by Stead, Nick
“You had that on you all this time and you only now think to use it?” I growled, my gratitude for the torch eclipsed by the anger blazing at the centre of my very being.
She looked sheepish. “I forgot I had it.”
My rage would not be so easily satisfied and I was about to snarl something else when Zee appeared by my side, moving with that silent grace all vampires seemed to be gifted with.
“Control yourself, wolf. Now is not the time,” he said. “We need to make the most of the light while we have it.”
He had a point but I was still itching for a fight, my rage almost free. I turned my attention back to the shadows, half hoping whatever was lurking in them would appear and give me the battle I craved.
Zee made his way to the door at the other end of the chamber. Hannah followed him, her eyes darting nervously around the room as she went. She gripped the little torch so tightly her knuckles strained white beneath the skin, looking like they would pop out at any moment. But the little pool of light it offered seemed to bring her some comfort: her last lifeline in that sea of darkness where unseen predators swam.
Even with the little patch of brightness, the room remained devoid of any other signs of life, or unlife, or whatever term applied to the creature in the shadows. If I’d truly seen the glowing eyes they weren’t there now, nor could I see any movement to indicate the presence of an apparition. The strength of my glare must have been alight with anger, but it wasn’t enough to penetrate the blackness around the weak light from Hannah’s torch, try as I might to burn it away. Like the human, I kept my eyes on our surroundings as I fell into step beside them. But there was no room for fear in my heart.
There was no more laughter as we crossed the chamber and nothing else brushed against us. I guessed the light was keeping the creature at bay, since it had been delighting in tormenting us just moments ago, right up until Hannah had found her torch. We reached the door without being challenged, and had no trouble finding the button to open it. Without the light it might have been more of a challenge, especially if something had attacked, and a sense of satisfaction crept over me that this was at least one area of the dungeon that hadn’t gone as the Slayers had planned. Something was bothering me as we stepped out into another passage though.
“So how come you just happened to find your torch when we most needed it?” I asked Hannah in a calmer tone, my anger slowly receding in the absence of bloodshed to feed it.
She shrugged. “I was feeling around in my pockets for the good luck charm Mum gave me and instead I found that. It must’ve still been in this jacket from when I went camping a few weeks back.”
I understood her need for the charm; she’d been looking for some comfort from the one link she had back to her family. I could believe that she had forgotten the torch was in there like she’d originally said, and that it had been coincidence she’d just happened upon it when we needed it the most. What troubled me was why it had been in there in the first place. If the Slayers wanted us moving blindly through these parts of the dungeon, why would they allow her to keep it? Unless they hadn’t bothered to search her before locking her in with us, but that seemed too careless on their part when they’d clearly put so much planning into everything.
“We have more pressing matters,” Zee said, standing by the door we’d just come through. “If we leave this chamber open, what’s to stop the creature inside from following us?”
The lights were still off. Assuming I’d been right to guess it was Hannah’s torch keeping the thing at bay, it could creep along in the darkness behind us, waiting for the opportunity to strike. And if the battery failed there’d be nothing else to stop it attacking, unless the Slayers chose to turn the lights back on. I doubted they’d be so generous when we’d just cheated them of the suffering they’d had planned for us in the chamber, but I could see no buttons on the other side of the door to close it again.
“It doesn’t look like we’ve got much choice,” I said. “Unless either of you have any ideas, I don’t see a way to lock that creature back in. We’ll just have to pray the torch lasts till the lights come back on. They have to turn them on eventually, right? I mean, there’s more things waiting for us before we reach the end of the dungeon and we can’t be expected to face them all in darkness.”
“And how long do these types of torch usually last?”
“I don’t think this battery has been in long,” Hannah answered. “We should be good for a few hours.”
“Plenty of time,” I said. “Let’s get moving.”
I should have known better than to tempt fate. We hadn’t made it far along the passage before disaster struck, though in the end it wouldn’t be the battery failing that threatened to be our undoing.
“What was that?” Hannah shrieked, casting the torchlight downwards around her feet. Even with Zee’s hold over her, she was barely keeping it together, his spell the only thing preventing her from completely giving in to blind panic.
“What?” I asked.
“I felt something, like back in that room.”
I looked at Zee.
“I sense nothing,” he said.
“Me either. Surely that thing can’t have got ahead of us when we’ve had the torch on this whole time.”
There was nothing to see in the pool of light. Hannah raised it again and took a few more tentative steps forward, but something else made her jump and she dropped the torch. Our protective sphere of light blinked out of existence the moment her finger left the catch, the blackness rushing back in and swallowing us up before the little keychain had even hit the floor. And the instant our protection was gone, I was sure I could feel the thing from the chamber gliding through the air; a shark moving in for the kill.
The torch hit the stone with a plastic clatter. My head snapped round, my predatory instincts tracking its progress as it skittered across the floor. I dived after it and followed the noise until it came to a stop.
