by Natalie Grey
“What is it?” Barnabas asked curiously.
“I didn’t, uh... I didn’t think it would actually be this picturesque.” Marcus shook his head. “But it really is as gorgeous as it’s supposed to be. I wish I had someone to bring here,” he added mournfully.”
“Self-pity is not becoming,” Barnabas said severely.
“It’s just annoying,” Marcus muttered. “John has Jean, Bobcat has Yelena…”
“John does not have Jean.” Barnabas’ tone had grown sharper, and he fixed Marcus with a glare. “Nor does Bobcat have Yelena. Both have cultivated meaningful relationships with the ladies in question. As could you.”
“But on a space station—”
“I refuse to waste any further time speaking of this.”
“Fine.” Marcus was just opening his mouth to ask about the seeds they were hoping to get when Tabitha raced past them at high speed.
“Woohooooooo!”
She had seen a rental shop for bikes in the nearby town and had absolutely insisted that she be allowed to rent one. While Barnabas argued that it was a tourist trap and vastly overpriced, Marcus had quietly shelled out the money to the shop’s proprietor.
When Barnabas fixed him with a glare, Marcus shrugged. “We have more money than God.”
That only made the glare worse. Barnabas had a rather old-fashioned concept of heresy.
However, he was not immune to the sight of Tabitha racing around on the bike, and he smiled fondly after her.
“See, you’re glad she has it!” Marcus said now.
“I am,” Barnabas admitted. “I forget sometimes that Tabitha’s youth was rather interrupted. It is good to see her enjoying something so simple. I worry about her at times.”
“Oh?” Marcus glanced at the farmhouse they were approaching. It was still a ways down the road, but he was beginning to pick out details like the tiles on the roof, the smooth sides of the building, and the garden in front.
“She is young,” Barnabas said simply. “She is very clever, of course, but that only makes her lack of experience more dangerous. She believes she can always work her way out of problems. And...” He cleared his throat almost awkwardly.
Marcus looked over in silent amazement. From brewing beer to combat, he had never once seen Barnabas be the least bit awkward.
“I do not want her to be hurt,” Barnabas admitted. “I care for her.”
There was a crash and a shriek from up ahead, and some cartwheeling limbs announced that Tabitha had been thrown from her bike into a ditch.
“Rather like an idiot niece,” Barnabas said contemplatively.
Marcus’ shoulders shook. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be laughing at this.
A shout from up ahead alerted them to the farmer’s presence. Perhaps lured out of his house by Tabitha’s bike crash, he was now hurrying along the road.
“Let us go obtain some lavender,” Barnabas said serenely and quickened his pace without seeming to move more urgently at all.
“Vampires,” Marcus muttered as he hurried after him.
Romania
Ecaterina hopped off a ledge into the underbrush, “All I’m saying is, someone would know if it was a person in town. You would have heard about it.”
“Are you sure?” Alexi asked doubtfully. “If they were using the money for these traps…”
“If someone came into that much money there’d be talk. You know they wouldn’t be able to hide it or resist buying some rounds at the inn, and word would creep out, especially from anyone doing this sort of trapping. They aren’t going to do it alone. They’re cowards, remember?”
“I suppose. Found another one.” Alexi knelt to examine the trap carefully, then retreated to a safe distance to trip it with a long stick.
He winced as the trap clanged shut. It wasn’t particularly good for the traps to slam shut when there was nothing inside, but then again, he wasn’t worried about damaging the equipment.
What he was worried about was the force of the traps. The way they came together was strong enough to shatter bone, but not sever a limb. The injured animal would not have the chance to die with dignity, it would be forced to lie in the trap and bleed out slowly.
The thought made him feel almost physically ill.
A shout from up the hill made him turn to look.
“Ecaterina.” He didn’t look back, just kept his eyes locked on the man heading toward them. “We have company.”
“Interesting.” She came to stand beside him and he saw her assessing the man’s gait. “I feel like I’ve met him before, but I can’t place him.”
“It’s old Mihai’s grandson,” Alexi answered. “His mother and father raised him in Brasov, but when his mother died his father shipped him back here. I think his name was Alexandru.”
“Andrei—I remember him now.” Ecaterina tilted her head. “He must not remember you though, if he’s the one setting these traps.”
“Or you,” Alexi said with a chuckle. “You may not always have been able to shift, but even I didn’t want to get on your bad side when you were a child.”
Ecaterina muttered, “So that’s where Christina got it.” She raised her voice. “Andrei. Good day to you.”
“What are you doing with these traps?” Andrei demanded.
Ecaterina and Alexi exchanged a look. Perhaps Andrei wasn’t behind this at all. Perhaps he was just as offended as they were by the presence of the traps there.
“We’re disabling them,” Ecaterina said. Even if Andrei was behind all this, she wasn’t particularly worried. People in this town could be easily kept in line by the reminder that the whole town would shame them for bad behavior. “Do you know who set them up?”
“Yeah,” Andrei said combatively. “I did.”
So much for hoping. Alexi shook his head wearily.
“Child, do you have any idea what you are playing with?”
