Hour of the Wolf

by Andrius B Tapinas

  Tvardauskis leaned on his stick to ward off a bout of coughing.

  “Would someone tell me what the hell is going on here?” cried O’Braitis, appearing suddenly by Tvardauskis’ side, cried. “Where is the bald man I shot? How did he pull himself up to his feet with two fatal bullet wounds in his body?” the adjutant’s eyes slid over Finley’s collapsed body. “Charles!” he shouted kneeling down beside the corpse.

  “Don’t touch him!” grunted Tvardauskis. “It’s not Charles, he hasn’t been Charles for a long time. Leave him alone. The sun will take care of him.”

  And indeed – lying in the sunshine and stripped of its protective layer, the Fetch’s body was turning into ash right in front of their eyes. The stunned O’Braitis shook his head, then looked at Tvardauskis and shuddered. The scientist’s face had become as white as a piece of chalk, his eyes exuded an unnatural light, while the little scratches, which had turned into wounds, were seeping blood.

  “You have been wounded,” O’Braitis mumbled.

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” Tvardauskis dismissed the comment with his hand. But the marks of a Fetch’s poison-filled nails were not to be dismissed lightly. He suddenly remembered something. “Mila! Mila, where are you?”

  Sitting on the bench as before, the girl stared into space in front of her. Both men rushed to her. Tvardauskis felt her pulse with his one hand, and lifted her eyelids with the other.

  “Mila! Mila? Can you hear me?” he cried, looking intently into her face. “Did you drink anything? Did Charles give you something?”

  “He gave me some punch, it was steaming hot,” answered the girl in a weak voice.

  “Damn it,” Tvardauskis swore. “The brute did it after all.”

  “Who did? What did they do? I don’t understand,” O’Braitis moaned.

  Tvardauskis’ eyes pierced the adjutant.

  “What did you arrive in? A carriage? Where is it?”

  “I left it at the foot of the hill, so that the driver... well, so that he wouldn’t see it...”

  “It’s fine, fine,” the scientist nodded. “Let’s get Mila into the carriage and rush home. She must get the anti-venom medication. I could use some of it myself,” he quietly added. “Let’s go, I’ll explain everything on the way.”

  A few minutes later the scorching sun and the light wind were once again the sole rulers of the Hill of Tauras – or maybe Bauffał, or maybe the Devil – as black ash was slowly lifted into the air. During his brief summary of all the events delivered to O’Braitis in the carriage, Tvardauskis’ eyes did not leave Mila’s face even for a brief moment. She was very quiet and nearly slipping into unconsciousness. Tvardauskis was also feeling somewhat sluggish. The Fetch’s poison and the spider’s drops were travelling around their bodies through their veins.

  In Zverynas, Mila found her way into O’Braitis’ arms, while Tvardauskis rushed down to his laboratory, yelling for Morta to get the blankets ready as he ran past. He returned with a tiny bottle and Pierrot in his hands to find Mila lying in bed with a pile of blankets on top of her. Morta, a preoccupied look on her face, was fussing about. She had stopped questioning her master’s ways a long time ago, and got on with what she had been told to do.

  Tvardauskis perched on the edge of the bed, opened Mila’s mouth and doused it with the clear liquid from the bottle. Mila lay down on her side, immediately sinking into a deep sleep.

  “She should sleep the entire day and night. I am going downstairs. Morta, make sure no one disturbs us. No one. Do you understand?” Tvardauskis instructed before turning to the young man. “Edward, I know there are still a lot of questions unanswered but please go back to the dirigible now. A bad storm is approaching and the captain should not think he has lost both his adjutants. If someone enquires about Charles, tell them he has deserted. You tried to stop him, but did not succeed. Is this clear?”

  Shaken to the core, O’Braitis nodded in silence. He felt like a strand of straw carried along by the racing waters of a river.

