Black Angus – Chapter 6

This is a working draft and not a final product.

Content Warnings: The usual Blood and Gore

In which Angus is treated to an apéritif.

Angus roused awake from a low, rumbling sound nearby. True to what he’d said before, Anatoliy had laid down for a nap and he was snoring. The cheap, tiny bed was uncommonly warm from the remaining fever still radiating from the man’s body. Angus eyed him curiously. The scent of floral oils drifted from his damp, silver-streaked locks, and the marinated musk of Anatoliy’s sweat was gone. He had shaved too. Angus guessed to-day was the first time in a long time that the mercenary had access to washing facilities.

Seeing the numerous, tiny scars sprinkled across Anatoliy’s exposed chest caused Angus’s hunger to stir. So many spots where the man had leaked once, just as he had to-day. The memory of Anatoliy’s taste coated Angus’s tongue, leaving his mouth wet. Angus had heard of vampires who could bite so gently that they could drink off of sleeping victims without ever waking them. Bracing himself on his left arm, he leaned over so that he could leer more closely at Anatoliy’s freshly exposed throat. Perhaps, if Angus was gentle enough . . .

Anatoliy’s eyes fluttered open half-way. He sighed at the sight of Angus looming above him. Staring into his eyes, Anatoliy reached the fingers of his right hand through Angus’s black curls and rested his palm on Angus’s cheek, inviting him closer. He made no further move, waiting for Angus to react. The tips of his fingers felt as if they only just recently grasped a freshly ladled bowl of soup. A dark red spot had welled through the layers of the bandage. Unable to resist, Angus leaned his face into Anatoliy’s wrist, nuzzling the stained cloth with his nose and inhaling deeply. Cotton, detergent, and vetiver drew up from his whiff carrying the pronounced notes of sweet, brackish rust. The tip of his tongue hung out slightly, but he let nothing more than the corners of his mouth touch the man’s arm.

With a jerk, Angus pulled himself away, a hazy look covering his face. He rolled over, facing the wall, and pulled the raincoat up to his ear. Behind him, he could feel Anatoliy shift uncertainly on the small bed. Less than a minute later, the man’s bewildered, uneven breathing returned to the calm patterns of sleep.

Anatoliy was gone when Angus woke up again. Their room was dark; light no longer fighting its way through the blankets covering the window. Angus rose and lit the candle on the corner table. Next to the candle, he noticed a carved, cylindrical, wooden idol of a bearded male figure holding a disc over his abdomen, and a small ceramic bowl containing burnt herbs and the arrowhead he’d removed from Anatoliy’s arm. The carved idol, not much taller than the length of Angus’s hand and vaguely phallic in shape, made him feel uneasy to look upon in the steel shadows of the cramped, drab studio.

Angus sifted through his pack, finding the clothes from man Esther and Edwina had buried. The chestnut brown wool trousers fit around his waist just fine, but he had to roll the cuffs up a couple of times to match the length of his short legs. He put on the taupe button-up shirt next. The material felt nicely woven and expensive. It was probably cotton, but he wasn’t sure. Angus didn’t care for the man’s coat, so he wore the ivy jerkin over the shirt instead.

He wondered if Anatoliy was downstairs, and the intrusion of the thought made him nervous. After seeing Angus looming over him last night, Anatoliy would have been justified if he mistook Angus’s hunger for lust. What if Anatoliy grew bolder? Angus determined he had to show more restraint with his urges —not only to keep himself from misleading his new friend, but because it was stupid, risky behavior. As he chided himself for acting so sloppily, Angus tried to keep his thoughts sensible and focused on survival -just like Esther would- but he kept slipping away into the same boyish ruminations.

The encounter had embarrassed him. Surely, there had to be at least one time, just one person in the last seven years with whom he’d had sex for pleasure with since he’d left Friedolf. Angus just couldn’t remember right then. Either way, it had been some amount of time and he wasn’t too sure how much more of Anatoliy’s flirtatious attentions he could take. If he was careful though, maybe Angus could slip out of the inn before Anatoliy could attempt to drink with him.

Stepping out to the stair landing, Angus saw that the common area below had filled out with more people. Pleasantly, it wasn’t an overwhelming amount. And unfortunately, Anatoliy noticed Angus descended the stairs right away, flashing him a dimpled smile as they made painfully unmistakable eye contact. Angus’s gut twisted. Boards creaked under the fall of his pointed shoes as he descended past a copper chandelier that had gone lichen green, stocked with candles of varying heights. Having risen from his seat at the bar to meet him, Anatoliy clasped Angus warmly on each arm when Angus reached the bottom of the stairs. His large rough hands lingered a moment as they held Angus firmly in place, though he seemed to be shivering.

