Where were we? Was this the realm of the faerie? Had we been Shanghaied to Arcadia? Before I could get a sense of which way was up, three fae carrying slim swords arrived and unlocked our cell. One of them gave Frank a poke and he sat up, tongue lolling from his mouth, looking even more confused than he generally did.
‘What do you want with us?’ I asked, but the terrible trio weren’t taking questions.
The fae ordered us to our feet and frogmarched us from our cell along a low tunnel with arching walls. My head felt like a balloon on a string, and from the way Frank walked—teetering and oozingly slow—he wasn’t feeling much better. Hardly surprising since we’d been tranquillised like a pair of bloody zoo animals.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, my voice echoing down the tunnel. ‘Let me guess, you’re taking us to Buttercup Junction so we can meet King Lollipop.’
I got a slap for that, which seemed about right.
As we traipsed along the tunnel at swordpoint, I studied our surroundings. Tangles of thick tree roots forced their way through cracks in the roof like hands reaching through sleeves. It was as though the fae were magnets to nature, attracting nearby vegetation to their vicinity with enough force to penetrate solid rock.
Something among the clusters of tree roots caught the blue light of one of the nearby torches. From the looks of it, one of the twisted tentacles had dragged something through the earth with it and brought it into the fae lair. Closer examination revealed it to be a bottle, and as we passed beneath it, I made out something written on its side. Embossed in the cloudy glass were the words PEPSI-COLA.
We weren’t in Arcadia. We hadn’t been dragged through some fairy portal, we were somewhere beneath the city streets. The fae had set up shop in London. But why? What was the sense in coming all the way to the big smoke if you couldn’t handle the smoke?
The Arcadians bullied us around a corner and into a much larger tunnel, wide enough to drive a car through and just as tall. Rainwater dripped down from the ceiling above, landing in fetid puddles at our feet that collected pools of blue light from the torches placed intermittently on the tunnel walls. I threw a look over my shoulder, past the Arcadians at our back, and saw a gate some way down the tunnel behind us. It was the same gate I caught a flash of on the way in, the one at the lair’s entrance with the MICKEY MORTE graffiti on its other side. From what I could tell, this was the main drag of the fae lair, with various tunnels and chambers branching off on either side. Where we were, though, I had no idea. An old war bunker maybe? A cave system? Part of a decommissioned sewer?
I felt a sharp poke in my kidney and turned to face the right way, back in the direction the Arcadians were marching us. Ahead of us were a pair of large wooden doors. Well, sort of. In fact, they were made of more tree roots—so tightly-packed that I doubted a single drop of water could have slithered through their sturdy weave.
The fae brought me and my partner to a dead stop; “dead” likely being the operative word. Frank looked at me with those big doe eyes of his and I wondered for a moment whether the doors ahead would end up being our final curtain. Certainly, the way our escorts scurried away like beetles from un upturned rock suggested nothing good lay beyond them.
Finally, inexorably, the giant doors began to part, slowly swinging inwards, seemingly of their own volition.
‘See you on the other side, pal,’ I told my partner.
Not for the first time, I wondered how that was going to work. In the event of our untimely end (okay, pretty timely, given that Frank and me turned up our toes years ago) what would our afterlife look like? Assuming we got one, that is, or that there was even a “we” to speak of. I mean, we were fundamentally the same person, only divided. If we somehow succeeded in paying off the sins of my misspent youth and squeaked past Saint Peter, would we continue on as separate identities, or be reunited in spirit? Frank had evolved so much since he showed up that I’d grown to think of him as his own man. A personality independent from my own. The idea of us becoming lumped together as one indistinct blob, or worse, that I absorbed Frank like some greedy twin in utero, seemed unfair to say the least.
A wedge of cold light escaped the opening doors, revealing what lay beyond. At the far end of a massive bramble-swamped chamber, a cobalt throne sat beneath a canopy of (you guessed it) more brambles. The empty throne was flanked either side by a fae guard. One I recognised as Draven, the Arcadian who knocked us out. The other was the fae I broke my hammer over. The one I dickslapped with a giant dildo was notable by his absence.
