by Ted Minkinow
“You talked everyone else to sleep during the conclave?” I said before I could find a dirty sock to stuff into my mouth.
Bernard thought for a second. Stupid mouth of mine. And then laughter. It sounded real and alive. Free of tension and honest. Lest you think I was getting a man-crush on the little guy, I’d also say that laugh sounded a mile or two north of Insaneland. Maybe it was just my imagination.
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
Bernard cut off the laugh like you’d stop water flowing from the tap. Immediately. Weird.
“I thought you’d never ask,” said Bernard. “How about a wee dram more,” he added and held up an empty beer bottle.
Great idea. Have another drink with a powerful cannibal pygmy of questionable sanity who refuses to promise he will not kill me and all of my friends once we get them out of a picture painted by a demon with no face. Do you ever feel like your life is stuck in a rut? Same thing every day. I fetched us both a fresh one.
Bernard sat in the same spot on the sofa where I’d left him. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe that he’d push everything off the desk and roll out an old map with our plan inked on it.
“Gather round, gents,” he said.
Helmet took the hint and we both sat down on the couch. Me on the cushion beside Bernard and Helmet on the arm beside me. I didn’t need to worry he’d break anything. Undead spirits are light enough to sit just about anywhere.
I felt the blood lust pushing up like a mouthful of puke and I did what I could to swallow it back down. It would return. Another visit. And then another. And yet another. It would keep coming back like a drunken party guest until it eventually ruled my thoughts. And my actions. I’d worry about that later. I had a plan I needed to hear.
Chapter 31
Bernard sounded like a special-ops captain planning a complex operation deep into enemy territory. It wasn’t so much a matter of split-second timing and terse communications as elegance in simplicity.
Helmet closed his eyes and smiled. Imagine the same pose you’ve seen hundreds of times when the informed wine taster at your table takes the first sip of an expensive bottle. I bet Helmet even heard strains of Wagner. I’d also bet a week’s worth of tips that he participated in this kind of briefing a time or two in the final year of his life. And he appeared to like what Bernard said. I felt my confidence grow. But that could have just been beer courage.
We would attack on one front and only one front. Bernard reasoned the Aachen Cathedral as the epicenter for everything. Someone powerful enough to handle Soyla had enough horsepower to keep watch on the cathedral. Meet them at the Niederwalddenkmal as I’d been instructed? Misdirection, according to Bernard. They’d be at the cathedral.
Bernard didn’t think they’d hold Sparky nearby. Why would they add the risk of uniting two angry vampires? Their caution might provide our first advantage. Sparky was famous, even among The Seven, as it turned out, for “unpredictable acts of brazen stupidity.” Bernard’s words. A fine testimonial, and I’d remember to use it against Sparky someday. If he survived. If I survived.
By Bernard’s reasoning, odds said we could remove Sparky from the board, and in doing so eliminate the threat of his random buffoonery. The overcautious nature of our unknown opponent represented our first advantage. Know your enemy, Bernard had said. Score one for the good guys. Well, score one for me and for the little, murdering, explorer-eating, jungle sneaking, free beer drinking bastard sitting on the sofa beside me. After all, we were a team and a point for one is a point for all.
So the operation would center on the Aachen Cathedral, and we’d face three potential enemies. Bernard reasoned that Soyla’s masters and No Face and gang would hold off on anything funky until I had Chucky’s dry bones out of the gold and silver casket. Up to that point we’d face the first enemy, security.
Neither of us thought building security or the Polizei posed significant threats. We opted for a crash, grab, and dash to get our hands on the bones. The final two engagements with Soyla’s folks and No Face would play out in a hurry, probably not more than a few seconds. That’s how battles tend to go. The two-hour movie is all about a few minutes of action. Unless we’re talking siege or trenches, and we didn’t plan on surrounding the cathedral or digging through the cobblestones for the long haul.
