Until Death

by Kari Anne Kilgore

  "Whether you go or not, I will be going to find this beast you've helped set loose," she said, walking slowly back, hands on her hips. "I will start in the village where Maria and so many other strigoi were born. My grandmother chose this house because the old road is here. They often return to where they were born when they're strong enough."

  She stood inches away from him, the toes of her worn brown boots almost touching his nearly brand new ones.

  "And you must understand one thing, Leo. If you interfere with me, I will not hesitate to do whatever it takes to stop you. This is not a game or a story to frighten the children. Not here. Not to me."

  "Heed her words," Igor said, standing behind Leo with his arms crossed. "Such things have happened in the past. We will not let this cycle start again."

  "Sanda, I don't mean to insult you," Leo said. "But if Igor is telling me the truth, you're too young for this. He said the last time this happened was before you could have been born. I know you're not older than me."

  "No, I'm not older," she said. "But my grandmother and my father both trained me, and I know what I see. Two deaths are more than enough. You have ten minutes to decide what you will do. Either meet me back at the cemetery and listen to every word I say, or leave me to do my job."

  Chapter 38

  Leo stood in the driveway for several breaths, again unable to move or think. Sanda disappeared around back of the house. Igor was walking back the way they'd come. Even the dog had gone with her, leaving him utterly alone.

  A vision of the old women's faces yesterday, dropping their eyes and crossing themselves compulsively as they walked away, sent him into motion. He couldn't stay out on the street, not if even half the people who lived here believed the stories. He walked unsteadily, then more quickly, after Igor.

  "I need to get back to the inn," Leo said.

  "Have you made your decision, then?" The older man didn't look at Leo or slow his pace.

  "I don't have much choice, do I?" Leo said. "I at least have to get out of sight. From what you say and the way everyone's acting, someone will take me apart if I'm seen."

  "I don't think we're as barbaric as all that," Igor said, glancing at Leo at last. "But no one would be happy to see you. From the inn, you're free to leave. Go back to Bucharest and the US if you will."

  "I know," Leo said. "And I'm free to go with Sanda."

  "You do hold responsibility for what has happened. And you are the one Maria will trust. She's already shown that, hasn't she?"

  Leo took several steps before he answered.

  "Yes," Leo said. "This morning. I didn't understand, any more than I did about the whiskey. I thought I was dreaming."

  "No one warned you," Igor said. "At least not about the real reason for the whiskey or what else to watch for. We didn't realize she was so strong before she arrived. No one your age besides Sanda would know the true danger. For that, I am truly sorry."

  "Why do we have to go back to the cemetery?" Leo said. His flesh crawled at the thought of digging up a corpse, no matter what state it was in. "You told me she wasn't there anymore."

  Igor shook his head. "No, I did not. I told you digging her up would do us no good. There are other things we can do."

  The roads and yards were more deserted than they'd been the day before. Leo didn't even see anyone looking out the windows. They were all terrified of him. Or terrified of whatever had visited him that morning. He stopped when Igor did at the driveway to the inn.

  "Will I be wasting my time to wait for you, Leo? Or should I just call a car to take you to the airport?"

  Leo looked up at the third floor balcony, the room where he'd shared so many wonderful days and nights with his wife. Until that morning, he'd thought they'd made love for the last time many weeks ago. Back when he never could have imagined what he was slipping into believing right now.

  "Just let me get my things," he said. "I don't want to cause anyone else trouble over this."

  Leo was relieved he didn't see Costel or anyone else on his way upstairs. He couldn't possibly stay here any longer, no matter what was really going on. If everyone had already decided he was at fault, Costel and his family might suffer for letting Leo stay on. That was too high a price for a comfortable night's sleep.

  He shoved his clothes and toiletries into his suitcase. He grabbed his heavy raincoat out of the wardrobe last, the first time he'd touched it since the daze of packing in Los Angeles. When he sat on the edge of the bed to change into his hiking boots, a painfully familiar scent rose around him. Leo leaned closer to the rumpled sheets.

