Blizzard Page 25

  “Are you sure they will so willingly give us these horses? I would think they would want their only assured means of quick travel—”

  “At this point, they have no choice.” Thedryk stopped abruptly, leaving me to stop just short of knocking him down, or out. “Stay here. I will bring the horses.”

  “Just to be clear, I am not comfortable with stealing these people’s horses, no matter how ungrateful they appeared yesterday.”

  “Noted, my Lady Neva.” All the while, he kept his eyes ahead, looking the village over before heading in without me. He returned within minutes, the village seemingly none the wiser of the theft.

  “Based on what you told me, and what the villagers said, it appears Helsing and his men continued northeast from here. There is only one more village before we reach the wilds of the mountainous range.”

  “Lead the way, Lord Thedryk.”

  Thedryk provided a quick sidelong grin and paused. I was wearing the jewelry he had given me at our first meeting and pieces of those left in my bathroom when I was brought to the sanctuary. His gaze finally drifted away as he spurred his horse on, and I followed him once more into the night.

  It took us two more nights to find Helsing and his group; taking shambled lodgings one day and a cave the next were our only options for shelter from the sunlight. Thedryk continued to restore our blood supply through what animals he was able to find, including a bear, which offered plenty for our meager stores. Drinking the blood of animals was entirely different from the blood offered by humans. The taste was wild, gamey, but it offered sustenance we would not otherwise have. Relief flooded over me as we came upon Helsing and his four men, still whole, though not without some damage dealt.

  “She appears in the night, atop her steed prepared for battle,” Helsing remarked at the sight of us. “How good of you two to join our little party.” Helsing was smiling, but it lacked full warmth.

  “How badly are you injured?” A twinge of guilt hit me, realizing my interference might have caused them harm.

  “Nothing that won’t heal, madam.” Helsing nodded, tipping his hat gently. “Have a seat.” Helsing stood, gingerly applying pressure to his right side. “Thedryk.” He offered his hand, which Thedryk gladly shook. “Ever the gentleman, I see. Yet how will you find the cure if you are here and not there?”

  Helsing’s statement bowled me over. In my fitful state, my headstrong manner, I had completely forgotten Thedryk had been working to discover a way to revert Luken and Theresa, and possibly Lucy. How could I forget something so vital?

  Reading the panic on my face, Thedryk responded speedily, “I have already narrowed down the causation for why some were turned so violently, and why the girl, Amelia, had no such reaction aside from positive. I left my detailed notes within Zachariah’s medical journals with a team of individuals I wholly trust to complete my work.”

  Helsing’s smile brimmed nearly ear to ear. “Ever so diligent. I knew I could expect miraculous workings from you.” Helsing clapped Thedryk on the back, causing only a small grunt to puff out as Helsing tilted forward slightly. Thedryk pulled Helsing’s arm all the way over his shoulders, guiding him carefully back down to his previous spot.

  “Still so reckless, I see, Helsing.” Dropping his satchel to the ground, Thedryk rummaged through it, finding the container with the salve. “Let me have a look, will you?”

  Helsing grimaced in response but allowed Thedryk a view to his wounds. Standing just beyond the two men, I watched as a layer of vest and shirt were removed, peeled back to reveal blood-soaked bandaging that was continuing to absorb more red coloration. As Thedryk peeled away the bandages, Helsing tightly breathed in between his teeth and through his nose, and a not entirely human smell arose from his body.

  Thedryk only cast a stern look upon Helsing, to which he replied, “I know. I know. It’s been healing, but it seems their poison has slowed my recovery.”

  “How much faster can a human recover, if at all, from such a grievous wound?” The sister, mother, maternal instinct in me kicked in. “I’m amazed you’re still alive.”

  Thedryk and Helsing cast each other veiled glances that I did not miss but also did not pursue. I assumed the scent was from the poison in his blood.

  “Is it possible you might…change? Become like those monsters?” My concern was genuine, not that he would turn on any of us, but that we might lose him.

