Chapter 7:
Hide and Seek
"Paranoids are not paranoids (Proverb 5) because they're paranoid,
but because they keep putting themselves, f----ing idiots, into paranoid situations."
~ Thomas Pynchon, Proverbs for Paranoids in Gravity's Rainbow
Romania, Year Eight
"It doesn't work!"
"To the left! No, to the right! Left again -- hang on -- "
"I can't do it! It gets worse and worse!" The boy threw down the sword and started backing up into the woods.
Remus reached for his wand, then reconsidered, sprang forward, and grabbed the sword. He turned his head from side to side, taking in the hundreds and hundreds of green serpentine heads balanced on the spindly, knotted necks of the Hydra. There was a flash, and a single head fell to the ground. Two more immediately sprang up, but this time, Remus didn't hesitate. Left, right, center, right again -- and finally one single neck remained, with one knot bearing a crown of hissing heads.
Bela poked his head out of the trees. "Headless Hecate! How'd you do that?"
Remus took a breath. "There's a trick to a Hydra, you know. Shall I regenerate him or have you had enough?"
"Kill it," said Bela, hiding again as the heads protruded their forked tongues in his direction.
With one final slash the creature fell to the ground, shriveled up, and disintegrated.
The young wizard stepped out of the woods, not even bothering to be embarrassed at his flight from one of the seemingly infinite supply of hideosities Remus saw fit to expose him to. "The imps were fine, they sting me when I try to climb volcanoes and I'm glad I know how to get rid of them, but when am I ever going to run into a Hydra?"
"You'd be surprised." He sniffed the air and looked towards the plume of smoke rising from Grigore's cottage. "It appears as though they've got supper ready for us," he said, smiling. "Hungry?"
It was a rhetorical question. Bela was always hungry. Now that the Fives knew enough magic to start fires and wash dishes, there was usually something good to eat at the cabin, and he happily joined his pack leader for the walk up the riverbank.
"Fighting a Hydra has more to do with logic than magic," Remus explained. "I'll show you Kirby and Paris' theorem that they can be killed with a finite number of cuts as long as a clump of heads connected to the body by a single knot will not regenerate. The theorem is unprovable, but it works nonetheless."
"You just love all these nasty, poisonous, lethal monsters," Bela accused darkly.
"Sure. Don't you?"
The boy couldn't tell if this was supposed to be a joke.
"Hydrae are more commonly found by the sea, rather than in rivers, which is why they are more frequent in Britain than in Romania," Remus informed him. "But there are certain other creatures that you know, which I'd never seen before I came here: the Asmodeus, for example."
Bela looked pleased. He'd been entirely unafraid of the three-headed, web-footed demon that breathed fire. "They come here to get dragons to ride. Romania has the best dragons."
"Indeed it does… that was only the second dragon I'd ever seen," Remus admitted.
"Really?" Bela's eyes got big.
"The first one almost got me into loads of trouble, too. We smuggled it north into Iceland, and flew our brooms back, in the dead of winter." He smiled at the memory, how even James had been hard-pressed to keep his grip as his eyes froze shut. "Dragons are illegal in Britain," he explained, as his foster son looked puzzled.
"Illegal?" The young Romanian laughed. "How do you make a giant, fire-breathing monster illegal?" He shook his head at the image of a country where dragons were in zoos and werewolves stayed indoors at night. The look on his face clearly said No wonder you're a freak.
Remus didn't mind; he was used to being a freak. "Do you know what gift you can get from an Asmodeus?"
"Sure, invisibility… but… Oh wow, can we do that?"
"I don't know how yet," Remus admitted, "but I'm trying to learn. Did I ever tell you about the Invisibility Cloak my friend Prongs used to have?"
Bela shook his head. He loved stories about the three Animagi more than anything else, although the concept was completely alien to him. He didn't even like to call it a "transformation," since it was instantaneous, not genetic, and they couldn't feel it. The way he grasped it best was to think of the animals as a sort of solid Patronus, where the human wizard rode after shrinking to microscopic size -- not entirely accurate, maybe, but the best he could do.
"Yes…" Remus looked towards the setting sun and thought of how, in a month's time, his old friend's namesake would appear in the sky to mark the Dog Days of summer. "All four of us used to fit underneath."
They entered the cottage to find the five others sitting down to a platter of roasted venison and tiny red potatoes. They hadn't perfected their gardening yet, so the only seasonings were rosemary and garlic, but it still smelled delicious.
Remus changed the subject quickly so that the werewolves wouldn't tease him again about not eating Prongs. "Well, Bela, we'll have to go into Bucharest and visit the wand shop. You'll be amazed when you get your own -- all of these spells we practiced today will seem easy."
The boy pulled up a chair and helped himself to the food, giving Liszka a doubtful glance. "Will you come too, Mum?"
"Me?" Liszka shook her head. "Sorry, Bela… too many people still know me there." She and Grigore laughed.
"I've never been there at all," Bela admitted, with his mouth full.
"Then we'll make a day of it," Remus replied cheerfully. "Next week sometime." They both understood without saying it that Bela would be on his best behavior when the moon was new. The boy had a tendency to be ill-tempered and snappish, but whether he was any more so than any human teenager, Remus had no idea. His own parents had panicked so dreadfully every time he so much as snarled that he had learned to hide his feelings well; he couldn't expect Bela to have to go through that.
Right now, though, they had to concentrate on their lessons, since Alexandru wanted Remus back at the castle tomorrow and there was no telling how long he'd keep him. "So what's on for tonight? Arithmancy? Water demons? Vampires?"
One of the Fives held up his fork, on which was speared a head of roasted garlic. "We're not scared of vampires," he declared, squeezing out the caramelized cloves onto a piece of black bread. "They don't like us, anyway."
"They eat the sheep," Remus reminded them, and they all looked disgusted as they agreed, remembering the drained lambs lying around the field. No werewolf would touch an animal that had been eaten by the Undead, and Remus had to magic the corpses away.
"Anyway," said someone else, "why doesn't everyone just walk around with garlic all the time? Sheep, too?"
"Well," said Remus wryly, "why didn't we all walk around with wolfsbane?"
Everyone found this hilarious.
Only Bela grew thoughtful. "I didn't know it was the full moon when I got bitten," he said after a minute.
"I did," said Liszka, "but it was the middle of the city. I wasn't supposed to go near the forest," she recited the warning sarcastically, "but the Big Bad Wolf was waiting at the chemist's."
