“I see. So by using a slip portal to get back to Earth, those creepy elf people…”
“Svartálfar,” I supplied.
“…and the dog monster won’t immediately notice our return.”
“Which is especially important”—I pointed to Saoirse’s messenger bag—“considering I want to bring us out at the harp buyer’s address.”
“Ah. A sneak attack.” She opened the bag, dug around for a second, and pulled out a leather-bound green notebook I assumed was the ledger. “Sounds like a plan. My only concern is that the address listed here isn’t going to be an active base.”
“I think it will be.”
“Why?”
“Arrogance. This guy sent a horde of dark elves after us, plus a barghest, and I bet he’s got plenty more where that came from. With that many resources at his disposal, he’s bound to be overconfident.” I flicked the top of the ledger. “And even if that address isn’t our perp’s main base of operations, I bet you a hundred chits we’ll find something there that leads us to the real deal. This guy’s planning to cast a spell that’ll make the faerie queens angry. He’s only worried about our interference insomuch as it risks alerting the fae to his plans too early. He doesn’t actually think we can stop him. And that hubris—”
“—will lead him to make a critical mistake somewhere along the line.” Saoirse nodded. “I see you’ve kept my lessons fresh.”
“I would never let them fade.”
“All right.” She flipped through the ledger until she found a dog-eared page, then ran her finger down lines scrawled in ink until she found one near the bottom. She turned the ledger around and tapped on the entry. “The name is listed as ‘Adam Smith,’ which is obviously fake. But the address is legit. There’s also a note underneath that confirms the harp was delivered to the house after the auction. I don’t think they would’ve bothered to jot that down if they’d actually sent it elsewhere, considering they didn’t suspect anyone was onto them the night of the auction. What do you think?”
The address was for a nondescript middle-class residential area on the edge of Kinsale, which actually made me more confident our perp would be there. It was a perfect place to hide a secret operation to cast a powerful spell away from the watching eyes of the local faerie bureaucrats and their dullahan enforcers. Who would suspect there was any funny business going down in a cul-de-sac full of family homes with patios and pools? And if somebody caught a whiff of something not quite right in the land of big lawns and barbecues, the neighborhood was far enough from downtown that most of what passed for Kinsale’s government still wouldn’t be concerned enough to check it out.
The fae were lazy as hell when it came to governing Earth.
That was going to come back to bite them in the ass sooner or later. Maybe tonight, if Saoirse and I failed to stop the harp buyer.
“Looks promising,” I said to Saoirse. “There’s no large population out that way. Less risk for collateral damage. And far enough out from City Hall that hopefully our unelected mayor and his friends won’t notice anything amiss until we have a handle on the situation. If possible, I’d like to keep them from noticing at all.”
Saoirse huffed. “Tell me about it. They almost never interfere in police business, but when they do, it’s a clusterfuck every time.”
“Sounds about right for the faerie elite. They love being obstructive manipulators.”
“No offense to one half of your bloodline, but faeries suck in some pretty significant ways.”
“Oh, no offense taken. You’re a hundred percent correct.”
She snapped the ledger shut and tucked it away in her bag again. “All right. I think we’ve dallied enough. What’s next on the agenda? You said something about calling in a favor?”
“Yep. Just a sec.” I dug around in my coat pocket and pulled out my chit bag. Then I slipped a twenty-chit piece from inside, balanced it on my thumbnail, whispered a few words to it, and flicked it into the air. It hung there for a few seconds, almost like it was deciding whether to fly or fall, before tumbling back down end over end. It plopped into the water with no resistance and sank into the deepness below.
“What was that for?” Saoirse asked.
“You know that myth about paying Charon to take you across the River Styx?”
“I think I remember something like that from school.”
“Similar principle. You can summon the person who owes me a favor by paying a small tribute.”
Saoirse balked. “Uh, who is this person ex…?”
