Staked

by Kevin Hearne

  Either way, the vampires who escaped wouldn’t remain in Berlin for long, and I figured I shouldn’t either. A hot shower, a real change of clothes, and a few hours of blissful slumber far away from sirens were what I needed. A reunion with Granuaile would be perfect, if I could catch up with her, but we had no home base until the place in Oregon was ready, and I doubted I’d be able to divine her location now if she’d secured a divination cloak from the Polish coven, as Perun had suggested. Not that I had my divination wands on me anyway.

  “I’m up for sleeping someplace warm,” I told Oberon as we jogged back to Tiergarten in the rain. “We need to visit the Southern Hemisphere.”

 

  “That sounds perfect right now.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Knowing that there’s something ye should be doing but can’t is like having an itchy arsehole ye want to scour clean but you’re at Court and that sort of thing is frowned upon. I should be helping Brighid hunt down Fand and Manannan Mac Lir, but I have apprentices to protect and teach. I suppose I should take comfort in the fact that this is something I can and should do. It should be fecking joyous. I think it would be, except for me itching.

  I tried to tell Brighid what happened, but her gaggle of Fae chamberlains wouldn’t rouse her. She was excessively wearied after some trip to Svartálfheim, they said. She left explicit instructions not to be disturbed unless an actual physical attack was under way, and me wishing to speak to her didn’t qualify. So I wrote a note.

  And I don’t try to see Flidais about the problem, because what if it really isn’t Flidais I’m talking to but Fand in a glamour? Best to let Brighid deal with it as she wishes, when she wishes, and bear the itching in the meantime.

  Divination is no help. I cast wands, watch the birdies for some augury, and all I get is the vague idea that they’re hiding in a swamp. But no indication of where that swamp might be, not even if it’s on this plane or one of the Irish ones or somewhere else.

  So it’s work for me now, instead of worry.

  I’ve started the kids on both Latin and English. Nouns for the earth and sky and sun and adjectives to describe them, things like that. Verbs for things you can do outside, and we do those things, like run and eat lunch and smell pine needles. And I start them using Latin to talk to Colorado—phrases that they repeat verbatim but backed by thoughts and images, to begin the process of separating headspaces. I’ll start them on Irish in a couple of years.

  The house has an unfinished basement, and the pack has been working on it during the day and I’ve begun working on it for a couple hours after dinner each night, warding it every way I know how. The promised help from Tír na nÓg hasn’t arrived yet, but I hope it will soon. It’s going to be a sanctuary for the kids during full moons and all other emergencies, like troops of trolls barging through your land, smelling like exactly the wrong cheese. We’ve already coached them in what the full-moon drill is, after that troll business.

  Hal Hauk arrives around dinnertime with whiskey and the new identity that Siodhachan asked for. Ty and Sam are with him too, just being friendly and neighborly pack leaders but also because they’re hoping for a finger of the bottle Hal brought. They get one as Greta pulls out glasses for everyone and Hal pours. It’s Midleton, which I’m told is very fine, and we all raise our glasses as Hal proposes a toast.

  “An impromptu wake for Sean Flanagan, a fine identity that got shot down in Toronto, and a welcome to the new Siodhachan, who will henceforth walk the world as Connor Molloy. As soon as he pays me for the trouble.” There are wry chuckles at this, and I join in. “But mostly this is a rare, fine drink with rarer, finer friends. It’s my privilege to call you such.”

  I say, “Aye, lad,” but everyone else says, “Hear, hear,” or maybe “Here, here,” and I don’t understand why they would say either one. English has way too many fecking homophones, and when you combine something like that with what might be a slang term or polite jargon, it’s just not fair to lads like me trying to pick up the language. I’m getting much better with it already, but little things like that are probably going to keep me stepping on me own bollocks for years.

  Midleton is as fine as reported, and then I offer everyone a spot of lamb stew and soda bread. It’s fortunate that I made a great big batch, thinking we’d have leftovers, but with extra guests it’s just as well I erred on the side of generosity. And it’s also a good thing, I decide, that Greta found a place much bigger than I thought we’d need. It has a huge dining room and extra seating in the kitchen area, so it’s already a place people like to visit.

