The Hybrid Series | Book 4 | Damned

by Stead, Nick

“So these are their souls I’m seeing?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what about Will?”

  There was a flicker of pride in Jaken’s eyes and He gave a throaty, growling chuckle. “Will has committed so many sins in his service to me that his soul has become a raw and bloody thing. The damage runs so deep it has torn through his heart, leaving a cold and empty shell, devoid of all the lighter parts to humanity. His is not the only soul to enter such a state, nor will it be the last. But the other humans you see here are not nearly as damaged.”

  “Then how come my soul isn’t that bad, after all the atrocities I’ve committed?”

  “Oh but it is.”

  I frowned and looked down at my spirit self. More shock tugged at me with the realisation I was just as skinless as Will appeared, and the same cut ran through the centre of my own chest. Yet I felt no physical pain, only the emotional jolt at that disturbing sight.

  Jaken laughed at my horror. I would come to wonder whether He’d created this entire scenario for the sole purpose of tormenting me, but in that moment I was too busy struggling to understand it all. Will’s assertion that the people around him were all damned, they just didn’t know it yet, made me wonder if he’d seen this same truth I was now faced with.

  “If we all damage our own souls with every morally wrong decision we make, why is Hell so desperate for them? What can you possibly do to us that we haven’t already done to ourselves?”

  “This is my sin,” He answered, pointing at the exposed organs in His chest. The maggots began to fall out, each one shrivelling and dying as it hit the ground. As the last one fell, muscle and black furred skin began to stretch from the edges of the wound and roll across to fill the gap over His ribcage. A moment later, all signs of the gruesome injury had vanished. It was much like my own lycanthropic healing, the flesh whole and flawless with not even the faintest of scars to mark the damage suffered. But the gashes on His face remained, as did the open wounds along His knuckles and presumably His spine, where the bone had formed spikes. “It can be hidden, and it can be redistributed into damage far worse than most of the dead will ever have experienced in their mortal lives. But it is never truly healed.”

  “So the souls that end up in Hell only ever have themselves to blame for their pain, because they did that damage to themselves in life?”

  “Yes and no. Once a soul belongs to us, we can reshape it and torment it as we see fit. When Will’s time comes, I might choose to leave his soul as a flayed thing for a time and carve the muscle from his bones piece by piece, until he’s left with nothing but a skeleton. Then I might restore his soul to some semblance of how it began during the one stage in life where men are truly innocent, when they are first born. It is not the same as healing him of the damage caused by his sins; that damage is merely hidden and the pain numbed in order to bring him fresh torment. That is the nature of Hell and all who dwell there.”

  “Why am I not feeling any pain at the moment?”

  “It does not manifest as physical pain for living souls, but you are lying to yourself if you deny feeling any of the damage of your sins. Have you not suffered in a spiritual sense for the things you’ve done?”

  I was saved from answering by the first of the Slayers’ bombs, exploding with a deafening roar and a ball of flame, mankind’s own challenge to answer Dhaer’s chilling cries. A section of the hospital came crashing down around us, dust and fragments flying through the air. My body lay in the middle of all that and for a moment I feared there’d be nothing left when the dust settled, but Jaken must have been protecting it – it looked no worse than before the explosion. The Slayers were too preoccupied with Dhaer now to notice.

  “Our time is nearly over. Ask me that which really troubles you.” There was a glint in Jaken’s blood red eye. I felt like He was taunting me, knowing what information I wanted from Him but making me work for it.

  “Very well,” I growled. “Why have Will trying to kill me one minute, and saving my life the next? Was it all on your orders?”

  “Isn’t it obvious by now?” His grin widened.

  “Isn’t what obvious?” I answered, fed up of all these games I was getting drawn into. His felt like it was but the latest in a long line of them.

  “The witch never told you how she saved your life, did she?” He said, though I was sure He knew full well she hadn’t.

