Hell and High Water

by Charlotte E. English

  ‘Gratifying.’

  ‘So? Anything for me?’

  ‘I’m not a slaver.’

  ‘I’m both pleased because I’d rather you weren’t, and disappointed because that doesn’t help me find Mearil.’

  ‘I haven’t heard anything about this. But I should’ve.’

  ‘Can you—’

  He cut me off with a gesture. ‘Yes, I can make enquiries.’

  ‘Great. Please do that. Actually though, I was going to ask if you’ll back me up at Tully’s while I investigate.’

  ‘You’re asking me to go to the Puca with you.’

  ‘It’s not a date.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting it was.’

  I glared. ‘If I’m going to sell Fionn, it stands to reason I need to know who to sell her to. And that I’d use your connections. You and I can approach these people, find out who’s in the market for selkie-slaves—’

  Phélan held up a hand. ‘We’re… selling Fionn.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘I knew there was bad blood between the fatales these days, but not that bad.’

  ‘Get over it. We’re ostensibly selling Fionn, because I know where she hides her sealskin, therefore why wouldn’t I.’

  ‘Why indeed.’

  ‘So we’re agreed?’

  ‘I don’t see why you need my help charming these amateurs.’

  ‘I’ve never needed any help with that.’

  His lips twitched. ‘So? What do you need me for?’

  ‘I can’t remember where I left my aura of badness, so I need to borrow yours.’

  ‘Tai. You’re still completely fatal.’

  I beamed. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But I’ll help.’

  ‘Great. I’ll owe you.’

  ‘Interesting.’ He sat forward, fixing me with a dark, intent stare. ‘What will you owe me?’

  I held that gaze, because no way is the bastard going to intimidate me. ‘Would you accept… one Tai-hug?’

  ‘A pitiful offer. I’m going to need at least five.’

  ‘It… it was pitiful, wasn’t it? Clearly I’ve forgotten how to reward my flunkies, too.’

  ‘Flunky.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Penalty awarded. The price is now ten Tai-hugs.’

  ‘Ten? Ridiculous. Have you forgotten what these things are worth?’

  ‘Not in the least. That’s why I want ten.’

  ‘I can go as high as four,’ I countered.

  ‘Six, and that’s my final offer.’

  ‘You drive a hard bargain.’

  He shrugged. ‘So go borrow someone else’s aura of badness.’

  ‘Five and a half and it’s a deal.’

  ‘Half?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Half a hug.’

  ‘It’s within the bounds of possibility.’

  ‘Fine. Five and a half Tai-hugs, but only because I’d love to watch you attempt to half-hug anybody.’

  He had a point. I never do things by halves, and certainly not hugs. ‘Challenge accepted.’ I held out my hand; we shook to seal the deal.

  ‘Right, meet me at the Puca tonight,’ I said. ‘Around six. We’ll camp until these assholes show up.’

  ‘What if they don’t?’

  ‘Then we’ll go back the next night. Or we’ll get a lead from Tully. I don’t know, okay? We’re winging it.’

  He grinned. ‘And that’s the Tai I know and love.’

  ‘A deranged screw-up?’

  ‘A deranged and affectionate screw-up.’

  ‘Yes, I guess I missed you too.’

  I snatched a few hours’ sleep, because a semi-comatose Tai is all kinds of no fun. But somewhere around lunchtime, I was woken by the sound of the front door slamming shut, the jangle of keys dropped into the tray, and the thud of something solid hitting the floor.

  Coronis, with luggage.

  ‘Tai!’ she yelled.

  I wrenched my befuddled consciousness out of sleep-land and back into something like reality. It cost me an effort. By the time I’d hauled myself out of bed, donned a vaguely respectable garment, and shuffled as far as the door, Coronis was already barging through it.

  ‘She’s not here,’ I said, noting the way Coronis’s hazy grey eyes searched my room.

  ‘You haven’t found her.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Shit.’ Coronis slumped onto the edge of my bed, her gauzy, silvered wings fluttering with agitation, and put her face into her hands.

  ‘I know.’ I sat beside her, and put an arm around her, drawing her into a hug. ‘We’re trying, believe me.’

  ‘Looks more like you’re sleeping.’

