She began to pace again. "He took a message from me for my brother and said he'd call me tomorrow. That if nothing else, I might be able to talk to Weylin—"
"What'd the note say?"
"Just a plea to come home, an apology for whatever I'd done… I don't remember exactly. He’d brought paper with him, and I wrote it at the bar."
I made a note to check that part of her story out with the bartender tomorrow. "Which way did he go after he left the hotel?"
"I don't know. We said goodbye at the bar."
"What about his partner?"
"His partner?" She gave a guilty start, then her eyes widened in horror and her hands flew to her face. "You think he had someone working with him? Someone who noticed Grace following him and shot her? Will he come after me next?"
Her fear was genuine, but it didn't explain her first reaction. She'd known he wasn't working alone. I sat back on my haunches, curled my tail around me, and stretched, extending my front claws. Very catlike, but far more menacing. "I think my partner is in serious danger and you are, too, but if you don't start playing straight with me, it’ll be a toss-up where the greater danger is."
She paled and sat down hard on the edge of the rumpled bed. "You're scaring me."
Good. "Then you'd better give me the real story, so I can decide if you're a client or not. As a rule, I don't eat clients." I gave her my reassuring half grin, and she relaxed some. I'd been practicing this Good-Cop/Bad-Cop shtick long enough I could do it all on my own.
"Weylin is in trouble, but it's not with a cult," she started. "He has something—something that doesn't belong to him. Its owners are dangerous people. They'll kill him! I begged them to give me a chance to make things right, to return it himself—"
I held up a claw and she froze. "What did he steal?"
"It's not like that! It's an artifact, it's supposed to have great power, and he knew in their hands... "
I don’t have eyebrows I can raise, but I can do a fair approximation with a head tilt. She stopped her yammering with an apology and took a breath before starting again more coherently.
"The artifact. It's a spear of some kind. They say it's magical."
"Faerie?" There were strict laws about trafficking magical items. My universe had plenty of artifacts powerful enough to blow a hole in both our worlds. I suppressed a groan. Not another Save The Universes Case.
Fortunately, she shook her head. "No, I don't think so. No. They've definitely had it since before the Gap, but now, people are so much more willing to believe in magic, and I think they'd planned to get a mage or someone to…I don't know…activate it? Is that possible?"
I gave a noncommittal grunt. Mages could endow Mundane articles with limited power—like Grace’s Guardian Angel medallion—but to activate a Mundane artifact with powers your legends said it already possessed? I really, really didn’t want to find out.
"Then I can't give it to them," she whispered, then buried her head in her hands. "Oh, Detective Vern, you have to help me! We have to find my brother and that artifact. Maybe…I don't know…you could help us escape to Faerie where we can find someone to destroy it?"
"One thing at a time. Who're 'they'?"
"I'm not sure. I mean, they don't have a name. They operate behind the scenes, pulling strings, but when bad things happen—big, bad things—they're involved somehow."
How ominous and unhelpful. "What 'big, bad' things? Terrorism? International crime? Professional wrestling? Hollywood divorces?"
She crooked a smile, wiped her eyes with the edge of her index finger, careful of her immaculately painted nail. "All of that, and worse. I think they want to engineer Armageddon; that's how twisted they are."
Armageddon. Yep, another STUC. "My rates just went up."
She blinked at me, but when I didn't smile to indicate a joke, she got her purse. As she fed bills into my hand, she protested, "But they shot your partner! What about revenge?"
"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,” I quoted as I stuffed the bills into the pocket of my vest, "but I say this: I'm a dragon, and the dragon always wins."
Junior and the Fat Man
I asked Eva a few more questions, got a few more marginally helpful answers, and told her to lock her doors tight after I'd gone. Then I perched on the roof while I decided my next move.
