“Coyotes are tricksters,” Lars said.

“That’s not a question,” I retorted. “But Coyote is a trickster.”

“You are a death walker?” he said, suddenly very interested. “One who has power over the dead.”

And that right there told me that this vampire from Prague knew as much about what I was as I did. Just like the golem had. I didn’t say anything. This was bad. This was very bad. Because if he said what I thought he was going to say, it might mean that someone besides Bonarata was behind my ending up unexpectedly in Prague.

“One of your kind came through here during the First World War,” Lars said.

“Don’t tell me.” I groaned. “His name was Gary Laughingdog.” My very much older half brother whom I had just met this past winter. Hadn’t he said he volunteered for the army in World War I?

“You know of him?” Kocourek said. “He caused a lot of trouble here, in this town. Afterward, he told me that it was a curse of his—to come and make havoc. He said he tried to leave things better than when he came, but he would not answer for the bloodshed, destruction, and mayhem that happened while he was here.”

I hate coincidences. I don’t really believe in them, less now than before I met Coyote. But what in the world made Coyote care about vampires in Prague? And why would he think I could do anything about them? Probably my being here was just a coincidence, and I was being paranoid.

“She can command the dead?” asked Lars. “Can she command us?”

“Can you?” asked Kocourek.

I suppose I could have lied. But being raised by werewolves meant I’d never made lying a habit. “I don’t know,” I told him. “Maybe. Sometimes. No.” I shrugged.

“Gary Laughingdog could,” Kocourek said.

“Scary bastard,” said Vanje. “I was glad he went back to fighting Germans.”

“So what did you bring down on Mary’s head, Mercedes who walks with the dead?” Kocourek asked.

And then I knew what Coyote might find interesting about Prague, and it wasn’t the vampires.

Before I had to work up an answer for Kocourek, the upstairs door blew open, and Mary turned on the lights.

“Kocourek,” she said. And then she said some other things in another language—stuff that was obviously orders.

I didn’t think she’d gotten notice that Kocourek wasn’t hers to order anymore.

“She wants to know where our humans are,” Kocourek said. “She needs to feed her witchcraft with them so she can withstand the monster at our gates. What did you bring down upon us, Mercy?”

“It’s the golem,” I told him.

He froze and turned back to me. “The golem?”

“The golem?” asked Dagmar. “Didn’t Gary say something about the golem? He was always saying odd things.” She frowned, then her face cleared. “I’ve got it. He said the golem wasn’t dead, and someone should do something about that.”

Lars said, “And he was sure glad his name wasn’t someone because that was going to be a messy job.”