Anton Van Helsing’s knee was weak and rigid from an errant canister shot from a battle with the Ottoman Empire. He would have lost the leg entirely, had the metal not passed cleanly through and the wound been expertly cauterized by a precise army doctor. Still, the leg could not bear his full weight, limiting his movement and placing the burden of grazing the sheep on his young son Nicolai.
Despite his injury, Anton was still a strong man with broad shoulders and a deep, soft voice. Calculating eyes sat above a thick beard and long mustache that was curly and half-grey. He loved his son dearly and showed him so every day through biting criticism to sharpen his mind and hard labor to strengthen his back.
Nicolai tried to be an obedient son. He awoke every morning when nothing else stirred and the sky was still dark. He moved silently, the routine so familiar that he had no need of light. After quickly dressing, he would retrieve the sack of leftover food that his mother had set out for him. Then he quietly exited the house and began releasing the sheep from their pens. When they were all together, he began the daily journey with the wooly creatures. He was a hardworking shepherd, patiently directing them and retrieving any strays as they made their way to the lush pastures to the east of the forest. With his father’s staff, he stood guard over the animals as they fattened themselves on the soft grass. When Nicolai performed his role particularly well by finding an escaped lamb or helping a struggling ewe give birth, he received a reward with a sip from his father’s Țuică brandy cask.
In the evenings while his wife cooked the meal of Stufăt stew, Anton schooled his only son with lessons in swordplay or in marksmanship with his old smoothbore musket. The ancient weapon once used to kill deadly marauders in war now served to protect the family livelihood against a new sort of marauder. Every year, the vicious wolves that roamed the forest at night killed an increasing number of sheep. Their neighbors suffered the same fate and soon a bounty of three rubles was placed on the head of any wolf. The village Wolvers known as Lupări regularly hunted the beasts. They brought in many heads, but sheep continued to be taken.
Anton had his own theory. He thought that one large wolf, more cunning and vicious, was to blame. He repeated this idea, as he had many nights before, when the family gathered around the table. “I have seen a great lup uriăș in the night, lurking beyond the forest edges. Trei times have I fired. Only once has my musket ball found its mark. Now the Vârcolac is warry of the weapon.”
Nicolai rarely questioned his father, but tonight he was too curious to hold his tongue. “Father, what is a Vârcolac?”
Anton’s reply was somber and thoughtful. “An undead man who has become a wolf.”
“I’ll have no talk of Vârcolac at my table.” Nicolai’s mother Stefania was the exact opposite of his father. She was kind and joyful, with an easy laugh and a song on her lips as she worked. Stefania was younger than Anton by half as many years and her light brown hair was still free from any grey. Her hazel eyes brimmed with love for her family as she scolded her husband. At the same time, she gave him an extra helping of stew and placed her hand on his arm.
Her warm smile easily distracted Anton. “Husband, tell us the story of your first battle. I do so love that one.” She knew her husband well and Anton’s mood brightened as he spun his tale of military strategy and unparalleled bravery. Many nights passed in the same way, with Stefania’s cheer fending off the dark threat of what lurked outside in the night.
The year when Nicolai turned fourteen, the same number of sheep were taken. Stefania feared for her son’s life when he walked alone with the sheep to the pastures. At her urging, Anton agreed that Nicolai would bring his father’s musket each day in place of the staff. Anton took his son aside and spoke to him in a grave tone. “You are a man now. Remember, only fire if there is no other way and you have a clean shot at the Vârcolac.”
Each day Nicolai set out with the musket in his hand, a wheel of Cașcăvăl cheese, and his mother’s Virșli sausage. Stefania would kiss him and secretly hand over a few extra hard bread rolls left over from the evening meal. These he tucked into his cape. Once in the pasture, he would patrol with the musket over his shoulder. He was the picture of military discipline. After a few days with no sightings of the beast, he fell to reenacting mock-battles of his father’s war stories. Before long, the musket was left leaning against a rock as Nicolai daydreamed of hunting for wolf heads with the village Lupări.
