City Under the Moon

by Sterbakov, Hugh

  One day an orphanage counselor called Brianna into her office. The elderly, bug-eyed woman told her to sit down, and offered her a caramel. When it was clear that Brianna wasn’t interested in pleasantries, the counselor asked her if she wanted to hear about what happened to her parents. Some West Virginia newspaper had an article wrapping up the story.

  “It would be okay if you don’t,” the counselor said, her voice rising with selfish hope. “Sometimes these things are better left unsaid.”

  Brianna nodded and stayed silent while the counselor put on her glasses and silently read the opening paragraph.

  “Three drug addicts broke into your house,” she said, paraphrasing. “They were on a binge and they needed money.”

  She read ahead. When she spoke again, her voice shattered the silence.

  “They tied your mother down, and one stayed with her while the other two took your father to an ATM. He withdrew cash and gave it to them, and then they returned to your home,” she said, glancing over her glasses to read Brianna’s empty expression. She read ahead, looking for some kind of positive thought, some sort of consolation prize that was not there.

  Brianna Tildascow didn’t have the edge to survive in a merciless orphanage. The curly golden hair she shared with her mother had lost its sheen in the long stretches between showers. Their milky skin grew hard and the luster of their blue eyes dimmed. Honestly, it was a relief to look in the mirror and see someone else.

  Her father had a $25,000 life insurance policy, something from some plumbers’ union, but she never saw a cent. There were costs for a funeral she didn’t attend, reparations for debt she didn’t understand, taxes for things she’d never bought.

  She was alone and terrified. But she could still hear her mother as she went to sleep at night, that honey-coated voice reminding her not to be easily distracted.

  And so she learned.

  First it was button-pushing.

  She started with the other kids in the orphanage. Sex worked, gossip less so, but their insecurities were always the sweet spot. Manipulating their emotions was like changing radio stations—she kept going till the song fit her mood. Thinking beyond surface interactions, it was easy to adjust their personalities to suit her needs, or to torpedo their spirits altogether and cast a new mold in which they were beholden to her approval. Soon she moved on to the matrons—it couldn’t be that easy, right? Not with adults? But it was even easier, because their souls had been so crushed. She danced between their complexes with the same grace as her mother strummed her guitar.

  Then she learned to fight.

  Her strength was unreliable, so she studied methods of shutting down the human machine. She learned to analyze quickly, adjust on the fly, and use unconventional weapons. Environmental awareness. Pain tolerance. Damage control.

  She shaved her mother’s blond hair because it was too easy to grab. Clipped her fancy nails short and wore scuffed, sharp rings on her fingers. No earrings. No dresses; they invited rape.

  She understood the intimidation game. One display of sheer brutality, and her enemies’ courage would wither. But prevention wasn’t interesting; she sought ignition. One night a teenage boy pushed the issue. When he bent down to unfasten her jeans, she fractured his skull with her knee.

  A trail of broken victims accumulated in her wake, and so did days spent in juvie. She was on the verge of eighteen and running out of pit stops before real prison. They appointed her a special counselor for repeat offenders.

  He was “Aaron Burke from upstate Michigan” (that’s how he’d always introduce himself), and he was 35 years her senior. Doughy and soft and altruistic as they came, Aaron was woefully unequipped for both of his chosen professions: the army, then juvie counseling.

  But, like her father, he had a good heart.

  It took some time, but Aaron’s awkward jokes and goofy nerves chilled her rage. He liked stupid action movies where nobody fought properly and even stupider romantic comedies where nobody thought properly. His voice was calm, his presence was relaxing, and his bed was safe.

  The affair began not from a particular attraction, but because she wanted to make him feel special. His gracelessness had kept him from marriage, maybe from dating at all, and theirs might have been the affair of his life. She made the most of their relationship, even allowing a couple of her calluses to soften, but she could never convince Aaron that she loved him. Because she didn’t.

  In fact, she couldn’t feel anything.

