Flashback: The Morrigan: A Yancy Lazarus Novella (Yancy Lazarus Series)

by James Hunter

  In theory, I understood why those reports were important, but I wasn’t a Judge. I wasn’t arresting perps or investigating dubious goings-on. That shit wasn’t for me. I worked with the Fist of the Staff and my job was to go in after the Judges had already thoroughly investigated and fix shit. Mostly by breaking things, blowing ’em up, or otherwise meting out Guild-sanctioned justice, Rambo-style. I was a glorified grunt, a trigger-puller: point me at the bad guy and let me work.

  “First,” I said, sticking a finger up in protest, “things with the minotaur could’ve gone better.” I jerked back the lapel of my bathrobe, showing off my festive black, blue, and yellow body art. “And second”—another finger went into the air—“I haven’t had time to file anything. It was eleven thirty by the time I finally got home. That would be yesterday.”

  “Hum. As your supervisor, I suppose I can let it slip this time,” he said, smugly adjusting his fat tie while trying to keep a straight face. The jerk knew exactly what I thought of report writing and where those reports could be shoved. “But I expect to see something by week’s end. Old Iron Stan will have my balls in a vise grip if he doesn’t get that write-up.”

  I grunted and picked up a piece of bacon. Yeah, Stanley Quinn—the Fist Leader and our boss—was more by-the-books than anyone other than Arch-Mage Borgstorm. A great battle-mage, better than great, even, but a hard ass like you wouldn’t believe. The way I figured things, only the most bureaucratically inclined ever made it to the uppermost echelons of the Guild ruling body.

  Not that I cared. I had the political ambition of an Amish farmer.

  “Don’t worry about it, James,” Ailia replied when I said nothing. “After we get done with this mission, I’ll make sure the report gets written and filed.” She shot me a steely-eyed stare, lifted her coffee mug, and took a sip. It was a look that said James and I were both going to be eating kholodets and salo.

  “I don’t know what he’d do without you,” James said. “He’d forget to pay the rent, the utility company would be out for blood, and the Guild clerks would have an aneurysm over all the missed paperwork. He’d probably wind up a homeless reprobate, living out of the back of a car, playing the piano for beer money.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, so I just ignored him, focusing on my delicious bacon. Whatever. So maybe I wasn’t the best with bills and reports or stupid “grown-up” skills, but I could take care of myself just fine. Honest.

  I pulled over the mission folder James had deposited on the table and flipped it open, revealing a glossy photo within: a pasty white guy with a spattering of freckles, a swath of red hair, a slight under bite, and a potbelly. He wore a grandfatherly cardigan, a muted plaid cabbie hat, and a pair of dark slacks. Guy looked like he belonged on the set of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Either that or in a nursing home. I set the photo on the table and took a look at the PR 192, the Guild’s personnel report, underneath:

  Scott Hoehner.

  Though he’d been classified as a Judge, in reality he worked with I.S. 2—the Guild deep-intel division. And his last assignment had been as the Guild’s diplomatic envoy to the Tuatha De Danann, the Irish court of ancient gods and goddesses: some awfully big movers and shakers in the supernatural world. Dangerous creatures: powerful, wily, and as unpredictable as a flash flood.

  For all of Scott’s unassuming and grandfatherly appearance, the guy was a no-shit secret agent. Even more curious, most of the specifics on this file had been redacted. Completely blacked out, removing the details on a dozen different operations. Still, from what I could see, the guy was obviously badass squared. Combat training. Advanced marksmanship. Urban warfare techniques and procedures. Jungle, desert, and arctic survival courses. Not to mention black belts in both Shotokan karate and Brazilian jujitsu. And he spoke five different languages: English, Latin, Gaelic, Hebrew, and Greek.

  Jeez. I barely got by in English.

  Scott Hoehner was a highly motivated hard charger who put James Bond to shame.

  “What’s it say?” Ailia asked, reading the disbelief on my face.

  I just shook my head and pushed the folder her way.

  She spent a few quiet moments scanning the details, her eyes widening slightly at the corners. “How is it I’ve never heard of him before?” she asked after a long pause. “I thought I knew every Judge and S2 operative in the field. Even if not personally, then at least by reputation.”

