Volk

by David Nickle

  “This is an interesting theory,” said Andrew. “Not sure we can get much further on in without either dissecting Orlok, or psychoanalyzing him. Johannes—Doctor Bergstrom—we came a long way, took a big risk. Now about Jason—”

  Bergstrom nodded, and drew a breath.

  “What’s been done to him?”

  “I had done nothing to him,” said Bergstrom. “We . . . hired Jason, to help us regain control of the valley.”

  “And in that you failed.”

  “It is true. The valley gained control of us.”

  “And of Jason,” said Andrew.

  “I do not know,” said Bergstrom, “that that is so. I think that Herr Thorn—Herr Thistledown—has found something there. But it has not controlled him. If he were a patient in my care, I would rather say that his time in the valley has had a curative effect on him.”

  “Curative?”

  “Dr. Waggoner,” said Bergstrom, “when Jason arrived here . . . granted, against his will . . . I would have diagnosed him with shell shock. Which should not be surprising, given both his war record, and the traumas he endured before the war, alongside yourself, and even prior to your meeting. He was prone to self-harm. He showed signs of malnourishment. He smoked nervously . . . as by compulsion. And associated with the self-harm. And he expressed himself primarily through rage.”

  “You did kidnap him,” said Andrew.

  “A fair point.” Bergstrom sat up straighter. “Did you come here to rescue him?”

  Andrew thought about that for just an instant before he said, “Yes.” It was long enough for Bergstrom to pick up on it.

  “Ah-hah,” he said. “But there would have been other ways to effect that outcome—without travelling here yourself, at great risk. You might have contacted the Polizei. You might have hired a private investigator in Munich—there are such fellows, I am told. One or two of them might have assisted, for small compensation.

  “But,” Bergstrom said, “perhaps you have other interests. Perhaps Herr Thistledown is . . . secondary to those?”

  Bergstrom looked to each of the members of the Société in turn, and then nodded, and Kurtzweiller finally cleared his throat.

  “It is true. We would very much like to see the enclosure,” he said, “and also the remains of the Juke Herr Orlok claims to have slain.”

  The men sat quiet a moment, and Lewis finally broke the silence.

  “We have gas masks,” he said. “Body suits. Equipment that might protect us from any . . . remaining secretions.”

  “We have our own photographic equipment,” said Kurtzweiller. “Tools for collection . . .”

  “This is the culmination,” said Lewis, “of many years you understand . . . of inquiry, often fruitless. Most of us—have never seen a full specimen.”

  “A full living specimen,” said Kurtzweiller.

  Andrew found himself nodding, as he held his hands together to quiet the trembling that he also that he also thought detected in Dominic—the only other of the four of them who likely had met a living Juke.

  For the first time since they had arrived, Bergstrom broke into a broad and delighted grin.

  “This is marvellous. Inquiry! Curiosity! Exactly what Doctor Aguillard had hoped to excite when he escaped.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Kurtzweiller.

  Andrew frowned. “Aguillard?”

  “Doctor Aguillard,” said Bergstrom. “He is the reason that Orlok has moved me and some others to the top floor of this building . . . so far from the front doors. Aguillard was one of those who had brought the Juke. He managed to sneak off, and his plans were to visit Paris.” Bergstrom looked to Andrew. “I half expected, when I heard that you were come to Germany, that you had done so in Aguillard’s company. He believed that we needed your expertise, to unravel this mystery—whatever our financiers in Munich might have thought of you.”

  Andrew shook his head.

  “He came to Paris,” he said.

  “Perhaps not,” said Bergstrom. “If you did not meet him . . . he may have been waylaid. Or simply distracted.”

  “Well,” said Andrew, “just as well. Given everything, I’m not sure how well he’d have been received.”

  “Indeed,” said Bergstrom. “Given everything, I think he would not be well-received back here either. If we are to visit the valley—examine the remains of the Juke . . . gather samples, take your photographs . . . which is your wish . . . your own great dream . . . it will be easier as matters stand.”

  Andrew raised an eyebrow, and Bergstrom clarified:

  “There will be less trouble, Doctor Waggoner, if we make the hike alone.”

