Hybrid (Book 2): Hunted

by Stead, Nick

  Those three nights were far from perfect, but with the vampire’s help we managed that month’s full moon as safely as possible and successfully avoided any further encounters with the Slayers. So it was that Lady Sarah decided to risk staying in the area for some time, which meant she could focus on trying to teach me better self-control in the face of the hunger and the bloodlust, and even the full moon itself. My next trial was about to begin.

  Chapter Seven – Growing Emptiness

  My struggle to adjust to life outside of the human world wasn’t getting any easier in the days after the full moon. My rage still seemed to be lost to me, as if I’d only ever had a finite amount of fuel to keep that fire burning and I’d used it all up during the previous month’s full moon. In its absence, Lady Sarah hadn’t felt the need to reapply the mental lead she’d been keeping me on, trusting that I would have enough sense not to do anything stupid now anger wasn’t clouding my mind.

  I still felt like my life held no meaning without that need to kill and the savage joy of the bloodlust I’d come to rely on, but the vampire wasn’t any more forthcoming about her past or any current interests she might have. I still had no idea what she did besides feeding and giving me lessons in survival, and I couldn’t even begin to guess at her innermost thoughts and feelings. So whenever Lady Sarah wasn’t teaching me anything, I spent most of my time alone with my own thoughts, which might not have been entirely healthy at that point but what else did I have to do?

  I kept thinking about the way I’d grown to enjoy mindless acts of violence, and what had been missing with my latest kills. Maybe the problem was the size of the prey. Could they be simply too small to reawaken my bloodlust? It might sound like a foolish idea now but such were the thoughts running through the last vestiges of my old human self. As a species are we not obsessed with bigger and better, and finding the next best thing? I started to wonder if larger prey could really prove to be more satisfactory. Entertaining the thought gave me something to focus on besides the growing emptiness inside, at least. But I tried to resist the temptation at first, since Lady Sarah had only just given me my freedom back. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my existence under her spell because I’d given her too many reasons not to trust me.

  I tried to talk to the vampire again about how she managed eternity without turning to killing to keep boredom at bay, still hoping she could help me find something to give my life new purpose.

  “I still feel like I barely know you,” I said to her as she stalked out of the darkness towards me. “Maybe we could chat for a bit before whatever you have planned for tonight’s lesson?”

  “There is little to know,” Lady Sarah replied, wiping a trickle of crimson liquid from her chin – she’d just been to feed on another luckless animal.

  “Well what do you do on a night after you've fed?” I asked. “Surely you must have needs besides the hunger that binds us. You say you left the human world behind long ago. Don't you ever indulge in human activities once in a while? Or do you prefer to be amongst nature? You must do something with the eternal life you've been given, besides eat and sleep.”

  “Once I have fed I am content to observe from the shadows,” she said, which seemed rather cryptic to me.

  “Who are you, Lady Sarah? You’re more than just a predator. We all are, even if all traces of our humanity are gone. What do you do all night while you're alone?” I pressed her, not content with her vague answer.

  “I cast off my humanity long ago and you would do well to do the same,” she replied, suddenly sounding quite sullen. The topic was clearly not open for debate and she remained shrouded in mystery for the time being. I don't know why I hadn't thought about it more before. Since I'd been bitten she'd acted as my teacher, giving me insight and knowledge into the new world I'd been plunged into. She continued to teach me the new set of rules for survival and for that I would always be grateful. But it was hard to think of her as my friend when I still, even after all that time alone with her since fleeing my human life, didn't really know anything about her. And I suddenly felt I really needed a friend.

  I'd come to realise I couldn't live amongst humans any longer after the battle against the Slayers, but shreds of my humanity remained, even if it was in tatters. Not to mention wolves are pack animals, and both halves of my being longed for company. She may be a solitary hunter but I realised I was growing lonely again, and she couldn't really fill that void while she remained so distant.

  “I’m trying as best I can,” I argued. “But it’s not as easy as I imagined when I first decided I had to leave my old life behind. There was no room for boredom when we were constantly on the move and don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we’ve been given this opportunity to settle down for some time, but I’m bored now and I need more than just sleeping and hunting. There’s got to be something more than this.”

  “Then perhaps it is time we worked on your self-control; that should be suitably challenging to break up the tedium of staying in one place. The sooner you learn to survive undetected by humans the better, as I may not always be here to help you. And the key to that is controlling your instincts to hunt human prey, for a trail of human corpses will always bring the Slayers quicker than any other hint of your presence in an area. It would help if you could learn to truly accept who you are. You must embrace the wolf in you. He is a part of you, and without making peace with him you can never hope to truly master your own desires. As a whole you could be so much more powerful, and it would allow you greater control over your urges, no matter whether they are born of human or wolf. It is natural for the two to exist as separate identities when the lycanthropy first takes hold, but you must embrace him if you are to survive,” said Lady Sarah.

  “Just because I’m beginning to accept what I am doesn’t mean I’m ready to become one with the wolf,” I answered.

