City Under the Moon

by Sterbakov, Hugh

  ….she thought, as she watched him dry heave on the tarmac.

  “Welcome to Romania!” came a burly voice from the far side of the hangar. It carried a thick Romanian accent.

  A heavy-coated diplomat approached Lon, flanked by six Romanian soldiers in camouflage fatigues and blue berets.

  Tildascow hopped the stairs to intercept this potentially sour turn in diplomatic relations.

  “I am Ghin Dumitru, your legal attaché from the United States Embassy,” he said, offering Lon a handshake. “Are you Special Agent Tildascow?” He pronounced it “pill’s poo.”

  Lon vomited his greetings just as she stepped in front of him. She whipped off her hat and tossed her hair for a distraction.

  “Hello, gentlemen,” she said. “FBI Special Agent Brianna Til-das-cow, retired from the United States Army and the commanding officer on this mission. This is Mister Toller, my civilian advisor.”

  “Ah,” muttered Dumitru. “Nice to meet you, Special Agent Tildascow. Welcome to Romania.”

  “Thank you,” she said over Lon’s next wave of retching. “I trust you’ve made arrangements for our transportation to Transylvania?”

  “Yes, we have a helicopter. But I’m afraid we do not know where to direct you. Outdated records in Braşov mentioned a Valenkov farm quite some distance from the city, but we could find no specific address.”

  “Do you know where we’re going, Lon?” she asked, keeping her eyes and smile on the Romanians.

  “I think—guh—I think we’ll be looking somewhere in the southeast, near the juncture of the Carpathian Mountains. Not far from Braşov.”

  Not the precision Tildascow was hoping for.

  “No local networks?” she asked Dumitru. “No eyewitness accounts of werewolves?”

  “I’m sorry. Like you, we believed such monsters to be superstition.”

  Dumitru was an easy read: He wasn’t hiding anything, but he was also powerless and had no connections, probably because he was a grade-A dullard. No way this werewolf thing could be going on right here and nobody knows about it. Someone had to know something.

  A dozen or so techs were milling about the hangar, ogling the Auroras. “How many locals are working in this facility right now?” she asked.

  The question surprised Dumitru. “Perhaps fifty or a hundred?”

  “Do me a favor, sir, and round up as many as you can.” She directed the soldiers as well: “Spread the word, nothing official, just have them gathered outside the hangar in three minutes. And anyone else you can muster from the airport, civilians or employees. Just don’t let them see our planes, please.”

  Dumitru spoke to the soldiers in Romanian. They went on their way before he finished speaking, leaving with no deference.

  “I apologize if you feel we have not properly investigated the matter. The situation in New York is of grave concern to us all.”

  “I’m not questioning your integrity, Mister Dumitru. We all have our methods. Let’s see if mine work.”

  Dumitru nodded in an unconvinced but polite manner.

  Lon retched again, and Tildascow covered it with: “What time is it here?”

  “Eighteen-thirty five. We’re on Eastern European Time, seven hours ahead of New York.”

  Tildascow pretended to set her watch. “Excellent. Okay, I think that’s all we need. If you wouldn’t mind rounding up the locals?” Also known as: Go do what the fuck I told you to do and stop marinating in the kid’s vomit.

  “Yes, yes of course.” He left, passing the Shadow Stalkers on his way.

  “We’re good to go,” said Beethoven.

  “It’ll be a couple minutes. I have to do their jobs for them,” she said, nodding toward Dumitru, who was wandering without direction. No, dude, there aren’t Romanian civilians in the Aurora’s landing gear.

  Beethoven and Jaguar stood at ease. Mantle knelt next to Lon and rubbed his shoulders with a wicked smile. “How you doin’, tough guy?”

  Lon collapsed on his side, dangerously close to his own vomit.

  Tildascow squatted over him. “I need you sharp, Lon. Did you take the pills I gave you?”

  Lon’s eyes rolled.

  “Help him up,” she said to Mantle. “Did you take those pills, Lon?”

  “No,” he said, as Mantle got him to his feet.

  Tildascow bit off her gloves and reached into one of the zillion pouches on the black MOLLE vest she’d picked up at Andrews. She came out with a pillbox and jiggled out two black-and-white capsules.

