DEVIL’S ROW

by Serafini, Matt

  He bent to grab the cup as the group hurried past. His eyes found a curious pair of legs facing him from across the way: a short man wearing a golden jelick vest with a red kalpak resting atop his head. His eyes flickered and there was horror in them. Their gazes crossed and held, but then the stranger’s attention was pulled back toward the wet paint overhead.

  “Brother?” He seemed to mouth.

  Timothy stood, the plum wine lending sluggishness to his steps.

  The man’s brow rose in fear as a late shift of dock men came hurrying up from the waterfront. Timothy ran headlong into the passing crowd but they refused to accommodate his direction, shuffling him back and forth, as he fought to move against the grain. The jelick’s shimmering back vanished down an alley and out of sight before he could get free of the horde.

  Timothy gave half-hearted chase but found no sign of the man. He sighed and headed back to the inn. Whatever had frightened his brother off wouldn’t stick. He’d be back, and with others.

  Better safe than sorry.

  It’s what I’d do.

  At least they knew where to find him.

  The inn’s room offered a bed and little else. His clothes were a mess of bodily fluids, plum wine, and oil paint. He changed out of them, happy to be free of the oppressive fabric. If Garrick’s order decided not to show, he’d regrettably don it again tomorrow in an effort to be fished from the crowd.

  He kept the windows open and listened to the city. Merchant district bustle quelled with each deepening shade of evening black, and soon there were only bawdy sounds of tavern drunkards in the distance. Breathless laughter coughed in a language that sounded like blather to his ears.

  It was comforting. There was order here. And if it wasn’t order, it was predictable chaos. Men hurting men for the same motivations as always: jealousy, rage, and despair—all for their own gains. It could be combated and controlled. All of it preferable to what was happening outside the city: a world he wished he had never come to know, and still didn’t understand.

  He fished for his copy of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan and held it warmly. It was like visiting an old friend. The philosophies contained therein never ceased to calm him, although he felt less connected to the words tonight. They were alien to his eyes and thoughts, almost unrelatable. True, he never paid mind to Hobbes’ religious proclivities. He tolerated them, however, because they were a prelude to something more. Hobbes didn’t believe in a greater good, but thought mankind would do well to avoid greater evil.

  Greater evil was defined as the anarchy of a man outside of society. Hobbes had no knowledge of the strigoi viu that had dragged Sebastian’s soul to damnation. She and the Raven walked among man but they were decidedly not. Beyond control or reason, they were greater evil personified.

  Someone had to fight that greater evil for the good of man.

  Someone will. Not I.

  The air floating off the Black Sea was crisp and cold now. Timothy closed the window, but not before lining the pane with his remaining silver. The door got similar treatment and he was thankful that there were only two ways in here because there wasn’t enough coin to cover another.

  He settled into bed and imagined the closed-door deliberations occurring in another part of the city: Is he a thief? Perhaps he hails from another order.

  They’d have no way of knowing until they asked.

  Even with the window closed, he heard crashing waves from a few streets away. With so much anxiety controlling him, he half expected never to sleep again, but must have dozed anyway.

  It was impossible to say how much time had passed, but hearing the words “wake up” repeated two or three times should’ve been enough to bolt upright. He was only half awake when the chill of cold steel stung his throat.

  Timothy lifted his hand out from beneath the sheet and flashed Garrick’s pistol. A hand lashed out and socked him in the eye.

  “Don’t be stupid.” The voice was a whisper and it belonged to a shadow. “You are of great interest to us, so relax.”

  Timothy nodded and then the blade pulled away from his neck. “I am here on behalf of Garrick,” he said.

  “Garrick.” The voice wasn’t impressed by the name drop. “Those are his clothes, then?”

  “Yes. We hunted varcolac.” Even now, that word sounded absurd. It was clumsy to speak, sounding like a wad of phlegm in the throat. Seventeen years of conditioning couldn’t be undone over the span of a few months. “I am the last one alive.”

