Hallow Point (33 page)

And that’s when the fire showed up.

A
in’t as if I hadn’t known they were coming—I’d invited ’em myself—but that didn’t make me any gladder to see ’em. They trooped into the faint light from Oak Woods’ shade-shrouded south side; God forbid they use the same gate as everyone else, right? For a few minutes, they were nothin’ but darker against dark, motion without source, silent except for the occasional harsh, rasping breath or low, malevolent chuckle.

If I ever forget myself enough to make fun of you lot for being scared of the Unseelie, remind me of this moment, savvy? Should shut me right the hell up. Ramona seemed to be having some trouble keeping her breathing anywhere near to calm or even, and I ain’t entirely certain Pete was breathing at all.

Bumpy’s pet witch paled enough to hide behind moonlight, and the whole crew began to back up. Sure, they had their gats up’n ready to shoot, but their peepers were mostly wider than the barrels, and I think the sound of their own guns mighta sent ’em packing. The
bagienniks
also retreated, not near as far, but back into the deeper waters of Symphony Lake. Wasn’t much of a sanctuary—not all that wide or deep—but I guess they felt safer.

For their own part, the Seelie might as well’ve forgotten either of those groups existed. They only had eyes—and scowls, and snarls, and curses, and heaters, and wands; a few even hissed like snakes—for the newcomers.

Redcaps bubbled outta the darkness, as if they’d just shrugged it off. Short and hunched shorter, spread out in a wide front, they plodded heavy-footed across the grass. Now and again one of ’em would stop long enough to dig a finger through the soil covering a relatively fresh grave, licking the filth clean as they resumed their advance.

I knew one of ’em was Grangullie, but damned if I could tell which from here. Other’n the fact that some carried gats and some meat cleavers, they all looked alike.

Téimhneach appeared just a few seconds later, the night spitting him out like unwanted gristle. A black dog padded beside him, near shoulder height. Damn thing had paws the size of hubcaps, blinkers that blazed a hellish green, and a maw full of jagged teeth that gleamed sickly in the glow.

Capone and his people’d buried men in concrete that was less thick than the tension in the graveyard that night.

Áebinn, Raighallan, and their people barked orders, cited laws, made threats.

Téimhneach and
his
said nothing, letting their postures and their vicious grins and their unsheathed weapons do the threatening for ’em.

Everyone else, even those who didn’t really need to breathe, held their breath.

Nobody wanted to be the one to set it off. The politics between the Courts, even when—
especially
when—it comes to open conflict are… let’s go with “intricate.” Every one of ’em wanted to tear into the other side, but nobody was quite sure of the repercussions of drawing first blood.

Figured that was my cue, if ever there was one. Everybody was wound, but if I got their attention now, I could head off any ugliness.
Still
wasn’t sanguine about startin’ up before I was sure everyone was here, but no help for it. I stood, raising a mitt and drawing breath to shout for attention…

Then one of the redcaps pulled a brass piece, plugged a
bagiennik
in the forehead, and all hell broke loose.

Do I gotta explain it? While it ain’t exactly diplomatic, attacking a Fae outsider don’t carry the same possible consequences as rubbing out a local. On the other hand, it’s vicious enough that the Seelie “police” are allowed—some’d say obligated—to get involved.

The Seelie were grinning as vicious and ugly as the redcaps as the two sides smashed into each other, and the only thing that surprised me about that was the fact that it surprised me at all.

Bursts of blinding light and waves of smothering darkness swept the rival forces. Phantom howls and distracting shrieks; indistinct swarms of smoke and shadow; fires of every hue, burning or freezing or simply clinging; claws of dragons and serpents from the lake and free-floating agony without apparent cause.
Aes sidhe
and redcaps appeared where they weren’t, disappeared where they were, taunted and laughed and stabbed from three places at once.

It was all illusion, of course, or nearly all. But our illusions are real enough, if you believe, and even if you don’t, it ain’t easy to figure which ones got real fire or real knives hidden inside.

Good fortune and bad swept back’n forth between the two groups in almost visible tides, an eldritch tug-of-war between ancient man-children to whom chance was just another toy they didn’t wanna share.

