Dracul

by Finley Aaron

Lil’s been fiddling with her napkin again, and all the utensils fall out with a clatter. She glances up at me with an inaudible question clear on her face.

  Are you some kind of serial killer?

  Much as I’d love to assuage her fears, since she didn’t ask the question out loud, I suspect it would be even more alarming for me to try to answer it. Instead, I try to normalize my profession. “I come from a family of butchers. My parents taught me the art. They used to work for Jitrnicka’s when it was just a butcher shop. Our waitress, Zusa, worked with them. As Prague became a fashionable tourist city, the Jitrnickas realized they could do better in the restaurant business than as a meat shop.”

  Lil sips her water, eying me warily. “Do you like being a butcher?”

  How do I admit to a vegetarian that yes, I love my job? I love that it’s hard, physical work that keeps in me shape. I love that I get to use my swords for most of it, which works out to be excellent practice, not that I’ve had to use swords against any enemies since I slayed a bunch of vampires four years ago.

  But of course, I can’t tell Lil any of that.

  “It’s not bad. Nobody bothers me.”

  “That would be nice. The only downside to working in a bookshop is that people come in and interrupt my reading. And also, my boss doesn’t like me reading, so it’s no fun when she’s there.”

  “Your boss doesn’t like you reading? At a bookshop?” I’m puzzled. “Isn’t it helpful for you to be familiar with the inventory?”

  “That’s what I told her. But she always wants me to dust and clean the windows. We have the cleanest windows of any bookshop you’ve ever seen.”

  Our food arrives while Lil is finishing her sentence. We dine mostly in silence. Lil informs me that the pierogis are, in fact, quite good.

  I try to eat politely, cutting my meat into small bites and chewing each several times, instead of scarfing everything down as I would if I were alone. Still, I catch Lil staring at me, watching my steak (which is bloody, dripping rare) as I pass my fork from my plate to my mouth. You’d think she’d look disgusted, but she actually looks distinctly…hungry.

  “Did you want to try a bite?” I offer after I catch her watching me for the third time.

  “I…no. Thank you anyway, no.” She shakes her head hard, as though to erase the expression on her face, which is a starved sort of look that appears to eagerly accept my offer. “I can’t.”

  We finish our meals quickly, in spite of all my efforts to eat at a moderate pace.

  “Thank you for dinner. I need to go,” Lil excuses herself as soon as she’s swallowed her last bite.

  “Can I walk you home?”

  Terror flashes across her face. “No.”

  “Can I give you my phone number?” I’d prefer to ask for hers, but she doesn’t seem receptive to that request.

  “Really, no. I just need to go.” She scoops up her bag, thanks me again, and hurries away.

  The scent fades into the distance as she climbs aboard the nearest tram, and it whisks her away.

  I spend the next several evenings trolling all the tram stops, sniffing the air. The second evening it rains, which makes it difficult to smell anything, so I look up book shops, but all the shops I find are closed by that hour, and as far as I can tell in the rain, all have equally clean windows, which makes it difficult to narrow down which shop might be the one where Lil works.

  That same evening, I might have caught a whiff of yagi scent, but when I looked around, I didn’t see anything but shadows and rain. The raindrops wash the air as they fall, so if I did smell a yagi, you’d think it would have to be close enough for me to see it.

  Unless it was hiding.

  Which I suppose they do.

  The third evening is a lovely night. It’s a Friday and Jitrnicka’s is busy. I get there late after sniffing around town in vain. The only available table is near the street, lit by candles and streetlamps since darkness has fallen. I’m halfway through my steak, absorbed in eating, when I smell Lil.

  I look up and watch her approaching my table warily, her face turned to watch the street behind her. She doesn’t even look at me until she lowers herself into the empty seat across from me.

  Her face looks panicked. “Don’t make it obvious, but look behind me. Is there a creepy guy?”

  I look behind her. The outdoor eating area is separated from the street by narrow hedgerows on wheeled planters, which block my view. I half stand in time to see a figure in a fedora and trench coat as he steps into the shadows of an alley across the street.

  “Trench coat, collar pulled up, fedora pulled low, can’t see his face?” I relate what I’ve seen to Lil.

  If possible, her face goes even paler.

  “Do you know wha—who it is?” I correct my question almost too late.

  She shakes her head. “I’ve seen them every couple of days for over a week. It’s like they’re following me.”

  “Them? I only saw one.”

  “I’ve seen one far behind me, and then again ahead of me. I can’t imagine it was the same one. Nobody could move that fast. There have to be at least two of them. Maybe more.”

