Until Death

by Kari Anne Kilgore

  "Why?" Leo said. "Surely no one wants to live all the way up here again."

  "I would," Sanda said, with the first smile he'd seen. "I loved visiting my grandmother. I stayed with her all summer and every other chance I got. She insisted on the repairs because she was old and she hated to see things change. And because she wanted us to keep an eye on the place."

  "In case something like this happened," Leo said, staring at a small waterfall off to the left. "In case of someone like me."

  "Not only like this, Leo. Elena wasn't the only one who carried this curse to leave Romania years ago. Many were born in this village. My grandmother hoped if we returned often enough, we'd notice signs of any strigoi sheltering here. Perhaps those buried somewhere else where the customs and warnings were not known, making their way back home at last."

  Leo's throat was too dry to swallow.

  "What do you watch for?" he said. "In the old village, I mean."

  "I'm told most of the beasts were confused and upset in the beginning," Sanda said. "It rarely occurred to them to be careful, to avoid leaving evidence. Hardly anyone Maria's age would know enough to stay hidden."

  He nodded and looked away again. He'd never met anyone who absorbed everything around her the way his wife did. He'd seen her reading books about Romanian folklore a few times before she got so sick, claiming it was so she could explain her heritage to their children. If anyone could figure out how to stay safe, it would be her.

  He'd have to be on the alert and make sure Sanda was the ignorant one.

  The gears in Leo's head slipped a little bit more.

  Chapter 42

  Maria walked toward her mother's village. Despite her silent movement and joy in her new body, she wished she could still drift like the mist along the ground.

  Something did not feel right here. Something dangerous.

  The wagon's creaking wheels brought her to a stop far beyond the edge of her circling exit paths. The eerily perfect and empty houses were between her and the path back down the mountain. Maria crouched behind a sprawling oak tree, her view unobstructed and her position well-hidden.

  After her early morning flight with nothing but the stolen clothes she wore, Maria knew she might have to observe at first. She needed more information. She had to know the strength and weakness of Igor and anyone he brought with him. If she had to, she'd wait until one or all of them slept.

  She would use weapons if she found them, but she had no need once she was close enough. Time and regaining a body that was starting to crave a more substantial kind of fuel hadn't dulled her ability to draw the energy of another living being. One old man, or one old man's guard, would be easy enough to dispose of. Guns or knives or whatever else they had would never come into play. Not unless she took them and used them herself.

  A small chestnut horse passed the last curve in the road a few hundred yards away. Maria's unease didn't leave her, but seeing only two people on the wagon boosted her confidence. Igor had underestimated her, and badly. That didn't even look like him sitting beside a small young woman. This was a much younger man.

  A man far too familiar to her.

  Leo.

  The horse let out a high, piercing cry, jolting the wagon to a stop. Maria tried to control her gut-wrenching reaction, squeezing her eyes closed and gritting her teeth. If every creature in the forest startled, all running away from where she crouched, she would be painfully easy to catch and put to the second death.

  "Why?" she whispered, covering her mouth.

  The woman brought the wagon into the middle of the village, barely a hundred yards away now. Maria knew her from past visits—a grandchild of the old woman who'd cursed her body after corrupt doctors butchered it so long ago.

  Her reeling mind brought the name forward with the same easy efficiency as ever. Sanda. Sitting proud and plain beside Maria's husband, without even the decency to sneak up here under cover of darkness.

  Sanda climbed down off the wagon. She walked toward the house with a long blade in her hand. Leo didn't move. Was he there to be some kind of guard? To keep watch and make sure Sanda completed her task without incident?

  Or was he there to try to protect Maria?

  Leo finally moved, nearly falling when he climbed down. He turned back and picked something large off of the bench.

  Maria drew farther back, her heart thudding in her chest. Her husband was holding the same old dog that had tried to warn him in the forest. Back before he'd given Maria her body and the second chance she'd so desperately wanted.

  Now he traveled with the granddaughter of a woman Maria had murdered the night before, and he'd brought the creature most likely to track her down so they could kill her.

  Had she misjudged her lover so badly? Had Igor's brutal questioning and seeing how she'd escaped from the grave driven him over the edge and out of her life forever?

  The dog trotted into the house, nose low to the ground and ears high. Leo slowly followed. His weaving gait reminded Maria of watching a drunk walk, one who was convinced he'd fooled everyone. That made no sense, but he stopped and gripped the low white fence like he was within moments of passing out.

  Nothing about this made sense.

  He finally straightened and went into the house, only to come back out barely a minute later. He walked more steadily when he returned, but he stopped and held on to the fence again. Maria stepped closer before she could stop herself.

  If she could catch him alone, even for a few seconds, she could figure out where his loyalties were. Or maybe she could change them back to her.

  Leo moved then, walking back to the wagon. Maria strained to see what her husband was carrying toward the house to help the woman determined to kill her. A can that probably held gasoline, if they were sticking to Magda's playbook for strigoi destruction. And...pălincă.

