Iron Night

by M. L. Brennan

  “I read,” Jacoby said defensively. “Anyway, figured it couldn’t hurt. Just in case Soli lost track of any of them or they didn’t show up at the speed-dating thing.”

  “Speed dating?” I asked quickly. Suddenly a few things were starting to come together.

  “Yeah. After I was done I had to give them another flier.” Disappearing momentarily into his office, we could hear Jacoby rooting around in a stack of paperwork. He emerged a moment later with a small flier, the photocopied kind that usually rest in stacks on side tables in alternative coffee shops. He handed it to me, and I read through it fast. It was for a specific Providence-only speed-dating site, but what immediately captured my attention was the bottom of the flier, where the sponsor of the program had taken the chance to pimp themselves a little—the Dreamcatching logo was as predictable as I could’ve expected. “I’ve got glamoured ones,” Jacoby continued, “but I just photocopied this one. You can have it.”

  “Thanks.” I went as casual as possible. “How about that list of the guys you tattooed, while you’re at it?”

  “Sure,” Jacoby said with equal casualness. “For another hundred bucks.”

  “Fuck,” I gritted out. Another trip to the liquor store, where the cashier gave me an unnecessarily judgmental look while I cleaned out everything that was left of my most recent paycheck. I stomped back and shoved the money at Jacoby. “Here.”

  He gave a beatific smile, clearly already picturing exactly what he’d be spending this on. He went over to the counter, flipped open one of the thick binders, and carefully copied out a short list. When he handed it to me I scanned it—there was Gage, along with the two names that Matt had given me last night, but one name I didn’t recognize: Franklin Litchfield.

  While I was looking at the list, Suze took over. “How much for some of that special ink?” she asked. I winced. At this point she was either going to have to start chipping in for bribery costs or cover my utilities.

  Jacoby didn’t even glance up from his focus of shoving his new wad of twenties down his pants to join the rest of his stash. “All out. Used it up on the last guy; haven’t gotten any more yet.” He sounded disappointed at the lost opportunity to sell out his employers further.

  “How do you get more?”

  “Soli drops it off. Not much—just enough to do the job. When I see her, I know some guy will be coming by in a week or so.”

  “Seen her lately?”

  “Last month, right before I inked up this big blond guy.” I felt a pang, recognizing the description of Gage. Jacoby shrugged. “Hey, that’s it. Pleasure doing business with you.”

  I broke in. “Not so fast. What the hell is going on with this? This sounds pretty complicated—glamours, secretive women, advertising circulars. What are the Neighbors trying to do?”

  Again that blank, bovine stare of complete incomprehension. “Dude, they’re paying me. I don’t give a crap what they’re trying to do. Probably another fucking Neighbor pipe dream. That’s all any of what they do is.”

  I looked at Suze, who shrugged one shoulder. With nothing left to ask, we turned to go.

  We’d opened the door, and either the blast of fresh air or the unfamiliarity of natural light jogged something loose in Jacoby’s brain, because he called to us, “Oh, hey, one last thing. On the house. That glamour they’ve been coating on stuff, that’s nothing any of the Neighbors could’ve done. That was put on by one of Themselves. I don’t know what the hell you’re interested in this for, but smart people don’t fuck with Themselves.”

  Jacoby’s expression was as close to sobriety as he possibly got, and I asked with trepidation, “Who are Themselves?”

  He smirked. “Never knew the vampires were so dumb. Themselves are the daddies, the motherfucking progenitors, the Ad-hene, the real deals.”

  “Muh?” Lost, I looked to Suzume.

  She made a small tsk sound at my display of ignorance. “He means the elves, Fort. The full-bloods.”

  We didn’t say anything to each other as we walked to my car, both enjoying the escape from the stale air and questionable aromas of the Iron Needle. A few deep breaths each, though, as we leaned against the Fiesta. I needed to go across the street and somehow deal with Matt, but I paused to arrange my thoughts, trying to determine what and how much to tell him.

  I looked over at Suzume. “Four victims now, not just three, and that’s assuming that Jacoby sold us a full list. It’s been going on for months now, it’s super-complicated, and there are elves and some mystery woman at the center of it.”

