“I am,” Caleb could barely speak through his yawn, “very tired, do you suppose it could wait?” He stopped when he saw that this question heightened the servant’s smug look. It was obvious that Mihail knew about the events of the previous night. Caleb got slowly to his feet, wondering if Mihail had seen him rescue Vlad and Grigore or if he had just heard the story. Certainly he wouldn’t do something so low as to follow him?
Alexandru was sitting comfortably in a chair with a book propped in front of him on the heavy oak library table, reading glasses perched on his nose. “Ah, yes,” he murmured as Mihail and Caleb entered, then glanced back to his book. “Mihail, you may go.”
The servant did so, with one more malevolent glare at Caleb.
The old wizard did not ask Caleb to sit, leaving him standing near the door, flanked by the enormous dark bookcases that dominated the room. He removed his glasses and tapped them on his book, regarding his guest with curiosity. “I understand that the villagers trapped two of your, er, fellows,” he said finally. “And that you took it upon yourself to—”
“To rescue them,” Caleb admitted bluntly. Ordinarily, it would have been a tough call as to which of them could cause the other to explode first, but it had just been a full moon. Caleb’s emotions were still skewed in the direction of anger and loyalty, and too much complexity was beyond him. Besides, he had spent all morning arguing—and while Vlad the monster got on his nerves, these humans and their smug conviction that it was their prerogative to kill drove him into a blind rage.
“So,” Alexandru peered into his book in a pretense of thought, “I can assume that you didn’t do with them as the villagers intended?”
“I didn’t slay them like vermin, if that’s what you mean,” Caleb retorted.
“They bit a small boy, nearly killed him.” Alexandru was calm as ever, almost dreamy as he looked up and met Caleb’s hostile gaze. “They were acting like wild animals, and I have yet to meet a wild animal that can be cured by a strict talking-to.”
Caleb was growing angrier and angrier. “Talking is not all I do,” he hissed, pacing the space between the bookcases like a caged beast. “Ever since I came to this country I have been trying to help people—yes, people!—who were abandoned by their families and friends to starve. Anyone will act like an animal when he’s hungry, and despite the way they are treated, my—my pack are for the most part kind and loyal, much more than I can say for most humans.”
Alexandru put down his glasses and raised an eyebrow. “Your pack,” he said thoughtfully, as if that explained something. “Pretty ambitious for a city dog like you, isn’t it?”
That bit of werewolf slang perturbed Caleb. Alexandru knew more than he cared to tell. “This was the first bite in more than a year,” he said coldly, leaning heavily on the massive table that separated the two men, gripping the edge tightly out of both fury and exhaustion.
“Well, then,” the anger began to show in Alexandru’s voice, “see to it that it is the last.”
Caleb bristled, thinking of the hunters who had come pouring into the forest the first time he had run with Pack Six. Had they been trained by Alexandru, supplied by him, even encouraged by him? Why, for instance, had they used silver bullets then, whereas today the villagers seemed unable to come up with any?
Yes, Pack Six had killed a person. But humans wouldn’t play the hunting “sport” unless it was skewed one hundred percent in their favor. He sneered at Alexandru the way his wolf-form sneered at Vlad, a gesture common to both dogs and primates. “The last, or what? You’ll kill us, is that it?” he snarled. In a flash, he remembered their very first conversation about the New England werewolf whom Alexandru had killed. “Murderer,” he said, in a low, venomous tone.
“I have a duty to humans, as do you,” Alexandru replied, his voice turning cold. “I warned Fintonclyde that you might run wild one day, and now I see that I was right.”
Unable to contain the rage and frustration, which had been seething inside since he first began hunting for Grigore only a few short hours earlier, Caleb blew up. “I want to protect humans! Haven’t I tried to keep the pack away from the village?” He pounded on the table with his fists and slammed his forearms onto the unyielding wood so hard that the pain made him dizzy. “I’ve done all that I can to protect both humans and wolves. What more do you want? If you were so sure I’d run wild, why did you have Professor Hermann bring me to this godforsaken place?”
