Dan
Scandinavian Territories, 793
He was still young when his father returned home, the age when a boy realizes he’s no longer a child, but far from a man. He was a decent seaman and excelled in combat—more so than his mother preferred—but he was too young to be included in the raids, long voyages where groups of men would explore faraway lands to pillage for gold. He counted the days until they returned, hoping this would be the last voyage he’d witness waiting on shore.
He remembered watching the ship materialize out of the fog on an unusually cool midsummer morning. He’d shaken his younger brother awake when he heard the arrival horns, the two of them racing to the harbor barefoot and still in their bedclothes.
The raiders exuded joviality, regardless of the exhausting voyage, and his father all but leapt from the ship when he saw his sons. “I have brought you gold from faraway lands!” he exclaimed, beaming with pride as he squeezed them tight. His clothes and furs stank, coated with grime, dried blood, and sea air, but they burrowed into his chest unaffected, grateful their father had made it home.
The following evening was alive with celebration, the entire village roaring with bonfires and drenched in mead as the raiders regaled their clan with wild tales of marauding. Children ran about gaily, well past the point of slumber, wolves adding to the frenzy as they begged for scraps from the fresh slaughter. One trotted up to him, settling itself across his feet like it did for no other, allowing him to scratch between its ears.
“Ulfson.” His father appeared from behind him. “Why are you not running along with your brothers and sisters?”
Annoyed that his scratching had been interrupted, the wolf sulked as it slipped away. Dan frowned. “I should be sitting with the men.”
His father smiled, a twinkle in his eye. “Ah, yes. Next summer, you might be.” His breath was sweet with mead.
“Not if I have a say in it,” his mother negated, sneaking up beside them. She wore her best jewelry, her long blonde hair, dusted with gray, in loose braids atop her head. “Ulfson will marry first and start a family before he joins you on your voyages. He needs to learn how to be a proper man before he sets sail.”
“Bah!” his father said good naturedly, taking a swig of his mead.
“Look, someone has her eye on him already,” she teased, her eyes flicking towards the back of the gathering hall. She pulled his father away before he could protest, as Dan’s eyes caught the woman his mother referred to.
He knew her, but he hadn’t seen her since childhood, and it seemed that she’d gained a womanly shape overnight. Her light blue eyes danced as she caught his, a cascade of light blonde hair spilling down her back.
“Nanna,” he whispered. His mouth had gone dry upon sight of her, and he hurried to moisten it with mead.
She approached him with a smile. “Your wolf ran off.”
“The wolves belong to no one,” he said, then immediately wished he hadn’t, his voice a bit gruffer than he had intended.
Fortunately, she did not seem bothered by his retort. “I like to believe they are yours. You are the only one amongst the men who they listen to. You have been given the perfect name, son of wolves.”
Dan hoped the firelight dancing around them did not reveal his reddening cheeks.
The low music that had been playing around them suddenly escalated in tempo and she brightened. “Will you dance with me?”
His cup and its contents sloshed to the floor as she pulled him forward, adding them to the throng of convivial bodies who now hopped and twirled around the banquet hall. Upended tables smashed to the ground, sending dishes flying, as grown men threw themselves around in uninhibited displays of mirth and merriment. He lost himself to her that night, the gods sealing their fate as they swirled happily around their brethren.
They wed on the shore at Yuletide, snowflakes catching in her icy blonde mane and the red flowers of her crown. She tasted of sweet milk and honey, her skin smooth and soft under his fingertips.
He was grateful to have lost his senses as the wolf tore through them all, but when he awakened to see her pale skin sliced to ribbons, her hair clotted with crimson, it burned an image into his mind that he would never forget. He had retched immediately, staggering backwards and nearly tripping over what lay behind him. With horror, he discovered his entire village lying slaughtered in the fresh snowfall, the nearby waters running red with their blood. He could hear wolves howling mournfully in the distance, but somewhere inside he knew it hadn’t been them.
He looked down at his tattered clothes, realizing he, too, was covered in gore, his fingernails ripped and torn, his arms covered in scratches. His mouth carried the sharp taste of blood and bile, bits of wolves’ fur still clinging to the pieces of cloth that hung around his trembling body.
He didn’t realize he was running until he reached the edge of the cliff, the one the elders had named Dead Man’s Jump, a precipice that stretched high above jagged stones jutting menacingly out of the ocean waves. Many an enemy had been tossed off the cliff, and the villagers were well versed in the tales of the ghosts who still lingered nearby.
The wolves’ howling grew louder as he closed his eyes, the salty spray of water stinging his open wounds as the sea beckoned to him. He could not remember, but he knew, deep in his bones, it had been he who had killed them all. He had changed somehow, into what he was uncertain, but the way the wolves sang a somber requiem gave him an idea.
He slipped closer to the edge. Forgive me, he begged the gods, hoping for mercy in the afterlife. The shriek of a raven gave him pause. He turned, his eyes wide as he witnessed Odin, the All-Father, standing before him, the weathered skin of his face twisted into a scowl.
“Son, there is work for you here.” His mouth did not open to speak, his voice instead echoing in Dan’s mind. Wind whipped at his long gray hair, causing it to lash the hollow space where his eye should have been. “Do not end your life with dishonor and turn your soul away from Valhalla. Gods have shaped your bones and warrior blood runs in your veins. You will bring the wolf to heel.”
Dan willed away his tears and nodded. He backed away from the cliff’s edge, watching as the apparition dissipated with the wind. He sprinted back into the woods, hurtling through the trees, as far away from the corpses of his dead clan as he could muster. He stopped only to vomit when he thought of his family’s blood still lingering in his mouth and stomach, imagining the stark terror that must have been in their eyes.
He didn’t collapse until daybreak, falling into a cold, dreamless sleep in the frosty brush of the forest floor.
Several days passed before he stumbled upon another village, nestled in the hills near a small stream. He had grown weak with hunger, the allure of fresh food and clean water dragging him forward. He barely made it past the fence that surrounded the closest farm when he collapsed, drawing the attention of a woman who had been gathering water outside.
She brought him into her home, mystified by the extent of his wounds and dehydration, and ordered her two sons to bring her water and bread as she draped him in furs to quell his shivers. Dan was completely at her mercy, letting her care for him as he trembled, his frozen extremities warming themselves painfully back to life. He drifted in and out, nightmares of his mutilated wife and mother plaguing his subconsciousness.
Finally, he awoke in full health to find the woman’s home empty. He gingerly raised himself from the sickbed, curious where she and her children had gone. He could hear the echo of voices gathered, wondering what transpired without him.
As soon as he opened the door to greet the setting sun, he was accosted by two full grown men who grabbed his arms and hauled him to the place where he’d heard the commotion. Although Dan was larger than most men, they bore impressive strength, maintaining their grasp as they dragged him into the center of town.
A large crowd had gathered, draped in furs and holding torches that fought the cold. The men pulled him to the forefront where the chief of their tribe stood waiting with an axe. Dan panicked as the realization hit him. He tried to flee, but his head spun, still weak from exposure. His captors shoved him easily to his knees, the chieftain scowling above him. His full beard shook as he spoke. “You, Ulfson of Valok, are hereby sentenced to death for the murder of your clan.”
“Please,” Dan begged. “I do not remember killing them—it was a wolf that lives in me!”
The mob jeered.
“Believe me!” he cried. “I went to throw myself over our cliffs once I realized what had happened, but All-Father came to me, ordering me to live!”
The crowd chuckled their disbelief. He searched their faces frantically, dismayed there was no kindness to be found, not even in the eyes of the children standing solemnly nearby.
Dan sighed in defeat, watching tiny flecks of snow turn clear as they hit the blade. Perhaps it was what he deserved, the cure to his curse. Odin would understand since it was not by his own hands. Perhaps he would allow him a place to rest in Hel. He ceased fighting against the men who held him, bowing his head to expose the nape of his neck, his ash blonde hair sweeping the ground as visions of his wife’s tiny frame danced in his head.
Before the chieftain could strike, a woman pushed forward, preceded by the jangle of bracelets and charms, her hand clasped around a staff carved in symbols. “He tells the truth,” she declared.
Murmurs and scoffs rolled through the horde.
“It is true,” she said, walking up to the post and laying her hands on him. Her hands were warm with power, the scent of wild herbs caught in her long white hair. “He is a reincarnation of Baldr, the bright one, son of Odin, fused with the horrible soul of Fenrir, the wolf.”
The crowd gasped.
The chief frowned as he crossed his arms. “If he has the son of Loki attached to his soul, it is all the more reason why he should die.”
“We do not question the gods,” she reminded him. “Odin spared his life, we must do the same.”
“Then what are we to do?” A woman called out. “He cannot go unpunished for the murder of an entire clan!”
The Völva stared at him in quiet contemplation as the snow picked up around them, its frosted fingers twirling her hair. “We will bind him now and when we are finished, he will be labeled skógarmaðr, banished to the woods.”
The mob gave their approval.
Dan’s relief was fleeting, for the two men who held him now pulled his body flat across the wooden plank he was originally forced to kneel upon. They tied both his legs and arms together with rope, holding him firmly in place as the Völva moved closer.
“What are you doing?” Dan cried.
He heard the bleating of a calf as it was dragged forward.
“Odin,” the Völva called as she stretched her arms up to the sky. “Accept our sacrifice as we bind your son from the cruel tricks of Loki - let our mercy bring us your good fortune!”
A man hoisted the calf high above Dan as it squirmed. The Völva swiftly unsheathed her knife to slice its throat, releasing a waterfall of hot blood onto him. Dan fought revulsion, struggling fruitlessly at his bounds as the scent of raw viscera choked him, reminding him of his slaughtered clan.
Dan fought to see through his shroud of fetid crimson, blinking rapidly to see a thin-lipped woman approach, carrying a bowl in one hand and bone shards in the other. She handed them to the Völva who now knelt beside him. The elder witch dipped a sharpened bone into the bowl and pulled it out to reveal black ink, then with a small hammer, she began to etch his skin. He howled in pain, but the men tightened their grasp.
The other woman dipped her bone and carved his skin simultaneously, dragging the point across his flesh until it pulled out his blood, both his and the calf’s swirling and mixing with the ink. He gritted his teeth as he looked up at the sky, who released gentle snowflakes to kiss the wounds creating tiny pools of gore beneath him.
“This pain is nothing like what you have done to your kin,” the Völva reminded him. “Find power in it. It is in the pain of these markings, created of blood and ash, that will prevent you from becoming the wolf for twenty-five days of the moon. When she is at her fullest, the markings will no longer hold you, and you must hide yourself away from all creatures. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Dan whispered, closing his eyes.
After several hours, the women finished, and the men released him. The crowd gathered, watching him try to upright his now doubly weakened body, his skin throbbing. They had covered him from his neck, down his arms, down his legs with runic letters and symbols he could not understand.
“You, Son of Wolves, are banished from contact with any of our tribes,” the chieftain commanded. “Go, but if any one of us should look upon your face, we have the right to murder you without fear of the axe.”
