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Ramzey and Alasdair stared like a pair of lions sizing the other up for the kill. Both of them leaned over the steel table, ignoring the butchered carcass that Ramzey was partway through dismembering. I couldn’t help but notice that Alasdair’s posture had caused his leather jacket to lift, granting him easy access to the machete he kept in a sheath across the small of his back.
I’d seen just how fast he could draw it when occasion required, but Ramzey looked pretty handy with that cleaver. I didn’t like my mentor’s chance of drawing his weapon before the Yard’s pre-eminent butcher turned him into offal.
Ramzey’s cold expression cracked, the corners of his mouth perking up into a smile as a bellicose laugh roared through the tent.
“Look at her face, man. You really had her going there.” The butcher set down his cleaver.
The heat rose in my cheeks as the two men laughed. Alasdair rounded the table and gripped Ramzey by the forearm, pulling him in for a massive embrace.
When they parted, Ramzey was still chuckling.
“Your money?” He chortled as he wiped his blood-covered hands on the rag that hung off his shoulder. He turned and used a sink set in the workstation behind him to wash his hands. “You know how it works by now. Part payment up front, the balance when I make the sale. I can’t go playing favorites now, can I?”
“Oh no, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” Alasdair replied with thinly veiled sarcasm. “What would all those crooks you deal with think of you?”
Ramzey held up his big, meaty hands. “I don’t care what side of the line they live on. If their merchandise is good, it’s good.”
The two of them seemed to be bantering about the terms of their arrangement, though I still wasn’t entirely sure what that was. I wouldn’t trust Ramzey as far as I could throw him.
“Discerning as always,” Alasdair replied. “At least you’re discreet.”
“I’m a man of many talents.” Ramzey’s grin turned a little smug. “Fortunately for you, I moved the troll’s head a week ago. Honestly, I expected you sooner. Busy times in the normal realm?”
“New rookie.” Alasdair nodded in my direction. “The Old One has me doing double shift trying to get her up to scratch before she gets herself killed.”
Ramzey looked at me, his gaze lingering over my frame. I’d lost a good five kilos since I started at the Camp, and was feeling a little more confident about myself. But the butcher was a little hard to read. I wasn’t sure whether he was going to leer at me, or bring up my age. If he did the latter, he better hope he reached his cleaver before I did. I’d had about enough of that.
I wasn’t often eyeballed by men, so I found myself blushing as he said, “Yes, I can really tell that you’re suffering for the cause.”
He winked before making his way to a safe set next to some cold storage chests. He fiddled with the lock before the door swung open on well-oiled hinges. Reaching into it, he pulled out a pile of neatly stacked notes and handed them to Alasdair.
Alasdair looked at the bundle of bills and cocked his head to the side. “I thought you said it would only be ten for the head?”
“Yep,” Ramzey replied. “That’s before I had a look inside. Tell me, where did you find a grizzled old ice troll like that? They are as rare as rocking horse poo outside of Caisleán Geimhreadh.”
Ice troll? My mind raced as I put two and two together. The day we met, Alasdair had lopped the head off a troll to save my life. It had been doing its best to turn me into a pancake. Alasdair had jammed the head into his backpack and told me he expected it would fetch a few dollars. This must have been where he brought it.
Ramzey was more than a butcher. Given where we were, he had to deal in all manner of black-market goods. Likely the sort harvested from magical creatures for arcane rituals. I’d read about them in the journal, but other than seeing the Leanansidhe’s ritual at work, I didn’t have a great deal of experience with them.
“Turns out, it worked for the Red Cap,” Alasdair replied. “Wandered into town looking for this one and paid the price. It had grown old and dumb, rather than old and wily. Our profit, I guess.”
Ramzey nodded. “I figured it wasn’t one of the King’s. The Red Cap never was one for training and discipline. More the murder and sport kind. Anyway, the tongue, eyes, and brain fetched more than I had anticipated, so consider it a bonus.”