Alexandru regarded him with an expression of forced calm, a blankness that Caleb found unreadable and unsettling. He tried to move away from the table, but tired as he was from the day’s exertions, he found that his knees would no longer support him. He looked down at his shaking hands and said hoarsely, “Turn me out, then, if that’s how you feel. I’ll take my chances with my pack.”
Caleb felt himself slipping away, his mind and body having gone beyond their limits of endurance. Alexandru must have sensed this, too.
“Go to your room,” he said crisply. “I can see that you are in no condition to continue this discussion. We will speak of this matter another time.”
Caleb stumbled out of the library and into the Great Hall, conscious of Mihail’s eyes on him as the old servant prepared dinner at the hearth. The smells of food cooking attacked him like a horde of rabid dogs, making him realize that it had been a full twenty-four hours since he’d eaten anything. But he needed sleep, needed to be alone.
He dragged himself slowly out into the corridor and down the portrait gallery. He had no memory of how he came finally to his room or to his pile of blankets in front of the fire, but slept a tormented, nightmare-filled sleep for the next twelve hours.
“Where is he? Where is Toby?”
The figure turned around slowly as the stiff wind off the Atlantic lifted his ragged cloak and made it dance. Instead of the familiar face of Clovis Fintonclyde, Caleb was confronted with burning eyes, scabby burned skin, and patchy singed hair framing the face of René Cousineau.
“You’re late, Caleb,” cackled the specter of his boyhood friend.
“You died,” said the dream-Caleb matter-of-factly. “I want to know where Toby is.”
René cocked his head over his shoulder at the gray granite building that loomed behind them. “Trial’s in there, but it’s almost over except for the pyre. It’s going to be a nice one.” René smacked his cracked and blistered lips, and a rivulet of drool ran down his chin.
Caleb pushed past the laughing René. He began to run along the gravel path, pushing his way into the courtroom. He found himself in front of a wall, transparent in some enchanted way, that let him see into the room where the trial was being held. People thronged him from all sides, making it hard to breathe.
“He’s a vampire, my Gran says,” said a young woman in a leather miniskirt and electric blue leggings, directly into Caleb’s ear. “That’s why they’re going to execute him.”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong,” said a boy next to her. “There haven’t been any vampires for fifty years. It was that pyro, Cousineau, that started things, and this guy finished him off.”
Scenes from inside the courtroom began to materialize on the enchanted wall. The images were life-size, so it was easy to believe that the participants in the trial could see and hear the crowd of rude observers. Fintonclyde entered and was ushered to his place near the front of the spectators’ seats, next to Sophia Daigle.
He almost howled like the beast he was when he saw his friend led into the courtroom.
“Toby, it’s me!” Caleb yelled at the image of his brave, heroic Toby, legs shaking and eyes rolling in his head from fear. “I’m here!”
The crowd in the observation gallery fell silent. Toby turned and stared, then slowly pointed his shaking arm in Caleb’s direction, his mouth open in a silent scream.
Caleb awoke in a cold sweat, to see Mihail standing in his doorway. The servant was draped head to toe in purple flowers.
“The Master requests your presence at l
uncheon,” he informed Caleb, then backed away and tore off down the hall.
11. Between Two Worlds
Between squabbling with Alexandru, recovering from the transformation, and chores with his pack, it was three days before Caleb managed to get into Stilpescu to check on the boy who had been bitten. All his practice at hunting Dark creatures made it easy to identify the house. He knocked, heard some whispers but no response, and knocked again.
Mr. Muscatura flung the door open, blocking the way. Behind him, his wife put one hand to her chest and the other to her mouth. It was clear that they misunderstood the reason for the monster-hunter’s visit.
“Please,” Caleb exclaimed, pulling aside his hood. Alexandru insisted upon anonymity, but he doubted that this family would reveal anything. “Don’t be frightened. I came to see whether your son has had a healing potion.” He didn’t even know what the appropriate concoction would be called.
“A cure?” the mother gasped, still with her hand near her heart.
