Penny frowned. “Are you trying to say you didn’t have anything to do with his being gone?”
“Why would I still be sleeping on your couch if I’d called my people to come kidnap him?”
Penny shrugged. “Hey, I don’t pretend to understand your cloak-and-dagger bullshit.”
“You’re coming off a bit hostile.”
“Fuck you.”
“See? That’s what I mean.”
“Two years!” Penny held up two fingers. “Two damn years I’ve been working on that boy. I nursed him back from the edge after he broke up with that Goth whore Brenda. Two damn years invested, and you come along with your blond hair and suntan and tight little ass and get your hooks into him in twenty-four hours.”
“I do not know what you are talking about.”
“The hell you don’t.” Penny folded her hands under her chin and batted her eyelashes. “Oh, my. I’m just so tired. Let me climb into this tiny narrow bunk next to you with nothing but a towel on.”
Amy frowned. “Hey!”
“I’m not doing the soft sell anymore,” Penny said. “Allen’s mine, and that had better be crystal clear right now or somebody’s going to get hurt. And I don’t mean me.”
“Is that a threat? Are you actually threatening me? Do you know who I am, what I can do to you?”
Penny’s grin was pure wicked. “And you don’t know anything about me either, blondie. I can turn your day real bad real quick.”
Muscles tensed, both women looking like they might pounce at any second.
See, now this is where we should have a totally awesome catfight.
Have you ever seen two women go at it? I mean, two furious women with blood in their eyes, claws out, teeth bared? It’s pretty hot. Lots of long hair thrashing around and clothes getting ripped off.
If I were in charge of such things, it would be catfight time. But I have no such power to manipulate the universe. Alas, my role has been relegated to that of observer. And reporter. The cosmos has put me into this position for the sake of posterity. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the occasional naked catfight. Not this time.
Instead, this happened:
Amy held up her hands, took a step back, and exhaled. “Whoa.
Hold on.”
Penny eyed her with suspicion.
“I’m not after Allen,” Amy said. “Not like that. Hey, I understand what it looked like. Sorry about that. But my only concern is keeping some very powerful magic out of the wrong hands. Nothing else.”
“That’s all Father Paul wants too,” Penny insisted. “And he said he wants to keep Allen from getting hurt.”
“Wait. Hold on. You talked to the priest.”
“Uh…” Penny bit her bottom lip, looked away.
Amy backed away, tensed, glanced at the doors and windows.
“Oh, my God. Are they coming here?”
“No!” Penny said quickly. “No, I… I didn’t think Allen would want me to do that. As a matter of fact, I went in to wake him up so I could talk him into seeing Father Paul. I wanted to convince Allen he could help.”
“Oh, yeah? Like your priest helped back at the safe house. With machine guns.”
“They were trying to rescue Allen because you kidnapped him.”
“This is getting us nowhere,” Amy said. “Did you mean it when you said you didn’t tell the priests Allen was here?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t told my people either,” Amy said. “So let’s say we’re both being fair and honest. Who does that leave to help Allen?”
Penny narrowed her eyes at the witch. “What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s out there somewhere. If the Society didn’t snatch him, and if the priests didn’t take him, then where is he?”
Penny frowned. She was trying to think it through. “You think he left on his own.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he was trying to get away from me, or maybe he just didn’t want to put you in danger. But right now we’re the only people who can help him. Neither one of us wants to see him hurt. Let’s put our heads together and go find him.” Amy offered her hand. “How about it?”
Penny eyed the outstretched hand a little longer than was probably polite. She took it, and they shook.
“I’m going to need a cup of coffee,” Amy said.
“There’s a place down the street,” Penny told her. “Let’s move.”
THIRTY-ONE
Allen glided through nighttime Prague as if on autopilot.
He passed the dark and empty Sparta Stadium, crossed Milady Harakove, and entered the western reaches of Letna Park, where the bike paths and walking trails crisscrossed through the trees. Allen never lost his way. One foot plodded in front of the other. The small chunk of his brain that was still thinking independently fretted over Cassandra Evergreen. Had he made a covenant with evil? Would he contract some kind of unholy venereal disease?
