by Steve Feasey
23
Trey watched Ella twist about as Alexa rolled beneath the initial attack, pushing off from her powerful legs and diving forward to close the space between herself and the sorceress once more. The lycanthrope was too quick, too strong, and the outcome was all too obvious to Trey.
He cried out as the vast creature barrelled into the human’s body, forcing Alexa to stumble backwards and crack her head.
The world slowed. He stared, transfixed with horror, as the white-furred monster shot out a hand, fingers hooked slightly so that the claws could inflict the killer blow.
He was dimly aware that the terrible noise in his ears was that of his own screams as he struggled against the cold steel that held him.
Then something snapped inside him, as if an electrical switch had been flipped in his brain, and he shuddered as the resulting current flowed into every cell of his body, filling him with power. He stood as much as he could, the chains still hampering his movements, and bellowed at Ella to stop. He Changed.
Trey fully expected to be forced back down on all fours. Without the amulet he would not take on his usual upright, bipedal werewolf form – the form Ella was now in – but that of the terrible four-legged nether-creature, the Wolfen. As a Wolfen, unable to control his killer instincts, he could be as much a danger to Alexa as Ella. But there was nothing he could do to stop it now.
A tidal wave of agony broke over him. He cried out with the exquisite pain of the Change, the sound that escaped him going from a boy’s agonized scream to a werewolf’s bellowing roar. His bones thickened and morphed into new shapes. Dense, hard muscles appeared where there were none before, and he was vaguely aware that the handcuffs on his wrists and ankles had broken apart beneath the strain. It was then that he realized he was still standing upright in the half man, half wolf form he had always taken on when wearing the amulet. I’m not Wolfen, he thought. His head was awash with conflicting ideas and notions, but he shoved these away as quickly as they’d come. Now wasn’t the time. Reaching down, he took hold of the steel girdle round his waist, fixed to the chains that still anchored him to the floor. He let out another roar and wrenched it apart.
The howl, followed by the sound of shattered metal falling to the floor, was enough to distract the she-werewolf for a second. Ella turned just in time to see the grey-and-black lycanthrope leap forward, a deadly look on its face.
The two nether-creatures’ bodies crashed together and they tumbled across the floor – claws tearing at haunches, teeth locked into flesh in a savage battle to overpower one another. Ella, in her werewolf form, was bigger than Trey – more powerful and rangy. And he instinctively knew that this could only be used to her advantage if the fight broke up from an up close melee. Trey was a hardened combatant; he’d fought a number of opponents in this realm and the Netherworld, many of them much larger than him, and the difference in size did not intimidate him. But Ella too seemed to realize where her advantage lay – she wrestled out of Trey’s grip and took a step backwards. Blood oozed from a bite wound on her shoulder, but Trey knew that the crimson gore smeared across her teeth and lips was his own. The pulsating pain in his forearm told him so.
Trey, his chest heaving, tried the thought-transfer spell he’d learned so that he could communicate when he was in his lycanthrope form. It came easily to him now, even in a dire situation like this.
Ella, stop this. You’ve lost your mind. You’ve— The she-werewolf let out a snarl and lunged forward, shooting out a clawed hand. The blow was easily parried by Trey, who came in underneath the arm, raking a row of bloody claw marks across his opponent’s belly that painted the surrounding white fur a dark crimson. But the move had left his head exposed for a moment, and his opponent took advantage of this, biting down into his ear and shaking her head to inflict the maximum amount of pain and damage. Trey howled but managed to force her away, and the two lycanthropes circled each other wanly, both of them dripping coins of scarlet gore from their wounds on to the concrete floor.
The time for communication was clearly past. Trey put any thoughts of using the spell again out of his mind.
The werewolves’ low growls and snarls reverberated back off the corrugated walls. Occasionally one of them would feint an attack, watching the reaction of their opponent, trying to pinpoint a weakness to exploit.
Gradually Trey moved away, manoeuvring himself closer to the pit beneath the car platform. As he passed close to it, he took a split-second glance down at the small, prostrate figure lying there. His eyes didn’t leave his opponent for more than the time it takes to blink, but it was enough. The she-werewolf leaped forward, smashing into Trey, her weight and momentum causing him to fall backwards. It happened so quickly and she was upon him in a flash, her lips peeled back over her teeth, those great jaws stretched wide to deliver the killer bite. Trey was in a supine position, his legs caught up and compressed by the weight of the lycanthrope on top off him. He did the only thing left open to him: he pushed with all his might, forcing his legs outwards in a piston-like movement which sent his attacker sailing into the air. The white-furred lycanthrope crashed into the nearest of the hydraulic arms that held the platform up over the pit. Once strong, the equipment was now old and corroded, and the weight and force of the nether-creature smashing into it caused the fully extended arm to buckle, the metal shrieking in protest. There was a moment when nothing happened, and then the whole thing collapsed. The other hydraulic arm, incapable alone of supporting the immense weight of the platform with the car upon it, buckled like its twin, causing the entire structure to smash down at one end. Trey watched in horror as the white-furred werewolf lost her footing and fell into the front of the pit a split second before the car, unable to stay put on the acutely angled ramp, crashed down after her. A cacophony of smashing glass and shearing metal filled the air, and the garage was choked by a cloud of rust and dust, making it impossible to see.
