“You are a death walker?” he said, suddenly very interested. “One who has power over the dead.”
And that right there told me that this vampire from Prague knew as much about what I was as I did. Just like the golem had. I didn’t say anything. This was bad. This was very bad. Because if he said what I thought he was going to say, it might mean that someone besides Bonarata was behind my ending up unexpectedly in Prague.
“One of your kind came through here during the First World War,” Lars said.
“Don’t tell me.” I groaned. “His name was Gary Laughingdog.” My very much older half brother whom I had just met this past winter. Hadn’t he said he volunteered for the army in World War I?
“You know of him?” Kocourek said. “He caused a lot of trouble here, in this town. Afterward, he told me that it was a curse of his—to come and make havoc. He said he tried to leave things better than when he came, but he would not answer for the bloodshed, destruction, and mayhem that happened while he was here.”
I hate coincidences. I don’t really believe in them, less now than before I met Coyote. But what in the world made Coyote care about vampires in Prague? And why would he think I could do anything about them? Probably my being here was just a coincidence, and I was being paranoid.
“She can command the dead?” asked Lars. “Can she command us?”
“Can you?” asked Kocourek.
I suppose I could have lied. But being raised by werewolves meant I’d never made lying a habit. “I don’t know,” I told him. “Maybe. Sometimes. No.” I shrugged.
“Gary Laughingdog could,” Kocourek said.
“Scary bastard,” said Vanje. “I was glad he went back to fighting Germans.”
“So what did you bring down on Mary’s head, Mercedes who walks with the dead?” Kocourek asked.
And then I knew what Coyote might find interesting about Prague, and it wasn’t the vampires.
Before I had to work up an answer for Kocourek, the upstairs door blew open, and Mary turned on the lights.
“Kocourek,” she said. And then she said some other things in another language—stuff that was obviously orders.
I didn’t think she’d gotten notice that Kocourek wasn’t hers to order anymore.
“She wants to know where our humans are,” Kocourek said. “She needs to feed her witchcraft with them so she can withstand the monster at our gates. What did you bring down upon us, Mercy?”
“It’s the golem,” I told him.
He froze and turned back to me. “The golem?”
“The golem?” asked Dagmar. “Didn’t Gary say something about the golem? He was always saying odd things.” She frowned, then her face cleared. “I’ve got it. He said the golem wasn’t dead, and someone should do something about that.”
Lars said, “And he was sure glad his name wasn’t someone because that was going to be a messy job.”
“I remember the golem,” said Vanje thoughtfully. “I’m not sure that was a good choice, Mercedes Hauptman. It took the good rabbi four days of work to put that thing down—and the rabbi was never the same afterward.”
Mary said something sharply.
“She wants us to quit speaking English,” said Lars. “I don’t know about the golem—I wasn’t here when the golem was active. But I think someone needs to do something about Mary. And I’m willing to be someone today. How about you?”
Kocourek said something to Mary in a conciliatory voice.
I don’t know what it was, but I thought from the tone, he’d decided Lars was right. Instead of hiding their people from her, he was going to lure her down.
“Witch,” I murmured. “Witches can kill you from a distance, and they are sneaky. Are you sure you don’t—”
And the golem attacked her spells again. This time when the first wave hit, I blacked out. When I opened my eyes again, I could tell that I wasn’t the only one.
Mary had collapsed on the stairs and rolled to the bottom. Lars was flat on his face in the dirt. Dagmar was getting to her feet. Vanje had a hand under Kocourek’s elbow, pulling him upright.
Mary reached out and wrapped her hand around Lars’s wrist. Her voice hoarse, she started chanting. I was pretty sure it was the same thing she’d used before when she tortured the screaming-clanking vampire with her magic. I couldn’t understand her, but the rhythm was the same.
“Stop her,” I said as Lars twitched convulsively.
And the ghost formed right next to Mary and dug her fingers into Mary’s wrist. I don’t think Mary saw her, but the ghost’s fingernails drew blood as she wrenched at Mary’s wrist, breaking her hold on Lars.
Mary stopped chanting to say something ugly. She flung her bleeding hand up, and a drop of her blood hit Vanje. It didn’t seem possible that she’d done it on purpose—but I could feel the wave of magic that hit Vanje, sending him to the ground with a cry.
His skin erupted in reddish bumps with black centers that grew with hideous speed. The little black circles in the center grew, too, spreading out and lightening to purple on the edges. He thrashed and twisted, his movements sluggish.
My ghost hit Mary on the shoulder with both hands, causing the vampire to stagger. Mary turned to see who had hit her, and I could see by her face that she still couldn’t see the ghost.
And the golem hit the spells again.
Mary screamed in agony—which made my own pain somehow hurt less. She reached out and pulled her magic back from Vanje, who lost his horrible, plague-like lumps. I couldn’t tell for certain, but it felt as though she was able to pull more magic back than what she’d sent at him. She used that magic to do something that changed the shape of the power of the golem’s attack for just a moment—enough to make my ears ring.
Then there was nothing. The golem’s attack just stopped. I wondered if she’d destroyed him.
Mary rose unsteadily to her feet. She kicked Vanje and spat something at him.
Kocourek staggered out of the shadows near the staircase, sword in hand. With a lunge and a twist of his upper torso that would have done credit to Babe Ruth, he cut off her head while she kicked Vanje a second time.
We all waited for something to happen. In the movies, when someone killed the spell caster, all of their spells just go away. There were some magics like that. I’d seen them myself. But according to Elizaveta, if the witch was good enough to set spells that were self-sustaining, then they actually had to be broken.
I have to admit, I was waiting for her to get back up and kill us all. Even the ghost seemed to catch the worry; she kept touching Mary’s decapitated head and making it roll.
The third time she did it, Vanje noticed and rose to his feet with a yelp.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “It’s only a ghost.”
Galina, the ghost told me. My name is Galina.
And though I knew better, I said, “Galina.”
“What?” said Dagmar.
Kocourek said, “Don’t you remember Gary? He always was talking to dead people—and I don’t mean vampires. Galina is the ghost.”
Galina tried kicking the head this time, and it rolled about three feet, coming to rest about six inches from Lars.
“Tell her not to do that, please,” said Lars. He was still sitting where he’d fallen, cradling the hand Mary had grabbed against his chest.
But I didn’t have to because Mary’s head and body collapsed into dust.
“Okay,” Lars said. “That works, too.”
The golem attacked again, and this time it broke Mary’s spells. It didn’t hurt this time. It didn’t hurt me, anyway. The vampires all cried out. It didn’t take them long to recover, but by that time the golem was entering the apartment house. He made a lot of noise tearing down the door.