Hell and High Water

by Charlotte E. English

  ‘Jane,’ I interjected.

  ‘Mm?’ She paused, mid-sentence, though she wasn’t looking at me: she was riffling through a stack of papers and notebooks she’d brought in with her.

  ‘All fantastic,’ I said, ruthlessly dismissing the whole of her report in two words. ‘Thank you. But I need to talk to you about Narasel.’

  She did look up at that, blankly confused. ‘Narasel?’

  ‘Model number twelve.’

  By lineage, Jane is half hob, which makes her diminutive. She’s also determined and highly organised. I value her extremely for these traits, but she cannot remember names. At all. Or faces, either. She wouldn’t remember who Narasel was — not until I’d identified exactly where the selkie model had fitted in during the show.

  Understanding dawned.

  ‘Twelve,’ said Jane, her hair bouncing as she nodded. ‘Absent at the eleventh hour, which I’ll be speaking to her about — if you want to hire her again, Fionn, and I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to drop her. It’s unacceptable. Not that you didn’t do a fantastic job in her stead, so much so that another time, maybe we could use you again—’

  ‘There’ll be neither need nor opportunity to speak to her, Jane,’ I said, cutting in on this flow of ideas. ‘She is dead.’

  Jane stopped abruptly. ‘Dead?’

  ‘Her body was pulled out of the Thames this morning.’

  ‘The Thames? But she’s — was —’

  ‘Selkie. Yes, I know.’

  I didn’t have to explain what that meant. Jane knew. Her face registered horror; she stared at me.

  ‘As I recall,’ I said, after a moment. ‘She was last seen about half an hour before show time. You said she’d been spotted heading for the ladies — at a run. Is that right?’

  Jane sat in frowning thought for a moment, no longer looking at me. Her eyes were blank, her thoughts turned inward, into memory. ‘I didn’t see her myself,’ she said, slowly. ‘It was — one of the other girls reported it to me.’

  ‘Her name?’ I asked, without much hope.

  Jane was already shaking her head. ‘Model number seventeen,’ she said, and dived back into the pile of papers she’d dropped into her lap. ‘Hang on — think I still have the schedule — yes.’ She withdrew a single sheet, much covered in sketches and text, and consulted it. ‘Seventeen. Melly, that was it.’

  My turn for a moment’s deep thought. I knew that name. Not well, because we’d never used her before; last week’s show had been her first with us. But there was something…

  Ah. ‘Selkie,’ I said. ‘I think? Isn’t she?’

  Jane shrugged. ‘Isn’t on the schedule.’

  No, it wouldn’t be. The heritage of each model was of no particular relevance to the orderly workings of the show, so Jane would have no interest in that subject. If I tended to display a bias towards selkies when we were hiring, that was my own problem.

  But I was fairly sure I was right, which cost me another surge of alarm. We’d had two selkies among the models that night, and one of them was dead. Tai’s selkie roommate was missing.

  Had anyone checked on Melly?

  ‘I should have thought,’ I said, reaching for my phone. I’d been musing, not long before, about how to reach — and warn — other selkies in London, and I still hadn’t happened to remember Melly.

  ‘Thought what?’ said Jane. ‘I’m appalled at what’s happened to Narasel, but it’s just one incident, right? Even if her skin—’

  Was stolen. I heard the rest of the sentence as clearly as though she’d uttered it herself, and I knew she’d stopped out of a misguided attempt at sensitivity. It didn’t help. Why did people think that never bringing certain things up in my hearing would somehow protect me from the reality of them? Nothing could do that.

  ‘It isn’t just one incident,’ I said. ‘Tai was here just now because her selkie roommate has disappeared. I need you to get me Melly’s contact details, please. Phone, home address, anything you’ve got.’

  Jane set to, and I waited while she fumbled through papers, maintaining an enforced stillness as I sat. Fidgeting, or pacing, were distracting; only calm could help.

  ‘Got it,’ she said, but instead of handing it to me, she pulled out her own phone and began immediately to dial.

  I waited, my eyes locked with Jane’s as we listened to the ringing of her phone.

  It rang and rang — and then the ringing stopped.