  She knew things—Aaron was attracted to her; Aaron needed to be reassured; Aaron was concerned for her future—but she never felt anything. Not for Aaron, not for the kid whose skull she’d broken, not when that counselor told her what had happened to her parents.

  It became a growing obsession with Aaron that she should enter the military. They’d turned his life around, he said, and they’d do the same for her.

  This new generation of the military has wisely learned to become more accepting of women and all of their multifaceted talents, and you’ll find a place to make the most of the unique skill set you’ve developed. He could deliver a speech to ask for a club sandwich.

  It wasn’t all self-sacrificing on his part. He felt guilty about their age disparity. He worried that he was keeping her from a normal life and normal family. Normal.

  When she left for basic training, she kissed Aaron goodbye and thanked him for whatever might come. She wrote him a month later. As expected, she never heard back.

  Army life came too easy. And the right people noticed.

  Her drill sergeant said he’d never seen anyone—man or woman—take so readily to the physical demands of basic training. She mastered their combat methods, and taught them a thing or two of her own. Three weeks, and she beat their best in knife work. Five for advanced hand-to-hand.

  The momentum fueled her studies. Her bachelor’s in communications came in three years; could’ve been two if they’d let her take a bigger workload. She rarely finished a curriculum before she was bounced upward.

  She would not be distracted.

  Every step came with barrages of counseling. At the beginning, they were concerned about her past. Soon enough, her aptitude tests made them interested in her future. The CIA tried to recruit her, but she didn’t want to go abroad.

  She wanted to stop the enemy from coming into her home.

  She thought the background checks might put the kibosh on her application to the FBI. A traumatic past made for a dicey profile. Oh, and had they noticed that she was a sociopath?

  Nevertheless, because of her performance in the army and confidence from various sources—including Aaron, and maybe an angel named Rebekkah Luft—she was accepted into Quantico.

  And then the Prime Program came along.

  When the Department of Defense recruiter described the parameters of the job, she responded with a question.

  In other words, you want me to be a killer?

  No, he said. Those are the exact words.

  There were golf pros and computer whizzes and people who could spit watermelon seeds. Tildascow was a killer. The government needed people like her, people who knew but did not feel. And she needed them, to point her in the right direction.

  Two

  FBI New York Headquarters

  26 Federal Plaza

  Watch Room

  10:58 p.m.

  Tildascow couldn’t afford to sit still this long.

  It took twenty fucking minutes to get the Situation Room on the phone, even with the FBI’s pre-approved hard-wired encryption line and expedition by the Director through the Attorney General himself.

  Hell, the president had personally commended her twice and passed a note through the Director a third time. The next time they met, she was going to ball up and ask for his cell number. What’s the worst that could happen?

  The wait was even more interminable because every bone in her body wanted to get to Times Square. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near the melee,
and she didn’t have any silver bullets anyway. But the helplessness burned in her chest. Maybe that was the one thing she could feel.

  Finally, the automatic lock on the door sealed, the sound dampeners whined and the flat-panel monitor came alive with the presidential seal.

  A few seconds later, the president and the harried members of the National Security Council appeared. Tildascow spoke with no introduction.

  “I’ve found our man.”

  Three

  Situation Room

  December 31

  10:48 p.m.

  Lon Toller was sitting behind the President of the United States and his National Security Council as the catastrophe unfolded before their eyes.

  The staff was at Warp 10: writing, whispering, strategizing. Only Lon and the president were silently glued to the surreal horror unfolding on television.

  Headlines appeared on a panel screen positioned to face the National Security Advisor. ABC has transformation on tape, broadcasting, it read. Rush on Penn Station, authorities struggling. All transportation frozen as per quarantine. State of Emergency declared in Manhattan.

  CBS News had grainy footage of a werewolf leaping from tree to tree, divebombing its victims like a massive falcon. Lon never imagined they’d move so fast. They sure didn’t act like the classic Wolf Man.

