“Umm . . . why do I think you’re planning something dangerous?” Quinton asked.
“Because you’ve gotten used to the face I make when I’m pissed off. I have to go after Wygan and Goodall. The sooner the better. They might not know I’ve gotten ahold of Simondson, and the faster I move, the less time they have to guess what I’ll do.”
Quinton pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything about how stupid I might be or what the risk was. That was one of the things I loved in him: He didn’t lecture me or tell me not to dive into things. If he had information or questions, he spoke up. Otherwise he let me do what I had to.
“You want me with you?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s strictly my gig. I wouldn’t mind having you nearby, but the Danzigers’ is close enough and we need to go there anyway.”
“We do?”
“Yeah. We need to drop off the pets before I go do something stupid.”
TEN
Quinton drove in loops and meanders up to Queen Anne Hill, checking for anyone watching the Danzigers’ house or the approaches. “You’re sure you don’t want us along?” he asked. “Sure? No. What I’d like is an army at my back, if I’m being honest. But that won’t really help and it will help even less if I lead the only people who can save my impulsive ass into a trap with me.”
“Do you think it’s a trap?”
“No. I don’t think Wygan and Goodall have had time to adjust to our disappearance. They know I’m out here somewhere, but vampires—especially Wygan—are arrogant and they may not have any contingency plan in place for my coming to them so soon without having been nabbed by their cronies first. Also—” I cut myself off.
“Also what?”
“I don’t think they know.”
“Know what?”
I waved my hand through the air as if wiping my words out. “Sorry, I’m going to hold that for now since I’ll have to explain it to the Danzigers, too. Just bear with me a few minutes.”
Quinton shrugged. “OK.”
We found a safe place to leave the truck, in a small parking lot near a tiny grocery store, and walked the rest of the way. There was a slight risk in us walking together since either one of us was probably recognizable to most of the vampires in Seattle by now and both of us together was a sure ID. Still, we were better as a team in detecting the bloodsuckers from a distance: I could see and smell them and Quinton had been tinkering with yet another Grey detector system. We had to go a bit out of our way but once again made it through the back gate to the Danzigers’ house safely—at least as far as I could tell. No one had renewed the spell I’d defused earlier so the way was open.
Brian was still abed, so there was no noisy reunion between boy and dog. Grendel looked disappointed as Mara met us at the back door.
“Ah, you’re back in one piece I see.”
“For now,” I replied. Grendel whined to come in and find his playmate, but we left him to guard the backyard instead. Bowls of food and water quickly replaced the boy in his affections—at least for a while.
Mara led us through to the living room where the drapes were, uncharacteristically, drawn closed. Ben was seated in a comfy chair, reading a thick tome in German. I know less German than I do Spanish—which is about enough to curse at people and ask for a beer, the bathroom, and my hotel keys—but I could still recognize the words for “ghost” and “paranormal” so I assumed it was more research for his book. He looked up as we entered.
“Hah! I found a reference to the asetem outside Egypt! So this is not the first time they’ve gone afield. But, here’s the interesting bit: They never travel without the direct order of the Pharaohn and they always have servants.”
“Yeah,” I replied, “I’ve noticed most vampires have servants of some kind to protect them during the daylight hours. I met a sort of . . . fish man in London who was enslaved in some way to the vampire I was looking for.”
“But most of those are servants of opportunity—demi-vampires and the like. The asetem make theirs quite specifically.”
“Are you talking about the kreanou?”
“Kreanou?” Ben frowned. “I’m not sure. . . . What is that?”
I blinked at him, surprised I’d come up with something he didn’t know. “They’re, uh . . . sort of super-vampires. They’re incredibly fast, single-minded, and vicious. They can change shape, too, a little. But they are driven to hunt and destroy the vampire who made them. Some kind of rare mistake, I gathered. Sort of fury incarnate that dies once it kills its creator.”
They all stared at me. “Well, that doesn’t sound like a useful servant at all,” Mara said.
“No. I think they’re usually something vampires fear,” I added and explained the kreanou I’d encountered in London.
Silence ticked a moment after my tale ended. “Uh, no, I don’t think this is the same thing,” Ben said. “The book calls them ‘ushabti’—it’s the same word as the funerary statues of servants meant to attend the dead in the afterlife—and attributes some magical powers to them—limited, but still powers. Did I tell you the asetem are magical?”
“Yes, you did. What kind of magic?”
“Mostly small magic, illusions and emotional manipulations, but the Pharaohn has a few bigger powers, chiefly generative. He’s the only one who can make another asete or an ushabti.”
I narrowed my eyes in thought. “What are these ushabti like?”
“Unfortunately the book isn’t specific about that except that they can move around in the daylight. And it doesn’t say how they’re made or destroyed, just that they are ‘servants by life and by blood.’ Or that’s the best translation I can make. This is a pretty old book and the writing is a bit . . . eccentric.”
“So the asetem and their servant went to Germany once?”
“Looks that way. You know the Nazis were big collectors of antiquities, but they weren’t the first group of Germans to be interested in that sort of thing. Various Germanic states and institutions stuck their paws into the collection of ancient mystic artifacts. Apparently one prince or another ...” He looked down into his book for a moment for more information but had to shrug and continue after a fruitless moment. “Well, it’s a little unclear who, but someone managed to piss off the Pharaohn and he sent a small cohort into the area to exact revenge, with an ushabti to protect them. According to this book, the asetem did it in remarkably bloody style—even for vampires—which isn’t too unusual for them since they thrive on strong, negative emotions like fear and panic. They did things like flaying people alive and killing their children while they watched—”
I felt sick and, judging by the others’ faces, I wasn’t the only one. I held up a hand. “I get the idea. They committed atrocities.”
“In a word. And when they were done, they packed up and disappeared.”
“Literally?”
“Well, no. They went back to Egypt. The Pharaohn doesn’t squander his people—they’re too rare. But they probably didn’t worry too much about their ushabti once they got home since he wasn’t an asete—at least if I am reading this correctly he wasn’t. And I don’t see how he could have been; the asetem don’t have any daywalking abilities among their magical powers and they wouldn’t convert one of their own and then throw him away.”
“But their servants do have some powers? How does that happen if the ushabti aren’t asetem? Regular vampires don’t usually wield any magic. How do these guys rate?”
“One skill the asetem do have is sensing magical ability in others. Which might explain how the Pharaohn found you and your father in the first place. The . . . subject’s powers remain intact after conversion to asete, apparently.”
I was getting an idea, but it was also confusing me on another point I’d thought I had. “So they know what powers people like me have?”
“I don’t think so. I think they just know there’s a power there. To know which one, they’d have to observe for a while. I’m guessing here, but that seems the likely scenario.”