by Ari Marmell
“However,” he continued, “I—and I’d expect these others, as well—cannot afford to simply give up this hunt on your suppositions, no matter how well they fit. If you cannot offer proof—”
“How’s about I offer motive, instead?”
His eyebrow arched sharp enough to launch an arrow.
“You would have to know who perpetrated such a hoax to know that.”
“I imagine I would, yeah.”
Honestly? I missed this a little. Standing and talking at a whole captive audience of fellow Fae, nobles of the Seelie Court… Still wouldn’t go back for the world and a sundae on the side, but it wasn’t all bad.
I continued, “In addition to the info on Lydecker’s bank accounts, I also got my mitts on police reports from across the city. You know how much random street violence’s gone up in the last few weeks?”
“Why does this even—?” Raighallan began, but his own partner shushed him with a glare.
“Zip,” I said. “Nada. Well, other’n the raid on Scola’s place. And the car bomb that killed Manetti, but that’s part of the scam. No big fires. No mass firefights or gang clashes. No rash of murders and disappearances. Nothing that coulda been the ‘official story’ to cover any sorta clash between Fae factions.
“There’s only so many leads to follow. I’ve run into each faction here at least once over the course, some of you more’n once. No way you all haven’t also run into each other. So tell me, how many of you actually bumped into the Unseelie before tonight?”
Téimhneach drew himself up—and as a boggart, that made him actually taller’n he had been a minute ago.
“I beg your pardon?” he said.
“I did,” I said, “because you guys got something on me.” Still didn’t like to admit that, but I hadda make the point. I ignored a few accusing glances from the other Fae. “But other’n when you first dropped me off, it was only ever you’n Grangullie. You got over a dozen redcaps here, Timmy. Where’ve they been?”
“They’ve been searching, since we very clearly couldn’t count on you to—!”
“Our guests,” I said, sorta waving at the dullahan, the bagienniks, and the others, “wouldn’t attack the Chicago Seelie outright. Too much chance of bringing down some unpleasant consequences on their heads. They wouldn’t attack each other, for the same reason the Seelie wouldn’t attack them without real good reason. Too much attention, and too much risk for not enough reward. But what’re the chances that a buncha redcaps coulda met up with a big group of competitors, or been thrown in among a bunch of humans, and not started something? Hell, they did it just a few minutes ago!
“But nothing. No reports of mass violence. Not a one of you ever bumped into ’em. And why?”
I dropped from the roof, feet sinking a few inches into the soft, wet soil around the mausoleum. Just a couple steps brought me to within spitting distance of Téimhneach.
“Because while we all been runnin’ around with spears in our eyes and heads up our asses, Grangullie and the rest of Téimhneach’s anklebiters’ve been off workin’ their own angle. Áebinn? Would you tell everyone what I gave you a minute ago? For the folks in the cheap seats?”
“Obituaries. All ‘accidental’ deaths. All men and women of influence or power. And if the entire lot is consistent with the names I recognize, all men and women either with ties to the Seelie Court, or who know of us and choose to remain neutral. Mostly the former.” By the time she hit the last word, I’m surprised the artificial lakes hadn’t frozen completely over.
“Yep, that’s about the size of it,” I said. “Thanks. That’s a nasty move against the Seelie, Téimhneach. Some might even call it a step toward open war. As if we didn’t get more’n enough of that along with the humans, fifteen years ago.
“That why you hadda orchestrate this whole flimflam? To justify your presence and keep the rest of us occupied and lookin’ the other way while you rubbed out the enemy’s mortal power base?”
“You’re insane,” Téimhneach whispered, and I gotta say, I wavered there for a minute. Knock me over with a crow-feather if he didn’t really seem to mean it. His expression, his posture, his tone, all of it screamed that he really had no notion what I was yammering about.
That’s somethin’ you always gotta remember about shapeshifters, though. For a guy who can stretch and twist himself up like a squid contortionist, reshaping an expression, a posture, even a heartbeat, is kid’s play.
