Two months later there was no hiding his rebellion. Less than an hour after moonrise, Caleb snarled at Vlad and moved to bite him, fully expecting to be attacked from every direction.
To Caleb’s surprise, Grigore was suddenly at his side, as was the young female, Liszka. It was now three to three, and Vlad conceded rather than risk serious injury to himself or to his remaining pack.
Three was a small number, but another pack in the area, Pack Five, was moving to Hungary. Those who didn’t want to go divided their loyalties equally between Pack Six and Caleb’s group, the new Pack Five. As long as the new pack stayed high in the mountains and avoided the areas south of Grigore’s cottage, the Sixes left them alone.
As winter closed in on the mountains, Caleb found himself responsible for five wild, uneducated, starving young werewolves. As much as he hated humans, he knew that his pack would live better lives if they could live in peace with the villagers. He knew there had to be a way, but he had no idea of how to begin.
Lupeni, they called him, after Grigore’s hometown, because he was a city dog. The name suited him just fine, and it was better than Fido, after all. As Lupeni, he stood a chance. Caleb O’Connor, ex-MIT student, would never survive in the mountains of Transylvania.
9. Loyalty
Rumors of vampire-hunters began to circulate in the village and the surrounding farms. Winter and spring passed with a noticeable drop in attacks by the Undead. However, the reduction in vampires made little difference in the villagers’ daily lives. Though they were the scariest creatures of darkness, it was the everyday demons and spirits that demoralized the people of Stilpescu.
A mysterious man appeared now and again to drive the spiridus and balaurs from the rivers and bogs, zmeus from the rocky heights, and şobolans from the cellars. Everyone suspected he was also the vampire-hunter, but they didn’t pester him for fear he would vanish as mysteriously as he had come. It had been years since they dared to venture far from their homes; but with the start of a new summer, children again were learning to swim, young men went fishing, and shepherds let their flocks seek out lusher pastures beyond the fences. The braids of garlic tacked to every door grew dry and withered. Howls no longer rented their full-moon nights.
In this interlude of unaccustomed peace, it came as a nasty shock when a pair of werewolves attacked the Muscaturas’ boy on his way home from his best friend’s house one night.
The boy’s father and two local shepherds managed to drive the creatures into an old stable and bar the door before they could kill the child. The weather-beaten wood strained under assault from teeth and claws, but as the sun rose, the howls were replaced by human cries and the assaults on the door grew less effective.
The town gathered to discuss the best way to kill the monsters. Many thought that in human form, a werewolf could be put to death the same way as any other person. Others insisted upon a wooden stake through the heart followed by beheading. Yet others were certain that silver bullets were required, though no one in the crowd was sure where to find any, or whether silver coins melted into projectiles would do the trick.
They were scouring the town for silver and wise old grandparents when the cloaked demon-hunter appeared. Nothing showed of his face but a pair of eyes, which were weary but alert, and he held his hand at the wooden stake in his belt.
“What has happened?” he inquired of Mr. Muscatura in a hoarse voice.
“A—a child,” the distraught father replied, unwilling to admit that it was his own son. “Attacked and mauled by werewolves. We’ve trapped the monsters,” he added with some pride, “but no one remembers when we’ve last had to kill one in this village.”
The mysterious man said nothing for a long moment. “Where are they?” he asked finally.
The villagers led him to the stable, where attacks on the door had stopped. Everything was quiet.
Mr. Muscatura cursed expressively, and turned angrily to his son’s friends who were gathered at the door. “Has anyone—anything—come out of here?” he bellowed.
They shook their heads, eyes wide with curiosity.
“They’re probably asleep,” the monster-hunter said in a quiet tone. After staring at the barn door for several moments, he said, “I’ll need a length of rope.”
“Don’t you need silver, a chain or… something like that?” someone called from the crowd.
“That won’t be necessary,” replied the stranger, without taking his eyes off the door, as if he could see right through it at the beasts trapped inside. The crowd murmured. Could this mysterious monster-hunter be so powerful that he didn’t even need silver? What magic did he have at his disposal?
