Chapter 32 — Shuffle of Power
Sam fell off the couch and landed right next to a mangy mutt called Vladimir. It did not belong to any discernible breed that he knew of, unless it was some species own to Transylvania. When the pitch black thing that sported long tangled fur growled like a T-rex, Sam jumped back on the couch with gymnastic grace and speed to get away from the monstrous canine.
“Hey, fuck off, Cù Sìth!” he muttered through his unkempt hair, his unshaven face beginning to resemble a handsome Wildman.
“His name is Vladimir, not Koo-Shee,” the old Gypsy King chuckled from the flimsy kitchen table, where he sat watching the business news while having his morning brew. Sam wondered if he would ever know how oddly ‘Koo-Shee’, as the name was pronounced, was spelled.
“It is a death omen in my country — a big black dog, an angry lad at that, that appears on the moors when someone is going to die. ‘Cù Sìth’ means ‘fairy dog,” Sam smiled, not sure if the old man was even interested in Scottish lore.
“You have a fairy dog that brings death, but you people have trouble believing in a haunted forest that steals people?” King Iulian, the chief of Stefan’s clan, snorted.
Sam just shrugged, running his hand through his hair and hoping the flee-infested animal did not share its pests with sleeping journalists.
“You really went overboard last night, didn’t you?” Nina teased from the open back door where she was having herbal tea with Mihail’s wife, the quiet healer who was scared of being branded a witch for her root working on Nina’s wound.
“I did not,” Sam protested, unaware that the two women had discussed his chiseled body while he was asleep in as much detail as their language barrier allowed. Mihail was watching his baby for a change to give his wife a rare opportunity to socialize with a Western European woman who seemed very fond of her.
“The police have still not located Igor. I am getting seriously worried now,” Petra’s voice came from the corridor, growing louder as she approached. The tall beauty was speaking on the phone, moving where the meager signal bounced to a stronger reception. She was checking in with their guest house in Cluj and arranged another two day stay with the manager, promising to be back soon.
Petra hung up the phone and emerged from the dark hallway to join in the morning warm beverage binge. She was wearing a different shirt than her own. Sam stared suggestively as she passed him a glance, questioning her new wardrobe with a naughty look to which she answered his inquiry with a dirty smile. She flicked her eyes into the corridor and back to Sam, telling him that she slept with the owner of the shirt just down the hall. He smiled and mouthed a ‘whoo!’ and she laughed out loud for the first time.
“Looks like one of us had a good dose of local culture,” Nina teased her when she joined them outside.
“My god, Nina, the culture is richer than I ever thought. Deep culture, you know?” she played along.
“I know. Anthropology can only teach one that much of a country’s…abilities,” Nina jested with a straight face. “You learned a lot first hand last night, hey? I myself had to watch the object of my studies dance with a humongous dog to the tune of a coarse fiddle until he passed out — the object, not the dog,” Nina added, raising her mug and laughing.
Mihail’s wife was called in to get some breakfast and she excused herself in her best broken English.
“Nina, I know where the rest of the deck is,” Petra whispered. “Are you familiar with the ‘Heart of the Heavens’?”
Nina gave it some thought and searched her mind’s history files like a super computer. It sounded very familiar, although she was not sure in which country exactly the SS had established an outpost for the secret launch of their various UFO crafts, the experimental fighter planes reported over German airspace by the Allied Forces.
“….and some speculation came out over attempted communication with extra-terrestrial civilizations from the same area. But they called it ‘Gate of the Gods’, as far as I remember. Why?” she asked after her concise exposition of what history’s more obscure academics had reported.
“That area was just on the edge of the Hoia Baciu Forest, did you know? And guess what? In the 1980’s a house was built on the ground where the ‘Gate of the Gods’ were reputed to be located,” Petra keenly relayed to the equally curious historian. “Precisely the things you and Sam saw — the fiery orange, glowing red floating orbs and so on — similar to those things were thought to be Nazi produced crafts that followed fighter planes and could not be out- maneuvered or shot down. Maybe you saw something more esoteric, Nina, but nevertheless, there was a house built where that doorway was situated.”
“That is where you want to go today?” Nina asked.
“Yes! I believe the tarot cards are kept there to keep them suspended between dimensions, therefore keeping them from doing harm here unless someone discovered them, see?” she explained. Once more Nina felt that thrill mount in her, the hunt for something extraordinary.
“Did your young pet tell you all this?” Nina winked.
“He told me straight out, Nina. And there is more. That house belonged to Petr Costita!” she revealed with no small amount of show. Nina’s mouth fell open. Progress was hopefully in the cards.
When they arrived there with Petra’s young friend, Anton, Sam stopped to put his last blank memory card in his camera. The house appeared to be in a dirty state of decay between the stick thin tall trees. On the path the dry leaves moved under almost no wind disturbance, giving the effect that something invisible was sweeping them along in front of the group of explorers. Nina looked back and saw Sam fiddling with the lens.
“Hurry up, before the forest swallows you, Sam!” she jested.
“Go on. Just a minute and I’ll catch up,” he shouted as she waved and joined Petra, Stefan and Anton who scouted the surroundings for vagrants, rusted wires in the overgrown grass or animal traps.
Sam clicked in his lens and switched on the camera, ready to roll. He could hear them talking about the state of the dilapidated structure when he felt the ice cold barrel of a pistol prod the back of his head. Sam’s legs buckled from the sudden threat and he froze in fear.
“Slowly, put your hands up, Cleave,” a familiar voice said.
Sam did as he was told. He knew that voice. It irritated him the moment they were introduced back in Zbiroh.
“Igor, you are not missing anymore,” Sam responded.
“I intend to stay missing, my friend. Give me the camera,” Igor ordered.
Sam slung it back slowly and he could hear other footsteps join them from two directions behind him.
“I believe you’ve met Captain von Ban,” Igor smiled as the captain rounded Sam from behind and came to stand face to face with him.
“Hello again, Sam,” the hideous bald man smiled.
“Captain, come to walk your dogs in the pretty woods?” Sam snapped. “Are they used to all the new recruits yet?” The captain bit his teeth down at Sam’s mockery of all the men in his unit that had perished while hunting the rogue journalist for his evidence against Greta Heller and all those employed by her.
“Don’t mind him, Captain. He’s a dead man. I can’t find the memory card. This one is empty,” Igor reported. The captain was once again left empty handed and it made him furious. Sam smiled. He knew he had a hell of a beating coming, maybe even torture, but he was not going to reveal the location of the memory card, otherwise they would shoot right away. Sam was as cocky as they imagined him to be after so many lucky escapes, but in truth he was absolutely terrified and he wished he could telepathically call to Nina and ask for help.