Taking that kind of stand would take numbers, both in the water and on the docks. My hands started sweating and I absently rubbed gloved hands futilely on my pant legs and cleared my throat. It was time to take some risks.
“Do we know any water fae willing to fight?” I asked.
Kaye pinched the bridge of her nose as all eyes turned to her. She was our most likely link to any benevolent fae, but those were few and far between and tended to have magical abilities like making flowers grow more quickly—not really the most helpful skills in battle.
In my opinion, we needed strong soldiers who knew how to fight. Call me crazy, but I wanted someone or something with some serious power at my back. Unfortunately, most powerful fae don’t play well with others. In fact, most of them had crossed blades, or claws, with Kaye in the past. I had my doubts about whether the monsters Kaye used to hunt would be willing to help if she asked.
I also didn’t think she’d be willing to request a favor of the more powerful faerie. There were always risks when dealing with faeries. The older and more powerful the fae, the more dangerous they are…and the more adept at tricking you into a deadly bargain. Trading “just one dance” for a fae army at your back may sound like a good deal, until you discover that faeries enjoy tormenting humans by making them dance until they die. Being compelled to dance on bloody stumps was not something I wanted in my future, but someone needed to do something to save the city. If a deal needed to be made, I was ready.
“A few mermaids may fight alongside us, if it amuses them,” Kaye said. “But most water fae will not stand against the each uisge without the kelpie army. We must locate and recover the bridle.”
“Da kelpie king is being held ‘neath yonder pier,” Hob said. “Dis we know.”
Fishermen weren’t the only ones Hob had spied on tonight. Dockhands, shop workers, and taxi drivers all had strange stories to tell and the nexus of bizarre activity appeared to be the amusement park on the pier.
“Yes, my vision and the information Jenny Greenteeth gave us seems to confirm this,” I said.
“I reckon dis bridle be dere as well,” Hob said with a wink.
“Really?” I asked. “You think the each uisge would keep it close to where they’re holding Ceffyl Dŵr? Why? Does the bridle need to be near the kelpie king in order to control him?”
According to Kaye’s books, anyone who took possession of a kelpie’s bridle gained control over them. More than one folktale describes a human farmer who steals a kelpie’s bridle in an effort to force the creature to plow their fields. A kelpie, whose bridle has been stolen, can use their incredible strength and speed to prepare an entire field for planting in one day. Of course, according to the stories, if the enslaved kelpie ever managed to trick the farmer into giving back their bridle, they would meet out their revenge. I couldn’t remember any mention of the bridle needing to be within close proximity of the kelpie to control him or her, but it was possible I had missed something.
“No, lass, but it be a cruelty,” Hob said.
“Yes, mean,” Marvin said, nodding.
Oh, right. Dangling the item representing the kelpie king’s enslavement just out of reach would be especially cruel.
“Okay, let’s say the each uisge are playing with Ceffyl Dŵr like he’s a shiny new toy,” I said. “They have him under one of the piers near the amusement park, wrapped in iron chains. As an added torment, they’re probably keeping his bridle nearby, possibly within sight, but out of reach. Does that sound about right?”
“Aye, lass,” Hob said.
Marvin nodded, but looked away. Talking about this stuff couldn’t be easy on the kid. Heck, I was having a hard time picturing the kelpie king being tortured like that. Iron was anathema to the fae, causing extreme pain and damage to their bodies. The chains had probably completely burned through his skin by now. The memory of the each uisge from my vision, drooling over Ceffyl Dŵr as he suffered beneath the iron chains, struck me suddenly and my stomach churned. I swallowed hard and regretted eating that second egg roll. I couldn’t imagine what poor Marvin must be feeling.
“Kaye?” I asked.
“Yes, you may be right,” Kaye said. “The each uisge are known for their depravity and barbarism. They are true sadists. Not only do they achieve social status within their hierarchy for their actions, but they also derive pleasure from tormenting others. Cruelty, in all its forms, is something that the each uisge revel in and aspire to. It is in their nature.”
