Death in the Hallows (Hank Mossberg, Private Ogre Book 2)

by Jamie Sedgwick

  “Mr. Magnus, so good to see you,” said Ralph. “What can I do for you?”

  I found Ralph’s subservience grating, especially since very few full-blooded humans are on first-name terms with the fae. That meant Magnus was a regular at the Cliff House, which was even more grating because on my salary I can only afford to take a date there about once a year.

  “A party of thirteen for dinner,” Magnus announced. “We don’t have reservations.”

  “Of course. No problem whatsoever. Follow me, sir.” Ralph grabbed a stack of menus and stepped away from his desk.

  “Just a minute,” I said in a loud voice. “I had reservations for fifteen minutes ago and we’re still waiting.”

  “Of course,” Ralph said snidely. “I’ll look right into that.” With that, he turned his back on me, gestured for Magnus and his party to follow, and slithered out of the lobby. Magnus shot me sneer as the group left. I felt my muscles tensing up into knots and the early warnings of a headache ratcheting up in the back of my skull.

  “Just forget it,” Annie said behind me. “We don’t really need dinner for this.” I was already irked, but there was a finality in her tone that nearly pushed me over the edge.

  “I promised you dinner,” I said angrily. “You’re going to get it.”

  She rose from the sofa and stood facing me. “What’s one more broken promise?” she said. “I can’t even keep track of them anymore.”

  I took a deep breath, stretching the fabric of my jacket across my chest. “Annie, you know how my job is. I can’t just come and go as I please.”

  “Oh, I know,” she snapped. “I know all about it. I’ve heard every excuse in the book.”

  “So why are you acting like it’s my fault?”

  “We set our own priorities,” she said, crossing her arms. “I guess I have never been a priority for you.”

  “Haven’t I been good to you, Annie? Didn’t I do everything I could?”

  “It wasn’t enough, Hank.”

  I gave her a blank stare. What else was there to say? Annie’s a kindred and I’m an ogre. Annie’s got a small percentage of fae blood, which means that when I touch her, it saps the energy out of her and knocks her unconscious. It’s one of my few natural talents, but like most so-called gifts it’s a curse more often than not. Annie always thought we could overcome that, but I should have known better. There was a reason I had never pursued her in the first place. Annie’s a beautiful girl and we have a few things in common, but I always doubted it could be more than that. Nature sets the rules. I just live by ‘em.

  “I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” Annie said in a monotone. “In fact, my sister called from Seattle this morning and asked me to move back there to help take care of mom. I told her yes.”

  I grimaced. It would have been easy to say something terrible, to try and hurt her, but what would that solve? I just kept my mouth shut and stared at her.

  “Well?” she said. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

  “No.”

  She looked me up and down with a spiteful glare as she buttoned up her coat and twisted her scarf around her throat. “Fine. I’ll see you around, Hank.”

  “See ya, Annie.”

  I watched as she stepped outside, under the shelter of the attendant’s umbrella, and a cab pulled up to the curb. Annie didn’t glance back at me as she crawled into the cab. The attendant closed the door and the cab pulled away. And then, she was gone.

  Behind me, Ralph cleared his throat. “I have that table ready for you, sir. Will you be dining alone this evening?”

  My hands knotted into fists.

  Chapter 2

  I skipped dinner and went straight to the bar. I ordered a glass of whiskey – a good one, since I didn’t have to pay for a meal anymore- and slammed it down faster than I meant to. Part of me wanted to ask for the bottle, but I didn’t. I ordered a second drink and turned around to watch the storm.

  Tall windows lined the outside walls of the lounge, and from my stool, I had a perfect view of the rain-slicked parking lot to the north and the road curling down the hill to the east. The rain was still coming down in torrents, blowing sideways through the pale yellow glow of the streetlights to crash on the shimmering black pavement. Headlights came and went. I saw flashes of color, of blurred faces behind the windshields, of restless souls shifting through the universe only to disappear into the night.

