The Hybrid Series | Book 4 | Damned

by Stead, Nick

  That first instinct to open your eyes upon wakening was as strong as ever, yet my muscles refused to obey. The lids remained closed, locking me in a world of sightless twilight which set off my human phobia of blindness and flooded my veins with panic. Even more terrifying, when I tried to move my limbs they proved as unresponsive as my eyelids. I was completely paralysed!

  Somewhere beyond this new hell, there was the clatter of metal on metal and at least two different humans talking to each other. It took me a moment to focus on what they were saying, but once I was able to zone in on their speech I found it easier to process the words.

  “He’s feeling it,” came a female voice.

  “He shouldn’t be with all the drugs in his system,” said a second woman. “I daren’t give him any more – it’s a wonder the sheer stress he’s under hasn’t killed him, never mind the blood loss and the damage to his internal organs. He must have a strong heart to have survived this far, but I don’t think it can take a higher dose of painkillers or anaesthetic.”

  “Maybe it’d be kinder to put him down. If this is the same rogue wolf that’s been terrorising the country, won’t the authorities destroy him anyway?”

  “We can’t know that for sure until they tell us otherwise.” The second woman’s voice filled with conviction. “And you should know me better than that by now – I won’t give up on an animal’s life without a fight. Now hand me a scalpel, please.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  I’d heard enough to piece together what was happening. It seemed I’d regained consciousness right there on the operating table, though neither the veterinary surgeon nor the vet nurse appeared to have realised, probably because of the drugs in my system preventing me from moving. And somehow it was far more terrifying than anything else I’d been through.

  “Jesus, I’ve never seen anything like this before,” the second voice said – presumably the surgeon. “It’s a miracle the crash didn’t kill him! We need to stop this internal bleeding or we will lose him, then we can look at setting these broken bones. And is that a bullet wound in his foreleg?”

  “Yeah, it looks like it. The couple who brought him in said they crashed near a farm. Might have been the farmer shooting at him if he was after livestock?”

  “Probably. I wonder who bandaged him though? There’s no way that couple cared enough to dress any of his wounds.”

  “Beats me. You don’t think he could be a pet someone was keeping illegally, do you?”

  “That would be my best guess. He must have got out a couple of times – first when he was shot, and again when he was run over. The bullet wound is the least of his worries now. I’m going to have to make an incision in his abdomen. This one’s going to be messy; be ready.”

  “Always.” The nurse’s voice had turned solemn, as if she didn’t expect me to survive the procedure.

  There came the sting of cold metal biting into my bloated belly and opening up a whole new world of agony. It was as though that surgical incision had released more than just the blood pooling in my abdomen, the pain made a physical thing which roared and raged now that it was free of its fleshy prison. In reality it was probably just the drugs starting to lose their effect, maybe because of the horror of feeling the surgeon beginning to operate. That sensation had made the situation all too real. And the thought of being aware and yet completely helpless to do anything while someone cut into my body and played with my guts was just too much. It didn’t matter that they were trying to help. Fear overrode any rational thought and my animal instincts took over, leaving only room in my mind for the need to fight and to flee.

  “He’s definitely feeling it,” the first voice repeated. “Wait, did he just move?”

  “That’s not possible. He’s got enough muscle relaxants in him to keep a tiger down, never mind a wolf. I didn’t skimp on those, for his own safety as much as ours.”

  Looking back now, I almost feel sorry for the two humans. They couldn’t have known they were dealing with the impossible when they first took me into surgery, but that’s exactly what I was. Everything about my being went against the laws of nature, and transformation or no, I guess I was still made of stronger stuff than mortal animals. My eyes finally obeyed the command to open and my limbs were doing more than simply stirring now.

  A mess of shattered bone was all that remained of my right flank, leaving that back leg even less capable of taking my weight than my already damaged foreleg. It was a miracle my spinal column had survived, if not entirely intact then at least still functional enough to allow me to move my other limbs. And with my mind turned to an adrenaline fuelled jumble of fear, I was determined to stand.

  “Oh my God, he’s awake!”

  “It’s just not possible,” the surgeon said. “I guess we’ve got no choice but to give him more anaesthesia before he hurts himself. Grab a syringe, quick!”

  Movement set my wounds throbbing with new intensity. They’d laid me on my left side so they could repair the right, but with the help of my body’s adrenaline I managed to pull myself up onto my two good legs and my bad foreleg. The vet nurse was already advancing, needle in hand. A low growl was all it took to keep her at bay. More blood frothed up between bared teeth as I sounded my warning.

  Jumping down tore a gargled yelp from my throat and I briefly collapsed into a shaking heap. One of the women was approaching again, probably thinking she could administer the injection while I was down. That was enough to drive me back to my paws. I gave another growl and limped for the door, no longer a beast of supernatural speed and strength. A mere shadow of my former self, I was as slow as an old wolf who’s lived past his time, each step a battle between my will and the ache in my limbs. Then there was the fight just to stay conscious. My head felt woozy from the drugs and the blood loss, and I could feel oblivion tugging at my mind, seeking to pull me back under. But my will was strengthened by terror, and so I struggled on.

