September 7, 2011

• By A Hunter's Moon, chapter 2

  The hare was consumed, and a glass of hard cider imbibed before Lucian went about lighting the reading lamps with a burning stick from the dying fire. Vali re-entered the house with an armful of firewood. He placed it on the hearth and began stacking a few pieces on top of the glowing ashes. Beside him, Seeker stirred from his nap, wagged his tail once, and started a new nap.

  "Before you start reading from Socrates, brother, I think we need to talk."

  "From what do you plan to read tonight, Vali?"

  "Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy. This translation is the best thus far."

  "Really? Who was the translator?"

  Vali ignored the question. "We play a dangerous game here, brother. You know the law."

  Lucian nodded. "And that is why we must keep quiet. Iorghu would take our land were we to admit that we had not acted once we knew."

  Vali remembered well the day they learned of Its presence. One morning last spring. Lucian came back inside, without the water bucket, holding a book, a strange look on his face.

  "Dawn is a poor light by which to read, brother," he teased.

  Lucian was bit pale. "No, I didn't take this with me, It was atop the firewood."

  That's odd. I did not put it there..."

  "That isn't the oddest thing, Vali." Lucian showed Vali the cover. It was their copy of Bocaccio's Decameron, in the original Italian. They had both read from it last night, translating it as they read, an exercise Lucian had suggested. Lucian opened the book to the story about Guillaume de Rousillon, who killed his wife's lover, the story from which they had read. The story had remained unfinished, the brothers having gotten into a playful wrestling match over Vali's woeful Italian. Seeker jumped in, grabbing the sleeve of whichever brother winning at the moment. Vali had marked the page with a broomstraw; it was now at the end of the story, after Rousillon cooks his rival's heart and feeds it to his adulterous wife. He distinctly remembered placing the book on the desk between their beds.

  "There's something else. Outside."

  Vali followed his brother to the woodpile, beside which was a furry pile. As he closed the distance, the pile became an animal, a wolverine in fact, laid out as if sleeping. From his tenure with Iorghu, Vali had learned this was characteristic of vampire kills. No one, probably not even the red-eyes, knew why they did it. Vali guessed that whatever small portion of humanity left after a change was responsible.

  A wolverine had been taking a hen or a lamb almost every night. It had even attacked a calf, which Lucian put down because of its injuries. Now here it lay, one predator laid low by another. Vali told Lucian what he suspected. Lucian agreed.

  "It listens to us, that is obvious."

  "It's been in our house."

  "It could have killed us any time, even Seeker slept through the intrusion, Vali."

  "There have been no human deaths attributed to vampires in our valley in ten years, maybe more." Lucian was thinking about the price of meat, which was falling. They needed as many of their herd to sell to the butcher as they had left in order to pay off their father's debts.

  "Remember, Vali," Lucian went on, "why Father stopped hunting with Iorghu."

  Vali did remember. Their Father had told them how vampires had fought with their forces in the wars that drove the Ottoman Turks from their land. Unofficially, of course, and not as comrades-in-arms.

  "The creatures would soften the Turkish defenses, take out forward guard posts, affairs of that sort" their Father said. "We rarely saw the red-eyes, just their work. Dead Turks, bloodless faces frozen in shock. Because of them, the war ended quickly , and the number of war casualties we did Not receive were more than the total number of the victims of vampirism throughout the centuries, I would wager the farm on that, boys." Father took another deep drag off the hookah, one of his spoils of war, and continued.

  "I could not continue to hunt them after the war ended. There was no joy in hunting down and killing what could be a patriot. Iorghu? He saw the things I did, fought the same war. But killing vampires is in his blood as much as taking our blood is in theirs. He would not quit, and he had found new, battle-hardened men to hunt with him. He was killing more than ever, my sons, and getting rich off the bounties."

  "Yet, still they kill citizens, do they not?" Vali asked of his Father.

  "Since that war, their victims have mainly been the dregs of society. Women of the night, Gypsies. Thieves, killed in the act of thieving, their drained bodies left lying by the jewelry box they had intended to steal. Old drunks, the mumblers and droolers."

  Vali shook his head at the memory; one did not dishonor one's father, but he had learned in Bucharest that every man was unique and deserving of life. So, after his own warring adventurism was over, Vali had taken up the stake, and rode with Iorghu and Skender until he watched a vampire burn for the first time. The creature had been cornered in an old farmhouse outside of Iasi, which Skender had then set afire. The screams still echoed in his head. When Vali quit Iorghu's employ the next day, he refused his share of the bounty. "Have the Nicolaes lost their stones?" Iosif's insults followed his trail out of the camp, southward along the banks of the Bistrita.

  Iosif's taunts were as wrong as they were rude. He could kill a vampire, but it would be quick; he would take no pleasure in the creature's suffering.

  Now Lucian, his blood, his partner, his best friend, wanted an implicit bargain with a red-eye. Vali sighed, he would not drive the thing from their land.

  "It's been in our house, our home, Lucian. I will not have that. Make that plain: leave books for It outside, the corn crib is dry."

  Thereafter, conversation about their working tenant was limited to discovery of his kills, and the increased credit on the ledgers of their suppliers and merchants.

