by Kat Cotton
He shook his head. “No more room charge.”
What? He had to be kidding. I needed food. I’d been starved for days, and I had to get my strength back. What was wrong with the guy?
“Come on, old guy. It’s fine. Just put it on my bill.”
“Clementine,” said a voice behind me. “There will be no more snack foods.”
I turned to the mayor.
“Nice joke, Mayor. Now, tell this guy to let me charge this stuff.”
The mayor shook his head. “You’re running up a huge bill, which you will be paying, I might add. You can’t expect rate payers to cover your expenses. Not for a $200 phone call and a mountain of snack food. Also, Clementine, you need to be in shape for when you decide to stop fooling around and go after this alchemist.”
I groaned. He couldn’t actually make me pay for that phone call.
“But I need to eat.”
He just raised his eyebrows, as if to suggest I’d been eating too much. Then I remembered I needed to ask him something.
“Hey, Mayor, can you get my jewelry back from the Council? They stole it when they kidnapped me.”
I felt naked without my rings.
“The Council will give you nothing until you agree to help them. The clock’s ticking, and the Council don’t have much of a sense of humor.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t exactly amused by them kidnapping me, or the rest of their shenanigans. It looks like they need me now, right? Let’s face it, they wouldn’t be asking me to do this if everything was above-board. I’ve got all the cards. They have none. And, believe me, I want more for this than some crappy jewelry. Actually, that ring was starting to make my finger turn green. Maybe I should buy a new one.”
“Anyway, you must be sick of being holed up in this hotel,” he said.
“No, actually, I quite—”
“So, I’ve got a fun activity planned for us.”
I’d rate “fun activity” amongst my least favorite words in the English language. Activities by their very definition are rarely fun. Lolling around thinking about Kisho was the most fun I wanted.
“You’ve been cooped up for too long. Fresh air and exercise, that’s what you need. A day out, and I might reinstate your credit enough for a latte. But rug up. It’s colder than it looks out there.”
“I’m allowed out of here?”
“Well, you’re meant to be fighting the undead alchemist. I don’t think he’s going to come to your hotel room like a phone-in prostitute.”
The mayor had a point. Maybe not so much about the prostitutes, but the Council had to let me out.
I was pretty sure that this was all about sweet-talking me into doing things I didn’t want to do, but I agreed to go, so we hopped on the tram and headed to Old Town. It was all well and good for him to tell me to rug up, but apart from Kisho’s jacket and the thick tights, I had no warm clothes.
“So, it’s fine with the Council that I just wander around the city?” I asked. I wanted to check the limits of this freedom.
“They’re tracking you, Clementine. You know that.”
I nodded. “But so long as I’m not doing anything wrong, I have freedom to roam?”
“Seems so. If I get suspicious about your activity, though, I have to report back.”
“Aha. So, I can’t chop my hands off, then attach these cuffs to the back of a bicycle or something while I escape?”
The mayor glared at me. I punched his arm.
“Just kidding. I’m not really going to chop my own hands off. How would you even do that? The first hand would be okay, but the second…” I twisted my arm up, trying to work that out. “If I had a guillotine or something, it might be manageable.”
“Painful, though,” the mayor said. “It’s probably easier to agree to the Council’s terms.”
“Is that going to be any less painful?”
The mayor just patted my arm and gave me a sad smile.
We got off the tram in the middle of Old Town and glanced around. Not only could you see the castle, but also the spires of like a million churches. The mayor got out a paper map with a route marked with highlighter pen. Then he handed me a copy of The Lonely Planet Guide to Prague, complete with sticky-noted pages and more highlighting. I’d been sorely mistaken about this being a covert attempt to get me working with him. The guy was fully into this sightseeing stuff.
“The Old Town Square has a fascinating history…”
I have this issue. Whenever anyone uses a phrase like “fascinating history”, my brain switches off. They might be telling the truth, they might be able to tell me the most fascinating thing ever, but I wouldn’t know. Instead, I trailed along behind the mayor, nodding and making appropriate responses but not really taking anything in.
One thing that did penetrate my brain was the smell of cake. This whole city smelled of cake. Warm cake, sugary and nice.
“Mayor, cake?”
He kept talking.
“Can’t you smell it?” I clutched my belly. Who could think about history when that smell permeated the air? I hadn’t eaten decent cake in so awfully long. My life was hanging in the balance. If ever there was a time to eat cake, it was now. The smell taunted me. It called my name.
Clem, taste our deliciousness. We want you, Clem.
How could the mayor not hear that?
I’d go buy my own damn cake, but I had no Czech money. I needed the mayor to buy it for me.
“Mayor, listen. This history stuff is all very well and good, but I can smell cake.”
This time, he actually didn’t ignore me.
“Yes, Clementine, that’s the famous trdelník. It’s rolled dough, cooked on a metal spit, then covered in sugar and cinnamon.”
I didn’t want the history of the damn cake. I wanted the taste of it.
“Hey, is that the famous clock?” I asked.
I needed photos. There was a heap of people around the clock, all clicking away. If they had photos, I needed them too.
“These tourists are quite the all-you-can-eat buffet for a vamp. No wonder he goes after them.”