  “It’s not your courage that’s failing, Lon, it’s your body. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you’re just not trained for this. Does that make sense?”

  His lazy head swept into a nod.

  “Take these, okay? I haven’t steered you wrong yet.”

  She put them in his mouth and he accepted a shot from her canteen. One of the pills became stuck in his throat and his eyes bulged as his throat clicked. Mantle slapped him on the back and he fell forward.

  She caught him just before he landed in his own mess.

  “Oh God,” he muttered.

  “We all have our days, Lon. It’s okay.”

  Jaguar smacked Mantle in the head, hard enough to make him stumble. Jaguar didn’t talk much, but he knew when to swat that kid. So far, Tildascow liked him the best of the three.

  “Fucking hell,” Mantle muttered, rubbing his scalp.

  “Agent Tildascow!” Dumitru called from the edge of the hangar.

  She shifted Lon into Beethoven’s arms and issued orders to the guys: “Stay quiet, stay behind me, and don’t do anything to draw their attention. Keep your eyes on my shoulder blades. You too, Lon.”

  Tildascow preceded them out of the hangar. Around the corner, a crowd of maybe fifty was gathered in a loose block formation. Most were ground crew or soldiers, but there were also assorted bus drivers, luggage handlers, clerks and civilians. Only men, for whatever reason.

  “Excellent, thank you, Mr. Dumitru. Would you mind translating?”

  “Of course.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said pointedly, “I’m sure you’ve heard that something has happened in the United States of America.” As Dumitru repeated her words in Romanian, she scanned the crowd’s eyes. “There’s been an outbreak of werewolves. We believe it originated here in Romania.”

  Locked on the crowd’s eyes, she listened carefully to Dumitru’s words. His voice struck hard on the word vârcolacii, which she took to mean werewolves.

  Faces in the crowd were puzzled, frightened, bemused—

  But one set of eyes sunk to the floor. A soldier in the back row.

  Gotcha.

  “Do any of you have any knowledge of werewolves here in Romania?” she asked the crowd, already knowing their answers.

  Dumitru translated. He only got a few negative mumbles as they gauged each other’s responses. Eventually, all eyes fell back on Tildascow. The very last set to arrive belonged to that soldier in the back.

  She reeled him in with a beckoning finger.

  As he approached, Tildascow nodded Dumitru toward the helicopter. “Get that bird whirling.”

  “No, please,” whined Lon, “no more flying.”

  Nine

  CDC Headquarters - Patient Observation Room

  Atlanta, Georgia

  11:35 a.m.

  They’d kept her bound up like an animal. Bound, muzzled and prodded. How long until they lobotomized her? Or raped her?

  She wanted to strangle each and every one of them.

  “I’m sorry for the discomfort, Melissa,” said that woman doctor, Jessica Tanner. She stood over her, using a dental tool to pull back her lips and look at her gums. The godforsaken thing burns, she thought, spitting out the taste of metal. And the husband was drawing yet another vial of blood. Lord, how her arm ached from the constant pull.

  “Why don’t you just open my wrist?”

  “I’m sorry.” The husband had the nerve to feign innocence. “We just need to
run some more—“

  “Enough of your damn tests!”

  “Okay, we’ll take a break. We’ve got enough for now.” He tossed his syringe on the table and snapped off his rubber gloves.

  “Are you feeling irritable, Melissa?” the wife asked.

  Stupid question. No wonder these humans couldn’t cure any—

  “What’s that on your hand?”

  Tweedlestupid and Tweedlestupider looked over his hands.

  “What?” he asked.

  “That,” she repeated the obvious. “On your hand.”

  “What do you see?” Jessica asked, turning over his palms.

  “The star! The star in the circle.” The fools were oblivious. “On his hand.”

  “Can you describe it?” Jessica asked.

  “It’s right there!”

  It was clear as day! Practically glowing! And alluring. Tickling her salivary glands. Like the firm ass on a strong young man. God in Heaven, she didn’t want to look away. She wanted to be free, now more than ever. She needed to touch that star on his hand. To taste it.

  “Let me out of here!” she screamed.

  “Stay calm, Melissa,” Jessica said with a quiver in her voice.