  “What are you going to tell your PI guy?”

  I winced a little, considered, then answered slowly. “I’ll give him the list. He can run down the basics on the last guy, and while he’s doing that you and I are going to get some better answers.”

  “Where from?”

  “Dreamcatching.” I handed her the flier and watched as she quickly assembled the pieces as well. “Any chance you’ll wait in the car?”

  She shrugged. “I can do that. One last thing about the tattoo parlor, though.”

  “Oh?”

  “Whatever killed Gage has been there. More than once, judging by the smells.”

  I considered everything we’d just learned, then asked, “Maybe our mystery woman?”

  A wide smile crept across Suzume’s face as she looked up at me. “That’s what I like about you, Fort,” she said, real admiration in her voice. “You never underestimate the ability of women to commit homicide.”

  “Have you met my family? Kipling had it right about the female of the species.”

  Her laugh followed me as I hurried across the street and into the Starbucks.

  Walking into the coffee shop, I inhaled the familiar, invigorating aromas. I’d spent months pouring coffee, but back at Busy Beans the primary aromas had been burned coffee, stale pastry, and despair. Given the money I’d just dropped on bribery, I should’ve resisted, but I decided that the lingering eight dollars in my wallet had just found their forever home.

  I was careful not to look over at Matt as I got in line. He was always very specific about correct stakeout behavior, so I pretended to be unaware of the rustling as he put away his newspaper and got in line behind me.

  “Get anything?” he asked quietly behind me, not bothering with a greeting.

  Even with the tension between us, I couldn’t help but feel a bit hurt. “Hey, Matt,” I responded pointedly. He didn’t respond, and it scraped at my temper, drawing something darker and colder to the surface, enough that the pimply teenager behind the counter actually took a sudden step back when I stepped up. Chagrin immediately filled me, and I dropped my eyes and muttered my order. I didn’t want to know what I’d looked like in that moment, but something told me that it wasn’t what I was used to, at least on my own face. Maybe I would’ve recognized it on my sister’s.

  I dumped all of my change into the employee tip jar as a silent amends as I walked over to the pickup counter and heard Matt step forward to place his own order. Working out so regularly with Chivalry had given me both a convenient outlet and a mask for some of the changes that transition was having on me, but this was the longest I’d been away from my brother since the transition began. Perhaps, I realized uneasily, training me hadn’t been the only reason why Chivalry had kept me so close this summer.

  I closed my eyes and mentally recited as many character names as I could remember from Battlestar Galactica, reaching for calm. I couldn’t resist the impulse to run my tongue quickly along the edge of my upper teeth, testing my canines for unusual sharpness. When I found nothing, that was when I finally started relaxing.

  Then Matt was next to me. We were out of sight of the front window, and now he was willing to look right at me, just when I wished that he wouldn’t.

  “Hell of an impression you made on that kid.” His voice was too assessing.
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br />   Now I was the one who didn’t want to talk. I pulled the list of victims out of my pocket and pressed it into his hand, not looking at him. Instead I focused on the barista prepping my order, which was apparently having a very negative effect, as steaming foam suddenly went everywhere.

  “These are the guys who got the tattoo.” I gave in and finally looked over at Matt, whose expression was completely blank as he looked at me.

  He raised his eyebrows. “He had this info just lying around?”

  I gritted my teeth, hearing the suspicion in his voice and unable to do what I knew I should’ve been doing, which was reassuring him of how innocent and helpless I was, not terrorizing Starbucks employees so badly that the manager was having to take over my order. “Good filing system. He’s all about growing his business.”

  “Friendly.” Matt’s brown eyes were boring into me, and the ceiling lights suddenly seemed far too bright. “Handed it right over?”

  “Bribed him,” I said shortly. I knew that I needed to distract Matt, so I reached over and tapped the new name. “Can you look into that last guy? Franklin Litchfield?”

  “Yeah.” His coffee arrived before mine, and he took a long sip. “So, who’s your girl?”

