Hallow Point

  “God knows. There’s a good chance it’d be enough to win ’em Chicago in the Otherworld. If they decided to play with it here… Pete, you’d be surprised how many of your unsolved cases are down to them. When they visit the real world, especially the Unseelie, most of the time people die. And that’s in small numbers, without ancient magical hardware. If this goes down bad, it’ll make the city’s worst gang war look like a bridal shower.”

  “And you’re just gonna hand it over to them if you find it?” he demanded.

  “Whaddaya want me to do?”

  “How about, let’s see, just a quick thought off the top of my head, not handing it over?”

  “I swore an oath, Pete.”

  “I think your conscience can shoulder a fib or two!” He was so animated now, gesturing this way’n that, I think more of his coffee ended up on the rug or his bathrobe than in his belly.

  “Ain’t a matter of principle. It’s a matter of…” Shit, how could I even try to put a human wise to what a Fae’s word means? What kinda chance I took, what kinda fears I had, when I bonded myself to Eudeagh?

  Damn the Unseelie, anyway! No-win decisions, pickin’ the lesser evil, hurting some to save others… That’s why I abandoned the Court, locked so much of myself away, in the first fucking place! I promised myself long ago, after the last time, that I wouldn’t…

  Guess an oath to oneself doesn’t carry the same weight, huh? Fuck.

  “Okay, look,” I explained, about a year later. “One of us violates an oath—the right kinda oath, anyway—we lose all Fae protection for a year and a day, see? Legally, anyone can do anything to the foresworn, with no repercussions. Nobody can start any family vendettas over it, either; though it’s not like I have a family to avenge me.”

  “Okay, yeah, that don’t sound good, but…”

  “That’s just the legal bunk, Pete. The real kicker’s mystical. You seen what I can do to random chance? That’d turn against me, but swift. I’d have better luck if I broke a mirror’n used the pieces to skin a black cat under a ladder. And I’d be a damn beacon. Anything within miles’d feel it. Vulnerable aes sidhe here!”

  “What do you mean ‘anything’?”

  “There are things out there, see? Things that normally leave the rest of us Fae alone, things worse’n the Unseelie, worse’n you could even… They might not suss me out, probably wouldn’t, there ain’t many of ’em. But they could. I might be willing to die to keep the spear outta the wrong hands. But I’m not willing to risk my soul for it. Even at my best, I was never that brave.”

  Took him near on a full minute to absorb it all. He finally dropped into another chair, didn’t seem to notice he’d planted himself on top of a crumpled—and now gettin’ more crumpled—magazine. (Me, I decided to pretend the quick peep I got of a brown breast, as the pages folded up, meant it was a National Geographic.)

  “Loopholes?” he asked more quietly.

  “Nada. Dame I bargained with, she’s sharp. Wouldn’t let me get away with anything like that.”

  “You sure?” He smiled, a little. “Could ask a lawyer.”

  “Nuts to that! The Unseelie’s one thing, but let’s not push it!”

  We both chuckled, and we both knew full well that neither of us was really feeling all that chipper.

  Was another minute before he opened his trap again. “Don’t that mean it’s a good thing, though? That you can’t find it?”

  “I gotta get out from under, Pete. ’Sides, if I don’t, one of the others will, sooner or later. We’ll all still be behind the eight ball anyway.”

  I shook my head, kept on yapping, as much to myself as my buddy. “Gotta be veiled somehow. Something that potent, that much mojo? Me and the others, we’d feel that across town. Maybe across worlds. Nah, it’s hidden, contained. I’m gonna need actual clues.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  See? There’s a reason Pete’n me are buds when I usually got no time for mosta you.

  “Anything more you can sniff up about the museum, uh, not-robbery, that’d be swell. Hmm. And try to dig up everything you can on any unexplained or hinky deaths in the past few days.”

  Like I’d told him, with Unfit and outside Fae stalking Chicago, it was a fair bet there’d be at least a handful of… unfortunate bystanders. The Unseelie ain’t all full-on psychotic, but even the stable ones… Well, the fact that there wasn’t a newsworthy amount of blood in the streets already had me pretty well astonished. If I could learn some about the deaths that had happened, maybe I could at least keep a peeper on where everyone was’n what they were up to.

