XXXVI - A Werewolf Revealed

  Dusk had already consumed the village by the time Amabel had reached her final destination of the evening. After trailing her while she completed a series of errands, Vlad watched as she slipped inside of a small, unassuming home that stood on the far end of an isolated street, where few onlookers would ever know of her presence. He gave her a few moments to sufficiently enter the abode, then crept out from the shadows of a nearby alleyway and approached the home. Vlad stopped outside of a shuttered window and listened intently, his ear all but pressed against the sturdy wooden barrier. There were a few brief moments of silence before a muffled conversation seemed to resume, which consisted of the familiar tones of Amabel—as well as a deeper, unfamiliar voice that clearly belonged to a man.

  “How fares your recovery?” Vlad discerned; the tavern keeper’s voice. “I apologize for the delay in visiting you. I’d have been to see you sooner, but I did not want others to catch wind of your… ailment.”

  “I am better than I was,” the man said. “You were wise to stay away. I shudder to think of what they would do to me—what they would do to us—if they found me here like this. I fear Sir Godwin and his men would throw us out of Fenwick—or worse— should they discover my condition.”

  Vlad had heard enough. He immediately drew his dagger, approached the closed door, and threw it open with such great force that he half-expected it to fly off its hinges. He rushed inside, dagger at the ready, before either occupant could possibly understand what was happening.

  “Neither one of you moves if you yet value your lives,” he said.

  The space inside was tight; the dwelling existed as a single, cramped room, containing a small bed in the corner, a stove in the other, and an old, round wooden table made for two in the center. Amabel, who had been sitting at one of the two wooden chairs, quickly rocketed to her feet, startled by the sudden intrusion. Her hand went to the hilt of the stiletto blade fastened at her hip.

  Near her, standing in front of the bed that he was once sitting upon, was the man whose voice Vlad had just heard. He stood shirtless, exposing his pale skin and frail figure. Heavy bags weighed down his tired eyes, and he looked as though the effort of being on his feet was already inflicting a sizable toll upon him. Had his exposure to the silver of Sybil’s blade truly hindered him this greatly? His wounds must have been worse than initially suspected.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the man said. His voice sounded much more taxed than it had from the other side of the wall.

  “Mr. Albescu?!” Amabel sounded as if she could hardly believe her own words. “What are you doing here?”

  Vlad held his dagger at the ready. He remained calm and collected as he slowly stepped deeper into the dwelling. “I am here to do what is required of me, Miss Cook—something you have unfortunately left me little time to complete. I am forced to believe that this fellow is the much-dreaded werewolf what haunts this very village, and I shall slay the beast before it has a chance to transform. Now stand down and step aside, or I will have no choice but to relinquish you to a parallel fate.”

  “Werewolf?” she said, sounding somehow even further flabbergasted. “This man is no werewolf, he is my—he is a friend of mine!”

  “And what, then, would you have me believe is his condition that I heard you speak of?” Vlad asked. “The very one that Sir Godwin would see fit to banish you for?”

  “Plague,” the man said. “Or at the very least something quite similar to it, though likely not the dreaded ailment itself. But it matters not what I have been ill with these many days—if the captain’s lot caught wind of me having any symptoms that even resembled the Plague, he would have me forcibly removed from the village so as to prevent its spread.”

  “A rather commodious explanation,” Vlad said, “and one that I am less than foolish enough to—” He paused, suddenly realizing the significance of the blade that Amabel kept at her hip, her hand still tight around its hilt without freeing it from its slumber. “Hold. That weapon at your side—where did you acquire it, Miss Cook?”

  Amabel glanced down at her sheathed dagger, returned her gaze to Vlad. “It’s the very same one that Madam Avice sold to me. I heeded your wisdom and made sure to return it to its sheath before leaving the tavern.”

  Vlad frowned at this. He faltered slightly, lowering his blade a fraction of a degree. “But that cannot be possible. You left it plunged in the archer Piers’ back!”

  “Plunged in the—What in the world are you talking about? I did no such thing, as you can plainly see.”

  Vlad looked at the pale man. He was noticeably ill, but beyond that he appeared perfectly fine, despite the rapid approach of night. Surely by now he would be displaying signs of his imminent transformation.

  “But the letter,” Vlad croaked, feeling less certain than he had in an incredibly long time, if not his entire life. “It’s scribed in your very handwriting.”

  “I know nothing about this letter of which you speak,” Amabel said. “Now, do you mind terribly explaining why you suspect me of being involved with the werewolf?”

