“Mr. Fairmount?”
Mr. Fitzroy’s secretary nodded. “I’ll explain, I promise, but let’s wait for your partner so I only have to tell it once.”
Seva blinked at him. “I’m not sure I can wait.”
“He’ll be here soon.”
“How can you know that?” he demanded.
Alexander smiled. “I’m… in contact with the person leading Mr. Key to us.”
“Who would that be?”
“You’ll see in just a few moments.”
As though the words had conjured them, Keller and Cosmina appeared through the trees. Seva tried to play it cool, but when Keller rushed over and wrapped him in a tight embrace, a knot rose in his throat. The emotion was so intense his heart felt as though it would burst. It was only a momentary lapse, and a few steadying breaths later, he had himself under control again.
“Okay,” Seva said. He cleared his throat and made ready to get back to business. “I want an explanation from someone, and I would like it right now. Please.”
Cosmina smiled as she patted the secretary’s shoulder. “I’ll let my little brother tell the story, as punishment for getting so involved in the first place.”
Alexander rolled his eyes. “First, my name isn’t Fairmount, it’s Balancal.”
“Which translates as white horse, if I’m not mistaken,” Seva remembered.
“Alexandru thought he was being clever by using Fairmount,” Cosmina said.
Alexander looked at his sister. “I thought you were going to let me tell it.”
“I am letting you tell it. I’m just adding my perspective.”
He gave her a look. “Sometimes it’s possible to have too much perspective.”
She cuffed him lightly on the ear. “Don’t pout in front of company, dragul meu.”
Alexander turned to face Agents Song and Key again. He wore the resigned expression of all adult men who have a big sister. “Let’s start again,” he said. “My name is Alexandru, but you may call me Alex. Mr. Fitzroy was worried when he didn’t hear from you after the flight. I volunteered to check up on you. I think he was surprised I intended to come to Romania, but once he realized I’m fluent in the language, he agreed and I got on a plane immediately.”
“I’m so glad you did,” Keller said, eyebrows raised in confusion. “Thanks for the rescue, but why in hell didn’t you tell us this place was a communications black hole?”
“I’m afraid that was part of my brother’s half-baked plan,” Cosmina said with a snort.
“Someone had to do something,” Alex answered.
“And of course, it had to be you.”
“Who else was available?”
“You’re right,” Cosmina said, ending the sibling banter. “I won’t start this argument again, but I wish it didn’t always have to be our family on the front line.”
Alex put an arm around her shoulders. “I know you don’t want me to get hurt, but this is in my blood.” He gave her a squeeze. “And yours.”
After a short silence, Seva cleared his throat. “You’re the one who saved me from the werewolf, right? You’re the man with the whistle?”
“Yes, I did,” Alex said. “I also encouraged Count Balaur, who you know as Balaur, to leave Mr. Key alone.”
“Thanks,” Keller said. “But why did you take off after rescuing us? Why have you been hiding from us? I mean… there were a few more times we could’ve used some help… or information even.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know I was here. I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but… I don’t really care if it makes sense to you. It was something I had to do.”
Keller and Seva exchanged a glance. “Yeah, that’s not going to be good enough,” Keller said, flexing a muscle in his jaw. “Maybe you did come up with some wild scheme just to keep some developers from destroying a historic landmark, but I think there’s a lot more to it than that. You know about the werewolves and vampires. You got us sent here for a reason.”
Seva nodded. “I agree. You’re not really a secretary, are you?”
“Actually, I’m quite a good secretary. I went to a very highly regarded business school. GLEN would never have hired me otherwise. But I went to a lot of other schools as well.” He shrugged, conceding the point.
“I’m not really curious about the mechanics; I want to know about all the hocus-pocus,” Keller said.
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Let’s just say I have my own agenda and methods, and let it go at that.”
“Let’s not,” Keller argued as he took a step toward Alex. “I need to know exactly what hap—” His words were cut off as a shaggy beast bounded from the trees and knocked Keller down. Seva shouted and lunged for it, and it spun on its hind legs to face him, growling.
“No!” Alex stepped between the creature and Seva. He held up his hand and the beast subsided. “Let’s all keep calm.”
“You can control him?” Seva asked in patent disbelief.
“Don’t I wish.” Alex looked up at the wolfman with a wry smile. “But sometimes he listens to me.” He frowned at Keller. “I don’t understand why he attacked you, though.”
Keller would have liked the answer to that, but his attention was captured by the wolfman’s transformation. Slowly the monster diminished in size, and the fur that covered it evaporated in little puffs of crystalline powder. Its frame and features changed to those of a mountain of a man with graying hair. He towered over Alex and gazed at Seva and Keller with feral golden eyes.
“And who might this be?” Keller indicated the big man with a flick of his eyes.
“This is Gavril Balancal,” Cosmina said. “He’s an ancestor of ours.”
“Your ancestor?”
She nodded. “Gavril was born almost seven hundred years ago.”
“That’s… hard to believe,” Keller said and paused. “But putting that aside for now, Gavril is a werewolf, right?”
“They don’t care for the term werewolf,” Alex said. “They prefer therianthrope.”
“They?” Keller raised his eyebrows.
