Vienna, 2012
Silver behaved badly when hurried.
Hadrian Vent held the little crucible above the mould and waited until the last skin of slag had drawn itself away from the surface. Beneath it, the molten metal shone almost white in the dim room. Only then did he tilt his wrist and begin to pour.
Fergus watched from the other side of the worktable as Hadrian filled the twelve cavities one after another, six rounds for each revolver, with the same unhurried precision he brought to almost everything he considered worth doing properly.
“You still cast them yourself,” Fergus said.
Hadrian did not look up. “Trusting someone else with your ammunition is an excellent habit until the first defective cartridge.”
“I meant the silver.”
“So did I.”
He returned the crucible to the brazier. A faint metallic smell hung in the warm air, not strong enough to be unpleasant, but distinctive enough to reach into memory.
Fergus rested both hands on the carved head of the ruby staff leaning against his chair. Martha’s staff once; his now, although even after all these years the thought occasionally felt presumptuous.
Hadrian glanced across the table. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Going somewhere else.”
Fergus looked at the thin threads of smoke rising from the mould and smiled without much humour.
“Leogang.”
Hadrian’s face barely changed.
“Ah.”
The silver cooled between them.
Leogang, 5 December 1995
The waitress was called Resi, and Fergus had been trying for the better part of ten minutes not to look too obviously at her chest.
Kauko noticed, naturally.
“You are staring.”
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
Fergus lowered his eyes to the plate of Kasnocken in front of him. “I was looking at the embroidery.”
“Of course.”
Resi swept past their table carrying four beers in one hand and three plates in the other, called something cheerful toward the kitchen and disappeared through a swinging wooden door.
Kauko watched her go. “Very fine embroidery.”
Fergus kicked him under the table.
Across from them, Hadrian continued reading as though neither seventeen-year-old boys nor impressively constructed dirndls existed.
The inn was almost too perfectly Alpine. Dark timber covered the walls, a tiled stove radiated heat from one corner, and ceramic goats, painted plates and dried flowers occupied every shelf that could support them. Upstairs, their rooms had feather beds beneath red-and-white checked blankets, crucifixes above the doors and balconies buried under enough snow to discourage even Kauko from stepping outside barefoot.
A painted wooden Krampus mask hung above the bar, its mouth stretched into a permanent snarl, goat horns curving away from a blackened forehead while dark fur hung from either side.
Tonight half the valley seemed to be wearing something similar.
The bells had been sounding outside since dusk.
Resi returned with a basket of bread and nodded toward the windows. “You’re going out for the Lauf?”
Kauko answered immediately. “That is why we came.”
She looked at Hadrian. “All of you?”
Hadrian turned a page. “I am told supervision is desirable.”
Resi laughed. “Then you have chosen the wrong two.”
She nodded toward Fergus and Kauko before disappearing again.
Kauko leaned across the table. “I like her.”
“You like everybody.”
“That is not true.”
“You liked the woman at the petrol station.”
“She gave me chocolate.”
“You liked the customs officer.”
“He had an excellent moustache.”
Hadrian closed his book.
Both boys became quiet.
Beside his plate lay a folded sheet of tracing paper. He opened it carefully and flattened it with two fingers.
The mark had been copied from the inside of a mask at Castle MacAlastair. The mask itself was old, though not ancient: probably eighteenth century, perhaps early nineteenth. Blackened wood, ibex horns, horsehair and leather. It had hung for generations in a corridor filled with things accumulated by MacAlastairs who had apparently considered throwing anything away a personal insult to history.
Nobody had paid much attention to it until Fergus, bored during an afternoon of cataloguing, had taken it down.
On the inside of the forehead, almost invisible beneath an old leather repair, somebody had cut a simple mark into the wood: a crescent crossed by a crooked vertical line that widened slightly near the bottom.
It might easily have been a carver’s mark.
Except Hadrian had seen it before.
He would not yet say where.
“What did the archivist say?” Fergus asked.
“That she has never seen it.”
“Which means?”
“It means the archivist has never seen it.”
Kauko rolled his eyes.
Fergus pointed at the tracing. “The mask is Pinzgauer.”
“Probably.”
“And the mark is inside it.”
“Yes.”
“And we are now in Pinzgau.”
Hadrian looked at him. “Excellent work. At this rate I shall have you identifying continents by spring.”
Kauko snorted into his beer.
At the neighbouring table, an old man lowered his pipe.
He had been sitting there since they arrived, nursing one small beer with the dedication of somebody determined to make it last until Easter. His face was brown and deeply lined, his white hair combed straight back, and his woollen jacket hung loosely from shoulders that must once have been much broader.
His eyes were fixed on the tracing paper.
Hadrian noticed.
