Forged Steel

by H A Titus

  "I guess."

  She stood up and pulled a leather-bound book from the shelves.

  "Do you think that's the cipher key?" David asked.

  "It seems fairly obvious, and usually cipher keys are a bit harder to figure out than that, but there's no other reason for that phrase to be there. If nothing else, it's a start." I blinked against the grainy feeling of my contacts and squinted up at him. "Remind me why you're not doing this again?"

  "We tried. Ever since his dad died and Marc found his notes, he's had Larae, Eliaster, Roe, and me working on this. We've kept our ears to the ground, but until today we didn't know who to talk to." He chuckled. "Besides, higher mathematics, remember? I lost too many brain cells playing high school football to understand any of that stuff."

  I snorted. At least he seemed more respectful than most jocks I'd come in contact with.

  "Here we go," Larae said, holding the book up. "A list of Christ's ancestors in the book of Matthew. Do you know what we're looking for?"

  "The cipher is in numbers, so the clue should be in numbers," I said. "How many ancestors did Christ have?"

  Larae ran her finger down the page, muttering under her breath. "Thirty-nine."

  Bingo. Cipher key accessed.

  "Is this really going to help?"

  I ignored her. Okay. I stared at the page, absorbing the numbers into my brain as my mind wandered. No thirty-nine. What was this supposed to be, then? Maybe the phrase wasn't the clue. But if it wasn't, what was? How was I supposed to find it? Maybe the number thirty-nine was a clue that would lead me to another clue, which would lead to another… which would make this entire thing far too Indiana-Jones-like.

  Fae were supposed to like riddles and games, right? Not ciphers and insane adventures. I swore under my breath.

  At the top of the page, I deconstructed the second number down to single digits. Two. Six. Three. Eight. Three. Five. Two-hundred sixty-three thousand, eight-hundred thirty-five. Big number.

  All the numbers made me think of Angel and his obsession with fours. What made a person think that one number was lucky, or better, than the others?

  I scribbled thirty-nine on the page in the upper left-hand corner, then in the opposite corner wrote Angel. Keeping track of my thought process always helped, no matter how tangential the thought.

  If thirty-nine was the beginning of the cipher, it would correspond with the letter A. In most ciphers, the vowels were left out, so what I really needed was the number for the letter B. How to get that number?

  On a whim, I divided thirty-nine by four. Nine point seven five. Nothing there.

  Larae's voice snapped my concentration. "This isn't going to help, is it?"

  I glanced at her. Her lips were pressed tightly together, quivering, and she clenched her hands together in her lap like she expected a lifeline to be between her fingers.

  "It might," I said.

  "But it didn't. It wasn't the key, was it?"

  "I don't know yet."

  "I don't want to sit around waiting," she muttered.

  "Give it time," I said. "There are probably a million different ways I could take this."

  "What about a computer program to decipher this? Couldn't you—"

  "First I have to know what kind of cipher it is," I told her. "You're just going to have to be patient with me for a bit."

  She pressed a hand to her mouth. "I know, I just…Blodheyr could be torturing Marc right now. I've seen that, Josh. Marc could even be dead."

  I cringed, and my gut turned. I shifted and reached out, carefully patting Larae's shoulder. "I know it sounds weird, but take comfort in the thought that Marc's probably too valuable for Blodheyr to kill."

  "Just yet, anyway," David said.

  Larae smiled at me and grasped my hand, meeting my eyes. "Thank you for saying that, Josh. But I still can't just sit here. I just have to feel like I'm some good, you know?"

  She was hanging onto my hand way too long. I dropped my gaze and eased my fingers free.

  "What do you think we should do?" David asked.

  "I don't know." She looked around the room, then snatched the list of Aiden's informants from the coffee table. "Has Eliaster talked to any of these guys yet? Maybe one of them will have heard something."

  "Just Angel," I said.

  "Maybe I should go talk to the others, then," she said.

  David frowned. "I don't think that's a good idea. Those are Eliaster's informants."

  "Since when do I care?" Larae stood up.

  "You just going to make him ma—"

  She slammed the door behind her before David could complete the sentence.