  But if their benefactor had rediscovered a taste for human blood; it had to die. One thing he had learned on his hunt with Skender and Iorghu, vampires are territorial, and mainly range between their human birthplace and the locale of their change. Vali wondered what had caused theirs to migrate here in the first place.

  "We will keep reading to It, keep It close, until I can figure out how to trap It. That is how it must be, Lucian."

  "As you say, brother" Lucian assented. But Vali thought he had won too easy. He would do this on his own, one could not half-heartedly hunt a vampire.

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  Dragos reached Petisoara as the church bells pealed the nine o'clock hour. The streets were deserted. After two deaths, the townspeople had taken to withdrawing into their homes by sundown. The air stank of garlic; garlic was everywhere, cooked garlic, crushed garlic cloves on the doorsteps, garlic wreaths on the doors and garlic plants on each shuttered window. Dragos marveled at how persistent myths could be. Although they saw much better in the dark, sunlight did not hurt them either. As with any light, sunshine merely exposed to a greater extent their differences from humans; red eyes, elongated forms, skin white as bone. And the fangs, no vampire could talk to a human without exposing itself for what It had decided to become. The only practical reason for talking to a human, indeed the only one sanctioned by the vampire community at large, was when one decided to create a changeling. Every vampire sponsored another, and only one other, or the brotherhood would come together long enough to kill the offender and his changelings. It was here, in Petisoara, where Dragos' wasted opportunity resided.

  "Istok, hear me! We must talk!" Dragos spoke in the old language, his voice carried across the town square, and was picked up and repeated by each crow in its nest, each rat and rodent in its lair. Within minutes, Istok's lean form glided up into the tree next to Dragos.

  "Sponsor! To what do I owe this visit?

  "You know why, Istok, do not waste time in pleasantries, or in lying. You broke my rules."

  "Take no humans from in this valley, yes. Well, that was twenty years ago, I am tired of stray dog, boar, bear, and wolf." His tone was insolent, challenging.

  "You tired quickly of learned discussions, too. The only reason I sought you out and offered you the change was your intellectual curiousity."

  "Dragos, Dragos, are you still angry with me? I only learned to accept my nature, my new nature."

  "Could you not stick to drunks and whores? A night watchman, of all things, and the girl..."

  Ah, the girl, Dragos," Istok interrupted. "Did you know she rode her white horse at night? Down to the lake she would ride. There she would take her clothes off and remount, and off they would go, until the horse tired." Istok's eyes closed, seeing her as she would lead the stallion down to the lake for a drink, her hair as wet as her steed's lathered hide.

  "Dragos, she was so beautiful! Long blonde tresses that shamed the sun's very center, flawless skin, blue eyes, the pulse of the blood coursing through the blue veins of her breasts. Dragos, I, you, no one of us could refuse such a gift forever. Her blood tasted of..."

  Dragos had heard enough, he was getting excited, wanting a human now, the months of suppressed desire welled up in his chest.

  "Do not say any more, changeling."

  "I am not your changeling anymore, I am fully developed now, there is none of Istok's body left. I am ready to be a sponsor."

  Dragos grabbed Istok by the arm, and flung him across the square. He followed as Istok stood up.

  "Dragos, listen to me..." A kick sent him flying into the side of the church. Istok slid down to a sitting position, then he kicked off the side of the building towards his sponsor. Dragos simply wasn't there when Istok swung his fist. A hard blow to the back of his head numbed him for a few seconds, during which time Dragos seized him from behind, pinning his arms at his side. Istok felt twin points of pain in his neck.

  "I should kill you now, Istok, make up for my error." Dragos whispered into his ear. Blood began to stream from the wounds.

  "Please, Dragos, I will leave, find another town." Dragos tasted the blood that flowed between his lips, It was cow's blood. He pushed Istok against the wall.

  "Then go, dullard! Had I tasted the blood of a human, especially that of the girl, instead of that of a calf, know that I would have drained you of your life!" He slapped Istok so hard the younger vampire fell to one knee. Dragos pulled him up by his collar and gave him a shove that sent him reeling across the street. Somewhere a dog barked. "To think," Dragos continued as he pushed Istok down the main thoroughfare, towards the edge of town, "I sponsored you because of your intellectual curiousity."

  "You Killed my intellectual curiousity, Dragos. You gave me the love of the hunt instead, and I thank you. I miss books, teachers, learning, not even a little."

  Dragos stopped. They were passing an alley between two shops. There were forms crouched in the darkness, one looked up at Dragos, then at Istok. The changeling was drawing the life from an old woman. Another form joined them, Dragos saw the red, questioning eyes. The one biting into the unconscious woman's wrist beckoned to Istok with a free hand.

  "You Damned fool! How many did you make?" Istok was nowhere to be seen, the street was empty of life, human or otherwise.

  Dragos sighed. Istok could wait. First, his mess must be cleaned up, mistakes rectified. The two young vampires, both women in their child-rearing years, still plump with their human fat, turned to run. They did not get far. Birds flew from the trees for a mile around when the screams started. By the time any townsfolk dared open their doors the next morning, the sun was high over the hills.

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  • 8:40 am
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