I was expecting more of a welcoming committee. With our escorts gone, the odds here were even. There was hope for me and Frank yet, a chance for us to overcome our captors and bust out of this place. Or so I thought.
With a curt c’mere motion, Draven summoned us to his end of the chamber. Something was off. I sensed the makings of a trap. Even Frank could tell something wasn’t right about this setup. I considered turning us around and going the other way, but a sense of grim inevitability sucked me further into the chamber. Following my lead, Frank accompanied me along a central aisle until—about halfway to the throne—we arrived at a large circular grate on the ground. An oubliette, I think you’d call it; not part of the original architecture, custom-built. I saw Frank’s nose twitch and followed his gaze as it drifted to the floor. I heard a snuffling sound in the gloom beneath our feet and tentatively peered through the grate to get a better look.
The first thing I saw was the leathery hide of two giant wings, then scales the colour of polished sapphires. The creature at the bottom of the oubliette padded in a circle around its pit, an arrowhead-tipped tail swishing behind it like a charmed snake. The beast craned its muscular neck and brought its bulbous head up to the grate, showing us a pair of thin slits that belched twin plumes of steam. I didn’t need to see the horns or the long mouth full of razor sharp fangs; I already knew what I was looking at. A dragon. A bloody Saint George special, here in modern-day London.
Any feeling of bravado I felt evaporated instantly. The dragon changed everything. Frank and I didn’t stand a chance in a fight now. We were two tadpoles in a shark tank. The only thing we could do was wait to see what happened next and look for a chance to wriggle free of the mess we were in.
Draven raised a fist and made a booming proclamation. ‘Hear ye, hear ye,’ he roared, punching the air. ‘Announcing the arrival of His Royal Highness, King Merodach the First...’
So we were in for an audience with royalty, were we? Seemed I wasn’t too far off the mark with that King Lollipop crack.
Draven went on. ‘All rise for the first of His name, ruler of the Unseelie Court, the protector of the realm, Lord of the endless hinterland…’
He banged on like that for a while, but this is about the point I tuned out. It’s not that Draven was a bad hype man, but when it comes to fancy titles, it’s in one ear and out of the other with me.
The King came swishing through a side door at the throne-end of the chamber. He wore a fine gown and enough jewellery around his neck to give Midas conniptions. Atop his head he wore a crown of thorns lined with rich blue velvet.
Given that there were only five of us in the room (six if you included the dragon) it seemed like a lot of excess pomp to me. Which made me wonder, why was this grand hello such a private affair? Was it because Frank and I were deemed unworthy of a larger retinue, or was this conversation being held behind closed doors to keep it private from the rest of the court?
The King took a seat upon his throne. I waited for him to speak but he said nothing. Instead, he just stared at Frank and me like he was trying to blow holes through us with his eyeballs.
I knew I should wait it out. That talking out of turn would only get us in trouble. I’d learned from Jazz Hands’ book that fairies respected the laws of hospitality and punished poor guests. If I knew what was good for me, I’d be on my best behaviour. And yet I was running low on an already stringent supply of fucks to give.
‘Nic
e gaff you’ve got here, Papa Smurf. An actual safe space. You know, for folks who hate the modern world, you’re surprisingly in touch.’
Frank laid a defeated look on me. The King white-knuckled the armrests of his throne.
‘How dare you speak to me that way!’ His head twitched to the man on his right. ‘You there, bring me his head at once!’
A smile spread across Draven’s face. It was the kind of smile you’d have seen even if you were looking at the back of his head. ‘With pleasure, Sire…’
Frank stepped in front of me as the Arcadian drew a sword from a ceremonial scabbard strapped to his side.
‘Thank you, Lieutenant, but that won’t be necessary.’
A woman entered from a doorway opposite the one the King had waltzed through.
‘Now then,’ she said in a voice like dry leaves blowing across a crypt floor. ‘What are we going to do with you two?’
