Ink & Sigil

by Kevin Hearne

  I grunted at him because I didn’t want to explain that maybe they did. There’s not a government I know of that has access to the Fae, and that’s because sigil agents made damn sure they didn’t in the treaties drawn up between our peoples long ago. And, of course, because Brighid wanted it that way. Gordie might have been giving them access, though I didn’t know how. I didn’t know much about this business at all, but I’d have to learn quickly.

  [What you were saying earlier. About focusing human trafficking on the sex or labor industries. How do they go about it?]

  “Shenanigans, mostly. This really isn’t my line of business, but from what I understand, there’s an assortment of cons they use tae trick people intae traveling somewhere, usually for love or money—oh, lookit all this green grass over here on the other side, they say, ye can leave yer shite life behind—but it’s a bait and switch every time. Once their marks get to where they’re going, the promises made are disregarded. If the victims are in a situation where they’re being paid—a job in a restaurant, maybe—they’re loaded up with debt they can never pay off and they’re trapped. Sometimes these shiteweasels take their victims’ passports and make threats, shut them in rooms without food for a couple of days, and then they’re afraid and trapped in a different way. But the bait part is why the authorities cannae catch them when it’s happening. People are traveling willingly, for the most part. Because of the telly, the public thinks trafficking means they’re kidnapping people off the streets and sending them in shipping containers across borders, but if that is happening—I’m no saying it isnae—it’s the exception rather than the rule. Most of the travel is done legally, and then the hammer falls on the victims when they arrive.”

  [Bollocks. So Gordie—or somebody—was convincing the Fae to come here under false pretenses. I’m sure they weren’t lured by the promise of becoming a science experiment.]

  “Right.”

  [Okay, regarding common trafficking: If somebody’s supplying it, then someone’s demanding, it, right? So who’s demanding modern slavery?]

  “There’s the thing. They usually don’t know that’s what they’re daein’.”

  [How can they not?]

  Saxon gave a shrug. “If it’s someone in a restaurant cooking up yer appetizer, or some invisible person who cleans yer hotel room after ye leave, how would ye know? But as an example, let’s take it from the sex side of things: Let’s say ye’re a sad sack of shite named John MacKnob and ye’re going tae a convention for sad sacks in Liverpool and ye want tae get yer end away while ye’re there. Ye go online—people know where tae find these sites—and ye schedule it. Since ye’re John MacKnob, ye assume that yer escort is in it for all the money ye’re paying them. Ye think they’re just so incredibly hot for sad sacks that they’ve voluntarily entered the industry tae shag some. Sometimes John MacKnob will even ask, and when he does, the escorts will of course always say they’re in it because they like it and no because if they try tae escape or say anything like the truth they’ll be punished or killed, or their families back home will. And therefore John MacKnob’s vague wisp of a conscience is easily reassured that he’s no daein’ anything wrong. He gets tae tell himself that he’s entered intae a consensual arrangement. If he had half a brain, he’d stop to consider how the way he set up the encounter would give him a broad hint at the independence of the worker. If he contracted with the individual on their own, then they’re probably running their own show. If he contracted with a third party, however—if he set it up with a hotel clerk or a call service or sumhin—then the likelihood of trafficking is much higher. But it’s John MacKnob we’re talkin’ about here and he’s just thinking about his knob, in’t he? That and covering his own arse. And tae do that, he orders four or five escorts at a time and brings his friends along.”

  [Seriously?]

  “It’s a party, see? John MacKnob and his sad-sack industry buddies are gonnay have a good time. Entertainment is a business expense. They can actually pay for trafficked people on company credit cards and it gets written off their corporate taxes.”

  [Are you having a laugh at me now?]

  “I’m not. It might not be as widespread as it used tae be, but these traffickers are savvy. They know how tae make it look legal. It’s going on in plain sight. Conventions of any kind are where most of the sex trafficking happens. Them or big sporting events. Get a bunch of men together with disposable income and ye’re going tae have trafficking. Arseholes scheduling parties and plenty of singles also. And on the labor side, it’s hotels or other businesses with large buildings contracting for janitorial services. The hotels aren’t intae the trafficking, but they subcontract their labor, and those subcontractors are in it up tae their necks.”

