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and I don t think I m quite ready for that, so I say, Tell me about Sherry. Maybe it s not the smartest
thing to say, but I m a cop; when in doubt, ask for more information.
Sherry. We were together for eight years. I never quite got over thinking of her as a fling.
From any other guy, that would sound immature. But this is an immortal I m talking to, and he s being
honest; to him, eight years is a summer romance. So it wasn t serious?
I wouldn t say that it was fairly intense. But toward the end, she was starting to think about . . .
joining me. I wasn t ready for that, and I don t think she was, either. I was the one who introduced her
to Brian.
Ah. Think you did the right thing?
I don t know. Ask me in fifty years, after she s dead.
There s anger in his voice. Not at me, though. Why put yourself through this if it hurts so much?
Isn t it obvious? I m an addict, Jace. He still sounds angry, but there s a trace of black amusement in
there, too. There s a great deal of power in firsts. The very first time I loved a human woman as a pire,
it consumed me. We were together for seventy years. I think that at the end, I hated her as much for
dying as I loved her. I swore I would never put myself through such a thing again. I lasted nearly a
decade before I broke my word.
He s got that faraway look in his eyes, memories who-knows-how-old playing inside his head. Love
and death, Jace. The most powerful cocktail in the world, and the most dangerous. And it seems to
have become my drink of choice.
For once, I don t have a wise-assed reply. I know what he means, actually; what he s describing
happens to more than just vampires. It can affect doctors, soldiers, nurses, cops, EMTs, firefighters . . .
anyone who deals with death and hormones on a daily basis. Nothing makes love stronger than the
knowledge it could be taken away from you at any moment that s what a pire in a relationship with a
human has to deal with, and the longer-lived the pire, the more pressing that knowledge becomes.
I ll make you a promise right now, I say. You re never going to see me in a coffin. I m either going
to do my job and go home, or I ll outlive you. Deal?
And if you can t? If you wind up stuck here?
If that happens, I guess I ll join your little club and turn all bitey. Beats sprouting hair every month
and going back to eating meat.
I can t imagine you
Deal?
He hesitates, then smiles. Deal.
Okay, then. Now drop me off at home, will you? I ve got work in the morning.
The limo drops me off at my front door. I should get some sleep, but I m still wired from caffeine, the
aftereffects of the booze, and what just happened so I hit the Net and do some surfing instead. I want
to learn a little more about the golem manufacturing process and the specific type of animist magic
used; Dr. Pete and I need to talk, and I want to be prepared.
The spells themselves deal with transferring the life essence of animals to a malleable mineral
receptacle usually clay or sand, but with variations that range from peat to iron filings. I m reading an
entry on animating early clay golems when I run into a paragraph that stops me dead:
The enchantment that brings life to earth is a simple one. It has been endlessly refined since it was first
cast, but the elegance of the original spell has never been surpassed. Its format has been adapted to
many other uses in almost every area of magic, including energy enhancement, food production, and
computation. Some theorists predict that it could even be adapted for such far-flung uses as
dimensional travel though most admit that would require a knowledge of the underpinnings of the
spell that only the original caster would have. Of course, some people believe he s still alive . . .
I stare at the screen. It s telling me that the person who used golem-related magic to whisk me here can
only be one man.
Ahasuerus.
EIGHT
My talk with Gretch will have to wait. Charlie calls me at 3:00 PM, waking me out of a sound sleep,
and tells me he ll pick me up in fifteen minutes. Another Bravo has turned up dead.
By the time he arrives I m more or less awake, dressed, and mobile. I climb into the passenger side of
the car and say, I don t care if we re on our way to look at the dismembered corpse of the pope, I want
coffee.
Charlie hands me a paper bag. Inside are a large coffee and a lemon Danish. You re welcome, he
growls.
When I ve got enough down my throat to feel human again, I ask him where we re going.
Docks. Body was found in a boathouse. Cassius says this one makes the last one look normal.
Great, I mutter. Wonder if there s any point in eating the rest of this Danish.
You better. I spent a buck eighty-five on it.
Really? Guess I should start calling you Rockefeller.
I buy you breakfast and that s how you repay me? Bad puns?
Thanks, Rockefeller.
Next time you get decaf.
Oh, that s a decision you ll regret.
It s a typical Seattle day, overcast with chances of increasing grayness. The boathouse is down in
Shilshole Bay, an area that s mostly private marinas. We pull into the parking lot of one that seems
more low-rent than the others, the slips crowded with live-aboards and older boats. The boat house is at
the far end, behind a dry-dock area fenced off with chainlink. Two thrope officers are guarding the
gate, sipping coffee from paper cups and looking bored. We flash them our IDs and they let us past.
The boathouse is made from weathered gray wood, but the door is steel-cored and has an almost brand-
new frame and hinges. It s ajar, so we can enter without touching anything.
Inside, the floor becomes a dock, ending about halfway down the building s length. The walls extend
into the water another fifty feet or so, the structure opening at the far end into the bay. There s a wire-
mesh gate on a track across the opening, currently closed.
Cassius is standing over the body, wearing the same suit he had on last night, with a London Fog
overcoat on top of it. He looks up as we enter but doesn t say anything.
The vic is a woman. Her body is wrapped in bandages, like a mummy, up to her neckline. She s sitting
upright in a wheelchair, her hands on the arms.
What skin is exposed is a gleaming metallic orange in color. In fact, it appears to be made of metal
bronze, I d say. What tells me that this is a corpse and not simply a detailed sculpture is the head the
top of the skull has been neatly removed, and placed in her lap.
Above her forehead, her brain has been cross-sectioned, sliced both horizontally and vertically into
little cubes that someone separated from one another by an inch or so by impaling them with thin
wooden skewers, producing a three-dimensional grid an exploded diagram of thought itself.
Her name is Lucy Barbarossa, Cassius says. Otherwise known as the Sword of Midnight.
I nod. No sword, though.
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