Song and Key

by Connie Bailey

  “Most of the land around here is considered parkland,” Seva answered. “I don’t think you’d be able to build here.”

  “What about the hotel Radu mentioned?”

  “Was that Radu or the cop?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” Seva looked around the cleared space the ancient abbey once occupied. “We read the history of the area on the plane, but there was very little information on the abbey. There were dates when it was built, when it changed hands, and when it was abandoned, but apart from that and a few interesting names, there isn’t a lot written about it.”

  “Maybe that count had a secret dungeon with a torture chamber and an alchemy lab.”

  “And I’m supposed to extrapolate that some thirteenth-century machines in the underground dungeon are still operating by themselves?”

  Keller shrugged. “He might have discovered perpetual motion for all we know.”

  Seva gave him a long look, trying to decide whether Keller was seriously that stupid. “How is it possible that you’re ranked as one of GLEN’s top agents?”

  “That really bothers you, doesn’t it?” Keller asked, eyes gleaming with fun.

  “Let’s not get off on a tangent,” Seva said, shaking his head. He looked around again. “In another hour or so the sun will start sinking behind the mountain, and the cloud cover is building. We haven’t found anything more suspicious than some vibrating rocks, which may or may not indicate construction nearby. Which could be completely normal. What do you want to do?”

  “We should start back. It’s going to take the better part of an hour to get to the main path.”

  “Agreed. Would you like me to carry the pouch for a while?”

  “Thanks.” Keller put the strap over Seva’s neck. His hand brushed down Seva’s shirt, almost stroking the hard muscles of his shoulder and arm. Catching himself, he turned and led the way down the slope through the forest.

  “Is that fog?” Seva asked a while later as they neared the rocky gorge.

  Keller looked around at the wisps of white floating between the tree trunks. “I guess it could be ectoplasm, but yeah, I’d bet on fog.”

  Seva ignored the smartass remark and asked, “Isn’t it too cold for fog?”

  “I have no idea. Is that a thing?”

  “Never mind.” Seva stopped walking after a few steps. “It’s getting thick very fast.”

  Keller stopped too and looked back at Seva. He could barely discern the outline of his partner in the mist. As he stared, the fog grew even more opaque and took on life, curling and coiling around him.

  “What the hell?” he said, and his words were muffled by the cottony mist.

  Seva was also astounded. It was a damp, sullen miasma that tricked the eye and left a bitter taste on the tongue. It pressed against his skin with an almost palpable weight and made him uneasy. Something else was in the fog with them.

  “I’m sorry to mention it, but do you hear breathing?” Seva had moved toward Keller, but his disembodied voice was barely loud enough for Keller to hear, and they couldn’t see each other beyond slight shadowy shapes.

  “Yeah. It’s coming from all around us.” Keller took a few tentative steps toward where he thought Seva was and nearly jumped out of his skin when Seva spoke from right beside him.

  “I was afraid of that. Well, we can’t stay here.” Seva took Keller’s arm firmly, and they started back down the path.

  They had taken less than half-a-dozen steps when they heard a growl.

  “Oh goody, animals. And I don’t think they’re saying howdy,” Keller muttered.

  “This way.” Seva pulled them off the path and turned in a different direction. “Stay close.”

  “No problem.”

  Their anxiety grew stronger with each step. Side by side, holding hands, they moved through the mist-shrouded woods, listening to what had to be wolves call to one another in barks and brief howls. When they turned downslope, a huge black wolf materialized. Slowly the men backed up and turned to the side. The wolf faded back into the mist.

  “We’re being herded,” Seva said after a few minutes.

  “You think?” Keller clenched his teeth to stop them from chattering. “I normally have a pretty healthy respect for what a pack of wolves could do to me, but right now I’m flat-out fucking terrified.”

  Seva nodded. “I’m also scared out of my tits.”

  Keller barked a short laugh and an unseen wolf responded with a snarl. “Oops.” He giggled. “I haven’t been this scared since I was a kid watching old horror movies and still thought monsters were real.”

