by Mark Woods
What was it Darwin had once said about ‘survival of the fittest’?
Never had that phrase been truer than now.
The little lamb currently sitting beside her was just an added bonus, Viktoryia thought. The extra icing on the cake as it were. She was more than human, Viktoryia could tell, no ordinary mortal – no. There was something else about her, something that was different, that marked her as special, Viktoryia could feel it.
The girl carried the marks of both Vampyre and Lycanthrope upon her, which was rare enough in itself, but there was also something else about her; something other than that, something more, much more. The marks imprinted on her had done something to her, Viktoryia thought, she could sense it.
They had changed the girl somehow, had some kind of effect on her, and somehow turned her from being human…to something else instead.
Something new.
Something the like of which Viktoryia had heard whispered about before, but had never believed was possible and had never thought she would ever live to see for herself…until now.
A hybrid, she thought. The girl was some kind of hybrid - a mix between their three species – Human, Lycanthrope, and Vampyre.
And she wasn’t sure the girl even realised herself.
At her age, and in all the years that she had been alive, this was something new for Viktoryia and that, in itself, was an unusual experience. For in all the time that she had walked this earth, she had thought she had pretty much seen and done it all by now.
Obviously she’d been wrong…
Viktoryia had no idea how it must have happened, but knew that the creation of a hybrid was extremely rare. She had only ever heard rumours of it happening once or twice before in her entire lifetime, and as such, knew the girl needed to be protected, looked after and cared for, until such time as Viktoryia could reach The Vampyre Council and present the girl before them.
It was her key, she thought, into once more winning their favour and maybe even securing herself a long sought after place upon the Council itself.
One could but dream…
For too long she had been labelled an outcast, regarded as an outsider because of her ancient and mixed bloodline, as opposed to the True Blood Vampyre that made up the Vampyre Council. Viktoryia knew she had only been sent to attend these so-called ‘peace talks’ in the first place because she was expendable, but this girl, this girl, she thought, was her key to finally being accepted by the other Council members, she knew it.
“It’s okay now,” Viktoryia said, gently stroking the girl’s hair as she started to stir after smacking her head, hard, when the lifeboat had dropped suddenly into the water a few moments ago. “It’s okay, you’re safe now. No-one’s going to harm you. I’m going to take care of you, I promise.”
The man with the silver hand was staring at her curiously so, taking care to make sure her fangs were retracted, Viktoryia gave him a smile in an attempt to try and placate him; to reassure him everything was in order and that nothing was wrong and just as she’d planned, pretty soon the man turned away.
Viktoryia turned her own head and looked back behind them, back across the darkness of the night towards where the last lights of the sinking Bellastaria were slowly fading into the distance. She continued to stroke Charlotte’s hair and gently whispered in her ear, “Oh yes, I’m going to look after you…I’m not going to let anything happen to you, I promise…”
Behind them, with a loud crash, The Bellastaria finally sank beneath the waves.
***
Lukaas made it to the railing at the edge of the ship, and scanned the dark ocean for any sign of the lifeboat Lottie – his Lottie, had escaped in.
He knew the ship was sinking, could feel it, and knew he had no more than a few more minutes at best before the Bellastaria sank beneath the waves and descended to the ocean floor below forever, never to be seen again, but first he had to try and make sure that Lottie was safe.
One of his wolf brothers took his arm, and tried to pull him away towards one of the last remaining lifeboats left – many of the others having previously been sabotaged to try and prevent anyone from leaving and help keep everyone trapped on-board - but Lukaas shook him off.
The ship was still in chaos, but most of it was at the other end of the ship by now – here, most of the Vampyre and other passengers had either fled in damaged lifeboats, were already dead, or would be very shortly.
Only three lifeboats had been left fully intact just in case things went wrong and the wolves needed to escape. Lottie and her fellow passengers had taken one, another was gone – in flames at the other end of the ship – and this…this was the last of them.
“Come on, brother!” the young wolf was yelling at him. “We NEED to go, and NOW! If we don’t, we will still be trapped here when the ship goes down and then we will never get away. We’ll be pulled under with the rest of the ship when it sinks – COME ON, LUKAAS; WE NEED TO GO!”
Lukaas spotted a light in the distance that he hoped marked the passage of the lifeboat Lottie was on, and tried to send her a message once more through the mark he had imprinted on her, so many years ago.
Lottie, he thought, trying to broadcast his message out across the waves. Lottie, wherever you go, I will find you. I will come looking for you, I promise – I shall not abandon you this time, on this I swear.
Hold out for me, wait for me – I’ll find you.
I’m coming for you Lottie…we shall be together again soon, this much I promise you…
Lukaas allowed himself to be pulled away this time as the last of the working lifeboats started to descend without him in it. He and his surviving wolf brothers still on-board leapt into the boat as it went down, then did their best to try and row away from the Bellastaria as quickly as possible before the ship went down and sucked them down along with it.
