This Dark Endeavor

CHAPTER SIX

Inside the boathouse, where the mighty foundation of Chateau Frankenstein rose slick and black from the lake, there was a thick door reinforced with bands of iron. It was always kept locked, though long ago Konrad and Elizabeth and I had found the key, hidden within a chink in the wall.

It was late afternoon when I took the key and opened the door. The dank smell of the dungeons wafted up to me. Hundreds of years before, the captured enemies of the Frankenstein family would have been dragged there, manacled. I stepped inside, lit my lantern, and closed the door behind me.

Ten steep steps brought me down to a narrow corridor, on either side of which were six cells. The doors hung open now. I went from cell to cell, sticking my lantern inside. So near the beauty of the lake, the mountain air-yet you would hardly know it here, with only a small barred window set high into the thick stone. My lantern light picked out some writing on the wall. A name: Guy de Montparnasse. And not far from it, another even fainter name. Casting my light about the cell, I saw five names-all prisoners from different times. I imagined them scratching the stone-with what? A tin spoon? A broken fingernail? A rotted tooth? Leaving some sign of themselves, like a cry to the outside world. A plea for remembrance. For a moment I felt breathless, but I forced myself to the next cell, and the next, until I found the one I sought.

My memory was correct. At the very end of the corridor was a larger cell. Perhaps for the most important prisoners. It had a crude wooden table and several chairs, and some shelves on the walls.

This would do.

On the table I set down my lantern, the wallet Polidori had given me, and a small bundle of measuring apparatus I had smuggled out of the kitchen. I needed a place where I could work in total secrecy, in case there was a spill, or a telltale odor that would alert my parents to my work.

Carefully I took out the vials of ingredients and set them in a row, then the mortar and pestle, and the set of minuscule measuring spoons. As promised, Polidori had written instructions for me.

My laboratory. I felt a curious eagerness and excitement. Never had I excelled at schoolwork. I was impatient, I was sloppy. But I had been charged with creating something and was determined to do it well.

Polidori had not lied. It was a simple concoction, and his instructions were clear. Yet I was extremely nervous. The success of our enterprise might rest on this. I measured everything twice and even thrice before adding it to the flask. And with every completed step, I felt a growing sense of satisfaction, and pride.

As I poured in the final ingredient, I started at the sound of footsteps.

“It’s only me,” whispered Elizabeth, and I saw the spill of her lantern light outside in the corridor before she appeared in the doorway.

“Do you remember, when I was ten, you and Konrad dared me to stay here half an hour without light?”

“And you did it,” I said, laughing.

“Of course,” she said, entering the cell and looking at the table. “Is it done?”

“It is,” I said, stoppering the flask and shaking it vigorously.

“You are very clever, Victor,” she said.

“Anyone might have done it,” I said, pleased by her praise.

“What is it, exactly? This vision of the wolf?”

“It is not as devilish as it sounds. Polidori explains it in his note. You remember when Father told us about the workings of the eye?”

“It is like a lens,” said Elizabeth. “When it needs light, the pupil opens wider to admit it.”

“Yes,” I said. “But the human eye isn’t accustomed to working well in the dark, not like many animals’ are. So this compound lets your eyes dilate more than usual to make use of whatever starlight is available.”

“It makes perfect sense,” she said. “Have you tested it?’

I shook my head. “There’s not enough. And we must use it sparingly, and only when necessary, for it lasts only an hour or so. And then we must not use it again for at least a month.”

“Why’s that?”

“Polidori says it can damage the tissues of the eye.”

“It does not sound entirely safe,” she remarked.

“He says it is, as long as we heed his instructions. How are the other preparations?”

“We are ready,” she said, and gave me her report. She and Henry had found a good measure of lightweight rope and had knotted it at regular intervals so we might climb it. They had assembled lanterns and matches, water flasks and cloaks, for it promised to be cold tonight-and had hidden it all at the entrance to the Sturmwald.

“There is one thing you have forgotten,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“If I am to navigate the woods in total darkness and climb a tree, I need proper clothes. Clothes they do not make for women. I will need some trousers.”