"I was in the forest, but I thought I could make it home in time," Grigore added.
They all told their stories, and Remus realized it was his turn. "I'd never even heard of werewolves," he admitted.
They paused to stare at the crazy foreigner, still laughing.
"I knew what you were when you came into our house with that potion," Bela said frankly. "That's why I bit you."
"Biting is rude," Remus said, exactly as he had six years before. "Honestly, Bela, you should learn to control your temper."
"Grrr," said Bela, chomping on his dinner.
"Grrr," Remus and Liszka said back, which shut him up promptly.
"Watch your tail, Lupeni," someone warned. "He's got Alpha in him."
"I know, I know," Remus sighed, perturbed that this made Bela smile more than mastering the most complex spell. "I'm sure he'll be a leader when I'm in the city walking on a leash." They all enjoyed this statement, too. "So, Bela--what is it?"
"I'm sick of monsters," he grumbled, without the slightest hint of irony. "Water demons are OK, I guess. Or, hey--could you teach me the Perforatis Charm that lets you get through the enchantment protecting the castle?"
Remus was slightly nervous that this seemed to have become public knowledge, but shook off his misgivings. If you couldn't trust a wolf pack, who could you trust? "I can try," he began thoughtfully. "What do you know about the planet Jupiter, Bela?"
____________________
The day had been hot, unusually hot for July in the mountains of Transylvania, but after sunset, the air was cooler. Vlad enjoyed the breeze which made the leaves of the tall aspen around him whisper softly. That was about the only thing he enjoyed as he limped down the dusty road to Catunescu in the darkness of the new moon.
Vampires like the new moon; werewolves do not.
Vlad was going to meet a vampire and was feeling none too pleased.
After the rout of his pack, Pack Six, by the Fives two weeks ago at the full moon, Vlad had become increasingly desperate to rid the local mountains of Lupeni, the leader of the Fives. None of the members of his own pack understood; they had taken to avoiding the subject when they met him. In fact, he suspected that the other Sixes had been avoiding him altogether since the full moon, but he didn't care.
As the moon waned, he searched the mountains for a vampire, any vampire. This was an unusual activity for a werewolf and the vampire he finally found, rousting it from sleep in the loft of an abandoned barn, had been quite surprised. The surprise turned to shock, however, when the vampire heard Vlad's request to set up a meeting with Cuza, the most feared and powerful vampire in the region.
The meeting had been arranged, relayed through the vampire-intermediary, for the spot where Vlad had first met Cuza, and at the new moon, besides. Vampires ruled the night of the new moon -- their preferred time for hunting -- while werewolves were in their least animal phase. Cuza had the advantage, but Vlad didn't have too many alternatives in his quest for vengeance.
Still limping from a wound which was slow to heal, and from the twenty mile journey on foot, Vlad came in sight of the little church in the deserted village of Catunescu. The building loomed suddenly, a luminous white monolith like the face of a corpse. Its tall roof rose high in the air, although the cross that once adorned the very top had fallen off. More of the building had crumbled since Vlad had come this way, he noticed as he approached the large wooden door. Ever since his chance meeting with the vampire, he had avoided the ruined church. Now desperation drove him here.
Seventy months ago, Vlad entered the building looking merely to rob a traveler who had taken shelter inside during a storm. What he found was a dead man and the trace of a vampire. He barely survived that first meeting with Cuza, but he knew tonight that he had information that the old vampire wanted -- enough for a trade, he hoped. He carried a wooden stake in his pocket just in case he needed it, because he intended to survive this meeting, too.
The door itself was shattered, hanging open. Vlad pushed the remnants aside and stepped into the dark interior. The cloudless night gave only starlight for illumination and his eyes, as good as they were in the dark, could barely make out the shapes of wooden debris littering the floor. He paused just inside the door to light a small torch of wood and pitch. The yellow, smoky flame provided a small circle of light, showing the jumble of broken benches near the door and the deep shadows of the ruined altar at the far end. He stayed close to the door, however, not willing to venture further inside.
With a sudden whoosh of air, his torch went out. He swore loudly and threw the useless torch down as he heard laughter and crisp footfalls approach. A tall dark shape materialized from the blackness. He recognized the voice; seventy years would not be enough to forget that steely drawl.
"Well, the dog has returned," said the voice of the vampire. Vlad could picture the leering face, but could not see anything except the outline of a head at about his own height.
"You will excuse my preference for darkness," Cuza said, drawing to within several feet of the werewolf, "but I would not like to call too much attention to this meeting. Certain individuals seem bent on finding me and I have no desire to be caught."
As Vlad's eyes adjusted, he could make out the pale, angular face and the dark sockets which held those terrible, empty eyes. He felt grateful not to look upon the eyes of the vampire directly. Somehow this enabled him to retain his courage as he said, "Yeah, maybe they'll catch you one of these days, you rotting corpse."
"Mmmm. I see that your manners have not improved in six years," said Cuza in a soft, nearly pleasant tone as he circled around the werewolf. "But you are hunted yourself, are you not? I saw you limp as you came in. A dogfight, perhaps?"
Vlad said nothing, trying to keep his temper, remembering why he had come.
"You came because you need my help," Cuza whispered harshly at Vlad's back, "but I do not wish to involve myself in wolf-business. Do you have something of interest to me?"
"Yeah," Vlad replied stiffly, "You said you wanted to know who lives in the castle. Well, I can help you on that score."
"Indeed?" laughed the vampire, continuing his circuit and returning to face Vlad. "You knew something even six years ago, didn't you? Now it is worth your while to tell me. Why is that?"
"He lives in the castle," Vlad began. "A werewolf, I mean."
"Make yourself clear, dog," snapped Cuza. "You ask me to believe that a werewolf lives in Castle Arghezi?"
"He's not like the rest of us," countered Vlad. "He's foreign, from Scotland or something. He's been at the castle for, uhm, ninety months."
"Does this mysterious foreign werewolf have a name?"
"Lupeni. That's what we call him," Vlad said weakly, then continued, "I don't know what his real name is."
"A rival of yours, this Lupeni?" asked the vampire curiously.
"Bastard," spat Vlad. Cuza chuckled softly and came closer, within a foot of the werewolf, who stiffened but held his ground.
"I see how it is," mused the vampire. "Now, what else can you tell me about the castle? Others live there, yes?"
"Yeah. Two other wizards, I think. One goes down to Stilpescu sometimes. I've never seen the other one."
