by Stead, Nick
“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. Without the rage to drive me and lend itself to recklessness, I listened to both the voice of my conscience and common sense, and took my leave as swiftly as I was capable of, knowing I’d already stayed too long. There were less shadows to hide in so I relied on speed rather than stealth. The hunger was back after transforming again, but it was manageable. Feeding on any more humans would be risky, so I would find other prey once I was a safe distance from the area. Then I knew I should return to the moors and reunite with Lady Sarah at nightfall.
Dead inside once again, my anger reduced to ashes, I was no longer mad at her, but I still felt I couldn’t forgive her for simply standing by as the Elder vampire tortured and humiliated me in front of our ‘fellow’ undead. He 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 me 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 any gathering, 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 were, and even without any feelings of anger towards her at that point, I couldn’t just forget the night’s events and carry on as if nothing had happened. Yet even though part of me consequently 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, even if he had saved me by speaking out where no one else would, so that meant I was stuck with Lady Sarah for the time being.
I made it out of the city without event, glimpsed only by the general public once or twice and mistaken for a large stray dog. Once I was back in the wilderness I caught a deer to help keep the hunger at bay, then I found my way back to the area we’d made our territory. I settled down for more troubled sleep with only the blanket for shelter, which I’d weighted down with rocks the previous night to keep it from blowing away. It wasn’t much but I was grateful for the added warmth, and it wasn’t long before the nightmares took me once more.
Chapter Fifteen – Chained Fury
I was aware of the shifting of earth beside me that meant Lady Sarah was awaking from the vampiric sleep of the dead, dragging me out from my own slumber. I waited in wolf form for her to emerge, knowing she would want to continue her attempts to teach me greater control, and unwilling to waste energy changing before finding out which form she wanted me in, depending what she had planned.
Remaining in wolf form also spared me from having to talk to her. Through her own ability to shapeshift she could communicate with wolves and had spoken to my lupine half in what he’d called the wolven tongue, but that wasn’t a language I understood. She could say all she wanted in English, it just gave me the perfect excuse not to answer her while my jaws and vocal cords were fully wolfish, and forming words was therefore too difficult. I’d just about managed some speech in my hybrid form when I’d needed to, but somehow it was harder with my body completely lupine.
“Come, you still have much to learn if you are to survive in our world,” she said, making no mention of the previous night.
You say that like we have a world, I thought to myself. When in reality we lived on the fringes, caught between the natural world and the world of men, just as we were forever trapped between the living and the dead, so long as no one put an end to our unnatural existence. If the anger had still been there maybe I’d have changed back to point that out, and how we lived in isolation without even basic shelter, our only contact with others of our kind through murder, and only then to give the prejudiced older vampires an excuse to execute me, guilty or not. How could she call that our world? Even if vampires, and possibly ghouls, had some form of society which went beyond meeting merely to deal with any new perceived threats, it seemed there was no place in that world for me. But try as I might to call on my anger again, the emptiness was just as complete as it had been before the brief resurrection of my rage. I resigned myself to enduring the vampire’s latest trials.
She was still focussed on teaching me to master my hunger and my darker urges, probably hoping the killings would stop, if I was indeed to blame. We were making some progress, as I learnt to channel my bloodlust into attacking the ‘enemy’ as instructed. The next stage was to try to hold the bloodlust without letting it take over and drive me to attacking anything, and then let it drain away, but that was proving far more difficult. Lady Sarah kept pointing out it was becoming more important than ever for me to learn these skills, to avoid any more nights of me growing completely uncontrollable.
It wasn’t particularly comforting that she was starting to seriously consider me a suspect, and I began to have my doubts about continuing to trust her, fearing she might turn on me if the other vampires had her convinced of my guilt. I knew I wasn’t ready to make it on my own though; not when I would be hunted by both the Slayers and the vampires if I ran. Besides, the vampires had proven they didn’t need any evidence to reach a guilty verdict and running would just provide them with another excuse to execute me. So I forced myself to stick with Lady Sarah for the time being, feeling I had little choice, but I was fast beginning to lose any faith I’d had in her.
As the nights wore on, the lessons continued. The Slayers hadn’t forced us to move on yet, much to Lady Sarah’s surprise, and she was determined to take advantage of whatever time we were to be granted. She didn’t mention the last full moon and that began to bother me almost as much as her unwillingness to help had. It wasn’t exactly anger since my emotions were still lost to me in that empty void, but there was almost some resentment there. The incident with the other vampires was the beginning of it, but also when you’re around someone day in day out (or rather night in night out) for long enough they begin to grate on your nerves, no matter how well you once got on, and as long as she insisted on staying by my side every night for the rest of the month, the feelings, for want of a better word, were building.
