One of Ashely’s bullets had pierced the tank of the first four-by-four. I ignored the burning wreck in the middle of the Bahnhofstrasse and scanned the crowds through the blood dripping past my eyes.
The old man and the woman had disappeared.
There was movement beside me.
‘Whoa.’ Ashely gazed into the muzzle of the Smith and Wesson, hands raised defensively.
I lowered the gun and fought to control the tremor in my hands.
‘I think we got most of them.’ He holstered the Glock. ‘On the other hand, seeing as we’re dealing with supernatural beings here, they’ll quite likely start to pop up like daisies some time soon,’ he added with a grimace. Sirens rose in the distance. ‘What say we get the hell out of here?’
My heart pounded dully inside my chest. I turned and looked in the direction of the train station. I started to run.
‘Hey, where’re you going?’ Ashely shouted behind me.
I entered the main hall of the Hauptbahnhof seconds later and darted through the crowds toward the main tracks.
I found them boarding a train on the last platform.
It was pulling away when I reached it.
‘Stop!’ I shouted, banging on a window.
The old man turned at the sound. His eyes widened. He crossed the aisle and pushed the window down.
‘Don’t follow us!’ he ordered harshly.
I heard Ashely call out behind me. I stumbled and almost lost my footing.
‘Why are the Hunters after you?’ I yelled, struggling to keep pace with the moving train.
The old man did not reply immediately.
I sprinted along the platform, the gap separating us growing larger by the second.
‘Please, for your own good, don’t come after us,’ he said finally, his words almost inaudible above the noise from the tracks. ‘I could not bear to lose both of you.’ His blue eyes glistened brightly in the light filtering through the glass atrium overhead.
Then, he was gone.
Chapter Nine
We left the chaos at the Hauptbahnhof and headed swiftly back to the Limmat Quai. The blare of sirens filled the air behind us. Emergency vehicles raced past on the Bahnhofstrasse, flashing lights reflected in the shop windows. We kept a low profile and stayed inside the crowds.
The hotel receptionist stared when we entered the lobby a short time later; although I had done my best to clean the blood on my face, there was no masking the dirt stains on our suits.
Our room was as we had left it. I dressed the wound on my leg and we checked out moments later.
‘The cops won’t be far behind,’ Ashely warned as we drove away from the hotel. ‘There were CCTV cameras all over the place.’
I remained silent and pulled into the heavy afternoon traffic.
Ashely’s heated gaze drilled into the side of my face. ‘So, you wsheila tell me what that was about back there?’
I maneuvered the car around a coach. ‘The old man at the station was an immortal. I think he’s a Schwatz.’
Ashely raised an eyebrow. ‘And you know this how?’
I reached inside my coat and handed him the daguerreotype.
He studied the photograph for several seconds. ‘You mean, he’s the guy in the picture?’
‘Yes.’
A short silence followed.
’He acted like he knew you,’ said Ashely. ‘Have you met before?’
‘No.’ I hesitated. ‘Most of the immortals who know of me are Hunters.’
He mulled this over. ‘You think he’s one of them?’
I recalled the tears in the stranger’s eyes. ‘I honestly don’t know,’ I answered truthfully.
‘What about the woman?’
I glanced at him. ‘I think she’s the little girl in the picture.’
‘Which would make her an immortal as well,’ Ashely stated after a beat. ‘Does this mean Strauss was also an immortal, or at least aware of their existence?’ He drummed his fingers on the antique photograph. ‘The Crovir Hunters are after you and this woman. What’s the link?’
I shrugged, a wave of lassitude washing over me.
The same questions had been going round in my head for the last half hour. I was still nowhere near grasping the possible answers.
Ashely looked up from the daguerreotype and gazed out the window. ‘Where’re we going, anyway?’
‘Vienna,’ I replied. ‘That’s where the train was heading.’
He frowned. ‘What makes you think they’ll be there? They could have gotten off anywhere.’
