by Stead, Nick
Gwyn seemed to be thinking along the same lines. He turned and darted at the ring of zombies, snapping at arms and heads and trying to create an opening for us to flee through. Decaying jaws snapped back but once again he proved too quick for them, dancing around what weapons they had left and doing all he could to rip them into smaller pieces. I knelt to grab Selina when the sound of gunshot exploded in my ears.
There came an animal yelp of pain and I looked back at Gwyn to see red spilling out over his white fur, a bullet hole in his back. He was still alive but it looked like he’d been paralysed. Running was no longer an option.
I roared a challenge at our enemies, leaving Selina where she was and rising back up. If it was to be a fight to the bitter end, I was determined to find a way to take Lauren and whoever else was in that helicopter down with me. Then Lady Sarah drew level with Zee and he fell in beside her. They charged towards us, leaping over the circle of animated body parts, few of the zombies whole enough to be thought of as bodies any longer. And before I could do anything else, the point of Zee’s sword was pressing against my lower jaw, while Lady Sarah had come to a stop just behind. The battle was over. We’d lost.
CHAPTER THIRTY–SIX
Sinking
After seeing Gwyn come back from the lightning strike, I wasn’t too worried about him. There were some clouds in the sky overhead. It was possible they might drift across the moon long enough to grant him a return to his true form, and he might just get the chance to escape.
I wasn’t going anywhere unless the Slayers let me. I could feel the point of Zee’s blade against my skin. He’d obviously taken care of it all these years, keeping the metal clean and sharp, and it seemed like all it needed was the smallest of movements to pierce my flesh. So I kept perfectly still while I glared up at the helicopter and waited for them to decide my fate.
The chopper began to descend. It landed on the other side of the circle of reanimated body parts and its two passengers got out. One was indeed Lauren, as I’d guessed. The other I half expected to be Will, somehow alive after breaking Gwyn out and back on the side of the Slayers, perhaps going against his true master’s wishes once again. But I caught the man’s scent as he climbed out and it was one I didn’t recognise. He was probably just some random Slayer who’d had the skills to fly Lauren and her undead army out to confront us, and crazy enough to volunteer for this mission. So why were we not dead yet?
“So this is the werewolf everyone’s so obsessed with killing,” the pilot said. “Wolf’s Bane sends his greetings.”
Ulfarr? He was behind this latest attack? Well, Zee and my gut had been right it seemed. I’d never have dreamt he’d send a human to take another shot at us though.
“He would like me to bring you back to him still breathing, so he can have the pleasure of executing you himself and ending the werewolf race,” the pilot continued. “But how many times now have you been captured and defied all the odds by escaping, alive and in one piece? I’m tempted to just kill you here and be done with it. If Wolf’s Bane won’t pay for your head, I’m sure the Slayers will.”
“If he truly believes himself to be the bane of my kind, why isn’t he here himself? Why send a human to do his bidding, especially one who seems to value money over loyalty?”
The man laughed. “If you had that kind of power and influence, would you really chase your prey thousands of miles across the ocean yourself? He knew you were going to be crossing the Arctic and he knew I had the means to acquire one of the greatest assets the Slayers currently possess. Traitorous vampires are far easier to control when you have the power to gain such total, unquestioning obedience over them. And the dead make for the perfect soldiers. Nobody cares if any of these corpses are obliterated, and they won’t stop till then. No need to risk you killing any more vampires.”
I frowned at that. “How did Ulfarr know we’d be out here? Last we saw of him, we were just setting sail and he basically banished us from British soil. But none of us told him where we were going.”
He shrugged. “Maybe vampires are mind readers, who cares? Now back to the question of what to do with you. I can’t deny the attraction of immortality and power, so maybe I should deliver you to Wolf’s Bane, alive and unharmed in return for some of his blood. Then again, if I make the same fuck up as every other idiot who’s underestimated you lot, I could end up dead myself, or at best we all escape with our lives and I don’t get any payment whatsoever. So maybe I should just kill you. What do you think, Lauren?”