  He sighed again and stood. "If I can't talk her out of it, tell Eliaster where we went, all right?"

  I nodded. "I'll keep working. That phrase had to be the key somehow."

  David left the library, and I heard his voice start up again in the hallway.

  I sighed and slumped into the couch. This was going to be a very long day. I let my brain go blank and just stared, slowly memorizing the entire cipher.

  The front door creaked, and I heard two sets of steps on the porch. So they were going somewhere.

  Another set of steps in the hallway caught my ears. I stood up and opened the library door. Eliaster stood at the foot of the stairs, watching out one of the door's side windows as David and Larae walked away.

  "Where are they going?" he asked.

  "To talk to some of the other informants on Aiden's list. I don't think she has much faith in my ability to decipher the document. And really, I'm not sure—"

  "Back in a second." Eliaster spun and took the stairs two at a time.

  I pulled the green-checked window curtain back into place. As I did so, I noticed a rim of black around the inside of the window casing, closest to the glass. Mold? That didn't fit the cleanliness of the rest of the house. Paint, maybe? I tapped the line with a fingernail. No, it was metal.

  Eliaster came down the stairs again, sat on the bottom step, and started pulling on his boots.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To follow them."

  "Really? Come on, Eliaster, you guys are on the same team. Shouldn't you trust them to be able to do their jobs?"

  "It's doing their job I'm worried about." He stood up and started buckling his swords around his waist.

  I glanced at the door. I knew I should be working on the cipher more, but I was already stuck to the point of becoming frustrated. Maybe if I went with them, and we talked to some of the informants together, I'd hear something that could jog my mind and help me with the cipher.

  Eliaster caught my eyes as he opened the door. "Stay."

  I rolled my eyes "Dude, do I look like a puppy?"

  Eliaster stared at me for a moment, his eyes narrow. "Don’t you have a cipher to be working on?"

  I tapped my head. "It's memorized, and I'm stuck."

  He rubbed his forehead, muttering under his breath in Gaelic.

  "If I can talk to some of these guys, I might find out some stuff to help with the document. Clues as to what kind of cipher they used, that sort of thing. Aiden wouldn't have—"

  "All right, fine, come with me. But you have to do exactly what I say, all right? No goofing off, no wandering away by yourself."

  I grinned, trying to look innocent. "What makes you think I would do that?"

  He shot me an oh, please, look and grabbed a backpack that sat on the lowest stair. As he left the house, he rubbed his hand along the hilt of his left-hand sword.

  This time, I paid a little more attention to the winding streets, keeping a careful track of the twists and turns that led back to Roe's place. The high cavern ceiling was illuminated by the hanging orange globes, casting a sunset glaze over everything.

  The streets were not as busy around what I guessed was the residential area. As we turned off onto a wider road, the sidewalks became more crowded. A few motorcycles and mopeds buzzed by, leaving a trail of dust in their wake, but I didn't see
a single car, even a small one.

  The Market was located in a huge open area about a fifteen-minute walk from Roe's house. Tall wooden gates separated it from the houses and buildings outside. As we stepped inside those gates, I had to do some fancy footwork to avoid tripping over my own jaw. The place was huge. I'd never seen anywhere so full of noise, chaos, and color. Everywhere I looked there were fae, pushing and crowding each other through the narrow, twisted paths between vendor booths and tents. Women in long skirts, men in robes, men and women in leather pants, jeans, t-shirts, vests, duster-length coats, tanktops, Converses, high heels, heavy-soled boots—every fashion imaginable mixed into one giant melting pot.

  My vision blurred, and I stopped walking, wondering if my contacts were going haywire on me again. When I squinted, I realized that it was the glamour ghosts of everyone's faces, turning everything into a fuzzy watercolor, even the lights and bright fabrics of the Market tents.

  Even as amazing as it all was, as soon as I realized I was surrounded by fae, my shoulders tensed and my gut started turning. I clenched my hands and found my palms sweaty. No one touched me as they walked by, but I still felt closed in. Panic swelled in my throat. I took a very deep, deliberate breath, then slowly let it out.

