The Red Witch (Amber Lee Mysteries Book 6) (9 page)

Outside, a grey Berlin yawned in greeting. The sun was struggling to break through the clouds but hadn’t quite made it. It was a bright smear, feebly illuminating through cover that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon. The air was crisp and cool, but it didn’t have the bite of the fall yet. From their lofty height, seated atop a power-line, a murder of crows called out their raucous, rowdy cries.

We didn’t have to pick a cab out of the lineup—a cabbie approached
us
. In fact, it was almost as if he had honed in on us from a distance and made haste toward us like some kind of missile. He was friendly enough, though, and he helped hoist our bags into the trunk of the cab. Moments later, we were on the road.

Berlin raced along outside my window as we made our way through the streets of the German Capital. The gothic structures, some hundreds of years old, all styled in the Christian-architecture that drew me to Europe in the first place, still held their wonder. Gargoyles, black iron, roman windows, and crosses—so many crosses—stood in stark contrast to the modern concrete structures of today, which incidentally were all covered in graffiti tags.

That was something that I loved about Berlin; it was the birth place of street-art, and today’s cradle of self-expression.

There was barely a single building I could see that hadn’t been touched by some kind of neon blue, green, pink, or yellow paint save, maybe, for the oldest buildings. The ones the city really maintained. The driver, Yens was his name, explained that the police in Berlin didn’t clamp down so much on street artists, so a lot of the art would remain on the canvas for a long time.

One of the pieces I saw was huge. It was an astronaut tagged in black spray paint, floating on the side of an apartment block. It must have been 20 feet tall, and the artist must have had to pull some crazy acrobatics to get it done, but there it was, blowing my mind. I suspected Yens, who had been telling us the incredible stories of how these bits of art were created, was taking us for a ride. It was a fantastic tour, don’t get me wrong, but when he slapped us with an 89 Euro bill I felt that familiar angry heat rise into my throat.

“That was, like, 130 bucks,” I said to Collette once we had gotten off the cab. “Did we just get ripped off?”

Collette shrugged. “Maybe,” she said, “But we’re safe, and we’re here.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

I made a 360 degree spin and took in my surroundings. Alexanderplatz, one of the city’s main districts, wasn’t as tall as an American would have come to expect of a central district in a capital city. Nor was it as cramped as some cities, like New York, tended to be in many places. But it was perfectly European, with its red-brick Victorian buildings, its massive clock towers, and its wide open pedestrian courtyards; not to mention the slew of little cafes, bistros, and eateries.

Across the busy street I saw the Alexanderplatz overhead train station; the city’s main train hub, which saw the connection of three underground lines, three overhead lines, and several bus lines.
We could have taken the train from the airport,
I thought. But that was in the past, and in any case the thought was immediately dwarfed by the hugely impressive TV Tower, otherwise known as the
Fernsehturm Berlin
—a disco ball impaled on a tall spike—the tallest building in all of Berlin. At least, that I knew anyway.

Not wanting to be overcome with tourist syndrome, we made tracks for the hotel. Luckily, it wasn’t hard to get to from where we were. We had chosen Alexanderplatz because of its accessibility—and because the last time I was in Berlin I had been too concerned with the Berlin Wall to even think of visiting Amexanderplatz—but mostly because the hotels and hostels here weren’t too expensive, so we figured we would stay somewhere comfortable as well as central.

Of course, just because we were in a European city didn’t mean that we needed to necessarily stay at a hostel like a pair of travelers. I wasn’t a penniless student anymore, and while I wasn’t a snob either, I had grown out of communal bathrooms, no showers, and no internet. So we strolled right into the Holiday Inn across the way, checked in to our room, and headed on upstairs. It still marveled me how everyone here spoke English so well.

When I pulled the curtains back a darkening Berlin rolled out in front of me. From here I could see the train station, all red brick and fluorescent light. Beyond it the TV tower, with the red light atop its spire glowing red and tall in the night. And beyond that, the twinkling lights of a city that was starting to look more alive now, in the dark, than it had during the day.

I had missed Europe so much.

Collette’s reflection melted in next to mine. She was smiling.

“This is as close to home as you’ve been in a long time, huh?” I asked.

“Oui,” she said.

“Do you miss home?”

“I do and I don’t. I miss France, of course. But I have a new home with you, one I am very grateful for.”

I turned around and smiled. “And you’re welcome to it for as long as you like. Of course, assuming we can get you back
in
to the US.”

“Zat will not be a problem.” A wicked grin spread across her face.

“Oh?”

“Did we have a problem getting out?”

“No, but historically I think my country has had more problems letting
aliens
in than out.”

Collette went for her purse, pulled out her passport, and showed it to me. I hadn’t seen her passport photo yet so I suspected I was on the verge of breaking out into a fit of laughter because, well, no one takes a good passport photo and I was sure Collette wasn’t the exception to the rule; no matter how beautiful she was. But when I flicked through it I was surprised to find the passport empty.

Completely empty.

Out of my mouth a kind of “eh?” sound escaped. “It’s blank,” I said. “You left the country with this?”

“And entered.”

“Okay, now I’m interested,” I said, handing the passport back. “What does it do?”

“Ze passport was my mother’s,” she started to say, but then she trailed off and shook her head. “Non, zis is a conversation for another time. I will check my emails and we will go, yes?”

“Alright,” I said, eyeing her suspiciously, “But I get to pick the places we go to tonight. And you finish telling me what you were about to say.”

“You can pick ze places, and perhaps I will tell you what I was about to say.”

