Chapter 6:
Voyages with Vampires
"O praeclarum custodem ovium lupum!"
(an excellent protector of sheep, the wolf!)
~ Cicero
Romania, Year Twelve
Wings and claws materialized out of the clouds as Dumbledore finished his third long story about Harry and friends. Remus was mentally preparing for his turn, knowing that at some point the Headmaster would have to hear about the last moments of Alexandru Arghezi's life. They had spent the entire morning trading histories, neither tiring of speaking or listening, both oblivious to the stormy weather and the rumblings of their unsatisfied stomachs.
It looked as if it might be a replay of the roc, but this time the bird slowed down before hitting the magical barrier, lifted its left foot, and tapped twice. There was a brief shimmer, and a long-eared owl, light brown-speckled with black, dropped through the barrier and came to rest on one of the fallen beams.
Remus went to help it get the letter off its leg. The piece of parchment inside the wooden container was quite small, and its message brief, hardly justifying its bulky packaging.
Dumbledore watched, eyes twinkling. "Ah, owls cannot get through the enchantments protecting the castle," he said. "But here we have an eagle owl and an oak box emblazoned with a golden thunderbolt. I see that it wasn't just moonwards that Alec perfected."
Remus nodded agreement, but he winced. The Jupiter ward was indeed a brilliant and elegant spell, but it had failed catastrophically once -- and once was enough. "The box was easy enough to make, but this is only one of two eagle owls in the mountains. It makes it difficult to get the mail sometimes."
"And how does it work?" the headmaster wondered, taking the box and attempting to reach it through the wall -- it was blocked.
"Jupiter is the brightest object in the night sky apart from Venus and the moon," Remus began, wondering why he was bothering to tell the old wizard such basic details. "It's more useful than Venus, because it's visible nearly all year and only cycles through the zodiac once every twelve years." In fact, it would be this year that the ward would need to be reset -- if he could figure it out. He tried not to remember Alexandru's excitement when he set it up for the first time. "Eagles, oak, gold, and the thunderbolt are all controlled by Jupiter: so when all four come together, the ward allows them through." He smiled. "It took a while for Alec to get it to accept eagle owls, but he didn't want to risk getting clawed by an eagle a second time."
He turned his attention to the letter as the headmaster examined the box and made a few sounds at the owl. Since his first year at Hogwarts (maybe even his first week) Remus had suspected Dumbledore was a Tiresian, able to speak to birds -- but he didn't know if this were a natural skill or one he acquired with a potion. Laszlo the herbologist had a vast field of calendula, and when it bloomed in the summer a barefoot run through its sunny blossoms would give any wizard the gift for one glorious hour.
Remus didn't know what owls talked about, but the ducks in the creek were very observant creatures, and fascinating when they weren't gossiping about each other's feathers.
"It looks as though I'm wanted in the Fives -- er -- in the forest today," he said, frowning as he scanned the note. "If you'll excuse me, Headmaster, this is from someone I haven't spoken to in a while… someone I care about a great deal." He folded the letter and took a deep breath. "We haven't been speaking to each other much, lately… Apparently they're rebuilding the old cottage and need some help before winter comes." He looked at the sky through the rising bubbles of magically diverted rain.
"Well, don't let me interfere," the professor replied cheerfully. "I can certainly entertain myself here, or accompany you, as you wish."
Remus gave a wry smile. "It's right in the middle of werewolf territory," he said. When no glimmer of fear appeared on Dumbledore's face, he added, "Not that you'd be unwelcome, or anything; it's just somewhat unusual…"
The old wizard did have a look on his face then, and unless Remus was much mistaken, it was one of pure schoolboy curiosity. This gave him new respect for the headmaster, and he grinned. "We can fly, at any rate, as soon as we're a quarter-mile outside the gates. Nothing but mountains to the northeast, and Alec didn't bother to ward them; but there's no way I've found to sneak back into the village."
The twenty-mile flight to where the cottage had been was actually quite pleasant. Breaking through the ceiling of gray cumulus, they found bright sunshine and a clear blue sky, the clouds billowing under their feet like a down comforter.
As soon as they landed, of course, they were rained on again, and the young man waiting for them in the wreck of the cottage had draped himself with plastic to stay dry. He greeted Remus stiffly and they didn't bother with introductions; it was evident that both feared a resurfacing of old resentments. They hid their emotions under practicality, and the weather helped as an excuse to hurry things along.
"I don't want to rebuild it right here," the young man said. "The ground is too charred, and it was never an ideal spot anyway; the snow would pile up on the roof in winter. I just thought if I could move these big beams a bit farther north… I can't do it myself," he added, looking sullen.
"Nor can I, probably," Remus replied with a smile, cheering the other up somewhat. "You're right, though -- it's a shame to waste the wood. Between the three of us, I'm sure we can get it where it needs to go."
They set about excavating the ruins. One whole wall remained largely intact, as did the stone fireplace and chimney. The other three walls, the roof, and the furniture were entirely burned. Occasionally a cooking pot or marble pestle would emerge intact, and they set these useful items aside in a clearing.
"This is a remarkable object," Dumbledore commented suddenly, bending low over a muddy patch of ground.
"DON'T -- " the young man cried instinctively, then clamped his mouth shut as Remus shot him a questioning look.
When the headmaster stood up, he was holding a six-inch cross. The black tarnish didn't hide the ornate design, the metal that had been cast to look like rough wood draped with olive branches. Lobed petals at each of the three ends held triplets of dark red jewels.
Dumbledore polished the stones on his robes and inspected them through magically dry spectacles. "Rubies," he remarked. "A traditional Orthodox design, Russian, perhaps, or Polish, from the last century. I thought at first it was gold, but gold doesn't tarnish…" He glanced up, as if just hearing the warning, and saw the young stranger take a wary step away from him. "It's silver, isn't it?" said the Headmaster.
The Romanian's eyes darted from him to Remus and back again, unsure what shocked him the most: that Dumbledore seemed to be unharmed by the cross, or that his own recognition of it had not escaped Remus' attention.
There was a brief silence, which would have lasted longer if it weren't for the pounding rain.
At last Remus turned to his friend. The pain of the old memories showed in his expression, but his tone was full of respect as he asked, "Was it you -- ? "
The young man crumpled his plastic raincoat and threw it to the ground with a scowl. He spread out his arms, gesturing to the dripping sky. "What do you think?" he shouted. "That I'd let them take you to prison?"
"He deserved to die for what he did, not for what he was," Remus replied quietly. "Had he been human I would have done the same, and I hoped that his death would be investigated as the murder it was -- not celebrated."
"You are so full of gleet!" the other yelled, his anger hiding so many contradictory feelings it was hard to guess which was uppermost. "No one cares why you did it! If they had arrested you, and found out what you were -- " He glowered at Dumbledore, not sure that he was supposed to be talking like this.
"It was a very impressive trick, anyway," said Remus. "But I must apologize for my terrible manners. Allow me to introduce the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore."
