Three Slices Read Free Page A

shouldn’t.”
    “Why not? That tip you gave me in the sixteenth century regarding coffee as the next big commodity was spot-on.” I jabbed a finger at my mug. “This made me the bulk of my fortune. I was the world’s quietest coffee baron.”
    Mekera grunted. “That so? And what happened to all that fortune?”
    “It’s a long story, but a man named Werner Drasche got access to my accounts and liquidated them. The money’s all gone.”
    “Don’t have to tell me the story. I already know it. I’m the one who told him to go after Kodiak Black if he wanted to get to you.” I flinched and a cold feeling collected in the pit of my stomach.
    Kodiak Black and I had enjoyed a very long friendship. He was one of my oldest friends, in fact; I met him before most of the Old World had heard there was a New World. He spent summers as an enormous bear and the rest of the year as a human, what he called his hibernation. When the continent began filling up with people who weren’t so careful or considerate of nature, I did what I could to make sure the salmon runs he adored in Alaska remained open and unpolluted, and he looked after the majority of my finances as that became a project worthy of a custodian. He got killed for managing my money, though, and in a way that made me shudder for his spirit. I had serious doubts that his spirit existed anymore, for the very life had been drained out of him by Werner Drasche, the arcane lifeleech.
    “Told you,” Mekera said, “I’m not to be trusted.”
    “You betrayed me?”
    That earned me a sneer. “I was never loyal to you in the first place. But hell yes.”
    “Why? What did I do?”
    “Not a damn thing, Siodhachan. Look, it’s not like I was out to get you. That crazy ascot-wearing fool was going to kill me. Came here with his own private nest of vampires and all of them looked at me like I was a snack. They were watching—listening—and they would have known if I was lying. I had to do it out of self-preservation. Did he kill Kodiak?”
    “Yes.”
    She dropped her head and said in a low voice, “I’m very sorry to hear that. He didn’t need to go that far.”
    I let that obvious statement pass without comment. “Why’d he let you live after you helped him? That doesn’t sound like Drasche’s style.”
    Mekera looked up. “He thought you might come looking for me afterward, and then he’d have you. And look!” Her eyes widened in mock surprise and she spread her hands like a game show hostess. “Here you are!”
    I flicked a nervous glance toward the entrance. “Drasche’s out there now?”
    “Nah, but you can bet he will be soon enough.”
    “We can be long gone before then.”
    “You and the hound? I know. Doesn’t help me.”
    “I was including you. You can come with us.”
    “But I like it here. Got my lab and my sky and no junk mail. Don’t want to move.”
    “Fine, stay here if you want. But what you did to me—what you did to Kodiak—you need to make it right.”
    Her eyes flashed and she stabbed a finger at me. “I didn’t do anything to you or Kodiak. That lifeleech threw down all the evil here. All I did was save my own ass and I don’t owe you anything for that. You want to talk about betrayal? Ask yourself how Drasche knew where to find me.”
    “I didn’t tell him.”
    “I wasn’t suggesting that. I’m saying somebody you know sent him after me.”
    “Who?” I said, already dreading the answer.
    “Leif Helgarson.”
    “Damn it.” I ground my teeth together, clenched my fists, and asked, “But how did he know you were here?”
    “He found me in ninety-five; don’t know precisely how. Told me he’d been seeking out the world’s best soothsayers to figure out where he could find the world’s last Druid.”
    “And he threatened you just like Drasche did, so you told him I’d most likely be in Arizona in the late nineties.”
    “Tempe, to be exact. Didn’t know if you’d actually show up or not. But he didn’t