Fairy Metal Thunder (Songs of Magic, Book 1)

by JL Bryan

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lew watched the fat tourist stumble out of the Temple Bar pub and knew he'd found his mark. The man's appearance screamed “American,” from his bright orange jacket to the fanny pack at his waist. He was balding, fortyish, and looked a little lost. Perfect.

  Lew fell into a walk beside the man as he staggered along the sidewalk through the Temple Bar district of Dublin, an area that drew tourists the way nuts attracted squirrels.

  A few blocks down, away from the central tourist area, they passed an alley where old McAfee was running his dice game. A couple of other tourists squatted in front of McAfee as he knelt and tossed the dice.

  “Top of the evenin' to ya, sir,” Lew said to the fat tourist, since that was the kind of thing Americans expected to hear in Ireland. “Fine night for it, wouldn't you say?”

  “Fine night for what?”

  “A little drinking, a little dancing, a little gambling...all of life's delights,” Lew said.

  “I'm not much for dancing,” the tourist said.

  “Nor I, sir. 'Tis a waste of energy unless there's a pretty lass at hand. I'd say we're of a like mind, you and I. I am Lew, with one L.” Lew stuck out his hand.

  “Harvey Wilford, Bank of Schenectady. Pleased to meet ya.” The tourist shook Lew's hand.

  “A banker?” Lew asked. “Sounds delightful.”

  “Has its ups and downs. I'm in town for a conference on European derivatives.”

  “Ah, well. I am in town for the last three hundred years.”

  “What's that?”

  “That is, I live here,” Lew said. “Say, you seem like an enterprising fellow. Would you be interested in a quick chance to snag a few hundred extra Euro?”

  “Oh, no, I'm strictly on vacation,” Harvey said.

  “Of course ye are,” Lew said. “But this will be a bit o' fun. Did you see that crook with his little dice game back there?”

  “Dice?” Harvey asked.

  “I know how to beat him,” Lew said. “But he knows me and won't let me play. So I need someone he won't recognize or suspect—a tourist, to put it simply—to play on my behalf.”

  “I don't know...”

  “It will be a simple matter to win,” Lew said. “Then you and I split the earnings. As much as five hundred Euro apiece, by my math.”

  “Five hundred Euro?” Harvey stopped walking and stared at him.

  “For ten minutes' effort,” Lew said. “As I said, I would do it myself, but he knows I can beat him.”

  “What do I have to do?” Harvey glanced back at the alley.

  “Step just here and I'll explain.” Lew steered Harvey into the recessed doorway of a restaurant that had closed for the evening. This put them out of sight of all the Temple Bar foot traffic. “You see, sir, I am of the Good Folk.”

  “The what folk?”

  “I am a leprechaun, sir.”

  Harvey looked him up and down. “You are kinda short.”

  “Among humans, I present myself as much larger than my natural state,” Lew said.

  “You don't look like a leprechaun, though. Leprechauns don't wear jeans and leather jackets.”

  “Oh? And how do ye expect me to dress? A green woolen coat, perhaps?” Lew gestured at himself, and his jacket transformed into such a coat. “A funny black hat with a golden buckle?” Such a hat appeared on Lew's head. “And my boots should rather be a bit more...” Lew pointed to his dark leather boots. They turned green, and the toes curled up into spirals.

  Harvey gaped at him.

  “You really think this is the sort of outfit I should wear?” Lew asked. “In public? On a Thursday?”

  “I guess not,” Harvey whispered.

  “Good!” Lew shook his head, and his hat disappeared, and the rest of his outfit reverted to normal. “Now, what do ye say to winning a dice game?”

  “Sounds good to me!” Harvey said. “Wow, a real leprechaun!”

  “Don't speak so loud,” Lew said. “If the dice dealer knows ye've been consorting with such as me, he won't let you play.”

  “Gotcha,” Harvey whispered. “I can't wait to get home and tell the wife about this one.”

  “I'm sure you can't, sir.”

  “So how does this work, exactly?”

