by P. A. Wilson
He was right. I thought about how Cate would feel if I got killed. I know how I would feel if I got her killed. Crap, thinking about this wasn’t going to get the problem solved. “I know; that’s not what I was planning. I’m hoping I can get something to hold over her head. Or, if she’s done something, find a way to reverse it.”
“You need help.” Olan seemed to be stuck on one path. It was like arguing with a two-year-old. Time to try a different tactic.
“Okay, I need help. I need information. When I have that, I’m working on my own.”
“I might be able to find you any information.”
“I was thinking of someone more reliable, Olan. I can’t be second guessing every step of the way. If you pull a trick, the whole plan could be screwed. It’s too important for that. You know the humans will kill us wholesale rather than look at us.”
“I swear I’ll not trick you.” He stifled a smile. “I am required to keep the humans safe. The only way I see clear to do that is to stop the Sidhe taking contracts out on them. I’m a bit too small to do that on my own.”
One thing still bothered me. “Why is The Morrigan angry with you?”
Olan jumped down from the table and started to walk away. “It’s nothing to do with this.”
“See, you won’t give me important information and you want me to trust you.”
He turned to face me and I saw a green blush under his skin. “It is embarrassing and it’s not important. What is important is information about the Sidhe, or about the fairies.”
Nice try. I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. “The Morrigan is part of the same world as the Sidhe. If she is angry she’ll get in the way just to spite you.” I wondered why Olan was being so dense.
“I may have given insult to her. She may have misunderstood something.”
“Olan, just spit it out. I won’t agree to us working together unless you come clean.” I was getting really tired of this. It just proves my point, working alone is best.
“Okay. I was talking to Brother Eagle about the general advantage of being a bird. It was a great conversation.” He smiled up at me. “But, The Crow was listening and I might have made some comment, not being mean mind you, about how some black birds were bossy. Now Brother Eagle just laughed, but he has a sense of humor.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do you think you can avoid making it worse?”
He leaned against his bobbin and stared at me, and then he sighed. “I promise to try.”
“All I can ask.” I resigned myself to having a partner. It would be better to have Olan officially on my side, rather than have him ‘helping’ unofficially.
While Olan went snooping for more information, I was going to try to figure out why it had to be poison. Why not just a convenient accident, or a suicide? Poison seemed to be too obvious for Real Folk; too likely to bring attention. The Sidhe wouldn’t want that any more than I did.
I didn’t feel like sitting in the basement, and I didn’t need to work magic to do this research. I had a regular book on poisons, one I could read in public. So, I took it with me to the park, and enjoyed a bit of sunshine while I read about the effects of various plants on humans. Fairies would use plants. I remembered the way the woman convulsed that night. And started with Belladonna then looked at various mushrooms and flowers. They all gave pain and hallucinations and killed fast; most of them worked by ingestion. It would be difficult to keep some of them fresh enough to be guaranteed fatal. I figured two options, Belladonna and Lily of the Valley. So great, now I had information but no idea what to do with it.
“Hello, Quinn.” Olan’s voice in my ear startled me. He was standing on the back of the bench, staying in a shadow. I looked around, but there were no humans near enough to notice him.
“Did you find something out?” I felt the tickle of an idea still in my mind.
“I did.”
“Okay wait a minute. I need to work out this idea in my mind before you tell me anything that will distract me.”
Olan sat on the back of the bench and started to braid some red threads into a rope. “Can I help?”
“I figure the fairies are using Belladonna or Lily of the Valley. The key seems to be more pain, more fear, and more power.” This was Olan’s opportunity to show how much better it was to be working together instead of alone.
“That sounds about right. No one gets energy from a peaceful death. Fionuir probably knew that since she was a tiny thing. Have you never noticed that the Sidhe can be found around violence?”
“No, I don’t tend to hang around violence myself. So, something tells me there’s more to this than just increased power.”
“Nothing I can think of just now.” Olan stuffed the rope into his pocket.
He wasn’t helping. The itch in my brain didn’t go away nor did an answer come.
Olan rubbed his chin and frowned. “The fairy you saw at the murder, were they from the Belladonna or Lily family?”
“Yes. But it’s not just those clans affected. Bob didn’t say it’s just two clans, he said fairies.”
“What was in that book about Belladonna?”
I shrugged. “It grows here and it is fairly easy to get.”
“Lily of the Valley, is that the same?”
“Almost every garden on my street has some.” The tickle of an idea started to increase. “I think we’re getting warm.”
“Well, is there a place where the fairies might harvest the plants?”
“There’s a patch of both down at the other end of the path. But I think it’s a red herring. If we stake out that patch, we could be wasting our time. Like I said, both grow everywhere.”
“You don’t need much to turn the flower into poison in either case.” Olan looked up at the sky. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” I wasn’t really listening; his interruption chased the idea away before I could grasp it.
“Nothing there. It must be my imagination.” Olan turned back to me. “Are you ready to hear my news?”
“Sure, go ahead.” I hoped it was worth more than what I’d come up with.
“I have a friend who supplies the Sidhe court with jewels. She tells me that the women of the courts are competing for position. There is a lot of backstabbing going on and Fionuir may lose her control of the court.”