  I’m tempted to ask her what they smell like, but she’s already frightened enough, and I don’t want her to be any more scared of me.

  And anyway, I know what they smell like.

  “Can you see it now?” She doesn’t turn around.

  “It ducked into the alley across the street. Want some pierogis?”

  That hungry look crosses her face again. She looks so frail, but she shakes her head at my offer. “I should get home. I just—they were following me, and I came this way, and you were here. I—I mostly wanted to ask, to see if you saw what I was seeing.”

  She looks like she’s ready to leave.

  I’m nearly positive those are yagi that are following her.

  And yagi track dragons.

  I’m far from certain about what she is, but I know beyond a doubt I don’t want her to fall prey to the yagi.

  “Let me at least walk you home.” I scarf down most of the remainder of my steak.

  She looks behind her, to the darkness where the coated figure disappeared. Then she looks at me again, obviously torn between walking home with a butcher or being followed home by a yagi.

  I try not to take her indecision personally.

  “Let me at least walk you to your tram stop.” I pull out my wallet and toss money on the table.

  Lil looks like she’s ready to bolt. “Tram stop,” she affirms, rising.

  We round the hedgerow planters, and I can see the tram down the street, already pulling away from the stop. “It’s going to be a bit of a wait for the next car.”

  “Let’s walk, then. We can catch one at another stop. I don’t feel comfortable standing still.” She sets a surprisingly brisk pace. As she walks, she pulls out a key ring and places the keys each between her fingers, blades extended, tips out, so that if she were to punch someone with that hand, the keys would rip into them.

  She looks ahead with a determined glint in her eye.

  Something swirls inside me. I’m not going to lie—I’ve been attracted to this female since before I saw her face, ever since I smelled her. But seeing the way she soldiers forward in spite of her fear, the way she sets her keys, feeble weapon though they might be…it makes me feel things I’ve never felt.

  I’m a big guy. Sure, my older brother has always been bigger than I am, and I’ve lost nearly every wrestling match between us, but even then, I didn’t have to fear for my safety or my life.

  Much as I’d love to wrap my arm around Lil and protect her, she seems almost as afraid of me as she is of the yagi, and I don’t want to frighten her further. I wish I knew what to do.

  I also wish I had a sword with me, because about the only way to kill a yagi is to slice its head off, and if I had a sword right now, I’d charge down the alley and decapitate any yagi I might find.

  Since none of those things are options,
I settle for walking alongside Lil and sniffing the air.

  I can smell them. Even over the alluring scent of Lil, I smell yagi. They’re close, maybe even getting closer.

  Jitrnicka’s is a couple blocks south of Prague’s Old Town Square. Lil turns west, toward the river. I’m not sure if she’s headed home or hoping to come to another tram stop, or just walking away from where we last saw the yagi.

  We reach an intersection and she starts to cross the street, but I see a familiar figure in the shadows ahead.

  “Lil.” I grab her sleeve.

  She looks up, freezes, turns the corner, and hurries down that block.

  I glance back in time to see the yagi turn the corner after us.

  And I nearly I am certain it’s a yagi. They have a fluidity of movement that’s not human, a stature that may be human in size, but is distinctly cockroach-like in form, if a cockroach were to rear up on its hind legs and walk with its head up, like a human.

  Up ahead, across the street, a see another one slipping in and out of the shadows.

  How many are there?

  “Another one to our left.” I try not to look directly at the creature.

  Lil glances up, sucks in a sharp breath, and darts forward, almost at a run now. She may be slightly trembling.

  I need to get her out of here. “Where are we heading?” I ask.

  “We were going to catch the next tram stop, but we’re close enough now, we’re almost to the bookshop.” She ducks down another road at a sprint.

  We’re nowhere near any of the bookshops I found on my search yesterday, but Prague is full of shops tucked into out of the way places, and streets and alleys run through unexpected places, so it’s easy to imagine I may have overlooked it.

  She rounds a corner, stop shorts, and spins around, crashing into me.

  I’m staring after the yagi that just stepped back out of sight. As a dragon, I have unusually strong eyesight, even when I’m in human form, yet I barely saw the yagi.

  Lil must have unusually good vision, too.

  “We’ll go the long way around.” Lil darts off in another direction.

  I run after her, checking corners, sniffing the air.

  They’re close. Far too close.

  We round three more corners, and then Lil’s feet patter against steps as she descends behind an imposing centuries-old stone building.

  A sign-board hanging at street level reveals the name of the shop.