"Foreign wizards, like this Lupeni?"
"I don't think so." Vlad shook his head stiffly. "The guy who comes down to the village, he talks like he's from around here."
"But you have never been to the castle, have you?" Cuza asked shortly. "Your information is of little use to me, dog. I already know that there are several wizards living at the castle. Why should I care that one of them is a dog like you?"
The vampire leered at him. Even in the dim starlight trickling through the door, Vlad could see the expression of disgust on the waxy, Undead face. The werewolf licked his lips nervously, fingering the stake in his pocket.
"He's a vampire-killer," he blurted out. "Maybe they all are. Grigore's seen him kill a vampire."
"Ah. This begins to interest me. Who is this Grigore you speak of?"
"A werewolf," continued the nervous Vlad, "in Lupeni's pack, but I talk to him sometimes. He tells me things because he's not very happy. With Lupeni, I mean. He's been inside the castle and last month he was with him when he killed a vampire at the Petrosna caves; he watched the body being burned."
"So that's what -- " Cuza broke off angrily and took several sharp steps, pacing behind Vlad who turned to stare at the vampire, satisfied that his information had unsettled him and seemed especially valuable.
"At the Petrosna caves, you say?" muttered the vampire. "She would not tell me, but that is what must have happened to Emil." Recollecting himself, the vampire returned to face the werewolf, an undercurrent of anger now present in all his words.
"Can you get into the castle?" he snapped.
"N-n-no," faltered Vlad. "Grigore told me there's more than one enchantment to get through. He learned how to do some gate spell, but there were other spells, some of them even Lupeni doesn't know." Vlad halted and screwed up his courage in the face of the leering vampire. "Look, wouldn't it be a start just to get rid of Lupeni? I mean, he's hunting your kind and all."
"A start, you say," replied Cuza thoughtfully. He was silent for a long while. Vlad tried to suppress his nervousness, fondling the stake and calculating the number of steps to the door.
"You will need my help to kill this Lupeni," the vampire said at last. "I can see that you have tried and failed, you miserable dog. But I will help you and we will not fail. That will be a good start, indeed."
____________________
"Alexandru, it is good to see you," beamed the old man as the two wizards approached him. He sat on the low wooden fence marking the boundary to a small farm.
"You look well, Lucian," returned Alexandru. "Hard to believe that it has been nearly sixty years."
Lucian seemed near in age to Alexandru, although his hair and long beard were shot with white. He jumped off the fence spryly to embrace his old friend. Remus hung back, taking in the small farm still visible in the clear summer evening, although the sun had already set. He had wanted to go to Bucharest since the moon was new and Bela would perhaps be better behaved. However, Alexandru had insisted that there was an important task to perform on the night of the new moon. A few days might not make a tremendous difference in Bela's behavior.
Tonight they were hunting a vampire who chose the new moon to prey on the living.
"I am so glad that you came," said Lucian, stepping back and taking in his old friend. Dropping his voice lower, he continued, "Mihail said that you could help us with our problem."
"Please, tell me what is troubling you," Alexandru said soberly. He gestured toward Remus. "You may speak freely in front of this man. He assists me in these matters."
The old farmer sighed and seemed relieved to unburden himself. Clasping both hands together, he began, "My grandson Stefan has been troubled by fever this summer, it seems. Twice after the new moon he has been sick for a day or two, weak and unable to rise. He feels fine after a few days, but we notice he has bites, some on his neck. We question him, but he knows nothing, says he gets bitten by a lot of things."
"Have you or anyone else noticed anything on these nights?" Alexandru asked thoughtfully.
"It is summer," shrugged Lucian in reply. "Stefan sleeps in the hay barn."
"I would like to see your grandson, and examine these bites," Alexandru said promptly, although he seemed to have made up his mind about their origin. Lucian led them down a dirt track toward a tiny farmhouse where he lived with his son, daughter-in-law and their four children. It did not seem strange that Stefan might choose to sleep in the hay barn considering the size of the house.
"A relatively new vampire," murmured Alexandru to Remus as they walked, "who hunts primarily on the new moon, I should think."
"And you believe the vampire will attack the boy tonight?"
"The pattern seems clear," he responded. "I do not believe you have been in this situation. I must warn you that when he attacks, it can be...difficult to separate the vampire from his victim."
"Oh?" Remus was intrigued. His previous hunts with Alexandru had been confined to rousting sleeping vampires. It was unusual to have the chance to catch a vampire in the act.
"As this is the third attack," Alexandru said slowly, as if lost in a dream or perhaps an old memory, "the victim, this boy Stefan, will resist us. He may try to help the vampire, in fact." He pitched his voice even lower, making it difficult for Remus to make out his words. "Contrary to what you may think, it is not painful to be bitten by a vampire. I am told that it-- that there is a certain pleasure..."
Once again, Remus wondered where Alexandru had come by this information. But they reached the door of the house and there was no time for questions.
The tiny kitchen was full of the family finishing their supper. Both men were introduced as old friends of Lucian's, nothing more. Stefan, a tall, robust boy of sixteen or seventeen, cheerfully shook their hands when it was his turn for introductions. As Remus made small talk with the boy, Alexandru watched him closely, inspecting his neck, no doubt. Once they had been introduced all around, the family went back to clearing dishes. Stefan excused himself to finish a few chores and then get ready for bed.
The two vampire hunters went outside with Lucian and sat on rough wooden benches at the rear of the farmhouse, in sight of the hay barn.
"Well?" asked the old farmer nervously.
"You were right to call on me," Alexandru replied. "I believe that your grandson has been bitten by a vampire, one that we have missed somehow. We will station ourselves in the hay barn tonight. I would ask you and your family to stay away, no matter what you might hear."
Lucian nodded solemnly. Remus had some trouble picturing a farmer in Britain, no matter how isolated, inviting wizards to catch a vampire in his barn. In the lonely mountains of Transylvania, however, the threat of vampires was real, although becoming less common.
The two wizards silently entered the barn before the boy. After inspecting the ground floor and loft, they briefly conjured Invisibility Charms to hide their presence under the loft, among the bales of hay. They heard Stefan climb up the wooden ladder to the loft and get into bed with much creaking of the boards, falling rapidly into a deep sleep by the sound of his breathing. Remus wondered how long they would have to wait and fingered some of the items in the bag he carried: stakes, sunstone, wand, a long rope of braided garlic.
