by Stead, Nick
If the clouds had parted, I’m sure the moonlight would have revealed a dark stain on the otherwise pure white landscape, and a mess of torn flesh and bloody bones, like a grisly monument to mark the animal’s short life. But the night remained black, the evidence of my savage pleasure concealed by shadow. And then I felt the cold touch of a snowflake on my nose. Apparently winter was about to cleanse itself of the ugly marks I’d made, restoring the land to its former glory, ready for when the new light of dawn revealed all. I would not be driven from the natural world so easily though.
The bloodlust hadn’t quite faded yet and I felt the urge to howl again, declaring my place at the top of the food chain for all the world to hear. I pricked my ears for any answering calls, but only silence greeted my ears. Disappointed, I turned my thoughts to my body’s other needs, namely sleep and fresh water, both of which looked like they were going to be more complicated than back home. If all the water was frozen, how did any life survive these icy wastelands? Did they eat the snow?
I lowered my muzzle to the ground and took a small bite. The ache it brought to my fangs and the feeling like my insides had just frozen made me instantly regret it. Clearly taking what I needed in its icy forms was not the answer. Shivers racked my body just from that one little mouthful – anymore and I probably would succumb to the cold.
And the other question was, where to find shelter for sleeping? I hadn’t noticed any caves in the mountains before the light had gone, and the odds of finding one in the darkness seemed pretty slim. Could I burrow into the snow to keep warm? I was pretty sure I remembered reading a book where the main character did exactly that to survive these same conditions I now faced, but how true to life it had been I had no idea.
I was still puzzling over these two problems when a new scent reached my nostrils, one as unnatural as my own. My bloodied muzzle pulled back into a warning snarl. It looked like I was about to cross paths with another rival predator. Perhaps I wasn’t top of the food chain in this land either, but was I about to become prey?
CHAPTER THIRTY–TWO
A Bear’s Heart
I bared my fangs, ready to lose myself in bloodlust and rage. My heart was already beating stronger and faster in answer to the call of battle, adrenaline bringing another much needed boost for the fight to come. And still it probably wasn’t enough.
The vampire moved so swiftly, he was standing before me within mere seconds of me catching his scent. I kept my defensive stance, ready to lash out if he attacked first. But as with the bear, I wanted to avoid coming to blows if given the choice.
“Nick?” said a familiar voice.
“Zee?”
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognised his scent. It had to be the exhaustion taking its toll on my mind as much as my body, but there could be no doubt then: it was definitely the vampire pirate. All traces of my feral nature melted away. Relief to find he was still alive (or undead) and free of a watery grave took its place.
I bounded over to give him a man hug, daring to hope this meant the others had escaped the ocean’s wrath as well.
“What took you so long?” I growled with mock annoyance. “It’s ages since the sun went down!”
“Worried you’d seen the last of me, were you?”
“Maybe just a little,” I said, unable to keep the smile from my voice.
Zee laughed. “You should know better. The ocean may be my mistress but my life is no longer truly hers. When my time comes to sink to Davy Jones’ locker, it will no doubt be one of the Slayers who sends me down there.”
“What about the others, are they okay?”
“I have no news of Selina. Lady Sarah went to look for her as soon as we reached land, and Gwyn agreed to help and act as messenger once she’s found. You we were able to locate before we’d even set foot on these frozen soils. Your howl carried partway along the ocean, and so I came straight to the area we’d heard you in.”
“So when Gwyn appears, will we go to the Wilton sisters and then find a place to settle?”
“Ah, I’m sorry my friend but our journey is not done yet.”
“Why? I know you’d decided on Canada but this looks like untamed wilderness to me, perfect for our needs. I haven’t sensed any humans nearby.”
“Things are not always what they seem. We were lucky the demon attacked when it did, not too far from our intended landing point. We are exactly where we planned to be at this stage of our voyage, in Svalbard. But there are humans who call this land home. And it gets a lot of those foreign visitors who enjoy travelling the world so much.”
