City Under the Moon (20 page)

The giant’s thin gaze narrowly escaped his pronounced brow. He lobbed one hoarse word at the crowd, something in Romanian, maybe a warning to the miners. Whatever it was, it landed with silencing devastation. The other miners moved off to the side, leaving Ilecko as a target on a firing range.

One of the soldiers stepped forward, wearing a weasel’s smile.

“Tell him to back off,” she said.

Dumitru yelled at the soldier in Romanian. He shot them a “what are you going to do about it?” glance and continued forward as his comrades snickered.

The soldier looked up at Ilecko’s eyes for only a second and then he struck with the butt of his rifle. Ilecko never flinched as he grabbed the stock and whipped the barrel around, shattering the guy’s face.

The other four Romanians raised their rifles—

Put-put-put
and the Romanians dropped. Steam swirled from the barrels of the Shadow Stalkers’ rifles. Jaguar spun to cover Trandafir, but he’d already dropped his rifle and fled up the path. Dumitru was right behind him.

“Hooah,” she muttered, in case they had any doubt that she approved.

“Hooah,” they replied steadily.

Tildascow took a cautious step toward Ilecko. His face remained rigid.

Whaddya need, big guy? A little flirt? A big threat? Some lion-with-a-splinter-in-his-paw desperation? Bargaining for a big reward?
She scanned his eyes for any hint. Nothing in return, so she started with the obvious.

“We need your help.”

Ilecko’s eyes passed from the fallen soldiers to the Shadow Stalkers and from Lon to her. Then he turned back toward his mine.

She’d brought a flashbang in case she needed it for Valenkov, but—

“Ea este numeLon, sheea este American!”
Lon yelled, in a pitiful caricature of a Romanian accent. Just in case they hadn’t thoroughly infuriated this guy.
“New York a fost poknit epidemie de găini!”

The other miners snickered. It grew into bellowing laughter.

“What did you say?” Tildascow asked.

“I told him my name, and I said we’re American and New York City has been struck by an outbreak of werewolves.”

“You sure that’s what you said?” asked Mantle.

“I’ve studied Romanian for ten years. I know how to talk to this man.”

Thirteen

Carpathian Mountains

9:10 p.m. EET

“She is name Lon, and she is American. New York has been punched epidemic of chickens!”

The miners buckled with laughter.

Yannic Ilecko did not find this funny, if it was true. And these soldiers had killed men to prove it so.

But why would the Americans request his help through this boy, with his pathetic grasp of
limba română?

“Chickens are on our New York City,”
he cried. His face was as foolish as his words.
“Hundreds people have been killed. Thousands people maybe more tranquilizer.”

The laughter intensified. But the boy was earnest.

“Thousands chickens! They is to overfulfillment our country. She is beg for your help.”

The American woman’s keen eyes tried to read his thoughts. She was a clever commander. The boy quivered from humiliation, yet she ordered to him to continue.

“She must find a man yell Valenkov. Forehead of the pipeline.”

The miners slapped their knees. If only he could slap their faces.

The woman spoke again and the boy paused to translate. “
The United States will pay you—“

“Your money means nothing to me,”
Ilecko said in
limba română. “You will never find the man you seek.”

He cursed himself for responding to them. He did not want to engage this fool, and he certainly did not want the attention of the military, be they Romanian or American. He preferred to be left alone, make his
bani
, and tend his farm. He could not afford to lose his job, and it would not sit well that his presence had brought distraction to his co-workers.

The others made way as Ilecko retreated to the nearby lot, where his four-horse stagecoach was parked. He unhitched as the Americans argued among themselves.

“Please, you help us?”
the fat boy pleaded.
“Eight million people trapped on island infested with chickens!”

Ilecko pulled up on his four-in-hand reins, turning his horses toward the road. His coach trundled past the fallen soldiers in their puddles of reddened snow. The Americans made no indication that they would stop him by force.