I’d only taken a few snaps when the mayor grabbed hold me and dragged me to the side as a tour group on Segways whizzed past. That one bastard had almost hit me.
“You idiots. Watch where you’re going!” I yelled after them.
I shook my fist angrily. That guy could’ve really injured me if the mayor hadn’t had my back. It’d be even worse if they hit an old person. They could knock them down, and the old person would break a hip or something. Why did they let dumb tourists near those things? Tourists were annoying enough on their own two feet. I couldn’t imagine what this place would be like in the summer if this was the off-peak season.
“I’ll just get a couple more photos,” I told the mayor. “Then we’ll go find the scene of the crime.”
As I got closer to the clock, some dude stepped backwards, stomping right onto my foot.
“Watch it, dude,” I said.
He had one of those fancy DSLR cameras around his neck, aimed at some chick frolicking in everyone else’s way. He huffed at me, then squatted down, aiming his massive camera upward.
I stomped on his foot to see how he liked it. This world didn’t just exist for his photographing pleasure.
“Let me put this out there,” I said when I got back to the mayor. “This vamp, he’s just minding his own business, mainly. He’s obviously a man of science, what with his alchemy and all. He’s not really doing anything wrong, just making gold. If he wasn’t undead, he’d probably get, like, a Nobel prize or something. If he wants to feed on a few obnoxious tourists, is that so wrong?”
My foot throbbed where that jerk had stepped on it.
“Your morality really is fluid,” the mayor said.
“Hey, Mayor, if my morality is fluid, yours is the Niagara Falls of morals. And, seriously, I’d feed that butthole with his big, fancy camera and his stupid frolicking girlfriend to a vamp. He could’ve looked behind h
im instead of ramming into me.”
The mayor sighed.
Chapter 9 Cake
WE’D REACHED THE RIVER. That bridge looked damn cool, but there were way too many tourists on it.
“Hey, there’s a stall selling those cakes. It’d only be right to try them,” I told the mayor. “It’s a local specialty. You wouldn’t want to say you went to Prague and didn’t sample the famous tube cake things.”
The mayor chuckled. “I guess we should try one.”
Yes. Finally, he got the hint.
The old woman behind the stall wrapped batter over the metal spikes. Not only were there cakes, but cakes with options, like chocolate and whipped cream.
“Whipped cream, Mayor.”
“I’ll have mine plain,” the mayor said. “Those extras look messy.”
“I want the lot. Everything.”
The woman smiled at me. She didn’t need any alchemy on her teeth, that’s for sure. Half her mouth glittered with gold. Was there that much money in selling tube cakes? Maybe I could set up a stall on the street outside my office back home.
The mayor and I sat on a bench to eat them.
The tube cake was really good, but a bit messy to eat. All that sugar and cinnamon fell on me, and I was pretty sure that whipped cream and chocolate had covered my face. Where the hell was Nic? If he was in this city, surely he’d know I was eating cake. I half-expected him to pop up beside me with a “Clem Starr, you should not be eating that cake. Not with your chubby thighs.” I never thought I’d miss his snarky comments about my thighs, but right now, Nic being a snarky bitch would beat the hell out of no Nic at all.
The melted chocolate from the center of the tube now covered my hands. I licked my palms. The mayor looked on, horrified.
“Were you never taught manners?” he asked.
“You think they teach that fancy shit in an orphanage?”
“They will now. I’ll pass a by-law. Having no parents is no excuse for acting like you were raised by wolves, Clementine.”
Then he reached over and wiped my mouth with his napkin. That didn’t offend me nearly as much as it should have. There was something parental about it.
“What do we know about this alchemist?” I asked him. I figured the subject would come up at some point.
“Most of his victims have been tourists doing ghost tours.”
“It’s the ideal plan, right? People expect cheesy surprises, so they’re all, ‘Whoa, fake vampire,’ and then he can be, ‘Surprise, I’m not fake,’ and sink his teeth into them.”
I brushed the sugar off my clothes.
“Something like that. But we don’t know if he’s feeding on them. So far, there have been no bodies found.”
“Wait. You’re saying that the Council are freaking out about this dude killing tourists, but really there’s no proof he’s killed them? They’re just disappearing. They might still be alive somewhere.”
“I guess. The Council said they’re dead, but they’ve never given me any reason to think they know more than anyone else.”
“Do you want the rest of that tube cake?” I asked him.
“Yes, I actually do. Just because someone doesn’t inhale their food doesn’t mean they don’t want to eat it.”
Damn., I guessed I could run back to the old woman and get another, but that seemed like a lot of effort when the mayor had perfectly good cake he wasn’t eating.
“How did you get involved with the Council in the first place?” I asked. “They like to keep themselves secret.”
“Bob approached me. He came to listen to one of my campaign speeches and stuck around to talk.”
I nodded. “And you sold your soul to them. Nice work.”
He shrugged. “It’s not really like that, but they do expedite things.”
“To be honest, they’ve done jack shit but get in the way.”
Hell. That caused another zap in my wrists. These damn bracelets were supposed to stop me from escaping, not brainwash me into only saying good things about the Council.