  Eliaster put his hand on my shoulder. "You doing okay?"

  I nodded, not trusting my voice.

  He squinted at my face for a moment, frowning. "You're pale."

  "Says the guy who lives underground."

  "Come over here for a second."

  He pulled me to the side, dodging an amorous fae couple who'd apparently decided that the middle of the road was as good a place for a make-out session as any. Eliaster stopped at a clear space near the gate. There were no fae within five feet of us. The panic died down, even though I still felt like puking.

  "You're not from a curator family, are you?" Eliaster asked, scanning the crowd.

  Blodheyr had asked the same thing. "What's that supposed to mean, anyway?"

  "Most humans have a severe fight or flight reaction when they're around Sidhé. Kept them safe, I guess, especially back when the paths were open and Sidhé glamour was stronger. Curators are the members of certain Irish-descended families who don't have that reaction. They used to fight side by side with the Seelie, especially in our efforts to repulse Fear Doirich, but lately they're more scholars."

  "Of—"

  Eliaster stiffened, and he lifted his chin. I followed his gaze and spotted David and Larae disappearing into the thick of the Market.

  "They must have stopped on the way here." Eliaster jogged forward, shoving between two dark-skinned fae.

  I skirted around them, offering an apologetic smile at their grumbling, and ran after him. David and Larae, both dressed in dark jeans and t-shirts, easily blended into the crowd. If I'd tried to follow them on my own, there's no way I could have kept track of them.

  We speed-walked through streets lined with booths clustered shoulder to shoulder and hung with colored cloth, signs, wares, and garish Christmas lights. Some were the size of a Wal-Mart Supercenter, others barely as big as my dorm room.

  Hawkers jumped and pranced in front of their booths, their hoarse voices adding to the chaos: "Freshly slaughtered buffalo steaks here!" "No better electronics than mine!" "Weapons, swords, knives, shotguns, pistols—all here!" I could smell the tang of the blood on the buffalo steaks, mixing with the heady perfumes of the lace-draped booth next door. Gunpowder from the weapons booth gave an acrid undertone to the dust raised by hundreds of feet.

  I stopped in front of the weapons booth, ogling the broadswords, scimitars, and rapiers laid in shiny rows on the tables.

  Eliaster pulled me after him. "Uh-uh. The last thing I need is you lopping off your own head with one of those things."

  To one side of the weapons booth, a group of fae clad in black leather stood around one of their number, who was swinging a huge broadsword over his head. I stumbled over a chain dragging in the packed-down dirt street, nearly knocking over a group of raggedly dressed people—humans and fae. A whip-wielding troll shoved them along. The monster snarled as I passed, making me jump.

  "Slaves?" I whispered to Eliaster.

  "In some ways, the Underworld typifies the darkest of the human world. There's not as much room for a glossy veneer here as there is…" He jerked his head upward.

  Two guys on a street corner caught my eye next. One of them, a human with black dreadlocks, was handing off a package of white powder to a nervous, twitching fae. When they saw me staring, the dealer put his hand on the butt of a pistol protruding from his waistband.

  "Don't look too curious." Eliaster guided me to the opposite side of the street.

  "What about law enforcement?"

  He barked a short laugh. "My dad and his kind are about the only type of law enforcement you're going to find around here. From what I understand, they tried implementing some patrols and policing, but there was enough opposition even among the Seelie that any effort was quickly dismantled."

  We stopped beside a bright yellow-and-red tent that had the sides folded up, revealing tables packed with a random assortment of clothing, shoes, backpacks and bags, and personal care stuff like deodorant and toothpaste.

  "They went in there? Why would they go in there?"

  I asked.

  "Sometimes informants are extremely paranoid. I've had to meet in all sorts of crazy places—there was one guy who wanted to meet in the paper products section of the local Wal-Mart." His lips twitched into a thin smile. "That was an adventure."

  Oh-kay. I followed him inside the tent. The interior was dingy white canvas, light provided by thousands of white Christmas lights strung along the ceiling. Chairs and tables crowded the inner part of the tent, and a long wooden bar ran along the far side of the tent, backed by ice chests and racks of bottles. I could smell the alcohol from the entrance. Shop and drink at the same time. Handy.

