by Jayne Hawke
"Lily, you look beautiful as always," James said.
"What do you want, James?"
"I'm wonderful, thank you. This weather is a nice break from the rain and storms."
I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Come and sit with me, let's have a little chat."
He went to put his arm around my waist. I side-stepped. We walked over to one of the old wooden benches that I was pretty sure were part of the original pier set up.
"Now, I have a job for you."
"No."
He shook his head.
"You don't seem to understand how this works..."
"I'm not an idiot. I know how blackmail works," I hissed.
"Then you know that you're going to listen to the job details, and then carry it out."
No, he was going to talk, and I was going to plot his demise.
"There is a court fae who has been making life difficult for a number of people within this city. Given your talents, you're in the perfect position to remove her from the situation."
"Put an ad up on the boards."
He raised an eyebrow at me.
"Oh, I'm sure that would go fantastically. Do you really think the court fae don't watch those boards?"
I knew they did. They had numerous enemies. They'd be fools to ignore the places where people advertise for assassins and the like.
"Post anonymously," I said drily.
"Lily, you're being stubborn and rash. Think of that pack you seem to be getting very cosy with. How will news of your past impact them?"
There were too many people milling around us. And it looked like James had had the good sense to bring some back up with him. I’d noticed a pair of pixies keeping a very close eye on us. They both wore their swords in clear view, and one looked like he might have been carrying a gun if the belt and hip bulge were any indication.
Guns were unusual and incredibly expensive. The fae had taken control of their production and fazed them out before the Fall, or so I’d read. The vast majority of people had never seen a gun. Everyone used blades or magic. I was good at what I did, but I wasn’t going to be able to stop a bullet.
Fourteen
James had laid out a neat little plan where I used my shadow to sneak into the fae’s house and kill her. It was supposed to be tidy and look like a professional hit, which it would have been. We’d parted ways with veiled threats about what he’d do to the pack if I didn’t comply.
I stormed into Elijah’s office and slammed the door behind me.
“Good meeting, then,” Elijah said drily.
“James wants me to kill some court fae, else he’ll tell the world who and what I am,” I snarled.
“So, you’re going to kill him tonight,” Castor said.
“Yes. Yes I am.”
“Can I join you!?” Jess asked eagerly.
“No. I want to be the one to end him.”
She frowned.
“I’ll get his address,” Liam said.
The anger subsided as the pack did their thing.
“I don’t want to have to keep killing people because they find out,” I said.
“You’re an assassin...” Jess said with confusion.
“That’s different.”
“So, you want someone to pay you for killing anyone who finds out?”
James was a piece of work. It wasn’t going to be a tragedy to his life snuffed out, but what if it was some nice brownie next time? I didn’t know how to be more careful. How many other sidhe had his ability to see every layer and aspect of magic?
“His ability is very rare and unusual. And we’ve always been careful. Once the stalker is dealt with, we can relax and focus once more,” Castor said.
There was something about the way he said ‘focus.’ He’d mentioned plans that his goddess had for me before. I knew that pushing him wouldn’t get me anywhere, but there was a niggly feeling in the back of my mind. The goddess had said she’d return. I got the impression that time was fast approaching. And I wasn’t going to like when she did.
James’ house wasn’t hidden, nor did it look like a fortress. I was looking at the images Liam had pulled up on his computer. Given his position as an information broker, I’d expected something more. It was pretty, in that old manor sort of way. I supposed it was better to hide in plain sight. And there was always the strong possibility of a really good security system.
“Be careful. And make sure to let us know as soon as you’re finished,” Elijah said.
“I’m always careful,” I said with a grin.
He didn’t look convinced.
“I’m not heading over there until night. It’ll be fine either way. Do we have anything new on this pot? Or Seth himself?”
“People have gone quiet. I tried talking to Gunnar, but he shut me out.”
I sighed. That was never a good sign. Either we were dealing with someone powerful enough to keep everyone quiet, or they thought we were working with the local lord. The last was unlikely. We were careful to spread the word about how the bastard stole from us.
“There are whispers about something weird happening in the sewers. The problem is there are miles upon miles of tunnels down there. There’s the original old sewers from a century or two ago. Then there are the smuggler tunnels, and the fae-created smuggler tunnels. We could spend weeks looking around and not find anything of use,” Liam said.
“Keep digging,” I said.
We needed to find a way to get people talking. Money was usually enough, but Elijah had clearly tried that. I was reticent to resort to violence. Honey caught more flies or something.
“Who hangs out around the sewers and in those tunnels? Anyone we can talk to?” I asked Liam.
I’d never had need of anyone who spent much time there. The people I dealt with tended to be quite wealthy, rarely from legal means. I couldn’t picture the kind of people who were selling on gems, forged paintings, and so on spending much time in the sewers.
“I’m looking. There are quite a few different groups and people down there, I think.”
“Alright, that’s our next approach, then. Find out who’s down there and get them talking,” I said.
