by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
Still, she held on. “We’ll monitor the curing process to make sure nothing unexpected happens. Remember that serum I mentioned to you? The one Bea won’t get to develop without a living vampire? We’d like to use that, too. And, of course, we’d wean the vampires off blood.”
There was the sound of a boot clearing leaves. The thump of an object—the heart—hitting the ground.
“That’ll be a trick,” he said. “You got some kind of twelve-step program for vamps?”
Camille turned around to retort, then paused when she saw the heart. Like the Juni vampire’s organ, this didn’t look any different than a human one.
While Delia filmed a close-up, Sarge wiped his bloodied knife on some damp leaves and got out his pack of cigarettes, plus matches. With laconic grace, he flipped a death stick into his mouth.
Looked as if Sarge was a fast healer. Back to his old cocky self, except for a slight wobble every few minutes.
Camille dismissed Delia and started uploading the new images to Bea. “From all indications, we theorize that these females choose males for sustenance because they’re addicted to the testosterone. It feeds the virus.”
Sarge lit a match and spoke, his tone bitter. “Sounds a lot like love.”
Then he bent down, lent flame to the heart, used more matches to stoke the growing conflagration. Absently, he dipped his ciggie into the fire, giving it life.
Once again, Camille actually felt something for the guy. A soft, weak chink of pity or…Who knew? He had some kind of story, just like her. Had some slant of humanity. Maybe.
They didn’t say anything until Sarge had finished the cigarette and the organ had ashed itself out.
“You think your revenants can be turned by some serum or UV rays, then,” he said.
She gave a confident nod. “I’d bet my life on it.”
“You already have.”
“That’s why these coffins contain UV bulbs.” She walked over to Ecaterina’s unit, closing it over the body and head now that Sarge had gotten his thrills. No need to turn on the UV for this corpse, though. “The coffin’s radiation isn’t high enough to mutate a breathing vampire’s cells, but it’s enough to keep them frozen in fear.”
As Sarge used his bowie knife to dig a hole in the ground, Camille rolled the coffin into the Humvee.
He buried the ashes as she closed down the computer and bolted up the vehicle.
The wolves started up again, their cries mixing with a mist that shrouded the trees.
He cleaned the knife one more time. “Think those howlers have anything to do with vamps? Maybe protectors?”
She couldn’t tear her eyes off his weapon. “That’s all a bunch of nonsense. Remember, we’re dealing with real life. Diseased beings. Not mythical figments.”
“So you say.” He held up a finger—Wait—and ambled to his Jeep, digging inside the back storage area.
Had Sarge been like her, once upon a time? A normal person who hadn’t believed in bloodsucking creatures at all? Sure, she’d found out eventually that they were merely mutants, evolved due to a sickness, but…
What, beyond the strigoiaca, had Sarge actually seen in his life?
She’d learned that killers lived according to their own stories, their own perception of what the world was. They created excuses to murder.
And Sarge’s monster-vampires just weren’t logical. Did he enjoying stalking and murdering so much that he’d convinced himself that superstitions were true and they all needed to be vanquished?
He had to know that there were reasonable explanations for everything. Always.
Sarge came back, covered with a flak jacket and carrying another knife. This one had a six-and-one-half-inch serrated silver blade with a rubber handle.
“It’ll work on werewolves as good as a silver bullet,” he said, offering it to her.
Camille swallowed. “No, thanks.”
Sarge looked it over. “I know it’s not as fancy as a mouth sealer or a UV wand, but it comes in handy when you fight mean animals in a forest. What’re you going to use if we brush up against those wolves or a mountain lynx?”
“We’ve got our dart guns.”
Again, Sarge stared at her. That steady look was fast becoming his most effective comeback. “Are these cap shooters as good as those wands? You know, the lights that sputtered out?”
“We’re recharging those. They don’t last very long, so that makes us work quickly to restrain the vampires. The dart guns will work just fine for any wolves though. We’ve tested them in the lab.”
