Chapter 9:
Betrayal
There is a bomb on the table between us,
Next to the wine bottle, and between the tips of our forks.
I stare at the beautiful depth of your eyes
and listen to you describe
accurately and simply
with your sensual, resonant voice,
all the ways that we are the same.
You and I,
in some other lifetime, twins
striving alone in this lifetime
naked only to each other
cowering away from our essential natures
but leaning toward each other's uniqueness
caressing that strangeness
tasting that strangeness
The bomb is ticking in time with my pulse.
We cannot be together, even if
we were born to be together
There are a million reasons why it cannot work,
and each is a spear in my heart
Together our hands clasp over the table
I know I will love you forever,
but how I feel doesn't make any difference.
I know the explosion is coming
I close my eyes
you disappear.
~ pirategirl
Romania, Year Twelve
"Bela, remember your manners."
The boy did not heed the calm, measured tones of his father, but continued to gape at the old wizard before him, sodden and mud-splattered, smiling affably as if rooting around in the mud were the sort of thing he did every day.
"I see that I must also apologize for my son's manners," Remus said pleasantly enough, although a trace of irritation lurked below the surface. "This is Bela, the young wizard that I've told you about, Headmaster."
"How delightful!" bubbled Albus Dumbledore, the twinkle in his blue eyes undiminished by the heavy gray skies and drizzle. "Such a pleasure to meet you at last after all that Remus has said about your abilities."
Bela couldn't keep up his sullenness for long in the face of this cheerful onslaught from Dumbledore, and after being referred to as a "wizard" by Remus despite forty stubborn months of no homework. His voice held a bit of wonder as he said, "You're from that school for wizards where D-- Lupeni went..." Hastily he stuck out his arm and briefly shook the headmaster's hand.
Rain continued to drip everywhere; the steady drizzle had accompanied their work of clearing the charred wreckage. The ruined hulk of Grigore's cottage looked like a leviathan washed up on shore, bits of decaying flesh still clinging to enormous bones. Long, thick beams hid under the remains of the roof. One corner post, partially burned, poked upward through the debris at an awkward angle. The stone chimney alone appeared to be intact, lurking under the burden of shingles from the former roof.
The boy realized suddenly how wet he had become standing in the rain and grabbed his plastic raincoat from the mud where he had thrown it in anger. He continued to stare at the object in Dumbledore's hand, even as he retrieved the muddy plastic and shook it out.
Although black with tarnish, it was clearly a large and ornate cross. The metal had been cast to look like rough wood draped with olive branches. Lobed petals at each of the three ends held triplet jewels which the old wizard had polished roughly to reveal what looked to be rubies, glittering blood-red under the overcast sky. The remnants of a chain, broken and muddy, dangled in the rain.
Remus stared at the cross as well, thinking back to the scene ten months ago in Stilpescu. Tension mounted as a crowd gathered around him and the man fallen dead in the dirt. Whispers turned into buzzing and then into curious tones, culminating in angry questions. He had been prepared to answer for himself, but the chance never came. A sudden hush enveloped the crowd, punctuated by one woman's cry, as a shiny silver cross floated above the people's heads and into the slack hand of the supine corpse. As the metal came to rest in his palm, the dead fingers contracted with a hiss, pale burns appearing on the already waxy skin.
"He's a werewolf!" bellowed a voice, and the cry was immediately taken up by the crowd -- suddenly Remus wasn't an accused killer, but a heroic monster hunter. One so skilled (came the murmurs) that he could kill even a werewolf with a single curse, and one so stylish he didn't need to stoop to words to show the crowd what the dead man had been.
His attempts at protest were drowned by the now friendly mob, who already loved Lupeni and couldn't imagine him guilty of murder. He was the only one confused, the only participant in this scene who couldn't explain how a silver cross had floated from nowhere to betray the dead man's secret.
Only now he understood what had happened.
"Bela was able to levitate that," Remus commented, nodding toward the cross, "for some distance. Quite remarkable for a werewolf to be able to control a silver object so well. I am not sure that I could have done that."
"Ah, yes. Silver would be difficult, would it not?" mused the headmaster.
"I didn't know I couldn't do it, I guess," Bela said, after getting the raincoat settled on his shoulders. He shrugged in an attempt to look casual and got out his wand, pointing it at the cross. "It was pretty easy."
The cross rose in the air, shakily at first but then gliding smoothly into the air. Like a bird trailing plumage, it swooped over their heads doing fanciful dives. Bela clearly enjoyed showing off, judging from the smug and mischievous look on his face.
"Nice work, Bela," Remus remarked crisply. "Although you had no business being there in the first place. You should not have been in the village, where you might be recognized and -- "
The dark shape plummeted to the ground, landing in the mud at their feet with a soft plop. Bela glared sulkily at his father, gripping his wand and searching for words to match his anger.
"I'm not afraid of them," he snarled. "It's you who were trying to get yourself killed."
Dumbledore appeared not to notice as he bent down to retrieve the cross and tucked it into an inner pocket of his cloak.
"Now is not the time to speak of this," said Remus curtly. "Let's finish clearing the debris. The ground is too muddy to move the beams today, but we can get everything ready."
Remus strode into the blackened mess that had been the interior of the little cottage, leaving Bela fuming as he put his wand away. Dumbledore remained where he was, regarding the boy kindly over his half-moon spectacles which seemed to be charmed in order to stay dry.
"I suppose all this rain will be good for the tentacled polypori," Dumbledore said brightly. "You do collect polypori -- perhaps you call them ciudara -- in these mountains?"
"Yeah. Sure," Bela answered distractedly. "We have those. They look like mushrooms, but they're really baby lentinellas."
"Indeed. Romanian lentinellas can shape-shift wooden objects, I believe," Dumbledore inquired with interest as they both began sifting through rubble once again.
The boy knelt, retrieving what looked like pieces of cutlery and tossing them into a pile of artifacts, while the old wizard directed shingles to fly through the air and stack themselves neatly on the ground nearby.
"Right," Bela replied, looking up at Dumbledore with more animation. "I raised one once, but I had to turn it loose when it started chewing on the furniture. Till then it was pretty useful. I got it to make all sorts of stuff, but after a while I couldn't find enough oak saplings to feed it -- that's what they like the best -- and it ate the wood that I wanted it to transform and then started on the table and chairs."
Remus, overhearing Bela's recital, shook his head with amusement, remembering the shaggy green and brown creature that his son had begged to keep. The lentinella, about the size of a cat, had a dozen wiggly legs and small beady eyes hidden under bark-like shaggy fur. Another one of Bela's pets, it followed him around, making snuffling noises and trailing splinters. He did seem to collect useful creatures, though, and was fascinated by what tricks or magic he could get his pets to perform.
Dumbledore continued to ask Bela about other magical creatures, taking delight in his descriptions, as they all worked clearing the debris away from the surviving roof beams. Remus was removing smaller pieces of the roof from the large stone fireplace, levitating chunks of sodden wood with his wand and sending them to a growing pile, when several big stones shifted with a crash, sending a large portion of the chimney rumbling noisily to the ground. Evidently, the chimney mortar hadn't survived the ice and snow of last winter.
