by Kevin Hearne
“No. She’s your enemy in your territory. You wanted help and I’m giving it because I can’t let her tell anyone I’m alive. But I’m not your assassin. Do your own dirty work.”
Leif shrugged and pushed her over so that she fell facedown onto the asphalt. He planted a foot between her shoulder blades, gripped her head on either side with his hands, and with a soft grunt pulled it off with a snap of bone and a wet, slurping sound. I’d bound the skin of her fingers so tightly to her face that some of them tore free of her hands and dangled from her lips, and in other cases the skin of her face tore loose and remained bound to her fingers. It was a quick, brutal, and messy extermination, as I suspected it would be. Leif tossed the bloody head into the trash and I began to unbind it, partly to get rid of the evidence and partly to make sure that this vampire would never respawn.
“Thank you, Atticus,” he said, hefting the body and doing his best to keep blood off his clothes.
I finished the unbinding and watched in the magical spectrum until the red light of vampirism winked out in the skull as it dissolved among the food scraps and paper bags and plastic packaging.
“I don’t really want to be thanked, Leif,” I said. “I want to be left alone.”
“I understand,” he said, heaving the body into the bin. He kept talking as I spoke the words to unbind the body; if I didn’t take care of the light in her chest, she’d come back in worse shape than Leif had, but she’d come back nevertheless.
“But you have to admit this was a simple exercise for us. Working together, we could clean up the state in a few days. Please, Atticus.”
Natalia, who’d probably enjoyed thirty years of life and three hundred years or more of bonus existence sucking the blood out of the living, melted inside her T-shirt and torn jeans. I nodded once in the direction of her remains and said, “Sorry, but that’s all the cleaning I’m going to do, Leif. That’s one rival eliminated. Orchestrate the rest yourself. Though I still say you should simply leave. May harmony find you.”
He didn’t miss the note of finality in my voice as I turned toward the gap between the buildings. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m simply leaving,” I replied, walking back to collect Oberon and Granuaile. “See how easy it is?”
I left him standing there and fully expected never to see him again.
Chapter 19
One of the nice things about waking up is the inherent serenity that comes with knowing you’ll probably live until breakfast. It’s true that sometimes you can wake up with a Brobdingnagian hangover and hate your life, but at least you have life, and the cure for a hangover is probably in your kitchen somewhere. There will be birds chirping, a dog somewhere to pet, and a few moments where you can contemplate the pleasant possibility of getting into some sort of adventure that day.
On the other hand, if you live long enough, you’ll discover new and exciting ways to wake up that are less than serene, and well before dawn arrives. Weasels in your bedroll: not good. Huns pillaging the city and raping women: very bad. Vampires breaking through your hotel-room door and sinking their fangs into your newly healed neck before you can move: It doesn’t get much worse than that.
I was in Room 403 of the Hotel Monte Vista, where Freddy Mercury once stayed. I’d sung a bit of “Bohemian Rhapsody” to myself before slipping underneath the sheets and getting snuggly with the comforter. I fell asleep wondering if Scaramouche would do the fandango.
The vampire attached to my neck was improbably strong. The door to my room was completely destroyed; he had plowed right through it and attacked me before the sound could rouse me sufficiently to defend myself. Hotel thresholds offer no barriers to vampires.
On the fourth floor and cut off from the earth, I had a limited amount of magic stored in my bear charm. I used some of it to strengthen my right arm and punch him in the temple; it broke three of my knuckles but successfully knocked him off my neck for a moment. I activated my healing charm and began to speak the spell of unbinding as he hissed and came after me again.
I had no leverage, and the thrice-cursed snuggly comforter, so welcoming before, was now effectively keeping me in place for the vampire’s dining pleasure. He was on me again before I could get my legs free and employ some basic martial arts. I kept him from my neck, but just barely, using more magically enhanced strength. It was like wrestling Leif—even worse, for this lad was stronger and therefore older—and I knew from experience I would not be able to maintain it for much longer, especially with three broken fingers. My charm was running out of juice rapidly. He slapped me hard to make me stop the unbinding, and it worked. I had to start over.
