A Local Habitation od-2

by Seanan McGuire

  I frowned. “Quentin, look at the body. What’s wrong with it?”

  “You mean besides being dead?” he asked, with an odd half-stutter in his voice.

  “I know it’s hard. It was hard for me the first time, too. But I need you to look closely, and tell me what you see.”

  The first time—ha. My first time was one of Devin’s kids, back when I still worked there. He overdosed in the bathroom an hour before his shift in the front was supposed to start, and he wasn’t even cold when we found him. I helped three older boys carry him behind the bar and leave him for the night- haunts, and I was sick three times before morning. Devin still made me stand my watch, because duty was duty. I’ve never been that cruel a taskmaster . . . but Devin was my teacher, and I learned a lot from him. One of his most important lessons was that the hard things are best done quickly: face what you’re afraid of and get it over with, if you can. It hurts less in the long run.

  Quentin swallowed and looked down, scanning the body. He frowned, confusion breaking through his disgust. “Is there something wrong with his hands?”

  I looked down. Colin’s hands were webbed, like a Selkie’s should be, curled at his—

  Oh, no. Oh, root and branch, no. Stiffening, I said, “Yes, Quentin. I think there is.”

  The fae don’t leave bodies. That’s a lot of how we’ve stayed hidden all these years. When we die, the night-haunts carry us away, leaving behind illusion-forged mannequins to fool human eyes. The signs of Colin’s heritage should have been gone, replaced with apparent humanity by the night- haunts. They should have been gone . . . but they weren’t. His fingers and toes were webbed, and his eyes were brown from edge to edge. Except for the punctures at his wrists and throat, he could have been playing some sort of tasteless joke.

  But he wasn’t joking; he was dead, and something was very wrong. The night-haunts never leave a body long enough for the blood to chill. So why hadn’t they come for Colin? Why was he still here?

  “Toby?”

  “It’s okay.” I patted him on the shoulder with a suddenly clumsy hand, aware of how cold the comfort must seem. “I think this may be why Sylvester sent us here.”

  “I don’t think he knew . . .”

  “I know.” I pulled my hand away. “Go see when Jan’s getting here.” I didn’t want him to see what I was going to do next. I may not like lying to the young, but even I have my limits.

  Quentin nodded and stood, trying to hide his relief as he turned toward Elliot. “Sir? Where is your lady?”

  “April went to get her,” Elliot said, voice low and numb.

  “How long?” I asked, without looking around as I dragged my forefinger across the wound on Colin’s left wrist. Sometimes being Daoine Sidhe is the most disgusting thing I can imagine. Those of us with skill at blood magic can taste a person’s entire past in the weight of their blood. It makes us excellent counselors and better detectives; it also means we spend a lot of money on mouthwash. After a while, the taste of blood never really goes away.

  The blood clung to my finger. I stared at it. The last time I rode the blood, I wound up so bound to a murdered pureblood that I almost followed her into death. A little paranoia was natural. Careful not to glance behind me—I didn’t want to know if Quentin was watching—I slid the finger into my mouth and waited.

  Nothing happened. The blood was sour and curdled, and there was nothing in it that spoke of life or death or anything else. I leaned forward, Quentin and the others forgotten. The existence of a fae corpse was jarring and unnatural, but not being able to ride the blood was just plain wrong. Nothing I’d ever heard of could empty blood of its vitality like that. This time I used the first three fingers of my right hand, dipping them into the blood at his throat and sucking them clean. Nothing. Colin’s memories, his self, the things that should have been waiting for me, those were gone.

  There was no possible way for this to be good.

  I looked up to find Quentin staring at me, expression somewhere between horror and fascination. I met his gaze without blinking, deliberately licking a wayward drop of blood from my lower lip. He was going to have to deal with some of the less attractive aspects of being Daoine Sidhe one of these days. After all, he was one, too.

  Peter blanched when I licked the blood away, but Alex just watched, seeming fascinated by the gesture. I flushed, fighting the urge to duck my head, and looked to Quentin. “Have you had any training in blood magic?” I asked.

