The Faerie King

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  “How do you—”

  “Got a look out the window while I was finding my shirt. Arcanum calls them ‘insectiform canids,’ which goes to show you how shitty the Arcanum’s biology department is. Fringe just calls them ‘scent hounds.’ And come on, give me a hand,” he ordered, beginning his descent. “Ma’am, I don’t know why he’s dragged you into this,” he called over his shoulder to Mrs. Cooper, “but if you could use a stiff one, help yourself. Won’t be a minute.”

  She peered down the hole while I felt my way off the staircase. “The name’s Eunice Cooper. And you must be…”

  “It’s on the door.”

  “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Slim,” she replied, her voice echoing faintly around the basement.

  “You’re a very polite liar,” he called back. “Go on and hit the top shelf. Back in a jiffy.”

  Five minutes later, we climbed out of the hole, our arms laden with jars and boxes and sacks whose contents I couldn’t begin to name, only to find Mrs. Cooper sitting on a barstool, nursing what appeared to be a rose-colored Sprite. Slim dropped his load and shook his head as he closed the trap door again. “There’s thirty-year-old hooch over there,” he said, gesturing toward the mirrored shelves behind the bar, “and you make yourself a fucking Shirley Temple?” Mrs. Cooper cleared her throat, and Slim’s eyebrow rose. “Language?”

  “If you don’t mind,” she replied, then bit her maraschino cherry from its stem.

  I began to tell her that Slim’s jar of cherries might be nearly as old as some of his better whiskies, then thought better of it. “Is this everything?” I asked him. “Nothing upstairs to transport?”

  “Nah, this is the worst of it,” he said, swinging his bags onto his broad back. “To the car?”

  “To the car,” I agreed. “Mrs. Cooper, if you want to take that with you—”

  She looked horrified at the thought. “Really, Mr. Leffee,” she said, putting the half-emptied glass in the bar sink, “I’m not going to drink in my Conti. Not with the way you drive, at least. What if that spilled, hmm?” she continued, trailing us out the door. “I’d never get the stain out of the floormat…”

  Her voice rose to a squeak at the sight of a pair of the scent hounds, which were sniffing around the bank’s sidewalk strip of bushes, a halfhearted attempt at downtown beautification. “Fuck,” Slim muttered, and I fumbled with the keys until I found the one that unlatched the trunk. “No magic, no sudden moves,” he murmured, carefully raising the trunk lid. “Be slow and deliberate, and they might not notice you. Start throwing lightning bolts, and they will smell it.”

  I carefully shed my burden into the back of the Continental, then eased around the car and caught Mrs. Cooper’s arm. “Hey, Eunice,” I said softly, following her wide eyes to the defoliation of the garden’s holly hedge. “Come on, honey, we’ve got to go.”

  She remained frozen a moment longer, and I was about to pick her up and shove her into the backseat when she thawed enough to remember the car behind her. She slipped in, and when Slim was secured in the front passenger seat, I stepped out from the safety of the building, took a deep breath, and focused. In seconds, both beasts were shrieking, and then they collapsed into the middle of the road, taking out a memorial bench and a Dumpster on their way down.

  I jumped into the car, which Slim had already cranked, and backed furiously, keeping one eye on the mirrors in case of latecomers. “What did I say about no magic?” Slim shouted, pounding the dashboard for good measure. “What was that?”

  “That was getting rid of the witnesses,” I replied, “and creating a distraction while we leave the scene.”

  “That’s also going to lead any of those things in a five-mile radius downtown!”

  “Details,” I muttered, checking behind me again. “Mrs. Cooper, are you still with us?”

  She turned and spotted the next monster tuning on to Jefferson at the same time I did. “Drive faster, dear, won’t you?”

  I didn’t need the encouragement. As a police siren several blocks behind me began to wail, I sped through Rigby, weaving around the occasional car in my way. Few of the downtown shops opened before ten, a small mercy that allowed me to do fifty in twenty-five zones without great risk of vehicular manslaughter, even when keeping one eye fixed on the rearview mirror. Mrs. Cooper, who was still staring out the back window, began to hyperventilate, and Slim reached toward the backseat to pat her knee. “Hey. Hey, there. Eunice, was it?” he said with forced cheeriness. “Eunice, can you talk to me for a second?”

