Problems like that are why I like to have lawyers. They do all sorts of useful things for me and keep it secret under the attorney-client privilege. After going for a morning jog with Oberon and tuning the TV to Animal Planet for him, I met one of my attorneys, Hal Hauk, at a Tempe bagel joint called Chompie’s. Hal ordered a bagel with lox (shudder), and I had a blueberry one with cream cheese.
Hal looked very businesslike, his expression professionally bland and his movements conservative and precise. He seemed to be slightly uncomfortable in his navy pin-striped suit, which was ridiculous because it was perfectly tailored. I knew that meant he was nervous. He hadn’t behaved this way since I first moved into Tempe and the Pack hadn’t settled my status yet. It made me curious: Had my status changed somehow with the Pack all of a sudden?
“What’s got you all twitchy, Hal? Fess up.”
Hal’s eyes met mine sharply, and I watched with amusement as his shoulders visibly relaxed, but only with a conscious effort. “I am not the least bit twitchy. Your characterization is scurrilous and unfounded. I haven’t twitched once in the two minutes we’ve been here.”
“I know, and the effort at locking it down is going to give you indigestion. Why don’t you just tell me what’s bothering you so you can get it out of your system and relax?”
Hal regarded me in stony silence for a few seconds, then his fingers began drumming in sequence on the tabletop. He was worked up, all right. But when he spoke, I could barely hear him. “I don’t want to be alpha.”
“You don’t want to be alpha?” I said. “Well, then, your dreams have come true. You’re not. Gunnar is alpha, and you’re doggie number two.”
“But Gunnar is going with you to Asgard.”
I blinked. “He is?”
Hal dipped his chin in the barest of nods. “It was decided last night. Leif talked him into it. I’m to be alpha until he returns. And if he doesn’t … well, then I’m doomed.”
“Bwa-ha-ha, cue the derisive laughter. You can’t be top dog and tell me you’re doomed, Hal. Nobody is going to buy that.”
“I like being Gunnar’s second,” Hal groused. “I don’t want to make those decisions. And there will be plenty to make if he doesn’t come back. Scores more if Leif doesn’t come back.”
“How is Leif, anyway? Is that finger fully grown back?” Leif had lost his finger—and nearly his undead existence—in the fight with die Töchter des dritten Hauses, when they managed to torch his combustible flesh.
“Yeah, it’s fine, and he’s coming to see you tonight, along with Gunnar.”
“Good. What’s the problem with Leif not coming back?”
“We’ll have the bloodiest vamp war in centuries if he’s gone more than a month. They’re already sniffing around.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The vampires. They want his territory.”
“The bloodiest vamp war in history will be fought over Tempe?”
Hal stared at me to gauge whether I was being serious or not. “His territory is a whole lot bigger than Tempe, Atticus. You can’t tell me you didn’t know.”
“Well, yes, I can. Leif and I never talked about his territory, because I’m not interested and he’s not a braggart. I know that Leif must be in singular control of Tempe, because I’ve never seen or smelled another vampire in the city, but I don’t know how he could realistically hold any more.”
Hal snorted and held his face in his hands. He peered at me from between his fingers. “Atticus. Leif controls the entire state of Arizona. All by himself. He’s the baddest of badass vampires. He’s the oldest thing walking around this hemisphere, besides you and the native gods.” He dropped his hands and tilted his head at me like a curious canine. “You honestly didn’t know that?”
“Nope. Why would I care? I’m not a vampire and I don’t want his territory. You don’t want the whole state for your pack either, am I right?”
“Well, no, but you have to appreciate what’s going to happen here.”
“No, I don’t. I’m moving.”
“Wherever you move it’s going to be felt. This kind of power vacuum is going to bring every wannabe vamp lord down on this state, all wanting to carve out a piece of it for themselves. And they’re going to leave other power vacuums behind them when they go. If Leif doesn’t come back, the ripples are going to be felt all over the country, I can guarantee it, and in quite a few other countries besides.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”
“Make damn sure both Gunnar and Leif come back. That way I don’t have to be alpha and I don’t have to worry about fighting off a bunch of bloodsuckers.”
