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Finders

In the hour before ht a mist came up that lapped at the castle’s stones and filled in the gaps between so that the ancient riven walls see blue-grey e Vulpe sat beside the fire and fed it with branches gathered in the twilight, watched the occasional spark jump skyward to join the stars, and blink out before ever they were reached

He had volunteered for first watch Having slept through most of the day, he would in any case be the obvious choice Eosu had insisted there was no real need for anyone to remain awake, but at the same time he had not objected when the Americans worked out a roster Vulpe would be first and take the real weight of it, Seth Aro from 2:00 am till 4:30, and Randy Laverne would be on till sevenish when he’d wake Gogosu That suited the old hunter fine; it would be dawn then anyway and he didn’t believe in lying abed once the sun was up

Both Gogosu and Ar were now fast asleep: the first wrapped in a blanket and wedged in a groove of half-buried stones with his feet pointing at the fire, and the last in his sleeping-bag, using his jacket wadded over a rounded stone as a pillow Laverne ake, barely; he had eaten too es and toohi under He lay furthest from the fire in the shadows of the castle’s wall, his sleeping-bag tossed down on a bed of living pine twigs stripped from the branches of trees where they encroached on the ruins Facing the fire, he was drowsily aware of Vulpe sitting there, his occasional motion as he shoved the end of this or that branch a little deeper into the red and yellow heart of incandescence

What he was not aware of was the insidious change coradual sube reverie, the pseudo-memories which passed before his eyes, or lihostly pictures superi flames Nor could he know of the hypnotic vampiric influence which even noheedled and insinuated itself into Vulpe’s conscious and subconscious being

But when a branch burned through and fell sputtering into the heart of the fire, Laverne heard it and started more fully awake He sat upin tih a gap in the old wall A shadow that idity, like a sleepwalker, its feet causing eddies in the lap and swirl of creeping e Vulpe, for his sleeping-bag was elow of the fire

Laverne’s ht his cliers which were still leaden fro knots Still rising up from his half-sleep, he nevertheless hurried There had been soe moved: not furtive but at the same time silently yes, like a sleepwalker He’d been that way, sort of, all day: sleeping through the journey, not entirely with it even when he was fully awake And the way he’d cli he did every Friday osu and Arht to wake theain That would all take tiht easily have toppled headfirst into the gorge, or brained himself on one of thewalls Laverne knew his own strength; he’d be able to handle George on his own if it came to it; he didn’t need the others and it would be a sha So he’d take care of this hie was sleepwalking, was shock hih the inches-deep ground h the saap in the wall andalmost an acre if one took into account those walls which had fallen or been blasted outwards Away froht, he switched on a pocket torch and airound rose up a little here, where heaps of tu e white sea

In the torch beaht in the e Vulpe paused briefly and looked back His eyes seee’s eyes and the eyes of sole hts switched off A pair of eyes, low to the ground, triangular, feral A wolf?

Laverne swung his beam wildly, aimed it this way and that, crouched down a little and turned in a coed walls, mounds of stones, empty archways and inky darkness beyond And a little way to the rear, the friendly glow of the caht

They’dthis place in the twilight; it was just too big, its condition too dangerous; and

Buta wolf? Or just his iination? A fox, more likely This would be the ideal spot for foxes There’d be rooalore in the caves of these ruins And hadn’t Gogosu mentioned how the locals wouldn’t shoot or hunt the foxes who raided from up here? Yes, he had So that’s what it had been, then, a fox

Or a wolf

Laverne had a pocketknife with a three-inch blade; he took it out, opened it up and weighed it in his hand Great for opening letters, peeling apples or whittling wood! But in any case better than nothing Christ! - why hadn’t he shaken the others awake? But too late for that now, andaway fro on ’George, for Chrissakes! Where the hell are you?’

Laverne reached the corner of crue area silvered by reat hall On the far side, behind a jumble of broken masonry and shattered roof slates, the silhouette of a nized the figure as George Vulpe Even as he watched, it took a step forward and down in that stiff, robotic way, until only the head and shoulders were showing Then another step, and the head ht be a round boulder atop the pile; another, and Vulpe had vanished froht

Into what? A hole or half-choked stairwell? Where did the idiot think he was going? How did he knohere he was going? ’George!’ Laverne called again, a little louder this tiain he went in pursuit

Beyond the pile of rubble, there where a sinal stone flags of the floor, a hole gaped blackly, descending into the bowels of the place At one end of the hole or stairwell a long, narrow, pivoting slab had been raised by htly out of the perpendicular away from the space it had covered Laverne flashed his torch into the gap, saw stone steps descending Carried on a stale-tasting updraught caled with limpsed in the darkness down below, theinto the unknown depths

The paunchy young American paused for a brief moment, but the e?’ he said again, his whisper a croak as he squeezed down into the hole

