by N. P. Martin
The second the spell was cast, a ball of fiercely bright light exploding with a bang right in front of Haknet. This happened just as he was about to make his leap to the next building. A shocked cry erupted from him as he jumped off the rooftop to get to the next building, but the distraction caused him to mess up his jump and he ended up slamming into the side of the adjacent building, just barely managing to grip the roof before he fell to the street below. "Shite!" he cried out as he struggled to pull himself up, unsuccessfully.
"How’s it hanging there, Haknet?" I shouted over, unable to help myself.
"Damn you!"
"There’s your man," I said to Amelia as she appeared beside me, my face slightly flushed, though she hadn’t even broken a sweat. Neither was she out of breath.
"You knew he was running up here, didn’t you?" she said.
"I might’ve had some idea," I said smiling.
"Help!" Haknet shouted. "I can’t hold on much longer!"
"Well, you should’ve thought of that before you ran," Amelia said dismissively, as if she didn’t care if Haknet fell two stories and broke both his legs.
"I’m sorry! Pull me up, please!"
"In a minute… maybe."
"You’re just going to let him fall?" I asked her.
"You think I should?"
I shook my head. "It’s just money. I think he’ll find it a lot harder to pay his debt if he can’t walk, don’t you?"
Amelia stared at me a minute. "I suppose so."
She then leaped across to the other building without taking a run at it first, once again impressing me with her physical prowess. A smile appeared on my face as I couldn’t help but wonder what she would be like in bed with such athleticism. Then I watched her roughly pull Haknet up by the scruff and dump him down on the rooftop like a piece of trash. My thoughts turned from sexy to violent in an instant, and the smile soon dropped from my face.
"I’m taking you to see Iolas," she said. "You can explain to him in person why you don’t have his money."
Haknet knew there was no point in arguing. He looked deflated as he hauled himself to his feet, and more than a little fearful. So much so that I almost felt sorry for him.
"I’ll see you down at the car," I shouted across to Amelia.
Amelia nodded, and unless I was mistaken, I thought I even saw a modicum of respect for me in her face.
Chapter 11
"So satisfy my curiosity for me," I said to Amelia as she drove us to Iolas’s mansion. "Are you carrying under your jacket?"
Amelia gave me her by now familiar deadpan stare. "Carrying? Do I look like I need to carry a gun?"
I shrugged. "I’m not saying you’re not capable, far from it. I just thought maybe you liked to carry a gun, you know, to make you feel more like a gangster and all."
Her stare hardened. "You think I’m a gangster?"
"I think all the Tasar’s are gangsters," Haknet said from the back seat. "I think it’s in your blood."
"What would you know about it?" Amelia said as she stared at Haknet in the rearview mirror.
"Plenty," Haknet said. "I’ve worked with your family for years."
"Stealing their money?" I said.
Haknet made a face at me. "I didn’t steal anything. That money is just tied up, I told you."
"With which bookie?" Amelia said. "I bet if I asked that dwarf who owns the betting shop on the corner of Leary Street he’d tell me you lost the exact amount Iolas gave you."
"So what if I did? It doesn’t mean to say I won’t get it back." Haknet paused. "I’ve a sure thing running in the three-thirty at Ascot today."
"A sure thing?" I said smiling. "Aren’t they all?"
"This one is," Haknet said.
"Tell it to Iolas," Amelia said. "I really don’t care."
We arrived at the mansion ten minutes later and two orcs met us in the driveway. Amelia handed Haknet over to them, and he despondently walked with the orcs inside the mansion. As I watched the door close behind them, I wondered if I’d ever see the goblin again, at least in his current state. I had visions of walking into the pawn shop one day to find Haknet was missing a finger or an eye… or worse.
"So what now?" I asked Amelia as we drove out the security gates again. "Are we done for the day then?"
She shook her head. "Not quite."
I sighed inwardly. "More debt collecting?"
"I have to kill someone."
I couldn’t contain my shock. "What?"
Amelia laughed. "You should see your face."
Shaking my head, I said, "Very funny, though I wouldn’t be surprised if you were telling the truth." An ugly thought hit me then. "Did you kill my mother?"
Now it was her turn to seem surprised. "What?"
"You heard me. You’re Iolas’s enforcer, right? Taking out your uncle’s enemies sounds like it fits your job description."
Amelia suddenly slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road, causing horns to sound behind us as the other cars went around, the drivers making angry gestures out the window, which Amelia ignored. "Let’s get one thing straight," she said. "I don’t kill people. I also don’t know anything about your mother’s death."
"Her murder. She was murdered… and I don’t believe you."
Amelia stared at me for a long time as more cars veered around us with the drivers slamming on their horns. "Take my hand," she said eventually, holding her left hand out to me.
"Why?" I asked.
"You have abilities, don’t you? Surely you can sense if someone is a murderer or not."
She was right in what she was saying, I could sense the general state of someone’s soul, and how much darkness or light existed there. And if I tried really hard, sometimes I could even sense the specific nature of the darkness or light in someone’s soul. The last time I did this was seven years ago, when I was twenty-one and still in Trinity College. Monty, who was there with me at the time, became convinced one of his professors was a pedophile. Monty was abused by his uncle as a kid, so he was understandably wound up by this professor, and if it turned out the prof was a kiddie fiddler, Monty vowed to ruin the guy.
