Betrayals (Cainsville Book 4) (5 page)

We got three steps into the diner before the place went silent, every aging pair of eyes turning our way.

The first to react was Ida Clark, de facto leader of the Cainsville Tylwyth Teg. She rose to greet us, along with her consort, Walter.

“Olivia,” she said. “And Gabriel. We haven’t seen either of you in a while.”

“And we haven’t seen you together in even longer,” said Veronica, beaming at us from her table.

“We’re together plenty,” I said. “I work for him, remember? Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a case—”

Walter perked up. “You’re working on a case together?”

“We are,” I said. “Ricky’s in trouble, and Gabriel’s helping me fix it.”

Did I take some pleasure in seeing their faces fall as I mentioned that dreaded name? Maybe.

I walked to the counter, and said hi to Larry—the cook and owner. I’d worked here for a few months after I arrived, and contrary to what the elders claimed, I did still stop by quite often. I just didn’t talk to
them.

I motioned to the server—Susie—that I was going to take the coffee pot. Then I carried it over to the dark-haired guy banging away on his laptop. Patrick didn’t even let me draw up alongside his table before he lifted his mug.

He smiled as I filled it. “Hello, Liv. Good to see you.”

Gabriel took the pot from me and returned it as Patrick said, “You, too, Gabriel. The old folks are right. You don’t come by nearly often enough these days.”

I took the seat across from Patrick.

“Pleasantries complete, one-sided though they may be,” Patrick said. “Liv wants to get down to business. How may I help you, Olivia? I presume that’s what brings you to my office. You want something.”

“Of course.”

“And in return?”

Quid pro quo. That’s how all fae operate on some level, but it’s more overt with a hobgoblin.

“In return I will tell you what we’re investigating,” I said. “And you can decide how much of it you want to pass on to the other elders.”

The old folks heard that perfectly well, and they were not pleased. Patrick’s eyes glittered as he sipped his coffee.

I glanced around. Other than the elders, there were no other customers. Susie and Larry had gone into the back, like bartenders sensing a brawl brewing.

“Is that a reasonable deal?” I asked Patrick.

“It is.”

“No.” Ida got to her feet again. “It is not.”

She started toward me. Gabriel stepped into her path.

“I want to speak to Liv,” Ida said. “I am allowed that, under the terms—”

“Under the terms of our agreement, you are allowed to speak to her, but not to interfere. She wishes to consult with Patrick. You are attempting to interfere.”

“Patrick isn’t the one she should speak to.”

“Perhaps, but he is the one she
chooses
to speak to.”

“He cannot be trusted—”

“None of you can.”

Ida stepped closer. “We are trying, Gabriel. Mistakes were made. If you and Olivia would just put aside this nonsense—”

“It isn’t nonsense to us. Olivia wishes to speak to Patrick. Please allow her to do so. I’m sure he’ll share the story with you afterward.”

“I might,” Patrick said.

Gabriel gave him a look. Patrick might play the rebel, but he didn’t antagonize the others unnecessarily.

“Can we move this conversation to your place?” I asked Patrick.

“You kids go on ahead. I’ll finish my coffee and catch up.”

Ida didn’t try to follow us out of the diner, and while I hate to give Patrick credit, I think he sent us on ahead so he could deal with them while we escaped.

Patrick’s house wasn’t hard to find. The town is arranged in a grid pattern. All commercial and public buildings are in the downtown core. Beyond that, it’s houses, houses, and more houses. Besides Grace’s walk-up, there are no townhouses or apartments. And there are very few buildings—residential or commercial—less than a hundred years old.

That is strange, when you think about it, but unless you
do
think about it, Cainsville settles comfortably in the mind, as if this is how towns should look. No rundown corner stores with
barred windows and cigarette ads. No tawdry McMansions on streets of stately Tudors. There aren’t even many stop signs—you’re expected to follow the common courtesy of slowing down and checking before turning or crossing an intersection.

Cainsville is a town of unspoken rules and unconscious compliance. For someone like me, who chafes under restrictions and expectations—or Gabriel, who refuses to acknowledge them at all—that should be hell on earth. But it isn’t.

