He looked back and forth between us with a soulful gaze that was both tender and intimidating.
“Uh, we’re still working out the details of our relationship,” I said.
“Ye best be,” Keeper replied. “Long as ye know what’s expected. What’s being hoped for by so many.”
I looked at Erin and tried to read her expression. She looked pensive but that was all I could sense.
The words “Thank you, Keeper,” nearly crossed my lips before I remembered where I was and who I was talking to. Instead I said, “This is a great help.”
“There’s a good lad. Now we’ll have a proper dinner. Ye stay right here.” Keeper turned his attention to Midnight Dreary. “Fiach Dubh, quit thieving yer master’s chips, ya sneaky creature. Fly off and tell the Alder King that I’ve had my talk with his boy and his bride now, and the hospitality of Corrchnámhach is theirs for as long as it’s wanted.”
Midnight Dreary launched herself skyward and flew up into the stars. She circled once and found a heading she liked. I watched her until she was out of view. “She can talk?” I asked. On my plate was a single potato chip. She hadn’t eaten all of them, which I found quite polite.
“She’ll remember everything said and done here, lad. The Alder King will know what he needs to know. Now sit ye here and I’ll be right back.”
Keeper took the book and other papers with him. I’d reached my capacity for surprises in a day. Perhaps he sensed that or perhaps he was just very careful with the things he was assigned to keep.
“Well, well,” said a familiar voice. Another surprise after all.
“How are the. Lovebirds?”
“We’re fine, Béil,” Erin replied.
The cut of Béil’s dress was as provocative as ever, but today it was all snakeskin leather with a short jacket and boots to match.
“Fine? Without cuddling? Or shy. Hand holding? Not even. A blush. In the cheek?” She looked at me with a smirk. “It’s been days. Since the. Wedding.”
“You don’t see me complaining,” I said.
She laughed and the sound was oily and mean. “I don’t see. You doing. Anything. Maybe I should. Cast a spell. On the two. Of you. Put you. In a. Romantic mood.”
“Sadly, you can’t use magic in here,” Erin chided. “As you well know, this whole place is neutral ground and warded by Keeper and the Alder King himself.”
“Sadly true. So, Got. Have you found. Any reason. For my help yet?”
“Not yet,” I said. It was with some effort I kept my tone even. I placed my hands on top of the table and grasped them tightly. I wanted to slap her.
“Well. I can. Wait,” she cooed. She leaned over and it was all I could do to sit still. Her breath burned into my ear. “For anything. You need.”
I finally turned and gave her my best rolling-eyes-for-whatever expression.
She went back to torturing Erin. “Have you told. Him your. Secret yet? Is that why. You’re afraid to. Take him to. Your bed?”
Erin didn’t speak but she hunched her shoulders and shied away. Whatever she meant, Béil was making Erin very uncomfortable.
“Consider this,” I said. “I can’t call you for help if you don’t go away.”
That didn’t make Béil angry exactly, but the laugh that erupted from her was rough.
“All right. Dear ones. I’ve had my. Fun for. Now.”
She spun and strode away, her hips set to swinging more than was strictly necessary.
I said, “Snakeskin clothes. Isn’t it wrong to wear your own species?”
Erin thought about that for a second. I knew she got it when she smiled—but the smile was decidedly weak.
“Look,” I said. “Whatever secret she was referring to probably doesn’t matter and if it does, you’ll tell me when you’re ready. Until then, don’t worry about it. I’m very understanding. Usually, I’m the one making true confessions.”
Erin nodded. She slid her chair closer and slipped her arm through mine. She was nervous and in need of comfort at the same time.
She changed the subject. “I knew Keeper would have some answers. Are you glad we talked to him?”
“I am. I had no idea I was so old. I better get some life insurance before I keel over and leave you a destitute widow.”
Erin laughed a little then and the tension in her shoulders melted a bit.
“When Keeper gets back, I have another question for him.”
“It can wait, lad.” Curse his supernatural ninja skills! Keeper had materialized out of nowhere again. He put two bowls of stew on the table, a full roasted chicken, a loaf of dark bread, and two mugs of something dark. He said, “Eat.”
We did as he commanded.
The stew was made with root vegetables and wild game, Erin informed me. The chicken was infused with rosemary and the drink went perfectly with the black bread. It was all incredibly delicious. When I had finished, I was just the right amount of full. Satisfied but not uncomfortable. This place is amazing. Too bad it isn’t on a map where I can find it again, in case I’m not able to go to Erin’s portal first. Or drive to some janitor’s closet in Key Largo.
I was just considering the possibility of dessert when Keeper appeared again. “Now, lad, let’s have yer questions.”
I got to it. “You know I’m a private detective? That’s my work in the mortal realm.”
“’Tis what I’ve been told.”
“I’ve run across some circumstances that I’ve never seen before. And I’m wondering, is there any reason you might kill a man by stabbing him through the heart and then cutting open his abdomen but leaving all the organs intact?”
“Ya would if you’re a right bloody bastard.”
Well, yeah. “But no magical reason?”
“Well, there’s a type of divination using entrails, but you need to take them out of the body. We put that kind of crude magic behind us long ago.”