  Something slipped down through the surgical incision in my abdomen, spattering the floor with fresh blood. It was only when I reached the door that I realised I had no way to open it. Smashing my way through in my current state would be impossible and it’d be a struggle to turn the handle with paws. I had effectively become a cornered animal, afraid and with nowhere to run.

  Another warning snarl rumbled through my throat as I turned to face the two humans. The nurse still held the needle but they were both keeping their distance now, wary of being bitten. My eyes shifted from them to a window set in the left wall above a sink, and I started forward again, my crazed brain recognising it as another possible escape route. The organ poking through my abdomen slipped further still, dragging along the floor and smearing a bloody trail to mark my progress. I took little notice. Finding a way out of the room was all that mattered.

  I reached the sink and tried hooking first my good foreleg, and then the injured one, round the steel basin, intending to pull myself up and nudge the glass open if it wasn’t locked. All that bought me was more pain. The adrenaline flooding my system could only get me so far, and I found I didn’t have the strength to clamber up. I fell with another animal cry of agony.

  Footsteps clacked across the floor, the vet nurse attempting to make another move while I struggled to pick myself back up. The threat of being drugged and returned to the operating table was enough to overcome the pain, and I rose with another snarl.

  “Fuck this, if he doesn’t want our help I say we leave him!” the nurse said.

  “We could wait for the authorities to get here, I suppose. I’m not sure he has that long though.”

  “We’ve done all we can for now,” the nurse tried to reassure her colleague. “Let’s leave him in here to calm down. He’s obviously a fighter – maybe he can hang on a little while longer, till it’s safe for us to operate.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  The two women backed towards the door, never once taking their eyes off me, as if they thought I might suddenly make a charge at them. And
they were half right. Once I saw they were heading for the exit, I forced my aching body back into action. But there was no way I was going to cross the room in time to slip through with them. They were already passing through the doorway before I was even halfway there, and moments later the door slammed shut, trapping me inside.

  I collapsed again, finally beginning to succumb to my wounds. The vet peered in at me through the window in the door, her eyes filled with pity as they locked on mine. They grew blurry a moment later. It was becoming a struggle to focus my sight on anything, but I could just about make out the face withdrawing from the other side of that small pane of glass. Then the room was dimming, blackness closing in. No! This couldn’t be how it ended. I fought against it with everything I had left.

  Standing was beyond me then and even sliding along the floor like some deformed serpent proved too much. Yet still I fought to keep my hold on consciousness, my grip on life. If not for myself then for all those who’d died so I might live, otherwise what meaning did their deaths hold? Not all the killing I’d indulged in had been mindless slaughter, but if I surrendered to the Reaper then all those who’d fed the hunger and given the energy my body needed to keep functioning had done so for nothing. It might sound crazy to you, but in that moment I felt I had to go on living to honour the memories of all those I’d taken as prey. And then there was the dog I’d sworn to avenge. Two of the men who’d tortured her had escaped the dungeon, and I’d promised to hunt them down and deliver my brutal, bloody justice for the innocent creature they’d mutilated and left for me to find.

  Had she been coaxed into their evil grasp with promises of treats and affection? Had she been trusting of that species which proved time and again it was ultimately corrupt at heart, all good deeds overshadowed by the evil men committed, the lives they ruined? Had she felt confusion amidst the terror when that species had then turned on her, promises of treats and affection replaced with only pain and abuse? Humanity had bred companion animals for their child-like natures. It wasn’t hard to imagine her being unwavering in her trust of the species who’d raised and cared for her all her life. She must have spent her last hours wondering what she’d done wrong to deserve such punishment from the new people who’d taken her in. For why else would they be inflicting these torments on her? She wouldn’t have understood their twisted reasoning, nor the darkness that drives humans to commit such evil. It was the ultimate betrayal. And the thought of what might have been going through the poor animal’s mind was enough to waken my anger and the hunger for the kill.

  My digits dug into the linoleum floor with the desire to rip and tear with clawed hands as well as my jaws, if only I could overcome whatever the Slayers had injected me with. A wave of heat surged through my body, bringing the feeling of my blood boiling in my veins. The crimson fluid leaking from my maw grew warmer on my tongue, and the pain racking my body soared to ever greater heights. And yet my hold on life seemed to be growing stronger. My vision was clearing and the blackness seeking to envelop my mind receded.

  There came a familiar ache, and I realised my blood was boiling with more than just fury. Those clawed extremities were beginning to stretch out into fingers, while the metacarpals of my paw shortened to take on a more human shape, my dew claws moving downwards and forming opposable thumbs. The sensation would always be an uncomfortable one and yet it brought a kind of lupine smile to my muzzle. The transformation had finally kicked in.

  The damage to my body was so extensive that the flesh and bone wasn’t able to knit back together as early in the process as a minor wound, and the throbbing of my injuries persisted alongside the pain of the transformation. My foreleg repaired itself easily enough, the fractured bone clicking back into place to form a seamless whole once more. Tissue rolled across the bullet hole and the lump of metal was forced out, clattering harmlessly onto the linoleum. But the shattered mess of my ruined hindquarter was another matter.

