The hellhound laughed. “The Empire is right around the corner, and I’m off duty in half an hour.”
He had an accent that reminded her of pirates and hearty drinking songs. It made her realize how well Lore had mastered English. She gave the hound a salute and moved past the Castle door, hugging the opposite wall of the alleyway and feeling a shiver up her spine as she crossed the field of energy it gave off. In contrast, the hellhounds leaned against the door, smoking and huddling in their thick, warm coats. There was a big thermos at their feet, and she bet there was more than coffee inside.
Though they seemed relaxed, it was all she could do not to run like a child scampering by a haunted house. The alley’s entrance had iron gates propped open. Only when she’d passed through those did she take a long, deep breath, feeling the shadow of the prison fall away.
Then, all at once, she was in the heart of Spookytown, the busiest part of the Old Town area. Lights dazzled in the snow. There were few vehicles, but handfuls of pedestrians walked by, laughing and chattering. The occasional snowball whizzed past. It was a nighttime place, and it was in full swing.
The lights of the Empire glowed like the proverbial beacon, turning the snowdrifts to a field of glitter. Talia felt a blast of welcome heat on her face as she pushed through the door. She’d been in only once before, and looked around to get her bearings. The noise was a deafening wall, half the room talking at the top of their voices, the other half singing along to a piano player banging out an old jazz standard. It was crowded, thick with the smells of food, wet clothes, and warm bodies. It was life.
The first face she saw was Joe’s. He stood behind the bar, pulling a pint. When he looked up and saw her, his first reaction was surprise, quickly followed by concern. She pushed through the crowd toward him, earning some astonished looks from the patrons crowded around the tiny wooden tables.
Joe set the pint on the bar, sliding it toward a jollylooking werebear, and gave Talia his full attention. “What happened to you?”
“Do I look that bad?”
Joe’s eyes widened a notch, as if forcing himself not to react. “You’re damn near blue. Look at your hands.”
She wasn’t sure how he could tell. She was still bundled against the cold. He reached across the bar, taking her wrist, and pulled one of her knitted red gloves off, and she saw what he meant. Her skin had lost what little color it had, turning a grayish white. The mauve polish on her nails only helped the gruesome corpse effect. “Oh, God. I’ve got to get a fresh manicure.”
Joe called over one of the other bartenders, asking him to watch his customers.
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine,” Talia said, her teeth chattering a little as she warmed up. It was as if she’d stored up cold, and now it was getting the chance to sweep through her thawing flesh.
“Yeah, right. Here.” He wet one of the bar towels in the sink and wiped her face like a mother would her sticky child. The towel came away coated in dirt and blood. Blood? She must have hit her head when she landed in the tunnel. “Sit down.”
Too weary to object to his bossy tone, Talia perched on one of the tall bar stools. She should have been sweating in her coat, but she was still shivering. Slowly, she pulled off the other glove. Her fingers felt thick and clumsy. If vampires got chilblains, she was in for a no-fun time when the feeling came back.
Joe was mixing something, foaming it up like steamed milk. Concentration furrowed his brow, reminding Talia just how handsome he was, how perfect his bone structure. A bit too much like fine art for her taste, but she’d have to be blind not to notice.
He poured his creation into a mug and added a generous shot of brandy, and then set the concoction in front of her. “Drink this very slowly.”
Talia looked at it with suspicion. “Not that I’m not grateful and all, but it’s pink.”
“Stop whining and drink it. It’s good for cold vampires. I call it the Empire Bites Back.”
She picked the thick mug up carefully, aware that her fingers weren’t quite under control. She sipped, catching a swirl of spices and alcohol and, under that, the salty richness of blood. “My God, it actually tastes good.”
“You won’t find that in Lore’s fridge.”
She laughed, feeling suddenly better. “I don’t think he has a cappuccino maker anyway.”
“No, but he could probably build one out of a fax machine and baling wire. The boy’s a genius with mechanics but sadly lacking in the domestic arts.” Joe gave a prize-winning smile. “He needs a good woman.”
