Dracul

by Finley Aaron

  I haven’t seen a yagi in four years.

  Until last night.

  Okay, technically, I didn’t really see it. First, I smelled it—an odorous stench like a squashed bug, but with heavier, almost burnt undertones. It’s a distinct smell, one not easily confused with other things.

  Still, the yagi are supposed to be extinct.

  Gone.

  Eliminated.

  Un-smell-able.

  So when I was walking down the streets of Prague last night, my thoughts traveling their usual paths of how to make gold and why haven’t I been able to, I didn’t really understand what I was smelling.

  Oh sure, my nose recognized the stench immediately, but my brain refused to accept it. My nose was clearly communicating, I smell yagi, get ready to fight or run. But my brain was in fits trying to override that impulse with, yagi are extinct, you can’t possibly smell them. There is no point looking behind you, don’t bother looking—

  Fortunately my head is on good terms with my nose, so I looked.

  It was evening, that hour of twilight when it’s neither properly dark nor still light, but the streetlamps are still just flickering to life, and the walks are still filled with people scurrying home from work, so when I looked behind me, I first saw only people.

  But one of those people was wearing a trench coat with the collar up, and a fedora pulled down low, so I couldn’t see any of his face and also, I don’t think he had a proper neck.

  Yagi don’t have proper necks, just a seam between their bodies and their heads. They also have antennae which, in public places, they keep hidden under their hats until they need to use them.

  It ducked quickly into an alley, and when I followed and looked to see, it was gone.

  Like its cockroach predecessors. That is, assuming it was a yagi. I can’t say for sure what I saw was a yagi, but my nose was convinced and my eyes nearly were, too.

  There’s just the part where yagi are extinct and the lab where they were made was destroyed by explosions and burning flame, with nothing left of it.

  More than that, it’s been such a relief to have yagis gone—to not have to live in fear of them anymore.

  So I really don’t want that to have been a yagi I smelled and saw. I want it to have been a trick of the light, a fluke of fetid fragrance. An overwrought delusion, even, as long as it’s not what I fear.

  Because if it really was a yagi…

  All the peace we’ve known for the last not-quite-five years, all the progress we’ve gained, will be gone.

  So I’m strolling the city this evening, searching for yagi smells, breathing deeply, slowly, pulling in all the scents of the city and cataloging them in my mind.

  Food, mostly. It’s evening and people are cooking dinner.

  Exhaust fumes, flowers, trees, damp stucco, a cigar shop, and—in a crowd of people clustered at a tram stop—that mixture of humanity at the end of the day, faded perfumes, sweat, and exhaustion.

  Yes, exhaustion has a smell. It’s like a cross between dust and garlic.

  The tram stop folks are blocking most of the sidewalk, with other harried pedestrians squeezing past to get by. I’m in no hurry, so I step to the edge of the cluster and wait. The tram is coming up the street, windows open to the April evening.

  The tram has nearly reached me when I smell it.

  Not the tram itself.

  Not yagi.

  Most definitely not yagi.

  Something captivating, almost magnetic. What is that smell?

  The crowd before me moves forward and I surge into the tram with them, inhaling purposefully, following the scent. The smell is coming from somewhere on the tram.

  From someone on the tram.

  But it’s not a smell, not properly. It’s not something I can name, like a gardenia aroma with woody undertones and an orange peel finish. But for all its indescribability, it’s a strong thing, an undeniable thing.

  The tram car is crowded and I can’t find the source of the scent. It’s coming from further in. I’ve moved as close as I can without making a nuisance of myself trying to push past standing people, but I can’t get any closer until more people leave.

  It’s coming from my left, several rows up.

  We reach another stop, and this time, as more people move off than get on, I’m able to inch through the shifting crowd to get closer to the source.

  There’s an older couple holding hands. They’re adorable, but I don’t think they’re the source of the smell.

  A handful of guys in ties, probably heading home from work. I don’t think they’re it, either.

  A smallish girl with pale hair tied back in a braid. I can’t see her face. I can’t tell much of anything about her.

  But I think she might be the source of the scent.

  That’s troubling.

  I mean, she doesn’t look very old, at least not from the back. Maybe that’s because she’s so tiny. Granted, I’m a smidgen under two meters tall, which is quite tall for a man, but I’ve always felt short because my brother, Ram, is a smidgen over two meters tall. He’s always been bigger than I am, and now that I’m twenty-four years old, I haven’t grown any taller in a couple of years, and it seems he always will be taller than I am.

  All of which is to say, even though I’ve spent my lifetime feeling short in his shadow, I really am quite tall, so the fact the pale-haired girl is half a meter shorter than I am doesn’t mean she’s just a kid.

  She could easily be a short young woman.

  Which is kind of what I’m hoping for right now because that smell—

  That. Smell.

  How do I put this?

  It’s gotten inside my head. I have to see her face. Even if she gets off at the next stop, I will push past people if necessary just to get a glimpse of her.

  There’s a thing that’s famous among dragons, something all the other male dragons I know, save for my preschool-aged nephews, have experienced.

  The mate scent.