“So, you want the gold to rebuild things?” I asked. “Shouldn’t businesses pay for that themselves?”
“It wasn’t just businesses. Some schools need to be totally rebuilt. And there are a lot of people without homes. They need temporary accommodation, at least. We’re not getting the government funding we’d like. Mostly, the government wants to pretend the whole thing never happened. I can’t just make money out of nothing, and that’s where this alchemist comes into it.”
Some swans floated past us on the river. They reminded me of my friend, the old man at the park. A few people rowed by in little wooden rowboats.
“Can’t you just find him and ask him nicely? He might want to come work for you.”
“He kills people, Clementine. I don’t want to unleash more evil on the city.”
“He might help. You just said no one knows if he’s killing the victims. We don’t know if he is evil.”
“I don’t think he’s a helping kind of guy. We need to get those secrets from him. I don’t think he’s going to give them up easily.”
“What does he do with his gold?”
“No one knows. He’s proved to a few people that he can do the transformation, but he seems more interested in proving the process is possible than in actually accumulating wealth.”
“So, he might give you the gold.”
The mayor laughed. “Not likely. Anyway, the Council want him neutralized. That’s why they’re playing nice. They aren’t such good people.”
“Yeah, I realized that.” k`12
When I first signed up to train with the Demon Fighters’ Council, I thought they were just a normal Council kind of thing. They trained you to fight, and if you passed the tests, you got your license. End of story. Of course, they had a few rules and things, and they gave out those awards I won all the time. But I’d never thought about their operations too deeply. At some point during training, they touched briefly on the regulating committee and the legal branch and all that, but I’d never thought about that again. After all, it was just some distance thing, a bunch of old fuddy-duddies making rules and sending out a newsletter once in a while.
Now that I thought about it, I didn’t even know who ran the Council. Someone headed up this organization, and in training we’d been told that their identity was kept secret so they wouldn’t have every paranormal creature targeting them. Maybe I should find that person and speak to them directly.
“Oww.” Those damn cuffs sparked again. I guessed talking to the head of the Council wasn’t something I should think about.
I ran my finger around the edge of one of the cuffs. I wasn’t sure what they were made of, just that the cold metal cut into my skin at times, and that those sparks hurt like hell.
“So, this alchemist, he can turn any metal into gold.” An idea was brewing in my head. I kept it on the edges of my brain because if I thought about it too much, I’d get zapped again.
“Yep, seems so. It’d be a fine skill to have.”
I looked at those cuffs again. “Yeah, it sure would.”
When I got back to the hotel, I checked my phone again. Nothing.
My body ached. All that walking around on cobblestone streets in boots wore a person out. Cobblestones might look charming, but they were hard work.
I jumped in the shower. That might ease my pain. I’d really gotten out of shape with this incarceration and all.
I’d just dried off and put my pajamas on when the mayor knocked on my door.
“Clementine, we need to talk,” he said when I let him in.
I gestured to the chair, and he sat down.
“I just received a message from the Council. They know Nic and Kisho are in the city, and they know their whereabouts.” To his credit, the mayor looked concerned.
My stomach sank. I couldn’t even contact them to warn them about the danger. Maybe I could withstand the pain long enough to message them. It was only zappy pain. I could handl
e with it.
“The ball’s in your court, Clementine. No more fun and games. They’ve laid down the law. Catch the alchemist, and your friends will be safe.”
With that, the mayor left my room.
Hell. It looked like I had no choice. I’d have to be the Council’s bitch.
Chapter 10 Protection
I PACED MY ROOM, AND then I threw things at the wall. I stopped that when the mayor bashed on my door.
“Clementine, throwing things won’t help anything. Maybe you need some exercise to burn off your excess energy.”
I opened the door. I needed someone to vent to.
“Only if that exercise involves punching things. And I don’t mean a shitty punching bag, either. Maybe Lycra Shorts from the Council—he’d do. I’d love to punch that guy.”
The mayor screwed up his face. “Lycra Shorts?”
“That’s what I called him. You know the guy. Looks like he’d have some high-priced push bike that he rides on weekends. All the bike gear, including those lycra bike shorts. Total wanker.”
The mayor laughed. A full belly laugh, almost doubling over. “What about the other two?”
“Baldy.”
“On point, but not too original.”
“And Gone to Seed. You know, like he was a hottie once and thinks he still is.”
The mayor grinned. “And what about me?”
“Huh?”
“What do you call me?”
“Mayor, of course.”
He grinned, and I remembered his promise of coffee. “I have latte credit now?” I asked. Caffeine would help me out.
“I’ll go you one better. Put on some decent clothes, and I’ll take you for a proper coffee. It might be better to discuss this somewhere else.”
“Because you think our rooms are bugged?” I hadn’t thought of that.
“No, because the coffee here is subpar. I want good coffee.”
That was a concept I could get behind.
“Give me five, Mayor, and I’ll be right with you.”
The cafe the mayor took me to was your basic hipster place. Lots of wooden furniture with mismatched chairs. Some funky art on the walls, painted concrete floor, and artsy light globes hanging from the ceiling. Lots of blue and white.
