Hallow Point

  Schoolboy? For the luvva Shakespeare, I’m older’n most school subjects!

  Time to behave like it.

  I snaked a hand back, yanked my coat off the rack, and pasted an idiot grin across my puss.

  “I’ll walk you out,” I said.

  Maybe tomorrow it’d be time to behave like it.

  * * *

  When we stepped out into the hustle and bustle of the day—a sidewalk stream of brims dipping, coats and skirts dusting the grime off people’s heels, perfumed up the keister by coughing flivvers—we were linked. No, I mean literally. Her right elbow hooked in my left, my other hand on her wrist. All nice and chivalrous and not at all way too personal. Also, I’m really a goblin, and I got an ocean-front property on a bridge to sell you. In Elphame.

  You know, I don’t even remember taking her arm? I just discovered it, like it was part of the weather waiting for us out there. Cool’n breezy, no rain at the moment, but with sporadic downpours of hand-holding.

  She said something by way of goodbye, something I didn’t catch. I wasn’t much paying attention to the words, more interested in her voice, the look in her—

  Oh, goddamn it, Mick!

  I wasn’t paying attention. It took me until she was on her way, that deep verdant dress waving its own real nice farewell, to realize that my distraction came from more’n her feminine wiles, no matter how… uh, wily.

  My buddy the shadow was back, and tryin’ to play with my grey matter again.

  Coulda been anyone in the crowd, wandering by, loitering around, maybe a passenger in one of the passing tin cans. But I felt it, now, and the minute I did, it got worse. Way worse.

  Eyes on me, watching, studying. Eyes I sure as hell didn’t want on me. Or anywhere near me.

  More than any of the redcaps or sluagh I had stared down in the past, maybe even more than Herne last night, they made me wanna hole up. Hide.

  Made me feel like prey.

  Which is why I stayed right fucking put, mitt hovering near the holster under my coat, reading everyone who came near like the morning edition. I don’t appreciate being made to feel that way, savvy?

  Whoever it was, he/she/it wasn’t gonna muck about in my head again, either. I was set for that, this time. There ain’t a real strong border between willpower and magic, and I was doing my damnedest to scuff it out completely. Sure, I suppose they coulda just left and I’d have been none the wiser, but that was their only option if they wanted to hide from…

  The throng just parted, all casual, dance choreography by Moses, so I could see him across the intersection, standing on the far curb.

  He… didn’t much wanna hide from me.

  Didn’t much care about blending in at all, seemed like.

  Guy was straight outta news clippings from down south. Brown trousers, lighter brown coat over a shirt white enough to project movies on, and none of that mattered a plug nickel. No, it was the wide-brimmed hat and the ink-black cheaters hiding his eyes—somehow almost reflective in the sun, despite their darkness—that marked him out.

  Not sure why, as he wore no visible tin, but something said “lawman” to me. Sheriff’s deputy, somewhere in Texas, I’d guess.

  ’Cept, much as he looked like it, he wasn’t that at all, either. I couldn’ta told you why, but I swore I was looking at a façade, a hollow shell over… over God knew what. Like the clean-shaven chops, big friendly grin, and sunglasses were all part of some heavier mask.

  He stared at me. Don’t ask me how I could tell, but I knew. And everything I’d felt a minute ago came back at me with reinforcements. My stomach curled, fear and guilt mashing into a thick emotional stew.

  Not Unseelie. Not Herne. This was something… else. Something primal. Something didn’t think like we did, want like we did.

  Something predatory. I was a rat, starin’ down a cobra, and if I blinked…

  His smile stretched wide, teeth gleaming from across the street. He lifted a hand to his brim, in greeting, I guess, and turned away.

  Between one passing pedestrian and the next, he was gone. I didn’t bother racing after him. What’d be the point?

  I really wanted to slug someone, about then.

  This was bad, real bad. Whatever was happening in my city, Herne wasn’t even the worst of it. He’d said as much, but who’re you gonna believe, yeah?

  I’d made the right call, gettin’ out of it. Now I just hadda convince everyone else of that. I had my own problems, my own case—complete with much more pleasant distractions—and if I got hauled into whatever the fuck this was, I was gonna be way over my head, dealing with people I ain’t nearly big enough to handle. That, or else…

  Or else I’d fix things so I wasn’t over my head, and that’d be even worse. There are reasons—good, solid, important reasons—why I’m Mick Oberon now. Just Mick Oberon.

