In Truth and Claw (A Mick Oberon Job #4)

by Ari Marmell

  Another shrug. “I tell you I don’t wanna go, I can just give you directions. You insist on me coming along, to make sure you find the place. I argue that I might wanna work with one of these people in the future. You demand I come anyway. There, I just saved us five minutes.”

  Well, he does know me pretty well. “Okay, but—”

  “I thought I’d at least try to make a solid first impression.”

  Nothin’ to say to that. I stood up, reached for my overcoat…

  Huh. Adalina’d been so excited and caught up in tellin’ Bianca about everything she’d seen in Elphame, she’d left her scarf. Musta missed it when she grabbed her coat. Well, I’d get it back to ’em later.

  And if you’re wondering whether her forgettin’ that was just coincidence or more of that weird Fae luck kickin’ in, for good or bad, well, so was I. I ain’t that big a bunny. But since I had no way to tell, I didn’t spend too much time worrying over it.

  “Okay, Franky, let’s—”

  “Uh, Mick.” He coughed once.

  Oh. Right. Deal’s a deal, and he had come through with something worth digging into. I dug a double sawbuck out of a billfold and handed it over.

  “This is… more than you promised.”

  “That musta hurt to admit.”

  “I do feel a little faint, yeah.”

  I chuckled, slipped on the coat, and double-checked my shoulder holster. Luchtaine & Goodfellow Model 1592, sittin’ right where it should. No reason it wouldn’t have been, but even with my precautions, I couldn’t be sure when and how that runnin’ bad luck would dry-gulch me. And if we were crashin’ Orsola’s party, I sure as hell wanted my wand with me.

  “The extra’s hazardous duty pay,” I told him.

  “Oh. Um. Can I give it back?”

  “Sure, if you want. You’re still comin’ with me, though.”

  “I knew you were gonna say that.”Franky sighed, then squared his shoulders. “All right. Let’s go aggravate some witches.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  So, what’re you expecting? Witches’ coven in black hoods, meeting out in the late autumn woods? Fallen leaves, twisted branches, maybe a full moon behind the racing clouds?

  Horsefeathers.

  This is still Chicago, modern city. Swanky suits and slinky dresses were the order of the day, and your average witch and warlock about town traveled by train or tin can, not by broom.

  (They actually never traveled by broom, but you get what I mean.)

  And whoever was throwin’ this soiree, Orsola or no, wasn’t too shy to go fancy. Table for ten at the College Inn might not break the bank, but it’d sure put a heavy beating on it. Place is supposed to be worth every dime, too. I almost wanted to try the chicken à la King myself, except for the whole bit about me not eating in your world.

  It wasn’t snowin’ your side of Chicago yet—autumn and winter were still slugging it out—but the wind was already a lot colder’n I like my milk. Newspapers chased leaves in short circles and around corners, while hems pressed against ankles and calves, maybe wishin’ they could join the game.

  Nowhere near cold or windy enough to keep you lot from your evening entertainments, though. Me’n Franky made our way down Randolph, exchangin’ nods and friendly how d’ya dos with plenty of other early nighttime goers. More’n a few were even headed for the same place we were—we were both a little underdressed, honestly, in our cheap suits, but not so bad we were likely to get the bum’s rush; just a few frosty sneers—and we just sorta got buffeted along with the small crowd constantly coming and going through the Sherman House doors.

  Yeah. The College Inn, which is a restaurant, is located inside the Sherman House, which is a hotel. Whaddaya want from me, it’s you lugs who name these things. If you don’t understand, how the hell am I supposed to?

  Anyway, Sherman House. Statuary and arches decorating the roof, white and red brickwork, all real ritzy, but what always gets me ain’t the style. It’s the size.

  Place is huge. I mean, I been around a while, and I spent a lot of my early years watchin’ humans living in towns smaller’n this. Well over a thousand guest rooms, banquet hall big enough for elephants to play hide-and-seek. I’m glad Nessumontu never saw anyplace like this when he was in town. All the trouble he’n his people went through to build their fancy tombs, this woulda given him insecurities.

  Woulda been fun to show Tsura, though.

