by Kevin Hearne
“We’re going to need the body over here,” I tell Flidais, and soon I can see the guard being hauled by an unseen force back to the station.
There are several buttons and switches under the general heading of ALARM, but I don’t know what they do. I’m afraid if I push any of them I’ll sound the alarm rather than disable it.
There’s nothing else around the station—no exits of any kind—so the door to the sanctum must lie at the opposite end of the hall.
“What do you want with him?” Flidais whispers.
“Lug him around here,” I say. She does so and I grab his right hand, extending the thumb toward the data pad marked SANCTUM.
I point down the hall with my free hand. “There should be a door down there somewhere. I’m going to open it from here and follow you in.”
“Understood,” Flidais says. “Wait for my signal.”
After a few moments I hear a hiss from down the hall. I punch the SANCTUM button then press the guard’s finger onto the data pad and am rewarded with a soft chime of mechanical satisfaction. There’s significant movement on one of the monitors, and I look up to see a black-and-white movie of vampires exploding as Flidais moves among them, alternately using her stake and her own unbindings to take them apart. I let the guard’s body go, collect my weapons, and vault over the station, heading for the SANCTUM door. It’s just sliding closed as I arrive and I squeak through, hoping there’s a way to open it from the inside.
The room is painted in violent splashes of red and littered with viscera. Much of it begins to bubble and smoke, decomposing rapidly in the absence of the magic that kept the vampire functioning as a biological entity. Flidais has already moved on to the next room, pressing her advantage of surprise, so I hurry to catch up.
There’s no scream quite like a vampire scream, unhinged from human restraints and allowed to be the thing it is—a sound of distilled rage, poured into the air and swirled in the ears like a fine vintage of malevolence. Of distinct benefit to me, however, is an overwhelming urge to kill the source upon hearing it.
So many screams. The vampires could hear us and smell us as we came into the room, but they couldn’t see us, and by the time they’d gotten some idea of our whereabouts we had already staked them or unbound them with our words.
I do keep count and try to stake them in nonfatal places in case they’re humans. That happens twice, where I sink my stake into the joint of their shoulder and chest and watch them cry out but remain whole. I kick them aside and tell them to stay out of the way.
Flidais has no such scruples. She kills indiscriminately, and we tear through the rooms together, leaving a red wake until we get to the last door, and it’s a locked, armored one. It must be the true sanctum, the room with all the coffins, protected like no other. There’s a bio-data pad on the side. I doubt the thrall’s thumbprint would open it. I dimly hear the metal ratchet of guns loading rounds into the chamber. There’s a different kind of fight on the other side of that door.
It’s just as well that we’re forced to slow down. We have them trapped anyway, so we can take time to ponder and take stock of what’s been done.
I count forty-five dead vampires, about seven human thralls or meals that Flidais killed, and the two other humans I wounded. I wish I’d been able to save more of them or ask Flidais to have a care; I didn’t think there would be so many. I see to the living, letting go of my invisibility and binding their pant legs together so they can’t move, before healing them as best I can, stopping the bleeding at least and binding the flesh back together.
One of them, a blond pale woman with ice in her eyes, is unsociable and taciturn and says nothing. The other, an athletic man with dark hair and cool brown skin, breathes heavily and looks at me with undisguised fear.
“You just…just destroyed them!” he says in Polish. “What are you?”
“I’m a Druid. Sorry about stabbing you. I was only here for the vampires. Hold still, I’m trying to help. I’m going to close that up.”
“But, like, I didn’t see you until now.”
“Nope, you sure didn’t. So are you a thrall or what?” He has bite marks on his neck, but that doesn’t signify his status.
“No, I’m just a bloodbag to them. They’ve been snacking on me for weeks, keeping me here with that hypnosis thing they do, whatever it is—”
“They call it charming.”
“Yeah, that. Thought I’d never get out of here. Did you say you were a Druid?”
“Yep.”
“I thought they just had sex rituals and burned people up in wicker men.”
I blink a couple of times. “I guess we’ve diversified a bit,” I say, after a pause.
“Oh, shit. Sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying. Shock and all that. I mean, thank you for saving me. I should have said that first and then not said anything else.”
“You’re welcome. What’s your name?”
“Andrzej Kasprowicz.”
“Nice to meet you, Andrzej. Can you tell me anything about that last room back there?”
“That’s where they sleep.”
“How do they get in?”
“Oh, the scary one uses his thumbprint on the little pad thingie on the side.”
“Describe the scary one for me,” I say, thinking of an idea.
“He’s short and pale and ugly, but he dresses better than anyone else. Expensive shoes. Actually wears a waistcoat and keeps a gold pocket watch in there.”
“And none of the other vampires dress this way?”
