Chapter Twelve
As they left the desk clerk rushed to the door to open it for Josephine. Harold thought he behaved like a fan opening the door for a famous Hollywood actress. The look Harold got from the desk clerk as he went through the door was more like a startled deer. Harold looked up at the sky. The clouds had broken up a little and shafts of light were shining down on different parts of the lake and forest. He smiled at the beauty of it as he let the desk clerk open the door for Josephine and closed it behind her. Getting in the SUV Josephine asked him, “What caused that goofy smile?” Harold was taken aback. Goofy?
“I’m not sure what you mean. The sun, clouds, lake, forest, it’s all very beautiful and that made me smile. It wasn’t a ‘goofy’ smile by any measure.” He turned the key and started the engine. Josephine said quietly to herself, “Looked goofy to me.” Harold ignored her.
Changing the subject, Josephine asked, “So, where are we going?” Harold grinned. She sounded like a woman asking her date which restaurant they were going to.
Harold pulled out of the parking lot onto the road, “I did a little research online. This is the South Shore Road, it runs along the Quinault River and has several roads off it. We’ll find one of those, drive up it, hide the SUV and see what’s in the woods.” Harold had been rolling down his window as he said this. He just couldn’t get enough of the smells of the lake and forest around them.
“Sounds good. Are we planning on hunting anything in particular?”
“Not really. I thought it might be best to see what you do in a hunt and then give you some pointers to improve your skills. How does that suite you?” Harold had seen draug stalk earðkin before, he wanted to see if Josephine would be able to do the same with fauna.
“Alright. But I must warn you, my hunting skills aren’t that good. Animals don’t behave like…” Harold heard her shift in her seat, “This agreement about what we don’t talk about is going to be difficult isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Harold smiled to himself. He’d just learned something. “Let’s talk about something else. Something non-controversial. Religion.”
“Hah! Non-controversial? Was that one of those famous English understatements or an attempt to be funny?” Harold could see her pure white teeth grinning in the darkness as she looked at him.
“A little of both. Seriously, I’ve studied the Beriyt and one thing that has always puzzled me is all the names you have for your god. Some think that you actually have many gods like my people do and when we say ‘god’ you really mean all of them together.”
“Oh, that. Yes, well there’s supposed to be 99 or 999 names for god, depending on what you read or hear. I’m not sure. Vampires have just one god. All the different names are ways for us to understand him. So when we say Al-Muzil for instance, we mean god the giver of dishonor. That’s the aspect of him that was applied to me by Henri when he found me drinking sheep blood.”
“Interesting. In a similar vein, Oðinn the All-Father and other gods have different names depending on their actions. We also use kennings to describe our gods. You have to know the sagas to understand who the kenning refers to.” Harold stopped himself. He knew if left to his own devices he’d talk for the next hour about this subject and he wanted to learn about draugar. “Is it true your people have to memorize the entire Beriyt?”
“Yes. It’s part of the mentoring when you’re first converted. You basically spend the first year reading, reciting and being on the edge of crazy for blood. Your mentor spends their time telling you over and over again how you are special and have a great destiny to fulfil. That and supplying you with…” Josephine went silent and in the darkness Harold could see she’d frozen into her statue form again. He realized she’d not be able to avoid talking about her past as a killer of earðkinar. He wondered if he could listen to her talking about it without wanting to cut her head off.
In the light of the high beams Harold could see a road on the right that didn’t seem to have a mailbox or house number sign and turned up it. It was unpaved and rough but the bouncing around in the SUV didn’t seem to bother Josephine. She sat motionless.
“I can’t do it, but I can edit what I say so you don’t have the compulsion to kill me for past crimes.” Her sudden shift from statue to turning and talking to him surprised Harold. He steered the SUV into an even narrower road that barely qualified as one. It was overgrown with new saplings and looked like no one had driven up it in several years. The saplings and branches broke under the SUV as he drove over a few and scraped alongside the vehicle. Another rental agency was going to be charging Harold for a damaged vehicle.
Harold turned in his seat to face her, “Very well. I will do the same.” Harold didn’t want to go into the subject any more than she did. It was difficult and uncomfortable for them both.
Getting out of the SUV, Harold walked around to the back and took off his coat and pack. Pulling out the camouflage netting he gave one end to Josephine and directed her to drag it over the back of the vehicle. He then walked back along the road and straighten up saplings he’d drove over. Satisfied the vehicle was hidden from the road he started undressing.