Alasdair eyeballed the wad of bills, slowly moving his thumb down the stack until he cut the bills somewhere around the middle. Peeling half out of the rubber band, he handed it to me.
Ramzey’s jaw just about hit the floor.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“Your share,” he replied as he tucked his away. “Last time we talked about it, you seemed to think you had earned it.”
“Best take that before he changes his mind, dearie,” Ramzey replied. “I haven’t ever seen him split his side cash with a trainee. Normally hoards it all to himself.”
“Perks of being the boss,” Alasdair replied with a shrug. “She’s not your average trainee, though. She pitched in and as more than just bait.”
The compliment made me smile as I took the wad of bills and jammed them into the inside pocket of my jacket.
“You better believe it,” I replied. “That thing tried to mop the floor with me.”
Ramzey laughed and reached for his cleaver.
My curiosity grew as I cobbled together a more complete picture of how Alasdair survived on a Hunter’s salary.
“What are you working on?” I asked, nodding at the mess on the table before him.
“Nothing quite so exotic as an Ice Troll, I’m afraid,” Ramzey replied. “Manticore. About all it’s good for is feeding it to the hellhounds. But it’s worth a few bob a kilo as premium pet food, so it pays the bills while I’m busy waiting for more promising fare. Speaking of, did you bring me anything good?”
Hellhounds. They hadn’t been in the Otherworld Journal. Was he being serious? Or just messing with me? I’d heard of Cerberus; everyone had. Hades’ three-headed hellhound that guarded the gates of his domain. I’d just always figured that for a myth. If Ramzey wasn’t pulling my leg, it meant that somewhere out there, hellhounds actually existed.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Alasdair replied. He set the empty knapsack on the table and reached into it.
I took a step closer to him. With the way Alasdair had pulled the knapsack out of his motorbike’s saddlebags, I didn’t see how there could be anything at all inside it. It had practically been rolled up in a wad.
But Alasdair reached into the bag and started fishing around. I thought he might be toying with Ramzey until he pulled out something almost as long as my forearm. It was off white, almost like ivory and shaped like a fang. I shuddered.
I didn’t need to be told what it was. I still saw it most nights when I closed my eyes. I recognized it immediately as one of the massive fangs of an adult Dobhar-chú. The Leanansidhe had set three of the creatures on us when we had fled from the sunken wreck at Moreton Island. And, before we were through, I’d had one of the ten-inch-long fangs driven into my shoulder. I’d felt like it was going to punch right through me. It wasn’t the sort of experience you forget in a hurry.
Alasdair set the fang on the counter, then drew out another, and another. He kept pulling teeth out of the bag like some absurd magician’s trick until six of the fangs lay side-by-side on the table.
With each fang, Ramzey’s expression grew more amazed.
“Now where are on earth did you find three Dobhar-chú, and how did you live to talk about it?”
“Sea World,” Alasdair replied. “New attraction but they went rogue and ate a trainer. Had to put them down.”
I tried not to laugh, but Ramzey caught the smirk.
“You’re not fooling me, you old tool. You’re either the luckiest man alive and found them washed up on shore, or there’s a story that you’re holding out on me.”
“I am not giving away my secrets, Ramzey, no matter how much you pay me. We both know if I told you where I got my goods, you’d simply cut out the middleman and source them yourself. Less handling, more profit. Am I right?”
“Well, that depends,” Ramzey replied, picking up one of the fangs. “The Congress still want my head. I haven’t stepped foot in the mortal realm in over three years, and I don’t plan to test my luck now.”
“You live here?” I asked, a little surprised. Everything seemed sort of temporary in the Yard. No permanent structures, only portable shelters.
“Live,” Ramzey replied, “that’s the key word. When the sentinels have already passed judgment on your future, you are willing to make a few concessions. It might not be waterfront, but the Yard has plenty of its own attractions to keep one entertained. It’s not as bad as you might think.”
