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It was the kind of bar where you could see a television no matter where you sat, no matter what direction you were facing. Adamiak had been living down here in the States long enough to become accustomed to the American love of television, though he still didn’t quite like it. But then, this was not the sort of bar he would choose to spend time in if he had a choice.
Walker was behind the bar, wiping the counter and attending to a boxing match on one of the televisions. Adamiak wasn’t surprised that Walker was a bartender. It was a common profession for people whose survival depended on a nocturnal schedule that brought them into contact with vast numbers of people, especially the kind of who were occasionally desperate enough to make bargains for money. The bar was quiet. It was a weeknight, just a few minutes before last call, and the only people there were those that looked like they didn’t have much of a home to go to. At one table, a sad man in a rumpled suit looked down at his beer foam. Two women at another table with giant suitcases standing at attention near their feet licked the grease off their fingers as though it were their lunch hour in whatever country they had just arrived from.
“Hunting go well?” Adamiak asked pleasantly, sitting down at the stool in front of Walker.
“Set up for later. I try not to shit where I eat,” Walker didn’t take his eyes off the boxing match for a few more seconds, just long enough to be rude. “You’d better not shit where I eat either.”
“Wouldn’t dream of poaching,” Adamiak said. “I’m not here for blood, just a chat. I hear you’re a man who knows things. Share a drink with me?”
Walker put a line of shot glasses up on the bar and filled them with tequila. “I figured you’d be around here sooner or later. You one of Albers’ spies?”
“I’m my own man.” Adamiak took one of the shots of tequila and raised it to Walker. They both drank. “But I do want to know things.”
Walker turned to watch the television. “Shoot. What do you want to know?”
Adamiak winced. Even for tequila, that was caustic stuff. “The Dayrunner.”
Walker looked him in the eye and drank another shot of tequila. He turned the glass over with an audible click. “What about her?”
“She doesn’t smell right. She’s not human.” Adamiak picked up another shot, eyeing the full bar behind Walker with a whiff of regret. To have all those options and still choose such a nasty, cheap tequila. “What is she?”
“Elf bitch.”
Adamiak took one of the shots and knocked it back. The tequila was a cheap brand, and tasted of hangovers and failed college exams, of the memory of vomit and waking up with cheeks pressed into the cold tile of a bathroom floor. “I’ve heard people call her fey. I don’t know what that means. But your name came up. They say you warned people about her. What I want to know is, how did you know?”
Walker licked his lips as if savoring the taste of agave gone wrong. He stood up a little straighter, leaning back to get a look at Adamiak. Adamiak waited, hands folded casually on the bar in front of him. Walker was older than him, he thought, but not much. More conservative than you usually found in those born in the twentieth century. In fact, Walker was so conservative it was almost surprising that he even bothered to live in a Guild city, though these days the life of a rogue was harder than it had ever been before.
Walker set the glass down on the counter with a loud rap. “I trained under a vampire named Sorrow. He’s a mage, a damn powerful one.”
“Stronger than Holzhausen?”
“He fucking taught Holzhausen. This guy was the real deal. He taught me too, a few things. I can see through glamours, tell when someone isn’t right. That Dayrunner girl, she’s got a glamour.” Walker poured two more shots.
Adamiak raised his eyebrows.
“Sorrow taught me the knack. If you look under someone’s glamour with the knack, you can see who they really are. Sometimes you think someone is human, but they’re these grey-skinned aliens. They come from another world.”
“Aliens?”
“Faeries, whatever.” Walker waved his hand dismissively. “They taste human. Sometimes they know more magic, but they’re basically human. They can be turned into vampires; they can feed us. But here’s what Sorrow told me. If you look under someone’s glamour and you don’t see one of these aliens, then you’re looking at an elf bitch. The lesser cousins. Them you can’t trust.”
“The lesser cousins?”
“They’re from the earth, but they’re not human. Sometimes they pretend to be human, but they’re not human. You look under the Dayrunner’s glamour, you don’t see an alien. She looks like a human, just a little less pretty. First time I saw her with that glamour, I took a look, and what do I see, but another human face. I added two plus two and came up with ‘shit ain’t right’.”
“What does Holzhausen see in her?”
