I let myself into vamp central and logged my weapons in with security as per Protocol Aardvark. When I satisfied security, a headset hanging around my neck but not activated, I found out where Gee DiMercy was, and took the stairs up one level, to one of the libraries. I had been to the elegant room once, while carrying a vamp head in a carton. It wasn’t my best moment. This time I brought a bag of something else, a joke I hoped would go over with the Mercy Blade, the Anz? I was hoping to charm or fight, whichever got me the info I needed.
He looked up as I entered the library. No reaction showed on his face as he closed the book he was reading and pushed it across the desk. As if he’d been expecting me. Go figure. I strode across the short space, seeing from the corners of my eyes the deep piles of Oriental carpets, the leather sofas with silk velvet throws, the unlit fireplace, and the dark wood shelves filled with books. By the scent, and as far as I could see, Gee was alone. I reached the table and tossed the plastic bag across the uncluttered top where it landed and slid toward Gee. He caught the bag in one hand and laughed, a quick croak better suited to a crow than a man.
Eyes sparkling that odd, iridescent blue, he held up the bag and said, “I never ate birdseed. I eat meat on the hoof or wing.”
“Not denying it? Anz??” I accused.
“I have been called many things, skinwalker. Including Storm God. Do you not kneel in my presence?”
The small man sat deeper in his chair, tossing the bag back and forth from hand to hand. I sat across from him, as if I deserved to sit in his presence. “Nope.”
Gee DiMercy laughed, this time a more human-sounding chortle. “Modern man is so vastly entertaining. But they still come to the gods to ask questions, to petition for miracles. What do you wish, little goddess.” It was more a demand than a question, and I propped my elbows on the tabletop, chin in hand. Looking defenseless, which I was, if he planned to hurt me. I was betting on the immortal’s desire for entertainment to keep me safe.
“I know the Sumerians and the Babylonians and the Chaldeans worshiped versions of the Anz? storm gods, which makes you, maybe, the oldest thing alive on this planet. I want to know about The People of the Straight Ways. I want to know about the flood. I want to know about the arcenciel. And I want to know about the thing in the basement.” Up until the last statement, Gee had looked blandly polite, the way people look when you act according to expectations, which meant that Gee had been waiting for me to put things together and come to him for info. When I mentioned the basement, however, he blinked. Either Gee was the best actor in the universe—not an impossibility—or he had no idea about the basement. “Start talking,” I said.
“And would I share my knowledge and wisdom for nothing, little goddess? Share with a brazen and insolent woman with nothing to offer me? In times past, those who petitioned us did so with gifts of gold and silver, offering their bodies for the delight of the heavenly beings, and the blood of their first born.”
“I gave you birdseed. Eat up.”
“I propose a hunt. The two of us, on the wing. Perhaps we shall hunt elk in the cold north.”
My mouth fell open.
Gee laughed again at what he saw on my face. “You did not think to get away for nothing?” It was half question, half amused statement. His eyebrows went up when I didn’t reply and surprise flashed across his face. “You did think I would share my knowledge exempt of sacrifice. You are much the child. Or the fool.”
“I pick fool,” I said. “I can’t hunt elk. The biggest bird I can shift into—” I stopped. I had been about to say was the Bubo bubo, the Asian eagle owl. But I remembered the feathers I had taken from the death site of an Anz?. I still had one somewhere. It likely had Anz? DNA on it. Could I shift into an Anz?? And what would I be if I did? Something like excitement but darker, colder, shivered through me.
“Okay,” I said before I could think it through or change my mind. “One hunt in return for answers to every question I can think of.”
Gee looked to the ceiling as if he searched for heavenly protection from my foolishness. “One hunt for four questions.” He grinned evilly. “Questions already asked.”
“Five questions. The four questions I already asked, answered fully, in English, now, and one question of my choosing, answered fully, in English, at any time I ask it. In return I’ll give you one hunt, to last no longer than twenty-four hours, to take place at a mutually agreed-upon time, no sooner than tomorrow, and no later than two weeks before the Europeans arrive.”
Gee chortled, delighted. “I am not Loki to demand such strictures upon an agreement. Done,” he finished, before I could comment. “Your questions were: knowledge about The People of the Straight Ways, knowledge about the great flood, knowledge about the arcenciel, and knowledge of what hides in the deepest scion room. Yes?”
“Yes.” And maybe knowledge about Peregrinus, though I didn’t say it aloud for fear it would become my unasked question by accident. We’d see.
“My answer to the last question, first. I am uninterested in the scion rooms. They all stink and are filled with ravening beasts in human form. You will have to ask the Master of the City, as the residents there are his, as are we all.”