by Steve Feasey
Jurgen looked up to see Lawrence running towards him. The boy was shouting something at him, waving his hands and pointing towards Ella’s cabin. But Jurgen was too consumed with anger to hear him. The blood that rushed through his veins sounded like a torrential river in his own ears and he shouted out Ella’s name over and over to try and drown out the sound. Something strange had happened to his vision – it had become blurred at the edges and a red veil had descended, as if there were blood in his eyes. He turned to look at Lawrence who had stopped in his tracks, and was now slowly backing up, staring back at him in horror.
That was when Jurgen knew that he wouldn’t need the other two to force the Change. The anger that raged through him now was enough to bring the Change about. This had only happened to him once before when he’d been on his own, deep in the woods. There had been a trespasser and … when he’d come round again the hunter was dead.
He threw back his head and roared at the sky, welcoming the metamorphosis that would turn him into the Wo lfan.
Trey stepped out of Ella’s cabin, wondering what on earth was going on outside. Someone had been screaming her name, bellowing it over and over again.
He threw the door open and stepped outside to see Jurgen, who was kneeling on the floor with his back arched painfully behind him, bellowing like some madman. It had been the Alpha that had been roaring Ella’s name. Trey could see in an instant what was happening – it had happened to him once. But unlike Jurgen, he’d managed to control the change, using everything in his power not to give in to it and succumb to the beast within.
One look at Jurgen told him that he was too far gone to stop the transformation now. The Alpha had fallen forward on to the floor and his body was already horribly distorted. The bones made a grinding noise as they broke, stretched and reset into a new skeleton on which the muscles were already growing and swelling. Trey stared in horror as the human body went through the grotesque change. It was nothing like watching the pack transform together that first time; Jurgen’s body was twisting and contorting in agony, the screams coming from his mouth inhuman and sickening to the ear. Jurgen’s face was already distending, the muzzle appearing to push its way out from the skull, the mouth stretched wide in agony as teeth erupted out of the jaws. Trey watched as fingers disappeared into huge clawed paws that tore at the ground as the pain continued unabated.
Trey caught a flash of movement from the corner of his right eye, and glanced in that direction, registering the look of fear on Lawrence’s face as he sprinted back in the direction of his cabin. Behind Jurgen, another member of the pack was lying face down on the ground, grimacing in pain and clutching at his foot. Trey’s heart hammered in his chest and he was torn between the desire to go and see if he could help the injured man and the stronger desire to stay as far away from the creature – that was almost fully transformed now – as possible.
The Wolfan finally lifted its head, and looked up to see Trey standing there. As soon as the creature’s eyes fell on Trey, it let loose a roar that hurt his ears and echoed around the lake, causing ducks and other creatures on its surface to take for the sky.
Something was wrong. Something about the way that the creature had looked at him sent a terrible cold shudder forking through him, and Trey knew that he was in danger. The creature was almost fully Changed; the last vestiges of the human that it had once been all but gone. Trey stepped back into the cabin, slammed the door and threw the bolts into place to lock it.
33
The four-by-four easily negotiated the large depression in the track, bouncing up the other side and throwing the three occupants out of their seats for a moment. Frank reacted with a low ‘Oof!’ and Ella apologized again for the uncomfortable ride. They’d taken the fastest route they could towards the lake, ignoring the main track, which was much smoother but which looped around the forest and took considerably longer.
‘Please stop apologizing, Ella,’ Frank said. ‘You just concentrate on driving and leave me to worry about whether I’m ever going to walk again when I get out of this thing.’
Marcus had accepted Ella’s offer to drive, taking up a seat in the back of the vehicle, where he’d sat silently throughout the journey. Ella had checked on him in the rear-view mirror a few times during the trip, but he’d always been in the same position – sitting, staring at the floor between his feet, deep in thought. He spoke now, his voice low and difficult to hear over the noise of the tyres on the track. ‘So what’s your plan, old man?’
‘Huh?’
‘Your plan. I assume that you have one, and one that involves the necklace that you were so keen to retrieve. I think that Ella and I have a right to hear what it is.’
Frank squeezed his fingers around the silver chain in his fist, but remained silent. Ella glanced across at him for a second, unwilling to take her eyes off the road for any more than that.
‘I’m going to do what I should have done from the start – I’m going to get my nephew out of this godforsaken place. I’m going to reunite him with this amulet and send him back to England – to be with people that care for him and can look out for him. I don’t know what I was thinking, letting the lad stay here in the first place. This place has always been bad news.’
‘And you think he’ll go?’ Ella said. ‘Just like that?’ She turned the wheel sharply to avoid a large hole in the road, throwing everyone about in the car like rag dolls. ‘What makes you think you can persuade him to go?’
‘He’ll go when he’s heard what I have to say to him,’ Frank said in a voice so low that Ella had to strain to hear it.
‘He came out here to be with you, Frank. You’re the only family he’s got.’
‘Hungh,’ the old man grunted. ‘Some family I turned out to be.’ He tilted his head back to let it rest against the head support on the back of the seat.
‘What about the pack?’ Marcus asked.
