by Stead, Nick
“And here’s something else most people these days probably don’t realise: teenagers have always been teenagers, regardless of the era they’re born into. Every generation thinks they have it worse, but we all go through the same struggles of growing up.”
I growled. “Some of us do have it worse.”
“Well yes, some teens have an especially hard time of it if they’ve got more than just being a teenager to cope with. And lycanthropy is probably about as bad as it gets. But it’s never easy for any of us. I was still in my late teens when my sister faked her death.
“Sarah was always the responsible one. I just wanted to enjoy life; I had no interest in politics and the troubles of others. My lessons back then were every bit as dull as most kids find modern day schooling now, and I’d do anything to get out of them. The local tavern was like a second home, and I had dreams of going out and seeing the world, not chaining myself to the throne and all that came with it. So the idea of ruling terrified me.”
“Is that why you dropped your titles when you became involved with the undead?”
“It is. My sister still likes to be known as a lady, if not the queen and ruler of men she once was. But I never wanted that. When they started to make arrangements for my coronation ceremony it suddenly became all too real. I knew then I had to escape before it was too late, and I ran away not long after.”
“But wouldn’t people know what you looked like?”
“You could say I was a master of disguise by then,” she laughed. “I had to disguise myself for all those adventures into the tavern, so running away for good wasn’t much different. By the time they realised I was missing, I was already long gone. Then it was just a case of avoiding all the search parties.
“It was while I was on the run I met the wise woman who would guide me on the way to my true destiny. She opened my eyes to the secrets of the universe and promised to instruct me in the ways of magic, if that was what I wanted. Of course I said yes.
“And that is how I went from royalty to witch.”
“Do you ever regret that decision?”
“No. Monarchy wasn’t for me and I’d already lost all those I cared about in that life. Choosing the path of witchcraft led me back to Sarah and it has shown me sights most people can only dream of, without having to give up my humanity like you and Sarah have. This is who I am meant to be.”
“And I guess Lady Sarah’s the reason you’ve ended up siding with the undead instead of the Slayers?”
“Yes.”
I nodded. “Okay, now I feel like I know you a little better. Thanks for sharing that with me.”
She gave another of her warm smiles. “You’re welcome. We should get some rest now, unless there’s anything you want to tell me about the trip to the vets?”
“There is something important I need to tell you all, but it might as well wait till dusk when the vampires wake. No point bringing it up now, just to tell those two again later.”
“Until nightfall then,” she said, lying on the earth with nothing but the grass to sleep on. Varin settled beside her, relaxed but still alert.
“Until nightfall,” I echoed.
The ground felt much softer than the hard stone which had made up most of the dungeon, and it didn’t take long for me to drift into a light sleep.
I dreamt. Not the horrific nightmares that were born of my werewolf curse, but a happy dream. A dream of hope and freedom and life. A dream of all that I longed for, and all that had been denied to me in the world of men.
Snow crunched beneath my paws as I bounded across the land, heart singing with the joy of the hunt and spirit soaring with the simple pleasure of being alive. There’d been so many struggles to find my place in the world, so much time spent seeking meaning in my cursed existence. All those massacres where I’d indulged in mindless slaughter for no reason other than the dark pleasure of my bloodlust, and where had it got me? I’d felt nothing but that horrible emptiness which could never quite be filled, try as I might with killing and rage. But this, this is what I was made to do.
My senses were locked on my prey, his breathing loud and ragged to my ears, his body surely beginning to tire as I began to close the distance between us. Sweet fear poured from him in the thundering of his heart and the rolling of his eyes. I could see the whites of his animal terror as I drew closer still, this magnificent son of the wilderness who would give his life for his toothy brothers.
The moose slowed and turned to make his final stand. He was not the prey of my unnatural craving, yet I felt excitement pulsing through my veins as I too slowed and bared my fangs, closing in for the kill. And despite the origins of my existence which lay firmly outside the natural order of things, here was all that my curse embodied. Here was everything that I had been searching for since becoming a werewolf, my place in the world I had spent so long trying to find. Here was where I was meant to be, a part of nature’s cycle, hunting only what I needed to survive and helping to keep the delicate balance between predator and prey.
I dodged the moose’s antlers and clamped my jaws on his muscled neck, spilling his life in a hot liquid rush. He fought to shake me loose but I was far too powerful for any natural animal, and slowly his strength began to ebb. It wasn’t long before he fell to his knees, never to rise again.
Confident my prey had been sufficiently subdued, I released my hold on his neck and looked into those large eyes, silently giving my thanks for his noble sacrifice. I could see the image of myself reflected there, and as I watched, that image seemed to multiply. My mortal cousins stepped up beside me, and we began to feed as pack.
A familiar stab of pain shot through my stomach, bringing me back to the waking world. My eyes snapped open to find it was dusk. The moon was already calling me to the hunt and my body was pressing for the change. But until my lunar master chose to show itself I wasn’t bound to my wolf form. I fought the transformation for the time being, wanting to keep my human vocal cords for as long as it took to discuss this latest encounter with Will.
The vampires were just emerging from their temporary shelter when I sat up, and Selina was beginning to stir. I waited for the witch to rouse herself before filling them in on the morning’s events.
