The explosion was violent and sudden.
A crack like a lightning strike; flame; screams and the roar of the avalanche. Tonnes of compacted snow and ice fell between their car and their escort, falling on the bonnet with a jolt that sent Walter's face into the steering wheel with a wet thud. She pushed on the inside of the car door, pushed and pushed until it opened enough for her to squeeze through into the snow, slogging and kicking chunks of ice aside with her boots so that she could clear a path to the drivers' side door. She pulled it open; she said his name and she could tell by the way he stared at her through the blood in his eyes that he didn't understand her or even know who she was. She pulled a shard of glass from his cheek, the remains of his monocle and when she heard the ominous creaking in the cliffs above them she knew that they couldn't stay there.
Fur coats in the boot, fur mittens to draw over the silk gloves cold had forced her to wear, and Walter's mysterious valise that he never travelled anywhere without. She put on her coat and fought Walter's drunken resistance to put his on him too. She draped his arm around her shoulders, held the valise tight against her body and as they staggered away the snow fell again, entombing their car and the soldiers that had been escorting them.
Night came quickly. So did Alucard. He wrapped them in the darkness of his cloak and his embrace was colder than snow, colder than ice, colder than death because he'd passed through that and had reached the other side.
She asked him –what happened to the soldiers? The escort? Did any of them survive?-
He replied –Master, they all did, they are all completely unharmed- and she knew then that she'd been betrayed and that she had walked straight into the trap set for her.
So Alucard carried them to safety, a wooden house surrounded and covered with drifts so high and so deep that only the very top of the roof and the chimney were showing and she held Walter as he swayed, watched the vampire as he cleared the path to the door with claws as long as her limbs. Inside the house was clean and vacant, a frugal little holiday home perhaps, or maybe a hunter's lodge. There was wood by the fireplace, a great heaping stack of it, and kindling and newspapers in a language she couldn't read and an old-fashioned flint tinder-box. She took off her gloves but her hands were frozen and she kept fumbling and dropping the flint until Alucard clicked his tongue and pushed her aside to light the fire himself. She left him to take care of Walter, to remove sodden furs and boots and upstairs she found an attic room with three beds made up with blankets and sheets – who's been sleeping in my bed, Papa Bear? - she thought, hysteria winding a thin edge through her brain and she pulled the musty-smelling cloth into a heaping armload and stumbled back downstairs.
-you let him go to sleep?- she almost screamed when she saw Walter, stripped to trousers and shirtsleeves and face clean of blood, sprawled on a chair and dead to the world.
-he fell asleep suddenly- snapped Alucard –I couldn't wake him- and no matter how much she shook or slapped the old man she couldn't either. Her very bones ached with cold and weariness and the urge to sleep was so strong she shook with it. Walter began to shiver and she took off her blazer and her boots, and hung them all to dry with the fur coats.
She said to Alucard –find our enemies. Spy on them. Learn what their plans are, but don't let them know you're there-
The vampire bowed with his hand over his heart and melted as she made a nest of the blankets on the floor in front of the fire. She pulled, dragged and pushed Walter into them and collapsed beside him. She tugged the material to cover the both of them and fell immediately into dreams.
The fire had dimmed to embers when she woke again and she thought that it was that, that it was what had woken her, but then she heard and felt Walter stir and mutter beside her and she knew that it was him. Somehow she had rolled over in her sleep and he'd rolled over in his, and he had flung his limbs over hers and he gripped her forearm so tightly it was going numb. She said his name –Walter- and tried to move but he had her pinned down so well that she felt a wave of fear and fumbled for her gun with her free hand. His hips moved and something pressed into the small of her back –Walter? - and he spoke again, one word, slurring it so she couldn't make out what it was. Fear, and something she vaguely recognised as desire made a knot in her lower belly and she realised that on some sad childish little level that she was enjoying it, wasn't she, because the last person who'd laid so much as a finger on her had been the coldly impersonal woman who had come to the mansion months ago to fit her brassieres. She sometimes thought she was starved for touch, but who was going to touch her? No one that's who, no human who would touch her and there was no human she could touch. Before she could decide, before she could say -yes- or –no- Walter said that word and she thought she recognised her mother's name. She felt his mouth on her shoulder, teeth, and sudden revulsion made her flinch away, leaving him with a mouthful of blouse and hair. He grunted and rocked his hips against her back and his hand tightened on her arm until she felt the bones creak. He shuddered. He said the name. He sighed and relaxed and she knew by his breath on her neck that he had moved into a deeper sleep.
