“If he’s truly trying to break the vampires, then that’s where he’ll be. He might have done something there already, and that’s why we got hit.”
“All right, Rome it is. Worth a look. Any place specific in Rome?”
“Wherever the rich people are living now. Prestige, wealth, power—the old vampires like to let everyone know they have it.”
“Right. I’ll get a couple things together and go.” I think about kissing her goodbye, but I’m not sure she would welcome it. I give her a tight nod instead and turn back to the house. After a few steps I hear her move, and it’s fast. I don’t get to turn around before her arms are around me, hugging me from behind. I stay still and she rests her head between me shoulder blades.
“Thank you, Owen,” she says.
“No need for thanks,” I reply. “I want the new Grove protected every bit as much as you want to protect the pack. And the solution is the same: Keep Siodhachan the feck away from here.”
She doesn’t respond to this except to squeeze a little harder.
“This could be fast, but it could also be days or weeks before I catch up with him. And I’m pretty sure I’ll have to help him with the vampires if he has an endgame. So explain to the kids and the parents, will ye, why I’m gone and that I’ll be back when it’s finished. I don’t want this to happen again.”
“No. We definitely do not want that.” She lets go, only to spin me around to face her and bring her hand up to the side of me face. Those eyes hold mine through the veil. “Be ruthless and thorough and don’t worry about us. We’ll be here.”
“Good.” I nod, she lets me go, and I return to the house. Greta stays in the trees. I grab me knuckles and Fragarach from the dining room table, and I also pick up those stakes that Luchta made for us—one for me and one for Granuaile, in case I find her with Siodhachan.
I don’t know how the pack stands in regards to her, and I don’t want to bring it up until it’s necessary. Better to let her decide if she wants to have a separate status from Siodhachan or throw in her lot with him.
I know what I want: Greta and Owen’s Grove, allowed to live in peace. There’s harmony there to be found, and I’ll fight for it, and damn the paradox of fighting for peace.
CHAPTER 24
It feels a bit like parachuting behind enemy lines, shifting into Rome. Here, Theophilus and his old nest of vampires manipulated Julius Caesar and the others that followed him into attacking the continental Druids, and their campaigns, combined with the spread of Christianity, effectively wiped us out. He thought he’d won. I suppose he did: When you wait two thousand years before launching a counterattack, you cannot truly say you’re fighting the same war.
My visits to Rome throughout the centuries had always been brief affairs for art appreciation, just day trips, when the vampires would be asleep. But I made sure that I always kept the tether updated. It’s located on the northern edge of Rome, in Villa Borghese, a large estate that was home to an old family with close ties to several popes. Today it’s partially public land, with a zoo and expansive parks. It will be a reliable gateway to Rome for a long time to come, and it’s conveniently located close to the Piazza di Spagna, where Leif suggested to me that I might find Theophilus.
“He had a flat right on the piazza, and so did several others of the leadership. Bought them for a song centuries ago, bequeathed them to their new identities once a generation, as you have no doubt done with your own assets, and now they are worth millions of euros each because the location has become so desirable.”
“It wasn’t always so?” I asked.
“No. When Keats and Shelley lived there, it was mocked as the ‘English Ghetto’—so cheap that poor foreign poets could afford a room. I know for a fact that your Fae assassins dispatched a couple of the vampire leadership there. Theophilus will want to reclaim those flats for symbolic reasons.”
“You mean he’ll buy them?”
“Eventually. He and his entourage will charm their way in for the short term while they work on making everything legal. If they want a flat and find it occupied, they can kill the owner and make it available.”
“He has the money to pay for these?”
“Oh, most certainly. Remember, in addition to his own considerable wealth, thanks to Werner Drasche he has all your money to play with now. He’ll spend it quickly just to spite you.”
When I arrived at the Piazza di Spagna—so named for its proximity to the Spanish embassy, not because the Spanish had anything to do with building or designing the plaza—it was not so crowded as one finds during the high tourist season. The unusually cold weather encouraged tourists to spend their time indoors at museums or churches. I walked with Oberon to the boat-shaped fountain designed by Bernini at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, enjoyed the beauty of it for a while, and thought seriously about going into Babington’s Tea Rooms on the left side of the steps for some tea that would be ridiculously overpriced but would at least have the benefit of being hot. Bereft of euros, though, I’d have to wait.
First I wanted to test Leif’s assertion that Theophilus and company had taken up residence in the flats ringing the piazza. The giveaway would be armed thralls standing guard outside the residences with firearms in shoulder holsters and earpieces in their ears. But I didn’t want to announce my presence any earlier than necessary. I began with a casual scan of the buildings in the magical spectrum to see if anything jumped out at me. I expected nothing, but something most definitely jumped up and down for my attention.
Three buildings opposite Babington’s were sheathed in wards of some kind. Those weren’t something a vampire could do, so they must have been put in place by a paid magical contractor, and that contractor might well remain nearby.