  “I simply grant you a bit of leprechaun luck,” Lew said. “Then you win all his money. I won't give you too much luck, or he'll grow suspicious. So you may lose a bit at first, but when it really counts, you'll clean the Euros from his pockets.”

  “All right! Let's go!”

  “Just act calm,” Lew said. “Drift up to the game, watch the other tourists, let him draw you in. I'll handle it from there. Now grab my hand.”

  Harvey slowly reached out one hand. Lew held out his own.

  “Grab me,” Lew said. “You must capture a leprechaun before you get anything from him. That's how it works.”

  The tourist took Lew's smallish hand in his own giant one. Lew closed his eyes and concentrated. Luck flowed out of him, into the fat tourist.

  Lew opened his eyes. “Feeling lucky now, are ye?” he asked.

  “I do feel different.” Harvey looked a bit perplexed.

  “Good, good,” Lew said. “Let's go.”

  They returned to the alley. Lew hung back on the main drag, letting Harvey wander in by himself. He stole a few glances, watching as McAfee scammed tourists and gradually drew Harvey into the game.

  Harvey won a few small bets. He glanced back over his shoulder at Lew, who smiled, gave him a thumbs-up, and put a finger to his lips.

  Harvey placed a larger bet, a hundred Euro, and won. Finally, Harvey took the stack of Euros from his fanny pack and laid them all on the line.

  McAfee threw the dice again. Snake eyes, double ones. McAfee took all of Harvey's money.

  Harvey blinked several times as he realized he'd lost all his money. Then he turned toward Lew and jogged at him, snarling.

  “Thief!” Harvey said.

  “Ah, sorry, sir.” Lew stepped into the alley and leaned back against one wall, his arms folded. “I may have neglected to mention that I'm a bad-luck leprechaun. You never had a chance of winning.”

  “You little monster!” Harvey threw a fist in Lew's direction. Lew didn't even bother to duck—the fist slammed into the brick wall by his head.

  “Ouch!” Lew said. “That's another bit of bad luck for you.”

  “You...slimey little slime!” Harvey shouted. He backed up, raising his other fist...but just then, a stray dog happened to dart behind Harvey. Harvey tripped over the dog, who ran away, and then Harvey crashed backwards into a pair of metal trashcans. Harvey held his bruised, swollen hand and wept.

  “Sir, I’d advise ye not to start a fight just after getting soaked in bad luck,” Lew said. “It can't end well. Your best bet is to go back to your hotel, pull the covers over your head, and hope nothing falls on ye along the way.”

  Harvey pushed himself to his feet and glared at Lew, but then he staggered away into the thick Temple Bar crowd.

  Lew strolled down the alley to meet up with McAfee, who paid him half of the money he'd taken from Harvey.

  “A good piece of work, that,” Lew said.

  “Indeed,” McAfee said. “Fancy a pint?”

  “Sounds like just the thing,” Lew said.

  Then the ground in the alley rumbled. A small dark hole appeared in the pavement, blocking their escape. It grew wider and wider, like a spreading puddle.

  “What is that?” McAfee whispered, his eyes wide.

  “That’ll be the devil, McAfee, come to collect your soul,” Lew said. “Were ye not expecting him yet?”

  McAfee took off running, and Lew chuckled as the old con man ran out of sight. Lew knew he should probably disappear, too, but he was curious what, or who, would come out of the magical gate at his feet.

  The sound of galloping hooves echoed through the alley. Then a pair of black horses with smoldering
red eyes emerged from the hole in the ground, towing behind them a black carriage trimmed in bone, with burning candles mounted in skull-shaped candleholders at each corner. A skeleton in a dark suit clung to one side of the carriage.

  The driver had the body of an old woman in a long, yellowed dress brimming with dark lace and ribbons. Her body was headless, and her head hung in what looked like an ornate brass birdcage mounted on the front of the carriage.

  “A dullahan,” Lew whispered.

  The headless driver cracked a whip made of short segments of bone, and her two horses stopped in front of Lew.

  “Llewelloch Mac Larcen,” the head in the birdcage said. “How sad to find you scraping tourists for dribbles of cash.”

