Tai
in a disoriented frame of mind.
I felt… happy. Oddly so. Fionn hadn’t been friendly, by any means — she hadn’t been so chilly to me since the day we first met. But she hadn’t extracted my eyeballs with a dessert spoon, either. I emerged intact, entrails safely on the inside where they’re supposed to be, and Fionn hadn’t looked more than vaguely tempted to rectify that situation.
In fact, for a moment or two here and there, we’d forgotten the weight of years and regrets and talked almost normally. The way we used to.
And now I had her number, and a reason to sometimes call it.
Mearil’s continued absence was a fist around my heart, slowly tightening, and Fionn’s news had made that much worse; but Fi herself… I stepped out of her building smiling.
And stopped, brought up short by the belated realisation I had no idea what to do next. I had talked of finding Daix with a breezy confidence I had no way of acting upon (I know, so unlike me).
Fi and I may not have talked in all these years, but I had always known what she was up to. I’d always had a way to find her, if I wanted.
Daix, however, had walked out of our lives and — vanished. Completely. I had not the first idea what she had been doing, or where she was. She might be in Bali for all I knew, or Chisinau. Mumbai. Anywhere.
I still recalled several of the aliases she used to use, but how did that help me? She wouldn’t be using the same names now.
Wanted, ran the ad unfurling in my mind. One imp, under five feet high. Known as Daix de Montfort, and sundry other monikers. Evil incarnate, approach with extreme caution.
Sure, that’d work.
As I stood there, dithering, something caught my eye: some lightweight thing, wafting down from above, turning airily upon a stray breeze.
It fell neatly to the floor at my feet, and lay there. Waiting.
A card. An innocent, rectangular snippet of paper, with somebody’s name printed on it in black Garamond.
My eyes narrowed. I looked up at the clouded skies, but saw nothing that might explain the card’s appearance. No faces at the windows of Fionn’s building, towering behind me.
I sighed, and stooped to pick the thing up.
Daix de Montfort, read the name.
I turned the card over. On the back, naught appeared save a string of numbers; meaningless, until I realised I was looking at a set of map co-ordinates.
I resisted the temptation to screw the card up and hurl it at something. At Daix, by preference, but that could wait for later. I settled for making a rude gesture at nothing in particular, satisfied that this would, by whatever method, relay itself to the lady in question, and shoved the card into a jacket pocket.
‘Fine,’ I sighed. ‘We’ll do it your way.’
Somewhere, Daix was smiling.
might have expected to find Daix, a library wouldn’t have ranked high among them.
Not just any library, either. The Maughan Library, Chancery Lane. Frighteningly close to my house, in point of fact. Even closer to Fi’s studio.
And incidentally, a research library associated with King’s College, London. Mystified, I prepared myself for a surprise — knowing Daix, it would be of a highly unpleasant nature — and went there at once.
The building’s spectacular, I’ll give it that. It’s ancient, it’s elegant. Façade a mass of mullioned windows crowned with balustrades, miniature turrets — the lot. It wouldn’t have disgraced a palace. But the whole picture left me cold as I approached, for somewhere under that classic roof was Daix, and what mischief she might be getting up to here proved an… occupying question.
Inside, I trekked through room after room, passing, no doubt, hundreds of thousands of books, and found no sign of her. Students aplenty bent over desks, charmingly illuminated by bright reading lights and working away furiously at who-knew-what; but no Daix. Endless, towering bookshelves crammed with every conceivable scrap of knowledge; but no Daix.
I was beginning to imagine myself sent on a goose chase, and visions of the exquisitely painful things I would do to Daix in consequence — whenever I finally found myself face-to-face with her — were floating, pleasantly, through my mind, when I tripped over her.
Quite literally.
As I endeavoured to halt my downward progress with a catch at the nearest desk, there came Daix’s low, rather smoky voice, faintly accented with French. Or I suppose I mean, Frankish. ‘Thetai Sarra Antha. You’re eighty years late.’
