“Can’t you slip me a key for these shackles so I can break out while the sun’s up, or hypnotise a human to come and free me in your stead?”
“Not without them realising what I was up to. The two vampires outside were reluctant enough just to let me in here to see you, and if Ulfarr knew I’d come he would no doubt have forbidden me to enter your cell. The best I can do for you is this.”
He reached into his jacket and took out a freezer bag with fresh meat stuffed inside, which he handed over. Ulfarr’s hospitality hadn’t extended to any scraps of meat this time and I doubted I would be granted the luxury of a last meal. I should have felt more grateful to my friend for thinking of me, but I couldn’t help the bitter disappointment that he hadn’t come with some miraculous escape plan to save my life.
“Time’s up, Leon,” one of the guards shouted.
“Coming,” he called, then turned back to me. “It’s not much but it’s the best I can do. I don’t know if Ulfarr has bothered to tell you, but he intends to execute you tomorrow night. Stay strong, young wolf. Don’t let them humiliate you when the time comes.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
I was left alone once more, resigned to my fate and nursing dark thoughts. The universe was a cruel place to give me another taste of the life I’d once known, only to snatch it away again. In the months when I would have almost welcomed death, I’d been saved from a wound that should have killed me, but now I’d been given a reason to live, I was going to die anyway. It was cruel and unfair that after everything I’d been through, my life should end at a time when I’d found some contentment.
Unsurprisingly, I slept little after that. By somewhere that I would guess was around late afternoon, I gave up on sleep entirely. There was no rest to be had when my mind was so focused on my own demise, only hours away.
I was under no illusion as to my chances of entering the gates of Heaven. They would surely be closed to me, which meant there could be no rest for me in death. Not unless I was one of the souls destined to fall into oblivion, and given the cruel fate I’d been dealt, I doubted I would be that lucky. And would oblivion really be any better than the eternity of torment I faced in Hell? I would be at peace if I were to completely cease to exist forever more, yet the thought of never again knowing anything of the world around me, or to never again think or feel, began to fill me with fear. The prospect of eternal suffering was no more welcoming and yet, if I was truly facing Death this time, I was going to be dragged into one kind of darkness or another – whether I wanted it or not.
I took a bite of the small offering Leon had brought, but for the first time since my last struggle with depression, I couldn’t eat. There was only that nauseating sensation in my stomach that comes with a growing feeling of dread, my thoughts too troubled by the fate awaiting me when darkness fell once more. After chewing for several moments and trying repeatedly to swallow, the raw meat still wouldn’t slide down my throat. I spat it back out and gave up on eating as well.
“You should have stayed with us, Nick,” Amy said sadly. “You could have been surrounded by all of us who loved you, instead of ending up here, hated and alone.”
“How could I if it meant any of you getting hurt? It was the right decision to make so why do you insist on beating me up over this?” I growled, to myself rather than the hallucination.
Mum appeared again. “We could have found a way to manage your cu
rse. You didn’t have to go.”
Another wave of despair crashed over me. “You wouldn’t want me at home if you knew the truth.”
“Of course I would, you’re my son! I’ll always love you, no matter what.”
“Oh come on brain, really? Love conquers all? Since when have we ever believed that crap. How could anyone love this?” I gestured at my naked body, still spattered with gore from fighting the Slayers. “How could anyone ever find me anything other than hideous? You’d both be horrified if you knew the truth. Maybe you’d even disown me, and who could blame you. No one wants a monster in the family. No one wants to be associated with a killer, a murderer. You wouldn’t love me if you knew what I’d done.
“And what future would there have been for us if I had stayed? What happiness would there have been in watching as the years passed and time ravaged all of you, until one by one you died and faded away into memory? I would still be just as alone in the end, while I endured till the end of time. What life is that?”
“Maybe it’s better this way,” came that hated voice again, somewhere behind me. “At least you can die feeling like you’ve paid for your crimes, and maybe that will bring you some peace in death.”
“You’re the last person I want to spend my final hours with, real or imagined. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
“Because you still haven’t faced what you’ve done, not really,” Dad said. “You keep trying to hide behind your rage and bury your guilt deep down in your subconscious, but it’s there, and sooner or later you have to face it.”
“What do you want from me?” I snarled, my back still turned to the apparition. “For me to admit I’m sorry? Okay, I admit it. I feel bad for what I did to our family, for what I did to you. But your anger’s as much to blame as I am. If you’d treated us all better, maybe I wouldn’t have turned to killing so readily. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so lost in the darkness and you wouldn’t have died. And maybe, just maybe, if you really were a Slayer, your decision to join them and the choices you made since can be blamed for sealing both our fates.”