  We’re all there—the apprentices, their parents, the translators, the pack leaders—having a laugh and being happy, when all the wolves freeze or put down their spoons and cock their heads, listening. Some of them look toward the big bay window leading to the backyard.

  “No—” Sam says, the instant before the glass shatters and bullets riddle the room. The parents instinctively place themselves in the line of fire, protecting the children, and they take a few rounds as a result. That’s going to trigger transformations for sure, and I’m not the only one to shout, “Full-moon drill! Go!”

  It’s only me and a few parents who aren’t werewolves, so it’s our job to make sure the kids get safely down to the basement. The wee ones move fast and stay low to the ground; they already know they don’t want to be anywhere around when their parents’ bones start snapping and the teeth come out. We hear the snarls and cracks and howls of pain begin before we’re out of the room, though. They’re all turning, including Greta, and the gunfire continues and just accelerates the transformations, so they don’t have time to tear off their clothes first. They’re going to rip right through them as they transform, and that will increase the pain of it. The pack is going to be fecking irate, and I almost feel sorry for whoever’s doing this.

  I leave the kids in the basement with Tuya’s mother, Meg, and she locks the silver-lined gate we installed at the bottom of the stairs. They have food and water down here and emergency buckets; they can last for days if need be, by which point the danger should be long over. Then I slip on me knuckles, cast camouflage, and exit out the front door while I’m hearing all kinds of ruckus going on in the back.

  The camouflage turns out to be a good idea, since some fecking arse almost takes me head off with a bullet as soon as the door opens. I duck down and scramble to the side and search for who’s responsible. There’s a tall figure with a handgun maybe forty yards away, and his hearing must be stellar, because he fires two more rounds that come damn close—one grazes the back of me calf as I’m running. Balls to that: I need to change the rules on him. I tumble onto the front lawn and shuck off me shirt before shape-shifting to a kite, which lets me fall out of the pants. Another round hits the turf where me body was a second before the shift, and I hop away from there as quietly as I can. Me torn shoulder muscles won’t let me fly yet, but of all my forms this is also the quietest one on the ground. I make little bird-hops in his direction, and he hears even that. But since he has no idea what’s making the sound, he’s aiming too high. A dart to the left and then a leap up, extending me talons to latch on his right wrist, since he’s left his whole arm out there for me to perch on, but it’s not a gentle landing. I clutch as hard as I can and that hand shears clean off, dropping onto the ground along with the gun. I’m expecting a scream or some cursing as I drop with it, but instead the spooky lad hisses, and the blood pumping out of him is dark, like it would be when it’s starved for oxygen. I hop away—not caring about the noise I’m making now, because he can’t shoot me—and see him bend down to snatch up his right hand with his left. He doesn’t give a damn about the gun anymore: He just jams that hand back onto his stump like it will help, and then he turns and runs down the road leading to town—fast.

  That’s not a man, I realize. That’s a damn vampire. We’re being attacked by vampires. Fecking Siodhachan!

 
I shift back to human, take off after him, and then I recite the words of unbinding before he can get out of range. The vampire comes apart with a wet sound as the elements of his body forcibly separate, and I pivot immediately to give the wolf pack some help behind the house.

  Siodhachan said that we might get some vampire blowback from whatever he was doing, but I didn’t expect anything like this. Guns, I mean. I haven’t figured out how to ward against those. Or people with a basic understanding of tactics. You don’t have to get into the house and pass my wards when you can shoot from outside them and get everyone to come to you. It’s not in the nature of werewolves to sit behind walls: You poke them and they’re going to hit back. Shoot them and they won’t rest until they have your entrails in their teeth.

