by Jamie Ott
"You're not from here, I can tell. Can I help you?" he asked in nearly perfect English.
He looked familiar to her.
"Have we met before?"
"No, I don't think so."
Briefly, she told him she was looking for maps.
She followed him to a large section of laminated rung up books.
"What kind of map are you looking for?"
Quickly, she made up a story about doing a research paper about the theoretical location of Valhol for class.
"An exchange student who doesn't speak the language? Hmm?"
He browsed up and down the aisles; Starr followed.
After a few minutes, he stopped in a section with particularly large laminations. He pulled down a green one and tilted his head, signaling her to follow him.
They walked over to a large table, where he pulled back the pages. He looked at the keys a second, and then flipped the pages a couple more times.
Finally, he said, "Ahh! So, in that time, Valhol was the center of the world - before we knew better. The peak where Valhol was located was a large part of Europe," he said as he circled a large area with his finger. "But then the Earthquakes happened, breaking off a large part of Scandinavia." He made slashing movements to the coastline of Denmark. "Some parts of it drifted and others parts crushed in together. Pieces of this place could be everywhere."
He looked up at her, and said, "Hypothetically, for your homework assignment, if I were you, I'd look more to central Europe. If it were real, most of it was on its own plate; even if it were on a fault line, it would be nearly impossible for it to divide, without a volcanic surface."
Old Acquaintances
Chapter 3
It felt much nicer to be in the lower latitude. The air was still deathly cold, there, but the sun was less direct.
She'd been circling central Europe for hours. Every inch of her skin and clothes were iced over.
When she emerged from an enormous cloud and looked down, she saw a large mountain. From far below, she sensed something or someone familiar.
Tired, she decided to take a break.
Starr landed on a low incline. In the distance, she sensed a mass amount of people. Following her instinct, she walked down the incline and around a large boulder: In the distance, a large lift carried a lot of people further up the mountain.
She looked down from where the lift came, and saw a tall dark lodge. It sat in the middle of a snowy strip.
Carefully, she walked down the jagged snowy incline.
The town was tiny. To her left, a number of homes were scattered throughout the mountainous plain. When she looked right, all she saw was miles of gray sky that seemed to touch the ground.
She stepped onto what would have been a sidewalk, if it weren't covered with a foot of snow.
Starr inhaled deeply; the air was fragrant with burning wood from various fireplaces in people's homes.
A large plow slowly rode up the street. As she looked into the shops with her mind, she saw many people. Some were buying souvenirs, while others rented snow gear and ate meals.
In a bar at the end of a street, locals smoked and drank vodka as they watched some sports program.
At the opposite end of the street, of where she stood, was a row of wood cabins. Inside, she sensed families spending time together - and even caught the faint aroma of hot chocolate being served in one of them.
She walked left, to the lodge.
As she pulled back the door, the warm air, from inside, rushed at her face, making her skin buzz.
The log walled lobby was lit with a warm yellow light. Across the room, an enormous fire crackled in a five foot high fireplace.
Scattered throughout, people read newspapers and books, as they sipped mugs of coffee and other drinks the lodge staff brought out to them. All across the walls hung horned animal heads and family portraits of the locals.
Deciding she liked the feel of the cozy mountain town, she decided to stay the night.
The room re emanated the spirit of the rest of the lodge. With log walls and a deer head mounted above the head of the firm, comforted bed.
She dropped her bag on the bed, pulled out a change of clothes, and then returned to the lobby.
Starr smelled food coming from the back. She followed the scent and found herself in the lodge restaurant.
Inside, its mahogany walls were dimly lit by soft lamp lights. She picked the emptiest section of the bar, and ordered a chicken soup and a coffee.
The warmth, after being in the stone cold all morning, made her extremely drowsy. Her cold hands throbbed as she wrapped them around the hot mug, and lifted it to her mouth.
Just when she thought she'd fall asleep while sitting up, someone came and plopped down next to her.
"Starr! I saw you walk in."
With heavy eyes, she looked right, and said, "Emil? What are you doing here?"
"Me? I live here. What are you doing here," he asked with a smile.
"Wow. Uh, to be honest, I don't know." She leant over and whispered, "I was flying and the cold was getting to me, so I decided to stop for the night."
He lifted his chin and mouthed the word 'Oh,' silently.
"You're in Grindewald, my hometown in Switzerland. Remember? I invited you. Now, I'm sad because I thought maybe you were here to see me."
Starr didn't know what to say. She sensed something familiar about the place; it must have been him.
"Why do you wear sunglasses inside?" he asked. "It's so rude."
Her eyes still very cold, she hadn't bothered with a new pair of contacts. She leant over, again, and looked at him over the top of her glasses.
"V'hat happened to your eyes?" he asked.
When she wouldn't say, he urged her to sit in a booth, where they could talk privately. Once seated, she told him, briefly, about Sestin and her mission to find Valhol.
"So, what now?"
"Well, I gotta keep looking. I just know that I need to find it. It's what Lucenzo is trying to tell me," she stood and stretched. "Well, I'm gonna call it an evening. I'm gonna head out early tomorrow."
