Lycanthropos

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  The second was a memory from his childhood. His father, an executive with a prominent import/export firm, had returned from a business trip with a present for his son. He had purchased a small, black cocker spaniel puppy in England, and little Gottfried had named him Schatzi. The puppy had been adorable as all puppies are, never more so than when he would be given a meaty little bone which he would then guard from everyone in the vicinity. It had seemed so comical, Weyrauch remembered, to see the playful little dog lose all his playfulness as his eyes stared in manic, carnivorous intensity, as he bared his little teeth and growled menacingly to warn off anyone who might dare to take his bone away.

  This memory became very vivid to Weyrauch at that moment, for the look in the eyes of his puppy was the same look which he saw in the eyes of the creature that was feasting upon the torn, bloody, mutilated body of Joachim Festhaller. The growl of warning, so cute in the cocker spaniel, sent shivers through Weyrauch’s seemingly paralyzed body when it issued forth, deep, low and rumbling, from the throat of a werewolf.

  Weyrauch stumbled backward and pulled the door shut behind him as he half ran and half fell down the steps of the house. He ran madly down the street, not knowing where he was going, not even truly knowing where he was, knowing only he had to flee, that he had to escape, knowing only that Claudia had found them, that Kaldy’s companion of centuries knew who they were, that she was going to kill them, kill them all.

  He ran and ran, past silent and empty Vigado Concert Hall, past St. Stephen’s Basilica, past the darkened ParliamentBuilding. He ran with the Danube on his left and then crossed the MargitBridge and ran along the river’s opposite bank, back down toward the center of the city. He ran for what seemed to be miles, until at last his heart and his lungs and his legs were unable to maintain the frenzied pace which he had set for them. He stopped by a lamp post and leaned against it, half doubling over in his exhaustion, one hand clutched to his chest as if to calm his wildly beating heart. He looked up at what he had thought to be the deserted street and saw that the werewolf was not ten feet away from him, staring at him calmly. Weyrauch looked into the cold, yellow eyes of the beast, and he saw the face of death.

  The werewolf walked slowly toward him, its arms swinging from its sides in an almost simian manner, shreds of human flesh still dangling from its panting, bloody jaws. It ran its red tongue over its fangs in an oddly lascivious manner, and Weyrauch could smell the creature’s foul, fecal stench, a stench of decay and wet, dirty fur, as it drew closer.

  And then he remembered the wolfsbane.

  He pulled the sprigs from his pocket and held them out at the beast, which stopped moving and seemed to blink its eyes in surprise and confusion, its animal mind unable to understand why it felt suddenly weak and ill. It took a step closer to its prey and then stepped back, shaking its large, furry head. For a moment that seemed to Weyrauch to be an eternity, the werewolf stood and stared at him. Then it turned and ran off into the darkness. Only the reality of his terror, only the fear of losing his grip on the wolfsbane, kept Weyrauch from fainting. He was afraid to move from the lamp post, afraid to stray from the light, and so he stood there clutching the wolfsbane, his body trembling from head to foot, his lips moving in frenzied, silent prayer.

  Time passed, an hour, two hours, three hours, and still he had not moved. Then a troop truck turned the corner and stopped in front of him. The S.S. sergeant who was driving the truck leaned out and shouted something at him in Hungarian. Weyrauch looked at him dumbly and then, as if the sound of a human voice had awakened him from a nightmare, he cried out. "I am German! I am German!"

  "If you are German," the sergeant replied angrily, "then you should know better than to violate the curfew!"

  Weyrauch ran over to the truck. "Take me to the RagoczyPalace immediately!"

  "This is not a cab!" the driver replied.

  "I am Dr. Gottfried von Weyrauch. Your commander, Colonel Schlacht, is my cousin. I have just barely escaped with my life from...from..." He could not finish the sentence. He knew what the S.S. did with madmen, and he would surely be thought mad if he told the sergeant the truth. "If you don’t believe me, contact Colonel Schlacht’s adjutant, Corporal Vogel, at the RagoczyPalace." He grabbed the door handle of the truck desperately. "You must take me to the RagoczyPalace immediately!"