“So the bridle is probably there too,” I said. “Any idea how many guards they’ll have on Ceffyl Dŵr and the bridle?”
“Too many,” Kaye said with a sigh. “Even on land and armed with my most powerful offensive charms, you would likely only survive against two or three of the beasts. In the water, against even one each uisge, you would be dead in seconds.”
Gulp. That did not sound good.
“Judging from the amount of feeding activity, and the sightings that Hob reported, there are bound to be over a score of each uisge surrounding that pier and five or six times that many in the bay,” Kaye said, continuing.
I searched my memory for the obscure measurement. Right, score represented twenty units of something. More than twenty of the torture-happy killing machines around the pier and over one hundred swimming around the bay? I was going to be sick. I focused on the tops of my boots and breathed deeply, in through my nose and out through my mouth.
“Here, lass,” Hob said, pressing a hot porcelain cup into my hands.
“Tea?” I asked. Why was Hob handing me a cup of tea?
“Chamomile, girl,” Hob said, placing one knobby finger against the side of his nose. “Will help calm ye nerves.”
He said the last in a whisper for my ears only. With a conspiratorial wink, he scarpered off to fuss over Marvin’s muddy feet. I sipped the warm, fragrant liquid and tried to calm the organ dancing the mambo in my chest.
“Okay, we know where our enemy is located, where they’re keeping their hostage, and we have a theory for where the bridle is being kept,” I said. “Now we just need to find an army.”
I was oversimplifying, but if I let myself dwell on all of the obstacles to our survival, I’d become paralyzed with fright. Better to focus on the task at hand—retrieving the bridle. If we took the kelpie king’s abjuction out of play, then the local kelpies and their allies, the merfolk and selkies, would stand against the each uisge.
“Vampires?” Marvin asked, shyly.
Okay, not water fae, but it didn’t hurt to think outside the box.
“Why vamps?” I asked.
“They have a lot…at stake,” Marvin said, devolving into fits of laughter.
Marvin mimed fangs with his fingers and Hob pretended to stake him with the handle of his duster.
“He has a point,” Kaye said. This only set off more giggles and snorts from the troll and brownie. Kaye sighed, but continued on. “The vampires of this city have a vested interest in protecting their properties, and their food supply. They may come to our aid, if the right person asked.”
She looked at me pointedly (snicker) and I groaned. I really did not want to make another trip up Joysen Hill, especially not to call on one of the dusty old bloodsuckers. The undead were creepy. I’d much rather deal with fae monsters.
“Fine, I’ll add a visit to The Hill to my list,” I said.
“Just keep in mind that they will not be able to help with your extraction of the bridle, or rescue of the kelpie king,” Kaye said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Think, dear,” Kaye said. “What things in this world are the bane of all vampires?”
“Vamp kryptonite?” I asked. “Garlic, sunlight, holy symbols, stake through the heart…” I noted each deadly item with the fingers of my left hand. “Oh, right, running water!”
“Yes, the vampires may be willing to help in the final battle, but only on dry land,” Kaye said. “They will be unable to assist us at the bay, since the ocean wo
uld incapacitate them. Vampires cannot cross moving water.”
“We need de murúch,” Hob said.
“Murúch?” I said, rolling the Gaelic word around the back of my throat.
“You may know them as merrow,” Kaye said. “They are indeed powerful water fae, but they will not answer our call. The merrow are high bloods who scorn humans. They live in the deepest ocean waters, where they remain isolated from their cousins the merfolk.”
“So, are they like mermaids on steroids?” I asked.
“It is true that they are larger and more powerful, but there are similarities, though the merrow would be loath to admit any,” Kaye said. “Merrow and merfolk are physically alike in that they appear mostly human from the waste up and have the body of a fish from the waist down. In fact, the merrow have a similarity to selkies as well. The Roan, or selkie people, wear their seal skins around their waist when out of the water, but they must put on their skins in order to swim in the ocean. Merrow also have an item, a red scarf, which allows them to survive in the ocean. If a selkie’s skin or a merrow’s scarf is taken, then they must remain on land and are beholden to the one who possesses it. That is where the likeness ends though. All merrow believe selkies and merfolk are foolish creatures who waste their time playing silly games with humans.”