“I think we’ve wasted too much time already,” she said. The necromancer seemed completely disinterested in any of us, the events unfolding, or her surroundings. The pilot was in this for payment but Lauren didn’t seem interested in money or power or the glory of claiming the life of the last werewolf. There was no murderous look in her eyes, no eagerness for vengeance against any monsters who had taken someone she cared about. Will had claimed she was another of their captives and his words rang true. But what hold did the Slayers have over her?
I didn’t spend long trying to work out what the answer to that might be. The more troublesome question seemed to be how Ulfarr knew his minions would find us out here. My mind was back on the ship’s deck, watching as Gwyn and Varin fought Ulfarr and his two cronies. The lightning bolt hit the knocker and Lady Sarah flew back to save him. Lady Sarah, the one who claimed to have fallen for Ulfarr the very night he made her a vampire. Had she betrayed us? The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that she had. She might not have wanted to, but if they did share a link which let Ulfarr read her mind, he could have plucked the information straight from her skull. Or maybe they had spoken briefly as she’d grabbed hold of Gwyn, despite her insistence she couldn’t talk while shifted. If he’d ordered her to tell him where we were headed she might not have been able to disobey, like I’d experienced for myself with Jaken. And we only had ourselves to blame for letting Lady Sarah go for the knocker instead of Zee.
Something crept into my peripheral vision. I slid my eyes as far to the side as they would go to see Will had survived and come to join us after all. Neither Lauren nor the pilot gave any indication they were aware of him yet, and the vampires didn’t react either. They probably wouldn’t unless Lauren ordered them to attack him.
“Fuck it, let’s just kill him and the witch, and set the vampires on each other.” The pilot drew his gun and aimed it at Gwyn’s head. “I don’t know if the spirit can be killed but it’s worth a try. I’m not joining the long list of idiots who thought they could hold these guys captive and live to tell the tale.”
“You’re the boss,” Lauren mumbled, showing no more interest than she had when he’d asked for her opinion. She didn’t care if we lived or died. She’d been given her orders and she was perhaps as powerless to disobey as those of us with supernatural ties to other beings. Maybe she was even in the grip of the supernatural herself. It seemed entirely possible that one of the Slayers’ spellcasters had enslaved her through witchcraft. Maybe she’d long since accepted her fate and that was what I was seeing now.
I would have been doomed then, if Will hadn’t come to interfere. All Lauren had to do was flex her necromantic muscles and Zee’s sword would have stabbed upwards, into my brain. There would have been no coming back from that. But clearly Jaken had other plans.
Will’s eyes met mine and turned red. He gave a slight shake of his head as if to say ‘not today’ to Lauren and the pilot, then Zee’s blade glowed as though it had been cast into Hellfire and there was the stench of burning flesh. The pain overrode Lauren’s control just long enough for him to have the instinctive reaction to drop the sword. All eyes were drawn to it (except those of the vampires’ and any zombies who still had them) as it clattered to the ice, with a dramatic effect any film director would have been proud of.
The cutlass hadn’t even come to a rest at Zee’s feet when the patch of frozen water directly beneath me melted without warning. I was plunged into the ocean and there’d been no time to
take a deep breath.
“Do not swim straight up for air,” Jaken’s voice said inside my skull. “Go on a little way beneath the ice first.”
I fixed my eyes on the hole I’d come through, ignoring His advice. My lungs were already crying out for more oxygen and to move away from the hole felt as much of a death sentence as having Zee’s sword pressing under my chin. But then there came a second splash as something else hit the water, and I found myself staring into the dead face of another zombie. This one only had a leg missing. That wasn’t nearly enough to slow him.
I kicked out and started to swim, desperate to find another break in the ice. The zombie wouldn’t need to do anything if I didn’t get a mouthful of fresh air soon. Yet there were none that I could see and it was too thick to punch through with the water working against me. I rolled onto my back, my claws scrabbling against the barrier separating me from the oxygen my body craved, my lungs burning.