He came alongside the boy, a porky redhead with thick, flushed skin and frozen glasses. He might never have worked a day in his life.

“My girlfriend she is there!”
he whimpered.

“Your soldiers will protect her. They can handle this on their own.”

“They do not understand the way of the chicken!”

The other Americans remained quiet. Their woman commander was confident in the boy. Was she desperate? Or stupid? Or had she actually read his thoughts?

Because there was something.
Something
made him like this boy.

“The United States of America asks for my help, and you are their emissary?”

“And you think she can handle it on our own?”

Fourteen

CDC Headquarters

Atlanta

2:15 p.m.

Jessica Tanner sat alone in her office. The others were off updating their files, barking ill-conceived theories and re-re-redefining their terminology. Of course they’d agreed with Richard that he should stay. She was just being reactionary, they thought. Intimidated by the big bad monster.

This is not magic, this is a virus,
Richard had said. And they’d all agreed with him.
When you’re ready to get back to science, come find me.

Somehow she’d been branded a proselytizer.

But were they clinging to their own dogma because they’d be lost without it? Or were they braver and smarter than she?

The blinds were drawn, the lights dim and the televisions dark. She tried to take a sip of tea, but her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Richard floated through the door in mid-sentence. “—reconfiguring the lamp to test the catalysis at various spectral intensities. You need to see this. They may have a different state every night of the month!”

She looked at him with doe eyes, praying that he would just do this for her. “Richard. You have to leave.”

“Oh, come on, Jess. Not again. We settled this.”

“We didn’t settle it.”

They stared at each other, arguing silently in the way that husbands and wives do.
Someday you’re going to have to believe in me, Jess.
Around and around they went, and she kept losing.

“You have to
leave
, Richard.“

“I
can’t
leave, there’s so much—“

“Just go!”
she screamed.

Richard slowed his tone and put a hand on her shoulder. She could practically hear him cock his charm rifle. “I hear you, Jess, I do. And I care about how you’re feeling. I love you. But I can’t leave.” He paused, searching for reasons. “Too much of the data is in my shorthand. I’d have to transcribe it all.“

“You taught half the viros here. They can transcribe your notes. Go home and they’ll conference you in.”

“I need to see the data. I need to see
her
. Jess, she’s
restrained
. Don’t let your fear run wild with your emotions.”

“Oh my God,” she muttered. Not only had she been stripped of her professional and personal dignities, now he’d been callous enough to put his finger on it.

“Look,” he said, sensing her simmer, “we’ll call for more—“

“Get out. Or I’ll have security throw you out.”

He smacked the wall on his way.

Fifteen

White House Oval Office Dining Room

2:30 p.m.

Weston and Teddy endured long silent moments during their lunch, unable to wrench their hearts from the conversation they’d just left in the Situation Room. And they both knew Truesdale was off somewhere with his men, brewing unconscionable plans in their cauldron.

So starved were they for optimism that both men sprung from their seats when Rebekkah Luft entered with a muted smile. “I have something new in the latest CDC report, something we might be able to use to our advantage.”

“Do tell,” Teddy urged.

“The werewolves’ transformation varies according to the lunar phase. The closer to the full moon, the more ‘wolfy’ they become.”

“Okay.”

“They won’t transform at all during the night of the new moon. And it shouldn’t be much worse than a bad mood for up to three days on either side.”

“Seven days,” said Teddy. “We can take control, get them into safe containment—”

“When does it start?” asked Weston.

“The 12th. Runs through the 19th.”

“We just have to keep them contained until then.”

Weston crashed into his chair as the pressure valves released in his chest. Teddy laughed at the ceiling. Luft’s smile grew.

But they all knew Truesdale had to keep going.

Sixteen

Southeastern Transylvania

9:38 p.m. EET

Every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool.

