Chapter Summary: In which Karl Heisenberg meets Alcina Dimitrescu.

X

1946

Lady Dimitrescu.

The woman sat in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, the end of her fur scarf pressed to her nose as she was jostled back and forth. Every once in a while, she asked the driver to stop so that she could dry heave onto the heavily rutted dirt road. Relinquishing the keys to her baby blue Chrysler Continental at the edge of the last sensible city along the way had been a terrible shame that she hadn't expected. She had laughed in the faces of the town folk who had warned her that her automobile wouldn't be able to make the trip. But she wasn't laughing now. The ride up the mountainside was so perilous and steep that she was sure that she would've driven right over the edge of one of the many abrupt corners.

She sneezed, and all at once the familiar pins and needles began to go haywire in her body. Everything was wrong: there were cramps in her abdomen, her vision was blurry, and her stomach was positively boiling in response to the jostling cart. Still, she held the scarf tight against her nose as she closed her eyes and imagined that she was back home. But it was hard to hang on to the memories that the scent of her heavy perfume was supposed to bring back. Perhaps she shouldn't have doused herself in many sprays of Coty Emeraude. Perhaps she shouldn't have put on her best rayon dress with the high shoulder pads. Perhaps she shouldn't have put so much rouge on her cheeks…

Perhaps she shouldn't have had an affair with a silver-tongued swindler who had drained her bank account so fast that she hadn't even had time to catch her sorry breath.

The thought of him made her want to retch, but she had to stay strong. There was a damp spot on her skirt that still smelled of vomit, and she desperately tried to dab it off in an effort to keep from looking up at her surroundings. Romania was supposed to be beautiful - full of mystical women with a gypsy-like allure, strong men, and dazzling cuisine. But the sky above her remained a depressingly persistent gray, and as she was chaperoned along to the top of the mountains, modernity seemed to be sloughing away era by era. Several times, she had seen farmers in drab arrays of dingy clothing rising in their fields with their hands pressed along their backs and their faces turned towards the downcast sky. There would be no speakeasies here, no snuggling up to foreign diplomats backstage nor sitting atop her tumble dryer while Frank Sinatra played on her brand new radio in her mint green kitchen.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

She barely even noticed as the carriage came to a stop. The side door was pulled open and she looked up with some confusion at her driver.

"This is as far as I'm willing to take you, ma'am," the wizened rider said as if in apology. She looked around in a daze and suddenly understood the twinge of pity in the man's voice. There was a small iron-wrought gate hanging pitifully off of its hinges. And beyond that: a craggy snow-capped stairwell leading higher up along the mountain. The ice in the air settled along her lashes and melted the powder on her face. Judging by the way that he was looking at her, her blood-red lipstick had long since faded into a clownish blur.

"Are you quite sure you can't take me any farther?" She asked in a voice that came out uncharacteristically whiny. The man shook his head.

"The horse c'aint-"

"I know that," she said with a pout. "I mean - you. I paid you to chaperone me, did I not?"

"Yeh, but you didn't pay me to lose my life. Won't set foot in that village - no I won't, ma'am."

"Why ever not?" She demanded and he gave a temperate shrug.

"Cursed as the Devil's palm, it is," he said thoughtfully. "Overrun by pagans and monsters, of the like."

"Oh, so gauche," she huffed. "I refuse to believe in such a thing as 'curses' and 'monsters.'"

The man gave another shrug. This habit was beginning to annoy her immensely, but she couldn't help but feel a sense of desperation at the thought of him leaving her behind. "Icarus didn't believe in the heat of the sun, 'til he was burned by it. Ma'am."

With that, he tipped his hat, mounted his horse, and steered it away. She stood there for a long time, simply watching his figure retreat as the icy wind cut through her thin dress. She shivered and then turned to look up at the staircase, the top of which was obscured by an ominous, rolling mist. Damn it all, even her choice in shoes had failed her. But she was no quitter - or, rather, she couldn't have quit even if she wanted to. There was no turning back for her, not now. Somewhere, hidden upon the top of it all, stood her family's castle. It was there, surely, that she would find her peace.