Dan fell off the platform, stumbling as he forced his legs to move. The woman who once nurtured him showed another bit of mercy, tossing him a thin blanket to cover his wounds. Kindness was absent from the rest of the crowd, however, who jeered as he staggered out of their territory. He limped as far away as he could manage, back into the protection of the forest. A blanket of snow had covered the ground as he withstood his mutilation and he collapsed into it now, his skin prickling from its bite. He pulled himself towards a nearby thicket for shelter, wrapping the blanket tightly around him. He thanked the gods for their mercy, wondering as he shut his eyes if he would even survive the night.
London, 1857
Dan extinguished his cigarette, the tapping glass the only sound in the room. He kept his gaze averted as he folded his hands in front of him, visibly discomforted by the rapt attention that was still fixed upon him.
A moving quill scratched through the silence as Libraean resumed his note taking. Jacob stood to retrieve a cup of water. From the hall, the grandfather clock chimed noon, though no sunlight escaped from the heavily draped windows.
David blinked, realizing how unwavering his stare had been on the creature before him. “It’s curious how similar our stories are,” he remarked.
Dan broke free of his trance, looking at David with kind eyes. “Yes, I believe that’s why we became such fast friends.”
“I am so sorry for the pain you suffered,” Jacob offered quietly as he sat back in his chair. “It does not seem fair to bear such a curse.”
Morrigan withdrew from the loveseat to pour a glass of brandy, which she handed to Dan. “We can take a break if you’d like,” she offered.
Dan shook his head, taking down the contents of the glass in one swallow. “There is more that needs to be told and we do not have much time.”
Jacob stood again to add another log to the fire. The dry wood caught quickly, the fire casting its glow onto the troubled creature and the old, jagged tattoos his rolled-up sleeves revealed.
“David knows what follows,” he continued. “In fourteen twenty, Libraean found me in the Carpathian Mountains, wandering around half-mad. I had been a traveling recluse for centuries, kept semi-mortal by the wolf inside of me. Libraean reiterated what the Völva had told me, that I was indeed a hybrid of reincarnated gods. He introduced me to the Council, who told me that if I aided a group of revolutionaries in Wallachia against their Imposter Prince, they would help me get rid of the wolf for good. Instead, the human part of me died, then the blood drinker in me died, and the wolf remained.”
“Which brings us to the Night War,” David said. “When I stumbled upon you, you were clearly dead, splayed out near Dragos’s dismembered corpse.”
“Yes, I can only surmise that what you saw was part of a spell. In reality, I was somehow split in two, the conscious part of me left to wander the astral plane, while the wolf escaped into the forest. In fact, I wouldn’t have a human consciousness again until I met her.” He reached for another cigarette.
Romania, 1740
The blade that spilled the last of his immortal blood clattered beside his ear. His vision wavered until the cloudy night sky, crying frigid rain onto his face, faded to black. Yet he did not enter through the gates of Valhalla as he’d hoped, nor did he see any signs of an afterlife. Instead, it was as if he slumbered, the occasional fuzzy dream breaking through his conscious mind only to trickle away as randomly as it had come. Sensations came to him in increments, the taste of blood, the sound of screaming, the throaty exclamations of birds. But mostly, it was a confusing, quiet oblivion.
And then, one day, he was alive, staring down into the eyes of a girl.
They were rimmed by furious tears, her pale, sun-splotched skin painted with crimson, her body shuddering with power as she held him in her thrall. She burned with hatred, her fury heating skin that smelled of wild apples and newborn fawn. He saw slaughtered wolves sprawled out around her, the metallic taste of offal in his mouth. The wolf did this, he discerned, realizing he was once again trapped in its body. It has happened again.
“No,” said the little creature in front of him, her power buzzing around her like a swarm of angry bees, her hateful eyes the color of honey. He realized he was frozen in place, held by the spindly branches of the trees she commanded, their splintered fingers digging mercilessly into his flesh. “You do not get to absolve yourself from this. You killed my mother and my pack, and now you belong to me.”
His chest stung, and he looked down to see that she had carved runes into his chest, the fur around the angry gashes matted with blood. I am so sorry, he thought helplessly.
“I do not wish to acknowledge your human side yet, for I still feel the urge to skin you alive from head to tail. Stop speaking to me and remove the pelts from the wolves you slaughtered. You may eat what good meat is left. We cannot leave such waste in the forest, and we have a long journey ahead of us.” She shook his blood from her knife and sheathed it against her thigh. “I refuse to stand by and watch as you ravage my fallen family, so I will be at the creek washing their blood off my skin. I cannot find my mother's body, but if you do, leave it intact and bring it to me. She will be the only human among them.”
Dan had no choice but to obey, watching her disappear behind the brown and yellow leaves. The tree branches unwound from his limbs, releasing him to the forest floor and resuming their petrified reach into the sky. He set to work retrieving the pelts for her, though he quickly found he had no appetite. He left the skinned bodies in a pile near an open patch of forest, hoping the vultures and crows would notice and enjoy the feast. He saw no murdered woman amongst the carnage, unsure if that was or was not in his favor.
As grateful as he was for the sudden arrival of consciousness, he was alarmed it happened while he was in his feral state and in broad daylight with no sign of a full moon. He wondered how long he’d been unconscious and if he would be human again soon. The woods offered no answers, although the trees that surrounded them were mainly pine and spruce, offering an aroma familiar enough that he believed he’d once been there.
He gathered the pelts over his shoulder, heading towards the creek on his hind legs.
In his absence, she’d emerged from the water and dressed in clean clothes, seeming even more childlike with her long chestnut hair and cream-colored skin clear of gore. Matured muscles rippled, however, as she flexed to tie makeshift boots up around her ankles, making it clear that she bore physical strength beyond her supernatural endowments. Her clothing was mostly fur and leather, a knife tucked in one boot, and another secured to her thigh. As she stood, she repositioned a bow behind her back, a sack of arrows at her waist.
I did not see the body of your mother, he told her carefully.
Her jaw still clenched with revulsion as she apprehended him, but her voice did not betray any emotion. “I didn’t think you would,” she sighed. “Perhaps she was a ghost after all.”
She took the furs and set to work cleaning them in the rushing water. He noticed she’d started a small fire nearby, an appalling looking mixture heating above it. She spread out the washed pelts upside down onto the rocks and began applying the mixture to the underside of them with her hands. He picked up the scent of viscera.
“You will carry these pelts for me until we find shelter,” she told him. “The early spring still brings frigid nights, and it is best to sleep covered. The furs will take a few days to prepare, but then we can sell them for supplies.” She finished her task, rinsing her hands in the water and dumping the tanning mix out near the rocky bank. She then snuffed out the fire with her boot, gathering the clean metal pot into a nearby leather bag. She draped her own previously treated fur cloak over her shoulders and stood, bag in hand. “Lift me up.”
The command took him aback, for he knew how frightening he looked, a massive abomination on hind legs with razor sharp teeth and exaggerated claws. Yet she showed no fear, apprehending him as a human would a common pet. He complied, careful not to slice her skin as he positioned her on his shoulders. He pulled the pelts into his arms, ignoring the accumulation of flies.
“Go forward until you see the thickest cluster of red pines, then head east,” she ordered. “In four days, we will take our leave of these woods. We are going to find a man named David.”
They traveled in silence, Dan carrying his little master through acres of forest. The spring season matured as the days passed, offering steadily warmer afternoons and plentiful game to eat. Each night, as the temperatures dropped, she found them shelter, rinsing and preparing the furs in the nearby water while he hunted. Her skillful navigation of the woods impressed him. He surmised she had been raised in them, much like he had been forced to as a young man. She never strayed far from the closest water source, a creek that seemed to stretch for miles. She didn’t speak much, but when she did, it was neutral, curiously free from the hatred he expected. He soon found himself enjoying her company, though he wished to be free of his wolf guise. Its body was cumbersome, pulsating with the urge to destroy and furious at the inability to do so.
At dusk on the fourth day, his young master told him it was time to rest, guiding him to a cave neatly concealed behind a waterfall. She slipped off his back easily, pulling the pile of furs down after her. “Go find us some wood for the fire and kill us some meat. I would like to eat soon,” she told him.
He obeyed, also famished from traveling. He hunted and ate to his own satisfaction, rinsing the leftover scraps of meat in the stream before bringing them up to her. The cave went deep behind the flowing water, offering enough space for her to start a fire without worrying about its spray. She had hung up the pelts, an array of ivory and grey fur surrounding her where she sat.
She accepted the meat from him without comment, pulling her cooking utensils out of her bag and cooking it over the fire. He curled up against the wall as she ate, watching the sun setting beyond the cascade, throwing shades of red and orange against his face. His belly full, the rushing water and crackling fire soon lulled him to sleep.
She interrupted before he could. “Since the moment I bound you to me, a man appeared inside of you. Am I wrong?”
You are not, he replied.
“And that man was not present when you killed my mother and my pack?”
I have not been conscious until the moment you bound me to you. I believed I was dead for more years than I can recall.
She peered at him, the firelight glinting in her eyes. “I will need to trade these furs with the men in a nearby camp to secure enough funds for our journey to the west. They will not take a young girl seriously, however, and I cannot keep a direwolf as a pet around other humans. I have decided the best course of action would be to bring back your human self. But know that you will be bound to me, just the same.”
How can you bring me back?
“A spirit has been whispering to me since you arrived, along with the spirits of the trees, an ancient magic lying dormant for years. They have been guiding me throughout our journey and have informed me that I am the descendent of powerful witches with this ancient magic at my command. They told me that I should release your human soul from its prison, to serve and protect me as the wolf has.”
Dan found himself at a loss for words.
“In order for me to restore your human self, we must meet in the astral plane. Do you know how to do that?”
I have never heard of such magic, he admitted.
“It is the place you were before I brought you back. I believe that since your wolf half was still on earth, you could not ascend to the heavenly realm, trapped in the astral plane until the moment I bound you.”
How does a girl raised among the wolves know so much? Dan wondered.
“My mother taught me everything there is to know in this lifetime,” she replied without hesitation. “She knew one day that I would have to survive alone without her. She spent her life preparing me for this world.”
And I was the one who took her from you, he thought, haunted by remorse.
“I know your human self is not to blame,” she said casually, but without a hint of forgiveness. She reached into her bag and pulled out a tiny sachet. “This will help you return to the astral plane.” She took her cup and filled it with the water she had been warming over the fire, then added the sachet as one might make tea. Then she stood, moving across the cave floor to the spot where he sat. She knelt down, her delectable scent maddeningly close to him. He was grateful to be under her control, the wolf screaming at him to tear her apart. “Open,” she instructed him.
He cracked open his jaws and she poured the mixture down his throat. He choked, the unfamiliar herbs bitter on his tongue.
She surprised him by taking a sip herself, following it with a bite of leftover rabbit to wash down the taste. Then she curled up next to him, pulling one of her old fur blankets over her as if she planned to sleep. The drowsiness hit him then, revealing what the drink was intended for. He tried to focus on her, but his eyelids stubbornly drooped. He heard her yawn next to him. “You will see me there,” she said.
And then, he was plunged into darkness.