“Shit, you’ve smelled her. She’s in deep with the fey. Like those stakes of hers. Everyone knows stakes don’t kill us. Everyone. It’s a legend. When Holzhausen hired this dewy-eyed ingénue, everyone snickered behind their hands. Less than a year after she became his Dayrunner, suddenly she’s got these stakes and no one is snickering anymore. Because they fucking work. I didn’t even have to touch them to know that. They reek of fey magic. Mr. Hall, the old Dayrunner, he was a useless turd. I’m not a mage, but even I could do more than that shit. I don’t blame Holzhausen for wanting a weapon like her in his pocket. The boss probably didn’t want to waste his time on another talentless dishrag. I heard a rumor her uncle was a famous witch.”
“I’ve heard rumors that Holzhausen is a mage, but I don’t know what powers he has.”
“He knows shit, man. He can see the future. How else did he survive those assassination attempts?”
“I hadn’t heard about that.”
Walker poured a couple more shots. “Holzhausen’s got talent. He’s ruthless. When he wanted to learn something, he wouldn’t rest until he had mastered it. He was Sorrow’s best apprentice. He built the wards that keep rogues out. You can be damn sure that elf bitch of his is following in his shoes. She may be shifty as fuck, but she knows magic. I even heard a rumor she could shapeshift into a lion.” Walker raised his shot of tequila.
Adamiak kept his face blank as he took another shot. It smelled vile and felt like food poisoning going down. He had a high metabolism, but he couldn’t drink forever and not feel it. “You think it’s true?”
“Fuck if I know. Like I said, I know she ain’t human. She and the boss are thick as thieves. Maybe she’s got some spell over him, maybe he’s got her sealskin in an attic. Fuck if I know, but good luck getting one to betray the other. Whisper something in her ear, it’s as good as telling the Guild Leader.”
“This guy Sorrow, is he still around?”
Walker started to pour two more shots, but Adamiak held his palm flat. Solidarity only went so far, and he already wanted to vomit up the cheap tequila which Walker drank like tap water. “Yeah. Likes warmer weather though. He’s kind of a Wandering Jew. Not quite rogue, and he’s got a lot of friends in high places. Guilds let him in, but he never stays long. He’s like that guy, from the movie.”
“The guy from the movie?”
“You know, the guy who wears the robes and shit, goes around teaching people to use the force.”
“Yoda?”
“Nah, shit, the other guy. I’m saying he’s like a master, and he has apprentices. He teaches magic. Me, the boss, couple of other people. It’s like this secret school. But he chooses you, you don’t choose him. He wants people with potential. He teaches them what he can. I’m good at the knack, but I never got the hang of wards, so he let me go after just a few years. Holzhausen studied with Sorrow for decades. Finally, Sorrow said he couldn’t teach Holzhausen anymore, said he was a master himself.”
“And now Dayrunner Melbourne is Holzhausen’s apprentice.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Maybe if he remembered what our master taught us; he wouldn’t trust her either. She’s pretending to be human, but you can smell she’s not right. If you were dumb enough to taste her blood that poison would seep into you and you’d drain her just to get more. She almost killed Fain. Ensorcelled him and poisoned him, but she’s the boss’ little pet so she got away with a slap on the wrist. Didn’t even flog her. I was there, man. She showed up, packing those stakes, and Holzhausen says, cool as a cucumber for her to put them in her pocket. That man would have a cobra for a pet.”
“I know about her stakes,” Adamiak said. “I thought it was a legend until she showed me one.”
Walker nodded. “Councilman Glavin told me something. A few years ago, the old Dayrunner Hall and another vampire named Chen tried to assassinate Holzhausen. Glavin was there when they took Hall and Chen’s bodies out. Holzhausen claimed he did it himself, but people only heard one shot. And Chen only had a hole in her chest, as if made by a stake, but she was dead. How was she dead if no one shot her? The Dayrunner killed her. I’m sure of it.”
“Why was she even there?”
“I was only ever an apprentice, but Holzhausen is a master. He knows things. And she’s his apprentice. She may be an elf bitch, but she’s his bitch, you know what I’m saying? If Holzhausen wants you dead, you’re going to find her stake in your ribs.”