Daed reached into his pocket, pulling out two gold coins. He placed them on Vlad’s closed eyes. “For the ferryman.”
“For the Halls of Justice.” Trocar placed one of his runed daggers in Vlad’s hands, arranging them over his chest.
Odin took off his fur cape and covered the body with it. “For Valhalla; I hear it is cold there.”
They all stood in a communal moment of silence and contemplation.
“What about this lot?” Kelda called over to them.
Gillian’s head jerked up. She’d completely forgotten the large group of prisoners they’d rounded up.
“Leave them to us. Our people will sort it out,” Dagr told her.
He and Evzen started herding the group out of the complex.
“Thanks for everything, guys,” Gillian called after them.
“We will meet again, I am certain.” Evzen gave a cheery wave. One hand was bandaged against his chest and he was as bloody, dusty and disheveled as the rest of them, but still lovely as only a Sidhe could be.
Soon, only their original party minus one and plus Erzsébet and Georg remained. Erzsébet spoke up.
“Lord Aleksei, do you have any unfinished business with myself and Georg?”
“I am not your Lord, Erzsébet. You have that title in your own right,” Aleksei responded.
“Gillian? What about you?” The gloriously beautiful woman smiled at her.
“You never hurt me or mine that I know of. It’s all good.” Gillian returned the smile, surprised that she actually felt like smiling.
“Like Vlad, I have a lot to atone for. I would like to remain here, in Prague, as an ally . . . and Lord of this region, if no one objects. I would like to begin my penance by making restitution in some manner to those I wronged long ago. Later, I will focus on raising an army of Vampires and Shifters loyal to the Compact,” Erzsébet stated.
“Our own laws say that you may insert yourself into an area devoid of another Lord if you are strong enough to take on the challenge. Prague is closest to Aleksei’s territory. If he has no objections, no one else should either,” Osiris told her.
“Aleksei? What are your thoughts?” Erzsébet prompted him.
“By our laws, he could claim this territory for his own. What will you do if that is the case?” Odin asked. He waved to Aleksei to keep from speaking yet.
Erzsébet managed a mischievous-looking grin. “I would not like it, but I am on a quest to save a soul . . . my own. Therefore, if Aleksei wishes this territory, it is his. He will gain two loyal followers who will still raise that army to serve Romania’s needs.
“What say you, Georg? Shall we bow to this Romanian Vampire who has steadfastly ruled through kindness?” She looked at her lover, waiting for an answer.
Georg looked blank for a moment, then recovered himself. “I will swear fealty to anyone who is our friend, Erzsébet, whether it is in his territory or yours; wherever we will be safe.”
“Well spoken.” She bowed a little toward the knight.
“Again, I ask. Aleksei, what are your thoughts?”
Aleksei, for once, didn’t look to Osiris for confirmation about Vampiric Laws and Customs. “You are welcome to these lands, Erzsébet, if it is your wish to have them. I would welcome an ally so close by.”
Erzsébet did bow then, to both Aleksei and Gillian. “I will not disappoint you. My first act will be to clean up this mess. My second will be to track down the descendants of the families of the girls I brutalized and attempt to make amends. I will also make certain Vlad’s body is returned to you in Romania immediately. You need not worry. I will treat him with respect and dignity.”
Jenna whispered to Gillian, “Who is that again?”
“Erzsébet Báthory.”
“No shit, the Blood Countess?”
“The very one.”
“Didn’t she slaughter, like, six hundred girls?”
“Shhh. Later. She did but I’ll explain later.”
Trocar cleared his throat. They all turned to look at him. He was standing in front of the open doors to the throne room.
“I so hate to interrupt such touching displays of mutual admiration, but we still have a problem.”
He pointed back over his shoulder at the Golem who was standing motionless in the shadows of the archway. “Our friend here needs to go back to the Old New Synagogue.”
“Is It shut off?” Gillian walked around Aleksei to peer at the Giant.
“No, It is not. We were discussing this before Vlad’s heroic death.”
“Oh, for hell’s sake, I’ll shut It off.”