With this thought in mind, she hefted her many suitcases higher along her arm and began to take the steps one by one. Her bright white heels slipped constantly against the icy steps, and many times she stumbled and bruised her calves against the stone. By the time she reached the top, she was drenched in melted snow and shivering uncontrollably. Her breath came out in misty gusts as she surveyed the land before her with chattering teeth. As far as she could tell, she had come upon a graveyard of sorts: a rather ungainly thing to place at the entrance of a village. Still, despite her unshakable distaste for the land unfurling before her, she couldn't help but feel anxious. And scared. She had never been in a cemetery before, much less one that seemed so ancient. The tombstones stood at odd angles as if they were sinking into the ground. There were large crypts and elaborate stone workings but even they had lost their charm to the utter dereliction of the place. Masculine laughter suddenly rose and fell away with the wind, and she wondered if the dead themselves had risen to laugh at her predicament.

But no - there it was again: an emphatic 'ah-ha-ha-ha-ha' as if whoever was laughing wasn't feeling the mirth of the joke. At the very end of the abandoned field, behind a gaping crypt, an orange, pulsing light was glowing across the snow. Recognizing it as the light of a fire, she hefted her suitcases along her arms again and began to walk with renewed vigor. Firelight was a welcome sight in the snowy whiteness of the land. She couldn't help it - she began to run. The thought of no longer being alone in the damned cemetery filled her with a childish sense of comfort. Growls and wet snarls were coming from the direction of the fire but, in her relief, she barely noticed them.

"...in America, the only thing you have to fear is two things: an American woman's frontside, and her backside. You see, out there in the land of the free-" she heard a man proclaim. This was followed by another raucous round of laughing and then something that she couldn't hear. "...and don't even get me started on their asses-"

Such inappropriate language made her twist her lips, but she was not deterred. She had heard much rougher language back home in the bars of New York, even the high-class ones. A woman in her profession could barely take two steps forward before stumbling over a man whose bravado was defined by his ability to be raunchy, and loud.

And whoever was talking beyond the crypt was very loud.

"...them things are so big that you'd need a ladder and a map to reach the top, and you might still get lost on the way there! And if you think that's impressive, let me tell you about-"

"H-hello?" She called out into the wind. "Hello? Can you hear me? Is anyone there?"

All fell silent, and for a moment she feared that it had all just been her imagination. Then a twig snapped to her left, followed by the sound of snow crunching beneath many feet fast approaching. All she saw was the elongating shadow and shaggy, ice-studded mane of the creature before it leaped at her. Moved by instinct, she gave a shrill scream and thrust one of her suitcases between her and the creature. The rest of her luggage tumbled across the ground, scattering her many possessions across the snow as the creature rebounded and landed on its back. In less than a second, it was up again, this time bracing its body upon its knuckles and bent knees. For the first time, she gazed at it fully and the sight of its hairy face made her freeze in shock.

It was a man, except terribly grotesque and wearing tattered clothing. Glacier-white eyes stared back at her with no semblance of human comprehension as it contorted its waxen-gray face into a hideous smile. She had never seen anything like it before.

There was a shifting and growling all around her as more of its kind unveiled themselves from the shadows. Soundlessly, she fell to her bottom and scooted back along the snow. But they were all around her, slowly closing in with shredded jaws and glinting eyes. She tried to scream but the sound caught in her throat, rendering her mute.

"P-please," she tried again. "Don't hurt me. I'll give you all the money that I have, just don't-"

There was no way of telling whether the creatures understood her or not. One of them gave a roar that shook her very bones and she covered her ears in fright. A new sound rose above the rest - one that was familiar and comfortingly human. It was the laughter of the man who had been talking. It was growing louder now, closer, and she quickly looked up in search of it.

There, beyond the circle of the beasts, was a tall man riding the shoulders of one of the monsters. He was still laughing, and clapping his hands as he drew nearer upon the rolling shoulders of his ride. The sight of him flooded her with relief, for she could tell immediately that he was not one of them.

"Well, would you look at that! Dinner and a show!" He proclaimed gladly as he crossed his arms atop the monster's head. Then, he lifted a finger and pointed it in her direction. "Make no mistake," he said quickly. "You're the dinner and I'm the show."