  I can’t afford to let myself remember the sortsa things I could do before I chose Mick, let alone actually do ’em. Always said I’d die before I let that happen, but… I still didn’t know what was at stake here. What the Sam Hill was this thing that had everyone so hot’n heavy to get their meathooks on it?

  Ah, nuts. I had my own business. Hadda put a temporary bow on the Caro hunt, let his people know I’d hit a wall, and I was happy to keep lookin’ but did they wanna keep payin’? Needed to jaw a bit with Pete, too, or maybe Detective Keenan, find if they had anything on Ramo—my client’s problem guys.

  And I hadda gussy myself up some before I saw Ramona again. It wouldn’t do to arrive at her place wearing everyday… Now wait, why not? What the hell made me think that?

  Well, whatever I was going to be doing, I wasn’t in any way hiding from my mysterious southern lawman. It is, on the square, absolute coincidence that everything that needed doing before wandering over to Ramona’s digs that night was stuff I could accomplish from inside the office or—uncomfortable as it was for me to use, thanks to the “fire ants in the ear canal” sensation it always left me with—the hallway payphone.

  What? No, it really was coincidence!

  Really.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Coincidence or not—close your head, I don’t wanna hear anymore about it—I’d wrapped all that up neat as it was gonna get right about the time the sun set. I hadn’t dug up anything on Ramona’s “gents” at the clubhouse, but that didn’t mean much. Lotta cut-rate thugs don’t got records, and even if they had ’em, no guarantee they were filed in this precinct. It’d take some extra hocus-pocus—don’t have the connections there I got with the police—but I’d check the courthouse tomorrow.

  As for tonight…

  I’d compromised, wardrobe-wise, settling for one of my “better end of normal” get-ups. (Fact that I only had one set of real formals, and I wasn’t sure when I’d last had it laundered, mighta played some part in that decision.) I gathered up the L&G, threw my coat around my shoulders, and—grousing—pulled my hat over my hair. I hate the damn thing; always chafes the tips of my ears. (Or just “ear,” when one of ’em’s still a little shorter than it’s supposed to be.) But I figure, out and about on the town at night, when it’s been chilly and wet, in a semi-respectable neighborhood like Ramona’s? I’d stand out without it, and I didn’t think standing out was all that wise.

  Gave some thought to toting along a shiv, too—by which I mean my full-sized, centuries-old rapier. This was in part a protection gig, after all. But, nah. Little unwieldy to schlep across town, especially with that whole “sticking out like a sore moose” thing I just mentioned. The wand’d be enough; always had been.

  Almost always. And if it wasn’t—if, say, that thing behind the hat and sunglasses decided to butt in—the rapier sure as hell wouldn’t be worth squat, either.

  Anyway, I didn’t want Ramona spooked anymore’n she was already.

  No real rain, just a slick, sopping kiss carried on the wind. Guess the drops’d all gotten too wiped out to travel on their own and had hitched a ride.

  Wasn’t too lat
e, so the streets weren’t exactly empty. I walked past, dodged around, and nodded my head to any number of people, all of whom did the same to me. Footsteps splattered small puddles that had sorta just oozed out of the damp as opposed to accumulating the way water’s supposed to. Lamps—head and street—painted the wet roads in yellows and the buildings in shadow. Lots of cats hunched, tryin’ to keep the chilly breeze from sneakin’ down their collars. I hunched away from the itchy buzz around me, doing my damnedest to ignore the power lines and phone lines, the flivvers; the radio waves seemed especially aggravating that evening.

  I usually didn’t have too much bother riding the L all over Chicago, but I was gonna struggle with it tonight. Sometimes I just come over extra-sensitive to all the hooey you guys’ve added to the world in the past decades. It happens. Those days I stay home, or I suck it up and deal.

  I wish I could tell you that my extra sensitivity was not due, in any part, to frustration that the buzz and crackle and sting kept me from thinking hard about who it was I was going to call on. Truth is, though, I’d already spent half the day ruminating on that, and thinking about her was a habit I was quickly startin’ to enjoy. So yeah, I wish I could tell you that—but I can’t.

