A thousand years.

Thick black locks of hair fell to the ground as Vidar scratched the itch behind his ear. An entire millennium of hiding among the humans of Antwerp. Yet now he had seen it all.

The brooding muscular man in the picture stared into nowhere as he ripped his shirt off his chest, paying no attention to the skinny blonde by his feet. In the corner, the silhouette of a wolf howled at the full moon. 'The Alpha's Mate' read the title.

The joints in his wrist popped as Vidar placed the book, and two other copies, on the shelves next to the other half-naked men and women. Of the ten long centuries he had lived through, the twenty-first century had come with the strangest inventions and even strangers fads. Still, a blatant pornographic adoration of werewolves was not what he had in mind when signing up for his supplier's quarterly 'Hot Stuff' deal.

From the counter, he picked up a paper cup and slurped, the acidic taste of coffee foreign after a few days of eating raw meat and drinking rainwater. Life as a werewolf wasn't sexy. To live as the last of Fenrir's kind was a curse.

Not that he could be picky about what he sold. Even immortal werewolf gods needed a roof over their heads and food on the table. After putting the new books on display, he took out the outdated newspapers and stuffed in the new batch. Brightly coloured ads promoting friendly credit services or a discount on BBQ meat stood in sharp contrast to the articles warning about debt and heart disease.

Humans were peculiar creatures. 

Their days of noble trade were gone, the rusty late Victorian cutting, sewing, and polishing machines now serving as tables to display notable books or groundbreaking magazines. His old brushes, pliers, and knives decorated the wall behind the counter, reminding him he was as much out of place as they were.

A yawn erupted from deep within. As he stretched, cracking his back and neck, more clumps of hair landed on the ground. He would sweep all day, blaming the mess on some moulting dog when customers complained.

Working in the shop the morning after a full moon was more out of necessity than choice. The day before yesterday, Danny had resigned, announcing he had given up on his philosophy studies to pursue a career as DJ Beathagoras in the Mediterranean clubbing scene. With no assistant to open the shop, Vidar had no option but to endure the pain and hair loss that came with transforming from a shaggy wolf into a Viking god.

From the counter, he grabbed the paper saying, 'Help wanted. 10 h/week — flexible hours' and taped it to the back of the register, covering the picture of Tigger, his neighbours' missing striped cat. 

The animal would never come home; it had been at the wrong place at the wrong time when Vidar had come home a few cycles ago. The creature hadn't suffered. A single swipe of his claw had cut its throat. Before the body had stiffened and grown cold, he had buried Tigger next to the sunflowers growing on his rooftop garden. Once the mourning period was over, he would buy the Steverlyncks a new kitten.

He proceeded to the door and opened it. On the other side of the street, a group of half a dozen teens sat on and around a bench, paying more attention to the brick-sized machine in their hands than the skateboards by their feet. They seemed to be always there, together yet still looking at each other through their phones. At least, they didn't think it funny to scribble ill-poorly drawn penises on anything that would hold paint, like the youngsters who had occupied the skatepark before them.

The first customer came in as Vidar managed to refill his coffee. He nodded at her in greeting. As always, she wore a black suit and high heels that clipped on the tiles. A small white box covered her ear.

She spoke as though the person was standing next to her. "No, lower it to medium. I can't have a high-risk item tampering with my year-end bonus. Mama needs her sunshine and gin-and-tonic at the beach."

As on any other day, she fetched a copy of the sepia-coloured financial newspaper, then tiptoed to the fridge to take out a bottle of overpriced water. Instead of heading back to the counter to slip in a chocolate-cereal bar before paying, she halted by the shelves displaying touristic books about the city.

She picked up the one prominently featuring the fountain of Brabo and flipped through the pages. "Yeah, what's the chance of that happening—honestly, these people just exist to ruin our lives. We can also stop doing any business. Low operational risk, high unemployment risk. Is that what they want?" 

She hummed, raising her eyebrows then nodding to herself as she looked at the price tag at the back of the book. He sold them for twenty per cent less than the shops in the city centre. Few tourists came to the Seefhoek, and the locals usually weren't interested in them, but she proceeded towards him with the book. Perhaps one of her business partners was visiting?

