December 1069

I was half-expecting the Drunken Hog to be this eccentric, slightly bizarre place just by the name, but it turned out to be fairly normal. At least at first glance, maybe there was something under the surface I hadn't noticed.

I came in first, Tim and Lucille a second behind me. We did it this way so that all eyes would be on the incredibly tall, strangely dressed man with prominent facial scars and a white staff and not the strangely effeminate mercenary that came in right after.

While the two vampires went to grab a table, I took a moment to look around the room, searching for anyone that looked like Rowena, or Rowena under a light glamour. I didn't. That didn't really surprise me, Rowena struck me as the type to avoid crowds and people, but it did make this a little more complicated. Not by much though.

The vampires had commandeered a round corner table with chairs for four. Tim was sat so that he faced the rest of the inn, while Lucille sat opposite of him and had her back to everyone. I sat down at one of the open chairs and, after getting comfortably settled, started lightly drumming my fingers against my staff, pulsing small amounts of power through it in a rhythm. I didn't do anything in particular with that power, I just let it radiate outwards. It was the magical equivalent of tapping a knife against glass to get a room's attention.

Hmm, there's an idea: incorporate Morse code into the lesson plans. Makes for a convenient, if not always quiet, way to communicate.

About a minute or two later someone came down the stairs. I glanced at her, my eyes slid off, and I kept tapping my staff even as she looked around, spotted me, and started heading to the table I was sitting at. It was only when she was less than a dozen feet away from me that I took a second, harder look, and the way my eyes kept wanting to slide off her prompted me to really focus on her.

Rowena sat down across from me a moment later, dressed in fine blue robes that should have made her stand out even more than me. No one was really looking at her however. Even Tim and Lucille seemed to be having trouble acknowledging her, and she was sitting right beside them.

"Rowena, can you include these two in whatever it is you're doing?" I asked softly.

Rowena glanced left and right and nodded. A second later the light mental buzzing that had started up behind my eyes faded, and the vampires both blinked and looked at her.

Mind magic was a very gray field as far as the White Council and the Laws were concerned. Some parts were allowed, like suggestions and surface illusions and telepathy, but as mind magic in general involved "invading the mind of another" the bulk of the field was banned. That Rowena was good enough at it to project a Someone Else's Problem field that could affect me without making me even slightly suspicious was interesting.

Both Tim and Lucille shifted away from her slightly after that. Which was also understandable; Tim hadn't seen me use magic at all, and Lucille had only seen portions. Even then, I think they thought I was predominantly a kind of magical brute. Seeing someone walk right up to them and sit down without drawing their attention was an entirely different thing.

"Harry," Rowena said. "Who are these two?"

I glanced over my shoulder and found that the bar wasn't paying attention to us.

"Vampires who've agreed to help me with the demon problem," I said.

Tim and Lucille frowned slightly at that, while Rowena took a second, longer look at them both. "Why?" she asked curiously.

Tim looked at his sister then and arched an eyebrow, as if asking the same question.

"That's a matter between me and them," I said. "The important thing right now is that they've agreed."

"Assuming your plan doesn't involve suicidal heroics," Tim interjected. "I'm rather fond of the idea of not getting maimed. Or killed."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said.

Rowena turned to look at Lucille, looking her up and down curiously. "Is this the vampire you mentioned?"

It took me a moment to process Rowena's question. Once I did, I coughed and hammered my chest a few times. "Uh... no. No, she is not."

Lucille arched an eyebrow in my direction.

"It really isn't important," I said, looking directly at Rowena. "Really."

Thankfully, Rowena didn't elaborate.

"Getting back to the important things, I don't suppose you've managed to find out where Ursiel is, Rowena?"

She shook her head. "No. H... we concluded there wasn't going to be an easy way to detect the demon, especially if it resists magic. Instead I've been thinking of ways to damage the demon, assuming it is both tough and impervious to direct assaults."

"And?" I asked.

"So far I've considered transfiguring wooden beams into heavy stone and having them fall on the demon, removing the ground from under it and entombing it alive, somehow binding it tightly with non-magical chains to immobilize it for others to kill, or getting it to fall into a perilous region of the Nevernever. I've spent the last few hours trying to see if I could somehow manage a moving rift in order to affect that last method." She frowned in disappointment. "So far I haven't made any progress."

I pursed my lips and put a fist up to my cheek, thinking.

"You doubt those will work?" Rowena asked.

"No, they could. The trouble is it's a huge, tough bear as tall as I am that can leap a few dozen feet in a bound," I said. "And it can get pretty fast. Can't turn or accelerate very well, but once it gets going you're not stopping it without a lot of effort." I leaned back and crossed my arms, tapping the base of my staff with a foot while its head poked up against mine. "And if it realizes we're wizards, it might soulgaze us just to throw us off."