  “Can do.”

  “Thanks, Pete. Um… Maybe don’t go through Galway on this, yeah? Kinda doubt I’m in his graces after my no-show yesterday morning.”

  Few more minutes of polite jawing, a few more snorts of lukewarm cow juice, and I was off. Hadda let Pete catch some more winks before his shift; and me? I decided, since I still had a couple hours before sunrise, that there was time for me to have one more conversation.

  If I was right about who it was I was tryin’ to talk to. And if he’d take my call.

  * * *

  Assuming you want something bigger’n a beagle, there ain’t a lot of full-on predators in or around the Second City, unless you’re talking about the kind with two legs. Suppose I coulda snuck into the zoo, but what I had in mind might attract attention there that I didn’t need.

  Still got a few options, though, even if they’re as much scavenger now as hunter. This close to dawn, most of ’em had already slunk back to their dens, but once I got to the outskirts of town, it wasn’t too hard to find a handful of coyotes still out and about.

  I crouched in the dirt and weeds, and waited. I don’t smell human, not to them. Between that and a touch of long-distance mental coaxing, I got one to come near enough for some peeper-to-peeper communication.

  Pushing into an animal’s mind is weird. Different than a human’s or another Fae’s. It’s duck soup in some ways; they don’t got the same will, same innate resistance, as you schlubs. But they also don’t think like we understand it. They’re all emotion and instinct. It ain’t easy giving ’em instructions, making ’em understand what you’re encouraging ’em to do. Ain’t even a language barrier so much as a… concept barrier.

  End of the day, though, after a whole dance number of sniffs and yipping, I got through. Wasn’t as though I was asking it to do anything unnatural—just a smidge, uh, differently than normal.

  Drawing a whole lot of perked ears and confused stares from the rest of the pack, the coyote howled.

  Short. Long. Short, short. Long. Short, short, short. Long.

  Up to five shorts, then counting back down.

  Didn’t mean anything, really, but it was a blatantly artificial pattern. No coyote, no animal, was gonna call out like that of its own accord.

  Most Fae would probably notice but not much care. I could get a few of the local wilderness enthusiasts—a ghillie dhu or faun, or maybe even a huldra. Didn’t think it too probable, though, with everyone either tracking down the spear or lying low.

  I coulda gotten Herne, too, I suppose. He’d have noticed the odd call. But he’d also probably dismiss it as a ruse.

  No, the guy I was looking for, if I was right, would notice the call and wouldn’t care if it was a trap.

  Yep, he showed. And yep, he didn’t give one good goddamn if it was a trap.

  He appeared from a nearby copse of trees, sorta ghosting outta the dark beneath the canopy. Branches didn’t rustle when he passed, grass and leaves didn’t crunch where he stepped.

  Just about pitch black out here, and he still wore the sunglasses and the wide-brimmed hat. His teeth glinted in the darkness.

  And it was all I could do not to dust out of there, to run until my legs were worn to bloody stumps. Not because he was so frightening, though he was that, but because he knew. I could just sense it, feel it in the air around him. I didn’t even know what he knew, only that it
included every crime and every sin I’d ever indulged—and so much more, besides.

  “That’s a mighty peculiar telephone you got for yourself there, son.”

  Voice sounded regular enough, not counting the deep Texas twang, but something in it put me on edge. I swear, hidden beneath the words, I heard the echoes—the shadows—of growls and screams.

  “I didn’t have your number,” I said. He just smiled wider, so I went on. “Whadda I call you?”

  “Oh, let’s go with… Sealgaire.”

  Sealgaire. “Hunter.” Real cute.

  But it did more or less erase what few lingering doubts I still had about who he was. And yeah, now I was real glad I’d decided against bringing a blade with me tonight. He’d probably’ve found it funny. Or, just maybe, he’da taken offense.

  I don’t wanna think about what he’d do if he got offended.

  “Okay. Tell me something, Sealgaire. Who’s Master of the Wild Hunt these days, anyway?”

