Hybrid

by Wild Wolf Publishing

  “Fight, fight, fight, fight.”

  Jamie spat on the ground at my feet. I snarled and took up a fighting stance. He whispered something else, too quiet for the crowd to hear.

  “You’re pathetic. You’re nothing. You’re shit.”

  I didn’t waste my breath on a reply and I didn’t waste any more time. Rage was building. I really wanted to hurt him then, and the knowledge that I could so easily break him and tear him to shreds gave me confidence. Yet it wasn’t enough simply to know that. I had to show him that. I wanted him to leave me alone, sick as I was of his constant taunting. The thought of the pandemonium if I transformed before them all, and the fear, the sweet smell of fear, and the damage my teeth could do was all too tempting. I entertained the thought longer than I should have, long enough to consider if I could somehow get away with it, though I knew really it was a crazy fantasy. And even if it were possible, there were no guarantees I wouldn’t lose control and kill people. I wouldn’t risk that, especially with my friends present.

  “Fight, fight, fight, fight.”

  The chanting had grown so loud I was surprised the teachers hadn’t come out to see what was going on and break it up. Even after school they could give comments out, and it’d be suspension for fighting.

  “Fight, fight, fight, fight.”

  I threw the first punch, deliberately slowing it, making my movements more human, aiming for his ugly face. He ducked and laughed at me. “Is that all you got?”

  He aimed a kick at my groin. With a casual sweep of my hand I knocked his foot aside and used his momentum to swing him round, as I had been taught in taekwondo, ridiculing him. His face grew blotchy, the anger becoming more powerful, testosterone and adrenalin in the air, pumping through our veins. He’d been expecting an easy fight, probably planning to play with me like cat and mouse. I’d seen it all before. If he’d found his mark, he’d have pushed me to the ground while I was doubled over with pain, and then he’d have proceeded to beat me while I had no chance to fight back. This was no longer play. I think he was surprised that I’d lasted so long already, but he did a good job of hiding it and he wasn’t going to let it get the better of him.

  I caught his fist as he aimed another punch and squeezed until I felt the bones splintering beneath the skin. He cried out in agony. I continued to crush the lump of flesh and blood until he fell to his knees from the pain, his face screwed up with it, tears streaming down his cheeks. Then I jerked him to the ground and released him. He curled up in a ball, crying like a baby, cradling his hand which was possibly damaged beyond repair. The thought didn’t bother me. Whatever I’d sworn to earlier that day, about taking innocent life and not behaving like a beast, it had been swept away by the rage. Besides, humans were more bestial than any other animal on the planet. Only humans kill for pleasure. What I had done earlier that day with the rabbit, I would come to realise that was more human than wolf, and I was more in the world of humanity now than I had ever been. The wolf had wanted the blood to satisfy hunger, not to satisfy anger. But those were things I’d come to realise later. During the fight there was no room in my head for thoughts. I was too busy enjoying Jamie’s pain, and the gasps emanating from many in the crowd, including David; everyone who had expected me to lose. Some people were starting to cheer, all those who had ever been bullied by Jamie in some shape or form. They were enjoying his downfall nearly as much as I was.

  I stood over the pathetic mortal boy that lay at my feet and kicked him in the stomach.

  “That’s for every victim you’ve every bullied in your miserable life,” I snarled, loud enough for everyone to hear. Many cheered.

  I aimed a powerful kick at his groin, enough maybe to damage that too.

  “That’s for Lucy.”

  I aimed yet another kick at his head, hard enough to split it open and render him unconscious. The crowd fell into shocked silence. Jamie had never gone that far with any of his victims.

  “And that’s for me.”

  Satisfied, I turned my back on him and the crowd parted for me as they had for Jamie, too shocked to say anything. But that didn’t matter. The anger spent, I was ready for home where I would enjoy my victory in the haven of my bedroom. No doubt I’d pay for that day. At the very least I’d be grounded, possibly suspended, and maybe I’d even be in trouble with the police. I don’t think I meant to hurt him so badly, however much I might have dreamt of it that day. It was hard to control this destructive power I had been given, and at times I forgot myself in the grip of anger, forgot to measure it, make my blows soft enough to feel like the strength of a human. It’s hard even to this day, but it is a skill I have learnt over time.

