by J. L. Ray
“Yeah,” Cal answered, reaching into the bag and pulling out a very large ham and cheese sandwich. “The magical signature is different, so the Laws of Fairie don’t respond the same. Y’know, stuff like, if you eat or drink here, then you’re stuck here, or the Rule of Three—gotta have three daughters or three sons or three wishes or three attempts to break a spell. Y’know, that stuff. The basics.”
“Mundanians don’t have the Rule of Three.” Phileas nodded. “I had forgotten that.”
“Naw,” Cal started in, but Phil interrupted.
“You know, Cal, it is greatly reduced in its intensity, but think about it. The Rule of Three does show up—in religion, in geometry, in seating options.”
Cal laughed. “That’s one I hadn’t realized, Phil.” He turned to the gnome. “So the Rule of Three is sorta there, but it’s more of a fashion than an actual rule, am I right?”
Phileas was pulling at his beard, deep in thought. He nodded a few times, and then he turned to Naamah. “I believe I’ll have that bread now! And some tea, perhaps?”
“Of course, Phileas, of course. Come along.” Naamah gestured to the door of her cottage and widened her arms to include Phil and Cal, who followed her toward the door. “I can’t offer food or drink, but you can sit while you eat, like civilized folk.”
Tooley stood over the crate that he had just opened, staring at the young woman in it. Something about her nagged at him, nagged at his memory, but he just couldn’t seem to figure out why.
As he stared at her, Crystal walked around the office, gathering different ingredients from the shelves along the walls. She carried the materials she had gathered and set them on the desk next to a mortar and pestle.
“Why doesn’t she wake?” Tooley asked her.
Crystal was bent over, staring at a wax packet she had just opened, its black contents hovering over the mortar’s opening, and her face close enough to both so that she could measure by sight. Now she looked up at Tooley from that position at her desk and smiled a wicked smile at him. “Shall I wake her? Do you want to meet her? I can wake her up this instant, but I thought I might prepare a little something to keep her in check, at least at first. Once she comes to awareness of where she is...” Her smile shifted to a predatory grimace, teeth showing, “I can’t promise that you’ll be safe unless I finish this spell. It won’t last for long, and I shall have to renew it more frequently as its potency wanes, but it’ll work long enough to keep her in line.”
Tooley kept the alarm he felt off his face. She was likely to wake this creature up without the spell of control just to tease him. He was beginning to understand how Crystal thought. He had hopes of soon being able to remove himself from her power, but to do so, he would have to tread very, very carefully.
He shook his head and forced a leer onto his face. “It’s better that she stays where she is, for now, isn’t it? Once she wakes, we won’t have the privacy we need.”
Crystal had just finished pouring a specific amount of the black powder from a jar into the mortar, where it joined three other powders and one small, dried thing that Tooley had avoided looking at too closely in order to avoid knowing what it was. His first impression of its origins had almost made him ill. After closing the lid of the jar, she began laughing. Then she looked at Tooley. “Oh, pet of mine, I don’t care if we have privacy or not. In fact, it will do the child a world of good to watch us! Perhaps she’ll know what to do with you herself, when I give you to her.”
The effect of her words reminded him of the time Bogey had accidentally knocked him over. For a second, Tooley stood, dragging air into his lungs, trying to keep from saying anything to add to her pleasure in tormenting him. Surely she didn’t mean what he thought she did. But what if she did? How could he convince her to leave the woman in the box dormant, at least for long enough that he might escape?
He knew the answer to that. His feet dragged as he walked over to her, determined to seduce her away from the boxes and get out of this slice of hell he had walked into so willingly. He drew on decades of playing leading men in summer stock bedroom farces and walked up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and running his hands up and down the sides of her body, just intimate enough to tease, and far too lightly to satisfy. He leaned into her ear and whispered, “You should finish this spell and come be with me.”
