Hallow Point (22 page)

Well, guess that charm bracelet wasn’t complete hooey. One time we
had
met, I hadn’t much resembled me. That I was even ringing a bell meant he had some real mojo going.

“Pretty sure I’d remember if we had,” I said carefully.

“Huh. So who are you?”

“PI,” I told him.

“What kinda PI believes in the occult?”

“Kind who’s been around enough to take in the sights, Mr. Scola.”

Couple drops of his booze sloshed outta the glass as he absently tried to toss one back and nod at the same time. I pretended not to notice.

“What makes you think,” he asked me, dabbing at his kisser with a napkin, “I wanna talk with
any
dick, private or otherwise?”

I leaned forward, right about as far as I could without getting threatening.

“Look, you’re wise to some of what’s out there. You mighta heard there’s a lot goin’ down in the city right now, the sorta stuff you ain’t gonna find in the papers or police reports. If your pet witch here ain’t a complete ringer, odds are she’s sensed something hinky lately.”

Wasn’t as if so many Fae converging on Chicago wasn’t gonna leave
some
footprints in the ether.

Two of ’em traded furtive glances twice, first when I’d identified the dame for what she was, and then again a second later. Oh, yeah, she’d felt something, sure enough, and she’d mentioned it to him.

“So what if she did? What’s it gotta do with you?” Scola demanded.

“Client’s got me mixed up in it, is all.”

“And what’s it gotta do with
me
?”

“Not much, if we both play it right. You trade me some information, and I trade you every effort to get what’s going on done and gone before it starts interfering with… local business.”

He took another snort, a long, slow one, watching me over the rim of the glass. His chin took on all sortsa weird shapes through the hooch.

“What kinda information?” he asked, and there was so much suspicion in his voice I could taste the doubt in each individual word.

“Giancarlo Manetti.”

He didn’t make us go through the whole “I dunno who you mean” song and dance, thankfully. “What about him?”

“Wondering if you know who he’s been running for lately. What he’s been moving. Which fences he works with.”

Scola’s glass was back on the table with a thump, and his glare was
not
what you might call chummy.

“These don’t sound much like occult questions, bo. These sound more like cop questions. I start to think you’re giving me the third degree, maybe I decide to take you someplace I can give it back. A lot harder.”

“Why don’tcha ask Gina,” I said, smiling real friendly at her, “why that ain’t such a swell idea?”

And I let her see.

Just for a second, I drew a huge swathe of what I am—not all of it, not close, but enough—up into my eyes. Didn’t use it, didn’t try messin’ with their thoughts or their luck. All I did was something I usually don’t: I let it show.

The witch gasped, rocking back in her seat, one hand covering lips that looked
real
red against her sudden pallor. Bumpy’s own peepers did that whole balloon trick again.

“I got no beef with you, Scola,” I said. “I’m trying to do this polite and friendly. You don’t wanna gum that up for me, do ya? It’d be rude.”

Mighta pushed him too far with that one. Pride and anger got into a slap-fight with fear, and I could see on his mug that he was pondering violence. I grumbled inside, and did this the Otherworld way. I hit him hard, fast, through his eyes like a shiv. And yep, I felt his protections—they were real enough—but they didn’t amount to much. Didn’t even slow me any.

“Abe Rosen.”

Not sure which of my questions he meant to answer with that, but it was a start. I wanted more, though.

And I’d have probably gotten it, even with his charm and his witch. Wouldn’ta made me any friends, and maybe Gina mighta surprised me, but I’m pretty sure I’d have come out on top. Can’t tell you for sure, though, ’cause that’s when everyone in the gin joint heard the keening that definitely did
not
come from the singer’s pipes.

Most of the folks there, when they thought back on the parts of that night they could recollect at all, would remember it as a police siren. A weird one, something they’d never heard before, but a siren just the same.

Not me. I knew what it was then, and I know now.

A scream? A wail? I’m tryin’ to describe a flood to someone who ain’t ever seen a body of water bigger’n a bathtub. It was those, and it was more, and it was less. Deep enough to rattle your guts, high enough to hurt your ears. All of this, and none of this, ’cause you really heard it more with your soul than your ears.