The dream was always the same. Nicolai could see it in glaring detail. With one amazing shot, he would shoot the wolf through the eye and return triumphantly to the village a hero. His bravery would save his family and earn him a kiss from the baker’s beautiful daughter, Catina. Suddenly, Nicolai looked up and noticed the fading light. He whispered to himself with growing dread. “Oh no, it’s almost dark. Tată will be so angry.” Quickly, he began rounding up the sheep and drove them towards home as fast as their short legs would allow. The musket sat forlornly against the rock where Nicolai had left it.
It was well past sunset when he reached home with the sheep. His father was waiting on the porch of the small farmhouse with his crutch under one arm and a deep scowl on his face. “Nicolai! Why are you so late? Your mama is beside herself with…”
A terrible howl interrupted him and pierced the silence of the nearby forest.
Anton’s face changed from anger to worry. “Where is the musket?”
The image of the musket propped up against a rock flashed into Nicolai’s mind. “I’m sorry, Tată. I must have left it in the pasture.”
“Lă năibă,” he cursed under his breath. “Nătărău boy. Run and fetch it now. I will pen the sheep. Stefania come and help me!”
His mother rushed outside. She had been standing just inside the doorway and had heard the entire conversation. She flashed Nicolai a reproachful look then spat on the ground. She appealed to the gods, “Vâlvă protect us from the Evil Eye. Go Nicolai! Dumnezeu grant you speed.” She moved towards the pens to help her husband with the sheep.
Nicolai saw the fear in his mother’s eyes, so he turned and ran. He ran until his lungs burned and his heart pounded in his chest like an angry drum. Then he ran even more. The moon had risen full in the night sky and provided him with ample light to see. Finally, Nicolai reached the rock with the musket still leaning against it. He snatched it up and paused, his body heaving for breath.
Another terrible howl sounded in the woods, this time closer to his home. Nicolai’s feet began moving of their own accord. He raced home as fast as he could with the musket in one hand. A sense of dread began to rise in his chest. He pushed his body to greater speed and ignored the pain in his legs. The journey home from the pasture had never seemed longer.
As he neared the ferma, he knew at once that something was wrong. The sheep were still out of their pens and instead clustered together by the barn. The house was unusually dark and he couldn’t see his parents. Where were they? He closed the distance and began calling out nervously for them. “Mama, Tată, where are you?”
A choking cough came from the mass of sheep near the barn. Nicolai moved them out of the way. In their midst was his father, lying on the ground and covered in blood. Nicolai rushed to his side, tears already forming. “Tată, did you fall? Get up. Where’s Mama? What happened?”
His father lifted his head, then groaned and lowered it. Blood and dirt covered his arms and face. There was a gaping wound in the side of his father’s neck, seeping an alarming amount of dark red fluid. Nicolai froze. He had seen the carcasses of devoured sheep and even slaughtered lambs before—but nothing prepared him for the sight of his father wounded and hemorrhaging blood.
Anton’s eyes focused on his weeping son. He lifted one grisly hand to staunch the flow of blood from his neck. He struggled against the pain and drowsiness in an attempt to speak to his son. “Nicolai, it was the Vârcolac. Stefania was behind the barn when it attacked. I tried to save her, my poor soție, but it was already upon her by the time I got there. I tried
to kill it with my staff, but I fell—my înjurătură leg. The Vârcolac was on me in the blink of an eye and savaged my neck.”
Nicolai stared at his father in disbelief. “No, it can’t be. I will help her.”
“No. Listen to me. Stefania was still moving and the Vârcolac left me to drag her body into the forest. He must have torn her throat out by now. It is the only reason that I am still alive.”
“I will bring her back!”
“Nicolai, listen. I am dying. It isn’t your fault. It is my sins during the war that has brought the Evil Eye upon us…” He broke off in a coughing fit wet with blood.
“Tată, I will kill the Vârcolac.”
“Yes…yes you must, or it will take you as well. The musket will not be enough. You must outsmart it. Come…closer; it is hard to speak…I will tell you what you must do.”