The old man noticed Hadrian noticing.
For a moment neither spoke.
Then the old man tapped his pipe against the ashtray. “Wo habt’s des her?”
His dialect was thick enough that Fergus needed a second to follow.
Hadrian answered in German. “From an old mask.”
“I can see that.”
“Do you know the mark?”
The old man drew slowly on his pipe. Smoke drifted around his face.
“No.”
It was an impressively unconvincing answer.
Kauko glanced at Fergus. Hadrian folded the tracing and slid it into his coat, while the old man’s eyes followed the paper until it disappeared.
Then he looked toward the windows.
“Best watch the Krampusse tonight,” he said. “Not old scratches.”
From behind the bar Resi called, “Loisl, stop frightening the guests.”
“I haven’t frightened anyone.”
“You try every year.”
He grunted.
A bell struck outside with enough force to make the windowpanes tremble. Another answered it, then another, until the sound seemed to roll through the entire village.
Kauko’s face lit up.
“Come on.”
Leogang changed after dark.
By daylight it had been a village of snow-covered roofs, timber balconies and chimney smoke lying peacefully beneath white mountains. Now torches burned along the road and children crowded behind wooden barriers in woollen hats while their parents drank punch from steaming cups. Brass music competed hopelessly with the bells. Smoke, sausage, wet wool and rum mingled in the frozen air.
Then the Krampusse came.
They emerged through torch smoke in pelts and carved masks, their horns black against the snow. Huge bells hung from leather harnesses around their waists and crashed with every step. Birch switches snapped against boots and legs; children screamed and laughed; young men showed off by standing their ground until the last possible second.
One Krampus charged the barrier and sent three children shrieking into their parents.
Another caught a young woman around the waist, lifted her bodily off the ground and carried her several metres while she kicked, swore and laughed.
Farther down the road Nikolaus appeared in white and gold, looking almost absurdly dignified amid the chaos.
Kauko was delighted.
“This,” he shouted over the bells, “is much better than Finnish Christmas.”
“You have drunken men dressed as goats beating people with sticks.”
“Yes.”
“That is your argument?”
“Yes.”
A Krampus lunged suddenly at Fergus.
Despite himself, Fergus jumped back.
The creature stopped inches from his face. Through the carved mouth Fergus could hear a man laughing.
Kauko doubled over.
“You should have seen yourself.”
“I knew it was a costume.”
“Obviously.”
Hadrian had drifted away and was speaking to an elderly man wearing the badge of one of the local associations, leaving Fergus to brush snow from his coat while Kauko continued grinning at him.
Another group came down the road, five Krampusse moving through the crowd in a clatter of bells, fur and horns.
Kauko stopped laughing.
The change in him was immediate enough that Fergus noticed.
“What?”
Kauko was staring at the last figure in the group.
Its mask was plainer than the others: black wood, two horns, no painted tongue, no exaggerated teeth. Yet there was something about the way it moved that made it stand out more than the decorated ones. Despite the weight of the bells, it seemed almost too light on its feet.
It turned its head.
The mask looked directly at Kauko.
For a strange moment they simply regarded one another across the crowd.
Then the Krampus stepped out of the procession and slipped between two houses.
Kauko followed.
Fergus caught his sleeve. “Where are you going?”
“Did you smell that?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
He pulled free and disappeared into the crowd.
“Kauko!”
Fergus shoved after him, muttering apologies as he knocked into spectators. By the time he reached the alley, Kauko was already halfway across the field beyond the houses.
The Krampus stood at the far end.
It looked back once, then dropped forward onto all fours.
The change happened beneath the skins.
For a second Fergus could not make sense of what he was seeing. The shape contracted and twisted, limbs changing proportion beneath fur and leather, and then a dark wolf burst free and raced across the snow.
Kauko swore softly.
His own clothes dropped where he stood, and a white wolf bounded from them after the first.
“Kauko!”
Both animals vanished into the darkness.
Behind Fergus, bells crashed and the crowd cheered.
Nobody had noticed.
Kauko did not return that night.
At first Hadrian was annoyed. By morning he was worried, and by midday he had stopped pretending otherwise.
They found Kauko’s clothes half covered by fresh snow where he had left them. Beyond the field the tracks were confused by animals and people, but Hadrian crouched beside a series of impressions near a fence and studied them for several minutes.
“Two wolves here,” he said. “Farther up, more joined them.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Fergus looked toward the wooded slopes. Snow had begun to fall again.
“Werewolves?”
“Possibly.”
“Then we go.”
Hadrian stood. “No.”
Fergus stared at him. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean that running into the mountains after something we haven’t identified would be stupid.”
“Kauko is up there.”
“Yes.”
