by Ari Marmell
“Just one last thing,” I told them, and the words were practically a prayer. Almost done. “I gotta speak to Adalina.”
Orsola mumbled something that I was too achy to translate, and Bianca shrank in her chair.
“I have to,” I said. “She was just a baby when all this began, but not all Fae grow up the same way you do. It ain’t likely, but she may know something useful. If nothing else, maybe I can tell from looking at her who mighta left her.”
And I could make sure that she even was a changeling, since I still hadn’t seen any solid proof—though Orsola appeared knowledgeable enough that I couldn’t much doubt her anymore.
Orsola nodded shallowly and then slumped into the nearest seat. It happened to be the sofa I’d been perched on earlier; she musta been really upset, if she was willing to touch it.
“Follow me,” Bianca whispered. I did, and we made our way upstairs. The pain and sickness faded a little, since more of the wards were focused on the ground floor; not a lot, but at that point anything was a relief.
Above was just a couple of hallways with a lot of doors—and another goon standing in front of one of them. He frowned when Bianca told him to let me through, but he unlocked the door—a deadbolt, screwed to the frame—and stepped aside.
“You’re behind the eight-ball if he asks Fino about this,” I whispered to her. “No way he’s gonna buy that you let a vacuum salesman up here.”
“I know.” She ushered me in, pulled the door so it didn’t quite shut behind me.
It was clearly an adolescent girl’s room. The walls were a subtle pink, the furniture and the closet door white-with-gold, the blankets a deep rose—with a frill, of course. A simple crucifix hung over the bed, and the shelves held an assorted mix of jewelry boxes, stuffed animals, and hats. At its lowest volume, the radio in the corner was whispering a promotional spiel for tonight’s “jolly new episode” of Easy Aces.
It was also clearly the room of a girl with problems, since drawers were yanked open, jewelry boxes were dented or smashed, teddy bear parts and stuffing covered the furniture in an off-color snow, and all sorts of laundry—including a selection of camisoles and step-ins that I don’t think most teenage girls woulda wanted some stranger to see—were strewn all over. Someone had gouged jagged lines in the radio’s casing with what looked like a nail file, and the place stank of cheap perfume, cheaper cigarettes, and unwashed clothes.
And half under those rumpled sheets, head down and hands clutching her greasy hair, was Adalina. “Get out,” she whispered at me.
I stepped to the foot of the bed. “Adalina, my name’s Mick. Your mother asked me to talk to—”
“Get out, get out!” She glared up at me, leaning forward, and snatched a mangled music box off her nightstand, ready to throw.
“Calm down!” I hit her with every bit of will I could gather under the circumstances. I couldn’t fully get to her emotions—they were too powerful, too deep, and I was too all in from the pain—but I could push around the edges. If nothing else, she locked up for an instant, the box falling from her hand to clunk across the mattress, and then the carpet. It started playing “Blue Danube” woefully out of tune.
If she’d known who and what she was, it woulda been harder than that. But since she didn’t, her Fae nature actually made it easier on me.
And she was Fae, no doubt about it now. I could feel it in the air, smell it on her breath and her skin. And I could see it, see it clear enough that I couldn’t be surprised anymore that Orsola had recognized it for what it was.
She was pale—sickly pale, near maggot-white—and so skinny I thought the blouse and skirt she was wearing might weigh more’n she did. Looking at her face was like looking at a photograph through the bottom of a glass: just a little off. Her sunken, sallow eyes were a hair too far apart, her ears a touch too high, her lips a little too thin, and a dozen other things, even more subtle. Not any one feature would stand out on its own, but all put together, it made her… Not ugly, exactly, though she was that, too, but different.
I took a step around the corner of the mattress, just a little closer, and held out my hands. “I won’t hurt you, Adalina. I just need to talk.”
“If my parents sent you, I’ve got nothing to say,” she insisted. “Bastards! They’re holding me prisoner here, you know.” She pointed at the windowsill, and I saw shiny new nails hammered into the frame. I also saw that her own nails were jagged, and had what mighta been old bloodstains on it from one of her fights. “Can you get me out?”
