In such close quarters, my beak and talons took no time to end the threat. I whipped back around, returning to my human body. “Are you all right? Were you injured?”
“I’m not the one who got treated like a range dummy.”
“Detective, are you shot?”
“No.”
My tension vanished. “Thank God. You shouldn’t have interfered. They could’ve hurt you.”
Foxner scrutinized me, her lips pressed together.
I followed her gaze to the men she’d shot. I bent over the closest, one of the few bodies still in a single piece. I turned him over, ripping off his stained, bloody wifebeater tank top.
“What are you doing, this is a crime scene.”
“I’m looking for...yes, that,” I pointed to a violet tattoo marking him a thrall of the Unseelie Court.
“What does it mean?” Foxner moved until the stood over us.
“It means he’s traded servitude for some boon from the Winter Court of Faery.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“It’s complicated.” I dusted myself off and turned to the Arch.
The interior walls of the apartment had been knocked down to make space for a huge Arch. Drywall, wood and plaster climbed bent rebar to form a jagged gateway filled with deepest two-dimensional black. Runes pulsed along the outer walls, inlaid on graffiti medallions along the painted barbed wire.
I drew up my amulet. “Anima, I’ve got a permanent Arch with a cloaking circle. Is anyone else available?”
“None of the others are available at this time,” Anima said.
“All right, when the putti come to do the other job send them up to the third floor. I need them to clean up the weapons and the Fae Kissed but leave the Arch.”
I crossed to the outer wall and raised my blade to slash through the cloaking circle. I held my strike at the last moment.
No, that’s foolish. I’ll let the putti handle this too.
“Shield Quayla, that is not in line with procedure.”
“If they remove the Arch, I might not be able to return.”
“Wait one,” Anima said.
“What’s going to happen to them?” Foxner asked.
“Bodies will be destroyed and all the damage repaired,” I said.
“I discharged my weapon, if you disappear the bodies, I won’t be able to explain the discharged rounds.”
“Don’t worry, the rounds will be remade. There will be no evidence you fired...thanks for your help, by the way. You shouldn’t have risked yourself, but thank you anyway.”
Foxner opened her mouth, but Anima spoke first. “Vitae requires me to tell you that you are not allowed to enter Faery under any circumstances, Shield Quayla.”
“Is he on his way?” I asked.
“He and the others are occupied, but instructs you to hold the Arch. You are to await orders and reinforcements.”
“Who’s Vitae?” Foxner asked.
I glowered at the silver feather. “Vitae is my equal. He is not the boss of me. Stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
I gave her a flat look.
“Shield Quayla, what is going on?” Anima asked.
“What do I do if something comes out of that?” Foxner asked.
“If it’s human, use your best judgement. Otherwise shoot it in the head,” I marched through the Arch into Faery.
13: Discoveries in Defeat
Caelum
Caelum jerked open his ammunition drawers to find them emptied. His eyes flashed up to the wall of weapons. With growing unease, he reached out toward the assault rifle closest to hand. A single touch dissolved the solid looking weapon into violet smoke.
Caelum cursed.
Firearms weren’t as hard to procure as specialty weapons like Quayla’s dagger hilts, but school shootings perpetrated by Fae Kissed mortals had made purchasing guns harder.
Pity Vitae won’t let me raid a drug den for replacements.
He turned back to the corner, eyes tracing the indentations in his carpet where the stone basin holding his essence had rested. One of the courts, Unseelie by the smell, had stolen his nest and his guns. He’d been ready to arm up and hunt them the fun way, but without an arsenal to give any action star a wet dream, he was reduced to what little he had on him.
Damn faeries have depleted my caches. Guess I could visit my safety deposit box.
He laughed.
Just imagine the reception I’d get entering Faery with storied battle fans—tantamount to walking around with Champion blades.
He raced to the elevator, pushing the gifts from his first mentor out of his thoughts. He’d used the weapons only once before deciding they were too precious—and too difficult to clean—for everyday combat.