“Trousers?” I said, amazed.

“You sound surprised.”

“I just assumed it would be Henry and me climbing the tree.”

“Oh.” She nodded humbly. “Yes, I suppose that makes the most sense. I can just wait at the bottom and do needlepoint by the light of the lantern-”

“Elizabeth-,” I said, hearing the fire kindling in her voice.

“-or just daydream about the latest Paris fashions.”

“Polidori said the tree is extremely high.”

“Rather like the one I rescued you from a few years ago?”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” I lied, fighting hard not to smile.

“Yes, you do! The great elm in the east pasture? I can see by your face you remember!”

I remembered it exactly. Like me, Elizabeth was a keen climber of trees, and we had both gone very high. But when I’d looked down, I’d been paralyzed with fear. Elizabeth had reassured me, and bullied me safely down to the ground.

“Oh, that!” I said with a dismissive shrug. “I was only eleven.”

“So was I. You needed me then, and you need me now. You won’t get Henry up the tree anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Henry? Come, Victor, he’s no adventurer.”

“He’s very practical,” I said.

Elizabeth sniffed. “A pair of your trousers should do nicely. Some breeches and a tunic of some sort.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” I said. “I’ll bring some to your room.”

“Thank you.” She looked about the cell. “I am amazed you could concentrate in this place.”

“I was absorbed in my work.”

“Dr. Murnau seems very learned,” she said. “I wonder sometimes-”

“If we are being foolish in our quest?” I said.

She nodded. “His knowledge seems so modern, and ours is ancient and-”

“Do you worry it is sinful?” I asked.

She took a breath. “No,” she said firmly. “God is the creator, and anything on this earth is here by His permission. I cannot think He minds if we use His creations-only how. For good or ill. What we seek is for good, so I will not worry about it.”

I wondered if she believed herself or merely wanted to.

“I felt the power of that book,” I said. “I cannot deny it.”

“Let us leave this place,” she said, “and get a little rest before tonight.”

Fitful starlight was our only guide as we left the chateau on foot. It was nearly midnight. Clouds streamed across the sky, driven by an icy northerly wind. We skirted the village of Bellerive and climbed up through alpine meadows toward the Sturmwald, a swath of deep blackness against the horizon. Resting for a moment, we looked back and saw the lake and the city glimmering below us. Far away a church bell tolled one in the morning. We hurried, and before long we reached the forest’s edge and found the place where Elizabeth and Henry had hidden our gear.

“There will be a storm,” Henry said with a shiver. Overhead, branches swayed with the wind.

I lit a lantern. It was most strange to see Elizabeth in my clothes. I was used to her in flowing dresses. My breeches, cinched tightly around her waist, made me aware of her hips for the first time. And I was aware too of the tightness of the tunic across her chest. Far from making her seem more boyish, my clothes made her young womanhood all the more obvious. She had knotted her long amber hair into a single braid.

“I do not enjoy the breeches,” she said to me. “They are tight on my thighs. But it is quite wonderful to feel so light, after so many layers.” She giggled as she gave a graceful pirouette. “No wonder you men manage the affairs of the world. It is far less tiring in lighter clothes!” She poked me in the chest. “I know your secret now.”

“Ha,” I said awkwardly. “Here.” I handed her a furred cloak, and passed another to Henry before putting on my own.

“The stars will soon be gone,” said Henry, peering out at the cloudy sky above the lake.

We each carried a rucksack and shouldered a coil of knotted rope. We lit two more lanterns.

I looked once more at Polidori’s map. “This way,” I said, venturing into the Sturmwald on a narrow path.

Among the tall trees, what little starlight remained was all but blocked. Though we each held a lantern, we could see no more than a few feet before us. We staggered on uphill. Sheathed in my belt was a dagger taken from our armory. It made me feel safer.

The sound of wind was building, and all around us in the undergrowth I heard animal noises. A distant pair of eyes flashed in the glare of our lanterns, and then was gone. They were not small eyes.

“Victor,” Henry said tightly, “there is an animal.”

