Chapter 11:
Day of the Vampires
What is this wild storm I have swallowed
that sends me spinning
invoking gods and goddesses
howling one beautiful name to the Moon and to Mars
then flinging my body to the dusty ground
from slug into butterfly
from sandstone to diamond
i am transformed from the cellular level
each moment a blistering agony
and the most delicious elation
Anyone with eyes can see the power of yearning
anyone with heart could be its next victim.
~ pirategirl
Romania, Year Eight
Well before dawn life stirred on that cold, gray promontory in the Carpathians, home to Castle Arghezi. Soft moanings issued from the walls inside, remnants of the alarms that told of the breach of the Jupiter wards, the enchantment designed to block magical creatures from entering the castle. The wards' destruction had allowed five werewolves to gain entry by the light of the full moon, and the sounds from the walls meant that the breach had not been repaired.
Only one human was awake, another slept, while four werewolves might have been called awake, semi-conscious and all wounded to some degree. The fifth werewolf was neither awake nor asleep; his lifeless body lay among shards of glass and the vestiges of a once-thriving greenhouse: toppled trees wreathed in brown leaves, gnarled, bare vines reaching down like ghostly fingers, and everywhere piles of yellow-brown leaves drifting as if winter had already come.
Humans or near-humans were not the only living creatures in the castle. A few birds flitted about the high-ceilings of the great hall and library; small and cream-colored, they darted silently and swiftly, seeking something over the doors and windows. Occasionally a bird found what it sought and then flew through the library, carrying a cream-colored burden in its claws, and thence out into the chilly pre-dawn air through the large, jagged hole in the glass wall of the greenhouse adjacent to the library. More life, hard to see or to hear, gnawed and chewed with ferocious hunger high above the shelves and books of the library. Thousands of nondescript brown beetles happily munched on the thick beams of cedar supporting the roof; they had been feasting most of the night and had not run out of their favorite food as dawn approached.
Outside the castle, sheep huddled in the stable in the shadow of the outer wall, together with an irritated cow who expected to be milked before too long. Faint rustlings came from the sheep and occasionally soft lowing could be heard from the cow. On the other side of the wall, there were no living creatures nearby, yet two figures robed in black stood before the thick stone wall ringing the castle. Before them yawned an arched opening, the broken and twisted remains of a wooden gate lying on either side of the portal.
The two might have been statues, carved from a fine, luminous marble. A tall, thin man with a sharp, pointed face, dark hair and eyes blacker than pitch stood next to a gaunt and graceful woman, shorter than the man with long dark hair flowing unbound down her back. Neither moved as color seeped from the eastern sky, fading as if the plug had been pulled on a sink full of water of the deepest blue. Neither moved as bone-colored birds bearing bulbs of garlic soared silently over their heads. Neither moved as the round swollen moon flirted with the mountains on the western horizon.
A movement from inside the castle, not a bird but a human in the greenhouse, roused the man to speak.
"He lives," hissed the man to his companion, "and the time has not come to enter the castle. Let us move before we are seen."
The woman allowed herself to be guided away from the archway, giving no indication that she had heard or understood what he said. She stumbled and the man took her in his arms to keep her from falling, circling her waist securely with one hand while languidly stroking her cheek and neck with the other.
"Soon," he whispered as he stared into the inky blackness of her eyes. "Soon we will feast on him...and any others remaining in the castle."
She trembled, shivering like someone who had spent too long in icy waters, although she could not feel the cold because she had not been alive for over fifty years.
"And the others..?" she stammered through chattering teeth. "If any of the others are alive..."
"We kill them first, of course," he replied smoothly, tightening his grip on her waist. "The werewolves have served their purpose; they are of no use any more."
She nodded slowly, not meeting his eyes. The taste of human blood, the smell of human blood menaced her by its absence, hurt her because she wanted it so badly and was denied. Soon I will stop thinking about anything, she thought. Soon I will be released from this pain.
He let her go, a wickedly pleasant smile on his thin, bloodless lips. In an instant, the two figures vanished and two black bats fluttered above the castle walls, heading in the direction of the four-story tower on the east side of the castle. The side of the tower facing the dawn was now brilliantly lit with the first harsh yellow rays of sun which the bats avoided, settling on a window ledge on the shadowed western side. The perch afforded them an excellent view of the vaulted wooden roof of the castle, supported underneath by great cedar beams.
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Alexandru Arghezi stepped over the large pieces of glass as best he could, although his feet crunched harshly on the small ones he could not avoid. His pre-dawn survey of the castle had revealed surprisingly little damage, considering that last night a pack of werewolves had free reign inside for a brief time. Furniture had been knocked over in the great hall and library, but the wolves had not had time to destroy much else before he had confined them to the tower room.
Except the greenhouse. How could wolves, even werewolves, wreak such havoc? A rough circle of about six feet in diameter punctured the outer glass wall; some jagged glass pieces remained hanging precariously as if about to plummet to the ground and tendrils of lead which had supported the panes curled at the edges of the rent, looking like the blackened fingers of roasted corpses. Elsewhere inside, tables had been toppled and the pots which had rested on them lay scattered and broken randomly on the stone floor. The body of a black werewolf, an average sized male and one of the ones that Cuza had held prisoner, lay sprawled on the floor, the trunk of a fallen tree across its hindquarters. The dried and crusted blood adorning the large wound on the beast's neck told the tale of its death.
They would just as soon kill each other as eat humans, Alexandru thought angrily as he levitated the creature up and out through the wolf-sized hole in the glass. He caused the body to fall with a heavy thud to ground outside, not wishing to see the sickening transformation that would come soon, turning the dead wolf back into some semblance of human form. The foolish idealist Lupin talked about them as if they had some kind of animal nobility, but Alexandru had trouble believing it, especially after last night.
With the beast out of his sight, Alexandru saw that the damage to the greenhouse was too extensive and too unusual to have been caused by werewolves alone. Every single plant (and there had been hundreds of them, some in pots resting on tables or the floor, some hanging from great iron hooks on the stone wall) was dead. The enormous Venus Mantrap lay on its side, no less of a corpse in some ways than the werewolf, its large leaves blackened and curling at the edges. Dead leaves -- brown, yellow, dull green -- mingled with shards of glass on the floor or clung to skeletal remains of plants he could no longer recognize. The spring, running water that could stop vampires, had dried up, and only the dead bodies of a few fish and bernacae marked where it had been.
More than werewolves, his old foe Cuza was responsible for this destruction. A Desiccation Demon had obviously been at work in the greenhouse, and Alexandru did not doubt that any other water in the rest of the castle would also have vanished. Searching the detritus on the floor, he came across a pale white eggshell, almost a complete half and larger than both of his hands together. Allium birds, he remembered, made their nests from the papery skins of garlic. Release enough of them from a magical egg and they would take all the garlic they could find, flying off to nest.
