Chapter 10:
Night of the Werewolves
By a cliff a golden cloud once lingered;
On his breast it slept, but, rising early,
Off it gently rushed across the pearly
Blue of sky, a tiny thing and winged.
Still, a trace it left upon the stony Giant's heart, and plunged in thought and weeping
Slow and tortured tears, he stands there, keeping
Vigil o'er the gloomy waste and lonely.
~ M. Lermontov
Romania, Year Eight
He'd never seen her at the castle before, and only twice ever on a broomstick. Still, even from far off she was unmistakable, with her windswept red-brown hair and her short summer dress of undyed wool. She flew straight and fast -- it must have been one of Bela's brooms, maybe even his treasured Russian national team model, the Padayushaya Zvezda. His son was the only werewolf Remus knew who liked to fly, and would spend long hours trimming twigs and paging through the Handbook of Do-It-Yourself Broomcare that Remus had brought him from the city.
She disappeared from view as she landed behind the high outer wall, and Remus turned back to his gardening for the moment, knowing she had a quarter mile up the rocky trail before she reached the castle. This early autumn afternoon had brought the first peepings of the bernacae, and he was in the greenhouse seeing if they were ready to hatch. The green, leafy pods, held to the trunk by their beaks, would die if they hit dry ground. If they fell into water, they split down the center and small birds with black webbed feet emerged. The bernacae were magical messengers much like owls, but they communicated with water creatures: fish, whales, merpeople.
The pods seemed in no imminent danger of bursting, but to be safe he dipped a pail of water from the running spring along the greenhouse wall and placed it under the tree. Then he left the castle by the stable gate to greet the leader of the Fives.
The tanned, barefoot young woman came sprinting up the path, broom clutched in her hand like a spear.
"Hi, Liszka," he said politely. "It's been a while; it's good to see you."
She rolled her eyes in disgust at his dry pleasantries, and kissed him on the nose as if they had still been mates. He had forgotten how nice she smelled.
"I'm not here to chat, Lupeni," she said, her voice tense. "There is something I need to tell you. The Sixes have deposed Vlad."
"Well, that's good, isn't it?" he asked in mild surprise.
"Deposed, not killed," she clarified, beginning to sound angry. "He made some threats before he left, serious enough so that their new leader came to see me."
"All right," said Remus calmly. "Why don't you come in and have some tea and tell me what he said." He knew that she'd be hungry, this last day before the full moon, and having something to eat might make her a bit less temperamental.
Liszka scrunched up her face in annoyance that he didn't seem to be taking this seriously, but she stood patiently as he undid the wards and let them through the old kitchens and into the Great Hall.
Mihail gave Remus the glare he reserved for when the latter brought werewolves into the castle, but he courteously served them tea and meat pies in front of the fireplace. He seemed somewhat daunted by Liszka and she, in turn, was taken aback by him, fighting laughter when he said, "Will that be all, Mr. Lupin?"
After bringing their food he departed stiffly to his room, where he could sulk among the garlic and wolfsbane.
As Remus had expected she was hungry, eating with gusto as she told a wild tale about Vlad plotting with powerful, ancient vampires. They were all supposed to converge on the castle the next night to kill Remus and the other wizards at the castle. He listened politely, but pictured the Sixes' new leader -- someone no more than seventeen, probably, bullied by Vlad since he first appeared in the mountains. He had finally had the guts to challenge him with tooth and claw, but wouldn't know that Vlad Alpha had prolonged his reign with a series of half-believable and bombastic lies.
Could there be any truth to the threats? He had threatened the Muggles at the caves last month, and he had showed up alone, to battle Remus in the only way he knew. True, there had been a vampire there, who had drained Mike for the second time but it was hard to imagine the events were related. Three weeks of knowing Lamia had taught him well what the Undead thought of werewolves, and he couldn't imagine what use Vlad would be to anyone, especially at the full moon.
"What are vampires going to want with Vlad transformed?" he wondered aloud, smirking in spite of himself.
Liszka growled, pouring her teacup full of milk and drinking it straight. The Fives didn't have any cows and she clearly enjoyed the treat. "You don't believe me," she accused. "I wouldn't come out here for idle gossip."
"Yes, well," Remus smiled, "our kind do tend to be hyperexcitable, don't we?"
"Hyperexcitable," she snarled without irony. "Would you rather believe a vampire?" As he was quite incapable of answering that question, Liszka growled again and said, "You are one sick puppy, Lupeni."
"It isn't that I don't believe you," he reassured, hoping she hadn't guessed anything about the vampires, or one particular vampire. "Who is he, this new leader of the Sixes? And what powerful wizard vampire would run around at full moon with a werewolf in tow?"
She had no answer to that, but she and the Sixes' leader had both been worried by the number of details Vlad seemed to possess about the castle and the vampire he claimed to be allied with. He knew that it was difficult for vampires to get in, had even said something about "traps" -- as if he had been spying on the Fives' conversations, worried Liszka. It would not occur to her, of course, to suspect a traitor in her own pack.
"The vampire may know some way to get a werewolf into the castle, even if he can't get himself in," she suggested hesitantly, looking around the room as if the magical wards would be visible. Apart from the ubiquitous hanging braids of garlic, and a few strategically placed mirrors that might have served in happier times for dancing couples to improve their steps, there was nothing that suggested the castle presented any barriers to the Undead.
