Hunter's Oath

by Glynn Stewart

  “No,” I said levelly, rising from the table and looking around the room. “But I have to at least attempt channels before I go over Andrell’s head. He’s going to be here for a while and I have to work with him.

  “So does Grandfather, for that matter,” I reminded her. “Let’s not start any wars until we have to.”

  She sniffed a half-acceptance at best, but she rose and took my hand.

  “That’s fair,” she allowed. “But trust me, Jason—if the shifters start thinking we have to take Chernenkov down ourselves, we will—and fae inter-Court politics won’t stop us.”

  “If it gets that bad, you know I’ll be there,” I said quietly. “I’ll work with Andrell until he gives me reason not to, but she doesn’t walk away.”

  The consequences of that could be…messy for me. But we were going to catch Maria Chernenkov.

  13

  “I’m sure no one is surprised that the numbered company that owns the property is a holding company,” Shelly told us at lunch on Monday.

  Sunday had been frustrating, a mix of my usual duties and running around the city chasing any tiny hint of the Pouka’s whereabouts. Now Eric and I joined Talus and Shelly for lunch in a skyscraper conference room. I wasn’t sure what service had catered the food, but we had an amazing view out over the half of downtown shorter than the building Shelly worked out of.

  “Numbered companies have owners, don’t they?” I asked. “Isn’t all of that public record?”

  “It’s complicated,” the lawyer said with a sigh. “Look, Jason, a good three-quarters of what I do is obfuscate ownership records to make sure no one realizes that the fae in Calgary exist. There are, at my best guess, about fifteen lawyers in the city taking care of that for the various supernaturals—we are, in this day and age, the most essential interface you lot have with the mortal world.”

  She took a sip of coffee.

  “Across North America? The various supernaturals probably employ ten or twenty thousand lawyers, primarily for the purpose of hiding money and assets so they can’t be traced back to them. Add to that the corporations and celebrities and wealthy mortal individuals doing the same thing, there is an entire industry occupied in making sure that those ‘public records’ are almost completely opaque.”

  Shelly tapped her laptop.

  “Whoever set this one up? They’re better than I am. I lost the ownership trail somewhere in Cuba. I’m sorry, Jason, but even the Airbnb records are a wash.”

  “Let me guess: booked through a numbered company?” I asked.

  I wasn’t sure how much most people could access from internet sites, but I was prepared to bet a lot that Shelly could access more.

  “Not even. Unit was blacked out for all of July—unusual, since Stampede is when most locals running vacation rentals gouge everyone.”

  “So, our Pouka is related to whoever owned the building,” Talus concluded with a sigh. “Does that help us at all?”

  “I think it’s a safe assumption the building is owned by a supernatural, probably a fae, given what Jason’s shifter friends smelled,” Eric noted, the gnome diffidently chasing the last of his french fries around his plate.

  “Still not much use, though,” he concluded. “I can poke through my records—no fae outside Calgary should have been buying property in the city without letting me know.”

  “How much do they tell you?” I asked. “We know the Unseelie have to have been acquiring new properties.”

  He snorted.

  “That they’re here, really,” he admitted. “Our people don’t go in much for giving away our secrets; you know that.”

  I nodded. At some point, I might manage to find out who my father was, for example.

  “So, we have nothing?” I said slowly. “Just half a dozen dead people, a gas bomb, and a murderous fae somewhere in the city?”

  “She may have left,” Shelly pointed out. “If she knows you’re hunting her, well…I wouldn’t want to be hunted by a fae.”

  “If she has any friends at all, she’s probably sure she can take me on round two,” I admitted. “Remember that I’m still a pushover by her standards.”

  “Plus, Jason here burnt her to ashes and forced her to rebuild herself from her shadow,” Eric added. “And she’s both Unseelie and a Pouka.” The Keeper shook his head. “Sorry, Jason, but she’s not leaving this city until you’re dead—or she is.”

  “Being hunted by psychotic Unseelie is always the best way to make me feel loved,” I quipped. “Any ideas on what we can do until she finds me?”