The young man stood dripping in the rain, shock and suspicion creasing his features as he clearly considered whether he was the victim of a prank. He had heard endless tales of the Headmaster over the years, but none sufficient to make him believe that the world's most famous wizard would dredge through the scraps of a burnt cottage in Romanian werewolf country.
What he didn't know was that Dumbledore had heard of him as well, and that he was perhaps just as interested as Remus in dissecting the events that had led to so many separate tragedies. The death of Alexandru, the destruction of the castle, Remus' resignation as leader of Pack Five, and the werewolf he had killed last year… all were related, but they were just now beginning to understand exactly how.
______________________
Romania, Year Eight
Two men and five sheep made their way up the narrow mountain track. Sheep bleated as they were forced to thread between narrow rocky clefts in places. Both men worked hard to keep the sheep from tumbling over the rocky ledges as a thick fog wrapped itself around the top of the mountain they ascended, cutting off the warm midsummer sun of the pass.
"Grigore," called one of the men, "watch that ewe! She's too close to the edge."
One of the sheep stumbled and disappeared. Her angry bleats could be heard distinctly through the mist, calling out to the remaining animals. Both men moved cautiously toward the cries, but halted when it became obvious that the ewe had slipped off the edge of the track and tumbled down to a nearby ledge, to judge by the volume of the bleating. The remaining sheep, all this spring's lambs, huddled together behind the men.
They stood together, peering into the mist. Both wore identical tunics and pants of rough cloth, although they were nothing alike in appearance. The taller man had long, light brown hair, bound neatly by a leather thong, and clear gray eyes. His companion had dark curly hair that hovered uncertainly about his face and shoulders. He was short and lean, a testimony to long years without enough to eat, and had a narrow, sharp face. His large black eyes were filled with worry.
"I am sorry, Lupeni Alpha," he replied uncomfortably.
"She's not very smart and this mist is getting thick," replied Remus Lupin, clapping Grigore on the shoulder lightly. He had known his companion for eight years, the first other werewolf he encountered when he arrived in the mountains of Transylvania. As Lupeni Alpha, he led Grigore's pack, Pack Five, for more than seven of those eight years. He still winced a little inside at the title, however. Somehow he always hoped that one of his oldest friends in the mountains could dispense with it in less formal situations.
"Grigore," he said after a thoughtful pause, "this might be a good time for you to try out the levitation spell you've been learning."
"Oh, no," replied the other nervously, "I've only practiced on small things and -- "
"Nonsense. What good is it getting a wand and learning spells if you don't practice them?"
The lost ewe continued her loud cries as they talked and the lambs nudged the two wizards nervously. Grigore fumbled for a wand, grasping it uncertainly. He had only gotten it last summer, taken at the insistence of his pack leader. Remus knew it wasn't the best match for him -- he could not get any of his pack to accompany him to Bucharest to pick out wands -- but in ten months of practice, Grigore had learned a few simple spells. With the exception of the teenager, Bela, none of the other Fives even wanted wands. Remus felt he had made progress in just teaching Grigore the rudimentary spells he had learned as a student.
"The Contra Gravitas Charm, remember it?" Remus prompted gently.
The wizard-in-training nodded, raised his arms and muttered the words of the spell under his breath, his eyes closed tightly in concentration. The bleats of the lost ewe grew closer and Remus could just make out the fuzzy head of the surprised sheep appearing out of the mist. Grigore opened his eyes and gasped, startled that he had actually done it. Unfortunately, this revelation broke his concentration and the sheep disappeared from sight, baaing angrily. They both heard its hooves scrambling over stones below.
"Son of a rabid dog," cursed Grigore, stamping his feet and throwing down the wand. Remus ignored him for a moment as he got out his own wand and called to the sheep which soon reappeared, frantically struggling but otherwise unharmed. She tumbled to the ground at their feet and would have gone off the edge again if Remus had not grabbed her, kneeling and throwing his arms around the large woolly neck.
"That was very good, Grigore," he said as calmly as he could over the ewe's bleats. He tried to sound encouraging, despite the mouthful of wool and sharp kicks from the sheep's hooves.
"Stupid sheep," muttered Grigore. "We were better off stealing them."
"You cannot mean that," Remus said sharply, rising to meet the younger wizard's eyes.
"No, Lupeni Alpha." he murmured, ducking his head to avoid the other's glaring disappointment. "But..." Grigore spoke haltingly, but with an edge of determination in his voice. "Wolves aren't -- aren't sheepdogs. In the old days, we -- "
"Stole sheep and bit people and were continually hunted down and murdered. Do you want to go back to that way?" Remus sighed and shooed the sheep together. The lambs nuzzled the ewe, happy to be reunited.
"Too many humans, that's the problem," spat Grigore. "We should just go somewhere else."
It was an old argument. Some of the werewolf packs in the mountains had agreed with Grigore's statement and disbanded or left, but leaving would not make the problem go away. Remus had been fighting this particular battle since he had challenged Vlad Alpha, leader of Pack Six, and created his own pack. Grigore had been one of the first to take Remus' side, however, and hearing Vlad-like sentiments from his lips was an unsettling surprise.
As they coaxed the sheep back up the trail -- like coaxing water to flow uphill -- Remus tried again with Grigore. "I'm not cut out for herding sheep myself, but raising a few sheep gives us freedom, you know that." Grigore walked beside him with eyes downcast and said nothing. Remus continued, "We'll trade the ewe and lambs for some chickens at the castle and then perhaps even have some eggs to sell in the village -- more freedom."
"Yeah, I guess," he mumbled, "freedom is good. But what good is it if -- " Grigore halted and the sheep jostled around him, unhappy that something blocked their path.
"Yes, what is it, Grigore?" Remus asked with patient curiosity.
"Well, um, we might have our freedom here, but for how long? All the packs get smaller every year -- Bela's the last one to join the Fives and that was ... eighty months ago, at least." Grigore began haltingly without meeting Remus' eyes, but talked faster as he went along, as if each word fueled the next. "Twelve months ago, we lost Andre. If we stay here, how long until we are -- until we disappear?"
Grigore managed in the end to raise his face and confront his pack leader with a mixture of fear and resolve in his eyes. Too shocked to answer, Remus turned away and wrangled the wandering sheep. He felt angry, betrayed in a way, by words that he would expect to hear from Vlad, but certainly not from Grigore.
"We'll always take in new members," he replied with a calm he certainly didn't feel, "but we have to find some kind of balance here. We can't be responsible for attacking humans and provoking them to attack us back."
He paused, struggling to find the words to say more. At that moment, however, the great standing stone marking the end of the trail loomed out of the mist. They had their hands full keeping the sheep away from the sheer cliff at the east side of the castle so that they could be herded around the west wall toward the stable gate. By the time they all arrived at the rear of the castle, Remus thought it best to leave the argument for another day. Instead, he would try teaching Grigore a bit more magic.