Vampire trying to kill me.
He began to bark, and I heard Granuaile moving, already up, roused by the noise of the shattering door. I wanted to shout at her, say no, stay in your room, stay safe, but to do that I’d have to stop my unbinding for the second time.
As my magic ebbed away, I saw that I would have to make a choice. Either I could keep the vampire from my neck for a few seconds longer and use all my magic on boosting my strength, or I could let him at my neck and save enough to energize the unbinding, hoping he didn’t kill me before I could do it. I chose the latter, seeing no other winning scenario, and once there was nothing between my neck and the vampire but my weak human strength, he plunged down and tore at me again, my blood spilling onto the pillow as much as it spilled into his mouth. I resolutely kept speaking but knew he’d opened me up good, and I could feel my life draining away.
A snarl and an abrupt pressure announced the arrival of Oberon: He jumped on top of the vampire’s back, and thus on top of me, and did his best to bite through the vampire’s skull. It successfully distracted the vampire, because he tore loose from my neck, hissing, and coldly threw Oberon—all hundred and fifty pounds of him—straight through the open door to slam forcefully against the wall in the papered hallway. I heard his bones break and a pained yelp, closely followed by a startled scream from Granuaile, who was out there, and then the sound of my friend crumpling to the floor.
He had saved my life, because that gave me enough time to finish my unbinding and turn the vampire into a gory accident. He squelched and folded inside his suit until he was naught but a legendary dry-cleaning bill in the middle of the room. I tried to get out of the bed to help Oberon and instead tumbled into the carnage on the floor, too weak to keep my feet. I was still bleeding from the neck, and I had no magic left to heal myself.
“Call a vet!” I managed weakly. They were better last words, I supposed, than many others. I could see Granuaile kneeling next to Oberon, and he wasn’t moving. I couldn’t hear him in my mind either. Granuaile looked up from Oberon’s still form at someone’s approach in the hall. Her mouth dropped open.
Leif Helgarson strolled casually into the room, hands in pockets, a smirk on his misshapen face. It widened into a broad smile when he saw the remains in which I wallowed.
“Congratulations, Atticus,” he said. “You have just killed a vampire nearly as old as yourself. That was Zdenik, erstwhile lord of Prague and, briefly, the state of Arizona.”
No wonder he’d been so strong. “You … sent him here?” I said.
Leif removed his hands from his pockets and held them up helplessly. “Were you not the one who told me to orchestrate the deaths of my rivals? I have merely done as you suggested. Thank you for playing your part.”
The oxygen leeched out of the room at his words, and all I could breathe in was horror. What he’d done to Oberon and me—and possibly Granuaile—was all for his worthless territory games? The edges of my vision were going black; my blood was still leaking out of my neck, and I could not think of anything to say that would adequately convey the depth of my revulsion and loathing for him now. If I had the strength left, I would have unbound him on the spot; having no recourse, I fell back on Shakespear
e. Leif would recognize it and understand the context properly. With my remaining few seconds of consciousness, I quoted Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing, who spoke these words to his former friend: “You are a villain: I jest not.” And then I collapsed into a pool of my own blood.
Chapter 20
I dislike Dreams—the sort with a capital D, full of portent and maybe even fiber, brimming with symbols and glowing sigils and mysterious choruses in the mist. The beings who arrange such nocturnal calls to one’s noggin rarely have anything cheerful to say. And I suppose it makes sense. Supernatural beings are too busy to visit humans in their heads and speak unto them, “Congratulations. Upon your waking, you will get some.” They have to say something weighty to make it worth the effort, so they drop bombs on you, announcing that you will be afflicted with sundry punishments for past transgressions, or you must journey far, far away to retrieve a Magic McThingie with which to slay the Dark Lord and save the village or world or galaxy. And, to be fair, they often imply that, should you succeed, you will get some. They just leave out the part that you will probably be too emotionally and physically maimed to enjoy it.
