The Hybrid Series | Book 4 | Damned

by Stead, Nick

  Zee climbed into his own grave and we buried them for the day. Nothing more was said, but Lady Sarah couldn’t seem to keep the disgust from her face as the dirt hit her pale skin, especially when a worm wriggled its way out of a clump and across her cheek. I couldn’t really blame her for being so against it. Lying beneath the soil didn’t look very pleasant, though at least she would soon be dead to the world and unaware of her surroundings. They didn’t have to endure their discomfort for long.

  Our daytime shelter wasn’t much more appealing. The outbuilding offered nothing we could use to cushion our aching bodies, so we were resigned to lying on another cold, hard floor. Selina still had her blanket to ward off some of the chill, but that was our only luxury.

  I’d taken my body back to its hybrid form during the night and again I chose to keep my pelt for warmth. With no wind to drive the cold through my fur, I wasn’t yet feeling the bite of the coming winter. But sleeping was no easier for having a roof over my head. The restlessness of my curse plagued me again and I took to pacing the grounds so as not to disturb Selina, though I could tell from her breathing she hadn’t fallen to sleep yet either.

  It was while I was prowling round the area that I caught the scent of the ghoul for the third and what I intended to be the final time. The smell brought me to a sudden stop, my heart quickening in anticipation of the kill.

  I glanced back at the entrance to the outbuilding. Varin stood guard there, faithful as any flesh and blood dog. He turned his snout to the wind and pricked his ears, but he made no move to come and investigate, leaving me free to act as I saw fit. And I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I was going to confront that foul creature at long last, and rip the answers from its rotting body if I had to.

  Shifting my gaze back in the direction of the odour’s source, I stalked towards it, using the buildings as cover to circle round and sneak up from behind. Moments later I had my prey in my sights. The back of its bald head presented an easy target as it slunk through the grass, oblivious to my presence. Or so I thought. Just as I was readying to close the distance in but a few short bounds, something alerted the creature again. It twisted round and sounded another maniacal laugh, then bolted for the main house. With a snarl, I gave chase.

  The ground rushed beneath my paw-like hands and feet, the world a blur as I shot towards my rival. I slowed only when I reached the now open doorway, skidding to a stop in the hall. There was no sight of the ghoul but I could smell it in there with me, and sure enough there came the faint creak of a floorboard on the stairs to my right, leading downwards.

  Snarling again, I rushed to the stairs and plunged into darkness. It seemed I was in another cellar. A quick feel of the walls and my hand passed over a light switch, the bulb bursting into life the moment I pressed it to find – nothing. Or nothing of interest. The room must have been used as storage space by its previous owners because some of their junk still lined the walls, but that was all I could see. There was no ghoul cornered on the far side, no undead thing rushing at me with those hungry eyes and gaping jaws. Its stench filled my nostrils but it was as if the creature had become invisible. Frustration gave rise to anger and I roared “Show yourself!”

  Silence.

  “What do you want?”

  Another laugh sounded as I turned this way and that, snapping my jaws with fury. A flash of movement in the corner of my eye drew my gaze upwards, and there it was, clinging to the ceiling with its claws, like an overgrown spider. My lips lifted into a fearsome grin, made all the more ferocious for my semi-lupine body. But before I could make a leap for it, the ghoul shot off yet again, and moments later we were plunged back into darkness. I stood fuming and waiting for my eyes to adjust. There was some light filtering in from upstairs, enough for my greater night vision to pick out shapes hiding behind the thick veil of shadows.

  “Why do you keep laughing?”

  More laughter, and something inside me snapped. Memories of childhood bullies taunting and mocking rose unbidden, and I lost all desire to keep the rage under control. In seconds it had grown from a warm glow smouldering in its dark pit, to a blazing inferno filling every last cell in my body, and I did nothing to fight it. My bloodlust soared alongside it, a dragon riding the flames of its own breath. I would not be denied. Death was coming to the next unfortunate creature to cross my path, and the ghoul couldn’t hide forever. Next time it so much as twitched a muscle, my eyes and ears would hone in on it, and then we would see who was laughing.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Lady Sarah’s words about a ghoul’s hunting preferences rang true as it began to creep through the shadows, and with the rage driving me it never stood a chance. Fast as a bullet I charged, catching the creature with my bare hands and tearing it from the ceiling. The ghoul shrieked in surprise and maybe even fear, but that only spurred me on, and in a matter of seconds I had it pinned against a wall, still grinning my fierce predatory grin.

  “Wait!” the ghoul cried, in a guttural voice which was too far gone to identify as male or female, just like its body.

  “Why? There’s no Varin to save you this time.”

  “Already eaten,” it answered, each word seeming to cost it a great deal. Its voice cracked under the strain of the next partial sentence. “Not here to hurt.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Here for you. You the one. The Wolf. It’s you.”

  “I’ve not got time for games,” I growled. “Tell me why you’ve been following us or I’ll rip the rotten heart from your chest and silence you for good.”

  I dug my claws into greying skin and the thing made a noise akin to my own lupine vocalisations of pain, whimpering and whining.