Remus was finally beginning to get a little worried. The grad students had departed their cursed cave without Lamia, leaving him with a sheet of paper covered with numbers that were supposed to tell her, in some Muggle way, how to find them again. He had promised to look for her, more sincerely than any of them knew -- yet in almost a week had found no trace. The one vampire he and Alexandru had cornered and killed in that time denied all knowledge of any others in the region.
On one hand, it would be the worst possible news if vampires knew of her; it would suggest the one thing Remus feared above all, that the woman he loved had succumbed to her Dark nature the way both of them swore to themselves and each other that she didn't need to do.
On the other hand, having no news at all was beginning to wear on him. Had she been kidnaped? Killed? Had Alexandru killed her and failed to tell Remus? There were many horrors he had imagined in the past few days, but none so horrible as her under the spell of a powerful vampire trying to get into the castle.
But how and why could Vlad tie in? Werewolves were magical creatures like wizards, and wouldn't be able to get past the wards; even if they did get in, there wasn't anything Remus knew of that would help them open the gates to vampires.
Still Mike, twice. Lamia. "Powerful vampires," plural. Although Lamia had never hinted that she knew of the castle -- and he couldn't imagine that she did -- her powers as a witch would make her attractive to other vampires, possibly even the dreaded Cuza.
"I won't be too useful against wizards tomorrow night," Remus said, thoughtful but not panicked, "but I suppose I could stand outside the castle at sunset"
"We'll come too," Liszka declared.
A cruel former Alpha would be shunned or killed, like Vlad; one who had been respected would be tolerated on occasion, like a crotchety old grandparent who still deserves a Sunday afternoon visit. But for the pack to come to the defense of an ex-leader meant that they considered him both exceptionally kind and wise. It was said unsentimentally, but it was the highest compliment she could have paid him.
Perhaps she just wanted to get her paws on Vlad, but Remus was touched nonetheless.
"If Vlad were to get into the castle, Al- the other wizards would kill him -- " he began, then stopped.
They both frowned, thinking the same thing: if Vlad got in, so might they, and Alexandru may not even recognize Remus, never mind believe that he was there to defend the castle. And, of course, Remus would bite Alexandru, given the opportunity.
"Do they have any weapons that could hurt us?" Liszka asked, shrinking in apprehension from this cozy room that was suddenly a hunter's lair.
No wizard's curse, not even Lord Voldemort's, could kill a werewolf in wolf form, but Remus was certain Alexandru had a supply of silver bullets somewhere. He wondered about the ethics of finding them and disposing of them before tomorrow night -- but that really wasn't a discussion he cared to have with Liszka, whose attitudes he knew full well. "It'll be OK," he reassured, "I'll take care of it."
After she left, it only took him a few minutes to make the decision. Liszka was willing to risk her life to help him -- and Bela's, he couldn't stop thinking of the boy, who he still thought was too young to take part in the pack's more dangerous escapades. Alexandru had killed werewolves before, and from the sound of it was none too contrite; Remus had no right to expose the Fives to that.
Mihail was still locked in his room, where he would probably remain for several hours. Alexandru was out, in the village, maybe, or off on one of his solo hunts for Cuza. Apart from the servant's bedroom, then, Remus had the run of the castle, and he made haste to search it before the old wizard appeared.
It was difficult for him to move silver magically, but not to find it. The Aura Aurea Charm that located precious metals made his wand give off a reddish glow as he passed the bedrooms with their drawers of gold jewelry, and again at the gilt statue that stood in the Great Hall. The glow switched from red to pale blue when he exited the Great Hall into the library, and began to burn his hand as he approached Alexandru's massive oak desk.
There was a single box of silver bullets in the topmost drawer and it was half empty. Gripped with a sudden rage, Remus made a thorough investigation of every room in the castle, including the upstairs where the stench of vampire still lingered (somehow, he had grown less sensitive to the smell). He tiptoed on the crumbling stairs, hoping Mihail wouldn't hear his footsteps -- and hoping, too, that the servant didn't possess a cache of weapons along with his pots of aconite.
Apart from a few spoons, a goblet, and some jewelry, the single box of bullets was the only silver he found; after a moment's hesitation, he decided the other objects were harmless.
Nagged somehow with the thought that he was forgetting something, he took the half-empty box and pitched it down the mountainside. He then went to his room to try to get some sleep. It would be a long day tomorrow.
____________________
The tower loomed above the rock formations, a sullen beacon against the late afternoon sky. But was it calling her home or warning her away?
Lamia could not see the rest of the castle from her position behind a low rock ridge, but her memory filled in the hidden parts: the high wall of dark granite clinging to the steep cliff like the hardy gray lichen on the rock where she sat, the inner courtyard paved with close-fitting stones, the great vaulted roof, the high narrow windows lining the library and Great Hall, and that muscular arm of a tower reaching up to pull down the heavens. She saw it all as if she were flying, for that was how she had arrived at the castle many, many times. Soon, Cuza promised, she would fly there again.