I gripped the desk hard enough to produce a creak of protest from the abused wood, gritting my teeth. ‘Only seventy-five, and I wasn’t counting. Hello, Daix.’
‘Hi!’
I straightened. There she sat, tucked into a corner wherein, somehow, the shadows roiled more deeply than they ought. I hadn’t seen her, skulking there like an overgrown spider; I hadn’t been meant to see her.
She had announced her presence by sticking out her foot to trip me. She made no attempt to disguise the fact, either, for her leg was still outstretched, dainty little foot clad in a polished burgundy boot.
The rest of her was clothed to match, all wine-red, but she was wearing some kind of suit, and that didn’t look like the Daix I knew at all. She wore her hair — white-blonde today — swept up into a respectable-looking bun, and a pair of silver-framed glasses sat poised upon her nose.
If she was still wearing her horns, I couldn’t see them.
‘And if I’m late, so are you,’ I said, glowering at her.
She sat back, shrugging. Her face disappeared into shadow again; I couldn’t see her expression. ‘I’ve been here.’
‘Here?’
‘Around. Perfectly accessible, if either of you ever thought to ask.’
‘I had only to say the name, and Mary Poppins would appear.’
Daix’s gesture was one of approval at the comparison. ‘Lady has style,’ she nodded. ‘Knows how to make an entrance.’
‘Uh huh. And you’ve had us under surveillance why?’
‘You don’t think I’d leave you two loose in London without someone to keep an eye on you?’
‘An eye?’
‘An eye, a camera…’ Daix grinned. I saw the flash of white teeth, sharper than they ought to be.
‘A whole legion of the latter, unless I miss my guess.’
‘There are dangers everywhere,’ said Daix gravely.
‘What dangers?’
‘You have no idea.’ Daix picked up a stack of papers from the study-table at her elbow, and prissily tidied them. ‘Which is the whole problem.’
‘What.’
‘You can thank me later.’
‘Thank you? For spying on us?’
‘Someone had to.’
I took a deep breath, meant to be calming, but ineffectual. ‘All right, why did someone have to?’
‘The very pair of you! Swanning around London with your heads full of clouds; faffing around with artsy nonsense — I tell you, you’d have been dead in a week if someone hadn’t stepped in.’
‘Artsy nonsense.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re doing what, exactly?’
‘Research fellowship.’
‘Seriously.’
Daix set the papers down again. ‘Forensic Science is the field, not that you asked. You don’t want to hear about the dead-in-a-week thing?’
‘I ignored that, with supreme grace and near total indifference.’
‘Then you’ve got a death-wish,’ said Daix, nodding wisely. ‘It happens in beings of advanced age.’
‘You’re far older than I am.’
Daix leaned forward, her enchanting face emerging from shadow. She looked deep, deep into my eyes, her own glinting green, and said: ‘Or am I?’
‘Okay, do we have to play games? Because one or two things are a bit more urgent right now.’
‘All is not well with the selkies,’ Daix nodded, releasing me from what was probably supposed to be a hypnotic stare.
‘So you know about that?’
‘Surveillance, remember?’
‘Tell me you didn’t hear every word of my conversation with Fionn.’
Daix carefully lined up the books on her table. ‘Lying isn’t an attractive quality, especially among friends.’
‘Neither is covert surveillance.’
‘Fine, I’m sorry about the spying thing.’
‘Lying isn’t an attractive quality, especially among friends.’ I folded my arms.
‘Okay, I’m not sorry. Is that better, or worse? You’re confusing me.’
‘How about we go someplace else, and you tell me how you’re planning to help.’
Daix brightened at once. ‘I do have some ideas—’
‘Great,’ I said, cutting her off. ‘Because I’ve a small ocean of dull, detail-oriented paper-pushing with your name on it.’
Daix’s fingers strayed towards the papers she’d already tidied once, and clutched possessively at them. ‘You always did know how to make my day.’