"The castle is protected by a lot of elaborate enchantments," Remus said as they collected the sheep around them, "but the locking spell on this gate is not much more complicated than the one I showed you. The main gate of the castle has a much more intricate ward on it, of course. Even I don't know how to release or set that one properly. "
The small wooden gate stood before them. Three times the width of a man and twice as tall, it was only small by comparison to the main gate. The gate was flanked by the smooth gray stones of the castle wall that curved over the top in a graceful arch. Remus took out his wand and gestured for Grigore to do the same.
"Remember the locking spell on your cottage?" Grigore nodded uncertainly and Remus continued, "The enchantment on the gate is much the same, but there are six serae magi to activate instead of three. First, find the points. Go on."
Grigore raised his wand, looked at Remus doubtfully, and then turned toward the gate. With his arm extended, he gestured around the perimeter of the gate, causing first one spot and then others to glow with a faint blue light. He seemed to gain more confidence as he went along.
"Good," Remus said proudly, "Now once you can hold all the serae of the enchantment in your mind, the words to release the spell are portales minor."
Taking a deep breath, Grigore closed his eyes, waved the wand once more, and said, "Portales minor."
The entire gate flared briefly with the same blue light as before. The apprentice wizard opened his eyes and grinned as Remus patted him on the back. After swinging the gate open using a large iron ring, they both began to push the sheep through the portal. When the last lamb had passed into the castle, Grigore made to follow, but something stopped him, sending him reeling backward onto the ground.
"I forgot to mention," Remus said as his companion picked himself up, "that there's more than one enchantment on this gate."
"But how did the sheep get through?"
"Wizards and other magical creatures are barred by another spell which does not affect animals. This particular enchantment extends all around the castle so that you could not, for example, climb over the wall."
"What about wolves," puzzled Grigore, "I mean our kind?"
"Good question," he responded. "Werewolves are still magical creatures and would not be able to get in. The spell is far too complex to be broken simply, but a skilled wizard can make an opening in it for a short time. I don't expect you to be able to do this; it's a Perforatis Charm which takes considerable practice to master. If you don't do it right, you can get stuck in the field of the enchantment which isn't pleasant, I can tell you."
Grigore watched raptly as Remus raised his wand and moved it through the air in a complicated figure. A glow, the same blue of the locking spell, filled the open space of the gate. Remus gestured for Grigore to enter and then followed rapidly as the glowing blue field faded. He closed the gate behind them and reset the locking spell. Both men turned their attention to the scattered sheep, bleating and clattering over the stones of the castle yard.
As they worked at getting the sheep settled in the stable, Mihail appeared, standing in the doorway with his arms folded and regarding both men with his usual air of contempt and disapproval. After a few minutes of the servant's silent vigil, Remus figured that he had something he wanted to say -- probably not within earshot of Grigore, who Mihail would guess was another werewolf.
"Good morning," Remus said pleasantly as he approached the stony-faced older man.
"The master went out early this morning and has not returned," declared Mihail, "and I have just come back from the village."
"Oh?" Remus queried.
"You have not heard, then," replied Mihail smugly, as he always did when he had the upper hand.
Remus shook his head and waited, realizing that the man had more than the usual gossip to relate.
"One of your Muggles at the Petrosna caves was bitten by a vampire."
______________________
"Hey, look at this." Mike sat up on his cot in the students' pavilion outside the Petrosna caves. He was still weak, unable to get out of bed, and trying to banish the chill in his bones under the late afternoon sun. There wasn't much more he could do; he certainly wasn't going to risk having a blood transfusion in Romania. In these last days of communism's ascendency, anyone close enough to the big cities was beginning to hear about Ceausescu's forced fertility program, the orphanages filled with children who had never left their cots, AIDS. The horror in the doctors' faces as they examined Mike's neck wound had, no doubt, much more to do with unconscious knowledge of the suppressed epidemic than with ancient mythology.
He propped himself on his elbow, pasty white fingers gripping a dusty tome of Lamia's, one of her few zoology books in English. "There's a Romanian indigenous cave spider that evolved underground, cut off from sunlight for over five million years, with nothing to eat but other creatures. It has no eyes and is a pure carnivore."
Vijay chuckled low in his throat. He was sitting on the ground, a multimeter propped between his feet as he prodded a complicated circuit board placed on a sheet of Mylar. "Oh, indeed, Mike. And I suppose it's three feet high and can drink two pints of blood in a sitting." He switched his probes, muttered something about capacitance, and reached for a soldering iron lying nearby.
"Well, a bat, then." Mike unconsciously fingered the bandage on his neck. "They did give me a rabies shot, right? I bet they were thinking bats."
Taofang was immobile at his computer but for his fingers, seemingly a ventriloquist as he spoke in staccato, scarcely grammatical sentences. "No vampire bats outside Latin America. Charles Darwin first European to see one."
"Well, so what do you guys think?" Mike's voice had a note of forced calm. Too bad Lamia wasn't here to set them straight; she knew more biology than the rest of them put together, and had a Romanian grandmother besides. But she was asleep in her tent, exhausted after a long night with the Cerenkov detectors. They could only get good data with them a few nights a month, when there was no moon. "What is the scientific origin of Romanian vampire myths?"
It was too good to pass up. Even Taofang turned his head, memories of all Mike's verbal zings stretching his face into a leer. "Vampires," he and Vijay said at once.
From somewhere beyond the tent, they were beginning to hear voices. Two people, maybe three, crunching through the weedy path to the research station. One was speaking Romanian, and the other -- well, the other was trying, but seemed to be substituting random English words whenever he felt like it. Even Mike, with his Brooklyn-grandparents' Italian, could tell this man was no linguist.
He spoke louder to drown them out. Probably more tourists, amazed by the Westerners coming to do science in a Stalinist wasteland. "All monster myths have some basis in fact," he declared. "Werewolves, of course, are an archetype for man the hunter; we have always been ambivalent about being killers. And vampires -- "
Even his shouts were drowned out as the approaching voices grew even louder, and two mysterious visitors broke through the grasses to plant themselves in front of the graduate students.
Mike was dumbstruck for a full minute, and even then could only mutter, "Duuude." He blinked several times, ran his hand through his hair, and tried again. "Duuude."
He recollected himself at last. "Wait! I got it! You're making a movie." He raised his hand as if he were asking a question in class, regarding the intruders with his mouth half open. "Steven Spielberg, right? …No, no, way too cheesy, he does big-eyed aliens but not guys in turquoise skirts. I know! Chris Columbus! --Did I guess?"
The guy in the turquoise skirt turned to his assistant, making sure that his hair was neat and that the camera took him at his most flattering profile (the one without the freckle). "Muggles," he said in a low voice, which still carried throughout the camp. "I shall wipe their memories afterwards, of course." Then, even louder, turning to each of the students in turn, "I have heard reports of a vampire attack at the Petrosna Caves. I am Gyro Idle the Great, author of the recently-acclaimed Weekend with a Werewolf, and vampire hunter extraordinare." He smoothed his curly locks and flashed a set of teeth that would make any vampire proud.
