by K. T. Tomb
This is no mortal.
With the thought barely registering, two others leapt at him from behind. Between the three of them, Andrik stood little chance, and, before he knew it, he was bound and being led to one of the side passageways off the main corridor of the cavern.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The coded message she’d received from London was, more or less, exactly what she had been expecting.
It was short and to the point: Confirm location—(stop)—Reply with result—(stop)—Be careful—(stop)—Alfred.
Nora, of course, had every intention of following orders, especially now as she left Bucharest during the daylight hours. She couldn’t travel to Fetesti in daylight as a bat or an owl, the only two transformations she had mastered, but she couldn’t bear waiting until dark before seeing Andrik and discussing the secret cache. She recalled that a railroad track passed over the bridge from Fetesti onto the island and continued across it to the river on the other side. She and Andrik had speculated that railroad linked Bucharest to Constanta on the Black Sea coast.
So, I’ll just take the train!
She had to be careful with being in the sunlight. Staying in the shade helped a great deal, and there was always the cream. Applied before going into the sunlight, it served to protect her skin, but it would only last for short periods of time. She was taking something of a risk if she was in sunlight for too long of a period, but it was a risk she had to take. She needed to reach Andrik before he left at dusk; if she failed to get there in time, then surely, he’d waste another night searching for something he couldn’t possibly find. Or could he?
She shook her head. No. The route was cleverly concealed. Andrik was clever himself, but no one could find that supply route.
Nora applied the cream to her exposed skin and purchased a parasol as she exited the hotel. With the parasol to block the most powerful of the sun’s rays, she made it to the train station without burning herself. She purchased a ticket and sat in one of the darker corners of the station to await the train. Her wait was only a few minutes. She boarded the train, took a seat at the very back of the car where there would only be the light of the window beside her, and pulled down the window shade. She settled in for the three-hour ride to Fetesti.
“Miss,” the conductor said, as he came through the cabin and noticed that her window shade was pulled down. “I can put that up for you so you don’t miss the countryside passing by.”
“Please don’t. I have a horrible headache and the sun is just... too much.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” he responded. “Can I bring you something for the pain?”
“Thank you, but no,” she smiled.
A passenger boarded at one of the villages along the route and chose to sit beside her.
“Do you mind if I put up the shade?” he asked.
“I’d rather you didn’t.” She explained once again about her headache and sun.
“In that case, we’ll leave it as it is,” the gentleman replied.
Though she was exhausted, she didn’t dare risk falling asleep and having someone raise the shade. In that state of mind, she made it to Fetesti and noted that it was close to noon. The sun would be at its most intense and she would have to be out in it. Fortunately, the distance from the train station to the hotel wasn’t far. Armed with her parasol, she covered the distance in a hurry and was soon inside the hotel, having mostly escaped damage to her skin. Her elbow was burned, as was the back of her arm. She knew, with time, it would heal again.
At the front desk, she was recognized immediately and given the key to her room; instead of going to her own room, she went directly to Andrik’s. He would be asleep, of course, but she would slip in, check up on him, deliver her report, and see if she couldn’t catch a few hours of sleep herself before dark.
She tapped softly at the door to his room, waited, then tapped a bit harder. Still no answer. She tried the knob. It turned and she pushed the door open. Andrik was not there and his bed was neatly arranged.
Nora, not prone to flights of fancy, had a bad feeling about this.
***
Waiting until dark fell was a trial of enormous weight.
Nora spent the time trying to guess where Andrik might have gone. While she waited, she hoped like crazy he would return, but, alas, there was no word from him. The trouble was, she had no way of knowing where to look. Truthfully, he could have been anywhere—perhaps even on the island, but it was still a very large area to try to cover by herself. When the sun finally did set, she took flight from her balcony’s ledge and headed for the Danube. She had a very, very bad feeling. Andrik would have reported back.
Unless something had happened to him.
She decided to fly south, hoping that she might spot him or come up with some clue that would lead her to him. It was an effort in futility. Not only was there no way of knowing where he was, but if he was in the form of one of the animals he’d transformed into, then she wouldn’t recognize him anyway. As she neared the southern point of Balta Ialomitei, she caught sight of the lake.
I’m here; I might as well take a look.
Now that she knew where to look—and what to look for—she soon found the hidden dock. The Russian colonel had told the truth. Of course, he had died anyway. Nora shuddered at the pleased expression on Miko’s face as he regaled her with his tale. Next, she flew into the thick wood, following a narrow channel and came to a dock at the far end of it. The Russian had told the truth, until the very end.
All was quiet around the dock. A handful of boats only. No sign of movement, either. Was this the right place? It was certainly well hidden.
She transformed into her MI form and followed the shadow of a path, itself furrowed with deep tracks. Fresh tracks too. Something big—many somethings, in fact—had used this road. In no time at all, pushing aside low-hanging branches and ferns, the path opened up before her... and she saw it clearly now: a dark opening in what appeared to be a naturally concealed rock wall.
