More life, hard to see or to hear, gnawed and chewed with ferocious hunger high above the shelves and books of the library. Thousands of nondescript brown beetles happily munched on the thick beams of cedar supporting the roof. They had been feasting most of the night and had not run out of their favorite food as dawn approached.
Outside the castle, sheep huddled in the stable in the shadow of the outer wall, together with an irritated cow who expected to be milked before too long. Faint rustlings came from the sheep and occasionally soft lowing could be heard from the cow. There were no living creatures on the other side of the wall, yet two figures robed in black stood before the thick stone wall ringing the castle. Before them yawned an arched opening, the broken and twisted remains of a wooden gate lying on either side of the portal.
The two might have been statues carved from a fine, luminous marble. A tall, thin man with a sharp face, dark hair and eyes blacker than pitch stood next to a gaunt and graceful woman, shorter than the man with long dark hair flowing unbound down her back. Neither moved as color seeped from the eastern sky, fading as if the plug had been pulled on a sink full of water of the deepest blue. Neither moved as pale birds bearing bulbs of garlic soared silently over their heads. Neither moved as the round swollen moon flirted with the mountains on the western horizon.
A movement from inside the castle, not a bird but a human in the greenhouse, roused the man to speak.
“He lives,” hissed the man to his companion, “and the time has not come to enter the castle. Let us move before we are seen.”
The woman allowed herself to be guided away from the archway, giving no indication that she had heard or understood what he said. She stumbled and the man took her in his arms to keep her from falling, circling her waist securely with one hand while languidly stroking her cheek with the other.
“Soon,” he whispered as he stared into the inky blackness of her eyes. “Soon we will feast on him, and on any others remaining in the castle.”
She trembled, shivering like someone who had spent too long in icy waters, although she could not feel the cold.
“And the others?” she stammered through chattering teeth. “If any of the others are alive…”
“We kill them first, of course,” he replied smoothly, tightening his grip on her waist. “The werewolves have served their purpose. They are of no use any more.”
She nodded slowly, not meeting his eyes. The taste of human blood, the smell of human blood menaced her by its absence, hurt her because she wanted it so badly and was denied. Soon I will stop thinking about anything, she thought. Soon I will be released from this need.
He let her go, a wickedly pleasant smile on his thin, bloodless lips. In an instant, the two figures vanished and two black bats fluttered above the castle walls, heading in the direction of the four-story tower on the east side of the castle. The side of the tower facing the dawn was now brilliantly lit with the first harsh yellow rays of sun, which the bats avoided. They settled on a window ledge on the shadowed western side, the perch giving them an excellent view of the vaulted wooden roof of the castle.
Alexandru Arghezi stepped over the large pieces of glass as best he could, although his feet crunched harshly on the small shards he could not avoid. His pre-dawn survey of the castle had revealed surprisingly little damage, considering that last night a pack of werewolves had free reign inside for a brief time. Furniture had been knocked over in the Great Hall and library, but the wolves had not had time to destroy much else before he had confined them to the tower room.
Except the greenhouse. How could wolves, even werewolves, wreak such havoc? A rough circle of about six feet in diameter punctured the outer glass wall. Some jagged glass pieces remained, hanging precariously as if about to plummet to the ground. Tendrils of lead, which had supported the panes, curled at the edges of the rent, looking like the blackened fingers of roasted corpses. Elsewhere inside, tables had been toppled and the pots that had rested on them lay scattered and broken randomly on the stone floor. The body of a black werewolf, an average-sized male and one of the ones that Cuza had held prisoner, lay sprawled on the floor. The dried and crusted blood adorning the large wound on the beast’s neck told the tale of its death.
They would just as soon kill each other as eat humans, Alexandru thought angrily as he levitated the creature up and out through the wolf-sized hole in the glass. He caused the body to fall with a heavy thud to the ground outside, not wishing to see the sickening transformation that would come soon, turning the dead wolf back into some semblance of human form. The foolish idealist O’Connor talked about them as if they had some kind of animal nobility, but Alexandru had trouble believing it, especially after last night.