The wait was not long. The soft whisper of wings, bat wings most likely, could be heard soon after the boy fell asleep, fluttering up in the rafters. Alexandru tensed, gripping Remus' arm. Both got out their wands, but as usual Remus waited for a cue from the older wizard. The latter took the garlic braid in one hand, but otherwise remained still, listening for something.
Soon after the beat of wings died away, they heard another whispering sound from above, this time like a voice chanting or singing softly. The loft creaked slightly, although they could not see anything from their spot directly below. Someone moved above them, the singer of the song. The boy moaned in response, turning heavily above them. Fear? Pleasure? Remus was not sure, particularly after what Alexandru told him earlier.
The song, if it could be called that, had no words that Remus could distinguish. Yet, he understood it, or thought he did. A welcome release. An opening into another place -- dark, secret, and mysterious. The promise of --
His hand closed around the sunstone, gripping it tightly as if to push away the wordless, tuneless song. Poor boy, he thought, he's not much older than Bela. Of course, Bela would never be bitten by a vampire, which made Remus feel even more for Stefan.
A nudge from Alexandru's wand brought his mind back to the barn. They exchanged glances and swiftly Apparated into the loft.
Who was more shocked, the vampire or the vampire hunters? The boy, lying down and only semi-conscious, was perhaps the only one not surprised by the sudden appearance of two men kneeling next to him, Remus at his feet and Alexandru at his head.
A woman crouched over the boy, head bent low. Remus should not have been startled to find out that the vampire was female -- they had killed several in the last eight years -- and yet the figure of a strange woman preying on the boy shocked him nonetheless.
She froze, her long brown hair brushing the boy's bare chest like an icy waterfall, and her face twisted into a grimace of fear and hatred. A dark void filled with loathing -- the soulless eyes of the vampire regarded the two strangers. Then she moved, raking her hands down the boy's body and raising her arms, and Remus realized just in time that she meant to transform into a bat and escape.
"Helios," he cried hastily, and thrust the sunstone toward her. With a cry of agony, she collapsed in the bright light onto the boy's prone body, but Alexandru threw the garlic braid around her neck, dragging her toward him so that she was pinned against him, facing Remus and the boy. She choked and struggled as if the garlic burned. Was it like a silver cord to a werewolf? Remus wondered.
Her hands reached out for Stefan, calling his name over and over in a strangled voice. The boy's eyes opened, but had the wild, disoriented look of a sleeper. He sat up clumsily without seeing anything but her and lunged, arms outstretched toward her. Remus threw down his wand and grabbed Stefan, now shouting incoherently, with one hand thrown awkwardly around the boy's neck. The boy's hands plowed furrows in the hay on the loft floor as Remus dragged him back, away from the vampire he fought to reach. In spite of Remus' greater strength (werewolves were stronger than humans), the boy fought him hard so that Remus was forced to toss the sunstone onto the floorboards and grasp Stefan's arms with both hands, pinning them behind his back.
"Neva, Neva, Neva," the boy sobbed, which must be the vampire's name. He stopped fighting his captor, but continued to quake, his chest heaving with enormous, ragged breaths.
"Sleep, boy," intoned Alexandru coldly as he pointed his wand at Stefan. Remus felt the boy slump in his grip and laid him gently on the hay which lined the loft. He picked up the sunstone once again, winded and shaken by the sudden assault.
The vampire struggled weakly, the combination of the garlic braid around her neck and the sunstone proved too much for her. Perhaps this was an indication of her time as a vampire. The sunstone (as well as the sun) affected younger vampires more strongly.
"Neva. That is your name?" questioned Alexandru harshly, angrier than Remus had ever seen him on a vampire hunt. He had always been cold and dispassionate, even at the mention of Cuza, his old enemy. Was there something about this particular vampire? Did he know her? But she did not seem to know him as she answered weakly.
"Yes. What is it that you -- " She faltered. Perhaps she was a bit slow to realize that the two men meant to bring her a final death.
"You!" She cried with more animation, her dark eyes drilling into Remus. "You killed Emil! And the others..."
"Who is Emil?" Alexandru asked curtly.
"He is -- was my...I met him three years ago, while I was still..."
Human. Living. She could not say the words, but it was clear that she was a young vampire and Emil was responsible. She looked frightened and that, too, gave an indication of her short time as one of the Undead.
"At the Petrosna Caves, you killed him," she finished weakly.
Alexandru gave Remus a furious look, as if to say, How dare you kill a vampire without me? They had discussed the vampire that Remus killed at the caves last month and clearly Alexandru was still angry that Emil had been killed without giving him a chance to ask any questions about Cuza, his maniacal obsession.
"Do you know other vampires?" queried Alexandru. "Have you met Cuza?"
"Yes. Once," she shivered. "Emil knew him. He's an old, old vampire. Emil was...scared of him. They talked about the killings." She struggled weakly, realizing anew that those same vampire killers held her prisoner. Surely she suspected what her fate would be.
"Do you know where to find Cuza?" The old vampire hunter's words were clipped, but still angry.
"I don't," she began, licking her lips and giving Remus a pleading look. "But I could find him for you, if you want. If you let me go..."
Alexandru allowed himself a sharp laugh, although his face was set in a grimace. Remus noticed that he had released the wand from his free hand and replaced it with a stake, probably from his pocket.
"You pollute the living," Alexandru intoned, his fury transformed into icy resolve as he raised the stake above his head in a gesture unseen by the vampire, "and you deserve no more than this."
She had no time to reply, or even cry out, as he plunged the stake into her heart.
When Alexandru released the vampire into a crumpled heap between them, Remus saw that he was shaking, obsessively fingering the garlic braid he still held. Again Remus wondered what it was about this vampire that affected his companion so strongly.
Remus found his wand and called forth a small light from its tip so that he could extinguish the sunstone. Even he could not bear its harsh glare for too long. He checked on the boy, who slept an untroubled, charmed sleep.
Neva rested, too, in that final sleep which vampires, by their very existence, defied. Even at the new moon, when the wolf in him was at an ebb, Remus felt the song of Nature which told of the coupling between birth and death, which told of how Life rose and fell like a wave in an endless sea. He did not think he would ever understand the vampire's hunger to step outside the bounds of Nature, to feed on the living without being part of the fabric Life. That was probably why he could go on with the grim task of ridding the mountains of the Undead.
"Shall we finish?" he asked, hesitant to break into Alexandru's reverie.