Her hand traced the whorls of lichen on the rock beside her: tough, gray life imitating cold, gray stone. Pale, white fingers caressed the rough surface -- soothing, lulling, controlling -- in the same way they might stroke the neck of a victim; undead flesh imitating life.
The large wooden gate menaces her, looming like an enormous brown bear ready to devour her. As it swings open to reveal an inner courtyard and castle of dark granite, she does not feel comforted. A man takes her arm, guiding her through the gate, whispering with pride, "This is your home now."
Lamia froze. Memory, human memory, seized her brain and forced her to relive what she thought had died. She could not consciously call forth many memories from that time before she joined the Undead, but when her brain was addled as it was now, the recollections often came to her unbidden.
She was no longer human and felt it keenly, as she hunted with Cuza once more; every night they had found a new victim until she had reached that delicious state of unknowing, of uncaring. For days now -- How long? More than a week, since the moon would be full tonight -- she had feasted on humans, gorged on the one thing she'd denied herself for five years.
Why had she stopped? She could not recall just now. For how could she give up that utterly numbing feeling of pleasure when every cell in her body thrilled to the taste-touch-smell of human blood? Sex was nothing by comparison, a feeble reflection of a blinding white light in a scratched and dusty mirror.
Why had she stopped? All those years, she tried to forget what it was like and had succeeded in blunting the memory, her mind telling her body lies. Mind had nothing to do with it, though. Now her arms, legs, fingers, toes tingled with each movement, no matter how minute.
Vampires, although capable of some emotions, lost the subtlety of human feelings and were like creatures who could look at a rainbow and see only red-orange-yellow-green-blue-violet and not the thousands of subtle shades in between. Human blood -- hot and indescribably tangy -- restored some of those emotional hues as it delivered its load of ecstasy. And thus her body still sang with the feelings of her recent victims: worry from an old woman, twin surges of fear and lust from a girl, anger and desire from a young man. All the lovely and terrifying emotions collided and she felt almost alive again.
But it faded, this explosion of emotional color. Today her mind was beginning to reassert itself because Cuza had insisted that they not feed last night, saying that there was much to be done on the full moon. She resented that, but he promised her more after they had taken the castle.
Cuza. Scheming and ambitious as ever, that one was. But after all these years apart, he still desired her, which was oddly comforting somehow. She felt safe when he caressed her and spoke soft words, remembering dimly the girl who had fallen under his spell over half a century ago.
She plays chess in the library with the darkly handsome visitor. He listens to her raptly, resting his smooth pointed chin on his hands. She tells him of her secret hopes and he drinks them all in with his liquid black eyes. The servant glowers at her as he brings them tea, but she pretends not to notice, enchanted by the attention paid her.
Cuza, of course, still considered her to be his possession, gloating each time he touched her, his eyes devouring her with every look. And the cruelty she remembered had not diminished either. He could just as easily taunt her as kiss her, occasionally raging at her for abandoning her kind and for taking up with the English werewolf.
Lupeni. She didn't know his real name or why he lied or how he fooled her. She tried very, very hard not to think of him at all, hoping the tide of blood would drown those feelings, would build a wall between her and the enigma of the wolf who loved her. That was a lie, too, probably.
Lamia thought about the tower again, so she wouldn't have to think about the other. The sun sank toward the horizon, flitting in and out of clouds. Now and again, the side of the tower would be bathed in its waning light, yellow for now, but surely the sun's last rays would turn it a bloody red.
In her lap she held the small glass vial which Cuza had instructed her to enchant with a simple Containment Charm. He obviously had something large he wished to put in it, although he hadn't told her yet what it might be. The vial hung on a thick gold chain; he gave no explanation for this either. Cuza hadn't changed in his obsessive desire for control and secrecy. He had a plan for entering the castle, that much was certain, and he would tell her when the time was right. Until then, she tried to sink back into the memory of bliss that still echoed within her body and tried not to think about those who lived within the castle walls nor about how soon they might all meet.
A faint sound, the sudden rush of air, signaled that someone was Apparating. In an instant, Cuza and another man stood before her. The vampire held the human stranger by the scruff of the neck with one hand, and with the other grasped a large wrought iron cage. An evil-looking black raven peered up at her from between the bars.
The stranger was as tall and gaunt as the vampire, but there the resemblance ended. His dark, greasy hair and scruffy beard hung about his face, making him look like a wild animal. And he acted the part, whimpering as Cuza dragged him by the collar of his ragged shirt and threw him roughly to the ground.
Lamia roused from her hazy thoughts to stare at the man glowering up at Cuza, hatred and fear at war on his face. This pitiful creature obviously had something to do with getting into the castle, although she couldn't understand what. Then she recognized him and saw the joke.
"A werewolf?" She couldn't contain herself any longer and started laughing hysterically. How dare he lecture her about associating with werewolves? "You're consorting with a werewolf, you bloodless bastard!"
"Keep your voice down," hissed the vampire with a cold glare. "This one is merely a tool ... and not a pet." He obviously failed to see the humor in all this.
"He was the one at the caves," she said as she hopped off her stone perch and walked around the heap of a werewolf. "He tried to kill me last month... and at your orders, I take it."
