The Hybrid Series | Book 3 | Vengeance

by Stead, Nick

  “How do you know?”

  “I can just sense the purity from here.”

  “Great. So whatever we have to face on this path to Lady Sarah, it seems like I’m meant to do it alone. But the holy water makes no sense. I’m sure I was supposed to kill you in that last chamber, so why would the Slayers need to bother with holy water when they expected me to be alone for this latest trial anyway?”

  “Perhaps they just wanted to be certain you would have to face it alone. A lot of planning has obviously gone into this place. They may well have prepared for every eventuality, or at least everything they could think of.”

  “I suppose. I guess there’s nothing for it then,” I growled.

  “If you really want me to stay with you, I can survive passing through this waterfall. I would need to feed again to repair the damage though, which would mean sapping more of your strength.”

  “Thanks, Zee – I appreciate you offering to do that for me. But I think I better save my energy for healing from whatever I have to get through to reach Lady Sarah. And there’s no way of knowing what else might be built into this right hand path. There could be more holy water, as well as whatever the main form of ‘peril’ is, which I’m guessing would be damaging to us both. You take the left side and find out what you can about whatever that doorway leads to, but don’t go too far in case it’s a trap. We don’t want to risk being split up again, if we can help it.”

  “Wise words for one so young. See you on the other side then?”

  “Good luck,” I answered, offering him a clawed hand to shake. “Let’s hope your path is at least as easy as it seems.”

  “Luck to you too,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me into a rough hug. It was brief, and we broke apart a moment later. “Somehow I think you will need it more than I.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder as he spoke. Then we each faced the path we had to walk, and I found myself hoping the left side of the room was as harmless as it appeared to be. That physical expression of our unlikely friendship had me feeling closer to Zee than any other undead I’d met, and I dared to hope he might be the true friend I’d been in need of for so long, since being dragged into this cursed life. Every other apparent friend had turned out to be false or remained too distant for me to form a proper bond with, like the very vampire I was about to risk my life for. But so far, Zee was proving to be trustworthy.

  My rage was still burning as strong as ever and I let it guide me as I took that first step into unknown danger, feeling I would need it to see me through whatever fresh torment I was about to endure. The hallowed liquid which was as acid to the vampires thundered so harmlessly around me, its purity washing away some of the filth tainting my body. Whatever blessing had been bestowed upon it wasn’t enough to protect it from that same taint though. A slit had opened up in the stone floor to allow the water to fall down into, where I assumed some kind of pump system then sent it back up to keep the curtain flowing for as long as needed. I couldn’t see down to that hidden pool under the floor, but it was surely turning red with the remnants of all the lives I had taken.

  At least it offered me another chance to quench my thirst. I tilted my head back as I walked under, allowing some of it to fill my mouth and enjoying the soothing feeling of the blessed water running down my dry gullet.

  Once I was on the other side, I paused briefly to shake myself like the beast I truly was. Then I eyed those sinister looking holes in the wall. There was nothing to see, not in the dim lighting. The only way I might be able to get a glimpse of the secrets they hid was if I put my face right up beside one, which I wasn’t dumb enough to try. They might be designed to shoot something out, like arrows maybe. I could lose an eye at best, or end up dead at worst. No, I was going to have to continue blindly on and just hope I wouldn’t have to endure too many wounds before I made it to Lady Sarah, or I’d be forced to transform yet again.

  Somewhere on the other side of me, Zee was making his way across the left hand passage. I didn’t want to be too far behind when he crossed through the doorway on his side if I could help it, not wanting to leave him to face whatever dangers might be lurking ahead on his own. So I braced myself for some form of attack and took another step forward.

  Without warning, steam poured from vents hidden in each of the holes, in a burst of scalding heat. I could feel the uncomfortable warmth of it, even though I was only on the very edge of the vapour. Something between a human cry of surprise and an animal grunt escaped my jaws, and I instinctively jumped backwards, into the waterfall.