Lukaas glanced out across the ocean at the last place he thought he’d seen Lottie and the lifeboat she had escaped upon, still trying to see it in the darkness, but the full moon did little to illuminate the ocean and a thick mist was starting to rise.
I’m coming for you, Lottie, he thought again, trying again to communicate with her through the mark he had so long ago imprinted on her, with no idea whether or not she could actually hear him, or even receive the message he was attempting to send.
I’m coming for you, and I’m going to find you again if it’s the last thing I do!
They had escaped just in time, Lukaas noted, for just a few minutes later, the Bellastaria sunk beneath the waves, and was lost, never to be seen again.
Meanwhile, the lifeboat containing Lukaas and his brothers continued rowing off into the darkness…
Wait for me, Lottie, Lukaas thought. I’m coming…I’m coming for you, I promise….
Wilfred’s Story
Then: Poland, August 1944
Wilfred Bromley was a British soldier with the Queen’s Army, and came from a long line of long standing officers who had all served and died in countless wars before him. The most recent of his family to serve before him had been his father, who had died shortly after returning from the last war – the one that people had recently begun referring to as ‘The Great War’, though what exactly was so great about a conflict that had cost so many young men their lives, Wilfred really didn’t know.
When the call had come to sign up and enlist, Wilfred had jumped at the chance to follow in his father’s footsteps and now, here he was, fighting for his Queen and country in what his superiors predicted were most likely the last days of the war.
He had heard that before.
Many of the men who fought alongside him and who made up his comrades-in-arms had been made to serve, forcibly conscripted to help boost the ranks, but not Wilfred. He had absolutely nothing but respect and admiration for his father who had fought, and ultimately died, for his country – after finally succumbing last year to the after-effects of the mustard gas he had breathed in and been exposed to during his time in the trenches
– and so, when the call had gone out to sign up and it had been announced that war had broken out, Wilfred had immediately enlisted so that he could follow in his father’s footsteps.
Now here he was, about a million miles away from the sleepy Norfolk market town in which he had been born and at last, for the first time in his life, he finally felt as though he was on the brink of actually achieving something – giving his life a sense of meaning, and purpose, that he thought had been missing all this time.
Wilfred thought his father would have been proud of him – during his time here in the army he had put in no less than an exemplary performance, had excelled himself as a soldier, and shown himself to be an excellent leader. In return, his superiors, recognising his potential, had repaid him by moving him up the ranks.
They had made him a Lance-Corporal, put him in charge of his own specialised unit, sent him even further behind enemy lines than anyone else had ever gone before, and given him what to anyone else might have seemed like an impossible task: to seek out and destroy a group of enemy soldiers who called themselves The War-Wolves.
The War-Wolves were an elite unit, much like his own, whose sole purpose seemed to be to create chaos and confusion and sow terror through the ranks of their enemy. There were lots of stories told about The War-Wolves, but the most popular among them was that they possessed the ability to transform themselves into wolves.
Wilfred didn’t believe a word of it.
He had heard the stories of how Hitler was supposed to have turned to the occult in a bid to try and help him win the war; how he and his cronies had apparently greenlighted all manner of unnatural and unholy experiments in an attempt to create a Master race that they might use to repel their enemies, and didn’t believe a word of any of that either.
It was all just Nazi propaganda created to try and unsettle the Allied forces and convince them they were fighting a battle they simply could never win, but when your enemy had to resort to telling fairy stories and making stuff up, Wilfred thought, that was when you knew you had already won the war.
Soldiers were a suspicious lot, that was true, but they weren’t stupid.
Everyone knew there were no such things as werewolves.
Wilfred’s unit had tracked The War-Wolves down to just outside a small compound, known as Helle Haus, situated close to where the former German-Polish border had once been, back before this war had first started, and now were awaiting their next orders.
Helle Haus, in a previous life, had once been home to a very wealthy German aristocrat. Things had all ended up turning a bit sour for him and his wife after they’d both made the very fatal mistake of first, quite publically insulting Hitler, and then attempting to stand against him. In order to save face, Hitler had been left with no other choice but to make an example of him, and so the once popular aristocrat had ended up swinging from a rope, along with his wife – once the S.S were finally finished with her that was. His home had then ended up being requisitioned by the Nazi party; only to later be turned into a prison camp.
This camp, or so the stories went, was just one of several Hitler had recently commissioned and had built to temporarily house all the Jews he had imprisoned. The plan was to eventually ship them all off to destinations unknown, but there were other, much darker stories that were told about Helle Haus that went far beyond stories of mere imprisonment and revealed a much darker and bitter truth behind its creation.
It was said the place was just one of several Death camps that Hitler had ordered built, and that the Jews who went in there, through the front gates, were never seen again. Wilfred had also heard it claimed that Helle Haus, in particular, was home to all sorts of illicit and immoral experiments and that it, in fact, was the place where the now infamous War-Wolves were supposed to have first been created.
