Tom left the little snow house and stood facing east for a long time. The arctic sun, in the summer, would dip below the horizon for only a few hours that normally would have been night, and then, like magic, creep back up and span the sky at half the speed it did in London. Shadows, including Tom’s own, stretched over the ice for what seemed like miles. He was the only crewmate hesitant to leave the frozen land. He’d taken a liking to it. There had been no one to explain himself to, no grime of war, no time—only the ice, the sea, the undying sun, and a happy people, few in number, living beneath it.
His reverie was broken when Molly spoke. “Why can’t you ever stay in one place?” she complained from across the room. Rolling over and blinking her almond eyes at Thomas, she smiled as she looked at his arms and back.
“We’ll make it back to London, I promise.” The gold-foil scruff on his chin shone when he turned and spoke, his deep blue eyes splashing with a humor and vigor that Molly had not expected. The old, indestructible Tom appeared for a moment.
“No, I mean, why can’t you stay right here in bed? I can’t shut my eyes, because you’ll be up and gone if I do.” Molly teased him.
“I get hot easily. Had to cool off. The windows feel lovely.” He held out his arms and craned his head back as he stretched. Molly felt the air warm as he walked toward the bed.
“How far until we get to where we’re going?” she asked, sitting up and dragging her fingers through the tangles in her hair.
“Which ‘where’ do you mean?” Tom smirked smartly and put his hands on his hips. Molly cocked her head and made a face. “Two days, as long as we move all day and follow the Argeş.”
“That is a terrible pace to keep if we are to make the trip in two days,” she said, groaning.
“Oh, but I thought you didn’t know how far we had to go!” Tom smiled and Molly shook her head, picking up a pillow and chucking it at him.
Geoffrey waved to Thomas and Molly when they came downstairs to eat breakfast. Leon nodded and pulled two more chairs to the table and made room. He’d shown up minutes before them, coming in from outside and shaking off the elements. The pale prince was wrapped up like Christopher Barnes had been in Barcelona, not daring to let the light of day catch him off guard.
“What’s that?” asked Tom, leaning over and breathing in the steam rising from a large cup in front of Geoffrey.
“Coffee. Turkish. It’s excellent,” Geoffrey answered, picking up the cup protectively and sipping at it. “There’s loads more. You should both have a cup or two.” The young man fidgeted with energy and rubbed his hands on his knees frequently, rocking in his chair.
“I think I will,” said Tom, calling to the host.
“None for me.” Molly took a small cake from a basket on the table.
“The Draculeşti are in town,” said Leon, bored of food talk. Clearing his throat, he continued. “I came upon them yesterday. A vampire named Doru referred to his cousin, Ovidiu, probably the patriarch. They’re out of their territory, but they put on airs, and spoke as if to turn me away.”
“I say, I don’t know why more of my friends aren’t vampires,” chimed Tom sarcastically.
“Like I said, these cults are suspicious of new faces.” Leon shrugged and looked away. “Doru thinks I am here on behalf of the Society, and that I am patriarch. I made it seem as though the Eight are bearing down on this place. That will keep him and his fellows away long enough for us to be on our way.”
“You told him that?” Geoffrey swallowed his coffee hard and made a face.
“Yes. It isn’t my style of doing things, but it did the trick.” Leon made no expression, but Molly could tell he was proud of himself. The clover on his cheek moved slightly upward when he suppressed a smile.
“Not bad, Beaumonte.” Tom took a rugged gulp of Turkish coffee and set down his cup. “I guess a good lie is a good lie, whether you’re a thief or a politician.”
“Certainly so,” agreed Leon. He took no offense only because of Tom’s implicit self-inclusion.
“There’s no honor among either,” Molly interjected, pinching off a corner of her cake and putting it on her tongue.
