by Jayne Hawke
I leaned against the window and looked at the quiet empty space of it all thinking about the people with their ordinary lives. They knew about what went on around them, but they lived separate from the worst of it. We went straight through the traffic lights without having to pause as there was no one else on the streets. Frowning, I began to feel weird, and wrong, as though the city was holding its breath, waiting.
Looking more closely, I tried to spot the night hunters and wanderers. There were always some souls who couldn't sleep - or were just plain nocturnal. I smiled when I saw a pair of puka casually leaning against a shop window discussing something with lots of fast hand gestures. The partbreed fae sitting upon the fence smoking something with deep purple smoke made me feel as though everything was it was supposed to be. I allowed the suspicion that had begun creeping up go.
The lack of sleep and difficult job were clearly getting to me.
Niall had chosen an enclosed park at the edge of Black Run as the meeting location. The area around us crumbled to decay. Beautiful cream buildings were covered in magical graffiti that glittered and shimmered in the darkness. Dirt and grime covered what few windows hadn't been shattered and broken. Doors hung off hinges and distinct blood splatter could be seen between the graffiti.
"Well, this place is just charming. Remind me, why did Niall pick here?" I asked.
"He didn't explain. He just said it was a good spot to talk about what we needed to talk about."
Ash pulled up by the curb, and I reflexively brought the magical security system up around the car. That was not the type of place where cars were safe, even at four in the cursed morning. I pooled shadow magic in my hands. It wasn't great as a weapon, but I could use it to blind someone if we needed to.
"Do you think those shadow walkers are real?" I asked idly as I looked around.
I could feel people watching us approach, but they were hidden in the worn-out buildings around us. The park was surrounded on all sides by wrought-iron fencing, beyond which was the road and then a ring of dilapidated residential-looking buildings, perfect for people to hide in. I reached out, feeling for magic and life essences. There were no magical traps that I could feel. Ten or more life essences, all of them fae. It was doubtful full fae needed to live in places like that, which meant they were very probably here for us. I looked up and checked there wasn't a piano hanging there or something equally ridiculous.
Niall was standing in the middle of the park looking impossibly nonplussed, apparently as excited to have our clandestine meeting in the shit end of the bottom of the barrel as he would have been to grab groceries on his way home from whatever it was people like him did when they weren’t selling out their friends.
“Let’s take our friend Niall and go. I don’t see any reason for a pitched battle with his faery godmothers,” I suggested.
“Do the sort of fae who show up to ambush knights in the line of duty strike you as the sort that are good for innocents?”
“We’re not here to redress the cosmic balance, and even if we were there’s no way of knowing what they think they’re accomplishing here or who they even think we are. It’s one thing to put down an organ farmer when we catch her red handed, but if we start killing everyone who probably isn’t good for the world...”
“Then we’re fucked. Fine. You grab Niall, I’ll cover you. If I get the chance to kill some, I’m doing it.”
And with that, I was off at a dead run. Niall noticed me, or more accurately gave the first sign of having noticed me, and painted a friendly smile on his face so fake it might as well have been done with gel pen. Before he had a chance to signal his friends, I reached him, slammed him in the gut as hard as I could, and threw him over my shoulder.
I crossed the park and back out the other side of the fence before the shooting started. It was unlikely they were using anything higher tech than a broadsword, but it never hurt to keep out of line of sight. I moved around the edge of the park, a mix of scraggly trees and decaying cars intermittently blocking my view as I did my best to keep a close eye on my partner’s progress.
The fae appeared to have shown up for a hunt, longbows in hand as they leaned out of windows and over balconies. I was extremely glad, and not a little self-congratulatory, that I had cleared the open space as quickly as I had. They had a distinct lack of respect for Ash’s abilities, making no attempt to duck out of the way even long enough to draw new arrows from their quivers, and three of the ten were dead and dangling over windowsills by the time he had to swap out the magazines in his automatics.
By the time the second volley of gunfire began, I was nearly to the car. Ash only got off a few shots before he had to duck back down, pinned in cover by a truly impressive barrage of arrows given that only seven fae were still on their feet. The only way he was going to be able to get out of there on his own was to wait for them to run out of arrows, and given that the fae might well have access to pocket dimensions full to the brim with arrows, that simply wasn’t a plausible solution.
I reached the car, still unobserved by or uninteresting to the huntsmen, and dumped our new prisoner in the trunk before taking a moment to consider my options. There was too much space to blind them with sunlight, too many to blind with shadow. I couldn’t kill them at this range, not in anything like a timely fashion. When the answer came to me, I knew Ash was going to hate it.
Jumping into the driver’s seat, I slammed the car into gear and accelerated the 200 metres that separated us, slamming on the brakes just long enough for Ash to jump in, and taking off amid a hail of arrows. The windshield was unusable almost immediately, a dozen arrows partially penetrating and leaving the entire thing a web of cracked safety glass. Not designed for metal, most of them shattered on contact with the steel body of the Challenger, but that didn’t mean it was coming out unscathed.