  The rain had not lessened when the gentlemen of the Société de la biologie transcendantale retired to their rooms. Andrew listened to it for an hour longer, lying sleepless on the thin mattress. It played the shingles like a concerto, rising to crescendo and falling to a gentle lullaby before reasserting itself. Andrew was tempted at a point to hum along with it, but he resisted. A fellow could hum along with anything he wanted, Andrew supposed. It didn’t make it music. Andrew rubbed his sore forearm, and not for the first time nor last, wished he had some wine.

  Three

  It was dawn by the time they made it to the farm—the break of it, and the sky over the mountains was streaked with ribbons of crimson cloud, like blood, Ruth thought, as she looked up at it from the ground where all was still shadowed, and misted, and bloody cold. Getting there had been slower going than Ruth would have thought, but she had never walked by starlight, through the night, on a strange country road. They had stopped to rest twice before Zimmermann declared that they should halt altogether, until there was at least some light by which to navigate.

  And so they arrived: in front of a low stone wall—not much higher than the middle of Ruth’s chest. There was a gate, a hundred metres to the west, but Albert thought it would be better if they didn’t announce themselves there. Who knew if the farm posted guards these days? It was true, there could be eyes anywhere . . . but why make it easy for them?

  The wall was made of round river-rock, packed with earth, and would have been easy to climb on a full stomach and a night’s sleep—neither of which advantages any of them could boast. Ruth pointed this out.

  “I can toss you over if you wish, Fräulein Harper,” he said. “It hasn’t been long since the rains, and the ground is soft as a sponge. You won’t even bruise.”

  “Well, I can manage it,” said Annie, and Ruth said that of course she could too. She shaded her eyes with a hand and peered through the mist. In the far distance, mountains rose—their peaks bristling with pine and haloed with the gold of the rising sun. In the shadows below, she could see smoke rising from rooftops—still distant but not so—and a wide field.

  “This is where you landed the plane?” she asked, and Albert pointed some distance away from the house.

  “There,” he said. “I also took off from there.”

  She nodded. “Not much of a runway,” she said.

  “No,” he agreed, “it is not.”

  “Well,” said Ruth, as the sun’s disk rose over the peak, “let’s get a better look.” And she put a boot on a sturdy-looking stone, and with just two more steps and a lunge, hefted herself up and over the fence.

  They came to the farmhouse without seeming to encounter a soul, but they approached as though they were under close observation: hands held in plain sight, making it clear there were no weapons. The building was clearly inhabited—the smoke from the chimney granted that. And from the size of it, it could be well-inhabited. Ruth’s mind went back to her father’s house in Eliada, which she recalled as being larger, but not by much. Then she pulled it away again. Her foot didn’t hurt very often, but it hurt right now. Enough was enough.

  Annie was the one who approached the front door. It was shaded under a long porch awning, itself beneath a wide and poorly executed mural of a dragon or something like it, and she climbed those steps and tried the door. I
t opened, and she looked back and beckoned—and before Albert and Ruth could so much as wave back, she stepped inside. The doors hung half open for an instant, then swung shut again on their hinges.

  “Who is there?” asked Albert, and called again a little louder.

  Ruth rubbed her elbows at the chill, and checked her surroundings. The mist was clearing in the morning sunlight. There was a truck parked not far, its rear protruding from near the rear corner of the house as they approached. A wheelbarrow leaned against the tailgate. She squinted at the cab. There was no one there. No one anywhere. None that she could see.

  Albert touched her hand where it gripped her arm. He leaned close to her.

  “We cannot just stand here,” he whispered, in English.

  Ruth agreed. She took his hand from her elbow and into her hand, and together they climbed the short stairs to the front door. They stood there for another instant, and looked at each other, and Albert took the door handle and pulled it open—and there they were. Inside the farmhouse.

  They were in a hall, with a broad, dark oak staircase climbing one side—doors, shut, on either side—and antlers hung like trophies along the walls. A low table along one wall, Ruth saw, was stacked with rifles . . . carbines, hinting rifles, maybe a shotgun. Ruth felt her mouth watering at the smell of frying.