“Woah! Hold on there Harold! What are you doing?!” Josephine had turned her back but was looking over her shoulder at him.
Calmly packing his clothes into his pack Harold calmly explained, “Shifting to my full ulfhedinn form will rip my clothes and I don’t want to do that.” Tossing the pack onto the top of the SUV as Josephine altered between looking and not looking over her shoulder, he whispered, “Uller, I hunt tonight and will do so with skill and cunning.” With that he concentrated and released the ulfhedinn within him.
Josephine gasped and stared as Harold yelped and moaned in pain as his bones broke and grew, while fur spread all over his body. His back arched and then snapped forward and another moan of pain came from his changing face. Within seconds she was standing in front of the seven foot tall hunter who had shot at her in Coventry. She was terrified and took a step back. His face looked like a wolf’s, but his neck, torso and arms were like a human’s. His legs looked like a wolf’s but with almost massive thigh muscles. The fur on his sides and back was a dark red colour, his neck chest and stomach fur was a few shades lighter.
“I know, impressive aren’t I?” Hearing him speak was even more shocking. It didn’t seem possible to her that a creature like this could do anything more than growl and howl. Harold crouched down on his haunches. This put him a foot shorter than Josephine but didn’t make him seem any less dangerous and scary to her.
Harold smiled, which in his ulfhedinn form meant baring his teeth, “My form has changed. But my oath remains. I will not hurt you.”
“Uhhhh…OK. I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t know what to expect. You chasing me in Coventry was only the second time in my life that I’d seen a were…, sorry, ulfhedinn. Being this close and watching the change, it’s, well, it’s terrifying.”
Harold smiled again. His being terrifying was fine with him. “You may be one of the very few vampires that have ever seen the change.” He was about to add, ‘and lived’, but held his tongue.
“Does it always hurt?” Harold heard a tone of concern in her voice.
“Yes. But not as much as it did when I was young. Some of the older ulfhednar are able to make the change without whining about it like I do. It still hurts them, but with years it’s much less.” He thought back to his erstwhile pack leader. Alfred had always chided the younger ulfhednar about making noise when they changed. “But enough about me. Let’s hunt. What do you smell? Besides the car, road, me, and the trees.” Harold knew draugar could smell ulfhednar where-as earðkinar couldn’t. But as they didn’t have to rely on their senses to hunt, he wondered if their sense of smell was under-developed due to lack of use.
Josephine was staring at Harold and his question brought her out of her fascination with Harold’s changed form.
“Right. Yes. Let’s see.” She stood still breathing slowly in and out through her nose. Slowly turning around she said, “Ummm… raccoons I think, several of them. Some small creatures, squirrels? Two deer. I think.” Looking back at Harold with a ‘how’d I do?’ look on her face she asked, “What do you smell?”
“Before I answer that. What direction are the deer and how far away are they?” Harold was curious about how attuned draugar were to smells.
“Well, one of them is kind of in that direction,” she said pointing almost directly in front of the SUV down the overgrown road, then turning to the right she pointed, “the other is that way. As for distance, the one down the road is closer.” Josephine breathed through her nose again and added, “I think it’s a female deer.”
“Can you tell me anything about them? Their age perhaps?” Harold doubted she could. A domestic dog couldn’t, and her answers so far had indicated what his people had known about draugar senses.
“Their age? No. To be honest, I’m not sure about the one down the road. It smells like two deer but then it doesn’t. Come on, impress me with your ulfhednar senses.” She smiled at him in a teasing way.
“I will. There are four deer within easy hunting distance. The one down the road is a doe and her fawn. The one off to the right is an older doe. Further into the woods there’s a buck, a young one.” Harold breathed deeply through his nose, the woods were like a moving and changing multi-dimensional tapestry made of different textured threads. There were some ulfhednar who took on their ulfhedinn form and never changed back, preferring to live their lives in the mountains and forests. Harold couldn’t blame them. This world was a lot less complicated than the earðkinar world.