Stealth provided advantages, and we’d execute the plan as quietly as possible. But we wouldn’t slow ourselves to avoid waking the neighbors. Or the Polizei. Chances were high that we’d trip some unseen sensor. If we did the slow-dance, cat burglar routine, we’d only be giving the Polizei additional time to swallow their bratwursts and drain their steins before loading up the wagons and coming after us like a load of brown shirts looking for heads to break.
Whether fortune smiled on the operation or not, we wanted everything wrapped up before the Polizei arrived. If that didn’t happen, we’d bail in opposite directions. Vampire speed would leave the Polizei far behind. Bernard and I debated whether to keep the bones.
I voted we take Chucky along for the jog. Bernard thought scrubbing the whole thing and leaving the bones behind the best course of action. The police wouldn’t move as quickly if they found the national treasure safe after a bungled robbery. On the other hand, if they discovered the bones missing, they’d spare no expense to track down the thieves and retrieve Chucky.
Excellent point on Bernard’s part. But I cared zero about the bones and everything about whether my friends remained oil on canvas. I insisted I keep Chucky with me. My goal was not so much a burglary as it was a ransom. The stealing part was a means to that end. Bernard didn’t agree, and that disagreement highlighted what we both already knew. Bernard and I would be working separate agendas.
And exactly what was Bernard’s agenda? I didn’t know, though he finally gave in on that one issue. We’d keep the bones and plan on an alternate rendezvous with Soyla’s folks and with No Face and company. Neither of us knew where that meeting might take place but Bernard said you had to plan for failure to ensure success. Rah. Rah, insert intense, impressed, and happy face here. Bernard had to be brain dead not to assume I didn’t trust him.
Thoughts of treachery aside, I liked the idea of running from the Polizei. They’d mobilize search teams with German efficiency but by the time anything got going Bernard and I would be linked up at the Frankfurt train station. And then it would be Bernard versus Gare. I harbored no doubt that Bernard would begin his cleaning routine once we got out of sight of people and security cameras.
With me out of the picture you could bet the authorities would discover Chucky’s bones as safe and as undamaged as a dead guy can be. The Polizei would continue to work the case, but the many demands of a socialist economy would come calling for any funding earmarked to search out the incompetent bandits. They’d have the bones, they’d improve security. Cold case for the conspiracy theorists.
In the meantime, my friends would either die or need to get comfortable in their new home inside the wooden frame. Bernard would mobilize his little pygmy army to take out the remaining actors. Come to think of it, he might see that action as unnecessary. What criminal would blab a failed heist to the press? I mean, did the demon world really want to go public?
Sparky and Soyla would get interviews. A kind of whacky advantage for them. Both of them had been involved in so many nefarious activities over the years that The Seven trusted their silence. Only my friends and I represented threats to their precious secrecy. Irony of ironies. If Bernard’s plan hit a snag, the good guys would die. But then I thought Bernard planned the same outcome if the mission succeeded.
All of that went through my brain as Bernard explained the options for avoiding the Polizei. I listened like I believed him. The overall level of my affection for Bernard bounced up and down the entire night. The “We’ll join up in Frankfurt” thing represented a new low. Love and hate. Up and down. Hero and goat. All in the space of a couple of hours. On the plus side, it gave me some insight as to what a
wife feels when her husband walks through the door each evening.
Bernard left the emergency planning. Time to move on to happier topics. Like the ambush he was certain awaited us once we made it out of the cathedral. He couldn’t predict the weaponry, although he thought we might be dealing with assault weapons to disable us and edged weapons to cut away enough of our pieces to make our hot pursuit of the double-crossers more challenging. What kind of challenge? Shed a couple of legs and your head and then try finding your way through the confusing cobblestone streets of an ancient German town. At night.
Soyla’s gang would not know how to kill us because she wouldn’t trust them with the ability to save the millions they must have promised her. She’d keep that bit of information tucked away. So the bad guys wouldn’t kill any vampires during the operation. Disable? If they could. But not kill.