  “Wait!” it said again, with more urgency.

  “I grow tired of waiting. There’s been too many questions and not enough answers. It’s time someone paid off some of that debt. Answer me and maybe I’ll let you live, and find something else to satisfy the need to kill.”

  Both my rage and bloodlust roared in protest, but again I chose to ignore those darker urges. If the ghoul gave a good enough reason for stalking us, I would consider letting it go.

  “Here to warn.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Human warrior come with offer, yes?”

  That got my attention. I didn’t need to ask which human warrior. It could only be Will, the same Slayer I kept crossing paths with, and who now wanted me to help him defeat the demon.

  “Yes.”

  “Beware. Can’t trust him.”

  I glared at the creature I’d taken to be my rival, no more than a dark shape in the blackness of the cellar. The ghoul might be the ally they were supposed to be after all. And the fact we were both undead should have made it easier to trust the creature than a human formerly allied with a faction who were most certainly our sworn enemies. But I needed more to alleviate my suspicions.

  “And how do you know?” I answered finally, not letting on I’d never had any intention of trusting Will, or that I’d already decided against joining forces with him, even if it was only for one fight. But I did relax my grip slightly.

  The ghoul laughed again but I thought I detected a bitterness to it now. “Show you.”

  “Then we’re going to need some light. If I let you go, do I have your word you won’t run off again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” I said, my anger receding somewhat with nothing to keep fuelling it. I released my grip and flicked the light switch.

  A large mirror caught my eye, propped up against one of the walls. The ghoul saw it too and for a brief moment we each froze, as if transfixed by our own monstrous reflections, like our souls had been laid bare, along with all our sins. It was as though the glass had caught the essence of our true natures, and now it was presenting them for each of us to face. I’d long since accepted all the curse had made me, but the ghoul’s reaction was surprising. It let out another shriek, then its reflection vanished. I felt a rush of air as it shot off
again and my anger found new life, blazing through my throat in a string of curses. But the creature hadn’t gone far. I bounded after it and followed the death smell to the lounge. There it sat in the middle of the floor, cringing with its hands on its head, doing its best to hide that macabre face behind its bony arms.

  “No! Mustn’t look,” it said, turning away. If it had still had tear ducts, I felt sure it would have been crying.

  “Why?” I asked, unsure what else to say.

  “Not always this way. Used to be handsome. Like human you.”

  And suddenly I understood. The hunger I’d seen in his eyes (for I was sure then he must be male) wasn’t a hunger for my flesh but a hunger for the life he’d once known as a human. In that respect his curse seemed crueller than mine. At least I could still pass as human when I chose to, and in a world without the Slayers I might even have carried on living among them, enjoying all the material things in life, as well as my youth and good looks. The same could be said of the vampires, even if they had to sacrifice walking under the sun for their immortality. But this ghoul and all the rest of his kindred had lost everything in their undeath. It was a high price to pay for eternity, and presumably not one any of them had made willingly. I wondered then if it was more than just his looks he’d lost. His speech was surely not the speech of the man he’d been in life. Had his mind also begun to decay, along with the rest of his body? Or was it just the apparent pain of forming the words in that rotten voice box?

  But there had to be something of him left in there. That he had any words at all proved he was more than just animal instinct. And for him to seek me out to give me this warning, even travelling during the daylight hours which went against normal ghoul behaviour, showed a capacity for more than a mere drive for food. His mind may no longer be all it once was, but he was still in there, whoever he had been in life. Which led me to my next question.

  “I’m sure you did. How about we start with your name?”

  “Ed.”

  “Okay. So who are you, Ed?”

  “Show you,” he said again, grabbing the locket round his neck and pulling the chain over his skull. It was only once he’d removed it that I noticed there was also a set of dog tags resting on his bare chest. The skin looked so thin and fragile, the metal seemed in danger of splitting it open. But both trinkets had to be from his mortal life and if they were going to do him any damage, it would no doubt have been done already. Or maybe ghouls had similar supernatural healing to the rest of us.

  He held the locket out to me with skeletal fingers. The catch was fiddly in my clawed hands and I had to pass it back to him to open. He held it out again so I could examine the two pictures inside – a young man dressed in army uniform on the right and a woman on the left – though neither were faces I recognised. Judging from their hairstyles and the woman’s clothes, I guessed the pictures had been taken around the time of World War Two.

  “This is you and your wife?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he confirmed.

  “So you fought in the war?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. So how do you know Will?”

  “How old you think he is?”

  “I don’t know, sixty something? Seventy? He’s the oldest Slayer I’ve fought and he seems more experienced than the rest of them put together. Why?”

  The ghoul shook his head. “Billy not that old. Fifty-three when died.”

  “When he died? I thought he was human.”

  “Both were. Show you,” Ed said again. He dug a claw into the floorboards and began to draw his story. And though the pictures were crude – little more than stick men with their names written above them, really – I found myself transported through time. The drawings came to life and played in my imagination as though they were actual memories, until the real world faded away and I became fully immersed in the ghoul’s story.