“Then—”
“If he is still up there. If he hasn’t left the trail. If someone hasn’t taken him down the other side. If this has anything to do with the mark. If these are actually what you think they are.”
“They are wolves that turn into men.”
“Congratulations. That narrows the possibilities somewhat.”
Fergus hated when he did that.
“So what do we do?”
“We find out where they went, and then we ask better questions.”
The old man called Loisl was not at the inn.
His chair beside the tiled stove stood empty while Resi laid tables for lunch.
“Do you know where he lives?” Hadrian asked.
She glanced toward the empty chair. “Loisl?”
“Yes.”
“Up toward Hütten. Why?”
“Something he said last night.”
Resi laughed. “If everyone followed Loisl home because of something he said, he’d need a bigger house.”
“Does he have a surname?”
“Aigner.”
Something shifted in Hadrian’s expression.
Fergus saw it. “You know him?”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I recognised the name.”
“From where?”
Hadrian pulled on his gloves. “Something I read this morning.”
He had spent two hours in Saalfelden while Fergus searched the roads around the village.
“What?”
“Mining records.”
Fergus waited, but Hadrian had already begun walking.
“That is all you’re telling me?”
“For the moment.”
“You are extraordinarily irritating.”
“So I am told.”
The road climbed gradually toward the old mining country. They passed farmhouses buried beneath snow and fields divided by dark wooden fences. Above them, the mountains rose steeply, forest giving way to bare white rock.
Hadrian stopped at a little wayside shrine: a painted Virgin behind glass beneath a wooden roof, flowers frozen stiff at the base.
On one of its supporting posts, almost lost beneath layer after layer of weathered brown paint, somebody had carved a crescent crossed by a crooked line.
Fergus’s irritation vanished.
“That’s it.”
“Yes.”
The carving was old. Not Roman, certainly not Celtic, but perhaps a century or two.
Fergus ran one gloved finger near it without touching. The lower end of the line forked very slightly, like water dividing around a stone.
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer unsettled Fergus more than he expected.
Hadrian usually knew.
At the foot of the shrine, half hidden beneath powder, Fergus noticed a footprint.
Large.
Not human.
Fresh.
They both looked uphill.
Hadrian was silent for a long moment before saying, “We go back.”
Fergus turned on him. “What?”
“The weather is worsening, and I need to speak to somebody before dark.”
“Kauko is somewhere up there.”
“And charging after him without knowing what we are walking into will not improve his situation.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.” Hadrian’s voice hardened. “And neither do you.”
Fergus looked down at the tracks. Snowflakes were already softening their edges.
“Tomorrow?”
“If necessary.”
Another flake landed in the dark impression, then another.
Fergus said nothing.
Hadrian left shortly before dusk and refused to say where he was going.
Fergus sat in the dining room with a cup of tea cooling between his hands. Outside, the village had quietened after the previous night’s chaos. Children dragged sledges beneath the street lamps while snow fell steadily around them.
Resi brought him a slice of cake he had not ordered.
“You look miserable.”
“My friend is missing.”
“The blond one?”
“White hair.”
“The Finn.”
“Yes.”
She sat opposite him for a moment although she was meant to be working.
“Mountain rescue?”
“It isn’t that kind of missing.”
Resi studied him with an expression Fergus could not quite read, then got up again.
“If you’re going out, take the path by the old mine museum. Don’t go over the ridge.”
His head came up. “Why would I go out?”
“I don’t know.” She collected an empty glass from another table. “But seventeen-year-old boys rarely stay where sensible people leave them.”
Then she walked away.
Fergus stared after her.
On the table lay the paper on which he had copied the mark.
Crescent.
Crooked line.
River, perhaps.
He glanced at Loisl’s empty chair beside the stove.
Twenty minutes later he was pulling on his boots.
The tracks appeared beyond the old mining road, and Fergus found them not because he was particularly skilled, but because whoever had left them no longer seemed interested in hiding.
Four sets crossed the path.
Then five.
They led toward a cleft between dark pines.
Fergus followed.
The snow soon reached his knees. His legs burned with the climb, ice gathered in his hair beneath his cap, and the last lights of the village vanished below until only occasional orange glimmers remained between the trees.
He told himself he was not being reckless.
That distinction mattered.
He had evidence. He knew what sort of creatures he was dealing with. He had studied protective rites for years, and Hadrian had made him repeat the boundary ward until he could maintain it distracted, exhausted or half frozen.
He had silver.
Not bullets; Fergus had never liked firearms. Two silver discs hung beneath his shirt and four more lay in his satchel beside chalk, cord, a knife and everything he needed to establish a ward.
He was prepared.
That was different.
Hadrian wanted caution because Hadrian always wanted caution, but Kauko might be injured. Kauko might be dying.