  Hope leapt in my heart.

  But Jane was shaking her head. ‘Voicemail,’ she mouthed, then spoke into the phone. ‘Melly, this is Jane Ashen of Serenity. You left one or two possessions behind at the show last week and we’d like to restore them to you. Please get in touch.’

  She shut off the call, her lips tightening. ‘Someone had better go over there. I’ll deal with it.’

  I wished, again, for some kind of police force associated with Faerie. This was just the sort of time when it would be nice to have someone to call. ‘I’d better go,’ I said. ‘I don’t know — what we might find.’ Worst case scenario would be Melly’s body, if we were already too late, though given the patterns emerging, she probably wouldn’t have been killed at home. Otherwise, who knew? Some manner of clue as to her absence: that would be my hope. Some kind of danger… not likely, but possible.

  Jane nodded, but she was not convinced. I caught her studying me, frowning slightly, her thoughts obvious. What was it about me that made me a better candidate for this assignment than anyone else? To her, I was a designer, a CEO, a model. She had no way of knowing what else I’d once been.

  ‘It will be fine,’ I said crisply, rising.

  ‘I had better go with you,’ said Jane.

  ‘I’ve another task for you, if you please. Get in touch with all the other models that were at the show that night — not just models, actually, but everybody you can get hold of. Ask them if they talked to Narasel that night, or saw anything that might be relevant. Anything that might tell us where she went.’

  ‘I can do that,’ said Jane. ‘Or I can get Sunny to do it and I’ll go with you.’

  I regarded her with a disapproving frown. ‘I’ve no need of you for this, Jane.’

  She put her hands on her hips, and stared me down. ‘Fionn. If you weren’t so brilliant about some things, I’d be tempted to call you an idiot.’

  I blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘We have two, possibly three selkies missing. Two out of those three were associated with the show, and one of those two is already dead. But Narasel and Melly weren’t the only selkies at the garden that night, and they certainly aren’t the only selkies in London. Does it not occur to you that you might be in some danger?’

  I felt like I’d been punched. For a long moment I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak.

  The idea had occurred to me, and yet, it hadn’t. I wasn’t used to thinking of myself as vulnerable anymore, and there was good reason for that. Vulnerability had broken me; since then, I’d devoted everything I had to erasing every weakness I could be said to possess. I’d become the kind of person people feared, not the kind of person they preyed upon.

  But all that had been a very long time ago. What was I now?

  A designer. A model. A CEO.

  If anything could protect me from being targeted like Narasel, or Mearil, it was my prominence: it wouldn’t be a low-key crime, disappearing me. But nothing else would protect me. I wasn’t Fionn of Cuath-Tor, fearsome fatale, anymore. I was just Fionn.

  ‘All right,’ I said, though I wondered, as I spoke, what Jane thought she was going to do either. Still, she had a point. Having company — any company — was better than going alone.

  And soon… perhaps I’d have Tai or Daix with me for errands like this.

  Melly’s address was on the outskirts of the city, far from the centre: a cheap situation. I was not surprised, when we knocked upon her front door, to find its green paint peeling, and the sash windows dingy with grime. Nor was I surprised t
o find, upon its being answered, that she did not live there alone. The girl who opened the door looked human, at first, but upon beholding her visitors she let the glamour fade away. Underneath, she was full-blooded hob, but rather young. She was slight and thin, her curly hair unbrushed, her face set in a sulky expression. She said nothing, only stared at us.

  ‘Is Melly in?’ I said.

  ‘She’s not here.’ The hob girl made as though to shut the door in my face.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, and stepped forward, shoving the door wider. ‘This is important. When did she go out?’

  ‘Who are you?’ A belligerent question, accompanied by a glower.

  ‘Fionn of Cuath-Tor,’ I said. ‘Your friend Melly was employed for my show recently, and I need to talk to her.’

  ‘The Serenity show?’ The sulk vanished. ‘She was so excited about that.’

  ‘And she did a great job, but—’

  ‘So great,’ interrupted Jane, ‘that we’d like to talk to her about an upcoming show. In person. We can really see her taking a regular slot on our catwalks.’