"Not kill you, no," Cuza retorted. "His job was killing the other; you were merely the bait, my dear. But he wasn't very good at that little job. I have a simpler one for him tonight, however, one which I am certain he can carry out."
"What -- " the werewolf started to speak, but Cuza kicked him sharply in the knees, causing him to cry out in pain.
"You will speak only if I require it," he said contemptuously, directing another kick at the huddled man on the ground. "We have only a few minutes before moonrise. Take off your clothes."
After the werewolf had complied, Cuza reached down and pulled the man up by his hair, forcing him to stand, naked and cowering before them.
"Have you prepared the vial?" he asked her. In response she gave him the innocent-looking little flask of glass, its delicate glass stopper attached to a thick gold chain. He held up the chain, swinging the vial gently, almost hypnotically.
"When the time is right, our little wolf will carry this into the castle for us." He gave the werewolf a shove to indicate that he should start down the path that terminated in the stable gate. "There will be a few surprises inside which should shake things up a bit. And then we shall fly into the castle as I promised...."
____________________
The past month had turned the hills above Stilpescu from deep summer green to a patchwork of scarlet, orange, and gold. In the red rays of the disappearing sun, these colors and their lengthening shadows seemed not beautiful but ominous, as if fingers of blood were leaking between the alpine peaks and spreading through the forests and meadows.
Whether this was an animal thought or one of an increasingly worried human, Remus wasn't sure, but he decided on the latter after a look towards the opposite horizon still showed no sign of the Harvest Moon.
He sighed and sat down on a rock, pulling his cloak around him to dispel the autumn chill. The equinox had passed, and for the next six months his nights as a wolf would be longer than his days as a human. Alexandru had let him out of the castle early tonight, perhaps because they were both nervous: the old wizard wanted to make sure the wards were secure before any werewolves appeared. Uncharacteristically, Remus looked forward to meeting Vlad as a wolf; talking would be useless, he was now convinced, and he did not have his wand to protect himself if Vlad should show up early and challenge him in human form. Alexandru had convinced him to leave his wand in the castle, insisting that there could be real danger if it were abandoned outside and stolen. He categorically refused to undo the wards in order to retrieve it after moonrise.
Remus had told the old wizard nearly everything, recounting Liszka's warnings and the events at the caves last month. Neither took Vlad's boasts seriously but, because of his monomania or other reasons Remus didn't know, Alexandru was certain that only one vampire would hunt at the full moon accompanied by a werewolf: Cuza.
It was already early afternoon when Remus began his story; Alexandru had been out late last night and had taken his breakfast in bed. There remained only a few hours to strengthen the defenses on the castle -- and Remus saw for the first time how every room had been designed to bar vampires, even should they manage to breach the gates.
An Allios Charm stopped only the Undead from passing through the doors and windows. It was a pity that this complex and difficult charm couldn't be performed on the entire castle. The spring in the greenhouse was not just for watering plants, but ran all around the perimeter of the castle, stopping vampires who couldn't cross running water. The mirrors in the Great Hall could be lowered to cover all four walls, so that a creature with no reflection trapped between any pair of them would see into infinity and be killed. They hung garlic from every corner and promontory, and scattered mustard seeds around on the floor.
"It is a myth that vampires don't like mustard," Alexandru explained distractedly, falling into the role of teacher despite the situation. "But the seeds will stop them for some time, as they cannot pass them without stopping to count each one. They count fast, however," he added bitterly, and after that would say no more.
When these preparations were complete, Alexandru went into the silent stone room at the base of the tower that Remus thought of as the "prison" because of its heavy door and grilled windows, and pulled a series of iron levers that creaked in rusty protest.
"Muggle devices?" Remus wondered in surprise.
"Indeed." Alexandru took hold of a three-foot handle, tugging futilely for a few minutes before he enlisted the other's help. Together they managed to turn it in a full circle, and Remus could see metal cables disappearing through the walls towards somewhere unseen.
"The Undead can be cut, crushed, and mangled as much as you or I," Alexandru explained unnecessarily, as though Remus hadn't fought and killed his share of vampires by now. "It doesn't kill them, of course, but it stops them in their tracks, and sometimes the simplest methods are the most effective. I developed these traps while hunting werebears, and I got the idea from a Muggle hunter who killed bears of the more ordinary variety."
The man is a common murderer, Remus thought, amazed at his own fury -- an emotion that probably had its roots in guilt at being a monster hunter himself. Alexandru did not draw the line at victims who were outside life, and Remus was very glad he had disposed of the silver bullets. He didn't trust him to spare the lives of any werewolves who might enter the castle, and even less to be able to recognize them individually, despite detailed descriptions. Liszka was easy, as she was pure white with blue eyes; but Bela looked a good deal like Vlad (not surprisingly, as that was who had bitten him), and Remus would never forgive him if Alexandru killed his foster son.
It was several minutes before he could fight back his anger enough to ask what the handle did, or where these traps were located.
Alexandru smiled grimly. "They are everywhere. Outside the greenhouse; in the floors of the Great Hall; one in the entrance hall. I would advise you to tread lightly, though the stones under which the traps lie will give off a faint violet glow. Vampires are creatures of the night, you know," he added with some pride, "and so they cannot perceive blue or violet."
