“But we’re not anywhere near—” She stopped herself, remembering suddenly that the huge beams forming the roof of the library and Great Hall were made of long, straight trunks of cedar. She smiled, appreciating anew his obsessive deviousness.
Catching her smile, he replied with obvious pleasure, “This delicate piece of glass will not last long around the neck of a wild animal, especially in the thick of a fight. Breaking it will release enough to wreak havoc with Arghezi’s protections against our kind. And any other traps or snares I hope will be disarmed by our lupine friends.”
“Lupeni is—is going to die?” Lamia quavered, her emotions see-sawing between malicious glee and weepy despair. She needed human blood or she needed two weeks of physics and rabbits.
“Not before he kills Arghezi, I hope,” smiled the ancient vampire. “There is a reason I chose these brutes to deliver our gifts to the castle, rather than tie them around the neck of a sheep or a frog. Add that to the fortunate coincidence of the occultation on the night of the full moon. They will kill your old husband, your first lover, Ana Maria.” He spoke the name with sarcasm, but it was the name itself that made her wince.
“But…but…” She was unable to find a protest that didn’t invoke sentimental feelings for either Alexandru or Lupeni, feelings she herself was trying to fight.
“Come,” said Cuza, pocketing the vial and looking up at the slow but steady progress of the moon toward its meeting with Jupiter, “let us collect our hunting dogs. The fun is about to begin.”
36. Night of the Werewolves
Alexandru Arghezi spent this night much as any other, taking his supper in the Great Hall and retiring afterwards to his ornate wooden chair in front of the fireplace. Instead of his customary glass of red wine, however, he had a pot of strong black tea, and his eyes kept straying from the ancient and battered Atlas of Magical Wards and Enchantments to the viewhole he had conjured in the castle wall. Traveling through the stone walls of the kitchen and the stable gate, it shaped the granite into a transparent lens that magnified images from several yards around the rear castle entrance. It was not a trivial spell to keep going, and he could feel the drain on his energy as the night progressed. Around his throat he wore a braid of garlic, for vampires preferred the neck, while in his lower pockets he held springs of wolfsbane that would meet werewolves at nose level.
For the first time he watched all of the details of Caleb’s transformation, observing how the werewolf carefully folded his clothes and placed them on a rock before changing, and even noticing that he kept his eyes on the eastern sky. Some sort of reverence to the moon goddess, he wondered, or something else?
Caleb was easily the largest werewolf the monster-hunter had ever seen. He eats well here, Alexandru mused, unafraid as the enormous animal placed his paw right over the transparent spot. The wolf seemed to be well acquainted with the principles of fences, gates, and doorknobs, as well—and perhaps also with magical wards. The beast figured out quickly that he wouldn’t get into the castle, and turned around to trot off down the stone path to the east, away from Stilpescu.
It had been several years since anyone in the village had been bitten. The moonwards worked well, and Alexandru had trusted Caleb to maintain and reset them as necessary. Caleb performed this task ably and willingly, even managing to ward areas that no local wizard would dare approach, such as the caves above Albimare. Five years ago Alexandru would not have believed that such a creature—such a person—as that could exist, but now he trusted Caleb more than any other. Yesterday’s rather vague warnings would come to naught, the old wizard was sure, but he meant to show that he was always alert and that he took no hint of Cuza lightly.
He shut his eyes, dozed a little, the strain of maintaining the spell for the viewhole becoming too great. When he had first sworn to kill Cuza, he had been a young man, proud, energetic, and rash. Now he was old and tired, though perhaps wiser. Of course these concerns would mean nothing to a vampire. When and if they met, would they recognize each other? Did vampires understand aging, and would Alexandru’s human mind comprehend a face that hadn’t changed in half a century?
He wasn’t sure what awakened him from his reverie. Not a noise, certainly, as the viewhole transmitted only images. The magical lens was beginning to darken and blur, so he tapped it once more and inched his chair closer, eyes riveted on the stone path and the stable gate.
“Some more tea, please, Mihail,” he said in a tense voice without turning his head.
