The woman spoke up.
“That wasn’t us. That was Dr. Larned. We’re just ops.”
“I see. So ye’re the ones who sent the monsters he made out to kill other people and eat them. Maybe I should do ye like those over there, eh?” I nodded my head at the burning bodies.
“No, no,” the man said. “There’s no need for that. Who are you, anyway?”
“A certain rare brand of law and order. An entirely different agency from yours. When it comes to the Fae on this planet, I have broad authority to right wrongs, and you have been very, very wrong. Hatcher in America is done for, just so ye know, and so is his pet troll.”
The agents exchanged a quick glance before remembering that they’d probably given something away by doing so.
“Now, I can set the two of ye on fire right now and sleep well at night, knowing what ye did. I’m no interested in any rationale ye might have. But I am interested in what ye have in Area 51. I’ll be merciful and let ye live if ye tell me what’s down there.”
“We don’t know,” the woman said.
“Aliens,” the man said immediately afterward. “It was always aliens.” The woman glared at him with her one remaining eye, and I chuckled. I hadn’t really cared to know; I just wanted to see how they’d answer.
“I thought so. Thank ye. Awright.” I pulled out my official ID and said, “I’m gonnay show ye who I work for.” That got their attention, and so they were easily exposed to the sigils on my ID, which allowed me to command them to look at the next two very carefully. I proceeded to show them Lethe River and Restful Sleep, and they slumped back on the grass, unconscious. When they woke up, they’d see that their op was burnt down and they might even be in custody, but they’d have absolutely no recollection of how it all went wrong, how they’d lost an eye, or, most important, who’d done it. I used Nadia’s razor to cut their bonds and made sure their IDs were spread out next to them. The CIA would have some explaining to do to Scotland, and Hatcher would take the blame.
I looked around at my handiwork and was satisfied. It wasn’t the tidiest of resolutions, but it was a bandage on the wound, and it would heal so long as Clíodhna allowed it.
When I got back into the van, Buck and Cowslip were marveling at all the miniature goth Nadias depicted in the altar triptych. The bags of chocolate and marshmallows were sitting empty on the love seat and Buck was still chewing, recovering his strength. I returned the straight razor to Nadia and she drove us back down the hill to the village. It was marvelously quiet, and I was surprised. I thought surely some sort of law enforcement or fire department would have roused itself by now to investigate the thunderous explosion and subsequent fires up on the hill— especially since said fires were clearly visible when we turned off the road and looked back. But the village was dead silent.
I asked Nadia to pull over next to the Gargunnock Inn and soon realized why no one had paid attention to our raid: Everyone was inside watching football on the telly, with the sound turned up. Anyone still at home probably had the game on too. How much of the world could burn down, I wondered, while football was on the telly? How much magic and wonder was missed while people were distracted by something flickering on their screens?
[Buck, pop in there and steal somebody’s phone really quick. The challenge is that ye must steal it and return it without them noticing.]
“On it!”
He popped away, and Cowslip laughed nervously in the back. “So, Mr. Sigil Agent sir, what’s going to happen to me now?”
[I’m not exactly sure. What would you like to happen?]
“I’d like to go back to Tír na nÓg, but I can’t.”
[No, you can’t.]
“Will you let me stay here?”
[Not with me, but maybe I can find you some legitimate service elsewhere.]
“I can’t get my injections anymore, can I?”
[Sorry, no.]
“So I’m going to start hurting soon and I might die.”
[You might,] I admitted. [But I have a plan.]
Buck returned triumphant, holding up an old flip phone. “Got one!”
[Nadia, please let emergency services know about the fire on the hill so the agents can be found.]
“A concerned citizen?”
[Can you do frightened and angry? Bonus points for both.]
Nadia called up emergency and gave them an earful. “There’s a fucking fire on the hill and you lot are watching football! Just go outside and look, ye can’t miss it! Pull yer thumbs out yer holes and do yer job!”
She hung up and tossed the phone back to Buck, who popped out to return it. “That should do the trick, eh?”
