by Alex Archer
“And if so, did they place the organ in a white cooler?” Annja whispered.
Luke grabbed her by the shoulders. “What did you say?” His gaze was so intense, she almost flinched from it. She felt his desperation in his grip.
“There was a cooler,” she said. “Garin and I tracked the people who kidnapped Doug to a country cottage outside of Liberec, and after we took out half a dozen, there...was a cooler. One of the men was waiting for a handoff, which, I assume, meant handing over the cooler. I didn’t get a chance to look inside, but they said it had been sealed and whatever was inside would be ruined if the seal was broken.”
“Body parts?” Doug asked, his voice hollow and weak. “That’s so wrong.”
“You think that was what was in the cooler, Annja?” Luke asked.
He rubbed a palm across his temple. Anxiety lined his sun-browned skin and she sensed his unease. He’d come to Chrastava to excavate, not become involved in organ trafficking.
“Garin, the friend who is not a friend, mentioned something about seeing bags of blood at a warehouse he works—well, er, a warehouse he walked through.”
“Blood? Now the vampire connection comes to light,” Doug muttered from the bed. “Well, I mean it fits in there somehow. You think there was a human body part in that cooler? What the hell?”
“We were following the trail. Garin decided I wasn’t an asset and took off on his own. I should have stayed on him.” She touched her jaw. The bruise no longer hurt, but it was now changing from purple to green and black.
Annja wandered to the window. Putting her back to the men made it easier to think, to reason.
A child had been kidnapped and returned home days later with a strange wound, and then had died. It was possible illegal blood donations were taking place in a warehouse outside Chrastava, but blood transfusion didn’t create a wound that required stitches.
If only she’d had the opportunity to look inside the cooler. If only Garin would answer her phone calls. Had this all started because of the skull Luke had uncovered?
“Guys, the more I think about this...” Doug sat up and eased a leg off the side of the bed. He touched the bandaged wound carefully. “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything. Annja never puts much faith in my theories.”
“Tell us, Doug,” Luke said. “I want to hear your theory.”
Giving the gauze bandage a pat, Doug leaned forward and explained. “Someone is using the Romani’s beliefs in revenants—the myth that the dead will rise and seek revenge—to cover for what happened to the kid. Child goes missing? It’s the work of the vengeful chewing dead. Yes?”
“But how could anyone have known the skull would be discovered?” she posited. “It couldn’t have been planted. The flooding uncovered it. It’s been in the ground for over a century.”
“Possibly,” Luke added. “It’s looking newer than that to me every time I go over the thing. Could be as new as a few decades.”
“Really?” Doug gestured to the skull. “But it looks old. What could cause a skeleton to age so rapidly as to look centuries old?”
“Malnutrition. Anemia. Many other factors that a bone specialist could answer. I need to get the bones to London.”
Annja heard Luke’s heavy sigh over her shoulder. “We should get some rest. It’s been a long day fighting fire and battling wild animals. You guys take the bed. I’ll toss a pillow on the floor.”
“Thanks, Annja.” Doug, never one to subscribe to chivalry, lay down again with a dramatic flop and a groan. “Don’t worry, Luke. I’m not a spooner.”
“You should take the bed,” Luke said as she passed him, pillow clutched to her chest. “Or I can rent you a room to yourself.”
“I sleep well on a hard surface,” she said. “Slate riverbeds, underneath a picnic table, crashed on the open plain. It’s all good. Besides, I got your pillow. We’ll all have clearer heads in the morning. Deal?”
Luke nodded, and collapsed on the bed beside Doug, who had already begun to snore.
* * *
ANNJA WOKE BEFORE sunrise and slipped out of the hotel room. Commandeering a coffee from the front lobby, she downed the strong brew, then headed out to the dig site. It was a disaster. Kindling had been thrown over the pit and a huge pile of ash now covered it.
What she’d come for lay about one hundred yards into the forest on the well-worn path that this particular Gypsy camp obviously used a lot.
Now with the daylight filtering through the leaf canopy, she noted tattered strips of cloth on trees designating break-offs from the path, and assumed they used the area for hunting. Although she wagered they only hunted fox, squirrel and perhaps a wild pig on occasion.
And wolves.
Kneeling before the body of the creature she’d tussled with last night, she smoothed a hand over the brown and black fur. It had died, after all. She hadn’t meant to strike to kill, and knew she hadn’t. Who knew that pulling its jaws apart would be the coup de grâce.
“Sorry,” she said. “I had to protect my friends.”
She sighed heavily at the sight of a collar around its neck. A heavy black leather collar with a square electronic device attached. A shock collar? Owners used them to train their pets. She and Bart McGilly used to debate the pros and cons of using this means to train a dog for hours, but ultimately it fell to the integrity of the trainer.
The animal beneath her palm was a wolf, not a dog that looked like a wolf, but she suspected this one had grown up tame, with a family. Perhaps later it had been trained to attack on command, or even trained as it had matured. Into a killing machine?