He awoke to the cold caress of snow. He bolted upright, realizing he sat on an icy riverbank, an old Viking ship thumping gently against the dock. The handcrafted masterpiece wore a veil of white, artfully masking its antiquity, an eerie ghost ship that time had long forgotten. He stood, surprised to discover, as he brushed the snow from his skin, that it was supple and free of ink. He was his young, human self again.
He looked up to see a doe in the distance, watching him with quiet interest. She stood amongst an oak grove, the ancient bulbous trees glittering underneath the pale sliver of moonlight that hovered in the winter sky.
“I do not even know your name,” he said.
The snowy trees sighed, whispering names, Isis, Hekate, Artemis, Diana. The last name shook the realm, the docked ship groaning with agitation. Frightened by the noise, the doe darted off into the woods.
“Wait!” he called after her.
“I am here,” a voice said next to him. She looked no different than the girl he knew on earth, rivulets of chestnut hair spilling down her shoulders, her light brown eyes wise beyond her apparent years. Her tiny frame only came up to his chest. “My mother called me Cahira.”
“Hello, Cahira. My name is Danulf.”
“Are you ready to come back with me?” she asked, extending a hand that was small even to his human appendages.
The abandoned ship creaked and moaned, creating, with the mournful wolf howls and wailing crows echoing in the distance, a poignant lamentation calling him home. He looked towards it, longing to join his father and brothers on the eternal seas, yearning for the gates of Valhalla.
“Odin says you are not yet ready for death,” Cahira told him, as if she read his thoughts. “He speaks to me in the wolf and crow calls.”
Dan looked at her sadly. “I believe you, even though their beckoning is strong,” he admitted with a sigh. “I am ready.”
She nodded, once again holding out her hand. As soon as his skin touched hers, they were back in the cave.
He gasped, his body overcome with tremors, similar to a newly birthed calf. He was so grateful to be freed of the wolf that he nearly cried out in relief. He ran his hands up and down his human skin, ecstatic, when he realized she stared at him from behind her fur blanket. “Thank you,” he whispered, trying to curtail his emotions.
“Your accent is strange. And why is your hair grey when your face looks so young?”
He almost laughed. “The wolf part of me kept me semi-mortal. I was already a few hundred years old before I was made into a blood drinker.”
“What is a blood drinker?”
“Your mother did not teach you about creatures?”
“No,” she admitted. “Some things she told me would come in time, but then she died.”
A pang of regret stung Dan, causing him to cast his eyes to the floor.
“Please continue,” she instructed.
“Have you heard stories of the Norsemen?”
“Yes, scholars call them Vikings. I have been taught the history of our world,” she said, an air of annoyance in her voice. “You came from the north, from the Scandinavian territories. Your people pillaged the European Christians for centuries before the clans dispelled. I even know the stories of your gods.”
Dan blinked, impressed. He recounted the gruesome story of his past, trying not to look at her eyes as he remembered life as a skógarmaðr. “I lived that way for many long years,” he said. “It ended when I met a creature named Libraean. He told me I’d be released from my torment if I helped a creature named David kill a dark god intent on destroying the human race.”
The memory jolted him as he spoke, one he never forgot even though he was barely conscious, David’s sorrowful voice in his ear as he knelt and bit. The pain, the thirst.
“David turned me into an immortal blood drinker to save my life,” he told her. “They are creatures who live forever but must do so by consuming the essence of others. They cannot bear sunlight and have supernatural strength and speed. Being both wolf and blood drinker was not enough, however, and I was killed not long after my transformation. Well, he killed the human part of me, anyway.”
Cahira was silent, digesting his words. “I was also told that I must find a creature called David. Now I understand why you were given to me.”
“Given to you, eh?” Dan chuckled.
“Your most recent marking, the one etched into your chest says you belong to me.”
Dan looked down, fingering the deep scar under his bright grey chest hair. “If it will save me from murdering others, then I accept it willingly.”
She seemed satisfied by his response, although her stoicism did not lift. “I wonder why you are no longer a blood drinker.”
“When I was alive, we had otherworldly beings that kept track of these things. Have you heard anything from them?”
She shook her head. “Only what I hear from the trees.” She yawned. “It is late and we have a few more miles to travel before we reach the village. My mother warned me about men, so I will tell you now that if you move an inch further into my space, I will kill you without a second thought.”
As she closed her eyes, Dan smiled to himself. “I have no doubt that you would,” he said, “but you do not need to fear that sort of thing from me. I come from a time when men and women were equal, and that to harm a woman in that way was dishonorable, therefore displeasing to the gods.”
“Good,” she murmured sleepily. “And make sure you put on clothing in the morning.”
Dan looked down to see that underneath the fur blanket she had given to him at some point in the evening, he was entirely nude. He looked up at her in surprise, but the tiny snores emitting from her lips revealed she was already fast asleep.
The next morning, he awoke to an empty cave. Their fire had dwindled down to ash, the pelts taken down from the walls and the clean furs and supplies missing. He pulled himself to his feet, noticing that clothing and a pair of boots had been laid out for him. He pulled on the trousers and shirt, both a bit tight for his liking, but he surmised it was better than running around the cold spring forest nude. The shoes also fit poorly, but he loosened the straps so they would do. He finally wrapped his fur blanket around him like a cloak, stopping to take a sip from the waterfall as he exited the cave.
She waited for him by the widest part of the creek. “Does the clothing fit?”
He nodded. “It will do, thank you.”
“I stole them as I scouted the village in the wee hours of morning. Keep your furs covering them and hopefully the men won’t notice.”
“You went by yourself?” he asked, surprised.
“You seemed like you needed the rest,” she shrugged before heading up the bank. “Please grab the bundle of furs.”
He nodded, following after her. He noticed she’d left her weapons behind and wondered if she still concealed a knife in her boot. The deeper into the woods they went, the more tightly clustered evergreens overwhelmed it, the forest floor rocky and strewn with needles. “I recognize this place,” he realized after some time. “We are in Transylvania.”
“Yes, as I said, we have a long way to travel. Which is why we will need more supplies, perhaps even a caravan for when we exit the mountains.”
A tiny settlement appeared in the distance. The houses were made of simple planks and topped with straw roofs, wood fences lining its borders. Livestock grazed nearby, new vegetation sprouting up through mud contained in carefully arranged garden plots.
Cahira took a deep breath, revealing her uncharacteristic nervousness. “You must do the talking,” she said in a low voice. “Tell them whatever you must, but it is important that we sell these pelts.”
Dan nodded, feeling the urge to comfort the young, tiny creature walking beside him, but thinking the better of it.
Their presence drew stares immediately as they walked into town. Most of the villagers were out of their homes, taking advantage of the mild daytime temperature to prepare for the growing season. Dan wondered how the two of them must appear to civilized humans, a heathen the size of two men, covered in blue ink with wild grey hair, walking beside a scowling woodland pixie dressed in wolf fur.
Three men finally approached them, their faces pleasant though they kept pistols at their sides. They did not appear to be Transylvanian, instead light eyed and fair haired, their heritage indiscernible to Dan. They looked out of place in a Carpathian village, and although they spoke the common tongue, their dialect was harsh, their pronunciation clumsy. “How can we help you, travelers?” one of the men asked, his nose as pointed as his facial hair.
“We have come to see about making a trade,” Dan replied, gesturing to the bundle of pelts he carried on his shoulder. “My daughter and I are passing through on our way East and are in need of supplies.”
The pointy nosed man nodded. “That we can. Our gathering hall is up ahead, if you’d like to warm yourselves by the fire. I will let you speak to Joduk, the man in charge of trade.”
Dan nodded. He snuck a glance at Cahira, who studied the men and the village with tentative scrutiny, keeping next to him as they walked.
The men led them into a large rectangular structure overwhelmed by its straw roof like the other homes, held up by four sturdy poles and walls of rammed earth. The lingering smells of eggs and meat met them as soon as they entered, a generous fire crackling in a southern fire pit. They passed by long tables arranged in rows, drawing stares from the men seated around them, who picked at breakfast scraps and swilled ale. The conversation paused as they watched them. Dan realized for the first time that every villager they had seen thus far had been male, not a female nor child in sight.
Near the heart of the structure sat a scowling man, his stomach rounded between two stubby legs. Hatless and wearing well-made leather boots and clothes of good linen, he apprehended them coldly with stone-colored eyes.
“This man and his daughter have come to trade wolf pelts for supplies,” one of their guides informed him, his strange accent worse than his pointy nosed associate’s.
“Ah.” The potbellied man nodded, though his eyes remained hostile. Dan wondered if they should leave. “We can offer you one horse for the lot of them.”
Cahira’s eyes widened with surprise, though she tried to conceal it. She stole a glance at Dan, silently commanding him to take the offer.
“That will do,” Dan told him, though his unease remained.
The man extended a fleshy hand which Dan took, resulting in an unpleasant transfer of hog grease. Dan wiped his hand on his pant leg. “We keep our horses in the woods behind our settlement for protective purposes,” the man explained. “My men will lead you out that way. You can hand over the pelts after you’ve received your horse.”
They followed the three out of the hut and down a dirt path that led into their wooded territory. Dan was still wary, but Cahira appeared to trust them, so he tried not to give it any thought. She had scouted it beforehand, selecting the village to trade with. It was because of this, that their sudden attack caught Dan unaware.
He cried out in surprise as two of the men forced him to his knees, slamming a pistol into the back of his head before he had a chance to react. He looked up to see Cahira’s horrified face, struggling as the third man held her arms behind her, a cruel looking blade pressed into the soft flesh of her throat.
“Please do not kill my daughter,” Dan attempted to bargain with them. “You can have the pelts.”
“We know she is not your daughter,” the man holding Cahira sneered. “This child has more power than you can hope to imagine. She is a crossbreed, the spawn of the mythical creatures that reside in these mountains. We sensed it immediately when you arrived. Her sacrifice will bring us prosperity, just like the sacrifice we made that gave us this land. We took it from those who first settled here. Their bodies lie in fresh graves not far from this place, which you will soon be joining.”
Dan looked helplessly at Cahira’s face, now frozen in fear. It infuriated him to see her stripped of her confidence, and he found himself frantically trying to come up with a way to escape his captors without bringing her harm.
They are the same group of men who once tried to kill my mother. Her small voice surfaced in his head. I didn’t recognize it at first. He met her eyes just as the man behind him pulled back the trigger.
“Veniunt ad me lupum!” she suddenly screeched.
The man holding her startled. Dan felt his body grow, snapping and popping as it expanded into the monstrous shell that was Fenrir. He saw the look of terror flashing in the men’s eyes as he rose above them. He realized with a start that although he’d transformed, he was still in complete control. He whipped around to confront the man who held him at gunpoint, now cowering behind the weapon he was trembling too hard to fire. Dan grabbed his arms in one hand, his legs in the other, and promptly tore him in two.