  I got a series of uncomfortable looks in response, and then Talus sighed.

  “You have to talk to Andrell,” he told me. “He may be able to pull something from our research, and, well, you have to talk to him anyway.”

  “I know,” I admitted. “I can’t meet with the Seelie on this and not the Unseelie.” I shook my head and checked my phone. “I sent an email this morning,” I noted. “Still sorting out details, but I believe I’m having dinner with Andrell and Gráinne tonight.”

  I knew my responsibilities. No one was going to be particularly shocked if I had some favorable feelings towards the Seelie Court that had always been here, but as a Vassal of the Queen, I had to be neutral.

  “Good,” Eric said. “It’s a careful balance we have to walk, Jason. Harder for you, I suspect, than the Keepers—my duties are less active than yours.”

  “Unless the Unseelie know something, though, unfortunately all I can suggest is that you keep your eyes open and carry on as normal,” Talus told me. “There’s not much else you can do.

  “She’s going to come at you sideways, from where she thinks you’re vulnerable. I don’t know what she’s going to think your weak spot is…but that’s because I know you.”

  I snorted.

  “And my actual weak spot is probably me?” I admitted. “I had Robert and two Gentry with me last time I fought her. I can’t take her head-on. If she comes at me…”

  “You’d better find a way to take her head on, then,” my friend told me. “Whether that’s one of Eric’s toys or training or something. I’m guessing the Queen sent you the tools to take her out, but you’ll have to take her down.”

  The Keeper looked at me and shook his head. Unlike Talus, he knew Inga was there and training me, which should help, but he was also the best source I had for enchanted gear.

  “Give me till morning to think about it and put out some feelers,” Eric said. “I don’t have the gear to hand to forge anything new quickly, but I might be able to beg or borrow something useful.”

  “And I’ll see about staying alive that long,” I said with a sigh.

  One of the sometimes-frustrating aspects of my job was the occasional reminder of ways my background made me bad at it. I’d grown up the son of an untenured university teacher in the United States. We hadn’t been poor, precisely, but money hadn’t been easy to find, either.

  My adulthood after discovering my fae gifts and prior to ending up working for the Queen had been an extended period of glorified homelessness, bouncing from city to city and Manor to Manor, abusing the tradition of succor as hard as I could.

  Now I had access to resources beyond my wildest dreams. Not only did Mabona pay me quite generously, but her attitude toward expenses was…cavalier at best.

  I was relatively sure the black credit card I’d been given for work expenses had a limit, but I’d never hit it—nor had I ever put enough charges on it to even get a blink from the accountants in Ireland who paid it off like clockwork every month.

  Invoices sent to the address of the toy manufacturer I theoretically worked for got paid without question. I could probably have had memberships in any golf or private club I wished, but the thought had never occurred to me.

  As a uniformed waiter escorted me to a private room in one of Calgary’s most exclusive downtown business clubs, it was clear that that had occurred to Lord Andrell. The man opened the door to the room and ushered me in wi
th an actual bow.

  Where did they even find that big of a suck-up in this city?

  “Master Kilkenny,” the room’s sole occupant greeted me in her soft Irish accent. Gráinne wore the same style of black business suit she’d worn when she’d arrived in Calgary, cut to show off the Unseelie Noble’s tall, athletic figure and allow for a full range of movement.

  “Lord Andrell will be here shortly,” she promised, gesturing to the table. “Please feel free to peruse the menu while we wait.”

  “Of course.”

  I took a seat across from her and studied her for a few moments.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Ms. Gráinne, what brings you to Calgary with Lord Andrell?” I asked. “It seems quite the distance to pick up and move on a whim.”

  “Perhaps, but the whim was not mine,” she pointed out. “My family has served Andrell’s family for generations. I swore personal Fealty to him when I was twelve, Master Kilkenny. The bonds of the old Fae Nobles and Lords are…special. Not something I’d expect an American-born changeling to understand.”