After thatit was easy to lose track of time, direction, one’s entire orientation Moreover, the pressure spring in Laverne’s torch had lost some of its tension; battery contact eak, which resulted in a poor beaht that caive the torch a nervous shake to restore its power

The stone steps were narrow and descended spirally, winding round a central core which was solid enough in itself But outwards fro space, and Laverne hated to think how far he ht fall if he slipped or stue Vulpe be faring, sleepwalking in a place like this? If he was sleepwalking

Finally a floor was reached, with evidence of a fire or explosion on every hand in the shape of scorched and blackened walls and fallen blocks of carved masonry; and here a second trapdoor slab; thendown, ever down

Occasionally Laverne would see the flaring of a torch -a real torch - down below at so up to him But never a sound frootiate its hazards so cleanly and silently How he could possibly know it so as a differentcommensurate to the depths into which he descended Surely he and Seth Arosu was possibly a participant no less than Vulpe? Ever since last night when they’d met the old hunter it had been as if this entire venture were pre-ordained, worked out in advance By whoe been born here? Hadn’t he lived here - or if not here exactly, then somewhere in Romania?

And finally Vulpe’s descent into the black guts of this place, when he thought the others were asleep what little ’surprise’ was he planning now? And why go to such elaborate lengths anyway? If he’d known of this place and been here before - as a boy, perhaps - couldn’t he have let the for that

’The Castle Ferenczy!’ Laverne snorted now to hihed up, he wondered, to get old Gogosu to play his part in this farce?

Very angry now he stepped down onto a second floor where he paused to call out e! What the fuck are you up to, eh!?’

His cry disturbed the air, brought down rills of dust fros As its echoes boomed out and came back distorted and discordant, Laverne nervously explored the place with the smoky, jittery beam of his torch

He was in the vaults, the place of frescoed walls, many archways, centuries-blackened oaken racks, urns and amphorae, festoons of cobwebs and layers of drifted dust And there were footprints in the dust, quite a few of them The most recent of these could only be Vulpe’s Laverne followed the direction they took - and ahead caught a gliht where it lit the curve of an archway before disappearing

You bastard! Laverne thought You’d have to be deaf not to know I’ to do, good buddy! And if I don’t like what you have to -

From above and behind, on the stone stairs where they wound up into darkness, there ca A pebble, disturbed, caain

Shaking like a leaf, suddenly cold and clammy, Laverne aiasped ’Jesus!’ But there was nothing and no one there Or perhaps a shadow, drawing back out of sight?

Laverne stuh an archway and into other roo and muffled footfalls seemed to echo thunderously but he made no effort to be silent He ht now and find out exactly what the bastard was doing down here The glow of Vulpe’s torch ca; Laverne plunged in that direction, through drifts of dust, salts and chemicals where they lay spilled on the floor, until

This room was different fro, cast about with his weakening beam

Mouldy tapestries on the walls; a tiled floor inlaid with a pictorial e, ancient motif; a desk thick with dust, laid out with books, papers and other writing implements A low of a naked flae Vulpe had stepped inside there?

Finding not a little difficulty in breathing, Laverne gasped: ’George?’ He quickly crossed the rooht up under the low arch of the fireplace In there, fixed in a bracket in the rear wall, he saw Vulpe’s s torch but no Vulpe

A hand fell on Laverne’s shoulder! ’Jesus God!’ he cried out, as adrenalin pumped and he snapped erect The back of his head crunched into collision with the keystone of the arch over the fireplace; he reeled away across the room, and for a moment Vulpe was trapped in his torch’s beahost, his hand still reaching out towards him

Laverne went to his knees on the floor, clutched at the back of his head His hand came aith blood Sick and dizzy he kneeled there He was lucky he hadn’t brained hier quickly replaced his pain He found his orientation, again aimed his torch where last he’d seen Vulpe But Vulpe - sleepwalker, clown, asshole or whatever he was - wasn’t there Only a fading flicker of yellow fire froered to his feet He found his knife lying where he’d dropped it close to the chimney He closed it and put it away He wouldn’t need a knife for the beating he was going to give ’Gheorghe’ Vulpe And when he was done with him the bastard could find his oay back out of here - if he had the strength for it!

Steadier now, gritting his teeth, Laverne went again to the fireplace He ducked inside and at once saw,the rungs in the back wall of the flue Fro scrape of shoes, a low cough And: What goes up, he thought, ht here for the idiot Except that hen Vulpe screamed!

