What Man Defies

by Clara Coulson

  She stared at my face for a moment longer, brows furrowed, and then recognition flickered through her eyes. A gasp on her lips, she plowed into my personal space, grabbed my shirt collar, and yanked it to the side. Which revealed the white bandages covering my iron wound. “Shit,” the witch said, releasing my shirt. She began to back away. “You’re that half-fae. The one Lieutenant Daly brought to my house last month.”

  I blinked. “Your house? What do you—?” It hit me like a sack of bricks. “Wait! You’re the witch who patched me up?”

  Oh, crap.

  If she was the witch that Saoirse, O’Shea, and Christie had carried me to the night of the fight with Abarta, that meant she knew what I really was. Not just half fae, but half sídhe. I was the half-blood scion of a higher fae, one of the insanely powerful and downright terrifying members of the faerie courts’ ruling nobility. That fact was something I kept tightly under wraps, because while the half-human children of the lesser fae were generally accepted among human society, with the purge seven years behind us, people were still petrified by the thought of interacting with one of the sídhe. And anyone in their inner circle. Which, by virtue of my heritage, included me.

  The witch clammed up, color draining from her face, all her self-assured snark crumbling away. “I, uh, sorry for being so rude to you.” She glanced off to her right, where a throng of people who’d fled from the ghost were gradually shuffling back into the area to pick up with their shopping and business activities now that it was safe. “Anyway, I have to go. See you around.”

  She turned on a dime and power walked away, ducking into the thick of the crowd before I had a chance to speak. Not two seconds later, I lost track of her entirely. Because she threw up a veil so I couldn’t follow her retreat.

  And that, I thought sourly, is why I don’t tell people the truth.

  Ugh. I needed a drink.

  Chapter Two

  Only the regulars were drinking at Flannigan’s when I arrived, the hour too early for the dinner rush and too late for the lunch crowd. The hushed noise, the oil lanterns that flickered when you walked past, and the tinted windows that blocked the overcast sun gave the place the feel of an ancient pub where secret societies conducted business in the dead of night. You could feel eyes tracking you as you walked through the room, weaving around the tightly packed tables, but you couldn’t place the patrons who were giving you the stares.

  Some people found the bar’s atmosphere a tad creepy, but I liked its anonymous nature.

  O’Shea was filling a pitcher with the beer on tap as I walked up and took my usual stool. He handed it off to the patron who’d requested it, then caught sight of me. His attention lingered on my shoulder for a second longer than necessary, and I knew he was wondering how well my stab wound had healed. The answer was pretty well, considering the circumstances, but the scar tissue that was already forming in my shoulder would be there for a lifetime. Another little ache to add to my collection. If fit well with the chain marks branded into my chest and back.

  “So,” I said, as O’Shea began to fill a glass with my usual beer, “what’s the word on the street?”

  He slid the glass across the bar top. It stopped right in front of my hand. “The usual. Dullahan hassling new refugees. Petty mobsters scuffling in back alleys. Nothing big since your guy Abarta took a crack at the fae.”

  I took a sip, savoring the taste as I formulated my next words. “You sure that’s all, pal? Because I just had a couple interesting encounters.”

  “What sort of encounters?” He wiped off the bar top with his rag. “Anything dangerous?”

  “Depends on how you define dangerous.” I sat my glass down. “Two of the Sluagh appeared in town within half an hour of each other, and less than a mile apart. One at that new store selling magic washers and dryers. One in the middle of the market. I banished one, and a witch beat me to the punch on the second. Then it turned out that witch was the lady you helped carry me to after the explosion.” I ran my finger around the rim of the glass. “She had some interesting things to say about that string of disappearances you mentioned a few weeks back.”

  O’Shea drew his lips into a thin line. “Did she?”

  “So I ask again: What’s the word on the street? For real, man.”

  “You sure you’re up for it?” He bit the inside of his cheek. “I don’t want a repeat of last month.”

