Advanced Mythology

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “How do you know he’s not going to magic himself out of here,” Vasques asked sourly.

  “Wouldn’t he have done it?” Beach argued. “He may know a few fancy tricks, but there’s got to be plenty more powerful spells out there. Look at him. He’s a boy. Who’d trust him with the whole grimoire, eh? We want more than spells; we want tools. The lantern and the other artifacts are toys. You can be sure there are weapons.”

  A low tapping on the door interrupted them. Wyszinski stood to the side and opened the door a crack. “Yeah, Miller?”

  “Clean-up staff’s coming,” the operative whispered. “We’re going to have to get out.”

  Wyszinski relayed the information to his employer, who frowned. “I thought you said we could have this room for a few days.”

  The burlier half of VW shrugged. “He said he couldn’t promise. At least he’s giving us a warning. We don’t want the cops.”

  Beach drummed his fingertips on his thigh. “We’ll have to take the boy back to the hotel. We don’t want to attract attention. Get Miller to distract them. We need five minutes.” Wyszinski nodded and sidled back to the door.

  * * *

  At the other end of the gloomy room, Keith lolled in the chair, trying to ease the cramp between his shoulder blades. He watched the bad guys huddle and whisper, his heart sinking. Whatever Beach and his friends were up to, he knew he wouldn’t like it. He wished he could hear what they were saying.

  His head hurt. Beach had been relentless, coming at him time and again, in different ways, but always with the same questions. He sounded pleasantly reasonable: all Keith had to do was tell him where he learned to do magic, and who was making what he called “the artifacts,” and he could go home. When Keith refused to answer they roughed him up, hitting him or twisting his fingers or ears. The air was freezing, but they’d taken away his coat and hat. They ate carryout Chinese food in front of him, not giving him so much as a noodle. He didn’t like it, but he could take it. For now.

  Worry ate away at his insides, gnawing at his empty stomach. If he didn’t give them information willingly, sooner or later they were going to try drugs or serious torture, and he’d be spilling everything he knew about the Little Folk. Suddenly his bright idea of having the elves sell handcrafts to support themselves was backfiring all over the place. Why did it never occur to him that somebody might figure out the toys and things were magical? Why didn’t he think that somebody might want to learn how to do it for themselves, the way he had? Keith didn’t think this Beach character wanted to learn charms and enhancements for the purpose of recharging his car battery. No, he was all set to abuse it in some bid for world power, or something else underhanded and international-spyish. Thank heaven Keith hadn’t gone all the way with his plans for a Hollow Tree website. Beach would have been able to find not only the lantern, but every other gizmo the elves made.

  Keith steeled himself. He had to keep silent, no matter what they did to him. If they tried to force him to talk … Keith gulped. The elves trusted him. He might have to make the ultimate sacrifice to keep them from harm. Tied up like this there was only one weapon at his disposal, his homemade fire charm. He dreaded how his parents would feel claiming a charred body at the morgue, but at least he could take the bad guys with him. The elves would be able to live without fear. He only wished he could tell them why. And Diane. Oh, God, he was never going to see her again!

  His ears perked up as he caught the edge of a whisper. Keith thought Beach said something about going home, but sudden voices passing by outside the door drowned out the rest of the sentence. People! He hadn’t heard other people in hours. No one was near enough to cover his mouth this time! He took a deep breath to yell for help.

  “Psst! Red-crested land man!”

  The air rushed out of Keith like a balloon deflating. The voice sounded as though it was coming from inside the room.

  “Psst!”

  Very slowly, he turned his head to see who was speaking. Over his shoulder he saw a human figure at the rear of the room. He jumped, then realized it was only a set of coveralls on a hook. No one was there. Had the knockout drops the black-eye-browed man given him affected his brain?

  A rustle from the other end of the room distracted him. Keith hunkered down in the chair as Beach approached him again. The tall man pulled a gun out of his pocket and shoved the barrel against Keith’s chest.

  “We’re going to move now. Since you know the drill from all your movie-watching, I don’t have to tell you that it would be a bad idea to try and give us the slip.” He nodded to one of the men, who bent to untie Keith’s legs.