He heard her breathing quicken in reaction, and she whispered back, “Go on and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Worried she might wake the creature after all, he added over his shoulder as he opened the door that led to his current nightmare, “Don’t be long. I want you to myself a while longer.” He assumed that between the spell she had on him and her own ego, this performance should be enough to convince her.
He turned to check her reaction before he went up, and the look on her face told him that he was right. He had gotten what he wanted. He just hoped he survived it, sanity intact.
Tony and Baz continued to review the old reports on inter-realm smuggling. The reports that connected to the guy that they had met with last night all had one thing in common. The recovered items, all of them types of minor magic, were not items that created the kind of mayhem that would attract the attention of the Geas.
“Listen to this one,” Tony said to Baz, running a finger down the view screen on her desk. “Wards against freckles, sunburn, and age spots. Wards against nosebleeds, stutters, and, oh man, flatulence.” Baz snorted, and she said, “I know, right? Yikes! Hmm, charms to attract bees...attract bees?”
“There has been a reduction in the Mundane bee population in this century, hasn’t there?” Baz asked her.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah! Well, that’s almost...cool.”
She looked over from the screen to Baz. “Whoever this guy is, he definitely is not out for world domination. He isn’t even trying to score big. He’s scoring little bits, here and there, with reliable, popular products.”
“He is intelligent.”
“Yeah, yeah, he is.” Tony tapped her lip. “I think this guy lives here in D. C., Baz.”
Baz turned to her, startled. “Why?”
She looked up at the reports again and pointed at them. “He meets his Natty contacts at this warehouse, or buildings close to it, right?’
“Yes.”
“He sells his products in various areas, but they are all connected to street markets, like the Eastern Market and some of the farmer’s markets in the summer. I think he does his own sales, keeps his overhead low. And I think he’s stuck on this side of the Geas.”
“Ah.”
“By doing most of the work himself, he makes all the profit. But for what? Doing things this way takes a lot longer to make a profit. Maybe whatever he was doing, he didn’t need a lot of money, just reliable money. But his MO has changed, so maybe that has changed.” She tapped her lips again. “Maybe he needs a big score, fast. I wonder if that was why he was interested in the Caddie,” she mused, still tapping. “It would fit that bill, if he has a buyer.” She frowned. “That must explain why he took the place of the other two smugglers, the ones I think might be the Willow and Sammeal.”
“Because he wants a larger amount of money?”
“Yeah,” Tony said. “Yeah, a bigger score. So he agrees to cover for these two when they...I guess when they don’t have someone else here to meet the mules.” Baz gave her a look and she added with a shrug, “They aren’t transporting drugs, but the Natties in these operations are working as mules.”
“Why are these other two, the hamadryad and the drunk, so dangerous?” Baz asked her, having watched her practically vault to the door to try and head off Cal and Mephistopheles before they could portal to Fairie.
She shrugged. “The Willow runs a dive bar in Fairie, in his tree.”
“In his tree?” Baz looked taken aback. “Most hamadryads are more protective of themselves. If someone started a fire in there, he might escape the fire, but he would still die. His death would be even more excruciating t
hrough the medium of his home wood. He and the tree are linked. If the tree dies any way other than naturally, then he dies as well.”
“That sounds awful.” She grimaced. “I almost feel sorry for him.” Then she thought about her encounter with the Willow and Sammeal. “Okay, maybe not.”
“He would be aware and in great pain as it happened. It would be a horrible death.”
“If he’s working with Sammeal, then it is still a little hard to muster up some empathy. Sorry.”
Baz shook his head. “I cannot help but feel sympathy. In my kingdom, we had many beautiful, large forests, most of them inhabited by the hamadryads because we respect trees. They came to our land for safety because we protected them and because, like them, we hold magic. We do not wield magic.”
“No Changelings wield magic, do they?” Tony asked, thinking back to her high school Super Basics classes, mandatory in all high schools since 1995. It had taken years for the curriculum in the public school system to catch up with the historic change, due mostly to the number of business leaders and politicians involved in state school systems. If it had been up to actual teachers, it would have happened much quicker and more smoothly.