  “What has that got to do with you changing your mind about whether I’m more use to you alive or dead? Because that’s what this boils down to, right? Your plans and how we all fit into them?”

  “It has everything to do with it. Remember what Dhaer said when it chose to let you live? You belong to Hell now.”

  I can only imagine how eerie my skinless soul must have looked as I stood staring at Him, still trying to make sense of what was really going on. In my damaged heart I probably knew what His words meant already, but my mind refused to accept them.

  “I don’t understand.” My voice came out weak and confused, and I hated myself for it.

  “I ordered Will to fatally wound you so that Selina would have no option but to enter a deal to save your life. The cost was your soul.”

  “She wouldn’t,” I growled, not wanting to believe it.

  “It was the easiest way to lay claim to you while you yet live. I am aware Will wished to give you a more permanent death, but you were never in any real danger of that second shot he aimed at your head, and he will be punished when his time comes, for that and more. He started to abuse his position among the Slayers, giving them information gleaned through his connection to me. I allowed some of it since it suited my purposes. Some of his attempts to derail my plans even helped steer events in the right direction. But no more. Not after he almost cost me your life for the sake of your sister’s.”

  That explained how the Slayers had known to expect the attack on the base near Leon’s mansion. Will must have warned the Slayers there, even though he wasn’t among those we’d fought and killed in the base. And his master had probably seen to it that Ulfarr and the other vampires would come to our rescue, and then ordered him to rally the Slayers to interrupt my execution.

  Jaken had obviously allowed His servant to capture me for David’s dungeon and they must have had a hand in keeping Lady Sarah down after she’d been shot, even though she hadn’t taken a bullet to her heart or brain. Ordinarily she would have kept going till her body was deprived of all its stolen blood, but she’d fallen and at the time I’d assumed she was dead.

  And then there was the way David’s game had been designed so perfectly, anticipating our every move, which had to have come from Jaken as well. It seemed likely demons would have the power to look down all the possible paths our fates might take, and probably a far greater command of that power than any human dabbling in the occult. This latest revelation answered a lot, though it raised plenty more questions as well.

  My mind was still resisting this latest bombshell, however. “So now you’re telling me I’m your servant, just like Will?”

  “Not quite. You are bound to Hell, but not to me specifically in the same way Will is. But it is enough to grant me your obedience. Why else do you think you couldn’t disobey my orders?”

  Another explosion interrupted us. I glanced at the hospital in time to see Dhaer emerging from within, unscathed by the flames. When I looked back at Jaken He was gone, and the next thing I knew I was back on the ground, gasping for breath through the blood bubbling up my throat, and shaking from the pain racking my body.

  The transformation had resumed, my limbs becoming fully lupine. All physical semblance of the human side to me melted away, the bones of my hands stretching out to form paws and my fingers bending into canine digits useful only for standing on, while my opposable thumbs turned to useless dew claws. Similar changes were happening to my feet, though true wolves have no dew claw on their hind paws, so my little toes disappeared altogether.

  Other bones were grinding down or growing outwards i
nto the shape of my wolf form, sending fresh pain through my tortured nerves. But worst of all was my chest.

  I could see my own ribs shifting, new tissue creeping along the bone like gruesome vines, twisting together to form muscles. Furred skin flowed over the top, giving the appearance of two flaps in a children’s lift-the-flap book, pulled up to reveal the organs within. The bone was fusing along where it had been snapped to make it point outwards, but my ribs were so out of place that I was going to have to push them back to allow them to heal properly, just as I’d had to in the vets with the breaks from the car crash. Except it was going to be more of a challenge with the limited dexterity of my lupine forelegs.

  My arms were still shifting when I placed one on each set of ribs. I waited for the sensation of the bullet being pushed out of my chest, then gritted my teeth and pressed down. But it was no use – my limbs had become too lupine, my arms too close to forelegs. They’d already lost most of their ability to rotate and without it, I couldn’t push the bone all the way down to reconnect with my sternum. I thought I was going to be stuck with that hideous wound, bearing my heart and lungs for all to see. But in some ways the end result was much worse.

