“Bullshit!” I yelled. “You killed, like, eight Scidairans. If I know anything about the rules of interplaner battle, and I do, that gives you leave to recruit them. Count that as your payment and get the fuck outta here!”
With a final cry of outrage he snapped out of sight, taking his entourage with him.
Vayl looked into my eyes. “Your language is quite shocking. But I love the way you fight.”
“I’m still pissed at you!”
“I know. And I find it incredibly titillating.”
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I snorted and laughed at the same time. “Vayl, really, you can’t say that word and believe people will take you seriously.”
Vayl shrugged his indifference to people’s opinions as he asked, “Any guesses as to where Brude has run off to?”
“I think he’s supposed to be Enforcing for Lucifer, whatever that entails. This other gig”—I gestured to the clearing, now littered with Scidairan corpses—“is just a part-time thing.”
“Jasmine?” Albert had dropped Vayl’s cane to his side. He was looking around the battlefield, his eyes skating past the bodies to the flaming balls of muck that had dropped in our general area. “Did you really do that?”
“I . . . uh . . .”
“And, Vayl? How is it that you can control the weather? Did Bergman make you some sort of portable snow machine?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s it. Snow. Sleet. Fire. It’s all right here.” I patted Vayl’s breast pocket, which remained agonizingly flat.
Iona stepped up, supporting a weeping Viv. “Samos is probably at Clava Cairns by now,” she reminded us. “I’ve been called by my circle to prevent Floraidh from resurrecting him. And it seems like you’re of the same mind. I suspected as much when you cleared our room yesterday, but of course I couldn’t reveal myself to you in case I was wrong. So what do you say? Shall we join forces?”
My reaction really pissed Viv off. She began signing like she’d much rather hit me. Iona said, “Viv wants to know how you could possibly smile at a time like this.”
“Because Floraidh all but told us we couldn’t beat her without a spell caster.” I nodded at her. “And now we have one.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
My guess is that when confronting your newly risen nemesis who is now trying to cement his remains into a stolen body, your best approach should probably involve some form of stealth. Unfortunately our crew included an untrained civilian, a distracted witch, a rickety old man, and an excited malamute.
Jack hardly ever barked. Strangers remarked on his polite behavior. In the park he refused to woof at bikers, other dogs, or even little kids chasing bright red balls. But now I couldn’t get the mutt to shut up!
He sounded a little like a sinus-infected bear as he vocalized. Along the lines of, “Roo-roo, we’re coming after you-poo!”
I wiggled his lead. “Jack! What the hell? Where were you when that wild-eyed Bible thumper came to the door trying to save my soul?” He threw a furry grin over his shoulder and launched into a second verse.
I said, “Swear to God, dog, if this doesn’t turn out well I’m buying you generic food for the next month!”
We stood at the edge of the woods, staring out at Clava Cairns. The Scidairans’ fire had sputtered out, but the GhostCon torches still glowed, making me wonder how soon we’d be running into their firþng st walking tour.
This could get awkward. Although those punishment-gluttons would probably embrace the whole experience. Right up to the point where Floraidh started munching on their juicy bits.
Yet another reason we needed to shut this operation down, like, yesterday.
At least we knew where the body snatchers had set up camp. And considering where we’d found Jack’s harness, it made sense that the flicker of their fire reflected off the walls of the inner circle of the northeast cairn.
“What’s the plan?” Albert asked.
“There is none,” I said.
“You should have a plan,” said Albert. He’d resheathed Vayl’s sword and was now leaning heavily on the cane.
I didn’t tell him I’d tried to put something together during our short trek through the pines. But since I had no idea how you kill a resurrected vampire, I figured winging it would probably work better than developing a play-by-play. Also it would leave me in a more hopeful frame of mind, since if I had to think about it any length of time I was ninety percent sure my conclusions would depress the hell out of me.
I had decided that if I was going to die tonight, I didn’t want to do it without making some sort of grand romantic gesture that Vayl would remember forever. Like in the movies. Unfortunately we’d been rushing pretty much headlong through thick undergrowth at the time. So kissing was out. He’d probably view a boob flash as accidental or whorish. Goddammit, why did I already tell him I loved him? This would’ve been the perfect moment!
I tried to calm myself. After all, I’d already dropped a load of flaming coals from the sky and probably ashed out a fraction of my soul in the process. Plus it might be nice if I could think clearly for once. Yup. Time to accept the fact that my mind wouldn’t produce a memorable kissy-face moment. It wanted to work. So I’d better damn well survive, because I’d be so pissed if we missed our chance.
I handed Jack’s leash to Albert. “You stay here,” I said, making it clear I meant both of them. “And this time it would be nice if you didn’t let yourself get kidnapped, all right?” I glanced at Iona. “Have you figured out why Jack’s harness would be so important to Floraidh yet?” She’d overheard my conversation with the Scidairan and had been trying to decide what it meant ever since we left the clearing.
She said, “I need to know why the dog is so significant that they wanted something that was a part of him for so long.”
I filled her in on Jack’s background without revealing exactly who I was. But you could tell she was sketching in the missing pieces pretty well all on her own.
She asked, “Would you say Jack was more important to Samos when he was alive than any other creature he knew?”
“Even though he had an avhar at one time, I’d say yeah. Without a doubt.”
“And now, this is quite important. When you killed Samos, thinking that was his real name, was the dog wearing his harness at the time?”
“Yeah. We didn’t get rid of it until we left Greece later that evening.”
Iona nodded. “Here’s what I believe. Vampires have very little to leave behind. But there is some. Bits and pieces of worldly material. Vapor. Shreds of essence. When Samos left this world, I believe the demon he bargained with caught a bit of his remains. But a portion naturally fell into his pet. This is what happens with those we love. Perhaps all that was left of him settled into the leather of the harness because, as an item formed from the skin of another animal, it still keeps its retentive properties.”
Vayl said, “But if Floraidh did not need it to call Samos from wherever he had stored his essence, why did she bury it in the cairn?”
Iona had crouched down to dig up a hunk of moss. “Because it can be used to destroy Samos for good. Having put all her energies into resurrecting him, she wouldn’t want him taken away from her again. So she found the one weapon that could be used against him and buried it where she could guard it. Except your dog found it.”
With Brude’s help. Why would Brude want Samos gone? He’d said he never had one reason. So if not just to help me . . . as revenge against his enemies, the Scidairans? Or in his role as the Devil’s Enforcer? At this moment, do I give a crap? Um, no.