by Wilson, Eric
Months earlier, this conversation would’ve had Gina’s head spinning. Now, with animosity held in check, she began to bring things into focus. These Collectors, these vile creatures from the abyss, they were her enemy. Their basic objectives: blood, infestation, and destruction.
From here, it was a matter of choosing the most accurate end-game maneuvers.
“So,” Cal said. “What’s our next step? Fight or flight?”
She looked toward the bus and wondered if she could survive the heartbreak of another loss. She wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm. A diesel truck lumbered past, spewing fumes.
“How ’bout both?” she said.
“What’ve you got in mind?”
“You take the kids and hide them away. Don’t tell me where. You just do it. Then we meet back up later, far away. Say, tomorrow in Bucharest.”
“And what’ll you be doing in the meantime?”
“I’ll be up there.” She gestured toward Sinaia. “Keeping the Collectors occupied.”
“A queen sacrifice?”
“Just living up to my name.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I think it’s a fine name.”
“Hah. You know what I mean. I don’t like you facing these things alone. Sure, you’re immortal, but what if they turn you to their side?”
“Can they do that?”
“None of us are without fault,” he said. “But that’s up to you, isn’t it? The Power of Choice. Not to mention, they could just tear you apart and then bury you where I can’t find you. Three days, that’s it. Sayonara and c’est la vie.”
“Cal, I’m not asking your permission here. They’ve destroyed the lives of children all over Romania, and they took my own son away from me. That’s all I need to know. They can take, take, take, and take some more, but eventually they’re going to lose.”
“The Immortal Game,” Cal commented.
“The . . . What’d you just say?” Gina gave him a sidelong glance. For years she had wondered how she’d learned to master chess and all its intricacies, and his random comment seemed loaded with implications. “Are you telling me you’re a chess player?”
“You know, you can be one uppity little girl. I mean, really. Who do you think taught you how to play?”
The Bucegi Mountains, Romania
The Collector was nothing.
He was particles of soot at the foot of a cliff, subject to the elements. He was swatches of shadow, overlapping, drifting, then disappearing, as the night’s monstrous maw swallowed him into its collective black bosom. He had scarcely the wherewithal to dredge up the identity of his chosen host.
Ariston. Of Apamea. The House of Ariston.
In the Bucegi Mountains.
A niggling thought told him that his destination was the cool caverns up the mountainside. He had to get there.
A blast of cold air sent him hurtling in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-TWO
Sinaia
“You were the one?”
“Yep.”
“But . . .” Standing on the station steps, Gina shook her head. “I have no memory of that.”
She was still rocked by the assertion that he’d been the one to instruct her in the art and warfare of chess. This meant he’d been there earlier, much earlier, in her childhood stages. It meant, too, he was older than he appeared.
“Since when does all of life get categorized by one person’s memories?” Cal asked her. “Do you remember being taught how to walk? Or to form sentences? C’mon, that’s just arrogance talking.”
“You knew me when I was little?”
“Not as well as I woulda liked. Nikki was very protective of you.”
“Tell me about it.” Gina thought of her mother’s overbearing ways and her disapproval of every boy Gina had expressed feelings toward. Still, she had the feeling there was something Cal was not divulging.
“Please,” a female muncitor said from the bus. “It’s getting late.”
“Pass out snacks,” Cal responded, more sympathetic this time. “Got a bag of licorice, plus some apples, in a box behind the driver’s seat. That should keep the kids quiet for now.”
“Thank you.”
Gina’s gaze climbed the neighboring slope, skimming over the stands of conifers and catching the glow of the alpine village that was just out of sight. It was a well-known destination, its streets clogged with vacationing families, beer-drinking tourists, and honeymooning couples. She imagined up there, somewhere, the Collectors were waiting.
“Okay, Cal,” she said. “Since you claim you were my teacher . . . In the Immortal Game, what is White’s subtle little move that sets up the final sacrifice?”
“Why is it you always need proof ?”
“You haven’t exactly been a rock of stability, you know.”
“You sure tell it like it is, don’t you?”
“What other way is there? And since you refuse to answer the question, I’m going to assume that—”
“Pawn to e5,” he said. “White’s nineteenth move.”
Gina’s mouth was left gaping. She bit her lip, then shook her head. “Whatever. It’s a famous game. Sure, there’s lots of people who could spit out that answer.”
“Then think about this . . .”
“What now?”
“You: Regina.” He tapped his own chest. “Me: Cal.”
“Sorry. I don’t get what you’re trying to . . .” She threw her head back and laughed. She thought of the piese de sah, her stately pieces with their individual abilities and assignments. “Cal. In Romanian, it’s the word for knight.”
“Always hopping into the middle of things. You know, e5’s also a great spot for a knight.”
“I can’t believe it. Out of context, I just never put the two together.”
“Here’s something else to jar your memory.” Cal reached into the inner pocket of his coat and withdrew a bundled object. “It’s from your chess set.”
Gina accepted the offering. She unfurled leather straps and found the sheath Jed had made her, accompanied by the antique dagger.
“Where’d you get this?”