“Great. And that’s all you have? You’re kidding.”
“No.” She thought of her parents’ bodies, the sick stench of undeserved deaths. “We don’t need to kill them.”
“Just disable them. I know. I know. Listen, sometimes you don’t have a choice about killing.”
She didn’t want to be reminded. Juni had taught her this lesson—one she’d rather forget.
“Then I suppose that’s the difference between us,” she said. “You’d walk into that vampire castle with weapons blazing. I go in to resolve the situation without wreaking total destruction.”
“Hell. You’d bring a knife to a gunfight. Or, in your case, a dart.” He paused, a muscle working in his jaw. “Besides, I’ve been known to discriminate between who needs to stay alive and who needs to die.”
Even though she doubted it was true, the tone of his voice hinted at something Camille couldn’t pin down, couldn’t quite grasp about this man. “All I know is that my silly little dart was enough to take you down.”
“Not before I did my job.”
Sarge’s arrogant smile heated up that damned warm patch of skin where he’d touched her arm.
Anger, she thought. It was only anger.
“Say we drug some wolves,” he said, “we go up into that castle, we do some vamp damage and…whoa. What do you know? On our way out, we’ve got wolves who are a little groggy, but really displeased. Kinda like me.”
“Maybe they’ll have more of a capacity for forgiveness.”
Reaching out, Sarge grabbed her hand and held it steady before she could protest. His touch was warm, vicious, forcing her to block out all the confusion the contact whipped up.
“I don’t need that knife,” she said.
“I don’t have enough real pistols to equip you and the ladies, but if you want one…”
“No.”
Gently, he laid the weapon over her palm. Camille drew in a shuddering breath.
“That ain’t so bad, is it?” he asked.
Yes, it was. She couldn’t say whether it was because Sarge was still touching her, or if it was because she was weighing the instrument of her parents’ deaths. She found herself unmoving, caught between fascination and the growing doubt that maybe dart guns wouldn’t be enough to tame those wolves after all.
“Here.” He folded her lower three fingers tightly around the base of the handle. “Then your index finger, lightly.”
His thumb gently guided it around the handle, too.
He stepped closer, his voice warm in her ear. “Now extend your thumb, parallel to the blade.”
His tone was low, as soft as the brush of his jacket against her back. For a second, Camille was lulled, wanting so badly to feel cared for again. The need blurred her thoughts, making the knife feel okay in her grip. A little powerful.
I’m going to get Griff back, she thought, warring against those stirred-up emotions. He’ll make me feel alive again.
“This is what they call a Filipino grip.” Sarge slipped his palm under her free arm, her hand, turning her forearm to face the outside and lifting it in front of her body. “I’ve noticed that you know a thing or two about boxing.”
“I’ve dabbled,” she croaked, then cleared her throat, creating distance from Sarge—even if it was more mental than physical. “Okay. I think I’ve got the arm position now.”
He laughed, probably because she sounded so eager for him to back away. “Take a boxing stance.
”
She did, and he made a few adjustments: knife hand forward, hands lower than usual.
“Tuck your chin more,” he said, using his thumb and forefinger to slowly angle it down. “You walk around like you’ve got a chip on your shoulder.”
His easy gesture had given her one of those dizzy shivers again. She whipped away from his touch, straightened up. It didn’t feel right to be giving in to the knife.
“This isn’t my style.” She held it back out to him.
Sarge walked in front of her, stalking, gauging her fears. Then, without warning, he pulled his own knife, preparing to slash diagonally from her waist up.
Grateful to be back on familiar ground with him, her instincts spun into motion, causing her to step forward, angling her body away from the attacking cut and to his outside.
“Stop.” He grabbed her wrist. “That was a good reaction. Now just meet me—” He placed her blade against his knife arm. “Then do a safety check.” He forced her free hand to push his attacking arm away. “Then—” he pulled her resisting arm, making her thrust to his throat, stopping as the knife point just nicked his skin “—I’m a goner.”
