Uncertain Allies

by Mark Del Franco

  By the expression on his face, he didn’t know Eagan was onto him. He looked at Briallen. “Unless this matter is resolved, Lady Briallen, you run the risk of harboring a fugitive.”

  Briallen shifted in her seat, chuckling low. “Me?”

  “I have reports that you have entertained this man at your home knowing full well the charges against him,” he said.

  “Is that why I’m here, Ryan?” she asked. “To blackmail me into pressuring Connor to sign? You’re playing way out of your league. I don’t answer to you or the human government and never will.”

  With a languid undulation of his wings, macGoren settled back in his chair. “I’m sure Maeve will be interested in your position. I believe she is quite keen to have the matter of Connor Grey settled.”

  Briallen eyed him with impatience. “Threatening me with the wrath of the Seelie Court, now? You really don’t know what you’re doing. Go ahead. I’m a member of the Court, and you’re not. Maeve will have to move carefully against me if she wants to maintain support.”

  Unflustered, MacGoren arched an eyebrow. “Nigel?”

  Nigel cleared his throat. “Sign the papers, Connor. We may not agree on things anymore, but I do not wish you ill. Unlike Briallen, you are not a member of the Court. If you don’t sign, the High Queen will accuse you of the murder of Ceridwen underQueen. I have that from her very lips. Ryan’s shenanigans won’t even come into play.”

  I fell back in my chair. Vize had killed Ceridwen, and everyone knew it. The High Queen didn’t like me, but I didn’t think I attracted enough of her attention to resort to framing me for murder. “Is this how you make friends again, Nigel?” I asked.

  He scoffed. “I’m trying to save your life, Connor. Sign the damned papers. You want to go after Bergin Vize anyway.”

  “Since you know that, Nigel, then you know I don’t need or want the Guild’s permission to do it. The only thing you need my agreement on is to be your guinea pig, and that isn’t going to happen,” I said.

  Eorla leaned down and retrieved a briefcase from beside her chair. She placed it on the table. “Is that everything, Ryan? Are you finished?”

  MacGoren narrowed his eyes as he stared at the case. “The offer is firm.”

  Eorla opened the briefcase and withdrew some papers. She handed a set to Ryan and another to me. “I believe the offer is moot.”

  Briallen leaned over to see the documents. I skimmed through them, trying not to laugh. Briallen smiled as I handed them to her, and she passed them to Nigel. The U.S. attorney general was suspending the investigation and dropping all charges against me. MacGoren went white with anger, his wings flickering with points of red essence. “When did this happen?”

  Eorla closed the briefcase. “This morning. I would have sent it over by messenger, but since you called this meeting, I thought I’d save the expense and deliver them personally. I believe we are done here.” She nodded to Briallen and Nigel. “I trust you both will have good days.”

  She lifted the briefcase and walked down the hall, Rand following close behind.

  Nigel tossed the papers on the table. “Maeve will make her accusation, Connor. You won’t be able to stand against her.” He didn’t threaten. I almost believed he didn’t want it to happen.

  I stood. “Tell Maeve to bring it on, Nigel. I will blow her accusation out of the water.” I looked at macGoren. “I guess I’m done, too. Thanks anyway, macGoren. How’s Keeva, by the way? She should be having the baby any day now, right?”

  Keeva was my old Guild partner. She and Ryan had had an affair, and she had returned to Tara to have the baby that resulted. He glared at me. “Get the hell out.”

  Briallen wasted no time joining me at the elevator. When the doors closed, she let out a peal of laughter. “That was brilliant. I have never underestimated Eorla and her resources. She knows how to keep things entertaining.”

  I laughed, too. “I should be angry, but that was so perfect, I can’t be.”

  “I don’t know what Maeve sees in Ryan,” Briallen said, as we arrived in the lobby.

  “What we just saw—a lapdog to do her bidding.”

  She slipped her arm through mine as we walked to the car. “I am concerned, though. Nigel wasn’t playing along. Maeve is gunning for you. She won’t stop until she’s satisfied.”

  “What the hell is it, Briallen? I know I’ve interfered with a few of her plans, but she wants me dead?”