"Oh, maaaan." Mike lay back down on his bed. He was still laughing, but his laugh was beginning to sound strained. "Monty Python? Or that other dumb BBC show, what is it called --?"
"May I inquire as to the meaning of `Muggle'?" Vijay put in politely, having divined that this was not a British term. He abandoned his physics, putting the circuit board carefully away as he stood to face the visitors.
"Which of you unfortunate Muggles was the one to receive the bite?" the turquoise specter demanded, not answering the question.
Mike raised his hand again, and Gyro dragged his assistant over to the cot, grinning into the camera the whole time. He unceremoniously ripped the bandage off the invalid's neck and peered closely. "Yes… As I feared… The bite of one of Romania's oldest and most powerful vampires. You can tell, you see, by the spacing of the fang holes. The younger vampires have more closely set teeth, more like a spider than a bat…" Mike looked pleased at the mention of spiders.
"I would say…" Gyro lowered his voice to a sepulchral whisper. "This could perhaps even be the bite of…Vladimir the Vile," he hissed, then grinned again and posed for photos. Mike hammed it up as Gyro splattered him with fake blood and asked him to quit smiling.
After the photo session, Gyro combed his hair and became solemn. "Now, I'm afraid, your moment of fame will give way to suffering, young Muggle. We must fight this ancient and powerful vampire, and my premonitions tell me not all of us will emerge alive. Will you show me the cave where you were attacked?"
Shaking his head in disbelief, but still managing to smirk, Mike pulled himself out of bed.
"I can do it." Vijay stepped in. "Mike is ill; he should stay in bed."
Gyro sighed and patted his hair. "I might as well wipe your memory now, otherwise I can see you shall become a pestilence." He pointed a long stick at Vijay, and a turquoise cloud, the same color as his robes, emerged and covered the grad student's head.
Vijay coughed. "Oh!" he cried, stumbling to Mike's vacated bed. "Where am I?" He put his head between his knees and moaned. "Ooooh…"
"Hey!" Mike whirled on Gyro. "What do you think you're doing, buttwipe? What is that shit - laughing gas? Damn this country." He started running around, waving at the cloud, the thought of toxic Romanian gases more horrifying than any vampires. "I could sue you, Nimrod!" he yelled. "If you hurt my friend -- "
There was another crunching in the leaves. Mike whirled, furious: this time it was that hippie botanist, his hand clutching something hidden in a sack. He had a friend with him, too, who looked Romanian and was also lugging a bag.
"What's going on?" Lupeni demanded in English and Romanian, then caught sight of Gyro and froze.
"This codswallop shot poison gas at Vijay, and now he doesn't remember anything!" Mike bellowed.
Gyro didn't recognize the wizard who'd helped him on his way to fame more than five years before, but as Remus pulled out his wand he thought he at least had an ally.
"They're Muggles," he stage-whispered. "I came to save them from a vampire, and now I must wipe their memories --" Seeing that Mike was distracted staring at Remus' wand, he pulled out his own and pointed it at the American's temple.
"Finite incantatem," Remus murmured lazily, diverting the turquoise blob with a flick of his wrist and sending it harmlessly off into the bushes. "Now, Gyro, let's have no more of that. And Mike --"
But he got no further. Mike had grown up on the border between three neighborhoods, where every ethnic group hated the next the most, and had played football in high school before he discovered that calculus was his ticket out. Despite his weakened state, one blow of his meaty fist sent Gyro Idle sprawling, where he bumped his head on a tent post and was out cold.
The Romanian assistant ran to his aid. The students gaped in puzzlement as Lupeni and his friend approached him and had a brief animated discussion. A broad smile spread out over the photographer's face, and both Romanians sat next to the unconscious Gyro to chafe his wrists and wait.
Remus took the fallen wizard's pulse. "Well, that was as good a way to get rid of him as any, I suppose," he said, standing up to face the grad students. "Now why don't you tell me everything that just went on here."
Vijay was moaning and babbling, unsure of where he was. Taofang provided the occasional word, but didn't interrupt his data analysis for an instant. It was mostly Mike who told the story, provoking Lupeni to impatient glances at the setting sun as he embellished his own cleverness and the absurdity of Gyro.
"You haven't been to the cave yet?" Remus demanded, clutching his wand.
"Nah, that's what I'm telling you." Mike's eyes were drawn to the gesture. "Hey, I know what that thing is!"
"Do you?" Remus wondered impatiently.
"Yeah. It's a magnetic rod, and when Gyro shot an ionized gas at you, you waved it and induced an EMF that repelled the gas by Coulomb repulsion."
"Sure, if you like," said Remus. "Now about that cave -- "
"You don't know how it works, yourself!" Mike accused. "You just use it like it's magic!"
"Nothing wrong with magic, is there?"
"A bit of E&M, a bit of stat mech, and there is no magic," Mike boasted.
There was a rude laugh over by the computer. "Sure, Mike, and you bit by spider," Taofang chortled.
"There's a scientific explanation!"
"Maybe, but you still idiot."
This even made Vijay laugh. If he remembered nothing else, he at least knew that calling Mike an idiot was the highest possible form of entertainment.
"The road to hell is paved with not understanding your instruments," Mike insisted.
"Says you." Taofang was laughing at what was apparently an ancient joke. "And two weeks ago when wolf reset amplifier gain? Saved whole night's data."
"Really?" Remus wondered. His memories of the night with the Wolfsbane Potion were much clearer than usual, but as the words "amplifier gain" meant nothing to him, he certainly couldn't recall if he'd bumped something with his paw while sniffing around. "Well, Mike, I'm sure the wolf recognized you were an idiot," he said truthfully, causing gales of mirth from the other two.
Mike chortled good-naturedly, but his eyes widened as the "botanist" reached into his bag and came up with an eight-inch, polished, gleaming wooden stake.
"Come along, Mike," said Remus. "Shall we do an experiment?"
There were several reasons for Remus' impatience. The first was that there was less than a half-hour until sunset. The second, and perhaps the most serious, was that he wasn't even sure that sunset would be critical. Unless they had been powerful wizards in life, vampires who had been Undead for less than fifty years had to return to their coffins at night -- but the older ones could sleep anywhere, or even walk about in the daytime, and certainly if he had a choice the vampire would not return to the cave where he had already been seen. If the vampire wasn't where Mike had been attacked, Remus would have to go hunting around -- not an attractive prospect at night, with the moon the slimmest crescent that would set with the sun.
The fact that any reasonably strong werewolf could gut a vampire the way a cat does a mouse was plenty of incentive for the latter to sleep through nights of the full moon. The dislike of the Undead for moonlight went deeper than that, however. While many animals, of the magical and ordinary varieties, could see well in dim light, they were blind in total darkness. Vampires were not. On the darkest nights, under a new moon or a densely overcast sky, vampires could hunt without risk of being seen by their prey.