  Funny thing, though? Flittery and fluttery as I was feelin’, it didn’t feel near as overwhelming as it had when she was actually sittin’ across from me. Not like I wasn’t eager as a puppy to see her, but it wasn’t so all-encompassing. Hell, maybe the distraction of the world around me was even worse’n I thought.

  I was still working on the “dealing with it” part when I crossed under the elevated tracks, wincing away from the electricity always flowing through ’em, and saw it.

  Almost invisible in the shadow of the trestle, black blending with black—and not just physically, but spiritually. I heard a couple of rough snorts, the scrape of hooves on asphalt, and really hoped it was only horses rather’n something worse.

  I could just make out the shapes, if I squinted right. Friggin’ full-on four-horse carriage, pretty as you please. ’Cept it wasn’t that pretty. The wood of the wheels looked rotten, spokes reinforced by layers of thick twine, and the silver trim on the handle around the windows was tarnished but good.

  Polished or not, though, damn thing had about as much business here in Pilsen as I woulda had in…

  Well, inside the creepy contraption, where I’d already decided I wasn’t going. I turned my path some and kept walking.

  Quick snap-sizzle of a matchstick and a small circle of red lit up the front of the coach. I couldn’t get a good slant on the driver, up on his perch. Just an eyeful of long, really slender limbs in glad rags that looked better suited to a mortician than a chauffeur. But then, he wasn’t the one who’d just lit up.

  He wasn’t the one I was supposed to see.

  Lemme tell you, it don’t matter how often you deal with ’em, fucking redcaps do not ever get any cuter.

  Short, hunched, gnarled, and this bastard was even broader of shoulder’n most, meaning he was built like two stumps in a cheap suit. Skin was old leather, eyes were beady little coals, mouth was a jagged, craggy, canyon big enough to chomp a Great Dane in half. You figure I’m exaggerating, you ain’t ever seen a redcap yawn.

  Oh, and his hat, of course. A thick, wet, red, still beading up at the brim’s edges and leaving a faint ring on the gink’s melon anytime it shifted. The stains were enough for me to see clearly even in the match’s tiny flare.

  Fresh. Real fresh.

  Which meant almost certainly human, not Otherworld. My fists and jaw went into a clenching contest.

  I kept right on walking.

  “You gonna make us get ugly over this, Oberon?” Those hideous chompers scraped across each other with every syllable. I might as well have been booshwashin’ with a grain mill.

  “Too late for that, ain’t it?” I asked.

  “You’re a riot. Hop in.”

  “One: No. Two: You guys ain’t exactly blending in with the locals in that thing. Three: No.”

  The redcap stepped away from the coach, enough that the nearest street light brightened him up a hair. Wasn’t much of an improvement. It did gimme a pretty clear slant on the jumbo-sized meat cleaver hanging at his waist, and the brass Otherworld Tommy dangling loosely from his left mitt.

  It had a bayonet on it, too. Nice touch.

  “Don’t be stupid about this,” he growled.

  “Uh, if you think the stupid choice here is not getting into an Unfit carriage, we’re working under a real different set of definitions.”

  They hate being called that. The Chicago Unseelie, I mean. Even under the coat, I saw his shoulders tense, heard a creek as the driver—whatever he was—set himself to drop down and come help his pal. Even the horses, if they were horses, got agitated, their stomping and snorting taking on a more deliberate, hungrier air.

  Well, fine.

  Wouldn’t be the easiest match in the world, but I could take ’em.

  Probably.

  If I kept on my toes. Hadda be careful of bystanders, though. Still early enough that there were a decent number of ’em, and while not a mug had turned our way—we were hidden by some enchantment on the coach, I’m sure—that wouldn’t do anyone a whole lotta good where stray lead’s concerned.

  Or stray magic.

  I was just about to go for my piece, when the redcap straightened—much as his kind can, leastaways—and took a deep breath. Trying to simmer down? Patience ain’t normally a redcap’s strong point. Actually, I got no idea if it’s a strong point, since I dunno if they ever even tried patience on for size. But even as he kept almost aiming the chopper at me, and his teeth ground hard enough to crush gravel, he spoke again.