“Silly like when they drown humans, or silly when they sleep with them?” I asked.
“Both,” Kaye said. “Merrow avoid humans, blaming man for polluting their oceans, but they do not believe in senseless murder. The merrow are a serious people who, though skilled at killing, do not take lives senselessly. They kill for food and to protect their waters, not for sport. When they must take a life, they honor the dead and ask for forgiveness.”
“Wow, that definitely doesn’t sound like any merfolk I’ve ever heard of,” I said.
“No, they are quite different,” Kaye said. “Are you aware of the modern decline in fae birthrate?”
I used to have nightmares about changelings and had read some of Kaye’s books on how to prevent the exchange. Information about the interbreeding of fae and humans to avoid extinction had been a hot topic in those books. I nodded and Kaye continued.
“While merfolk maintain their numbers with the occasional dalliance with a human, the merrow have turned to other methods. Merrow men and women have been known to mate with dolphins, fish, and even giant squid. Interbreeding with creatures of the sea has made them all the more detached from human and fae society.”
“But I bet they’re fierce in battle,” I said.
“Yes, they are skilled hunters, especially in the water, and savage when cornered, but there is no reason for them to fight with us,” Kaye said.
“Perhaps there is,” I said.
*****
It took awhile to explain my idea, but Kaye finally admitted that it might work. At this point, anything was worth a shot.
When Kaye was describing the similarities between merrow and selkies, I realized that they also had something in common with kelpies. Each clan of water fae had a weakness, an item that rendered them a slave to anyone able to steal it.
In most circumstances, this probably wasn’t a big problem. I’m sure that, like the kelpies, most humans and faeries were unlikely to try to steal something from a powerful merrow. But the each uisge had already demonstrated their ability to steal a kelpie king’s bridle. It wasn’t unrealistic to suspect that this pack of each uisge may try again, this time attempting to steal scarves from the merrow. Such a wild, honorable, and strong-willed people would not be able to bear being enslaved to the twisted, bloodthirsty each uisge.
It was my hope that the merrow would see this pack of each uisge as a threat. If I could get a message to the nearest tribe of merrow, there was a chance that they could be convinced we faced a common foe. In my opinion, it was our best opportunity for gaining the help of a powerful group of water fae.
“Do we know how to contact the merrow?” I asked.
Hob and Marvin shook their heads in the negative. Kaye harrumphed as she shuffled over to a stack of dusty books. She pulled one old tome from the stack and returned to settle it on her lap. After much squinting and wiping at old dirt and grime with one of her skirt layers, Kaye found what she was looking for.
She thumped the book down on the table in front of me and tapped the page with a smudged finger.
“Here,” Kaye said. “No sane person has tried to communicate with the merrow in years, but there is mention of a way—for anyone foolish enough to try.”
The leather cover was crumbling at the edges and the pages of the book were yellowed and filthy with old candle soot. It may be a reference guide, not a magical compendium, but I was careful not to touch any portion of it. I most definitely didn’t want to be thrust into a vision. Something with this much age and wear had to contain secrets best left unseen. In fact, the ink with which someone had made notations in the margin looked suspiciously like dried blood.
My mouth went dry and I reached for another sip of tea before turning to face the dreaded book. Kaye had pointed to a black and white lithograph depicting a creature hunched over, wearing a large, peculiar cloak. The figure was on a beach, the waves of the ocean in the background, staring intently at a large shell resting on the sand at its feet. Well, I guessed it had feet. The creature, listed beneath the diagram as a “shellycoat,” was not anything I recognized.
“What’s a shellycoat?” I asked, glancing up at Kaye.