Frank sniffed and wiped his face with the back of his hand. ‘To hell with the pack,’ he said. ‘It’s finished. You two are going to have to deal with that lunatic Jurgen. If he goes quietly, I won’t press charges. If he kicks up a fuss, I’ll have the police here to arrest him on an attempted murder charge.’ He was silent for a second, before adding, ‘If it was up to me, that son of a bitch would be made to pay for what he’s done. He killed Billy …’
Marcus looked up and met Ella’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. The look they shared suggested that neither of them believed it was going to be that easy to get rid of Jurgen and dissolve the pack.
Ella swung the steering wheel round and they cleared the last of the trees, pulling out on to the top of the slope that swung round the lake and down to the series of cabins on the far side. She slowed down a fraction, taking in the view below them as she always did. Her heart filled with the same feelings of excitement and eager anticipation that it had when Jurgen had first brought her here on this same road. Then something caught her eye; something down by her own cabin, and she stepped on the brake, bringing the car to a complete halt as she peered down at the scene.
She shook her head, as if doing so might shake loose the images that were being relayed to it from her eyes. ‘Oh my God,’ she said softly.
‘What?’ Frank said, his head turning in the direction of her voice. ‘What is it, Ella?’
Marcus had come off his seat and was leaning between the two of them. He looked out, following the direction of Ella’s eyes, seeking out whatever it was that had caused her to freeze in this way. ‘What can you … ?’ he began, but then he too saw it, and the words caught in his mouth.
The huge black werewolf lifted its bloody face from the dead body on the ground. Gore hung from the sides of its jaws and it turned its head very slowly to look back at the car that its acute hearing had alerted it to. Its pink tongue flickered out from between massive jaws, cleaning the mess of blood and flesh that surrounded its mouth. To Ella it appeared that the huge wolf-creature was grinning at them. Then it swung its head away to take in
the wooden structure that was Ella’s cabin. Turning its huge and powerful frame, it approached Trey’s hiding place.
‘Who is that on the floor?’ Marcus asked.
‘I think it’s Luke,’ Ella said in a hollow voice.
‘Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?’ Frank shouted out. The desperation in his voice brought Ella round and she quickly regained her senses. She released the handbrake and pushed her foot hard down on the accelerator, sending a cloud of dust and stones flying into the air behind them as the car lurched forward down the hill.
‘It’s Jurgen,’ Ella shouted over the roar of the engine. ‘He’s Changed. He’s killed Luke. I think that Trey must be down there somewhere.’
‘Hurry,’ Frank said, as he looped the silver chain over his head. ‘Get us down there as fast as this heap of junk can go.’
34
Trey looked out of the window, holding his breath as he waited for the huge nether-creature to reappear. The Wolfan had already killed the poor guy with the damaged ankle, Trey was sure of that. To see if his fears were confirmed, he craned his neck again, pressing his face against the glass windowpane, trying to see out beyond the field of vision offered by the window.
Trey had not witnessed the attack, but he’d heard it. The young man’s screams echoed around the grassy bowl that the lake sat in, a high piercing screech that was suddenly cut short. For Trey, the silence that followed was even worse than those terrible cries.
The Big Bad Wolf was coming, Trey had little doubt of that. And he was the piggy in the house made out of sticks. He shuddered, trying not to think about how that had turned out for the poor little porker.
He looked at the security bolts on the door, knowing that they would not withstand an attack from the nether-creature outside. Even if they could, there were the windows to consider – the Wolfan would think nothing of hurling itself through the glass to get at its prey. He was trapped. Dead if he ventured outside the door, dead if he stayed put. Neither option was very appealing.
He looked about him for a weapon that he might try to use to fend off the huge beast, but nothing looked even remotely fit for the purpose. The knives in the kitchen block, even the largest ones, all seemed tiny and insignificant when he thought of using them to defend himself against the creature. His options were extremely limited: beheading, drowning or fire were the only three sure-fire methods of dispatching a werewolf, and Trey couldn’t imagine a single way of employing any one of them without first being torn to pieces. A small whimper escaped him, and he turned back towards the window, pressing his face against the glass again and peering as far to his left as he could, in the hope that he might be able to catch sight of the nether-creature. His breath, coming fast as his lungs worked overtime to fuel his panicking heart, misted up the pane, and he had to go up on tiptoe to find a clear spot on the glass to look out from.
It was then that he caught sight of the movement on the ridge up ahead of him. His eyes switched to the road that wound down from that direction, and for one second he thought that he’d imagined it – his eyes playing tricks on him in this moment of desperation. But then from behind a row of large bushes that grew up alongside the road, the Range Rover emerged. It was travelling quickly, too quickly to be safe, and Trey guessed that the occupant had seen some of what had happened outside and was coming to help him. It had to be Ella. She’d been to Frank’s house, talked to him, and had come back here to try and make peace between uncle and nephew. She must have spotted Jurgen-wolf from the ridge and was now racing to Trey’s rescue – to get him away from the creature and—
Something black ran past the window. Like the shadow from an aeroplane momentarily blocking the sun, it was gone in an instant but the briefest glimpse of it had caused Trey’s heart to jam into his chest, halting his breath.
