“Whatever noise I made was masked well. The father was the only one left standing, but he was screaming the names of his wife and children, then crouching over them and trying to revive them as I headed for cover.”
“His Kabbalistic wards shielded him.” Berta narrowed her eyes and nodded knowingly.
“Correct. But I did not know this at the time. I never heard him utter a spell, I’d never bothered to check his aura closely, and so while I suspected he must be special somehow—why else would we be singled out for such attention?—he could have just as easily been politically important, rather than magically. In any event, he was too carried away with his grief to respond to the attack. I do not know why his family had no protection—perhaps his abilities were a secret even from them; perhaps they would not have approved. I simply do not know.
“The question of his power, however, was quickly rendered moot. Six figures leached out of the surrounding forest, darker shapes hovering in the darkness, and they poured bullets into him out of handguns fitted with silencers. He fell dead on top of his wife, and when the figures ran out of bullets, they reloaded and shot his still corpse again and again, many times in the head and in the chest, so that the body was so unsuitable, he could not possibly recover by any kind of sorcery.
“They even stood and watched the corpse for a while, to make sure no healing began, and all that time I remained silent and unmoving, perhaps nine or ten meters away, next to a tree. There was nothing I could do for any of the family at that point. I had no defense against bullets besides the ability to heal, and these figures had already demonstrated what they would do if they suspected I could; and, beyond that, I was armed with nothing but my sword. I also had no idea who or what the assassins were, besides witches of some kind. Given the setting, I assumed they were some secret squad of Himmler’s who’d been sent after this particular man.
“Eventually one of them noticed I wasn’t there. ‘Gab es nicht sechs von ihnen? Ich zähle nur fünf Körper,’ she said.”
“Scheisse!” Berta cursed in German. “What did they do then?”
“Wait a moment, Atticus,” Hal interjected. “I don’t speak German. What was that you just said?”
“Weren’t there six of them? I count only five bodies.”
“Oh, shit,” Hal said, and grabbed a bowl of popcorn out of Bogumila’s lap. Her visible eye widened comically, but otherwise she made no protest. “What happened next?” he asked, throwing a handful in his mouth.
“They chose one of the witches to stay behind and watch the dead Kabbalist for miraculous healing, while the other five spread out looking for me. They couldn’t see through my camouflage, though, and they quickly passed my position and melted into the woods.”
“They had no infrared abilities or a half-decent sense of smell?” Hal asked.
Klaudia shook her head and answered him. “As Berta said earlier, they are practically useless in the field without a demon riding along. Had there been one with them, they would have spotted him easily. They probably had some sort of aid for night vision but nothing to penetrate the kind of cloak he had on.”
Camouflage isn’t a cloaking spell—it’s camouflage—but I didn’t bother to correct her as I continued. “That left me alone with a single witch and an opportunity to take a little vengeance for the family before I made my escape. The man’s suit jacket was made of natural fibers, so I formed a bond between his left sleeve and his side, which caused his arm to move abruptly down. As you may imagine, this movement of a supposedly über-dead corpse startled the witch excessively, and she shrieked and began emptying yet another clip into the poor man. Using her noise as cover, I drew my sword, dashed forward ten meters, and struck off her head.”
This elicited a round of cheers from the Polish witches, and there was a general toast and more schnapps poured before I could continue.
“She fell next to the family, and I pelted down the mountain toward Pau as the other witches returned to investigate the shrieking. I was far ahead of them by the time they discovered the body and figured out what must have happened. They gave some pursuit, but they never came close. I stopped using the Somport Pass for the duration of the war, and I never saw them again or figured out why they attacked us, until just now when you gave me the information I lacked.”
“So what happened when they attacked you today?” Kazimiera asked. “Did you kill another one?” Her tone was hopeful.
“No, the setting where we met was not appropriate,” I replied, disappointing the entire coven. “But I did acquire a little something,” I added, as I reached into my pocket and withdrew the blond witch’s lock of hair, “that should enable us to find them a bit more easily.”
“That’s theirs?” Malina asked incredulously, eyes riveted on the hair held between my thumb and forefinger.
“It’s from only one of them, but, yes,” I said. “Can you figure out where they’ve been staying with this?”
The witches all nodded together and said, “Definitely.”
Chapter 22
“Have you changed your mind about Thor?” Leif asked.
“Yes, yes, yes!” I said as fast as I could, but he hung up on me anyway.
That turned out to be a mistake, though: He’d been halfway to flipping his phone closed on what he assumed would be my negative answer, when he heard my thin, tinny affirmative as it snapped shut. He called me back immediately.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but did you say that you have changed your mind?”
“Yes, I did say that,” I confirmed, “but only if you’re super-duper sweet to me.”
“What must I do in return for your aid?” he asked warily.
“Help me kill some witches in Gilbert.”
“That is all?”
“Well, there’s only two of us and about twenty of them.”
“That is all?”
“They’re pretty mean and they might be dressed like the Go-Go’s. I’m talking Aqua Net and those shirts that hang off one shoulder and everything.”
“It sounds atrocious, Atticus, simply heinous to the nth degree, but I have no idea to what you are alluding.”
“Then how about this? We might literally catch some hell, because they’re baking demon babies in their wombs. Maybe some other surprises, who knows.”
“Fine, fine. When do we do this?”
“Tonight. Right now. Call up your ghoul friends; there will be plenty to eat when we’re finished.”
“And when do we kill Thor?”
“I’m going on a scouting mission to Asgard before the New Year,” I said, leaving out the part where I’d be stealing one of Idunn’s golden apples for Laksha. “After I return—and that should be before the New Year as well—we plan our raid and put our affairs in order. You get your A-team together, whatever badasses you have in your network, and I will get the lot of you into Asgard.”