To his surprise, a gun appeared in Andrei’s hand. “Do you?” Andrei demanded.
Chapter 6
Ecaterina felt a sudden surge of anger and tried to keep her emotions in check. The last thing she needed was to shift forms without warning. For one thing, the existence of Wechselbalg wasn’t something that should be widely known yet.
For another, she really liked these jeans.
Plus, Alexi had always solved these things with talk before.
“Andrei.” She tried to keep her tone soothing. “Why are you pointing a gun at us?”
Andrei blinked. Clearly he had not anticipated this particular question.
His face hardened again a moment later. “Shut up.”
She could practically smell the fear rolling off him.
Alexi could smell it too, and he was intrigued. In his confrontations with trappers he had seen greed, laziness, and yes, sometimes anger. In his experience, when people did something they knew was wrong, they only got angrier when someone called them on it. Once or twice he’d seen exhaustion and hunger, and he’d made sure that those families got what they needed.
This was different. Andrei’s fear was part desperation, part panic, and the nice clothes and shiny gun, as well as the very well-made traps, showed that money wasn’t the issue.
Or was it?
“Andrei, do you know who I am?”
“You’re old man Alexi.” Andrei had the sense not to be outright rude, but he clearly wasn’t happy with this conversation. “But it doesn’t matter who you are, you can’t just interfere with this.”
Alexi was determined to deescalate this.
“How is Mihai?” he asked the boy.
“Fine,” Andrei said sullenly. He shrugged.
For any other boy, Alexi would have had a stern reminder about manners. Most boys, though, didn’t point guns at him and his niece in the forest.
He wondered if it might not still be advisable.
“Why are you setting traps out?” he asked.
“For—” Andrei bit his words off and looked between them warily. �
��It’s none of your business.”
“These are our forests,” Ecaterina pointed out. Her voice was soft and kind. “Children play here, Andrei.”
Andrei looked uncertain. “Well, they shouldn’t be out alone.”
“And the balance of the forests—”
“Oh, please.” Andrei rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me that ‘living forest’ crap. If we went back to the old ways we’d all be living in caves. We wouldn’t have doctors. Or toilets. Is that really what you want?”
Ecaterina’s eyes narrowed.
Even she, with her almost constant escapes into the wilderness, had not truly understood the force and necessity of nature until she had largely given it up. The Meredith Reynolds was a true technological marvel, and Bethany Anne’s dedication to making it self-sufficient and pleasant was impressive.
But building the seed vault only drove home the truly staggering complexity of ecosystems. It was almost incomprehensible to the human mind, the sheer number of plants and animals that interacted to create these forests.
And she refused to believe that Andrei had no concept of this.
She told him, “There is a difference between understanding the forest and wanting to live in caves.”
“Sure.” He sneered at her and jabbed the gun. “You think animals are more important than humans.”
“Not more important—”
“People need to live and eat, you know!” He waved the gun.
Alexi’s eyes widened. Never had he seen someone be so careless, and he was worrying that this situation would escalate too quickly to control.
Whatever happened, he would not allow Ecaterina to be hurt.
Andrei continued, “When people need to make a living, it’s not fair to expect them to preserve some pristine forest just so other people can tramp through it.”
Ecaterina tilted her head. It was just an inkling, but she was pretty sure that these weren’t really Andrei’s words. It sounded like he was repeating a justification someone else had told him.
“Who said that to you?” she asked curiously.
It was both the right and the wrong question to ask. Andrei’s face got white and scared, and he pointed the gun with sudden determination.
“You do not know who you’re playing with.” He spoke the words carefully, very slowly, as if he wanted to impress upon them the importance of what he was saying.
“The person who hired you,” Ecaterina pressed.
“Ecaterina…” Alexi began.
“He’s not playing around,” Andrei said quietly. He looked truly afraid. “And he’s not going to tolerate you messing up his plans. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll back off. I could…” He looked around suddenly, as if terrified that someone might be listening in. “No, best you just go and hope he never finds you.”
“Tell us who he is,” Ecaterina pleaded. “We can help you.”
Alexi bit his lip rather than interfere. Saying anything might break the spell Ecaterina was weaving, and he could sense that Andrei was wavering. The man knew that what he was doing was wrong, and he wanted to believe he could get out of this mess.
Then the fear came crashing back, followed by terrible resolve. It was an expression Alexi had seen only a handful of times, and he hated it. It said, “I have to save myself first.”
And his finger tightened around the trigger.
Ecaterina might have been trying to resolve this matter peacefully, but she was ready for it to turn violent. With the reflexes bestowed by both her recent changes and her inborn instincts, she was already diving out of the way as Andrei fired.
By the time she rolled and stood up, she was in Pricolici form.
Andrei fired again. Once he had started shooting, in his panic he just kept doing so. But the wolf was far faster than he was. It evaded each shot, slinking and weaving until his magazine was out, and then it leapt straight for him.
Bowled over onto his back on the forest floor, looking up into the face of the massive wolf, Andrei gave a low moan of fear.
The wolf dipped its snout close to Andrei’s face. “Youuuuu willllll tellll meeee evvvverythiiiiing nowwwww…”
There was a long pause, and then the wolf nudged Andrei’s limp form. The man had passed out in terror.
