fOR WHO THE spELL tOLLS Read online

  What pleased me to no end, however, was when this mammoth woman decided she liked Bram. She kept smiling and making doe eyes at him, stealing glances his way whenever the opportunity arose. As Bram continued to pick at his Spaetzle, and for all intents and purposes, ignored the enormous woman, I watched her lean forward and whisper to her female acquaintance.

  “Ich wette er wuerde lieber meine Spaetzle essen.”

  Being unfamiliar with the German language, I figured Bram, who was very cultured and refined, probably understood. “You speak German, right?” I whispered.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” he grumbled as he folded his arms across his chest and eyed me with a drawn brow, revealing an overall expression of someone less than enthusiastic.

  “So what did that woman just say about you?” I asked in another whisper, unable to hide my growing smile.

  Bram sighed, looking like a tragic Shakespearean hero, and answered, “She told her friend that I would prefer eating her Spaetzle rather than this one.” He glanced down at the dumplings and frowned as he added, “And on that subject, I most vigorously assure you that such is definitely not the case.”

  I erupted into a fit of laughter, which only further irritated Bram. I just couldn’t help it though and I also couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so hard. As soon as I regained my self-control, the German woman glanced over at Bram. With a diminutive wave, she batted her eyelashes profusely. I took one look at Bram, who was now pretending extreme interest in his Spaetzle, and burst into another fit of euphoria.

  “It pleases me to no end that you find this situation so entertaining,” he said, still frowning. “I envisioned our evening quite unlike what it has turned out to be.”

  “Sorry,” I replied as sincerely as possible. When another eruption of laughter threatened to emerge, I wasn’t sure how, but I managed to subdue it. Taking a deep breath, I turned to the question of why we were sitting here in the first place. “Okay, no more humor at your expense. I apologize.” I took another deep breath. “So what’s this information you have for me?”

  Bram was spared the need to respond when the waiter returned and brought with him my dinner—bratwurst with a side of fried potatoes. I thanked the man and cut a piece of my sausage, spearing it on my fork before bringing it to my mouth and chewing, all the while thanking Hades I wasn’t a vampire because German food was damn good.

  “Have you agreed upon a strategy as to how you will invade the Netherworld, Sweet?” Bram asked as he leaned back into the booth and stretched his long legs out so they butted up against mine. Clasping his hands behind his neck, he studied me purposefully as the woman beside him giggled and gushed to her companion. For all the ennui he pretended to assume, I was more than sure that he was lapping up all the attention.

  “I guess we’ll have to force our way through the portals,” I answered non-committedly. I honestly wasn’t exactly sure of the best way forward. I considered it a problem for Knight to figure out because it wasn’t like I knew much at all about portal travel to and from the Netherworld to begin with.

  “Sweet, do you honestly believe Melchior would not have guards posted at every portal entrance to the Netherworld?” He didn’t wait for me to answer his question and instead shook his head as he tsked me. “Come now, Sweet, your father is no fool.”

  “I never said he was,” I barked back. “And as to your question, no, I don’t know what defensive measures Melchior has taken, because last I checked, I wasn’t a mind reader.”

  Bram nodded, his expression one hinting that he hadn’t taken my words as a slight. Instead, his attention moved to the foot of the German woman who was feebly attempting to play footsie with him. Instantly, he sat up straight and pulled his legs back from under the table, refusing to so much as incline his head in her direction. Meanwhile, she giggled as she whispered to her companion something about him “playing hard to get.”

  Now focused on my face, Bram seemed to be attempting to remember where our conversation was headed. Seeing the perplexed expression in his eyes, I said in a hushed tone, if only to foil any would-be eavesdroppers, “You asked me how I intended to invade the Netherworld; and I said we would try the portals, to which you responded by tearing my answer apart.”

  “Ah, yes, now I recall. To answer your admission that you have no idea what defensive measures your father has taken, I do possess that knowledge, my dear. I am more than well aware of the obstacles that lie before you in the Netherworld.”

  “So what‘s the answer then, Bram?”

  “The answer, my sweet Dulcie, is to use the element of surprise to your distinct advantage.”

  “Which means what?”

  Bram arched a brow, frowning at me as if the answer was apparent. “Enter the Netherworld via a portal at which Melchior will not have guards posted,” he finished. He acted as if it were no big deal at all to find some random portal that my father either didn’t know about, or didn’t post guards to, for some unknown reason.

  “I hope you’re also going to tell me you know the locations of these portals?” I asked and then paused to chew my food, which I swallowed down with a hefty swig of beer.

  “Not locations of existing portals, my dear; but yes, I do have a suggestion for you.”

  Spearing a potato with my fork, I took a bite, feeling my tolerance level for Bram nearing its limit. “So what’s the answer?”

  Bram didn’t respond right away, but reached inside his pants pocket and produced something that looked like a can opener. It was maybe four inches tall and an inch wide, and made from some sort of metal that gleamed in the low light. He handed the gadget to me and I was surprised by how little it weighed.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “This, my dear, is a portal ripping device.”