So I kept at him. “Ain’t just here, either. Things’re real tense back home, but nothin’s actually happening. Like a whole lotta Fae are just busy elsewhere. You whacking all these poor people? Helluva blow, but not compared to the power of Gáe Assail. No way, none, you’d risk losing the Spear of Lugh—at all, let alone to the Seelie—in order to pull off your little series of secret murders. Unless you already knew they were never gonna get their hands on it!”
Say this for the boggart, he sure gave it the ol’ college try. He’d begun ranting before I even finished my sentence.
“…absolutely unacceptable. I will be having words with Eudeagh about you, Mr. Oberon, and I rather hope she allows me first opportunity to…”
It didn’t matter anymore. Everyone, and the Seelie especially, was pourin’ enough hostility onto the shape-changing gink he shoulda drowned.
And then I got a good, solid look at the redcaps. Some were staring off into the wild blue, or at the grass, some nudged one another, tryin’ their hardest not to grin, and—in a few instances, not many, but enough—failing something awful.
Of course.
“You’re just as happy this is all comin’ out, ain’tcha, Grangullie?” I said. “Weeks of bloody murders—and not just anyone, but your enemy’s people—and you can’t even brag about ’em? Gotta make ’em look like accidents? You must be bustin’ at the seams to take credit.”
I ain’t quite sure how to describe the sound the redcap made in response, ’cept to say it was somehow a cross between an audible shrug and a snort. He was showin’ just as many chompers as the rest of his crew, now, though. More grins’n redcaps, I think.
“Grangullie!” the boggart warned. “Do not even think—”
Unable to choke it down any longer, the redcap laughed.
The whole of Oak Woods echoed with it, an ugly, filthy sound. He guffawed, hard’n wet, spitting and drooling as convulsions brought viscous fluids I didn’t even wanna identify up from his throat, to seep between his ragged teeth and spray between his lips. He doubled over, clutching at his gut, barely keepin’ himself upright. Those arrowhead teeth, slimy and slick, glinted—even sparkled—in the muted moonlight.
And the other redcaps laughed with him. It wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever seen, but in a lifetime of thousands of years, the fact it even broke the top fifty is sayin’ something.
Téimhneach wasn’t so amused.
“Stop this at once! Remember whom you serve, redcap! I order you to—”
Then, between one guffaw and the next, Grangullie turned and stomped on Téimhneach’s knee, shattering the bone and bending the joint a good thirty degrees in the wrong direction.
The old man screeched, like a dying porcupine on a chalkboard, and collapsed. That kinda break would take me maybe a couple days to heal. For a shapeshifter like a boggart, it would probably take only hours, maybe even minutes. But that didn’t make it hurt any less in the moment.
“You stupid fuck!” Grangullie shouted, spittle still spattering from his yap. “Nobody serves you in nothing! We just let you think we did! You ain’t been in charge since you pulled that idiot move threatening Oberon’s pet!”
“They know I’m standing right here, right?” Pete asked softly.
Ramona shushed him.
“Eudeagh didn’t like hearin’ about that, no. You just hadda push,” the redcap shouted on. “Hadda prove yours were bigger’n his! You’re the one who drove him to diggin’, you stupid fuck! He shoulda just been spinning in circles, same as everybody else. You wanna warn me off givin
’ anything away? You’re the reason we’re havin’ this conversation!”
Then, a lot more calmly—he even straightened his tie as he turned—“You’re sharp, Oberon. Not enough to give us any trouble, you understand, but sharp.”
He wasn’t wrong, in this case. It was swell to be proved right’n all, but if I’d figured it out sooner…
“How many?” I demanded. “How many people did you slaughter during this little operation? I’m sure we ain’t heard about all of ’em yet.”
“All you gotta know—all any of you do—is enough.”
His bestial smile looked like a great white had swallowed the crescent moon.
“Grangullie…” I was starting to sound steamed by then, much as I tried to hide it, but he just laughed again.
“What’re you gonna do, Oberon? Threaten me? There’s a few more of us than there are of you.”
“Perhaps.” Áebinn was at my side, now. It was nice to see that sneer and that anger directed somewhere other’n me for a change. “But as you might imagine, the Seelie are at least as curious as Mr. Oberon in this matter. And a great deal angrier!”
