First Dangle and Other Stories

by Kevin Hearne

  Coriander and Clíodhna exchanged stilted formal greetings and then the herald asked about the pixie.

  “I know what happened to her, yes,” the queen said. “But there is a price for such information.”

  “I will deliver a written message for you to any lesser being on any of the planes so long as it does not conflict in any way with my duties for Brighid; if it does, the priorities and wishes of the First among the Fae must supersede yours.”

  Clíodhna raised an eyebrow. “Good enough. It is a bargain. Know then that the pixie in question is dead. The bean sídhe wailed for her.”

  “When?”

  “Two weeks past.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Violently. But the precise manner of it was shrouded from our sight.”

  “Where?”

  Clíodhna shrugs. “Somewhere on the mortal plane. But there is nothing to find or investigate. She was finished off with iron. That is why we know so little.”

  Coriander’s shoulders drooped. “Very well. Good day.”

  I noticed that the Tuatha Dé Danann were pleased to see him defeated. They uncrossed their arms and their mouths upturned in smug smiles of victory. They might simply be happy about his unhappiness, or they might be behind it all. Any or all of them could bear a grudge against Brighid and Coriander, and I wouldn’t know without prying further than I should.

  We stepped back out of earshot and Coriander looked a bit desolate.

  “That was our only clue. And it’s led us to a literal dead end.”

  “Not necessarily, lad. We can still eliminate options. Was it someone on Brighid’s side who went after that pixie or someone against her who was covering their tracks?”

  “Not anyone on Brighid’s side. She would know.”

  “Right. So someone was covering their tracks.”

  “But we have no idea who that might be.”

  “Not yet. But it’s only been a wee while since we started. It could be those Goblin Lords ye mentioned and we haven’t even gone to see them yet. Give it a chance.”

  “I should go home to clean up and change.”

  “Go ahead. I’m going to chat up the goddess of wisdom and see if she has any advice.”

  “Good idea. I’ll return soon.”

  He floated away, head drooping and probably doing all he could not to scream his frustration. I walked toward the scent of roses.

 

  He’ll be back soon. I’m going to talk to this lady for a short while and then hopefully we can leave here and find a nice place to dangle.

  I nodded in respect to the goddess of wisdom. “Your pardon, Ecne. May I introduce myself?”

  She inclined her head the tiniest bit.

  “You may.”

  “I am Eoghan Ó Cinneadie, a Druid in service to Gaia.”

  “I have heard of you. You have recently convened a grove of six apprentices, is that correct?”

  “It is.”

  “I am glad to hear it. We need more Druids.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. Forgive me if this seems out of turn to ask, Ecne, but might you know how to create a hook binding?”

  She didn’t blink or look alarmed in any way, which is what I would expect if she were guilty. Instead she smiled at me and said, “Of course. I was hired to complete one just recently.”

  You could have basted my balls in butter and basil before I would have allowed you to point the finger at Ecne. I’d planned to ask her who else might know how to complete such bindings, but never thought she would readily admit to hiring herself out for such work. I could tell she wasn’t joking, but felt the need to clarify in case this was some other job she was talking about.

  “Was this hook binding near Granada, Spain, by any chance?”

  Her easy smile evaporated. “Yes. How did you know that?”

  “I saw the result. May I ask who hired you to do it?”

  She shrugged, unconcerned about the extraordinarily messy deaths of two people. “I do not know who requested the contract, but the job came to me through a middle man who arranges all sorts of unusual transactions. I have done similar work for him before. He thinks of himself as a spider in the center of a web of connections, so he operates under the name Texas Weaver.”

  “Seriously? What a load of—”

  “He also goes online twice a year and buys lube in fifty-five gallon drums,” she added.

  “What the—”

  “And he has an orb weaver tattoo in the middle of his chest with the improper number of eyes. Poor attention to detail there on the part of the artist.”

  I was not going to venture a guess as to how Ecne knew about the tattoo on his chest. “So I guess you have…visited him in person.”

  “I have. He was able to acquire some ancient texts I wish to peruse. In return, I performed a hook binding for a demon at that specific place in Granada and agreed to banish it afterward.”

  “And did you banish whatever it was?”

  “Yes.”

  That was a relief, at least. We didn’t have a creature that turned people inside out roaming the planet.

  “So this Texas Weaver gave no hint about why you needed to craft a hook binding at that place, or who the target was?”

  “No. That was not my concern.”

  “It may concern you to know that the people who were killed by that demon were Coriander’s lovers.”

  Ecne’s eyes flicked around the Court, searching for the Herald Extraordinary and not finding him. Her lips pressed together in regret.

  “Do you jest with me? I do not find it amusing.”

  “I am quite serious. Your work was a trap set for his paramours.”

  “That is very disappointing news. I would not willingly give him offense.”

