Staked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #8)(74)

<Really? What’s the story behind that?>

“I don’t know if there’s a story,” I said. It most likely meant that road was a fairly wide one that led to the city of Hamburg, but Oberon wouldn’t find that interesting. “If there isn’t, we should make one.”

<Can you at least buy a big hamburger there?>

“I believe so. It would be a tragic waste of natural marketing if not.”

It was dismal, cold, and dark when we arrived at the Monbijou Hotel, a modern building in cream and sporting a cool gray logo above the revolving glass door. I peeked into the interior from outside: Directly opposite the door was a lift, one of the narrow but deep elevators more commonly found in Europe. The reception area was to the left, complete with a primly uniformed employee, and to the right a fireplace beckoned, inviting people to sit at the small round tables scattered about. It was a lounge area, with the bar no doubt secreted out of sight from the street, and several people were already busy lounging in it. They were lounging, in fact, in an almost ostentatious manner, as if to say to passersby like myself, “Look uponst my exquisite lounging, foolish mortal, and mourn that you will never lounge with such cosmopolitan savoir faire.” I flipped my vision to the magical spectrum and saw that three of the four people were not human. They had gray auras around their heads and hearts with a fiery red center, which meant they were vampires. None wore infrared goggles, so that was encouraging. The only human I could see appeared nervous, with ample justification. I thought at first that I would enter in camouflage and simply go to work, but that wouldn’t be wise. They’d be warned by a revolving door moving by itself.

I camouflaged only Oberon instead and had him follow me inside. Once I got to the lobby, I veered left toward the reception area so as not to invite a closer look. They might smell my old blood anyway, but if I gave them no cause to examine the air I might buy myself a few more seconds of surprise.

Oberon, I want you to stay over here and dry off, I said, pointing to the couches in the reception area. No one was there except for the single employee behind the reception half-circle desk. Untouched German newspapers and magazines waited to be perused on an expansive black leather ottoman. Be quiet and don’t come after me. I’m going to pick a fight and don’t want you in danger. These are very strong vampires.

<But I can help! Remember that one time I helped you against that vampire?>

Yes, you did help, but you also got hurt. This is different. That time before, the vampires ambushed me and I needed your help. This time I’m ambushing them. If I don’t have to worry about your safety, that will be a tremendous help to me.

<Okay. I could use a nap anyway. That way I’d be helping both of us.>

I think that’s an excellent plan, I replied, though I didn’t think he’d feel like napping once the fighting started. Let’s get you hidden behind this furniture here, so the guy at the front desk doesn’t see you. Then I can drop your camouflage and use that energy for kicking ass.

<Sounds like a plan!>

I waved casually to the receptionist and pretended to be interested in a newspaper while Oberon got himself stretched out on the floor, out of sight. Once the receptionist lost interest in me and dropped his eyes, I dispelled the camouflage on Oberon and cast it on myself instead.

Nap well, I told him. But guard my jacket. I kind of liked it and it was sure to get messy in a few minutes. I took it off and laid it on the ottoman. As soon as it left my hands I dropped its camouflage, but the receptionist didn’t notice its sudden appearance. I took Luchta’s stake out of the inside pocket.

<I can nap and guard at the same time. If somebody comes around here, they will see me and decide to let that sleeping dog and your jacket lie.>

I returned my sight to the magical spectrum and crossed the lobby to the lounge on the other side. Through the open doorway, the lounge continued quite far back to a bar and then to an area with restaurant seating, where the hotel served its breakfast. In the lounge, round tables rested in front of couches built into the wall, and on the opposite side of those tables were a few modern armless chairs right out of a Copenhagen design haus. Ten tables, seating three or four each, and they were all full. Thirty vampires and one very nervous human serving them drinks they did not touch—though I had serious doubts that she knew who or what she was serving. She only knew that something about this group seemed wrong.

Up to this point I had slain very few vampires myself; most of the war had been conducted for me by the yewmen or the Hammers of God. Unless these vampires were all very old, they had yet to see why vampires of early days had cause to fear Druids. Except perhaps for Theophilus. I did hope that he was there; I had no idea what he looked like, and their auras all appeared the same to me—so I had no way to identify which one was measurably older or more powerful than another.

I shifted my grip on the stake, carved with the unbinding that would undo the vampires’ magic and then forcibly separate their component elements. I was anxious to try it out here, since it never got a test run in Prague. I’d examined the bindings earlier, and it was a clever execution. If there was no vampirism to unbind, it would do nothing to a human but hurt every bit as much as a normal stabbing would. But for a vampire, stabbing it anywhere with this stake would end its undead existence.

Murmuring the bindings to increase my strength and speed, drawing all the energy from the pool stored in my bear charm, I hoped I’d be able to either end this quickly or else lure them outside, where I could tap into more power from the earth. But I had my semi-effective unbinding charm, my ability to verbally unbind them, my stake, and at least a temporary visual advantage.