Hot Lead, Cold Iron

by Ari Marmell

  I was too bewildered, too mixed-up, to count slugs—but even in my current state, I recognized the metallic click for what it meant. (And if I hadn’t, I probably coulda figured it out from the gruff cursing that followed.) I took a few precious instants to pop back up over the edge of the mattress, snag my wand from atop the nightstand—I’d have loved to grab my rapier as well, but it was standing in the corner on the opposite side of the bed—and get a quick slant on the galoot trying to rub me out.

  First thing I saw was the bronze-and-wood-frame heater, more or less an Otherworld copy of a S&W model 22, and I allowed myself a quick second to be grateful that he’d brought a revolver. The triggerman himself—who was wearing a beige suit, and coulda been either aes sidhe, gancanagh, or half a dozen other kinda-human-looking Fae—was crouched half outside of the door, desperately plugging shells into the back end of the cylinder. Even from this rotten angle, I could see from the way his noggin twitched that he was trying to keep one eye on the gat, the other on the hallway. Obviously, I’d ruined his evening by not having the courtesy to let myself get clipped from the get-go.

  So he was rushed, frantic, worried, and frustrated. Exactly how I like ’em.

  I leveled the Luchtaine & Goodfellow, took careful aim… And even a little befuddled as I was, it was no hassle at all to pluck the strings of his emotions, running through brain and muscle and soul, so he twitched at just the right moment. The roscoe dropped, half-loaded, to bounce across the carpet, accompanied by the tinkle of falling shells.

  I think his howled “Fuck!” was louder’n the shots had been.

  This, I remember thinking, is not a professional hitter. Accustomed to violence, yeah—probably someone’s bodyguard or leg-breaker—but not so much a real torpedo. And that told me someone was in a serious hurry to get this—to get me—done.

  Either way, I had a moment while he went scrambling for the revolver. I gathered my feet up under me and practically dove across the bed, right hand stretching out for the rapier in the far corner.

  And I missed. Obviously, I remained more disoriented from the gink’s initial salvo of confusion than I’d realized. I slid completely over the bed and back off onto the floor on the other side, and my fingers closed on a nice, thick handful of diddly.

  I scrambled, spastic as a drunk spider, trying to get my legs under me—and rose just in time to see the thug practically leap from the doorway, coming at me with open hands. Guess he decided it was more important to keep me from getting hold of a weapon than to recover his own.

  He landed hard beside me, loud enough to shake the floor even through the carpet, at right about the same instant I finally managed to grab the hilt of the sword. I spun, lashed out, and gave him a solid slash across the noggin…

  With the blade still in the scabbard.

  I honestly couldn’t tell you if it was because of that lingering befuddlement, or just ’cause I didn’t have time for anything else. Either way, it didn’t do much more’n stagger him a little. Very little, not remotely enough. I flicked the blade off to the side, sending the scabbard flying, but he’d already lunged in again, wrapping a thick, meaty paw around my wrist.

  And now the fact that he was more a brawler than a triggerman was a bad thing. A lance of pain speared my entire arm as he twisted, and the rapier dropped right back to the damn floor. (I suppose I oughta be grateful it didn’t stick my foot on the way.) I took a poke at him with my left fist, still wrapped around the wand, but he just juked his head aside quick as any prizefighter and twisted sideways, dragging me around by the wrist. He had my back to him now, arm folded up behind me, and drove a solid jab into my kidney at the same time he shoved me face-first into the wall.

  I think the whole room shuddered and the lights in the hallway flickered, but it mighta just been me. At my best, I could maybe have taken this lug. Now—bleeding on the wall from my nose, wrist about a half-inch from breaking, and someone else’s confusion squatting in my head like a drunken hobo—there was no damn way…

  Which meant I had to change my circumstances a little.

  Struggling to focus through the pain, I stretched the L&G back and tapped the guy, just lightly, on the leg.

  And fed a heaping helping of his damn disorientation right back to him.

  Not all of it—I was too disoriented to channel all my disorientation, and how do you like that?—but enough. My head cleared a little, very much like just starting to sober up, and I felt the palooka’s grip loosen, his body sway. Gave me just enough slack to lean forward and then slam my skull back into his face. He cried out, staggered away, and now there wasn’t a schnozzle in the room that wasn’t spattering nifty patterns of crimson into the carpet.