“Not yet. Maybe eventually.”
She growled and twisted her face away.
“It started within the last couple of months, right? You get angry at the littlest thing, real angry, and you dunno why. People look at you, and laugh or point or flinch away. You look in the mirror, and you don’t recognize yourself anymore. Am I right?”
She twisted back, jaw hanging. “How’d you…?”
“I’ve seen it before, Adalina. It happens, sometimes, with people like you.”
“People like… I’m a normal person!”
“I think we both know different, Adalina. But it’s okay; it’s a good thing. Once you understand what you’re becoming, you can—”
“Shut up! Get out!” She was off the bed, coming at me with fingers curled into claws, and I didn’t have it in me to stop her again—not without maybe hurting her, anyway. I made tracks, and honestly, I breathed a sigh of relief when Bianca’s goon slammed and bolted the door behind me.
CHAPTER SIX
The Cook County Hall of Records was a typical government grey—more drab than the greystone flats, somehow—with images and inscriptions intended to make the place feel important. I was flopped in an old, grimy chair in an office on the top floor, with several ledgers and heaps of paper piled on a worn desk, and going blind by the light of a cheap lamp.
I also still hadn’t managed to shake the effects of Orsola’s wards, even though it’d been hours now since I dusted out of that damn house. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it’d been inside, but my guts were roiling storm clouds, and my head felt like a baseball after an inning with Jimmie Foxx. But it wasn’t physical pain, exactly; it was more… kinda the hangover you might get if your soul took off without you and got lit on bathtub hooch.
Once I’d gotten done talking with Adalina, for all the good it did, there wasn’t much left for me to do there. I’d explained to Bianca and Orsola that the girl didn’t seem to know anything, and that—until she was basically through changing—I couldn’t accurately tell ’em what she was changing into. (It didn’t look to be anything too obviously inhuman, such as a goblin or a troll, but there are plenty other vile bastards from my world who aren’t so blatant.) I promised I’d give them a ring when I learned anything, snatched up my hat and vacuum, and made for the door like the house was on really angry fire.
I coulda cried when I got back into the open breeze; as I said, I still hurt, still felt terrible, but compared to how it’d been inside, it was heaven. Yeah, I did remember to look around, and it felt good to kneel down in the early spring grass, close to the soil and the roots—but as I’d expected, there weren’t any more signs of old Fae presence outside than in. Or if there were, they were too subtle for me in my current state.
My current state was also why it had taken me three blocks of shuffling down the sidewalk, dragging my vacuum along behind like it was a stubborn dog, before I finally noticed that someone was shadowing me.
A handful of someones, actually, in a black Model 18 “Deuce” that looked more or less the same as every other flivver on the road. If I’d been hitting on all eight myself, I’d probably have felt their interest in me a lot earlier. As it was, I only noticed because I stopped briefly to lean on a lamppost in hopes that my head would stop pounding, and saw ’em brake a little too quick, to avoid passing me by.
Fino’s boys, more suspicious of me than I’d thought? One of the Shark’s enemies, wondering who I was? Something totally unre
lated to my current job? Didn’t know and, while I probably shoulda made some effort to find out, felt too ugly to care. I knelt by the vacuum—again, pretending I was trying to fix something—and slid my wand from my coat. Around the canister, I carefully aimed the L&G and let fly. I couldn’t muster my full will, not around the pounding and the nausea, but it ain’t hard to strip enough luck from a dingus as complex as an internal combustion engine to make something go wrong. I heard a loud pop, followed by a hissing burst of steam and a whole heap of profanity. With a shallow smile, I stood up and wandered on my way.
If I’d been in better shape, I mighta noticed that the Deuce wasn’t the only flivver on my tail. But I’ll get to that.