With a mixture of disgust and appreciation for the horrible cleverness of his enemy, Alexandru threw down the shell, smashing it on the hard stones so that the white fragments mingled with glass and dead leaves in a mosaic of ruin. The two werewolves captured by Cuza must have brought these things into the castle by some means that Alexandru had yet to determine. Was this all they had brought? A more thorough search of the castle was called for.
First, however, Alexandru assured himself that the Allios Charm on the greenhouse windows still held. This powerful enchantment, which repelled the Undead, required the heart of a dead vampire (and Alexandru had found enough of those in his hunting) to protect an object like a door or window. As he had none of the critical ingredient on hand currently, he was relieved that the greenhouse was still protected, as were all the other exterior doors and windows.
A vampire couldn't walk through any door in the castle; a bat couldn't fly through any window. Yet Cuza had carefully prepared the way, as if he had some means of gaining entry. This thought made the old wizard slightly nervous, though he would not admit that to himself. He suddenly felt too exposed in the greenhouse and made his way slowly back into the library.
He stood briefly in that room, taking in the high shelves that reached up to the dark roof beams. Books crowded almost to the ceiling, for wizards never worried about needing ladders to reach the highest volumes. He wondered if he should take the time to look up other magical means that Cuza might use to get into the castle. As he righted a couple of fallen chairs, he found a handful of dead beetles on the floor; they were small and unremarkable. Probably they had been swept in from the greenhouse by the invading werewolves. He threw them down and left the library. Perhaps there would be time later for research. For now, he could not think of how Cuza hoped to gain entry except by force.
Dawn was breaking; he could see it on the tips of the mountains visible to the north of the castle through the intact parts of the greenhouse windows. Mihail must be roused, and the werewolves as well. When the vampires attacked, he would need all the allies he could get.
Crossing the great hall, he caught sight of himself between two large mirrors, and was reassured that not all of the defenses against the Undead had been toppled. The bulbs and braids of garlic that had graced the walls last night, however, had been stripped to the last clove. The image of Cuza came into his mind: tall, arrogant, and looking just as Alexandru remembered him from their last meeting, over fifty years ago. Last night the hated vampire had stood confidently outside the castle, holding the two werewolves on leashes like tame dogs. This had not seemed surprising to the old wizard; he knew well from experience how werewolves could be subdued with the appropriate silver objects.
Seeing Ana Maria had not surprised him either. Although eight years of hunting vampires in the mountains had turned up no mention of his former bride, he always knew she would return -- and with Cuza.
Regret was not something that often troubled Alexandru, but he keenly regretted ever admitting the smoothly mannered stranger who arrived at the castle over five decades ago. An old friend of his father's, that was how Cuza had represented himself, and they had all believed him at the time. For who would suspect a vampire -- one of those creatures of Darkness that crept about in the night -- of showing up at the door and inviting himself in?
He had been foolish not to read the signs. The smiling stranger's stay lengthened, and Alexandru had been pleased that his lonely wife and shy brother had someone else for company, concerned as he was with building up the library and with scholarly research. He was young then, only a few years out of school, and had not encountered a vampire except in textbooks or in tales from his long-dead father. He did not see the cancer spreading throughout the castle until it was too late -- too late for Mircea and for Ana Maria.
How she had railed at him in the end, telling him coldly of her devotion to the stranger whom he now knew to be one of the Undead. He loves me and needs me, she declared, which is more than you ever did. The words meant nothing to him; by then he was numb from wave upon wave of betrayal and death. Her dark empty eyes (why hadn't he realized how she had changed?) told him everything he needed to know: his wife was dead, replaced by a cruelly accurate copy, a simulation of life, an abomination.
In the end, he had been forced to flee the castle, no match in a wizard's duel against her and Cuza together. Now it seemed very likely that he would get the opportunity to meet them again, but not alone. With these thoughts, he hurried to wake the others and begin the preparations.
"Mihail," he intoned from the door of the servant's bedroom, "it is dawn."
The old man was asleep sitting up, one hand clutching a sprig of wolfsbane, extending it towards an invisible phantom. He'd slept in all of his silver jewelry, all except the brooch, which had apparently been too uncomfortable to sleep in and lay in a crumpled heap by the bed. His eyes sprung open at his master's call.
"You have nothing more to fear from werewolves," Alexandru informed him somewhat tauntingly. "In fact, they will be able to help us against a worse threat."
At that thought, Mihail's hand went to his neck to feel for his braid of garlic -- it was gone.
"Allium birds," his master informed him darkly. "There is no garlic left in the castle, nor water. There is no time to waste; I need you to prepare a potion."
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Dawn often caught the werewolves by surprise. When the sun went down on the night of the full moon they imagined they had always been wolves and always would be, living their twelve hours as if they were a lifetime, unsure with each adventure whether ten minutes or four hours had gone by. Locked in the prison room of Castle Arghezi, behind the high wall that screened the eastern sky, Remus, Liszka, Bela, and Grigore anticipated no end to their eternal night.
None had slept, occupied with their own wounds and those of their packmates. Grigore was the only one uninjured, and he dutifully licked the punctures on Liska's neck and shoulders from her fight with Vlad. She was impatient, though, shaking him off to attend to Bela with a concern that was fully maternal.
The young wolf had been unconscious when he was dropped to the stone floor of the prison room. Unable to anticipate his fall, he'd landed at an odd angle that had wrenched one shoulder and broken several ribs. At least his neck and back were unhurt, as Liszka discovered when she nuzzled him all over, instinct telling her the difference between sleep and paralysis.
Worse than the fall, Alexandru's trap, intended for werebears the size of African lions, had severed Bela's right rear paw at the ankle. His entire leg was covered with blood and, unhindered by human disgust or pity, Liszka had spent the night cleaning him up and stopping the bleeding. The Dark magic that let werewolves take lead bullets and killing curses made their wounds heal quickly, but they were still mortal -- they could suffocate, break bones, or bleed to death. Any injury unhealed at dawn would become that much more painful, as a werewolf in human form healed only slightly more rapidly than an ordinary wizard.
When Liszka tired, Moony would step in to help, but most of the time he spent pacing, pawing at the Muggle handles and gear levers as if they would tell him what to do. For the first time ever, his wolf incarnation felt guilty. Liszka had led Pack Five to his defense, and her cub had been injured by humans. In a head-lowered, tail-between-his-legs kind of way that admitted of no excuses or apologies, the big gray wolf knew that it was all his fault.
