“Then what is he?” I said, once I’d regained control of my jaw. “And how do you know?” I’d tried to catch a scent off him, but his bodyguards stayed close, and I couldn’t get past their smells, the overpowering scent of werewolf that set my instincts on edge.
“I’ll tell you when we get out there.”
“So I just get in your car and let you drive me to God knows where?”
“Look, we all want the same thing here. We all know Smith isn’t curing anyone, not for real anyway, and he’s got some kind of funky voodoo—I saw what he did to you back there. We all want to expose him, and we all know that he’s dangerous. This way none of us has to go it alone and we all get to break the story together.”
“Are you sure you’re not just after some prime Kitty Norville footage for sweeps week?”
“I wouldn’t mind that—”
I turned away with a dismissive sigh.
“He’s telling the truth, Kitty. He knows,” Jeffrey said. Jeffrey, who claimed to see honesty radiating off a man.
I had a guy with second sight and a reporter from Uncharted World for backup. A girl could do worse, I supposed. I looked around to see if Cormac was lurking somewhere. Now there was backup, assuming he kept his guns pointed in someone else’s direction. But wouldn’t you know it, the one time I might want him around, he’d disappeared. He hadn’t been near the hearings since Duke fired him.
I said to Roger, “We find the caravan, we check it out. Then what?”
“Then, we see. Sound good?”
“No. If you know what he is then you should know what he’s doing, and what we should do about him.”
“I can’t do it alone,” Roger said. “Are you in?”
Jeffrey nodded. He seemed eager, even, as if this were just another enlightening experience.
I had to be out of my mind.
Chapter 8
Stockton’s smugness at knowing something I didn’t was stifling. I was glad Jeffrey had agreed to come along. He sat in the backseat, regarding both of us with an amused smile.
I had no idea what we were going to do when we got there. If anything I’d heard about the caravan was true, shutting it down would take the National Guard.
Maybe between Jeffrey’s intuition and Stockton’s camera, we could collect enough evidence to bring about some kind of criminal prosecution. It was a modest enough goal.
It was all I could hope for. We weren’t exactly the Ghostbusters.
Around sunset, we left tract housing and suburbs and entered countryside, driving along a two-lane state highway. The light was failing, streaking the sky shades of orange and lighting up the clouds. The land seemed dark, shadowy. The fields around us might have been fallow farmland, or rolling pastures. Fences bounded them by the roadside, but beyond that, trees surrounded them. Trees everywhere, rows of old growth oak or elm, windbreaks planted a hundred or two hundred years ago. The road curved from one valley into the next, making it impossible to see what lay ahead.
I was surprised, then, when we rounded a turn skirting yet another gently rolling hill, and Stockton put on the brakes. The seat belt caught me. He pulled onto the shoulder, to where we could look over the rail fence.
Ahead, occupying the back half of a wide swath of pasture, was what looked like the back lot of a down-on-its-luck traveling circus. Maybe two-dozen old-fashioned campers hitched to beat-up pickup trucks, a few RVs, Airstreams and Winnebagos, converted vans and buses, parked in a rough circle, like pioneer wagons. Another dozen cars were scattered among them. In the center, like the hub of a wheel, the top of a large canvas tent was visible. Around the perimeter, a few figures, indistinct forms in the twilight, walked around wire fencing that enclosed the settlement. Lights flooded the area inside: lights from the campers, the trucks, floodlights inside the tent. Even a hundred yards away I could hear the generators. The place was an event, a carnival without a town to go with it, a circle of light in an otherwise shadowed world.
A dirt road, little more than two tracks worn into the soil, led from the highway, through an open gate, to Smith’s caravan. A couple of other cars were parked near the gate, their motors still running.
Stockton rolled down his window and leaned out, aiming his camera at the encampment.
“How did you find out it was here?” I asked.
“One of the guys at Uncharted World’s been following it. Caught up with it in DeKalb, Illinois, a couple weeks ago and tracked it here.”
“Then why isn’t he out here filming?”
