The Waning Moon Page 6

“Are you asking me if that head bit me?”

  I laughed, which judging from the looks I was getting from my companions, was not the right response. “No. I meant earlier when his head was still firmly attached to the rest of him.”

  “No, I left to go get you coffee about a half hour ago.”

  I peered at his neck. “He totally bit you. You have half-healed fang marks.”

  “That’s probably why I skipped the first two Starbucks I saw.” He seemed altogether way too calm.

  “At least I wasn’t naked this time.” Isaac continued to stare at the head. “Isaac, are you okay? You seem excessively relaxed.”

  “It’s not every day I find a severed head in my bedroom.”

  “Are you stoned?”

  He finally tore his gaze away from the head and looked at me. “Maybe. I do feel mellow. He must have given me some of his blood, too. Good thing you killed him.”

  “What woke you?” Florence asked me.

  “Bells.” She looked smug. “Was that the alarm you set up? Nicely done.”

  I filled them in on Grigori’s Monty Python-esque Black Knight routine. By the time I finished, Isaac was rousing from his stupor—at least enough for him to react when I said, “I’m going to call Raj.”

  “You want to talk to the pervert?”

  “He’s the only vampire I know, and he’s really, really old. Grigori said Raj has been bragging about the power he got from a sip of my blood. I want to know why the fuck he’d do that if he’s on my side.”

  “Fine.”

  I didn’t know if Raj would be up, even if it was earlier in Portland, but I thought it worth a shot. I dug through my stuff until I found his card and borrowed Isaac’s cell phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Raj?” I asked, suddenly unsure.

  “Eleanor. What a pleasant surprise.” His voice caressed me. I couldn’t believe he had that effect on me over the phone. “What can I do for you, my sweet?”

  “I have the head of a vampire sitting on the side table in my motel. Before I separated his head from his body, he told me he’d heard one sip of my blood was enough to give you complete sunlight immunity. I’m curious…why would you say that?”

  There was a brief pause on the other end. “Interesting. My sunlight immunity is the product of great age, not your blood. There have been other effects, however. Someone in my household has been talking out of turn.”

  “What effects?” I asked.

  “Nothing I will share over an unsecured line. But on to more interesting topics: tell me about the head.”

  “He was absurdly hard to kill, but his age didn’t match his skill. He was maybe a hundred, not more than a hundred and fifty. He said is name was Grigori and he had a Russian accent. FYI—I don’t think he likes you.”

  “You killed Rasputin?” Raj said. His voice changed from his usual whispering seductive tones to something much harder—and tinged with a surprise. “Are you sure?”

  “Ummm, no. I have no knowledge beyond what I’ve told you. Rasputin was a vampire? That explains a lot.”

  “I am coming to you. Keep the head. I need to be sure.” Raj hung up before I had a chance to tell him where we were.

  It was almost check-out time, and I had a mummified head and a motel room full of greasy ashes. The second problem was easy to solve. I called the front desk and asked them to send over a vacuum. After a brief argument with the front desk person about the possibility of borrowing a vacuum cleaner with a new bag in it, Isaac took the phone and told the man I’d dropped the urn containing my beloved grandfather, and wanted to clean him up.

  Ten minutes later, a motel maid was at my door with a canister vacuum and a box of one-gallon freezer bags. I took both, promised to leave the vacuum in the room when I left and got to work. I sucked up the heart ashes first, dumped them into a bag, and then divided the rest of Grigori between three bags. Florence helpfully labeled the heart bag, and we each took one of the body bags to keep them separated. I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d seen every episode of Buffy—way more than once—and there’s always one asshole who can come back from anything. And, if this was Rasputin, he’d been burned—and survived—before. I wrapped his head in motel towels, left fifty dollars and a note behind, and dropped it in a plastic shopping bag.

  “Let’s not kill any more people in motel rooms,” I said. “This is way too messy.”