And speaking of Soyla, Bernard reasoned she would avoid the engagement. Sure, her scent would alert me, but that would only be the excuse they’d use to hold her back. Soyla’s masters had all the conventional firepower they needed and the same reasoning they used for Sparky would win out. Risky to bring an additional vampire along.
As we talked about enemy number one—Soyla’s people—it became clear that they never intended on trading Sparky for the bones. It was up to him to get himself out of the situation. With any luck they’d kill him quickly and leave the body where it lay. Sparky would regenerate and then move on to create some new disaster for himself and his friends. But he’d first need to get past Soyla.
If she did the deed then it was lights out for him. But I didn’t think she would kill Sparky because she’d worry I’d retaliate. You know, do something devastating like defriending her on Facebook. For the fifth time. I could also go nuclear and change my cell number. But why should Helmet and I pay for Soyla’s sins?
The motivations driving enemy number two—No Face and company—didn’t seem nearly as clear. I thought that’d make planning somewhat more difficult. Wrong again. Bernard stuck with the elegance in understatement shtick.
Once again, the Aachen Cathedral was the only choice. Not just because it was Chucky’s location, but because No Face had access to a sort of portal to his dimension there. It seemed counterintuitive to me that a house of God became a demon’s lair, but as I already mentioned, Europeans evicted God from all dwellings several decades before. Guess he couldn’t pay the huge tax bill.
Bernard thought No Face wouldn’t activate the portal until we had the bones. The demons might look on with admiration as they saw the human double cross forming outside, but they’d understand it could mean they’d get beaten to Chucky’s bones.
“Bring us what they want,” No Face had said. He was aware of the competition, all right. And he’d have accounted for it in his own plan. I don’t know if demons conduct sit-down planning sessions. Most likely no, but wouldn’t it be a hoot to see them argue about some small point. These guys were so contrary that they’d probably end up ripping each other apart over who got to run the projector.
The mental picture had me laughing. Inside of course, because Bernard thought my outside was paying attention. I called the plan simple and elegant. The simple part: break in and take what we want. The elegant part? Bernard had a plausible idea of what motivated the players and how they’d arrange themselves.
I got it. But Bernard insisted on droning on. And on. The more bored I became the more the blood lust dug its way out of the virtual prison I’d locked it in. My mind needed something amusing to concentrate on or I’d end up dead before I could take a single bullet from the bad guys Bernard thought would be waiting outside the cathedral.
My thoughts probed the inside of the cathedral and rehearsed the various techniques I’d use in hand-to-hand combat should the demons show up early. That mental image of No Face and his stooges must have gotten a bit loud because I could have sworn I’d misheard Bernard say, “And that’s why I’ll wait outside the cathedral while you do the dash and grab.”
He’ll wait where?
“Sorry,” I said, “But I think I heard you say you’ll be outside the cathedral?”
“There’s a good chap.”
The thought of going solo against each of the formidable enemies overshadowed the joy I should have felt in the confirmation that my ears worked fine.
“So what’s your part while I break through all the locks and security?” I said. “And let’s not forget the armed-to-the-teeth bad guys and the demon hordes hungry for a vampire omelet?”
“Egad, man,” said Bernard. “Do you really think they’d need you to grab the bones if they could do it themselves?”
Right. Yada Yada. Time was getting short. And not just for my friends but also for my blood lust. And that blood lust kept egging me on to do something stupid. Usually it’s just my brain that does that.
“And you’ll almost certainly be wounded beyond defending yourself,” Bernard said.
“Thanks for the reassurance.”
“Don’t mention it, old chap,” he said.
“So I’m a honeypot?”
“Not in my book,” he said.
I refused to look at Helmet. But I did catch his fall-out-of-the-chair-laughing act in my peripheral vision. We’d see who ended up laughing after I changed the security code on my smartphone. Old Helmet better get a good and last look at the Soyla sexts.