Talia already felt the effects of the alcohol. She’d never been a drinker to begin with, and now the brandy glowed like a tiny sun in her belly, sending out happy rays. “Mmm.”
“Is that moan of pleasure about Lore or the drink?”
She took another sip. “For the record, there have been no moans of pleasure between my former jailer and me.”
“Give it time. I know doggy love when I see it.”
Talia’s head spun—either from the alcohol or his comment or both—but she was just about tipsy enough not to care. “He’s a hellhound and I’m a vampire. Doesn’t that make it weird?”
“I’m an immortal living vampire bartender who occasionally turns into a giant wolfhound. Weird is relative.” He gave her an assessing look. “You’re starting to look better. You’re lucky.”
“I wasn’t outside all that long. An hour. Hour and a half max.”
Joe gave a rueful smile. “In this age of instant heat, people have forgotten how deadly weather can be. Now, tell me what happened.”
Talia set down her mug. “I was at the hospital with Lore.”
“Why?”
“To see Perry.” She could tell from his look that this was news. “Perry was shot.”
“What?” Joe’s face registered shock.
“Perry called Lore to say that he had found something out about, you know, what we were talking about the other night. Lore went up to the university to see what it was. When he was there, Perry got shot by a sniper. With a silver-pellet safety round.”
Joe swore, long and in several languages.
“The sniper showed up at the hospital, and I chased him. He’s a Hunter, and what’s weird is that he used magic to pass through the wall.” She didn’t say Max was her brother. It was the cowardly way out, but she felt cold and sick. She was giving Joe the important facts. The rest could wait until she felt up to accusations and rotten tomatoes.
“A Hunter? Are you sure?”
She blinked, staring into her drink. “Yeah, I knew him from before . . . before I was killed.”
Joe gave her a curious look. “Okay. Go on.”
She ended her story with her walk through the underground. “It didn’t strike me until just now, but it’s odd that there weren’t homeless down there. It’s cold in the tunnels, but it’s out of the wind and snow.”
“Even the human homeless are better at sensing threat than those of us who live comfortable lives.” Joe refilled her mug with more of the warm, delicious Empire Bites Back. “Those tunnels haven’t been safe for weeks.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve heard stories about something living down there. People start talking three beers into their evening.” He made a gesture that took in the whole bar. “We get a mixed clientele in here. More and more human yuppies going for a walk on the wild side, but the core clientele is still the longtime Spookytown residents. If there’s something going on, they know about it.”
“Do you think there’s a link to the election?”
Joe shrugged. “Maybe. Nothing surprises me anymore.”
He pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling the others. They’re going to want to know you’re safe, and I want an update on Perry.”
“Me, too.” Talia wrapped her hand around her mug. She was just about ready to unbutton her coat. Her toes were a mass of pins and needles, bringing back childhood memories of long walks home from school. She and her brother used
to stand over the forced air ducts in the floor to warm their bare feet while their mother brought dry socks. Somehow, the cold hadn’t seemed so bad as a kid.
Nothing had. What the hell, Max? You never asked me if I was all right.
And she hadn’t had a chance to tell him about Michelle. Had he already known that she was dead? It was an ugly thought. Talia bit her lip, wondering what the Hunters were doing and how deeply Max was involved.
She looked up as Joe closed the phone. “How’s Perry?”
“I talked to Errata. He hasn’t regained consciousness.”
“Oh.”
Joe grimaced. “Lore filled me in a bit more. Now that the police know you’re still in the area, they’ll be looking for you that much harder. It’s better if you don’t go back to Lore’s place.”
Talia glanced at the frost-painted windows, dreading the cold outside. “How late are you open?”
“As long as you need.”
She gave him a startled glance.
“Hey,” he said, picking up a knife and cutting the end off of a lemon. “Take it easy. That’s what friends are for.”