  No, she wouldn’t stay calm. She had another life now, another world far more interesting than the one where she was restrained under these fucking bright lights.

  She’d lived in fear of God all of her damn life: praying, begging, showing penance—and for what? What had she ever gotten in return?

  Now she had a new Man, alongside her and inside her always. Finally, a Father who reciprocated her faith. All she wanted now—all she would ever want, for all eternity—was to return to the dream and hunt and love with Him again.

  Their love was angry and passionate, a greater feeling than any she’d ever experienced. The sex was brutal and animalistic, because they were animals. But it was also primal and honest, a mutual ravaging. None of the fumbling stupidity of human sex, the politics before and the abandonment after. When He was inside her, it was the apex of a bond eternal.

  And they fed from the weaklings because they could. Not to kill, not yet. Now only to spread, as was His decree.

  She longed to rejoin Him and rend these fools, especially this man with the star on his hand.

  Oh, how she wished she could tear into his flesh.

  They asked about the transformation, and she told them about the physical truths: the pain, the stretching, the descent into the rage dream.

  They asked about the dream, and she told them about the sensations, but she protected Him. She was a faithful soul.

  The hunger would wait. In her heart, He whispered that she would have that star. And she believed in Him.

  Ten

  CDC Conference Room

  11:51 a.m.

  Jessica was drowning in panic.

  The pentagram. A quick Google search confirmed what she already knew, what she’d seen in those creature double features. But instead of acting, she was waiting—waiting—on hold while some White House operator connected them to Transylvania. Richard always got his way.

  “It right here in the—“

  “It’s everywhere!” he shouted.

  They’d been yelling across the table for 20 minutes. What started as loving concern had devolved into utter pugilism. As always during their worst arguments, her tears hadn’t slowed him one bit.

  “The pentagram figures in every major religion, from Neopagans to Pythagoreans,” he barked. “It’s the wounds of Christ, it’s the rejection of Christ, the ‘elemental spirit’, the descent into spirit—“

  “A werewolf saw it in your palm, Richard, and there’s only one explanation for that, anywhere!”

  “They’re putting us through,” said Rebekkah Luft over the intercom, as if to remind them she was listening. On top of it all, the disintegration of their marriage was unfolding before an audience of the country’s best scientists and culminating on a conference call with the National Security Advisor of the United States.

  “Hello?” Lon Toller’s thick voice was barely audible above the din of a helicopter.

  Richard seethed while Luft quickly explained to Lon that Melissa Kenzie had seen a pentagram in the palm of his hand.

  “If a werewolf sees a pentagram in someone’s palm, it means that person will be their next victim,” explained Lon.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Richard snapped.

  “Richard—“ Jessica started.

  “No, Jess, you’re saying the disease can see the future. It’s absurd.”

  “I’m just telling you how the story goes,” Lon said. “It’s an obscure part of the mythology. Honestly, I thought it was invented by Hollywood. It didn’t appear in any legitimate texts before the Wolf Man movie in 1941. But the virus thing looked like a pentagram too, right?”

  “That’s right,” Jessica said pointedly. They’d gone around on that too.

  “It goes back to the whole thing being a curse,” Lon continued. “The werewolf usually sees a pentagram in the palm of their loved one, someone they’re tragically destined to kill.”

  Richard’s eyes narrowed as he scribbled in his file. “There is no curse. A curse is a sentence for a crime. This woman didn’t do anything wrong. She didn’t deserve to be bitten by a werewolf. And I’ve never even met her before today. We have no connection.”

  “I guess so,” Lon said. “Like I said, I never really believed in the pentagram lore. But, I mean, you should get away from that werewolf, as far as you can. Better safe than sorry.”

  Jessica nodded at Richard, who went on simmering. “Okay, we understand. Thank you, Mr. Toller, and thank you, Ms. Luft.”

  “You’ll keep us updated, Doctor Tanner.”

  “Of course. Our team will be in touch within the hour.”

  Richard made quickly for the door. “I have results coming in. When you’re ready to get back to science, come find me.”

  Eleven

  Transylvania

  6:58 p.m. EET

  The Forţele Aeriene Române helicopter crossed between the jagged stone peaks of the snow-capped Carpathian Mountains.

