by Stead, Nick
“You drive a hard bargain, wolf. I suppose we could be of help to each other, for now.”
He released me, though he didn’t look entirely happy about it. For a moment, I thought he might put me under his spell like Lady Sarah had done in the past, but either he didn’t consider me a threat or maybe it was too much effort while he was weakened. I still didn’t know much about how vampire powers worked.
I gave him a nod of gratitude. Now he was no longer trying to kill me, I had chance to take in more of how he looked. And there was no wonder those cold eyes had put me in mind of the ocean, given the image I was presented with. From the black bandana on his head to the long black coat over a white shirt and what looked to be a cutlass at his hip, there was no mistaking the life he’d led as a mortal. He wore a second belt diagonally across his chest which held two flintlock pistols, and what I assumed was extra ammunition in a couple of pouches: something that surprised me when most vampires seemed to be against firearms. His hair was hidden beneath the bandana but his beard was dark brown.
If the split had still existed between the human and wolf parts of my mind, the human me would’ve wanted answers from this new vampire, while the wolf would’ve been fighting to take control and obey our survival instincts – something the human me had never paid enough attention to. But we no longer had that conflict between the two sides to my nature. A part of me still burned with questions like who the vampire was and how long had he been down here, or even where did he come from and how had he come to be here in the first place? Anything that could tell me more about where we were and what the Slayers might be planning. I also thought it strange that the Slayers hadn’t disarmed him when they’d taken him captive, though the answer to that was probably one only they would know. Unless they hadn’t deemed it necessary when he had plenty of other weapons gifted to him through vampirism, I supposed. If he had even half the power of Lady Sarah, he’d be just as dangerous without the killing tools of mortals as he was with them.
But without the divide in my mind, my instincts were too strong to ignore and they were still screaming at me to run from the unseen threat that had me so panicked. Much as I wanted to know more about the new vampire, I couldn’t stay put to find out his story. We needed to keep looking for a way out before the dread thing found us.
I dropped my voice to a whisper, feeling we’d already lingered too long. “We should keep moving, before the creature we’re sensing appears. The last thing we want is to be cornered by it.”
The vampire glanced along the passage. “Assuming it’s still down here.”
“We can’t take that chance, and even if it’s long dead that’s not to say there aren’t other dangers lurking in these tunnels, or whatever the hell they are.” I turned back to the darkness looming ahead and resumed my slow and steady creeping pace. “If the Slayers brought us both here, who knows what other creatures they might have hidden away? And there’s always the chance we might cross paths with the Slayers themselves. I know they’re only mortal, but if there’s enough of them they could easily overpower us while we’re weakened.”
He fell into step beside me. “Agreed. You speak a lot of sense for one so young. No wonder you managed to unite a force of us to do battle.”
“See, I’m more than just a mindless beast.”
“Don’t push it, wolf. If you so much as snarl at me, I won’t hesitate to run you through.” He gave a fierce, fanged grin, patting the hilt of his cutlass as he spoke.
I tried to keep my temper in check, though he may well have caught a flash of it in my eyes. “Understood.”
We fell silent for a while. My anger strained against its chains, struggling to seize control and lash out at yet another vampire who dared treat me like some lowly dog to order around and put down if I got out of hand. Fortunately, my anger no longer ruled me unless I allowed it to. I was under no illusion as to how it would end if I went for round two with this vampire. Even in his weakened state, he was still more powerful than I was. Besides, we were both too wary of the creature we were sensing to give voice to any thoughts or questions either of us might have had.
The passage remained devoid of any new enemies. After a while the vampire spoke up again, asking “Are you thirsty, wolf?”
“How did you know that?”
“Your lips look drier than a beached whale. Here.” He handed me a hip flask.
“What’s in it?”
“Rum.”
“Thanks but I think I’ll wait for water. Alcohol’s only going to make me thirstier.”
“In the short term it’s better than nothing, trust me. Just take a sip to wet your mouth.”
I shrugged and did as he suggested. The spirit burned as it went down, but it did provide some relief for my dry throat, however temporary.
“Thanks,” I said again, handing the flask back to him. “I didn’t think you’d care about my wellbeing.”
“If we’re going to work together while we’re down here, there’s no need for you to suffer.”
“But I thought you hated werewolves like most of the other vampires out there? Especially after Ulfarr accused me of the murders.”
He shook his head. “I don’t hold with unnecessary torture. If you are indeed the kind of rabid beast that would turn on his allies, then I will gladly execute you myself when the time comes. But I will make it quicker than perhaps you deserve. And besides, if we’re going to make it out of here together we need to be in relatively good shape. There’s no sense to deprive your body of its needs when we may have to fight our way out.”
I didn’t know what to say to that so we fell silent again, until eventually, after what seemed like another age, we came to a large chamber. Unlike the one I’d started in with the concealed door to freedom, this one was open at both ends. The floor was earthen which seemed suspicious with it all being stone so far, other than the room lined with spikes I’d glimpsed. But otherwise there seemed to be nothing of interest inside.
The vampire looked at me. “What do your instincts tell you, wolf?”