  The transformation completed as best it could. My skin and all those torn blood vessels were determined to fuse back together, so the cells kept on replicating until the flesh had not only regrown along my fractured ribs but stretched across to fuse together in the centre. I was left with a chest which looked much bigger than it should have been, and out of proportion with the rest of my torso. It meant I was no longer bleeding out at least, and the pain faded once my flesh and bone had settled into its new shape. But that was about all it solved.

  Around me, the Slayers were locked in combat with Dhaer as we’d intended. There was no sign of Will. No one was paying any attention to the broken creature in their midst, still lying in a pool of my own blood and in many ways as helpless as I had been before Jaken had interfered.

  I daren’t get to my feet for fear my heart and lungs would fall out of place without my ribs in the proper position to support and protect them. There was nothing for it but to lay still and watch the battle unfolding. I knew I couldn’t stay there, but I felt my body needed a few moments’ respite before attempting a second transformation.

  Bullets pelted towards Dhaer, only to hit an invisible shield and clatter harmlessly to the ground. One of the Slayers lobbed a grenade at it, but the demon batted it away almost lazily and it landed at the feet of his comrades. Bloody detritus rained down, the pieces too small to recognise as the body parts they’d once been. Whatever means the Slayers had used to drive the demons back to Hell all those centuries ago, they had to be magical, but I still hadn’t seen evidence of any spellcasters. Will was going to have to make his move soon or the battle would be over, probably before I was back in any condition to charge in at this rate. And I wasn’t convinced I would be any more successful than I’d been in the last fight, even if I could heal in time.

  The minutes ticked by with no sign of my ally. The Slayers kept up their constant barrage of bombs and bullets, but no matter how much they threw at Dhaer, none of it was having any effect. Then the demon gave another of its cries and the bombardment came to a sudden stop, the humans collapsing to the floor and cringing before the dread creature once again. I was also struck by the same terror as before, my ties to Hell granting me no immunity to the power of its denizens. All thought, all sense of reason and self, fled before the mindless fear it gave rise to, crippling in its intensity.

  After what felt like an age of cowering helplessly, my mind began to creep back inside its skull. It was a slow and gradual creep, returning one piece at a time. I don’t know if that’s because I still had the deformity Dhaer had given me or whether it was the knowledge I was doomed to an eternity of suffering at the hands of such creatures – something I’d always considered a very real possibility but had never had to face for certain. Or maybe it was simply to do with Dhaer’s hold on the mortal plane growing stronger still, giving it more power over us all. Whatever the reason, that was the longest yet my mind had taken to recover.

  The first thing I became aware of was the screams ringing in my ears. They were cries of pain as much as terror and I had a good idea what each body producing them was suffering, even before my eyes had chance to take anything in.

  There were also more gunshots. Some of the Slayers had managed to get earplugs to protect them from that dread sound, and it had been enough to allow them to carry on fighting while their allies collapsed into shivering wrecks.

  But of greatest interest was the chanting rising over all the smoke and the dust. It seemed they’d brought a handful of spellcasters to the fight after all, and they were working some kind of rite to either kill or banish the demon.

  My vision cleared and I looked on at the chaos the world around me had descended into. At least half of the Slayers were on the floor screaming, and sure enough it was from the pain of their ribs bursting through their chests. The rest were keeping up their barrage against Dhaer, though it remained just as ineffective as far as hitting the creature and injuring it went. But I was beginning to suspect all that firepower was no longer about doing any damage. No, now their fight was with a far more powerful foe than the werewolf they’d come to kill, I had a feeling they were continuing to fire on it for the same reason Will had wanted them here. To keep it distracted long enough to attack with something more effective. And as far as I could see, it was actually working.