  Dead and injured lay everywhere—how many could be infected?

  Manhattan must be hell on Earth on right now.

  Manhattan…

  “My girlfriend is in Manhattan,” Lon sputtered at the same moment the thought occurred. “Elizabeth…”

  “There are two million people in Manhattan,” said Luft. She turned to a duty officer, but spoke to Lon. “We’re going to ask you to leave this room right now.”

  “Okay, but I need my cell phone.” Nobody cared. He turned to the president: “Please. I have to call to her.”

  “They’ll take care of you, Lon.”

  The national something or other shouted from one of the phone booths: “The FBI has something. They say we have to see it immediately.”

  Lon wanted to hear what that might be, but a duty officer took him by the shoulder. Guy smelled like corn chowder.

  The last thing Lon saw was a dour blond woman appearing on one of the flat-screen panels and introducing herself as FBI Special Agent Til-something. As the door swung shut, he heard her say a name.

  “Demetrius Valenkov.”

  Waitaminutewaitaminutewaita—

  “Wait!“

  “Please don’t fight,” the duty officer said, lifting him into the elevator.

  Lon threw out his leg to stop the doors.

  “Mister President! I have information on Demetrius Valenkov!”

  The officer threw him against the back of the elevator car, making the whole thing shake. “Stop fighting!”

  “Ow, please, I’m just trying to help—“

  “Bring him back!” the president shouted.

  The duty officer let him go, and Lon fell forward out of the car. He righted his black overcoat as he hurried back toward the Situation Room, where he met severe expressions.

  “This better be good, Lon.”

  “It is, I promise,” Lon said, completely aware of how badass he looked right now. He picked up the National Archives’ lycanthropy file and flipped through the documents and—fuck, where was it? His hands were starting to shake. “Please continue,” he muttered to Tildascow. Ugh, cottonmouth.

  Tildascow kept going: “We have security footage of Valenkov at the UN just before the first victim was attacked, and again at the hospital when she arrived. He wants to be seen.”

  She plugged an image onto the screen: airport security footage of passengers emerging from a skyway. Tired businessmen and grinning tourists looking for their next destination. All different and yet all the same.

  And then one distinctive man emerged—a wolf among the deer. He was a roguish devil with dark, shoulder-length hair and dense facial scruff. Dark pants. He had a tee shirt stretched over his button-down shirt, with a handwritten message scrawled on the front.

  “Find a cure?” observed the president. “For the werewolf disease?”

  “Found a good way to get what he wants,” said Truesdale.

  “Get Jessica Tanner from the CDC,” Luft said to another duty officer.

  “Here it is!” exclaimed Lon. He waved a handwritten letter, etched on thick parchment and sealed in an evidence bag. “It’s from Demetrius Valenkov, dated April 2007, addressed to President Bush at the White House. Check it out, it’s on real vellum; I think it’s calfskin. This is a tradition that went back to ancient Rome—”

  “What does it say?” urged Truesdale.

  “It’s in Romanian, uhm—“

  “Can we get a translator?” asked the president.

  “I can read it,” Lon chirped. “I learned Romanian as a hobby.“

  “We have Doctor Tanner from the CDC on the line,” said Luft. Jessica’s face appeared on one of the flat-panel screens.

  “Read it, Lon.”

  “Uhm… ‘Mister President, I am writing to….’” Lon read ahead to summarize. “He wants help. He says, ‘My father, The Right Honourable Zaharius Baron Valenkov III, has fallen under a curse which transforms him into a wolf under the light of the moon.’” Lon’s voice rose with excitement.

  “Keep going!”

  “’Your western medicine has cured many….’“ Lon struggled with his translation. “Weaknesses. He means diseases. ‘I beg for your assistance.’”

  Jessica spoke up: “So his father is Patient Zero. We have to find him; he’ll have the purest version of the virus. From there we can deconstruct its genetic origin and hopefully develop a vaccine.“

  “But he’s the originator of the bloodline,” said Truesdale, turning to Lon. “If we kill him, everyone is cured?”