  Briallen settled into the backseat. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s about Ceridwen. You were there when she died in Maeve’s service.”

  As an underQueen of the Seelie Court, Ceridwen had come to Boston to interrogate me. A series of events led to her death, which sent the entire Seelie Court into alarm. “Maeve betrayed her, Briallen. She left Ceridwen alone without help, and that’s why she died. Ceridwen made me promise not to tell.”

  Briallen gaped, something I did not believe possible. Briallen always knew more than she let on, and this was something she didn’t know. “Now I see the problem.”

  “And why I’m calling her bluff to publicly accuse me. If the other underQueens and -Kings find out, Maeve is in deep political trouble,” I said.

  “Can you prove it?” she asked.

  “More than you know,” I said. Ceridwen may have died, but she had returned as one of the Dead, trapped on this side of the veil instead of moving on to the Celtic afterlife. I didn’t tell Briallen because Ceridwen had asked me to keep her existence a secret. She was in hiding somewhere in the city. If I needed her, it would only be a matter of time for her to hear about it.

  “You do have a target on your back, Connor. You have to be careful.”

  I slumped in the seat. “Great. I thought you were going to say you’ll talk to Maeve and tell her it’s all a mistake.”

  Briallen looked away, her face troubled. “The mistake is hers, Connor. One, I think, we will all end up paying for.”

  7

  Hours later, I was alone, leaning against a wall, my back to the door as I watched the action at the pool table at Yggy’s bar. Low-hanging lamps illuminated the game in a stark circle of light that didn’t reach much beyond the table. This early in the evening, the regulars played each other, moving the action along with a gesture or nod before sending their shots into pockets with a sharp clack. The real money to be made would happen later, when the newbies showed up and tried to beat them. A subdued murmur ran through the crowd. The loud voices that accompanied liquor-loosened tongues were hours away yet, as people settled in with early drinks and companionable conversation.

  The old dive gave calm refuge to fey of all stripes in the Weird. If you had a beef with someone, you had to take it elsewhere, or you found yourself banned by Heydan, who ran the place. Heydan kept his own counsel, and an appearance outside his office was rare. I knew who he was but had never had the pleasure of a real introduction. Meryl knew him somehow. I was curious about that, but there wasn’t much value in asking her. She wouldn’t share it unless she wanted to, and so far she hadn’t. Of course, under the circumstances, I might never hear that tale. I pushed the reminder of her condition aside and tried to focus on the pool game.

  After leaving Briallen at her house, I had wandered back to the Weird, contemplating the strange path my life had taken. Back in my days as a Guild investigator, the twists and turns of the ruling classes were not a part of my world. Sure, I met the players and partied with them, which was social, and questioned them, which was work. I was never, though, a part of the political apparatus. Despite my high standing, I didn’t have any influence because I wasn’t interested. I saw now that Nigel had used me more than once as a political tool, but that was doing my job regardless of the political ramifications, not doing my job to create them.

  Yet, now that I had no ability—or even an official job—I was called into meetings with Guildmasters and high druids, given ultimatums by fairy queens, and tempted by elven spies to do their bidding. For the last year, I had found myself pulled int
o one monarchial plot after another through no intention of my own. I thought I was doing a job—like assisting Murdock on a case—or helping a friend—like sharing information with Keeva, my old Guild partner. The next thing I knew, the world was blowing up around me, or people were trying to kill me.

  Dwelling on the unanswerable was not my forte. I preferred concrete problems, like why this mysterious blue essence seemed to be connected to old Dead essence. I had put the word out that I would be at Yggy’s tonight, and I wanted to see Banjo, a gruff guy who had helped me out a couple of times and knew the lay of the land when it came to strange happenings in the Weird. He was also a dwarf, so I hoped he might know something particular about the recent disappearances given that so many of his people were missing.

  Banjo hadn’t shown yet. At a glance, no dwarves were in the bar. The problem with arranging meetings with people you didn’t have direct contact with was never knowing if they had gotten the message. If they showed up, great. If they didn’t, you didn’t know if they’d decided not to come or had never gotten the message. It took patience.

