by Ari Marmell
So instead, hands on the table in front of me, I pointed at that wrist.
“Because they’re easier for me to persuade than you.”
Fella’s peepers blew up so big they shoulda been floating at the end of a string at the fair, and I didn’t have to get behind ’em to see the wheels turnin’ in his head. So now it was all down to what he knew about the supernatural, what he thought he knew about the supernatural, and what he thought about what he thought he knew about the supernatural.
Uh, by which I mean, it was an even bet whether he’d jaw with me for a bit, or just try to fill me full of daylight right then and there.
Pretty certain he gave some real consideration to both.
“Everybody outta the booth,” he ordered. “Go get yourselves a drink. One! Any you bastards get lit, it’s your ass.” Then, when they reluctantly stood, “Not you, Gina. You stay.”
One of the blondes, a tall glass of water in a black dress so tight I wondered if she shed it monthly and grew a new one, sat back down. Curiouser and curiouser. She smiled at me, nice and empty-headed, but behind the simper I saw something deeper. And darker.
No Orsola Maldera, by a stretch and a half, but she knew some of the old ways. Clever way to hide a witch, I hadda admit.
The other moll, though, didn’t seem wise to it.
“Why’s Gina get to stay, Vinnie? Why can’t—?”
“Get outta here, already! I wanted to hear a broad whine at me, I’d have brought my wife!”
Last time I talked about this guy, I said something about “store-bought class.” Guess he hadn’t gone back to complete the set.
“All right, pal,” he growled. I couldn’t help but note his mitt—and the roscoe I’m sure was in it—was still under the table. “First off, we ain’t business partners and we ain’t friends, so next time you call me ‘Bumpy’ you’re gonna wish you hadn’t.”
I almost did, right then, just to annoy him, but I decided I didn’t need to be quite that childish.
“Second…” He paused long enough for the waiter to approach, deliver his drink—and the witchy chippy’s—and scram again. He hefted the glass in the hand he wasn’t keeping hidden. “We met before? I know faces, and I dunno yours from a dog’s ass, but you still seem familiar.”
Well, guess that charm bracelet wasn’t complete hooey. One time we had met, I hadn’t much resembled me. That I was even ringing a bell meant he had some real mojo going.
“Pretty sure I’d remember if we had,” I said carefully.
“Huh. So who are you?”
“PI,” I told him.
“What kinda PI believes in the occult?”
“Kind who’s been around enough to take in the sights, Mr. Scola.”
Couple drops of his booze sloshed outta the glass as he absently tried to toss one back and nod at the same time. I pretended not to notice.
“What makes you think,” he asked me, dabbing at his kisser with a napkin, “I wanna talk with any dick, private or otherwise?”
I leaned forward, right about as far as I could without getting threatening.
“Look, you’re wise to some of what’s out there. You mighta heard there’s a lot goin’ down in the city right now, the sorta stuff you ain’t gonna find in the papers or police reports. If your pet witch here ain’t a complete ringer, odds are she’s sensed something hinky lately.”
Wasn’t as if so many Fae converging on Chicago wasn’t gonna leave some footprints in the ether.
Two of ’em traded furtive glances twice, first when I’d identified the dame for what she was, and then again a second later. Oh, yeah, she’d felt something, sure enough, and she’d mentioned it to him.
“So what if she did? What’s it gotta do with you?” Scola demanded.
“Client’s got me mixed up in it, is all.”
“And what’s it gotta do with me?”
“Not much, if we both play it right. You trade me some information, and I trade you every effort to get what’s going on done and gone before it starts interfering with… local business.”
He took another snort, a long, slow one, watching me over the rim of the glass. His chin took on all sortsa weird shapes through the hooch.
“What kinda information?” he asked, and there was so much suspicion in his voice I could taste the doubt in each individual word.
“Giancarlo Manetti.”
He didn’t make us go through the whole “I dunno who you mean” song and dance, thankfully. “What about him?”
“Wondering if you know who he’s been running for lately. What he’s been moving. Which fences he works with.”