  By the time I round the corner of the house, most of the gunfire has died down: It’s close quarters fighting now, because the pack has streamed out of the house to make a meal out of whoever ruined dinner. Magical sight tells me there are six vampires and one human against fourteen werewolves all told, when you count the parents and translators and the visiting pack leaders. I don’t think they expected to be outnumbered two to one; you’d have to be daft to think that would work out well. I think they were expecting just me and Greta, maybe a couple more.

  The werewolves are all bleeding and completely savage. The vampires didn’t use silver bullets, so all they did was make the wolves crazy. The only way to beat them is through silver or to tear them up physically. It can be done, and it already has: One wolf is down and not moving, two legs ripped completely off and its lower jaw missing. He’s undergoing his final shift, what Greta calls the “termination clause” of lycanthropy—for all the shit ye have to endure while ye live, at the end it at least gives ye back your humanity. It’s Nergüi, Tuya’s father, lying there. Damn it.

  Two vampires are down and the rest are surrounded. I recognize the wolf forms of Sam, Ty, and Greta, but the rest are a mystery to me since I’ve never sparred or run with them before. There was just that one brief time with the trolls, and I never figured out who was who.

  Sam, Ty, and Greta have formed a hunting group with a fourth wolf that might be Hal Hauk—he’s the biggest of the big dogs. They’re masterful, surrounding, nipping, timing their springs at the vampire so that he hardly has a chance to land a blow before he loses a chunk of flesh somewhere else. Once he goes down, he doesn’t get up; teeth lock on the throat and tear it. Then it’s on to the next target. The three other vampires are surrounded by less-experienced wolves; they might take longer to go down, but it’s inevitable. The human is backpedaling away, shouting at the vampires in some sort of spitting language, and it’s him the leaders target next.

  Something’s dodgy about him. He’s acting like he’s the boss of their party, but I see nothing in the magical spectrum that would explain why six vampires were taking his orders. I turn off the sight as I get closer, and he’s dressed strangely too. Not a commando outfit or any sort of modern warrior gear; he’s wearing a suit with a brightly colored scarf thing around his neck.

  I see the moment where he counts four wolves coming and understands that this is the end for him and in the next instant his grim determination to take somebody with him. I’m too far away to do anything; all I can do is pray he won’t be successful. The first big wolf leaps at him; he raises that gun of his, crying out in defiance, and shoots it point-blank down the wolf’s throat. The bullet explodes through the back of the head and the big wolf goes down, completely still. In the next instant Greta takes the man down and ends him before he can take another shot. Sam and Ty get in there and help tear him apart, even though he’s dead now and there are still three vampires standing.

  I can help with that part, so I do, not wanting any other wolves to get hurt. One by one, I unbind the surrounded vampires, then finish off the fallen ones. None of them will rise again. But this doesn’t calm those younger werewolves down like I think it will. They are still far beyond the horizon of calm, and when they spot me standing there naked with a pumping heart and meat on my bones, they come after me to have a bite.

  “Bollocks,” I say. I could handle a few of them, maybe, but not nine, and not without hurting them seriously. I can’t fly away as a kite with me torn shoulder muscles, but bears can climb trees much better than wolves. Maybe I can climb high enough to keep me out of reach of their jaws. I shape-shift and muster what speed I can for the nearest ponderosa. The brass on me claws should help me climb three-legged.

  Once I reach the tree, it’s grand for a couple of seconds. I get up maybe five feet off the ground, but me arse is still low-hanging fruit for the pack. Claws and teeth sink in; I shake a couple loose, but one will simply not let go, and I have to haul him or her up with me. Without the claws anchoring me to the tree and the strength it lends, I wouldn’t have been able to do it, and I make a mental note to buy Creidhne a beer.

  Once I get me arms and chest around a branch high enough off the ground to be safe, I have to figure out how to get rid of the wolf attached to me arse. The simplest solution, which I use, is to shape-shift back to human. Part of that expansive backside just flows right over and between those teeth, and suddenly there’s not enough purchase for him to hold on. The wolf falls but takes a mouthful of me backside with him. The wee pack of young wolves collects around the base. They leap up to reach me but can’t quite make it.

