Dervishes Don't Dance: A Paranormal Suspense Novel with a Touch of Romance (Valkyrie Bestiary Book 2)

by Kim McDougall

  “Because I don’t believe Cyril committed suicide, and I want your help finding the person who did this.”

  “Me? I’m not a detective.”

  “And you saw how much help they were. No, you aren’t Hub, but you have a different skill-set. You know the dark corners of this city, and the fae that lurk in them.”

  “You think a fae did this?”

  Mason leaned forward and examined his hands. They were covered in rock dust. Cyril dust.

  “I think it would take someone with inhuman strength to push a gargoyle off a roof.”

  “Or several someones with plain old human strength.”

  “Maybe. Or an alchemist with a clever gadget.”

  Well, that narrowed the suspect list down to everyone in the city.

  “Even if your theory is true, wouldn’t the Guardians have a better chance of finding the killer?”

  Mason said nothing. A siren blared somewhere in the city. Seconds passed.

  Finally I said, “You don’t trust the Guardians.”

  “I trust them with my life. It’s not that. The Guardians are the police in neighborhoods Hub doesn’t bother to protect. We could ask questions, but we won’t get the right answers. I need someone from the outside. Someone with connections to the fae world…”

  “…particularly the class two fae,” I finished for him. He nodded. Class two fae were often overlooked. They were small and could fit into tight spaces. And they knew things, like a vast spy network, if one knew how to tap into it.

  “Could you just ask around?” Mason said. “Maybe someone saw something. I’ll pay your daily rate, whatever that is.”

  I waved away that suggestion. “Let’s call it a barter for you helping me to find the dragons.” I wouldn’t take his money. Not for finding out who killed Cyril. “Can someone get me into Cyril’s apartment? I’d like to start there.”

  “I’ll ask Angus. He has the keys.”

  I nodded and rose, but Mason held me back with one warm hand on my arm.

  “I didn’t mean that I want you entirely out of my business.” He sighed. “Well, maybe I did at the time. But that doesn’t work for me. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  I turned to meet his gaze. He was so gods-damned gorgeous. Dark hair slightly messed, silver-gray eyes softened by the crinkles at the edges.

  He grabbed my hand and tugged me toward him. His face tilted up to gaze at me and the stray bit of moonlight lit his eyes. “I’m trying to wrap my head around this, but honestly, I’m a little rusty. I want you in my life. I just don’t know how. But I’ll figure it out if you give me time.”

  Time to a gargoyle could mean weeks, months or even years, but I nodded.

  “Just stop shutting me out. The rest will come.”

  “I’m going to try. That’s all I can promise.”

  That was good enough for me. He pulled me down to sit on his knee, and I wrapped my arms around him, my head resting on his shoulder. His magic rumbled through me, slow and steady like his heart. I could smell his skin, the scent of hot summer sun on sand. I thought of everything we’d been through already, and I knew I’d wait for him, no matter how long it took.

  Chapter

  7

  Protesters crowded the GenPort construction zone just east of Mercy bridge on the south end of the ward. I’d been called to the site to investigate a possible knocker infestation. A metal barrier separated the crowd from a temporary modular building. The GenPort logo—a stylized “G” with a lightning bolt serif—was freshly painted across one side of this new building. The old site headquarters hadn’t survived the snooker attack.

  In the five months since the ley-line rupture that produced the snooker, GenPort had reorganized, cleared the debris, and mourned the loss of its workers. Then they moved on with constructing the new railroad system. The warehouses around the site were being demolished to make way for the train station. Alchemic specialists had even siphoned off the magic overflow from the ruptured ley-line. That didn’t surprise me. A company like GenPort, with its vast resources, wouldn’t let such power go to waste. They’d harness it and use it to their advantage.

  The cleared-away site meant that little was left to remember that dreadful night when good people died. But certain citizens of Montreal weren’t ready to forget the fiasco. Protesters were permanently camped on the ground just outside the construction zone, and today their numbers had swelled as rumors circulated that Golovin was going to address a recent rash of accidents on site.