“I saw it too,” said Elizabeth, and added hopefully, “perhaps a deer.”

“It’s long gone,” I said. “Nothing will come near the light.”

I said no more, but I sensed that the three of us were not alone. Some other presence kept pace with us, traveling on padded feet, its eyes capable of parting the night as easily as a curtain.

The trees grew taller. The wind moaned. The path narrowed, then seemed to disappear altogether. I paused to look again at the map.

“We should have reached a clearing by now,” I muttered.

“We’re lost, then,” said Henry.

“These lanterns are useless,” I said. “I feel trapped in their glare.”

I also felt vulnerable. Everything could see me, and I could see nothing. I envied the animals their dark vision. From my pocket I took the vial I had mixed earlier.

“Is that Polidori’s potion?” said Henry uneasily.

“The vision of the wolf,” I said, setting down my lantern. I pulled out the stopper, tilted my head, and tapped the vial. A thick drop welled out and hit my cheek. I tried again, and this time the liquid hit me squarely in the eye. I fought the urge to blink it away, and moved to my other eye. The next drop hit home.

“Is it working?” Elizabeth asked.

“It stings,” I said, and then suddenly the stinging became a searing pain. Instinctively I clenched my eyes shut. My fists flew up to scrub at them. What if I’d made the potion improperly? What if I were blinded? Fear broke free in me.

“Get me the water flask, Henry!” I cried.

“Here, here!” I heard him shout.

“I cannot see!” I bellowed.

“Give me the flask!” I heard Elizabeth tell him, and I felt her firm hand on my arm. “Stay still, Victor! Tip your head back. I will douse your eyes. Open them wide!”

I opened them wide-and abruptly the stinging stopped.

“Wait!” I said, and pulled roughly away from her. I blinked and stared about me.

The forest seemed eerily illuminated, the trunks painted silver, the earth beneath my feet glowing. Between the trees, amid the undergrowth, I caught sight of tiny animals, shrews and moles, going about their nighttime hunting.

Swarms of newly hatched mosquitoes scudded like clouds above the grass. From the base of a tree, a mouse tentatively lifted its head out from its nest, and higher up, an owl’s head swiveled, listening, predatory.

“Victor,” Elizabeth was saying. “Victor, are you all right?”

I realized I had not spoken a word for several seconds, had been looking all about me, drinking in the night with my eyes.

“Vision of the wolf,” I murmured. “It works. It works! ”

I turned toward Elizabeth, and her lantern’s light sent a piercing pain through my eyes.

“It is too bright for me,” I said, whirling away.

“Give me some,” said Elizabeth, setting down her lantern.

“It’s very painful at first,” I warned her.

“I want the vision too!”

“Very well. Come close.” I tipped her head back-and her lovely pale throat seemed to flash in the night. I tapped a drop into each of her hazel eyes.

“Ah!” she cried out, her hands flying to her face, just as mine had. “Water! Please, Victor, please!”

“No,” I said, and held her firmly as she struggled against me, whimpering. Then she opened her eyes and grew still. She drew away from me.

“I see you as though it were merely twilight,” she said.

“Yes.”

For a moment we just stared at each other with our wolf eyes. She looked different somehow. Perhaps it was the fur of her collar around her throat, but she was like some lithe animal.

“Henry,” I said, shielding my face from his lantern, “will you take some?”

“I will not,” he replied, and I could almost smell his fear as he beheld us warily, as though we were somehow changed.

“Put out the lanterns, then,” Elizabeth told him. Was her voice lower, almost hoarse, or was I imagining it?

“I think it wise to keep mine lit,” Henry said. “It will keep any animals at bay.”

“Very well,” I muttered, though I had no fear of other animals now. “Walk behind, so we are not blinded.”

“There is the clearing,” said Elizabeth, pointing.

Before, we might have walked right past it, but now it was obvious. I hurried through the trees and undergrowth and emerged before a vast heap of bones. I tilted my head to one side, trying to make sense of it. The hair lifted on the back of my neck. Elizabeth crouched beside me, breathing quietly. A moment later Henry’s lantern suddenly blazed off the bones, and he gave a cry.