She waited for a while, tense and miserable, until eventually she crawled out of his arms and out of the blankets to put more wood on the fire. She shivered. She didn't want to sleep next to him. She didn't want to be part of his dreaming. She didn't have a choice. It was Walter or freeze to death. Soon enough she crept back to him, and tucked a fold of blanket between their bodies.
Again she slept. Again she woke suddenly. Alucard was leaning over Walter and herself, sniffing, sniffing like a dog on the scent, sniffing thoughtfully with his mouth open so he could taste the air as well as smell it.
She hissed at the vampire to –stop that-
He looked at her with the most serene expression and asked –would you like me to kill him?- in the same tones that anyone else would use to ask if she wanted a cup of tea.
-no- she snapped
-sure?-
She snarled and kicked free of the blankets. Walter grunted in his sleep when her feet struck him, but she took no notice. She pulled on her boots and her furs, cursing the way her breath steamed in the air and knelt beside the glowing coals, thanking God for survival training, for learning how to make fires and trap rabbits and dress wounds, and she realised suddenly that she was intensely, ravenously hungry, that she hadn't eaten for –forever- she wanted to ask –how long have we been here?- but she knew better because Alucard's sense of time was so erratic that he had trouble remembering what year it was, let alone what day or week. She examined the house: one main living room that took most of the lower floor. Ancient, decrepit lounges arranged before the fire on a comfortable rug. A door to the side and a door to the back and behind the latter she found a freezing chemical toilet, which she gratefully used.
In the little room that was the kitchen she discovered a large potbellied stove connected to a many-branching pipe system and she examined it closely. The potbelly doubled as a kitchen stove and a central heating device. She managed to get it going, but not before she burned her hand, a long line of blisters from the knuckle of her little finger to her wrist. In the pantry she found candles, the shells of cockroaches dead from lingering poisons; cobwebs; a hessian bag of oats seething with weevils; tins with little pictures of sausages on the labels. She grabbed one of these and set it on the bench, saliva filling her mouth with a great gush as she rattled through the drawers looking for a tin opener.
She pried open the top of the tin and spooned out some of the quivering meat and jelly. It looked foul and smelled worse and she forced herself to take a bite and chew carefully, swallow. One bite followed another and she found herself shoving heaping spoonfuls of the stuff into her mouth, one after the other, frantic, desperate to eat as much as she could as quickly as she could and then suddenly her stomach twisted so violently that she dropped the tin and doubled over, falling to the floor with clenched teeth as she struggled not to vomit. Alucard sat beside her, crooning something in a guttural dead language, and as the spasm lessened he picked up her hand in his. She felt a series of sharp stings and she realised that he was puncturing the blisters with his fangs and licking away the fluids. She let him. She supposed he deserved something.
When he was done she picked herself up and finished off the goo in the tin, little swallows against her rising gorge. More searching saw her find a large saucepan that she carried outside. The sunlight off the snow was blinding and she found tears streaming down her face as she packed the saucepan full of the stuff, because the light hurt, and because it was beautiful and because she felt, for some unaccountable reason, sad. A huge pile of wood by the door, only partially uncovered, and she knew that they had shelter, water, food and warmth, and that they would live provided that the enemy didn't find them.
She set the saucepan on the potbelly and when it was melted she shut the door and firmly forbade Alucard from entering –watch Walter and tell me if he wakes up- and turned the single, spotted mirror to the wall. She stripped and bathed herself by the warmth of the stove, one limb at a time, with a towel and a bit of soap she'd found in the sink. She was covered in bruises. Little brown ones. Huge, green-blue ones the size of her palm. A beautifully defined handprint on her forearm. She saw that and felt filthy all over, even the parts that she'd already washed. She glimpsed a flash of red in the reflective surface of the saucepan and she cursed herself because she hadn't thought to cover it. Not enough water to wash her hair, so she combed it with her fingers into a greasy braid and tied it with a piece of string.
After she was done, she sent Alucard away again to spy on the people looking for them and she knelt beside her retainer –Walter, are you okay?- and gave his shoulder a tentative shake. He did not stir. A long strand of gold trailed from his lips and she reached to pull it out.
