The Guide

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  Tor had given in to Michael’s insistence that he have a steed of his own, but while the vampire was asleep, he lent it to Francesca. Her accompaniment on the journey, along with Jane’s, was unexpected and Tor would gladly give up something he clearly did not need in order to accommodate the ladies.

  However, he wished he had the horse now, if only to make a quick and inconspicuous getaway from the city. Even his wolf itched for open spaces and freedom to run. This had been the longest he had ever gone without shifting into his truest form, either for recreation or for ceremonial purposes. Unfortunately, from what he could tell, there seemed to be no end to this pivotal trading center. All around, he heard languages he recognized and others that were far more foreign. Faces pale, dark, black, and yellow met him with curious stares everywhere he looked.

  The chanting of prayers, ringing of bells, shouting voices of peddlers on the streets, tinkling of metal harnesses as carts made their way down the lanes, children and babies crying in their homes; all of it was enough to make Tor’s ears bleed, if he let his focus waiver. He pushed out the sounds, letting them become like the dull roar of rushing water. Instead of overwhelming him, it became a mild annoyance.

  Smells, both reeking and aromatic, vied for control in his nose. A few times, he had to resist the urge to retch, out of respect for the locals who passed them by. To anyone else, this looked like a procession of a wealthy merchant. They all bore the appearance of nobility or affluence with their private horses and clean clothes with fine embroidery that practically glittered in the sunlight.

  Tor wore the garments he had been given for the trip, though they chaffed and itched in places. He had been accustomed to the freedom of a linen robe for so long that he had forgotten how confining proper clothes could be. Most of all, he missed the feeling of the earth beneath his bare feet. These polished leather shoes were hardly practical to him.

  For all the clothes and accessories they gave him, Tor still looked out of place walking with the party. With his dark complexion and obvious exotic features, anyone might assume him a slave of the Italians. Yet, none dared to look upon him as a slave, as long as he still carried his staff and retained the sneering look of a man willing to murder on the spot. With how irritated he was in this hectic, harried territory, Tor didn’t doubt that he would stoop to such lows.

  Beside him, the black and windowless carriage wobbled along the uneven streets. The wheels, sturdy as they were, bucked and dipped over every little obstacle in their path. He couldn’t imagine how Michael, Yaverik, and Jane could sleep under such rough conditions.

  A softly spoken word confirmed it.

  “You’re upset,” Jane said.

  In the noise, it would have been a wonder if any human ear could pick up her words. Tor, however, was no ordinary man. He moved close to the side of the carriage and nearly missed stepping over a pile of fresh horse dung.

  He and Jane hadn’t spoken a word to one another since they were at the villa. Tor had heard Michael give her and her blood servant a strong reprimand for stowing away on the ship. He took advantage of the nighttime hours to sleep and rest up for the land journey ahead, so he didn’t have the chance to spend any time with Jane.

  “I’ve never been in a city this… big,” he said, searching for the right word to describe Constantinople. It was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, an important stop along the trade routes that connected the west to the east, but Tor longed for the quiet markets and scarcely populated towns along the Nile. Cairo and Alexandria rivaled the magnificence of Constantinople, but the air was vastly different.

  “Are Yaverik and your father resting?” Tor asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “They’re both asleep. I was asleep until your unease woke me.”

  Tor’s brows knitted together in confusion. “How could I have woken you? I haven’t spoken a word.”

  “When you’re born a vampire, you can sense the feelings of others. Sometimes, it’s strong enough that the emotion becomes your own.”

  Tor glanced heavenward. There were still so many things he didn’t understand about this world. “And now, you’re uneasy, too.”

  “Only a little,” she said, but he could hear the strained smile in her voice. “It’s like being pressed in on every side, but unable to move or breathe. Am I right?”

  She couldn’t fully appreciate how right she was. “I’ve spent most of my life in a temple with only the scarab beetles and cobras to keep me company. This is…” he could not find the word in Italian, so he said it in his native tongue.

  It brought a giggle out of her. “I love the way you say things. Say something else like that.”

  Tor sighed, thinking of what Michael had advised him their first night on the ship. He understood the vampire perfectly and Tor was not inclined to return Jane’s affections. Whether she had a fondness for puppies or not, Tor could not reconcile the image of a young girl with the fact that she was far older than she appeared.

  To play along, however, he said, “The Nile is life. The Nile is death. Forever let its waters run strong and proud.”

  It was a saying his father sometimes chanted to remind himself that with every blessing comes a curse, but as long as it exists, it should continue to do so. It was his father’s last words and Tor vowed never to forget them.

  “It sounds lovely, whatever it means.”

  He was tempted to tell her, but thought better. If Jane truly favored Tor, he had to make it clear that he was not interested in intimacy. She was Michael’s daughter, and though Tor was being paid a handsome sum for his services as a guide, he would never say that Michael employed him. He might have been Giovanni’s padrone, but not Tor’s. They were acquaintances, and nothing more, but he didn’t want to upset Michael by making a pass at his daughter by accident. Everything, including friendliness, could be misconstrued.

  “Are you angry that I came along for the journey?” she asked, true curiosity laced in her words.

