Hot Lead, Cold Iron

by Ari Marmell

  Hunched over, gasping for breath, I struggled hard to regain control—and I gotta admit, I almost lost. I squeezed the wand in my pocket until it creaked, pumping my own emotions through it like it was part of my mind and soul, trying to use the magics to calm myself down, to strip away some of the pain. I briefly rested one hand on the floor, drawing strength from the earth and soil and growing things beneath the foundation. And more than anything else, I drew on who I was—on what I was—on the pride of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who ruled once as kings and gods among men.

  And I’ll tell you, I think it was probably the pride that saved me. Because no fucking way was I going to collapse in front of a bunch of mortals. Especially mortal criminals!

  Especially over a damn vacuum cleaner!

  I couldn’t make the pain go away, but I could damp it down enough so that I could work around it, same way I usually do the itch of your technology. I felt sick as a leper with influenza, and I can only imagine how pale and ragged I looked, but I hauled myself to my feet and smiled at the fella watching me.

  “Loose tube,” I told him, as casually as I could manage. “That woulda been embarrassing to show the missus, wouldn’t it?”

  He grunted and waved me onward.

  I didn’t actually wanna go “onward.” Every further step into that house made the nausea worse, threatened to bring back the pain. I had to literally drag my feet; I coulda sworn I was trying to trudge through deep, smog-infused, toxic snow. But I went, because the other choice—retreat—felt even worse.

  It wasn’t the house itself; wood, brick, piping, same as any other. I didn’t see anything in the way of unholy tomes or ancient grimoires on the bookshelves, though I didn’t have much time to give ’em a thorough up-and-down. The walls and shelves boasted enough crucifixes, portraits of the Virgin Mary, and lit votary candles to supply Holy Name Cathedral, with enough left over for one-and-a-half exorcisms, but I ain’t a vampire or a demon, so that wasn’t my problem, either.

  So what was…? Oh.

  I finally recognized the sensation—the pain, the nausea, all of it—right about the time I noticed a couple of chalk lines sticking out from under the door to what I think was probably a bathroom. And seeing that I was finally able to pick out the rest of it: the faint redolence of incense and holly, the grit of iron shavings in the chalk, the echo of inhuman names spoken hours or even days ago, lingering like whispering spirits in the air.

  Wards. Someone had warded this house.

  And not just any wards, not just protections against any old ghostie or ghoulie or long-leggedy beastie. Not with that precise combination of pure iron and herbs. This was a ward against Fae, specifically (or against what most of you think of as Fae, which is just a subset of… but never mind), scribed and incanted by an occultist who knew what they were doing. If someone hadn’t actually invited me across the threshold, I’d never have been able to set one foot inside, no matter how stubborn and prideful I got.

  That someone led me into a sitting room, chock full of couches and chairs covered in tasteful paisleys—with cushions so overstuffed that I figured an entire dynasty of geese had given their lives for this furniture—around a central hardwood table. A tea set of fine china sat in the exact center, along with a couple of small glasses for stronger and less legal drinking, but there was nothing in any of ’em at the moment.

  “Wait here,” he told me, still blinking like something was nagging at him. “Mrs. Ottati’ll be down in a minute.”

  I just about collapsed into the sofa, honestly grateful to be off my feet for a few, to try to steady myself up a little.

  But I didn’t have a few; I only had maybe one or two before someone else swept into the sitting room. Someone who was very much not Bianca Ottati.

  She was short, not more’n a fifth of Scotch over five feet, though her heels added another couple of fingers. Her hair was black as a mari-morgan’s heart, and tied back so tight you probably coulda bounced a penny off her cheeks. She was dressed in a modest, high-necked dress, all in black, and carried a rosary as if it was a whip she was just itching to use.

  Which, I guess in a way, it was. I could feel the power, radiating off her in waves of pure anger. If I hadn’t been so out of it, so sick from the wards, I’d have sensed her coming before she even walked into the room. And the wards were hers, no question; the magic tasted the same.