[Aye. Bottle of whisky on me. You choose.]
“And a raise?”
I grinned fondly at her. [A generous onetime bonus, I think.]
CHAPTER 30
Curses and Blessings
A call to my colleagues solved the Cowslip problem—or at least I hoped it would. Mei-ling agreed to take Cowslip in and attempt to treat her withdrawal symptoms and pain with sigils when they began; if Cowslip survived, Mei-ling would offer the pixie a legally binding service contract with her apprentice. That way, Cowslip wouldn’t have to travel to Tír na nÓg much, if at all, and she could avoid being seen by the bean sídhe and thereby reminding Clíodhna that she was still around. It wouldn’t be the life Cowslip imagined for herself, but it would be a safe one, and that was what trafficking victims needed and deserved.
It was a relief to tell the other sigil agents that I’d cleaned up my own mess. Clíodhna could try something again at any time, and we should remain vigilant, but more likely she would try something when we’d all passed on and hope the younger generation wouldn’t think of her. I told myself that my colleagues were pleased that the matter had ended and that I had clearly suffered in the process of resolving it, since the black eye the leprechaun had given me hadn’t cleared up yet.
Eli reported a couple of days later that, as far as he could tell, Hatcher had been demoted rather than fired for the immense cock-up at Gargunnock. The aftermath had caused something of an international incident, since Scotland wasn’t fond of having one of its picturesque hills blown up, only to find out that it had been home to a secret CIA facility. Hatcher still had his shadowy offshore accounts to live on—we couldn’t touch those—but at least he didn’t have a squad of Fae—or anything else, really—to command. He wouldn’t be running operations again soon, and Clíodhna wouldn’t work with him anymore. We didn’t know how he’d got rid of the troll corpse at the bottom of his swimming pool, but since nothing of the sort hit the news feeds, we assumed he’d taken care of it somehow.
I approved those short-term stays for the various deities who wished to go skiing in the Alps but let the other sigil agents know that something significant might happen there. I toyed with the idea of attending, just to make sure everyone behaved, but dismissed it since no one had invited me and I disliked the snow anyway.
With the assorted crises settled, there was finally time to sort through Gordie’s inks and ingredients and either store them or dispose of them properly. A detective constable from Human Trafficking reached out to thank me for my information on those two pimps and said if I came across any more information like that, he’d be delighted to make use of it. And how did I come across that information, he wondered? Ignoring his question, I replied that I would pass on anything new that I learned.
Though I had no guarantee of any new information coming soon. Saxon Codpiece hadn’t yet returned, and there was no way of knowing when or even if he’d be back. I imagined he’d wait until everyone thought he was dead and then return with dyed hair, a new wardrobe, and a new ridiculous alias, like Angus Crotchpot or Wallace Hungwell.
But I made a note to follow up with the detective constable in a few days to make sure the victims were being cared for. If it turned out agreeably, perhaps I could figure out a way to generate some new leads without Saxon’s help.
D.I.
Munro hadn’t come around again and I hoped she wouldn’t, though I simultaneously hoped I’d find a way to do her a good turn someday, since I’d been nothing but a source of memory loss to her so far. If she ever saw me in the company of Buck, the wee pink man she was certain had once punched her in the nose, I doubted I’d be able to shake her loose again.
On Thursday, I made my customary trip to the Mitchell Library and returned my borrowed book. I visited Mrs. MacRae on the fourth floor—her scarf was a riot of autumn colors this time—and asked her for help finding books in the occult or mythology section that dealt with humans being cursed specifically by deities, as opposed to witches or warlocks.
Her eyes widened a bit as her fingers began flying across the keyboard. “Are we feeling a bit cursed by God today, Mr. MacBharrais?”
[Asking for a friend.]
“Of course, of course. But even if your friend is cursed, they’re still blessed in a way, if ye think about it.”
[How so?]