The ocean beneath us began to tremble, the waves rising higher, growing rougher. Saoirse and I held onto each other and sank to our knees so we wouldn’t get tossed around and separated. Together, we watched the water part forty feet in front of us, splitting in two as if someone was pulling a set of curtains aside. And from the black deeps of a gaping wound in the fabric of reality, that both belonged to the sea and did not belong anywhere, the bow of a great wooden ship punctured the edge of the realm, followed by the rest of its bulk. The ship pitched upward at a sharp angle before swinging down and crashing into the sea, sending a huge wall of water rushing toward us.
We were thrown almost ten feet into the air, still clinging to each other. Before we tumbled back to the sea below, landing with a dull, painful thud atop the surface. As the waters stilled around us, I quickly checked Saoirse for serious injuries, while she did the same for me. Both of us gave the other a quick nod, confirming we were a little battered and bruised, but not much worse for wear than we’d been before. Then, we shakily rose and stood in the shadow of the ornately carved ship with no sails, known to antiquity as Scuabtuinne.
Wave Sweeper.
At the bow, one foot on the railing, stood a tall, bulky man with a head of thick, curly black hair, an equally impressive beard, and piercing eyes of such a deep, dark green that they made you feel as if you could get lost inside them for all eternity, screaming for help to no avail. The man peered down at Saoirse and me with undisguised annoyance and extreme scrutiny, both of us looking foolish and meek under his gaze, bloody and beaten and so disheveled that not even a burger joint would allow us inside.
Finally, after a long moment of uncomfortable silence, the man shouted, “Vincent Whelan? Is that your dumb ass down there?”
In response to that unnecessary question, I glared up at the man and flipped him off. Then I turned to Saoirse and said, “Allow me to introduce you to Manannán mac Lir. God of the Sea. Protector of Borders. Ferrier of Lost Souls. And absolutely incorrigible jerk. He’s going to help us save Kinsale from obliteration.”
Chapter Fourteen
Once Saoirse and I climbed aboard Wave Sweeper via a rather rickety rope ladder, Manannán whistled a high note, and the ship began to move in a direction I couldn’t gauge. Not that it mattered much, since the Endless Sea never ended, and you had to cast portal spells to breach the veil between all the realms it touched. I got the sense Manannán only ordered the ship to move because he was accustomed to the rocking of a ship in motion. After all, he’d been sailing the waters of the various Otherworld realms—and on occasion, the Earthly oceans—for nigh on three thousand years.
Saoirse sank down onto the deck and leaned back against the mainmast, exhaustion digging deeper into the wrinkles on her face. “I know we’re a little short on time, with the spell being cast late tonight,” she said, “but please tell me we can take a break before we go gallivanting off for another leg of this paranormal adventure. I feel like I’ve been banging around in a cement mixer for the past two hours.”
“Actually, that’s another fun fact about the Endless Sea.” I propped my arms on the railing and regarded the expanse of rippling blue water. “Time here is out of step with Earth. It passes a lot quicker. We’ve been here for, what, thirty minutes? Back on Earth, it’s probably only been two or three.”
Her tight expression melted into relief. “I’m going to ignore how weird that is and just be happy I don’t have to spen
d the next half hour running away from svart…uh, dark elves.”
Manannán, who’d been watching us speak as he lounged near the bow, perked up at Saoirse’s words. “What’s this about svartálfar?”
“We had a nasty fight with a group of them earlier,” I answered, meandering closer to the sea god. “They’re working for someone, identity unknown, who’s planning to use a magic item of some power to cast a spell that’ll wake a dormant enemy of the fae.”
Manannán frowned. “Which enemy?”
“Don’t know that either. We don’t have a lot to go on, except the address of a potential base of operations.” I waved my hand up and down, gesturing to him. “Which is why I called you here. I need to cash in my marker in exchange for a ride to the slip point in Tír na nÓg that coincides with the address.”
Manannán looked less than impressed. He scratched his thick beard as he replied, “Shouldn’t this be a matter you bring to Mab, if the threat is occurring in an Earthly domain she’s claimed?”
