by Stead, Nick
I gave chase a second time, bounding towards my prey and making another leap for her back. She gave another cry as my claws sank into her skin and attempted to shake me off again, but my grip was too strong, my nails digging into her side as I pulled myself up.
My instinct was to clamp down on her neck, but I knew from the last bear I’d fought how protective the layer of fur and blubber could be. Her skull was simply too big for my jaws to crush and her spine too well hidden. So I tried again to beat her into submission, raising my right fist whilst keeping a tight grip with my left.
The bear continued trying to shake me off but she never slowed, still running from the greater threat. I brought my right hand down, striking her with all the strength I had left.
It wasn’t enough. She kept on going, still conscious and very much alive.
I cursed, wishing I’d asked Zee to lend me his cutlass, and decided to go for her neck after all. That was enough to shift her attention back to me.
I worked at her flesh, trying to dig down to the spine beneath. It was messy, blood leaking out and staining her fur as I attacked the skin, ripping off a chunk and eliciting another roar from my victim. She came to a stop and reared back up onto her hind legs. I was forced to grab hold with both hands again just to keep from falling off as she tossed her head from side to side, snapping at the air in frustration but unable to reach me.
The scent of blood and fat was thick in my nostrils as I lowered my snout to the hole I’d made, biting the wound in a bid to expose the bone. It was a tactic which hadn’t served me so well against the grizzly I’d fought, but that night I fared better, out in the open. There was no wall for the polar bear to slam me against and her paws were just as incapable of reaching round as her head. I succeeded in ripping down to her vertebrae.
She had the sense to drop to all fours once more and lowered her head, as if to do a forward roll. But it was too late – I had a section of spine between my jaws now and I tore it free with a jerk of my head. My victim went limp, sparing me the discomfort of being crushed beneath her bulk as she’d intended. I finally let go of her lifeless body, panting from the effort. If the spell they had in mind to aid Selina’s recovery didn’t work, I was going to be pissed.
I looked across at the lights marking the town’s border, hoping to see my friends waiting there. But there was no sign of them. Cursing, I turned my gaze back on the carcass and hoped the heart was still going to be fresh enough when they turned up. I thought about removing it from the chest cavity so it would be ready for Selina to work her magic, but in the end decided against it. My knowledge of biology was fairly basic, and for all I knew, the tissue would die much quicker if I started tearing into it than it would while it was still attached to the rest of the corpse.
The minutes dragged as I paced back and forth beside my fallen opponent, as though I were back in a cage with nothing better to do. I started worrying something had gone wrong in the town, my treacherous imagination conjuring images of Slayers storming the hospital and gunning down the Wilton sisters while Selina was helpless and Lady Sarah was caught unawares. Zee would hear the gunshots and abandon the supplies he’d been gathering to run in and save them if he could, only to meet a similar end to the other two. Even Gwyn would be vulnerable if they caught him in the light.
But my ears detected nothing to indicate they were under attack. And besides, the Slayers had always been as keen to remain secret from the rest of human society as we were. Plus the island was so small and isolated, and so sparsely populated, that I doubted there would be many Slayers in the area. It would be a poor choice of battleground for them with help not as readily available as on any mainland, and for those who still cared about saving lives rather than simply getting revenge, there were less lives in need of saving. There were probably a few of them around to keep tabs on any undead passing through, but it didn’t seem likely that they’d choose to engage us out here.
Common sense dictated all that to me, and yet I couldn’t quite banish the feeling of foreboding creeping over me. And then there was the way the bear had acted like she could sense something I hadn’t picked up, something which had terrified her even more than my unnatural wolf-man scent. Would the Slayers provoke that kind of a reaction? Perhaps if she’d been shot in the past, she might have a greater fear of humans than other animals. It seemed plausible, but somehow I didn’t think that was it.
I was just on the verge of ripping into her corpse and retrieving the heart to take to Selina, even if it meant somehow sneaking into the hospital and whichever room she was in, when finally I caught their scents. Relieved, I turned towards the sound of their approaching footsteps and watched for their silhouettes appearing on the edge of the town. I didn’t have to wait long. Gwyn must have been successful in persuading Lady Sarah to bring Selina to me and the prize I’d won for her, or maybe Selina had been conscious enough to insist on it herself. They each appeared to be supporting the witch who looked bigger at first, but as they came closer, I could see it was due to a thick blanket wrapped around her.
Zee must have finished taking what we needed and met them in the streets. I could see he had a pack bulging with provisions and he was also carrying a bundle of what had to be clothes for Selina, and possibly for me as well. But I had no intention of shifting back to my human form for as long as we stayed in the Arctic Circle. There was no way I was exposing my bare skin to the frigid air.
“Have you got her?” Gwyn asked Lady Sarah.
“Yes,” she answered. She didn’t sound entirely pleased with the arrangement, and I suspected she would be even more upset than I was going to be if the spell didn’t work.
The knocker’s form seemed to collapse a moment later as they stepped out of the light and into the darkness. Again I was given a glimpse of his spirit self moving through the shadows, but was unable to discern what his spirit form looked like, if anything.
