by Ari Marmell
But telling Hruotlundt alla that would net me bupkis, and get him even more steamed to boot.
So, something else I hadda dig into. Peachy.
“All right,” I said, conceding defeat. Then, like it’d just occurred to me and throwing in a faint grin for good measure. “You let ’em see you as you really are?”
It wasn’t a question about them, exactly, and it was the sorta thing we Fae occasionally gab about where mortals are concerned.
“Nah,” he said after a minute. “I toss up a glamour when Shea visits. They just see a normal human being.”
Bingo. “When Shea visits.” This hadn’t been his first time, then. That was something to work with, anyway.
And all I was gonna get on that score. Figured I’d better get to the point of my own visit, before he tumbled to what I’d just done—or he just got impatient enough to give me the bum’s rush for wastin’ his time.
“Right, then. I’m lookin’ for a phouka…”
I didn’t give him the whole skinny, of course. Just the basics, that Goswythe’n me had butted heads a while back, that he’d vanished, and that I had reason to believe he was back and pokin’ his schnozz into my business.
And that he was quite probably supporting himself by stealing and cons.
“Now don’t blow your wig,” I said quickly as the dvergr started to inflate like he was literally gonna bust and take everything in the room with him. “I know you just got done tellin’ me you don’t talk about clients.”
Hruotlundt didn’t sigh, exactly, so much as exhale what’d been buildin’ up into a shout at the very least.
“But…”
Inflating again.
“It ain’t just me he’s gunnin’ for, see? If it was, I wouldn’t be here at all. But Goswythe, he’s threatening some folks who’re important to me. If I don’t find him before he does whatever he’s plannin’, they’re gonna suffer for it.”
I was just talkin’ about Celia and maybe Adalina Ottati, right? Not Ramona. I wasn’t talkin’ about Ramona.
Definitely not Ramona.
Definitely.
“You know me, Hruotlundt,” I finished. “You know I ain’t gonna stand for that. And you know the lengths I’ll go to if my hand’s forced.”
It’s hard to read a dvergr’s emotions—their expressions are literally stony, and even their peepers are more rock than anything else—but I could see he was dithering, even torn. Nah, he wasn’t feelin’ sorry for me or my friends. Hruotlundt didn’t much care about anything beyond his professional rep and his profit margins. Rather, he was decidin’ just how much of a pain in the ass I was gonna make myself tryin’ to protect my people, how much it’d impact his business, how much ground he could afford to give while protecting that reputation (not to mention his mountain-sized pride).
“As we both just said,” he finally answered, “I won’t give you any personal details about my clients. What I will tell you is that, so far as I know, none of my current clients are phouka. Most of my regulars, I know well enough to say for sure. The newer clients? I can’t be positive, obviously, but I’ve no reason to suspect they are. Furthermore, if this Goswythe is newly active, he’s either definitely not one of my new customers or he’s being damn subtle about it. I had a few strangers with high-end merchandise in the weeks following the Spear of Lugh affair, but since then the newcomers have only provided smaller, less valuable goods. Nothing remotely suspicious about any of them.
“No, Oberon. You are, as they say, barking up the wrong tree with me. And I do trust you’ll remember that when deciding whose life to make miserable while you’re engaged in your wild phouka chase.”
Well, that was plain enough. And frankly, about as clear’n complete an answer as I had any right to expect from him. Since no good woulda come from pushing any further, I offered up a few of the usual pleasantries, threw in a thanks for good measure, and dusted outta there.
Hadn’t been a complete trip for biscuits, since at least it ruled out a few options—to say nothin’ of putting me wise that Nolan Shea might be a bigger part of my world than I’d thought. I was gonna have to dig into that, maybe pump Fino the Shark for some information. (I also hadda be real careful leaving Hruotlundt’s place, in case the Uptown Boys had decided to wait around and tune me up or put some slugs into me. They hadn’t.)
But what the trip didn’t do was put me any closer to finding Goswythe, or whoever else was out there askin’ about me. I decided to head back home for the rest of the night; I hadda lot of pondering to do, and some uncomfortable choices to make, and I needed some peace and privacy in order to make ’em.
