Staked

Perun and I waited at that café for more than a few hours, downing schooners of pilsner and trading stories of older days while Oberon napped, but eventually I was too cold to stand it anymore. The clouds had moved off as Perun’s mood lightened, but the temperature was trending toward icy. “You know what?” I said. “Let’s go shopping. Flidais will find us wherever we are, right?”

“Is right. She does this to me before.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

“What do we buy?”

“I need a jacket,” I said, quite nearly shivering. I didn’t want to employ the earth’s energy to raise my temperature when there was a simpler fix. “Maybe we’ll find one for you too.”

Perun looked up at the sky and twisted his lips. “Eh. Okay. Is little cold maybe.”

“No maybe about it.” A couple of queries on the street led us a few blocks south to a square full of fashion shops and sausage vendors. Oberon’s tail sawed the air when he saw sausages just dangling from the ceiling of the kiosks. We paused to buy him a couple and then entered a store promising that there was “couture” inside, which meant I’d be paying for that word more than practicality, but I did manage to find a selection of leather jackets that would keep my core warm and also provide a handy inner pocket for Luchta’s stake. I picked a brown one and hoped Granuaile would like it. Just like a seasoned shopping companion, Perun assured me that I had made a good choice.

“Is very handsome. Too bad they no have jacket like this for my size. Flidais would love. She would be very excited and then tear from my body. Ehh … Now that I think this, maybe is good they no have my size.”

“It’s too late,” Flidais said from behind us, smiling at Perun as she walked up to him. “Now that you’ve put the idea into my head, nothing will do but I must have you in leather.”

“I don’t understand why humans like to wear dead cows,” Oberon grumbled while Perun and Flidais made happy reuniting noises. “Cows are for eating.” Once Flidais pointed out that we were far easier to track from the Grand Bohemia than Theophilus, she let me know where to find my quarry.

“He’s in Berlin,” she said, “and he has a significant entourage. He’s staying at the Monbijou Hotel, in that neighborhood with all the museums and fancy restaurants.”

I knew exactly where that was. There were some outstanding works of art in those museums—mostly on Museum Island, formed by the Spree River forking and reuniting—and I had visited them several times in the past decades. “Your skills remain unparalleled,” I said to Flidais by way of thanks. “I’ll leave you to your search for suitable leathers.”

I said farewell, returned to the trees of Petřín Hill, and shifted through Tír na nÓg to Tiergarten in Berlin, a pleasant and rather large wooded park with paths that radiated out from the famous Victory Column. The old tree bound there was a knotted, lichen-covered sycamore, currently occupied by an alarmed red squirrel, which Oberon saw immediately and lunged after, nearly catching it by the tail before it scampered up the trunk, out of reach.

“Aw! Dang it! Almost got him! And I would have too, if he weren’t so squirrely.”

“Maybe next time, Oberon.”

“That’s right!” Oberon said, more to the squirrel than to me. He still had his front paws on the tree trunk, and his eyes tracked the one that got away. He barked for emphasis. “You just wait for next time, pal! Your doom approaches! Say goodbye to your nuts!”

There was an efficient train system nearby called the S-Bahn, which would take us to Hackescher Markt in only four stops, but since it was the evening rush hour and everyone was returning home from work, the cars were far too crowded to sneak Oberon on board. We had to go on foot, and that was all right. We needed time for full darkness to fall anyway.

We jogged in gray twilight through the outskirts of Tiergarten, with only a brief pause while Oberon tried and failed to catch a couple of rabbits, and then past blocks of flats and office buildings covered in unimaginative graffiti. Halfway to our destination it began to rain, the sort that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be sleet or not. It was more piercingly cold than refreshing, and I was grateful for the jacket. I distracted Oberon from the weather with the memory that somewhere nearby, there was a road whose name—Große Hamburger Straße—translated to Big Hamburger Street.

“Really? What’s the story behind that?”

“I don’t know if there’s a story,” I said. It most likely meant that road was a fairly wide one that led to the city of Hamburg, but Oberon wouldn’t find that interesting. “If there isn’t, we should make one.”

“Can you at least buy a big hamburger there?”

“I believe so. It would be a tragic waste of natural marketing if not.”

It was dismal, cold, and dark when we arrived at the Monbijou Hotel, a modern building in cream and sporting a cool gray logo above the revolving glass door. I peeked into the interior from outside: Directly opposite the door was a lift, one of the narrow but deep elevators more commonly found in Europe. The reception area was to the left, complete with a primly uniformed employee, and to the right a fireplace beckoned, inviting people to sit at the small round tables scattered about. It was a lounge area, with the bar no doubt secreted out of sight from the street, and several people were already busy lounging in it. They were lounging, in fact, in an almost ostentatious manner, as if to say to passersby like myself, “Look uponst my exquisite lounging, foolish mortal, and mourn that you will never lounge with such cosmopolitan savoir faire.” I flipped my vision to the magical spectrum and saw that three of the four people were not human. They had gray auras around their heads and hearts with a fiery red center, which meant they were vampires. None wore infrared goggles, so that was encouraging. The only human I could see appeared nervous, with ample justification. I thought at first that I would enter in camouflage and simply go to work, but that wouldn’t be wise. They’d be warned by a revolving door moving by itself.

I camouflaged only Oberon instead and had him follow me inside. Once I got to the lobby, I veered left toward the reception area so as not to invite a closer look. They might smell my old blood anyway, but if I gave them no cause to examine the air I might buy myself a few more seconds of surprise.

Oberon, I want you to stay over here and dry off, I said, pointing to the couches in the reception area. No one was there except for the single employee behind the reception half-circle desk. Untouched German newspapers and magazines waited to be perused on an expansive black leather ottoman. Be quiet and don’t come after me. I’m going to pick a fight and don’t want you in danger. These are very strong vampires.

“But I can help! Remember that one time I helped you against that vampire?”

Yes, you did help, but you also got hurt. This is different. That time before, the vampires ambushed me and I needed your help. This time I’m ambushing them. If I don’t have to worry about your safety, that will be a tremendous help to me.

“Okay. I could use a nap anyway. That way I’d be helping both of us.”

I think that’s an excellent plan, I replied, though I didn’t think he’d feel like napping once the fighting started. Let’s get you hidden behind this furniture here, so the guy at the front desk doesn’t see you. Then I can drop your camouflage and use that energy for kicking ass.