At seventeen, the arguments against waiting could sound considerably more compelling than the arguments for it.
The tracks ended at an abandoned mine entrance framed by rotting timbers. A board hung crookedly above it, whatever warning had once been painted there surrendered long ago to the weather.
On the left support beam somebody had carved the mark.
Fergus stopped.
For the first time, he seriously considered turning back.
Then a voice drifted faintly from somewhere inside.
“Perkele.”
Fergus smiled despite himself.
“Kauko?”
A pause.
Then, incredulously:
“Fergus?”
He went in.
The old mine descended into the mountain until timbered galleries gave way to natural limestone. Water ticked somewhere beyond the reach of his lantern. The walls were stained green and reddish brown by minerals.
The smell was not what he had expected.
There was no charnel stink, no overwhelming rot. He smelled smoke, damp stone, animals and, oddly enough, something cooking.
The passage opened into a broad chamber.
Kauko sat against the far wall wrapped in a grey blanket, one ankle secured with an iron chain. A bruise darkened one side of his face, and there was dried blood at his hairline, but he looked substantially less murdered than Fergus had imagined.
When he saw Fergus, his expression became one of pure dismay.
“Oh no.”
Fergus hurried across the chamber. “Oh no?”
“You came.”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
Fergus crouched beside the chain. “Yes.”
Kauko closed his eyes.
“Perkele.”
“What happened?”
“They caught me.”
“I gathered that.”
“They didn’t catch me at first.” Kauko lowered his voice. “I followed one of them because I thought they were something like me. They thought the same thing.”
“And?”
“We were both wrong.”
Fergus looked at him.
“They don’t change like I do,” Kauko continued. “They wanted to know which family I belonged to. I told them Finland. That confused them. Then they asked who changed me, and when I was bitten.”
“You weren’t bitten.”
“Yes. That confused them more.”
Fergus almost laughed. “You have been missing for two days because you confused some werewolves?”
“I tried to leave.”
“Ah.”
“They disagreed.”
Kauko lifted the chain.
Fergus’s smile disappeared. “Did they hurt you?”
“Mostly when I tried leaving the second time.”
Fergus reached for the lock.
Kauko caught his wrist.
“No.”
“What?”
“Listen to me.”
Footsteps sounded in the darkness behind them.
Not paws.
Several people.
Fergus rose.
Figures entered from three passages.
There were eight altogether. Some looked entirely human; others seemed to have stopped somewhere in between. A broad man in work trousers and an old woollen shirt had fur spreading along one side of his neck. A woman perhaps thirty years old watched Fergus with pale eyes beneath a brow that was already changing shape. Behind her stood two younger men whose fingers ended in claws.
The last figure carried a pipe.
Loisl Aigner walked into the lantern light.
He looked almost exactly as he had in the inn, except that his eyes reflected gold.
He took the pipe from his mouth.
“I told you to watch the Krampusse.”
Fergus’s hand moved toward the silver beneath his coat.
Loisl noticed.
“And now you come into my mountain carrying that.”
“You took my friend.”
“Your friend walked in.”
“You chained him.”
“He kept walking out.”
From the wall, Kauko muttered, “That is unfortunately accurate.”
Fergus ignored him. “What do you want from him?”
The woman answered.
“To know what he is.”
Her German carried the same heavy Pinzgauer cadence as Loisl’s.
“He wears the wolf like clothing.”
Kauko frowned. “I do not wear it.”
“To us, you do.”
One of the younger men moved closer. “He has no moon in him.”
Kauko went still.
The woman continued. “No wound. No inheritance we recognise. He changes cleanly and returns cleanly. We thought perhaps—”
Loisl interrupted her sharply in dialect.
She stopped.
Fergus caught only one word.
Helle.
“What is the Helle?” he asked.
Nobody answered.
Only then did he notice the far wall.
A shallow niche had been cut into the limestone. Inside it sat a bowl of black stone filled with water, positioned beneath a narrow crack in the ceiling through which a thread of moonlight reached down into the chamber.
Above the niche someone had carved the mark.
This one looked far older than those on the mask or the wayside shrine. Its edges had been worn almost smooth.
Fergus stared at it.
Loisl saw.
“That is why you’re here,” Fergus said.
“No.”
“The mask.”
Loisl’s expression hardened. “What mask?”
“You know exactly which mask.”
The younger man with claws stepped forward.
Kauko said quietly, “Fergus.”
Fergus reached beneath his coat.
Every body in the chamber reacted.
Shoulders changed shape. Bones shifted beneath skin. The woman’s teeth lengthened.
Fergus pulled out the silver disc.
“Stay back.”
Loisl stared at him, not frightened so much as profoundly disappointed.