‘There’s a large population of immortals in Vienna. There will be safe houses where they can hide.’
He studied me for several seconds before pulling a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. ‘All right, Vienna it is then,’ he muttered under his breath and struck a match.
‘Look at it this way. It’s been a while since we’ve been on a road trip.’
He looked less than impressed with this statement.
We drove east along the Alps, past Munich and Salzburg, and reached our destination in the late evening.
As one of the oldest cities on the continent, Vienna had been a popular settlement for immortals since Roman times, when it guarded the frontier of the Empire against the Germanic tribes of northern Europe. It was the capital of the Holy Roman realm in the fifteenth century and became famous for being a center of international espionage while occupied by the Allies at the end of the Second World War.
I had only been to Vienna once before. Unfortunately, my visit coincided with the Ottoman Empire’s second attempt to capture the city in 1683, which ended with the Battle of Vienna following a siege that lasted two months. It was there that I first learned how to use a pistol and suffered two of my deaths in somewhat gruesome fashions. Despite its breathtaking beauty, the place still held unpleasant memories for me.
We checked into a rundown inn in Landstrasse under our fake passports and caught up with international news in a small internet cafe around the corner. The Hauptbahnhof gunfight had already made the headlines.
‘Following the incident at the main railway station in Zurich today, which resulted in two deaths and several minor injuries, the City Police are searching for two male suspects in their late thirties to early forties who left the scene shortly after the disturbance,’ said the evening newscaster. ‘One of the victims, a female in her late twenties, has been identified as Helena Baschtangotze, a research assistant at the FGCZ, the Functional Genomics Center of the University of Zurich. Miss Baschtangotze died from a single gunshot wound to the head. The local police and Interpol are currently studying CCTV images from the station and from around the city close to the time of the incident. So far, there have been no official comments made on rumors that this event may be linked to yesterday’s brutal attack on innocent students at the CNRS campus in Gif-sur-Yvette, in France.’ The screen filled with a grainy video clip of the inside of the Hauptbahnhof. ‘Another aspect of today’s incident that is said to be baffling all involved in this investigation is the collection of images captured by the public on their camera phones. These show several men who had fallen after apparently suffering multiple fatal gunshot wounds rise again minutes later and walk out of the station. One source suggests that the men may have been wearing bulletproof vests, although this theory does nothing to explain the amount of blood found at the scene. And lastly, to add even more mystery to this already puzzling affair, a flock of crows seemed to have invaded the Hauptbahnhof minutes following the incident and disappeared just as rapidly moments later.’
‘They don’t seem to care that they’ve been caught on camera,’ said Ashely in a hard voice. ‘Are immortals really that much above the law?’
‘Yes, they are,’ I said after a short silence. My hands were fisted tightly on my lap and my jaw ached from clenching my teeth.
Ashely put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You can’t undo what’s been done. Let
’s just get to the bottom of this thing before those bastards kill any more people.’
We left the cafe and boarded a rapid transit metro into the city. Moments later, we got off at Schwedenplatz.
The plaza was abuzz with activity, the street lamps and lights from the nearby bars and restaurants casting a bright glow on the waters of the Danube. A large crowd of revelers strolled along the pier, raised voices echoing in the crisp evening air.
I crossed the square and led Ashely down a nondescript side street. We reached a junction and took a left into a cramped passage a few hundred feet from the canal’s edge. Pockets of darkness populated the alley. The upper tiers of the buildings crowded the skyline on either side, adding to its claustrophobic feel.
Halfway along the path stood one of the oldest pubs in the city. I stopped outside the establishment and studied the oak sign above the lintel; bar a lick of paint, the facade had not changed much in the last three hundred years.
I pushed open the thick, iron-plated door and stepped across the threshold. The hubbub inside died down.
