Hair of the Wolf (4 page)

Once he was sure he hadn’t been noticed, the Trickster blinked, re-focusing his attention half a city away to the two Vampires. Like Loki, the Gray Ones hunted them. Watching this was important to him, more important than the Angel’s Fate, which had been sealed sixty years previously. The two he was watching were beneath Lilith’s notice.

They were great-grandchildren of the Vampire, Kaine. Kaine was not beneath Lilith, though these two were. Loki had helped them free themselves from the shackles of Elizabeth Bathory and Vlad Tepes a century before.

Besides, he had a full fifteen minutes before he needed to be back in London.

***

Mina Harker

Mina watched Elizabeth Bathory, Dark Bitch of the Night, walk across the nearby roof and disappear into the night, leaving only a brief trace of white from her suit. “What do you think, Jonathan?”

Jonathan Harker, looking every bit the Vampire of legend, dressed in an elegant black suit, with a black silk shirt and black cravat, looked at Mina for a moment, choosing his words carefully. Eighty-four years of marriage had taught him that he was usually wrong, and not capable of winning arguments. He had looked forward to an eternity of wedded bliss, now he tried not to even look as far as the next day. One night at a time.

It wasn’t that he was hen-pecked. He really wasn’t. It was more that they had been married in a different age, and as the world changed each of them did as well. Both of them were waking up, and discovering that the people that had gotten married were very different from who they were now. And, frankly, eighty-four years of the same jokes got stale. Despite these feelings, he had made a vow and he didn’t want life any other way.

He sighed. “We have to follow her, and then deliver the information of her whereabouts. An alliance with the wolves would be most fortuitous.”

Mina was far more modern, and had embraced the times. She wore bell-bottom jeans and a wide collared orange cotton shirt. She chewed her lip while she thought about what Jonathan was proposing. Elizabeth Bathory was a bundle of badass evil. The odds were good that they would be discovered. Mina and Jonathan both were able to sense when they were being followed. It was something in the intent of the follower that triggered the vampire awareness. Bathory was much older than them, and her powers had had a lot more time to grow.

They needed to know where she was going, but was it worth the potential cost of being captured by her again? Life had been hell living as her slave, and Mina didn’t dare risk that again. She, forever young, slender, beautiful … to be the Countess Bathory’s progeny, trapped in Vlad Tepes’ castle ... Never again!

She glanced at Jonathan, licking her fangs. “I’m sorry, dearest. We can’t. We can warn the wolves, but we can’t follow her.”

Idly toying with his cravat, Jonathan thought for a moment before responding. “You’re worried about capture again?”

She nodded.

“I can understand that, and the associated fears which are stirring in your heart. We must face our demons someday though, and if we wish truly to stop them, we must grow till we can face her.”

Mina glanced to her forever husband, her husband of the Night. “It’s not just fear, dearest. It was the living hell that I shall not repeat. Facing them in the light of night I can take. I just want to make sure that we are strong enough before such a time occurs. We are not even a century yet, after all.”

He gently stroked her arms. “This I know. Yet still we are hunted by the elders. If we don’t track her now, we may have to wait yet another four decades, just like last time, before we happen across her again. Or worse yet, they may find us first next time. They would torture us and break our minds. That’s why we need allies. We’ve been hiding from them since we escaped.”

“Should that come to pass, then we will deal with it. But until then, no. A thousand times no.” Mina looked deeply into Jonathan’s eyes. “I’m putting my foot down dear. No chasing the Evil Overlord Disco Vampire into the night.”

He sighed. “As you say then.” Inside he jumped for joy. His recommendation to chase had worked, ensuring that they wouldn’t. The contrary nature of his marriage was too predictable.

***

Skid

Greed instantly overcame Skid’s panic, calming him. His hands stopped shaking and he stopped fighting the iron grip holding him in place. “All right. You got three minutes. Then I got work ta do.”

Fifty pounds to listen to some dying old man rant for a few minutes? Hell, Skid could be generous and do him a favor. This was easily earned money for him, so why not? Besides, he was sure he couldn’t break away from the hand gripping his arm, clamping him in place.

