Page 14 of Overexposed

I visibly saw the gears turning in Owain’s head, but he didn’t ask me any more questions, and I didn’t want to keep Tove waiting.

The knapsack he had handed me struck me as somewhat light as I slung it over my winter coat. I bundled up in gloves and a cap, a warm scarf tied over my mouth and nose. Owain rushed to a cabinet and fished out my legwarmers, and after a brief moment of hesitation, I put them on too.

“I’ll make sure there is warm water when you return,” Owain told me before I left.

I took a moment to examine him properly. He’d grown and was wearing a mishmash of my old clothing and my mother’s hand-me-downs. His hollowed cheeks had filled out. He was clean apart from a few ash and flour stains. He was very far removed from that day I’d found him, both in body and mind.

“Thank you, Owain,” I told him and left for the courtyard.

During the flight with Tove, I was glad Owain had thought of the leg warmers. It was still cold, even with all my warm things. We flew for a long time -- hours -- and when we finally got back to earth, the biting cold was replaced by seething heat. As it turned out, Tove had decided to take me to Aswan.

Now, Tove had personally schooled me in geography and history, among other things, so I knew where in Upper Egypt we were, and that the river I spotted not all that far away was the Nile, the large artery of the realm. I had even seen drawings of palm trees before, although this was the first time I saw them in reality.

“What are we doing here?” I asked, my teeth still chattering from the brutal cold of flight.

“We will be enjoying some of the revelry. It is the festival of Swenett.” He tapped the knapsack still on my shoulder. “Let’s get changed and head into town.”

Tove had packed the right clothing for us, thin cotton garments that were unlike the garments I was used to, although they reminded me of the loose robes Tove favored around the house. I did not enjoy the sandals, but this was Egypt, and even during the night, the earth gave off heat, dispelling the frost that clung to me in stages.

Ah, Ethan. How should I describe Aswan at that time to you? The sights, you might be able to envision to some degree. You have watched movies, and you will have seen things in your history books. But while there is truth there, it is notthetruth of living it. As with all places for the longest time in history, what would have struck you first, I believe, is the smell.

Aswan has always been a trading and garrison town. The Nile was right at the city’s doorstep, so that made sense. Trade meant people, and people meant animals, and all that combined achieved an olfactory reality that humans today are very rarely, if ever, exposed to.

It smelled. It smelled bad by today’s standards, and bad by my standards at the time. How Tove managed cities for any stretch of time makes me wonder whether there are generational differences in vampires like they exist in humans. My tolerance early on would not have allowed me to enjoy a place like Aswan.

And yet, as a human boy, I did enjoy it. Flatbread was cooked out on the street, there was beer, and a pickled onion dish that I fell in love with. Tove indulged me, slowed his steps so I could gape at the strange houses built of pale, yellow stone, at the open fires, at the barges out on the water. I tasted fruits I’d never eaten -- I tasted dates for the first time. I don’t remember what they taste like now. I know they were sweet, and the juicy morsels exploded on my tongue. I loved them. But the exact flavor of them, it escapes me.

At some point in the early hours, Tove tapped me on my shoulder. I’d been standing in a crowd with him, watching a trained monkey balance a ball made of rags on his head. I’d never seen a monkey before.

I followed Tove away from the crowd and to a winding alley. The other one stepped out of the shadows, and as we approached, there was just enough light for me to see black, pupilless eyes in a face that had the sun-browned color of rich metals, the same as most of the people of the city.

“This is Rami,” Tove told me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “We will be staying with him for the night, maybe for a few days after that.”

Tove added something in a language I’d never heard him speak, and we followed the strange vampire. Rami, apart from Tove, would be the only one of my kind I’d see for several hundred years. This first visit was an uncomfortable one for me as the conversation proceeded in what I assumed was Egyptian, and I had no clue what was spoken.

Rami’s home was within the city. That struck me as odd, and I had many questions, but I had been trained by Tove and knew to observe for the time being, not interrupt with my curiosity.

The most surprising thing of what I will call Rami’s court was that all around him, he had gathered many humans. They served him quietly and with something not unlike reverence. It’s possible he entranced them or some of them, but it is just as possible that they were -- and I shudder to say it -- a kind of vampire cult. At that time, secret cults dedicated to the worship of the gods were still somewhat common, and while it was not without risks, I could see how such an arrangement would offer a level of comfort and security to one of our kind.

While we were there, Rami and Tove spent most of their time talking, and in a gesture that was too tender to be purely perfunctory, Tove draped a blanket over me when I’d sagged against a floor cushion. I had learned the benefits of a light sleep, but with Tove there, I knew I could relax.

We stayed for another two days, and throughout all this time, Tove did not let me out of his sight even once. Rami was not unkind. He wasn’t too kind either. He gifted me a shirt dyed with expensive indigo and showed me the black scorpions he kept as pets. When we returned home, I smelled of rosewater and cold air, and Owain ran out to meet us.

“Auris!” he said. “You are back! I… I missed you.”

I wasn’t in need of a bath, but I let him run me one all the same.

Chapter Five

Ethan

Auris’s eyes had turned black as he’d been talking, but he hadn’t said a word for the past ten or so minutes, lost in his own thoughts as he stared out at the light-polluted sky above Prague.

“If you’ll only give me a story about Owain, will you give me a yes-no answer about Rami? Is he still around?” I asked.

Auris looked at me, almost as if he’d forgotten I was there. “He is. He was, last I saw him. He no longer keeps scorpions.”

I cracked a smile. “Does he still have a cult?”

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