Wordlessly, the old vampire hunter nodded. In response, Remus picked up the lifeless body and the wizards left the barn for a more secluded place in which to burn the corpse.
Few words were exchanged as they completed their work. When it was done, Alexandru turned to his companion, looking exhausted and many years older.
"I must speak with Lucian and the boy's parents," he said hoarsely. "Wake the boy and bring him into the house. He should not sleep alone."
Back in the loft, Remus conjured a ball of magical light and found Stefan still sleeping peacefully. The boy had a future now, one that involved growing up, growing old, perhaps having children and watching them grow. He could not help but think of Bela again, wishing those things for him, the only child he might ever have.
Pushing those thoughts aside, he worked a spell to undo the sleep charm. The boy lying on the straw opened his eyes suddenly, staring at the wizard with scant recognition.
"How do you feel?" Remus asked quietly.
"Where is she?" cried the boy, as he cast about the loft and realized they were alone. He sat up quickly, searching frantically, and then grabbed Remus' robes, shaking him as if to extract the lost vampire.
"How much do you remember, Stefan?" Remus gripped the boy's wrists gently, but firmly. The boy still had the look of incoherent dreams about his eyes.
"She was so beautiful," the boy murmured, "and she came ... it was a secret. Don't tell, she said, and I'll take you away to where it's always like ... Neva ... her name ... so beautiful..."
Stefan struggled no more, lost in a waking dream. Remus could almost hear echoes of the song of the vampire in his words.
"Neva was a vampire," he said to the boy, sounding more harsh and cruel than he intended. In response, the boy shook his head and became more agitated. "She came back for the third time tonight. Do you know what that means?"
Remus took Stefan by the shoulders as the boy squirmed, rolling his head from side to side as if to deny everything but his memories.
"Do you know what that means?" he repeated, staring intently at the boy's face, forcing him to meet his eyes.
"I would have been -- " Stefan broke off, cradling his head in his hands after Remus released the boy from his grip. When he looked up after a moment, his eyes seemed fully conscious, the dreams replaced by horror at knowing what might have been.
Remus could not get another word out of him, but managed to persuade him to eat a bit of chocolate before they both climbed out of the loft. Back in the farmhouse, the entire family was awake and waiting. They surrounded the boy loudly and tearfully, not noticing in the least when the vampire hunters slipped out to journey back to the castle.
"Brandy," called Alexandru wearily as they came inside the entrance hall, shedding their cloaks and bags. Mihail was awake to greet them, making Remus wonder again if he had some magical way of anticipating his master's every need.
A fire still burned in the hearth of the great hall as they sat at the table. Uncharacteristically, Remus, who still drank little even after living for eight years with Alexandru, felt the need for a strong drink. The common human vices didn't appeal much to werewolves; the harsh flavors of alcohol and tobacco hurt their heightened senses. This was fortunate, as the Fives were difficult enough to discipline without them being a bunch of drunks.
But on the new moon, after a vampire hunt, he didn't refuse the deceptively smooth brandy Mihail poured for them. "The boy will be all right, then?" Remus ventured.
"With time he will recover," sighed Alexandru, swirling amber liquid shot with firelight in his glass. "With each bite, the victim becomes more ... vulnerable, more susceptible to the vampire's song. But, yes, he will recover."
"He wanted her so terribly much," mused Remus. "I would not have believed that the victim could desire so completely to -- "
"The victim always does," growled Alexandru, setting his half-drunk brandy down violently and rising. "Resistance becomes impossible, until there is nothing left but death."
With that, he strode from the room, leaving Remus confused at his parting words. Mihail glowered at the younger wizard as he removed the glass from the table.
"You should not upset the master by bringing up things long forgotten," he said through thin, tight lips.
"What do you mean?" Remus asked, but as he spoke, the answer became clear. "There was another boy, like the one tonight, wasn't there?" Mihail froze with the crystal glass gripped tightly in mid-air.
"Mircea Arghezi was ... a vampire?"
"No," replied the servant, turning away abruptly, "he had the good sense to kill himself before that came to pass."
_____________________
Remus apologized profusely for the delay in taking Bela to the city. The boy didn't seem angry, though, and as it was not yet first quarter, Remus didn't think he'd have to worry about him too much. He was nervous, but that was to be expected. Apart from everything else, it was the longest journey he'd ever made on a broomstick, and Remus was pleased to find that he was a skilled and tireless flyer. (Would the Fives like to play Quidditch? Somehow he doubted it. Two or four, they liked their feet on the ground).
What with Alexandru's monomania, Pack Five, and the mysterious graduate students, Remus didn't get into the city as often as he would have liked. His last brief visit had been in May, to pick up the green bottle containing the Wolfsbane Potion (he had the bottle with him now, with a vague thought of maybe having it refilled… for emergencies). Still, no matter how often his trips, it was always a shock to see the wild mountains, home to so many creatures, turn abruptly into crowded gray skyscrapers and endless tangles of concrete. He wondered if somehow Muggles were blind to this contrast, the same way they couldn't see dragons or ghosts.
For Bela, who'd never been to a city of any kind, the shock was even greater. He was so busy gaping he nearly ran headlong into a telephone pole.
"Watch out!" Remus yelled.
He swerved just in time, head brushing the wires. "What was that thing?"
"A Muggle device… it carries… electricity. Be careful of the wires, I think they're dangerous."
"There are birds on them," said Bela.
Remus couldn't answer this. Maybe he should have Mike drop by for a Muggle Studies lesson, for both of them. "Watch out for the cars, too, those noisy things down there. They'll go right over you without stopping."
"There aren't people inside?"
"Sure there are… but they, er, sometimes stop paying attention, like you just did."
"Oh." Bela flew a little lower, to get a better look at the traffic jam below them. He wrinkled his nose. "It's noisy and stinks. Did you really live in a city like this?"
"No, never like this," Remus assured. Muggle tourists visiting Romania must get a completely different picture than we do, he mused.
Bela kept talking to cover his nervousness. He wanted descriptions of how Hogsmeade became Glasgow after a long stretch of gently rolling hills. He asked how they were going to find the wizard part of town, and if Muggles would see them -- the answer to the last was no.
Alexandru subscribed to a variety of Muggle newspapers so he could follow what was apparently a violent rebellion in the entire region, and he and Mihail often had impassioned discussions about "dictators" and "Stalinism." While Remus was mostly indifferent to the newspapers, unless there was something about wolves (there were several thousand in Romania, and easily twice that number once a month), he did heed the warnings to always stay away from Muggle officials. He didn't know whether the upheaval would make the officials more or less watchful; but at any rate, it would take little effort to stay hidden.