“No, it’s not a cure, I’m afraid—but the bite is very painful, and can be dangerous, if it’s not treated.”
“Why bother?” the father wondered in a low voice, stepping from the doorway and allowing Caleb to enter. “What kind of a life will he have?”
“With some precautions, he will be able to lead a nearly normal life,” Caleb lied, the words somehow sounding familiar. “You might not, er, want to tell people, but—”
“We’re already planning to leave the village,” said Mr. Muscatura. “Too many people know. The brats he played with can’t keep a secret.”
“Well, if you need me,” said Caleb earnestly, “please don’t hesitate. There are magical wards one can set up to keep him inside at the full moon, and no one will hear the noise.”
Both parents regarded him strangely. After all, he was supposed to be hunting monsters, not giving them advice on escaping detection.
“It might be some time before his bite is dangerous,” Caleb added hastily, as if that explained it. “How old is he now?”
“Eight.”
“Yes…I can talk to him, tell him what he needs to know to stay safe. It’ll be fine.” The magnitude of that last lie astounded him. “I’ll be back with the potion in a few hours. Don’t abandon your son. He needs you now more than ever.” Feeling light-headed with the burden of lies and responsibility, he went out the door and ran for the mountains. Without a local expert in dryomancy, these poor people would be entrusting their son’s life to someone whose erratic education in America included nothing of the traditional magical remedies practiced in these mountains…and someone whose own parents had given up on him not long after his seventh birthday.
He didn’t wish to face Alexandru right now, but fortunately the library was empty. They’d been chilly toward one another since the argument, and it was not the time for squabbles. It was the first time Caleb had taken a close look at the towering book collection, and he wished now he had time to browse. Every book, ancient and modern, on every topic related to Dark Magic seemed to be there, piled two and three deep, floor to ceiling. He was already familiar with the books on vampires and werewolves; none of these featured potions, though. Thinking back to his science labs, he sought out the most battered-looking tomes, the ones with pages out and drips and splotches of questionable substances down their spines.
Healing Herbs was the most stained, but didn’t have anything he could use. 101 Common Potions contained mostly love potions and poisons. Finally, almost by accident, he flipped to a worn and bloodstained page in Magical Mandrake. It was a Fang Formula, a treatment for all magical bites, but a note in the margin told him this was the best recipe for the bites of roofdraks, werewolves, and cerberi. Who on Earth had been bitten by a cerberus, he wondered.
Well, now he had the recipe, but wasn’t much closer to having the potion. Finding mandrake root would be difficult, unless Mihail had some already dried. He couldn’t imagine being able to locate a plant around here, never mind pull it up correctly and dry it—no, he was going to have to ask. Quickly, he scanned the rest of the ingredients: garlic, which they had in abundance; ginger, ginseng, spider silk, nightshade (no wolfsbane, at least)…and a drop of blood from the creature responsible.
The very same creature? Caleb wondered, with a small smile as he imagined going after Vlad with a needle. Reading further, he discovered that any of the same species would do. That made it easy, of course, but he was slightly disappointed at not having an excuse to bleed Vlad. He marked the place in the book with a strip of paper, stepped out of the library, and took a deep breath as he steeled himself for a confrontation with Mihail.
The servant was at the hearth in the Great Hall, standing at a large pot stirred by a three-foot long magical wooden spoon. It smelled of garlic and chicken, and would probably be delicious. Caleb was too nervous to think about food, though. He’d never tried to address Mihail, having previously learned that it was impossible to change those who couldn’t forgive him for what he was.
“Er, excuse me,” he stammered with his best possible manners.
Mihail looked up and his face froze. They watched each other icily for several seconds.
“I have a potion to brew,” Caleb began finally, managing to keep any emotion from his voice, “and there are some ingredients that you might have.” He held up the book and opened it to the marked page.
Mihail’s face twitched slightly. “Garlic, ginger, ginseng, spider silk, nightshade, mandragora,” he recited without emotion.
“Oh, you know it? Good!” Caleb was greatly relieved. “It’s not even clear from this recipe whether you drink it or rub it on the… the wound.”
