Bertram Gregory was Congressman Terry’s senior aide. Heavy-set he was perpetually on a diet that never seemed to work. He’d been the Congressman’s campaign manager and was now the back-room dealer for the Congressman. The man you handed the “campaign finance” checks to while the Congressman shook hands.
Like the Congressman, he shuttled between Washington state and DC. He had a house in Davenport, which was the “big town” of the Congressman’s fairly sparse district, but spent most of his time in either Spokane or Seattle.
“I just need a list of the type of powerful entities that aren’t going to piss off MCB if we ignore them,” I said. “There has to be such a list.”
“The PUFF Exempt list,” Bert said, nodding. “Thing is, it lists them by name. And that list is closed. It’s like WitSec. I don’t even have access to it. But there are types that are off the PUFF list unless they put themselves on it, like elves.”
“Not powerful enough,” I said. “It’s like saying ‘what about a gnome momma?’ I need something strong enough to hold down a city. That won’t be sacrificing virgins to make wights, eating people or drowning women to suck out their souls.”
“That pretty much boils down to some kinds of Fey,” Bert said, grimacing. “I wish like hell you’d never gotten Gary into this. Like I don’t have enough things to do? And all this PUFF stuff does exactly nothing for the district that anyone can see. It’s like that stupid Afghanistan thing that Good-times Charlie is into!”
“Afghanistan?” I asked.
“Don’t ask,” Bert said. “Nothing to do with PUFF. But the only thing I can think of is Fey.”
“I don’t exactly think a Baba Yaga is going to be an improvement over an ogre mage,” I said.
“If I recall correctly, and I could be wrong, Baba Yaga is one type of Fey,” Bert said. “Some are super powerful, but ambivalent about mankind. We don’t put them on the PUFF list, they don’t mess with us, we don’t mess with them. But not a Fey Queen or a Hunt King. And you don’t want a Hunt King. They tend to be…Bad.”
“Like The Horned One?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Bert said, shuddering. “They’re around but they generally keep a low profile. Know that story ‘The Most Dangerous Game’?”
“Read it. Christ, is there anything out there that is fiction that isn’t based on a real story?”
“Old Man and the Sea?” Bert said.
“Hemingway’s boat captain told him the story.”
“Then I guess not,” Bert said. “But you could talk to a Faerie Queen if you dare. I don’t suggest it. Most people who do deals with them don’t end up well. And we’ve really appreciated the support.”
I loved how similar that was to what Oshiro said to me. But I wasn’t going to compare Congress to the Yakuza. Not to his face.
“Yeah, but I need one who doesn’t have a territory and preferably needs something. Something I can provide. Thoughts?”
“None that come to mind,” Bert said. “Look, I’m back in DC next week. I’ll talk to some contacts. See what I can come up with.”
* * *
About a week and a half later Bert called. We’d cleared a nest of trolls and something that called himself a “Troll King.” I didn’t know trolls had kings. Tough son-of-a-bitch but fortunately it was in an area we could use flame-throwers. He wasn’t so tough running around in circles on fire. We’d added some powdered aluminum just in case.
“Guy’s going to be visiting,” Bert said. “He’s from an agency that doesn’t officially exist. You’ll know who it is. Has a suggestion. He’s the most dangerous man you’ll ever meet. And I am out of this discussion.”
* * *
“Assei-sama,” the man said, sitting down next to me at Saury.
He was enormously tall, handsome, had thick dark hair, tan skin, and odd rose colored, wire-rimmed glasses. I figured this was my government contact.
He was speaking Japanese so I played along.
“A mutual friend said you may be of assistance.”
“Bert’s a cog in a machine. He didn’t find me. I found him. But yeah, I can assist. First, my terms. No one, your employers included, can ever know we spoke. The Shacklefords don’t approve of my agency, and they’d never approve this plan. They’re short sighted like that. The Nelsons want peace in Seattle enough they’ll go along and not tattle, but when they ask how you got your information, make something up. This meeting never happened. Do you agree?”
