Undead to the World (7 page)

“So…”

“So congratulations. You’re not nuts. Oh, and apparently magic is real.”

I sink down on the couch. My brain feels overloaded. Turns out
I’m
not crazy, the rest of the world is.

Magic. That’s a big word. It covers everything from alchemy to Zeus, with a lot of
stops in between. Does this mean leprechauns are real? Or Santa Claus? Or—

“Vampires,” I say.

“
And
werewolves,” Charlie adds.

“I used to think this was such a
nice
town.”

“No, you didn’t. You hate it here.”

“Well, yeah, but that was
because
of all the niceness. The horrible, small-minded, boring …
man,
do I hate it here.”

“That’s nice.” He smiles.

“Shut up. No, on second thought, keep talking—you’re like a walking antidote to niceness.
You’re an irritation on two legs.”

“Gee, thanks. Now, what are we going to do?”

“About the vampires and werewolves?” I get back on my feet, stalk into the kitchen,
and pour two mugs of coffee. Take them back to the living room and hand Charlie one.
“Well, let’s see. We could go door to door with garlic, stakes, and silver crucifixes,
or we could watch TV.”

“Got any popcorn?”

“No, just coffee.”

“Even better.”

So we settle in for a
Bloodhound Files
marathon, but as it turns out we don’t have to wait for very long. I choose episodes
with the Sword of Midnight in them, naturally, and the first time she’s on screen—in
a scene where she’s lurking in a darkened alley—she turns directly to us and says,
“Good choice of episode. I don’t interact with anyone else in this scene for another
minute, and I think I can stretch that out by staying on the move. Who’s the hunk?”

“Um,” I say. “This is—”

“Jake,” Charlie says. “Just call me Jake.”

I frown, but don’t contradict him. Charlie’s instincts have been good so far. “Let’s
skip the formalities and get down to it, all right?” I say. “Vampires and werewolves—
go.
”

“You’ve only got two to worry about: the master vampire and the alpha wolf. Kill the
alpha before the next full moon and anyone he or she has bitten won’t become a were.
It doesn’t work that way for pires, though—you’ve got to stop all of them or it could
spread. That would be bad—right now, these two are the
only
two of their kind in your reality.”

“My reality? What does
that
mean?”

“It means—”

“Hey!” a man’s voice shouts. “There’s someone out here!”

“Crap,” the Sword sighs, and then she’s fighting for her life.

Leaving me, presumably, to do the same.

*   *   *

That’s where we stall out. We watch a bunch more episodes—all the ones with the Sword
of Midnight in them—but she fails to strike up another conversation. Either she’s
said all she means to, which seems unlikely, or there’s some kind of limit to when
or how often she can communicate.

“Makes sense, kind of,” Charlie says. “Magic always has arbitrary rules, doesn’t it?
Only three wishes, be home by midnight, never get them wet.”

“That was
Gremlins,
Einstein.”

“And don’t tell them your true name—names have power, right? That’s why I gave her
an alias.”

“Brilliant. Your use of a pretend monicker makes her ability to communicate from another
dimension seem childish and pathetic. Next time, tell her your last name is Smith—that’ll
show her just how outclassed she really is.”

“Another dimension, huh?”

“Reality, dimension, realm—whatever you want to call it, she ain’t from around here.
And apparently neither are werewolves or vampires, which I find oddly comforting.”

“Sure. Because a whole
dimension
full of them is much less disturbing.”

“As long as they stay there, yeah. But it looks like Longinus was issuing his own
diplomatic visas.”

Charlie shakes his head. “Maybe. But maybe he was trying to stop them, and that’s
why he was killed.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “I guess it’s possible. But we still don’t know what
I
have to do with all of this.”

“Well, let’s see. Sorcery, cult, altar, attractive young woman. I’m guessing human
sacrifice.”

“Terrific,” I grumble. “I’m the extra who’s supposed to die in the first scene. Nothing
like knowing your place in the universe.”

“This isn’t television, Jace. It’s extremely weird and I have
no
idea what we’re going to do next, but this
is
happening. We’ve gotta deal with it.”