  I looked to the southeast and saw a wall of thick, churning fog that washed out what otherwise would have been a spectacular view. Leave it to me. I get into the Cliff House one day in a year and the only view is a sheet of gray.

  I stared into the swirling mist and tried not to think as the alcohol burned its way into my gut and then spread out through my limbs in a wave of warmth. I resisted the temptation to have another. My system doesn’t take well to human food and alcohol. I indulge far too often, and always pay the price. This time I decided to spare my health, along with my wallet. I slapped a tip down on the bar and left.

  The storm raged on as I drove back down the mountain, raindrops the size of golf balls hammering down on my windshield so fast the wipers couldn’t keep up. I slowed way down and turned on the fog lights, but I still could just barely distinguish the pavement from the dark shoulder of the road. I couldn’t have chosen a worse drive that night. Cliffside Road is steep, narrow, and windy, filled with blind corners and hairpin turns. Only a razor’s width of guardrail protects unwary drivers from a three hundred-foot drop straight into the bay.

  I was conscious of all this as I navigated my way down the mountain and back toward the highway. The one thing I didn’t count on and couldn’t possibly have prepared for was the sharp piece of metal lying in wait to impale the thin treads of my front tire. One second I was gliding down the road, doing my best to stay between the lines. The next, the wheel jerked hard to the right and nearly pulled out of my grip.

  The Blazer lurched to the side, slamming into the guardrail perilously close to the ledge, and threw a shower of sparks across the windshield. I slammed on the brakes and pulled hard, focusing all my strength into getting the vehicle back on the road. Just my luck, the front tires grabbed and the rear end let go all at once. It threw me into a dizzying spin. The Blazer twisted away from the embankment, back into the middle of the road as the rear end swung around. By the time it stopped, I had spun almost a full three-sixty.

  I was facing forward again, but in the wrong lane. I pulled my foot off the brake and gently nudged the accelerator, lurching back across the road towards my own lane. I was fighting that flat tire every inch of the way. The naked rim made grinding sounds as it alternated back and forth between the pavement and the thin shredded rubber. The steering wheel shook in my hands.

  The very instant I crossed the centerline, a semi-truck headed up the hill with a full-length trailer came barreling around the corner. Naturally, it was halfway into my lane. I jerked to the right, trying to get out of the way while at the same time struggling not to go plowing through the guardrail and over the cliff. I went careening off the road and slammed into the rail one more time. Again, sparks fountained up over the hood and went dancing across the windshield.

  I gently tapped the brakes, trying to bring the steering back under control. The rear-end went into a fishtail. I turned into the skid, left, right, and then left again before I finally had it under control. By then my heart was hammering so fast I thought it might leap out of my chest. My tight grip on the wheel had bent it slightly inward at the center. The semi truck disappeared up the road behind me, its horn blaring as if to scold me for being in my own lane.

  I fixed my eyes on the road and saw a pullout up ahead. I limped the Blazer forward at low speed, and finally managed to pull safely off the road. As I dropped it into “park” I glanced at my face in the rear-view mirror and saw a creature I hardly recognized. My skin was white as a dryad’s, and my pupils were expanding and contracting to the beating of my heart. For a few
seconds, I didn’t move. I just sat there, listening to the sound of my heart drumming in my head and the deep, rapid breaths moving in and out of my body.

  At last, I opened the door and stepped out into the rain. The truck driver who’d run me off the road and nearly killed me was long gone, of course. He probably figured that if I’d gone off the cliff he couldn’t do much to help me, and if I’d survived, I’d probably be looking to kill him. He was right. If I’d had the presence of mind to look at his license plates, I probably would have hunted him down to find him sleeping on the side of the road somewhere and then beat him senseless. Unfortunately, the only funnel for my rage was in crawling around in the mud and pouring rain, trying to get my truck back on the road.