“Fine.”
“We have a deal. Don’t fuck it up. I’ll know if you don’t keep your word.” He didn’t offer to shake on it. “You can call Mr. Stricken.”
“You have a suggestion on how to deal with the current dilemma in Seattle, Mr. Stricken?”
“Naw, I flew here from DC for shits and giggles,” he said filling out his order form. “Are you familiar with the stories of princesses trapped in towers?”
“They are all over various forms of mythological literature. Not only towers. Labyrinths, etcetera. So, yes.”
“There’s a princess of the Fey trapped in a tower in California,” Stricken said. “She would probably be quite grateful to be rescued. She’s been sentenced to be imprisoned there for twenty years. Not that long in Fey terms, but long enough to be rather bored. She would probably suit the need for a powerful entity to hold the Seattle territory.”
“What’s the catch?” I asked. I could tell Stricken was the kind of man who would always create a catch.
“She’s sort of in a time out. Her mother put her there. And this particular Fey Queen would be rather displeased if a mere mortal interfered with her daughter’s punishment.”
“What did she do to piss her mother off?”
“Besides being a teenage female with a powerful and dominating mother?” Stricken said. “There was something besides being, I warn you, a revolving pain in the ass. But, you’d have to ask her. I know, and find it as horrible and terrifying as her mother did, but I’ll find it amusing when you find out. Nothing dire. Just…amusing. And horrible. And terrifying. But that is besides the point. She’s potentially powerful enough, with a bit of mortal help, to hold Seattle. I’ll call in a favor and make sure the MCB doesn’t get in your way, and I’ll ensure she’s PUFF exempt.”
I had never heard of this guy before. I’d never seen him in any of the subcommittee meetings, but if he could take beings off the PUFF list and boss around the MCB, he had some clout.
“So why are you helping?”
“If it works I will at some point, point out that she owes me a favor as well. I do such trade commonly. If it doesn’t, no skin off my nose. With the Fey, it’s all about the deal. A suggestion, if I may? I’ll send over a file. Half of it will be redacted and the other half is guesswork. Do your homework, but with this particular court, your musical background should prove handy.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“I know everything. From what I’ve been told you’re nearly as talented as I am, though I prefer the piano.”
“Okay. So I’m supposed to rescue a fricking Fey Princess from a tower that has been mystically bound there by a Faerie Queen, do a deal with a group which is notoriously tricky about deals, and then somehow survive a Fey Queen’s wrath? That’s all?”
“As I said,” Stricken said, taking the sushi to go. “Amusing. Good luck. You’ll need it.”
“Just one more piece of information. Where is this tower?”
“San Fernando Valley. The rest you can figure out.”
* * *
“We need to find a tower in the San Fernando valley?” Doctor Lucius said. “That shouldn’t be that hard.”
“It is probably not a tower in a castle or something,” Doctor Joan said, frowning. “It could be almost anything and anywhere.”
“I’m going to have to take a road-trip,” I said. “This is the best bet we’ve got to stabilize Seattle and get this migration of bad things under control.”
“There is more to it than that,”
Doctor Joan said, still frowning. “Even if you can find this faerie princess. Even if you can release her. There is the matter of her mother.”
“I’m not sure you understand quite how powerful a Faerie Queen is, Chad,” Doctor Lucius said.
“I’ve read the Oxford studies on them as well as Spenser, Doctor.” And also the file from Stricken’s secret agency, but I couldn’t tell the doctors about that one. “Powerful magic doesn’t begin to describe it. In their courts they consider ogres to be minor servants and have Fey knights who are so bad-ass they make Lancelot look like a piker. I get how powerful the foe is, Doctors. But, they do have vulnerabilities, else we’d be slaves to them. I plan to use their two major vulnerabilities against them.”
“Which are?” Doctor Joan said.
“One is not so much a vulnerability as a strength. They are subject to their oaths. If they violate an oath it degrades them. They are bound by oaths.”
