Exile

by Caleb James

  “You can, and you will,” Charlie said. “Unless you want to obstruct an arson investigation.”

  “You have warrant?” Slotnik’s tone was disinterested as he popped a forkful of cabbage-wrapped goodness into his mouth.

  Charlie stared as a trail of sauce dribbled across lease agreements. “We’ll get a warrant. I can have the marshal here in five minutes.”

  “So? Marshal’s not same as cop.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “I did not know… all fire marshals?”

  “Yes, that’s how it works. Been that way for decades with the Bureau of Fire Investigation. All the marshals are cops, and they can all issue warrants. So, why hold back something as simple as a prior resident? It makes no sense.”

  “I am not a rich man, Mr. Fitzgerald. You have bosses. I have bosses. They do not appreciate people doing things that aren’t their job. I have wife and children. A son who was brutally assaulted by a neighborhood thug and needs medical care….”

  Something in the creep’s expression let Charlie know what was needed. He reached for his wallet, pulled out four twenties, a five, and some singles. “I just need the name of the tenant.”

  Slotnik eyed the bills. “That is not enough.”

  “Take it or leave it. I will get this information. The fact you’ve delayed the process won’t matter in the end….” And then he did what his dad would do. He squeezed. “In arson it comes down to one of three things—money, revenge, and firebugs. If this is arson, which it looks like, it’s also murder. I’m just going to be the first one to ask questions and to wonder just how far you’d go to help your bosses. Someone’s going to go down for this. If you haven’t figured that out, let me be the first to tell you. Someone, maybe several someones, is going to jail. And that’s just the criminal side. Lots of people lost their homes in a building filled with code violations.”

  Slotnik put down his fork. Sweat beaded under his nose and across his broad forehead. “Fine.” He grabbed the money and wheeled his chair to a filing cabinet. “What was the number?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  With his back to Charlie to conceal the drawer’s contents, he pulled out a thick manila folder.

  Charlie wondered how much illegality and how many scams were buried in those drawers. The fact that half the sprinklers in that building had been nonfunctional and the alarms hadn’t gone off made it hard to not leap across the space and pummel the guy. Three people died—two of them kids—and they didn’t have to.

  Slotnik grunted, as if surprised by the file’s contents. He wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “They always paid on time.”

  “Good to know. What name was on the lease?”

  “Nevus, Marilyn Nevus.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “Nothing. Why should I? We just rent apartments.”

  Fed up with the evasiveness, Charlie grabbed the folder from his hands.

  Slotnik protested. “You need warrant for this.”

  Charlie ignored him and riffled through the contents. Cancelled checks and neatly filed inspections commenting on the apartment’s immaculate condition, all signed by the same housing inspector. Charlie double-checked the address and number, as the reports bore nothing in common with the actual apartment. “They had a voucher. A mother and two children in that tiny place.”

  “It met code,” Slotnik said. “The mother and daughter in one room, the boy in the other. It was legal.”

  “These checks weren’t signed by the same person,” Charlie noted.

  “Who cares, as long as they clear? We are a management company. We do not oversee the comings and goings of our hundreds of tenants.”

  “What’s this?” Charlie pulled out an official report with the seal of the Office of Children and Family Services. Unlike the other reports, it was less glowing about the apartment’s condition. It was signed by a social worker—Lydia Green, OCFS. He scanned the findings. The apartment was poorly maintained. A section of the ceiling had collapsed and been repaired by the tenant’s son, Alex Nevus…. And that name is so… not possible. “The woman’s son, Alex Nevus. He was a contestant on IT.”

  Slotnik glared back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You do. Just tell me, is this the same Alex Nevus who nearly won IT?”

  “I don’t have time for TV shows.”

  Charlie had enough. “Mr. Slotnik, this is your last chance to give me the information I want. Whether or not you’re involved with arson will be discovered. But even without that, there’s sufficient evidence in this one folder to show you’ve been defrauding the city with bogus condition reports. I was in that apartment.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Mr. Slotnik, how many similar reports are in those files? More importantly, what you may or may not understand is that housing vouchers, while they come through the city, are funded from three sources—city, state, and federal. If fraud has been committed, it’s a federal and criminal offense. Even before we get to the arson investigation… and murder. This is not a slap on the wrist. This is hard time for you and your bosses in federal prison.”