  Helsing let out a choppy laugh, cries of pain in between. “Never, my dear Lady Neva. My body would just as soon reject their poison.” Thedryk took the canteen that sat next to Helsing and poured its contents over the wounds, causing Helsing to howl out in pain. “A little warning next time, eh?”

  “Someone once told me the element of surprise is vital for proper execution,” Thedryk quipped.

  “Yes, for execution. This is meant to be healing.”

  Thedryk only shrugged in response and quickly applied the salve. One of the vampires accompanying Helsing leaned forward, offering fresh bandages for Helsing’s wounds. Once he was fully cared for and dressed, he informed Thedryk and me of his progress.

  “There are signs that the numbers of the creatures are far greater than we ever imagined.” Helsing’s voice was unusually calm, though ever meticulous in his delivery. “What I have come to believe is that if we wipe enough of these creatures out, we will be led to the heart of the problem. They roam these lands so freely I am surprised there has not been further devastation.”

  “We came upon the village of Lamatus; it was under attack. Half of their population was wiped out, but they were smart about it, Helsing.” Thedryk’s eyes were firm, and a disturbing silence settled among the group. “They took out the most capable men first, diminished their defenses to nothing but the elderly, women, children, the sick. It was planned, and that worries me. They have a certain level of intelligence, while the ones we met at Zachariah’s castle were seemingly…mindless.”

  “You believe what I do, then.” Helsing was sharpening his knife during the conversation. “Something or someone is controlling them, or guiding them or leading them, something of the sort.”

  My insides felt as though they had liquefied. The thought that the woman from my nightmares was controlling them appeared an infallible fact. “It’s her…” Closing my eyes tightly, I could still see her, beautiful, ethereal, the very face of death and impossible being.

  “Her?” Helsing inquired.

  “The woman I have seen, the one who I do not doubt has my niece.”

  “Seen?” Helsing pushed, curiosity piqued.

  “My dreams, visions of the future. She is…” I paused, uncertain of moving forward with my knowledge. “I believe she is fully vampire. There is no element of humanity to her; she appears both real and not real. No love, only malice. She aims to end my life for certain, and everyone else’s.”

  “Can you tell us where she is now?”

  I opened my eyes to find all the others, aside from Thedryk, had gathered closer, leaning in as though they would see the answer by proximity to my body.

  “No.” Disappointment weighed against me. “I only know how she looks, not even where our fighting occurs.”

  “You fight her? How well does that go?”

  “She is splendid,” Thedryk filled in for me, though I wanted to tell them, “painfully, everyone is dying. I can hear them, and I don’t believe I can win without losing,” but his words saved me from those explanations.

  “You have been privy to these visions?” Helsing asked Thedryk.

  His eyebrows raised, reaching up to his hair and hat lines. “Anyone who is within so much distance of Neva will be drawn into her visions.”

  “This sounds like our journey will shape up to be an exciting one, then.” Pure joy filled Helsing’s face, and I could see him accepting the facts as a challenge, a new horizon to cross.

  “Where were you planning to head next?” Thedryk asked.

  “I had caught wind of a small village higher up in the
mountain.” Helsing motioned to the range nearby; dark clouds had filled the sky in ominous fashion. “An interesting sort of people there, and it just happens to be the general direction a certain group of creatures we have been following appears to be heading.”

  “Then we’d best get on our way.” I was not the only one watching the impending storm roll across the night skies. “At least we’ll have some coverage from the sunlight.”

  All swiftly packed up the camp and headed towards the base of the mountain’s forested edge.

  We spent nearly four weeks working our way along the mountains before we found them, the creatures we sought. It allowed us all to become better acquainted, and during that time a distrust began to build, quietly, inside me. I knew Thedryk and Helsing were holding back vital information, but not why.

  Simon, Merrick, Duval, and Hadi made up Helsing’s group. Mostly they kept to themselves, but each came from backgrounds I was unfamiliar with, leaving it to my imagination of whether they were from our world, or that beyond which I had only tasted with Zachariah’s passage.