“No—well, wait, his girlfriend does. Or wife or whatever she is. And some of the rest are hip but not like him. I think all his clothes are custom jobs. Bespoke, you know.”
“So you’ve been here for how long?”
“I honestly don’t know.” His mouth dropped open in horror and he shook his head in an attempt to clear it. “Time kind of muddles together when you never see the sun.”
“Fine. But in all that time, did you ever see any of the vampires pick their nose?”
“What? No. Why?”
“I’m just curious if vampires have boogers.”
“I…I don’t think so?”
“I bet they do, but they go to extraordinary measures to hide it.”
“Is this…real? Am I dreaming right now? This conversation doesn’t seem right.”
“Yeah, it’s the shock. Nobody would ever be interested in that, right? You just relax and recuperate and forget all about vampire boogers and we’ll get you out of here safely, don’t worry.” I pat his arm a couple of times for comfort and rejoin Flidais, running my plan by her. She agrees that it should work and starts tearing up the carpet in the anteroom. I leave and wind my way through the bloodstained mausoleum we swept through to get back to the entrance. The sanctum door doesn’t require a thumbprint to exit but rather operates on a simple push button. I walk around back to the security station and check the feed coming from that final, armored chamber. There are eight figures inside, all well dressed, but one of them has a telltale chain on a waistcoat leading to a pocket watch. That’s the one Andrzej described.
I flick the intercom switch and speak into the microphone. “Kacper? I have a message for you, sir.” The short, well-dressed man snarls and glares at the speaker mounted by the door.
“Who is this?”
“You wrote me a note. A rather unkind one. Sent your boy Bartosz down to my pub to get himself unbound.”
“The Druid bitch.”
“Ah, there’s the unkindness I was talking about. I’ve been perfectly reasonable and generous with you. Gave you a month to leave Poland and live in peace, and you not only refused to take the offer, you taunted and threatened me. Said none of your vampires would leave Poland. Well, they all have now, excepting the ones cowering in that room with you right now. I just unbound th
e lot of them, and you’re trapped. You’re next, in fact.”
“Come and get me, then!” he shouts. “Come in here and see what happens!”
“Oh, I will, Kacper. You’ve seen your last moonrise. Just wanted you to know, before I unbind you, that neither hell nor earth has fury like a Druid scorned. Because I am quite literally a force of nature, you know. You have precisely zero chance of survival. So make what peace you can with whatever gods you worshipped when you were alive, or just scream at the door. I don’t care. Your end, and the end of all the vampires in your company, has come tonight.”
I leave the intercom on and hear some inchoate screaming along with some choice curses as I employ the guard’s thumbprint to open the SANCTUM door again. I leave the security station and jog back through the warren to the anteroom, waving at Andrzej as I pass. Flidais had, in my absence, torn through the carpet and unbound the cement foundation to get to raw, native earth.
“How goes it?”
“She will be here momentarily.”
“Does she have a name?”
“I have never given her one. She seems content without it.”
“Oh.” I wonder what it would be like to have so little sense of self that one doesn’t care for a name. Perhaps she has one and simply hasn’t shared it with Flidais. But I will not interfere. Though it’s my idea, it’s Flidais’s contact.
A few minutes of silence pass and then a dark, roiling mass comes bubbling out of the hole in which Flidais stands. It’s a colony of dark furry whiskers made of iron. It undulates immediately for the armored door and, once it reaches it, slithers up the side, creates an eye slot in the middle of the door where there wasn’t one before, and pours through into the room. We can clearly hear exclamations of surprise and dismay and some angry shouted questions.
“What is that thing?”
“Kill it!”
“Where do I shoot? Gaah!”
Shots are fired and there’s more panic, but it doesn’t matter; it’s an iron elemental that Flidais has summoned, and she sent it into that room with the mission of eating up all the firearms and turning them into small, inert components of carbon and copper and anything that isn’t iron. And while the vampires are busy dealing with the elemental—or utterly failing to deal with it—Flidais and I place our eyes to the slot and establish line of sight. We confirm that these are all vampires by checking out their auras and seeing the gray surrounding them with dull red pinpoints over the heart and head. And then we unbind them, mercilessly, preying upon these predators that had feasted on the people of Krakow for hundreds of years. Kacper Glowa’s rebellion against the signatories of the Treaty of Rome ends in a messy splash of fluids, a ruined waistcoat, and a satiated iron elemental. I take some pictures of the gory aftermath to send to Leif Helgarson. He’ll spread around what happens to vampires who violate the treaty and hopefully that will deter others from thinking they can ignore it.
Flidais remains behind to thank the elemental and dismiss it while I fetch the taciturn blonde, who I think might be a thrall. I show her the carnage in the sanctum, prove that Kacper’s really gone, and she finally shows some emotion. She weeps.
“What am I supposed to do now?” she says through a sob.