  Between a couple thousand voices in hundreds of conversations, a few more ordering the staff this way and that, and the jazz slinking outta the College Inn, the din was enough to sour a guy on the whole notion of ears. Franky got my attention with some shouts and dramatic gestures, long enough for me to focus on him through the ruckus.

  Not that I was a real big fan of what he had to say.

  “Whaddaya mean ‘I’ll be waiting over there’?”

  “Look, Mick, if there’s any trouble, or you can’t find who you’re looking for, you just wave me on over. I won’t leave you in the lurch. But I’m not walking in there if I don’t absolutely have to.”

  It woulda been more effort than it was worth to argue with him. “You know what? Fine! See if I pay you extra again!”

  I didn’t bother to tell him that if he did run off and leave me, he’d better hope Orsola rubbed me out, or he’d be in a bad way. I didn’t have to.

  Also, it’d be insulting. Franky ain’t the most reliable mug, but he wouldn’t just outright abandon me like that.

  Probably.

  So he pushed through the arriving throng one way, and I went the other.

  And as big as the Sherman House is, and as packed as it was, it wasn’t really unlikely that I bumped into someone else I know. We were goin’ to the same place, after all.

  “Evening, Gina.”

  She stopped cold, dropping her fancy furs just before the coatroom attendant could close his mitts on them. Even from behind, I could see her steel herself before she turned my way.

  “Mr. Oberon.”

  She’d cut her hair in a short’n stylish bob since I’d last seen her, but other’n that and the evening getup, she was the same witch I remembered: a little sweeter’n was good for her, given the company she kept, and way too eager to learn secrets and lore she was better off without.

  “So,” I asked, mostly because she was goin’ almost stiff trying hard not to fidget, “how’s Bumpy?”

  She twisted around, almost panicked.

  “Relax, sister. Anyone around here who don’t already know you’re tied to a mob crew ain’t anybody who’s likely to care, either.”

  It’d be a gross exaggeration to say she relaxed any, but she at least stopped tryin’ to make like an owl.

  “You know Mr. Scola doesn’t like it when just anyone calls him that,” she said.

  “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  It all came out in a single sharp breath. “Why’reyouhere MisterOberon?” Guess she was afraid of the answer.

  “I think you know. And I think you should probably go home. Tell ’em you came over with a headache or something.”

  For a couple heartbeats, her eyes went near wide as Adalina’s and her fingertips trembled. And then she straightened.

  “No.”

  “Sorry, that was the deaf side of my head. Come again?”

  “I said no.” Any paler and she coulda vanished into a moonbeam, and she was gonna take half her lip clean off if she bit down any harder, but damn if she wasn’t really tryin’ to stare me down.

  It’d be a pretty big fib even for one of the Fae if I said I wasn’t impressed. Especially since she knew full well what I was, and that her magics wouldn’t like to much more’n tickle me.

  “You can’t just keep walking into my world and telling me what to do,” she went on. I think she mighta actually practiced for this. “We’ve worked together, and I don’t want to be enemies, but I’ve got my own studies and my own life, and—”

  “Gina. Stop.”

  She froze. Pro
bably toeing the edge of her courage right there. I coulda just gotten into her conk, told her to leave in a way she couldn’t refuse, but I didn’t care for that idea. I’d never disliked the girl, and she’d earned a little respect tonight.

  “This ain’t about you or your life, except that I’d rather see you hang onto it. I dunno exactly who you’re meeting here, but if it’s who I think it is, we got some seriously nasty beef between us. You really wanna be around when a real witch and me decide to settle our scores?”

  She bristled a bit at “real witch,” but she was no bunny. She knelt down to pick up her fallen fur coat, brushed it off, and made tracks.

  And if you’re thinkin’, Hey, Mick, ya boob, you coulda asked her who she was sittin’ down with, and why, well, congratulations. You got there a few seconds before I did. I was too busy patting myself on the back for gettin’ her gone without magic.

  Those few seconds were long enough for Gina to vanish into the crowd well enough that I’da wasted more time hunting her down than just sticking my schnozzle into the restaurant and seeing what I could see.

  Sometimes I wonder how I’ve lived this long.

