by Kevin Hearne
“Auggh! You caught me.”
She smiled briefly before her expression turned serious. “How long do you think it will take us to cross the channel?”
“It’s a twenty-one-mile swim, so however long it takes Oberon to dog paddle the whole way. It might be a very long time, unless you think you’d be strong enough to kind of tow him along and speed up the process?”
She pursed her lips in uncertainty. “I haven’t even tried to swim yet. I have no experience with that form; we haven’t been by the sea in the past few weeks since I’ve been bound. But towing a hundred fifty pounds of wet dog doesn’t sound easy.”
“Well, it won’t be deadweight. He’s going to be helping. Hopefully we’ll have time to experiment. We’ll use the belts to jury-rig a harness for the weapons first, and then if we can figure out something for Oberon too, great. But if not, we’ll basically swim circles around Oberon to make sure nothing’s coming at us.”
That earned me a Billy Idol lip curl. “Something’s going to come at us, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Odin revealed that it’s Poseidon and Neptune’s job to make sure we never make it to England. I don’t think they’ll content themselves with waves.”
“So what do we do?”
“The same thing that Poseidon and Neptune will do. If they can influence the animals of the sea, so can we. You look at them in the magical spectrum and attempt to communicate with them, the same way you made the initial connection with Oberon. Try to convince them that we taste like ass or there’s something shiny waiting for them in the Black Sea or whatever, just don’t eat us.”
“We’re not going to have access to magic while we swim.”
“Nope. Whatever I can store in my bear charm will have to last us the entire way across. We should cast magical sight while we’re still in the shallows and keep it on all the way.”
“We need to make like ten more of those bear charms.”
“Yeah, it’s tough to argue that. But it might be more important to bind your amulet to your aura first. Everyone who wants to find me can do it now by finding you. The only reason we’re staying mildly ahead of them is because we keep moving. But that’s not sustainable.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well,” a cultured voice said, “I found you the old-fashioned way. A wiretap.”
Our heads swiveled in alarm as our hands reached for weapons. Leif Helgarson, living embodiment of a frenemy, stood stiffly with his hands clasped together in front of him. He was out of reach beyond the neighboring table, but he could get into reach quickly if he wished.
“Though I admit, I was informed ahead of time which city you would be in. Hal is not so security-conscious as Gunnar was, have you noticed? He should be using a scrambler.”
What I noticed was that Leif had ceased trying to blend in—not that he had ever been especially good at it. He was wearing a black paisley waistcoat over a white shirt and a candy-apple-red cravat pinned with a pearl. Black skinny pants and shiny, pointy black shoes completed his look, which suggested to me mild mental illness.
“Since when did you start monitoring calls?”
“Working with Theophilus has given me access to technologies and methods I would not have used earlier. I have been monitoring all calls running through the cell towers near Hal’s residence and place of business, so thank you for reaching out to him.”
“It’s not a wiretap if you’re not actually tapping a wire,” I said, in a peevish attempt to reassert control. A small part of me was relieved that Leif wasn’t able to track me through all the blood we had shared—he used to drink mine in lieu of payment for his services and I think I probably ingested some of his once back in Flagstaff, so that had been a legitimate fear of mine after he’d surprised us that time in Thessalonika. Tracking Granuaile through divination and monitoring calls was annoying, but at least we could work on countermeasures against that; I couldn’t take back the blood. “Now get out. We were trying to have a romantic interlude, and your cravat is ruining everything.”
“Your conversation sounded rather prosaic and based on survival rather than procreation to me.”
“Who said anything about procreation? The point, which you apparently missed, is that you’re not welcome.”
“Where are the dark elves this time?” Granuaile asked, looking over his shoulder. “Are they in the kitchen?”
“No dark elves at all,” Leif replied, “though some other vampires may arrive shortly.”
“Please wake Oberon and get him in here,” I said to Granuaile, never taking my eyes off Leif. “Look out for threats while we talk.” Leif wouldn’t leave before he’d spoken his piece, so I ground out, “Say what you came to say.”
Leif gestured to the empty chair next to me. “May I join you?”
“No. Over there.” I flicked my eyes at the unoccupied table across from us.
“Very well.” No sooner had he seated himself than our waiter swooped in to inquire about getting him a drink. Leif caught his eye, charming him, and said, “You will forget I am here. Ignore me.” The waiter turned and shook his head once, wondering what he’d been doing, before retreating to the kitchen to see if the answer waited for him there.
Oberon, invisible to most everyone, joined us and squeezed in behind Granuaile’s chair.
I decided to let Granuaile answer him and prompted my erstwhile attorney, “Why are you here?”
“I have been given a task to perform, which I have no intention of performing. It runs counter to my own interests, despite the attempts of Theophilus to ensure that I have a personal stake in its completion.”
“And that task is what, exactly? Kill us?”
“Near enough,” Leif admitted. “I am to prevent you from swimming the channel, or, at minimum, delay your crossing. I therefore urge you to depart sooner rather than later.”
