Vengeance (Hybrid Book 3)

by Nick Stead

  Even though I knew it was hopeless, I was determined to keep fighting till the last breath was torn from my body by the skeletal hand of Death himself. And while I struggled I became aware of the welcome sound of the stone panel door grinding its way back up, revealing our freedom and salvation on the other side. It had to be the Slayers doing but I was too tired to be suspicious and with a final effort of will, I threw the zombies off of me once more and began limping away.

  A part of me was tempted to head straight for the corridor 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 found myself limping towards where I’d seen him go down, to save him if I could.

  The zombies I’d fought off were still following me and I knew I could well die trying to be a hero, when a sigh seemed to pass through the rotting corpses and they collapsed limply, lying still and at rest once again. That puzzled me even more than the door opening, but I had 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.

  Reduced to a pile of rotting flesh and bone, I couldn’t see the vampire beneath the corpses he’d fallen to and I feared I was already too late when nothing stirred. He looked like a cadaver himself as I pulled the dead bodies away, but weakly he accepted my hand and allowed me to help him to his feet.

  “Perhaps Ulfarr is wrong about you. You’re not so bad for a savage beast,” he said, struggling to the doorway. He just made it outside before he collapsed, sitting upright with his back propped against the wall.

  “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?”

  “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, which I guessed was akin to offering me fresh meat when I’d been starving and then asking me to stop halfway through my meal, even if the hunger hadn’t been satiated. But there was also the huge risk that he wouldn’t want to stop, since most older vampires would jump at any excuse to kill me as a result of the prejudice they bore for my kind, 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. And yet it wasn’t like we had much choice. 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 instincts advising me to remain cautious.

  “You’re weak as well. 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. And if I didn’t take care of myself first, I was likely to pass out from any more blood loss, so I began to limp back into the chamber. My muscles were trembling with exhaustion and I soon found myself back on my hands and knees, crawling to the meal my body craved.

  I collapsed beside one of the fresher corpses, panting from the exertion. Picking myself back up was an effort, but the hunger seized control of my battered body and forced me to crouch over the rotting meat and rip off a chunk. The cold, dead flesh was a far cry from the warmth of the fresh kill I longed for but I swallowed 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 to make sure I’d have the energy for another transformation when something else attacked, 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, which his body seemed to be doing out of habit, even after all this time of existing as one of the undead. I was wary of letting him fall into a state of death, thinking he would be less likely to be able to control his feeding when I attempted to bring him back with my blood if he lost consciousness and latched onto me through instinct rather than choice. But he still seemed to be clinging to his hold on this world, 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 the confidence I would otherwise have carried myself with. If my instincts reacted so strongly to this thing I was sensing then it probably wouldn’t matter whether I was at full strength when I faced it or not. I was likely still doomed either way.

  Zeerin looked even more of a cadaver when I knelt beside him. His skin looked even paler and his lips had darkened, like I’d seen in sleeping vampires. They seemed to revert to a corpse-like state during the day until they rose again at nightfall, but if Zeerin didn’t feed soon then his corpse-like state would be semi-permanent. Lady Sarah had 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, offering him 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. I gritted my teeth against the pain of the sharp points piercing my flesh and tried to concentrate on the surrounding darkness, listening for any sounds of approaching danger. Though 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 as a result of the sheer agony of the transformation, not to mention everything else I’d been through, the sensation of him drawing the blood from my vein was deeply unpleasant and I suspected there
’d be bruising when he was done, at least until I healed through shifting again.

  As the minutes dragged on I began to feel my renewed strength ebbing away with the blood flowing into the vampire, while he was growing stronger again. My heart pumped harder in an effort to keep my life force circulating round my body and I grew light headed. I could no longer focus on my surroundings over the sound of my heartbeat thudding in my ears, and my vision swam.

  “Zeerin,” I grunted and tried to push him off, but 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, made all the more fierce for the bloody mask it had become, both from the wounds he’d sustained and blood that had trickled down his chin while feeding on me. 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 but when my vision cleared I could see that the vampire was fully healed, leaving no trace of the wounds I and the zombies had dealt him, 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. Beating that hunger back into submission was no easy feat, especially after a partial feeding had given it rise to take control, my blood calling to it as strongly as the moon called to my lupine side. I knew it must be costing Zeerin every ounce of willpower he possessed to fight it so I did as he instructed, despite my instincts urging us to start moving again.