Point is, I didn’t want to waste any time, and I kept thinking the effects of the wards should fade any minute—honestly, they shoulda let up right after I left the house—so as much as I wanted to climb into a hole and pull it in after me, or at least into bed, I didn’t head home. Instead, after a quick ride on the L that didn’t do me any good at all, I made my way here—the hall of records I just mentioned.
A combination of polite requests, mental nudges, and cheap bribes got me quick access to records that shoulda taken a lot longer, and a few that I probably shouldn’t have had at all. (The expressions on everyone’s faces as I lugged the vacuum through the hallways woulda had me in stitches any other day.) And so, in that little office with the little lamp, I spent the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening digging through paperwork that shoulda taken me only a few hours.
On the one hand, it didn’t tell me a whole lot of use. Fino Ottati and his mother came to the US of A from Sicily about twenty-four years ago—which, other’n the exact timing, I’d already picked up from my talk with Orsola. They came with a few cousins, which I hadn’t known, and I scribbled down their names for a later follow-up. Orsola had no other kids, and Fino hadn’t had any except Adalina (or whoever Adalina was supposed to be).
Bianca Ottati, born Bianca Walton, daughter of industrialist Henry Roger Walton and Pavia Angotti, daughter of immigrants. I bet Walton’s family were thrilled with that. No sisters, two older brothers, one killed in the War, the other from complications after a bout of scarlet fever.
Yeah. Real efficient use of the day. Good job, Mick.
But the relatively stress-free afternoon had gotten me some rest, and I was a tiny bit more myself by the time I left. A few folks were working late, and I waved or tipped my hat at each one as they looked up, their attention drawn by the squeaky wheels on the canister.
I made a mental note, next time, to pick a cover that required less awkward props, and—bracing myself—headed for the closest elevated station. The platform was pretty busy this time of the evening, so I just stood still as a frightened sculpture and let the people ebb and flow around me. Wasn’t long before the drab green cars screeched to a stop, and I slipped inside. People hurled more irritated glowers at my vacuum, shuffled around trying not to trip over it, and with a shudder, we were moving.
Much as I wanted one, I hadn’t found an empty seat, and I didn’t feel up to car-hopping. So I stood for a good long while, stop after stop: swaying, one hand in the hanging loop, the other on the vacuum’s hose, and listlessly watched the people around me.
Which is when, and why, I saw ’em.
Well, just one, at first. He was standing in the next car back, face pressed to the glass, staring right at me. He was wearing a long overcoat, not too much different than mine, over shirt and trousers; no suit. Coulda just been your average Joe, nothing remarkable about him, except for the way he was staring. I’ve seen it before, a lot.
No doubt at all, he was here for me. And there was something else about him, something I was too disoriented to put my finger on, that reminded me of the guys in the car from earlier.
Told you I was getting back to that.
He saw that I’d seen him, and shouted something over his shoulder—doubtless to whoever else was with him in the next car. Well, I didn’t think they’d do too much with so many people around, and I had no intention of loitering around waiting for them. I started sidling toward the front of my car, so I could be at the exit and ready to scoot as soon as it opened.
And saw the door to the car in front of mine open, and a few more galoots step through. These didn’t just remind me of the guys from the car, they were the guys from the car. Even from just my quick gander earlier, I was sure.
They were also between me and the exit. They musta been watching me on the platform, saw which car I’d gotten on, to box me in on both sides this way. And I hadn’t noticed ’em at all.
I was really off my game.
The brakes began to squeal as we neared the 51st Street station, and damn if everyone in the car didn’t get up to move! I don’t know how many were actually planning to get off here, and how many were just wise to what was happening—Chicagoans know to clear the way when two groups of guys start converging—but either way, of all the rotten luck, I was about to lose my witnesses. Most of ’em filed out the doors as soon as they opened, a few actually ducked past one goon squad or the other into neighboring cars. The thugs let ’em go, a few even tipping their hats. I pondered on making a break and decided against it. No sense in just handing myself over.
There were seven of ’em, total; three behind, four in front. This close, I got a much better slant on ’em, and nope, they weren’t the Shark’s button men. Every last one was way too pale, most had lighter hair, and I damn well knew Irish features when I saw ’em.
