Staked (Iron Druid Chronicles) (36 page)

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 boy 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 we 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?”

“Yes. That’s an outstanding idea.” I pulled out my new burner phone and punched in Rabbi Yosef Bialik’s number from memory. He answered in a sleepy voice—it’s not early afternoon in Toronto but rather closer to six in the morning. “Hello, Rabbi? Atticus here. How soon can you and your friends get to Rome?”

A
fter Atticus convinces the rabbi to fly to Rome as soon as he can, we have the rest of the day and a night to kill. It’s just as well: Neither of us is 100 percent healthy, still recuperating after our assorted run-ins with gods and the undead. We decide to shift elsewhere before the vampires wake up for the night, but we take our time returning to the Villa Borghese. We make a date out of it, visiting a charcuterie to fulfill my promise to Orlaith and delight Oberon in the process. I’m not super-familiar with Rome; I had to get instructions to find the Piazza di Spagna—so Atticus shows me a few things and we get espressos at one of the ubiquitous
caffè
bars that pepper the city the way Starbucks peppers Seattle. I love the clink of saucers and cups and the gurgling hiss of steam wands frothing milk over the music of the Italian language. When we get to the Villa Borghese it’s about an hour before dusk, and as we’re walking to the tethered tree we see a familiar figure walking toward us.

“Oi! Well, at least findin’ ye wasn’t the nightmare I expected,” a deep growly voice says. “Didn’t have to take a single step onto that dead land.”

“Hello, Owen,” Atticus says. “We were just about to leave. What are you doing here?”

“Lookin’ for you. I have news, good and bad, and some of your bollocks.” He tosses Fragarach to Atticus in its scabbard, and the leather strap flaps in the air. Then he tosses a plastic bag to him, which Atticus catches and examines.

“Oh! My new documents. Thanks. It’ll be good to have a bank account again. Huh—Connor Molloy. Not bad.”

The archdruid’s face twists into an ugly sneer and he spits to one side. “The good news is that Werner Drasche is finally dead. Greta killed him.”

“Oh, wow. That
is
good news! But wait—are you saying Werner Drasche was in Flagstaff?”

“That’s exactly what I’m feckin’ saying to ye, lad. And before Greta killed him, but very shortly after Hal Hauk brought your documents there and raised a toast to your bloody arse, Werner Drasche brought seven vampires with him and shot up our house. Now, why do ye suppose he’d do a thing like that?”