So I offered to help, as my soul gazing abilities were stronger than Monty’s thanks to my mother’s diligent tutelage over the years. I went up to the prof one day under the pretense of congratulating him on a stimulating lecture. When I grabbed his hand to shake it, I went deep inside him and saw… well, you really don’t want to know what I saw. Let’s just say that some things can’t be unseen, and some feelings can’t ever be unfelt. When I let go of his hand I was violently sick over the guy’s shoes. I didn’t function properly for months after that, even going as far as to leave college altogether. Once Monty found out from me what I had seen, the professor took a quick retirement and conveniently "disappeared." I didn’t ask any questions, but I couldn’t help but feel some relief. I also vowed never to gaze upon another soul, for fear of what I might find.
But now circumstances had changed. My mother was murdered and I needed to know who did it. If Amelia’s soul wasn’t tainted by murder, at least I could eliminate her as a suspect. So I reluctantly took hold of her hand and looked straight into her deep blue eyes. Soul gazing is a very intuitive process. I don’t actually see very much apart from a few flashing images usually, but I feel a hell of a lot.
In Amelia’s case, the over-riding feeling I got from her was pain—physical, mental and spiritual pain. There was joy in there, sure, along with everything else you would expect a functioning being to experience, including pleasure, most of which seemed to be of the sexual variety, which wasn’t surprising given how elves tend to be with their own kind. The few images I got seemed to be from Amelia’s childhood: one of her being scolded by her father; another of her witnessing some dark ritual involving tall figures in hoods; and another of her holding her mother’s hand as she died. This last glimpse almost brought tears to my eyes, and I let go of her hand at that point, but continued to look into her eyes until s
he looked away, seeming almost ashamed now. As I sat back in my seat, she started driving again like there was nothing more to say.
"Why did you let me do that?" I asked after a while. We seemed to be heading back toward the city, and Amelia appeared broodier than she was earlier.
"Just so you would know I had nothing to do with your mother’s death," she replied.
"But why? Why do you care what I think?"
She turned her head to look at me for a moment. "I don’t, to be honest. But both my parents died under mysterious circumstances when I was little, and I don’t want anyone thinking I had a hand in taking either of their parents away from them."
I nodded. "I get it."
"So we’re clear then?"
"Yeah. What happened to your parents?"
"None of your business."
Of course it isn’t.
"I take it Iolas took you in after they died?"
She nodded. "He did."
"When did he start you working for him?"
"You ask a lot of questions."
"Hey, I’m just making conversation. Have you always been this abrasive?"
She shook her head slightly, seeming somewhat affected by my question, though she gave no reply.
Silence ensued for another moment, until I said, "You seem to carry an unusual amount of pain."
"Doesn’t everyone?"
"Yeah, but…" I trailed off. Fuck it, I thought. It’s none of my business anyway.
Amelia carried on driving in broody silence for a while, until we arrived at an industrial estate in Damastown, on the edge of Mulhuddart and Clonee Village, which were about forty-five minutes away from the city. I only knew the place because I once filmed a music video in the nearby Mulhuddart Wood, back in my youth when I was part of a black metal band called Athrú Fola (we made one album that sold a few hundred copies at most). Amelia seemed to know where she was going as she took us through the maze of roads that separated the buildings within the sprawling and strangely deserted estate. Eventually, she pulled up outside what appeared to be a warehouse. "Stay here," she said. "I’ll just be a minute."
"You don’t need my help?"
"I didn’t need it last time either."
She opened the door and then slammed it behind her, disappearing into the warehouse, leaving me to slump back into my seat, shaking my head as I wondered what I was doing here. "You’re in balls deep with your ma’s murderer," I said to myself. "That’s what you’re doing here."
I couldn’t help feeling under Iolas’s thumb, like everyone else around him seemed to be, including Amelia. She came across as fiercely loyal to her uncle, but I sensed dissent within her, and I inevitably wondered if Iolas had something to do with her parents’ deaths. And what was that ritual all about that I saw when I was gazing into her soul? It looked like some dark, twisted shit, though at this point I was afraid to ask her about it. Maybe if I ever got past that ice cold front she maintained, if that was even possible.
Amelia came across like a soldier to me, someone who was broken when young and built back up into someone different, probably by her uncle capitalizing on her pain. Getting past her defensive walls would be difficult, but I was starting to think it might be worth persisting with, given how useful she could be if I managed to get her on my side. She clearly hated me, though, so doing so might be difficult, if not impossible.
My thoughts were broken a moment later when I turned my head to see Amelia walking out of the warehouse with the body of a man over her shoulder. I wasn’t sure if the man was unconscious or dead, but either way, Amelia didn’t seem to be having any trouble carrying him.
"What the hell?" I said as Amelia went around the back of the car and opened the boot, dumping the man inside before slamming the lid closed. When she got into the car again, she started the engine and began driving as if she didn’t need to offer any explanation as to her actions.