Additionally, lurking in the back of his mind was a concern about wild Dementors. The area of the cave where Mike was leading him was nowhere near the path he had blocked two weeks ago, but he was still worried about being driven away from his target by despair. After a quick look at the cheerful, insouciant Mike, Remus threw caution to the winds and conjured a Patronus. The translucent animal trotted out ahead of them, giving the passageway a silvery light. It was scarcely any effort to keep it there as long as there were no Dementors, and it might give him time to act and run before his mind filled with images of Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.
"An electromagnet," Mike breathed. "And a mirror that--"
"Sure," said Remus. "Here, wear this." He handed Mike a thick braid of healthy, pungent garlic.
"You're kidding."
"Quite the contrary, there's a scientific explanation." He had to remind himself not to get too sarcastic with a Muggle, but those last two words seemed to work like… well, like magic.
Mike was quiet for a moment, leading Remus through the cave by the light of the Patronus. "Yeah," he said at last, though in a hushed voice. "People thought to be vampires were actually suffering from a disease called porphyria, which leads to defective hemoglobin production. They were terribly anemic unless they drank blood, and garlic made it worse. Here!" he cried, his raucous tone returning. "This is where I got bitten…"
Remus gestured for Mike to stay behind and disappeared into the passage with the stake and the Patronus.
"…by the spider," Mike continued, talking to himself. "Garlic made porphyria worse because… because… gee, I forget, some enzyme defect. It was common in Eastern European royal families hundreds of years ago, because they married their cousins and things… Nowadays porphyria can be treated with blood transfusions, so there's no need for vampire myths. Almost anything can be treated…" He touched his neck nervously, and tensed at the clammy wetness until he remembered Gyro's stage blood. "Except rabies, but there's a vaccine… that's the origin of werewolves, I suppose, real wolves are shy of people and don't bite…"
Immersed in such thoughts, Mike jumped as a shimmery snout appeared in the passage, and the electromagnetic illusion squeezed through and shook itself just like a real dog. Mike was impressed by this touch, and also by how much the image looked like an actual German Shepherd.
A second later, Remus' feet poked out, and he came out of the passage backwards. He was dragging something, something that almost got stuck in the narrow tunnel until he waved that rod at it (Mike couldn't fully explain this, but then, electricity and magnetism had been his weakest subject).
It was a body, the body of quite a large man, with a stake driven through the heart.
"Rabies!" cried Mike.
Now that he was free of the tunnel, Remus picked up the body and followed the Patronus back through the cave's main gallery. He had encountered no Dementors, but was beginning to like having it around, like a pet. "Excuse me?" he wondered courteously, as Mike came panting after.
"Did he die of rabies? How long has he been dead? Why did you put that stick--?"
"Somewhere between one and fifty years, I would think." Remus thought fast. He had told many lies in his lifetime, and many of them he had enjoyed. People would provide their own details in order to believe whatever it was they wanted to. "The stick will tell me that," he ventured cautiously.
"Oooh…" Mike breathed. "Because he was mummified in the cave, right? There's not enough humidity for him to decompose, and very few bacteria. There are so many caves around here -- that's why the vampire myth -- "
"And," Remus added, trying not to laugh, "the stick's a good practical joke on that Gyro git who thinks he's a vampire hunter."
Mike chuckled knowingly, and reached out a finger to prod the waxy corpse. "It's OK, the doctor in the village gave me a shot. It's probably bad for the cave to have him in there; good thing you found him."
Remus was sufficiently familiar with the term "rabies." Not only was it a disease of people, but a disease of dogs and wolves -- and he had seen posters on it as he left Britain on the Muggle ferry, drawings of what could have been himself and Padfoot frothing at the mouth and snarling. He also knew it resembled what happened to vampires when they drank werewolves' blood. "Yes…" he said thoughtfully. "We'll have to burn the body, because of the possibility of rabies, you know."
"I can help," Mike volunteered. "I've been vaccinated."
It wasn't quite dark outside, though the sun had set. There were no clouds, and some pink rays still reflected off the granite peaks and forests of quaking aspen. The student pavilion, where everyone seemed to have remained during the adventure, was also lit by a kerosene lantern. Gyro Idle had regained consciousness, barely, and was propped between the two Romanians. His grasp of the language had not been helped by the blow to the head, and so his request for a drink of water just brought nods of agreement as it came out, "I am a loudmouth."
Remus deposited the body just outside the tent, extinguished the Patronus, and was thinking of something to say when Mike started bellowing and thrashing his arms.
"Rabies!" he screamed. "Someone in the cave had rabies! Fifty years ago! He's dried out like a mummy!"
"IT ISN'T RABIES," Remus shouted. "There is always a slight risk of it because of the… er… caves, and the bats, but the chances that he actually had rabies are very slim." He sneaked a peek out of the tent to make sure the vampire remained safely staked.
That wasn't much fun for Mike. "Yeah, you're a botanist, what do you know?" He suddenly thought of something. "And the wolves, what about the wolves? Wandering around in here… touching the apparatus…"
Oh no, Remus thought, swamped with guilt at having drawn attention to his persecuted cousins. "Wolves in Romania do not have rabies," he declared, having no idea how close that was to the truth or even how it would sound to a Muggle. "Sometimes they behave oddly when they have… eaten poisonous plants. In addition," he added, having read it in a Muggle newspaper, "they are an endangered species, so you are not allowed to kill them."
"Who said anything about killing -- ?" Mike wondered.
"Hmph," Remus grumbled suspiciously. "For the last time, this man did not have rabies… but we should burn his body anyway. Do you have a source of fire?"
Mike thought for a second, then a broad grin stretched over his face. "I've got an acetylene torch!" he bragged.
That was Greek (or Hungarian) to Remus, but he really didn't care, as long as the vampire was disposed of. It had indeed been a relatively new vampire, unable to leave its resting-place before sundown, and the whole affair would have been perfectly straightforward if not for these pesky Muggles and Gyro.
It was an odd parade of wizards, Muggles, and werewolves that wound its way out of camp to a more isolated spot in order to finally dispose of the vampire (or desiccated victim of a cave spider, depending on your point of view). Gyro led off, followed by his assistant with the camera. Remus volunteered to carry the vampire, as Gyro did not seem willing to soil his robes with the task. Grigore silently accompanied him, seeming bewildered as much by the odd behavior of everyone at the camp as by his inability to understand the language. Finally, Mike and Vijay tagged along carrying lanterns and working through the details of the explanation for it all.
When the corpse was alight, Remus took the stake and placed it into the nerveless hand of the still-confused Gyro Idle. "Nice job, Grigore," he said to his friend, and the young Romanian grinned proudly. He might have wanted to be in the pictures, but Remus pulled him away, urging the photographer to get out quickly before Vladimir the Vile returned in the shape of a banana slug.