Wilfred didn’t know anything about all that. What he did know for certain was that this was his unit’s last, best chance to take out The War-Wolves once and for all and that if they didn’t stop them here, they would never again get a better opportunity.
Wilfred’s unit had been tracking The War-Wolves for weeks, always two steps behind. So far, this was the closest they had come to finally being able to take them out, and as soon as Wilfred and his men got their orders, they intended to move in…
And this time, they did not intend to fail…
***
Contrary to popular belief and despite their name, The War-Wolves were not actually real werewolves – or at least, not by blood.
Just as the stories said about them, they had been created here at Helle Haus, in a lab, as part of Hitler’s plan to try and create an army of preternatural creatures of his own with which to destroy his enemies.
The project had ended up being shelved – not least because of the unpredictability of the results produced by such experiments, but also because the test creatures had proved difficult to tame and control – but not before The War-Wolves had been sent out to wreak havoc and strike fear into the hearts of the invading Allies.
Up until about a couple of months ago, that was, because that was when they’d suddenly been recalled.
The tide of the war was starting to turn, and with the Allies starting to gain much more of a foothold in their march against Germany, Hitler had begun to worry and panic about the very real prospect that he might just lose the war. He had recalled The War-Wolves back to Berlin, along with some of his other forces, so as to surround himself with a show of strength. If he was going to go down, he decided, he and his generals would go down fighting.
The plan had originally been for The War-Wolves to rendezvous at Helle Haus and regroup there with Hitler’s other ‘Special Forces’ so that they could all return to Berlin together at the same time, but for the last few days and weeks, much of The War-Wolves’ progress had been dogged and hindered by the presence of a small and extremely persistent unit of British soldiers who, it seemed, appeared to have been assigned to try and hunt them down.
Left with very little other choice, and knowing their pursuers were unlikely to just turn around and give up any time soon – at least, not until they’d finished hunting down their quarry – The War-Wolves had instead come up with a plan.
They would set up a trap for the soldiers hunting them, just outside the perimeters of Helle Haus, and then wait for the men to approach so that they could close in around them in a pincer movement and together, take the enemy all out at once in one fell swoop.
With any luck, the soldiers would never even realise what had hit them – and would be fully unaware The Wolves were waiting for them until it was already far too late and The Wolves were amongst them.
The lucky ones, thought the leader of The War-Wolves, would be the ones who died first…
***
Wilfred’s men never stood a chance.
Their original intention had always been to cut off The War-Wolves and intercept them long before they ever reached Helle Haus. The Wolves had somehow made much faster progress than Wilfred’s men could ever have expected though and now here he and his men were, only a few miles from the perimeter of the camp.
Wilfred had a bad feeling about all this.
He was certain they were being led into a trap, but had no way of knowing just how close to the truth he actually was. His second-in-command had radioed for support and been told that reinforcements were on the way, but currently every other unit anywhere even close to their vicinity was either already involved in skirmishes of their own, or otherwise engaged with the enemy. It would probably be at least a couple of hours before anybody would be able to reach them and meet them at their position.
For the time being, at least, Wilfred and his men were on their own.
In the meantime, they had been advised to only engage their targets if they believed they could safely afford to do so with minimal casualties, and only if they thought they could take out The War-Wolves before they reached the camp.
As for the camp itself, Wilfred’s men had bee
n ordered not to approach Helle Haus or even attempt to storm the camp without any support. Instead, they had been ordered to merely reconnoitre the surrounding area and gather any information they could about the compound before reinforcements arrived, something Wilfred’s men were only too happy to comply with.
Very little was known about Helle Haus other than what little could be gained from unconfirmed rumour and conjecture, and so the Allied forces had no real idea what to expect. Wilfred and his unit’s main target was The War-Wolves, and so this made them their first priority.
Liberating the camp was of secondary importance, he had been told, and could come later, much later, once the threat The War-Wolves posed had been nullified.
When The Wolves attacked, they took Wilfred’s men entirely by surprise, seemingly appearing as if out of nowhere. It was close to midnight, and Wilfred and his men were closing in on their targets, they were sure of it, when suddenly they realised one of their number was missing.
The men were all on edge already. The only approach to the camp from this side was through a dense and heavy patch of woodland. Many of the men had already commented that they thought that they were the ones being followed, and that it felt almost as if something were hunting them instead of the other way around, but Wilfred had dismissed all of their concerns - putting his men’s fears down to over-active imagination and intense paranoia brought on by tiredness, and the stress and tension of their current situation.
By day, the stories they’d heard told about The War-Wolves and their various exploits up until now could easily be passed off as exactly that – just stories. But by night, suddenly some of the things that they’d heard, and the tales they’d heard repeated, all started to sound a lot more believable, especially whilst walking through a spooky, scary forest deep in the heart of a foreign, enemy land.