“Well don’t just stand there, Nicholas,” Gwyn said. I could no longer make him out from the surrounding blackness, but his voice came from just in front of me then. “I did say we need a fresh heart. The sooner we get it to Selina the better, so stop wasting time and pull it out.”
I growled but did as he said, slicing open the bear’s chest and pulling the flesh apart until I’d exposed her ribcage. It was a lot easier now she wasn’t trying to fight back and I was able to crack open her ribs without too much trouble. The snap of bone giving way to my supernatural might, and the wet tearing sounds of flesh being pulled apart filled the air, my progress slower than usual only because I was taking great care not to accidentally damage the heart in this final stage of the hunt. Aside from the anger and frustration I’d feel at myself for that, I thought Lady Sarah might just kill me if I ruined Selina’s chance at a faster recovery.
“I knew you could do it,” Gwyn continued. “We might as well make up for your lack of common sense by putting your teeth and claws to good use, otherwise it’d just be me doing all the hard work.”
“I was managing just fine before David had Will capture me.”
“If you call making enemies of everyone you cross paths with ‘just fine’, sure. But now I’m here you let me be the brains, and you be the brawn, and it’ll be a beautiful friendship.”
“I must be lacking in common sense to have risked my arse saving you from that glass prison,” I growled. “Either that or I’m just a glutton for punishment.”
“Bark all you want, you’re not fooling anybody, matey. You love me and you know it.”
I supposed I couldn’t argue with that. I was enjoying the banter that night, even if I wouldn’t admit it out loud.
My hands were slick with blood by the time I’d freed the heart from its bony prison, and the slimy chains holding it in place. I started walking towards the others, slow and steady.
“The heart,” Selina said as we drew closer to each other. She sounded weak and far more exhausted than I felt. “Do you have it?”
“Fresh and undamaged,
just as Gwyn said it had to be,” I answered, passing it to her. “What’s it for?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she began to chant, this spell obviously relying purely on the incantation as a focus of power, like I’d seen before. The words were in the same language I’d heard other spellcasters speaking, their meaning lost on me. But after a minute or so I felt an unseen force ruffling my fur. It came from a different direction to the wind and it had a power to it, like an electric current crackling and tingling across my skin.
Selina continued to chant, blood still dripping from the organ clutched between her fingers. I could feel the power building with her every word. It was becoming a storm, whipping around my body like a gale. My instincts wanted to run but I fought the urge, my eyes locked on the witch with a kind of morbid fascination. This was unlike any of the witchcraft I’d experienced so far.
A roar carried on that unnatural wind. My head whipped round in alarm, half expecting to see the polar bear returned from the grave and seeking revenge. There was no sight or sound of her, but a paw print appeared in the snow, right by my own paw-like feet. I almost lost my nerve then.
Selina’s chanting came to a sudden stop. I looked back at her and was shocked to see she’d bitten into the heart. Its juices dribbled out over her jaws, turning her into the same kind of monster as the rest of us. And with that gruesome bite, all the energy in the air around us seemed to rush into her, as though her body had become a lightning rod allowing her not just to conduct the mystical storm, but to absorb it.
Another roar sounded but this one came from Selina’s throat, her head thrown back much like my own when howling. The heart fell from her hands and her head lowered again, her gaze meeting my own. Except it was no longer Selina’s gaze. The eyes had changed, becoming two dark pits through which her humanity had fallen, lost to the feral spirit her spell had conjured.
“Selina?” I asked, uncertain.
She growled, her gaze still locked on my own. I couldn’t see any other physical changes and her scent remained human, yet I felt a wariness towards her which hadn’t been there before. To the more primal parts of my brain, she was now a rival predator and a potential threat. The direct eye contact made me uneasy.
“What’s going on?” I said.
To my surprise, it was Gwyn rather than Lady Sarah who answered. “You did good, fluffy. The heart was exactly what she needed. The spell worked.”
“I can see that but worked how? Is she possessed by the bear we sacrificed for this?”
“Not quite. What you’re looking at is a spiritual shapeshift of the kind shamans were famous for. The rite doesn’t summon the bear’s soul and bind it to her own, it’s more like conjuring the bear’s essence.”
“Then why have her eyes gone all bear-like?”
“By eating the heart, she’s taken in a part of the bear’s spirit, but it’s not the same as taking in its entire soul. If the spell didn’t demand a heart to obtain that spiritual piece of the creature, we could have just taken a chunk of the bear’s flesh and let her go, and she’d be free to go on living without any interference from us, right?”
“I know how living bodies work.”
“Well this is no different. Selina has taken in a chunk of the bear’s spirit, its essence – all that which makes it a bear. It means she can acquire some of the qualities which allow polar bears to survive out here.”
“So I’m guessing she’s been given a boost in energy to combat the exhaustion of the hypothermia, but it sounds like you’re saying this wasn’t just about a speedy recovery.”
