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

by Ari Marmell

  “You must!” She leaned toward me, almost lunged, far as her slump allowed. Her torso actually aimed itself at me from between her knees in a sharp bend not many humans coulda pulled off. Fear poured from her aura in a slow eruption, layers of the stuff flowin’ over the sides of the bed and fillin’ the room until I could barely breathe. “And before she comes into her full strength! I’ve no idea what you think you can accomplish, Oberon. What play you’re making, or what revenge you seek against the Seelie Court for wronging you, but I know you’re no fool! You must know you cannot control this, the calamity you’re courting! You—”

  “ For the gods’ sake, what’re you talking about?”

  Áebinn froze, her kisser hangin’ loose. Someone pounded on the neighboring wall, shoutin’ at us to keep it down, didn’t we know what time it was, people were tryin’ to sleep here!

  “You don’t know.”She straightened up, stiff as the headboard she leaned against. “No scheme, no plans, you truly don’t… All the time you’ve spent with her, how could you not know?”

  And I gotta tell you, I wondered that myself. I’d been wonderin’, since Adalina woke up, that naggin’ little yammer in the back of my mind, reminding me over’n over that I was missin’ something. Something big.

  “I dunno,” I said. “How’s about you spill already, and then we can suss it out.”

  “Mick…” Jesus, had she ever called me Mick before? “Adalina, she…”

  Áebinn gasped once, lightly, as if she’d just remembered someone’s birthday or held a burnin’ match a second too long. “I guess,” she whispered, “I’m not ‘truly fortunate’ today.”

  Just like that, she died.

  The empty sockets in her skull, those pools of darkness deeper’n they had any right to be, grew. Wider and wider, overlapping, expanding, consuming Áebinn’s face, her entire skull. Then they fell, working downward, neck, shoulders, chest, and onward.

  Then there was nothin’ left, nothin’ but a few splotches of inky fluid staining the quilts and the last fading echoes of a distant keening.

  Can’t say I was real sorry, but frustrated? That I’ll confess.

  And more’n a little suspicious. Yes, she was already dying. Yes, she’d said she probably only had minutes. But that exact moment? Right before she was gonna put me wise to Adalina’s great mystery?

  I dunno. That confused and innocent little girl’d gone toe-to-toe with a bean sidhe and a handful of vampires, and she’d mopped the floor with ’em. And she’d made sure the neighbors either didn’t hear, or at least didn’t notice, a thing. That, plus all the power Áebinn felt when she kicked off this whole disaster?

  Made me wonder, anyway.

  I went into the next room—Celia’s and Adalina’s—and collected some clean pillows and blankets. Figured I’d make the two ladies comfortable as possible for when they woke up. Then I went and scoured the place for Adalina’s supposed note.

  I actually found a couple, tacked to a cabinet in the kitchen, stapled there by a butter knife embedded in the wood. One for her family, which I didn’t read, and one for me. It…

  Look, a lot of it was personal. I ain’t repeating it for you. But I’ll give you the gist.

  She was scared, had been even before tonight’s events. The violent dreams had only gotten nastier—and worse, she finally admitted what she hadn’t, or couldn’t, that day we spoke in my office: She’d started to enjoy the violence, look forward to the nightmares, the bloodier the better.

  Now that she knew what she was capable of, she couldn’t stay. Couldn’t risk puttin’ what was left of her family at risk.

  And she hadn’t come to me because… She couldn’t trust me anymore. She assured me she knew I’d meant well, but after keepin’ Orsola a secret, she just didn’t believe I’d always be willin’ to tell her what she felt she needed, was entitled, to know.

  That hurt. In part because I knew damn well she wasn’t wrong.

  She told me not to try to find her. That she’d just run again if I did. And to tell her momma and her sister she loved them.

  I carefully worked the knife from the cabinet, folded the note and slid it into a mud-stiffened pocket. Then I went back and planted myself on the bed, opposite where Áebinn had sat.

  And I waited.

  Bianca and Celia Ottati were gonna wake up sooner or later. They were gonna have a lot of questions. They deserved answers, even more’n I did. I wanted to be here to provide the ones I could.