"Wh-what are they," she stuttered, trying her hardest to focus on him instead of the beasts. "Can you call them off?"

"Why should I?" He said back. "You didn't say please."

"Why should I beg for my life from the likes of you?" She cried. "I've done nothing wrong!"

"Look. M-maybe you can't count, so let me help you out: you're outnumbered, doll. And I," he added, rapping his knuckles upon the head of the beast holding him and giving a surprisingly dashing smile. "Have the upper ground."

There was something about his smile that made her lose track of everything in her mind. For the first time, she squinted her eyes and really looked at him. He was a young thing - well, at least younger than her - but he held himself like a grown man. Pale scar tracks were lining his tanned face, and the shadow of an unkempt beard darkened his cheeks. A bold, strong chest rolled slowly against the buttoned part in his shirt, and the hands that he now rested lazily upon the top of the monster's head were attractively large. He reminded her of the bleeding heart transients who used to travel up and down route 66 with their thumbs out - crazy things with loosened cogs in their heads. She would have been inclined to think of him as crazy, too, but there was just something about his eyes: watchful pale greens guillotined beneath his narrowing squint…pale greens that were looking right at her and yet right through her….eyes so mesmerizing that they could have belonged to the Devil.

She roused herself with a shake of the head and slowly pushed herself up. The creatures around her shifted anxiously, but she could tell that there was something to the man's presence that was keeping them at bay. It was as if he had given an unspoken command, or they were as in tune with his energy as a dog was to its master's. She self-consciously brushed the wrinkles from her skirt as she looked around at them, forcing herself to look them each in the eye.

"What are they?" She asked again and the man chuckled.

"Lycans: the best that mankind has to offer! Ain't that right, boys?" His voice boomed around the snowy graveyard and the Lycans shifted anxiously again. Disappointed by their lack of response, he once again knocked on the head of the creature carrying him. "This one's Urias, a good friend of mine. Well, don't be shy, Urias. Say hi to the pretty lady!" At this, the creature snarled and hocked up a wet mass into the slow. "That means he likes you," the man added.

"D-do they understand you?" She asked, unable to help her curiosity. She held a shaking hand out to a beast who promptly snorted in response. The man sighed.

"It'd be a crying shame if they did," he said gruffly. "Been talkin' to them all this time and they haven't even had the decency to respond."

He looked away and seemed to meditate upon this as they all stood in the cold. She began to shift impatiently from foot to foot as he navigated the inner workings of his own mind. Then, perhaps realizing that she was still there, he glanced back down and stared at her for a long time. Something seemed to change in his expression as he hopped off of Urias's shoulders and made his way towards her through the snow. There was a look in his eye….too similar to the look that she had seen on men's faces back home in the bars, right before they said or tried to do something severely ungentlemanly.

She recoiled with a sneer but found herself otherwise frozen in fear as he braced his hands against her upper arms and nestled his nose against her neck. She couldn't do anything but listen with a fast-beating heart as he took a deep, luxurious inhale and then let his breath out heavily. She couldn't deny it - there was something exhilarating about the tension in his grasp as he slid his hands down, down, down her arms. She was right in assuming that it had been a long time since he had been close enough to a woman to smell her perfume, and the scent of her Coty Emeraude was turning him on. The stiffness of his body made her fear that he would try and take advantage of her, but that wasn't what he had been going for. With a swiftness that caught her off guard, he slipped his hand into her pocket and yanked out her packet of cigarettes before she could stop him.

"Hey-!" She squealed in indignation as he immediately lit one without shame. "Give those back, you inelegant cur-"

"You're a Dimitrescu, aren't you?" He said, the cigarette smoke deepening his already alarmingly rich baritone. She paused and stared at him in shock as he pursed his lips around a smoke ring.

"Y-Yes!" She said, excited by the sound of her familial name on someone else's tongue. "Why…I am! Oh, thank heavens, someone around here knows who I am! But how did you-"

"I was born and bred in this village," he said simply as if she was stupid for not knowing. "I know every lineage here that there is to know…Nichola, Berengario, Guglielmo, Cesare. I could smell the highfalutin on your ass as soon as you set foot in my field. And, no, doll, it wasn't your pungent cologne."

