“What if we all set out together?” I asked. “The stronger our numbers, the less likely any wolves would be to mess with us, right?”
“Sounds like perfectly good reasoning to me, but you’ll need to convince the others. Their interest in Dolhasca seems nothing short of mercenary.” He pronounced the word as though the concept were far beneath him.
“Maybe we can all meet for dinner this evening,” I said. “Talk it over.”
“Splendid. I’ll arrange it. There’s a restaurant on the corner.” He bussed my empty glass. “But you should go up and get some rest, my friend. You look right knackered.”
I did as James suggested, finding the pension owner, an elderly woman, who showed me to a simple room on the second floor. After washing up, I lay on the single bed, the day’s motion swimming through my exhausted body. It was hard to believe I was less than thirty miles from the Book of Souls—a title that vanished from Grandpa’s collection with his death. A title research had shown me should never have existed in the twentieth century.
But then to read of it last month in the Historical Journal, the author believing that Dolhasca’s founding monks had transcribed reams of lost texts and tomes, among them the Book of Souls. I closed my eyes. To think that in two days time I could be holding the same book I had seen in Grandpa’s hands ten years earlier. My thoughts began to drift on that thought.
I was nearly asleep when, in the far distance, a wolf’s cry went up.
4
Bertrand shook his head emphatically, eyes closed. “No.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I planned a solo expedition,” he replied in a stuffy French accent, “and a solo expedition it will remain.”
The middle-aged man sitting across from me was tall and lean with a sour face and eyelids that fluttered when he voiced an objection, which was often. James had been right about the “not particularly friendly” bit. More to the point, he was a dick.
“And we are after the same manuscripts, no?” he continued. “Why would I want to share my findings with a group of amateurs?” He returned to his stewed rabbit with prim stabs of his fork and knife.
We had convened for dinner about an hour after I’d lain down. Thanks to the wolf howls, which had grown into a nightmare chorus, I hadn’t slept a wink. Tiredness and anger now growled inside me. Before I could respond to Bertrand’s “amateur” dig, James clapped his hands once.
“Well,” he said cheerily. “Party of three, then?”
We all turned to Flor. With her sultry eyes, pouting lips, and sheen of shoulder-length black hair, she was hard not to jaw-drop over. But I saw what James meant about her mercenary quality. It wasn’t just in her black tank top and cargo pants, but also in the flat, almost groaning way she spoke.
“I am of the same mind as Bertrand,” she said, dropping a gnawed bone onto her plate. “As much as I hate to admit it.”
I looked around in exasperation. The restaurant was an older couple’s home, three tables pushed into a dining room and adorned with sooty plastic flowers. In a back kitchen, pots clinked and water gurgled. Despite that we had the place to ourselves, I lowered my voice.
“Look,” I said. “What I’m proposing will entail some compromise, yes. But it gives us the best chance of reaching Dolhasca. Attempt it alone and there’s a chance we’ll not only fail to find the monastery, but end up as wolf food.”
Bertrand sniffed. “It sounds like the American is afraid.”
Heat flashed over my face. “And you sound like a—”
“I asked around after our chat earlier,” James interrupted. “Everson’s concerns about the wolves are to be taken seriously. The history of the region is peppered with attacks on villagers, some of them fatal. Even the hunters don’t dare venture into the deep forest anymore. The roaming packs have little fear of humans, it seems. And they are especially aggressive at night.” Like everything else, he delivered the dire news with an almost buoyant air.
“Tales,” Bertrand decided.
“And what makes you the expert?” I was struggling not to rise and smack the haughty look from his face.
He touched his napkin to his lips and took another half minute to chew and swallow. “I was educated at your Harvard University, an overpriced, overrated institution, if ever there was. I completed my doctoral work at the Sorbonne in Paris, where I have been a full professor since. My publications are extensive—perhaps you’ve read my tome on medieval philosophy? I have won two book awards and am presently up for a third. And I am constantly being asked to lecture at prestigious conferences and universities.” He looked pointedly at James. “Last month I turned down an invitation from Oxford.”
“Thanks for the curriculum vitae,” I said, “but I missed the part where you slayed wild animals.”
Bertrand went to work on his potatoes as though he hadn’t heard me.
“Maybe the American is right,” Flor said. “Maybe we should stick together until we reach the monastery.”
I pushed my upturned palms toward her. “Thank you.”
“But once there,” she continued, “we will need to decide how to apportion the spoils.”
Apportion? Spoils? I drew my hands back. “We’re not looters, for God’s sake. We’re researchers.” A slanting look in Flor’s eyes made me hesitate. “Wait, you are a researcher, aren’t you?”
“I was just testing you,” Flor said. “And what I am is none of your business.”
Ouch. “Well, if we’re going to join forces, I think James and I need to know what you’re doing here.”
“Good luck, my friend.” James chuckled. “Flor and I have danced around the question a few times this week, haven’t we, love?”
Flor narrowed her eyes at him.
I decided not to press her, lest she change her mind about joining our party. Sharp-tongued or not, I didn’t like the thought of her attempting the journey alone. Plus, her
