by Stead, Nick
“Wolf!” Zeerin shouted.
I cocked an ear in his direction but was too lost in the bloodlust to do anything more. He called out again, and again I ignored him, too intent on my prey. Finally his words succeeded in cutting through the rage, as surely as his blade cut through flesh.
“What?” I growled, turning to face him. It was only then that I realised just how many corpses had been buried in the chamber. There were dozens of them, and they had us surrounded.
“We can’t keep this up,” Zeerin said. “Not in our weakened states. We have to find another way out, or they’ll overwhelm us.”
I could see he wasn’t doing so well. It looked like he’d also been bitten and scratched, and he was bleeding from several wounds. He needed fresh blood to replace what he was losing, or he wouldn’t be able to function for much longer.
I bounded over to help. “I’ll keep them busy then, while you try to get us out of here.”
Keeping the zombies focused on me was easier said than done, and I had to fight to win back some of my self-control. I needed the rage to keep me going, but I couldn’t allow it to rule me or I’d become too intent on savaging individual targets, leaving the rest of the corpses free to attack Zeerin.
At first it seemed like the Captain’s idea might work. I felled the zombies he’d been engaged with, though I didn’t have chance to do the level of damage needed to keep them down for any length of time. Instead I shadowed the vampire, keeping the nearest zombies off of him while he worked his way round the chamber, searching for more hidden doors. But even with the rage fuelling me, weariness soon began to creep in, slowing my movements. I sustained more and more injuries as the minutes dragged on, and I began to think we were doomed.
The zombies were catching up with us, several of them lunging forwards. It was too much for me to handle on my own. I was barely managing to keep them off Zeerin now, and I couldn’t prevent them all from biting into my flesh. My pelt only offered so much protection and several new wounds opened up on my body. I wrestled them off of me with more roars of pain, but for every one I temporarily cut down another took its place. I was going to be eaten alive if we didn’t escape soon.
More zombies surged forwards and I didn’t have the strength to shake off the ones I was grappling with to engage this next wave. Zeerin turned to make his final stand, drawing his cutlass and one of his pistols. I dug deep for the last of my body’s reserves and tore the reanimated corpses off of me, just long enough to stagger over to the vampire. But before I could do anything to help, they overpowered him through sheer numbers. His movements had also slowed, the blood loss beginning to tell, and he wasn’t quick enough to cut them all down. Another legless zombie pulled one of his feet out from under him and Zeerin fell, lost to sight beneath the walking corpses. Then I was being dragged down by the zombies attacking me, and it seemed all was lost.
Fingers dug into my wounds, widening cuts and freeing more blood. Fresh pain throbbed through my damaged flesh and I roared again, snapping at my foes and struggling to push them away. More teeth sank into my skin, in too many places to count. It was hopeless. Yet still I fought, determined to keep fighting till the last breath was torn from my body by the skeletal hand of Death himself.
Another pair of hands dug into my chest. Flesh ripped and muscle tore, exposed ribs glistening darkly in the dim light. New panic drove back the rage. This was no longer a mindless attack in response to some vague command from their master. They were targeting my heart!
The sound of stone grinding on stone filled the air. Salvation. It had to be the Slayers’ doing but I had too many other things to worry about to be suspicious. The door was open, and we were being offered a chance at escape. If only I could fight free long enough to regain my feet and take it.
I summoned the last of my strength and thrashed with everything I had left. Cold fingers were torn from my limbs and rotting bodies were sent flying, some falling to the ground, others stumbling away on unsteady feet. I picked myself up and limped out of their reach.
A part of me was tempted to head straight for the tunnel and keep moving till I’d left the chamber and the zombies far behind. I’d only just met Captain Zeerin and it wasn’t like I owed him my allegiance. But even though he may well have left me to my fate if the tables were turned, I found I couldn’t do the same to him. Even if only for the practicality of increasing my chances of escaping with his help, I limped towards where I’d seen him go down, to save him if I could.
