by Rhys Ford
Conri wasn’t about to tell them—it might be a shitty story, but it was his. As long as they told him what he needed to know, they could write all the romantic fanfic about him they wanted.
None of them remembered much, and nothing they did remember explained how everything had gotten so dramatically out of hand. They’d all been happy to blame it—whatever it ended up being—on the kid who’d hosted the party. Jamie Treva lived in a farm just outside of town, and his parents had gone to New York for their anniversary.
Conri stood at the Treva gate and sniffed the air. Cows and grass and gas—anchored, mortal smells. No hint of anything wild and strange that had leaked through from the Otherworld.
The dog chained up in the yard growled at him, a basso rumble of fear-threat from deep in its chest, as it stared fixedly at Conri. People always thought dogs would like him, but they did not. He supposed it was the dog version of an uncanny valley—too close for comfort.
Its chain was looped around an old apple tree next to the house, the bark buckled and warped around the links, so Conri left it to swear at him as he scrambled over the gate.
When the kids in town had said it was a farm, Conri had vaguely imagined the shabby stone buildings of his childhood. The damp, dusty homes of men who got up at four and went to bed at eight, with rags of curtains that no one bothered to pull. Instead it was a box of glass and black metal, aggressively exposed and uncompromisingly modern.
Conri could see most of the ground floor as he approached, and it didn’t look like ground zero for a wild rural party. There were long, bare stretches of floor with not a misplaced cushion or discarded beer bottle in sight.
The dog threw itself at him, half strangled as it strained against its collar and gargled snarls as Conri stepped up onto the porch.
Technically Conri could understand what it was saying. In practice it was a dog, it didn’t have a lot to say. Most had the vocabulary of a sheltered four-year-old.
Get off, get off, fuck off, Go fuck away.
A sweary four-year-old.
He pressed the doorbell. It didn’t ring, but a small light in the kitchen pulsed politely to attract attention. The dog lost its mind at this further disrespect and stood on its back legs as it snarled an invite to fight it out.
Go away! Don’t touch my stuff. Fuck off. I’ll tell. I’ll tell her when she gets back. People aren’t meant to be here! Fuck off. Fuck you.
Conri winced at the noise and gave the dog an annoyed look. It was mostly legs and spots, a hound of the indiscriminate sort you found in places where they breed for soft mouths or a rabid hatred of squirrels instead of registries. It looked more pampered than most, with clipped nails and a shiny coat.
“Where’s Jamie?” he asked.
The dog fell over itself in surprise when it understood him. Not in the way it had memorized commands and remembered the savory tang of biscuit and treat, but as clearly as if Conri had barked at it.
It whuffled unhappily at him. Bad dog.
Conri growled at it for the insult, and it lifted its lip at him. Before he could press it more, a sudden explosion of sound made both of them flinch. The crack made Conri’s head ring, and he clapped his hands over his ears as he hunched down.
Thunder! The dog wailed as it tangled itself around the tree. Thunder and she isn’t here. Bad dog! Bad dog.
Not thunder. Gunfire. Conri shook his head to dislodge the noise from his eardrum and jumped off the porch to chase it back to its source. The dog barked furiously after him as he loped away.
The barn was tucked around the back of the house, down a long dirt track so it didn’t spoil the view from the kitchen. It looked more like what Conri had expected of a farm—paint peeled down to bare wood and broken windows boarded up with plywood. There were bags of empty bottles and forgotten jackets piled in the trunk of a shiny blue car that had been blocked in by a filthy old yellow pickup.
Conri slowed to a walk, and dust kicked up over his boots as he dug his heels and took in the scene.
The boy in front of the barn—a few years older than Finn but softer—was presumably Jamie Treva. He was the one with the shotgun. The yellow pickup had an irregular spray of holes punched into the back panel.
The thick-set, slightly older guy in work jeans and sweat-stained, gas-stop-branded T-shirt didn’t look impressed.
“I told you,” Jamie said. His voice cracked as he raised it, his vocal cords tight with nerves. His shirt was rumpled, the shoulder torn and buttons lost off the collar, and his eye had started to swell. “Move your damn truck, Ned.”