  She turned, momentarily distracted from the chaos behind us, and I saw her chest heaving under her pink robe. “Yeah, that’s it,” Slim coaxed. “I thought you looked familiar. You’re on the historic preservation board, aren’t you? Saved the old Henley warehouse, yeah?”

  Something seemed to click, and she nodded. “Oh, yes, the warehouse. There’s a developer on board, you know, and she’s gung-ho to turn the place into condominiums. Dora Ness, she’s out of Richmond, and she says that young people want to live in places like that. Something about exposed brick.”

  A beast screeched, and Mrs. Cooper shuddered as her head swiveled toward the sound.

  “Sure, sure, the kids love old brick,” said Slim, keeping his grip on her knee as I swerved around a garbage truck. “Old brick and bad fedoras and shitty beer—guess taste comes with age, am I right? Eunice?”

  She glanced back at him and nodded distractedly. “Yes. Age, yes.”

  “Eunice?” he said as she checked again for pursuers. “Hey, Eunice, I need you to talk to me, okay? Come on, hon, focus here—”

  I whipped the car into a parking space in front of The Endless Knot, cutting Slim’s exhortations short as he was thrown about the car. “Sorry, man,” I said, tossing him the keys, then climbed out and pulled Mrs. Cooper from the back. “Get inside,” I told her, speaking as if she’d gone deaf. “Go find Stuart. Stay in there. Yes?”

  Her eyes kept darting back toward the center of town, but she understood well enough to aim her footsteps at the shop’s front door and ring the after-hours bell. Less than a minute later, as Slim and I were unloading the trunk, the door cracked open, and Stuart’s thin face appeared from the gloom. “Auntie Eunice!” he exclaimed. “Good heavens, this is no place for you to…”

  His voice trailed off as we locked eyes, and I threw another bag onto my shoulders as Slim slammed the trunk. “Get her in the damn building!” I yelled over a fresh screech—and, if my ears weren’t deceiving me, a closer screech. “She’s going to pass out, Stu, get her in there!”

  “It’s Stuart,” he said icily, but he shepherded Mrs. Cooper off the sidewalk.

  By the time he’d situated her on a folding chair—he’d set up a makeshift tearoom in the corner of the shop, from the looks of things, though I doubted he was brewing up anything Mrs. Cooper would have recognized—Slim and I had pushed our way inside and locked the door. “Plan?” Slim puffed as he dropped his load onto the wooden floor.

  I paused, taking stock of the company, the pile of expensive arcane tools on the ground, and the patchouli-scented store full of useless crap. “That depends. Want to help me find the open gate?”

  “Not really.” He planted his palms on his thighs and caught his breath, then straightened with a bit of effort and brushed his limp hair from his face. “But I suppose someone’s got to do it, right? The kaiju aren’t going to waltz on home by themselves.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I muttered, clapping him on the shoulder. “And as for those two, once they’re safe—”

  “And Vivi.”

  “What?”

  “Vivi,” he repeated, wincing at the sudden sound of squealing brakes and crumpling metal in the near distance. “I’m not leaving her in danger.”

  “She’s in Skipton,” I protested. “She’s out of the way.”

  “We don’t know that.” He pulled a late-model phone from his pocket and swiped at the screen until it began to squawk. “Hey, lady, y
ou all right?” he said, giving the phone another tap.

  The squawking sharpened and crescendoed into Vivi’s shout as the speakerphone engaged. “Something just walked by the complex, and I do not know what it was, and I think an ambulance went by—”

  “It’s okay,” he said, using the same quasi-hypnotic tone he’d deployed with Mrs. Cooper. “Listen, Vivi, we’re evacuating until this clears. Party at Colin’s. He’s standing right here with me.”

  “I’m going to make a gate to your place,” I said to the outstretched phone. “Five minutes. Take whatever you need and can carry.”

  “What?” she said. “No, I…no! Hell, no! There’s a monster headed toward Rigby—”

  “He’s got friends,” Slim interrupted, “and they’re already here. Time to split.”

  “What about Hal?” she demanded.

  I closed my eyes and sighed. “Shit. Boyfriend.”

  Slim covered the phone and muttered, “Can he come, too?”

