Sidhe-Devil

by Aaron Allston

  They were not a happy-looking assembly.

  Doc cleared his throat. "I think we've experienced a near total failure today. Please report." He looked at Harris.

  Harris told of the events at the Gwall-Hallyn Building, of prying the dedicatory plaque free, of hearing of Ixyail's collapse, of leaving her in Zeb's and Noriko's care while he fled to the river. "Which seems to have been completely pointless," he said with bitterness in his voice, "as the fireball didn't follow the plaque."

  "Did you get a good look at the fireball?"

  "I sure did. It crossed overhead. Spectacular." He frowned, thinking. "Two things about it."

  "Go ahead."

  "First, I don't think it travelled all the way from wherever to Neckerdam. It was suddenly roaring overhead, but the smoke trail it left behind didn't extend very far—it just stopped, like it had appeared somewhere over Long Island out of nothing. Also, I don't know if this means anything, it did fly east to west like the first one."

  "Interesting. In keeping with its solar character." Doc turned to Zeb, who didn't appear to notice him. "Zeb."

  Zeb took a deep breath. "We got Ish to the hospital and Alastair checked her out. He's certain it was some sort of magical attack—"

  "Devisement attack."

  "Oh, shut up, Doc. Something like an `arrow of the gods,' but he didn't recognize it. She woke up, a lot better, and remembered that she'd talked to Lieutenant Athelstane about other buildings whose plaques had been vandalized. One had been the Kingston Guardian newspaper building, at almost the same time as the Gwall-Hallyn Building."

  "What did you do?"

  "Called here. All the associates were gone. So I called the Kingston Guardian, got the publisher, told him I was with the Sidhe Foundation, told him to get everyone out of the building now. He said he'd do that. Noriko and I . . ." His voice choked off. He gulped down a shot of whisky and waited for it to do its work. He was silent long enough for Gaby to wonder if he was through. Then he continued, his voice tight, "Noriko and I took Alastair's car and drove to the building. We were coming up to it when we saw the fireball coming down, so we spun around and got some distance between us. There were people still coming out . . . You were there for the rest."

  Doc nodded. "The Guardian takes a lot of unpopular stands and publish editorials that make people mad. This morning's was a diatribe against the destroyers of the Danaan Heights Building and an essay on cowardice; that may be why they were targeted. But they only have about one hundred employees. So loss of life was . . . not as considerable as it might have been elsewhere. And you cut down those numbers. No one is sure how many got out—fifty, maybe seventy or more. You saved those lives."

  Zeb slammed his hand down on the table. "Not good enough! How many died? Thirty, forty, fifty? Because I forgot to pick up Ish's notebook? Maybe I precipitated the fireball by having them evacuate!"

  "You did everything—"

  "To hell with everything!" Zeb stood and slammed his table to one side, sending it crashing into a cluster of unoccupied tables. Noriko flinched. "I screwed up, and they're dead." He turned toward the wall, slammed his forearm into it; the boom echoed through the room.

  Silence hung over them a long moment. Finally, his voice low, Doc said, "That's why I am still in this business, Zeb. The newspapers talk about the good we do. But when I dream, only the ones I failed to save come to visit me. And I think, `Maybe next time. Maybe then I'll get everyone out. Maybe then I'll take the killer down in time.' I owe it to the ones I've failed."

  Zeb leaned his forehead against the wall. "I'm sorry, Doc."

  "Don't. It is the life I've chosen."

  "Not about that." Zeb pressed his fists into his eyes for a moment. "Well, about that too, but that's not what I meant." He turned around to look at Doc. "Until today, even after Danaan Heights, I thought this place, the fair world, was, I don't know, some sort of amusement park ride. Less real than where I come from. A couple of hours ago, a little girl died as I was carrying her to a doctor. Died of burns. Her smell is still all over me. I've had kind of a change of heart." He took a deep breath. "I'm going to kill those sons of bitches."

  "I won't stand in your way." Doc turned to the bar. "Gaby?"

  "I told you I'd traced the call to a place in Morcymeath," she said. "I was right. I found the building. I called Lieutenant Athelstane and then went upstairs just to look around. What I didn't know was that the Bergmonks had rented the ground-floor garage in that same building . . . and that was where the receiving end of the transference circle was. So your truck ended up there, with one of the Bergmonks, Otmar, tending it, while the rest were upstairs.