“Boy.”
“I said stay back.”
“Fergus,” Kauko said again. “This is not helping.”
The young werewolf lunged.
Perhaps he intended only to seize Fergus. Fergus never learned.
He spoke the boundary rite.
Silver-blue light tore across the floor and snapped into a circle around Fergus and Kauko. The attacker struck the invisible edge and was flung backward hard enough to crack his shoulder against the wall.
For one bright instant Fergus felt triumph.
The ward held perfectly.
Every werewolf stopped.
Loisl slowly removed his pipe from his mouth.
“You stupid little bastard.”
Fergus had expected rage.
He had imagined claws striking the ward, snarling faces, bodies throwing themselves repeatedly against the light.
Instead, the werewolves sat down.
Loisl settled on a low stone ledge, took out a tobacco pouch and calmly began refilling his pipe. The woman sat beside him. One of the younger men examined the burn on his hand and swore.
Nobody attacked.
Nobody left.
Fergus remained beside Kauko with one palm pressed against the silver anchor.
After several minutes Kauko said, “Well done.”
Fergus glanced at him. “Thank you.”
“That was not praise.”
“They can’t cross.”
“No.”
“So it worked.”
Kauko looked around the chamber. “Wonderful. What now?”
Fergus did not answer.
Loisl struck a match and lit his pipe.
“You learned that from Vent?”
Fergus looked up sharply. “You know Hadrian?”
Loisl smiled without humour.
“Oh, Christ.”
Kauko rested his head against the wall. “That is a bad sign.”
“How do you know him?” Fergus asked.
“A better question is whether he knows you’re here.”
Fergus said nothing.
The woman laughed softly.
“He doesn’t.”
The ward tugged at Fergus’s hand. Not painfully yet, but enough to remind him of the cost.
He shifted his grip.
“What does the mark mean?”
Loisl looked toward the niche. “Nothing for you.”
“It’s carved inside a mask in my family’s house.”
That got his attention.
“What house?”
“Castle MacAlastair.”
The chamber became quiet.
The woman spoke first. “How did it get there?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Loisl stood.
Fergus instinctively strengthened the ward, and silver light shimmered across the floor between them. The old man stopped at its edge.
“You brought it here?”
“No. A tracing.”
“Where?”
“With Hadrian.”
Loisl closed his eyes briefly, then turned to the others and spoke rapidly in dialect.
Fergus could follow only fragments: old, mask, MacAlastair.
And again that word.
Helle.
The woman answered sharply. An argument followed.
Kauko leaned toward Fergus. “What are they saying?”
“I don’t know.”
“You speak German.”
“This is barely German.”
Loisl heard him. “It was German before your people learned it.”
Kauko raised an eyebrow. “I’m Finnish.”
“Exactly.”
Despite everything, Fergus almost laughed.
Then the ward pulled harder.
His amusement vanished.
He had felt the drain from the beginning, but adrenaline had hidden how quickly the spell was feeding on him. Eight bodies outside the circle, two inside, a broad boundary in bad conditions.
He adjusted his breathing.
Loisl watched him.
“You can drop it.”
“No.”
“We are not going to kill you.”
“You chained Kauko to a wall.”
“He ran away twice.”
“That is not an argument.”
“In Pinzgau it is.”
The woman gave Loisl a disapproving look.
He shrugged.
Fergus felt another slow pull through the silver. His fingertips began to tingle.
Kauko noticed.
“How long?”
“Long enough.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Fergus checked the edge of the ward. It still glowed steadily.
“Hours.”
Kauko gave him a long look. “You are lying.”
“Be quiet.”
“You have always been bad at lying.”
Outside the circle, nobody seemed particularly concerned. One of the younger werewolves disappeared into another passage and returned with bread. Someone else ladled stew from a blackened pot.
They began to eat.
Fergus stared.
Loisl caught his expression. “What?”
“You’re having dinner.”
“It is nearly nine.”
Fergus turned to Kauko.
Kauko shrugged. “They feed me too.”
“You could have mentioned that.”
“I was busy telling you not to come.”
The smell of onions and smoked meat drifted across the barrier.
Fergus’s stomach growled.
The woman heard it.
“I can bring you a bowl.”
Fergus stared at her. “Through the ward?”
“No.”
“Then no.”
“All right.”
She went on eating.
By ten Fergus’s knees hurt.
By eleven his fingers had started to shake.
Around midnight the chamber seemed colder, although the little stove outside the circle still gave off heat.
Kauko had stopped making jokes. He watched Fergus closely.
“You need to end it.”
“No.”
“They aren’t attacking.”
“They’re waiting.”
“Yes.”
“For the ward to fail.”
Kauko hesitated. “Maybe.”
