WOLFWEIR

by A. G. Hardy

  Nothing.

  He tried to speak. He managed a groan. And apparently, only he heard it, because two nurses went on speaking quietly in the hospital corridor.

  Steps. Someone was walking to his bedside. He struggled to move. Could not.

  -Is the boy sweating?

  It was a woman's voice. A nurse.

  A man's tired voice replied:

  -Ah oui, but he is still out.

  The doctor, thought Alphonse. The doctor! I must move! Blink!

  Something tapped his fingers sharply. A pencil maybe. Then his knee.

  -You see? No movement.

  Alphonse tried to make another sound. His throat merely throbbed. He felt tears gathering behind his eyelids. Tears! Yes! If he could only start to weep!

  -Will he ever wake up, this little boy? asked the nurse sadly.

  A heavy sigh from the man.

  -Who knows?

  As Alphonse's eyes burned with tears, he heard his name:

  -Alphonse! Alphonse! Lucia screamed.

  He felt something hook his arm. He was gliding along, being pulled up into a boat. Dripping. He fell with a clatter.

  Lucia was there, clutching his limp pine body.

  He thought:

  Open Sesame.

  And like magic, his eyelids clicked open wide.

  The New World

  The Wolf people on the river barge were deeply impressed by Alphonse's resurrection.

  A cheer went up. Caps flew in the air. The shouts spread from barge to barge. The great battle for Wolfweir castle had left a survivor, an eyewitness! It was the puppet boy who'd ridden out with the Knights led by the High King!

  Alphonse struggled free of Lucia's embrace and, opening his left fist, showed her what he'd clutched all night, even as he drifted comatose, waking in the Paris hospital -- the Blood Amulet on its tarnished silver chain.

  Proudly, he held it out to her.

  -No, she said, trembling, her hair fiery gold in the sunlight. You wear it.

  Malvic looked stunned. He bowed his head but said nothing.

  Alphonse put on the heavy necklace. The blood glowed in the foggy depths of the amulet. As soon as it touched his wooden chest, he felt bold and strong. All his fear and confusion seemed to be swept away. He bowed gallantly to Lucia. The cheer went up again, from boat to boat, and Lucia did not cry out for silence as before.

  *

  Alphonse now took the chalk and slate from his coat and sat down in the middle of the circle of Wolf people, intent on answering each one of their questions, the chalk scratching and the letters and words appearing on the black surface.

  Some wept. Some moaned. Some like Malvic merely hung their heads. Lucia fainted for a moment in Malvic's arms after reading of the fate of her father, killed in a cowardly fashion by the cruel lance of the Vampire Lady.

  Finally Alphonse replaced the chalk and slate. Silence. The sun was high and the day hot. The barge rocked as it drifted on the current.

  -What do we do next? asked Lucia, her face flushed. Where do we go?

  Malvic said:

  -We will follow this river to Trieste. There is a warehouse on the outskirts of that city where we can take shelter. We have brought plenty of gold from the castle. I know a man who can buy us passage on a ship.

  -A ship? To where?

  -To the New World. We are finished here in Europe. At last the Vampyres have defeated us. If we stay here we will be hunted down to the last Wolf.

  -The New World?

  Lucia looked stunned. Disbelieving, even as her lips repeated the phrase. She smiled, shaking her golden hair.

  -Manitoba. It is a vast province of Canada where we can start a new life, create a new Wolf kingdom. It is as your father wanted it. He set out the plans himself and showed them to me only a year since.

  Alphonse took out the chalk and slate again. He chalked:

  -Manitoba. Yes. You must go.

  He showed the slate to Lucia.

  -What about you?

  Alphonse rubbed away chalk with his sleeve. He wrote:

  -I will destroy those filthy Vampyres.

  -Alone? How?

  Malvic touched Alphonse's shoulder.

  -No, brave puppet. After I have put my people on a ship to Canada, I will accompany you. Along with the Queen, if she wishes it. We will travel to Edinburgh, in Scotland, where it is said these Vampyres have their ancient coven. We will surprise them on their own ground. And together we will find a way to kill them all.

  The Opera des Vampires

  So it was that three striking figures arrived by train in Edinburgh after a tedious and nauseating sea journey followed by a cramped and jolting ten hours in their First Class train compartment.

  A little girl in a bright frock with Botticelli curls, carrying in her arms a wooden puppet boy with a half-blackened face, and a dandyish looking gentleman in a dark business suit with a natty derby and one arm in a sling.

  On the train a number of people had tried to engage the little girl in conversation by asking her questions about her puppet – what is his name? and so forth -- but she merely turned her head away and looked out the window at the green countryside flowing past.

  For his part, the dandyish looking gentleman in the business suit merely slept or dozed with the derby covering his face.

  Their luggage looked fresh and expensive – and it was, for they had bought it in a fine shop in London, using Wolfweir gold. Most of the suitcases, however, were empty. This luggage was part of the “cover story” Malvic had devised for their attack on the Vampyres.

