by Kevin Hearne
“Very well.” No sooner had he seated himself than our waiter swooped in to inquire about getting him a drink. Leif caught his eye, charming him, and said, “You will forget I am here. Ignore me.” The waiter turned and shook his head once, wondering what he’d been doing, before retreating to the kitchen to see if the answer waited for him there.
Oberon, invisible to most everyone, joined us and squeezed in behind Granuaile’s chair.
I decided to let Granuaile answer him and prompted my erstwhile attorney, “Why are you here?”
“I have been given a task to perform, which I have no intention of performing. It runs counter to my own interests, despite the attempts of Theophilus to ensure that I have a personal stake in its completion.”
“And that task is what, exactly? Kill us?”
“Near enough,” Leif admitted. “I am to prevent you from swimming the channel, or, at minimum, delay your crossing. I therefore urge you to depart sooner rather than later.”
“Fine by me,” I said, making as if to rise. Leif held up a pale, placating hand.
“Nonsense. Enjoy your meals first. The urgency is not so great as that, and we have other things to discuss.”
“Such as the note you left for me in Germany?”
“I am glad you received it. I have heard that you killed one of the snipers.”
“There was more than one?”
“There were five. The one you killed was at the edge of the net, so to speak. Had you continued straight ahead from the place where you found the note, you would have been caught in a crossfire.”
I didn’t bother correcting him on who had killed the sniper. “Whose idea was that, and how did they know to set up there?”
“As to the latter, you probably know better than I. It is someone in Tír na nÓg who is divining the future of your protégée.” He waved a finger at Granuaile.
“Do you know who it is?”
“No. Theophilus is quite closemouthed about it. All I know is that he gets regular updates from his source on your future or current position. As soon as the sun set, we heard you would be in Calais this evening, and I was sent immediately to cut you off. I am supposed to coordinate with the local vampires and one other to prevent your escape. Naturally, you are the wild card in all of this. Your amulet prevents them from predicting your actions and thus they never know whether they will be successful.”
The waiter arrived with our orders and placed the artfully arranged plates in front of us. We thanked him and he left without looking at Leif.
“Where is Theophilus now?”
A tiny shrug. “He is constantly on the move now, as am I, but I believe he is somewhere in Italy at the moment.”
“Good.”
Leif quirked an eyebrow. “Is it?”
“Yes,” I said. Perhaps the yewmen would find him and deliver the vengeance of Druids. I wondered if Leif had heard about what had happened in Rome, but I didn’t want to bring it up. “Was it his idea to send the snipers?”
“No, but he approved it. The idea came from one of his allies who rather concerns me—an Austrian fellow named Werner Drasche. You may have the misfortune to meet him shortly. He bankrolled the mercenaries and has the wherewithal to continue such activity. It is his opinion that modern military force would be most effective in bringing you down.”
He was right about that. I noted that Granuaile fumed silently at this news, and I felt a bit sorry for Herr Drasche. He was now irrevocably on her shit list. “Interesting,” I said. “Why would I meet him shortly?”
“Theophilus has sent him here with the same basic information I was given—namely, that you would be in Calais tonight. He is probably searching for you even now, as I would be had I not heard from a hireling about your call to Hal.”
“A hireling?” Granuaile said. “Who talks like that?”
“A contracted employee,” Leif amended, which was not much better.
“Why should I be worried about this guy? Is he a vampire?”
Leif shook his head once, curtly. “No. He is human, or at least he once was. You cannot simply unbind him. Think of him as a vampire without the common disadvantages. He is not dead; he can walk in the daylight; wood is no more dangerous to him than any other substance. And yet he enjoys many of our advantages—superior strength, long life, extraordinary recuperative powers, and an ability to hide his feeding so that no one notices.”
“What is he, then?”
“I cannot say with certainty. A horror born of madness, perhaps. I have only recently met him, and my investigations have yet to bear fruit. But if you ask him, he will say that he is an arcane lifeleech.”
“An arcane lifeleech?”
Leif winced. “He does have a penchant for melodrama. And cravats.”
“Oh.” I dipped my chin at his throat. “So that thing on your neck wasn’t your idea?”
“It was my idea to flatter him into thinking he influences my personal tastes. But it is not my idea that cravats are attractive.”
“I’m relieved. So what does Herr Drasche do, latch on to his victims and drain their life?”
“He does nothing physically. He can do it from a distance. Hence his use of the word arcane.”
I frowned. “How great a distance?”
“I cannot provide an accurate measurement, but within his sight, certainly. He cannot hide in Sri Lanka and drain a victim in the Seychelles. But he could stand at the door to this establishment, for example, and leech the very life from your cells. A little from you, a little from Granuaile, and a little from everyone else.” He swept his hand around to include the entire restaurant. “You may not feel anything at all, except perhaps a mild fatigue. He is the perfect parasite. He thrives entirely on the energy of others now and has no need to ingest food—only water.”
“So he can just drain a little at a time?”
“Oh, no, he can drain people completely. He refrains, however, because it is unnecessary. Imagine, Atticus: He can walk abroad in daylight and sample from everyone in public. He is sustained and kept youthful wherever he goes.”
