Mismatched Pair

by J. L. Ray

  His pronouncement brought all eyes up to him.

  “They are bringing in Changelings.”

  “What?”

  “That’s crazy! Am I right?”

  Baz growled. “It gets worse.”

  “How so?” Tony asked.

  Azeem nodded at Baz. “The Changelings are illegal immigrants, of course. The Geas would not allow them through the legal portals, so they are paying the ring to smuggle them through.”

  “Coyotes?” Tony asked.

  “Coyotes?” Baz looked confused. “Why would Mundane animals be involved?”

  “It is an old term for smugglers of people,” Azeem told him. “Coyotes are scavengers, so it is meant as a kind of pejorative.”

  Baz nodded thoughtfully, planning to go on the mageline later to read about the term. Some days he felt so out of touch with this world.

  “These smugglers are similar to them, of course, but the PTB are calling them leprechauns, perhaps because the Changelings believe that the move here will be like following a rainbow to gold,” Azeem explained grimly.

  “Aren’t actual leprechauns upset about that?” Tony wondered, since leprechauns, a branch of the gnomic race, were notoriously touchy and held grudges.

  Azeem chuffed. “They seem to be amused by it.” Leprechauns, while nothing like the evil creatures in the horror films that surfaced right after the Great Change, typically lacked much of a moral compass. Any that had been in Mundania at the time of the Change had ended up working for international aid societies. The Geas might not be sentient, but the Beings who had designed that Great Curse had a definite sense of humor.

  The leprechauns of Fairie couldn’t get a pass to come visit in Mundania for love nor their considerable money. “I might as well trust a leprechaun” was a common phrase in modern Mundania, and only the Geas kept the bulk of the population of leprechauns in Mundania in their aid jobs. The only things worse were Lock Up or death. Many in Lock Up considered it the better bargain in comparison to the international aid worker jobs, which were thankless, dangerous in so many ways, and usually lacking in any amenities to soften the blow of a Mundane-style job.

  “They’re bringing in illegal immigrants,” Tony stated. “That’s bad, but I’m still not clear on why that means we can’t take a week to try to ascertain if this ring killed the Sutherlands or if it was a Mundane act.”

  Baz answered her. “Some of the Changelings are being enticed over or brought over against their will. They are not all choosing to come.”

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s bad, but still, why the rush?” Cal asked.

  The Lieutenant answered him, “Once here, they are sold into slavery, depending on their host animal.”

  Cal gulped, “What kind of slavery?”

  Azeem shook his head, tired. “What is the worst you can imagine? Anything you can think of is being done. Most are sold to private Mundane ‘collectors’ as pets.”

  Tony cursed and Baz sneered at her, “That is the most benign circumstance any of them find themselves in. It gets worse.”

  Tony looked at Azeem. “How much worse?”

  “Some are being used as magical aids—small portions of their blood harvested to add to the potency of spells.”

  “Too small for the Geas to address,” whispered Tony.

  Azeem nodded. “Exactly.” Then he added, “Some are sold into the sex trade, fed Mundane drugs so that the Geas doesn’t register the assaults as rape.”

  Tony sat for a minute, quiet. Then she looked Azeem in the eyes. “Sir, I agree with you and Baz—this has to stop. But you haven’t answered my other question. Why are you certain that the Sutherlands weren’t killed by the ring?”

  Azeem curled his paws up on the desk and for the first time in just over the year that she’d known him, he presented a true Sphinx-like demeanor, unblinking, mysterious, composed. Even his tail had calmed. “I cannot tell my reason,” he told her, “but I can tell you that if you have ever trusted me before, then trust me now. I know you can continue the charade and no one will be the wiser. I know the ring is not involved in the murder.”

  Tony glanced over at Cal, who looked back at her and gave her a slow, solemn nod. She looked at Baz, whose grim face did not turn to her to plead. He continued to look at the lieutenant. She sighed.