“I can’t believe Leif is so feared. He’s a perfectly reasonable guy.”
“To you and me, yes, he is. He works very well with us. But he’s absolute hell on other vampires, from what I understand. They’re scared of him, and with good reason. You know, he shouldn’t have survived getting burned like that.”
I crinkled my brows. “No? Why not?”
“That wasn’t a normal fire where you could just stop, drop, and roll. That was hellfire, Atticus. It’s almost impossible to put out. It would have destroyed any other vampire I’ve ever heard of.”
Silence fell as I considered this. A vampire war would indeed be inconvenient for everyone, but I didn’t see how I could prevent it on top of everything else I had to do. I was also able to conclude to my satisfaction that it wasn’t really my problem anyway.
Hal said into the silence, “Let’s proceed to business, shall we?”
“Yeah, let’s.” Hal put his briefcase up on the table and took out a legal pad. I told him what I needed: approximately three hundred semi-rare books—nothing remarkable, just old—delivered by FedEx tomorrow morning. I also needed the firm to draw up paperwork to handle the sale of the store to Rebecca Dane after three months for a buck seventy-two.
“Why the seventy-two cents?” Hal wondered aloud.
“Because everyone who looks at the deal will ask the same question. I want Detective Geffert to think it’s a significant clue. I hope he builds a conspiracy theory around it. But it’s purely there to mess with his mind and waste his time.”
Hal shrugged and wrote it down. I also arranged for the firm to provide three months’ pay to Rebecca and any additional employees she should choose to hire on her own. “I’ll let her know that she is to manage the place and to let anyone who inquires know that I have gone on an extended vacation to the Antipodes.” Hal raised his eyebrows but made no comment.
I’d brought a parcel to the restaurant, and it rested next to me on the vinyl material of the booth seat. Now I hefted it onto the table and untied the string around it before removing the top. A truly rare book lay inside in a nest of tissue paper. The green cloth cover with gilt lettering and blind-embossed leaves finally got a reaction from Hal.
“Is that … a first edition?” he asked.
“Uh-huh. Extremely rare copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. It should fetch at least a hundred fifty grand, probably much more. This goes to Rebecca Dane once she’s bought the store—not before.” I replaced the box lid, and Hal stared at the book cover until it disappeared from view.
“All right.” He shook his head to clear it and get back to business. “What else?”
“I’ll need new IDs for myself and my apprentice. Pick some random Irish names.”
“All right, email me some pictures. Where’s she going to be while you’re gone?”
“She’ll stick around for a couple days, then move to a secure undisclosed location.” Hal looked up at my choice of words. “No, the vice president won’t be there.”
“All right. Is that all?”
“Almost. Granuaile is to contact you after three months if she doesn’t hear from me by then. You’re to assume I’m dead if she contacts you in that case.” I really hoped this wouldn’t be necessary, but it was best to plan for the worst. “I’ll need Oberon to be looked after, preferably by Granuaile,
and I need to set up a trust for her now.”
We worked out the details of that and then Hal said, “I have some news to share with you. You recall that we set an investigator on the trail of this group calling themselves the Hammers of God?”
“Yes.”
“The investigator’s missing. Presumed dead.”
“Hmm. Are we also presuming that the rabbi is returning with reinforcements?” The Rabbi Yosef Bialik had been convinced to leave town without harm, but I’d always assumed he’d be back.
“Yes. Everyone in the Pack will shortly be wearing a thin body armor underneath their clothes. Should be good enough to stop a thrown silver knife.”
“They enchant the handles too, so I’d suggest gloves. The idea is to hit you again when you try to pull the knife out.”
Hal shrugged. “Magic doesn’t scare me. Only silver.”
I wondered what it would be like to be scared of only one thing.