He snapped awake and grabbed her hand and stared at her coldly, face barbaric and brutal under the bruises and the grey curtains of his hair, stigmatic eye rolled so far back in its socket that only the white was showing –there is a hair in your mouth- she said and he stared at her like she was a stranger. When she asked him –how are you feeling?- he didn't answer, but when she told him to let go of her hand he did –are you hungry?- and he shook his head and laid back down. He went back to sleep, or at least pretended to, and she rocked back on her heels, watching him, exhausted.
She explored further. A second door in the back led to cupboard with a tin hipbath and a few musty sacks of dried grains. Alucard returned while she was attempting to make some sort of porridge, and laughed at her. He easily shoved her aside and took over, while she stared at him bemusedly.
-why so surprised, Integra? I cooked for Jonathon Harker, don't you remember? It's in the book-
-and so's what you did to him-
-he lived, didn't he?-
-not for lack of you trying-
He snickered, and told her -men are coming. Hunters, not soldiers, and I think that they own this house. They bring a blizzard with them. Our enemies are still looking, but they are looking in the wrong direction. They don't know about me- and he gave her a handgun that he had stolen from them and clips of ammunition too.
It was getting warmer inside the house. She left Alucard to his pans, trusting that he –will not poison Walter and myself, thank you very much- and slipped off her furs and put on her blazer. She loaded both of her guns and settled down on the lounge to wait for their unwitting hosts. Despite herself, she dozed off, and that's how the three bears discovered Goldilocks.
She started awake when something thumped against the door. The wind was howling mournfully, the blizzard just begun. The door opened and three people came tumbling in, bulky and ursine in bright synthetic jackets. They stopped short at the sight of the handgun she had pointed at them, and jumped when the massive hound, polydactyl and glossy red-black by the firelight, snarled and bared its teeth. A word from her stopped it short and instead it grinned at them, a horrible predatory smile. One of the bears shouldered the door shut with little eddies of snow swirling around his feet while the others pulled back their hoods and scarves to gape at the tableau before them, red-black coloured dog, honey and coffee-cream coloured teenager, unconscious man on the floor between the two.
-whence cometh thou? Wither goeth thou?- they spoke to her in their own language and she had to shake her head to tell them that she didn't understand. One of them held a brace of pheasants; another a string of rabbits and the third had a carcass of a fawn over one shoulder. All three carried hunting rifles, but it obviously didn't occur to them to actually use these on their intruders. Finally one of the bears unloaded his burdens and stripped off his coat and mittens and his brothers followed suit. Without their hoods they were dark-eyed and dark-haired, gypsy-handsome and the eldest barely touched thirty. This one knelt with her in front of the fire, and while the other two conferred in the kitchen she tried her best, with gestures and crude charcoal drawings on the bare floorboards, to explain how she and Walter and her unusual pet came to be there. The man frowned at her; doubtless her explanation was lacking a great deal but the snow and wind had rendered his little portable radio useless and none of them were going anywhere until the blizzard cleared. The man cleaned some of his rabbits, tossing heads and viscera at the hound that snatched the little offerings from midair and crunched the skulls between its formidable teeth.
When the man pointed first at her and then Walter, miming rocking a baby in his arms she snorted before she could help herself. A word arrived in her head – unchi- and she said it without thinking. The man nodded and touched his chest and said his name. She gave him hers in return, but she had already christened him and his brothers in her mind: Youngest, Middle, Eldest.
The eldest carried his rabbits into the kitchen and the house was gradually filled with the smell of roasting meat. She looked at the hound- that radio has got to go- she thought and she gently, gradually roused Walter from his heavy slumber. She did her best to explain to him where they were, and why, but she was uncertain that he actually understood what she was saying. They ate rabbit and grain porridge with their hosts, together beside the fire. Youngest kept staring at her and whenever she met his eyes he smiled. For the most part she ignored him and concentrated on holding bowl and spoon for Walter instead. When it came time for them all to sleep she gave back most of the blankets, since the house was warm and, ignoring the way her skin crawled, curled up next to Walter under their furs.
In the dark she heard the hound growl softly at footsteps on the stairs. She tracked the sound of boot sole against floorboards until she heard a door open and shut. The freezing, noisome chemical toilet. Despite her desperate tension, the wind soon lulled her to sleep.