* * *
Turned out my office wasn’t gonna prove as peaceful and private as I’d expected.
She was waitin’ inside, perched on the edge of the desk like she owned the place, knees crossed in that weird way that should be demure but really says, “Get a load of these getaway sticks.” Her dress and hat were robin’s-egg blue, her hair brown as good coffee and wavy as a calm tide, and I knew right away somethin’ was seriously hinky because my brain just don’t get that poetic over a dame anymore. Hadn’t since well before I’d left the Courts behind.
Well, no, that ain’t true. It’d happened once, a few months back.
Fuck me.
“Mr. Oberon?” Her pipes sounded just like they should have, soft and throaty, sultry, as if they were made for singing insteada speaking. Singing or… Let’s go with “other sounds.” “My name is Carmen. Carmen McCall. I need to talk to you about—”
“No. Get out.”
Clearly not what she’d expected to hear. Her lips actually kept movin’ for a few seconds after sound stopped comin’ out. When she spoke again, all she seemed able to manage was, “What?”
“Oh, you’re good, sister. Outrage and that little emotional little hitch in your voice. Not many people can manage both at once.”
“I don’t… I don’t understand. Why are you treating me this—?”
“Oh, knock it off.”
I felt it, crashin’ over me, an avalanche of emotions and longing. Some of the most potent feelings I’d ever had, even if they were comin’ from outside, enough to drive most people—Fae or otherwise—to their knees. To make ’em a willing slave, a puppet dancing on heartstrings.
Hell with that.
I ain’t gonna pretend it was easy, but it also wasn’t ever in doubt. Partly cause, if I say so myself, you ain’t gonna find many with a stronger stubborn streak’n me. In my time, I been on both sides of a lot of different magics, thrown by a lot of different creatures. Even when I’m not at my best—like, say, when I’m riding a crest of random bad luck—it ain’t easy to get too deep into my noggin.
But part of it—a whole lot of it, maybe—was Ramona. I’d been through this already, see? What this Carmen McCall was doin’ now? Exact same mojo Ramona’d hooked me with months ago. She’d been more subtle, taken her time, and I’ve already been square with you, so you know she had me for a couple days. Now, though, I knew how it felt. I knew how to work through it. I was on guard.
And just maybe there was still enough of Ramona’s influence hidden somewhere in my deepest thoughts that this new twist couldn’t get her mitts around ’em.
“I said knock it off!” Wasn’t just a shout, either. I threw a heap of my own mojo into it; not exactly muckin’ around with her luck or the magic in her aura, or even gettin’ into her head, just a wave of magic to metaphorically knock her on her keister. Her peepers went wide and the emotional pressure building up against me popped like a soap bubble.
“I dunno what you are, lady.” I probably sounded meaner’n I meant to, but I was angry. Angry at people tryin’ to manipulate me; angry at Ramona for refusin’ to admit to me that she wasn’t human months ago—which was pretty clear now, in light of there bein’ someone else whose power was exactly the same as hers; angry at myself for still carin’ enough to be angry at Ramona at all. “But I don’t want any part of it.”
&nb
sp; “Fine.” Her whole demeanor shifted as quick as if someone’d just flipped a switch. The puppy eyes, the waterworks, the whole “seductively helpless” spiel, gone, leaving nothin’ but all business. “Clearly I approached this wrong. My apologies.”
“I don’t want you to apologize. I want you to leave.”
Even as I said it, though, somethin’ occurred to me.
“And don’t think I haven’t tumbled to your people watching and asking around about me, either. They’re good, but they ain’t that good.”
You should know me well enough by now to recognize one of my test questions when you hear it. I was still more’n half convinced it’d been Goswythe all this time—shadowing me, talking up my friends, all that. (Hell, if I hadn’t felt the empathic whammy Miss McCall had tried to put on me, I mighta believed she was Goswythe.) But it still wasn’t a sure bet, and her showin’ up now probably was no coincidence. I wanted to see what kinda reaction I got.
