“I will be there soon after I shift, depending on how long it takes to run there from the bound tree.”
A quick shower and some kisses to Orlaith’s belly, some scritches for Starbuck, and a snack for them both, and I’m off. I shift into a forest on a hilltop above Krakow and descend, well rested and Scáthmhaide in hand, and give Malina a call to catch her up.
“Basically anything you can tell us about where Kacper Glowa or his alias might be would be helpful. We want to make Poland free of vampires as promised but could use some intel.”
“And where is Mr. O’Sullivan?” Malina asks. “He’s the one who made the promise.”
“He’s been called by Gaia to attend to something in Tasmania. I’m going to handle this with Leif Helgarson. He has a vested interest in making sure this gets done, and once it is, he’ll be out of Poland too.”
“And if Kacper Glowa is not in Krakow?”
“Then we’ll go wherever he is, if you can give us a lead.”
“The undead defy divination, so we’ll try to divine his thralls. I’ll call as soon as I have something.”
Stary Port, I find, more than lives up to its nautical theme. Dark wooden tables with thin tapering candles in the center of them line the walls, and the place is generally decorated in warm tones. Portraits of old-timey ships in gold frames beckon to drinkers, like Tennyson’s Ulysses, that “?’tis not too late to seek a newer world.” Leif Helgarson has seated himself upon a square-topped stool, delicately crossing one leg over the other in a place that practically shouts he should be manspreading. He looks intensely uncomfortable as a group of red-faced drunken men shout their way through a raucous Polish sea shanty about rope burns, with what I think might have been a double entendre on the word rope.
“I am so grateful you are here,” Leif says as I take a seat. “They keep looking at me to join in. Do you know where Kacper is?”
“Not yet. Waiting for a clue from Malina.”
“So it may be a while.”
“Yeah. We should order something.”
“Please get two of whatever you wish and then you may have mine as well.”
“Have you, uh…eaten?”
He nods but provides no details, for which I’m thankful. I order two grogs with clove, cinnamon, and orange, and we pass the time reviewing what little Leif has been able to learn about Kacper and his Polish cronies.
I’ve started on the second grog when my phone beeps: It’s Malina.
“He’s in the Nowa Huta district, which got developed after World War Two,” she says. “He owns several homes that look like humble abodes built by the Communists on the outside, but they really serve as entrances and exits to an extensive underground complex. We’ve located two of the houses that contain thralls and can tell you where the hidden staircases are, but we doubt that those are all of them.”
“Okay, give me the addresses.”
What follows is a scouting mission where we take care not to be seen by anyone in the two houses Malina points us to: The Polish vampires themselves, never mind their human thralls, could be prowling about.
I notice that the houses, both dreary and in need of paint, are fully three blocks apart from each other, putting the complex underneath them at three blocks at minimum. They don’t look like anything much; a couple of decrepit cars with rusted fenders rest in the driveways, providing a disguise. No one rich or powerful could be living there.
“Okay, I need to try something,” I tell Leif. “I might be able to get a sense of the complex’s dimensions through the earth. The absence of living earth—the negative space, I guess—will sketch out the boundaries for me.”
“Good. Might you be able to sense the staircases as well, thereby establishing the locations of the other entry and exit points?”
“Hmm. Depends on how they constructed it, I suppose. If they built the staircases to drop straight down in flights or spiral from the foundation of the ground-level houses, I won’t be able to tell which houses are entry points other than the ones we already know. If they slope straight down, however, away from the foundations, in toward the center, I think I’d be able to pick them out.”
“I am confident you will find it to be so,” Leif says. “There is a saying along these lines…”
“Please don’t.”
“No, I assure you it is amusing! It is by way of asking a rhetorical question that the correct answer is rendered. Should you ask me if their staircases slope down at a forty-five-degree angle, I would reply, ‘Does a bear defecate in densely forested areas?’ Eh? You see? The answer is obviously yes.”
“Gods, Leif, no. You are incapable of blending in.”
“But still I labor, like Sisyphus.”
“Why are you so confident about this?”
“A straight narrow space offers nowhere to hide. Vampires are confident they will win any confrontation face-to-face.”
“Okay. Be still and let me see what I can see.”
There is a small stretch of turf nearby, a sad attempt at a greenbelt, and I kick off my sandals to communicate with the earth. With the elemental’s help I seek underground for the edges of Glowa’s bunker, and it indeed sprawls for blocks underneath us, far too much space for a single person, and judging by the stark straits leading to and from, it also features more escape routes than the two that the sisters identified. Leif was right: The staircases angle down from the surface houses to the secret complex.
“There are four more bolt-holes,” I tell him, and he gives a low whistle.
“Can you identify which houses?”
“Yes.”
“Let us investigate them and see how they are guarded.” We walk along the streets as if we had some club to visit or some coffee to inhale at a hip café.
I nod at each house as we pass, and they appear not to be guarded at all. Or at least not guarded by thralls.
“These houses contain no humans,” Leif says in low tones, after staring at each in turn. “Their defenses are either automatic or undead. That is useful information. Let us move out of the vicinity to discuss it further.”
“All right. Back to Stary Port?”
The vampire winces. “If we must. Though I find the atmosphere jarring, it should certainly provide us ample privacy.”
The earlier collection of jocund fellows has been replaced by another set, but they are no less loud and proud of their singing voices. I order a couple of grogs, and once they arrive, Leif leans over to plot with me.
“I think the compound is too big for us to handle alone. We cannot possibly cover six exits, to begin with.”
“Agreed.”
“So I suggest that I call in some mercenaries to clean out the nest during daylight hours.”
“Yewmen?” Though expensive, Atticus had used them to great effect.
“No, human mercenaries. I’ve employed them before and they are used to this work. They know what’s involved. Expendable and therefore perfect.”
“If this is during the day, where will you be?”
“Sleeping somewhere else.”