“Because two nights ago a car with no plates forced him off the road and into a dry creek bed. He’s in the hospital with four broken ribs and a smashed shoulder.”
“Shit.” I shook my head. “Do you see anything?” I said to the backseat. “I mean, you know. See anything?”
“At this distance, the floodlights muddy everything up,” Jeffrey said. Then he pointed to one of the other cars, that had just turned its headlights off and shut off its engine. “Although that guy’s a lycanthrope.”
A man—young by his gangly figure and the way he slouched—got out, closed the door softly, and started walking along the dirt track to the caravan site.
Quickly I undid the seat belt and scrambled out of the car.
“Kitty!” Jeffrey called after me, which I ignored.
I trotted after the guy and was about to call out to get him to stop, but he heard me, or smelled me, because he turned and backed away, shoulders tense, like a wolf with hackles.
“Who are you?” he said sharply.
“My name’s Kitty.” I stayed put, kept my gaze turned down, my shoulders relaxed. He could smell me; he knew what I was. “I’m just curious. Why are you here?”
He let his guard down the barest notch, shrugging. “I’ve heard there’s a guy here who can help.”
“Help what?” I said, like I was ignorant or something.
He glared, his eyes narrowing, suspicious. “Help this. Help me be normal again.”
“Ah. I’d heard the same thing.”
“Then you know why I’m here.”
“I’ve also heard that he’s a fraud. That his church is really a cult. That he brainwashes people so they’ll stay with him. Nobody knows what goes on in there.”
“Yeah, I’d heard that, too.” He hugged himself like he’d suddenly become cold.
“And you’re still willing to go there?”
“What choice do I have?”
“Is it really so bad? So bad that you’d give up your freedom, your identity? Assuming the rumors are true.”
“I haven’t been able to hold a job for more than two weeks since it happened. I keep losing my temper. I can’t—I’m not very good at controlling it.”
“I’m sorry. You don’t have a pack, do you?” He shook his head. He hadn’t had anyone teach him how to control it.
He looked over my shoulder suddenly. Jeffrey and Roger had come up behind me. The young man took a couple steps back, then turned and ran, through the gate and toward the caravan.
“Wait!” When he didn’t stop, I wasn’t surprised. “Damn.”
“That kid’s scared to death,” Jeffrey said.
“But not of me.”
“Yeah, a little. Also of his own shadow, I think. It’s funny to think of a werewolf being scared of anything.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. A lot of us spend most of our time being afraid.”
“Let’s go,” Stockton said, gesturing toward the trees at the edges of the field, around to the side of the caravan, closer to it but still in shadow. “Before his flunkies figure out we’re not here for the show.”
I tipped my face up, turning my nose to the air, half closing my eyes to keep out distractions. Then I shook my head. “Let’s go to the other side. It’s downwind.”
We walked along the road to a place where we were mostly out of sight of the main entrance to the caravan, then climbed over the fence. Quickly we made our way to the trees, following them along the edge of t
he pasture down a gentle slope, toward the caravan. As we approached, the floodlights grew brighter, and the area around the encampment grew darker. For all it appeared like a carnival lot, the place was quiet. No talking, no voices, no sounds of life, like pots and pans clanking together while dinner was being prepared. By all accounts, dozens of people were living there, but I couldn’t make out any obvious signs of life.
Except for the smell: I sensed a kind of ripe, college dorm-room smell, of too many people living in close proximity, and not enough housekeepers. I wrinkled my nose.
“There.” Stockton pointed to a gap in the trailers. Temporary wire fencing still enclosed the area, but here was a place where we might catch a glimpse of something interesting. A spot where a corner of the main tent was staked to the ground was visible.
When a pair of burly-looking men—Smith’s bodyguards from earlier today—walked past, we kept very still. They were patrolling, and they didn’t stop.
His back against a tree, Stockton settled down to wait, focusing his camera on the gap looking into the caravan. Jeffrey took the next tree over as his prop. I stayed by Stockton, watching what he watched.