As Remus waded gingerly into the slumped mess of wood and stone, glints of gold and silver caught his eye. Puzzled, he dug through the rubble until he uncovered a dusty jumble of coins (both Muggle and wizard) and jewelry that must have been hidden somewhere in the chimney.
"Selene's bloody arrows," he swore and then checked himself as he heard the others approach.
"Wow. Look at all this stuff. How do you think it got here?" Bela asked curiously, coming up behind Remus.
"Treachery," he replied tersely, reluctant to explain further, although he now understood clearly all the events that led up to the hidden treasure in the chimney of Pack Five's old cottage.
"You mean someone hid it here? After the fire?"
"No," Remus said, turning away from the rubble and walking past the gawking young man and out of the ruined cottage. He didn't wish to look at that collection of stolen goods any longer than necessary, because of the painful connections it forced upon him.
"The former owner," Remus began, unwilling even to give a name, "the last living person to occupy this cottage, was responsible for that." He sighed, sure that the story must come out sooner or later. Bela didn't know all of it because they hadn't been on such good terms for the last few years.
"But how -- " Bela began, trailing Remus out of the ruins. "I mean, Mum said Grigore was kind of a scumbag, but..." He faltered, perhaps because of the stony look on his father's face. Gesturing back toward the rubble, he asked, "What are you going to do with all that?"
"The crows can have it," Remus answered angrily, then repented those words, saying, "What can't be claimed should go to charity. I'll take the whole lot to the village, to the church."
Dumbledore remained silent throughout this discovery. How much had the old wizard guessed, Remus wondered. The whole story was not pleasant, not something he was eager to tell. Perhaps he hadn't shown the best judgement, but in the end, those who were guilty of monstrous crimes had been made to stop. Was that justice? Remus wasn't sure.
"Well, we've made good progress today," he said matter-of-factly to Bela as they all gathered now outside the ruins. "Once the ground dries out, you and I can move the beams."
"Yes, er, thanks for the help," the boy mumbled awkwardly.
"I could do with a spot of tea and some dry socks," suggested Dumbledore mildly. "And Bela can perhaps tell me about the flock of perytons that he mentioned seeing."
"I'm not sure that -- " Remus and Bela began simultaneously, both uncomfortable although probably for different reasons.
But Dumbledore did not seem to notice as he continued, "Hagrid would be most interested in obtaining a few of those creatures. He's teaching Care of Magical Creatures next term, you know."
"I can just see that," Remus mused, becoming intrigued as he remembered the giant Hogwarts gamekeeper. Perytons, he recalled, had the head and legs of a deer but the plumage of a bird. "I do hope the students are prepared for that. They can be quite dangerous."
"Hagrid manages," Dumbledore said mildly. "He did tell me he was interested in finding some flying creatures to start off the term."
"Perytons, eh?" Remus asked Bela. "You've seen a flock of them around here, have you? I'd like to hear about that, too."
And so it was decided that Bela would accompany them back to the castle for tea.
Dumbledore's hiking boots squelched noisily across the stone floor of the great hall. Remus' sandals made a slapping sound that echoed in the far corners, while Bela's leather boots made sharp, if hesitant, footfalls. They shed their cloaks near the large fireplace and spread them on the stones to dry. Remus conjured a fire which was soon crackling cheerfully, creating fanciful shadows in the debris of the hall as the light from outside began to fade with the coming of evening.
The old wizard sat on a roof beam and pulled off his boots and socks, wriggling his toes happily. After spreading his soggy socks on the hearthstone, he summoned a dry pair from his room. The socks came flying through the air, speeding across the great hall toward a delighted Dumbledore.
Bela stood nearby, nervously looking around at the wreckage. As Remus poured water for tea, he wondered about the wisdom of bringing the boy here. The ruined great hall would almost certainly call forth painful memories. The last time Bela had been here was fifty full moons ago, and his life had been changed irrevocably, perhaps not for the better.
"One cannot have too many socks when traveling," said Dumbledore contentedly as he pulled on the first sock. Something seemed to be stuck in the toe of the second sock and the old wizard wore a puzzled expression on his face as he reached in a hand, bringing out a dark colored lump, about the size of a large peach pit.
"Dear me," he said, handing it to Bela while he put on the other sock, "how did that find its way into my sock?"
The boy seemed to be on the point of throwing it away when he received a nasty surprise. The thing sprouted two pincers and clamped down painfully on the palm of his hand.
"Hey!" Bela shouted, shaking his hand to dislodge the thing, which was still a rough brown lump, but with pincers. "What is this thing?"
"Hmmm?" Dumbledore said mildly without looking up as he tugged on his socks. "Oh, that is a maxeball. I haven't seen it since the end of last term. Can't think how it came to be in my sock."
"What does it do?" Bela asked hastily as the maxeball let go of his hand and sprouted wings, buzzing around his head and pulling at hunks of his hair.
"Transforms," replied the old wizard simply. Remus, too, turned from the hearth to watch the winged and clawed object soar up to the hole in the roof and then dive straight onto Bela's head, bouncing off, as if it had now changed into rubber.
"Really, Headmaster," he said, almost critically, "you don't mean to test the boy?"
"Test? Is this a test?" Bela winced as the thing started to glow hotly while coming at his face.
"It is used to give the Transfigurations portion of the NEWTs to Hogwarts students," Dumbledore answered. "I must have put it away in my sock last spring because we shan't be needing it until next year." The old wizard jumped up suddenly to avoid the path of the speeding projectile which ricocheted off the wall behind him and headed straight for Bela. "It does seem fond of you. It's best, you know, to force the maxeball to transform into something, er, benign before it takes on a really nasty aspect."
Scrambling to avoid the glinting metallic spikes that had just erupted on the surface, Bela got out his wand.
"Florisalcum!" he cried as he pointed toward the charging missile. Several of the spikes changed to flowers with a series of tiny pops, but the maxeball kept on coming. He ducked and the thing whizzed past his ear and looped around to head back in his direction.
"Papilius!" In response, the maxeball sprouted glittering wings of orange and black which slowed it down momentarily as it hung suspended several feet above the boy, flapping its wings prettily. As it picked up speed for another dive, Bela closed his eyes tightly, pointed his wand, and cried, "Primus!"
With a soft thud, the maxeball dropped like a stone to the floor, having resumed its original appearance, and bounced twice before coming to rest at Dumbledore's feet.
"Of course," chuckled the professor as he picked it up and put it in one of the pockets of his robe, "it's better to force it to assume its original shape, if that can be divined."
Remus laughed in spite of wanting to remain serious, making Bela somewhat uneasy as he looked from one wizard to the other. Remus laid a hand on the boy's shoulder and said easily, "Well done, Bela. You figured it out without getting hurt, which is more than most Hogwarts graduates can say." Addressing Dumbledore in a more serious tone, Remus admonished the headmaster, "Surely you don't mean to -- you wouldn't be considering -- ?"
