Hell and High Water

by Charlotte E. English

  Jessamy winced, and I mentally berated myself. I forget that not everybody can be as cold. She took a breath. ‘There’ll be an autopsy, but I don’t see how you can get the findings.’

  Autopsy. Right. ‘I’ll find a way. Meanwhile, I want to talk to Faerd.’ All Jessamy had said was that the asrai had got word to her about Narasel’s passing; lots lay behind that sliver of information. How had Faerd found out about it? Had he discovered the selkie’s body himself? What had he seen?

  Still, wanting to talk to Faerd and actually finding Faerd were worlds apart. No easy task.

  I was going to have to get into the water after all — but not here.

  ‘You don’t need to come with me for this part,’ I said. ‘I’ll be under for a while.’

  Jessamy nodded. ‘Call me when you know something.’

  ‘If I can manage to go a whole day without mislaying or breaking my phone, certainly.’

  Jessamy rolled her eyes, but she said nothing else, and walked away.

  Left alone, I wandered on for a space, searching for a quieter spot. It wouldn’t do to let anybody see me disappear under the water, and while my glamours are more than strong enough to deal with one or two inconvenient pedestrians, I didn’t want to have to blind a whole crowd of them to my doings. That quickly gets exhausting.

  But it was still early, and only a few minutes passed before I was stripping out of my clothes. I left them tucked under a hedge, together with my phone, the lot glamoured to resemble an uninteresting pile of desiccated leaves.

  Then I dived over the railing in one smooth motion. The blissful, cold waters closed over my head; light faded.

  I sank, the glimmer of sun-on-the-water rapidly receding above me. By the time I hit the dark riverbed, I was changed: limbs and hair gone, replaced by the sleek-furred, powerful bulk of a seal. Senses sharpened; the shadowed waters cleared, and I could see again. A medley of scents assaulted my more sensitive nostrils, fresh and clean, shot through with the stench of pollution. I’d have to award myself a long swim in the sea sometime soon, somewhere distant. Somewhere perfect.

  But for now… Faerd. I flexed my fins and my tail and shot away through the waters, chasing every hint of asrai I could find.

  Chapter Four: Tai

  They really don’t like people asking questions at airports.

  Mearil had flown out from Gatwick. I knew this because I’d accompanied her more or less as far as the terminal. She and Coronis had been planning to stay out in Athens for a while, and I wasn’t sure when I’d be seeing Mea again.

  I hadn’t gone inside with her. I’d watched her disappear through the doors, a slight, thin figure determinedly dragging a suitcase far too large. She’d grinned at me over her shoulder just before she’d vanished from sight, given me one last, half-abstracted wave, and then she was gone.

  Now I had her suitcase, but no trace of Mea. It hadn’t been easy to get hold of the thing, either. An hour’s investigating went more or less like this: I collared official-looking people; they responded to my questions with suspicious looks and requests for identification; I privately wished them a bad case of pox, smiled my shiniest smile, and moved on to the next one.

  After a while I gave up. Mea was missing. If there was ever a good time to break my no-more-magic rule, this qualified. Right?

  So the next time I approached an information desk, I was humming an idle tune. The harassed-looking soul behind the desk would see nothing of my brown skin and cocoa-coloured hair; instead he’d see a fair-skinned façade with Mea’s flyaway locks, blue eyes and freckles, her height and her rail-thin build. A cursory glance at my passport would support my imposture.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, smiling brightly. I leaned an arm on the counter. ‘It really isn’t my day,’ I said. ‘I checked in, but I got held up at security, and then I got talking — don’t you love it when relatives call you with serious problems when you’re trying to catch a plane? — and anyway, the long and short of it is I missed my flight. Any chance I can get my suitcase back?’

  ‘Baggage claim ticket?’ came the reply, in monotone.

  ‘I seem to have mislaid it,’ I said smoothly. ‘I’m a scatter brain, sorry. Can you still find my case? I was heading for Athens—’

  ‘Boarding pass.’

  Hm. I waited in silence until he glanced up at me, frowning. Then I looked deep into his faded blue eyes, adjusted my smile, and handed him my passport. ‘Of course,’ I murmured. ‘Here it is.’