  “Wait,” Lew said. “I once knew you, I believe. Were you not called Zinerva?”

  “I am.” The dullahan lifted the birdcage containing her head. She held the birdcage out on a long metal pole, where it dangled at the end like a lure on a fishing pole. She lowered it so that the head could look Lew in the eye. The dullahan had the face of a pale old woman, full of wrinkles, her eyes dark.

  “I've heard news of you,” Lew said. “Is it true you've entered the service of Queen Mab? Guarding a little gate in some forgotten backwater of America?”

  “We all do as we must to survive,” she said. “As you obviously know.”

  “And what great task brings you back to Éire?” Lew asked.

  “I require assistance from you,” the dullahan said.

  “In what form?” Lew asked.

  “There is a troupe of musicians,” the dullahan said.

  “Are they Folk musicians?” Lew asked.

  “No, they are human. I just need to find where they are.”

  “And why's that?”

  “Not important. I need to reach them at a place and time when they are quite isolated, if possible. But they must have their instruments near.”

  “It's the instruments that interest you, then,” Lew said. “I must wonder why.”

  “The instruments may have a bit of magic in them,” the dullahan said.

  “Ah,” Lew said. “You're on the Queen's business, then? Nicking about, running her errands, perhaps taking in her laundry?”

  “I have my purposes,” the dullahan said.

  “And I am, as ever, devoted to the great golden purpose,” Lew said.

  “Of course. I wouldn't expect help from a leprechaun if I had no gold to offer.” On the carriage, the dullahan's headless body raised a small pouch and jingled it. Lew grinned.

  “Then I may be able to help you,” Lew said.

  The dullahan described the four young musicians for whom she was searching. “Their names are Mitchell Schneidowski, Mildred Zweig, Erin Kavanagh, and Jason Becker,” she added.

  “Kavanagh?” Lew frowned. “That could get messy.”

  “Don't fear,” the dullahan said. “These are New Worlders, generations removed from Éire. She seems blissfully clueless as to her heritage. To be honest, by the looks of her, the girl doesn't seem to have much happening upstairs at all.” The dullahan's body pointed to the empty spot above her neck, where her head should have been.

  “If you say so,” Lew said, but the girl’s name still made him uncomfortable.

  “They have come to Dublin to make a record,” the dullahan said. “Something to do with a company called Malarkay.”

  “That'll be Malarkay Records. Do ye plan to kill the musicians, then?”

  “Only if necessary,” the dullahan said. “Or if they annoy me. The instruments are my focus.”

  “This wouldn't be related to the rumors from Faerie, would it? Is it true that fairy instruments were stolen off to man-world?”

  “That is not your concern,” the dullahan said. “I ask that you keep this matter quiet. Simply watch, listen, and inform me when they are isolated from others.”

  “How will I inform you?”

  “Here.” The dullahan's body opened the wooden chest on which she rested her feet. She handed him a black crystal ball, small enough to fit easily into Lew's hand. “Call me.”

  “I can do that,” Lew said.

  “And for your payment.” The dullahan tossed the small pouch through the air, and Lew caught it with his other hand.

  “This better not be the sort of fairy gold that turns into flowers.” Lew said as he opened the pouch.

  “I assure you, I would not attempt to trick a leprechaun in the matter of gold.”

  Lew took out a coin—it was an old Spanish doubloon—and sniffed it. He nodded.

  “I expect to hear from you soon,” the dullahan said.

  “As soon as the opportunity to attack them arises, I will call you.”

  “Very good. Now, if you'll stand aside...” The dullahan drew her head back and mounted it on the front of the carriage again. She cracked her bone-whip. Her two black horses turned and ran up the wall of one building, drawing the carriage behind them. They turned and galloped straight down into the large hole in the pavement through which they'd emerged.

  When the carriage was away, the hole closed after it like a mouth, leaving no trace behind. Because the dullahan was one of the Queen’s gatekeepers, she was allowed to travel around man-world using magic gates that opened and closed at her will. It certainly beat walking.

  Lew jingled the small pouch of gold coins, and he considered how he might profit best from the dullahan’s request.