This interested Remus, though he wondered how a wolf would see it. As light, certainly, which should be enough of a warning -- perhaps even as bluish light. Once, in a botched attempt at a Cave Canem Charm, James and Sirius had nearly killed Remus just as dawn was breaking. As a result, he slept for three days and spent the rest of the month with fangs and yellow eyes that glowed in the dark. It was kind of embarrassing in class (he wore sunglasses and said it was a Conjunctivitis Curse), but he had learned a lot about his half-remembered perceptions of how the wolf saw motion and color and detail. Wolves could see color, but mostly washed-out versions of blue and yellow. He would check the traps, marking them with something they could see if he didn't think the violet light was enough.
He was worrying for nothing, he scolded himself. No werewolves were going to get into the castle. The planetary wards would operate as they always had; although the primary ward was weakest at the full moon, because it was intended for vampires, its residual strength along with the Jupiter ward would be more than enough to keep out any wizard.
There was still something that nagged at his mind, though. Perhaps Lamia, for he had told his teacher none of that story.
Guilt preyed on him now, as he sat outside waiting for the moon to rise and nibbled half-heartedly on a bar of chocolate. It tasted vile, either because of his nerves or because (as James used to say when he raided Remus' and Sirius' bedside tables) chocolate wasn't good for dogs. He folded it up again and stuck it back into his pocket, taking a small autumn apple that also tasted mealy and unpleasant, though he finished it anyway.
Certainly it wasn't a fatal mistake to neglect telling Alexandru about the Muggle graduate student who was no Muggle? A Romanian witch from an unknown century, Undead for an indeterminate number of years She would have no reason to be interested in the castle -- unless there was a vast vampire society of which he knew nothing, all working in concert. From what she'd told him of flighty, gossipy bloodsuckers, this seemed unlikely.
He turned towards the eastern sky, waiting patiently for that eternal celestial event that seemed delayed tonight, as though Selene's chariot had broken a spoke. The sky was darkening, and a very bright star was visible in the southeast, slightly yellow as it rose above the horizon. No, not a star, he realized, this was Jupiter -- and that thought called forth memories of the graduate students, though he wasn't sure why.
Why had Lamia disappeared? Without telling Remus, or her Muggle colleagues, or her employer?
Would he ever know? he wondered, still looking at the bright planet but not recalling what Mike had told him nearly a month ago. Remus had never seen the path of the full moon across the sky as a sentient creature, and so as its reddish crest appeared it didn't occur to him that its orbit would carry its upper edge across Jupiter in the southeast.
It wasn't just Remus Mike had told. Lamia had been there, and an unwanted guest in the form of a small winged mammal. Perhaps if he had known that Cuza was spying on them; or perhaps if he paid closer attention to Mike's over-confident declarations of astronomical fact; or perhaps if the chapter in the Atlas of Magical Wards and Enchantments on "Occultations" hadn't fallen from the binding and been lost Remus might have made the connection between the powerful wizard vampire, the Jupiter occultation, and why tonight would be the night of the attack.
However, nothing came to him but a lingering sense of doubt, until his thoughts were cut short by moonrise. As the transformation began he was sure that he heard the screams of another not far away.
As always when there were humans to be smelled, Moony pawed at the gates of the castle, trying to find some purchase for tooth or paw. At the sound of a lupine cry, he dropped back on all fours and turned. He heard it again, a growl from beyond the jumbled rocks surrounding the castle walls. He trotted cautiously up the path leading away from the castle; Vlad was nearby by the smell. Something slammed into him with a growl as he rounded a large pile of rocks, knocking him to the ground.
No longer able to wonder if an orchestrated plot was at work, all he could do was fight. He twisted his flank out of the black wolf's jaws and backed away, snarling. There was no time to pounce, however, before he found a shining cord draped around his neck.
The cord was silver, and Moony howled in pain and rage. Since his nights in the Shrieking Shack he had not been confined, and he had never been forced to walk on a leash like a domesticated cur. Even through the thick ruff of fur on his neck, the metal burned and he backed around in circles in a vain attempt to escape it.
His howls grew as the end of the cord flew into the hand of a corpse, which jerked him roughly towards itself. The stench of decay filled his nostrils, nauseating him, his instincts screaming to plant his rear feet in the abomination's stomach and scatter its dead guts.
Another set of footsteps came up the stone path; Moony had to rely on his ears since his nose was so contaminated by the smell of vampire, and wolves were terribly nearsighted. "What are you going to do with them?" asked a female voice.
It was a worried voice, friendly even, but the wolf was confused as his overloaded senses told him she, too, was dead. He laid his ears back, whining with frustrated urges. She seemed not to fear him, and as she grew closer he sniffed again to confirm his first impression.
Whimpering like a puppy, he scarcely noticed he was tethered to Vlad, or where the vampires were dragging them.
"You're not going to -- ?" wondered the female voice.
"Kill them?" This tone was so full of the uniquely human enjoyment of cruelty that the fur on Moony's back stood up as though he had been a scared beagle, rather than a two-hundred pound werewolf who spent most of his days as a fully qualified wizard. "Certainly not. They will come in useful, just not yet." As he spoke these words, the vampire looked up towards the bright planet that had meant nothing to Remus, and at the sphere of the moon inching in its direction. "And we don't wish the old fool at the castle to hear our little pets playing, do we?"
