by Alana Melos
The docks were large for a port town this size. Thomas had mentioned offhand this was where they did most of the trading between the two countries, so I imagine over time it had grown. Containers filled spaces between warehouses, and pallets were everywhere, stacked haphazardly along the sides of buildings. We picked our way through the maze of useful debris and confusing buildings away from the water. Having no idea which way was their parking lot, it was luck when we happened upon a fleet of semis.
“Too big, too conspicuous,” I muttered, but the find encouraged me. We clung to the shadows as we went further inland, searching. It would have been easier from the air, but I didn’t want to take any chances and alert the Russian authorities to our presence. Who knew what they had in their ranks?
The further away from the water, the colder it was. I shivered. My hands felt like ice in the gloves I’d borrowed. My legs started to freeze, clad only in heavy jeans. Just when I’d started thinking about busting into a building to warm up, Adira caught my attention with a gesture, then pointed. A parking lot lay on the other side of a chain link fence with a variety of cars to choose from. Most of them looked old and beaten up, quite unlike the vehicles in both the Empire and the Reich. They had, on mutual agreement, pretty much gone green and had only electric vehicles. It appeared Russia was behind on the times, but that was good for me.
We flew over the fence at an unlit spot and snuck over to the edge of the lot. I chose a truck furthest away from the lights. Huddled by the door, I took out my flashlight and glanced inside. The lock was one of those really old jobs, just a knob by the window which you pushed down to lock the door. I popped it with my teke, then busted the dome light to remain in darkness. My breath frosted the air as I brought out my tools, and set about to hotwiring the truck.
“How do you know how to do that?” Adira whispered. She kept an eye out for guards, but kept glancing back to watch me work.
“My dad taught me,” I said. “It’s not really that hard.”
“Interesting skill for him to teach,” she observed.
“His whole life was crime,” I said as I found the wires I needed. “His way of passing on his skills, I guess. Get in the other side.” I pulled myself into the vehicle and shut the door quietly. When Adira hopped in the truck, I sparked the wires together until the vehicle sputtered into life, then twisted them together. A quick look at the gauge told me they had about a half tank of gas, if the gauge wasn’t broken. That would be far enough to get us a good chunk of the journey there.
I pulled out, a little shakier on the driving. I might know how to hotwire a car, but I’d rarely driven one. Theoretically, I knew how. What I didn’t know was the driving laws here, or what their signs read in Russian. Ah, well, if things got too bad and we got caught, we could always abandon the truck and fly away.
It was only after we pulled out of the lot and were facing away from the docks that I turned the headlights on to see. Adira could have driven in the dark--and she still might later on--but I couldn’t. Despite the need for stealth, I thought someone seeing us driving around without headlights would draw attention… and I wanted to see the town. As we drove in silence, I saw run down buildings, which only got a little less run down the further we went. It wasn’t that they weren’t cared for. Rather, it appeared the niceties were ignored, such as fresh paint and windows, in favor for practical repairs to keep things going. Some of the brick buildings must have dated back to World War II, if not before. Everything looked dirty, as if covered in a haze of smog. I think it was just the blah colors of it all--no fresh paint, like I said--but the overall impression left me with the mental image of a sepia photograph. Something old and dirty that would never see use again, but that you could pick it up and start working with it if you wanted to. Underneath the decayed flesh, you could see the strong, unbreakable bones.
Perhaps I’m getting too poetic, but that was the impression which stuck with me.
The closer to the center we got, the older the buildings, but the better maintained. No one was out on the streets, not a person, not a vehicle. I kept to the main road, telling Adira we’d switch once we were outside the lights of the town. Staying on the main street was dangerous as there was more chance of us being spotted and getting caught, but less chance of getting lost in an unfamiliar town. As the streetlamps on the street grew more sporadic and we drove through residential rather then commercial buildings, I allowed myself to relax. It was the dead of the night. No one, not even security or the cops or military, was going to see us.
A loud horn blared from behind and to the side of us. Looking in the side mirror, I saw a large truck, one meant for carrying supplies complete with the cloth covering over the back just like in Raiders of the Lost Ark, pull out behind us. It didn’t have to speed up too much to catch up, and the driver laid on the horn again as he shouted something at Russian.
“Pull over or keep going?” Adira asked.
Good question. When the horn sounded again, I growled as I glanced over my shoulder at the big truck. It was now moving faster and pulling alongside us. The passenger flashed a gun at me, though didn’t aim it our direction.
“I think we better pull over,” I said as the truck I drove rattled. It was old, and I wasn’t the most experienced driver. They’d catch us, or we’d get into an accident and then they’d catch us. I put on my signal light and waved at them like I was friendly, or had just misunderstood.
I drove the truck to a stop on the side of the road with few houses or buildings. “I will be ready,” Adira said, and stepped into the shadows. From this angle, it was difficult for me to pull my blade, but I didn’t need it to kill.
The bigger truck pulled ahead and stopped in front of us. Through the flaps, I saw more than a few soldiers in the back and frowned. We probably could kill them all, but I’d been hoping to go unnoticed. A metallic tap on the window brought me back from my wandering thoughts, and I turned to the soldier standing there. I rolled down the window and smiled.
