No matter how far or how fast she ran, Aughtie had no chance. I was going to have my revenge for Lizzy, and for the boy, her nephew, and everyone else who had suffered at her hands. She was no better than we were. The Slayers claimed to be ridding the world of evil, but they didn’t care who they had to hurt to get to us. Perhaps that made them worse than we were. At least we only killed to eat, to survive, for the most part anyway, but they murdered any of their own kind that got in the way of their quest to hunt us to extinction.
Moments later I gave chase, swifter than she in full wolf form, my paws surer on the earth they bounded over, my senses focused solely on her. It was fitting that, after years of hunting down my kind, one of our kind would finally hunt her down.
When I caught up with Aughtie she was already slowing. She’d not gone far into the woodland before she could run no more. I thought she was going to collapse, but she faced me, trying to hide her fear. I slowed too and transformed back into the half man half wolf monster once again, ignoring the hunger. I could see the terror in Aughtie's eyes as she scanned the trees for the help that must surely come. Wasting no time with words, I struck her to the ground, Lizzy’s injuries fresh in my mind, and Dad’s death. The bloodlust had worn off for the moment, and in the absence of it there was guilt, something I had not felt for months. Guilt not so much at what I’d done, but at what it would do to Mum and Amy. I wasn’t sure if they’d survive losing him. At least they wouldn’t lose us both.
I directed the guilt at Aughtie, turning it to hate. If it hadn’t been for her we wouldn’t be there in the first place and Dad would still be alive. I would enjoy killing her.
She hit the ground and tried to crawl away. Bent on vengeance, I picked her up and threw her bodily against a tree. How I managed it without breaking her back I’ll never know, but she hit the ground with a whimper and tried to crawl away again. She wasn’t going anywhere, but I wasn’t going to kill her quickly either. I wanted her to feel the same pain her victims had known over the years. So I kicked her over onto her back and placed a clawed foot on her chest, temporarily restraining her. I had no rope to tie her with but I soon solved that. With a single claw I made a huge gash in her belly, and then I widened it into a hole. I submerged one hand into the hole and felt around, her screams of pain bringing me a sick pleasure. I wondered if she had felt the same when she had tortured her nephew, and all the others. When I found what I’d been searching for, I withdrew my hand, bringing her intestines with it. I used these to bind her hands and feet so there would be no escape.
I doubt the gut would have held her, had it not been for the pain itself. She began to cry, the pain so overwhelming that she lost all sense of time and place. She cried, this evil spawn of the human race. People would say that she wasn't human, that her actions were inhuman, yet I knew different. She was very human. For only humanity is capable of the horrific acts she had committed. And I was half human, which made me capable of becoming every inch the monster she was. It had already begun. I was also half wolf, but no evil lurks in the lupine heart. The wolf had no concept of killing for fun. It despised me for it. No, the wolf killed to eat or to defend itself, nothing more. In my rage it was the darkness that lies in every human heart that took over. The wolf had nothing to do with it.
That evil at the heart of humanity made me dig my hands back into the hole I had created. I didn’t do any more real damage, not yet, I just wanted to make it hurt more. Her screams pierced the night, and much as it gave me pleasure, I didn’t want anyone to find us before I’d finished. She needed silencing, so I stuck my bloodied claws down her throat and slashed her vocal cords. Not content to stop there, I ripped out her tongue. Blood gushed down her throat, making her retch. I watched her closely, not wanting her to choke on the blood and die too quick. The more uncomfortable she was before the end the better.
Next I skinned various parts of her body, knowing the pain that would cause after experiencing losing patches of my own skin to the heat of the witch’s spell, and I punctured a few organs. I reached back inside the hole I had made and ripped out a chunk of flesh and bone containing a large bunch of nerves we learnt about in biology a while back. I forget the scientific name for them, but I felt since nerves register pain it had to cause a considerable amount of discomfort for her. Unfortunately that meant she wouldn’t feel the pain in her legs anymore, but maybe that made her suffering worse.
"You never did smile enough," I snarled, the only words I spoke throughout the torture session, and with that I used a claw to slice through her flesh to the bone, drawing a line from the top of her ear, down underneath her cheek bones, underneath her nose, and back up to the other ear. I worked away at the flesh around her ear for a few minutes and finally lifted it up enough to get a good grip. Using the small strip of flesh I had lifted up, I slowly tore off all the flesh beneath the line I had drawn, exposing her bare jawbones and giving her a permanent grin. Then I sliced off her ears and burst her ear drums. Next I punched her nose, hard enough to leave it a bloody mess and permanently damage her sense of smell. After that I gouged out her eyes, tears of blood flowing down her face as she was plunged into eternal darkness. My anger and bloodlust spent, I finally cut her bonds and left her.
