Novella: Blood of the Damned - Shadows Over Riga: The Nosferatu Experiment by Andre Michael Pietroschek - HTML preview

Chapter 1: The Risky Summons

The forest smells like rot and iron. Autumn in Latvia holds both the decay of leaves turning to mulch and the metallic ghost of blood. Not

hers, she thinks. Not yet. th The footsteps behind her have not stopped for six kilometers. Or maybe

twelve. Time collapses when you run. wi ce

Her name is Elina. She knows this. She was born in Riga, thirty-four d ffi years ago, because her mother called her by that name once before dying. After all, the invitation three weeks ago was addressed to her specifically. She knows this is the way just as she knows her own face, te intuitively, without immediate conviction. Right now, she is simply jogging through the forest at the edge of her endurance, lungs pulling

air that tastes like copper and pine resin, consciousness fractured iO ea

between present terror and the incomprehensible past seventy-two hours.

The invitation came on heavy cream paper. Hand-addressed. Her name Cr ob in careful calligraphy that suggested a woman, she'd thought, had taken time over each letter. The text was brief. Elegant. Impossible to refuse.

Your presence is requested for a gathering of significant consequence. M October 21st through October 23rd. Suduva Manor, outside Riga. All arrangements provided. You have been selected because you understand something others do not.

There was no signature. No sender identification. The postmark and stamp seemed Latvian.

She had researched for three days. Suduva Manor was a pre-war

mansion in rural territory between Riga and the coast, maintained by someone or some entity that preferred obscurity. Property records went back to the 1930s. The name appeared in old photographs. A nobleman's estate, beautiful in a precise, unromantic way. No recent

history. No public presence. th

She had called two friends. Both advised against it. One suggested it wi was a scam targeting naive professionals. The other suggested it was something worse, yet she didn't specify what. Elina had felt the pull

anyway. The certainty that you have been selected was not ce d

manipulation but recognition. Someone had chosen her. Someone knew her.

She had left Riga on the 20th of October. The drive took ninety minutes ffi te through a changing landscape, from urban sprawl to agricultural

margin to forest. The autumn was advanced, the trees surrendering iO ea

color with the exhaustion of those who had endured occupation. She had arrived at the manor gates as afternoon light turned metallic. Seventeen other people stood in the entrance courtyard.

That was three days ago. Cr ob

Now, branches whip her face; her left cheek blooms with pain where M bark has cut the skin. She doesn't slow. Slowing is death. She knows this with absolute certainty, though she cannot articulate how she knows it. The knowledge lives in her muscles, in the animal panic that has overridden everything learned and civilized in her.

Behind her: Footsteps, voices, the occasional shout in a language that might be Latvian or might be Russian. Multiple pursuers. At least three. Maybe more. They are not trying to be quiet, which means they believe

she cannot escape. They believe they will catch her. The forest will deliver her to them, or she will collapse, and they will simply walk up and take her.

She does not know this from experience. She has never been hunted th before. She knows it from a place deeper than experience, from

something inscribed in her genetics that predates her birth. wi

The thought arrives with such clarity that she stumbles. ce d

A root, maybe. Or the thought itself, snagging her consciousness. She ffi te catches herself against a birch trunk, white bark rough against her palms, and pushes forward. The footsteps behind her pause. They have heard the disruption. They accelerate their pursuit.

Elina accelerates, too. ea iO

The mansion courtyard had smelled like rain and old stone. The woman Cr ob who greeted them, the keeper, though no one called her that yet, had been precise. Elderly. Eastern European accent wrapped around careful

English. She had known their names before they introduced M themselves. Had mentioned personal details that seemed to suggest reconnaissance. She had fed them. Given them rooms. Let them mingle and grow confused about why they had been invited. Twenty guests. Elina had counted. Tried to find patterns. What connected them?

Most were in their thirties or forties. Mixed nationalities, yet

predominantly Eastern European: Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, and one who claimed Swedish and Russian heritage. One American. One British. One with an accent Elina couldn't place. All of them had arrived as individuals, though in the mansion they had begun to recognize

something in each other. A family resemblance that couldn't quite be th articulated. Similar bone structure. Similar height. Similar nervous tics.