  “Yes, it’s disturbing.”

  “Disturbing. That’s a good word. Another good one is paralyzed with fear.”

  “That’s three words.”

  “Eat my shorts. Where do you think the wolves are taking us?” Keller asked as a charcoal smudge of a wolf slunk by on their right.

  “This is so far outside the realm of what I think that I don’t even have a guess.”

  “I really hope it isn’t aliens,” Keller said lightly.

  “Shut up,” Seva said, but he sounded relieved by Keller’s humor.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t believe in aliens.”

  “I will tell you that,” Seva argued and then paused. “Okay. There might be aliens, but I don’t think they are coming here to kidnap fednecks.”

  “What’s a fed—? Never mind. Why wouldn’t aliens come here?”

  “If I was an alien, I wouldn’t come here.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Keller asked, keeping up the banter and trying to keep his balance as his feet hit some loose gravel. Good thing Seva was there holding him up.

  “Silence!” a deep, vibrant voice boomed out of the fog, and both agents froze.

  “Where’s that coming from?” Keller whispered, still gripping Seva’s shoulder.

  Seva paused a moment before whispering back. “Sounds like it’s above us.”

  As Keller and Seva looked up, the swirling fog coalesced into a man-shaped figure. The silhouette dropped lower until it hung some ten feet above them and about thirty feet away. They could see now that it was a very tall man in a cape that billowed out from his shoulders. His face was white as chalk, and his red eyes pierced the fog like lasers.

  “Silence!” he said again.

  Seva jumped as a cold nose touched his hand, and he looked down to see a wolf at his side. He glanced at Keller and saw the pack had surrounded them.

  “Hear me, infidels. I am Count Balaur, voivode of the Southern Carpathians. The land you trespass upon belongs to me. Tonight I will show mercy, but if you return, my pets will rip you to bloody rags. Go and do not look back, for the demons of hell are behind you.” He laughed and showed a set of gleaming fangs.

  A wolf crowded against Keller’s thigh. “I think we should do what he says,” Keller suggested.

  “I concur.” Seva turned and walked briskly in the direction the pack seemed to want them to go. “This is not the time for a confrontation.”

  “Keep on truckin’,” Keller said. “I’m right behind you.”

  Cued by growls from the wolves, Agents Song and Key reached the edge of the woods about fifteen minutes later. As they walked from the cover of the trees, the fog dissipated. When they looked back, the wolves had vanished as though they’d never existed.

  “I’m having a real whiskey-tango-foxtrot moment,” Keller said as they made their way toward the village.

  “I don’t know what that means. Could you use an emoji to make it clearer?”

  Keller giggled, and his laughter had a slight edge of hysteria. “That was some seriously strange shit back there.”

  Seva raised a critical eyebrow. “I noticed.”

  Keller rolled his eyes. “At least my heart has slowed down. I thought it was literally going to beat its way out of my rib cage.”

  Seva nodded. “The symptoms of panic are fading as the effect
s of adrenaline wear off.”

  Neither spoke for a few moments, and they continued to walk.

  “So,” Keller said finally, “should I be the one to say it first?”

  “Say what?”

  “Vampire,” he said, dead serious.

  Seva gave him a judging look and shook his head. “Really?”

  “Then what did we just see?” Keller asked, turning and gesturing behind them. “Who warned us to leave, if that wasn’t a vampire?”

  “A guy dressed like a vampire?”

  “A guy who can hover?”

  “With a bit of planning, I could figure out a way to do it.”

  “Maybe,” Keller conceded. “It was pretty impressive, though, and we’re in Romania! I’m not ashamed to say it scared the piss out of me.”

  “I agree. At the time, I was terrified also, but I’ve had time to think about it. Obviously it was staged to frighten us off.”

  “I don’t know. Whoever did it would have to have a lot of equipment in place. And how could they know we’d pass by there?”

  “Have you forgotten the wolves?” Seva reminded him. “And we were on the only path up to the abbey.”