  I didn’t really care what punishment lay in store right then. No one would ever bother me again. It might even make me popular. Yet in that moment I realised I didn’t want that. I didn’t want everybody talking to me just because I had beaten the hardest boy in school, which in doing so made me the hardest boy in school I supposed. They would only be after my protection. They’d only want to know me because I was suddenly cool. Or maybe I wasn’t after taking it too far. Maybe they’d all fear me. In any case, I just wanted to be left alone, something people wouldn’t think twice about from then on.

  Chapter Nine

  Born of Death

  I spent the evening with my corn snake. I’d named him Alice after my favourite rock star, Alice Cooper. As much as I loved him, I wished he was a huge boa constrictor like the ones used in his namesake’s rock shows, and I swore one day when I had the room I was going to own a snake that big. For my schooldays, Alice was big enough, and whenever I was feeling down or depressed, I liked to sit on the sofa bed underneath the top bunk where I slept and simply hold him. I enjoyed the feeling of his soft, smooth scales brushing across my skin, and I would lose myself in thought while he slithered over my arms. It made me feel better, and when I was angry it helped to calm me.

  I’d started to notice other animals reacting to the wolf they seemed to sense within me, like the bugs that had swarmed across the ruins of the old hairdresser’s when I’d transformed that day. I’d been worried it would cause similar problems with Alice, and whether I’d have to give up my pet if he was too afraid of me for me to continue to keep. But even though my scent had probably changed, the snake still seemed to recognise me as the same boy who’d raised him and he seemed as relaxed around me as ever.

  By the evening I was past being angry. I felt a grim satisfaction at the thought of the pain I had caused Jamie, and the pain he might at that very moment be going through while doctors sought to mend the fractured bones. The fist may have been beyond repair, and that made it all the more satisfactory. I had sworn not to take innocent lives, but Jamie deserved all that he got. I felt no remorse for what I had done to him. But I couldn’t help thinking about the rabbit and the sheep whose lives I had taken, and I wished I could bring them back. Their deaths felt pointless.

  “Ha, some predator I am,” I muttered sarcastically. I watched Alice, admiring the way he moved, so swift and silent, the perfect predator, cold blooded and emotionless. Not like me, a human with a wolf’s form, not yet a killer.

  Darkness slowly descended upon the land while I sat there with Alice, and when the shadows swallowed up the light I put him back into his tank and climbed out of the window.

  Lady Sarah and Vince were waiting for me when I reached the graveyard. Lady Sarah stood between the graves, barely moving, her dark form engulfed in shadows from a distance. She looked like a sentinel, keeping watch over the graves, or a dark angel perhaps, waiting for the next burial so she could lead the soul into the afterlife. Vince, on the other hand, was sat on a coffin with his feet up, resting one arm on a tombstone. Something glinted in the moonlight, and I noticed a silver pendant that I hadn’t seen before, with something engraved into it, some kind of symbol. It didn’t mean much to me, just a shape. Tied next to the pendant was a large fang. I would have said it was a wolf’s or a large dog’s, but it was too bi
g for an average canid. A werewolf’s? But what would he be doing with a werewolf’s fang? Maybe he’d taken it from some long dead enemy. He also wore gothic rings on his fingers that definitely hadn’t been there before, silver moulded into skulls and bats, stolen perhaps from a victim. He could have passed for a mortal.

  “But how did you know I was coming?” I asked, confused.

  “We heard you coming from the minute you set out from your home and recognised your footfalls,” Lady Sarah answered.

  Vince laughed. “A zombie could hear you coming! You’ve got the loudest, heaviest footsteps I’ve ever heard among all the ranks of the undead I’ve known. The whole point is we’re silent predators, light on our feet and too fast for mortals to follow. You’re gonna give us a bad reputation!”