  Witch. Friggin’ fantastic. I hate witches and warlocks. I’ll take a werewolf or a whole Unseelie chopper squad over a sorcerer any day, and twice on the solstice. I don’t like anyone who can pull off magics that I can’t, and I definitely don’t trust any of you humans with that kinda power.

  No offense.

  I stood, because it seemed the thing to do, even though I couldn’t manage a whole lot in my current condition if things got ugly.

  “Vai via! Vattene, diavolo!” She came at me, one long finger pointing. The rosary was almost a living thing, shifting and sliding through her other fist. I found myself retreating all of a step before I bumped back into the sofa. “Io so bene quello che tu sei! Non sei benvenuto qui!”

  As best I could, given how much I felt like a used boxing glove, I let her fury wash over me and just listened, letting the words roll around in my ears, my mind, even my mouth, tasting the foreign tang to them.

  “In nome della Beata Vergine, ti won’t profane questo posto! Ti caccio dalla mia children’s home!”

  Almost there; almost…

  “Non so come you found us, but I’ll not allow you to—”

  There it was. “Oh, enough, lady!”

  Didn’t know if she understood a word I said, but the fact that I said it was enough to stop her yammering for a minute.

  “Look, I… Do you speak English?” Just ’cause I can understand most of your languages, given a few moments to adapt, don’t mean I can speak ’em.

  “I speak English just fine,” she said, with only a slight Sicilian accent. “But it matters nothing in what language I address you, soulless creature. It’ll not change what I have to say. I know what you are.”

  “And I know what you are,” I told her. “Strega.”

  No, I don’t speak Italian, but I’ve picked up a few words in my time. “Witch” being one of ’em.

  “I’d have thought,” I continued, “that with your kinda power, you’d already dealt with things a lot worse’n me.”

  I swear, I thought she was about to hiss at me. “I believe in my Lord Christ, and his Blessed Mother. I deal with spirits only when I must, to oppose evil beings such as you!”

  “Huh.” I nodded. “You’re Benandanti.”

  For the first time, her expression changed; she looked moderately startled. “I—I am. Few still know of us, fata.”

  Since few of you probably know, either, the Benandanti were a fertility sect in Italy in the sixteenth century—eventually developing various traditions of witchcraft which they swore they were only using as good Catholics, to battle evil spirits and other witches, and to ensure healthy harvests.

  For some reason, the Inquisition didn’t buy it, which is why they ain’t around much anymore.

  “Look, lady…” I wracked my brain for a minute. “Mrs. Maldera, right?” She nodded hesitantly. “I ain’t here to cause you any problems. I’m here to help.”

  “We don’t require your sort of—!”

  “You sent Mrs. Ottati to me, didn’t you? You’re the one who pieced together what your granddaughter is.” I twisted to face the doorway, where Bianca Ottati had been standing for a minute or two now, her fists clenched and her blinkers wide. “Didn’t she?”

  Bianca nodded, and briefly waved a hand down the hall—probably sending away any of her husband’s goons who were coming to see what all the shouting had been about. Then, “Donna Orsola, we need him. You told me we needed him. Why—?”

  “I did not want him here!” Fino Ottati’s mother shrieked. “Madonna, I told you what he is! Consorting with his kind is damning enough, but to let him into o
ur home—”

  “Is a short-term inconvenience you’ll just have to bear,” I said. “Now, can we please sit down and talk like reasonable… whatever we are?”

  I gleefully yanked my hat from my head, dropped it on the vacuum, and slumped back down into the sofa without waiting for an answer. Orsola followed a moment later, choosing a chair clear across the room, leaving Bianca to pour us all a splash of tea before she, too, sat.

  By the time I was done doctoring mine, it was more tea-favored milk, but I didn’t wanna be rude, y’know? I’m not sure whether getting it down or keeping it down took more effort.

  “I don’t suppose you can do something with the wards for a few, could you?” I asked over the rim of my cup. Orsola’s glare woulda done the gorgons proud, and was more’n eloquent enough to tell me the answer was “No,” with a hefty helping of “Fuck you” to give it flavor.