The second evening, the woman who introduced herself as Magdalena wi ce had noticed it too. "We vaguely look alike," she had said. Not a question. Observation. "At least some of us. It's uncanny." d

That was when the windows had exploded inward. ffi te The glass had not just broken, it had shattered with the violence of

deliberate destruction. Gunfire, she realized, though the sound was iO ea

strange, dampened by the mansion's stone walls. People screaming. The keeper standing in the doorway between the dining room and the hall, completely still, as if she had expected exactly this. As if the

breach was scheduled. Cr ob Elina had run. She doesn't remember the decision to run, only the

recognition that stopping meant death. She had moved toward the rear M of the house, toward the kitchen, and from there toward the service entrance. She had heard more gunfire behind her. She had heard screaming from two of the men and one of the women. She had heard Magdalena's voice crying something in Polish.

She had not stopped to check if anyone else was escaping.

The forest has begun to change. The trees are closer together, denser.

The light failing, it's late afternoon now, or later. She has been running for perhaps two hours. Her legs have moved beyond pain into a numb, mechanical execution of muscle memory. Her breath comes in ragged pulls. Her vision is tunneling, the periphery darkening, consciousness

narrowing to immediate obstacles. This is shocking, she thinks th distantly. This is what dying feels like from the inside.

She forces her consciousness to expand. To look for landmarks. To wi ce assess the possibility.

To her right: the forest continues. To her left, she glimpses the edge of a d ffi road. Asphalt. The thin strip of civilization cutting through the forest. She does not know, if it is the road she arrived on, or a different road, te or a service road leading somewhere else. She does not know where she is anymore.

But roads lead to places. Places lead to towns. Towns might lead to ea iO safety.

She veers left. Cr ob

The transition from forest to roadside happens suddenly. She stumbles M down a slight embankment and comes out onto the asphalt, breathing hard. The road is empty in both directions. The afternoon light casts everything in amber and shadow. She looks back toward the forest.

The figures are visible between the trees. Three, she counts. Dark clothing. At least one is carrying something that might be a rifle. They move with the precision of practiced hunters.

She turns left and runs.

The road is newer than the forest around it, and the asphalt is surprisingly well-maintained. She runs for three minutes, maybe five

times, still unreliable, before she sees the vehicle. A truck, parked on th the shoulder, is facing away from Riga. Its engine is running. The driver's door is open. Someone is moving near the cab.

She does not slow down. wi ce

The person in the truck looks up, sees her, and makes a decision. It's a d ffi woman. Older. Latvian from the look of her. She seems to be debating between running and confronting. te

"Help," Elina gasps. The word tears out of her throat raw. "Please. ea iO Help!"

The woman looks back toward the forest. The pursuers have emerged Cr ob onto the road. They are still fifty meters away, but they are visible now. They are carrying weapons. They are moving toward both, Elina and the woman with the truck.

The woman makes a decision. She moves to the truck, climbs into the M cab, and reaches across to open the passenger door. "Get in. Now."

Elina gets in. The woman accelerates before the door has fully closed. The truck lurches forward, tires gripping asphalt. In the side mirror, Elina watches the three figures recede. They are shouting, but the

truck's engine drowns the sound. One raises the rifle. There is the crack of gunfire, and the rear window explodes.

The woman driving does not react. She accelerates harder. The truck th reaches the outskirts of what might be a town, a collection of Soviet-era buildings and modern convenience stores. She drives

directly through, not stopping, not slowing. Only when they have put wi distance between themselves and the forest does she finally speak.

"They were hunting you." ce d

Not a question. Observation, like Magdalena's observation about ffi te resemblance.

"Yes." ea iO

"What did you do?" ob Cr

Elina tries to think. What did she do? She attended a gathering. She was M seduced by mystery. She spent seventy-two hours confused and terrified by the presence of strangers she didn't understand. And then she ran.

"I don't know," she says.

The woman driving nods, accepting this. She reaches across and closes the truck's passenger door, the one that has been hanging open, and drives in silence toward Riga. The sun descends toward the western

horizon. The city lights appear gradually, then suddenly, and Elina realizes she is alive, though she doesn't yet understand what survival means. Behind her, in the truck's mirror, the forest is already forgotten. Ahead, the city rises like a monument to the possibility of safety.

But in her muscles, in her blood, in the genetic code she hasn't yet th

learned to read, something surges. Something pursued by three armed wi figures continues fleeing. Something inherited insists there are more hunters coming, and Riga is not a sanctuary, but the next danger zone.