  “How can you truly accept who you are if you’re not willing to fully embrace your other half by becoming one with him?” she argued. “And if you were as accepting as you seem to think you now are, you would have said who and not what. Surely you don’t still consider us to be monsters?”

  “No, I realise now the undead are predators just like any other carnivorous species, and how can I continue to be horrified by our choice of prey when I’ve taken so many human lives myself, without the wolf driving me to kill them? It’s our actions that make us monstrous, and after everything I’ve done these last few months I guess I have become one of the monsters. But it’s not the thought of taking yet more human lives if I fully accept my lupine half. I guess you could say I’m still evolving. Most guys my age would just be going through the natural process of growing up and settling into a mature mindset but no, I have it more complicated. If I attempt to merge the two halves of my mind what effect is it going to have on my mental state, in addition to all the emotional changes still going on and the struggle to adjust to this new lifestyle?”

  “You’re new lifestyle would not be a problem for your lupine half, yet still you insist on suppressing him the majority of the time. Whether you wish to admit it or not, you need him to survive.”

  “Well I don’t think he wants to join with me either. He only sees the darker side of humanity and he wants nothing to do with them. He might not be a true wolf but he wants to stay as close to one as he can, and he’d quite happily suppress me for the rest of our life if he could. Just as I would have suppressed him when I first learned he’d been killing people each month, and not animals like I’d originally thought. I don’t think either of us is ready to make peace with each other yet so for now this is the way it needs to be.”

  “At least try to listen to each other then, if nothing else. Allow your wolf half more control, gain his trust,” she instructed. I could tell she wasn’t particularly happy with the way this conversation had gone, and sure enough she added “You may feel you need more time, but time is one thing we do not have. The longer you continue to live with a divide between your two halves, the l
onger you endanger yourself. You’re much more vulnerable this way.”

  “Yeah, I’ll try,” I said, somewhat unconvincingly. “Forget the self-control lessons for now anyway; I’m still not quite ready after the madness of the full moon. There’s got to be something you can share with me about your past, maybe some tale to keep me going? I mean, you lived in the age of heroes and magic and great battles for God’s sake, the time when legends were born!”

  “Yes, it’s curious that, with all of mankind’s advances, they should still be so interested in ages past. Mankind continues to seek out new truths yet science can only reveal to them so much. With each new truth their minds become closed to other wonders that have no place in their science. Truths long since forgotten now allude them, and so they continue to look to the past for all that which was once so much more than mere myth and legend.”

  “So tell me about life back then. Were dragons and wizards real? What about King Arthur and Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table?”

  “You already know that there is magic in the world, so yes there were wizards and other types of magicians. But I know not whether dragons were ever more than legend. I have certainly never seen one. As for King Arthur and Merlin, they were before my time,” she answered. “Now if you insist on waiting another night before we work on your self-control, I would be alone again. I have nothing more to teach you at present.”

  The void seemed to grow noticeably bigger as befriending her was beginning to seem hopeless. I let her go off alone, watching dejectedly as the shadows swallowed her up once more, as mysterious and distant as ever.

  My loneliness only grew with the coming of dawn, when the vampire retreated back into her coffin beneath the soil. Feeling dejected after another failed attempt at getting closer to her, I wandered the fields, wrestling with the temptation to visit the nearby town. As dangerous as it would be to return to the human world, the need for companionship only served to make such places more inviting. But I knew it was too risky so I forced myself to turn away from the town and trudged towards the patch of trees. With nothing better to do, I decided I may as well hunt for more small prey to keep me going, though I didn’t feel particularly hungry with the depression creeping back over me. But I knew I should make the most of these opportunities to eat and keep up my strength, especially with winter approaching, when natural prey would become scarce.

  Rustling in the undergrowth alerted me to the presence of more wildlife for me to feed on and as I drew within range of the animal’s hearing, I began to tread more carefully, prowling like the predator I was, even in human form. Yet in spite of my best efforts to move as stealthily as possible, I still lacked the skills my lupine half instinctively possessed. Something crunched beneath my feet and the rabbit shot off towards its burrow, which it was too close to for me to reach it in time. I considered digging down to grab it when there came the noise of grass being trampled from behind. Someone was following me! And I’d been too intent on my prey to notice.

  I spun round to face the human who I was sure would be one of the Slayers, my nails and canines elongating with barely a conscious thought, my eyes turning amber. I bared my fangs in a warning snarl and readied myself to pounce, wishing there was time to take the transformation further. It seemed my theory about the need for larger victims to make for a satisfactory kill was about to be put to the test.

  But for a supposed enemy, the guy was acting very strangely. There was no hatred burning in the dark eyes like I’d encountered before with members of the Slayers. No, those eyes seemed transfixed by my inhuman nature as they gazed into mine, a look of awe on a face only a few years older than my own as he breathed “So it is true.”

  “Do I know you?” I growled.

  “Nope, but I’ve heard of you. I didn’t believe the tales until I saw you for myself though.”

  Panic shot through me on hearing those words. “Tales? What tales?”

