Back From the Undead (12 page)

“I wouldn’t,” I say.

Fortunately, that’s when Charlie shows up. He makes his way past the wreckage and yanks open my door. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry about the car.”

“Don’t worry about it. Little body work, is all. Bang out a few dents, she’ll be good as new.” He grabs the pire by the scruff of the neck and tosses him over his shoulder as casually as a gas-station attendant pulling a scrap of newspaper from under a wiper blade. “But you should really let me drive from here.”

I don’t argue, just slide over next to Stoker. Charlie climbs in, puts the car in gear. “Brace yourself,” he says, and guns it.

Apparently the wall I stopped just short of is made of smoked glass—or was, anyway. Charlie smashes through it, into a thankfully deserted restaurant on the other side, through a dozen or so round tables with chairs stacked on them, into another large, smoked-glass window, over a sidewalk on the other side, and finally into the street.

“Nice,” Stoker says. “Hope nobody’s stuck to the undercarriage.”

“Nah,” Charlie says. “She’d be riding a lot rougher if that happened.”

It looks like we’re still in Chinatown—hopefully the right Chinatown in the right world. World-hopping always makes me nervous; what if I come back to the wrong one? What if it’s so close I can’t tell until years later, when some weird detail turns out to be different from the original—you know, like the French worshipping Jerry Lewis or something equally bizarre? Would the knowledge destroy me, or would I just shrug and go on about my life?

Of course, if I do wind up on an alternate version of Thropirelem I’ll probably never find out, so I tell myself not to worry about it. And at the moment, I have more pressing problems.

“Doesn’t look like we’re being followed,” I say. “Guess Zhang isn’t quite as cocky in the non-metaphysical realm.”

“He was just taking advantage of an opportunity,” Stoker says. “I can’t really blame him—I probably would have done the same.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. Now
how
the upside-down seven seven three four did you get Zevon to open the exit door?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”
All the adrenaline in my system is being converted to pure frustration, and despite the fact that he just saved both of us, I’m about ready to throttle Stoker.

He shrugs. “That was the deal. I gave up something to gain
my
freedom … and got
yours
in return for keeping mine a secret.”

“What? That’s … that’s…”

“Maddening? Sure. He knew that’s how you’d react, which is why he went for it. Apparently Zevon likes his entertainment on the obnoxious side.”

I take a deep breath and settle back in my seat. I am not going to let this get to me. Whatever Stoker traded, that’s his business. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care at all.

I
don’t.

*   *   *

It’s been a less-than-satisfying night. Stoker tells us that in light of Zhang’s attempted abduction, there are certain things he has to attend to if he doesn’t want every gang in Vancouver thinking he’s now a target; not so much retaliation as sending a message. It’s something he has to do on his own, not out of machismo but simply to reassert his position in the local underground heirarchy. It should have the added benefit of shaking loose a little more information about the missing children, too, or at least that’s what Stoker claims. I’m guessing that the next time Zhang and Stoker talk it won’t be quite as polite.

We drop him off on a street corner and he vanishes into the night. Charlie and I return to the hotel, where we give a worried-looking Eisfanger a quick rundown of what happened. Charlie, it turns out, was dumped in the bathroom of the gambling den. While surreptitiously checking out the operation, he overhead someone mention Zhang’s name and decided to stick around to see if the sorcerer made an appearance—though he was just as happy to see us instead.

Then we collapse into our respective beds. I’m exhausted, more so emotionally than physically, and don’t so much fall asleep as pass out.

And dream.

“Hello,” Cassius says. “Nice dress.”

I look down at myself. I’m wearing Nice Outfit #3, the one I wear on first dates when my hopes are still relatively high: green silk blouse, mid-length skirt, two-inch strappy heels.

Cassius, though, is considerably more upscale, if not exactly modern. He’s dressed like medevial royalty, a gold-embroidered vest over a billowy shirt of deep purple, with heavy golden rings on his fingers and a spray of lace at his throat. Normally I’d mock him for such a getup, but dream logic tells me to simply accept it.

We’re sitting at a café table on a patio under a sun umbrella. Cassius is in the shade, but he seems unconcerned at the closeness of the sun.

