“Wow, Shakespeare? Really? I didn’t know you could read.”
“Funny, D. Actually, I was part of the theatre troupe that first performed King Henry the Fourth. It was his first back in 1590. But that’s beside the point.”
“I’m not asking you to help me track down whoever killed these guys. I understand Peris like you and Ab are despised by both fae courts. And I appreciate your help getting me off Poveglia, but I am going to find out who’s behind this,” I said, pointing in short jabs at the floor.
Duma stared at me, his brow heavily knitted, before letting his head loll back, hands on his hips. “Ah, hell, I’ve seen that look in your eyes before. Belphoebe and Elegast will track your ass down inside of two days if I don’t help you.” Duma smiled crookedly. “If you need me, I’m there. Ab’s busy, though.”
“He’s not in North Africa right now, is he?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. Duma and his brother ran world-class human mercenaries around the world, and the last thing I needed was Ab to be unwittingly involved in this whole mishigas.
“Ah, no. He’s… elsewhere. Best you don’t know where.”
“Good. Now where’s my gear you said you had? And get me that phone.”
Time to get to business.
Chapter 12
I ate plate after plate of eggs, bacon, steamed rice, gloppy rice porridge, fish, miso soup, pickled vegetables, bread, yogurt, and green tea. I probably could have eaten more, but according to the cook, I’d pretty much cleaned out the kitchen. Meanwhile, Duma’s other housekeeper spent about an hour picking me up two prepaid burner cell phones. While I waited impatiently for her to return, I went through the things Duma had brought for me from my home.
He’d managed to get my main gear bag and one other equipment duffel. It was actually an impressive feat because I kept them in my load-out room, which was essentially a metal vault protected by two biometric locks. I forced myself to check the gear and not dwell on what was probably left of my bedroom. He was helping me out.
My main gear bag contained my battle dress fatigues and other gear, holsters, guns, bladed weapons, and my cuirass, currently sewed into a Blackhawk Omega Elite vest. This equipment was my security blanket and had been the virtual embodiment of humanity’s safeguard for over three thousand years now. My swords and my cuirass, forged by Hephaestus himself, were a gift from Athena. The cuirass was unbreakable and had saved my life more times than I could count, probably countless times I was unaware of, as well. The swords were old-school Kopis-style blades that were the height of favor before I became immortal. They were sharp enough that, with sufficient force, they could penetrate and cut through anything. I’d driven them through the armor on an M1A2-Abrams Main Battle Tank and taken the heads off trolls just as easily.
While the idea of swords and armor made me feel old and a little archaic, they were necessary in the world I lived in. Most Parans I’d encountered were undeniably old-fashioned and followed a strict code of honor. Guns and bombs didn’t fit into their world, where combat was often still one-on-one and hand-to-hand. Then there were those creatures that bullets simply didn’t affect much.
Once I took inventory of my main bag and checked my weapons, I went through the second. It contained climbing and rappelling gear. Great. At least I was covered if I needed a few hundred feet of rope. At least it isn’t the bag filled with my dirty laundry.
A short time after I inventoried my gear, Duma’s housekeeper returned with the phones. The first thing I had to do was contact Athena. I walked outside and up several flights of stairs to the roof. I forwarded a coded sequence to a secure phone number she used only for our communications—and only when necessary. I waited for her reply to confirm it was her responding. It was paranoid, but better safe than sorry in this situation. Once I received confirmation, I sent a short message letting her know I was going after whoever was behind these attacks and asking her to get me any intel she could dig up on the assassinations and who was left after Medea that might benefit from such wide-scale chaos.
My guess was that her focus was already on any trouble brewing in North Africa, working to find a peaceful solution via her front, the Metis Foundation. If Elegast was correct about some nonhuman involvement, she would normally have sent me in to remove the interloper. But if Elegast was correct, then my situation and all of that stuff was connected somehow, and my direct involvement could cause further issues in brokering any peaceful solutions. Either way, I was going to have to do this as quickly and quietly as possible. I didn’t know how Athena would get me the information. I never did, but she would get it to me—wherever I was.
I made a second call: Agent Sarah Wright of the Department of Homeland Security. I was hoping she might be able to help me with any known assassins capable of pulling off attacks like the ones for which I’d been framed. For a plain-old vanilla mortal who’d been dragged into my world during my fight with Medea about a year ago, she’d managed to hold up better than most would have. I was so focused on what I was about to do that I almost forgot about our awkward personal situation.
Her phone rang twice before she answered. That didn’t give me enough time to contemplate the complexity of our relationship or the fact that I had been sort of deliberately avoiding her for a few weeks before my stint at Fairy State Correctional. So almost two months had passed since we’d last talked.
“Agent Wright,” she said in a clipped but professional response.
“Hey, um, it’s me,” I said, trying not to stammer.
I’d never been good with relationships that don’t involve me cracking skulls. And a romantic relationship with a mortal wasn’t fair to either of us. We’d almost talked about it but left things largely unsaid the last time we were together. It hurt to think about because I really did like her.
“‘Me’ who?” she replied.