The remaining men screamed, the sound drowned out by the howling of a dozen wolves who descended upon the rest of the town, intent on its slaughter. Dan looked at Cahira, realizing she had full command of the distant canine army, vibrating with power, her pupils blackening her irises. The earth seemed to respond to her anger, quaking as the few ash trees that interrupted the surrounding evergreens pulled their roots free from the dirt, stomping forward to halt the men trying to flee the village. They whomped them with their branches, sending them flying into the stagnant trucks of pines, breaking their bones on impact. The man holding Cahira finally let her go, attempting to run. With her arms now free, she could direct her power, energy flowing from her fingertips as she halted him, lifting her former captor into the air and flinging him against a red pine, impaling him on the sharp spikes left behind from their fallen branches.
Dan was consumed by his own carnage, tearing apart the last man in his path with his teeth, when he suddenly caught a whiff of her blood. He turned to see her wavering as she stood, a crimson stain spreading across the fabric of her clothing. He raced towards her, lifting her up and flinging her onto his back. She gripped onto his fur as he took off into the woods, leaving the massacre behind them, weaving through the spruces and firs until they reached the creek they had been following. She slumped off his back as she whispered, “Restituere,” restoring Dan to his human form before succumbing to unconsciousness.
He picked her back up in his human arms and carried her to the water, gingerly setting her down in the soft moss. She was covered in blood, making it difficult to discern the extent of her wounds, but he was certain the gash at her waist was what copiously bled. He pulled off his shirt and tore at the cloth with his teeth, creating a makeshift bandage. He lifted up the back of her shirt and wrapped the fabric around her waist, tightly pressing the wound after he’d secured it.
As he held the cloth to stop her bleeding, he noticed two appendages on her back that he hadn’t seen before, two irregular stumps as if she’d once had wings. He thought of Libraean, the creature from his past, wondering if they were somehow related. His suspicions were confirmed as he laid her down and saw similar, smaller bumps on her forehead that had been hidden by her wild hair. Their assailant’s words came back to him: She is a crossbreed with more power than you can imagine.
She stirred, interrupting his thoughts. Snow began to trickle down through the pines and lightly budded beech trees, causing her to shiver. He realized he’d have to find them shelter, for the cave they’d come from was too far away to reach in time. He scooped her back up into his arms, bundling her in his fur cloak, snow building on his bare skin.
At last, he found a deeply concave portion of the creek’s edge, several fallen trees preventing water flow and providing additional shelter. He ducked inside, grateful to discover dry ground beneath the rocky overhang. Her lack of consciousness still concerned him, but the makeshift bandage remained free of blood, signaling the onset of healing. He stretched out his fur cloak to cover her completely, debating whether he should build a fire.
“You can sit by me,” came a soft whisper from beneath the furs. “Your skin is very warm.”
Elated that she was conscious, he obeyed, burrowing next to her and draping himself and her in their last fur. “Rest until the morning, little warrior,” he told her as she drifted away once more. “I will watch over you tonight.”
The next morning, he left to hunt for breakfast and when he returned, she was awake. Relief flooded over him. “Good morning,” he greeted her.
She looked up at him silently, her lips dry and cracked, dark shadows around her amber eyes.
“You need to eat and drink,” he told her, revealing the cooked squirrel he’d prepared and a bowl of fresh creek water.
She grabbed for the bowl, wincing as she did so. She gulped the entire thing down before speaking, her voice ragged. “We need to return to the village and take what supplies we can. I believe we killed them all. I also think I reopened my wound, so I will need to rewrap it before we go.”
Dan frowned. “You cannot travel like that. You need to eat and drink for strength. I spent enough time around healers to know when someone is weak from blood loss, and I am certain all the power you invoked drained you.” He set the meat in her lap and went to gather more water from the stream.
“Will you come back?” she asked weakly when he returned. She caught her vulnerable tone, clearing her throat to correct it. “You will come back,” she ordered.
“Yes, I will,” he promised. “If you eat, drink, and rest while I am gone.”
“Fine,” she agreed, leaning back against the dirt.
Dan found his way back to the village easily, following the sour smell of putrefying flesh and the swarms of flies. He realized he hadn’t felt the slightest regret tearing the men apart, the synergy created when his wolf body obeyed his human mind feeling natural... as did protecting her. He wondered if his desire to do so was purely a result of her spell over him, or if it was of his own accord. He realized, as he reentered the decimated village, that he honestly didn’t care. For the first time in a great many years, he had a purpose.
He stepped around the remains as he pillaged, procuring a large sack that he filled with various utensils, a canteen for water, and the wolf furs they’d left behind. He helped himself to their coins and papers, as well as a gun and a box of ammunition just in case. He set free the horses left alive, taking the remaining eggs and a miraculously spared chicken out of a blood splattered coop. He killed and defeathered it with their tools before returning to the forest, looking forward to eating more civilized meat.
He found her looking more alert, wrapped tightly in his fur as she gazed into the dwindling fire. He threw down the sack with flourish, proudly holding up the chicken meat. “I come bearing a feast!”
He was pleased to see her eyes sparkle with amusement, though her lips stayed still. He knelt to unpack the supplies and stoked the fire back to life so he could cook the chicken.
“We won’t be able to stay here long,” she remarked softly as he worked. “If any man did manage to escape the village, word will swiftly travel.”
“Well, I am sure we have nothing to fear, for you will just kill them all,” he joked, his mood still uplifted. But when she let out a tiny sob, his expression fell. “What is wrong?”
“I’ve never felt so weak before,” she said behind gritted teeth. “How foolish of me to trust those men and their words. Even after my mother showed me the vile atrocities men are capable of. I scouted that village ahead of time and nothing about them raised my suspicions. How could I have made such a terrible mistake?”
“In your defense, I fell for it as well,” Dan pointed out.
“Furthermore,” she continued, ignoring his comment, “I can’t explain how I knew the words that would bring the wolf out, or how I summoned all that power.”
“You have more of it than I have ever seen, and I have been around plenty of powerful beings,” Dan admitted, turning the meat so the underside would cook. Their creek-side nook grew warmer, filling with the aroma of roasting chicken. “Are you saying you cannot control it?”
“That is precisely what I’m saying.” She pulled up her knees so that her chin could rest atop them. “My mother didn’t have a chance to explain my powers to me, if she even knew I had them. They surfaced the day before she died.”
Dan frowned. “What do the woodland spirits say?”
“They only guide me, telling me what to do when I’m in danger. It’s as if the powers take over and my mind goes to sleep.”
Dan nodded. “That was how the wolf was for me. Strangely enough, the day you brought me back was the first time that both my mind and the wolf’s body existed together.”
She looked surprised. “Interesting. So, it was your human mind that killed those men?”
“Yes,” he replied as he removed the cooked chicken from the fire. He tore off a drumstick and handed it to her, which she accepted gratefully. “And I don’t regret it, either.” He tore off his own, pulling the flesh from the bone with his teeth and chewing loudly as he reflected on her words. “I wonder if I can help you control it,” he finally said aloud. “As you have helped me.”
She stared at him, her expression unreadable. “It happens when I feel rage,” she told him in a low voice.
“That makes sense. Anyone who wields magic must raise the energy to do so.”
“Surely there must be more to magic than rage,” she insisted.
He peered at her, a small, crumpled being with the old, tired eyes that came with heavy responsibility. She reminded him of someone. “A long time ago,” he began, “I watched a woman called Hekate channel energy from the earth to heal. Her power did not come from fear or rage, but from a place of peace. Then there was the dark god I told you about, the one that David tried to kill, who would set the world ablaze with his anger. He could control it in neural moments, but when his fury overwhelmed him, so did his power.”
“How did he learn to control it?”
“I do not know that he ever did,” Dan admitted. “We will have to ask David when we find him. In fact, I am uncertain whether he even succeeded in killing the beast, though the fact that humans are still living among us hints at the answer.”
“What are all those papers?” she suddenly asked, eyeing the contents of his sack.
“Ah.” He threw the cleaned chicken leg into the fire and pulled the bag along with him as he sat down next to her. “I thought maybe they would be useful.” He shuffled through them, squinting at a language he could not read.
“I think they’re written in the language the Austrians use,” she remarked, snaking an arm out of her shroud of furs. She grabbed a piece of paper and held it closer to her face. “I can speak a few languages, but that one gives me trouble.”
Dan looked at her in surprise. “Your mother sounds like she was quite the intellect. Why did she raise you alone in the woods?”
Cahira ignored the question, pulling forward an aged piece larger than the rest. “This is the only one that isn’t written in that language …it’s a map.”
Dan recognized the surrounding territories, and although the titles were written in a language he could understand, the names were different. His eyes moved to the top of the page. It was titled, Europe, 1730.
He jumped to his feet.
“What is it?”
“I have been dead for almost four hundred years,” he realized in panic. “Which means the wolf has been alive, unrestrained for that long. Who knows what kind of damage it has done?”
“Well, it isn’t in control of you anymore,” she offered in a soft, kind voice.
Dan stared at her for a moment before he let out a sigh. “I suppose you are right.” He slunk back down beside her, letting his shock subside. “That means David has been alive his whole time. I guess he did kill Lucius after all.”
“I was told that David is the last of his kind, a group of ancient gods who died and came back to life as human beings with powers,” Cahira explained. “The spirits told me this before they discovered you were also alive. They said there has been a great disturbance in the outer realms, those that exist outside our earth. The astral plane, the place where you met me when I brought you back to human form, is the only accessible world. The heavens, the underworld - all have been mysteriously locked, and they don’t know why. They fear something is happening that will alter the course of life as we know it, destroying our world by upsetting the precious balance that holds it all together. David is supposedly the one who can shed light on it. That is why I seek him.”
Dan considered her words. “That was what we feared when I knew David in the fifteenth century—what we fought against. I can understand the concern, especially if the spirits are the only things left that you hear. We had a Council back then who protected the realms, and a creature who kept track of all things mythical. It does not seem right that no one else has approached you.”
She agreed. “I also worry for my mother. I hope her soul is at rest, but if it isn’t, then it is up to me to save her, as she once saved me.”
Dan did not speak, unsure if she wanted to explain further, and not wanting to push her to do so.
“I was just a baby when she found me,” she chose to divulge. “In the arms of a wicked woman who wanted to steal my power. My mother killed her before she had the chance to kill me, taking me in as her own and raising me here in the woods, where I was protected from all who might harm me. She spent my whole life teaching me all that she knew so that I could survive one day without her. I owe her my life.”
“Then David we shall find,” Dan said firmly. He turned his eyes back to the map. “I do not even know half of these territories. My journey here was from the north, nearly a millennium ago, when the world was covered with forests. We are going to have to rely entirely on the map and your magics to get where we must go.”
She slid him a look. “I don’t need your navigational skills. I just need…”
He met her eyes.
She grew flustered. “I’m feeling tired now. Let me rest.”
Dan rose to his feet, taking the map from her. “I trust you and your spirit guides, but I would like to study the map a little while you rest. I have just found out that it is an entirely different century than I thought it was and this might help me make sense of it.”
She acquiesced, burrowing back under the furs and closing her eyes.