Molly and Geoffrey wrapped themselves in twice as many layers as Tom or Leon, and when the winter air met them outside the inn, the mortals hunched up and hid their faces in their coats. Geoffrey moved quickly, choosing to take the north road out of town instead of heading due west to the river. This way, he reasoned, the real hike would not begin until the last two-thirds of the trip. It proved to be a wise decision, and by mid afternoon the four stopped by the edge of the road, waving goodbye to the last of three helpful wagon drivers who’d shortened the trip for them that day. An hour and a round of bread and cheese later, Tom was first to stand, brush off his trousers and spur the group on into the forests, toward the Argeş River. From the road to the river, each step he took, Tom felt his spirits wane. Alert as he was, he sometimes forgot where he was and where he was headed. The confusion was not unlike dozing off, or daydreaming. As foolish as it was not to tell Molly, Tom did not want to see her radiant face marred by a frown. He’d not seen such happiness in her eyes since Spain. To him, that happiness had a value great enough to outweigh the risk of losing control to the dreigher. Little did he know that Molly had begun to keep an eye on him from the time they first entered the forest, not waiting for his word to begin to worry.
Geoffrey and Tom, who were carrying the tents from the boat, unrolled their packs and cleared out a smooth, flat patch of ground near the banks of the river. After setting up one of the tents Geoffrey went off to gather fuel for a fire. Tom abruptly sat down, holding his head in his hands. Molly leaned over Tom and touched his shoulder, about to speak, but Tom shook his head and gently waved her away. He glanced at her once, and it was enough to reveal an inky blackness flooding his right eye. The blue iris looked like a broken egg yolk, retreating from the bold white ring taking its place. Tom turned his head down and reached into a pouch at his hip, taking out one jade and muttering to himself. Without looking up, he waved his hand around in circles and a spout of green fire drew a protective boundary around the camp. After the sun set, the spirits would be out and on the hunt for precious life. Molly was sure she had already seen the ghostly beings across the river.
“If we follow the Argeş, we’ll be in Helvetian country before we ever see the source of the river,” Geoffrey said. “The clan used to live higher in the mountains, but when their population grew, the winter storms taxed their harvests such that shortages caused many more famines. In the past two centuries they have gradually moved into the foothills.” Geoffrey shared every historical fact he could with the others, introducing them to the werewolves they would soon meet, even though he himself had never been as far east as Bucharest or even learned anything of the Helvetii outside of what regional texts had to say.
“How much farther?” Molly sat by the fire and asked the question as if it was the only one that remotely mattered, and at the moment, it was.
“Um … perhaps a day or less?” Geoffrey gave his most optimistic, not realistic, answer because of the urgency in Molly’s voice. The fire crumbled and tossed cinders at his feet. Jamming a long stick into the fire, he kept them from burning his trouser legs.
“What? Thomas did you say something?” Molly turned to look at Thomas, who sat quietly by himself away from the fire. His lips moved and his eyes were shut, as if he were falling asleep sitting up. Unable to hear him, Molly leaned closer but heard nothing more. Tom just sat still, rubbing his head and moving his lips. “Thomas …”
“How do the Helvetii feel about vampires?” Leon asked the most important question on his mind next.
“Their relations with the Draculeşti … Well, it’s difficult to say. They do not interact with many outside peoples at all, even mortals. Some magical goods come out of the Southern Carpathians, but not much else.” Geoffrey delicately put the fire back together and fiddled with his spectacles.
“I expec
ted so. The Draculeşti are as conventional as vampires come. Isolationists. The Helvetii probably live in those mountains for similar reasons, no?” Leon said.
“It could be, but maybe not,” Geoffrey replied. “The Schwarzer Mond did not mind you.”
“They practiced tolerance because of your and Tom’s words of assurance, not because they did not mind me.” Leon’s clover rose as he smiled and waved a finger. “I spent enough time with my father abroad to know my hosts’ sentiments. Father always said, ‘Ignore the fine china and the silver cutlery. Only when they pour their best wine do you know you are among friends.’ That was his philosophy.” Leon took a bottle and glasses from his own personal pack as he said this and offered everyone a drink.
“Thank you,” said Molly, smiling and handing Tom his drink. When he reached for the glass and missed, she frowned and watched as he rubbed his head, deaf to the world around him.