"What?" she asked when she caught me staring at her.
"What do you mean what? You just put a fucking body in the boot."
"And?"
"Well… is he alive?"
"Of course he’s alive. Didn’t you hear anything I said to you earlier?"
She swung the car around and began to head out of the industrial estate.
"So what’s the deal then?"
"The deal is he tried to attack me and I stopped him."
"Why?"
"Why did I stop him? That’s a dumb question."
"No, why did he attack you?"
She gave me a look. "That’s not your concern."
"Not my concern?" I said shaking my head in indignation, but knowing there was nothing I could say.
A thumping sound started in the boot as the man in there seemed to come around and begin to bang his fist against the lid. "Hey! Let me out of here!"
Amelia continued driving as though she couldn’t hear the man’s plea.
I puffed my cheeks out and shook my head. "What the hell have I got myself into?" I said, more to myself.
Amelia smiled probably for the first time since I’d met her. "You’re in balls deep now, boy," she said. "You’d better get used to it."
Chapter 12
Back at Iolas’s mansion, Amelia parked the car in the driveway and went outside to get her captive. I stood by the font of the car and watched as a man in his forties emerged from the boot, a look of fear on his face. He appeared to be human and Untouched, so who knows what he was thinking about his situation. It was possible of course that he knew what Amelia was, and what Iolas was, but I doubted it.
Most Touched, especially elves, were not in the habit of revealing their true natures to ignorant humans. More than likely the man just saw Iolas and the rest as gangsters trying to muscle him out of his property. As Amelia led the man inside the house, I walked down the driveway a bit, toward the immaculate gardens. Stopping by a hedge which was impossibly carved into the shape of a Pegasus, I took out my phone and called Monty.
"How are you, bro?" he said upon answering. "What’s di craic?"
"I’m okay," I said as I looked around behind me to make sure no one was within earshot. Amelia was inside the house and only two orcs stood guard by the front door. "I need a favor from you."
"Anything, bro, as long as it doesn’t involve me moving of me couch, as I’m a bit hungover."
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "Partying last night were you?"
"I ended up wi’ a load of English birds out on a hen night."
"You went on a hen night? Only you, Monty."
"It was some craic, I tell you." He laughed as if remembering what a great time he had. "Them English birds know how to party. There was this one that did this trick with her—"
"Yeah, tell me later," I said cutting him off. "I don’t have much time here."
"Why, what’s up?"
"I need your computer skills so I can find out something about Iolas." Monty’s Technomancer skills were unrivaled, though not many knew about them. He preferred to keep it that way, as when it came to hacking, anonymity was everything.
"Okay," Monty said. "Fend out what exactly?"
"I want to know what ties Iolas has to an industrial estate in Damastown. You know the one, near where we filmed that video for the old band years ago, you remember?"
Monty laughed. "Jayzus, how could I forget all that corpse paint and fake blood. Fun times, bro, fun times. You mind those campers who came cross us?"
I couldn’t help but smile at the memory. "They thought we were all devil worshippers, I remember."
"Called the Guards and everything they did."
"And by the time the Guards came, the shrooms we took had kicked in…" I shook my head. "Jesus, what a farce that turned into."
"Grand times, though. We should totally get the old band back together. Black metal is still popular these days, we could—"
I looked behind me again to see Iolas standing talking to the orcs at the front door. "Listen, mate, I don’t have much time here. Will
you do some digging for me, see what you can find?"
"Sure thing," Monty said. "How do you know about this anyway?"
"Because I’m working for Iolas now, that’s why."
Monty didn’t speak for a full five seconds, which was a long time for him. "What the feckin 'ell…"
Iolas was coming across the driveway now, heading toward me it seemed. "Look, I’ll explain when I see you. Just find out what you can."
I hung up the phone and put it back in my pocket just as Iolas reached me. "Important call?" he asked, his stern features looking down on me as he stood in his dark, and very expensive looking, suit.
"Not really," I said, probably a little too casually. "Just organizing my next gig, that’s all."
Iolas nodded like he didn’t really care. "How are you getting along with Amelia? No problems, I hope."
"Fine. She doesn’t say much."
A slight smile creased his thin lips. "She’s not supposed to."
I couldn’t keep the frown from my face. "Whatever that means."
"It means she practices discretion. She tells me, though, that you helped her catch Haknet. It seems you aren’t quite the layabout I thought you were."
Asshole.
"Where is Haknet?" I asked him.
"Back in his shop at this point, I should think."
I nodded. "With all his fingers intact?"
It was his turn to frown. "What do you take me for, some kind of thug?"
Uh huh.
"You have to admit, this is all a little… gangsterish."
"Does that bother you?"
I shrugged. "I guess not."
"You guess?"
"No, it doesn’t bother me."
"Good, because I’d like you to continue to work with Amelia."
"Amelia doesn’t want me tagging along with her."
"She’s just used to working alone. She’ll come around, don’t worry. In the meantime…" He reached inside his jacket and took out a folded piece of paper, handing it to me.
"What’s this?" I asked as I unfolded the paper with some trepidation, which was actually two sheets.
"Your mother’s autopsy report."