The air had that early morning chill that promised the day would start out cool, then turn into a scorcher by mid-afternoon. Sounded good to me. Faerie dragons don't age, but that doesn't mean we can't get an ache in our wings when the weather's cold. This early, my main source of local research was closed. The Colt's Hoof, the nearby dive for Faerie and Mundanes operating on both sides of the law and the shady areas in between, didn't start hopping until Happy Hour. If any of my sources from there were still out, they were probably making trouble for the waitresses at some 24-hour diner.
That's what I told myself. Truth was, I didn't feel up to dealing with anyone's questions about Grace when I didn't have answers. Seeing her so still on that bed, those tubes coming out of her, the machines beeping to a cadence that wasn't quite right for her...
I decided to walk home. I was tired.
So tired, in fact, it was a couple of blocks before I realized I had a tail that had nothing to do with my anatomy.
I didn't vary my path. I wanted to get to my own familiar turf before I dealt with this guy. I did, however, put a little more attention to my senses. I couldn't help Grace if I got ambushed. Junior Detective Boy was flying solo. What breeze there was blew in my direction, bearing the scent of Brut which alerted me to him in the first place. He was actually pretty good at stalking, so that mistake meant he was skilled but stupid or just plain arrogant. I could work with either.
I could detect dry-cleaning chemicals under the cologne, so the guy either wasn't hurting for money or was hoping he'd look like an early-morning businessman on the way to work. Fat chance. Mundanes love their cars too much. I picked up the scent of cold steel—or more accurately, warm steel. His hand must have been gripping the gun the entire time. From what I could tell by listening to the movement of fabric as he ducked into an alleyway to keep out of sight, he had on a light jacket at most, so he couldn't be hiding the elephant gun. Probably one of those fancy full-sized jobs that would cost me a month's rent. Still, I felt reassured. Conventional bullets hurt, but I could handle them.
We were coming to a familiar little maze of alleys. Thanks to renovations in the area, it looked like a regular-sized back way to start, but two newer larger buildings quickly cut down both space and visibility. I took a left, upped my pace, used my inherent magic and Grace's charm to silently rise about ten feet, and faded into the shadows.
Junior entered cautiously, then not seeing me, started forward at a trot. As soon as he was under me, I lashed out with my tail, scooped him up and took off. He gave a girlie shriek—not unlike a number of knights I'd tried this trick on in the past—and struggled until he realized how far he'd fall if I dropped him. At that point, he hung on for dear life. I took the opportunity to pick his pockets.
"Good morning!" I said cheerfully.
"Let me down!"
"Oh, you want down?" I relaxed my tail slightly. Again, the girlie shriek. Sounded like the cry room at church. "Tell you what, you answer my very important questions, and I'll let you down the right way. Give me any heartburn, and I'll let you down the easy way. Now, who're you working for?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. Help!" He wrapped his arms around a tail spike.
Okay, skilled and stupid it was. I pumped my wings and we rose. "They say in space, no one can hear you scream. Shall we test that theory?"
His shouting died into a gurgle and he started pleading—with God, not me. Typical human, always going straight to the top.
"God helps those who help themselves," I quipped at him. "Tell me who set you on my tail. And talk fast; my tail's getting tired."
"I work for Mr. Ramada—Cambridge Ramada!"
"You're kidding me." His parents either owned hotels or had a sick sense of humor. Possibly both. "What's Cambridge want with me?"
"Not you—the artifact! He wants the artifact. Oh, God, please let me down! I swear I'll take you to him, and he can explain everything!"
"I'll let you down when we get to Cambridge."
"Where?"
Oy! "Cambridge! Tell me where he's staying, and we'll take care of this right now."
Cambridge Ramada had eschewed his namesake for the Broadmoor Los Lagos, a luxury hotel built to accommodate all the Faerie nobility and Mundane upper-crust that had business here on the edge of the Gap. Nestled in the mountainside like its sister hotel in Colorado Springs, it was as far above Eva's caliber as her digs were from mine.
Nonetheless, when I landed at the porte cochere outside the lobby and released Junior, the doorman didn't even blink, just opened a door and greeted us with a friendly "Welcome to the Broadmoor, sirs." That's class. The elevator was large enough to accommodate me—class again—so we made our way to Ramada's room, me with my tail against Junior's back. A companionable gesture at first glance, but the end of my tail is rather spiky, and I rested it along the vertebrae of his neck.
