Black Box Inc.

by Jake Bible

  Lassa snickered.

  “Well, we do,” Sharon huffed. “Despite last night’s interaction with Chappy, our clientele does expect a certain amount of discretion.”

  “The police and our private lab,” Teresa said. “Those are the only parties that are authorized to know about the blood. If others do, then the leak came from the police, not from our end. That type of breach is not tolerated by my firm.”

  “You already had a lab process an analysis?” Harper asked. “That was fast.”

  “It is why you pay us so much,” Teresa replied.

  Sharon made a small noise and closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then reopened her eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, we were worried,” Harper said.

  “Twelve pints,” I said, getting back to the damn topic at hand. “That’s too much. Couldn’t have come from my body.”

  “I agree,” Teresa said. “I have a theory, but we’ll circle back to that. The other blood tested, the blood found on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, matches Ms. Penn’s changeling.”

  “What?” we asked.

  “The blood found outside Taps & Tapas is not Ms. Penn’s blood,” Teresa said. “I made sure to have it tested against the body found. They matched exactly.”

  Pieces of the puzzle clicked inside my head, and I sat up straight. My hunger and intestinal unease warred with each other, but I pushed the gnawing and discomfort aside.

  “Iris may not be dead,” I said.

  “That is what I believe, as well,” Teresa said. “However, the police prefer the narrative that the body is actually Iris Penn’s and the blood on the sidewalk outside Taps & Tapas is hers because you attacked her there.”

  “Then decided to go to some random loft and bleed myself dry after. While adding four more pints than a human body can hold.” I rolled my eyes. “They aren’t so great at the logic on this one, are they?”

  “Or the math,” Lassa added.

  “They don’t care about math,” Teresa said. “They also do not care about logic, unfortunately. They care about a quick arrest. As I said, Detective Willitz is under a great deal of pressure to close this.”

  “Chase . . .” Sharon’s voice was pregnant with meaning.

  “I know.” I blew out a breath. “Changeling blood goes off fast when exposed to air. A dead ringer for Iris in a dumpster. Me waking up in a pool of twelve pints of my own blood, which is about what changeling bodies hold. The blood matches mine because they don’t have a changeling to compare the sample with.”

  “Very nice, Mr. Lawter,” Teresa said. “You circled back to my theory on your own.”

  “Oh, dear,” Sharon said. “This is not good.”

  “I think we know what I put in a box last night,” I said. “My changeling.”

  “Why the blood?” Lassa asked.

  “Changeling,” I said. “Only one reason to drain a changeling. Exsanguination ritual.”

  “That’s dark stuff,” Lassa said.

  “Really dark,” Harper agreed. “But what ritual?”

  “There’s the big question,” I said.

  “Too many rituals to count,” Harper said.

  “We don’t know that a ritual was performed or that a changeling was put inside the box. What we do know is that we must retrieve the box. Hopefully with the key from police evidence,” Teresa said. “Once we have access to that key’s box, then we will know more.”

  “Key or not, it has to be. It makes sense, right?” I said. “A changeling that was supposed to replace me, but I bled the changeling totally dry, may or may not have performed a ritual, then stuck the body in the Dim because . . . ?”

  “Excellent question,” Teresa said.

  “Got another one,” I said. “Why replace me?”

  “Don’t know, but last night now fits,” Harper said. “We were with your changeling when we left Taps & Tapas. Not you.”

  “One answer, ten more questions,” Lassa said.

  “Changelings are a bitch to deal with,” Harper said. “Especially if threatened. The changeling must have gone looking for you, Chase, and you two had yourselves a tussle.”

  “Chase won. Yay for Chase!” Lassa grinned.

  “Yes, and what a lovely prize I got,” I said, looking around the room. “Go me.”

  “Dealing with a changeling would explain your exhaustion from creating the Dim box,” Sharon said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But what about Iris? The real Iris. Willitz said that Iris’s last words were one reason I was brought in.”

  “I will find out about that as well,” Teresa said. “Perhaps the last words were not from her mouth, but a recorded message, text, or voice mail. Did he say they came from her mouth directly?”

  “No,” I answered.

  “Then they could have been a changeling’s dying breath. The last of the magic being expelled. That does occur with changelings. If that is the case, then the words mean nothing. They are gibberish.”

  “She’s right,” Harper said.

  “Ms. Kyles,” Teresa said, turning her full focus on Harper. “You have had extensive dealings with the Fae. Might you still have a contact or two you can communicate with?”