  Vlad remained entirely stunned. In a rare moment, he had not the slightest inkling of how to respond. Fortunately he would quickly learn that he would not need to.

  “That is entirely unnecessary, Miss Cook.”

  All eyes turned to face the still open door, through which stepped Captain Godwin, accompanied by two of his subordinates who were forced to enter one at a time behind him on account of the tightness of the space, which only grew more claustrophobic as more bodies forced their presence into it.

  “You waste your time trying to glean an honest explanation from this scoundrel.” The knight glared angrily at his old acquaintance. “And you have officially taken this too far, Vlad Albescu.”

  “Sir Godwin!” Vlad called.

  “I’ve given you ample warning, Plague doctor. And did you heed these offerings made with an abundance of kindness? Of course you didn’t, and I am far from surprised by this—it is hardly within your nature to obey any order placed upon you. What I did not expect from you, however, was for you to pursue this poor woman from the shadows, interrupt one of her intimate affairs, and threaten to plunge your blade into her heart if she did not comply with your outlandish demands.”

  “Yes, I have certainly made some mistakes, Sir Godwin,” Vlad said, “but if you will simply allow me to explain—”

  “Save your breath,” Godwin said. “I will entertain no more of this. You are under arrest, Vlad Albescu. If you resist, I shall have no qualms about cutting you down where you stand—other than, perhaps, that your blood will stain the walls of this unfortunate fellow’s home.”

  There was a long, frigid, palpable silence that seemed to crawl by at the same speed as the ever-setting sun, during which Vlad noticed that a nearby window leading to the rear of the building was situated just behind the table that Amabel had been sitting at before he had entered. With a calm, steadying breath, the Plague doctor sheathed his blade. “Very well, Sir Godwin. You are correct. It would appear you have left me with no other choice.” He turned to look at Amabel, who had finally released her grip on her weapon. “I apologize, Miss Cook, for the wrong I have done you.”

  Vlad dashed for the window behind Amabel before anybody in the space could react. Without slowing for even a moment, he quickly tore open the window’s thin shutters and vaulted through the new aperture as Godwin yelled his name, his voice sharp with fury. Vlad realized too late that the rear of the building was positioned at the peak of a slight hill; his knee hit the side of the terrain with an ungraceful crash, and he immediately found himself sliding through the slick snow for several moments before finally coming to a halt at the bottom.

  He stopped in front of a pair of mailed boots, which were planted firmly in the snow. Looking up from his kneeling position, he saw a familiar blonde figure, who stared down at him with a partisan gripped tightly in one hand, its tip raised toward the sky.

  “Lady Lucia!” Vlad said. He dared not rise to his feet, lest any sudden movement resulted in the tip of the woman’s polearm winding up squarely in his chest.

  But much to his surprise, Lucia did not train her weapon on him. Instead she took a step back from the man, her stern gaze not releasing its grip on his own. “Go.”

  “What?” The unexpected command caught him off-guard. He remained on his knee, not certain if he should heed her words.

  “Go,” she repeated. “We’ve little time before the beast transforms, and even less before Godwin and the others arrive.”

  “But why would you—”

  “If we lock you away, then there will be nobody left whom we—whom I—can trust to slay that wretched lycanthrope,” she said. “Now begone. Put an end to this nightmare, before it is too late.”

  Vlad hesitated for another brief moment before finally rising to his feet. He nodded at his would-be captor. “Thank you, Lady Lucia.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Just ensure I do not regret this, Plague doctor.”

  He was gone without speaking another word, nor did he look back to see what became of the woman who had spared him his freedom.

  The evening sky grew more infatuated with the hastily arriving night.

  ___

  Twilight had swallowed the firmament by the time they’d come upon the small, abandoned chapel. It stood in partial ruins, its walls of wood and stone falling away in a number of places, its grounds, including a small, forgotten, crumbling cemetery, surrounded by several ponds of stagnant water. There would likely come a day, Sybil knew, when the chapel would grow too heavy for the eroded ground that it stood upon, and it would collapse beneath its own weight, likely into one of the pools that by then would all have grown so large that they would have consumed nearly all of the land around which the building was built. But for now, though, the thing remained, and Sybil was very grateful that it did.

  They had noticed the chapel because of the abundance of wolfsbane that grew wild and uninhibited all around it, along the overgrowth and in the cracks of the ruinous stone fence and between the derelict tombstones and along the banks of the encroaching ponds. The many flowers shimmered like countless rubies and amethysts, and lit up the gloomy swamp even as the fading sun continued to abandon its slipping hold on the day.

