City Under the Moon (18 page)

Jessica withered in her seat, wishing she’d just kept quiet. The others cast piteous glances her way.
How embarrassing for the poor woman, she’s crumbled under the pressure.

“What we need is a place to start,” said Tsong.

“Patient zero,” said Rohr.

“Still waiting for the cultures on Holly Cooke,” said Benrubi.

“She’s a secondary,” said Rohr. “She was attacked before she was brought into the hospital. Whoever or whatever started this is still out there.“

“
That’s
who we need,” said Richard.

Eight

Henri Coandă International Airport

Bucharest, Romania

6:30 p.m. Eastern European Time

The flight was rough.

As the Aurora crashed through the upper layer of the atmosphere, the G-forces crushed Tildascow’s body like a 200-pound blanket. Meditation helped, as well as the steady flow of oxygen and the effects of her anti-G flight suit. Still, every damn second was harrowing.

From strip to strip, the 4,880-mile jaunt was just under two hours. They were traveling at less than of half the Aurora’s maximum speed, because Romania wasn’t far enough to safely achieve Mach 8 and decelerate—and she and Lon didn’t have the training to handle that kind of speed.

When they touched down, the three Auroras taxied off an unassuming airstrip into a UN Special Ops Hangar at the Romanian Air Force 90
th
Airlift Base. They were just outside
Aeroportul Internaţional Henri Coandă,
the primary public airport of Bucharest, the capital of Romania.

This place occupied a black hole in Tildascow’s professional interests. Institutional corruption and bickering with Hungary had kept them from the international playfield, and the region offered no geographical or political advantage for adversaries of the United States. She’d taken a cursory look at FBI intelligence, but as she looked out over snow-covered Bucharest, she might as well have been scoping Mars.

Like so many European countries, Romania was struggling through puberty into a modern globalized culture. They’d experienced an economic boom after their 1989 overthrow of communism, and symbols of their oppression, like the stadium-sized “Hunger Circus” domes once used as food distribution centers, were being repopulated with hotels and malls. Restorations of surviving medieval architecture were underway to attract tourists.

The population was comprised of Vlachs, Hungarians, Saxons, Bulgarians, Armenians, Jews, and the secretive, nomadic
Ţigani
, also known as Gypsies. Werewolf lore frequently pinged on Gypsy legends of hexes and curses. In the original
Wolf Man
, the first werewolf was the son of a Gypsy fortuneteller.

That last bit of information had come from Lon, of course. He’d also said he’d know the way once they arrived. And she’d have to rely on him, because they had a wide-open map. She’d thought Transylvania was a city, but it was actually a massive plateau separated from the rest of the country by the reverse-L-shaped swath of the Eastern and Southern Carpathian Mountains. The region occupied nine counties and more than half of Romania.

Her boots crunched unspoiled snow as she stepped onto a balcony at the rear of the hangar. Fresh air and quiet were godsends after that torturous flight. The temperature was the same as in New York, but the crisp wind, clear sky, and evergreen aroma were decidedly Un-American.

So fuck nature,
she thought with a smile.

And there was the moon, blazing bright on the horizon. So close to full.

“Please, I need a bathroom. Or a trash can.” Lon’s husky whines carried across the hangar.

Beethoven, Jaguar, and Mantle were busy securing the Auroras, making sure the UN and Romanian Air Force understood that they had to be kept out from under the prying eyes of satellites. They’d left the poor kid to fend for himself. He was bent over, hands on his knees, in position to let loose from either orifice. She decided to leave him alone for a minute, to see if he could recover on his own, and maybe spare his pride.

She’d had a few minutes to look over Lon’s website during the layover at Andrews. The details were obsessive and indignant, and most of the discussions in the forum went his way or an ugly way. This identity he’d created as a werewolf expert reeked of faithless hubris and hollow vanity—both indicators of low self-esteem.

She also scanned his therapist’s notes, which were well kept, insightful, and surprisingly accurate. And she wasn’t surprised that Lon had suffered a major trauma during early childhood.

When Lon was five, his father developed a brain tumor. It spread quickly and mercilessly, causing memory loss, hallucinations, impaired speech and motor skills and, finally, a lonely death. Most importantly, noted the shrink, his father’s personality took sudden turns, leaving baby Lon to try to understand why a stranger was in his father’s body.

By the end of the father’s life, Lon’s mother had already suffered and dealt, and relief was all she had left. She thought Lon felt the same: He didn’t cry for Daddy, he didn’t get sick, he didn’t even alter his preschool routine. The mother was a simple woman trying to crawl out of someone else’s grave, hardly capable of recognizing the child’s clinical dissociation.

His nightmares began two years later.

It was tougher to forgive her missing the connection between the father’s shapeshifting identity and the werewolves running through the kid’s night terrors. But she’d started a new relationship—which she was probably desperate to keep—and Lon was keeping her boyfriend awake.

Cut to the beginning of high school, and Lon has grown into a perfect instrument of self-destruction. He’s convinced that people dislike him, even before they have a chance to make up their own minds. He says the nightmares are gone (he won’t even acknowledge they ever existed) and his father’s death is a non-issue because it happened before he can remember. The interest in werewolves is purely scientific, he insists, and his social problems come from interactions with what he describes as “untellects.”

Untellects
. Made her smile.

The kid was clever. And his enthusiasm was infectious… even cute. But he’d have to learn to get out of his own way. And come to terms with his awkwardness…

….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—“