  Bianca was sitting hunched in her chair, her fingers clasped together so tight they were going pale. Donna Orsola was glaring at me, rosary beads clicking against her fingernails. Me, I was trying to keep my gorge from rising into my head, which was already threatening to burst.

  So, y’know, all nice and casual.

  “Mrs. Maldera—Donna Orsola,” I said, “I know you don’t want me here. Fine, I dig. But there’s stuff here I gotta see and do. So what I need to know from you is, which do you want more: me gone, or your granddaughter back?”

  Her glower hardened to steel for just a moment or two, then wilted. She nodded to me, just once, and turned her gaze down to her lap. The beads went click, click, click against her nails. I heard Bianca whispering in time to her mother-in-law’s twisting of the rosary, “Ave Maria, piena di grazia, il Signore è con te…”

  You don’t really need me to translate that for you, right? Anxious as I was to get done and get out, I figured it was best to give ’em a minute to finish their prayer.

  “All right,” I said once they were through. “Donna Orsola, I’ve already heard the basics from your daughter-in-law, but I need you to tell me, please… When and how did you tumble that your granddaughter had been snatched?”

  In a voice that started angry and slowly softened into sorrow, she spoke. Unfortunately, while she gave me a little more in the way of mystic insight—how the kid always “felt wrong” on dates of power (the equinoxes, Imbolc, Beltane, that kinda thing), how she felt the magic growing in the girl recently, how she finally recognized the signs for what they were—the story was otherwise more or less exactly what Bianca had told me yesterday. And about as helpful.

  “Okay…” I leaned back in the couch, squeezed the bridge of my nose hard enough to crack walnuts. “And I assume you tried to find the girl through, uh, nontraditional means as well?”

  “You mean my craft. Of course I did! To find my granddaughter, I would do anything, even work with—”

  “Even work with things like me. Yeah, I got that. And?”

  “And I found nothing. Perhaps she is in your world, rather than ours. Perhaps it has simply been too long.”

  I thought for another few seconds. “Can you think of any reason you might have been targeted specifically, Donna Orsola? Any spirits or other entities holding a grudge?”

  “I told you, I deal with such creatures only when I must, and when I do so, the terms of my bindings are very specific. No, I have no reason to think that any of them wish me or my family harm, beyond the harm they wish, by their very nature, on all devout Catholics.”

  “So what about mortal enemies? I know your son has more’n his fair share. He’s at war with someone right now, ain’t he?”

  The women traded glances. “I’m not supposed to know much of Fino’s activities,” Bianca admitted. “Good Family men try to keep us—the wives and children—away from the business. But still, I hear a great deal.”

  “Be careful what you say, Bianca,” Orsola warned.

  “I’m telling him nothing he couldn’t learn elsewhere, donna. My husband is currently, ah, disagreeing with the Uptown Boys.”

  I’d heard of them, just a little: a small splinter of Bugs Moran’s Northside Gang. Vicious, brutal thugs—but then, who in any of the mobs wasn’t?

  “But,” she continued, “the conflict with them didn’t start until a few years ago. They had no, ah, ‘beef’ with my husband back in 1916. Madonna, most of this city’s gangs didn’t exist in 1916, not as they do now!”

  I nodded; she was probably right, but they might be worth looking into if everything else came up snake eyes.

  “There’s gotta be others, though,” I prodded.

  Again they traded looks. “There are—other rivalries,” Bianca said carefully. “Families within the Outfit, within, ah, our thing. You understand?”

  I understood. Actual blooded Mafia families, with roots in the Old Country. Yeah, those rivalries could sure predate Prohibition. “Any in particular?”

  Even distracted as I was, I could see the hesitation, the fear of betraying her husband’s confidence. But Orsola, apparently, had other concerns.

  “Giovaniello!” she hissed, actually spitting once on the carpet. “Scola, Reina. Stronzi cattivi, the lot of them! They torment our family even back in Sicily, they drive us out, they…” She just about deflated, fast as a kid’s balloon. “They hate us,” she whispered. “And we hate them. We always will.”