  “I am not angry,” Tor replied. “I am… indifferent.”

  “Indifferent? Do you mean you would not care if I was here or not?”

  Tor let out a snort as an unpleasant, rancid smell crossed his path. “That is not what I meant,” he replied, perhaps a little too brusquely. “Like your father, I would have preferred that you did not endanger yourself by coming on this pilgrimage.” He looked to a few unsavory characters who were too busy inspecting long, curved daggers in their hands to notice that the Egyptian was glaring at them. “But, since you are here, nothing can be done, so there is no use being angry over it.”

  He heard Jane shift in the carriage, as if she were drawing closer to the barrier of painted wood and padding between them. From what he glimpsed, the inside of the carriage was quite comfortable with lounge beds and pillows for the vampires to recline on.

  “You don’t think like most men,” she acknowledged.

  “How is that?” he asked, looking ahead to a turn in the street that led under a canopy of clotheslines. Blankets and tunics were spread out along the lines, dragging down to graze the tops of the pilgrims’ heads who were riding their horses instead of walking.

  “Father was angry, so was Yaverik and the captain of the boat. Some of the men didn’t seem too upset, but they were too interested in other things about me to be upset.”

  Tor tightened his grip on his staff, and had to remind himself that there was no other staff like it in the world, so he needed to be careful not to break it.

  “But,” she continued, “you don’t seem mad, and it appears that you refuse to get mad.”

  “I have trained myself to suppress my emotions unless absolutely necessary.”

  Jane edged even closer. “For times like in the library when you nearly attacked Yaverik?”

  Tor shook his head. He remembered how he felt. Violent, ready to tear the vampire apart simply for existing in the same space as he. Yaverik was a threat, whether Michael said so or not. However, that did not excuse his outburst. “You were w
atching from some hidden place?”

  A young boy ran towards him and bumped into Tor’s side. He glanced back at the rangy youth, but the boy sped on into the crowd without so much as looking back.

  “No,” she said. “I felt it from across the villa and heard the way you growled at him.”

  Tor heard the shiver in her voice, but knew it couldn’t be from cold or fear. She was intrigued and aroused. Even through the carriage wall, he could smell it mingle in with the other scents of the marketplace they traveled through now.

  “Jane, I –“ he was prepared to scold her for having such thoughts and feelings towards a man that she would get nowhere with. Tor found her pretty enough, and as much as he was fascinated by her interest alone, it could never be.

  It wasn’t hesitation that stopped him from reproaching her. A sharp pain pierced through his gut that made him stagger on the path. Giovanni’s mare shuffled to a stop, but Tor refused to be the reason they slowed down. He took another step as the pain snaked through his limbs and numbed his fingers. He hadn’t felt such an urgency in many years.

  Once a month, the spirit of the wolf needed to take control. On those days, Tor simply changed into his beastly form in the morning and stayed that way all day and night until the following morning. His father had told him that was when Wepwawet was the most connected with his priests. Tor didn’t think that the need to turn and be one with Wepwawet would come during their expedition while he was away from the temple. Yet, here he was, feeling the throbbing need to shed his clothes and run free.

  “Tor?” Giovanni questioned from behind.

  “Are you all right?” Jane whispered.

  He looked from one to the other and nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. I just need…” He patted at his belt. His sack of dried meats was missing. Often times, the excessive eating of meat could hold the wolf back for most of the day if the change became inconvenient. He looked to the ground around his feet, then behind him, but could not see the pouch through the scurrying feet of the locals and traders.

  “I need my meat,” he muttered.

  He knew that Giovanni might not have heard him, which was a good thing. Tor wasn’t sure how comfortable Giovanni was around what he called werewolves just yet. Despite their awkward first meeting at the temple and long talks on the forecastle deck of the ships as they traveled the Mediterranean, there was a bit of hesitance in Giovanni. If Tor made too quick of a movement, the scholar flinched. If Tor was hungry enough, perhaps the werewolf would resort to human meat instead of the dried beef they had packed before leaving Italy.

  “Meat?” Jane questioned, a note of panic in her voice. It couldn’t be possible that Jane felt the same way. A creature who drank blood afraid of another who ate raw meat?

  “I had a pouch of meat and it’s gone…” An idea came to Tor and he struck the ground with the butt of his staff. “That boy,” he growled through his teeth.

  He was no stranger to theft, especially in the marketplaces back home, and he should have known that a place this size would be a breeding ground for thieves and orphans looking for an easy meal.

  Not this time.

  Tor immediately turned and handed his staff to Giovanni. “Hold this and keep going. I will return.” He pointed a cautionary finger at the curious scholar who ogled at the carvings in the wood. “Do not let anyone else touch it.”

  He would permit Giovanni to carry it, but no one else. It was too precious to be trusted into the hands of a stranger.

  With that, Tor turned away and darted into the crowd.

  It didn’t take long for him to pick up the trail of his beef, and followed it through the mass of humans, pushing some aside and gliding past others without knocking them to the ground. He found the boy running down a narrow alleyway between two tall buildings.