And what I got was a twitch around the peepers and a quick frown, a brief return to the worry and fretting of a minute ago. I didn’t know her well enough, and she was way too skilled, for me to tell in that moment if the fear was genuine or a real solid act. It tasted real, but with another Fae or one of our relatives? Unreliable evidence at best.
“I hadn’t realized you already knew they were out there,” she said, sliding off the desk and beginning to pace a neat track in the age- and foot-packed carpet. “They’re not my people, Mr. Oberon. In fact, they’re why I came to you. If they find my sister before I do…”
She let it hang there, almost daring me to make the obvious connection.
I made the obvious connection.
Damn it to hell, Ramona, what’d you get yourself into now?
And for that matter, what’ve you gotten me into?
“Yeah,” I told her, “I can see how that might be a worry.”
She brightened, flashing blindingly pearly whites.
“So you’ll help me?”
“To find the door, yeah. Otherwise, no.”
Oh, but she went icy at that. Either she didn’t have the same fine control over her mojo that Ramona did or she wasn’t botherin’ to exercise it, because I felt a tangible wave of cold fury shoot across the office.
“What is wrong with you, Oberon?”
“To start with, I don’t know you from Eve, toots.”
“You don’t know most of your clients before you take them on!”
“Most of ’em don’t show up and try to dope me with a mystical Mickey, either.”
She stamped her foot, and I knew that was an act. Her anger, her real anger, was far too intense for dippy gestures like that.
“I need you to find Ramona and bring her to me, Oberon. It’s the only way she’ll be safe. The only way either of you will be safe!”
“Sorry, not buying it. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you so much that it’s actually makin’ me trust other people less.”
Funny thing was, I wasn’t entirely exaggerating with that. I was goin’ back in my head and questioning even what little I’d thought I’d known about Ramona.
“I’m sure as hell not handing anybody over to you without a lot more than your reassurances to go on. Now I’m gonna ask politely one more time, and then I’m gonna help you leave.”
And just that quick, her anger vanished. It was so sudden, I almost staggered. She smiled, and it was the most worrying thing she’d done since I stepped through the door.
“Maybe you’d reconsider,” she murmured, tapping a fingernail to her lip as if she’d only just come up with the idea, “if I offered you a way to wake the little changeling girl.”
I lost it.
The lights dimmed, in the office, in the hall, the filaments fading to an evil, sickly orange. I even heard one of the bulbs in the bathroom shatter. The fan, which wasn’t on and I’m not even certain was plugged in, slowly began to rotate backwards. Out in the hallway, the phone rang once, a sharp, shrill sound that faded and staggered to silence as if choked. I gripped the L&G in a fist clenched tight enough to make the hardwood beg for mercy, and I didn’t remember drawing it. Through unblinking eyes I stared at her, pummeled her, laying siege to her thoughts.
“What do you know about Adalina? Tell me how to help her! Tell me! TELL ME!”
I couldn’t begin to say if I’d actually shouted it aloud or if it was all in my head. Didn’t matter either way.
She fought me. Walls of willpower like stone and iron, way stronger than anything mortal, rose to blunt the edges of my attack. Whatever she was, McCall was strong, powerful, but if that’d been her only defense she never could’ve kept me out.
It wasn’t, though.
Again emotions buffeted me from across the office, a storm front of fury and hatred and unadulterated pain. It held just a part of me at bay, forced me to devote some of my magics to protecting my own mind instead of hammering at hers.
For long minutes we stood, probably looking like a pair of angry mimes to anyone who couldn’t sense what was happening. My anger built, heated to boiling, and I knew—suddenly, without ever quite recognizing how I knew—that I hadn’t reached my limits. That I had unplumbed depths of power I could delve into, enough to overwhelm anything McCall might throw into my path. Power I’d deliberately put aside long ago, power I’d somehow forgotten.
