Zen and the Art of Vampires (15 page)

“I don't believe you,” I told him, trying to convince myself that he was lying. To be honest, I wasn't sure he was, but something didn't ring true. I just didn't know what was what anymore.

He shrugged. “That's Alec's problem. He'll deal with you now. I've done my part.”

“I'm not something to be dealt with, although I would appreciate talking to him,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster. Which, given that I had just been sucking on his tongue, wasn't a whole lot. “As it is, I have a few questions for—look out!”

Three shadows rose up behind Kristoff, shadows that quickly resolved themselves into figures. It was a faint flicker of light off a long blade that had caught my eye. Kristoff slammed his hand into my chest, sending me crashing backward into a large stack of wooden crates. I hit my head hard on the wood, but by the time my vision cleared, I realized that he wasn't assaulting me; he had merely shoved me out of the way while he dealt with the attackers.

And deal with them he did. I had no idea where he carried the twin daggers that now flashed in his hands, but he whirled and attacked with incredible grace and power, sending two of the three men flying in opposite directions. One of them crashed at my feet. I snatched up an empty crate and brought it down on his head as he was about to rise, feeling immense satisfaction as the man collapsed unconscious to the ground.

The ghosts leaped around, yelling and calling advice, unable to interact with anything, their ghostly forms adding just another level of surreality to the situation.

Kristoff's fight with the other two men was over almost as quickly, increasing my respect for his prowess. One man he sent slamming into the nearest wall, which was enough to send the attacker sliding uselessly to the ground, where he lay in a motionless blob. The last man, the one wielding a sword, screamed something at Kristoff, and slashed at him with rhythmic strokes of the blade.

Kristoff parried them all, kicking out with one leg, catching the man square in the chest, which sent him, too, slamming against the wall. I was just about to cheer when suddenly I was yanked painfully backward by my hair, a burning sensation at my throat. The man I'd hit with the crate snarled obscenities as he dragged me backward, toward the other end of the alley.

“Touch me and she dies,” he spat out, then gave as obscene a laugh as I'd ever heard, and continued in a foreign language.

“He can't kill our reaper, can he?” the elderly ghost asked.

“I don't think so,” Ulfur said hesitantly.

“What'll happen to us if he does? The Ilargi will get us!” the teen wailed.

I squirmed, trying to get a purchase on the ground so I could twist out of my attacker's grip, but he kept me too much off balance.

Kristoff said nothing, just stalked toward us, his eyes as pale as ice. I shivered at the sight, understanding now what Anniki had said about the vampires. Kristoff wasn't human. He was something foreign, something dark and dangerous, and every instinct I possessed told me to get away before he caught me.

I screamed, my voice abruptly stopping when my captor wrapped his hand tighter in my hair before jerking me sideways into the brick wall. I saw stars again as pain burst out in red waves that left me nauseous and nearly unconscious. I grasped for something to keep me from falling into a deep, dark pit where I seemed to teeter at the edge, my fingers closing around a cold metal rim.

Air moved past me as my eyes slowly cleared, leaving me with a clear vision of Kristoff calmly wiping a bloodied dagger blade on the prone form that lay at my feet. I clutched the trash bin with all my strength, staring in horror at the body. Although my attacker had fallen face-down, I knew without a doubt that he was dead.

And Kristoff had killed him.

Right there in front of me.

If I needed any proof that what Anniki had said was the real version of what was going on, this was definitely it.

I looked into Kristoff's now smoky eyes and saw the rage he felt, saw fury and menace and triumphant victory. I was up and running down the alley away from him before I even knew my legs would still work.

Voices called out my name, one of them his, but I ran even faster, blindly careening off of walls and obstructions and even cars as I dashed madly through the city, sure of only one thing—Kristoff was a killer. Alec couldn't be like him. Could he?

A light breeze ruffled my hair. “Pia? Are you all right?”

I looked up from where I'd been hunkered over, sobbing into my knees, right into the nostrils of a ghostly horse. I fought back the startled scream that threatened to burst out of me, sniffling instead and hunting desperately in my pockets for a tissue. “Ulfur?”

“Yes, it's me.” His horse smelled my hair, then snorted into it with a shake of his head. “Ragnar, leave her be. She does not wish to pet you.”

“I don't think I could if I wanted to,” I said, giving up the search and dabbing at my damp nose with my sleeve. I pushed away the trash cans that hid me and got to my feet, a little wobbly, but not entirely surprised to find that the space behind the library where I'd collapsed was now filled with ghostly entities. “Oh, good, you found Karl and Marta.”

“Yes, they were hiding near the park. There was another man, a sailor, I think, but he said he was going to search for rum and would find us later. You are hurt?” Ulfur's face was filled with concern, as were, in varying degrees, those of the other ghosts crowded around me. All except the smart-mouthed teen, and she was busy picking her nails until the woman I assumed was her mother cuffed her upside the head. “Did your husband harm you?”

“He's not my husband,” I said, dusting off my clothing. “Well, that's to say, he might be, but if he is, he's neither legal nor wanted.”

“You kissed him,” one of the male ghosts said.

“That was . . . um . . . unintentional,” I lied.

“It looked like you were enjoying it,” Ulfur pointed out.

“I didn't say it was unpleasant, just that it was unintentional.” I don't know why I felt quite so defensive about the kiss Kristoff and I had shared, unless it was over the immense guilt I felt at betraying his friend. “He's not really my husband. I may be married to him, but he's not a husband in the true sense of the word.”

