Gods and Swindlers (City of Eldrich Book 3) (13 page)

“I need your help to find the smith,” Sam said.

Meaghan smiled.
Terry, you and I need to have that talk
. “Big guy? Red hair? Bane of the fair folk?”

Sam’s eyes widened. “You know of the smith? Do you know how to find him?”

Meaghan nodded. “Yeah, I know of him and I’m pretty sure I know where he is. But first, you’re coming to my house. Dustin, you’re welcome, too, as long as you don’t tell my brother you had Doritos for breakfast.”

“Dustin, it is a quest,” Sam said, his small face beaming with gratitude. “You must accompany me.”

“Quest?” Meaghan rose to her feet with a grimace. She was still having problems with the knee she’d busted up in Fahraya.

“Video game,” Dustin said. “We’ve been playing a lot. There’s not a lot to do over there.” He nodded. “Yeah, Sam. I’ll join your quest. I promised Melanie I’d look out for you.”

“But—”

“Natalie, this is going to happen.”

“I know, geez. What do you want me to do about the carpet?’

Meaghan glanced at her. Natalie wore the grimace Meaghan had learned to associate with annoyance rather than real anger. The storm had passed for the moment. “Good question. Dustin, will this stuff on the carpet open up any other gateways?”

He squinted at it. “Nah, it’s specific to us, but this rug is like leaning on the doorbell. It’s really annoying on our end.”

Meaghan nodded. “Then we need to get rid of it. How soon can we get it pulled out?”

“I’ll make some calls,” Natalie said. “What are we replacing it with?”

“Something simple. No sigils. Or giant roses. God only knows what they summon.”

“The city has a vendor contract with a carpet store in Williamsport,” Emily said. “And I have the specs. I can order you something.” She glanced at Natalie. “If that’s okay. I can take care of it if you need to deal with other stuff.”

Natalie glared at her.

Meaghan glared at Natalie. “Enough of this. I have zero patience with witchy shit right now. Emily, do what you have to do. We got money in the budget for more carpeting?”

“Plenty. What do you think of a warm gray? It’s nice, has a white and sage fleck. It’s what we used everywhere else.”

“Perfect,” Meaghan said. “As long as it’s not mystical, I don’t care.”

Emily nodded.

“Are we sure the overall office design is okay?” Meaghan called after her.

“Natalie handled all that,” Emily said. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

Natalie stuck out her tongue at the back of Emily’s head as Emily headed out the door.

Meaghan rolled her eyes. “That was a compliment, in case you didn’t notice.”

Natalie shook her head. “I’d tell you she’s up to something, but you’d only get mad.”

“If you’re right, you can have ‘I told you so’ tattooed on my forehead. Is there anything you can do to help Dustin’s folks with the noisy gateway problem?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.” Natalie trudged past her into the hallway and disappeared into the mist.

Sam watched her go, his eyes wide. “The Red Witch,” he breathed. “I have been here not a day and I have already met Meaghan of Keele and the Red Witch.”

Meaghan looked at Dustin. “Do they really call us that over there?”

“Officially, yeah. You know magic types. They’re big on the fancy names.”

Meaghan nodded. “Getting Sam into my house is going to take a little finesse. I have a whole house full of people who hate the fair folk, most particularly the smith’s wife.”

Dustin’s eyes widened. “She’s there? Oh, shit. She’s scary.”

“That’s why we need the finesse. Do you have regular clothes? You can’t walk to my car in that get-up. And we need a way to camouflage Sam.”

Dustin nodded and pulled the robe over his head. Underneath he wore jeans and a Spiderman T-shirt. He ducked into an office and came back with a backpack and a down jacket.

“Sam handles the cold better than humans,” Dustin said as he pulled a tattered red hoodie out of the backpack and handed it to Sam. “Put this on and pull the hood up, and I’ll carry you. Pull the sleeves down over your hands. Let me do the talking.”

Dustin turned back to Meaghan. “He’s about the size of a seven-year-old. If anybody asks, he’s my little brother who’s home sick from school, and you’re giving us a lift to the doctor.”

