Storm Wolf (37 page)

Remembering the effects of the rue and blueberries back home, he had shrunk when Timotej’s maid, on the magician’s instructions, had been about to offer him cuttings of the plant. The dill in his pocket and the holly bundle in his hand reassured him, even though they did not make him feel sick or nauseated. On returning to his room, he carefully separated the holly branches and hung smaller bundles over the door and the broken window as well as placing one under the pillow. He hung the dill sachet around his neck, inside his shirt, and felt the delicate fronds tickle his torso. He took a deep breath and allowed himself to begin to relax. He would explain the broken window to the innkeeper by his drunkenness the night before and offer to work at the inn to pay for the cost of replacing it.

Alexei’s confession of inebriation to the innkeeper was met with gentle amusement, and the innkeeper was happy to find several days of work to keep his foreign guest busy. It saved on costs to run the inn, as well, and both men seemed satisfied with the arrangement.

Alexei worked hard, glad to keep occupied with labor he was familiar with. The plant cuttings he had been given seemed effective, and there were no more werewolf nightmares. The dill under his shirt was quickly worn away to mere stubs as his body ground the amulet against his shirt during the day. But as he slept, he was careful to put the dill aside to preserve it and trusted the holly under the pillow and around the room to protect him.

Late August came. On Saturday, a week after the holiday of the Assumption of the Mother of God, Alexei retired to his room and crawled under the sheets. He glanced around, as had become his habit, to be sure the holly was in place around the room and slid his hand under the pillow to be sure that it was still there. Moonlight illuminated a corner of the room, opposite the window that had been broken. Comforted that all his protections were in place, he closed his eyes and drifted towards sleep.

Later that night, other guests were wakened by the sounds of a tremendous fight going on in the small, topmost room of the inn. Drunken men seemed to be smashing furniture and screaming at each other, throwing one another against the walls. Even the snarls of an animal could be heard echoing in the still night air. The nearest guests trembled in their beds, afraid that the melee would erupt into the hallway and then into their rooms. Some ran to fetch the innkeeper. Yet others, unable to open the door that seemed locked from within, pounded on it and called the name of the foreigner they knew had taken that room.

How many men were fighting in the room? It was impossible to say. What had triggered the brawl? No one remembered ever seeing the Estonian with the kind of men who would be capable of such an outburst. Perhaps thieves from some past chapter in the Estonian’s life had caught up with him, had been waiting in the shadows, and were exacting their vengeance for some long-past slight.

The snarls and howling of the animal within were especially frightening. Guests, unable to tear themselves away and afraid of what they might see, hugged the walls near their doorways and held quivering lanterns.

“Why would men have brought such a beast into the inn?”

“How could they bring such a beast into the inn, unseen?”

“What if it breaks out of the room?”

Kerosene spilled on their nightclothes as their hands trembled, and more than one wondered if conflagration might soon be added to the outrages of the night.

It seemed to Alexei that almost immediately upon falling into a dreamless sleep, he was wakened by the sounds of pounding and screaming. The pounding was frantic. The screams were earsplitting. In his drowsy grogginess, Alexei was unsure if he was dreaming or hearing some outburst in the hallway just beyond his door.

Then he heard it. Mingled with the pounding of fists against his door and the anguished screams calling his name in the hallway was the unmistakable howl of a great wolf. Even as he heard it, his blood ran cold and he could see, in the moonlight that dappled the room, that a vicious battle had been fought in the room. Shreds of sheets lay everywhere and piles of splinters and kindling were strewn across the room; the simple bed had evidently been shattered and thrown about in a burst of ferocious anger. Tattered sheets even hung from Alexi’s mouth, and in the moonlight he could see that he had paws, not hands. The howling grew louder in his ears, competing with and drowning out the sounds in the hallway.

The Alexei-wolf threw himself toward the window, but rather than crashing through the glass, he was thrown back across the room with such force that the plaster cracked with the impact. Howling with rage, the wolf threw himself at the window again, only to be rebuffed again and tossed across the room, as the wolf himself might toss a piece of the kindling across the floor.

Pacing back and forth, the wolf devised a new strategy. If the window was unbreakable, he would escape out the door. He backed up and then took a running leap at the door.

In the hallway, men saw the wooden planks of the door buckle but hold fast as the great beast threw himself against it. “Hear the whimpers?” guests whispered to one another. “It must have injured itself!” Twice more the door buckled, and no one understand how it could continue to withstand such impact. Shrieks echoed up and down the stairway as guests expected the great beast to come bursting through the door into the hallway in a murderous rage.

“Make way, make way!” called the innkeeper as he clambered up the stairway, pushing his way through the growing crowd of curious thrill-seekers and frightened guests. He shook his ring of keys in the faces of those who would not listen and was finally able to find himself standing outside the door of the room he had rented to the Estonian.

He joined the others pounding on the door and calling Alexei’s name. Hearing no response other than the snarling of the animal on the other side, he hesitated. “But the Estonian had seemed a decent man,” the innkeeper thought. Had the pompous would-be magician that he knew Alexei had located given him a potion that had driven the poor man mad? The key turned in the lock and the crowd in the hall and on the stairs shrieked as they attempted to both lean forward into the room to see and pull back closer to the walls for safety to avoid the reach of whatever it was on the other side.

So great was the crush of those on the landing that several men, the innkeeper among them, tumbled into the room as the door opened. Their own cries of dismay added to the confusion. Hands reached everywhere, grabbing for something that would steady them on their feet. Someone reached up and closed his fingers around the holly hanging above the doorframe, crying out in shock as it pricked his palm. He dropped the holly and several others trampled it underfoot.