  A slender solitary sat next to me on a stool. Her skin had the dark yellow coloring of the mountain elf clans, her hair a brittle patch of brown that looked like bramble bushes. She watched the game with no emotion, a short plastic cup in her hand. Unlike the other loners in the bar, she didn’t check out who was coming and going but kept unwavering attention to the gameplay in front of us. She nursed her drink with brief sips.

  An hour drained away with my second beer, and I ordered another. The bar became louder and more crowded. More serious pool players arrived, the casual amateurs fading to the sidelines. Every once in a while, I did a sensing sweep for Banjo.

  The mountain elf spoke into her cup. “He’s outside on Oh No. Follow him, but don’t talk to him until he says it’s okay.” Nothing about her posture indicated she was talking to me, but no one else was nearby. She watched the game and finished off the last of her drink, then spoke without looking at me. “Banjo says he hasn’t got all night.”

  For whatever reason, Banjo didn’t want to come inside the bar. He and the solitary were exchanging sendings, so I guessed he didn’t want to engage in a conversation right then. I slid my almost empty glass mug onto a ledge and pushed out of my position against the wall.

  Halfway across the floor, a tremor prickled against my feet. It hadn’t been that intense, but by the curious looks on some faces, others had noticed it, too. The office door swung open. Heydan paused in the doorway, prominent ridges of bone curling from his temples to the back of his head. His concerned glance swept the room before settling on me. A fine touch of essence wafted against my face, subtle enough not to disturb the dark mass in my head. Heydan’s forehead relaxed in thought. He stepped back and closed the door. Meryl once said Heydan watches and listens for something, but she didn’t know what. An uneasy feeling told me he might have heard what he had been waiting for. I didn’t like that he looked at me.

  I spotted Banjo as I left the alley that led to Yggy’s at the end of the next block of Old Northern Avenue. He didn’t acknowledge my presence but walked away deeper into the Weird. I followed, comfortable with the clandestine behavior. When you worked in the bad end of town, trying to find out things someone else didn’t want you to know, people tended to be careful. After several blocks, he ducked into a store surrounded by shuttered businesses.

  Instead of a bell ringing when I entered, a moan of pleasure sounded. Different Desires catered to the erotic toy market. Being in the Weird, it offered goods and services not found anywhere else. At the entrance, a subtle incense that prompted the desire for sex wafted over me. My body shields flickered but didn’t activate. Sex apparently didn’t threaten the black mass.

  A dreadlocked kobold with long, beaded hair dyed three or four colors worked the register. The Teutonic kobolds had a vague relationship to Celtic brownies except their passive and aggressive natures were more integrated. The cashier had a bland expression tinged with annoyance belied by a soft voice as she explained the benefits of lubrication to the lone customer in the store.

  Silicone products filled the shelves in an impressive array of shapes, sizes, and colors. For the right price, every need could be met with something that vibrated, pulsed, pumped, rotated, glowed, flashed, or undulated. Books and DVDs lined the back wall, featuring action that required a scorecard for the uninitiated.

  Banjo perused the leather goods, sorting through belts, straps, and harnesses studded with steel nubs and spikes. He tested the tensile strength of a strip of leather. “What do you think? Buckles or snaps?”

  “You can go tighter with buckles, but you can get out of snaps faster.”

  Bemused, he arched an eyebrow. “Really? Do tell.”

  “I’ve been a few places, seen a few things.” The fey had few sexual hang-ups. When they weren’t at war with each other, they threw themselves into pleasures of the mind and body without the same taboos and restrictions so many humans had. I had been to my share of parties. Having said that, dwarves could be prudes, but only in comparison to other fey.

  Banjo pressed his lower lip out in consideration and picked up a matching set of cuffs and collar. The kobold finished her sale and escorted the customer out the door. She called over her shoulder. “I’m going on break. You got ten minutes. Don’t steal shit.”

  Banjo continued looking at harnesses. “I wonder if they do custom work.”

  “Yeah, they do,” I said. He glanced at me. “So, I’ve heard. What’s with the cloak and dagger, Banjo?”