With the beast out of his sight, Alexandru saw that the damage to the greenhouse was too extensive and too unusual to have been caused by werewolves alone. Every single plant was dead, and there had been hundreds of them. The pots resting on tables or the floor, the hanging baskets held from great iron hooks on the stone wall, all were filled with shriveled death. The enormous Venus Mantrap lay on its side, no less of a corpse in some ways than the werewolf, its large leaves blackened and curling at the edges. Withered leaves in shades of brown, yellow, and dull green mingled with shards of glass on the floor, or clung to skeletal remains of plants he could no longer recognize. The spring had dried up completely; only the dead bodies of a few fish and bernacae marked where it had been.
More than werewolves, his old foe Cuza was responsible for this destruction. A Desiccation Demon had obviously been at work in the greenhouse, and Alexandru did not doubt that any other water in the rest of the castle would also have vanished. Searching the detritus on the floor, he came across a pale white eggshell, almost a complete half and larger than both of his hands together. Allium birds, he remembered, made their nests from the papery skins of garlic. Release enough of them from a magical egg and they would take all the garlic they could find, flying off to nest.
With a mixture of disgust and appreciation for the horrible cleverness of his enemy, Alexandru threw down the shell, smashing it on the hard stones. The white fragments mingled with glass and dead leaves in a mosaic of ruin. The two werewolves captured by Cuza must have brought these things into the castle by some means that Alexandru had yet to determine. Was this all they had brought? A more thorough search of the castle was called for.
First, however, Alexandru assured himself that the Allios Spell on the greenhouse windows still held. This powerful enchantment, which repelled the Undead, required the heart of a dead vampire to protect an object like a door or window. Alexandru had collected plenty of these in his hunts, but had none on hand currently. He was relieved that the greenhouse was still protected, as were all the other exterior doors and windows.
A vampire couldn’t walk through any door in the castle; a bat couldn’t fly through any window. Yet Cuza had carefully prepared the way, as if he had some means of gaining entry. This thought made the old wizard slightly nervous, though he would not admit that to himself. He suddenly felt too exposed in the greenhouse and made his way slowly back into the library.
He stood briefly in that room, taking in the high shelves that reached up to the dark roof beams. Books crowded almost to the ceiling, for wizards never worried about needing ladders to reach the highest volumes. He wondered if he should take the time to look up other magical means that Cuza might use to get into the castle. As he righted a couple of fallen chairs, he found a handful of dead beetles on the floor. They were small and unremarkable. Probably they had been swept in from the greenhouse by the invading werewolves, he thought. He threw them down and left the library. Perhaps there would be time later for research. For now, he could not imagine how Cuza hoped to gain entry except by force.
Dawn was breaking. He could see it on the tips of the mountains visible to the north of the castle. Mihail must be roused, and the werewolves as well. When the vampires attacked, he would need all the allies he could get.
> Crossing the Great Hall, he caught sight of himself between two large mirrors, and was reassured that not all of the defenses against the Undead had been toppled. The bulbs and braids of garlic that had graced the walls last night, however, had been stripped to the last clove. The image of Cuza came into his mind: tall, arrogant, and looking just as Alexandru remembered him from their last meeting. Last night the hated vampire had stood confidently outside the castle, holding two werewolves on leashes like tame dogs. This had not seemed surprising to the old wizard, since he knew well from experience how werewolves could be subdued with the appropriate silver objects.
Seeing Ana Maria had not surprised him either. Although six years of hunting vampires in the mountains had turned up no mention of his former bride, he always knew she would return—and that she would return with Cuza.
Regret was not something that often troubled Alexandru, but he keenly regretted ever admitting the smoothly mannered stranger who arrived at the castle over five decades ago. An old friend of his father’s—that was how Cuza had represented himself, and they had all believed him at the time. For who would suspect a vampire, one of those creatures of Darkness that crept about in the night, of showing up at the door and inviting himself in?