“Tourists?”
“Aye, tourists. We are still at risk in this country, despite the apparent remoteness of the wilderness. There’s not as much of it to hide in as there is in Canada, and there are no natural wolves here for you to blend in with.”
That explained why I’d not heard any answering howls. “So we find our way back to the Wilton sisters and carry on?”
“Aye. Best to make haste across the island, before the Slayers discover our presence here.”
“Okay,” I sighed. So much for my rest! “I need a drink before we go any further though. It was a long swim to shore.”
There came the sound of him unscrewing something metallic. “I still have a drop of rum if you need to wet your mouth.”
“How the hell do you still have that after sinking down into the deeps?”
“I take care of my hip flask. This isn’t the first dive we’ve taken and it won’t be the last – it pays to keep things watertight! Shame I can’t say the same for my pistols. Even if they hadn’t been lost to the deeps, the powder needed for firing doesn’t mix well with liquids. They’d be all but useless after our swim.”
“It’s my fault you lost them – I thought maybe I could shoot Dhaer when it attacked. I’m assuming Gwyn filled you in on what happened? There wasn’t much I could do to fight back when it was hovering out of range, so I grabbed everything I could throw at it. I never had chance to use your pistols in the end but I completely forgot to pick them up after the fight with everything else that was going on.”
“Weapons can be replaced; friends cannot.”
“I’m sorry about Brendan too,” I said, Zee’s words bringing back the memory of the shocking moment in which all those vital organs and bones in his torso just exploded. “He didn’t deserve the painful death the demon dealt him.”
“He was only a human.” But his voice betrayed him. I could hear a hint of sadness, and even though I hadn’t seen much of them together during our voyage, I thought it likely they’d bonded in the past. It was easy to imagine the two drinking rum and singing sea shanties, as Zee no doubt would have done in his days as a human pirate hunting merchant ships in the Caribbean.
I was saved having to find an answer to that when he changed the subject.
“Here, take a sip.” He offered me the hip flask again.
“Thanks, mate, but I’d rather wait for fresh water. How the hell does anything manage to survive out here? I tried eating the snow, but the way it made me feel like I was freezing from the inside out wasn’t worth the bit of moisture I got from it.”
“Then I suggest we find what we need to start a fire and heat it to a more suitable temperature. Or we could seek out water from one of the few towns on the island. I suppose we will need fresh supplies to take with us, since all our other provisions went down with the ship.”
I was about to agree to stocking up when I felt my hackles rise. Another snarl rumbled up through my throat, muscles tensing in response to a new threat. I heard Zee draw his cutlass, the vampire feeling the same sense that suddenly we were not alone.
“Now is that any way to greet a friend?” Gwyn said, his voice sounding from somewhere beside me in the darkness. I should have known it was him. There’d been no sounds or scents to warn us of his approach and no glowing red eyes like with Varin.
Zee sheathed his cutlass again. “If you were looking for a warmer welcome then perha
ps you shouldn’t sneak up on us.”
“I can’t help being all but undetectable to your senses. What did you expect me to do, scream ‘I’m coming’ the entire trek over here?”
“Some kind of a warning would have been nice.”
“Ah yes, let’s just announce our presence on the island and wait for our enemies to come charging in. Unnecessary battles with the Slayers, that’s exactly what our dying races need.”
I imagined Zee baring his fangs in annoyance, but his reply surprised me. “You make a good point. What news of Selina?”
“Well we found her but it’s not great news, I’m afraid. Varin helped her to safety but even with his abilities, she was in the water long enough for hypothermia to set in. He saw her to the hospital in Longyearbyen, where she’s now being tended to by humans.”
Zee cursed. “We can’t stay here. How soon do you think she’ll be well enough to travel?”
“She’s conscious, barely. She didn’t look to be in any condition to go anywhere anytime soon though. The hospital want to keep her in overnight for observation.”