Ash was pissed, but I had no attention to spare for him as I drove by memory to get us out of the square and into another alleyway where we could at least clear the glass to make a full getaway. As soon as I’d stopped, I gripped onto the tenuous, heavily processed threads of earth magic remaining in the silica of the glass and pushed outwards, keeping my pressure light enough that the laminate holding it all together would continue to do so. It didn’t take long for the whole thing to break free of the frame, at which point I could grab it and throw it aside.
The car wasn’t exactly street legal with an open front, but it would get us clear. A glance at Ash showed him still in battle mode, calm and ready. He would no doubt be screaming about his car in a few hours, but for now he was on point. Good enough. I sped out the far side of the alleyway before the fae could catch up with us. They had to have cars stashed somewhere, but that didn’t mean they were close enough to get to for a chase or even that they wanted us badly enough to give one.
I drove as quickly as I could without risking loss of control, taking turns at random but always moving more or less towards the outskirts of Edinburgh. We could take him back the apartment and attach electrodes to his everything without more consequences than a high electric bill. After his little stunt back in the park, our leeway as knights was all but absolute. That said, there was no reason to bother the neighbours - or give him the chance to tip anyone off.
Once we were far enough from Edinburgh that there was nothing in sight but moorland, I pulled over to the edge of the road and dragged him out of the trunk. I dragged him behind me by the collar up and over a hill until we were separated from the road, then dropped him and turned to stand over him. All the way there, he was dead silent, no sign of guilt, fear, or anything else beyond a sort of low-level irritation at the way his day was going.
Ash had stayed back at the car, no doubt surveying the damage, which left me in charge of the interrogation.
“So,” I said, sitting down cross-legged in front of him. “That could have gone better.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too,” he said drily, maintaining eye contact without giving any particular sign of aggressi
on.
“I don’t suppose you have any particular loyalty to your friends back there, given that you don’t seem to have any particular loyalty to start with. So, why don’t you tell me who they were and what they wanted with us, and I’ll take the fact that you were so helpful under advisement when we decide which parts of you go to the organ guys to pay for car repairs.”
“Don’t you have a fund for that somewhere? If they’re not paying for the basics, I’d recommend renegotiating your contract,” he said, gaining a little glibness as he went, warming to the interrogation experience.
“Of course we do. I’m looking at it. I’m told there was a time when individual fae were so precious to the lords and ladies that they’d pay ransoms, even send in rescue teams sometimes. These days, the only value in a barrel scraper like you is to witches too cheap to shell out for Sidhe chunks.”
“Don’t forget dust,” he said, shaking his wings for effect. “Poor people love the dust.”
“Are you really going to make this a whole thing?” I asked. “We both know I’m right, and we both know you’re going to have to relocate and change identities either way. Whatever those Wild Hunt wannabes might think you’re up to right now, they have a thousand reasons to kill you and no reason not to. The sooner you tell me the who, what, why, where, and how of it, the sooner you can get to that.”
“True enough. They’re Niqua’lin, a hunter clan. I looked them up for you to see if they were behind the whole shifter weirdness. They didn’t care for the attention and decided to kill two birds with one stone by going on a hunting trip with me as the bait. I conveniently failed to notify them of your partner’s proclivity for antique weaponry, so they figured a few bowmen could wrap the issue up to everyone’s satisfaction and be home in time for Masterpiece Theatre. You’re welcome, by the way. If I’d volunteered the useful facts and figures you wouldn’t have had such an easy time of it. Can’t say I saw the abduction coming, might have been more forthcoming if I had.”
“Are they going to keep coming after us?”
“I doubt it. Like you said, they’re not the Wild Hunt, they’re just bored rich fae. The only thing they put effort into is beating their slaves and protecting their position. As long as you don’t threaten enither of those pastimes, you’ll just be a bunny that made it to the hedge. I, on the other hand, am a more personal concern. That in mind, can I get a ride to my place so I can get started on that running and hiding you mentioned?”
“Gonna have to pass on that one,” I said. I lay my coat out on the mostly-dry ground and picked him up by the shoulders, shaking him like a crying baby for a good minute or two until dust stopped coming out, then dropped him a few feet away, bundled up a few months’ worth of dust, and walked away without a glance back.
TWENTY-FOUR
We'd gotten the windshield replaced at a cheap chain mechanics we passed on our way back to Edinburgh that opened far earlier than they had any reason to and convinced them to take payment in pixie dust. The body work would be another issue, but we couldn’t leave the car anywhere until we had the case solved. Once that was taken care of, we found a café and claimed a nice corner table where we could fill up on caffeine and pixie dust.
"I think we can safely say the fae are behind all this," I said.
"I don't know. I think they're just making the most of a good situation," Ash said.
The waitress came over looking far too awake for that time of the morning. I needed whatever she had.
"We'll take two of your biggest pots of your strongest black coffee with extra pixie dust. Two full English breakfasts, extra sausage for my friend, and extra fried bread on mine," Ash ordered.
My stomach growled. I couldn't remember when we'd last eaten or gotten a full night's sleep. That was the problem with working as we did. When we worked, we didn't stop. We couldn't afford to.
