They stood before the house on their way to the dock. The day was still bright, but the shadows were now growing long in the afternoon and there was a wall of clouds off to the west.
"I think that we should hurry a little, Lia," he said, "that could be the first of the cold rains that come here in the autumn. I only need to get my clothes and the papers that Elena bought for me from the barn."
He came back from the barn dressed and carrying the rest of his few things. She'd gotten dressed herself in the meantime. "Don't you have anything for the cold?" she asked.
He shook his head, "Let's go now."
The wind picked up even more as they got underway, but once out of the channel and pointed at the town, it helped to speed them on their way. "Don't you want to get a last look at your island?" she shouted over the breeze.
He shook his head as he began to pull the old shotgun shells out of the box to begin tossing them overboard. "No, I've seen enough of it."
Lia watched the deliberate way that he did it. He saved the ones loaded with silver slugs for the last. Reaching for the old scattergun he looked at it and then looked up at her.
"I feel strange throwing this away." he said.
"Why didn't you use it on yourself when you finally had it back?" she asked him.
He smiled and broke open the breech to pull out the two shells there. He handed them over to her as he dropped the shotgun over the side where it was instantly gone from sight on its way down to the deepest part of the lake. She looked at the old shells and noticed the dents in the primers.
They'd been fired but they hadn't gone off.
"I tried all seven of them against my chest yesterday, many times in each barrel. They are too old to work anymore." he said with a shrug.
She stared at him, and thought of kissing the two dud shells for saving his life. She let them go overboard as well.
She shook her head, "And you knew this and yet you played our hunt all day with me, knowing that I might have killed you? My old friend is the bravest man ..."
She pointed to her weapons, "Please throw mine over too, and don't forget the throwing knives. We can't travel with them."
They got to the marina dock and she hustled to get him into her rented van as soon as she could after returning the boat. She twisted the key and set the temperature control as high as it would go and she drove them to a clothing store. The sky was completely overcast now and the gloom of the late afternoon was almost a palpable feeling.
Twenty minutes later, he had his first jacket and Lia was pleased that he'd chosen one like hers. "We still look like a set," she laughed as they trotted through the cold rain.
Nikki noticed a face that he knew in the window of the realty office. He asked Lia to come with him for a moment. He had something to do, he told her.
Stan Beamish smiled as he shook hands. "This is a surprise. I can't believe that you're allowed out on your own." Stan winked.
He introduced the woman there in his office with him as his wife, Maggie. When Beamish had introduced Nikki as the subject of Helen's book, the woman stared and then grinned, "Stan told me that the book was written about the man who came to farm on the island, and what he had become. I loved the book, but of course I never believed it, ... Are you really him? You look so young."
Nikki blushed, "Yes."
It was obvious that Mrs. Beamish didn't believe him, but she was too well-mannered to call him on it.
Nikki struggled for a second, "Stan, I consider you to be my friend. I came to say goodbye. I am leaving. Elena and I are no longer speaking. She is signing her books somewhere and we are not together now for a few weeks. If you see her, please tell her that I wish her only the best, but I cannot act like the pet that she wants me to be anymore."
The old man's face fell a bit as he nodded, "I was a little afraid that it wouldn't last between you. I always asked her where you were whenever I bumped into her around here. She always gave me a reason that sounded like you weren't ready to come over. I had a call from her a few days ago. It sounds to me as though she might not be back for a while now. She asked me to look in on you and close the house up for the winter."
"I understand," Nikki said, "Could you also tell her thanks for me? I am sure that she didn't mean for this to happen, but her book has been sort of a gift to me. Please let me introduce you to my friend, Lia," Nikki said. "We were children together long ago, before this curse on our lives. We are going to be married."
Beamish shook the hand that Lia offered, "We've met, Ion. She came to ask me questions a few days ago. Congratulations! So you're like Ion?"
She nodded, "We were lost to each other from the time that we were twelve or so. His wife bit me even before she came here to bite him. She was my cousin and told me nothing about the man who she would marry until it was done. You know him as Ion, and that is his first name, but he is Nikki to me."
"I read the book that you wrote with Helen and I almost knew that it was him in it. It might surprise you to know how far the book has gone. My old copy was purchased in Bucharest, and I didn't begin to read it until I was in the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. I think you should feel a little bit proud of that."
