She smiled. “Ah’ll take my chances.”
The innkeeper set three trays into a lit buffet warmer in the center of the table. “Breakfast soufflé, goetta sausage, and bread pudding,” she said as she pulled the lid off each steaming vessel.
“Soufflé looks a little flat,” Zola said.
The innkeeper laughed. “You said the same thing last time you were here.” She walked the lids back into the kitchen.
“Admitting you’ve been here that long now?” Zola asked. “Long enough to know more than a photograph? Ah assumed you’d keep a greater distance.”
The innkeeper spared Zola a glance, but said no more.
“She’s a bit older than she looks, isn’t she?” Mike asked.
“Ah haven’t been here since 1884,” Zola said.
“You both look pretty good for being over a century.”
“A century?” the innkeeper said as she came back into the room with a pitcher swathed in a fabric napkin. “I am well over three, thank you very much.”
Mike gawked as she poured orange juice from the silver pitcher. “But you are no necromancer, are you?”
“No, demon, I am not. We’ll leave it there for now. It’s nothing you need to know. I’ve already learned half your names. As Adannaya insinuated so subtly, I do not wish you to know mine.”
Mike looked at his plate and took a bite of bread pudding. His eyes widened. “Madam, if you continue to bring me bread pudding like this, I shall ask nothing else of you.”
“Fair enough,” she said as she started to walk away. She paused and looked back. “You’re somewhat social for a demon.”
Mike laid his fork down and swallowed another bite of bread pudding. He laced his fingers together and took a slow breath, his eyes never leaving his plate. “One mistake does not define a man, but it may damn him.”
“The damned can always be redeemed,” she said as she disappeared into the kitchen.
“Were that only true,” Mike said. He stayed silent for a moment and then shook himself. “You really need to try this bread pudding.”
Sam opened her mouth wide for a forkful of soufflé and said, “Nuh-uh.” She chewed and swallowed. “Soufflé, so good, oh so good.”
I watched Mike for a moment, wondering what I didn’t know about the man, wondering what—other than the little necromancer—drove him. I took a bite of soufflé and understood Sam’s reaction. The eggs were perfect. Throw in the cheese, and sausage, and a bite of goetta, and it was a heavenly affair.
“That’s good,” I mumbled around a mouthful of food, forgoing the coffee.
Mike shook his head. “Bread pudding.”
“Ah’m with Mike,” Zola said.
I stabbed some bread pudding. My teeth sank into it and my taste buds exploded. “Pudding. Like bread, with sweet goo, oh god.”
“An apt description, boy,” Zola said with a chuckle. “Finish up. We need to take over the watch. We’re pulling a long shift, so most of the group will be well rested tonight.”
A clatter of knives, forks, and lip smacking eventually led to the end of a stellar meal.
***
I shivered in the crisp morning air and leaned on my staff as we stood at the base of the steps outside Rivercene. A few flurries fell from the gray skies and the naked tree branches struck each other like drumsticks in the wind.
“We’re going to be out here how long?” Sam muttered as she wrapped a crocheted Hello Kitty scarf tightly around her neck, covering the darker patch of donor skin on her neck. Sometimes I could see that scar and think nothing of it. Other times it took me back to the night my sister died and I had to piece her back together. The night she’d become a vampire.
I breathed into my hands and then slid some thin leather driving gloves on. Better than nothing. “I have a question.”
Sam, Zola, and Mike all looked at me.
“We know Philip has the hand of the dead Fae king. Couldn’t he just pop in here at any time? Zachariah could pop in and out. Why not Philip? Is keeping watch really doing us any good?”
“Do you not listen, boy?” Zola said. “If anyone comes through the Warded Ways, the Guardian here will destroy them.”
“Even through a new portal?” Mike asked.
“Yes, even then.”
Mike eyed Zola. “What guards this place?”
Zola gave him a flat look. “Darkness. Pray you don’t learn more.” Her eyes shifted to me. “Damian, before you even ask, the spell Zachariah and the others use let them move briefly through a chain of dead auras. They can’t use it over long distances, and it’s still a risk even at short distances.” She rubbed her wrist and looked up toward one of the taller trees. “Let’s relieve our friends.”