“I still can’t pick out any new scents under the powerful stink in here. Maybe the Slayers designed things this way, so we’d be blind so to speak? I can’t hear anything either, other than us two.”
“That would be my guess as well. This reeks of a trap.”
He drew his sword and advanced into the chamber. I was tempted to change to my hybrid form, so I could heal my hand and take advantage of my lupine might. But I knew better than to drain any more of my energy when I might not be able to replenish it for some time. Leon had given me some combat training before I’d discovered he was really a murderer and yet another false friend, and I would just have to hope it was enough to see me through whatever dangers lay ahead.
“Be alert for anything behind us,” he said in a low voice. “I found a secret door which led to this tunnel where you were creeping just ahead of me. There might be enemies lurking behind these walls, waiting for the right moment to ambush us.”
“So that’s how you were able to sneak up on me. I wondered how you’d got past without me sensing anything. Is it just me, or does this feel like some real life version of Dungeons and Dragons?”
He frowned. “It does seem like a dungeon but I’ve seen no dragons here, if they really exist.”
I rolled my eyes. Why couldn’t I have been imprisoned with Leon? He might have been insane, but at least he’d kept with the times, instead of being stuck in the era he’d lived in as a human. I didn’t bother trying to explain to this new vampire, instead asking “How long have you been in here?”
“Hours? Nights? In this place of eternal dark, it is hard to tell.” A look of longing crept into his features. “The endless night would be welcome, if only there were prey down here with us. It feels like years with no blood to quench my thirst.”
“I woke up in a room in pitch blackness and had to feel for a way out; broke my hand trying to find it. Is that where you were, before you found your way thr
ough to that same tunnel?”
He gave a slight shake of his head, his eyes focused on the far side of the chamber. “There were torches in the room I was taken to, and I didn’t have to search for an exit. The door opened to another tunnel which appeared to be a dead end, until I found the secret door through to this one. There was also another of those seeing things that men use like the one you pointed out back there, the devices that run on that power – ah, what’s the word humans use now? Electricity? They were watching me as I tried to find a way out.”
“Wow, you really haven’t kept up with the times,” I said, inwardly troubled. Again I was worried by the fact the Slayers had left me in darkness, especially when they’d gone to the bother of giving him a light source in the room he’d been taken to. I couldn’t decide if that meant they were more interested in me or this vampire. But I also felt a surge of hope at his story; if the Slayers had imprisoned him in a chamber concealed behind a hidden door, then it meant Lady Sarah and Selina might also have been taken alive, and they could be nearby. “And you just happened to find the way out as I escaped from my prison and was making my way along the passage? How long did it take you to find it?”
“Hours perhaps; down here it is hard to say.”
“Don’t you find it odd that suddenly it opens for you at just the right moment to ambush me? It’s almost like the Slayers wanted you to find me there and attack. But why? Why make us fight each other when they could have just killed us themselves when they first captured us. If it’s all some new, elaborate kind of test I can’t work out what the point is for them. I’m the last werewolf, so it’s not like they need to know more about werewolf behaviour. And even if they hope to learn more about vampires, why bother bringing me into this?”
“If our fates are now in the hands of the Slayers, we should tread even more carefully. Escape will be harder with them watching our every move and nudging events in the direction they choose.”
“There’s probably not much point being quiet then. If they are controlling everything and they have something down here more powerful than the two of us, we’re probably going to encounter it at a time of their choosing, no matter what we do.”
“We should still be cautious. Now is not the time for idle chatter, if that is what you are thinking.”
“At least tell me your name.”
“Captain Zeerin Lorund.”
That seemed to confirm my suspicions about his human background. And even though the golden age of piracy was long gone, maybe he’d kept to a life at sea as a vampire, which would explain why he was especially ignorant of modern developments.
We’d almost made it to the end of the room without incident and I was about to press him for more information. But then I felt the ground shift beneath my feet, seconds before something exploded outwards.
Bony fingers grabbed my ankle, just as the doors either side of the chamber began to slide shut. It seemed we’d been right to suspect a trap. And assuming we were correct about the level of control the Slayers had over the place, if they intended us to die here there was probably nothing we could do about it. All we could hope for was to die well, battered and hungry as we were.
CHAPTER THREE
Blood Debt
I looked down to find the rotting fingers of a zombie wrapped around my ankle. If they were only now coming to life, then that must mean the Slayers had a necromancer working for them. And short of breaking through to wherever that necromancer was, or finding a flamethrower lying around, we had no way of stopping the corpses as they mindlessly obeyed their master’s will.
Well, at least we’d found the source of the death smell. My sense of dread climbed a little higher. There had to be hundreds of corpses to create such a stench.
Before I could break free of the dead man’s grasp, the zombie’s other hand burst from the soil and took hold. It gave a powerful tug, robbing me of my balance and dragging me to the ground.
Instinct took over. I spread my arms as I fell and screamed in agony at the impact, nerves set alight in my broken bones. With the adrenaline coursing through my system, the pain had been no more than a dull background ache. Now it seared white hot, immediate and intense. It was all my rage needed to break free.