  “A . . . little,” he admitted. “I’ve never . . . not with someone that had . . .”

  “There’s a first time for everything. Come down here.” He shook his head before he could stop himself. I nodded firmly. “Yes. I need you to confirm what I’m getting from him. You’re supposed to be helping me. So help.”

  He knelt reluctantly, asking, “What do I . . . do?”

  “Touch his right wrist. Get some blood on your fingers.” That was the only wound I hadn’t tried yet. Amandine may have been the most powerful blood- worker in the country, but I’m still just a half- blood. It was possible that Quentin, even young and half-trained as he was, would be able to pick up on something I’d missed.

  He did as I told him, shivering the whole time. I put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “It’s all right. You’re doing fine. Now put your fingers in your mouth.” He shot me a terrified look. “It’s okay. I’m right here.”

  “But what am I supposed to do?”

  “You’re supposed to put your fingers in your mouth.” He flinched, and I continued, “Then you’re supposed to swallow. The blood can’t hurt you; it’s just a conduit for the magic.”

  “All right,” he said. Screwing his eyes closed, he shoved his fingers into his mouth, and swallowed. There was a pause before he opened his eyes, licking his lips automatically, and said, “When does the magic start working?”

  That was what I’d been afraid of. “You didn’t see anything?”

  “No. I just . . . it was just blood.” He frowned anxiously. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “You did just fine, Quentin. It’s not your fault.” I looked toward Elliot. “Did you people move anything in here? Touch anything?”

  Elliot flinched, replying, “No, we . . .”

  “Good. Who found the body?” Peter raised his hand. I nodded. “When?”

  “About fifteen minutes ago.” His voice was steady, but I could still hear the low humming of his unseen wings. He was close to panic.

  “Were you alone?”

  “For about five minutes. Then Alex came in.”

  “Did you see anything unusual when you entered?” When he shook his head, I turned to Alex. “How about you?”

  “Nothing. I got here, we called for April, and she went for Elliot.”

  “Now she’s getting January. I want this area closed off. Who else is in the building?”

  “April and Jan, and Gordan.” Elliot’s eyes lingered on my bloody fingers. The Daoine Sidhe have always had a lot of control over the leadership of Faerie; I think it’s largely because the other races want to keep us where they can see us. People who can talk to the dead are sometimes hard to trust.

  “And no one else?” My conviction that they knew more than they were telling me was rising. The men in front of me looked upset and nauseated . . . but not surprised. They weren’t surprised by what had happened to Colin.

  Something was lying in the shadows by the water cooler. I frowned and started in that direction, even as Elliot began to answer.

  “We’ve been a little light on staffing recently.”

  At least he had the good grace to sound embarrassed by the lie. I shot him a sharp look, saying, “Well, looks like it’s getting lighter, doesn’t it?” as I crouched by the water cooler and reached into the shadows, pulling out a well-oiled sealskin. I ran it between my fingers, checking it for damage, and stood, brandishing it as I turned back toward the group.

  “This is Colin’s skin,” I said. “Have you ever heard of someone ki
lling a Selkie and not stealing their skin? Because I haven’t.” Selkie skins can be transferred from person to person, turning the almost purely mortal into full-fledged Selkies. They get passed down in the same families for generations; a stolen Selkie skin is worth its weight or more in gold.

  “No,” Elliot said, voice growing quiet. “I haven’t.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Peter swallowed hard, asking, “Is he . . . ?”

  “Yes. Very.” I allowed myself a small, hard smile. “Trust me on this one.”

  “But his hands . . .”

  “And his eyes,” I said. Peter looked away. I was finding it hard to dredge up sympathy for his squeamishness—after all, he wasn’t the one with blood on his lips.

  Quentin tugged on my arm, and I looked toward him, asking, “You okay, kid?”

  “I think I’m going to throw up.” He managed to sound both humble and embarrassed about the idea. Not a bad trick.

  I tried to sound reassuring as I said, “That’s okay, it’s normal the first time. Elliot, where’s the bathroom?”