  Sybil looked at Finn, who stood beside her. He appeared to be utterly exhausted, and was so overheated with his exertion that he had now opened his winter coat, exposing his light clothing beneath. She doubted if he would keep the heavy thing on for much longer, and feared for his health should he expose himself to the merciless bite of winter.

  “Well,” she said, “I suppose at the very least it’s a shelter.”

  He nodded. “I’d say so. And the abundance of wolfsbane will likely keep the lycanthrope at bay, should it discover us here.”

  Sybil remembered how the youth’s skin had reacted to the touch of the flower, and she frowned. “I’d hate for the plants to further your affliction.”

  “I should be alright so long as I don’t touch them,” Finn said. “Besides, we need to get you warmed up quickly, and the best place to do so will be from inside of that chapel.”

  A powerful gust of wind rushed past them and toward the house of worship. Sybil felt a sudden chill run along her frigid leg, and she knew her companion had the right of it. And so, without further debate, the two of them made their way into the waiting remains of the chapel.

  The inside of the building was in an even worse state than the exterior—at least as far as Sybil could tell through all the heavy darkness. She could see the silhouettes of messily strewn pews and toppled candle holders, which lay in rest atop a rotting wooden floor that had largely been reclaimed by the moss and foliage of the swamp. It had clearly been many years since the space was last occupied with its intended purpose in mind, and Sybil was saddened by the fact that it would never be used in such a way again.

  But, as they quickly found out, it had not been nearly such a long time since it had last been used at all.

  They almost immediately found the remnants of a fire in a corner near the front of the building; a pit had been dug out in the exposed soil beneath the rotting wood, and several stones had been placed in a circle around what was currently a resting pile of ash and bits of burnt wood. Nearby was a stack of more firewood, ready to be used and looking to be fairly recently cut.

  “Let us hope,” Finn said, “that whoever was here before is hospitable to us, should they return.”

  Sybil disliked the idea of occupying somebody else’s space, but she saw little other choice that did not involve freezing to death some time during the coming night. She instructed Finn to sit near the pit, and she set to work using the technique her father had taught her to start a small fire with the supplies left there for them. Strong winds continued to bluster through the door to the chapel, but despite nature’s attempts to thwart her, Sybil soon had a little blaze going. Casting away some of the surrounding shadows, the fire immediately began sending a gentle pillar of smoke upwards and out of an aperture in the failing roof. When she was finished, Sybil took a seat in front of the fire and allowed her frigid leg to begin to warm. Pins and needles assaulted the limb as it thawed, causing her great pain that she was not sure she would be able to endure, but which quickly gave way to a soothing relief which told her that, at least for now, her icy ordeal had come to an end.

  They sat in silence for another short while as the fire crackled between them. Outside the wind continued to howl, and even occasionally caused their fire to gutter with the mighty force of its frigid suggestion. A growing irritation racked Finn’s face; he sat with his satchel still over his shoulder, and Syibl, knowing his defensiveness of the wolfsbane he possessed, did not press him about taking it off. He only briefly removed it so he could discard his winter coat as beads of sweat, glistening in the light of the fire, ran along his temples and down his cheeks. “Mother above is it hot in here. Am I going to have to endure this damned heat all night long?”

  Sybil felt a mild pang of annoyance at this, which she fought to suppress with great difficulty. “It’s certainly better than freezing to death.”

  “You mean it’s better than you freezing to death,” he said, leering at her. “I haven’t stopped sweating in what feels like hours.”

  This time, she was unable to cap her anger. “Well then perhaps you should go sit outside, and I can enjoy the fire by myself.”

  His leer quickly broke at her frustrated words. “I apologize, Sybil. I… I’m not sure what came over me.”

  She felt her own anger beginning to abate, but not vanish entirely. “Think nothing of it. It’s been a long day already, and we’ve still a long night ahead of us. A little irritation is to be expected.”

  “I just think about how we waste our time tarrying here while that lycanthrope could very well be preparing to go on another rampage, and it fills me with such anger. Anger for the creature, yes, but even more for myself. Had I not insisted on this excursion and then subsequently gotten us lost, none of this would be happening right now.”

  “You only did what you thought was best,” she said. “We’ve all made mistakes—believe me when I say that I certainly know that better than anyone.”

  “It wasn’t your mistake that led us here.”

  Sybil, not knowing how to respond and seeing Finn’s irritation beginning to grow again, allowed the discussion to rest. Her leg now felt significantly better, and, wishing to stretch it as well as to get a few minutes away from her companion, she clambered to her feet. “I’m going to take a look around and see if I can find anything that may be of use to us in here.”

