Imperium (Caulborn) (5 page)

“Vinnie!”

I turned in time to catch a green form that had hurled itself at me. As I detangled myself from the tiny green body, I saw Megan drop the hand that had been reaching under her jacket. “Hello, Gearstripper,” I said when I finally got the gremlin free. I set Gearstripper down and knelt so we were almost at eye level. Gearstripper was only about a foot and a half tall, and rail thin. With his neon green skin, oversized ears and bright yellow eyes, he looked like a Muppet gone horribly wrong.

“Hi Vinnie. Didja see the new TV I wired up for GXI? Pretty cool, huh? Best resolution those things can get wholesale is 1080p, but I tinkered with it and got it up to 3240q! Those guys at Sony can’t even make q yet!” Gearstripper’s small three-fingered hands were a blur as he gestured. “And, this is the best, I’ve got it rigged up to my custom PlayWiiBox 8! It started out as a PlayStation 3, but I made some mods, added an Xbox 360 and a Wii and now the thing can play just about every game ever made for every system. I’m working on adding the old legacy systems next. Do you still have that Sega Saturn? I bet I could wire that in there too and get Clockwork Knight running real slick.”

I had to laugh. “Gears, do you ever come up for air? How can you talk so much with such tiny lungs?” Gearstripper opened his mouth to speak again, but I held up a hand. “I did see the TV. Very cool about the resolution. I bet the Patriots games look great on it. Nice job with the PlayWiiBox8. Bring it over some night and yes, you can have my old Saturn. Then you, me and Petra will have a gaming party.”

Gearstripper’s luminescent yellow eyes widened. For a moment, they reminded me of the Urisks’ eyes. “Really? That’s so cool! Rock on, Vinnie, rock on!” Megan watched the exchange with a look of amused bewilderment. Gearstripper noticed her, scampered over to Megan and held out a hand.

“Hi! I’m Gearstripper. I don’t know you yet, but I can’t wait to.”

Megan’s dimple reappeared as she bent down to shake his hand. “I’m Megan Hayes. I’ve never met a gremlin before.”

“That’s okay,” Gears replied. “I’ve never met a Megan before.” His own grin split his face in two. Megan began peppering Gearstripper with questions. Gears responded as fast as she could ask, shooting back questions of his own, and the rapid fire Q&A session left me feeling like I was watching some demented ping-pong match on fast-forward.

I cleared my throat just as Gears was about to ask something else and they both turned to look at me. I smiled at the gremlin and said, “We were just on our way down to see you, Gears. I need to ask you some questions. Can you focus for me?”

Gearstripper took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and then let the breath out slowly. “Focus,” he whispered. His eyes snapped open. “Go.”

I barely kept the smile off my face. “A gremlin named Axlesnapper went missing recently. Did you know him?”

“Her,” Gearstripper said. “Axle’s a girl. You'd like her, Vinnie, she’s sharp.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

Gears pondered this for a moment. “Maybe a week or two ago? She was going to go do some work for the Midnight Clan.”

“What would the vampires want with her?” Megan asked.

“Well, they can’t call the Maytag repair man when something breaks, so they use us instead. I think they needed some help getting a wireless network set up. They’re not very tech-savvy, you know. I was down there about three or four months ago, set up their iTunes to play wirelessly throughout the place. I even offered to put speakers in some of their coffins, but they said no.” Gearstripper looked disappointed.

“Don’t feel bad, Gears, the acoustics in a coffin probably aren’t that good. Did the vampires ever threaten you or anything like that?”

“No.” Gears shook his head firmly, causing his ears to flop from side to side. “They’re very professional. You fix something for them, and they pay you. They’re very prompt about stuff like that.”

Now for the question I’d been dreading. “Do vampires ever feed on gremlins?”

Gears laughed, a twittering sound. “Heck, no. I don’t think there’s enough blood in one of us to even be a snack to them. Also, we heal too quick; our skin would close around their fangs and we’d get stuck in their mouths. Vampires like to seem slick, like to seem suave. Kinda hard to be suave when you’ve got a kicking gremlin stuck to your face.” Gears and Megan both giggled, then the gremlin’s face became serious. “Do you think something bad has happened to her? I mean, sometimes she goes scrounging for a while and I don’t hear from her. I thought that might be what she was up to.”

