I hung back in the shadows, unwilling, just yet, to let him see me. He hadn’t seemed to imagine that pursuit might be a possibility — further proof of his utter amateurishness. I wondered what the hell Brianne was thinking, employing a dilettante like him. Was it just because she realised he and I knew each other? Did she imagine he’d have some kind of leverage over me? I could imagine Rudy boasting of the connection.
When he’d finished swearing, and got his breath back, Rudy pulled out a phone. I’d had to stop in the shadows of a building across the street; too far away to hear what he was saying, but that it pertained to the state of the club was certain, for he gestured repeatedly at the burned husk, and once I heard him shout, ‘It’s fucking wrecked.’
At long, long last he seemed to grow wise to the likelihood of pursuit — or whoever he was talking to had alerted him to the idea — for he began turning in circles, looking around for… well, me, probably.
I let him imagine himself safe.
He said something else into the phone, shaking his head. Something emphatic. I wasn’t followed, okay? Stop worrying. I know what I’m doing. Something like that, most like. The sort of thing characteristic of the kind of shithead Rudy had turned out to be. Overconfidence teamed with a degree of ignorance so profound, it’d almost be cute, if he wasn’t such a dick.
I waited until he’d hung up the phone before I considered my move. He didn’t seem to know what to do next, right away. He stood staring at the club, radiating indecision.
Then he turned, and began to head back my way.
I stepped silently out of my hiding spot and waited for him to notice me.
Took him a little while; he wasn’t paying attention.
‘Shit,’ he swore, when at last it occurred to him that those weren’t just fetchingly-proportioned shadows ahead of him. ‘Tai. Fuck.’
‘Yes, it is I,’ I agreed, stepping forward. ‘Though why this should come as such a huge surprise I’ve no idea. You should’ve listened to your buddy. I mean, of course I was going to follow you.’
I was close enough to see the expression of acute rage that crossed his face. Jeez, how had I missed all these charming personality traits in Rudy? The nice guy routine should never have worked so well on me.
Fuck, I’d lost my edge.
‘So,’ I persevered, when he didn’t speak. ‘What were you expecting to find out here, hm? Meeting up with the lovely Brianne, perhaps? Or someone else?’
‘Like I’d tell you.’
‘You should. Honestly, Rudy. Just because I showed up at Eventide with Fionn, doesn’t make us bosom buddies.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying we didn’t talk for the past eighty years and with good reason. We’re far from friends now. If you’d just told me you were in the market for a certain sealskin, maybe we could’ve helped each other out.’
Rudy watched me, wary. Good; maybe he’d learned a thing or two. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?’
‘You mean when you were trying to remove a kidney by main force? You’re right. Perfect conditions for a cosy chat.’
‘I was told the two of you were thick as thieves. That you’d always back her up.’
‘Brianne’s information is eighty years out of date. She hasn’t exactly shown up to talk to me, either.’
‘So you’re… what, playing her?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Why?’
‘Scores to settle.’
‘Scores? Like what?’
‘If you’ve heard the tales, Rudy, you might recall there used to be four of us.’
He nodded. ‘Happen I’ve heard mention of that, yeah.’
‘Yeah. Well. Fi bailed on us at Ravensbrück and we ended up losing Silise. She deserves to know how that feels.’
I crossed my fingers behind my back, hoping it would assuage the faint pang of guilt I felt. It was a lie, if only a small one. Fi hadn’t bailed. She had fucked up, but then, we all had. We were all responsible for Sil’s death. But I needed to make Rudy — and by extension, Brianne — believe that I blamed Fi.
I waited while all this sank into whatever Rudy considered his brain. ‘You said you don’t have her sealskin,’ he said.
‘I don’t. No way she’d trust me with it now. But I’ve been working on her. I’ve got access to her studio, maybe even her flat. If anybody could get it, it’d be me.’
Rudy said nothing, so I tried a smile on him. Sweet, coaxing, flirtatious. ‘Work with me on this, Rudy. Better than fighting, right?’