  ‘Because I was up most of the night, looking for Mea.’

  Coronis sighed, and sat up. ‘Sorry. That was bitchy.’

  I gave her an extra, reassuring squeeze before I released her. ‘I’ll tell you about it in a minute, but I actually have some questions I want to ask you.’

  ‘Anything.’ Coronis, a cloud nymph, is a storm in a tea-cup at the best of times. Now tension and worry had made her steely, brittle. The look she gave me cut me to the heart, for beneath a surface chill — like winter rainwater — she was hungry for a reason to hope. I had little to offer.

  ‘We may have traced a connection between Mearil and a few other selkies,’ I began. ‘And those other selkies all have links to the Eventide club. Do you know it?’

  ‘Shit,’ said Coronis, again. ‘Mea went there. About two weeks back.’

  My heart leapt — and sank. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘She was so damned excited about it. Bought a new dress and everything.’

  ‘You didn’t go with her?’

  Coronis shook her head. ‘She went with a friend. Brianne. They invited me, but I — said no. I hate places like that. But I should’ve gone. Shit, Tai, I never should have let her go alone.’

  My head spun; I barely heard the rest of Coronis’s words. ‘Brianne? Brianne Lamarre?’

  Coronis came back from the guilt spiral she was busily falling down; her gaze sharpened. ‘You know her.’

  ‘Mea knows her? You told me she hadn’t made any new friends recently.’

  ‘Well, and she hasn’t. She’s been friends with Brianne for a month or two, must be. Met at some work-related thing.’

  ‘I… would characterise that as recent, Cor.’

  ‘I thought you meant, in the last week or two.’

  ‘Anybody else she’s taken up with in the last couple of months?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. Just Brianne.’

  ‘So Brianne fucking Lamarre took Mea to Eventide two weeks ago. Or, ten days or so before she disappeared.’

  That explained how Mea’s movements had been known. If she’d seen Brianne as a friend, naturally she’d have told her about her upcoming trip away. But perhaps not much in advance. Had Brianne tried to lure her to Eventide again — or to the Pearls club — only to be declined on account of Mea’s upcoming flight? They’d had to scramble to grab her before she left the country.

  Brianne Lamarre.

  ‘Okay, hold these thoughts,’ I said, reaching for my phone. Fi and Daix needed to know about this. Brianne absolutely wasn’t just bait, and her approach of that poor, naïve idiot of a selkie, Cellann, was neither innocent nor a coincidence. She was deeply involved in the scheme, and had been laying plans for weeks. Had she been cosying up to Narasel and Melly, too? Likely.

  We should’ve eviscerated her back at Eventide, when we had the chance. Instead, we’d alerted her to our involvement, confirmed that we’d taken the damned bait, and then… let her go, because then we hadn’t had sound enough reason to do otherwise.

  I ought to have known. We ought to have known.

  Where the hell she was now was anybody’s guess, but I feared we wouldn’t be seeing her again. Not until she was ready for us. We’d face her on her terms, not ours.

  Damnit.

  ‘Daix,’ I said when she picked up the call. ‘T
ell me you’ve had your creepy surveillance thing going on Brianne Lamarre.’

  ‘I thought my creepy surveillance thing was a totally unjustifiable invasion of privacy.’

  ‘It is when you’re running it on me.’

  ‘Oh, sure. Hate it ‘til you love it. See, Tai, you need me.’

  ‘For once, Daix, I’m going to say: cut the jokes. This is important.’

  ‘You? Cut the jokes? Now I know shit’s got serious.’

  ‘Daix. Do you know where Brianne Lamarre is?’

  She hesitated.

  Daix is the incorrigible smart mouth, with an answer for everything. I know, I know; coming from me, that’s rich. But you really can’t shut Daix up.

  For her to be at a loss for an answer, however briefly, is never a good sign.

  ‘You don’t know,’ I filled in.

  ‘I had her, I swear. Then she — vanished.’

  ‘Vanished.’

  Daix paused again, a silence I’d term, in her case, deafening. ‘Okay, she clocked me.’

  ‘You? You were personally tailing her?’

  ‘Not me as in physically me. What, you think I have nothing better to do than follow vaguely questionable people around all day in the hope they’ll do something shady?’