  The construction headquarters was deceptively small for the scope of the project. Most of the work went on underground. GenPort’s railroad was a revolutionary project. Not since the Flood Wars had two wards worked together on a joint endeavor. Soon, travel through the Inbetween would be fast and safe, at least between Montreal and Manhattan.

  Of course, no bold idea ever went unpunished. Change was hard. Especially in the post-war world.

  As I pushed through the crowd, I saw signs like “Terra will fight back!” and “Leave our ley-lines alone!” and “Build walls, not doors!” My favorite was “Magic is my right, not your profit!”

  I couldn’t blame them. History had proven that when people got too ambitious, Terra slapped them down with a firm hand. Expand the farming communities too far outside a ward and you could expect the forest to reclaim any newly cleared land within weeks. No one dug for fossil fuels anymore. The earth spirit simply caved in the mines or swallowed drilling rigs whole.

  Everyone expected the GenPort-Mansys operation to fail spectacularly. So far, they had succeeded in digging under the river and a few kilometers into the Inbetween, but lives had been lost. The snooker incident was only the most disastrous. Despite GenPort trying to lock down the site, stories leaked out. Small accidents plagued the work site. Tools went missing, vehicles wouldn’t start, vermin chewed through electrical wires, and crew members were constantly being treated for minor injuries.

  Terra worked in mysterious and subtle ways. At least that’s what the protesters wanted us to believe. I didn’t disagree.

  Reporters had set up cameras in front of an empty podium. An expectant hush fell over the crowd as they waited for Golovin’s morning briefing. I didn’t want to wait around to hear it. I could watch Golovin’s platitudes on the news feed later. With a full roster of jobs today, I needed to get inside the GenPort site, wrangle whatever critter they were complaining about and move on.

  I wasn’t that lucky. Just as I pushed through the press of people, the door to the GenPort office opened and Golovin stepped out. The crowd started shouting, “Terra rules!” and “Stop killing us!” and a dozen other claims that all melded into one incomprehensible roar.

  Golovin ignored the shouting crowd as he approached the podium. He smiled once for the cameras and then started to speak in a quiet reasoned voice, pitched for the dozens of microphones pointed at him. The protesters, realizing they would miss his speech, quieted. Golovin smiled again at their sudden attention but didn’t break his flow of words.

  “…we must continue to strive for excellence, for new connections. We are not solitary creatures and can only progress as a community, not as individuals. Soon our community will grow as we add a new connection to old allies in Manhattan. The benefits of such an alliance will be felt by all. New markets to sell our goods. New access to foods and technologies. Safe travel through the Inbetween…”

  I tuned out his privileged hype when I saw three figures emerging from the tunnel leading to the new rail system. Two of them were construction workers, dressed in overalls and hardhats. A giant walked between them.

  I squinted. Was that some kind of ogre? A troll? Robot? It stood on two legs and was man-shaped, but drawn in rough lines, as if a child had formed a man out of clay. It moved slowly with a lumbering gait. As it approached, I could make out its face, or at least, I could see where its face should
have been. It was a blank roundness with the vague impressions of eyes and nose. Something was tattooed into its forehead, but I was too far away to make it out.

  Gasps and shouts rang out in the crowd. A child started to cry.

  “At GenPort we hear your concerns. Revolution is dangerous. And building a rail system into the Inbetween is nothing if not revolutionary. Lives have been lost. People have been hurt. And we feel each of those wounds dearly. That’s why I’m proud to introduce you to GenPort’s newest crew member. This fully automated labor machine will speed up the construction and save lives. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Gencrew 80x.”

  He waved his arm backward in a flourish to point at the monster now lurking behind the podium. The crowd was dead silent.

  Oh, man. They really should have given that thing a face.