  He took the document with a nod, and turned his attention to his screen. I waited while he tapped and typed.

  ‘Your baggage was offloaded,’ he informed me, without looking up. ‘It is available for you to collect.’ He proceeded to issue directions as to how and where, through all of which I nodded and smiled, and held my tongue. I didn’t even snatch up something weighty and attempt to brain him with it. Really, Fi would be proud of me.

  Twenty minutes later (or so…) I had Mea’s big, blue suitcase in my keeping, and I dropped the glamour. The case and I went on a quick trip to the ladies, where I contrived — not without difficulty, considering its size — to conduct a hasty but thorough search of the thing. No sealskin. Nothing that felt glamoured, either, and nothing that looked out of place. I zipped everything back in, reasonably satisfied that the sealskin wasn’t in there. I hadn’t really expected to find it; Coronis knew what she was talking about, and no selkie in her right mind would trust her skin to checkin baggage. But, drifting up from the long-buried memories of my past life came a rule or two for investigating, one of which is: assume nothing. Meticulous, detailed work tends to pay off, even if it is dull as fuck.

  I wandered back out into the bustle of the terminal building, and parked myself against a wall. I stood there a while, thinking things over.

  Good as it was to get a chance to check Mea’s baggage, my heart had sunk a long way the moment it was put into my hands. It… confirmed things, in ways I didn’t like. Part of me was hoping Mea had checked herself out of the airport, taking her luggage with her, and there’d prove to be some other explanation for her silence.

  But no. The case was here, and Mea wasn’t. Any hopes I had of a happy resolution to the mystery disappeared.

  So. Think.

  Mea had checked herself and her baggage in — and then what? Reason suggested she hadn’t made it onto the plane, and this was a thing I would cautiously take for granted. They’d offloaded her baggage because she hadn’t boarded.

  And you know, I just don’t see how it could be possible to disappear a person from a plane somewhere over the Adriatic. It’s also impossible to do it quietly, and I’d been monitoring the news. The flight Mea was supposed to be on made it to its destination on schedule, no disturbances reported.

  So, whatever had become of her had taken place somewhere within Gatwick itself. But where? Airport security has really tightened up over the years. Nobody would be dumb enough to try anything while she was getting her carry-on checked through; too many people about, several of whose literal job it is to stand there and watch for suspicious characters (like, for example, me). Ditto the departure lounge. Somewhere between baggage check and security might be a possibly. Or, after security but before she reached the gate. Either way, she’d have been wandering along, just one, unremarkable face among many, her mind happily fixed upon Coronis waiting for her in Athens. Not expecting trouble.

  It wouldn’t take much.

  I watched hundreds of passengers scurry by as I stood there against the wall. Busy, harried people, paying little or no attention to those around them. If I wanted to intercept one of them, what would I need to do? Simple. Excuse me, ma’am, I think you dropped something. Oh look, yes, your purse is missing, but here, is this it? Saw it fall out of your bag just now. You’re welcome, no trouble at all. So where are you headed? A smile or two, a congenial manner, and now you’re walking along right by their side without exciting any suspicion at all. Keep them talking. Gently herd them in whatever direction you
want — touch of compulsion if they start to notice — and then, when opportunity presents itself… you’re gone, and so are they.

  It would be appallingly easy.

  It’s absolutely the kind of thing I would have done, once upon a time.

  Mea’s nice. Friendly, trusting — exactly the type to fall easily into conversation with a total stranger, and think nothing of it. The perfect mark.

  I spun through several questions in my head, without coming up with any answers. Had anyone seen it happen? Almost certainly not, but if they had… I’d need police clout to find out. What was I going to do, identify everyone who passed through Gatwick at about the right time yesterday and ask them all? Security footage might help, but getting access to it wouldn’t be easy.