  After getting the wheel jacked up, I found the six-inch shard of metal in my tire that looked like it had fallen out of a garbage truck. I tossed it over the cliff and then went to pull out my spare. It was only then that I realized that I’d never replaced the factory spare from 1969. It still held air, but it was three sizes smaller than the existing tires. That meant I couldn’t possibly run it on the front end or I’d be bouncing back and forth across the lanes all the way home. I’d have to pull off one of the good rear tires, swap it with the front, and then put the spare on the back. That wasn’t going to be particularly safe either, but at least it’d get me home.

  At that point I was just about irritated enough to push the Blazer off the cliff and walk home, but I held my anger in check. It’s hard enough to find a vehicle in which I can fit comfortably, more so to come up with a wad of cash to buy it. I went to work, trying to ignore the hellacious wind that blew icy rain up my sleeves and down the back of my neck. I knelt down in the mud and started changing the rear tire. I destroyed my new suit in the process, making absolutely certain that I’d never be able to return it and get my hard-earned money back. That brought my thoughts back round to Annie.

  I thought about the conversations we’d had, and the rare quiet moments we had shared. I remembered the times Annie swore she’d love me forever and that someday we’d find a way to be together. Somehow, I’d let her make me believe that foolishness. I should have known better. I had allowed her to convince me that maybe we really could find a way to bypass the laws of nature and find true love. What a schmuck I was.

  A lug nut broke loose and the tire-iron slipped, causing me to rap my cold knuckles painfully against the fender. I grunted. Beneath my knees, I could feel the squishy mud working its way through the fabric of my pants, smearing across my skin. The cold rainwater poured down my back like a pitcher of ice water. I grimaced, ignoring all of this, trying to find some ray of light or hope in the world as I pulled the tire off the hub and carried it to the front end of the Blazer.

  That’s where I was standing when I heard the growl of a V8 engine coming down the road and saw the flash of headlights around the corner behind me. The SUV that came barreling down the hill towards me was going too fast, and for a moment I thought the driver might lose control and run me over. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Instead, the big silver Escalade went flying by at full speed, throwing up a shower of road spray that washed over me like a river.

  As it sped by, I caught a glimpse of Magnus in the passenger seat. For an instant our eyes met, and I had just enough time to see the amused sneer play across his face before they rounded the corner and vanished into the storm. They didn’t even slow down long enough to offer a ride, or to call a tow truck.

  I was soaked to the bone, with the brim of my hat lying flat against my forehead and my new suit clinging to me like an undersized wetsuit. I counted to ten and went back to work on the tires, repeating over and over in my mind: Murder is not okay… murder is not okay…

  It was two a.m. when I finally got home to my apartment in the Mother tree. ‘Mother trees’ are what we call those rare, most ancient of species that rose up out of the primordial ooze to spread their life throughout the entire world. Long before man, or even the fae, there were Mother trees. They possess the seed of every species that evolved forward from them. When looking at them, you can see this in the way that you can see a child’s ancestors in his or her face. From one angle a Mother might look like a twisted old oak or walnut; from another she might look like a maple or yew. That’s because she’s all of them.

  Today, very few Mother trees remain in the world. The one in San Francisco only remains because the fae in the area built a building around her. From the outside, it’s the Tree Top Apartment building, a brick-walled high-rise, but on the inside it’s a giant atrium with one massive tree rising right up to the roof and poking out into the sky. Hundreds of fae creatures make their homes in the Mother tree’s branches, upon which they’ve built countless apartments. Mine is a narrow, three-story apartment shaped something like a tunnel. On the first level I have a small kitchen and living room area. The second is my office, and the third floor is my bedroom. The place is tiny and it’s not much too look at, but it’s cheap. The apartment is provided as part of the Steward’s salary. The utilities, when they’re working, are my own expense.

  Things were quiet around the tree. Many of the fae are nocturnal, but just like other forest creatures, they tend to disappear when the weather gets angry. When I stepped into the building, I found the place mostly empty. The doorman, a delver-dwarf in a blue and gold uniform, was sleeping in a chair tilted back against the wall. Up in the branches of the tree, I saw lights in the windows of a few apartments, and the flickering colors of will-o-wisps bedding down in the branches, but other than that I was alone. Even Apophis, the gigantic snake that operates the Mother tree’s elevator system, was too sleepy to greet me.