“Be content with being human. Or become a thrall in some other country, because all the vampires in Poland are now wiped out.”
I lead her and Andrzej out to ground level and let them go. “Go see a doctor and don’t come back here,” I tell them. Then I give Leif a call.
“Yes?” His stiff, cultured voice always amuses me.
“Guess where our man was hiding? Underneath his house! The business is done. I’m going to send you some pictures to spread around, but you should come here to take his records and whatnot.”
“I should. I will be there shortly,” he says. “Thank you, Granuaile.”
I can’t leave fast enough; I don’t need to wait for him. I just head back down once more to liberate the signed copy of Chłopi and tell Flidais I’ll meet her in Taiwan the next day, after I go home to clean up and get some sleep. Then I head up the hill, shift out of Krakow, and arrive home to six more hounds than I was ready for.
It’s the mental chatter between the hounds that tells me what’s happened. Orlaith! You had your puppies! I say through our mental link.
Oh, me too! I’m so sorry I missed it!
Six perfect puppies! Oh, my goodness! May I come say hello? I promise not to touch them until you say it’s okay.
Everybody’s helping—that’s great!
When I enter the cabin, there is much attention to be paid to the men. Oberon and Starbuck, and Earnest as well, are very excited to tell me what I already know, and they are all as proud of announcing it as if they’d somehow managed to give birth themselves.
But once I assure them all that they did a fantastic job, I’m allowed to visit Orlaith and see her puppies all nestled against her belly, nursing.
“Oh, my goodness, they’re so adorable!” I tell her. “How on earth did you ever manage six?”
I switch to our private line. What? Why are you worried? There’s no need. They’ll all be taken care of.
I’d been giving some thought to this during her pregnancy, because six extra hounds was quite a bit more than we could handle.
Well, how would you feel about them being the hounds of other Druids?
Owen has six apprentices. They’re all young humans, so your puppies could grow up with them.
Maybe they would appreciate having hounds. I will make sure to ask. In any case, we have a few months before we need to make any decisions. You just do your thing and let me know if there is anything I can get for you, okay? Do you need anything?
Okay.
I would like nothing better.
Orlaith’s pups are three and three, just like their parents: Three gray-coated boys, and three cream-coated girls. Or wheaten, I suppose, is the proper term. They make tiny puppy noises every so often as they’re nursing, and it makes my heart all gooey.
You know what? I’m going to go grab myself a pillow and a blanket so I can sleep next to you. I do need to leave in the morning, but while I’m here I just want to snuggle.
* * *
—
It’s difficult to leave Orlaith and the pups in the morning, but I must. Oberon understands and sympathizes, because Atticus had to leave him behind too.
Thank you, Oberon. I give them all a hug, wave farewell to Earnest and the pups, and head for the bound tree behind the cabin, near the bank of the McKenzie River.
The bound tree in Taiwan turns out to be a Formosan gum tree, native to the island. It’s a bit elderly, indicating that no Druids or Fae have shifted here in quite some time, and I think it might
be wise to bind a younger tree soon. Flidais is waiting there for me and says as much, noticing my regard.
“We should bind a stronger tree.”
We do just that, finding a younger specimen in the same area, which Flidais tells me is Yangmingshan National Park, near Taipei. My stomach audibly groans at the end of the binding, a long, hollow cry of dolor like that of a woebegone cetacean adrift in an empty sea. Flidais comments as if I had spoken a recognizable language.
“I hunger too. I know where to get really good beef noodles within a short jog out of the park, and then we can take an invention called the metro into the densely packed city, thereby avoiding a run of many miles. Have you heard of this invention? It transports many people at a time in these metal boxes that move on rails.”
I stifle a smile. “Yes, I have. Please lead the way. But tell me, how do you know this place so well?”
“Mandarin is one of my headspaces,” she says. “And Taipei is one of my favorite cities to visit.”
We travel west from the bound tree out of Yangmingshan, past hot springs and Beitou Park, onto Daye Road, where we enter an establishment called Wu’s Beef Noodles. I’ve never had them before and quickly discover that I’ve been missing out. It’s similar to phở in that you have noodles in a beef broth along with thinly shaved slices of beef, but the similarities end there. They aren’t rice noodles, for one thing, and the broth is different, as are the sauces arrayed on the side. Deeply satisfying and fortifying. I make a note to bring Orlaith here for a short break from the puppies.
The bill arrives and I experience a brief moment of panic: I have nothing resembling legal tender on me. But Flidais came prepared. She throws down Taiwanese bills and we exit, belching softly.
She leads me to the Beitou Station after that, and we ride the metro south to the Zhongshan Station in the middle of the city, and I gawk out the window like the tourist I suppose I am while I can; the Red Line is an elevated ride for half the distance before it goes underground and functions as a subway.