  Isaac laughed. “Good idea, Princess. From now on we’ll ask them to meet us in the clearing outside town at dawn.”

  “That might get rid of a lot of our vamp enemies,” Florence said.

  “We need to be farther away from the humans if this is going to be a regular occurrence. I don’t want collateral damage.”

  I stopped by the front desk to check out and thank them for the use of their vacuum. I assured the clerk there was no trace of my grandfather left in the room and insisted he take an extra hundred dollars to show our appreciation.

  On our way to grab lunch and pick up the car, I saw a pro bowling shop. It was fate. What better way to cart around the mummified head of one of the most famous modern undead?

  The selection was a lot more utilitarian than I would’ve thought, and it took a while to find something that spoke to me. I finally settled on a hot pink ball bag—heh—with a skull and crossbones on it and handed over my debit card.

  I was starving, so I forced the others to stop at the greasy spoon a few blocks away. After ordering—three pancakes, ham, and eggs over easy plus coffee, of course—I headed to the bathroom to transfer Grigori’s head from the grocery sack to my shiny new ball bag—that was never not going to be funny.

  I got back to the table as the waitress was pouring coffee.

  “Raj is on his way?” Isaac asked.

  “Yeah, although he hung up before I could tell him where we were or where we were going. He’ll have to find us. Or call you, since he has your number.”

  “I’m sure he’ll have no trouble finding us,” Isaac said. “He drank from you. He’ll be able to locate you much like you’re able to find the gates. The closer he gets, the stronger the pull.”

  “Handy. Definitely a good reason to kill anyone else who tries to taste us. Right now, I’m more concerned about the side effects from drinking my blood he didn’t want to talk about over the phone.”

  “How long will it take him to find us?” Florence asked.

  Isaac considered the question. “He probably won’t leave until dark tonight. Flights out of Portland are hit-or-miss these days. He may have to go up to Seattle. He’ll arrive in Columbus tomorrow morning but will need to bunk down until dusk to be at full power. He may have partial sunlight immunity, but I’ve never heard of any vamp who can stand the light of the mid-day sun. So, if he arrives in Columbus tomorrow, but can’t start looking until late afternoon, he might find us towards morning the day after tomorrow or early evening.”

  “That quickly?” I asked. I was kind of impressed.

  “He’ll realize almost immediately you’re not in the city anymore and will be able to fly himself towards you once he’s in the area.”

  “How will he even know to fly to Columbus?” I asked.

  “I’m assuming he knows where Rasputin lives. If not, it’ll take longer.”

  Our food arrived, and the conversation halted as we all dug in.

  After brunch, we had some time to kill before we could get the car. I was getting sick of carrying a giant backpack—not to mention a head—and was hoping the car would make it through the rest of our journey. If not, I was going to have to figure out how to either travel lightly or use magic to carry my bags. Or hire a porter.

  When I suggested that, as the most royal of our trio, the others should consider it an honor to carry my stuff, Isaac laughed. “You’re going to have to suck it up, Princess.”

  “That’s not necessarily true,” Florence said.

  When she failed to elaborate, I elbowed her, “More details, please?”

  “This migh
t be something else we can ask Raj about, but I was always told the ley lines, in addition to being magic sinks you could pull on if you were strong enough and powerful enough, doubled as supernatural highways. I don’t know how you travel them safely. It’s tricky to attempt to even pull from the lines, and an inexperienced mage can fry themselves if they hit a line with too strong a current.”

  “Hmmm...” Isaac said. “I have heard of line ferries, but I’ve never seen one. By the time I made my way out into civilization—” his upper lipped curled as he said the word “—the Industrial Revolution was in full-swing and the magic was disappearing quickly from the world.”

  “Speaking of magic and things disappearing from the world, can we grab a paper or something?” I asked. “I’d like to check on the state of the Black Hills.” Florence and Isaac exchanged sideways glances. “I’m gonna go ahead and ignore that look you two shared and pretend it doesn’t mean you both know something I don’t because then I’d have to be pretty fucking pissed off at you. Since I demonstrated this morning that I’m not only more than capable of taking care of myself,” I shook my ball bag—heh—at them, “there is absolutely no reason to withhold information.”