Skeletal fingers closed around my back leg and dragged me down. Panic had taken hold. I couldn’t think clearly, my instincts screaming at me to keep floating beneath the ice. There had to be another breathing hole made by one of the resident seals in these waters. There had to be. But still my eyes found none.
I was sinking, my struggles growing feebler by the second. Holding my breath was no longer an option. Some part of my brain surpassed all reason and forced me to gulp in air, except there was only water, and my throat and lungs burned all the more for it.
Even if I’d had the sense to fight free of the zombie’s grip, I probably didn’t have the strength for it anymore. The world above this ocean realm was becoming a distant reality, one which might never have existed at all. There was only the water and I was surely where I belonged. So why did it hurt so much to breathe in that salty fluid?
My muscles stopped listening to my brain’s frantic commands. I thought I could see a large shape looming in the darkness of the sea but I couldn’t be sure. A flash of white made me think of a killer whale. A flash of red suggested it was not among the living of its species. Or perhaps it was only my imagination.
I thought I sensed another splash somewhere above, a third body plunging into the sea. But I couldn’t be sure of that either. I was losing the battle to remain conscious when I heard another voice.
“Hands off the werewolf. If anyone’s going to drown him it’s going to be me, probably for getting us into situations like this,” Gwyn said. There was more movement in the water around me and the zombie’s fingers released my leg. Something else grabbed me, something not quite solid and yet very much there. As with other near death experiences I’ve related to you, I wasn’t really aware of what was happening at the time, my brain delirious with the lack of oxygen. But if I had been, I would have realised it could only be the knocker in his true spirit form. Somehow he’d managed to drag himself across to the hole Jaken had made in the ice, and he’d come to my rescue once again.
“I mean seriously, how much trouble can one wolf possibly get himself in?” he continued, as he pulled me back towards the surface. “Three times I’ve had to rescue you now, not that I’m counting. How did you ever manage without me?”
His voice sounded to be coming from far away. The ice was growing nearer and yet everything seemed to be growing darker. My body was too starved of oxygen. I’d held on as long as I could but now my mind was sinking, and I didn’t have the strength left to fight.
CHAPTER THIRTY–SEVEN
Preserving the Timeline
Jaken looked out through His servant’s eyes and smiled. The young werewolf would survive with the knocker’s help and events remained on course. The time for He and His kindred would come.
Pleasure turned to amusement as He watched the two humans trying to make sense of what had just happened. The man glared at the hole in the ice where Nick had been standing just seconds ago, then turned his gaze on Lauren. “What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. He could hear the doubt in her voice, the wariness of the new power they’d just witnessed and the worry as to what it meant. That also pleased Jaken. It was only right for mortals to cower before Him.
“Well let’s not just stand here like fucking idiots. Send more of them in to make sure he drowns, then they can fish his body out for us. Lady Sarah ought to be able to fend off the spirit. Keep Zeerin up here just in case, and have him ready to stab anything that breaks through the ice. Even with Gwyn’s help, there’s no way they can swim out of range of our senses. Werewolves have to breathe too.”
“No,” Jaken said, stepping into their line of sight. His eyes roamed over the damage they’d done to their souls, the wounds shining through their physical selves for Him alone to see. Their sins were not yet at the same level as Will’s or Nick’s, but the man wasn’t far off. The skin of his soul was as patchy as a burn victim’s, and the cuts he bore ran deep.
“No?” the man echoed. “Who the fuck do you think you are, giving us orders? I don’t know what you are or what your business is with this damn werewolf and I don’t much care. I’m taking the monster’s head and getting paid, maybe twice if I’m lucky.”
“You don’t know me, but I know you, Ash Archer. I know your ambitions and the things you’ve done to achieve them. And yet it’s still not enough, is it?”
“Don’t believe everything you’ve heard. If you really think you know me then you know I’m not leaving here without my trophy and I’ll kill anyone who stands in my way.” The human paused and looked Him up and down with a smirk. “Unless you want to make me a counter offer, but it better be good. Do you know how much this werewolf is worth?”