There weren’t many necromantic texts that had survived the trials of time, but I’d read mentions of teleportation by necromancy. The two times I’d read of it, in the Black Book and in an old manuscript from the Society of Flame, it was considered suicide.
We hadn’t taken three steps when Cassie swooped down from the trees and landed on Zola’s shoulder. She hugged Zola’s neck and sighed.
“We get to go inside?”
“Yes, how was the cold?’ Zola asked.
“Nothing Cara’s thermals can’t beat,” Cassie said as she pulled the edge of a white bodysuit out from under her armor.
“I need to ask Cara for one of those,” Sam said through her scarf.
“Christmas is coming up pretty quick,” Cara said as she glided in and settled on Sam.
Sam grinned.
“Where’s Vassili?” Sam asked.
“He’s around,” Cara said.
“Yes, I am,” Vassili said, and I jumped. He nodded as I turned around and found him perched on the portico roof, crouched with his right hand on the edge of the trim.
“Anything interesting happen?” I asked.
“Nyet,
Cara saw Volund’s bald head, but that is it.”
“If Volund and Zachariah are here, Philip is too,” Zola said.
A black blur moved across the roof above Vassili and leapt. I shifted away on instinct, but there was no reason to run. Vik landed on the brick with a whumpf, his knee-length coat soaring in the breeze behind him. He was still wearing his raven-black hair cropped close to his head. Just looking at his sharp cheekbones in the frigid air made me shiver.
“Vik!” Sam said as she gave the old vampire a hug.
“Samantha, it is good to see you.” He turned and held out his hand to me, we traded grips. “Sorry about your mother.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I trailed Zachariah,” Vik said. “It was a near thing, but he vanished again.”
Vassili nodded and jumped down from the roof. “They are slippery. We need one alive.”
“Yes,” Zola said. “We have to find out where they’re keeping Andi. Ah doubt they’d hurt her if they don’t have the Blessing, but Ah cannot be sure.”
I pulled out the pepperbox, broke it open, checked for six rounds, and snapped it closed. “At least we only need one of them alive.”
“I can get on board with that,” Sam said.
“Be careful,” Mike said. “We fought three of them at Stone’s River. We failed to kill them, and capturing them may be more difficult.”
“We will rest,” Vassili said. “The demon is correct, use caution. Come.” He made a quick gesture to Vik. Cara and Cassie followed suit, migrating to either of Vik’s shoulders.
“Ah thought there was another vampire with you, no?” Zola asked.
“Da,
Mary. I sent her to Columbia. We have many friends there. I want backup if it is needed.”
“You always were a bastard at chess,” Mike said.
The old white-haired vampire nodded as the group slipped into the mansion.
“Alright,” Zola said. “Damian, Mike, walk the river. Sam, you’re with me. We’ll make a quick round before we split up.”
Mike and I started south, down the brick walkway as the snow started to fall a little heavier. Trees in the distance turned to a pale mass as the snowflakes obscured our view. I glanced back to see Sam and Zola disappear behind the mansion. The brick path ended and we crossed a stretch of grass and then the gravel road.
“Last time I was here, this is where the river was,” Mike said as he paused beside two stone columns. Each was only a few feet high and topped with a stone sphere, gray and weatherworn.
I glanced back at the house. “That’s insane. Why would someone build so close to the river?”
“Only a riverboat captain would be so bold,” Mike said as he led the way down a short incline into a stand of trees. “I hear he researched the highest flood markers and then built the mansion just a little higher.”
“Gutsy.” I followed behind the demon, his bare arms exposed to the cold, as I tried to watch my footing and keep an eye on our surroundings at the same time. At one time it may have been the river, but now we were in a thick stand of trees and the river was a whisper over another rise.
“Why isn’t the river still in the same place?” I asked.
“Man, and his inability to leave nature alone,” Mike said. “I don’t know, I think it was the Army Corps or some such thing. I don’t remember why.”
We passed through the trees and skirted the incline beside the river. The quiet rush of the water in the winter air was calming. I took a deep breath and watched the river wash along the banks and swallow the falling snow. The fields across the water were flat and even, and I guessed it was a farm. As I looked into the distance, I shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.