The servant rose behind him with a clank and lumbered off to the hearth. Alexandru had tried to convince him that he would be better off able to move freely, but Mihail had insisted upon ringing his wrists, ankles, and neck with every item of silver jewelry he could borrow for the night. Rosaries and watches and engagement rings and necklaces, anklets for dancing girls and a brooch from the last century covered him head to toe. Combined with a showy waterfall of purple flowers spilling from his pockets and twined in his hair, he looked like an ancient and bearded bridesmaid.
He brought the tea, clanking all the while, and Alexandru began to relax until, all of a sudden, movement caught his eye. Someone—something was coming up the path.
It was a white wolf, shining bright in the moonlight. A female, he saw, and not a large one. Then were two others, though she was clearly their leader. Caleb had mentioned them, Alexandru recalled vaguely. It didn’t occur to him to try to remember their names, but it comforted him that so far, nothing truly out of the ordinary had happened. The second wolf had ungainly limbs and a fluffy neck ruff that testified to his youth. The third was an ordinary gray, like Caleb but without the brown markings on his face.
The white wolf led her followers to a rocky outcropping where they sat with their noses high, listening, watching, and sniffing. Unlike domestic dogs, they were stealthy and alert, their body language muted. They didn’t bark or wag their tails or hang out their tongues, and when all three tensed simultaneously with the slightest baring of teeth, Alexandru grew nervous too and followed their line of sight.
This time the gray wolf that appeared was Caleb, but almost unrecognizable as the proud, strong animal he had been scant hours before. Scratched, covered with blood, cowering, he was being driven up the path by—
There was no longer any question of recognizing that face. Unchanged it was, with cruelty and evil that were as eternal as the Dark Magic that animated the Undead features.
Alexandru rose from his chair, placing his teacup carefully on the hearth. “Mihail,” he said tensely, “O’Connor’s warnings were correct. He is here.”
The servant’s cry was muffled by the jewelry and flowers, and Alexandru had to force him to approach the viewhole so that he might believe.
Mihail took a brief look, then sprang back with a scream. “He has—he has—”
“Werewolves, yes. They are not his willing companions, you see the silver chains around their necks. What he wants with them, I cannot say.”
Mihail fingered all of his own silver, almost incoherent in his terror. “But I… but no—But one of them is—”
“One of them is O’Connor, yes. If he gets in, though that shan’t happen, we will spare his life. The others we can kill.”
This was clearly not the point Mihail was trying to make. “Not the wolves,” he stammered, gesturing and pointing at the lens like a foreigner trying to order pastry in a bakery.
Alexandru approached and regarded the scene once more, then shut his eyes for more than a blink. When he spoke, his voice carried anger and resignation but little surprise. “Ana Maria,” he said. He smiled wryly as his former bride blew apart the stable gate with a well-aimed spell. It would take more than that to allow her into her old home.
“Ana Maria—and, and him!” babbled the servant, clanking. “That means—it means—”
“That they are hunting together once more,” said Alexandru coldly. “That she is still bound to him by what she called love, over fifty years ago.”
&n
bsp; “Not him—him!” Mihail looked just about ready to faint or throw up, whichever came first. “O’Connor!” he cried, the strain of too many names that could not be pronounced finally getting the better of him.
“O’Connor? But he is their prisoner.”
“He said vampires could change, could stop drinking—Those were…they were the Mistress’s words.”
“Mihail!” Alexandru snapped, drawing close to the servant as if about to slap him. “O’Connor is my trusted companion, and I forbid you to accuse him of consorting with Ana Maria. If it were not for his warnings, we would not be so prepared tonight, and we will both be grateful for his help come morning.” His face grew hard. “Right now it is up to you and me to keep our heads. In the library, in the uppermost drawer on the left-hand side, are a gun and a supply of silver bullets. You may fetch them, but as I have told you, we will spare O’Connor.”
Having a task seemed to allow Mihail to get hold of himself. He turned clumsily, about to shuffle into the library, when their ears rang with a resounding crack. A golden thunderbolt shot from a clear starry sky to strike the ground immediately in front of the stable gate.
