by Mark Woods
She knew exactly where he must have gone…
He’d gone looking for Lukaas.
Henry was not stupid.
After his questions earlier, Henry must have waited until she fell asleep and then gone off to try and find the man she believed had been her former lover.
He had no idea what he was dealing with, Charlotte thought, and knew she had to try and stop him before it was too late.
If it wasn’t already …
Following some kind of sixth sense she’d never realised she had, Charlotte quickly dressed and somehow managed to track her husband’s passage half-way across the ship – only to eventually find herself in the crew quarters, one deck down below from the level where her own cabin resided.
Coming around the corner of the corridor she was in, Charlotte thought she heard a shot and quickly began to run towards the cabin where she thought the sound must have come from.
What she saw next would stay with her forever.
Some kind of great big wolf – no worse, some kind of half-wolf/ half-human creature just like the ones from out of her dreams – was bashing her husband’s head relentlessly against the floor, reducing it to a bloody pulp; a gore soaked mess. Blood splattered every wall of the small cabin like something out of one of her worst nightmares, overpowering her senses and leaving her feeling dizzy…not with fear, she suddenly realised, but with lust of all things…
Though she felt disgusted with herself, for just a second, part of Charlotte could think of nothing more than falling to her knees and lapping at the blood on the floor. Then she remembered that the bloody mess upon the deck was all that was left of her husband and instead she started to back away, even as the wolf responsible for her husband’s death slowly began to rise – to stand upon two legs like a man.
Charlotte opened her mouth to scream but before she could, the ship tilted over sideways with a lurch. There was the sound of what sounded like an explosion and then just as quickly, the ship rocked back the other way.
From outside the cabin, suddenly the sound of other people screaming could be heard, coming from all up and down all the various passageways of the ship, and then, as if to add insult to injury, an emergency horn also began to sound.
Someone was shouting, “Abandon ship! Abandon ship! Women and children first...” and for a moment, Charlotte could only think, what the hell…what the hell is happening now?
And then…how on earth has all of this suddenly gone so wrong so quickly? Is any of this even for real? Am I still dreaming? Or is this some kind of nightmare? Oh, please God, let it be a nightmare…
But then she realised the truth.
This wasn’t a nightmare, this was real.
All of this…all this was really happening…
A minute ago she had been married. Now Henry was dead, and who knows what the hell else was going on.
It felt as though time had ground to a halt.
Before Charlotte could move, or even think to react, the wolf was there, in front of her, standing there right before her, holding her by the arms and doing his best to talk to her over the siren.
“Lottie,” the wolf said, in a deep, heavy baritone. “Listen Lottie, I’m sorry, none of this was supposed to be like this. None of this was supposed to happen, not this way. You need to let me help you…you need to let me help you get away. You need to escape…you need to get off this ship…”
Charlotte started to recoil and back away from the wolf standing in front of her, not quite believing what she was seeing, what she was hearing, but the wolf held her tight.
This had to be a nightmare, right?
Right?
None of this could possibly be real, and Henry…Henry…he couldn’t possibly be dead, not really…
Could he…?
The wolf let her go, sensing her fear, then held up his paws as he saw her backing away in fright. With an almost human expression on his face, he attempted to plead with her one last time, in a bid to try and make her see sense.
“Lottie,” he said. “Lottie, please…please wait…let me explain…”
And with a shock, Charlotte suddenly realised who the wolf thing in front of her was – it was Lukaas.
Lottie turned around, and did the one thing she knew how to do best.
She ran away.
She turned and fled.
Outside in the corridor, all around her, was chaos and mayhem.
As she ran for the main deck, Lottie saw more and more wolves running loose on the ship everywhere she turned, some being attacked by crew desperately trying to defend and protect their passengers.
But there were other monsters on-board too, she saw, as well as the wolves.
Foul, obnoxious creatures with fangs in place of teeth who glided through the air and likewise, were taking it in turns to attack all the passengers and crew.
Charlotte saw one wolf tear off a crewman’s arm, and then proceed to beat him with it. Another wolf had its head split open by a crewman’s axe as it attempted to devour a child from out a mother’s arms.
One of those other…things…grabbed a hold of one of the wolves and sank its fangs into the other creature’s throat, drinking furiously at the blood suddenly pouring from its neck and it was at that moment, with a sudden shock, Charlotte suddenly realised what the other creatures were – they were vampires!
What the holy hell was going on here? she thought. Surely none of this could be real – vampires and werewolves were just myths, everyone knew that. They didn’t really exist, they couldn’t; they were all just stories, right? Something to scare little kids…
What she was seeing right in front of her though, right now, seemed to refute that. Everything she’d ever thought she’d known, it seemed, had all been wrong all this time – nothing but falsehoods and lies.
Lukaas, she thought. He was one of them too…a werewolf. And this must be what he was trying to warn me about when he told me to get off the ship!
Charlotte turned around in a circle, and began frantically looking around for a lifeboat.
Someone grabbed her. Though still human, Charlotte could see the wolf inside her assailant fighting to come out. He was in a kind of blood lust, she realised, and struggling to hold on to his human side.
