by Wilson, Eric
Gina backed toward the bus, the blade of her own weapon glinting. She pressed against the door, confirmed that it was shut tight, and made sure there were no signs through the windows of any children onboard.
Good. All she had to do was hold her ground and rely on the dagger.
Cal’s words: It’s not what . . . It’s who.
And, back on a Chattanooga riverbank: If you choose to believe, that’s all it takes . . . a chance at being cleansed.
He made it sound so simple. Simplistic was more like it. Nothing in this world got handed to you on a platter. That was a fairy tale. A dream. Gina had known since this blade’s first bite into her own skin that life was anything but simple. Look at her now, with a chance to turn against her enemies the very blade that had cut her as a child.
Well, maybe there was some justice after all.
Across the pavement, Cal the Provocateur was setting his chin and advancing toward the pair of Collectors. He looked strong, light on his feet, and self-assured. She wondered how many others he had faced.
There’s so much I wanna tell you . . . he had said earlier.
“Go back the way you came,” he was barking at Shalom and Nehemiah. “I know why you’re here, but you’re not getting anything. Not tonight.”
“Oh?” The man smirked. “And who are you to talk?”
“I think you know.”
What was that supposed to mean? Gina wondered.
“I do,” said Nehemiah. “And I’m not the slightest bit worried.”
“Stop right there.”
“We want the boy, the one with the letter Tav.”
“Can’t have him.”
“Let us take him, and we’ll leave the rest alone.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“At least let me have her,” Shalom chimed in, aiming a curved finger-nail at Gina. Though her demeanor was demure, her eyes glowed with an insatiable fire.
Gina’s throat tightened. She raised the dagger higher, thought of the angel tattoo on her back, and found herself praying for protection. A futile gesture, perhaps, but desperate times called for desperate measures. For a moment, she sensed the whisper of wings over her shoulders, then told herself it was her imagination playing tricks.
Just stay focused. Keep your eyes open.
Cal took advantage of Shalom’s diverted attention and lifted the MTP in his hand. In a fluid motion that rocked him back on his heels and then forward again, he stepped into his throw and launched the crude yet significant weapon. It spun like a dirty icicle and would’ve split the young woman’s skull, except that she sidestepped to the left.
She grinned, incisors showing for the first time as the sharp implement disappeared into the foliage behind her. Her serrated fangs could’ve been stalactites in the ancient cavern of her mouth, formations that had elongated over the ages. Like the earth, like the grave, she was ready to swallow and devour.
She took steps in Gina’s direction.
Cal moved to cut her off, but Nehemiah circled the other way.
“Dov,” he said.
“I’m watching.”
“Come here, child,” the paternal figure purred. “You’re the one I want.”
Dov squared his shoulders.
“Never mind the home for orphans and undesirables, the hideously infected. Is that what you want? You want to play victim to HIV, like the others?”
Gina thought she detected a slump in the boy’s posture.
“Come home with me,” Nehemiah urged. “I have a teen son, and I’m sure you and Shabtai would get along fabulously.”
“If you want him,” Cal said, positioning himself in the middle of the lot, “you get me too. Package deal.”
“I’m a man of Jewish origin. You must know how I love a bargain.”
“You’re a body thief and a bloodsucker.”
“I am rather thirsty, too true.”
With that, the verbal sparring was over.
Nehemiah, despite the middle-aged legs of his host, broke into a smooth sprint, with deadly fingers raking the air at his sides. This time, Cal rocketed two tent pegs through the space between them, one after the other. As Nehemiah dodged the first, he moved into the path of the second, and it punched through his right eye, exiting through the back of his skull.
The spray of blood and brain matter turned black against the watchful moon—a blossom of death, emitting a gagging odor. The body slumped to the ground. Fell facedown on the near side of the road.
A freight truck roared around the bend and clipped the backs of his legs, never even slowing on its journey.
This, Gina thought, was going to be easier than she thought.
