Rem snorted, then nodded and looked at her companion. “Not a bad idea, actually. Maybe we can do that on our breaks when learning Icelandic.”
“That’s a deal, then.”
* * *
"Here you are,"Rem said with an awkward, stiff voice, handing the leather merchant bronze coins. It was the first time Rem had used money. The witches didn't believe in it, saying it brought out the corruption in humans.
The human merchant—a leathersmith from Bellmont—handed her the dark leather and grunted, "There you go." He looked at her with one, widened eye as the other was covered with an eye patch. "They already turning humans to shifters?" he asked.
"What?" Rem replied.
"You’re one of them Silvers. I know you all were born human," he said, scratching his stubbled face that was colored with more gray than black. “I heard they started the process to turn ya. Do you like being one ofthem?" he asked with a harsher tone, crossing his arms, the beautiful leather stretching. It contrasted heavily with his otherwise frumpy appearance.
Nia huffed at his unforgiving tone while standing behind Rem.
"I'm sure it will have its perks,” Rem defended.
Sheshouldjust walk away, but she also couldn’t believe someone was singling her out for this.
"Sad to see humanity dying. Soon we willallbe turnin' into shifters, I bet. Well, I guess some of us gotta stay human. Vampires won't have nothin' to eat. At least shifters can eat wild game. Saw someone get eaten by a shifter before," he rambled, shaking his head and scrunching his brow. "I'd rather be drained of my blood than suffer through that."
Rem sharply inhaled and straightened her back, completely stunned at this conversation. He eyed her harshly, and she knew that he was aware of how on the spot she was.
“You are making a lot of assumptions,” she said, still unable to find a better retort.
He snickered. “No, I lived it. I was a boy during the years these creatures took over.”
"You were alive before the Purge?" Rem asked, adjusting the goods she held.
A dark look came over his brown eyes. "Yes, I was."
"Are you even allowed to talk about it?" Rem asked in a hushed voice. Witches forbade of talk before the Purge, and despite this man’s behavior, she wanted to hear stories from then.
He looked at her like she had two heads. "Of course, why not?"
"Witches don't like it."
He grinned, his eyes squinting and his smile revealing no upper teeth, save for the molars. "Ah, you're from some witches, eh? I'd rather live here than with them bitches. S’pose the shifters havesomeperks, then."
Rem nearly blushed at the harsh word, then laughed to herself at how ridiculousthatwas. "Well, what was it like? The world before all of this? What was it like to not be afraid? Also, how old are you? You’d have to be nearly a hundred.”
He looked her over, as if uncertain if he wanted to entertain this, like he hadn’t planned for her towantto talk to him.
Fortunately, he let it go. "First, I am only tellin’ ya this so you are aware of the world you are about to enter. I had a period where I was, uh,intimate, with a witch. Frequently ate some roots she gave me that extended my life, but I eventually left. And second, let me correct your statement. We werealwaysafraid, but there was a time where we had control. I remember that these creatures," he said, waving to the shifters around. "Lived in our legends, remnants left over. Some men would pass on vampire skulls to their children, and some families were said to be cursed from the witches in Salem. Then the nineteen-twenties hit, and our world warred with itself. That’s whentheycame. Indroves,” he grumbled, his eyes wide as he stared off in the distance, reliving something terrible.
He continued, “Apparently, there is another world, like an underworld, called the Exiles. Our hunters sent them there over a few hundred years ago, and they came out when we started to fight at a global scale. Then the papers reported sightings, and before ya knew it, everyone had a story. It wasn’t but a few days in that I heard my neighbor screamin’," he said, sucking his upper lip in as he averted his gaze. "Looked out the window and saw a shifter in their wolf form, pulling Eddie out of his home..."
He was silent for a long time before looking back at Rem. Nia tried to get Rem's attention, but she swatted her away. She couldn't let this get interrupted, having never heard of these tales. "I heard Eddie's skull crunch as the shifter bit his head like it was nothin' but a peanut. It was then we realized we were utterlyfucked. What was I gon' do? Write a letter to the army? Cars were just invented, and very few of us had one. To get south required horse or our feet, but that just made us targets. The only thin’ I could do was get my shotgun and my ten silver slugs tha’ my grandfather passed down. I barricaded our home with my brother at the ripe age of eight, and he was fifteen."
Rem’s blood drained from her face as a chill snaked its way down her spine. "That's just... That's terrifying,” she said with a quiet voice. She immediately thought of the few elderly people in her village, and theyneverspoke of the Purge.
The merchant was quick to jump back into the conversation. "That's just the beginnin', now. About four weeks in, and no sign of help comin', we got together and formed a local militia. Then guess what happened? The fuckin’ flu killed a quarter of us. We tried to storm the pharmacies and apothecaries for medicine, but the vampires were stalkin’ ‘em." He laughed incredulously before looking back at her. "We were beinghunted, those fuckers. And then suddenly, everythin’ changed. Shifter packs descended on us, and they realized that they could make an exchange with us terrified humans that were turnin' into nothin' but skin and bones. Lot different than I am now!" he said and grabbed his round belly as he laughed. "I'm determined to die fat and happy. I deserve it after survivin' that shit. I’m gonna be sixty-five this year, can ya believe it? So many of my friends aren’t, though… I mean, I am technically ninety-five, but thirty years with that witch makes me in my sixties.”
Rem didn’t know where to even begin. She looked around, her mouth open, but nothing came out. This was the best information she had received in a long time, putting so much into perspective. The merchant said, “Don’t ya forget any of this, you understand? People suffered and were murdered. Don’t become like one o’ them. Don’t forget those humans that died.”
“Ofcoursenot,” Rem said with a frown, tucking her head into her neck.
Nia grabbed her arm. "We should get going, maybe another time.”
