Maria was perfectly willing to break one of the small windows on either side of the elaborately carved wooden door. Sanda and Leo were too occupied, and still too far away, to hear such a quick noise. Instead Maria squeezed through the loose edge of the door as easily as she had when she was a teenager.
The light from those tiny windows glinted off of an orderly row of tools hanging on the far wall. Maria spotted the same blade Sanda carried, but she wanted something with more reach than that. If she was going to fight to survive with or without Leo, she wasn't going to take stupid risks now.
Rakes of various ages and designs didn't fit her needs, but an old-fashioned tool she'd used to cut down grass as a teenager sent a thrill of excitement through her aching heart. A long, curving scythe, with what looked like a new blade bright with recent sharpening, hung against the wall to her left.
Maria grasped the short wooden handles, lifting the scythe off the hooks. The wood was as old and worn as the blade was new. Probably replaced many times since the body was made. The grips fit her fingers as if they'd been carved especially for her. The Grim Reaper brought to life.
A strange low thump from the village caught her by surprise, and she stepped over to one of the windows. She couldn't see the source, but a growing orange glow needed no explanation. Sanda had lit her torch, perhaps hoping to catch Maria napping in the tiny crawlspace beneath the house like some scream queen horror movie vampire.
She wished for a cell phone of all things, or a flashlight. The walls with tools were the only parts of the barn getting any light at all. Of course if she stayed in here too long, the roof would quite likely catch a spark and give her more light than she wanted. She took down two of the long blades and three short knives. More than she could carry, but she'd be happy to cut the damned cumbersome skirt up into something practical so she could tie them around her waist.
Her small arsenal just inside the door, Maria slipped outside again. The stink of the burning house sent her recoiling back. Apparently the legendary improved sense of smell was going to be part of the bargain as time passed and her body grew stronger. She covered her nose with the end of the skirt and leaned around the edge of the barn.
Leo and a soot-covered Sanda were far closer than she expected, barely fifty paces away. The horse shifted her weight from one foot to another, clearly nervous about the fire. Or about the strigoi so close by. The dog was closer than Maria wanted, but it kept sneezing and shaking its head. The fire may very well work to her advantage after all.
Sanda turned, holding the horse's reins, and walked toward the barn. All of them were heading right toward her.
Maria froze, her mind uncharacteristically refusing to function. She couldn't get back into the woods without all of them seeing her. Sanda still carried the blade, but Maria was certain the young woman had a gun or something like it with her as well. The silver bullets were bullshit according to Magda, but a gunshot to the legs or spine would certainly erase any chance of escape. Instant healing was unfortunately bullshit as well.
She slipped back inside the barn.
Chapter 45
Sanda stepped onto the stone steps of the traditional wooden Romanian barn, one of the things Leo had always loved about this place. The steep angles of the heavily thatched roof matched the towering, conical hay bales scattered throughout the countryside, so much more picturesque than the square or round forms in the United States.
The air was finally clearing, and he was breathing more easily in general. Maria had eluded them so far. If he could keep Sanda from discovering the cave-like rooms in the forest barely a mile away from here, his wife would breathe for at least a few days longer.
And she'd quite likely kill a few more people along the way.
Leo leaned against the rough wooden wall. He rubbed the bruises Maria had left on his shoulder without realizing what he was doing. Sanda unlocked the door.
What were they going to do if he could get his wife away from here? Revive the tradition of Jack the Ripper, Bucharest style? Then eventually relocate to Los Angeles, maybe thin out the population of starving actors and writers?
Later. He'd have to think about that later.
"Leo, take care," Sanda said, stepping back into the doorway and reaching for her lighter. "Some of the tools are missing. She could be anywhere."
He straightened and walked toward her.
The dog barked furiously from her perch on the wagon bench.
A shadow moved inside the barn.
A blade flashed behind Sanda's knees.
An agonized shriek followed the young woman to the ground.
Leo lurched forward. Horrified for Sanda. Terrified for his wife.
Maria stepped into the doorway, dragging Sanda by the hair. Blood already soaked the wooden floor. More poured from the backs of the screaming woman's legs.
"Kill it, Leo!" Sanda shouted. "It's not your wife, kill it!"
"Yes, Leo," Maria said. "Why don't you kill it?"
She was glorious.
Maria's flesh was firm and solid, her skin rich and healthy with dark pink high in her cheeks. Her eyes glowed in the afternoon sunlight, the green deep and sparkling. Leo hadn't seen her so vibrant for years, nor so beautiful since their wedding day.
"Leo!" Sanda screamed.
"What will you do?" Maria said, her voice cold. "Sanda won't be your concern for much longer. I could cut her throat for her. I could walk away and leave her to bleed out. She won't be walking anywhere with her hamstrings sliced through."
"She's not..." Leo said.
The dog stopped barking. In the silence, Leo heard a motor at the other end of the village.
That could only be Igor.
"I will not let you or anyone else kill me," Maria said. "All that's left to decide is whether you leave with me. Make your choice, Leo."
Sanda twisted, reaching toward the blade she'd dropped.