“Steve, I mean Diomedes,” I said, beginning to sweat. I could hear Duma snickering behind me, listening, no doubt, as intently as he could.
“Oh, the number came up blocked,” she replied.
“Sorry about that. It’s a burner,” I said. “How are you?” Despite the urgency, I thought maybe trying to be social was a good way to go since it had been a while.
“Busy. Is that why you finally called? To see how I was?” she asked.
“Well, not the only reason I called.” My mind reeled for the right things to say. I finally sighed. “But I do need your help with something.”
“Hold on.” She talked to someone while she tried to muffle the call. It barely took a few seconds, but with each passing moment, I felt like a bigger ass for calling to ask for her help.
“How odd,” she said, returning to our conversation. “I just got a large file from the Metis Foundation, marked Operation Fugitive. Anything to do with you?”
“Um, yeah, actually. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, but right now is not the time to do this. I really need your help.”
“Of course. I told you I wanted to help when I could,” she replied.
That was a small relief.
“I’ve been accused of killing members of both fairy courts,” I said. “And I just escaped from the Unseelie Fae after almost a month of imprisonment. I have reason to believe that someone or something is trying to frame me.”
“Wow, okay.” Her concern was evident even over the phone.
“It gets worse,” I said. “Whoever is doing this may be working to further incite unrest in North Africa. Probably elsewhere, too.”
As I spoke, I could hear her flipping through pages, presumably perusing the file she’d received from Athena.
“I need anything you might have pertaining to where these assassinations took place and cross that with any intelligence you can get on known assassins capable of carrying them out,” I said.
“Yeah, we don’t usually keep databases
of information about fairies,” Sarah said.
“I’m not entirely sure it was a fairy who did this,” I said. “Warmaster Lord Indronivay was Mab’s General, and Goibniu was Titania’s chief bladesmith. Apparently, one was shot with a high-powered rifle at a very long distance—over a thousand yards. The other was shot point-blank.”
“I didn’t think fairies used firearms.”
“They don’t,” I replied. “That’s my point. It could be a human doing this. But to pull off that shot on Indronivay, they’d have to be good and very likely someone DHS might watch out for.”
“I can check into it, but it might take me some time,” Sarah said. “Where did the assassinations take place?”
As we spoke, I couldn’t help but think about our kiss on the side of Mount Alvand after we had taken out Medea about ten months back. I still had a few loose teeth from when she’d punched me, too, but the memory of both made me smile.
“No clue. I don’t know where Indronivay or Goibniu lived, let alone where they were shot,” I said. “I know that’s not much help, especially since they were fae—”
“Wait,” she said. “According to the info in this folder, Indronivay had a stronghold in the Ural Mountains. Seriously? A stronghold?”
“Yeah, probably. He was an effete snob and a very anachronistic fruitcake. Where exactly?”
“Kholat Syakhl, well north of Ivdel in the Sverdlovsk Oblast. In Russia. Holy crap, that’s near where the Dyatlov Pass Incident happened back in the fifties,” she said, the excitement evident in her tone.
“Yeah, that makes sense. Those hikers probably got too close for comfort if they were near his place, and that’s why they all died in such mysterious ways,” I said. “The Russians covered it up before I could get there to investigate. I thought it might be Russian military testing, but that certainly makes more sense. What about Goibniu?”
“Oh, much nicer. Vanuatu. Mount Gharat on Gaua.” She whistled. “Jeeze, it’s an active volcano.”
“That figures. Seriously, I need any info you can find on a possible shooter, and Athena might be able to help more, but I need that info. The quicker, the better.”
“I’ll do my best… take care of yourself.”
“Thanks, I’ll try. Duma’s with me. And I’ll be in touch.” After an awkward moment of silence, I hung up. I’m an asshole.
I could hear Duma stifling laughter behind me. He was trying so hard not to laugh that he was actually crying. I smacked him in the back of the head as I walked past him, heading back downstairs.
He burst out in a rolling laugh. “Have you ever actually been involved with a woman before?” he asked, breathing heavily and trying to regain his composure.
“Shut up. We got bigger things to worry about,” I said, trying to convince myself as well as Duma that the situation with Sarah didn’t bother me.
“Yeah, bigger than you might think. You said that Indronivay was taken out with a rifle at long range, right? And I’m guessing that, like you, even the good Agent Wright thinks that fairies don’t use firearms,” he said as we walked back into his apartment.
“Yeah, so?” I said, irritated by his obtuse leading statement.
“Think, dummy.” He pulled a gun on me from behind his back.
My first instinct was to close the distance between us and disarm him, but my body wasn’t up for full speed yet. Instead, I lurched clumsily to my right and nearly tripped over a rug. For a moment, I couldn’t even think, and my heart began to race until the goofy expression on Duma’s face stopped me. His mocking my confusion eased the sudden tension and cleared my head.
“Ha ha, funny guy.” I had completely forgotten that the outcast Anseelie fairies had no qualms about using modern human weapons or even metals even though it still burned them if they did so unprotected. “I forgot that some of you aren’t so rigid in your thinking about guns. But wait…” I sat down. “The only Anseelie I’ve ever met are you and Ab. How many are there left like you guys?”
