The Hunter From the Woods (8 page)

He knew his real job aboard this freighter. It was to carefully watch the crew, to listen to their conversations and gauge their movements, to fit in if at all possible, but to be very vigilant. To be as observant as a wolf on the hunt, so to speak. Much depended on it. Maybe many thousands of lives, as well.

Certainly four lives.

He thought he had things well under control so far. It would be a long voyage. They’d travelled about four hundred nautical miles already, but there were eight hundred and sixty-odd more yet to go. From Danzig to Dover, it was a journey of roughly ten to twelve days to two weeks, depending on the weather.

Michael suddenly had the desire to stand up from his kneeling position and gaze back across the sea they’d just crossed. It was untroubled but for the white foam of the freighter’s wake.

He recalled Colonel Vivian telling him that sometimes loose ends could come flying apart with remarkable and dangerous consequences. He recalled the colonel telling him to always be prepared for the unexpected.

Good advice, he thought.

“Hey, you! Get to work there!” It was the Spanish second mate, throwing his weight around. His voice was loud enough so that everyone could hear how a real man gave orders. Without comment or a change of expression, the lycanthrope from Russia knelt down and continued his labor.

Four

Vulcan At His Forge

Sofia entered the North Sea on the fifth night, having stopped at Copenhagen to take on another load of machine parts in crates and a couple of hundred hardwood logs.

Michael lay on his bunk in the semi-dark of the crew’s sleeping quarters and thought this must be a little preview of Hell. The smells of men who worked so hard for a living could never be completely eradicated by the paltry streams of water from the reluctant showerheads. A toilet had backed up and added its odiferous fumes. The pungent, nose-wrinkling stinks of oil and diesel fuel were always floating about; Michael imagined he could see them, like currents of green and yellow smoke moving in the sodden air. If some of these men snored like this at home, they would be smothered in their uneasy sleep by half-deaf wives. And there was also the problem, to him, of the
closeness
of people. He was unable to find a private space, unable to breathe a private breath. He longed for a run through the woods. He longed to be away from the odors of cigarette smoke and human foulness. But here he was and here he had to stay until this voyage was done. He cursed Colonel Valentine Vivian, and he lay on his back feeling the ship roll against the rougher North Sea waves and hearing her groan deep in her guts where the engines knocked and clattered every second of every day.

Everyone was growing a beard by now. Shaving was too much trouble. It seemed almost too much trouble to change clothes. Michael put an arm up over his eyes to block out the dirty lightbulb that always burned at the entrance to the showers and head. Occasionally someone belched, struggled up and went off to relieve themselves. He couldn’t help but hear their further struggles and blasts of escaping gas, thanks to the fried and oily food. The cooks knew a dozen ways to prepare kippers, but none of them worth eating. Michael wondered if the
Sofia
’s passengers had gone on a starvation diet, but then again they were probably getting better food for their money.

He thought that he could so easily let the wolf out in this miserable chamber, and it
wanted
to get out. It always wanted to get out. The change was not so much a matter of willing it to happen, but letting it happen. Opening the soul cage, is what he considered it.

A little less vigilance, and it would be there. Sometimes at night, when he
could
sleep, he awakened with a start to feel the wolf coming out. Just sliding out of him, first the rippling bands of hair and then the searing pain of bones reforming. The smell of his own animal in his nostrils. His mouth in agony, his gums starting to be ripped apart, the taste of blood from new fangs. He always slammed the soul cage and locked it before he went too far…but the wolf was always there, and it always yearned to break free.

Life aboard a freighter was not suitable for lycanthropes.

He had enough of the noise and the smells. He had to get out and find some fresh air and a quiet place. He eased out of the bunk and from his duffel bag put on his red plaid shirt, his paint-dappled trousers and his cracked boots. He shrugged into his dirty canvas jacket and went through the door that led to the stairway up.

The
Sofia
was illuminated by small lights atop the masts and running lights at bow and stern. The windows of the wheelhouse, atop the central superstructure, showed dim yellow light, as was suited for nighttime eyes. Waves drummed against the hull. The ship shivered, as if it felt the chill wind. Michael put his hands into the pockets of his jacket and breathed deeply and gratefully of clean salt air. He walked along the portside deck, trailing a shadow. The night was very dark beyond the wash of
Sofia
’s lamps. Michael had seen clouds closing in before sunset. Now there were no stars. But a fitful flare of lightning occasionally jumped within the clouds, and very distantly there was the sound of thunder.

He heard a clumping noise coming toward him, getting louder, and he realized at once that she too was having trouble sleeping. He kept his head down until they were almost together. Then he looked up into her face, and he smiled and said in German, “Hello.”

She shivered like the ship. Her head had also been lowered. She had her arms around herself. She was wearing the ugly mouse-colored overcoat and a gray head-scarf, which allowed just a glimpse of her blonde hair. Tonight, of course, there was no need for sunglasses. Her eyes were a cool shade of aquamarine under unplucked blonde brows. Her nose was small and sharp-tipped and her chin was adorned with a small dimple. She looked at him with something like horror in her face, and then she put her head down again and tried to get past as quickly as her weight of a left shoe would allow.

“May I walk with you?” Michael asked, before she could escape him.

“No,” she said, more of a whispered breath than a voice. “Please. Leave me alone.” She was trying to move faster, but she suddenly stumbled and had to catch her balance against one of the funnels.

“Don’t you want to see Vulcan at his forge?” Michael asked. She was still trying to get away, not daring to meet his gaze. He gently spoke her false name: “Kristen?”

The teenaged girl took two more staggering steps before she looked back over her shoulder.

“Come watch Vulcan at work,” he told her, standing against the gunwale. “Just for a moment.”

