Zen and the Art of Vampires

Chapter 8

"You're insane."

"I know, but it's better than being bored, don't you think? Where are we going?"

"The library." I gave Magda a very stern look. "You really should not be getting involved in this."

She whapped me on the arm with the bottle of water I'd given her earlier. "I already am involved. You're wanted by the police, you know. And I helped you escape. That's aiding and abetting or something like that, so I figured as long as I'm in it for that, I might as well have some fun out of the whole thing. Why are we going to the library? Is that where the murderer is? I've never seen a murderer up close. Are you sure it's safe?"

"I don't know where Kristoff is," I said, somewhat bemused by her enthusiasm for something that seemed so horrible to me. "And honestly, I don't want to know. There are some… er… people in the library. Magda…"

I stopped outside the window that I had used to leave the library, biting my lip as I considered the woman standing beside me. I didn't quite know how I was going to explain the ghosts and the whole bit about being a Zorya.

"What? If it's about me being here, don't worry. I told Raymond that I needed some time to myself, and that I'd see him tomorrow." Dimples burst forth on her cheeks as she grinned. "Since we've been going at it rather fast and furious the last few days, I think he was only too happy to get a decent night's rest."

"It's not that I'm worried about. It's… well… do you believe in life after death?"

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. "Do I believe in what?"

"Ghosts. You know, spirits of people who have died but, for whatever reason, haven't made it to heaven or hell or whatever afterlife you believe in. That sort of thing." I watched her closely, worried she'd regret helping me.

To my surprise, she didn't scoff at the question. "As a matter of fact, I do believe in it. When my grandmother died, I knew the exact moment even though I was all the way over in California, and she was in Maine. She woke me up in the middle of the night, and said she loved me, and she wanted me to be happy. In the morning, when I woke up, I thought I'd had a dream, but later my mom called to say Grandma had died at the same exact time I saw her. So yes, I believe in spirits."

"That's going to make things a whole lot easier," I said, and tapped on the window. Marta appeared. I gestured toward the lock, watching Magda.

Marta transformed herself into a solid figure and flipped open the lock. Magda's jaw dropped.

"Did she… is that…" she stammered, pointing at Marta.

"You can see her? Oh, good. I wondered if other people can see them in their solid form. I guess only Zoryas can see them in their normal state. Come on, I don't want anyone to see us loitering out here."

Magda followed me into the window, watching with complete astonishment as Marta, smiling, faded back to her normal translucent self.

"Where'd she go?" Magda asked in a whisper.

"She's here, but in a low-energy state. You can't see her without this," I said, holding up my wrist. The stone had switched into lantern form and was glowing with a gentle silvery light. "I'm a Zorya. They're someone who takes dead people to their final resting places. Or some dead people—I'm not quite sure about all the details. But the upshot is that there are fifteen ghosts here, sixteen if you count the horse, and I'm supposed to take them to Ostri. I don't suppose you've ever heard of it?"

Magda, uncharacteristically silent, just shook her head, her mouth slightly ajar as she looked around the main room of the library. Several of the ghosts were seated at a table, bent over books, alternating between solid and transparent modes in order, I assumed, to save energy.

"Who are they?"

"That's Karl and his wife, Marta. They're the first ghosts I met. Ulfur is over there at the computer with a young woman whose name I don't know. That's his horse eating the potted plant. The rest of the people are from Ulfur's village. Their village was wiped out by a natural disaster sometime in the mid 1800s, from what I can tell. Don't bring up the subject of pigs or chicken."

She pursed her lips for a moment, then nodded. "What are they doing?"

"Researching, hopefully. Hello, everyone!" I raised my voice in order to cut through the murmur of conversation. "I'm back, and I've brought a friend. This is Magda. She's new to all this, like me. Have you found anything out about Ostri?"

"Ulfur did," Ingveldur said with a father's pride, beaming at him. "In a book about mythology. Show the reaper, Ulfur."

"I don't know how helpful it will be," Ulfur said, gesturing to a distant table where a thick book had been placed. He escorted us over to it. I glanced at the book, but it was in Icelandic. "This is an entry for Ostri. It includes alternate spellings, and the etymology of the word, but has little about the meaning. It just says that in Basque and Iberian religions, Ostri was used to refer to heaven. The word changed over time, and later came to mean the Christians' concept of God."

"Hmm. It doesn't say anything about where it is?"

He shook his head.

"Crap. Was there anything about it online?"