Soft lighting painted the interior walls of the tavern in muted shadows. A walrus of a man stood polishing glasses behind the bar, his head bent toward a pair of wizened figures hunched on low wooden stools. Smoke wreathed the air and hovered in a pale blanket near the low ceiling. Dozens of pairs of eyes watched us through the yellow haze.
‘Are they always this friendly?’ Ashely muttered as we crossed the floor to a corner table. The low murmur of conversation resumed around us.
I shrugged. ‘Last time I was here they used to shoot first and ask questions later, so I guess this is an improvement.’
A woman came over to take our order. ‘What will it be?’ she said, tucking a lock of hair impatiently behind her ear.
‘Two Stiegl, please,’ I replied. The level of noise dropped fractionally so that my next words practically echoed across the tavern. ‘The original beer.’
The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘The original Stiegl? I’m afraid it’s no longer in production.’
‘Really?’ I smiled. ‘How strange. I happen to know the owner of this place can still get his hands on them. An old stock of sorts?’
A tense silence had fallen across the tavern. Ashely shifted in his seat and placed his hand lightly on his leg, inches from the Glock.
The waitress scowled and had just opened her mouth for what was likely going to be a sharp riposte when a shadow suddenly loomed behind her.
I looked up into the large, bearded face of the bartender.
‘It’s okay, Maria,’ the man said in heavily accented English.
The woman pursed her lips and stormed off.
The bartender waited until she disappeared from earshot before turning to us with a grin. Gold teeth glinted in the gloom. ‘May I help you, gentlemen?’
I studied him while the chatter of the tavern’s patrons started up around us once more. ‘Like I said to your barmaid, we would like two bottles of the original Stiegl.’
The man’s smile did not shift. ‘I’m afraid that beer is no longer in production, sir.’
Although his tone remained pleasant, I detected the flash of wariness in his gaze.
‘That’s strange.’
‘What is it that you find strange, sir?’ said the bartender politely.
‘I seem to recall a substantial collection of the stuff hidden in your cellar in 1683.’ I smiled. ‘I believe even Commander Starhemberg knew of it.’
Count Ernst Rudiger von Starhemberg was the army commander who held Vienna with a garrison of a few thousand men against the much larger and more heavily armed Ottoman contingent during the famous siege. In acknowledgement of his accomplishments in saving the imperial capital, Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor at the time, promoted him to field marshal and made him a Minister of State.
The bartender went still at the mention of the commander’s name.
‘You’re an immortal,’ he said after a short silence.
I nodded.
He glanced at Ashely. ‘He’s not,’ he stated, matter-of-fact.
‘It’s the eyes, isn’t it?’ said Ashely. ‘There’s something about the eyes.’
The bartender grinned. ‘Oktav Grun, at your service.’ He offered his hand.
I shook it and stifled a wince at his bear-like grip.
‘We don’t often see new faces around here,’ the man continued in the same light-hearted tone. ‘Why, this place is normally only full of old schlingels.’
‘Rogues,’ I translated at Ashely’s puzzled expression.
Raucous laughter rose from the shadows around the tavern.
‘Maria, bring us three bottles of Stiegl!’ Grun barked over his shoulder. He grabbed a chair and dragged it across the floor to the table. ‘So, you were here during the Ottoman siege?’ he said, sitting down heavily. The wood creaked in protest beneath his bulky frame.
‘Yes, I was,’ I replied with a faint smile.
Oktav nodded. ‘Those were tough times.’ He rolled up the sleeve on his left arm and showed us a faint, jagged scar that ran almost all the way around his biceps. ‘That was from a Turkish saber. And this,’ he extended one leg, ‘was from the sappers during the first siege.’
The Turkish soldiers had dug extensive tunnels under the city’s walls during the Ottoman siege. These underground passages had subsequently been filled with gunpowder mines and detonated in an attempt to destroy the extensive fortifications that surrounded Vienna at the time.
I observed the shallow indentation in the bartender’s calf. ‘You were here during both sieges?’