  I finally had a good look at his face as he stumbled, trying to shake it off. Definitely aes sidhe, now that I was up close and personal—and though I couldn’t absolutely swear to it on the Book of Leinster, I was pretty well sure that I’d seen his mug before, in the crowd of petitioners and staff at the hall.

  Apparently he didn’t care much for me studying him, ’cause he came at me again—a little wobbly, yeah, but determined. And since I still wasn’t all there myself, I hadn’t taken the time to stoop down and retrieve the rapier.

  I tried to shuffle out of his path, but he just reached out and slammed me back into the writing desk, bruising my back (and my poor kidney again, damn it!) against the wooden edge. He clamped one meat hook on my throat, the other on my left fist so I couldn’t move the wand at all, and started bending me backwards over the desk.

  So I reached back behind me with my right hand, shuffled around the papers while my vision started to go all sparkly and spotty, until I found the fountain pen the hotel had provided “for my convenience.”

  And it did, indeed, prove convenient enough for stabbing the gink in his left peeper.

  It was kinda fascinating, in a grotesque sorta way. I actually saw a cloud of leaking blue ink start to spread slowly through the white before his eye just gave up the ghost completely and collapsed inward.

  He threw himself back, shrieking like a goosed bean sidhe, yanking me forward for a few steps before his grip finally loosened. I stumbled to one knee, and by the time I could so much as regain my balance and look up, he was gone. I heard footsteps and continued shrieking receding up the hall, and the door to the stairway slam.

  I probably shoulda gone after him, but I was panting and gasping myself, I’d just taken a pounding like I was Santa’s runway, and I didn’t much feel up to moving at all.

  Well, okay, I moved enough to toss the blood-and-vitreous-covered pen across the room and wipe my hand thoroughly on the bedspread. I mean, I ain’t squeamish by nature, but yuck.

  And then I waited, taking what few minutes I had to catch my breath and decide just what, exactly, I was gonna tell the cops.

  * * *

  The answer wound up “almost everything,” for all the good it did.

  “And you’re sure he looked like one of us?” The aes sidhe detective was wearing an overcoat over a boiled leather cuirass, and letting a uniformed copper—a coblynau, this one, not a spriggan like most of the others—take his notes for him. “You real sure?”

  “Yes, damn it!” I was pacing back and forth between the hallways’ white-and-green papered walls—not that there was much room there for pacing—while a swarm of coppers scurried through my room, under the watchful gaze of Ielveith and Slachaun. She was as proper and composed as ever; he, on the other hand, had slept on his beard, which was smooshed completely flat on one side.

  “You understand, Mr. Oberon, that lots of Fae have the power to change their form…”

  “Oh, for… I’m not a chump, detective. I know what I saw, and what I saw was aes sidhe!”

  It was, of course, entirely possible that what I’d seen was indeed a glamour, or a shape-shifter. But one, I didn’t think it probable; not a lotta guys coulda maintained a disguise like that after I hit ’em with the wand (or the pen).

  And two,
I was sick and tired of this mug telling me what I did and didn’t know.

  “So you say, Mr. Oberon. And I’m sure you think that’s what you saw. But this is really more an Unfit shenanigan. The Seelie don’t do this sort of thing.”

  Right. And I’m actually a pixie with a glandular condition.

  “I’m giving you a few minutes to think it over, Mr. Oberon. And then we’re going to go through it again.”

  “You gimme as many minutes as you want, detective. It ain’t changing what happened. And I want my wand back before I leave.”

  He nodded politely and slipped into the room, carefully stepping over the revolver, and the various forensic runes and sigils they’d sketched around it. I paced a few more steps and then slumped against the wall, hands in my pockets.

  Where, joy of joys, I was able to overhear Slachaun muttering to his boss.

  “…told y’he was trouble, Mrs. Ielveith. We oughta give’m the bum’s rush and ban’m from ever showin’ his face around here again.”

  “Oh, of course,” I said, straightening and taking a step closer. “Because it’s my fault someone busted up the place, right? I just attract bullets. Gotta work on that.”

  “Look, boyo—”

  “What’s really bugging you, Slachaun? That your hotel ain’t so peaceful and quiet, or that your pal didn’t finish the job?”