  “Hardly,” James replied. “S2 maintains twenty or so off-the-books agents, like Mr. Hoehner there. Low-profile plants working in liaison positions throughout Outworld. Intelligence gatherers, mostly. The majority hold official offices, but are trained to dig up secrets no one wants dug up. We’ve got operatives positioned in every Fae court, most of the major Vampiric households, and scattered through the upper ranks of the old gods and principalities.

  “Of course,” he continued, “for security purposes, they’re black-ops agents—no official connection to S2. Work off the books so the Guild can have plausible deniability should anything ever go wrong. The network is a closely guarded secret, and the full list of operatives is known by only Borgstorm and Iron Stan.”

  “Holy shit,” I said. “So this guy’s a major player?”

  He shrugged and plucked at the cuff of his jacket. “After reading his personnel report? I’d say so. The Judges and the Fist are the Guild’s visible deterrent to the supernatural nations, but I.S. 2 does more of the dirty work than anyone knows.”

  “So what happened?” Ailia asked.

  “He disappeared is what happened. According to the brief I received this morning, Mr. Hoehner had been cagey for months. He left encrypted messages at various prearranged dead-drop sites. Apparently, he suspected someone within the court was watching him. He refused to break cover, though, because he believed he’d stumbled upon a conspiracy which held the potential to unbalance the Tuatha De Danann.

  “Two weeks ago, he stopped reporting to his handler. Disappeared. Poof, gone. His working cover was as the Guild ambassador, but no one from his office has heard from him or seen him. He’s got a lot of secrets, does our Mr. Hoehner. Secrets that might well compromise any number of other S2 agents and covert Guild operations.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled free a cream envelope, also embossed with the Guild’s seal. “The boss gave me the recovery order a few hours ago, signed by the arch-mage. It’s a blank-check warrant, authorizing us to recover the ambassador or execute punitive justice on any and all parties found culpable in his disappearance or death. Ailia’s to conduct the investigation. You and I”—he nodded at me—“are going as her escorts.”

  Ailia reached across the table and patted my arm. “You get to be my thug, how sweet.”

  James nodded his head and grinned. “You always were the smart one,” he said. “Time is essential. There’s a good chance the ambassador is already dead—better than even odds, I’d say—but maybe not. If whoever has him is after info, which is a safe bet, it could take weeks to break through the mental barriers he has in place. A small hope, but there it is all the same.”

  “Well shit,” I replied. “Any idea what we’re up against specifically?”

  “The Irish pantheon,” he said without missing a beat. “Maybe all of them. Now get changed. We have nobles to entertain. Heaven knows I hate being seen in public with you normally, but in that”—he pointed at the bathrobe—“well, I’d be ashamed to line a bird cage with that.”

  FOUR:

  Tuatha De Danann

  I sat next to Ailia on a plush, chocolate-brown divan in a lavish antechamber: white marble floors, inlaid with a huge Celtic cross mosaic crafted from gold leaf and slabs of speckled greenstone. Fluted pillars surrounded the room; coils of vibrant green ivy sprouted from the columns, twining their way from bottom to top. A fireplace of carved granite, depicting some ancient battle scene from some dusty mythology, held a roaring jade flame—unnatural, almost spectral—which washed the room with strange l
ight and uncomfortable heat.

  Sweat trickled down the small of my back. Natural or not, that friggin’ fire was putting out enough juice to melt an iceberg.

  I almost wanted to remove my heavy-duty, Kevlar-lined jacket, but my bone-deep desire for self-preservation kept the coat firmly in place. If there were shenanigans afoot—and there were, no question—the coat could mean the difference between breathing for another day and winding up in a shallow grave as a limbless torso. Me? I like my limbs right where they are.

  So far, we’d been welcomed with open arms to Tír na nÓg, but that meant all of jack-shit.

  In my experience, the more someone smiles and assures you nothing is amiss, the more likely they’re gonna try to shank you in the kidney when you’re not looking. That’s especially true for the supernatural crowd. And true-squared for the Tuatha De Danann. Clever, shifty bastards, the whole lot of ’em. They thought it was the height of cool to kill without ever getting their hands dirty. Generally speaking, subtlety was the name of the game with this pack of hyenas.