  “Excellent,” Tvardauskis said. “Would you be so kind and help me down to the laboratory. I don’t seem to have control of my legs anymore. Then you should go to Viscigavas. Come over tomorrow and I will explain everything.”

  “Can you at least tell me who he was?”

  “An enemy. An old, cunning and ruthless one.”

  Tvardauskis frantically searched his secret room for a small bottle containing a black and thick resinous liquid, then lowered himself into an armchair, gulping the bottle’s entire contents down. The empty vessel clattered across the floor, while the unconscious Tvardauskis collapsed in the armchair.

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Vilnius, Afternoon

  26 04 1905

  Marijus Pelikanas did not disappoint his new employer The Vilnius News. On the contrary – he scored a bullseye. The muggy heat had blanketed Vilnius for a reason. In the afternoon the sky became overcast, while nearer to the evening it turned into a field of galloping black clouds, rolling thunder and bolts of lightning over the horizon.

  The flying German fortress The Parsifal increased altitude. Against the background of the lightning lashes the machine looked out of this world; a glimpse of it stopped people in their tracks, causing them to point and tilt their heads back to stare. Photo pictures were taken with the intention of sharing them with children and grandchildren. It was getting dark fast and the air became filled with moisture. Wary of the imminent downpour, Vilnius residents and guests filled the inns and city parks, looking for shelter underneath the thick of the trees. The daring ones stayed in the streets with their umbrellas out, reassuringly mumbling under their breath, “We aren’t made of sugar, the rain won’t melt us.”

  The Italian acrobats in the Cathedral Square looked anxious, their eyes darting backwards and forwards between the sky and the long queue of people stretched outside the ticket booth. The Alchemists, pushing their trolleys filled with flame of the sky on Bekesas Hill, nervously bit their lips – three months worth of preparation and is this how it would end? The rain could ruin everything for them.

  Two Legionnaires on duty on the border between Mirth City and the Blots were not concerned about the rain at all; on the contrary, they might have even be looking forward to it. The wetter it was, the quieter the streets became. The city was already deserted but for one or two residents still roaming about in search of an inn or a pub. It was getting dark so fast that the Legionnaires were left with no choice but to switch on their hissing Volta lanterns.

  “Listen, my bowels have been totally messed up by the gira I deluged myself with beside the Green Bridge,” one of them said. “Stay here, I have to run round the corner.”

  “Go to the outside toilet at the inn,” suggested the other guard. “You don’t want the wind to blow the stench here,” he roared with laughter.

  The gira lover shook his head.

  “No, it’s packed with people, there’ll be a queue. I won’t be a minute.”

  In one of the more secluded gateways he took a deep breath and pulled down his trousers, before starting to fertilise the Vilnius ground, amidst sounds of relief. But a few moments later, when he opened his eyes and tilted his head to the side, what he saw made his eyes pop out of his head.

  Slightly further down the street a was boy standing in the shadows. In deep concentration he was drawing something on the wall.

  “A dauber!” the mercenary gasped, Sidabras’ instructions immediately springing to mind: upon locating a dauber you must arrest him immediately.

  Mercenaries can’t drop their guard even for a second – even when answering the call of nature with their trousers down, they must be ready for anything. And so the Legionnaire, driven entirely by reflex, pulled up his trousers, and three leaps later was standing next to the child. He blew on the whistle that had materialised out of his pocket, calling for his comrade’s assistance.

  Upon hearing the shrill sound, any dauber would have run for his life, but this one didn’t. He
didn’t even flinch, but kept on painting.

  “Deaf?” the Legionnaire wondered.

  He span the boy round by the shoulder, and had to resist the urge to jump back. There was blood all over the boy’s mouth and his deep-set eyes were surrounded by dark circles, while one of his cheeks was commanded by a stubborn twitch.

  The Legionnaire’s eyes slid over the wall. The beast drawn on it was so true to life that it seemed to threaten to leap out and set everything ablaze with the flaming gaze of its eyes.