He said something in Russian which I couldn’t even begin to translate. So much for our impromptu lessons. I continued to smile as he gestured for me to get out. I held my hands up and moved slowly, just like I’d do if pulled over by American cops. After I opened the door and my foot slipped out, Adira appeared behind him. She placed both of her light brown hands on his cheeks and twisted savagely.
“There’s more,” I said, and drew my blade as the soldiers from the back of the covered truck shouted. They raised their rifles and emptied the truck, firing at us. I threw up a shield in front of our vehicle and us. The bullets bounced off the invisible shield, but only a couple noticed. Those two lowered their guns and backed away, fear spread wide on their faces. The others kept firing, most of them in short, controlled bursts. They hadn’t realized quite yet they couldn’t touch us.
One of the two who had stopped firing raised his arms and shouted, trying to catch their attention. He stepped off to the side, and that’s why he survived when a giant chicken leg crashed down on top of the covered military vehicle. The sight of it startled me so bad, I dropped the telekinetic shield. A few bullets whizzed by me, but they soon stopped as the massive chicken foot shifted, crunching the truck and nearby soldiers into nothing but a metallic red paste. Another loomed into view, crashing into the tiny yard of the house on the other side of the street. Screams erupted from the unpasted front of the truck, but they were cut off as a building lowered itself to the ground, smashing the untouched half of the truck into oblivion. Shrapnel flew from the wreckage from the force of the house landing. The ground vibrated, as if it had caused an earthquake.
I almost lost my footing as surprise rooted me in place. The hut looked be to made from wood, thatch, and mud. Archaic and weird in all senses of those words, the sight of it boggled my mind. Even the windows were covered with wood, shuttered against the cold. The building took up most of the street. From either side of the hut protruded bird legs, feathered with grey, which faded to white at the bo
ttom. The three toes of the enormous legs were each tipped with a claw black as pitch against the eerie white of the unfeathered flesh. The legs were big enough round to be strange birch trunks. The bottoms were now spattered with red in places from the men they’d crushed.
I heard an exclamation from Adira who stood next to me, gaping at the sight. In all my years of strangeness from Imperial City--vampire spirits, Lovecraftian monsters from the nothingness of space, cyborg punk rockers from the future, and so on--nothing had prepared me for the sight of this. The things Alistair had summoned warped your mind because of their power. This just bent your head because it was so fucking weird.
The door flung open and a tall man in black stood in the entry. His blond hair was cut short, and half of his face was wreathed in shadow: Nazferatu. “I guess that answers where he is,” I said, the words falling from my lips.
“The witch,” Adira said, her voice as soft as cobwebs. “He’s been treating with the witch, they had said. She must be inside.”
He stepped out and approached us. As he closed the distance, I muttered to my companion, “All that power, and her ride is a thatched roof cottage with a pair of chicken legs? She better hope Trogdor doesn’t wander by.”
The comment garnered an irritated look from Adira, but she arranged her expression into neutrality as he joined us. “Nosferatu,” she said, her voice cool, almost as icy as it was outside.
“You don’t look happy to see me,” he said, and I did a double take. His face hadn’t been wreathed in shadow; it had been burnt. The flesh cracked and made those little crisping noises as he talked, reminding me of a foil wrapper.
“What happened to you?” I asked. Hearing the sound of feet beating the pavement, I looked around and spotted the Russian soldier fleeing for his life. Smart man. When I turned my attention back to Nazferatu, he stared at me. “What?”
“This is from the sun,” he said, “the night you escaped.”
“Why hasn’t it healed?” I frowned as I asked the question. Adira had been burned by the sun too, but her skin was as unblemished and smooth as ever.
“The older a vampire gets, the less able he is able to recover from the purity of the sunlight,” he said. “It scores our souls. This is merely a reflection of that.”
Shifting my feet with the uncomfortable talk about souls, I shook my head and brought out the sealed message which Thomas had given me. “This is from the Caesar,” I said as I handed it to him. “I think they want your help.”
His unbroken eyebrow quirked up, and he took the thick envelope. The vampire took out the message, scanning it with his dull red eyes. Though he wore nearly all black, it wasn’t the Nazi uniform he’d worn the first time I met him. The pants were still the same--might have been the same ones for all I knew--made of thick wool, to protect against the weather. The jacket had a different cut to it, longer, though not as long as my trench coat. The collar had been turned up to ward off the wind, framing his perfectly bone white and charcoal face. The shirt was a button up, tucked in neatly and muddy brown in color. His boots were scuffed and old, but polished as best they could be. I guessed he retained his military habits.
His hands were whiter than the sheet of paper he held, but I saw the signs of the burns on the left side, starting at just above his wrist. The lines of dead fire matched the color on his face, and as he moved, I saw the flesh between the cracks, grey and rotting. A side glance to Adira told me she saw it too. Her frown had deepened as she watched him, the corners of her full lips turned down and tucked in. She hadn’t moved much at all, standing still like an ice sculpture.
Finishing the missive, Nazferatu tucked it away in a pocket. “That’s not all,” he said with a sly smile. “There’s something more you want.” He made a small gesture with his head, “This way. We will discuss this inside.”