  “Just a friend who tagged along,” I said. As soon as Suze had insisted on coming I’d known that I’d be answering this question, so I wasn’t surprised. I was only impressed that Matt had held it in so long. “Her name’s Suze.”

  “I remember her from the other night. Pretty girl.”

  “Oh yeah.” There was a pause while the cringing Starbucks guy brought over my order—a small black coffee for me and a double chocolate-chip Frappuccino blended crème for Suze, whose enthusiasm for sugar rivaled a hummingbird’s. Matt and I both looked down at the very different drinks in front of me, and it suddenly occurred to me that this could be interpreted the wrong way. “We’re not dating. Just friends. But she is pretty—I mean, not that that makes a difference—” I was starting to feel much more like my usual self when Matt broke in to my attempt to eat my own feet.

  “Amy Grann mentioned a pretty lady.”

  “What?” The bottom dropped out of my stomach. The police had dismissed everything she’d said as the fantasies of a severely traumatized child, but Matt had gotten close to her long enough to hear her story, and he’d believed enough parts of it to be very dangerous.

  “When she talked about who saved her. It was a dark-haired guy and a pretty lady. A pretty Asian lady.”

  I tried to distract him, oddly enough, with the truth. “Yeah, but didn’t you also say that she thought that the lady turned into a fox?” The thought of what would happen if Matt started trying to investigate Suzume made my stomach cramp. I trusted Suze to leave Matt alone right now, but the kitsune were just as careful as the vampires in policing their secrets. If Atsuko, the White Fox, discovered that a private detective had the wrong kind of interest in any member of her family, she’d send someone to take out a possible threat. In all likelihood, Suze would be the one ordered to kill Matt. I swallowed hard and decided to try to brazen it out. “I think Suze would tell me if she turned into a fox and saved little girls. Anyway”—I pointed at the paper again—“that’s a real lead, so let me know where it goes.”

  Matt was completely inscrutable as he sipped his coffee, studying me like a bug. “Sure thing.” I could feel his eyes burning into my back as I hurried out the door and across the street again. It was harder than it should’ve been to walk away from him. Instincts were pushing at me not to leave an enemy at my back.

  But Matt wasn’t my enemy, I reminded myself. Couldn’t be my enemy. I just had to protect him from the truth. Which I was currently doing a fantastic job of fucking up at.

  My face must’ve given Suzume a good idea of how the meeting had gone, because she took her drink and granted me her rarest of gifts: silence.

  Halfway to Dreamcatching, I glanced into my rearview mirror and noticed a very familiar Buick two cars behind us. A shiver ran through me as I realized that Matt was tailing us. I refocused on the road ahead of me, careful not to alert Suze that anything was wrong, but unable to control the nervousness that made my hands shake until I squeezed the steering wheel harder.

  I flicked a quick look in the mirror again. Matt had pulled back and was now three cars behind me, the safer tailing distance that I knew he preferred. I didn’t say anything, or even dare trying to lose him and bring him to Suze’s attention. I didn’t know how she’d react or if she’d try to discourage him herself. And now that he was connecting Suzume to the Grann incident . . . I couldn’t risk him investigating the Hollis kitsune. But with the revelations at Iron Needle, I couldn’t hold off on investigating the elf connection without Suze realizing that something was wrong. I was trapped, and I had no idea how I was going to keep Matt from joining the rising body count.

  I kept my mouth shut and drove straight to Dreamcatching, praying that I wasn’t leading Matt even further into danger.

  Chapter 6

  Dreamcatching was just as eye-searingly precious and utterly deserted as on our first visit. Lilah was again at the front counter, this time sitting on a tall stool with a copy of Middlemarch open in front of her, halfway through, indicating that it had been another slow business day. Her hair was again braided into a fuzzy and shining crown around her head, and today she was dressed in a long yellow dress that was as sunny as the smile she gave us when we walked up to the counter. She’d either forgiven Suzume for last time, or, as a consummate professional, she was hoping that we’d come back to purchase a few pewter objets d’art.

