by Stead, Nick
Zee was not gone long, returning with another reindeer carcass. Selina ripped into the meat beside me, devouring it raw with the same enthusiasm as I did.
I ate my way through the creature’s chest, hunting the most prized offal, rich with the nutrients my body needed to keep functioning. Selina seemed content with the deer’s flesh at first, but when I lowered my snout towards one of the kidneys, she bared her bloodied teeth in another snarl. And for a brief moment I thought I could see the polar bear’s spirit, like a monstrous shadow rearing above her. It didn’t matter that this wasn’t the bear’s usual diet. She was hungry and I was encroaching on her meal. Then the moment passed and it was just Selina, with her face twisted into that bestial expression which mirrored my own, and her eyes burning with the bear’s wild nature.
“Play nice, you two,” Gwyn said from somewhere just beyond the torchlight.
Zee shot another annoyed look in his direction. “I can find another deer if one isn’t enough.”
“No,” Selina growled, surprising me. I’d been starting to think she’d lost the ability to talk for as long as the spell remained active. “We move on.”
She resumed her loping gait before any of us could say anything. Zee looked at me again and shrugged.
“Trust in my sister’s abilities,” Lady Sarah said. “She knows how far to push herself between each break.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Zee answered, and the two started after the witch. I took a moment to pick what was left on the deer’s bones, then ran to catch them up a second time.
We were forced to stop twice more before daybreak, once just to rehydrate again and then for more food and water. But we covered a decent amount of ground, considering the limitations Selina’s human body placed on our group, and we were still moving quicker than mortal humans would have done. Most impressive was the burst of speed the witch could maintain for a mile at a time. When Gwyn had referred to the greater stamina she’d gained from taking on the bear’s essence, I’d thought it would just be a case of us being able to walk further before she had to rest. I hadn’t expected her to manage a mile long sprint at full speed, but it came as a welcome surprise. Or maybe it wasn’t so welcome with the ache of my muscles that night. Still, it meant we’d cover yet more distance between rests than we would have done without the spell.
When the sun began to rise, I was well and truly ready for a good sleep. We built a snow cave to shelter those of us with flesh and blood bodies from the wind, and to keep the sun’s deadly rays from turning the two vampires to little more than charred bones.
It was noticeably warmer inside the makeshift igloo. Gwyn took his fox form and Zee handed us blankets, then I curled up with the knocker for even more warmth. Lady Sarah and Zee lay slightly apart from us, the only warmth to ever enter their veins the blood they took from their prey. It wasn’t pitch black for the vampires but they were out of any direct sunlight, which was the main thing.
Selina also lay to the side, her layers of clothing negating any effects of shared body heat. I was grateful for the slight distance between us. Exhausted as I was, I still felt wary of the bear in her, and I remained alert as much to the potential dangers within the cave as without. But it didn’t take me long to slip into a much needed light slumber, in more comfort than I would have believed possible amidst the snow. When night fell again, I was reluctant to leave the shelter and venture back out into the cold. But Zee was quick to remind me of the dangers of staying in Svalbard and the hunger had returned, its pangs far more insistent than any of my companions. So began our journey across the ice. It was only going to get harder in the nights to follow.
CHAPTER THIRTY–THREE
Arctic Bleakness
That second night it started to snow, only lightly at first, but as the hours passed it turned heavier, and the wind picked up until it became a blizzard. Battling the wind slowed us somewhat and we didn’t quite make it out onto the Arctic ice pack before sunrise forced us to stop again. The day was spent in another snow cave.
I rose on the third night feeling much better than I had since leaving the luxuries of Leon’s mansion. We emerged from our shelter to find the blizzard had died down. Hunger raged within my belly again but I never got the chance to hunt for more reindeer to satisfy it. The coast wasn’t far off and Selina’s polar bear spirit had other ideas.
She loped off yet again. Lady Sarah ran after her, loath to leave her sister alone in the untamed wilderness. I doubted they had anything to fear from other bears – if the change to her spirit could affect a supernatural predator like me, it was almost certain to make natural animals wary of her. But I hadn’t forgotten the way the polar bear I’d killed had been scared of something apparently worse than a werewolf. Much as I wanted to hunt more deer, we were safer staying together as a pack.
“I wish she’d stop doing that,” I growled.
Zee set to work destroying the snow cave, ensuring there was no obvious trail for any Slayers in the area to follow. “Animals have minds of their own, even if it is only a piece of the creature’s spirit she’s absorbed. You ought to know the power of instincts better than any of us.”
“It would still be nice to discuss things instead of just running off,” I grumbled.
“Like civilised humans, you mean?” Gwyn said, laughing. “Fluffy, I doubt you were civilised even before you were bitten. Who here has the highest kill count?”
“That would probably be you, given how long you’ve been around,” Zee quipped, enjoying the rare chance he’d been given to be the one doing the mocking.
“Fair point,” Gwyn answered, taking it with good humour. “Let me rephrase then. Who here has the highest kill count relative to the number of years they’ve been undead? Unless you were prone to massacring entire towns in your first two years as a vampire, Zee, I think our young werewolf wins first place in that category.”