With a snap of his fingers the vampire created a pit in the rocky soil, into which he hurled the wolves with a jerk of the silver cord. The leash then undid itself from their necks and coiled around the neck of the pit, forming a low fence that threw the animals back as they attempted to leap it.
Trapped, with nothing to do but fight, fight is what Vlad and Moony did. They knew each other so well by now that they did little damage, each coming in for a quick snap of jaws before he was forced to back off again, as choreographed as a boxing match.
The ringside spectators cheered the competitors on as they drained rabbits and planned their entry into the castle. Dangling from his pocket on a string, Cuza had a brace of wild hares that he doled out one by one to Lamia whenever her trembling or complaints grew too strong.
"The lunar ward is weakest when the moon is full," Cuza explained, skinning a rabbit's neck with his teeth before beginning to drink. "The Jupiter ward will fail for one hour tonight, as the moon covers the planet in a spectacular occultation that I'm sure your Muggle friend will enjoy greatly."
"With those wards out of the way, living magical creatures, such as Rover and Speckles here -- " he indicated the snarling and bleeding wolves with cold amusement "--will be able to get in. But this isn't why I need you tonight."
The vampire paused, and threw his bloodless rabbit into the pit. He moved it around with his wand, making it look as if it were alive and running, laughing as the wolves tore at each other to get at it. Their howls of disgust when they discovered it to be sucked dry made him laugh all the more.
"With the aid of a raven and the appearance of Saturn, a powerful wizard can disable the Jupiter ward with a Kronos Curse. A wizard more powerful than myself, unfortunately. The two of us should be able overcome the ward. And that, my drunken darling, is why I need you with all your wits about you. Just one night, and then you can feast as you have never feasted -- forever. I promise you," he paused as Lamia quivered in anticipation, " -- I promise you the blood of Alexandru Arghezi himself!"
Firelight dances before her eyes, bathing them all in yellow and orange hues. Her husband tells a joke, laughing, and she must laugh, too. The boy smiles; he is so beautiful, his delicate features unlike the hard angular ones of his older brother. The boy -- he is my brother now, she corrects herself -- looks at her with dark, uncertain eyes.
Lamia's mind was just clear enough that she wondered if she were thinking straight. Coming down off her blood high, what she wanted most was more blood to help her forget the painful thoughts and the physical discomfort, and she had wasted most of the evening pleading with Cuza to let her go hunting. She looked between her two lovers -- the ancient one, with his threats and promises -- and the new one, reduced to savagery in a bloody pit.
"What do you think of your English wizard now?" sneered Cuza, as if reading her mind.
Was it only her fantasy, that imagined intelligence on the face of the gray wolf last month? Face crusted with blood and foam and slobber, he was nothing more than a beast. How could he do this to her?
With a laugh as cruel as Cuza's -- or perhaps more so, as it was calculated -- she threw her own rabbit into the hole, goading the wolves to attack once more. They were tiring; their tongues hung out and their tails drooped.
"They prefer human blood," Cuza smiled, "as do we."
Lamia looked up hopefully, thinking there might be the chance to get some -- just a little -- somewhere, to ease the longing, the sense of emptiness.
But he shook his head. "Tomorrow, tomorrow," he repeated. "and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time"
"A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," Lamia snapped. Cuza had never been intelligent or educated: just smooth and full of pithy quotes. Unlike Lupeni -- but no.
The veiled insult only served to make Cuza smile. "Of course, the Kronos Curse will not suffice to get us safely into the castle," the vampire continued, with another look towards the rising moon. "Arghezi has put an Allios Charm on the gates -- I have detected it from outside the castle -- and will certainly have done the same on all the doors and windows. You should remember that spell will not allow us to pass. Thus, even after the major wards surrounding the castle are breached, these dogs will be able to enter, but we will not."
"Arghezi will doubtless have minor traps inside as well which we will want to disarm," he continued as he pulled objects from his pockets and arranged them on the ground in front of them, lit by the full moon as if it were day. "A simple Desiccation Demon will take care of the running water nicely." The creature was encased in a small glass box, kicking and punching the walls in a frenzy. "The garlic will provide nesting material." Here he produced an egg, the shell off-white and papery like the root vegetable itself. He then indicated the gold chain around her neck, where she held the vial of dark blue, almost black glass, and gestured for her to remove the stopper.
The Containment Charm she had performed would allow all these things and more to be stored inside the vial, but if the glass broke or the stopper came off, all would be released. She held out the container and he transferred the struggling demon into its new prison, then tapped each of the objects on the ground, causing them to rise up and float inside.
"But, even if all these things work," she said slowly, her mind still not functioning properly, "we will not be able to pass through any door or window in the castle, right?"
A secretive smile formed on his lips and he produced a leather bag from the folds of his robe. He pointed his wand at the bag and opened it deftly with one hand. With a cry of "Exoterica", a shimmering green cloud issued from the wand and met a swarm of small brown insect-like creatures which flew out of the bag as soon as it was opened. The cloud enveloped the bugs, hundreds of them, each no bigger than a thumbnail and flying so fast that she could barely make them out. Using his wand, he coaxed the large glowing haze into the vial. Lamia quickly stoppered it.