  My nerves seemed to burn with the memory of the last heated caress they’d been subjected to. It was enough to repel me from that blistering path.

  The attack wasn’t entirely unexpected but for whatever reason, I hadn’t been prepared for something else that would burn my flesh. I think after being made to pass through flames once, I just hadn’t expected to have to endure more burns in the trials ahead. David seemed to have gone out of his way to vary the challenges he’d built into each section as much as he could. I’d expected to endure pointed weapons and pierced flesh as I progressed along the passage – jets of burning steam would have been my last guess.

  “Nick?” Zee’s voice came from the other side of the wall. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” I growled, recovering from the initial shock and taking another step forward, just in front of the scalding vapour. “Just taken by surprise.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need my help?”

  “Yeah, carry on down that side. There’s no sense for me to have to heal both of us.”

  “Very well.”

  I readied myself for the pain and prepared to take the next step. The steam pouring from the first hole winked out of existence, dissipating harmlessly into the surrounding air currents. After a moment it started up again, but I could see a gap opening up in the wall of vapour as different jets of the burning mist temporarily went out and then roared back into being. It didn’t take me long to realise there was a pattern to it, just like in some of the video games I’d played as a human.

  It looked like crossing the passage without suffering any damage would be possible, but it was all about timing. That didn’t worry me. This felt like a much fairer challenge compared to some of the others I’d been put through, and given my prowess at gaming, I was confident I could beat it without getting burnt. David had seriously underestimated my skills if he was expecting to watch me get scalded.

  I took a moment to study the bursts of vapour before making my move, rushing forward through the first gap and passing safely by the first three vents, but stopping short of the fourth. The first of the holes in the wall vomited more of its harmful mist behind me and the fourth did the same just in front. From what I’d seen of the pattern, I’d have just seconds to dodge the next burst from the vent I was standing by and cross the neighbouring two while there was a clear path, before they breathed more scalding vapour over me.

  Both my timing and my judgement were spot on and before I knew it I’d successfully evaded the jets of steam spilling from the first ten holes. A sense of triumph flooded through me when I realised I was almost halfway, and a feeling of smugness crept in. I’d never met a video game I couldn’t beat and even though this was reality, those same skills were serving me well now. David had definitely picked the wrong challenge this time. He shouldn’t have mirrored this section so closely on the games we’d played at each other’s houses, and I liked to think he was sat cursing my prowess.

  I started on the second half of the passageway, almost laughing at how easy it was proving to be. The vents turned off and my smile turned to a frown. That was odd.

  “Don’t tell me he’s about to change the rules,” I muttered.

  The mist cleared, and I was given a good view of the last section of the passage and the stairs, just long enough to watch in horror as more holy water sprinkled from the ceiling, right above Lady Sarah’s vulnerable, corpse-like form. It was as if the very heavens w
ere attempting to cleanse the world of her unnatural vampiric taint, except in reality, I knew this had been David’s design all along. Then the jets of steam resumed the same pattern as before, obscuring her from view again. But I could hear the drops of water falling and I’d seen the devastating effects it had on vampires before. Her body wouldn’t withstand the downpour for long. Once her heart melted away with the rest of her flesh and her brain oozed out through her ears, she’d be beyond saving.

  The words projected on the curtain of holy water floated across my mind’s eye. How much does she really mean to you?

  There wasn’t much time for thought, only to react. And even if I had been given chance to think it through, I knew I didn’t really have a choice. If I didn’t fulfil my end of the bargain, Amy’s life would also be forfeit. Selina might have saved her already but I had no doubt she could easily undo whatever spell she’d used, if I returned empty handed or worse, carrying the remains of her sister. Lying probably wouldn’t save Amy either. No doubt Selina would have some way of seeing the truth for herself. Besides, even if it hadn’t been for Amy, could I really leave Lady Sarah to melt away beneath the acid effect liquid? As infuriating as she could be and as distant an ally as she’d been so far, she had tried to help me in her own way, even if she had her own reasons for that. If I was honest with myself, I did feel some sense of duty to rescue her.