  “Down the entry hall, to the left,” Elliot said, sounding shell-shocked.

  “All right. Come right back, okay?” Quentin nodded and took off at a run, heading for the promised bathroom. I just hoped he’d make it in time. His pride would never let him forgive himself if he didn’t.

  I waited for his footsteps to fade before turning back to Elliot, saying mildly, “If anything happens to him, I’ll hurt you in ways you’ve never imagined. You know that, right?”

  “Of course. Is the boy . . .”

  “He’s my assistant.” I wiped my lips with the back of my hand, looking at the smear left behind. If I didn’t know better, it would have looked like lipstick.

  Sometimes I wish I didn’t know better.

  “You’re Daoine Sidhe, aren’t you? Both of you?”

  No, we just like the taste of blood, I thought sourly. Unfortunately, some races in Faerie would mean that. “Yes, we are. His blood is purer than mine, but I’m Amandine’s daughter.” He nodded at my mother’s name. I felt a pang of regret. Mother would have been able to coax the secrets from Colin’s blood. I was sure of it.

  “Can you tell us what happened?”

  “No. His blood isn’t telling us anything.” I leaned down and closed Colin’s staring eyes, letting my fingers rest on the lids. “Nothing at all.”

  “Nothing?” Peter whispered. The Daoine Sidhe don’t brag, because we don’t need to. My mother was so strong she could taste the death of plants. She could never stomach maple syrup; she said it tasted like trees screaming. The blood should have told me something, even if it wasn’t anything I could use. For it to tell me nothing at all was impossible.

  “Nothing.” I stood, resisting the urge to wipe my hands on my jeans again. It wouldn’t get them clean, or take the taste of blood out of my mouth. “The blood’s empty.”

  “But why didn’t the night-haunts come?”

  “I don’t know.” The obvious next question was “so what good are you? ” and I didn’t know what my answer would be.

  He didn’t get a chance to ask. Jan rushed into the room, clipboard clutched against her chest, with a tiny white-haired woman following a few steps behind.

  “Elliot!” Jan cried, voice shrill and angry. “Elliot, what happened?”

  He turned toward her, expression grim. “They got Colin, Jannie,” he said. “I’m so sorry. They got Colin.”

  She stopped, raising a hand to her mouth. She was either one of the best actresses I’ve ever seen, or she hadn’t done it. “Colin?” she said, anger fading, replaced by sudden, bleak despair. “Oh, no. That can’t be right, Elliot, it can’t; I refuse. Look again. You have to be wrong.”

  “I’m sorry, Jannie,” he said, and opened his arms. She threw herself into them, shuddering, and they clung to each other. My presence was forgotten; I had no place in the landscape of their grief. Even Alex and Peter looked away.

  The white-haired woman stepped around them and stopped in front of the corpse, studying it for a long moment before she said, “He’s dead.”

  “Yes,” I said flatly. Sylvester said he was worried about his niece not checking in. He never said anything about people getting killed.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, studying her. Most people are upset when their friends die; this woman looked interested, and not all that surprised. That was unusual. She was roughly five feet tall, with a blaze of white hair cut in spikes that did nothing to hide the squared-off tips of her ears. Her figure matched her height—slight, lissome, and easily overlooked. Judging from her scowl, that happened pretty often; it wasn’t the sort of expression you master in an instant, even when your friends are dying. Lines cut through her face like scars through granite. They weren’t wrinkles; she wasn’t old enough for that. They were just lines, indelibly ground into the shape of her.

  “Damn,” she said, raking her hands back through her hair. “I liked him.”

  I glanced to Jan and Elliot, and frowned as I saw that she was sobbing on his shoulder. What a great thing to see in a leader: hysterics. I shook my head, looking back to the white-haired woman, and asked, “Who are you?”

  “What?” She looked up at me, her scowl deepening until the lines on her face became caverns. “I’m Gordan. Who the hell are you?”