The ground was damp, and I was getting damp sitting on it. The air was cold, getting colder. My breath fogged. Jeffrey hugged his jacket tighter around him. I wondered how long we could possibly sit here. Something had to happen soon. The pilgrims, including that young guy, had gathered at Smith’s gate. He wouldn’t leave them waiting.
I moved next to Jeffrey and whispered, “Can you contact vampires who have, you know, moved on?” I was thinking of Estelle. I was thinking she might be here and could tell us something.
“I never have. That is—none of them have ever tried to contact me. I hate to ask it, but do they even have souls?”
This came up on the show all the time, and my gut reaction said yes. How could someone like Alette not have a soul? But what was a soul, really? I didn’t know.
I didn’t answer, and he shook his head. “I’m not sensing anything like that. This whole space feels numb. Asleep, almost.”
Stockton sat forward suddenly and raised his camera. “Here he comes. There.”
Jeffrey and I crept over to join him. Squinting, I looked through the gap.
Smith walked past it. I only saw him for a second. But Stockton muttered, with some satisfaction, “Ha, I got you. If only I could get that on film, damn you.”
I hadn’t seen him do anything. He looked just like he had at the hearing, conservatively dressed, his manner calm. He moved across my field of vision, that was all.
Stockton was insane, suffering from some kind of delusion. And I’d fallen for it.
Before I had a chance to call him on it, he pulled something over his head: a locket on a chain that he’d kept hidden under his shirt.
Handing it to me, he said, “Put that on. The next time he walks by, tell me what you see.”
It seemed like a simple piece of jewelry, not particularly impressive. The metal wasn’t silver. Pewter, maybe. It felt heavy. The locket was a square, an inch or so on both sides, and cast with patterns of Celtic knotwork, worn with age.
I fingered the latch. “What is it?”
“Don’t open it,” he said. “It’s got a little bit of this and that in it. Four-leaf clover, a bit of rowan. Cold iron.”
Some kind of folk magic, then. Now, was it the kind of folk magic that worked, or the kind that was little more than a placebo against the nameless fears of the dark?
I put the chain over my head.
I had to give Stockton credit for being more patient than I was. He was used to waiting for his stories, and he was good at it. We had no guarantee that Smith would pass within our view again. But he did.
And he glowed. His skin wasn’t skin anymore. It looked almost white, shimmering like mother-of-pearl. At first I thought he’d gone bald as well, but his hair had turned pale, almost translucent. He looked completely different, but I knew it was him, because he wore the same clothes, and had that same meticulous bearing. For just a moment I saw his eyes, and they were far too large, and dark as night, dark enough to fall into and never climb out again.
I almost shrieked, but Stockton grabbed my arm and pinched me to keep me quiet. Then, Smith was out of sight again. My eyes remained frozen wide open.
“Holy shit, he’s an alien!” I hissed.
“Um, no.” Stockton donned a not very convincing Irish brogue. “In the Old Country they called them the Fair Folk, the Gentry, the Good People, the Hill Folk—”
“He’s a fairy?” I couldn’t decide which was more completely outrageous.
“Don’t say that word, he’ll hear you. Give that back.” He held his hand out for the pendant. Reluctantly, I returned it. “Nobody was ever able to get close enough to confirm any suspicions until he came to testify. I’m lucky I was in the right place at the right time to see him.”
I had to work to keep my voice a whisper. “You can’t be serious. That’s—it’s all stories, folklore—”
“Pot calling the kettle black, anyone?”
Just when I thought I’d heard everything, just when I thought the last mystery had been revealed and that I couldn’t be shocked anymore, something like this came along. I’d never be able to blow off another story as long as I lived. Flying monkeys? Oh, yeah, I could believe. Stockton was right. I should have known better.
Maybe I should chase a few more rainbows looking for pots of gold.
“How did you know?” I said to Stockton.
“I didn’t,” he said. “My grandmother gave me the locket. For protection, she said. And, well, I couldn’t say no to Grandma. She sets out milk for the brownies, even in the Boston suburbs. What can I say, I believed her. But I didn’t know Smith was one of them until he walked into the room this afternoon. I have to tell you, I didn’t expect the charm to work like that.”