"Of course not," said his former teacher mildly. "He's far too old to start from the beginning." Turning his merry blue eyes on Bela, Dumbledore chortled, "Excellent job, young man. I must tell Professor McGonagall about the butterfly wings; I'm sure she hasn't seen that one in years."
Remus shook his head, still smiling, as he stepped to the hearth and poured tea into pottery mugs. Albus Dumbledore still had the ability to surprise and delight him, even when he thought he had lost the capacity for these emotions. And it pleased him more than he cared to admit that, despite his bitterness and loss, his foster son had not abandoned magic.
A large raindrop fell directly into Bela's tea as he took the mug, and he started at the splash. "As bad as the cottage, this place is," he murmured, looking up at the holes in the ceiling as if for the first time. "But those beams…" he added with thinly veiled desire, his gaze dropping to the polished hardwood. "If you don't need them all…"
"Yes, I'll let you know," Remus promised. "I have been meaning to fix things up before winter."
Bela nodded wisely; he'd seen more alpine winters than Remus. "We didn't… you know, that night… tear off the ceiling, did we?" he asked all of a sudden, hesitantly.
"No," Remus replied in a dull voice, with a glance at Dumbledore. "It was the next day… after the vampires came."
"Remarkable," the headmaster commented. "With all of Alexandru's wards in place, how did vampires manage to re-enter the castle?"
"A combination of Mother Nature, bad luck -- and treachery," said Remus, with a meaningful look at Bela.
Bela sneered as if his father were just using the word to scare him. "Aw, come on, Grigore wasn't plotting with vampires."
"Indeed he was," Remus corrected. "And even after everything that happened: Alexandru's death, and your injury -- " he regretted his words as Bela flinched " -- he continued to consort with vampires, with the worst vampire of them all, robbing and stealing and killing people." He took a deep breath, wondering if the tension between himself and Bela had grown worse since the murder. How did you explain such a thing to your son? "I do not… take what I did in the village lightly."
"But you wouldn't have done it if he were human," Bela responded, taunting yet bitter.
"Of course I would have," Remus objected. "I told the villagers he was human. I would have explained his treachery at the trial."
"Oh, sure," Bela snorted, "you can be noble and suffer, but that doesn't mean you would've done it." His face contorted with anger as he thumped his tea mug on the table and glared at a puddle of rainwater. "You expect us to be things that we're not."
"What, human?" Remus asked, curiously.
"Better than human," sneered Bela, pounding his fist on the table to show that this was not a philosophical discussion, but touched the core of his resentment and anger at Remus.
Dumbledore took this moment to ask whether he might find parchment and a quill in his room, and politely excused himself. As he walked off, Remus could hear him saying something in owl-speak, followed by a flutter of wings.
The two werewolves stared at each other for a long moment, each caught in his own complex emotions. In the time since Remus last spoke at length with Bela, the boy had taken on a maturity that was surprising; there was no need to hide anything.
"Do you think I asked too much of Grigore, then?" Remus wondered at last, very quietly.
"Look." Bela clenched his hands into fists. "Our kind pretend that we're loyal, and honest, and we never tell a lie -- everyone but you knows that it's a joke. There are twelve hours a month when you know if we're loyal, and the rest of the time you can't trust anybody."
"But… but it makes one a better person, to be trusted," Remus mused. "I trust you, and I trust Liszka, and Professor Dumbledore. Professor Dumbledore trusts me, too -- and he always has, something that has made all the difference to me."
Bela looked reluctantly impressed, but then he frowned again. "Still, you knew what Grigore Beta was like. You can't kill someone for being a dim-witted coward."
The boy was beginning to sound too much like his own conscience. "There are many things he could have told me that would have averted disaster. Even if the vampire had terrorized him, he had a chance to stake him and burn him -- but he failed."
"Have you ever known a human traitor?" Bela demanded suddenly.
The words caught Remus by surprise, flinging him into a maelstrom of emotion, an old wound that had recently re-opened. He leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair, and all but ran to the other side of the room, staring out at the broken stones and the rain, refusing to answer as he struggled against grief and rage.
Then he whirled on Bela, and was furious to see him smirking at having finally gotten a rise out of the unflappable Lupeni. He could see his own insolent fearlessness reflected in that sarcastic face, and dreaded the thought of Bela becoming just like him.
"Yes, I have," he said at last, and for the first time he didn't try to hide his emotion.
This made Bela smile even wider, probably just because of all those years of hearing, "Bela, control your temper."
"And did you kill him?"
"No," said Remus. "Because he is in prison. But if he were to stand before me and confess what he had done, without remorse, his only excuse his own weakness -- then, perhaps, I would." Would Sirius ever do anything out of weakness? Had he met his match in Lord Voldemort? "I hope it never comes to that," he added quietly. "Killing a former friend is something I never hoped to do, but when I heard those lies --"
"You lost your temper," Bela snickered, understanding. "I probably would have done it too, if I knew he was responsible for -- that night," he added. They were words of reconciliation, but sincere ones, and while the boy was still angry, his acrimony was now less targeted on Remus than on the events of the conflagration.
"Grigore was responsible," said Remus quietly, "and I had proof. Not only his words, but the stolen clothes he wore and the money in his pocket proved his connection to the vampire I thought I had killed: the vampire that killed Alexandru and destroyed this castle." And much more, he thought -- but this was not a story that Bela needed to hear.
"And did you get the vampire?" Bela asked, still sounding a bit skeptical.
"I found him in the cottage, further proof of treachery," Remus scowled.
"So you killed him and burned it down." Bela rolled his eyes. "You could at least have dragged him outside to burn him, I wanted that cottage so I wouldn't have to live with Mum forever."
"That's not why the cottage burned…" He was amazed at all Bela didn't know. No wonder he had resented Remus, believing him capable of so much violence and irresponsibility. "The vampire was a very powerful wizard, as you know, and he wasn't going to let me kill him without a fight."
Bela grinned evilly. "You had a wizard's duel with a vampire?" He clearly thought this was cool. "Wow… I thought you were just annoyed and cursing holes in the wall."
"Why would I do that?"
Bela shrugged. "I do it. You might try losing your temper more often, it's good for you."
Dumbledore, probably hearing that the voices had returned to their normal pitch, came hummingly into the room with an old moldy book and a piece of parchment. "Bad tempers?" he wondered, showing them a long scratch on his hand. "I must say, that owl of yours…"
"That's why I didn't send you anything in forty months, you know," Bela told Remus with a fake scowl. "I hate that bird."
"There's Beak Bandage in the cupboard," Remus said hastily. "Here, let me -- "
But Bela was already hurrying to the stone cabinet, where Mihail had left a few old pestles and the coffin-shaped box for drying Mandrake root. For the first time, Dumbledore noticed that the boy walked with a slight limp.