  Having never smelled it myself before now, I can’t say with one hundred percent certainty that’s what I’m smelling.

  But I can’t shake this scent or its pull or the uncanny need to see what the pale-haired girl looks like.

  To my relief, she does not get off at the next stop, and the crowd shifts enough I’m able to get close to her, so even though more people get on than off this time, and we’re crammed in to the point where no one has to hold the rails or handles because we’re propping each other up through sheer congestion now, I can see her because we’re standing tight together, so that she’s almost under my arm (I’ve got my arms up, fingers light on a handle, not for balance, but just to keep my shoulders out of peoples’ way (I have enormous shoulders)).

  At least, I can see the top of her head. She hasn’t looked up at all. It turns out she’s holding a book and is absorbed in its words, which is unfortunate because there doesn’t seem to be any chance she’ll look up on her own.

  But it’s also fortunate, because I can see just enough of a corner of one page to recognize the book she’s reading is in English.

  This is extremely helpful to know.

  I’m good with languages—I’ve picked up several in recent years—but because my mom was raised mostly in England and my sisters went to school for eight years in the United States, which was something they’d planned on and prepared for since they were little, English is our default language back home, and I speak it better than any of the others.

  So I can talk to her. I should talk to her. She probably won’t look up if I don’t.

  But what can I say?

  The tram rounds a corner and the crowd leans with the sway. I take advantage of the motion and shift one foot forward. From this angle, I can see more clearly the open pages of the book the girl is reading.

  It’s not a novel, as I might have expected. Instead, it appears to be a non-fiction book, a specialized encyclopedia of sorts. The heading on the page she’s reading says Basilisk, and I catch
a few lines, something about how the basilisk is a monstrous serpent, and anyone or anything that looks into its eyes will fall dead on the spot.

  Interesting reading for the commute home.

  It’s also promising, because if the smell I smell is really the mate scent, then it stands to reason that the girl in front of me is a dragon. So why shouldn’t she be reading up on monstrous creatures?

  I still haven’t seen her face, and it’s about driving me insane. What can I say that is witty and charming and won’t freak her out (because it can be alarming to have a stranger talk to you, especially on the tram where there’s no quick escape, and especially more, I’m told, when you’re a female—which effect I would imagine would be even stronger since this particular female is small)?

  We’re coming up on another stop. There’s every chance she might leave the tram. If I don’t speak soon, I’ll have to follow her off or risk losing her, and neither of those sounds like a good idea, since lurking strangers following her home is probably even more alarming to small females than strangers taking to her on the tram.

  And losing her isn’t an option. Not when I haven’t even seen her face.

  Maybe that sounds crazy given the circumstances, but here’s the deal: I have been searching my entire life for a female dragon. Part of the reason I’m so obsessed with making gold is because thus far, I have failed to find a mate, and making gold seemed like a goal I’d have more control over, something I could actually work toward instead of just putting myself in the right places and hoping for the best.

  But if there’s any chance the female beside me is a dragon, then there’s no way I can let her leave without trying to meet her and get to know her and possibly learn if we might actually be the same species, as I suspect.

  She might be the one. So I simply can’t let her walk away.

  I clear my throat.

  She doesn’t look up.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered a basilisk before.” I try to keep my voice non-threatening.

  She freezes.

  For a second, I’m sure I’ve terrified her and she’s going to take the next stop even if it’s not really her stop. But then she speaks without looking up.

  “Of course not. If you had, you’d be dead.” She has a slight accent. Russian is my guess.

  I chuckle, mostly from relief that she not only spoke, but spoke wittily.

  Still, she has yet to look up. I’ve got to keep talking.

  “I can only assume you haven’t met one, either, then?”

  She slips a bookmark into place and closes her book before turning to look up at me. Her eyes are blue—the purest, most vibrant blue. “Either that, or I’ve outwitted every one I’ve met.”

  My mouth has gone dry. I have no words. I may be grinning like an utter idiot.

  She isn’t a child at all, but a young woman. Her face looks like that of a twenty-year-old, though her eyes hold a wisdom and wit that seem older than that.

  She’s perfect.

  No, she’s not. She’s actually pale and anemic-looking, with dark shadows haunting her eyes and a blueish tinge to her skin, as though she hasn’t ever seen the sun and has insufficient circulation.

  But other than that, perfect, with a pert nose and small mouth and those eyes.

  Those eyes.

  She’s looking at me expectantly, and I realize it’s my turn to speak. After all, she closed her book for me. It would be rude not to talk.

  “I’m Felix.” I lower my right hand from the handle above, and somehow slip it through the cram of people toward her.

  Something like fear flickers across her face and she looks at my hand.

  We’ve reached the next stop and people are filing off the tram. She glances at the open door.

  She’s going to flee.

  But she doesn’t. Instead she slips her book into her left hand and lets her fingers disappear into my handshake. Her palm is tiny, but warm.

  She’s not a vampire, then. Vampires are cold to the touch. But why is she so pale? And how can her eyes be that bright, but yet not be luminescent? Dragon eyes are bright, but they glow. We can’t go out in public without color-dulling contacts. I have in a pair right now that make my scarlet eyes look brown.