"Not much more than what's in the book," he answered, going back to the terminal. "Dagrun found similar references to Ostri, but no specifics about how you get there. The information on the Brotherhood, however, is very interesting."

"Oh, really?" Magda and I crowded around the computer terminal.

"What's the Brotherhood?" Magda asked as I scanned the screen.

"The religious group who maintains the Zoryas. Is this their Web site?"

"Yes." Ulfur watched me as I read the page.

"That is interesting," I said.

"What's interesting?" Magda asked. "All I see is Brotherhood of the Blessed Light, a list of cities, and a Web page counter. There's not much there to be interesting."

"I find it interesting to know that the Brotherhood evidently has branches or churches or whatever they call gatherings of their members in all of the major cities of the world, including seven U.S. cities. And I don't think that's a Web page counter," I said, a chill feeling gripping my stomach.

She looked again. "Then what's it counting? People it's helped? Spirits, I mean?"

I shook my head slowly. "I think it's the number of vampires they've… er… cleansed over the centuries."

"Vampires!" Magda said, plopping herself down in a chair. "All right, spill. I want to hear everything, right from the start."

I gave her an abridged version of recent happenings while puzzling over the starkness of the Brotherhood Web site. As Magda noted, there was nothing there other than a symbolic moon, the name, a list of major cities, and a somber number.

"You're married to a vampire," she said, looking a bit stunned.

"Yup."

"And the other man, the one you said didn't kill the other Zorya, he is also a vampire."

"So Kristoff says, and I really don't know why he'd lie about Alec."

She thought about that for a few minutes. "You slept with a vampire. Did he… you know… dine?"

I blinked in surprise at the question. "Kristoff says yes, and I suppose he'd know, but I'm not convinced, not absolutely. There was nibbling going on, but I don't recall anything out of the ordinary."

"Wow," she said, looking at me with something akin to awe. "That's just… wow. I really want to meet this Alec. Not that I'll take him from you, because one, you're a friend, and I wouldn't do that to a friend, but mostly because it's clear you guys have some sort of a connection."

I dropped my gaze, unwilling to follow that thread.

"One thousand, one hundred and eighteen," Magda said, her attention returned to the screen. She let out a low whistle. "That's a lot of vampires."

I thought of Kristoff's girlfriend. That, too, was an uncomfortable line of thought. "Yeah. Did you find out anything about the history of the Brotherhood?" I asked the young woman named Dagrun.

"Not much." She tapped a few keys and pulled up a Web page that appeared to focus on mystical societies. There was a brief description of the Brotherhood, with reference to reapers lighting the way of the dead, but nothing specific or even helpful.

"Well, pooh." I gnawed my lip for a few seconds, then sighed and said, "I guess we're going to have to go to the source for information."

"The Brotherhood people you ran away from?" Magda asked, smiling at Ulfur.

Interest sparked in his eyes as he smiled back.

"Yes." I straightened up and realized just how exhausted I was. No food and no sleep were quickly taking their toll.

"But you said that your vampire husband told you that they'd kill you when they find out you married him."

"That's why I'm not going to tell them. All right, everyone, thank you for your hard work. I don't believe we're going to find out anything else here, however. I think it would be best if you all went into low-watt mode and stayed here in the library where you're safe."

"Stay here?" Karl strode toward us, Marta at his side. "Shouldn't we go with you? In case you need us?"

There was an assenting murmur from all the other ghosts.

"No, I think you'll be safer here than with the Brotherhood people, at least until I know what sort of a reception I'll receive."

"But—" Karl looked around at the others. "The Ilargi could find us. He could steal our souls while you're gone."

"You've all managed to hang on to your souls for eighty years or more," I pointed out gently. "I think you can handle one more night on your own."

"I don't know, Pia," Magda said, frowning at the computer screen. She'd taken Dagrun's place and was, I could see, conducting several Web searches. She pointed at a page containing a message forum. "This person here says that the soul eaters are attracted to an area by the light of the Aurora. Didn't you say that's another name for Zorya?"

"Yes," I said slowly. "But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I only just took the job. I haven't had time to send out whatever cosmic Zorya signals there are."

Magda eyed me for a moment before turning to Ulfur. "When did you first see the soul eater?"

"Three nights ago." Old Agda answered. "He came to our village, sniffing around, but we were hidden in the cave and he didn't find us."

"Three nights," Magda repeated, her gaze back on me. "That's when we landed in Reykjavík."