  His hands shook when he laced up the boots. That was her. Unmistakably Maria, and not the faint, somehow diminished aroma of when they'd last made love. This was his wife in her full, healthy, lustful glory, as strong as right after they'd met in college. That vibrant woman, lost two years ago to booze and age and illness, had been in his bed this morning.

  Leo tried to stop. He already believed this insane thing, so there was no need to torment himself.

  He stepped back into the tiny bathroom anyway, unbuttoning his shirt and slipping it halfway down his back. He turned and looked over his shoulder. Four distinct bruises, the size and shape of Maria's fingers, stood out against his skin. He stared until his neck muscles cramped, his breathing slow and regular. Distant excitement started up in his belly.

  No dream. No grief-driven hallucination. His love had been here. He'd made love to her, and he'd let her walk away. Now his only chance to find her again was to go with a woman who was determined to kill her, to put her under the ground again.

  This time forever.

  Leo met his own gaze in the mirror, and the crazed glare frightened him more than the thoughts taking shape in his pounding head. His neck creaked when he finally looked down and buttoned his shirt.

  "Pull it together, man," he whispered. "If that was her, she's a fucking vampire or something worse."

  A soft knock nearly forced a scream out of Leo, the second time that had happened in less than an hour. Igor opened the door.

  "It is time. No one will think less of you if you can't do this, Leo. I've brought about the second death more times than I care to count, but I don't believe I could end my own wife."

  "Has anyone ever?" Leo said, rubbing at his shoulder, pressing his fingertips into the bruises. "With their spouse, I mean."

  Igor crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. The party boss had returned.

  "Are you asking me if anyone has ever brought their spouse back on purpose? Or if they have brought them to the second death?"

  "Either," Leo said, looking into Igor's brown eyes. "Both."

  "The only way this can end well is for the thing that looks like your wife to die," Igor said. "Do you understand me? If you do not, I will have my son take you to Bucharest now and I will accompany Sanda. If you decide you're man enough to take the responsibility for this, I will stay here and do my best to calm everyone. I'll join you both as soon as I can."

  A jolt of dismay nearly as deep as the sight of all of those empty gin bottles in the hidden pantry broke Leo out in a cold sweat.

  No.

  Whatever happened, or did not happen, this would begin and end with him. Not with a stranger. With these two determined to bring Maria's unbelievable second life to an end, he wouldn't have the chance to make his own decision. Or find out what Maria's choice would be.

  He picked up his suitcase and closed the door behind him, leaving the carved wooden key holder in the lock for the last time.

  "I understand what I'm responsible for, Igor. Let's go."

  Chapter 39

  Sanda paced back and forth in front of the church when Leo and Igor returned, smoke rising from her cigarette to join the lingering mist. The village was still and deserted except for the three of them and the mama dog. A cardboard box sat on the church steps.

  "What kept you?" Sanda said, watching Leo. "Will I be going alone after all?"

  "I’m going," Leo s
aid. He wished for a hit of what had to be pălincă to slow his raging thoughts. "Why are we here?"

  "We must make sure she can never return to this body," Sanda said, jerking her chin toward the graves. "Or if she is forced to, that she will be unable to leave."

  Igor opened the gate and picked up the box, and Leo followed Sanda into the cemetery. The dog sat on the grass just inside the fence.

  "How could she come back to this body?" Leo said.

  "If we do not properly trap her in the one she has now," Sanda said. "Which we will do."

  Leo gritted his teeth to keep from asking more questions. He had no idea what he would be able to go through with or not, but for these two to suspect him would be the end of any choices he had left. Even if those choices were too insane to admit, even to himself.

  Igor again knelt and cleared off Maria's grave. That volcanic surface and eerily perfect hole startled Leo nearly as much as it had the first time. Sanda held out the clear glass bottle.