  ‘She isn’t here,’ repeated the hob girl. ‘But, like, shouldn’t you talk to her agency about that? I can get you their number—’

  ‘We’ve done that,’ said Jane. ‘We really want to talk to Melly in person. Can you let us know where to get hold of her?’

  A shrug. ‘She hasn’t come in yet today. Try calling.’

  ‘We’ve tried,’ I said. ‘Is it common for Melly to stay out all night?’

  ‘What’s it to you? She’s reliable, if that’s what you’re worried about. She’d never miss a show.’

  I exchanged a look with Jane. Subterfuge wasn’t helping. It would have to be truth, whether it alarmed this girl or not. ‘Can we come in?’ I said. ‘Please. There is more afoot here than I would like to explain to you from the doorstep.’

  The wariness was back, but the girl opened the door wider for us, albeit with ill grace. We followed her into a tiny, and untidy, kitchen, with a single dingy window overlooking a ragged patch of garden. ‘I can’t offer you tea,’ she said. ‘Kettle’s broken.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked, taking a seat at a cheap IKEA table.

  ‘Tanna.’

  ‘Tanna, one of the models contracted for my show was murdered last night.’ I gave that a second to sink in. ‘Melly was the last person known to have talked with her. Five minutes later, Narasel left, and we don’t know where she was going, or why. As I’m sure you can imagine, it is important that we find out whether Melly knew anything that might help us.’

  ‘Narasel’s dead.’ Tanna said it flatly, perhaps in disbelief.

  ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘Not really. Melly brought her round a couple of times.’ She ran thin hands through her mass of hair, and sighed. ‘I wasn’t worried when Melly didn’t come home last night. She does that, sometimes. But now I’m worried.’

  ‘So are we,’ said Jane.

  I debated whether to tell Tanna about Mearil, but decided against it. Rattling her further wouldn’t be of use, provided she was disposed to help. And she looked it. She’d taken a phone from somewhere and was scrolling through it, already shaking her head. ‘Nothing from her, but she can be a total flake.’

  ‘When did she leave?’

  ‘Late. She was meeting somebody…’ Tanna’s eyes strayed to mine, registering horror. ‘Shit. You don’t think she — that whoever she met might have—’

  ‘You don’t know who she was meeting?’ I persisted.

  Tanna shook her head. ‘Someone she met at a bar,’ she said, looking miserable. ‘She seemed excited, but, I never thought—’

  ‘Never mind that,’ I said. ‘Self-recriminations help no one. Which bar was it? Do you know anything else about this person?’

  ‘Eventide,’ said Tanna. ‘I don’t know anything about them, she wouldn’t tell me. Acted like it was a big secret, like… she knew she shouldn’t be going there, and was, kind of, thrilled about it.’

  ‘Eventide?’ I echoed, momentarily stunned. ‘But that’s crazy.’ Eventide was a popular fae carousing spot in central London. Classy, expensive, elite… a girl who lived in a house like this had no business in a bar like that. They were sticklers for their reputation, to the point of blatant snobbery. How had she even got in?

  The look on Jane’s face reflected similar thoughts to mine. If someone had taken Melly to Eventide, and that someone had something to do with her disappearance — and Narasel’s, and Mearil’s — then we were dealing with someone who had clout. Someone with means and connections. Conceivably someone respected.

  ‘Seems I’m paying a visit to Eventide tonight,’ I said.

  Jane grimaced. ‘They aren’t going to let me in there.’

  ‘They might, if I took you with me. But… I think I’ve another idea.’ Jane might pass as part of my entourage, but Tai had the clout to get in on her own account. And if it came to trouble, I knew who I’d rather have at my back.

  ‘I’ll make some calls,’ said Jane. ‘See if any of the other girls knew who Melly was seeing.’

  I nodded. I doubted she would find much; if Melly had kept her date’s identity a secret from Tanna, I couldn’t see why she would have bragged about it to her fellow models. But it was worth a try. Everything was worth a try.

  ‘What should I do?’ asked Tanna, sounding a little plaintive.

