I looked around, but there wasn’t any kind of “replay button,” I could press to give him the quick low-down (does anyone get a “high down” on something?\u00a0 Is this a poker term?) on what was happening.<\/p>\n
“Um.”\u00a0 Yeah, that was erudite and witty.\u00a0 “Look, we’re in Ivan’s heart, right?\u00a0 Well, Ivan, he didn’t look too well when I last saw him.”\u00a0 So it was an understatement.\u00a0 I wasn’t going to go into detail about blisters and all that rot.\u00a0 Erm.\u00a0 [shudder]\u00a0 “If I’ve called this one right, Ivan’s heart is giving out, and this never ends up well in books.”<\/p>\n
“He can manipulate the forces,” Viktor frowned, but I think he believed me because he stood up.<\/p>\n
“Here’s my rule of thumb.\u00a0 You wizard types generally don’t wind down easy.\u00a0 You don’t go in your sleep.\u00a0 You go because something is opposing you.\u00a0 Who’s our second shooter?” I asked, standing as well.<\/p>\n
“I do not understand,” Viktor admitted.<\/p>\n
“That’s fine.\u00a0 It’s only a theory anyway.”\u00a0 I took a breath.\u00a0 “So, while you were out, or, well, in, as the case may be, Nellie took Doloise.\u00a0 Doloise’s daddykins or however you want to describe the lord of her house came and told me to get her back, and I’ve got a naked vampire chick who thinks I can do it.\u00a0 Which is kind of irrelevant, but it was a long night and I have to wait for the bill.”\u00a0 I realized I was babbling a bit.\u00a0 “Anyway, I thought Ivan’s heart would be the obvious link, so I was going to have him use it to take me to wherever Nellie’s stashed my Guardian and Guide.\u00a0 When I got there, his guests looked drained, like the life had been taken right out of them, and he was being, um, well, his goose was cooked.\u00a0 Let’s just do that.”\u00a0 I decided anything more in the way of description probably would make me lose my lunch and s’mores, which were kind of churning anyway.<\/p>\n
“His goose?”\u00a0 I was losing him.<\/p>\n
“Pate.\u00a0 All the way.\u00a0 I’d rather not go into the details.\u00a0 Anyway, he’s in trouble, and unless someone else with medical training is going to see him, I think we’re actually losing time.\u00a0 The thumping, do you feel it?”<\/p>\n
“Yes, I have noticed it.”<\/p>\n
“It’s getting slower.\u00a0 That can’t be a good sign.”<\/p>\n
Viktor was alert.\u00a0 He packed up, and his dogs followed.\u00a0 “There are lots of Russian proverbs about wolves, and few about Dragons,” he said.\u00a0 “But you are correct.\u00a0 Something else has interfered.\u00a0 I do not know what would come in and drain his guests, let alone cook his goose.”\u00a0 He frowned.<\/p>\n
I had another thought.\u00a0 “Were those wolves particularly, I don’t know, wolflike to you?”<\/p>\n
“They are spells, just as my hounds protect me and you from them.”<\/p>\n
“You said Artur came in after Nellie.\u00a0 A bear’s heart who thinks he’s a wolf.\u00a0 Could he have done something?”<\/p>\n
“The boy?”\u00a0 Viktor’s eyes narrowed.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, just what I thought.\u00a0 It’s easy to make yourself look young with the right magic, you know, like the kind that drains the life right out of people.”\u00a0 Well, not easy.\u00a0 I mean, there are cosmetic companies who have been trying to get the formula right for years.\u00a0 But there are ways, and it’s usually those from beyond who do it, or those who make deals with those from beyond.\u00a0 Vampires, still.<\/p>\n
Was that the real reason Matana was there?\u00a0 I knew vampires clashed, and not just because some of the types saw the others as scrumptious little fish in their ponds.\u00a0 (I knew there were familial ties between them, and some could create others more easily which led to little predator wars on the edges of the periphery, but you don’t get the real information unless you’re blood bound to someone, and even then you only get your group’s secrets.\u00a0 Since my real sympathy is for the slayers’ side, a lot of this is listening, and the kind of conjecture you get from reading between the lines.)<\/p>\n
I knew there was a reason I kept being suspicious about Sullen Boy.\u00a0 If he had been trying to dampen down some of his powers or something to keep me from sussing him out… but Nellie would have known, and why would she have tolerated his presence?\u00a0 What about Peredur’s “little vesper” comment?\u00a0 Or was it just that Matana had been hidden and he wanted her to know it wasn’t past his notice?<\/p>\n
The relationship map just kept getting more twisted.\u00a0 I had a lot of possibilities, and few answers.<\/p>\n
“So, we go hunting wolves?” Viktor asked when I had been silent for more than a minute.\u00a0 I had followed him down the mountain area.<\/p>\n
“Um, I’m not…” I began to digress.<\/p>\n
“If you are not a hunter, I will make you bait.”<\/p>\n
“I’m a hunter.”\u00a0 That was easy.<\/p>\n
“Good.\u00a0 Take this.”\u00a0 He pushed something in my hand that looked more like a crossbow than a gun.<\/p>\n
“How does it work?”<\/p>\n
“I thought you said you were a hunter,” but he was grinning at me.\u00a0 “It is a spell, too.\u00a0 It is point and shoot.”<\/p>\n
I was more a point-and-click type of guy, but I could handle that, I supposed.<\/p>\n
“It has one shot,” he added, not looking at me.\u00a0 “Use carefully.”<\/p>\n
“Oh.”\u00a0 Was that a, “Use it on me so I don’t become one of them?” or a “Use it on yourself if you think we’ll be captured?” or a “This is all I trust you with so don’t miss?” or… I decided not to guess.<\/p>\n
There was another beat, and the landscape melted slightly around us.\u00a0 Really, like the crags and sharp angles made a curve, the geometry getting fuzzy.<\/p>\n
The dogs began barking.\u00a0 Viktor smiled.\u00a0 “They have one.”\u00a0 I hurried to catch up with him.\u00a0 I was totally going to start a new exercise program, one not entitled, “Running to catch the bus,” and more something like, “Running for my life to not be a wolf’s dinner,” but maybe a little less stressful.<\/p>\n
Another beat.\u00a0 This one was also irregular.\u00a0 So was the strange inky blackness coming at me from behind, with sharp teeth and very human eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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