  “What the Devil?” swore the Legionnaire, his hand on the rascal’s shoulder. The boy was not going to run away or resist.

  “I saw it,” the boy mumbled and raised his bare-skinned arms in the air. They were smeared with blood below the elbows.

  It was five o’clock in the evening.

  The Legate of Vilnius was on edge. Not in the direct sense of the word, of course, but that did not make the life of the Sluskai Palace guards any easier. Every quarter of an hour Sidabras would race down into the reception area and demand reports from the posts, which he then read with a clouded face. Not because the mercenaries were doing an inferior job. On the contrary, on the most demanding day of the Summit, they were working like machines. The strikes had been averted, the mothers’ march which had scared the devil out of Lt. Vielholskiy had collapsed, if not without some help from the chief Knight of the Cathedral (reading through this report made Sidabras bite his lip intensely), the flying ace Adam Gaber-Volynskiy had dived under Green Bridge without taking any lives with him, and the thousands of curious souls who had besieged the banks of the Neris had not fallen or drowned in the river. Even the small fry of the Troubles had behaved themselves.

  Of course, the last night of carousing without measure was still to come, with its inevitable broken noses and eyebrows burnt by the Alchemists’ flames of the sky. But Sidabras had every right to pat himself on the back for brilliantly-executed preparatory work and ask for a bonus to be paid from the city’s budget. But a bonus and praise were not uppermost in his mind: he wanted action. And so he was now pacing the office and cursing the people who had temporarily relieved him of his duties – but most of all, himself.

  Someone cautiously opened the door a crack. Everyone in Sluskai had been made aware of the commander’s mood, and even the most ruthless interrogators would not come near his office in any other way but on tiptoe.

  “What do you want, damn you?” Sidabras bellowed.

  A moment later, however, he was already running downstairs like the wind, covering several steps in one leap. He stopped in the armoury to get a blunt hardwood baton, which he stuck in the loop of his belt. The holster attached to the belt also contained a pistol. He slipped into a water-proof patrolman’s coat and dashed out into the street.

  It was raining cats and dogs, and thunder rumbled somewhere close. In two steps Sidabras hopped inside the fast two-seat carriage that had been waiting for him outside the entrance to Sluskai.

  “Go!” he ordered the driver.

  Acknowledging the command with a nod of his head, the driver swiftly opened the boiler valves. With the hissing steam pouring out, the carriage darted out of the yard. With a few turns of the handle the driver released a high-pitched siren so that no one would be left doubting that this vehicle needed to travel fast.

  A creature appeared from under the foundations of a building and scampered after the stagecoach. Having gathered momentum, the mech rat hopped onto the vehicle’s running board.

  Seeing a blue dot move along the Vilnius streets at great speed, the heads bending over the Elektrolab in Markuciai Manor were finally able to breath a sigh of relief.

  “The Legate is taking a ride somewhere,” the Elder said. “He could be just checking the posts or he could also be...”

  In the last hours he had a message from his man in Sluskai, according to which Sidabras allegedly knew how to find the scientist Baltrus.

  The rain, which was rapidly gaining strength, had already chased people off the streets, leaving them clear of any obstacles for the howling carriage of the Legion. It drove around Cathedral Square and then past Bernardine Gardens. It did not brave Pilies Street though, as the locals and visitors who normally hung around that area were too headstrong to be scared off by something as simple as rain.

  They did come across an unexpected obstacle outside St Ann’s church though. The shafts of two horse drawn carriages had become so tangled up together that neither the two coachmen nor four of their helpers could separate them.

  The worried driver slowed down.

  “Move over to the pavement!” Sidabras yelled. “And keep turning the siren handle, keep turning it!”

  The carriage hooted and, splashing wet gravel around, climbed onto the wooden pavement. Its boards began to creak and the men working on the carriages started crossing themselves with fright. Having passed round the obstacle, the vehicle rolled back into the street.