“Shellycoats are an amphibious fae who live near the ocean,” Kaye said. “They can be found along nearly any stretch of sand collecting shells and other sea detritus, most of which they add to the heavy coat that they wear. Their name comes from these unusual coats and if you know what to listen for, you can usually hear the clinking of shells as they approach. To the average human they appear to be nothing more than a harmless beachcomber with a cart or bag filled with empty bottles.”
“It says here that a shellycoat is able to locate the blaosc,” I said. “Is that the seashell in the picture?”
“Yes, the merrow communicate by sending out special magic shells,” Kaye said. “Shellycoats are beach scavengers adept at finding any type of shell, even the merrow message shells.”
“Is it like a message in a bottle?” I asked.
I had a case last year helping a young woman with romantic intentions locate the original owner of a letter she’d found in a bottle washed up on the beach. Though not a romanticist myself, the case had a surprisingly happy ending and I found the notion of a message in a bottle charming. It would, of course, be impractical to our needs. The man who sent the bottle adrift had waited five years for someone to answer—we didn’t have five years, we’d be lucky to survive the next five days.
“More like a magic cell phone,” Kaye said. “Once you lift the correct blaosc or shell to your ear, the magic will connect you with the nearest merrow. You do not have to wait for the sea to carry your message, as with a letter in a bottle.”
I was liking this magic shell thing. Now I just needed to meet with a shellycoat who could find one for me.
“Are shellycoats nocturnal or diurnal?” I asked.
It was getting late, or early, depending on perspective. I was bone tired, but if shellycoats were nocturnal, I’d have to comb the beach for one tonight. This couldn’t wait another twenty-four hours.
“They venture out during the light of day,” Kaye said.
Thank Mab. I could sneak in a few hours of sleep before dawn, and my trip to the water’s edge.
Chapter 14
I wasn’t really a beach person. I know; it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I live in a harbor city, surrounded by the sights and smells of the ocean, with miles of white sand beaches to the north and gorgeous rocky cliffs to the south. I really should love the beach, but I don’t.
I was a native of Harborsmouth and, for me, the beach has always been a place where tourists fight for ridiculously expensive parking, then tromp miserably through sand t
hat burns the skin off the soles of their feet. Once they reach the water, they stake out their spot with an umbrella and other accoutrements they’ve had to carry from their car. Odds are good that this same umbrella will catch the wind and risk skewering at least one passerby during the course of the day. Jinx couldn’t go near the beach without being injured by one and I didn’t want to add death-by-umbrella to my list of reasons why this day sucked. Going to the beach was bad enough.
I hit the boardwalk early, and was already trudging through dry sand as the sun rose in the sky. I hoped to avoid the crowds of tourists that, even with the swim ban, would be swarming to the beach and its promise of cool ocean breezes by mid-morning. Once they shower and stuff themselves with a free continental breakfast, most families make a mad dash for “the perfect spot.” By noon there wouldn’t be one scrap of sandy ground left uncovered. Tourists would be crawling over one another like roaches on a dung heap.
I shuddered and pushed on, careful to keep an eye out for growing crowds or deadly flying missiles. Thankfully, I encountered neither.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, a figure I had mistaken for a large seaweed and mollusk shell covered rock emerged from the gloom. He or she, it was impossible to tell gender from this distance, was definitely a shellycoat.
Kaye had been correct. If I glanced at the creature from the corner of my eye, I saw an old beachcomber waving his metal detector over the damp ground while trundling a small pushcart filled with bottles. The empty glass bottles seemed to rattle together creating a bell-like tinkling as he walked, but I knew the true source of the sound was the cloak of shells that he wore.
Looking at the shellycoat directly, his (I was now going with he, since, ahem, that wasn’t a metal detector he was swinging around) glamour melted away to reveal a bipedal creature with large eyes, dark, slimy skin dotted with green and yellow spots, and elongated limbs. Kaye had remarked that a shellycoat looked a bit like a humanoid salamander wearing a bumpy turtle shell, and I had to agree.