  [So how do we stop it?]

  Codpiece spluttered and sighed. “I wish I knew. The problem is with the John MacKnobs of the world and late-stage capitalism. They’re creating the demand, see? Traffickers will find a way tae supply that demand as long as it’s there. Focusing on the traffickers might make ye feel good, and it gives the polis and the politicians something to point at and say they’re making progress, but they’re no really addressing the root cause. Someone else will step in tae make that money, because rumor has it they’re hauling in thirty thousand pounds a week on average tae ruin people’s lives. Best thing we can do is not be a John MacKnob. Employers can stop doing all this contract work and—” He paused, blinking as a thought hit him. “Actually, I suppose that’s where we could do some good. Hit them in the contracts. That will slow things down on both the sex and labor sides of the market.”

  I liked the sound of that. Contracts were exactly my line. [How so?]

  “These conventions require contracts between the hotels and the companies holding the event. Vendor contracts, ye know what I mean? If there’s a clause in those contracts that’s anti-trafficking, that will change behaviors. They tell their employees they’ll be fired for anything like that. They’ll be auditing entertainment expenses. They’ll have a meeting in the break room and tell their employees all kinds of fire will rain down upon their heids if they’re perving out on company time.”

  Well, Gordie didn’t get fire raining down on his heid, but he got a raisin scone lodged in his throat for his trouble. It made me wonder: Were all my deid apprentices trafficking in the Fae and slain by a stroke of bad luck, or was it on purpose, like a curse? I knew from experience how subtle a curse could be. Maybe my apprentices crossed the Fae and got themselves cursed with an accidental death—just a bad-luck hex cast on them when they weren’t looking. But on the other hand, if all my apprentices were mucking about like Gordie and inviting such curses, I needed to either retool my oversight or just retire.

  The way I saw it, there were two things to pursue—no, three: First, who was luring the Fae to earth? Because it probably wasn’t Gordie; he’d have no way to contact them. Second, who were the John MacKnobs in this scenario, paying for the Fae to be trafficked—who was Bastille, in other words? And third, where the hell did that nose-punching hobgoblin scarper off to?

  The rest of the emails from Bastille just dealt with new transactions, establishing rendezvous times for new subjects. Each of these corresponded in terms of dates with deposits to offshore accounts. The hobgoblin had told me the truth: Gordie was a trafficker in the Fae.

  [Can you trace the origin of Bastille’s emails?]

  “I can try, but I’ll bet you six biscuits it’s just a bunch of proxies.”

  [Can you get into Gordie’s phone and get his contacts and calls?]

  “Aye. Androids are easy. I mean, it’ll take a while, don’t get me wrong, but I’ll get it done.”

  [Okay. Please see what you can to do track down Bastille, find out who he might be. Anything to narrow it down. Keep me posted.]

  “Awright. And regarding payment…?”

  I knew what he wanted. I got out my pens
and cards drew him five Sigils of Sexual Vigor and sealed them for later use with a Sigil of Postponed Puissance. Usually I paid him only four.

  [This is important. I’ll draw you another bonus one for quick work.]

  “I am on it, Al. Always good to work with ye.”

  [Thanks, Saxon.]

  I took the hobgoblin’s cage with me and climbed back up to the humid hydroponics operation. It was a bit past 17:00 and time for dinner and a chat with someone from Tír na nÓg. I imagined they’d only have questions for me, but I hoped they’d have some answers too.

  Scotland is justifiably renowned for its rich and varied whiskies, but there is another spirit at which it excels, due to the botanicals available here: gin.