Meaghan nodded. “You’re good at this.”

Dustin shrugged. “I’m the IT guy for an order of mystical record-keeping monks who live in an alternate dimension. I’m always making shit up.”

Meaghan laughed, remembering a similar conversation with Sid in Fahraya. “You could be a lawyer.”

Chapter Sixteen

T
HEY GOT TO
the car without incident and headed home. Sam was so small Meaghan made him sit in the back seat. She didn’t want to kill him with an airbag if she slipped on the ice again.

At the first light, she took a quick look at Dustin. He looked so normal. Like a college kid. “Dustin, how did you end up as a brother in the archive?”

The Brothers of the Word were a mostly human collection of archivists—all male with the exception of a handful of Troon translators—responsible for maintaining “the sum of all written knowledge.” It hadn’t started out as a mostly human institution, but humans were significantly noisier than all the other species combined, so maintaining what was predominantly humanity’s prodigious output of writing had fallen to its own magical practitioners.

No had been able to explain to Meaghan why these duties had been relegated only to men. Tradition, everyone told her.

“I’m not a full-fledged brother.” His cheeks flushed pink. “I haven’t, you know, sworn the oaths.”

“Oaths?”

“Constancy, loyalty . . . uh, celibacy.” The crimson flush spread to his ears. “That last one is kind of a deal breaker.”

A theoretical chance of getting laid being better than no chance at all.

Meaghan mentally slapped her wrist.
Don’t be mean,
she told herself.

“So, you’re their computer guy?”

“I manage the IT department,” he said, in a lofty tone. “I have ten other guys working for me. The brothers were doing everything by hand and were having a hard enough time with the printing press, and then the whole digital thing happened and they couldn’t keep up.”

“I bet,” Meaghan said. “I can’t even keep up with my email.”

Dustin nodded. “And most of it’s garbage. They’d been saving anything in writing, but you know, one day of Twitter is like the whole Middle Ages so, yeah, big mess. We set up filters for the electronic stuff to save what’s worth saving and now we’re digitizing everything going forward, and beginning to digitize the backlog. They have no backup system. Can you imagine?”

“No,” Meaghan said. Her knowledge of computers extended to how to turn them on and off, and how to swear at them. “Like I said, I can’t even manage my email anymore.”

“And no way to index anything. They literally have no idea what they have.”

That caught Meaghan’s attention. “So then how did they scrub all the references to the fair folk? They had to do that too, right?”

“Well,” Dustin said, “you didn’t hear this from me, but . . .” His voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “Yeah, they were supposed to, but they didn’t. They did a magical search—at least they can do that much—and deleted what it pulled up.”

“But the search didn’t catch everything?”

“Not even close. And I can’t prove it, but I think earlier brothers tagged stuff about the elves specifically so it would be overlooked if somebody wanted to pull everything up with magic.”

“Is that what happened with my dad’s files?” She took a quick glance at Dustin to see his reaction.

He grinned back at her. “Nope. Somebody made copies of those.”

“With magic?”

“With a copy machine. They were still in the Kinko’s bag when I found them. In a box under my desk when I took over the department. Hiding in plain sight.”

“You have them?” Meaghan had to force herself to keep her eyes on the road.

“Not anymore,” Dustin said. “But I know where they are, only the magic protecting them won’t let me tell you. I have to show you and I can only do that if they give me permission.”

“Not a rule breaker, huh?” Meaghan tried to hide the disappointment in her voice.

“I’m a hacker,” Dustin said, annoyance in his voice. “Rule breaking’s my thing. Which is why they made it all magical, so I can’t cheat it. I can do basic charms and shields and stuff, but I never trained as a wizard and hacking magic is scary dangerous.”

Meaghan sighed. “Fine. Official channels it is.”

Dustin turned in his seat. “Sammy, how you doing back there?”

“I am well, my friend. I am well.”

Meaghan looked in the rearview mirror. Sam smiled serenely in the back seat.