“You do you,” I replied. I couldn’t see how anyone could ever relax somewhere like this. The threat of violence or death felt ever-present.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Ramzey replied, glancing sideways at Alasdair.
“The three of them slipped into the mortal realm,” Alasdair said. “Not their normal hunting grounds, but they were doing their mistress’s bidding and needed some dental work. We obliged them. Five fangs with the venom glands intact.”
Alasdair poked the last of them. “That one is a little bit drained on account of my friend here trying to stop a charging bull with her shoulder.”
Ramzey stared at me. “You’re lucky it didn’t tear right through you. Those creatures don’t play around.”
“Oh, it did its level best,” I replied. Even now my shoulder was still tender. “But turns out they couldn’t take the same punishment and I bite harder.”
I’d gutted the creature with an ice harpoon, and while it had almost crushed me with its weight, I was still counting that as a win.
“So what do you say?” Alasdair asked. “Are you interested?”
Ramzey eyed the tusks as he slowly folded his arms over his chest.
“I can’t tell you when I last saw one of these intact and available for purchase. They are incredibly rare and extremely valuable. But there’s a reason for that. The Dobhar-chú are the preferred lapdog of the Leanansidhe, who has strong feelings on those who poach them. Few are willing to traffic in her preferred pet, and for good reason too. The fact that you show up with six of them mere days after all hell breaks loose in Winter is timing I find to be both convenient and suspicious.”
“Don’t beat around the bush, Ramzey,” Alasdair replied, stroking his beard. “Speak your mind, man. We don’t have all day.”
“We got word that something was going down between the Leanansidhe and the Winter King. For a being that seldom leaves Caisleán Geimhreadh, he appears to be personally pursuing her through the Otherworld, and he has a legion of Winter at his back. Now you’ve come to be in possession of an unfathomable amount of Dobhar-chú fangs, so either you’re moonlighting for the Winter King, or you’re exploiting her meteoric fall in order to make a dollar. The latter I can respect; the former is a conflict I am unwilling to risk sticking my head into.”
“You pedal black-market merchandise here in the Yard and you’re afraid of the Winter King?” I asked. I was curious as to how others perceived my father. My interaction with him had been rather limited and the journal wasn’t nearly detailed enough for my taste.
“Anyone in their right mind would be.” Ramzey leaned on the counter. “I can’t freely traverse the mortal realm, so there is no point agitating one of the few beings whose will is supreme in the Other. I would literally have nowhere to go. And while the Leanansidhe might be down on her luck today, she is a wily old soul. She’s lived longer than almost any other being in Faerie. I wouldn’t bet against her, and I don’t have a legion of Winter at my back, so I don’t know that I can take these off your hands and risk the fallout if she cheats her fate.”
“If you’re trying to haggle, you’re doing a miserable job of it.” He picked up the first fang and went to put it back in his satchel. “Name your price, or we’ll be on our way.”
“Fifteen thousand a piece,” Ramzey replied. “I couldn’t do a dollar more and as it is, the risk is barely worth the margin I might make on them.”
“Oh, pull the other leg, Ramzey. We both know you could turn them around tomorrow for twice that. Call it one-twenty and you have a deal.”
My eyes almost rolled out of my head at that figure.
I’d had no idea Alasdair had even taken the fangs, let alone what they were worth. When he’d offered to go back to the beach and cleanup, I’d figured he would just burn the bodies. Now I realized how he was able to make do with such an erratic income. He augmented his bounties by harvesting anything of value off the otherworldly creatures he brought down.
“One twenty?” Ramzey snatched up the fang that had been driven through my shoulder. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This one’s glands will be practically empty. The best I can hope for is turning it into a trophy for some Summer Court sycophant. One- oh-five is my limit and it’ll be half upfront and half when I can offload them.”
Alasdair raised an eyebrow. “You expect me to settle for half their retail value and take all the risk upfront? On an item as rare as these? My friend, either you have fallen on hard times or you think I’ve already started drinking for the day. One fifteen, and we’ll take seventy up front and the balance on sale.”