“Thomas, are you …” Molly pulled back her hand and the glass as Tom sat upright, staring at her with two black eyes. The white rings in them quivered feverishly and snapped back and forth among the people sitting around the fire. Geoffrey and Leon stared at him in silence, each afraid to move.
Tom shook wildly and staggered to his feet, mouth hanging open and black eyes wide. Streaks of fur appeared on each arm and on his face. Popping and crackling, the bones in his legs grew and changed. Instead of tarnished gold, the fur sprouting from his skin became black and uneven in length.
“Thomas!” Molly shouted and stood, moving close to him.
“Careful! Miss Bishop!” Geoffrey stopped her and stepped between her and Thomas as he transformed. Leon jumped to his feet and reached for his épée.
The sudden movement drew Tom’s attention. In one fluid burst, he swatted Geoffrey away and tore past Molly before Leon could draw the blade. A third arm grew out from the lower left half of Tom’s chest and seized Leon by the throat, lifting him off his feet. Tom’s body and arms stood in place, relaxed, while the dreigher’s arm, black and lanky, thrashed Leon around.
“No, Thomas!” Molly ran at him from behind, glowing bright. Experience told her to flood the evil presence with light, and using her right hand she did just that.
Leon fell to the ground as the dreigher’s arm released him and Tom turned, jaws spreading wide and driving Molly back with a piercing howl that contained two voices. The canine lips around his fangs curled back, throwing saliva into the fire. It spit up smoke, steam and cinders, suffocating Geoffrey on the ground. Hacking and coughing, he found Molly through the haze after Tom fled into the dark. The green ring of fire surrounding the camp slowly repaired itself where he had ploughed through it and raced away. Little spots of green flame lit his footsteps and the low brush in the direction of the river. Molly ran after him.
“No!” Geoffrey shouted, holding her back. “The forest is teeming with malevolent beings.”
“No, Geoffrey, look!” Molly pulled away and walked past the protective flames. The forest was dark, but empty. The evil spirits had fled from Thomas, intimidated by the more powerful dreigher.
“We’ll have to leave everything behind if we follow him,” warned Geoffrey, stepping through the flames carefully and scanning the dark with his one uncovered eye.
“So be it. We don’t have a choice.” Molly looked for the trail of fire and began to follow it at a run. Leon got to his feet, picked up Fantome, and ran after her, a pained expression on his face as he left his wine behind.
“Wait!” Geoffrey threw his things into a bag, slung it over one shoulder and sprinted after them.
****
My body.
Clearly and loudly the voice of the dreigher came to Tom. Powerless to stop the demon, all he could do was look on through his own two eyes as his body carried him off into the dark, hilly forest and away from the others. Tree trunks and low branches whizzed past his face as the ground bounced up and down. Through the window from which he viewed the world, Tom saw his arms move into frame and swipe away obstacles from their paths. They belonged to him no more, looking less and less like the strong, furry limbs of his werewolf body. No, they were the dreigher’s—unsightly hitchhikers.
Trying to complete his own thoughts only confused Tom more, lending the dreigher more control. Everything Tom screamed at it trailed off into nonsense or flat noise. Fighting the force couldn’t have been a more futile tactic. The dark parasite had no intention of giving up Tom’s body, and this meant escaping Tom’s companions by losing them in the deepest reaches of the Carpathians. Not once did Tom’s legs stop moving, but they slowed with weariness.
My body.
As easily as the demon had fled from the camp, Tom felt every feeling that it experienced, the strongest of which was fear. You’re afraid of losing this body, Tom thought.
No fear.
You had better hope Molly doesn’t catch you. Tom toyed with the presence and, for the first time, he gained a shred more control over the possession. As the dreigher leapt over some thick brush, Tom regained the use of his right leg and sabotaged the jump, betraying his own body to fall violently to the ground and crash down the rocky slope. His vision spun wildly as he tumbled, upsetting the dreigher and disorienting it badly. A hard smack to the back of his head and Tom could see nothing for several minutes. I must be lying face-down, he assumed, hoping he’d not put out his eyes somehow.