It was hard to tell what animals the bones came from, since most were splintered and broken.

“What kind of creature could have done this?” Henry gasped.

My eyes saw some larger bones. Instinctively I sniffed. A rabbit? A wild dog? I could not tell.

“They are mostly very small,” said Elizabeth decisively.

I gave a low growl as one of the bones twitched-and I had a terrible image of the entire pile assembling itself into some monstrous specter that would consume us. But almost at once I could see several small animals moving among the bones, feeding on the last of their meat and marrow.

Elizabeth chuckled softly, looking up into the glowering sky.

“Birds,” she said. “ They have made this heap. Don’t you remember your father telling us about the lammergeier? How it drops its prey onto rocks to break the bones so it can more easily get at the marrow?”

“I must have missed that lesson,” said Henry. “What is a lammergeier?”

“Bearded vulture,” I murmured. “The locals call them tree griffins. They’re quite large.”

“Ah, excellent,” said Henry. “This adventure grows more enjoyable by the second.”

“Which way now?” Elizabeth asked me. A heat came off her that I found strangely distracting.

I pulled out my map. “From here there is a trail that should take us right to the tree.”

She was already walking with a hunched intensity. I followed.

“Wait for me, please,” said Henry. “This does not look like a path!”

“It’s just overgrown,” I said gruffly. With my wolf’s eyes I could see it like a silvery river running deeper into the forest.

I loped behind Elizabeth, scarcely aware of the steep climb.

“You’re going too quickly,” I heard Henry say. “I’ll lose you in the darkness!”

Reluctantly I slowed down. The smells of the forest were keener somehow, and I caught myself swinging my head from side to side, tasting the air, peering among the trees. My earlier feeling of being followed was more intense and There. A distant pair of eyes met my own as we kept pace through the Sturmwald. Perhaps it was a wolf. I was not afraid. Somehow I felt we were kin right now, prowling in the night.

Elizabeth found the tree. On the immense trunk the X mark was still faintly visible. I looked up. The first branches were very high, maybe more than fifty feet up. We set down our gear at the base. I took the light rope, which I had weighted at one end as a hurling line.

Standing back from the trunk, I heaved toward the branches. The line paid out perfectly from its coil, but then fell back. Again I threw, with all my might. I squinted, trying to follow its ascent, but not even my wolf eyes could penetrate the high gloom of the tree.

My line was still paying out.

“I think you’ve done it!” said Elizabeth.

“There is the weighted end!” Henry cried.

Exactly as I’d hoped, it had looped over a branch and was pulling the rope up even as it fell earthward. It hit the ground at our feet.

We tied the light line to a stouter climbing rope, and we fed it up and over the branch and back to earth.

“It’s a good sixty feet,” said Henry as we tied the rope’s end securely around the trunk. I gave it a good tug and then jumped up onto it. It held firm.

“Henry, will you climb?” I asked him.

“I would, normally, yes, if it weren’t for my intense fear of heights.”

“I never knew you had a fear of heights.”

Queasily he looked up into the tree. “Oh, yes.”

“It will inspire you! Think of the poetry you will write!”

“Ah. That is what imagination is for,” he said. “So I do not have to have unpleasant experiences.”

I glanced at Elizabeth. She smiled at me in a most self-satisfied way.

“Henry,” I said. “I am disappointed.”

“Victor, do not force him,” said Elizabeth. “It’s just as well to have someone on the ground in case something happens to us in the tree.”

“I will watch over you. From here,” said Henry.

“Excellent plan,” I said. “There may be bone-crunching predators to fend off. I’ll go first.”

I removed my cloak. Despite the wind, I was too hot, as though my own body were clad in fur. I began my climb, the knots in the rope giving good purchase for my hands and feet. I felt an unusual energy in my limbs, and before I knew it, I was at the branch-and a good thick one it was-and hauling myself onto it. I shuffled over toward the trunk to wait for Elizabeth.