“Who is your friend?” His information was important but didn’t get us anywhere.
“A brownie, she likes to find shiny things. The Sidhe take half her supply and pay with food and protection for her family.”
“Is this information reliable?”
“As far as I know.” Olan sidestepped closer. “Are you willing to work together?”
“It’s not like we’ve made a lot of progress, but we haven’t screwed anything up yet either. What could go wrong?”
For a while, we tried to think of the best way to get close to Fionuir, or find a source of real information, but eventually we ran out of ideas. The sun was warm and no one was nearby. I felt so tired and started to doze off.
“Pixie.” A voice screeched from the treetops. I dropped the book and pulled out my wand. There was threat in that one sound. If I had to cast a protection spell I would, and be damned if a human saw.
Olan climbed off the back of the bench. I heard him say, “damn that bird.”
A crow the size of a small plane streaked to the earth, The Morrigan. Mad as hell and bent on Olan. I put my wand back in my pocket and stepped aside. Olan was capable of taking care of this all by himself. I looked around in case I needed to put a veil spell on us, but there was no one in sight.
The Morrigan landed beside Olan, she shrank to double his size and stalked him. “I have been looking for you.”
“Now, Morrigan, dear. Why do you sound so angry?” Olan tried to sidestep away from her. “I told you I didn’t mean what you thought.”
“What did you mean by ‘the crows give birds a bad name’?” She flickered in and out from crow form to a blur of black. “How am
I supposed to have taken it?”
“I see. If that is what you heard I can see how you would be upset.” Olan kept sidestepping as if he thought he could escape. “What I actually said was, ‘they are so intelligent that they give other birds a bad name’. It was a compliment.”
“You think me a fool.” The crow shifted into a beautiful woman, then back to crow. “Do not try your games on me.”
Olan didn’t respond.
“What has he told you, wizard?” The Morrigan took the form of a woman again, she was beautiful. You could tell she had something to do with the Sidhe, the same fine skin, but hers was pale without the rosy blush of the Sidhe. Her hair dropped below her waist but it was black and straight, not fair and curly. She stalked toward me and the world disappeared as I met her green gaze. “Tell me.” Her voice surrounded me.
“Just gossip about the court.” I heard myself say.
“Hmm, those children are doing what comes naturally. Leave them to my protection.”
I felt a poke on my ankle, but I couldn’t look down.
The Morrigan leaned in and I fell into her eyes. “He will betray you when you need him the most.”
Then she let me go. I saw her shift back to a crow and she lunged at Olan before launching herself to the sky, one of the feathers from Olan’s staff in her beak.
I sank back onto the bench. Olan hopped onto the back and said, “She took a feather. That must mean she likes me.”
I laughed. It was going to be fun, even if it killed us.
Chapter Five
Standing in an alley in downtown Vancouver in the rain, at night, with a pixie might seem suspicious. So, I had cast a spell that deepened the shadows around us.
I bent down to close the gap between Olan’s ear and my mouth. “Are you sure she will meet us?”
“I am.”
“A dandelion fairy isn’t the most reliable source.” I thought over the possibilities. Maybe someone was playing a trick, maybe someone was lying. “I hope she does really have some information for us. I don’t know that there is anything that will stop the Sidhe if we can’t find out how she’s doing this.”
“You’re chatty for a wizard. Stop before you bring the wrong attention down on us.”
He was right, but I was nervous. I endured another fifteen minutes of drizzle and dripping before we heard footsteps. That didn’t bode well; fairies don’t make a sound when they walk because they don’t actually touch the ground. I leaned forward out of the shadow to get a quick peek at the source of the sound. Olan pulled at my pant leg and I leaned back. I didn’t sense anyone else coming, and the alley had been clear when we started.
The fairy stepped into a pool of light and I could see she was carrying a sack. The footsteps were coming from inside the sack. I knew Dandelions were weird but this was over the top.
“If you want to talk, you have to show yourselves. I know you are there, but I’m not talking to shadows. Come out or I go.” The squeaky voice was an odd contrast to the words. I guess toughness transcends size.
Olan stepped out and looked up at the fairy. She was tiny for her kind, but the blond fluff of hair added another two inches. I sidestepped out of the shadow to avoid stepping on her.
“Good evening, madam,” I said, figuring formality was the best first approach. “I am Quinn, this is Olan. You may have heard of him.”
“Yes, everyone has heard of the trickster. You, I do not know.” She looked me up and down. I thought she might fall over backward when her gaze reached my head. “Hmm, tall. I am called Evangeline Clock. You may use that name.”
“When we met earlier, you said you knew how the Sidhe are controlling the fairies’ breeding. Will you tell us?” I guess he didn’t like being out in the rain either.
Evangeline shrugged. “What will you give me?”
I expected the bartering. It would not occur to Evangeline that saving her species would be payment enough. Or, perhaps she didn’t have any confidence in our abilities and wanted payment up front. Most fairies like sparkly things, or whole spices as well as sour candy. I had a supply of cloves, star anise and a few glittery bangles I found in a dollar store.
I held out two bangles. “I have these for payment. They will fit as necklaces, you will be envied.”
