“I don’t think they did, Atticus. I think it was the dark elves. Remember there were two clowns in the store from the beginning?”
“That’s right!” We turned left, heading northeast up Anatolikis Romylias, and a quick glance at our pursuit showed that we had five clowns chasing us. Perhaps more were following in mist form?
“So they must have made some calls, and arrangements got made on the fly.”
“That sounds plausible,” I agreed. “The vampire on the phone wanted me to think Leif had found us somehow, and that’s possible too. He can probably track me because he’s had so much of my blood.”
“That’s really disturbing.”
“Yeah. Take the lead; these guys following us can’t know yet that I’m immune to their magic knives. If we’re gonna get backstabbed, let me take it.”
Granuaile lengthened her stride and pulled ahead. I checked behind us when I heard metallic scrapes and crashing noises. The clown bikes and suits lay strewn at the corner of Atlantidos. They’d gone incorporeal and were chasing us now in smoke form. I’d learned enough about them by now to realize they didn’t do that unless they were ready to kill.
“Pour it on,” I said. “They’re catching up.”
We didn’t have breath enough to talk after that; we were off the earth’s magical grid and had to huff and puff up to Pylaiais, where we turned left, back toward Vizyis. I ran right behind Granuaile to shield her.
It was a wise precaution, for we weren’t a third of the way down the block before a wicked thrust plowed into my back and caused me to stumble. I tried to twist as I fell and take a swing at my six, but my injuries were truly debilitating and I couldn’t manage anything except a clumsy pratfall. “Granuaile! Go twirly girl!”
There was a proper Mandarin name for the sequence of movements she executed with her staff, but she’d never been able to master the sounds to my satisfaction. Out of frustration, she asked if we could rename the forms with English terms, and I agreed, since she was already working on three other languages. “Twirly girl” simply meant that she twirled her staff rapidly around her in a defensive whirlwind—front, back, both sides. It wasn’t impossible to penetrate, but it was damn difficult and would require time to study. I’d use that time to try something I should have tried earlier.
Granuaile halted and began to whip her staff around her so that I was just out of reach. The Svartálfar were bolder than they were wise; one of them tried to solidify and get in a quick strike at Granuaile from behind and got clocked in the head for his efforts. He fell unconscious, as the other four took shape around me and stabbed down quickly. I swiped at them desperately, and one was so surprised that his knife hadn’t penetrated that he didn’t go incorporeal in time to avoid the blade of Fragarach. The others became smoke, however, and that’s precisely what I wished.
Fragarach was blessed with three enchantments, two of which had to be cast; the third, the ability to cut through any armor, was always “on.” The first “castable” enchantment gave the sword its name, “the Answerer,” because it froze enemies and forced them to answer questions truthfully. The second enchantment, the ability to summon winds, simply didn’t have many practical applications, so I rarely used it or even thought of it; the last time I had used it was twelve years ago by Tony Cabin, when I’d blown Aenghus Óg off his feet. Of course, I hadn’t had access to Fragarach for much of the past twelve years. Now it would do me yeoman service. I cast the spell and pointed the sword down the street; winds gusted from behind me and blew the dark elves back fifty yards before they remembered they could solidify and stand against the wind. I howled because that had used up the last of my magic, and now I couldn’t help but feel every destroyed inch of my burned skin.
Granuaile realized what had happened and yanked me up by my unburned right arm.
“Come on, sensei,” she said. “You gave us a bit of a lead. Let’s not waste it.”
Moving was no fun at all. Neither was staying still; everything hurt. Long after the flames were out, my skin was still cooking and dying, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. That magic had been the only thing keeping me functioning.
“Move!” Granuaile said, pulling at me, and I staggered after her, much slower than before. The dark elves would have no trouble catching up, I could tell, and they’d have us at their mercy long before we got to that greenbelt.
At least my aura was proof against their knives. Granuaile didn’t have any defense against them.
“You go ahead, fast as you can,” I said.
“No.”
“Get to the trees, buff up your speed, and then you can take them out when they solidify.”
“You’re coming with me. Let’s
“They can’t hurt me,” I explained, still unable to manage much more than a rolling stagger. The faint breeze this generated against my skin was unspeakably abrasive. “They have nothing but their stupid black knives, and I’m immune. You go and I’ll catch up. We’ll take them together.”
Granuaile was on the verge of objecting again when a gurgling cry behind us demanded our attention. She was quicker to process what was happening than I was.
“Shit. It’s him!”
Him again. Leif Helgarson had caught one of our pursuers in the second he turned solid, and then the vampire had simply torn the creature in two. Two seconds later, even as we watched, another dark elf became solid, Leif blurred, and a startled cry was all the death song the Svartálf could manage before one half of his body was forcibly shorn from the other. We stopped trying to run and faced Leif. He waved cheerfully, then tore apart our final tail. I wondered if any of the street’s residents were watching this from their windows. Perhaps it was a really good night for Greek television. Leif called to me while standing between still-twitching halves of his last victim.
“May we speak for a spell, Atticus, or will you destroy me now?”
“You know you’re safe,” I rasped. “I’m out of magic.”
“Even so,” he said. “I always suspect that you are holding something back.”
“That’s reasonable,” I replied. “Come closer and we won’t have to shout.”
I turned to walk toward Vizyis. By the time Granuaile spun around to keep pace, Leif had zipped up to walk on my left. He glanced at my ruined features.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I did not think they would manage to do you any harm.”
“Eleven or twelve smoky bastards against two and you thought we’d walk out without a scratch?”
Leif shrugged a shoulder. “I have seen you lay waste to fields of opponents.”
“
“It is magic I have come to warn you about. You are heading for the greenbelt, yes?”
“Of course.”
“Theophilus has seeded it with vampires who are searching for a human with unusual blood.”
“Beware the puppet master, eh?”
“Yes, but Theophilus is not the puppet master. He is more of a skilled apprentice, if you wish to extend a metaphor.”
“Then who’s pulling his strings?”
“Someone from your world.”
“Ireland?”
“No. The other one. Tír na nÓg.”
“The Fae are behind all this? Someone there is giving orders both to dark elves and vampires?”
“As far as I can tell, yes.”
It was no more than I had already suspected, but to have it confirmed was a bit of a shock. But maybe it wasn’t confirmed after all. I couldn’t trust anything he said.
“I know what you’re up to,” I growled.
Leif’s lips turned up at the corners. “I would be intensely disappointed if you did not.”
“You’re playing both sides and setting your own odds in Vegas, you conniving bastard. You probably have some Machiavellian shit going down on other planets. Are you expecting me to make a deal with you? An alliance?”
The vampire shrugged again, hands in pockets. “None is needed. For now our interests are the same. That will serve as well as anything else.”
“I will never forgive you for using me. For hurting Oberon.”