Fergus stared at him. “Maybe?”
“They were not planning to kill me.”
“That does not mean they won’t kill me.”
“That part I cannot promise.”
Fergus shifted his weight. Pins and needles shot through his legs.
Loisl appeared to have fallen asleep on the stone ledge, which Fergus found infuriating. His pipe lay cold beside him.
The woman remained awake and spoke quietly with one of the younger men.
Moonlight touched the mark above the black bowl.
Fergus looked toward it.
“What is the Helle?”
The conversation stopped.
The woman turned to him. “So you understood that much.”
“Enough.”
She looked at Loisl, then back at Fergus.
“The name is not hers.”
“What is her name?”
“We don’t know.”
Fergus frowned. “You worship someone whose name you don’t know?”
The woman’s expression changed.
“Do you know the names of everyone your family served two thousand years ago?”
Fergus had no answer.
“Before Rome came, our people were here.”
“The Ambisontes.”
That earned him a more interested glance.
“You know the name.”
“I can read.”
“Good for you.”
Kauko smiled faintly.
“Some things survived,” she said. “Some didn’t. Names go first.”
“And the mark?”
She remained silent.
“The crescent is the moon?”
“Perhaps.”
“The line is the river?”
“Perhaps.”
“You don’t know?”
“I know what my grandmother told me, and she knew what hers told her.” She looked at him steadily. “People like you think that because something is old, someone must have written instructions.”
Fergus felt oddly embarrassed.
Then the ward trembled.
Only slightly, but everybody noticed.
Loisl opened his eyes.
He had not been asleep after all.
“Ah,” he said.
Fergus concentrated until the silver light steadied again.
Loisl sat upright. “How long did Vent tell you to hold that?”
Fergus did not answer.
“How many attackers was it meant for?”
Silence.
Loisl smiled.
“He did tell you.”
Fergus clenched his jaw. “Shut up.”
“You’re good.”
That was somehow worse.
Loisl pointed at him with the pipe.
“Really. For your age, very good. But good is not the same as enough.”
Another tremor passed through Fergus’s arm.
He forced more power into the ward.
The light brightened, and pain stabbed behind his eyes.
Kauko swore. “Stop.”
“No.”
“Fergus.”
“I said no.”
“You came here to get me out.”
“Yes.”
“And now neither of us can leave.”
Fergus looked at him.
Kauko was pale, and not because of his injuries.
He was frightened for Fergus.
The ward flickered.
One section disappeared for less than a second.
A young werewolf rose.
The woman caught his arm. “No.”
“He’s failing.”
“I said no.”
Loisl watched Fergus across the silver boundary.
“Drop it, boy.”
Fergus could hear his pulse in his ears.
“Not until Kauko comes with me.”
Loisl sighed. “Stubborn as diarrhoea.”
Kauko laughed despite himself.
The ward flickered again.
This time it stayed thin long enough for Fergus to feel real fear.
He poured more of himself into it. Heat drained rapidly from his body until his teeth began to chatter.
Hadrian would have known what to do.
The thought arrived unwanted.
Not Hadrian the lecturer, or Hadrian correcting manners, or Hadrian calmly refusing to answer perfectly reasonable questions. The other Hadrian. The one Fergus had spent years trying not to need.
Hadrian would have understood these people.
Hadrian had told him to wait.
Hadrian had told him to ask better questions.
Fergus had done neither.
Something in the ward gave way.
A weakness opened along the left side. He could feel it more clearly than he could see it.
One of the younger werewolves sensed it too.
He moved.
The woman reached for him, but too late.
He crossed the failing edge.
Fergus threw everything he had left into the silver.
Light exploded through the chamber.
The werewolf recoiled with a shout, and the ward collapsed everywhere else.
For one instant nothing stood between Fergus and the others.
Someone shouted.
Fergus reached for his knife.
A gunshot struck the chamber like thunder.
Stone burst from the floor beside the young werewolf’s feet.
Everyone froze.
At the tunnel entrance stood Hadrian Vent, a revolver in each hand. He had neither coat nor hat; snow melted slowly in his grey hair, and the large knife at his belt seemed almost modest beside the guns.
His expression was not angry.
Fergus would have preferred anger.
Loisl rose.
“Vent.”
Hadrian looked at him.
“Aigner.”
Kauko whispered, “Oh.”
Hadrian’s gaze travelled across the chamber: Kauko chained to the wall, Fergus half collapsed beside the dead ward, eight locals around them, the black bowl, the mark above it.
Then he looked at Fergus.
“You.”
Fergus swallowed.
Hadrian turned to Loisl. “What happened?”
Loisl pointed at Fergus. “He happened.”
“I gathered that.”
“He walked into our place carrying silver.”