Standing up to his full height, Harold looked at Josephine, “The older doe, show me how you hunt.” Without a word Josephine turned and started sprinting through the woods in the direction of the doe. Surprised, Harold started running after her, alternating between running on two legs and four depending on the terrain or obstacles. He couldn’t believe how much noise she was making as she ran in a direct line to the doe. He smelled the sudden fear and surprise in the doe when it heard Josephine and heard it bolt away. Josephine changed direction to follow it. The doe was moving fast, slightly faster than Josephine was running. Harold knew the doe would run out of adrenaline and stamina soon but Josephine wouldn’t. She was going to run the doe down.
Harold ran a few yards behind Josephine, and out of habit, doing his best to hide his tracks as he ran. The doe ran deeper into the forest. It had quickly cleared the area that had been previously logged in years past and was into the old growth of the national forest. Harold could smell its panic and exhaustion. They were like glaringly bright ribbons floating in the forest to his senses. The doe finally stopped next to a massive moss covered fir. Its eyes were wide and it was gasping for breath. Josephine leaped across a fallen mother tree between them and sunk her teeth into the doe’s neck. She flew at the doe with such force they both slammed into the tree making the branches above shake. Josephine’s grip and bite didn’t break contact. Harold could hear Josephine sucking the blood from the doe’s neck. It violently kicked its legs and cried for a few seconds and then went limp.
Harold crouched on the root end of the mother tree watching in disgust. Finally sated, Josephine sat down next to the corpse and leaned her head back against the tree. She had blood smeared around her mouth and dripping from her chin, which made the relaxed, blissful smile on her face seem all the more grotesque to Harold.
After sitting there for a few minutes she looked at Harold with lazy eyes, “Well? Not bad for my second hunt of deer, don’t you think?”
Harold had to control his urge to express his revulsion. Rather than answering Josephine’s question he decided to see if he could get some information out of her while she was so relaxed. “Are draugar always so somnolent after drinking?”
“Mmhmm. A lot of us have places to drink so we can just lay down for a while afterwards. This forest is as good a place as any. It’s beautiful here. Mmmm… I could get used to this.”
Harold smiled, he was right, in her present state she was more verbose about draug life.
“Places to drink? Like a restaurant?”
“No, you hairy beast. Flats, apartments, houses. Some vampires have two or three homes in a city. Most have just one.”
Harold couldn’t help the smile on his face. Ulfhednar had tracked draug for two centuries but had rarely caught them in the act of killing. When they had it was out in the open and the draug were clearly desperate. Josephine had just explained why.
“The flat I saw you running out of in Coventry, yours?” Josephine’s eyes opened a little more and the relaxed smile disappeared.
“No. It belonged to another vampire that was out of town. A friend of mine. Or was. She probably despises me now. You didn’t answer my question. How’d I do?” Harold realized his last question was too close to the bone and it had brought her out of her stupor. He’d be more careful next time.
“How’d you? Terrible. The deer heard you crashing through the forest and started running almost immediately. You left tracks everywhere. And it was still alive when you started…feeding. It was in a panic and exhausted by the time you smashed it into the tree here.”
“Fuck you.” Josephine got up and stalked away a few feet and then turned back. “Fuck you! It wasn’t a human! It was a deer! I’ve renounced my people, my religion and would be killed by my oldest friends for doing this! Fuck you!!” She sprinted away. Harold sighed with regret. He wished he’d chosen his words better. Getting up, he started following Josephine’s trail through the woods at a slow running pace. The trail was easy to follow and the smell of blood on her was fresh. He would be patient and catch up to her when she’d calmed down.
After an hour of going higher up the mountains Harold caught site of Josephine. She was sitting on the crest of a ridge. They were so high up the mountains the ridge was bare but for a few stunted and wind shaped trees. He slowed to a walk and let himself be seen by her. She didn’t leave. He crouched on a rock a few feet from her.
“I’m sorry.” He let the words hang in the cold air and waited. Josephine didn’t move but looked in his direction and quietly said, “Apology accepted.”
They sat there for another hour in silence. Just watching the stars and clouds move across the sky.
When Josephine finally spoke it was with an almost reverent tone, “If there are other vampires like me, I can understand why they would want to live here. The mountains and forests are beautiful.”
Harold looked at Josephine, “You say that as if you’ve not been to mountains and forests before.” This seemed impossible to Harold. Why would someone, even a draug, not go into the woods and up mountains?