“Well, gods so rarely do anything tae us. Or for us—I certainly got no help keeping my husband alive, for all my prayers. So it’s kind of an achievement, in a way, tae be someone a god wants tae curse. Who were the good ones, eh? Tantalus. He deserved what he got, though now that I think of it, maybe that was a punishment after death rather than a living curse. Cassandra had a powerful curse on her, for sure. But ye know I’ve never been positive about that Ancient Mariner fellow. Did he really deserve to walk around forever undead and all his crew be killed because he shot an albatross? Not sure the scales of justice were functioning well on that day. But I defy ye to pick a day when the scales worked well for everyone.”
I simply grinned at her.
“Oh, I’m babblin’ on, in’t I? Forgive me.”
[Nothing to forgive. I find the case of the Ancient Mariner to be problematic as well.]
“I just feel so sorry for the crew, ye know? It wasnae their fault they happened tae be workin’ with a pure bastard, yet they had tae pay for it with their lives.”
[It certainly illustrates the dangers of living in the opium-addled imagination of a poet. And the principle of collateral damage.]
“Aye, collateral damage. It’s a shame. So let me write a few things down for ye here . . .”
While she wrote down titles and catalog numbers, I thought about that angle a bit more. What if I’d never been the primary target of the curse but collateral damage? A deity may have been actually angry at someone else—another deity, most likely—and since they couldn’t take it out on the god that vexed them, they took it out on . . . me?
That only made sense if someone was angry with Brighid. Attacking, compromising, weakening a sigil agent to get at Brighid— I could see that as a possibility. Some of the pantheons chafed at the necessity for contracts. It was an avenue of investigation worth exploring, at least, to discover who might have been motivated enough to do this.
I had to get to the bottom of my curses if I didn’t want Buck to become collateral damage too and go the way of my apprentices. The clock was ticking, and I dreaded telling him about it, though I knew it was the right thing to do. He had the right to decide his own future, and I couldn’t make that decision for him.
Leaving my service was the immediately obvious option, but we didn’t know if that would work or not. It might work—it was even probable—but we couldn’t know for sure. The curse may have fallen upon him irrevocably. Another possible salvation for him would be for me to shuffle off my own mortal coil; presumably the curse would be broken if I wasn’t around. That didn’t sit well with me, however. To begin with, there were inks to craft and hazelnut lattes to drink and people to be helped. There was also this librarian who quietly made my heart sing like no one had since my dear departed wife, and I wanted to listen to its song some more.
Better to follow Brighid’s advice and eliminate the curse by eliminating whoever cast it.
Mrs. MacRae finished up and pushed a piece of note paper my way. Her fingernails were painted a bright orange, matching her scarf.
“There ye are, sir. Four titles to get ye started.”
[Thank you so kindly, Mrs. MacRae.]
“Always a pleasure, Mr. MacBharrais. See ye next week, then?”
[Absolutely.]
I nodded farewell to her and took my list of titles to the stacks in search of a clue. I subscribe to the theory that answers cannot hide from us forever if we seek them long enough.
EPILOGUE
The Heist
Keeping a hobgoblin happy takes a little work, but it’s always worth it. A happy hobgoblin tends to mess with yer life less, and might even save it. Buck had probably saved Eli and me from taking a bullet to something vital in Virginia. He’d most likely saved me again in Gargunnock. But besides all that, if ye ever have the power to make someone’s dream come true and ye don’t, then what kind of a selfish shite would ye be?
So Nadia and I cooked up a plan, and on a Friday evening, after the day shift went home—or, more likely, to the pub—I Signaled Buck to come down to the shop.
“What’s all this, then?” he asked when he arrived. Nadia and I were at the whisky table, enjoying a dram. On the table next to the decanter rested a narrow cardboard box, taped shut.
“Got a gift for ye, Buck,” Nadia said. She whipped out her straight razor and cut the tape sealing the box. “G’wan, then.”
“What is it?”
“See for yerself.”
He pulled back the flaps and removed some wadding until the contents were revealed, and then his eyes bulged in wonder and his mouth dropped open. “Whoa. Are ye serious? Are these ma labels? Stones and bones, these are ma labels!”