“If I tell her about this”—I emphasized the pronoun because Mab was a lot more likely to pay attention to Manannán speaking her name aloud than a random human like Saoirse—“she’ll send in the cavalry, and those assholes will trample my hometown and what little of civilization still lives in it.”
“And?” Manannán lifted his hands, coaxing me for a better explanation. “Aren’t there other cities under the protection of the queens you can immigrate to if yours gets ‘trampled’? I do believe quite a few were set up to be safe havens for the humans and the scions of the Otherworld who, for some outlandish reason, chose to remain on Earth.”
He didn’t bother to stifle the reproving click of his tongue at my decision to stay in Kinsale after the collapse. And to a degree, his criticism was warranted. Almost half of all the paranormals who’d been living on Earth fled to the Otherworld during the purge or the war. Perfectly understandable, of course, given the way they were persecuted by so many world governments. But I had a good reason for staying put, and it wasn’t a reason I sought to defend right now. Not while Saoirse was sitting a few paces away, watching this conversation with extreme interest.
“You’ll forgive me, Manannán,” I said, “if I consider a home something a person should seek to preserve. Yes, calling her and ratting out this troublemaker would be much easier than the track I’m currently on, but it would also sacrifice far too much I’m unwilling to so easily let slip through my fingers.” I took four long strides toward the sea god, infringing on his personal space. He was a full head taller than me, but I met his steely gaze anyway and opposed it with one of my own. “She is the last option, not the first, when a gentle touch is required to favorably resolve a dangerous and delicate situation. You know that as well as I do.”
Manannán crossed his arms and tilted his head from side to side, considering my words. He could simply rat me out to Mab—he could contact her if he wanted, even though we were worlds away from Earth, and spill the beans faster than I could attempt to stop him—but she was no particular friend of his, or a direct authority. Manannán’s role was one he’d chosen himself, to patrol the Endless Sea, scoop up lost souls, and send them to the afterlives where they belonged, and his powers were beholden to no one higher. He was a solitary being in every regard. And hell, he wasn’t even fae.
Choosing to tell Mab the situation was something he would do only if he thought it would benefit him more than settling our score—that is, if he thought he could nab a favor from Mab in return for the intel. But Mab wasn’t known to hand out favors for any old thing, because for her power to be at the behest of someone else in any way created a literal existential risk to the entire half of Tír na nÓg upon which the Unseelie Court was situated. So whatever you gave her had to be worth half a realm’s weight in faerie gem chits.
“An enemy of the fae” was apparently too vague a notion to spur Mab’s generosity, judging by Manannán’s eventual shrug and reply of, “All right. Let’s settle.” In some ways, his response didn’t surprise me. The fae had a lot of enemies, most of them too weak to be a true threat to the courts even if their full population numbered in the millions. Without more concrete information on the nature of the threat, Mab would likely be annoyed at any attempt from Manannán to procure a favor.
Good for Earth, so it works for me, I thought blithely.
Extending my hand to Manannán, I said, “Let’s shake on it.”
He took my proffered hand with his own substantially larger one. “Vincent Whelan, do you agree to settle the debt between us if I safely convey you and your human companion to a specific location in Tír na nÓg, for the purpose of accessing a slip point?”
“Manannán mac Lir, I agree to settle the debt between us on the terms you have just stated.”
There was a slight ripple in the air around our hands, followed by a faint tingling sensation under my skin. The sign of fulfillment conditions being added to a magic contract already in place.
I tugged my hand free as the sensation faded. “I’ll get you the address.”
Saoirse, who’d been paying attention like a dedicated pupil, opened her messenger bag and retrieved the ledger, turning it to the correct page. She offered it to Manannán. “It’s the last entry on this page.”