Hadrian looked at Fergus again. “Of course he did.”
“They kidnapped Kauko,” Fergus said.
Kauko lifted one hand. “Technically—”
“Not now.”
Hadrian returned his attention to Loisl.
“Why is he chained?”
Loisl gestured toward Kauko. “Ask him how many times he ran.”
“Twice,” Kauko admitted.
Hadrian nodded. “And why did you prevent him leaving?”
The woman answered.
“Because we don’t know what he is.”
Hadrian looked at her. “He is Kauko Järvinen.”
“That is a name.”
“It has generally been sufficient.”
“He changes.”
“So do you.”
“Not like us. There is no moon in him, no bite, no sickness. He becomes wolf and remains himself.”
For the first time Hadrian’s attention sharpened.
He looked at Kauko, then toward the shrine and the mark above it.
Loisl saw that.
“You came for the sign.”
“I came for Fergus.”
“You were already asking about it.”
“Yes.”
Loisl folded his arms.
For a moment the two older men simply regarded one another. It was not friendship, and not quite hostility either. Fergus had the sudden impression of two people recognising that the other belonged to a world much larger than the one visible from the road outside the inn.
Hadrian lowered one revolver.
“Release Kauko.”
The young werewolf who had tested Fergus’s ward growled.
Hadrian raised the gun again by a few centimetres.
Nothing more.
Loisl sighed.
“Josef.”
The younger man crossed to Kauko, took a key from his pocket and unlocked the shackle.
Fergus stared.
That was all.
No fight.
No ritual.
No desperate final act.
A key.
Kauko rubbed his ankle. “Thank you.”
Josef glared at him. “You bit me.”
“You were sitting on me.”
“You were running away.”
“Yes.”
They regarded one another.
Kauko shrugged. “Sorry.”
Josef seemed unsure what to do with that.
Hadrian holstered one revolver.
“The boy comes with me as well.”
Loisl looked at Fergus. “Gladly.”
Fergus bristled.
Hadrian did not even turn around.
“Don’t.”
Fergus stopped.
The woman moved toward the shrine and stood between Hadrian and the carving.
“This place is ours.”
Hadrian nodded. “I have no intention of taking it.”
“The sign too.”
“That may be more complicated, because the same mark is carved inside a Krampus mask that has been hanging at Castle MacAlastair for at least a century and a half.”
That disturbed them more visibly than either of his revolvers.
Loisl’s face hardened.
“You are certain?”
“I came here because I wasn’t.”
“And now?”
Hadrian looked at the worn carving above the bowl.
“Now I am.”
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Loisl picked up his pipe.
“Then someone took something out of this valley who should not have.”
“Perhaps.”
“Or somebody brought something back.”
Hadrian glanced at him.
That possibility settled heavily into the silence.
Fergus looked between them. “What does it mean?”
Hadrian and Loisl answered together.
“No.”
Fergus stared.
Loisl almost smiled.
Hadrian did not.
“We are leaving.”
The snow had stopped.
By the time they emerged from the mine the clouds had broken apart, revealing a sky so clear that the stars seemed painfully close. Full moonlight covered the valley.
Fergus stood outside the entrance and began shaking almost immediately.
Hadrian took off his coat and threw it around his shoulders.
“I don’t need—”
“Put it on.”
Fergus put it on.
Kauko walked a few metres ahead in borrowed boots, limping but otherwise upright.
Behind them Loisl remained at the mine entrance, looking once again like nothing more threatening than a Pinzgauer grandfather with a pipe.
“Vent.”
Hadrian turned.
Loisl pointed at Fergus.
“Next time, bring the clever one.”
Kauko laughed.
Fergus opened his mouth, but Hadrian caught the back of his coat and pulled him downhill before he could answer.
They walked in silence for perhaps twenty minutes.
Hadrian said nothing.
Fergus found that unbearable.
Eventually he said, “I thought they were going to kill him.”
“I know.”
“I followed the tracks.”
“I know.”
“I had the ward.”
“I noticed.”
“It held.”
Hadrian stopped.
Fergus almost walked into him.
The moonlight turned the snow around them blue-white. Hadrian looked tired now rather than angry.
“Yes,” he said. “It held.”
Fergus waited.
“That isn’t the point.”
“What is?”
Hadrian looked back toward the mountain.
“You walked into a situation you did not understand. You saw wolves and decided you knew what wolves meant. You saw a chain and decided you knew why it was there. Then somebody moved toward you and you turned a conversation into a siege.”
“They were dangerous.”
“Obviously.”
“They might have killed me.”
“Yes.”
“You shot at one.”
“Yes.”
Fergus frowned. “Then I wasn’t wrong.”
Hadrian stared at him for several seconds.
