by Stead, Nick
The clash of steel rang in my head, my memories intact. Part of me wanted to ask Selina about what had happened and whether she knew anything about the beast who’d saved me from the Reaper’s clutches. But my first concern was of course my sister.
“Easy there, chummer,” Gwyn said. He placed a hand on my bare chest, gentle but firm as he forced me back down.
Growling, I turned my head to find Lady Sarah sat cold and distant as ever to one side of the room. Selina crouched over Amy. The witch seemed to have recovered in the time it had taken for us to fight our way out of the state between life and death. As best I could make out she was tending to my sister, who seemed to be alive and conscious. I breathed a sigh of relief and sent up a silent prayer to whatever gods might exist.
My body felt drained from the stress of reaching that place where the Reaper waited. A deep ache ran through muscles stiff and protesting at every little movement. There was no wonder Selina had needed some time to recover. After all, she was only human. She might be longer lived than most but she was still prone to the same vulnerability of her flesh as any other mortal. The wolf blood running through my veins meant I was regaining my strength much quicker, even without the need to transform, but as always it came at a price.
Hunger stalked through my belly, slowly gaining in power. It was a way off becoming so unbearable that it posed a real threat to my self-control though. I thanked whoever might be listening for that too. The last thing I wanted was to be battling the temptation to prey on my own sister.
“Let me up,” I said.
Gwyn looked doubtful and I thought I was going to have another fight on my hands. Let him try. I’d easily overpower him in his human form if it came to it. Only the vampires would successfully keep me down.
“Best do as he says,” Zee advised. “A werewolf’s body can withstand a lot more than a human. He isn’t going to be as weak as Selina was when she first came round, and we’re here if his strength does fail him.”
There was genuine concern in Gwyn’s eyes, and a reluctance to go along with things. “Okay but don’t play the dumb macho wolf – if you need a hand standing or anything let us help, yeah?”
“Just let me up already.”
They backed off and I managed to pull myself into a sitting position without too much trouble. I could see more of Selina and Amy once I was upright and felt fresh fear. The gashes from my claws still gaped open, in ghastly contrast to my sister’s pale skin.
I got to my feet. Muscles trembled with the effort but I bullied them into action, wanting to be by Amy’s side. Selina looked up at me as I approached. Relief swept across her tired features and she gave me a warm smile.
“Don’t worry, she’s no longer in danger of dying. Her wounds will need time to heal though and she’s going to be very weak from blood loss, unless she gets a supernatural boost. But she won’t die from these injuries, now Death has released his hold over her.”
“Can’t you use witchcraft to heal the damage?”
“Not without the proper tools and the right incantation.”
“Nick, is that you?” Amy asked.
“I’m here, sis,” I answered.
She didn’t seem to be in any pain at least. I knelt beside her and the sharp smell of spirits cut through the dungeon’s stench. More of Zee’s rum I guessed, to clean the wounds. They’d also made some fresh makeshift bandages, again ripped from Gwyn’s shirt. Selina began binding the lesions with them as I took Amy’s hand, giving it a squeeze.
“I knew you weren’t dead! What’s going on? And why are you naked? Oh my God, is that blood?” Her eyes widened and her voice filled with disgust.
I felt more lost then than I had when she’d been dying. She had a right to know at least some of what was happening and she was going to find out sooner or later about my curse. Then there were all the other horrors she was likely to see, and the nature of my companions. But where did I even begin?
“Zeerin placed her under his spell for you,” Selina murmured in my ear. “It’s keeping her from feeling the pain of her wounds and from any fear or panic that might otherwise arise down here. You should tell her about your lycanthropy now, before we go any further.”
It made sense to get it over with but I felt even more nervous about revealing my dark secret to someone I cared about. Not least because it would mean admitting to being the beast behind all the killings attributed to a ‘rogue wolf’ loose in the country, one of which had been her friend, Mel, and our own father. It didn’t matter whether I confessed to it outright. She might be a dizzy blonde, but she wasn’t stupid. I knew she’d put two and two together eventually.