He’s right. And while I’m still a little freaked out, I don’t feel like I’m going
to have a breakdown. I can handle this. For the first time in a long time, things
feel
right.

“I know what we have to do,” I say.

“What?”

I smile. “We find the trail. And then we follow it.”

FIVE

“We need information,” I tell Charlie. “On as many players as we can.”

“Players?”

“People who are involved. Who was Longinus, and what was the purpose of his cult?
Who are the other members? What was Father Stone’s involvement?”

Charlie frowns at me. “I thought we were supposed to be hunting vampires and werewolves.
And maybe whoever killed Longinus and Stone in the first place.”

I’m on my feet. I’m moving, restless, but I feel like I need more caffeine. I head
for the kitchen to rectify that, talking as I go. “Those are the ultimate answers
we need, yes, but we need more than that. We have to understand the bigger picture—and
what with magic and other realities and supernatural baddies, that picture’s got to
be pretty freaking huge. We go rampaging into the middle of it without any information,
we’re dead. Or undead. Or howling at the moon.”

“Don’t forget dangling at the end of a rope.”

“Need a larger mug,” I mutter. I find one and fill it. “Yeah. What about the Gallowsman?
We haven’t even considered that particular monstrosity yet.”

“What, you think he’s real, too? Come on, that’s just a local urban myth—”

“Father Stone wound up hanging from the eaves of his own church under very mysterious
circumstances. What we can decipher from Longinus’s notes seems to indicate they were
trying to invoke some kind of entity. What if it was the Gallowsman? What if that
myth is based on fact?”

I stride back into the living room and grab my coat. “Let’s go. We’ve got some research
to do.”

He shrugs and points at my laptop. “What, Google isn’t good enough for you?”

“It’s broken. We’ll use the one down at the library.”

We leave Galahad in the yard and walk into the center of town—thankfully, in the opposite
direction from the church. Thropirelem’s town square is picturesque, in an unimaginative
sort of way, with a fountain, a statue,
and
a gazebo in the middle and plenty of brick storefronts loaded with gables and turrets
and other architectural quaintness around the edges. There’s a little park surrounding
the gazebo, and a few weeping willows mourning over a single park bench.

It’s a nice day, the first crispness of fall in the air, the turning leaves caught
halfway between green and orange-red. A kid rides his bike past us, and an old couple
nod at me as they stroll by going the other way. Nice, normal, mundane.

Except that old couple might have two black, hooded robes hanging in their closet.
That kid might be running around on all fours come the next full moon, or sucking
on someone’s jugular. And the same goes for every single person I see on the street.

The library is one of the buildings fronting the square, a red brick structure with
a peaked roof that looks like it could have once been a schoolhouse. The doors are
large, old, and heavily varnished to a brown so dark it’s almost black. We go inside.

The interior is considerably more modern. Fluorescent lights hang from the ceiling,
the carpet is a tasteful gray, and there’s a computer workstation in the back. The
librarian gives us an inquiring glance from her desk when we come in, which hardens
to a barely tolerant stare when she recognizes me. Gretchen Peters is the kind of
librarian who would gladly approve capital punishment for speaking above a whisper
in her domain, and is about as welcoming as a cold shower. We’ve probably exchanged
all of a dozen words, eleven of which were mine. Hers was “No.”

We tiptoe to the back and see that no one’s at the computer terminal. I use my library
card to log us on and then we do a little surfing.

We find nothing.

Nothing on the Gallowsman. Nothing on the word at all.

“That’s impossible,” Charlie mutters. “It should show up on a dictionary site, at
least. I mean, it’s a real word, isn’t it?”

“Far as I know.” I stare at the monitor.
Zero matches for your search.
I’ve never seen that happen before, not for a single word. It’s somehow far more
creepy than Longinus’s basement with its altar and black curtains.

“Maybe it’s the computer,” Charlie says. “Public access. It probably has some kind
of content filter installed.”

“For porn, sure. But this doesn’t make any sense.”

“You’re right. We should ask the librarian.”

I sigh. “Okay. But you do it—I don’t think she likes me.”