As dawn broke he nuzzled the exhausted Liszka, somewhat surprised that she accepted him without anger, laying her bloody white face over his shoulder in a gesture of weariness and friendship. They stretched out on their sides to transform, quietly enduring one more pain among many.
The sting of his dozens of werewolf bites, and the burns around his neck from the silver cord, were nothing to the human Remus compared to the pain of responsibility and guilt. "I'm sorry," was the first thing he managed to say, grateful for the darkness that concealed the others' wounds.
Liszka said nothing, taking Bela's head gently in her arms, afraid now to look at the mangled leg she'd spent all night licking. The boy was barely conscious, which was perhaps a good thing.
Half by instinct and half by intellect, Remus knew that Bela had lost a lot of blood and would need to drink. Casually, for it was a very easy spell, he murmured "aquosus" to summon water from the greenhouse spring, cupping his hands in anticipation.
He frowned as no water appeared and tried again, forcing his foggy mind to concentrate. He was in worse shape than he thought if even this spell was beyond him. Standing with effort, he went to the unyielding stone door and tried to call his wand, his hands feeling feathery as he sensed it as though he were gently stroking the phoenix whose feather it contained.
Even with his wand he was unable to call or sense water; it was as if none remained in the castle. Had Alexandru strengthened the defenses? It seemed unlikely, and he had no trouble summoning clothes and blankets from his bedroom. Cautiously, afraid to stir up either of their emotions, Remus approached Liszka and gave her a pillow and blanket for Bela and a set of clothes for her. Grigore hung in the background, miserable and cold, and took a cloak with a silent gesture of thanks.
Liszka slipped a set of old Pufflepod Academy robes over her head, shivering in the chilly darkness, and helped her son into a more comfortable position than the sphinx-like crouch he'd retained as he transformed. His face was chilly and dry, but try as he might, Remus couldn't summon any water. With his wand, at least, he could heal the young man's cuts and mend his bones, comforted somewhat as he breathed more deeply as his ribs knit.
Remus could also probably open the door with a simple spell, but he doubted that he'd find water more easily by running around the castle, especially as weak and ill as he was. Finally the idea occurred to him to give up on the running spring and feel for fluids in the kitchen. A bottle of wine came first, which was not the thing for an injured, dehydrated werewolf, but on the second try he obtained two liters of Laszlo the herbologist's apple cider.
Drinking was nearly a miracle for Bela. He still moaned quietly in pain, but his eyes grew clear and he was able to speak a few words. As he dropped into a peaceful sleep, Remus and the other members of Pack Five finished the juice and lay down to rest themselves. They were all asleep as the first rays of the sun peeked over the castle wall and through the tiny barred window of the prison.
Remus wasn't sure at first what awakened him. Filtered sunlight dotted the stone floor, illuminating the three werewolves who had given him their unquestioning loyalty for more than eighty months. And now, when he was no longer their leader, they had come unbidden to his defense. Grigore slept soundly over to one side, his skinny body wrapped in cloaks and blankets against the chill. Liszka and Bela were both sitting up, the mother murmuring words of comfort into her son's ear. Bela looked tired but no longer in agony, the pain replaced by dull dread as he wondered if he was crippled for life.
Despite his guilt Remus was proud of Bela, who healed so quickly and was so brave. He'd seen the boy show up abandoned in the forest when he was nine years old, because that was just what the local villagers did when their children were bitten by werewolves. Smart, strong, uncomplaining, Bela had rapidly become a full member of the pack as well as a skilled wizard-in-training. He had his own wand, something no other Romanian werewolf had, and while he didn't exactly share Remus' penchant for Dark creatures, he excelled at Transfiguration and had already learned to Apparate.
Pack Five considered Remus, their leader, the boy's father -- a role he didn't give up when he resigned as Alpha, but which gave him both gratification and worry. His days were too chaotic for him to always be there, with his second life as a vampire-hunter at the castle, and he suspected he was too irresponsible and conflicted to be able to offer anyone else parental advice. He could give Bela spellbooks and grade his homework, sometimes even pat him on the head, but he never really knew the boy; he didn't even know how much his personality traits, both positive and negative, came from the bite he'd received from Vlad.
Was it right to be proud of him for being brave, or was that to be expected of their kind? Certainly Remus had never considered himself particularly courageous, especially not now, as he called himself a coward and a traitor. The Sixes called him "mad dog" but Vlad's old mocking "Fido" was more like it, his dealings with humans putting his own pack at risk -- part of the reason he had resigned as their leader.
Liszka and Bela had not come out here and defended him only to have him abandon them. He would see to it that they had futures, both of them, and Grigore, too -- but just what futures, he couldn't imagine. Even now, after all these years, he didn't know if their kind belonged in the city, or even whether they were human. Which was more of a lie, his time at Hogwarts or his equal number of years as Lupeni Alpha of the Transylvanian Alps?
He sat up on his blanket and moved closer to Liszka, who had probably kicked him in her sleep (he wondered if all couples had this bed-hog problem). "Are you all right?" he asked Bela gently, hating himself for the trite phrase, always somehow embarrassed when people were injured or ill. He never could stand it when Madam Pomfrey fussed over him and peered into his eyes and nose as if searching for his soul.
The boy growled noncommittally and finally turned his red and feverish face to Remus, showing the only emotion he was really good at. "Kill him," he snarled.
Remus was startled, but realized when Liszka growled approvingly that it had been her idea.
"You warned him," she said angrily, though with no surprise. "You told him who we were, and described us, and he tried to kill us."
She hadn't been there to hear the description, and the fact that she trusted him so implicitly made Remus feel, of course, guilty -- although it was true that he had tried to make Alexandru understand how much the white wolf and her young black companion meant to him. He was, in fact, horribly dismayed that the old wizard hadn't been able to subdue them without hurting them, but he was sure Alexandru would apologize and make amends. Something must have happened by accident, something he had missed or forgotten. Most likely he had mistaken Bela for Vlad.
Remus was formulating a reply for the glowering Liszka when there was a loud metallic scrape at the door of their prison, and the sound of muttered spells. Liszka pulled both Bela and Remus closer to her, and Grigore awoke and came to huddle on Remus' other side, blinking with sleepy fear.
Alexandru strode into the room, neatly sidestepping the pool of Bela's blood. "Ah, I see all but one of you survived," he said cheerily. "Good; I'm having Mihail brew some Poultice Potion now, so you'll be useful when the vampires arrive."
In a split second, all of his excuses for this human fell to pieces in Remus' brain. Alexandru could see the blood, he could see that Bela could barely sit up and that all of them were dazed with grief and pain -- and "useful"? "All but one," as if Vlad were the equivalent of one of Remus' pack?