She woke to the sound of the hound chuffing in canine amusement. Fumbling with her glasses she saw Youngest kneeling beside Walter's valise, staring at his sliced fingers. The malicious old git had hidden razorblades in the clasp. Eventually Youngest rallied himself enough to produce a battered little medical kit and she used this to clean and bandage his wounds, and all the while he stared at her breasts underneath the soiled silk of her blouse so that she wished that she hadn't taken her brassiere off to sleep. He smiled at her when she was done and tried to catch her fingers but he only succeeded in squeezing the side of her hand. Something popped and oozed yellowish, pinkish goo. Her burns had become infected. He squeaked and scuttled off, leaving her to muse upon the type of man who would kill, disembowel and disjoint a deer without batting an eyelash but would flee in terror at the sight of a little pus.
That day, that night, impossible to tell for the blizzard and the drifts reaching up to cover the windows and the doors, was spent by all of them napping, she on the lounge in front of the fire as the red-black hound watched them all. It barely moved, except to thoughtfully lick a many-toed paw. It followed her to the toilet and sat outside the door, waiting. She was woken once by a loud bang and Eldest spitting what were doubtless expletives at the smoking radio. The hound caught her eye and nodded faintly, and just as faintly, she nodded back.
During a brief lull in the wind Walter suddenly threw off the furs and bolted to his feet. He stared about wildly, not knowing where he was. She didn't move from her place on the lounge, but she watched him carefully and wished that she'd thought to take his rings off him. Eventually he settled and once again she spoke to him, of snow and betrayal, explosions and avalanches. He warily accepted a plate of rabbit from Middle, and she tried not to watch his shaking hands or wonder what they could mean. The knot on his forehead was still black and vicious but she took heart in the way the many little cuts on his face had all but disappeared. He cleaned the blood away from the handle of his valise -people learn the hard way- and his voice rasped like sandpaper as he fiddled with a small plastic black box before packing it away again. He produced a pair of glasses, which he said hurt his eyes and couldn't wear, a miniature magnetic chess set and his own medical kit. He took her hand without permission and the barely perceptible twitches she made while he cleaned her infected burns were not entirely from pain. He made a crude eye patch from a black handkerchief, watching narrowly as she played chess with Middle and deliberately lost.
Walter began to sway and she packed up the board as the three bears trooped upstairs. She forced herself to lie down next to her butler. He flinched away from her and she noted that he didn't smell too good. Come to think of it, neither did her. She listened to the chatter upstairs and wondered if they were talking about her.
When next she woke up it was to the thump of Middle dumping an armload of wood next to the fire. He leered at her as she lay sleepy next to her retainer –they think Walter is your lover- and she bolted upright in horror. The hound looked at her calmly and the words that only she could hear arrived in her head –rich furs, you see, silk gloves and your elegantly tailored slacks and blouse, every inch the indulged girl, the kept girl, you as Dolores and Walter as Humbert Humbert- she rolled free of the blankets and stormed off towards the toilet. She aimed a kick at the hound as she walked past and it made a sound between a grunt and a purr –you told them he is your uncle, but frankly they don't believe you- she could have spat. She came face-to-face with Middle on her way out and he planted an arm either side of her against the wall to trap her. She ducked under his elbow and caught sight of Walter sitting up and glowering at the both of them. She didn't care to explain.
She sought shelter in the kitchen with Eldest, watching as he cooked the last of the rabbit. He handed her a bowl of porridge, the proper sort made from oats and she ate it, trying not to think of the weevils she had seen in the hessian bag. Youngest asked her, with exaggerated gestures and mockingly elaborate bows to re-bandage his fingers and she did so under the watchful eyes of his brother, but when he tried to return the favour the hound peered around the doorjamb and growled at them both –foolishness- she told it, and was ignored. It bared its teeth at Youngest, so many big white teeth that it didn't seem possible that they all could fit into its mouth. Eldest threw rabbit bones at it and as it crunched it glared at Youngest as though wondering what he'd taste like. The two brothers spoke quietly together as they stared at the hound, remarking, no doubt, on its size, its six-toed paws with thumb-like dewclaws, its ferocity and apparent intelligence. It preened under their combined fear and admiration –vain beast- she told it as she walked past. She gave a bowl of porridge to Walter and debated telling him about the weevils, but some inner malice stopped her. She waited while he ate, wondering what he remembered from the first night they were there, scratching her oily scalp, feeling little pimples burst underneath her fingernails.