‘Yeah, I missed you too. Come on.’
card?’ I asked her a little later, having exited the Maughan Library. Daix had plunged immediately into the throngs of people abroad in the city, walking rapidly, and with an air of bustle; I found it oddly difficult to keep up, despite my superior height.
‘What about the card?’ said Daix without looking at me.
‘Why’d you help? You could have let me flounder for days without finding you.’
‘That would have been more like me, wouldn’t it?’ Daix agreed, a dimple appearing in one cheek.
‘You could’ve sat back and watched the show,’ I continued. ‘Taken an inordinate and sadistic pleasure in my total failure to locate you. Tormented me about it mercilessly for years to come.’
Daix sighed, a wistful sound. ‘Stop it. You’re making me sad.’
‘Heartbroken for what, now, can never be?’
Daix nodded, mournful. ‘The thing with the card was, I was interested.’
‘In me?’ I said, in some surprise.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Right.’
‘I was interested in the case. I haven’t encountered so fair a prospect in decades.’
‘Kidnapping, theft, murder,’ I agreed. ‘Possible enslavement. No selkie is safe, and who knows when the rest of us will be at risk of evisceration or dismemberment? Nothing could be better.’
‘You’re unduly preoccupied with evisceration,’ said Daix. ‘Might want to work on that.’
‘Dismemberment, though, is always in style.’
‘Gloriously.’
‘Daix, this isn’t a party. I’ve lost a friend, and so has Fi.’
‘In point of fact, Fionn lost a temporary employee, not a friend. As for your roommate—’ Why Daix pronounced the word with such emphasis, or such apparent disgust, I had no idea ‘—she we may yet recover.’
‘So I’m hoping, which brings me to my next question: where the hell are we going?’
Daix had led us in a befuddling, criss-crossing route down several streets, not to mention one or two narrow alleyways that shouldn’t have been there at all. I’ve lived in London long enough to be very familiar with it, but even I had lost track of where we were.
‘The Puca,’ she said. ‘If we want to talk openly, that’s the best place. No need for glamours or bemufflements.’ She made a dismissive gesture, illustrative of throwing the entire class of enchantments out like garbage.
‘Bemufflements,’ I repeated.
‘Yes. You know, the thing where anybody who’s listening as shouldn’t won’t hear a word of interest.’
‘You mean a muting charm.’
‘That’s what I said.’ Daix nodded.
The Puca, or rather The Booted Puca. I hadn’t been there in decades, but the name still had the power to cause a twinge of nostalgia — even, regret. It’s an ancient pub situated… somewhere in London. The precise location changes; or rather, it’s the route that changes. The pub’s where it’s been since Robin Hood’s day, if not before, but you’ll never reach it by the same road twice. That explained Daix’s erratic navigation, not to mention the disappearing alleys. You don’t so much walk to the Puca as track it down, like errant prey, and you’d better be tenacious about it, too.
We used to go there a lot, back in the day. I’d gone there a few times since, but without Fi and Sil and Daix, it wasn’t the same.
I doubted Fi had gone much, either. Daix, though… Daix is the closest thing to indestructible I’ve ever met. Regret, heartbreak, grief, nostalgia — these things have no power over her whatsoever.
Sometimes I find that enviable.
Daix had led us in circles, I thought, for we entered a residential street full of grand-looking properties I was sure we had walked down only three minutes before. But then she took a sudden left turn down another improbable alley, and that was new — and then another left, into an impossible park of aged oaks; — she broke into a run, and so did I, and then there was the Puca, its rickety thatched roof emerging from among the trees like a mirage in the desert.
Daix ran like mad, and we didn’t stop until she and I had planted both feet in the Puca’s cobbled courtyard.
‘Right,’ she said, slightly out of breath. ‘Good.’ Somewhere en route her burgundy ensemble had altered; now she wore a fourteenth-century kirtle, lavishly embroidered, with a band of gold about her brow. Fitting.