  “Oh, right.” Keller looked glum for a moment, but then he brightened. “Right! The wolves. Explain them following his silent commands, oh wise one, if that wasn’t a real vampire.”

  “It would take a lot of training and possibly surgical implants or shock collars, but I can imagine a scenario that would work.”

  “Do you have an answer for everything?” Keller huffed.

  “I don’t know,” Seva said as the lights of Dragascar came into view. “You haven’t asked me everything.”

  Keller shook his head, frustrated. “You have no sense of whimsy at all. No vampires, no aliens, boring old trained wolves…. You know, I thought we were starting to get along a little, but you keep putting up these barriers.”

  “Just because I told you that you didn’t bore me doesn’t mean I like you,” Seva said as though speaking to a child. Keller’s lack of professionalism—to say nothing of his deficient critical-thinking skills—had pissed him off again. He couldn’t comprehend how this imbecile outranked him. Or functioned as a covert operative. Or dressed himself.

  “Oh.” Keller paused, sounding a little hurt. “I thought it did.”

  “Are we about to have a conversation about our feelings?”

  “Would there be something wrong with that?”

  Seva sighed, completely annoyed and finally losing his temper after a long day of banked sexual arousal, banter that vacillated between irritating and amusing, culminating in terror and anger at whoever had tried to scare them with a stupid movie vampire. And he was saddled with this utter idiot for a partner. “Look, Keller, no matter what you might think, not everyone wants to get ‘friendly’ with you.”

  “Okay. Point taken,” Keller snapped, throwing up his hands. “Jeez. You don’t have to take my head off.”

  “I haven’t found another way to get through to you,” Seva said tightly. “We are colleagues. That’s all.”

  “Fine. I said I got your point.”

  Seva turned from the wounded expression on Keller’s face. As an agent and as a person, Seva would be wiser to keep Keller at a distance. Even friendship was off the table. He’d been crazy to think otherwise.

  Keller broke into Seva’s thoughts a few minutes later, once they were back in the town. “I could go for a beer, even a warm one. What do you say?” The semifriendly overture was delivered in a flat, neutral tone. Keller was all business—now.

  “I think it would be a good idea for people to get used to seeing us around.”

  “That’s a yes?”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Seva said as they reached the inn.

  Chapter Six

  Monday evening, in desperate need of a stiff drink, at the inn

  “GENTLEMEN!” Radu greeted the agents as they entered the bar area. “Have you come for a drink?”

  “Two Timisoreana, please, and two shots of tuica,” Keller said as he sat down on a barstool.

  Seva sat and glanced around the tables. He smiled at Cosmina and nodded cordially at the woman she was speaking to. The customer resembled some sort of wading bird with her long, thin body and prominent nose.

  “That’s Doamnă Mihaela Albescu,” Radu said as he set the drinks down on the bar. “She has the room on the left end of the hall. A few times a year she comes here to hike along the river. She leaves tomorrow.”

  “She looks like a nice woman.” Keller pretended ignorance of her identity, though he knew the wildlife officer’s name from the police report in the file Mr. Fitzroy had shown them.

  “Nice enough.” Radu shrugged. “She keeps to herself. Birds are all she cares about, but her money is as good as anyone’s. Excuse me.” He turned to get Mihaela’s order from Cosmina.

  “How was your walk in the woods?” Cosmina asked as she waited for the drink.

  “It was interesting,” Seva said.

  “Really? Tell me what happened.” Cosmina leaned on the bar, and her breasts pressed against her forearm.

  “We were chased by wolves,” Keller said nonchalantly as he gazed into her cleavage. They were lovely breasts and clearly wanted to be appreciated.

  “I told you it was dangerous,” Radu said as he put a stein on Cosmina’s tray. He waited for her to leave before he spoke to the men again. “Did you see… anything else?”

  Seva shook his head before Keller could speak. “Wolves aren’t enough?” He stood and picked up his beer. “Let’s see if Ms. Albescu would like some company.”

  “I hope I didn’t offend him,” Radu said to Keller.

  “Not at all,” Keller said as he got to his feet. “He just likes getting to know people in the countries we visit.”