  The sergeant looked at him hard for a few moments and then, deciding that he had better not risk Schlacht’s anger if this idiot was telling the truth, he said, "Go around and get into the back."

  He ran around to the rear of the truck and was helped inside by two of the S.S. who were riding within. And then, feeling safer and more secure, he surrendered himself to his overtaxed nerves and fainted.

  As the truck drove away, two glowing, yellow eyes watched it from the shadows. The creature was angry and frustrated that it had been somehow prevented from killing its prey, but the subhuman, inhuman mind was not capable of understanding what had weakened it and made it feel ill. Like any animal, the creature did not think in words or even in pictures, but merely registered feelings. When a few minutes later two Magyar curfew guards walked past on the other side of the street, the creature’s anger and frustration vanished and were replaced by new feelings.

  …still hungry…

  The creature crept silently toward the border guards.

  …more meat…

  An eruption of screams and snarls and the sound of tearing cloth and ripping flesh.

  …good…

  A soft hiss and transient wisps of steam as the warm red liquid fell on the cold pavement.

  …good…

  Silence on the dark street.

  …good…

  …good…

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The next cycle of the full moon was four weeks away, and everyone involved in the project attended to his or her respective tasks. In a sense the absence of Festhaller simplified matters somewhat. Petra Loewenstein had found him an insufferable, overbearing, libidinous boor, and she was able to work with many fewer distractions in his permanent absence than she had previously. Of course, after Weyrauch told her the next morning of Festhaller’s death at the hands of the werewolf, she had been visibly shaken. She returned to her research with her customary efficiency and dedication, but she seemed to have grown increasingly nervous as each passing dusk brought them all one night closer to the next full moon.

  Festhaller’s death was also not entirely unwelcome to Colonel Schlacht. The Professor’s status as a civilian expert with connections in the Chancellery had made his relationship with Schlacht a bit strained, even though the S.S. officer was clearly in charge. Now, with Festhaller’s rather limited remains safely buried, there was no question whatsoever of anyone less than Himmler himself serving to counteract Schlacht.

  Weyrauch recovered from the psychological shock of his brush with death, but the experience had left him with a personal determination to learn how Kaldy and his companion had become such creatures, to understand the nature of their change, to learn to control them, to learn to destroy them. He worked now for himself as much as for Schlacht, as much out of fascination as fear.

  Louisa spent her days talking with old Blasko, and Blasko looked forward to her daily visits. Deep affection was growing between the old Gypsy and the young German, and this affection itself deepened Louisa’s sorrow and her shame.

  And Janos Kaldy sat in motionless silence, staring off into space, only speaking when spoken to, unconcerned and uninterested, submitting to Weyrauch’s hypnosis, cooperating with neither enthusiasm nor trepidation. He remained in aloof, morose self-absorption as he awaited the personal hell into which he would be cast with the appearance of the next full moon.

  And somewhere, they all knew, Claudia was waiting too.

  "Kaldy...Kaldy..."

  "Yes."

  "Can you hear me? Do you know who I am?"

  "Yes, Doctor."

  "Have you reached another moment of importance to you?"

  "Yes,
Doctor."

  "Where are you, Kaldy? What year is it? Do you know?"

  "We are walking through the snow...there is ice on the branches..."

  "It is winter?"

  "Yes. Winter."

  "What year is it?"

  "I do not know."

  "Where are you?"

  "I do not... I am not certain..."

  "Do you have any idea? Any idea at all?"

  "It is...it is...before Poligny..."

  "Long before? Long before Poligny?"

  "No. Five years. Less."

  "And where are you, Kaldy? Look and listen. Tell me where you are."

  A pause. "The realm of the Ottoman Turks. Yes, we are in the Carpathian mountains...in the realm of the Turks."

  "The Carpathians...today that is in Romania. You are in Romania?" No response. "Is Claudia with you?"

  "Claudia is always with me."

  "Why are you in the Carpathians, Kaldy?"

  "To die. We have come to die."