Miraculously, she was still alive for several minutes after my gruesome work was done, and I sat and watched her drag herself painfully away, devoid of all senses save for a weak sense of touch, her guts trailing behind her, legs useless. I wished I could make her suffer like that for all eternity, but I came to realise those few minutes would seem like eternity to her, spent in a Hell of her own making. It would be time enough to dwell on all the evil sins that she had committed. She came to a stop a few feet from where I sat at the end of a bloody trail. Her hand reached up towards the night sky, as if seeking help from above, or perhaps to try and reach something that would pull her out of the Hell I had sent her into. Then it fell pitifully to the ground and I heard her heart beat its last. Satisfied, I turned away and stared into space, utterly spent.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Love Lost
The last of the screams tore from the throats of dying men and then there was silence. Lady Sarah found me sat between the trees, the mortal remains of Aughtie lying a few feet away. She seemed to have regained control of her emotions, though I doubted she would recover fully for some time, if she ever recovered at all. I didn’t really know enough about their history but it seemed as if she and Vince had been close friends at some point in their long lives, even if they’d drifted apart nearer the end.
“The battle’s over,” she said. “They’re all dead, except for the spellcasters. After I killed the witch and the Slayers’ defeat seemed certain, the others fled. We lost a few more, and there are casualties, though most wounds won’t cause permanent damage once there’s chance to heal. I broke the necromancy spell before I lost control; the zombies are just corpses again.”
“Good,” I said faintly, not really hearing what she was saying. “What happens now?”
“There are still many more Slayers in other towns and cities. Those who fought tonight have agreed to go out into the world and attempt to make more of us, as well as meeting with others to try and persuade them to join the fight. We will build a bigger army for the battles to come.”
“You too?” I asked.
“I do not know if I will leave yet. Perhaps I will make more vampires in this town. With the threat of the Slayers gone from this area for the time being, they could develop in safety, and once they are powerful enough they can join the fight. And you?”
What would I do? I hadn’t expected to survive the battle so I hadn’t thought about what came after.
“I can’t go back home,” I said, realising it for the first time. “Life can’t go back to the way it was, no matter how much I want it to. I can’t be among humans, not anymore. And I think Aughtie was smart enough to have sent my identity on to other bases. The police will have my name. They’re probably looking for me if the
y can tie me to any of the deaths. I can’t stay here. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I can’t stay here.”
The recognition I had to leave was a hard one, especially after letting myself think I could go back to my family and help them through Dad’s death. That was, if my guilt would have allowed me to return to them. But in reality it would never work. My time amongst humans was over. I belonged to the world of the undead now.
“Then we should leave now before you change your mind again,” she said.
“Wait, you said you were staying. You’re coming now?”
She smiled. “You still have much to learn. You would not last long on your own. If you are to leave the human world behind, you must learn to live in our world. I will teach you. You cannot simply wander around on your own. The vampires here today will not forget you, but there are others who would harm you. You may be the last of your kind, and I will not be responsible for the death of your race.”
“What about making more undead round here?”
“One of the others can stay behind and make the most of the absence of the Slayers in this area, for as long as it lasts.”
I nodded, and was secretly grateful she was coming. Eternity was a long time to be alone. “Before we leave there’s some things I have to do. Wait for me back at the graveyard, I won’t be long.”
Alice watched me with his cold black eyes as I walked into my room for what was probably the last time. There was no way I could take him with me, much as I wanted to. Mum wouldn’t look after him, but I knew she’d find someone to take him in. To my family I’d be dead. They’d hope I’d come home again after a few days, but as the days became weeks and the weeks became months, they’d lose hope and finally come to accept that I was really gone. It pained me to think about what they would go through, but what choice did I have? They were in danger as long as I lived with them. I wouldn’t be the one to get them killed.
I knew I couldn’t take anything with me, tempted as I was. In leaving I was sacrificing a lot, but then, I had eternity. Maybe some day when the war was over I might enjoy human pleasures again, but until then I had to leave it all behind. I wasn’t human anymore.
I walked around my home for one last time, remembering the good times, trying not to think about the bad, and listened to the soft breathing of Mum and Amy in their sleep. I didn’t want to leave, but dawn was not far off and Lady Sarah would need to sleep soon. We had to be out of the town by then. So I bid them a silent goodbye, and took my leave.
I was on my way to the graveyard, when a figure stepped out of the shadows. A silent tear slid down my face at the thought of all I had lost that night and what I had been forced to leave behind, and I raised my eyes to the heavens, thinking what now? I’d had enough shocks for one night. What else could fate possibly have in store for me? Whoever it was that time, I would not let them see me cry. I pulled myself together, pretending to rub my eye while I wiped away the tear on the back of my hand.
The figure came into the light, a boy who thought he knew me once, a gun in his hand.
“Put the gun down David,” I said calmly.
“Give me one good reason why I should,” he said.
“You’ll live to regret it mate.”