Ned spat in the dirt. “Make me, pixie-fucker.”
“I didn’t fucking invite them!” Jamie shouted. The barrel of the shotgun wobbled around dangerously as he got more agitated. “Someone told them about the party, and they turned up. That’s not my fault. I didn’t want them here. I told them to fuck off—”
Ned punched his fist back against the door of the pickup with a dull crack of flesh against metal.
“Did you aim a goddamn shotgun at them?” he spat. “Or did you just wake up and find your balls this morning? What the fuck happened to my sister, Jamie. Did you let them take her? Did they promise you a suck of their cocks if you got her here?”
Jamie spluttered a flushed denial, and his finger tightened on the trigger as he lifted the gun.
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
Conri sped up into a trot. Dead people only answered questions under specific conditions, and he didn’t have any favors to call in there.
“Hey,” he said, his hands held up and out and slightly in front of his face. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but he didn’t need it to work for long. “What’s going on here.”
Ned was sunbaked rather than sunburned, the sort of hot, under-the-skin pink that never really faded. His sandy hair was cropped brutally short across his skull, and he glared at Conri.
“What business is it of yours?” he snapped as he tried to slap Conri’s hands out of the air. “Who the hell are you anyhow?”
“Call me an interested party,” Conri said. He waited for Ned to grab at him again and caught him by the thumb. A hard twist squeezed a surprised howl out of Ned and put him on his knees. “If you want to find your sister, there’s better ways to go—”
It didn’t hurt at first. It never did. Conri felt the impact—a blunt smack to the back of the head that vibrated down to his knees—and smelled his own skin singe against hot metal. He tried to make use of that second between realization and pain, but it didn’t last long. All he had time for, as the smell of whiskey and blood rose on the air, was to realize he’d made a mistake as his legs went from under him.
“I didn’t need your help,” Jamie yelled. “I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t ask your goddamn kids to come to my party. Why don’t you fuck back off to where you came from.”
Blood dripped down Conri’s face and splattered over the dirt. He ducked his head and wrapped his arms around it just in time. The heavy metal length of the shotgun smacked against the thick meat of his forearms.
Some people you knew they’d kick you—or pistol whip you—when you were down.
Conri absorbed the blows as he waited for the dizziness to fade. When Jamie swung again, Conri grabbed the shotgun before it could connect. He yanked, Jamie held on, and Conri rammed his shoulder into the boy’s soft gut and put him in the dirt.
He grabbed Jamie’s shirt and yanked him up long enough to punch him. His knuckles caught Jamie in the jaw, hard enough to clack his teeth together and throw him back down into the dirt. He wasn’t unconscious, but Conri figured Jamie hadn’t taken a lot of beatings in his life. Winded and with a bitten tongue—Conri assumed from the blood that spluttered from Jamie’s lips—the shock would keep him down for a while.
Ned, though, had already scrambled up. Red dirt stained his knees and his face was hot under his all-weather tan. He lunged forward, and Conri rolled away from Jamie and onto his feet.
His
mistake. Ned hadn’t been going for Conri. He’d been after the shotgun, which Jamie had dropped when Conri laid him out. Ned snatched it away from Conri and backed away, sweat on his face and hands clumsy as he fumbled with the weapon.
“Where’s my sister?!” he yelled as he jabbed the gun at Conri. “What did you do to her, you filthy—”
“Nothing,” Conri said as he slowly backed away over the grass. “I came to talk to Jamie. Nobody needs to get hurt here… as long as you put that down.”
Ned’s face twisted, and he flexed his hands about the gun, knuckles white under his skin. “You…. We know the stories, you know. This isn’t some big city, maybe, but that doesn’t mean that we’re stupid. I told Nora to stay away. I told her, but she wouldn’t listen. We know about the deals, the secrets, the orgies in Iron Door, and the girls that never get seen again. Maybe people in LA will keep their mouths shut about it, but not in Elwood. Not with my sister.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Conri saw a flicker of movement on the dirt road down from the house, but he couldn’t spare the attention to identify it. With his luck, the dog had gotten loose and wanted to revisit what a bad dog he was.