After breakfast with Hal, I went to the shop and met Rebecca Dane there. I made her day by telling her she was getting a promotion and a raise, then spent the morning reviewing how to run the shop all by herself. She wouldn’t be able to make some of the more complicated teas that required the use of binding, but all the straight herbal stuff was well within her compass, including Mobili-Tea, my best seller for arthritic customers. “You can hire some help if you like. I’m going away for a while, and so is Granuaile. We are going on an archaeological dig in the Antipodes.”
“Oh,” she said, a faint wrinkle of concern appearing between her eyes. “For how long?”
“It might be months.” It would certainly be months. Years. I prepared her for it as best as I could, explaining that the law firm of Magnusson and Hauk would be paying her and keeping in touch. She was excited and flushed with the responsibility. She was fresh and affable, and my regulars liked her. She radiated innocence and served people without a trace of guile or condescension. I hoped that would be enough to save her when people came looking for me and realized that she knew nothing.
My lunch date was Malina Sokolowski, the leader of the Sisters of the Three Auroras. We met in Four Peaks Brewery on 8th Street. She was wearing the same red wool coat she’d worn the first time we met almost two months ago. Her blond hair lay upon her shoulders like a rich nude woman on a divan, sleek and shiny and unapologetically decadent. I felt the eyes of envious men boring into my back as she favored me with a brilliant smile of welcome and a pleased purring of my name.
It was strange to think that I had made peace with a coven of witches, but I had to admit that Malina’s crew was different. Though they still took advantage of people and were always, always plotting to exert some sort of control over others, they at least had pretensions of being good citizens otherwise. We had fought side by side and recognized that there was a patch of common ground between us, a sliver of ellipsoid in a Venn diagram of a witch and a Druid where we could meet—meet and pretend that the vast area of the spheres behind us was undiscovered country rather than our comfort zone.
We spoke of small things at first. She inquired after Granuaile and Oberon; I inquired after her coven sisters. Our draughts came: I had a Kilt Lifter and she was drinking the Sunbru Kölsch. We toasted healthy alliances and sighed appreciatively as we set our glasses down.
“Beer like that almost makes me forget the incredible danger we’re in,” Malina said.
“I beg your pardon? I mean, yeah, the beer’s good, but what danger?”
“We’ve been continuing our divination rituals because we’re unconvinced that we’ve seen the last of the Hammers of God. From what we can tell, the rabbi is definitely coming back with more Kabbalists just like him. But that’s not all,” Malina said. “Something else is on the horizon. Several somethings. I think one of them is Bacchus. He might be coming here to look for you.”
This wasn’t a surprise, between what I’d done to his Bacchants in Scottsdale and the blame I’d laid at his door while I was in Asgard. “How soon?”
“Tomorrow at the earliest, if I’m reading things right.”
That was a surprise. “Gods Below,” I cursed, “I don’t have time to deal with that.”
“Time?” Malina spluttered. “What about the strength? You can’t take on one of the Olympians.”
“I seem to remember you doubting I could take on Aenghus Óg,” I teased her. “Have I not earned at least a fighting chance against Bacchus? But that’s assuming I’d want to fight him, and I don’t. What else did you see?”
“Many vampires.” If I needed any confirmation that Hal was right about the vampire war, this was it. “How goes the recovery of Mr. Helgarson?”
“Absolutely peachy as far as I know. I’m supposed to see him tonight. But, look, between your coven and me, he’s leaving tomorrow.”
Malina’s lips tightened. “Leaving for good?”
I shrugged. “That’s my assumption. This place will be crawling with would-be replacements before long.”
Malina grimaced and muttered something in Polish that I guessed was a curse.
“By the way, I’m leaving too.”
Her eyes widened and the Polish cursing became more vehement.
“Plus Gunnar Magnusson.”
She didn’t have words to express her shock at that. Why would an alpha ever leave his pack? “What is going on?” she breathed.
“I can’t tell you. But what I respectfully suggest to you, as an ally, is to get yourself out of here. The Hammers of God are coming for you every bit as much as they’re coming for me. And you don’t want to be around when the vamp war begins. Whoever comes out on top is probably not going to ignore your coven like Leif did.”