“Your turn, Sam,” Meaghan said. “What’s the deal with the smith? How do you know him?”

“He is a legend among those like me. We wear the twisted nail in his honor. He was the one who discovered the protection of the iron. You do not know his story?”

Meaghan shook her head. “No. He hasn’t been exactly forthcoming with the details. He’s been in hiding, I think. From your people.”

“The fair folk are not my people,” Sam said, staring out the window. “They have been telling me this my whole life. The impervious are my people.”

“Welcome to the family,” Meaghan said. “All one of me.”

“There are more,” Sam said. “We will find them.”

Meaghan pulled the car over on Sycamore, at the entrance to the alley running behind her house. “We’re almost there, but I need to make a call.”

“Finesse time?” Dustin asked.

Meaghan nodded.

Russ picked up in one ring. “Yes, sister dear?”

“Where are you?”

“In the kitchen, where else? The witches are hungry.”

“They’ve still got the elf locked down?”

“Oh, yeah. The little jerk’s so loaded down with iron and steel he clanks when he breathes.”

“Good. Where’s Steph?”

“Right here. She’s writing down Viking bread recipes.”

“What about Melanie?”

“She’s here, too.”

“Let me talk to her.” Meaghan knew Steph was her biggest hurdle. If she could get Sam past Steph, the rest would be easy. But she couldn’t do it without Melanie’s help.

“Yes, Meg?”

“I have a Brother Dustin here who claims he knows you.”

“Ah.” Melanie paused for a long moment. “I assume you’ve also met his compatriot?”

“Sam?”

“Yes.”

Meaghan glanced at Sam in the rearview mirror. He gazed out the window, still smiling. She looked over at Dustin, who looked worried.

“Sam’s looking for the smith,” Meaghan said. “He and Dustin were summoned by a swath of sigil-covered office carpet recommended by an Italian design firm . . . a firm that appears to have blown town in a hurry and not left any forwarding information.”

She heard Melanie suck in a breath.

“I think the time for keeping secrets is over,” Meaghan said. She tried to keep her voice level, but she could feel her temper pulling at the leash. “I need to know what this is all about. But first, you need to help me get Sam into the house without Steph killing him on sight.”

“When will you get here? This will take some delicate—”

Her anger broke free. “Melanie, I’m done walking on eggshells with the Donners. I’m right around the corner on Sycamore sitting in the car, and I’m freezing my ass off, and I want to go home. I don’t care what you have to do. I’m on my way. If Steph wants to hurt him, she’s gotta come through me.” She tossed the phone into her bag.

Dustin stared at her. “That’s finesse?”

Meaghan shrugged. “As much finesse as I have at the moment. Nobody tells me anything, but I’m the one they’re all looking at when Shit Creek starts to rise.” She looked in the rearview at Sam. “Stay behind me, okay? I won’t let her hurt you.”

Sam smiled at her. “I know this. Thank you.”

Big words, Meg. Big words.

Meaghan didn’t want to pick a fight with Steph. She said she’d gotten practically no magic from the incident that created Fahraya, but there was something about Steph that frightened the hell out of the fair folk and Dustin.

She squeezed the car into the space next to Russ’s food truck. He’d wanted to get it on the road for a fall season, but the stinky squid invasion had derailed his plan. He’d been working on outfitting it as time and weather permitted, and was getting ready for a grand opening tour in the spring. It was too big to fit in the garage, so it resided in the alley.

For now. The space technically belonged to Edna, their next-door neighbor, who was wintering in Florida. Edna would be back in April and the food truck would need to find a new home.

Steph was already out the back door and halfway across the yard, Melanie on her heels, when Meaghan ushered Sam out of the car.

Meaghan shoved Sam behind her and glared at Steph. “Stop. This is my house, and I’m bringing any one I want into it.”

Dustin stepped next to Meaghan, visibly shaking with fear, but wearing a determined expression.

“No, you must let me do this.” Sam shoved his small body between Meaghan and Dustin and took a few steps toward Steph, then knelt on one knee, his head bowed.