by Stead, Nick
My voice tailed off as emotions I was no longer accustomed to took hold, choking off my voice and coiling round my heart with icy tendrils. All traces of my anger left me until I felt as cold and empty as the two bodies.
“No, they are not yet dead.”
It took a few minutes for those words to sink in, a spark of hope igniting in the black smog of grief and burning need for revenge. At first I feared I might have imagined them, both Selina and Amy so utterly devoid of life as they were. I couldn’t keep the disbelief from my voice as I manged to growl out “What?”
“I can see your sister should have died from her wounds after losing so much blood. It seems Selina knew there was little hope of saving her, especially in here where she has no access to the tools of her craft needed for the most complicated of incantations. And messing with the balance of life and death is as complicated as it gets.”
“So how do you know they’re not dead? My senses tell me otherwise.”
“Necromancy cannot save lives, it merely reanimates the dead, binding souls back to their flesh for so long as the power holds. But the necromancy I was granted through vampirism allows me to sense the dead when I tap into it, in a way that goes beyond the five earthly senses you rely on. And neither of our sisters have entered a state of true death, nor would it be possible for myself or the enemy necromancer to take control of them.”
“Then there’s still hope for them?”
“All is not lost but do not rejoice yet. Without any other means of perverting the course of nature, Selina was left with but one option. I believe she teeters on the very edge between life and death as she bargains for your sister’s life with the Reaper himself. This goes beyond the state between life and death as mortals understand it and a human physician would indeed pronounce each of them to be clinically dead, but I give you my word they have not yet entered true death.”
“Is this what Selina did to save me?”
“It is not my place to talk about that.”
“What the hell does that mean? That she used some other black magic to save me?” I growled, my anger flickering back into life. “She said I wouldn’t like her to do the same to Amy as she’d done to me, but what could possibly be worse than being clinically dead for long enough to bargain with Death?”
“I have already said too much.”
“You haven’t said anything, as fucking usual!”
“Nick, now is not the time,” she snapped. “Your temper will not help anyone here.”
Gwyn threw his hands up. “Again with the bitching! May I remind you both we are still being held captive by a bunch of humans with the means to see us all truly dead if it takes their fancy?”
“Gwyn’s right,” Zee said. “Arguing amongst ourselves will solve nothing. What’s done is done and now we must trust Selina’s skills to bring them both safely back to us.”
Lady Sarah breathed deeply, surprising me with an apology. “You are right. Nick, I am sorry but this is a matter for another time, and one you must take up with Selina. There is nothing we can do now but wait and see what happens. If we are lucky, both our sisters will come back to us, though striking such a deal will surely carry a high price. Death will not release his hold on either of them lightly and he will demand at least one life in return for each of theirs, possibly more. The universe hangs in a delicate balance and not all lives are equal. My understanding of it is not so great as Selina’s, but I know enough to understand just how dangerous and drastic a move this was, and why many with the power have been reluctant to attempt it in the first place. Of those that do, few have ever returned.”
My heart sank again, my hopes quashed by her words.
“So we wait then,” Zee said. “We should make the most of the time to rest and recover our strength before we move on.”
“I’m not leaving Amy again, not even just to nod off. How about while we wait, you give me those answers you promised, Gwyn. No more excuses – we have the time now so let’s start with how you know so much about this place and what type of undead you are exactly, if you truly are one of us.”
Zee turned his gaze on the Welsh man. “I would like to know more as well. How is it you appear so human but are still one of us?”
Lady Sarah also fixed her icy glare on him, though she didn’t deign to speak.
“Oh sure, gang up on the outsider. It’s okay for you vampires and werewolves. You can make more of your kind. You’re not the last. I can’t make more of mine.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?” I snarled. “Maybe they can make more of their kind but not every human can become a werewolf, and there’s none left who can be turned.”
“Really?” Gwyn scratched his chin. “Hmm, maybe the Slayers have grown more competent than I’ve been giving them credit for. At least you can still father some little werewolf pups with a human.”