On the other hand, wild animals could never be tamed, no matter how amiable or family-oriented they appeared to be.
She tapped the wolf’s canine teeth. Most animals’ canines weren’t pin-sharp, but these had either broken at one point and had worn smooth, or had been altered. Which meant they weren’t designed to pierce, but simply maul. Doug had been very lucky to get away with the small wound, and that explained why she hadn’t received more damage to her hands.
She assumed the electronic box could issue simple commands the wolf understood. Many shock collars were now outfitted with GPS. Wouldn’t the owner have gone looking for the wolf if it hadn’t returned last night? It was early yet.
She remembered the man at the dig who had revealed the scars on his chest. She had thought they were from a bear. Maybe they had been from a run-in with this wolf.
Who could’ve unleashed this animal on them? Only someone who had known they’d been in the woods. Was the Gypsy woman involved in sending a deadly wolf after innocent archaeologists and a film producer?
But more likely someone who wasn’t pleased that they’d encroached on his territory.
“Santos.”
Unclasping the collar from the animal’s neck, she headed north into the forest.
* * *
LUKE SIPPED THE coffee Doug had procured from the hotel lobby as he copied down the words the man on the other end of the phone line recited.
The tiny slip of paper he’d found in the brick had easily unrolled after being closed up in the steamy bathroom. The words were Romani, yet even though Luke knew the language, he couldn’t decipher them so he’d called a colleague in London.
Chester Rumshaven had been the one to suggest Luke do his research on the Romani schoolchildren last year. The old man had grown up in a small hamlet in southern England and had used the fight circuit and his knockout left hook to bring him to the big city. London. Eventually his fight earnings had added up to a tidy sum; enough to pay for schooling, which had been his dream.
“You know Romani isn’t a written language,” Chester’s voice bellowed on the other end of the line.
“Yes, it’s conversational. Used by families among themselves in public places. My great-grandfather,
who was a Kale Gypsy living in Wales, spoke Welsh Romani, but I can’t recall anything of it.”
“Exactly. Because of its secretive nature. Here goes—‘may the sun always shine,’” Chester said. “That’s what your words translate to. The words are Indic, with a Baltic influence, one of the oldest Romani dialects. Last time the original Romani language was spoken anywhere in the world was late nineteenth century, possibly a generation longer in your neck of the woods, Wales. Which could date your skull to early twentieth century.”
“But what does ‘may the sun always shine’ mean?”
“It’s an old Gypsy blessing. At first I thought it strange to find those words inside a buried skull that was suspected of becoming revenant. You’d think they’d curse it, or at the very least put some kind of binding spell on it. But no, a blessing.”
“Perhaps they thought gentle words would keep the corpse down?” Luke tried.
“Very possible. Though strange. Pagan curses are believed much more effective than a few kind words, that’s for sure.”
“What is it?” Doug asked when he entered the bedroom and saw Luke engaged. Luke shoved the notebook in which he’d written down the translation toward him. The producer sat on the bed and studied it.
“Anything else I can do for you, Spencer?”
“At the moment, no. But I’d appreciate being able to call you if I’ve got further questions.”
“Not a problem. I enjoyed the puzzle, though it wasn’t that much of a challenge. Next time give me hell, old buddy.” He clicked off, and Luke leaned over the tiny paper he’d found inside the brick.
“This is rich,” Doug offered. “‘May the sun always shine.’ It’s so Dracula, it’s not even funny.”
“Why Dracula?”
“Well, Dracula was weak during the day, when the sun was out. So to leave this message with the corpse was like saying, ‘Dude, don’t let the coffin door slam you in the face. Go out and enjoy the sunshine on your pasty white skin. And burn to a bloody crisp while you’re out there.’ Clever.”
“I knew unearthing the skull would immerse me in the subculture that’s fascinated with vampires, but who would have thought it could be so real for some?”
“There are people out there who actually believe they are vampires. Drink blood, too. Supposedly the blood is given with permission. That kills me.”
“This coming from a man who has his own set of fangs?”
“I only use them for parties and the occasional date.”
“A date. Seriously?” Luke held his hand up. “No. I really don’t want to know. I need to do some online research.”
“About vampires? Ask me anything. I bet I have the answer.”
“I bet you do.” And that troubled Luke more than the fact that the man was sitting on the bed picking at the blood-crusted gauze on his leg. “Tell me all you know about mullos.”
“Mullo means one who is dead. Generally dhampirs must kill them. That is, if the stakes or bricks or iron needles driven into their bones at burial didn’t keep them down in the first place.”
“We know all that already.”
“Sorry, but the various renditions of vampire, as they pertain to each country, I’m not too keen on. The Dracula myth is my specialty.”
“Anything in Dracula about consuming organ blood? Or taking organs from a human body to feed the vampire?”
“Not particularly, but the whole wolf thing was in there.”
“Right. I don’t think you were attacked by a shape-shifting mullo, Doug.”
He inspected the abrasion, which strapped below his knee and had already begun to scab. “I know, but still, it was a real wolf.”