“Whatever,” I growled, running after the two Wilton sisters. Zee and Gwyn followed.
The reason for Selina’s sudden decision to take off that night soon became apparent. I didn’t have to catch up to realise what instinct was driving her, the scent carrying on the wind all the explanation I needed. It should have come as no surprise with the spirit of the Arctic’s mightiest hunter ruling her.
Selina had already come to a stop on the ice, her back to us when we reached her. I slowed and approached with caution. She didn’t react to my presence, her attention focused solely on the circle of water in the otherwise unbroken white sheet. Again I thought I could see the bear’s spirit glowing around her human body, a wild aura most humans could only dream of. And somewhere beneath the ice was the bear’s favourite prey.
Selina stood by the breathing hole, waiting with a predator’s patience for the seal to surface. But I’d seen enough nature documentaries to know how this game went. The seal would have other breathing holes and if it had just been up for air (how else would its scent have reached us?) then it could be a while before it came up again. I didn’t remember how long they could stay underwater exactly but I knew it was longer than we had to hunt. Polar bears could wait hours for seals to appear, and it was pot luck as to whether the seal used the chosen breathing hole or not. We should have taken another reindeer while we’d had the chance.
There was no sign of Lady Sarah. I just had time to register that when a dark shape appeared in the water, shooting towards us. Selina struck the instant the seal breached the surface and dragged it out. Even with the boost in strength granted to her by the spell, that seemed impressive for a human, but I guessed the seal’s momentum helped propel it out onto the ice and to its doom.
Lady Sarah’s head popped up a moment later. She pulled herself onto the ice while her sister wrestled with the seal, giving me a pointed look. I knew what she wanted. Selina still lacked the natural weapons needed to make a kill, so one of us was going to have to help.
My bloodlust was rising at the prey animal’s terror, yet wariness held me back. If I interfered, w
ould the bear’s spirit drive Selina to attack me instead? I knew I probably had nothing to fear when her spiritual shapeshift still hadn’t made her the equal of we four other predators, but if it did come to a fight there was always the risk I might hurt the witch. Better to avoid coming to blows altogether if we could help it.
“She’s your sister,” I growled.
Lady Sarah hissed her displeasure, but she did make the killing blow herself, striking the seal’s head with enough force to crack its skull open. Zee also stepped forward to help, slicing a deep gash across one side with his cutlass. That was all Selina needed to begin her feast.
The scent of the seal’s blood set my mouth watering, but I stayed back while Selina fed. Once she was done, I’d have my fill.
The vampires had to be feeling the hunger as well, though neither fell on the carcass to take their share of blood. They didn’t need to when they had access to something more appetising.
“Gwyn.” Nothing more than his name, but it was a command when she spoke it, the once medieval queen.
“It’s that time again, huh?” the knocker said. He floated into the torchlight, transforming into a human the moment it touched him. Naked, he shivered in the cold, no less vulnerable to its assault on his skin as any other human. I didn’t envy this nightly discomfort he was allowing us to put him through.
The vampires wasted no time in feeding on the Welsh spirit. Lady Sarah sank her fangs into his neck and Zee opened up the veins in his wrist, guzzling down the precious fluid as fast as they could swallow. It wasn’t so much out of greed as sympathy. The quicker they fed, the sooner they could move the torch beam and allow Gwyn to return to his true form, when he’d be free of all the discomforts of feeding them in such harsh conditions. I imagined for Gwyn that moment couldn’t come soon enough, his skin already turning red from the touch of winter’s bite.
Selina finished devouring her share of the seal and rose to her feet. For a moment I thought she was about to run off yet again, but she didn’t. She simply stood there, looking out across the frozen sea and licking the blood from her mouth, her nose to the wind.
I padded over to the seal carcass and lowered my snout to the cold flesh, the frigid air denying me the usual satisfaction of ripping into meat still warm with the life I’d taken. But at least there was still plenty of meat. Selina’s appetite had increased as a result of the cold, but not as a result of the spell. She couldn’t stomach nearly as much as a real polar bear would have done – she’d merely acquired the animal’s taste for seal blubber. That left me a good meal to satisfy my lycanthropic hunger.
By the time I’d finished feeding, Gwyn was back in his spirit form and as cheerful as ever, and the vampires had more colour to them for the fresh blood in their veins. We were ready to continue on our way.
Most nights on the ice pack were spent like that. The polar bear in Selina would sense prey, we’d hunt and the vampires would feed on Gwyn, and then we’d resume our journey, covering as much distance as possible before the sun rose.
I don’t know how close to the North Pole we came, but after the first few nights, the sun just disappeared. The vampires could probably have kept going indefinitely with Gwyn’s never-ending blood supply and no daylight to hide from, if only the same went for me and Selina. We pushed ourselves hard between each period of rest, and yet our progress still felt too slow.
The awe with which I’d looked on these icy lands didn’t take long to wither beneath the frustration at being stuck in an unchanging landscape once again. In some ways, crossing the frozen sea was as bad as being back on the ship. In others, it was like being back out on the British moors, except instead of endless green plains it was an endless white blanket, though at least I wasn’t alone this time.