“Which they are notorious about weasel-wording,” Doctor Lucius said.
“Which is why I’m not going to make it a simple oath. I do have a plan on that one.”
“What’s the other major vulnerability?” Doctor Joan asked.
“Did I ever mention I studied violin?”
CHAPTER 18
I cordially detest LA. I hate the complete lack of weather. The rain and fronts are one of the many things I liked about Seattle. I hate the smog. I really don’t like most of the people. There are a lot of hot girls but I’ve never met one who had two brain-cells to rub together. I mean, that’s probably selection issues in the sampling data. But, seriously, town has more air in heads than in all the hot air balloons in the world.
“You sure about this?” Jesse asked.
There were several issues to this mission.
1. Find the faerie princess.
2. Release her.
3. Negotiate a contract with her to be the “big cheese” in Seattle that was as iron-clad as possible.
4. While 2 and 3 were going on, keep her out of view of her nearly omniscient mom. Faerie Queens were very good at finding out information and would probably be even better at tracking family than the occasional human that pissed her off. Which we were about to do. In big bold letters.
5. Survive momma’s wrath. Tricky that.
“Got a better idea?” I asked, looking out the window of the Beverley Hills Hilton. MHI, probably because it was based in Cazador, always seemed to end up in fleabag motel one each. We made enough money I preferred to travel first class. Besides, this was technically a “rogue op” so I wasn’t putting it on the company card anyway. This was just me and Jesse potentially picking a fight with a powerful extradimensional being.
Some people would have thought the view was beautiful but it was, well, LA. You could barely see the view through the smog. Gah.
“No,” Jesse said. “First we gotta find her. Assuming your information is good.”
I hadn’t vouchsafed who I had my information from. I didn’t trust the guy entirely, he smelled like CIA from a mile away, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have sent us on a complete wild-goose chase.
“The info is good. Problem being, San Fernando Valley is a very big place. And we don’t have any local contacts.”
At the time MHI didn’t even have a southern LA team. Six other little hunter companies covered the area and none of them were particularly friendly to MHI. We’d have to start by developing contacts. And trying to keep what we were looking for from getting to the Faerie Queen.
“This place has got to be crawling with trailer parks. I’ll grab the phone book and start looking for the usual names.”
“I’ll go find a liquor store,” Jesse said.
“Don’t forget various types of smokes. Some of these elves like menthol.”
Got any idea how many mobile home parks there are in Pomona alone?
Holy crap.
* * *
It took five days of searching through half the shit-holes in LA. And LA had a lot of shitholes. But afternoon of the fifth day we finally found what we were looking for.
Mystical Vista Mobile Home Park was just another shithole in east Pomona. Ratty trailers, scraggly, barren yards, cars up on jacks. Truthfully, it was cleaner than most of the places we’d been looking in. We almost passed it by just because of that. There was an almost a complete lack of real litter. That and there were a few definite non-elves in sight and elves usually didn’t share their parks with humans.
But we caught a glimpse of some pointed ears on a mullet head working on a battered old Corvair.
“Think we found our spot,” I said.
* * *
It was hard to figure Asofodel’s age. She had had so much cosmetic surgery she must have been half plastic. Bad fake boobs, fake lips, face lift, blonde wig, and I’d guess she had about monthly liposuction.
On the other hand, she was more doable than most Elf Queens.
“Most beautiful Queen Asofodel,” I said, bowing as she made her way out on the porch of the trailer.
“Queen?” She snorted. “There’s only one elf queen. She’s in Alabama. I moved out here to get away from her bossy ass. I’m a countess.”
“We have brought fine gifts and seek your wisdom.”
“I ain’t doin’ no more spells,” she said. “Government says I can’t. So what you got and what you want?”
“We seek information only, my lady most fair.” I didn’t think flattery based on vanity would work with most elves, but it was clear that wasn’t the case with Asofodel.