My garments hadn’t changed, which was also fitting. Daix learned long ago not to mess with me in that respect, if in few others.
The Puca’s a humble building, viewed from the exterior. Stone-built, with cloudy, mullioned windows and an air of mild, tumble-down neglect, it doesn’t look like much. The painted sign swinging over the heavy oak door depicts the Puca, in the shape of a cat, wearing the familiar tall, buccaneer’s boots (there’s more to the legend of puss-in-boots than most people know). Behind the Puca, though, another boot appears, apparently in the process of kicking the maddening creature into the middle of next week.
Sounds cruel, perhaps, but don’t be fooled by the kitten-cute appearance of those things; they’re ruthless mischief-makers.
So much for the outside of the pub. The inside… that’s a whole other matter.
We went in, the trailing hem of Daix’s ridiculous crimson kirtle dragging in quantities of dirt and dead leaves along with us. We were greeted with a blaze of music: something that sounded, to my practiced ear, like an escapee from Victorian musical theatre. Everything inside was dark oak and crimson velvet, with frankly unjustifiable quantities of gilding.
‘Burlesque,’ I muttered. ‘Nice.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Daix, beaming, and throwing wide the door. ‘Last time I came in they were doing that fifties American diner look, and I just can’t admire it, can you?’ Her kirtle, I perceived, had vanished again already. In its place she’d adopted a cropped black velvet jacket worn over an ivory corset, with skirt and boots to match.
Becoming aware of an abrupt tightening around my torso, I glanced down, with a sense of dread, to find myself similarly attired.
‘Daix,’ I said, through gritted teeth.
‘What?’ she said, glancing around. ‘Oh. Yes, sorry. That colour isn’t right for you at all, is it?’ She waved a hand, and the gold-gilded absurdity of my new coat and skirt changed to silver and black. ‘I’ll save the gold for Fionn,’ she murmured, turning away again. ‘Much more her style, no?’
‘Daix,’ I began again, but she’d already wandered out of hearing. She began flirting shamelessly with the clurichaun keeping bar, and by the looks of them, they were old friends.
I abandoned the point, albeit with ill grace. We had more pressing problems than the state of my clothes, and besides, she’d had sense enough to leave my arms and hands more or less unencumbered. I’d have a little more trouble fighting in this get-up; corsets are not good for freedom of movement; but we were unlikely to encounter trouble at the Puca. It’s ancient, neutral ground, and that status is both hard-won and fiercely protected. Anyone drawing weapons in here would find themselves swiftly eviscer— er, dismembered.
Possibly by me, and that prospect ought not to please me half so much as it did.
Apparently respectability doesn’t altogether agree with me.
I left Daix to it, sliding into a seat in an appealingly darkened corner. I watched her for a little while, both awed and appalled by the facility with which she manipulated people. All her brittleness and sharp edges had vanished; she’d become an adorable, pint-sized little princess, winning over the poor bartender with dimpled smiles and an air of kittenish cluelessness.
I spared a moment’s sympathetic reflection for all the hapless souls who had attracted Daix’s notice over the last several years. Honestly, Fionn and I should probably have been keeping an eye on her.
Abandoning the bartender to his fate — it was clearly too late for him — I let my gaze wander around the pub. It was quiet at this hour, and most of the tables stood unused. On the opposite side to where I sat, a trio of sluagh slumped, desultorily drinking. It wasn’t the hour for it, and they didn’t look happy about it, either. Besides these three, and Daix, the only other patron was a feorin, seated a few tables away. She sat wrapped in thought and a green coat, periodically scrawling something in the notebook that lay before her.
Little of interest, then, to occupy me, but I had thoughts enough of my own for that. I should not have chosen this table. The décor might be altered, but this vantage-point I recalled only too well, for this had been my favourite seat. Fi used to sit on my right, Sil and Daix opposite; we’d whiled away many an hour with wine and song, in better days.
I shifted impatiently, and stood up. Daix was taking too long.