The Seelie began to spread out, forming a wide crescent on the grass. The redcaps, snarling, turned outward, ready to face an attack from any direction. The black dog circled, snapping at anyone who moved, while the out-of-towners backed away. I’m sure some of ’em wanted to get involved—Chicago or not, they’d still mostly be associated with one Court or the other—but it ain’t good politics to jump into something like that. That’s how wars between domains get started.
Trust me, nobody mortal or Fae wants that.
Grangullie snarled, and I swear his teeth got bigger. He pulled the cleaver from inside his coat with one hand, slapped the back of the blade into the palm of the other…
And it wasn’t a simple meat cleaver anymore.
Some of you’ve read stories or legends about redcaps. You maybe been wondering what happened to those ugly, jagged pikes they’re famous for, in the modern day’n age.
Turns out they still carry ’em; just usually in a much smaller form.
The weapon Grangullie wielded now was near twice as long as he was tall. The shaft was gnarled, knotted wood, ugly and thick. The blade remained a heavy, brutal thing, but now it took on a serrated edge and curved up at the tip. Looked like it could cut a horse in half in one swing, or peel open a suit of armor—or a flivver—with a thrust and twist.
A whole fusillade of smacks followed, as the other redcaps followed Grangullie’s lead, and suddenly they were a jagged steel hedge, absolutely bristling with blades.
“You know this ain’t gonna bring a one of ’em back,” the leader sneered. “And even if you win, and if you take any of us alive, nobody’s gonna spill nothin’, about this job or anything else. You got nothin’ you can threaten us with that’s anywhere near what’ll happen to anyone who talks. So how many, banshee? How many of your Seelie pansies you ready to sacrifice for squat?”
“You wish us to back down? It was you who shed first blood, you who committed crimes against us! I don’t want your answers, redcap! I want your head!”
I tasted the fury pouring off Áebinn’s aura; it tainted the air in every direction. I might not care much for her or her people, but I didn’t wanna see ’em diced into Faeburger, either. And this was a fight that everyone was gonna lose, no matter who won.
I knew it was chancy, but I risked putting a hand on her shoulder.
“He’s not wrong,” I whispered. “It ain’t worth the lives you’ll lose. You know what they were up to, now, and you need to tell the rest of the Court.”
Well, Ielveith had probably already done that, but it wouldn’t really have been too helpful to explain that just then.
I kept at it, speaking fast and low.
“This is only an opening gambit of something, and now you know to watch for it. You’ll have another shot at him.”
“Yes,” she sighed. “Yes, I suppose I will.”
She shrugged my mitt of her like it was a cockroach, but she didn’t follow it up with a threat, an insult, or a punch, so I figured our relationship was on the right track.
“Make no mistake, redcap,” she hissed. “This was an act of war, and the Seelie Court shall reply in kind.”
She refused to look at the Unseelie any longer. She just said her piece and walked away, her people falling in behind. Raighallan went last, glaring enough for all of them.
The redcaps’ pikes reverted to their cleaver forms with a series of peculiar snicker-snacks. Grangullie stuck his back in his coat, then crouched to meet Téimhneach’s gaze. (The boggart hadn’t bothered to stand back up, maybe wasn’t even sure where he was.)
“By the way,” Grangullie said to him, “don’t think that kneecap was the end of your penance, ya shit.”
Téimhneach didn’t raise his face, just opened a slack mouth and one weak, watery eye on the back of his head to address his former underling.
“What… what is?”
Grangullie dragged him up by the belt until the boggart had no choice but to stand. Then the redcap kicked him in the same knee, and when Téimhneach crumpled, Grangullie’s cleaver was there to meet him. Bit more’n a third of the old man’s head landed a few feet away with a wet splat. Don’t think even a boggart was comin’ back from that.
“She left it to my discretion,” Grangullie told the chunk of head, which was still blinking, not quite realizing it was dead. “Probably didn’t mean anything quite this permanent, but if not, she shoulda said. And you always were a cock.”
Then he, too, walked away, heading in the opposite direction than Áebinn had taken.