“If you deactivate It here, we will never get It back to the synagogue.”
“Shit, that’s right.” She thought for a moment.
“Got an idea. Y’all watch this.”
Kimber’s eyes widened. “Oh, hell no. Anytime anybody says ‘y’all watch this,’ shit is going to go down.”
Gillian ignored her, limping over to the doorway. She was rumpled, dusty, bloody and extremely thirsty. Every muscle in her body ached, her back was killing her and she still had to pee. No overgrown Pillsbury mud- boy was going to interfere with them leaving and her going to the ladies’ room.
Aleksei’s heart leaped in his chest, and not in a good way. “Gillian . . . that Thing has no mind. It cannot recognize friend from foe.”
Gill waved him off and addressed the Golem.
“Shalom, Golem.”
The Thing actually inclined Its head toward her, as if It were listening as she bid It peace in Hebrew.
She beckoned to It, backing up away from the door way as she did so. To her surprise, It followed her docilely.
Pleased with her idea, she took a few experimental steps away from the building, then beckoned again. It lumbered after her with no aggression.
Aleksei let out the breath he’d been holding. “Brilliant, piccola, just brilliant.”
“Thank you! Okay, let’s go. Trocar, you brought It from the synagogue. I need you to lead us back, please.”
He applauded her slowly, then gave a mock bow. “I am duly impressed, Petal.”
“Good. I’m rather pleased myself. So pleased that I won’t shoot you for calling me Petal.”
Gillian extended her arm toward the gates of the complex. “After you, Sir Elf.”
Trocar sighed and turned toward the gate. “All of you, try to keep up.”
Gill waved back to the new Lord of Prague. “See you, Erzsébet and Georg! Good luck with everything.”
“Thank you, Gillian. You as well. We will come for a visit after the baby’s birth.” Erzsébet waved back from Georg’s arms.
Jenna hobbled up to Gillian as they prepared to start the long walk with the Golem. “You’re really pregnant?”
“Yup.”
“Me too,” Kimber admitted.
“Holy shit, what happened while I was gone?”
“We’ll tell you everything after we’ve eaten, showered and found a bathroom,” Gillian said. She caught Aleksei’s hand as he moved up beside her.
“I’m going to deliver the babies,” Daed said brightly.
“Like hell you are,” Gill and Kimber chorused.
“I am a real medical doctor, you know. I just happen to like psychiatry best,” Daed grumbled.
“Our kids aren’t going to need analysis, so get over yourself. We’ll find a nice midwife in the village.”
Gillian was baiting him and she knew it.
“A midwife? I don’t think so. You two are going to get the best medical care possible,” Daed declared.
Gillian started to argue, but Aleksei interrupted her.
“My fiancée will choose her own care, as she wishes. Thank you very much for your offer, but I think we will be fine.”
Gillian stared up at him, then cracked up laughing.
“This whole trip has done wonders for your confidence. I’m impressed.”
Aleksei realized she was joking with him. His face formed into the most wicked gr
in she had ever seen.
“You should have already been impressed. I am Lord of my own realm, you know.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll just see about that.” She scooted away before he could swat her bum.
Laughing, he scooped her up in his arms and kissed her thoroughly. He was happy to be alive, happy to have her safe in his arms, happy they had all come through their ordeal with little more than a few minor injuries.
“Gillian!” Osiris called to her.
“What?” She looked back from over Aleksei’s shoulder.
“You forgot something.” Osiris pointed to the Golem.
“Oh shit! Aleksei, put me down!”
CHAPTER 22
IT was a long, slow, exciting walk through Prague back to the synagogue, where the Golem would sleep once more. On the way, Gillian stopped to buy vast quantities of the wonderful hot dogs they’d had earlier for everyone in the group who could eat actual food. She was happy the vendor accepted plastic. Werewolves and Werebears could eat a great deal, as it turned out. So could two pregnant women, which was evidently a surprise to the Vampires.
“Great Ra, I did not realize Human women could eat so much at one time.” Osiris scratched his head in disbelief.
“If you don’t want to go back to Isis with a boot up your ass, I’d be careful with your commentary if I were you,” Gillian said before taking another bite.
