The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity (33 page)

Jim C. Hines

I
f I was going to save this city, I needed three things: one empty detergent bottle, one magazine clipping of Zoe Saldana as Uhura from
Star Trek
, and one stolen child.

The idea of taking the kid bothered me. I hated playing into fairy stereotypes. My partner Larry would give me crap about it for years.

After he got over the fact that I had kidnapped a four-year-old, I mean.

I was working on the detergent bottle when I heard keys rattling in the lock. I set the bottle aside and slid the silver shears into a leather sheath inside my suit jacket, swapping them for a modified Beretta Tomcat pistol. Five inches long, made of brass with a hand-carved oak grip, the gun looked like a toy next to Larry's Glock. But it worked for me, as evidenced by the dead troll in the alley behind the apartment building.

I thought he had been alone, but thanks to the bullet hole in my leg, I had been reluctant to stick around and
find out for certain. I gripped the gun in both hands, sighting at a point chest high, about a foot in front of the door. Seven rounds in the magazine and an eighth in the pipe should be plenty for whatever monster had followed me here.

The door opened, and I heard voices arguing. “Why didn't you go before we left?”

“I didn't have to go then!”

The gun vanished into my jacket as Isabel Famosa stepped into her kitchen and tossed her keys onto the counter. Her son Kareem tore through the living room and vanished into the bathroom, not even noticing me sitting in the armchair.

Isabel was more observant. She froze halfway through the process of removing a green windbreaker. “Who are you?”

“Do you have any electrical tape?” I asked.

She backed into the small kitchen. Going for either a phone or a knife. By the time she returned, I had my badge ready.

“My name's Jessica.” A lie, but I wasn't about to tell her or the bureau my true name. “I'm with the FBI. Do you know where your husband is, Mrs. Famosa?”

“The FBI? But you're … you're not—”

“Human?” She had gone for a boning knife. Nice choice. I hopped down from the chair, clenching my teeth as the movement sent new pain tearing through my leg. Blood oozed through the blue silk tie I had used as a makeshift bandage. Damn troll. I shoved my blonde hair back and hobbled closer, giving her a good look at the narrow pointed ears, the oversaturated blue of my eyes, the deceptively fragile build. “No, I'm not.”

I tucked my badge away, keeping my hand close to my
gun. Her knuckles were white on the knife. She wouldn't be the first human to lose her shit when confronted by a fairy. I gave a silent command. With a flutter of wings, a miniature Shia LaBeouf swooped down and swatted her wrist. The knife dropped onto the carpet, and Shia returned to his perch in the spider plant over the window.

“They won't hurt you,” I said.

“They?” She stepped back.

I pointed to the curtains on the opposite wall, where a
Playboy
centerfold with gray wings crouched, watching her. “They're pixies. Magically created simulacra. I mostly use them for intelligence and surveillance, but today they're going to help me save your husband's life.”

Her son hurried from the bathroom. “Who are you talking to, Momma?” His eyes widened when he spotted me. “Hi! Do you want to play Ben Ten with me?”

“Sorry, kid. I know how I look, but I'm a little old for that stuff.” By more than a century. I kept my attention on Isabel, letting Shia watch the boy for me. “Electrical tape?”

“Under the sink in the kitchen.” Shock and confusion numbed her words. “What's happened. Where's T.J.?”

“I wish I knew.” Crouching to open the cabinet doors beneath the sink almost made me pass out. I locked my jaw and dug through various cleaners, a crusty sponge, and assorted tools, eventually finding a roll of black tape. I limped back into the living room. I wrapped the tape around one end of a straightened industrial staple, one of the big copper ones they use for oversized shipping boxes. I had snatched it from the parking lot beside the dumpsters on my way into the apartment building. “But I know who has him.”

I finished cutting the last of four blue ovals from the
detergent bottle, then taped them to the back of the cutout of Saldana. I used a ballpoint pen to draw a quick circle on her palm, taped the staple into her other hand, and began the spell.