  “Some say the rogue wolf of Yorkshire isn’t an escaped wolf at all, but a monster of myth and legend. You’ve got the attention of paranormal investigators all over the world. Some are sceptical of course, but a few of them are planning werewolf hunts next full moon in the hopes of catching a glimpse of you. I wasn’t on the hunt for anything but as I was driving along I spotted you in the fields. Thought I was seeing things at first but if there was even a chance you were a real life monster, I had to come see.”

  I hadn’t even realised I’d wandered close enough to the road to be seen and I made a mental note to be more careful in future. Out loud I said “I didn’t hear a car.”

  “You seemed pretty engrossed in whatever you were stalking,” he shrugged.

  I didn’t believe him, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t let him live. The curious humans out to find evidence of the supernatural might not want to kill me, but if humanity had undeniable proof of our existence it could only make matters worse than they were already with the Slayers after us. Some would want to capture us alive and parade us like freaks to line their wallets, and others may well take the same stance as the Slayers, prepared to kill us to save human lives. They might even invest more money into experimenting on us on a grander scale than the Slayers could currently manage in secret, which had to be a fate far worse than death. As innocent as this man seemed, he posed too great a risk for me to let him walk away.

  “If you had any sense, you’d have stayed in your car,” I growled as I let the transformation take hold. There was no way a mortal could outrun me all the way across the field, back to the road where he must have left his vehicle. And I was eager to rediscover the dark pleasure of ripping apart flesh as I gave myself over to my bestial nature.

  A flicker of fear passed across the young man’s eyes but he continued to gaze at me with a sense of awe, and maybe even longing as my face bulged outwards into a snout. He raised his hands as if to show he was no threat to me and I was impressed when his voice barely shook as he said “Wait! If the legends are true, you started off human. I’m sure you were a good kid, and I think there’s still some good left in you. You don’t need to kill me, dude. I won’t tell anyone about you, I swear. Just let me go and I’ll leave you be; I won’t come snooping around here again, I promise.”

  “Good, evil. I’m done asking those kind of questions. Maybe I was good once, but now I am a ‘real life monster’ and killing is all I have left. I can’t let you live anyway, but even if I had a choice I would still choose bloodshed. It’s what monsters do, is it not?”

  “What if I could be of some use to you? I could be your, like, servant or what do the vampires call them in books and the movies? Thralls? I could be your human thrall and help you find victims. Why should vampires have all the fun? And killing people, well, everyone dies eventually anyway. I’m not really a fan of people either.”

  “And what’s in it for you?”

  “If I prove myself, will you turn me?” he asked excitedly.

  “It doesn’t work like that. Only certain humans can become werewolves and I don’t sense the wolf blood in you needed to pass on my curse. Death is all I have to offer you. Besides, you wouldn’t want this.”

  His face fell. “Immortality, power. Who wouldn’t want it?”

  “It’s called a curse for a reason. But I guess I could let Lady Sarah make you a vampire, though you may die anyway. Paranormal investigators aren’t the only ones hunting us.”

  “Nah man, vampires never really interested me,” he said, but he must have felt the allure of immortality because he paused to consider his options. “Well, maybe I’ll think about it but I don’t want to sign up for vampirism just yet. Let me help you as a human for now. Don’t you get lonely out here? Maybe a bit of human company is what you need. I’m Luke, by the way.”

  Unwittingly, he’d struck close enough to home for me to hesitate. If I let him go he was a liability, but my heart ached for greater companionship than Lady Sarah could offer and if there was even the smallest possibility he could help fill the growing emp
tiness of the void, I was sorely tempted to take that chance.

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “And who would believe me if I told them what I’d seen?” he laughed. “Other than the few who want to believe so badly that they’re already planning to come look for you. I’m sure you would be long gone from here before any of them could arrange any kind of search in this area, though. I’m really no threat to you.”

  “You remind me of the boy I used to be, when I was stupid enough to wish for this cursed life,” I growled, which was true. He even wore the same kind of gothic shirt I’d favoured and dark jeans. “So this time I’ll let you live. But I can’t trust you, so if you come looking for me again, then I will kill you.”

  Luke didn’t seem overly happy with my answer but no matter how badly I wanted a friend, I couldn’t trust him. Letting him live might be a mistake but I reasoned that the Slayers seemed good enough at covering up our existence that the risk of leaving the odd witness alive was probably fairly low. If anyone talked, I felt I could rely on my enemies to contain the damage. They’d cleaned up my messes often enough, or at least I assumed they had since I’d not had any similar encounters with humans prior to this one. And killing him was also risky if we didn’t want the Slayers back on our trail. I had to assume the police would come looking for him, some of whom were bound to be Slayers. If I let him go and he kept his word, our enemies need never know we were in the area. And besides, my bloodlust remained dormant. I needed to feed after transforming part way but I wasn’t ready to shatter my hopes by taking large prey, only to find the kill remained just as unsatisfactory. That small hope was the only thing keeping me going through the long days and nights spent with only the vampire and my own inner demons for company.