  Once I got home, I threw my soaking-wet clothes into a pile in the bottom of the shower and crawled into bed. I was no less angry about the events that had transpired, but I was too exhausted to care about them anymore… at least for the moment. I was shaking with cold until the blankets folded around me and my body temperature finally returned to the normal range of a warm-blooded creature, and I promptly fell into a deep sleep.

  Four hours later, at six a.m., the phone rang. I turned my head to gaze at the nightstand with bleary eyes and saw the time. I decided to ignore it. After several rings, the call went to voicemail. Mickey, the dwarf who works as my deputy, began recording a message:

  “Hank, where are you? You must be in the shower. I’ll call back.”

  The line went dead and I closed my eyes, satisfied that I wouldn’t hear from him for at least another hour. I was wrong. Thirty seconds later, it began ringing again. I rolled over and reached for the phone, groaning as my stiff muscles throbbed in pain.

  “What?” I mumbled into the mouthpiece.

  “Boss, have you seen the news?”

  I frowned with my eyes still closed. “No. I’m asleep, Mickey.”

  “Sorry Boss, but you need to get down here.”

  I winced, forcing my eyes open. “Can it wait?”

  Mickey took a deep breath. “Sorry, Boss. If I let you miss out on this one, you’d never forgive me.”

  There was something in that statement, or perhaps in his tone of voice, that got me moving. “Give me five.”

  I didn’t bother with a shower. I figured I’d gotten enough of that the night before. I threw on some fresh clothes and donned my trench coat and fedora (still damp from the night before) on my way out the front door. The trench coat settled on my shoulders like an old warm blanket, and if nothing else, at least that felt right.

  The well-worn path from my apartment to the elevator runs along the top of a large branch, but it might as well be a hallway. The branch itself is so broad and smooth that a person could hardly tell it from an old wooden floor. The vines and branches intertwine all around to make a virtually impenetrable wall. It’s possible on occasion to peer through the branches and catch a glimpse of neighboring apartments -and on a bright day, even the sky overhead- if one has the time and inclination to do so. I had neither.

  I stepped into
the elevator and saw Apophis’ golden eyes glaring down at me from the roof. The giant snake’s coils wind in and around the tree branches in such a way that it’s almost impossible to pick out his whole body. “Your office, Sssir?”

  “Yes, please. How are things, Apophis?”

  “Damp,” he mumbled. “Does the sun ever come out in this town?”

  “August, if I remember,” I said sarcastically.

  A few seconds later, the door opened and I stepped into the long subterranean tunnel that runs through the Mother tree’s roots. Off to my left, I saw Fitzpatrick’s Tavern, and beyond it, the gentle sloping path that leads down to the undercity. I turned right and headed straight for the jail.

  When I got there, Mickey was leaning against my desk with a remote in his hand, staring up at the TV in the corner. He waved me in, urging me to join him. I took a moment to get my bearings. I still wasn’t used to all the changes Mickey had made. My previous deputy, Butch O’Shea –who had recently married and retired from law enforcement- was also a dwarf. In fact, he was a great friend of Mickey’s. I had assumed that in exchanging one for the other, not much would change. Boy, was I wrong.

  The moment Mickey started working for me, he quit drinking. I know what you’re thinking: big deal, a deputy shouldn’t be drinking. Well yeah, but there’s more to it than that. Dwarves have a different digestive system than humans that gives them an incredible tolerance for alcohol. What I mean by that is that they can consume ungodly amounts of the worst swill you’ve ever seen, and hardly even get a buzz. They love booze, especially good old-fashioned ale, and they drink constantly. It’s like soda pop for them. For Mickey to quit drinking was quite a sacrifice. He had a lot more backbone than I’d initially given him credit for.