  Especially since I didn’t know if they’d ever welcome seein’ me again after tonight.

  Or, for that matter, how much I’d even be around, after tonight.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  You might recall me mentioning that I’d had a hunch I was gonna need a good amount of dough soon, yeah? That’s why I’d taken the job from the department, the one that led me to the rabid watermelon and… other stuff.

  Turns out I was right. Those instincts usually are. Problem was, I really hadn’t made much. So what little I had, was gonna hafta cut it.

  Took me a spell to arrange everything, and the city didn’t stand still during that time.

  The murders stopped, of course, but since nobody’d been sent up river for ’em, the news rags continued to have a field day. Was the killer still out there? Would he strike again? Was anyone safe? Be sure to buy the next issue to keep up with the latest!

  The Field Museum closed down a few exhibits for “renovation.” When they reopened ’em after a couple days, there stood the Tsavo Man-Eaters, lookin’ as artificially ferocious as ever. Fakes, almost certainly. Ain’t as if the place was gonna admit to the loss of a famous exhibit, especially not after the break-ins last year.

  But hell, what do I know? Maybe they somehow got their hands on the real pelts, stitched ’em back up and stuck ’em on new frames. I don’t see how, but weirder things happen in this town. Maybe if I got real curious someday, I’d go take a good, close slant at ’em and see if I could tell.

  Right now, though, I didn’t figure I’d ever wanna see ’em again.

  Fino Ottati’s funeral—well, memorial, since they had no body—was a big, elaborate affair. Catholic ceremony as thrown by the rich and the criminal; ornate and maudlin vyin’ for supremacy. Probably a good fifteen, twenty percent of the Windy City mobsters were present, which made for a lot more guns than you find in your average cathedral or cemetery. Suppose things coulda gone bad, but if any of Fino’s rivals showed, they didn’t pick any fights.

  I wasn’t invited, and dunno if I woulda gone if I had been.

  Assistant State’s Attorney Daniel Baskin also held a funeral, a much smaller and more private affair, for his “administrative assistant,” Ramona Webb, who the police had reported as the latest—and so far last—victim of the murderer hunting Chicago’s streets. I dunno exactly what Baskin told ’em, or how he handled the arrangements, or even what invocations he mighta dug up, but there was nothin’ in any of the reports about the body havin’ wings or horns.

  I wasn’t invited, and I absolutely wouldn’t have gone if I had been.

  My grief, more’n anything else about me, is my own.

  I hadn’t traded a single word with Bianca or Celia Ottati after that night. I didn’t know if I ever would.

  Pete woulda been happier, I think, if I coulda said the same about him. But he’s a standup guy, Pete Staten. He wasn’t gonna let his beef with me hurt anyone else, and the full moon rolled around again on its usual schedule, without concern for his feelings or mine. He let me take him Sideways, and he let me bring him home again. But that was all. He never spoke about what’d happened, what I’d done. And it didn’t take tasting his emotions in the air to recognize that he wouldn’t welcome it if I brought it up, either.

  Made a brief stop myself, while I was in Elphame, and I didn’t even hafta shout or get anyone (or myself) in dutch to do it.

  Servant showed me around to that same secret entrance, dumped me in the same sitting room, offered me a glass of the
same, or at least similar, beverages. I think I waited for maybe two hours before Her Royal Majesty and Police Chief Laurelline showed up.

  “I have a dozen appointments after this, Oberon,” she announced, breezin’ into the room on a gust of arrogant diligence. “So whatever you’ve got to report, make it snappy.”

  “Áebinn’s dead.”

  It ain’t much fun when the full weight and attention of somethin’ as old as I am suddenly falls over you like a thousand pounds of burlap. Never once lookin’ away, she backed to the door, called somethin’ about canceling her next guest, and then dropped hard into the seat across from me.

  “If this is your idea of a prank…” she began. Not that she believed it for an instant.

  “You know me better’n that. I ain’t that big of a louse.”

  “No. No, you’re not.” She reached for a drink of her own. “What happened?”

