by Stead, Nick
There was one other set of familiar features waiting for me in that room. He looked exactly as I’d last seen him, the mortal counterpart to the face the Reaper had chosen in the space between life and death. No emotion was evident in those grey eyes as they locked on mine. The older Slayer was also armed, his gun trained on me as I entered the room.
I stalked forward on all fours, my body more wolf than human. The rush of blood through the veins of the three humans sung to my dark desires, but I fought my lust as best I could, trying to keep a clear head. Charging forward may well be the death of me that time, or at the very least the death of Amy. David might show the same weakness so many other humans had before him, but I suspected the other Slayer had been tried and tested in battle countless times, and I’d seen enough evidence to know he’d long since mastered his fear. His aim would remain true.
The sound of gunfire came from further down the dungeon. My allies were locked in their own fight, then. I couldn’t rely on any of them coming to my aid, not if the Slayers had brought in enough reinforcements to even the odds. The chances of me rescuing Amy and killing the two Slayers were looking slim.
My mind raced, trying to come up with a plan. It was frustratingly blank. I had no idea how I was going to win this one.
“Here he is,” David said, his eyes flashing with dark triumph. He seemed to be enjoying this latest turn of events, even though his original grand scheme hadn’t quite gone to plan. “See what a monster your brother’s turned into?”
Tears rolled down Amy’s cheeks. “Why are you doing this? You’ve known us for years. Nick’s been your best friend for years. Please, just let us go.”
“That thing is not my friend!” He turned his gaze on me again. “Haven’t you told her about everything you’ve done, beast?”
I growled. Trying to talk my way out of the situation wasn’t an option. My vocal cords were too far gone to form more than the odd recognisable word, with ever increasing difficulty.
“He can’t even speak up for himself,” David sneered. “Shall I fill her in then? We both know Amy’s too stupid to put two and two together herself. She probably hasn’t figured out yet that all those half eaten bodies were down to you.”
“I’m not stupid, I know he’s killed people. I don’t care, he’s still my brother and he doesn’t deserve to die!”
“Doesn’t he? Even after he killed your new friend Hannah? Or how about Melissa – did he tell you that was him?”
“He wasn’t in control; it’s not his fault,” Amy insisted, but she sounded less sure of herself. David knew full well it would hurt me more if she died believing me to be the monster he saw me as, filled with anger and hating me for everything I’d done.
“What about your dad? You know that was him too, don’t you?”
“Stop lying, he wouldn’t hurt Dad! Why do you care about any of them anyway?”
“I don’t. The one I cared about was Fiona. Our friend; you remember her don’t you, beast? She was our friend, and you hunted her down and ate her like she was just another piece of meat. How could you?”
“Well he obviously can’t control it or he wouldn’t have killed anyone,” Amy argued for me. “It doesn’t mean you have to kill him. He needs help. Please, David, just let us go and we can find some way to lock him up at full moon and stop him hurting anyone else.”
“You really are thick if you think that will work. He’s got a taste for humans now. Haven’t you, beast? Why don’t you tell her about all the hunting you’ve been doing in broad daylight and on the nights that weren’t a full moon? Oh that’s right, I forgot for a moment there you can’t tell us anything while you’re like that.”
“And what about me? I haven’t done anything. Aren’t you a murderer if you kill me?”
“It’s not murder when the thing you’re killing isn’t human.”
“What?”
Another throb stabbed through my body, making me growl again. David turned his attention back to me, ignoring her question. His crazed brain probably hadn’t even registered the fact his response had made no sense, probably hearing my sister’s question in his head as if she were still talking about me and not herself.
“I believe you’ve already met my friend here,” he said, gesturing to the older man. “I wanted to make sure nothing went wrong this time, and he’s probably the best marksman the Slayers have got. If I’d had my way, I’d have filled the entire base with their most highly trained recruits, instead of all those fools I’ve been stuck with. But trying to convince the more competent members to join our cause was taking too long, so we’ve had to make do. It already feels like I’ve been waiting too many years for this; there’s no way I’m letting you escape now. I will have my revenge, beast.”
David’s finger twitched on the trigger and I started forward with a growled “No!”
“Shoot to maim,” he commanded the other Slayer, probably wanting to keep to his vision of me watching helplessly while someone I cared about died as much as possible.
The older man did as instructed. His shot was calculated with cruel precision, designed to cause a world of pain without doing any mortal damage. My sensitive ears rang with the explosive sound, the lump of lead thudded through flesh and shattered bone, and David fell to the floor, screaming and clutching his ruined shoulder.
Amy added her voice to the ensuing chaos. I bounded forward, unsure why the older Slayer had betrayed his current leader or why he hadn’t take the opportunity to put another bullet through my heart and finish what he’d started out on the moors. But for reasons I couldn’t even begin to guess at, he lowered his gun and slipped away before I could attack him, retreating through the hidden door and into the main part of the base. He must have known the temptation to take revenge on David would be too great for me to resist, keeping me from going after him. But I couldn’t fathom why he wouldn’t just kill me while he had me at his mercy.