That’s when she spotted a plump woman with short hair coming up from the riverbank. It wasn’t Erota. Perhaps another from the Akeldama Cluster? Hadn’t Cal mentioned someone named Auge? A bereaved widow? The woman ascended the slope and stepped over the train tracks, becoming visible in sections as though rising from the soil itself. Bright green roiled through her eyes. Like a witch’s brew foaming in twin cauldrons, some of it spilled over.
Or was that just Gina’s mind embellishing the scene?
No, there were droplets oozing down the revenant’s cheeks and dot-ting the earth at her feet. Tears of sorrow? Of anger?
To the side, Cal and Shalom were faced off in the parking area. Dov moved closer to Gina, still trembling, still wielding an MTP. She gave him an encouraging wink, and they drew a breath in unison.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said.
Which plucked the very words from her lips.
Dov stepped forward, the spike gripped in his small fist. He raised it to shoulder level, ready to carve in either direction. The dagger’s handle was sweaty in Gina’s grasp, despite the chill of the mountain breeze.
“It has its own symbolic power . . .”
Cal had directed her to guard the entry to the bus, but a rush of motherly instincts told her to join the attack. The numbers were in their favor, three against two. Cal could hold his own. She and Dov could deal with this stout, weepy-eyed aberration before them.
A deep-throated growl cut through the night.
“What was that?” Dov asked.
The sound came from a stand of trees near the river’s edge, and Gina ran through the possibilities. She knew her country was full of all sorts of wildlife, and the Carpathians—including these Bucegi Mountains—formed a topographic horseshoe that was home to the only dense carnivore population in central Europe. Wolves, hawks, lynx, and . . .
Bear. Ursus, in Romanian.
She couldn’t bring herself to verbalize that fear. Local brown bears were not uncommon near Sinaia, and not particularly aggressive toward humans, but under the guidance of a Collector, one could be a fearsome predator.
Above, shear winds drew a curtain of cloud across the moon, and the inky shadows exploded with activity. Veering toward Gina’s position, Shalom sprinted across the pavement, pursued by Cal, while the revenant from the river accelerated from the other side on stubby legs.
At the center, Dov and Gina stood guard before the charter bus full of hidden, yet audibly whimpering, orphans.
Tomorrow’s Hope was under attack.
Weepy Eyes crested the riverbank, chin down, knees churning. Dov took three quick steps toward her, then ducked to the left and swung with his right arm as their paths converged. The MTP grazed the Collector’s side, and the creature swiveled to respond to this threat.
Around the front end of the vehicle, Cal feigned a similar attack on Shalom, then spun round and slashed at her extended left limb. He took it off at the wrist, showering the pavement with her blood—the ingested life force of others, tapped and absorbed for her own vile existence.
Gina turned away.
Evil could not be endured. She knew these creatures, if not repelled, would keep coming, keep attacking, feeding and drinking to satisfy a need that could never be met. Still, it was hard to watch.
Don’t e
ven feel sorry for them, she reminded herself. No mercy.
Nearby, Dov stood and took another swing at his opponent.
The Collector snarled at him.
Not on my watch!
Activated by this new resolve, Gina looped behind Weepy Eyes, detecting salt and sulfur and the fetid odor of demonic rage. She wasn’t sure, though . . . Would her dagger be more effective going through the head, the neck, or the heart? She was familiar with vampire legends, but they seemed upended by these Jerusalem’s Undead.
She swung the blade, but the woman spotted her and pivoted with a backslash of tapered fingernails. Gina ducked beneath the blow as a lock of chestnut hair was clipped from her head. She stumbled forward, felt a knee hit the pavement.
A little lower, little faster, and that could’ve been lights out. Back to your feet. C’mon, get up.
Dov, to the rescue, grazed the stout woman’s elbow with the spike. As she reared back in pain, he hurled it at her and impaled her flabby upper arm. The green tears splashed and sizzled on the ground.
She was still alive, though. If that word even fit.
“Through the temple,” Gina shouted at Dov.
