by Stead, Nick
I allowed myself a moment to pause and glance back at the fields. The Slayer still stood there, an air of calm patience about him. There were no sounds of cursing or frustration and he didn’t immediately call for back-up, which I thought was odd. I pushed on before he could spot me, turning my attention to locating Lady Sarah and wondering how I was going to explain this to her without sparking her own anger. With great difficulty, probably.
I found the vampire feeding on a rabbit, her pale hands darkened by the soil she’d had to dig through. She took one look at me and dropped the little animal. It fell with the crack of breaking bone.
“Foolish boy! I warned you against hunting large prey but did you pay any heed? And now they are on our trail again, are they not?”
I opened my mouth to make excuses but the icy look she gave me killed the words before I could give them sound. My gaze fell to the floor, as though I were a little kid again being chastised by a parent or a teacher. Part of me wondered how she’d known exactly what had gone on that night. She’d named telekinesis as one of her abilities, but she’d never mentioned having telepathy. It had to be the smell of fresh bovine blood on my skin and the fact I’d been running to find her, I decided.
“I only hope you learn from this experience,” she continued. “Certain aspects of this life may be less than ideal, yet I insist on it for a reason, born of centuries of experience. But enough of that for now – we must make haste if we are to lose the Slayers again before sunrise. You will be better off returning to your wolf form. And do not even think about moaning when your own recklessness is to blame this time!”
I remained silent, so empty that her lecture didn’t even stir any arguments born of that rebellious nature that comes with being a teenager. Further proof my anger was dead, and in its absence her words just fell into the void.
In hindsight, it would’ve been better to keep my wolf form and gorge myself while I had the chance, instead of wasting energy changing back, only to have to waste yet more energy transforming again to flee the area. But I hadn’t expected things to happen so quickly and I’d not exactly been thinking clearly. There’s a reason they say hindsight is always 20/20.
It was too late to go back and undo my mistakes, so I had little choice but to do as Lady Sarah instructed and manage the weariness and the hunger as best I could. Then it was back to the long, seemingly endless run of the hunted.
The next two weeks were a blur. With the Slayers back on our trail, we weren’t safe in any one place for very long. Weakness and exhaustion pulled at my muscles and dulled my mind. It felt longer than a fortnight since the cow – my last decent meal. A full stomach was becoming an increasingly distant memory.
This hunt seemed even more intense than the last, and I had no energy to spare to transform. The wolfish half of my mind was growing stronger and the constant, aching hunger was playing havoc with our instincts. Even worse, once the moon was waxing again it began calling to our dark desire for human flesh. Since there’d been no time to continue with my training whilst on the run, it seemed my fate was in Lady Sarah’s hands yet again.
We came to a stop by another cave. It looked even less inviting than the previous day’s shelter, but Lady Sarah didn’t trust me around humanity in my increasingly feral state. The hunger had grown powerful enough to rival the madness of the full moon, and she wasn’t entirely confident her power would keep me in check this time.
“This will do,” she said, leading me inside.
I could only growl my displeasure. The stone looked damp and the ground hard and uninviting. Lady Sarah took no notice, settling down right at the back where the sunlight couldn’t reach.
The sun rose and she fell into her corpse-like state. I was too restless to sleep. The need to hunt plagued my every thought and it drove me from our temporary haven, out into the surrounding woodland.
I could smell deer in the area and I started toward the animals when another scent cut through my crazed mind. Humans, a group of them. Our enemies had found us again.
My nose twitched, my ears pricked for sounds of their approach. Yes, there it was. The soft tread of boots on dirt, as stealthy as the humans were capable of. I detected a dozen of them, all armed to the teeth no doubt. My mouth watered. To the hunger they weren’t a threat, merely prey to satisfy my body’s needs and bring new strength to my aching limbs.
I crept toward them, my senses fixed solely on the group. They were heading towards the cave, its entrance still visible as a dark archway in the rocky ledge behind me. Lady Sarah was only minutes away from being slaughtered in her sleep.
