“He stunk like a corpse,” the beaded one said. “Like the thick stink of rotten meat.”
“Black hair, like the ape but he not the ape. Black wings, like the bat, but he not the bat. And ears like a horse.”
“And he feet like he hands, and they grab like hands, but big like his head, and he come from sky and try to go back to it.”
“There are many flying beasts on this trail,” I said.
“Maybe they fly over the White Lake from the Darklands,” Nyka whispered to me.
I wanted to tell him that one would have to go to a dark street where men fuck holes in walls and call them sister to find a remark less stupid.
“Sun queen just gone back home,” said the one with the skull cap. “Sun queen just gone when he first come, ten nights ago. He fly down, we hear the wing first, and then a shadow that block out the last light. Somebody look up and she scream and he try to grab her and she drop to the ground, and everybody running and yelling, and bawling, and we run to we huts, but an old man, he was too slow and his hunchback hurt, and the beast grab him with leg hands and bite his face off, but then spit him out, like the blood was poison, and he chase after a woman who was the last to reach her hut, I see it myself in the bush I hide myself, he catch her foot before she run in her hut, and he fly off with her, and we don’t see her no more. And since then he come every two night.”
“Some of we, we try to leave, but the cows slow, and we slow, and he find we on the trail and kill everybody and drink out the blood. Every man and woman and beast rip in two. Sometimes he eat the head.”
“Ask him when he came around last,” I said.
“Two night ago,” the old man says.
“We need to locate the boy,” the Aesi said.
“We’ve found the boy. I was waiting for him to find Nyka. But we have found him.”
“No one here mentioned anything of a boy,” the Aesi said.
“Good men speak of me as if I am not here. You wish to leave me out in the open so that your boy will find me?” Nyka asked.
“We will not have to. When Sasabonsam comes tonight, he will bring the boy. The boy will demand it until there is no quieting him,” I said.
“I do not like this plan,” the Aesi said.
“There is no plan,” I said.
“That is what I do not like.”
“It took six of us to beat him last time and we still could not kill him. Ask what weapons they have.”
“I say we let what happen, happen and follow him to where he hides,” the Aesi said.
“Where he hides could be two days’ walk.”
“He is too smart to risk the boy.”
“I will kill this thing tonight or fuck the gods.”
“Shall I say something?” Nyka said.
“No,” we both said.
“Ask them what weapons they have.”
Four axes, ten torches, two knives, one whip, five spears, and a pile of stones. I tell truth, these people, who left the hunt for the field, were foolish to forget that this was still a land full with wicked beasts. The men brought the weapons, threw them at our feet, then scrambled to their huts like mad ants. This did not surprise me—all men are cowards, and men together only added fear to fear to fear. Darkness snatched the sky, and the crocodile had eaten half of the moon. We hid by the fence near the north of the village. The Aesi crouched low, holding a stick I did not see him with before, his eyes closed.
“Do you think he calls on spirits?” Nyka said.
“Speak louder, vampire. I do not think he heard you.”
“Vampire? How harsh, your words. I am not like who we hunt.”
“You have witchmen hunt them for you. We will not have this argument again.”
“It would please the night if you were both quiet,” the Aesi said.
But Nyka wanted to talk. He was always like this, needing endless chatter. He used chat to mask what he was plotting at the same time.
“I have not killed a man today,” I said.
“You said many times, over many years I have known you, I am a hunter, not a killer.”
“If not Sasabonsam, then I will kill every man here for being so