“The First Battle of Boonville was over there,” Mike said as he pointed across the river. Right at the area I was staring at.
“Bad?” I asked.
“In my experience, war is never good,” he said. “In this case though, not too bad. I believe less than a hundred men died.”
I focused my Sight and looked again. A familiar gray and black mask settled over the world, bringing the dead to bear. Only a few men were left standing here. Soul fragments in Union uniforms and clusters of Confederate dead in the distance. None of them were looking at us, but they were all looking at something. Off to the west.
“Can you see them?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mike said. “I don’t have the benefit of hiding them from my vision. I always see them, always see the ley lines.”
“They’re looking at something.”
Mike cursed and pulled me to my knees, his voice falling to a whisper. “We move slow, back into the trees. They focus on necromancers. If they’re not looking at you, they’re probably looking at Philip’s men.”
“Or Philip himself.”
“Let us hope that is not the case.”
I nodded in agreement as I pushed a branch to the side.
“It will be easier to catch a servant than their master. Come, faster.” Mike pushed ahead and began a quick trot in a low crouch. I followed him, surprised how easily we slipped through the close-knit branches. Mike found paths in seconds that would have taken me a minute of searching to break through the dense weave of branches in the dormant underbrush.
“Mike, stop,” I hissed.
He froze and looked back at me. “What?”
“Across the river. Black cloak on the higher bank.”
His eyes trailed across the river. “I see it. Whoever it is, they aren’t looking this way.”
I could barely see the black cloak ripple in the breeze, but Mike could see which way it was facing? “Okay, eagle eye.”
He flashed a small smile and moved forward. I followed.
“If he’s a lookout, we might get lucky,” Mike said. “They’ll have to fly, or cross the bridge. I’m gambling on the bridge.”
Moving out without the others may not have been the brightest idea, but if it gave us a chance to catch one of Philip’s men unaware, I was all for it. Sam and Zola would be on watch if anything went bad.
Mike accelerated his pace, and I followed suit. We came to the edge of the trees, closing in on the industrial silos and heavy equipment. The bridge was on the other side, but we didn’t need to go that far. Volund was talking to another necromancer beside one of the huge cylinders. His cloak was pulled tight with a series of ropes crisscrossing his chest and waist. Steam rose from his head and his face was scrunched, like someone had smacked him with a two-by-four.
The other necromancer nodded and Volund said something I couldn’t make out at such a distance. He pulled his hood up and walked away, leaving the unknown man alone. The straggler leaned against the silo and a shaky hand pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Sam used to smoke those, and I’m glad she’d quit young, not like it really mattered anymore, though.
“I was never one for guard duty,” Mike said, “but I must admit this has been entertaining.”
“You want me to paralyze him?” I said as my hand shifted up my staff. “Or just take a cheap shot?”
“Oh no,” Mike said. “Leave him to me.”
The demon reached vampiric speeds as he leapt out of the woods. By the time the necromancer realized something was coming, he didn’t have a chance. His cigarette and lighter were falling to the ground as he fumbled for something in his cloak. Mike swung an elbow and the man’s head snapped back, his body falling into a heap. Mike hoisted the limp form over his shoulder and jogged back to the tree line as though he was carrying a light sack of potatoes.
“Let’s move,” I said. “Zola’s going to want to have a chat with him. For that matter,
I’d
like to have a chat with him.” I matched Mike’s pace and we jogged toward Rivercene.
“I have noticed something,” Mike said.
“What’s that?” The cold started to burn my lungs as our pace increased to a run.
“It seems your chats end with dead people.”
“Only people I don’t like,” I said between breaths.
Mike laughed. “That doesn’t bode well for this man.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Z
ola and Sam squatted on either side of the unconscious man. His hair was short and sandy, the left side of his face already blossoming into a red, swollen bruise. Zola turned his head to the left, and then back to the right.
“He’s alive, but you broke some bones.”
Mike shrugged. “Gives you something to work with.”
Zola let out a dark chuckle and wiped a snowflake from her eyebrow. Her gray cloak was beginning to darken where the snow was melting.
“He knows where Mom is?” Sam asked.
“Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “We won’t know until he’s awake.”