Remus felt enormous relief as the turquoise buffoon and his assistant left the camp. He hoped never to see or hear of that idiot Gyro Idle again.
Back at the camp, listening to Mike fill his friends in on the details of the hunt, Remus decided his work there was done. Between practical jokes, magnets, and rabies, the situation was explained sufficiently to satisfy Mike, and wiping his memory somehow seemed a shame. He was already arguing with Vijay, whose mind seemed to have returned, about how to determine the age of a desiccated corpse, and Taofang was offering to make an animal hologram.
There was one more person to consider, however, someone who might not accept the stories of rabies and electromagnetism so readily. He approached the Chinese graduate student at his computer, waiting for a lull in the conversation.
"It's not a German Shepherd," he couldn't stop himself from inserting.
Taofang looked up. "Sorry?"
"Never mind. Where is Lamia?"
"She was in her tent," he replied casually, directing his attention back to his computer screen. "But she came out. Just went into trees, near caves."
The final twilight of the afternoon was fading as Remus started up the path to the caves. He expected to find her inside; instead, he just made her out in the darkness, sitting on a rocky ledge about twenty feet from the main entrance, her knees drawn up to her chest and her long, loose hair spilling over them like a dark river.
She could have been a statue adorning some secluded mountain garden, sitting so still that she gave no notice of his approach.
"Er, excuse me," Remus began, uncertain of how much to reveal, "there was quite a bit of excitement at the camp this afternoon. I don't know if you heard..."
"My hearing is excellent," she murmured, her face buried in her knees and shielded by her hair.
"I want to explain what happened," Remus said, taking a seat on the rough granite ledge. She dropped her arms stiffly and moved away slightly, turning to stare at him with those odd violet eyes which hid rather than revealed her feelings.
"I would be very interested to hear what you have to say," she replied coolly, a hint of challenge in her voice.
"I think you know...more than the others."
"You're not a botanist. Is that what you mean?" Lamia snapped.
Remus picked up a handful of small pebbles and rattled then in one hand, letting them dribble slowly to the ground. For a time the clinking of the rocks was the only sound.
"You know what scratched Mike last month," he stated flatly, "and you know what bit him this week."
She didn't answer at first, but continued to glare at him as the evening shadows gathered strength on the mountainside. They seemed locked in some silent contest, neither willing to speak, until the stillness was punctured by the squeaky chirping of a swarm of bats pouring out of some smaller cave above them. She shivered almost imperceptibly and then gave a harsh laugh.
"Shall I begin, then?" He nodded and she continued, "You are not a botanist. You are a wizard, English, I would guess, although your Romanian is quite good."
"You were on to me from the first, weren't you?" He smiled at her. "I take it that your Romanian grandmother was a witch?"
She did not return his smile, but replied through tight lips, "Yes. She told me many stories of-- of things that live in these mountains." She shook her head suddenly and looked away, concluding in a hoarse whisper, "I should not have come."
Remus was about to ask another question, one of many buzzing in his head, when she turned to him, her face now darkened by shadow and more unreadable than usual.
"You killed him, didn't you?" she accused roughly, her voiced tinged with horror and perhaps even a little relief.
"The vampire? Yes," he responded simply, curious to hear more about what she knew. But she did not volunteer anything further.
"Poor Mike," Lamia sighed, rising abruptly and dusting bits of gravel from the back of her pants. "I should go see how he's feeling."
With that, she strode past Remus toward the camp, the conversation clearly at an end. He still had many questions, but suspected that getting the answers would be as easy as pulling teeth from a dragon.
______________________
"How's Mike?" Vijay looked up from the console, his face splashed with green and blue light from the oscilloscopes and computer displays, the only lights in the cave.
"He's sleeping. His color looks a bit better," Lamia shrugged. "You should get some sleep, too."
"Sure," he yawned in response. "What a day, eh? You missed most of the excitement." His dark eyes sparkled with the memory. "I can't believe you slept through the whole thing. That Gyro Idle chap was really something. Imagine him finding that fellow in the caves, bitten by the same -- er -- spider that bit Mike."
Lamia wondered whether Lupeni had worked a Memory Charm on Vijay or whether he actually believed the fantastic story of the spider and of Gyro Idle filming a documentary on Romanian cave-dwelling fauna. The ridiculous Idle would not be back, but she felt certain that the English wizard would return. Perhaps he thought she needed protection. He was wrong.
Pushing those thoughts aside, she approached the other student to check on the current state of the experiment. She stopped short a couple of feet away.
"Vijay, you've got garlic in your pocket."
"Yeah," he grinned, "I forgot you don't like the stuff. I was humoring that Lupeni chap. Just forgot to take it out of my pocket. A bit absurd, isn't it?"
"Well," she said lightly, "if vampires really existed, I suppose it might be useful. Show me what we got from the Cerenkov detectors last night."
He happily recounted the events of his shift, including an anomalously high background of neutrino events that he thought might tell them about a massive celestial event, such as a supernova. The data from the events could also be used to look for neutrino oscillations, something he had always been interested in but couldn't get their advisor to care about. Vijay certainly didn't want to be a graduate student for 1033 years, waiting for protons to decay.
After hearing all this, Lamia shooed him back to the camp, relieved to be alone with numbers and abstract concepts once again.
She hummed softly to herself as she created a graph of energy distributions in three dimensions, looking like a fairy castle as it rotated slowly on the computer screen before her. Once, a long time ago, she wanted to live in a real castle. Now she longed to lose herself in the realm of subatomic particles. The real castle hadn't worked out very well.
So intent was she on the unseen world of baryons and leptons that at first she did not notice the presence of another in the cave, did not see any movement reflected in her computer display. A faint rustle, not of batwings but of fabric, informed her that she was no longer alone. (Her hearing really was excellent.) She turned to face two dark orbs, the eyes of someone standing right behind her. With an unsettling jolt, all thoughts of physics fled from her mind as she recognized the jutting nose and angled cheekbones of one whom she hoped never to see again.
"Cuza," she said coldly in Romanian. "I thought you might show up."
"Emil told me he had seen you, but I scarcely believed him," said the vampire with an air of conquest, now that he was sure of her identity.
He looked exactly the same as the last time she had seen him twenty years ago. The Undead did not age, need not reflect the passage of time at all. But I am not the same, she thought, desperate to force away the memories that his leering face called forth .
"You have changed," he marveled, as if reading her mind. "Your eyes. Something is wrong..."
She laughed harshly, hopping off the stool and moving away from him. "A Muggle thing called -- " She stopped, realizing she didn't know the Romanian word for contact lenses; the language she knew was from another time, another world. Why bother explaining it to a vampire, though?
"What do you want from me?" she asked, eyeing him warily. "I told Emil that I wanted nothing to do with...with the whole lot of you."
"Of course, my dear," he replied smoothly, the old steeliness creeping in underneath. "That is what you said when you left. But, you have come back to us, have you not?"