Caelum opened his mouth the moment his motorcycle roared to life. “Ani? I—”
“Shield Caelum?” Anima asked.
If he told Vitae that his nest had been stolen, the stuck-up life phoenix would demand he move back into headquarters.
If I can get it back without him any the wiser, no harm no foul.
“Ani, I’m going to visi—”
I can just hear what Vitae will say if he learns I’m going into the Goblin Market, and I can’t explain why I need to question Oshyn’s brownies without telling him I lost my nest.
“Caelum?” Anima asked.
“I’m heading out to replace some of my seeds, so I’ll be out of touch a while.”
“Understood,” Anima said. “With all the incursions, I’d appreciate it if you checked in often between paintings.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call my feeble tagging a painting, but how can you appreciate anything if you have no emotions?”
Her response sounded short and clipped. “You are correct. An unfeeling AI is unable to feel emotions such as appreciation.”
“Anima? Is everything all right? You sound...hurt.”
“An AI cannot be hurt.”
Caelum drew out the word. “Right?”
“Do you require anything else, Shield Caelum?”
“No...no.”
Maybe I should email her a picture of flowers just in case.
He roared across town to the Russian market. Without a trunk, he was forced to limit how much he collected. The thrice and thrice again penalty from Quayla’s rampage would prevent the supply from going far, but he wouldn’t be in the Market long.
This trip is for info, not shopping.
The gruff billy goat fey eyed Caelum’s backtrail as he entered. Once they confirmed Quayla wasn’t with him, they demanded their inflated bribe of candy bars. He paid them off and moved to one side, unfolding his silk carpet.
Festival music he didn’t realize had stopped when he’d requested entry filled the Market. Streamers and chained sprites draped from every surface of the twilight-lit market. A little girl skipped by, forcing Caelum to do a doubletake. Dragonfly wings quivered in excitement. Blonde pigtails coiled around the base of her antennae then draped down along her cheeks to the top of a dress designed to look suitable for grade school—if Caelum ignored the shear material and her exposed breasts.
“Hey, what’s the party dress for?”
She stopped, scrunching up her nose. “DragonCon, duh!”
“Won’t being at war limit faerie activities? Are nymphs exempt?”
She rolled her eyes. “No and no, in fact, this DragonCon is supposed to be the most—”
The smallest billy goat spoke over her. “—relaxed DragonCon in history, what with the armistice requiring us to stay in our individual Courts for a private jubilee.”
“That’s not ri—”
The billy goat slapped a hand over the young nymph’s mouth and gave Caelum an unsteady grin. “Market’s closing soon, might want to see to your business.”
Caelum scrutinized the door guard. Something wasn’t adding up, but he doubted he could’ve pried it out of the old goat even at the height of his popularity.
He glanced up into the Market to catch two elves on the third tier sneering at one another. Seeing Seelie and Unseelie in each other’s faces wasn’t unusual, but seeing them stand so close without fighting was. Just beyond them a coyll opened up a trench coat, exposing a dozen kitten hung from loops sewn into the lining.
Caelum’s heart leapt. He whistled a quick burst, pushing his carpet to rocket straight up. The coyll caught sight of him. His furred muzzle curled in a snarl a moment before he snapped his coat shut and darted deeper into the Market.
Pursuing on a carpet limited Caelum’s options. He couldn’t keep up with the coyll’s ability to hop and dart on small silkways or stalls, through narrow paths or between close branches.
His pursuit brought Caelum to a small wooden building hidden in the low branches of the Market’s tree. A blue-skinned ogre painted with tribal markings glowered up at Caelum, the small tiger striped dragons on either side baring their teeth.
Shit. Thanks to Quayla, I have to let him go, but it’s a clue.
Caelum offered the ogre mage a respectful head nod before turning his carpet away. A series of whistles floated him downward toward Oshyn’s booth.
The half elf stammered at Caelum’s arrival. “S-shield Caelum, you d-didn’t need to come. We could’ve collected the rest of your fee.”