‘If this is some kind of play—’ he warned, trying to sound tough.
My smile widened. Hooked. ‘I know, I know. I’ll let you extract a kidney. Hell, I’ll serve it on a silver platter for you. Toasted.’
‘Okay, so. What are you suggesting? You’ll get the skin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what? Flog it to Brianne and disappear with the cash?’
‘I could — if Brianne didn’t hate me. She won’t even talk to me. I’ll need your help to get to her.’
‘So we split the proceeds.’
‘Fifty fifty.’
He wasn’t sold. He was suspicious. Good. I’d hate to think so poorly of his sense as all that. ‘You don’t need the cash,’ he said.
‘Neither do you.’
He shrugged. ‘There are other perks.’ Like, Brianne’s favour, whatever he thought that was going to consist of.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Other perks. Like revenge. You ever hate someone that much, Rudy? So much you’d do anything to make them pay?’
‘Never knew you had it in you,’ he said. Hags curse him, he sounded impressed.
I stepped a little nearer. ‘Yes, well. Turns out you underestimated me, hm?’
He smiled. ‘That’s more like it,’ he said, and touched my hair. Just ran his fingers through it, as though he had every damned right to feel up any part of me he chose.
I resisted the impulse to slug him, but it cost me. ‘You get my number along with my address?’ I said, matching him smile for smile.
‘You bet.’
‘Great. Call me, and I’ve got your number. I’ll call you when I’ve got the goods.’
Following a few further pleasantries unworthy of recounting, I was able to retreat. I did so at a saunter — a sashay, even — though I badly wanted to just cut and run. Sleazebag. People like that can be so easy to fool, because shit like this looks perfectly reasonable to them. If Rudy had no problem enslaving Fi for the sake of getting in with Brianne, why would he suspect my motives when I proposed to do much the same?
If I ever got a chance to extract a kidney or two from Rudy, he’d be a goner inside of a week.
Better yet, I’d let Fi do it. She has those knives. I doubt she’s had an opportunity to use them in a while.
I waited until I was well clear of Rudy before I dropped the act. When Rudy’s call came in, I immediately passed his number to Daix (‘Made a “deal” with Rudy, no thanks to your spectacularly unhelpful message. Contact details as follows’).
Then I called Fi.
‘You know that Rudy wants to sell your ass?’ I said when she picked up.
‘So I discovered. Didn’t Daix tell you?’
‘After a fashion.’
‘She said she’d warned you. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. I mean, of course I’m fine. Rudy’s a piece of cake. Do you happen to have your sealskin handy?’
Her voice grew guarded. ‘Why?’
‘I’m going to have to wave something compelling in front of his face or I’ll never get him to take me to Brianne.’
‘I see.’
‘I mean, I could try just taking my bra off but I doubt that’d be enough at this point.’
‘Tai.’
‘Yes.’
‘You are not taking my sealskin anywhere near these people.’
‘Okay, but then do you happen to know a way to fake a selkie skin? And i
t’d have to be a damn good fake, Fi.’
‘No.’
‘Besides, there’s the whole auction thing going on tomorrow and I’m still down to attend as a seller but high and dry on the saleable goods part.’
‘Still no. You can’t fake a selkie skin. Any idiot could tell the difference, and Brianne isn’t an idiot. Neither is whoever’s hosting the auction, I imagine.’
‘This is a problem.’
‘It’s all right. I have a solution.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ll tell you about it later.’
‘…Do you happen to have two solutions? ‘Cause I’ve sort of double-booked myself here and I can’t give the same sealskin to Rudy and sell it at auction.’
‘Can’t help you with that. Pick one.’
‘Damnit.’
‘Thinking on the fly is all well and good—’
‘Until someone loses an eye. Got it.’
‘Or a partner.’
‘Ouch.’
We were silent for a moment after that. Even I didn’t have the heart to joke the memory of Sil away.
The problem wasn’t a problem, I decided. I’d go to the auction tomorrow, and if nothing came of that, I could use Rudy later. Always nice to have options on top of options, and maybe an extra option just in case.
