Diamond In The Rough (Moonlight Detective Agency Book 2)

by Isobella Crowley

  “Good, yes.” He turned off of 12th Avenue in search of somewhere to park. Of course, he had to drive a good quarter-mile deeper into the city before anything presented itself. There was a great deal of bustle in the area and cars hunched evilly in every nearby space.

  Finally, he brought the vehicle to a stop in a parallel space alongside a hardware store. No signs specifically indicated that parking was for customers only. “Riley, be a good girl and enchant my car so no one can steal it, or destroy it with a crowbar for fun, or place a parking ticket on the windshield. I have no idea how long we’ll be here and I’m down to my last three quarters.”

  “Okay,” she agreed cheerfully.

  He climbed out, shut and remote-locked the doors, and waited for the fairy to work her magic. She swooped around the Lincoln in a circle, gestured with her hand, and released bright silver-hued sparks to cascade all over its surface. It glowed subtly in the building’s shade.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Remy turned toward the piers and immediately settled into a fast walk along the noisy streets. His tiny companion flapped along behind him. He had no fear that normies would notice her. The overwhelming majority of them could only perceive the preternatural if they’d been “touched” by it in some way.

  Besides, this was New York. Half the locals would probably simply shrug, swear under their breath, and get on with their business.

  They jaywalked carefully across 12th Avenue, weaved between gridlocked, honking cars with glowering drivers, and found a place to cross the Hudson River Greenway. As the pier itself came into clear sight, he stopped and his jaw sagged.

  “Whaaaat the hell?” he drawled.

  “Oh, wow,” Riley commented.

  Luxury cruise ships were docked all along the pier. The surrounding area looked like a goddamn carnival. Nothing in sight gave off much of an industrial vibe. As a result, he immediately double-checked his list of notes from Surrly to make sure they had the right place.

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “This is it. Eighty-eight. Did our supposedly fastidious moneylender make a numerical error? Somehow, I don’t see cruise ships as likely candidates for an underground cartel’s illicit diamond-smuggling operation. Honestly, look at some of these ridiculous people.”

  He waved a hand to indicate the people, most of whom were dressed like tourists.

  Despite the moderately chilly and overcast weather, half or more wore sundresses or open-collared Hawaiian shirts, along with goofy hats and sunglasses or even glorified bathing suits. Heaps of luggage rested against inert legs or dangled from overtaxed arms. Some of them shivered visibly.

  Remy shook his head. He’d seen enough preternatural phenomena by now to wonder if, perhaps, they’d struck a snag in the space-time continuum and these people had been warped there from August when New York became a giant sauna.

  Riley raised her hand. “Maybe they’re going to the Bahamas.”

  “Well,” he retorted, “they’re not there yet. They ought to at least wait until they’ve boarded the ship and exited American territorial waters before publicly making fools of themselves. But, plunge onward we must. The dwarf’s musk is still lingering in the air, isn’t it?”

  The fairy zipped a few yards ahead to sniff and survey the pier. “Yes, he was here,” she assured him. “I can even see some of his footsteps, although it looks like he retraced his steps a few times in some of the same places, so that makes it hard to tell which of the tracks are older.”

  He nodded and strode into the melee.

  It was far too crowded for the two of them to hold any significant conversation. He didn’t want to attract undue attention by talking to someone no one else could see, not to mention that the general racket of shuffling cargo, footsteps, and burbling voices would have drowned out Riley’s attempts at speech.

  Instead, he caught the fairy’s eye and signaled different places with his gaze. She fluttered along the pier, counting footsteps and pointing in different directions. Usually, the place she indicated required him to push through a gigantic mass of humans.

  “Excuse me,” he muttered. “Pardon. Coming through. Terribly sorry. Excuse me…” Many of these people probably came from outside the city proper. They therefore expected an actual apology when someone shoved past them in a crowded area.

  Remy checked his notes. The departed dwarf was named Rimbledon, and his weight was estimated at barely shy of three hundred and fifty pounds. This became less and less mysterious as they followed his faintly glowing footsteps around the pier.