"Well, no! You just got here," he said in a higher pitched voice. "Tomorrow night is my family's annual snow barge. You must stay; it will be fun."
Although she knew she should have refused, she really wanted a break from the cold.
The next morning, Starr's inner animal woke her with a light growl. It had been a couple of days since she'd had blood.
Trying to ignore her red thirst, she made her way down to the restaurant for eggs and coffee.
It wasn't long before Emil joined her.
"I was wondering when you'd get up. I think I will take you to the mountain today."
Then a small lady approached the table.
"Starr, this is my mother."
"Hi, it is so nice to meet you," she said with a smile.
Then she turned to Emil and said, "I'm gonna need you at the restaurant today by 2 p.m. Ralf has gone home for a week."
"Okay, Mom."
"Does your family know about you?"
"No, of course not."
"I'm thirsty. Any good places to hunt?"
After breakfast, Emil took Starr to the garage located in the back, where the lodge's snow mobiles were parked. He took her past the locals homes, and down the other side of the mountain until they reached a large forest.
"Now, this forest is enormous. You should keep your eyes and ears peeled at all times. Even with our extreme abilities to perceive, a bear, or even a pack of wolves, might sneak up on us and takes us by surprise. All it takes is one chance to rip out your throat, and you're down. It happened to a buddy of mine, and he was even older and stronger than I, but the wolves still managed to carry him off. By the time I found him, they'd separated his arms, and were eating him alive. We didn't know if vampirism can transfer to animals, so we had to track them down and kill them all."
They stepped off the snow mobile and walked into the barrage of trees.
Although she could see nothing, for miles, she heard things in the trees. Winter birds and some squirrels, and other little animals that stayed awake through the year.
But she was hungrier than that. She wanted something bigger.
She stopped for a moment and deeply inhaled the air. Emil was right; there were real predators in the forest.
This was gonna be fun, she thought.
After half an hour of roaming, they spotted foot prints in the snow.
Emil recognized them, immediately.
"What do you think?" she asked.
"Pack of wolves."
"That'll do: One for you, one for me."
"Yes, just be careful and quick about it. Grab the animal of your choosing, and then run. The others won't come after you: It's in their instinct to let the weak fall."
They followed the trail for another half hour. Finally, they happened on a bald spot where they spotted the wolves nestled in with one another; trying to keep warm.
"How do we do this? Surely, they'll see us and take off."
"Starr, are we vampires or what? Do you think they can outrun us?"
They counted to three and then bolted into the clearing. The wolves looked up, and then turned and ran.
Starr and Emil chased them into the other side of the forest.
Emil was surprisingly fast, so were the wolves. She knew they were faster than humans, but never expected they could still outrun her as a vampire.
He was catching up to the pack. He leapt forward and grabbed a bushy gray one by the tail. It yelped as it rolled over, and then tried to run but couldn't.
Emil dragged it back, jumped on top of it and broke its neck.
Starr kept going until she caught up to the brown one that ran beside Emil's wolf.
For a moment, she hesitated wondering how she was going to do this. She didn't want to jump on her front and land in the snow just to catch its tail. What if she missed?
So she jumped onto its bushy back, causing the animal to buck, but she wrapped her arms around its neck and held on tight.
Instantly, she regretted this move, for the animal kept running, as though she weighed nothing.
Starr clamped her muscles down hard, making it difficult for the wolf to keep up with the others.
When it realized it was losing the pack, it turned and attacked her, sinking its teeth into her cheek and forehead, making her scream out.
Blood ran into her eyes, blinding her.
The wolf lunged for her throat.
Starr released its neck, and closed her hands around its muzzle, forcing its jaw to clamp shut.
A second later, Emil jumped on the wolf and wrangled it to the side, long enough for Starr to roll over on her fours and drain it.
After, they looked at each other and laughed.
"Oh, Starr. Your face is so messed up. We should just stay here and wait for it to heal. Oh, wow," he said, wiping tears from his face. "You've obviously never done any real hunting."
"I have, too!" she laughed. "I've caught plenty of deer."
"That's all fine, but, out here, you take what you can get, and especially at this time of year. You might not see a deer for many miles. Our forests aren't small, like the U.S. which are nearly depleted, rumor has it."
"Not all forests are chopped down; we got a few."
As they laughed and talked, they dragged their wolves to a boulder where they sat down, skinned and gutted them.
"MMMmmm?," Starr said, as took an apple sized bite of her wolf's warm liver.
"My favorite part, too. It is good, ja?"
"Ja!" she said.
When Emil declared her face as presentable, they tied their wolf furs to the snow mobile and rode back to the lodge.
Starr wanted to wander in and out of the shops, but Emil dragged her to the local tannery to get their furs treated, and then to the rental shop where Emil insisted she get a snow suit and snow board.
That afternoon, they took the lift further up the mountain.
As they jumped off, Starr felt heart pound, as if it suddenly came to life.
"Did you feel that?"
"What?"
"I don't know."
She did a 180 turn, and saw an enormous mountain with a peak that disappeared into the clouds.
"I feel something about that peak."
