by Stead, Nick
I glanced at Zeerin, cursing when I realised what was about to happen. His fangs were bared, his face twisted into a feral snarl as his hunger rose in response to the easy kill, placed so conveniently for us to feed on. My own hunger urged me to claim the human before my competitor could take her, but wariness overrode the ache in my belly. Whatever the reason for her presence here, I doubted the Slayers had offered us the prey we craved out of charity. The message they’d left us seemed clear enough.
Zeerin sprang into action in a blur of movement. I only just managed to grab him before he could fall on the potential victim, wrapping both my arms around his torso. He hissed and strained to reach her, while I struggled to pull him away. The girl took one look at him and screamed, but she wasn’t going anywhere with those shackles round her wrists. She could only cower before us, whimpering and praying for someone to wake her from this nightmare.
I was losing my battle to keep Zeerin from sinking his fangs into her neck. Any sense of caution he’d had was being swept away by the hunger, reason giving way to madness. I was no more than a rival predator now.
Pain exploded through my nose and mouth as he drove the back of his head into mine. I let go and stumbled back a couple of paces, blood streaming down my face. The shock didn’t last. My fury rose as I spat more blood from my mouth and a couple of loose teeth, voicing itself in a thunderous roar.
I was all too tempted to allow my bestial nature to take over again. It would feel so good to fight Zeerin for the prey we’d been given, and rip into her if I emerged victorious. But maybe that was what the Slayers wanted. Maybe they wanted us both crazed and lost in our rages, and I had no intention of playing into their hands. So I forced that fiery tidal wave back down into its pit, keeping my attention fixed on Zeerin all the while.
No sooner had I regained control than he turned and lunged. I managed to dodge and pounced on him while he had his back to me, sending us both crashing to the ground. The vampire’s feral state gave him new strength and he had no trouble throwing me off before I could pin him down, getting to his feet with that unnatural grace his kind possessed. But I’d also gained more of the animal grace and agility of my lupine side since embracing it, and I was only seconds behind him when I rose up, still standing between Zeerin and his victim.
“She’s mine!” he hissed.
“No. Think about it, Zeerin. Doesn’t it seem a little suspicious to you that the Slayers would just throw us a free meal, after enjoying watching us suffer through the dungeon so far? Don’t you think it could be another trap? We can’t ignore the message they’ve left us, either. Killing her is going to trigger something, I’m sure of it.”
“I’ll take my chances. Stand aside!”
“What if they’ve developed some kind of poison that they can inject safely into a human’s blood without harming them? It could be what the message means by trade one discomfort for another. Or there could be something to trigger an attack from more hidden enemies if we get too close. We can’t feed on her, mate. It’s too risky.”
Zeerin hissed again and clenched his fists, but I must have got through to him because he turned away, fighting to wrestle his hunger into submission once more.
I left the vampire to his inner struggle and cautiously picked my way over to the human girl, straining my senses for any hint of a trap I might be about to blunder into. There were no obvious triggers that I could see, and once I spent a little of my remaining energy on fixing my broken nose and mouth, I couldn’t find any strange scents either.
Emboldened by the apparent lack of booby traps, I risked stalking right over to her. My eyes took in more of the human captive then. There didn’t seem to be anything remarkable about that young face, no different to the thousands of others I’d preyed upon over the last two years. Those pretty features definitely didn’t belong to anyone connected to my human life, her body seemingly thin and fragile as she trembled before the monstrous image I presented with my gore spattered skin.
I could see nothing but fear in the glimpse I got of her brown eyes. Then her hair fell forward, like a dark curtain for her to hide behind as she recoiled from my presence.
I knelt beside her and tried to make my voice sound as gentle and human as I still knew how, but I’m not sure I really succeeded. Harsh vocalisations had become second nature, and concepts like kindness were alien to me by then. “What’s your name?”
For a brief moment, I didn’t think the girl would answer. But then there came the soft reply of “Hannah.”
“Hannah. I knew a Hannah once. She was the annoying kid sister of a close friend of mine.”
“What happened to them?”
“My friend, well... She died. I don’t know about her family.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was in another life, one I’ve moved on from.”
The girl didn’t know what to say to that, but she did lift her head slightly to give me a nervous glance.
“How did you get here, Hannah?”
“I don’t know. I remember being on the bus home from college and getting off, but then I’m not sure what happened – I just woke up here. What’s going on, do you know?”
“It’s probably better if you don’t find out. But I promise we won’t hurt you if you’ll come with us.”
“Who are you? Is that blood? And why are you naked?” She said that last with a snigger, some of the fear draining away as she processed my lack of clothes.