"No," she growled, turning away from him and staring intently at a different monitor, this one for controlling the argon that filled the metal boxes of the detectors. She typed furiously for a minute, as if she could make the vampire vanish the same way she controlled the inert gas.
"Then why have you come?" he inquired, still sure he knew the answer. "Emil told me some story about these Muggles, but I did not believe it."
"I hear you left the castle," she said, pointedly ignoring his question. Focusing on the argon pressure became increasingly difficult as Cuza drifted toward her, hovering at her back.
"Things became difficult in the mountains," he mused. "The living became scarcer and more cautious...and other things, too. We scattered to find better hunting."
She laughed, in spite of the loathing she felt for the vampire who had once been her lover and much more besides. She had always been the one to keep the peace among the group at the castle, interceding in their pointless arguments over events that happened decades earlier. Their long days of boredom were filled with endless rehashing of the past. The next meal was about as far into the future as they all thought. She had finally grown so disgusted that she left, hoping to find something better elsewhere. She drifted to Bucharest, Athens, London, New York. The vampires she met in those cities were more cultured, had more to talk about, but remained focused on the past. She wanted to learn new things -- obviously an alien concept for the Undead -- and so embarked on a ten-year career of sorts studying at Muggle universities. Incredibly, the voyage had returned her to the mountains she had fled and now to the presence of one whom she never wanted to see again.
"And you live among these Muggles now, it seems," he spoke the words hungrily.
She moved away from him yet again, and toward the towers of metal boxes stacked to the ceiling. She felt the rough surface of the metal and tried to put her mind inside the boxes with the argon atoms, waiting patiently for the next neutrino to come whizzing by. But the call of the past was too strong.
"I don't eat them, if that's what you mean," she responded harshly, turning to face him with her back against the tower of detectors. She stroked the metal with her hand, as if the lifeless metal could overpower the lifeless vampire before her.
"No?" he inquired with much curiosity, drawing closer. "How could you resist so much...so close?"
"I have not had-- it has been five years since I--" she faltered.
"No human blood at all? You deprive yourself so, my dear." His surprise turned to a seductive whisper. "Have you forgotten what it is like?"
How could she explain? She had not forgotten, in the same way that a heroin addict never forgets that roaring thunder of sensation which sweeps away the mind and the self, leaving only raw pleasure so intense that it would hurt, if feeling pain were possible. But the ecstasy of human blood left the brain fuzzy and confused, as well as filled with the lust for more, in a way that the blood of other creatures did not.
She had come to appreciate, crave even, the pleasure of a fine, sharp mind, the joy of being able to shape complicated concepts the way a sculptor works in clay. She was willing to give up human blood for that joy, but Cuza would never comprehend that and she told him so.
"You cannot possibly understand what I have become," she said coldly, wishing he would leave her to the peaceful solitude of the oscilloscopes and displays.
"I know what you are," he crooned, drawing near enough to brush her cheek gently with his hand. She froze, momentarily hypnotized by his empty eyes and soft whispering. Languidly, he drew his hand down, the fingers curving possessively around her neck with the gentleness that she remembered, the gentleness that always stood in stark contrast to his cruelty at so many other times.
"You may become a Muggle on the outside, but you will always be one of us," he whispered, brushing his lips softly on her hair, on her cheek, on her neck.
"You're wrong," she cried, pushing him away with both hands. "I have changed and I want nothing more to do with you."
After he had gone, she sat for a long time bathed in the green and blue lights of the familiar instruments, heedless of the pulsating blips and flowing numbers. She knew he would be back.
___________________
As June became July in the mountains above Stilpescu, the profusion of pinks, whites, reds, and yellows gave way to rich summer green. Stands of birch and beech formed canopies with their deep green leaves and bundles of catkins, and in the meadows between trees, tall tufted grasses extended awns to tempt the birds and bees. The flowers that remained were of a large and hardy sort - daisies and black-eyed Susans with broad, flat leaves, clover and dandelion, some beginning to fluff with seed.
The lush and peaceful scenery soothed Remus' irritability as he walked in the grasses, between a row of aspens and a forest of evergreens, on his way to Grigore's cottage. He carried his broomstick in one hand, having flown most of the way from Castle Arghezi but wanting to take the last mile at a more leisurely pace. It was less than half an hour till moonrise, but he didn't hurry, though the Fives wouldn't appreciate it if he wasn't there when they all transformed. It wasn't just the imminent full moon that was making him snappish -- he didn't want to run into Liszka while they could still talk, and risk a replay of the arguments they'd been having ever since he blocked the cave to Albimare.
There was a reason he hadn't encountered Vlad's pack at the caves last month. Liszka knew he planned to pass through the Sixes territory, and she suspected that if Vlad caught him there, alone, he would kill him. So the Fives had loitered around their mutual border, provoking minor skirmishes throughout the night that distracted Pack Six from Remus' work.
When Vlad found out a week later what had happened to the cave, he was furious. Liszka now insisted that the Fives had to attack, to drive the Sixes out of the strip of mountains between the castle and the Petrosna caves. The others were leaning towards agreeing with her. The fact that she was a female complicated matters: she didn't have to challenge Remus directly in order to become leader. Either member of the alpha pair could make decisions, and the final authority would rest with whomever the group considered the better leader.
Remus would readily admit that it was not he who fit that description. He carried too much of the human into his plans, feeling almost apologetic for pulling rank and wanting to settle their differences without a fight if at all possible. The Fives territory was already twice the size of the Sixes, and contained the fertile meadows that made navigating the mountains easier and that were filled with rabbits. It would be painful and pointless to go on the offensive… and if they did fight, he didn't want Bela involved.
Liszka had regarded him with scornful astonishment at that last sentiment. Bela in wolf-form was as big as any of them now, and had proved himself on the night Remus was absent (he didn't want to hear any details). She went so far as to suggest that the Wolfsbane Potion was still affecting his mind, and had no qualms about telling him that it was the mother who made the final decision when it came to the pups.
"He's just a kid," Remus had objected.
Liszka tossed up her hands in disbelief. "A kid is a goat, Lupeni," she said.
So he wasn't particularly looking forward to tonight. First he'd have to see if the pack was still obeying him, or if Liszka was going to lead them all off on a hunt for Vlad.
She was wrong, he thought, wincing at the thought of their bitter arguments. He wasn't ashamed of what he was -- no more than she was, at any rate. She just had different ways of showing it. It wasn't something he expected Grigore to understand; but Liszka was intelligent enough to know that making peace with the villages was their only real hope.
He didn't want his kind to die out. They didn't have to bite to reproduce: while the young of two werewolves would not survive, the offspring of a werewolf and an ordinary witch or wizard was a healthy young werewolf. Few of either kind knew this; in fact, Remus had recently met the first child of such a union that he could find. Contrary to all legends, the girl was good-looking and healthy, more well-adjusted than he had been at that age. Such a simple fact -- and yet he himself hadn't known it until now.