"Please, Starr, you're not gonna find Valhol here. We're hardly central Europe."
"What?" she asked incredulously. "I thought the Swiss embraced the idea of a 'central' identity?"
"Starr, it's nothing about labels. Valhol is a myth. You need to go home and be with your friends; they need you to protect them."
"Emil, I appreciate your concern, but I know what I'm doing. Besides, who else is gonna stop Credenza? By doing this, I am protecting them."
"Let somebody else take her on."
"Emil, sooner or later, she'll be coming for me. I need to be prepared. The way to do that is to get to Valhol."
Distastefully, he shook his head and looked away.
Starr said nothing, but made a mental note to come back and inspect the mysterious mountain.
Starr found that she disliked snowboarding. No matter what he tried to teach her, she continued to fall without reprieve, leaving her legs bruised up, and ripping a hole in her rented snow suit.
When noon came, he excused himself for a shower, a change, and lunch before his shift at his family restaurant. Before he left, he made Starr promise to meet him on the street barge at 11 p.m.
After he left, Starr shed her gear and flew to the peak. Up and up she tried to go, but the peak seemed to go so high that the pressure of the atmosphere felt like it was crushing down on her chest.
But how was that possible? She'd flown even higher than that, before.
Miffed and confused, she stood at the base of the mountain, looking up. Her dead heart leapt several times. She grabbed gasped and grabbed her chest.
Somehow, her body was telling her that there was something different about that mountain.
Like a hover craft, she levitated further up the mountain base, keeping close to the ground. This way, the weight of the atmosphere didn't crush down as painfully.
The higher she got, the quicker her heart pounded.
This was it; it had to be, she said to herself.
By early evening, she'd made far above the township of Grindewald. She knew she needed to go back and get ready for the party. This disappointed her. Still, she felt exhilarated, for the first time in months.
Starr flew back to Grindewald, landing just behind some trees that obscured her descent. Then she walked back to the lodge, and then back to her room to get ready for the party.
About nine 'o' clock, she started drifting off to sleep, so she decided to check out the barge early.
For a moment, she got the feeling that someone was following her. She stopped and turned around.
She looked up and down both ends of the street.
"Hello?"
When no one responded, she continued through the town. Starr wasn't the best telepath, but she wasn't fooled, either. She knew it was likely that her trip might cause unwanted attention, and even dislike. It was common knowledge that the Primordials didn't want people to find them, let alone common vampires.
"I know why you're following me," she said to the air. "You just try and stop me. You just try?"
In the town center, in the middle of the street was 100 foot long barge. People milled in and around it.
On a high table on the stern, a d.j. was playing old music, and many of the older crowd danced and sung around him.
"Starr," called a small woman in a pink jacket. She waved, walked down the steps of the barge, and ran up to her.
"Hi, I'm Anna; I'm Emil's cousin. He told me to look after you until he gets here," she said with a wide smile.
In the center of the barge was a couple of bar men who kept stemmed shot glasses full of schnapps. Every few minutes, one of the men w
ould yell something in Danish, the crowd would shout back, and they'd down the drink.
Anna grabbed her hand, dragged up into the barge and pressed one of the glasses into her hand.
"Skoal," she shouted.
Anna raised the glass to Starr; she rose her glass back and they, both, shot it down.
After they'd done, trays of food went around.
"Are you and Emil dating?"
"No," she said. "We're just friends, I think."
"What are you doing here, then? You didn't bring any gear, so you must not be here to ski."
"No," she said, wondering what kind of lie she should make up.
Fortunately, she was saved the trouble. Two men came up and interrupted them.
"Hi, I'm Tom," said the guy with a white snow beanie. "This is my buddy, Brad," he gestured to his buddy in the enormous blue jacket. "Would you, two, like to dance?"
They moved to the stern of the bow. Starr felt a little lost when dancing to the old timers music.
She was relieved when the music picked up tempo. Many of the old people moved off the barge.
When eleven approached, Starr looked up the road and saw Emil approaching the barge.
He took a few shots of schnapps, and said hello to his friends, before approaching Starr.
Immediately, he pulled her to the stern, into a close dance. Her heart sped when he put his arms around her waist and look into her eyes.
The last time they looked at each other like that was in New York. He'd nearly saved her life, twice.
"Why did you never call me?"
"I was busy. Plus, I didn't want to get mixed up in Council business."
"Well, I wish you would have."
"I figured you'd be off with the Fleet, exterminating vampires."
"Well, I was, for a while. Then I decided to take some time and visit my family. This is my favorite time of year, here."
She laid her head on his shoulder.
"I'm so glad to see you," he said.
He ran his hand up to the back of her neck. The touch of his fingers sent a chill down her back.
"There was something I wanted to tell you, last time we were together."
"What?"
"This," he said, and leaned in and kissed her.
Blood rushed to her head.
He pulled her in, closer, and kissed her more deeply. His tongue was soft and warm, and a hint of blood.
"Sorry, that was the rabbit I drained earlier."
Suddenly, the barge vibrated as all his mates ran around stomping, shouting and singing in Swiss-German.