“Yes, Changelings are magic-holders. But before I was a Changeling, I was Viking, another type of magic-holder. Some of my ancestors settled in Mundania, attracted by gold and Mundane lovers.” He glanced at her, trying to gauge her reaction but saw only friendly interest in his tale. “They are the ones who created the great warships and sailed from Europe to Iceland and to the New World. In Fairie, my people hold a magic that makes them mighty warriors, both men and women. When they came here and took Mundane wives or husbands, they spread a little of that magic.”
“What about when you became a Changeling?” Tony asked. She jumped when he pounded his fist on his desk.
He shouted at her, “You make it sound like a choice!” He lowered his voice when a few of the uniformed cops sharing the space looked up in surprise. Almost hissing, he said her, “My Change was no accident. Your Mephistopheles planned it.”
“With the help of your Bergfrid,” Tony hissed back, keeping her voice low as well after looking over at officers Davis and Lee and waving at them with a cheerfulness that wasn’t even close to her emotion at that moment. “Don’t you forget that she was involved.”
“I have not forgotten.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “I will never forget or forgive. Not her and not him.” He got up and paced over to her desk, leaning into her space and practically sucking all the air from it. “You will do well to remember that no matter how he cajoles, charms, and entices you, you are one of an army of men and women he has deceived, even as he has given them what they think they want. He will take everything he can from you, take and leave you nothing, without a thought to the consequences.”
She wanted to ask him how he knew that, but frankly, Phil had a rep, one so legendary that it had shown up in books and plays long before anyone knew that Fairie truly existed. In those he was called a demon, rather than dark fae, dark magic. In fact, she’d had to read at least one fictional account of his duplicity for class while she was in college. As much as she wanted to argue for Phil, she knew she was on shaky ground at best. Plus, there was the part where she had broken up with him, so it would be a bit hypocritical to defend him.
Baz’s eyes flicked back and forth over her face as he grabbed her upper arms. “I see that you know what I am saying is true. I am sure it is hard to admit that you have lain with such a creature.”
Tony broke his hold, slapped his face, and took at step back. Then she looked over at Davis and Lee. They were focused on something else and hadn’t noticed anything. She looked up at Baz and growled, “Enough. You have crossed a line with me one time too many times, de Groot. No more. You watch your mouth with me or I will write you up.”
Baz had one hand up to his face, his expression of shock almost comical. “I...I don’t know why I said that. You’re right. I should not have said that to you.”
She pointed at Baz’s desk. “Just go back to the reports. We need to figure out where this guy lives. If we can, maybe we can get a tail on him.” She kept pointing until Baz nodded and paced back to his own desk, and the two went to work. They worked silently for a while, sharing nothing more than a thick, uncomfortable silence.
While they were researching and arguing, Lieutenant Azeem had been hard at work trying to get a message to Phil and Cal. He knew that the PTB had arranged for a balloon airship. Since he was aware of Calvin’s fear of heights, he could only hope that Mephistopheles had managed something to keep Cal from completely losing his nerve. Azeem didn’t know the gnome who ran the air ship personally, but he thought Naamah might be friends with the fellow—Phileas was his name. When he eventually got through to the assistant to the PTB in Fairie for Mundane/Fairie relations, circumventing ORC, he got the young nymph to agree to have a message sent to Naamah to give to Phil and Cal when they arrived. He ended his communication in the best mood than he had been in since biting into the breakfast cupcake that Calvin had brought.
He sent a quick message to Tony, asking her to come to his office, glad to be able to tell her something positive. However, when she walked in the door, he realized that something was off.
“Have you identified some new information?” he asked her.
“Yes...well...no. But, I guess, yes,” she told her supervisor, unusually indecisive.
“I hope Baz is helping,” he said, giving her a puzzled look. Detective Newman was many things, but indecisive wasn’t one of them, in Azeem’s experience.