  ‘She’s a lot more than vaguely questionable, Daix. She lured Mearil to Eventide; Coronis just confirmed it. There can be no doubt she’s behind all this, so tell me again about how you lost her.’

  ‘I lost her? You weren’t even trying!’

  ‘You’re right. That was unjust. But could we just get on with it.’

  Daix sighed. ‘I put someone on her tail. Someone good. One of my best, but it’s like she was expecting it. She spotted him in next to no time, and — I kid you not — blew him a goddamned kiss before she… vanished.’

  ‘Vanished as in, how?’

  ‘As in, no fucking clue, Tai. She was there and then she wasn’t.’

  ‘Wasn’t visibly there or wasn’t there?’

  ‘Whatever the distinction might have been, my agent wasn’t able to determine.’

  ‘So she’s gone.’

  ‘Yep.’

  My turn for a lengthy silence, turning over this unwelcome news. I broke it at last by saying, ‘Daix, I don’t think it’s like she was expecting to be followed. I think she was. She approached Mearil weeks ago, made a friend of her — precisely in the furtherance of this godawful scheme. She was ready for you. Hell, she probably knows all the people you’d send to tail her.’

  Daix’s subsequent silence was more of the fuming variety. ‘Fine, I was out-jockeyed,’ she finally said. ‘Happy?’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I said, though I had to conquer a mild urge to tear her face off even as I said it. ‘We’ve all screwed up. We got complacent. Lazy. Unwary. And for some reason, Brianne Lamarre is taking great pleasure in taking advantage of that.’

  ‘Yes, what’s got into her anyway?’

  ‘We’ve talked about this. If there’s someone from back in the day who’s trying to settle scores, we didn’t really consider Brianne. Sure, we saw her with that selkie at Eventide, but — what the hell did we ever do to her to deserve this kind of shit?’

  ‘No clue,’ said Daix. ‘Did we fuck up some scheme of hers that I’ve forgotten about?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘Then, what?

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s find out where the hell she vanished to, shall we? Then we can ask her ourselves.’

  Daix growled something. ‘Fine, I’m on it. Call you when I’ve got something.’

  She hung up.

  I sent Fionn a text. Fi. Brianne Lamarre’s our culprit. Any chance you can go back to Eventide tonight? Doubt she’ll show up, but you could maybe ask around.

  ‘Right,’ I said to Coronis. ‘The ladies are chasing up on Brianne. I’ve got other fish to fry.’

  ‘Right. And what am I supposed to do?’

  My phone buzzed: Fionn. ‘Hang on,’ I said absently, reading.

  Can and will. Are you sure about Bri, though?

  ‘Right. You need to… wait,’ I said to Coronis.

  ‘Wait? That’s it? I need to help, Tai. Give me something to do.’

  ‘All right. What do you want to do?’

  ‘I can go to Eventide—’

  ‘How are you going to get in?’

  She opened her mouth, paused, and closed it again. ‘Well—’

  ‘Forget it. I’ve got someone on that. What else?’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Hang on. There is a thing. Just a second.’

  I typed back to Fionn. Fairly, yes. I’d go with you but I’m committed to the Puca with P.

  ‘Brianne,’ I said to Coronis. ‘She and Mea were friends for several weeks?’

  ‘I… yes, so she said. She didn’t mention her name until, maybe, three or four weeks ago, but it seemed like she wasn’t a brand new acquaintance then.’

  ‘She have a phone number for Brianne? An address?’

  ‘If she had a number for Brianne, it’ll be on her phone, which presumably is on her.’ Coronis brightened. ‘Hey, maybe we could trace—’

  ‘The phone. No. Brianne’s no amateur. If Mea had a phone on her, they’d have tossed it long ago.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I know. It’s so annoying dealing with people who know what they’re doing. So she wouldn’t have a record of Brianne’s details anywhere?’

  Coronis shrugged. ‘You searched her room. Did you find an address book or anything?’

  ‘Anything so helpful, yet so old-fashioned literally nobody does that anymore? No. I did not.’

  Message from Fionn. Careful at the Puca.

  She didn’t add, careful with Phélan, but I got that message anyway.

  I wrote back. Careful at Eventide.