Ramzey eyed the fangs, his greed betraying him.
“If that doesn’t work for you, no worries,” Alasdair replied. “We’ll just slip down to Brunhildr. I’m sure she’d kill for these.”
“Kill you, more like it,” Ramzey countered. “Don’t mention that wench’s name in my presence.”
Ramzey went quiet as he considered his choices. After several long moments, he pounded the table with his fist hard enough to cause the fangs to rattle.
“Fine, fine. I’ll do it, but I don’t have that sort of cash on me. I can do twenty cash, fifty in gold if that will work for you?”
Alasdair stroked his beard and made a show of considering the offer.
It was all I could do to not accept the deal on his behalf. Seventy thousand was an outrageous amount of money. Sure, I’d just about bled to death on one of them but I’d feel a whole lot better about the entire affair with some of that cash in my bank account. Provided Alasdair was willing to share it as he had the troll. All of a sudden, my day was looking up.
“Okay,” Alasdair relented, “but only because I like you, Ramzey. It’s a deal.”
“Huh? Like me? You’ll bleed me dry, you tight Scottish bastard. You keep an eye on him, lass.” Ramzey threw a thumb over his shoulder at Alasdair as he made his way back to the safe. “Can peel an orange in his pocket, this one.”
The expression made me laugh. It was the same one my mother used when describing someone who was tight. Given how Alasdair had been about the troll’s bounty when I first raised sharing it, I had the suspicion that Ramzey might just be right.
Though what Alasdair did with all the money was beyond me. He rode a nice bike, sure, but his leather was old and worn, and had obviously seen better days. So what was he saving for?
Ramzey bent down and opened the safe. In short order, he produced two more stacks of ten-thousand dollars each. Alasdair handed one to me and took one for himself. By my count, I was now holding close to fifteen thousand dollars.
I had never carried so much cash in my life. I was also mindful of the fact we were roaming through the Yard, and the sort of people that clearly made their home here would not think twice about trying to part me from it.
Next, Ramzey produced a series of gold bricks and set them on the counter. Each of them was marked with some sort of Spanish insignia.
Alasdair leaned over them and whispered, “Nochd!”
I felt the wave of magic that rolled over the counter, but nothing happened.
Ramzey shrugged. “You think I didn’t try that myself? It’s as real as you or me.”
“Don’t trust; verify, Ramzey. That’s my motto. It helps us avoid unpleasantness.”
Ramzey ran his finger along the edge of the nearest bar. “It’s bonafide Spanish gold. Picked it up off an English fellow a few months back. Had more of it than I had ever seen. Pulled it out of a Samsonite briefcase like he’d been hoarding it for four hundred years. Caldwell something or other.”
“Caldwell?” Alasdair lifted his head. “Frank Caldwell?”
“That’s him. You know him?”
“Of him,” Alasdair corrected. “Everyone does. The Caldwells are one of the richest families in England. That gold probably has been sitting in a vault for four hundred years.”
“Who cares? It’s yours now.” Ramzey laughed. “He wanted me to track down ritual components for him. While I’m not at liberty to discuss the details, I can assure you, his gold is good. I’ve been selling it without issues for the last few months.”
“Intriguing.” Alasdair snatched up the small bricks one at a time before setting them in his bag. He then placed the cash Ramzey had given him in there as well. When he was done, he whispered something I couldn’t quite catch and swung the satchel over his back like it was nothing. There should have been more than a kilogram of gold in there, along with fifteen thousand in cash.
“As always, Ramzey, a pleasure doing business with you. I’ll pop back in a few weeks to pick up the rest.”
Ramzey nodded. “I know the deal.”
As we walked out of the tent, I turned to Alasdair. “What’s the deal with your bag? You throw it around like it weighs nothing at all.”
Alasdair gave me a wry smile. “That’s because it doesn’t.”
He lowered the bag off his shoulder and opened it. I could see right to the base; there was nothing at all in it.