  “I’m in,” she told them, and she noticed that Baz slumped in relief, so she repeated, “I’m in.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Tooley woke slowly, his head pounding. He reached up to grab his forehead, worried that his head might roll right off his body from the weight of the pain. His hand brushed through sheets so soft that, without actively thinking it, he suddenly knew he was not in his own studio apartment near the Eastern Market in D.C. He didn’t own sheets with this high of a thread count. He saved all his money toward what he thought of as his “Mundy Fund”—operational money to bring his mother and brother over from Fairie to live in Mundania.

  He ran the hand he had moved toward his head over the sheets by the side of his body. He was turned on his left side. Soft—it was all so soft. Gingerly, he opened his eyes. The room contained a dim light that eased around the edges of curtains on a window in the wall he faced. He didn’t recognize the room. He didn’t remember why he was there. He didn’t remember last night. This was bad.

  A long-fingered hand slid up over his hip and edged down between his legs.

  “Hello, pet. Up for another go?” A sultry voice whispered in his ear as those long, clever fingers did naughty things to him.

  A few memories from the night came back to him and he suddenly felt nauseated. Bad? This was disaster.

  Phil sat in his office, sipping coffee and flipping through the images on his view screen, looking at reports from the various departments within the Monster-Mate Company. As CEO of a legal non-profit working under the PTB, writing an executive summary of the departmental reports on a quarterly basis and then submitting those on time to the PTB were both in his job description. When he woke that morning, far earlier than he had meant to rise, he was glad of the excuse to go to work and focus on something other than last night’s events. But as he tried, for the fifth time, to read through the report from his new administrative assistant on the problems in the records system because of malspells left in the magetech by Serena Melinoe, spells that were ruining data streams, he kept thinking of Tony. His mind replayed the scene in this very office, the final showdown with Serena when Tony had collapsed, when he had had to protect her from Serena and her pack of Changeling wolves. Every time his mind shifted to Tony and that night, he remembered sleeping in her hospital room, her hand holding his through part of the night. Then his mind would flash to the image of Baz pulling her to him and kissing her, something Phil himself had done only a few times so far, and he became too angry to concentrate.

  Flipping one hand in a gesture toward his door, he called out, “Elmore!”

  “Sire? I mean, sir?” came a soft, lilting voice carried in on the wake of the spell that Phil used instead of a standard Mundane intercom.

  “Get Windle or Dindle in here, immediately.”

  “Yes, sire. I mean sir!”

  His new assistant, Elmore, a temp from a Super Half-Way house, was doing his best to be upbeat and helpful and ingratiate himself to Mephistopheles. This assignment to Monster-Mate could become a permanent placement if he did well, but leprechauns were notorious liars and cheats, and Phil had little faith that Elmore would last very long. While the creature had taken it quite well when Phil had lost his temper more than once already this morning, Phil knew that stemmed largely from the fact that this was Elmore’s last chance. Do well here, or end up in a medical relief agency in the middle of a Mundane war somewhere—that was plenty of motivation to be good, even for a leprechaun. Still, it was nice to have someone who worked for him who still regarded him with the proper amount of fear, instead of trying to tease and manipulate him like Windle and Dindle and some of the other department heads. That he had allowed such
gross familiarities on the part of his subordinates made him think it was time to put the fear of, well, him, back into all of them.

  He turned back to the report and swept his hand across it, closing the file. Then he opened the building management file. He was looking at Dindle’s written review of the progress on the building’s renovation when a timid knock that was already driving him crazy made him yell at metal door. “Yes, yes, send him in!”

  The door opened and Elmore’s red-bearded face appeared at about three and a half feet up. He didn’t walk all the way into the room, just poked his head in and whispered quietly, “Mr. Dindle is here to see you, sire. Would ye be wanting a bit o’ tea or coffee during the meeting, perhaps some nice scones or soda bread to go with it? Ye’ve been here a while with not’ing to eat at all.”

  While his manner lacked any unctuousness that might have led Phil to find him repulsive, Elmore’s need to please managed to make it hard to be kind. Neediness brought out the predatory side of his nature. He fought back the urge to abuse his new aide. “Just send him in,” Phil told him smoothly. “And please, Elmore, call me sir, not sire. I am not now, nor have I ever been, the ruler of a country.”