Manannán made a subtle motion with his chin, and the ledger slipped from Saoirse’s hand and flew toward him. It stopped in front of his face and hovered in the air at eye level. He read the address a couple times, glanced to the side like he was calculating something, then whispered a few words I couldn’t decipher, a spell in a language far more ancient than anything I knew. The spot on the page that contained the address faintly glowed blue, before wisps of energy rose off the paper like fog from damp earth and formed a series of numbers written in the standard numeral set used in the faerie courts.
“That’s where you need to go in Tír na nÓg,” Manannán said.
I committed the coordinates to memory before the foggy numbers dissipated into faint curls of mist, carried off by the light wind. “I assume if you’re telling me the location, you aren’t going to personally accompany us?”
“No offense, but I’m wasting my time speaking to you as it is, Whelan.” He tucked his hands into the pockets of his loose-fitting tunic shirt. “The percentage of souls getting lost in the sea has increased drastically in recent years thanks to the human war. I’ve got my work cut out for me. I can sense dozens of new arrivals floating aimlessly right now, waiting for my help. So no, I will not go roaming around Tír na nÓg with you, though I’m sure your lovely lady friend would make a fantastic traveling companion.”
Saoirse made a choking noise, but quickly covered it with a fake cough.
Manannán shot Saoirse a wink. “Just pointing out the obvious.”
I scowled at him. “She’s too young for a bag of bones like you.”
“And you’re too young to speak to a god that way.”
“Too young, maybe,” I muttered, “but not too low on the hierarchy.”
Manannán smirked. “Watch yourself, Whelan,” he said in a low voice, too soft for Saoirse to parse, “you can’t claim a place in the court if you don’t also claim the responsibilities that come with it. Best not to tempt fate, if you do indeed value your quaint little human station as much as you say.”
“I do all my best work when tempting fate,” I shot back.
“And in so doing, you ignore what fate portends.”
I snorted. “Fate can go fuck itself. I don’t care—”
“Um, excuse me,” Saoirse said, using the mainmast to hoist herself to her feet, “as fascinating as it is to watch you two verbally duke it out in shady, threatening whispers, I think Vince and I should be getting on with our mission.” She shook her messenger bag, indicating the contents, then gestured to her torn and wrinkled cocktail dress. “Do you perhaps have a room, er, cabin, I can use to change?” She paused. “Free of charge, and favors, that is?”
Manannán threw his head back
and laughed. “Of course. I won’t haggle with you over something so slight. I’m not one of those pesky lesser fae.” He pointed to a door near the stern that must’ve led to one of the few cabins on the ship. “You can use my quarters. Just don’t touch anything ‘mystical.’ Like the desk. Or the chairs.”
Saoirse furrowed her brows. “Mystical chairs?” she murmured, as she skirted around the mast and shuffled toward the door. “What’s next, a mystical spork?”
I’d have loved to tell her there was probably one of those too, somewhere in the Otherworld, but she disappeared through the door and slammed it shut behind her before I had the chance to really screw with her understanding of the universe. Instead, I said to Manannán, “What mode of transportation are we taking, if not your fancy boat here?”
“I’m calling in a long-time associate to give you a ride.” A wide grin stretched across his face. “You ever ridden in a chariot, Whelan?”
“I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.” I dredged up my minimal knowledge about the sea god’s mythos and sifted through it, trying to remember which of Manannán’s “associates” used a chariot as a primary mode of transportation. No one came to mind, but yet again, I had that itch in the back of my head, a faint notion I had a childhood memory that contained the exact knowledge I sought. But I couldn’t quite reach through the haze of what time and intention had weathered away in order to find it.
“First time for everything.” Manannán snickered as he raised his hand, a misty blue aura spiraling up his arm to the tips of his fingers. He snapped his fingers, and a small sphere of bright blue light with a brilliant tail, resembling a comet, shot up into the air like a rocket to the stars. Higher and higher and higher still, until it pierced the sky and soared off into the endless black in which the billions of realms of the Otherworld were suspended. “There. My associate will receive that message momentarily, and then he’ll make his way here forthwith. Shouldn’t be too long a wait.”
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