“No, that’s for certain,” Malina said, and took a long pull on her beer for courage. “I think your advice is good and we should pursue it, but I don’t know where to go. We were counting on this area remaining stable.”
“The era of stability is already gone. This city is about to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Deep Shit. Best to cut and run while you still can.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Running?”
“I suppose I’m running from one fight to take part in another. Characterize it however you wish. Look, just pack all your crap into a U-Haul tonight and get out of the state. Stash everything in a storage facility and then take your time finding someplace else to settle down.”
“You’ve done this sort of thing before, I take it.”
“Absolutely. Works great. But if you don’t like that idea, how about rebuilding your coven? Go back to Poland, pick up some new recruits, take the long view here instead of focusing on short-term losses. That’s how you survive.”
“That … sounds like a very good idea. I don’t know if we can get out of here quickly enough, though. We have significant assets tied up here.”
“Hand them over to Magnusson and Hauk. Let them liquidate everything and put the proceeds in an offshore account for you. They can also get you new IDs if you need them, and I’d suggest it since the Hammers of God have probably done their homework.”
“You advise me well.”
“Aw, shucks.”
Malina beamed at me for a sunlit time, and then her smile faded as she processed that this leave-taking would probably be our last for a long while. “Will our paths ever cross again?” she asked.
“Perhaps, but not for at least a decade. I’m going to fall off the map if I survive what’s coming.”
“But you won’t share with me what’s coming.”
“No. Safer if you don’t know. Safest to just get out of this place and begin again.”
She nodded her understanding and said, “Well, our short acquaintance has been most instructive. On the one hand you’re responsible for wiping out half my coven, and on the other you’re largely responsible for preserving the lives of those who remain. You were forced into defending yourself in the first case, but you had no obligation to help us in the second. I must conclude that Druids are dangerous b
ut fairly amenable acquaintances, though my sample size is admittedly very small.” She smiled. “Whatever you’re about to undertake, I hope you’ll survive and manage to find us in the future. If we know you’re coming, Berta will bake you a cake.”
“Thank you. Is there anyplace in particular I should look for you? I’d like to learn how to speak with a proper Polish accent.”
She slung a smirk at me and said, “It’s safer if you don’t know.”
Chapter 8
Since this was to be the last night I spent in Arizona, I was hoping that I’d be able to get a full night’s rest. It’s funny how vampires don’t respect that, since they always expect you to let them sleep all day.
After spending the afternoon reviewing tea recipes with Rebecca Dane one last time and hooking her up with herb vendors for resupply, I spent an hour at my kitchen table drawing a map of Asgard based on my observations and Ratatosk’s intelligence. Then I went for a run with Oberon in the early twilight of late autumn and returned after sundown to a well-dressed vampire waiting on my front porch. He had an impeccably tailored werewolf sitting next to him.
Normally the two don’t mix, but Leif Helgarson and Gunnar Magnusson had several common bonds: They were both lawyers, they were both originally from Iceland, and they both hated Thor. They got along just fine, but I didn’t think they were bosom buddies. They’d driven to my house separately—probably because each was too dominant to let anyone else drive. Leif’s black Jaguar XK convertible sat in front of Gunnar’s silver BMW Z4 convertible. Most of the Tempe Pack drove those, but I’d never asked them why they chose such tiny cars.
Oberon said as we stopped jogging in front of my lawn. In the dim glow of the streetlights, Leif and Gunnar rose to meet us, shoving their hands in their pockets to reveal their competing vests—or waistcoats, as they probably thought of them. Leif’s was a Victorian burgundy number with matte black satin lining and eight black buttons in two columns of four. He’d gone all the way and had a gold chain wrapped around them leading to a pocket watch; he was even wearing one of those old-fashioned black string ties. Except for the straight pale corn-silk hair and the lack of mustache, he looked like he’d stepped out of the pages of a steampunk novel—and what’s more, he didn’t look the least bit scorched from his encounter with hellfire.