  All right, this was gonna take some doin’. Even for me, it’s tough to mislead another Fae, at least one this ancient and powerful. I hadda pick every word like it had poisoned thorns.

  “We identified the source of the magics she’d been sensin’. The call that was attractin’ the vampires. It won’t be a problem any longer, but I’m afraid Áebinn… didn’t make it through the final dust-up.”

  Well, technically, not a word of that was false, right?

  “The necromancer was some mortal,” I continued, not wantin’ to make her ask, to make this part of the recital stand out in any way. “Came across some old magics and extrapolated the rest. He’s gone, and the secret of manipulating the vampire spirits lost with him.”

  And there it was. The one genuine fib in all the prevarication and half-truths. I’d rather’ve just left it out, but she was gonna ask who was behind the whole thing, and I hadda give her somethin’, see?

  I sat, concentratin’ and tryin’ not to look like I was concentratin’, while she watched me around her nectar-filled glass.

  “You’re not telling me everything, Oberon,” she said finally.

  Shit. “Ain’t I?”

  “Do not take me for a fool. And do not make an enemy of me. What are you trying to hide from me?”

  Okay, so she’d picked up on the deception, but not the detail. I could still handle this.

  If every. Single. Word. Came out right.

  “Look, Laur—your Majesty. Áebinn got even more obsessed toward the end there. Whatever it was about this case, she fell into it, head-first. She made some bad mistakes, and to be square with you, she got herself killed because of ’em. Word of her behavior gets out, it’s gonna reflect badly on the Court at best, maybe cause you some legal problems or spark some vendettas over her past investigations. It ain’t gonna do you, me, or anyone else any good for me to spill the details.”

  Again, all fact. One way or another.

  “And if I ordered you to ‘spill the details’? Would you defy me?”

  I kept my trap shut, and willed her to taste the truth of what I’d said.

  “Very well. Thank you for your assistance, and your… discretion. I clearly have arrangements and announcements to make. Someone will show you out.”

  Took a lot, but I kept my relief in check—didn’t need anyone tasting it spillin’ off me and askin’ fool questions—until I got back to my office.

  Anyway, that was one full moon with Pete taken care of. I wouldn’t be here for the next, though, maybe not for quite a few of ’em. A thick stack of what little money I had went to Franky, along with a key to my joint. He understood what was at stake if he didn’t keep to the schedule, use my nook to get Pete to Elphame every month. He didn’t come out and say he’d probably use my office as a place to bunk while he was at it, but it was understood.

  Had myself a tearful farewell—his waterworks, not mine— with Mr. Soucek, too. Told him Franky and Pete were okay, that he shouldn’t worry if he saw ’em using the office. He asked me when I was comin’ back. I said I wasn’t sure.

  He didn’t ask me if I was comin’ back. I’da told him the same if he had.

  I mean, I meant to. But it all depended, didn’t it?

  So finally, when I was sure Adalina hadn’t left me any trail I could follow, and when all the arrangements were made, I packed up a few outfits, my wand, my sword, and my one remaining flogger.

  A bag of salt, and a few other charms, so I could continue holdin’ the effects of Orsola’s damn hex at bay.

  And one more little dingus, too.

  Stuck a sign on my office door. Said we were temporarily closed for business, gave the address of a few other PIs I knew to be halfway decent, as detectives and as people. And then I left.

  * * *

  Normally the amount of kale I had left wouldn’t have been enough to buy me a berth.

  But most people don’t have the, uh, hagglin’ skills that I do.

  So I half-bought, half-mesmerized my way into a ticket on the American Line, Trans-Atlantic travel with all the luxuries you could want. I don’t remember which particular ship, but then again, I didn’t see much of the ship.

  I mean, the engines, the pumps, the radio… And while the ship itself and most of the machines are steel, there’s a fair share of raw iron, too. I spent a few days sick in my cabin, talkin’ to absolutely nobody except the servers when they brought me the milk I ordered.

  Part of me actually welcomed the discomfort. I was gonna have a long trip to dwell on all that’d happened, and I wanted to postpone that long as I could.