—Bram Stoker,
Dracula

—Lon Toller, opening quote,
Of Wolves and Men: Legitimizing the Veracity of Lycanthropy in the Scientific Era—A Thesis of Truth

Lon scanned the living darkness through the coach’s window. He’d spent so many nights studying this region by flashlight, hiding under the covers after his stepfucker ordered him to sleep. But nothing prepared him for the aura, the
intensity
, of Transylvania, the legendary haven of the supernatural. These woods were entirely different from any in America. They had a sinister unease, a distrustful stillness. They were the enemy, and they were
watching
.

The brand name for Transylvanian folklore was, of course, Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
—one of Lon’s very favorite novels. Count Dracula was a new and ambitious vampire who traveled from his remote castle in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania to join London society. Looking to spread his thrall, he turned dimwitted socialite Lucy Westenra into a vampire. Her friends enlisted the aid of Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, a well-travelled scholar who had experience with vampires. When the humans fought back, Dracula infected their beloved friend Mina Harker. But Van Helsing hypnotized Mina and used their blood bond against him. Van Helsing looked into Mina’s mind to track Dracula back to Transylvania (to a mountain trail not very far from where they were right now!), where they ambushed and finally destroyed him.

But there were so many other tales of this place’s mystical powers, some of which even gave Stoker inspiration. Legends of a powerful energy field giving Transylvanians extra-sensory perception. Eyewitness accounts of strange runes written in floating fire. Claims that a hundred thousand ghosts roam the countryside, victims of the notorious tyrant Vlad the Impaler. Gypsy mystics from this region could supposedly curse their enemies with harrowing fates. And, of course, there were these dark woods stalked by werewolves under the light of the moon.

Modern folk were eager to dismiss these tales. Maybe it was the fear in their hearts that kept them from believing. But Lon had faith.

They traveled a narrow, snowy path wandering northward from the mine. The road was illuminated by moonlight, but the pine-and-juniper forest was pitch black except for the shining eyes of nocturnal predators. Lon felt a surge of relief when the thicket broke into meadows of virgin snow.

He was quite familiar with their location. The closest populated area was several miles to the east: the commune of
Comandău
, population: 1,192 (page 196 in Lon’s well-worn
Atlas of the World
). They were about 130 miles southeast of the
Tihuţa Pass
, the location where Stoker set Dracula’s castle. Further to the west was the city of
Sibiu
. That was the location of the Scholomance, the fictional university Dracula attended. Lon’s favorite dungeon in
World of WarCraft
was named in its honor. Well, not his favorite, but it held a special place in his heart.

They were deep in the southeastern elbow of the Carpathian Mountains, precisely where Lon believed the werewolf community thrived.

Sweet, sweet validation.

Beethoven, Mantle, Jaguar, and Tildascow were packed with him in the cab of Ilecko’s coach. The Romanians had taken off in their helicopter, but Beethoven had arranged for a CIA pick-up when—
if
—they found Valenkov.

Lon had no idea where they were going, or, really, who this man was that they were following. But Tildascow didn’t waver when Ilecko told them to get in his coach, and she always seemed sure of herself.

“You married?” Mantle asked Tildascow.

No
, she said by shifting her chin a millimeter to the left and back.

“Boyfriend?”

Non-answer said no. Her eyes grew heavy and bored.

“Wheels don’t roll that way?”

Jaguar chuckled. Beethoven shut him down with a glare.

“Wheels roll just fine,” Tildascow said. “Men are either too stupid or too angry to keep around.”

“Not me,” laughed Mantle. “I’se just too slick.”

“Too stank,” said Beethoven.

“Too ornery,” said Jaguar. Lon had forgotten what his voice sounded like.

“Too good lookin’,” Mantle said with a wide smile.

“I’m gonna go with stupid,” said Tildascow. “And I tend to hurt stupid people.”

Jaguar and Beethoven laughed. Tildascow winked at Lon, which made him nervous. Should he—

A wolf’s howl slinked through the air. The melody beckoned others, and soon there was a chorus. Each voice sounded closer than the last, until the carriage was enveloped in a suffocating threat.

“Jesus fuck!” Mantle whispered.