  “A what?” I demanded.

  Bram smiled, even chuckling slightly as if to show his amusement. “This handy little tool will allow you to cut a portal anywhere you desire.”

  I glanced at him in disbelief for a second or two, trying to understand just what he meant. “So if I wanted to, I could use this thing to create a portal right here?” I asked, inclining my head to include the immediate space around us. Bram simply nodded. “And that portal would take me to the Netherworld?” I finished.

  Bram nodded again. “This ripping device will cut a portal wherever you intend it. You simply program it to the location of wherever you desire to go.”

  “How?” I continued.

  Bram smiled that patronizing grin of his and opened his hand in a charade of “give it back to me and I’ll tell you.” I dropped the can opener looking thing into his palm and watched as he thought to himself and hummed annoyingly.

  “Well?” I demanded.

  “I am just deciding on a location, my dear,” he answered. “Perhaps something arbitrary,” he said more to himself than to me. Then he turned what appeared to be a handle on the devise clockwise four ticks and then counter clockwise five ticks.

  “What was that?” I insisted.

  “I programmed it forty degrees north by fifty degrees west,” he answered smugly. Then he glanced down at the implement, smiling at it as if impressed, before returning his gaze to me. “If this were not a tutorial, I should simply rotate the device so the edge is furthermost from me and then I would draw it toward me as if I were slicing through the air.” He smiled more broadly. “And then a portal would appear between here and there.”

  He then turned the handle a few more times, apparently clearing it before handing it back to me again. “So I just program it with my location and then slice the air and that’s it?” I asked doubtfully.

  Bram nodded. “Quite simple. You must always begin with the northern or southern coordinates. Turn the handle clockwise for north and counterclockwise for south. Once you have entered those coordinates, you enter the western or eastern coordinates. Clockwise for east and counter for west.”

  “And the number of clicks dictates the degrees?” I asked.


  He nodded. “You simply multiply the number of clicks by ten. Two clicks equals twenty, four clicks equals forty and so on.”

  “What if my coordinate is forty-three?” I asked, sharing the first example that occurred to me.

  “You would click forward four times and then turn the handle one click in reverse before proceeding to the three clicks which would symbolize forty-three.” Then he grinned boyishly.

  I glanced down at the portal ripper in my hand, replaying Bram’s directions in my head to make sure they were committed to memory. Once I was satisfied they were, I looked up at him again. “Where did you get this?”

  Bram shook his head. “That is unimportant.”

  “Does Melchior know you have it?”

  “No, this is a mere prototype. Melchior does not even know it exists.”

  My eyes grew wide as I realized what this portal ripper could mean for us. “When you mentioned the element of surprise earlier,” I started, but Bram interrupted me.

  “I was not speaking in abstracts.” He leaned forward and eyed me purposely. “This tool could be the single advantage leading to victory over your father.”

  THREE

  When Bram and I returned to the lodge, I noticed Dia’s red Escalade and Rachel’s Land Rover were nowhere to be seen, so I figured the meeting was adjourned. Knight’s Suburban still sat in the driveway, only now it was covered with maybe two inches of snow. Bram pulled up beside it, in one of his many vehicles—this one a black Lotus. After killing the engine and making a big show of opening my door, he insisted on walking me to the front door, like he was sixteen years old and trying to make a good impression on my folks. We said our good-byes, but when he attempted to kiss me on the cheek, I pulled away. It wasn’t that I was particularly opposed to a pretty harmless kiss on the cheek, but I imagined that such a seemingly innocent act could, and most probably would, inflame Knight. And that was a situation I wanted to steer clear of by all means. Apparently realizing that kissing me anywhere near my face was a no-go, Bram reached for my hand. He bowed in a great show of affected and outdated gallantry before bringing his ice cold lips to the top of my hand.

  “As always, I have enjoyed our time together, Sweet, however short it had to be and,” he cleared his throat, frowning “fraught with … distractions.”

  I laughed and assumed he was referring to the German woman who’d taken a shine to him, which turned out to make my evening. Speaking of the woman, after eating as much of my dinner as I could, Bram paid the bill, and we both stood up with the clear intention of leaving. What happened next is forever etched in my mind, albeit shrouded in hilarious infamy. As soon as Bram stood, the woman also shot to her feet alarmingly quickly (after lazily making idle small talk with her mousy companion, both of whom had already finished their food at least ten minutes earlier). In her rapid response to our departure, she nearly knocked her table over. Just as expected, she towered over Bram (who was tall, in his own right, well over six feet). Then she theatrically announced she had to find the “toilette,” evidently assuming Bram was en route to the lavatory because she made it a point to brush against him. Well, “brushing against him” doesn’t accurately describe what happened. Really, it was more fitting to say she pretended to trip and chose Bram to break her fall. With arms flailing, she thrust her enormous breasts into his face while he looked on in absolute horror. Then her boobs simply engulfed Bram’s head as his face disappeared into her doughy mounds of flesh, lending him an uncanny resemblance to the headless horseman, minus the horse.