Watching her climb, I was filled with admiration. She showed no sign of hesitation or fear and was scarcely out of breath as I helped her up onto the branch. As she panted softly, I felt a most powerful and savage pounding through my veins, and wondered if she too felt the same strange keening. I wanted to grab her by the hand and disappear into the forest. I was a wolf and she was my she-wolf, and the night belonged to us.

I tore my eyes from her and began to climb for the summit. Among the big limbs grew smaller ones that got in our way, and stabbed at my flesh. My hands were soon sticky with sap, my hair matted with needles and insects.

“How much higher?” Elizabeth asked, just below me.

“I feel the breeze,” I said. “We must be close.”

Then I spied, not far above my head, a thick wall of sticks and dried grasses, built out from the trunk. I pointed it out to Elizabeth.

“A nest,” she whispered.

It was a marvel of engineering: a huge cone shape, three feet deep, and at least six feet across at its top. I’d once seen a grand eagle’s nest on a sheer rock face of the Saleve Mountain. This nest was bigger-and it blocked our way to the tree’s summit.

“Perhaps it’s abandoned,” I said, thinking we might climb right through it. But my answer came on a gust of wind-the rancid odor of fresh bird droppings and regurgitated meat, making me nearly gag.

From the ground Henry suddenly bellowed, “How are you? Have you reached the top?”

“Shush!” I called back to him.

Inside the nest something rustled.

“We can climb around. There, look,” Elizabeth said.

“Tricky,” I said. It would take us closer than I liked to the nest, and the branches were shorter and skinnier there. The wind had picked up, and it seemed to me the sky’s blackness had intensified, if that was possible. I saw the faraway lights of Geneva, and then they were blotted out as great sooty strands of cloud blew across-toward us.

“A storm’s coming,” Elizabeth said.

I nodded. “We’ve got to be quick.”

Hastily we climbed around the nest, giving it as wide a berth as possible. We were some distance from the trunk, and I missed its security. Out here on the skinnier branches there was much less to grip if we slipped. Below: a drop of a hundred feet.

A smattering of icy rain hit my face.

“Are you all right?” I whispered to Elizabeth. “Do you wish to go down?”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “Hurry now!”

We were level with the nest, and as we climbed past it, an unearthly squawk made me freeze. I looked down and saw a head emerging over the rim.

What I saw was not an eagle.

I thought: Griffin.

A large, angry eye flashed, and a long, fierce beak opened. Bristling from the creature’s lower jaw was some kind of dark crest. Its neck and shoulders were thick and gave the impression of immense strength. There was no color at night, and a wolf did not see in color anyway, not like humans. But I had the impression of bright, flaming orange fur cloaked with black feathers.

“The lammergeier,” I said.

Its wings opened and seemed to take forever to reach their full span. Eight feet, ten, I could not be sure. In the strengthening wind they billowed like feathered sails, then furled once more against the beast’s body. A blow from those wings could knock us from the tree.

With false confidence I said, “It cannot see in the dark, surely.”

Beyond the lake, over the mountains, the clouds were illuminated from within by a brilliant stutter of lightning, and in that split second Elizabeth and I were etched against the sky. The bearded vulture shrieked.

“I believe it has seen us now,” I said.

“She will not leave her nest,” whispered Elizabeth. “Her instinct will be to protect, not attack.”

I was glad she’d been so attentive to my father’s lectures; I remembered nothing of the sort.

Reluctantly, slowly, we made our way toward the tree’s summit, not fifteen feet above the nest. I tried to ignore the vulture below, and scoured the bark for lichen.

“Here!” said Elizabeth.

On the southeast face was a small patch. Even with our wolves’ vision its glow was subtle. From my trousers I pulled the padded vial and a pair of tweezers and passed them to Elizabeth. Her nimble fingers went to work at once, scraping the lichen off the bark.

“Its grip is stubborn,” she muttered.

“Do you want me to try?” I asked, reaching for the tweezers.

“No!” she said fiercely.

More lightning, closer now, lit the sky. The rain came harder, and the treetop was rocking from the wind. We wrapped our legs about the trunk, holding on.