“How can you be so sure?” asked Geoffrey, huffing and puffing as he tailed Molly and Leon through the dark. “I can no longer see footprints!”
“I always know where he is!” Molly called over her shoulder, pushing a branch from her path and pulling twigs from her hair.
“She really does!” added Leon. “Doesn’t make any sense to me, but she found you and Thomas at Hainburg with nothing other than the ‘instinct’ she claims led us there!” Smoothly he glided high above them, past the treetops, giving a strong flap of his black wings every so often, probing the dark with his keen eyes for any sign of a possessed werewolf.
“How will we find our way back?” Geoffrey pleaded.
“Don’t know!” Molly had put dozens more strides between herself and the young man. “Up ahead! He’s close!”
Must go!
You need two legs to do that. Tom hassled the demon for as long as he could, knowing he could frustrate it even if discouraging it completely were not possible. As he expected, the demon had prepared for resistance, and its cunning provided solutions to all of the handicaps Tom could muster. Using both Tom’s arms, the dreigher grabbed hold of the closest tree and clawed its way up the trunk without the use of his legs. From high in the tree, it swiveled his head around and saw Molly approaching. Immediately Tom’s arms threw his body to the next tree, whereupon his hands caught another branch and threw him again and again, tree after tree, until his body stopped. For a second, the demon was quiet. It did not speak, but Tom felt its thoughts. Like wind through leaves, its plans rustled in the darkness behind Tom’s eyes.
“Thomas!” Molly began to call out to him from below.
“Thomas?” Geoffrey echoed her from farther away.
“I see nothing!” Leon’s dark shadow swept over the forest floor and darkened the branches of the trees, circling slowly like a shark.
Tom listened for the dreigher and could no longer hear its voice or sense its presence. In all the recesses of his mind he searched and found no evidence of it. He forgot about his leg and focused on sifting through his thoughts. It had to be somewhere …
Fool!
No! Tom raged, fighting the dreigher as it stole back the leg it had taken him so much effort to win. While Tom had been distracted, thinking the presence had left him, the demon had only led him on a wild goose chase while it slipped back into him and locked him away again, making him helpless and unequipped to fight back.
They will die.
The decree filled the darkness of Tom’s mental prison with a thick coldness. Energy left Thomas and fed the demon as it took full control of his body a
nd jumped from out of hiding. Molly stopped in her tracks as the malformed werewolf’s powerful feet shook the ground and the monster stood up tall before her, rearing up and throwing back its head in a roar. Startled, she backed away and stared in awe at the grotesque beast, inside which, somewhere, Tom was trapped. Knowing better than to give the demon time to tear her apart with one of Thomas’s brutish paws, she turned and ran back the way she came. The sound of splitting wood chased after her, and in seconds a large tree crashed to her right, pounding the ground and showering her in bark and dirt. Letting out a scream, Molly fell to her left and tumbled.
“Molly! Move!” Geoffrey’s warning was followed by another crescendo of cracks and whines, then another. Roaring, shrieking and shaking his toothed snout furiously, Thomas swung his arms and smacked the trunk of every tree in his path, breaking them wide open and shoving them over to crush Molly. Rolling herself over and floundering to her feet, she hurled herself out of harm’s way, scraping up her arms and legs as the giant trunks hammered the forest floor all around her.
“Hey! Hey! Look here!” Leon’s shouts came from above. Falling into a swift dive, he surprised Thomas from behind and stuck him in the top of his back with his épée, then swooped off again before being snatched up by Thomas’s clawed fingers.
Molly took the opportunity to hide herself in the brush, and motioned for Geoffrey to keep away and do the same.
“Be silent and come no closer!” she whispered as loud as she could. “Absconde me,” she spoke softly, reaching to her neck, but nothing happened. She’d left the gold and onyx necklace Tom had given her in the bag she carried from Bucharest to the camp in the forest; the bag was still at the camp. Kicking the brush angrily, she emitted a bright burst of light.
The Lore Series (Box Set): All 3 Books In One Volume Page 52