  "Why the Carpathians?" No response. "Why do you believe that you can die in the Carpathians?"

  "While we were in Constantinople we heard rumors...stories around campfires..."

  "Stories about what, Kaldy?"

  "Someone there who we hope will be able to kill us. Rumors. Legends."

  "Who do you hope will be able to kill you, Kaldy? Rumors and legends about whom?"

  A pause, and then, "Vampires..."

  They walked in solemn silence along the pitted, winding dirt road which led from the small village up toward the castle that stood ominously upon the promontory. It was just past noon. Sunset would not be for another five hours. Claudia ran her fingers through her hair to dislodge the snow and ice which had settled upon it, and wrapped the heavy woolen cloak more tightly around her lithe form. Janus Chaldian wore no cloak, so he merely held the top of his collar closed with his right hand and kept his left hand thrust into the pocket of his tattered trousers.

  Neither of them was subject to physical harm from the assault of the cold, snow-laden winter wind, but they felt the cold and it made them uncomfortable. They had come a long distance on foot, never bothering to make any substantial preparations for the changes in climate which they knew they were to encounter. They had long since ceased to think in such terms, for they were as invulnerable to the numbing cold as they were to the spear tip, and the blistering desert sun was as harmless to them as the blade of the sword. When they noticed that they were growing cold, they acquired what clothing they could. When they noticed that they were growing warm, they shed what clothing they had and it never made the slightest difference in any terms other than temporary comfort. When others died of thirst amid the rolling Arabian sands, they continued on unaffected; when others froze to death on the sweeping Russian steppes, they continued on in their endless, pointless journey.

  And so they had come on foot from Syria, a journey which had taken them over a year. In all that time, they had not needed to cross the borders of the Ottoman Empire, for in this, the nine hundred and ninety fourth year since the Hegira of the prophet Mohammed (or the one thousand six hundred and sixteenth year since the birth of Jesus, as the Christians would call it), the Ottoman Empire stretched from the borders of Persia to the eastern shores of the North African Mediterranean, from the marches of Poland and Hungary to the highlands of Upper Egypt.

  And thus when they set out from Baghdad in the fall of the previous year they needed give no thought to border guards or enemy soldiers as they trudged onward through the desert to Damascus; they needed neither identification nor permission, but only gold with which to pay the shipmaster at Tyre for transportation north to Istanbul; and as they walked from the Golden Horn across the hills of Thrace and through the forests of Bulgaria and Wallachia, still they were in the realm of the Ottoman Turks. It was only then, after a journey of a thousand miles, that they found themselves standing before a border as they sought to cross over into the lands of the Kingdom of Hungary, into the province of Transylvania.

  They spent months in the squalid towns and villages, making the inquiries which resulted inevitably in frightened, suspicious looks and evasive answers, until at last they had determined that the object of their quest slept by day in the ruined castle which loomed before them. As they walked onward along the hard, frozen dirt road, Claudia turned to him and asked. "Will he be able to kill us, Janus?"

  Janus Chaldian shrugged. "I don’t know, Claudia. He seems quite capable of killing, if the stories we have heard are true."

  "Yes, capable of killing people. But what about us?"

  His response was not exactly irritated, but it was somewhat brusque. "Claudia, I know as little as you know about him, and as little as you know about us. Why do you ask me these questions?"

  "You must know more than I," she replied hotly. "You have suffered from this longer than I have. It was you who made me what I am."

  He laughed grimly. "How do you know?" She had no answer to this, and so she fell silent as they continued on to the castle.

  It had been over a century before that the castle had been sacked and pillaged by the Turks, but the cracked walls and broken windows, the charred beams and broken battlements remained as mute testimony to the havoc of bygone war. Janus and Claudia strained their currently human muscles to pull open the iron gate, and then after the slightest hesitation, they walked into the courtyard, and from there into the great hall of the castle itself.