"Is it a present?" he asked.

Shaking her head, she placed the candy bar on top of the book. As Vidar scanned the copy of 'Antwerp, City of the Hand', she sighed deeply. "I know these are the rules, but they are damn frustrating. I don't care about any of this, but here I am, forced to make it my number one priority."

"Sixteen euros and fifty-five cents, please," Vidar said.

She tapped her phone against the terminal, took the items, and crossed a shabby-looking man in a long night robe on her way out. 

Vidar held his breath as the stench of cheap alcohol and thick cigars wafted through the shop. His senses were still sharpened. The bitter coffee churned in his stomach.

"Morning, Marcel." Vidar pretended to smile.

"Morn', the giant is gone," the man mumbled. He wheezed as he shuffled to the back, his tongue thick against his tobacco-stained teeth.

Vidar paid him little attention. Anything Marcel said had to be taken with a mountain of salt. He would sometimes visit four times a week, then not show up for months on end. Usually, he browsed the store for a good fifteen minutes, then left with a dirty magazine or announced that he would give one of the airport romances a shot, even though they were for women. And always he paid with pieces of ten and twenty cents.

Vidar scratched his neck—the itch had moved to his neck. Loose hair tangled around his fingers. He shook it off as a father and his daughter entered.

"Look, daddy, they have a book about Brabo," the girl yelled.

He sold another copy. 

All morning long, more customers than usual passed through the door. Some stared at the newspapers, then back at their phones, and left without glancing up. By noon, he had sold all five copies of 'Antwerp - City of the Hand'. The rest of the touristic books remained untouched.

Something strange was going on for the locals to display such a sudden interest in the city's history. He should call Mo, his partner-in-anti-crime, with whom he kept an eye on the paranormal community living in the city. They were the occasional incidents and the accidental sightings, but mostly, the people of Antwerp brushed off anything out of the ordinary as a figment of a drug addict's imagination.

He fished into the pocket of his sweater and pulled out his phone. Touching the minuscule button on the side of the flat glass brick did nothing. The cracked screen remained black.

Grumbling, Vidar opened a drawer and took out the charger. Those heavy solid bakelite telephones of the mid-twentieth century—that had been a marvellous invention. Smartphones were dumb abominations that died faster than fruit flies.

But this was how twenty-first-century humans lived, and to pretend to be one of them meant having what they had. Even if he hated using it.

On the next attempt, the screen showed a battery icon charging.

He looked up as a teenage girl with bright blue hair in a high ponytail walked in, holding her skateboard tight against her body, like a shield. Her tongue playing with the piercing on her lip, she glanced around, appearing nervous to take a step with those purple-and-green sneakers of hers.

"Anything I can help you with?" he asked.

"I'm browsing," she said, her voice so low that he wouldn't have heard it without his hyper-aware wolf senses.

Temporarily abandoning his phone, Vidar leafed through his mail, keeping half an eye on the girl moving towards the touristic books. She stopped and placed the skateboard against the side of his polishing machine.

Vidar scratched away more hair. The electricity bill, water bill, internet bill, provincial taxes, and a big brown envelope from the federal government that didn't look promising. Couldn't an immortal god earn his honest living without handing everything to these greedy modern frost-giants?

The girl was now skimming through a book, the skyline of the city on the cover. She continued gnawing her lip as she scanned the shelves, then put the book back.

Taking her skateboard, she headed towards the counter. She didn't meet his eyes as she said softly. "I'm looking for something that tells the story of our city."

Vidar gestured at the touristic books. "All I have is on display—didn't find what you were looking for?"

"They're not about the statue."

"The statue of Brabo?" Vidar asked. "It's a fountain, really. Spews water down the stones."

The girl's lips formed an 'o'. Her shoes suddenly seemed more interesting than he was.

"There's a sudden spike of interest in local folklore, sold every copy I had of City of the Hand."

"I'm too late."

"'fraid so. I guess there's some TV show that made it popular again."