The scent of fresh woodchips filled the apartment. Kareem laughed. His mother grabbed him by the arm, pulling him close, and then—

You know the pain you get when you rip off a Band-Aid? Intense, sharp, but over so quick it's more the memory of the pain that gets to you? Imagine a Band-Aid that covers your entire body, inside and out.

Damn right I screamed.

Fortunately, the pain faded quickly. I sat up, testing my new body. I was stuck wearing the silly red miniskirt and black boots, but I could move without pain. I looked up at my true body, now sitting motionless in the armchair.

I looked tired. Old. We weren't supposed to age, but this job took its toll. Working in the cities, surrounded by steel and iron and rust, facing the worst of humanity and fairy both. My lips were swollen and bloody, and I had a cut on one cheek. I hadn't even felt that one. Shadows circled my eyes, and wrinkles creased my brow, as if worry survived even after the life had been transferred from the flesh.

Kareem was clapping and asking if he could keep me.

I glanced over one shoulder. The plastic ovals had transformed into twin sets of wings, like a dragonfly's. They looked like a cross between stained glass and cobalt blue cellophane. My muscles buzzed as if an electrical current ran through them, and I lifted into the air. “Much better.”

“Who has my husband?” Isabel demanded.

The same magic that had animated this body had
changed the staple as well, creating a serviceable copper sword. I preferred my gun, but it was as heavy as my current body, and my magic wasn't up for making a working miniature. “Your husband met some people today. People like me. I don't know what they offered him, but they can be very persuasive. I tried to follow, but they spotted me.”

“People like you. You mean … fairies.”

“As humanity grows, we've been forced into smaller and smaller pockets of this world, but not everyone tries to flee. Some fought, immersing themselves in your cities and your iron and your machines. It … warped them. Like drugs in the water supply. It's a darkness you can't imagine, and they hate you for it. They'd kill you all if they could.”

“Like terrorists,” she said, her face pale.

“Terrorists with magic and centuries of experience.” She was about an inch from panicking, and she didn't know anything useful. “I need your son's help.”

Her mouth opened, but I didn't have time to argue. Spellcasting was harder in a foreign body, but I managed. Isabel Famosa collapsed in a heap and began to snore.

I flew over to grab a white marble from an open board game. To the boy, I said, “How would you like to go for a ride?”

I was right. Larry Conroy was pissed when he found out what I had done. He was as close to shouting as I had ever heard, his voice buzzing through the miniature fairy ring inked on my palm. “You kidnapped a four-year-old boy?”

“Not all of him.” I closed my hand around the marble which hung from a gold chain around my neck. “Just a piece of his soul.”

I spread my wings, catching the updraft from the chimney atop the apartment complex. Hot air from the boiler let me circle higher with little effort, until I could see the streets stretched out beneath me. The higher I flew, the more the grating in my bones eased.

I felt it every time I entered a city, a metallic pain, like biting into a ball of tin foil. But the pain of all that iron wasn't the scary part; far worse was when I started to grow accustomed to it, a process that came easier with every passing year.

“Jessie, you're an FBI agent. You can't kidnap kids.”

“You'd rather I waterboarded him, maybe?”

Larry's exasperated sigh was jumpy and distorted, like a radio signal in a thunderstorm. Years ago, I had tattooed a miniature ring on his palm, a twin to the one on my own. But a hastily scrawled ink circle was no substitute for the golden tattoo that bound me to my human partner and handler. “You wouldn't have done this twenty years ago,” he said.

Sometimes I wished fairy rings came with off switches. “If this works, I'll restore the kid's soul, wipe their memories, and everyone lives happily ever after. If not, there's a good chance this city won't be around long enough to care. Besides, you're forgetting something important.”

“What's that?”

My wings twitched, turning me eastward toward the tugging I felt from within the marble. “It's working.”

Larry was many things, but he was foremost a damn good agent. “I'll let the team know. What's the location?”

“East. I don't have a distance. Send someone to the apartment, too. Tell them to take care of the troll out back. Oh, and stitch up my leg.” Better to do it while I wasn't there to feel the pain.

Shia and the centerfold flanked me as we flew. We were high enough that the people on the street shouldn't notice anything but a trio of birds. Maybe bats, if they squinted hard enough.