I saw one of Áebinn’s guys pull a knife and throw. It passed clear between not one but three pairs of combatants, riding a stream of impossible luck. A sudden breeze caught it, tweaking its trajectory just enough so that it sank into the arm of a redcap it shouldn’t have come anywhere near. Even as the victim cried out, though, the thrower hit a muddy patch near the lake and wound up on his back in the grass—where another redcap gleefully jumped on him and started stompin’ his noggin into the dirt.

Aes sidhe
spun and pivoted, parried and thrust.

Redcaps launched themselves at their enemy, cleavers or big, shark-intimidating teeth sinking into flesh and bone.

And around the periphery, the leaders circled. Raighallan had thrown himself into the scrap; but Áebinn on one side, Téimhneach and his hellish hound on the other, drifted in a constant orbit, attentions locked on one another.

More Fae were still driftin’ into the cemetery, more outsiders to the Windy City. I saw a couple
aes sidhe
I didn’t know from Adam; a
ghillie dhu
, who may or may not’ve been Mow, skulked through the grasses; flitting will-o’-the-wisps tried to lead victims from both factions astray. There was a headless
dullahan
dressed not as a traditional rider in black, as Eudeagh’s were, but instead as a Great War doughboy, complete with coat and pouches and a really long rifle; there was even a
huldra
, the flesh of her back split wide to show off the wood-lined hollow within. Hadn’t seen one of
them
in the New World—on the mortal side of things, I mean—since the American Revolution. Apart from the will-o’-the-wisps none of ’em were throwing in yet, they just stood back and enjoyed the show. But it was just a matter of time before someone or something dragged ’em into the ruckus.

And, for that matter, only a matter of time until we drew the attention of everyone within a mile of Oak Woods. So far it’d been fairly quiet—you know, far as small-scale supernatural warfare goes. Not too many shots, no big explosions. We’d be getting one or the other soon enough, though, and even if we didn’t, there was plenty of screaming, real and illusory.

As if she’d read my mind, Ramona asked, “Shouldn’t we stop this?” No more whispering—she was still right up beside me, but felt the need to shout. To be fair, that’s probably what it woulda taken for a human to catch her gist.

Thing is, I didn’t think I
could
stop it anymore. My own magics are useful enough, but they don’t lean toward the flashy. I thought about askin’ Pete to squeeze a few slugs into the air, but somehow I didn’t figure more shooting was gonna stand out in any useful way. Wasn’t real probable I could get everyone’s attention, then. I knew someone who maybe could, though, and while I hadn’t spotted him anywhere, no way was I gonna believe he wasn’t lurking, watching.

“Minute of your time, Herne?” I asked loudly. My old friend was used to not understanding what I was up to, but Ramona thought I’d lost my mind. I puzzled that out partly ’cause of her expression, but mostly because she’d muttered, “He’s lost his mind.” I probably wasn’t meant to have heard that.

For a long spell there was nothing, until I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d figured the guy wrong. If even
his
ears couldn’t hear me past the hubbub, or if somehow he really wasn’t around at all.

Then something landed atop the mausoleum right behind me.

Pete’s jaw dropped wide enough to catch bowling balls without losing a molar, and Ramona squeaked and near fell off the roof.

“I admit,” Herne rumbled in that six-cylinder voice, “that even I grow weary of the smell of bloodshed. What do you want, Oberon? I would have thought you’d be content to sit back and watch the proceedings.”

“Under other circumstances, maybe. Nix on tonight, though. Can you stop this?”

“Hmm.” Herne stroked his chin, then shrugged. “Perhaps. But why would I want to? This ought to thin out the competition quite nicely.”

“Yeah, you’d think so. You tail one of the other factions here, or did you hear a rumor on your own?”

“I tracked the
bagienniks
, who were trailing the Seelie. Why?”

“Just wondering if you thought it hinky that everyone got the same intel about tonight.”

Then, when he was still mulling that over, I whispered a real brief summary of what I had planned for tonight—and why.

Which resulted in me being violently turned around by a big honkin’ meathook wrapped around my neck, while Herne’s other hand held his spear nice and steady about a knuckle’s width from my mug.

“You’re a liar!” he accused.

I could just see Pete skinning leather and aiming at the Hunter. Either Herne missed it or ignored it; either way was better for Pete.