Jeffrey said, “I didn’t know what I was looking at. I can’t see through the disguise, but I can see the disguise. Interesting.” He sounded far too academic about it.
Theoretically, having an answer to one question—what was he?—should have brought us closer to answering other questions. Like, what was he doing with his church? Why was he drawing vampires and lycanthropes to him, and what was he doing with them? Why would an old-style Celtic folklore elf do these things?
Activity within the camp increased. Smith was out of sight again, but people were gathering and filing into the tent. Based on what details I could make out from here, the people looked ordinary, commonplace. Like any fringe church community going to a service. People walked with their heads bowed, their hands clasped. I normally wouldn’t see this kind of patience, this kind of humility, from these groups of people.
They almost looked tired.
I expected the guards to circle back around any minute. They didn’t right away, because they remained at the other side of the caravan, by the entrance, helping to escort in the new recruits.
They might be clever enough to count the number of people come to join them, versus the number of cars parked on the road, and realize there were too many cars. We couldn’t stay here all night, twiddling our thumbs.
I wanted to break up the caravan. This was a cult and Smith was using people. He had some kind of ancient power, and he was dangerous.
“You know about this stuff,” I said to Stockton. “How do we break his power?”
He looked panicked for a moment. “I don’t know that much. I know what my grandmother told me. I know a few little charms, the four-leaf clover, the iron. Maybe if we threw iron filings at him.”
“Would your grandmother know what to do?” I said. “She knew the locket would work, right?”
“I don’t know that she ever thought I’d actually run into one of these guys.”
“Could you ask her?”
“Right now?”
“You have your phone with you, right?” Hell, I had my phone with me. I’d call her.
“Well yeah, but—”
“So call her.” And maybe after that I could talk to her and learn where her belief came from. Did she leave milk for the brownies because her family had always done so, or did she have a more immediate reason?
Stockton pulled one of those fancy little flip phones out of his front pants pocket. I was glad to see he’d had it turned off for our escapade.
The thing lit blue when he turned it on. He searched the menu, then pressed the dial button.
He sat there, listening to the ringing, while Jeffrey and I watched. It had been such a great idea, I’d thought. But she probably wasn’t even home. I was getting ready to suggest that we call it a night, leave, do some research, and have a couple of beers while we came up with a plan to confront him tomorrow.
Then Stockton said, “Yes? Hello? Gramma, it’s Roger . . . Yeah, I’m fine. Everything’s fine . . . What do you mean I only call you when something’s wrong? No, Gramma . . . Mom and Dad are fine, as far as I know . . . I don’t really remember the last time I talked to them . . .”
I was used to being the goddess of phone conversations. I wanted to grab the phone out of his hand and make his grandmother get to the point. Ask her the right questions. Then I imagined trying to explain to her who I was.
“I’m sorry, Gramma, I can’t really talk any louder . . . I said I can’t talk any louder . . . I’m sort of hiding . . . That’s what I wanted to talk to you about . . . You know those stories you’re always telling? About the Fair Folk . . . Yes, Gramma, I crossed myself—” He quickly did so, in good Catholic fashion. “Some friends and I seem to have come across one who’s doing some not very nice things . . . What kind is he? . . . I don’t know . . . Seelie or Unseelie? I don’t know that either . . . No, Gramma, I do pay attention when you tell stories . . .”
“Unseelie are the bad guys, right?” I whispered at him. “I bet he’s Unseelie.”
“Neither one is very good,” he said, away from the phone for a moment. “Yeah, Gramma? I’m pretty sure he’s Unseelie . . . That’s right, it’s pretty bad . . . What would you do? Pray?” He rolled his eyes. “What about getting rid of him? Will he just go away? No . . . okay . . . okay, just a minute.” He took out a mini notepad and pen, and started writing. A shopping list, it looked like. “Okay . . . Got it. Then what? Really? Is that all?”