  “I’m just the manager.”

  “So maybe you’ll be able to cut a deal, and maybe your bosses won’t let a family man like you hang out in the breeze and say it was all your doing. After all, you are the manager….”

  Slotnik caved. “Yes, it was the same thug boy, Alex Nevus. He was on that show. He….” His face reddened. “He is the one who assaulted my Gregor… for no reason. He broke my boy’s kneecap. He still cannot walk right.” He pointed to the report in Charlie’s hand. “They… the Office of Children and Family Services, pulled them out of that apartment. And no, I do not have a forwarding address, and no, I will not help you.”

  “Fair enough.” In earshot of Slotnik and not letting the man out of his sight, he pulled out his cell. “Finn.”

  “Charlie, what’s up?”

  “If I were you, I’d send someone down for the records on that building.” He smiled at Slotnik. “I’ve a feeling there’s about to be a shredding party.”

  “I’m on my way. Do me a favor. Don’t leave till I get there.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “So, did you find what you were looking for? Your Liam?” Finn asked.

  Charlie sensed Finn’s unasked questions. “Maybe. Not him, exactly. But maybe a lead.”

  “None of my business, but the guy got to you. What is it about him? I mean, other than he was hot….”

  For the second time, Finn caught Charlie by surprise. “Since when do you talk about guys being hot?”

  Silence.

  “Finn? You there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, then.” What the hell is going on with Finn? And then to Slotnik, “I ain’t going anywhere, so don’t even think about it.”

  “I call my boss.” Slotnik pulled out his cell.

  “Good idea. I’m sure the marshal will have questions for him too. Like why half the sprinklers in that building didn’t work or that the alarm never went off.”

  Slotnik hesitated. Charlie lowered his voice. “Finn, get here fast. Bring backup and lots of boxes.”

  “On my way.”

  Fourteen

  LIAM SUMMER waited in silence with Marilyn. They stared out at the edge of the Western Sea. Cedric had gone to summon the puka.

  Liam’s knees trembled. He tried to quiet his thoughts. It was impossible. What would Charlie do? His one trip to the See had changed his form and cost him most of his magic. What will happen this time? Will I go mad? He glanced at Marilyn as she searched the shore for her husband’s return. What would Charlie do?

  Thoughts of the tall firefighter, with his stubbled face and deep blue eyes, made him smile. He wouldn’t hesitate. His breath caught. Is he okay? What did the trip cost him? His smile vanished as he remembered the promise to Charlie’s gran—Do no harm. And I did.

  Liam sat on a rocky
outcropping and listened to the waves against the shore. In the distance was the wall of mist, where May waited, or is trapped, or….

  Beyond the dunes and a vast meadow, he glimpsed the white spires of the Center, built centuries ago by the famous Doctor Redmond Fall. They’d not been cruel when he’d begged asylum, but they’d been clear that May’s taint was on him. “You are not welcome,” the head guard had told him. Had their places been reversed, Liam would have done the same.

  He thought of Queen May and her lust for power and blood. It was her hunger to rule both the humans and the fey that had fueled her plot to steal the body of Alex Nevus, the haffling son of Uncle Cedric and Marilyn.

  “It won’t be long,” Marilyn said, turning back to him. “I feel the puka’s approach. Listen….”

  Liam quieted his breath and tried to catch the vibrations of the powerful creature. “I have little magic left,” he admitted.

  Marilyn looked at him. “You’re luckier than most. Your travel left you beautiful. Where you’re going, magic is not as useful as May would believe. Humans have little need for it and a long tradition of burning witches.”