The group came to a sudden halt, one of them signalling to the others. She made a sweeping motion with her hand and they began to fan out. I locked eyes on her and broke into a run, giving them no warning. They just had time to twist their heads at the sound of my paws crunching over dead leaves and twigs, then I was on the woman, my fangs sinking into her skull as we crashed to the ground.
She barely had the chance to scream before her head caved beneath the force of my bite, and blood gushed across my tongue. It was all the wolf needed to seize control.
I rose from my victim and lunged at a second, grabbing his calf in my jaws and shaking my head with ravenous ferocity. He screamed and raised his gun, firing off a quick shot. Pain erupted in my upper hind leg and I yelped, but I wouldn’t let go, too famished to release him until I’d taken a chunk of muscle.
It slid into the aching pit of my stomach and did nothing to appease it. My hunger demanded more.
Another bullet tore through my shoulder. I howled with fury and turned away from the man, leaving him on the ground where he clutched his mutilated leg, trying to stop the blood flow. More guns went off but luck was on my side again, and I avoided taking a third bullet before I was on my next victim, ripping out his throat in another wave of ecstasy. The flesh went down the same way as the calf muscle and the need to eat almost made me forget the threat of the others. Then two more bullets grazed my side and I was forced to leave the carcass, rounding on another woman.
I was about to pounce when I heard the snap of a twig at the cave’s entrance. Some part of me still remembered my duty to Lady Sarah, and it roared its warning over the screams of the hunger, reminding me of the danger she was in. I snarled and turned away from the woman, charging towards the man looking for an easy kill.
He saw me coming and darted inside, gun in one hand and sword in the other. Fear stabbed through me. I pushed my legs harder still, ignoring the pain of the wounds. Luckily neither of the bullets had hit my bone, and I was on the man before he reached the sleeping vampire, leaping through the air and landing with him face down beneath me, utterly at the mercy of my jaws.
Flesh tore between my teeth, exposing muscle and breaking bone. I gulped the meat down but still the Slayers refused to let me eat my fill, a fifth bullet clipping my snout.
I rose from my kill and only then did I realise my mistake. This was where the group had wanted me all along – cornered and outnumbered, and growing weaker by the minute.
I charged and the cave lit up with gunfire, the faces of my enemies determined but grim. A sixth bullet found its way into my other hind leg, and a seventh passed clean through my muzzle in an explosion of teeth, bone and flesh. Blood poured from the grisly hollow, my jaws turned to a structure of indescribable pain. But I kept going, lunging at my next target with growing desperation.
Fresh agony ripped through my mouth as I bit down on the woman’s arm and wrenched her towards me, in the path of more bullets. I was already on the next one as she fell. Guns clicked empty then, and the humans drew their blades.
I still had my fangs at the front for gripping and tearing, and I ripped out a second throat, setting my damaged nerves alight once more. Fluid streamed from my lower jaw in a ghastly waterfall, the blood of my victim mixing with the blood pouring from my wounds. My vision swam, and I had to fight to keep my feet.
A blade cut its way towards my skull. I dodged an
d struck again, but more pain lanced through my gut, a sword embedding itself in my abdomen. Then the metal withdrew, and a second waterfall cascaded down my side.
Moving was becoming a struggle. I turned and grabbed hold of the man’s arm, running purely on adrenaline now. The limb didn’t sever, my bite lacking its usual crushing power. But it kept the man distracted long enough for me to clamp down on another leg.
Somehow I found the strength to pull the woman into her allies and they fell in a tangle of limbs and blades. I struggled to tear out more of their throats, three more lying dead before they could regain their feet.
There were just two left, plus the man with the injured arm. I lunged at another woman, sending her back down to the ground and ripping half her face off. She was still alive but not much of a threat when I rose again, just as a bullet tore through the space where my head had been. The two surviving Slayers had taken advantage of the time to reload, and my strength was all but gone. I was limping badly, my muscles trembling and my vision dimming. Had my luck finally run out?