The old man faintly nodded. Skid had accepted the terms, a bargain was struck.

“Thank you. You honor a dying old man.” His feeble voice spoke of weariness, but it was belied by a glimmer of strength hiding beneath.

“How well I remember it all—looking at you humans in your youth. You were so weak and helpless. But you had such strong minds, willing to believe with a force even we did not possess. We decided to help you to emerge from the caves—to nourish you and give the gift of enlightenment. We saw a way to gain for ourselves a much richer life, with adoration to feed us, by ensuring the continuance of your race. By giving you something to focus that powerful belief on. Ah …” The man winced in pain. “How brightly the Morning Star shone for your sake. He defended you from the leeches, who would have used your belief without nurturing your race. How brightly … for it was his idea to help you—and his idea
how
to help you as well.”

Skid didn’t understand what the heck this guy was talking about, and decided that he was seriously deranged—a total loony. He must think he was some alien or something. But then again a lot of the old farts, homeless and past their days, eking out a pitiful existence on the foggy streets of London, were delusional. Skid shifted his weight to make himself more comfortable and waited for the story to go on.

The old man drew a ragged breath then continued. “First came the songs, praising us, then your paintings … such bright and vivid pictures … and how wondrously you sang our praises for us. But how very quickly clever you became as well.

Skid saw a tear forming in the old man’s eye. “Why? Why? You could have given us forever, an eternity of worship … and we would have given you everything you wanted.…We would have gifted you everything you could ever hope for. Life immortal and every other desire your hearts had ever dreamed of …”

Skid was growing bored with the old codger’s rant. He wondered in if this crazy dosser would ever let go? Bloody Hell! What if he died and rigor mortis set in? He’d have to cut his bollicky jacket and it was too bloody cold out to rip it up. He tried a couple experimental tugs, but the old man’s grip was like a vice.

Skid sighed to himself, eyeing that sword again, and he managed to settle back down. The money made from pawning his treasure would more than pay for Skid’s troubles. He would go ahead and honor the rest of the three minutes. After all, there is a shifty type of honor amongst thieves and criminals. By Skid’s reasoning anyone the cops hassled was a criminal—and the cops hassled the homeless more than anyone else.

The old man sensed that whatever internal struggle Skid had been facing was resolved. Coughing, he continued. “But you are all fickle. Even more so than us.…And you wanted the one thing we couldn’t give. You wanted dominion, over all, even if you didn’t know it at the time. You’ve never known your own hearts, and your ambitions know no limits. Oh, Morning Star. You were brighter than any of us, brighter than all of us combined. Why did you have to die out? Oh, why did you have to leave us? We needed you.”

The man bit back a sob. He seemed to be talking to someone out of the past, a ghost of someone only he could see. “You taught them to write, to read, to think. And they killed you.

“We guided you through your lives, you know, your so short, but so bright, lives.…And in the end you betrayed us.…We gave you the gift of thought … a way to win the struggle against the beast within, and bring a light to the darkness of fear that hid in your minds … a way to know the universe and be a part of it. And you threw our protection away, by casting us out of your hearts.”

Sorrow deeper than any Skid had known passed across the old man’s face. “All we ever asked was your praise and love—in such a way that we could find strength and will in it. We guided your kings and princes. We led those whose love flowed most freely to the greatest victories. The martyr’s and saints, the kings.…We allowed them to lead other men and conquer nations. They were allowed to inspire the hearts of thousands. Yet one of you wanted more. The first of you that wanted to take our essence from us. He killed his own brother, and one of my kin as well, to steal life immortal …”

Skid felt goose bumps crawling up the back of his spine. The last thing this guy had said … hadn’t life spans been going up over the last few centuries? This guy was really starting to creep him out. He didn’t—and couldn’t—really understand what the old man was saying.

But deep down, in Skid’s tarnished soul—a meaningless flicker that he held in deepest contempt, the words resonated with truth, and that scared Skid even more than when the old priests had told him about the little “games” they would be playing. These words spoke to him of a purpose and nobility to life. Everything that had always been so wrong made it terrifying that there could be a right.