“Is she still in danger?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. It’s more the need to recover from the stress to her body now. She looked exhausted.”
“And there is nothing that can be done through witchcraft to hasten that process?” Zee said.
Gwyn paused. “There might be one thing, if she’s lucid enough to attempt it when we get the main ingredient. But it’s not going to be easy.”
“Why, what do we have to do?” I asked.
“Oh nothing much, just acquire a polar bear’s heart.”
“Acquire a polar bear’s heart? Well that shouldn’t be too difficult with our combined powers,” Zee said.
“You’d think, but don’t forget she’s surrounded by humans. The hospital staff won’t take too kindly to us taking it into her room. And it can’t just be any old bear heart. The animal has to be healthy, and only a fresh and undamaged heart will do.”
“Still, that should not be too much of a challenge for us,” Zee said.
“We still need supplies as well,” I reminded him. “So who’s volunteering for the bear hunt and who’s going to brave the human world?”
“I suggest the Captain goes for clothes and water. No offence, fluffy, but he does subtlety way better than you. We don’t need the town up in arms over any werewolf sightings.”
“Getting a bear’s heart would also be an easier job for a vampire. Can’t Lady Sarah help?”
“Good luck getting her to leave her sister’s side. I had to steal a set of clothes just so I could venture into the hospital to see Selina for myself, ’cause she wouldn’t come back out into the darkness to fill me in.”
“I guess me and you are going on a bear hunt then,” I said, resigned to the very fight I’d wanted to avoid. “I passed a female not far from here, but I need water first.”
“It’s not going to be quite that simple,” Gwyn answered. “You’ve a long run from here to the hospital and the heart has to be fresh for the spell to work. That means killing the bear as close to the town as possible, without some trigger-happy human putting a bullet through its chest. And let’s not forget the lighting round the town which is going to render me all but useless in a fight.”
“Fine,” I growled. “I still need water before going up against one of nature’s top predators.”
“Sheesh, you’re more demanding than a cat. If you’re not up for this fight, we can just stock up on supplies and wait for Selina to recover naturally.”
“No,” Zee said. “The longer she’s in that hospital, the more chance of the Slayers finding us. I suggest we go to the town together and then split up. We’ll take water from the first people we come to, then reassess the situation.”
“Reasonable,” Gwyn replied. “This way then.”
“Which way? We can’t see you!” I growled. But the knocker didn’t deign to answer, apparently already floating back the way he’d come.
“We keep going north till we sense humans. I’m sure we’ll find our own way if he doesn’t come back to help.”
“Doesn’t look like we have much choice,” I grumbled, dropping to all fours.
We were probably running for about two hours, maybe more, before we reached Longyearbyen, back on the coast. Despite the remoteness of the Arctic island and the feeling I’d had of being in one of the few areas of unspoiled wilderness left in the world, this was a town like any other. There were houses and shops, and everything else you’d expect to find in a modern settlement.
We came to a stop at the edge of the town, just beyond the lights. Zee was worried I’d be shot if I ventured any closer, and not necessarily by Slayers. At least one person in every group we saw carried a gun. I guessed they must be armed for defence against polar bears, as Gwyn had alluded to when explaining what needed to be done, if we were going to stand any chance of reaching the Arctic ice pack before dawn. Either that or the people of Svalbard were under no illusion as to what lurked in the darkness.
“Stay here,” Zee instructed. “I’ll bring you water, then you can hunt for the heart we need while I raid the town.”
“Something just occurred to me on the way over here,” Gwyn said. I’d not even been aware of his presence that time.
Zee was already creeping towards a pair of humans wandering the snow lined streets, so I answered “What?”
“We’re probably going to be better off bringing Selina out here to give her the heart, than trying to get it into a hospital full of medical professionals likely to complain about something so unsanitary inside their building. If I can convince Lady Sarah to go along with it, that is.”
“So I’m on my own against this bear then?”
“You’ll be fine,” he said dismissively. “You already fought one and won. What’s one more to help a friend?”