  Under the High King, Malvic had served for some time as Wolfweir’s Head of Intelligence and Espionage. In this capacity, he had travelled the Continent and beyond. As he confessed to Lucia and Alphonse in the hotel room on their first night in London, he had in fact once visited Edinburgh to observe the Vampyre coven “on its own turf” and to draw up plans for just such an attack.

  He shook his head when Lucia asked him for more details of his mysterious intent, however.

  They caught a horse drawn cab from the train station to a grand hotel in the center of the city, their luggage piled high on the roof. Lucia shut her eyes, lulled almost to sleep by the swaying of the cab and the sound of clip clopping hooves.

  Alphonse could not stop fidgeting, as on the train he’d had to be completely still, limp as a rag, in order not to arouse the astonishment of other passengers.

  Malvic suddenly cried out to the driver in his fluent English:

  -Halt for a moment!

  The cab jounced to a stop, causing Lucia to sight and shake her head in annoyance.

  -Look, said Malvic, pointing out the window.

  At the end of a broad street lined with elegant houses stood a domed building of almost fantastic proportions, soaring arrogantly above the buildings surrounding it. It gave a solid, expansive, somewhat ghastly Gothic impression.

  -That is the famous Opera des Vampyres.

  Lucia frowned.

  -The Vampyres go about in public here in Scotland? How uncivil!

  Malvic laughed and said:

  -No, the Vampyres call it that. It is more widely known as the Transylvanian Opera House, home of the Transylvanian Operatic Company, which is of course made of up talented and artistic undead ghouls.

  Alphonse gazed at it, his wooden eyes wide.

  -Moreover, this is where we will find Lord and Lady Blackgore, who are the major patrons of the Opera, when the company premiers its new opera based on the life and experiences of Vlad, the Impaler.

  -When? asked Lucia.

  -In four days. On opening night, the crowd will be season subscription only – Vampyres all.

  -Ah.

  -And there’s something else, my Queen.

  -Go on.

  -It will be a full moon.

  Lucia shivered.

  Opera Night

  Malvic spent the following days in intense preparation. He was gone from the hotel from dawn until long after dark. Lu
cia and Alphonse tried to amuse themselves in the hotel room, playing endless games of whist and chess.

  Once, however, the boredom was too much for them and Lucia swathed Alphonse in various items of clothing, a blanket, a thick woolen muffler and a new derby hat that Malvic had bought for himself as a spare in the London hat shop – and together they went out for a cab ride around the city.

  They didn’t go near the Opera House but they spent some time skipping around a big gray park in the gray mist.

  It was finally the appointed day – or what Queen Lucia called portentously the “Hour of Doom” for the Vampyres. Malvic returned early in the afternoon looking pale and worn out – the wound in his arm was hurting him.

  -How goes the preparations? asked Lucia, with her most imperious queenly frown.

  -All is arranged, your Majesty, and I trust the results will satisfy you. But –

  -Speak.

  -I cannot think of a way to get into the Opera House with you.

  -Oh?

  -You are little enough to go relatively unnoticed, and pale enough – excuse me, Queen – to be a Vampyre. With the hellishly expensive ticket I’ve procured for you on the black market, and the new opera clothes we bought for you in London, you should have no trouble getting inside for tonight’s spectacular premier of Vlad the Impaler. Meantime, Alphonse will be delivered via the rear stage door with various props and set pieces, and make his way from there without difficulty to just where the plan calls for him to lurk until the moment of truth.

  Alphonse’s wooden head turned at this, the neck creaking.

  -But?

  -I am too obviously a Man-Wolf. I look, walk, and smell like a Man-Wolf. It’s too great a risk. I’ve bribed one of the set handlers to let me into the basement. There, I will light the fuse at the right time, then hurry outside to wait for you on the street in the cab I’ve rented for the whole evening. Alphonse, my boy, I trust you know your cue?

  Alphonse stopped still and nodded. He had taken out his rapier and was cutting the air with it, jumping back and forth on the rich carpet.

  -Good. As soon as the climactic aria begins – [Malvic hummed the tune, both Alphonse and Lucia nodding gravely], you, Alphonse, will leap through the trapdoor onto the stage and fire your pistols into Lord and Lady Blackgore, who are playing the main roles in tonight’s outrageously lavish production. This should be shortly after the moon becomes visible through the glass skylight set in the domed roof, and Lucia will by now have changed into a White Wolf. I trust the audience will be stunned by your appearance and by the shots. The plan is, as we discussed, for Lucia to join you onstage, which should be a matter of one easy leap from the balcony, and for you, Alphonse, to mount her as you did in your escape from the gypsy encampment. You will them escape via the backstage door, which will be left unlocked. There will be exactly seven minutes from the beginning of the aria – which will be my signal to light the fuses in the basement – and the spectacular explosion that will level the Opera House and entomb the Vampyres of Edinburgh, Scotland forever in smoking rubble. Got it?