Laverne had never heard a screa sound - like ether - and rose to a vibrating falsetto crescendo before shutting off at highest pitch And as its echoes died away, they were followed by a glottal gurgling and gasping Vulpe was going, ’Ak ak ak ak,’ as if choking: a sort of slow death-rattle Laverne, his hair standing on end, didn’t actually knohat a death-rattle sounded like, but he felt that if the sound were suddenly to speed up to ak-ak-ak-ak, then that would be his friend’s last gasp

’Oh, Jeeesus!’ he whined, and drove hih the flue to the place where it curved through ninety degrees to becoe Twenty or twenty-five paces ahead, there lay Vulpe’s torch still flickering fitfully and giving off black smoke where it teetered on the riht of the passageway

But of Vulpe hionized ’Ak ak ak’ sounds, which seee?’ Laverne hurried forward - and ca brand, where neither its light nor his own torch beaular eyes floated in the darkness, unblinking, unyielding, unnerving

Laverne wasn’t an especially brave man, but he wasn’t a coward either Whatever the creature was up ahead -fox, wolf or feral dog - it wouldn’t much care for fire He lu torch, and waved it overhead to get it going again A whoosh of fla shadoere driven back Likewise the creature along the passageway; Laverne caught a gli, canine, before it ed up in gloo in the trench -

- Soainst the wall like a blow fro his shock, his horror - feeling his blood running cold in his veins - Laverne tre eyes took in the bed of spikes and the figure of his friend, crucified and worse, upon theh his cheek, neck, shoulders and ar blood froash and puncture, which coloured the rusty spikes and flowed in thickly converging strea feet, into the channel and doards the stone spout

’Mother of God!’ Laverne croaked

’Ak! ak! ak!’ said Vulpe, the words bursting in bloody bubbles froreat old Grey One growled low in his throat and paced slowly, stiff-legged, into full view

Vulpe was finished, that es between the his last, not now Laverne couldn’t save him, neither fros he backed off, shuffling crablike, sideways back along the passage, back towards the shallow steps leading to the false flue It was all over for George - everything was over for him - and now Laverne must think only of hile from the carved stone spout into the ht American backed away faster yet

And paused abruptly, wobbling like a jelly there in the narrow eway

In front, the wolf, its face a snarlingman on his torture-bed of spikes; and now now there was so, Laverne cranked his head round like a nut on a rusty bolt At first he es were indistinct, weirdly e to have narrowed, the floor to have beco that rustled and flopped!

Laverne’s eyes bugged as he thrust out his torch in that direction, bugged more yet as several small parts of that ano walls and darted by hi swoops and dives Bats! A colony of bats! Andeven as he griust

He looked back the other way The wolf had come to a standstill; its ears were pointed into the trench, its attention centred on the urn Cold as death, reeling and panting for air, Laverne looked where it looked He looked, saw, and knew that he was on the verge of fainting His blood was pooling, his senses whirling - but he also knew that he dared not faint! Not in this nightmare place, and certainly not now

The urn was belching Puffs of vapour, like s fro up fro tar As Vulpe’s blood was consu within the urn A catalyst, his blood transformed ithin!

Hypnotized by horror, Laverne could only watch A rey tentacle of slime, crimson-veined, slopped upwards out of the , it slid like a snake along the trail of blood to where Vulpe lay transfixed Sentient, it curled round his right leg where it was bent at the knee, surged along the i chest He continued to gasp, ’Ak! ak! argh!’ - but agony had very nearly inured him, numbed him into a mental li the job

Soth froed to lift his face up off the spike which pierced his right cheek and lower jaw; and conscious to the last, he sahat reared on his chest and even now for, blind cobra head!

His bloody jaws flew open - perhaps in a screa at once drove itself into his yawning ullet! He convulsed on the spikes; his lips split at their corners as his jaere forced apart and the now corrugated, pulsating bulk of the thing thrust into hi and slimed where the ’tail’ of the leech-creature had snaked free But still Vulpe gagged and frothed and bled from his nostrils as the horror filled hie into him; his eyes stood out as if to burst froered hands tore free of the spikes and grasped at theto tear it out of him To no avail

In another moment the entire creature had entered him - and still he tossed on the spikes, flopped his head this way and that, slopped blood and reat God in heaven!’ Laverne wailed ’Die, for Christ’s sake!’ he instructed Vulpe ’Let it go! Be still!’ And it was as if George Vulpe heard hio, he was suddenly still

The entire scene stood frozen, ti the way forward; the bats, alle route of exit; the drained and hideously refilled body of his friend,torch in Laverne’s hand had any life of its own, and that too was dying

In one badly shaking hand the firebrand, and in the other his pocket-torch; Randy Laverne could never have said how he’d hung on to either one of thee and terror, he turned to the wall of bats and thrust at it with his s torch They didn’t retreat but clustered to the firebrand, s bodies, put it out! A dozen dead or dying bats fell to the floor of the passage, were ploughed under by the creeping furry tide of their cousins where they wriggled and flopped forward