Chapter Twenty-Three: Yas Queen
The Queen of the Unseelie Court wore a cloak made of smoke and walked with footsteps as soft as a snowfall. She eschewed any hyperbolic introductions, and unlike her husband, wore only modest jewellery upon her person. Her jet-black hair was piled high and fixed in place with an ivory pin, her head unadorned by fancy headgear. This lass had no need for a big jaggy bonnet. It was clear right away that she wore the trousers around here, and that the bloke sitting in the throne behind her was very much the Dennis Thatcher of the house.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, addressing her guests. ‘I wanted to look my best for you both.’
I said nothing and kept my expression neutral. Frank did the same, but more by default than choice.
‘So, this is the famous Fletcher & Fletcher?’ Lady Muck went on. ‘Thank you for coming. I’m sure you’re wondering why you were summoned.’
‘The thought had occurred,’ I replied, answering on my partner’s behalf.
The Queen’s mouth curved into a smile. ‘You’re aware that one of our kind has gone missing.’
It was presented as a statement rather than a question, so I didn’t feel the need to respond.
‘Good,’ she said, happy not to have to beat around the bush. ‘Then it might interest you to know that the missing person in question is my only son.’
Her son. No mention of her hubby, King Whatchamacallit of the Frozen Wastes, or whatever it was he called himself. Poor bloke. All that build-up, and now his missus had shown up he was barely getting a look in. Anyway, that was by the by. The real news was that the killer I was chasing wasn’t just any blue-skinned blueblood, he was a bonafide prince. Next in line for the throne. That put a very different spin on things.
The Queen prowled down the aisle towards us, dragging her smoke cloak behind her, and arrived at the opposite side of the oubliette. She wore leather-strapped sandals, which allowed her naked toes to curl over the edge of the grate, the only thing separating her from the dragon lurking below. She couldn’t have looked less bothered.
‘I know from what my subjects tell me that you have already encountered my boy.’
‘In a manner of speaking, yeah,’ I replied, remembering our ruckus at the council estate. ‘Nice feller. Bit murdery.’
The King twitched in his chair but his old lady remained the very picture of calm.
‘How very droll. You know, for two dead men, you make for most lively company.’
‘Thaaaaaaanks,’ droned Frank, who never could tell the difference between a compliment and veiled threat.
‘Can we cut to the chase here?’ I asked. ‘You went to the trouble of bringing us all the way to your little Never-Never Land; why don’t you tell us what for?’
Despite my dig, the Queen’s smile stayed plastered perennially across her face. ‘We invited you to our court because we require your assistance.’
Didn’t see that coming. I was convinced that this was all a bit of foreplay before the fae turned me and Frank into dragon food.
‘Sorry, love, can’t help you there,’ I said with a shrug. ‘There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know.’
‘Perhaps not yet, but in time.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying—we’re saying—(she gave a little nod to the King, just about remembering he was present) that we wish to procure your services.’
I matched her smile with my own. ‘You’re not going to execute us?’
‘You held your own against three of my best footmen,’ she replied, causing Draven and the other soldier to bristle. ‘I find that impressive.’
‘And our reward for impressing you is what? Getting to work for you?’ It was all I could do not to turn to Frank and twirl a cuckoo finger beside my head.
‘I suggest you tell us everything you know about our boy’s whereabouts,’ growled the King. ‘That’s if you want to see daylight again.’
The Queen stepped in to soften his offer. ‘Anything you can tell us would be most helpful, Mister Fletcher. For instance, how was he during your encounter? Did he seem well?’
‘Not after I brained him with a claw hammer, he didn’t.’
The King was up on his feet now, screaming until spit flew. ‘Pluck this whore-son’s tongue from his skull and throw him to the dragon. His meat puppet, too. I demand to see them both devoured.’
The Queen turned to him with a placating smile. ‘Remember our agreement, dear.’