  I laughed too but I didn’t really get the joke. Vince seemed to sense my confusion because he said “God, you’ve got a lot to learn boy. Zombies have the worst senses among the undead. We have heightened senses, but their hearing could be worse than human depending on how much they’ve decayed.”

  “Hey, give me chance! I’ve only been undead for two months,” I told him.

  He shrugged, still smiling with one fang visible, and shifted his gaze to Lady Sarah, expecting her to answer my questions. I would have said she looked out of place next to us two, dressed like present day mortals, but given our surroundings she looked more at home than either me or Vince, in her old fashioned black dress, something she could have been buried in. Vince looked like he belonged in a mansion somewhere with servants surrounding him, the way he was lounging around, while I still looked like a mortal boy, and I looked lost among the tombstones. It was not a place for kids.

  "So," I said. "Is this a good time to talk?"

  She nodded. "What troubles you?"

  “Well, I’ve been thinking, and if I’m caught in the middle of a war I want to know more about the Slayers. For one thing, if they hunt undead, why do they call themselves Demon Slayers and not Undead Slayers? And do demons really exist, or are we demons to them?”

  She held up a hand to stem the flow of questions. “Yes, demons exist, though there are few on Earth now. Once the Slayers slaughtered demons as well as undead and they viewed us as one and the same – though we are, of course, different to demons – but the demons withdrew against their onslaught and returned to the deepest pits in Hell from whence they came. As I said, there are few on Earth now. Only the most powerful or the most reckless prey on mortals. Most are content with the souls of the dead, or at least they will be until the Slayers are defeated. So, to return to the Slayers, they named themselves the Demon Slayers. And they still think we of the undead to be demons to this day.”

  "How are we different from demons?" I asked, soaking up everything she was telling me and hungry for more, my curiosity far from satisfied.

  “Demons belong to Satan, if he really exists, or at least to Hell which is real, while we belong to no one but ourselves. Demons were never human, as we once were, and demons are living creatures, while we died to become what we are. The only thing that links us is our immortality. We can be destroyed, but we cannot die of natural causes, therefore we are not mortal. Demons do not age either. But enough of demons, you wanted to know more of the Slayers, and I shall tell you.”

  “Hang on a minute, you just said I died when I became a werewolf. I didn’t die! I’m pretty sure I’d remember something like that,” I said.

  “You died Nick, as all among the undead have. Otherwise your kind would not be classed as one of us. We are born of death. You died, but the wolf brought you back. Unlike the rest of us, your kind still have living bodies, though the body is changed after death. Yet you are still somewhere between living and dead, as with the rest of us. We vampires may give the illusion of life, yet our bodies are dead. We do not need to breathe, though most of us do out of habit, and we produce no waste, or any of the other things living bodies must do. Most of us are re-animated corpses, the most obvious of these being zombies. Werewolves are the exception. Do not ask me how it works because I do not know. How the wolf brings you back, I know not. How the dead can be made to walk again, I know not. I know only that it happens, as the three of us are proof. Now, what would you have me tell you of the Slayers?”

  “And not too many questions this time, we have to feed before daybreak,” Vince interjected.

  I glanced at him and nodded before turning my attention back to Lady Sarah. I thought about what I needed or wanted to know the most and tried to remember what she’d told me before about the Slayers, which had been brief and created more questions than it answered, when an image came to me. A memory, gone as quickly as it appeared, but not one of my own. Or at least not one belonging to the human part of my consciousness. Had the wolf chosen to show me that or had it been a mistake, something I’d happened upon while searching my mind? Either way it didn’t matter. The memory was important. It concerned the Slayers, and from what Lady Sarah had said when we first met about people chasing me, I guessed it was from that very night. It wasn’t very detailed though; some things in the memory were strangely blurred.

