Kevin Hearne - Hammered

“Tomorrow night, then,” Leif said, standing up and nodding at me, his face inscrutable. “I wish you all a good day.”

“Rest well,” Gunnar told him, and the others expressed similar sentiments. Leif bowed to us and left the circle of firelight, off to find someplace to hide from the sun.

Gunnar and I took a walk around the lake after dawn, when Leif was truly asleep.

“Are you still going through with it after that?” he asked with no preamble, sure that I would take his meaning.

“Leif seems certain I will.”

“Yes, he does. I don’t know what game he’s playing. I’m hoping it’s the kind where we’re on one side and the Norse are on the other.”

“As opposed to what?”

“Every man for himself.”

“Ah. Well, I can’t speak for him or what side he’s on. But I’m on your side,” I replied, and then tossed my chin at the other members of our party. “And I’m on theirs too.”

The alpha squinted at me. “So you don’t think we need to do anything?”

“Not right now. Let’s see what happens in round two.”

That began almost as soon as Leif rose after sundown. He asked me to talk with him a discreet distance away from the night’s campfire. Gunnar asked a question with his eyes, and I shook my head ever so slightly. He let us go alone.

We walked in silence along the lakeshore for perhaps a hundred yards, hands in pockets and staring at the ground. Leif seemed to be waiting for me to speak first, but he was the one who’d asked if we could talk. Finally he stopped and I stopped too, turning to face him.

“You have had the day to grow angry with me, and yet I still find myself here, head on my shoulders and with a stake-free chest,” he said. “You are a good man, Atticus.”

“And you are a charming vampire.”

He nodded ruefully. “I deserve that. I understand, I do. But I hope you realize that I did not make some kind of Freudian slip last night. I confessed it very purposefully.”

“For what purpose?”

“Complete candor between us.”

“How refreshing. Why tell me now?”

“Because that is what friends do , Atticus. It is true that when we first met I was playing a part. You had something I wanted, and befriending you was the only way to get it. But in that long process—our physical and verbal sparring matches, your attempts to modernize my language, actually fighting side by side—I discovered that I genuinely like you. And for several years now I have not had to act.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I’m having difficulty believing that. Occam’s razor suggests that the simplest explanation is the correct one. And the simplest explanation is that you are a manipulative bastard like every other vampire.”

“Atticus, I had no need to say anything . You were going to fulfill your oath anyway. The simplest explanation for that—the only explanation—is that I wanted to say it, to give you my trust and pay you this compliment, to tell you freely that I value your friendship, I will not betray it, and I will hold nothing back from you again. I am tired of all my secrets.”

I still had my doubts, but that was clearly what he had wanted to say to me, and he expected me to buy it. Maybe I would later; his actions would prove him true or false. My best move was to accept his explanation and be wary. Perhaps he was truly being genuine with me, but there was no way I could fully trust him again, and I’d have to act the friend from now on.

“You wish to share your secrets?” I asked. I tilted my head and smirked. “Vampire secrets?”

Leif raised his hands by way of qualification. “Only with you. No one else can know.”

“So you’re saying I can ask you anything right now about vampires and you’ll answer it truthfully?” I was grinning.

He dropped his hands and sighed in resignation, believing he knew what was coming. “Go ahead,” he said dully.

“Tell me everything you know about the whereabouts of Theophilus.”

I caught a brief flash of genuine surprise. He’d thought I was going to ask him whether vampires poop or something unimportant like that. Why should such things matter? There were far weightier questions on my mind. If this mysterious Theophilus was truly older than me, then he’d probably know who was behind the old Roman pogrom against Druids. He might turn out to be the one behind it himself. Such a creature was worth seeking out.

“And no equivocations,” I added. “I want your best guess at where he is right now and how to make contact with him.”

“Do you intend to end his existence?” Leif asked.

“Not unless he gives me cause. I merely wish to chat.”

“He will wonder how you found him.”

“I’ll tell him I guessed.”

“He will know it is a lie. The quickening of your pulse, the tiny chemicals escaping from your skin, analysis of your expression—he will know someone told you and demand you reveal your source.”

“He can demand all he wants. He cannot take the information from me by force, Leif. You know this.”

“I do not,” Leif said, shaking his head emphatically.

“What do you mean? He’s telepathic?”

“I mean I sincerely do not know. I have never met him. My information on him is vague and extremely suspect.”

“Whatever. Bring it,” I said. “He’ll never know from me that you ever spoke a word.”

Leif flared his nostrils and exhaled heavily through them, frustrated. “He is said to divide his time between Greece, Vancouver, and a small tropical town in Australia called Gordonvale. He follows the clouds.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He wants overcast skies. He is supposedly so old, so powerful, that he is capable of walking abroad in daytime for brief periods if it is not full daylight.”

My eyebrows crept up my forehead. “Can you do this?”

“No. It takes a tremendous effort for me to remain awake past dawn, even in a sunless basement.”

“Hmm. You mentioned Greece. In what part of Greece?”

“Thessaloniki.”

I frowned. “That is not an especially overcast city.”

Leif shrugged. “My own private theory is that he is from there originally.”

That fit with his Greek name, anyway. I kept firing questions at Leif and watching him carefully for signs of prevarication. If he was lying, he was deucedly good at it. Whether they turned out to be true or not, they were leads, at least, something to pursue in the very coldest of cases. And his seeming candor allowed me to hope that perhaps he truly wished us to be friends.

We spent that night and the next telling stories of our respective pasts—sometimes jokes that didn’t make any sense when translated to English, sometimes adventures in distant lands and in cultures that have long since faded. We tried to top one another in The Weirdest Shit I Ever Ate contest (Väinämöinen won). Zhang Guo Lao pulled out his fish drum and tried to play something along with Väinämöinen’s kantele , but it turned out to be a clash of musical styles that’s best forgotten, sort of like Indonesian Folk Death Polka.

Leif didn’t ask to drink any of my blood, and I didn’t offer. Neither did anyone else. He seemed no worse off for it, so he clearly didn’t need to drink every evening.

After the third night of storytelling, I examined the bonds between us and saw that they had strengthened considerably. I felt I had a good grasp of who these men were now.