The Division of the Damned (42 page)

Her attacker had stopped in his endeavours as he felt her hand trying to jerk the blade out but bellowed his amusement into her face
when he realised what had happened.

Stephanie knew she was going to die, and just when all seemed lost, as her mind finally accepted the inevitable and she began to mechanically chant to herself, she sensed more than heard the click from behind the laughing Russian, then the heavy clunk of a bolt action being worked.

Her attacker froze and wordlessly jumped up, his hands moving to his unbuttoned fly. She briefly closed her eyes and looked up to see a grim-faced Lieutenant Borkin and the truck driver holding rifles at the four guards.

"Are you hurt?" he asked without taking his eyes from the four.

"No, I’m
—
”
then she remembered Reuben. She sat up straight and found Reuben on his back, unconscious. Scrabbling up, she half-ran, half-crawled over to where he lay.

He was out cold, or so it seemed, until she pulled one of his eyelids up. Then, letting out a long moan of pain, he turned his head and opened his eyes.

"Did I win?”
H
e closed his eyes again. "I don’t feel like I did. What does the other guy look like?”

She stroked his head
.
"You’ll be fine. Just sleep a while.”

He smiled back and closed his eyes. A tear of thanks for his survival welled up in her eye and she swept it quickly away. It could have all gone so horribly wrong had Borkin not come in time.

They had been so close to death that, with a start, she realised she had mentally begun to chant the
Shema Yisrael
, the Hebrew prayer recited at a birth or when confronted with imminent death. Did her true spiritual roots sit so deep that they would only appear when all seemed lost?

She looked up
to where Borkin stood and saw,
instead, a pair of glowing eyes. Her scream was the catalyst for the attack. All she caught were the teeth and claws before, for the second time in two days, unconsciousness overwhelmed her.

Chapter 51

The Forest in Romania

Reuben came around as they loaded his makeshift stretcher onto the lorry. He opened his eyes and was startled to see Mordechai looking down at him. Reuben did a quick double take at how well Mordechai looked. He seemed unaffected by the
c
ount's attack, and in fact looked like a more dynamic, robust caricature of the Mordechai he knew at the castle. Muscles, which he had never seen on him before, bulged under his tunic and Reuben conv
inced himself he was dreaming
—
the Russian uniform and the flat stomach also seeming to prove the dream theory.

"Mordi?
I don’t understand ...
" he
trailed off.

"I’ll tell you everything another time
,
” Mordechai answered gravely. The tarpaulin at the back of the truck dropped, and as soon as they drove off, Reuben fell back into a deep, deep sleep.

Borkin had woken Stephanie earlier with a drop of cold water on her lips.

"Wake up
—
it’s all over now," he told her as she opened her eyes.

"What happened?" was all she could muster.

He looked into her eyes as if making a decision, but just nodded that all was good. She sat up to take another sip of water and was shocked to see Mordechai, muscular and lithe, sitting on a tree stump crying into his hands. She shook her head in disbelief. Was she seeing things? Was it a trick of the moonlight?

"Mordechai, is that you?” Curious, she stood up and walked over to him. Then she saw the carnage that lay around her.

Thankfully the light of the moon did not show the blood but she could easily make out the severed limbs and heads strewn around their camp. With a clinical detachment, she surveyed the area and noted how many heads she saw. It seemed to her that only Borkin and his driver had survived the attack, and with that thought came another. Who or what had caused this bloodbath? Had she seen a vampire before she fainted?

All these thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant as she crossed over to the weeping Mordechai. She was shocked to note that he was naked but she dismissed his state of undress and crouched down to the side of him.

"Mordechai, is it really you? What happe
ned to you? You’ve changed so
—
" she wondered aloud. He didn’t answer but briefly looked up from his hands. Tears glazed his eyes and he managed a brief smile before plunging his face back into his hands. She wanted to cradle his head in her arms but the eeriness of his return to the living, and the change in
him, held her back.

Borkin came over, still visibly shocked, and said, "He saved
us,
he saved you, me and Pavel
here." He indicated his driver.
"
B
ut I don’t know about your friend the doctor. He’s badly concussed and I can’t wake him up. I think we should make a stretcher and take him back to headquart
ers. I can speak with the g
eneral and we’ll see what we can do for him.”

"Yes,
but what happened here? I saw
—
" S
he stopped to turn away from
Mordechai. "I saw him die! The c
ount that you were meant to meet killed him in front of us.”

From behind them she heard a resolute sigh. "He didn’t kill me. He can’t.”

She turned back
.
"I see that
,
Mordi. What happened? I’m glad you’re back but how did you survive? I don’t understand.”

"Get me some clothes and I’ll tell you.” He sniffed and laughed sadly. "I feel such a nebbish here.”

Borkin had already sorted out a pair of trousers and a bloodstained tunic, so Stephanie turned her back to let him dress.

"Back at the castle, you remember the werewolf attacked us?" Stephanie nodded, then her eyes widened as slow realisation crystallised into solid comprehension.

"You mean he bit you? You’re a werewolf, is that what you want to say?” Mordechai didn’t answer but she knew it was true by the misery he broadcast. She looked to Borkin who wordlessly confirmed her fears.