  Liam held her gaze. This was Cedric’s Marilyn, an odd fixture in the Unsee. Certainly not the only human, as the fey were wont to snatch pretty children and replace them with changelings. “Tell me, Marilyn…. Oh, to hell with it.” And through gritted teeth, he asked a question. “Why you?” He glanced behind him, wondering who else might have heard.

  “Why me, what?” She chuckled, amused by his discomfort.

  “Why did May pick you?”

  She nodded. “Got it, and it took me a while to figure out. I’m not all the way there, but it’s something like this. There are old families, Liam, both here and in the See. Families who go back to a time before the worlds were split and before the Mist appeared to separate them. Because that is what the Mist is, a barrier to keep the fey on one side and the humans on the other. Only here, you can see the Mist. There’s none of that in the human world.”

  “Right.” Liam thought back through his short time in the See, the night of fairy fire, of being carried in Charlie’s arms. It had been dark, but there’d been no mist. “Even in the daylight one doesn’t see the Mist.”

  “Correct…. The puka is close. Not long now. So why me, you ask? It’s my blood, Liam, and that I’m a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. And that even in the human world, I possessed a bit of magic. I was a painter, ever since I was a little girl…. Something would come over me when I painted. I saw the Mist, and I pierced its veil. I wasn’t more than four or five when I began to see the fey and drew what I’d seen in crayon and then watercolor, acrylics, oils….

  “It never stopped. I knew not to talk about what I’d seen, and because the paintings were good, people thought it was my imagination. I told myself it couldn’t be real, the things I saw. That it was just a beautiful madness, an artistic psychosis. They say that human children with special abilities often lose them as they grow. For me, it was the opposite. It got to where picking up a paintbrush or staring at a blank canvas was like saying abracadabra. I painted you all. It must be how I came to May’s attention. Her nose for magic is strong. She saw me look in. Perhaps she even sent me the visions—or some of them. Though I’m not about to pop over into the Mist and ask. Regardless, she saw me, she knew what I was, and she set a trap.”

  “Uncle Cedric.”

  “Yes…. Cedric. I had a mirror in a gold frame. Nothing fancy, but sometimes I’d set it up on an easel so I could draw myself into paintings. I had the idea that it would be fun to juxtapose something as mundane as a woman painting against scenes from Fey. Only the first time I did it, what stared back from the mirror wasn’t me but Cedric’s beautiful face. His eyes. You’re lucky to have kept those.”

  Liam nodded as the ground quaked with the pounding of hooves. His gut churned. “I may not keep them this time.” How will I change? What would Charlie do?

  Marilyn spoke fast, knowing they had little time. “I am the object lesson of what the journey costs. I came here for love of your uncle. I became pregnant and awoke back in the human world. Only what had been the madness of my painting had spread to my every waking moment. I won’t bore you with what happens to mad humans. Suffice to say, my life was not easy. And worse still, I was in love, and Cedric was lost to me. My every waking moment, I was obsessed with finding him, of finding a way back.”

  “You did.”

  “Yes, and I learned the truth about my love. That he, like you, was a creature of seduction. I had been glamoured.”

  The thunder of hooves grew as Liam tried to unravel the thread of Marilyn’s story. Queen May’s plan to glamour Marilyn and have her bear haffling children had been hatched over two decades earlier, longer if Marilyn’s childhood visions were not a coincidence. With every answer, a dozen questions appeared. “But Cedric loves you.”

  “Yes, he does. But not at first, and that’s what broke me. My last trip to the human realm is little more than a blur. I can’t return… not ever. I am sane here… at least sane enough, but there…. It’s just confusion, and voices, and walls dripping with blood. It’s where my children are. Liam, I pray this journey does not break you. I wish it with all my heart, and for selfish reasons. I need to know of my children. When you do this thing, I will fully and truly forgive you for every transgression you have ever done to me and the people I love. I will love you for this.” Through gritted teeth and tight jaw, she said, “Get me word of my children, tell me they are well, and all is forgiven.”

  Before he could respond, the sand on the shore started to bounce. Pebbles and bits of sea glass jumped into the air. The waves upon the water flattened, and like a door opening, the slick black puka, in the form of a massive mare, with Cedric upon its back, appeared a few yards from the water’s edge.