The waitress bobbed her head with her neon blue hair and jotted down the order on her notepad before she turned and walked into the kitchen.
"Alright, smartass, if the fae aren't behind this, who is? We know this isn't a nightmare acting on its own," I said.
"We need to figure out who the victims are here - the shifters or the people they killed."
"There's no connection between the people they killed."
"That we've found yet."
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my eyes. He was taking us right back to square one, and we didn't have time for that. Ben was dying.
"Alright, we need to assume that the shifters are the targets here. Who and why?"
"’Who’ needs to be someone with a lot of magic and power, which means fae, witches, or god touched." He held up his hand to silence me. "We know it isn't a god touched, because they're not allowed on the Isles outside of big business deals."
"We also know that sometimes they sneak in. Don't forget about the Hades god touched that almost succeeded in killing the lord in London."
Ash crossed his arms over his powerful chest.
"Someone would have seen something if this was a god touched. You'd have felt their magic."
"Ok, it's fae or witches. Why would a witch do this?"
I glanced out of the large window to my left and saw the rain streaming down the road. When it rained there, it really rained. Waterfalls were forming at the edges of the rooves. There was something cleansing about watching it.
"Witches can be temperamental. Maybe the shifters took her favourite seat in that cafe they all frequent," I said.
Ash nodded.
"It wouldn't be the first time a witch has done something like this over something to petty."
"I'm ashamed to be associated with most witches," I admitted.
Ash squeezed my hand. The familiar roughness of the callouses pushed away some of my tiredness and frustration.
"It's a shame that we're treated with such derision in so many places, though," Ash said.
"You mean the way the clean-up crews rush to remove a dead body so a witch can't make use of the parts?"
"Exactly. Why would it be so awful for the body to be put to good use? A lot can be done with a body."
"Because they fear we'll use the blood to curse their bloodline, or the bones to forge weapons."
Ash's lip curled.
"And the fae are so innocent? Look at the cases we've taken this year alone. Good old Cedric was creating monsters who were in absolute agony. Then there was Adrien who was eating people. Let's not forget dear Beatrix who turned an entire village into a garden because she hated how their houses spoilt the view from the bathroom window."
I let out a harsh laugh. The case with Beatrix had been absurd in the way only a fae case could have been. She'd tried to turn us into a flower bed, too, but we'd been prepared. It had taken bullets full of pixie bones and all the magic from a forest fire that I could hold to bring her around to our way of thinking. The poor villagers would never be the same again, but at least they were back in their normal human forms. Mostly. Some of them did have flowers instead of hair.
"Do you remember the time Willow made those talking pies!?" I said.
"Yes! The way that little blueberry one had screamed and screamed haunted my dreams for months afterwards. They were vicious little bastards, too. How the Hel do you give pies teeth!?"
"I have no idea. I know that Oak will forever have that scar on his finger, though. He can never tell the true story of how it came to be. Can you imagine it? 'A blueberry pie bit me.'”
I laughed until tears streamed down my face. The waitress placed the coffee down without a word.
"Nothing beats the time that Ivy tried to enchant her room to clean itself and she ended up being chased around the halls by a pair of chairs!"
"Those chairs were fast, too!"
I remembered getting up to an awful sound and sobbing. I'd put my head out of my door expecting there to be a fist fight or something. Instead I saw Ivy run past me as though her arse was on fire followed by a pair of simple wooden chairs. Their legs had m
oved like a horse's, and they somehow had burning red eyes on their backs. They'd hunted poor Ivy throughout the mansion we'd called home. In the end, Elder Finn had taken pity on her and burnt the chairs to ash. I swear they stared at him with those red eyes right up until there was nothing left. I had no idea chairs could have so much malice in them.
"Do you ever miss being there? The mansion?"
"Sometimes. We did have some good times. Games nights were usually a laugh, and I did enjoy some of our lessons."
Ash shook his head.
"The only good thing about that place was the small grove of cherry blossom trees. It felt like I was suffocating everywhere but there. I still don't know how they let someone like me partner with their favourite tree-generation witch."
I scooted my chair around and leaned against Ash while putting my hand on his knee.
"They paired us because they knew we'd make the strongest partnership."
He put his hand on mine.
"I'm pretty sure they regret it, though. Sure, I'm amazing at guns, fantastically good looking, ridiculously talented at hand-to-hand combat, but I was never what they'd call a good witch."
I snorted.
"You forgot humble."
"I'm honest," he said with a grin.
"We don't have to go back, you know," I said softly.
Ash poured us both a coffee.
"That's a big decision. I don't want to take away your dreams or something."
"I made my decision after our first case."
"You mean after they told us we were wrong for putting that poor girl out of her misery?" Ash said bitterly.
"Yea. They wanted us to take her to them. They wanted to experiment on her and test her magic. She was in so much pain, I couldn't do that to her."
"We're protectors. The Knights are far from perfect, but we, you and I, are protectors."
"And we'll continue to do that away from the coven. When we're ready, we'll raise our children out in the world. They'll be whatever their heart desires. I won't push them into this life."