Scola’s glass was back on the table with a thump, and his glare was not what you might call chummy.
“These don’t sound much like occult questions, bo. These sound more like cop questions. I start to think you’re giving me the third degree, maybe I decide to take you someplace I can give it back. A lot harder.”
“Why don’tcha ask Gina,” I said, smiling real friendly at her, “why that ain’t such a swell idea?”
And I let her see.
Just for a second, I drew a huge swathe of what I am—not all of it, not close, but enough—up into my eyes. Didn’t use it, didn’t try messin’ with their thoughts or their luck. All I did was something I usually don’t: I let it show.
The witch gasped, rocking back in her seat, one hand covering lips that looked real red against her sudden pallor. Bumpy’s own peepers did that whole balloon trick again.
“I got no beef with you, Scola,” I said. “I’m trying to do this polite and friendly. You don’t wanna gum that up for me, do ya? It’d be rude.”
Mighta pushed him too far with that one. Pride and anger got into a slap-fight with fear, and I could see on his mug that he was pondering violence. I grumbled inside, and did this the Otherworld way. I hit him hard, fast, through his eyes like a shiv. And yep, I felt his protections—they were real enough—but they didn’t amount to much. Didn’t even slow me any.
“Abe Rosen.”
Not sure which of my questions he meant to answer with that, but it was a start. I wanted more, though.
And I’d have probably gotten it, even with his charm and his witch. Wouldn’ta made me any friends, and maybe Gina mighta surprised me, but I’m pretty sure I’d have come out on top. Can’t tell you for sure, though, ’cause that’s when everyone in the gin joint heard the keening that definitely did not come from the singer’s pipes.
Most of the folks there, when they thought back on the parts of that night they could recollect at all, would remember it as a police siren. A weird one, something they’d never heard before, but a siren just the same.
Not me. I knew what it was then, and I know now.
A scream? A wail? I’m tryin’ to describe a flood to someone who ain’t ever seen a body of water bigger’n a bathtub. It was those, and it was more, and it was less. Deep enough to rattle your guts, high enough to hurt your ears. All of this, and none of this, ’cause you really heard it more with your soul than your ears.
This wasn’t anything close to the rusalka’s cry. That’d been bad, sure, but it was just pain. This… This was nothin’ as ordinary as pain.
Empty, cavernous, desperate want, need beyond hunger, need that crossed over into a burning, passionate lust that was nothing to do with sex. And at the same moment, an icy chill, a contemptuous, unemotional disregard for anything of light and life.
Some of the patrons had fainted. Learned later that one old man croaked of a heart stroke. My own shoulders were bunched tighter’n rocks, my hands shaking. I don’t much do “dread,” but yeah, it was absolutely dreadful.
Oh, I knew what it was, all right. Heard it before—back in the Old World, and once on the battlefields of the American Revolution—and hadn’t wanted ever to hear it ever again.
Banshee.
Door busted wide open like God’d just stubbed his toe on it. Whole buncha uniformed bulls spilled into the room, pieces aimed, sh
outing all kindsa orders. Some of ’em might even have been real human coppers, minds fogged and fuddled. I could see that others, though, were definitely glamours over creatures that weren’t in any way mortal.
Which wasn’t to say they weren’t still the law, in their own way. Just not your law.
The “federal agents” followed ’em in. Raighallan all pompous and pretentious, barking orders at the bulls who barked orders at the civilians. And behind him…
His partner wasn’t doing too keen a job keeping her work face up. Áebinn looked jittery, anxious, as she ankled through the door—and I don’t mean “a little fidgety.” I mean like something cruel and real hungry strainin’ at the leash. Her breath came fast’n sharp, and she couldn’t seem to keep her gaze on any one spot for more’n a few seconds.
She’d worked up an appetite, building that scream. I hoped nobody was gonna die here who didn’t have it comin’.