“Sure. Yeah.”
He could almost smell the lie, but let it go. He’d find out what was going on eventually. For now, he’d give her some good news.
“I have gotten a message out that is to be taken to Naamah, ASAP. Phil and Cal should receive that message soon.”
Tony, who had been sitting in her chair as if her life depended on keeping her back away from its cushy surface, slumped visibly. “Oh, thank goodness.”
“Well...we shall see if it gets there in time to do any good. In the meantime, you should continue to follow any leads you can find on this side of the Realms.”
She nodded, glanced at the open door, and then looked back at Azeem, squaring her shoulders. “I’m on it,” she said as she stood up.
As she turned to leave, she heard him say, “Don’t you mean, ‘we’re on it?’ You and Detective de Groot?”
Without turning to look at the Lieutenant, afraid of what her face might say, she agreed. “Yes, sir. That’s what I meant. We’re on it.” She walked back to her desk, far too near an angry, vengeful, obnoxious Changeling for her own comfort. If she could go back in time, she’d turn down this op, no question. Too bad time travel was a big no-no.
Chapter Seventeen
Naamah beamed at the collection of men around her table. Technically, she could only host one, Phileas, since the other two could neither eat nor drink her food. Still, it made her old heart happy to see a small group sitting to dine at her kitchen table. The thick hardwood table, rough-hewn but polished from hundreds of years of use, could seat far more than the company of four seated at one end of it. And all this company was much better than having a small bowl of potato soup all by herself, her usual lunch these days. Cal even managed to give the impression of being more than one person, as large as he was and as many sandwiches as he ate. She wondered why she had ever thought that living alone after her sweet husband had died was a good idea.
“Another?” Naamah asked him, handing him the bag from which the ham and cheese sandwiches continued to appear each time Cal reached in for another.
Cal leaned back in the chair that he dwarfed and patted his belly. “I think I better stop! As Berthell always says, quit eating when it quits feeling good!”
Phil raised a brow. “Or when even magic can’t keep up with your appetite.”
Cal threw out his arms. “What? That little bag did just fine.” The chair he w
as in groaned a bit as he moved around, not having been built for one of the larger Beings of Fairie.
Phileas stood up and wiped his mouth with the napkin that Naamah had provided. “Well, m’darlin’, that was lovely.” While Phil and Cal had eaten ham and cheese, he had joined Naamah in a bowl of soup and fresh baked bread. “I have some maintenance to do before we head for the next destination these gents give me, so I’ll be about that business.” A rumble of thunder interrupted him, and he glanced at the ceiling with a frown. “Well, lads, that’s not a good sign. If it storms badly, we’re tied down for a bit. I’ll just stick m’nose out and see what’s what. Mighty good vittles, Lady Naamah.” With that, the gnome put his cap back on his head and went out to his balloon.
After he left, the other two turned to Naamah, who was fixing herself a cup of tea.
She looked at them. “I believe you have questions for me?”
“First off, though,” Calvin said, “I have a message for you from Lieutenant Azeem.” He got out his f-light and looked at her, waiting. When she didn’t get an f-light out, he realized the issue. “Uh—I’m not sure what to do,” he told her, confused.
“Ah,” muttered Phil. “He’s a Mundane-born ogre, my dear.” He looked at Cal. “Just send it to her. Like me, she won’t need an f-light to catch the message. It will be a little harder for her play it without an f-light, but those are items that are not sent over for sale in Fairie.” Phil thought for a second. “In fact, I’m surprised that these haven’t been smuggled and sold to magic-holders.”
Cal looked from Phil to Naamah. “How do magic-holders get messages in Fairie?” Naamah laughed. “The old-fashioned way, my dear. They write them physically, on paper.”
“That wastes a lot of paper!”
“Well, Calvin, in Fairie, we have recycling plants.”
Cal frowned, puzzled. “There are industrial plants in Fairie?”