“Not sure, Gears.”

The gremlin’s face tightened into an expression of determination. “I’ll see if I can find her for you, Vinnie.”

I clapped the little fella on the shoulder. “Thanks, Gears. Swing by in a couple of nights with your games. Petra’s out of town right now, but she’ll love to see you when she gets back. Maybe she’ll make one of those kitchen sink sundaes you like.” Gearstripper’s eyes widened and the look of pure joy on his homely little face made me smile again. “I need to get going, Gears. You take it easy.” Gearstripper gave me another hug and then bounded down the hallway, calling out all the flavors of ice cream he would have in his sundae.

Megan nodded toward the retreating gremlin. “Is there really that much ice cream in that sundae?”

“Yep. Twelve pints of Ben & Jerry’s, two jars of chocolate sauce and a can or two of whipped cream. Top it off with sprinkles, M&Ms and whatever other candy’s lying around, and you’ve got yourself a kitchen sink.”

“What, no cherry on top?”

I shook my head. “Oddly enough, neither one of them likes cherries.”

“How long does it take to eat that?”

“Not long. Gremlins have a metabolism that’s roughly on par with the speed of light, and they’re pretty fierce when it comes to ice cream.” I checked my watch. It was half past six. My stomach rumbled. “Hmm, let’s grab something to eat.” We went down the corridor and took the elevator back to ground level. I nodded to Jake again and we left the building.

We got in the car and I gave Megan directions to one of the local pizza places. On the way, we stopped at Antiquated Treasures. Thad had gone for the night, so I let myself in, dropped off the diviner and then we went to the restaurant. Traffic was pretty heavy at this hour. We could’ve walked faster, but having the car later was more important.

Caratelli’s was your typical family pizza parlor. The place had about ten tables, two soda coolers and a pinball machine that I’d never seen running. It also had the best pizza I’d ever had, outside of the North End. But traffic there would be hell right now, and this place was closer to the vampires’ lair. I ordered a meat lovers’. Megan had a salad.

We ate in silence for a few minutes as I tried to figure out where to start; we had a lot of ground to cover. Megan looked at me and asked, “So why do you do this?” I raised my eyebrows at her. “This,” she said, gesturing to the two of us. “Be a Caulborn agent. You’re a god, Vincent. So why work like this?”

I shrugged. “I like helping people. It may sound cliché or trite, but there you go. There are a lot of scary things out there, and I can protect people in ways that others can’t.” I reached for another slice of pizza. “You should have some of this.”

“Thanks, but that’s making my arteries clog just looking at it.”

I shook my head. “No, for the garlic. It’ll make you less tempting to the vampires.”

“That really works?”

“Yep. A lot of the old legends are true. Silver, garlic, sunlight, holy symbols. Garlic won’t make a vampire run away from you, but it will make your blood burn him if he tries to drink it. Imagine the hottest salsa you’ve ever eaten, and that’ll be pretty close.”

“Some people like food that hot.”

“And so do some vampires. It’s no guarantee, but it never hurts to be prepared. Now, let’s talk about what’s going to happen when we get to Mr. Bruli’s house.”

“Seems pretty cut and dried to me,” she said. “We ask him some questions and hopefully figure out where the missing people went.”

“Not what I meant. Have you ever seen a vampire before?” She shook her head. “All right, you know how a caul protects you from mental domination? Well, vampires are always exerting a subtle form of mind control. They’re walking, talking corpses, but they use their powers to look like everyone else. Just relax your eyes, and your caul will allow you to see them as they really are. It’s a dramatic shift, and I want you to be prepared for it.

“Also, forget anything you’ve heard that makes vampires out to be tragic, noble or misunderstood. They’re evil and they’re only out for themselves. They accepted the pact that the Caulborn laid out only to prevent humanity from hunting them to extinction. They’re living in hiding right now, but we have to watch them constantly so they don’t make a grab for power.”

Megan frowned at me. “If they’re that much of a threat, why not just wipe them out and be done with it?”

That was a valid question, and I’d be lying if I hadn’t thought the same thing myself. “For the same reason that you were negotiating with hostile aliens, Megan. Ultimately, we have a lot to learn from each other. Vampires are experts at manipulating the underworld, both politically and magically. They’re long-lived, and can teach us things that the history books can’t.”