  The College Inn was as nice a joint as you’d expect in the Sherman House. Sorta abstract ivy designs on the paneling and the ceiling, a whole array of fancy dishware displayed up on a ledge of molding, and of course tuxedo-wrapped waiters slipping between the tables, doin’ that weird “dignified scurry” that only the most swanky service staff can pull off. I could smell and even hear the roasting chickens and boiling lobsters and rising breads, and it probably woulda been real appetizing to anyone else.

  “How may I assist you, sir?”

  That’s somethin’ else the highfalutin’ waiters are real good at: Sneering at my clothes and generally tellin’ me I’m in the wrong joint without a bit of it actually leaking into their words or their expression. It’s a nifty trick.

  “Don’t worry about it, bo. I’m just meetin’ someone. They oughta be here already.”

  “Very good, sir,” by which he meant there was nothin’ good about it whatsoever. “Perhaps you’d be more comfortable if you left your coat with the attendant?” By which he meant Please at least drop off that worn and tattered piece of wrinkle before too many of the quality patrons have to suffer being subjected to it.

  “Nah.” I moved around him and started wandering around the edges of the main room, giving the whole place a good up-and-down.

  Nothing there, but I hadn’t figured there would be. Orsola— or whoever—probably woulda preferred a more private table in one of the smaller nooks.

  It was in the second of the side rooms where I found ’em, and it wasn’t Orsola Maldera who’d called this sit-down at all.

  Tricky as I knew it’d prove to deal with her in public, I kinda wished that it had been.

  I stared across the table, over the noggins of a half-dozen or so witches and warlocks, at the most gorgeous redhead I’d ever seen. Even after everything that’d happened, my pump skipped a beat or two. If I hadn’t spent so much effort shielding myself from her power—her presence—in the past, I’da felt she was here the instant I walked into the restaurant.

  “I gotta say, Ramona, you… ain’t who I was expecting.”

  She stood, runnin’ her hands down a deep-emerald silk number in a move unconsciously sensual enough to give a bishop apoplexy. “I could say the same, Mr. Oberon.”

  Mr. Oberon, huh? Chilly. I wondered if that was her playin’ to the audience, or ’cause of the way we’d left off.

  Me’n her hadn’t ended the mess with Nessumontu on real good terms, if you remember. The couple times we’d bumped into each other since hadn’t really given us the opportunity to make good, either.

  Assumin’ we even wanted to. I still wasn’t real sure what I wanted, much less what she did.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, never takin’ her blinkers off me, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to reschedule. I’ll be in touch. Don’t worry about the bill; I’ll handle it before I go.”

  A few muttered protests—nothin’ too serious, this lot seemed pretty keen on jumpin’ at her every command—and the table cleared out. She sat, sorta half-waved for me to do the same.

  “So, we doin’ this all formal-like, Miss Webb?”

  “I see no reason not to. I’m only casual with my friends.”

  Ouch.

  “I helped you kill a rival succubus who wanted to drag you back home to torture you!”

  “By using me as bait! And keeping me from doing my job!”

  “Oh, yeah, your ‘job.’ How is dear old Assistant State’s Attorney Baskin, anyway?”

  She caught herself before glancing around to make sure nobody heard, but I spotted the instinct nonetheless.

  “So, what’re you doin’ having a chin-wag with a whole gaggle of witches, anyway?”

  She leaned back, tapping a fingernail on the table, and kept her head closed.

  “All right. Wouldn’t be hard for you to convince ’em you had something to teach. You don’t, of course. Your magic’s innate, same as mine. Ain’t somethin’ you can pass on to a mortal, but you could put on a good enough show to make ’em think you were a witch like them. But that’s how, not why.”

  I gotta admit, I was enjoyin’ this a little, and I think maybe she was, too. The pair of us, we’d always been fond of watchin’ each other work.

  “Lookin’ for a loophole in your contract with Baskin? Nah,” I went on before she could answer, “you’ve got less than a decade to go on that. Wouldn’t be worth the hassle. And even if it was, you wouldn’t be lookin’ to these amateurs for a hand.”

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  No, she wasn’t here for herself. Didn’t track. For Baskin, then, but why? That bastard was always lookin’ to grow his collection of grimoires and mystical dinguses, but, again, he wasn’t gonna get anything worth a wooden nickel from these nobodies.