  Tor hurried forward just as the entryway became blocked by a cart. The merchant stopped and hopped down from his wagon to talk to a trader. Tor growled and found a neighboring alley. With the aid of some barrels and crates, he leapt onto the roof with great ease. He had spent a lifetime climbing over the structures of the temple and a bustling city was nothing in comparison.

  He found the boy exiting the alley into an adjoining street that was slightly less busy than the first. Tor followed him along the rooftop, leaping over the chasm between the homes with his inhuman agility, and dodging under clotheslines. Several of the locals saw him from below, but he didn’t care. He would have caught up with the runt sooner if his clothes were not as binding. If he had no respect for Michael, he would have discarded them long ago.

  The boy ducked through another alley on the other side of the street. Tor ran and jumped from the building. Upon landing, he rolled across his shoulders, tearing some of the fabric across the back of his vest against the sandy ground.

  Pedestrians shrieked and shouted as Tor pursued the boy into the alleyway, which wasn’t an alley at all. Wooden planks that bridged the space between the two buildings on either of the corridor blocked out much of the hot sun. At the end was a door.

  Yet, as Tor grew closer, he felt something he hadn’t felt since his father breathed his last. The back of his skull tingled, alerting him to the presence of another priest of Wepwawet. Though, it was vastly unlikely that another priest would exist this far from Egypt. Unless, it was one of these werewolves, the ones Michael and Giovanni had told him about.

  He heard the voices of men just beyond the door and charged forward. Werewolves or not, he needed his meat. The whiney voice of the boy met his ears and then a sharp crack as skin met skin with considerable force. Tor snarled and all went still.

  A voice called out, but he didn’t know the local language enough to respond. Instead, he gripped the loose handle on the door and ripped it open to let himself in.

  Inside, a group of men stood around the boy. Other youths, a little older, stood to the sides and against the walls of the room. All dressed in the torn and tattered garments characteristic of beggars and street rats. The older men, the ones who were werewolves, looked to him with suspicion, their dark eyes narrowing.

  From the looks of them, Tor knew they must have been locals. They weren’t so unlike him, except their skin was a few shades lighter than his own. They were dressed better than the boys, in clothes that didn’t sport holes at the elbows and seams, but neither were they wealthy.

  This must have been their den, a private place to store their loot. Glancing around, the room seemed sparsely furnished with colorful pillows and rugs laid across the ground in no particular order. Light from above was provided by a loose lattice work with vines weaved along the struts.

  The one who exuded the most confidence stood in the center. All of the werewolves were muscular, just as Tor was, but this man was half a head taller than the others, with a harder look in his eye. Tor was sure that the only reason they tolerated his presence was because he was also a werewolf, like them. If he were human, they would have thrown him out already, or worse.

  The leader jerked his chin at Tor and asked something, but again, he did not understand.

  “The boy stole my meat,” he said in Coptic, perhaps the only contemporary language that they would understand.

  He was wrong. The leader shook his head as the others peered at Tor and his strange clothes.

  Tor repeated himself, this time in the ancient language of the Egyptians, his father’s language. Again, they did not reply.

  If they were werewolves, then perhaps they would understand the language of Wepwawet. It was a different formulation of sounds that Tor knew was distinct from any other language in the world. It had been passed down through the priests, created at the dawn of time by their god. If Michael was anywhere near correct, they would understand this language.

  Tor tried one more time and the leader’s brows perked up. He looked to the boy who clutched the open pouch in his trembling hands. The leader snatched the meat away and approached Tor.

  He almost wanted to pity the boy for the bright red mark on hi
s cheek. It was clear that he had failed his leader in some way.

  “I apologize for him,” the leader said in the ancient language. “He thought he had stolen money.”

  Tor glanced at the boy’s dejected face. “I don’t know if I should be relieved.”

  The leader, whom would have been considered a high priest in the temple back in Asyut because of his stature and knowledge, chuckled. “He also should have known not to steal from his own kind.”

  “He is still young, he wouldn’t know.”

  The boy still had quite a bit of growing up to do before the wolf spirit would receive the gift from Wepwawet. He could tell that some of the other youths in the room had just as long to go. Others, might have turned fairly recently, judging by the way they stood away from both factions, one of the group, yet not belonging to either childhood or adulthood. He knew their pain and sympathized.

  “Yes, but in times such as these, we all need to learn quickly.” Tor wasn’t quite sure what the man meant, but nodded anyway and cinched up his pouch. “Where do you hail from?” the leader asked.

  “I am from Egypt. My traveling companions are from Italy.” It might have been foolish to give so much information, but there was a kindred spirit about this den of thieves and the werewolves within it. “I ask that you not harass us as we make our way through Constantinople.”

  “Istanbul,” the leader corrected.

  Tor gave a short bow of his head. “My apologies.”

  “It is fine,” he said with a flippant wave of his hand. “Many foreigners do not know the difference. Some do not care. Either way, we will stay clear of your caravan.”

  Tor thanked him and turned to leave, but the leader grabbed Tor’s arm to stop him.

  “Friend, I must warn you that there are greater dangers in the city. We are the only pack, but there are other groups of men that will not be so lenient with you.”