  She didn’t even pretend she wasn’t insulting me, but that was fine. I wasn’t under the impression that Gráinne liked me, after all. And if she was an old-school retainer of a Noble line…damn. Andrell came from blood so blue, it glowed in the dark, even for fae.

  Most Lords came from families of Lords. Those families occasionally produced Nobles, but they tended to produce at least one Lord or Lady every century or so. Most of those families, in turn, had families of traditional retainers.

  But those families were usually Gentry or Greater Fae. Only the oldest and most powerful bloodlines had entire lineages of Vassal Nobles.

  That was normally restricted for Powers like the Queen or the Lord of the Unseelie.

  Before I could respond to her implied put-down, however, Andrell himself swept into the room with a second Unseelie Noble in tow.

  “Apologies for my being late,” he told me. “We are still learning the city’s traffic and, well, it was different last week.”

  His grin was disarming and cheerful, setting me at ease as I leaned back and chuckled with him.

  “Stampede creates its own kind of chaos, I’m told, but it clears other areas of the city up as well,” I agreed. “Even we are limited by the mortal habits, I suppose.”

  “Indeed.” Andrell pulled open the menu, studying it. “I don’t suppose you have a recommendation?” he asked. “We bought the membership, but I haven’t eaten here yet.”

  I coughed delicately.

  “I’ve never eaten here myself, but steak is usually reliable in this city,” I told him. I opened the menu myself and tried not to visibly blink at the prices. The Unseelie Lord was unbothered, but the man would probably think my entire annual salary was petty cash.

  “This is true, this is true,” he agreed with that charming grin. He rang for the waiter and smiled up at the man as he entered.

  “Four of your filet mignon, medium, with the side of the day,” he ordered crisply. “Bring us a bottle of the house red and make sure to buzz before entering; our discussions are with regards to some confidential business matters.”

  The waiter seemed completely unfazed, simply nodding with what I suspected was a fake smile, and letting himself out of the room.

  “Now, Master Kilkenny, what can Calgary’s Unseelie Court do for you?”

  After I’d briefed the three Unseelie on the weekend’s events and everything I’d learned, the food arrived. The timing was pretty much perfect, allowing us all to dig into the unsurprisingly excellent steak while Andrell digested what I’d told him.

  “Do you have the ownership information that Talus’s lawyer extracted?” he finally asked. “The timing, unfortunately, makes it look like this rental was picked up as part of our portfolio acquisition here. We used a firm with a solid reputation in Unseelie circles, but if this Pouka had the right connections…”

  “She’d have been able to piggyback on your own acquisitions,” I agreed. I slid a USB stick across the table. “Ms. Fairchild was kind enough to provide a copy of her research. I was hoping you’d be able to pass it on to your lawyers and see if you can trace it back.”

  “I will see what they can do,” he promised carefully. “I wish we had something more solid to go on, Master Kilkenny. This whole situation reflects poorly on my new Court and creates tension I’d prefer not to be dealing with.”

  “Trust me, my lord, I far prefer my job to involve resolving petty squabbles between members of the Courts,” I told him. “This is the first time the High Court has handed down a death sentence for me to carry out. It’s not a pleasant order.”

  “Few things that end up involving the High Court itself are,” Andrell agreed. “At least if this Chernenkov leaves, she becomes another city’s problem instead of ours.”

  “She strikes me as the type to be vengeful, unfortunately,” I replied. “The only lead I have right now is that she has a fae lover somewhere in the city, tied to that property. My shifter allies assure me they can identify him by scent.”

  Andrell snorted.

  “We’d trust the opinion of shifters on that?” he asked.

  “I would,” I said flatly. “Calgary’s Clans have earned that respect from us, Lord Andrell—with blood and fire.”

  He made a mollifying gesture but still seemed unimpressed.

  “Even if they could, I hesitate to condemn anyone merely on association,” he told me. “I’m sure Oberis would agree with me in this, but I don’t see having known the woman as a crime!”

