Uncertain Allies

7

Hours later, I was alone, leaning against a wall, my back to the door as I watched the action at the pool table at Yggy’s bar. Low-hanging lamps illuminated the game in a stark circle of light that didn’t reach much beyond the table. This early in the evening, the regulars played each other, moving the action along with a gesture or nod before sending their shots into pockets with a sharp clack. The real money to be made would happen later, when the newbies showed up and tried to beat them. A subdued murmur ran through the crowd. The loud voices that accompanied liquor-loosened tongues were hours away yet, as people settled in with early drinks and companionable conversation.

The old dive gave calm refuge to fey of all stripes in the Weird. If you had a beef with someone, you had to take it elsewhere, or you found yourself banned by Heydan, who ran the place. Heydan kept his own counsel, and an appearance outside his office was rare. I knew who he was but had never had the pleasure of a real introduction. Meryl knew him somehow. I was curious about that, but there wasn’t much value in asking her. She wouldn’t share it unless she wanted to, and so far she hadn’t. Of course, under the circumstances, I might never hear that tale. I pushed the reminder of her condition aside and tried to focus on the pool game.

After leaving Briallen at her house, I had wandered back to the Weird, contemplating the strange path my life had taken. Back in my days as a Guild investigator, the twists and turns of the ruling classes were not a part of my world. Sure, I met the players and partied with them, which was social, and questioned them, which was work. I was never, though, a part of the political apparatus. Despite my high standing, I didn’t have any influence because I wasn’t interested. I saw now that Nigel had used me more than once as a political tool, but that was doing my job regardless of the political ramifications, not doing my job to create them.

Yet, now that I had no ability—or even an official job—I was called into meetings with Guildmasters and high druids, given ultimatums by fairy queens, and tempted by elven spies to do their bidding. For the last year, I had found myself pulled into one monarchial plot after another through no intention of my own. I thought I was doing a job—like assisting Murdock on a case—or helping a friend—like sharing information with Keeva, my old Guild partner. The next thing I knew, the world was blowing up around me, or people were trying to kill me.

Dwelling on the unanswerable was not my forte. I preferred concrete problems, like why this mysterious blue essence seemed to be connected to old Dead essence. I had put the word out that I would be at Yggy’s tonight, and I wanted to see Banjo, a gruff guy who had helped me out a couple of times and knew the lay of the land when it came to strange happenings in the Weird. He was also a dwarf, so I hoped he might know something particular about the recent disappearances given that so many of his people were missing.

Banjo hadn’t shown yet. At a glance, no dwarves were in the bar. The problem with arranging meetings with people you didn’t have direct contact with was never knowing if they had gotten the message. If they showed up, great. If they didn’t, you didn’t know if they’d decided not to come or had never gotten the message. It took patience.

A slender solitary sat next to me on a stool. Her skin had the dark yellow coloring of the mountain elf clans, her hair a brittle patch of brown that looked like bramble bushes. She watched the game with no emotion, a short plastic cup in her hand. Unlike the other loners in the bar, she didn’t check out who was coming and going but kept unwavering attention to the gameplay in front of us. She nursed her drink with brief sips.

An hour drained away with my second beer, and I ordered another. The bar became louder and more crowded. More serious pool players arrived, the casual amateurs fading to the sidelines. Every once in a while, I did a sensing sweep for Banjo.

The mountain elf spoke into her cup. “He’s outside on Oh No. Follow him, but don’t talk to him until he says it’s okay.” Nothing about her posture indicated she was talking to me, but no one else was nearby. She watched the game and finished off the last of her drink, then spoke without looking at me. “Banjo says he hasn’t got all night.”

For whatever reason, Banjo didn’t want to come inside the bar. He and the solitary were exchanging sendings, so I guessed he didn’t want to engage in a conversation right then. I slid my almost empty glass mug onto a ledge and pushed out of my position against the wall.

Halfway across the floor, a tremor prickled against my feet. It hadn’t been that intense, but by the curious looks on some faces, others had noticed it, too. The office door swung open. Heydan paused in the doorway, prominent ridges of bone curling from his temples to the back of his head. His concerned glance swept the room before settling on me. A fine touch of essence wafted against my face, subtle enough not to disturb the dark mass in my head. Heydan’s forehead relaxed in thought. He stepped back and closed the door. Meryl once said Heydan watches and listens for something, but she didn’t know what. An uneasy feeling told me he might have heard what he had been waiting for. I didn’t like that he looked at me.

I spotted Banjo as I left the alley that led to Yggy’s at the end of the next block of Old Northern Avenue. He didn’t acknowledge my presence but walked away deeper into the Weird. I followed, comfortable with the clandestine behavior. When you worked in the bad end of town, trying to find out things someone else didn’t want you to know, people tended to be careful. After several blocks, he ducked into a store surrounded by shuttered businesses.

Instead of a bell ringing when I entered, a moan of pleasure sounded. Different Desires catered to the erotic toy market. Being in the Weird, it offered goods and services not found anywhere else. At the entrance, a subtle incense that prompted the desire for sex wafted over me. My body shields flickered but didn’t activate. Sex apparently didn’t threaten the black mass.