  The only thing that crossed my mind at that moment was the line “That’s a huge bitch!” from Deuce Bigalow.

  It was an evening I doubt I could ever forget.

  I felt a smile curling my lips at the recollection of Bram’s adventures with the German woman, but managed to dispel it. I figured it wasn’t something he would want to recount anytime soon. And besides, he had supplied me with the portal ripper …

  “Thanks, for … uh, everything, Bram,” I said and offered him a genuine, heartfelt smile before raising my hand to knock on the front door of Knight’s lodge, lest I freeze to death on the doorstep. Before I had the chance to make contact with it, the door opened on its own accord, revealing a very unhappy Loki looming before us.

  “You’re a minute late,” he grumbled at the vampire, crossing his arms against his chest and looking pretty pissed off.

  Bram’s eyebrows reached for the sky in a practiced but feigned expression of surprise. “How odd. According to my timepiece,” he said as he fished out a pocket watch from another era, “I am a minute early.” Then he shrugged, smiling broadly. “I suppose we should respectfully split the difference and assume I was on time.”

  Knight muttered something I couldn’t understand while holding the door wide open for me. With a wave to Bram, I squeezed past the Loki, and relished the warmth of Knight’s house as it settled into my bones, thawing the cold harshness of the elements.

  “We shall soon be in touch, my dear,” Bram called out behind me. “And I should appreciate it if you would put in a good word for me with the brunette.”

  I just shook my head, forever surprised by his nerve. I took off my down jacket and draped it over the chair Erica had formerly occupied, turning to face Knight as he closed the door behind him. Seconds later, the lights from the Lotus reflected through the windows and I heard the sound of the engine purring as Bram backed up, his tires crunching the snow. Moments later, he faded away down the driveway.

  “How was your date?” Knight asked with a scowl as he approached the fireplace and stepped onto the hearth.

  “It was hardly a date,” I answered, figuring he was going to start a game of twenty questions. “You heard him, he has the hots for MJ,” I said her name in a dreamy-like way. “Apparently he’s not the only one.”

  Knight raised his eyebrows at me, smiling. “Someone sounds jealous.”

  “Well, when one of your ex-girlfriends randomly shows up, it’s a little off-putting.”

  Knight chuckled. “I would hardly call MJ my ex-girlfriend. We dated very briefly and ended up being much better friends.”

  “Oh, and why was that?” I asked, my hands on my hips.

  “Because she was in love with someone else who she ended up marrying,” he finished with a smile.

  “I see,” I said and couldn’t help feeling stupid. “But it sounds like you were into her?”

  Knight shrugged. “At the time, yes I was. But that was before I met a feisty little fairy who made me stop thinking about other women altogether.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at him. Sometimes he knew exactly the right things to say.

  “So going back to your date with Bram,” Knight started.

  “It wasn’t a date!”

  Knight had never liked Bram, and at one point in time, he’d been convinced that I was dating the vampire, something which I never had, nor ever would. Although not exactly his nemesis, Knight definitely wouldn’t call Bram a friend.

  Sitting on the leather couch, I reached down and untied my shoelaces. I took off my shoes and socks to make myself comfortable because I had an inkling this lodge would probably be our refuge for the remainder of the evening. Propping a pillow against the arm rest of the couch, I curled up against it, and stretched my legs out.

  “Tell that to Bram; he clearly thought it was a date,” Knight continued with tightened lips and eyes still narrowed. But as angry as he appeared to be, he managed to keep his temper and/or jealousy in check—owing to the fact that his eyes weren’t glowing. Well, not yet, anyway.

  “Bram would call coasting through McDonald’s drive-through a date,” I answered.

  Knight smiled at my joke, but it was a rushed smile hinting that he was keen on acquiring more information. “So was it a complete waste of your time? Or did he actually come through on that information he promised earlier?”

  I stifled a yawn, feeling increasingly tired with my full belly and the radiant warmth from
the fireplace. “He delivered,” I said simply, reaching into my pants pocket, where I’d placed the portal ripper for safekeeping. I withdrew the small instrument from my pocket and offered it to Knight. He took the few steps separating us and grasped it in his large hand, flipping it as he examined it curiously. It was obvious that he’d never seen one before.

  “What is it?” he asked finally, continuing to study the tool in the low firelight.

  “Bram called it a portal ripper,” I answered and sat up, afraid I might accidentally surrender to my body’s need to sleep if I remained sprawled on top of the couch.

  “A portal ripper?” Knight repeated absentmindedly as he continued to rotate the device in his hands.

  “Apparently, it can cut a portal to the Netherworld wherever we want it to,” I told him. “Bram said it could be the single advantage for defeating my father.”

  “And Bram also exaggerates,” Knight was quick to respond as he placed the portal ripper on the mantel and faced me squarely.

  “I don’t know, seems like a handy gadget to have, if you ask me.”

  He nodded. “Yes, it seems handy, but that’s if you buy what Bram is selling.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Knight shrugged, as though I should have instantly followed his line of reasoning. “Considering Bram worked for your father …”