In the flickering gaslight they saw the great wolf before them. There was no sign of either Alexei or any of the thieves the crowd had imagined must be in the guestroom. Only the great wolf, slowly backing away from the door, his great lips curled back in a snarl as the sharp fangs glinted and drool dripped onto the floor. Torn sheets and broken wood were everywhere.

Then, suddenly, the wolf jumped at the men in the doorway and hurtled over them and down the stairs. Real panic broke out then, as the wolf’s claws scratched those backs and shoulders he scrambled across. He ran down the stairs and out into the night, leaving the pandemonium of the inn behind.

Leaping into the air, the werewolf knew immediately where he had to go, and in a few moments came crashing through the tall windows of Timotej’s house. Dazed from smashing through the glass, the wolf shook his head and looked around.

Alexei had expected to see the study again, but he had come through a different set of windows and saw the great four-poster bed of the magician, hung with damask and silken bed curtains. There was the sound of a man stirring into sudden wakefulness within the bed curtains and a face emerged.

The wolf howled and leapt at the man in the bed, who began shrieking uncontrollably. Afraid he might kill the magician, Alexei caught himself with the man’s nightshirt in his teeth and growled quietly. The man fainted as servants, hearing the commotion, burst into the bedroom. Alexei turned to face this new complication, the nightshirt still in his teeth and the unconscious magician slumped against his front legs.

Cudgels and knives were waving before him, but the werewolf could see the maid, holding a candlestick, in the back of the crowd of servants. A quiet snarl rumbled in the werewolf’s chest as wolf and humans faced each other, each afraid of what the other might do.

After a moment, the werewolf gently set down the nightshirt, allowing the man within it to lie flat on his coverlet. The wolf sat back on his haunches and lifted a paw, making a clumsy gesture.

The servants were transfixed as they saw the fur peel away from the wolf, leaving a frightened, naked man in its place. The crouching man froze, and the tableau remained unchanged from what it had been a moment ago, except that there was no wolf now.

Someone stirred in the back of the crowd of servants. The maid came forward, holding the light ahead of her, sure that she recognized the man who crouched over Timotej. It was the man with the
vlkodlak.
Rather, it was the man who clearly was a
vlkodlak
himself. She pulled one of the blankets from the bed and draped it around the poor, frightened man’s shoulders.

“Come with me.” She took his hand and the man slowly followed her lead. She got him off the bed and then led him through the servants, who parted to allow him to pass. The maid gave instructions that Timotej should be brought to the study when he awoke, and then led her trembling charge there. She sat him in the same chair he had occupied before and went to fetch a pot of tea. When she returned, the man still sat there, wrapped in the blanket. He shivered, but whether from chill or fright, she could not tell.

She poured them each a cup of tea. Then they sat. Waited. In mutual silence, sipping their tea occasionally. The man seemed grateful for her presence. She was simply glad no one had been hurt in the bedroom. They waited. Although the heavy drapes covered the study windows, the sky outside grew gradually less dark. Almost bright, even. Dawn kissed Prague.

At last Timotej was brought into the study as well, shuffling along in his slippers with a robe hastily thrown over his nightshirt. The man who led in Timotej stood awkwardly until Timotej dismissed him with a wave of his hand. The maid, catching herself sitting in the master’s chair, leapt up, but he waved her back down into the seat. He pulled up another chair and settled himself in it, one hand astride each of his knees. Alexei looked into his lap. Magician and maid looked at Alexei.

Alexei broke the silence first. “Twice I have come to you, magician, seeking deliverance from this awful curse. Twice I have begged for your assistance and twice you have failed to deliver me from the
suteksäija—
”
Alexei burst into sobs.

“Twice? My friend, I recall you coming to my home but once—” Timotej began, but was cut short by the maid.

“Yes, you did come here twice. You gave the werewolf skin to my master, yes? The second time, I gave you the dill and the holly for protection, yes?”

Timotej and Alexei seemed to both realize what had happened, that she had acted on her own authority, posing as if acting on Timotej’s instructions. Silence, as the two men appreciated the woman’s intuition.

“Tonight…” prompted the maid.

Alexei fought tears. “The dill and holly served me as you had anticipated,” he finally choked out. “The transformation overcame me in my sleep, as it did before, but tonight I was unable to escape the room. I tried to break through the window, as I must have done before, but the holly trapped me there until the innkeeper unlocked the door. Then I burst out of the room, before someone could pick up the fallen holly, and came to the one place I thought might be safe. I came to the person I hoped could deliver me.” He took a deep breath. He looked at both the maid and her master, turning from one to the other.

Timotej exchanged glances with the maid. Clearly he could never admit that her intuition had proved more beneficial to Alexei than his instructions. Still, she knew he studied all the best of the occult handbooks, and should be able to follow them to perform an act that was certainly beyond her meager abilities. It might even accomplish what was intended. Timotej seemed to come to the same conclusion. He stood and looked down at Alexei, still shivering in the blanket.

“Saturday night is the time associated with dark magic and destruction. The sun has been sliding from the fiery lion among the stars into the sign of Virgo, the earthy virgin associated with Persephone who governs mutation and change. But it is now Sunday, and the moon is waxing. At noon, I can perform a grand exorcism that should banish the werewolf from your life forever. You will lose all the powers of the werewolf, particularly flight and strength. You must be certain that this is what you desire,” Timotej announced in his grandest, most patriarchal, most
kouzelnik
-like
voice. “As certain as your grandfather was that he wanted these skills to protect your village,” Timotej added, remembering that detail from the tale he had heard in the study more than a fortnight before.

“I do.” Alexei stood resolutely, wrapped in the blanket as if it were a classical toga.

“Then you must begin by bathing in water and dill.” He looked to the maid. “Take our friend here and see to it. Cold, fresh water. Bring him back here just before noon.”