They were all five or six stories high, with the bottom two floors devoted to high-end retail and the upper stories divided into flats. From left to right, they housed shopfronts for Pucci, Casadei, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Dolce & Gabbana, though a large doorway allowed access to interior stairwells and elevators. To get to them I’d have to cross the threshold of those wards, and I wasn’t ready to do that. Above the fashion shops, rows of windows checkered the façade, most of them shuttered closed but a few thrown open to let in the weak winter sun. The open windows provided a big clue to where the vampires were not. Looking up, I could see the green umbrellas of boxed trees and hints of rooftop gardens—lofty aeries for the obscenely rich to gaze down upon the hoi polloi.
Keeping my magical sight active, I urged Oberon to take a circuit of the block with me. I wanted to know if the wards protected all sides of the buildings. While the structures all shared walls, with no alleys between them, they were easily identifiable by the paint jobs. The Pucci building was a sort of sun-washed mauve, Casadei occupied a terra-cotta building, and the third and largest was a yellow cream color. And a circuit of the block down narrow cobbled streets confirmed that they were, in fact, warded on all sides. I was careful not to break the boundary of the wards or let Oberon stray too close. They were of unfamiliar origin and I wasn’t sure what they would do. I shouldn’t let my eagerness to slay Theophilus lead me into a foolish mistake.
Around the back side of the buildings, in a narrow street filled with glove shops, handbag hawkers, and jewelry stores, a pair of pickpockets made the foolish mistake of trying to work me. I didn’t have a wallet, for one thing. They looked like brother and sister. The girl made appreciative noises over Oberon and tried to occupy my attention by leaning over him and letting her loose-fitting blouse fall away. It was impossible that she was unconscious of this—for one thing it was too cold for such clothing, so she was obviously trying to distract me. Meanwhile, her partner or brother kept moving past me and then circled back around. When I felt his fingers dip into my back pocket, I dropped and swept his legs. He landed on the cobbled stones, hard, and then I spun and pinned him, fishing a few bills out of his pocket. The girl shouted at me and then tried to discourage me by calling for help. I let the bo
y up and grinned at them both.
“You targeted the wrong man,” I said in Italian. “Run along now. I know you don’t truly want the police to look into this.” Without being prompted, Oberon laid back his ears and growled at them. They took off but cursed me soundly. I thanked them for the lunch money.
The few passersby who had seen the altercation had no trouble with me. Apparently, pickpockets were common in the area, and they gave me a couple of “Bravos!”
We completed the circuit of the block, returned to the piazza, and I slipped into Babington’s for some picnic food to go—they sold such things even in winter, because the days were usually much milder than this.
We sat on the Spanish Steps, a good distance above the tourists collected around Bernini’s fountain, and Oberon wagged his tail at a steady stream of people who wanted to pet him as they passed.
That’s indisputable, buddy.
He got to his feet and stared off toward the north end of the plaza. I followed his gaze and saw a familiar red head and a staff. I grinned, stood, and called to get her attention. She waved back, and the hounds ran to meet each other in the middle.
Don’t worry, we’ll get some for her.
“Hey. Nice jacket,” Granuaile said, smiling at me as she climbed the steps, but then she halted, cocked her head, and the smile disappeared. Her arm raised and she pointed, waggling her finger around. “Whoa, what the hell? What happened to your little Mini Cooper beard?”
My hand drifted up to my chin. “Oh! I had to be Nigel in Toronto. Don’t worry, I’ll grow it back.”
“You actually went to Toronto? Sounds like a story. I expect we have plenty to catch up on.” She smiled once more and came up the steps, arms wide. “C’mere.”
Gods, it was good to see her. It was a pretty joyful reunion, having her in my arms again. I hadn’t seen her since Hal Hauk gave me the news about Kodiak Black’s death, and we did indeed have plenty of catching up to do. I watched the hounds on the steps, while she visited Babington’s to pick up some munchies for herself and Orlaith. Orlaith had been looking forward to charcuterie once she got to Rome, but since Oberon was there to play with and I promised she’d get the good stuff eventually, she wasn’t too upset about settling for a picnic selection of salami and cheese.
Granuaile had been busy while we were apart. Fjalar had removed— or rather burned away—Loki’s mark, and then she secured a divination cloak from the Sisters of the Three Auroras by fetching Świętowit’s horse from under the guard of Weles.
“I’ll be spending more time with the sisters,” she said. “I’m going to learn Polish for my new headspace and memorize Szymborska’s poetry.”
That was surprising. “Wow. I’m envious, because I never learned Polish, but if you’re wanting another headspace for plane-shifting…”
“Why not memorize something in Latin or Russian?” Granuaile finished.
“Yeah.”
“Because I want beautiful stuff in my head. If I put the Russian lit I’ve read so far into permanent memory, I think it would sour my sunny disposition.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But at risk of souring it now, I should tell you that Fjalar’s dead.”
“What? How did that happen?”
“Brighid killed him. He was leading an army against the dark elves and he wouldn’t talk to us. Odin had told him to march on Svartálfheim and so he did, and Brighid made him an example.”
“Damn. So that was what they were talking about. They hinted that they might be going to Svartálfheim while I was in Asgard.”