“Well, I should say we.” Alex smiled. “My whole family carries the gene. Not all of us choose to change. I don’t. Some of us change our shapes like clothing, while others cannot control it in certain situations, but the ability is in our DNA regardless of how it manifests. Our scholars say we’re a separate branch on the human family tree.”
“Dammit,” Keller said, shaking his head sadly. “I was really hoping we were all hallucinating from the effects of mass hysteria.”
Cosmina smiled. “I think we should continue this talk over a drink. Why don’t we go down to the village now?”
“What about the rest of the guards?” Keller asked, glancing back at the tunnel into the caves.
Alex looked at Gavril. “They have been taken care of.”
“Then… I guess our work here is done,” Keller said.
Alex drew Gavril aside and spoke to him for a few moments before Gavril grunted and set off into the woods. Alex returned and the party of four walked down to the village.
THE atmosphere in the lounge of Radu’s inn wasn’t exactly festive, but it was fair to say spirits were higher than they’d been in some time. They sat around a table, and Cosmina poured shots of the house’s best tuica.
“Our people have lived in this valley since—”
“Hold up,” Keller said. “Before we get into a history lesson, I need to know something.” He glanced at Seva before he continued. “Why did you let us flail around if you’ve been here for a couple of days?”
“Yes,” Seva said. “I’d like to hear the answer to that question. Even if you didn’t particularly like us, you do work for GLEN, after all, and were sent over to help.”
“I couldn’t. I wanted to, believe me, but there are rules, laws really, that I have to obey.” Alex gave the agents a disarming smile. “None of us are free to act as we wish all the time.”
“Would it have killed you to write us a note and sho
ve it under the door?” Keller burst out.
“Possibly.” Alex glanced at his sister. “I had to help where I could, when I could be sure my help would go undetected by the council.”
Keller shook his head in disgust. Seva patted Keller’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said with patent sincerity. “And I wish I could tell you more about the council and its rules, but then it wouldn’t be a secret society.”
“This conversation isn’t over,” Keller said. “But I guess I can wait a while. I get the ‘having to follow rules’ thing. I don’t like it either.”
“You must be joking,” Cosmina said wryly.
Keller cocked an eyebrow at her and then gestured to Alex. “Go on with your story.”
“My family has lived here since the time of the Roman emperor Trajan,” Alex said. “We haven’t always owned the property we lived on, but we do take a very proprietary interest. When we learned that a consortium of investors was planning to build a resort where the ruins stand, we decided we had to act instead of merely acting as caretakers.”
“You keep saying we,” Keller noted.
“My brother has never forgotten that we were royalty once,” Cosmina said, eyes sparkling with humor.
“Don’t make fun of me, please,” Alex replied in an aggrieved tone.
She patted his hand. “Of course not, dragule. You would make a perfect prince.”
“I agree,” Seva said. “But I sense Alex isn’t using the royal plural.”
“I’m a member of an unofficial board made up of the descendants of the oldest families in Romania,” Alex said.
“Male descendants,” Cosmina corrected with a sniff.
Alex cleared his throat. “To continue, while the board was talking about saving a piece of our cultural history, Mr. Cynwrig was killed. Thanks to Cosmina, I knew Mr. Cynwrig was in communication with a Mr. Fitzroy in New York.” He smiled at her. “In addition to her other jobs, she’s the default postmistress of Dragascar.”
“Mihaela Albescu brought the last letter in for Mr. Cynwrig,” Cosmina said. “We chatted a bit, and Mihaela told me she’d seen the letter and it was very odd. She said she didn’t think Mr. Cynwrig had written it, because it was in an ancient language. When she quoted a couple of phrases, I knew right away I had to tell Alexandru, no matter how much I wanted to keep it to myself. I suppose all of this is really my fault for not minding my own business.”
Seva looked at Alex. “You flew to New York and got a job as Mr. Fitzroy’s secretary in less than two weeks?”
“What can I say? I’m just that good,” Alex replied nonchalantly.
Seva wasn’t having it. “The background check alone takes—”
Alex sighed. “A relative of mine is married to someone with an old school chum who is a director of GLEN. I had to jump through all of the hoops, but my application was facilitated. No harm done.”
“Maybe, but you just made it a hundred times harder for the next person to pass the vetting process,” Seva said, shaking his head.
“I didn’t think of that,” Alex said, a note of apology in his voice. “But if I had to do it again, I would. I had to see that letter.”
“Why was it so important? We all saw it, and I don’t recall anything earth-shattering,” Keller said.
“The letter was in code. It mentioned the presence of someone who should have been dead for centuries,” Alex said. “Balaur Nyar.”
“The little white-haired guy?” Keller sounded incredulous.
“Yes, he would be considered small by today’s standards,” Alex said with a shrug. “In his original time, during the Roman Empire, he would have been average height at least, but his reputation as a warrior wasn’t due to any strength of arms. Rather, it was his viciousness and complete lack of fear. According to contemporary accounts, Balaur would wade into the thickest part of the battle and swing his sword like a scythe. His preferred method, when he had the time, was to lop off parts of an enemy until his foe was helpless and then leave him for the ravens. They go for the eyes first.”