I texted Sasha again. She might have known something about the sewer people.
“I’m going to speak to Lucy over at the tourist shop,” I said.
“Hold on, I’m coming, too,” Jess said.
“I’m just talking to her...”
“I’m bored. Even talking to someone would be great.”
“You could always go and speak to your contacts...” Elijah said.
“I’ve tried. They were boring and didn’t give me anything.”
“Don’t try and shank her,” I warned Jess.
“Promise,” Jess said with a grin.
I was pretty sure her fingers were crossed behind her back.
Fifteen
Lucy’s shop was hidden beneath the main drag that ran parallel to the beach. It was tucked back into the tall wall that ran beneath the road. It was a small space packed with every possible tourist trinket anyone could ever want. A thin wire stand covered in seashell jewellery stood outside of the wide-open door. The floor-to-ceiling window revealed a myriad of colours and items inside. Most of it had Fae Isles or Brighton on it in large letters.
Jess looked at the seashell jewellery with a frown.
“Why would someone buy this?”
“Mementos of their time here.”
“But... why a set of shell earrings when they could have something awesome like a bone bracelet from a pixie you slayed?”
I did a double take and looked at her, trying to assess if she was serious or not. Her expression was one of wide-eyed innocence. I decided that she was screwing with me. I hoped she was.
We squeezed through the door past the tall rack of t-shirts with Brighton scrawled over them, through the gap in shelves covered in mugs, egg cups, place mats, and chess sets.
“Are they chess sets...?”
&nbs
p; “Yea. Some people collect them, I think. They’re pretty popular in the higher-end tourist shops.”
“Tourists really confuse me,” Jess muttered.
“Lily? To what do I owe this pleasure?” Lucy asked.
She appeared to be my age with long golden-blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and flawless cream skin. In truth, I thought she was closer to eighty. Fae blood will do that.
“I’m wondering if you’ve heard anything about new people down in the tunnels?”
She pursed her lips.
“My friend, here, would love one of your chess sets, too,” I said with a smile.
“I would?”
I elbowed Jess in the ribs.
“She’s really taken with the local stone one,” I said.
Lucy smiled.
“I might have heard something. The tunnels are expansive. It’s hard to be sure.”
“Oh, I see what’s happening here,” Jess said brightly.
“I have a spare ticket to the red ball next month,” I said.
Balls weren’t really my scene, but they could be fantastic networking opportunities. I wasn’t particularly happy to give that ticket up, but we were dealing with an artifact that could end the Isles.
“Well, in that case I’ve heard quite a bit. Give me a couple of days to compile my information.”
Lucy was good people. She wouldn’t let me down. Thankfully, her mixed fae heritage gave her enough power to ignore most people threatening the underground, and she had no real allegiances to anyone. Her prices were just steeper than I usually liked to pay.
“Don’t forget your chess set,” she said brightly.
Jess picked up the elegant stone chess set, and I handed over the money for it.
“Why would I want this? I don’t play chess.”
“Give it to Rex.”
“He hates chess.”
“All the more reason to give it to him,” I said with a grin.
“What would I want with a set of stone figures on a stupid board?” Rex asked.
He growled when the knight stabbed him in the finger.
“Well, you’ve been such a sweetheart, I thought I’d give you something nice,” I said.
He poked at the knight and ignored me.
“Lucy knows something. She’ll get back to me in a couple of days. I had to pay her a ticket for the red ball, so it’d better be good information,” I said to Elijah.
The red ball was a fancy ball thrown for the elite of the underground. It was a place for those who owned and ran less-than-legal businesses to get together in couture clothing and forge future deals. It was very strictly invite only. I’d been invited for the last three years and gathered some solid contacts from it.
“You had a ticket to the red ball?”
“You didn’t?”
Elijah huffed, and I smirked. It seemed I was better than him.
“Anything new, Liam?” I asked.
“Not yet. There’s just too much space and no way to really get to it through tech.”
I wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t as though people posted about this stuff all over social media. There were downsides to having to keep everything hidden from the courts.
Sixteen
I hated waiting. The daytime wasn’t so bad when everyone was in full work focus. Rex had put the chess set away in a chest somewhere, Liam had been tapping away on his computer, and Castor had snuck out. The rest of us where trying to arrange meetings with our contacts. Still no one was talking.
Then the sun started to set, we ate dinner together, and the waiting really began. Elijah and Liam went over everything we could find about James’ house with me again and again. Elijah made sure that I had my phone on me, and a communication stone just in case the phone broke for some reason. Honestly, it was like he thought I’d never done this kind of thing before.
Bypassing James’ security wards was surprisingly easy. I’d expected a hundred layers of the finest money could buy, given how many enemies someone in his position would accumulate - not to mention the ones his personality would add to the list. The house itself was, or at least appeared to be, one of the classic English manor houses, a monument to the serf’s toil once occupied by human lords who had servants to do their pointing for them. These days, they tended to be occupied by sidhe grown fat from business and politics that they ran with a pridefully indifferent flair right at home among human feudalists. James was, if not exactly an anomaly, certainly not quite the breed of sidhe that would tend to fit here. His money came from screwing over people with enough money or talent to be worth taking advantage of but not enough political connections to return the favour.