“Time we were on our way,” Zee said. “Are we all ready?”
“There’s something I need to talk to you guys about first,” I answered. “It’s been a crazy day.”
Lady Sarah looked from me to her sister, her eyes narrowing slightly with suspicion. “What happened?”
So I gave them a quick run through of everything from sunrise and finding myself stuck in wolf form, to being hit by the car and taken to the vets. “Luckily there was no evidence of any Slayers at the vets, but the two humans weren’t prepared for operating on a werewolf and I came round right there on the operating table. I was finally able to change back and heal, when the police they’d called turned up. Except it wasn’t a police officer but the very same Slayer whose bullet Selina saved me from last year.
“I never got chance to tell you in all the chaos of escaping the dungeon last night, but he was there when I confronted David. At first it seemed like he was working for him, but then he turned on not just David but a bunch of other Slayers as well, so me and Amy could get away. And this morning he didn’t seem to have any intention of killing me. He said he’d come to ask my help fighting the demon from last night, and he seems pretty confident that me and him have a good chance of defeating it together. What I can’t work out is why he seemed so set on killing me last year, only to have this sudden change of heart, and why he thinks the two of us can succeed where you two vampires failed. I mean, he’s only human and you two are way more powerful than I am. So what do you think?”
“I think the demon is humanity’s problem,” Lady Sarah said, which didn’t surprise me. “Why should you risk your life to help the Slayers clean up their own mess? We might have freed the demon to save ourselves, but it would not be up here on Earth in the first place, wer
e it not for them summoning it. Let them deal with the consequences.”
“That’s exactly how I was feeling, but the bastard seems to think my family might be in danger if I don’t help him kill it or send it back to Hell, or whatever he intends to do. Would I be a fool to join forces with him just for this fight?”
Zee ran a hand through his beard, his eyes thoughtful. “There was no sign of the demon when we left your family last night. Wherever it’s gone, I think it’s safe to say it’s not in this part of the country, or we would have felt its presence again. I don’t think your family are in any immediate danger, so I’m inclined to agree with Lady Sarah. Let the Slayers confront the demon. They have enough spellcasters among them to banish it back to Hell, as we meant to.”
Selina shook her head, her face lined with worry. “It might not be that simple now. The longer the demon is in our world, the greater a hold it gets on the mortal plane and the harder it becomes to banish it. I hate to say it, but the Slayers might not be able to take care of the problem alone. It depends how much combined power their spellcasters have. And it sounds like this man might not even be working with them anymore. If he is working alone, he has no chance.”
Lady Sarah frowned, her eyes filling with impatience. “I still do not see how this is our problem. Demons thrive on human suffering. It will be more interested in torturing the souls of mortals than any undead, so long as we keep out of its way. Which can only be a good thing for us.”
“But if my family are at risk, how can I just sit back and do nothing? How can I leave the country knowing they could be in danger, and that I might be coming back to find nothing more than their graves?”
“It’s your decision, Nick,” Zee answered. “You know I will stand by you, whatever you choose.”
“We all will,” Selina said, giving her sister a ‘don’t argue’ look. Lady Sarah’s frown deepened but she didn’t voice any more of her thoughts out loud, her head turning to glare to the side.
I glanced at her with a frown of my own. She’d always been so against fighting the Slayers but she’d never refused to help me, except for when her ties to Ulfarr had got in the way. Was she about to refuse now? “Thanks. I need some time to think things over, and when the transformation takes hold I’m going to need to hunt again. You guys must be hungry as well. Should we go off and do our own thing, then meet back here when we’ve all fed?”
“That suits me,” Zee replied. “Howl if we get into trouble?”
“Well I won’t be able to do much else under the full moon.”
We all laughed at that, even Lady Sarah. My doubts faded and I enjoyed a rare feeling of real friendship. I still didn’t know what to do about Will and the demon, but at least I knew I wasn’t going to be alone in whatever I decided. Then the moment passed and we each stalked off into the night, like the solitary monsters we truly were.
CHAPTER FIVE
Hard Choices
I found myself back at the scene of the morning’s carnage, the two bodies still lying where we’d left them. No doubt they would soon be missed, the police would come to investigate and the Slayers would do whatever it took to cover it up, but it seemed no one had come looking yet.
Standing there by my last kill, I turned my gaze skyward and looked up through the clearing at the dark skies overhead. There wasn’t much to see. The beauty of the heavens hid behind a thick shroud of cloudy gloom, but I could feel the lunar power up there. Part of me yearned to give in to it and run free, hunting and killing until my hunger was satiated and my bloodlust slaked. I resisted, not yet ready to answer the moon’s call.
“Okay. I don’t know if there’s anyone up there or if you’re even listening to any of us down here, but if there are any gods or angels or any kind of divine beings, I ask you to listen now. I know I probably don’t deserve your help after the things I’ve done, but there are innocent lives at stake and so I ask you to help not for me, but for them. And all I ask is this: if my family really are in danger, if teaming up with my enemy is really the right thing to do, then please give me a sign. Send me another dream, a vision to show me the way. Help me make the right decision, please.”