Little things start to annoy you until you can't wait to get away for an hour or so. Granted we weren't quite stuck with each other twenty four seven. The daylight hours were mine to do with as I wished, while she was of course forced to remain shrouded in darkness, protected from the sun's deadly rays. But such freedom was short lived and once darkness returned I was forced to endure another night with her. I had no choice if I wished to survive, I knew that. And it seemed she was only trying to help, for which I supposed I should be grateful, despite what had happened under the last full moon. She was under no obligation to help after all. Yet annoy me (again, for want of a better word) she did. I found myself longing for a new companion who truly understood me, almost as much as I longed for my old way of life.
Despite the dangers, I would soon take to spending my days wandering human streets, whenever I was restless and unable to sleep. I would manage to wash the thickest of the blood from my skin in the icy cold waters of the glacial lake, focussing mostly on my hands, neck and face. But first there was a matter of finding more unwanted clothes, which I was able to search for on the occasions Lady Sarah left me to do whatever she spent her nights doing when she wasn’t feeding or supervising me. For the most part she didn’t leave me alone too often or for too long, which again suggested she was starting to think I had been the one to kill the three vampires, but there was one night where she left me to my own devices, despite the distrust evident in her eyes. She wouldn’t say why she neede
d to go off alone and I didn’t press her, simply glad of more time away from her and a break from her lessons, and as soon as she’d taken her leave I seized the opportunity to hunt for clothes again.
I’d already spent a few nights of foraging for more clothes left out for charity, as I’d found before, and I was able to gather some of the garments I needed to at least pass for human, and ensure I didn’t instantly stand out in a crowd. But I was still missing shoes and a jacket that fit well enough so as not to cause suspicion.
I’d been searching in one of the nearby towns we’d not visited yet and it was to there I headed again. I fed first to help maintain my hard earned control, forever tested by the trials Lady Sarah insisted on putting both me and the wolf through. Even though I knew by then slaughtering the townsfolk was not the way to fill the emptiness, if the hunger plagued me my instincts would undoubtedly take over (the wolf might even gain hold of our consciousness as he’d often fought for in the first few months after his awakening) and I could end up killing humans before I was even aware of what I was doing. If I thought I could truly lose myself in the bloodlust as I had during the last full moon I might have been reckless enough to allow it, but I knew there would be no more pleasure in killing that night than there had been any other time while feeling so dead inside, so there was no sense in endangering myself any more than necessary. So, by the time I struck out for the town it was in the dead of night. Frost covered the ground and an icy wind raged. I slunk across the frozen landscape in wolf form, undeterred by the bite of the wind, sure footed on the layer of frost where a human would undoubtedly have slipped.
Once I reached the town it was clear there were no more charity collections due that week, and it was of course too cold to find washing hung out to dry. I wasn’t sure how else to steal anything without attracting unwanted attention from the locals, but I wasn’t just going to give up. In the end I decided to wander the streets until a better idea hit me.
The world was quiet, most people asleep in their beds, though I could hear the sounds of the town’s nightlife coming from within its heart. Even though I’d eaten well enough to take the edge off the hunger, the need to hunt came again, the wolf closer to the surface than he had been in some time. The next full moon couldn’t be far off and with the constant changing Lady Sarah put me through to force me to battle my urges and learn to control them, my predatory instincts were closer to the surface than ever. I was able to fight it and avoided wandering any nearer to the town centre, not trusting myself to resist the temptation if I drew too close. I just wished I could rediscover the thrill of the kill, but as far as I knew it was still denied to the human part of me, and with all the kills I’d made since we’d settled out in the moors, the Slayers would surely be as vigilant as ever in their hunt for me. The risk was too great.
Sometime later I found myself on a back alley and came to a stop, able to smell prey. Struggling as I was with my need to hunt, a sudden movement made it harder. Before I knew what I was doing, I had taken several steps towards it, drooling at the thought of fresh meat, feeling the wolf’s mind alongside my own, almost one again but still separate, only a thin wall separating our two different personalities.
A homeless man lay beneath a makeshift shelter of rotting cardboard and a thin sheet of plastic. He had curled into the foetal position against the cold, with only the old tattered rags he wore to protect him. He was muttering to himself under his breath, an empty bottle of whiskey beside him. He stunk of alcohol and death. I could almost sense the cold slowly creeping into his veins and freezing the life out of him. I don’t think he was even aware of me stood over him.
The movement I had seen, however, came from rats, not the man. They were everywhere, crawling through the rotting garbage strewn around, sleek bodies snaking in between the junk with ease, bald tails whipping in and out of sight. As I drew nearer they scurried away, hiding in cracks in the walls or amongst the garbage. I turned back to the man and considered ending it for him, but there was no way I could think of to kill him in wolf form without it being an obvious attack from a large canid, and besides, the moment I tasted his blood I knew I would lose control and my wolfish half would take over, and he would lose himself in the bloodlust. If I allowed that to happen it was surely only a matter of time before the Slayers would find the body and be on the alert, and I had no desire to spend another night being hunted through the streets and the surrounding countryside. So with a force of will I pushed my wolfish half back down into our subconscious and turned away, the desire to taste human flesh lessening.
