Wolfweir (17 page)

It was a woman's voice.
A nurse.

A man's tired voice replied:

-Ah
oui
, but he is still out.

The doctor, thought Alphonse. The doctor! I must move! Blink!

Something tapped his fingers sharply.
A pencil maybe.
Then his knee.

-You see? No movement.

Alphonse tried to make another sound. His throat merely throbbed. He felt tears gathering behind his eyelids. Tears! Yes! If he could only start to weep!

-Will he ever wake up, this little boy?
asked
the nurse sadly.

A heavy sigh from the man.

-Who knows?

As Alphonse's eyes burned with tears, he heard his name:

-Alphonse! Alphonse! Lucia screamed.

He felt something hook his arm. He was gliding along, being pulled up into a boat.
Dripping.
He fell with a clatter.

Lucia was there, clutching his limp pine body.

He thought:

Open Sesame.

And like magic, his eyelids clicked open wide.

The New World

The Wolf people on the river barge were deeply impressed by Alphonse's resurrection.

A cheer went up. Caps flew in the air. The shouts spread from barge to barge. The great battle for
Wolfweir
castle had left a survivor, an eyewitness! It was the puppet boy who'd ridden out with the Knights led by the High King!

Alphonse struggled free of Lucia's embrace and, opening his left fist, showed her what he'd clutched all night, even as he drifted comatose, waking in the Paris hospital -- the Blood Amulet on its tarnished silver chain.

Proudly, he held it out to her.

-No, she said, trembling, her hair fiery gold in the sunlight. You wear it.

Malvic
looked stunned. He bowed his head but said nothing.

Alphonse put on the heavy necklace. The blood glowed in the foggy depths of the amulet. As soon as it touched his wooden chest, he felt bold and strong. All his fear and confusion seemed to be swept away. He bowed gallantly to Lucia. The cheer went up again, from boat to boat, and Lucia did not cry out for silence as before.

*

Alphonse now took the chalk and slate from his coat and sat down in the middle of the circle of Wolf people, intent on answering each one of their questions, the chalk scratching and the letters and words appearing on the black surface.

Some wept. Some moaned. Some like
Malvic
merely hung their heads. Lucia fainted for a moment in
Malvic's
arms after reading of the fate of her father, killed in a cowardly fashion by the cruel lance of the Vampire Lady.

Finally Alphonse replaced the chalk and slate.
Silence.
The sun was high and the day hot. The barge rocked as it drifted on the current.

-What do we do next?
asked
Lucia, her face flushed. Where do we go?

Malvic
said:

-We will follow this river to Trieste. There is a warehouse on the outskirts of that city where we can take shelter. We have brought plenty of gold from the castle. I know a man who can buy us passage on a ship.

-A ship? To where?

-To the New World. We are finished here in Europe. At last the
Vampyres
have defeated us. If we stay here we will be hunted down to the last Wolf.

-The New World?

Lucia looked stunned.
Disbelieving, even as her lips repeated the phrase.
She smiled, shaking her golden hair.

-Manitoba. It is a vast province of Canada where we can start a new life, create a new Wolf kingdom. It is as your father wanted it. He set out the plans himself and showed them to me only a year since.

Alphonse took out the chalk and slate again. He chalked:

-Manitoba. Yes. You must go.

He showed the slate to Lucia.

-What about you?

Alphonse rubbed away chalk with his sleeve. He wrote:

-I will destroy those filthy
Vampyres
.

-Alone? How?

Malvic
touched Alphonse's shoulder.

-No, brave puppet. After I have put my people on a ship to Canada, I will accompany you. Along with the Queen, if she wishes it. We will travel to Edinburgh, in Scotland, where it is said these
Vampyres
have their ancient coven. We will surprise them on their own ground. And together we will find a way to kill them all.

The Opera des Vampires

So it was that three striking figures arrived by train in Edinburgh after a tedious and nauseating sea journey followed by a cramped and jolting ten hours in their First Class train compartment.

A little girl in a bright frock with Botticelli curls, carrying in her arms a wooden puppet boy with a half-blackened face, and a dandyish looking gentleman in a dark business suit with a natty derby and one arm in a sling.