The feel of the blade against his neck made her pulse race with giddy speed, made her realize that she could do more harm than good.
She dropped the knife at his feet, her hand shaking. It stabbed the ground, quivering between the both of them.
Sarge shook his head. “You’re going unarmed into a world where your darts can only go so far. You’ll be sorry if you think you’re prepared.”
“But I’m not like you, Sarge. Not at all.”
I’m like Griff—gentle and normal.
He measured her with a gaze, then turned around, walked away. Still, she could hear him clearly.
“Coming from a woman who was all too willing to use me as a fishing worm, that’s funny. You are me, Howard.”
And as she watched him retreat into the thickening mist, she told herself she’d never become like Sargent.
Even if she was already halfway there.
Chapter 6
Juni, approximately nine months ago
Three days before the strigoiaca came
Camille squinted at the sting of cigarette smoke and surveyed the village inn as she tipped a glass of palinca past her lips.
The brown-haired girl sitting across the rickety wooden table for her interview beamed with approval.
“Este regular?” she asked.
“Mmm.” Camille ignored the burning sensation in her throat and gut, compliments of the potent plum beverage. Regretting that she’d ever accepted the drink in the first place, she deposited the half-full glass on the table. “Yes, it’s okay. Multumesc. Thank you.”
It rested next to her plate of sarmale, stuffed cabbage leaves that were a staple of the Romanian diet. Even if she and Griff had already spent a few days in northern Transylvania while she interviewed folks in another village, too, she’d never get used to this hearty food.
Salads were more her thing. Wow. Her stomach really missed the light grub.
At any rate, she’d accepted the meal from the innkeeper’s wife, Flora Vladislav. According to Camille’s research of the local beliefs and superstitions, she knew that failing to finish the beverage would supposedly bring Mrs. Vladislav bad luck.
Heck, from what she’d seen of Juni so far, they needed all the luck they could get. A tiny village located near Roman ruins, all Juni really had to offer was a wooden Orthodox church, a dark neighboring forest and surrounding farmland stacked with hay. Most of the inhabitants watched her and Griff with barely concealed distrust—something Transylvanians felt for Westerners, Camille had been told.
During this latest pause in Ecaterina’s interview, Camille must’ve been pursing her lips or something because, even from across the low-lit, hazy room, Griff was grinning at her. As was his habit after putting in his work for the day, he was yukking it up with the friendlier locals: dark-eyed men fresh from the fields and eager to practice their English.
Camille couldn’t help smiling back at her boyfriend, couldn’t help flushing a little, just knowing they belonged to each other. Just knowing that, every passing day, she was falling deeper and deeper for him.
A woman’s heavily accented voice interrupted, mid-blush. “Ms. Howard?”
It was Eva Godea, the guide and interpreter Camille had hired at the University of Bucharest. Young and capable of relaying the subtleties of Camille’s intricate questions, she wore ambition in the guise of a career-minded, olive-toned suit and auburn hair that was twisted into a severe chignon. The difference between her and Camille’s subject, Ecaterina, a local Juni girl wearing braids and a traditional embroidered blouse, was startling. A time warp.
“Okay, next question,” Camille said, grabbing her pen and smoothing the page of her bulging notebook. “Ah, here we go. I’ve noticed that folklore for this area refers a lot to female vampires, not men, or even Vlad the Impaler.”
“Bram Stoker’s fiction,” sniffed Ms. Godea.
“Vlad Tepes is a historical figure, but most of the other stories are fantasy to some extent.”
“As you’ve learned, not to many of these people.”
Across the table, Ecaterina was watching, wide-eyed, their English meaningless to a girl who’d already revealed that all she wanted to do was marry a local boy and cook him proper meals for the rest of his life.
Camille glanced at her notes again, then back up. “In the other village we’ve been to, the literature is the same. Now…how can I phrase this?” She paused, wanting to know if the stories had empowered Ecaterina as a female in any way. At the same time, she didn’t want to offend.