The further we went from land, the harder it became to find prey. There were still seals to be found but there seemed to be fewer of them than there had been round the coast, and we had to make do with the human food Zee had saved for this very purpose. Without it, we’d have struggled to keep going. I found it hard to be grateful for things like cereal bars which I’d never enjoyed as a human, let alone with my heightened taste for meat, but it was that or starve.
I found it even harder to keep track of time with the endless night, which didn’t help my mood. Despite being a creature of darkness, I found myself longing for the return of the sun, if only for something to break up the hours spent trekking across the ice and snow.
The sky overhead remained clouded and black, making things seem worse still. I didn’t know if it was possible to see the moon from the North Pole or if it would be hidden like the sun, but with the cloud cover we weren’t going to see it anyway, denying us yet another measure for the passage of time.
Yet things didn’t seem as bad as my first period of exile out on the moorland. Our surroundings were perhaps more desolate and remoter than anything Britain had to offer, but my friends kept me from falling into the same state of utter despair I’d known on the moors. There was another slight improvement as well. Even with blizzards trying to drive us back every step of the way, it seemed the cold could no longer touch me. I didn’t know if my pelt had grown thicker after spending so long in my hybrid form and in response to the extreme temperatures I was putting my body through, but I seemed to be staying warmer than I had as a wolf-man in the past. That I was grateful for. I could have been really miserable without it.
The strong winds and heavy snow were a blight in other ways though. The two combined limited all we could see in the torchlight, with those curtains of thick snowflakes drawing across our vision in every direction we turned. My pelt almost looked like it was becoming white. Flakes clung to the fur, dusting me from head to toe with their cold powder which refused to melt. Yes, I was definitely grateful for the added protection I’d been granted against the Arctic’s bite.
We talked little as we crossed the frozen sea. Each of us was too focused on putting one foot in front of the other, heads down and eyes squinted against the snow and gales. Selina had it worst. Without the bear’s essence, I wondered whether she’d have made it so far or if we’d have been saying our goodbyes as her tissue crystallised. Even with that added protection, she looked to be struggling the most. We had to stop more often to refuel and recharge our batteries, adding to my frustrations. I was beginning to miss hunting again. The seals, when we could find them, were a poor substitute for the land animals I wanted to chase and kill. I grew tired of their cold meat. It was better than the human food Zee kept rationing out to us but not by much.
Only Gwyn was unaffected by the weather for as long as he could keep his spirit form, and that went for his mood as well.
“Why so glum, chummers?” he asked one night (or day? Who knew!). “Isn’t this what every undead dreams of?”
“The darkness, yes,” Zee answered him. “The blizzards, not so much. I would sooner take the sea spray of warmer waters than this frozen ocean.”
“Not me,” Gwyn said. “I thought the only place for me was underground, but I could be happy here all winter, for as long as the sun keeps below the horizon.”
Zee glared in the direction of the disembodied voice and I thought I saw a flash of darkness in his eyes for a second or two. It was the same darkness that was tied to the hungers that defined our monstrous natures, the same darkness born of his love of battle and his thirst for spilling blood (and not just to drink). Even with the snow hampering my vision, I was sure it had swum through those ocean-coloured orbs, like the shadow of a shark beneath the waves. My own darkness recognised it as kindred spirit, straining against its chains to join its brother.
I wondered if the pirate was tempted to turn the torch on the knocker in that moment. But then it passed, and Zee’s eyes returned to what passed for normal around Gwyn – irritated, yet somehow still warm with the same brotherly affection he felt for the rest of us. There was honour and loyalty burning strong in there too. It didn’t matter that he was a pirate and therefore a criminal. He was
one of the most honourable people I’d ever met, amongst both humans and undead, and I was proud to call him pack. I was proud to call them all pack. Even Gwyn. Sarcastic and annoying he could often be, but he was our brother. I dismissed the idea Zee would intentionally turn the knocker’s one weakness on him. Perhaps the darkness had been my imagination.
“Good for you,” Zee said, his head dropping downwards and his eyes on the ice ahead once more. “Maybe we’ll feel the same when we become spirits.”
Silence fell again and we trudged on.
I was beginning to feel as though we’d fallen into an alternate reality. The blizzard remained unrelenting and ruthless in its attempts to drive us from its frozen kingdom of empty white nothingness. It showed no signs of abating anytime soon, and it was that more than anything which had me imagining we were no longer on Earth. Just a break in the cloud cover to remind me there was something beyond this never-ending winter, would nature not grant me that?
My legs were burning with the need to rest again. Selina had to be feeling the strain as well, though she hadn’t yet slowed, her face set with the determination of pushing herself further before we took another break. I growled and forced my aching muscles onwards. There was no way I was admitting defeat before a human, even one in the grip of a spiritual shapeshift.
As we walked, I kept raising my muzzle to the wind with the dim hope of happening upon prey. There might not be any permanent settlements out on the frozen sea, but there was bound to be some human activity round the North Pole, wasn’t there? Scientists were always testing their limits as they sought new discoveries. Didn’t they have research stations and things out in these remote areas? I was fairly certain they did, and yet my nose detected no new signs of life. It looked like I was going to have to settle for another cereal bar, sick of them though I was.