Voices echoed out toward her from the cave opening.
Nora withdrew into the dense trees and underbrush, hoping that she hadn’t been seen. She waited a beat or two, then transformed into a bat. She slashed through the trees, an expert flier already, and flew well above the heads of the guards themselves as she entered the cavern. It was dark, but luckily Nora could utilize the bat’s echolocation, which she had long since mastered. After all, it was the reason she flew so swiftly through the tangle of branches. Now, she avoided stalagmites and stalactites, both rising from the floor and plunging down through the ceiling. Ahead, she spotted a glow, and she zeroed in on that, picking up speed. The excitement within her grew, vying for the worry she felt for Andrik.
What had happened to him?
The voices grew louder and now she saw men carrying lanterns. One of them, yes, one of them was even carrying a butterfly net... and scanning the airspace above him. What use was a butterfly net inside of a cave? Could it be possible? Had he caught Andrik using the net and was even now looking for her? But how could such a man know where to look?
Unless, she thought, he wasn’t a man.
The instant her echolocation detected a side tunnel, she took it, banking hard to the right and plunging into an even darker, danker passageway. The voices receded behind her as she continued along the byway. A light ahead intrigued her, and so she continued on, picking up speed, plunging this way and that, avoiding the rocky protrusions that seemed to appear as if out of thin air. Luckily, she possessed the skills and instincts to fly safely through. She did just that, at one point grazing another bat, which she had not seen coming. Thank God the other bat had seen her.
As the light drew closer, she slowed. She considered her options and decided to go for it. She was, after all, a woman of action. Steeling herself for the unexpected, she swooped just under what appeared to be a hand-carved entryway, and circled a high, shadowy ceiling. What she saw below her was almost too amazing to comprehend.
&n
bsp; There was Andrik, tied with heavy ropes to a chair bolted to the rock floor.
Andrik?
Here?
She made two more circular passes, staying in the shadows, but Andrik was clearly alone, although, she was certain, she heard the same voices coming down this secondary corridor. The very group she had hoped to bypass had, in turn, followed her into the same tunnel.
She dropped down, and as she began to swoop up again, she transformed into her MI form. A neat skill she had only recently mastered.
“Nora?” he said, blinking. Indeed, he had been in a half daze. She immediately saw why. His face was bloodied. He’d taken a beating, although his vampiric disposition had caused the wounds to already begin healing. “How on earth did you find me?”
“Do you really think I have time to explain?” she said, examining his wounds. Superficial only, although he might have been missing a tooth or two.
“I guess not. Untie me and let’s get out of here.”
Nora tried the knots on his wrists. “Like steel cables. I can’t break them. I need a saw.” She scanned the room for anything that could help her through the ropes.
“You’ll have to chew through the ropes then,” he suggested.
“You mean as the fox or the wolf? I have only mastered the fox.”
“You’re going to have to transform into a rat.”
“No!” she snapped. There had to be another way.
“Nora, you have no choice. We have no choice.”
“I’m not going to transform into a rat.”
“Nora, please. You’re wasting time arguing. I can hear them coming.”
So could she. “Fine. But you’re going to owe me big.”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “Maybe let’s discuss that after you free me?”
With a disgusted expression on her face, Nora summoned the image of the rat—the easiest of the mammals to transmorph into; indeed, she had no trouble at all, and soon found her face just inches from the dirt-covered stone floor.
Immediately, she went to work on the thick ropes, but just as she had started, someone rushed into the room, snatched her up by the tail, and held her inches before his face.
“And what do we have here?” he asked, grinning broadly.
Chapter Thirty
After Nora left, Miko lay back down on the hotel room bed where he’d enjoyed so many hours of pure bliss with the most beautiful woman he’d ever lain with. The thought of it, combined with his state of pure ease, put him instantly back to sleep. The remainder of the night passed and most of the following day before he sat up on the bed, stretched and checked the parlor clock on the wall. Dusk was a couple more hours away.
Miko went to the desk by the window, took out pen and paper, and drew out a map of what he had discovered along the supply end of the chain. There was an accumulation of arms and troops, slowly trickling into the towns along the Prout. The movements had been slow, and it was likely that no one would have noticed them.
He wondered if those small groups would actually begin to trickle up the river as well. Maybe a massive, sudden movement of troops rushing across the Dobrudzha wasn’t how the Russians were going to move on Silistra. With small, nearly undetectable movements, they could import arms and munitions within 10 miles of the strong point and then spring their surprise. In order to do that, the cavern the colonel had told him about would have to be large enough to house a decent-sized army.
“I need to go to Lake Bugeac and see for myself,” he muttered.
At dusk, Miko started up the river heading south along the border of Wallachia in the form of an owl. As he flew, he worked on the puzzle, which was finally beginning to take shape. Being able to capture and question the Russian colonel had been an enormous boost. However, there was a part of the colonel’s story that still bothered him. How were the Russians able to work within Ottoman borders? The colonel had said that there was a powerful man at the cache and he was the one who protected it from being discovered by the Ottomans. Who could breach the iron-clad security of the Ottomans and maintain protection against being discovered for an extended period of time? It had to be someone who wouldn’t be suspected; someone who could blend in.