  “Good. Good.” Radu smiled. “Enjoy your drink.”

  “Here’s Keller now,” Seva said when Keller arrived at the table. “Keller, this is Doamnă Albescu. She works for the government.”

  Keller held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, madam.”

  “You’ll never guess,” Seva said. “She’s the local wildlife officer.”

  “Radu didn’t mention it. That’s fascinating,” Keller said as he sat down. “Cosmina, Ms. Albescu’s drink is on us. And could we get a couple of bowls of that delicious-smelling stew and bread, like the other man at the bar has?”

  Cosmina nodded. “Does anyone want anything else? Just call for me if you do.”

  Seva explained to Mihaela that he and Keller were tourists, here to see the Dragascar ruins, and then recounted their adventure with the wolves. As he’d done with Radu, he left out the mention of a vampire. “Does that sort of thing happen often?” he asked when he’d finished.

  Mihaela shook her head and her glasses caught the light. “I find such behavior hard to believe.” Her posture said she suspected these Americans were playing a prank on her.

  “So did we,” Keller said, leaning forward in earnestness. “Is there anything you can think of that would make a wolf act like that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So you’ve never seen anything strange in these woods?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Mihaela stopped speaking and looked up when Cosmina set a bottle and three shot glasses on their table, along with the stew, bread, and butter.

  “Courtesy of Radu,” she said while she poured shots. “Enjoy.” She smiled at the group before she returned to the bar. Keller eyed her behind, which was as lovely as her front.

  “She should have a husband,” Mihaela said after they drank their shots. “It’s a shame she’s alone. Such a smart, pretty girl should have someone to keep her out of trouble.”

  Keller glanced at Seva, his surprise at the sexist comment obvious, but he chalked it up to an older generation. He cleared his throat. “We’re going back into the woods tomorrow. Are there any areas you think we should avoid?”

  “If you’re experienced hikers, as you say,
this area should not give you too many problems. I can’t imagine this phenomenon with the wolves would occur again.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Keller said, relieved, and started on his dinner. “So tell us what strange things you’ve seen.”

  Mihaela paused a moment. “I recently found the body of an old man I knew. It was so odd because it was obvious he’d been out all night. He never did that. He rose with the sun and went to bed when it set. I found him downriver, about a kilometer from his summer hut.” Mihaela raised the shot Keller had poured for her while she was speaking. “Noroc,” she said before she drank. “Gwillym’s flesh was white as the snow and cold too. I could see at once he was dead. That wound in his neck….” She cleared her throat. “The man’s throat was torn open.”

  “How awful for you.” Keller glanced at Seva.

  “There was no blood.” Mihaela shook her head. “Nowhere around him was any blood. How is that possible?”

  Keller mimed shock. “Could he have been killed elsewhere and brought to the spot where you found him?”

  Mihaela scoffed. “With no footprints? No marks at all?”

  Seva frowned as he mopped up the last of the stew with a crust of bread. “That is very strange. What did the authorities say about it?”

  “They’ve said nothing to me.” Mihaela shrugged and took another drink. “But it happened recently, so I will give them a little more time.”

  “It would be interesting to know.” Seva stood and shook Mihaela’s hand. “I’ve enjoyed talking to you, but I’m quite tired after the hike today. Rest well.” He nodded to Cosmina and Radu, ignoring Keller, as he left the lounge.

  “I should say good night too, ma’am,” Keller said after he finished his drink. “Could I ask you if you’d know any reason why someone would warn us to stay out of the woods?”

  “Not unless they were wearing mountain police uniforms.” Mihaela leaned toward Keller. “Listen, pretty American boy, the people around here are very superstitious. They believe all kinds of things. They hear rumbling in the mountains and they think it’s devils.”

  “Rumbling?”

  “People hear sounds like thunder and imagine demons. They see men with the heads of wolves in the shadows. They fear ghosts who suck blood.” Mihaela gripped Keller’s forearm. “I think it would be a bad idea to spread around your story about the wolves.”