Numbness spread throughout his brain, but he heard his own voice quietly echoing in the space between them. “But what changed it all?”

A deep chuckle came from the old man’s throat. He was seeing some grander joke in Skid’s words; he still retained his iron grip on Skid’s arm. “One of yours did it. Kaine! He shone brightly, that one did. He had the fire and passion to rival any of us—with a mind to match. He almost burned as brightly as the Morning Star himself.…But young Kaine did not understand the depths of our love or the tenderness of our compassion. He told me once that he felt like a slave—destined to live by the decree of another. He could not understand the gift we gave him, that we gave all of you! We tried to teach him the ways of the universe—but the dedication we showed was invisible to him.”

The old man began to cough. The fit seized him and racked his entire body, rattling deeply in his lungs, but he never released his vice-like grip. The old man only had a few moments left to live. Once the coughing fit subsided, the old man hungrily sucked air into his lungs and then continued with his rambling story. “So Kaine turned against us. He betrayed the ones who had taught him, empowered him–and we had shown him a reality greater than any of you ever has, or ever will, know. He left us.…He refused to bend his knee to us, and he hatefully recognized he couldn’t subordinate us, so used the fire and beauty of his vision to attempt to lead our children against us.”

With memory filling his vision, he continued, blind to the present. “The holy men called him Kaine the Great, and he led them and poured a warped version of our truth into their ears. He used the very concept that we had created to benefit you—the greatest of beings who watched over all—against us. You were convinced that humanity could hear and interpret the raw voice of the universe. He tried to turn and warp that worship to himself, or at least away from us, to reap the rewards of ages of our workings and take it away from those that loved you all so much. He tried to destroy us to free humanity and never realized that so doing would eventually destroy humanity as well.”

“But his own brother Abel spoke against him. He understood that we loved humanity. He fought to protect his clan from Kaine’s teachings. To no avail. Kaine slew his brother, and driven by his madness, with his own brother’s blood running from his lips and the flesh of Able’s throat between his teeth, he slew the Morning Star, as well. At least in spirit. But one of us gave his own essence to the brother, slain upon the ground. The ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate reward.”

Madness glowed in the old man’s eyes as they rolled in their sockets, bloodshot and with pupils so wide a person could fall into them. “It’s all so unclear. So much of my memory is gone, ravaged and eaten by time.”

The man’s voice wavered with sorrow and regret. “Oh that our most beloved—man’s first son—would turn against us.…The pain it caused within us all—that such beauty and tranquility in one of you could turn to such hatred and loathing upon us. It was a heartbreaking time for us.…We were all so unsure of what our course of action should have been.…You see, we wanted so badly to save them both, but in the end we simply couldn’t.”

“We all mourned so much, but he left us no choice—If we were to survive we had to take his essence. It had to be done, and publicly, I think, to stop Kaine and his followers. It was necessary to stop him before it went too far, before he could succeed. We mourned so at doing this terrible deed, but should he have triumphed in usurping us it would have meant all of our deaths. Kill him or be killed by him. We failed, for I am the last.”

The old man’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “But in the actions we took, we only managed to sow the seeds of our own downfall. The Morning Star tried to save us—he foresaw what none of us could have … that the children of mortality would rise not only against us, but against all things in the natural order. As the fallen Morningstar stripped Kaine of his essence, destroying his soul, he marked him so all could see the evil he had done. But the body did not stop. Just the soul. And something grew in its place, something new. Both of them continued on, soulless, with corruption in their hearts.”

A chill ran through Skid’s body. He was finally beginning to understand, and with his dawning comprehension a wave of nausea slid over him. His hushed voice came out barely audible and filled with a dread chill. He feared what the answer to his next question would be. “And what did the Morning Star do after that … did he survive?”

The old man coughed for a moment more, then refocused on Skid. “He sacrificed himself in the attempt to save the rest of us. That was what his words brought. How noble he was … but how naïve—although I suppose we all were back then. He named himself as the true evil, letting the first killer twist the very essence of who he was. He fed himself only hatred and disgust, giving the Marked One nothing to feed upon. It was such a foolish sacrifice.”