“They’d never survive to adulthood.” My mind flashed back to three scraps of life lying in their mother’s blood, pitiful and forlorn. Their cries filled my skull, their tiny limbs reaching for the warmth I hadn’t had to give. My eyes hardened. “I am the last.”
A measure of sympathy bled into his features. “I’m sorry, chummers, I didn’t realise things had gotten so bad on the surface. I suppose I should explain myself then, if it’ll help gain your trust. You might want to get sat comfortably first though – it’s kind of a long story.”
“Just get on with it,” I growled.
All sense of merriment drained from his face then, a darkness creeping into his words as he continued “You ask me if I am undead. If I am kin to vampire, to werewolf, to zombie. I mock you. I am something far older, more primordial. I am the superstition and fear as old as civilisation itself. My home is down here in the very roots of the planet, the yearning chasms sunlight has ne’er caressed. I am the planets’ toll collector. For all the riches that lie beneath the crust, a price must be paid. I am the creaking of the bows as they strain against the weight of the earth. I am the fumes that kill the canary and suck the breath from your lips. I am the cries of the long, long buried dead, deep below the surface of the world.
“I am a knocker. And my time has passed.”
“A knocker? I have not heard this term before,” Zee said. Judging from the less than impressed look on Lady Sarah’s face, she hadn’t either, and it wasn’t a name of any mythological creature I recognised.
A flicker of anger passed across Gwyn’s features before they settled back into their usual good humoured countenance, and he answered with a return to his jovial tone. “Not really surprising for two vampires stuck in the past but I’m disappointed they don’t even whisper our names in old mining tales anymore. Actually, now that I think of it, those tales might only get passed down in families who grew up in mining communities. I guess not all towns are mining towns.
“Anyway, that’s what the miners used to call me – a knocker. They blamed all manner of accidents on my kindred from fairly innocent acts of mischief to causing the disastrous cave-ins that claimed so many lives and, to be fair, they were usually right. But I’m actually much older than the first human mine and I haven’t always lived underground. Now, in folklore knockers are sometimes depicted as fairy creatures like hobgoblins, which I’m obviously not. Other stories paint them as malevolent spirits which would be more accurate. You could call me a spirit of sorts and there’s another bit of folklore my kind fits into, separate from the mining tales ’cause we all know humanity ain’t that bright. Outside of the mines, in Wales I’d be known as a pwca.”
“What the fuck’s a pwca?” I growled, struggling to pronounce the Welsh word.
“I’m less upset you don’t know about these tales – we’re probably less well known in your neck of the woods. Pwcas are also considered fairy creatures by some and a type of spirit by others. You’ve seen my true form now so yes, I am a spirit of sorts, but not the kind that was once living who died and became a spirit. I’ve always been a spirit creature so I guess I’m not trul
y an undead like you three, but I’ve always felt more at home around you guys than I have humanity. And my own kind, well. They aren’t really around anymore.”
His eyes still shone with mirth, his smile as much a mask as Lady Sarah’s impassiveness. Did he miss his kindred? I couldn’t tell.
Zee was frowning. “So you inhabit mines just to wreak havoc and generally have a good time?”
“Not exactly. In the good ol’ days I was a force to be reckoned with, full of power and troubled with few weaknesses.”
“So can’t you just break us out of here?” I interrupted.
“Ah, fluffy, if only it were that easy. I’m cursed too you know. As you’ve already seen, the darkness reveals my true self, an unstoppable spirit capable of wanton destruction whenever I feel like it. Though I have always enjoyed a good practical joke, so the stories humans tell are kind of true in that respect as well.