  “I do believe,” he mumbled when they emerged into a relatively open area, “that we’ve now visited every food stall around this pier. We were definitely at that hot dog stand twice.”

  Riley tapped a finger to her lips. “Do you think he was buying food for his friends?”

  “Possibly.” He shrugged. “Then again, I used to know this really neurotic girl with an eating disorder—an overeating disorder, that is—who used to go out of her way to go to different restaurants and snack stores in the neighborhood at different times to disguise her activities.”

  “Why?” the fairy asked.

  “Oh, never mind.”

  The waters were cold and gray when they departed the pier itself and moved along the waterfront. Remy was not terribly surprised to end up in front of a public restroom.

  “He went in there,” his companion said. “Wait—it has an Out of Order sign that looks like it was hanging there even before he arrived but he went in anyway. That doesn’t make sense.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and shuddered. “If we cannot find clues anywhere else, we’ll come back here and investigate. But let’s save that as a last resort, shall we?”

  From there, the trail led to a pub cleverly disguised as a refreshment stand and half-hidden near the base of the greenway’s embankment. He noted a few preternaturals among those crowded near the bar—another dwarf, a gnomish couple, a humanoid who looked a little like an alien gray, and a hairy lady who probably enjoyed the moonlight too much.

  “Hmm,” he observed. “We might be able to actually ask these people about our guy.” He retrieved the photo print of Rimbledon’s broad, puffy face and stepped toward the bar.

  Ahead of him, the gray struggled to order a margarita in a voice that sounded like someone mumbling through an old-fashioned walkie-talkie. Remy briefly made eye contact with the bartender—a human male with an impressive scar along his jawline—and considered simply barging in and demanding information.

  He could always pretend to be an undercover cop, after all, or simply name-drop Taylor.

  Before he could act on the impulse, Riley tugged at his ear and pointed. He looked quickly. Hanging just beside the bar was a huge poster with the words DO NOT SERVE printed at the top in bold black letters. Below them was a picture almost perfectly identical to the one in his hand.

  “Goddammit,” he snapped and turned away from the stand. “I guess that answers that question. Lead onward, fair companion.”

  She continued to illuminate Rimbledon’s tracks. They led through a small, half-hidden tunnel which took them under the greenway and back into the city, and they finally emerged near the edge of what seemed to be a bowling alley. Around back and beside the dumpster was an almost invisible, narrow staircase.

  “He went down there,” the fairy stated.

  “I’m not sure how he fit down there,” Remy quipped, “but okay.”

  At the bottom, a gruff-looking man with heavily tattooed forearms opened the door and asked them what the password was.

  He held up his business card. “The password is Taylor Steele. Have you heard of her? I’m her partner. We’re looking for this dwarf, Rimbledon, on behalf of Surrly the moneylender.”

  The guard blinked and fell back half a step. “Yeah, yeah. Come in. But don’t cause us any problems.”

  “Of course not.” He chuckled and held the print up. “Have you seen this guy?”

  The man squinted. “He was in
here maybe two days ago but only long enough to place a bet on one match before he hustled out. He said he had to meet with some guys. I thought maybe he only wanted to drop a load, though.”

  Remy nodded. “That is possible. May we step in?”

  The basement of the bowling alley hosted an obviously illegal sporting event, which he at first assumed to be dogfighting but turned out to be gremlin-fighting.

  A fat gnome jumped up and down next to the pit. “Rip his bloody colon out through his abdomen! Yesss! That’s my boy.” His plastic cup of piss-colored beer sloshed over his hand and spattered on the dirty floor.

  Other patrons also were going wild and uttered curses, encouragement, or wordless howls of bloodlust as a cacophony of shrieks and snarls rose from the circular depression in the center of the floor.

  Remy gestured toward the spectacle. “Do you care for some high-class entertainment, Riley?”

  She blushed. “I don’t really like gremlins.”