"What are those and how do they help get into the castle?" she puzzled.
"Those are cedar beetles. I sped them up with a Rapidectus Charm so that they should be capable of eating through a good sized tree in about eight hours."
"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 at him, 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 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, his tone or the name itself making her wince. " -- Or he will kill them, but not before first being distracted enough to ignore the roofbeams toppling around his head."
"But... but..." She was unable to find a protest that didn't invoke sentimental feelings for either Alexandru or Lupeni, ones 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."
____________________
Liszka meant to be at the castle when the moon rose, but things didn't work out the way she wanted.
As they sat outside the cottage enjoying the September sunshine and gnawing on chicken bones, the remnants of lunch, she told the Fives about Vlad's threats against Lupeni and the wizards at the castle.
"Aw, he's all bark and no bite," Vanu drawled casually. Stef, sitting next to him and always the quieter one, nodded vigorously.
Those two had not been in Pack Six when Vlad led them, before Lupeni had rebelled against him and taken over Pack Five. Liszka, who had served under Vlad and taken plenty of abuse from him, knew when he was bluffing. And he was too desperate to bluff, she judged, since Pack Six had kicked him out. She reckoned that spiteful revenge was about all he had going for him now.
"Grigore," she said, pointing a drumstick in the direction of the smallest member, who was paying close attention to his lunch and nothing else, "you know Vlad, too. Do you think he's bluffing?"
His dark eyes darted up at her briefly and then fixed themselves on the collection of bare bones on the ground before him. "Dunno," he mumbled, "He's been acting funny lately. Maybe he's getting senile or something."
"Well, he's up to something," she growled, "and it's time we got rid of him." She stood up, brushing bits of meat from her tunic. "It'll take us about four hours to get there, since most of you don't have brooms, so let's put things away here and get moving."
She strode back into the cottage followed by Bela, who seemed to be the only member of the pack looking forward to Liszka's expedition. The boy had only met Vlad -- the wolf who had bitten him when he was eight years old -- a few times. Such were the profound changes engendered by the bite that the boy's tendency was to respect the one who had made him what he was; but Vlad's behavior quickly turned his admiration into loathing.
Vlad had taunted and sneered at Bela, for being young, for joining the Fives, for consorting with the mad dog Lupeni. The insults had ended at their last meeting, however, when the boy, just fifteen and nearly the same height as the older wolf, fought back. He pulled Vlad to the ground and wrestled with him until the other Fives pulled him off. Liszka scolded him publicly, although privately she was proud of her son.
Bela didn't like the thought of Vlad taking on Lupeni again. Although he hadn't heard all the details, he knew that Vlad had injured his father last month at the full moon and would do it again, given the chance. He thought his mother had a better shot at defeating the ex-Alpha and hoped that he could help her. Lupeni was really going to need their help, even though he wouldn't admit it.
Delays set in soon after lunch. First, the sheep and goats got loose and wandered off. By the time Bela noticed, as he was about to set a protection spell around the pen so that the wolves couldn't eat them, some of the goats had strayed into the hills. It took several hours to find the last one. Liszka was snapping and growling at all the Fives by the time the pen was secured.
As shadows lengthened, the Fives made ready to go, but were delayed again, this time by the arrival of Sasha Alpha from Pack Six. The new leader of the Sixes wanted to start off on good terms with his neighbors. Therefore, he came to tell the Fives of a wounded stag, grazed by some stupid human hunters, who had wandered into the Sixes territory that afternoon. The other pack was welcome to come hunting with the Sixes, he offered.
Vanu and Stef openly salivated at the invitation. Well, Liszka thought, they had not suffered under Vlad and perhaps this was not their fight.
"Go on, you two," she said gruffly, "Show the Sixes how Pack Five hunts for tonight."
Both men were pleased, and asked to borrow brooms. Probably only the lure of fresh meat could get them to mount broomsticks. Grigore looked hungrily after them and then threw his pack leader a pleading look.
"What about me?" he whined.
"You're with me, Grigore," she snapped. "We have business to take care of tonight."
Liszka wasn't about to let Grigore weasel out of this. He was far too soft as far as Vlad was concerned, too ready to excuse the old wolf. Lately, she suspected her Beta of sneaking off to meet Vlad again, something he hadn't done for tens of months. Liszka wanted Grigore to prove his loyalty to the pack and there was no better time than tonight.
As she expected, he submitted. But he refused to meet her glare as they waited for the sun to set, pacing nervously outside the cottage as the western sky turned from orange to pink to purple. Liszka and Bela, in contrast, sat patiently and quietly, feeling the change come upon them without the need to speak about it.
As Liszka stretched, took off her clothes and prepared for the change, she was grateful for one thing: as wolves they would make much better time than as humans, loping across the broad valley and then scrambling up the rocky mountains. She hoped that they wouldn't be too late to help that foolish Lupeni.
With a joyous howl, Liszka transformed and forgot all about such subtleties. They were going to a place in the mountains to protect one of their own, she thought as the three of them loped west toward the rocky cliffs huddled underneath the last luminous traces of sunset.