  Evidently, he hadn’t muffled his voice enough, as Vivi hissed, “He doesn’t know! I haven’t told him about the Fringe! I can’t…I can’t leave…”

  Her voice died as a deeper voice mumbled something in the background, and Slim winced. “Sleepover?” he whispered.

  “Sounds like it,” I said, then took the phone from him and held it close. “Vivian, listen to me. I’m coming for you, and that’s final. Get dressed.” I handed Slim the phone again as she tried to protest, then looked around the shop, saw that Mrs. Cooper was still conscious, and nodded. “Right, then. You two,” I said to the pair by the artificial ficus, “time to go. Slim and I will take care of the cleanup.”

  But Stuart—who, I noticed, had shoved a braided silver circlet down over his messy locks—shook his head and pushed up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, revealing metal bracelets studded with stones and carved-rune charms. “This is no time for civilian heroics,” he said, then pointed to a steel circle set into the floor tiles. “You two take Auntie Eunice and sit in the circle. I’ll activate it when you’re inside—it’ll protect you from evil—and then I’ll see to the…whatever…out there. Never fear.”

  “Oh, my God,” Slim groaned, smacking his forehead with the heel of his hand. “He’s serious. Colin, he’s serious.”

  I took a deep breath, reminding myself that Stuart, delusional though he might be, was primed and willing to take on a monster. “First,” I told him, pointing to the ring in the floor, “protective circles only work if they’re unobstructed. You’ve broken it with those tables,” I explained, gesturing to the displays of crystals and mass-produced carvings of fertility deities that crossed the metal line. “Second, you’ve got to have wards already in place to make a circle like that useful, which I can almost guarantee you don’t. Third, I don’t have time to get a proper ward system going before our little friends find us, so why don’t we do this my way, hmm?”

  That pulled the wind from his sails, but only for a beat. “And what would you know about protective circles?” he snapped as he straightened his headband. “Excuse me, but which of us is the wizard, here?”

  “That would be neither of us,” I replied, tracing a rip in reality with my finger. Stuart gaped and fell back a few steps, and I widened the gate to reveal my sunlit office. “But since I’m a king of fucking Faerie and you’re the idiot wearing Lord of the Rings props, how about you help Eunice out of her chair and go hang out at my place? We’ll be along soon. Try not to break anything, won’t you?”

  I should have known better than to expect compliance from Stuart the White. He opened and shut his mouth like a landed fish for only a few seconds before recovering sufficiently to duck around the tables and pull a crooked, two-foot branch from behind the cash register. The stick had a chunk of quartz tied to the tip with a leather thong, and I realized what it was supposed to be just as Stuart aimed his homemade wand at my chest and shouted an incantation in badly-pronounced Latin. Slim rolled his eyes, and I stood there quietly, making a point of examining my cuticles, until Stuart ran out of steam. “‘I banish you, evil spirit’? That’s the best you can do?” I asked as he shook his wand—whether for emphasis or to be sure it was turned on, I couldn’t tell. “And I don’t mean to be picky, since you’re the obvious wizard and all, but you invoked the Goddess, God, several archangels, and Baphomet all in one spell. Baphomet? Look, we can debate this later, but I’m fairly sure that Uriel and Baphomet cancel each other out, theologically speaking.”

  He stared at the useless wand, then at me, then back at the wand. “I…but that…”

  “Where’d you get the spell?”

  “Benjamin the Celestial. My mentor,” he mumbled, furiously tapping the crystal against his palm like a broken remote control. “That’s an incredibly potent invocation against malevolent spirit beings—”

  “Do I look like a spirit to you, genius?”

  The reality of the situation finally clicked with Stuart, and he gave up on coaxing magic from his branch in favor of the equally useless tactic of running into his protective circle and shouting more Latin as he spun about with his fingers splayed. By then, Mrs. Cooper had taken enough of a breather to sort out the more pressing issues of the morning, and she rose and joined Slim and me as we watched Stuart make himself dizzy. Giving my arm a soft pat, she muttered, “I’m so sorry for the trouble, dear.”

  “Oh, no trouble,” I said, raising my voice as a pair of screeches echoed down the street. “But they’re going to be here soon—if they’re looking for magic, that’s the jackpot,” I added, cocking my head toward the open gate. “Time to get you out of here.”