The viewhole dimmed just as they caught a glimpse of a large black bird fluttering through the ruined gate, and Mihail’s screams were inaudible over the squeals and wails that began to emanate from the stone walls.
All color drained from Alexandru’s face. “The ward has been breached,” he whispered, but to himself, the magical alarm bells making conversation impossible. “The Jupiter ward.” He waved his hand, quieting the alarms to a less painful level, though the walls continued to complain as though they were tender. “I see now why they needed the wolves. We are safe from vampires for the time being, but there is nothing to keep living magical creatures out of the castle.”
As if on cue, a concert of howls arose from just outside the walls, within the castle courtyard.
Alexandru listened carefully. “We’ll have a spot of bother if all five get in,” he said, a false lightness replacing the ice in his tone. “Get those bullets, Mihail…but we spare O’Connor.”
“He brought them here!” the servant cried, perhaps unheard, and he turned and forced his reluctant bangled feet across the stone floor into the library.
The gun was in fact where it was supposed to be, and Mihail clutched it to his chest, nearly weeping. But the bullets, where were they? Shouldn’t they be with the gun? Panicked, he turned out drawers and kicked the desk, scattering purple flowers all the while.
Suddenly there was a crash and splintering of glass, and the heavy door leading to the greenhouse flew open with the weight of a two-hundred-pound animal. The old servant found himself, for the first time since his early childhood, face-to-face with a werewolf. He didn’t know whether it was O’Connor, nor did he care. It was a monster, covered with blood, oblivious to the shards of glass in its fur and paws and leering at the human in the way a famine victim stares at a bowl of porridge. As it howled, Mihail turned to run, tripped on an anklet, and fell flat on his face.
The werewolf approached, then took a whiff of the aconite and retreated back into the greenhouse. It was Caleb, in fact, and he knew the castle—well enough to know that the greenhouse was the easiest way in from the courtyard, and well enough to find the library from there. He wasn’t about to try to cross all that wolfsbane, though, and he went back to find Liszka chasing Vlad past an angry Venus Mantrap. Bela was paddling around in the spring, trying to find his way out past meowing pussy willows and a couple of bernacae.
There was a snap and a yelp, and Caleb approached the noise carefully, a wary eye on the Mantrap. But it was one of the hunter’s traps that had caught hold of Vlad’s hind leg at the thigh, digging its rusty jaws deep into his flesh. The stone under him still glowed blue, and a whisper from his human incarnation stirred in Caleb’s memory.
Liszka growled in his ear and he backed off. She was the leader now, and the helpless Vlad was hers to kill. Not staying to witness the spectacle, Caleb helped Bela from the spring and headed through another door into the old kitchens. His ears pressed flat as death cries issued from the greenhouse.
Frightened Grigore joined them, and it was three werewolves who opened the latched door from the greenhouse and wandered into the last room before the Great Hall. They could smell Alexandru now—tainted only slightly with wolfsbane—and they didn’t linger. The door out of the kitchens was locked, but Caleb hadn’t forgotten all the tricks of his Maine days. He stood on his hind feet, inserted a claw, and listened for the tumblers in the lock to fall.
They were in the Great Hall. Mihail had vanished, trembling and incoherent in his room, leaving Alexandru alone to face three werewolves.
The old wizard summoned his strongest curse and hurled it at Grigore, who stumbled and fell like a tranquilized bear. The spell gave Caleb and Bela enough time to attack, and Alexandru barely had the chance to levitate himself to avoid their snaps. He took off through the castle at a stone-hopping run, changing direction over and over the way rabbits do, leading the wolves towards the stones that gave off a bluish light.
The combination of his vague human memories and Alexandru’s stone-hopping dance was enough to tell Caleb to avoid the blue ones. This slowed him down. He began to feel his exhaustion from the ordeal earlier in the evening, and it was difficult to change direction quickly with his large body and long legs. Alexandru was getting away, but somehow the wolf no longer cared, slowing his pace and allowing Bela to pass.