  The creature’s eyes blazed red. Its flanks dripped with green-black algae from the depths. It stood upon the sea, the surface smooth as glass.

  Cedric, his eyes wide with fear, gasped for air, jumped off the beast, and sank thigh-high into the stilled waters.

  Liam glanced from the puka to his reflection in the water. He barely recognized the face that looked back, more human than fey. It was the cost of his first journey. He looked up into the creature’s fiery eyes. And what will this cost? Will I go mad?

  He straightened, and like a mantra, he again thought, What would Charlie do?

  “Liam, it’s not too late. You need not do this.” Cedric huffed as he slogged toward the shore, his boots and pants heavy with seawater.

  Liam looked to Marilyn. Her request was fair. It was the correct price to undo the wrong he had done. “No, Uncle. I will go.”

  Expecting to sink below the surface, he stepped into the water. It held his weight, and he approached the monster. Its powerful neck bowed before him. Liam touched its slick hide, grabbed a handful of its matted mane, and mounted.

  As he lit upon the creature’s back, they sank below the surface.

  Unprepared, Liam hung on, unable to breathe, his eyes seeing only darkness and his skin freezing in the depths. Unlike Charlie’s dream, the passage was not through the Mist but through water. He knew the puka would carry him from the Unsee to the See. He also knew that delivering him alive was not a given. More than once he’d seen lifeless bodies pried from the creature’s flanks. He’d seen young Alex Nevus breathe life back into his boyfriend, Jerod Haynes, who’d sacrificed all for his lover. He’d seen the contempt in Alex’s eyes as he’d pressed him to abandon Jerod. Shameful memories flooded him. The creatures Queen May had forced him to seduce. The death of his parents, who would not submit to her demands. Life at the court. The queen’s fury at his failure to seduce Alex Nevus. Her rage at Cedric’s betrayal.

  As his lungs hungered for oxygen, Liam’s life—a life he found wanting—flew past.

  The puka landed on the bottom and galloped forward. Liam realized that his body, more human than fey, would not survive. Darkness and cold
clouded his mind. His heart slowed. I’m dying. His final thoughts were of Charlie, brave, kind, Charlie Fitzgerald. His stolen kiss. The feel of his hands on the sides of his face. He’ll think it nothing but a dream. He will not remember me. He slipped into darkness, and though he was dying, he was not afraid.

  AT THE cusp of death, he did not feel the strong hands that pried him from the beast’s back. As consciousness returned, he wondered if he were dead. For he was not on dry land, his feet barely visible in the Mist. All around him was fog. And then, with a dazzling display of opalescence, it parted and revealed a raven-haired woman dressed in the swirling sea-foam light of a hundred tiny fairies.

  While she had left the Unsee centuries before his birth, Liam knew the creature before him. One of the three sisters. “Lizbeta.”

  “Yes, Liam Summer, and no, you are not dead. Though you came close. A ride on a puka. There is hope for you yet, my love.”

  As his thoughts cleared and he gulped misty air, he felt at peace. It emanated from the shimmering woman, whose movements sent ripples and eddies through the Mist.

  She threw back an arm, and the Mist retreated. Revealed in its absence was a fearsome white salamander that twisted and writhed, a braided silver yoke around its neck. Its pale blue eyes stared at Liam, its mouth open as its talons clawed at its restraint.

  “Behold my sister, May. Her plans for world domination met with a setback.”

  Liam shook, but something about Lizbeta kept his fear at bay. He stared at the creature with her flat razor-sharp teeth. It was she who had attacked Charlie’s great red fire dragon. In the creature’s eyes, he glimpsed the mad queen. She had stolen Alex Nevus’s body. She had traveled between realms, and now… she was a salamander, a creature of change, a creature of fire. He caught the scent. A creature of fairy fire. This is her doing. It’s all her.

  “Tell me, Lizbeta. The boy she stole, the haffling Alex Nevus. Tell me he still lives.”