“But since witches like Selina over there found a way to bind me in human form, I’ve been left vulnerable in the light. Just as you three no doubt consider yourselves cursed to have become monsters who have to feed on humans to stay alive, I’m cursed to exist as a weak human for as long as light shines on me. My curse also makes me weak to the light itself, so I can’t just smash these artificial lights to grant myself the freedom to return to my true form – I need someone else to do it for me. Now, as you might imagine, being stuck as a human is far less fun than being a powerful spirit so after the witches cursed me, I retreated underground. Human mines became a good haunt since I could be myself and enjoy wreaking havoc, as you put it Zee, but I didn’t take to living in mines purely to enjoy status as a knocker; I just wanted the shelter of darkness to escape my curse.
“As for how I know so much about this place, well: this used to be a mine back in the day, until there was a certain mining disaster which I might have been responsible for in a moment of boredom. That really did cause a lot of havoc for the humans but once the dust settled and they gave up on rescuing their people, they closed the mines down and left them be. I was happy enough down here living in darkness and probably would have been content for many more decades to come, if your friend David hadn’t come along and set about turning these old mines into his own real life version of Dungeons and Dragons, slash video game.”
“Hang on, how come you know so much about the modern world if you’ve been down here all this time? I’m guessing you’ve been down here a while.”
“You’d be surprised how much an old pwca can learn from the internet when left to his own devices.” Gwyn winked at me. “I took an interest in the new humans bumbling along in the dark down here so I watched as they built chambers meant to test and punish you, and whenever I had chance to sneak into the part of the building where they keep all their technology, I had a play around with their computers. That is, until they realised I was down here and they imprisoned me in that room you first found me in.”
“What I do not understand is, why torment the humans at all,” Lady Sarah said. “We prey on them because we must. Why risk your own existence if you do not need to feed as we do?”
“I can feed off human emotions but I don’t have the same hunger you guys do. I don’t need to prey on them regularly so I could quite happily have stayed alone down here until boredom got the better of me. But what can I say, tormenting them is fun. Everyone needs something to live for, right?”
“And how come you didn’t warn me about that trapdoor you must’ve known was there when we sent Amy through here?”
“Because it was more entertaining to watch you fall through and you needed to be down there anyway to reach Lady Sarah.”
I supposed I couldn’t argue with that, though I still didn’t entirely trust him and I certainly wasn’t warming to him. “Come to think of it, why didn’t you point out the hidden door to us in the tunnel full of zombies? We could have escaped through as a group instead of letting it play out the way the Slayers wanted with the four of us split up and Zee taken as their captive, and Hannah dead. I assume that’s what happened to her after I fell through into the other passage?”
That last question I directed at Zee.
“I think so,” he answered. “The last thing I remember is the zombies overpowering us, then nothing – which must be the point where the necromancer took control of my mind.”
“Probably for the best if she was only down here to add to our torment for as long as she lasted.” I turned my attention back to Gwyn, growling “You still could have helped us and prevented me being split up from Zee though.”
“That was one secret they successfully kept from me. When we were trapped at the end of that passage and I was searching with Hannah for the way through to the next section; that was genuine.”
I supposed it was plausible that he might not have been given the chance to discover everything about the dungeon before David and his minions had learnt of his presence and trapped him in the room we’d first encountered his spirit form in.
“And how is it you alone managed to follow me through?”
“The Slayers let me, I guess,” he shrugged. “Most of the zombies were called off more or less as soon as you fell into that other passage. The ones around us that kept on fighting were mostly focused on Zee while the necromancer took control of him. I’m guessing that would have taken more of a fight than simply reanimating a dead body. I saw my opportunity and I took it. I was able to push past the few zombies that were left and slip through the hidden door you’d found. Sorry, Zee, but there was nothing I could do for you at the time with the lights keeping me weakened, or Hannah. She’d already fallen somewhere in the chaos. I glimpsed her body laid among the bits of zombies writhing on the floor.”
“What about any doors between this dungeon and the main building where the Slayers are controlling things, did you see anything like that before they captured you?”
