Undead Uprising Chapter 20
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This week’s Wicked Wednesday brings you another installment of my urban fantasy involving a twist to the werewolf mythology, battles with vampires and a struggle for control in a werewolf pack. I hope you like this next free chapter that I’m offering you.
In the prior chapter, Catalina has battled two vampires, including a vampire elder. She has killed them both and survived the battle, but not without injury. As she stares at the bodies of the two dead vampires, she pauses to consider how it is that her family came to bear the burden of hunting the undead. This chapter provides you a glimpse of the actions that will lead to the birth of the Villalobos werewolf clan.
For those of you who may have missed the first chapters, you can read them here:
Chapter 20
Galicia, Spain, 1348
Even a vampire could only stomach so much death and decay.
Pedro de Aragon had hoped that the verdant hills in the north of Spain and the nearby villages would provide him more fertile feeding grounds than the crowded cities filled with pestilence.
As he stood at the edge of the woods, waiting until full night before entering the village below, the sights in his native city and the others through which he had passed in his quest for sustenance haunted him. Bodies piled high outside city walls. Sick stragglers dead in their tracks along the roads leading from one town to the next.
In one city they had tossed dozens of bodies into the river when the graveyards and fields could no longer hold more. Grimly the bodies bobbed along, carried downward by the current to the next unfortunate town.
Pedro wished that here, far away from the crowded and rat-infested cities, it might be different. The air was certainly an improvement, he thought, breathing in deeply of the forest — pine with the refreshing touch of eucalyptus.
Sí, definitely better, he thought and padded down the hillside toward the modest seaside village, eager for a meal. A few hungry weeks had passed since he had last fed. It showed. His body was gaunt with bird-like bones visible; skin pale as milk. Every day he grew weaker. If he couldn’t dine soon . . .
To one nearly immortal, the prospect of death was even scarier.
A nice plump villager, he thought and smacked his lips. One of the healthy ones to sustain him.
The closer he got to the village, the fresh scent of the forest disappeared to be replaced by the tang of the ocean as a breeze blew inward from the shore. But occasionally, there came the smell of something else — death.
Pedro had barely gotten to the edge of the town when he passed his first body. That of a shepherd in a meadow between the forest and a row of buildings marking the furthest edge of the town. Beside the grizzled old shepherd lay his small herd of lifeless sheep, their bodies bloated and stiff.
He had seen it before, faithful animals dead alongside their masters. It didn’t bode well for what awaited him in the village below.
At the first lane of buildings — strong stone warehouses constructed by the Romans who had conquered this small Galician aldea — were piles of corpses, rotting beneath the revealing light of a full moon.
Pedro held his breath against the putrid smell and moved onward quickly, rushing through the town’s streets to confirm what he already knew — the pestilence had reached here as well. Those not infected were barricaded tightly in their homes, out of his reach.
As he rounded one corner, a man staggered into him and grabbed hold. “Ayudame,” the man pleaded in a weak voice, his eyes glazed with fever. A bright flush marked the sick man’s cheeks.
Pedro wanted to weep with frustration and tossed the plague-ravaged human away.
He would not feed here anytime soon. He couldn’t risk slaking his thirst on one of the dying. He’d already seen some of his kind, their armpits and groins swollen, oozing blood and pus as the disease ravaged them slowly. Vampires were difficult to kill, but the plague seemed to delight in wreaking vengeance on his fellow undead before finally taking them.
Eyes wild as he searched for a meal, he realized there would be none tonight in this village. He ran as fast as he could, eager to return to the forest with its fresh air and clean scents.
At the edge of the woods, he paused to look down at the city once more and ponder what to do. He leaned his hand on a tree as he sought to catch his breath from his sprint up the hillside. Taking a deep inhale, the scent of something else teased his nostrils. Fur, wet with a mist that had started on his rush back to the woods.
From nearby came a growl, low and menacing. Movements cautious, Pedro peered toward the sound. Bright red eyes met his. A wolf. Fur the color of chestnuts glistened in the bright light of a full moon from the drops of moisture clinging to it. A warm regular breath marked the night air. A chill had swept down the hillside with the coming of night.
This was no sick animal, he thought. Allowing himself to transform, the strong steady beat of the wolf’s heart sang with life. He knew then what he had to do.
Long fangs erupted from his mouth. He issued his own growling challenge to the wolf before he flew at it.
Sensing danger, the wolf turned and raced into the forest, but even weak from his lack of feeding, he was able to keep up and the thrill of the hunt energized him.
He dodged low-lying branches. Jumped over the underbrush in the forest. Slowly he gained ground on the fast moving animal. The wolf’s haunches bunched and moved with strength as it tried to escape, but Pedro was too desperate to allow that to happen.
With one final lunge, he had the beast within his grasp. The lush fur soft in his hands as he wrestled the wolf to the ground. The wolf fought him, pawing at his undead flesh with its sharp nails. Tearing through the fine cloth of his pants, raking deep into his leg.
He managed to avoid the wolf’s powerful jaws as it snapped at him, trying to break free, but Pedro’s hold was too strong. With a quick twist, he bared the wolf’s neck. A sound, almost like a pleading whimper, escaped the animal, but his hunger was too strong for compassion. He needed fulfillment after weeks without sustenance.
Pedro bent his head, sank his teeth into the wolf’s neck and fed. Wolf’s blood, richly luxuriant, filled his mouth and ran over onto his lips as some of it escaped his fangs. He sucked greedily, a reckless glutton, forgetting a wolf was unlike a human and would not give up the fight so easily.
As he gorged on its blood, the wolf renewed its struggles and reared up. It sank its teeth deep into Pedro’s thigh. Just one final futile attempt to free itself before he drained the last of its life and the wolf’s jaws gave up their hold.
He lay down beside his prey, giddy with the strength flowing through his veins from the kill and took a long moment to enjoy the rush. Smiling, fangs and lips crimson from the blood of his prey, he realized he’d discovered how he could survive the pestilence decimating the cities and towns of Spain. The forests were full of wolves. He had seen them roaming the edges of many a city on his journey to escape the sickness. More than once he’d wondered why they had seemed unaffected by the death sweeping across the country and killing almost everything else in sight.
Whatever the reason, he didn’t care. He had found a way to survive.
Rising, still in his demon state, he used those heightened senses to search the night air for yet another source of food. A howl pierced the night, as if to challenge him. He raced off, emboldened with the wolf’s blood in his veins. Eager for another meal.
He didn’t stop to look back at the body of the wolf he had ravaged. Didn’t notice, as he raced away, the slight hint of breath that came from the wolf’s muzzle or the quiver of muscles reanimating.
Pedro’s blood lust was unstoppable.
As the wolf slowly awakened and lumbered to its feet, its body heated as it changed, the moisture clinging to the wolf’s fur steaming in the night air. The wolf’s eyes glowed, but with an unnatural light. With a low growl, razor-edged fangs erupted from its upper lip. The wolf shook its head, as if fighting the transformation, but it was inevitable.
Altered strength energized the wolf’s body as it headed down toward the village. A new carnal lust as the vampire’s blood now running through its veins drove it onward, eager for slaughter. Needing to feed to drive the heat of the ongoing vampire transformation consuming its body.
Its first hunting ground — the unsuspecting town below.
Cari, how did I miss this???? what a great idea! Now I have to go back and read the beginning. Ah, such a hardship, lolol!
It is interesting to learn how the story started. I am looking forward to learning more on the evolving of the clan. Thanks for sharing. Have a great day and hugs to all.
I so love this!