I took an inordinate amount of pleasure in looming over her as I approached the bar. She’d taken a seat on a high bar stool, but she was still tiny. ‘Daix,’ I growled.
She awarded me a bright, winsome smile. ‘Tai! You know Tully, yes?’
‘We’re unacquainted,’ I said, with a polite nod for Tully. ‘And I daresay I’d be delighted to rectify that another time, but in case you’ve forgotten we’ve urgent business on hand.’
‘Oops,’ said Daix, with a giggle. ‘Right. Tully darling, waft us a couple of King Goblins, will you?’ She slipped off the stool without waiting for an answer, heading for the table I’d recently vacated.
I locked eyes with Tully. He wasn’t a tall man himself, the top of his head only as high as my shoulder. He had an artfully disordered mop of reddish hair, a roguish smile, and a mobile face liberally creased with laugh lines. ‘She’s evil incarnate,’ I told him. ‘You do know that, right?’
He grinned. His green eyes developed an odd, gold flush as he did so. ‘Ah, she’s a darling. Tai, was it?’ The enquiry seemed casual, but the way he was inspecting me was anything but. Somewhere behind his genial smile lurked something intent. Possibly calculating.
‘Thetai,’ I said.
‘Thetai Sarra Antha.’ He’d turned from me by then, reaching to retrieve a couple of black, silver-labelled bottles from behind the bar.
‘How do you know that name?’
Tully tossed the bottles into the air, one by one. I heard Daix delightedly clapping her hands as they floated their way over to her. ‘Used to run with the Fatales, no?’ he said, nodding meaningfully in Daix’s direction.
‘That was a long time ago.’
‘Not so very long.’
By faerie standards, I suppose he was right; eighty years was next to nothing. I couldn’t tell if he approved of my history or not. Whatever his thoughts might be, they were well hidden behind his congenial bar-keep attitude.
‘Happen faerie has missed you girls,’ he offered, when I didn’t speak. ‘You working again?’ He glanced around, as though he might see Fionn materialise at any moment.
That floored me; my eyebrows shot up into my hair. ‘Missed us?’
He shrugged, drumming his fingers on the polished surface of the bar. ‘You had supporters.’
‘And detractors.’
‘That’s life, love. ‘Specially if you’re the type to take a stand.’
I couldn’t argue with that. ‘We do have… business, again,’ I said slowly. ‘Heard anything about selkies going missing?’
He lifted his chin in Daix’s direction. ‘Your girl there’s just been grilling me on that very subject.’ He chuckled, the creases around his eyes deepening. ‘Fancied herself very subtle.’
I revised my opinion of Tully. Obviously he was well up to Daix’s tricks. ‘Thanks,’ I said, accepting the pair of glasses he offered me.
‘Fionn coming in, or…?’ He was glancing at the door.
I grinned. ‘I daresay she will, once she knows she’s got fans here.’
Tully smiled, and — I kid you not — tugged his actual forelock in my general direction. ‘I’m a fan of yours, too, Thetai Sarra Antha. And not just of yer singing. Come back anytime.’
He turned away, and just as well, for he’d rendered me speechless. A rare happenstance. I walked slowly back to our table, frowning.
‘What was that about urgent business?’ said Daix tartly as I sat down. ‘You took your time.’
‘I was…’ I set the glasses down, sliding one to Daix. She swapped it for a dark bottle of hobgoblin beer. ‘He’s heard of us.’
Daix rolled her eyes. ‘Just because you wandered off and forgot about us, doesn’t mean everybody else did.’
‘I didn’t forget.’ I dropped into my seat and took a long slug of beer.
‘You tried pretty damned hard.’
‘I’m not sure why you didn’t.’
‘I told you. Someone had to keep an eye on things. Or did you think the whole of faerie has just obligingly behaved itself while you and Fionn were off drowning in self-pity?’
‘Harsh, Daix, even for you.’
She shrugged, and swallowed a huge mouthful of beer. ‘If you think Sil would’ve wanted the three of us to abandon ship on her account, you’re an idiot.’