My attention shifted solely to David and all thoughts of the seasoned Slayer were forgotten.
“Nick, no!” Amy screamed.
I ignored her and grabbed his leg, savaging it with such ferocity that the tissue turned to bloody strips. It took only seconds. The flesh hung as uselessly off the bone as the shredded material of his jeans, the limb reduced to no more than a piece of chewed up meat. I dropped the leg and prepared to attack another part of him.
“Nick, you don’t have to do this,” Amy pleaded with me. “Let the police deal with him. You don’t have to be the monster he says you are.”
I paused to turn and look at her, managing to growl another “No.”
“Please, Nick. You don’t have to kill him. Prove you’re better than he is.”
If speaking had been easier, I might have tried to explain to her why we couldn’t go to the police. I might even have tried to justify the decision to kill him as being for our own good, since he was a danger to anyone I cared about for as long as he lived. Instead I just growled “Vengeance.”
David was shaking uncontrollably with the pain, but he managed another laugh. That only fed my anger. I wanted him to suffer for as long as possible before killing him, but there was only so much I could do now my body was settling into full wolf form. My forelegs and paws weren’t designed for swiping like a cat, and I had no opposable thumbs for holding limbs to break them. Gripping things in my jaws without doing too much damage was no easy task, and my bite would make short work of his body parts if I just set about ravaging his body. Then again, I probably didn’t have the luxury of taking too long to kill him with the Slayers out in force. But I did have one idea for dragging out his suffering a little longer.
I placed a paw on his shoulder and dug my claws into the bullet hole as best I could, making him scream again at the pressure on all those damaged nerves. My vocal cords still hadn’t quite fully transformed and I was able to snarl “Beg.”
I released the pressure after a few moments, letting his pain subside just long enough for him to speak. My inner darknes
s wanted to hear him beg for his life, to cry for mercy or maybe even plead for me to end the torment. It was no less than he deserved after the way he’d let Amy plead with him. But David only laughed again, his hatred giving him strength. So I pressed on the wound a second time.
“Beg.”
“Is that all you can say?” he managed during the next reprieve, his breathing ragged. “You can’t even face me like a man, hiding behind the wolf. Monster.”
“Beg!”
It took several attempts but finally he began to scream for me to stop, to let him go or kill him and be done with it. I took my paw off the wound and a faraway look crossed his eyes as he gasped “At least I’ll see her again.”
“No,” I snarled. “To Hell.”
Amy was still screaming but I lost myself in the bloodlust then, savaging every inch of his body until he was no longer recognisable as human. His face was certainly beyond being identified by even the closest of family, bloody furrows running down it and through one eye, his nose and lips. Bones lay shattered, guts strewn around, and more ragged strips of flesh hung from the remains. Blood oozed from severed veins and arteries. There was little hope of him rising from the grave, his mortal being lying in too many pieces. I only hoped his spirit was bound for Hell as I’d tried to say to him, so he could suffer eternally for the innocents he’d tormented and killed for no reason other than to hurt me. He didn’t deserve to see Fiona again in the afterlife.
Finally I rose up from the darkness, enough to refocus on the need to save Amy. I was able to growl one last word before the transformation completed, and my vocal cords became incapable of human speech.
“Follow.”
I led Amy through the same door the older Slayer had used. It was down to sheer luck the panel had opened for us, probably while I’d been savaging David’s leg. He must have had the little keychain device for it in his pocket. I guessed my bite had activated it at some point during the attack, saving us the trouble of searching for it to make our escape.
Amy refused to look at me. She did follow me up the flight of stairs at least, and we emerged onto a deserted corridor. It wouldn’t stay that way for long though. I could hear shouting and humans on the move, footsteps coming our way.
The fighting still seemed to be going on around the area where the main base connected to the dungeon. I wanted to help my friends, but taking Amy into the middle of a battle would almost certainly get her killed. We needed to stay clear of the fighting if I was going to see her safely out of the building, as I’d sworn I would.
I loped off in the opposite direction to the approaching Slayers, trusting Amy to continue shadowing me. It took a few twists and turns for me to get my bearing, but at least we were successfully evading our enemies.
They had to be hunting for us, or why else would they be moving through the base when there was a fight going on? I dared to hope we might slip by them all without the need for any more bloodshed. Repaying David for everything he’d put us through was enough to satiate the darkness for the time being. I was focused on saving Amy’s life again, and if that meant staying out of the carnage, then so be it. My revenge on the other two Slayers I’d promised to kill would have to wait.
I had a rough idea of which section of the base we were in now, based on when I’d first been through with Zee, and I was able to lead us in a more meaningful direction. We began heading for the exit, all the while avoiding the Slayers as best we could. But I should have known it was never going to be that easy. I should have known it was only a matter of time before they found us. After all, there were only so many places to run and hide.
We were already partway along a corridor when another group started to come our way. They forced us to turn back and find a different route, only for a second group of Slayers to head us off, trapping us between the two. I realised then I’d forgotten about the security cameras overhead. They’d probably been watching our progress and planning their move all along, knowing their best chance to take me was if they had me cornered with Amy. They knew I’d want to take as little risk of her getting hurt as possible, giving them more power over me than if I’d been alone.