“Don’t call me mate!” he screamed, sobbing uncontrollably, the gun shaking in his hands. His finger was dangerously close to squeezing on the trigger. “I’m not your mate! You killed Fiona. I know it was you. You knew something, so I followed you until I learned the truth. It was you all along, you were the monster! I loved her.”
“Ha! Love. She never loved you,” I told him. I’d just killed my own father. Of all the deaths I had caused his had affected me most deeply, for no matter how much I had hated him, I couldn’t kill my own flesh and blood and not be affected by it. I don’t know what I was feeling; my emotions were in turmoil and my soul was almost consumed by darkness, and there was David, weak and afraid and angry, and I didn’t care if I hurt him. I didn’t even care how he knew it was me who had killed her. I remembered when he’d confronted me at break just before Mr Enderson’s lesson, when I’d told him to forget and he’d said he couldn’t. And then I understood. It hadn’t been the Slayers following me all that time, it had been David, probably following me in the hope that I’d lead him to the monster. And I had led him to the monster. At some point he must have seen me transform.
“Yes I killed her. So go ahead and shoot me but it won’t solve anything. You’re not a man yet, just a scared little boy. You know nothing of killing and revenge. You don’t have it in you. You’re not a killer David. Put the gun down. She never loved you. The sooner you get that into your thick skull the sooner you can move on with your life. She never loved you and she never will, in this life or the next.”
At my words, he collapsed into a pathetic heap on the floor and wept. The gun lay forgotten by his side. I left him to mourn her and went to the graveyard, where I cast away the last shreds of my humanity.
Minutes later I walked away into the night with Lady Sarah by my side, into a new life in an uncertain world beginning to go through a transformation as dramatic as the one I faced every full moon. I was done with humanity. With my father’s death I could not be a part of the human world any longer and it was time to move on. I was truly one of the undead now, and it was to their world I must go. We had won the battle but the war was not over. There was much work to be done.
Chapter Thirty
Beyond The Grave
Deep in the bowels of Hell, screams of the damned sounded endlessly, echoing around dark caverns and black pits, their suffering, tortured, mutilated bodies illuminated by the burning fires that consumed everything. Demons tormented them, feeding off their pain and despair, most too busy with the lost souls of the damned and the sinners to take an interest in events up on Earth, and the lives of those whose souls were still connected with their body. But one demon sat apart from the rest in a lair He had fashioned for Himself, a dark place where nightmares were made.
Stony walls rose up around Him, souls He had claimed for Himself chained all around, each one suffering their own unique torment. He knew what lay in the hearts of men and beast, both living and dead, both damned and pure, and He could feel their fear. Each soul strained against the chains, desperate to be free, each mind in a state of terror, each body in agony. Blood pooled on the floor all around Him. He liked blood. It gave Him sustenance and strength.
Bones lay dotted about, the flesh long gone, littering the floor when He’d finished gnawing them. A throne made of body parts rose up in one corner, where He liked to sit and watch them suffer. But not now.
A fire burned in one corner of the lair, the only light in the darkness, and He crouched on the floor, hunched over it, watching through the flames as a werewolf and a vampire left behind a trail of carnage and set out on a journey that would change the world.
His dark form was very much like that of an over-sized werewolf with black fur. Shifting position slightly, He unfurled His bat-like wings and spread them out behind Him, stretching them before curling them around the flames as if to shield the view of Earth from the others. His arched back was torn open along the spine, bone protruding through the muscle. Each bone in the spinal cord had been moulded into a spike, curved like shark’s teeth. Flesh clung to the base of the bones, covering the ribs, glistening and wet with blood.
A hand that was somewhere between being wolf and human, almost a paw, splayed out beneath Him, supporting His weight, long claws gouging scars into the rock beneath. Along the knuckles He bore a similar wound to that along His spine, more bone protruding from fur and flesh.
His face was hidden by darkness, but a flame rose up as if to lick its master, and briefly illuminated the long snout and razor sharp fangs. Again and it revealed more wounds on His face. A large cut over the right eye extended from the top of His forehead to the top of His muzzle, and there were four identical gashes on His left cheek, each one roughly just over a centimetre wide and a centimetre
apart, as if they had been caused by large claws slashing across the flesh. These four wounds were deep and stretched across His face, running right across the jaws. The flesh had been completely ripped away, including the gums, giving Him a lopsided, skeletal grin, one fang at the top and one at the bottom partially visible in the first three wounds, and part of the cheek bone and the lower jaw visible in all four, the bone marked with a long scratch in the middle of each cut. Blood red eyes with slits for pupils glowed in their sockets, both fixed in the center of the flames where the events on Earth were visible.
His chest rose and fell with a slow rhythm as He deeply breathed in the putrid air around Him, each lung visible, swelling with air and emptying again. The whole of the chest had been ripped open, just above the diaphragm. Not only were the lungs visible, but also the rib cage surrounding them and part of the heart, the organs and flesh riddled with maggots.
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