“Bitch,” he virtually spat in her face. “I know what you are...”
Another crewman grabbed the half-wolf/ half-human by the arm and spun him around to face him.
“Leave the lady alone, creep!” The crewman yelled indignantly, and as he proceeded to punch the creature in the face, his anger turned to fear as the other man finished his transformation right there in front of him. Somebody fired a shot, and the half-wolf/ half-man was flung over the side of the tilting ship by the sheer force of the bullet hitting him at full pelt. The crewman, her rescuer, looked relieved...but he also looked somewhat like he had just soiled himself too.
“Over here, Miss,” he said, hurriedly escorting her over towards a lifeboat already occupied by several other passengers. A man with what appeared to be a silver hand, obviously some kind of fancy prosthetic, helped her in, staring at her intently – perhaps too intently, she thought. Next to him a tall, dark-haired woman, dressed entirely in red, also helped, guiding her in and bidding Charlotte sit beside her.
Turning back, Charlotte thought she saw Lukaas, in wolf form, loping through the mayhem and utter carnage on the ship – charging after her as if wanting to catch up with her and speak to her. No doubt wanting to try and explain what she’d just seen, why she’d caught him killing her husband, back there in his cabin, but Charlotte wasn’t sure if right now she was ready to hear it.
Henry is dead, she thought. Nothing else matters any more…
Charlotte was sure Lukaas must have his reasons, but right now, she didn’t care. All Charlotte knew was that her husband of only a few weeks, the man who had loved her so much he had devoted his whole life to her, risked his reputation for her, was gone and Lukaas, Lukaas was the one that had killed him.
And she could never forgive him for that.
Not ever.
“LOTTIE...” Charlotte heard him screaming over the cries of the other passengers and crew, as somebody tried to grab a hold of his fur in an attempt to halt his progress as he ran along the ship. “LOTTIE...NOOOOO…WAITTTTT!”
The man beside her with the silver hand was looking in the same direction as her, she noted, and seeing everything she saw. He was also tilting one ear to the side, as if he too was trying to hear what Lukaas was saying.
Another wolf leapt towards the boat that they were in, and the man with the silver hand roughly brushed her aside and punched the offending wolf before it could attack.
Before she could say anything, try to come up with some kind of brash remark for the man treating her so roughly, the life boat suddenly dropped several feet and splashed down into the water.
Charlotte’s head was flung back, and struck the hard wood of the boat behind her with a loud thump.
Then everything went black...
***
Lukaas watched her go.
He watched Charlotte fleeing towards one of the lifeboats even as another explosion rocked the ship, sending him reeling.
One of his brethren was passing and Lukaas grabbed a hold of him.
“What’s happening?” he demanded. “What the hell is going on?”
“It’s a trap!” his wolf brother told him. “And not just for them…the vamps…but for us as well! It’s the Alpha, he sold us out. Someone planted explosives all over the ship and when they all started going off, our wolf brothers, in their panic, all began transforming and going into frenzy - thinking the explosions were their cue to attack.
“Of course when our brothers all started to attack, the Vampyre retaliated and before you know it, the civilians amongst the crew had all started wading in and attempting to defend themselves as well! As you well know, if everything had all gone to plan, all the civilian crew were supposed to have all been drugged to take them out of the equation, but because the attack started early, we never got a chance to subdue them. That’s why when the bombs went off, everything all erupted into chaos.
“By the time our brothers realised what was happening, and that the explosions were not their signal to attack like they’d thought, it was already far too late.
“Now everything we’d planned for has all gone to shit and the whole ship is in anarchy, total anarchy, I tell you! Everything has all gone wrong, our Alpha has betrayed us, and it’s every wolf for himself.”
Lukaas cursed himself for being so stupid.
He should have seen it; of course this voyage had never been about redemption - not for him and not for his fellow Ronin. If his wolf brother was right, the Alpha had seen an opportunity to rid himself not only of several high-ranking, extremely powerful, and influential Vampyre, but also of some troublesome wolves - Ronin, who were not even part of his pack anymore and thus expendable - and had decided to take it.
The sinking of the Bellastaria would go down in maritime history as just one more tragedy, to be remembered alongside other such tragedies such as that of the Titanic, and no doubt, would once more put the thought of any possible peace treaty between their two species on the backburner.
But the Alpha, no doubt, thought all that was worth it for the chance to strike back at the Vampyre responsible for devastating so many of their number during the attacks in recent months.
It was an ingenious plan. With no evidence left of who might have been responsible for The Bellastaria’s sinking, the wolves could blame the vamps, just as the vamps in turn, and quite rightly as it turned out, would no doubt blame the wolves, and there would be nothing left to prove the truth either way.
Lukaas had no idea what his Alpha’s end game was.
He had always seemed to be up for a truce in the past, and had seemingly only reluctantly agreed to the slaughter due to take place upon The Bellastaria’s maiden voyage after much discussion with his elders, but if his wolf brother was right, the wolf they had all once considered to be their leader had played them all for a fool. He had betrayed them tonight, him and all the others with him on this ship, and Lukaas, for one, thought he probably should have seen that coming from a mile away.
