Tricked (19 page)

Granuaile conceded the wisdom of this. “What are we doing next, sensei?”

“We have most of the day to wait until Greta can get here. Let’s do some training for you and some play for Oberon.”

We drove to a small undeveloped area in the township boundaries that supported a few rabbits and some extremely skittish ground squirrels. Oberon had a blast terrorizing them while I walked Granuaile through some martial arts forms that required a straight back and neck.

Kayenta was a dry place and a simple one. Austere, even. But I could see myself being happy there, if only the world would let me.

There was a span of years in the 1980s during which I marveled at the almost supernatural powers of Steve Perry. While he sang for Journey, he made people believe in themselves, weep over long distance relationships, and inquire at transit stations about midnight trains. Together with his bandmates, he fully explored the hidden depths and nuances of the word
whoa
—teasing out shades of meaning and connotations that I would have been hard pressed to discover, even with two thousand years of attention to the problem—and I’m willing to bet that the pathos with which he imbued the syllable
na
shall never be equalled in the history of the human race.

He was a god of rock. He nearly solved all the world’s problems with nothing but power chords and anguished cries into a microphone.

But his power to uplift the spirit did have a limit—a limit shared, I might add, by every other band—and that was the inability to ameliorate the soul-destroying visual discord of corporate fast-food franchises. Some acquaintance or another would periodically drag me into one of the horrors, and, under the malign influence of a décor scheme that assaulted my retinas with primary colors, Steve would be singing “woe” instead of “whoa” on my Walkman. His sound could not tame the
visual fury of paper-wrapped cheeseburgers dressed in angry red ketchup and a lonesome pickle chip.

I should have remembered that before I suggested the sub joint on the highway as a good place for Greta to meet us. It was decorated in lurid yellow and a shade of green that I felt was unnecessarily belligerent.

“Ugh. This place hurts my eyes,” Granuaile said. “It’s offensive.”

A camouflaged Oberon chimed in.

What’ll you have?

Nope, sorry. Sandwich with double meat
.

We had no sooner sat down with our sandwiches in a screaming-yellow booth than Greta entered and squinted at the glare.

“Damn,” she said, pausing at the door and wincing. “It’s ugly in here.” She was dressed professionally and carried a brown leather courier bag slung over her left shoulder. Her hair had grown long since I’d last seen her, and she had it plaited into a thick braid. Seeing us, she lifted her chin in a terse greeting and came over to our booth, slipping the bag off her shoulder and into the seat we’d left her. She promptly put out her hand, palm up. “Boss said my early dinner’s on you.”

Granuaile’s mouth gaped, but I’d half-expected this sort of behavior. Greta had never particularly liked me, and I expected she liked me even less since I’d taken a trip with her alpha, Gunnar Magnusson, and come back with his crushed body. I nodded and put a couple of twenties in her hand.

“So generous,” she sneered, and went to stand in line without thanking me.

Granuaile bent close and whispered urgently, “Atticus, what the hell—”

“Patience,” I said, interrupting her. “You do know that wolves have fantastic hearing, don’t you?”

“Oh,” she said in a tiny voice. “I’ll just eat my sandwich.” I smiled at her in thanks.

I
had a sandwich to eat,> Oberon hinted from under the table.

Sorry, buddy
, I said, properly chastised.
I got a bit distracted
. I unwrapped his sandwich for him and set it down on the floor on top of the paper. There was no one else in the shop to see me do this, besides Greta.

Greta returned with two double-meat foot-longs and a drink. One of them was a double roast beast, and she pointedly unwrapped it and put it on the floor for Oberon. It was a snide way to let me know she knew he was there, despite the camouflage. No doubt she’d smelled what he was having and ordered another. Our booth was out of sight of the employees, so she didn’t have to hide what she was doing.

“My hound thanks you,” I said. “As do I.”

“He is very welcome,” Greta said. “I am sure he’s quite hungry, after all,” she added, a faint accusation in her tone. Granuaile narrowed her eyes at Greta but said nothing. I carefully kept my expression neutral.

Greta quickly, efficiently demolished her turkey sub, glaring at us all the while with unconcealed hostility. She
was here on the orders of her new alpha, and she would do whatever he asked of her, but he hadn’t asked her to be pleasant, so she wouldn’t be. Since I was outside the Tempe Pack, she could throw all the challenging stares she wanted at us. I could practically feel Granuaile seething next to me, and I hoped she wouldn’t rise to the bait Greta was dangling. I shot her a quelling look, pressed my hand down in the air to suggest she keep a lid on it, and she nodded, message received. I’d have to coach her later on how to handle werewolves.

Finished sinking our subs, we crumpled the paper wrappings noisily and threw them away. Greta opened up her courier bag and began pulling out documents along with a pen. No friendly chitchat, just business.

“Fill these out with your banking information and so on. Sign at the bottom,” she said.

Seeing that she would volunteer nothing, I began to ask her questions as I filled in blanks. “How is Rebecca Dane doing with the bookstore?” I said. I’d given Hal instructions to sell it to her for the random sum of a buck seventy-two.

“Perfectly well. The same regulars visit the store as before.”

“How is Leif?”

“He’s back.”

I looked up from the documents I was signing. “No kidding? He looks the same?”