Leading up to her point, she asked, “Ecaterina, how do you feel about women being the aggressors in these tales?”
While Ms. Godea efficiently translated, Camille followed to the best of her abilities. She had a talent for languages—Latin, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, German—and was interested in mastering this one, too.
Though Romanian is Latin-based, she definitely wasn’t fluent enough to be interviewing in it yet.
In the meantime, the innkeeper’s wife strolled by, blue scarf on head, tucking her veined hands in her apron pockets. She shot a pointed glare at Camille’s palinca, then wandered away.
Ecaterina was taking a moment to formulate her answer, so Camille picked up her beverage again, determined to finish. To distract herself, she glanced around the common room—the rough wooden walls, the simple furnishings, the medieval weaponry stored in glass cases behind the bar.
Interesting. Did Mr. Vladislav threaten to use the mace or the battle-axes when a patron got nasty?
Triumphantly, Camille drained her glass and thunked it on the table. Whoo, doggie. That was some stuff.
Now, for the cabbage.
She finished the food as Ecaterina finally spilled out her answer, cheeks stamped with rosy excitement. Griff’s laugh sounded from across the room, and Camille tried to concentrate on understanding the Romanian while holding back her silly smile.
“‘Women should not be taking lives,’” Ms. Godea translated. “‘Females are made to create, not destroy.’”
Using shorthand to record the answer, Camille said, “Same feedback as most females in the other village. In spite of mass communication, media and education, they’re still clinging to superstition and tradition. There’s a real divide between the old ways and the need to move on, isn’t there? Especially in Juni. It hit me right away, yesterday, when we got here and Ms. Vladislav automatically put me and Griff in different rooms.”
“There was the revolution in 1989.” Ms. Godea’s stoic, librarian-in-need-of-hot-sex expression didn’t waver. “Life changed, Ms. Howard. But morals didn’t.”
Camille had already studied all about the executed Communist dictator Ceausescu, so she didn’t need a history lecture. Instead, she turned back to Ecaterina.
“Do you believe the females, the—” she leafed throu
gh her pages, wanting to pronounce the word correctly “—the strigoiaca, will ever come to Juni? After all, it’s said that they visit different villages every year.”
After Ms. Godea posed the question, the girl answered with a firm “Nu,” then proceeded to give a long response.
“‘No,’” Ms. Godea translated. “‘Even if there are those who do not believe in the old tales, there are enough believers to keep the strigoiaca away. It is the villages who have lost faith and become lazy who will suffer attacks.’”
“Dang, Ms. Godea.” Camille shook her head. Was it her own disbelief or the plum drink that was spinning her mind? “When I came here, I expected to hear about legends and fireside tales. To see people laughing about what used to be accepted as truth. Vampirism used to explain sickness and death, certain corpse conditions that medicine can now justify.”
“We all have our science, our reasons for how the world works.”
She was right. The Greeks used to explain the change of seasons with the story of Persephone. People used to believe that frequent baths were bad for one’s health. Every day, perception changed according to new discoveries. Maybe even her own accepted version of science was a myth that would be refuted one day.
Still…vampires? They were fantasies, horror flicks, reasons for attracting tourists to Castle Dracula and making an easy buck off the hunger for entertainment.
Ecaterina and Ms. Godea couldn’t be serious.
The village girl started talking, and Ms. Godea nodded.
“Our silly little miss wants to speak about male vampires,” the translator said. “She is talking about a reclusive male tribe in the Carpathians.”
“I haven’t heard about this group from the other village, or in my books.” Camille scribbled more notes. She’d have to ask additional villagers about the males. Maybe the legend was unique to this location. If so, how had it developed? And why hadn’t she read about this in the literature yet?
Excitement bubbled in her veins. Could this be her big break? A discovery to be published, making her something more than “that Howard girl”?
“Ecaterina hopes the male tribe comes to Juni instead of the females.” Ms. Godea said, censure in her tone.