  Fae and humans were packed into the space. I saw a half-dozen illegal-looking deals as Eliaster and I wove our way to the bar, though I pretended to not notice. The fae girl behind the counter flicked her long hair over one shoulder, smiled at us, and pulled two glasses from under the bar.

  Eliaster waved them away.

  The girl pushed her lips into a pout. "You sure? Two fine lookin' men like—"

  "We're just here looking for a couple of friends. David North and Larae Ó Dáleigh?"

  The girl sighed and replaced the glasses under the counter. "Larae went straight through and out the back." She nodded at a doorway on her right. "David's still in here, as far as I know."

  I looked over my shoulder at the tall rows of shelving. He could be anywhere in there. I rubbed my forehead. "Sheesh."

  Eliaster grabbed my elbow and steered me out the back door. "You stay here. I'm going to circle around and see if I can pick up the trail in the back."

  "I thought you didn't want me by myself."

  Eliaster gnawed one side of his lower lip, glancing over his shoulder at the street beside us.

  I shook my head. "Seriously? I was joking. Go find her, if that will make you feel better."

  He shuffled his feet, like he was ready to take off but couldn't quite make himself go. "I know, but…I need to know what they're up to, both of them, but you're right, I shouldn't leave you by yourself…"

  The press of people in the street cleared for a moment, and I saw Larae talking to a vendor on the other side of the street.

  Eliaster groaned. "Just stay there. It will take me all of a minute and you'll slow me down." He ducked into the crowd.

  I shuffled my feet, watching the streams of fae and human as they moved past the tent. No one approached me or even looked at me, but I still felt antsy. Why had Eliaster been so torn over leaving me alone? It wasn't like I was a toddler and would wander off.

  A hand tapped my shoulder. I yelped and nearly tripped over my own feet as I whirled around. David stood in the alleyway between the two tents, grinning.


  "What are you doing?" I hissed.

  "C'mon. You don't think I can tell when people are tailing me?" He pulled me into the alley. "I know what Eliaster is trying to do. He's trying to buddy up to you, make you think there's something weird about Larae and me. He's over-paranoid—always has been, always will be."

  I frowned. So far it sounded like David was the one trying to buddy up. "Okay, why are you telling me this?"

  "I want you to understand I'm not doing anything weird. You and I are humans—not fae, not even curators. We need to stick together. The fae don't care what happens to us as long as it furthers their own agendas." David glanced behind me. "So, are we good?"

  I crossed my arms over my chest.

  "Look, I just want you to avoid what happened to me when I was a newbie. It wasn't pretty."

  He sounded truthful enough, and what he said made sense. Still…

  He looked at my empty hands. "Eliaster didn't even leave you with a weapon? Yeah, he sure cares about what happens to you."

  I jutted my jaw forward. "He said he'd be right back."

  "Don't defend the idiot." David reached under the hem of his t-shirt and pulled a pistol from a concealed holster. "You ever shoot a pistol?"

  "I grew up in the redneck capital of the world. Of course I've shot a pistol." Once, but he didn't need to know that.

  David chambered a round and handed the gun to me. "Good. I'll see you around." He pushed past me and disappeared into the crowd.

  Okay, David, I'll play. Human against fae, we can do that. This place would have to be pretty terrible if I couldn't trust another human. I crossed my arms again and tucked the gun close to my side, careful to keep my finger off the trigger.

  A couple of fae approached the tent entrance, talking back and forth in Gaelic. One wore a bandolier of knives over his white t-shirt, his hair buzzed short on the sides but with long bangs that covered his left eye. The other wore a black vest, exposing the Celtic whorl and knot tattoos covering his arms and torso.

  Tattoos elbowed his buddy and nodded to me. "Look at that, Ghurdan. The little mud-boy thinks he's all tough."

  I stepped back, making sure I was well out of their way, and looked away. Maybe if I didn't acknowledge the jab, they'd leave me alone.