The betrayal had cost them all so much, Remus thought: Alexandru his life; Bela his ability to ever lead a pack… and himself the woman he thought he loved. Along with her loss were those that were more intangible; Remus wondered if he would ever be able to share himself with anyone again, without the ever-present doubt that his own or the other's darkness would destroy the tenuous bonds that they had created.
Had she been a human being or a monster? Or perhaps he shouldn't torture himself with this false dichotomy: she was a flawed creature like the best of them, who had ultimately failed in her struggle, but who had done good as well as harm. He would always have mixed feelings, and he would always miss her…
_________________________
Romania, Year Eight
Landing a half-mile from the grad students' camp, Remus leaned his broomstick against a tree and set off for the pavilion, walking quietly and stealthily as a wild animal. It was hard to evade Lamia, but if he could find one of the others and deliver Mike's Poultice Potion quickly, he might be able to slip away without her speaking to him.
When they were apart, he could think of nothing and no one else: her chilly allure, that mysterious past about which he could divine nothing, and the peculiar bond they shared that was at once intellectual and inexplicable. There always seemed to be tension when they met in person, however. Despite looking ten years his junior, she was in fact older by an indeterminate amount of time, possibly centuries, and it was difficult to remember how much her experience and wisdom surpassed his own.
Worse than being treated like a child, though, was being treated like a beast; and while on some level it was amusing to be condescended to by a vampire, most of the time it was just annoying. Liszka scorned him when he didn't act like a monster, Lamia scorned him when he did -- it was hard to win.
In addition, she had admitted that she knew Cuza.
Just three words -- "I know him" -- but enough to fill Remus with guilt about his faithfulness to Alexandru. She'd gone on to say that she would be pleased if Cuza were killed, but her admission caused him stabs of doubt about who she had been when she was alive.
Did that matter if she had, as she swore, renounced human blood? She had spent decades living as a scholarly Muggle, learning about things he scarcely knew existed, rejecting what the wizarding world and her own kind believed her to be…
Filled with fascination once again, he picked up speed and ran into the camp, his footsteps audible from afar even to those with mortal senses.
She was waiting for him, sitting outside her tent, shielded from the sun by a canopy, sunglasses, and a large floppy hat.
He tried to feign indifference. "I brought Mike a second batch of the potion," he said, handing her a large green bottle. The new Stilpescu herbologist asked fewer questions than Mihail, and didn't blink at being asked for another two liters of Poultice Potion containing wolfsbane.
"Oh, yes." She smiled faintly. It didn't seem to bother her that her Muggle colleague got drained or scratched (or both) with surprising regularity. "Come inside for a minute; I'll give you your book back."
Knowing he shouldn't enter the tent, but unable to stop himself, Remus followed. He set the bottle on the floor and received in exchange Seven Centuries of Muggle-Wizard Relations.
"Did you finish it?" he asked. "In just two days?"
"Yes… They gave awfully short shrift to the thirteenth century, don't you think?" She pulled off her hat and sunglasses, shaking her head to release her long, dark hair and causing the small tent to fill with her perfume. Gracefully, she settled herself on the floor, and he followed. They sat close together, regarding each other warily with the book on the floor between them.
"Well, the records aren't the best…" he began, then stopped, wondering: Did vampires talk among themselves about history that old? Remus thought of Stavrogin the bookseller, and promised himself that next time he wouldn't be afraid to ask.
"And ending on such a positive note was over simplistic," she continued. "I don't at all agree that the best solution is to have them disbelieve in us."
"It's better than them trying to burn us, isn't it?"
"A selfish outlook," Lamia frowned. "It suggests that wizards are basically not nice people. We don't want them to know that we exist because then they'd ask us for help? Well, why shouldn't they ask us?"
"They don't want to," he objected. "They have bureaucracy, as we do. They have people only interested in their own riches, like many of our pureblood families." He thought hard for an example. "There was something called an `oil crisis' a while back," he said carefully, "and the Ministry of Magic was in fact threatened for offering to help. I'm not sure exactly what that means -- "
"I am," said Lamia, and she explained. "Most of the horrors you see in this country come from Muggles trying to make electricity. The brown air, the polluted rivers -- we could change this, but we don't."
"But they are -- " he searched for a word. "Intolerant. They won't accept anyone who's not like themselves."
"And we're any different?" She laughed bitterly, then stared at him with those unsettling, artificial eyes. (He knew now that they were called contact lenses.) Was there something like pity there? He couldn't be sure.
"You will not say why you left England, but I can guess that you know something of the tolerance of wizards."
He swallowed hard, thinking about the Dark Mark in the sky signaling the deaths of those whose only crime was to be Muggle-born -- and of his own exile, and that of giants and hags he had known who also tired of their rejection by the wizarding world.
"We have bad wizards, occasionally, but we get rid of them," he objected, somewhat feebly. He knew he sounded like a young, senseless idealist; but it was only this idealism that had made him able to fight Voldemort so hard for so long. He had never been tempted by the Dark side, as he knew it stood for exclusion and bigotry.
Yet it was the Aurors who killed Britain's last remaining giants. Remus knew this was wrong, but he had said little. Even the good side, when it became too powerful or too self-confident…
Perhaps it was the two encounters with wild Dementors, or these discussions with Lamia, or simple experience -- but for the very first time, he felt a prickle of doubt about Sirius' innocence.
Lamia swept his book aside and reached for one of her own, moving next to him and brushing his shoulder with hers as she opened this book on the floor in front of them. It appeared to be about the Muggle wars in the middle of the twentieth century.
"Look at this. Muggles have killed millions with their foolish wars. We could have prevented this..." She gestured to some of the gruesome scenes and continued to talk about a war that she had witnessed (alive or dead, he didn't know and she wouldn't say). Remus had a hard time accepting the analogy of Hitler and Lord Voldemort, perhaps because the Muggle wars were on such a grand scale, and their methods so crude and violent.
Still, an "avada kedavra" curse might be clean, but it left you no less dead.
Had Sirius seen the Dark side as essentially no different from anyone else? Had he hoped it could give him power and influence without destroying him?
"Cooperation, real cooperation, would broaden everyone's horizons," Lamia insisted. "No more Memory Charms. No more -- what do you call them in Britain -- Departments of Magical Concealment?"
"But you have to lie to them to make them accept you," Remus objected, shaking his head to rid it of troublesome thoughts. "You have to turn on the `generator.' And pretend you're on a diet. And -- "
" -- And that I raise rabbits for pets," she added playfully, reaching out for an errant strand of his hair and tickling his neck.
"Rabbits?" He raised his eyebrows. "You live on rabbits?"
"White rabbits at home -- wild rabbits around here, mostly."
"Honestly, your lies are only successful because the Muggles around you are hopelessly thick-headed."
She chuckled softly and invitingly. Remus forgot his irritation as she twined her fingers in his hair and tugged him closer. The purely intellectual discussion was beginning to lose its appeal.