“From Nikki.”
“I thought I’d never have to see this thing again. What’s she want you to do, bleed out a few more of my sins while you’re with me?”
“No, I took it from her.”
“And she let you do that? Said, ‘Here, take this family heirloom.’ ”
“It was mine to start with, and now I’m giving it to you.”
“I don’t want it.”
“What we want and what we need—sometimes those are two different things, Gina.” Cal jerked his chin toward the hill. “And you’re gonna need it. This is your chance to do all the things right that Nikki did wrong. Just don’t reject the truth because of the lies she’s added to it.”
“The truth? Uh, run that by me one more time.”
Cal rested a hand on the spot just below her throat. He said, “The answer dies within.”
“And that means what?”
Waiting for his response, Gina told herself to remain aloof. She’d been overloaded with head-spinning information and nebulous legends, and she was already distressed by the walls that were crumbling inside.
Hold on. Just hold yourself together.
“Like we talked about in Chattanooga,” Cal said, “it’s all about dying to your own will each day, while keeping the spirit alive. Identifying with the Nazarene’s suffering, while living for what really matters. It doesn’t always mean happiness, but it does mean being content. Believe me, those two are not the same thing.”
“Well, buddy boy. Thank you. Very profound.”
“Hey, I try.”
Gina moved her hand to Cal’s, felt her heartbeat fall into rhythm with his. Though baffled by his rhetoric, she sensed meaning and experience pulsing through his words. Despite her reservations, her fears, she found that she wanted to hold on to that.
“You sure you wanna do this?”
She looked at the children in the bus, even turned on a reassuring grin for the darling girl in the front seat, for the twins Petre and Pavel Podran, and for Dov Amit, whose face remained a blank mask of survival. His welfare was on her shoulders.
I’m not letting another one die.
She strapped the dagger to her thigh, let her dress fall back over the leather sheath, and said, “I’m sure.”
Spurred along by her grin, young Petre came bounding from the bus. His good behavior had earned him a ride on this field trip, yet he now seemed intent on reaching Gina despite the muncitor at his heels.
“You get back in this bus, Petre,” the man ordered. “You do it now.”
“Gina, I gotta tell you something.”
“Petre,” the muncitor was calling.
“Gina, please.” The twin arrived at her side.
Cal slipped into gruff mode again and gripped the kid’s shoulder. “What’re you doing, young man? Do you want a lashing for getting out of your seat?”
“See there?” the muncitor said. “Look at the trouble you’re in.”
Petre shot Cal a jealous look, then fixed round, black eyes on Gina.
“What is it?” she asked, taking his hand.
“My brother’s scared. It’s dark on the bus.”
“Well, you go back and stay close by him then.”
“Where’s a bathroom?”
“It can wait,” the muncitor said.
Petre shifted from one foot to the other, putting on a display that was obvious if not heartfelt in its deception. “But I really have to go.”
“Or maybe,” Gina said, “you just don’t like me talking to other men.”
“Pavel. He thinks you don’t like him anymore.”
“I like him, and I like you too.” Gina touched his nose. “Now, go sit down. This is about to be over.”
Over Petre’s shoulder, she saw that Dov had now planted himself on the bottom step of the bus. He swept his gaze toward Cal, attentive to any commands, and said in a Hebrew-accented voice that was urgent but steady, “What should I do? Someone’s coming toward us, through the woods across the road.”
Gina’s eyes scanned the trees but saw nothing out of place.
“Bring me my pack,” Cal told Dov.
The boy ducked back into the bus, where gibbous light on the windows turned the occupants into pale, ethereal beings.
“What’s going on?” the male muncitor huffed.
Cal removed his hat, slapped it against his leg, then snugged it back over his head. “Gather the children in the back rows, stay down outta sight, and keep all doors and windows closed. You hear me?”
“The local ruffians, you think?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re the driver. I say you take us to the police station. Surely there’s one along the main stretch through town.”
“We can’t outrun them forever.” Cal clapped an arm over the man’s shoulder and steered him toward the vehicle. “Do as I say. Go.”
Dov reemerged. He brushed past the muncitor, who drew the bus door shut behind him, then hefted the satchel he had fetched from beneath the driver’s seat.
Cal stretched out his hand. “Time to split them up.”
The fifteen-year-old reached into the bag, producing a bundle of crude, tapered spikes. His mentor withdrew a handful. The metallic sounds reminded Gina of medieval warriors suiting up for battle, and she felt primal courage well through her chest. She had a sudden sense of purpose.
Dov seemed to feel it too. On his forehead, the letter Tav gave off a faint blue iridescence through his black hair.
“What’re those?” she asked, pointing at the spikes.
“MTPs,” Cal said. “Metal tent pegs. My weapon of choice.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Think of that guy in the Bible, the one who got his head hammered into the ground while sleeping. These things’re nasty sharp. With the right leverage, a child could put one through a person’s temple.”
“Sometimes,” Dov said, “you have to do the bad thing.”
“The right thing,” Cal said. “What’s right isn’t always easy.”
“So, we’re fighting zombies now?”