Another shriek pulled my gaze down. There was no longer just one head protruding from the nest, but two. And then-to my horror-three.

“Elizabeth,” I said, as calmly as I could manage, though I feared my voice broke.

“Yes?”

“Do you have enough?”

“Not yet.”

“Please hurry. There are three now.”

She glanced down, gasped, and then started scraping madly at the bark. “I did read,” she said, her voice shaky, “that the female will often choose two mates, and the three of them will share a nest and protect the young.”

One of the vultures hopped up onto the rim of its nest, head flicking from side to side. I unsnapped the sheath of my dagger.

Not a hundred yards away a jagged shaft of lightning struck a tree, and the tree exploded into flame.

“We must go!” I shouted.

“The vial is not full!” she shouted back.

“It’s good enough! Come on!”

She pushed the cork into the vial, and slipped the vial into a pocket of her breeches.

I led the way down, keeping as far from the nest as possible. The vulture on the rim watched us intently but did not move. We were exactly level with the nest. The branches were slick from the rain, and I was suddenly aware that I was squinting down to see them.

“Victor!” Elizabeth whispered in alarm. “My vision…!”

I looked toward her voice and was shocked that I could see her only as a shadow. I felt her hand touch my arm.

“It’s wearing off,” I said. “Quickly!”

But the vision left as swiftly as it had come. I was virtually blind, a wolf no more.

I heard Elizabeth shuffle closer toward me, then heard another sound. The billowing flap of a large bird’s wings. A terrible stench wafted over us.

A great flash of lightning illuminated the night, and there, burned into the sky for a split second, was a bearded vulture, leering at us from the branch above.

Then pitch black again, and with the deafening sound of thunder came a stabbing pain in my hand. I swore, and tore my hand free from the vulture’s beak-so quickly that I lost my balance. I flailed about and just managed to catch hold of another branch to stop me from tumbling out of the tree.

“Victor?” Elizabeth cried.

“Fine, I’m fine. Come lower!” I shouted.

Feeling my way, I made it down to the next branch, and then the next, and started working back toward the trunk. I could hear Elizabeth’s panting and knew she was close by.

The storm was directly overhead now. Great javelins of lightning came one after another, and I saw things only in ghastly rain-streaked frozen images:

The vulture overhead, tensed to hop lower.

Elizabeth’s face, looking in horror at something beneath us.

A second vulture, hunched two branches down, beak parted in a silent shriek, for nothing could be heard above the demonic thunder. The entire tree shook, and I clung to the drenched limbs in terror.

“Victor!” Elizabeth was shouting in my ear. “There is one below us!”

“I know!” I shouted back.

“They are trying to force us off the tree!”

“Come here! Put your back against the trunk.” I shifted to make space. I pulled my dagger from its sheath, then hooked my free arm tightly around a branch and hoped for more lightning.

Let me see. Let me see them coming.

“Victor!” came Henry’s frantic cry between thunderclaps. “There’s something slinking about down here!”

“Shut up and light another lantern!” I shouted back.

The storm was so close that the lightning and thunder came simultaneously, a great blinding stroke that hit the tree next to us, splintering wood and sending up a plume of smoke and flame.

Now I had my light!

And just in time-for my branch bounced, and the vulture that had been below was now suddenly right beside me. It flared its wings and lunged. I struck fast with my dagger, hitting it in the chest. The bird shrieked, but before I could scramble back, it swatted my arm with its wing and knocked the dagger from my grip. The weapon went spinning earthward.

From below came a hysterical cry from Henry. “Victor! Elizabeth! Something climbs the tree toward you!”

The vulture on my branch hopped closer. I bared my teeth and howled at it. And maybe there was a little of the wolf left in me, for the bird shrank back, hissing.

Elizabeth’s scream made me turn. The other vulture was directly above her now, its sharp claws trying to impale her outstretched hand. Its eyes flashed, its beak opened, and in amazement I watched as Elizabeth with her free hand grabbed the creature and dragged it off the branch.

