Isidor

Kayla pushed Sam's bedroom door open. The room was dimly lit, and being so high up in the manor, the wind blew around the eaves, sounding like a child crying as they woke from a nightmare. The bedroom window was open, and the curtains billowed out like two sails in the cold night air. Then, way off in the distance, I heard the rumble of thunder.

Sam lay on his bed in the far corner of the room, and even though it was bitterly cold, tendrils of steam coiled up from his body and leaked from his mouth and nostrils. He writhed about on the sheets, which were damp and clung to his body.

"Sam," Kayla gasped as she crossed the room towards him, the heels of her boots echoing back from the bare wooden floorboards.

The boy made a growling sound in the pit of his throat, as thick lengths of ropey snot sprayed from between his lips and spattered the wall in black strips.

Kayla took him by the shoulders as if to restrain him, but his skin was so hot that she snapped her hands away.

"What's happening to him?" she cried.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw something move in the shadows that darkened the other side of the room.

"Who's there?" I called out, believing that I had seen someone hiding from us.

Sam cried out again, and this time he sounded like he was being strangled. I spun around to look at him, and as I did, I heard the sound of running from behind me. Glancing back over my shoulder, I caught just the briefest glimpse of what looked like someone sneaking out of the room and disappearing onto the landing.

"Who's there?" I called out again, bolting towards the bedroom door. Believing that it might be Jack Seth, suddenly fearing that perhaps he hadn't left the manor after all, I wished that I'd had my crossbow with me. With my claws springing from my fists, I peered left, then right, along the landing. There, just at the foot of the stairs, I saw the figure again. Almost covered completely by shadow, its skin looked grey  -  chalky like  -  and cracked.

A statue? I wondered.

"Hey!" I called after it.

The figure stopped, then peering back at me over its fractured-looking shoulder, it looked at me with its featureless face. Then, placing one broken finger over the area where its mouth should have been, it said, "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Then, moving with the speed of a Vampyrus, it rushed away down the stairs. I raced down the landing after it, but before I'd even reached the top of the stairs, Kayla began to scream from behind me. Not knowing whether I should continue after the statue or head back to the bedroom, I hesitated.

"Oh shit," I sighed aloud in the gloom, as I heard the sound of the statue's footsteps fade away down the steps. Knowing in my heart that I had to go back for Kayla, I spun around and headed back in the direction of the way I had come.

"Did you see that?" I gasped as I raced back into the room.

"Have you seen this?" Kayla screeched.

Sam was kneeling on all fours on the bed. His arms and legs were locked rigid, his spine a series of white lumps glowing through the flesh that now seemed to stretch over his back. I took hold of Kayla's arm and yanked her back, away from the bed.

"We've got to help him, Isidor!" she screamed.

"I don't think we can," I said, pulling her tight against me.

Sam dropped onto the mattress, where he rolled onto his back. He opened his mouth and released a series of painful sounding howls. His cracked lips started to bleed as they began to tear. Then, throwing his arms up into the air, we stood and watched as Sam's fingers began to stretch and elongate. Turning his head in our direction, Sam snapped open his eyes and looked at us. They shone a bright yellow, and lit up the room.

"Help me," he pleaded and clutched at the air with the claws that had now formed at the end of each of his wrists. It was the first time that I'd heard Sam speak since we had brought him to the manor, and his voice sounded deep, as if he were gargling on a throat full of gravel.

"Does he always sound like that?" I asked Kayla.

"No, Isidor," she whispered, her own voice sounding confused and lost.

Then, over the sound of the approaching thunder and the roar of the wind, Sam began to howl as his whole body seemed to stretch and twist out of shape. His feet began to grow, each toe capped with an ivory-looking nail. Sam's pyjama bottoms began to tear as his calf and thigh muscles rippled beneath the material.

A 'V' shape of fur broke out down the front of his chest and glistened in the glow of the lamp. Thick lengths of fur bristled down each of his meaty forearms, and thinned over the back of his new claws. Then, Sam's face began to change shape. His nose grew longer taking on the shape of a snout. His ears stretched into points on either side of his face, and black hair grew from beneath his chin, giving him a beard that even I would have been proud of.

Once the transformation had taken place, Sam collapsed onto his side and lay panting like a tired dog on a hot summer's day. He looked at us, and Kayla began to sob. Sam didn't look like a wolf, but then again, he didn't look like a teenage boy anymore  -  he looked half and half. He looked half boy and half wolf  -  a half breed  -  and if he survived, I understood the torment that he would go through. Maybe that's why Kayla stood sobbing in my arms. Not because she feared him, but because she knew that living the life of a half-breed was a hard one. It was a curse.

Then, in a voice that sounded as if it was consumed with pain, Sam stared at us with his burning eyes and said, "Kayla, help me. Please."

"How?" she whispered.

"Take me to the Fountain of Souls," he pleaded.