He had been foolish not to read the signs. The smiling stranger’s stay lengthened, and Alexandru had been pleased that his lonely wife and shy brother had someone else for company. He was young then, only a few years out of school, concerned with building up the library and with scholarly research. He had not encountered a vampire except in textbooks or in tales from his long-dead father. He did not see the cancer spreading throughout the castle until it was too late—too late for Mircea and for Ana Maria.
How she had railed at him in the end, telling him coldly of her devotion to the stranger who he now knew to be one of the Undead. He loves me and needs me, she had declared, which is more than you ever did. The words meant nothing to him, for by then he was numb from wave upon wave of betrayal and death. Her dark empty eyes (why hadn’t he realized how she had changed?) told him everything he needed to know. His wife was dead, replaced by a cruelly accurate copy, a simulation of life, an abomination.
In the end he had left the castle. He’d known that he was no match against her and Cuza together, and there had been Mircea to deal with. Now it seemed very likely that he would get the opportunity to meet the two of them again, but this time he was not alone. With these thoughts, he hurried to wake the others and begin the preparations.
“Mihail,” he intoned from the door of the servant’s bedroom, “it is dawn.”
The old man was asleep sitting up, one hand clutching a sprig of wolfsbane, extending it towards an invisible phantom. He’d slept in all of his silver jewelry, all except the brooch, which had apparently been too uncomfortable and lay in a crumpled heap by the bed. His eyes sprung open at his master’s call.
“You have nothing more to fear from werewolves,” Alexandru informed him somewhat tauntingly. “In fact, they will be able to help us against a worse threat.”
At that thought, Mihail’s hand went to his neck to feel for his braid of garlic. It was gone.
“Allium birds,” his master informed him darkly. “There is no garlic left in the castle, nor water. There is no time to waste. I need you to prepare a potion.”
38. Hopeful Monsters
Dawn often caught the werewolves by surprise. When the sun went down on the night of the full moon, they imagined they had always been wolves and always would be, living their twelve hours as if they were a lifetime. Locked in the prison room of Castle Arghezi, behind the high wall that screened the eastern sky, Caleb, Liszka, Bela, and Grigore anticipated no end to their eternal night.
None had slept, occupied with their own wounds and those of their packmates. Grigore was the only one uninjured, and he dutifully licked the punctures on Liszka’s neck and shoulders from her battle with Vlad. She was impatient, though, shaking him off to attend to Bela with a concern that was fully maternal.
The young wolf had been unconscious when he was dropped to the stone floor of the prison room. Unable to anticipate his fall, he’d landed at an odd angle that had wrenched one shoulder and broken several ribs. At least his neck and back were unhurt, as Liszka discovered when she nuzzled him all over, instinct telling her the difference between sleep and paralysis.
Worse than the fall, Alexandru’s trap, intended for werebears the size of African lions, had severed Bela’s right rear paw at the ankle. His entire leg was covered with blood and, unhindered by human disgust or pity, Liszka had spent the night cleaning him up and stopping the bleeding. The magic that let werewolves take lead bullets and killing curses made their wounds heal quickly, but they were still mortal. They could suffocate, break bones, or bleed to death. Any injury unhealed at dawn would become that much more painful, as a werewolf in human form healed only slightly more rapidly than an ordinary wizard.
When Liszka tired, Caleb would step in to help. But most of the time he spent pacing, pawing at the handles and gear levers as if they would tell him what to do. For the first time ever, his wolf incarnation felt guilty. Liszka had led Pack Five to his defense, and her cub had been injured by humans. In a head-lowered, tail-between-his-legs kind of way that admitted of no excuses or apologies, the big gray wolf knew that it was all his fault.
As dawn broke he nuzzled the exhausted Liszka, somewhat surprised that she accepted him without anger, laying her bloody white face over his shoulder in a gesture of weariness and friendship. They stretched out on their sides to transform, quietly enduring one more pain among many.