“Right. Okay. This may be an odd question.”
“This is no place to be timid, lad.”
“Very well. Is there any magic that requires diamonds?”
Keeper thought for a moment. “Ye can enchant diamonds for any of a hundred purposes. Same as most things.”
“Would there be any advantage to using diamonds specifically?”
“Well, like other gems, they’re pretty to wear. As foci, they’re rather small, but they can transmit a lot of power because of their perceived value.”
“Wait, how’s that again?”
Keeper pulled up a chair from a neighboring table and sat on it backwards. He crossed his arms on the top of the backrest.
“Ya see, lad, almost everything we do, whether we be mortal or Eternal, is based on belief. When ya get up in the morning and go to work, ya do so because ya believe it will reward ya with pay, am I right?”
“Sure.”
“Another kind of belief made gods out of us Eternals. As I told ya before, we have lost much of our power and influence in these realms when belief in us dwindled down.”
“I remember.”
“Another kind of belief relates to the value of things.”
“Like diamonds?”
“Exactly, lad. There’s really nothin’ very special about a diamond. Every diamond were once just a melted slab of liquid carbon. Somewhere, deep in the womb of Mother Earth, it cooled and became a crystallized rock. Then it were found and cut and polished. It’s extremely hard, of course. Only another diamond can cut a diamond. But they’re rather common and unremarkable otherwise. Their price is high because the supply is tightly controlled. But the smartest thing the mortals did with them was tie them to a woman’s heart. All that stuff about diamonds bein’ a girl’s best friend and expectin’ a diamond as a weddin’ ring—that only became common in the last century. Before that, a diamond were just a gemstone without col
or. Now, they have meanin’ for people. Now they have value because people believe they have value. Now they can draw a lot of power from the universe. Now a diamond is powerful enough to conjure with.”
Keeper was surprisingly knowledgeable about the mortal realm. I had to wonder how much time he spent away from Corrchnámhach.
I had another question. “What if you had a whole pile of diamonds? Could someone create something specific if they put them together?”
“Well, there was an ancient construct, just a rumor really, called a Jeweled Gate. But it was . . . briste briosc broiscaí!” Keeper looked suddenly stricken and he jumped up from his chair so fast, he knocked it over. He leveled a thick forefinger in my direction and said, “Ya have to tell me more about what ya got goin’ on in that head. Soon as I get back.”
He dashed off and he moved surprisingly well for a short, ancient guy. He could have been a running back for King Arthur.
I watched him go and then turned to Erin. “What did he say?” I asked.
She laughed. “It’s as close to swearing as you’re likely to hear from Keeper. The literal translation is ‘broken brittle biscuits.’”
I laughed too. “For a man in the restaurant business, that would be worth cursing over.”
Keeper returned. He had a book in his hands with a cover that was dark brownish-red. There were cobwebs in his hair, and it looked like he had tried to wipe off the layers of dust from the book with his bare hands, getting most of it on his shirt and pants.
“Why is the cover of the book that color?” I asked.
“Not all leather used for bookbindin’ comes from cows, lad. Now tell me what led ya to ask about usin’ diamonds for magic?”
I told him how I’d been hired to find the person who killed Barry Mallondyke. How I’d been shot at by Charles Mayer. How they both had controlling tattoos painted on their necks that meant there was a larger mystery going on. How I’d met a guy named Amad who was Caimiléir here, working for Milly Mallondyke who was also involved somehow with Charles Mayer. And how the Mallondykes had been in the diamond business for generations.
“Maybe there’s a correlation, maybe there isn’t,” I confessed. “But I have a hunch and asking irrational questions might help find a connection. The life of Barry Mallondyke centered around diamonds and his new wife. And, considering the tattoos and the possible involvement of this Caimiléir, it’s a possible next step. I’m trying to find out if the correlation is there.”
“And ye know Caimiléir is involved?” Keeper asked.
“Fáidh found out,” I replied.
Erin nodded. “In some way, he’s connected to this.”
Keeper stiffened and his face became solemnly grave.
“We canna speak any more of this here. Ye’ll be comin’ with me now,” he said.
We rose immediately and followed Keeper away from the public room and the music and the light.
Chapter Eighteen
Deamhan Realm
We followed Keeper down a flight of sturdy wooden stairs. It smelled like new potatoes and straw bales and fresh, fertile dirt. We passed a room with a dozen kinds of mushrooms growing. There were also rooms full of kegs labeled “Whiskey” and barrels of pickles. Along the other side was a wine cellar that must have been four square city blocks. Hardly a speck of dust anywhere.
At the end of a very lengthy hallway was a room with a heavy door, held together with metal straps. The door was twenty feet high and a foot thick and it looked like it could withstand a good-sized army wielding a battering ram. I guessed there was a reason for the reinforcement of the door and that made me a little nervous. The door made my head start to pound, and I confess I practically jumped over the threshold. I felt better as soon as put some distance between myself and the door.
“Iron bound?” I asked.
“Oh aye, lad. And warded to the teeth as well,” Keeper confirmed.