  Tingles shot into his feet as blood returned. It took a few tries before Keith could stand up on them. Stefan set his coat over his shoulders and the hat on his head. Keith huddled into the coat, grateful for the warmth, but it felt too light. He jogged the garment on his shoulders. No jingle.

  “Are you looking for these?” Beach asked, holding up his telephone and keys. He kicked aside a section of the floor grate and dropped them. Keith heard them clatter against concrete. He tried to dive for them, but the gun barrel prevented him. “Whoops! Clumsy me. Now, move it.”

  * * *

  Keith blinked at the acid-bright lights. His eyes focused in the new light to see row upon row of fat concrete pillars painted red and tarmac striped with yellow lines and blotched with oval stains. They were in a parking garage, echoingly empty because of the lateness of the hour. Two more men in blue and green down bomber jackets moved in close to the group and nodded. In the harsh fluorescent light all their faces were drawn and worn. They looked as tired as Keith felt. Beach nudged Keith in the shoulder blade, and they edged away from the black-painted metal door.

  They trudged along the cold pavement, stepping over the occasional floor grille. Now he knew they were drainage channels to funnel away rainwater and melted snow that came into the building on car tires. The garage was divided into sections containing five or six rows each. Keith kept his eyes open for a place to hide, should he be able to get away from Beach and the gun.

  “I hear my spirits,” Maria said suddenly. “There is power here.”

  “I’ve heard this place is haunted,” said the man in the green bomber jacket, kicking the wall painted with the words “Row N” as they went by, “like the garage where they had the St. Valentine’s Day massacre.”

  “Shut up,” Beach said, biting off the words with his teeth. They walked past rows P through W. “This building can’t be more than thirty years old. It hasn’t had time to accumulate ghosts.”

  “I know,” said the blue bomber jacket, a man in his early forties with an acne-pitted complexion and curly, greasy hair, “but we’re going after pixie dust stuff. We might trip over something that wouldn’t bother anyone else.”

  “Such as?” Beach asked in a tone that did not invite a reply.

  Blue bomber didn’t reply. With a look of deep horror on his face, he pointed toward the far wall. Keith followed the line of the finger and stared. The figure of a woman floated weightlessly toward them. Translucent, sea-green garments fluttered around a slender-boned body, and waves of long, russet-brown hair flowed over her shoulders, framing long, slim neck and a narrow, huge-eyed face the deathly color of sea-foam. Her pale, narrow feet were bare as they seemed to float slightly above the soiled pavement. She raised a long-fingered hand and pointed unsmilingly at the advancing group. Keith had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. A ripple of delight ran through his body.

  Beach’s men reacted rather more negatively. Maria dropped to her knees, clutching her pendulum. Three of the men froze. Stefan let out a howl of fear and raced away.

  “Come back here!” his employer howled, then exclaimed, “What in ’ell?”

  The gun barrel dropped away from Keith’s shoulder. He glanced back. Beach had fallen to the ground, his foot caught in an open grate. He lay on his back, waving the gun in the air. Keith wasn’t about to waste the opportunity. He ducked behind
the nearest pillar.

  Ping! A bullet hit the wall not far from his head. Keith dropped into a crouch, but started running for the next pillar anyhow. His coat billowed out behind him like a cape.

  “Psst! Red-poll! Here!”

  A pale hand beckoned from beyond the last wall. Beach was scrambling to his feet now. With his heart pounding in his throat, Keith ran toward the hand. He ducked around the corner as another bullet sang by.

  The hand grabbed his arm and pulled him against the inside surface of the wall. The owner of the hand, a black-haired male with the same greenish-pale skin as the female spectre, held his fingertip to his lips.

  “This way! There is no time!” The male pointed to an open grate in the floor. “Down there.”

  Keith threw a glance over his shoulder. The others had snapped out of their trance and were shouting. Without hesitation, he jumped through the opening. He landed in a shallow concrete trough about half his height and rolled out of the way. He landed on his side, struggling to get upright without the help of his hands. The space he was in was just the width of his shoulders. The male came behind him, hefting the grate quietly into place just half a second before footsteps thundered overhead. His eyes seemed to glow in the dimness as he repeated the gesture of touching his forefinger to his lips.