Uh-uh. Not yet.
“Hey, Grannie!”
The redcap stopped, visibly sighed, and turned.
“Stop calling me that, Oberon.”
“Whatever. Why bring me in on this at all?”
That damn smirk was back. I wanted to wipe it off his face. With an anvil.
“You’re the private dick. Why’d you think?”
I didn’t hafta think; I’d already worked it out.
“Made the whole thing look real. Anyone who knows I owe you figures ‘They wouldn’t call that marker in if it wasn’t important,’ and anyone who doesn’t still sees a guy who knows the city all caught up in the hunt. Either way, makes it more legit.”
“Yep. Pretty much. Was that it, or…?”
Again, I couldn’t keep the anger outta my tone. “That’s why Eudeagh made the debt contingent on finding, not just lookin’. You all knew from the beginning there was no spear to find, so… this was never really about paying off a favor. You made me your sap, and I don’t even get out from under, ’cause this whole thing was a deliberate scam. Am I right?”
His smirk was bigger’n his head, now.
“Like I said, Oberon, you’re sharp. Too bad you ain’t ever figuring this stuff out in time to do you any good.”
It took everything I had to watch him go without throwing a punch or an enchantment that woulda accomplished nothin’ but maybe getting’ me beat up or zotzed. And I wasn’t quite hot enough to make a move that dumb.
Not quite.
Anyway, most of the foreign Fae’d already vanished back into the shadows or the lake, which did me just fine. Saved me the trouble of telling ’em to scram.
The one that was left, I wouldn’ta told to scram anyway, least not in those words. He was still standin’ by one of the trees, leaning on his spear, unwittingly tearing twigs off the branches with his antlers, and pondering on who knows what?
“Herne,” I greeted him.
“Oberon.”
“This whole thing looks to be over.”
“So it would appear.”
“I’m surprised you’re not angrier with them for wastin’ your time.”
You ever seen a “powerful shrug”? He gave me one. Not sure how else to describe it.
“Not angry enough to declare war on the Unseelie Court of an entire city,” he
growled. “Now, should I catch any of Eudeagh’s minions alone, outside your borders…” The wooden haft of his spear creaked in his fist.
“More power to you.”
I tried not to make it obvious I was tensing, but I was ready to go for the L&G in a pixie’s heartbeat.
“Are we gonna have a problem?” I asked.
He gazed down at me, and y’know, maybe I been around you lot too long, but I’d forgotten just how unnerving that whole not blinking thing is when you’re standing on the outside of it.
“Wouldn’t serve any purpose,” he said about six centuries later.
“’Bout how I feel,” I told him. “Glad we’re on the same page.”
“I’ll still kill you without hesitation if you get in my way on anything else. Ever.”
“Uh… Okay.”
“Be wary, Oberon. The Unseelie would not perpetrate a fraud this large, draw so much attention from the Seelie and outsiders both, without something enormous to gain. Whatever they hoped to accomplish by weakening the Chicago Seelie’s foundations in the mortal world, it’s only the start of something greater.”
“Yeah, believe me, I know. I just said as much to our favorite Seelie cop. It’ll be keeping me up for a while, lemme tell ya.”
Herne wasn’t wrong, but we didn’t realize then just how bad it was. I knew we didn’t have a complete list of their targets, that only the biggest names had made the news, but it was months before I learned just how many there actually had been, and that the Unfit’d been making promises as well as spilling blood. A whole bunch of the city’s “neutral and powerful” were about to take sides in a war that shoulda stayed entirely in the Otherworld.
Definitely no way they coulda gotten away with all this if the Seelie hadn’t been distracted.
But as I said, I didn’t start gettin’ wise to any of that until later, during the whole clambake with the wendigo and—well, that’s a whole other story.
So, back to this one.
“Uh, Herne…” I had no good reason not to mention it, and it wouldn’t hurt to get a little further on his good side. “Got a warning for you, too. The Hunt… They had someone here.”
“I see. I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose.” And indeed, he didn’t sound surprised; more troubled. I assumed because he hadn’t sensed ’em, but I didn’t ask for confirmation.