  The Scottish gin industry in recent years is almost as varied as the whisky—so much so that it allows for the existence of Gin71 in Merchant City, an establishment featuring seventy-one craft gins from Scotland, all using local botanicals. They have savory profiles, sweet sloes and berries, or even floral notes, depending on the botanicals used. I was always impressed that they grouped gins by flavor profile and garnish on the menu and even went so far as to offer a range of flavored tonics. But for all that, there was another reason I frequented Gin71. Owing to the history of bustling human activity near its location, it was almost on top of an Old Way leading to Tír na nÓg and therefore a point of contact with the Fae.

  It was a bit of a walk from Saxon’s place to Virginia Court, site of the Tobacco Exchange back in the days when Glasgow basically received all the tobacco from Virginia and then shipped it to the rest of Europe. It staggered me at times to think of how much money and cancer had flowed through that relatively small area, a metaphor for all of capitalism’s glories and evils. The tobacco merchants were all long dead now, their moldering bones entombed in the Glasgow Necropolis, their engraved markers testifying that once, more than a century ago, they had worn fancy clothes and eaten whole hogs and shat in only the shiniest of chamber pots. A portion of their product had been stolen by the Fae and given to grey-bearded wizards, along with lengthy hand-carved pipes as gifts, a tradition that eventually worked its way into popular imagination, much to the amusement of the Fae.

  * * *

  —

  To enter Gin71, one walked through a set of double doors that was basically a hallway leading to a number of delights. To the right was a tapas bar called Brutti Compadres, an orange-and-yellow-lit space that sold many Aperol spritzes. Straight ahead was a spa, and to the left was my rendezvous point.

  Once I was through the door, the bar stretched immediately to my right, and the table and booth seating was to the left. I was going to take a booth, but I wanted to catch the bartender’s attention first. To humans she was known as Heather MacEwan, but her real name—the name I’d written on her work visa allowing her to be employed on earth—was Harrowbean. She was a faery loyal to Brighid, First among the Fae, and she served as my direct line to the Fae Court whenever I needed it. She was ethereally beautiful, of course, a flame-haired vision of strength and delicacy, and an outstanding mixologist whose drinks had been reviewed as “magical” in the Glasgow papers and food blogs, though they decried the fact that she was essentially working with only one spirit instead of all of them. She kept her wings folded and out of sight underneath a spotless white shirt and a purple-black brocade Victorian waistcoat stitched with silver thread and accented with a silver ascot tied at her throat. She tended to get tipped fantastically well.

  “Awright, Al?” she asked.

  [Awright, Heather. I need an Illicit Gin right away, please. I’ll take a seat over there.]

  “You need it fast?”

  [As fast as possible.]

  “Coming right up.”

  Normally I ordered a Pilgrim’s, a fine gin with the traditional suite of juniper botanicals, which paired very well with Fever Tree Mediterranean tonic and a blackberry garnish, though in fairness it paired well with almost any tonic you’d care to name. Heather MacEwan, the human-seeming bartender, always managed a perfect pour. If there were any messages from Faerie to deliver that didn’t come via the usual post to my office, she would deliver them to my table with my standard drink. Illicit Gin, on the other hand, was made under a railway arch in Glasgow, with notes of cinnamon, clove, and orange peel. Ordering one of those was our agreed-upon signal for Harrowbean to summon Coriander, Herald Extraordinary of the Nine Fae Planes, and ordering it fast meant it was an emergency.

  She ducked out from behind the bar, exited the restaurant, and then began walking about Virginia Court in a pattern that may have seemed random but was not at all. The specific steps, the turns and length of them, transported her on an Old Way to the Fae Court in Tír na nÓg, until she disappeared from this plane and appeared there. Heather would be Harrowbean for a brief while, summon Coriander, and return the way she came to resume her bartending duties.

  I took a seat and waited, reflecting morbidly that my profession as a sigil agent basically made me akin to those hygienic shields in public toilets, what the Americans called an “ass gasket”: a thin tissue-like layer of protection between an arsehole on one side and a bowl of shite on the other. When it came to humanity and the Fae, I honestly didn’t know which was which, and I supposed it didn’t matter. My job was to keep them apart.