“I suppose facing a bear is better than facing Lady Sarah.”
“Aye, you’re not wrong. I’ll point out to her the dangers of being caught by the Slayers while they’re in hospital and just hope I can get her to agree braving going back into the cold is safer. As long as Zee can find clothes and blankets, I think she’ll see sense.”
“Good luck,” I said, as Zee returned triumphant, a thermos flask clasped in his hand like it was the world’s most prized treasure he’d claimed. He hadn’t even had to kill the humans to get it. A quick dose of his hypnotic power and they’d handed it over willingly, the vampire’s methods every bit as subtle as Gwyn had expected.
Zee handed me the flask and I downed it in one. Its contents were just plain water, the container’s heat retaining design keeping it at a nice temperature a few degrees above freezing. My eyelids were still heavy with the need for sleep, but I was safe from the effects of severe dehydration, for a while at least. Adrenaline would see me through the exhaustion until I was given the chance to rest.
“Good luck to you too,” Gwyn said. And so I made my way back towards the wilderness, and my latest trial.
Finding a polar bear was easy. There were a few fresh scent trails in the area and it wasn’t long before I’d tracked down another female, stalking her from downwind with the aim of launching an ambush. I was counting on her status as top of the food chain to make her overconfident and less likely to sense me coming, though what I was going to do once I’d started the fight I wasn’t too sure. Knocking her unconscious might be a possibility, but it would be hard work to drag her all the way back to the town to kill. I had a vague idea of trying to chase her part of the way there. The pessimist in me didn’t really expect that to work but it was about all my tired brain could think of.
I was able to prowl within striking range of the bear without being detected. My heart started to pump faster with the thrill of the coming fight, and I felt my bloodlust rise as I readied myself to pounce.
The bear came to a sudden stop, her snout raised to the air. I lunged, jaws gaping wide as I struck her underbelly. Blood splashed
across my muzzle, my fangs carving deep gullies into her flesh. She roared in pain and twisted to face me, but I’d already danced out of reach. With a roar of my own, I struck again, slashing her side this time with a clawed hand.
At first I didn’t think she was going to run as hoped. She seemed set on standing her ground, even though my senses told me she was in the same state of terror as every other mortal animal I crossed paths with. But then she gave another cry of alarm and started to flee. And I was in luck – she was heading back the way we’d come.
I chased the bear back towards the distant lights of the town, waiting until we were closer to grab one of those thick, muscular legs and pull her off balance. No mortal predator could have brought such a mighty animal crashing to her knees. My tired muscles protested at being forced into that particular feat of strength, but I ignored the pain and leapt on her back, intending to finish it with a blow to her skull.
The bear threw me off before I could strike again. We both rose to our feet and she reared up on her hind legs, stretching her great jaws wide in another roar. I could see her clearly now with the artificial lights nearby. She didn’t look to be as big as the male grizzly I’d fought in the dungeon, but she was still impressive and beautiful to behold, and every bit as deadly. Once again my exhaustion evened the odds. If I grew careless, she could easily emerge as the victor.
I was wary of those fangs and claws as I circled my opponent. This kill was going to be harder than the last bear I’d been pitted against, since I couldn’t just disembowel the animal like before. Not without risk of damaging the heart. So I bided my time, waiting for another opening which would allow me to go for her head.
The bear turned with me, her vulnerable flesh too well protected by those vicious claws. I tried sounding my own roar, putting as much rage and thirst for blood into my voice as my weary body could muster, but she stood strong. It looked like I was either going to have to risk getting within range of those claws, or flee myself and attempt to circle back round for another ambush, when her nostrils flared and she dropped to all fours. She started to flee again, though I was fairly certain it hadn’t been my doing. There was something else stalking the night, something which was an even greater threat than I was. The bear’s behaviour filled me with unease, but I pushed the feelings aside. I’d worry about whatever was out there after I’d got the heart we needed.