  “No one does, which is why we need to get a handle on this issue before it gets worse.” I picked up my beer again and took another sip. “What do you know?”

  O’Shea scanned the room, counting all the patrons under his breath. Then he looked over his shoulder and called out, “Ricky. Get in here.”

  A young guy, maybe twenty-one, stepped out from the kitchen through the swinging door behind the bar. “Yeah?”

  “I need you to man the bar for a few minutes. Can you handle it?”

  Ricky wrung his hands as he took in the room. “Think so. You need a break?”

  O’Shea nodded. “I’ll be in my office. Call if anything gets out of hand.”

  “Will do.”

  O’Shea motioned for me to follow him, and we left Ricky at the bar with a nervous expression on his face that told me he’d make at least one mistake in the next ten minutes, simply because he was trying too hard not to. O’Shea used a key on a ring at his belt to unlock a narrow door that led to an equally narrow hall. To the left were four more doors, all lined up on one wall. To the right was a staircase that led to the unused upper level of the building.

  The bartender was so large, he had to turn sideways to get through the door, while my shoulders fit like a glove, coat sleeves brushing the doorframe. I closed the door behind us and relocked it at O’Shea’s gesture, and we took a left, walking the short length of the hall. He stopped at the last door and opened it, revealing his cramped office space. An IKEA desk someone hadn’t assembled correctly. A filing cabinet with half the paint chipped off. And a bunch of scattered folders, handwritten accounting logs, and other paper detritus. There wasn’t even a window.

  O’Shea ushered me inside and shut the door behind us. Which revealed a corkboard attached to the wall across from the filing cabinet. O’Shea maneuvered around me, a tight squeeze, and sank into his rickety desk chair, the worn plastic groaning under his weight. He pointed at the corkboard, which was covered top to bottom with photographs and notecards filled with O’Shea’s chicken scratch. “That’s everything I’ve got on the disappearances. Take a look.”

  I stepped up to the board and skimmed all the info. My heart sank.

  Nearly six weeks ago, people had started whispering about vanishing family members. One here. One there. Each disappearance several days apart. But about three weeks back, right around the time O’Shea first alerted me to the problem, the rate of new disappearances had increased exponentially. There were now over thirty people listed among the missing. Women and men. Old and young. Black, white, Asian, and everything else. There was no obvious victim pattern.

  “And no one saw anything when these people disappeared?” I asked.

  “No.” O’Shea sighed. “Same story every time. ‘She was walking two steps behind me, then she was gone.’ Or ‘He turned a corner a second ahead of me, and when I turned the corner, he wasn’t there.’ If this is a creature snatching people, it’s faster than anything I’ve ever seen.” He tapped his fingers on his desk. “Also note that several of the missing are relatives of magic practitioners. Those practitioners have been unable to locate them with tracking and scrying spells. Which makes me think it’s not some random monster with an appetite for human flesh.”

  “You’re right. It’s too clean. No feral creature would take prey like that. This is a planned and concerted effort to abduct people.” My fingers brushed across the photos of the missing, many of them faded and torn, relics from before the collapse. One picture in particular stood out to me. A blond girl. Eighteen years old. Wearing a graduation cap and robe. I mentally added abou
t a decade to her face, and came up with a woman that matched the ghost in the green coat I’d banished earlier. “And kill them,” I added, swearing under my breath.

  “What now?” O’Shea said, sitting up straight in his chair.

  I unpinned the photo from the board and showed it to O’Shea. “She’s dead. I banished her vengeful ghost an hour ago.” I turned the photo over and read the name scrawled on the back in tilted cursive. Amy Newsome. A glance at the notecard next to the gap where her photo had been told me she went missing two weeks ago while grocery shopping. “She wasn’t killed immediately. She was held somewhere after she was taken.”

  “Did you get a chance to talk to her ghost?” O’Shea said.

  “No, she wasn’t coherent enough to speak. The Sluagh usually aren’t.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah. This won’t be an easy case to solve, if the dead can’t talk and the living can’t provide any eyewitness accounts better than ‘They vanished into thin air.’”