Mr. Ramada surprised me by having one of the more modest suites in the hotel, with a long couch and a large, sturdy chair. He needed it, too. I could live for a week on this guy—if my taste buds could handle that much blubber. He was either an early riser or Junior had called him before he started following me, because Ramada met us dressed in a casual outfit obviously tailored to compliment his girth. Maybe he'd planned to take Junior to the Country Club after he was done with me.
"Well," he said, not bothering to rise from his comfy chair, "this is not quite what we'd had in mind."
"Next time, send somebody less hygienic," I replied. "You should pour that bottle of cologne down the sink."
"Yes, why don't you do that while the dragon and I talk?" Ramada waved toward one of the bedrooms, and like a sulky teenager, Junior disappeared into it. "I'd offer you a seat, Mr.—?"
"Vern will do. What I really want are answers. Why'd you send Junior Detective Boy after me?"
"Junior Detective Boy," Ramada chuckled like he was trying to force it out of his throat and the roof of his mouth simultaneously. Maybe he was trying to sound like Sydney Greenstreet playing Casper Gutman, but it came out like an asthmatic Beavis and Butthead.
"I hope you're not going to tell me you're looking for a black bird," I said.
Again the laugh. "No, nor will I say Peters is like a son to me. And I think you're suspicious enough of your client? She did not steal something from me, though it is true we are both after the same object. You are familiar with the Lance of Longinus?"
"I've had some experience with the Faerie version." Inside, I groaned. The Lance was the one used by the Roman soldier Longinus to pierce the side of Christ. As such it was endowed with supernatural power, but since the stabbing occurred after Jesus' death and before his Resurrection—that is, the three days he spent in Hell redeeming those damned who would listen—the nature of its power remained indeterminate. Longinus did become Christian, but he also continued his career as a soldier, rising in ranks until he commanded his own centuria. Thus, the power molded itself to his personality. Anyone wielding the Lance of Longinus had the power to command unresisting obedience of anyone under them, yet also stayed obedient to whomever they recognized as their leader. In Longinus's case, all hundred of his men followed him to Christian martyrdom.
It had disappeared after that, probably falling into the hands of people who didn't know what they had, until it resurfaced in the Patisserie Wars. That was before my time working with the Church, but I'm told the violence that ensued over tranche cakes nearly tore Europe apart. When Pope Paul XI intervened and brought peace, Vatican control of the Lance was part of the package. There it remained under lock and wards until a misguided monk, seduced by a fallen angel, took it upon himself to use the Lance to bring good to the world.
There's a reason Jesus refused Satan's offer to rule the Earth.
That was two centuries ago. Some of the darkest years in Faerie human history. I was part of the Inquisition then, and assigned to find the Lance and destroy it. When I did, its power backlashed upon me. It took me years to recover physically, decades psychologically, which was why I had been pulling a plow for the Silent Brothers of St. Osgood when the Gap opened and I found myself called to this world.
Still, the Lance had been destroyed, and I told Cambridge so.
"Eh-heh, hehm. So my research has shown, though I have not been able to obtain the details. Perhaps when this is over, we could discuss it over a long lunch? What I am concerned about right now is the Mundane Lance of Longinus.
"You see, I too, am an investigator of sorts, and my current client is a collector of antiquities with fascinating histories. Now you may be aware that there are two versions about the whereabouts of the fabled Lance of Longinus? One holds that it is in the Schatzkammer in Vienna, but another asserts that one is a copy commissioned by Himmler for display in Nuremberg while the original was used for secret occult ceremonies." Again, the laugh. "Intriguing, isn't it? So then, the tale goes that the true spear was actually sent to Antarctica, to be buried with the ashes of Hitler and his beloved Eva."
"Eva?"