Remus was furious. The fact that he had no words to express his bonds to Liszka and Bela made it all the worse. If he derided Alexandru for injuring his wife and son, it would make no sense to the old wizard, for by human laws they were not. His mate and pup? Even worse, when what angered him was being treated like an animal.
Then Alexandru walked calmly over to the levers and moved to reset the traps.
There was only one thing Remus could say, and that was a low, angry growl that would have made any listener wonder whether he had transformed back. His growl was not alone, almost inaudible, in fact, over those of the other Fives; beside him, Liszka tensed as if preparing to spring.
"Don't touch that." Remus put his hand on his wand, knowing where his loyalties would lie if Alexandru attacked Liszka. "Don't you dare."
The old wizard turned, and regarded the wolf pack with a stony face that betrayed nothing. But he took his hand off the lever and backed out of the room, magically locking the door behind him.
"You see?" Liszka demanded. "Kill him."
Remus stood up to follow Alexandru, but nearly fell over from stabbing pains from ankles to neck, souvenirs of a nasty tangle with Vlad and vampires of which he now remembered little more than noises and scents. The details of his wolf memories were stuck in some deep limbic part of his brain, sometimes flashing to the surface when he experienced a violent emotion or, more commonly, sniffed an evocative odor. Everyone has smells that bring forth vivid pictures and deep feelings -- your mother's perfume, the carnations at your grandfather's funeral, the jasmine from your first trip to the seashore. For Remus these sensations were a thousand times stronger, giving him images of a whole other world that was at once a part of him and completely alien.
Had it been Cuza last night? He couldn't begin to guess, and efforts to recall only drove the memories still deeper. Walking stiffly out of the room, trying not to move any joints or muscles more than necessary, he wondered if he could get past his differences with Alexandru enough to ask.
He knew the old wizard well, and could forgive him a lot if he had finally been confronted with his arch-nemesis. Like Remus, Alexandru often reacted to panic by becoming excessively cool and collected, and all Remus expected of him now was an apology to Liszka and Bela, an acknowledgment that they were brave and hurt but that he was asking respectfully for their help.
It's simply a matter of respect, he told himself. If there was one thing he couldn't endure, it was someone who treated others as inferiors when they were in no position to fight back.
He found Alexandru in the Great Hall, standing watch over Mihail as the latter added sprigs of flowering dogwood to the Poultice Potion -- that instead of wolfsbane, since the werewolves didn't want or need an antidote to their own magic. Dogwood would heal the bites and scratches as well as cure fever; as usual, the Romanian servant was as canny a potion-brewer as any Slytherin.
Just watching it bubble made Remus feel better, even as he battled exhaustion, pain, and anger. He hadn't seen Mihail's fancy-dress of last night, or at least didn't remember it, and now was somewhat startled to notice that the servant wore a mirrored ball gown.
This was not the time to worry about transvestite tendencies, however. "I believe you owe Liszka and Bela an apology," he said coldly, wondering which of them would lose his self-control first on this grim autumn morning.
The brief puzzled look on Alexandru's face -- clearly he had forgotten their names -- enraged Remus so much he almost didn't hear the words. "I only did what was necessary," he said. "It's too bad, but when your kind pose a threat -- "
"We were a threat to no one," Remus hissed. "You could have worn wolfsbane and retired to your room until dawn, rather than play games with your own life and the lives of my family."
He could only guess what Alexandru had done, but his guess was vague or accurate enough, as it made the monster-hunter flinch. "I am not one to hide in my room," he responded, and for perhaps the first time, his self-control was weakening before Remus'. "I shan't do so today, when Cuza returns -- and neither shall you."
He's giving me orders, Remus thought in surprise; it was almost funny. "I will do what I can for my loved ones, but don't be so sure that I will risk my life for a murderer," he said, his hoarseness from transformation and thirst making his voice almost a growl.
Mihail gasped and dropped his pestle into the potion, the gesture reflecting off of all his mirrors.
"I hired you to hunt monsters, not to consort with them." Alexandru's icy tone was melting under his fury, almost becoming a yell.
Remus stayed cool. It was always easier when he felt he was winning. "Someday you might ask yourself just who is the monster," he rejoined casually.
Alexandru's response was to look Remus insolently up and down. The werewolf held his ground, conscious that he was matted and bloody, his face shadowed from a night of sleeplessness and the strain of the Dark magic that powered the transformation. He wanted Alexandru to see the gulf between them, and he returned the gaze with equal bravado.
"Perhaps it's you," Alexandru inquired icily, "who has been killing hunters who come into the mountains?"
"Killing, no." Remus smiled. "Scaring, yes."
Alexandru slammed his fist into his other open hand, scowling. "Kalman Kovacs was killed last year, trying to hunt foxes... During the day, at first quarter!"
"Who?" Remus asked with exaggerated innocence, smirking as the implication that the name meant nothing to him was clearly not lost on Alexandru. "It's too bad, but I only did what was necessary," he echoed, not finding it necessary to clarify his minor role in the event (he had merely agreed to not ask Liszka any questions if hunters were killed in the Fives territory). Remus was no longer a very young man -- he was thirty-two -- and he would not let the old wizard patronize or intimidate him, nor would he apologize for what he was. "Perhaps you should consider not only the opinions of your own kind, but try to see yourself as others do," he declared. "But I don't suppose that will happen until the day you die."
"Which will very likely be this morning," said the old wizard in a quiet voice. When this silenced Remus for a moment, he told matter-of-factly of the allium birds, the desiccated greenhouse, that he had seen Cuza just outside the stable gate. The Jupiter ward could not be reset until after nightfall, when the planet reappeared, and even then Alexandru wasn't sure he could overcome the Kronos curse. "There is no good in a vampire," he said, regaining his cool, professorial tone. "He is coming to kill me, and you too, I expect, and I do not know how many allies he has gathered around him."
Remus remained unconvinced. "Cuza may be evil," he agreed, "but what if I told you of a vampire who has lived as a Muggle for more than a decade? Abstaining from human blood and living only a -- a life of the mind?"
"I would tell you it cannot last," Alexandru replied.
"And that's where you're wrong," Remus retorted, now angry in his turn. "And a bigot."
The old wizard didn't get a chance to respond, as there was a sound of footsteps and dragging fabric behind them. The old Pufflepod Academy uniform was much too big on Liszka, who'd tried unsuccessfully to wrap the excess folds around her waist. She glared at Remus, who after six years as her mate and co-Alpha knew that look: Kill the human, you lousy poodle, it said.
Alexandru, of course, didn't know Liszka. "You don't think I'm a bigot, and a monster, do you, young lady?" he wondered, his condescension making Remus want to tear his eyes out.
Liszka wasn't much for verbal duels. "A monster? No -- you're a human," she said somewhat timidly, not knowing that to Alexandru, that was a compliment -- or at least not an insult.