"But-"

"But what? Your people all look the same - I mean, they did before they all died out. A blood disease, or something like that?" He popped another smoke ring in her face which she quickly waved away. "Hair black as night, that etch in your forehead and those lines running from your nose. There's not a speck of deviation in your little heritage now, is there? Except…you're rather short for a Dimitrescu-"

"It's dahm-ih-tresk," she corrected with a practiced roll of her tongue. He rolled his eyes at her.

"It's dahm-ih-tresk," he mocked before spitting on the ground. He quickly smeared the spittle away with his boot, glanced sheepishly at her, and muttered, 'sorry about that' beneath this breath.

She understood now. Of course, how could she have not seen it before? Though she didn't know his name, she assumed that the man must have been of peasant-status judging by his clothes and the fact that he was living out in a field, telling parlor jokes to man-mutant beasts. Her bloodline was a thing of pride, or so she had been told since a young age. He must have been jealous, judging by the venom that had crept its way into his voice. She braced her hands upon her hips and leaned back with her famous stage smile.

"Well, you are quite right," she said fearlessly. "I am a Dimitrescu - Alcina Dimitrescu, to be exact. I don't know how much exposure your…humble little village has gotten from the outside world, but back in New York I went by Miss D. You might have heard of me?" She asked sweetly, hopefully, "Miss D and the Pallboys?"

His eyebrow crooked at this as he took another drag from his cigarette, and she was delighted to see a flicker of awe pass across his face. "Well, ain't that some shit? Miss D is a Dimitrescu from mine own village"

"-dahm-ih-tresk-"

"Yack-yack-yack, a snake and a worm look the same on the inside, blah-blah-blah. And so what brought you here, your royal highness?"

"Well! I'm here by special invitation of a woman named Mother Miran-"

This was the wrong answer.

Something snapped in his face and he paused with the cigarette held halfway to his mouth. For a moment they simply stared at each other - his expression creeping with disgust, hers confused. Again, she was inclined to find his eyes snakishly mesmerizing. It wasn't the first time that he had been looked at that way, she could tell by the way that his brows were coming together along his forehead.

Then his eyes slid away. He retrieved a pair of tinted glasses from beneath his shirt, muttered something to himself, and settled them on his face with a shake of his head. She wasn't sure what she had done wrong but had a sneaking suspicion that it had to do with his eyes and the way that she had been staring at them with open discomfort. Without another word, he turned on his heel and fluttered his hand at the Lycans. She watched with mounting desperation as he began to trudge away.

"Wait-" she called after him as she slid her hands up and down the goosebumps rising along her arms. "You say you know this village so well? Then take me to my family's castle-"

"I won't have anything to do with anybody who associates with Miranda," he said over his shoulder before giving a curt wave. "See you, dih-mee-tres-coo."

"It's dahm-ih-tresk," she said weakly. But it was too late. The man was going, going, gone - followed by the Lycans who seemed to stick to him like kin.

"So gauche," she muttered under her breath before gathering up her belongings and making her way deeper into the village.

X

Finally, after hours of wading hopelessly through the village and asking for directions from the unyielding villagers, she set foot within the castle bearing her family's name. It was a grand estate, still cradling the furniture and possessions of those who had lived there long before her time. She couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief as she stepped into the foyer, comforted by the fact that she would no longer have to deal with Lycans or men with green eyes and vulgar tongues.

A cold draft fluttered through the broken-out windows as her eyes adjusted to the dark. There, standing upon the bottom-most step of the grand staircase with her hand on the rail, was a woman in a heavy black cloak made of what looked like crow's feathers.

Alcina set her bags down with a thump and ran to her without hesitation. The two women embraced for a long time. Though they had never actually spoken nor met face-to-face, they were familiar through the letters that they had sent back and forth throughout the years. A while back, sometime around the time of Alcina's indiscretion with the man that would be her downfall, Mother Miranda had sent her a letter insisting that she return to her homeland. The promise was tempting. There, in the unnamed Romanian village, lay promise for Alcina as well as a big, beautiful castle that was her namesake.

Mother Miranda pulled back, placed her hands upon Alcina's cheeks, and peered curiously into her face.