It’s not fae compulsion that draws us here. We don’t balk at natural rules, like slowing down to watch for children. It’s the larger, more institutional ones we struggle with, and there’s no sense here that we’re unwelcome if we don’t conform to the laws enforced beyond the town borders. Only what happens within the confines of Cainsville counts in Cainsville.

We were walking past the school when I thought I spotted a gargoyle. That shouldn’t be surprising, considering how many there are in the town. But they appear and disappear, and there’s even a May Day contest to find them all. The local children submit their lists to the elders and win prizes for the most found. If they locate them all, they get a special award: a gargoyle made in their likeness. The last child to win that was the guy walking beside me.

The gargoyle I’d just spotted wouldn’t have done much good as a waterspout. It was tucked under a bush beside the school’s front gates. I hadn’t noticed it before, so I stopped … and saw nothing. The gargoyle had vanished. I took a step back. Still nothing.

I glanced at Gabriel. He just stood there, waiting. I crouched beside the bush and pushed the leaves aside. Behind them I saw a rock. Just a regular gray rock. Despite the rough and jagged surface, no matter which way I looked at it, I couldn’t find a face.

“I did see one, right?” I said.

“Possibly.”

“Can I get a hint?” I asked.

“You’re the detective.”

“Spoilsport.”

“No, I’d be spoiling your sport if I told you. The clues are there. Follow them.”

I touched the rock.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Gabriel said. “It bites.”

I shook my head. Holding the branch aside, I tried looking again from every angle. No shape took form.

The clues are there.

I let go of the branch and eased back. That’s when I saw another branch, higher up, the bark almost worn away in one spot. I tugged it, and there was the gargoyle. Or, more accurately, a baby gargoyle. That’s what it looked like—an infant in swaddling clothes, with twisted and exaggerated features, its face contorted in a wail. I reached out to touch it … and let out a yelp, drawing back to see a drop of blood welling on my fingertip.

“Didn’t I warn you?” Gabriel said.

“Ha-ha. There must be a thorn …” I leaned in further, seeing no thorns … and a smear of red on the gargoyle’s tiny jagged teeth.

“You weren’t joking,” I said.

“Do I ever?”

I sat back on my haunches and looked up at him and thought,
Where’s yours?
Where was his gargoyle?

“Ah,” said a voice behind Gabriel. “I see you’ve found one of our most popular gargoyles. The cranky baby.”

I looked over at Patrick. “It bites.”

“Of course it does. The children wouldn’t love it nearly as much if it didn’t. That’s why it’s at the school.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Then you, my dear, don’t know children.”

“What’s their purpose?” I asked as I stood.

“Children? No idea. It appears to be simply an inconvenient stage between birth and usefulness.”

“I mean the gargoyles,” I said.

“They divert water from buildings, reducing wear on the stonework.”

I shook my head. “I know they can scare away the Cŵn Annwn’s ravens, but this one couldn’t do that—or divert water. The gargoyles must serve a greater purpose.”

“They do.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Would you like to know what it is?”

“Yes.”

He straightened. “Then you have to ask the other elders, because solving the mysteries of Cainsville for you is a line I will not cross.”

I looked at Gabriel.

“You already know what I was told,” he said. “They ward off the Black Death.”

“There’s never been an outbreak of bubonic plague in Illinois.”

“So apparently they work,” Patrick said. “Now come along, kids. I still have another chapter to write today.”

P
atrick’s house was typical for the town: a one-and-a-half-story Gothic Revival. Inside, it was typical for
him
, far more concerned with personal comfort and amusement than historicity. In the living room, walls had been ripped down to create a large area that was half entertainment center and half library. We sat in the library end.

“I had a vision,” I said. “The details are unimportant, but—”

“Details are always important.”

“I just want to know what kind of fae I saw.”

“And I want the details. Start at the beginning.” When I hesitated, he said, “Liv …” as if I were a child being difficult for the sake of being difficult. I don’t know how to deal with Patrick. He’s useful, and he’s not unpleasant to be around. I could like him, as an ally. But I cannot get past what he did to Gabriel. Patrick was Gabriel’s father and—fae or not—he left him in unconscionable circumstances with Seanna.