  ‘Your job then, if you need me to tell you,’ I said to Coronis, ‘is to turn this place upside down and see if anything related to Brianne falls out. A number would be great. An address, better. But honestly, I’ll take anything.’

  Coronis nodded. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m delving into the heart of mortal peril by gate-crashing a sluagh crime party.’

  Coronis’s eyes grew larger. ‘You really are a fatale.’

  ‘I thought you called that already.’

  ‘It’s one thing to realise it intellectually. Different to see it in practice. I’ve always known you as a slouch with a great voice.’

  ‘Thanks. Wasn’t always such a slouch. Anyway, the mortal peril’s tonight. Right now, I badly need a sandwich.’

  I returned to the Booted Puca an hour or so ahead of my agreed meeting with Phélan. I wanted time to get my bearings, settle in, talk to Tully… and watch the goings-on. You can learn so much without having to ask a single question, just by paying attention to what’s going on around you.

  Of course, it was too much to expect that Brianne Lamarre would be sitting at a corner table, nursing a drink and chatting about her evil plans at a penetrating volume. Or that the mysterious sluagh gang Tully had mentioned would be neatly arranged around a table, buying and selling selkie-skins — and therefore, slaves — just at the moment I wanted to be spying on them. Such glorious coincidences of timing aren’t absolutely unheard of, but they’re rare.

  Still, there’s always gossip. Always gossip.

  ‘Hey, Tully,’ I said, wandering up to the bar. I’d chosen to dress down this time, dark jeans and a tank top. I didn’t want to be nearly so eye-catching as I was last night at Eventide. ‘Get me one of whatever’s popular today.’

  ‘We’re all over the pale ales today,’ answered Tully. He grabbed a slim, hazily-blue bottle and presented it to me.

  ‘Starlight Frostbite,’ I read. ‘Sold.’

  He beamed. ‘It’s as good as it sounds,’ he promised, pouring me a tall glass. And it was; one sip froze my lips blue, in a good way.

  I paid, and took a moment to survey the pub. About half the tables were ta
ken, several with lone drinkers, the rest with groups. None of them looked like the sluagh gang I was on the watch for. ‘Tully,’ I said, in a lower voice. ‘Does Brianne Lamarre come in here?’

  ‘Not… openly.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Tully tapped one green-gold eye.

  ‘Let me see if I can parse that,’ I said. ‘Glamoured. Thinks she’s concealed but you’re wise to those tricks.’

  ‘Pays to be, with this job.’

  ‘Uh huh. She meet with anybody noteworthy when she’s here?’

  He twinkled at me. ‘You got someone in mind?’

  ‘A certain sluagh gang who may or may not be peddling particularly questionable contraband.’

  ‘Not that I’ve seen.’

  I nodded. Made sense enough. If Brianne was behind the scheme, she might be using these sluagh to fence the skins, but she wouldn’t need to meet them in so public a place for that. Those arrangements would’ve been made elsewhere. No, the sluagh were here looking for buyers.

  Leaning against the bar, I asked, casually, ‘And Phélan Astrophel?’

  Tully gave a nod. ‘Seen him, a time or two.’

  ‘He meeting with these sluagh at all?’

  ‘Happen you should ask him yerself,’ said Tully, and winked. With a tilt of his head, he indicated a corner behind me. I turned.

  A tall figure sat there with his back to the wall. He wore a dark suit, very sharp, with a black homburg — like that would hide his face enough to conceal him from me.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that Phélan had the same idea as me, and arrived early. What surprised me was that he’d managed to slip in without my noticing. I’m damned sure he hadn’t been there when I walked in.

  ‘Thanks, Tully,’ I sighed. ‘I’ll do that.’ I grabbed my glass of Starlight Frostbite and stalked over to Phélan’s table.

  ‘Look at you, cleaning up all nice,’ I said as I sank into a seat.

  He looked up, and, surprisingly, smiled. ‘Tai. No sultry gown today?’

  ‘How did you know I was up to my eyeballs in gowns yesterday?’

  ‘Oh, I doubt very much you were up to your anything in gowns,’ he returned. ‘Down, maybe. To about, here?’ He made a vague gesture in the direction of my cleavage area.

  ‘As you can see,’ I said, folding my arms upon the table-top. ‘I’m not breaking that out for you.’