Vanka
I wake up, spitting blood and phlegm and scramble to get off the floor in the pitch black on my room. The hot fluid running down the sides of my face tell me my ears are bleeding , my heads aching like it just got stomped repeatedly and I am so dizzy I can’t seem to focus on anything. The air is deathly cold and I scrape my hands around the cold wooden floor to get my bearings.
The air is filled with noises so terrifying I freeze in utter fear, stilled as I listen and try to make sense of what they are.
Screaming….howling. Something else. The air is filled with a metallic stench and although I have no idea what’s going on, my internal instincts are warning me to be very afraid.
There’s a thud thud thud, less imposing than the rest of the noises but it’s slicing through and pulling my painful hearing it’s way. Getting closer and the overwhelming stench of something familiar begins wafting my way. A scent…someone I know.
I don’t know what is happening, but instinct makes me push back despite the world tilting and swaying around me and I slide backwards under the nearest bed. It’s Vanka’s and I claw and pull myself under , breaking nails in the painful process as I scramble in panic. Until I am concealed by the sheets, she leaves hanging over with her refusal to make it. For once I am thankful her bed is always a mess and curl into my own body to fit in one corner. I peer out, my gut telling me that I should be quiet and stay hidden.
My door is still open and as I start to become accustomed to the dark, my nocturnal eyes coming out to play for the first time since my turning, I make out something passing by the open space. Tall and dark as I adjust but it pauses and stops right outside , turning slowly to peer my way. Everything in me turns to ice as a terrified feint drains me of all blood.
I close my eyes, screw them shut tight and clench my fists in a bid to become completely cut off and invisible as best I can. Praying to the fates that they don’t see me.
“Here puppy, puppy…where are you hiding? I know there’s at least one more up here….”
The voice is alien to me, grumbly, heady accent and a thick slur in the tone. The scent is nothing that I have ever encountered before and dampening over the one I vaguely recognise. The sadistic laugh that follows turns my insides to mush and I physically weaken as whatever or whoever it is steps inside the room with me.
“I can hear your heart beating little one……. Why don’t you come out and play, like your friends are doing?”
I cover my mouth as the urge to break into a sobbing cry hits me hard and I begin to shake, holding my breath and praying to god he just leaves me alone. I don’t know who he is and I am so disoriented, the smell overpowering my senses that I am trying hard not to gag. I can taste something foul in the air. So metallic and potent that it makes my eyes sting.
He’s not one of us. I don’t know what he is, but his intentions aren’t good. I can almost taste his desire for blood, and it renders me useless. Frozen and afraid.
He ventures in, dragging something heavy along behind him that identifies the thud, thud, I heard coming my way.
I choke on instant bile, my heart near imploding as my body convulses at the sight of the lifeless and headless body he is dragging behind him. Gagging on my own vomit, I can’t block out her scent…. There is no mistaking who has fallen foul to whatever this is.
It’s Vanka. She’s dead.
“I know where you are. Why don’t you come out and do me a favour….I don’t want to have to drag you out from under there.” I can hear the sneer in his voice, imagine the way his face curls into a sadistic grin. Enjoying every moment of this.
He drops her on the floor fully, her body splaying her arms out in a star shape and I recoil, tears blurring my vision as I try and get as small as I can back here. Whimpering internally. I don’t know what to do and if Vanka was no match for this thing, then I am not either. I don’t know how to fight; I have never had to. I’m not a warrior or even an aggressive. I’m a nothing, a reject form a farmers family.
I bite on my lip, fear paralyising me when suddenly, the entire bed is ripped from above me; the gust of the action throwing my hair around my face and he sends it crashing into the other wall effortlessly, displaying strength much like ours. It falls over on top of mine and I am left exposed, fully accessible, prey huddled for her life in the smallest corner. He comes at me. I gasp in horror , choking up and immobile.
Move Alora…move.
I chant to myself, trying so hard to make my body work with me, to command it somehow but nothing is happening. It’s like my brain is on slow mo and my limbs are in hibernation. I shake my head, try to dislodge this overwhelming dizziness and focus on doing something.
