Staked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #8)(76)

I caught five more, able to move faster than them, with Gaia’s aid. Four in the park, and the last one in the Spree River. He jumped in out of desperation and disappeared underwater; since he didn’t need to breathe, he wouldn’t come up until he was good and ready. But that same lack of buoyancy made vampires terrible swimmers. They sank to the bottom and had to walk instead of swim, much slower than anything else. He couldn’t float up; he’d have to claw and crawl his way out, if I ever let him get that far. I splashed after him, shape-shifted to a sea otter, swam right out of my clothes, and held the stake between my wee front paws until I was able to close the gap between us. Then I shifted back to human and sank the stake into the vampire’s calf. He dissolved in the river beneath the Bode Museum and got washed away by the current.

That left me naked in the Spree River, and I’m not ashamed to say the temperature led to some shrinkage.

That was nineteen very old vampires erased from the world, however, and all I got was naked and some bruising. Not bad. Quite good, in fact. And if one of the unbound had been Theophilus, then I would count it as a perfect ambush. But eleven of them had escaped cleanly to the S-Bahn, and there was no telling where they had gone.

I returned to the Monbijou Hotel in shivering camouflage to avoid alarming the local populace. My priorities amused me and I snorted into the darkness. I had no problem disassembling vampires in plain view but didn’t want to truly terrify anyone with my full frontal nudity. Once outside the hotel, I called Oberon to come join me outside. And bring my jacket, will you, please? I asked.

<Okay. Ha! The man working at the desk just saw me get up and he freaked out. I don’t know what he’s saying, but he’s got those terrified Twilight Zone eyes.>

Sirens began to wail and grow closer. Yes, I imagine so. He just saw men crash through the window, and if he’s been into the lounge he’s seen an awful lot of blood. The sudden appearance of a huge hound after all that probably made him lose bladder control.

We scooted around the corner to a Nike store on Hackescher Markt, where I was able to discreetly snatch a pair of sweatpants and a shirt. I didn’t bother with shoes, and the leather jacket didn’t exactly match, but it was better than bare skin in this weather. I made a mental note to come back and pay for them later.

Let’s head back to the park, Oberon. You have a fateful date with a squirrel.

<Yeah! That’s right!>

I wondered how the hotel staff would explain to the police what had happened. I wondered if maybe I’d been caught on a security video, unbinding vampires—a distinct possibility and one I hadn’t worried about as I had in the past. If that encounter was recorded, it could prove problematic, but I doubted it would make the news. There were too many uncomfortable questions for police to answer: Did I have a new, horrifying weapon that liquefied or exploded people on contact, or were those victims not exactly human? Or both? They couldn’t let that get out until they had the answers. Governments have been in the habit of suppressing information “for the population’s own protection” for centuries now; it’s how gods and monsters can still walk the earth and the mass of humanity thinks of them as mere stories for their entertainment, an escape from a lifetime of toil to pay the bills. Maybe they would call in the real-life equivalent of Fox Mulder to investigate this. Or the authorities might be so desperate to catch me that I would find a screen cap of my face on every television in Germany.

Either way, the vampires who escaped wouldn’t remain in Berlin for long, and I figured I shouldn’t either. A hot shower, a real change of clothes, and a few hours of blissful slumber far away from sirens were what I needed. A reunion with Granuaile would be perfect, if I could catch up with her, but we had no home base until the place in Oregon was ready, and I doubted I’d be able to divine her location now if she’d secured a divination cloak from the Polish coven, as Perun had suggested. Not that I had my divination wands on me anyway.

“I’m up for sleeping someplace warm,” I told Oberon as we jogged back to Tiergarten in the rain. “We need to visit the Southern Hemisphere.”

<Fine by me. How about someplace dry in Australia? Alice Springs?>

“That sounds perfect right now.”





CHAPTER 20





Knowing that there’s something ye should be doing but can’t is like having an itchy arsehole ye want to scour clean but you’re at Court and that sort of thing is frowned upon. I should be helping Brighid hunt down Fand and Manannan Mac Lir, but I have apprentices to protect and teach. I suppose I should take comfort in the fact that this is something I can and should do. It should be fecking joyous. I think it would be, except for me itching.

I tried to tell Brighid what happened, but her gaggle of Fae chamberlains wouldn’t rouse her. She was excessively wearied after some trip to Svartálfheim, they said. She left explicit instructions not to be disturbed unless an actual physical attack was under way, and me wishing to speak to her didn’t qualify. So I wrote a note.

And I don’t try to see Flidais about the problem, because what if it really isn’t Flidais I’m talking to but Fand in a glamour? Best to let Brighid deal with it as she wishes, when she wishes, and bear the itching in the meantime.

Divination is no help. I cast wands, watch the birdies for some augury, and all I get is the vague idea that they’re hiding in a swamp. But no indication of where that swamp might be, not even if it’s on this plane or one of the Irish ones or somewhere else.