The zombies I’d fought off were still following. I knew I could well die trying to be a hero, but I kept my sights fixed on the writhing mass of rotting flesh he’d been buried under. Was I too late? There was no flash of his blade, nor any sound of him fighting back. And the zombies were closing in from behind.
All seemed lost, when a sigh passed through the rotting corpses. I froze, expecting something worse. But the zombies went limp and collapsed to the floor, where they lay at rest once again. That puzzled me even more than the door opening.
I pushed my confusion aside. There were more pressing concerns. My rage was all but spent and had drained back into the dark pit it resided in, a wave of fatigue taking its place. I needed to feed on the fresher corpses if I was going to make it any further, once I’d helped Zeerin, if I could.
In the absence of the necromancer’s will, the pile of decomposing flesh and bone was utterly still. I couldn’t see the vampire beneath the corpses he’d fallen to and I had to wonder again if I was too late. Nothing was stirring, not even when I started pulling the bodies away.
A glimpse of Zeerin’s bearded face appeared amidst the dead humans, a flash of handsomness in an otherwise ugly mosaic. His eyes had fixed on something only he could see, his limbs unmoving. Had the zombies succeeded in digging his heart out?
“Zeerin?” I growled.
No answer. I continued to pull the bodies away, even though it looked like he had joined them as one of the truly dead. But then a gasp of air went through him, a reflex reminiscent of his human years. His eyes fixed on mine and I offered him my hand. He accepted, weak but still alive. Or undead. Unalive? Whatever.
He tried to smile but it turned into a grimace. “Perhaps Ulfarr is wrong about you. You’re not so bad for a savage beast.”
It was a struggle to the doorway. He just made it outside before he collapsed, sitting upright with his back propped against the wall. His eyes closed and his breathing grew laboured.
“You’re not so bad yourself, for a stuck-up walking corpse with fangs.”
Zeerin started to laugh but it turned to a racking, bloody cough. Too much blood was leaking from his wounds, his shirt turned red with it. “Ah, I wish we could have met under better circumstances. I believe we could have been good friends, given time. Unless you really are the mindless killer who’s been slaughtering vampires?”
“I swear it wasn’t me.”
“It doesn’t matter now. I am to sink down to Davy Jones’ locker soon. These wounds will not heal without fresh blood to revive me.”
I realised we had one choice if I was going to save him from being trapped in a corpse-like state for as long as it took for more blood to enter his body (and given that we were currently at the Slayers’ mercy, there was a good chance they’d just finish him off with a killing wound to his heart or brain rather than allow him to come back), though it wasn’t one I particularly relished. I couldn’t keep the hint of reluctance from my voice as I said “Feed on me.”
“What?” His eyes opened and locked on mine.
“You’re losing too much blood and the only way to replenish it is by feeding, right? You said it yourself, we both need to be as near full strength as we can if we’re going to make it out alive, and it’s not like there’s any other option down here. So feed on me. Just don’t take too much, or I’m not going to be any good to anyone.”
Under normal circumstances, I would never have trusted a vampire I barely knew to drink from my veins. I was having to put my faith
in his self-control – he would need to have enough of it to be able to pull away before he drained me to the point of death; something that I guessed was akin to offering me fresh meat when I’d been starving and then asking me to stop halfway through my meal. But there was also the huge risk that he wouldn’t want to stop. Most older vampires would jump at any excuse to kill me, and that was before you took the blame they placed on me for the murders over the last year. Even though he seemed to be warming to me, it could just have been because he thought he was going to die soon. What other choice did we have though? I felt certain that the only way we were getting out of whatever the Slayers had planned was by working together, and we were no use to each other in a weakened state. Plus I found I was warming to him, in spite of my warier instincts.
“You’re weak as well,” he said. “You should take what you can from those bodies first. And the more of them you eat, the less of them there is for that necromancer to control later on, eh?”