  “Yes, sir! So sorry, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.” He bobbed his head as he made promises that Phil knew he would not keep, but all Phil saw of him was his beard. Elmore kept his distance.

  Dindle walked in past the leprechaun. “I fancied some tea!” he told Phil. “Shall I just tell the pipsqueak to nip back with a tea tray?” he asked.

  Phil just looked at him.

  “Ooooh. You are in a snit today. I take it last night didn’t live up to expectations?” Dindle tugged at his long brown beard and shrugged, a twinkle in his eye. “Bugger! I expect I owe Windle a twenty.” He shook his head in sorrow until he noticed that Phil’s expression had darkened perceptibly. “Time to shut m’gob, eh?”

  “If you wish to continue your employment here, yes.”

  Dindle shrugged, not in the least intimidated. “The course of true love never did run smooth, or so our Willie of Stratford used to say.”

  Phil gave Dindle a glacial stare, then turned and sat back down in his chair, the chair Tony had sat in only days ago. He shook off the memory and brought up the file on the renovations.

  “I was reviewing your report, and there seem to be some developments that do not make sense to me. Why is the rose quartz desk marked for replacement? It was only installed recently.”

  “Well, sir,” Dindle said, bewildered, “you did ask us to finish the renos quickly. We assumed you would want us to remove some of...” He got an odd look on his face as he continued, “some of Melinoe’s choices for office decor. Chucking the desk seemed like the best place to start.”

  “Rose quartz is associated with love and love spells. It is the most appropriate form for the desk in the front office, and the choice to order it was mine. While Ms. Melinoe heartily approved of that choice, she is not the originator of the idea. Please check with me before making any decisions involving items worth more than half your salary for the year.”

  Dindle sat there for a moment, surprised by his boss’s rancor. Certainly Mephistopheles wasn’t always happy with the dwarf brothers taking the mickey out of him. Being a demon with the ability to fulfill wishes for so long had made the Old Man a bit too humorless in the past. However, during his time at Monster-Mate, he had treated all of his employees with basic respect and trusted his department heads to make decisions just like the one about the desk that he was now reversing. Dindle had a feeling that, whatever had happened last night, things between his boss and Miss Tony were far worse than just missing out on a night of happy lovemaking. This sounded more like a break-up, which was a shame since they’d had just the one date. He pulled his beard again, realized he’d been sitting without responding for far too long, and said, “Aye, sir. We’ll call the company and cancel the order for pick up and exchange. Not a problem. Is there aught else that needs to be reviewed?”

  Phil looked at the file hovering in front of him and flicked his finger at it a few times, changing the pages. “I see that the GOOEN squad found no evidence of the portal in the trap door behind my chair.” He turned and looked at the wall to his back with a sour expression. At some point during the renovations, Serena Melinoe had installed the trap door behind him and rigged a kind of Tempo, but unlike most Tempos, it had left no magical residue, so the Goodly Order of Eldritch Necromancers could not ascertain from whom the spell had originated. That meant that there was no way to be certain that it would not happen again.

  “No, sir,” Dwindle shook his head. “Troubling, that. No sign, no signature to identify even what type of being created that portal. The GOOENs were that mad.”

  “I am glad I was not here during that investigation,” Phil remarked as he continued to flip through Dwindle’s report.

  “Oh, it was a fair treat, that’s sure,” Dwindle muttered.

  Phil looked up from the report. “What is the plan for the hidden door? Have we had an MP come in and seal it?”

  Dwindle cheered up, glad to be able, finally, to make his boss happy. “We have an appointment! We have a freelance Magical Practitioner, a Crystal Winkowski, coming by this afternoon to work on the door.”