Breaking royal protocol, Draven offered his tuppence worth. ‘I implore you, allow me to dispatch this motley twosome and give me the honour of recovering the prince.’
The Queen silenced her lieutenant with a look and returned to the King. ‘Our boy being wounded is no bad thing. He’ll need to stay in the city while he recuperates, which will only make it easier for us to locate him.’
Ah, the old royal “us”, meaning me and Frank, of course.
‘I’ve got a question for you,’ I said, addressing Her Majesty. ‘Why did your lad do a runner in the first place?’
‘Oh, you know how it is,’ she replied with a watery chuckle. ‘Boys will be boys.’
So, ditching a bride at the altar and going on a murder rumspringa was just par for the course, was it? Bollocks. There was nothing normal about what was happening here. The Arcadian scion had gone rogue and his family needed him brought in from the cold no matter what. That gave me leverage.
‘What if I say no to working for you?’ I asked.
It was a risky move and I knew it. Here they were extending me an olive branch, and I was eating the fruit and spitting back pips.
‘If you choose not to assist us you will be killed,’ said the Queen. The smile never left her lips.
I saw a gulp travel up and down Frank’s throat. He was made of tough stuff, but this bitch was stone cold.
‘Okay, new question: if we get your boy back, what then?’
‘You want to know that he’ll be punished, don’t you? I can assure you that once the prince is returned to us, his crime will be dealt with according to the full extent of Arcadian law.’
‘I see. And what about the wedding? I know a bunch of vampires who are pretty gutted about your boy standing up their little princess.’
The Queen cocked her head. ‘You know about the Vengari? My, my, you have done your homework, haven’t you? I’m impressed.’
‘All part of the Fletcher & Fletcher promise: two brains for the price of one.’
‘Braaaaaiins,’ moaned Frank.
‘Not now,’ I said.
The Queen returned us to the topic at hand. ‘You need not concern yourself with the Vengari,’ she replied. ‘Our contract with them has been torn up.’
‘Is that right? Because that’s not what they seem to think. Matter of fact, they’re set on marching your boy back down the aisle, toot suite.’
Beneath our feet, the big blue dragon huffed, sending a belch of tremendous heat through the oubliette that momentarily turned the throne room into a furnace. I staggered back a step, shielding my face. Frank sh
rank from the withering heat like a man who’d opened an oven door with his head too close. The Queen didn’t so much as flinch.
‘If the Vengari wish to hold a grudge, that is up to them,’ she said. ‘Once we have our son back, this city is behind us. That is a promise.’
Interesting. Provided Jazz Hands’ dusty old tome was on the money, that promise was gospel. Arcadians couldn’t lie, even the rotten ones. Once the prince walked back through those big double doors, the union was off.
Again, I wondered what a wedding between the Arcadians and the Vengari would have accomplished. It seemed like the vamps would be getting the better end of that deal, and to a serious degree. The Arcadians must have been stark raving to even consider the idea, though making that point at this moment would no doubt have earned me a spot at the bottom of a dragon pit, hence the swift change of subject.
‘Righty-o then,’ I said, cracking a smile. ‘If you want your prince found, you’d better let me and Frank get to work. No time like the present, eh?’
The Queen’s smile reached its broadest span yet. ‘Agreed. But do not seek to elude us, Mister Fletcher. You will locate my boy or suffer the consequences.’
She gave her guards a nod and they skirted the oubliette to join us. Draven’s fingers itched at the pommel of his sword.
‘Kindly escort our guests from the premises,’ said the Queen, waving a limp hand as she breezed by the King hauling her smoke train, leaving him sitting there like a lump on a log.
Draven went to show me the way out.
‘I can find the door by myself,’ I told him. ‘Don’t worry, if I need you I’ll tap your food bowl.’
I was three steps toward the exit, maybe four, before the cosh came down and I was off for another disco nap.
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Spirit is Willing
My pocket was singing.
Deadly Departed: A Supernatural Thriller (Fletcher & Fletcher, Paranormal Investigators Book 2) Page 14