“Nick, what’s going on?” Amy asked again. Disgust turned to confusion and perhaps a hint of unease, even with Zee’s power keeping her from falling into a state of panic or true terror. “Where are we? And where have you been all these months?”
“I ran away,” I admitted, though those weren’t the words I’d have chosen to use if I’d been talking to anyone else. But it seemed as good a place to start as any and I thought she’d handle the prospect of me being forced to ‘run away from home’ easier than starting with anything along the lines of ‘I left you’.
Hurt mixed with her confusion. “Why? Why would you do that when Mum and Dad always loved us? When I love you! Do you know how worried me and Mum have been? Oh God, do you even know about Dad?”
Her eyes began to tear up, putting a temporary stop to the stream of questions.
“I was there the night he died,” I said. “Believe me when I say I had no choice but to leave, to keep you and Mum from getting killed as well. There’s a lot going on that you don’t know about. It was safer that way, but I suppose now you’ve been dragged into it anyway you deserve an explanation. This might sound crazy though.”
“Crazier than waking up here to find my missing brother naked and covered in blood?”
“Well…” The words were on the tip of my tongue, only my nerves holding me back from just coming out and saying it. I took a deep breath to try and calm the nauseating feeling in my stomach, then forced them out. “I’m a werewolf.”
“Fuck off, I’m not falling for that again. Just tell me the truth, you dick. I’m not a little kid anymore!”
“That is the truth,” I insisted. The thought crossed my mind that it would be easier to just have Zee or Lady Sarah tell her everything whilst using more of their hypnotic power. But I guessed Zee hadn’t done that already out of respect for me, to give me the chance to do it myself. And I knew it should be me to explain everything, reluctant as I was. “I can prove it but just hear me out first.”
“Whatever. And are they all werewolves too?”
“No, those two are vampires, Selina’s a witch and the skinny Welsh man is a kind of spirit who can take human form.” I pointed each of them out to her as I spoke. Then I forced myself to go on, not wanting to transform straight away and overwhelm her with too much at once. “Remember that last night of the summer holidays when I went to the cinema with my mates? And how I slept all day afterwards and didn’t wake up till night time but I wasn’t feeling so well? It’s because I’d been bitten on the way home from the cinema and the moon was still full enough to make me go through my first transformation the night after.”
“But werewolves aren’t real.”
“It’s why I’m stood here naked and bloody. And it’s why I started acting so strangely after that night. You must have noticed how I started to change, how I started to get ‘weirder’ as you’d probably have thought of it. You must remember the sudden break down if nothing else, and my short stay in the mental hospital.”
“Are you sure you’re not just crazy?”
“I did tell you it’d sound crazy, but unfortunately not. This is for real, Amy, and it’s why we’re in this place. There’s people out there who know all about the truth behind the legends and want to wipe us out. And they’ve already proven they’ll use anyone I care about to get at me, which is how y
ou’ve ended up in the middle of all this. After Dad died, I had to leave home to keep you and Mum from getting killed as well. I know it’s a lot to take in but I swear it’s the truth.”
“Well even if you are a werewolf, that’s still no excuse for running around naked. You could at least get ripped shorts or something!”
I just looked at her. Of all the reactions I’d expected, that was not one of them. Though I supposed I should have known she would have some daft question or idea which only she could come up with. But I’d expected her to be more focused on the bit of information I’d just given her about the Slayers, or the fact the dried blood on my skin marked me out as a monster in every sense of the word. Unless that fact hadn’t sunk in yet. Either that or it was Zee’s power influencing her in some way.
“Like the werewolves have in films, you see them all the time,” she continued. “They have to get their ideas from somewhere you know!”
“Amy, it’s not like they have shops for werewolves where we can just buy ripped shorts. In the movies, their clothes rip when they transform and sometimes they get to keep their torn trousers to protect their modesty. This may shock you, but real life isn’t a movie.”