He was getting old, he thought. Old and long in the tooth – there was a time, he thought, when he would never have let any wolf get the drop on him, let alone his former Alpha.
Yet another explosion rocked the ship, sending Lukaas reeling once again, but the other way this time. Blood splattered against his fur as the head of the wolf brother standing beside him suddenly exploded.
A lone crew member was standing a few feet away, a smoking pistol still in his grip, and without thinking, Lukaas lashed out.
The man’s pistol flew across the deck, along with most of his hand.
Before the crew member could turn and flee, Lukaas fell upon him and bit into the other man’s face, ripping out his nose and parts of his jaw in a thick, viscous spray of blood.
Someone fell upon him from behind, and Lukaas found himself under attack by one of the many Vampyre on-board still left alive.
Lukaas threw the creature off, then swiftly punched the bloodsucker in the throat, yanking out his trachea as he pulled his hand away. The Vampyre looked at him, gurgled, and then fell at Lukaas’ feet as he began quickly bleeding out.
There were more Vampyre coming, he saw, heading straight towards him, but Lukaas did not care about that right now – he was more concerned with making sure Lottie had gotten off the ship.
Even if she would not let him speak to her, even if she would not let him near her to explain what had happened back there in his cabin – to tell her that he had never meant to kill the man that was so obviously her lover – the least he could do was ensure that she were safe.
Someone was helping her into one of the lifeboats, he saw. A middle-aged man with what looked like some kind of prosthetic silver hand that glistened in the moonlight. Beside him sat a dark-haired woman, dressed all in crimson and wearing a ball gown she presumably must have donned ready for the ill-fated Halloween Ball that had never actually happened and never would now.
There were other people in the lifeboat too, he saw. More passengers, sitting at the back of the boat, hidden in the shadows being cast by The Bellastaria so that he could not make them out from here where he was standing, but it was the dark-haired woman who held his eye.
For a minute, the two of them stared at each other, taking in the measure of each other, and then with a shock, Lukaas suddenly realised what had drawn his gaze.
The woman sitting in the lifeboat with Lottie, helping her to sit down, was in fact no woman at all – in truth, she was not even human; she was a Vampyre!
Lottie may have been about to escape danger on-board The Bellastaria but, unbeknownst to her, was about to jump out of the frying pan and straight into the fire.
He had to stop her, Lukaas thought, or at the very least try and join her in the boat so he could protect her from that thing…
Lukaas brushed aside the group of Vampyre rushing towards him, sending them flying over the ship’s railing and into the inky black sea that lay beyond, even as he loped along the deck, desperately trying to reach the lifeboat before it had a chance to cast off.
As he ran, Lukaas attempted to open up a mental link between himself and Lottie - to try and communicate with her, send her a warning through the mark that he had inflicted on her all those years ago. It should have worked – by all rights, he should have been able to reach her, but something, it seemed, appeared to be blocking him.
The Vampyre, he thought. It was her that was blocking him, stopping him from getting through to her, warning her, it had to be…
Regardless of this, he tried to send her a message anyway.
“Lottie…Lottie…no…get back off the lifeboat…” he screamed, both out loud and in his mind at the same time, hoping beyond hope that by some kind of miracle she might just hear him and heed
his cry, but knowing the chances of that happening were small.
Someone grabbed a hold of him from behind again – a crew member this time, not one of the Vampyre – and tried to bury a hatchet in his head. Lukaas ripped the man’s arm off, still holding the hatchet, and tossed it away into the ocean, closely followed by the crew member himself.
By the time he looked back, Lottie and the lifeboat she’d been in were both gone.
***
Viktoryia sat and watched the chaos as it continued to unfold, from the safety of the lifeboat she was in.
The explosions that had rocked the Bellastaria just a few short minutes ago appeared to have breached the hull in several places and, Viktoryia knew, it would not be much longer before the whole ship was lost beneath the waves.
She had sensed the large presence of wolves on-board, despite their crude attempts to hide themselves, and suspected The Bellastaria was a trap almost from the very minute she had come aboard, but by that time the ship had been already preparing to set sail.
There had been no time left to warn her fellow Vampyre of her suspicions before the voyage got fully underway, and so she had devised a back-up plan instead.
She had located the lifeboat that was closest to her cabin, slit the throat of the wolf who, it seemed, had apparently been left to guard it, and then tossed his dead body overboard and hung around close to the boat, ready to make her escape should she eventually be proven right.
As it had turned out, she had been right – the ship had been a trap and now, whilst all her fellow Vampyre were running around creating merry hell and attempting to defend themselves from the wolves that had begun attacking them, here Viktoryia sat, just patiently waiting to make her escape while keeping a low profile to avoid arousing any suspicion as to what she truly was.
Just as it was said that there was no honour amongst thieves, so the same could be said for Vampyre, and Viktoryia had no concern at all about sacrificing her fellow brothers and sisters and leaving them behind if it meant that she survived.