  “You are going to take a crack at it though?”

  I stared at Amy’s picture. That happy, smiling face. So different from the bitter, furious sneer she’d been wearing at the store. “Absolutely,” I said firmly. “I’m going to crack it wide open.”

  “I appreciate your zeal, but”—he pointed at my shoulder—“don’t push too hard by yourself, Vince. I don’t want to see you reopen any wounds. Or take on new ones that won’t heal.”

  “Thanks for the concern, but I’m not planning to run headfirst into another bitch fight with an old god.” I tucked Amy Newsome’s photo into my pocket. “I’m going to start with good old gumshoe work. See if I can wring anything out of the family members, some detail they might’ve forgotten, or some connection between the victims that isn’t obvious. If I discover anything dangerous, and need additional firepower, I’ll bring in Saoirse and her cop cavalry. Cross my heart.”

  O’Shea didn’t seem convinced, but he said, “All right. Let me type you up a quick summary of all the stuff I’ve got on the board there.” He tugged open the bottom drawer of his desk, revealing a classic typewriter. An expensive model too.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked, whistling. “That’s a nice antique.”

  “Family heirloom,” he said as he hefted it out and sat it on the desk in the one clear square of space that was obviously meant for it. “My grandpa was a no-name author back in the day. Published a few obscure books. Made a few bucks here and there. He didn’t leave a fortune behind, but he did leave this.” He patted the side of the typewriter. “Irony is that the damn typewriter ended up being more useful than a fat wad of stocks and bonds.”

  “Yep. Nothing says the economy has tanked more than the New York Stock Exchange getting vaporized by a nuke.” I wagged a finger at him, then pointed at the typewriter. “But sometimes, you just got to take the small victories.”

  O’Shea spent fifteen minutes whipping up a few pages of relevant info, and handed it off to me. With a handshake and a warning not to get myself in over my head—again—he escorted me to the exit and let me back out onto the wintery streets.

  I decided to visit Amy’s house first, because O’Shea’s summary on her said that she lived with a husband, who I assumed didn’t know his wife had passed on. I hadn’t given a death notice to a family in a long time, and the thought made my stomach tighten, but the guy deserved to know. It was almost impossible to move on when you didn’t know the answer, when you didn’t know if a loved one was dead or alive. Your life was on pause. A form of purgatory.

  On the way to the listed address, I managed to find a signal for my phone and dialed Saoirse. I’d promised I’d let her know if I took on another job that wasn’t a stretch run—and had implications that could shake the entire city. Not only because she was a police lieutenant and wanted to be kept apprised of significant paranormal happenings, but also because our rekindled friendship had reknitted that overprotective blanket she’d always thrown over my head back when I was a rookie detective and her my esteemed mentor.

  Had to admit, it was kind of nice having someone to watch my back again.

  Even if I still felt awkward every time we touched.

  “Vince?” Saoirse answered on the fourth ring. A whisper. “Not a good time.”

  “What’s up?” I said. “You in trouble?”

  “Not the kind you’re thinking.” There was some yelling in the background, not directed at her. “Kennedy’s folks are in here reaming out the captain because of that stunt you pulled at Mo’s place a few weeks back. Apparently they’ve already steamrolled the commissioner, who bailed out of responsibility and put it on the precinct’s shoulders instead.” She huffed. “Coward.”

  “He’s no Hogarth, that’s for sure.”

  Our old commissioner, Wellford Hogarth, had been a brick wall of a man, in personality and in build. He hadn’t taken shit from anyone. And he’d been a staunch defender of equal rights, including those of paranormals during the purge. That ideology had gotten him murdered in an “unsolved drive-by shooting.” In other words, the city government, maybe even his own underlings, had him executed for not being an asshole. Of course, they’d probably done it less out of hatred for paranormals and more out of fear the military would swoop in and take over Kinsale, like they had done to other cities with leaders who defied the purge protocols.