Zee must have sensed me chasing it. He left me to find the torch while he drew his cutlass, ready for the attack that was sure to come at any moment. Not that his blade would do him much good. Our only hope was to retrieve the light source, and to that end I searched around the area where I’d heard it fall.
My fingers bumped against plastic and the keychain rolled off to the side. I cursed and chased it a second time.
The creature still made no sound to give away its presence and I detected no new scents, but deep in my gut I knew it was closing in. My hand was a striking snake as I lunged for the torch, my fingers closing tight around the cheap plastic as if it were a living prey animal that might escape again. The catch to light it bulged against my skin, my finger pushing it forward so that the little bulb illuminated once more. Again I imagined I could see something fleeing from the sphere of light, but there was no distinctive shape to it.
My prize gripped firmly in my hand, I rose with liquid agility and turned to see Zee with his back to me. He was in his fighting stance, though the attack we were expecting still didn’t seem to have come. I held the torch out in front of me like it was some magical amulet from a fantasy story, trying not to think about what would happen if it went out again. We’d cheated the unseen creature of its game twice already; I doubted it would waste much time if it was given a third chance to strike.
Only when the light touched him did Zee abandon his position between us and the creature’s chamber, though he remained tense and kept his sword drawn. By unspoken consent, we continued our advance along the passage, Hannah following close behind. I sensed she wanted to hold her light again but I was reluctant to relinquish it to her clumsiness, and after she’d felt a taste of my anger she didn’t dare ask. She was already jumpy and terrified of whatever was lurking in the darkness as it was, without having to brave the fires of my rage as well.
I couldn’t help the grim thoughts circling my head as we walked. Was there more than just the thing from the chamber here with us? I wondered if the creature would have
risked batting at the mice it was hunting when they carried the one thing it seemed to fear – the light from the torch. Maybe it had been quick enough to dart forward and swipe at Hannah’s legs while they were in shadow, and then back to safety when she shone the light downwards. But we had made it through the rest of the room and out of the door without any further physical contact, as if it had deemed us too much trouble for it to bother with after we’d activated the torch. So why should that have changed once we were in the passage? And yet, there had been nothing to see in the small pool of light when we’d turned it on the floor, nor had there been any new scents or sounds to indicate the presence of more enemies. Unless… Could there be more than one kind of apparition? Maybe this new one wasn’t afraid of the light. After all, the barghest hadn’t been restricted to the shadows.
Such thoughts were of little help, but my mind seemed to be stuck on a pessimistic setting, no matter how hard I tried to be positive. I was sure we were about to be attacked at any moment. If there were multiple apparitions they might even work together to take out our light source. I became convinced that was what was happening and gripped the torch tighter, straining my eyes to try and see the things hiding in the shadows.
I don’t know if similar thoughts were troubling Zee, but he had also drawn a pistol, for all the good it would do against any type of shadow creatures, barghest or otherwise.
The last thing either of us expected was for light to suddenly come flooding back into the dungeon, revealing a bend up ahead. It unveiled no new threats, but that didn’t bring any comfort. The Slayers had no doubt picked that moment to turn the lights on for a reason, and it couldn’t be for anything good.
A new scent came to me from round the corner. My hunger rose, and my suspicions grew.
“Another human up ahead,” I growled.
“I sense him,” Zee said. “It seems odd they would pit us against one lone Slayer though.”
I glanced at Hannah. “It could be another trap. One meal seemingly gift wrapped for us was suspicious enough, but two? There’s no way they’d just give us two free meals. It’s hard to tell with this overwhelming stink in here, but I don’t think this guy is armed. So he’s not a soldier sent to torment, and ultimately overpower us like those others we fought seemed to be, and unless we’ve reached another dead end, why would they send someone else to knock us out again and move us?”
“But why risk the lives of innocents?”
“I can’t make sense of their twisted reasoning. They’re supposed to care about wiping us out to save lives.” I paused and fixed my eyes on the bend. “Whatever his part in all this, it looks like he’s coming to us.”
Zee cocked his head, listening to the approaching footsteps. “Aye, that he is. Be ready.”
“Always,” I snarled, my anger raising its head with bloodthirsty eagerness, like a dog sensing its master serving food.
The man’s shadow stretched ahead of him, appearing round the corner and distorting his true height. It might have made him look more impressive if we hadn’t just been beset by something that seemed to be the darkness itself, but after that unseen threat, a mere mortal paled in comparison. And if he was another innocent caught up in a world he was ignorant of like Hannah, we probably had little to fear from him. The Slayers might plan to use the humans against us in some way but the humans themselves might as well have been cannon fodder.
My mouth watered and the hunger urged me to pounce on my unsuspecting prey. I tensed, ready to make my move. But then the human stepped round the corner and Zee holstered his gun to grip my shoulder, as if he thought I would lose control this time. He kept his sword drawn though.
“Wait!” he urged me. “He’s one of us.”
“What?” I growled, confused. “But his scent is human. I’d know if there was something supernatural about him.”