  “Would you like my help?” he asked.

  Sybil shook her head. She picked up a candle which lay nearby and used the fire to set its wick ablaze. “No, it’s alright. I don’t want you to do anything to irritate that hand. I’ll only be gone for a few minutes.”

  She turned and made her way into the gloom of the chapel and away from the fire’s glow before he could respond. Guided by the meager light of the candle, Sybil meandered her way past toppled pews and carefully stepped over upturned floorboards that sought so desperately to trip her. In truth, she doubted that anything in the old, rotting chapel would be of benefit to them, but she figured a handful of minutes away from Finn would do them both some good. They were both irritated from all that they had endured, he evidently being in a worse state than she was, and she thought that the best thing either of them could do was take some time to clear their minds before they settled in for the long, cold winter night ahead of them.

  She had almost reached the rear of the little building when her foot accidentally kicked something in the darkness that she could not see. Metal skittered along wood, prompting her to crouch down and lower her candle to her feet so that she could get a better view of what exactly she had just disturbed. Lying in a heap on the ground, cast in the shadow of her candle’s flame, were the ends of two steel chains whose lengths disappeared beyond the glow of her candle. One of them ended in what looked to be half of a shackle, the other half torn away by some great force that had violently rent the metal; the other was completely missing its shackle, and instead ended in the ruined fragment of one of its links. By the way that they glistened in her candle’s light, Sybil could tell that the chains had been infused with silver.

  “What are these doing here?” she muttered. She stared at them for what felt like a very long time, her chest filling with an inexplicable sense of danger and dread. In fact, she was so distracted by the sight of the shattered chains that she didn’t even notice as the last of the daylight left the sky, and the moon began its watch over the firmament. Powerful, blueish moonlight washed into the chapel from its windows as well as from the gap in the ceiling, which, thanks to the Celestial Curtain, actually managed to illuminate the space far greater than either source of fire could hope to.

  That was when his screaming began.

  Sybil shot to her feet as Finn’s agonized wails echoed through the small chapel like a shot from a pistol. She rushed over to where she had left him, barely holding onto her sputtering candle as she went, and nearly crashed to the ground twice as she tripped over two jutting planks. When she reached him, he was already on his feet and was staggering about violently. His hands were gripping his hair so tightly that he looked ready to tear his entire mane free of his scalp. The guttering fire between them painted the youth in dark shadows that almost made him look daemonic in his abject suffering.

  “Finn!” Sybil yelled, stopping on the other side of the fire, almost too startled by her companion’s unexpected frenzy to draw any closer. “What ails you? Are you alright?”

  “It hurts!” he croaked through clenched teeth that looked ready to shatter. “It hurts so badly!” The youth reached for his back. “Get this off of me!” He yanked his satchel free and threw it away. It landed in the fire and quickly went up in flames, its contents immediately lost to the blaze.

  “What’s wrong, Finn?” Sybil asked. She took a cautious step closer to her panicked friend. “What can I do to help you?”

  “I don’t know, but you have to stay back, Sybil!” Finn’s mouth began to froth as he spoke. “You must keep away from me!”

  “But you need me!” She took another step toward him. “I can help you, but I need to—”

  “I said to stay back!” He placed the better of his two hands forward, its palm facing her, as if to ward off her approach. There, running along his palm, she saw an all-too-familiar scar that only a few days prior had been an open, bleeding wound.

  Sybil finally heeded her companion’s warning. She halted her approach, and even found herself taking a reflexive step backwards. Her words felt frozen in her throat, but before long she managed to find them in order to ask that impossible question—the one that she already knew the gut-wrenching answer to. “Where did you get that scar?”

  Through his agony, Finn managed to take a quick glance at his own palm. “I… I don’t know. I… forget things at night when I have my… my skull aches. Avice said I merely hurt my hand in the forge… recently, but I… I don’t recall exactly what happened.” He stifled another scream. “My… my aches have never been this bad before, Sybil. I… I don’t know what’s happening.”

  Finn squinted his eyes shut and failed to suppress another scream. When he opened them again, they were slick with pained, terrified tears.

  And they had also gone completely white.

  Sybil wanted to rush to her ailing friend’s side, but the terror that overtook her body forced her to take another retreating step backwards. “Fight it, Finn!” she called to him. “You must try to fight it!”

  “I can’t!” he cried. “It’s getting worse! I want… I want so badly to hurt you!” He wailed with horrible agony. “Help me, Sybil! Help me!”

  He would not get another chance to speak. The transformation had already begun, and nothing could possibly stop it now.