  The reporters recovered from their collective surprise, and fired a dozen questions at Golovin. I pushed through to the metal barrier and spoke to a guard, showing him my work permit.

  “I’m supposed to meet the supervisor, Debra Housing.” The guard allowed me through the gate and pointed at the opening to the tunnel.

  “Take the elevator down and ask for directions at the bottom.”

  I could do that.

  I left the crowd to decide the fate of our ward and headed into the tunnel. “Elevator” was a generous word for the metal box that hurtled me hundreds of feet into the earth, coming to an abrupt stop that rattled my teeth.

  At the bottom, I asked another crewman where I could find Debra Housing.

  “You here about the knockers?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He grunted. “Good. Can’t stand the racket anymore.”

  He looked me up and down.

  “Those steel-toed?” he pointed at my boots.

  “Yes.”

  “Hard hat’s mandatory from here on.” He grabbed one from a peg on the wall and jammed it on my head.

  “Housing is at the command center.” He pointed down the long dim tunnel. “You aren’t claustrophobic, are you? I don’t have time to come rescue you.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Good. Take the scooter. Straight on that way. You can’t miss it.” Then he jumped into the elevator cage and left me alone.

  The scooter was little more than two fat wheels with a footpad and a long handle, but it was fast and I zipped along at a good clip. The dark road was about as wide as the old metro tunnels. Lights were fixed to the ceiling at intervals, so that I rolled into and out of shadows. The first section was finished with a cement floor and tile walls, but these soon gave way to bare stone and steel supports.

  The scooter’s quiet hum and the crackle of gravel under the tires were the only sounds until I hit a dark section where the light was out. A loud clang echoed through the tunnel. I stopped, listening in the dark and now total silence.

  I scanned the shadows, but found no movement, not even the scuttle of rats. The dead air smelled faintly of fish and rotting vegetation. Overhead, the rough ceiling was bare, but I could imagine its weight pressing down on me. Tons of rock and above that, the St. Lawrence River.

  I’m not afraid of enclosed spaces. I couldn’t do my job if I was, but I had to take a deep breath to calm my nerves.

  Then something banged again, this time a staccato beat, like someone taking a wrench to a steel beam and tapping out a tune. The echo made it impossible to sense the sound’s origin.

  Most people think that knockers are mischievous gnome-like creatures who run through mines with tiny hardhats and pickaxes, causing trouble and taunting miners by banging on rocks.

  That’s not true. The reality is much worse. The good thing was that a true knocker infestation would give my sword a good workout and maybe quiet its whining for a while.

  I pushed the scooter into gear again and finished the trek through the increasingly rough tunnel until I came to a makeshift command center, a large room excavated from stone and finished in fresh white tiles. The tunnel continued into the dark at the other end of the room, and I could hear the distant rumble of machines at work. Another elevator shaft climbed into the ceiling which meant I’d passed under the river.

  The last reports had said that the tunnel now drove right under Hedge, the shanty town that surrounded the south gate. The plan was to dig underground for a few kilometers then surface in the Inbetween and continue the railway above ground, warding it with a series of Apex towers in the same fashion as the city. Residents of Hedge didn’t like this idea. Many had been displaced during the construction for fear of cave-ins. They’d protested, of course, but Hedge residents weren’t citizens of any ward, and they had no rights.

  Two workers stood near a table with a coffee urn and water cooler. The woman was small and wiry with a pale, hard face and lips pressed thin. Her coworker was a tall black man, easily twice her size, but she seemed to be the one calling the shots as they flipped through screens on a widget. They looked up as I parked my scooter and approached.

  “I’m Kyra Greene from Valkyrie Pest Control. I’m here about—” The banging cut off my words. Both workers winced at the noise. The man looked up at the ceiling with genuine fear in his eyes.

  “I’m here about that. Supposed to talk to Debra Housing.”

  “That’s me,” the woman said. “Can you find the creatures? We haven’t seen them once, but as you can hear, they’re very active.”

