In Love with a Jackal

1.

There was a half-naked man in a tennis skirt and sandals five feet away from me.

I didn't know what I should do.

He'd simply appeared out of thin air, surrounded by a cloud of glittering golden smoke and loud thunder. Now he just stood there on the other side of this dimly lit basement lab staring at me.

All I could do was stare back.

I had booked the last slot for the lab on the time table tonight and had come down here intending to go over Apollon's tablet one more time before the artifact was returned into the museum's collection. I had rushed down here with the tablet safe in its velvet case, hoping to make every second I had alone with it count. But the minute I'd unlocked the door, that hope had been dashed.

Turns out the students of egyptology, the ones that had booked the slot before me, had forgotten to clean up after themselves. Like complete idiots they'd left their artifact unwrapped on the light box; markers and everything still attached.

Since my time was already running out, I decided not to do their work for them and instead figured I'd just carefully move the thing to one of the side tables.

And thinking about it now, that must have been the beginning of the end.

Because little did I know at the time, this particular small egyptian stauette was not actually attached to its pedestal. No, I only found out a few moments later, after carefully picking it up by said pedestal, taking two steps and then dropping the thousands-of-year old piece of world cultural heritage on the cold, hard, cement floor.

Only after I'd recovered from what had definitely been a minor heart attack, could I muster up the strength to pick the statuette up again. In a state of complete panic my first instinct had been to check it for damage.

When I'd found none, my tense shoulders had slumped and I'd felt relieved beyond compare. My need for self preservation would then quickly pounce on this fortunate twist of fate, and I'd soon after come up with perfect solution to this otherwise career ending dilemma.

There were no cameras down here; if I stayed silent nobody would ever know.

Resolved to do the right thing then and there, I propped the statuette back on its pedestal and left it on the side table like nothing had ever happened. I'd even silently vowed to myself to take this whole thing to the grave with me!

I was a masters student of Greco-Roman history after all. If anyone asked, I had never seen, heard or touched a single piece of Egyptian anything.

I mean, Horus who?

No, I'd decided that if some problem came up with this artifact later, I would make sure I had nothing to do with it.

And I'd barely just made that final resolution when the magical man suddenly appeared in front of me in a cloud of golden smoke. So I think it's understandable to say that right now, I felt like I was going to have my second heart attack in the span of eight minutes.

With curly black hair, dark eyes and golden bracelets going up both arms, this man looked like nobody I knew. Then again, nobody I knew had ever rippled into existence like that, so I guess that part wasn't so suprising but still, you know what I mean-

Anyway, after what felt like an eternity of staring at each other, the man was the one to break eye contact first. I watched as he scanned the room before his gaze settled on the egyptian statuette that stood on the table beside him and in a heartbeat he had it in his hands. Then as if completely absorbed by it, he began mumbling at it in some indiscernable language, turning away from me in the process.

It was weird.

Strained beyond what my mind was healthily able to process, my very first thought was also the first thing to come out of my mouth.

"Who the hell are you?!" I shrieked. I was so loud, the words rang through my own ears.

His mumbling instantly stopped and ever so slowly he turned to face me again. The big overhead light I'd turned dim when I'd come into the lab flickered brightly, and I got my first real look of who I was standing opposite of.

I couldn't help but take a step back both out of surprise and fear.

Unlike my first impression, the man was not wearing a tennis skirt, but some kind of ancient kilt and it turns out he was foregoing a shirt because he had a glistening pack of bronze abs. What struck me most though was that he happened to have a big golden knife strapped to his waist. Its oddly red soaked edges and worn-down leather handle told me everything I needed to know.

As we both stood there once again staring at each other, I realized I wasn't the only one who was shocked. The clear struck expression on the man's face made me think he was almost as terrified of me as I was of him.

"English?" was the first thing he spoke directly at me, his voice hoarse and his eyes wide. I could not place the accent for the life of me.

He began mumbling to himself again.

"Oh hell no, no no no..." he said and then turned his entire attention back to the statuette again.

To my absolute horror, I got to watch as he then lifted the poor thing into the air and began shaking it violently above his head, all while screaming god knows what at the top of his lungs. I didn't understand a word of what he was saying but I could tell the man was absolutely livid at the inanimate object.

"Fucking hell Heh!" he bellowed, "Ib-eK teftef haty-eK mehy!"

I took it as my que and slowly began inching towards the exit. The rational part of my brain told me that I should escape first and ponder over what the hell was happening later.

I was too afraid to take my eyes off the man, so I walked backwards until my shoulder blades hit the wall. Searching with my hand, I patted the bricks beside me until I touched what I figured was the edge of the door.

I had just curled my fingers around the doorknob when the cursing stopped. The man dropped the arm holding the statuette in the air and whipped his head around. I froze on the spot.

"Let it go."

The hand I had on the doorknob flinched away like it was on fire.

The man sighed.

I felt my blood run cold.

He turned to once again face me. The rage he'd displayed a second ago had somehow vanished and now he looked freakishly calm. I was worried what would happen next.

"What...," his free hand combed through his hair and he paused like he was having trouble finding the correct words, "What species are you?"

My teeth clenched and I felt my palms become sweaty.

What kind of question was that? Was there more than one answer? Was lizard people one of them?

Appearing somewhat annoyed by my continuous silence, the man rested his hand on his hip and raised an eyebrow at me. That's when I understood he truly expected some sort of answer.

After short contemplation, I offered carefully, "Uhm...homo sapien?"

His eyebrows lowered and instead they became quizzical,

"Errr...nothing else, right? Just human?" he asked again, as if giving me a second chance to reveal that I was in fact half cow or something.

Confused and scared, I nodded.

The man smiled at me but he didn't look very happy at all. Dropping the statuette back on the side table like it was now only a piece of garbage to him, he took a step closer to me and the lights flickered a second time. The thin layer of golden dust that was still on his skin glowed faintly.

"Well, then congrats, mortal," he told me, his smile broadening further as he bent over in a slight bow. It somehow felt very ironic, "You just won yourself a god."

My jaw dropped and my mind froze for a moment.

Then five seconds later my hand went right back to the doorknob and I desperately rattled at a door that to my despair had somehow been locked.