  His beard actually bristled, a thick, red, angry hedgehog. “What’re you accusin’ me of?”

  “Not sure yet,” I said. “I’m trying to figure if you helped the guy, or just missed him, so it’s up in the air whether you’re corrupt or just incompetent. Either way, this never woulda happened when I was working here.”

  Slachaun howled something incomprehensible and lunged for me, growing as he came—and a handful of coppers jumped to stop him. Several of ’em, also spriggans, grew to match. Last I saw of Slachaun that day, he was being dragged backward down the stairs by a cluster of blue uniforms, ranting and screaming curses, a few of which I can’t translate into English, and the rest of which I won’t.

  Several of the cops remaining behind slapped me with dirty looks, and went back to work, hunched over the grass-green carpet or the bullet-riddled furniture. I heard Ielveith step up behind me.

  “Was that truly necessary, Mick?”

  I took a moment. “Yeah, actually, I kinda think it was.”

  She sighed; I felt her breath waft across the back of my neck. “You don’t really think he had anything to do with this, do you?”

  I finally faced her. “Honestly? Nah, probably not. He’s loyal to you, whatever else he is.” Then, deliberately formal, “I do apologize, Your Grace, for any trouble I’ve brought to your establishment. It absolutely wasn’t my intention.”

  “Ah, forget it, Mick.” Ielveith—Duchess Ielveith, to be proper—waved a dismissive hand. “As you said, it’s hardly your fault someone took a shot at you. Though I do hope the Court locates said miscreant, since I’d love a few words with him.

  “And besides, I know you’re good for the cost of a replacement bed.”

  I winced, but nodded. Bianca’s seven hundred and fifty bucks was starting to feel like a lot less dough than it had, but it was the least I could do.

  “You’ll hafta wait until I’m done with my current job, doll,” I said. “My retainer’s already spoken for. Soon as I have the rest, though, I’ll square us.”

  “It’s a deal.” Her gaze flickered to one side, I nodded, and we took a few long paces down the hall, moving us out of earshot. One of the bulls tossed a lascivious leer our way, which we both studiously ignored.

  Ielveith and I never did have the relationship that those rumors claimed we did. All she’d ever been to me was a boss, maybe almost a friend; we got along well enough, but that’d been the end of it. I worked for her a couple years as the Lambton house detective, until the rumors of my “exile” caught up with me here in Chicago. Even then, she’d waited as long as politics and position allowed before she fired me. It was a more even break than I’d gotten from anyone else in this Otherworld town.

  “So what’s going on here, Mick?” she asked, her voice low. “Why is someone shooting up my place to get at you?”

  “It’s the case I’m working on, I think.” In quick snippets, I gave her the basic lowdown on what’d been happening. I even told her that I thought I recognized the fella who attacked me from the hall, which was the one tidbit I’d left outta my report to the detective. (He wouldn’t have believed it anyway.) Her face was twisted up real thoughtful by the time I got through.

  “Ylleuwyn’s a toad,” she said. “I wouldn’t put this sort of thing past him, but it’s a little sloppy.”

  “He didn’t have a lotta time to put it together. If it was him at all. Seems likely, but I got no proof.” I shrugged, and then frowned. “You’re as well connected as him, Iel. You ever hear anything about this Ottati changeling?”

  “Can’t say I have, Mick. But I’ve little to do with changelings, myself. I prefer adult servants.”

  I’d like to think she was telling me the truth, but I know that in the Court, politics usually trumps friendship. Still, I didn’t see any signs of deceit—which coulda just meant she was a better liar than Ylleuwyn, but I decided to take it at face value.

  She didn’t offer to poke around about it, and I didn’t ask. I wasn’t about to put her in the position of having to say no to me.

  “So what’s next for you?” she asked.

  I shrugged again. “This is either big, or real personal, for someone—Ylleuwyn or otherwise—to take such a blatant shot at me, and in someone else’s joint. You guys are usually a lot more subtle, and a little more honorable, than that.”

  “‘You guys’?” she repeated with a raised eyebrow. I waved off the implication; I was out, damn it!

  “Someone wants me dead, or at least walking away, and I intend to disappoint ’em all the way around. I’m seeing this through.”