Trey got to his feet and stumbled forward like a blind man until he came to the edge of the pit. His heart hammered as he peered through the slowly settling dust. The car was at a crazy angle – its front wheels still caught up on the platform, its rear end a mangled wreck in the bottom of the pit. Trey’s stomach sank as he caught sight of a pale human leg sticking out from the wreckage. He quickly turned his head and peered into the other end of the trench. Another body lay there. This one had been saved by the hydraulic supports above it, which somehow managed not to give way as the opposite end of the structure had collapsed. But there was no telling how long that might last. The werewolf leaped down into the pit, where he gently took up Alexa and cradled her to him. A huge wave of relief flooded through the young lycanthrope as he felt the rhythmic beat of the girl’s heart against his own chest. He jumped up out of the pit again and placed her on the floor.
She stirred, a frown touching her brow seconds before her eyes opened. If the sight of the giant seven-foot-tall werewolf bothered her, there was no sign of it on her face. Trey morphed back into his human form, amazing himself again with how easily he could bring about the transformation at will.
Alexa smiled and raised a hand, touching the flesh round his ear, which was a ruined mess.
‘Are you OK?’ she said.
‘You came to rescue me. How could I not be OK?’
‘Who ended up rescuing who?’
The teenager shrugged his shoulders and smiled down at her.
‘Ella?’ Alexa started to get up but fell back, hissing with pain.
The smile slipped from Trey’s face.
‘Just he still for a moment, Lex. Can you do that for me?’ She nodded and watched as he walked back towards the mangled mess behind him. He was naked, but if he was embarrassed in any way he didn’t show it. He approached the far end of the pit, seemingly oblivious to the broken glass scattered about the floor at his feet, and lowered himself down into the wreckage.
Ella had been crushed, her body trapped beneath the car as it fell. He closed his eyes and hoped that she’d
died quickly and not suffered in any way. He tried to forget what had happened in the last few days, remembering instead the girl he’d met in his uncle’s house that first day, not so long ago, in Canada. She’d been a different person then – looking out for him when he’d run with the Pack, helping his uncle to find him when he was in peril, and ultimately making a great sacrifice by saving Trey’s life when her lover, Jurgen, had tried to kill him.
He shook his head and climbed back out of the carnage.
On a hook by the main garage doors Trey spotted an old pair of overalls. They were filthy and more than a little moth-eaten, but right now the teenager had little choice. He took them down and stepped into them, buttoning the front as best he could.
When he walked back to Alexa she was on her feet, her mobile phone held to her ear.
‘Taxi’s on its way,’ she said. She motioned with her head back in the direction he’d just come from. ‘I’m sorry about your friend. Really, I am.’
Trey nodded. ‘She wasn’t always like that.’ He frowned at her. ‘How are you feeling?’
Alexa shrugged. ‘I’m half vampire. I heal almost as quickly as you do.’
She reached out, pulling back the open front of the overalls to reveal his neck and chest, and placing her fingers there.
‘The amulet? How did you—’
‘It seems I don’t need it any more.’ As he said this he had a vague recollection of an old bearded man standing in front of him saying something important. He straightened up to his full height and when he spoke again, Alexa got the impression that he was doing so to himself as much as to her, as if affirming something. ‘I’m the last hereditary werewolf. A son of Theiss.’ He nodded, remembering. ‘He came to see me and tried to tell me what I was and what I was capable of, but I wouldn’t listen to him.’
‘Trey—’
‘But I’m ready now.’
‘Good,’ Alexa said slowly, a little spooked by Trey’s behaviour – but there was something about him, a new confidence and assurance, that if anything she found … heartening. Especially in the circumstances. ‘Because I think today’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.’ She took his arm and steered him towards the exit. ‘Come on, I’ll explain everything in the cab.’
24
Hag had finished her preparations. She stood, shoulders hunched, staring at the floor. Her lank grey hair hung down in front of her face, obscuring it from the apprehensive glances cast in her direction by the others. Her eyes were open, but she no longer took in visual information of any kind. She was in another place now; her mind, her essence, had left her body and was in the realm it needed to be to perform the arduous sorcery ahead.
She could feel the huge power that existed in the Shield – a colossal thing of magic that seemed to have a life of its own now that it had been unleashed after all this time. And she sensed that it was aware of her too. Each time she reached out towards it with her own energy, she was forced to withdraw before it consumed her. She’d rarely experienced anything like it, and it frightened and thrilled her at the same time. Hag knew the effort that Helde must be expending to maintain the vast bulwark between the worlds, and the knowledge filled the sorceress with a newfound admiration for her adversary. She was still certain that the Shield could be breached, but it was going to be an awful lot harder than she’d first imagined.
The old sorceress readied herself again. Drawing upon all of her considerable powers, she reached out to the vast force field once more, holding her nerve and merging with it for longer this time, its energy flowing through her own, filling her and making her one with it. For the first time she could sense the small changes occurring at a large number of points along the inner circumference of the dome. Quite sporadically, the Shield would concentrate its energies at these points, and Hag guessed what the cause was. She waited.
