Perun looked up at the sky and twisted his lips. “Eh. Okay. Is little cold maybe.”
“No maybe about it.” A couple of queries on the street led us a few blocks south to a square full of fashion shops and sausage vendors. Oberon’s tail sawed the air when he saw sausages just dangling from the ceiling of the kiosks. We paused to buy him a couple and then entered a store promising that there was “couture” inside, which meant I’d be paying for that word more than practicality, but I did manage to find a selection of leather jackets that would keep my core warm and also provide a handy inner pocket for Luchta’s stake. I picked a brown one and hoped Granuaile would like it. Just like a seasoned shopping companion, Perun assured me that I had made a good choice.
“Is very handsome. Too bad they no have jacket like this for my size. Flidais would love. She would be very excited and then tear from my body. Ehh … Now that I think this, maybe is good they no have my size.”
“It’s too late,” Flidais said from behind us, smiling at Perun as she walked up to him. “Now that you’ve put the idea into my head, nothing will do but I must have you in leather.”
<I don’t understand why humans like to wear dead cows,> Oberon grumbled while Perun and Flidais made happy reuniting noises. <Cows are for eating.> Once Flidais pointed out that we were far easier to track from the Grand Bohemia than Theophilus, she let me know where to find my quarry.
“He’s in Berlin,” she said, “and he has a significant entourage. He’s staying at the Monbijou Hotel, in that neighborhood with all the museums and fancy restaurants.”
I knew exactly where that was. There were some outstanding works of art in those museums—mostly on Museum Island, formed by the Spree River forking and reuniting—and I had visited them several times in the past decades. “Your skills remain unparalleled,” I said to Flidais by way of thanks. “I’ll leave you to your search for suitable leathers.”
I said farewell, returned to the trees of Pet?ín Hill, and shifted through Tír na nóg to Tiergarten in Berlin, a pleasant and rather large wooded park with paths that radiated out from the famous Victory Column. The old tree bound there was a knotted, lichen-covered sycamore, currently occupied by an alarmed red squirrel, which Oberon saw immediately and lunged after, nearly catching it by the tail before it scampered up the trunk, out of reach.
<Aw! Dang it! Almost got him! And I would have too, if he weren’t so squirrely.>
“Maybe next time, Oberon.”
<That’s right!> Oberon said, more to the squirrel than to me. He still had his front paws on the tree trunk, and his eyes tracked the one that got away. He barked for emphasis. <You just wait for next time, pal! Your doom approaches! Say goodbye to your nuts!>
There was an efficient train system nearby called the S-Bahn, which would take us to Hackescher Markt in only four stops, but since it was the evening rush hour and everyone was returning home from work, the cars were far too crowded to sneak Oberon on board. We had to go on foot, and that was all right. We needed time for full darkness to fall anyway.
We jogged in gray twilight through the outskirts of Tiergarten, with only a brief pause while Oberon tried and failed to catch a couple of rabbits, and then past blocks of flats and office buildings covered in unimaginative graffiti. Halfway to our destination it began to rain, the sort that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be sleet or not. It was more piercingly cold than refreshing, and I was grateful for the jacket. I distracted Oberon from the weather with the memory that somewhere nearby, there was a road whose name—Gro?e Hamburger Stra?e—translated to Big Hamburger Street.
<Really? What’s the story behind that?>
“I don’t know if there’s a story,” I said. It most likely meant that road was a fairly wide one that led to the city of Hamburg, but Oberon wouldn’t find that interesting. “If there isn’t, we should make one.”
<Can you at least buy a big hamburger there?>