The Hybrid Series | Book 1 | Hybrid Read online

  The desire to hurt him made me want to rethink my stance on needless transformations. I thought of the pandemonium I could cause if I shifted before them all, and the satisfaction it would bring to spread such terror among all those who’d mocked and jeered over the years, and put them at my mercy. And the damage my teeth could do… I entertained the thought longer than I should have, long enough to consider if I could somehow get away with it. I pushed the temptation aside. What if I lost control and went too far? People could die. I wouldn’t risk that, especially with my friends present.

  Jamie’s next words were a whisper, too quiet for the crowd to hear. “You’re pathetic. You’re nothing. You’re shit.”

  I didn’t waste my breath on a reply and I didn’t waste any more time. He’d taunted me long enough.

  My first punch was deliberately slow, keeping up the illusion of humanity for our audience. I swung straight for his face, but he ducked and laughed. “Is that all you got?”

  I lashed out again and again he dodged it. Then he aimed a kick at my groin and I knew what he was planning. If he’d found his mark, he’d have pushed me to the ground while I was doubled over with pain, and then he’d have rained down blow after blow. I’d seen it all before.

  With a casual sweep of my hand, I knocked his foot aside and used his momentum to swing him round, ridiculing him. His face grew blotchy. It was not turning out to be the easy fight he’d been expecting and his own anger was taking hold. This was no longer play.

  Facing me once more, he tried for my head this time but I caught his fist with ease and squeezed, feeling the bones splinter beneath the skin. He screamed and fell to his knees, yet still I gripped him, crushing the lump of flesh and blood and revelling in the power I’d been given.

  Tears streamed down his cheeks and pathetic pleas came shrieking from his mouth. It was my turn to sneer. Then I jerked him to the ground and released him.

  He curled up in a ball, crying and shaking and cradling his hand. I caught a flash of the damage I’d done, shards of bone poking through skin, much like with the rabbit earlier. There was a good chance it was damaged beyond repair, but the thought didn’t bother me. The shame I’d felt before was a distant echo. My anger needed release again, and I was all too happy to indulge it now. Besides, Jamie was far from innocent. Perhaps all humans were. No other animal is capable of that mindless violence displayed time and again by mankind. What I had done to the rabbit – I would come to realise that was more human than wolf. I was more in the world of humanity now than I had ever been. The wolf had wanted the blood to satisfy hunger, not to satisfy anger. My bloodlust was solely about killing. But those were things I’d come to realise later. I was too busy enjoying Jamie’s pain, and the gasps emanating from the crowd, including David – everyone who had expected me to lose.

  Some of them started to cheer. All those who had ever been on the receiving end of Jamie’s bullying – they were enjoying his downfall nearly as much as I was.

  I stood over the pathetic mortal boy lying at my feet and kicked him in the stomach.

  “That’s for every victim you’ve ever bullied in your miserable life,” I snarled. There were more cheers.

  I aimed a powerful kick at his groin, enough maybe to damage that too.

  “That’s for Lucy.”

  I aimed yet another kick at his head, hard enough to split it open and render him unconscious. The crowd fell into shocked silence. Jamie had never gone that far with any of his victims.

  “And that’s for me.”

  Satisfied, I turned my back on him and the crowd parted for me as they had for Jamie, too shocked to say anything. But that didn’t matter. The anger spent, I was ready for home where I would enjoy my victory in the haven of my bedroom.

  I don’t think I meant to hurt Jamie so badly, however much I might have fantasised about it in the run up to the fight. It was hard to control this destructive power I had been given, and I think I’d just forgotten myself in the grip of anger, forgot to keep measuring it and make my blows soft enough to feel like the strength of a human. It’s hard even to this day, but it’s a skill I’ve learnt over time.

  No doubt I’d pay for my actions later. At the very least I’d be grounded, possibly suspended, and maybe I’d even be in trouble with the police. But I didn’t really care what punishment lay in store right then. No one would ever bother me again, and it might even give me another rise in popularity. Yet in that moment I realised I didn’t want that. I didn’t want everybody talking to me just because I’d beaten the hardest boy in school, which made me the hardest boy in school now I supposed. They would only be after my protection. They’d only want to know me because I was suddenly cool. Or maybe I wasn’t after taking it too far. Maybe they’d all fear me. In any case, I just wanted to be left alone, something people wouldn’t think twice about from then on.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Born of Death

  By evening, I was past being angry. I felt a grim satisfaction at the thought of the pain I had inflicted on Jamie, and the agony he might be going through at that very moment while doctors sought to mend the fractured bones. But I couldn’t help thinking about the rabbit and the sheep who’d lost their lives to my rage, and I wished I could bring them back. Their deaths felt so pointless.

  “Ha, some predator I am,” I said, holding up my pet snake so our eyes were level. His tongue flicked out as if in agreement and he began to slither down my arm. I admired the way he moved, so swift and silent – one of nature’s perfect predators. Not like me, plagued by guilt.