  ‘See if she comes home,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave you my number. If you see her or hear from her, call me. If you know of anybody else who might know more, call them, and then call me. If you find anything in this house that seems relevant, call me.’

  Tanna nodded. ‘I can do that.’

  ‘And,’ I added. ‘If you know any other selkies in London, warn them.’

  ‘Warn them about what?’ said Tanna, not unreasonably.

  I sighed. ‘Warn them to keep a closer than usual eye on their skins.’

  Anyone who’d been slave-taken before needed no such warning, of course. I felt no more than a faint impulse to go and check on mine. It needed no such oversight; it would probably be easier to get into Alcatraz than to steal my sealskin. Still, most selkies were more fortunate than I, and had no reason to be so paranoid. Yet. I wondered how many were blithely wandering the city with their skins somewhere about their person, perhaps in the naïve belief that it was safer to keep the thing with them, under their own eye.

  Only in the same way that it’s safer to wear all your priceless diamonds than to lock them up in a vault.

  Jane and I left Melly’s house in a sombre mood. So many selkies had already gone missing, in the space of a mere couple of days. As prompt as we were to investigate, we were nonetheless too late, or so I feared. I had begun to live in dread of the next report: another drowned selkie adrift in the river, sealskin unaccounted for.

  ‘I want to take a closer look at Eventide,’ I said, after we had gone some way in silence. ‘It seems… wrong, that such a place should be involved.’

  ‘Perhaps it isn’t,’ Jane cautioned. ‘Whoever Melly met there might have had nothing to do with her disappearance.’

  ‘True,’ I agreed. ‘But do you believe that?’

  She sighed. ‘Not really.’

  ‘There was no good reason for Melly to be there.’ Part of me wanted to believe that the girl had just been lucky enough to meet someone of status who genuinely appreciated her. But I knew the clientele at Eventide. I had frequented the place myself, years before; it wasn’t so elitist, back then. When that tide had turned, I had stopped going. I knew too well how its regulars would have viewed a girl like Melly. Anyone who had invited her there could have few good intentions.

  ‘Who even owns it now?’ asked Jane.

  A question I could not answer. It used to be the property of a wonderful kitsune lady, Ayaka. She was as old as the hills, and some kind of genuine noblewoman, if report was to be believed. She had owned the site for two hundred years, and taken it through various names and incarnations
, Eventide being the most recent of them. But she had retired, and sold it. Whoever had taken it over had very different ideas about its management, and I had never heard who that was.

  ‘I’ll find out,’ I said. Another thought occurred to me, and I reached immediately for my phone. ‘I want to know,’ I said as it rang, ‘if Narasel had any connection with Eventide recently — or if Mearil did.’

  The phone rang and rang, and I’d almost given up on its being answered when Tai’s voice spoke. ‘Fi? You found something?’

  I’d only spoken to her a couple of hours before, but it was still good to hear her voice again. ‘Maybe,’ I said, neutrally. ‘Another missing selkie, for a start.’

  ‘Shit. Who is it?’

  ‘Another model from my show. We had two selkies there, as it turns out. The second, Melly, was accounted for up until the show, or shortly after, but she hasn’t come home.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Her roommate says she went out with someone she met at Eventide.’

  ‘Eventide.’ Tai repeated the word thoughtfully. ‘That seems… odd.’

  ‘Highly. I have no idea yet whether Narasel ever went there, but I thought you might know if Mearil had.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Tai. ‘But I haven’t been home a lot lately, on account of the tour. And to be honest with you I’ve been completely oblivious, also on account of the tour, and now I feel bad. I’ll find out though. Coronis might know.’

  ‘Do you happen to know who owns that place now?’

  ‘No, but Daix is threatening to set me on fire if I don’t give her the phone, so—’

  ‘Daix?’ I said, startled. ‘You already found her?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Tai sourly. ‘She found me. Or rather, us.’ Her tone turned suspiciously sweet. ‘Why don’t I let her tell you allll about it?’

  ‘I—’ I began, but too late. Daix’s voice cut in.

  ‘Fionn of Cuath-Tor. What have you got yourself into now?’

  ‘Hello, Daix.’