Dan left their creek-side dwelling, stepping out into the twilight woods. Orange light peeked through the branches as the forest abated its stirring in anticipation of nightfall. He located a freshly fallen tree trunk preserved by the crisp weather and sat beside it, flattening the map against the bark. In the upper corner, he found his homeland, now labeled the Kingdom of Norway, and traced the path he had once traveled with his finger. It glided down through the Kingdom of Sweden, across the Baltic Sea, into the Kingdom of Poland, through Hungary and Transylvania to Wallachia. It had taken him a few months, but he hadn’t even realized how long he traveled. He enjoyed roaming, almost disappointed when he reached his destination.
He recalled the night Fenrir tore free of their full moon bounds, deep in the surrounding forests of the Carpathian Mountains. He couldn’t visually remember the fight with the lynx that left him near death, but he woke to two black haired children with almond colored skin who looked upon him with concern rather than fear. They visited him for weeks while he mended, bringing him food and water, and changing his bandages. He recalled Dragos as an innocent boy who helped him to his feet when he was well enough and brought him to their underground apothecary in a shadowy Wallachian village. He remembered officially meeting Hekate, the one who named him Danulf, the woman who would one day fall in love with him even though he consistently spurned her advances. He loved her in his own way, keeping watch over her even as she grew pregnant with another man’s child, up until he joined her brother’s fight against the deranged prince that lived in the village castle. And then, he died. Nothing remarkable ever came from aligning himself in their fight, he realized, and he died like any other Viking warrior who’d come before him.
Dan realized it had started to snow again, a substantial coat resting on his shoulders and legs. He stood, shaking both the flakes and his memories off him, and rolled up the map before moisture had a chance to ruin it.
He returned to find Cahira snoring soundly, her messy chestnut waves spilling out around her in the dirt. Though her features were delicate, with long lashes and a cherubic face, she looked completely in her element covered by the fur of wild beasts, sleeping in the warm earth.
Maybe Libraean had it all wrong when he told me to come here, he thought as he settled next to her, pulling his own fur blanket around his legs. Maybe I wasn’t brought here to help them. Maybe I was brought here to protect her.
Dan woke to the sound of chirping birds and the slow drip of snow melting off the treetops. Cahira still slumbered next to him, oblivious to the sunrise. He rose, stretching the sleep from his limbs, enjoying the sun on his skin. He wondered what Libraean would think of him if he was still alive, how interested he would be to study the only creature in history to become a blood drinker and then turn back into a human.
Cahira’s eyes drifted open as he pondered. She immediately checked her wound. “It’s healed,” she said, relieved.
“Then our journey begins.” Dan gathered the pilfered items back to the sack, kicking dirt onto the embers of the extinguished fire.
She rose to her feet, wincing slightly at the effort, but pleased at her ability to stand with her feet planted firmly on the ground.
“Most of our journey is through the woods,” Dan told her as he closed the sack. “I was thinking it would be best if I carry you like I did before, to make sure your wound does not open again. After we move into civilization, we can rest and find a caravan.”
Cahira stared at him. “I guess studying the map really did give you your confidence back.”
He felt his cheeks grow hot. “I need to believe I am in charge of things, even when I am not,” he blurted out, surprised by his admission.
She gave him a sly, close-lipped smile. “As long as all it takes is foolish belief.” She secured her fur around her shoulders. “Veniunt ad me lupum.”
Dan became the wolf once more. He found the transitions were becoming faster and far less painful. He threw the bag over his shoulder and lifted her up to sit between his shoulder blades. He glanced back at their dwelling to make sure nothing was forgotten, then headed out into the distance.
Bohemia, 1740
A few weeks of traveling with pleasant weather passed before a random spring snowstorm hit, the thick, obtrusive flakes making it difficult to continue forward. Dan was content to persevere, but he could feel Cahira shivering on his back, even though she was draped in every fur they owned. He knew they only had an hour or so before sunset. They had been traveling on flat ground since they’d left the mountains, and by sheer chance he noticed an isolated cabin as they crossed into Bohemia. The structure was covered in a heavy blanket of snow, with no sign of life behind its windows. He broke down the door to the gruesome discovery of two bodies in the early stages of decay, laying across the floor. The reek of putrefaction wafted out of the opened door, causing Cahira to gag. He lifted her off his shoulders and set her down, then scooped up the corpses from the floor. From the look of their clothing and lack of wounds, they appeared to be an old couple who died naturally, peaceful in the solitude of their cabin. I’m going to find a place to bury them.
Cahira nodded, shielding her nose against the odor with her cloak. “I’m going to leave the door ajar while you’re gone.”
He returned to the world of white, his canine limbs moving easily through the snowy terrain. Burying the dead still seemed unnatural to him, but he knew it was the modern custom and he was grateful to use their dwelling. He found a patch of woods not too far from where the cabin stood, and he set the bodies down to dig through the frozen earth. It didn’t take him long to burrow and then cover them, and he headed back towards the cabin before the sun fell behind the outlying trees.
He shut the door against the howling wind. The cabin was already warm, his eyes catching a stack of leftover logs piled nearby. She had tried to clean the rot from the floors in his absence to make the smell less potent, every rug available draped over the leftover stain. He found her sitting on the ground near the fireplace, sipping from a tin cup, the smell of steeping herbs gently replacing the scent of death in the air.
She looked up at him, noticing his spine oddly bent to fit inside the confines of the cabin. “Restituere,” she murmured, restoring him to his proper form.
He settled into it, stretching his limbs and arching his back before joining her. “What are you drinking?”
“Tea.” She lifted the cup to his nose so he could smell it. “The woman left behind crushed herbs and spices, so I decided to brew them with some melted snow. There’s some in the pot, if you’d like to try some. Cups are in the cupboard.”
Dan rose to retrieve one, enjoying the potent aroma that filled his nose as he poured the steaming liquid into his cup. The tea felt good going down, warming a body that gradually grew colder without its insulating fur.
“I haven’t heard anything from the spirits,” she told him when he settled down next to her. “It’s as if they’ve abandoned me in this strange land.”
“Perhaps it is because you are on the right path and they do not need to intervene,” he suggested.
“Maybe.” She took another sip from her cup. “Have you ever been in love?”
Dan nearly spit out his mouthful of tea. “Why do you ask?”
Cahira’s face was impassive. “I have my reasons.”
Dan frowned, turning to the fire. “I do not know.”
“Surely you do,” she insisted. “This is the warmest my bones have been for days and I am in no hurry to leave this place. We have plenty of time for conversation.”
He stayed silent until she said, “Don't make me force you to tell me your story.”
Dan sighed, shifting his weight. “If you want to fill the time, then I will tell you a story of my people. Once there was a giantess called Skadi,” he began, “a tall, beautiful creature with long white hair and bright blue eyes, who made her home in the snow. One day, she left her homeland to journey to Asgard, home of the gods, dressed in armor with weapons to avenge the death of her father, Thjazi, who Odin had killed in battle. When she arrived, the gods convinced her to accept reparations instead of seeking vengeance, which she reluctantly agreed to. While they discussed the best way to appease her, she ran into Odin’s son, Baldr, who was described as the fairest amongst the gods. She fell in love with him, and he with her. He decided to wait until after the gods made their restitution to her before he would ask to marry her.”
He took another sip of tea. “The next day, Odin took Thjazi’s eyes and cast them into the night sky, where they became two stars, to honor Skadi’s father. She was pleased, but still not satisfied. So, the gods decided to make her laugh. Loki, the trickster god, was the only one who succeeded, but her laugh was slight, anger still vibrating throughout her bones. Finally, Odin offered her a god to marry, one last attempt to soften her anger. The only stipulation was that she must choose only by his legs and feet alone. Thinking of Baldr, she agreed. Baldr also heard of Odin’s plans and hurried to join the lineup of gods for her to choose from. She picked the fairest legs amongst them all, thinking they were his, but instead they belonged to the sea-god, Njord.”
He cleared his throat. “Baldr’s heart was broken, as was Skadi’s, but she had to agree to Odin’s terms. The two had a magnificent wedding, which Baldr did not attend, but that was the extent of their happiness. The two were horribly paired; Njord was from the warm, sandy beaches of Noatun, and Skadi lived far to the north where the snow never melts. Neither one of them was happy in each other’s lands, Njord complaining of the howling wolves and the frigid air, Skadi abhorring the warmth and the calls of seabirds echoing in the blue skies.
“Odin accepted their divorce, realizing there would be no way for either of them to be happy. But before Skadi could be reunited with Baldr, he was accidentally killed by his own brother. The two would never cross paths again.”
Cahira gazed up at him, her face soft in the firelight. “Do you remember any of that life?”
“No,” Dan replied, unable to meet her eyes. “Some reincarnated gods recall their past lives strongly, but I cannot. In fact, I would not have believed it, had I not transformed each full moon into Fenrir.” A thought suddenly occurred to him. “I have not been keeping track of the moon. Ever since you brought me back.”
“I have,” she told him. “It actually hangs full tonight, but even if the clouds weren’t obscuring its view, you won’t turn unless I command it.”
Dan smiled. “Ah, so you are my moon now.”
She smiled back for only a moment before it abruptly fell, and she looked away. “So you were only in love in your past life as a god, the life you don’t remember?”
Dan sighed, dismayed to have to return to the subject. “I did take a wife before I discovered what I was. I often look back on her and wonder if she was Skadi, come to find her mate, for the two shared the same pearly blonde hair and icy blue eyes. In any case, I killed her before we grew to love each other as married people do.” He pulled his legs away from the increasingly warm fire. “After that, I spent my life prowling the woods. I stopped in towns briefly throughout those years. Sometimes there would be a woman who wanted to spend the night with me, but I always left before the sun rose. I refused to get close to anyone. So, to answer your question, no, I do not believe I have ever been in love, and I probably never will. When you live as long as I have, those desires no longer drive you and you become used to solitude.”
Cahira looked into the flames. “I understand.”
“When I finally reached Wallachia, I moved in with a pair of twins, a boy and a girl, both healers who ran a village apothecary. Those years were the longest I had ever spent in one place. Eventually, the twins grew up and it was not too long after that the sister confessed her love for me. I was not ready to love anyone at that time, and besides, she felt more like a sister to me than a lover. Eventually, she became pregnant with another man’s child, a man who abandoned her. I took care of her after that, but I do not believe she ever forgave me for not loving her back.” He sniffed. “Her name was Hekate, the healer I told you about.”
Cahira was quiet.
“And now, it is your turn. Tell me why you wanted to know about my past.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been hearing strange whispers since we arrived, but nothing I can make sense of. For some reason, I keep thinking about my mother. She raised me alone, alongside a pack of wolves who were loyal to her. She was the only human who I had contact with for many years. As I told you before, she spent hours teaching me everything she knew, including the ways of other humans. My most cherished lessons were those that involved the hunt, how to survive. History, language, customs...while I did learn them, they could never keep my interest.” She hugged her knees close to her chest. “Then, on the day I reached my first moon, she decided to tell me about men. She told me that I once had a grandfather, and I think he was her lover. She said he was once a cruel soul, but that he’d changed and although he was dead, her heart still carried love for him. Then she took me to a nearby camp, where I witnessed what men are capable of. I was enraged by what I saw, and my power came out of me unrestrained. I killed most of them before my mother whisked me away. It was the first time either of us had witnessed my powers. She died soon after, so I was never able to learn anything about my power from her. As I look back, I wonder if loving my grandfather weakened her, for to love a creature capable of such cruelty has to be a sign of weakness.”