“Thank you,” I say. “Bear with me, okay? I don’t date much.”

He smiles. It makes me a little light-headed, that smile, in all the right ways. “I’ve been known to go a few years between relationships myself. But let’s not put too much pressure on ourselves, all right? I won’t bite if you won’t.”

I laugh at that, because I know he’s a vampire but he doesn’t know I know, which puts me one up on him.

“So, what do you do?” I say, trying to keep a grin off my face.

“Well, let’s see. I got my start in Rome. Lot of people think I was in on the bottom floor, but that’s not strictly true. After that I kicked around Europe for a while, did some backpacking, helped found a few countries … you know, the typical young-guy stuff. How about you?”

“Got into a lot of trouble when I was a kid. Not because I was bad, exactly, more like I wouldn’t back down from anyone and had the tendency to stick my nose where it didn’t belong.”

He nods. God, his eyes are so blue … I find myself thinking he
must
be a jerk. Anybody good looking gets so used to being handed everything on a silver platter, they can’t help but turn into spoiled brats.

“Never back down, huh?” he says. “Wish I could say the same. But you know how it is: Once you start to compromise, your ideals begin to erode. Happens so slowly you hardly notice. By the time you do, decades have gone past and you’re doing things you never dreamed you would. By then, it’s too late; you can’t undo the mistakes you’ve made. All you can do is atone…”

His voice is full of regret. Most jerks are defined by their selfishness; they just don’t care about other people’s pain. But listening to Cassius, I can tell he does.

“Sounds like you’ve led an interesting life,” I offer.

“I suppose. Want to see some of it?”

“Sure.”

He stands up and holds out his hand. Hesitantly, I take it.

We step away from the table and onto the ramparts of a castle, gray stone lit by torches. The moon is full, the sky full of stars. “Where are we?” I ask.

“Bavaria. Somewhere around 1550, I think. Lot going on back then; what eventually became Germany was divided into a patchwork of little kingdoms, and they were all at war with one another. I was in the thick of it.”

“On whose side?”

He shakes his head ruefully. “Depended on the day of the week. So many different alliances, treaties, betrayals … honestly, I can’t remember it in detail. But I do remember the countryside, and this view in particular. Lovely, isn’t it?”

Beyond the castle’s walls are rolling hills of green, shimmering gently like waves in the moonlight. “Very,” I say. “You always bring women here on a first date?”

“No,” he says, meeting my eyes. “Just you.”

The night air is rich and heady, the smell of wild grass after a spring rain mixed with the tang of wood smoke. I feel like I’m about to be kissed for the first time ever, nervous and excited and a little impatient. He leans forward …

“Jace,” he says softly. “The membrane is ripening.”

“Yes,” I murmur.

“Soon potential will maelstrom the lattices.”

“I know, I know. Me, too.”

There’s something wrong with his face. It’s—it’s
spiraling,
eyes and mouth going into orbit around his slowly twisting nose.

“I need you,” he says. “
Leapyear,
Jace. Leapyear for
me
.”

I step back, horrified. Now it’s his whole body, spinning into a vortex of stretching, distorted limbs. “I will,” I say, my voice shaking. “I
will,
I promise!”

The faster he swirls the smaller he gets, until there’s only a blurred, whirling circle the size of my head hovering in front of me. I feel like I’ve just watched someone die.

And then I wake up.

EIGHT

“You look like hell,” Charlie observes at breakfast.

“Didn’t sleep well. Bad dreams.”

Eisfanger looks up from the huge plate of food he’s halfway through consuming: eggs, toast, bacon, sausages, pancakes, and hash browns, with a side order of ham. I’m sticking with coffee and a Danish, and so far the Danish is doing better than I am. “Well, no wonder, after what you guys went through—psychic trauma is practically a given.”

“I slept fine,” Charlie says. He’s reading a local newspaper while we eat.

I give him a withering look. “You weren’t there for very long.”

Charlie has the grace to look wounded. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s not like I left of my own free will.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it.” I drain my coffee cup and look around for the waiter, who bears absolutely no resemblance to a movie star.

