“It’s top-secret vampy stuff, but we’re in Hungary.”
She let out a breath. “From what I heard in the dream, I thought you were somewhere in Eastern Europe. I don’t speak the language either, but it sounded Eastern European. What else do you know about him?”
“Next to nothing,” I said. “I heard about a folktale featuring a cruel fae prince who brutalized his daughters. I’m not sure, but I think that’s who we’re dealing with.”
I could hear Arwyn moving around. “This is stupid,” she said. “Let me ask someone who might actually know.” The sound of surf became quite loud. “Good evening, Cecil, Poppy! Wilbur, Charlie, Herbert, I hope you’re all well.”
Her footsteps slapped on the deck.
“My Uncle Bracken is a historian, magical and human. He might know about this guy.”
Twenty-Eight
Bracken: the Supernatural Search Engine
I heard knocking and eventually a clicking sound.
“What a nice surprise,” a man said. “Oh, you know how I love your oatmeal cookies. Thank you. Come in, come in.”
“Sam, I’m putting you on speakerphone. Uncle Bracken, do you remember me telling you about Bridget’s daughter Sam?”
“Of course,” the man said. “Quinn wolf on her father’s side and wicche on ours. A necromancer, you told me.”
“Exactly,” Arwyn said. “She’s in Hungary with her husband on hush-hush vampire business and she’s dealing with a fae guy known as the prince who possessed a vampire, trying to use him to kill her.”
“Fascinating,” he said on a sigh. “I’ve never heard of a vampire being possessed before.” He paused. “Are we sure she’s not dealing with a demon?”
“Sam?” Arwyn said, basically asking me to take over.
“Hello, Bracken. Thank you very much for helping us,” I said.
“Oh, my dear, you’ve given me a treat. Now, what can you tell me about him?”
“I’ve met demons before. He doesn’t feel like one to me. He feels fae and he has the golden skin some fae have.”
“Mm-hm.” It sounded like he was scratching a pen or pencil across paper. “What did he say and do?”
“He talked about his disloyal daughters—no, girls. I don’t think he ever called them his daughters. The folktale I heard about said daughter, but he said girls. Anyway, the story was that he was a cruel prince with many daughters. It said he had a grand palace at the bottom of a huge river and that the water turned blood red from him beating them.”
“The Danube Prince,” Bracken said. “Yes, I’m familiar with that tale. That story took place in Vienna, I believe.”
“We’re in Budapest but the Danube is quite close to us,” I told him.
“Just a minute,” he said.
There was movement in the background.
“He went to retrieve one of his journals,” Arwyn told us.
After a few minutes of a man making hmm-ing sounds and turning pages, he said, “Ah, here it is! Researching folktales is a hobby of mine. This journal is from thirty-one years ago. I was just skimming over my notes to refamiliarize myself.”
There was a pause. “Sit. Sit. All right. So you understand, when I research a subject, I read through everything I can find, those texts written by humans as well as supernaturals. I also interview anyone who might have pertinent information. For this tale, I read four texts and spoke with a water sprite, a wood nymph, and a dwarf. What I’m going to tell you is a synthesis of all the stories into what I believe is as close to the truth as I could get. All right?”
“Yes, thank you,” I replied.
“He sounds like one of our historians,” Clive murmured.
“Do vampires have historians too?” Bracken asked. Clive blinked, seemingly surprised that Bracken had heard him through the line. Wicches, in general, don’t have the super-hearing wolves and vampires do.