  The shadow barely moved and Timothy didn’t intend to test it. He embraced the silence and waited.

  “Get dressed and come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “What you came here for.” There was a second voice now. “Or did you paint the wall because the mood struck you?”

  The sound of a match cracking flint, and then a lantern glowing at the foot of his bed.

  Two men in dark vests hovered, one pointing a pistol straight at him. Timothy recognized the other from earlier.

  His brother.

  The armed man collected Garrick’s bloody tatters and Brother watched Timothy dress.

  “If you’ve been honest with us and this belongs to a fallen brother, it’s important that we perform the necessary departing rituals.”

  This sounded to Timothy like more superstition. A parting ritual would benefit Garrick about as much as a bandage on his head. He kept this dismissal to himself, nodding and then following the men outside. Their steps echoed on the nearly vacant Constanta streets.

  They walked toward the ocean to the city outskirts. A shack sat atop the docks far off the harbor. It looked brittle enough to collapse the next time the wind blew it wrong.

  Timothy questioned this place as the order’s stronghold as they approached, but the gunman gave his shoulder a harsh shove and forced him over the threshold.

  They ushered him to a lopsided wooden table that scraped his knees and thighs as he sat down and slid beneath it. A single pathetic candle flailed atop the surface, somehow steeping the room in negative light.

  The inquisitors fell in line on the table’s opposite side. Their faces were cold and pale in the damp wicker glow. Brother leaned in and lifted Timothy’s shirt from his chest. His breath was rum-soaked. He tossed the shirt aside and took the candle in his hand while Gunman kept his weapon drawn. The light roved his body with precision, as if looking for something.

  Bites or markings, he guessed.

  “Why do you seek us?” Brother asked.

  “I told you…I have news of the death of one of your own.”

  “Stand and strip. I will not ask you a second time.”

  Timothy pushed the chair back and got to his feet, stepping from his breeches. The candle was at his thighs and circling him then. Once Brother was satisfied, he told him he could put the pants back on and take a seat.

  “He isn’t bitten. He isn’t…like her,” Brother said.

  “And he isn’t like us,” Gunman countered.

  “That is true,” Brother agreed. He placed the candle back and folded his arms. “And Garrick didn’t apparently care enough to give him a ward.”

  Timothy thought back to the tattoos and carvings that littered Garrick’s body.

  He could’ve protected us.

  Brother smiled. “Tell us about Garrick.”

  Timothy obliged. He started with Evan’s murder, and how that led to Garrick’s offer of an almost inconceivable sum to assist in his hunt.

  “Of a varcolac woman?”

  Timothy nodded. “The Raven and her army.”

  The rest of the story didn’t take nearly as long to summarize.

  “Quite the adventure. And Garrick was murdered by…”

  “The she-wolf.”

  “Whom you then lost in the forest outside of Rodica?”

  Timothy nodded.

  Brother laughed. “This woman you call the Raven…she followed you every step of the way…and you believe that she somehow lost you because you wrap
ped your ass in a bear pelt?”

  Timothy swallowed. Was it possible he was so daft? Elisabeth hadn’t let him live at all. She wanted him to get away.

  To see where he would go.

  To find the rest of Garrick’s order.

  The men sensed his arrival at this conclusion. “She is a bit cleverer than you would like to admit, I think,” Brother said.

  “If she is coming,” Timothy said, and then stopped when the Gunman raised a hand to cut off his words.

  “We’ll worry about her,” he said and headed for the door.

  “She’ll come,” Timothy said. “She intends to finish what we started.”

  “Perhaps,” Brother said.

  “And that’s why you took me here, as opposed to your sanctuary?” It was beginning to make sense now.

  “Yes, we’ve been looking for her for some time.”

  This was good. He was among friends who’d help vanquish her. Sebastian would be avenged yet. That bitch deserved everything she got and so much worse.

  I’m glad we killed your lover when we did, he thought, now that it was safe to be this cocky.