Even through all this, though, don’t you even think that I couldn’t also feel Ramona’s glare chewin’ into my soul from the moment the first “cop” appeared in the doorway. I wasn’t building up a lotta credit with her, that’s for sure. (I wanted to kick myself square in the rear when I realized that was bothering me even more’n the damn bean sidhe did.)
Maybe they’d found the place, learned about Bumpy’s occult dabbling, on their own. I kinda hoped they had, because it wasn’t impossible I’d led the damn Seelie here. They’d hafta be pretty low on leads themselves to bother shadowing me, but—preoccupied as I’d been with Ramona—anyone with a smidgeon of talent coulda done it without me being any the wiser.
Sloppy. Again. I ain’t been this careless since before you lot invented stirrups. I needed to get back to something vaguely approaching competent.
Well, the situation wasn’t as bad as it looked. I didn’t know if they were here for me or had the same idea of grilling Scola as I had, but I should be able to blow the place. Even if they meant to take their “You’ll pay if you get in our way again” hooey seriously, they wouldn’t wanna get into a magic fight in front of a whole crowd of mortals. No, I could talk or sneak my way over to Ramona and then outta—
Either Bumpy’s charm or his pet witch twigged to the fact that the raiders weren’t human, and the whole place went to hell.
The boss shouted an order of his own, and suddenly the room was sprouting gats like a bullet garden after the rain. Every one of the thugs he’d come in with, the other blonde, about half the wait staff, and of course Bumpy himself had steel in their hands. And the steel was loud.
Lead flew, ears rang, more people screamed than were even in the damn joint—or so it seemed, anyway. Gina crouched down by the bench, waving one hand, and drawing glyphs in chalk on the floor with the other, and chanting under her breath. I felt a sudden discomfort, a vague notion that I wouldn’t wanna get near her or her boss, but that was all I felt. Woulda been duck soup to ignore it: if that was the best she had, she wouldn’t even slow down Raighallan or Áebinn.
The Bumpy turned his Colt on me—guess he figured I hadda be wrapped up in all this—and I was too busy diving across a table and turning it over as a shield to worry much more about his precautions, or why he’d been so quick to panic.
Nah, he wouldn’ta killed me, but those slugs hurt. And I was runnin’ outta non-ventilated suits.
Since I was pinned behind that table, I didn’t see where it came from, but the smaller roscoes and a lotta the screams suddenly vanished under the roar of a Tommy. Quick peek around the edge and I saw bulls fall beneath the metal hail, before I had to duck back or get a mug full of splinters. I had no way of telling how many of ’em could shake it off and get back up the way I could.
Another look showed me Bumpy, Gina, and a couple of his guards scurrying around the edge of the room in a huddle, squirting lead at the police and making for the door to the kitchen…
Guy in a coat and hat—guess he’d come running in from outside—in that kitchen doorway, was writing a letter to the whole room with a Chicago typewriter that seemed like it’d never run outta ink…
Most of the civilians lay flat, hands over their heads, below the lines of fire. I was glad to see that much go well, at least…
Raighallan pressed one hand to a gut wound that really hadda sting, his other hand waived a fat cylinder of oak, a wand I recognized as stronger but slower than my own model…
And Áebinn just stood in the middle of the room, ignoring the bullets, basking in the deaths that’d already occurred. This can’t have been what she wanted or expected outta the raid, but damn if she wasn’t gonna enjoy the opportunity to feast!
Bumpy and crew made it through the doors and the chopper finally fell silent. Guess the hombre carrying it had gone with the boss to cover the retreat. And since it wasn’t too tough for some of the faux-cop Fae to close on the cats with the smaller guns, most of the shootin’ gave way to the grunting and groaning and smacking and cracking of hands, bottles, chairs, and nightsticks.
And I almost didn’t care about a whit of it.
Oh, holy fuck me, where’s Ramona?
I raised my head over the table again, just in time to see her peekin’ up from behind the bar, whole face slack from shock. I swallowed a surge of relief and jerked my noggin toward the kitchen; figured Bumpy making his sneak that way meant there was a back door. She took a moment, but nodded.