“I wouldn’t say that. But he smells the same. Dead.”

Something in her tone didn’t sound right. “What’s the matter with him?”

Greta shrugged. “Can’t say. He’s not a happy vampire. Probably because he has a lot more company these days. He’s not the only vampire in town anymore.”

“I’ve heard something along those lines. Why doesn’t he take them out like he did before?”

“Says he can’t do that this time. The politics have changed.”

“Vampire politics?”

“He would hardly care about human politics, so yes. He wants to see you, but of course we didn’t know where you were until you called this morning. Shall we tell him where you are when he wakes up tonight?”

“Um, no,” I said. If the vampire politics had changed, in practical terms that meant Leif was no longer in charge. If he wasn’t in charge, then Leif might have to share anything he knew with whoever was. “Definitely do not tell him where I am. Don’t even tell him my new name.”

Greta looked surprised. “You don’t want to see him?”

“I didn’t say that. I’d simply like to meet on neutral ground. Tell him to meet me at Granny’s Closet tomorrow night, around eight-thirtyish. That’s in Flagstaff.”

“Sure, I know Granny’s Closet,” Greta said. “Great wings there. Cold beer.”

“Indeed. What can you tell me about how my death is being handled?”

“By whom?”

“I want everything you know.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. We carefully did not take offense. “Hal has been busy dealing with the FBI. They’ve taken quite an interest in you now that you’re dead. They’re especially keen to know about your life before you showed up in Arizona as Atticus O’Sullivan, since you don’t have a credit history or any other records before that time.”

“Oh, if only they knew the size of that particular iceberg.”

This earned me a brief flicker of a smirk. “Naturally, Hal knows nothing about your life before you became a client of the firm and wouldn’t share it if he did. Detective
Geffert, however, has been eager to share everything he possibly can.”

“What a helpful lad he is.”

“Yes. The theory he’s pawning to anyone who will listen is that you were responsible for the Satyrn Massacre and this business in Tuba City was a revenge killing, and the reason you have no early records is that you’re a sleeper agent from somewhere.”

I shed my American accent and spoke like a lad from Tipperary. “A sleeper agent from Ireland? Hurting America by slaughtering affluent twentysomethings? For what purpose?”

“Yeah, he’s a bit fuzzy there.”

“That’s the biggest load of bollocks I’ve ever heard.” I resumed my standard American English accent. “What evidence is he offering?”

“He regrets that you died before he could build a decent case and arrest you properly.”

“Ha! Excellent! What else?”

“I have something for you.” Greta pulled out of her bag a lavender envelope with a wax seal and my name scrawled beautifully on the front in dark purple ink. I hadn’t seen calligraphy of this sort since the nineteenth century. “It’s from Malina Sokolowski.”

“Ah. And where is she these days?” I examined the envelope in the magical spectrum, because—you know. Witches. As I suspected, there was a magical seal on it as well as the mundane wax one. Malina would know when the seal was broken.

“Don’t know, except that she and her coven are out of town. I expect that might tell you something,” she said, nodding at the envelope. “They kind of have the same arrangement with the firm that you have. They’ll let us know when they settle down somewhere, but we can’t tell you anything about it when they do. Hal wanted me to thank you for sending their business to the firm.”

“He’s very welcome. May I ask a question regarding the Pack?”

Greta’s jaw tightened, but she said, “Ask.”

“Have you ever run afoul of skinwalkers?”

She hadn’t expected the question. She looked bemused and shook her head.

“Ah, well, kind of a long shot anyway.”

Greta didn’t pursue the matter with a polite inquiry. She looked down at the paperwork in a clear signal that we should hurry up and finish. It was a good idea, since we had to make it back to the hogan before sundown.

“I’ll need Hal to transfer about forty thousand to each of our accounts,” I said, finishing the documents and handing the stack over to Granuaile to sign. “He’ll need to draw smaller sums from multiple accounts to avoid attracting the attention of the IRS. And I need it there tomorrow.”

“Done.”

“Please give my regards to Hal, Snorri, and the rest of the Pack.”

“I will.”

She said nothing more as she placed the paperwork back in her bag. With a curt nod to us that was supposed to serve as a farewell, she slid out of the booth and stalked out to the parking lot. I put my finger to my lips to tell Granuaile it wasn’t safe to talk yet. While we waited for Greta to drive away, I opened the letter from Malina. There was a single sheet inside, written in the same impeccable hand as the address on the envelope.

I showed the letter to Granuaile. “You know what this means?”

She scanned it quickly. “It means you shouldn’t meet Leif tomorrow.”

“That’s right. But I owe him the courtesy of a meeting after all we’ve been through. And I’m curious to see what sort of shape he’s in. You should have seen him. You know that comedian, Gallagher, who smashes watermelons with a sledgehammer? Leif’s head was the watermelon.”

Granuaile frowned. “I don’t know that comedian, sorry.”

Augh! Oberon, that was dreadful!

“Why not just ask Hal to send you a picture from his camera phone or something?” Granuaile said. “You don’t need to risk it. Wait until things stabilize.”

“Well, you’re coming to Flagstaff with me tomorrow anyway.”

“I am?”

“Yep. It’s time for you to die.”