  He replaced the harness and crossed his arms. “People seen with you tend to end up in the hospital or the morgue.”

  “That’s a little exaggeration,” I said.

  He cocked an eye at me, then went back to browsing. “What do you want, Grey?”

  “I was wondering if you had heard about this blue essence that’s been tearing up the neighborhood,” I said.

  He pursed his lips. “Heard about it. Seen it, too.”

  “And?”

  He shrugged. “Why ask me?”

  I followed him around the end of an aisle. “You’re the closest thing I have to a connection down there. You guys aren’t the friendliest bunch.”

  He strolled along the aisle and picked up a rather large box that contained a lifelike facsimile of an unexpected body part. “Depends on how you define friendly. For instance, I don’t have to be here, ya know? I don’t have to tell you that someone’s looking for seers and scryers simply because some elf queen sent you down here, right?”

  “You’re absolutely right. What else might you not want to tell me about seers and scryers?”

  He pulled out a pair of half-glasses to read the back of the box. “Someone’s offering big money to talk to any dwarf who has been here for the last century.”

  “Why dwarves?”

  He replaced the box and picked up something I didn’t recognize. It had its own remote and lots of buttons. I tried to read the label over his shoulder. “Resonance. Dwarves have been here a long time.”

  “Come again?”

  He cocked his head at me. “You used to scry, right? You got better at it, didn’t you? At least until you got all screwed up?”

  I did my best not to feel insulted. “Sure.”

  He nodded once sharply. “It wasn’t only skill. Scrying’s about time, and spending time in one place attunes your ability to the time of that place, makes your scry better. Don’t they teach you anything in those druid camps you guys go to?”

  They didn’t teach me that. Dwarves and druids had a long history of competition over who were better at predicting the future. “So, whoever is looking for dwarves wants to have as clear a picture of the future as possible?”

  Banjo winked. “Now you got it.”

  “But that’s what everybody wants,” I said.

  “Yeah, but not everyone has the cash to pay for the real deal,” he said.

  Contrary to popular belief—or hope—
scrying wasn’t an exact science. Seeing the future was about possibilities. The best scryers—who were few and far between—knew how to read the consensus of their visions and turn possibilities into probabilities. They weren’t exact, but they were better than most everyone else. “So someone has a lot of money to spend.”

  “That’s the rumor,” he said.

  Banjo was one of the best scryers in the city. “You biting?”

  “Nah. Money like that is dangerous. Bad things happen to you if the payer doesn’t like what they hear,” he said.

  “Wait a sec—that dwarf that ended up dead the other night—did he take the bait?”

  “Could be. He was a long-timer. Not very talented, though. Maybe that’s why he ended up dead,” he said.

  “Or maybe whoever killed him didn’t want what he knew going anywhere else,” I said.

  “Well, that strategy might backfire. Dwarves are used to being taken advantage of, and when they are, they disappear. Notice many around lately?”

  “Are you saying this blue essence is related?” I asked.

  “I’m saying not everyone missing is lost. Know what I’m saying?”

  “Is that why you didn’t come into Yggy’s?” I asked.

  Banjo made a cutting gesture. “Nah. That place feels bad lately. Too many refugees from bars that burned down or something. It’s not the same.”

  “It’s Yggy’s. It’s never the same,” I said.

  He picked up a large bottle of massage oil and dropped a few bills on the counter. “Yeah, well, change isn’t always good.”

  8

  I grabbed lunch at the Waybread the next afternoon. The place was cheap and didn’t attract many locals, which was fine by me. From the size of the lunch crowd, though, the restaurant wasn’t attracting much of anyone. Between the police clampdown and the media scaring the public about the Weird, neighborhood businesses were suffering.

  As I ate a burger, I mulled over the conversation with Banjo. While it was obvious that he had concerns about being seen in public, Yggy’s had always had a strange collection of patrons. Banjo’s not wanting to be seen there said more about him not wanting to be seen at all than it did about the bar. On the other hand, he knew this blue essence seemed to be targeting dwarves, so I couldn’t say I blamed him for being cautious.