The vulture was so surprised that it had no time to unfurl its wings before Elizabeth sank her teeth into its throat. I didn’t know who was more shocked, the vulture or me. The vulture made a most unholy sound and thrashed free. As it flailed to a higher branch, it struck me with its wing, and my foot slipped.

I fell, grabbing for anything-and the only thing nearby was the wing of the vulture on my other side. Its clawed feet sank deeply into the bark, and it held tightly, and so it unwittingly pulled me back from a deadly fall.

“Victor! Elizabeth!” Henry hollered again. “It comes! Look out!”

A sleek catlike form hurtled toward me from the branches. I saw a mouthful of sharp teeth and threw up my arm to protect myself. But the jaws were not meant for me. The creature streaked past and sank its fangs into the vulture’s throat, pinning it against the branch and holding it tightly until the bird twitched no more.

The speckled cat finally released its grip, and the vulture’s limp body slid off the branch, thudding down through the branches. The cat then turned, its maw spattered with blood, and I saw that it was Krake.

His green eyes met mine for a moment, and there was such bloodlust in them that I thought he would attack me next. But he did not. He glared up at the second vulture, still hovering uncertainly, and gave an earsplitting yowl. The bird retreated at once, back toward its nest and mate.

Krake promptly stretched out on the branch and started licking himself clean.

“Krake!” gasped Elizabeth. “Good kitty!”

“Victor! Elizabeth!” Henry bellowed. “Are you all right? Tell me what’s happening! I feel so useless down here!”

Elizabeth and I began to laugh, soaked to the skin in the rain.

“We are fine, Henry!” she called. “Krake came to our assistance!”

I looked at Elizabeth in amazement. “You bit the vulture! In the throat!”

She looked confused for a moment, then slowly nodded, and began laughing even harder. “It seemed-like the only-thing to do.”

I could still see the savage expression on her face. It should have repelled me, but it only attracted me. I felt a powerful urge to crush her against me and drink in her heat and scent that had been distracting me all night. My eyes settled on her mouth. I shook my head to dislodge the thought.

“What did it taste like?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” she said, then wrinkled her nose and wiped her mouth, spitting. “Did I really bite it?”

I nodded. “Let’s get out of this tree.”

Carefully, for the tree was treacherously slippery and our limbs were weak, we climbed down through the branches to the rope. Elizabeth went first, and then I, hand over hand, my body shaking. Henry was there to wrap my cloak about me as my feet touched earth. I sank down next to Elizabeth to catch my breath.

Henry seemed the most shaken of all of us. His cheeks were flushed and he paced about in the lantern light and fired questions at us.

“Sparks rained down on me from above; I feared the whole forest would ignite!” he exclaimed. “And then a wildcat was leaping for me and up the tree! I had no idea what to think! Honestly, Polidori might have told us he was sending Krake!”

The lynx landed on the earth beside us. I reached out and scratched the fur between his ears. He purred loudly. I wondered if it was Krake I’d seen, keeping pace with us through the forest. His green eyes settled on me calmly, and I knew his intelligence was not to be underestimated. Polidori had obviously trained him well, so well that he could follow us to the Sturmwald and watch over us, should we encounter danger.

“What matters is that we got it,” I said. “The first ingredient!”

“I just hope it’s enough,” said Elizabeth with a frown, pulling the vial from her pocket.

The lynx butted me gently with his head, then again more insistently. Tied around his neck was a small pouch. He looked at me expectantly. I unclasped the pouch, and inside was a handwritten note. Dear Sir, I trust all went well in the Sturmwald, and that Krake was of some assistance. I hope his presence did not alarm you. To save you a trip to Geneva, you may place the lichen in Krake’s pouch and he will return it to me immediately. My work on the translation continues. Come again in three days if you so please.

Your humble servant,

Julius Polidori

I showed Elizabeth the letter.

“A strange messenger, but I’m sure most reliable,” she said, and placed the vial carefully within Krake’s pouch.

Without delay the lynx leapt into the forest, streaking back toward Geneva and his master.