“Will you give me your oath on this?” Leif asked.
“Dude, I’ll even pinky-swear.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ll give you my oath. Just come pick me up in your batmobile.”
Leif hissed his displeasure into the phone. “I have never turned into a bat, no vampire ever has, and that particular myth of Mr. Stoker’s is growing tiresome.”
“If we live through this, Leif, I swear I’m going to make you read some damn comic books.”
Chapter 23
Leif showed up at my house wearing a steel breastplate and a broad grin. “I have not lived this long to let a few witches stake me tonight,” he said, leaning casually against his Jaguar. He was wearing one of those old-fashioned white linen shirts with enormous poufy sleeves underneath his breastplate. He didn’t go full Renaissance, however, and complement this with breeches and a codpiece. Instead, he wore a black pair of Levis and some Doc Martens with a surplus of buckles.
“You have one other vulnerability, I think,” I said. “And we need to address it.”
His grin disappeared. “They have sunlight in a bottle or something?”
“No, but they will probably have some hellfire available. Eight of them are carrying demon spawn. You’re rather flammable, am I right?”
“Well, yes, now that you mention it.”
“I have a fix for that, strictly a loan item for tonight only.”
“All right.” I gave him Oberon’s talisman and activated it to protect him. He regarded me doubtfully and flicked the amulet hanging from his neck. “This hunk of metal will keep me from turning into ashes?”
“You’ll feel the heat, but it shouldn’t burn you.”
He raised his brows and rolled his eyes briefly by way of a facial shrug and said, “Fine. Are we ready to go?”
“Couple more things we have to do first,” I said, and wagged my head significantly at the house across the street. “You remember my inquisitive neighbor?”
“Of course.”
“He let it slip the other day that he has a rocket-propelled grenade in his garage. I’d like to see if he was telling the truth and, if so, liberate it for the greater good of the East Valley.”
Leif’s head didn’t move, but his nostrils flared. “He is in the house right now.”
“Oh, aye, and he’s watching us through his blinds.”
“What do you propose we do?”
“You charm his ass and get him to open the garage for me. I’ll brazenly walk in there and take what we need, then you tell him to forget it.”
“If he has military weaponry in there, we should report him to the ATF.”
I sighed in exasperation and pinched the bridge of my nose. Who would have thought a bloodsucking lawyer would actually care about the law? “Okay, but only after we take some to play with.”
Mollified, Leif said, “He is looking at us now? Through his window?”
I slid my eyes sideways to confirm that the blinds were still parted. “Yes.”
Without warning, Leif whipped his head around and stared across the street at the blinds. They fell closed after a couple of moments.
“Got him,” Leif said. “Proceed. The garage should open in a few seconds.”
We strode across the street, and the heavy door began to rumble open ponderously. It occurred to me that I’d never seen it open at all; Mr. Semerdjian drove a silver Honda CR-V and always parked it in his driveway.
The rocket-propelled grenade—one of several—was there. And so were a crate of standard fragmentation grenades, several crates of automatic weapons, and handheld surface-to-air missiles. There were also a dozen flak jackets hanging on the wall.
“Wow,” I said. “It’s just like my garage, except with extra overkill.”
“Clearly these weapons are not for personal defense,” Leif said at the threshold. Mr. Semerdjian was under his control, but he hadn’t invited Leif into his home of his own free will yet. The man was standing, somewhat slack-jawed, by the door that led into his house. “Mr. Semerdjian,” Leif addressed him, “please explain why you have all this weaponry here.”
“It’s for the coyotes,” he replied.
I looked up sharply. “What did he say? What coyotes?”
Leif repeated my question, since Semerdjian wouldn’t answer anyone but him.
“Coyotes. The men who smuggle people across the Mexican border.”
“Oh, those coyotes,” I said. “Okay.”
“I supply two different gangs of them,” Semerdjian continued. “They always need something extra to get away from the border patrol these days.”
Leif pumped him for more information about his suppliers and customers, while I loaded up. I took a flak jacket, remembering that die Töchter des dritten Hauses liked to use handguns, then I snagged two RPGs and stuffed five frags into my pockets. I laid the RPGs in the trunk of Leif’s Jaguar and then called across to him that I was just about ready to roll.
Granuaile and Oberon were inside the house, entertaining three werewolves with the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring. One of them was Dr. Snorri Jodursson, and I called to him to follow me into the backyard for a minute. He inquired after my health and thanked me for paying his huge bill so promptly, then vaulted me up into the branches of my neighbor’s palo verde tree, where I unbound Fragarach and Moralltach but kept them camouflaged. That was the full extent of the aid I could expect from the Tempe Pack, under Magnusson’s orders.
After depositing the weapons in the trunk of Leif’s Jaguar, I was truly ready to pick a fight—or, rather, to finish one that die Töchter des dritten Hauses had picked with me.
“Come on, Leif,” I called across the street. “Wrap it up and drop a dime on him later. Let’s go pick up the nice witches now so we can go kill the naughty witches.”
Chapter 24
The Sisters of the Three Auroras came down from their tower quickly and met us in the underground parking garage. They walked briskly in their pointy boots toward a line of slinky two-seat sports cars. Malina and Klaudia stepped lively to an Audi TT Roadster; Bogumila and Roksana made for a Mercedes SLR McLaren; and Kazimiera and Berta, something of a mismatched pair, looked as if they were going to squeeze themselves improbably into a Pontiac Solstice. Unlike the German hexen, they knew what decade it was and how to properly dress in black. Bogumila had actually pulled her hair back into a practical ponytail, and I was mildly disappointed that the previously hidden side of her face was perfectly pleasant, no hideous scarring or missing chunks of flesh or gaping ocular cavity with a worm wriggling around inside.