He pulled one out to admire it. The logo was a diamond shape inside a circle with text layered over it:
Buck Foi’s Best Boosted Spirits
THE SWEETEST STOLEN HIGHLANDS WHISKY
HONORING THE LEGACY OF HOLGA THUNDERPOOT
SINGLE BARREL
AGED 10 YEARS
90 Proof
We grinned at him and Nadia said, “We have pallets of bottles in the basement and a mixer, so ye can dilute it down from cask strength to ninety proof. One barrel should get ye about two hundred bottles if ye do it right.”
“So all we need is the barrel?”
“That’s right. Ready tae get in the wizard van and pull off a whisky heist in the Highlands?”
“Hells yes! Let’s pour out a fine dram for Lhurnog!”
He popped out of the office before we could say anything else, and Nadia and I laughed. He was probably already at the van in the parking lot, dancing about and waiting for us.
We took off to the Highlands and picked a distillery that we knew would have a ten-year barrel lying around. It was dark when we arrived, but I got out with my derby hat on—a new one, since the undine had ruined my old one—and walked next to the van so that we wouldn’t be caught on any security cameras approaching the building. I unlocked the warehouse door with a sigil. Buck chose the barrel and rolled it out to the van with a huge grin on his face. We got it loaded up and drove it back to the office, with Buck singing happy songs about the joys of stealing whisky.
On Monday morning, unbeknownst to Buck and shortly after the distillery discovered the theft, no doubt, a very well-dressed faery would visit the distillery with a suitcase of cash Nadia had put together. Using Gordie’s passwords that Saxon had supplied, she’d drained all his illicit trafficking accounts and was now laundering it through our agency, replacing the twenty thousand I’d had to pay Saxon and much more. Hatcher’s dirty money would be cleansed, and apart from giving Nadia a well-deserved bonus for saving my arse, we’d use it for agency business, a little scheme I’d thought of to help trafficking victims and to make one victim, anyway, a very happy hobgoblin without burdening us with the weight of guilt. The cash in the case would compensate the distillery for two hundred bottles of whisky and then some.
When we got the whisky back to the office, it was near midnig
ht, but Buck couldn’t sleep until we’d watered the barrel down in a mixing tub and filled at least one bottle, sealed it, and put a label on it. He beamed at it, laughed, and then wept as he hugged it to his breast.
“It’s just so beautiful,” he cried. “Thank ye, MacBharrais. And thank ye, Nadia. Why did ye do this?”
[You’ve earned it,] I replied. [You’ve been a good hob, and I appreciate your service.]
“And I appreciate the respect ye’ve shown for ma property since that first misunderstanding,” Nadia said. “Plus, stolen whisky is the best whisky.”
“It really is, in’t it? Awright, shall we go upstairs and have a toast before calling it a night? I know ye must be tired. I’ll bottle the rest and share it with the Fae Court later.”
Back in my office, Buck cracked the seal on the bottle he’d just finished and poured us each a dram. He lifted his glass.
“A toast! Tae inks and sigils and straight razors, tae good bosses and wizards on lizards, tae outsmarting evil when ye can and kicking its arse when ye cannae do that, and tae distillers of fine spirits everywhere. Sláinte!”
I treasure such fleeting moments as that, little beacons of pure joy and contentment that last for a few seconds before passing into memory. They’re always worth living and working for.
I’d let Buck distribute his whisky in the Fae Court and enjoy that high, and then we’d sit down and I’d tell him he might have only a year to live. It would ruin his day and he’d be justifiably angry with me, but I swore that together we’d figure out how to make sure he had plenty more days of heists ahead of him.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Glasgow, you are brilliant. Thank you so much for being you. And that goes for the rest of Scotland; Kimberly and I loved our visit and cannot wait to return. You are, in short, magical, and the perfect setting for a modern fantasy. Should any reader ever wish to visit Glasgow, the locations mentioned (such as Gin71 and The Citizen and the mural of St. Mungo on High Street, to name a few) exist in reality and deserve a gander. The Mitchell Library has a fine section on the occult on the fourth floor, and I wish I could visit it every Thursday as Al does.
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