  “No one is withholding information,” Florence said. A wave of calm washed over me.

  “Stop trying to sooth me with magic,” I said. It worked, though. I was feeling decidedly less grumpy when she continued.

  “Let’s grab a paper, go sit in that park until someone comes to kick us out because they think we’re vagrants looking for a camping spot and chat.”

  Isaac went into the next convenience store we saw and came out with three papers: The Columbus Dispatch, USA Today, and The New York Times. We headed to a park a couple blocks from where our car was and dropped the packs. I placed Grigori’s head on a bench, grabbed the local paper, and stared at the front page.

  “Black Hills of South Dakota Still in Darkness!” the headline read. I scanned the article. There was still no power, and the perimeter of the power kill was, according to experts, spreading. There were two maps: One showed the initial perimeter as determined the day after the incident, and the second showed the new boundary, drawn three days after the first. It was roughly twenty miles further out, and experts—although the article was quick to point out expert was a strong word to use in such an unprecedented situation—believed it was spreading about five miles a day. As the perimeter hit transformers, it knocked out power to all who relied on that as an energy source. They had military personnel in the dark zone trying to assess the situation and arrange for evacuation. Horse-drawn carriages were being brought in to help with the evacuation, and a state of emergency, complete with martial law, had been declared within the zone.

  The only known casualties from the initial blast were two Air Force pilots who’d been returning to Ellsworth Air Force Base. The cause was still unknown. No terrorist groups had come forward to claim responsibility, scientists were unable to find evidence there’d been a solar blast to cause the EMP, and no nuclear detonations had been detected.

  Cars driven into the dark zone cut out after crossing the perimeter, except for earlier models without onboard computer parts. The article mentioned possible links between what happened in the Black Hills and the situation in Portland, Oregon which was now being called a gray zone to both link it to and distinguish it from the dark zone.

  Portland’s perimeter was spreading at about the same rate, but the power outages were more sporadic. However, they were happening often enough now that electric company personnel were not able to fix the outages before the next pulse came. Portland airport was shut down, and the FAA banned air traffic in a 150-mile radius around Portland. Seattle was beginning to get nervous, and SeaTac officials were on high alert. Amtrak was suspended. River traffic on both the Columbia and Willamette Rivers was shut down—the drawbridges were mostly down, and the ships themselves lost power when they got too close. The governors of Oregon and Washington had declared states of emergency and residents of Portland, Vancouver, and the surrounding areas were being evacuated in advance of the coming winter. The hospitals had been the first to be evacuated, followed by nursing homes, but a couple of dozen people died before they could get them out.

  The article went on to talk about the economic implications of the Port of Portland being shut down and what would happen if the creep totally took out Portland and hit Seattle as well. The markets were tanking, and there were already hints of unrest as well as some rioting happening in Portland.

  “Well, fuck,” I said.

  “That sums it up,” Isaac said.

  “It’s weird being the only people who know what’s happening and not being able to tell anyone. We can’t, can we?” I asked.

  Florence said, “I can tell my friend at the FAA, but he did warn me all calls are being monitored after the pre-equinox warning before. He knows the whens, but not the wheres.”

  “There have to be supernaturals in the government. We need to contact them to start making plans. If the next gate takes out the eastern power grid, what will happen to the nuclear power plants? I don’t want to create a Chernobyl-type situation.”

  We sat silently for a moment.

  “You know,” I said. “When I first found out I was supernatural, I kind of thought I’d be out changing the world, making tough decisions and either saving or destroying the world. I assumed I’d have to make sacrifices to keep the Hellmouth closed or something. I never thought it would be like this, though. I’d like a little more fantasy Dungeons and Dragons type action. More beheading vampires and less worrying about what happens to our nuclear power plants without any electricity and how many planes I’ll bring out of the sky next time I open a gate.