“Fine by me,” I said, making as if to rise. Leif held up a pale, placating hand.
“Nonsense. Enjoy your meals first. The urgency is not so great as that, and we have other things to discuss.”
“Such as the note you left for me in Germany?”
“I am glad you received it. I have heard that you killed one of the snipers.”
“There was more than one?”
“There were five. The one you killed was at the edge of the net, so to speak. Had you continued straight ahead from the place where you found the note, you would have been caught in a crossfire.”
I didn’t bother correcting him on who had killed the sniper. “Whose idea was that, and how did they know to set up there?”
“As to the latter, you probably know better than I. It is someone in Tír na nÓg who is divining the future of your protégée.” He waved a finger at Granuaile.
“Do you know who it is?”
“No. Theophilus is quite closemouthed about it. All I know is that he gets regular updates from his source on your future or current position. As soon as the sun set, we heard you would be in Calais this evening, and I was sent immediately to cut you off. I am supposed to coordinate with the local vampires and one other to prevent your escape. Naturally, you are the wild card in all of this. Your amulet prevents them from predicting your actions and thus they never know whether they will be successful.”
The waiter arrived with our orders and placed the artfully arranged plates in front of us. We thanked him and he left without looking at Leif.
“Where is Theophilus now?”
A tiny shrug. “He is constantly on the move now, as am I, but I believe he is somewhere in Italy at the moment.”
“Good.”
Leif quirked an eyebrow. “Is it?”
“Yes,” I said. Perhaps the yewmen would find him and deliver the vengeance of Druids. I wondered if Leif had heard about what had
happened in Rome, but I didn’t want to bring it up. “Was it his idea to send the snipers?”
“No, but he approved it. The idea came from one of his allies who rather concerns me—an Austrian fellow named Werner Drasche. You may have the misfortune to meet him shortly. He bankrolled the mercenaries and has the wherewithal to continue such activity. It is his opinion that modern military force would be most effective in bringing you down.”
He was right about that. I noted that Granuaile fumed silently at this news, and I felt a bit sorry for Herr Drasche. He was now irrevocably on her shit list. “Interesting,” I said. “Why would I meet him shortly?”
“Theophilus has sent him here with the same basic information I was given—namely, that you would be in Calais tonight. He is probably searching for you even now, as I would be had I not heard from a hireling about your call to Hal.”
“A hireling?” Granuaile said. “Who talks like that?”
“A contracted employee,” Leif amended, which was not much better.
“Why should I be worried about this guy? Is he a vampire?”
Leif shook his head once, curtly. “No. He is human, or at least he once was. You cannot simply unbind him. Think of him as a vampire without the common disadvantages. He is not dead; he can walk in the daylight; wood is no more dangerous to him than any other substance. And yet he enjoys many of our advantages—superior strength, long life, extraordinary recuperative powers, and an ability to hide his feeding so that no one notices.”
“What is he, then?”
“I cannot say with certainty. A horror born of madness, perhaps. I have only recently met him, and my investigations have yet to bear fruit. But if you ask him, he will say that he is an arcane lifeleech.”
“An arcane lifeleech?”
Leif winced. “He does have a penchant for melodrama. And cravats.”
“Oh.” I dipped my chin at his throat. “So that thing on your neck wasn’t your idea?”
“It was my idea to flatter him into thinking he influences my personal tastes. But it is not my idea that cravats are attractive.”
“I’m relieved. So what does Herr Drasche do, latch on to his victims and drain their life?”
“He does nothing physically. He can do it from a distance. Hence his use of the word arcane.”
I frowned. “How great a distance?”
“I cannot provide an accurate measurement, but within his sight, certainly. He cannot hide in Sri Lanka and drain a victim in the Seychelles. But he could stand at the door to this establishment, for example, and leech the very life from your cells. A little from you, a little from Granuaile, and a little from everyone else.” He swept his hand around to include the entire restaurant. “You may not feel anything at all, except perhaps a mild fatigue. He is the perfect parasite. He thrives entirely on the energy of others now and has no need to ingest food—only water.”
“So he can just drain a little at a time?”
“Oh, no, he can drain people completely. He refrains, however, because it is unnecessary. Imagine, Atticus: He can walk abroad in daylight and sample from everyone in public. He is sustained and kept youthful wherever he goes.”
“This only works on people?”
“No. Plants and animals too. He can live until the end of days if he so chooses and have minimal impact on his surroundings. Yet if he needs unnatural strength, it is at his fingertips. He can grow stronger by draining the life of everything around him.”
“Gods below, what a monster.” Given enough time, he could snuff an elemental.
“Indeed. But apart from some odd cosmetic decisions, he does not look the part of a monster. Instead, he cultivates the aspect of a dandy.”
I snorted. “Nobody calls people dandies anymore, Leif. We call them douche bags now.”
“In sooth?”
“Verily. And in case you were wondering, you’re dressed like a dandy.”
“Alas! It is the least of my faults, I imagine.”