Its dark, instinct takes over finally, blood rushing and pumping at speed as he scrapes a step closer to me. In a flash I bolt from my flat-out position and aim for the door, survival instinct pushing in, praying I turn without even knowing how to. Even though I am stronger and faster like this, our wolves are more so. I need to turn to survive and to heal. We only heal fast when in form.
I don’t get far, because he catches me by the back of my hair effortlessly and throws me backwards, smashing me into the vanity, sending me crashing through mirror and splintering wood into a heap on the floor as heavy objects tumble on top of me. Pain slicing at my body. I am completely defenseless and submit to the writhing agony as I feel every single one of those slicing shards pierce my skin. I scream out loud. A blood curling wail of agony.
Adrenalin takes over, despite my body vibrating with the sheer effort and I get up, clawing the walls, hands changing before me and relief washing over me as I begin to turn. This is what I need but it’s not fast enough, or not progressing and he has me from behind, around my throat and in an effortless manouvre sends me flying forward with a thrust, straight through the window of our third-floor bedroom.
If I thought hitting furniture was painful, then the slicing assault of a thousand shards breaking on your skin as you fly through at speed is so much worse.
I hit the ground below, faster than I can comprehend I am falling through the air with an agonising thud that completely winds me, snapping things internally. Gasping for breath , body convulsing as I try to move but I am bleeding out, slashed all over from breaking through the glass and shattered from my fall. I feel broken all over and literally can feel my life flowing away from me as I become woozy and useless. More so than I was.
The kind of pain my turning inflicted is the only way to describe how this feels and try as I might I don’t know how to finish transforming. If I don’t, I’ll die…we can’t heal the way we can as wolves and I’m critical… it takes too long, and I can feel my human body giving up. I am losing so much blood the grass around me is darkening and the metallic stench of my own essence is dowsing out everything else. I claw the grass and pull myself forward painfully, trying so hard to fight this and sobbing with each wincing attempt. So slowly, I make little progress, only to shudder when a thud beside each side of my head signals the landing of two feet. The impending fate falling over me like a heavy dark cloud, and I know this is futile. He jumped from the window above and yet landed perfectly by me in human form. This is no wolf.
Standing over me, bearing down he grabs me by the back of my neck and digs nails into my flesh. Long piercing claw like nails. Biting scorching pain and he drags me partially upright to hoarsely snarl in my ear. I reach back pathetically, grip his hands on my flesh , the cold icy and clammy skin alien to anything I have ever felt before and I know what this is….we heard stories…. The ice-cold vile touch of the skin of the undead.
This lifeless cold monster is a vampire. They have returned.
“Too easy. Call yourselves warriors. You are all dropping like putrid flies and one snap, it’s all over for you puppy. I am rather enjoying dragging it out though…why don’t you go on and beg like your little friends did.”
I have nothing. My powers fail me, my words dead on my lips as I gasp for air my lungs can’t seem to take in anymore as I choke on my own bodily fluids. I can’t turn and I have no idea why. I am as weak and powerless as Juan said I was….because of me Colton will perish tonight too. He will feel this pain, he will know I am suffering and as soon as my heart stops, his will too.
I’m sorry, my love. You were right. I am no warrior.
I close my eyes, trying hard to link but there is only deathly silence in the recess of my brain as his fingers encircle my throat and I wait for the inevitable squeeze to end it all.
My blurry vision focuses in front of me, straining across the lawn in a last-ditch attempt to see the world I am leaving behind. As he begins to choke the air out of my body, my eyes settle on the chaos laid before me.
My heart implodes with what I see.
Bodies everywhere.
The unwanteds, the guardians. There’s blood, debris, and lifeless souls of my reject pack strewn wherever the eye lays. Headless, maimed. Some torn to pieces, some just bleeding out from their throats. It’s a massacre we never saw coming and they hit the weakest in our kingdom. We had no defenses. Most of us were just children or teenagers.
This is it for us. My story is finally over.