  Gunfire rent nature’s peace, bullets tearing flesh and land alike in a spray of destruction. Ears rang with that artificial thunder which eroded a man’s nerves and cut through weeks of training, turning even the bravest of soldiers to shivering wrecks. But this was life for Ed and countless others like him. Instinct screamed at them to flee and yet they held fast, returning the enemy fire with shots of their own.

  Billy stood strong beside him. They’d been assigned to their current unit around the same time, and friendship had bloomed. War then took that friendship and forged it into something greater, deepening emotions and strengthening the bond into brotherhood. Billy became the big brother Ed had never had, and the older man’s presence gave him courage when his resolve would otherwise have failed. They had each other’s backs, always. And there was no one else he’d trust so completely with his life.

  A tank rolled into view, advancing towards their line. Ed’s blood turned cold.

  “Fall back!” their captain shouted.

  The men didn’t need telling twice. Ed sprinted for cover, terrified of the sheer size and firepower of the approaching vehicle. He’d seen the damage those mechanical monsters could do and he was desperate to avoid its crosshairs.

  More gunshots sounded and pain erupted in his leg. He fell to the German’s ambush, screaming for help and pleading for his life. The rest of the unit didn’t even hesitate. Ed watched as they left him there to die, forced to keep moving by the hail of bullets still roaring above him. One by one his comrades vanished, behind a hill.

  All hope seemed lost when Billy reappeared, taking advantage of a lull in the fighting as the Germans were forced to reload. The gunfire started up again, but his friend never faltered. He fell to his knees beside Ed and helped him up, and somehow the two of them managed to get to their feet without being gunned down again.

  With Billy’s help, he limped across the battlefield. They were almost back to their unit when something exploded behind them. Fire and debris erupted in a ball of lethal force. The two men were caught on the very edges of it, just out of range of the instant death at its epicentre, but not far enough to be spared injury. Heat blasted through clothes and skin, tearing open great sores of excruciating agony, while fragments of some foreign material peppered across their exposed backs, piercing flesh and tunnelling deep within. Ed was back on the ground, bleeding worse than before and screaming even louder. But his screams were lost in the next round of fire.

  Billy lay beside him, dying an equally slow and agonising death. Running feet appeared in his field of vision, the Germans pressing their attack and forcing the British unit back further still. There would be no more help from their allies now. The two men were doomed and they knew it, and all that was left to do was to pray for it to end, for the torment to stop.

  That was when He appeared. A demonic being in the guise of a huge black werewolf with bat-like wings and reptilian slit eyes the colour of blood. Where the creature came from wasn’t clear, but all that really mattered were His words.

  “Ah, the spoils of war,” the demon said, fixing those terrible eyes on Billy. “And what a prize we have here. I could use a soldier like you.”

  “Help us,” Ed begged.

  “You are less valuable. But Billy here, a veteran of war with the courage and the willpower to do what needs to be done – such potential is wasted in death.”

  “Dying,” Billy said.

  “Yes, but this need not be the end. Serve me, and I will grant you new life.”

  “Hurts so bad,” Billy groaned.

  “Serve me, and I will take your pain. Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about me?” Ed cried. “I don’t want to die. Please, help me!”

  “Your soul will also go on, of that I promise. But not like this. I require only one of you, and it is Billy who possesses the skills and the experience for what I need.”

  And so Ed had watched as his brother in all but blood got back up, his body healed of the mortal wounds he’d borne just a moment ago. In my imagination, Will’s eyes were sad as he looked back at his dying friend,
but there was nothing more to be done. Ed had been beyond saving without the aid of magic or proper medical care. The older man had disappeared with his new master, and the young soldier was left to endure his final hours as a human until finally, mercifully, he began to slip away from the pain and into darkness.

  Yet his soul had gone on, just as the demon had said. After a few brief months of peace, his eyes opened to blackness and his lungs instinctively filled with stale air. A terrible hunger unlike anything he’d ever known in life raged through his belly, and it drove him to break open the lid of his coffin and dig his way out of his own grave. His body was transformed from the handsome young soldier he’d once been to the living corpse of today, and his appetite was changed to the desire for raw flesh. And so the horror of his new existence had begun to seep in…

  The pictures ended with a skeletal figure standing by his own headstone and my daydream faded, bringing me back to reality once more. My eyes lingered over the stick figure with its wolf’s head and bat’s wings. It was the same demon I’d seen in that place between life and death during the fight with the Reaper, I was sure of it. Ed seemed terrified of the thing. If he knew the beast’s name he’d not been able to bring himself to write it, and again he’d laughed his maniacal laugh when he’d carved the demon’s likeness into the wood.

  “Both died that day,” the ghoul continued in his broken sentences. “Billy not the man he was. Will different man.”

  “So he’s immortal now?”

  “Does not age anymore, yes. Only while deal holds. Can still die to mortal wounds.”

  The ghoul didn’t elaborate but I thought I understood well enough. Will was essentially still human, it was just that he’d been granted long life by his new master. Once he’d outlived his usefulness, he would be released from his deal and the ageing process would continue as normal, if he didn’t die in the line of duty first. Or if the demon didn’t simply kill him.