“This only works on people?”
“No. Plants and animals too. He can live until the end of days if he so chooses and have minimal impact on his surroundings. Yet if he needs unnatural strength, it is at his fingertips. He can grow stronger by draining the life of everything around him.”
“Gods below, what a monster.” Given enough time, he could snuff an elemental.
“Indeed. But apart from some odd cosmetic decisions, he does not look the part of a monster. Instead, he cultivates the aspect of a dandy.”
I snorted. “Nobody calls people dandies anymore, Leif. We call them douche bags now.”
“In sooth?”
“Verily. And in case you were wondering, you’re dressed like a dandy.”
“Alas! It is the least of my faults, I imagine.”
Truer words were never spoken. I could never forgive his betrayal, but somehow I had slipped into bantering with him like old times. I looked down at my plate and realized I had yet to touch my food. Granuaile hadn’t sampled hers either and became aware of this at the same time I did.
Leif noticed our gazes and said, “Please, eat.”
The monkfish in algae shirts looked tasty, but I was no longer hungry. “I’ve kind of lost my appetite.”
“Me too,” Granuaile said.
Oberon spoke up.
“How can such a creature as a lifeleech exist?” Granuaile asked.
Leif grimaced. “I am uncertain. My only information derives directly from him and may be suspect. But to hear him tell it, he was an accident of alchemy—a by-product of a sixteenth-centu
ry search for the philosopher’s stone. He represented a form of success, of course, but he drained to death the alchemist who created him, in the first few minutes of his newfound power. He is unique, which I suppose is a minor blessing, as there will be no others. Of more concern to us is that he is entirely in the confidence of Theophilus.”
I noticed that Leif had subtly cast this as an “us vs. them” scenario, when in fact he was with them. Or, if that was not entirely accurate, he was certainly not with us.
“Huh. How’d that happen?”
“I do not know. I am not in confidence with either of them. I am also unsure of Herr Drasche’s motivation regarding your pursuit and murder. He could not harbor an old antipathy for Druids, since he was born long after all Druids had disappeared from the earth save you—and he only heard of your existence recently. But it may simply be an issue of loyalty for him. His relationship with Theophilus has depths I cannot fathom.”
“Well, how about the obvious?” Granuaile asked. “Are they lovers?”
Leif blinked. “Oh. Well. I hadn’t considered that. Perhaps.”
“Aha!” Granuaile said, pointing at him, her face lit with victory. “So that means vampires do have balls! Ever since the last time we saw you in Thessalonika, I’ve been wondering about that!”
Leif flinched as if Granuaile had slapped him. “You have?”
I grinned, because I knew what she was up to. Leif had a peculiar squeamishness about vampire biology and refused to discuss it. If she could cause enough discomfort, he might decide to leave.
“Well, yeah,” she said, pressing the attack, “I mean, you’re basically animated dead tissue, right, so why would any system from your human life still work if it’s superfluous to the act of predation and converting blood to energy? I mean, I’m sure you’d have a vestigial sack dangling there, but there’s no reason to suppose your nuts would still be churning out babymakers and testosterone like a regular dude’s if that’s not going to get you a night’s supply of blood. But if Theophilus is sharing his sweet cadaver love with Werner, then I guess I was dead wrong about that, eh? Did you see what I did there? Hey! Where are you going?”
“Excuse me,” Leif called over his shoulder, suddenly in a hurry to exit the restaurant. He was already halfway to the door.
I laughed. “I told him to get out and he ignored me, but bring up his pop rocks and he can’t wait to leave. Good call.” I gave her a fist bump.
“Thanks. I hope I didn’t pounce too early.”
“Oh. We never got an answer, did we?” I doubted I’d ever learn the truth about vampires.
“No, but we got an incentive to get out of here. I don’t want to walk into an ambush outside, and I’m not anxious to confront something called an arcane lifeleech.”
“Neither am I, but we can’t go yet. We don’t have any money to pay for this fabulous food we’re not eating.”
Granuaile said, “We’ll feed you, Oberon, but in depressingly human-sized bites.”
The waiter stopped by to make sure everything was satisfactory, seeing that my monkfish remained undisturbed.
“Très délicieux,” I told him. He removed himself from our sight, only to be replaced by a large man in a black beret with hyper-aggressive muttonchops. They were imperial expansionist chops, threatening to leap from his face onto mine and colonize it for the glory of a fill-in-the-blank god and monarch.
“Monsieur O’Sullivan?” he growled.
“Oui.”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a large roll of euros. He dropped it onto the table and hauled his muttonchops away before they could execute an airdrop and establish a beachhead on my jaw. Apparently that was all the welcome I would receive from the local pack.
“Hmm,” I said. “Taciturn.”
“Aloof,” Granuaile said.
“He was also in a hurry to leave, and that was a hint in itself. Let’s go.”
“Yes, let’s.”
Granuaile abandoned her earlier promise to feed him tiny bites and put her plate on the chair next to her for Oberon’s easy access. I peeled off some bills and left them on the table as Oberon hoovered up the turbot.