I paused before I answered, mind racing. We couldn’t risk feeding on her if there was even the slightest chance the Slayers had put her there to harm us in some way. Would we be better off just killing her? No. That would give our enemies another corpse for their necromancer to resurrect. I was more inclined to bring her with us. That way we could keep an eye on her, in case she proved to be working with the Slayers. But if we were going to keep her alive and by our sides, that would mean exposing her to our true natures. And if she was truly innocent and had just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, brought to the dungeon for whatever twisted purposes the Slayers had devised, the less she knew the better. We wouldn’t be able to keep everything from her though. Like it or not, she was caught up in our world now.
“It’s probably as well you don’t know too much about that either. Though I guess you’re gonna find out sooner or later what I am, so we might as well get that over with now.” I took a deep breath. It would be the first time I’d ever told a human my secret, and something about that made me nervous. “I’m a werewolf, and that guy over there is a vampire.”
“Woo, crazy people! You two go ahead; I think I’ll just stay here and enjoy the amazing scenery while I wait for somebody sane to come rescue me.”
I supposed I should’ve expected that kind of reaction. It wasn’t like science had left much room for belief in the supernatural. But I thought it was better to reveal our true natures to her while we seemed to be in relative safety, rather than letting her see me shift into a more bestial form in the midst of battle and panicking as a result. At best she’d get herself killed in the grip of that kind of terror; at worst she’d do something to get all three of us killed.
“I might be a little crazy, but monsters are real and I am a werewolf,” I growled, letting my eyes turn amber and my canines lengthen into fangs. I still had a full set of teeth – the ones I’d lost from the fight with Zeerin had regrown when I’d healed.
“Wow, that’s some awesome special effects. How did you do that? Oh, don’t tell me – this is some stupid reality TV show you’ve dragged me into. I’ll kill Adam if he put you up to this.”
I closed my eyes in exasperation. Unless costume lenses and fake fangs had come a long way since I’d left my human life behind, how could she possibly mistake the changes she’d just witnessed for a special effect? I didn’t really want to waste more energy taking the transformation any further, but it seemed like that was my only option if I wanted to make her believe.
“What
are you doing?” Zeerin murmured into my ear, appearing beside me as I opened my eyes.
“We should keep her close, in case she is part of some complex trap,” I said, my lupine eyes still fixed on Hannah. She looked unsure of what to make of the situation. Was she starting to suspect there might be something paranormal going on after all? I almost felt sorry for her.
“If you insist, but why waste time trying to explain anything when I can use my powers to make her do or think whatever we want her to?”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” I answered, feeling foolish.
“Then allow me.”
I stood and moved back a few paces. Zeerin took my place, kneeling beside Hannah as I had.
“Do you have cool fangs as well?” A dazed look slid across her face when she met his gaze.
“I’m going to break you out of these chains now. You will follow us and stay calm, no matter what you might see. And you will not harm us in any way.”
“Okay.” Her voice sounded distant, as though she were in another reality. She didn’t seem to notice when he freed her from her shackles, continuing to look at him with that dazed expression.
“Do you know why you were brought here?”
“No.”
“You’re not working with the Slayers?”
“I don’t even know who they are.”
Zeerin stood, breaking the spell. I’d experienced firsthand just how powerful a vampire’s hold over other beings could be, so we were both satisfied Hannah was as much a victim caught in this macabre game as we were. That didn’t make us any less wary though. The Slayers had to have imprisoned a human in here with us for a reason, even if they were aware she was likely to end up as a lamb to the slaughter. There had to be something they expected to gain from her death, which made me wonder again whether they might have developed some kind of poison. Perhaps they were counting on us losing control and feeding on her, if not the moment we found her then later on in the dungeon. And there was every chance it might play out that way, if they kept weakening us and giving rise to our hungers. But for the time being Zeerin had his bloodlust under control again, and caution ruled us both.
After learning what little we could from Hannah, I turned my attention to the bowls of liquid. The two coloured fluids smelled like water. I could detect no hint of what had been used to colour them, or any warning scents that might indicate they’d been laced with poison. The one that hadn’t been coloured turned out to be seawater. I felt confident that drink at least wouldn’t have any poison added to it, given how bad salt water was meant to be. I knew all too well from the number of times I’d come across the advice in films and books that no matter how thirsty you became, you should never drink from the sea.
“Surely quenching your thirst on any of these liquids is as great a risk as feeding on the girl is?” Zeerin said.
“I know, but I had to investigate what they were. I’m dying for a drink now.”
“You’re welcome to more rum.”
“No thanks. I’m guessing the seawater isn’t poisoned. Maybe just a sip to wet my mouth will help, till we can find some fresh water that’s safe?”
“I wouldn’t advise it. I’ve seen men driven mad by drinking from the sea. Even a sip will leave you thirstier than you were to begin with.”
“We could let the human test one of these coloured waters for poison then.”
“Aw, is the wolfy scared of a little poison?” Hannah teased, still sitting where she’d been chained up.