  If necessary, I could bewitch my way through whatever obstacles lay between me and the digital records of Mea’s passage. Maybe. But I doubted it’d help me. Had whoever intercepted Mea known she was fae? Perhaps not, but I had a strong suspicion they did. I had a still stronger suspicion we were dealing with fae abductors. You could snatch a woman out of a busy airport without using faerie wiles, but it would be much, much harder. Whoever had done it probably had several ways to bypass, or confuse, mere human security cameras.

  Another question. Why Mearil? Was she a specific, individual target? Had somebody known she’d be at Gatwick Airport yesterday, and set out to intercept her? The thought puzzled me. As I’ve said, Mea’s the closest you can get to a bunny rabbit without growing a tail. She’s not wealthy. She has no connections, and she works as a sound technician. What possible reason could anyone have for targeting her?

  My mind kept coming back to that sealskin. That, and that alone, made sense. If you’re shopping for a selkie house slave, Mea would be the perfect target. And she’d had her skin with her.

  Two options there. Either somebody was out fishing for selkie — someone with eyes to see past the glamours that hide us all — and Mea was unlucky enough to pass by at the wrong time. Or, somebody laid a trap for Mea on purpose.

  And if the former was true… maybe Mea wasn’t the first. Maybe there were others like her.

  That thought went through me like a cold wind.

  I was probably overreacting. Just because Mea’s present whereabouts was under question, I didn’t need to extrapolate that into a much wider problem. They call that catastrophising in the field, and they’re not wrong.

  But once the idea entered my head, I couldn’t dismiss it again. It might, after all, be true.

  I retrieved my phone, and stood holding it for a second, thinking. I needed answers, but how to get them? Faerie doesn’t have an organised police force, nor a central news agency. Nobody reports on faerie crimes, probably because there’s little real structure of law. I couldn’t just check the news for similar stories, and while I could consult the mortal police, there’s no real way to sort ordinary missing-persons reports from those relating to the fae. We are, after all, incredibly good at camouflaging ourselves.

  That left me with few actual choices, but even so. Did it have to be Phélan?

  Yes. Yes, it did.

  ‘Well, fuck,’ I sighed, and dialled.

  The phone rang precisely seven times, then cut off. I tucked it away again, enjoying a moment’s brief regret of my choices.

  Phélan. I hadn’t had occasion to contact him in… a long time. So long. The impulse to do so had faded eventually — some — and… I hadn’t had a reason to call on him. Or an excuse, either.

  I shivered, momentarily chilled.

  Too late for second thoughts; it was done. I grabbed Mea’s case and walked away with it, finished with Gatwick for now. If it held any more answers for me, I was out of ways to get at them. It was time to go home. I hadn’t gone into Mea’s room since her departure the day before, but now I had a really good reason to invade her privacy.

  If one of my ideas was correct, Mea had been targeted on purpose, before she got anywhere near the airport — and she’d been intercepted by somebody she knew. If that was the case, maybe I’d find a clue somewhere in the paraphernalia she’d left at home.

  Besides that, I needed to talk to Coronis again. She, more than anybody, would have an idea as to who had been lurking around in Mea’s life lately.

  Mea and I live in a quietish neighbourhood in south London. Our house is small, but it’s enough for the two of us — or the three, I should say. Coronis is often away somewhere about the world; Mea gives her the space. But when Coronis is in England, she lives with us.

  Mea’s room is at the back, overlooking what passes for a garden with us. Neither one of us being a keen gardener, it’s little more than a ragged patch of grass with a few hardy shrubs determinedly clinging on around the edges. Coronis does a better job, when she’s around, but she hasn’t been for a while. Viewed from the window of Mea’s empty room, my thoughts darker than they’ve been in many a year, our scrubby yard seemed more forlorn than ever.

  I shut the blind, and turned my attention to the room. Mea has neat habits, and I found everything as pristinely organised as ever. Her bed’s too big for the room, leaving little space to navigate around it. She’s also fond of soft things and feels the cold, so I had to step past an excess of white-silk duvet and extra blankets in order to reach the tiny desk set into the curve of the wall.

  I went rapidly through the drawers, finding pens and notepaper, but no actual notes. Hair clips, a stray battery or two, a shopping list… below all that, a small stack of papers. Bank statements. A quick perusal revealed nothing that stood out as unusual.