The man I’d injured smirked as he aimed at my skull. I tried to lunge for him and failed, collapsing in a throbbing, bleeding heap. This was it. I was done for.
My last victim lunged blindly forward, a knife in her hand. The blade slashed and opened up a gash on the man’s leg.
“Stupid bitch!” he screamed, his shot driven off course and landing in the Slayer next to him. She also screamed and dropped her gun. The man turned on the faceless woman and shot her before she could do any more damage, but it was the moment’s grace I’d needed. Luck hadn’t deserted me after all.
I found one last shred of strength and struggled back to my paws, lunging for the man again. This time my jaws closed on his good leg and he fell, his head cracking against a rock and his eyes rolling up into his head.
I collapsed beside him. Darkness was closing in, and there was nothing I could do but fall into it.
My eyes opened to the sight of mangled flesh, glistening darkly in the gloom of the cave. The pain was gone, my jaws whole again and my body human. But I was weak, and the hunger was worse than ever.
It was an effort just to pull the man’s leg within range of my teeth. He didn’t wake, not even when I bit down and continued what the wolf had started, freeing flesh from bone and swallowing it down as fast as I could manage. There was little more than a bloody skeleton left when I’d finished, only his face and shoulders left intact.
I became aware of ragged breathing and stood to find the one surviving woman, sitting with her back to the cave wall. Her hands were pressed to the bullet wound in her abdomen and her face was ashen, her teeth gritted and her eyes screwed up with the pain.
My gaze slid to Lady Sarah, my mind calmer now I’d been allowed to eat my fill. She’d be needing to feed when she awoke, if I could keep this woman alive long enough.
I set about searching the corpses for another lighter, aware of the woman’s eyes on me all the while. The third one I tried had what I needed and I prowled back over to her, ready to cauterise the wound.
“Just get it over with,” she hissed through her clenched teeth. “Kill me already.”
“Not yet,” I grunted.
There was no dark pleasure to be had in tormenting her with my bloodlust lost to me. I forced her hands out of the way and dug out the bullet, then heated the blade and pressed it to her stomach. Flesh melted and sealed, and her screams echoed round the cave, so loud and full of pain I half expected Lady Sarah to wake. The Slayer passed out a moment later and I left her in peace, doing my best to get some rest myself while I had the chance.
Nightfall came and Lady Sarah awoke with a hiss, her fangs bared and her eyes flashing.
“What happened?” she asked.
I groaned and got to my feet with a shrug. “I took care of it.”
“I can see that.” Impatience slid into her gaze as she glanced round at the bodies, then back at me. “But a lot of blood has been shed here, and I do not think it was all from our enemies.”
I shrugged again. “They managed to corner me and I took a fair few wounds, but I survived and they didn’t. Well, except that one. I saved her for you.”
Lady Sarah sighed and stood up, taking another look at the bodies. Resignation crept across her face. “It seems it is no longer safe for us to stay in natural shelters. I suppose I will have to sleep in the ground for the time being.”
“Without a coffin?”
“Yes. It looks like you almost died here. I will not place our lives over my comfort, no matter how I hate hiding in the earth.”
She stalked over to the woman I’d left her and sank her fangs in. The Slayer woke with a start, her eyes wide and her hand reaching for her blade. Lady Sarah drew away just long enough to place the woman under her spell, hypnotising all the fight out of the human. Then she drained her dry.
I took the opportunity to feed again as well, then it was back to running across the countryside and doing our best to lose our pursuers.
Sleeping in the ground might not have been Lady Sarah’s preferred way to spend the daylight hours, but it meant she was better hidden, and at least staying out in the open made an ambush impossible. I would sense any approaching humans long before they could get in position to lay a trap.