This wasn’t anything close to the
rusalka
’s cry. That’d been bad, sure, but it was just pain. This… This was nothin’ as ordinary as pain.

Empty, cavernous, desperate want, need beyond hunger, need that crossed over into a burning, passionate lust that was nothing to do with sex. And at the same moment, an icy chill, a contemptuous, unemotional disregard for anything of light and life.

Some of the patrons had fainted. Learned later that one old man croaked of a heart stroke. My own shoulders were bunched tighter’n rocks, my hands shaking. I don’t much do “dread,” but yeah, it was absolutely dreadful.

Oh, I knew what it was, all right. Heard it before—back in the Old World, and once on the battlefields of the American Revolution—and hadn’t wanted ever to hear it ever again.

Banshee.

Door busted wide open like God’d just stubbed his toe on it. Whole buncha uniformed bulls spilled into the room, pieces aimed, shouting all kindsa orders. Some of ’em might even have been real human coppers, minds fogged and fuddled. I could see that others, though, were definitely glamours over creatures that weren’t in any way mortal.

Which wasn’t to say they weren’t still the law, in their own way. Just not
your
law.

The “federal agents” followed ’em in. Raighallan all pompous and pretentious, barking orders at the bulls who barked orders at the civilians. And behind him…

His partner wasn’t doing too keen a job keeping her work face up. Áebinn looked jittery, anxious, as she ankled through the door—and I don’t mean “a little fidgety.” I mean like something cruel and
real
hungry strainin’ at the leash. Her breath came fast’n sharp, and she couldn’t seem to keep her gaze on any one spot for more’n a few seconds.

She’d worked up an appetite, building that scream. I hoped nobody was gonna die here who didn’t have it comin’.

Even through all this, though, don’t you even
think
that I couldn’t also feel Ramona’s glare chewin’ into my soul from the moment the first “cop” appeared in the doorway. I wasn’t building up a lotta credit with her, that’s for sure. (I wanted to kick myself square in the rear when I realized that was bothering me even more’n the damn
bean sidhe
did.)

Maybe they’d found the place, learned about Bumpy’s occult dabbling, on their own. I kinda hoped they had, because it wasn’t impossible I’d
led
the damn Seelie here. They’d hafta be pretty low on leads themselves to bother shadowing me, but—preoccupied as I’d been with Ramona—anyone with a smidgeon of talent coulda done it without me being any the wiser.

Sloppy.
Again
. I ain’t been this careless since before you lot invented stirrups. I needed to get back to something vaguely approaching competent.

Well, the situation wasn’t as bad as it looked. I didn’t know if they were here for me or had the same idea of grilling Scola as I had, but I should be able to blow the place. Even if they meant to take their “You’ll pay if you get in our way again” hooey seriously, they wouldn’t wanna get into a magic fight in front of a whole crowd of mortals. No, I could talk or sneak my way over to Ramona and then outta—

Either Bumpy’s charm or his pet witch twigged to the fact that the raiders weren’t human, and the whole place went to hell.

The boss shouted an order of his own, and suddenly the room was sprouting gats like a bullet garden after the rain. Every one of the thugs he’d come in with, the other blonde, about half the wait staff, and of course Bumpy himself had steel in their hands. And the steel was
loud
.

Lead flew, ears rang, more people screamed than were even
in
the damn joint—or so it seemed, anyway. Gina crouched down by the bench, waving one hand, and drawing glyphs in chalk on the floor with the other, and chanting under her breath. I felt a sudden discomfort, a vague notion that I wouldn’t wanna get near her or her boss, but that was
all
I felt. Woulda been duck soup to ignore it: if that was the best she had, she wouldn’t even slow down Raighallan or Áebinn.

The Bumpy turned his Colt on me—guess he figured I hadda be wrapped up in all this—and I was too busy diving across a table and turning it over as a shield to worry much more about his precautions, or why he’d been so quick to panic.

Nah, he wouldn’ta killed me, but those slugs
hurt
. And I was runnin’ outta non-ventilated suits.

Since I
was
pinned behind that table, I didn’t see where it came from, but the smaller roscoes and a lotta the screams suddenly vanished under the roar of a Tommy. Quick peek around the edge and I saw bulls fall beneath the metal hail, before I had to duck back or get a mug full of splinters. I had no way of telling how many of ’em could shake it off and get back up the way I could.