Back in the greenhouse, Vlad was dead. Liszka had been furious to find his throat protected by thick gold chain. She tore at the soft metal and flung it aside, finally getting her target free as her enemy gave up the fight, paralyzed with the pain in his leg. Once accomplished, the act disgusted her and she fled from the sight of the dead body, following the scent of her pack through the open doors to the kitchens and Great Hall. The small sounds of breaking glass had not registered with her, nor did she take note of the noises she left behind: faint buzzing, a gurgle and hiss of water turning to steam, and then a crackle of dry leaves and the topple of a tree.
Grigore was just awakening on the floor inside the Great Hall. Liszka helped him up with nudges from her bloody snout, and she sat back to utter a triumphant howl that would tell her pack they had won.
Her howl was cut short by a cry of pain. Even a werewolf is grieved when her child is hurt, and the suffering voice was Bela’s. Liszka went tearing over the stones, Grigore trailing groggily, sniffing Bela’s trail until she found him in the entrance hall.
Bela had, like Vlad, been caught in a trap, and Alexandru was advancing on him. Liszka and Grigore sprang at the wizard, not to eat him but to protect their cub, heedless of danger to themselves.
Caleb had other ideas. Those blue stones meant something to him. He sniffed his way into the prison room where he had been earlier that day, smelling his own human scent and knowing somehow that it was friendly, trying to remember what it was he had to do.
There were dozens of levers and pulleys in the room, but only a few that smelled of recent touch. Caleb leaned his paws against them, one at a time, puzzled at their mechanism. Turning wheels and pulling handles were not natural motions to him, and he pushed and gnawed futilely for a while before a lever began to move and loud creaks came from all over the castle.
He had sprung the traps. Exiting the prison to see what the noise had meant, he found Bela unconscious, cursed by Alexandru as he stood in the trap. The wizard was just managing to hold Liszka and Grigore at bay, and as Caleb approached, began levitating the body of the young wolf to hold their attention.
All three watched in horror as Alexandru lifted the apparently lifeless wolf, the youngest of the Fives, the only cub to join their ranks in years. His body fell with a thud inside the prison room, and as his parents ran to his aid, the door was slammed and barred behind them.
Showing no more emotion than if he’d put the cat out for the night, Alexandru secured the steel bar (what he wo
uld have given at that moment for a silver one) and went to find Mihail in his bedroom. The servant was sitting bolt upright in bed, clinging to his garlic and purple flowers and moving his lips in supplication to some unknown force. Any sounds he may have made were covered by the ever-present whimper of the damaged wards, but at least the wolves were silent now, walled within the thick stone.
“A—a—are you h-h-hurt, Master Arghezi?” Mihail stammered, faithfully sticking to his duty till the last.
“For now, I am unharmed,” Alexandru replied grimly. “But we must both rest while we can. We haven’t seen the last of the vampires.”
He didn’t show it, but he was exhausted. Once in his bedroom he fell immediately into a dreamless sleep, lulled by the moaning walls. The crackling of the desiccated greenhouse and the steady crunching of thousands of cedar beetles went unnoticed as midnight turned to twilight, and twilight to dawn.
37. Day of the Vampires
Well before dawn life stirred on that cold, gray promontory in the Carpathians, home to Castle Arghezi. Soft moanings issued from the walls inside, remnants of the alarms that told of the breach of the Jupiter wards.
One human was awake, while another slept. Four werewolves were semi-conscious, all wounded to some degree. The fifth werewolf was neither awake nor asleep. His lifeless body lay among shards of glass and the ruins of a once-thriving greenhouse. The floor was covered by toppled trees wreathed in brown leaves, gnarled bare vines, and piles of yellow-brown leaves drifting as if winter had already come.
Humans and near-humans were not the only living creatures in the castle. A few birds flitted about the high-ceilings of the Great Hall and library. Small and cream-colored, they darted silently and swiftly, seeking something over the doors and windows. Occasionally a bird found its mark and then flew through the library, carrying a cream-colored burden in its claws. It escaped into the chilly pre-dawn air through the large, jagged hole in the glass wall of the greenhouse adjacent to the library.
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