  My lips pulled back in a feral snarl at the pain I was about to endure. I shut my eyes, protecting them from the heated water droplets hanging on the air. Then I bounded forward, as fast as my legs would carry me.

  The blistering steam was only in contact with my skin for a matter of seconds before the first patches of epidermis were stripped away, nerves sparking with oxygen in a fresh wave of complaints. I screamed and pushed myself faster still, for my own sake as much as the vampire’s. The quicker I could clear the steam, the less damage it would do.

  Even with the intensity of the fresh pain I was suffering, I was all too aware of the holy water continuing to spatter Lady Sarah. I didn’t need a line of sight to witness the wounds she would be suffering. It was all too easy to imagine the bloody tracks each drop would make as they rolled across her pale skin, lines of raw flesh in stark contrast to her deathly pallor. Would I reach her in time?

  I couldn’t help but voice the agony I was having to endure as I ran, and the rise of anger it brought with it. Zee must have still been making his way along on the other side of the room. He called out through the wall again, his voice sounding to be just ahead of me. No doubt he’d been exercising caution, despite the apparent safe route across he’d been offered.

  “Nick?”

  His concern for me was clear but I couldn’t find the words to answer him in that moment, even when I was offered a brief respite as the vent I was passing shut off its scalding breath. There was no time to stop and wait for the next few vents to close though. My ears zoned in on the downpour falling up ahead. It sounded to be growing steadily heavier, as if it had started out as light rain and was working itself up to falling in torrents.

  And as if that wasn’t enough to keep me from faltering, I heard Zee’s voice again, this time sounding a cry of his own.

  All went quiet on the other side of the wall. It seemed the other path hadn’t been completely free of peril after all. But whatever he’d just encountered, there was nothing I could do with the wall separating us. I had to reach Lady Sarah first and save her from the holy water, then I could go back for Zee. I just hoped the doorway on this upper level would lead to the same place as the doorway below, so I could run to help my friend without having to go all the way back through the steam and around the other side of the room.

  Exposed muscles throbbed as skin continued to peel away. I ignored it and pushed my body to its limits. That second stretch of the passage felt far longer than the first half, despite the fact I ran without stopping. Prolonged exposure to the steam meant it was eating through more and more of my skin, robbing my flesh of its protective layers of tissue in waves of searing agony. But just when it seemed it would never end, my foot crashed into stone, stubbing my toes and causing me to fall forwards.

  My eyelids felt as tender as every other inch of me but I instinctively opened my eyes to see I’d run into the first of the steps leading up to Lady Sarah. I landed on my front paws and kept going, forcing my aching body to ascend the staircase without so much as a moment’s rest. It was a relief to finally have broken free of the scalding mist and into dry air, though I couldn’t heal my damaged skin yet.

  I must have looked a more horrific sight than usual with my patchy fur, broken up by blotches of pink and red. But my appearance was nothing compared to the gruesome spectacle Lady Sarah had become.

  The holy water was falling fast enough that it had completely stripped her of her beauty, reducing her face to a bloody mask. Her ears, nose and lips had melted away, giving her a skull-like appearance, especially with the damage to her hair, leaving just tufts of it on an otherwise bald head covered in open sores. But worst of all were her eyes. They stared unseeing up at the ceiling, impossibly wide without the lids supposed to encase them.

  The black dress she wore was untouched by the purity of the liquid, but I could see her limbs were also red raw beneath it, parts of bone showing through in places. Even that began to dissolve away, leaving a pinky white mush.

  Her unprotected eyes were becoming a bubbling mess in their sockets, though whether or not that was a minor improvement was hard to say. The thing that worried me most was how close the water must be to damaging her brain. She surely had only seconds to live, and the artificial downpour seemed to be falling even harder and faster as I crossed that final stretch to reach her.