“Well yeah, I’m not stupid.”
“No, just very blonde,” I muttered under my breath.
“But they have to get their ideas from somewhere,” she repeated.
“It doesn’t work like that in real life.” I couldn’t quite keep the exasperation from my voice, but Amy didn’t seem to notice. “When I fully shift I become a wolf, as in, the four legged wild animal I was always obsessed with. Human clothes don’t fit me in that form so I’ve either got to strip off to change or they get ripped while I turn, but they don’t conveniently stay on like in the movies. And then when I turn back, it’s not like there just happens to be clothes lying around I can dress myself in. Plus if I’m having to shift between forms all the time then clothes aren’t really practical. It’s just easier to live without now.”
“Well you could get a wash then. All that dried blood on your skin is just gross,” she said. Her eyes widened again as the realisation I’d been dreading finally hit her. “Oh my God, have you been killing people?”
Zee’s power apparently didn’t keep her from feeling a sense of horror. I couldn’t meet her eyes and words suddenly failed me.
“Please tell me that’s just animal blood, Nick. Please tell me you’re not a killer.”
“I’m sorry, Amy. This is why I wanted to keep you and Mum out of all this.”
She started to retch. Zee stepped in and added to the mental block he’d already got in place for her other emotions. “We are all predators, except the witch. Accept your brother for who he has become and be free of such horror and disgust.”
When he stepped away, she looked calmer again, though not entirely happy with the notion that I was a murderer. I prayed she wouldn’t dwell on things long enough to connect me to Mel’s death, or that she wouldn’t start pressing me for more information on Dad. I’d deliberately made it sound like the Slayers were to blame and I hoped she’d just accept that, rather than reaching the terrible truth of what had happened that night he’d died and I’d just disappeared without warning or any explanation. I’d never intended to find myself in the situation we were in now, and I cursed David for making her go through all this. My only consolation was that the vampires were here with me, and able to make things much easier on her than it would have been without their powers. The last thing I wanted was for her to be scared of me.
“So does this mean you believe me now?”
“I don’t know, Nick. Everyone says there’s no such thing as werewolves. Maybe you are just crazy and you need help.”
“Then let me prove it to you.”
I’d deliberately been putting off showing her the transformation, afraid of how she might react. But I knew it was the only way to get her to truly believe, short of having Zee use his power again. And I felt I’d rather be in my hybrid form, ready for the next fight, than risk being caught unawares as a human, now that it was no longer just my life on the line but Amy’s as well. Death probably wasn’t going to let her slip through his grasp a second time and she alone was truly defenceless amongst us. I had to be ready to defend her from any threats David sent our way.
Locking eyes with my sister, I let the primal fury of my bestial side burn through, feeling the sting of them turning lupine. Doubt turned to shock as bone began to strain beneath my skin, pushing outwards and forcing my flesh to stretch with it.
She watched in a kind of morbid fascination while my body shifted into the very monster I’d so often pretended to be in our childhood games. I dread to think what her reaction might have been if it weren’t for Zee’s hold over her. But his power kept her from feeling any revulsion or fear at the sight of her human brother becoming a nightmarish beast, thank God. I’m not sure my sanity could have coped with that.
Renewed strength surged through me as my body turned lupine once again. Amy seemed to be speechless and just stood gawping at the impossible she was witnessing. I hoped she couldn’t see my predatory instincts stalking behind my eyes as I wrestled a fresh wave of hunger, and I had to remind myself she wasn’t prey.
Except she was prey, as far as my lycanthropy was concerned. And not just any prey – she was wounded prey, weakened and easier to kill. My darker urges pushed for finishing what my claws had started, my mouth watering with the scent of her blood. I fought them in a wave of anger. This was my sister, damn it, not some human victim to feed on. I’d already murdered my father. There was no way I was eating my own sister as well!