  Lon recognized this valley as the convergence between the Southern and Eastern Carpathian Mountains, the bottom right corner of the triangular Transylvanian plateau. He’d seen plenty of pictures of this area, but he never imagined the real thing would live up to the glamour shots. The snow glimmered so brightly under the moon that the mountain ledges cast upside-down shadows.

  He sat by Tildascow and the Shadow Stalkers in the rearmost seats of the helicopter’s cabin. They’d given him a helmet that smelled like metal and aged vomit. The headset was terrible compared to the one in the Aurora; the volume kept leaping from whispers to ear-splitting and back again. Nevertheless, his headache and sour stomach were all but gone thanks to Tildascow’s pills. In fact, he’d felt great until that phone call.

  “They see a pentagram in the hand of their next victim?” Tildascow asked him. They’d overheard the call patched through from the States.

  “Seems that way,” he said. “Man, it’s number three on my list of most ridiculous lycanthropy misconceptions. So embarrassing.”

  “Fucking nuts,” said Mantle. “Right on their hands?”

  “In the palm. God, they’re gonna filet me on the forums. I’m an idiot.”

  “Lon.” Tildascow turned to look him the eye. “The people on the forums weren’t enlisted by the United States government to fly to Romania in an experimental plane and find the source of the werewolves.”

  “I know.”

  “Go a little easy on yourself, alright?”

  Great. He’d promised his therapist he’d work on the self-criticism, and he fell right into—

  “Pentagram,” a tepid voice whispered through their headsets. It was Maistru Militar Trandafir, the soldier Tildascow had picked out of the crowd. But they didn’t know Trandafir could speak English. “Mark of the werewolf.”

  Trandafir sat acro
ss from them in the helicopter cabin along with five other Romanian soldiers. He was a spiny man-child with a big head over a chicken neck and brown eyes bugged out by thick glasses, hardly what you’d expect from military. In fact, the other soldiers towered over him.

  “You speak English?” Tildascow asked, leaning forward in an intimidating manner. “Tell me what you know about werewolves. Why are we headed to this location?”

  Trandafir recoiled like she’d held a gun to his head. “My aunt marries Gypsy carpenter. They settle in village north of Braşov. It is simple place, close families, Gypsies who only stay short time. Men work in copper mine.” The other soldiers whispered jokes about Trandafir. The poor boy just kept his eyes down and went on. “We visit the village when I am young. Each night, wolves’ howls keep us awake. Villagers all lock doors and hang fresh—“ Trandafir hesitated, searching for the English words, “flowers. On windows. Mărul Lupului.”

  “Wolfsbane,” Lon explained. “Aconitum tauricum Wulfen, of the buttercup family Ranunculacea—”

  “Okay, Lon,” Tildascow interrupted.

  “It keeps werewolves away,” he needed to add. That was the point.

  “Okay. Thank you.” Tildascow nodded to Trandafir to go on.

  “One night there is more than howls,” Trandafir continued. “Wolf was near. My uncle’s goats cry all night long, very scared, and then we hear wolf kill them. It is terrible sound, they cry even after they are dead. My cousin Andrei covers his head with pillows. Soon we hear scratches at door. My uncle loads his gun and tells us stay under our beds. Andrei does as he is told, but I want to see. I peek through window—“

  Trandafir shook his head. The other soldiers had grown quiet.

  “Go on,” said Tildascow firmly.

  “It is right in front of me, terrible beast. Wolf’s face on body of man. It reaches through window and grabs my neck. I am certain I am to die. But my uncle shoots creature, and it runs off.” He took a long swallow and shook his head.

  “Did your uncle say anything about it?”

  Trandafir shook his head. “We never speak of this. I wish to believe it is dream. I refuse to return to village for many years, even for my uncle’s funeral. Until one year ago, Andrei calls and says he is to be married. He begs me to come, and he says beast is killed. I had not seen my cousin in long time, so I return. We hunt deer for feast to celebrate reunion. In forest, we come across another hunter, most fearsome man I have ever seen. Seven feet tall and wide as two men. Andrei tells me this is man who kills werewolf. His name is Yannic Ilecko.”