“Olivia?” Gabriel said, glancing over, wondering why I was balking when I’d
wanted
to speak to Patrick. He didn’t know Patrick was his father, and I was in no rush to tell him.

I told Patrick the whole story, starting with hearing the Wild Hunt, through the death of the girl, to the others mourning her and the youngest’s words to me.

“Lamiae,” he said. “Greek fae.”

“Like Lamia from the myth?” When Gabriel arched his brows, I said, “She was a Libyan queen Zeus fell in love with. Hera punished her—because, clearly, if your husband screws around, it’s the other woman who needs punishing. Hera turned her into a snake-woman and forced her to devour her own children. She also made Lamia unable to close her eyes, so she’d forever relive her children’s horrible deaths.”

“Charming.”

“Oh, but Zeus came to the rescue. He made it so she could take out her eyes. Which solved
all
her problems. Then she went mad and started devouring random children.” I looked at Patrick. “Other than the snake part, I’m not getting the connection.”

“Folklore and myth is a muddled mess,” he said, easing into lecture mode. “Stories are told and retold, passed on and altered according to each storyteller’s proclivities and imagination. Take Matilda—there are clearly elements of her true story in the myth. Same with Arawn. Gwynn ap Nudd, though …”

Gabriel flinched. Patrick didn’t notice and continued. “The legends of Gwynn bear little resemblance to the truth other than the fact he was king of the Tylwyth Teg. In some lore, he’s confused with Arawn, making him lord of the Hunt. Then there’s his part in the Arthurian legend cycle. Yet his real role—in the Matilda myth—was stricken from the records. The simple fact is that the stories you’ll find in human collections rarely have more than a nodding acquaintance with the truth. Which is understandable.”

“Because they come from humans.”

“History is written by the victors.”

An odd choice of quote. Was that what humans were to fae? The victors? Driving them from their homes and destroying their lands?

I pushed back on track. “So the lamiae?”

“A similar mess. You have the Libyan queen of myth. A half-snake monster who devours children. Later she’s not so much devouring them as sucking their blood, becoming a form of vampire. Then, rather than being half snake, she’s a beautiful young woman, often depicted with snakeskin around her waist.”

“The belts I saw.”

He nodded. “And by that point, she isn’t targeting children at all—she’s going after men. Seducing them and stealing their life force.”

“Making her a variation on the succubus.”

“Exactly. Go a step farther and you don’t have a single monster named Lamia, you have a monstrous subtype called lamiae, young women with snakelike traits who seduce men and consume their life force.”

“Which is closest to what I saw. Are they descendants of Lamia, then?”

He shook his head. “Remember what I said about the records getting mucked up? Flip it around the other way and you have something closer to your answer.”

“The fae known as lamiae culturally evolved into the story of the Libyan queen.”

“Either the story changed with the times—folklore giving way to myth—or two separate stories got mashed together. The point is that what you saw are lamiae, a Greek fae subtype.”

“Show me,” I said, nodding at his bookcase.

He smiled, not at all perturbed by my lack of trust. “You want the truth straight from the source? Good girl.” He glanced at Gabriel. “You won’t hit me again, will you?”

“That depends on whether you do something to deserve it.”

“I would strongly advise against hitting me, Gabriel.”

“Then I would strongly advise against giving me cause.” Patrick shook his head and went to the bookshelf. The tattered and worn tomes mended at his touch, the leather so new I swore I could smell it. He selected one and motioned me over. I took the chair he offered at a desk. Gabriel positioned himself at my shoulder. Patrick set the book in front of me.

“
Fae of Foreign Lands
,” I said.

“You’ve been learning Welsh.”

“It seemed prudent.”

He chuckled and flipped open the book. It was handwritten, like many of his volumes—bound journals rather than printed books. The black ink gleamed so brightly it shone, and the words wriggled like eels, slipping and sliding across the page.

“Focus,” he said.

“I am.”

“
Boinne-fala
,” he said. “As impatient as the children you are.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“That you lack the patience of—”

“
Boinne-fala
,” I said. “The fae use the term for humans, but the translation is ‘a drop of blood.’ Which makes no sense.”