  “Aren’t you afraid? If they’re willing to murder you over this…”

  I gave her the steadiest grin I could muster. “I don’t do fear.” I hoped she didn’t hear the quaver in my voice. “And I definitely don’t let myself get muscled off a job, or get shot at without hitting back.”

  “But if nobody in the Court will tell you what you need…”

  “Then I talk to someone else.” I could feel my grin crumbling like a bad sandcastle, no matter how much I tried to keep it alive.

  Her jaw dropped when she tumbled to what I was suggesting. “Mick, that’s insane!”

  “This whole thing’s insane, Iel. I’m just trying to get out ahead of it.”

  And that was when Detective Not-Listening-To-You called me over for another useless chat. I left Ielveith a few rooms down, shaking her head and cursing, quietly but about as foully as Slachaun had been.

  * * *

  After another two hours of utterly useless gabbing with the detective—or more accurately, about five different separate conversations of twenty-some-odd minutes each—they finally decided that I wasn’t changing my story anytime soon, and let me go. I even got my wand back, with a minimum of grumbling. Ielveith, once she got done spitting profanity like the devil with a stubbed toe, was kind enough to offer me a replacement room. I got myself a few more hours of shuteye, and woke up ready to face the new day.

  Actually, I woke up ready to go hide in the corner with a blanket pulled up to my chin, but I headed out to face the new day anyway.

  So I ran my shirt and trousers through the wash basin beside the tub—they were clean and dry in a matter of minutes—got myself dressed, slipped my rapier and blade into my belt, grabbed a quick breakfast of bacon and eggs in the Lambton’s dining room, and… went for a walk.

  Yeah, I know. Swell plan, right? But what else was I gonna do? I didn’t have anybody I could grill for info—nobody I could trust or easily get to, at any rate. I didn’t have any leads. And for the most part, I didn’t have any friends or resources I hadn’t alre
ady exhausted. All I could do was take the time to think about it, and maybe spur someone else into making a move I could follow up.

  I didn’t think I was making myself too much of a target. Yeah, I was strolling around in public as though I hadn’t a care in two worlds, but I didn’t think anyone would try much of anything way out in the open, in front of dozens of witnesses.

  Then again, I hadn’t thought they’d bust down the door and start shooting up the Lambton, either. So you can bet I was keeping a good slant on everyone around me as I ankled my way down the sidewalks.

  The earlier rains had cleared some of the industrial (well, magic) smoke, and a lotta the pollen, from the air, so the city’s bouquet wasn’t quite so overwhelming as normal. A gentle spring breeze flipped the hems of coats and skirts, and brushed leaves (and a drunken pixie or two) across the uneven bricks cobbling the street. Carriages and buggies bounced by me, pulled by horses, ponies, bulls, goats, passels of dazed and happy humans, and—in one case—a griffon with a bum wing.

  The sidewalks were just as crowded, filled with aes sidhe and brounies and all the others I’ve already listed for you, all dressed as dapper as you please. Most were just going about their business, headed for work or court, but I caught myself a glimpse of the same coat, the same hat, the same quickly averted stare, a couple times too many. Cops, seeing if I knew more than I’d told ’em last night? Ylleuwyn’s people? Ielveith’s? Friends of Slachaun? Or something related to a dozen other friends and enemies (more the latter than the former, unfortunately) I’d made in my years?

  Just another day in Chicago—long as you’re in the right Chicago.

  I was just starting to wonder if I oughta do something about my shadows when someone took the decision outta my hands. See, there was nothing that shoulda bugged me about the sound of a coach coming up behind; there was enough of ’em on the street to make it all part of the background. But it felt wrong, and most Fae learn as kids not to ignore those sorts of feelings.

  The ones who don’t tend not to ever get to be Fae adults.

  The carriage itself was a dark, thick black. The windows were sealed shut with old bronze nails, and the handles and trimmings were tarnished silver. The only sign of actual color on the thing were the whitewalls on the tires. The contraption was hauled by two black horses—or I think they were horses, anyway. Rivulets of water trickled from their hooves and left tiny puddles in their wake; they coulda been hired kelpies, then, but I chose to believe they’d just recently walked through puddles left from the rain, and decided not to get close enough to find out different. Disgusting creatures.