A dreadlocked kobold with long, beaded hair dyed three or four colors worked the register. The Teutonic kobolds had a vague relationship to Celtic brownies except their passive and aggressive natures were more integrated. The cashier had a bland expression tinged with annoyance belied by a soft voice as she explained the benefits of lubrication to the lone customer in the store.

Silicone products filled the shelves in an impressive array of shapes, sizes, and colors. For the right price, every need could be met with something that vibrated, pulsed, pumped, rotated, glowed, flashed, or undulated. Books and DVDs lined the back wall, featuring action that required a scorecard for the uninitiated.

Banjo perused the leather goods, sorting through belts, straps, and harnesses studded with steel nubs and spikes. He tested the tensile strength of a strip of leather. “What do you think? Buckles or snaps?”

“You can go tighter with buckles, but you can get out of snaps faster.”

Bemused, he arched an eyebrow. “Really? Do tell.”

“I’ve been a few places, seen a few things.” The fey had few sexual hang-ups. When they weren’t at war with each other, they threw themselves into pleasures of the mind and body without the same taboos and restrictions so many humans had. I had been to my share of parties. Having said that, dwarves could be prudes, but only in comparison to other fey.

Banjo pressed his lower lip out in consideration and picked up a matching set of cuffs and collar. The kobold finished her sale and escorted the customer out the door. She called over her shoulder. “I’m going on break. You got ten minutes. Don’t steal shit.”

Banjo continued looking at harnesses. “I wonder if they do custom work.”

“Yeah, they do,” I said. He glanced at me. “So, I’ve heard. What’s with the cloak and dagger, Banjo?”

He replaced the harness and crossed his arms. “People seen with you tend to end up in the hospital or the morgue.”

“That’s a little exaggeration,” I said.

He cocked an eye at me, then went back to browsing. “What do you want, Grey?”

“I was wondering if you had heard about this blue essence that’s been tearing up the neighborhood,” I said.

He pursed his lips. “Heard about it. Seen it, too.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “Why ask me?”

I followed him around the end of an aisle. “You’re the closest thing I have to a connection down there. You guys aren’t the friendliest bunch.”

He strolled along the aisle and picked up a rather large box that contained a lifelike facsimile of an unexpected body part. “Depends on how you define friendly. For instance, I don’t have to be here, ya know? I don’t have to tell you that someone’s looking for seers and scryers simply because some elf queen sent you down here, right?”

“You’re absolutely right. What else might you not want to tell me about seers and scryers?”

He pulled out a pair of half-glasses to read the back of the box. “Someone’s offering big money to talk to any dwarf who has been here for the last century.”

“Why dwarves?”

He replaced the box and picked up something I didn’t recognize. It had its own remote and lots of buttons. I tried to read the label over his shoulder. “Resonance. Dwarves have been here a long time.”

“Come again?”

He cocked his head at me. “You used to scry, right? You got better at it, didn’t you? At least until you got all screwed up?”

I did my best not to feel insulted. “Sure.”

He nodded once sharply. “It wasn’t only skill. Scrying’s about time, and spending time in one place attunes your ability to the time of that place, makes your scry better. Don’t they teach you anything in those druid camps you guys go to?”

They didn’t teach me that. Dwarves and druids had a long history of competition over who were better at predicting the future. “So, whoever is looking for dwarves wants to have as clear a picture of the future as possible?”

Banjo winked. “Now you got it.”

“But that’s what everybody wants,” I said.

“Yeah, but not everyone has the cash to pay for the real deal,” he said.

Contrary to popular belief—or hope—scrying wasn’t an exact science. Seeing the future was about possibilities. The best scryers—who were few and far between—knew how to read the consensus of their visions and turn possibilities into probabilities. They weren’t exact, but they were better than most everyone else. “So someone has a lot of money to spend.”

“That’s the rumor,” he said.

Banjo was one of the best scryers in the city. “You biting?”

“Nah. Money like that is dangerous. Bad things happen to you if the payer doesn’t like what they hear,” he said.

“Wait a sec—that dwarf that ended up dead the other night—did he take the bait?”

“Could be. He was a long-timer. Not very talented, though. Maybe that’s why he ended up dead,” he said.

“Or maybe whoever killed him didn’t want what he knew going anywhere else,” I said.

“Well, that strategy might backfire. Dwarves are used to being taken advantage of, and when they are, they disappear. Notice many around lately?”

“Are you saying this blue essence is related?” I asked.

“I’m saying not everyone missing is lost. Know what I’m saying?”

“Is that why you didn’t come into Yggy’s?” I asked.

Banjo made a cutting gesture. “Nah. That place feels bad lately. Too many refugees from bars that burned down or something. It’s not the same.”

“It’s Yggy’s. It’s never the same,” I said.

He picked up a large bottle of massage oil and dropped a few bills on the counter. “Yeah, well, change isn’t always good.”