‘That was the general idea,’ replied the captain, rubbing at his scar and feeling sweat run down his face.
‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ the old man said, oddly formal. He looked a good deal older than Methuselah, but his brown eyes were bright and alert in his seamed face. ‘My name is Mohan Das. And I am at your service.’
Intrigued, Da Silva asked, ‘What can you tell me?’
‘Will you walk a little?’ Mohan Das moved off, and Da Silva fell in beside him. Not a tall man, he topped the diminutive Indian by several inches, and had to moderate his normal pace. In fact, in most eastern countries he could feel tall, and was vain enough to enjoy the sensation — a reaction that amused him.
They had hardly begun to walk when he was obliged to stop almost immediately as an inordinately large and solid-looking ghost surged up in front of him. The captain swore silently, irritated that any shade could still have the capability of startling him. He walked through it determinedly. His companion, however, either did not notice or affected not to do so.
The knife he wore concealed down his back chafed, and sweat pooled and ran inside his clothes. Da Silva wished he could emulate Mohan Das and strip off, and grinned to himself — more at the picture it presented than at the possible reaction it could cause. Which would probably be none at all, here. ‘May I ask why you are hunting this thing?’ the old man asked, curiously. ‘Are you on some kind of crusade?’
Well, yes, the captain thought, startled, although he would not have put it quite that way. But, on reflection, he did feel he had an obligation. A duty to get rid of such things whenever they crossed his path. As they did now, since he began seeing ghosts. A little taken aback, as much by his own response as by the question, he said, resignedly, ‘It looks like it.’ And felt as though he had taken an irrevocable step.
The other nodded, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. ‘And you can see ghosts, too.’ That was not a question. Da Silva wondered how he knew. ‘How long have you had this ability?’
Da Silva indicated his eyepatch. ‘Ever since this happened.’ He sometimes wondered whether it was the precise nature of the entity that had destroyed his left eye that had enabled his second sight, rather than the loss itself. Since it had been a demon. This information he did not intend to share with the old man.
‘May I ask how it happened?’
‘You may ask,’ said Da Silva, in a tone that brooked no argument, ‘but I won’t tell you.’
Mohan Das seemed unperturbed by his refusal. ‘In some cultures, shamans’ eyes were ritually put out before they could come into their full powers,’ he remarked, conversationally. ‘And seers and sibyls were often blinded, too.’
The captain raised his eyebrows. Shamans, he thought. What next, witchdoctors? ‘I’m not a seer.’
‘What is a name?’ asked the other. ‘You see ghosts. You fight evil. What does that make you?’
‘Captain of the Isabella,’ retorted Da Silva. Mohan Das laughed, and executed a neat manoeuvre to avoid a particularly persistent beggar. He moved through the crowd the way a fish does through water, quite at home in his own element. Da Silva, who had to dodge ghosts as well as people, fared less well, although he was gradually learning to walk through, rather than round, the shades that thronged the streets wherever he went. Even after nearly two years, though, it was still not quite automatic.
‘You will find,’ observed his companion, without looking up at him, ‘that you are not unique. But neither are you alone.’
He had half-suspected it. But hearing it said, especially by someone who, however educated he sounded, came from a culture profoundly different from his own, was more disconcerting than comforting.
‘Can you help me?’
‘Only with information, senhorcapitão.’ The old man smiled, all the wrinkles in his face gnarling, like the bark of a tree, and Da Silva wondered just how old he was. ‘Oh, yes, I have done things in my time — been a hero. How old are you?’ he asked abruptly, and the captain, taken by surprise, answered automatically.
‘Forty-two.’
‘You are a young man still. I am more than twice your age now. Much more.’ His expression sobered. ‘And I must warn you, if you have not already realized it, that your task will become more dangerous as time goes by.’
‘More dangerous,’ repeated Da Silva. Oh good. That’s just the sort of thing I wanted to hear. ‘Why?’ he asked, bluntly.
The old man looked up at him, his eyes hooded. ‘Because they know you now. Your sight, and your actions, mark you, and they will recognize you.’
And the proof of that is that I know exactly what he means by they, he thought mordantly, and expelled a deep lungful of smoke. ‘You said,’ he reminded Mohan Das, ‘that you could tell me something about the wolf.’
‘Ah yes,’ the other agreed. ‘The wolf.’ But he said no more. Da Silva wiped sweat from his face again and wondered once more how people managed to live, even thrive, in such a climate. He looked up to see clouds building in the lead-coloured sky.
‘It’s going to rain,’ he observed.
‘Yes. We should take cover.’
Da Silva thought he wouldn’t have minded getting wet if it would cool him down at all. But the last time he had been caught in a monsoon downpour all it had done was soak his clothes still further without noticeably decreasing his discomfort.
He followed the old man under a low doorway, ducking instinctively although he had only ever met one low enough to smack his head on, and sat down where indicated in a stuffy, sweat-smoke-and-spice-scented dimness.
Mohan Das spoke to someone unseen in such a quiet voice that the captain could catch not a single word, which annoyed him.
‘The wolf?’ he prompted after a silent moment, and heard rain begin to drum on the roof.
‘This is, as people have surmised, not a natural wolf,’ the old man said. ‘At least, not natural in the sense that it was not born a wolf but has, as we might say, acquired wolfhood — had wolfhood thrust upon it, as it were.’
‘You’re saying it is a werewolf, then?’ said Da Silva. ‘Can it be killed? What I mean is—’
‘You are asking about silver bullets, I imagine. Yes?’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ the captain admitted, a little irritably, since despite Zé’s fancies he had no such ammunition for the revolver in his pocket.
The old man looked at him shrewdly, dark eyes glittering. By now the noise of the rain was so profound it sounded as if they were inside a drum, and Da Silva had to strain to hear him when he spoke.
‘I expect you know that certain metals are, by their nature, more potent against. unnatural things. Just as some substances are apt to evil. Although the effectiveness of both is affected by the nature of the wielder.’
A steaming glass was placed in front of Da Silva, and he sniffed it suspiciously. Oh God, more tea, he thought. What I’d give for a decent brandy. There probably wasn’t one this side of Constantinople — even the stuff in the decanter in his cabin had come from Greece and was, frankly, gut-rot. ‘And that means?’ he asked.
‘I am sorry,’ said Mohan Das. ‘What I mean to say is, you would find it easier to kill such a thing with a bullet made of silver than with one made of lead, but depending on how much. virtue you have of your own it might add effectiveness to the lead. I think, though, that unless you were very fortunate, you would need to decapitate the creature extremely quickly after shooting it with an ordinary bullet. Otherwise you would have a wounded and angry werewolf on your hands, which would not be a pleasant prospect.’ He took a sip of the scalding tea. ‘May I see your knife, senhor capitão?’