“Gold star for the wolf. It’s not quite the same as your physical transformation, but this kind of witchcraft does allow spellcasters to borrow the strength of the animal they spiritually shift into. As long as she holds on to the bear’s essence, she’ll have aspects of the polar bear’s nature, including the kind of greater stamina she’s going to need to cross the ice, and some added resistance to the cold. Selina might not have gained the bear’s fur and blubber, but she’ll burn a little hotter now. Her body’s still going to need the supplies Zee found though.”
“So why is she focused on me when we’re all predators here?”
“She will have gained some of the bear’s memories along with the animal’s essence. You did just kill her.”
“Fear not, Nick,” Lady Sarah said. “This is not my sister’s first shapeshift. Selina knows what she is doing.”
“Easy for you to say, it’s not you she’s looking at! I don’t think I have another fight in me.”
Selina stood glaring at me with her teeth bared for a moment longer, then for no apparent reason she turned and ran off into the night. Her pace was a jog rather than a full sprint or a walk, though in the circumstances ‘jog’ didn’t seem the right word for it, her gait more like the animalistic lope of my full wolf form. But she was still on two legs. I had a good idea of how wrong that must have felt with the bear’s instincts dominating her mind. Yet without a true physical shapeshift, there was no changing the fact human bodies aren’t designed for running on all fours. That didn’t look to be slowing her at all though. If anything, she looked to be moving faster across the tundra than I’d expect of most humans in those conditions, her legs moving with the same easy grace as real polar bears.
“I guess it’s that way then,” Gwyn said.
Lady Sarah started after her sister without comment. Zee looked at me, one eyebrow raised as if to say ‘shall we?’
“Hang on a sec. How come she’s not using Varin as a mount this time?” I asked. “Even with the spell, she’s still not going to be able to maintain the same speeds as the rest of us over any great distance.”
“I thought you knew how living bodies worked?” Gwyn said, his tone mocking.
“Of course I do. I’ve still got one, haven’t I?” I growled.
“Then use that brain of yours, fluffy. You just proved you have one of those too, or did it freeze in the last few minutes?”
I growled again; a wordless curse voicing my frustration. Zee gave me a sympathetic look as though he shared the feelings of annoyance Gwyn so often invoked in me, despite not being the target of that particular sarcastic comment. But the pirate didn’t say anything. Instead he retrieved a modern torch from his bag of supplies, flicked it on and shouldered the pack, then took off after the others, leaving me little option but to drop to all fours and catch them up.
I considered my question as I ran. Varin would have had no trouble crossing the Arctic with us if she’d summoned him back, since he didn’t have a flesh and blood body susceptible to the effects of the extreme cold. This leg of the journey was going to be a long one if most of it was going to be made at a mortal’s walking pace, so why not take advantage of the barghest’s abilities? Then it hit me. Our greatest enemy in the Arctic was without a doubt the frigid air ever seeking to freeze our blood and make us a part of the icy landscape. Selina’s spell had given her a greater resistance to the harsh conditions, but it hadn’t made her invulnerable. She needed to keep moving to help maintain her body heat.
Closing the distance between myself and the others wasn’t hard when I wasn’t the slowest of the group. We let Selina set the pace, the vampires keeping level with her at a fast walk while I matched her loping gait, except I stayed on four legs rather than two. Gwyn floated along beside us, taking care to keep out of the torch beam. The light was only dim but it was all we needed. To our eyes it revealed everything the darkness looked to conceal, and I took in more of the beauty of the wintry island, from its great mountains, to the glaciers cutting their way through the land. I wondered how different it might look in a hundred years, and whether I’d recognise anything of the Arctic wilderness, or whether mankind and global warming would have destroyed these lands of snow and ice by then. Part of me wanted to believe humanity could change, that they could adapt to a new way of life where modern comforts no longer came at the cost to the planet. But I was too aware of their greed and selfishness. If I eve
r returned to these lands, it would probably be to find ice running as water and snowy mountains laid bare, exposing the dull rock beneath the dazzling white of the current climate. The thought saddened me. Then an inner voice reminded me I’d probably be dead in a hundred years anyway. That saddened me even more.
After a while, we were forced to take a quick break to refuel. It turned out the vampires had already fed, but between the cold and travelling over so many miles, both my hunger and thirst had risen again, as had Selina’s.
Zee passed us more water. “There is food as well but I suggest we save it for crossing the frozen sea. Prey will be harder to come by out there.”
I sat in the snow, ignoring the cold slithering through my fur. “That makes sense, I guess. Usually I’d jump at the chance to hunt again but I’m too knackered tonight.”
“I’ll go then,” Zee said. “Take a few moments to rest, but don’t get too comfortable. We still have a few hours till daybreak, then we can sleep.”
My limbs throbbed their dissent. I wanted nothing more than to curl up and close my eyes, unsheltered and exposed to the elements though I’d be. But I knew that wasn’t an option, so I fought the weariness and reminded myself why I was out there, and what was waiting for me at the end of the long, hard road I’d chosen. It would all be worth it when we reached Canada, or so I tried to convince myself.