  I don’t like losing. And, end of the day, I sorta had. Adalina was gone. People I’d cared about had died or turned their backs. Orsola’d gotten away, gods damn her. I hadda live with all that. So yeah, even if it was ’cause my head’n my guts were on fire, I welcomed an excuse to put off thinkin’ on it for a few days.

  Woulda been faster to fly, but it woulda hurt a whole lot more. More to the point, I still wasn’t sure why I’d been havin’ more “episodes” recently, and the last thing I wanted was to lose control and start gummin’ up the works a couple miles in the air, savvy?

  Then…

  Look, there was a lotta travel. Ship. Trains. Coaches. And a mess of walking.

  Most of it was here, on your side, not in Elphame. I mighta found parts of the journey easier if I’d stepped Sideways first, but I got history with the Courts of the Old World. Hundred times what I got here. And I did not wanna get dragged back into any of it, or let ’em learn I was visiting.

  I was here to see exactly one person, and the rest could go jump.

  As it was, I barely made it. I was flat broke by the time I crossed the border into the Soviet Union. Hadn’t the slightest idea how I was gonna get home, but I’d worry about it later.

  And no, gettin’ into Russian territory ain’t the easiest thing, even for me. But this ain’t that story. I got in; that’ll do.

  I walked more. Hopped another train here, begged a ride on a cart there, but mostly, for days and days, I walked.

  The ground got higher, the air thinner and a whole lot colder, the quaint little villages more’n more sporadic. Temperature doesn’t bother me much, not in your world, but I was still wishin’ I had heavier clothes.

  The snow fell lightly during the day, heavier at night. Trudging through it, breaking trail when it was up to my calves, sometimes my knees, started to wear even me out. But I went on, ’cause I sure as hell had no choice anymore.

  I told you this story would end in the snow. Specifically the snow of northern Ukraine, near the borders with Russia and Belarus.

  The snow, and the woods.

  I coulda used magic, drawn on the ambient luck to increase my chances, so I wasn’t just stumbling blindly through the general vicinity hopin’ to get lucky. I never bothered. I wasn’t sure it’d work, not in this place.

  And I wasn’t sure the effort, or the manipulation of these particular tides of fortune, would be appreciated.

  This doesn’t happen to me, ever, but I lost track of how long I wandered those dark
forests. Weeks, I’m sure. In the dark shadows of the bare branches, reaching out to scratch my soul when I wasn’t lookin’, and beneath the cloud-shrouded stars and moon, which seemed a lot closer here than they ever did in Chicago, I wandered. It seemed that I never heard a single bird, or the howl of even one wolf. I thought I had, more’n once, off in the distance. But every time I stopped to listen, it had only ever been the wind.

  I was cold. I was tired.

  I was also scared, which was how I figured I was close to the right place.

  I hadn’t wanted to come here. I near talked myself out of it a couple dozen times. And I wasn’t sure which idea scared me worse, that I wouldn’t find what I was lookin’ for, or that I would.

  And then, one day, I did.

  Did I finally stumble on it? Or did it finally decide to let me in? In this place, either was just as probable.

  Cold and wonderin’ if it was possible for the aes sidhe to shiver—I’d never done it, but I felt I oughta—I pushed through a barrier of bare, crackling branches, and I saw it. I was above, on the slope of a shallow knoll. Stretched out below was a round clearing, free of trees, and mostly free of snow. That grass was mostly brown and dormant, but a few patches of color—green, mostly, but a few reddish blossoms here’n there—broke the monotony.

  At the far side of the clearing stood the hut.

  It was an old thing, sporadically patched with newer timber, its thatched roof round and peculiarly pointed. A tin chimney stuck up on one end, exhaling small puffs of smoke…

  Like Ramona’s Old Golds, my brain wanted to say. I whipped and kicked the thought until it ran away to hide.

  The door stood open, but from here, thanks to the angle and the lighting, I couldn’t see much inside.

  I could see what was right outside, though. What looked at first to be a massive cauldron was actually a giant mortar, smelted of black iron. So was the pestle that rested within. I knew I was gonna have to make a pretty broad circle around those instruments of torture.