by Alexis Hall
“The price is in the paying, not the sum.”
I patted down my pockets and found a tatty old ballpoint pen in my inside pocket. I hesitated for a moment because giving personal items to a faery is a really bad idea. Honestly, I’d probably stolen this from a hotel, and it didn’t look like I’d chewed or got blood on it. I slid it over.
The Merchant of Dreams picked it up and turned it curiously between their long fingers. “The stuff that dreams are made of.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“Nevertheless, it is the answer to your question.”
This was getting me nowhere. I looked at the skull. It was basically my last link to Corin and as close as I was going to get. If I was right, she’d stashed her soul in it before she went tomb raiding. On a hunch, I picked up and sniffed it.
The Merchant of Dreams arched a quizzical eyebrow.
I could definitely sense something. It wasn’t really a scent, more an impression, masked by a trace of sulphur. I’d been using my mother’s powers a lot recently. Except I got the sense she didn’t mind and that worried me. If I carried on like this, I’d be skinning tourists in Regent’s Park and waking up in strange places with blood on my lips. Still, a half-faery paranormal PI has to do what a half-faery paranormal PI has to do.
I reached out. The Deepwild was waiting for me. I focused on Corin and tried to imagine her standing where I was standing, the skull cupped in her pale, restless hands, looking up at the Merchant of Dreams with those save me eyes of hers.
And then I caught the scent, intense around the skull—sex and fear and Chanel No. 5.
I put it down and followed the trail.
I didn’t get very far.
It stopped in front of an old oak wardrobe at the back of the shop. I dragged open the door. A trace of Corin lingered on the old fur coats hanging inside.
Then nothing but the sharp, clean smell of snow.
Well, fuck.
I drew my senses back in and stomped over to the counter.
“Is there, by any chance, a gateway to another world in that wardrobe?”
The Merchant of Dreams grinned. Their teeth looked a little sharp.
“I’m going to take that as yes.” I sighed. “Okay, I’m going to run a scenario past you. This woman comes into your shop. She’s got an armload of magical tat to unload and urgent need for cash and a quick way out of town. There’s scary people following her, so it can’t be anything too ordinary or too obvious, but it just so happens that you’ve got your very own otherworld stashed at the back of the shop.”
“And what if she did?”
“Then I’d say we have a deal to make.”
“Music to my ears, dear.”
“Send me to where you sent her.”
“That won’t be easy. Not for someone like you.”
“Why, have they got a no smoking policy?”
“No, but my patron has a ‘No killing me and annexing my realm into the Deepwild’ policy.”
Guess I’d been right about the eyes. And it was sounding like Corin had got herself a first-class ticket through Faerie. “It was just that one time.”
“A Faerie realm here, a Faerie realm there, sooner or later, it all adds up to real money.”
“Look, can you do it or not?”
“Of course,” said the Merchant of Dreams, twiddling their fingers like a bad stage magician, “but nothing is free.”
“Yeah, I got that memo. What do you want?”
They thought for a moment, head cocked to one side. “This is a special service and requires a special payment.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
They ignored me. “I require a single feather.”
“But not just any feather, right?”
“A feather plucked from the wing of the mad queen of the vampires.”
“Oh, I must have left it in my other pants.”
“Not to worry, dear. Consider it a loan, one you will have thirty days to repay.”
“And if I can’t pay?”
The light left their eyes. “Then you go to debtor’s prison.”
Okay, so my choices were: let Corin escape (again) or cut a deal with a clearly dubious changeling pawnbroker, which would mean I’d have to either get up close and personal with the Morrígan or find myself trapped in some god-awful faery dungeon for all eternity. The smart thing to do was quit while I was ahead, but I wasn’t really ahead and I’ve never been a quitter. “Guess I’m in.”
“Then we have a deal.”
I felt something at the edges of my senses, like when you see lightning out of the corner of your eye. Ah, faery magic. Great. No backing out now then.
“Just one moment.” The Merchant of Dreams slipped out from behind the counter, flipped the Open sign to Closed, and locked the door. They opened the wardrobe, lifted out one of the coats, and put it on. It came down almost all the way to their ankles. “Step this way, dear.”
I followed. First came the ice water rush of walking between worlds, and then it got very, very cold and very, very dark. We were standing in a snowbound forest, thick with shadows. Through the distance, I could just make out the jagged spires of a white palace nestled between two hills.
“Where the fuck are we?”
“I don’t usually give freebies, but since you’ve paid for the tour, I’ll tell you. This is the realm of my patron, the King of Shadows, the Queen of Winter.”
I knew more about Faerie than most people, what with my mother and everything, but it’s not like I’d ever studied it. “Who are they then?”
“One and the same.”
Oh, right. That was another thing about faeries, they were basically whoever they wanted to be, even if that meant they were two people.
We trudged along in silence. My feet crunched on the snow. The sky was dead black, scarred with grey clouds. Here and there, lanterns hung from the trees, casting yellowish light and eerie shadows.