On the inside, I could see that the door could be barred with a massive oak timber like a castle gate. There was a table in the middle of the room and a chest. Keeper put the book on the table then lifted up the bar and put it in place. The bar looked like it weighed a good five-hundred pounds, but Keeper handled it without a grunt.
I looked around the room and realized it had no corners. It was round. On the floor was a wide silver circle that sat just beneath the wall and followed the circumference of the room. For all I knew, there was a million dollars worth of silver inlaid there. Good luck digging it out and getting it past ninja Keeper.
Keeper knelt on the floor for a moment and murmured with his hand on the silver. An invisible wall closed us off. All the sound that had been filtering in through the walls and door suddenly stopped. The music and conversation and the sounds of hooves on the floor overhead, which had only been background noise, were suddenly conspicuous by their absence. By contrast all the sounds in the room were magnified. I could hear Keeper’s hands rubbing together and the rustling of the fabric in Erin’s dress as she moved around the room.
“So lad, what do ya suspect?”
“I honestly don’t know if Caimiléir is up to something unsavory,” I said.
“With that one, experience shows ‘tis best to assume he’s guilty until proven innocent. Because he’s rarely innocent.”
“Béil also told me that there’s something terrible on the way, so she knows—or claims to know—something about it.”
“Well, it will be a chore getting anything out of her,” Keeper said, dismayed.
I protested, “But she has to tell the truth, right?”
Erin chimed in, “Getting her to tell the truth isn’t a problem. Getting her to talk is the hard part. If she doesn’t want to say something, we can’t make her.”
“She has told me more than once now that there’s something evil on the way, and she’s told me I’ll need her help.”
“Ah. That’s her game,” Keeper said. “She’s a political beast, make no mistake.”
“She’s made a point of letting me know it. She’s told me she wants to make sure she’s there to get her share of the glory. Whenever whatever it is goes down.”
Keeper clapped his hands to the side of his face and rubbed his gray whiskers. The minutes of silence passed strangely in our cocooned room while he thought. We could hear each other breathing and when the tang of the air made me sniff, it sounded too loud.
“Well, I can conclude one of two things,” Keeper finally said. “Either she’s foreseen the events about to take place by magic or she has some kind of stratagem that will put you in place when the time is right. You may not be able to avoid what’s coming, lad, even if you try.”
“I don’t plan on avoiding anything,” I said. “I’m stubborn that way.”
“Well, make sure ye’re prepared. Fáidh’s a good woman and she’ll help ya.”
“She has already,” I said.
Erin smiled at that. “Well, we’re not done yet.”
I pulled my silver dollar out of my pocket and opened the face. I held up the medallion so Keeper could see it.
Keeper took the medallion between his thick fingers and held it up to the light. “That’s a fine piece of work,” Keeper said. “‘Tis a shield focus, isn’t it?”
“It’s already saved me from having my head bashed in.” I said it with some pride. “Ouch!”
Erin had punched me in the shoulder. Hard. Her little fists had bony knuckles. “You didn’t tell me about that,” she said. She sounded peeved.
I shrugged. “Didn’t have a chance yet. It just happened. Well, not long ago, depending on how time is passing in the mortal realm.” I rubbed the spot where she had punched me. Keeper gave the medallion back. He was trying to hide a smile underneath his whiskers. I said, “I should recharge this. May I do it here?”
“No better place,” he replied. “This room is one of the only sp
ots in Corrchnámhach where magic is permitted.”
The power came easily here and when I said “Sciath,” the medallion hit full in about two seconds. “Wow,” I said.
“Ya won’t be tired from it either. Not here,” Keeper said. He went to the chest nearby and opened it. He produced two silver chains with small silver pendants and gave one to me and one to Erin. The pendants were in the shapes of lions.
“These will bring ye back here to this very spot from anywhere in creation. They’re amulets, which means ye don’t have to use any will or word. Wear them whenever ye may be near danger. If ye need to escape, ye just break the pendant off the chain and ye’ll be brought back to the safety of Corrchnámhach.”
“They’re beautiful,” I said.
“So beautiful,” Erin said at the same time.
Keeper chuckled. “Ye’re a pair all right.”
We put the chains on. Mine felt so light I hardly noticed it was there. It was hard to believe it was anything other than a frail accessory.
Keeper nodded, satisfied. “Now I’ve a few more things ye’ll need to know and then I’ll get ye on yer way.”
He went back to the trunk and brought out a silver oval in a frame. The frame was intricately crafted and the silver at the center was polished so perfectly, it was like a mirror. Keeper held the mirror over the middle of the table and murmured a long phrase I didn’t understand. A ring of blue light flashed around the perimeter of the mirror. When he let go, the mirror remained suspended over the table.
I had to admire that. “Fantastic,” I said.
“‘Tis more than a parlor trick,” Keeper said. “There are dangers in what I’m about to show ye. The creatures we’re about to visit would love nothing more than to come through and consume us, body and soul. To do that, they need something physical to hold onto. Even a small thing. With the mirror floating in the air, they’ll have nothing to grasp. Be careful to keep yerselves apart from it. Any physical contact and ye could die. Or worse.”
I found myself taking a step back. And another. The Mama didn’t raise any morons.
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