  Did he need help with some ritual? That was possible, but the fact that Gina was on the guest list made it unlikely. Pretty sure he’da made a point of avoiding anyone mobbed up or otherwise connected with…

  Hang on.

  “Oh, for the Dagda’s sake, Ramona! Are you frickin’ under cover for Baskin?”

  Still she said nada, but the tapping stopped.

  “You are! For the love of…”

  Wasn’t a coincidence Gina had been on the guest list. And I knew, if I looked into ’em, that at least a couple of the others would also be linked to an Outfit crew, or someone else in organized crime.

  Guess it made sense, in a twisted sorta way. If you got a handful of gangsters wise to magic, and you got your own pet Fae—or demon, dependin’ on who you believe—maybe it makes sense to try to get to ’em through their witches.

  You know what else it was, though? Unrelated to anything that had squat to do with me. My chair thumped against some mug eatin’ at the table behind me as I stood up, making him splash a spoonful of soup over his glad rags.

  “What about you, Mick?” Ramona asked, rising along with me. “Who were you looking for here?”

  Maybe it was brusque. Rude, even. But I was scrambled from bumping into her unexpectedly. I’d been braced for a fight all evening, and I was steamed that, after all this, I still wasn’t any closer to finding Orsola.

  So yeah, I was probably outta line when I answered with, “Work it out, Miss Webb. You just watched me do it, so I’m sure you can figure out how.”

  I was long gone before I let myself regret what I’d said.

  * * *

  Next day dawned just as chilly and windy and gray as the last one ended. Cloudy skies and flurries of old newspaper.

  I’d spent the whole night slouched at my desk, chugging milk, and staring at the filing cabinet. That’s the problem with needing to sleep so much less’n you mugs do: It means I sleep so much less’n you mugs do.

  Worrying over Adalina. Worrying over how I’d left things with Ramona, again. Worrying I wouldn’t find Orsola
. Worrying Áebinn would find me, since any mess big enough that she’d subject herself to your world wasn’t anythin’ I wanted to do with.

  Hell with this. I hadda get out, do something. And since I didn’t have any pressing cases, or anything more urgent to do for the couple days until it was time to go fetch Pete home, I tugged Adalina’s scarf off the coat rack and headed out to pay a call on Shark and family.

  By now, I’d taken this same route on the L enough times I’m surprised the benches didn’t know me by name. The usual background itch and buzz went to work in my conk as the train rumbled and groused its way along the track, a bit worse’n usual today.

  Lookin’ back, I think I was concentrating on it instead of trying to ignore it. Letting the pain come. Guess I was feelin’ low about how I’d handled my run-in with Ramona.

  Wandered off the train, wandered up Calumet. The wind was just right to give me a snootful of fumes from the passing flivvers, which was fine. Suited the mood. A few mechanical roars, the clop-clop and clatter-clatter of a horse-drawn milk wagon, a few more mechanical roars. Another day on another street in Chicago.

  I trudged past the same nobby redbrick homes, the same manicured lawns, all the usual. Swanky as houses can get while still being anonymous, or maybe as anonymous as they could get while still being swanky. All that appeals to the well-to-do and self-respecting mobster.

  Maybe it was just my mood, but I was kinda sick of the whole thing. I ankled up Fino’s block and actually gave some thought to flagging down the milk wagon comin’ my way, seeing if I could buy a bottle off the driver and…

  Wait. Another milk wagon on the same route? Less than ten minutes apart?

  No, not another. Took a hard minute of thinking back, since I hadn’t been payin’ anything much mind, but this was the same wagon. Same mottled nag pullin’ the contraption. Same scratches on the dirty white paint, same chips in the wheel.

  And now I was close enough, same odor of milk long-curdled, hidden from mortal senses by a cheap glamour, but not quite from mine.

  Every god damn it to every imaginable hell.

  Quick tug on the strings of fortune trailin’ from the folks passing by in their flivvers, not much from any one of ’em, gave me enough luck and magic to see through the illusion as well as smell through it. The horse was still a horse, the wagon was still a wagon. The driver, though, he was a hunched mass of leathery skin and gnarled muscle in a shabby suit and a hat the color of old blood.