  She looked doubtfully at Stuart, who continued to chant nonsense. “You’ll send him along?”

  “Soon as I can.” Catching movement from the corner of my eye, I glanced back at the gate and spotted Val standing on the far side, arms folded and eyebrow arched. “Everything all right?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Relatively speaking. What’s happened? And what’s he doing?” he asked, squinting at Stuart’s gyrations.

  “It’s under control. Take care of this one for me—she’s had a rough morning.” With that, I cupped Mrs. Cooper’s face in my hands, switched languages again, and murmured, “This won’t hurt.”

  “You’re sure?” she asked, wide-eyed and lightly trembling. “You’re quite sure about that?”

  “Positive,” I said, then made the linguistic addition to her mind before she could press for details. She flinched and frowned, surprised at the sensation, and I released her. “Think of it as a built-in translator,” I told her in Fae. “Ready to go?”

  She nodded. “Be safe, dear, and…”—her brow knit as she heard herself—“and be…wait, now…I don’t—”

  “Val will explain,” I interrupted, nudging her toward the gate.

  My captain extended his hand to her and flashed an almost pants-charming smile, breaking through her sudden confusion. “This way, dear lady, it’s quite safe…ah, watch the step,” he said, catching her before she could stumble on my rug. “There, now, nothing to it. Have a seat, that’s a good girl…”

  Mrs. Cooper let him escort her to a couch as she stared at him, her dark eyes enormous behind her glasses. “I hate to be a bother, young man,” she asked softly, “but is there any chance you could spare a cup of tea?”

  Val looked back through the gate at me and mouthed, Young man?

  “Ask the kitchen, they know where my tea things are, and behave yourself,” I told him, then closed the gate as the screeches neared. “All right,” I said, turning to Slim, “we’ve got to move. I don’t trust the structural integrity of this dump enough to let those things fall on it.”

  “Back in the car?” he asked, pulling a bag from the floor.

  “No, let’s take this shindig to Vivi’s. Might draw the riffraff out of town, at any rate.” I began to open a new gate, then paused, remembering the third member of our trio. “We’re evacuating,” I told Stuart, who had ceased his spinning to gawk at the place
where the first gate had been. “You’re coming with us. Is there anything you can’t leave here? I’m sure the cats will look after themselves.”

  He whipped his head from side to side in vehement negation. “I don’t know who you are or what sort of trickery this is, but a wizard of the Mid-Atlantic Circle doesn’t run away from danger! I am a sworn defender of the Light—”

  “Oh, for the love of God,” Slim muttered, dropping his bag, then marched across the unwarded circle and dragged Stuart out by his ear. “You don’t know the first thing about spellcraft,” he said over Stuart’s yelped protestations, “you don’t know the first thing about magic, and here’s a little life tip.” He tossed Stuart at my feet with surprising gusto—but then again, Slim had always served as his own bar security. “If a faerie lord tells you it’s time to evacuate,” he snapped as Stuart scrambled back to his feet, “then it’s time to friggin’ evacuate.”

  “A wizard does not evacuate,” Stuart sniffed with as much dignity as he could muster in sweats and a cockeyed headband. “A wizard fights evil when called upon to do so. He does not run from danger when innocents are—”

  Slim grabbed his shoulders and gave him a brusque shake. “Listen to me, moron,” he said in a low rush, “you don’t know shit about wizards. My mother’s a wizard. My grandparents were wizards. I grew up with more wizards than I knew what to do with, okay? And wizards know when to run.”

  Stuart pulled himself free of Slim’s grip and straightened his sweatshirt. “Oh, so you’re a wizard, now? And he’s a fairy?” he said, glaring at us in turn. “I see no wands, I see no wings.”

  One of our pursuers screeched about a block away, and yet another car smashed into something solid as a fresh siren kicked off. “Did you see me make that little gate thing?” I asked him, then levitated Slim’s pile of gear with a glance as I opened the new gate to Vivi’s apartment. “That’s what magic looks like, kid. Well, and this,” I added, patting my youthful face. “Left the glamour off this morning. But you know, there’s a better time for this discussion,” I said, then grabbed his arm and yanked him into the next town.