“You really think I’m fair?” she said through lips that were barely able to move from all the work.
“As the dawn.”
“Well, ain’t you sweet,” she said, preening. “What information?”
“I must first beg the Queen of the Morning’s word that the nature of the questions are not revealed to others. I would not have the nature of the quest reach other ears.”
“Depends on what the question is,” Asofodel said.
“It involves Grand Fey.”
“You don’t want to get involved with them and neither do I. They’re mean as shit. Ain’t no amount of PBR would get me involved in their business. But you can ask the question. I won’t say I’ll answer but I won’t tell nobody what you asked.”
“There is a Fey Princess trapped somewhere near here in a tower. I would know where the tower is and the nature of the entrapment.”
“What the hell you want with that stuck-up bitch?” Asofodel asked. “I’ll tell you you can’t use her against her momma. If you tried to ransom her, her momma would help you drown that POS.”
“We want nothing of the sort. Just where and how she is entrapped. Where is good enough.”
“Hmm…” Asofodel said. “Like I said I’m not getting involved for a few cases of PBR. Queen Keerla Rathiain Penelo Shalana is one right bitch if you cross her. Taurus. Holds a grudge for eternity. Knew one elf that crossed her years back. He’s still mystically bound as a two dimensional cartoon until the company stops using the logo. His name was Mickey if you get the drift.”
“Damn, that’s cruel,” Jesse said.
“What will it take?” I asked.
She patted her curled wig and batted her eyes.
“You really think I’m pretty?” she asked, making a moue.
“Your eyes are the light of crystal suns.”
* * *
A little later I came limping out of the trailer, favoring my still healing right arm.
“Four hours?” Jesse said. “Four. I’ve been sitting here for four hours.”
“It felt longer,” I said, wincing as I got in the car. “Damn. Good time, mind you. Just a bit painful.”
“If sex is painful you’re doing it wrong,” Jesse said.
“You clearly need your horizons expanded,” I said, starting the car.
“I figured if the trailer was still rocking I shouldn’t come knocking.”
“Good call,” I said, pulling out of t
he trailer park. “Okay, this just got even more complicated.”
“How?” Jesse asked.
“We’re going to somehow get ahold of the plans for the Van Nuys Municipal Building and Courthouse. And then we’re going to have to break in.”
* * *
“This place was designed as a courthouse and jail,” Jesse said, looking at the schematics. “It’s designed to keep people from breaking in and breaking out.”
The blueprints should have been impossible to get our hands on. They weren’t just sitting around and if you walked into the courthouse and asked them for complete details of their layout, there were bound to be questions followed by police officers.
But, hey, there were yakuza in Los Angeles as well as Seattle. Money had changed hands. Voila! Blueprints. I even found a great bento place out of the deal.
“There’s going to be a way,” I said, flipping through the schematics. “She’s up in that little spire thingy. Mystically bound by her mother to her normal fey appearance as well as against any use of magic. And the hatch to the tower is locked. She gets fed by servants that come in through some sort of mystic portal.”
“Wonder how long her hair has grown,” Jesse said, grinning.
“Not that long. That spire thingy is way up there.”
“That little spire thingy is a bell tower,” Jesse said, pointing to it on the schematic.
“Must get fairly tiring to listen to…That’s it.”
“What’s it?”
“Nobody ever checks workmen,” I said. “And the bell has to be worked on, right? There’s a mechanism. It has to be maintained.”
“So?” Jesse said. “There’s probably a regular company that does that.”
“So we find out the company,” I said, shrugging. “And impersonate a couple of their people.”
“Here’s a question. It probably, yeah, does require maintenance. So there would have been workmen up there.”
“Probably.”
“Why didn’t they see her?”
“No real clue. Figure that out when we get there.”
“I’d like to eliminate as many questions as possible before we get there,” Jesse said.
“How many more false nails do you want to pull out of my ass?” I asked as I worked my shoulder. Something was definitely pulled there. Damn, that lady was strong.
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