"After the wolf attacked us, I felt a small itch at the back of my neck where the beast had nicked me. It healed inside of an hour and I gave it no more thought until the first night out in the open.”

"Why, what happened?" Stephanie asked. She sat close to him now to warm herself in the cold of the dawn and she studied his face in rapt attention as he related the story.

"I’m not really sure. I woke up
. I
t was still dark and I could hear everything around me. I mean everything.
Birds rustling in the trees, animals breathing in the undergrowth, insects killing and eating each other.
The noise was unbelievable but gradually it grew less as I was able to discern the individual sounds from their direction. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I could even hear your heartbeat, Reuben’s too.” He paused i
n contemplation. "And my eyes
—
the dark was changed to day and I could see everything like a sunny afternoon. But the biggest change came in the sense of smell. I could make out everything. I didn’t need to see things or hear them because I could almost visualise the birds or animals, even the insects, just by their smell. I decided to keep it quiet and I fell back to sleep. The next day it was gone and I put it down to it all being a dream. I knew I was changing into something but I didn’t know what. Or perhaps I didn’t
w
ant to know. Finally, when the c
ount caught me, I knew what it was that was changing me. As he landed on the back of my horse, he said he could smell the wolf in me and I knew I was damned for all time." He stopped and put his face back down to his hands.

"What happened then?" she coaxed.

He shook his head. "You saw, didn’t you? He bit me, let me fall and I ran off into the woods. In my fear I realised I could change into a werewolf at will." He looked back up at her. "This whole myth about a full moon is meshugaas. I change whenever I want and most of the time I know exactly what I’m doing.”

”Most of the time?”

"When I’m hungry or angry, I lose
it,
I mean I really lose all control. I know what I’m doing but the rage in me is almost unstoppable. I’m just g
lad I didn’t kill you or Reuben." H
e looked to Borkin
. "O
r you
,
my friend. Thank you for helping them.”

Borkin nodded
.
"No, no, I thank you. I don’t know what would have happened after we had them under control, and they were desperate, bad men.” He turned to Stephanie. "He took them out so quickly, it was amazing. I don’t think … sorry
,
but I have no words, it was all so quick.”

Mordechai concurred
.
"I know, friend, and it amazes me too. I wonder how
we survived the attack in the c
astle. I can only imagine that his heart wasn’t in it.”

Borkin shook his head again to Stephanie
.
"The power was, unimaginable. The speed
…”
he trailed off.

Stephanie broke his deliberations. "So what do w
e do now, go back or go to the c
astle? I’m for going back.”

Mordechai nodded. "Yes, you must go back and get help for Reuben but I must go on.”

"To the c
astle?
You’ll be killed," Stephanie breathed.

"I have no choice. Every cell in my body is crying for me to go back. I’ve fought it since the attack, but now I know you’re both safe I have to follow my gut feeling. I have no choice.”

Borkin broke in
.
"We
’ll go back and try to fix the d
octor up. He can’t go on.”

"But the
c
ount will kill him
.
"
T
hen to Mordechai,
he said,
"Don’t you see that?”

"Do you think I like this, being a werewolf, a farzeenish, a monster? I must go and undo this and I can only do that there.”

"Then wait for us
—
we’ll go tog
ether. You can’t go on your own
!” She fell down onto his shoulders and cried. "Please, Mordi, I’m begging you to wait for us to come with you.”

He patted her back and nodded silently, pondering his next move as he waited for her to stop crying. After a while she stopped and Mordechai told her of his decision. "I will come with you but I will not live
in the company of other men. I am no longer human, I am a beast, a monster, and I don’t want to be chained up when the Rusish Armey start getting nervous. I will wait in the wood for you. I can hunt and it appeals t
o me more than eating borscht
for the next couple of weeks. When you are ready, I will join you.”

"But how will you know?”

"I just will, believe me. I’ll be there when you set off.” He stood back and thumbed a tear away from her c
heek. "Just one thing, though
—
" His face took a serious turn.

"Yes?”

"Whatever you do, don’t forget to bring some clothes with you. They don’t seem to manage the change too well and I don
’t want to have to walk to the c
astle in the nude.”

She laughed and the melancholy lifted.
"Of course.
Any particular colour or fashion?”

Borkin, who had silently watched from the side added, "I think that Comrade Stalin does a very nice line in tunics."

The driver broke their smiling circle with a whispered report to Bork
in. "We must leave and get the d
octor to a field hospital, if we can find one.”

They packed up as much as they could and left the corpses to the forest to dispose of.

Chapter 52

Transylvania

She hated it. She knew she was doing the Devil’s bidding by breast
-
feeding him but she didn’t have it in her to let him starve.

"He’s only a
baby,
” she chided herself and buried her conscience in a landslide of denial. However, every night the Dracyl came to visit the child and check on its health, and every night his presence drove home her profanity against her God.

The child was asleep now and she lay on her bed waiting for the
c
ount to come. The lock clunked and the door swung open. Like a violent storm he strode in, arrogant and expecting. The train of vampire soldiers that followed him everywhere stood outside the door like timid in-laws waiting to see the child.