Which, given that they picked me up right after I left Fino’s, probably meant Uptown Boys.
“Okay, pal.” They all looked about the same—overcoats or trench coats over casual—so the only reason I assumed the fella speaking was the leader was because, well, he was the guy speaking. “No reason this has to get unpleasant. We just wanna talk.”
“So talk.” I took a step to one side so I could keep my lamps on him while also glancing at the far windows—which were reflecting the guys behind me.
He saw what I’d done and smirked a little. “We wanna know who you are, and what your business with the Ottatis is.”
I desperately wanted my wand, actually felt my palm itching, but I didn’t think these guys would take it too well if I suddenly went for my pockets. “You treat everyone who speaks with the Ottatis this way?”
His smirk started to become a lot less smirky and a lot more scowly. “If we don’t know ’em and we have the chance for, uh, conversation, yeah. Now, you gonna spill?”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t blow your wig.” I nudged the vacuum with my foot, and then put everything I had into my words and my stare, hitting him right in the face with my will. “I’m just a salesman, mister. I represent Credne Household… Device…”
He wasn’t buying a word of it, not one. I could tell because he pulled a set of brass knuckles from a pocket and slid ’em onto his right hand. On both sides of me, jackets opened, revealing baseball bats, axe handles, even a copper’s nightstick. Well, at least it seemed they didn’t wanna bump me off, just tune me up good. Probably because they wanted to be sure who I was before deciding if I was important enough to whack.
I didn’t get it. It should have worked! Even without my L&G, even without more’n a minute to concentrate on him, and yeah, even with me feeling like a dirty dishrag, it shoulda had some effect. Get him to stop and think, if nothing else; give it some credence, if not make him swallow it outright.
Nothing. I might as well not have even tried.
“One more chance, pal.” He ran the fingers of his left hand over the brass knuckles. “And don’t even think of lying to me.”
“All right, okay.” I shrugged, looked down and shuffled my feet, stuck my hands in my pockets… All nervous tics, right? They didn’t even notice that last one. “They hired me to see if I could identify your mother, so we knew whether it was more accurate to call you a bastard or a son of a bitch.”
I know, I know. But I was tired, I
was hot under the collar, I hurt a lot, and it just sorta blurted out.
He came at me, fast, his boys just a few heartbeats slower, but I was ready—and more important, so was my wand. I kicked the vacuum at him at the same time I yanked the L&G from my pocket and hit him with a quick blast to sweep away a fragment of luck. The combination was enough to trip him up bad; he tried to leap the canister, caught his toes on the handle, and smacked down face-first. A second burst swept the palookas behind him, ensuring that two of ’em tripped over their boss and joined him on the filthy floor in a pile of arms and legs and long coats and blunt objects.
That gave me a few breaths to deal with the ones behind me. But even as I did, I felt my skin crawl—more than crawl, writhe, as though it was trying to make a run for it and didn’t much care if the rest of me went with or not.
And then I saw why, through peepers that’d just started to sting and water. Three guys behind me; one was carrying a bat, one that billy club I just mentioned. But the third…
The third man was carrying a length of pipe.
Iron pipe.
My vision telescoped in on the weapon, like I was looking through a keyhole. Suddenly, this wasn’t just a scrap, wasn’t some scuffle where I might pick up a few bruises or even cracked bones that’d heal in a day or two. I could be hurt, bad.
I could die.
He had to go. He had to go fast, and he had to take the pipe with him.
There was just enough room, if they got friendly, for two to come at me at once. I shifted to one side, so that I was closest to the goon with the nightstick, and he obliged me by charging ahead of his two buddies. I let him swing and deliberately took the blow on my arm. I felt the bone quiver, and winced, but it wasn’t about to slow me up. I twisted, reached across and, using the wand, pinned his billy club against my arm where it’d hit. And grabbed his wrist with the other hand, which I’m sure he expected not to work anymore.