‘Anyway,’ I said after a minute. ‘I’d, um, better go home and let Coronis out.’
‘You… what? Out of where?’
‘I might have left her barricaded into her bedroom. In my defence, I got excited about hightailing it after Rudy and forgot about her.’
‘Tai.’
‘I’m not used to having civilians in the field, Fi.’
‘Go liberate Coronis. Then come see me.’
‘Ma’am.’
I hung up.
Chapter Fifteen: Fionn
Two hours before Tai’s call, I was back in the water and heading upriver.
I’d gone out there expecting an hour’s search for Faerd, if not more. But I was met before I’d been longer than twenty minutes afloat.
‘Fionn of Cuath-Tor,’ came a voice out of the shadows. ‘Faerd summons you.’
I dislike being summoned, for it assumes a degree of authority over me that I don’t choose to acknowledge. But since I’d wanted to find Faerd anyway, and I assuredly needed his help, I kept my dislike of this terminology to myself. ‘Then I’ll follow,’ I told the wispy asrai messenger, and I did, though not without difficulty; she was fast, and agitated. Even, perhaps, annoyed.
‘Something troubles you?’ I said, after a few minutes’ silent forging upriver. The intense blackness of the waters were no impediment for her, for the asrai are nocturnal, with a sensitivity of vision to exceed even my seal’s keen eyes. I followed more by sound than by sight, listening for every swish of the currents that washed around her undulating form.
‘We have been seeking you this long while,’ she snapped, without so much as a slight turn of her head; I barely heard the words.
‘I am sorry,’ I said coolly. ‘I did not know myself sought for. Faerd, I believe, knows where to find me.’
My irritable messenger made no reply. I focused on following her pale, darting shape through the shadows, and soon enough she began to slow, leading me into the deeper depths of the water. I heard fresh sounds: someone else had joined us.
‘Fionn,’ said Faerd, and came swimming slowly into view. As pale as the waters were dark, he looked the very water-ghost the asrai are sometimes called. ‘I’d begun to despair.’
Growing tired of these chastisements, I retorted, ‘Could you not have sent someone to find me, if it were so urgent?’
‘No one wants to step out of the waters. Not now.’
That silenced me, for a moment. The asrai are not comfortable out of water, but this was something else. This was outright fear. ‘Have your people been harmed?’
Faerd did not answer, at least not immediately. He murmured something to his messenger in a tongue I could not follow, and she left us. Then he said: ‘The drowned selkie.’
‘Yes. Narasel. You’ve heard something?’
‘Gained something.’ He floated a slow circle around me, and a heaviness settled over me. I felt an odd pull of kinship, laced with a sharp repulsion.
A sealskin. Another selkie’s skin.
‘Her skin was not found, I think you said.’
‘It remains unaccounted for,’ I said cautiously. ‘Where did you acquire this?’
‘It was brought to me by one of my own. Tossed upon the morning tide, they said, and adrift.’
‘Someone threw it in the river.’
‘So it appears.’
Thrown away, like useless rubbish. A surge of rage left me shaking, and sick. Narasel’s killer had kept it a while, perhaps thinking to turn it to use. May have tried to sell it, even, but they’d failed, for the skin of a dead selkie has no magic left in it; is only a hide.
A thing not everyone knew.
‘I thank you,’ I said to Faerd. ‘I will see that it is well treated.’
I wasn’t immediately sure how I would achieve that. Most likely it ought to be returned to Narasel’s people, if I could find out which clan she’d belonged to. That would have to wait a little while.
I engaged in a moment’s gratitude that it had been returned to the water, and not hurled into the garbage.
And paused. Why had it ended up in the Thames? Was that happenstance?
I folded the thought away for later reflection, for Faerd was speaking. ‘There has been no harm to my people.’
‘Good.’
‘Yet. But there is fear that we will not escape the persecution our wave-cousins have suffered.’
‘To my knowledge,’ I said cautiously, ‘it is selkies only that are of interest to these people.’
‘Why?’