“Last time I was in a forest like this,” I said, “I wound up in a fight with a unicorn.”
The Merchant of Dreams nodded. “Ah yes, the Realm of the Pale Stag. We share a border.” As they spoke, the breath coiled silver from their lips and disappeared into the darkness.
That was it for my haunted forest anecdotes. “So you’re a changeling, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you worried you’ll lose yourself?”
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
I gave them a look. “Don’t quote Tolkien at me. I had enough of that with my ex.”
“Then, no, I do not worry. I have always found my way back.”
We walked on a while.
“You’re really into this stuff, aren’t you?” I asked.
They folded their arms across their body like they were suddenly feeling the cold. “I found Faerie kinder than the workhouse.”
“The workhouse? How old are you?”
“As old as my tongue, a little older than my teeth.”
“Is that a perk, then?”
“One of many, dear.” Their smile gleamed through the shadows. “I am the Merchant of Dreams. Everything is for sale and nothing is free and I always get my share.”
“Do you have, y’know, an actual name?”
“Yes.”
“And are you going to, say, tell it to me?”
They were silent. Guess that was a no, then.
Perhaps it was my imagination, but the forest seemed to be getting creepier. A low wind was moaning through the trees, and I kept thinking it was calling to me. Branches clutched at me like fingers of the drowned. Sometimes I’d glimpse faces in the knots in the wood. They didn’t look happy.
“Nice place you’ve got here.”
The Merchant of Dreams had their gaze on the dim horizon.
“Debtor’s prison,” they said flatly.
Right. Better see about getting that feather.
We walked on for I don’t know how long. I was glad to have a guide because there was no way I’d have been able to find my way around this place on my own. Haunted forests aren’t big on landmarks, and I’m not big on haunted forests. Under normal circumstances, I’d have worried that this was a gigantic setup, but if I knew anything about faery magic, the Merchant of Dreams couldn’t go back on a bargain.
“There.” They pointed.
I looked and saw nothing but more forest.
“Between those two trees.”
Between those trees was still more forest, but since this was Faerie, that meant absolutely nothing.
“What’s on the other side?” I asked.
“What you bargained for.”
I decided to chance it. “And what did Corin bargain for? Since I paid for the tour.”
They thought about it for a moment. “That seems fair. She traded the soul box for twenty thousand pounds, an unregistered Walther police pistol, and safe passage through my patron’s realm to a place where she would find someone who would protect her.”
“Thanks.”
“This was a trade, not a favour.”
There didn’t seem much I could say to that. I had a murderer to catch, and I wasn’t about to stand around in a haunted forest debating social conventions with a magic pawnbroker. I headed for the gap between the trees.
“Oh, and Kate?”
I stopped. “What?”
“Sheyne.”
“What?”
“My name.”
I was pretty sure that hadn’t been a trade. “Thanks.”
The Merchant of Dreams nodded and walked away into the darkness.
I pressed on through the trees until I felt cold wash over me. The good news was that I was probably out of Faerie. The bad news was I could be basically anywhere. I appeared to be in a very slightly different spooky haunted wood. Over the past six months, I’d dealt with a faery shit lord, demons from Hell, and bloodthirsty vampire armies, but the countryside really freaked me out. I’d never been a Girl Guide. I’ve never gone camping. I had a hard enough time finding my way around parks, let alone some strange forest fuck knows where. I pulled out my phone in the hope of finding myself on GPS, but there was no reception.
Well, shit.
If it came down to rainwater and berries, I was killing myself.
I suppose if things got really bad, I could call on my mother’s instincts but, knowing my luck, I’d probably go feral and spend the next six years living in a forest, stealing picnic baskets. Besides, the more you use that kind of thing, the easier it is to keep using it. It’s basically like drinking. By the time you should be stopping, you’ve forgotten it’s an option.
I tried to look on the bright side. Assuming I was still in England, then this place couldn’t be that big. It was probably only a few miles across, so if I just picked a direction and kept walking, I’d get to a road eventually. Of course, I wasn’t sure how that was supposed to get me to Corin, but mystical faery bargains have a way of working out.
I set off vaguely forwardish.
On the whole, things could have been worse. The real world was about a million times safer than Faerie, and I was pretty sure that I hadn’t randomly crossed the Atlantic, which meant I wasn’t about to get attacked by a bear or a pack of...
I heard wolves howling in the distance.
Okay, either I wasn’t in England at all, or this was werewolf territory. That wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Most werewolves are very reasonable people, as long as you don’t blunder onto their land without announcing yourself. Oh, wait. But, if I was lucky, I’d be at Safernoc, and I’d be able to tell them that their Alpha wouldn’t want me dead until she’d had a chance to bang me.
If this was woofle country, then I’d be better off heading towards the blood-curdling howls than away from them. For a start, if you run, they’ll just hunt you harder. Plus, werewolf land tends to have a lot of other greebly shit living on it.
I caught a flash of white through the trees.
Before I had time to worry about it, half a tonne of pissed off unicorn thundered out of the forest towards me.