  I’d named him after my favourite rock star, Alice Cooper, and as much as I loved him, I wished he could be a huge boa constrictor like the ones used in his namesake’s shows. One day, I was going to own a snake that big, or so I promised myself. But Alice was big enough for my schooldays, and he’d always been a source of comfort when I was down. There was something soothing about the feel of his smooth scales brushing across my skin, and I would often lose myself in thought while he slithered over my arms.

  I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on behind those dark beady eyes. Did he fear the wolf in me? Other animals certainly did, but other than his reaction when I’d first transformed, he’d never really shown any fear. My scent had to have changed though. Was it possible for a snake to feel trust? Did he recognise me as the same boy who’d raised him, despite the wolf’s awakening?

  Darkness was creeping in. As the last of the sunlight faded, I put Alice back in his tank and climbed out of the window. It was time to get some more answers.

  The vampires were waiting for me when I reached the cemetery. Lady Sarah stood between the tombstones, barely moving and engulfed in shadow. She looked like a sentinel, keeping watch over the graves, or a dark angel perhaps, waiting for the next burial so she could lead the soul into the afterlife. Vince, on the other hand, was sitting on a coffin with his feet up, and an arm resting on the nearest headstone. Something glinted in the moonlight and I noticed a silver pendant that I hadn’t seen before, with something engraved into it, some kind of symbol. It didn’t mean much to me, just a shape. Tied next to the pendant was a large wolf fang, bigger than average. A werewolf’s? But what would he be doing with a werewolf’s fang? Maybe he’d taken it from some long dead enemy.

  Metal shone on his fingers too, rings that definitely hadn’t been there at Halloween. They were the kind I’d always admired, the silver moulded into skulls and bats, taken from a victim maybe. And it looked like he’d replaced the clothes I’d ruined when I’d lost control. He could have passed for a mortal.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “It took you long enough,” Vince grumbled. “I could have gone to feed if I’d known you were going to walk so slow.”

  “You knew I was walking over here? How?”

  “We picked up your footfalls as soon as you left your house,” Lady Sarah answered. “You have a very distinctive gait.”

  Vince laughed. “Distinctive, that’s one word for it! A zom
bie could hear you coming. You’ve got the loudest, heaviest footsteps I’ve ever heard among all the ranks of the undead. We’re meant to be silent predators, light on our feet and too fast for mortals to follow. You’re gonna give us a bad reputation!”

  I laughed too but I didn’t really get the joke. Vince seemed to sense my confusion, adding “God, you’ve got a lot to learn, boy. Zombies have the worst senses among the undead – worse even than a human’s in some cases, depending on how much they’ve decayed.”

  “Hey, give me chance! I’ve only been undead for two months.”

  He shrugged, still smiling, and shifted his gaze to Lady Sarah. I would have said she looked out of place next to us two in our contemporary outfits, but in our current surroundings she looked more at home than either me or Vince, her ancient dress something she could have been buried in. Vince looked like he belonged in a mansion somewhere with servants surrounding him. And then there was me. Given my age, I must have looked lost among the tombstones. It was not a place for kids.

  “So,” I said, “is this a good time to talk?”

  She nodded. “What troubles you?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking, and if I’m caught in the middle of a war I want to know more about the Slayers. For one thing, if they hunt undead, why do they call themselves Demon Slayers and not Undead Slayers? And do demons really exist, or is that just another name they use for us?”

  She held up a hand to stem the flow of questions. “Yes, demons exist, though there are few on Earth now. There was a time when the Slayers slaughtered their kind as well, and they viewed us as one and the same – though we are, of course, different – but the demons withdrew against their onslaught and returned to the deepest pits in Hell whence they came. As I said, there are few on Earth now. Only the most powerful or the most reckless prey on mortals. Most are content with the souls of the dead, or at least they will be until the Slayers are defeated.”

  “How are we different from demons?”

  “Demons belong to Satan, if he really exists, or at least to Hell which is real, while we belong to no one but ourselves. Demons were never human, as we once were, and they are living creatures, while we died to become what we are. The only thing that links us is our immortality. But enough of demons. You wanted to know more of the Slayers, and I shall tell you.”

  “Hang on a minute, you just said I died when I became a werewolf. I didn’t die! I’m pretty sure I’d remember something like that.”

  “You died, Nick, as all among the undead have. Otherwise your kind would not be classed as one of us. We are born of death.”

  “But I didn’t die! I passed out after I was bitten and woke up fully healed and feeling terrible because of the full moon.”

  She shook her head. “Your body did more than faint. You died, and the wolf brought you back. But unlike the rest of us, your body gained new life – that is, it is still very much a living body and not a re-animated corpse like we vampires.”

  I frowned as I processed that. “What’s the difference?”

  “Vampires do not need to breathe, though most of us do out of habit, and we produce no waste, or any of the other things living bodies must do. That is true of most undead. Werewolves are the exception. Do not ask me how it works because I do not know. How the wolf brings you back, I know not. How the dead can be made to walk again, I know not. I know only that it happens, as the three of us are proof. Now, what would you have me tell you of the Slayers?”

  “And not too many questions this time – we have to feed before daybreak,” Vince interjected.