On the train a number of people had tried to engage the little girl in conversation by asking her questions about her puppet – what is his name?
and
so forth -- but she merely turned her head away and looked out the window at the green countryside flowing past.

For his part, the dandyish looking gentleman in the business suit merely slept or dozed with the derby covering his face.

Their luggage looked fresh and expensive – and it was, for they had bought it in a fine shop in London, using
Wolfweir
gold. Most of the suitcases, however, were empty.
 
This luggage was part of the “cover story”
Malvic
had devised for their attack on the
Vampyres
.

Under the High King,
Malvic
had served for some time as
Wolfweir’s
Head of Intelligence and Espionage. In this capacity, he had travelled the Continent and beyond. As he confessed to Lucia and Alphonse in the hotel room on their first night in London, he had in fact once visited Edinburgh to observe the
Vampyre
coven “on its own turf” and to draw up plans for just such an attack.

He shook his head when Lucia asked him for more details of his mysterious intent, however.

They caught a horse drawn cab from the train station to a grand hotel in the center of the city, their luggage piled high on the roof. Lucia shut her eyes, lulled almost to sleep by the swaying of the cab and the sound of clip clopping hooves.

Alphonse could not stop fidgeting, as on the train he’d had to be completely still, limp as a rag, in order not to arouse the astonishment of other passengers.

Malvic
suddenly cried out to the driver in his fluent English:

-Halt for a moment!

The
cab jounced to a stop, causing Lucia to sight and shake
her head in annoyance.

-Look, said
Malvic
, pointing out the window.

At the end of a broad street lined with elegant houses stood a domed building of almost fantastic proportions, soaring arrogantly above the buildings surrounding it. It gave a solid, expansive, somewhat ghastly Gothic impression.

-That is the famous Opera des
Vampyres
.

Lucia frowned.

-The
Vampyres
go about in public here in Scotland? How uncivil!

Malvic
laughed and said:

-No, the
Vampyres
call it that. It is more widely known as the Transylvanian Opera House, home of the Transylvanian Operatic Company, which is of course made of up talented and artistic undead ghouls.

Alphonse gazed at it, his wooden eyes wide.

-Moreover, this is where we will find Lord and Lady
Blackgore
, who are the major patrons of the Opera, when the company premiers its new opera based on the life and experiences of
Vlad
, the
Impaler
.

-When?
asked
Lucia.

-In four days. On opening night, the crowd will be season subscription only –
Vampyres
all.

-Ah.

-And there’s something else, my Queen.

-Go on.

-It will be a full moon.

Lucia shivered.

Opera Night

Malvic
spent the following days in intense preparation. He was gone from the hotel from dawn until long after dark. Lucia and Alphonse tried to amuse themselves in the hotel room, playing endless games of whist and chess.

Once, however, the boredom was too much for them and Lucia swathed Alphonse in various items of clothing, a blanket, a thick woolen muffler and a new derby hat that
Malvic
had bought for himself as a spare in the London hat shop – and together they went out for a cab ride around the city.

They didn’t go near the Opera House but they spent some time skipping around a big gray park in the gray mist.

It was finally the appointed day – or what Queen Lucia called portentously the “Hour of Doom” for the
Vampyres
.
Malvic
returned early in the afternoon looking pale and worn out – the wound in his arm was hurting him.

-How goes the preparations?
asked
Lucia, with her most imperious queenly frown.

-All is arranged,
your
Majesty, and I trust the results will satisfy you. But –

-Speak.

-I cannot think of a way to get into the Opera House with you.
         

-Oh?

-You are little enough to go relatively unnoticed, and pale enough – excuse me, Queen – to be a
Vampyre
. With the hellishly expensive ticket I’ve procured for you on the black
market,
and the new opera clothes we bought for you in London, you should have no trouble getting inside for tonight’s spectacular premier of
Vlad
the
Impaler
. Meantime, Alphonse will be delivered via the rear stage door with various props and set pieces, and make his way from there without difficulty to just where the plan calls for him to lurk until the moment of truth.