I threw myself sideways onto the frost-cracked earth. The bastard just missed me, and I was on my feet before it could turn around. I’ve tangled with unicorns before and they’re nasty fuckers.
It swung itself round to face me and stared at me with its dead black eyes. There was something faintly familiar about its air of horsey malevolence, and it was looking at me like this was personal.
“Oh shit,” I said. “Not you again.”
It lowered its head and pawed the ground.
“Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
It snorted, steam rising from flaring nostrils.
“I’m a motherfucking faery princess. Show me some respect.”
To my surprise, it did. It was staring like it hated me, but it knelt passively on the ground and lowered its horn.
“This better not be a trick. I can still send you to the magic glue factory.”
I edged my way cautiously round to its side, and when it didn’t try to impale me, I swung my leg over its back. Werewolves plus a unicorn with a grudge meant that this was definitely Safernoc. Corin’s bargain for passage through Faerie to a place where she would meet somebody who would protect her was suddenly making a lot of sense. Fond as I was of Tara, she was exactly the kind of person that Corin could get her hooks into. Somebody aggressive, horny, and slightly controlling.
My unicorn rose grudgingly to its feet. “Okay,” I told it. “Take me to the big house.”
And off we went.
Safernoc Hall rose out of the darkness like something from a really cheesy horror movie, all black towers and flying buttresses. I ditched the unicorn in the car park, knowing full well it would fuck off the moment my back was turned, and headed for the entrance. I knocked and the door was answered by someone straight out of Downton Abbey.
“I need to see Tara.”
The butler stared down his nose at me, which took some doing because I was about three inches taller than him. “Miss Vane-Tempest is not receiving visitors.”
“My name’s Kate Kane. She’ll see me.”
“No, madam, she will not.”
“Look, it’s important.”
“It always is, madam.” And the fucker closed the door in my face.
Right. Plan B. I skirted round the side of the building, looking for something I could climb up or crack open. At the back, I squinted up and saw a light coming from an open window. It was four floors up, but there was a proper Romeo and Juliet balcony complete with climbing ivy, and it was as good as I was going to get. I swung myself up.
Here lies Kate Kane. Splatted on the flagstones while breaking into a Gothic mansion looking for a werewolf and a con artist. Beloved daughter. Sorely missed.
I was never an outdoorsy kid, but I’ve climbed into a few windows in my time, not always for professional reasons. It was tough going, but I didn’t let go, and I didn’t look down.
I scrambled over the edge of the balcony and pressed myself flat to the wall, so I wouldn’t be stupidly visible from inside. When I got my breath back, I peeked round the corner. Even though the window was open, the curtains were mostly drawn and waving around in the wind, which made it hard to see anything. I slipped in behind the curtain and took another look.
Well, I guess I’d found Tara.
And Corin.
They were kind of busy.
And I was standing upwind of a werewolf.
Tara’s head snapped round, her eyes a feral amber.
I waved. At this stage, I didn’t know what else to do.
Corin made a girly noise, slith
ered out from under Tara, and wrapped herself in the covers. Tara snarled, rose from the sheets like a really pissed off Venus, and stalked towards me. She was naked except for a gold leather corset-harness and the obvious attachment. It should have been too absurd to be intimidating, but this was Tara Vane-Tempest, model, It Girl, and Alpha werewolf, and she looked as if she was about to blow my house down.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“It’s kind of a long story, but I’m after her.” I pointed at Corin who was huddled up against the headboard looking terrified and innocent. She was probably working out the angles.
“And what made you look in my bedroom?” demanded Tara.
“Like I said, long story.”
I realised I was sort of screwed here. Okay, bad choice of words. Tara was exactly what Corin was always looking for. And I was guessing Corin was just Tara’s type, in a predator/prey kind of way, with those big doe eyes and that neck you could snap with one hand. There was no way I was going to be able to convince Tara that Corin was a low-down, lying, cheating, swindling, murdering femme fatale, at least not with her sitting right there looking all save me, save me. Right now there was a good chance Tara would just fling me off the balcony.
“Basically,” I said, a bit desperately, “there’s this vampire queen tearing the shit out of London. I thought Corin might have seen something important.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but Corin’s eyes went even wider.
Tara just looked even more pissed off. “I might have known you were tangled up in this, Kate Kane.” She leaned in, pressed her face against my neck and inhaled. The golden waves of her hair tumbled between us. She was kind of sweaty and very naked, all soft breasts and muscular thighs, and a generous dildo poking into my hip. I’d forgotten quite how little sense of personal space Tara had. “You smell of shadows and dreams. And dead things.”
I pulled back. “Look, clearly this was a mistake, you’ve got your...all this...going on. I’ll come back later.”
She grabbed both my wrists and yanked me into the room so hard I fell over. Then she slammed the windows shut, undid the harness and tossed it aside. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.” She shrugged into one of her trademark silk dressing gowns that concealed absolutely nothing. “The pack moves on the Morrígan in the morning. You will tell us everything you know.”