She told him –I want a bath- and unsteady on his feet he helped her to drag the tin hip-bath into the kitchen. They spent an hour taking snow from the wall built up in front of the door and melting it as their hosts watched in amusement. From his valise Walter produced toothbrushes and toothpaste and soap, proper bath soap and she all but pounced on them. She pushed Walter out of the kitchen and once more turned the mirror to the wall. She sat in the delicious warm water and bathed gratefully, washing her hair and her blouse and her underwear and sponged the insides of her blazer, sitting naked in her fur coat until they dried. She quickly gave up trying to brush her long hair and quickly bound it back, knots and all. When her clothes were dry she helped Walter melt more snow for his own bath and after that, more snow for the three brothers as well. Between the five of them it took hours and by the time they were done they were all ready to sleep again. Walter turned away when she lay down next to him and it was a long time before she fell dreaming.
Walter was playing chess with Eldest when she woke again. She felt irritation crawl up her spine like a nest full of ants and she knew that if she didn't get out of there she was going to go insane.
She decided to dig. The blizzard had calmed for the time being although no one doubted it would rage again soon. She donned her blazer and her mittens and heavy boots and opened the front door to the hollow they had made in the snow the day before. She slipped inside, to begin digging a snow-tunnel just the way she used to when she was a little girl, and soon enough, a hand grabbed hold of her ankle and hauled her out, just the way Walter used to when he felt she was getting too ahead of herself. He wanted to know if she had her handgun –wolves and the enemy, come back when you start to get cold- and she meekly said that she would. She didn't point out the obvious, that wolves were Alucard's familiars and that as long as she was his master they'd never hurt her, would protect her from any threat instead.
She dug and dug for what seemed like hours, until she felt warm and she sweated, scrabbling with her hands and pushing and compacting with her knees and back. She only wanted to go in one direction, up, and eventually the snow began to lighten as the light seeped through. She burst through the crust and whimpered at the blaze of sunlight reflected off the brilliant white. She clawed out of her tunnel, whooping for joy. The hound followed soon after, slipping out easily, stretching into a man. She fell back into the snow, exhilarated by the cold, sinking into it, kicking chunks of it this way and that. She let her mind fill with thoughts of relief about being out from under the combined stare of Walter and the three brothers, out from the dim, noisome little house, put into open space and freedom. She thought of her aching eyes and hands and that's why Alucard had no idea about the snowball until it smacked him in the mouth. She howled with laughter as he stared at her in astonishment –not fair, Master – and could only barely suppress the urge to throw another. With regret she felt the ice seep into her toes and the wind beginning to build again and knew that she had to go back.
She slid inside –you'd better not look at my arse-
-why on earth would you think I'd do a thing like that?-
She fell out the other side, flushed and laughing, the hound close behind. Walter looked up to see her happy and almost cracked a smile himself as he moved checkmate against Eldest. She slept and when she woke up Walter was beside her and the room was dim and empty except for the fire and the hound's glowing eyes. In the kitchen, sitting on the floor next to the pot-belly's lingering warmth she rolled up her sleave to reveal the handprint-bruise, still vivid, unfaded. Alucard came to sit in front of her, his expression intent.
-bruises are formed by blood pooling under the skin, aren't they?- and she offered her arm to him. Gently, tenderly, he made a hundred tiny cuts with his fangs and waited for the blood to seep through. He lapped at it, and she felt something in her groin twist at the softness of his hair brushing the sensitive skin in the crook of her elbow.
-does Walter remember what happened?-
-vaguely. He thinks perhaps he dreamed it-
-then why is he angry?-
-because he worries that it might have been real-
-has he asked you?-
-no-
-was it me that he- she falters, and the vampire says
-no. It wasn't you he dreamed of- and for some reason she could not name she felt like crying. Alucard snorted derisively against her skin and she felt the stinging itch as he closed the many tiny wounds.
-if he asks, you'll tell him he was dreaming, that it didn't happen-
-are you sure? Is that what you really want?-
-yes- and she buttoned up her sleave and went back to her blankets and furs, to Walter, and sleep.