  "I blundered into an attempt by Albin to kill, or maybe just intimidate, one of his brothers—Rudi. And then it got messy, with all the Bergmonks bailing out and Athelstane and me chasing them. I saw Rudi kill Albin; his body is in the hands of the Guard. The others got away, one into the Underground, the other two we don't know where." She shrugged. "They didn't get away with the money. Novimagos Guards are guarding it now."

  "A small blessing, especially as Alastair and I weren't able to put a devisement beacon on the money. They would have gotten away with it cold."

  Gaby said, "You ought to go see Ish."

  "I will. In just a chime, we'll be through here—"

  The talk-box under the bar rang. Gaby answered, "Guardhouse Liquory, you give us the crime, we give you the proof . . . Oh. Hold on." She looked startled and tucked the handset against her neck. "Doc, call from downstairs. Rudi Bergmonk is in the special elevator. He wants to come up."

  Chapter Ten

  In the main laboratory room, they crowded around the large talk-box, a quadruple—sound and picture, send and receive. It showed an overhead view of an elevator whose only occupant was Rudi Bergmonk. He had his arms crossed and was glaring at the closed door before him.

  Harris consulted a viewscreen set into the wall beside the larger talk-box. This screen showed something like static, with several consistent patches of brightness moving slightly on it—three large, one smaller and dimmer. He gestured, three fingers and then one, to Doc.

  Doc stood next to a wall panel of switches on the other side of the talk-box. He thumbed a switch. "Goodsir Bergmonk, grace on you. Might I ask you to pull open the handle behind you?"

  On the main talk-box, Rudi started and looked up—toward the camera he could not see but the speaker he could hear. He glanced behind him and tugged at a brass handle on the wall, opening an inch-thick metal door inset in the wall. From the camera view, Zeb couldn't see what lay beyond the door.

  Doc said, "Please place your fire in the box."

  Rudi waited, shrugged, and pulled a pistol from beneath each arm, placing the weapons as Doc requested.

  Doc thumbed the microphone again. "All of them, Goodsir Bergmonk."

  Rudi scowled, then pulled a smaller pistol from his boot and added it to the collection.

  "And your clasp-knife."

  Rudi shut the wall-box with the guns still within, then glared up in the direction of the camera. "If you want me to be tame and safe as a housecat, you'll just have to shoot me," he said. "I always have me fists with me. I might as well keep the knife. I might have to clean me nails."

  Doc considered, then pressed two more switches on the panel. The elevator interior wobbled a bit as it began to move.

  * * *

  They stood in a semicircle before the elevator as Rudi emerged. He seemed little the worse for wear, smiling, charming, as he looked between them. "Goodsirs MaqqRee, Greene; Goodladies Lamignac and Greene. Grace on you. I don't know the dusky. No, I do! From the wedding. You knocked me brains loose, a futtering good kick."

  "Language, please," Doc said.

  "Zeb Watson," Zeb said.

  "Goodsir Watson. Well-met. I don't suppose any of you would have a spot of liquor on you. I've had a bit of a day."

  They conducted him into the bar, surrounding him like a detachment of guards. "Why are you here?" Doc said.
"In coming here, you have turned yourself in."

  "Well, there's turning yourself in, and there's turning yourself in." Rudi took one of the smaller tables. "A brandy would be nice. And I'm here for something like turning myself in, but first I wanted to give thanks to Goodlady Greene. But for her I'd be dead." He tipped an imaginary cap at her as she poured his drink. "I appreciate it."

  "You're welcome. So long as you don't give me any cause to regret it. Or to shoot you myself."

  "I doubt I will." He accepted the glass from her, drank half its contents. "Not bad." He turned his attention to Doc. "Yes, I'm turning myself in. You can have me one of two ways. You can have my silence and try me in court . . . for a few crimes I might have something to do with and a lot I don't. Or you can have my knowledge and grant me immunity from prosecution."

  Doc sat opposite him. "You're very confident I'll accept. Otherwise you'd be negotiating from a talk-box."

  "True."

  "But I think someone needs to pay for what happened to the Kingston Guardian, the Danaan Heights Building, for everything else you've been doing. You might as well be the first to pay."

  Rudi knocked back the rest of his drink and stared levelly at Doc. "Well, then, I tell you this. Make of it what you may.

  "On my honor—and I have honor, else I'd not be here—I had nothing to do with the Kingston Guardian. Didn't know it was to happen. Since this all began, I've killed no one—excepting Albin, who was trying to kill me." A bleak look crossed his face. "I've killed me own brother. He taught me to play ball and to shoot, and now I've put a bullet in his brain. But there was no bringing him back from where he'd gone. The fireball today was all Albin and his master."