In short, his lifestyle depended on people like me. Tonight would be the solution to the problem he’d tried to cause for me, but I had no doubt that there were plenty of wrongs being redressed along the way. Few would see his obituary as cause for sadness beyond those who relied on his services. Perhaps I could start up some sort of untraceable “Thank You” fund where people could send me gifts.
I approached the house already guised in shadow and made my entry through the front door, seeing no reason to make a spectacle of things. With his wards being what they were, it seemed unlikely that he was going to have a top-flight security system inside. I used my magic to check it for any electrical currents that might imply a technological alarm. It would have been very strange for a sidhe to rely on that kind of thing, but there was an oddness about him that meant I didn’t put anything past him. I found nothing, but the house itself was bursting with magic, as if he’d had every single object enchanted with nothing in particular. I couldn’t begin to figure out what it all did, not with only one night to look, but it was spectacular not least because of the wealth it must have taken to execute.
I opened the door slowly, scanning the room and finding it empty. The entryway was a classic show piece, two staircases coming together into one, all done in dark wood that looked delicately worn, probably enchanted to resist wear the moment it was just worn enough. The moon shone in through a massive skylight overhead. It had looked like I’d have the luck of a moonless night when I set out, but my luck didn’t hold. I wished I’d had the time to spend waiting for the new moon, but I didn’t, and the ever-clearer sky was what it was.
It was just enough to cast shadows, which would be a benefit if I needed to bypass something but would mean I couldn’t stay out of the light entirely. I could move between nearby shadows without touching the space between, and it was a gift that had given me a cheat code to becoming one of the most renowned thieves and assassins in the Fae Isles. It was, however, hard work, and in a situation with this little magical security it would have been nice to be able to just wrap myself in shadow and walk through like I owned the place.
I didn’t risk assuming that there were no hidden guards or cameras, however likely it seemed. If a tape of a humanoid shadow walking across a room made it to the outside world, getting caught killing one self-inflated sidhe would be the least of my worries, and a guard claiming to have witnessed the same wouldn’t be much better. I stepped from the shadow of a wooden column holding a balcony above me into another shadow cast by an ugly Ming vase near the base of the steps, which, if my eye was correct, was the real thing, ugly though it was.
I had several seconds to sit in that shadow and plan my next move before I took too deep a breath and realized that moving felt like pressing my skin through a webwork of knives. I looked down and saw no wound, no evidence of magic, no indication that anything was wrong at all beyond some of the worst pain I’d felt in my life continuing for precisely as long as the movement. Even wiggling my fingers left me with every reason to believe I’d look down to find them flayed to the bone.
The Mayan underworld was supposed to have a layer that was just obsidian knives all over the place. Kind of ironic, considering what I was taking time away from to deal with this little errand, but irony will only take you so far when taking a particularly deep breath is memento mor
i. I’d never seen anything like this, never read about anything like this. There was such a thing as undetectable magic, or at least magic that a witch of my abilities couldn’t detect, but this sort of torture trap was new. Leave it to James to make his security out of esoteric forms of suck.
I had room to move in the shadow of the big vase, which was something. The pain, if not the adrenaline reaction it provoked, also seemed to stop immediately if I was still, which meant I could take the time to think. I needed to see if this spell had boundaries, or if it was attached to me somehow. I’d have to abort if I couldn’t get away from it; there was no way I could continue to sneak, let alone kill effectively, with that kind of pain accompanying every motion. I’d be lucky to get across his yard to call someone without screaming my lungs out.
There was only one direction to go, and that was backwards. There was plenty of room to hide there, enough so that I could get myself completely out of the spot I’d been in and maybe out of the spell. I braced myself, reminded myself that the pain was only an illusion, shut out the voice reminding me that if it was an illusion my lack of wounds could be as well, and made a little leap backwards that left me nearly up against the wall. To my credit, I didn’t scream even though there was no part of my body that wasn’t completely certain it was being turned into spiral-cut ham. Unfortunately, the manoeuvre had done nothing more than give me a unique insight into that experience.
That ruled out close proximity to the vase, or to that spot behind the vase. If it was proximity, then, it had to be at least the three or so feet between me and the vase, but less than the roughly ten to the door. Unlikely. Since I hadn’t touched the floor on my way in, it could also be that, but if my pain-fragmented memory was correct, the spell had continued during my jump, so that eliminated that option. It wasn’t the doorway, because I’d reached through it when I opened the door. I knew there were more options, but I couldn’t come up with them as things stood, so I had no choice but to keep experimenting. With luck, I’d find the right thing to do. Without luck, enough repetition would give me enough experience with the pain to develop the tolerance needed to drag my fraying psyche back out of here.