It also meant I had the option to run from any hunting parties, rather than having to fight my way out of a corner again. I’d glimpsed enough of the battle from the wolf to know how lucky I’d been to survive this time. If that blinded Slayer hadn’t lashed out when she did… My luck could only hold for so long.
The full moon was drawing nearer, and Lady Sarah had us plunge further and further into isolation. We had to be in one of the remotest areas of the country, moorland stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see. Even my keen ears had trouble detecting any human life in the distance, and the Slayers had difficulty following except by air, which they seemed unwilling to do for the time being.
It felt like our enemies were counting on us growing hungry enough to venture back towards civilisation. I could imagine them setting traps in all the nearby places we might visit to hunt, biding their time to catch us unawares instead of blundering through the moors to their deaths. And it was quite likely they might finally succeed in killing us if their plan worked.
Lady Sarah was under no illusion of the danger we were in. “The full moon is only a week away. It is becoming imperative you learn to control your urges – our survival may well depend on it. Come.”
I was still reluctant to put myself through her training, but I followed her in search of more livestock.
We had to traverse miles of uninhabited moorland before the bleating of sheep reached our ears. That was the easy part. Where she’d find rope from I had no idea, but she was determined to make it work.
“Stay here,” she commanded.
I watched her go in sullen silence. The herd’s terror dominated my senses moments later, and the transformation took hold. I was about to bound towards the slaughter when she reappeared, the animal she’d chosen calm and docile in the grip of her power.
Cold fingers grabbed me by the scruff of my neck. I gave a howl of frustration and let the wolf take over. He could deal with this latest torment.
I strained against the vampire’s grip with no more success than I’d had before. She was simply too strong.
Collapsing, I panted and shook with exhaustion, my mind calming somewhat as the terror I’d sensed faded. My stomach gave an angry growl as I watched Lady Sarah lead the sheep to a nearby post pointing toward a public footpath. We must be back on the very edges of the human world. I sensed no people in the area though. It was as safe a place for my training as any.
A length of rope appeared in Lady Sarah’s hands as if she’d conjured it from thin air. I might have wondered where she’d got it from, but I was too focused on the potential meal by her side. Perhaps she’d found another barn like the one we’d made our temporary home.
My blo
odlust was rising. I got to my feet and made another lunge for the sheep. Fighting my urges wasn’t made any easier by the moon growing ever fuller, and I spent more time trying to break free of Lady Sarah’s grasp.
“Concentrate! Attack the post, not the sheep.”
Her words were becoming meaningless again. There was no room in my mind for reason and as the night wore on, the lesson seemed just as pointless as the first time. But she refused to give up on me. And so I continued to struggle in her grip, growing hungrier and more miserable the longer she kept me from my prey.
The night was almost spent when finally, as the vampire led me a few feet away from the sheep for what felt like the hundredth time, I lunged forward and snapped at the post out of sheer frustration. The wood splintered in my jaws, and I attacked again and again as if it were a living animal, until my mind cleared once more.
Lady Sarah clapped her hands together. “Finally, we are making some progress! You may feed on the sheep now, and then we must return to the heart of the moors before dawn.”
Lady Sarah seemed happy with the apparent headway we were making, but I wasn’t entirely convinced her lessons had been all that helpful in this area so far. Still, I followed her without complaint for similar sessions, which she held in a different place each night, careful not to take livestock from the same farm where possible. It was something to break up the long days and nights of emptiness and despair if nothing else.
And then the full moon was upon us. I was already miserable from the days spent in our secluded surroundings, which only served to make the emptiness gape ever wider. But the moon had become a glimmer of hope again. Maybe it would awaken something after the hours the wolf had spent in the grip of the bloodlust.
Darkness fell, and I gave myself completely to the transformation. I could hear the soil shifting beneath hands that were fast becoming paws, but the change completed before Lady Sarah could claw her way to the surface. And as the wolf rose up, I felt the bloodlust already gripping him. My hope grew, and I fought to keep joint consciousness with him, praying it would allow the bloodlust to spill into the human part of my mind once more.