  Harper did have extensive dealings with the Fae. If by extensive Teresa meant being kidnapped as a child and raised in their nightmare extradimensional crime culture. Faeries have been switching out changelings for humans forever, but they stopped a couple centuries back. Except for the Fae. They saw something in Harper and took her for whatever nefarious reasons.

  Harper doesn’t talk about it much. Not even to me.

  But she got some badass fight training and security skills out of the deal, so I don’t pry. Teresa really shouldn’t either.

  “Ms. Kyles?” Teresa pressed.

  “I don’t deal with the Fae anymore,” Harper said in a tone that made Teresa raise an ethereal eyebrow.

  “Very well then,” Teresa said. “Despite Ms. Kyles’s reticence to help with the Fae aspect of this case, I believe we have more than enough to start.”

  But we didn’t. Something else nagged at me. My hunger was too extreme for the amount of work it would have taken to craft a box big enough for a changeling corpse. That was a-few-bags-of-chips-and-dip hunger. What my belly had going on was eat-a-whole-hog hunger.

  I held up a finger, but didn’t have to say a word.

  Teresa smiled at me and nodded as if she’d been waiting to see that look of deduction on my face. Banshees can’t read minds, but she was an excellent lawyer. A lawyer’s job was to get inside her clients’ heads. “A changeling’s corpse wasn’t all you hid. There was more. We need that key.”

  “Heist!” Lassa exclaimed.

  “No heist!” Sharon barked.

  “No heist needed,” Teresa said. “Not when a court order will do.”

  6

  WE WEREN’T IN that conference room for eternity, but it goddamn felt like we were.

  Once Teresa had sent off the request for a judge to issue a court order allowing us to examine the piece of Dim the police had in evidence, she had us all retrace our steps for the past few weeks. She didn’t take a single note. Banshees don’t have to. Their memories are perfect. One reason why they hold such strong grudges against those that have wronged them, haunting the poor bastards until they died. The bastards, not the banshees.

  When Teresa had everything she wanted from us, she sent for one of the secretaries to show us up to the top floor of the law offices. Looked like Lassa was gonna miss his date with the river sprite.

  There were several suites up top for special clients. With the Fae involved, we couldn’t actually leave the building until the gnomes discovered exactly how much danger we were in.

  The Fae. Goddammit.

 
They’re like the faerie mafia.

  All the crazy crap written about faeries and their trickery is nothing compared to what the Fae pull off. They are the worst part of the faerie dimension. Fae are to faerie what La Cosa Nostra is to Sicily. Most faeries are happy to lure wanderers off a forest path and trick them into losing a year or two of their lives. The Fae aren’t happy unless the wanderers lose body part after body part followed by their eternal souls.

  And always for a goddamn profit.

  The secretary left us in the large suite after promising to have some groceries brought in. As soon as she was gone, we sat down and did our own postmortem of events.

  “Travis is in town,” I said. “Why?”

  “You think he has something to do with this?” Lassa asked.

  “You know my policy on coincidences,” I replied.

  “Coincidences are imaginary,” Sharon said.

  “But, Travis? You’ve known the guy for years.” Lassa watched me closely. “You don’t trust him?”

  “I’ve known the form he’s shown us. Trust him? Might be an overstatement.” I rubbed at my temples. “Do not get me wrong, I like the man, but his showing up at this time does not sit well with me.”

  “Me neither,” Sharon said.

  “The gnomes are looking for him.” Lassa crossed his arms over his huge chest. “You can’t hide from gnomes.”

  “Will you all forget about Travis and gnomes?” Harper growled. “We’ve got Fae to deal with.”

  We all trusted Harper with our lives, lives she’d saved a hundred times over the years, but she only trusted us with so much information regarding her past. My past and her past intersected at a time that was a low for both of us. She’d finally escaped the Fae, although she never said how, and I’d escaped a house filled with drug abuse and a hefty dose of physical abuse to go with the meth.

  Harper and I found each other on the streets of Asheville. Two kids making their way on their own. There was never anything romantic with us, we simply watched each other’s backs. Watched them for other street kids, the crack dealers, the cops, the well-intentioned social workers.

  Or, to be honest, she watched my back. We’d been hanging out for less than a week when some pimp tried to get Harper to turn tricks for him. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, so Harper almost turned him inside out. With her bare hands.

  “I took some classes,” was all she said at the time.

  Later, she told me about being abducted by a crime syndicate as a little girl and that was how she got her training. When the extradimensional happening changed the world, I learned the truth—that the “syndicate” were the Fae.

  She said the Fae kicked her out. She never explained why. One thing I’ve learned over the years is you do not push Harper to talk unless she wants to. Especially if you value keeping all body parts attached.