“You really are determined to learn nothing tonight.”
Fergus looked away.
Hadrian’s voice softened.
“You were not wrong to be afraid of them. You were wrong to believe fear was the same thing as understanding.”
The words remained between them while somewhere in the forest a burden of snow slid from a branch.
“You know magic,” Hadrian continued. “More than most men three times your age.”
Despite everything, Fergus felt a small flicker of pride.
Hadrian extinguished it immediately.
“And that is becoming dangerous.”
“I rescued Kauko.”
“No.”
Hadrian looked toward the white-haired figure waiting farther down the path.
“You kept yourself and Kauko alive long enough for me to rescue both of you from a problem you had made worse.”
Fergus said nothing because there was no useful answer to that.
After a moment Hadrian began walking again.
Fergus followed.
“Where were you?”
“Talking to Aigner’s sister.”
Fergus stopped. “What?”
Hadrian continued downhill.
“She runs a bakery in Saalfelden.”
“You knew?”
“By half past seven I knew the Aigners were involved.”
Fergus hurried after him.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I returned to the inn at eight.”
Fergus felt his stomach sink.
Hadrian glanced sideways at him.
“You had already gone.”
“Oh.”
“Yes.”
They walked another fifty metres before Fergus asked, “Would they have released Kauko?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“I was negotiating.”
Fergus groaned.
Ahead of them Kauko called back, “I told you you were an idiot.”
“Shut up.”
“I have been waiting two days to say that.”
Fergus caught the slight movement at the corner of Hadrian’s mouth.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“A little.”
The first lights of Leogang appeared beneath them, warm yellow rectangles scattered through the dark valley. Somewhere a dog barked. Farther away a television murmured behind closed curtains.
The mountains had changed again. Earlier they had looked beautiful, white and immense beneath the moon.
Now they looked secretive.
Fergus glanced back once.
Far above, among the trees, he could barely make out the mine entrance.
A tiny orange light appeared there for a moment.
The ember of a pipe, perhaps.
Then it vanished.
Resi was still awake when they returned.
She looked at Kauko, then at Fergus wrapped in Hadrian’s coat, then at Hadrian himself.
“Ah,” she said.
Nothing more.
She went into the kitchen.
Five minutes later three bowls of hot soup appeared on the table.
Kauko ate as if he had been starved for weeks. Fergus managed half his bowl before exhaustion began to overwhelm hunger.
Hadrian sat opposite them, his revolvers once again hidden beneath his coat where ordinary guests had no reason to know they existed.
Resi returned with a small bottle of schnapps.
Hadrian raised an eyebrow.
“For the cold,” she said.
“I am sure.”
She poured a little into Fergus’s tea.
Hadrian opened his mouth.
Resi looked at him.
Hadrian closed it again.
Fergus drank. Heat travelled down his throat and spread slowly into his chest.
After a while he said, “Hadrian.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
There was no lecture and no satisfaction in Hadrian’s face. He merely nodded.
Fergus rubbed his thumb around the rim of his cup.
“I really thought I could handle it.”
“I know.”
Another silence passed.
“That,” Hadrian said, “is why I was worried.”
Fergus looked up.
Hadrian leaned back in his chair and glanced toward the dark window, beyond which the mountains were invisible now.
“Power gets you out of mistakes, Fergus. Judgment keeps you from making them.”
Kauko swallowed another spoonful of soup.
“And friends tell you when you’re being an idiot.”
Hadrian considered this.
“Yes.”
Fergus looked from one to the other.
“I liked the first version better.”
Resi appeared again carrying a plate of cake.
“What happened?”
Kauko pointed his spoon at Fergus.
“He fought the mountain.”
Resi looked at Fergus.
“And?”
“The mountain won.”
She nodded as though this confirmed something she had suspected all along and placed the cake in front of him.
Vienna, 2012
Hadrian opened the mould.
Twelve silver bullets lay inside, dull now rather than shining. He lifted one and examined the surface, turning it slowly between finger and thumb.
Fergus watched him.
“Do you remember the Aigners?”
Hadrian gave him a look.
“I remember all of Leogang.”
“So do I.”
“You should.”
He placed the bullet beside the others.
Across the room the ruby in Fergus’s staff caught the glow of the brazier and held it as a dark red ember.
For a while neither man spoke.
Then Hadrian inspected another round.
“Better pour this time.”
Fergus smiled. “Patience?”
“Practice.”
Hadrian rolled the bullet once beneath his thumb.
“And not charging into things you don’t understand.”
Fergus leaned back in his chair.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.”
This time Hadrian did smile, faintly.
“No.”
Outside, Vienna disappeared slowly into cold and fog.
On the table between them, the silver had cooled.