by Ari Marmell
Me’n Keenan weren’t close, but we’d worked together a few times, and we had a mutual buddy in Pete, so normally joking around with him that way shoulda been fine. Today, though, he scowled.
“You can’t be here,” he said. “Not right now. Not for a while.”
“What? Now wait a minute. I get that Galway’s pretty steamed at me, but—”
“Not about Galway. Not anymore.”
“What then?”
Keenan’s scowl frowned—don’t ask me to explain that, it just did. He spotted an empty desk, and half-guided/half-dragged me over to it. He sat. I couldn’t help but notice he didn’t ask me to do the same. Once we were there, though he didn’t seem to know what to say.
“Lemme guess,” I said. “Galway rescinded the job offer? Keenan, I can help with this. I know things. It’s—”
“Not only is the offer off the table,” the detective said, “but nobody in the department’s supposed to work with you until further notice. Pete’ll be personally ordered not to talk to you for the duration.”
I think, if I had sat down, I’d have been up again in that moment anyway.
“What? What’d Galway—?”
“Not him, Oberon. Not any of the boys.” He cocked his head to one side, back toward the offices. “Order from the chief. And he got it from…”
Another office door opened.
“…him,” he finished, sounding even more tired.
The “him” in question was tall, almost painfully slender as best I could tell, given the tailored suit. Oh, yeah, and “he” was also a “she.” Hair was gold as a good pancake with a thin layer of syrup, and unfashionably long. Down-to-the-backs-of-her-knees long.
She also had no eyes. Just dark, empty hollows where her peepers shoulda been.
I may or may not have jerked Keenan a nod in farewell, I don’t really remember.
I walked over to her, slow and steady. She just crossed her arms and waited.
“Oberon.” Voice was deep, musical.
“Áebinn. Been a while.”
“Some would say not long enough.”
I call what I did next smiling, but some mighta described it as showing my teeth.
“Some, but not you, right?”
“Oh, of course,” she said in a dull tone that translated loosely as “Fuck off. Preferably in front of a fast-moving truck.”
So, all right, quick skinny. I met Áebinn years ago, back when I was working as hotel detective at the Lambton Worm. She’s bean sidhe, or “banshee” to you. Feed on proximity to death, though not normally the sort to cause ’em.
Most bean sidhe are tied to a specific bloodline; it’s why you hear ’em howl when one of the family’s about to croak. It’s sorta a wail of anticipation. But the bloodline Áebinn was linked to died off some time ago. I mean, completely. I dunno the full story behind it, but rather’n find another to attach to, she wound up here in Chicago. Well, the Elphame side of Chicago. Been using her ability to sense imminent or recent death as an investigator for the Seelie Court.
In other words, she’s basically a cop.
Well, Raighallan had told me he had a partner…
I chucked a thumb over my shoulder.
“So what’re they seeing when they look at you?”
“Generic mortal male. With the proper documentation to convince whoever I need to that I’m a high-ranking agent of their ‘Bureau of Prohibition.’” She shrugged. “Simple charm, and it excises a great deal of hassle.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. What’re you doing here, Áebinn?” Then, at her raised eyebrow—which is a weird thing to see when there ain’t any accompanying eye—“Pretty sure we’re out of your jurisdiction.”
“We’re making an exception.”
“Uh-huh. So what’re you doing here here? Not the mortal world. I mean here. The clubhouse.”
“Inconveniencing myself,” she sniffed. “To avoid greater inconvenience later.”
“You mean cutting me off from police resources.”
“I told you, Oberon,” Raighallan’s voice came from behind me. “Stay outta this.”
I hadn’t heard him approach. Managed not to start, though. I think that’s something to be proud of.
“Lemme guess.” I was still talking to Áebinn. “Your partner agent from the bureau?”
“This is the last time we’re going to make a point of keeping this polite,” she said. “If you interfere with us again, I’m going to have to treat it as criminal behavior. Potentially even enemy action.”