“Only an idiot would walk around the Yard with that sort of money.” He laughed. “That’s how you get robbed.”
“Where did it go?” I asked, feeling around in the bag for a false bottom.
“That, my young Padawan, is a trick we shall have to teach you.”
“Is it a glamor? Surely not. I’d be able to feel it.”
“You’re right. You would. This is one better. It’s not even there.”
That really left me only one choice. “It’s enchanted.”
It was a statement rather than a question.
“Indeed it is,” he replied. “And it only opens for me. A two-way portal built into the base of the rucksack. When it opens, I can reach through it into my storage locker. There are all manner of things I might need close at hand. It’s how I adapt to unexpected situations. It’s also convenient for stashing valuables out of reach of others. So if you want to see your share of the gold, you best keep me alive till we get home.”
My jaw dropped, both at the notion of getting a share of the gold and the thought he expected me to keep him alive. He was my mentor. Pretty sure that was in his job description.
Alasdair laughed. “I’m kidding, relax. We’ll be fine as long as Brunhildr has forgiven me.”
That was the second time I’d heard her name, and I still had no idea who she was. Clearly, Ramzey hadn’t been a fan, but Alasdair’s face was hard to read.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“Just another merchant here. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”
I was a whole lot less confident, particularly given how much cash I was lugging about.
“Mind holding onto some of this money for me?” I asked. “Just until we get back home.”
I reached for my pocket, but Alasdair put his hand on mine to stop me.
“Hold onto it for the time being. Brunhildr’s store is unlike any other. I imagine there will be something there that will take your fancy.”
“What are you going to do with all that gold?” I asked. If Brunhildr’s store was as fascinating as he would have me believe, I wondered what he was intending to buy from her that he couldn’t get at home.
“I’ll convert it to cash when we get home,” Alasdair answered, popping his rucksack back on his shoulder. “I’ll give you your half when I’m done.”
“Why take payment in gold? Why not wait for cash?” I asked.
The whole economy of the Yard fascinated me. Why did a butcher have bars of Spanish gold? If the Caldwells were the richest people in England, didn’t they have cash?
I tried my best to match Alasdair’s stride. “Because Ramzey has been out of the mortal realm for too long, he has no idea just how much that gold has appreciated in value in the last few months. That fifty thousand is probably worth closer to seventy. Today’s lesson, Nora Byrne—always understand what something is worth. That’s how we win. The merchants always stick you with their terms. You need to be equally wary.”
“So you settled for seventy in gold and twenty in cash. It’s most of what you wanted going in, and if he makes good on the rest, you’re ahead. So you took advantage of him?”
Alasdair laughed. “No more than he tried to take advantage of me.”
“I don’t understand.” I wracked my brain, looking for how the butcher had taken advantage of us. Clearly, I’d missed something in the exchange.
“There was more than enough money in that safe to pay us. But by delaying payment for the rest, Ramzey gambled on both our futures. That’s how he makes his money. Those who are willing to deal with him are engaged in risky business like ours. Bounty hunters, smugglers, and thieves. None of which have much of a life expectancy. He settles for two thirds of the transaction upfront in the hope that something punches our ticket before we can come and collect the balance.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “That’s savage.”
“Not in the Yard. Savage is good business here. Never forget the lesson.”
“Understand what things are worth and the terms of payment,” I muttered.
He locked eyes with me, his voice dropping to a whisper. “And it doesn’t change when you’re dealing with your own kind. They are every bit as shrewd as Ramzey. If you’re careful, you can use both as weapons against them.”
I nodded, but I had no intention of dealing with the Sidhe if I could avoid them.
“So off to Brunhildr’s and then we’ll grab a drink and head home,” he said.
“A drink? It’s not even lunchtime.”
“No, but the Yard serves some of the finest beverages either side of the Veil. Now that we’re here, we may as well enjoy one.”
He stopped in front of a massive pavilion. “That is, of course, providing Brunhildr doesn’t kill me first. Look alive. You’re up.”