The Drinker of Blood

Chapter Twenty-One

One would have thought my killing the man's lieutenant would have put a damper on Whitefarrow's desire to meet. But it did not. Over the next day, I received several more notes from Rohan, relaying proposals for various times and places that my enemy and I might come together. The notes were short and otherwise friendly, but I could tell Rohan did not want to get pulled into the middle of anything.

I didn't blame him. He already had been kinder and more considerate to me than he needed to be. If I'm being honest, he and Isolde could have done away with me the night of the holiday party. They had the men and resources to do it. That they had not done so, or even tried, should have been a message to me that they were sincere in their desire for friendship, but .... I think we've firmly established I have issues.

And I still had not recovered from the anger I felt for their treatment of Freya-Lynn. Though I strongly suspect that episode was wholly of Isolde's doing, no doubt driven by her great fear of me. Maybe I should be more forgiving.

My reply to each of the proposals that Rohan put forward was to insist on a meeting in a public site in broad daylight. Neither term would sit well with my enemy, but I wasn't looking to accommodate the man. I just wanted to figure out a way to murder him with the least fuss.

I happily would meet him in broad daylight on the steps of city hall, a place and time that a normal person would find comfortable. Perhaps Whitefarrow realized that I would not hesitate to kill him in such a public setting. In that event, the man was not as dumb as he looked.

To my utter surprise, the next note from Rohan indicated that Whitefarrow had agreed to my most recent offer. He and I would meet the following day at 2:00 in the afternoon at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, just a stone's throw from the New York Supreme Court building and other stately landmarks.

It wasn't my first choice, but I'd proposed it because there was always a strong police presence in the area, and I assumed that fact might put my prey at his ease. It seemed to have done.

But I wasn't foolish.

When the time came, I would meet Whitefarrow fully armed, and I would arrive at Foley Square well before noon to look things over. Did I plan on killing the man when he arrived? Only if he actually showed up and I saw the opportunity. Absent that, my intent was to learn as much as I could, and perhaps to get the fellow to drop his guard so I might extinguish him at some future date. Patience has always been my friend.

And there didn't seem to be a downside. The more I thought about it, the better the location appealed to me. There would be plenty of people about at that time of day, and courtroom security being what it was, I didn't have to worry about a hidden sniper picking me off from a nearby building. The NYPD and court officers would be proof against any silliness like that.

So, I continued to plan, and I prepared for the meeting.

***

My first act on reaching the square the following day was to pace off every step of the surrounding area, watching and examining every person and thing. No one there looked as if they were out of place. And the location otherwise seemed normal.

Life hummed on in the square as it did in every other part of the city. Cars passed, horns honked, and there was the omnipresent wail of sirens in the distance. People walked, chatted, worked, and otherwise went about their day. There hardly was a place there from which you couldn't see at least one police officer.

I began to think that Whitefarrow truly was coming for the intended purpose of meeting to talk peace. Too bad for him, but good for me. At 30 minutes before the meeting, I settled down at a nearby snack shop and took a seat near the window. It was far enough away from our meeting site that it afforded me a good view of everything going on in the area.