Mismatched Pair

by J. L. Ray

  “What did ye do? What did ye do?” The Willow asked, wildly looking around at the calm scene in his empty bar.

  “Uh, what did you do, sir?” Cal asked, remembering to add the sir at the end.

  “I showed him what could happen if he continues to insult me or if he does anything except help my client cross over.” Phil was looking down at his Versace pinstripe suit coat as he said this, picking an invisible piece of lint off of his lapel. He looked up at the Willow. “I think we understand one another now, don’t we?”

  The Willow nodded, then sat down again, still glancing around as if marveling at the fact that nothing had changed. When Mephistopheles touched him, he saw the tree on fire, his worst fear. After the demon removed his hand, the Willow could have sworn it had been real, but the tree, unscathed, looked as it had before the demon touched him.

  Phil began again, as if he had not just put the Willow firmly in his place, “If you would be so good as to tell us what my client, Esmeralda Jones, must do in order to be taken across the Border safely, then we shall be on our way.”

  “We use a dormancy spell on Supers going t’rough the Temp. If not for the spell, t’wouldn’t be possible.” Cal managed not to say anything, but it was close. “We have a shipment going across tomorrow. It’ll come into a warehouse in your city, Washington D.C. The contact there is a fellow by the name of O’Toole. He’s new, and he doesn’t know what he’s helping ship across. T’would be best all around if he stays ignorant on this point.” The Willow didn’t threaten, but he did add, “I’m askin’ for your cooperation in the matter, if ye please.”

  “I shall be certain that O’Toole only knows what is good for him,” Mephistopheles replied. “You can count on me for that. I will bring Esmeralda here to be sent over?”

  “Aye. We’ll box her up, lay the spell, and take her to O’Toole’s contact, his mother Pernella Packlead.” The Willow looked a little uncertain.

  “What is it?” Phil asked.

  “Pernella has two boys. One’s a giant.”

  Taking this as her cue, Naamah, who was having more fun than she’d had in decades, started shrieking. “Oh no! Blood and Bones! A giant? Oh my pinfeathers and beak! Oh my sweet little webbed feet! He’ll eat me for sure!”

  All three men had put hands to their ears since Naamah seemed intent on breaking their eardrums.

  The Willow looked over at Phil and shrugged his shoulders to keep his hands over his ears. He mouthed, “Are ye sure ye want to save this one?”

  Phil raised an eyebrow. Then he mouthed, “She pays well. And half will go to you.”

  The Willow nodded as Phil brought down his hands and took Naamah’s shoulders in them. “Now, now, Ezzie, I am sure that there is nothing to worry about, is there?”

  After Phil gave him a pointed look, the Willow nodded and said, “Pernella’s giant is still young, and he’s not all there, y’see.” He pointed at his head. “A bit slow, but his mother has him under control. He won’t hurt ye a’tall, m’dear.”

  Naamah sobbed a bit and then toned it down. “Well, if you say so, Mr. Willow. I’ll trust you.”

  “Tomorrow, then?” Phil asked.

  “Tomorrow. Here. And Esmeralda, wear comfortable clothing.”

  “I shall,” she said.

  “Come along,” Phil told Cal, who grinned and stood. The three walked out the door and into the night, where they were a little surprised to find several goblins littered across the clearing, most of them the worse for wear and no sign of Naamah’s courier.

  Naamah looked miffed. “Well, I suppose you two have a way back to your portal?” she asked.

  “We do—do you need a ride?” Phil asked her.

  Cal paled. “Back in the balloon?” he gulped.

  “I am afraid so,” Phil told him. He looked over at Naamah and raised one brow.

  “Ah, no need to worry Calvin,” she told him. “The spell I put on you will work long enough to get you back to your portal.”

  Phileas came strolling out of the woods and waved at them. He looked around the parking lot of the bar. “Hey there, we’d best get out of here!” He gestured at the goblins on the ground. “Those are some really ugly-looking customers. I don’t believe I like the company you’re keeping here,” he told them and gestured to the woods. “The balloon’s tied up back this way.”

