His big white dog sniffed my hand, which I immediately jerked away, and for the first time I realized that the hound was missing an eye. It had been sewn up at one time or another, I supposed, because there was only fur there now and nothing but the indication of an old scar.
“Do not worry,” Mr. Sarkany said, his voice edged with dark humor as he reached down to scratch the dog behind the ear, where I noticed small, red designs had been stitched into the dog’s collar. No, not designs: symbols. Strange ones that I couldn’t identify, not without getting closer to the animal—something I certainly wasn’t going to do. “She only bites when provoked or challenged. Lupu’s mother was a Carpathian wolf. Give her a target’s scent, and she’ll run through hell itself to chase down her prey.”
Wolf. Target. Prey. Nothing menacing about that. No, sir.
I flicked a look toward Huck. His face was positively frozen. It suddenly struck me why....
I thought I saw a wolf following me.
A primitive part of my brain wanted to either bolt out of my chair or call someone for help. But another part of me, a part that was trying to manage the feeling of petrification that had taken hold of both my limbs and thoughts, told me to pretend that everything was normal. Just until it was safe to excuse myself. I didn’t know if that was the right thing to do, but it was theonlything I could do.
“I assume that since you are on this train, your business in Turkey has also concluded,” Mr. Sarkany noted, sparing a glance at Huck, who was sitting so straight and rigid in his chair, he looked as if Vlad Dracula himself had impaled him. “And I see you’ve picked up a traveling companion. Is this your protector?”
“Perhaps I am,” Huck said in a voice that was as dry and flat as a burned field. Under the table, the toe of Huck’s boot urgently prodded my Mary Janes. “I need to talk to you,” he murmured as his serious gaze connected with mine. Then he added, “In private.”
“Yes...,” I agreed, glancing from him to Mr. Sarkany to the wolf dog.
“Now,” Huck said, voice stony and insistent. He pushed himself up from his seat and held his hand out to me, encouraging me to follow. Insisting.
The wolf dog let out a single bark—one that was so loud, I flinched. My heart pounded erratically inside my chest, as if it were a malfunctioning machine.
Mr. Sarkany said something low and indecipherable to the hound, and it quieted, retreating behind his master’s legs. “I’m afraid Lupu sees you as a threat, boy,” the man told Huck. “Why do you think that is?”
“Not sure, brother,” Huck said in a low voice, giving the man a dark look. “Perhaps she knows I don’t much like big dogs.”
The man’s mouth twisted. He ignored Huck and turned his attention back to me. “Forgive my rudeness, but I overheard some of your conversation just now. Vlad ?epe?. Quite a dark and complicated subject for two young travelers.”
My blood ran cold. Huck and I shared a look, both of us alarmed.
At that moment, a crash diverted Mr. Sarkany’s attention to the front of the restaurant car, where a solitary diner sat near the entrance to the kitchen and a server was apologizing for dropping a tray of dishes.
Seizing my chance, I grabbed my handbag and attempted to slip past the man and his dog. “If you could excuse us,” I mumbled, but the aisle was narrow, and Mr. Sarkany made no effort to let me pass. For a confusing moment it felt as if he were blocking me. He said something I couldn’t understand under his breath. It sounded like a command. Panicking, I twisted my body, held up my arms as armor, and forcefully pushed my way through.
“Pardon me, sir!” I said sharply, giving him the nastiest look I could muster.
“My apologies.” The man acted as if nothing in the world were wrong. He only bowed his head briefly and added, “We will have plenty of time later to chat over the river crossing. We’re all stuck together, aren’t we?”
Then the man and his strange hound made their way down the aisle to the front of the dining car. Huck didn’t wait to see him reach it. He just grabbed my hand and pulled me in the opposite direction. His legs were long, and I struggled to keep up, but we exited the car—the whoosh of wind and wheels clacking loudly as we slid open the connecting doors to pass through—and entered the connecting sleeper.
Green scenery flew past the Pullman’s windows as Huck raced ahead to open our compartment. He practically shoved me inside and closed the door behind us, falling back against it when it was latched. For the first time since we’d boarded, the tiny space felt safe and welcoming, not prisonlike.
“Oh Christ,” Huck moaned, his chest rising and falling with labored breath. “Sarkany? What kind of name is Sarkany? You saw that man in the hotel lobby in Istanbul?”
“He handed me a banknote,” I said, patting my pockets. “He said I dropped it. Where did I put it?” Had I left it in the hotel back in Istanbul, or perhaps I put in my handbag...?
“Are you listening to me?” Huck said, grabbing my shoulders to get my attention. “He’s one of the men who were trailing me when I was hiring a car in Tokat—the scary one who stuck to the shadows.”
“Are you certain?” I asked, my brain trying its best to rationalize something that was clearly not rational. “You said yourself that you didn’t get a good look at him, right?”
“Banshee,” he said, lowering his head to pin me with a somber look. “The bloody blackguard has a wolf.”
Yes, there was that....
“He just happened to ‘overhear’ our conversation about Vlad Dracula?” Huck said, using aggressive air quotes to enunciate. “Anddid you not hear what he said about his beast being a tracker? He’s been following me—this is one of the people your father warned about in the letter.”
My gut had known something was wrong when the man handed me that banknote.Always listen to gut feelings. My mother would be disappointed that I’d ignored my instincts.
“Okay, okay. Let’s think about this,” I said, pacing across the small space of our compartment. I felt a little sick. “If he trailed you from Tokat, does that mean that the intruders who broke into my room are with him? He’s after the ring too? Or Father’s journal? And why? Who are these people?”