  No address book. I laughed at myself for the thought. People don’t keep address books anymore; all her contacts would be on her phone, along with everything else pertaining to her personal life and habits. Which would be a useful circumstance if it were not for the fact that Mea’s phone was not here.

  I sat on the bed, and dialled Coronis’s number.

  She answered it after three seconds. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have questions.’

  ‘Ask.’

  ‘Did Mea make any new friends recently, that you know of? Any new names dropped in conversation?’

  ‘No. I thought of that.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I take it she never mentioned anything like that to you, either.’

  ‘Nope.’ That said, I hadn’t been around as much as I might have liked. Tours, band business, press — all of that keeps me too occupied to play homebody very much. Mea could have got up to all kinds of crazy new shit and I wouldn’t know.

  The thought stabbed me, sharp as nails, and I sighed. Quickly, I relayed what I’d done so far to Coronis, leaving out my more disturbing theory. She didn’t need to hear about my forebodings; not until I had sound reason to think they might be right, and that would have to wait until Phélan showed up.

  If he showed up.

  ‘So that’s it, then,’ said Coronis, when I’d finished telling her about Mea’s suitcase. ‘She’s really missing.’

  ‘Yep.’

  Silence. I waited, while Coronis went through much the same thought process I had at Gatwick.

  ‘I’ll be home tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I can help.’

  Perhaps. Where I was likely to end up going, I didn’t think Coronis could follow. But she needed to be doing something, and what did I know? I was used to having help. Maybe Coronis could be enough. ‘Great,’ I said.

  I stood up again, stashing the phone. Early morning, still; no chance of seeing Phélan until nightfall. The delay chafed. What was I to do in the meantime? How to proceed?

  I was out of practice, out of touch… the whole world had changed, and I’d spent the past few decades drowning myself in music. I used to have a network of connections all across London, and beyond. We used to have that. Me and Fionn and Daix. And… and Silise.

  Nothing went down in fae London without our knowing about it.

  Now, I felt blindfolded, deaf and dumb. I had no one left to call on, no source of informat
ion. Only Phélan, if he answered my call.

  Well. Not only Phélan, perhaps. Who else in London might know, if something was going on with the selkies?

  Fionn. Of course. I could… ask her.

  Just… ask Fionn.

  That thought, curiously, bothered me more than calling Phélan. I was paralysed by it; something like terror held me motionless.

  I didn’t have Fi’s number, but I could visit her. I knew where to find her studio. I could ask her if she’d heard anything, if she had any insight that might help. That would be all right, wouldn’t it?

  She wouldn’t be pleased to see me, but… she didn’t need to see me for very long.

  And this was for Mea.

  I sat down again, perched on the end of Mea’s bed. Stood up again. Paced out into the living room. Think, Tai. Surely I could come up with some other avenue for investigation. Some other way of tracing what had become of Mea.

  I had nothing. No witness, no suspect. No leads. Just a woman, vanished without trace, and a head full of fears.

  ‘Shit,’ I sighed, and grabbed my coat. No time for dithering and doubting. If I could toughen up enough to summon Phélan, I could face Fionn, too.

  I’d just better be ready for a barrage of recrimination when I did it.

  Chapter Five: Fionn

  Selkies are sea creatures. River water isn’t the same; I cannot live in it, and it cannot nurture me. Still, it’s infinitely preferable to no waters at all, and a long, luxurious swim up the Thames has often refreshed my spirits at need.

  So much so that, despite the urgency of my errand, the flow of the currents began to lull my senses. I was in asrai territory before I was aware, gliding along half in a dream, shaded waters slipping smoothly by. No one to witness my passage, at so bright an hour: the asrai are deeply nocturnal. Avoidance of the sun is paramount with them; they would all be sheltered away from the light. If I wanted to speak with Faerd — if I wanted to find him at all — I’d need to pay close attention.

  The asrai are not social creatures, and Faerd is less so than most. How to find him was a problem I had yet to solve. Some manner of inspiration would strike once I was in the water, I’d reasoned, as often happens.