"Alcina," she said in a euphonious voice that seemed to give off an unearthly echo around the foyer. "We finally meet! It's my honor to see you here upon the land that is rightfully yours. Are you feeling quite well?"

Alcina hadn't even realized that she had grown nauseous again until she heard Miranda's words. She put a hand to her mouth and mentally willed her discomfort to pass. "I'm fine. It was a rather treacherous journey, is all."

This was a lie. What Mother Miranda didn't know - and Alcina was more than careful to omit in her letters - was that Alcina was suffering from a terrible and unfortunately hereditary blood disease called porphyria. But she didn't want to tell Mother Miranda this, not yet. She was afraid of being seen as weak by the only mother figure that she had ever known. Instead, she tilted her chin at the small glass jar on the ground between Mother Miranda's feet.

"A pet of yours?" She asked in a voice that couldn't hide her repulsion. Mother Miranda retrieved the jar and held it up to the scant light shining through the window. The sight of the grayish and tentacled lump suspended within the fluid turned her already soured stomach.

"It's a Cadou," Miranda said, pride etching its way into her voice. "It's Romanian for 'gift,' similar to the French word-"

"Cadeau," Alcina said eagerly, happy to show off her worldliness. Mother Miranda graced her with a smile that lifted Alcina's spirits and gave a nod before tucking the jar beneath her arm. It was obvious by the stiffness in her jaw that Miranda wasn't a woman used to smiling.

"It's a miracle within the works," Mother Miranda said. "The highest, and most perfected blessing that one can bestow upon another...one fit only for the worthy. Do you consider yourself worthy, Alcina?"

"Of course, Mother Miranda," Alcina answered automatically. "I am quite worthy."

Miranda nodded again with that same tired - though enchanting - smile. "Eva would have thought so, too. She would have found you very pretty, and with such a lovely voice! She was very fond of singing…always making up little nursery rhymes on the spot and…caterwauling them out the window to all who passed by…" Mother Miranda's voice trailed off and Alcina shifted nervously as she gazed off to the side, obviously distracted by something outside of Alcina's realm of understanding. Miranda's jaw gave a tense spasm before she looked back down upon Alcina with eyes rimmed in black ash. "You must have come by way of the Potter's Field. Tell me…did you, by chance, encounter a young man by the name of Karl Heisenberg?"

"Oh!" Alcina said in surprise. "Is that his name? The rogue cur with the Devil green eyes?"

Mother Miranda's eyes narrowed at this and Alcina felt her heart sink. "He is no rogue, Alcina. He is better than most, though he may not know it. You may not understand now, but that man will become a brother of sorts to you once we…figure you out." The same vacant look crossed Miranda's face before she asked. "And how does he fare? Does he have a warm bed to sleep upon? Does he look as if he's eating well?"

She didn't like the concern that she heard in Miranda's voice. Already, she felt an obsessive sense of attachment to the woman and she didn't want to share it with anyone, much less the odd Lycan-riding freak Karl Heisenberg. Alcina gave an indignant sniff and squared her shoulders. "You seem to think so kindly of him, Mother, but I can't say that he thinks the same of you."

This was an arrow fired straight through Miranda's heart, Alcina could see it in the way that Miranda lowered her gaze. A sudden thought occurred to her, and she asked, "Is he your son?"

"Not by blood, no. But I consider him a son nonetheless, even if he doesn't…think so kindly of me." Miranda blinked quickly and then looked back at her. Seeing the jealousy etched along Alcina's brow, Miranda gave another facsimile of a smile and placed one of her hands over Alcina's shoulder pads. "Rest, tonight, while you can. Then come find me tomorrow in my lab, beneath the village ceremony site."

"Lab?" Alcina repeated curiously. "Oh! Will we be conducting…experiments, or something of the like?"

"Of sorts…" Miranda's hand slid up Alcina's neck until she was cupping the woman's chin in her palm. A single, cold finger uncurled along Alcina's lips as Miranda smeared the lipstick away from Alcina's bottom lip. "Understand this, Alcina," Miranda said as she spread the blurry red across her forefinger and thumb. "No matter what happens - no matter how strange it all may seem - you will always be in my favor."