“You do not drink nightshade,” Mihail informed him in the same flat voice. “It would kill you. You apply the solution to the bite, making sure it penetrates all the way into the flesh. This is for the bite of what sort of creature?”
Caleb hesitated. “It’s for the little boy in the village—from three days ago.”
“Ah, yes.” A malicious smirk appeared for a second on Mihail’s lips, then vanished. “One of yours. I’m sure that pleases you.”
“It doesn’t,” said Caleb flatly.
Mihail did not reply, but went out and returned shortly with an armful of vials, bags, and a special coffin-like box from which the dried face of the mandrake peered in an expression of angered surprise. The piece the servant cut from the mandrake root came hurtling at Caleb, who almost didn’t catch it in time. Mihail combined the other powders all together into a marble mortar, measuring with an expert eye.
“There are some,” he said, turning to face Caleb as he ground the ingredients with a stone pestle, “who may argue that he is better off untreated.”
“You mean left to die,” Caleb translated. He hated euphemisms.
“His parents will turn him out.” He handed the pestle to Caleb, who consulted the book again. The trouble with potions was that you always had to be two or three steps ahead of yourself. “If not now, then when he is large enough to frighten them. That is the silk,” he added, “the ginger, and the ginseng. The mandrake root must be boiled for an hour. I trust you can do this.”
“Yes,” Caleb agreed thoughtfully. “Is it OK if I do it in here? So near the food? I mean, with the nightshade and everything…” The whole business reminded him of organic chemistry, which had earned him the only C of his one year at MIT. He foolishly imagined some kind of magical fume hood designed to trap the noxious fumes.
But Mihail only responded, “Be my guest,” and Caleb went to the stone hearth and set a kettle over the fire to start it boiling.
Caleb was surprised and grateful for Mihail’s cooperation. Although he kept a wary eye on Caleb, Mihail returned to his cooking. His potion thickened nicely, and the mandrake let out the proper squeals. He needed to concentrate, but he was emboldened by Mihail’s kindness. Caleb decided to and try out the lies on Mihail that he had on the boy’s parents: that the child could lead a normal life, go to sc
hool, be a regular child twenty-eight days out of twenty-nine.
Caleb knew they were falsehoods, and yet he persisted in believing them. Before Toby arrived on the island, had never had a friend, becoming increasingly bitter as he learned how his kind were hated within the Community. As he grew older, he also became increasingly unpredictable and frightening as the monster fought the human for control. Here he was eighteen years old, and he still didn’t know who or what he was. How could he pretend that things would be any different for this boy? Perhaps the kindest thing would be to take him from his parents and give him to Liszka to raise.
And yet he believed that things could be different, that this child could learn to master his dark urges before he was old enough to be a real danger. He was confident, yet an involuntary shiver ran through his core; was he simply becoming the next Fintonclyde?
“My mother didn’t wish to be treated,” Mihail confessed suddenly, as Caleb removed the pot from the flame and waved his wand over it to cool it. “She preferred to die quickly, so that she didn’t burden her family.”
“I’m sorry,” said Caleb sincerely, their eyes fully meeting for the first time since Caleb’s arrival at the castle. The servant watched in horror as Caleb pricked his finger with a sharp knife and added a single drop of his own blood to the rapidly congealing formula.
It was almost nightfall before he returned to the village. The castle wards extended nearly all the way down the mountain, which meant he couldn’t travel by any means other than walking. He’d covered fifteen miles that day, five of them carrying a large glass vial. Caleb moved deliberately, taking extreme care not to shatter his precious package against the rocks.
He found the mother at home. She ushered him into a room at the back of the cottage where there was a bed of stuffed straw and a reeking oil lamp. Caleb had to get very close to be able to see in the dim light.
Despite his philosophical words, Vlad had not been trying to convert the boy—he had been trying to kill him. An unmistakable mark of his jagged fang ran all the way across his throat, and the wound was red and swollen. The child moaned and burned with fever.
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