Bela also demanded that Remus recount every word Mr. Ollivander had said to him when he bought his wand almost twenty years ago.
"Honestly, I don't remember everything…" He called through the air as they flew. "He said I'd be good at Charms, but not quite so good as the red-haired girl in front of me. There's only so much you can tell."
"Nothing about liking nasty monsters?"
"Nothing about monsters, liking them or being them," he said lightly, knowing that was what really concerned Bela, though the boy wouldn't admit it. "I didn't know I liked monsters until I came here."
"Don't tell me, they're rare in Britain." Bela snorted. "Do you have anything? I mean, goblins or Hinkypunks or Boggarts or anything?"
"Well, I had a Boggart under my bed as a first-year. We had some fun with him, tried to figure out how many people had to be in the room for him to get confused. And goblins guard Gringotts." Trained goblins, of course. Even the Dementors in Britain are tamed for human use, he thought with a shudder.
They reached the little wizard enclave at last. It seemed even smaller than it had two months ago when Remus had been here last, but that was probably his imagination. Reassuring Bela a hundred times over that there was nothing to worry about, that he knew the proprietor (he'd met him once, getting a wand for Grigore), and that of course he'd been nervous himself when he got his first wand, they pushed open the dusty door, provoking a harsh cry that made them jump.
An ancient, wise parrot was sitting in the windowsill, cracking hazelnuts. He screeched a few words that scarcely sounded Romanian and the shop owner, a very small man who himself appeared dusty, emerged from behind a shelf. "Visitors!" he croaked, in a high voice that suggested he trained the parrot more than he conversed. "From the mountains, I see. Haven't had many these days. How may I help you?"
Fifteen minutes later they left the shop, Bela holding an eight-inch wand of ebony and unicorn hair that he couldn't stop waving around just to see the red sparks.
"Did you hear that?" he said. "Most wands in Romania are made from dragon heartstrings, but they aren't the best fit for all wizards."
"It will make a huge difference, I promise. The one you had before was one of mine, willow and phoenix feather, completely wrong for you. Shall we visit the bookstore?"
Bela nodded excitedly, and they went through an even dustier door into an even dustier shop. Ancient Emil greeted them warmly, as Remus was probably Bogza's best customer, having treatises on the Undead sent regularly up to the castle. He served them brick-red tea and sunflower seed biscuits while telling Remus all about his newest acquisitions.
"Stavrogin has opened the annex today," he said in the tone of one revealing a lovely secret.
"Indeed?" Remus smiled at the thought that his morbid interest in Dark creatures had become almost respectable. No more suspicious glowers from Madam Pince or detentions for sneaking into the Restricted section. How could he not have known what interested him? It seemed so obvious in retrospect. "Well, Bela, why don't you look around and pick out anything you want; I'll be just a minute." He finished his tea quickly and let Emil show him to the door behind his desk that led down a rickety wooden staircase.
The "annex" was a euphemism for a cavernous basement, perhaps a former wine cellar now given over entirely to niter and black mold. It was rarely open, either for lack of interest or because Stavrogin didn't trust Emil to sell his books for him. If Emil seemed a tottering old man, the heartier Stavrogin somehow gave the impression of being much, much older, like a tattered bristlecone pine that has stood for 3,000 years on some windswept ridge.
Remus suspected he had been around significantly longer than the eighty years he claimed. It was possible he was an Upyr, a day-walking Slavic vampire--but this was none of Remus' concern. He wasn't exactly going to put a stake into Emil's assistant, and perhaps the best expert on five-hundred-year-old tomes would be someone who was around when they were published.
Soon he was lost in the depths of the shelves, immersed in Quantum Theory of Fiends, Volume 3. In the middle of a gleeful inspection of color panels of mountain flibbertigibbets, he remembered the Asmodeus invisibility spell, and was levitating to the top shelf ("Demons and Demigods") when his reverie was interrupted by sounds of a scuffle, and yelling. Just kids, he thought, until he made out some of the words.
"Monster!"
"Hey, a werewolf from the mountains!"
"Is that what you are, monster?"
Remus dropped the Fiend Theory book, then stepped on it when he broke his levitation spell. Dashing up the stairs and to the front of the store, he found Bela outside on the sidewalk, surrounded by four teenagers his own age in flashy robes and pointed hats. They were all disheveled and red-faced, looking like they had been fighting.
Malfoys of Romania, Remus thought, and pushed open the door with his most professorial air. "What is going on here?" he demanded.
"He bit me!" screamed one of the Malfoys.
"You started it," Bela growled.
"Werewolf!"
"CALM DOWN," Remus commanded. He glanced over his shoulder at Emil, sitting impassive at his desk, and lowered his voice to an ominous whisper. "If you lot don't clear out, what do you think Stavrogin is going to do?"
They all paled. Clearly they knew him and suspected what Remus did, though they probably didn't know that Upyri didn't drink blood--they robbed graves. With malevolent looks at Bela, they turned and swaggered off, leaving Remus not knowing where to begin.
"Bela… you wouldn't, I mean, you didn't bite him, did you?"
Bela snarled. "He hit me first! And you see," he hissed in a low voice, "they figured it out in two seconds!"
"Shh…" Remus whispered. "Let me pay for the book I probably ruined, and we can get out of here."
They didn't say much for the first part of the flight back. Then Bela started yelling, every nasty thing he could say, about how Remus must have had the stupidest friends on earth for them not to figure him out, that he was never going to speak to humans again, and that his foster dad was no better than a… (he couldn't quite say traitor).
"To be quite honest, I don't think they knew anything," Remus tried to say. "It was just an insult."
"What do you know?"
"I know stupid insults when I hear them," he smiled.
Bela would have whirled to face him, but as they were on broomsticks this was kind of awkward. "Do you ever get angry?" he yelled at the top of his voice. "Do you ever lose your temper? I can sit here, and call you stupid… human… traitor, and you just calmly say--"
" -- that stupid insults don't mean very much," Remus calmly said.
Bela narrowed his eyes and glared. "There's something wrong with you, dog. I don't think you're one of us at all… Maybe you're one of those Animagi you're always telling me about."
"Wolves are extinct in Britain," said Remus. "So it's impossible for a British Animagus to become one. Cats, rats, and dogs -- you don't often see much else."