"Purest coincidence," I said. "I wasn't Zorya then."

"No, but you said the woman who was killed had a sister who was Zorya. When was she killed?"

"I don't know," I said, suddenly uncomfortable. "She just said that her sister died recently, and she was called in to be the replacement Zorya."

"Hmm," Magda said, tapping her lip as she thought. "The Brotherhood people and the vampires hate each other. The Brotherhood killed your husband's girlfriend."

"He's not really my husband," I started to protest, but was shushed to silence.

"For all intents and purposes he is. They killed his girlfriend a couple of years ago, right? I'm sorry, but it's looking more and more like he, or your lover Alec, probably killed your Zorya friend." She paused for a moment, then looked up at me. "Is there anything to say they didn't take out the previous Zorya as well? Anniki's sister, that is?"

I shook my head, my gut tight at the thought of Alec being involved in anything so heinous.

"So let's assume that just as the Brotherhood are picking off the vamps, so your hubby and his buddy are picking off the Zoryas. First your friend's sister—do we know where she was killed?"

"Here, I assume."

"Gotcha. So Anniki arrives to take over as Zorya, and then your husband-to-be and his handsome friend show up. You don't think they're from here, either?"

"No, I'm pretty sure they're not. Their car was a rental—I saw the tag on the key chain."

"So they show up, probably hot on the trail of the new Zorya, and at the same time, a whatchamacallit, Ilarki?"

"Ilargi."

"Ilargi is seen sniffing around the local dead people." Her eyes met mine, her gaze serious. "Pia, I hate to tell you this, but I think your husband is doing more than sucking blood."

I stared at her in growing horror. "You think Kristoff is an Ilargi?"

Gasps reverberated off the walls of the library. A low murmur of concern started up as I tried to process that thought.

"Look at the facts. One, he wants to stop the Brotherhood. What better way to make them obsolete than to destroy the reason for their existence?"

"But they don't just exist to guide the dead. There's the whole thing about cleansing the world of evil."

"That is recent," she said, pointing to the screen. "According to the person here, the Brotherhood existed first solely to help dead people find their destination. It wasn't until the last five hundred years that they branched out to vampire killing."

"But the latter seems to be their focus now. More so, I got the feeling from Anniki, than tending the dead."

"Apples and oranges. If they don't have any dead to take care of, there's no reason for there to be Zoryas. And didn't you say something about the Zorya focusing their power?"

"Yes," I said slowly, remembering the conversation with Kristjana. "The Zorya acts as a focal point. I didn't pay it much attention because I thought it was all a bunch of hogwash, but you may be on to something. Kristoff could have killed me if he wanted to, but another Zorya would simply take my place."

Magda nodded. "This way, he takes you out of the running, thereby hamstringing the local group. It makes sense, especially if you couple it with him sucking down all the souls of the dead around here so there's nothing for you to do."

"It's all conjecture," I protested, although I had to admit I wanted to believe it. I wanted Kristoff to be the bad guy. "And it doesn't explain why they would want to kill Anniki rather than simply marry her."

Magda sucked on her lower lip for a second. "What if she refused?"

"I refused. That did no good."

"Exactly." She pointed a finger at me. "What if Kristoff tried to get her to marry him, but she refused to the point that they felt there was no other option but killing her? When it came time to try the same thing on you, he was ready—you said he had friends waiting, and that he'd bribed someone."

"Yes," I said slowly.

"That makes sense. He learned via Anniki that he'd have to pull off some illegalities in order to get the marriage pushed through. Say what you will; he gets full credit for not wanting to kill you."

"Thank you," I said with a little grimace. "But we don't know that this is anything but guesswork."

"Unfortunately, that's true. We won't know until we can find out more about Anniki and the Brotherhood."

"Well, I'm about to do that," I said, straightening my clothing and squaring my shoulders. "I fully intend to get some answers from the local Brotherhood group."

"Brava, sister," Magda said, standing.

"You really shouldn't come with me. I know you want to help, but we don't know how they're going to take my reappearance. If worse came to worst and they went ballistic, I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

She patted me on the arm and gave me a cheerful smile. "I'm not a vampire, am I? So I'm perfectly safe. Lead on, Macduff."

I smiled at her misquotation as we left the library, but my stomach was wadded up into a leaden ball. Magda might not be a vampire, but I was married to one.

Would I be able to get the help I needed without them finding out that fact?