“I want to know why cleaning my apartment was so expensive,” Caelum shifted all of the milk and candy he had left onto Oshyn’s counter. “And I want to question the brownies that did the cleaning.”
Oshyn fidgeted. “Well, faerie blood is very difficult—”
“That was headquarters, Oshyn.”
“No,” a brownie squeaked. “Unseelie blood ma—”
Oshyn’s growl silenced the little hairy creature.
Caelum turned to the brownie. “I didn’t scent any Seelie taint, so unless you and the rest of the brownies cleaning my apartment jumped the Unseelie that took my nest, there wouldn’t have been any Unseelie blood.”
“Yes!” Oshyn thundered. “That’s why the extra charge. They valiantly tried to defend your nest, Shield Caelum, but there were more Seelie than they could handle.”
“Unseelie,” Caelum corrected.
“Yes, of course, I meant Unseelie. The blood, oh the blood, Shield Caelum. It flew everywhere as my brownies fought.”
“My nest still got stolen,” Caelum eyed the organized shelves full of brownies. “How is it you fought a pitch battle that spread so much Unseelie blood, lost the fight to protect my nest and yet none of you were slain?”
“They retreated,” Oshyn said. “Then returned to clean up the mess and honor our contract.”
Caelum’s expression hardened. He hadn’t been happy to let the coyll escape, and a growing certainty insisted that Oshyn was lying to him—which shouldn’t have been possible. “I want to know who took my nest, and I want to know now.”
Oshyn’s head fell forward. After a moment, he looked up at Caelum through long lashes. “Very well, Shield Caelum. We stole your nest.”
“What? Why?”
“We were ordered to do so,” Oshyn flicked a finger at Caelum. “Just as we were ordered to slay you.”
Little brown hands appeared, parting their hair. Each held a tiny, bronze straight razor in all four hands. They whirled off of the shelf, spinning across counters onto Caelum’s carpet and into him from all sides.
“Take care not to damage Shield Caelum’s security card.”
Caelum yanked his pistols and started firing.
Savage living blenders attacked him from all sides. Blood and essence flew in every direction. He tried to compress his essence and transmogrify, but the tide of sharp edges engulfed him.
Oshyn watched through his fingers, head shaking and a soft voice barely reaching Caelum’s ears. “Thank you for your business, Shield Caelum.”
Bradley
The slammed drawer echoed inside the wall, the corpseless space empty like Bradley’s memory. Whiskers snarled an echo of his irritation. He’d looked everywhere, but he couldn’t find his rattler.
Bradley lost things all the time. Fascinating things drew his attention away from less important concerns all the time. Wallet or car key, his lunch or pants couldn’t compete with the kinds of neat discoveries he’d made in recent days.
Nothing’s more important than that detector...well almost nothing.
The only thing more demanding of his attention was Whiskers, and only because of her claws. Bradley couldn’t lose the detector. He’d spent hours and huge chunks of paycheck to scrounge, experiment and develop the magic-o-meter. He’d just filled up the detection globes with gas.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
He’d run out of Whiskers food—or more accurately the mutated cat had gone through more than ever before. Bradley hoped it was just a hollow day like he sometimes got rather than the cat getting another growth spurt.
I can barely keep her caged now.
He opened and slammed yet another drawer containing nothing but a mid-forties man who should’ve said no to supersizing. Whiskers had been getting more and more irritable for hours. The plan had been simple. Take the cat’s carrier and the rattler out on the town, find the bad guys and let her eat her fill.
A low growl went past menacing into the feed-me-or-be-food range. The noise left Bradley no good choices.
This must be how Rick Moranis felt.
Bradley dug out the first portable prototype, eyeing the globes.
Whiskers hissed.
“I should’ve named you Audrey. Once I recharge this, we’ll find you some food, okay?”
The cat settled onto its scaled belly, licking sharp claws under glowing green eyes.
He retrieved the canisters from the rear most slab, grabbed his medical bag and set up a workspace on an empty gurney. Tools emerged from his bag that had nothing to do with actual medicine. A hand pump bridged the gas cannisters to a receptacle valve on his globes. Delicate work done, he donned an x-ray apron and lead-lined gloves.
