Staked

He’d know, I suppose. I see a hole in Sam’s side, and if that was a silver bullet he’d be at death’s door himself instead of walking around. Someone would have to dig that out of him before his skin closed over it; accelerated healing can have that drawback against these modern weapons.

“Doesn’t make sense to come in here with only one clip of silver rounds,” Ty says.

“It does if you’re traveling in a hurry and expecting only one werewolf instead of fourteen,” I tell him. “I don’t think ye were the target. I think they were after me and knew that Greta would be here.”

“Oh. You think this is that vampire war against Druidry?”

“Aye, that’s what I figure. Siodhachan told me he was going to go around blowing shite up and something like this might happen. I have wards on the house, but they never got close enough to trip them. And I didn’t expect firearms. I’m sorry.”

“Ffffuck,” Sam swears. “I have phone calls to make and a memorial service to arrange. And this isn’t over. Killing a well-loved pack leader like that is going to have consequences.”

“Wait,” I says. “Let me help you with that bullet, at least. And anyone else who got shot. I can maybe pull it out of there without digging around too much.”

The iron content makes it a challenge to bind those bullets to me palm, but not an insurmountable one, and it’s better and faster than going in with tweezers. Nobody was facing the window directly when the bullets started flying, so most of the wounds are in the sides, arms, and legs, and a few glanced off ribs.

They’ll all be fine in a few days, but no one’s worried about that. We have to get dressed and look presentable before we bring the kids up out of the basement. And it falls to me and Ty to tell Meg and Tuya—through a translator—that Nergüi got killed. It’s really on me, but Ty feels some responsibility too. The pack, he says, should be represented and reassure them that they are still welcome and will be taken care of.

I expect I’ll lose Tuya as an apprentice; even if she wants to continue, I’m not sure that’s something Meg would want. People understandably want to avoid pain, and I think this house—especially the basement—will always be a source of pain for them. They might decide to forgo the company of wolves and Druids from now on, and I would not blame them. And Greta, when she comes back, might not be too fond of Druids either. I’ve failed them all so miserably, I’m not sure I want to keep me own company anymore.

CHAPTER 21

I’m not even a quarter of the tracker that Flidais is, and I didn’t want to ask for her help finding Theophilus again but I saw no other choice. She flatly refused to help, however, for the very good reason that, shortly after helping me earlier, she heard that Fand had escaped her prison and Manannan Mac Lir was most likely responsible.

“Oh,” I said. “That’s not good at all.”

“No. Finding her is my priority now.” It would be Brighid’s priority too, no doubt, and most likely Owen’s, since he had a hand in imprisoning her. If I knew him at all, he was incandescently pissed at himself right now. He couldn’t go around calling other people cock-ups if he made such a huge one himself.

Perhaps Fand’s escape and Manannan’s disappearance would wind up becoming a priority of mine soon enough, but for the moment I needed to end the vampire threat. Three Druids against tens of thousands of vampires was terrible odds, no matter our advantages. I was on my own again and out of options—except for a more personal one. Leif Helgarson had sent me into a death trap in Prague. It wasn’t the first time he’d played me and I doubted it would be the last, because I had a blind spot where he was concerned—or maybe a stubborn resistance to thinking he really cared nothing for me during all those years he was my attorney and friend. The cold, rational thing to do would be to track him down and unbind him, to eliminate his ability to mess up my life anymore, but instead I wanted to track him down and just beat the hell out of him. If there was, in fact, any hell at all to be beaten out.

I was still not clear on the true nature of vampires but had serious doubts that they were the creatures of hell that the Hammers of God and popular culture thought they were. To my knowledge, they were not truly repelled by crosses or holy water. To inflict real damage you had to assault their centers of power, around the heart or head, or else burn them. Actual fire was best, but the sun would do. A nice, old-fashioned smackdown, though? Leif would shrug that off in a day and I’d feel a whole lot better.

But how to find him? He claimed to be in Normandy, which might or might not be true, but even if it was true, that didn’t exactly give me his address. I couldn’t find him via divination, but if he was in Normandy, perhaps I could find who would be his next meal: someone staggering alone at night, drunk on pinot noir. And maybe if I asked Mekera to help—she was far better at divination than I—she could track down Manannan and Fand in the bargain.

I’d left Mekera, the world’s greatest tyromancer and infamous hermit, on Emhain Ablach, the Isle of Apples, just before shifting to Toronto. She’d been the one to help me find that vampire directory, in return for removing her to a safe place where she wouldn’t be bothered. I’d promised to tell Manannan she was there and ask him to take care of her, but I realized that I hadn’t ever gotten around to that and now he was missing. That gave me excuse enough to interrupt her solitude. She might actually need something. Or Manannan might be there.

Shifting to Emhain Ablach meant that Oberon was reminded of his determination to make chicken apple sausage out of the rare apple varieties there and the legendary Vicious Chicken of Bristol. He was trying to pin me down on where to find the best fennel and other spices for The Book of Five Meats as I called out for Mekera. We had to circle halfway around the island before we got a response.

“Hello, Siodhachan,” she said, coming out of the trees. “Back for another cheese?”

“Yep. Did you see me coming in advance?”

“No. Haven’t been able to make a cheese since I got here, so no divination. Haven’t seen this god you told me would be dropping by either.”

“Oh. I was going to ask.”

“What is it you want?”

“I’d like to know where that god is, where a vampire will dine in Normandy tonight, and where to find an escaped goddess.”

“Location, location, location. Three questions, three cheeses. All right. Go shopping for me, and that’ll be payment enough.”

“What do you need?”

“Only everything. I got out of Ethiopia with some vegetable rennet, but I lack dairy here and all my other supplies. I’ll make you a list.”

“All right.”

“I mean as soon as you bring me paper and pen. I’m really starved for resources here, except apples. Unless it’s safe for me to return to my home?”

“Not yet. Just tell me what you need and I’ll remember.”

It was a very long list. “That’s going to be a lot of shoplifting,” I muttered, but she heard me.

“You don’t have any money?” Mekera said. “I find that hard to believe.”

“If you go with me, I’ll pay you back.”