The Ottoman Empire’s first attempt to capture the imperial Roman capital took place in 1529, well before my birth; it lasted less than a month and became known as the Siege of Vienna.
‘For my sins,’ the bartender said with a hearty laugh.
The beers arrived. I took a sip of the cool liquid and closed my eyes briefly while I savored the familiar, bitter taste. It brought back old memories, not all of them bad. The faces of dead friends rose in my mind.
Ashely cocked an eyebrow. ‘This is good.’
Oktav laughed. ‘Better make the most of it. Mortals rarely get to enjoy this.’
Grun and I spent several minutes reminiscing about events during the siege. Despite the bartender’s subtle questioning, I remained vague about my origins and whereabouts following the battle.
Grun finally leaned back in his chair and studied us with a thoughtful stare. ‘I have a feeling you’re not just tourists passing through, my friends.’
Ashely and I exchanged glances.
‘You’re right,’ I murmured.
‘Why are you here, really?’ said Grun.
I removed the daguerreotype from my coat and pushed it across the table. ‘Do you know this man?’
The bartender’s face grew shuttered as he inspected the faded picture.
‘No, I don’t.’ He shoved the frame back toward me.
‘He’s a Schwatz immortal,’ I said in a low voice. ‘I believe he’s in Vienna tonight.’
The bartender’s expression did not change.
‘There are Crovir Hunters after him and his female companion,’ I continued, unfazed. ‘I suspect he’ll be seeking shelter with his friends in the city.’
The chair rocked back on its hind legs as the bartender rose to his feet. ‘I think you should leave,’ he said coldly.
‘Look, we’re only trying to help,’ Ashely protested.
Grun frowned. ‘You don’t act like Hunters. On the other hand, I don’t quite know what you are.’ He indicated the door. ‘I’m afraid I have to insist.’
We exited the tavern under the bartender’s hooded gaze.
‘He knows something,’ said Ashely.
‘Yes, he does.’
‘What d’you wsheila do?’
I inspected the narrow lane. My gaze landed on a low building huddling in the gloom some fifty feet awa
y. A faint light shone through the thick lead windows at the front.
‘Fancy some coffee?’
The cafe proved an ideal place from which to watch the tavern. At two in the morning, the last patrons finally left the bar. Grun stood on the threshold and studied the street carefully before locking the door. Lights came on behind the windows on the first floor. A shadow moved across the glass. The lights went off moments later. Darkness shrouded the tavern. We waited ten minutes.
The door remained resolutely closed.
‘Is there an exit at the rear?’ said Ashely after a while.
‘Yes but it only leads to an enclosed backyard.’ I scanned the frontage with narrowed eyes and was about to call it a night when I spotted a ghostly glow behind the small cellar window inches above the sidewalk. ‘Damn!’ I threw some coins on the table and raced out of the shop.
Ashely followed on my heels. ‘What is it?’
I skidded to a stop next to the tavern wall and squatted in front of the dark aperture below the building. ‘I forgot about the underground passages!’
I closed my eyes and silently cursed my immortal mind while I sifted through memories hundreds of years old. My eyes snapped open.
I rose and bolted toward the canal.
Ashely was a few yards behind me when I staggered down the embankment. A hundred feet south along the waterway, I came to a grille in the canal wall.
Ashely stopped beside me. ‘Isn’t this the sewers?’
‘Yes. It’s also one of the ways into the tunnels.’
I studied the rusted bars for several seconds before grabbing a section of the grating. I pulled sharply. It came away in my hands.
‘This passage has been here since before the Ottoman siege. I’ve used it a few times before.’ I hesitated before stepping inside the hole.
Ashely came through the opening after me.
‘You’ve led a charming life, haven’t you?’ he muttered as water squelched beneath our boots.
Several feet in, we were engulfed in darkness. There was a soft rustle behind me as Ashely reached inside his coat and pulled out the pen torch. The beam barely cut through the greasy gloom around us.
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