"HEY," boomed a voice, and a head stuck its way into the tent, followed by the rest of Mike's large body. "Lamia, I -- " He stopped short and gave Remus a look of disdain. He seemed to be around a lot lately, most of the time in Lamia's tent, and Mike couldn't imagine what she saw in some dorky hippy who wasn't even a physicist.
Remus was too melancholy from thoughts of Voldemort and his ilk even to say, "We were just talking about you."
"Here's some more potion for your scratches. NO, DON'T OPEN THE BOTTLE IN HERE," he commanded, as Mike twisted the stopper.
"Hmmm…?" Mike took a deep breath of the toxic purple fumes as Remus got up hastily and fled from the tent. "Doesn't smell like anything to me…" Mike followed him out of the tent, watching the other rub his eyes and sneeze.
"It's full of aconite, highly poisonous," said Remus, then decided to try out Lamia's truthfulness policy. "And it bothers me because I'm a werewolf."
Mike laughed. "Sure… one of the ones that got me a few days ago?"
"Yeah, the gray one."
"Duuude…" Mike gave the potion another deep sniff, as if trying to find something noxious in it, and glared at Remus. "That why you like him, Lamia?"
"No," she said mildly as she emerged from the tent and put on her sunglasses and hat once more, "vampires don't like werewolves. Speaking of which… where's your garlic?"
"Dunno. In my tent, still."
"What did I tell you?" she demanded, no longer joking. "You're not to walk around Romania without garlic ever again! And no coming out of your tent after sunset. I MEAN IT," she added, as Mike chuckled.
He looked at Remus and rolled his eyes in some kind of male-bonding gesture which Remus didn't understand. "Would you listen to that. Now I can't even stargaze."
"It's too close to the full moon for that, anyway," Remus retorted, remembering how nice it had been when Professor Sinistra gave them the week off.
"Aha, but sometimes the full moon is the best time for stargazing," Mike returned superiorly.
"I wouldn't know," said Remus.
Mike smirked. "I bet you don't know what's coming up at the end of the month?"
"The Harvest Moon?" Remus wondered.
"No; more than that." He gave a gloating smile at Lamia, who didn't seem to know either. "Next full moon, Jupiter is going to be occulted by the moon not long after sunset! A complete occultation in northeastern Europe. We're lucky to be in the country to see it. You can bet I won't be in my tent wrapped in garlic!"
"Carry some with you, at least," Remus replied mildly.
"I might," Mike shrugged, seemed about to add something else, but stopped suddenly as he caught sight of the worried look on Lamia's face. He didn't want her to scold him again.
But she wasn't looking at Mike -- she had seen a bat, too far from sunset and too far from the caves to be an innocent insectivorous mammal of the order Chiroptera. Although she couldn't recognize individual vampires in bat form, she had her suspicions.
Remus noticed her concern too. "What is it?" he asked, moving closer.
She pushed him back, struggling with something inside herself.
"Nothing," she said, at last. "Why don't you go now."
______________________
"A simple plan, yes. The trouble with simple plans is that…" Cuza's voice became dangerously low as he approached the man cowering against the damp wall of the cave. "…THEY CAN FAIL!" he roared, in a voice that was somehow loud though it carried no breath.
"But, but…" Vlad raked a nervous hand through the hair on his face. He was pale and covered with cold sweat, breathing in short gasps. "I almost did… I almost killed him…"
His tormentor's reply was once again a quiet hiss, almost too low even for a werewolf's ears. "Almost killed him? So our Scottish vampire-killer is a little bit dead?"
That this was an odd comment for a vampire did not occur to Vlad. All he wanted was to get out of there without another exposure to the Cruciatus Curse.
He had thought Cuza was being bold, requesting that they meet in one of the caves not far from where those Muggles were staying. He hadn't guessed that here, deep in the underground recesses, the Undead wizard could torture him without any chance of attracting attention.
It took a lot of pain to make a werewolf cry and beg for mercy, but Cuza made it clear that he had in no way exhausted his repertoire. "I don't want to hear your plans any more," he hissed. "I am no longer satisfied with killing the foreign dog. I want Castle Arghezi -- and for this, I will need your help. Your silent, obedient help," he added, aiming a kick at Vlad as though the latter had truly been a dog.
Vlad was beginning to hate vampires much, much more than vampire killers. He also knew, with what traces of honor remained to him, that he deserved to suffer for his treachery. If the Sixes found out that he had consorted with Cuza, they would do to him what every wolf pack does to a cruel Alpha: tear him to pieces.
He was an old werewolf, and even to himself he would admit that he was not the best leader. Perhaps it was time to end it. Bravely, he set his chin in defiance and dared the vampire, "I won't work with you. Kill me. I don't care."
"Ah," Cuza smiled, his pointed fangs showing yellow in the cave light. "But I do not wish to kill you. You are still useful to me." Raising his wand in a deliberate, oily motion, he cooed gently, "Crucio."
Hot needles pressed themselves into Vlad's eyes, wiggling back and forth. The pulp of each tooth beat against its encasing enamel, sending rays of pain up his face that screaming only worsened. "Stop…" he whispered, falling to the ground, the act of speaking like fire to his jaw.
Cuza waited: five seconds, then ten. Then he lowered his wand.
"Are you ready to listen, now, disobedient cur?" he whispered, a twisted smile showing his fangs once more.
Vlad felt cold and miserable, and when he finally dared raise his eyes he saw that Cuza had summoned two creatures to stand beside him. Towering even above the vampire, they were glistening, gray, and scabbed, only their faces hidden by black cloths.
He knew he was a traitor, and that he would not survive the next full moon -- but he lacked the will to resist. "What do you want from me?" he murmured, his voice fading as scenes from his life flashed into his memory. His harsh leadership, where he was more feared than respected. Childhood in the village, and his father coming after him with a silver dagger a week after he had been bitten, his mother opening the window just in time to let him escape into the woods. Liszka, whom he bullied because he didn't know any other way.
"In three weeks' time," murmured the vampire, scarcely audible over the rattling breaths of the creatures flanking him, "when you are at your most useful, we shall go to the castle together. If all goes according to plan, on this one special night you shall be able to enter where I cannot." He drew closer to Vlad, and leered. "It is no thanks to you, that I have discovered how to gain entry to the castle. Your little friend made this all possible. That one was less difficult to convince."
"But...how...did...Grigore...know... " Vlad asked weakly through chattering teeth, still partly lost in the nightmare of memories induced by the lurking Dementors.
With a snap of his fingers, Cuza banished the scabrous creatures, and some warmth re-entered Vlad's frozen limbs though he remained kneeling on the cave floor.
"No powerful wizard, that one," retorted Cuza with a sharp laugh, "but he knew enough about the Jupiter wards... and I had help from a most unexpected source."
Shaking with cold as much as with fright, Vlad managed to stand without toppling over.
"You may go, dog," said the vampire in smug triumph, "I shall find you at the twilight of the Harvest Moon. There is no need for you to seek me."