“Undead,” Cal corrected her. “Zombies don’t need blood the way these things do. You’ve got your dagger. Use it. It has its own symbolic power over the Collectors, or at least as much as they’ll give it credit for. It’s betrayed their kind before.”
“This thing?” Gina said. She drew her weapon, noticed nothing particularly remarkable or supernatural about it, and she hoped it would do. At this point, what other option did she have?
“It’s two-thousand-years-old.”
“Not another one of your stories. Not right now, Cal.”
“Once belonged to Peter.”
“As in, the disciple?”
“He tried protecting the Nazarene with it, even cut off a guy’s ear, but that wasn’t part of the plan. Pete got scolded for it. Dropped the thing right there on the spot—the scene of the crime. Not that it mattered.” A sardonic twinkle played through Cal’s eyes. “There was no fingerprinting back then, so he didn’t have to worry about them tracing it back to him.”
“Hilarious. And it got here how?”
“Long story, Gina. Basically, Judas grabbed it off the ground and stuffed it into his robe. Lotta good that did him.”
“So we’re about to fight some vampires, and all I’ve got to trust in is an old knife and some crazy stories.”
“It’s not what you trust in. It’s who.”
Dov was tugging at Cal’s arm. “Here they come,” he said.
The Bucegi Mountains
He was drifting, running low on mental energy for this trek through the night. With limited sensory abilities, he was crippled by the blackness that pooled in this gorge. He had no idea where he was in relation to Zalmoxis Cave.
This was foolishness. Utter absurdity.
Partnered with the Collector within, Ariston liked to think of himself as a creature of urbane ways, comfortable with women, envied and emulated by men. His manner was smooth, his movements imperious and confident.
And now, his Collector was lost. Kicked about by unruly forces of nature.
Frantic to arrest his progress, he clawed at a shape ahead, found himself slipping between two sharp objects that were curved and . . . They were the horns of a sure-footed chamois poised here on the steep rock. Even as he tried to grasp hold, the goatlike animal swiped its head and tossed him off the way it would a pesky insect.
“Ariston.”
To his vaporous ears, the voice sounded thin and waxy.
“Ariston.”
Definitely his name. Or rather the name of his permanent host.
“If you can hear me, hang on a bit longer. Once the wind’s died down, make your way back to the cave. Shalom and I will try to meet you there, after we’ve captured the woman and the boy.”
He wrapped what little there was of his intangible form around the next thing he bumped into. Like the tattered flag of a beleaguered army, he found himself waving from the sharp point of a twig.
Then, to his great relief, a small gust broke him loose.
Sinaia
“They’re right there,” Dov said.
A briny odor swirled down the slope, followed by the emergence of a man and a woman from the stone path that cut between the trees. One was recognizable to Gina: the slender brunette from the bookshop. The other was a fatherly sort, grand and graceful. They were beautiful specimens. Humans, it would seem. And yet they possessed an aura wholly other, hinted at in their stark, emerald eyes that pierced the night.
Gina had seen that look before, years ago in Cuvin. Had Teodor’s uncle been one of these things? Was that why he’d wondered if she bore the Letter?
So this, Gina realized, is what Collector
s look like.
“The young woman’s Shalom, and the man is Nehemiah,” Cal said. “There should be a few more. I’d bet Auge’s around somewhere, and she’s been a weepy, unholy terror since the death of her husband. Listen, I’ll deal with these two while you keep an eye on the bus, Gina. Guard that door.”
“Where do you want me?” Dov said.
“Shouldn’t you be in the bus too?” Gina checked.
Cal shook his head. “If he goes in there, he’ll draw trouble to the others. Nope, he’s staying out here with us.”
From the doorway, the male municitor beckoned Dov to come onboard, but the boy refused to acknowledge the gestures or commands.
“You can go if you want,” Cal said. “I’m not forcing you here.”
Dov raised an MTP in his fist. “I want to help you fight.”
Gina thought of the sorrows her tiny Jacob had seemed to bear even in the womb, and understood now the pressure Dov Amit must be under. She felt proud of this little man who had endured enough already. Though she detected the trembling in his hands as he grasped the metal spikes, she heard no wavering in his voice, and she felt her heart soften toward him.
“You position yourself between me and the bus,” Cal instructed him. “If they get past me or try to circle around at Gina, it’ll be on your shoulders to act.”
Dov straightened. With his grimace of discomfort over unseen sorrows, the blue glow on his forehead intensified. “I’ll be ready.”
Gina believed him. She knew his training was minimal, yet it was more than she or the others possessed. Already, the boy had struck down a Collector with his own hands. Could she do the same?
“How ’bout you?” Cal asked her. “You ready?”
Shalom and Nehemiah were nearing, their arms swinging, razor-edged fingernails lengthening, eyes burning.
“You better believe it, buddy boy.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-THREE
Cal withdrew an MTP from the group in his left hand and flexed his fingers around the object, weighing it. Another set of cars chugged northward, bisecting the distance between the vampires and the empty train station. A bicycle rattled by as a peasant woman headed home for the evening.