  I glanced at him and nodded before turning my attention back to Lady Sarah, thinking about what I needed or wanted to know the most and trying to remember what she’d told me before, when an image came to me. A memory, gone as quickly as it appeared, but not one of my own. Or at least not one belonging to the human part of my consciousness. Had the wolf chosen to show me that or had it been a mistake, something I’d happened upon while searching my mind? Either way, it didn’t matter. The memory was important. It concerned the Slayers, and from what Lady Sarah had said when we’d first met, I guessed it was from that very night. It wasn’t very detailed though; some things in the memory were strangely blurred – most notably their faces. Only the eyes were clear, full of cruelty, anger and hate. Perhaps because eyesight wasn’t as important to the wolf? Or maybe all humans looked the same to it.

  “Okay, if any damage to the heart or brain kills a werewolf that means the myths about silver aren’t true, so how come the Slayers have silver weapons? Surely they know any weapon can kill us if we’re wounded in the right place?”

  “They know all too well but the Slayers are traditionalists and have a preference for silver. I believe it is also something of a calling card among them. They like it known when they are responsible for a kill.”

  “What? Don’t tell me there’s other mortals out there hunting us as well.” I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed.

  “There are rogue hunters who do not count themselves amongst the Slayers. Usually they stumble across the undead by mistake. The Slayers will try and persuade these people to join with them, but there are those who do not agree with their methods and choose to hunt alone. Fear not – they are of little threat to you. It is we vampires who must be wary, for they strike in the day when we are at our most vulnerable.

  “In any case, rogue hunters are a rarity now. Most mortals refuse to believe in us, and those who learn the truth are likely to become Slayers or find ways to explain away our existence. Few take it upon themselves to hunt us alone.”

  I thought this over while Vince yawned and shifted position on the coffin.

  “How many Slayers are there?” I wondered aloud.

  “That is one question I cannot answer. They have a base in every major town and city, and a leader for each base. Slayers in neighbouring villages and small towns serve the base nearest to them. We know they have some kind of overall leader, and each city may have a force of up to a hundred at their command – maybe more in the bigger ones, though not all of them remain active.

  “Volunteers patrol the area around where they live and kill most of the undead they come across. Occasionally they take some alive for questioning. And if any of us prove too powerful for a small group to kill, they call in reinforcements.

  “Other Slayers never take part in the killing as far as I know. I can only guess at what their purpose may be, but I believe some of them are scientists, striving to learn more about our kind and more efficient ways to kill us, while others handle the weapons, making sure their army is well equipped.”

  My mouth hung open and I was staring. I hadn’t really taken the threat of the Slayers all that seriously up until that point, and it came as a shock to learn we were in even greater danger than I’d first realised. All those risks I’d taken without a second thought, risks which possibly endangered us all. And the most stupid of those risks had probably been my lunchtime transformation earlier. If I’d known how big a threat the Slayers were, I would never have put us all in danger like that. Or maybe it still wouldn’t have mattered, given my reckless streak.

  I recovered from the shock and my curiosity returned. But I’d had my fill of information on the Slayers that night – the grim reality Lady Sarah had just revealed was enough to cope with for the minute.

  “So, what about vampires? Some of the myths seem a bit crazy, like the idea you can be hurt by garlic. You can’t, can you?”

  Vince was laughing. I glanced at him and felt stupid.

  Lady Sarah just smiled. “No, garlic does not hurt us – that is nothing more than silly human superstition.”

  “I knew it! What about holy water and crosses?”

  “Holy water is as an acid to all our kind and crosses can cause burns, though how severe they are depends on the power of the vampire – the more powerful we are, the less harm is done. We are of the eternally damned, you see. So are you for that matter, though your flesh does not sh
are our aversion to holy relics.”

  “So some of you are more powerful than others?”

  “Yes. There are some aspects of vampirism we all have in common, but our abilities differ. Sunlight, for instance – none of us can walk in direct sunlight, no matter how strong or weak we may be. And a stake through the heart or decapitation will kill even the oldest vampire, but anything that destroys the heart or the brain will do the trick.”

  “What powers do you have then, exactly?”

  “I can become a wolf or a bat if I wish and I can control the weather to a certain extent. I also have a certain telekinetic ability, but this is fairly common among us. Telepathy, on the other hand, is a rare gift – only the greatest of our kind can control the mind of any being. Most of us can hypnotise our victims, however.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Not quite. Hypnosis only creates suggestion in the mind of our prey and can be broken by those strong enough to fight it, while complete control cannot be resisted.”

  “So what defines your power? How is one vampire more powerful than another?”

  “It depends partly on the power of the one who made the vampire in question, and partly on the age of the vampire. Our abilities increase with time, but some of the weaker vampires will never shapeshift or even use hypnosis. Why this is I know not. Perhaps the story of how we came to be would offer some explanation, but that is one story that seems long forgotten.”

  “So in a fair fight I’m guessing a vampire would beat me. You mentioned before we used to be at war till the Slayers forced us to ally against them. Are we still allies or do I need to be wary around some vampires?”

  I glanced at Vince, but his eyes were on the bands of metal shining on his fingers, his digits flexing back and forth so the rings caught the light. He seemed to have lost all interest in the conversation.