  “This,” I waved my hand, trying to encompass the “real” world, “is the only thing most people know. I want to be unwavering in my decision to keep opening the gates, but is the magical backlash of not opening them any worse than the technological backlash of actually opening them? There has to be a way.”

  “There might be,” Florence said. “You will need to play on the reason the Fae want back in this world at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Many of the Fae are distressed about the depredations visited on this world by humans, right? They want to halt—and even reverse—the advancement of technology to restore the natural balance. You once said mages draw power from the Earth, but you Fae are of the earth—you feel her pain. The mother loans us power, but she doesn’t have to loan it to you—it flows into you naturally.

  “The fallout from radiation leaks caused by improperly shut down nuclear power plants—and whatever other weird nuclear shit the government has been lying about—will make it even harder to restore the balance.”

  “Good point and amusing nuclear pun.” Florence bobbed her head and grinned. “I need to get in touch with Arduinna.”

  “Christ,” Isaac said. “First the vampire, and now the Green Lady? We are going to end up with quite a menagerie.”

  “Says the wolf.” I leaned over and kissed him. “I should’ve asked Arduinna how to get a hold of her. I suppose I could call Finn and ask.”

  Florence and Isaac stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

  “Kidding. Relax. Although if I do find Arduinna, I’m going to ask if she knows how to break the bond Finn created—the bond Finn said Arduinna told him how to create. Finn said he wasn’t told how to break it, but did allow it could be broken. I don’t want a permanent link with Finn—not if it means he can listen in on my thoughts and appear out of nowhere. I feel like I’ve been lo-jacked by that motherfucking elf.”

  “Leave the link in place,” Florence said. It was my turn to look at her like she was insane.

  “Give me one good reason.”

  “You can use the link to get to wherever he is, too. It’s not a one-way link. Once you learn to use your abilities a little better, you’ll be able to reverse the effects. Maybe not to listen in on his thoughts—your skills do no
t include telepathy…”

  I pointedly ignored Isaac’s muttered, “Thanks be to all that’s holy.”

  “…but you should be able to find him due to the link. And you never know when you might need to find him.”

  I narrowed my eyes and looked at her. “Do you know a reason why I might want to find Finn?”

  “I cannot think of anything you should know,” she said. Her eyes flicked to Isaac so fast I wasn’t sure if it had happened, or if it was a trick of my imagination.

  “You lie with the truth almost as well as a Fae.”

  “That wasn’t a compliment, was it?” she asked.

  “No, but I trust you. I will keep the link, but I’d like to use it to my advantage for once.”

  “We can ask Arduinna for more information, and then I will do my best to teach you. Any ideas on how to get in touch with her?”

  “Yes. Let’s get the car, raid my seemingly bottomless bank account, buy a little pop-up trailer, and get out of town. I want to camp from now on.”

  “I distinctly remember saying I wouldn’t be joining you on any camping expeditions,” Florence said.

  “I heard. I’m ignoring. It’s good to be the queen.” I said.

  “You’re not my queen.”

  “Not yet. But if you’re good—and really, really lucky—I will be.”

  “Fine,” she said. “At least a camper will be more comfortable than the ground.”

  “As long as there is propane, we can have heat.”

  “Good call, Princess,” Isaac said. “There will be more storage for food, too.”

  “And beer. Let’s keep our priorities straight.”

  We stood up, grabbed our gear, and walked to the auto body shop. The woman who greeted us, wiping grease from her fingers with a filthy rag, was incredibly gorgeous. I saw Florence look her over appreciatively, and had to keep myself from seeing if Isaac was doing the same. She was tall—nearly six feet—and athletically lean. She had a pixie cut, and her chestnut skin glowed. I couldn’t decide if I hated her or wanted to be her.

  I held out my hand, “Hi, I’m Eleanor. Thanks for working on our car.”