"Which means you behave more viciously and ignobly than any monster," Remus translated.
Liszka growled in agreement, and it wasn't clear how Alexandru was going to respond. The Fives' leader glared at him, circling nearer, suspicious that he had magic that, this morning, could kill her. She was not without magic of her own -- Remus had seen her defeat magical creatures twice her size without a wand -- but she wouldn't last long against a powerful wizard with a wand, if it came to that.
Her appraisal of the wizard was interrupted by a sudden, splintering crash from the library.
No one present in the great hall had paid attention to the groaning and creaking noises from the library that preceded the final collapse of the roof. The thick cedar beams holding up the roof had been flexing for some time, growing progressively thinner as the relentlessly hungry beetles ate through them. The sounds had gone unheeded as tempers flared.
At some point, one beam became so weak that it bent instead of flexing. The sharp crack could be heard throughout the castle, waking Bela and frightening Grigore in the tower room, and silencing the murderous argument in the great hall. The loud report was followed by an avalanche of sounds, as the shelves tumbled down like a house of cards under the weight of the wooden roof and books flowed along in a chaotic jumble. A few books spilled out of the library and into the great hall, skidding across the floor to meet Alexandru, who had forgotten the werewolves and run to the open door.
Several centuries of dust billowed into the great hall, temporarily obscuring the old wizard from view. The others heard him coughing and momentarily saw him again, peering into the destruction now visible in the former library. Remus hurried to his side, hearing the roof of the great hall creak ominously as he ran, and wondering if they would all suffer the same fate as the books soon.
'There," muttered Alexandru, looking up through the large hole which now graced the roof above the library. "Two of them, as I guessed."
Remus looked up to see glimpses of ragged black wings against white clouds and blue sky, disappearing against the darker background of aged wood.
"Vampires have entered the castle," he said grimly. "Any idea how?"
Mihail gave a shriek in the background, and began speaking rapidly and incoherently. Alexandru ignored his old servant to ponder the question. As was typical of the vampire hunter, he betrayed little excitement, although Remus suspected that he must be holding in a great deal of emotion. These two vampires, who had brought together an astounding array of magical weapons and waited patiently for the aid of celestial events, were not simply out for blood. They and Alexandru must be bitter enemies, in a way that Remus, with the disjointed fragments of Arghezi history that he knew, couldn't begin to fathom.
Unhurriedly, the older wizard squatted down and sifted through the dust thickly coating the floor near the library door. He stood and held out his hand to the younger man, showing a collection of dusty beetles, some still wriggling and climbing over one another in his palm.
"I fancy these are responsible," he replied thoughtfully. "They could be induced to gnaw at the roof beams very quickly with the right enchantment. As to how they got here, I believe that the werewolves were made to carry them in last night by some means."
Remus noted the neutral tones in Alexandru's voice and the careful choice of words. While not an apology, it at least suggested that he did not blame the werewolves for what had happened.
That was somehow worse; if he didn't blame them, why was he incapable of treating the others with the courtesy he showed Remus?
He had to tell himself over and over that they would fight Cuza first, and deal with Alexandru later.
"Two vampires," said the old vampire hunter more loudly, turning away from the library door to face the stricken Mihail, clutching at the sides of his cauldron near the hearth. Liszka stood nearby, tensely trying hard to read the expression on Lupeni's face for some guidance.
"We must make what preparations we can," he declared, throwing down the handful of dusty bugs and taking out his wand. With a startling rapidity, he raised his arms and called forth an incantation that uncovered the last of the huge mirrors, each one about twenty feet wide and forty feet high. Now all four walls of the great hall sported mirrors which could kill a creature with no reflection, who would be trapped between any pair of them, unable to escape the infinity contained within.
Remus, in turn, summoned the sunstone from his room. This small fist-sized lump of rock had served him well against vampires in caves and barns, but he wondered if it would work at all in the large, open hall. Still, they had to use what weapons were on hand.
He stepped quickly over to Liszka and murmured in her ear. "Take the potion to Bela and Grigore, and make sure they're safe," he whispered.
She looked at him doubtfully -- and then she turned her head slightly towards the prison room and gave a long howl, one of warning and inquiry, translating the reply for Remus as though he weren't one of them. "They're fine," she said, "they'll lock themselves in. I'm with you, Lupeni; I've come this far."
"But -- there are vampires here." She had hunted creatures with him many times, but he didn't think she'd ever encountered a vampire, certainly not one who had been a wizard in life. "Powerful ones."
"Vampires?" she shrugged. "They can bite me."
Determined both to protect her and to prove to Alexandru that she should be respected, Remus handed her the sunstone and told her how to work it. That gave him his hands free to hold his wand, guarding carefully against a disarming spell.
Meanwhile, Mihail had continued to babble. Something about the look of grim determination on his master's face, combined with Liszka's methods of communication, caused him to lose all vestiges of self-control and fly into a panic. He shuffled from the room as fast as his old joints and fluted ball gown would allow; although not screaming, he muttered incessantly and disconnectedly to himself, the occasional proper noun that reached Remus' ears hinting that he was reliving vampire horrors of a half-century ago.
The old man found refuge in the only place he knew -- his bedroom, which until last night had been guarded against several forms of Dark magic. Now, his garlic mysteriously vanished, his wolfsbane dried out, there was nothing he could do but lock the door tightly, using the strongest enchantment he knew to block it against forceful entry. He hoped that would be enough.
He could not just crawl under his covers and wait to die. Instead, he sat bolt upright in bed. He did not have long to wait. Soon, as he feared, tendrils of gray mist seeped under the door, creeping across the floor, growing larger and rising into a shape -- one that he recognized. He ceased to mutter to himself, only whispered two soft words as the shape took on the features he would never forget: "Ana Maria."
For it was she, the pallor and depthless eyes of the Undead only adding to her ethereal beauty. She parted her lips, a scimitar of a smile spreading across her face, revealing her softly shining, pointed teeth. Mihail forgot he was afraid as she began her song, one that he had heard distantly in this very castle long, long ago, one that had haunted his dreams for over fifty years.
"Come to me," she sang, and he obeyed.
In the great hall, meanwhile, a lone bat came to rest on a windowsill opposite the large mirrors. Alexandru, Remus, and Liszka stood ready.
"Helios!" cried Liszka, as her sensitive ears picked up the faintest pop.
But the blinding white light was reflected back into their faces, making them squint. A thick fog had appeared suddenly in the hall, its tiny droplets refracting the sunstone's rays into thousands of tiny rainbows. The scene would have been mesmerizing with its beauty were it not for Cuza's cruel laughter echoing around the cavernous stone room.