We picked up our camouflaged weapons and the belts and exited, Oberon lamenting the waste of my monkfish.
The Strait of Dover—or, from the French perspective, the Pas-de-Calais—beckoned to us in the dark. The Morrigan had promised us a way out if we could make it to Herne’s forest on the other side. Crossing the strait would leave us at our most vulnerable, and I seriously doubted Oberon’s ability to swim twenty-one miles unaided.
We waded out a short distance into the cold surf, where Granuaile gave me Scáthmhaide, stripped, and donated her clothing to the tide. After a quick kiss—truly quick this time—she shifted to a sea lion.
I cast night vision. “All right, let’s see what we can cook up. No matter what we do, we’re going to increase your drag. But if we try to hook up something lengthwise, that’s going to mess up your swimming motion. I think we’re best off hooking you up bandolier style.”
I asked Oberon to hold on to our weapons for us on the beach while I got Granuaile rigged. It would not do to lose them in the surf.
Using two of the belts, I slung them diagonally so that they passed over a flipper on one side and under it on the other, forming an X. I buckled them on her back and asked her to roll over. She did, presenting her belly. I fetched Scáthmhaide from Oberon first and laid it crossways near the top of the X, just above her flippers—the theory being that she would not need to twist and flex right there as much as she would on her neck or her tail. At the two contact points with the belts, I bound the wood to the leather so that there was no possibility of detaching. I admired again the craftsmanship of Creidhne and the cleverness of Flidais: The bindings on Scáthmhaide were carved in and “solid-state,” immune to my cold iron aura. I didn’t know if Fragarach was like that or not, but I had always avoided touching the blade for fear of ruining the enchantments that made it so powerful. “Give that a try,” I said. “Can you swim okay like that?”
She heaved her bulk forward a bit awkwardly with the staff riding high on her chest and then dove into the waves. She disappeared for a full minute but then exploded out of the surf in front of me and soaked me in salt water.
“Very funny,” I said. Granuaile laughed, but as a sea lion it sounded like braying, and that made me laugh too and eased a bit of the tension I felt.
“All right. Let’s add on Fragarach and see what happens.” I hadn’t truly prepared it for a sea journey, but if we ever got to dry land again, I would pay plenty of attention to the blade and have Goibhniu give it some love. If nothing else, a gentle request to Ferris, the iron elemental, would allow me to pinpoint any problem areas and prevent developing rust.
I was just taking Fragarach from Oberon when his ears pricked up and he looked to the south.
I followed his gaze and saw a slim silhouette approaching. I triggered my magical sight and saw that the figure had an odd, churning aura in green and orange. He had magical power of some kind, but there wasn’t enough white in it to mark him as a god.
“Stay here,” I said. “Be ready to go.”
Examining his clothing, I saw that it was composed of natural materials—cotton and silk, mostly. “Nah, I got this,” I said.
&nb
sp; As I padded across the beach, I crafted a binding between the back of his suit jacket and the sand but didn’t energize it. I let it hang there, waiting for completion.
I dispelled magical sight to get a clear look at him. The moon conspired with the ambient light of Calais to provide some decent illumination, and night vision did the rest. He had on some of those slick ankle boots like Leif had been wearing, the kind with extra-long pointy toes. Not exactly beachwear. His suit was gray with a gray paisley waistcoat, and a silk cravat in an alarming soda-pop orange writhed around his neck, seemingly aware of its own hideousness.
It could be no other than Werner Drasche. I had to admit that Leif was right—he dressed like a dandy. But I think perhaps the idea behind the cravat was to distract from his face. His cheeks were entirely tattooed with alchemical symbols, the sort of squiggly signs that are reminiscent of astrology but based in elemental magic. They didn’t cross his nose or mouth, but they continued above his brow and onto his shaven scalp. I didn’t have time to examine them closely, but I’m sure they weren’t a random configuration; they were equations. Formulae. And they represented a binding to the elements of life, the way my tattoos were a binding to the earth. Leif had called them “odd cosmetic decisions,” but that was either an understatement or a failure to understand what they represented. Probably the latter: A vampire would have no need to understand alchemy.
I did not bother introducing myself. He knew who I was already. “Why are you looking for me?” I called while he was still twenty yards away.
He answered me in German. “Manche Leute muss man einfach umbringen,” he said, and then reached into his suit and pulled a Glock 20 from a shoulder holster. I energized the binding I’d made and watched him spread out his arms in a futile attempt to regain balance as he was yanked backward onto the beach and held there by his suit jacket. He held on to the gun, but he was spread-eagled now and unable to point it at me.
I was a little bit stunned at his stone-cold attitude; he’d simply announced his intention to kill me and pulled a gun.
If Leif had been telling the truth, this was the lad who’d arranged to have me shot. Whether or not it was true, he’d just tried to kill me himself. And he was trying again, albeit in a different way. Raising his bald head from the sand and baring his teeth, he tried to drain me. I felt the hit on my cold iron amulet; it pulled away from my chest as if someone were tugging on it.