“Gosh, I’ve never had enemies among the Seelie Court before.”
Áebinn leaned in so she could whisper. This close, her pipes were potent enough that, even though she wasn’t wailing, her words carried a chill.
“Make me one of them and you’ll never have any again, either.”
She straightened, smiled, and fluttered her fingers in the general direction of the door.
“You may go now.”
You’re in public, Mick. And she’s an official emissary of the Court. And she ain’t alone.
It was still almost worth it to sock that grin off her mug.
Almost.
I kept my mitts at my sides and made for the door, brushing Raighallan aside with a stiff shoulder on the way.
* * *
More rain. More train. Dripping, buzzing, cold, painful. I trudged up the steps to the door of Soucek’s building, stabbed the lock with the key a couple times until I finally hit something vital, and lumbered inside. Each step left a rainwater footprint to soak into the carpet, but honestly, it woulda taken two of me, both not caring, to care any less.
Grouchy, is what I’m getting at. I don’t call this the end to a good night, or the start to a good day.
I took the basement stairs, stomping on each one like I was mad at it. Finally I threw open the door to the hall…
And got myself such a smack across the chops, I wished someone would answer my ears already, so they’d stop ringing.
“You louse! You crummy, two-bit, no-good conman!”
Ah, shit.
The outfit was much the same as yesterday’s, ’cept mostly in blues instead of greens, but it wasn’t near as immaculate. Not sloppy or anything, just a little wrinkle here, a bit crooked there. Her hair was kinda frizzy, too; she hadn’t spent much time on it, for sure.
Or she’d got caught in the rain, in which case it was right on the line of a miracle she still looked as put-together as she did.
“I was followed again this morning, for almost an hour! And where were you? They said you were dependable! They said you could be trusted! You’ve got everyone pretty well fooled, haven’t you?”
I hadn’t thought of her for hours, but now? Now the notion of her bein’ this steamed at me, this disappointed in me, made my stomach knot. I felt like I’d just discovered my last big glass of milk had actually come from a bull, and it took some struggling to remind myself how words worked.
“Ramona, I—”
“Oh, no. That’s ‘Miss Webb,’ to you! I want my money back! I want to see your license so I can file a complaint with the police! I want… Why do you look like that?”
The rain had washed away a good bit of the dirt and the mud, but my coat was still singed from acid-fish-juice, I was still kinda banged up from everything, and I still had a headache coming and going from the rusalka’s killer shriek.
“Got into a pretty ugly scrape last night, doll. I only just got done dealing with the bulls.” Both statements being true, just… kinda incomplete.
“Oh!”
I swear she shrank about a foot and a half as her temper evaporated—or maybe I was just standing straighter, with its weight off me.
“Oh, Mick, I’m so sorry.” She was redder than her hair, now. Her emotions smelled like she wanted to cry, but wasn’t about to let it happen. “I’m such an idiot!”
“Nah, don’t say that.” It irritated me some that I was so keen to reassure her. I mean, I was the one who’d just be
en given what-for! Couldn’t help it, though. “You had fine reason to think the worst. Don’t even worry your—”
“Hush. Now unlock your office so I can clean you up!”
“Miss Webb—”
“I said hush. And it’s Ramona.”
More weight offa me. I tried not to let her see me grin.
So, inside. Hat, coat, jacket all on the tree, and then I was stuck in a chair while Ramona ran back and forth to the bathroom with a wet handkerchief and tried, real gentle and tender, to wipe my face off the front of my noggin.
I really don’t dig why you people do that when there’s nothing open and bleeding. It ain’t as if you’re gonna get a bruise any cleaner. Maybe it just makes you feel like you’re doing something? Nuts, I dunno.
The attention was nice, though. Real nice. I even forgot to hurt for a few.
Anyway, after that, nothin’ would do other’n her pouring me a snort. Gave me the most peculiar look when I assured her that, no, really, all I got is milk, but she rolled with it.
Only then, as I was leaning comfortably back with a glass of the white stuff, did she settle herself in the other chair.