  “The evidence suggests that whoever she ‘knew’ helped smuggle in a chlorine bomb that could have killed hundreds, creating a level of chaos that would only have complicated all of our lives,” I pointed out. “He may not be guilty of her crimes, my lord, but if I can identify him, I will claim the authority of the High Court to interrogate him under a Lord’s truth compulsion.”

  I liked Andrell well enough, for all that his right-hand woman was treating me like something she’d found on her shoe, but his priorities were not my priorities—and we both answered to the High Court.

  “That would be…reasonable,” he allowed.

  Before I could say anything more, my phone buzzed with an incoming text. That was…odd, given that all of my notifications were turned off. I sighed in suspicion and pulled the device out.

  “Excuse me, my lord,” I told Andrell as I studied the screen.

  Kilkenny. Attend me at your earliest convenience. KM.

  “The Wizard,” I said aloud in unfeigned surprise, swallowing hard. When a Power said “earliest convenience,” that meant, well, yesterday.

  “I apologize, Lord Andrell,” I told him, “but my Queen’s alliance with Magus MacDonald requires me to respond immediately. He seeks my presence.”

  There were no good reasons for the Wizard to want to talk to me.

  “Of course,” the Unseelie conceded instantly. “When Powers call, we ‘lesser beings’ have few choices.

  “I appreciate the briefing, Master Kilkenny, and the data. I will let you know what we learn.”

  14

  A bouncing blue light guided me through the garage under MacDonald’s tower to a designated parking stall. The underground structure was empty this late at night, allowing the Wizard’s magical guide to play along.

  Though, given the Wizard’s abilities, I wouldn’t have bet against the blue light only being visible to me. I’d never yet been led astray by assuming that MacDonald was functionally omnipotent, though assuming his omniscience had proven dangerous.

  He had, after all, missed that his own followers were betraying him.

  The first actual surprise came when I stepped out of the Escalade to find someone waiting for me. My greeter wasn’t a magical light or even a construct but a small woman, perhaps an inch or so over five feet, wearing a face veil.

  The moment she moved toward me, however, I knew what she actually was and bowed my head slightly as I greeted her
in halting Vietnamese. No human moved with that speed and grace—and only one supernatural averaged five feet tall while covering their faces.

  The goblin’s eyes flashed in surprise as she returned the greeting, then continued on in a liquid stream of Vietnamese.

  “Sorry, Theino taught me a greeting, but I suck at languages,” I admitted to her with a smile. Theino was the Speaker to Outsiders of the goblin colony in Calgary, a collection of Vietnamese refugees under Talus’s protection. I’m just too American, I think.”

  She nodded and inclined her head.

  “Of course,” she said. “I am Lan Tu, daughter of Trai, son of Krich.”

  Krich was one of the original goblins who’d evacuated to Calgary during the Vietnam War. I’d met him, and Lan Tu was the second of his grandchildren I’d met.

  “I didn’t expect to see any of the colony here,” I told her.

  She shrugged delicately, a smile glinting in her bright blue eyes.

  “We need work, and it’s hard for us to find mortal employment,” Lan Tu noted.

  I nodded my understanding. The veil, after all, was in place to cover inch-long ivory tusks.

  “The Magus sent me to bring you upstairs,” she continued. “If you would follow me, Lord Kilkenny?”

  I chuckled.

  “I’ll follow,” I promised. “But don’t call me Lord. I’m not owed any titles, and that’s a dangerous one among my folk.”

  “As you wish, Mr. Kilkenny,” she conceded with a bob of her head. “My father’s father and cousin would be…hurt if I did not show you proper respect. You are a friend of the colony, after all.”

  There were worse allies to have. Goblins might be small, but they were fast and strong—and every goblin in Calgary had been trained in fighting dirty by ex-Viet Cong commandos.

  Lan Tu led me into the elevator and produced a key from inside her sleeve. Inserting the key, she tapped a sequence of three buttons on the control panel, then withdrew the key and let the doors close as she began to hum gently.