Nicolai listened desperately as his father gave him his final set of instructions. After he was finished, the hero of his life grasped feebly at his arm. “I’m so proud of you,” he gasped, “Your mother—she loves you…”
They held each other until the affection in his father’s eyes slowly faded into a blank stare as he died in his arms. Nicolai wept bitter tears. Despite his father’s words, he knew his carelessness had caused his parents’ demise. He spent that night surrounded by the sheep and lying by his father’s body—chilled to the bone every time a howl sounded in the distance, not knowing if the wolf would return or not. His heart filled with a fierce loathing.
The next morning Nicolai woke before the dawn. At first, it all seemed like a horrible dream. Then he looked over at the corpse next to him. He slowly got to his feet and began ushering the sheep back into their pens. Nicolai retrieved his father’s pickaxe and shovel from the barn. Then he started digging. When the hole was deep enough, he carefully lowered the body in and tearfully began covering his father with dirt.
Next, Nicolai walked behind the barn, pointedly ignoring the areas of ground stained red with his mother’s blood. He walked halfway between the forest and the barn and began digging a second hole. He dug until his hands blistered and cracked. He continued to dig as the blisters broke open and his blood soaked the handle of the shovel. Even as new blisters formed, Nicolai continued digging until he hit hardened rock. He paused to wipe and bandage his hands; he would still need them for the work ahead.
After a brief rest and a lunch of cold Virșli sausage with hardened rolls, he bent to pick up his father’s pickaxe. He worked late into the afternoon making the pit deeper and wider. He broke and moved the stone out until it was about two meters deep and three meters in length and width. As the sun traveled lower in the sky, Nicolai covered his work with thin branches and hay from the roof of the barn. He retrieved his father’s axe and began the work of felling several small trees. These he hauled into the house, ruining his mother’s floor. As the night grew later, he barred and locked the door. He continued working through the night, splitting the trees into long beams. Finally, he fell exhausted onto his small cot in the corner and cried himself to sleep.
In the morning, the work continued until the pit was even longer and enough trees were cut to a good size. He retrieved his father’s knives and began whittling the ends of the beams into spear points. By midday, he had enough to fill the bottom of his pit. He dug a small hole for each spear, their points facing towards the greying sky. He secured the spears with the rocks he had broken apart and then covered the top of the pit with a thin lattice of sticks and hay.
Next, Nicolai tore open the back wall of the barn that faced the forest, leaving it exposed to the elements on one side. He herded most of the sheep inside and tied them by the neck with rope attached to the heavy support beams. Those that didn’t fit inside, he slaughtered and spread their blood upon the ground and over the pit. He had followed his father’s plan and he would have his revenge on that accursed wolf. When it was dark enough, he cleaned and loaded the musket. Then he hid it on the floor and covered it with hay. Nicolai sat down to wait with the sheep in the barn, his eyes trained on the dark trees of the forest. Would the plan work?
He must have dozed off for a moment. His eyes shot open to the bleating of sheep. The wolf had come. They were skittish and on edge from the smell of blood that still lay thick on the ground. When they caught wind of the predator, the fuzzy animals panicked and began to strain against the ropes in an attempt to run.
Nicolai could see the large wolf out of the corner of his eye as it crept from the edge of the surrounding forest. He sat perfectly still on the floor of the exposed barn, every muscle taut and holding his breath as the beast approached. The wolf was a massive slinking mass of black-brown fur, graying at the throat—a killing machine. It was the largest one Nicolai had ever seen. The pink tongue came out to lick its muzzle, exposing razor-sharp teeth and long canines. The predator could smell the blood and the sheep. But the beast’s keen eyes were cautious. Nicolai was sure the wolf could see him. It moved closer, stopping only a few meters short of the spiked pit.
As the wolf stalked him, the sheep grew frantic in their attempt to escape. Nicolai had tied the knots well and they held. The wolf grew excited by the screams of the herd and padded forward to the edge of the pit. Suddenly it paused as if sensing something wrong.
Nicolai rose to his feet and bared his teeth. “Here Vârcolac. I am here. Come and finish your killing or I will grow into a man and one day kill you.”