  “Freelance?” Phil raised one eyebrow haughtily. Most MPs worked for specific non-profits or for the government. Magical Practitioners, some with witch blood but most simply magic-wielding Supers with a high mpsi, or magic per square inch, were fairly rare in Mundania. In Fairie, they acted as healers, fixing spells gone wrong or creating workarounds to correct malicious spells. To the Super community, they equated to Mundane doctors. Those who had chosen to live in Mundania before the Geas, despite that world’s magic dampening effect, unfortunately had turned their ability to practice high magic to bad use, thus the types of jobs supplied by the Geas. They woke to find themselves either civil servants or working for charitable NGOs. Very few of them escaped the Geas’ curse and were able to practice with a freelance license.

  “She seems okay,” said Dindle. “Trustworthy and all.” He stated it as a given that freelance meant this MP had been ignored by the Geas.

  Phil raised one brow. “And is she beddable?”

  “Biddable?” Dindle sounded confused, but his face gave him away. He knew exactly what his boss was asking.

  Phil almost rolled his eyes, but it reminded him too much of Tony, so he controlled the urge. “Is she a handsome woman?”

  Dindle grinned. “You lookin’ to make Miss Tony jealous and all? Because, yeah!” He paused and whistled. “She’s a fine figure of a woman.”

  “You will have to pardon me if I question your ability to judge the trustworthiness of any female, let alone one who appeals to you as a bed-mate.” Phil narrowed his eyes. “Check her credentials before she arrives, or you will have to terminate the appointment and any contract you have signed with her.”

  Dindle slumped. He had signed a contract with her, and termination meant that they still had to pay her fee. He bet with the snit the boss was in, that would mean he’d have to pay it out of his own wages if she turned out to be a bad choice.

  “I’ll get right on that, then, shall I?”

  Phil waved a hand at him as he brought up the next report, the activity log of clients on the mageline site, clients leaving the mageline site, and clients returning after a break from the site. He had sworn, after the murder of his old friend Lilith while she was using his service, that he would become more familiar with his clientele list. He hadn’t even known that she was signed on to Monster-Mate. “See that you do get on that immediately.” He was still paging through the report when he realized that Dindle hadn’t left.

  “Yes?” he asked, a bit surprised that the dwarf had not gone.

  “Sir…” Dindle paused as if uncertain how to go on.

  “Yes?” The haughty tone had returned to Phil’s voice.

  Daunted, Dindle tried to find the words. “I’m that sorry last
night went pear-shaped.” Dindle added hesitantly, “For you and…y’know?”

  Phil looked confused for a moment, but then realized that Dindle was referring to his love life. Drily he asked, “Am I ruining the betting percentages?”

  Dindle had the grace to color a bit. “No. Well, yeah, you are that. But I just meant, well, I like Miss Tony.” He took a deep breath. “I even like you, most of the time. Normally, you’re a good employer. Be nice to see you two together.”

  “Given that she has acquired a temporary partner while Cal is at home with Newman, one whom I do not trust, and he has already managed to worm his way into her good graces, together is perhaps the last place to expect to see us,” Phil told him darkly. “I appreciate the thought, but go do your job. We should concentrate on helping Beings who have an actual chance at happiness.”

  The bleakness of his tone wasn’t lost on Dindle, an eternal romantic. Perhaps Calvin Kelly knew what had happened to Miss Tony and Mephistopheles last night. A little meddling might do a world of good, in this instance.

  Unfortunately, he got more caught up in researching his boss’s break-up than in checking Crystal Winkowski’s credentials, so when the time came for her to go to work, he decided to trust the little bit of research he had done on her prior work and recommendations. He would have been better off to trust his boss’s instincts.

  Tooley sat on the bed, looking around for his clothing and his cloak. He heard the shower start in the bathroom and realized that this was his chance. While that horrible creature bathed, while he was in another room from her, he could control his own responses, pull on his clothes, and get away. He was very much afraid that she had gone through his wallet and knew where he lived, so he wouldn’t be able to return home. He’d have to go to ground, but he would do anything to get away from her and her...appetites. He still didn’t know why she wanted him, not just for sex, but also for something else, apparently. She had talked about opening the packages he’d brought her from Fairie last night, but if she had done that, he must have been passed out and missed it. He really didn’t want to be here when she did open them. His instincts were screaming for him to run, and he had learned to trust his instincts.