"Move your arms again," Maria said. "And you'll lose them both."
Maria dragged Sanda aside and picked up the machete herself.
"Don't listen to it," Sanda said, panting. She grasped at Maria's hands in her hair. "This is not Maria!"
The motor was growing louder.
"What will you do?" Leo whispered. "If I go with you, what will you do?"
"No!" Sanda shrieked. The motor stopped.
Maria dropped the younger woman. She followed the body to the ground with the blade in one smooth motion.
Sanda's head rolled across the floor.
Leo's breathing, his heart, his mind, froze painfully solid. Sanda's pale blue eyes caught the sunlight—wide open and staring at nothing. Maria tried to hide it, but she stared at the spreading pool of blood soaking into the old, dry wood.
"That has to be Igor," he whispered. "He'll see the wagon."
"I know. I'll be ready for Igor. Did Sanda bring a gun or anything like that, Leo?"
"She...there's one against her stomach, in a waist holster. She was laying on it just now or..."
Maria rolled the body over and slipped the gun out. Her gaze kept straying back to the blood.
"Any others that you know of?" she said.
"In the wagon," he said.
The silence from the village below them grew louder in his ears. How long would Igor take? And far worse, would Leo help him or try to stop him now that he saw how badly his wife wanted that blood?
The dog started barking again. Leo's ability to make choices, his will, was slipping away by the second. He wasn't sure he could live with what he'd just seen. With facing more of the same for the rest of his life.
He did know he couldn't live with watching Maria die again, by Igor's hand or any other.
"Igor will hear her," Leo said. "What should I do?"
"Walk away, Leo. Go to the secret place. Don't look back, no matter what you hear. I'll come to you there."
Leo turned, his legs moving without his brain participating.
Don't watch. Don't listen.
Maybe h
e never had to know.
He stopped with the barn still between his body and the village.
"Maria, please," he said. "Do what you will to Igor. Don't hurt the dog."
"Then you must take her with you," Maria said. "Or she will betray me to Igor. Unless that's what you intend to do."
His wife smiled.
Cold settled into Leo's very bones.
He walked around the corner of the barn, meaning to take the dog and escape into the woods. He didn't want to know anything more. Not today. He knew more than he'd ever wanted to.
If he'd left a few minutes earlier, he would have made it.
Chapter 46
Igor crouched behind the wagon, a pile of canvas bundles at his feet. A gleaming black handgun bigger than Leo had ever seen pointed straight at his head.
The dog must have watched Igor approaching, doing her best to make sure he knew where Maria was. Where the undead thing that so badly wanted Sanda's blood hid right this second.
"Where is Sanda?" Igor said, his voice strained and tight. "Have you found it?"
Leo's brain seemed to split then, to break into two halves that would never communicate again.
He had to save Maria.
He had to make sure she didn't get any stronger, no matter what that cost him.
A whisper of motion from the shadows behind him.
"Leo." Igor stepped forward, the massive barrel of the gun still locked on target. "Have you betrayed me? Have you betrayed us all?"
"Or will you betray me?" Maria whispered, her breath close enough to stir the hair on Leo's neck.
"Let me go, please," Leo said, not sure who he was speaking to.
He held up his hands and stepped forward. He'd seen it countless times on movie sets, but he'd never done such a thing himself. Igor kept the gun aimed at him.
"I'll take the dog and go," he said, walking toward the wagon. "I can't. Not today. Nothing else."
"Where is Sanda?" Igor said. He walked forward as Leo did, keeping the wooden frame between himself and the barn. "Did it kill her, Leo? Did you let it kill her?"
Leo staggered, barely managing to catch himself. No. That wasn't right. That wasn't fair.
He hadn't asked for any of this, or even understood what was going on around him. The side of his mind that was furious rather than terrified roared forward.
"No, Igor, you let this happen," he said, his voice rising. "You sent me up here instead of coming yourself! If it was so vital and important, why didn't you come up here yourself?"
Igor took several crouching steps forward until he was even with the front of the wagon.
"Go then, and go a coward," Igor said. "You're right. I never should have sent you. Sanda must have paid the price, like her grandmother and Elena did for your goddamned pride."
Leo found he didn't care what insults the man threw his way. All of it was certainly true.
Coward or not, he had no desire to die in the crossfire between Igor and his wife.
He picked up the still barking dog, relieved when she settled into growling in his arms. He kept going, aiming toward the edge of the woods not far in front of him.
"Show yourself, strigoi!" Igor shouted. "Or I will burn the barn and you with it!"
Maria laughed. The sound of it, cold and delighted, raised hard chills all over Leo's body.
He kept walking.
"Do what you think you must, Igor."
A strange whooshing noise. A burst of gunfire.
Leo crashed to the damp grass. He held the dog tight. He couldn't let her run to the noise and violence. He squeezed his eyes closed.
Don't see. Don't know.
A furious scream rang out. Maria.
Leo forced his eyes open. Igor threw a lit torch onto the thatched barn roof. Several torches on the porch and on the dry ground underneath were already at work.