  Harrowbean returned in a few minutes, transitioning flawlessly to her role as Heather MacEwan the bartender, and fixed my Illicit Gin along with the favored drink of my coming guest: a Garden Shed gin and tonic, proceeds to benefit the preservation of bees.

  By the time she had them made and brought them over, Coriander had appeared in Virginia Court and was entering the bar.

  Like Harrowbean, he was beautiful. He appeared to be either a handsome woman or a pretty man, very easy on the eyes regardless of one’s orientation. He was a universally appealing biped and asserted the use of the male pronoun when I asked. He wore a Victorian-style waistcoat as well, grey with hints of pale blue in the pattern, which matched his ascot. In the Fae Court he wore a powdered wig, because Brighid favored it, but he ditched it whenever he came to visit me, allowing his blond hair to splay about his skull, artfully mussed.

  Coriander slid into the seat across from me, nodded to the bartender, and took a sip of his drink as I took a sip from mine. Once that was done, glasses placed carefully back on cocktail napkins, he met my eyes and spoke in his calm, measured, musical voice with an Irish accent.

  “Hello, Al. What’s the emergency?”

  I told him of Gordie’s death and the alarming news that he was trafficking Fae somehow.

  [Can you ask around the Fae Court,] I typed in my app, [and see if any of your people have disappeared mysteriously? This would be only the last six months.]

  “Of course. Anything else?”

  [Has Brighid started teaching sigils to anyone else besides sigil agents recently?]

  “If she has, I haven’t been made aware. I will ask, though I would be highly surprised if the answer was yes. She has been satisfied with your performance and would have no need.”

  Hearing that she was satisfied was good, but it meant that Gordie must have learned his extra sigils from one of my colleagues. I dutifully informed the herald that someone had shared unauthorized sigils with Gordie.

  [I’ll try to get to the bottom of that, but perhaps you could investigate on your side too.]

  Coriander nodded. “Of course.”

  [Also: There’s a hobgoblin loose in Glasgow.]

  “His name?”

  [I don’t know. Gordie had him in this cage.]

  “What did he look like?”

  [I overheard someone say he has pink skin—I had my sight warded when I saw him, so I only saw a shade of grey. Thick, dark eyebrows and hair. Shiny, perfect teeth that weren’t glamoured—he’s had actual work done. Paisley waistcoat, no shirt underneath. Triskele tattoo on his should
er.]

  Coriander shook his head. “He doesn’t sound familiar.”

  [No matter. Can you set a barghest on him? I’ll write out the contract now.]

  “Of course.”

  [Please impress on the barghest that this isn’t a hunt. This is a fetch. The hobgoblin is not to be harmed.]

  “Fetching a hobgoblin is easier said than done.”

  [He’ll tire out eventually and be unable to teleport. The barghest will win.] From the many inner pockets of my bespoke topcoat, I pulled out the proper pens for contract work, a folded piece of blank paper, my sigil-agent seal, and an embossment inker. It was a bit of a production, but it beat going back to the office to do everything.

  “Understood. And where is the barghest to bring the quarry once found?”

  [To the office in my printshop on High Street. I’ll head straight there to wait.]

  “May I assume that this cage you’ve brought is going to provide the source scent?”

  [Yes.]

  “Very well. Will you excuse me for a moment while you write the contract? I need to have a word with the bartender.”

  I nodded and Coriander slid smoothly away, taking his drink with him while I got to work.

  Barghests didn’t usually perform harmless fetches; they were ghostly warhounds typically employed on seek-and-destroy missions. As long as the hobgoblin didn’t put up too much of a fight, he’d probably escape serious injury. The problem was he’d have no idea that the barghest was instructed to deliver him unharmed and would assume he was in a fight—or a flight—for his life. Still, the best way to find a faery in a human city was to use Fae methods. I probably wrote a barghest contract at least once a month to find a rogue faery or some other being from the world’s pantheons, and the other sigil agents probably did it at least as often or even more. Besides being outstanding trackers, barghests had the extraordinary ability to shut down the magic of anything in their jaws, so they were quite nearly perfect solutions to many problems.