  Lucia brooded, swinging her legs as she sat in the velvet covered wing chair. Then she asked:

  -But Malvic, why must Alphonse shoot the filthy Vampyre brother and sister? Why not just kill them all with the explosion?

  Malvic purses his lips wolfishly.

  -Because, my Queen, we must be absolutely sure that these two are dead. Finito. For the sake of Alphonse’s parents. If we trust the kegs of gunpowder I procured to do the job for us, there is always a chance of failure. And we must not fail. Not here. Not now. Not at this pass. Do you understand?

  Alphonse began jumping back and forth, cutting the setting sunlight that shone into the big luxury hotel room. He was practicing the famous “Von Gorith Ploy.” The Blood Amulet jumped, clicking on his pine chest.

  -You jump like a cricket, my boy. Are your dueling pistols ready? Primed, spiffed up, greased and in tip top working order, with holy water and garlic rubbed on the shot?

  Alphonse swept his sword gracefully and nodded. He even took a knock kneed puppet bow.

  -Good! We go to make Wolf history in just two hours.

  The Silver Breastplate

  Alphonse, inside the musty costume trunk, felt himself jolted back and forth as it was hauled by grunting men from a wagon parked in the alley behind the Opera des Vampires. He tried to keep his mind clear. It was the hour of truth and the moment of vengeance, and if all went well his parents would be awake again before midnight.

  Meantime, Lucia – in a black gown, black shoes, black velvet lined opera cape and glittering emerald necklace – joined the crowd of excited and gloriously attired Vampyres in the lobby of the great building.

  She was indeed, as Malvic had opined, pale enough to be a Vampyre, and her teased Botticelli curls drew some admiring gasps of appreciation.

  Asked by several of the elegant Scottish Vampyres what European coven she hailed from, she merely said in her charming Italian accent: “Venezia.”

  She took her seat in the balcony without haste, surrounded by Vampyres – hundreds of them.

  Finally, the orchestra struck up its harsh, clanging music, weird and Vampyrical.

  The blood red curtains parted, and Lord and Lady Edwarda, pale as undeath, appeared triumphantly to the moans and applause of the crowd on an elaborate set that suggested the mountains of Transylvania, with fake snow drifting onto their armored shoulders. They began to sing.

  Alphonse, hearing the music begin, had lifted the lid of the costume trunk. He crawled out into the darkness of the prop-room backstage. Glancing at the stage from the wing, he caught a glimpse of Lady Edwarda, with a pale hand pressed to her silver breastplate, singing desperately in the fake snow.

  Following the careful instructions Malvic had given him, he descended a short flight of steps and ducked through a small doorway and moved through the darkness – he was now under the stage itself, and could hear the footsteps of the singers clumping just overhead. He struck a match and by its hazy light found the trap door with its small flight of steps for the sudden appearance of singers playing ghosts and demons and such. Shaking out the match, he put his wooden hands on the grips of the twin dueling pistols stuck into his belt – and waited.

  Listening for his cue.

  *

  It was almost midnight. Lucia felt shivers run through her body as the first faint rays of moonlight appeared in the round glass skylight high, high above her.

  Lord Edward and Lady Edwarda Blackgore were still singing, singing their undead hearts out. Both of them standing on coffins, now, as live bats flew about their heads.

  She felt a rush of sensation, sheer power, as she began to transform. All the Vampyres sitting around Lucia were riveted by what was happening onstage, so none noted Lucia turning into a White Wolf as she bent over, coughing, and covered her head with the black opera cloak.

  Then she heard it. The harsh, jangling tones of the orchestra, and the beginning run of notes in Lady Blackgore’s climactic aria.

  She peered from under the cloak – her eyes were now wolf-eyes, her skin now bristling wolf fur.

  The trapdoor burst open, and Alphonse shot onto the stage like a cricket, his puppet body clattering. He drew his twin pistols. Fired.

  Lady Blackgore tumbled from her perch on one of the coffins. A hit, a palpable hit!

  Lucia almost howled with excitement and pleasure – and beserk Wolf blood-lust.

  Lord Blackgore, however, was too quick even for the lightning fast Alphonse. He dodged the pistol ball and swept down at the puppet boy, a furious pale ghoul in all in black armor, screaming with rage.

  Seizing a sword – a real, not a stage sword – from its sword rack on his way to Alphonse, who had tossed away the pistols and drawn his own rapier.

  All around Lucia, most of the Vampyres in the audience were clapping, oohing and ahhing – some shouting Bravo! – but others seemed to begin to grasp that his intrusion was not a part of the show.


  As Alphonse and the Vampyre Lord touched sword points and began to fight, dizzyingly fast, back and forth across the stage, Lucia tossed away the cloak – a blazing full moon now shining on her white fur through the skylight.

  Around her, Vampyres screeched and cowered. The orchestra jolted to silence. Sword steel scraped and clanked, sparks flying from the blades.

  *