“I can’t explain it; all I know is he’s one of us and he’s much older than he appears.”
“Like most of you vampires?”
“Yes, but he’s not a vampire.”
“So what is he?”
Zee shook his head. “You know from recent experiences there are times when we undead must come together to deal with matters that affect us all. I have been to my fair share of gatherings, and I have seen this being at more than one of them. He has not aged since the first time I set eyes on him so he is one of us, but beyond that I can’t tell you who he is or what powers he might have.”
“Well at least he’s an ally, I guess,” I said, somewhat disappointed I still wasn’t going to get the fight my anger craved.
The man gave no indication he could hear us talking about him as he walked over. I eyed him with scepticism. He didn’t look like much of a predator, his build similar to the scrawny body of my human form, though he stood slightly taller than me. But I knew full well by then that bulging muscles meant nothing in the supernatural world. He could be much stronger than he looked, or he might have greater powers at his disposal than physical strength.
“Gentlemen, m’lady,” he addressed us, mischief flashing across his blue eyes.
“Friend,” Zee nodded to him. “I’ve seen you around before but I’m not sure I ever caught your name?”
“Gwyn.”
“Isn’t that a girl’s name?” I said.
“That would be Gwen, you dork. Gwyn – it’s Welsh for white.”
I supposed the name suited him with his pale skin and white, shoulder length hair. Designer stubble adorned his jaw, giving him a roguish look, and there was a good humoured nature about his features that I had to assume was to make him seem deceptively harmless, to lure in unwitting prey. His use of a modern slang word surprised me, coming from a being who was at least as old as Zee, and given the old fashioned greeting he’d just used. But I guessed it made sense he’d spend time among humans when even I couldn’t detect anything different about him with my keen senses. His clothes were also a modern shirt and jeans, though they looked grimy, as if they hadn’t been washed in some time.
“So you’re Welsh?”
“Yep, but I lost the accent after a few hundred years of moving around.”
“Erm, guys?” Hannah interrupted. “Shouldn’t we keep moving?”
“Ah, the human speaks sense. And who might this charming young woman be?”
“Hannah.”
We started walking again.
“Nice to meet you, Hannah,” Gwyn said. “I already know of Zeerin the vampirate and who hasn’t heard of the infamous new werewolf in the undead scene? It’s pretty obvious why the Slayers would want you two, but what the hell is a human doing caught up in all this?”
“She doesn’t seem to know anything,” Zee answered for her. “We might ask you the same – how did you come to be here?”
“Oh it’s a long story; I wouldn’t bore you with it.”
“Try us,” I growled, wary of the stranger. I didn’t like that he could trick my senses so completely into seeing him as human. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere anytime soon.”
“Did your parents never teach you patience is a virtue?”
My anger reared up, the chains of self-control the only thing keeping it from ripping through my ability to reason. I roared and pinned the strange Welsh man up against the wall, right next to a fake torch. My eyes seared amber like two flames blazing in my skull. A mortal might have quailed beneath the heat of my gaze, but Gwyn’s good natured countenance never even flickered. He remained calm and passive, not even a hint of anger flashing across his features, and still no sign of whatever undead power he possessed.
“Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t just kill you now,” I snarled.
“Well in case you hadn’t noticed, we are surrounded by enemies.”
“Leave him be, Nick. He could prove useful while we’re trapped down here.”
“Useful, by talking our enemies to death?”
“You don’t survive for centuries in our world by being weak,” Zee answered. “Things ar
e rarely what they seem.”
“Huh, at least one of you has some sense.”
I snarled louder, the transformation on the verge of taking hold.
“Nick,” Zee said more forcefully, grabbing my shoulder. Knowing the vampire would only pull me away before I could hurt our newfound ally, I forced the anger back down and released Gwyn.
I stepped away, contenting myself with the thought that he wasn’t likely to last long if the two of us were left alone. My anger still simmered in its dark pit, and even with the greater self-control I’d gained, I was pretty certain I was still capable of completely losing myself to the rage, if I was pushed far enough. We’d only been with the Welsh man for a handful of minutes and he was already irritating me. If I had to suffer his presence for several hours, then there was a good chance he would push me over the edge, back into the blazing inferno that had ruled me for so long after I’d first left my hometown.
I turned my gaze on the shadows ahead while nursing those dark thoughts, hopeful for another fight to keep me going in the meantime. With the lighting restored, I didn’t really expect the apparition to reappear, but there could be other enemies lying in wait on the path to the chamber holding Lady Sarah. I doubted the Slayers would make it easy for us to reach her, so there were sure to be more challenges along the way.
Some of my suspicions must have shown because Zee said “At least tell us if you saw anything up ahead before you found us.”
Gwyn gave a half smile and a shrug, like he was aware of the effect he was having on us. “Nothing much – just a few corpses lying around.”
“Corpses?” I growled, sharing a look with Zee.
“What’s the matter – surely the big bad wolf isn’t afraid of the dead?”
“They have a necromancer,” Zee answered.