As before, the normal volume of his voice didn’t sound anything like my Nosferatu who whispered everything. All the better to spook his prey. Yet it didn’t quite sound like the vampire I’d met here months before either. He turned on his heel and walked to the crummy hut, expecting us to follow. We did, but at a slower pace. Adira on my left felt as though she were reluctant, dragging her feet.
“Are you alright?” I asked, hissing the question. “I thought you’d be all over him by now.”
She graced me with a dark look. “No.”
I would have asked more, but we were at the threshold. As I stepped in, a wall of warmth hit me… and the smell a second later. Foul wasn’t the word I’d use to describe it. More like “rancid corpse”. When I tried to breathe through my mouth, I tasted the air, which was worse. Gagging, I covered my mouth with my hand and moved inside towards a window, opening it up without bothering to look around. Adira came in at a languorous pace, and I thought her vampire senses must be going nuts about now, yet she held the same unperturbed expression.
When she closed the door behind her, the hut lurched into life, standing up on those ridiculous chicken legs. After the first jarring motion, the ride turned out to be quite smooth, if smelly. I breathed in the cold air, trying to cleanse my airways as the landscape zipped past us, faster than I thought possible. This was not going to end well, but what choice did we have? At this point, I’d made peace with my decision to rescue Rebekah. Even if we had stopped and gotten Alistair, we’d still have to do this to get home. Stupid witch. Stupid magic!
Once I felt I could turn around and face the room without puking, I had a look around. The area was rustic. The furniture looked hand made, hewn from wood and put together with pegs. Cushions and dull throws were thrown over the hard wood furniture to make them at least tolerable to sit on. The place was lit with candles in sconces with brass mirrors behind them to amplify the light. It was like stepping into a fantasy movie, and now the old witch would….
I looked around the room back and forth, but there wasn’t a witch. “Don’t tell me she let you use her ride all by yourself,” I observed, directing the question at Nazferatu.
He and Adira stood in what I deemed the kitchen area as it had a large iron pot over a fire in the middle of the space, directly over a pit in the floor. Rough cupboards framed the area, with a cistern near the door for water. At my words, they both turned to look at me as I’d interrupted whatever conversation they’d been having.
“No,” he said. “She is busy.”
“Can we get on with this?” I asked, impatient. I wanted to hear the witch’s price and be done with it.
“When she’s ready,” he said, turning more fully towards me. “Come here, talk with me.”
I left the window and navigated through the haphazard furniture. Though the space wasn’t that big, it felt enormous. Like the TARDIS, it was bigger on the inside… or at least, it felt that way. When I looked, it was maybe a thirty feet diameter total, but it took me a couple dozen steps to cross what looked like a third of that. The proportions were strange and unreal, though the two vamps didn’t seem to have a problem with it.
“There’s not really anything to talk about,” I said. “Whatever business you have is yours there.” I nodded towards his jacket pocket. “And we just have to ask Baba Yaga for a small favor.”
“‘We’?” he asked, sliding his gaze to Adira. “You are returning as well.”
“I am,” she said, her voice firm.
“You’re my child,” he said, setting the palm of his hand on her upper arm. “I have missed you. The others of the pack have as well.”
At that, she stirred. “The pack?”
Nazferatu nodded, blond locks falling over his brow. It was longer than when we had left. He must have let Erick out from time to time as I didn’t think vampire hair grew. “Those I could save,” he confirmed. “It was troublesome.”
“How did you survive?” I asked. “You’d faded away, but it was daylight out….” I looked at his face pointedly.
“I hid in the Reichstag,” he said. “There are deep, dark places there where no one goes.” He gestured to his face
with his free hand, “Not fast enough to avoid burning, however. When night fell, I slipped out and spread the word to all the pack.”
“That’s where we’re going now? To meet with them?” Adira asked, quiet urgency in her voice.
Nazferatu nodded. He squeezed her arm, “Back to where you belong.”
This was one of the many instances where I wished I had my telepathy back at full power to see all the nuances, all the pretty colors laid bare before me. There was hesitation in the air, and nervousness on Adira’s part. Full expectation of her return in Nazferatu. I may not have understood all I saw, but at least I’d pick up the raw emotions which boiled underneath the surface. Adira’s face softened some more, her brows canting up. Then, bit by bit, her expression toughened and shut down, closing everyone out. She continued to stare at Nazferatu, the set of her jaw turning challenging.
“I am where I belong,” she said, her voice quiet but tough. “I am where I choose to be.”
Nazferatu was much better at hiding his facial expressions than she, so I didn’t see much of a change in him, but when he spoke, his voice sounded patronizing in that paternal way. He expected her to stay. That was a royal blue of certainty, thick and fat pulsing in his head.
“When you see them, you’ll change your mind.”
Though her face remained the same, her eyes flared brighter red for a second, a manifestation of her anger. “Don’t touch me without my permission,” she said, sneering the words. “You’re not my leader, and you’ll never be my master.” When Nazferatu didn’t move fast enough for her liking, she ripped his hand from her arm and stormed away.