I slammed the bottle down onto the table. ‘Do not throw Sil’s name in my face.’
‘Why not? Isn’t that what all this shit has been about?’
‘We — failed her. All of us.’
‘We did. Sil failed, too. None of that means we get to turn in our Fatales badges and fucking retire.’
Anger roiled through me like a dark cloud. Anger, grief and shame: a familiar mix. I wanted to grab Daix’s enchanting little face and slam it against the table. Anything to make her stop looking at me like that.
But my mood shifted in the space of a breath, as it is sometimes wont to do, and instead I chuckled. ‘Fatales badges,’ I repeated. ‘As if we’d ever had anything so fucking lame—’
I stopped, because Daix had shoved a hand into a pocket and retrieved something, which she proceeded to shove in my face.
A badge. More of a pin, actually, classy enough, with an embossed design: the letter F, shimmering in bejewelled colours, and inscribed inside a black triangle.
‘The fuck,’ I said.
Daix considered the pin with satisfaction. ‘Looks good, doesn’t it?’
‘A triangle?’
She polished up the pin on her sleeve, admiring its shine. ‘Like it or not, Tai,’ she said without looking at me, ‘there are three of us now.’
I took another long swallow of beer, thinking. ‘How long have you had that thing?’
‘Had ‘em made in ‘52.’ She dropped the pin onto the table before me. ‘Thought you and Fi would get over yourselves a bit sooner.’
I rubbed at my stinging eyes, muttering something under my breath.
Daix grinned. ‘I know I am.’
‘It’s a dumb name,’ I said, flicking a finger at the pin. Fatales. We’d developed the nickname so long ago, I’d just… got used to it. Eventually.
‘Hey,’ said Daix. ‘Nobody forced you to name your band after it.’
‘Okay. Setting your little jewellery design project aside, perhaps we could focus.’
Daix toasted me with her half-empty bottle of King Goblin. ‘That’s what I’m talking about.’
‘Yeah, shut up. What did Tully tell you?’
‘He hasn’t heard of any more mysterious absences,’ she said.
‘Right.’
‘But.’
I waited.
Daix grinned, one of her more fiendish smiles. ‘The Puca’s had some new customers lately. Tully doesn’t like the look of them at all. Said one or two patrons overheard the kind of chatter that might interest us a bit.’
Daix paused for effect.
‘You can spit it out, or I can beat it out of you,’ I said, agreeably. ‘Your choice.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. Tully couldn’t absolutely confirm this, but he heard that one or two of these guys have been enquiring about selkie pelts.’
I sat up. ‘What? As in — buying?’
‘Or selling. Maybe both.’
‘Neutral ground,’ I said with a sigh.
Daix nodded. ‘Only place in London all parties could meet without starting a war.’
The Puca had an unsavoury reputation with some, for precisely that reason. Tully may have applauded me for taking a stand — in a way — but the Puca specialised in the opposite. Everyone was welcome over the threshold, whoever they were, whatever they’d done — provided they left their personal conflicts at the door.
That made it the perfect place for the transaction of shady business.
‘Good call,’ I said to Daix. ‘I should have thought to come here myself.’
‘I’m pretty sure you’re still capable of rational thought, once in a while,’ said Daix kindly.
‘Thanks. Did Tully say anything else about these people?’
‘They’re sluagh.’
‘Just once, I’d like it if those fuckers could surprise me.’
‘You mean like Phélan?’
‘Right, we really aren’t going to talk about Phélan.’
‘Then why’d you call him?’
‘Daix. You need to get those cameras out of my everywhere.’
‘But—’
‘Or I’ll be shoving them down your throat.’
‘You’ve turned violent. I like it.’
‘Just repressed. I haven’t gutted anyone in way too long.’
‘You’re in luck. We’ve a troupe of sluagh who seem to be asking for it.’
I smiled. ‘My birthday’s come early.’