“Come quietly and we’ll let your sister go,” a woman said. Up until that point, I hadn’t noticed any women in the entire place, though whatever twisted reason David had for surrounding himself with only men was anyone’s guess. Maybe he’d thought women were too much of a distraction or he didn’t want to risk more female beauties being disfigured by my ravaging jaws. But he’d been fine with sacrificing Hannah so perhaps there was more to it than that, or perhaps madness needed no reason.
I growled in response, not trusting them to keep their word. I wanted to tell Amy to keep down but luckily Zee’s hold over her was still strong enough to stop her panicking, and she had the sense to try the nearest door. It was open and she was able to duck into the empty room. Then I charged, intent on killing the group ahead of me.
A hail of bullets flew my way. Some grazed my flesh but they otherwise missed their mark, thudding harmlessly into the walls. Several found their way into friendly targets, the Slayers apparently too set on killing me to worry about the risk to their allies. Then I was on the woman who’d spoken, crushing the life from her throat in a single bite.
Her mangled neck gushed blood as she gurgled with the struggle to keep breathing, one of her hands pressed to the wound. I rose from her and grabbed the ankle of the next man, dragging him to the ground hard enough that his head smacked against the floor and knocked him unconscious. A trickle of blood leaked from the back of his skull.
The other two fell to more bullets as the group of Slayers opened fire behind. I yipped for my sister, hoping she’d realise I wanted her to run while they reloaded. But she stayed crouched in a corner of the room, hugging her knees and keeping her head down. If I’d been human I would have cursed. It looked like I was going to have to deal with the second group as well.
I turned and charged again, lunging for the nearest man. My jaws closed around his gun hand just as he was about to fire, and the bullet embedded itself in the floor.
Flesh tore beneath my fangs as I pulled him into the path of the next gunshot and he collapsed, leaking blood from the hole in his head. I let go of the corpse and pounced on the man who’d just fired, killing him with another bite to the neck. Behind me, I was aware of the last two taking aim. I just managed to dodge their bullets, then I was twisting to grab my third victim and pull him to his death as well.
My fangs closed on another arm but the Slayers anticipated what was coming this time, and his comrade leapt backwards, reloading as she went. I felt a snap in my jaws and heard the crack of bone. The man screamed, disabled by the pain. I let go to attack the woman, but her gun went off as my paws slammed into her chest. New agony exploded through my left foreleg.
I yelped as we hit the floor, the limb collapsing under me. My bone felt like it had been shattered into a thousand useless splinters, incapable of taking my weight. Luckily the woman’s gun was torn from her hand by the impact, and I was able to struggle back up to my three good legs without taking any more bullets.
Running would be difficult now. I was going to have to limp as best I could, but it was the kind of wound that may well get us killed. The thought brought my rage back to the surface and I wrapped my jaws around the woman’s skull, crushing it in a warm wave of blood and brains.
Amy didn’t come out until that last Slayer died. She still wouldn’t look at me and she didn’t say anything about my injured leg. But she continued to follow as we pressed on. In a way, I was glad of her giving me the silent treatment, her anger and disappointment keeping any questions about the truth of what happened to Dad at bay. Or maybe she was just in denial. Not that I could have answered her in wolf form, but they were still the kind of questions I wanted to avoid regardless.
More Slayers seemed to wait for us at every twist and turn after that. Somehow we managed to keep moving without having to engage any of them, and t
hen we were nearing the exit and our freedom was almost in sight.
I put on an extra burst of speed, limping as fast as I could manage. The sound of more footsteps brought me to a halt. They were heading our way and I doubted we’d slip past without being seen. Not with my injury slowing me and Amy’s lack of supernatural powers or training. I was going to have to kill this group as well.
“What’s wrong?” Amy whispered.
I turned and tried to motion for her to take cover again, but she just frowned. A growl of frustration rumbled through my chest. Would she have the sense to keep out of the way when I made my move?
The footsteps were growing louder. She had to hear them too, and I prayed that would be enough to keep her from following me into battle. Then I was limping forward again, ready to meet them as they rounded the corner.
Three shocked faces gawped at me in horror. I leapt on one of the women and smashed her into the wall, her head smacking against it with enough force to crack it open. A smear of blood appeared on the stone and she slid to the floor.
Two guns pointed at my head and I fell back to my good leg. They went off a second later, putting holes in the space where my head had been.
I went for the other woman, aiming for her arm. But a wave of dizziness came over me, my bullet wound leaking too much blood. My aim was off and my jaws snapped on air, my good legs in danger of collapsing now.
Their guns were lining up another killing shot. I tried to remind myself what was at stake, tried to focus on the danger to Amy’s life if I didn’t get her out of the base. Desperation beat back the weakness and I found the strength to lunge again, my jaws closing on a leg.
Fingers were squeezing on the triggers, but I had hold of the woman and I pulled her off balance. Her shot went wild and the bullet found its way into her ally. He screamed and dropped his gun, cursing as he clutched his injured side.