And I knew, too, that if I dipped so much as a toe into that black maelstrom, I wasn’t coming back out unscathed. That I’d made myself forget, because I couldn’t be me—the “me” I was now, that I’d chosen to be, the “me” I’d named Mick Oberon—with it roiling inside me.
My anger cooled; not a lot, but enough. I stepped back from the abyss. The lights flickered one last time, then brightened back to normal, and the fan slowed to a halt. Grudgingly, I lowered my wand, letting my arm hang at my side, and studied her.
She was studying me back, staring. I figure she’d expected some kinda mental duel, but nothin’ close to what she got. Her peepers were wide, her chin hanging. Still, she was in better shape than most woulda been after a clash like we just had. Broad was hardboiled, hadda give her that.
Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, not if she really was related to Ramona.
Gave some serious consideration to makin’ a dive for the Murphy bed. My rapier lived in the niche, next to where the frame folded up into the wall; if I couldn’t whammy the story outta her, maybe a bit of physical intimidation’d do the trick.
Honestly, though, probably not. As I said, she was a tough one. Plus, I still had no notion of how dangerous she mighta been in turn—to say nothin’ of the fact that she could easily reach the door and make tracks well before I could retrieve the blade and get back to her.
No way to know if she’d sussed out what I was thinking, but either way she smiled again and shook her head.
“Wow. You’re even stronger than I’d heard, Oberon. I believe I could come to like you.”
She was layin’ on the false charm again; just a trickle this time, not the earlier flood. I completely ignored it.
“That so? Don’t figure you’d wanna make me an enemy, then.”
“Oh, but I don’t. I’m still trying to hire you, you foolish sidhe. And I’m offering you a higher fee than you could possibly have asked for.”
She was, too, damn her.
“How do you know about it?”
“Really, Mick. You don’t mind if I call you Mick, right?”
“I—”
“You weren’t exactly shy about searching for a changeling, were you? All your asking around? Challenging a Court clerk to a duel in the middle of City Hall to force Judge Ylleuwyn to see you? The whole Chicago Seelie Court heard about it, and you know how aristocrats are. People will gossip so. It’s not terribly difficult to trace the rest of it, if you’re so inclined. I found Adalina rather easily, and I doubt I’m the only one.”
Well… Fuck. I mean, it ain’t as though I’d had any reason to keep my investigation quiet at the time.
Hadn’t learned why that woulda been wise until a lot later. Still, hearin’ it just laid out this way made me feel kinda goofy.
Of course, it also meant that she’d been workin’ this angle for a while, getting herself ready to hold it over my head. That didn’t seem to jibe too smooth with the idea that she’d only come to me because someone was gunning for Ramona. Not proof she was lyin’, but definitely hinky.
“Yeah, okay, but why were you diggin’ in the first—?”
“Oh, Mick, none of that matters, and it’s not what you want to know. You want to know how I can do it.”
Well, yes, there was that, too.
“Quite simply, I have the means of brewing an elixir,” she said. “It’s tricky, a great deal of work, and the ingredients are… tough to come by, to say the least. But when mixed properly, there’s not much shy of death itself that it cannot cure. It’ll awaken your little Sleeping Ugly, guaranteed.”
I decided to ignore the dig and focus on the big picture.
“That’s mighty convenient, Ms. McCall, and a pretty ambitious claim. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to provide this elixir in advance?”
“You don’t suppose correctly. And please, call me Carmen, since we’re such good friends now.”
“So how do I know you’re being square with me—Ms. McCall? Why should I believe you can do what you say, or that you’ll come through even if you can?”
“Because as I just said, I’m not looking to make you an enemy.” Guess she decided to ignore the dig, too. “You’re a detective, and you’ve made it very clear just how dangerous you can be. It’d be more trouble than it would be worth to double-cross you over this and try to get away with it, don’t you think?”
Made sense. Sounded good. I didn’t trust a word of it, since I actually do have a brain, but it ain’t as if I had much choice. It’d been more’n a year now, and I still hadn’t been able to help Adalina one iota. If McCall was bein’ even halfway straight with me, I hadda go for it.