  "If you wish to do your part," she said, "this is where that starts."

  Leo took the bottle, resisting the urge to drink as much of it as he could in one swallow.

  "What am I supposed to do with this?"

  "The reason for the alcohol in the casket is to keep the body in the grave," Igor said from behind Leo. "It will serve the same purpose now. If the strigoi returns to this place, it will be over."

  "Then what's the garlic for?" Leo said, touching one of the braids with the toe of his boot.

  "We don't do just one thing," Sanda said. "If she hadn't been so strong when she went into the ground, the garlic may have been enough."

  Leo stepped forward. He saw Maria's eyes in the hospice ward, yellow and dull. He saw them still and lifeless. And he saw them soft and fierce with passion just a few hours before. He was afraid his mind would split into pieces if he saw her in the flesh again, but the last thing he wanted was for her to return to the middle of this village.

  He poured the whole bottle of pălincă into the hole in the middle of his wife's grave.

  "Is that it?" he said, looking at Igor and Sanda. "No foam or smoke or anything?"

  "This is not a movie, Leo," Sanda said, her voice cold and angry. "If she returns to this body, she will be held there as she should have been from the beginning."

  "And the rest?" Leo said, pointing toward the box. Seven more bottles were inside.

  "That is for when we bury her again," Sanda said.

  Chapter 40

  The first time Maria had visited Transylvania again after years of correspondence, Ana had taken her to these odd little rooms on the mountainside. The bars like a prison cell set into the rock were loose enough for two seventeen-year-old girls to move, with thick wooden posts all around them rotted nearly to dust. They both knew they'd be forbidden from returning if they were ever found out. So they'd never asked the older generation, still reeling that summer from the collapse of the USSR just a few months before.

  Their best guess was a cave, perhaps natural to begin with, expanded with some kind of tool that left gouges in the dark gray rock. Three chambers were on either side of the main one, each with what looked like chairs and beds hewn into the stone. A few animal bones in each one only deepened the mystery.

  Serious questions by candlelight so long ago, still unanswered. Was this an ancient storeroom? A hiding place from some war? Or a prison for those who must be truly forgotten?

  Maria didn't miss the perfection of hiding out here herself, nor of never bothering to ask an adult about this place once she became one. As far as either of them knew, she and Ana were the only ones who'd been here in decades.

  And Leo. She had no idea who she could trust outside of those two. Quite likely no one.

  She sat on the long bench or bed or whatever it was in the center chamber, thinking of when she'd brought Leo here. Their first overseas trip together, back when saving up for the flight had been a struggle. Long before they didn't have to think twice about the first class fare. She'd brought him here, feeling vaguely disloyal to Ana, and they'd made love on this same spot.

  Her fully recovered libido hadn't lessened throughout the day. Just the thought of that long ago afternoon, the delightful contrast of the cold stone with Leo's hot mouth and the heat of his body, had her aching for him again. Maria couldn't get distracted, not with Igor on the hunt for her.

  She had to deal with that threat before she could turn to her restored future with her husband and the family they'd make together. Magda thought the curse that kept Maria barren through so many efforts and even surrogacy wouldn't outlive the woman who'd anchored it into so many young bodies.

  Magda hadn't been certain, though. There was no way to know until the woman died. Maria put that out of her mind, resolving to keep it there until she could do something about it. For now she had to get herself and Leo safely away.

  Maria walked into each of the other chambers, the path full of leaves and dirt, falling back into her habit of pacing while she worked through a problem. Once they fouled her grave, they'd want to find any other place sacred and safe to her. Maria hoped Costel and his inn would never cross Igor's mind.

  She'd be forever grateful to Costel and his family for sheltering her and Leo so many times, and for taking care of him over the past few days. They didn't deserve to be punished for the part they'd unknowingly played in her full return to her body that morning.