  The Prose Nest. The sign shows a picture of books stacked around like a nest, with a spectacled crow perched atop them like a lookout, except that instead of looking off to the distance with a spyglass, he’s reading a book.

  Cute.

  Lil unlocks the door, lets us both in, and then locks the door behind us.

  She’s panting heavily.

  It’s dark in the shop—the only light is orange lamplight pouring through the many windows from the street above. The shop is at garden level, almost a basement. There’s a sort of open area near the door, but the rest of the place is stacked high with shelves of books. Many of the aisles are only a couple of feet across.

  During the daytime, I’m sure the shop is an inviting retreat. But right now, in the darkness, with those creepy creatures after us, it’s spooky. There are too many places where anything could hide.

  I draw in a long breath through my nose. The yagi scent is gone.

  For now.

  “I think we’re safe,” I assure Lil, since she still seems to be trembling. Then I ask, “Who were those guys, and what are they after?”

  Her bright blue eyes catch the meager light, flashing fear at me. “I—I don’t know.”

  It’s not my place to tell her what I think they are. I don’t want to overwhelm her. But it would be helpful to know if she has any idea what she’s stirred up, and why. “I think they smell…distinctive,” I point out.

  “Yeah. Like crushed bugs, or something.” She agrees.

  It’s progress.

  “I wonder why?” I prompt.

  “Okay, this is going to sound weird, but I’ve gotten a few good looks at them, and,” Lil shakes her head, as though she can’t believe she’s really going to say it out loud. Then she confesses, “I don’t think they’re human.”

  Unsure what to say that won’t scare her more, I’m silent.

  She meets my eyes.

  “I think,” I confess slowly, “you may be right. Any thoughts on what they are?”

  Lil hits the light switches, and fluorescent light floods the shop as she heads down an aisle. “These books in this section.” She crouches low and runs her hand along a bottom shelf tucked into an out-of-the-way-corner. “They’re the reason I wanted to work here. I’ve never encountered books like these anywhere else. They date back to the time before my boss held this store, to when it was her father’s shop.”

  I have to get on my knees and press my cheek nearly to the floor to see their titles. Beastiary. Mythical Creatures and their Tales. On Diverse Arts. De Animalibus. A Brief History of Dragons.

  Though I’m tempted to grab the books and start reading immediately, one question seems more important than the rest. “Who was your boss’s father?”

  “Ignac Vrana. His picture’s on the wall near the door. He’s been gone over a decade. Anyway, I think my boss always felt like her father loved this shop more than he loved her, so she resents the shop like it’s a rival for his affection or something. She doesn’t spend much time here.” As she speaks, Lil pulls a book from the shelf and flips through it, her fingers traveling what appears to be a path familiar to them.

  She stops on a page with an illustration of a dragon in flight above mountains.

  It’s a sketch done in ink. I’ve never seen the drawing before, but I’ve seen sights like this more times than I can count. I and my parents and siblings are all dragons. I’ve watched them returning home over the mountains, wings outstretched just like these, so often I could draw the sketch myself if my art skills were any good.

  Lil looks at the drawing for a second of two, then snaps the book closed self-consciously.

  I raise a questioning eyebrow, but I don’t say anything out loud. She seems nervous, and spoken words might startle her.

  Lil stands and slips past me on her way to the front of the store. “I don’t know what those creatures were.”

  “But the books—” I stand, as well.

  She’s already to the end of the aisle, about ten feet from me. “Never mind. It’s silly.”

  “The illustration in that book, a dragon in flight.” I begin the question, unsure exactly where I’m going.

  Lil turns to face me. Her eyes hold fear, but more than that, confirmation. She knows exactly which illustration I’m referring to. She turned to it on purpose, out of habit, or perhaps because she felt afraid.

  Which is it? And why?

  I give her my most empathetic look. “Have you ever seen anything like that in real life?”

  Her eyes widen, then she scowls. “No. Dragons aren’t real.” She insists plainly, and turns away from me again.

  But her answer belies the message on her face.

  Her face, for an instant at least, clearly said yes.

  *

  That’s the end of the sneak peak of Basilisk. Depending on when you’re reading this, Basilisk may not yet be released. To receive an e-mail alerting you when it’s available, sign up for my newsletter at http://www.finleyaaron.com/#!contact/c1kcz. You can also follow me on facebook, pinterest, and/or twitter. Or simply check my amazon author page http://www.amazon.com/Finley-Aaron/e/B00Q4YBTRY/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1445209164&sr=8-2-ent

  Thank you again for joining me on this journey!

 

 

 
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