“Young ones like me?”
“Like you. And Beatrice and Giovanni.” She patted his cheek. “Trust me, after you pass your first thousand years, your perspective on authority really changes.”
Ben bit his lip to keep from smiling. “I guess I’ll have to take your word on that.”
“You should.”
The following night, they were regaled by tales of the fascinating city, told by Sadia and, to a lesser degree, Zain. Ben was surprised his little sister was so intrigued by the place. But then, she wasn’t exactly an ordinary six-year-old.
“And there were kids—like my age, Ben—and they were walking all by themselves. And some of the boys have their own carts.” She leaned closer, shoving what looked like a chicken nugget in her mouth. “And they have donkeys. Donkeys that pull the carts! And they stand on the back and the donkey goes like this.” She hopped down and pantomimed a trotting donkey. “And the boys are just standing on the back of the carts like this.” She mimicked holding reins. At least that’s what he was imagining. “And so they have, like, their own cars practically.”
“But they’re donkeys with carts,” he said. “Not engines.”
“Ben.” Sadia rolled her eyes and got back in her seat. “Donkeys are much better than cars. Donkeys are smart. And they carry stuff, and Dema today said that all the donkeys wandering around the town? They all know how to get back to their houses, all on their own.”
Ben took a long drink of water. “Clearly I have not given donkeys enough consideration.”
“They’re like, the best things,” Sadia said. “Way better than cars.”
“You already sound like your father,” Tenzin muttered.
Giovanni was well known for appreciating a solid equine mount instead of modern vehicles. He was a fan of original horsepower, not the technological variety.
“And Ben.” She tugged on his shirt. “There’s a whole church with secret rooms.”
“I’ve heard about that.” Ben had heard that some of the churches only allowed women in parts of the church and that the holy of holies in each church, where they kept a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, was only accessed by the head priests. “But you still got to see a lot.”
“Yes. And there was an angel church—that was my favorite—because it was really high up and I thought, Yeah! Because it’s the church for the angels and they can fly.”
He nodded and drank his blood-wine. “That’s good thinking.”
“Ben, do you think angels were really just wind vampires like you and Tenzin?”
Ben nearly spit out his blood-wine. “What? No.”
“Yes,” Tenzin said. “That’s the most probable explanation.”
“Tenzin, angels appear in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and multiple other religions. Can we not discount the spiritual beliefs of millions because—”
“’Cause I was thinking if people back a long, long time ago,” Sadia continued. “If they didn’t know what wind vampires were, they could think they were, like, creatures sent by God. Like angels.”
Tenzin nodded. “That’s entirely plausible.”
Great. Giovanni and Beatrice were going to blame him when Sadia gleefully told her very Catholic great-grandmother that angels were really just wind vampires.
“Hey, Sadia.” Ben could only think about one thing that would distract her from the angels were vampires train she’d been caught on. “Why don’t you tell me more about the donkey carts?”
23
“I can carry him,” Tenzin insisted.
“Tiny, you don’t want to carry him. You hate carrying people around.”
She shrugged. “Fine. If you insist, you carry the earth vampire.”
If he insisted. Ben barely controlled his eye roll. He shifted the backpack on his shoulders and held his arms out to Daniel. “The night’s not getting any younger,” he said. “We better go.”
Daniel stepped up to Ben and held out his arms. “Which way do you want me to face? Are we hugging it out?”
Ben smothered the laugh. “Please don’t make me stare at you for two hours, Dan.”
“Fine.” The man sighed and turned his back to Ben, who put his arms around the man’s chest and pulled him tight. “I do feel very secure.” He patted Ben’s arms. “Thank you, Ben.”
He turned to Tenzin. “Are you sure we need an earth vampire?”
“How much digging do you want to do?”
“Fine.” Ben took to the sky, barely feeling the weight of the man in front of him. He did what Tenzin suggested and created a bubble of air around them, cutting down the drag from Daniel’s gangly frame and their heavy packs.
“We’re going north, right?” Daniel yelled.
“You don’t have to yell,” Ben said. “You don’t feel the wind, do you?”
“Oh.” Daniel turned a little. “No, I don’t. That’s very odd.”
“Trust me, you’re going to appreciate that when we get to Hawulti and your teeth aren’t filled with bugs.”
“All these insights into wind-vampire transportation,” Daniel said. “Fascinating.”
They flew north-northeast for about two hours, Tenzin leading the way. She began to descend as they crossed over a round, green-blue lake that looked like an old volcanic crater. The land rose and fell beneath them, a series of hills and valleys marked by small towns and isolated electric lights.
Ben finally saw where Tenzin was heading when she circled around, approaching the hill from the north. Sitting on top of a hill was an island of forest among cultivated land with a round church in the center.
“I’ve read about these!” Daniel said. “The church forests of Ethiopia. They keep the land around the church wild as a representation of Eden.”
“Really?” That was cool. “I don’t think the site is actually in the church, but it makes a sheltered place to land.”
“Oh right. That makes sense.”
Daniel had been a relatively easy passenger considering he really was all arms and legs. He hadn’t wriggled or shifted too much in Ben’s arms.
Ben followed Tenzin as she descended to a dark corner of the forest, well away from any electric lights. If there was any wildlife or human life awake, Ben couldn’t sense it. There was only the wind, the trees, and the stretch of rocky plain that stretched beyond the trees.
They landed in the forest, and Ben could immediately feel the sense of calm the church fathers no doubt wanted to evoke. The night birds had fallen silent at their approach, but insects sang and the wind soughed through the branches overhead.
The forest floor was soft and damp from a recent shower, verdant with new and growing things; tiny pale flowers were popping up along the base of the trees. Small saplings grew in clearings, and a stacked rock wall surrounded everything.
He heard scattering footsteps in the distance and knew small creatures were running from the scent of large predators.
“This is magical.” Daniel wandered through the dense woodland, so different from the surrounding landscape. “Imagine, the hills were once covered in this kind of forest.”