  James paced across the floor—back and forth, back and forth—his brown wingtips click-clacking on the elegant tile as he moved. Absently, he twirled his black cane, the motion as restless as his ever-shifting feet. “I don’t like this,” he said, not bothering to stop his anxious movement. “It feels off, if you understand me. Not anything I can put my finger on—I wouldn’t expect anything so obvious from this crowd. But it’s still off.

  “Felt like this back in Crimea. August 1942 this was, right in the heart of the Second World War. Guild sent me and a few other bruisers out to investigate some rumors circulating about Ahnenerbe SS officers, rounding up various”—he twirled his free hand through the air—“occult objects for the Reich. Was supposed to be a low-level recon assignment. Quick. Easy. In. Out. But I had this same feeling then.” His pacing continued, but his story didn’t.

  “What happened?” Ailia asked after a time. “With the Ahnenerbe troops?”

  “Hum?” he replied, seeming to come back to himself.

  “Crimea?” she prompted again.

  “Oh that. Messy business, that was. We stumbled on a whole platoon of low-level spell-slingers working under the thumb of a demonic Katallani. That lot—sent by Himmler himself, the wretched bastard—was attempting to secure ingredients for some Nazi researcher conducting experiments near Auschwitz. Attempting to construct a working philosopher stone.” He shook his head, gaze distant, as he ran a hand over wavy hair that didn’t need it. “Ended up in a week long firefight, pinned down behind enemy lines. Lost four good men in that engagement.” He lapsed into silence once more.

  I’d rarely seen James so shaken, and holy hell did it leave me feeling nervous.

  James Sullivan was an old hand when it came to the preternatural, and he was one of the best in the business—I mean he’d fought against the Ahnenerbe during World War Two for Pete’s sake. His unease spread to me like some infectious disease, an airborne paranoia-virus making me fidget and sweat. For about the gajllionth time, I rechecked my weapons: monster-slaying hand cannon tucked away in my shoulder rig? Check. K-Bar at my belt and speedloaders in my pocket? Check and double check. Baby Glock, stowed away in a holster at the small of my back? Yep, present and accounted for.

  I slipped a hand into my coat and ran a finger over my final piece of inventory: a Vis-imbued garrote. A thin cable of silver and iron wire with a pair of brass, sigil-covered handles on either end. That bad boy was one of a kind, forged by Wayland the Smith—a depraved and completely insane Norse god of old—and empowered by the senior-most members of the Elder Council. Just running a hand over the thing made my skin crawl. Evil sonofabitch, but damn effective. Especially against magi or other creatures that relied on the Vis.

  It was the sign of my office—and a damn bit more practical than some shitty badge.

  Ailia leaned into me, her mouth brushing along my cheek before halting at my ear. “Stop it,” she whispered. “The worry is coming off you in waves.” She glanced at James. “I need at least one of you to be calm and collected. Our hosts are narcissistic manipulators. They’ll pick up on your anxiety and use it against you. Use it against all of us. So stay calm. After all”—she paused, drawing back to regard me—“there’s no guarantee this is going to end poorly. Usually you only show up after the investigation, but this time you must remember everyone is presumed innocent until I can prove otherwise. Perhaps there will be no fighting at all.”

  She shrugged as if to say, nothing is certain and who can say?

  I grunted and withdrew my hand from my pocket, glad to have my bare flesh away from the choker. “You’re right,” I said with a nod before leaning back, working to relax tense muscles. Unsuccessfully for the most part. “Sorry.”

  “Nothing to apologize for.” She offered me a reassuring smile and took my hand in hers, our fingers intertwining. “You are what you are. I understand that and love you for being you. But”—she paused, shrugged—“a little optimism once in a while wouldn’t kill you, I think.”

  “Except when it might kill me,” I muttered, recalling all the occasions my totally justifiable paranoia had saved my skin.

  She gave me a peck on the cheek and leaned away, her smile now resigned, sad.

  I rolled my eyes. “Stop doing the look,” I said with a grimace. “You know it drives me nuts when you look at me that way.”

  “A conversation for another time, I think,” she said, still staring at me with her gloomy gaze.

  I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Nope. I don’t wanna feel like there’s something unsaid between us. Especially not when I need to be focused on this assignment. So just speak your piece. Get it out of your system.”