Intermarriage would help both kinds -- dispel fear, increase diversity, and improve the werewolf gender ratio. But it would be impossible as long as each group was convinced the other was out to kill.
He arrived just as the first sliver of the moon emerged above the horizon. The Fives were coming out of the cottage, taking their places in the grasses and trees. Remus chose a secluded spot in a clump of birch, relieved at not having to speak, his head starting to hurt. Hopefully last month's experiment with the Potion wouldn't carry over into tonight.
The six members of Pack Five gathered around Moony as he emerged from his hiding place, nuzzling him and pushing their noses into his muzzle. It would've looked threatening to an observer, all those teeth so near his lips and throat, but the ritual comforted him. It meant they accepted him as their leader and were waiting to follow orders. With a glance at Liszka to assure himself of her cooperation, Moony took off across the fields at a run, tail held high.
They spent the evening at the northern limits of their territory, as far from the Sixes as possible. There was a creek there, running low in the summer drought, and they did some fishing. Bela had never tried this before, and the first time he scooped a paw into the water and came up with a fish, he was so surprised he dropped it with a startled bark.
The first hint that something was wrong was a scent of blood.
Detecting it simultaneously, the Fives all raised their noses, sniffing. Not wolf blood, or human blood…it smelled of prey, rabbits perhaps, or squirrels. Turning to look in the direction of the odor, they saw a pack of wolves standing nearly motionless on the riverbank.
It was Pack Six - but not only Pack Six, there were more of them than usual, coming up the bank one by one. The Fives were outnumbered two-to-one and Vlad, clever schemer that he was, had made sure they had eaten their fill before seeking out the enemy. There was now less chance that they would tire of the fight and give up to search for food. Blood and fragments of small animals still clung to their lips as they regarded the Fives with snarls and growls of hostility.
In the split second that Moony hesitated to think, there was a flash of white. Liszka dashed up the riverbank and threw herself on Vlad, knocking him backwards, her teeth in the loose skin just below his throat.
Moony sprang to her defense, but he was inexperienced at fighting and didn't anticipate the Sixes attacking from behind. As he tried to get a grip on Vlad, he felt a sharp pain as fangs bit into his Achilles tendon, and he whirled around, snapping.
Grigore and Bela came next. The former helped Moony drive back the Sixes (and the Fours, that was who had joined with Vlad to eliminate the hated Lupeni), while Bela tackled Vlad from behind. The surprise attack knocked Vlad to the ground, where Liszka was able to undo her hold and get a better one higher up, right over the arteries of his neck. She gave a low growl, one that called Moony away from his tangle with two scrawny Fours and over to her side.
She repeated the sound, this time with a note of interrogation - she was asking whether she should give the shake of her powerful neck that would kill Vlad. Looking around at his enemy's gashed and whimpering followers, cowering back at the fall of their leader, Moony called her off.
They flanked Vlad then, growling low in their throats, letting him know that next time he wouldn't get off that easily. The scraggly black wolf shook himself, rounded up his followers, and fled.
The Fives sat down to lick each other's wounds and finish eating their fish. But they'd scarcely settled in when their rivals were back, sneaking up through a grove of aspen.
The fight went on till dawn. Vlad had noticed Moony's inexperience with rear attacks, but Moony caught on quickly and managed himself to give Vlad a nasty chomp in the hamstring. They may have been outnumbered, but the Fives were strong and healthy, and only single-minded determination made Vlad drive his exhausted followers into the fray time and time again.
As the sky began to lighten, Moony led his pack back towards Grigore's cottage. He didn't want them to be stranded and hurt when they transformed back -- but Vlad seemed to have no similar concerns. The Sixes continued to attack all the way, nipping at their heels, lunging for their shoulders.
But dawn came at last, and Remus watched the Sixes trudge away through the trees, limping and miserable. He quickly turned his attention to his own pack, glad that he'd spent the week stocking up on healing herbs and potions from the new herbologist just above Stilpescu.
"Is everybody OK?" he asked, before even taking stock of his own injuries.
There was a chorus of "yes"es; the Fives seemed almost proud of their wounds, their fight, their victory. Remus went to the shelf for potions, thinking how lucky he was to have werewolves for patients. Madam Pomfrey used to remark that he was her favorite invalid, because no matter how terrible he looked when he came in, he was always up running around by the next day.
He always wondered if she noticed how often the three others showed up in the infirmary the morning after the full moon, too, or if she had any idea of the scrapes they'd gotten into. Peter had been caught by owls and cats, Sirius hauled to the RSPCA, James shot at by a man they all referred to with loathing as "the hunter"--and with some strange mixture of loyalty and bloodlust, Remus was always there to frighten the humans off and take their bullets. He had learned to enjoy the fact that he was almost impossible to kill.
Surely the Hogwarts nurse recognized the troll bite on his arm, or the gouges on his ankle from the hunter's steel trap? But she asked no questions, for which he was eternally grateful.
"Who needs a poultice?" he asked, carrying the flask of potion over to the hearth where Liszka had started a blazing fire. "Come on, don't be shy."
Grigore held out his arm. "Here, I got bitten."
"Me too," Liszka admitted, pulling the blanket she was wrapped in off her shoulder.
Remus cast a look over at Bela. He was nodding off to sleep in front of the fire, seemingly unhurt. Maybe Liszka was right - for an animal, he was fully-grown. She was right an awful lot. "Do you think we'll see them again?" he asked, applying the potion to the teeth marks over her scapula and neck.
"No," she declared firmly, "they're no match for us."
She gasped slightly as the poultice entered her wound, then interrupted Remus' sigh of relief with a scowl. "But don't think you've seen the last of Vlad. I've known him since I was ten years old - and all that time I've been waiting for the chance to kill him."
There was no anger in her voice, for she had asked Remus' opinion and followed it willingly. She just sounded slightly wistful, and he had to ask himself yet again whether he had done the right thing.
___________________
The Fours showed Vlad their anger in no uncertain terms. The price he had paid them was insufficient for the beating they had taken, one that would keep their strongest members in bed for a week. He had deceived them about the strength and number of the Fives and, they suspected, exaggerated the danger the Fives' Alpha posed to werewolves in general.
They took what little money remained of their bribe and led their more gravely wounded to the herbologist. Every werewolf they met heard the story, and the Ones, the Twos, even the Sevens all provided their own tales of bullying at the instigation of Vlad. He was an old wolf for these hills, almost thirty-five, and they all agreed that his cockiness had gone too far. They had seen old dogs lose their cautiousness before, and Vlad would be gone soon; after all, what could he do with all of his kind against him?
For his part, Vlad watched the rest of the Fours and the Sixes limp away with his own desire for vengeance unsatisfied. The wolves were not strong enough to defeat Lupeni Alpha given the strength of the Fives. There was one more ally that he might call on, although he shuddered to think about the price he would have to pay.