  “Where did they go?” Beach shouted.

  “He’s disappeared!” one of the men yelled.

  “How? He can’t turn invisible! He’s wearing handcuffs! He must be behind one of these pillars. There’s only a few staircases and the vehicle exit. Don’t let him escape!”

  “Who…?” Keith began, as his rescuer moved closer to him. He expected the figure to shimmer right through his body and disappear. Instead, the male flipped aside the folds of Keith’s coat to look at his hands and made a tut-tut noise. “You’re solid,” Keith said.

  “Shh!” his rescuer hissed, planting a long, cool, and slightly clammy hand over Keith’s mouth. “Wait. The guards are coming.” The two of them crouched as low in the pipe as they could as the sound of an engine rumbled toward them. Through the grate Keith spotted a revolving blue light. A shadow stopped directly over them, belching diesel smoke. Keith shoved his mouth and nose down against the fabric of his collar to filter out the irritating fumes.

  An irate voice shouted, “What are you people doing down here?”

  “Sorry, officer!” called Beach’s voice, smooth in the face of authority. “We couldn’t remember where we parked.”

  “Hop in,” said the security guard. “I’ll help you find it.”

  “That’s not necessary.…”

  “Hop in.”

  The van sagged noisily as Beach, his four henchmen, and the spooky lady climbed in. Not until it chugged away, letting light in through the grate, did Keith dare to raise his face. The newcomer studied him, and Keith returned the honest scrutiny. His rescuer was tall, his long legs folded up in the narrow space, but very slender. A fillet of worked gold sat on his thick, dark hair, and jewels decorated the tight gold bands around his wrists. His skin was moonlight pale with an undertone of green that showed in the hollows of his sharp cheekbones and pointed chin. His eyes were a dark, mysterious green that made Keith think of deep sea and deep forests. On either side of his beautiful face were tall, pointed ears even more elegant than the elves’, and he never imagined such a thing was possible.

  “I cannot undo your bonds,” the being said. “We must wait for my lady.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for rescuing me. My name is Keith Doyle.”

  The male smiled, no, grinned. It changed his face from austere to approachable. “That’s a name that’d be familiar in either place we’ve lived.”

  A gentle rasping sound and a rattle surprised Keith so much he jumped, knocking his head on the grate above him.

  “Your pardon,” a soft voice said. Unable to turn around, he glanced back. The female had come up behind them. She set down a cardboard box full of loose metal. “I will try to find a key to undo these bonds. You would not be surprised how many keys people lose in the water. Garbage forever raining down on our home.…” She clicked her tongue.

  “What … who are you?” Keith asked, finding his voice at last.

  “We are the sidhe,” the female said, trying one small key after another in the cuff lock.

  “Really? Cool! I’m giving a party in May at the home of some friends of mine. They’re … Little People. They come from Ireland, too.”

  “Sh! We know. You are just as you’re described on the advertisement,” the male said. “We saw you today on Navy Pier, but you were walking in a dream. Then those men took you. We were going to speak to you. We plan to attend.”

  “Oh? Oh!” Keith said, his fear abated by enthusiasm. “That’s great. My friends will be thrilled. I mean, I’m thrilled, too. So you could read the invitation? Does that mean you come from the same lineage as them? You’re related? They kind of look like you, with the ears, but they’re shorter than me, about two-thirds of my height.” He tried to give a more coherent explanation, but the male continued to look puzzled.

  Keith heard a snick! and his right hand began to tingle. “There, that worked!” the female said. A second click, and the nerves in his left hand screamed as blood raced back into the tissues. Keith brought his tortured extremities around in front of him under the shelter of the coat and began to rub life into them.

  “Wow, that’s better,” Keith said. “Wait, I know how I can show you my friends.” As soon as his fingers could grip, he reached for his wallet.

