She glanced at a briery thicket ahead of her and smiled with relief when she saw him attempting to get out of it. Her smile turned at the widening of his eyes.
“
What just bloody happened?” he asked, grabbing his hat from amidst the thorns.
He was scratched up a great deal, and she felt such pity for him. He always seemed to be the one getting hurt.
Rein felt wonder come over her. “I saw Ana,” she said. “Behind there. No, she had
been
there, but I didn’t exactly see her…”
He stared at her, neither blinking nor moving.
“
Traith, look at the horses!” She ran to them. They lay unmoving in grotesque positions. “Traith, can you pull out the stakes? I can’t…”
His half-dazed eyes slowly left her face and met with the gored horses. “My God,” he breathed. He looked grave as he limped over to her. “Can’t you heal them? Or try to, or something?”
“
I can’t heal something dead, Traith,” she muttered. “I know I can’t…” she paused and felt cold. “I
know
I can’t.” She wanted to smile at the fact that she knew what she could do, somehow, but the horses’ screeching rang in her mind. “Look how many stakes,” she murmured, her eyes filled.
He held her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Stop looking at them,” he muttered. “But you—you saw my sister?”
“
Not really, no. In my mind, as though just in front of me.” She had to pause in talking. “Though obviously she
had
been right in front of me.”
He waited for her to finish, then he sighed. “After over a hundred years away from her on a ship, she’s still too afraid to confront me. Instead she wants to kill me in greeting,” he said quietly, brushing himself off. “Campbell’s warehouse of a home is right up here,” he murmured. “I think I see it, so I can take us there.”
She took his hand and watched as the trail they left turned into a foggy, dreary shore.
“
Here it is,” he said with an empty smile. “Just as I figured.”
She glanced at him as he walked ahead of her, still shaking his head in disbelief at what had just occurred. Her stomach sank.
Traith placed his hat on his head, covering his messy, brown hair. He looked so handsomely sloppy; his body was hidden inside his overcoat, and his hat covering most of his face. It was now pulled down to cover his flaming eyes. All she could see was his upper jaw, sideburns, and chin.
She took in, then, the repository ahead of her: it was old and run down, with broken windows and boarded doors. There was a large gate that ran all the way around the warehouse, and she wrinkled her nose as the pungent, marshy smell became noticeable.
Traith approached the gate and pulled at it a few times, but it was locked. He slowly felt toward the ends, his arms out wide, holding it by the hinges. He tugged once at it and broke the gate.
He turned and looked at her with a grin. “Easier to get in that way,” he said. “Magellan couldn’t get through that, I assure you. Or didn’t have the nerve to.” He sighed and set the gate to the side gently, tapping the top of it in sarcasm.
She followed directly behind him as he walked up to the old door. He knocked hard a few times. In each pause of his fist, she glanced around at the bizarreness of the area. She happened to glance up; a dark figure appeared and leaned on one of the broken windows.
“
Up there, Traith,” she said, tapping him.
“
Dr. Campbell?” he called. “I need a word with you!”
The man didn’t answer and left the window.
Traith shrugged inelegantly and looked back down. “Things can never just be easy, can they?”
Rein watched his anger rise, and he protested under his breath when they heard the man lock the door from the inside after a few minutes. She knew Traith genuinely didn’t want to be there.
She then heard a faint grunt, or cough, as if Campbell were ill. Following Traith’s alert spin of head, she saw the man reappear by another window on their floor, but about twenty yards away.
“
Look at him, Rein,” he whispered. “He looks shaken and intoxicated.”
“
How do you mean?” she questioned him.
“
Without doubt from the medicine he takes to try and contain himself. The curse of the werewolf is the only other which is as uncontrollable and as frightening as our own.”
She watched Traith jump over the side of the entrance fencing, his black military boots digging into the dirt when he landed. He casually approached the man by the window.
“
Can you let us in?” he asked with a cheerless disposition. “I just want to talk with you.”
Campbell left the window Traith was approaching. She thought she heard Traith curse at him as he headed back to her. Then the door unlocked.
The door creaked inward. By then Traith had jumped the fence again and stood next to her, staring, as she was, at the doctor. Sweat was dripping down the doctor’s face, and his bifocals were misted over. Half his shirt was untucked, and he was wheezing hard as he leaned on the doorframe.
“
What?” the doctor asked loudly waiting for an answer. “Why have you come?”
“
Dr. Campbell,” he said, “I’m Traith Harker. This is Rein Pierson—”
“
Your woman? I see.” Traith shut his mouth with a slight smile, his head cocked and eyes closed as the doctor continued. “Well, I
do
apologize, but I don’t want anything to do with
you
or
anybody
! I’m—I’m a—”
Traith seemed tired of the waste of breath. “You’re a werewolf, Dr. Campbell. I’m very aware. I’m a vampire.”
“
You think you’re a joker, don’t you, Mr. Harker?”
“
I’m entirely serious,” Traith replied, still calm.
The skinny man was struck with more anger. “That man…that man earlier!” His eyes widened. “He was with you, wasn’t he? The one who knew what I was—
Magellan
!”
Traith sighed, then cleared his throat. “Yes, he is with me, though I rather loathe—”
“
Then like I told him, I’m a monster, you cannot change that, and you cannot protest against it! Nor can you fix it, so why have you even come?”
“
Dr. Campbell,” Traith replied calmly, though Rein noticed his hands were clenched tight. He talked with his teeth slightly gritted. “Do you understand even the slightest bit that we’re saving you from a future of pain, brainwashing, and sick experimentations? There are councils, Dr. Campbell—”
“
I don’t want to hear about those councils anymore!”