I could’ve taken the vagrant’s clothes, but the whole point of stealing any in the first place was to allow me to blend in. If I’d taken his rags I would’ve still looked an outsider, and my journeys to the town would’ve been pointless. With the longing for my old life came a desire to connect with the human world once more, and that was what currently drove me. With nothing else to live for I just wanted to walk among them again and maybe feel a part of their world, if only for a few hours at a time, even though I knew I could never truly be part of the human world anymore. So I continued my search.
Sometime later I came upon a drunken guy, passed out on the concrete. The streets were otherwise deserted and there was no one to come to his aid. His leather jacket was only thin and would no doubt have proven to be inadequate protection from the wintry weather if he spent the remainder of the night in the cold, but it looked roughly my size. As long as I had a jacket to help me blend in, people would just see me as another youth daft enough not to wrap up properly, so I transformed halfway back to human, able to grab the jacket with my hands rather than my jaws to avoid ripping it, as well as his trainers. Unfortunately for the man, he hadn’t drunk enough to make him dead to the world, and he stirred while I took what I needed, not quite fully conscious of what was happening.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing man,” he slurred, somewhat aware of the fact he was being robbed. He peered around blearily and laid eyes on my monstrous form for the first time. “What the fuck are you dressed like that for; it’s Christmas, not Halloween!”
Quicker than a snake striking, I thrust a clawed hand at his throat, instantly crushing the windpipe before he could make anymore noise and attract unwanted attention. My stomach rumbled, the hunger back with a vengeance, and I weighed up my options. It would be safer to leave the town back in wolf form. Not only was my body at its fastest and most powerful when fully lupine, but it attracted less attention than either my current hybrid form, which was obviously instantly recognisable to anyone as a werewolf, or changing all the way back to human, given that I’d be mostly naked again, with only the jacket and shoes to hand to dress in. Unless I took the rest of the man’s clothes to change into, I supposed. I needed to feed but I was also beginning to feel I’d been in the town too long, so it was probably safer to take my kill back into the wilderness and eat in an area where there was less threat of the Slayers finding me. That meant I needed to be humanoid to carry the carcass and the stolen clothes, but even if I took the transformation back to fully human and dressed, I’d still attract attention carrying a corpse around. The only other option was to leave the body and feed on animals, but I couldn’t decide if it was better for the Slayers to find it or for the man to simply disappear. My hunger made itself known again and my decision was suddenly made; I stayed as I was and carried my meal and the clothes, keeping to the shadows and trusting my superior senses to warn me if anyone came close, even if I hadn’t mastered the skill to pick out the myriad of scents and sounds which was second nature to the wolf.
I made it back into the wilderness without being seen and ate my fill, burying what little remains were left, then I took the jacket and trainers to the same place I’d stashed the rest of the clothes I’d found, where I’d also taken to storing the blanket. It was only a shallow, rocky fissure in the landscape, but it was the best hiding place our current surroundings had to offer. Hidden beneath the rocks, at least my current
link with humanity, tenuous as it was, wouldn’t be taken from me by nature. It wasn’t particularly well hidden if Lady Sarah had any reason to come poking around, but it would have to do. Once I was satisfied my prizes were as safe as they could be, with only an hour or so of darkness left there was nothing more to be done that night other than wait for the vampire’s return.
As reckless as I could be, I decided it was better to get the next full moon out of the way before venturing into the town again. Once it had passed the wolf should be quieter, and there was less risk of him taking over and losing himself in the bloodlust in a fit of hunger, surrounded by the prey the curse caused him to desire as we would be. I also knew that, in the absence of the predatory instincts which were beginning to spill into the human half of my mind that month, I would fall completely back into the emptiness and the sense of loneliness. I just hoped that being able to temporarily reconnect with humanity would go some way to easing the loneliness, and give me a brief sense of being back in my old life, after the miserable existence I’d been stuck in since.
The night before the full moon, we were called back to the old warehouse the Elder vampire had been using as a meeting place. I started thinking to myself that surely he must have somewhere grander for this kind of thing, like a mansion hidden away from humanity or even a castle. Maybe he’d always preferred to live in the wilderness, given the primitive life he’d led as a human, but surely one of the other older vampires had somewhere they could use. The vampire who’d stood up for me during my ‘trial’ had told me he had a mansion, so clearly not all of them had been driven from any such places they’d made their home. Maybe they preferred to meet on neutral ground, which made the warehouse as good a place as any I supposed. I would have liked to be summoned to a mansion though, if only to enjoy some warmth while being accused of crimes I didn’t even know myself if I’d committed. Not that Ulfarr would care what I wanted.