“Ah,” the older ghost said, waggling his eyebrows at the teen's mom. “He hasn't bedded her yet.”

A chorus of comprehending
aah
s followed that statement.

“You'd best be seeing to that right away,” snarky teen's mom said with a knowing look. “Men like that have an appetite for women, and you'll not be wanting him to stray.”

“I'm not trying to keep him,” I told her, waving my hands around vaguely as if that would help explain the situation. “He's not really mine.”

“Not yet, but just you bed him a few times, and he'll be yours for life,” an elderly, creaking voice said. There was a flurry of movement behind the ghosts, and a tiny, incredibly old woman appeared. “I've had five husbands, I have, and if there's anyone who knows how to keep a man, it's me.”

Everyone nodded their heads, the teen's mom saying, “Aye, Old Agda knows. You listen to her, reaper.”

“
Five
husbands?” I couldn't help but ask.

“They all died young, all but the last one, and he were thirty year younger'n me. Died happy they did, too.” She cackled, elbowing the mom beside her. Mom smiled indulgently.

I gave myself a mental shake. I needed to make plans, and standing around here talking about Kristoff and husbands was not going to help matters. “Well, that's nice, but—”

“I like the young ones,” another woman called out from the back, a woman around whom three children were clustered, clutching her long skirts. “They've got stamina. Maybe our reaper ought to look for someone a bit younger.”

“Bah,” the first woman said. “What good is stamina if they don't know what to do with it? It's all about what god gifted them with, if you want my opinion.”

“I don't need anyone with more stamina,” I protested. “Besides, Kristoff is a vampire and is who knows how many hundreds of years old. Just about anyone is going to be younger than him.”

“The younger ones lack experience,” the teen's mom argued with the size-matters woman. “And it doesn't matter how long a man's member is if he hasn't the experience to use it properly. The young ones don't know how to please a woman, and the ones without experience just leave you wishing they'd be done so you can bring in the wash and tend to supper. Now, the reaper's man, he looks like he knows what he's about.”

“I'll say he does,” her daughter purred.

I narrowed a look on her that by rights should have turned her to stone before realizing what I was doing. I was not jealous of Kristoff! I did not want him! It was Alec I was interested in. Alec who smiled, and was happy to turn off the lights, and left me with a dead body . . . oy.

“That's all women's talk,” the middle-aged ghost interrupted. “What our reaper wants is someone who can protect her. The true measure of a man is how he provides for his family.”

“You're just saying that because you'd just built Ingveldur a new cabin,” one of the other men called out. “Two rooms! Who has need of a separate sleeping room, I ask you? That's just flaunting your wealth in the face of god, that is.”

“Ha! Thus speaks the man with three—
three—
milk cows, when one would do. If you want to talk about setting yourself above the rest of the village, Hallur Halls-son, then you'd best look to yourself first.”

“I needed those cows,” the man named Hallur yelled, storming forward to confront his neighbor. “I had six children to feed! Unlike Agda and her hundred chickens. All those chickens for just one old woman. Bah! That was flaunting wealth if there ever was flaunting.”

The elderly lady shot him a nasty glare. “I'd quite a few less chickens than when I started out, and I know just whose pot they ended up in, don't I?”

An argument broke out amongst the ghosts about the merits of one-room versus two-room housing, cows, chickens, and, inexplicably, a pig named Freyja. I was about to yell for attention when timid little Marta came forward and put a ghostly hand on my arm, making my skin tingle a little where she touched me.

“Don't listen to them,” she said softly, a little smile on her lips as she glanced at Karl. “I've been married a whole year, and what they're saying isn't that important. None of it really matters so long as you are fond of your husband.”

“But I'm not,” I told her, wishing like the dickens that someone, anyone, would just listen to me without forming their own assumptions. “I don't even like him. He murdered a man in cold blood, right in front of me.”

“He was defending you,” Karl said, raising his voice a little as the argument continued behind him. “He saved your life.”

“Possibly, but we don't know that. The man who grabbed me could have killed me easily if he wanted to, but he didn't. He was simply using me as a shield to protect himself from Kristoff. Oh, it doesn't matter,” I said, rubbing my temples. A headache had come in the aftermath of my tears, leaving my head pounding. “None of this really matters. What I have to do is decide what steps to take to get myself and all of you to safety. People.
People!
”

The arguing stopped as I yelled and banged the lid of a garbage can.

“. . . told you that pig was barren, but would you listen to me? No, you wouldn't; you just had to . . . oh.” The man who bore a strong resemblance to Ulfur stopped arguing and turned to look at me. “Sorry.”

“Thank you.” I eyed them all carefully for a few seconds. “Before we proceed, I'd like to know if any of you have any idea whatsoever of the whereabouts of this Ostri place I'm supposed to take you. Anyone?”

Fifteen blank faces regarded me.

“Hmm.” I bit my lip and tried to think through the dull waves of pain that ebbed and flowed against my brain like molasses. “Kristoff said the Brotherhood will kill me, so I can't go to them. Anniki is dead, and I don't know any other Zoryas, assuming there are others to know, so I can't ask one of them where you're supposed to be taken. If I was home, I could look it up online and see if there's some clue as to where Ostri is located, but Kristoff has my passport. And besides, Audrey has all our tickets. I don't even have any money.”

At that, my stomach rumbled, and I realized it had been at least twelve hours since I'd last eaten.

“Oh, man,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. “No money means no food, or a way out of here, or even a place to stay. I've got to get some money.”