The stings of his dozens of werewolf bites, and the burns around his neck from the silver cord, were nothing to the human Caleb compared to the pain of responsibility and guilt. “I’m sorry,” was the first thing he managed to say, grateful for the darkness that concealed the others’ wounds.
Liszka said nothing, taking Bela’s head gently in her arms, afraid now to look at the mangled leg she’d spent all night licking. The boy was barely conscious, which was perhaps a good thing.
Half by instinct and half by intellect, Caleb knew that Bela had lost a lot of blood and would need to drink. Casually, for it was a very easy spell, he summoned Water from the greenhouse spring, cupping his hands in anticipation.
He frowned as no water appeared and tried again, forcing his foggy mind to concentrate. He was in worse shape than he thought if even this spell was beyond him. Standing with effort, he went to the unyielding stone door and tried again.
Still he was unable to call or sense water. It was as if none remained in the castle. Had Alexandru strengthened the defenses? It seemed unlikely, and he had no trouble summoning clothes and blankets from his bedroom. Cautiously, afraid to stir up either of their emotions, Caleb approached Liszka and gave her a pillow and blanket for Bela and a set of clothes for her. Grigore hung in the background, miserable and cold, and took a bathrobe with a silent gesture of thanks.
Liszka slipped an old MIT sweatshirt over her head, shivering in the chilly darkness, then pulled on the matching pants. She helped her son into a more comfortable position than the sphinx-like crouch he’d retained as he transformed, covering him with a blanket. Bela’s face was chilly and dry, and he needed fluids. But try as he might, Caleb couldn’t summon any water.
He could have opened the door with a simple spell, but he doubted that he’d find water more easily by running around the castle, especially as weak and ill as he was. Finally the idea occurred to him to give up on the running spring and feel for fluids in the kitchen. A bottle of wine came first, which was not the thing for an injured, dehydrated werewolf, but on the second try he obtained two liters of fresh apple cider.
Drinking was nearly a miracle for Bela. He still moaned quietly in pain, but his eyes grew clear and he was able to speak a few words. As he dropped into a peaceful sleep, Caleb and the other members of Pack Five finished the juice and lay down to rest. They were all asleep as the first rays of
the sun peeked over the castle wall and through the tiny barred window of the prison.
Caleb wasn’t sure at first what awakened him. Filtered sunlight dotted the stone floor, illuminating the three werewolves who had given him their unquestioning loyalty for fifty-eight months. And now, when he was no longer their leader, they had come unbidden to his defense. Grigore slept soundly over to one side, his skinny body wrapped in cloaks and blankets against the chill. Liszka and Bela were both sitting up, the mother murmuring words of comfort into her son’s ear. Bela looked tired but no longer in agony, the pain replaced by dull dread as he wondered if he was crippled for life.
Despite his guilt, Caleb was proud of Bela, who healed so quickly and was so brave. He’d seen the boy show up abandoned in the forest when he was nine years old, because that was just what the local villagers did when their children were bitten by werewolves. Smart, strong, uncomplaining, Bela had rapidly become a full member of the pack as well as a skilled wizard-in-training.
Caleb hadn’t given up his role as Bela’s father when he resigned as Alpha, which gave him both gratification and worry. His days were too chaotic for him to always be there, with his second life as a vampire-hunter at the castle, and he suspected he was too irresponsible and conflicted to be able to offer anyone else parental advice. He could give Bela books and grade his homework, sometimes even pat him on the head, but he never really knew the boy. He didn’t even know how much his personality traits, both positive and negative, came from the bite he’d received from Vlad.
Was it right to be proud of him for being brave, or was that to be expected of their kind? Certainly Caleb had never considered himself particularly courageous, especially not now, as he called himself a coward and a traitor. The Sixes called him “mad dog” but Vlad’s mocking “Fido” was more apt, his dealings with humans putting his own pack at risk. This was part of the reason he had resigned as their leader.
Only the Moon Howls Page 25