“Orrrrrr innnn a minuuuuute…” the wolf muttered.
Alexi laughed until he was doubled over, hand over his belly. Then he settled down with his back against a tree to wait.
“It isn’t that simple,” Ecaterina said later. She was pacing back and forth in the small kitchen waving her arms.
“How is it not that simple?” Bethany Anne’s voice filtered out of the speaker. “He’s doing all of this—he admitted it. He knows it’s wrong.”
“People mess up,” Nathan pointed out.
“Not checking the takeout order before you leave is messing up,” Bethany Anne said, annoyed. “Listening to someone who sweet talks you into killing innocent animals is on a totally different level.”
Ecaterina wavered. Her shoulders were hunched as she leaned against the wall.
“I just don’t think he really wants to do it,” she said quietly.
“No, he wants the money, and he’s willing to kill innocent animals to get it.”
There was no answer to that.
Nathan sank into silence. He was seeing this from both sides, as he knew Ecaterina was as well. Her impassioned speech when she got back from the forest had persuaded him to check his natural impulse to punish the wrongdoers.
She had explained to him that in towns like this, small towns in the aftermath of the Soviet Union, subsistence living was often the norm. One learned to expect lean times and to jump at work when it was offered, and so people were especially vulnerable to those who, pretending to be reasonable, preyed upon the natural instinct to provide for one’s family.
And those people, she had told him, were brutal. They controlled through unpredictable violence and fear, and left one choice: obey and be richly rewarded, or disobey and be killed painfully. No matter how much they might, on some level, realize that they could be in the line of fire at any time, people kept their heads down out of instinct.
They told themselves that everyone did whatever they needed to do to survive.
They told themselves that they and their families had to be their first priority.
Even Alexi of all people had agreed. He mentioned the times he went to talk to villagers about their traps. He had kept his concerns from the police, from being enforced by outsiders—and he always made sure that the families in question had enough to sustain themselves.
To Nathan, much of this was unfathomable. Right was right, and wrong was wrong. It shocked him that two people he thought so highly of, who were as passionate about justice as he was, could defend Andrei’s actions.
But he had learned that when people did things outside the norm he expected, he needed to ask why. He needed to dig deeper in order to understand.
He looked over to where Ecaterina was chewing on her lip unhappily, and listened to Bethany Anne’s silence.
His Queen was not waiting for mindless obedience, Nathan knew. She was waiting for an explanation. She wanted a reason, not simply a wish.
She knew how easily a well-meaning desire for mercy could turn into something poisonous down the line.
“I want to learn more about Andrei,” Ecaterina said finally. “Maybe he hasn’t been a willing participant in this—if he was scared for his grandfather or something. I want to find the others and ask them the same thing. Any of them who refuse to admit what they did was wrong—who are too far gone—I will deal with, but they should have the chance to make amends. People who have slipped once can become the strongest defenders of justice sometimes.”
Bethany Anne didn’t miss a beat, “Very well, I leave it up to your discretion. Does anyone else have concerns or matters I should know about?”
“How’s Bobcat?” Yelena asked. The moment she realized what she had said she flu
shed scarlet.
“Locked up in his lab doing something with the beer competition.” Bethany Anne’s voice had a wicked tone, but she didn’t make a big deal of Yelena’s slip. “He’s like a man possessed. All he does is drink beer, plan beer—and work on ships.”
“You know, that sounds pretty normal for Bobcat,” Nathan pointed out.
“Yes, but we finally had him doing things other than that.” Bethany Anne sounded long-suffering. “Yelena, we need you back. You persuade him to come out of his office sometimes. No one else can do that. Anyway, if there’s nothing else, I’m off to train. You kids have fun ridding the countryside of degenerates.”
The line clicked off, and everyone hid their grins at Yelena’s shy little smile.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
Bobcat hurried into his study. The door to the main room was locked behind him, as well as the study door—both locks. He looked around suspiciously to check for cameras.
He only half-thought he was being ridiculous. He was the best brewer, and the other two knew it. Therefore, it stood to reason that they might be trying to put him under surveillance.
He covered the camera on his computer and looked around once more.
Good, he was alone.
Almost reverently, he opened the nondescript box and pulled out the two bottles of myrcene oil. Both bottles had been packaged securely, and appeared to be undamaged. When he sniffed, not even a hint of the oil’s scent could be sensed.
That was good. If a package had shown up smelling like hops, he was sure either Marcus or William would have heard about it.
He set one bottle on the table and unscrewed the cap of the other, inhaling with a lazy smile.
Then he inhaled again.
The oil, as far as he could tell, really didn’t smell like much of anything at all.
He sniffed again, then put the cap back on the bottle and crossed to his store of hops. He inhaled, and was greeted with the usual sharp scents.
He looked at the myrcene oil, then he went back to his computer and searched for it. His shoulders settled back happily as he saw hundreds of results come back. Blogs came up, some with references as far back as ten years prior. Commenters on message boards asked in vain where they could get myrcene oil, and more recent posts showed a flurry of activity—a supplier had been found!