Rein looked at Traith questioningly.
“
Here you’re vulnerable, Jacques,” Traith said. “You—”
The doctor fell back through the doorway and staggered inside, leaning on the old sofa, interrupting Traith’s address. Rein turned and noticed that the moon, now, was shining in a hole in the clouds. A ravenous look appeared in the doctor’s eyes as they began to turn yellow with rage. She felt utterly revolted as Campbell shook his head with intensity, falling to his knees. A nervous feeling swelled deep within her, and she saw that Traith, too, had a sudden apprehension. He had stepped in front of her by then.
Campbell stopped, took a deep breath, and stood back up shakily. “Please, come in. The moon’s covered again. As long as it covers fast enough, I won’t turn. Sorry for the…moroseness. I’ll hear you out, but if I do not consent, you must leave at once.”
Traith cleared his throat in an awkward manner. “Thank you,” he said with half a smile, ducking under the doorframe.
Rein followed.
“
Let me take your things,” the doctor said to him, once in the sitting room.
“
I wonder if bipolarity runs in your veins, Doctor,” Traith replied. “Don’t trouble yourself.”
Rein took a seat on the sofa and watched Traith take off his overcoat and slouch hat and hang them up. She noticed how he tilted his head downward after turning toward Campbell, hiding his face like he used to when he first met her. She supposed that he simply had that habit with new acquaintances. He looked apprehensive, like he usually was with people before he knew them.
“
Do you see?” the doctor said. He took a deep breath as he sat across from Rein on a settee. “This medicine…” the doctor continued, “do you see how frightening I am? I’m frightened of myself. I’m a monster, and I can’t control it or do anything about it. I’ve tried for hours, days,
months
to find something that will cure me. I can’t
do
anything. I change into the horrible beast whether it is day or night, as long as there is even a smidgen of a moon! Doesn’t help that now there is a full one. It’s taken over my life.”
Rein pushed her fear of another of his sudden transformations away as she heard his story. He wasn’t secretive of it at all.
“
You’re vampires. You’re cursed too, then. You tell me if it makes sense to listen to two other
creatures
. Besides, the idea of your particular
infection
makes me bothered.”
Traith laughed as though shocked. “Bothered?” He looked out the entry again at the sky and took note of the clouds’ position over the moon. Then he turned back to the doctor and walked toward him. “Quite frankly, your
own
curse tends to make
me
terribly uptight, so we’re speaking on the same level. In any case, you do not deserve to die. I do understand how you feel because I went through this as well. The Mardinial—”
“
Don’t talk about any councils to me; I told you!”
Rein glanced at Traith’s puzzled expression. He had walked behind her, leaning with his hands on the sofa back.
He stared at the scrawny man in front of them. “We may never be able to be normal again, but we can use these curses to our advantage. I know…or would
hope
that you’re a good man. Would you not rather be used for good than for evil? You still have one reasonable option left.”
Traith was speaking as though he had said that a hundred times. How often had he had to do this with other people? He didn’t seem to remotely enjoy being the Mistress’s First Hand.
The doctor looked curious for a second but then let out a blood-curdling scream. Rein stood in alertness, and Traith’s hands grabbed her around her corseted waist.
Campbell fell to the ground and grabbed his head, screaming bitterly. “No, no,
no
! I won’t…hurt…
her
!”
“
Interesting,” Traith laughed, though he thought nothing was amusing. “He’s never even spoken to you, yet he’ll have no problem hurting me.”
Rein looked at him for an instant, but she had no time to speak. The doctor looked up; his eyes again became bright yellow, and fangs slowly pierced through his gums. Rein turned away, her stomach feeling empty and low. She felt Traith’s iron grip around her waist tightening as well.
She suddenly heard Traith speculating about his own transformation; had it been so traumatic? Wait,
speculating
? He was thinking and she heard. He knew her own change had been smooth and graceful and, most of all, painless, but his was far from such.
He turned her around, his expression shocked. “Rein, I felt you in my…Were you…?”
He abruptly twisted back and realized that the cloud covering had dissipated, and the full moon shown again. Even though it was the very late afternoon, the sun was still perceptible. The dimness of night would come within the hour.
“
I’m sorry,” she started, but he interrupted her, speaking rapidly.
“
The door! We need to close the door!”
“
That doesn’t…
Get out of here
!” the doctor yelled frantically.
He was rolling back and forth in front of her.
A sudden excruciating pain shot all the way up her leg. She let out a shout and glanced down, only to see an animal-like hand swipe around and clutch her ankle. It was Campbell; he was driving his large nails into her skin. Blood was flowing freely. She dropped to the floor with a groan of pain and began trying to pull his furred, deformed hand off of her foot. She was calling Traith’s name.
He had inadvertently let go of her, but he was by her side in seconds, ripping Campbell’s hand off of Rein. It was no longer a human hand.
The entire man was no longer human.
Rein managed to stare at the wolf clearly in that second. His snout was long, and his teeth had saliva hanging from the sides. Pointed ears were facing completely forward, and his body was a twisted amalgamation of man and animal. Clothes were ripped entirely off. The dark hair that covered his entire body was matted with what looked like some sort of liquid.
Traith looked shocked by the sharpness and size of the hostile claws he was holding. Pain flared in Rein’s leg when the creature’s claws were removed, and she cringed, gritting her teeth, trying to ignore it.
The furry, blood-covered hand yanked from Traith’s grasp and shot back into his face, knocking him backward into a china cabinet. Rein froze at seeing the man she loved hit like that. He grunted as he fell, shaking his head and wiping his forearm over his face. Blood covered it.