I waited. The minutes ticked by as I stood there, straining my senses for any hint of an answer – a whispering on the wind or a gap in the clouds and a guiding star – but there was none. So I turned my gaze downward.
“Then if Heaven won’t help, perhaps Hell will. I know you exist, at least. So if there’s any demons or devils or even THE Devil listening right now, I ask the same of you. Give me a sign of what I’m supposed to do.”
Again I waited, and for a brief moment I fancied the ground was shaking beneath me. I could just imagine a crack appearing between my feet, a tear in the earth’s crust which would widen and swallow me whole. In my mind’s eye I was already falling into the deepest pit of Hell, the one reserved for the worst of the monsters in all their various shapes and sizes. But it was only my imagination, and Hell proved as unhelpful as Heaven had.
I supposed I shouldn’t really be surprised. If there was a devil lording over that fiery realm then he might want his minion up here causing chaos and destruction, and perhaps paving the way for more of them to return to the mortal plane.
I looked back up at the sky. “Last chance, God.”
But the only answer I received was a milky glow splitting the clouds. The moon broke free of its wispy prison at last, and my bestial self wasn’t far behind, ripping through my flesh in an agonising rage. With a cry of pain I fell to my knees, no longer fighting the inevitable. Perhaps Hell had been listening after all. I was being called back to the slaughter, and the Devil was about to get his due.
Fully lupine once more, I raised my nose to the breeze and breathed in, scenting for prey. My ears twisted, searching for sounds of life, and my eyes sought the movement of potential victims, but there were none. The woodland creatures were still in hiding. And there were no other humans to be had in the immediate vicinity, just the two corpses. Yet my curse demanded a fresh kill.
I broke into a run, enjoying the feeling of my legs flowing across the earth with that liquid grace most humans were lacking. It reminded me of the dream, and I began to wonder if that was my sign. Had it been a glimpse of the future? A vision of the life awaiting me in far off lands? Or had it been nothing more than my subconscious working through those hopes I’d begun to harbour since deciding the time had come to flee the country? I didn’t know, but I wanted so badly for the dream to become real.
No longer robbed of my self-control, I came to a stop at the edge of the woods and scented the air again. The primal fury was there as always, burning stronger in my heart with the moonlight stoking it, and the bloodlust strained against its fetters, roaring and fighting against my rational mind, eager to be free and rampage through my brain until we were knee deep in corpses. Part of me still wanted to give in to it and commit bloody massacre after bloody massacre, but I was better than that now. I’d sworn to my inner wolf I would no longer kill needlessly, that I’d have more respect for the sanctity of life. So I ignored the urge to keep running towards the humans I would always crave. I ignored the unnatural hunger for meaningless death. And instead I made my way into the fields full of livestock, to a safer kill and less temptation than the human towns offered.
The sheep sensed me coming and went into the same blind panic as the night before. Except this time they were right to be afraid. This time death was coming to the herd, and there was no escape.
I broke into another run, bounding across the field to the terrified flock. Their bleating only spurred me on, their fear bolstering my hunger for the kill. There was no room for pity with the full moon shining so brightly overhead, not even when they began to injure themselves in their desperation to get away. One poor animal fell and broke her leg, the bone fracturing with an audible crack and her animal screams of pain no less poignant than those of the countless humans to meet a similar fate. Yet there was something missing.
&nbs
p; After the dream, the thrill of the hunt wasn’t quite there and my enjoyment wasn’t the same. For this was not the freedom of the wilderness. I had no sense of it being in any way natural and there was no pack to run with, nor was there a feeling of triumph to be had when I closed in on my prey. The sheep were penned in, the chase cut short. And much as part of me just wanted to rend juicy flesh with tooth and claw, my lupine half had always lived for the hunt, not just the kill.
I closed in on the hapless animal and suddenly my mind was made up. Zee was right, there was no evidence of the demon anywhere near the area my family now called home. It was possible it wasn’t even in the UK anymore. Its escape overseas would be far easier than ours with those wings capable of flight – maybe it had already flown to another part of the world where the Slayers were less of a threat. Will had never actually said where he believed it to be, and even if he had there was still the question of whether I could trust him. But the life I could make for myself in the natural world, that was simple. There would be no questions of who to trust or doubts over what was real and what was false. And I was beginning to feel I needed that dream life, perhaps not forever but at least for a time, to give my heart and soul chance to heal after everything the curse had put me through. Maybe I could even find a way back through the darkness I’d fallen into and become something more than a killer.
My jaws closed on the sheep’s throat and blood spurted into my mouth, threatening to break down the walls I was trying so hard to keep my bloodlust behind. It needed some violence to quieten it, and the next thing I knew I was mauling my prey with newfound savagery.
I released her neck and bit clean through one of the legs flailing uselessly in front of my muzzle. The limb came away in a shower of blood, hanging from my jaws like a gory stick taken from the tree of some twisted forest. Dropping it, I struck again, this time at the animal’s soft belly. Tubes ripped as they passed between my fangs, freeing the organs to spill out in a meaty pile of bloody richness. I gulped down a few, then continued to ravage the sheep’s flesh until it was unrecognisable.