It looked like I was going to have to work harder than ever to keep my self-control in place. I supposed I could have Lady Sarah or Zee place me in mental chains if I was really struggling, though I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Perhaps it was no more than foolish pride, but I still wasn’t a fan of subjecting myself to the vampires’ power.
“I don’t mean to break up the family reunion, but we should be on our way now,” Gwyn said. His words helped beat back my predatory instincts.
Amy looked at him, then back at me. “God, Nick. Is it really still you in there?”
“It’s me,” I growled, startling her with my ability to speak through my lupine jaws. “And I swear to you, I’m going to get us out of here in one piece, and get you back to Mum. Gwyn’s right, though – we should be making a move.”
“Okay.” She tried to pick herself up, trembling worse than I’d been from the effort. After a moment she fell back down, her limbs unable to take her weight.
I looked at Selina. “Is she going to be okay to move?”
“She is, but it will take some time before she’s strong enough to walk.”
Inwardly I cursed. Zee voiced the thought for me. “Having to carry her will be a significant handicap in the fights still to come.”
Lady Sarah nodded and got to her feet. “Agreed. I think we should leave her here and come back for her when it is safe to do so.”
“No!” I snarled. I’d still been crouched by Amy but I stood to face the vampire, my anger quick to take over again. “I’m not leaving her till I know she’s back safe with Mum. If we leave her in here, how do we know the Slayers won’t just send something in to kill her while she’s alone and defenceless? Then all the dangers we’ve faced to save her will have been for nowt.”
“I think I have an idea that might work,” Selina said. She closed her eyes, deep in concentration. Moments later the barghest materialised by her side, apparently no worse for wear after our fight with Death, though it still bore the gash across its ribcage.
Following some unspoken command, the shadow beast padded over to Amy and hunkered down beside her. She didn’t seem to know what to make of the creature, and she looked to me for guidance.
It didn’t take me long to realise what Selina’s idea was. “Seriously? You’re offering your familiar for her to ride like some monstrous pony?”
; “Well, do any of you have any better ideas? He’s big enough and he will guard anyone I ask him to as fiercely as he would guard my own life. Our bond runs much deeper than with any mortal animal and their human.”
Lady Sarah spoke up again. “I trust my sister’s judgement. If Selina thinks this will work then we have to try it. At least the rest of us will be free to fight unhindered.”
“I suppose,” I growled, kneeling to help Amy climb onto the shadow dog’s back. Despite being a creature of spirit, as ever he was very much there physically speaking, and my sister was able to sit up on him, resting her hands on either side of his neck to help her balance. I was still doubtful, knowing full well she’d had no horse riding experience before, unless she just happened to have joined a riding school in the time since I’d left.
The warmth in Selina’s eyes had returned. “Don’t worry, Varin will take care of her. Amy is far safer on his back than on any earthly animal.”
“Varin?”
“It means shadow. I needed something to call him by so I could summon him, and names have power. Once you give someone or something a name, you can use it to forge a much stronger connection with them, whether good or bad.”
My curiosity stirred. Ordinarily, I’d have been interested to know more about her familiar and the bond they shared. But I was still acutely aware that time was of the essence. Amy might have been saved from any immediate danger but, if we lingered too long, David may well send more enemies after us. I wouldn’t relax until we’d found a way out of the dungeon and taken her back to the human world where she belonged. My questions would have to wait again.
“Shall we?” Gwyn said, gesturing at the door.
“Yeah, let’s go,” I growled. “Lead on.”
Despite the misgivings I still had about the Welsh spirit, he was the only one of us with any knowledge of the layout of the dungeon we were trapped in. I knew he was our best chance of making it out as quickly and safely as possible. And he had shown some concern for my wellbeing through the dangerous undertaking of facing Death himself, which was more than could often be said for Lady Sarah. I just hoped it was genuine this time, unlike the others I’d placed my trust in who had ultimately proven to be false.