A boy was sent to fetch rope, while the crowd peppered the man with questions about the werewolves. He didn’t seem to hear, and he made no answer in any case, resting his head wearily against the door. He roused himself when the panting boy returned, burdened with a thick coil of rope from the blacksmith’s. Without a word, the monster-hunter took the rope and slung it over one shoulder.
He motioned for the children to step away. “Stand back,” he warned. Then, to the men in the crowd, “Open the door.”
The bitten boy’s father and the shepherds strode forward, all three removing the bar from the door in a single swift motion. They leapt aside, leaving a clear path between the unknown wizard and the inside of the stable.
The villagers got one good look at the two werewolves inside before the door closed. The barn was quiet for some minutes. Those that pressed their ears to the door heard words, too low to be intelligible, and wondered if the wizard had cast a spell on the Dark creatures inside. When the door finally opened, the stranger emerged, leading two naked and bedraggled young men, practically boys, bound together back-to-back by the very unmagical rope. He jerked the monsters into the bright sunlight, where they blinked sleepily, then his hand moved rapidly through the air, tracing a series of figures in such a way that the air seemed to tingle around him. A wind blew through the crowd suddenly, lifting up the monster-hunter and his prisoners, carrying them away so rapidly that the startled observers had little time to cry out their many questions.
The werewolves gaped in surprise as they found themselves set down in front of Grigore’s cottage. The ropes that bound them easily fell away, as they had never been applied tightly. Grins of recognition appeared on their faces as the monster-killer lowered his hood and stared at them for a long moment in silence.
“I missed you last night, Grigore,” said Caleb at last. His voice was raspy, and he couldn’t suppress a yawn. “I’ve been looking for you since morning, and it’s a miracle I got there in time.”
“I can explain, Lupeni Alpha,” the younger werewolf began, stammering.
“Please,” Caleb winced. “We’re friends, Grigore. I think we can dispense with titles.”
“Because you don’t deserve them.” Spiteful as ever despite the close call, Vlad pushed Grigore away and stepped in front of him. They were all so tired from the previous night’s full moon that none of their words or actions had the characteristics of a real fight. Their movements were slow, their voices calm, but both Alphas were furious.
Vlad stood not six inches from Caleb, his lips curled into a sneer. “If we don’t bite anyone, we disappear, I think you know that. Do you want to see our kind die out?” He didn’t utter the worst word one werewolf could use to another—”traitor”—but it was more than implicit in his every drawling remark.
“For every person we bite, villagers come into the mountains and shoot three of us. Is that what you want?”
“It hardly matters if they kill us old dogs.” Vlad was not yet twenty-one. “We need pups to keep us going.”
This seemed unusually philosophical for Vlad, but he was far from stupid. He had probably been thinking hard about this all winter long—ever since he realized that Pack Five followed the questionable ideal of not biting anyone.
“Attacking small children is a cowardly act, and hardly the way to conv
ince anyone that our kind are anything but monsters,” Caleb responded coolly. He glanced at Grigore, who was cowering to one side, letting the leaders of packs Five and Six fight it out.
Vlad threw back his shaggy head, his evil laugh piercing the quiet morning. “But that’s just the point,” he leered, jabbing a bony finger into Caleb’s chest. “We don’t have to convince anyone. Once they’re one of us, they realize we’re superior. Even you are glad you were bitten. Am I right?”
Definitely, Vlad had been thinking. It took a long time for Caleb to formulate a reply. Vlad could be smug because he knew he had the phase of the moon on his side; Caleb’s memory was full of yesterday’s animal joy, the intense sensations of sound and smell that humans could never know. He had to force himself to remember the lonely nights on the island and the agony of spending full moons in the tiny basement apartment in Cambridge.
“I am glad only when I am free,” Caleb managed at last, “and your behavior threatens all of our freedom.” Sensing that he’d gained an advantage, he moved quickly. Clever or not, Vlad was not one for subtlety. “If you show your snout in the village at the full moon again, I won’t lift a finger—or a paw—to help you. Is that clear?”