  She flinched, rubbing her jaw without realizing it. The reflex was nowhere near as strong as with gin, but her lips, her tongue, her throat could feel the burning, numbing liquid pouring down. The craving she'd fought her whole life started with that brandy, with her grandmother giving her a sip for a toothache before she even had the words to ask for help. One of Maria's earliest memories, and one of her strongest.

  Despite her restored body, her mental weakness for alcohol had followed her beyond death. If anyone in the world could have known that was possible, it would be the man who held her when she took her last breath.

  If Leo had brought booze up here, he had to be working with Sanda and Igor, not against them.

  He walked back out with the dog on his heels. He poured the pălincă in a line around the edge of the house. She could think of no reason why he'd ever do that to help her.

  Maria had a choice to make, one of the first in a long while. Her life hadn't been much worth living until she'd met Leo so many years ago. If he wouldn't protect her and help her survive long enough to leave this place, her prospects were as dim as they'd been back then. Drinking too much, wasting time drifting through college, not accepting for one second that anything about herself was worth a damn or any effort to improve.

  He'd changed all that. By simply believing she was worth saving, worth caring for. Leo had pushed her to not only survive her own self-destruction, but to thrive and prosper. If he'd truly turned his back on her, she might be better off letting Sanda run her through with that blade, pin her to the ground so she'd never roam the earth again. Or walking into that house under her own power and letting the flames do the job instead.

  She shook her head, wiping tears away. Besides the will and ability to live and actually enjoy her life, Leo had helped her discover another trait that served her well. As an attorney, Maria Sabov was either respected, feared, or hated for her iron will and rock-solid determination. She did not scare easily, and she gave up even less often.

  When Leo walked to the back of the house, out of her sight, Maria stood and walked down out of the woods. She was a hundred feet from a small, narrow barn, the high roof
thatched with thick grass. She hadn't helped in any of the cleanups since the village had been abandoned, but she had a good idea what would be kept in there.

  Tools, supplies, equipment.

  Weapons as good as or better than the blade Sanda carried.

  Chapter 43

  The last time Leo visited the village where Maria was born, several people still lived there. Many of the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren had made the trip then. The narrow streets had been teeming with people. The change could not possibly have been more stark.

  The only thing close to the strangeness, the dislocation from reality, was walking onto an empty movie or TV set. His staggering mind insisted everything was fake, that a stiff enough wind would make the facades of low, white houses shudder or even fall over. Any second now, people from special effects or set decoration would come around the corner with trees or boulders slung casually over their shoulders. The last bit of unreality needed to complete the perfect illusion.

  Sanda set a brake on the wagon and climbed down, her eyes constantly moving. She pulled a long hand blade, a lot like the machetes Leo and Brian used without nearly enough supervision growing up in Ohio. She held it with the comfort and ease of long practice, low in front of her body.

  That gleaming sharp blade, the torches and gasoline, the bottles of pălincă. Everything in the wagon, including Sanda and the dog waiting patiently for his help down from the high bench, were there for one purpose.

  To kill Maria. To put an end to whatever she'd become and leave Leo to bury and mourn her all over again.

  He was frozen to the spot, unable to do anything but watch as Sanda walked toward the seventh house in the street. If she found his bride in there, all of this would be over. Everything would be over.

  The dog nudged his arm with her nose, clearly wanting to join in the pursuit. What the hell had he done, coming up here? Letting anyone come up here?

  Panic and nausea closed his throat, and he was afraid he'd either vomit or pass out before he could manage to climb down and do something. To stop this, whatever that turned out to mean.

  What he'd do afterward, how he'd possibly live with what his wife had become and with his own choices, had no space yet in his heart.

  For a second, Leo thought he'd put his phone in his left pocket rather than his right where he always did. He grabbed for it just as he realized signal was non-existent so high up, and he hadn't even turned the phone on that morning.

  The dog was growling again, low and deep. The woods around the village had fallen as silent as during his hike the day before. More silent than the grave.

  Leo looked around, the sun and all his senses far too sharp and bright. She was here. She had to be. In the house? Seconds away from oblivion, without even the sparse comfort of his arms this time?

  He lurched down off the wagon, turning at the last second to help the dog. No matter what else was happening, he didn't want her to jump and hurt herself. His body was shaking so badly he almost dropped her anyway. She twisted in his arms, then darted off after Sanda.

  Leo nearly hyperventilated, his heart pounding so hard and fast he saw flashes at the edge of his sight. If he ran into the house, unarmed and shaking like a leaf, he wouldn't be able to stop Sanda no matter what he did. He probably wouldn't make it more than a few steps before he hit the ground. At least he wouldn't have to watch Maria die this time.

  He staggered despite his efforts to walk slowly. Leo put a hand on the white fence around the house, ears straining to hear anything happening inside. Stereotypes and movie images flashed through his brain, too fast to make any sense.

  Maria in a cartoonish casket, hands folded on her chest, helpless to resist Sanda while the sun was out. A bat with her deep green eyes, hanging under the eaves, or maybe in the cellar.

  Leo grabbed the fence with both hands, leaning forward, fighting to get himself under some kind of control. His doctor wanted to write him a prescription for sedatives or an antidepressant, anything to help smooth out the pain of losing his wife. Right now, struggling to get his body moving again, he wished he had a full bottle in his pocket. That and a generous slug of the pălincă might get him through the next few minutes.