  That damn smile got wider still, and I tell you, it didn’t much look human anymore.

  “Don’t rightly matter, now, does it?”

  In a way, I supposed that was true. Whoever the Master was at any given time—Herne, Gudrun, Hereward the Wake, Arawn himself, or a dozen others—they shaped the Hunt: their targets, their methods, to an extent even their appearance, though where they rode also impacted that.

  Another glance at Sealgaire and I had a sudden image in my head: a few score like him, wielding spears and rifles and six-guns, pounding along endless roads atop massive, hideous horses, following behind a pack of demonic, slavering, fire-breathing bloodhounds. A sheriff’s posse from hell, damn near literally.

  I don’t shudder often, but… yeah. The Wild Hunt takes a lotta forms, but something about that one bugged me in ways I still can’t quite explain.

  What’s the Wild Hunt?

  Oh, just a ravening horde of Fae, unnatural beasts, and worse, who charge through the world taking lives and souls, sometimes one by one, sometimes in whole villages. We don’t know where they come from, what causes certain Fae to just abandon their lives to become goddamn hounds. Nature’s backlash against some of us abusing our magics? Deal with the devil, if you believe in the mug?

  No idea.

  All any of us really knows is that they are implacable, constant, and uncontrollable. They don’t take sides, and they don’t do “friends.” This right here, this mighta been the most neighborly talk anyone’s had with one of the hunters in decades, if not centuries.

  Where was—? Right. Master of the Hunt. Yeah, the Master shaped the Hunt some, but he was still swept right along with it. Still carried on a primal wave of instinct and bloodlust. He led, but he wasn’t in charge. In some ways, wasn’t really even himself for the duration of…

  A prize buzzer went off in my head so loud I’m stunned Sealgaire didn’t hear it.

  “That’s why Herne wants the spear! He thinks he can use it to keep control, keep himself, next time his turn comes around as Master of the Hunt!”

  Got no agreement or even a nod from the Hunt’s emissary, but that wolfish smile did slip, just a hair. The coyotes bowed forward, noses on the earth between their paws, and whined. A breeze kicked up, sending leaves scurrying around Sealgaire’s feet, bobbing like religious postulants.

  Actually, they were all blowin’ around him, from every direction, as if the wind was sucked his way directly. Didn’t much care for that. Still don’t.

  I needed to keep this moving along, I decided.

  “So you’re sure it’s really here? Not just chasing rumors and whispers?”

  “We don’t cotton much to rumor, Oberon.”

  My surprise that he knew my name coulda been measured at exactly zero.

  “But there’s been a right heap of ’em,” he added. “Goin’ on for a long time now, longer’n your average hogwash gossip.”

  Shit. I’d really let myself get too sucked into the Caro case, if they’d been makin’ the rounds for that long without me getting’ wise to ’em. Still, it explained why so many people—well, “people”—took ’em serious.

  “Could Herne actually do it?” I asked. “Use the spear to shape the Hunt to his desires, instead of vice-versa?”

  “I reckon ain’t nobody gonna be happy with the consequences if he gets hisself a chance to find out.”

  “And you’re here to stop that?”

  “I’m here to watch, son. See who, if anybody, gets holda Lugh’s pig-sticker. There’s a whole mess of folks we’d rather not come out on toppa that little contest.”

  That actually worried me worse’n if he’d said he was here to take a direct hand. I didn’t think I much wanted to ask, but…

  “And if one of them does?”

  Leaves spun faster, ’til they crackled like cooking grease. Branches creaked, turnin’ against the wind to reach his way, and the coyotes—though their whining never ceased—began to bristle and snarl between whimpers.

  No smile at all, now, and the growls beneath his words were louder. Like I was listening to something with a much deeper voice talking through him.

  “If we don’t like where the spear ends up, boy… then we’re coming to Chicago to fix it. Whatever it takes.”

  The pack screamed in unison, turned tail, and fled into the night.