  Albert meanwhile held up a hand.

  “Do you hear?” he whispered, and pointed down the hall, and Ruth did hear: a low susurration of voices. It was hard to say how many, or who. But they seemed to be coming from along the narrower hallway along the staircase.

  They walked forward quietly, and as they passed the table, Albert lifted a carbine. Following his example, Ruth considered taking up a shotgun, but left it and pointed out to Albert that the guns weren’t likely loaded.

  He shrugged. “Bargaining power,” he said, and kept the gun and kept going.

  Ruth followed Albert through the door at the end of the hallway, and into a wide kitchen. Ham was frying on an impressive woodstove, next to a pot of what smelled like coffee, the percolator chortling away by the heat of the fire.

  Next to that stove: a butcher’s block with a loaf of bread half-sliced and a jar of jam with the top off. Beside that, a counter covered in ceramic tile, against which Annie Waggoner leaned, sipping from a mug of what was certainly that coffee.

  And beside her . . . Jason.

  Ruth could not look away. He wore a dark brown suit, with a high vest, and a pressed white shirt and tie. His light-brown hair was combed neatly to the side, and his face . . . it was smooth as a boy’s. As beautiful as she remembered him. He held his own mug of coffee, in two steady hands just over the tie at his neck. He had been in the middle of saying something, but he stopped when Ruth entered the room.

  Jason Thistledown could not look away either.

  “See who I found?” said Annie.

  Jason set the mug down on the counter beside him, and stood up from where he leaned on the counter.

  “Jason’s all right!” said Annie. “See? It’s all fine!”

  “Sure I’m all right,” said Jason. He raised one hand, looking not at Ruth, but at Albert. “You want to set down that firearm, please, now?”

  Albert was holding the gun across his chest, two-handed. He let go of the stock and set it down, barrel leaning against the doorjamb.

  “It is empty,” said Albert.

  “You can never tell,” said Jason, “with a rifle.”

  Albert smiled and shrugged. Jason turned back to Ruth.

  “Well, you sure took me by surprise this morning,” he said.

  “You weren’t expecting us?”

  “Oh, eventually,” said Jason. “But I thought I might surprise you . . . drive into Wallgau, visit you there at that Isar inn you were supposed to be staying at. I got dressed up in my city duds, see?” He spread his arms, to show off that suit.

  It fit him well, Ruth thought . . . it wasn’t just bought in a shop. Someone had made it for him. “Didn’t think you’d walk through the night to come here, but I guess I should have known it. My God, Ruth, it is good to see you.”

  Ruth’s eyes strayed around the kitchen. The counter ran for what might be twelve feet under smoke-stained windows, over to a door that led outside . . . there were two other doors, the same wall as the door that she and Albert had entered. Both those were shut. At the far end was a heavy kitchen table with five chairs around it. Tall pine cupboards. A little door to a pantry, or maybe a cellar.

  She couldn’t see anyone else but the three of them: Albert Zimmermann, Annie Waggoner, and Jason.

  “Where is she?” asked Ruth, and Jason frowned like he was puzzled, so Ruth clarified: “Catherine? Where is Catherine?”

  “Ah,” said Jason. “Catherine. To be honest, I don’t rightly know at the moment. She’s not here, if that’s what you’re asking.” His hand strayed to his necktie, and he hooked a finger into his collar and loosened it. “You met her?”

  “You sent her,” said Ruth sharply, and Jason looked away a moment.

  “Not exactly,” he said.

  Ruth stepped forward, and raised her hands to indicate the whole of that kitchen—the counters and stove and table and doors—and stepped forward again, so that she was face to face with Jason.

  “Where are the rest of them?” she demanded.

  Jason looked back at her. “We’re alone in here Ruth. Just us.”

  She shook her head, and set her lips. “I can’t believe you.” She heard her own voice rising. “I can’t believe you that we’re alone. There were . . . there were scores of people in Wallgau yesterday.” She shut her eyes, and swallowed, and opened them again. Jason was looking over her shoulder now, at Albert, pleading. She didn’t stop. “Catherine . . . that woman Catherine . . . and others . . . we didn’t see them there either. But they were there. We only remembered them.”