“Look, I don’t have anything to do with that,” Conri said. “And if I’ve got a hole in me, I can’t help find your sister, can I?”
It was the wrong thing to say. Ned’s lips skinned back from his teeth in grim satisfaction. Conri relaxed as the cold acceptance that something awful was about to happen seeped through him.
“So you do know where she is?” Ned said triumphantly. “I knew it. I knew you’d taken her. If you don’t tell me right now, I’m gonna—”
He lifted the gun to his shoulder without bothering to finish the sentence. Then he froze and sweat popped on his forehead in a greasy film.
“Mr. Kessell,” Special Agent Bellamy said coldly as he put his hand on Ned’s shoulder. “Put the gun down. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
His dark hair was nearly black at the roots where the sun hadn’t picked out the dark red streaks, and it framed a lean, hard face. For an inappropriate, giddy moment, Conri wondered what it would take to bring a smile to that stern mouth. None of the ideas seemed wise, but buoyed on a flush of relief, they did look tempting.
Of course, he’d always had a thing for dangerous men—it had gotten him into plenty of trouble over the years. But there was a difference between having his head turned by a smart-mouthed thief and making eyes at an Iron Door agent. One was a bad idea, and the other was the last bad idea you got to have.
Ned’s chest heaved under his shabby T-shirt as he stared at Conri, the temptation to finish what he started bald on his face. He’d wanted to do it for a while, Conri figured, in a faceless sort of way. His sister had given him an excuse.
Self-preservation won out. Ned held the shotgun out to the side and let Bell take it off him.
“Yours?” Bell asked as he took it.
Ned glared at the barn, jaw set so hard his teeth must have hurt. So Conri answered for him.
“It’s Jamie’s,” he said. Bell glanced at him, and Conri pointed with his chin to the kid on the ground. “He was going to shoot Ned here for trespassing.”
Bell made a disgusted face and shook his head. He stepped back, and Conri caught a quick glimpse of the gun that had been pressed against Ned’s kidneys before Bell holstered it under his arm.
“Idiots,” Bell said. He broke open the shotgun and unloaded the shell. “You think this is going to find your sister?”
Ned turned around and pointedly spat on the ground in front of Bell. “I think you ain’t even looking,” he said. “Iron Door is compromised. The iron wall is rusted. My sister is a small price to pay for—”
“I know the spiel,” Bell interrupted. “I’ve heard it before. Go home, Mr. Kessel.”
Ned bristled. “You aren’t going to keep me quiet,” he said. “I ain’t alone, Agent. Word is already out.”
Bell’s face hardened.
“Go home,” he repeated. “Or I’ll put you in jail and you can see what good you are to your sister there.”
“Iron Door doesn’t have any jurisdiction over god-fearing human citizens—”
“Not actually true,” Bell said. The shotgun clicked as he closed it again and cocked it back over his shoulder. “But you can argue that to the judge when you make it onto the docket. If you want.”
It took a second, but finally Ned folded.
“This isn’t over,” he muttered darkly as he stalked back to his truck and scrambled up into it. The engine coughed to life, and he reversed jerkily until he could turn the truck around on the churned-up ground. He stuck his arm out through the window and pointed at Jamie, who’d sat up shakily. “If you had anything to do with this, Treva, you’re going to regret it. Your elf knights won’t be around to protect you forever.”
He hit the gas and peeled away in a spray of dirt and stones.
Jamie wiped blood off his mouth. “I didn’ ask for yer help,” he slurred bitterly. “Y’just made it worse.”
CONRI TURNED on the kitchen sink tap and stuck his head under it. Pink blood and red streaks of dirt splattered the polished black surface of the sink before they spiraled down the drain.
“I never saw a changeling before Iron Door rented the old farm for your camp thing,” Jamie said around the cold cola can he had pressed against his mouth. He didn’t sound guilty so much as defensive. “None of us had. And I knew that Ned would make something of it.”