The agony stripped me of the control I’d only recently gained, anger erupting from the depths of my being in a molten tidal wave. My blood boiled in response, fur sprouting across every inch of my body to form a pelt which bore the same markings as natural timber wolves. There was no longer any room for rational thought in my head. Reduced to a thing of wild fury, my need to preserve my energy was forgotten.
The familiar feeling of savage joy rose up with the anger as my jaws elongated into a muzzle. Teeth tapered into razor sharp fangs designed for ripping and tearing, and bone bulged beneath my skin. It was as if my true nature strained against the human prison it had been caged in, struggling to rip its way to freedom.
Flesh rolled across the lengthening structure, muscles strengthening to give me a greater bite. Other parts of my skeleton lengthened and shortened, a tail growing from the base of my spine, and the bones in my hand slid back into position and fused together, leaving no evidence of the fracture. As had become my wont, I only let the change go halfway to my hybrid form, allowing me to take advantage of the strengths of both human and wolf.
Rage and adrenaline served as a temporary substitute for the energy needed to fuel the change, and I felt only the surge of bestial might as my body shifted. There was no weariness when I rose up on my hind legs – only the hunger blazing brighter within, feeding the fury and the bloodlust until my mind was no more than a machine programmed for violence and death. In this state I’d massacred countless victims over the last year, cutting down crowds with tooth and claw so that the streets ran red with blood. Now it was the zombie horde’s turn.
The walking corpse still had hold of me. It was just breaking free of the soil, its dead eyes burning with mindless determination. I tore my legs from its grasp, my fury giving me a far greater strength than the reanimated corpse possessed, and spun round to face my opponent.
The body was in the early stages of decay, almost whole and recognisable as the man he’d once been. But a red veil clouded my vision. All I saw in that moment was a slab of fresh meat full of blood to be spilled; a victim to be brutally slaughtered like so many before him. Even with the power of the necromancer’s will, the zombie never stood a chance. I fell on the reanimated corpse and sank my fangs into the dead flesh, clamping down so fiercely that bone crunched beneath my jaws. Its head was all but severed when I released it, hanging loosely by the one scrap of flesh to escape the initial mauling. The zombie didn’t care. Its hands reached for my throat, intent on squeezing the life from my cursed body. A minor inconvenience like decapitation wasn’t going to stop it.
I ignored those groping fingers and tore into the zombie’s ribcage, ripping the heart free and gulping it down. The organ was cold and slippery, and it didn’t beat like the hearts I’d torn from living prey. But the corpse was fresh enough to make it palatable, and I swallowed down a few more mouthfuls as I continued to rip through the body.
Still the zombie struggled to obey its master’s will and end my life, even though there wasn’t enough left of it to fight by the time I rose from my ‘kill’. I turned to face more of them, leaving the pieces to wriggle harmlessly across the dirt.
Captain Zeerin made an impressive figure beside me, hacking the zombies to pieces with his cutlass. His pistols were relics from a bygone era and paled in comparison to modern day firearms, meaning he’d save them for a last resort in a fight. Given his vampiric powers, I doubted they’d been fired often since he’d become one of the undead. But if the dread presence we’d both sensed did make an appearance, the added firepower might help.
Severed limbs soon littered the ground, writhing around the vampire with no less determination than the rest of the bodies. We could rip and cut them into a million pieces and still those bits of fl
esh would move with the necromancer’s power. Only once the flow of dark magic was severed would the dead become truly dead once more. At least the zombies were less of a threat in pieces than they were whole.
It seemed like an endless supply of them were climbing up from their shallow graves. I charged the nearest three and leapt on one, plunging a clawed arm into its chest and ripping out bone and guts in a bloody spray. Gore splattered my body but it lacked all the warmth of living tissue. Part of me resented that.
This one was another fairly fresh corpse, but feeding would have to wait. Instead I focused on doing enough damage to prevent it getting back up, until I was forced to deal with the other two.
A corpse so far gone it was impossible to tell if it had been male or female latched onto my left shoulder. I felt it bite down, as if we’d fallen straight into a horror movie. My pelt protected me from the worst of the damage, but its teeth still broke through the skin and tore off a small patch of bloody fur. I roared with renewed rage and grabbed the zombie by its head, my claws gouging holes in the skull and giving me an iron grip. The cadaver struggled in my monstrous hand, its fingers reaching for my raw flesh, intent on ripping me apart. I threw my opponent to the ground before it could do any more damage and it collided with a large rock protruding from the soil.
Rotten blood, bone and brain matter exploded around us, a dark, grisly circle of death and decay. The body struggled to peel itself from the hard surface and rise to renew its assault, but there was no time to do anything more to ensure it would stay down. I was aware of the third zombie about to attack me on my right, and I was forced to turn away.
This one was mostly skeletal and there wasn’t much in the way of flesh and skin for my claws to tear through. I severed its spine with a single swipe of my clawed hand, causing its torso to slide off its pelvis. It began to drag its upper body along, its empty sockets fixed on my leg. I stamped down and bone shattered. Then it was too damaged to do much of anything.