I close my eyes and accept fate choking slowly, no longer panic strewn but accepting of my fate. Struggling to breathe, unable to fight while my body is broken and shattered. Paused and waiting for the final snap to just end this agony.
The sudden wrenching of the hands around my neck makes me spasm in response , so in tune with the final blow but instead of a relief from this plane to the next, I’m set free. Dropped so my face collides with the hot sticky grass and the taste of my own blood. My throat released and the flash of air that wooshes by me turns my head to follow impulsively. Weakly following the path of whatever just flew by me.
A black flash of snarling fur, a huge beast taking down the form of the man that held me captive and I can tell it’s Colton as his scent follows on the wind. That instant inner completion only his presence can bring me and a tiny ounce of my heart is restored.
He is ruthless, a true warrior and one of the biggest of the packs. Within seconds he tears the man apart from limb to limb, no hesitation, scattering him across the back wall in vile red spray and body parts. Snarling and turning viciously before throwing his head across the courtyard with enough force that it clears the wall completely. He throws his head back and the most terrifying howl erupts from deep within his body alerting his kindreds.
The howls fill the air as more of my brethren clear the walls effortlessly, like water over rocks, and land in the courtyard, pouring from every avenue into the small space. Flooding all I can see with the forms of wolves of all sizes and shades.
I try to get up, relief overwhelming me that the packs have come to our aid, our saviors are here, but I can’t move. My hands are bloody and ripped up, my body is weak,smashed internally and I can’t feel my legs. There is something seriously wrong with me and try as I might…I can’t move.
Lorey? Baby….. Lorey ..nooo.
The black beast is over me now, turning me gently with massive clawed paws, so I face those glowing ember eyes and he calms from snarling teeth to human form instantly. Suddenly smaller, naked before me in the dark night sky.
‘I’m sorry.’ Is all I can splutter as I cough up blood and he cradles me close. Picking me up and pulling me against him gently , his own pain at me being like this filtering back to me and weighing upon me tenfold. He is sharing my agony and I can feel his heart shredding for me.
‘You have to turn, please. It’s the only way you can survive these wounds. Turn for me. Don’t give up.’ The desperation in his voice ravages my heart but I am too weak, and I have lost too much blood. I can’t watch him die at my hands, so I try just one more time but it’s futile. I don’t even know how to turn let alone if I can. It’s like there is a disconnect and my abilities fail me.
‘I can’t, I don’t know how.’ Tears roll down my sodden face as I let out a useless breathy whisper.
Colton doesn’t wait, something registering on his face and he furrows his brow with determination, pushing the softness aside. He picks me up and holds me tight, pain slicing through my wounds as I cry out at what he is doing. Pulling us to standing and starts running for the nearest entrance to the courtyard. His mind syncing with mine as soon as we are free from the confines of the garden and he skids down to his knees taking me with him as soon as he feels the bond return so effortlessly.
‘Try now. Trust me, you have to try. Focus on me, think of yourself as you were the night of your turning. The pain, the elation of your new form, will it, baby, will it.”
Something about taking me away from the house makes me feel differently, like a heavy weight or suppression is lifted from my soul and my head clears a little. That internal foggy pain that held me weak moves aside and with a little effort, my body starts to tingle.
‘That’s it…your eyes…keep going. You can do this…it’s not hard. Fight.”
I focus all my effort on pushing some deep inner need in me to unite with my wolf again and as soon as I open my mouth to utter the words ‘I think it’s working’ I arch in his arms and convulse as my body transforms me into the one thing that can save me. Right on the stroke of my human heart giving out and dying on me and sucker punches me back into the living in the most painful kind of way.
I gasp as I inhale loudly, coughing out and wretch at the same time before vomiting a crap ton of blood and mucus right over the top of Colton’s naked body. My wolf body ejects all that internal damage and I’m covered in my own mess. I roll away, finding myself on all fours, suddenly rejuvenated as pain diminishes and wretch and wheeze as the transformation tries to heal me as fast as it possibly can. From head to foot.