Must… obey.
Trees closed in around him, and the complete darkness was terrifying and comforting. He trudged on. An owl hooted, and Allen froze. Eyes in the night. Never mind. Keep going.
The trees opened suddenly, and there was Prague Castle before him, sprawling and magnificent, high walls and towers lit for the tourists. Even compelled as he was to move on, Allen made himself pause a moment to take in the view, to gaze upon the onetime seat of the Holy Roman Empire.
Then the urge to obey grew uncomfortable enough to spur him on. He passed Sternberg Palace on the north side. Schwarnbersky Palace came into view soon after. The whole area was lousy with historical crap.
He cut through another thin patch of forest and found the old monastery at the foot of Petrin Hill. The Rogue’s Guide entry to Strahov Monastery read like this:
Old libraries. No action.
Allen crossed the rambling cobblestone courtyard to the wide, wooden front-entrance double doors. He read the hours posted on the front door. The place opened for tourists at eight in the morning. Allen looked at his wristwatch.
1:36 a.m.
Stupid arbitrary half-assed vampire hypnotism bullshit.
A nudge in his ribs. Somebody was yammering foreign talk at him.
Allen blinked his eyes open, then looked up into the bored face of a uniformed man. Badge. Gun. Cop. The inside of Allen’s mouth tasted like old cabbage and feet. He sat up, his back, shoulders, and neck aching from six hours of sleeping on a stone bench.
The cop jabbered in Czech.
“I’m sorry.” Allen rubbed his neck, stretched. “I’m waiting for the monastery to open.”
Already a small crowd of tourists gathered at the front entrance, cameras around necks, khaki shorts and hats, T-shirts with the Czech flag on the front.
The cop sighed. “American.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He pointed to the big double doors. “Over there. Almost open.” He tapped his wristwatch.
“Thanks.”
Allen fell in with the rest of the tourists and waited. It opened, and he soon found out there was a separate entrance fee for the libraries and the picture galleries. It was eighty Czech crowns to tour the libraries, but they told him university students could get in for fifty, about the price of a cup of coffee. He paid and shuffled inside with the others.
He paid another forty crowns for a guidebook in English. The two libraries were known as the Philosophical Hall and the Theological Hall. The guide described the Theological Hall as housing the collection of ancient arcane learning. Allen went there first.
The hall was impressive, and Allen stood a moment at the entrance, taking it all in. The ceiling vaulted overhead like a barrel, giving the place a feeling of space, rich stucco, paintings. Globes and lecterns with books on display lined the walls, bookcases at least a dozen feet high. It was immediately clear one could not simply approach the shelves and start pulling off books as in a normal library. The guide said there was a reading room with specific hours that didn’t start until later, and all handling of the books was carefully supervised.
Allen left this library and found the Philosophical Hall.
This library was even more impressive than the last.
The bookshelves rose fifty feet high on both sides, all the way up to a richly detailed ceiling painted-according to the guide-by Franz Anton Maulbertsch, depicting scenes showing mankind’s search for ultimate wisdom. The shelves towered over Allen, made him feel like a spec.
Books. Lots and lots and lots of books.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
Allen was considered by his professors to be an outstanding researcher. He could walk into any university library back in America, plop himself in front of a computer terminal, spend an hour getting the hang of the system, initiate a search, and walk out with anything he needed. The dust on these books was older than any library in America. Nothing appeared to be computerized, at least not at first glance.
Okay. Stop. Think. What’s the smart way to do this?
He went back outside, found a cart selling hot coffee, sat down with the guidebook. He devoured a brief history of the monastery. It had been founded in 1143, had been burned to the ground in the 1200s, and had survived Hussites and Communists. Allen paged through again, tried to find passages that involved the relevant time frame.
There wasn’t enough here. He needed a computer.
He finished the coffee and began asking directions. The same cop who’d hustled him off the bench pointed him toward an internet café. Allen thanked him and started walking.