  He found perverse satisfaction in this, confessing to himself now that he’d enjoyed chopping the large wolf to pieces, he and Sebastian alternating hacks until the monster’s appendages broke off one at a time.

  “But we’ve also been looking for you.” This voice was new, but familiar.

  Timothy turned and found an upside down face dangling in the corner, rotted and scabbed. In what should’ve been an impossible motion, it dropped from the rafters and moved his legs so they caught the floor. Brother shuffled outside to join Gunman on the night watch as the mystery man took stage.

  This creature was naked. His jawline was massive, and curved fangs fell so far past his lips that they looked like walrus tusks. His head was bald and scabbed, and the last time Timothy had seen him, his facial features had been far more recessed.

  Codrin was feeding.

  His yellow eyes burned brighter than the candle. He was delighted to have Timothy’s recognition, eyeing him like a plate of salted beef. A bead of spit coiled around one fang and swung across the bottom of his chin while his eyes blazed.

  “I’m going to devour you…in every way possible.” Calloused hands rubbed Timothy’s chest. It felt no better than being dragged across rugged terrain, stomach-down. The errant spit swayed back and connected with his forehead. “But not until she comes for you.”

  Timothy’s eyes fell to the floor. After all of this, he was as good as dead. Not even a flagon’s worth of plum wine could keep his terror buried.

  Codrin seemed to feel it rising in him, if his satisfied face was any indication.

  Without any weapons, with hardened killers just beyond the door, Timothy did the only thing helpless bait could do.

  He closed his eyes and waited.

  ***

  Elisabeth looked down at her shapely figure and shivered. She’d come the rest of the way nude. Her gooseflesh was scaly to the touch, sliced and moist with blood from a dozen branch scrapes. Perspiration was so intrusive that her own nose was nearly used to it.

  She preferred this body on most days, even when it brought more pain and embarrassment than she was comfortable with.

  Fingers trailed the valley between her breasts. Even the traces of scar tissue were a memory now, as if her body had never been damaged. Her spirit would take longer to heal, but that recovery was also guaranteed. A troubling thought, considering it was that pain driving these actions. There would come a day when Aetius’ death no longer stung. When she was forced to leave him behind.

  That scares me more than anything.

  Elisabeth took cautious steps through the forest. Her muscles felt like they’d been tied in knots, putting an awkward limp in her step. Her will remained steadfast, though her body begged for respite. Wrestling control away from the wolf had been draining on all fronts, but at last her curves felt natural again, her reflexes controlled.

  “Nothing natural about what we are,” Aetius used to say. He’d never liked her overt comfort with human flesh, chiding her preference for it as some kind of varcolac blasphemy.

  The power of the wolf had no equal, true, but humanity delivered the best of both worlds: the ferocity of the animal and the calculated temperament of man.

  As far as Elisabeth was concerned, she was perfect in this skin.

  Besides, the human was necessary tonight, and somewhere inside, the wolf knew it too. Slipping into Constanta undetected wouldn’t be easy, not even for her. A veil of caution hung over the streets, as if its citizens recognized the malevolence lurking beyond the borders and defended them in the moonlit hours.

  She sensed mass superstition here. People apt to keep silver blades by their beds and their windows littered with matching coins. This, in addition to wards and deterrents for other evils. Caution rose not only through her nose and bones, but in her gut as well. A rule of threes that shouldn’t be ignored.

  She plotted her move in the darkness, occasionally huffing the air to ensure that Survivor hadn’t yet left port. It was difficult to find his scent amidst a city of thousands but, every so often, she caught his desperation. There was just enough of it to reignite her killer instinct. She ground her jaw in anger, rubbing her shoulders to get the shiver out of her body. The real trick was keeping her thoughts straight while she figured out the best way to get at him.

  The wolf, enticed by traces of Survivor, and equating him with food, returned like a spasm. It took everything Elisabeth had to keep the animal at bay. The coming was too powerful and Elisabeth doubled over in pain, a sensation worse than any debilitating stomach cramp. Her innards twisted and throbbed as she grit her teeth and pushed back.