He brandished another MTP and took aim. The Collector looked from Gina to Dov, chose the smaller threat, and charged again at the orphan boy. Gina was a mother bear, intent on protecting her cub, but her attention was yanked away by a screech from a bus window. She turned and saw Petre Podran’s swath of black hair as he squirmed through the opening. Despite Pavel’s attempts to grab at his legs, Petre kicked at his twin brother and dropped to the pavement.
“No!” Gina shouted. “Back inside.”
Petre scrambled to his feet. He had armed himself with a thick walking stick, probably taken from one of the older muncitors. He looked so small, only nine years old, and yet his eyes glowed with stubborn loyalty.
“No, Petre. Stay back.”
“I can fight, too,” he said. “Like Dov.”
On Gina’s left, Dov was in a deadly dance with the Collector. His every move was parried by the stout creature’s slashing arms and brutal fingernails. He stumbled, slipped to a knee, and Weepy Eyes advanced.
With dagger raised, Gina ran to intercept and if possible blunt the attack, but the beast spun past her, past Dov, and instead targeted the small-est threat.
Petre stiffened.
To his credit, he never retreated.
Gina planted her left foot, halting her own momentum, and shifted back toward the Collector. Too late. She and Dov were still ten feet behind the loathsome thing, when Weepy Eyes propelled herself through the air and slashed both hands toward the nine-year-old. Though Petre took a swing with his heavy stick, the Collector’s left forearm deflected the force and the right drove razor-edged nails into the child’s chest.
Petre’s eyes widened, and a gasp spurted from his throat as he smashed into the side of the bus. Impaled there, he lifted his gaze to Gina. The light in his eyes showed no fear, no pain, only deep regret for having failed to protect her.
Then the light went out.
Gina screamed, her chest torn apart by a rage and despair she had hoped to never feel again. She wanted to drop to her knees, to melt into the earth and never return, but Dov was still here and the beast had torn free from its latest kill to face the fifteen-year-old with the luminescent mark on his forehead.
Dov risked stepping into the enemy’s reach, an MTP held high.
Through the temple . . .
Gina didn’t hesitate. Corkscrewing all her force through her hips, she drew back the dagger and plunged it into the creature’s side.
Once, twice. Deeper.
The effect was instantaneous. The Collector howled, weakening her grip. Her nails drew thin trails down Dov’s arms, but there was no more strength there. The undead beast was doubly dead.
Gina removed her blade and rolled away the rotund corpse.
Dov stood, his breath ragged and his scratches beaded with red drops. He stared at his foe, touched her with his foot. In a need to be sure, he rammed an MTP into the Collector’s temple.
He collapsed then, into Gina’s arms—and sobbed.
She clung to him and felt something begin to break within her own chest. She found herself close to tears—for Jacob, for courageous Petre, for her damaged marriage, and for the loneliness that ached in her chest.
She released Dov and bent to the body of the fallen twin. She had failed him. Why was she even here? Was it her destiny to march children into the blades of death?
She lifted her chin.
No. This isn’t over, not yet.
With Dov’s assistance, she lifted the boy and fed him back through the window of the bus. The muncitors helped bring him inside, while Pavel pressed his face to the glass in obvious shock.
“Keep down,” Gina urged the passengers. “Don’t let them see you.”
“You’re on your own,” a male muncitor said. “We will not stay for this.”
“You can’t leave. Cal . . . the driver . . . You need to trust him.”
“Trust? Already, we’ve lost one of our orphans!”
Those words echoed Gina’s own sorrow, her conflicted emotions. She wanted to believe, yet Cal had failed her before. And now, once again . . .
“Please,” she said. “Just stay quiet and don’t move.”
The muncitor chuffed at that.
Another deep growl from the trees muffled his dissension and introduced the brown bear that lumbered into view. It rose on its hind legs, standing seven to eight feet tall and probably close to a thousand pounds. The claws on its powerful forearms looked four or five inches long, dull but deadly.
It dropped back to all fours and rumbled forward.