Kimber wasn’t so polite. She kicked him in the ankle.
“Starting shit with hungry pregnant women is really not a good plan there, King Tut.”
Osiris laughed heartily. “Feisty little things. They remind me of Isis.”
Odin was chortling away. “And of my dear Frigga.”
“I wouldn’t have her any other way,” Aleksei said proudly.
Pavel shifted to express his agreement with them on Kimber’s behalf, then realized he was naked due to the clothes-shredding-during-shifting thing, and was now on the corner of a very busy street. He also found he was choking on the hot dog he’d been bolting down in Wolf form while trying to hide behind the vendor’s stall. The vendor didn’t appreciate a large naked man ducking back among the meat cooler and stacks of buns. He started soundly swearing at Pavel in Czech.
Kimber began pounding him on the back, laughing uproariously. Gillian and Jenna were no help at all. Both were sliding down the sides of the stall, laughing themselves silly.
Garm and Helgi were yelling, “Shift! Shift back!”
Of course, poor Pavel couldn’t concentrate while he was trying to dislodge the chunk of hot dog from his windpipe. As a result, furry feet appeared and disappeared, then lupine ears and a snout, followed by a tail that he couldn’t seem to get to vanish. Kimber gave up trying to pound on his back after the tail hit her in the face, and surrendered to hilarity.
Osiris, Odin, Hreidmar and Kelda were nearly doubled over with mirth. Trocar covered his eyes, shook his head and opted for walking away from the lot of them while grinning like a fiend and pretending to look at the sights. Aleksei got himself under control long enough to remove his cloak and flick it over the squatting, coughing man.
“Forgive me, Pavel, but that is the best thing I have seen happen in a long while.” Aleksei laughed.
Pavel finally coughed up the sausage and wiped his eyes and mouth. A quick twist of Aleksei’s cloak and a bit of Shifter magic, and he recovered his dignity, his voice and a backside unencumbered by a tail. “It is fine, Aleksei. I am certain that was quite the sight.”
“Not as much as that one.” Gillian pointed across the alley. The Golem waited where they’d parked It. Silent, eternally patient; a mute witness to their revelry.
The sight of the giant earthen man just standing there while tourists pointed, taking pictures, sent them into another paroxysm of laughter. Gillian frantically grabbed at Kimber’s arm.
“Bathroom. Where is a bathroom?”
“I don’t know, but I have got to go!”
The vendor pointed diagonally across the street in the other direction. The women bolted for the indicated route.
“Back in a sec!” Gillian called out.
When the women returned with their composure intact, they continued on their way to the synagogue. Fortunately it wasn’t far from where they were. Soon they were among the now-familiar streets of the Old Jewish Quarter of Prague, amid the buildings that offered so much beauty and history.
At the door of the synagogue, Trocar rang the bell respectfully. Gillian was busy beckoning the Golem the last twenty yards to Its home. The rabbi answered the door. He was an old, frail- looking man with deep, penetrating eyes, a salt-and-pepper beard and a beautifully embroidered yarmulke.
“Good evening, Rabbi Loew. We are returning your property, as promised.” Trocar gave a slight bow.
The rabbi chuckled as he watched the behemoth lumber over to stand before the door. Gillian turned to greet him.
“Rabbi . . . Did he say, ‘Rabbi Loew’? As in the Maharal of Prague?”
“He did indeed. I am a descendant of that very same Rabbi Loew. That is very good, Dr. Key. You remember your Midrasha classes.”
Gillian could have sworn his eyes were twinkling. To her horror, she found herself blushing.
“Er . . . Rabbi Loew, I’m Reform, not Orthodox, and to be honest with you, I don’t remember a damn thing from Midrasha classes. Oops. Sorry. I didn’t mean to say damn. And please call me Gillian.” Forgetting for a moment she was speaking to an Orthodox rabbi, she stuck out her hand, then immediately realized her mistake. He couldn’t take her hand for any reason. She was female and he was married.
Kill me. Kill me now, she thought to herself.