The girl glanced up and cocked her head. "You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"But it's all everyone talks about on social media. TikTok, Insta, Youtube, Twitter—it's trending everywhere."

"Facebook too?" He knew that one.

"I don't know, Facebook is for boomers, but yeah... probably." She tapped on her phone and showed him the screen. "Here, they explain it better than I can."

Loud beats blasted as two young lads with golden chains around their neck came into view. One had spiky hair, the other a red cap. Behind them flashed the blue and white of the police vehicles against the renaissance background of the city hall. All eight-five flags had been lowered to half-mast.

"Yooo, this Adil and Billal," they screamed as the music faded. 

"We are here in the town square where at four this morning, a police patrol found a body at the foot of Brabo's monument," said the teen with the cap.

The other boy added. "But wait,  there's more..." He turned to the camera towards the fountain, the lower parts wrapped in white garbage bags, then zoomed in on the naked Roman soldier standing on one leg, ready to cast the giant's hand into the river. Except, Brabo wasn't holding anything. Where the giant's index finger had been was now a hole.

The camera turned back to the lad with the spiky hair. "But not only is Antigone's hand gone, rumour has it the beheaded giant has disappeared from the statue."

Their eyes wide, they gasped in unison.

"A dead body."

"A missing giant."

"The mystery continues. Like and subscribe if you haven't already!"

The screen turned a soft blue, the beat now a soothing melody. The girl's fingers moved rapidly, killing the song. "Of course, there's already a challenge. People are photoshopping different objects into Brabo's empty hand. The one with the iPhone was the first to appear, but I think the one where he throws out the major is a lot funnier."

Vidar raised an eyebrow. Antigone had disappeared from the city's most famous fountain the same night a body had popped up at the foot of the sculpture, and this was what humans did—making funny pictures.

"The problem is," the girl said. "There are so many variations of the myth circulating online. People even tampered with the Wikipedia article, claiming Antigone has risen from the dead, so I thought, I'll buy an old-fashioned book."

Brabo and Antigone had lived in Antwerp well before Vidar's time, but the story was legendary already in the Middle Ages. Druon Antigone terrorised the city, demanding everyone who wished to cross the river to pay a hefty tax. Those who couldn't pay saw their hand cut off and thrown into the water. Some stories claimed seven young men pleaded with Brabo to help them slay the giant, other stories omit the men. The core of the story was no different; the young but quick Roman soldier challenged Antigone and beat him after a long yet cunning fight. As payback, he slashed off the giant's hand and cast it into the river.

"Also in literature, there are many versions of the same tale," Vidar said. He took the girl to the fiction section of the store, far away from the canned blather they put in the books for tourists. After some searching, he fished out a copy of 'The Shipper of the Schelde'. "If you want to impress your friends with the unknown viewpoint of Antigone, I can recommend this."

"But is it real?" the girl asked.

Vidar shrugged. "Do gods walk among humans?"

"I don't know," she murmured but agreed on the sale.

They went back to the counter where Vidar scanned the book. "Eight euros fifty."

The girl rummaged through her wallet, taking out a crumbled five-euro note, a one-euro coin, and some bronze cents. She looked sullen.

"You can pay by card as well," he said.

"I have maybe thirty cents in my bank account."

Her eyes drifted to the back of the register where he had put the 'help wanted' paper.

"If you're interested," he suggested, hinting at the job opening. "It's perfect if you wanna earn a little something extra."

Her phone peeped, and instantly, her face fell. 

"I need to go," she said, once again reverting to her shy shell. "I can't afford the book—I'm sorry for wasting your time."

She took her skateboard and rolled out of the store.

Not sure what he had done to upset her, Vidar placed the book behind the counter, in case the girl came back later with more money. He switched on his phone, now a success.

Fifteen missed calls and nine messages, all from Mo.

He opened the first text, sent a few hours ago.

"Call me when you're done wolfing around. Urgent!"

Vidar sighed and pressed the dial button. The half-naked muscular man on the cover of 'Alpha's Mate' grinned at him, mocking him. Whoever had written that story had got it all wrong. 

Being an immortal werewolf god wasn't sexy. It was damn exhausting.

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