“Don’t take it personally. I don’t think she likes anyone.”

We stroll over to her desk, where she’s doing something with index cards. She looks
up coolly after we’ve been standing there a moment. “Yes?”

“We’re having a problem with the computer. It—well, it doesn’t seem to recognize a
particular word we’re searching for.”

“Which word would that be?”

Charlie glances at me, then back at Gretchen. “Gallowsman.”

Her face is impassive. “Yes. That word has been redacted. May I ask why you’re searching
for it?”

“Redacted?” I say. “What is this, a branch office of the CIA? It’s a public library!”
I realize my voice has gotten a little loud when she frowns at me.

“We’re interested in local history,” Charlie says. “There’s supposed to be a legend
about—”

“I’m familiar with the story. As are too many of the local children. The town would
prefer that sort of thing not spread.”

“So you’ve blocked access on one computer,” I say. “Good job. I sure hope those new-fangled
machines don’t catch on, though. What if the town got a
second
one?”

She turns her head ever so slightly, refocusing her attention from Charlie to me.
Her frown shifts to a very tiny smile that’s somehow much more intimidating, and I
suddenly feel like a bug under a magnifying glass.

“Not everything is available on the Internet, Ms. Valchek. Many historical documents
never reach the digital realm. They stay locked up in basements and back rooms and
old trunks, where only people like me even remember they still exist. That’s why you
should always treat librarians with respect; our kingdom may have shrunk, but we are
still the gatekeepers to a great deal of knowledge.”

For the first time, I hear the trace of an accent in her voice. British, of course.
I wonder why I never noticed it before, then realize this is the longest conversation
we’ve ever had.

“Duly noted,” I say. “No disrespect intended. In fact, we could really use your help.”

“Oh?”

“Town history,” I say. “We need to know as much as possible about this place—when
it was founded, significant events, things like that.”

She peers at me skeptically. “And the Gallowsman?”

“We don’t care about ghost stories,” I say. “We need
facts.
Was there such an incident in the town’s past? Who were the people involved? What
actually
happened? That’s what we’re interested in.”

I can see by the look in her eye that I’ve got her attention. Scratch a small-town
librarian and you’ll usually find a local historian under the patina.

“I might be able to contribute to such an endeavor,” she says. “Depending on your
reasons for doing so.”

I pause, thinking hard. “I’m writing a book,” I say. “Not about the town specifically,
or the Gallowsman. It’s fiction. I’d make sure to mention you in the acknowledgments.”

She nods, slowly. “All right. I’ll see what I can do. Check back with me in a few
days.”

A few days? Half the town could have fangs by then. “Can you put a rush on that? My
publisher is bugging me for an outline.”

“Tomorrow at the soonest.”

“Thanks,” Charlie says. “We appreciate it.”

He’s already tugging on my elbow. I reluctantly let him lead me back out into the
sunshine.

“You think she’ll come up with anything?” Charlie asks.

“Oh, I think she will. The real question is, how much does she already know? That
remark about books in old trunks hit a little too close to the mark.…”

*   *   *

Our second stop is a direct result of the first. We could just go back to Charlie’s
place and use his computer, but our visit to the library has made me realize three
things: one, that the more rocks we kick over the more we’re likely to learn; two,
that rock kicking inevitably leads to pissing off something lethal lurking there;
and three, that if we’re going to go around pissing off venomous, lurking rock-dwellers
we should really get as much bang for our buck as possible.

I expound this theory to Charlie as we walk. He seems less than impressed. “I thought
we were going to keep this low-key.”

“I’m not saying we get up on a soapbox in the town square, Charlie. But sooner or
later the cult is going to figure out that Longinus is dead and we’re snooping around.
Which is good, because that’ll make them nervous.”

“Nervous cultists are good? What’s the weather like on your planet?”

“Kind of stabby, with increasing chances of monstrosity toward evening. Plus, we might
see some light decapitation overnight.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Look, I have to see this guy anyway, about my laptop. He’s really good with stuff
like that, and I’m sure he’d be willing to help us out.”