The horse shrieked and reared away from the spreading flames, overturning the wagon before breaking loose and running down the hill. Igor crouched behind it. He pulled Sanda's rifle out, dropping it on top of the bundle of torches.
Igor dragged the loose wagon toward the front of the barn. He'd shoot if Maria ran for the woods. She'd burn to death in a matter of minutes.
Maria was trapped.
Chapter 47
The dwindling, rational core of Leo's mind whispered...
Just get away. Walk away.
He let the dog go, thankful when she followed the horse. Getting to his feet, Leo watched the dog's path. If he looked toward the rising light and heat behind him, he'd be lost.
And Maria would be saved.
Gunfire made him jump and nearly lose his footing. That scream again, this time agony rather than fury.
Leo fell to his knees, hands over his face.
Countless times alone in the night, he'd begged a god he didn't believe in for just one chance. One way to save her. He'd begged for more time right up until her last few days.
Then, he'd sent up whispered prayers for her last breath to be sooner rather than later.
That guilt was worse than all the rest.
He crawled forward, trying to force his legs to function. Leo managed to stagger to his feet and turn.
Igor had the rifle propped through the wagon wheel as he bent to light another torch.
The noise and heat and sharp, dry wood smell from the fire were already terrible. They were about to get far worse.
Leo took an unsteady step forward. Another.
Maria always talked about choices in recovery. How not choosing could be as dangerous as bad choices. Leo always thought he understood what she meant.
He'd had no clue until that second.
Igor ran forward and threw the torch through the barn window.
One last desperate scream forced Leo to move.
To choose.
Leo circled until he was behind Igor, hiding behind the overturned wagon again. His suitcase lay beside several bundles the older man hadn't bothered with. The first one was stiff and heavy, almost more than Leo could lift.
Inside were long iron rods. Sharpened on one end. Their purpose was as clear as it was horrifying.
He gripped one and strode forward, judging the distance as he went.
Whispers slithered through Leo's mind, intensifying with every step.
Murder.
This was murder, and he was doing it to protect a murderer.
Any emotional or moral defense became meaningless going forward.
Leo swung the iron bar at Igor's head with all of his strength.
The meaty thump of the bar against Igor’s skull was nearly drowned out by the roaring fire. Igor crashed against the wagon, slumped forward, and was still.
"Maria!"
Leo ran toward the barn just as Maria vaulted out the broken window. He thought she’d fallen off of the porch until he saw the flames.
Maria rolled on the grass, batting frantically at the burning skirt. Leo grasped the fabric and pulled. As she twisted free of the heavy black garment, he caught a glimpse of dark red flesh on her pale legs.
She collided with him, taking his breath, squeezing tight enough to keep him from drawing it back in. Leo held her as well as he could with his scorched hands.
"You came back for me," she said against his ear, her voice rough and deep.
"I couldn't let him kill you."
He walked them away from the increasing heat, wishing he could stop right there and caress every inch of her. Kiss her, and claim her, and do whatever he had to so he'd never, ever lose her again.
"Let me get you some clothes," he said, veering toward the wagon. "Then we'll get away from here."
He dragged the suitcase out and opened it. When he turned back with his pajama pants, Maria crouched beside Igor. He hadn't moved.
Leo noticed then that blood mixed with the sweat and soot on his wife's face and hands. Sanda's blood. She stared at Igor now, at the deep wound Leo had made on his scalp. Maria looked up at him.
"Yo
u don't have to stay," she said. "But I can't make it far unless I feed."
Leo's mind was blank and cold, except for one thing. He had chosen. He'd learned from his wife early in her recovery how one choice, good or bad, led to another, and another, and another. He'd had his chance to either let her die again or to walk away.
He'd chosen to stay.
"I'll see if I can catch the horse," he said. "I haven't ridden in about twenty years, but she can get us a head start on anyone who tries to follow. "
Leo turned away.
Chapter 48
Two years later
The quiet village hidden away in the Czech countryside was barely a mile across. A contrast to sprawling, congested Los Angeles in every way, Maria’s new home transported her to an entirely new life. The two markets and handful of cafes were plenty with Leo bringing home anything else they needed from Prague. And even before the check her brother-in-law was bringing, the severing of their last ties in the United States, Leo earned more than enough for his apartment in the city and their cozy stone cottage.
Maria scrolled through her file one more time, saved her work, and exited the testing system. The bar at the bottom of the screen moved slowly from left to right, turning from red to gradually darker shades of green. Despite her confidence and hours of study, she grinned when the Passed icon lit up.
Maria Mullins, born out of her dear friend Paul’s need to survive in to a culture that didn't accept him so long ago, found acceptance returning to the profession of a dead woman. This new woman thrived as much in her legal studies as she had during her short career interviewing elderly strigoi experts.
Maria herself was likely the only remaining expert in what she had become. Paul and Magda's lists—and the experts on them—had provided most of the sustenance she'd needed early in her new life. Their locations had also provided a seemingly random path that took her and Leo safely out of Romania. The only remaining person on that list, Magda, had long since forgotten her own name and everyone else's.
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