________________________
The waxing moon shone weakly through the trees, lurking there and waiting until the sun went down to rule the night. Lamia watched him go, rising on his broomstick and briefly cutting across the moon, off to where ever it was that he lived. Funny that he hadn't said, and she had not asked.
After only three weeks, she knew him better than she had any lover in the last fifty years (except perhaps one), but there were many things they still kept from one another. She avoided saying where exactly she was from and did not mention her thirty years' stay at the castle. And he did not tell her where he lived or why he had come to this country.
Did it matter? Perhaps all that mattered was to touch him and to feel his touch.
Lamia ambled through the trees back towards the camp, her thoughts still on Lupeni. His fingers were rough, weatherbeaten, although so very gentle when they caressed her. But his fingers had held a stake; his hands had driven it home on more than one occasion, and could kill her just as easily. When he touched her, she felt pleasure, raw and powerful, and the distant echo of something else, a sweet and tantalizing nothingness. He could give her either.
What did she want?
As the sun set, bats began pouring out of the caves, squeaking eagerly in anticipation of an evening's hunt. She looked up through the leafy canopy and saw them darkening the deep blue sky. Not since she was a little girl had she been frightened by bats. Lately, though, the sight of them only served to remind her of Cuza. She had not talked to him in over a month, but she was sure by now that the bat she saw nearly every afternoon was him, spying on her.
Odd that he had stayed hidden for so long. That didn't seem like him.
She could deal with Cuza, she felt sure. But Lupeni... The desire she felt for him reverberated inside her, ever present, never entirely silent. The ageless song of hunger and fulfillment. The song of the vampire.
Possess the one you love forever, that was what drove vampires to bite once, twice, then three times. She thought of former lovers: Ioncu, Stephen, Christoph. She had made them hers forever, or so she thought. But it never seemed to work out somehow. They grew bored with one another or, in the case of poor Christoph, becoming a vampire drove them insane.
Perhaps it was better that she couldn't possess Lupeni in that way. Werewolf blood caused madness. Besides, it had been five years since she tasted any human blood, and she wanted to keep it that way.
"Lamia? Did you hear what I just said?" The irritated voice, not as calm as usual, jolted her out of her reverie. She hadn't even noticed that she had wandered back into the camp. Now a peeved Vijay stood before her, trying to get her attention.
"What?" she mumbled. "Did you say something?"
"Remind me never to fall in love," he snorted derisively, then seemed to recall his purpose in life, saying, "You said you would help me set up tonight's experiment, remember?"
"Yes. I don't want you up in the caves by yourself," she replied with slightly more composure.
"I am willing to humor you," he frowned, clearly not believing as Mike did that danger abounded in the mountains of Transylvania. "But let's get started on some reasonable time scale -- minutes, not centuries."
"Of course," she said more crisply, "I'll just get my things." Happily, Vijay headed back to the pavilion as she called, "But wait for me before you go up there!"
First, though, she should check on Mike, make sure that he was in his tent with plenty of garlic. The thought of the American physics student as a vampire made her shudder. He would become even more irritating, she felt sure, and his jokes wouldn't improve either.
"Mike? Are you in there?" She called from outside his tent. The stench of garlic was strong and kept her from going in.
"Yes, Mother," came Mike's grinning reply as he stuck his head out through the tent flap. "Come to tuck me in? Kiss me good night?"
She had to laugh in spite of herself. Mike had not lost his sense of humor after all that had befallen him. She admired him for that.
"Hey, I borrowed a couple of books from your tent, a little bedtime reading since you won't let me out at night."
"More astronomy books?" she said, slightly angry that Mike had been searching her tent. "I didn't think I had any more on that subject."
"Nah. Found a few botany books. Wow. I never knew that all that plant stuff was so complicated." He grinned ruefully and continued, "And you don't have to go to some dark cave in Transylvania to study it."
Lamia bid him good night with a chuckle and headed for her own tent. She wanted to get her wand -- she had taken to carrying it whenever she went to the caves. Inside, books were scattered everywhere, evidence of Mike's borrowing expedition. She found her wand and stacked the books so that she wouldn't trip over them later. The Donbury Uprising and the Wizard's Covenant of 1578, the latest book that Lupeni had brought, was lying on top of one pile. She wondered if Mike had tried to read this tome.
She and Lupeni had been having a running debate about wizard-Muggle relations; this was the latest in the series of books he had lent to her. Although they argued fiercely at times, the discussions were always stimulating. She had certainly not thought so much about wizard history in over fifty years.
Decades ago, when she was newly come to being a vampire, she remembered similar debates with the one or two others at the castle who would discuss such things with her. Back then she seemed to feel more connected to the wizarding world. Where were they now, the Undead whom Cuza had gathered around him? Emil was dead, she knew. What about the others?
She shivered suddenly to remember Slaba, a young vampire who had made the mistake of biting a werewolf. His screams had rocked the castle for weeks; he was locked in the tower, but there was no place to escape the sound of his madness. He had not survived long, though, because he was too insane to eat and would not take any rest. In the end, there was no pity from any of the other vampires, just relief to be free of the din.
But Slaba was a very young and weak vampire. Would an older vampire survive biting a werewolf? She had no direct evidence because none of the older vampires made such foolish mistakes. And she should not either.
Lamia stood quickly and left the tent, trying to shake the memories as well. She soon discovered that Vijay was not at the pavilion; only Taofang sat amidst the chains of garlic draped on the frame like bunting at a festival.
"Where's Vijay?" she inquired sharply.
"He not wait. Go up to cave," came the staccato reply from the other student, who did not bother to look up from his computer screen.
Wishing she had someone to swear at, Lamia left the camp briskly. She navigated expertly through the dark woods now, familiar with the path after three months on the mountain. As she entered the cave, she caught sight of Vijay at the main computer console and felt relief. Her complacency was short-lived, however. When she drew nearer, she noticed that he was slumped over, arms and head resting slackly on the keyboard of the computer terminal.
Hesitantly, she approached and inspected his neck, finding no puncture wounds. He seemed to be sleeping deeply. Was he merely tired or had she interrupted someone?
"Show yourself," she demanded, turning and gazing impatiently about the cave.
"Ah, you've come," said a silky voice as Cuza emerged from behind one of the black metal towers of neutrino detectors. "I've been waiting for you. Now we can begin."
"What have you done to him? I warned you to leave them alone!" she barked at him.
"Done to him?" replied Cuza, gliding across the cave and facing her across the limp body of the student. "Merely a Sleep Spell. I wanted to share him with you ... as we did in the old days. That's why I waited."
A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, his pointed canines winking at her in the odd light of the instruments. A long time ago they had shared sometimes, leering at one another over the body of their victim. Mircea she remembered clearly. Such a beautiful young boy.
"I told you," she spat forcefully, "I will not -- I'm not going to do that any more."
"So you say," he purred, but his voice became harsher. "But it is not natural. No, it is insane. And now you take as your lover that abomination, that killer!"
Lamia had seldom seen Cuza this angry, and never with that edge of fear in his voice.
