by Stead, Nick
A werewolf loomed over me, blood on its jaws and death in its eyes. I was no longer one of the undead, just a human again, body frail with mortality. The zombies ripped me apart in seconds. Like piranhas, they stripped me to the bone. A last dying scream escaped my mouth, the end drawing nearer. And then came the sound of real enemies somewhere on the edge of consciousness, beyond the nightmare, and I fought my way back to the waking world.
* * *
Lady Sarah was already alert beside me. Predatory brown eyes stared straight ahead, her body still as a snake waiting to strike. They were stealthy for humans, but for all the Slayers’ training and technology, it was no match for our supernatural senses.
It had only been three nights since the battle in my hometown. I hadn’t expected them to send more so quickly after our victory, or for them to find us so soon after leaving the area. But how they’d located us didn’t really matter. It didn’t change the fact we had become the hunted.
Of all the deaths I’d caused in that fight, only one weighed on my conscience. For the blood ties and the bonds of family are difficult to break, and on some level I supposed I had loved my dad, though such emotions had been hard to find in my heart towards the end, once my rage had broken free and consumed me. To say I grieved for him would not be entirely accurate but in the aftermath of the battle, when my rage had subsided, there were the stirrings of guilt such as I had not felt in months.
What troubled my conscience the most was the thought of the destruction I had wrought on the lives of Mum and Amy. In losing both me and Dad that night their world had surely been left in ruins, by my own hand. It pained me to think of the heartbreak I must have caused them, whenever I was given the chance to dwell on it.
I rose beside the vampire, stiff and aching from sleeping on the hard floor. She relied on me to watch over her during the daylight hours, and I had been allowed a few hours of rest while she watched over me in return. But sleep had not been easy since the curse had given rise to nightmares, and sleeping rough had only added to my problems with insomnia. I was not adjusting well to the new way of life, caught somewhere between the worlds of man and nature, but belonging to neither.
Nothing had been the same since becoming a werewolf roughly a year ago. Day by day I’d lost a little more of my humanity, until I knew I could live among humans no more. The battle had brought with it the final realisation that I had to leave my old life behind and move on, or risk hurting my remaining loved ones. That was proving to be more of a challenge than I’d expected. It had been all I’d known prior to this new, harsh lifestyle I’d suddenly found myself in. And after years of living in the world of modern comforts, it was something of a shock to the system to be without all that which most people take for granted.
As well as missing my bed, I found myself longing for a shower more than my teenage, human self would ever have anticipated. There had been no time to wash since the battle and my body was covered in dried blood and filth, as well as my own grease and sweat. And while I had become accustomed to living with hunger when I’d been captured and starved by the Slayers, it was already becoming a constant sensation which only added to my discomfort.
Lady Sarah had promised to teach me how to survive in the shadows, and the first lesson had been to hunt only small prey which would attract less attention, or to scavenge when possible. I’d not been permitted to eat my fill since before the battle. Such small morsels as rabbits and birds could only ever take the edge off the hunger – I needed far more meat to satiate my unnatural appetite.
The Slayers had my full attention now, stomach growling as I locked eyes on them. Then there was the hatred. I still blamed them, in part, for bringing my human life to an end, and I let it awaken my anger, constantly smouldering within the darkest recesses of my very being. A growl rumbled deep in my throat and my lips pulled back to bare bloodied teeth, ready for a fight.
“No, Nick,” Lady Sarah whispered.
“Why? There’s only a handful of them.”
“No, we must choose our fights carefully if we are to win this war.”
I ignored her and let the transformation take hold, wanting to revel in the destructive power of my lupine body once more. I hungered but it was no longer the mere craving for human flesh that drove me. No, I thirsted for blood and hungered for death, for slaughter. I had developed a need to kill, born of the rage and bloodlust awoken by the curse, all the more potent for the waxing moon. In fighting the Slayers I could indulge my dark desires, but it was more than that. I embraced my rage because it kept the guilt and the pain at bay, and I felt I needed to lose myself in the bloodlust to avoid falling back into the dark pit of despair I’d been in the previous winter.
“Foolish boy!” Lady Sarah hissed. “Do you not recognise the spellcaster from three nights past? It is a fight we cannot win.”