  The memory was of a group of hunters, undoubtedly the Slayers, stood in a circle around me. They were all aiming guns directly at me and wore silver daggers at their belts. But their faces were strangely distorted, the eyes the only clear feature, full of cruelty, malice and hate. The only explanation I could think of for this was that eyesight wasn’t as important to the wolf as its other senses. It could learn more from scent and sound than it could from sight. Besides, maybe all humans looked the same to it in the same way that members of other species look the same to us, beyond having different coloured fur or skin, sometimes the only distinguishing feature to a human eye. Not that it mattered, what interested me the most were the silver weapons.

  “Okay, if any damage to the heart or brain kills a werewolf that means the myths about silver aren’t true, so how come the Slayers have silver weapons? Surely they know any weapon can kill us if we’re wounded in the right place?” I asked.

  "They know all too well but the Slayers are traditionalists and like to use silver, and I believe it is also considered as something of a trademark among them. They like other members of the undead to know when one of their numbers is killed by them," she told me.

  “What do you mean so we know they were killed by them? Don’t tell me there’s other mortals out there hunting for us,” I said, feeling a little overwhelmed.

  “There are rogue hunters out there. They don’t count themselves amongst the Slayers. Usually they find out about the undead by mistake. The Slayers will try and persuade these people to join with them, but some don’t agree with their methods so they hunt alone. You have little to fear from lone hunters, who can usually be dealt with. It is we vampires who must fear, for we are vulnerable during the day and it doesn’t matter how many come after us. We’re powerless to defend ourselves. And that’s when they strike, in the daylight hours while we sleep.

  “There aren’t many lone hunters out there now as most mortals refuse to believe in us, ignoring the proof that we are more than mere myth and legend, and those that do learn the truth either become Slayers or find ways to explain away our existence. Few take it upon themselves to hunt us alone.”

  I thought this over while Vince yawned and shifted position on the coffin.

  “How many Slayers are there?” I wondered aloud.

  “That is one question I cannot answer. They have a base in every major town and city, and a leader for each base. Slayers in neighbouring villages and small towns serve the base nearest to them, and patrols are sent out into the surrounding area of each base in their everlasting quest to wipe us out. They have some kind of overall leader. Each city may have a force of up to a hundred at their command, maybe even more in the bigger ones, though not all of them remain active. Volunteers patrol the area around where they live and kill most of the undead they come across. Occasionally they take some alive for questioning. If
they discover one of us too powerful for them to kill in a small group they call in reinforcements. Other Slayers never take part in the killing as far as I know. I can only guess at what their purpose may be, but I believe some of them are scientists, striving to learn more about our kind and more efficient ways to kills us, while others handle the weapons, making sure their army is well equipped.”

  I was shocked by what she’d told me. I hadn’t really taken the threat of the Slayers all that seriously up until that point. I’d taken risks, endangered us all perhaps, without a second thought. Yes, I’d known I had to be careful, but I’d still taken risks. Earlier that day I’d taken a risk when I allowed the anger to drive me to transform. I’d taken precautions, but if I’d have known how big a threat the Slayers posed I would not have transformed at all. Or maybe the day would have still played out the same due to my sheer recklessness, who knows? I didn’t really know myself. When I’d fought Jamie, I could have easily changed before his very eyes, enjoying the fear it would have caused, the chaos, and I could have done far more damage than I did. It had taken all my will power to remain human and keep myself from hitting him with all the unearthly strength I now possessed. I’d never been that reckless when I was human. I didn’t really know myself what I was and was not capable of anymore. I was growing unpredictable, and I knew it was something I now had to learn to control if I was going to survive.

  Despite the shock to learn just how many Slayers there were, my curiosity was not yet satiated. I suddenly didn’t want to know anymore about the Slayers; the grim reality Lady Sarah had just revealed was enough to cope with for the minute. But I did want to know more about vampires. I asked Lady Sarah how powerful they really were, how many of the myths were true.

  She smiled at my curiosity, and replied "Most of the myths are true. There are many vampires in this world and you need to understand that we are not all of the same power. All animals fear us, as they do your kind. None of us can walk in direct sunlight, and it’s true we can be killed by a stake through the heart or decapitation, but anything that destroys the heart or the brain usually works.