“Nothing useful, I’m afraid. There are such doors that give them access to specific sections without having to work their way through and risk facing us themselves. But even though I did see the location of a few, I can tell you now we won’t be able to escape that way. The Slayers were very careful to design them so that only they could pass through. I believe they can only be operated remotely from somewhere within the base, or by using some kind of handheld device similar to the ones they carry to operate the doors on their vehicles. But only David and perhaps one or two others of his most trusted were given one.”
That obviously wasn’t the answer I was hoping for, though if it came to it at least it sounded like the knocker could point out to us a few possible escape routes, which we might find a way to break through with our combined powers. That would probably have to be a last resort though, since it could well prove to be no more than another drain on our resources. But I thought it worth a try if our plight grew desperate enough.
“So what would have happened if we’d let Lady Sarah drain you dry, would you have died?”
“Now we’re getting personal. That’s a need to know basis, and you other undead don’t need to know. I’ve already told you the basics of my curse; let’s leave it at that.”
I turned to the vampires. “Do you guys trust him?”
Lady Sarah appeared to have her own misgivings, judging from the look in her eyes, but Zee answered “He could have caused more harm than a little practical joking if he’d wanted to, and he has given us some help. I think we should give him a chance.”
“Okay,” I growled, and turned back to Gwyn. “But if you keep pissing me off then we’ll test whether you really can be killed whilst trapped in your human form or not.”
“No need for that kind of talk, matey. We already have enough enemies to contend with without turning on each other.”
I couldn’t really argue with that either so I just grunted. More weariness washed over me and my eyelids began to droop. I briefly wondered how he’d heard about me if he’d been down in the old mines since before I was bitten, but I supposed he’d probably
seen online reports of the animal attacks assumed to be a rogue wolf. No doubt he’d overheard the Slayers talking about me on more than one occasion as well. There was also the question of how he’d managed to get from the side of Selina’s chamber where I’d last seen him, through to the other side and the tunnel where he’d reappeared when I was running to get the witch. I guessed there must have been another secret door or passage to take him through without the need to go down the trapdoor and along the same path I’d had to take, which he must have learnt of during the construction of the place. My tired brain was growing too sluggish for me to want to question him further so I let it be.
“Nick, you need to rest,” Zee said.
“I’m fine,” I growled, trying to fight it.
Quick as a snake striking, Lady Sarah grabbed my muzzle in her hand and turned my head to face her. Without thinking, I locked eyes with her and immediately felt myself falling into the cold depths within.
“There is nothing more you can do at present. Sleep now and recover your strength. You will awaken only when your body is fully rested, or when we call you back to the waking world.”
I was as powerless to resist the vampire’s spell as ever and with barely a conscious thought, I found myself lying down and falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.
My eyes snapped open to find Amy and Selina in the same state as before. Anger bubbled up to the surface of my mind as I stirred and looked around, though admittedly I did feel stronger and refreshed for the rest I’d been granted. But that didn’t mean I was happy about Lady Sarah using her mind tricks to control me again, even if it had been for my own good.
Zee also appeared to be taking advantage of the time to rest, his body in the same corpse-like state I’d witnessed Lady Sarah in through the daytime hours. I wondered if that meant it was daylight above ground or whether those kind of rules didn’t apply while the vampires were in constant darkness. From what little I understood of their kind, they did have some need to rest – Lady Sarah had said as much on the morning after my first transformation, when I’d first met her – but how closely that was tied to the rise and fall of the sun I had no idea. I knew they couldn’t enter direct sunlight which made the daytime the most logical time to rest, and usually I guessed they did have some sense of when night had fallen as Lady Sarah had always seemed to wake after the sun had gone down. But in the eternal darkness below ground it might throw whatever inbuilt sense of that they usually had. Zee hadn’t been able to tell me how long he’d been imprisoned in the dungeon which seemed to back that theory up, and I made a mental note for future reference. With the prejudice I faced from so many of the vampires, it was good to learn as much about my enemy as I could. It might just save my life someday.