  Wordlessly they wandered through the ruined fortress, searching through the rooms and the passageways from level to level until, shortly before sunset, they found the entrance to the subterranean crypt that served as the burial place of the princes of the small Carpathian realm. They wandered along the rows of wood and stone sarcophagi, searching for the resting place of the Prince who had died at the hands of the Turks over a hundred years before, but who, it was said, had returned from death with his wives to spread misery and panic among the defenseless population. It did not take them long to find his tomb, the tomb of him who since his death a century before had been the plague of the Carpathians.

  Janus Chaldian tried to lift the lid of the sarcophagus, but was unable to do so unaided. Claudia joined him the effort, and between them they were able to swing the hinged lid upward. Within the stone coffin lay a corpse, a dead and lifeless thing, unremarkable but for the fact that it should have rotted away to nothing years before, but had not. The cold, white, dead flesh of the corpse made the long gray moustache all the more striking, and the thick, dark eyebrows stood out starkly against the pallor. Janus Chaldian and Claudia dropped the lid shut and then Janus sat down in front of the sarcophagus and waited. Claudia sat down beside him. As the sunlight which streamed in through the small, broken window near the ceiling of the vault grew rosy and then gray, she turned to him and said, "Will we have time?"

  "Hmmm?"

  "Will we have time? To talk to him, to explain what we want. The sun will set in a few minutes, and then the change will come upon us."

  "We will have time," he muttered. "You know that. The change doesn’t happen immediately. It never does. If the stories are true, he will awaken as soon as the sun sets. We will not change until the sunlight is completely gone and the moon dominates the sky." He looked at her. "Why do you ask me this, Claudia? You know this yourself."

  She did not reply. They waited in silence as the gray sky grew black, and then she asked, "Who are we, Janus?"

  He sighed. "I don’t know, Claudia."

  The next few minutes seemed to pass like years, and then the lid of the coffin creaked slowly open.

  Janus and Claudia rose quickly to their feet, each experiencing a shiver of excitement which neither had known for many, many centuries. They watched in silent anticipation as the lid swung completely up and the undead prince rose from his grave. He noticed them instantly; indeed, from the calm expression on his thin, hawklike face one might have assumed that he had been aware of their presence all along. His cold, dead lips curled int
o a cruel smile beneath his gray moustache, and his sharp teeth glistened in the light of what was either the dying sun or the rising moon.

  The vampire climbed out of his coffin with a slow, graceful, almost fluid motion, and his right hand had reached out to caress Claudia’s throat even before both of his feet had come to rest on the cold stone floor of the crypt. He glanced quickly at Janus, but the look in his glowing red eyes was too filled with the confidence of power to be described as wary. He seemed merely to be registering the presence of the young man, nothing more.

  The vampire pulled Claudia slowly toward him, and she bent her head back obligingly, baring her throat to him. He laughed softly, perhaps relishing what he believed to be his power over mortals, perhaps pleased that his meal had so conveniently found her way to his bedside, and then he pressed the tips of his fangs against her white throat.

  It had been many years since the vampire had been surprised by anything, but his face displayed nothing less than astonishment when he found that he could not penetrate the woman’s skin; and then he understood. He pushed her away from him and looked from the woman to the man. "Vroloki," he whispered, speaking the language of his people.

  "Yes," Janus nodded, addressing the vampire in the language of the Turks. "We are werewolves." He allowed himself the slightest of smiles. "And you, to all appearances, are nosferatu."

  The vampire stared at him for a long moment and then emitted a bellowing laugh. "And are there now werewolves among the Turks and the Magyars?" he asked in the same tongue. "If so, I fear that between you and me their histories will be brief ones!"

  "We are neither Turks nor Magyars," Claudia said. "We do not know from whence we come."

  "Nor whither go," the vampire said, smiling with genuine amusement. "The common lot of man. Still, it is an odd twist of fortune which brings such as you together with such as us." As he spoke, Janus and Claudia heard soft movements behind them, and they turned to see three shrouded women walking slowly toward them, their burning eyes alive with appetite. The vampire raised his hand and stopped them, saying in the Romanian tongue, "Spare yourselves the effort, my dears. They are werewolves. Their skin will blunt your teeth. Go, feed elsewhere."