“Frequently,” I croaked. “But not about this. You think I’d have gone through the hassle of getting everyone here if I wasn’t sure?”

“You might, if you believed you had an advantage or an angle.”

But he’d relaxed his grip, and while the spear remained in one tight fist, it was no longer aimed directly at anyone. By which I mean me.

“Very well,” he said finally. “But speak convincingly, Oberon.”

“Thanks, Herne. Any other tips while you’re at it?”

“Yes. Learn to shut up.”

“But if I shut up, how can I speak convinc—?”

The Hunter took one look at the tableau below, hefted his spear, and threw—almost straight up. It climbed, higher, higher, until it was lost in the dark of night. It reappeared a moment later, falling far quicker’n gravity could account for, and plunged directly into the middle of the fight.

Same time it hit, Herne let loose with a deafening howl—like a wolf, times eleven. It damn near drove me off the roof of the mausoleum; got no idea how the other two handled it. Between the scream and the spear, though…

Yeah, Herne’d gotten their attention all right.

I noticed a few of ’em stopped to study the spear up close before turning away, and I figured they were goin’ through the same train of thought I had when the thing’d been chucked my way the other night. “Is this…? No, just a normal spear.” Or, well, relatively normal.

“Thanks,” I said.

Herne grunted. “Convincing,” he reminded me. He then hopped down to retrieve his spear and took up a spot at the edge of the crowd. If he even noticed the angry looks cast his way, he sure didn’t show it.

“Guess I’m up,” I said to nobody in particular. Everyone was here, now, anyway. (Well, no sign of Sealgaire, but I didn’t imagine there would be unless he wanted there to be.) I stepped nearer the roof’s edge, where I was sure everyone could get a solid slant on me. And then…

All right. I shouldn’t have. Couldn’t help it.

“Friends, Romans, countrymen! Lend me your ears!”

If you’re up on your ancient Celtic history, you might get why some of the Fae might find that particularly offensive. I’d say that wasn’t deliberate on my part, but neither of us’d believe it.

“Oberon!” Was more’n a few voices remarking on me being, well, me. And it was more’n a few that went on to grumble or complain, but it was Raighallan who shouted, “Is this a game to you? We don’t have time for your foolishness!”

“Lemme guess!” I called back. “You’re all here on secret tips that more or less amounted to ‘If you want the spear, you better be here tonight.’ Yeah?”

“It would appear our information isn’t as exclusive as we might have hoped,” Áebinn sneered.

“Well, no. I hadda make sure word’d reach all of you, didn’t I?”

I stood back’n smirked while I let them figure that out.

“You?” I don’t even know who it was, that time. “
You
brought us here?”

“More
invited
you, but—”

“What trickery is this, Oberon?” Téimhneach demanded, practically spitting in rage.

“No trickery. I said if you wanted the spear, you oughta be here. And you
should
. I figured it out, see?”

“And why the hell would you share that with the rest of us?” one of the foreigners asked.

“Well, if you dumb bunnies would stop interrupting with all the fool questions and just listen up for a minute, I might actually be able to explain a thing or two!”

More grumbling, and a few folks of various factions started to walk away, tried to talk their pals into going with, but most were too curious to turn around now.

Good thing, too, ’cause this city wasn’t gonna be able to stand too many more nights of an absolutely fruitless scavenger hunt.

“Áebinn? Catch!”

I whipped a plain brown envelope out from inside my coat.

She caught it neatly in mid-spin. Then she paused just long enough to make it clear she was openin’ it of her own accord, not ’cause I wanted her to.

Jesus.

She removed the torn squares of newspaper like they made her wanna wash her hands.

“What are these, Oberon?” she asked.

“Obituaries. From newspapers over the last month or so.” Trackin’ ’em down and cuttin’ ’em out had been one of my errands during the day. I didn’t think she’d believe me if I just
told
her.

“And I care about this why?”

“Recognize any of the names? If not, I’m sure you know at least one person back home who knows each and every one of ’em.”

She finally looked,
really
looked—which was a truly peculiar thing to see, given her whole “empty sockets” thing. I won’t say she got flustered; I don’t think Áebinn
does
flustered. But certainly taken aback.