  Bianca leaned forward. “Donna Orsola and Fino were horrified when they discovered those families had spread here as well. And…” Her entire faced tensed. “Fino missed Adalina’s birth, because someone tried to hit him on the way. He didn’t have his own crew at the time, he was just a button man, but they were at war—and one of the rival capo’s lieutenants was Vince Scola!”

  Again Orsola spit. Yeah, that family was definitely worth looking into. The name “Vince Scola” was ringing some faint bells—I’d have to talk to Pete, or maybe Shaugnessy—but it was certainly possible he was involved. I doubted seriously that Orsola was the only Old Country strega to have come to the Land of Opportunity.

  I really had to move this along. It was getting harder’n harder to keep up the “cool as a cucumber” routine; I was about to start weeping bile, vomiting tears, or both.

  “All right, I’ll definitely get a slant on them. First, I gotta take a quick look around your place. I know you ain’t thrilled with that—” directed at Orsola “—and that the chances of there being any clues or traces left after sixteen years are pretty rotten, but we better be sure, right?” I stood, and they both followed suit. “Donna Orsola, I’m not gonna find anything if I can’t focus my magics. Are you sure you can’t…?”

  “No,” she said again, though this time she sounded a little apologetic about it. “I understand what you wish to do, fata. And I want you to find my granddaughter. But I cannot just switch our protections on and off at whim; they would take hours to restore, perhaps days, were I to break them. I’ll not leave my family defenseless for so long.”

  And it was then, just then, that something struck me, something I shoulda thought about from the minute I walked into that damn house. I musta been even more goofy with pain than I’d thought.

  “My God…”

  I hadn’t even realized I’d whispered aloud until Orsola went rigid as a railroad tie. “Don’t you ever speak the Lord’s name, creature! I’ll not have it! I—”

  “I’ll do a lot more than offend you, donna. She’s here, isn’t she? You’ve got those wards up, and Adalina’s here! Even if she’s not your ‘real’ girl, the agony you’re causing her—”

  But the old woman was shaking her head. “No. Once I understood what she was, I sealed our home against your kind, to avoid any further danger to us. But I inscribed the glyphs around her presence. So long as she doesn’t attempt to depart this place, they cause her no discomfort at all.

  “I have no intention of harming her. We are not the monsters, Mr. Oberon.”

  Well, she used my name, anyway; that’s better’n “creature,” right?

 
Unfortunately, if there was anything to find, I wasn’t in any shape to find it. I made a quick circuit of the ground floor, focusing on the doors and windows. I left my senses wide open—or as open as I could without being overwhelmed by the wards—and I got nothing. I ran the wand over the entryways, tapped on the walls, felt the resonating of magics in the brick, the glass, the wood, but everything I sensed could be accounted for by Orsola’s glyphs and spells. I also got a whole heap of weird looks from Fino’s boys guarding the place; I just smiled, gave ’em as much of a mental nudge as I could muster, and said, “Looking for a good place to demonstrate the repaired vacuum.” I don’t think they were all that convinced, and one or two even went to check in with Mrs. Ottati, but they left me alone.

  I found no signs of unusual Fae interest: no hidden patterns in the paint or the brick, nothing rusted or rotten—or, alternatively, better preserved than it shoulda been—no tricky or malicious alterations to their various holy icons, and no items or books of abnormal power. (Of course, I also saw none of Orsola’s grimoires, but somehow I didn’t think she’d care to show me those even if I asked.)

  I’d need to check outside, too, for any toadstool rings, arches of ivy, or an excess of oak, ash, or hawthorn in the house’s construction (or in the surrounding neighborhood). But I couldn’t do it now; I was afraid that if I stepped outside the house—outside the wards—I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to come back in.

  But it was all going through the motions, anyway. If someone had been gunning for the Ottatis specifically, if this was something more’n a random changeling swap, the presence or absence of the usual signs wouldn’t mean much.

  I stumbled back into the sitting room where the ladies of the house waited for me. I found it interesting that, this time, Bianca was praying over rosary beads—a lot less imposing than her mother-in-law’s—while Orsola was pacing the far wall. Guess she wasn’t happy about me wandering around her home.