  She was polite when she greeted Suze, but there was a pleased look on her face when she turned to me, and her voice was playful and teasing when she asked, “Change your mind about the personal energy-bubble class?”

  Even the knowledge that Matt was currently tracking my movements couldn’t stop the infectiousness of her bright mood, and I felt my mouth tug into a reluctant answering smile. “Sorry, not quite. We’ve actually been looking into”—I glanced around, just in case I’d missed some hidden New Age shopper or the creepy, pregnant Allegra. Everything seemed empty, but I erred on the side of caution, dropping my voice and saying, as if I had a role in a sixties British spy thriller—“that other thing.”

  Lilah nodded reassuringly at me. “It’s okay. I’m the only one in the front today. Tomas is working in the back office, and our part-time stock boy just took a new shipment.” Her mouth quirked a little. “They’re both Neighbors too, so you don’t have to worry about dropping secrets.” Then she wiped the smile away, and very seriously asked, “Were you able to find what killed your friend?”

  I looked over at Suzume, expecting her to jump in and answer, but to my surprise she stayed quiet. She’d left a large gap between us, and was leaning against the far end of the counter, her fingers idly picking through a small bowl of glass beads. Despite her best attempts to remain innocuous, though, there was a sharp attention in her eyes as she watched Lilah closely. Feeling my look, she turned to me just long enough to give me a small, encouraging nod, as if to say, You’ve got this.

  It was a bit surprising—I’d played a large role in our last questioning, but she’d definitely been in the lead. Passivity was a strange and unusual approach from Suze, and not one that I was in any way used to seeing. Assuming that she probably had some internal reasoning going on, I pulled my attention back to Lilah, who was waiting patiently for my answer. From the sympathetic expression on her face, it was clear that she was assuming that this was a difficult conversation for me to have. It was, just not for the reasons she was assuming.

  “No,” I finally answered carefully, “but we’ve found a trail, and were hoping that you could give us some answers.”

  She nodded, but she also looked a little surprised. “Of course, if I can help you, but I already told you—”

  I pulled out the glamoured circul
ar for Iron Needle and set it down on the glass counter in front of her. She broke off whatever she’d been about to say and gave a small sound of surprise. Her hands shot out to it as if pulled on a wire, and she immediately began running her fingers over it, her eyes narrowed in concentration, silently mouthing words to herself. It reminded me of watching a blind person reading braille, every part of them focused on the information their fingertips were sending.

  “That was sent to someone who got the same tattoos as my friend,” I said.

  Her fingers never stopping in their restless movements over the paper, Lilah frowned. “Tattoos . . .” she muttered, shaking her head before she’d even finished the word. “No, I know who runs this store.” She said it with utter confidence. “Jacoby wouldn’t hurt anyone. He isn’t well, but he wouldn’t hurt anyone.” As she talked, she lifted the card up and rubbed her cheek slowly against it. It was a strange movement to watch, because she seemed to have almost completely forgotten my presence. “Besides,” she said, still focused on the card, “he could never have set this glamour himself.”

  I looked quickly over at Suze, but she remained fixated on Lilah, watching her in a way that very viscerally reminded me that she was a predator at heart. Without guidance, I pushed forward, saying to Lilah, “I know. He told us. One of your full-blood elves did. They hired him to give a certain tattoo with a certain ink to anyone who came in with one of those, and then hand them a flier that would lead them to one of your speed-dating events.” I pulled out the flier that Jacoby had given us and showed it to her.

  Lilah flinched at the sight of it and bit her lower lip hard enough for me to wince myself. She looked worried now, and the hands that were holding the card were shaking enough for me to notice. But she nodded at the flier, then very carefully began to run her mouth across the front of the Iron Needle card, letting her lower lip drag against the paper as she breathed in heavily, almost seeming to taste it. Her golden-brown eyes were noticeably more golden than before, gleaming more than they should’ve under the fluorescent store lights. I shifted uncomfortably, realizing in that moment that being a half-blood was much more than having a pair of pointed ears and a useful illusion trick. Lilah was as much a poser as I was—pretending to be human while hiding a nature that was very, very inhuman.