Rowena frowned at me. "It's a demon. It doesn't have a soul."

"It doesn't have a human soul," I corrected. "But the person who's hosting it does, and he'll be conscious, and aware, and probably contributing. And if the host catches you in a soulgaze, the demon is going to give you a splitting headache in the process of kicking you out." I scratched the back of my head. "I'm speaking from experience here."

"And your plan is to kill the host," Tim guessed. "Before he becomes a demon."

"Dealing with a regular person is a lot easier than dealing with a rampaging demon-bear," I confirmed. "The trouble is in finding and surprising him. The host, Cerdic, doesn't look any different for being possessed. He might be dressed as a priest, he might not be. In any case, he's going to find it incredibly easy to fit in; while Ursiel isn't the most devious demon, it's still very intelligent, with a good grasp of human psychology, and a perfect grasp of every language in the world. Even if we had the manpower to go door to door looking for a Saxon priest that fit his description, and the city didn't revolt in the process, we'd have to get improbably lucky to find him."

"Could he be biding his time in the cathedral?" Lucille asked.

"He could be, but I doubt it," I said. "Holy ground isn't a hard barrier to a demon like Ursiel, but it still doesn't appreciate it." I frowned. "Though if Cerdic isn't that far gone he could be there anyway, in defiance of Ursiel's preferences. And it would be a great place to hide out and wait; if we tried to canvas York Minster for him that would set off the tension." I looked at Tim. "When that poor nun recovers, do you think you could ask her about Cerdic? Without feeding on her?"

"Spindly, short black hair, older man, yes?" Tim asked.

I nodded.

"Perhaps. And if he is?" Tim asked.

"Then we'll figure things out then. And don't tap into your Hunger while you're there; if Cerdic's around, Ursiel will notice if you're doing anything... vampy."

"Vampy?" Tim asked, arching an eyebrow.

"You get my point."

Tim sighed and looked around. "Now?" he asked.

"My guess is Ursiel's going to strike some time after twilight, once the celebrations start in earnest. So yes, now."

Tim glanced at Lucille. After a nod from him, he sighed heavily and got up. "The things I do for family."

I didn't miss the way Lucille turned away in response.

"What if he isn't in the cathedral?" Rowena asked once Tim had left.

"That is an excellent question," I said, shifting my staff so that it leaned against the table. Then I laced my fingers together and put my chin on the platform, thinking.

Say Cerdic wasn't in the church, or that we didn't have a good way to get to him even if he was. What was Uriel's intention in sending me here? There were only so many coincidences he could arrange. The easiest way to find Ursiel would be to lay in wait for his assault, but that plan came with a big issue. Namely, if Ursiel attacked directly, it would be a bloodbath and we would be lucky to jury-rig a way to drive him off, let alone stop him. If I somehow assassinated Cerdic before Ursiel could come out, then I was passing up his chance at redemption. Maybe Cerdic was already too far gone and I didn't have to worry about that, but I wasn't too sure about that. Word had gotten to John about Cerdic after all, which suggested Cerdic hadn't killed the other priests at whatever obscure rural church Ursiel's coin had been kept at. Cerdic wanted Ursiel's help to do something, but it wasn't necessarily to revel in slaughter.

So how could I find Cerdic, give him a fair shake, and not screw up my one chance to deal with Ursiel all at once?

I glanced down at the back of my left hand and hesitated.

Snakeboy Cassius had been able to feel the mark Lasciel had left on me, had been able to feel that I didn't have her coin on me. Presumably, he'd used magic to do that. But Nicodemus, someone directly hooked up to a Fallen, hadn't been able to sense that Lash was gone, that I no longer had the coin. Now maybe that was because my connection to Lasciel's coin hadn't been fully broken, but I wasn't so sure. And even if that was the case, it didn't matter. I knew, somehow, that if I called Lasciel's coin to me right now, it would come. So some kind of connection was still there, one that Ursiel could potentially pick up on if coin-detection was something the Fallen in general could do, rather than something that required magic.

But I didn't need Lasciel. I had Lash's memories, however much it hurt to access them. And I had way more magic than Snakeboy Cassius. If Ursiel was in York, I could find him, if I was willing to suffer the head pains that would result.

I sighed as the plan came together in my mind. There was a way to get Ursiel's attention, to get Cerdic to show up, to give him a real glimpse at how bad things could get with the Denarians, even work the assassination into the attempted redemption.

I just had to be pretend to be a Denarian.