Sam blinked. “Just the English ones?”
“The Dobhar-chú,” Hel murmured. Another name Sam recognized from her reading, though she was more accustomed to their informal name: King Otters, called so for their size rather than any sovereignty. From what she recalled, there were always two. Mated pairs. Kill one, and the other would chase you over land and sea until they tore out your throat. It perhaps said something about Sam’s state of mind that she thought it romantic. “The captain is being overcautious. The Dobhar-chú, like most Irish monsters, is nocturnal.”
“Not anymore, apparently,” Van Helsing grumbled. “I told them I’d take care of it, but they said it destroys the ship before surfacing. Punches right through the hull, then plucks the sailors out of the drink like it’s bobbing for apples.” And his revolvers wouldn’t be able to touch it until it surfaced. No wonder Van Helsing was so sour?—there was a monster and he wasn’t permitted to kill it.
“But why didn’t they tell us the problem is nautical in nature?” Sam asked. What they needed was a whaling ship, with harpoons to tire it and force it to the surface.
“Because it’s not our quarry,” Hel said. She was right: The Dobhar-chú was killing people, not disappearing them. This, then, was part of the aforementioned increase in violent abnormal phenomena. It made one wonder why thiswasn’ttheir assignment.
Van Helsing led the way onto the pier?—seagulls shrieking and wheeling above. It occurred to Sam that they’d arrived in the Dublin Port without so much as a snapped rope or runaway train. It hardly felt real. They weren’t out of the woods yet?—selkies might grab their feet from under the docks, dragging them under the cold and crashing waves, or a horse might spook in the street?—but regardless... Professor Moriarty was late.
Professor Moriarty was never late, and if Hel’s suspicions were correct, if her father knew precisely where they were and what they were doing... It sent an uneasy feeling worming through Sam’s gut. Was this how Hel’s father showed his approval? Sam wasn’t certain he knew the word. More likely, it was a trap, and they were walking right into it.
Sam’s journal burned in her pocket, the message she’d translated from her grandfather’s numbers whispering in the back of her mind:Don’t follow me. Saint Brigid hide you and keep you safe. Love always, Grandpa.
The necklace he had given her, a medal of St. Brigid, was a reassuring weight against her chest.
Ten years ago, Professor Moriarty had stolen Sam’s grandfather from her. She couldn’t imagine what was so important about an old man who liked to tinker with radiotelegraphs that Professor Moriarty had chased him all the way to the United States. Nor did she have the slightest idea how to track him down now that she was finally in Ireland. It wasn’t as if he’d be listed in the Blue Book, and she doubted anyone would have seen him?—a man in his position was unlikely to be permitted to wander.
It was a trap, it had to be. And Sam recalled what Van Helsing had said in the catacombs of Paris:It’s not a trap if you know about it. It’s an opportunity.
For perhaps the first time, Sam hoped Van Helsing was right.
Chapter Three
George Keogh’s Pub, Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath)
Five Days Before Samhain
“This is a waste of time,” Van Helsing grumbled.
The fog rubbed against Sam’s skin like a cat as it threaded the streets of Dublin, passersby and carriages seeming to emerge as if from a dream. The aforementioned waste of time was a pub, taking its ease on the corner under the stained-glass eye of a baroque church. It endeared itself to Sam at once by looking like nothing so much as a leather-bound book slid between brick apartments, with its green cornice and ornate red scrollwork andGeorge Keoghpainted across the front like a title on a spine.
Despite the shadow of Professor Moriarty, Sam couldn’t repress a sense of excitement. She had heard stories of the pubs in Ireland that made them sound like something of a living library. It was where all the best poetry was found, and half the best people. A place where authors bickered with university students, building castles out of words in place of cards and daring each other to greater flights of wit; where informants drank alongside revolutionaries, and Gaelic revivalists alongside titans of industry. A place, in short, where everyone was welcome. Except, of course, for women.
But then, Van Helsing had to be good for something.
“We should be at Dublin Castle by now, getting debriefed,” Van Helsing groused. “Not going to get a pint of ale.”
“We already agreed,” Sam reminded him. A woman could, she recalled, go into a pub, were she escorted by a man.
“That’s before I knew he was recommending a pub!” Van Helsing said, exasperated.
The captain, in his wisdom, had advised Van Helsing that he ought to see George Keogh about a priest. Heeding his wisdom, they’d sent their luggage on ahead to the Shelbourne and gone in search of the man. It hadn’t taken long to find out George Keogh was the proprietor of a pub by the same name, and that a priest was, by extension, a sort of drink, if a variety none of them had heard of.
“And you don’t think that was some sort of code?” Sam said.
Van Helsing snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why should he need to tell us where to get the details of our assignment in code? We’re field agents, not spies.” All that, he managed without an ounce of irony. “I doubt the man even knows who we are. He probably just thought we looked thirsty. Moriarty, tell me you’re not on board with this.”
Hel shrugged. “Worst case scenario, we get a drink.” She looked as if she could use one.
When Van Helsing pushed open the door, the clinking of glasses and laughter washed over them. The floorboards were worn, and Sam caught glimpses of yellow walls between whiskey mirrors and beer advertisements, theater posters and photographs. The air was rife with smoke and poetry, students in their black gowns arguing over Yeats, while others were finding increasingly absurd ways to declare their affection for their beverage of choice.
The bar’s low counter was crowded with suited men lounging on comfortable barstools, contemplating their pints, while the barman measured out coffee, rice, and snuff for them to carry home. A few of the younger men?—in flat caps and the trendier telescope crown hats?—paused to watch as Van Helsing pushed his way through to signal the barman.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Van Helsing said, wearing his discomfort like a coat, “I’d like a priest.” Laughter chased his comments, and Van Helsing scowled.
“Well, you’d best be off to confession, then, hadn’t you?” the barman said. He flipped a glass in his hand without looking and added a splash of amber-colored whiskey.