  Gaby refilled his glass. He took a solemn sip before continuing. "I want immunity from any charges related to this whole plan. Conspiracy, blackmail, smash-and-enter, smash-and-grab, the works. Oh, yes, and for Albin's death. Self-defense, that was. For it, I'll tell you everything I know. Without it, you can find out for yourself. Certainly, you don't have any reason for haste; I'm sure Albin's master will happily wait for you to track him down."

  "There's no need for sarcasm." Doc considered. "I accept."

  "In the name of the Novimagos Guard, as well as your Foundation?"

  "Yes."

  "Good." Rudi slouched back and put his hands behind his head, but the pain in his eyes belied his casual pose. "Just set the bottle down, would you, dear? I'd appreciate it. This will take some time.

  "The story goes back, oh, three years or so. That was the first time I went to the grim world."

  "How did you get there?" Doc asked.

  "My brothers and I were sent by a man you used to know. Duncan Blackletter."

  Harris swore, feelingly. Duncan Blackletter, like Doc one of the rare full-blooded Daoine Sidhe, had been a criminal mastermind on the fair world decades ago. Later, he'd found a way to transport himself to the grim world, using his devisement arts to steal a human baby there and replace himself with it . . . and convince the baby's hapless parents that he was their child. After years of work, he'd built up a fortune in the grim world and commenced a plan to cut the existing links between the two worlds, a measure that would have allowed him to bring modern tools of warfare from the grim world to the fair.

  Many people on the fair world knew of Duncan Blackletter and his crimes. A few knew of his plan to conquer the fair world with grimworld weaponry. A very few, most of them now in this room, also knew that he was Doc's son—the powerful devisements he'd wielded throughout his life not allowing him to retain youth as Doc had, so that he appeared to be many years Doc's senior.

  "Go on," Doc said. His expression had not changed, but Harris saw that his shoulders were tight. Nor had Doc seen fit to caution Harris about bad language.

  "Duncan was working with some lads in Europe. Our Europe, not the grim Europe. Helping them get information. We Bergmonks—you'd have been proud of us! No crimes, no taking of scores. We just took gold from Duncan and went to grimworld libraries, book vendors, some special shops, that sort of thing." He frowned for a moment. "No, there was a bit of sticky-fingering. We stole some library volumes. I suppose that's a crime. Trip after trip, we did the same thing."

  "What were you researching?"

  "Devisement. They call it magic and witchcraft and new age and a lot of names."

  Doc shook his head. "The grimworlders don't have a tradition of successful devisement."

  Rudi grinned. "Oh, there you're wrong. They have dozens, hundreds of traditions. Most of them are dunderheaded and wrong, too many details lost over the centuries. Some of them are sheerest fiction. But there's truth in others. We recorded them all and brought them back for Duncan's correspondents."

  "Who are . . . ?"

  "I don't know. We handed the information off to his golden boy, the Changeling; he passed them on. Maybe Albin knew."

  Harris nodded. The so-called Changeling, Darig MacDuncan, was the human child with whom Duncan had traded places. Raised by Duncan's subordinates on the fair world, he had grown up a competent criminal lieutenant . . . and had died minutes before Duncan had, killed by Harris.

  Rudi continued, "So. We did all that, and then they didn't need us any more. We went back to, oh, other lines of work. Work I won't be discussing. Not relevant. When Duncan died, we figured we couldn't ever go back to the grim world; the Changeling had always said their European friends did not know how to do that.

  "Then, just a few moons back, Albin gets word from his old employers and goes to talk to them. He comes back breathless, with eyes gleaming. He says they've learned a lot from the texts we brought them. Tried every technique in all those books, most of them dead wrong or even harmful, a few of them useful.

  "He says they can make puppets that walk or grab. You saw one, Goodsir Watson. Make dolls in the likeness of people so whatever harm befalls the doll befalls the people as well."

  "Voodoo," Harris said.

  Gaby shook her head. "That's not real voodoo, that's movie voodoo. When I was still at the TV station I interviewed a real voodoo priestess. She—"

  "Gaby, relevance?"

  "Sorry, Doc."

  Rudi continued, "And they figured out how to get back to the grim world. They sent us back through once, just to be sure they were right . . . risking our lives instead of their own. But we got the impression they didn't need any more missions there for the time being.

  "Until a few days ago, when we were supposed to go through, see if we could find you there," he nodded to Doc, "because there was no sign of you here."