Ella wasn’t going to get to him in time.
Trey knew that the Wolfan would be in the cabin any second now. It might choose to come crashing through glass or through wood, but it would get in somehow, and it would kill him as it had killed the injured teenager outside. He would be defenceless against it.
If only he had the amulet. If only he hadn’t been so reckless in throwing away the power that his father had bestowed upon him. He’d done so in a fit of rage, but unlike Jurgen, whose anger had turned him into a mindless, bloodthirsty killer, Trey’s moment of anger and frustration had resulted in leaving him as nothing more than a pathetic and defenceless target. How could he have been so foolish? The amulet’s powers had saved his life on more than one occasion, and Lucien had stressed to him the importance of never removing it. And yet he had simply discarded it. Thrown that protection away. Did he really think that he would be safe here from Caliban? Indefinitely? No, the vampire would have found him eventually. And even the pack would not have been able to save the teenager from the vampire lord’s murderous intentions. Trey had signed his own death warrant. A short snort escaped him when he thought how his imminent death would not be at the hands of the vampire – instead it would be at the hands of a creature much closer to home.
Trey moved to the door, hoping that he might be able to put his weight into it if the Wolfan decided to try to enter that way, and at the same time knowing that it was the quickest way out of the cabin should Jurgen choose another means of entry.
He concentrated on the spell that his friend Charles had taught him. It was a spell that allowed Trey to speak directly into the mind of another person. He silently intoned the words of the incantation, concentrating on a mental picture of Ella at the same time.
Hurry, Ella. I’m in your cabin. Jurgen is going to kill me. I’m by the door and—
The glass in the window at the back of the room exploded and the huge black shadow that poured into the room landed amongst the broken shards. The Wolfan shook its head, sending more glass slivers skittering across the wooden floor in every direction. Yellow eyes looked up from beneath the creature’s brow and took in the boy with his hand upon the door. A trickle of thick saliva, tinged pink with blood, hung from one side of its vast jaws, and lips peeled back to reveal rows of deadly teeth.
Trey held his breath. The nether-creature that was Jurgen seemed even bigger than he had remembered it from the woods that morning. Then he too had been Wolfan, and while Jurgen had been the biggest wolf in the pack, Trey had not been that far behind. But looking at the creature now, the vast blackness of it filling the room, Trey suddenly felt very small – a mouse looking up into the face of a cat. From outside came the sound of a car skidding to a halt. Trey didn’t hesitate. He turned to the door and threw back the bolts which moments before he’d hoped would hold it in place. Wrenching the thing open, he ran out of the cabin towards the car.
35
The glass from the window saved him. Trey had thrown the door open but had not even taken his first step across the threshold when he’d caught the sound of the werewolf’s claws gouging at the wooden floor as it sought some kind of purchase. The thousands of slippery glass shards denied the pads any sort of grip and the frustrated roar that had followed Trey out of the door hurt the boy’s ears. He looked up, saw the car, and sprinted towards it. He willed his legs – which suddenly felt as though they were filled with cotton wool – to move faster. He wasn’t going to make it. The nether-creature at his back would be upon him any second to tear and rip at his flesh. The car was no more than ten metres away but it might as well have been two hundred.
He looked ahead of him, his eyes wide and filled with panic. Ella was already out of the car, as was the other man, Marcus, who’d climbed out of the door at the back of the vehicle. Despite the all-pervading fear that flooded every part of him, Trey noticed that the front passenger door was also open, but that there was no sign of whoever had occupied that space in the car.
The world around him seemed to have slowed down to half speed. His breathing and heartbeat were impossibly loud, filling his ears and blocking out everything else. Ella had her hands up at the side
s of her mouth and was screaming something at him but he had no idea what it was. Everything looked too bright, too vivid. The edges of his vision seemed to fizz with a golden light, and he momentarily wondered if he might be having some kind of near-death experience. He could feel the thing at his back now. The Wolfan was almost upon him, and he knew that he would die here and now, in this place.
Something leaped over the roof of the car from the opposite side and charged.
The huge beast stood at least eight feet tall, and it was covered in a grey and white pelt. It ran – upright and on two legs – straight towards him at full speed, its features a contorted mask of fury. And even with his mind in the state that it was in, Trey could see that only one of the creature’s eyes was capable of sight – the other inhabited by a dull, grey, misty orb. But the eye that could see was fixed on Trey’s face, and it shone with such a dark malevolence that the teenager stopped in his tracks, unable to move any further – certain death now rushed towards him from every direction.
The great snowy-grey werewolf was almost upon him; its half-human, half-wolf hands set into vicious hooks that ended in great barbed claws. Its mouth opened wider with each giant stride the creature took so that Trey looked into a face that seemed to be composed of nothing but teeth.
‘Get down, Trey!’ Ella bawled at him, and the sound of her voice finally forced its way into his head, wrenching him free of the fear-frozen state he’d been in. He let his legs buckle beneath him, his body folding to the floor as if some sniper hidden in the forest had shot him.