Talia took a breath to speak, but changed her mind at the last moment.
“Thank you,” was all she said.
Chapter 21
Thursday, December 30, 7:30 p.m.
Downtown Fairview
Darak was walking downtown, minding his own business, when the guy a block ahead walked through the alley wall.
For a moment, he wondered if that last blood donor had been knocking back more than Jell-O shots. She’d been the cheap and cheerful type, but he hadn’t expected chemically altered. It would be a sad day when vampires had to start demanding organic.
Or, something might be more sinister than a funky meal.
Lengthening his stride, he covered the distance to the piece of old brick wall. His boots scrunched on snow and sand, the buckles and metal bits on his jacket jingling in chorus. It was cold enough that the bricks wore a rime of frost that sparkled in the streetlights.
He pounded on the spot where he’d seen the figure disappear just to be sure there hadn’t been a door. Back in the day, secret passages were denarii a dozen.
His breath came out in a puff of surprised steam when his fist passed right through the bricks. Gah! He snatched his hand back. He’d seen too many ghosts to enjoy that.
Except that his hand felt like it was crawling with ants. Magic. Someone was using spells to take a shortcut.
An unexpected ripple of triumph curled his lips. After Michelle’s ghost had fled, he had looked long and hard but had found no real clues to the spell caster’s identity—but this was something. There might be two or three magic users in a city at one time, but not a whole phone book of them. In his experience, one always knew about the others. If he could find the man who walked through walls, he’d be on his way to the necromancer.
Portals closed fast, sometimes in seconds. Without wasting another moment, he pushed through, feeling as if an entire swarm of bees was pressed against his body.
And stepped into an old corridor. It felt clammy, like a basement. The floor was covered in worn green broadloom, the wallpaper flocked red vinyl. A hotel? Something skittered by on the floor. An abandoned hotel?
He was alone. Seconds after the figure used the teleportation spell, the magic would have begun to decay. Darak had followed, but he hadn’t gone as far. His quarry was somewhere up ahead.
He sniffed the air. Yes, there were other vampires nearby. He began marching toward the smell, the heavy thump of his boots barely muffled by the thin carpet. A feeling of profound creepiness descended on him. Outside of his own movements, the place was utterly silent.
He pulled out his Smith & Wesson. It was a .357 Magnum loaded with vampire-ready ammunition. He was a “just in case” kinda guy.
A pair of fire doors blocked his path. He was tempted to kick through them, doing the bad-ass thing, but magic made him wary. He opened the door a crack, looking and listening. He could hear male voices now, and detected maybe a few dozen individual scents. The long hallway ended in a meeting room. One of the doors was propped open with a chair, the barely padded kind found at wedding banquets everywhere. The chair was kept company by a pair of vampires holding assault rifles.
Darak opened the door slowly and went through, sauntering as if he had every right to be there. One of the guards started talking to his shirt cuff.
How many voices did he hear? Three? Four? It would be better if he asked nicely and they told him what he wanted to know. Then they could all get on with their nights. But he was always up for a good Plan B.
Through the doorway, he caught a glimpse of a long, bare table and more of the banquet chairs. Vampires, mostly male, were sitting and standing around it, looking at a large map. His view was eclipsed by four more males hurrying to intercept him at the door, presumably called via shirt cuff intercom. Better than the shoe phone, he supposed—but then few humans that age would have remembered Maxwell Smart.
The four newcomers all had assault rifles, too. One of them looked like the figure who had gone through the wall. Well, magic portals were one way of ensuring a fast commute to work.
The first of the newcomers caught sight of the Magnum. In a blink, he lunged for it. He was fast for a vamp, but Darak was older, faster, and overall meaner. The vamp hit the wall and the next one was on his knees, the Magnum at the crown of his head, before the rest had their eyes focused on the problem.