Whiskers objected to the time it took, but Bradley charged the magic-o-meter and swapped out the cube of AA batteries duct-taped together. A quick wave Whisker’s direction confirmed the device ready. He took both out to his old car, sidelining through a Popeye’s to ease Whisker’s hunger on their way west in search of the bad guys.
Glowing lights out of a dark alley caught Bradley’s attention before the early model detector lit every bulb. He pulled the car to a stop at the mouth and gaped.
Holy shit, this is just like in Highlander.
A man in out of date clothes faced off two distinct groups with an elaborate sword in each hand. Ogres and goblins, elves and blueberry things Bradley didn’t recognize shoved each other out of the way or into the swordsman’s reach. All of them wore fantasy armor from simple on the ogre to highly ornate on the elves.
Bradley suppressed an urge to giggle. He wrenched around to look into the back seat. “This is our chance, Whiskers. It’s time to make a difference.”
Whiskers crouched, spines raised and a low growl bubbling out of her throat.
He raced around the car and jerked open his back door. A flash of light yanked his attention back to the alley.
An elf in blues and purples held a crackling globe of violet lightning between two hands. Bolts lanced out of the sphere. A golden garbed elf drove at the strange defender with twin curved short swords.
The heroic man who had to be the source of the golden magic reflected a lightning strike off his dark blade and into the golden elf. He sidestepped a thrust, slashing his other blade to stop a sudden blueberry rush.
Dark blood oozed out of the cut.
Bradley recognized it at once. “So that’s what those things look like whole.”
Whiskers threw herself at the cage.
“Oh, right.” He unlocked the cage, trying to open the door and get out of the way before Whiskers sprang to the rescue.
He wasn’t fast enough.
Whickers slammed into him, knocking him b
ack onto the sidewalk with a smack. Claws dug furrows in Bradley’s chest as Whiskers shot forward. Pain burned to supernova intensity in a moment, but he’d come prepared. He patted his pockets, digging out a tube of ointment prepared to neutralize the toxins on Whisker’s nails and deaden the pain.
Bradley wanted to watch, but he knew he had to focus on deactivating the poison. Even so, he chanced a quick glance.
Whiskers rode the hero’s back, snarling like a rabid tiger and clawing through the old trench coat.
“No!” Bradley shouted. “The others. Attack the others!”
The bad guys looked at him, the ogre licking his lips.
Bradley cursed and smeared ointment into still-searing cuts. He finished and managed his feet as the most incredible scenario he’d ever imagined got punked like a little girl.
The hero leapt into the air in the midst of what had to be faerie creatures. He flipped, throwing Whiskers into nearby brick. His entire body wavered an instant before exploding into an armored eagle with black-edged red feathers.
The eagle’s wings filled the alley. Gold and silver talons slashed at the faeries. Hero and faerie lit into each other with a savagery apparently born of mutual grudge.
The eagle’s body turned liquid around wounds, filling in and solidifying once more. Wings buffeted elves and talons tore into goblins. The eagle’s beak—no, not eagle, the phoenix’s beak drove into the ogre’s chest and jerked back trailing blood.
Whiskers ran up a brick wall, claws leaving divots in the side and sprang onto the phoenix’s back.
Bradley raced forward. He snatched up a trash can lid and swept it across the phoenix’s back to clear the cat.
The cat bounded over the blow, leaving it to hit the phoenix.
The giant bird of prey whirled midair, glowing green eyes boring into him. Somewhere deep in Bradley’s marrow, the eyes triggered a primeval prey response.
Bradley stumbled backward to the alley fear. “I-I-I, uh, h-hel-helping?”
The answering shriek froze Bradley in the certainty of being phoenix chow. A hot trickle ran down one leg.
Whiskers pounced on Bradley, tearing more holes in his clothes. Before he could raise hands in defense, the phoenix’s beak snatched the cat into the air, opening again to snap Whisker’s body from his head and swallow it down.
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