"How do I turn this thing off?" Liszka muttered, blinking.
Remus murmured "vesper" and tapped the stone with his finger. Once it was extinguished, the fog no longer entranced them, but they could see no more clearly.
Alexandru had his wand out and was turning around in circles, trying to locate his enemy by shadow or sound. Liszka growled quietly and Remus knew exactly what she was thinking: it would be so nice to have movable ears. But perhaps that didn't matter -- perhaps Cuza's voice didn't tell them the location of the vampire, as it bounced around from the ceiling to the fireplace to the entrance hall. Not even Apparating would move him that quickly.
"Where am I?" he taunted his ancient foe. "Over here? Or over there? …Or right beside you?"
Alexandru jumped as the voice appeared to hover over his shoulder, but then it was gone again.
"So many traps," came the voice, and there was a flash of light and a tinkle of broken glass; the vampire-hunters could see what had happened, but they could guess that Cuza was destroying the mirrors under protection of the fog. "So many wards." Another crash.
Remus and Alexandru came to their senses at once.
"Ventus!" cried the old wizard, and a strong, hot wind whipped through the great hall, stirring up the fog but doing little to disperse it; but at the same time...
"Ardere!" said Remus, and the walls began to glow red-hot, the fog condensing onto them and dribbling to the floor like rain.
They could see the vampire now, strutting boldly through the garlic-free, mirrorless great hall.
"Expelliarmus!" yelled Remus and Alexandru at once -- then stood gawking like first-years as the spell, even doubled, had no effect.
"Boys, boys," purred Cuza, turning to regard them all with a bloodless hatred. "You should know better."
Remus and Alexandru exchanged a quick glance. Neither had ever heard anything about that simple spell not working against vampires.
It works against Voldemort, the English wizard thought, baffled.
Liszka lit the sunstone once more, but Cuza quickly traced a complicated figure in the air that stopped the rays in their path, focusing them back into a narrow beam that seared her hair and made her yelp. She dropped it like a hot coal: the brilliant stone hit the stone floor with a sharp crack and rolled toward the vampire. Casually, he pointed his wand at the brightly glowing lump, murmuring "Disintegere," which caused the stone to vaporize with puff of acrid smoke.
"That's better," Cuza grinned slyly, "Now I feel more at home. Your hospitality was much better on my last visit, Arghezi."
Alexandru drew himself up to his full height, slightly taller than the vampire who stood some twenty feet in front of him, and spat two harsh words: "Get out." The master of the castle raised his wand, preparing a curse, but the vampire seemed nonplused.
"Has not his hospitality worsened?" drawled the vampire, looking over the heads of all three of his foes toward the door behind them, "What do you say to that, my dear?"
A clear and brutal laugh made all three heads turn.
Almost as tall as Cuza, equally thin, but rosy-cheeked and swaying slightly with tipsy pleasure, was Lamia. Two trails of blood dribbled from her pointed teeth down her chin and across the white hollows of her collarbone. As she spoke, she drew her tongue around her mouth so as not to miss a drop.
"Lamia!" cried Remus -- not only with accusation but with wild grief, lowering his wand, unable to point it at her. He had just finished defending her, not only because he loved her but because she stood for everything that he wanted desperately to believe, that darkness didn't have to destroy those it inhabited.
His gesture and the tone of his voice might have gone unnoticed to Alexandru if it weren't for Liszka's response. She wasn't jealous, she wasn't even angry -- but she clearly knew what the relationship between Lamia and Remus had been, and reacted the way a wild wolf might to seeing her mate trotting down a sidewalk wearing a collar and knitted dog sweater. Consorting with Lamia was only slightly worse than living in the castle with Alexandru -- but to sleep with her… "You're foaming, mad dog," Liszka grumbled, stomping her foot. "I don't know why I came out here to save your tail."
Alexandru looked quickly at her, paying less attention to her slangy statement than her blazing eyes and flushed face. "YOU!" he roared, losing his temper with Remus at last, waving his wand in a vain attempt to cover both werewolves and both vampires at once. "With ANA MARIA!"
Remus gaped at his mysterious lover, who continued to sway, still dripping blood. He raised his wand -- and paused, caught between Liszka and Lamia, two creatures who had only done what came naturally to them until he, mad Fido the monster hunter, came along to try and stop them. Did he have any right?
In the second that he hesitated, Lamia grabbed her own wand and hurled a curse at Liszka.
____________________
Romania, Year Twelve
"I couldn't do it," Remus admitted to Dumbledore and Bela now, as they continued to wait out the summer rainstorm in the castle.
The headmaster listened intently as he rubbed potion into a long scratch on his hand from Alexandru's ill-tempered eagle owl, absorbing his former student's frank recount of the last hours of Alexandru Arghezi's life. Dumbledore and Arghezi had been close friends, and it had been a surprise to all who knew him that the old monster killer would die at the hands of the creatures he hunted.
Bela, too, was rapt, but the expression on his face was pained and he bit his lip as he listened. He had actually been there: behind the walls of the prison room, drifting in and out of unconsciousness, fearing for his parents' lives and his own future. Before now, he had never dared to ask for the whole story. He remembered Liszka calling to him, and he recalled locking the door magically with a bit of help from Grigore -- but the noises that followed could have been figments of his fevered dreams.
"Mum blocked the curse, didn't she?" he asked. He wasn't ashamed to show his pride in Liszka, who could do magic without ceasing to be a wolf.
"Of course she did," Remus smiled. "That surprised the vampires, and gave Alexandru and me a chance to recover our senses. Then… then it was a four-way wizards' duel for I don't know how long -- an hour, maybe longer. It was high noon by the time Cuza turned into a bat and Alexandru blew the ceiling apart trying to curse him."
He paused for a moment to help Bela scrape together some semblance of a lunch for the three of them; the young man was demonstrating that he did have manners, after all, as long as he wasn't standing in the rain being reminded that he'd had to defend his father against accusations of murder.
"The bat didn't like the sunlight, of course," Remus continued, "and he was forced to transform back. Your mother -- Liszka -- was waiting for him with a mirror, while Alexandru tried to ambush him from behind."
Bela brought a platter of roast squash and garlic and a loaf of bread to the table, while Remus fetched more tea.
"We, er, don't eat much meat the week of the new moon," Bela explained, clearly fascinated by the fact that Dumbledore wasn't a werewolf. "It's kind of a tradition. I hope it's enough," he added politely.
"Is that so?" The headmaster looked with interest at Remus, fascinated in turn.
Remus felt an urge to laugh, struck by the incongruity of the number of worlds he always seemed to be juggling. From making peace between Peter and Sirius, and James and Severus, to having a werewolf son and a vampire lover, he couldn't say he lacked excitement.