The wolf growled in response to the challenge. Nicolai stared into his enemy’s eyes and saw his own death there. “Pulă meă! Come. I am here!” He bent down and pulled the musket from beneath the hay on the barn floor. There was a flicker of recollection in the Vârcolac’s eyes and it leapt forward—nearly clearing the pit in front of it. His mother must have been looking down upon him that night, for the edge of the pit collapsed and the hindquarters of the wolf fell downwards and onto the sharp spikes below.
The creature let out a high-pitched whimper and it growled as its front paws struggled to pull itself forward. Nicolai strode forward three bounds, aimed his musket, and fired between the wolf’s eyes.
CHAPTER 12.
T
HE DEMON EYE
On the day he killed the wolf and avenged his parents, Van Helsing became a man. Though he searched the woods for many days, he never found his mother’s body. This filled him with a hatred of wolves, and he swore to continue to hunt them. He sold the remaining sheep and his family’s land and began hunting the bounties on the heads of wolves with the other Lupări. He used what money he had to purchase a Prussian, bolt-action Dreyse rifle. This rifle was breech-loaded and could fire up to twelve rounds per minute, even while lying on the ground.
He soon became an expert hunter of wolves and quickly outpaced the others in claiming the bounties. He was fiercely dedicated to his craft and would lie under cover for days, waiting for an opportunity to kill any wolf. The skill and fame of Van Helsing grew until neighboring villages began sending him letters. They would beg his help to kill troublesome beasts that had taken children or continually eluded other hunters. The rubles began pouring in and he could soon afford better clothes, equipment, and weapons. Van Helsing eventually expanded his choice of prey to include the huge brown bears that proved even harder to kill.
His favorite technique was to conceal several double-spring steel bear traps at the base of a tree. He lured the huge bear in with half of a deer carcass hanging from the tree. He lay in wait until the bear went for the bait. One or more of the steel traps sprung to cripple the bear. He ended the animal’s life quickly with a shot to the head or heart. He lived this life for many years, hardened by the constant hunt. He did not hate the bears as he did the wolves. They could actually be quite gentle and generally avoided humans. But he would answer any summons to hunt any beast that killed a person—even monsters.
Most of these ‘monsters’ were merely rabid wolves or dogs. Van Helsing didn’t believe that real monsters existed in the world. That was until he r
eceived a letter about a diăvol reported to have killed two families in eastern Transylvania. The rumors claimed the demon had entered their homes silently in the night and brutally murdered the men, women, and children inside. No animal tracks of any kind were found around the homes. All traps and hunting parties had come up empty.
Van Helsing left at once, taking with him his new weapon: a recently modified, repeating Zhūgé crossbow of Chinese design. The composite-recurve design featured a box of bolts, which instantly reloaded by working a lever back and forth. This single movement tightened the crossbow string and dropped a new bolt into place with the next ready in place above. This weapon allowed him to shoot up to forty of the deadly bolts in a single minute. It was much faster than any other weapon and was lethal up to eighty meters. Van Helsing had added something else to his arsenal for close-quarters fighting. The Damascus-steel, double-edge longsword he now carried had a brass pommel and had served him well in dispatching a wolf that had recently taken him by surprise. He took the repeating crossbow, Prussian rifle, and Damascus-steel sword with him as he traveled to the small village in eastern Transylvania.
He arrived where the rumors said the two families had lived. Most of the villagers had abandoned their homes, but a few stalwart families remained. Van Helsing didn’t bother to speak to any of them. Instead, he dug a shallow hole, lay down in it, and covered himself with brush. He waited, repeating crossbow at the ready, for three nights. During the days, he left his hole and scoured the surrounding woods for signs of any large predator. He found none. These woods were strangely empty of any animals, as if driven away by a wildfire. The moon was full on the evening of the fourth night. Van Helsing had nearly given up when he noticed something strange about a small house on the edge of the village.
Box Set: The Wolf of Dorian Gray Series: Books 1-3 Page 20