  While Cal and Phil headed toward the balloon, Naamah turned to one side and muttered into the charm on the end of a lanyard that had been tucked into her bodice. “Is the courier all right, then?” she asked. Nodding, she added, “No, I am heading back to my cottage for now. I will report later.” Then she trotted after the rest of her group.

  Tony sat at her desk, running through some of the case files again, hoping to see something that would help in determining who might be operating on this side of the Divide, working the Fairie ring in Mundania. She had gone back to the stack that Baz had been poring over before he was sent out to watch the warehouse, when she heard Cal’s voice.

  “Hey, gorgeous, how’s it going?”

  She jumped up and turned to see Cal walking in from the hallway, Phil right behind him. She took a deep relieved breath and then smiled at the two. “Man, am I glad to see you!” Phil lifted a brow and she added, “Yes, both of you. What happened?”

  “We’re headed to the lieutenant’s right now to report.”

  “Uhm.” Tony looked over at Lieutenant Azeem’s shut door and then back at Cal and Phil.

  “What’s up?” Cal rumbled, looking over at the door. “Is he out? He’s never out!”

  “Uhm. No. He’s in. He’s got a...a...visitor.”

  Cal nodded and waggled his eyebrows. “That kind of visitor, huh? Who knew?”

  “No, no, no, not that kind of visitor.” Tony shook her head. “If only…”

  “I am sorry. What are the two of you talking about?” Phil asked as politely as he could.

  Tony looked at him and rubbed her nose with one finger before grimacing and dropping her hands in defeat. “Well, it’s kind of a long story, but she’s someone you know...and someone Baz knows...and well...it’s complicated.”

  Mephistopheles went as pale as an olive tone can manage. “Bergfrid,” he breathed, almost like a prayer.

  “Uh huh. Bergfrid herself.” Tony chewed on one lip. “I think this might be a good thing. But Phil?”

  “Yes?”

  “She’s preggers.”

  Calvin caught Phil right before he hit the floor. He turned to his partner. “You kinda enjoyed that, didn’t ya?”

  She shrugged. “He had it comin’.”

  “Wait.” Cal shifted Phil so he could carry him over to a chair, though not to Fluffy. “You ain’t tellin’ me that Phil’s the baby daddy, are ya?”

  “Oh, no. No…apparently, that would be Baz.”

  Cal set Phil down in a chair near his desk and flopped onto Fluffy, who purred just a bit when he ran a hand across the chair’s arm. “Now that’s a story I gotta hear.”

  “One word.”

  “Don’t do it.”

  “Gotta.”

  Cal V8 slapped his forehead. “Magic?”

  Tony nodded. “What else is it, ever, when it comes to Supers? They haven’t seen each other in five hundred and twenty-five years, but this chick is running around with a little Baz-bun in the oven.”

  “I’m gone,” Cal checked his f-light, “what, ten hours, and I come back to this?”

  “Just another day at the SCIB, as far as I’m concerned,” Tony told him as they leaned toward each other and high-fived. “Hey, we better see if Phil is okay, or if there’s some kind of spell on him now.” Tony snorted as she added the last. She figured he could use the peace and quiet before Baz showed up and they had to sort this mess.

  “It just doesn’t get better than this, does it?” Cal asked sarcastically, tempting Fate.

  Fate decided to answer. Tony’s f-light signaled her. “Detective Newman,” she answered.

  Sergeant Hubbard’s voice
sounded odd. “Tony, I think you need to come to the front desk. Now.”

  “Can it wait, Sarge? Cal just got back from Fairie and—”

  “NOW!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Tony looked at Cal. “Wonder what bug crawled up her butt?” Just as she stood to go to the front desk, her f-light signaled again. This time it was Baz.

  “Uh. Tony?”

  “Yeah, Baz.” She mouthed at Cal, “Shit, it’s Baz.”

  “Duh,” Cal mouthed back, shaking his head.

  “You need to come to the front desk.”

  “Sure, Baz. Sarge just called. Look, Phil and Cal got back, so I was gonna sit in on their report, but there’s something else that you should—”

  He interrupted her. “You need to come to the front desk, now.”

  “Hey, I thought you were following the suspect?”

  “I was. I did. I am!” Baz’s voice got louder with each statement, and he was yelling at the end.