“I’m just being careful,” I growled. “You might want to do the same, since we don’t really have much reason to keep you alive. And since you’re expendable, that makes you an ideal guinea pig.”
“Nope, I’m not drinking that stuff.”
“We’re not giving you a choice.”
“Well I could drink it, but if it is poisoned do you really want to take the chance of making my blood more toxic, when you might get hungry enough to bite me? Not that I’m saying either of you should bite me. You definitely shouldn’t bite me. I’m sure I taste terrible.”
“Fuck it,” I said, thirst driving me to grab one of the bowls. “I need water. We’ll just have to hope the transformation heals whatever this is about to do to me.”
I had enough sense to take only a small sip, but even that felt heavenly to my dry mouth and throat. There was no taste to suggest it was anything other than coloured water, my tongue not even picking up whatever had been added to turn it red, let alone any poison it might have been spiked with. Not that I had any idea what poison would taste like, or even smell like for that matter. I’d only have known it had something in it if there’d been something there to detect. Then again, I already knew that just by looking. But to my other senses it was no different to any other water I’d ever had, and I guessed the colouring was some kind of tasteless food dye. Unless it was the poison hiding in plain sight. Only time would tell.
I waited a few moments to see what effect the liquid was going to have, expecting a sudden, excruciating pain to take hold in my stomach, or a feeling of choking, or perhaps even to start retching. But the seconds dragged by and nothing happened. Emboldened by that, I raised the bowl to my lips a second time and drank deeply, draining it of its contents.
Zeerin’s eyes strayed back to Hannah, his gaze fixing longingly on her neck. But he held back, probably thinking the same as I was – if the drinks weren’t poisoned then maybe the message was just a red herring to throw us off-guard. Or maybe it referred solely to the human.
“I see nothing else of interest in this room,” Zeerin said, once I’d quenched my thirst. “Time to find out what lies in store at the other end of the tunnel.”
He turned to go. I offered Hannah my hand, growling “Come on.”
“You still need some clothes, Mr Werewolf.” She allowed me to help her up and her eyes slid downwards with another snigger.
I’d long since lost any inhibitions around being naked in front of others, so I didn’t bother to respond, catching up with Zeerin and falling into step beside him. We let Hannah trail behind us, confident she’d follow and not cause any trouble for as long as she remained under Zeerin’s spell.
“So, you became a pirate to rise up against your superiors and take revenge on them for the mistreatment they showed you and the rest of the crew. How did you end up as captain, and a vampire?”
He glanced at me, then turned his attention back to the tunnel ahead. “In good time, wolf.”
“Isn’t now the perfect time, while it’s still quiet?”
“Perhaps, but it’s your turn first. I believe you have not been entirely open with me.”
“No? Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I think you know something more about this ‘game’ and that thing we encountered than you are letting on. I saw your face when you read the words ‘Level Two’. You realised something, more than just the theory you gave me before about it being a game. Since we weren’t sure if there were any immediate dangers ahead I didn’t push the issue back there, but I think I deserve the truth now.”
“Ignorance is bliss an’ all that. I didn’t say anything before ’cause I’m hoping I’m wrong, and I didn’t want to worry you.”
“I would rather you told me what you think you know than continue to sail unknown waters with no warning of what may lie ahead.”
“Okay, if you’re sure. It’s just, if I’m right about the Slayers building this place to create some kind of real life version of the modern games humans enjoy, then they pretty much all end in a big boss fight. And I think I know what the boss is.”
Zeerin stopped walking to study my face, though if he was trying to determine if I was lying, I wasn’t sure why he’d think I’d be making it up. Maybe he just wanted to see how sure I felt about my theory. And deep down in my gut I knew I was right.
“That creature,” he hissed.
“Yeah. I think we were meant to encounter it in this early level but the Slayers wanted us to get away. If they
are setting us up for a final boss fight then we’re going to have to face it eventually, and either defeat it and beat the game, or die trying. One way or another I think it’s going to come to that, and they’ll probably lock us in another chamber with it so there’s no way out of the fight.”
“This is insane. I still don’t see their reasons for creating this game in the first place, but if you are right, then how can they possibly expect us to have a chance at beating it? We barely escaped the first encounter with that dread thing. There is no way the two of us can fight against it and hope to win.”
“We probably aren’t meant to win. If the group of them responsible for this are getting off on it, they probably just want to enjoy our suffering through the levels they’ve created until we reach their bloody finale. We might not even reach the end. They might be happy to let us die to something else instead.”
The vampire hissed again. “I don’t like this. Our lives, our fates, in the hands of humans. It’s one thing being hunted, but becoming their playthings? If we do make it out alive, they will pay for this.”
Hannah stepped up beside us. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Nothing for you to worry about,” I answered.
“You were just making it sound like we’re in a video game or something. But that’s crazy, right?”