I was already feeling pretty maimed in both ways, so the beginning of a Dream immediately upon my collapse was a clue that my life would get worse before it got better. On the positive side, it meant I’d probably get to continue having a life. The figures in Dreams don’t often bother with the soon-to-be-deceased.
I was no longer in a mixed cocktail of my own blood and Bohemian vampire goo but rather hale and whole in a jungle immediately following an afternoon shower. Broad leaves dripped with moisture, and sweet, spicy oxygen filled my lungs. An animal noise of some sort directed my attention upward, and I spied a golden langur monkey pointing down at me from the canopy. The leaves diffused the sun and bathed the jungle floor in soft, dappled light and perhaps lent the monkey an expression of amusement. A rustling to my left tore my gaze away from him, and I took a step back when I saw the head of an elephant emerge from the foliage. I took another step back when I realized the elephant head wasn’t attached to an elephant but rather the body of a man—a bare-chested man with four arms and an impressive belly. Underneath this, salwar pants of orange silk covered his legs until they ended at his sandaled feet.
The elephant’s trunk twitched and a tranquil voice with a Tamil accent purred at me, its eyes narrowed in curiosity. “Do you know me?”
“You look like Ganesha,” I said. I used to sell busts of the Indian god at Third Eye Books and Herbs. Rebecca Dane probably still had some in stock.
“I am he. Lord of Obstacles.” One of his tusks was missing. He placed one pair of hands on his hips and clasped the other pair in front of him in a prayerful attitude.
“Fabulous to meet you,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant about it. “Would there be any obstacles to me waking up right now so I could help my hound?”
A swish of leaves behind me was my only warning. I turned in time to see a shaggy wreck of a man rap me on the skull with a yew staff. “Pay attention, Siodhachan!” he spat. “You’re cocking it up again!”
“Ow! Archdruid?”
He disappeared into the jungle and Ganesha sighed heavily. “That was one of my colleagues. He is trying to be helpful by pulling an authority figure out of your mind and using it to direct your thoughts, but it is less than subtle. Please forgive us.”
“Um,” I said, rubbing my head gingerly, “I suppose. Who are we talking about, exactly? Or what?”
“We were speaking of obstacles.”
“Right. At the risk of reigniting the wrath of my old archdruid, would there be any obstacles to us having a beer while we talk?”
Two cold, frosty flagons appeared in a couple of Ganesha’s hands, and he offered one to me. “It is a Dream. I don’t see why not.” The beer was a hoppy pilsner with a crisp finish, and it tasted of trust and serenity and a love for learning. Ganesha’s trunk sank into his flagon, and he drained the entire draught in one go. Elephants aren’t supposed to be able to drink using their trunks, but Ganesha didn’t care. He was a god, this was a Dream, and so he was going to suck down a beer through his trunk if he wanted. He ahhed in satisfaction, and then the flagon simply disappeared.
“Refreshing,” he said. I agreed that it was and then fell silent, waiting for Ganesha to speak. I might be hosting the party in my head, but he was throwing it, so I figured he should set the agenda if I wasn’t going to be able to wake up soon.
“We would like to congratulate you on your recent death,” Ganesha began.
“My faked one, I hope you mean?”
Ganesha gave a soft trumpet of amusement. “Yes.”
“Thank you, I feel pretty good about that death.”
“I was particularly amused by Indra’s role in the affair.”
“He doesn’t know it was all a sham, does he?”
“No. He and the rest of the gods with, ah, shall we say, a lesser understanding were completely taken in. However, I represent a number of others with a keener sight, and you have piqued our curiosity.”
“May I ask who these others are?”
Ganesha chuckled. “Let us simply say that we are all employed in Human Services.”
Oh, gods. I wouldn’t be getting into a pun contest with these guys. I sensed other presences nearby in the jungle; they were out of sight but clearly not out of my mind. Whoever they were, they wished to remain anonymous for the moment. Perhaps they were the other Indian gods, but I suspected they were from other pantheons and Ganesha had somehow been elected spokesperson.