“It’ll heal,” Conri said stoically as he pulled his head out of the stream of water. He ran his hand through his wet hair, the water cold as it trickled down his neck, and winced as his fingers found the split goose-egg knot on the back. Maybe he’d grow in a new white streak once it healed. He turned around to look at the kitchen table, which Jamie currently shared with Agent Bell. “So you’ve never seen a changeling before? How did you manage to offend Robin Mell and his friends enough they drove all the way out here to ruin your party?”
“Who told you that?” Jamie bristled. “I don’t like the fey, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to kick off at them. I’m not stupid. You don’t court the fey, not to make them like or hate you. You avoid ’em. I didn’t get into it with them. It was Nora’s boyfriend, Keith.”
Bell leaned forward intently. His T-shirt pulled tight over his shoulders with the motion, showcasing lean, whipcord muscle layered over his bones. Conri had seen Bell move in the Otherworld—fast enough and mean enough to take on a pack of hounds—so he knew the man wasn’t as slightly built as he looked when he was at ease. It was still worth a second look.
“Her brother didn’t mention that,” Bell said, apparently uninterested in Conri’s brief distraction. “According to him she wasn’t seeing anyone.”
“Well she isn’t going to tell him,” Jamie said with ripe, teenage contempt. He rolled the can up over his jaw, where a blue bruise spread under patchy stubble. “You’ve met him. Would you tell him anything? He’s a psycho. Always has been, even before their parents died. Nora is okay, but…. Ned’s a nutjob. And there’s the whole thing with the money.”
“Money?”
“They don’t have any,” Jamie said with a mixture of pity and satisfaction. His family obviously did. “Or not enough. That’s what I heard at school, anyhow. Ned’s always been good with pigs, but not much else.”
Conri leaned back against the counter. His hair dripped cold water down his back. A wiser man would have taken the hint.
“So, what happened with her boyfriend?” he asked. “Was he jealous that Robin turned Nora’s head?”
Ned snorted. “Are you kidding? Have you seen Nora? I mean, she’s okay, but she’s hardly the sort of girl a fey chases after. She’s just… Nora. Anyhow, I had nothing to do with it, okay? I only know what happened because someone told me after the points showed up—”
He broke off as he glanced at Conri, who was more “pointed” than most of the fey, and flushed dully. Bell rapped his knuckles
on the table to get Jamie’s attention back on him.
“You can’t save that,” he said. “So move on.”
Conri grinned. He didn’t have fangs—a dentist would have been hard-pressed to find anything wrong in his mouth—but his teeth gave the impression of sharp. Jamie swallowed hard, the bob of his Adam’s apple audible, and looked away. He pressed the can hard against his cheek and tried again.
“Yeah, well, it was nothing big. The… the fey kids had come down into town from camp, and Keith, y’know, helped them out. With a lift to….”
“To?” Bell said.
Jamie shrugged and looked down at the table. The tops of his ears were dull, resentful pink as he muttered something under his breath. Conri heard him anyhow.
“The shit train?” he said. “What’s what?”
“There’s a landfill about twenty miles north,” he said. “Waste on the way there by rail stops here overnight sometimes. Sometimes longer. It smells like… shit.”
“It was a joke,” Jamie said, the o drawn out in exasperation. “Like, none of us want them in town. It’s not normal. But he left them there to make a point. He didn’t do anything to them.”
Conri grimaced and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. In his day, admittedly a looooong time ago, people knew the only fragile thing about a fey was their ego. Even a wound from iron healed quicker and cleaner than a blow to their pride.
“It was a joke!” Jamie repeated indignantly as he looked between Conri and Bell in a futile search for a sympathetic face. “They didn’t have to come here to ruin my party over it.”
Bell raised his eyebrows. “And kidnap your friend,” he reminded him.
“Yeah. I mean, of course,” Jamie said. He squirmed in his seat, the legs loud as they scraped on the black-tiled floor, and then frowned. His voice was slow as he said, “Thing is, none of us realized they were here at first? I mean, we did but none of us realized that they obviously shouldn’t be there? It was like they used magic on us, and that’s not allowed, right? So, I mean, nothing after that was our fault.”