“Don’t treat me like I’m some mortal kid anymore,” I snarled, but suddenly my skin felt as if it were burning all over again. The memory of the witch I’d faced flashed through my mind – she who had nearly ended my life, if Lady Sarah hadn’t been there to save me. Much as I hated to admit it, the vampire was right. The spellcasters could easily have been the end of the army we’d gathered for that fight, and between their power and the guns we would face from the mortal Slayers, the two of us alone couldn’t hope to defeat them.
“There is no shame in tactical retreat,” she said in a gentler tone, her face taking on a rare hint of kindness, her eyes almost warm.
“Tactical retreat,” I snorted. “Call it what you want, it’s still running.”
But I let my anger burn back down to the embers deep within, though I didn’t reverse the few changes that had already begun, intending to take the transformation all the way to my faster wolf form.
“There is no time,” Lady Sarah said. “We have to go, now!”
She took off, leaving me no choice but to sprint after her in my current shape. I couldn’t keep the change up whilst moving – it was too awkward to run on shifting flesh and bone.
Even in human form, I was still faster than any mortal. Lady Sarah let me set the pace and ran effortlessly beside me, graceful and agile as only we paranormal predators could be. Within minutes we had covered enough of a distance to be safely out of range of the group of would-be hunters – the mortals and their guns at any rate. I still had much to learn about the supernatural world I’d been dragged into and I could only guess at the rules of witchcraft. Were there any limitations on spells over a distance? If it were as easy as chanting an incantation to strike down enemies anywhere on the planet then they would have surely killed us already, wouldn’t they? So I had to assume there was some kind of a range on witchcraft as well, but what that range was perhaps only the witches and warlocks themselves knew. From the look of determination on Lady Sarah’s face, I guessed she didn’t plan on stopping until we’d put a few hundred miles between us and the spellcaster. It looked like we would be spending the remainder of the night on the run.
“Wait,” I growled, coming to a stop and scenting the air. “Don’t you smell that?”
Lady Sarah lifted her own nose to the wind and a snarl twisted her features. “Fire.”
“Over there,” I pointed. The unmistakable scent of smoke was thick and unpleasant to my sensitive nose, and as we watched, the faint glow of flames could be seen creeping through the darkness. “Coincidence?”
“We cannot take that chance. If it is the work of witchcraft it could be our undoing. Come, this way.”
“Wait,” I repeated. “There’s another group of Slayers closing in. It’s a trap; they want us to keep running so they can catch us between the fire and their guns.”
“Then we must keep going towards the flames and hope we can outrun the blaze before it spreads too far round.”
“Fuck that, we need to fight our way out!”
“If we stand and fight we will die,” she argued.
“And since when has running into a trap ever been a good idea
? If we keep going they’ll kill us. If we fight we have a chance to escape, and at least if we do die we can take some of them down with us. What are you so afraid of?”
She bared her fangs again. “I fear nothing. But I have not survived all these centuries by being reckless.”
“Fine, you keep running. I’m staying to face them.”
Without waiting for any further response from her, I let my anger rise once more, my blood boiling as it coursed through my veins. There was a savage joy at the feral power surging through my body, all vestiges of human weakness falling prey to the might of the wolfish features taking hold. But there was no time to take it all the way to full wolf, so I chose to fight in the hybrid form I’d been trapped in by mistake one cold December night, but had since grown to enjoy.
Where not so long ago there’d been horror at the excruciating sensation of my body becoming monstrous, I now embraced the agony of my face stretching out into a muzzle, teeth blunt and pathetic growing into natural weapons to rip and tear the flesh from my enemies. The sound of the approaching Slayers was suddenly sharper as my ears became pointed and slithered up to the top of my head, their scent stronger to my superior canine nose. The smell of the smoke was almost unbearable and somewhere within my mind I felt the wolf’s instinctive response to flee. But my rage was stronger than the wolf’s fear, and as ever my bloodlust rose with it, bringing the overwhelming need to hunt and kill. My hunger also intensified and with an excited howl I bounded forward to meet the Slayers in battle once more.
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HUNTED will be available on Amazon soon.
See all of Nick’s books on his author page.
US: amazon.com/Nick-Stead/e/B010LSHNJ6
UK: amazon.co.uk/Nick-Stead/e/B010LSHNJ6
About the Author
A lifelong fan of supernatural horror and fantasy, Nick spends his days prowling the darker side of fiction, often to the scream of heavy metal guitars and the purrs of his feline companions.