"You could've come here to learn it, right?"
"No, it doesn't work that way, because -- "
"STOP it! Stop explaining, and being so cursed helpful! I hate you!"
"Just relax," Remus repeated, thinking of slipping valerian into his tea tonight. "It's nothing, and by tomorrow you'll forget."
But Bela didn't forget.
____________________
"Hey, stop it, you stupid, boneheaded -- " Grigore stumbled down the riverbank after the ewe, who seemed to think relief from the stifling heat could be found by plunging into the water. He'd already lost one sheep that way -- sunk straight to the bottom, weighed down with all that wool.
He grabbed her by the rear legs and tugged her up the muddy embankment, cursing. It wasn't his turn to play shepherd, and yet somehow the others always managed to stick him with the job.
"Well, well, a wolf guarding the sheep," came an icy voice, pleasant on the surface but slightly sinister underneath.
Grigore jumped and let go of the hooves, pushing the ewe back towards her fellows. A tall figure loomed in a grove of aspens, silhouetted by the sun at his back. "V-Vlad?" he stammered, but he knew it was not. The man in sunglasses and straw hat had the same skeletal build and towering height, but his face was hairless and waxy, his smile showing pointed canines.
It was perhaps odd that those teeth would frighten a werewolf, but they did. Grigore found himself unable to look away, as petrified as a baby rabbit encountering a hawk.
"You don't like this task, I take it?" the tall man wondered smoothly. He stepped into the pasture but stayed in the long tree-shadows, whose fingers were elongating visibly in the late afternoon.
Grigore shrugged and shook his head, embarrassed at being caught wallowing in the mud and swearing. "Sheep are dumb," he muttered.
"Unusual…" remarked the surprise visitor as if to himself, extending a bony arm to take in the sheep pen, chicken hutches, and garden near Grigore's cottage. "I've never known your kind to be interested in… domestication."
Grigore wasn't sure if that was supposed to be an insult, or of what this man was doing here, in their territory. Was he human? He gave off a variety of strong odors, not unpleasant ones individually, but unnatural and cloying in combination: peppermint and cloves, cinnamon and rose oil. "Our leader is -- is from another country," he said, standing up straight. He was proud to defend his pack from any insulting, pointy-toothed interloper. "They do things differently there."
"And are you content, Grigore?" The man approached even nearer, causing the sheep to regard him with their glassy stares.
"Of -- of course," the Beta stammered, backing away into the clump of animals, too flustered to wonder how this uninvited guest knew his name.
"You lie, and about as well as you herd sheep," the stranger hammered at him, coming every closer -- then his voice became low and seductive once more. "You are unhappy enough to consort with your leader's rival… to provide him with certain information, such as, perhaps, the fact that the enchantment protecting the castle may be opened with a certain Perforatis Charm?"
"But I didn't -- but I don't know anything about -- " Grigore backed up even more, grabbing onto a sheep as if for protection.
"What would your leader do if he knew you were a TRAITOR!" the man snapped.
Grigore flinched, staring at the grass in silence. "What do you want from me?" he stammered at last, looking all around, expecting the other Fives to come pouring from the cabin to punish him.
But the man was smiling from behind his dark glasses. "I just want you to be happy, Grigore. To have the respect you deserve. Not to be forced into unnatural labor. If you were strong… strong enough to take on Lupeni, rather than to betray him behind his back like a cowardly rat -- "
It did not occur to Grigore to wonder how the stranger knew his leader's name as well as his own. The words pulled at him, their oily and professional tone appealing to pride he didn't know he possessed, and exposing the small betrayal -- blurting Lupeni's secrets to Vlad -- which he knew he had committed.
For a moment he fought this, thinking of how miserable he had been as a Six. "He's my leader and I defend him," he declared shakily.
"What do werewolves do to traitors?" the man wondered, stepping forward in a swift movement and grasping Grigore's arm. "I'm sure you can tell me. I doubt that it's any different in Scotland."
____________________
The day after he returned from the city, and all that week, Remus tried to talk to Bela. And to Liszka, who wasn't helping by assuring the boy that yes, of course anyone in the city would figure him out, why did he think she'd never go back, and so forth and so on.
It had been so long since he had agreed with Liszka about anything. Finally he conceded that maybe she was right, he was only confusing everyone by trying to get them to be what they were not, and endangering them by provoking Vlad.
"Would you like to lead the pack, then?" he asked quietly, three days before the August full moon. They were sitting in the cattails by the creek, barefoot and tanned, watching the sun go down. Liszka had a line with a worm on it but wasn't actually bothering to fish. "I know you'd be a great leader."
"If you hadn't offered, I would've fought you," she said bluntly, leaning back to catch the last warm rays from the western hills.
"There's no need for that." Remus tried to smile. "Let's do this amiably, shall we?"
Liszka looked surprised. "We could be amiable and still fight."
That was why she would make a great leader. As their predatory instincts waxed along with the moon, she began to make plans -- ones that would be difficult to carry out in any detail once they were transformed, but which at least would provide some structure for how the group would spend the night. She didn't waste her energy snapping and quarreling the way the others did, or in suppressing her urges, like Remus. It seemed so silly and futile now, the way he had prided himself in not letting his behavior tell James and Sirius what phase it was until the very moment he left Potions to go to Madam Pomfrey.
He didn't want to fight Liszka. He thought of her with her teeth in Vlad's throat, and of her Boggart -- a saber-toothed cat straight from the Ice Age, a fear not learned from her own experiences but imprinted somewhere in the collective pre-history of canine kind. "No, that's all right, I'd just as soon skip that part. Take care of Bela, please, and I… I'll try to make sure Vlad leaves you alone."
"What?" She threw down her fishing rod. "Vlad? Let that mangy cur come near me, and I'll kill him."
No, he didn't want to fight Liszka. "He disturbs me," he said carefully. "I worry that he might… might try something worse than attacking Pack Five."
"What can he do, the toothless old mutt? I can take care of myself, Lupeni." Her eyes blazed with anger and pride. "Don't think you're leaving to protect me -- " she suddenly had an idea that made her scowl " -- or that you can hunt him down yourself. Vlad is mine to kill."
He felt the wolf in him growl competitively, but squelched it. "OK, OK, I'm sorry. I just don't want you to have to answer for mistakes I have made."
"Not everything you've done has been a mistake," Liszka told him honestly. "We have food, and money -- and we're organized."