  The beauty of being in the mountains was the amount of cavernous shelter we were able to find, along with one abandoned hunting cabin, and the storm that had rolled in built up every day for the first two weeks. A blizzard hit by the third week, and we were confined to a hunting cabin for six days. During our time of being sequestered, I would often find Thedryk and Helsing conversing in secret, only catching bits of words: returned, never, memories. Twice in that time I confronted both men and was brushed off immediately by Thedryk. Helsing appeared ready to divulge the conversations with my first request, but after Thedryk’s initial response, Helsing never opened his mouth on the subject again. Only his look of disapproval signified that things were not as they should have been. At last, we managed to dig out of the snow and ice that had barred the main door and make our way back to the search.

  What else occurred stirred my suspicions regarding Helsing. At the first sign of the blizzard, Thedryk had checked Helsing’s grievous wounds and revealed they had nearly completely healed. I could still smell that difference, something not quite human in his blood. A secret between all the men regarding Helsing proved infrangible.

  By the fourth week, another blizzard was beginning to bear down on the mountain, and the only way we discovered them, the creatures, was by accident. The sound of a man crying out in pain and the sound of a bear was what originally brought upon the encounter. I had anticipated a fresh meal of bear; though food hadn’t precisely been nonexistent, it had been sparse. A bear meant days of supplies for us, even for Helsing who could skin and cut the meat. But it was not a bear.

  Snow was falling heavily, in fat flakes that seemed too large to be real. Light from a torch remained stationary, but several shadows were being cast around it. Two distinct shapes in particular stopped us all before reaching the center of the commotion. One shape we gathered to be one of the creatures we sought, and the other belonged to an individual. That individual’s shape twisted and grew, but then would almost immediately diminish.

  “Are my eyes deceiving me?” Merrick squinted with his hazel eyes, tufts of his auburn hair flailing wildly in the growing gusts of wind and snow. He stood to my far right, just beyond Duval who stood next to me. Both men, almost equal in height, regarded one another as I craned my neck up regarding each, half a foot taller than I.

  Duval turned his gaze from Merrick towards Helsing, his dark blue eyes sharp as a hawk, with his thin straight nose slightly pinching his face. “Helsing,” he shouted as loudly as he dared in the moment. “I think there are fourteen strong, at the least.”

  Helsing turned his brilliant, shimmering bright blue eyes to Duval, smiling widely. “Simon, I do believe we can make use of your skills, my friend.” Helsing tossed Simon a wink.

  Simon came alive, more so than I had seen in the four weeks prior. I had never heard him speak aloud, only slight mutterings under his breath. Mostly, the only communication I gathered was from his grin, in that curious way that said, “I know secrets you have never imagined.”

  “Standard plan?” Hadi, standing on the opposite side of Helsing, piped up. Though his stature was shorter than the other men, he exuded his own confidence that more than made up for his lack in vertical height. “I do wonder what fights so fervently against so many.” Hadi’s eyes had remained focused on the central figure, having barely moved from its location aside from the thrashing and shifting shadow.

  “I do believe time is of the essence, shall we?” Helsing nodded to his men, and all five disappeared into the flurries and darkness of the night. Their presence was marked only by the light catching their forms. The creatures, otherwise unaware, continued to batter and diminish the bear-like form at the heart of their onslaught; the sounds it made an unnatural fusion of human and animal.

  I took a step forward, determined to help intercede, but Thedryk pulled me back. “Wait,” he said, his eyes focusing around the outer edges. “Let’s give them a chance to do this their way. We would only get in their way right now.”

  Part of me felt the desire to tear free, to do as I wished, but the wiser part provided the caution I needed, and thankfully so. Not even half a minute after his words an explosion came from the left side, the side where Simon, Helsing, and Hadi had disappeared, and their assault began and ended within moments. Screeching came from a few of the creatures, but most dispersed and vanished into the storm. Flashes of movements indicated the assault of Helsing and his men, with only five bodies to account for the many they had estimated.

  Helsing was leaning over a large figure that had collapsed to the snow packed ground. “He’s still alive, but we must move quickly. Hadi tell me what you see!”