“Women can also be quite cruel,” he pointed out.
“Love is weakness, either way. I don’t ever want to be in love.”
Dan considered her words. The wind wailed outside the cabin walls. “You are very strong and very independent, so there are not many men worthy of your love. But I do not think it wise to be so resolved. Look at the man and woman who died here in this cabin in each other’s arms. Love can be pure and kind.”
Cahira snorted. “I don’t believe that for a single minute.”
Dan laughed. “I suppose it is pretty unbelievable.”
Cahira stood up to stretch, dropping her layers of furs. The cabin had reached a level of comfortable warmth, the fireplace glowing steadily. “Enough of this talk. We should use this time to prepare.”
Dan was confused. “Prepare for what?”
“You and I will eventually reach civilization and the way we look and act, we will draw attention to ourselves. So I am going to teach you everything I’ve learned about how to be a proper human, so we can play the part.”
“I know how to be a proper human,” Dan scoffed.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Things were different back then,” he said defensively.
“Come,” she gestured for him to come to the table. “Sit, and we will begin your lessons.”
Dan sighed but obeyed. “I think I would rather talk about love.”
The snowstorm finally ended, the rays of the rising sun brilliant in the clear blue sky. Melting snow dripped off the roof as its icicles dwindled into nothingness. Cahira lifted her head from where she’d fallen asleep, face down on the table. The notes she’d written in chalk on its surface left a grey smudge on her cheek. “Is it morning already?” she yawned.
Dan chuckled, pulling on his boots. “I will go survey things while you pack up.”
She nodded, stretching life back into her arms.
He exited the cabin, squinting in the blinding sunlight as it reflected off the snow. Birds sang joyfully at the passing of the storm, fluttering about the dripping tree tops. He barely made it more than a few steps when he began to profusely sweat. He attempted to ignore the sudden wave of heat and walk forward, but his head started to spin from the blinding light, his chest tightening. He rushed back to the cabin, throwing off his shirt as soon as he entered to see the pale skin around his tattoos had turned a bright shade of pink, as if he’d spent long hours in the sun.
Cahira ran up to him, visibly concerned. “What happened to you?”
“I do not know, but it is as though my skin is on fire.” He shivered, his tender skin pulsating with heat.
She opened the door and stuck her head out. When she closed it, she revealed an expression deeply troubled. “It’s still quite cold outside, enough that the snow remains on the ground.”
The cool darkness of the cabin soothed his skin, but for the first time in a long while, he felt a pang of worry.
“We should travel today with you as the wolf,” she decided. “We can stay in the woods. Maybe I’ll hear the whispers again to guide us on our way. Eventually we need to find an alternative means of travel when we get closer to civilization, but we should be alright for now.”
Dan agreed. He shifted into the wolf and reentered the sunlight without incident, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.
Spring resumed its hold on the land, and the farther they moved away from the mountains, the more the abrupt snowstorm seemed like a dream. The trees that surrounded them were no longer conifers, but a vast array of trees, the bright greens of spring painting their path as they moved across rolling hills. Gently burgeoning plants wound around the rock formations, as birds twittered in the skies. Although it was not home, Dan enjoyed the scenery, and though the air was unfamiliar, it was crisp and fragrant with the promise of pleasant travels.
They walked for miles in silence before she broke it, talking to him in her mind like she often did when he was the wolf. He heard the rustling of paper as she examined the map atop his shoulders. We’re nearing a stretch of land labeled the Great Bohemian Forest. Perhaps we should travel through it, to keep us away from humans. I know we planned on a more direct route, but I think we should remain concealed until we figure out what’s wrong with your skin.
Dan grunted an agreement.
He continued through the sprawling green to a grove of ancient, towering trees. Their long, spindly arms stretched overhead, intertwining with each other to create a natural patchwork ceiling. He noticed the woods were unnaturally quiet for the time of day. A chill fog lingered around the tree trunks. His footsteps crunched as he navigated around the decayed leaves and brush, but he heard what sounded like human whispers drifting through the wind.
What is this place? Dan wondered. Can you hear what they are saying?
Shrieks pierced the silence before she could answer. He felt Cahira being lifted off his back, and he whipped around to confront trees that had transformed into hideous renditions of women. Their peeling white bark looked like ripped flesh hanging from their narrow curves, their branches like claws. They had slits for eyes and hollow mouths filled with crooked teeth, their branches lashing out as they advanced.
He roared, snapping their arms as he searched frantically for Cahira. He couldn’t see her, his eyesight obscured by the whipping branches. Finally, one of the horrid trees succeeded in hitting him from behind, the blow on the back of his neck hard enough to send him crashing to the ground. He cursed, but his frustration wasn’t enough to prevent his eyes from rolling back in his head, and before long, his world went black.
He was back in the place where Cahira brought him to life, the icy tundra spilling out before him. Yet the wolf howls that had provided the melodious backdrop of that dream had been replaced by the anguished wailing of spirits floating listlessly in the wind. The sky behind them was black, interrupted by their ethereal glow and the blustery white snowfall that accompanied the realm.
He rose to his feet, intent on searching for Cahira.
Instead, he was greeted by a waif, the brisk wind picking up her tattered dress. As she moved closer, he saw that one side of her face was beautiful, with clear, pale skin, flaxen hair, and dark blue eyes, but the other was hideous and decayed. The skin on her left side was mottled, a greenish blue that surrounded an entirely coal black eye, and her tangled black hair clung desperately to her skull. The lips on her left side had rotted away, leaving a cruel grimace that exposed her teeth.
“The goddess Hel,” Dan whispered in recognition, falling to his knees. “I have died.”
The Norse death goddess shook her head. “I have brought you into the Middleground, the space between realms, for mine is gone. You are still alive on earth in the Birch Grove. It is a place in the Dark Forest where the souls of murdered women attack those who travel through it. They are wraiths trapped inside the birch trees.”
“Niflheim is gone?”
“All of the realms have been destroyed by a creature who artfully escapes our detection.”
“They have destroyed Valhalla? Folkvang?” Dan was incredulous.
“Yes, and not just the realms that belong to our people, but every realm that exists beyond earth.”
“How can this be?” Dan sputtered.
“You must listen, son of Loki. The gods and goddesses are all dead, forced to be reborn as humans on earth, not knowing who they are. The dead souls we once housed in our realms have all been released, either to come back with no plan or to wander the Middleground. I am merely a projection, for I now live in a land foreign to me, a miserable place where the snow never falls. I tell you this because you are my brother and you watch over the only being with enough power to help us. Ensure the little doe makes her way to The Dragon Slayer. He stopped the Dark One once before, and he is the only one who can stop him now.”
“I will protect her with my life,” Dan promised.
“Rise now and take her out of these cursed woods. There are more wraiths in them than ever before, unable to find peace in the heavenly realms. I can only keep them at bay for so long; they grow restless the longer they are trapped here.”
“Can you tell me where she is?”
“They gave her to Vodnik, the water daemon. He lurks in a swamp not far from where the Birches grow. You must understand, creatures can smell her power and she is not immortal, so they believe she is weak. They will always try to find her as long as she breathes. Take her deeper into the Dark Forest, where the evergreens grow thick and plentiful. There, you will both be safe, for the wolves will be there to help you. She has command of them all, not just you.”
Dan nodded. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me, thank Anubis when you meet him.” And with nothing more, she disappeared.
Dan’s eyes flew open to reveal he still lay on the forest floor, his head throbbing. He was still in wolf form, the trees settled back into their natural places, no longer twisted wraiths. He jumped to his feet and ran, trying to pick up both her scent and the stench of stagnant water. Miraculously, it did not take him long to discover a bog not far from where they were attacked.
Dan surveyed the black waters for any sign of life, hackles raised and ready to attack. He heard a low grumble and turned to see a creature situated on a rotting, moss covered log. He looked like a fat, naked man with the face of a frog, his long hair and beard spoiled green, his skin a chaotic pattern of black fish scales. Where hands should have been were webbed paws, he had a fish’s tail for legs, and bore eyes like smoldering coals. “Who dares come to my waters?” it croaked.
Give me the girl. She does not belong to you.
The bulbous creature chortled. “She does not belong to you either.”
I am not afraid to dive in there and tear you apart, Dan warned.
“You would drown before you even came close enough to touch me,” the creature mocked him. “You are not in your land, direwolf. In fact, I can make this water so hot, your eyes would melt from your sockets, your flesh food for the fish.”
Although he presented a strong visage, Dan grew more anxious the longer Cahira was missing, her scent absent from the air, her thoughts silent. He was at a loss, for his power lay in his brute strength above all else. Though he speculated the creature was bluffing, he couldn’t risk entering a bog that would boil him alive, lest he rob her of one of the few things in the world protecting her.
His heart hammered against his ribs, fueled by frustration. His body responded with a violent shudder, the same way as it did each time he became the wolf. He didn’t have time to be confused, for his head soon filled with the screeches of carrion crows, so loud, it was as if they burrowed into his skull. He was seized by the sensation of shrinking, soon amazed to discover he was turning into a crow. He wasted no time in wondering how, immediately jumping up into the air and diving back down to peck at the vile creature’s suppurating, gelatinous flesh.
It howled in pain, trying to fight him off.
Invigorated by his new power, Dan refused to relent, pulling chunks from the creature’s face.
Finally, it screeched through torn and bloody lips, “Behind the rock! But she has most likely drowned by now!”
Dan left the moaning creature behind, soaring across the bog to the large rock poking out at the center, just as a tiny hand disappeared below the water’s surface. He caught her finger with his claws, flapping his wings furiously until he pulled her out of the stinking muck. She gasped for breath, the rank water clinging to her skin and hair as he continued to flap, higher and higher, until she was finally free. He tightened his grip around her hand, taking her above the treetops and flying forward until he saw the throng of conifers Hel had described.
They tumbled to the forest floor together, Dan snapping back into his human form, his energy fully exhausted. He laid supine on the ground, his chest heaving for breath, struggling to scoop air into his constricted lungs.
Cahira removed the rope and rock that had been weighing her down from her ankle and rolled closer to him. Although she was weak herself, she pulled her body so that her head could rest on his chest, placing her hand on his heart. Soon he felt heat radiating from her palm into his body, restoring normalcy to his breath and refueling his aching muscles. He realized she siphoned healing energy from the earth to mend them both.
They lay quietly for several moments as the ground warmed and restored them to health. “I didn’t know you could turn into a raven,” Cahira softly remarked. “Though you were as white as your fur is when you are a wolf.”
“Neither did I,” Dan admitted, grateful to be able to finally speak. “I never knew how draining power is.”
“Oh yes,” Cahira lifted her head from his chest. “However, someone once taught me I could pull energy up from the earth to heal.”
Dan beamed.
“Come,” she said as she rose to her feet. “I need to rinse this stink out of my hair. We also should find food and shelter soon. Our supplies have been lost.”