  “Good gravy! Don’t take my damn eardrum out. So is the suspect with you?”

  “Yes. And his accomplice. And, Tony? I think that—”

  His voice was cut off as Sergeant Hubbard yelled in the background, “Just get the hell out here, Newman. NOW!”

  She got.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Tony opened the door to the reception area of the station and stepped gingerly through it. She had no idea what had Hub’s knickers in a twist, but she was a little afraid to find out. The mother of that many hundreds of children didn’t get upset for much below nuclear disaster, unless it was missing a Victoria’s Secret semi-annual sale. Tony pulled the door shut behind her and turned to look at the area ahead.

  As always, Sergeant Hubbard sat on her high stool behind the counter, her stocky shoulders suggesting to those entering the station that she was a much more imposing size than she really was. She might not be a large Being, but she still managed to appear imposing, and if sheer personality could have mass, she would have been taller than Calvin. She was in full Darth Vader mode at the moment, large and in charge, nostrils flaring.

  Several Beings stood in a tight little circle in the area in front of her desk. Tony could see the cloaked suspect from last night whom she had been calling Gandalf all day. Next to him was Baz, his face wrinkled in confusion as he stared at a woman whose back was to Tony. The woman, who was fairly tall, about Tony’s height, had bright pink hair in a really short cut and wore an outfit right out of a RenFairie cosplay convention, complete with a sword on her hip. No wonder the sergeant sounded pissed. She hated those RenFairie conventions, saw costume play as some kind of Realmist insult, instead of the blatant hero-worship that actually inspired the Natties who participated in the fairs. More important than Hub’s feelings, though, was the fact that an alleged criminal was standing in the reception area armed with a very large, very sharp-looking sword, and that had to be taken care of right now.

  Tony went through the little wooden gate to the front side of the desk and over to the woman, her hand back under her coat and ready to draw her NASH if necessary. She stayed just out of reach of a swing or a thrust from the sword and said, “Hey, you! You with the sword. DC SCIB, hands where I can see them!”

  At the sound of her voice, the woman turned around, her mouth hanging open, and Tony got her first good look at her twin sister.

  Cal sat in his chair Fluffy, keeping an eye on Phil and working on his report about the hours they’d spent in Fairie. He wasn’t getting very far on it because his attention was split between writing the report, checking on Phil, and looking over at the lieutenant’s door, which was still decidedly shut. He started to contact Berthell a couple of times, to get her advice or ask her a question, but he knew once he got on the f-light with her, he’d want to get on home and actually see her, among other things, and that just couldn’t happen yet.

  He yawned, his large jaw gaping and exposing a huge set of teeth, some even and some very ragged. He ran one large hand over his face, as if to rub the sleep from it. Then he heard a sigh.

  “Please tell me that I did not faint.”

  “You did not faint.”

  “You are humoring me.”

  “Well, yeah, dude! That’s what dudes do for each other.”

  “So I did faint?”

  “Like an old-timey heroine in a bad black and white silent film.” Cal rumbled a laugh. “Okay, you didn’t flap your hands and fling your hair around.” He looked over at Mephistopheles and winked, “Though it’s long enough to fling, isn’t it?”

  “How embarrassing.” Phil was still blinking from the glare of the harsh light overhead.

  “You was provoked, no doubt about that.”

  “I did hear something about Bergfrid showing up here and pregnant, did I not? Or was that an auditory hallucination?” Phil sounded wistful.

  “Nope. That’s exactly what you heard. And apparently, she’s in the office with Lieutenant Azeem.” Phil’s groan interrupted Cal, who grinned evilly. “Oh boss man, that ain’t even the best part. The best part is that Baz is out front, and he don’t know she’s in here, not yet anyway, let alone that she’s pregnant.”

  Phil looked panicked. “When do we go back to Fairie for the smuggling job?”

  Cal shook his head. “Not until tomorrow, dude, sorry.” He didn’t sound it. “I was hoping to get on back to the missus and the spawn for the night. Now, I got a feeling that ain’t happenin’.”