  Except that now we needed answers, and she was our only link. Time to risk some body parts.

  “Don’t ask,” Harper said to me, heading me off at the pass.

  “I have to.”

  “I was exiled, dammit.”

  “You were with the faerie, specifically the Fae, for most of your life, Harp.”

  “Chase, don’t push her,” Sharon interrupted.

  I held up a hand. “There’s a reason she’s in charge of security. She’s goddamn fearless. If not, then what good is she in her job?”

  “Bit harsh, dude,” Lassa said.

  “Harp, I love you, but Iris is in—”

  “No, you’re right.” Harper sighed.

  Stunned was an understatement.

  “But being right doesn’t change the fact I was kicked out of that dimension, Chase.”

  “What contacts can you call?” I pressed.

  “You aren’t going to drop this, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, then. I don’t know,” she said. There were a few raised eyebrows. “I don’t, so stop looking at me like that. I was trained to fight, not to perform faerie magic. Changelings are outside my expertise and outside the expertise of the few contacts I do still have in the faerie dimension. As for the Fae? None of them will speak to me. Ever. So, I am not bullshitting you or being difficult when I say I do not know if I have any contacts left over there.”

  “But you know a guy that might know a guy, right?” I asked. “Maybe that guy knows a guy that knows a guy. And that guy will speak to that guy that knows the guy in the Fae. We have to do something and this is how this shit works, Harp. The only reason Teresa let it go was because she knew I wouldn’t. You’re the closest we have to a way into the Fae.”

  “They hate me more than they hate you. And they must hate you a lot if they are going to this trouble to frame you. Two changelings wasted? That is some serious magic they threw away.”

  “Are you sure there is no one you can call?” Sharon asked. “Your old boss? You are difficult, but an exceptional worker. I know if you’d worked for me I’d be willing to give a great recommendation. Perhaps if you tried reaching out?”

  “Ha! No. Not her,” Harper said. “I’m numero uno on her shit list.”

  “Harper, come on,” Lassa said. “There’s always—”

  “No,” Harper stated in a voice as hard and cold as dwarven iron.

  “Do you want us to be stuck in this suite forever?” Lassa asked.

  “That question was about your date, not figuring out what’s happening,” Harper growled.

  “I’m hurt,” Lassa said. He didn’t look hurt. He pulled out his phone, then looked hurt. “No signal. Where’s the landline?”

  “No outside phone calls,” a gnome said as he came out of the kitchen, a tray of freshly baked cookies in hand. “Cookies?”

  “Yes,” I pretty much shouted.

  “No outside phone calls?” Sharon asked. “Oh my, but I do have some client calls I need to make and several texts to return.”

  “No outside phone calls,” the gnome said again as he set the tray of cookies down on the coffee table. “Tea?”

  “Peppermint,” I said, rubbing my belly. “And some Tums, too.”

  “Maybe lay off the cookies, dude?” Lassa said. If looks could kill, I would have murdered him right there. “Or not. Eat all the cookies you want.”

  “Miss?” the gnome asked Harper. “Coffee? Tea? I make a lovely chai latte.”

  “Chai latte? Yeah, sure. Make that two,” Harper said. “Lassa? Chai is like your thing.”

  “Yeah, I’ll have a chai,” Lassa said, addressing the gnome. “Any other way to get a message out?”

  “No,” the gnome said. “Not until Ms. Sullivan gives the okey dokey.”

  “You’re gonna have to stand that river sprite up,” I said. “Sorry, pal.”

  “It happens, I guess.” Lassa got heavily to his feet. “Gonna go take a whiz.”

  “The plumbing is insulated and filters all magic,” the gnome said.

  “Yeti piss isn’t magic,” Lassa said.

  “No, but if you are trying to get a message to a water sprite, using the sewage system would be one way,” the gnome said. He cocked his pointy hat back on his head and put his hands on his hips. “Do you think we gnomes are stupid?”

  “Ouch,” Harper said. “Smacked down by a gnome.”

  “And that would mean what?” the gnome asked.

  “I think we got the clever gnome,” I said.

  “I take the time to make cookies and this is what I get,” the gnome muttered as he walked back into the kitchen.

  “Are we still getting the chai?” Harper called after him.

  “Yes!”

  “Cool.”

  “No landline or cell service,” Sharon said. “That limits what we can accomplish. However, with that said, there
is still one communication technique that can be used. I suggest we return to our earlier dilemma.”

  “Oh, for dragon’s sake,” Harper said. “If I make the contact, will you guys lay off me about the Fae? This is it. If no one picks up, then we drop it.”