The Hunter From the Woods (5 page)

“Valentine, my good friend!” said Varga Raznakov. He was wearing a black overcoat and a gray fur cap. He smiled, but it was an ugly smile. He had a long horse-like face with a thin nose and a small trim mustache that almost looked pencilled on. “What ever are you doing in this little piece of shit?” He fired a quick dark and mocking glance at the bull-man, who stood among a knot of other villagers. “Huh?” he asked Vivian, and he walked up to the major and pressed the barrel of his gun against the man’s throat. “Talk to me!”

At the same time, two soldiers from one of the aerosans began to frisk the major.

They found the single-shot pistol and removed it, giving it to Raznakov.

“This is a beautiful thing!” Raznakov said. His left eye had begun to twitch just a fraction, a sign of his agitation. A dangerous sign, Vivian thought. He had known this old and respected enemy long enough to recognize the sign of impending murder. “Is this what you used at the Hotel Fortitude? Really, Valentine! Are you slipping? Drinking too much? Pursuing too much of the lady’s kitty? Did you not know you were being followed all the time you were in Minsk? Did you think I’d not know you were there? Not that we care about the wretch you killed—he was worthless—but if it meant getting
you
, my fine English asshole, then
that
is a golden trophy!” He pushed the revolver’s barrel hard enough into Vivian’s left cheek to leave a ring. “Okay, then! Let’s go!”

“I think I’d rather stay here, if you don’t mind,” said Vivian. “I don’t think you’ll kill me in front of all these—”

Varga Raznakov turned smoothly and fired a bullet into the bull-man’s bald skull. The village chief toppled into the red-spattered snow. The wizened old woman screamed and fell to her knees at the man’s side.

“
Witnesses
?” Raznakov asked. “You know I won’t kill you here, Valentine. We have much to talk about first. But all these peasants in this little shit of a town…who are they to
me
? Now come along like a good boy, or I’ll have to waste another bullet on a feeble brain.”

When Vivivan hesitated, Raznakov turned his pistol on the young blonde girl with the bandaged hand. She shrank back and her mother shrieked, but a soldier stepped forward to grasp the girl’s shoulders.

“Don’t,” the major said. He held his hands palm out. “I’ll come with you.”

“Yes, you will!” Raznakov agreed, and motioned toward the aerosans with his gun.

The soldiers returned to their vehicles. The machine guns were manned and the safeties clicked off. The drivers took their places. Raznakov sat behind Vivian with the gun ready. The engines were started with a burst of noise and black smoke, the propellers began to turn faster and faster and then one by one the aerosans shot forward, gaining speed as they were guided again on their pontoon skis to the east.

The noise was terrific. Wind whipped through the compartments from the open hatches. Vivian tried to close his eyes and think, but he knew he was done for. No way to even get a message out. Back in London they wouldn’t know how he died.
Missing In
Action
would be on his dossier. But maybe they wouldn’t kill him. After he was beaten for the information they wanted, maybe he would go to a jail cell. Oh, a filthy vermin-infested Russian jail cell would be a fine end to a man like himself! He thought he would prefer to be—

The soldier up in the hatch began firing his machine gun, two short bursts.

“What the hell are you shooting at?” Raznakov shouted.

The soldier looked down. He had a fleshy, thick-cheeked face and cruel blue eyes.

“There’s a black wolf coming up fast on the right side!” he shouted back.

Valentine Vivian sat up straighter. He leaned over toward a viewslit, and there he saw the beast approaching.

It was not a large animal. It was a little on the thin side, a little shaggy, but the damned thing could
move
.

The soldier began firing again. Vivian saw the wolf veer to one side and leap across the snow as bullets marched along its previous path. Then it righted itself and came on faster, and now Vivian could see that it had luminous green eyes.

He couldn’t help himself.

He shouted it: “
Oh, Jesus
!”

The gunner in one of the other aerosans started firing. It was all great sport. Bullets zigzagged along the snow, but the wolf had already zagzigged. The third aerosan’s machine gunner began shooting, squeezing off long and deadly bursts. Vivian saw snow spray fly into the wolf’s face. God, that had been close! The animal put its head down, veered away, and headed straight for the aerosan that carried the eager gunner. Then…the amazing thing happened.

As Vivian watched, his heart hammering, the black wolf streaked across the snow on a diagonal to intersect the third aerosan. It bounded toward one of the pontoon skis, and when it clambered against the vehicle’s wooden side and gripped hold of a viewslit it had fingers instead of claws.

Within seconds, the black animal shape had become the white naked body of a seventeen-year-old boy. “Oh my Christ! My Christ!” the gunner in Vivian’s aerosan shouted raggedly, proving that a Communist who saw a lycanthrope—because that
was
the proper word—immediately regained his castaway religion.

The first aerosan, in the lead, turned to the right and made a wild circle. Vivian reasoned they too, had seen this awesome miracle. But Mikhail Gallatinov was now climbing up the side of the third aerosan, and when he got up on the top at the gunner’s hatch he hit the astounded and dumb-struck soldier in the face so hard the teeth flew out like river pebbles. The soldier slid back in, and then as the aerosan careened across the snow Vivian’s jaw dropped again as the white body rippled with bands of black hair, the spine contorted, the skull changed, a tail burst free and twitched like a rudder and the wolf leaped down into the passenger and driver’s compartment.