Lucien looked across at the old woman, who hadn’t moved an inch since she’d gone into her trance. She stood, head down, one arm raised a little and bent at the elbow, forefinger slightly crooked, so that it appeared as if she was trying to remember something that was just beyond her mental grasp. He was momentarily distracted when, from the corner of his eye, he saw another trapped human throw themselves at the barrier. But this time the futile attempt had an effect on the sorceress. She flinched a little, the finger on that raised hand straightening so that it pointed straight up at the sky.
The vampire tensed, sensing that something was about to happen.
The sorceress looked up. Her eyes were open, but the globes which stared out from beneath the lids were devoid of any colour – black as coal, they stared sightlessly ahead.
‘Now,’ she said in a small voice, nodding once.
A tiny oblong, no bigger than a matchbox, appeared in the force field at the precise point where the human assailant had attacked it from the other side. It swelled for a second, doubling in size, before almost closing up again. Then quite suddenly it grew rapidly, expanding out in all directions until a large rectangular opening, big enough to drive a couple of cars through, appeared in the wall.
The shouts and cries of the people as they poured through the opening were sweet music to the vampire’s ears. Lucien and the others sprang into action, bellowing at the escapees to hurry down the hill in the direction of the police cordon. Every face was etched with fear, and many of those fleeing clutched loved ones to them while glancing back over their shoulders to see if they were being pursued. These people had caught a glimpse of another world. A world full of nightmare and evil. A world that Lucien, and others like him, had fought so hard to keep from them, and he doubted that any of them would ever be the same again.
As if reading his friend’s thoughts, Tom sidled over to the vampire, putting a hand on his shoulder and giving it a squeeze. ‘At least you got these out,’ he said. ‘Many more are still going to be trapped inside when that breach in the Shield closes. And by the look of Hag, that won’t be too long now.’
Lucien glanced across at the sorceress, and was taken aback by what he saw. She was shaking violently, her body convulsing as if she were being electrocuted in the same way that those on the other side of the Shield had been when in contact with it.
As if on cue, the walls of the rectangular opening began to bow inward. No longer clean, strong lines, the edges of the rectangle were now undulating.
Those on the other side still trying to get through saw the same thing, and a sense of panic went through the remaining escapees.
Tom had taken up a position as close to the opening as possible, barking out orders for everyone to keep moving.
‘This thing’s going to close, Lucien!’ he shouted back at the vampire. ‘We need to get in there now, or we’ll be of no use to those remaining trapped inside!’
Lucien nodded, but looked towards the opening again. Luckily, the initial stampede of people had lessened considerably, and those coming through now were people who had been further back from the outer circumference. At the sight of a means of escape these people had charged forward, sprinting for all they were worth up the road and from side streets so that they too might escape that hellish place.
‘Just a few moments longer! We can still get more out!’
But as he spoke the breach suddenly contracted to about half its initial size. Lucien turned to look at Hag again. The convulsions that racked her body were worse than ever, and she was being thrown around on the spot like a rag doll, her arms and legs flying out in all directions.
‘GO!’ she screamed at him, her black eyes staring straight ahead of her. Small rivulets of blood ran from her nose and ears, droplets of the stuff spraying into the air as the spasms shook her. ‘Go now before it’s too late!’
Robert Holt peered out of a small gap in the curtains covering the windows and front door of Mr Lipman’s tailor’s shop. He’d been standing in the same position, staring out into the street for about an hour now. Earlier, Jake had been with him when they’d seen one of those zombies come
down the road, people scattering in panic in every direction at the sight of the creature. Robert recognized it as the male he’d seen emerging from the black tower, but it was in considerably worse shape than it had been earlier. One arm hung uselessly down by its side, the bone which should have connected into the shoulder joint sticking out from its ruined clothing, and it dragged one leg along the ground as it shuffled up the road. For any living creature the pain would have been unbearable, but the undead zombie seemed not to notice. As they watched, the creature snarled and made as if to lurch towards the fleeing people who ran up both sides of the street, hugging the shops and restaurants. Robert sensed it was looking for something, its head slowly sweeping from side to side, milky, dead eyes seeking out its prey. Suddenly its head snapped towards a woman who was unable to run as quickly as the others – she was hobbling a little on an ankle that she must have twisted at some point. Like a lion spotting the weakest member of the herd, the zombie let out a terrible blood-chilling scream and loped off in the woman’s direction. Despite its own injuries, it moved at terrifying speed.
She was not alone. Her husband or partner put himself between the woman and the approaching monstrosity, making a last stand against this creature from hell. Those watching from the safety of the shop knew that it was a futile gesture.
‘Go and sit down,’ Robert told his son, pulling the curtains shut so that the boy would not have to witness what was about to happen.
‘That thing …’ Jake said, crying. ‘That woman can’t get away, can she? We’re in here, safe, and she’s stuck out there with that terrible … thing.’
The father sat next to his son on the red sofa. ‘I know it’s hard. And I wish you hadn’t seen what just happened. But if we open that door and let them in we’ll be putting ourselves in terrible danger.’
‘We should do something!’