“I haven’t. Not since I was converted. We stick to cities. The larger the better. More…humans. Easier to blend in and well, hide from your people. I take it ulfhednar spend a lot of time communing with nature?” Harold could hear a slight smile and teasing tone in her question.
“Very much so. It’s where we worship, hold weddings, spend our time off, and of course hunt.” Harold didn’t add that many of the forest conservation efforts around the world were funded and even managed by ulfhednar. He didn’t want to give too much away.
Josephine looked at Harold in the eyes, they were light blue again.
“Sorry I blew up at you.” She said a little sheepishly.
“Think nothing of it. I was overly critical. You’ve had no training and this was only your second hunt. What you have chosen to be and not be has immense consequences for you and I was insensitive to that.”
They sat a little longer in the cold air. Harold’s fur ruffled in the wind occasionally allowing a gust to penetrate to his skin.
“Josephine, you may be immune to the cold, but I need to move further down the mountain. And I smell a few deer in the forest below. Would you like to watch me hunt?”
“So the mighty hunters do have a weakness.” She stood up and stretched her arms over her head. “Come on then, show me how it’s supposed to be done.”
They worked their way back down to the forest and once there Harold dropped to all fours. He breathed deeply for a few seconds.
“I have a buck, a large one. It’s old, but strong. It’s in that direction.” He jutted his nose down the hill to the left. “Do you smell it?”
“Yes.”
“Stay behind me as far back as you can but still keep me in sight. Move as quietly as you can.” With that Harold slowly walked down the hill to the right of where he’d pointed. The breeze in the forest was broken up by the trees but generally moved in one direction. He took his time working through the forest moving into a position so the wind was in his face and the buck was in front of him.
Ulfhednar normally hunted in packs, stalking their prey and then running it down or driving it into a trap the rest of the pack would spring. Harold had done that countless times but preferred to hunt alone and stalk his prey until he was so close only a brief sprint was needed to bring it down. His pack mates had called him “Pussy cat” because of his hunting technique.
Harold was close enough to see the buck. It was nervously looking up and around and sniffing the air between nibbles of lichen and moss growing on the side of a cedar. Harold crouched down and waited. He could smell the blood of the doe on Josephine’s face and regretted not telling her to wipe it off. It was that smell that was making the buck jittery.
After a few minutes the buck walked to another tree. As it stepped into a clear area between trees Harold suddenly dashed forward. He leaped at the deer as it turned to leap away from the noise of Harold’s movement. His leap was timed to catch the buck in mid-air. Catching the buck’s head and neck in his hands, Harold twisted the head around and snapped the deer’s neck. It was dead as they landed in the ferns.
Standing up over the dead buck, Harold raised his hands up to the trees and looked up, “Ullr of the hunt, Víðarr of the silent forest, I have brought down this deer and will enjoy its meat. Thank you for your blessings upon myself and my people.” Crouching back down he tore off a leg and ripped off a large piece of meat with his teeth. It was a little tough, but Harold had expected that as it was an older buck and he really didn’t mind. He had eaten all the meat off three legs and was starting the fourth when he finally thought to look at Josephine.
She was staring at him with wide eyes and look of utter revulsion on her face.
“Oh, and you are the very epitome of dainty when you suck the blood from a deer?” Harold regretted his words as soon as they left his lips. “Sorry, that was harsh.”
Josephine shook her head, “No, no, you’re right. We’re disgusting to each other. For all your quiet and patient skill, your refined and pompous attitude, you’re a vicious wolf in human form. For all my beauty and allure, I’m basically a blood sucking leech in human form.” She sat down on a moss covered log and brought her knees up to her chin. “We are what we are.”
Harold stood holding a leg of the buck and looked at her. His appetite was gone. Dropping the leg next to the buck’s body he walked over and sat next to Josephine.
“That is only how we eat. It isn’t who we are. I have a brother and sister-in-law who raise some of the finest sheep in England. I know many other ulfhednar across the world who are farmers, business professionals, scholars. You aren’t just a hunter and drinker of blood.”
Harold was surprised at himself, why was he counseling this draug and trying to lift her spirits?
Standing up he added. “Come on. We need to find a river or lake to clean up in and then get back to the lodge. You may not need sleep, but I would like to get in a few hours of bedtime before starting the day.”
He loped off a few feet and looked behind him. Josephine got up and started jogging behind him. Satisfied she was following him Harold, head for a small waterfall to clean up.