‘Skins. And pearls.’
‘Theft, then.’
‘Yes. Yes, exactly. Narasel’s death may not have been intended. A… process of theirs went awry.’
Faerd was silent. I could imagine his thoughts. An asrai may be taken captive, as may any being, but there exists no such tool like the selkie-skin, to compel their obedience. Not lastingly. If Tai and I were right, and theft, not murder, was the purpose of the scheme, then the asrai should be safe from it.
‘Thank you,’ said Faerd. ‘I am in your debt.’
Either for the reassurance, or the service I intended to perform for Narasel’s sealskin, I wasn’t sure which. But I needed his help, so I accepted the debt. ‘I have a boon to ask of you.’
‘Name it.’
‘There are others like Narasel still without liberty.’
‘So it is said.’
‘Tomorrow night, it is my intention to attempt their rescue. If they can make it to the waters, will you give shelter?’
‘We will.’
‘There may be pursuit.’
‘If so, it will be dealt with.’
I considered the problem of Cellann of Indra-Tath. Perhaps I ought to send her to Faerd’s waters right away. She would be safer there than she would be wandering London alone.
But to do so would be to draw further attention to ourselves and our interference, in ways which would conflict with the role we were attempting to play. Mine was the role of prey, to Tai’s and Daix’s predator; to shepherd those like me to safety in no way fit with our story.
And Cellann may not consent to go. The girl had not seemed to me to possess much in the way of sense, and we had little with which to persuade her. Only the death of Narasel, which could be called accident, and a wild tale of missing persons impossible to prove.
‘Have you further word for me?’ I asked of Faerd. ‘Did aught of Narasel’s fate reach you, besides her skin?’
‘I have heard nothing of use.’
Disappointing, but perhaps this was no longer a useful line of enquiry. Not wishing to linger too long in the asrai’s waters, I thanked Faerd and withdrew. The pearls I’d made from the stagnant
pools at the old car factory were with me still, but submersion confused them, muddied their link to the waters from which they were fashioned. If I wanted them to work for me, I’d have to get back to dry land.
Tai’s phone call, soon afterwards, recalled Narasel’s sealskin to my mind immediately. An irreverent use to put it to, of course, and I suffered a pang of remorse upon proposing the idea. But Narasel was not here to receive offence, and besides, we were on the trail of her killer.
Were it me, I’d want to help, even if direct assistance had been put forever out of my power.
So I swallowed my conscience, and set aside the sealskin to put into Tai’s possession. What would she choose to do with it? I had to smile at her airy admission of having double-booked herself; very Tai, to get herself into a tangled series of messes, and work out an extrication plan somewhat later. To her credit, she probably would. I didn’t need to worry for her.
In the meantime, I had more preparations to make for the auction, namely regarding Cellann. Was there something I needed to do for her?
Was there some way I could use her? Especially without making any open approach.
I thought back to the only occasion I’d encountered her in person: at Eventide. She had been wearing one of my gowns.
Gifts. The girl liked gifts, especially the expensive kind.
My poor pearls. Once all this was over, I’d have to devote some serious time to replenishing them.
I hadn’t more than formed the thought before my attention was arrested, and all ideas of Cellann flew out of my mind.
My pearls awoke.
Not my ancients, my lustres, but my new ones; the pearls I’d formed out of the waters at the car factory. Stained and muddied, these, no shine to their surfaces at all. I hated to look at them, hated more to touch or wear them. But they’d served their purpose.
Someone wandered the derelict halls in which I had, briefly, been held captive.
I sank into the nearest chair, thankful that my flat was quiet tonight. No noise, no company to distract me. Closing my eyes, I let every idea empty out of my mind, save one: those stagnant pools and the link I’d forged with them. Sensations washed over me.
Someone’s feet stepped softly through the puddles, spilling droplets beyond the borders of the pools. The foul water sank into the fabric of their shoes, their socks — stockings in fact, flimsy and delicate, barely absorbent — a lady? Brianne. Surely, it must be.
Hell and High Water Page 18