“None as far as I know.” He put the gun down on a table. “We’re the last of the Peri, except a few crazy distant… relations.” Duma spread his hands, palms up for effect, but before I could ask the obvious question—which I didn’t even want to know the answer to—he continued. “But there are other races that could still have survivors.” He bared his teeth in a perceptive grin. “I know you weren’t thinking Ab and I had something to do with this mess.”
“Me? Nah,” I said, almost ashamed it had occurred to me. “But how in the hell do we go about trying to track down fae that may or may not exist when they have successfully avoided every other fae for millennia?”
“Oh, it may be worse than that,” Duma said, his face suddenly becoming slack. “I think I know who our number-one suspect might be, and you ain’t gonna like it.”
“I already don’t like it, so just tell me. No, let me guess: Lady Gaga?”
“Ha! No, but she could easily be a half-breed. She’s cool enough to be part one of us,” he said. “Actually, I don’t have a real name. It’s more of a boogeyman-type story. But it fits.”
“A legend? Seriously?” I threw up my hands before getting back on my feet. “I got both fairy courts chasing me and the world as we know it possibly on the brink of war, and you have a bedtime story?”
“I know, I know, but listen.” He rolled his hand dismissively at me. “There is a race called the Blud, and as bad as the Peri reputation was, Blud were much worse. We look very similar, but they were master manipulators, constantly misleading humans and other fairies into situations they couldn’t escape from. They were instrumental in the schism that split the fae into the two fairy courts, but one individual in particular was far worse than the rest of us. And he was different. We call him the Hanner Brid, which means ‘half breed,’ because he is rumored to be a half-Blud, half-Succubus cambion.”
“A cambion? You mean like Merlin?” I asked.
“Well, yeah, except Merlin had a human mother and an Incubus father. This guy was supposed to be a real monster: manipulative, greedy, paranoid, and bloodthirsty. I mean bloodthirsty in a way that makes Countess Erzabet Bathory come off as squeamish,” he said, referring to the notorious sixteenth century Hungarian cannibal who was actually a Strigoi vampire. “Over the centuries, rumors would pop up about his involvement in some death or issue. Things like the Roanoke Colony or the Lake Anjikuni Village and the disappearance of Percy Fawcett. The last thing I know attributed to him was Hoffa.”
I actually laughed at the last one. “Seriously? Where do the rumors come from, and how come neither Athena or I are familiar with them?”
“They come from the same place as all rumors,” Duma said, holding up his hands. “You hear things. Some wacked-out old fae, a crazy survivor story—the usual. As far as why you and Athena never heard about him, I don’t know. You always say you still see stuff all the time that you’ve never seen before. And Athena only plays at being a deity; she’s not omniscient, D.”
“Yeah, but if a fairy were involved in something like the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony, I would have known about it. That kind of stuff is my job, Duma.” I shook my head vigorously.
“There’s a lot of stuff that goes on that you don’t know about. D, you’re only one man. You can’t know everything that goes on between fairies and humans. Hell, you don’t even know everything that goes on among you humans.” His laugh was without mirth. “And all rumors have a kernel of truth to them.”
“So you’re saying that you think this cambion is real and that he’s the assassin.” Frustrated, I pounded on the arm of the chair with my fist.
“No, I’m saying it could be him. Whoever him is,” Duma replied. “Call it a working hypothesis. But whoever it is, we ain’t gonna catch ’em sittin’ on our asses. And ease up on the furniture, man.”
He was ri
ght. At least we had a suspect. And a couple of crime scenes to start on.
Chapter 13
Duma took less than ten minutes to gather his weapons and gear. We left the safe house in the early evening, and things in the market down below were jammed and bustling with shoppers like ants swarming a discarded piece of candy. We stepped out of the stairwell onto the least crowded street around the building. The mass of humanity was nearly overwhelming. People on the narrow side street were jostling elbow-to-elbow, walking in every direction, avoiding collisions with each other as if they were on a track that guided them. The paper lanterns, signs, multicolored banners and curtains, and the glaring neon would have given Vegas a run for its money, but the smells were otherworldly. They were strong and entirely unique though not unpleasant—a mix of seafood, fresh and cooked meats, gas and oil, smoke, and even cement. It blended with spices of all kinds, pungent herbs, and things I couldn’t place at all, making my stomach growl. At least the pain in my eyes was finally lessening. I put on sunglasses, pulled a baseball cap low over my eyes, hunched a bit, then waded into the flow of people. Duma, a hoodie covering his blond hair, oozed in effortlessly behind me. We towered over most of the people around us.
“We need to get to Shinjuku Station,” Duma shouted, pointing ahead of us. “Left at the end of this street and straight on. From there, get on the first bus to Kawaguchiko Station near Mount Fuji.”
I nodded once, and we split up as I walked along the crowded street. I made it through the alley-like streets and down the gray stone walkway. While crossing the massive six-lane Yasukuni Dori, I got that weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that usually meant I was being followed. I crossed the street with a mass of other people, feeling like a giant among them. Following me in this crowd would be easy, even for a blind man.
Chaos Unbound (The Metis Files Book 2) Page 9