  Dhaer hadn’t been able to kill them all with a single burst of its power, because it was having to devote some of its energy to protecting itself from their guns. I also got the sense it was focused on countering the magic of the Slayer witches and warlocks. I couldn’t see them from my position on the ground, but the demon seemed to be looking in their direction, like it considered them the biggest threat.

  It was beginning to look like the humans might succeed where we had failed. A circle formed on the ground around Dhaer’s feet, searing itself into the tarmac and glowing red like hot coal. The demon cried out again, voicing all its hate and pain in a wordless scream that interpreted itself as ‘NO’ inside my head. But when my mind cleared a second time, it was to find the Slayers’ spellcasters had the situation in hand, their combined power fuelling the rite with enough magic to combat the demon’s power. Dhaer was sinking into the circle, flames now leaping up around it and leaving no doubt as to what that circle was – a portal to Hell.

  I started to transform again, suddenly aware that the moment the demon was vanquished, all eyes would be back on me. If I hadn’t healed properly by then I was doomed.

  Now I was no longer bleeding out, I had more control over the change. I focused on making my forelegs function more like arms so I could force my ribcage back into shape, willing the flesh and bone to shift faster than ever before. The moment I regained the ability to rotate them, I dug my claws into the fleshy flap covering the gap between my broken ribs, and tore it open with a roar of fresh pain.

  More blood spilled out in crimson streams, my paw-like hands slick with it as I widened the hole I’d made, pulling the skin back and ripping away chest muscle to expose my ribs once more. They weren’t going to move back into place unless I broke them again, agonising as that would be. But it was the only way to fix the deformity as far as I could see. So I waited for my dewclaws to turn back into thumbs and the bones in my paws to settle into the structure of a human hand, then took a deep breath and gripped a rib on either side.

  To make sure the bone broke in the right place, I had to do it one pair at a time. It took all my willpower to snap each pair, pulling my ribs back up until there came a sickening crack and the throbbing of damaged nerves. Then I pushed them down to rest against my sternum. But the torment did not quite end there, since the stumps where the cartilage linked the bones were now healed and needed reopening to fuse back together. I struggled to get a grip on each of them, small and fiddly to handle as they were.


  My cries of pain were all but lost in the din from so many guns and the demon’s own roars. It had to be the kind of torment usually reserved for the souls trapped in Hell, not just pieced together by their sadistic masters but made to put themselves back together for the sole purpose of being broken anew. The kind of torment I had to look forward to when the Reaper finally claimed me. I tried to comfort myself with the thought this pain would soon be over, and I’d not have to face such torments again for centuries if I was lucky. I’m not sure I entirely succeeded. There was no escaping the knowledge we were losing the war against the Slayers. If I survived another decade I’d be lucky, let alone a century.

  Once I’d managed to line each rib with the corresponding stump on my sternum, I let the transformation resume, focusing on my ribcage now. The skeletal structure took only seconds to begin reattaching itself. That satisfied me it would heal normally this time, though it left me with the problem of the excess skin which had formed around the break.

  Pushing the bloody fur back into place was going to leave me with an unsightly flap hanging down. I had to endure the added pain of ripping off the extra tissue, the skin tearing with more stinging protest from my nervous system. But the throbbing soon died down to the usual pain of the transformation, and before long I was back in my hybrid form.

  My belly ached with hunger after all the energy I’d just used up, and it drove me to grab the chunks of my own flesh and gulp them down. Then my sights turned to the humans.

  I paid Dhaer little attention now the Slayers’ victory over it was in hand, too busy eyeing my prey and scanning for signs of weakness. The demon was still sinking into the earth, only its upper body visible between the flames. Will remained suspiciously absent from the battle, but that didn’t bother me too much. I was confident I could take the surviving Slayers without his help, as long as I made my move while they were focused on banishing Dhaer. Then I would go looking for him and demand he honour his end of the bargain. Because there was no way I was walking away from all this without at least a name for the place Gwyn was being held. Not when all this pain and suffering had purely been to save him.