“It’s all under a happy treaty now. But I think that Odin—and maybe even Brighid, the more that I think about it—engineered the whole situation to make the dark elves come to the table. It was cold-blooded and Machiavellian but in retrospect probably necessary. They weren’t very willing to talk at first. The Morrigan said we needed them on our side, and now they are. The bonus is that the dark elves promised never to take a contract out on us again.”
“Hey, that’s good news!”
“Especially since Fand escaped. Did you know about that?”
“No! When was this?”
“A few days ago. But hopefully that will be someone else’s problem. We’re both shielded from her divination now. And I know where she is. I’m going to tell Brighid and let her take care of it. I have enough on my plate as it is.”
I told her about my run-ins with Werner Drasche and how my attempt on Theophilus in Berlin was a near miss. Also that Diana was free of her prison but still supremely pissed at us.
“She made an oath to leave us alone and broke it immediately. Jupiter said he’d keep her from pursuing us from now on, but we’ll see.”
“So what’s on the agenda here?” Granuaile asked. “Did I catch you on a break, or have you even started any shit yet?”
“I was casing the joint,” I explained, then pointed to the warded buildings. “Look at those buildings in the magical spectrum. They have some strange wards on them.”
She did and then turned to me. “Yeah. Malina said there was something odd going on at the piazza. Said those wards are as much traps as they are for protection.”
“Ah, I was wondering how you found me here.”
“Yeah, I just asked where the weird was happening in the world, and she pointed me here. And look! You’re right next to it!”
“Very clever. Did she say anything else about those wards?”
“Yes. She said they looked kind of Rosicrucian but different somehow.”
“Rosicrucian? Shit.”
“What? Why is there shit?”
Oberon said, panic in his voice.
Orlaith chimed in. Hounds never want to be blamed when shit happens.
We reassured them that we were speaking figuratively and did not suspect for an instant that they were to blame, and once they went back to nipping each other’s ears and getting petted by passersby, I explained in a low voice to Granuaile why I was worried.
“Rosicrucians have a long and occasionally dark history—are you already familiar with them?”
“I’ve heard the term before but don’t know very much about them.”
“They’re a secret society that began in the early fifteenth century. They influenced Freemasonry and plenty of other societies that pledged themselves on their face to the betterment of society but kept their methods for achieving that behind closed doors. Some of them—I should say many of them—were genuinely trying to make things better, and I think that they did in some cases. They had a philosophy and despised the corruption of the Catholic Church, and they thought their mucking about with the mysteries of the universe was entirely honorable. We still have some Rosicrucian orders scattered about today, or other secret societies that claim no formal ties but were clearly influenced by them. The thing is, some of these groups—or, rather, offshoots of them—were cauldrons of evil, you know? Dudes made up their own secret societies and wore the term Rosicrucian to give them respectability, but underneath that lurked horrors, like a syphilitic dick hidden under a blanket. They would say they were dedicated to the sciences, but that really meant that they were pursuing alchemy and trying to learn dark secrets. You remember that Werner Drasche’s powers were given to him by an alchemist and that he later killed his creator, so to speak? Well, I got a good look at his tattoos back in Toronto. On the very top of his pate, in amongst the alchemical symbols, was a Rose Cross.”
“Oh. So some kind of Rosicrucian bad seed created the arcane lifeleech.”
“Yes. And it’s a safe bet that these Rosicrucian wards are going to be nasty. In fact, given that they most likely exist to protect Theophilus and w
e know of his connection to Werner Drasche, we can practically guarantee it. Let me throw another name at you: Ever heard of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn?”
“Golden Dawn—yeah. Wasn’t that the group with Bram Stoker, William Butler Yeats, and Aleister Crowley?”
“Yes. They were influenced by Rosicrucian mysteries as well. Very much into that, as well as into Hermetic Qabalism.”
“Hermetic Qabalah as opposed to Jewish Kabbalah?”
“Yes. A different system. More syncretic with other traditions. But their ceremonies still have the Tree of Life as their basis, so if you’re going to do something major—like ward three buildings—you probably need more than one person working on it.”
“Meaning there might be a bunch of Rosicrucians nearby.”
“Exactly. Let’s take a closer look at those wards.”
We descended the steps and crossed the piazza to examine the wards, hounds trailing behind us. In the magical spectrum we saw points of light in what appeared to be a random distribution, but after our recent conversation I was able to spy a pattern.
“Look here, Granuaile,” I said, pointing near the boundary of the ward but being careful not to touch it. I traced my finger in a lightning pattern. “See this? Ten points on the Tree of Life. And interlocking with it on all sides are more trees. It’s a Qabalistic ward. The Hermetic kind, I’m guessing.”
“Yes, I see. But what does it do?”
“That I do not know. We can see people going in and out of the stores here without a problem. I’m betting that it’s a ward specifically to mess with Druids. And I’m nervous about it because I remember when the Hammers of God confronted me in Tempe and essentially cut off my ability to bind anything. So I’m not anxious to stick my finger into this particular socket.”
“Well, you told me that you are on better terms with the Hammers of God now after Toronto. Why not give them a call and see if they can take this down? I mean, we don’t absolutely have to go after the vampires today, right? We can wait for a bit of help?”