“Fine, but just so you know, I plan on having fun tonight. The serious stuff doesn’t start until tomorrow, understood?”

Collette nodded, retrieved her tablet from her bag, and sat down at the desk to, presumably, start the process of hooking on to the hotel wireless network and check her emails.
Emails,
I thought.
Who is she emailing? That guy we’re supposed to meet? I thought he was a hermit.

It didn’t matter. I was hungry and in desperate need of a shower, so I went ahead and fixed the latter problem all the while mulling over possible places to eat at—TV Tower, the Chicken Place by the train station, or maybe somewhere in the mall across the way
—
and
musing about my plan to get Collette drunk tonight. She never drank anything besides wine, never lived in any way excessively, “everything in moderation” she would say in her sultry French accent. But tonight that would change.

Tonight, after dinner, we were drinking Absinthe.

CHAPTER 9

In the end we decided to simply head down to the hotel restaurant and grab a quick bite before going out. After, we made our way out of the Holiday Inn and walked across that grand plaza standing between our hotel and the train station. At the station we decided, after much deliberation, to pick up an S-Bahn train, S-Bahn being short hand German for “city rapid railway”, and head to a nearby district where there was, I had learned the last time I was here, a real Absinthe bar. Of course, I couldn’t speak German and Collette’s was pretty rusty, so we had to figure out the maps on our own because, well, I couldn’t entirely remember where it was.

“It’s this one,” I said, pointing at an escalator. “We literally just take the train from Alexanderplatz, ride it a couple of stops down to…” I checked the map on the wall and tapped it, “Here, Berlin Nordbahnhof, and then it’s a short walk to the bar.”

“For an American,” she said, offering a pretext I was sure was bracing me for offence, “Your pronunciation of German words, despite not knowing ze language, is quite remarkable.”

“I am sure I can imitate your accent as well, ma cherie,” I said, putting on my best Collette impression.

“How long did you spend in Europe?” she asked as she followed me up the escalator.

“A while. Long enough to pick up what I could. I can understand most Latin languages well enough if they’re spoken slowly. Maybe not German, though; this language sounds like typewriters being thrown down stairs.”

“I actually find German to be quite charming.”

“I disagree. French, that’s charming. Even Spanish, maybe. And let’s not get started on the British accent; that drives us nuts over in the US.”

Collette giggled and made her way up the escalator.

Getting a ticket wasn’t difficult. The ticket machines, situated all over any platform, were automated. You just went up to it, tapped on the touchscreen display and made your selection—Zone’s 1 through 2, 1.50 Euros return—dropped the right number of coins into the slot, and out came your ticket complete with a holographic stub.

Simple enough.
But purchasing a ticket didn’t quite cut it. You also had to
validate
it using one of the other nearby machines. That way, if a ticket inspector asked, you could prove that your trip was valid and thereby avoid the embarrassment of having to pay for another ticket in front of everyone. I wished I had known this on my first trip to the German city.
Gods no. I won’t let that happen to me again.

Of course I hadn’t known, and that hadn’t been a fun experience for the introvert in me.

But I had come prepared this time, locked and loaded with all of the tricks and tips I would need to get around without issue—even if I hadn’t quite bothered to pre-map the route from our hotel to the absinthe bar. Luckily, Fate intervened in the form of Daniel Robinson; an American traveler who, after hearing my accent, approached us with impunity and introduced himself.

Daniel was alright. He reminded me a little of a wandering dog, padding along on roads he didn’t know, pissing on everything as he went just to leave his mark; for the mere sake of proving he had been there. Proving what—and to whom—though, maybe not even he knew. Still, he had a charming smile, pearly white teeth, clear hazel eyes, and while his voice made him sound like his throat didn’t know the meaning of wetness there was something friendly about it.

Welcoming,
I thought,
that’s what he is. He’s welcoming.

And helpful, as it turned out. Daniel had been in Berlin for a few days and one of the first places he had gone to was the same Absinthe bar we were looking for. Maybe he sensed our newness to Berlin, or maybe it was written on our faces, but he decided to abandon his previous plans and get off the train with us at Nordbahnhof to lead us to the place because everyone had to try Absinthe the way Hemmingway had it
at least once
.

The first thing that struck me as we came off the S-Bahn and walked out of the platform building, which looked more like the interior of an old residential building that had been gutted out and pierced through with a train track than a platform, was the total absence of noise on the streets. The hour hadn’t crept past the point of mandatory noise reduction yet and besides the odd car hissing past over a road covered in evening dew… silence.

“It’s so quiet here,” Collette said as we crossed the street, “Too quiet to be a capital.”

“That’s because Berlin actually enforces it’s no noise policy,” I said, “You can drink out in the streets if you want and you won’t get arrested for it, but if you make a sound after about ten while you do it they’ll come and get you.”

“I enjoy silence,” Collette said, “It was one of ze things I enjoyed most about France.”

“Raven’s Glen isn’t that noisy, maybe in the fall and the winter when everyone’s driving around in their cars, but as far as people getting arrested for noise pollution? I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

I thought back to the day Damien and I had first met Frank. Marilyn Manson had been screaming at the top of his lungs about the Beautiful People, a sound so loud and heavy every beat and thump was like a sledgehammer driving into the walls attempting to contain them. Gods only knew how long the music had been going for, and yet the Sheriff was nowhere to be seen.

No, the Sheriff was too busy figuring out ways to kill me,
I thought, grimly.

“Raven’s Glen, huh?” Daniel asked, “Where’s that?”

“Northern California.”

“You get a lot of Ravens up there in Northern CA?”

“A few,” I said, smiling.