“You’re awake! You really did sleep all day, little vampir.”

“Vampire—?” Angus stammered, his body going rigid and his eyes turning glossy and large. He’d messed up already. He had to get Anatoliy somewhere secluded so he could kill him —soon. But how? Anatoliy couldn’t be foolish enough to go anywhere alone with him now.

Anatoliy threw back his head in laughter. Wiggling Angus’s chin in his hand, he said, “Because you slept all day, and you licked up my blood instead of using a cloth. —You remind me of another man I knew from my company. He was also very particular in his ways and not good with jokes.”

Angus laughed with relief, “Oh good, I was worried you were one of those superstitious types.”

“Stories are very fun, but they are just stories. Now—,” Anatoliy grasped Angus’s arm, waving his other arm towards the bar. “What is your drink? Ale, mead, wine, spirits?”

“I like gin,” Angus answered timidly, “Neat.”

“Then you shall have it. Seat yourself. I will take care of us.” Anatoliy dismissed him with a light pat on his arm.

Angus felt woozy. He obediently found a small table far from the stairs, next to a window. The air downstairs smelled of animal manure, sweat, and spilled ale, but the table sat close to the door where a breeze might find its way in, and it was a bit more isolated and private.

He hated how he couldn’t tell if Anatoliy was acting friendly with him, or more than that. However, it seemed appropriate that he should get to know the man he’d presumably be spending the next few days with. Angus caught himself checking the fit of his disembodied clothes in the black reflection of the window. On the other side of the glass, he could hear insects whispering their winsome tunes. Nighttime in the countryside was a pulsating, living thing. Perhaps he should be out there with the animals instead of here, inside, pretending to be a man.

“Gin,” Anatoliy announced, breaking Angus’s meditation and placing two identical glasses on the table. He took a relaxed seat opposite to Angus. His comfortable, civilian clothes showed his scarred and hirsute chest through its laces. For a sobering moment, he merely watched Angus as he reclined.

Angus lifted his glass and clinked it to Anatoliy’s. “Uh, cheers.”

“Za zdorov’ye,” Anatoliy responded with a broad smile. They took their first sips simultaneously. The glasses clacked against the surface of the table.

“How, um, are you feeling? Still feverish?” Angus asked. He dragged the edges of his teeth over his lower lip and flicked his hand Anatoliy’s way.

“My arm feels terrible, but that’s to be expected, is it not?” Anatoliy answered, pulling a half smile, “I finished one drink before you showed up, so now I’m feeling slightly number than I was before.”

Angus leaned back into his seat with his arms crossed. “Why did you put off treatment for so long? Did you not have a medic at camp?”

“Oh, this did not happen on the field,” Anatoliy responded, giving his arm a flex where it laid outstretched on the table, “I was traveling in a party of six, heading east before we hit the southern road where you and I met. It’s not many of us, but usually, it’s enough to keep thugs from getting bold. Not this time, though. We encountered roughly a dozen bandits, perhaps more, perhaps less. It wasn’t the time for counting, you understand. They got the jump on us, took out our youngest before we even saw them. The kid was a cousin of my friend Collin, just over there.” Anatoliy gestured at a man sitting at a far-off table who was looking rather poorly. Angus recognized him from the party that had passed him on the road the night before.

Anatoliy continued, “I braced Zorya between my thighs, and she moved as swift and as smooth as river water. It is unlike these troupes to act so bloodthirsty or to attack armored men like ourselves, even if they do double us. More often, they aim to intimidate. That they would act so recklessly as to immediately start attacking us demonstrated that they were especially desperate. The only answer to that sort of desperation is to react in kind.

“I drove my sword through the soft belly of the first man I passed, slamming my elbow into the skull of the next bandit who passed me on the right as he tried to get behind me, trusting my friends to finish him.” Anatoliy lightly jutted the elbow of his injured arm out to demonstrate.

“I pulled my sword free from the first man’s gut, just in time to block the axe of a big durak with his shirt off,” Anatoliy scoffed, then whirled his wrist into a sharp flick. “I parried him, then jabbed him in the armpit as he tried to swing at me a second time. He fell off his animal to bleed out. The first of the arrows flew past me while the big guy was still slumped over, shielding most of me. I turned Zorya round a wide arc to reach the bowman before he could gain more distance from us. He got me as I was closing the gap between us. It stung terribly; I felt it deep down in my stomach. But I held on, smashing him in the face in the following seconds as he failed to switch his weapon in time. His bow snapped in two, and I could hear his skull crack as I struck him a second time with the hilt of my sword.