He grimaced, not entirely sure that organized werewolves were exactly what the world needed.
"But you went too far," she persisted. "It's unnatural. Raising sheep is unnatural, but that's OK, it helps us. Not biting people…" She shook her head in disgust. "Are you still going to keep those cursed wards up?"
"Of course." He interrupted before she could get too angry again. "They work both ways. We can't get into the villages at the full moon, but the humans can't get into the forest. They have their territory, we have ours. It's fair."
"They're the enemy," she raged, digging a clump of mud from the ground and heaving it into the river. "Never mind `fair'!"
"Now you sound like one of them." Had he really said that? Did he really hate humans -- and if so, why did he feel the imperative to protect them?
"So? If they do it, so can we."
"But then they call us monsters."
"Who cares what they think?" She stood up, brushing grass and flowers from her front. "You think too much, that's your problem." She hunted among the reeds for her shoes.
Remus stayed seated, watching a fish jumping in the water. "We should think, we aren't animals," he said.
Her look of utter bafflement at that statement reminded him of why he would never succeed as a pack leader. "Oh, never mind," he muttered, and stood up too. "We're still friends, aren't we? You'll come to me if you need anything… if you have any problems…?"
"Of course." She pushed her hair out of her face, streaks of red shimmering in the sun. She'd just had her twenty-fifth birthday, which used to be old for a Romanian werewolf -- but wasn't so much any more, especially for the Fives. There was no reason to go back to starving and being shot; surely she could preserve what he'd accomplished without distorting her goals with utopian dreaming as he had done?
"Promise," said Remus.
She looked confused again. Wolves didn't need to promise, because they didn't lie. Or so said tradition. "Promise," she said, humoring him.
It was the friendliest conversation they'd had in many months. "Good-bye, Liszka," he said, and squeezed her hand. He turned to find his broom for the trip to the castle, not wanting to return to the cottage one last time. It wasn't that he wouldn't be accepted, or even that he would never run with them again; but Liszka's cockiness had not made him stop worrying about Vlad, and he intended to make his departure as abrupt and obvious as possible. Let the leader of the Sixes think that Liszka had taken over by force, that she hated Remus -- and maybe she would be safe for a while.
Deep down, where he was ashamed to admit it to himself, Remus knew that his motivations were not entirely about providing Bela with a conflict-free puppyhood, or even about protecting the pack from humans and other werewolves. A small but significant part of why he was leaving was that this was the only way to break up with Liszka… and he was beginning to suspect that there were other women out there, ones who might even deign to speak to him.
Was it anything to feel guilty about? Their relationship had lasted six years, and they had parted friends. She didn't need him trying to turn her into someone like himself, confused and conflicted.
A thought entered his head, like a small trickle of water snaking across a leaky dam. He saw again the odd, violet eyes of the mysterious Lamia. WHY? burst through his consciousness suddenly, almost making him shout out loud as he flew. Now that he allowed himself to think of her, even vaguely, the contradictions and mysteries came flooding into his head as if the dam had burst.
Why was Lamia living as a Muggle? She clearly was not one. Nor was she a Squib -- he'd had plenty of practice with those at Pufflepod, or at least pretty close. Squibs were very like Muggles; they knew of the existence of the magic world, but they always possessed some seed of doubt that it actually worked the way wizards claimed. No Squib would be as certain as she was that Emil was a vampire… and no Squib could drive away Vlad on a night of the full moon.
What would make a witch live as a Muggle? And for many years, for her books spanned at least a decade and covered several disparate fields of study. It was odd, too, that she scarcely looked twenty (though perhaps he had grown used to werewolves who lived hard and died young).
"I should not have come"… those were her words. Why?
Of course, he had considered doing the same many times, most seriously after the loss of his first teaching job. Living as a Muggle would mean no more suspicion, no more fear of discovery… almost no more lies. There were even jobs where you automatically got the week of the full moon free -- he could be an observational astronomer, and who would ever know the difference?
And yet every word would be doublespeak, the way it was with Mike. He would have to have a "scientific explanation" for everything, to pretend to need their noisy machines, their reeking petrol. Twenty-nine days out of twenty-nine would be a lie, and he would be forsaking everything he truly cared about and all of his talent. It wasn't worth it.
Perhaps she had just been a not particularly gifted witch, but Remus suppressed this thought in favor of the speculation -- or the hope -- that she had a secret.
With this sentiment he dismounted from his broom a quarter mile from the castle, and started up the stone path only to find himself face to face with Vlad.
Remus took the offensive, knowing that worked best. "What are you sniffing around here for?" he inquired coolly. "No bones today." He'd never quite forgotten that "Fido" business.
"I wouldn't hold my tail so high if I were you, Lupeni," Vlad snarled. "I have ways to break into this pile of rubble that you could never guess."
Much too arrogant to keep a secret, Remus decided in a flash. Like Severus. "Oh, yes?" His voice was exaggeratedly calm. Sometimes being able to keep his cool near the full moon could pay off. "You and the Supreme Mugwump Army of 1602?"
It didn't look as though Vlad had anything on him -- camera, bag, anything that Remus should inspect or confiscate. His presence may have even been a coincidence, though that was highly unlikely. The sarcasm infuriated him and he stood blocking the trail as if Remus were the trespasser, twisting his hairy face into the intimidating scowl that had helped him stay leader for so long.
"One skilled wizard could get through that dog door," Vlad growled, waving his arms as if ready to hit Remus.
"Which is one more than you have on your side," Remus retorted, stepping aside as Vlad lunged and watching calmly as he nearly toppled down the rocky trail.
Stumbling, Vlad regained his footing and stalked away. He pretended to mutter to himself, but obviously he intended for Remus to catch every word. "I have friends," he growled. "Ones you wouldn't dare approach. You kill them because you're scared of their power… and they've only just started feasting on those Muggles you try to protect."
So he's been speaking to a vampire, Remus thought, trying to stay cool although his skin prickled at the thought of the hunt ten days ago. Surely it was an empty boast that Vlad had incited Emil to bite Mike…
"Those Muggles are gonna be dead meat on the full moon!" Vlad turned and shouted as his parting shot.
Vlad teaming up with vampires to eat the students? It sounded like another ill-conceived threat from the dim but vicious leader of the Sixes. But still, he should check on all of them, probably keep them out of the caves three nights from now.
He started up the trail, smiling at the thought of the explanation Mike would conjure to explain this.
But Lamia would understand.