Another look showed me Bumpy, Gina, and a couple of his guards scurrying around the edge of the room in a huddle, squirting lead at the police and making for the door to the kitchen…

Guy in a coat and hat—guess he’d come running in from outside—in that kitchen doorway, was writing a letter to the whole room with a Chicago typewriter that seemed like it’d
never
run outta ink…

Most of the civilians lay flat, hands over their heads, below the lines of fire. I was glad to see that much go well, at least…

Raighallan pressed one hand to a gut wound that really hadda sting, his other hand waived a fat cylinder of oak, a wand I recognized as stronger but slower than my own model…

And Áebinn just stood in the middle of the room, ignoring the bullets, basking in the deaths that’d already occurred. This can’t have been what she wanted or expected outta the raid, but damn if she wasn’t gonna enjoy the opportunity to feast!

Bumpy and crew made it through the doors and the chopper finally fell silent. Guess the hombre carrying it had gone with the boss to cover the retreat. And since it wasn’t too tough for some of the faux-cop Fae to close on the cats with the smaller guns, most of the shootin’ gave way to the grunting and groaning and smacking and cracking of hands, bottles, chairs, and nightsticks.

And I almost didn’t care about a whit of it.

Oh, holy fuck me, where’s Ramona?

I raised my head over the table again, just in time to see her peekin’ up from behind the bar, whole face slack from shock. I swallowed a surge of relief and jerked my noggin toward the kitchen; figured Bumpy making his sneak that way meant there was a back door. She took a moment, but nodded.

I drew my L&G, stood, and ran.

With every step I squeezed power through the wand, yanking luck from this guy here and tossing it Ramona’s way, or winding it around myself; throwing random pain at that group over there.

I heard Áebinn shout my name, saw Raighallan start to elbow his way through the crowd toward me, and kept going. A blast of power burst against me, ripping away a lotta the good fortune I’d just glommed, but not touching me directly.

For a moment I lost track of Ramona in the chaos, but she showed up pretty quick. I reached the kitchen door at the same time as one of Raighallan’s glamoured goons—and he was clubbed down before I hadda deal with him. Ramona stood behind him, clutching a stool by the seat—she’d just walloped the gink with the legs.

“Mick?”

I couldn’t help it. I needed a second, had to absorb what I was seeing, what I was
sensing
. Something was wrong, she shouldn’t have—

“Mick!”

“Right!”

I grabbed her hand, dragged her through the kitchen door. She dropped the stool as we ran.

By the time we’d got ourselves clear, I didn’t even remember that something’d been bothering me, nagging at me, let alone what it’d been. Of course, that mighta had something to do with who
else
we bumped into in the process.

H
e was loitering, calm as you please, watching everyone fleeing every which way as we burst through the back door and down the alley into the street. I’d have recognized the hat’n sunglasses even if he
hadn’t
been standing smack dab under a street light. To say nothing of the urge to recoil, find the nearest hole, and pull it in after me.

Sealgaire was still keepin’ close tabs on me, and he wasn’t being shy about it.

I’d rather have gone back in and faced down the Seelie. I do take some pride in the fact that I still stepped in fronta Ramona, though.

Brave, but unnecessary. He just smiled that crocodile smile and vanished again.

None of which was as startlin’ as Ramona clutching my arm and whispering, “Mick! That’s the man who was following me this morning!”

If you’d shoved a snowball up my… nose that minute, it wouldn’ta melted.

“He must work for whoever’s after the money! Mick, we should try to catch—!”

“He don’t work for anyone you’re involved with, babe.”

I wish to hell he did.

“Then who—?”

“C’mon. We’re going.”

She probably woulda argued, if I wasn’t already dragging her off by the hand. I sure wasn’t gonna just hang around there and jaw about it!

Sealgaire. Why the fuck would…?

Don’t be a bunny, Mick. You know exactly why.

Message received, you bastard.

“Where are we going?” Ramona asked impatiently.

I still held her hand, and was steering her along the sidewalk at a pretty good clip. I didn’t answer, ’cause I wasn’t entirely sure. Also, something kept eating at me like a whole hive of ants, something I’d noticed back in the club, something I couldn’t put my finger on…