  And then, God help her, she shouted:

  “Where are they!”

  “Ruth,” said Jason, and then he spread his arms, and put them around her shoulders and pulled her into an embrace, and said softly, so only she could hear:

  “It’s only us.”

  They set out plates and mugs at the kitchen table, and sat down to fried ham and bread and jam, and coffee. Annie explained that she had already asked Jason about Andrew and the others from the Société, and that they were well and looked after.

  “That’s right,” said Jason. “They came through a couple days ago. They’ve gone off on a bit of an expedition. Good to see Dr. Waggoner. He’s looking well. For his age.”

  “An expedition?” asked Ruth. “Where?”

  Jason blinked. “They’ve gone into yonder mountains,” he said, “to take a look at the Juke.”

  And there it was. Ruth stared at Jason as he folded a piece of ham into his mouth, chewed, and washed it down with a swig of coffee.

  “You know about the Juke,” said Jason.

  “Do you mean Orlok?”

  “No.” He patted his mouth with a handkerchief. “There’s a Juke there. Dead. Old Zimmermann didn’t tell you about that?”

  “He was unclear on the matter,” said Ruth. “But we did learn about Orlok, and what he’d done in the valley, from Dr. Aguillard.”

  “How’d you come across Aguillard?”

  “Annie?” said Ruth.

  Annie tucked her chin down and set about sawing at her ham, and Jason raised his eyebrow, and snapped his fingers.

  “I got it! He went to see you in Paris!”

  “How do you know that?” asked Annie, and Jason explained.

  “I got a look at that telegram you sent to Doc Waggoner. You didn’t mention him by name. But it sure did sound like him. And you just gave it away now.”

  Jason tore off a piece of bread and chewed on it, smiling.

  “Aguillard ran off from us not long ago,” said Jason. “Old Orlok wasn’t pleased, but truth be told I was glad to see the last of him.”

  Annie sipped from her coffee. “You sa
w the telegram? Did Andrew show it to you?”

  “No,” said Jason. “We lay hold of it before he got to it.”

  Annie blinked.

  “Andrew replied,” she said, then blinked again, and said: “Andrew didn’t reply. You did?”

  “We did,” said Jason. “Catherine did, specifically. We wanted you to come. I wanted you to come. At least you, Annie.”

  “Did you ever show Andrew the telegram?”

  “No, Ruth. I didn’t.” Jason held up his hands, a fork in the right, in a kind of surrender. “I guess I owe you an apology, Annie. But I didn’t see fit to.” He set the fork down and took up another piece of bread. “I wasn’t sure if Herr Zimmermann would have managed to get you, Ruth, over to Paris. But I’m glad he did, and that you came.”

  “You didn’t ask me to bring her there,” said Zimmermann, and Jason agreed that he hadn’t.

  “But I was pretty sure that she’d tell you to take her to Paris,” he said. “And that’s what happened, right Ruth?”

  “Right.”

  “And then you’d insist on coming back here when the chips were down. I got that right?”

  Ruth nodded. Jason crossed his arms, leaned back on his chair and smiled. “Even though you long ago thought it might not be a smart idea, seeing me again.”

  “I was worried,” said Ruth.

  “I can see how you might’ve been,” said Jason. “I was worried too for a time there. But now you’re here. And it’s better. Isn’t it?”

  Ruth took another swallow of coffee.

  “It’s better,” said Jason.

  Then he turned to Annie. He didn’t say anything more—just looked at her, like he was waiting. Maybe that’s all he was doing; maybe he was doing something more.

  Annie finished chewing on her ham, and swallowed. She picked up her coffee mug, looked at it, and set it down. She looked up, and met Jason’s eye.

  “Hector Aguillard is dead. It was me that did it to him. Poison. In his coffee. Slow way to go, but he had it coming.”

  She pushed the coffee mug away from her, and looked at each of them—a slow, tentative smile growing on her face.