  He ignored her and strode up to the nearest spectator who didn’t seem hysterical—a skinny female elf with black tearstains tattooed beneath her eyes. A few feet beyond was the dirt-filled pit, where two knee-height creatures, scaly and ugly and green, snarled and tussled.

  The investigator tapped the elf on the arm. “Excuse me, ma’am. Have you seen this dwarf?”

  She turned toward him with a disdainful expression that was, somehow, all the snootier for how hard she tried to hide it. Her eyes disapproved of his suit and tie and generally clean-cut appearance before her gaze moved to the photo in his hand.

  “Not if I can help it,” she said.

  Remy moved on but none of the other patrons were any more helpful. Riley illuminated a few more of Rimbledon’s footsteps, but they simply circled the pit and crossed to the bar and back a few times. Nothing surprising or any way out of the ordinary was revealed.

  “Well,” the fairy said when they stepped outside and ascended the narrow staircase, “it does seem like he kept walking after this—deeper into the city. That way.” She pointed.

  “Into Hell’s Kitchen,” he confirmed. “The place has mostly been gentrified all to fuckery these days, but some parts still possess that quaint, old-fashioned, demilitarized-zone type of charm.”

  She led them down sidewalks, along fences, and through alleys into parts of town that seemed to grow progressively more dilapidated. Crowds thinned and the bustle of the city became background noise rather than immediate reality.

  “Where the hell are we?” Remy wondered. “I’ve never been here and I don’t think I’ve even heard of this street.”

  Evidently, no one else had either, since there was not a single moving vehicle in sight. Most of the shops were boarded up and the housing projects looked like dormant military fortresses.

  Soon, Rimbledon’s tracks led to the abandoned road and into a dried-out sewer tunnel.

  Riley stopped abruptly and hovered in midair. “I don’t like the look of this place,” she admitted. “There are numerous strange smells in there. Next time, I expect you to take me to nicer places when we go on a date.”

  “That’s nice, dear,” he quipped. “I don’t seem to have a flashlight, though. Illuminate the place, would you?”

  With a dramatic sigh, she produced an expanding beam of silver light from her fingertip that spread throughout the rusty, circular space. Remy stepped in.

  He didn’t like the looks of the place, either. Still, at least it wasn’t an out-of-order waterfront bathroom.

  “I suppose,” he commented in a low voice, “that this would be the place to smuggle diamonds. They could easily stash them overnight or something while the couriers scatter. I don’t think even the junkies have found this place. Did we wander into New Jersey while I wasn’t paying attention?”

  “Hmm,” the fairy responded. “I don’t think so. It’s really dirty, though. I wouldn’t have worn this nice dress if I’d known we’d go someplace like this, even if it does show my features off while covering enough to be a tease like you said.”

  It occurred to Remy that he’d never banged a chick in a sewer tunnel before.

  “I must say,” he admitted with a small smirk, “your features looked rather…nice…when magnified so I could have a good look at them. At your normal size, it’s harder to appreciate the jiggle physics of—”

  He stopped and both of them froze when a sudden bend in the tunnel revealed its contents before them, horribly sprawled in total silence.

  The dwarven escort crew was there, but they would not be going anywhere else ever again. A ventilation fan in the tunnel ceiling above had funneled the stench upward and now, repeating patterns of light and dark moved over the remains in time with the spinning blades.

  “Oh no.” Riley gasped.

  With mounting horror, Remy realized he might not even be able to count the bodies. The pieces had been scattered too much. It was difficult to tell which limb and which lump or shred of flesh had belonged to which dwarf.

  He swallowed, adjusted his tie, and wiped his hands on the back of his pants before he withdrew his phone from his pocket. “Riley, we need light on…that. All of it.”

  She squirmed with discomfort but did as he asked, and the carnage grew horribly clear under the bright silver radiance. He woke his phone up, tapped the camera button, and snapped a picture.

  As the click faded, he recognized the familiar face of Rimbledon amidst the massacre. The dwarf stared blankly at the ceiling and dark crimson ribbons and part of a spinal column trailed below the beard. The rest of his body was nowhere nearby.