  “Good,” Sidabras said dryly.

  The Legionnaire post was set up in The Red Rooster inn on the boundary between Mirth City and the Blots. The Rooster was a favourite of firefighters, constables, mercenaries as well as VIP security guards who were known among the city residents by the derogatory name of lickers. (One prankster, having suffered a severe beating at the hands of a bigwig, had paid him back with a little song: “Those who lick toffs’ arses/Will end up with a scratched backside.”)

  One glance around the inn made Sidabras realise it was teeming with vagrants. He did not like it. But what he disliked even more was the fact that all the drunks were staring at the two drenched patrolmen and a youth, or rather a child, sitting on a stool in one of the corners of the room.

  Sidabras conspicuously cleared his throat, making all heads turn to him.

  “Everyone out! Now!” Sidabras roared.

  Those familiar with the Legate of Vilnius knew better than to argue, while those who had never seen him before decided against getting more closely acquainted – with him, his baton or the pistol hanging by his side.

  “It’s raining outside,” someone moaned, poking their head outside the door.

  “It is dry in Sluskai,” retorted Sidabras. “Get your pints and get out. We’ll tell you when to come back.”

  The Red Rooster emptied out immediately. Landlord Narimantas clicked his tongue – it sounded like a reproach – but didn’t say anything. He knew there was no reason for him to despair: the rumour about the Legate’s odd visit would instantly spread around town, and the inn would be bursting at its seams tonight.

  Having convinced himself that there were no strangers left inside, Sidabras walked over to the dauber. He pulled a chair closer to the boy and just stared at him for a few minutes. The kid’s hands and mouth were stained with red paint. But his eyes...his eyes resembled those of a mad man. They were clouded, glaring straight ahead.

  Sidabras waved for the Legionnaires to step back.

  “Don’t fret,” he spoke softly. “No one will harm you.”

  The boy remained silent.

  The Legate stirred on his chair before moving a little closer.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  Silence.

  Sidabras gave the Legionnaires a questioning look. They shrugged.

  “His lips are sealed,” whispered one of them. All he said was, “I saw it.”

  Sidabras’ eyes went back to the dauber.

  “What did you see, boy? Did you see the creature you’ve been drawing on the walls?”

  Silence. Only the child’s fingers trembled slightly.

  The tremor shifted first into the arms, then the boy’s shoulders shuddered, before eventually his entire body was consumed by an uncontrollable shaking. His feet slipped on the wooden floor and he went down, thrashing around on the floor like a fish out of water as his body touched the ground.

  “Hold him!” Sidabras cried.

  Three pairs of hands took a firm grip on the boy.

  This made the child stop tossing about
. The backs of his hands helplessly clattered against the floor and his lips parted slightly.

  “Angel of God, my guardian dear...” he whispered.

  Kneeling on one knee, Sidabras bent over.

  “What are you mumbling, little child?”

  “ ...to whom his love entrusts me here...” the child took a deep breath. “Ever this day, night be at my side.” His voice grew stronger and stronger before turning into wail. “Oh be at my side, my guardian angel! I saw it! IT IS HERE!!!”

  With the last words out of his mouth, the boy’s eyes bulged, his entire body tensed, his head rose up. Sidabras’ hand, swiftly shoved under the boy’s head, was ready to catch it when the body collapsed a moment later. Red foam came out of his mouth.

  The alarmed Narimantas made the sign of cross, promising himself to light a load of candles – as many as he could possibly carry – in church on Sunday.

  “What should we do?” asked one of the Legionnaires, looking rather stunned.

  Ordinary people never became Legates, as truly extraordinary qualities were required to be selected. By that time Sidabras had not only asked himself the question, but also composed a further plan of action in his head. He cradled the boy in his arms, with his resting against his chest. The child was no heavier than a rag doll.

  “Return to your post. It will be hot in town tonight,” he spoke in a machine-like voice, not having the slightest inkling of how right he was.