  “Knockers are bad luck,” the man said. “Real bad.”

  Housing frowned. “Can’t be sure they’re knockers. We left out some milk and cakes. They didn’t eat it.”

  “No, they wouldn’t.” I looked around. Other than the elevator and the refreshment table, a desk sat in one corner along with another table and a few chairs where workers probably rested and ate lunch. One of Gerard’s gencrew automatons stood inactive against the tiled wall, its faceless expression even creepier because it was so still. Several smaller tunnels branched off from this larger room. I let my keening out, but felt nothing other than cold stone.

  “So how do you catch them then? Traps?” Debra asked.

  “No. Can I ask, where did the cave-in happen?”

  Debra frowned. “The other side of the river. Why?”

  Well, that made no sense. I’d only heard the knockers near this end, but I had to ask, “Were the bodies all recovered?”

  “Every one.” She seemed annoyed by my prodding.

  “Have you found any other human remains during the excavation?”

  She squinted at me and crossed her arms over her chest, a sure sign that the next words out of her mouth would be a lie.

  “No.”

  “I’ll just have a look around then. See if I can find the source.”

  Housing pinched her lips.

  “You can’t just go poking around on an active site. It’s not safe.”

  I hiked my pack over my shoulder and turned toward my scooter.

  “I’ll be going then.”

  A clanging noise echoed around us. Housing and the man glanced up like the ceiling might fall in.

  “Fine!” Housing threw up her hands. “But you can’t wander around alone. Bones, escort her.”

  “Hey, boss, I’ve been here all night. I’m off.”

  “I don’t have time for this! At least show her how to take a genny.” Housing clamped her helmet on and stalked off down the largest tunnel.

  The man nodded at me. “Name’s Hank. Everyone just calls me Bones. Follow me.”

  He led me to the gencrew.

  “It’s voice activated, you see? Genny, on,” Bones said sharply. The automaton came awake, but without my keening, I wouldn’t have known because it didn’t move and had no expression to change. Standing close to it now, I could see the symbol carved into its forehead—the GenPort logo. It glowed with a faint pulsing light.

&n
bsp; “Bring this lady…what’s your name again?”

  “Kyra Greene,”

  “Right. It’s good to be precise with the gennys when you can,” Bones said. “Escort Kyra Greene. Stay with her until she’s finished her work, then escort her back here. Understood?”

  The genny nodded slowly.

  “Good.” Bones turned to me. “You need anything else, just ask it. If you run into trouble, it has a direct link back to Debra. Call for help.”

  “Thanks. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  Bones turned to leave, then paused as if wanting to say more. He looked down the access tunnel, then back at me and shrugged before heading to the elevator.

  Alone with the genny, I took a moment to study it. During my time in Asgard, I’d seen plenty of giants. As a pest controller, I’d dealt with all kinds of trolls, ogres and other oddities that lumbered out of the Laval floodplains when the magic was hot. This creature didn’t resemble any of those. It was something else entirely. Something unnatural. My best guess was that it was a golem, a homunculus, imbued with magic to animate it. But even that assessment seemed off.

  The creature stood well over seven feet tall and was made out of some kind of pliable putty. Bulky arms tapered to strangely delicate hands with fingers that looked quite nimble. The facelessness intrigued me. How did it see and hear? I let my magic wrap around it, tasting the life-force that burned from that glowing logo on its forehead.

  Its magic stank of death. It tasted of burned flesh and iron, like someone had left a steak cooking too long in a cast-iron pan. I thought of Angus with his dryad spirit locked in stone and my stomach soured.

  I looked back. Bones had already gone up the elevator. I was alone with the golem.

  “Lead the way.” I stepped aside, letting the genny lumber into the access tunnel so I could keep my eye on it.

  Critter wrangler rule number five: Just because something smells dead, doesn’t mean it can’t kill you.