  Remy focused despite his revulsion and noticed a large number of guns. Some had fallen, while others were still held in the frozen grasp of dead, nerveless fingers. He saw a few bullet holes in the surrounding masonry. “What the hell could have done this? It looks like the work of a rabid animal. Whatever it was, they tried to kill it but obviously failed.”

  Maybe, for all he knew, these dwarves were terrible shots but he somehow doubted that. They looked tough, and Surrly had said they were experienced. Whatever had slaughtered them was nothing even remotely ordinary.

  The fairy pointed at something on the other side of the scene. “Look.”

  He complied and his gaze identified a misshapen lump. Cringing in disgust, he stepped over and through the bloodied remains toward the object.

  It was a fist-sized sack and it was filled with strange, clear stones, almost like chunks of glass.

  Riley drifted over and peered into the bag. “Uncut diamonds,” she explained.

  Squinting, he asked her, “Are you sure? They don’t look like any diamonds I’ve seen. Then again, those were probably cut.”

  The fairy shrugged. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

  “Jesus,” he remarked. “In that case, this is the cargo they were transporting. Whatever attacked them didn’t even rob the poor bastards. It was simply murder for the sake of murder.”

  “That’s awful,” she exclaimed. While she was as sickened as he was, she seemed to have already recovered somewhat from the shock. “We should take those diamonds, though. Surrly will want them back, won’t he? And they’re a clue.”

  Remy nodded. “I agree.” He picked the bag up. It was heavy, despite its small size.

  “Oh,” the fairy added, “I also have a spell that can show what happened during his last moments—Rimbledon’s, I mean, since we have his trail already. Like a human movie.”

  He squirmed in place. “I’m not sure I want to see that…but it might be useful to know. We need some kind of a lead.” He took a deep breath. “Do it, then.”

  The fairy nodded, and her eyes glazed over as she waved her arms slowly up and down in alternating patterns, then clapped sharply.

  Remy fell back a step and jerked with tension when moving figures sketched in pale light appeared in the middle of the tunnel.

  Both he and the fairy watched in sick fascination as the phantasmal holograms reenacted the slaughter. At first, they saw
the troupe of dwarves marching through the tunnel. A humanoid form leapt on all fours like a great cat and collided into the dwarf on point to drive him out of sight. He screamed and the others yelled in response as they drew their weapons.

  Guns blazed as the group tried vainly to defend themselves. Rimbledon was knocked off his feet by the attacking blur and, for an awful few seconds, he watched as their assailant ripped one of his friends apart, limb from limb, using a strength beyond anything Remy had seen.

  “What the hell?” The investigator gasped.

  They saw the attacker clearly at that moment, but his appearance made no sense. His face was obscured as if by gold-colored fog and a strange marking, like a cattle brand, glowed with light of the same color on his chest.

  Rimbledon raised his weapon and fired but the faceless man vaulted upward and out of sight. More bodies tumbled in the shadows at the sides and screams echoed. The dwarf cursed and aimed into the darkness near the ceiling.

  Finally, the assailant dropped from high on the wall, somehow zig-zagged in midair, and struck with a powerful grasping blow that turned the whole scene red. Everything spun, and then, presumably as Rimbledon’s head came to rest on the ground, it grew still when the eyes glazed over and he stared at his own body.

  The vision disappeared and silence reigned in the tunnel.

  Riley was biting the side of her hand. “That was even worse than I thought it would be.” She moaned.

  Remy assented. “We should get the hell out of here and contact Taylor. I don’t think she realized what she has sent us up against.”

  The fairy enchanted the sack to lighten its weight, and he carried it over his shoulder through the tunnel. He tried not to startle at shadows or panic at every little noise, but it took a certain degree of effort.

  He didn’t know what they were up against, yet, either.

  Chapter Four

  Harrison, Westchester County, New York

  The Lincoln eased its way slowly up the winding drive that climbed the wooded hill to Taylor’s estate. The door to the massive garage opened automatically in time for the car to proceed without stopping into its usual space.