“I have to go,” Marielle said, but she wasn’t moving. Her eyes darted here and there; anywhere but to his own eyes. And then: “How do you know my name?”

“I suppose I heard someone mention it. From the passenger list.” He smiled again. “I think it’s a very pretty name.”

“I have to go,” she said again.

The right foot moved, but the heavy left foot remained where it was.

Lightning flared amid the clouds.

“There!” Michael said. “Vulcan at his forge. Did you see it?”

“No.”

“Keep watch, then. It’ll just be…
there
! Did you see it then?”

“It’s lightning,” she said, with a trace of irritation.

“It’s Vulcan,” he corrected. “Working at his forge. He’s the god of blacksmiths, you know. Ah, listen…hear the sound of his hammer on the anvil?”

“
Thunder
,” she muttered.

“Vulcan has an interesting history.” Michael made a half-turn so he could watch the display in the clouds but she could also still hear him. “He was the son of Jupiter and Juno. But Juno thought he was ugly. She cast the baby off the top of Mount Olympus into the sea. When he fell all that way, he was injured.”

There was no response for a little while. Then her quiet voice asked, “Injured? How?”

“He broke one of his legs,” said Michael. “It never developed properly. After that, he was always crippled. There he is again! Listen to that hammer!”

Marielle Wesshauser, the daughter of Paul and Annaleisa and sister to Emil, was silent.

At last she said, “I shouldn’t be talking to you. Father said not to talk to anyone.”

“He’s right. There are some men on this ship who are not very nice.”

She frowned at the deck. Michael saw her glance quickly up at him and then away again. “Are
you
nice?” she asked cautiously.

“If I said I was, would you believe I was telling you the truth?”

She had to think about that one for a moment.

Michael watched the lightning. The sound of thunder was nearer now; a storm was on the move. North Sea weather, particularly at the change of seasons, was never predictable. “You don’t have to talk, Kristen.
I’ll
talk. Can I tell you some more about Vulcan?” He turned to face her.

She kept her eyes averted. She shrugged beneath her overcoat.

“Vulcan,” said Michael, “sank down to the bottom of the sea. The sea-nymph Thetis found him and took him to her grotto, and she raised him as her son.” He paused, firming up the memory of this story from his mythology studies. “Vulcan had dolphins for playmates. He had all the sea as his world. Then one day he found what was left of a fisherman’s fire on the beach. Do you know what it was?”

She shook her head. Again, her eyes slid to his, lingered for just a few seconds, and then darted away.

“A single coal,” Michael continued. “Glowing red-hot. Well, he became fascinated with it. He became fascinated with fire, and with creating things from fire. He made rare and beautiful necklaces and bracelets out of sea stones and metals for his mother. He could make anything out of fire. It was his element to be used and adored.
There
!” That particular flash had been tinged with vivid electric-blue. “He’s working extra hard tonight.”

“
But
,” said Marielle. She hesitated, as if thinking she’d already said too much. “But,” she went on, “how did Vulcan get back up to the clouds? You said he was in the sea. How did he get back to the sky?”

“His real mother invited Thetis to a party on Mount Olympus. Those old Greek gods were always having parties. Then Juno saw the magnificent necklaces and bracelets of rare sea-metals and wanted to know who forged them, because she wanted some too. So she invited the son of Thetis to come up and make some for her. That’s how he got back to Mount Olympus, and after that Juno realized who he was.”

“And then he lived there with his real mother?” Her frown deepened. “Even though she didn’t like him?”

“He tricked her,” Michael said. “He built a fantastic metal chair for her that trapped her with its arms and wouldn’t let her go. Jupiter couldn’t even free her. Jupiter begged Vulcan to let Juno free. Finally Vulcan, because he had such a kind heart, let his mother go. And because of that, Jupiter told Juno to leave the boy alone, and then do you know what happened?”

“No. What?”

“Venus fell in love with Vulcan. The most beautiful of the goddesses, in love with
him
. And him only a crippled blacksmith. But Venus saw his heart, and that was what she loved. It was enough. After that, Vulcan went to work making arms and armor for all the heroes of Olympus, and he made thunderbolts for Jupiter. Look there! See? He just made a new one.”

She cocked her head to one side and studied him. A little shy smile came up and, like the quicksilver lightning, flashed away. “I think you’ve been on this ship too long.”

“True, very true,” he agreed. “My name is Michael Gallatin.” He offered his hand to her.

Now her heavy left shoe did move, scraping across the boards. She stepped back, as if she’d been presented not with a human hand but with the claw of an animal.

“I’m tame,” he told her. When I need to be, he thought.

But she was having none of it. Without looking at him again she turned away and struggled onward across the moving deck. Michael decided to let her go. It was a long voyage yet; there would be plenty of time.

Time for what? he asked himself. A shipboard romance with a sixteen-year-old girl? Certainly not! But watching her pulling herself along that first day, making herself faceless to hide from the world…

He knew what hiding from the world was all about, and he didn’t wish that on anyone. Particularly not on a girl with such beautiful eyes and a shy smile. Perhaps there had been sadness in that smile, too. He sighed. In any case, it was time for him to move along. The smell of advancing rain thickened the air.

He walked briskly toward the stern. And just past another lifeboat he came upon two figures standing together, peering through binoculars at ship’s lights off in the distance. Michael judged the second vessel to be possibly three or so miles away.

His sudden approach and footfalls, clumsy rather than careful, caused the two men to lower their glasses and turn toward him. One of the men was Medina, who screwed up his black-bearded face in a rictus of anger. “What do you think you’re
doing
, man? You’re not on duty! Why are you out of your bunk?”