“I meant—“
“I know,” said Bernard. “Just a little humor to lighten things up ahead of the mission.”
Yeah. Very little humor.
“But to get to the point,” Bernard said. “Yes, that sounds jolly good. A honeypot.”
So I was supposed to make myself not only a target, but a wounded duck. Everyone else got to be the hungry coyote. Remember what I said about simplicity and elegance? Forget it, because the simplest thing in the plan was me. I’d have to be a simpleton to actually do Bernard’s stuff. And it seemed as elegant as a steaming green dog turd on the Queen’s breakfast table.
“And you’ll be outside while I’m doing all this honey-potting?”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Maybe?”
Bernard stood and I knew this planning session was nearly over.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll be outside dealing with Soyla’s ambushers.”
Have you ever noticed how cute a pygmy can be when he’s promised to protect you from a dozen bloodthirsty mercenaries?
“And then I may just pop in to see about that demon portal,” Bernard said. “Never know if you might need me to hold something open.”
Like the back of my pants while you…
I nodded.
“Hold what open?”
“Maybe hold the portal open to ensure your friends and you make it back to our side.”
That sounded worthwhile. I mean, Bernard was likely the oldest human on the earth. Certainly he’d picked up a trick or two concerning demon portals in all that time.
“How?” I said.
“No idea,” Bernard responded.
He looked around to see if he’d left anything. Satisfied he hadn’t, Bernard aimed a sharp bow at Helmet. He stood straight and looked at me.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“One more thing,” I said. “You haven’t mentioned Sarah Arias.”
“Of course not,” he said. “She’ll just be watching.”
Both Helmet and Karl followed us to the front door. It seemed like a goodbye moment so I turned to them, but the worried look on Helmet’s face changed my mind. Goodbye felt overly final in this situation and I decided it better to just get underway. I closed the door behind me and the hardware clicked with the loud sound of a coffin lid. There’s another Sparky story in that. We headed down the stairs. And for another one of the countless times in my life the path I took would bring me to battle.
Chapter 32
I made it down the first flight and looked behind. Bernard still stood up by the door, playing with his phone. He put the thing in his pocket
and stopped beside me on the first landing.
“Do me a favor,” I said, and reached out a hand.
Bernard looked down at it for a moment and then up at me in confusion.
“Take it,” I said.
He mumbled something like “Bloody hell” under his breath.
“Humor me,” I said.
Bernard shrugged and put one of his little pygmy hands into mine. Even I didn’t know where I found the cojones to hold hands with one of The Seven. That’s the way we walked down the next flight of stairs and that’s how Herr Doktor saw us when we paraded past his door.
Herr Doktor took a quick glance and returned to pretending to oil the peephole. Sometimes you can measure the time it takes for what’s imprinted on the optic nerve to register in the brain. Old Doktor’s neck mechanism sounded like it needed some oil of its own as he whipped his head back around for a closer look.
Hand-in-hand, Bernard and I paused on the Doktor’s landing, and I offered an exuberant good evening. The old guy stood for a moment in pure shock, and then quickly opened the door so Frau Dimpled Fanny wouldn’t need to see it all through one small—and newly oiled—peephole.
She’d been monitoring all right. A cigarette burned untended on the floor, and her slack-mouthed expression matched Herr Doktor’s. After a second, both jaws closed in unison. Why do my descendants always seem to be marching? And there it was, the smiles on both their faces. Herr Garrett found a little boyfriend. It’s the way things are done by crazy Americans. Comforted by evidence of continued balance in the universe, they waved and watched Bernard and me walk out the door.
Those two could be the magic cure for blood lust.
Bernard threw away my hand once we got outside.
“You’re a real bastard,” he said.
I think that’s a compliment when it comes from a Brit. I was going to say something about how much Bernard looked like he was enjoying it, or don’t get used to it, or don’t you want my number, or something like that. I mean, tons of material could apply to this situation and I wanted to make sure I chose the best line. But a car drove up before I spoke.