  “He’s extremely upset. He asked me to help him track down who did it. It’s why I’m here.”

  Her eyes returned to me, guarded now. “Well done, then, Druid. But I was not targeting him or his lovers. I merely performed a binding in exchange for services rendered.”

  “There’s nothing you can tell me about the client?”

  A bare shake of the head. “No. You will have to extract that information from the Texas Weaver. That will not be easy. He is careful to protect his clients’ privacy.”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  The eyes softened and a faint hint of amusement played about Ecne’s lips. “Indeed. You may find him at The White Horse in Austin, Texas.”

  “The White Horse?”

  “Yes. Tragically, it contains no actual horses of any color. It is a specific variety of establishment that the mortals call a honky tonk bar. While inside, they consume alcohol and clomp around in boots and hats to live music that I find about as soothing as the howling of cats.”

  “A perfect description of all modern music, if I may say so. How will I know this Texas Weaver?”

  “You cannot miss him. He also has spider tattoos up the length of both arms, and he always has glamoured muscle standing nearby.”

  “Fae muscle, ye mean? What kind?”

  “The deadly kind, but stuffed into cowboy boots. It must be seen to be believed.”

  “How quickly can I get there from here?”

  “There’s an Old Way to the Texas State Cemetery, which is located a short distance from the site. I made it myself since I have frequent cause to go there. Because I have trespassed against the herald’s goodwill, I will lead you that far.”

  I noted with a mixture of amusement and dread that Ecne utterly failed to inform Coriander when he returned that she had created the hook binding that killed Maria and Javier Garces. She stressed instead that she was taking us to Austin to confront the Texas Weaver who could tell us, with sufficient persuasion, who had requested the hit.

  Coriander didn’t look quite so fabulous anymore. Or I suppose he’d opted for a different sort of fabulous. He had put on a poet’s shirt and some black leather pants, teased his hair, and applied s
everal layers of black makeup around the hollows of his eyes. His black boots had buckles and straps on the sides plus chunky heels, but he still didn’t quite touch the ground. He was goth or emo now—I wasn’t sure which, but I figured the distinction was something people could argue about on the Internet and it wouldn’t really matter except to people who were goth or emo and wanted to be seen as one but not the other. What mattered to me was that his soulful eyes invited you in to share his pain, and I thought it was a simply fantastic choice for mourning the loss of loved ones but might draw some double takes in an Austin honky tonk. But then again, the Peruvian sloth clinging to me back was probably going to get a few stares as well. We were going in anyway.

  I appreciated taking the Old Way so that Slomo’s digestion wouldn’t take a hit. Her belly grumbled as we moved.

  Hungry, love?

 

  We’ll see if we can get ye something ahead here.

  We were in a much later time zone when we got to Texas and the White Horse wouldn’t be open for a while. We had some time to kill so I let Slomo dangle from a tree in the cemetery—a nicely sprawling property of manicured grass and stone—and she discovered its leaves were quite delicious.

  Ecne left us there and casually mentioned to me that I could tell Coriander who made the hook binding as she walked back along the Old Way and disappeared.

  “What? You know who did it?” Coriander’s teeth clenched. “How long have you known?”

  “About twenty minutes. Since just before you returned looking like a tragic vampire. Listen, who did it and who ordered it are two different things, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Tell me who did it!”

  “Who ordered it, you mean? Because that’s who you want. You know very well that you can make a hook binding and leave and never know who’s going to trigger it.”

  Coriander closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He let it out slowly before continuing in calmer tones. “Of course I wish to know both. And I am aware of the difference. Now tell me who did it.”

  I hooked a thumb in the direction of the recently departed goddess. “It was Ecne.”

  The herald’s eyes popped. “Ecne!”

  “Yeah. Funny how she forgot to mention it, isn’t it? I can’t tell you whether her story is truth or not, but this business with the Weaver—she said he set it all up. He hired her for a binding and that’s it. She claims she did it in exchange for some ancient books and had no idea about the target.”

  Coriander’s fists clenched and his pale face turned blotchy and red and he shook with rage.

 

  Maybe.

  But he didn’t. He quivered quite a bit and took huge sucking breaths to calm down, but he eventually went still as one of the tombstones. When he spoke it was calm and measured.

  “You realize we could be walking into a trap.”

  “I do. And dying in a honky tonk is not the way I want to go. I’ll stick around to help ye find out who did this. But getting revenge, lad? That’s your business.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  I relaxed under Slomo’s branch while Coriander wandered aimlessly among the tombstones, looking like he was there to shoot a music video. The weather was all wrong for it, though, bright and sunny. He needed some proper thunderclouds. I toyed with the idea of pulling in a small cloud of water vapor to follow him around, but that would have been a frivolous use of power.

 

  What’s that, love?

 

  Good. I’m glad we are having a wee while to enjoy being here. It’s a fulfilling exercise, ye know.