"Yes. Marvelous coincidence, is it not? Of course, such a prize could not remain forever—heh, hehm—on ice, so it was supposedly unearthed by one Colonel Maximillian Hartman, who is at large in Europe. Current conspiracy theorists say it played a part in 9/11. My investigations indicate certain parties have it here in Los Lagos, with the intention of carrying it across the Gap to see if it can be endowed with a spell to enhance any powers it may have."
"If that's true, my rates just went up."
"As have mine. We are not so dissimilar, I think. My client wants the Lance-at-Large for his private collection, and I think he neither believes in its powers nor would take advantage of such powers even if they were real. I, too, have my own sense of morality, you see."
"My morality is God's."
"Yes, of course. It had been my intention to have you followed while I continued my own investigations. Now, however, perhaps we could work together?"
"I have a client."
"And are you certain of her intentions? I have not concerned myself overmuch with her, yet I've found it curious how often I've encountered her in association with the Lance these past months. Well, let me propose this: should you find the Lance before I, at least give me the opportunity to present my client's case and bona fides. My client is more than capable of refunding Miss Heidler's fee and compensating you for your troubles. So, partners?"
"My partner is in the hospital, hanging onto life by her fingernails because of a poison dart meant for me. You know anything about that?"
He looked surprised, enough that I believed he had nothing to do with it. "I assure you, my style is not to accost fellow colleagues—particularly when their work furthers mine. However…” He paused, tapping his teeth with a well-manicured nail. I waited until he pursed his lips, satisfied at whatever idea he’d had, and continued.
“Perhaps I can sweeten the deal. Help me, and I'll make sure my client gets your partner the best medical care money can buy—Faerie or Mundane. And in the meantime, I shall add the search for the antidote, should there be one, to my own investigations. Your partner is female?"
"Faerie human woman."
He shook his head, his jovial demeanor gone. "Such a pity. This is a difficult business for women."
"She can hold her own." Usually.
The Fall Drake
Cambridge had Junior—I'd never be able to call him by the same name as the Father of the Church—escort me to the lobby, which he did with a scowl that was half-menace, half-sulk. I was too tired even to come up with a smart-aleck comment. There were a hundred things I needed to do, but thanks to my unexpected flight carrying Junior, a nap topped the list. My w
ings ached too much to fly, and I was too tired to walk, so I had the concierge call a taxi and put it on Ramada's tab. Most of the reputable services had both open-bed trucks and horse trailers now to accommodate their larger Faerie clientele. I asked for a truck. I didn't feel like smelling horse for the next half-hour, and the morning was beautiful enough that I wanted to travel with the top down.
God gave me a break; the trip proved uneventful. I tipped the driver well for bringing a brand-new Ford 450 into my neighborhood, then stumbled into my lair, sure I'd sleep as soon as I hit my pad.
The place was almost eerie in its quiet. I've lived alone most of my existence, and I hadn't realized how used I'd gotten to hearing Grace's breathing coming from her upstairs bedroom.
First, I called the hospital and found out her condition hadn't changed. Then I called in the dogs, and they snuggled up against me for a nap.
I hadn't been asleep more than a couple of hours when a loud, authoritative knock awakened me. The dogs seemed to recognize it, and they ran to the door, yapping joyfully. I growled under my throat.
I'd forgotten to lock the door, so after a second run of three sharp raps, my visitors entered. Captain Santry, the chief of police for Los Lagos, ignored the dogs bounding at his heels and strode past the office to my living quarters, followed closely by a weary Kel. I settled myself like a cat on a windowsill, my forearms crossed before me. I was too tired for anthropomorphisms, and besides, I knew it annoyed Santry.
"Where were you last night?" he demanded as soon as he was within speaking distance.
"Good morning to you, too. I was asleep—at least until you woke me."
"Before that?"
"At the hospital. Grace was shot—"
"I know that! I also know you only stuck around for about half an hour after Officer Killian here left. Where did you go then?"
"I had business. Detective business."
"Could you be more specific?"
Greater Treasures: A DragonEye Novella Page 2