He had a point: it made sense for me to recover my own strength before donating any more of it to save him. Blood was still flowing freely from all those chunks the zombies had taken out of my flesh. It was a wonder I hadn’t passed out from the loss already. So I began to limp back into the chamber.
My muscles trembled with exhaustion. I soon found myself back on my hands and knees, crawling to the meal my body craved. It started swimming in and out of focus, dizziness taking hold. I had to force myself to keep moving, all the way to one of the fresher corpses.
I collapsed beside it, panting from the exertion. Picking myself back up was an effort, but the hunger seized control of my battered body and forced me to rip off a chunk of meat. The cold, dead flesh was a far cry from the warmth of the fresh kill I longed for. I forced it down and took another bite. After a few mouthfuls I already began to feel better, and I paused to transform back to human for the time being. I needed to heal my wounds and I felt staying on two legs would be more helpful than four, if we were forced to search for more hidden doors.
Once I was human again I ate my fill, feeling certain it was only a matter of time before we encountered more enemies. I listened closely to Zeerin’s ragged breathing while I ate. A part of me couldn’t help but be amazed that his body hadn’t let go of such habits, after all his time of existing as one of the undead. But mostly I was wary of letting him fall into a state of death, thinking he would be more likely to lose control if he lost consciousness and latched onto me through instinct rather than choice. He seemed to be clinging to his hold on this world though, giving me time to gorge myself.
I ate until there was no room left in my stomach. When I rose from my meal, the weariness was washed away by a wave of renewed energy, and I felt more like the powerful predator I was supposed to be. But there was still that dread presence in the air, causing me to creep back to the vampire instead of striding with my usual confidence.
Zeerin looked even more of a cadaver when I knelt beside him. His skin seemed paler than ever and his lips had darkened, like I’d seen in sleeping vampires. Their kind seemed to revert to a corpse-like state during the day, until the night brought them back. But if Zeerin didn’t feed soon then his corpse-like state would be semi-permanent.
Lady Sarah had once told me that the only way to truly kill a vampire was by destroying the heart or the brain. So I was confident blood would bring him back, even if it took centuries for it to find its way into his system and resurrect him. He’d be as good as dead if I let that happen and left him there though.
“Okay, let’s get this over with,” I said, kneeling beside him and offering my neck. “Remember, not too much or I’ll be too weak again.”
When Lady Sarah had told me the story of how she was turned, she told it as the typical vampire romance dream of any modern day teen goth. But even if either of us had been gay, there was nothing romantic about it when he sank his fangs into my neck.
Sharp points pierced my flesh and I gritted my teeth, trying to concentrate on the surrounding darkness and listen for any hint of approaching danger. But try as I might, I couldn’t quite distance myself from the discomfort of being fed on. Even with the high pain threshold I’d developed, the sensation of him drawing the blood from my vein was deeply unpleasant. I suspected there’d be bruising when he was done, like a severe case of love bite.
The minutes dragged on, and I began to feel my renewed strength ebbing on the crimson tide flowing into the vampire, passing from my body to his. My heart pumped harder in an effort to keep my life force circulating round my body, and the light headedness returned. I lost all focus on my surroundings. There was nothing but the sound of my heartbeat thudding in my ears, and my vision swam.
“Zeerin,” I grunted, and tried to push him off. His grip was too strong. “Zeerin, stop.”
I was struggling to stay conscious when finally he pulled away, his fangs bared and a feral look on his face. It was made all the fiercer for the bloody mask covering his features; a mix of rotten zombie juices, fluid from his wounds, and my own life force smeared around his mouth. There was something bestial about him in that moment, a reminder that we weren’t so different from each other, despite what the vampires chose to believe.
It took me a few moments to recover. I had to keep still while my vision cleared, waiting for the dizziness to pass again.
Zeerin’s face came back into view. No trace of his wounds remained, other than the blood still staining his skin. Yet it still hadn’t been enough to return him to his full strength, and I could sense his hunger, the vampiric twin of my own lycanthropic lusts.