“Back where the others were, I saw one of my friends flanked by a pair of the thugs. I rode back and got one of them from behind, thrusting my sword through an exposed patch of neck, allowing my fellow to take out the other. Seeing how we had decimated their band, the remaining three bandits retreated back the way they came. The remaining five of us laid Collin’s young cousin to rest. Then, we resumed our journey here to Blithe-Rock. Some of the others sustained injuries as well, but mine was the worst of them. I started to fall behind as we got close to town, but I was not too worried about being separated, as we were already so near our destination. That’s when I found you.”

Angus drew a sharp breath, “So you neglected aid in order to not further delay your travel time.”

“It seemed safest to spend as little more time on the road as we could, yes,” Anatoliy replied. He leaned forward on his arms. The dark spot on his bandage had not changed size since Angus last saw it up close. Studying Angus’s face, he continued, “I’m sorry, the most curious thing has gotten my attention. I first noticed when you were staring at me in bed.”

Angus’s throat caught. He had so hoped the encounter wouldn’t come up —though, of course, it would. He could only blink in response.

“I get an odd feeling whenever you look me in the eyes —like right now. I feel like you could tell me to do anything you could think of, and whether or not I wanted to, I’d do as you say.” Anatoliy squinted at him as he played at being suspicious.

“What sort of things?” Angus probed cautiously.

“Dishonorable things; stupid, humiliating, irresponsible, dangerous. If you told me to strip naked, for example —by Rod, I’d have no choice. If you told me to start a fight with one of these other men. If you told me to jump the bar and try to steal a bottle in front of everyone. —I don’t understand it.”

Angus grimaced. “I would never do such a thing to you.”

This was new. He wondered when the skill had set in. All of the weaknesses had come first. Over time, Angus could become physically stronger if he stayed healthy —something he was not very good at. Climbing walls had come to him naturally in no time at all. Angus loved climbing; he wished he could do it more without potentially exposing himself. He’d never knowingly hypnotized anyone before, but he had been hypnotized himself. —It was awful.

“Hopefully, your blood isn’t infected. That can cause confusion and even delirium. Tell me if you experience anything else similar, though it’s probably just the drink getting to you,” he concluded. “What else have you gotten up to while I was asleep? Hopefully, more than this.” Angus folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

The relaxed smile slipped from Anatoliy’s face, his eyes narrowing as he glanced downward to the side, thoughtful. His mouth twitched. “I have my war wages to fund my holiday, but even if I lived as a miser, they would not sustain me through the season. I have a peacetime job lined up for me —a very good one. The pay could cover my expenses for well over a year. I wrote to the client this afternoon. It will likely be a few days until I hear back on when to expect him. Until then, I relax. —I also explored around town, fed Zorya some apples . . .” He flourished his hand.

Angus took a sip. “What’s the job?”

“Private bodyguard. I watch over a man for a brief time, make sure he journeys safely to his destination.”

“It must be dangerous if it pays so much.”

Anatoliy combed his hand through his hair. “Dangerous . . . Yes, I thought myself lucky at first, but I admit I have already begun to have my doubts.”

Angus trailed his finger over the side of his glass. “So you’ll be gone soon? That’s a shame. I thought we were becoming friends.”

Anatoliy blinked twice at him, wetting his lips with his tongue. “Of course we are friends. But enough about me. You mentioned studies before. Are you a student?” He gestured for Angus to speak.

“I used to be,” Angus admitted, tilting his head, “but I left before I could complete my schooling. I was given the opportunity of a lifetime. —That’s, ah, a story for only close friends, I’m afraid.”

Anatoliy scoffed back, “Now you sit before me in ill-fitting clothes, with almost no money in your pockets, clearly no more than a few years later. Some ‘opportunity’. And some ‘lifetime’.”

Swirling his drink as he gazed into it, Angus replied, “A fair point, but I’d be dead by now if I didn’t accept.” He shrugged and took another sip.

Anatoliy pushed his lips out thoughtfully. He took a drink, stalling for time as he decided whether to speak, “There’s . . . a question I’ve wanted to ask ever since I first saw you walking through the woods alone at night. —You are running from something, aren’t you?”

Angus squirmed in his seat, unable to look away from him. “Running? No, I—,” he lied terribly. It was all too much to explain at the moment.

“Did you fuck a man’s wife? Steal? Hurt someone?”

“I nearly killed a man,” Angus whispered back. He didn’t understand why he had answered, but it felt good to say outloud.

“And now you are afraid to show your face during the day. You cover the windows so no one will see you. —Who was he?”

Angus stared into the grain of the wooden table. “A wealthy councilman. I lived with him. He —uh, he had sex with me sometimes.” His mouth felt dry.