“And why are you curious?”
“We wish to know what you will do next regarding Hel.”
“Can you not simply read my mind?”
“We could if you had made a decision yet.” The elephant’s mouth turned upward around the single tusk. “You have been otherwise occupied.”
“You have a gift for understatement,” I said. “So I assume you would prefer one course of action over another, and you would like me to commit to that course now?”
“A clever deduction,” Ganesha observed.
“And if I would rather think about this later?”
“Then I would be forced to admit that this is a Dream from which you may never awaken.”
“I see.” Ganesha was the friendly face of a rather unfriendly ultimatum: Do what we say, mortal, or you’re toast.
“Any advice you’d like to share with me right now? A helpful hint about what you and your cronies would like me to do?”
“We don’t see the point,” Ganesha admitted, somewhat sheepishly. He raised his hands, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness. “You have been given advice before—very good advice, I might add—and you ignored it. You were even advised not to get yourself involved in this vampire situation, and now look where you are. Unconscious and completely drained of magic with only the most tenuous grip on your life.”
“Is my hound alive?”
“That is irrelevant,” Ganesha said.
“It’s relevant to me!”
Pain bloomed on the top of my head as the spectre of my archdruid returned to discipline me. “Pay attention, Siodhachan!” he shouted, and then added as he dove back into the jungle, “You’re cocking it up again!”
“Gah! Damn it, that hurts! How do you do that?”
“Let us focus, please,” Ganesha said, “and see if we cannot remove the obstacles to your continued existence.”
Right. I could do that. “Allow me to start by saying that I am incredibly open to persuasion if you don’t like my answer,” I said.
“Understood.” Ganesha tilted his head down in the barest of nods, and the tiny smile returned around his tusk.
“Right now I feel that, while Hel richly deserves a shank between the ribs on her hot side, I have seen more than enough of her and all the Norse for the time being. I have an apprentice to train and a friend in the hall—”
“So you will pursue her later?” Ganesha interrupted.
&
nbsp; “Much later. Like, after Granuaile is a full Druid in her own right. The whole point of faking my death was to give myself the chance to train her. It would be silly to toss that away now. And, speaking of which, I hope you guys won’t go blabbing to all your buddies that I’m only mostly dead.”
Ganesha stared at me in silence for a few moments, and the jungle rustled with nervous energy. The gods, whoever they were, must have been conferring.
“That is satisfactory for now,” Ganesha finally said. “We will be in touch. Farewell.” He turned his back on me and strode into the jungle without giving me a chance to reply.
“Wait!” I shouted, chasing after him. Leaves sawed at my face and arms as I crashed into the undergrowth. “I have questions! How do I know this is real? What if it’s just a dream with a lowercase d? What if I change my mind about Hel tomorrow?” I stopped. Ganesha was gone, but I still felt presences in the jungle. I turned right and circled around to where I thought they were lurking. I felt them leave as I ran madly through the vegetation, yelling, “Why doesn’t everyone use the metric system? What happened to all of the yeti? How come I’ve never seen my archdruid in Tír na nÓg? Could he be the Most Interesting Man in the World? Why aren’t people from Trinidad and Tobago called Tobaggans? Do you know any Vogon poetry?”
I broke through into the tiny clearing where I’d first appeared. The golden langur monkey screeched and pointed at me. He looked like he was laughing. Then he abruptly vanished, no sound effects or anything. Perhaps he’d been the avatar of a god all along. Or maybe I was just waking up from the Dream.
Chapter 21
Hospitals are buildings of death and give me the fantods. Unlike a field of heather and a benevolent sun shining upon me, they do not give me the sense that the day will bring me joy; they give me the sense that the day will be my last, and I will die cut off from nature. Consequently, when I woke up in the Flagstaff hospital, I couldn’t wait to get out.