Dan bolted upright as he realized she was right. Their sack of utensils, weapons, and the map were gone. The only thing they had left was the clothing on their backs, Cahira’s now sopping wet with swamp water. He cursed. “What are we going to do?”
“Survive,” she shrugged, heading into the forest.
He followed after her, grateful to see a lush, winding stream up ahead. She dove in headfirst, wearing a relieved expression when her head broke through the surface. Dan tore off his shirt and dove in after her, relishing in the crisp, clear water.
They swam for a while before Cahira paused, gesturing down to her feet. “Fish,” she said. “Let’s build a fire.”
She grabbed his shirt after she exited the water so she could leave her own to dry on the rocks. It swallowed her tiny frame as she gathered wood, bringing it quickly to flame. They let their boots dry beside it as Dan fished in his wolf form, tossing his bounty for her to descale and debone. Soon, they’d sated their appetites, just as the sun began its descent behind the trees.
He remained a wolf so his fur would keep them both warm, curling around her as she fell asleep in the scattered leaves. He was grateful to remember they did not need supplies to survive, for they both were of the woods, the wolf and his guiding moon.
Auvergne, 1750
She stood in front of him, one hand on her hip, the other clasped around a pair of shears. “You have to let me do it.”
Dan frowned, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he stared at her. Though she looked the part of a rural Frenchwoman with her long, green peasant’s dress and her wild brown hair trapped in a loose braid that hung down her shoulder, her eyes were just as fierce and unwavering as they’d always been. “I do not understand why we have to go to Paris. This village has served us well for years.”
She sighed with exasperation. “I told you last night, I had the first clear dream since we arrived in France, and I believe it was a true vision. The entire reason we came to this country was to find David - and we’ve finally been given the guidance to do so.”
A sinking feeling settled in the bottom of Dan’s stomach, though he knew she was right. The rest of their journey across Europe had been without further incident, traveling through the lush and magnificent forest across Switzerland and into the Kingdom of France. Although they were both long accustomed to the nomadic lifestyle, something had struck them when they found the sleepy, unsuspecting village in the southern part of the country. Since they left the Bohemian Forest, the spirit world grew quiet again, leading them to believe that whatever was responsible for destroying the realms had finally ended the last line of communication. The village seemed the perfect place to stay and wait for a sign that would guide them on. Yet nothing came, and soon days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years.
The villagers accepted them, for although the giant, rugged man with a lion’s mane and his tiny, muscular wife appeared strange, they were friendly, speaking their language with furs to trade. Eventually they realized how good they were with the livestock, knowing exactly when one of their cows would give birth or when one of their horses was in pain. And so, Daniel and Cahira Pelletier established a household for the very first time in either of their lives, where they lived comfortably and undisturbed. Until now.
“You cannot blame me for wanting to stay,” Dan continued to protest.
A sudden severity flashed in her eyes. “I did not leave my woods to come to a strange town and play housewife. I came here to find a creature named David to restore the realms and ensure my mother has a safe resting place in death. We may have become friends over the years, Dan, but my mission has never changed. If my dreams tell me that David is in Paris, then I will go there, with or without you.”
Her words stung him, but he refused to let her know. He looked down at the pine slab floor, where one of their domesticated wolves rested by the fire. He tried not to look around the room at the home they’d built together, at the logs he’d painstakingly cut and fit for walls, the fireplace she’d built with rocks from the nearby river, or the furniture they carved together as they sat by the fire. He caught the scent of her herbs drying in the warm summer breeze, his eyes drawn to her overwhelmed bookcase, brimming with any book she could get her hands on. Her thirst for knowledge was never satisfied, and she read to him during the long winter nights, teaching him everything she learned, whether he wanted the information or not.
His mind drifted to the evening prior, when the rest of the village had retired for the night, birds offering their last calls across the plain. “It’s my birthday tomorrow,” she said softly, as she stared out the window, watching the setting sun.
He looked up from his dinner, surprised at her easy admission. “I hadn’t realized you kept track of such things.”
“Tomorrow is the first of May when the entire world is in bloom. The ancient Celts called it La Bealtaine, or the Feast of Beltane. It is considered the first official day of summer and was celebrated with roaring bonfires. To ensure a good season, and that their livestock would be protected from harm, the Druid elders would walk the cows through rows of fire. Then, after the pyres burned out, they would spread the ashes over the entire village. Girls made crowns of yellow flowers to wear in their hair, draping them around the necks of the cows for good luck. No greater celebration was had than on the first day of May.”
“Sounds perfect,” Dan offered with a small smile.
When Cahira turned, he was surprised to see that tears welled up in her eyes. “I don't even know if that’s my true birthday, but that’s the one my mother picked, for she always said I reminded her of spring. But it means I have been alive for twenty-four years, ten of which have been without her. I once had a purpose—to find David—and instead I am here, slowly ticking away the years until I am dead.”
“Well, that’s a pretty bleak way to view existence,” Dan remarked.
“That is easy for you to say. You are immortal.”
“Immortality is more of a curse than a blessing, Cahira,” he said quietly. “The day you die, I will be alive to witness it, after witnessing you grow old, weak, and in pain, and then I will be forced to live out the rest of my days without you.” He grew uncomfortably silent, realizing what he had just said aloud.
Her expression grew soft in the warm, golden sunset, before she blinked, and it resumed its hardness. “Oh, I am sure you will be fine,” she dismissed. “You have lived hundreds of years without me and have only known me for ten of them.” With that, she abruptly left their common room, retreating to her bedroom. Their wolf, Geri, rose up from her resting place to follow.
Dan exhaled, flopping down on his own bed, kept in the far corner of the main room, near the cool breeze of an open window. He couldn’t shake his unease, beyond the sadness their conversation had evoked. It was the closest he'd ever come to admitting how much he loved her, and she had responded in the same manner she had for years whenever he got close. Now he knew how Hekate must have felt, to love someone who had no love to give in return.
The next day, as a peace offering, he brought her home a bouquet of yellow flowers. She responded by wordlessly putting them in a glass of water and grabbing the shears off the kitchen table.
“Of course I will come with you,” he said as the memory faded. He raised an eyebrow at the glinting metal. “But I still do not see why I have to cut my hair.”
“Because it is not the fashion in the city,” she explained in exasperation. “You altered your appearance when we first arrived here, what does it matter if we shave your beard and trim your hair?”
Dan was not convinced.
She grabbed her hand mirror from her room, turning the reflective side towards him. “Would you let this man into a decent establishment?”
He looked at his image. Months of traveling had left his hair long and matted, his face covered with a full silver beard that ended at the top of his chest. The skin on his forehead and around his deep blue eyes had grown tan and leathery, its way of protecting itself in the brief moments he was forced to endure sunlight, his chest darkened from the blue ink of his tattoos. “What about the sun?” he pointed out. “If we take away my beard and hair, it will leave more skin exposed.”
Cahira sighed. “Your skin has not gotten worse since you first realized the sensitivity. You can wear a hat during the day, like you do now, with a high collar and cloak to protect it. We will keep to night travel whenever possible, like we used to.”
Dan growled. “Fine.”
She pounced before he could change his mind, the snipping loud in his ears as his hair fell to the floor, clumps and wiry braids of bright metallic grey. He closed his eyes as she clipped his beard, so close to him that her fragrance filled his nose with the sweet smells of spring, apple blossoms and fresh morning rain.
When he opened them, she was staring at him with an expression he couldn’t quite place, the tops of her cheeks a faint pink. She showed him the mirror again, and this time it reflected a stranger, a creature older than he remembered, with the same sapphire eyes, but a face that looked chiseled out of stone, with weather-beaten skin, dotted with silver scruff.
When he looked away, he saw that she had loosened her own hair, the warm brown spilling down her shoulders as she lifted a thin strand of his off the ground. Dan grew very quiet, watching as she wove them together into a braid, the tendril bright against the darkness of her own hair. Her eyes caught his. “I love you in my own way,” she murmured, tucking the finished multicolored braid behind her.
Emotion caught in his throat.
She withdrew, replacing the shears in their cabinet and retrieving a broom. “We will need to take all the money we’ve saved and find appropriate clothing,” she said, resuming her matter-of-fact tone. “What we’ve worn to blend in here will have us stick out in a city that cherishes fashion and refinement.”
Dan groaned, thinking of nothing he’d rather do less than try to fit in with civilized humans, wearing ridiculous accessories such as stockings and wigs.
“I also plan to travel to the nearby villages to see if we can sell the farm—”
“No,” Dan said firmly, rising to his feet.
“We need the money, Dan.”
For the first time in many years, his anger rose. “There are other ways to make money. We are not selling this house,” he snapped.
Fury tightened Cahira’s mouth, setting her golden eyes ablaze. “Fine,” she snapped back. “Then you will be the one to find money for us.” She stormed out of their cabin, letting the door crash behind her.
It was as if Fenrir had crept up behind him, whispering in his ear, Tear them all apart, feast on their flesh and leave. Instead, he looked down at their hound, who sat at his feet, staring up at him.
I am not selling our home. He repeated to the domesticated wolf. She looked back at him solemnly. Look after her for me, will you? I need to go into the woods for a few days.
The she-wolf nodded, pushing the door open with her nose. Dan pulled on his cloak and hat, grabbing one of her shawls to wind around his neck against the sun.
The village bustled in the early summer breeze, the scent of freshly baked bread overwhelming the blacksmith’s fires, women strolling the dirt paths to gather their wares for supper. He blew by them all, trying to withstand the heat of the sun though his skin screamed for darkness. They paid him no mind, used to their strange but friendly neighbor with the remarkable knack for animal husbandry. He made it to the outlying woods, sighing with relief in the shade. He unwound the scarf, the breeze hitting his bare neck, a sensation he had not felt for many years. It wasn’t unpleasant, but as he reached up to touch the shorn strands of hair, he scowled in contempt.
He headed inward, not sure exactly where he was going, but relishing in the comfort the woods provided him. He knew he was a fool to think they would settle; it was a dream he hadn’t even realized he had until he found her. He hadn’t anticipated falling in love with her either, the lines between protectiveness and desire blurring as the years passed, as a woman’s tenacity replaced a child’s precociousness. He never wanted to ruin what they had, an unbreakable companionship built on trust and loyalty, but the longer they spent together, the more difficult it became to bite his tongue.
The snap of a broken stick interrupted his thoughts, freezing him in place as he listened. He scanned his surroundings, realizing he had traveled much farther out than expected, closer to the mountain range than where their village lay. A random creek had established itself in the midst of the woods, and there, his eyes caught a flash of auburn hair. He prepared to strike, but the young man who confronted him was unarmed. “Easy does it, you are in my neck of the woods, old man,” he said, holding up his arms in a show of reasonableness. His homespun cotton pants and tunic showed signs of wear, revealing his peasantry, his accent thick with countryside.
“Forgive me,” Dan muttered, though annoyed his musings were interrupted.
“No worries, unless you plan on telling my employer that one of his stable hands decided to take the day off to swim in the creek.” He smiled up at him, good-naturedly. He was not small, but he was very thin, giving his limbs a wiry look that made his head appear too big for his body. His nose was narrow and pointed, accompanied by a slanted chin, and a bushel of bright copper hair that very poorly concealed two tiny stumps on his forehead.