  "Leo," Sanda called from inside the house.

  He pushed himself upright, still trembling and fighting to catch his breath, and walked as steadily as he could across the yard. He had to try twice to get his foot up onto the low porch.

  Sanda and the dog stood in the tiny living room, stripped bare of all of the cushions and tapestries that once made it a home. The room was stark white now, with odd ledges where comfortable seating used to be.

  "She is not here," Sanda said, watching him closely. The dog paced from room to room, nose to the ground, hackles raised. "From the way our guide is acting, she has been. But this place is empty."

  Leo opened his mouth, trying to force as much air into his body as he could.

  Not here meant she was probably still alive. Not here meant she could be anywhere.

  "What do you do now?" he said.

  "What we do now is poison this ground like we did the grave," she said. "And we burn it down. I have petrol and pălincă in the wagon."

  "I'll get it."

  He managed not to stagger until he was back on the neatly trimmed grass. He leaned against the fence again, eyes closed, panting now that Sanda couldn't see him.

  If finding out Maria was not inside and dead took this much out of him, how would he possible survive actually seeing her? Could he even stop Sanda if he tried?

  He got two bottles of the alcohol and the small metal can that reeked of gas. By the time he made it back into the house, his breathing and heart had slowed to almost normal. Leo hoped Sanda didn't see how much he was sweating on such a cool morning.

  "I'll use the petrol in here," she said, taking the can. "You pour the pălincă around the fence line and around the foundation of the house. It isn't as strong as pouring it into the grave, but with that and the fire, she will not return."

  Leo nodded, glad for the chance to get back out when Sanda started splashing the gas around. The dog came out with him, her sensitive nose no doubt driving her away. The fumes were coating the back of his throat. He held his thumb over the mouth of the bottle to make a thin enough stream to surround the house, then the fence.

  As Leo walked, he watched the other houses and the forest beyond. Sanda hadn't mentioned it, but she had to have noticed how still the birds were. Nothing moved that he could see or hear. Even the breeze had died down.

  A terrible thought hit him when he’d nearly completed his circle back at the front gate. If Maria was here, if what his senses and his gut told him was right, she might be able to see him. Not only up here with a strange woman carrying weapons, but pouring booze into the ground around the house she was born in.

  Leo swallowed the last few inches of the alcohol instead of completing the circle, gasping to catch his breath yet again. He couldn’t go through all of this hell only to have his living wife turn away from him and never look back.

  "Go back to the wagon," Sanda said. She stood in the door with a book of matches in her hand. "These old houses can go up like a torch."

  Leo nodded. The dog followed him, and Sanda lit all the matches with her lighter. When she tossed them inside, he heard a thump like a huge oil furnace starting up. Sanda had closed the door before she walked away, but the curtains were already blazing.

  "Will the other houses catch?" Leo said, thinking of wildfires in California.

  "They may," she said. "That can't be helped. I need to move the horse upwind, but we must search the rest to be certain she's not sheltering close by."

  They went though the dozen houses on either side quickly, but before they were finished, the smoke was thick and heavy throughout the village. Leo couldn't imagine the dog being able to smell anything at all with the stench.

  The three of them stood with the restless horse at the edge of the forest, watching t
he first house burn itself out. The wagon was at the far end of the road where they'd entered. The nearby fences were burning, but so far the houses were only covered in soot.

  "I have a question for you, Leo," Sanda said. She wiped at the black streaks on her face, managing to smear them instead of cleaning them off. "Where else would she shelter? Where else would she feel safe?"

  Leo stared at the collapsed building where his lover was born, doing his best to keep his features neutral. He knew a place very close by where she'd feel safer even than here.

  "Besides the inn? Maybe New York. Probably back in California."

  "Igor will make sure the inn is protected," she said. "He'll warn her aunt and friends before he comes up here. She can't go as far as even Bucharest yet, much less get on a plane. The body is healthy, but it is weak. There must be somewhere else."

  "There are other places in the US," he said. "A few in Europe. Prague, Vienna, Budapest. You just named every other place close by that I know of. "

  Sanda stared at him, her red-rimmed eyes steady. Leo forced himself to keep breathing.

  "We'll have to wait until the smoke clears for the dog to be able to search," she said, still watching him. "I made a mistake I hope we do not regret. I acted too soon in burning the house before we let her look for a trail."

  Another wave of relief swept out from Leo's chest, making his knees weak. That combined with the mistake of underestimating how much Maria probably knew might give them the chance they needed. Sanda sighed, then coughed.

  "The only place we haven't yet searched is the barn," she said. "We'll do that, then see if our guide here can pick up any scent around the outside of the village. We'll find more tools and blades in there as well."

  Chapter 44

  The barn at the edge of the village hadn't changed in Maria's lifetime, and likely not in her mother's or grandmother's. A low white stone foundation supported rough-hewn dark boards, with the highest only a foot above her head. The thick, light brown, thatched roof soared to a peak easily twice that height, the sides sharply angled to prevent snow buildup.