Fate set him on the path of the writer at the tender age of 15. The journey has been much longer and harder than his teenage self ever anticipated, but 17 years later he is still forging ahead.
Nick is best known for his Hybrid series. He has also had short stories published in various anthologies, and will soon be releasing his first non-Hybrid novel based on the true story of the Pendle witches.
For more information about Nick, Hybrid, and other works visit: www.nick-stead.co.uk. Don’t forget to sign up to his newsletter to keep up to date with upcoming releases and signing events, and receive a free short story, exclusive to the mailing list.
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Also By Twisted Fate Publishing
CHRONICLES OF THE FALLEN
By Gareth Clegg
Vol 1: The Crowman
Vol 2: Babylon
Vol 3: Coming Sep 2020
——————————
THE HYBRID SERIES
By Nick Stead
Hybrid
Hunted - coming 2020
Vengeance - coming 2020
Damned - coming 2020
IF YOU ENJOYED HYBRID
Look out for
THE CROWMAN
The Crowman is the first novella in a Weird West / Supernatural Western Horror series from Amazon best selling author Gareth Clegg.
Available from Amazon
THE CROWMAN (Sample)
Chronicles of the Fallen Vol One
The sun squeezed the sweat from my tanned skin as relentless waves of heat burned across the barren rocky wasteland. I adjusted my wide-brimmed hat, keeping the glare from my eyes, and cursed the long duster draping from my shoulders. I’d be glad of it once the merciless red orb dropped and the temperatures plummeted, but for now, it was a hindrance. I struggled on through the badlands, near ready to collapse.
A rocky outcrop provided a sliver of shade, and I sat, thankful for the relief from the intense burning sun. My canteen was dry, but I squeezed out a few tiny drops that had been hiding somewhere inside. One of them missed my mouth, splashing into my eye. “Damn it.”
With a heavy sigh, I battled on, planting one foot before the other. It couldn’t be much further now, could it? A loud caw brought me back to my senses, and I sought the origin of the sound.
A single crow picked at the remains of a tribal warrior, his face painted black from the mouth down. The body carried fresh claw marks from something large, bloody streams running across his chest and dripping into the dark sand. The bird didn’t notice my approach and continued pecking the last juicy remnants of his eye. Fleshy strings pulled taut, until the surrounding muscle tore free, then was greedily devoured.
It chugged the tasty morsel down before turning its dead eyes on me, the throaty caw a warning to keep away from its meal. With a blink, its semi-opaque eyelid slid from left to right, and it spread its wings with a mighty flap, taking to the sky. After circling three times, it headed south.
Glancing back to the corpse, there was just an area of discoloured sand resembling the shape of a body. I shielded my eyes, gazing up to track the crow, but that had gone too. “Shit, I need to get out of this sun.”
Everything shifted, and I was speeding through the air as the arid terrain passed far below. In the distance, a mass of dark birds circled over a small town. As I approached, they swirled, forming a black cyclone before plummeting to the ground, coalescing into a human form.
The last thing I recalled was the shadowy figure walking towards a two-storey building where faded writing proclaimed the dilapidated place as ‘The Lucky Dollar Saloon’. As it passed beneath the battered sign, hanging at an odd angle from rusted nails, it turned, staring right at me.
I woke with a start, dripping with sweat. A lightning storm raged outside, and my heart thundered in my chest, pumping ice through my veins. I rolled over, placing my feet onto the packed earth of the bunkhouse floor. That was the fifth occurrence of the same dream on consecutive nights. Shit like that didn’t happen without reason in my experience.
So, next stop Providence, and The Lucky Dollar.
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The Crowman is available on Amazon now along with the rest of Gareth’s books.
US: Amazon.com/author/garethclegg
UK: Amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07TW6LRML
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REVIEWS FOR THE CROWMAN
“Weird West at Its Best” — “Spellbinding” — “Mystic Wild West” — Western with a supernatural twist” — “A fun twist on a western/ gunslinger story. Short but sweet, worth a read” — “I’ve read quite a few books on Kindle, this is the first one that I put everything aside to finish” — “What really drew me into this story was the characters. In addition to the primary male lead, who was AWESOME, we have a female character who holds her own…and, her part of the story” — “A great novella that leaves you wanting more” — “I could not put this book down, brilliant.”