 

  Being conscious of how good it is to be here right now. Too often we get so busy with our little problems we forget how wonderful it is to be alive. I’m not supposed to be here, really, in this time and place. I was supposed to die two thousand years ago. So as fecking hellish as this paved-over world can be sometimes, I am grateful to be here. There’s a werewolf in Arizona who loves me. Apprentices who trust me. Friends like you. And there’s plenty of good work to fill my days. All of this is good.

 

  No, he wouldn’t. Right now he’s thinking of how bad everything is. He’s in mourning. He’s lost people he loves and it’s a hole in his life he can’t think how to fill right now. He wants to fill that hole with vengeance, but that’s not really filling. It’s hollow.

 

  Sort of, yeah.

  Once the sun kissed the horizon with a blazing yellow smooch, we exited the cemetery and walked the couple of blocks down Comal St. to the White Horse. It was a flat-roofed building with a fenced-in patio area containing an orange taco truck with BOMB TACOS emblazoned on the side. I paused outside to draw some energy from the earth and fill the reservoirs in me brass knuckles. I used some of it right away to cast camouflage on Slomo so that she wouldn’t cause comment when we walked in. Lots of places have laws against animals in a drinking establishment, presumably because they weren’t going to buy a round.

  Our entrance caused heads to turn and the needle might have scratched right off the vinyl of an old album if they had such a system. But they had a digital jukebox that kept playing unperturbed since the band wasn’t playing yet, a man moaning about all the whiskey he drank because of his cheatin’ woman. I grinned because I knew we looked like alien creatures to this particular clientele. Coriander, in particular, didn’t fit in. I think maybe he was wearing the wrong sort of boots. At least I had jeans on.

  First thing we saw was a pool table just to the right of the door with a lamp dangling over it, yellow squares of light that gave way to stained glass renditions of fruit at the bottom. The impression was that they had grown out of the fertile soil of the table’s green felt. The two dudes playing looked up from their game and scowled, trying to place us in their paradigm and rapidly coming to the conclusion that we were outside of it.

  There were six tables clustered beyond the pool table with chairs, about half occupied at the moment, but they could easily be moved out whenever they needed more room for dancing. Past that was the stage set in the corner, its walls sheathed in red curtains and lights shining down on a drum kit and microphone stands, promising a good time later. I thought it would probably be a fun place to bring Greta and she could teach me how to two-step. Or if she didn’t know how, we’d learn together.

  Opposite that was an expansive bar with various beers and liquors advertised in neon. About half the stools there were occupied already because the Happy Hour was much longer than a single hour and it was cheap, according to a chalkboard with the specials listed.

  Gesturing to Coriander that he should follow me, I led the way to the bar because we had to look like we were there for fun or, if that wasn’t believable, hoping to get some directions since we were so obviously lost.

  I kept my eyes moving for threat assessment but no one looked particularly annoyed at us being there. They were mostly confused and maybe wondering if we were there to start some shite. Well, I didn’t want to start anything, particularly. But I was prepared to finish whatever did get started.

  Slomo asked.

  Country music.

 

  Not in Texas, love. I know it’s kind of loud, but hopefully we won’t have to stay here very long.

 

  He is. Sometimes unhealthy relationships make humans sad and they write songs about it. They write songs about healthy relationships too, I think. But they’re not as popular for some reason. Maybe because people empathize with unhealthy relationships more.

  The bartender had a sprinkling of stubble on his face and a sleeve tattoo. He noted my tattoo briefly an
d chucked his chin at me. “What can I get you?”

  I scanned the Happy Hour menu and asked for two shots of tequila, which Siodhachan had told me was powerful stuff. I’d never had tequila before, and I was willing to bet Coriander hadn’t either. I put down ten dollars on the bar because they were four dollars apiece and Greta explained to me that ye have to give servers more money than the price of the food in America because of capitalism.

  The shots got poured quickly into small glasses, served with a lime wedge on the rim, and strangely, very pointedly, with a salt shaker. That puzzled Coriander too.

  “I am familiar with the human fondness for shots of alcohol, but why did he provide us with salt and citrus?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What if there is a ritual associated with these items and we perform it improperly, thereby giving offense?”

  “Good point. We should ask.”

  I turned to a man to my right who was already staring at us with his mouth open, which meant I wouldn’t need to get his attention. He was wearing a simple black T-shirt and jeans with a giant silver buckle.

  “I’ve never done a tequila shot before. Is there some specific way I’m supposed to do it?”

  “Where you from, dude?” he asked, which didn’t answer my question. “England?”

  “Feck no. I’m from Ireland.”

  “What’s wrong with England?”

  “It’s not Ireland.”

  “Huh huh.” He found that amusing and gave me a half grin. “Texas ain’t Ireland either.”

  “I agree.”

  “So that means Texas and England are exactly the same?”