Vlad hesitated in turn. Caleb had, after all, just saved his life for the second time.
Suddenly, Grigore slapped them both on the shoulder, smiling uncertainly. “Aw, don’t fight, you dogs, OK?”
Caleb took his eyes off of Vlad’s infuriating smirk and looked at his packmate. “You’re right, little buddy,” he said at last, torn between anger at Grigore’s betrayal and concern for his well-being.
He realized as an afterthought that he had used the exact words he’d said to René Cousineau when René was forced to play peacemaker between Caleb and Toby on those occasions when tempers—most often Toby’s—frayed. Caleb’s obstinacy when he was sure he was right coupled with his refusal to lose his cool could drive even best friends into a frenzy.
Vlad shot them both a nasty look and went to get clothes from Grigore’s meager collection in the corner of the cottage. He was by tradition unwelcome in Pack Five’s territory, but he didn’t hesitate to take a bag of food, too. As he departed he snarled at Caleb. “You won’t last long,” he growled. “Your pack won’t survive without biting people.”
Caleb watched him go, then looked again at his friend. Grigore should have been with the rest of Pack Five last night, but instead had sneaked into Stilpescu with his old leader. Since their first meeting, Caleb was protective of Grigore, but he knew he could lose control of his pack if he stood silent.
“We made a commitment to each other, Grigore. You’ve broken that trust. Pack Five agreed we would all fare better if we did not bite people in the village, and now one of my own has violated that pact.” Grigore whimpered softly in the corner, too humiliated and frightened to look at Caleb.
Grigore was a lot like René, and Caleb had hope for him. “You don’t have to be afraid of Vlad,” he told his friend firmly. “He isn’t your master. You’re a human being, and you can learn to stick up for yourself.”
Perhaps Vlad was right, Caleb thought to himself. The Fives were no longer starving. They were robust and healthy and didn’t spend their human days stealing the way they used to. Caleb had considered this his greatest accomplishment so far in Transylvania; but was it all for nothing? Did he really want his kind to die out? His spirit was torn with the conflict between gratitude for the comfortable life he had as a human and the hatred for humans that had filled his heart at Toby’s trial.
“Get some rest, Grigore,” he said wearily. “We’re meeting Liszka tomorrow to see about the swamp goblins, right? I’m going back to the castle to rest, too.”
The boy nodded, surprised that his Alpha wasn’t doing more to punish him for his actions.
Caleb sighed. In many ways, he could rely on Liszka more than on any of the boys. Female werewolves were rare. He didn’t know why; maybe it was because little girls were less likely to be running around alone at night, where they could get bitten. Werewolf society didn’t have the male and female hierarchies that real wolves did, and the few females had to compete for their place in the male ranks. In some ways this was unfortunate, because Vlad had bullied Liszka horribly. In other ways, though, this unnatural arrangement freed her. She had less instinct to obey the Alpha than the Beta males did, and could readily tell Caleb when he was being stupid. Sometimes he needed that.
She was the most fearful when Caleb tried get the Fives to interact with the villagers, refusing to believe they wouldn’t be recognized for what they were and driven out of town, even killed. She would probably never much care for people, but she was the best hunter of minor monsters Caleb had ever seen, and was invaluable in the dirty work of trampling through bogs and creeks to flush out demons. Grigore wasn’t bad at that, either, and between them they had managed to earn enough money to feed and clothe themselves through the long winter. Caleb hoped they could get their garden and sheepfold going, too, although the pair of spring lambs he’d gotten from Alexandru had been messily and prematurely devoured at the full moon.
They just needed to learn to use their minds as much as their instincts. Caleb had met people who liked to be bullied before. Some of the inmates at Fintonclyde’s “boot camp” had actually been sent there by their parents to toughen them up after one too many beatings in the schoolyard.