Gina released Dov and glanced back at the bus. Though the door was still closed, she saw a muncitor peek over the lip of a window. Gina jerked her head once, indicating to get back down out of sight.
Cal, oblivious to the bear, had two MTPs left, and he was still trying to deal a final blow to Shalom. Stripped of the facade, her true vampiric nature had been exposed, and the decorous beauty was now a ratty-haired, wild-eyed, one-handed creature. Losing blood, she was pale white, and her breath came out in foggy puffs as she bared her fangs and snarled.
Cal raised a metal spike, but stepped back when she lashed out with her lethal nails.
The bear was picking up speed.
Gina knew she was no match for this monster. Normally, she would’ve admired its strength and size without fear. Brown bears could kill a stag with a single swipe of a paw, yet they often sustained themselves on simple roots and sprouts and fish. Unless threatened, they were docile around humans.
But average bears didn’t have luminous emerald eyes.
“Cal?”
He flicked his gaze her direction.
She pointed at the beast with her knife tip. To run away would only incite the animal’s predatory instincts, yet the weapon seemed small, toylike, in the face of this approaching danger. She, who had been like a mother bear herself only moments earlier, now felt helpless. She pulled Dov around to her backside, lifted the dagger, and hoped, cursed, prayed for the Provocateur to act.
Don’t just stand there. Cal . . . Cal!
If necessary, Gina decided she would stab at the animal’s eyes to protect her young ward, but the chance of succeeding seemed no more likely than that of her flinging the blade across the river and having it lodge into a boulder.
“No, Dov.”
He was trying to step forward.
“Wait,” she said.
She saw Cal darting past the bus, angling to intercept the bear. He had a metal spike in each hand. The bear was also at full speed, its great mass of fur quivering with each step, rolling waves of grizzled brown beneath the night sky.
Dov was not to be denied.
Armed like his mentor, he broke free and trailed on legs that were quick yet hampered slightly by a missing left toe.
“No!” Gina yelled.
Cal
feigned left, then planted his right foot and spun the other way, slipping past the monster’s gaping maw. He tried to ram an MTP through matted fur, yet the bear was already past him in a collision course for the small fifteen-year-old boy.
This was not going to happen. Not while Gina was alive.
Though she tried to bolt forward, her legs failed her. She was telling them to move, but they were taking her nowhere. She remained stationary. Terror and guilt clamped an icy hand around her throat.
Dov!
The bear slowed as one of the boy’s MTPs careened off its huge round head and peeled back a flap of hide. The animal seemed annoyed more than anything, rising to full height before Dov and Cal, bellowing between powerful jaws packed with sharp canines.
Gina tried again to move. She choked: “Get . . . back . . . here.”
She realized then that the hand at her throat was more substantial than emotion, more corporeal than panic. From down past her chin, she nabbed a glimpse of a tapered fingernail as it curled and tightened its grip.
She was being strangled.
“Cal . . .”
She tried to call out his name, without success. How could she have been so selfish as to pull him away from his own life-or-death skirmish? She craned back to see her enemy.
Shalom’s intense stare was locked onto her from behind. Gina tried to stab backward with her dagger, but the female Collector was already kicking at the back of her legs so that she dropped to the ground.
Gina landed hard. Felt the impact through her kneecaps, into her spine.
“You’re coming with me,” Shalom spit near her ear. “We have a nice, cozy cave for you, safe from the elements.”
Gina reached back for a handful of hair, for the eyes, while using her other hand to slip the dagger back into its thigh sheath. When that failed to free her, she tried to smash her cranium into the creature’s nose or lips, anything to loosen the iron grip on her neck. Instead the hold tightened further, and she felt her air shut off as she was lifted by the adrenaline-charged strength of this undead foe.
She was on her feet again—barely, wobbly. She was being dragged, half carried. Her windpipe was constricted. She heard the possessed bear’s roars, as though from far away, then human yelps and a shriek of pain. Her sight was dimming, giving way to this pressure on her carotid artery. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see.