The guy on the floor was panting, a thin sound trickling from his mouth. Darak hadn’t even warmed up. He heard the click and rustle of the assault rifles getting ready and aimed. “It’s going to take a lot of bullets to bring down this much Undead body mass. I can take you all out before it starts to itch.” A lie, but if you said it with the right amount of bravado, it usually worked.
“What’s your business?” said the lead flunky.
Good. Questions made things better. Darak slid the Magnum back into its holster, but didn’t let his hostage up. “Darak of Clan Thanatos seeks audience.”
He didn’t have a clue with whom, but that’s what he’d come to find out.
More shirt cuff dialogue. Up close, he could see curly wires leading to the vampires’ ears. He wondered how many of this happy gang there were, and how far they were spread out. What the hell had he stumbled on? Darak felt the stirring of misgivings.
Finally, the one in charge nodded, motioning the others aside. Darak barely resisted the urge to step on his victim. He let him up instead. The guy scrambled away on all fours for a few feet before getting to his feet and running behind the others. Yeah, he had a future as muscle. Not.
Turning his shoulders to fit through the door, Darak pushed past. He took his surroundings in at a glance. The room was large enough to seat a hundred people. Chairs and folded tables were stacked along the wall, some sitting on a platform on casters, as if they would be rolled away at any minute. Cheap chandeliers hung from a damp-stained ceiling, the glass baubles fluffy with dust. Otherwise, there was no furniture to get in the way of a fight.
Then he looked back to the vampires gathered at the table. His heavy tread hitched when he saw who was in the center seat. He’d found his necromancer. Mothereffing Sons of Dis!
“Looking for someone, rogue? Or should I say Brute? That’s what they called you in the arena, is it not?”
Belenos, King of the East, gave him a beatific smile, and what a horrible smile it was. Darak’s eyes watered with the desire to look away. Belenos had been a warrior of the north, as tall and strong as a Viking ship’s prow. Now he was a mass of scars, one eye completely gone. He was using his right arm, but something about his movements looked wrong. There was no way he would swing a sword freely until it healed—if it healed. Beheading his victim must have been hard.
“Yes, this is what the bitch queen did to me.”
“Omara?” Darak was perversely impressed. It took talent—and sorcery—to hurt a vampire that badly.
<
br /> “She broke the law, maiming another monarch.”
He was wrong. Technically, she hadn’t broken any rules. Killing was forbidden; punishing for trespass was not. The story went that Belenos had been trying to kidnap one of the local witches at the time, so Darak didn’t have much sympathy for the poor-me routine.
“If she hates you that much, why are you in her territories?”
“Frank, aren’t you, gladiator?”
“Saves time.”
“You don’t bow to royalty?” He made a gesture to a flunky, who began to roll up the map. Whatever was on it wasn’t for sharing.
“No.”
“I thought as much. Are you in town to cheer on the democratic election?”
“No.”
“You’re not buying this move by Omara to put her puppets in public office? It would take a fool not see she’s moving in on the human power structure.”
“I don’t do politics, any flavor.”
“Ah, yes.” Belenos looked amused. “Your reputation for utter neutrality among the vampire kingdoms is remarkable. I’d say you hate all us monarchs equally. If you had a weakness, I’d say it was a taste for Robin Hood dramatics in favor of the downtrodden.”
“I don’t do tights and lacy shirts, either. Clan Thanatos is a mercenary unit.”
“Is that why you’re here? For a job?”
Darak thought quickly. His misgivings were turning into full-scale alarm bells. The map on the table, from what he’d glimpsed, had looked like a diagram of the sewers. Whatever Belenos was up to was going to be on a big scale. “The opposite. I’m looking for whoever started the fire at the medical clinic. I could use a skill set like that on my team. Necromancy is a rare talent.”
“I’m flattered,” Belenos said dryly. “But I’m otherwise occupied.”
Got you, bastard. Hearing the confession gave Darak a spark of satisfaction. “Too bad. We pay well.”
“Maybe I have a job for you instead,” the king said. His look was thoughtful. “You could be exactly the tool I need.”
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