“So—what did you dream about?” Eisfanger asks. He studies me with interest, as guileless as a puppy. For some reason, I just don’t have the heart to smack him down.

“I dreamed about Cassius.”

“
This
should be interesting,” Charlie murmurs, going back to his paper.

“I dreamed…” I stop, and shake my head. “Most of the dream was pretty ordinary—a little non-linear, sure. But right at the end it turned into a real nightmare: Cassius transformed into some sort of vortex, and he was talking gibberish. Words that almost made sense but not quite.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Eisfanger says around a mouthful of eggs.

“It was how it
felt,
more than anything. I was terrified. There was this feeling of impending doom. I woke up covered in sweat and shaking.”

“How I start every day,” Charlie says. “You know, being your partner and all.”

“Oh, you’re in
great
form.”

“Thanks. See what a good night’s sleep will do?”

Eisfanger looks at me curiously, seems about to say something, then changes his mind and drains half a glass of orange juice in one gulp instead. “What’s our next move?”

“We wait for Stoker to get back in touch,” I say. “He got us down here, he’s not going to just vanish now.”

“Unless he gets himself killed,” Charlie points out.

“Yeah, but with Stoker that’s always a concern.” I finally get the attention of our waiter and some more coffee. “And he’s proven extremely hard to kill.”

We finish breakfast. Charlie makes arrangements to have the car fixed, Eisfanger holes up in his room with some technical manuals, and I watch daytime TV.

By the time Stoker gets in touch it’s late afternoon. He calls me on my cell and starts the conversation with, “How’d you like the chance to do a little target practice this evening?”

“On whom?”

“The bottom feeders who are holding the pire children.”

I’m sprawled on the bed enduring an old rerun of
Gilligan’s Island
—oddly unchanged even when done with pires and thropes—and now I sit up. “You’ve found them?”

“I have. Mr. Zhang was most cooperative. For a while.”

Even though Zhang was a criminal lowlife who was perfectly willing to sell me to the highest bidder, Stoker’s remark sends a chill through me. I have to keep reminding myself that he’s still a sociopath, one who’s murdered dozens of men and women because they weren’t human in his eyes. That’s often how serial killers view their prey.

“You’re sure?” I ask.

“I do need to verify the information, but it’ll have to be done quickly. You could help.”

“How?”

“Meet me here at eleven o’clock.” He rattles off some GPS coordinates and I jot them down. “Bring Charlie, wear something stealthy, and come armed.”

“In other words, show up the same way I always do for our meetings.”

He chuckles. “Meetings? Funny, that’s not how I think of them.” He hangs up. I frown at the phone, then put it down.

The car isn’t back from the shop yet, though Charlie says it’ll be done by tomorrow—he’s only having the glass replaced, so it’ll at least be drivable. We shouldn’t need it, anyway; the address Stoker gave me isn’t far from the downtown core, and we can easily walk there.

At just over a thousand acres, Stanley Park is bigger than Central, skirted by more than five miles of seawall and holding half a million trees. On my world, it was a beautiful, well-tended place to stroll beside the ocean or under conifers hundreds of years old.

In a world filled with lycanthropes, it’s something else.

The seawall is nothing but jagged black coastline and a few isolated stretches of rocky beach. The park itself is first-growth rain forest, deep and primeval. The only trails are those made by the residents, who are secretive and fiercely protective. It’s considered untamed even by Vancouver’s Wild West standards, a slice of wilderness populated by only the most solitary and vicious of packs. It’s like a demilitarized zone, one where the only law is that of survival; the last time the city tried to bring it under control was almost thirty years ago, when they attempted to reopen the road that used to run along its eastern border. They gave up after fifteen days and thirty-two fatalities on the construction team.

And the coordinates Stoker gave us are right in the thick of it.

There’s no fence around the park, just a wall of dense vegetation broken by the occasional opening of a trail. It edges right up to the city itself, but I note that all the buildings closest to the tree line are heavily fortified, more like bunkers than anything else. Despite the park’s lushness there are few windows facing it, and the ones that do are barred and at least two floors up.