  Phil leaned back in the chair that Cal had put him in after he fainted. His head fell back over the top of chair and he stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking. Suddenly, he sat up and looked over at Cal. “How in the hell did she get here? Bergfrid, I mean. How did she get…here?” He gestured to the room in general.

  “Magic.”

  Phil rolled his eyes. “Ah. And now I see why Tony hates it when I give her that answer. Yes, yes, Cal, I know that. I…she…I mean only magic could have kept her alive this long—a true love spell. And since I produced that spell, I am fully aware of that aspect of this situation. What I want to know, is how did she get here—awake, aware and in Mundania? Could it have been de Groot? As far as I can tell, de Groot seems to hate her, at least now. And yet, I can talk about the spell,” he said as he patted himself, “and I am still alive! So he must have called her.”

  “Love and hate, it’s a thin line.” Cal nodded sagely.

  “Hmmm. Well, I think I prefer to be somewhere else when this particular cat pops out of that particular bag,” he pointed at the lieutenant’s office. “I suppose I shall see de Groot in the lobby, but perhaps I can pass him without...” He paused, but then resumed, his tone resigned. “Who am I kidding? He is going to try to kill me. I am quite certain of that. As certain as I am that I am innocent of any crime deserving death,” he paused and added truthfully, “at least where de Groot is concerned. But innocence has never stopped anyone from his part of Fairie.” He added savagely, “Slice off a head, pay wer-gild later, as if that makes one any less dead. That is the Viking way.”

  “Hey, at least they say they’re sorry with more than flowers,” Cal said.

  “My dear Calvin, if you are the one with your head nicked off, I would say the point lacks any semblance of comfort.”

  Cal started to feel bad for poking Phil. “Hey, I’ll go with you, make sure de Groot doesn’t get a clean shot.”

  Phil grinned weakly. “At least there is one good thing from this day’s work!”

  “What’s that?”

  “I do have a bodyguard after all.”

  Tony and Berry stared at each other, struck silent. Tooley gaped at Tony, recognizing her as Maybelle Sutherland, despite her more on trend, age-appropriate slacks and jacket, not to mention the absence of the antiquing spell that had aged both her and Baz enough to pass for the original Sutherlands. Baz looked from Tony to Berry to Tony, started to speak, and then repeated the sequence without comment, as if certain his eyes must be deceiving him.

  Sergeant Hubbard finally broke the
silence. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but the suspense is killing me. What in the blue blazes is going on here?”

  Tony dropped her hand from her NASH and let it hang by her side. “I...” She cleared her throat. “I think you must be my sister, Adele.”

  Berry started shaking her head. She backed up, running into Tooley. He put a protective arm around her and told her. “That is Maybelle Sutherland, who is apparently an undercover cop.”

  Tony sighed. “No, I’m not Maybelle, and Baz over there, he isn’t Mickey, though we are SCIB detectives.” She started to tell him that the Sutherlands were dead, but decided to wait to see if the lieutenant wanted to share that information in order to get more, or if he preferred to withhold it. She couldn’t believe this. Here she was, staring at her long-lost sister, and she had to treat her like a criminal.

  “Then who are you?” Tooley asked belligerently.

  “I’m Detective Antonia Newman. And the woman next to you has to be my long-lost twin, Adele Newman.”

  Berry started shaking her head again. Her lips were moving and finally they heard her words, or rather word, which started low and got louder and louder. “No. No. No. No! NO! NO!” By the end she was shrieking and holding her head in her hands.

  Tooley turned her around and tried to hold her. “What is it? What is the matter?”

  All he could get out of her was more of the same.

  Tony and Baz were both twitchy, and Sergeant Hubbard had her finger on the intercom to call for assistance but couldn’t seem to decide whom to call. She was about to contact the lieutenant, when Phil and Cal came precipitously into the room. They had heard the yelling, and because it had sounded like Tony, had run to the rescue. They pulled up short at the sight of the girl who looked like a RenFairie version of Tony with pink hair.

  “Blood and Bones...” Phil breathed. He knew the potential consequences of this encounter and wasted a second on the thought of transporting Tony someplace else with magic. Since he couldn’t be certain it would help, he waited, more tense than anyone else in the room, for the other shoe to potentially drop.