“You've been working this case for months,” said Larry. “Fairies get annual leave too, you know. When was the last time you went home?”

“I'm fine, thank you, mother.” What home? Most of the elder fae had retreated to Fairy centuries ago, before the hills were overrun. There were only a handful of fairy hills left, and none within a hundred miles of here. Even if I did go back, I had been too long among humans. I didn't belong there any more than I did here. “Just shut up and let me do my job, all right?”

“Jessie, I saw the MRI results.”

I scowled. Magnetic resonance imaging devices could be calibrated to scan for iron. It was the best tool we had for checking iron toxicity in the bureau's nonhuman agents. “So did I. I passed.”

“Barely. And how much longer do you think that will last when every breath sucks particles of rust into your lungs? What if Isabel had cut you with that blade?”

I knew I shouldn't have mentioned that. Before I could answer, a brown shadow tore past my right side, and one of my escorts vanished. I looked down to see paper and plastic fluttering to the ground as a large hawk flapped up toward me. “Scold me later, mom. I've got to go fight bad guys.”

Fear sped my wings until my entire body hummed with my efforts to escape. It didn't help. The hawk continued to gain. I darted to one side, trying to beat speed with maneuverability. “They must have left someone to watch the apartment. Shapeshifter, from the size of it.”

“Can you end the spell? Jump back to your body?”

“Not without abandoning the kid's soul.” Truth be told, I wasn't thinking about the kid. I was thinking about the hawk, and the cloud of twisted magic and toxic iron that clung to its feathers. It was unnatural, an ugly corruption of something once beautiful. “Come on, you bastard.”

I dove for the buildings below. If I could find a small enough window or opening—Hell, I'd settle for a gutter I could crawl into. I dropped onto a restaurant rooftop and ducked behind a brick chimney, sending my remaining pixie to slow the hawk. Paper tore, and half a centerfold drifted down onto the hot roof. The hawk landed moments later. I drew my sword and peeked out.

The hawk had vanished, replaced by a fairy who was close to my own true form in size and stature. But she was …
twisted
. Her veins were like blue steel, a stark contrast to her pale skin. Her eyes had a strange, shimmering film, like oil on a puddle. Old scars covered her exposed arms and legs, especially the hands. Hair the color of rust hung past her shoulders in filthy clumps. She wore torn-off black jeans and a ragged T-shirt, but it was the steel chain circling her waist that troubled me most. This was a fairy so far gone that she embraced the pain and corruption of iron.

I searched the rooftop. Metal smokestacks huffed greasy steam into the air. Patches of black tar marked old repairs. A small satellite dish was mounted near the northeast corner.

I flew toward the dish, making it there just before the fairy. I grabbed one of the metal legs to stop myself. I nearly tore my shoulder, but my pursuer stumbled past. A human would have fallen off the roof, but she
managed to regain her balance at the edge. I stayed low and tugged at the electrical tape on the hilt of my sword until I exposed the end.

“You're different from your companions, little false pixie.” Her voice was raspy, conjuring images of poorly maintained factory machines. “There's a true mind in there, and is that a human soul I smell?”

I crouched at the base of the dish, grimacing at the exposed metal. The legs were aluminum, but the steel conduit covering the cables felt like a thousand static shocks jumping onto my skin. I wrinkled my nose at the faint smell of burning paper. Too long here, and my magic would unravel whether I wanted it to or not. “Tell me where you took T.J. Famosa.”

Her smile grew. Her teeth had the same oily-metal sheen as her eyes. “Or else what? You'll send another of your paper pixies for me?”

Why couldn't they have sent another troll, big and strong and stupid? I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Larry, I need you to press the barrel of your gun into the ring on your palm.”

“What?” I winced and clenched my fist to muffle his words. “Are you insane?”

“It's a fairy ring. I can open it to allow objects to pass through as well as sound.” Probably. “For Mab's sake, don't fire until I say the word.” I brought my fist to my lips, whispering old words to expand the ring's magic.

The fairy didn't give me the chance. Maybe she felt my spell, or maybe she simply lacked the patience of our kind. She lunged, nails like metal claws gleaming in the sunlight.