  “October Daye.” I don’t normally flex my titles, but this time I added, “Knight of Shadowed Hills. I’m here by order of Sylvester Torquill, the Duke—”

  “Duke of Shadowed Hills, yeah, we know the drill,” she said, interrupting. “We’re not totally uncivilized out here in the boonies, you know. Have you got any credentials on you?”

  “What?”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “I’ve already shown my credentials to your Countess, but given that you’ve got a corpse here—an impossible corpse—do I really need to prove it? I’m Daoine Sidhe, I’m a licensed PI, and I don’t exactly see you getting any better offers.”

  “So you’re here to fix all our problems? Well, that’s just peachy, princess. What the fuck took you so long?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She gestured to the body. “This started last month—Colin’s the third death we’ve had. What took you so long? Were you waiting for an engraved invitation? ‘RSVP for murder?’ ”

  I stared for a moment before I got my mouth working again. “The third?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I . . . see. Excuse me for a moment, please.” I turned toward Jan, eyes narrowing. She had straightened and was wiping her face with one hand, teary-eyed and sniffling. And I didn’t care. “Ms. O’Leary? May I have a word with you?”

  She looked up, golden eyes wide. “Huh?”

  I’ll normally forgive a certain degree of shock after a major trauma, especially when I’m dealing with purebloods; most of them see so few deaths that they don’t know how to cope. Considering what Gordan had said, however, I wasn’t inclined to be charitable. “A word, Ms. O’Leary. I need to have one with you.”

  “W . . . why?” She glanced at Elliot, and he looked away. I think he knew what I was going to say. “This isn’t the best time. I . . .”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that people were dying?” I demanded. Bluntness isn’t usually an asset among the fae, but it’s served me well over the years.

  Jan gaped for a moment before she recovered, snapping, “You can’t just stroll in here and expect me to dump all our problems on you! What kind of a Countess do you take me for?”

  I hauled my temper to heel, forcing myself to take a deep breath as Quentin walked up to stand behind me. “Did you call your uncle last night?”

  She nodded. “I tried. No one answered.”

  “Well, he answered for me. He’s worried. Now answer me this: do you want these killings to stop?”

  Jan stared at me. “How can you even ask me that?”

  “I am one changeling with a half-trained
page to back me up,” I said, levelly. “Whether I’m telling you the truth or not, there’s not going to be that much damage I can do. But what I also am is a trained investigator sworn to your uncle’s Court. Let me do my job. If you think I’m lying to you at any point, you can deal with me.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “When your car breaks down, do you fix it yourself, or do you send for a mechanic?”

  The change of topics was apparently a little too fast for her. She stared at me for a moment, befuddled, before she said, “I send for a mechanic.”

  “The principle here is the same. When people are dying, you don’t fix it yourself. You send for a mechanic.” I looked her in the eye, forcing myself not to start yelling again. It wasn’t easy. “I’m the mechanic.”

  Jan froze, trembling with fear and anger. It was a long moment before the fire in her eyes dimmed and her shoulders began to droop, making it briefly clear just how young she was. The purebloods seem ageless, but they aren’t; they’re young and stupid once, just like everybody else, and if nothing forces them to grow up, they can stay that way for centuries. Jan was more than a century old, but she was still younger than I was where it counted. Voice low, she said, “Can you do it? Can you make this stop?”

  I smiled sharply. It’s not my most pleasant expression, but with a fae corpse lying just a few feet away, it didn’t need to be.

  “My lady,” I said, “you only ever needed to ask.”

  NINE

  “TOBY, WAIT UP! PLEASE?”

  I stopped briskly, turning to glare at Alex. Quentin did the same, his own motions possessing a semimilitary crispness. His terror was translating into a level of formality that I hadn’t seen out of him since the night we met. I didn’t care for it, but I honestly couldn’t blame him. I was scared, too, and I had a lot more experience than he did.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Got something else you neglected to tell me? More bodies? Giant spiders in the attic? Because I’m pretty much out of patience, and you didn’t bring me anywhere near enough coffee to excuse hiding a murder.”