“Well, there’s an image I won’t be getting out of my head,” Keller said with a grimace.
“When Balaur came to rule over this area in the medieval period, he made this valley his private hunting grounds. That’s how he encountered Gavril. He speared a wolf and followed it to its lair. When he arrived, he found my many-times-great-uncle wounded. He made Gavril his slave, and so began our long, miserable history in bond to a vampire. It wasn’t until Balaur grew old enough to begin going dormant for longer periods that we threw off our shackles. However, we have always considered ourselves the guardians of this place.”
“Dormant?” Seva asked.
“Balaur was the victim of a very particular virus,” Alex said. “He’s not quite dead, but he needs to lie dormant for long periods of time. His life functions have slowed drastically, and the only nutrition he needs, or can process, comes from blood. I find him quite sad.”
“I don’t like Balaur,” Keller said with childlike simplicity. “He bit me.”
“I’d like to hear about your meeting with him,” Alex said.
“Yes, do you remember what happened to you?” Cosmina asked, turning to face Keller.
Keller rubbed the side of his neck absently as he nodded. “It’s a little hazy, but I think most of my memory has come back. I heard someone singing in the fog, and then I saw him. At first, with that white hair, I thought he was an old lady who got lost, but when he came closer, I could see he wasn’t like anyone I’d ever seen before. His hair and skin were so fine you couldn’t see pores or individual strands. I’ve never seen eyes that big and dark on a human. On a deer maybe, but not a person. He was… beautiful.”
“His beauty is like the hawk’s wings or the greyhound’s speed,” Alex agreed.
“So poetic.” Cosmina chuckled. “Actually Balaur’s beauty is like the sweet scent of a Venus flytrap.”
Alex bowed to his sister. “A much better analogy, Mina, thank you, but what’s important here is that Mr. Key interacted with Balaur.”
“Is this so?” Cosmina asked as she focused on Keller.
“Well, yeah, he spoke to me, except that he wasn’t exactly talking.”
“He was putting things in your mind,” Alex said. “He’s very powerful and very dangerous. He means no good to anything human. If I had not found you in time, he might have made you his slave.”
“I’m sorry,” Keller said, “but I just can’t get my head around it. You two talk about vampires and werewolves like you’re discussing the neighbors’ weird habits.”
“We’ve grown up with it.” Cosmina shrugged. “There are things about your world that I find just as odd and frightening.”
“Like what?” Keller challenged.
“McDonald’s,” she answered promptly.
“She’s got you there,” Seva told his partner, grinning.
“I like their fries,” Keller said defensively. “And apple pie.”
Alex cleared his throat. “If we could return to the problem of Balaur.”
“I agree that Balaur Nyar walking the earth is a problem,” Cosmina said, “but what do you imagine you can do about it?”
Alex turned to look at Keller. “That depends on whether Mr. Key will cooperate.”
“Would you please call me Keller?”
Alex hesitated and then nodded. “As you wish. We need your help to send Balaur back to sleep. All of Popescu’s heavy machinery moving around woke him up, but if we can convince him the abbey is safe, he’ll go dormant again.”
“I like the sound of that,” Seva said.
“Glad you approve,” Cosmina said, “since countless lives will be saved.”
“And my family will remain free of the curse of Balaur’s collar around our necks,” Alex added.
“Just tell me what you need from me,” Keller said. He chuckled. “I just thought—what a burn on TWISM. They tried to scare people with fake monsters and got taken down b
y real ones.”
“TWISM?” Alex asked.
“Some sort of top-secret organization that was involved in the resort hotel project,” Keller said with a dismissive wave.
Alex’s brow furrowed. “I’m troubled that I haven’t heard this name before. I’ll have to do some research on them.”
“I have a feeling GLEN will too,” Seva said. “Meanwhile, let’s hear your plan for putting Balaur to sleep.”
Keller nodded. “This isn’t exactly what we came to Romania for, but I’m always happy to help exorcise a demon, banish a few ghosts, or put a bloodsucker back in his coffin.”
“You would have the eternal gratitude of my family,” Alex said, ignoring Keller’s attempt at humor.
“And in our family ‘eternal’ really does mean eternal,” Cosmina added.
“I’m still going on autopilot,” Keller said, and his mouth cracked into a huge yawn. “I know eventually my brain is going to crash into the fact that werewolves and vampires really are real, but for now let’s just plow ahead as if it didn’t matter.”
“You finally sound like yourself again,” Seva remarked.
“Is that good or bad?” Keller asked, turning to share a long look with his partner.
Seva smiled gently. “I’ll let you know.”
Chapter Sixteen
Thursday night, back at the damned abbey
THE air carried a bone-deep chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. A wispy fog hovered at knee height, and the black silhouettes of the trees looked like giant clawed hands. The ruins of the Cistercian abbey stood out stark and bleak in the light of the full moon. As Keller, Seva, Alex, and Cosmina stepped out of the forest, a bank of clouds drifted over the newly risen moon and dimmed its radiance.
“Watch your step,” Alex said as they entered the ruins. A few minutes later, he called them to a halt beside the remains of an interior wall. “The entrance is here, but Balaur is not.”
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