“Hm. I was a kept boy for a short time after I arrived in Ériusíde and joined my first company,” Anatoliy waxed, scratching his chin, “The fellow had plenty to teach me about fighting and training, but very little about yeblya.” He rolled his eyes and pulled an unimpressed face. Angus could infer he was being crass.

Anatoliy continued on, “Over the years, my sword has tasted the blood of many men —all poor, like myself, and all because rich men desired what other rich men had. How I wish that even one of those lives could have been a bastard aristocrat. I do not judge you.”

“If you hate the men you work for so much, then why do you choose this work?”

Anatoliy’s eyes creased, a blend of scrutiny and compassion crossing his expression, “I hope you understand, umnitsa, I do not discount your suffering. I feel for you greatly. But there are many of us who never even had the chance to get where you are now; to pursue schooling and then abandon it so easily for greater things —even if those pursuits did not work out in your favor.

“I, however, am a refugee,” he continued, “I was born into war. I have been fighting and killing for as long as I have been able to lift a sword. Perhaps, at one point, there was a time when I did have a choice —when I could have put this life behind me. But I would not be living the free life that I have now. Just as much as anyone, I wish that life had presented me with more choices, but given what I had, I do not regret the path that I have taken.”

This evening, when Angus had woken, he had felt embarrassed over such shallow misunderstandings, but what he felt now was worse than that; he felt ashamed. If Angus were to wager a guess, Anatoliy was probably just shy of half his age. It would be a great amount of time before Angus was as wizened and aged as he’d been holding himself in his mind. And Anatoliy might not have shown him so much patience if he had known Angus was not the inexperienced young man he appeared to be. He reached across the table to touch Anatoliy’s good hand. His skin was still warm, though much less so than before.

“I have to apologize. From the moment we’ve met, I have judged you for your work. You approached me with kindness and have shown me nothing else since. I am sorry.”

Anatoliy gave a light squeeze of the hand back, “Do not worry. I have also been judging you for being a fancy brat. A beautiful one, eh, but ah . . . —You are not at all the person I thought you’d be.”

A pained laugh escaped Angus, “What a relief.”

It was not the sort of response Angus expected from himself, but it was true. When he had started to care about Anatoliy’s approval, he couldn’t say. Even the man’s shallow flattery was starting to become welcome. —Angus had started to doubt himself when Anatoliy had spoken poorly of his clothes, as if it had mattered at all to him how Anatoliy thought he looked. They held each other’s gaze for a brief period.

“You know,” Anatoliy said, lifting his hand to tap his chest, “I like being told nice things too, sometimes.”

Angus winced and shrunk back. “Oh, I . . . ,” he stammered his excuse, “I’m not so good at flirting.”

“What do you do, then, when you like someone?”

“I . . . ,” Angus waved his hands, unsure, “tell them I like them.”

“Ah.” Lifting his eyebrows high, Anatoliy took a long drink, finishing the glass.

Guests and patrons chattered away at the other tables around them, forming a sphere of difficult silence around them. Angus realized Anatoliy had not burst into any of his thunderous laughs since he’d sat down. He’d expected, since they were drinking together, that Anatoliy would have bellowed out several times by now, filling the air with the invigorating sound of his rich, throaty voice. And now that Angus had noticed Anatoliy hadn’t laughed in a moment —he missed it. Ever since Anatoliy had shaved, Angus could make out the dimples that had been hidden below. They creased in deep when he smiled. His eyelashes had looked so long in his sleep. His strands of gray glinted like spider silk in the candlelight. He was beautiful. And fun. And relaxing. And he had a good heart.

Anatoliy rose from his seat, patting his hand on the table, “I’m going for another round. Will you join?”

“I do like you, Anatoliy. I think I’m at risk of becoming severely fond of you,” Angus said, looking up with his stubby hands in his lap.

Anatoliy looked away, his smile breaking free as his cheeks turned red. “I don’t usually get twists in my stomach when I talk to people like this,” he confessed, chuckling nervously as he added, “Tell me that’s not a symptom of infection.”

Angus demurely rose from his seat. “The sun’s been down for almost an hour. I should probably go into town for food before it’s too late.”

“You don’t want to eat here?”

Angus bowed his head. “I’m saying I could do for a walk on my own for a moment.” He smiled apologetically.

“Wait a moment.” Anatoliy hooked Angus’s wrist before he could walk away. He didn’t finish his thought, but his eyes darted all over Angus’s face, especially to his mouth.

Angus let out a soft laugh, then glanced around the lively room and all the people. On impulse, he lowered his lashes and leaned in deceptively close.

“Not here,” he hushed, “There will be a better moment. —I know there will.”

Then, without looking back, he left for the door. He felt Anatoliy’s longing stare at his back the entire way. Esther would be pleased with him.