  Her eyes are so vivid. Maybe she’s wearing specialized contacts.

  Or maybe she’s not a dragon.

  She pulls her hand from mine and hesitates another couple of seconds before offering me her name. “I’m Lilit, but you can call me Lil.”

  “Lil,” I repeat, and then physically clench my jaw to keep from making a joke about her size and the fact that L’il is short for little. Instead, I say, “That’s a lovely name. Fitting.”

  She scowls. “Do you mean because I’m little?”

  “No. Fitting because you’re lovely and it’s a lovely name.” The tram doors close. She’s not going to run away now, but she could easily decide to stop talking to me. “There’s a restaurant a couple of stops from here—Jitrnicka’s—have you tried it?”

  Lil starts to shake her head.

  She’s going to turn me down.

  “They have dining al fresco,” I mention the outdoor seating in case she’s afraid of going inside somewhere with me. “It’s a nice place. Some say their steaks are the best in town.” I don’t mention that part of the reason the steaks are so good, is that I cut them myself with swords. The restaurant belongs to the same butcher who once employed my parents. I’ve worked for him for a couple of years now.

  But Lil only shakes her head more firmly. “I don’t eat steak. I’m a vegetarian.”

  Chapter Two

  For a few seconds, I don’t know what to say. I have never met a dragon who didn’t eat meat. Dragons love meat. We’d live off of it exclusively if we could get away with avoiding the other food groups all the time.

  Dragons can’t be vegetarians.

  I don’t think it’s physically possible.

  Maybe she’s not what I thought. Maybe this smell isn’t a smell, maybe it’s another overwrought delusion brought on by my obsessive quest to learn how to make gold.

  But even as I think that thought, the smell tells me differently.

  I can’t give up. “They have salads.” I wrack my brain for items from the vegetarian column of the menu, which I’ve always ignored up until now. “Eggplant Parmesan, kolaches, pierogis.”

  “I love pierogis,” Lil’s face brightens.

  “Please come to dinner with me.”

  “Why?” Her blue eyes are full of misgivings.

  I open my mouth to respond, but no words come out, because honestly, what can I say? I think you might be a dragon? You smell good?

  These are not logical reasons for asking a girl to dinner, especially when I’m not so sure about whether she really could be a dragon, and the smell is not really a smell.

  What else is there? I can feel the hope fading from my face, and I offer the only remaining reason I can think of, pathetic though it is. “I get tired of eating by myself all the time.”

  Understand wells in her eyes for just a second before she blinks it away. “Are their pierogis good?”

  “I have no idea,” I admit. “But if you try them, you could tell me, and then I’d know.”

  She closes her eyes for a second, like she can’t quite believe she’s accepting my answer. “Okay. I’ll go.”

  “Thank you.” I want to say something more, something impressive or sparkling or captivating, but I can’t think of anything. My brain has been taken over by the scent that’s not really a scent, and the possibility, unlikely thought it may be, that I may have found a female of my own species.

  So we ride the tram in silence for a couple more stops, and Lil tucks her book into the knapsack at her feet, and then we reach the stop closest to Jitrnicka’s, and suddenly I’m afraid she may have changed her mind. “Here’s the stop.”

  She nods silently and follows me off the tram, keeping extra distance between us so we don’t bump together
in the crush of the crowd.

  Jitrnicka’s isn’t terribly busy tonight. It’s a Wednesday. Not a huge night for them.

  Of course they all know me there because not only do I cut their steaks, but I eat there several times each week. Zusa, the hostess, is kind enough not to say anything about the fact that I’m usually alone.

  “Felix!” She greets me with a smile. “Your usual table?”

  My usual table is in back, near the kitchen. “Something outside tonight. Děkuji, Zusa.”

  Zusa leaves us with menus.

  “Will it make you uncomfortable if I order steak?” I ask Lil.

  “I’m not offended by meat,” she assures me. “I just can’t eat it.”

  Unsure whether it’s safe to ask, I hesitate a moment before giving in to my curiosity. “Why can’t you eat meat?”

  She fiddles with the napkin in silence, and I fear I’ve asked too personal a question. But then she admits softly, “It doesn’t agree with me. I have a physical reaction.”

  “Like an allergy?”

  “Kind of like an allergy.” She nods, but her expression is blank.

  Weird. I’ve not heard of anyone being allergic to meat before. I guess it’s possible, though.

  We sit in awkward silence until Zusa returns and takes our orders. Then I attempt to make conversation, which ends up feeling a bit like an inquisition. Lil admits she’s from Russia, but studied at a boarding school in London.

  “My mother went to a boarding school in England.” I smile broadly, hoping she’ll feel some connection.

  Instead she frowns. “I didn’t like it.”

  “Neither did my mother.”

  We’re quiet a while longer. “So, what do you do in Prague?”

  “I work in a bookshop.” Lil almost smiles. “It’s over—” Lil seems to catch herself, and waves a hand vaguely. “That way, a ways. What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a butcher.”