  Hadi scanned the surrounding area, something beyond our vision catching his. All the while, Helsing was assessing the damage dealt to the figure, a man, I realized as we closed the distance a little more. The burly figure shook raggedly with each labored breath. No doubt the man was heavy, I surmised, but nothing a few vampires could not assist in moving along.

  “A tower, Abraham, to the west. I can see light.” Hadi was back at Helsing’s side, awaiting the next command while Helsing dressed the worst wounds as best he was able.

  “West it is.” Helsing looked to the group, considering the options, but his gaze froze.

  We all turned to see what had so caught his attention. Two of the bodies that had been lying just behind where Merrick and I stood had disappeared. Only a streak of blood that ended within a few feet marked where they had last fallen.

  “How…did they take them without us knowing?” The thought unnerved me. I had not witnessed any prior creature being particularly careful and returning for their own.

  “I am not quite certain at the moment, but we have more pressing matters.” Helsing returned to finishing his bandaging of the man.

  “Helsing, is it…he…similar?” Thedryk asked with the greatest care, avoiding words to tip me off to whatever he wished to hide.

  “Similar?” Helsing, distracted as he began preparing for departure, took his irritation out on Thedryk. “To me? No, Heaven’s no. He’s something I never thought to find here. On this continent, at least. If he is what I believe him to be…I think we will find the answer soon enough.”

  “Similar to you, Helsing?” I looked between the two, Helsing and Thedryk exchanging an array of unspoken words in their expressions. “You’re human, and this man clearly is not.” I was testing them, my intuition shouting at me to find the truth. It meant something that would alter my understanding of the situation as a whole.

  “Shall you tell her or I?” Helsing gave Thedryk a wry, bitter smile.

  “This is neither the time nor the place, Helsing,” Thedryk snapped.

  “Then you make time before it’s too late. She has the right to know, she is the one who—”

  “ENOUGH!” Thedryk’s booming command cut through the snowy wind and black night. “Do not create regrets for us both, Helsing.�
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  My mouth dropped open, taking in the fresh snow, but I could not taste nor feel its sting. The others remained silent, but on edge, seemingly ready to pounce on Thedryk, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t help them.

  “You are terribly presumptuous to withhold any information from me by now,” I started, a fire riling within my veins recognizing my own suspicions were on point. “Not to mention I am standing right here.”

  “Not now, Neva.”

  Thedryk’s dismissal tipped my scales. Imbalance was not an adequate word to describe the outburst that followed. “Not now? Yes, yes you are quite right. NOW is too late. What is it you know between the both of you, what you each have refused to tell me? Helsing, you clearly believe I should be granted the same knowledge, so why haven’t you shown the gumption to speak up?”

  Helsing was motioning to Thedryk, both still ignoring my inquisition. “Take his other side. You get to help with this part, at the very least, Thedryk.”

  The two men moved in sync, but each held burning expressions of anger, hatred I caught for a moment, but I wasn’t finished. I ensured they knew my fury on the half hour trek to the tower Hadi had seen.

  “I TOLD YA, you’re just hearing them howlers.” Gaius tore away another bite from the fowl’s leg, smacking loudly as he cleaned the meat from the bone. Small pieces of evidence fell into his wiry beard, not so discreetly hidden within the brown and grayed hairs. Outside, a winter storm was steadily advancing towards the lookout tower.

  “It’s not howlers,” the other man growled. Standing with his back to Gaius, he peered out from behind the wooden shutters of the tower. The wind was blowing heavy blankets of snow across the forested mountainsides. Sunlight no longer tried to break through the cloud coverage as night was upon them.

  “Cheyne.” Gaius sucked his fingers clean between words. “There is nothing but the storm and howlers. Still afraid of the children’s stories?”

  Teasing was a normal part of the banter between the two men, and Cheyne was generally a willing participant, but he had found himself in a most agitated state. Light from the fire cast Cheyne’s shadow against the wall, creating an even more intimidating silhouette of the just over six feet muscular build that danced with anticipation. His shaven head played as a mirror that captured the orange flames, and his reddish-brown beard burned with a matching flare of color.