"I do," he laughed, "I'd never have guessed that it would go that far. My other book never made it out of this area. Where are you going now then? This is a bit sudden isn't it?"
"It is sudden, but you only have to understand us, and it might make a little sense," Lia said, "Neither of us was born like this. We began like you. We were friends from the time that we could say our first words. Our mothers used to bathe us together in the same laundry tub. Nikki and I are leaving to go home to the Carpathian Mountains where we were born. We are getting married perhaps sixty-five or seventy years later than we'd ever planned to when we'd first promised ourselves to one another."
She smiled as an idea came to her. "I think that when we get settled, I would like one day to contact you to give you some notes if you ever feel like writing another book. This one would be about us. It is a long sad tale, but I think now that it comes to a happy ending. You could have a follow-on to the first book. Please give me an email address if this interests you. I would hope that if it does, that you might want to write it by yourself. I have also read the book that you wrote about this area's mysteries. I enjoy your writing style better than Helen's."
Stan reached for his stack of business cards and wrote his personal email address on the back of one, "I think that would be an interesting story, Lia. Please write to me at intervals anyway, and I'll let you and Ion know what's going on around here. What do you do there, if I might ask?"
Lia laughed, "I do not think that you really want to know this, but if Nikki calls you his friend, I don't see the harm - especially as you know about us, I mean, what we are."
She glanced at the expression on Mrs. Beamish's face and grinned, "Besides, who would believe what I am about to tell you? There are more of us, Mr. Beamish. For a long time now, we have done things a bit differently. We live among you peacefully, and wish to harm no one. That is how we survive rather than as beasts. In order to do that, we cannot tolerate a werewolf who kills humans for food or out of the madness that besets us in the time after their first change. Those who do are hunted down. We exterminate them ourselves. We cannot allow that behavior if we are to exist with humans. Does that make sense to you? It's not a big stretch if you consider that in your own society you do not allow serial killers either. We know that to humans, we are very hard to kill, so we remove the threat to you ourselves since we have hunters for that purpose."
Maggie looked as though she was about to scoff, but Stan nodded. He could see the sense of it. "And what part do you play in that, Lia?"
"I am one of the huntresses. Over more than fifty years, I have averaged better than two kills per year. I was on my way to four for this year, but I had no proof that the one here was murderous," she indicated Nikki.
"Imagine my joy to find my old friend at last." She smirked, "And try to imagine how it felt to hunt him for a full day to the best of my ability while he had the time of his life turning the tables or just eluding me as though I was an amateur at this."
"That sounds like a hell of a chapter right there, Lia. Please be sure to write to me. I'd love to know more of it."
They wished each other the best after Nikki informed Stan that the old gun and the shells were now where they wouldn't likely cause anyone harm. As soon as they'd gone, Stan began to scribble notes to himself and tried to learn where those mountains might be. He loved the idea that Lia had floated in his mind.
His wife laughed at him for believing a word of it.
Out in the van, Nikki turned to Lia. "Would you really let him write this book?"
Lia shrugged, "I doubt it. I don't think the Federation would be happy to know that a huntress might be in a novel. But if I could think of a way to do it without that part of it, maybe. And anyway, you and I would have to agree, and ... " she threw up her hands in a helpless gesture that made him smile before putting the van into gear.
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"Where are we going now?" He asked Lia as they drove through the rain.
"I thought that you might like something to eat," she said as they pulled into a restaurant lot. She smiled at him, "The choice is yours, Nikki. That one serves what is called 'fast food'. It is designed to be informal, and not really expensive. The food comes quickly, and you can find places from this company all over the world. The other one is more of a regular restaurant. They serve better food, but it takes a little while before it comes to your table. So which one? That one is ground beef, and this one is steak."
He pointed with a smile, and she laughed a little. She was in that lot anyway, so steak it was.
He let her order for him and was pleased with his choice of establishment, since he sat across the table gazing at her in the soft glow of the candles there on the table. He shook his head, "I would have laughed if I'd had the idea this morning that I would be here now with you of all people. My hope to see you again left me a long time ago when I thought that I would be on the island forever. To me, you were gone from the world."