"Go on," Bela mumbled through his bread -- because talking with one's mouth full was, among werewolves, absolutely not considered rude. "Did you kill the vampire?"
Remus shook his head, losing his appetite and sense of humor at the memory. "Not then. Alexandru's curse hit a stone pillar with not much left to support it, and a section of the roof came crashing down on him."
______________________
Romania, Year Eight
Thick, black smoke began to fill the great hall, not the result of any magical spell but the product of simple fire. The hangings on the wall, colorful tapestries that had once livened up the forbidding stone walls, had caught fire as a result of the ferocious blasts of magical energy unleashed by four powerful wizards. Flames licked at the great wooden roof beams, too.
Remus was not worried about fire as he heard ominous rumblings from the roof above. He watched with horror and fascination as first one, then another of the huge posts supporting the roof, each the trunk of some ancient tree, came loose and tipped ominously toward the floor. Time slowed, allowing him to trace the path of the beams as they plummeted slowly downward, encumbered by large sections of the roof still attached to them.
Alexandru, intent on hurtling a curse at the back of his nemesis, didn't notice the destruction arriving from above. Remus shouted to him hoarsely over the tumult of roaring fire and falling roof. In an instant several things occurred that Remus did not understand clearly at the time; only months later, after agonizing endlessly over what happened, did he piece together the crash and its aftermath.
His shout prompted Liszka to drop the large shard of mirror which she held in front of the menacing vampire. Cuza turned to face Alexandru, a look of ancient, alien hatred or longing on his face -- Remus was never sure if human emotions could be applied to vampires. As Liszka ran toward Remus, Alexandru let fly a curse that struck the vampire full on, sending him sprawling across the floor.
Remus had no time to wonder what powerful spell the old wizard had used. Avada kedavra would not kill the Undead, but perhaps he had tried that anyway. He was more concerned with the immediate danger to Alexandru from above, and there was no chance afterward to ask.
If he could somehow deflect the falling mass of wood, the old wizard might escape the ruinous collapse. Alexandru seemed insensible to his shouts, too intent on the duel and on staring at Cuza's fallen body.
Desperately, Remus thought that together he and Liszka might be able to magically protect the old wizard; they had moved timber before while hunting monsters, although never so much and so quickly.
"Liszka!" he yelled frantically, gesturing upward with his wand and trying to create a powerful enough charm. Her only response was to howl; she didn't need words to tell him that she would never help the human who had callously tried to kill her son.
Then the crash came. Time resumed its normal flow as beam and plank met stone with an earsplitting uproar. Too many noises collided at once to be able to pick out the sound of wood crushing bone. But after several heartbeats, the din retreated and Remus heard the anguished cries, saw the pained face of his former teacher and friend. The old wizard lay pinned under one of the roof beams, which was finally at rest after a long fall that seemed to take hours, although only a few seconds had passed.
"Liszka," he pleaded, no longer shouting but still retaining a sense of urgency to his voice, "help me shift this."
This time she complied, but none too hurriedly, like a fox-hunter removing his prey from a trap. Together they managed to move the huge hunk of wood enough to pull Alexandru free. Remus knelt beside the old wizard, assessing the extent of his wounds and wondering whether he could heal so much damage.
"Fool," murmured Alexandru, his face drained of color and looking harder than normal, like a rough imitation of a human face crudely chipped out of marble. Liszka uttered a low growl in the background, but Remus did not let go, could not in the end abandon the man who had sheltered and taught him for eight years, in spite of the enormous gulf that seemed to separate them.
"Remus, I was a fool," the old wizard whispered, weakly gripping the younger wizard's arm, "not to tell you about her... if only you had known."
"Hush, save your strength," he replied. The old man's labored breathing filled him with dread. With a bitterness that took him by surprise, Remus continued, "I am more the fool for believing her lies... Here, let me help you sit and take care of your -- "
"No!" cried Alexandru sharply. "Listen to me now -- I don't have much time. I, too, was taken in by a vampire, but only my... pride prevented me from telling you. I could not bear to tell you that I had admitted a vampire to this castle, that under my nose, my wife, my brother, and others succumbed while I blindly pursued my own ambitions. You should have been prepared for what can happen when a vampire calls..."
"Nothing could have prepared me," Remus replied angrily.
"It is your curse," began the old man tenderly, but Remus flinched at the word, sure of what was coming next, "to be able to see the human in everyone, even in monsters."
Too shocked to speak, Remus could only stare at his dying friend whose face had become an ashen gray and whose breath rattled hoarsely and shallowly.
"You taught me much," Alexandru murmured, his voice becoming softer and less distinct, as if most of him had departed already. "Apologize to your... family... for me. I wronged them as much as I wronged you."
Remus put his arms around the man's once powerful shoulders, unwilling to let him go.
"Finish," was all that Alexandru managed to breathe before Remus felt the life slip away, leaving him holding the shell of someone who had meant more to him than he ever realized.
Gently, Remus laid the dead man's head on the stone floor, wishing there had been more time for goodbye, while at the same time hoping that the leave-taking hadn't given the vampires the upper hand.
His face was a grim mask when he rose and said to Liszka, "Have you seen them?"
"Think they're buried under that," she replied tersely, pointing to a large pile of wooden debris, a jumble of weathered wood heaped at least six feet high and impenetrably dark inside.
The smoke was beginning to get thick, drifting heavily down to floor-level from the burning tapestries above. Remus hoped that it hadn't spread to the roof and thence to the west wing. He felt certain that Bela and Grigore would be safe from fire in the tower room, but the smoke might still kill them. Then there was Mihail, who was probably unconscious in the west wing somewhere. Those were his secondary concerns; his primary one was finding the vampires.
He did not have long to wait, as a pair of bats fluttered above the large mass of debris, weaving in and out of the roiling and acrid smoke. Remus took no time to wonder if the Killing Curse would work on vampires, but raised his arms and roared "Avada kedavra," a dreadful curse that he had only used once before to save Bela's life against a raging Chimera.
A flash of blinding green light pierced the smoke, seeming to part it for an instant. Both bats were stricken; one dropped to the floor several yards from Remus while the other flew unsteadily away, wounded perhaps as it fluttered out the door leading to the entrance hall.
One at a time, Remus thought, grateful that he had hit one of them at least. There was no telling if the curse would stop a vampire for long. He wasted no time, therefore, and ripped several strips of wood from a splintered roof plank, hardly feeling the searing pain as sharp splinters jammed into his palms.
"Go get Bela and Grigore," he directed Liszka. "We can't stay in the castle much longer."