  My animal cries gave way to human screams as my snout ground back into my skull and my vocal cords shifted. The blood leaking from my mouth seemed to have come to a stop, ruptured blood vessels fusing together with the cell regeneration which allowed me to physically change from one species to another. Organs were no longer failing, healing themselves and resuming normal function. There was still the matter of the innards poking out from my abdomen though.

  I tried to raise myself into an upright position to examine the gory spectacle humanity had made of my lower body, but the pain proved too much. The incision ran right through the muscles of my stomach, making the simple motion of levering myself up onto my front limbs excruciating. Holding my body’s weight in a sitting position was near impossible. But my guts were not going back up into place on their own and the gash to my belly couldn’t close with them in the way. Then there was my hind leg. I couldn’t tell if the limb was healing properly as it became more human, or whether it also needed attention.

  I decided sitting up would probably be easier if I could prop myself against a wall, so I tried again to drag myself along the floor on arms that had turned mostly human. That proved much more manageable now the bullet wound had healed and some of my strength had returned, and I was soon making another attempt at raising myself up. It took as much in the way of willpower as it did physical might, but I battled through the pain and struggled into a sitting position, until my head fell back against the brickwork and I enjoyed a moment’s respite, panting with the effort.

  Once the transformation had started it didn’t want to stop, like an avalanche gathering momentum and cascading down my body, a force of nature I couldn’t have halted even briefly that day, no matter how I wanted to rest. My head suddenly felt too heavy as I lifted it off the wall and looked down at myself, aching and weary.

  A bloody vine hung down over my groin, no worse than any of the other gruesome sights I’d faced as a werewolf and yet I was somewhat reluctant to touch my own intestines. But it wasn’t like I had a choice, so I gritted my teeth and grabbed the section of gut protruding through the incision, doing my best to stuff it back inside. The organ felt smooth and slimy, slipping between my fingers as I tried to push it into place. My hands were soon slick with blood and in the end, I just had to hope it would move to where it should be once everything was fully human again.

  My flank looked like a grisly bomb site. Shards of white lined a ghastly crater left by the nose of the car, my pelvis exploded into dozens of splinters standing in the wound like the sacred stones of ancient peoples. The end of my femur poked out at an odd angle, not only broken but dislocated from the socket. It still looked to be mostly lupine, as if I’d subconsciously been controlling the change so that my upper body could shift back first, allowing me to tend to my injuries and ensure everything changed and healed as it should.

  I was even less enthusiastic about touching my shattered hip, knowing I was in for a fresh bout of torment once I started prodding around. But the tissue was beginning to repair itself before my very eyes. There was nothing for it but to guide the displaced bone fragments back down, so that they fused with the rest of my shifting pelvis.

  The crater was already beginning to fill in when I took hold of the joint. Braced for the pain, I forced the ball into its socket with another scream. New agony pulsed through my leg, but it soon subsided into the normal ache of the transformation. All physical characteristics of my wolfish nature slid back into the darkness at my core, and I let my head slump back against the wall, eyes closing with another wave of tiredness.

  My body had other ideas. I don’t know if it was the after effects of the drugs I’d been given or the sheer terror of waking up on the operating table, but a feeling of nausea welled up, becoming a vile stream of bile and half-digested meat. The unpleasant geyser rushed up my gullet and into my mouth, and I had to lean to the side to vomit on the floor.

  Chunks of flesh from the camper I’d eaten mixed with the drying blood from my injuries. Part of a severed finger still wearing a ring fell into the foul p
ool. The skin had started to dissolve in the acid of my stomach, revealing patches of the red flesh wrapped around the bone – a declaration of my true monstrous nature for all the world to see.

  I was fairly certain whichever official came to answer the vet’s call about a wolf brought in from a road accident would in fact be one of the Slayers, which meant the clinic wasn’t going to be safe for me much longer. And even if the authorities came expecting to deal with a natural wolf, I was still going to be in for a world of trouble if they found me next to a puddle of puke proclaiming my guilt. Plus I didn’t think I had the energy to transform back to wolf anytime soon, and if they found a boy in place of a wolf it was going to make matters even worse. Resting wasn’t an option, tired as I was.

  The clack of shoes on the linoleum heralded the return of one of the humans. Cursing, I got to my feet and padded over to the window, only to find it locked and no sign of a key to open it. Movement outside caught my eye, and with a feeling of dread I watched a police car drive by. I couldn’t see it parking up but I could hear it through the glass, followed by the slam of a car door as an officer climbed out.

  My eyes darted from the window to the door. The human was about to come through and find her patient transformed into a teenager, but if I smashed my way out through the glass that would likely bring the police running. And if the officer I’d just heard was a Slayer, they may well succeed in gunning me down as I clambered through. I was torn. Neither option seemed a particularly good one but what other choices did I have? Then the door handle began to turn and I was forced to make a decision.

  Heart pounding, I rushed back over to the operating table and pushed it onto one side with an almighty bang, surgical tools raining down and adding to the din. I figured that would at least buy me a few moments as I took cover behind the upended slab of metal.