  I half expected something else to happen to either slow me and prevent me getting to her in time, or cause me even greater suffering (or both). But David allowed me to reach her without any further trials to pass, thank God.

  A fresh wave of stinging washed over me as the water ran down my wounds. I ignored it and reared back up onto two legs, trying to shield her body from any more damage as I picked her up and carried her out of the acid rain for vampires. My feet splashed in a pool of liquidised tissue mixed with the holy water, a ghastly moat around her castle.

  There seemed to be little left of Lady Sarah by then, the jelly-like substance of her eyes washed away with her skin and much of her muscles, her form skeletal and in danger of dissolving into nothingness at any moment. And still she didn’t wake up. Whatever David had done to her, she’d been rendered utterly helpless and left completely at his mercy. I supposed if she was trapped in so deep a sleep she might at least have been spared the pain of her flesh melting away. But that would be no consolation if I couldn’t find a way to repair the damage.

  She weighed next to nothing as I ran for the doorway into the next section of the dungeon. The shower of holy water didn’t quite reach as far as the exit and I was able to set her down in relative safety without having to go through to whatever dangers lay in the passage beyond.

  My wounds inflicted by the steam were already weeping, but I needed a quicker flow of blood to pass through the vampire’s mouth if I was going to stand any chance of saving her. So I drove a claw into my own wrist and severed the major veins and arteries there, then held my arm over her bare fangs and let the blood spill between them, praying it would be enough.

  A red stream burbled from the gash in my wrist, running across my skin and dripping down into the cavern of Lady Sarah’s mouth. I wasn’t sure there was enough left of her for it to do any good, much of her throat melted away which surely made swallowing impossible, even if she regained consciousness. Gently I cradled her gore adorned skull with my good arm, so gravity would at least send the blood in the right direction.

  I didn’t know how far gone she was beneath the dress but I hoped the material might have offered some protection for her vital organs. Or maybe it had made things worse with the way the wetness made it cling to her. There
was a worrying lack of shape beneath its sodden material – where before she was definitely female underneath, there was a distinct lack of that feminine body shape now. But her chest hadn’t just flattened into something more unisex: her entire torso seemed to have sunken inwards. Did she need a stomach to make feeding possible? Or did the blood just have to reach her heart somehow? If she even had a heart left to receive the stolen life force. I couldn’t even begin to guess how vampire physiology worked, or whether it was possible for her to come back from this.

  The minutes trickled by and my heart rhythm grew irregular. Still there was no change in the stricken vampire. Her body didn’t appear to be healing, nor were there any signs she’d regained consciousness. Then again, with so little flesh left on her bones I wondered if I’d even know if she did wake up. She might not be able to move if there wasn’t enough in the way of skeletal muscles to make it possible. And she had no eyes to open or vocal cords to so much as groan with. I didn’t even have the usual tell-tale signs of life like a heartbeat or breathing to rely on, since vampires didn’t always have either of those things, even when conscious. She might as well be a corpse in her current state.

  I thought about calling for Zee, but if he was in some kind of danger himself, he probably couldn’t help anyway. So I continued to drain my life into what was left of Lady Sarah, hoping her vampiric healing would suddenly kick in once enough blood entered her system. There was only so much I could give her before I’d be forced to heal though. Lightheadedness was already beginning to settle over me, my limbs tingling with the sensation of being starved of blood and my vision going blurred once again. I was becoming all too familiar with the symptoms of blood loss by then and I knew I would have to stop the flow soon.

  Bitterness took hold as I was forced to accept that, despite making a sacrifice just as David had wanted, I’d still been too late to save not just Lady Sarah, but Amy as well. My body was leaving me no choice but to abort my futile attempts to bring her back, and I let the transformation take hold, focusing on healing the damage without losing my current hybrid form. There was nothing more I could do.