As he flew, his mind drew a blank. He passed through clouds and a light rain. He caught a jet stream and sailed through the heavens like a dark angel. When the answer finally struck him, Miko nearly fell out of the sky. He balanced himself and dipped lower. After all, he was nearing his destination.
He considered the implications. With the two parts drawn together, the complete picture was laid out before him. Unfortunately, it also exposed Olena’s betrayal as well. She had been involved and she had used him. By protecting her, he only made it easier for the ruse to be complete. As a rule, old world MIs and new order MIs didn’t associate together. But Olena, an old world vampire, had drawn him in and kept him blind. She’d often talked about how things were in the past and spoke of how she wished to go back there. At times, her stories had even drawn him into a sleepy Utopian dream of those days of greater glory.
He cursed himself for not having seen it before. The political crisis in the Balkans was not over who would protect Christians in the Holy Land, nor about trade routes and warm water ports; those tactical goals were just the pawns in a much larger game. The real struggle was the old world MIs rising up to restore themselves to their former glory. Moldavia, Wallachia, Transylvania, Dobrudzha and Bulgaria together would form the Bulgarian Empire, which had been taken away from them by the Ottomans.
Five hundred years ago.
Though following the river put him in a direct line to Lake Bugeac, Miko detoured to Bucharest. If he was right, they were walking right into a trap; indeed, Nora and Andrik probably already had, and they were going to need some help to escape it.
Unless Miko missed his guess, Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula, was back.
***
“I’m sorry,” Nora said, distraught. “If I hadn’t been so silly and argued about turning into a rat, I might have set you free in time and we could have flown out of here.”
“I don’t think that would have made any difference,” Andrik responded. “We’re dealing with something bigger than the two of us can handle. I think they’re everywhere.”
“Who is everywhere?”
“The vampires.”
Andrik had remained tied to the bolted chair, as her nibbling had done little to disturb his bonds. Nora, back in her human form, now lay on her side, hog-tied, her hands bound to her ankles in a most uncomfortable position. She did her best not to show her discomfort. Talking helped her forget the pain in her joints. Worse, the rope was threaded with silver, which removed any chance of turning into a fox or owl... or even a rat.
“You mean, there are more?” she asked. She knew the creature who had snatched her up by her rat tail had been an MI. It was only later, after she had transmorphed and been bound, that Andrik had explained the vampire had been old world.
“There were three of them who took me down,” Andrik responded.
“Are you saying there are more than three, then?”
“I think the bats that we saw coming and going are more than mere bats,” he replied. “I flew in with some of them. They must have recognized me as an outsider and alerted the vampire in charge, who eventually captured me.”
“Why do you suspect they’re old world MIs?”
“I felt his... power. It’s difficult to describe. It sort of emanated from him. Unlike anything I’d felt before. The other two were not quite as powerful, but I felt it from them too. That sort of power only comes from centuries of experience. Nora, if I’m not mistaken, we’re in a lair of many hundreds of them.”
And here she had only a month of experience, and Andrik barely a year. Hundreds of old world vampires? Surely, she and Andrik were doomed. “What do we do?”
“When you were working in Limehouse, you were fairly successful, no?” Andrik asked.
The question had taken her by surpri
se. She blinked. “No more than others. Where are you going with this, Andrik?”
“One of us needs to escape and go to the nearest telegraph machine to reach out for some help,” he said. “Maybe one of us who is trained in the art of seduction.”
“I wasn’t trained, Andrik. I was paid.”
“Then it is true.”
“What is true?” she asked, growing increasingly annoyed.
“You have no idea just how beautiful and extraordinary you are.”
“Oh, please.”
“Why do you think men have thrown themselves at you? Why do you think men are willing to kill for you?”
“Because they’re desperate horny dogs.”
Andrik chuckled lightly. “True enough. But there is another reason, and that reason is you, Nora.”
***
It had taken some convincing by Andrik to help her to understand that she was something of an exotic beauty. Although she still wasn’t buying what he was selling. Yes, she had heard all her life that she was beautiful... and since when did she ever believe anything that came from the mouths of men... or jealous women, for that matter?
She did not have regular access to mirrors, and she rarely looked at herself. Truth was, she cared little for how she looked. Yes, it had been her experience that men tended to act like idiots in her presence, and many more had become controlling and threatening... but wasn’t that the way of all men with all women?
“No,” Andrik had said. “Not by a long shot. You are not like other women.”
Here she had rolled her eyes, and he had pointed to the example of Edwin Burberry and speculated that her murderous ex-client hadn’t been the only one who had been obsessed with her, suggesting that her appeal had even penetrated through the ice-cold exterior of Alfred Covington.
“Let me remind you, there are no vampire captors presently hanging around our cell. My charms are being wasted on you.”