Calling on his last reserves, Caleb wearily summoned Wind; but he was not so tired that he missed Grigore’s staring at him in disbelief. It was just like Grigore’s demeanor when they first met. It did not reassure the troubled pack leader.
10. Man or Beast?
Caleb rested briefly outside the small stable gate to Castle Arghezi. So much summoning on the day after a full moon had exhausted him. He ached, his body crying out for sleep. The luxury of napping in the warmth of the greenhouse or curled up next to the fireplace in his room seemed to be getting rarer as the pack took up more and more of his time.
Life had improved so markedly for all the members of Pack Five in the last nine months. Caleb tried to focus on this as he numbly undid the enchantment on the gate. He made it through at last, resetting the magical ward behind him and dragging himself into the castle through the kitchen doors. Each movement he made, however small, required reserves of energy that he didn’t have.
The old kitchens were no longer used, and dust lay thick everywhere on the shelves and tables. A great variety of black pots hung suspended from the ceiling, looking like misshapen beasts imprisoned in some floating dungeon, silently pleading to be released. Paying scant attention, Caleb followed the well worn trail that led out of the kitchen and into the old servants’ quarters. This was practically the only living space left in the castle. The upper floor, which had been the family bedrooms when Alexandru was a boy, was uninhabitable. During much of his fifty years’ absence, the vampires who had made the castle their own had occupied those rooms. In spite of numerous cleanings, magical and ordinary, they reeked of the Undead. No one ventured up the stairs.
Caleb dragged himself finally into the room where he slept, an unused drawing room off the portrait gallery. Alexandru and Mihail had rooms in the servants’ quarters, but Mihail would not tolerate a werewolf sleeping so close. Thus, Caleb had chosen the distant, cavernous drawing room as his lair. At least it had a large fireplace at one end, which provided much-needed warmth, especially on days like this one.
After getting a fire going, Caleb sat on a sofa next to the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket with his legs stretched out before him. He stared into the pulsating flames, his mind too full of the day’s events to sleep, even as his body drifted away into some semblance of rest.
Vlad was right: He was a traitor if he didn’t want there to be any new werewolves. There was no getting around that. And making new ones meant biting people, biting children. Adults didn’t usually survive the bite—they died or went mad, unable to incorporate the beast into their already-formed personalities. It w
as a painful event, one that caused grief to everyone involved…but wasn’t every birth process painful?
Not that he knew too much about that. Liszka was the first and only female of his kind he’d ever met, and it was she who told him that they couldn’t reproduce in the normal way. The offspring would be born dead, or not at all. It sounded as though she’d had personal experience in the matter, though she provided no details.
Liszka had taught him other, more visceral, lessons. When the moon was full, Liszka and the leader of the Fives coupled joyously as wolves. He knew it, without needing or wanting any explicit memory. She was a gorgeous animal, pure white like a Samoyed. She was a beautiful young woman, too, now that she was well fed: graceful and strong, with glossy hair and shining eyes.
He shut his eyes, forgetting his guilt for a moment in memories of how pleasant it was to be touched, to feel another’s warmth, enjoy the smell of her hair, the softness of her face. Before he met Liszka he’d never even kissed a girl, afraid she’d find out his secret and feel as if she’d been tricked into smooching her dog—or even worse, that she’d fear he was contagious. Liszka, too, had been starved for affection, thrown out of her parents’ house when she was ten, and they clung to each other in a relationship that was purely physical. It always lost its magic as the moon waned.
She was beautiful and feral and warm, but as a person she was rather dull. She didn’t even like to read.
A series of reflections on whether it was possible to teach werewolf gangs to appreciate literature was interrupted by a brief knock and the sound of the wooden door scraping across the stone floor. Caleb didn’t turn his head to see who his guest might be, but waited for the visitor to speak. After a minute or two of silence, he sat up wearily, starting slightly as he saw Mihail. The servant ordinarily never spoke to him, and there was a gleam in his eye right now that bothered Caleb.
“Master Arghezi wishes to speak to you,” Mihail said coldly, his lips pursed. “He is in his library.”
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