“Mick…”
I’ve heard people sounding less nervous on their way to the gallows.
“Yeah?”
“Was this…” She held up the kerchief she’d used to play nurse, sorta waved it back at my flogger and jacket, hanging all forlorn across the room. “Was this because of me? The people who are after me?”
I smiled at her, genuinely moved that she felt guilty at the possibility. The old me—I mean real, real old me—mighta strung her along on that for a while, used it to manipulate her some.
I told you before, there are reasons I ain’t the old me anymore. And even more now than before I’d met her.
“Nothing to do with you, kid. One of my other cases. Promise.”
The first twitch of what might grow into a return smile was a ray of sunshine through the clouds. And yeah, I know how cornball that sounds. I knew it then. Still how I thought of it.
“Well, most of it might be nothing to do with me,” she said softly. She did grin, now, but it was mostly outta embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”
“Ah, no big deal. I been slapped a lot harder’n that,” I assured her.
“I don’t doubt it.”
I stared at her a minute, until we both busted up laughing. Think we both needed it.
“Ramona,” I said when we were finally done, “I do think you mighta had the right idea, even if for the wrong reason.”
She rooted around in her purse, found herself a cigarette and lit up. I didn’t bother protesting, especially since I didn’t much mind the opportunity to watch her lips working.
“How so?” she asked.
“I think maybe you should find yourself another shamus. This other case—”
“No! Mick, no. People I trust, trust you. I don’t want… I mean, there isn’t anybody else.”
I shook my head. I mean, I didn’t really want her to go find someone else, but I didn’t want her hurt, either.
“Appreciate that, but being around me ain’t safe right now.”
“Oh, sure,” she scoffed, blowing a short plume in my direction. “Because I’m so safe on my own. Not a chance, especially not after this morning’s news!”
“Wait, this morning’s—?”
“If you must keep dealing with this other case, I’ll stick with you until it’s done.”
Now I didn’t just shake my melon, I leant over the desk, like I was grilling her for classified info.
“No way, sweetheart. Forget it. These people are rougher customers than anyone you might have gunning for you. Ain’t happening.”
I mighta come off kinda gruff, yeah. But the idea of her gettin’ mixed up with my world scared the crap outta me.
Ramona matched my gaze and didn’t look too impressed.
“You’ll have to tie me to this chair, Mick.”
“That can be arranged.”
She gave me an eyebrow, and I gave thanks—again—that, like sweating, blushing ain’t one of those things I’m usually subject to.
“Look,” I tried, pleaded, “you gotta understand—”
“I do. I get that you’re trying to protect me. But I’m not going away, and I’m certainly not hiring anyone else! If you manage to ditch me, you really will be leaving me alone.”
My poor, put-upon chair squeaked a complaint as I folded hard back into it.
“You’re crazy. Wacky in the bean.” And God, I was grateful for it.
Damn it, I was beat up, steamed as a Maine lobster, and gettin’ on towards tired, and her smile was still radiant.
“You wouldn’t be the first to tell me that,” she told me.
I still dunno what my final answer woulda been in those circumstances. My trap opened, and I had no idea what I was about to say. Whatever it might have been, I never found out.
The both of us started at the muffled thump of the stairwell door.
“Expecting someone?” she asked.
No. No, I wasn’t. Coulda been someone else with a place in the building, coulda been a new client, but… Well, there ain’t that many of either.
I froze a sec, reaching out. Couldn’t always tell, but…
Yeah. Fae.
“Sorry ’bout this, babe.”
“Huh? About whaaaaaaa…!”
I hauled her outta the chair and steered her by the shoulders into the bathroom, more or less with one move. (Thankfully, the Old Gold flared and went out as she dropped it, rather’n trying to set my carpet on fire.) She’d just twisted my way, furious as an aching badger, when I slammed the door shut between us. I pretty well dove for my coat, yanked the L&G out, and fired it, before she could twist the knob to get out. Couple small bits stopped working inside the lock—sudden and drastic loss of luck—ensuring that latch wasn’t unlatching anytime soon. I’d fix it later.