“That it was. We should get you to a clinic for a rabies shot.”
“Check online for a clinic.”
“Sure. Though we may have to drive to Liberec.” Luke pulled Annja’s laptop across the table and opened it up to the browser. Within minutes he had the address to the local clinic.
“Let’s wait for Annja before we go anywhere,” Doug said. “I’m going to shower quick.” He strolled into the bathroom.
There was a clinic in Liberec, so Luke noted the address and searched further for some driving directions. With those notes tucked in a pocket, he then decided to surf for Dracula and revenants and the buried undead. The legend was vast and encompassed so many different breeds and forms that he felt sure it may be more of an exercise in futility, but he had the time.
He thought to type in mullo in the search engine, but on a sudden whim, decided to bring up the browser history. What secrets would Annja’s laptop reveal to him?
The bathroom door swung inward, emitting a gust of steam. Doug danced out in a towel and grabbed his backpack. “Forgot my stuff.” The door closed behind him.
The browser showed much the same searches as he’d attempted. A few were not. One site was for brand-name knockoff shoes.
“She doesn’t strike me as the stiletto type,” he murmured, then smiled to imagine Annja in a dress and high heels. With her toned body, she could work the little black dress. He bet she cleaned up rather nicely.
“You snooping?”
“No.” At Doug’s reappearance, Luke lowered the laptop cover, then realized that he looked guilty and reopened it. “A little. I might have checked her browser history.”
“No porn?”
“From Annja? Doug, you really don’t know your employee all that well, do you?”
“I do. Just teasing. Did you kiss her again?”
“You’ve been right there with us since that first kiss. Have you seen me kiss her again?”
“Is that your way of telling me to give you two some alone time?” The man actually made a fluttery eye move and smacked his lips in a kiss.
“No. It was just something that happened. It was a moment. I took it.”
“You’ve got it, man. What you do with it now is all up to you.” He grabbed the iPad. “If you decide to do some real research, why don’t you look up the red lady?”
“What red lady?”
“Just popped into my head right now. She’s a myth. I remember reading about her once. She has fangs and can shape-shift into a wolf, and consumes people whole. And red ladies usually go after children. I think she might be more faerie than vampire, though, but it’s worth a look. Good thing we’re dealing with legends and myths. I hate to think that a real person could be out there doing this to kids.”
“It is a real person, Doug. Wrap your brain around that.”
“Right.” Doug shook his head. “Right.” He sat on the bed and sighed. “This is getting heavy. Too heavy for Chasing History’s Monsters. I can’t use any of this stuff if a child really has been killed by someone who is using the vampire as cover. That would be ethically wrong to try and sensationalize it on the show.”
“Depends on your moral compass.”
“I do have one. And it just popped a spring.”
Chapter 14
Santos was strolling out of the house toward his pickup truck when Annja cleared the forest. When he noticed her he immediately set back his shoulders, straightening. Sunlight glinted in the diamonds at his ears. He made to reach behind his back, though Annja did not see the sword sheath strapped across his chest.
“Hold your steel,” Annja said. “Even if it is a bluff.” She tossed him the wolf collar, which he caught.
Santos turned the leather strap in his fingers, then tucked it in a back pocket. “Where did you find it?” he asked.
“Took if off the dead wolf that attacked my friends last night. You remember Luke and Doug. We were all here at your invitation?”
“My wolf is dead?”
“You were expecting to hear something else? Like maybe one of my friends was mauled? Or me? What the hell is going on,
Santos? Your wolf? I thought you owned a dog?”
“My dai does. I owned that wolf.”
And not even slightly apologetic for it. Annja clenched her fists at her sides. “Why did you send the wolf after us?”
“I don’t control it like that. What?” he challenged at her lifted brow. “You think I can order the wolf to go off and murder someone?”
“So murder was your intent? I only mentioned an attack. And any animal can be trained to obey commands. That electric collar could have delivered the desired signal. The wolf has been taught to obey. It goes after human prey.”
“Get off my land!”
She planted her feet, tucking her thumbs in her front pockets, and lifted her chin. She’d measured this man’s courage and he tended to hide behind weapons and his mother. Now it was time to judge his mettle against hers. She wagered he’d not last long when he didn’t have a blazing fire for distraction. And his sword was blatantly absent.
“We are in mourning this day,” he said firmly. “You are intruding.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me the truth about what’s going on around here.”
“Weren’t you listening to Mamma last night? I’ve nothing more to say.”
“There was no mention of attack wolves when we were talking with your mother. She mentioned you had a dog. Which I haven’t seen. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen any animals around the Romani encampment.”
Santos spat on the ground. “You Americans think you are so brave, so tough. You don’t know the meaning of strength. Now leave, before someone gets hurt.”
“I don’t take threats lightly.”
“Neither do—”
A wailing female entered the yard from the left. A pregnant woman in a bright yellow skirt and blue top, she stumbled toward Santos. She gripped her belly, yet she wasn’t large enough to be in labor. Perhaps six months along. But who was she to know?