Evangeline stepped closer and ran her finger along the edge of the bangles. She sniffed and opened her sack. Inside I caught a glimpse of white bone. The noise I had taken for footsteps was actually two small skulls knocking together.
“I have those already,” she said, showing me the evidence, one pink and one yellow bangle just like the ones I held.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the remaining two bangles, a red one and a blue and violet striped one. “What about these?”
Her face split in a beautiful smile, and her yellow eyes seemed to glow. She checked her reaction and sniffed again. “Pretty and a good start. Giving you this information can get me killed and my whole clan banned from the breeding program.”
She had a point, and if we didn’t succeed that’s probably what would happen. “If we stop the Sidhe, you will be able to breed. That is part of the payment.”
Olan had been quiet. I glanced down and he had disappeared.
Evangeline shrugged. “Maybe is no good to me.”
“If I give you payment, will the information help me to stop the Sidhe?” I figured I had to go all in, but I wasn’t going to do that without some assurance. “Will you let me place a truth spell?”
She threw back her head and brayed a laugh. “Ha, wizard, you don’t have a spell that will work on my kind.”
I did but she didn’t need to know that until I cast it.
My gut was telling me she would give us what she had for the spices, there were enough in my pocket to make her rich. I pulled out the star anise and showed the five pieces to her. “Tell me what you know and I’ll give you these. If it is helpful information, I will add cloves to the payment.”
Evangeline crept up to my outstretched hand. She placed her minuscule fingers on my thumb to bring my hand lower. Her nose sniffing at the five-cornered spices, her eyes lit up. She stared up at me and I could feel the weight of her scrutiny. She licked her finger and rubbed it along the edge of the anise, then tasted the brown powder. “Good, fresh.”
I lifted my hand, gently so I didn’t hurt her. “If you want these, you must tell me what you know about what the Sidhe are doing to stop you breeding.”
“Okay, Wizard. Come with me, this is too important to say in an alley.” She started walking farther down.
I hurried after her. “Where are you going?”
She turned and beckoned to me. “Just into this doorway, don’t fret.”
I revised my estimation of her age. This wasn’t a teenager; Evangeline has been around more years than me I bet. When we both stood in the shelter of a fire escape she pulled at my coat until I bent to her level.
“My cousin, Elbert, was watching a flock of moths one evening. He was at the Drell museum. You know where the druids keep old things?”
I nodded. Most of the old things were of huge historical significance. I was starting to get a bad feeling about this.
“So, that Fionuir and her five guards went in just after Elbert arrived. Elbert got curious and got up in the tree beside the back door. Then after a few minutes, the Sidhe came running out. Fionuir was holding something and laughing.”
“Do you know what it was?” If it came from the Drell museum, it was powerful.
“No, but it was stone and looks like this.” Evangeline scratched in the dirt. She drew a square that would fit into my palm, and then scribed a rune in each corner. My blood chilled. The Gur amulet; it was used to capture the spirits of murdered druids. It was a powerful battery. What did Fionuir want with it?
“Did the druids come after them?” I hoped so, if they came after the amulet they would eventually find it. If not, we were going to have a hell of a time.
“No. Elbert stayed for an
hour, his spot in the tree was perfect for moth watching. No one else came out.” She held out her hand. “That is all I know.”
I passed her the star anise and pulled the cloves out of my pocket. Her information wouldn’t get us any closer to stopping this, but knowing the Gur amulet was in Sidhe hands, was worth the price.
“That’s interesting,” Olan stepped into the light as soon as Evangeline left. “What’s this amulet about?”
“Where have you been?”
“Keeping lookout. You never know who might come by and overhear.” Olan paced around the dry space. “So, why did Fionuir steal the amulet?”
“I don’t know. Something that old has great power. You can use it to feed a spell. Or you can use it for its original purpose. But I’m pretty sure that Fionuir is not capturing spirits of murdered druids.”
“Why would the druids want to capture those spirits?”
“I think they expected to free their fellows at a safe time, but there wasn’t one for centuries, and no one really knows how to do it anymore, if they ever did.” I started walking away from the safety of the fire escape. “Come on; let’s get back to my place. It’s warm and I have beer.”
“Not so fast, Quinn.” Olan looked up and then cocked his head as though listening. “Why didn’t the druids go after Fionuir?”
“Who knows why druids do or don’t do anything? Come on. I’m cold and wet.” As I spoke I looked up and saw why Olan wouldn’t come out. On the landing of the fire escape was a shadow. It shifted and flickered, but mostly stayed in the shape of a crow. “What did you do, Olan?”
“Nothing, I swear.” Olan kept his gaze on the landing.
“How long has she been there?” If The Morrigan had heard us talking about druids and amulets, she would tell Fionuir and we would never fix this problem.
“Just now, don’t fret.” Olan sidled behind my legs.
“Morrigan,” I called to the shadow. If she was mad at Olan again, I wanted to get it over. Like I told the pixie, I was cold and tired. “What do you want?”
The shadow moved, she flickered into a woman. The shadow stretched and laughed, slowly and sensually. “The pixie. He can’t help himself.”