  The glint of metal caught my eye from amidst the carnage left in the aftermath of our battle with the reanimated corpses. I left the vampire waging his inner battle and went to investigate, kneeling down to find a pendant which looked to be made from amethyst, attached to a silver chain. Movement from the corner of my eye made me glance back at Zeerin to find he had regained his human visage, all traces of his predatory nature gone, on the outside at least, before turning back to the pendant. I reached out to grab it, stopping when the tip of the vampire’s cutlass pressed into my neck. I hadn’t even been aware of him moving, that unearthly speed and agility allowing him to cross the distance between us too swiftly and silently for me to sense.

  “Keep your filthy paws off,” he hissed.

  “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,” Zeerin answered, tucking the pendant back under his shirt. I couldn’t help but notice the way the amethyst was deep purple at the bottom, bleeding through to clear about halfway up, like it was a vial with some liquid inside that connected 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.”

  The pirate captain breathed deeply as if to calm himself and replied “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 Zeerin. 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 chamber with the zombies, the stone stained crimson where the vampire 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 beside me, 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 we 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 more enemy undead to rise and spill whatever amount of blood the Slayers demanded of us to pay the toll before we could continue on, 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.

  With the rotting meat I’d taken from the corpses in readiness to fuel another transformation, I felt more alive as a fresh wave of adrenalin pumped through my system, renewing my body’s fight or flight response. I was already letting my rage rise, though I didn’t free it 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 room, 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 nature again.

  We stalked across the room, ready to attack anything that moved. But the attack never came. Even when we stepped up to the door on the other side, still the room remained devoid of any enemies for us to fight.

  Searching the perimeter of the room also brought up nothing of interest. No hidden doors appeared and the mechanism to free us from this latest prison remained elusive. But whatever sadistic motives were at work here, I doubted the Slayers would seal us in with no way out when they’d already had us caught in similar chambers where they could have just left us to rot.

  “We must be missing something,” Zeerin said. “Try searching the ground – there might be something buried in the soil we can use.”

  “That’s going to take forever,” I groaned, feeling like I’d rather have something to fight.

  “What other choice do we have? You can try smashing your way through the door if you want but you already broke your hand once trying to escape from one of these rooms. If this is some elaborate test, I think we’ll have more luck trying to solve whatever puzzle this is.”

  The vampire’s words made sense and I was much more willing to listen to reason since allowing my mind to become whole again, though the impatience of my human side would always be there, and the need for violence. Part of me would have rather just summoned the rage and attempted to use brute force now I had the energy to transform and the greater strength of my lupine nature to call on. But the rash impulsiveness of my human side was now balanced out by the patience of the wolf in me, my predatory nature forcing me to be patient when the time called for it. A hunt would always be more successful through stalking prey and waiting for the opportune moment to strike, rather than blindly running head long into the herd and hoping to bring down an animal. For a mortal wolf anyway, and my lupine instincts were a relic of my wolf ancestry, before the curse had allowed us to become so much more than any mortal beast could ever be. Much as I’d always favoured the quickest approach as a human, it wasn’t always the most effective.

  The minutes dragged on as we sifted throu
gh the dirt, trying to find the answer to this riddle we were trapped in. It was Zeerin who found the first clue: a stone slab in the far left corner of the room which seemed to be some kind of a pressure pad, the weight of us stepping on it affecting some hidden mechanism with an audible click. But the door remained shut so there had to be more to it than that.

  I found a similar stone in the left corner at the opposite end of the chamber, and moments later we found a third halfway along the wall on the right side. At first it seemed like we needed to place something on all three at once to open the door, so Zeerin disarmed, laying his cutlass and pistols on the stone slab on the right. We each took up position on the pressure pads on the left, but even once we were both in place, still nothing happened.

  Closer inspection of each of the slabs revealed there to be a groove which sloped downwards in the one on the right, and it was also a lot bigger than the other two. There was a small hole at the end of the groove, just wide enough for me to poke one of my long, skinny fingers down. It felt like the hole was in fact the opening to a little tunnel carved into the stone, but it was longer than my fingers so whatever was at the end remained a mystery. I tried digging round the stone to get a look at the other end, but the soil wasn’t particularly deep in this chamber and it was rock beneath, which the stone slab was set into.