She nodded. “I see what you mean. They’re a necessary evil.” She took a piece of my pizza and chewed it thoughtfully. “Huh, that’s not bad.”

Once we’d finished eating, we drove to the address Galahad had given us. I had Megan drive a few blocks farther down and we parked on the side of the street. As I plugged some quarters into a parking meter, Megan gestured at the dashboard clock. “We’ve still got lots of time before we’re expected. What do we do now?”

“We’re going to make good use of the time,” I replied as I headed down an alleyway between two buildings. “Come on.” I ventured halfway down the alley, and then turned to make sure Megan was following me. The alley was dim, the nearby streetlamps its only source of illumination. I squatted down and took a slow breath. The alley reeked of trash, which was exactly what I wanted. Megan’s nose wrinkled in distaste, but she knelt down next to me, her head cocked in a rather cute gesture of confusion. Then I drew upon the Urisk’s faith in me and mentally called out to the rats.

I could sense a handful of them scurrying through the dumpsters, skittering along the neighboring alleys. There were dozens more under the street, crawling through the sewers. I didn’t need that many. Three or four would do. I called out to the ones in the dumpster ahead and willed them to approach me. Megan squeaked and jumped to her feet as three of them answered, charging out from beneath the dumpster. They stopped about two feet from me, sat back on their hind legs and looked at me the way a dog looks at its master. I pictured the vampires’ lair in my mind, making it clear where I wanted them to go. Once I was sure they understood, I pointed, and the rats took off down the street.

Megan stepped next to me as I stood up. “What was that all about?”

“Just running recon.”

“With rats.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of disbelief.

I nodded. “Yes, with rats. The Urisk communicate telepathically. They found that their telepathy didn’t work on humans, something about the human personality blocks their attempts at communication. That’s why the original Dover Demon wasn’t able to talk with the teenagers he encountered. But they can talk to most other creatures on this planet. When they visit our realm, they use small creatures like rats and squirrels to do surveillance for them.”

She paused. “That doesn’t sound like a typical caulborn-to-fae linkage,” Megan said. “How can you do that?”

I tried not to chew my lip. Galahad wouldn’t have sent her along if he didn’t trust her. “I get my powers from the Urisk. Their faith means that anything they can do, I can do, too, on a much bigger scale. If I really wanted to, I could command every rat in this city to dance in the streets.”

“That’d be something to see. I suppose you could make quite a living as an exterminator.”

“Now there’s a career I’d never considered. But never mind my job options. I sent the rats to investigate the vampires’ lair.”

“I figured. How much detail can you get out of them? Will they give you an exact count of sentries, potential traps, that sort of thing?”

“Not exactly. It’s more like being able to see what they’ve seen. So think of it as if I were looking through their eyes. If one of them spots a trap, I’ll notice it, but they don’t know that a wire running across a set of stairs is something to be wary of. They’ll just go around it. They’ll avoid people, though, and that will give me a feel for where the sentries are. Now we just need to wait.” We went back to Megan’s car. The vehicle’s warmth and pine air freshener were a welcome change from the cold, smelly alley.

The rats came back a short while later. I got out of the car and crouched down in front of them. I let the images of the building run through my mind, let my brain translate the smells and sounds the rats had heard to something comprehensible. Once I was confident I understood everything they had showed me, I dismissed them with a wave of my hand. They squeaked and scampered back down the alley.

I opened the car door and said to Megan, “They told me where the guards are, and doesn’t look like the vampires are planning anything sneaky.”

“I thought you said we’d be under their protection.”

“That’s true, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to take chances. Come on.” She got out of the car and started down the street. We entered a connecting alleyway when the first of the shadows detached itself from the walls above us. It dropped down silently and resolved into the form of a man about six feet tall. Two more appeared behind him. Crap. Next time I’d need to get some crows to check the surrounding buildings’ rooftops.

“Two behind us,” Megan whispered.

“Actually,” a voice called, “there are four behind you.”

Did I mention that vampires really did have super acute senses? “We are here with Tom Bruli’s permission,” I said.

“Well then,” the leader said, “I guess it’s too bad we don’t care what Tom Bruli says.”