____________________
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 to read and contemplate. 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 charm 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 those creatures at nose level.
For the first time he watched all of the details of Remus' transformation, remarking 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?
Moony was easily the largest werewolf the former Ministry hunter had ever seen. They feed them well at Hogwarts, he mused, unafraid as the enormous animal placed his paw right over the transparent spot. He seemed to be well-acquainted with the principles of fences, gates, and doorknobs, as well -- and perhaps also with magical wards. The wolf 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 many years since anyone in the village had been bitten. The moonwards worked well, and Alexandru had trusted Remus to maintain and reset them as necessary. He performed this task ably and willingly, even managing to ward areas that no local wizard would dare approach, such as the caves above Albimare. Ten years ago Alexandru would not have believed that such a creature -- such a person -- as Remus could exist, but now he trusted him 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 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, he hoped, 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 dreamy 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 with his wand 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 -- 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 once more. Until, all of a sudden, movement caught his eye. Someone 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. Remus 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, and the third was an ordinary gray, like Remus 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 Remus, 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 a cruelty and evil that were as eternal as the Dark Magic that animated the Undead features.
Alexandru arose from his chair, placing his teacup carefully on the hearth. "Mihail," he said tensely. "Lupin'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 will 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 Lupin, 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 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 her wand. It would take more than that to allow her into her former 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."
"Not him him" Mihail looked just about ready to faint or throw up, whichever came first. "Lupin!" he cried, the strain of too many names that could not be pronounced finally getting the better of him.
"Lupin? But he is their prisoner."
"He said vampires could change, could stop drinking-- Those were... they were the Mistress' words"
"Mihail!" Alexandru snapped, drawing close to the servant as if about to slap him. "Lupin 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 you and I 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 Lupin."
Having a task seemed to allow Mihail to get hold of himself. He turned clumsily, about to shuffle into the library, when the their ears rang with a resounding crack, and 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 wand, 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 got in," he said, a false lightness replacing the ice in his tone. "Get those bullets, Mihail -- but we spare Lupin."
"He brought them here!" the servant cried to himself, 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? He began to panic, turning out drawers, kicking the desk, scattering purple flowers all the while.
Suddenly there was a crash and splintering of glass. The heavy door leading to the greenhouse flew open with the weight of a two hundred pound animal and the old servant found himself, for the first time since his early childhood, face-to-face with a werewolf. He couldn't know or care whether it was Lupin or not; 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, he 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 Moony, 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 and Bela 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 Moony approached the noise carefully, a wary eye on the Mantrap. But it was one of the Muggle 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 something from his human incarnation stirred in Moony'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, Moony helped Bela from the spring and headed through another door into the old kitchens, ears pressed flat against the death cries he heard 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 Moony hadn't forgotten all the tricks of his Hogwarts 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 to face three werewolves with nothing but his wand.
He summoned his strongest curse on Grigore, who stumbled and fell like a tranquilized bear, knocked into a peaceful but temporary sleep. The spell gave Moony and Bela enough time to attack, and Alexandru barely had time 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 Moony 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; somehow he 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 just 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 as she heard a cry of pain. Even a werewolf is grieved when her child is hurt, and the voice was Bela's. Liszka went tearing over the stones, Grigore trailing groggily, sniffing Moony's trail until she found him in the entrance hall.
Bela had been caught in a trap, like Vlad, 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.
Moony 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. Moony 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 Moony 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 seven 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 (he didn't have 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 o-o-okay, Master Arghezi?" Mihail stammered, faithfully sticking to his duty till the last.
"For now, yes," 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.
____________________
Clouds, thin and wraithlike, drifted across the moon directly overhead but could not soften the stark white light which lit up the stones of the high wall and made the vampires' pale faces shine like luminous, waxy candles. Lamia stood very still waiting for the next faint howl to come from inside the castle. Wolves were alive; how many she could not tell. Through the opening of the gate, now twisted into a chaotic sculpture of wood and iron, she saw moonlight glittering on shards of glass from the greenhouse. Silent birds emerged from the ragged, gaping holes in the glass bearing single bulbs or long strands of garlic. The birds were white and the stones of the castle, dark gray. Color seemed to have vanished from the earth this night.
How many wolves were alive in the castle, she wondered, and how many wizards?
"Look what I've brought you," her husband says excitedly, pulling volume after volume out of the battered case. His face, usually as sharp as the granite blocks of the castle, softens as he tells her of the wonderful books he found in the little shops in Sofia. She smiles and takes his hand, glad of his return, but he hardly notices as he opens up a new atlas and happily explains its wonders to her. She stops smiling then, sure that he will never notice.
After some time, the hushed fluttering of birds' wings seemed to be the only sound. Still she did not move, waiting for something, some sign, although she wasn't sure what that might be. Would she rejoice if Lupeni were alive? He gave her so much, so much that she craved, and he needed her, too. But that was all a lie, said a voice in her head which sounded remarkably like Cuza. He never cared for you, only wanted another trophy for his master.
Perhaps Cuza was right, had been right all these years: she belonged with him, and the dizzying gust of emotion that swept through her when she drank was all the happiness she needed.
Oh, Lupeni, she sighed inwardly, I thought you were my kind.