  She pulled her hand away from mine and looked at me sideways, her lips tightening into a thin line. “Maybe it’s time you take a break from enforcement for a while,” she finally said. “You’ve been working with the Fist for twenty-five years, Yancy. Twenty-five. It’s too much. You’re entitled to a break.” She faltered, her big blue eyes scanning my face. “The work’s taking a toll on you.” She reached up and ran a finger over my ear, then lingered on the black eye I’d refused to let her heal. “And not just physically. You didn’t always used to be so …” She reached up as though to pluck the right word from the air. “Cynical. So tightly wound.”

  “Phff. I’m fine. I’m practically a ray of friggin’ sunshine, hot cakes.” I grinned, trying to sell it, not really buying it myself.

  She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “Sometimes when you lie, Yancy, I don’t mind. When you say my cooking is good. When I ask if my butt looks fat and you say no, even though I know it does. Those lies are okay. But this lie? It isn’t. It’s dangerous, even more so if you actually believe it. The work is taking a toll on you. I know the Guild is important to you, but there are other ways you could serve. Even if you stepped down and became a Judge—do something with a little less bloodshed. It would suit you. Or you could work in the training division. You could easily get an instructor post at the Judge’s academy, or as a combat trainer in one of the preparatory schools.”

  I snorted and looked away. “Who’s lying now? Like I could ever be a teacher for a bunch of snot-nosed kids who think they’re better than me. And we both know I don’t have the disposition, temperament, or paper-work-related know-how to be a Judge. I wouldn’t last a week doin’ that.”

  “Then we could take a break together.” She was damn near pleading now. “Leave the Guild to fend for itself for a few years. It’s not like we need the money. Buy a motorhome and travel across the country, see the world a little. Don’t you think we deserve that?”

  “Look, now’s not the time for this.”

  “Which,” she replied with a sniff, “is why I said we should have this conversation later, but you”—she uncrossed her arms and jabbed me in the chest with a finger—“insisted, so we’re having it now.”

  I grumbled for a moment. Damn women with their know-it-all l
ogic and unflappable argumentative abilities. “Ailia, I know how you feel about my line of work, but this is what the Guild needs from me. I may not always like what I do, but it needs doing. If not me, then some other poor schmuck would have to do it—”

  “Then let some other poor schmuck do it for a change,” she said, her voice tender but firm, a sword blade sheathed in velvet. “The world won’t end without you—”

  A grand set of double doors opened with a clack, cutting off whatever Ailia was about to say next, a fact which I was grateful for since it was obvious she was moving into the checkmate phase of that particular argument.

  James ceased his restless pacing, while Ailia and I rose.

  A wiry man of maybe thirty-five with jet-black hair and a bird-beak of a nose glided into the room like a male peacock strutting his stuff before all lesser fowls. He wasn’t a big guy, shorter than me—and I’m average height at best—but he held himself with confidence. I could tell, even at a glance, he was a smart bastard. Cunning. Exactly the kind of shitheel who would smile at you while secretly working to plant a knife in your spleen.

  The newcomer wore … well, I’m not really sure what in the hell to call it. A man dress, maybe? Some kind of flowy, green garment, cinched at the waist with a strip of black leather. He also sported some kinda dopy looking black cloak secured at the front with a Celtic knot broche made of dull gray metal—pewter, I’d wager—studded with a handful of emeralds. He held a very business-like spear in one hand: an elegant thing of dark wood, with a golden blade that gleamed in the flickering firelight. And he looked comfortable with it. Dangerous. The weapon was a part of him, an extension of his body like an extra limb.

  Still, all things considered, the guy was kinda homely and plain-Jane. Bit of a letdown and not at all what I’d expected.

  “What an honor it is to meet the three of you.” The man spoke with a slight Irish accent and positively beamed at us, a huge grin breaking across his face like a wave on the shoreline. That devilish grin, which seemed to stretch from ear to ear, transformed his features, lighting up his eyes and flooding the room with a nearly palpable warmth. “I’m Lord Lugh,” he offered enthusiastically, “Chief Ollam of the Tuatha De Danann, and I’ll be your guide to the wonderful land of the Tír na nÓg.”