"I know what I'm doing," she said slowly and evenly, "I do not need you to protect me."
"Oh, but you do," replied the other vampire, his voice regaining its usual control. "You do not belong with these Muggles or with that monstrous dog, but with your own kind. We shall take back the castle, hmmm? It will be just you and me this time, no others."
"The castle?" She nearly choked on the word. "It can fall into ruins for all I care! I never want to see it again."
She found that she was gripping the edge of the computer table, causing the thing to rattle slightly. Cuza stared at her unhurriedly, as if weighing his next words carefully.
"Arghezi lives at the castle once more," he hissed. "Aren't you curious to see him again?"
"Alexandru? At the castle?"
"Oh, you did not know ..." crooned Cuza, softening his tone. "Well, I only found out recently myself. He lived in England for many, many years, but returned to hunt us, looking for you, no doubt."
"He's welcome to the castle." Lamia said decidedly. "You and he can fight over it, if you want it so badly. Now, get out of here!"
"You are making a mistake, my dear," came the patient reply, "if you think that you can leave all this behind." Cuza stroked the neck of the sleeping student, who shuddered slightly in response. "This is what you are; you cannot escape. Why should you deny what you are? Come, drink with me."
Fascinated -- almost against her will -- she watched his long, white fingers caress Vijay's smooth, dark skin. She fought back memories of so many other victims, trying to forget the slow and sensuous dance that led to --
"GET OUT!" she shrieked at him, unable to flee herself. Instead of answering, he continued his hypnotic stroking and stared at her with the intensity that only a vampire or a bird of prey can muster.
"Do you think perhaps that the English werewolf will save you?" sneered Cuza. "He will be the death of you, my dear."
"He hunts vampires. I know that," she glared at him. "And I hope he kills you!"
"Ah, but do you know where he lives? Do you know whom he serves?"
The question startled her. Of course she didn't know where he lived. Why did it matter? She was confused, slow to respond, so he continued, "He lives at the castle. Arghezi brought him over from England, to be his hunting dog..."
"No. You are mistaken," she said quickly, fleeing in confusion not to the entrance of the cave, but to one of the dull metal towers. She backed up against it and stared at him, horrified by the implications of what he'd just said.
"You're lying," she growled in a low tone. Even as she spoke, she knew Cuza was right. Where else could Lupeni have gotten all those books, if not from the castle? They seemed so familiar to her, as if she had read them all decades ago...
Cuza saw realization blossom on her face and smiled at her invitingly. Neither vampire moved for several long minutes, then he leaned over Vijay's limp body and slowly made contact.
She knew what it would be like, knew how he would savor it like a slow kiss, first tasting the skin and then sinking, sinking into the flesh while the blood began to flow...
Watching was agony, so she turned away and rested her forehead against the cool and lifeless metal. He could have Vijay; she wanted no part in it.
But, Lupeni... What was he? Monster? Changeling? Could he be as cold and cruel as the Alexandru that she remembered, the one who raged at them, at her in particular, and vowed to exterminate them all? She thought he loved her: she sensed it in the way he touched her and looked at her on those endless afternoons spent in her tent. And what had she felt? Hunger, desire, perhaps something more...
All of that lay in ruins now, a crumpled heap of experience that no longer made any sense. She ought to go, leave the cave before Cuza finished feeding on the Muggle. Shaking all over, she forced herself to move, turning away from the wall of metal.
But Cuza stood there, not six inches from her, blocking her way. He smiled sensuously and she saw the blood glistening on his teeth. And the smell overpowered her. She wanted to run, but was paralyzed. She could only watch with frightening anticipation as he raised his hand, blood on his fingertips -- no, no, please, not that -- and lightly touched her lips.
Like a jolt of electricity on a living body, the blood on her lips sent her rigid with spasm. In an instant it was no longer merely a taste or a smell, but a force which roused every cell in her body to cry out. He kissed her and she tasted more which only increased the frenzy. Why had she stopped? Why had she cut herself off from this --
Words failed her entirely as he pulled away from her, still smiling, and gently guided her across the cave.
"I meant to share with you, my dear," he whispered, urging her toward the body, although she could have found it in the dark, the lust was upon her so strongly now.
Lamia's entire world contracted, focused on the warm body before her. She drank eagerly and stopped feeling or tasting or smelling or hearing. She had no senses, no mind to process information. White hot pleasure ripped through every cell, exploding the body, disconnecting the brain. Time stopped. Reaching for the fulfillment only found in oblivion, she was...
...jerked back. He held her and spoke to her, but she couldn't comprehend. Why did she stop? She needed more. Why couldn't she have more? Words began to make sense; she moaned and he talked.
"You have returned to me..." he said softly, caressing her face, kissing her gently. "You are still hungry, hmmm? Come with me, my dear..."
_______________________
"All of a sudden, they claim never to have heard of him," Alexandru brooded, regarding his lamb stew with a dark stare that threatened imminent eruption.
"Hmmm?" Remus asked insouciantly, eating with appetite as he paged through Troglodyte Today. "When all the vampires know Cuza, it's good, but when they deny it, it's bad?"
"This is how he works," Alexandru replied, so sternly that Remus put down his journal. "He terrorizes the weak, forming a circle of servants whom he swears to secrecy." His tone remained steely, but a shudder passed through him that the servant didn't fail to notice. "Thank you, Mihail," Alexandru murmured, as his wineglass was refilled. He drained half of it in a gulp, and added in a strained voice, "My brother… and my wife… She may still be running free somewhere, and I never give up the search -- "
"Ana Maria was -- ?" Remus widened his eyes in surprise, ignoring Mihail's vigorous head-shakes behind Alexandru's back. He had long since stopped noticing the carved gold frame in the portrait gallery near his room, which held only charred shreds of canvas. Neither other man ever spoke of Ana Maria Arghezi, Alexandru's bride of sixty years ago. Remus wondered suddenly what she had looked like. "And you could… could kill her?" burst from him unexpectedly.
"She died the moment she was bitten for the third time," the old wizard declared, draining the rest of his glass and handing it to the servant for yet another refill.
Remus appropriated the loaf of bread that Alexandru didn't seem to be interested in, and spread it with fresh sweet butter before dipping it into the thick stew. He could never understand people who stopped eating because they were upset. "But don't you think…" he began, after he could swallow, "that it's possible for a vampire to -- to change his nature? To give up human blood?"
Mihail emitted what sounded like a scream, and Alexandru choked on a mirthless laugh. "They cannot give up blood the way we might pipe-smoking or spirits," he said, in a tone that was unmistakably scolding. "A vampire is passionate, not in any human way… and what he loves, he must possess. Do not think, my young friend, that because you are immune to their bites, you are also immune to their call."
The old wizard rose from his chair with effort, assisted by Mihail; the latter darted furious looks at Remus as he helped his master to bed.
Remus didn't notice the glares, as he was back to reading about bat transfigurations by non-vampire wizards and finishing his dinner. He wasn't particularly worried -- surely Lamia wasn't going to risk "rabies" by biting him? She was about as passionless and unemotional as they came, and she'd said herself that she wanted Cuza dead.