“Better than you. His death might be worth millions, but his life is worth far more than you could begin to imagine.”
“So make me an offer or get the fuck out of my way.”
Jaken felt His anger rising. Steam rose from the bare skin of His mutilated face, as though Will’s blood – His blood for as long as He possessed His servant – now burned with the fires of Hell itself. Such insolence would not go unpunished. But not that night.
His gaze flickered across to the necromancer’s. She’d been following the conversation in silence, and she looked more troubled than ever. The damage to her soul was limited to a few shallow cuts and blisters. Killing was not in her nature, but He already had plenty of servants for that. No, Lauren Hughes had other uses.
Something smashed through the ice about a mile away. Jaken did not need to look across to know it was the knocker and the young wolf, His eyes returning to Ash’s. The fool had raised his gun.
“Here is your offer,” Jaken said. “Get back in your helicopter and I will let the two of you leave with your lives. For the disrespect you’ve shown me, that is all you will get in return for the werewolf’s life. But you can keep your vampire captives, and the witch as well, if you want her.”
“Not good enough,” Ash answered. He fired his pitiful human weapon but the bullets didn’t come close to hitting their mark, each one turning to molten lead and solidifying again before they’d even landed on the ice.
“Your guns can’t harm me, mortal. Now go, before I reduce you to your namesake.”
He felt some satisfaction from the fear Ash now showed, though it was not as satisfying as torturing the man’s soul would be when the Reaper delivered him into eternal suffering. But perhaps a little flesh wound would not go amiss in the meantime. A minor punishment to remind the human of his place in the universe, ahead of the greater torments Jaken would inflict on him in the next life.
Lauren was already climbing into the helicopter. Ash finally had the sense to turn his back and hurry after her, probably making the mistake of thinking he was safe when he reached the door. Jaken sneered at that. The fool had no idea who he was dealing with. If he had, perhaps he might not have dared speak to Him the way he had.
A long gash appeared down Ash’s back, a milder version of the wound Jaken bore in His own body. Clothes and skin parted before an invisible claw, a
nd blood welled up. But He was careful not to go so deep as to cause any lasting damage which might have altered the timeline and pushed the course of fate towards a less desirable outcome. Ash’s spine remained hidden, his nerves intact. It was but a shadow of the wound Jaken had been dealt so long ago.
The human faltered, his knees buckling with the sharp, sudden pain he’d been subjected to. Lauren pulled him inside and the door slammed shut a moment later. Jaken watched them take off, then He withdrew from the mind of His servant, back into His own body in Hell. All was in order again up on Earth. Now He had business in His own realm, where time passed differently and another confrontation with Dhaer was still to come.
He knew exactly how that would go. The terror demon would ask what gave Him the right to deny it its time to torment the souls on Earth for some plan which was His business and nothing to do with itself. Dhaer would rage and roar and perhaps they’d fight again. But Jaken merely smiled at the imagined question.
He told Will only what His servant needed to know and let him guess at the rest. It had never been about any threat to His plans. His gaze swept over the hundreds of new souls He had to torment, all thanks to the damage done by Dhaer, Nick and Will combined. They served no purpose other than to amuse Him while He bided his time a while longer, until the day came for His glorious return to the mortal plane. Making His servant fight the terror demon had purely been to amass those souls. That, and it had presented the perfect opportunity to speak with the young werewolf and open his eyes to truths he had not wanted to see.
Defeating Dhaer after the summoning ritual had not been about killing the terror demon either. He could have struck a killing blow if He’d wished, but He knew Dhaer would go after the werewolf again and between the terror demon and the storm, it delayed Nick and his friends long enough to ensure Ash and Lauren would catch up with them. Now all the pieces were in place. The werewolf was central to His plans but the others had their parts to play as well, and He had taken the necessary steps to ensure they lived up to their roles in the years to come.