Within seconds, the exit door crashed open and three men came flying out. The aerosan turned to the left and headed to intersect the vehicle carrying Vivian and Raznakov. The major realized Gallatinov must be manning the wheel, and the lycanthrope’s intent was to ram.

“Shoot it!” Raznakov screamed. “Shoot the thing!”

The machine gunner started firing. Bullets slashed across the snow and holes pocked the aerosan’s side. It was then that Vivian decided he could sit still no longer; he twisted around in the narrow compartment, grabbed Raznakov’s gun wrist and jabbed for the man’s eyes with the outstretched fingers of his other hand. Blinded, Raznakov got off a shot that scorched past Vivian’s side and put a hole through the aerosan’s roof. Then Vivian headbutted the bastard, and though it was neither cricket nor gentlemanly the move was successful because Raznaskov’s thin nose exploded and suddenly Major Vivian had the pistol.

The first aerosan’s gunner got off burst after burst at the vehicle Mikhail was piloting. Splinters flew into the air. The bullets hissed past Mikhail’s face, his shoulders and chest as he twisted the wheel back and forth. Then, at the same time as Vivian put the pistol against the chest of Varga Raznakov and shot him somewhere north of the heart, Mikhail left his wheel, climbed through the hatch and swivelled the machine gun to take aim at the aerosan that roared down his throat. He fired two bursts not at the gunner but at the front of the vehicle where the driver sat, and then he jumped.

And as he jumped, he once again summoned the pain and the power.

The two aerosans, both runaways, slammed together. Wood crashed and crumpled. One of the huge propellers flew, still spinning, into the air. Gasoline and oil ignited on a spark. First one aerosan exploded and then the second blew, and the one with the remaining prop began to spin around and around in a mad circle throwing flaming fluids in all directions. Burning men rolled frantically in the snow.

The black wolf took quick note of the carnage and then sped toward the last aerosan.

Within it, Major Valentine Vivian had taken charge. He saw the gunner squaring aim at the wolf that bounded ever closer, and with no hesitation he fired into the man’s groin. That caused all machine gunning to cease. The gunner crawled out, leaving a bloody trail, and flung himself off the top of the aerosan into the snow where he thrashed in agony. The wolf passed him, close enough to touch, and then went on.

Then there was only the driver.

Vivian pressed the pistol against the man’s head and shouted, “Stop this damned thing!”

The driver, a sensible and long-suffering soldier with a wife and six children, decided he did wish to live. He cut the engine and guided the aerosan to a halt.

A moment or so later, a naked young man walked up alongside the vehicle and peered through a viewslit. Mikhail Gallatinov wasn’t even breathing hard.

Vivian couldn’t speak for awhile. But someone
had
to speak, eventually. “You!” he told the driver. “Get out and take off your clothes!” Then, to Mikhail: “For God’s sake, cover yourself! We don’t do things like this in London!” Vivian dragged Raznakov’s body out to lighten the load. When Mikhail was dressed in the uniform, which was far too big for him but would have to do, he entered the aerosan through the door and took a seat. The naked driver, induced by pistol, started the aircraft engine again. The prop began to spin faster and faster.

“Are you all right?” Vivian asked the young man, as the aerosan turned toward the west and gained speed.

Mikhail nodded, but his eyes were hollow and his face grim.

“Listen to me,” Vivian said. What he wanted to say tangled up in his mind and in his mouth, and he had to wait for his English composure to return to him as best it could. “You are a
miracle
.” His voice cracked. “Do you understand that? You are…very, very fortunate.”

“Am I?” Mikhail asked. “I hope you’re correct. But I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Vivian couldn’t help it. He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and gave him a fatherly pat. Or maybe it was a pat one might give an exceptional animal.

A stop must be made first, to arrange the delivery of gold coins to a village in Russia where the ruins of a church sat atop a hill. After that, the aerosan would be crossing the border into Poland. Once there, the driver would be thrown out, naked and wiser to the ways of things he could never understand and that no amount of babbling could ever explain.

Then the two men would be going home, to the land of Shakespeare. To the land of the blessed plot.

To the land where stands the city of London.

Sea 

Chase

One

At Work By Midnight

He was a gentleman in search of a good piece of meat.

He was out for enjoyment this evening, strolling casually through the charming streets of Danzig, a busy harbor city on the coast of the Baltic Sea. It had once been known as Gdansk and was originally part of Poland, had a complicated political history between the rulership of Poland and Germany and was now, in this month of April in the year 1938, known as a “free city” with its own national anthem, constitution, government and even its own stamps and currency apart from the Polish standard. The population was ninety-eight percent German, and this was also reflected in its language.

As he walked along what was locally known as the Royal Road—so named because it was the procession path of visiting kings—he passed sights like Neptune’s Fountain at the center of the Long Market and the Golden Gate with its statues symbolizing Peace, Freedom, Wealth and Fame.

He enjoyed peace, he relished freedom, he didn’t really need wealth nor did he desire fame. But tonight he had to find the perfect chateaubriand.

The clerk at the very expensive Hotel Goldene Eiche had given him the name of the Restaurant Maximillian. Too far to walk? Not at all. Three miles was a nice stroll and the evening was cool, the city was lighting itself up for the night and there was a certain
excitation de la vie
in the air. So he’d set out, dressed in a dark blue Saville Row suit with a crisp white shirt and a plain-spoken black tie, neither walking too slowly nor striding too fast, for he always took pleasure in every moment.