  “That…”

  I was havin’ my own trouble with words, now. The Wild Hunt in Chicago? It’d be a fucking massacre, human and Fae both! Even the Unseelie—even the Unseelie with the Spear of Lugh—could maybe be fought. The Hunt? The Hunt was a force of nature, and I mean Elphame nature, not your silly nonsense. You don’t fight it, anymore’n you fight a twister. You just hope you can get out of its way.

  But I never yet heard of a place you could hide from ’em indefinitely.

  And at least all the Unseelie could do was torture and kill you. The Hunt wasn’t near that gentle.

  “That… won’t be necessary, Sealgaire.”

  Dancing leaves dropped, branches snapped back to their proper angles, wind faded to a gentle breeze.

  “Fantastic to hear. See that it ain’t.”

  “You do know I’m foreswearing myself if I just hand the dingus over to you, don’tcha?” I challenged.

  “Yep. Don’t worry, son. The Hunt won’t come after you for that.”

  “Swell. And how about everyone and everything else that’ll come slaverin’ for my friggin’ soul? You gonna protect me from them?”

  Just another predator’s smile, a tip of his hat and he was gone, striding off—whistling “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” believe it or not—’til he and his music both were lost in the early-dawn shadows.

  I coulda tried to stop him, put him wise to exactly who I was (reluctantly) working for, that expecting me to make sure the wrong guys didn’t take home the prize maybe wasn’t the best idea. Somehow, though, I didn’t figure that’d change his mind any—and that’s assuming he didn’t already know.

  Grumbling all kinda profanities in Old Gaelic, I started the trek through the wilderness, back to civilization and the L that’d eventually carry me home.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Not that home was my first stop, more’s the pity.

  Between the rain and the tussle, I didn’t exactly look my finest. Thought about going home first to slip into something a little less vagrant, but heck with it. The clubhouse was on… Well, all right, it wasn’t on my way at all. But I knew that after a night like this, once I’d reached my flop, I wasn’t gonna want to leave again.

  And if you’re thinkin’ “Ain’t he forgettin’ about someone?” the answer is, yeah. Turns out that no matter how taken you are with a dame, a face-to-face with the Wild Hunt’s gonna pretty well occupy your spare thoughts for a while.

  So, clubhouse first.

  The police station wasn’t just made of bricks, it basically was one. Just a big heap of hardness squatting on the corner. I’ve seen more graceful architecture from cultures still working out the kinks in this
brand-new invention called “the hammer.”

  Wasn’t too packed yet, not at this hour. Most of the owls had already called it a night, and the day folks wouldn’t start showing up to file their complaints in numbers for a while yet. I actually hadda open the door to walk in; usually it’s just held that way by an ongoing current of flesh and sweat and cheap rags.

  Know what, though? It was still loud enough inside to drown out a couple locomotives making whoopee. Whole place echoes like a big cave—which is what it is, come to think.

  I waved at the desk sarge as I pushed into the bullpen, flashed him a gleaming grin when he glared at me for not signing in. Gink knew me by sight, but he still wanted my John Hancock every time. Well, he was too busy right now to fuss—or at least to fuss anywhere near me—so I strolled right on in.

  Typewriters clacked; blowers rang; impatient, grumbling voices gave way to impatient, shouting voices. You know, cop sounds. I scooted around a couple desks, made my way toward the offices on the far side.

  See, after everything that’d gone down last night—and especially now I knew what could happen if the wrong cat wound up with Gáe Assail—I’d decided I was gonna have to choke down my pride and take whatever Galway wanted to scream at me for missing our sit-down. I needed in on the official case after all, needed every damn resource I could get. If I hadn’t already gummed up my one’n only shot.

  I was maybe three paces from the office doors when one of ’em swung open and I found myself mug-to-mug with a detective—just not the one I’d been looking for.

  “Morning, Detective Keenan.”

  “Oberon.”

  The homicide dick looked like the contents of a clogged drain. Stubble was even thicker’n normal, hair didn’t so much need a brush as a sedative, and his outfit—brown, everything always brown, as if it was a uniform—had more wrinkles than Baba Yaga’s backside.

  “I hope you’re just comin’ off an overnighter,” I told him. “Otherwise I think you need a hospital.”