  You…will…not…come…

  Each time she smelled Survivor, the animal reacted like she was being antagonized.

  A troupe of guards took watch along the city’s parapet. They fanned out through the front-facing streets in packs of two. Handheld torchlight enabled them to defend their immediate perimeters.

  The forest held her anonymity as she studied their patterns and watched for a hole in formation. It may do to skirt around and gain entrance from either the north or the south, but the city probably held a stringent defense wherever you tried getting inside of it.

  Wolf tremors took a reluctant break as Elisabeth shook them off, overwhelming her bestial half by considering several attack strategies. The animal recognized it was in her best interest to get inside the city. A horse-drawn cart approached from the heart of the forest and Elisabeth’s ears perked at the sound.

  A merchant making his way back home, most likely.

  She plucked two scents from the sky. Perspiration nearly as severe as hers, indicating a long-walked road for two men. One of them sold wares and the other sold protection.

  Her body shimmered beneath the moon and her shoulders gyrated to chase away the last few muscle cricks. She strode toward them with confidence, despite the musk beneath her arms and other crevices. It shouldn’t matter. Attracting their attention would be simple, no matter how ripe she was.

  Lust had a specific smell, and it drenched most men. It was useful when determining who’d be most susceptible to her charms. As soon as she swayed into the center of the dirt path, it was obvious to Elisabeth that these fools wore it like cologne.

  Her appearance energized them. Desire surged. Elisabeth couldn’t read minds but understood chemical reactions easier than words. These timid, dull-faced oxen would lick her sweat bead-by-bead if she commanded it.

  “Hello,” she said, instilling her voice with as much innocence as she could manage. She’d never been much of an actor and didn’t enjoy empowering these lowly animals, even in charade.

  “Miss.” The bodyguard had wide shoulders and carried a rifle in his arms. He pulled the horses to a stop and jumped from the wobbly cart. He didn’t aim at her and seemed to forget that she had a face. His gaze was bolted to her bare breasts, bette
r for her this way.

  It would be over faster.

  She came forward to greet him, refusing to yield until they stood nose-to-nose. The sellsword didn’t resist. She arched her back and pushed her full bosom against him.

  This man, who presumably collected an honest wage by defending the still-silent merchant, had no intention of speaking. His heart thundered. Men were always so nervous in the presence of women. This was as assured as changing seasons, and she loved them dearly for their predictability.

  Before he could speak, she opened wide and made for his neck, hoping she could make this kill with her human mouth. She bit through the flesh until her top and bottom teeth scraped together in a gush of blood.

  The mercenary lost his balance and fell to the ground. Elisabeth dropped him like a spent newspaper and ran to the wagon, attempting a convincing performance once more.

  “He gave me no choice,” she said. “He tried to have me. You saw it. Say that you saw it.”

  She wiped the blood from her mouth and managed a single tear, an intricacy lost on the stuttering imbecile who couldn’t see in the dark.

  Elisabeth took his head in her arms as he leaned down to her. The wolf’s strength surged and she snapped his neck. The merchant’s body went limp and tumbled off the cart.

  She slipped her shoulders into his oversized coat, pulling the large garment tight and giving her body enough warmth to chase off her goose bumps. A frayed pair of breeches was draped over the cart, along with a pile of linens. She pulled the pants up past her waist and slid into a muddy pair of boots to complete the lowly peasant costume.

  Not the best choice of clothes, but she needed to be able to move through the city uncontested.

  There was a hunt on, after all.

  She unhitched the horses and gave each a harsh slap on the rear. They thundered off towards Constanta, stomping the mercenary’s corpse into a twisted pile of pulp.

  Her stomach growled but she wouldn’t allow the wolf to eat until this was over. She couldn’t afford the animal’s return if she couldn’t control her. Even now, the wolf attempted a coup, and Elisabeth gave everything she had to keep her down.