She looked at him with a rough pride, happy to see the Alpha that she thought had disappeared, and quickly left. Remus turned to face the vampire, lying in a motionless heap on floor. At first he saw only the folds of the dusty black cloak, not realizing that it was Cuza until he approached and stood over the body. The dizzying sense of relief stunned him. He didn't have to face her yet.
Swiftly, he knelt and turned the corpse on its back. With a casualness born of many years' hunting in the mountains of Transylvania, he drove one of the crude stakes through its heart, feeling the end jam up against the hard stone of the floor underneath. This ought to finish off any vampire, but with all he had heard about Cuza, he had to wonder. He would feel much better after the corpse had been burned.
Before he could finally dispose of Alexandru's worst enemy, however, he had to find his former wife.
With a wand in one hand and a stake in the other, Remus left the great hall in search of the vampire he had loved. Was he mistaken to believe that some of the human still existed within her, and that he had touched it in some way? She was like the smoke filling the great hall and keeping pace with him as a strode across the entrance hall, a real presence but impossible to hold for long. He hardly knew what he would say or do when he found her, but he felt a strong compulsion to be with her, whatever the outcome.
He found her in the portrait gallery, limping slightly and trailing one hand along the wall, brushing her fingers over the ornate frames. The dim gallery, a wide corridor with no windows of its own, lay in deep shadow and a smoky haze clung to the ceiling. As he made his way slowly down the passage after her, he remembered a much younger man, drunk on too much wine and too much knowledge, stumbling down the same gallery, staring at the same portraits.
She stopped near the end of the gallery, her attention fixed on the final pictures in the sequence. Remus knew them well, knew why she would want to stop there.
Overwhelmed by the darkness, he suddenly raised his wand and cried softly "Incendio" to light the candles placed in sconces along the wall. With several small pops, light flared atop the candles, the flames dancing and hissing in the smoky atmosphere.
She turned at the sound, raising her wand defensively. From her pale face, half in shadow and half in the flickering yellow light, those dark, penetrating eyes regarded him impassively. For the first time he looked into their naked depths, without the peculiar lenses she had worn to shield them.
"Cuza's dead," Remus called softly as he approached, "and so is Alexandru."
His hands hung limply at his sides. Why couldn't he raise his wand against her, knowing now what she truly was?
"You," she moaned angrily, swaying slightly and steadying herself on the wall, "what are you? You are a lie straight through! I thought that you--" She broke off, her wand wavering, but still pointing directly at him. He stopped some six feet away from her. She could kill him any time; maybe he deserved to die for being such a fool.
"I lied about many things," he replied harshly, "but not about what I felt for you. What am I? ... a failed human? ...a failed monster?" At that moment, he could not understand himself any more than he could her. He continued more gently, almost to himself, "And I thought that you could change. What happened, Lamia?"
Her hand shook more violently as she spat, "Don't call me that! I'm not-- I can't be that any more. And you must... not... call me... that..."
Those last words came out slowly, painfully, through clenched teeth. She fought a battle inside herself, evident from the trembling which overpowered her, making her thin frame shake like crockery during an earthquake.
She turned away from him, face toward the wall, and gasped suddenly at something there, seeming to forget all else. Her wand clattered uselessly to the floor. Remus approached cautiously and saw that the portrait of the Arghezi brothers now held two faces, the familiar young, stony-faced Alexandru and another who must be his brother, Mircea.
She moaned his name softly, insensible to Remus now standing beside her.
"Do you think he forgives me?" she murmured after several moments, acknowledging Remus' presence while staring raptly at the portrait.
He looked at the boy of about eighteen who smiled shyly from the portrait. The same deep, dark eyes as Alexandru's looked out at them, but in a softer face, almost beautiful with its sweeping cheekbones and delicately curving smile.
Remus knew that portraits, even magical ones, were merely a reflection of the subject, and not capable of acts such as forgiveness, but he replied, "Yes. I think he does forgive you."
Lamia turned to him, her dark eyes seething with emotions, almost human in a way that Remus ached to touch as he whispered, "And I forgive you, too."
She reached down for his wand, prying it out of his hand and tossing it to the floor. He let her.
"Tell me your name, your real name," she said, her dark eyes once again unreadable to him.
"Remus Lupin."
"I loved you, Remus Lupin," she stated with a quiet conviction that he would never forget, "and if you loved me, there is a gift that I...would ask from you."
He understood her words fully as she raised her hands and grasped his other hand, the one containing the crude stake, the one bleeding from numerous cuts.
"No," he began softly, denial, regret, and horror all creeping into his voice, forcing it to be louder until he shouted, "No! Don't ask me to -- "
She appeared not to hear him as she caressed his hand with hers and bent her head down to lick his wounds, tasting him in a way she had denied herself before.
"Now I shall go mad," she murmured with a trace of her old humor. Straightening up, she faced him and said, "I tried, and failed, to live in two different worlds. Sleep is all I want now. That is the gift you can give me..."
Slowly he nodded, understanding her need, but reluctant to carry out her request. He felt keenly what it was to balance both the human and the wolf inside himself. Did that even come close to her struggle? He had believed for eight years now that the Undead should not prey on the living, but should give up their imitation of life for some final rest. Could he give this to her?
He searched her eyes and found within them a trace of her pain, scraps and shreds of human emotion that vampires were supposed to leave behind. He could free her from that pain. Yes...
Grigore found him kneeling on the floor, hunched over the still body as the flickering candles threw monstrous shadows on the floor and walls.
"Lupeni," he began hesitantly, "Liszka Alpha asked me to find you. She says we should leave."
Remus did not answer at first, making Grigore shuffle nervously. Then, without looking up, he said hoarsely, "There are a few things to do first."
He lifted his head and stared up at the Beta with red-rimmed eyes, but his voice was clear as he said, "Find the other vampire in the great hall. Take it out into the castle yard and burn it."
Slowly and with great reluctance, Grigore nodded his head, eyes wide with terror.
"Go on," Remus said, "it won't bite. I will be out shortly."
Despite those words, it was some time before Remus came stumbling out of the castle, bearing her in his arms, ready to attend to his duty to the living once more.
__________________________
Romania, Year Twelve
Bela neglected his lunch as he listened, interrupting now and again with questions and outbursts of surprise or anger. Remus had forgotten how emotional the young man could be, and after four years of quiet solitude, he found the display refreshing. Perhaps, now, they could forgive each other's mistakes.
Both the headmaster and Bela had guessed by this point that Grigore had failed in his duty.
"Did he leave him until sunset?" Bela breathed in awe. "How could he… ?"
"I would imagine that Cuza was not altogether finished yet," Dumbledore mused, pouring himself tea.
"I'm not sure how much of Grigore's tale to believe," Remus pondered. "One thing is certain: the vampire returned to prey on the villagers for several years after that night."