Laverne went a little asped and screaain; he lashed out with his ar beaiving hi

He did not see George Vulpe wrench hiht, free of the spikes in the trench, or the way his gashes had stopped bleeding and werethemselves even now Nor did he see hi the old wolf’s ears and s Especially, he did not see that s semiconscious down the wall to crue was occasioned by none of these things but by Vulpe’s sudden appearance, his rising up there, directly before hi eyes, and his entirely alien, phleg:

’My friend, you came to this place of your own free will And I believe you are bleeding?’ Vulpe’s nostrils opened wide, sniffed, and his eyes became fiery slits in that preternaturally pale face ’Indeed, I’m sure you are Now really, soets into it’

E close by It was young Gheorghe, one hand shaking the hunter awake, the other holding a warning finger to his lips ’Shhhr he hushed

’Eh? What is it?’ Gogosu whispered, at once wide awake and peering about in the night The fire was burning low, its heart redly reflecting from Vulpe’s eyes ’Dawn already? I don’t believe it!’

’Not dawn,’ the other replied, also in a whisper, however hoarse and urgent ’Soun’

Gogosu unrolled himself from his blanket, reached for his rifle and came lithely to his feet He prided himself that his bones didn’t ache

’Co carefully so as not to wake Ar

As they left the caan to close in, the hunter caught at Vulpe’s arm ’Your face,’ he said ’Is that blood? What’s been going on, Gheorghe? I didn’t hear anything’

’Blood, yes,’ the other answered ’I was keeping watch I heard soht have been a dog or fox - even a wolf -but it attacked ht it off I think it may have bittenme as I came back for you’

’Still out here?’ Gogosu turned his head this way and that The h hazy clouds The hunter saw nothing, but still the young Aht maybe you could shoot it,’ said Vulpe ’You said you’d tried to shoot a wolf up here before’

’I have, that’s right,’ Gogosu answered, hurrying to keep up ’I hit him, too, for I heard him yelp and saw the trail of blood!’

’Well,’ said the other, ’and now another chance’

’Eh?’ the hunter was puzzled Soood look at his co with your voice, Gheorghe? Frog in your throat? Still shaken up, are you?’

’That’s right,’ said Vulpe, his voice deeper yet ’It was soosu ca ’I see no wolf!’ he said, the tone of his voice an accusation in itself ’Neither wolf nor fox nor anything!’

’Oh?’ said the other, also pausing ’Then what’s that?’ He pointed and sorey-dappled where one But the hunter had seen it As if in confirht

’Daosu breathed ’A Grey One!’ He brushed past Vulpe, crouched low, ran forward under the trees

Vulpe caent ’There he goes!’ he rasped

’Where? Where? God, you’ve the eyes of a wolf yourself!’

’This way,’ said Vulpe ’Come on!’

They came out of the trees, reached the piled scree at the foot of rearing crags The younger figure breathed easy, but Gogosu was already panting for air ’Lord,’ he gulped, and finally ad as yours’

’What?’ said Vulpe, half-turning towards hiosu Centuries younger, in fact’

’Eh? What?’

’There? said the other, pointing yet again ’Under that tree there!’

The hunter looked - brought his rifle up to his shoulder - saw nothing ’Under the tree?’ he said ’But there’s nothing there I -’

’Give ue, he’d taken the gun Ai in particular, he said: ’Emil, are you sure you shot a wolf up here that time?’

’What?’ the old hunter was outraged ’How ot hier he bears the scar to prove it’

’Calm down, calht now ’No need for wagering, Ee in his flank, where your bullet burned his hide! Oh, yes, and just as you remember him, so he remembers you!’

And as suddenly as that the hunter knew that this wasn’t Gheorghe Vulpe He looked deep into his shadowed face, hissed his terror and shrank down - and saw the Grey One crouched to spring, silhouetted on top of a osu snatched at his rifle where the other see an iron bar from theof a cell

The wolf struck and knocked hiht a friend Its fangs were at his throat, slavering there He went to cry out, but already those terrible teeth hadhis scream to a scarlet froth that flew like a brand across a wrinkled grey brow over vengeful yellow eyes

’You let ’s first reaction when he found hione, the fire al?’ said the e Vulpe

’No,’ Ar shook his head, as uess I was tuckered Must be the altitude’

’Good,’ said the other ’I’lad you enjoyed your sleep Sleep is a necessity, however wasteful Why should we sleep when there’s a life to be lived, eh? I shall not sleep again in oh, a long ti was alht have ju hi prone on its belly like a dog, with paws stretched forward towards hi directly into his eyes! One of its ears stood stiffly erect; the other, twitching, lay close to its elongated skull The wolf ; whichever, its quivering muzzle was splashed with scarlet

’Jesus H Christ!’ Arled in the lower half of his sleeping-bag

’Be still,’ commanded the one he still believed was Vulpe ’Do as you’re told and he won’t attack you, and I won’t squeeze this trigger’