Dan blinked with recognition. “You are a creature.”
The young man laughed. “Well, sure if that’s what you want to call it. Aren’t you? A little audacious to be out here in the daylight if you ask me. I thought your kind shriveled up in the sun.”
“I am not a blood drinker,” Dan said hotly, growing more annoyed as the conversation continued.
“Oh, forgive me,” the boy backpedaled. “My name is Henri. I didn’t mean to offend you—you just smell very much like a blood drinker. We call them les vampires. Most folks don’t realize that I’m a liminal being either. It is not exactly something I choose to divulge. In fact, my hat is around here somewhere…” He found it hanging on a nearby bush and pulled it over his curls.
Dan felt his irritation subside, replaced with curiosity. “What is a liminal being?” he asked.
The boy gave him a wide grin, which only exaggerated his pointed features. “We are the creatures that don’t fit, born of other creatures that defy explanation. We aren’t exactly a class either, some of us have powers, some of us are essentially mortal. The only things we share are a set of devilish horns and a pair of angelic wings, stunted at birth by earthly restrictions. I have heard stories that there are some who can still sprout wings and wear full horns popping out of their skulls, but most of us just appear as deformed humans.”
Dan was stunned. “There are more of you? Are you all related?”
Henri suddenly looked nervous. “What brings you to these parts, friend? We are not far from my employer’s castle and most villagers stay out of these woods. Especially since they’ve become overwhelmed with wolves these last few years.”
Dan sighed, realizing he’d made him nervous. “Again, I apologize. I believe my companion is a liminal being. She has the same horns and stunted wings as you do, yet she keeps them carefully concealed.”
Henri lit up. “I have never met another Liminal before! Only what I’ve been told in stories. You must let me meet her.”
Dan frowned, instantly wishing he hadn’t been so forthcoming. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea. She isn’t exactly pleased with me at the moment. Besides, we are leaving for Paris in the next few days. If I can raise enough money for our journey, that is. That is the reason I’m wandering the woods, hoping that in the fresh air, the answers will come to me.”
“Why don’t you steal from the Marquis? He has more than enough gold locked away in his dungeons to miss a chunk of it.”
Dan’s eyes narrowed, immediately suspicious.
Henri shrugged, giving him another mischievous grin. “He’s a wicked man, if the prospect of stealing offends your morals.”
His words took Dan aback. He had never really considered his morals before—he was a man who simply acted. He supposed he was a good man. He’d never killed without needing to eat or protect himself, and he refused to harm a woman or a child. In fact, he often felt the urge to tear apart those who did. His life had been such a long period of survival, he hadn’t much time to ponder philosophical convictions. “I never stopped to consider my morals,” he admitted.
Henri chuckled. “Good. If you’re headed into Paris, you’ll need to be prepared for what transpires there. The Third Estate is positively brimming with animosity towards the rich and tensions are high. If you aren’t stealing from and hating the Estates General, then you are one of them. I’ve stolen my fair share from the Marquis myself if you doubt my intentions.” He brightened. “I have an idea. How about you help me, and I help you? Tonight, I will leave the servant’s door to the castle unlocked for you to enter. You can take whatever you need, and I’ll make sure you are unbothered.”
“And in return?”
“You take me with you to Paris. I have enough of my own money saved and I’d like to start a new life there. The countryside has never been for me, neither is serving rich bastards either.”
Dan faltered. “I’m not sure my companion would approve…”
Henri snorted. “You let a woman make your decisions for you? She must be one formidable dame.”
“She is formidable, strong, and smart enough for me to trust her opinions,” Dan said flatly, crossing his arms.
“Ah, no offense intended.” Henri lifted his hands again in submission. “I was hoping that maybe as fellow creatures, we could look out for each other in this world. Especially since the realms have been closed. I know plenty of creatures in the city if you need connections.”
“Do you know a man named David?” Dan quickly asked.
“Not personally, but I happen to know the right les vampires to ask.”
“Then we have a deal.” Dan stuck out his hand.
Henri took it with another wide grin. “Pleased to do business with you.”
Dan waited until nightfall before he crept up to the castle, an overwhelming, aged structure that appeared to have been built hundreds of years prior. It boasted architectural magnificence, the type of building that had been in a family for generations. He’d heard stories of the Marquis who lived behind its walls and his three sons. They were arrogant souls that rarely visited the nearby village it once depended on in the days of feudalism, an arrangement the villagers did not seem to mind, for they were left to exist in peace. He could hear the rustling of wolves in the nearby mountains, but they sensed him and respectfully kept their distance. Dan located the entrance Henri told him about, pausing briefly to contemplate whether he was making a mistake. Cahira had not come looking for him, nor had she summoned him, as she still could do, though she chose not to. It appeared as though this was his choice alone to make. He took a deep breath, lifting the iron latch that kept the heavy wooden door shut. Miraculously, it opened.
Henri was waiting for him, holding a torch that tossed light into the shadowy corridor behind him. It was cold, dank, and still, thick cobwebs hanging from the ceilings like tapestries.
“We are in the old dungeon,” he explained to Dan. “Long ago, this was the passageway prisoners walked through to their courtyard deaths. No one uses it anymore, save for those who know about it and want to escape the confines of the castle for recreation.” In the shadows, Dan saw him wink.
“I didn’t expect you to be here,” Dan remarked.
Henri shrugged. “The more I thought about it, the more I figured you’d appreciate my assistance. And I would like to take out a bit more for myself before I leave.” He gestured to his hip, where he’d secured a sack to the waistband of his trousers.
Dan was not amused. “Let’s get this over with,” he told him.
He followed the spritely creature down the winding hall until they came upon another ancient door bearing three heavy padlocks. He watched in amazement as Henri effortlessly picked them all with the tiny tool he retrieved from beneath his cap. When he finished, he shoved the door, which obeyed with an irritated groan.
The torchlight revealed a room swept clean of all dust and debris, an old cell transformed into a chamber of treasures. Trunks filled the better part of the room, while shelves lined the walls bearing gold and precious jewels. Henri immediately scooped a ruby necklace into his sack. He turned back to Dan to offer his now signature grin. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
Dan sighed, lumbering over to one of the trunks. He cracked it open to see it held reveal hundreds of glittering coins. Satisfied, he snapped it shut and lifted the entire trunk to rest on his shoulder.
Henri raised an eyebrow. “That’s all?”
Dan grunted in reply.
“At least put some jewels in there. You’re stealing enough money to buy you and your wife a nice sized residence, but it is smart in these times to have some insurance beyond the coin.”
“You can steal as many jewels as you'd like,” Dan told him. “I just want enough to get us established in Paris.”
Henri shrugged, scooping more jewelry into his bag. “Let’s go before we arouse any suspicion.”
Dan followed Henri back down the hall and out the old dungeon door. The night air met them crisp and humming with summer insects. The estate was still quiet, assuring Dan that his entrance and exit went unnoticed. He didn’t break stride as he re-entered the woods. “Goodbye, then,” he called back, without waiting for a reply. He repositioned the trunk, preparing to sprint back to the cottage, when he realized Henri trailed behind him.
“I forgot to mention, I’m coming back with you tonight,” the impish creature said. “If the Marquis discovers we’ve taken half his fortune, there will be hell to pay, and I want no part of it.”
Dan was highly agitated but felt powerless to argue. Henri didn’t seem like the type to keep quiet under distress and he didn’t want to risk any unnecessary threat to their travels. He scowled, resuming his march.
“I feel a lot better knowing I’m traveling with you,” Henri called, trying to keep up. “Something tells me with your kind of strength, we don't have to worry about wolves.”
Dan led him into the village, past the closed stores and taverns in the center of town to the cluster of farms where their cottage was nestled. He saw a lamp aglow in the window, signaling Cahira was still awake. He opened the door to a pair of angry amber eyes, accompanied by the low guttural growling of Geri.
“What on earth is going on?” Cahira demanded as she glowered at the stranger at her door.
Dan directed his attention to his wolf first, lest Henri be ripped to pieces. “Geri, calm yourself. He is a friend.”
I don't like the way he smells, she sneered, though she backed away.
“This is Henri,” Dan told a seething Cahira. He carefully entered, gesturing for Henri to follow. “You can come in.”
“Pleasure to meet you, mademoiselle,” Henri offered shakily, taking a step forward.
“I met him in the woods. He is the stable hand at the castle,” Dan explained.
“Why is he in our house? What are you carrying?”
“He is a fellow creature who knows where we can find David.” Dan slammed down the trunk. It popped open to reveal its shimmering bounty.
Cahira gasped. “You stole that from the castle? It looks like a small fortune.”
Henri smiled nervously. “That’s because it is. I helped your husband steal it and in return, he said I could accompany you both to Paris. I know other creatures who live in the city, including one who knows the David you seek.”
“You told him he could come with us?” Cahira looked to Dan, surprised.
“Yes,” he sighed.
“Interesting.” She searched his eyes for a moment before she shrugged. “Fine. But we must go quickly. It’s only a matter of time before the Marquis discovers he has been robbed and sends a search party into the village.”
“Tonight? We cannot go tonight,” Dan protested. “We aren't even prepared for travel.”
“You should have thought of that before you decided to rob the Marquis,” Cahira shot back. She put on her cloak and pulled up the hood. Then she pulled open their weapons cabinet to retrieve her knives, sliding two into her boots before flinging her crossbow over her shoulder.
Henri looked mystified.
“My name is Cahira,” she offered. “If you plan on traveling with us, you must know that we are vagabonds, creatures who have lived our lives in the woods. We move quickly and efficiently, and if you can’t keep up, we will leave you behind.”
Henri nodded, his eyes wide.
She tossed Dan a stack of furs. “I will prepare the horses,” she told them, disappearing out the door.
Dan looked down at the trunk of coins. “Help me disperse these into bags, will you?” he asked Henri.
The two of them managed to fit the coins into three burlap sacks, which they filled and brought to the stables. Cahira had already saddled three horses and waited patiently as they divided their belongings to evenly distribute weight amongst them.
Dan hated to travel by horseback, but he greeted his horse lovingly, running his hand along its soft beige mane.
“Are we ready?” Cahira asked, devoid of emotion.
Dan searched the eyes beneath her hood, unable to find any warmth. She’d closed herself off, becoming once again the young girl standing amongst her dead family, who’d forced a direwolf to do her bidding. As if the years they'd spent together in their home meant nothing to her, their connections shattered, her emotions left behind.
Dan swallowed his own rising emotion, forcing himself to nod.
Cahira’s horse abruptly sped off down the path, Henri following closely behind her.
Dan took one last look at the house, a pang of sorrow threatening his resolve. Geri stood at the door, unwilling to move.
I didn’t think you’d be willing to come with us, he said sadly. Will you watch over our home until we return?
Of course. Be safe.
Dan felt a pang in his heart as he nodded and took off after his moon, leaving behind their dwelling to follow the only true home he’d ever known.
Her.