  “According to the mythology,“ Lon said.

  “That doesn’t make any sense, not scientific or practical,” Jessica argued. “How could a virus inside a body react to the death of another separate organism? If you kill Patient Zero, the virus will die in his system, the purest strain will be lost and so will our best chance to cure the disease. We have to separate science from fantasy.”

  “Fantasy just tore up Times Square!” Lon exclaimed.

  “All right, young man,” Truesdale said.

  “Is there anything else in that letter, Lon?” the president asked.

  Lon read ahead and summarized: “He greatly anticipates a response. And he says he can be reached at the Valenkov estate. And then it ends with ‘God Bless America. Yours Sincerely, The Honourable Demetrius Valenkov.’”

  “The Valenkov estate, that’s all?” asked the FBI agent.

  “It’s not a modern country,” Lon reminded them. “You could probably send a letter and it’d—“

  “We’re going to send a lot more than a letter,” interjected Truesdale. “Do we have anything on these people? He’s a baron?”

  The Director of National Intelligence scanned notes on his aide’s laptop. “Nothing, sir. We’ll get the Romanian government on open-source immediately and divert our closest operatives to that region.”

  “We need him alive, Mister President,” Jessica urged.

  “We’re going to get him.”

  “Is he the right target? Should we be trying to find the son in New York?” asked Luft.

  “The son isn’t a werewolf,” said Tildascow. “He was in Times Square. I saw him in news footage after the others had transformed.”

  “We can have an Aurora team ready in an hour,” said Truesdale. “There will be seats for two, and one for the father.”

  “I know it’s not my jurisdiction, sir,” said Tildascow. “But I’m the best—“

  “You’re on it. And good work, again, Agent Tildascow.”

  “She’s a domestic agent,” said Shinick, the Attorney General, “She’s going to need an escort, someone who understands the region.”

  “We have o
peratives mobilizing,” the president agreed.

  “Send them, but I’ll move faster on my own. I just need one person who knows about werewolves.”

  Eyes reluctantly fell on Lon.

  Four

  The Clock Strikes Twelve

  The horrified eyes of the nation weren’t on the clock at the turn of the new year. In fact, the glowing ball at One Times Square never even dropped.

  As soon as the outbreak began, the New York Port Authority, NYC Department of Transportation, NYPD, CDC Field Ops, Army Special Forces, and ragtag Rapid Deployment Forces moved to cut off every artery from Manhattan. The operation had been initiated hours earlier as minor roadblocks in the form of DUI filters. Even the authorities grew surprised and confused as the seal intensified with the arrival of hardened military.

  The quarantine of Manhattan became a reality.

  The largest thoroughfares were the easiest to close. Major bridges, including the Triborough, Manhattan, and George Washington, were susceptible to bottleneck checkpoints, as well as the four subterranean vehicular traffic tunnels. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority shut down the complex web of subway tunnels connecting to the mainland, and NYPD K-9 units patrolled the tracks. Once traffic was clogged, it was a matter of keeping people calm as the CDC EIS worked their screenings.

  Penn Station and other hubs halted their fleets, and incoming trains were cancelled. Authorities and volunteers tried to keep travelers calm, but everyone wanted to put distance between themselves and Manhattan.

  Dead bodies were scattered throughout Times Square, and the carnage spread to the surrounding areas. Dozens killed in the initial skirmish, hundreds of car accidents in the aftermath, thousands injured, and millions at risk.

  The hospitals became disastrous.

  Having no way to determine infections, caregivers were forced to treat the wounded as pariahs. Some off-duty doctors chose to stay home, and many others couldn’t find transportation. Morbid terrorism protocols were routinely drilled at all of Manhattan’s major hospitals, but they couldn’t be prepared for this.

  By half-past eleven, the island was effectively sealed.