  Safe for the moment—if ye don’t count me chewed arse—I call to them.

  “Greta! Sam! Ty! It’s Owen! Can ye get everybody calmed down so we can talk?”

  I’m not sure how much of that penetrates, if anything. Greta says it’s tough to process spoken language when she’s a wolf—the pack tends to communicate via their own link. And when they’re far gone into the animal side, like during a full moon or when the anger is running high, the human is pretty much gone. Right now we’re at a half moon, so we should be fine, except the anger is about as raw as a wound ye rub with salt and lemon juice. Looking over at where the big wolf fell, I understand why. The final shift is over, and that is indeed Hal Hauk lying there with the back of his head missing. Maybe that was a silver bullet the human used and maybe not. Tough to survive a head wound like that, either way.

  The rest of the wolves all race to the bottom of the tree and surround the base, snarling and snapping at me. I just keep hollerin’ at Greta, Sam, and Ty, hoping something will get through. It’s grim and desperate shite, yelling at them and getting barks and growls in return, but keeping their attention here is better than letting them tear off through the woods so close to the city. They could wind up killing people out for an evening stroll—or, worse, go back into the house and see if they can get after what’s in the basement. And me heart drops down to me guts as I realize how Greta’s going to take this: Hal will be the second pack leader she’s lost because of something Siodhachan did. Gunnar Magnusson was the one who turned her, but Hal was there when he did; she’s known him since her old days in Iceland. I have little doubt that were Siodhachan here right now, she would try to kill him. And I fear that may be where she stands regarding him from now on, nothing to be done about it.

  It’s Sam who gets control first. His form begins to shudder, and then his bones slide and pop under the skin and most of the hair falls out, and his howls turn into hoarse screaming as his vocal tissues transform. Ty goes next, and the two of them start to exert their influence on the rest of the pack, calming them down. But Greta is having none of it. She leaves the tree and returns to Hal’s body, snuffles a couple of times, and then throws back her head and howls. Maybe if it was just an ordinary wolf doing its ordinary thing I wouldn’t care, but because I know who it is and why she’s howling it’s the most terrible, lonely thing I’ve ever heard in me life. Part of me wants to join in, because we’d been having a laugh together not ten minutes ago. This had gotten so cocked up so fecking fast.

  Sam and Ty let her do her thing while they get all the other wolves either shifted or in the process of shiftin
g—it’s rough, because they’re riled and haven’t all torn into something, but the leaders’ commands have a powerful influence on them. Then they turn their attention to Greta, calling her name and no doubt trying to reach her on the pack level too. But she shakes her head, rips out a few ragged barks, and takes off uphill, disappearing into the trees.

  I could chase after her, but I don’t see the point. She has a lot of anger to work out, and she’s going in the right direction to do it without hurting anyone. Putting meself forward as a target for that anger would be dangerous as well as foolish. She’ll come back when she’s ready—and I’m aware that it might not be for days.

  In the meantime, we have a fecking mess to manage. I drop down from the tree and nod at Sam and Ty, who have blood on their faces. We walk together to where the human’s body lays sprawled and mutilated. If Sam and Ty feel sick at being responsible for the torn flesh and the blood on their mouths—in their mouths—they make no indication of it.

  Ty asks, “Are the kids safe in the basement?”

  “Aye. None of them were hurt.”

  “Good,” Sam says. “So who the hell was this?”

  “I have an idea,” I reply, “but I don’t know for sure. He looks like someone Siodhachan told me about. Might be the guy who put him in the hospital in Toronto.”

  I squat down and pat through the shreds of his coat until I discover an Austrian passport. “Werner Drasche,” I read aloud. “Yeah. This is the guy. Supposed to be the lover of the really old vampire, Theophilus.”

  “Why is he here?”

  “I don’t think he’ll be fecking telling us.”

  “He lost the privilege of conversation when he started shooting.” Sam crouches down and picks up Drasche’s gun, checking the ammo. “Damn.” He drops it as if stung. “He’s got silver. The others don’t.”