She studied my face to see if there was any give in my expression and found none. She slumped back, clearly displeased but not about to fight me on the subject.
“Thank you,” I said, then hurried to catch up with Leif.
Oberon! I called, mentally shouting as I darted past tables to the front door.
<Huh? What?>
Oh. You’re okay?
<Yeah, I’m fine. Are we going now?>
I breathed a sigh of relief as I reached the exit. Thank the gods of twenty pantheons. Why didn’t you answer earlier?
<I didn’t hear anything.>
I called you twice, I said as I looked around for Leif. He was to my left, still carrying Natalia, heading next door toward a convenience store with a few gas pumps in the front; we’d left Oberon in the parking lot, to my right.
<Oh. Um.> His tone became apologetic. <I may have taken a short nap, Atticus. I’m sure it was very short though. Next time, remember to ask for the non-drowsy yak liver.>
Walk to the sidewalk and turn left, I told him. You’ll see me there. Follow behind and watch for vampires, please. Maximum paranoia. Don’t forget the roofs.
<Okay. I see you now. Only vampires I can sense are the ones in front of you. Leif and that one from earlier.>
All right. Keep me informed of any developments.
Leif paused at the end of the building and swung around to check on what I wanted to do. I jogged to catch up and pointed to the sliver of space between Granny’s Closet and the convenience store.
“Dumpsters should be back there,” I said in Old Norse. No use getting Natalia even more riled up. Yet.
As casually as we could, and with Leif still pretending that the arm around Natalia was protective, we walked the thirty yards or so to the back of the building and slipped out of sight of all the traffic on South Milton Road. We found the big industrial trash bins and I threw open the lid, startling a few hardy flies that were battling the chilly temperatures.
I’m dissolving your camouflage, Oberon. Please make sure no one follows us back here.
<Got it.>
“Toss her in,” I said to Leif, purposely using English. Natalia heard that, made a supreme effort, and managed to separate her legs, tearing her jeans right down the inseam. I’d been expecting that, but Leif hadn’t. He started cursing as she kicked at him, and I calmly bound her legs together again — now using her exposed skin. She wouldn’t be tearing through that.
“What are you doing?” Leif said.
“I just wanted a quiet place to talk without someone interrupting with escape attempts. So. You have one of Zdenik’s lieutenants helpless. What are you going to do?”
Leif looked wounded. “Me? Aren’t you going to unbind her?”
“No. She’s your enemy in your territory. You wanted help and I’m giving it because I can’t let her tell anyone I’m alive. But I’m not your assassin. Do your own dirty work.”
Leif shrugged and pushed her over so that she fell facedown onto the asphalt. He planted a foot between her shoulder blades, gripped her head on either side with his hands, and with a soft grunt pulled it off with a snap of bone and a wet, slurping sound. I’d bound the skin of her fingers so tightly to her face that some of them tore free of her hands and dangled from her lips, and in other cases the skin of her face tore loose and remained bound to her fingers. It was a quick, brutal, and messy extermination, as I suspected it would be. Leif tossed the bloody head into the trash and I began to unbind it, partly to get rid of the evidence and partly to make sure that this vampire would never respawn.
“Thank you, Atticus,” he said, hefting the body and doing his best to keep blood off his clothes.
I finished the unbinding and watched in the magical spectrum until the red light of vampirism winked out in the skull as it dissolved among the food scraps and paper bags and plastic packaging.
“I don’t really want to be thanked, Leif,” I said. “I want to be left alone.”
“I understand,” he said, heaving the body into the bin. He kept talking as I spoke the words to unbind the body; if I didn’t take care of the light in her chest, she’d come back in worse shape than Leif had, but she’d come back nevertheless.
“But you have to admit this was a simple exercise for us. Working together, we could clean up the state in a few days. Please, Atticus.”
Natalia, who’d probably enjoyed thirty years of life and three hundred years or more of bonus existence sucking the blood out of the living, melted inside her T-shirt and torn jeans. I nodded once in the direction of her remains and said, “Sorry, but that’s all the cleaning I’m going to do, Leif. That’s one rival eliminated. Orchestrate the rest yourself. Though I still say you should simply leave. May harmony find you.”
He didn’t miss the note of finality in my voice as I turned toward the gap between the buildings. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m simply leaving,” I replied, walking back to collect Oberon and Granuaile. “See how easy it is?”
I left him standing there and fully expected never to see him again.
Chapter 19
One of the nice things about waking up is the inherent serenity that comes with knowing you’ll probably live until breakfast. It’s true that sometimes you can wake up with a Brobdingnagian hangover and hate your life, but at least you have life, and the cure for a hangover is probably in your kitchen somewhere. There will be birds chirping, a dog somewhere to pet, and a few moments where you can contemplate the pleasant possibility of getting into some sort of adventure that day.
On the other hand, if you live long enough, you’ll discover new and exciting ways to wake up that are less than serene, and well before dawn arrives. Weasels in your bedrolclass="underline" not good. Huns pillaging the city and raping women: very bad. Vampires breaking through your hotel-room door and sinking their fangs into your newly healed neck before you can move: It doesn’t get much worse than that.
I was in Room 403 of the Hotel Monte Vista, where Freddy Mercury once stayed. I’d sung a bit of “Bohemian Rhapsody” to myself before slipping underneath the sheets and getting snuggly with the comforter. I fell asleep wondering if Scaramouche would do the fandango.
The vampire attached to my neck was improbably strong. The door to my room was completely destroyed; he had plowed right through it and attacked me before the sound could rouse me sufficiently to defend myself. Hotel thresholds offer no barriers to vampires.
On the fourth floor and cut off from the earth, I had a limited amount of magic stored in my bear charm. I used some of it to strengthen my right arm and punch him in the temple; it broke three of my knuckles but successfully knocked him off my neck for a moment. I activated my healing charm and began to speak the spell of unbinding as he hissed and came after me again.
I had no leverage, and the thrice-cursed snuggly comforter, so welcoming before, was now effectively keeping me in place for the vampire’s dining pleasure. He was on me again before I could get my legs free and employ some basic martial arts. I kept him from my neck, but just barely, using more magically enhanced strength. It was like wrestling Leif — even worse, for this lad was stronger and therefore older — and I knew from experience I would not be able to maintain it for much longer, especially with three broken fingers. My charm was running out of juice rapidly. He slapped me hard to make me stop the unbinding, and it worked. I had to start over.
<Atticus, what was that noise?> Oberon asked from next door. He was spending the night in Granuaile’s room.