  Next would have to be the village she'd just left, the place of her and her mother's birth. Igor would want to keep Elena from returning to the same sanctuary if they didn't manage to bury her properly. Maria stopped pacing, chewing her lip and staring out the bars she'd dragged back into place.

  That may be the best place to eliminate Igor and his hunting party and remove the threat forever.

  Magda had been willing to talk to Maria several times, and not only because of her advancing dementia. She and Igor and others like them had worked hard to make sure the younger generations wouldn't pass their curse along. Partly by mutilating their bodies and subjecting them to the old woman's horrible spells, but also by keeping the knowledge hidden.

  Ana had only heard rumors and legends. Maria doubted anyone her age or younger would have known it was possible she could be standing here alive, much less how to prevent it.

  She left the chamber, making sure the door and the path were once again hidden. Maria had no doubt she would succeed, but she knew taking on Igor and his aged companions would take a lot out of her in her still-fragile state. As she had throughout her life, she trusted that her mind would bring her though any challenge victorious.

  After that, she'd turn to her heart. And to Leo.

  Chapter 41

  The narrow trail through the woods was as lovely as Leo remembered. Moss grew up out of the streambed overflowing with snowmelt and rain, close to the shaded dirt path. The steep trail was higher than the one he'd hiked with the dog, so much so that the hardwoods were just starting to bud, flashes of red and pink scattered throughout the towering firs and pines. He winced, wondering if they'd pass by the stump of the one that stood beside Maria's casket for the funeral.

  Leo's mind tried to draw away from the fresh reality, but his resistance grew weaker with every beat of his heart. The sacrificed tree would never bloom this spring even though his beloved lived again.

  The wagon was far smaller than the ones he'd ridden in the back of, snuggled under a blanket with his wife and others from the village. Instead of two long seats stretching back from the driver's bench, there was only a small squared off wooden compartment, not much different from a pickup truck in the US. His sleek black suitcase was absurdly out of place with an axe, the box of alcohol, a can of what smelled like gasoline, and several bundles covered in faded brown canvas.

  The massive, glossy horses pulling those huge wagons were replaced by a shorter, more slender version. Her rich chestnut legs and shoulders rippled with muscles, though, and she switched her long black tail as if to complain
about the lack of effort they expected of her.

  The mama dog slept curled up on the narrow bench between them, saving Leo from feeing uncomfortable or obligated to talk. He was already afraid Sanda would overhear his racing thoughts.

  Maria was alive!

  Breathing and out there somewhere, right this minute. She was alive, and Leo was on a trip with a woman determined to kill her again. He couldn't pretend these weren’t the consequences of murders already committed, of his mother-in-law and Sanda’s grandmother.

  He also couldn't pretend he wasn't trying to figure out how to save his lover from another death, one she would not miraculously survive.

  That made him a madman, certainly, and perhaps a monster in his own right. Especially if he had to help Maria find a way to sustain herself with unknown macabre nutrition. Leo's hold on his own sanity had been slipping bit by bit since he found the gin bottles hidden away in their house. He knew he was dangerously close to losing his last fragile grip.

  He didn't yet care. He wouldn't care until he had his wife safe and away from here, whatever that turned out to mean.

  "Be alert, Leo," Sanda said, startling him. "We're nearly to the old village."

  The road, nearly reclaimed by the forest around it, took a sharp turn up and to the right. He remembered bits and pieces from his first trip up here with Maria. They'd been falling in love, and they'd hiked all morning to spend the night in the house she'd been born in. Fewer than ten people, each of them well into their sixties, had lived up here by then.

  None of them had seen him set off in a different direction with his new wife the next morning. To Maria and Ana's secret place, one Leo hoped was still a secret.

  "When did they abandon this place?" he said. "I remember Maria being upset about it."

  "Eight years ago. My grandmother was the last to agree to leave. She wouldn't have unless everyone promised to return in the spring and autumn to keep the place cleaned up and repaired."