“Stay back!” he snarled, turning away as I got to my feet. I felt a measure of sympathy for him then. Beating that hunger back into submission had to be every bit as hard for him as it was for me, especially after a partial feeding had given it rise to take control. My blood must be calling to it as strongly as the moon called to my lupine side. It had to be costing Zeerin every ounce of willpower he possessed to fight.
I looked back at the chamber and the aftermath of the fight with the zombies. There was a glint of metal amidst the carnage. Curious, I left the vampire waging his inner battle to investigate, kneeling down to find a pendant made from amethyst, attached to a silver chain. A relic from one of the corpses’ lives?
Movement from the corner of my eye made me glance over at Zeerin. He had regained his human visage, all traces of his predatory nature gone, on the outside at least. I turned back to the pendant and went to grab it. The tip of Zeerin’s cutlass pressed into my neck seconds later. I hadn’t even been aware of him moving, that unearthly speed and agility allowing him to cross the distance between us too swift and silent for me to sense.
“Keep your filthy paws off,” he hissed, anger blazing in his eyes.
“I didn’t know it was yours,” I said, drawing my arm back. “It was just lying here; you must have lost it in the fight.”
“It was a gift from someone very dear to me, and all I have left of her. No one touches that pendant but me.”
He withdrew his blade and bent to pick up the precious gem, slipping the chain over his head.
“Who was she?”
“The only woman I ever loved, if you beasts can understand such feelings.” He tucked the pendant under his shirt. I couldn’t help but notice the way the amethyst was deep purple at the bottom and bled through to clear about halfway up, like it was a vial with some liquid connecting the two of them for all eternity. Some would have found such a token of their love sweet, but I’d been deemed heartless even before the curse began to change me. That didn’t mean I was happy with the vampire’s comment though.
“Oh come on, really? I thought we’d just got past all the prejudice.”
Zeerin took a deep breath, as if to calm himself. His eyes softened and his tone warmed several degrees. “Forgive me, friend. My heart still aches for what could have been, but likely never will. We should move on before the Slayers send something else to attack us.”
As little
interest as I had in love, I was still curious to find out more about the vampire pirate. But he clearly wasn’t in the mood to go into his past and there were more pressing matters to attend to, like finding a way out of the dungeon. So I let it be.
We started back down the passage leading from the zombies’ chamber, the stone stained crimson where Zeerin had been bleeding out. Still the stench of death and decay permeated the air, even after we’d put the rotting corpses some distance behind us, and I kept expecting another attack. At least I had the energy to transform if we were ambushed again, but the thought brought me little comfort. Not when I knew my fate was currently in the Slayers’ hands.
Zeerin also remained tense, his hand never straying far from the hilt of his cutlass. We reached another chamber, much like the one we’d just been in, and entered cautiously, waiting for the corpses to start crawling out of the ground again. As before, a panel slid down to block off the entrance we’d come through, and a panel at the far end blocked the exit, sealing us in. There was a message on the right wall this time, smeared in crimson lettering.
The blood debt must be paid.
That only raised further questions as to what the hell was going on. I expected there’d be more enemy undead to rise and claim the Slayers’ toll before they’d let us continue, but we’d probably have to start across the room to trigger the attack again. At least this time they wouldn’t catch us completely unawares.
A fresh wave of adrenaline pumped through my system, renewing my body’s fight or flight response. I was already letting my rage rise, though I didn’t let it loose yet, waiting for the first sign of danger to appear before giving it free rein. Fur threatened to break through my skin, causing the familiar itching. But like with my rage, I held my lupine shape there, just beneath the surface but not allowing it to take over my human form. I didn’t want to let the change take hold until we knew the nature of whatever lurked in this chamber, be it more zombies or some other type of monster the Slayers were pitting us against. If it was something I could fight in human form I knew I’d be better saving my energy, much as I looked forward to the savage joy of giving in to my bestial side once more.