Now, I got my moments, but I ain’t as stupid as I look. I’m sure you remember the last time I had a dame stuck in that bathroom—I sure as hell did.
That time, I’d used a bit of the old magic to make sure the sound in the room carried to her. This time, well, I flipped on the rotary fan that hadn’t been used in a dog’s age, turned it away from the desk, and made sure that was all any bathroom eavesdropper would hear.
Quick rap on the door, impatient, and not the first one.
“All right, already!” Wand in hand, I stepped to one side of the doorway, reached out, and clicked the lock. “It’s open!”
Old Man Téimhneach, my least favorite boggart—and there’s competition for that title, make no mistake—shoved the door open and peered in around the jamb with that wide, empty smirk I was already good’n sick of.
He had crooked grandpa teeth and breath like an old, musty library.
“You appear a bit jumpy, Mr. Oberon.”
“And you appear to be standing in my doorway like a lump. You coming in, or should I start trying to coordinate you with the rest of the furniture?”
“Amusing.” He wandered inside.
I stuck my head out quick, got a good slant on Grangullie—damn redcap waved at me from beside the stairwell, and I just knew his hat was leaving blood smears on the wall—and then sat down with his boss and, for now, mine.
“Okay, you’re here, and I suffered a sudden drop in brain pressure and let you in. So whaddaya want?” I demanded.
Téimhneach reclined, crossing his legs at the knees and ankles—frickin’ boggarts—and steepled his fingers together.
“Why, a progress report, of course, Mr. Oberon.”
I forced a chuckle. “Funny. No, really, why—?”
His expression didn’t change. Mine dropped far enough to taste shoe.
“You can’t be serious! I ain’t been on this job much more’n one night! What the hell do you expect me dig up in that timeframe?”
“A magic spear.”
“Oh, go climb your thumb.” Then, afte
r a second noodling over whether I wanted him to know I knew, “Well, I found out what your ‘magic spear’ actually is, for one thing.”
He waved a few fingertips. “We assumed you would.”
“Then why…? Ah. Because your teeny tiny boss thought that if I knew what it was before I’d agreed to find it, I mighta tried harder to find a way outta taking the gig.”
“You’d have failed,” he said, the words slithering through those ugly teeth. “But it would have wasted time and energy that neither of us—”
“Yeah, fine. I’ll add it to the list.”
“Surely you’ve learned more than that. Are you not supposed to be some astonishing detective?”
“Nah. On a good day, I’m supposed to be an adequate detective.” Then, since that clown-smile was finally slippin’ a notch, “I found out about some of the other parties after your gewgaw of Lugh. You already know about the Seelie, I figure. And I told you about Herne.”
“We had already heard the Hunter had come to Chicago before you informed us.”
“Yeah, whatever. More outsiders? Comin’ at least via the river, probably others?”
“You’re still not telling me anything useful, Mr. Oberon. I’d hate to have to—”
“How about the Wild Hunt?”
Ha! I knew there hadda be something that’d wipe that greasy leer off his mug!
“Here?” He didn’t look like he looked like an old man anymore; he looked like he was an old man. (If you spend any time around the Fae, that’ll make sense to you.) “The Wild Hunt is here? How could we not know? We’d have heard—”
“Not here, exactly. Not yet. They got a good slant on us, though, and if they ain’t happy with the outcome of this snipe hunt, nobody’s gonna be happy with it. You dig?”
“Then why are you wasting my time?” he shrieked, rising from his chair while still seated, and then straightening his legs to reach the floor. “No more stalling, Oberon! I want progress! I want that spear!”
My turn to recline. Even steepled my fingers together the way he had.
“You got progress, bo. More’n you had any right to expect after just a few hours of—”
“Do better! It would be in the best interests of all three of us if you were to… accelerate your efforts.”
Three? He hadn’t somehow sensed Ramona, had he?