Truer words were never spoken. I could never forgive his betrayal, but somehow I had slipped into bantering with him like old times. I looked down at my plate and realized I had yet to touch my food. Granuaile hadn’t sampled hers either and became aware of this at the same time I did.
Leif noticed our gazes and said, “Please, eat.”
The monkfish in algae shirts looked tasty, but I was no longer hungry. “I’ve kind of lost my appetite.”
“Me too,” Granuaile said.
Oberon spoke up.
“How can such a creature as a lifeleech exist?” Granuaile asked.
Leif grimaced. “I am uncertain. My only information derives directly from him and may be suspect. But to hear him tell it, he was an accident of alchemy—a byproduct of a sixteenth-century search for the philosopher’s stone. He represented a form of success, of course, but he drained to death the alchemist who created him, in the first few minutes of his newfound power. He is unique, which I suppose is a minor blessing, as there will be no others. Of more concern to us is that he is entirely in the confidence of Theophilus.”
I noticed that Leif had subtly cast this as an “us vs. them” scenario, when in fact he was with them. Or, if that was not entirely accurate, he was certainly not with us.
“Huh. How’d that happen?”
“I do not know. I am not in confidence with either of them. I am also unsure of Herr Drasche’s motivation regarding your pursuit and murder. He could not harbor an old antipathy for Druids, since he was born long after all Druids had disappeared from the earth save you—and he only heard of your existence recently. But it may simply be an issue of loyalty for him. His relationship with Theophilus has depths I cannot fathom.”
“Well, how about the obvious?” Granuaile asked. “Are they lovers?”
Leif blinked. “Oh. Well. I hadn’t considered that. Perhaps.”
“Aha!” Granuaile said, pointing at him, her face lit with victory. “So that means vampires do have balls! Ever since the last time we saw you in Thessalonika, I’ve been wondering about that!”
Leif flinched as if Granuaile had slapped him. “You have?”
I grinned, because I knew what she was up to. Leif had a peculiar squeamishness about vampire biology and refused to discuss it. If she could cause enough discomfort, he might decide to leave.
“Well, yeah,” she said, pressing the attack, “I mean, you’re basically animated dead tissue, right, so why would any system from your human life still work if it’s superfluous to the act of predation and converting blood to energy? I mean, I’m sure you’d have a vestigial sack dangling there, but there’s no reason to suppose your nuts would still be churning out babymakers and testosterone like a regular dude’s if that’s not going to get you a night’s supply of blood. But if Theophilus is sharing his sweet cadaver love with Werner, then I guess I was dead wrong about that, eh? Did you see what I did there? Hey! Where are you going?”
“Excuse me,” Leif called over his shoulder, suddenly in a hurry to exit the restaurant. He was already halfway to the door.
I laughed. “I told him to get out and he ignored me, but bring up his pop rocks and he can’t wait to leave. Good call.” I gave her a fist bump.
“Thanks. I hope I didn’t pounce too early.”
“Oh. We never got an answer, did we?” I doubted I’d ever learn the truth about vampires.
“No, but we got an incentive to get out of here. I don’t want to walk into an ambush outside, and I’m not anxious to confront something called an arcane lifeleech.”
“Neither am I, but we can’t go yet. We don’t have any money to pay for this fabulous food we’re not eating.”
Granuaile said, “We’ll feed you, Oberon, but in
depressingly human-sized bites.”
The waiter stopped by to make sure everything was satisfactory, seeing that my monkfish remained undisturbed.
“Très délicieux,” I told him. He removed himself from our sight, only to be replaced by a large man in a black beret with hyper-aggressive muttonchops. They were imperial expansionist chops, threatening to leap from his face onto mine and colonize it for the glory of a fill-in-the-blank god and monarch.
“Monsieur O’Sullivan?” he growled.
“Oui.”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a large roll of euros. He dropped it onto the table and hauled his muttonchops away before they could execute an airdrop and establish a beachhead on my jaw. Apparently that was all the welcome I would receive from the local pack.
“Hmm,” I said. “Taciturn.”
“Aloof,” Granuaile said.
“He was also in a hurry to leave, and that was a hint in itself. Let’s go.”
“Yes, let’s.”
Granuaile abandoned her earlier promise to feed him tiny bites and put her plate on the chair next to her for Oberon’s easy access. I peeled off some bills and left them on the table as Oberon hoovered up the turbot.
We picked up our camouflaged weapons and the belts and exited, Oberon lamenting the waste of my monkfish.
The Strait of Dover—or, from the French perspective, the Pas-de-Calais—beckoned to us in the dark. The Morrigan had promised us a way out if we could make it to Herne’s forest on the other side. Crossing the strait would leave us at our most vulnerable, and I seriously doubted Oberon’s ability to swim twenty-one miles unaided.
We waded out a short distance into the cold surf, where Granuaile gave me Scáthmhaide, stripped, and donated her clothing to the tide. After a quick kiss—truly quick this time—she shifted to a sea lion.