Cuts close up, bones crack and reform, my lungs expand fully, enabling me to breathe once more and within minutes, I stand up. Shaken, sore all over as it fades away properly but completely healed. I slump down on the ground and almost immediately revert to human form as I don’t have the energy or the skill to sustain my true form yet. That took so much out of my wolf to literally save my life and I am spent.
Colton scurries over to me and hauls me into his arms, the relief evident on his face and yanks me close to his chest. Wrapping me up and smoothing his hands over my naked body to check for any sign of unhealed marks. There are none.
‘The pack have them in retreat. I need to get you to safety and follow them. There are survivors and we have to stop them before we lose them.’
He helps me up, pulling me to my feet and pulls me towards the abandoned trucks scattered in every street surrounding the school. I recognise them as belonging to the Santo family. They must have flooded in from every part of the mountain at a moments notice.
‘How did you know to come?’ I ask weakly as he slides me into the nearest vehicle, pulling a blanket from the rear and draping it over my naked body as I begin to shiver insanely. I may be healed but my body and mind are going into shock form all that has just taken place and I suddenly feel as though I am in some sort of a dream.
‘Your link was broken, and I couldn’t reach you. I knew something was wrong. I could feel your confusion and then your fear. Your pain almost ended me, and I didn’t think I would get here in time. They did something….to the house. Soon as I got near it my wolf form struggled to stay. There’s some sort of noise or frequency around it. It stops us.’
He closes my door, jumping in the front of the truck and scrambles around for keys. Wasting no time in putting it in gear and high tailing us towards the south road out of this part of the mountain valley. Getting me away from here even if the threat is being chased off.
‘Where are we going? Why aren’t you saving anyone else?’ I sit up, panic and sudden concern for the others left behind, hitting me in the chest like a freight train. MY reject pack are back there, they are the only family I know. Colton catches my eyes in the rear-view mirror and looks away quickly, a sadness hitting my right in the heart as I feel his pain. I immediately know what the pain and sorrow is in what he doesn’t say.
‘There is no one else is there?’ I state blankly, numb shock weaving through me and hitting me with the gravity of this situation. He is in constant link with his pack, they would know about survivors and I am guessing the fact they are chasing down the vampires who ran and no one but Colton is shepherding one of us away, means they already checked.
He shakes his head and ups a gear, pushing the truck to dangerous speeds as we head out of the valley and up onto the main road that takes us around the perimeter and out to the south.
‘We were not fast enough….. I almost didn’t get to you in time. We just weren’t ready for something like this. I wasted time assembling the pack when I knew you needed me.’ He sounds almost ashamed but without the pack, he wouldn’t have been able to fight all of them himself and save me.
‘All of them…the unwanteds….the guardians. They’re all gone.’ It’s not really a question but more of a dazed reaction as my mind pushes me into shock at what just happened and I slump down across the back seat as silent tears begin to fall down my face; diagonally across my cheek and soak the cold leather of the truck.
‘I’m sorry, Lorey, I know they were all you had. We never knew this was coming.’
We share the agony, but it doesn’t lighten the load. My insides twisting in cruel heartache as it sinks in fully. In the blink of an eye…… they are all gone.
The sad thing was, until this moment…I hadn’t thought they were what I had at all. We were never a pack or a family in my mind before, but now; those others, they matter more than I ever gave them credit for. Even Vanka, my roommate of ten lonely years, and I would give anything right now to have her get in this truck and blow smoke in my face.
My heart crashes inside my chest and as the most painful debilitating heaviness hits me hard, I let out a mournful sob that turns to a howl as my body turns without my trying and I lay on the back seat breaking inside all over again. My body reverting to my wolf form in a bid to heal me from the agony my heart is in. A defense mechanism because my instincts think I am dying all over again.
The most heartwrenching howl from my own body fills my ears and echoes into the eeriest silence of the dark world around us.
First my blood family and now my unwanteds
Is there nowhere to run where fate won’t deliver me the worst kind of blow?
ns 15.158.61.8da2