He looked up only as wood scraped against stone, and found himself facing Mihail's liquid black eyes. The servant waited a minute, maybe two, frowning at Remus' failure to display impatience.
"Those were the Mistress' words," the bitter old man said at last. "She believed that one, that monster, could change… that he desired to be with her, rather than to devour her as you do a boiled potato!"
The last words were delivered in a staccato bark, and Remus, surprised, spat out the potato he was chewing.
"It happens from within," Mihail pondered, his eyes no longer seeking Remus' but focused on something far away. "All the wards in wizardry will not protect from that. Mistress Arghezi was one of the most powerful witches in the country… I fear that for the master as well, it is too late. And for you, I have little doubt."
He had finally succeeded in making Remus lose his appetite, though the young English wizard registered no emotion. When the servant departed with a tray bearing brandy and a hot-water bottle for Alexandru, Remus slipped out the stable gate with his broomstick, and took off in the direction of the Petrosna caves. It wouldn't hurt to check.
The moon would be full in two days, and a silvery light illuminated the forest. Before meeting Lamia, Remus had rarely gone out at night in human form, and was always surprised by how dark and quiet the mountains seemed. Only with effort did he see a number of nocturnal hunters as he flew by: the tell-tale tufted ears and bobbed tail of a lynx; the orange-green flash that could only be the eyes of a wolf; and a large, stealthy owl, its eyes on the same prey the cat had chosen as its own. Was Lamia out tonight, too, hunting rabbits?
The panicked voice, speaking English, was shockingly loud after the hush of the forest. It wasn't a voice that Remus recognized; a Romanian accent, he thought at first, then realized it wasn't. Italian, that was it.
He came sprinting up the pathway, almost forgetting to hide his broomstick, to find the camp in chaos. Enormous boxes were everywhere, metal rods and containers and mysterious Muggle equipment tossed haphazardly into them. Remus only recognized Taofang, the Chinese student; there were three strangers, and all four were shouting.
"Forty gigabytes of data, wasted!" roared the Italian, a scruffy, bearded middle-aged man in baggy shorts and a T-shirt that read "Physicists do it with Models." This must be the research director from the university that Lamia had talked about, Remus concluded. For such a powerful Muggle, he certainly didn't dress very well. "If you stay for two more weeks, you might get enough for a paper. The neutrino events are almost convincing."
Even Taofang, usually ensconced so firmly at his workstation, would not be budged. "Not me. I leave before full moon."
The Italian and his two younger companions threw up their hands in disgust. One said something in Italian that neither Remus nor, apparently, Taofang understood.
"That's right," corrected the older man, switching from good-natured outrage to dangerous fury. "You will never get a PhD if you abandon this experiment. Not from my lab. And there are precious few others who would hire you, after this! In fact, I'll see that you'll never get into another school, anywhere on this planet! And you quit because why -- you believe in vampires?"
"Mike got bit," Taofang said. "Vijay got bit."
At that last sentence, Remus pushed his way through the boxes and the shouting and stood in front of Taofang. "What's going on here?" he demanded. "Who's been bitten by what?"
But the graduate student kept his eyes on the older man, clearly someone with nearly life and death power in the Muggle world of science, ignoring Remus utterly.
"A spider," spat the Italian professor in disgust. "You are running around like little babies because of a spider bite."
"Is not spider." Taofang shook his head. "Mike very sick, three days, like rabies."
Remus felt his stomach jolt. Surely Mike hadn't been bitten for a third time? Giving up on this un-interruptible conversation, he started exploring the rest of the camp. The tents had been taken down, and the pavilion was nearly dismantled too, though a lantern shone on an otherwise bare folding table.
"Lamia!" Remus called, knowing if she was anywhere nearby, she could hear him. "LAMIA!" he tried again, slightly louder.
But it was Mike who came out of the cave to greet him. "Aha," he chuckled, "it's the vampire botanist."
"Werewolf," Remus corrected impatiently. "Where's Lamia? Did you get bitten by something?" As Mike approached, Remus could see that he was draped head to toe in garlic.
"Not me." He seemed inordinately amused, perhaps at no longer being the only victim. "I was sleeping innocently in my tent, draped in garlic like your girlfriend told me to do."
Remus let out a long sigh of relief. "Vijay, then? What bit him?" he demanded, praying for wildlife.
"Same thing that bit me, man. Passed out in the cave, just like I was. Last time I was out for three days. Three days! Even when I rolled my motorcycle going 90 I wasn't out for that long. And you can't get a blood transfusion in this third-world hellhole."
"Er… right," murmured Remus, wondering what exactly a "transfusion" was, and if an Erythropoesis Potion would work on a Muggle. "Is Vijay… does he have garlic with him now?"
Mike laughed scornfully, even though he had enough on himself to repel all the vampires of Transylvania. "More than me," he admitted. "I piled it all over him… Want to see?"
"Yes, that's a good idea," Remus agreed, relieved that while Mike may sneer, he was at least prepared to take advice -- and he had finally figured out Remus was no botanist. "And Lamia?" he asked, as they picked their way through the boxes.
But Mike had been intercepted by the angry Italian, who by now had reduced Taofang nearly to tears.
"Tell him is not spider!" Taofang pleaded. "Tell him is dangerous…"
"Duuude." Mike turned and faced their boss, but even he lost much of his scornful tone as he addressed the angry physicist. He pulled down the neck of his T-shirt to show off his twin vampire bites. "Not a spider," he said, firmly.
The two cronies pointed at the garlic bulbs in Mike's pocket, and the ring of them around his forehead, and started laughing.
"Ridiculous!" fumed the boss. "Superstition! You come to Transylvania, and your heads are full of Hollywood! You jeopardize your careers over fairy tales!"
"Better than jeopardizing my life," Mike replied boldly.
The younger visitors spoke in English for the first time. "Not sure of that," said one, laughing bitterly.
"You're dead to physics, Mike," said the other.
They were both thin and terribly pale, with circles under their eyes -- could be mistaken for vampires, Remus thought. Maybe Lamia wasn't the only one back at that university.
Mike glared at each of them in turn. "Fine," he said at last. "You take the data."
"That's your job," said the first. "We're postdocs; we just analyze."
"You get your degree, you can be like us," added the second.
Mike looked at them one more time, then tore the braid of garlic off his head and threw it at them. "Hell, no," he said. "I'm going to become a botanist."
Stomping away to dramatic effect, he almost ran into Remus, who was trying not to laugh at those last words.
"Show me Vijay, please," Remus said quietly. "I'd like to be sure."
"Yeah," Mike agreed. "I thought Lamia would've told you."
Remus slowed his pace without noticing, beginning to grow worried. "I haven't seen Lamia for several days," he admitted. "Did she say she was going to find me?"
"Nah." Mike shrugged. "She disappeared the night Vijay got bitten. We thought she was going to go get some herbs from you, but she never came back."