  “This ain’t a setup, Oberon, and this ain’t the time to be muleheaded. It’s a sit-down, that’s all.”

  “Oh, is it? Just some friendly gum-bumping with the Unseelie?”

  “Yep.”

  Seriously, of all the friggin’ nights… “Sorry. I got another appointment.”

  “Not anymore you don’t.”

  Calm, Mick. Keep it calm.

  “And just who is it wants to talk with me so bad?” I demanded.

  “Herself.”

  Well, shit. I pretty much just deflated.

  “She’s here in person? In the mortal world?”

  The redcap’s grin woulda scared a crocodile into going vegetarian. “You wanna reconsider that invite?”

  “Wish you’d phoned ahead,” I told him. “I’d have worn my formal rags; this get-up ain’t hardly appropriate.”

  The attitude was nothing but face-saving, though, and as I hauled my keister up and into the creepy old vehicle, him and me both knew it.

  I’d figured on the redcap climbing up to perch next to the driver, leaving me on my lonesome in the cab, but no such luck. He scrabbled in after me, hauled the door shut—which sounded awfully similar to a guillotine—and plopped himself down on the bench facing me.

  Swell.

  Always exciting to travel with someone whose strongest emotion is frustrated anger that they ain’t allowed to slurp your guts down like pasta.

  I’d been in one of these contraptions before. Last one was a two-horse (or two-kelpie, or whatever) deal, with some half-assed effort to spruce the thing up all modern. Whitewalls on a carriage? Just as dippy looking as you’d expect.

  Not in here. Whatever else you could say about this thing—and I coulda said plenty—it didn’t give a hoot about the fashion of the day.

  Some of it was familiar, though. Same pungent scent of cleanser—they probably figured I’d rather take my chances challenging my escort’s Tommy than hang around if the place had its usual bouquet—and same super-supple leather seats. Soft and apparently freshly upholstered.

  I could tell because someone had missed an umbilical cord dangling down beside the bench, and it hadn’t fallen off on its own yet.

  Right about then, if someone had granted me one wish, I’d probably have wiped the
whole goddamn Unfit from the face of two worlds. Fucking bastards.

  Dunno if the gink saw my reaction and was rubbin’ it in, or if it was just coincidence, but the redcap laid his Chicago typewriter on the seat beside him—not quite pointing my way, but not quite not pointing my way—and started to pick his teeth with what looked to be a really small rib bone.

  I damn near hadda sit on my hands.

  Minute or two of scraping, then he said, “You keep looking at folks that way, Oberon, it’s maybe gonna get you hurt some day.”

  “It’s gonna get someone hurt,” I assured him.

  “Would you’ve mouthed off this bad if you’d made your appointment this morning? Don’t figure the coppers took it too good when you didn’t show.”

  He wanted me to react, to get nervous, ask how he knew that. So I didn’t.

  Took some willpower, though.

  We both shut our yaps at that point, just listening to the crack and crunch and thump of wooden wheels over what felt like every pothole, bump, and loose rock in Chicago. Not that I hadda hear any of it, since I felt every friggin’ one. Damn bench was hard enough, even through the… leather. If I bruised easy as you, I’d have looked like a shaved baboon from the back.

  I gotta confess, though, much as I’d rather not… Creepy and stomach-turning as the coach was, it was still nice, even calming, to be traveling across Chicago in something that wasn’t trying to set my brain on fire.

  Speaking of, the cabin was pretty well insulated but it wasn’t soundproof. I heard the coughing of engines and the squeal of tires as cans of every make and model passed us on the roadway. Screeching brakes, though? Honking horns? Angry shouts full of impolite and either back-breaking or biblically suspect suggestions? Yeah, zip. I mean, I caught one here’n there from a distance, but nothing in the immediate vicinity.

  Nothing to suggest a coach-and-four was trundling, pretty as you please, down a modern street.

  “Nice glamour,” I offered.

  “Yeah, you’re cute, too.”

  And that was the end of that conversation. I leaned back, crossed my arms, and realized that even neck-deep in whatever this mess was, I still thought mostly about Ramona when things got quiet.