  In the flap underneath a photo of Diane he kept pictures of his family. Among them he knew there was a shot of Holl and himself from his overseas vacation in Ireland. With a crow of triumph he picked it out and gave it to the male. Holl and he were standing in the middle of the Callanish stone circle. Keith worried for a moment that Beach had seen the photo when he’d gone through his pockets, but Holl’s ears were hidden by the baseball cap he always wore when he was out in public. Anybody could see the difference in their height, but someone who didn’t know better would think the blond kid was human.

  The male smiled and handed the picture to the female, who studied it and gave it back to Keith. “We are not the same. We are of the First People. We learned their tongue when we knew your friends of old, they or their ancestors. They are the Second People.”

  “Like me?”

  “Your race came third.”

  “Oh,” Keith said sadly. “No relation at all, huh?”

  “We are all related,” the woman said, more kindly than the male. “Some closer than others. My name is Liri. He is Rily.”

  “I’m honored,” Keith said.

  “And I believe these are yours,” Liri said. On one long palm she held his small telephone and his ring of keys.

  “Thanks,” Keith said, relieved, as he tucked his property into his side pocket. He was startled to see that her fingers had shallow webs between the third phalanges.

  “I really appreciate your helping out a … Third Person.”

  “You’re a friend to us, or at least not an enemy,” Rily said, drawing his fine brows down toward his thin nose. “The subtlety is important.”

  “I know. I follow Chicago politics. But I hope you’ll come to think of me as a friend.”

  Liri touched Keith gently on the shoulder. “You were pinioned a long time. Can you crawl? Security is on patrol. I do not think you wish to be found.”

  “You’re right about that,” Keith said. He followed his new friends on hands and knees through a maze of troughs until they came to a metal grate. Rily grasped it with one hand and set it aside to let the others through. Keith poked at it curiously as he passed it. The grille had to weigh fifty or sixty pounds, but the sidhe had picked it up with one hand. He was impressed.

  The pipe was enclosed on the top outside the garage walls, cutting off the light. His invisible whiskers detected a wall a few inches from the side of his head. He put one hand on the rough concrete sur
face to guide him. Soon the conduit expanded to a height in which the three of them could walk upright. Rily helped Keith stand. Keith stretched his cramped muscles, letting his hands brush against the rough ceiling. His back eased, and he sighed with pleasure. They walked for a long distance in the darkness, until a small, distant light came into view. Soon he could see what they were headed toward: another grille. The slope of the tunnel dipped sharply. Keith found himself trudging through two or three inches of hardening slush. Rily opened the grating far enough for them to slip through. Keith noticed that their lovely clothes were entirely unmarked by either the water or the long crawl through the drainage pipe. Both of them might just have come from chairing a formal dress meeting of the Seelie Court. That was some useful magic. He probably looked like he had just come out of a brawl.

  “The drain flows out from here into the lake,” Liri said. “We know every waterway in the city.”

  “You do? Where do you live?” Keith asked. He was hungry, cold, achy, and still on edge from his ordeal, but curiosity about these wonderful beings was making him twitch to the end of his whiskers. “Have you been here long?”

  “Long enough,” Rily said curtly.

  Liri had more patience than her lord. “Our home is under the water,” she said, with an impish smile that made her face look even more fey and wild. “I cannot tell you exactly where … but you can see the Drake Hotel from the surface.”

  “Along the Inner Drive?” Keith asked. He looked up as his voice caused an echo in the pipe. “Sorry. I knew there had to be other, uh, folk somewhere. I never dreamed that you were so close.”

  “Then I believe you will continue to be surprised,” Rily said with a hint of amusement. “There are more. Some are our friends, and some are not our enemies … but there are others.” Keith opened his mouth to ask who, but the severe look on the sidhe’s face kept him from voicing the question. The three of them emerged under a piling at the edge of the lake. A long pier ran to their left. Lights glimmered in the distance, but the spot in which they stood was draped in shadow. “We must go. We cannot stay long away from the water, but we saw you in danger. Your offering to entertain us was a kindness seldom extended by your kind to ours. We look forward to allowing you to become a friend.”