I drew my L&G, stood, and ran.
With every step I squeezed power through the wand, yanking luck from this guy here and tossing it Ramona’s way, or winding it around myself; throwing random pain at that group over there.
I heard Áebinn shout my name, saw Raighallan start to elbow his way through the crowd toward me, and kept going. A blast of power burst against me, ripping away a lotta the good fortune I’d just glommed, but not touching me directly.
For a moment I lost track of Ramona in the chaos, but she showed up pretty quick. I reached the kitchen door at the same time as one of Raighallan’s glamoured goons—and he was clubbed down before I hadda deal with him. Ramona stood behind him, clutching a stool by the seat—she’d just walloped the gink with the legs.
“Mick?”
I couldn’t help it. I needed a second, had to absorb what I was seeing, what I was sensing. Something was wrong, she shouldn’t have—
“Mick!”
“Right!”
I grabbed her hand, dragged her through the kitchen door. She dropped the stool as we ran.
By the time we’d got ourselves clear, I didn’t even remember that something’d been bothering me, nagging at me, let alone what it’d been. Of course, that mighta had something to do with who else we bumped into in the process.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He was loitering, calm as you please, watching everyone fleeing every which way as we burst through the back door and down the alley into the street. I’d have recognized the hat’n sunglasses even if he hadn’t been standing smack dab under a street light. To say nothing of the urge to recoil, find the nearest hole, and pull it in after me.
Sealgaire was still keepin’ close tabs on me, and he wasn’t being shy about it.
I’d rather have gone back in and faced down the Seelie. I do take some pride in the fact that I still stepped in fronta Ramona, though.
Brave, but unnecessary. He just smiled that crocodile smile and vanished again.
None of which was as startlin’ as Ramona clutching my arm and whispering, “Mick! That’s the man who was following me this morning!”
If you’d shoved a snowball up my… nose that minute, it wouldn’ta melted.
“He must work for whoever’s after the money! Mick, we should try to catch—!”
“He don’t work for anyone you’re involved with, babe.”
I wish to hell he did.
“Then who—?”
“C’mon. We’re going.”
She probably woulda argued, if I wasn’t already dragging her off by the hand. I sure wasn’t gonna just hang around there and ja
w about it!
Sealgaire. Why the fuck would…?
Don’t be a bunny, Mick. You know exactly why.
Message received, you bastard.
“Where are we going?” Ramona asked impatiently.
I still held her hand, and was steering her along the sidewalk at a pretty good clip. I didn’t answer, ’cause I wasn’t entirely sure. Also, something kept eating at me like a whole hive of ants, something I’d noticed back in the club, something I couldn’t put my finger on…
Damn it, how could I be so completely off my game? It couldn’t just be her, could it? I’d known Ramona for a couple days, and in that time I’d gotten twisted up into a pretzel worse’n I had in centuries.
Finally, I just grunted and said, “To get some answers from somebody who doesn’t wanna kill me.”
“Do such people exist?”
An hour ago, I’d have chuckled at that.
“What about the raid? The people? When the news—” she continued.
I shook my head, didn’t say anything. There wouldn’t be any news, other’n maybe a small article about a run-of-the-mill raid or maybe a shooting. Most of the humans there hadn’t seen a thing they could make any sense out of. And if a few had, Raighallan and the other aes sidhe could scramble those memories easy enough.
I grunted again, and that was all the answer I was offering for the moment. Pretty sure I actually heard her scowl behind me, but she stopped makin’ with the questions, so I could think.
Not that I cared much for anything I had to think about.
So. Local Seelie. Local Unseelie. Outsiders of Ogma knows what city or what Court. Herne the Hunter. The Wild Hunt.
And now, at least sorta, Bumpy Scola. ’Cause there was no way he was gonna let this go, not after what’d just happened to his place and what he already knew about the supernatural. Probably he’d never learn anything of use, would just waste his time poking around the edges of the whole shindig, but… He was another wild card in a deck already full of ’em.