Rabbi Loew chuckled heartily. “Forgive me, but I cannot shake your hand, Gillian. Please allow me to offer you my services as the rabbi of this place. After you put the Golem back in the Genizah, of course.”
Gillian was confused. “Your services?”
“May I meet your friends as well?” the rabbi asked her, dismissing her immediate question.
“Oh! Of course. Please forgive me. This is Aleksei Rachlav, Trocar—well, you already met Trocar—Daedelus, Osiris, Odin, Garm, Helgi, Hreidmar, Kelda, Pavel, Kimber and, um . . . that’s Jenna back there.”
Gillian’s voice had suddenly taken on a very meek timbre. Everyone who wasn’t the rabbi stared at her.
“Are you all right?” Aleksei’s voice being in her mind suddenly made her jump.
“I’m fine. Dammit, I’ve asked you to stop doing that. This is just . . . Well, he’s an Orthodox rabbi, and I don’t want to accidentally offend him, which I almost did by offering to shake his hand. Evidently he has a sense of humor, since he let Trocar borrow the shambling mound here.”
She was getting better at the mind-to-mind thing, she decided, when she didn’t yell at him out loud. As unobtrusively as she could, she straightened her shirt and brushed some caked blood off her sleeve.
“Sorry about our appearance, Rabbi Loew. We . . . well, we wanted to thank you very much for allowing us to use the Golem. You literally saved our lives. So . . . thank you. Thank you very much.”
He nodded to her, bowing slightly. “You are quite welcome. I was glad to help. May I say, Gillian, that you and your group are favorites of mine on the news. It is always good to see a young woman distinguish herself as you have, and your adventures always make me laugh.”
“Oh God . . . I mean . . . you’ve watched stories about us?”
“Of course! You are an Eshet Hayyil; a very good example and very entertaining, if I say so myself.” He chuckled heartily as she blushed again.
“Oh no, no, sir, I’m not. I’m really not, trust me.” Gillian wondered if she had any spare bullets in her gun. She could shoot herself and end this humiliation.
“Not a chance, bellissima. You are not getting out of marrying me that easily.”
Aleksei was practically chortling. He put his arm around her shoulders and smiled proudly at her.
“Thank you, Rabbi. She is in
deed a woman of valor. At least, I think she is.”
Gillian poked him in the arm. “Since when do you speak Hebrew?”
“I believe the expression is ‘I have many skills.’ ” The twinkle in his expressive ice gray eyes was new to her. She was glad to see it. Sort of.
This time she said it out loud. “Kill me now. Okay, look, enough already. Let me just put the Golem back where It goes, and we can get out of Rabbi Loew’s hair. Rabbi? Is that all right with you?”
Rabbi Loew threw back his head and laughed until he clutched his sides. “My dear girl, you are even more entertaining in person.”
Gillian covered her face with both hands and muttered, “I’m putting the Golem back now.”
She beckoned the Thing forward, through the doors of the synagogue. As carefully as she could, she guided It through the chamber, up the stairs and into the attic. There was a thick layer of dust on the wooden floor, so it was easy to see where the Golem had stood for so long.
Positioning It took longer than she liked, but finally It was standing in Its original footprints in the dust.
“There. Okay, Golem. I know you can’t respond and you’re just programmed, or whatever you call it, to do what you’re told, but I would like to thank you for saving us.”
She reached out and patted Its lump of a hand. Curiously, after all the carnage It had done, not a trace of blood, tissue or body fluid remained on It anywhere. Evidently that was just part and parcel of Its magic.
Looking around, she found a ladder, which she leaned against the wall next to It. Climbing up, she could just reach Its face by leaning as far as she dared.
“Sleep well. I hope you are not needed anytime soon.”
With that, she briskly rubbed off the aleph, and the Golem stiffened almost imperceptibly into the statue It always had been. Gillian climbed down from the ladder, put it back where she’d found it and dusted off her hands.
“Golem.” She backed a little away and beckoned It.
Nothing happened. It was slumbering, or whatever unneeded inanimate objects did when they weren’t required for an impromptu rescue mission.
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