  Either way, Hogarth had been replaced by a skinny bald guy with no backbone named Preston Tinsley. Guy was a wimp, and he cowered at the feet of the fae leadership the same way he had to the rampaging US government seven years earlier. Wasn’t at all a surprise he also cowered to the demanding rich donors who funded most of the police department’s annual budget. Tinsley wouldn’t take on the responsibility of a kindergartner if he could help it, much less that of a full-grown adult.

  “Is the captain going to let you take the fall for me?” I worried my lip.

  “Let me? No. But Kennedy’s already pinned it on me. Says I ‘helped a criminal element evade arrest due to personal feelings.’” She sighed. “From the way he’s been swaggering around the precinct the last few days, I think he believes he’s a shoo-in for my job. He thinks Mommy and Daddy will force the captain to give me the boot, and then placate him with a promotion.”

  “Will they?”

  “With Captain Drew in that chair? Hell no.” She hesitated. “But there is, of course, the possibility that Kennedy’s folks will have Tinsley sack Drew, and then Drew’s replacement will dump me to sate their tempers. And secure their future donations to our fine police department.”

  “We really need to get the tax system working again. Like yesterday.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I could hear an unspoken question in her words. “Sorry, Saoirse. There’s not much I can do to grease the wheels down at City Hall. I mean, I’m on equal social standing to ‘Mayor’ Connolly, technically, since I’m half you-know-what, but I can’t force him to do anything. He’ll simply send my demands up the bureaucratic pipeline as ‘requests,’ and they’ll get lost in the great Unseelie Court machine for months on end. Meanwhile, Connolly will sit there shrugging his shoulders, saying he can’t institute such large, systemic changes without permission from his superiors.”

  “So he’s a wimp too?”

  “Oh, absolutely.” I snorted. “He’s a lesser fae bureaucrat. The vast majority of them grovel to the higher-ups in the hopes of receiving once-a-century promotions to cushy positions they can keep for literal eternity. They don’t make waves. They don’t take risks. They don’t stick out their necks for anyone, not even their own mothers.”

  “You know, I was already unimpressed by faerie society…”

  “Oh, don’t delude yourself. They have as many problems as humans do. They just hide them behind manipulative masks and the constant threat of lethal magic.”

  “Great,” Saoirse said flatly. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. You—”

  A door slammed.

  “I’ve go
t to go,” she muttered.

  “Oh, but I need to tell you about this new case—”

  “Text me. I’ll read it as soon as I’m out of the hot seat. Kennedy’s parents are heading my way, and they look like a couple of overripe tomatoes.”

  She hung up.

  Chapter Three

  Trying not to be too worried about Saoirse’s predicament—she could take care of herself, a lot better than me—I texted over a summary of what I knew about the disappearances so far, along with my next destination. Then I tucked my phone into my pocket and took a left at the next intersection, veering east toward the neighborhood where Amy Newsome had lived.

  She’d been an engineer by trade, and her husband was a plumber, both of which were vital jobs in this reconstruction period. So they’d accumulated enough wealth between them to afford a nice townhouse on what had once been a scenic and well-manicured street. The street was a little dingier and dirtier these days, the trees on the sidewalks all bare and drooping, not a single flower in sight, but as far as housing in Kinsale went, it was pretty nice.

  I paused at the base of the stoop leading up to the front door and gathered myself. Her husband might be at work, given how pipes were prone to bursting during these deep winter spells, which would be nice for my guilt factor but bad for my investigation. So even though my heart clenched as I took the steps two at a time and drew close to the front door, I forced myself to knock anyway. All those years I spent as a cop, and I still can’t keep a straight face when telling a person their loved one has died.

  Did that make me weak or empathetic?

  About thirty seconds after my knocks, someone came down a set of stairs with slow, heavy steps, and the door cracked open to reveal a man about my age, early thirties, with a bit of premature graying around his temples and hard lines around his eyes. He gave me a once-over, clearly searching for a badge on my belt or around my neck. When he didn’t find one, he said, “Something you need, sir?”