Breaking Ties

A sidekick's work is never done.

Broken Mirrors, Book 4

Kicked out of his family, fetching coffee for idiots, out of cash, and usually starving, Spencer Crain is a shadow of his former self. And more certain than ever that living a normal, serious life is the last thing a Coyote should shoot for.

When he gets the chance to investigate a troll/sidhe gunfight at Under The Bridge, he can't drop “office intern” from his résumé fast enough. Even if it means bringing the last person he ever thought he'd see again back into his life—his father.

James Black, the Sorcerer King, was taking an inordinately long time to choose a draconic protector, but his kidnapping by dragons seems a little extreme. It's up to Spence to navigate Fae politics, work the Feud, bring down a murderous order of sidhe knights, and heroically save James, the man he loves. Assisted by the guy James has been dating.

Ain't love grand?

Warning: This novel contains a Coyote doing the ultimate thankless job—the sidekick—dragon-shifter sorcerers, Dwarves, pop-culture references, and a shotgun that shoots lightning bolts. Freakin'
lightning bolts
, people!

Breaking Ties

Vaughn R. Demont

Acknowledgments

Thanks, as always, first go to my amazing editor, Anne Scott, for helping my stories look as good as possible before they get to you. Thanks also go out to my steadfast beta readers: Chris S., Sara M., Nick, Scott G., and Chris, my own personal Damn Fox. Thanks for sticking with me all this time. Thanks go as well to Oceanlab, JES, Garbage, Tool, Halestorm, Tenacious D and of course BT for providing the soundtrack to the City. My gratitude also goes out to my family for their support, my coworkers for their advice, and most of all to all the Damn Coyotes out there. All of you keep me going, and I can never thank you enough for helping me chase the dream.

Dedication

To Julio and the rest of the Damn Coyotes, I am a man of my word.

Chapter One

Spencer

December 19, 2:37 am

I'm up ninety bucks when the first shot rings out.

On TV the obvious thing to do is duck behind the bar or pool table or whatever's in diving distance that looks sturdy and, if you're not one of the shooters, generally cower and maybe crack wise about the service being terrible while you blindly reach around for your beer. TV and I haven't been on good terms lately, so I go with the duck-and-cover route and leave it at that.

Also, the jukebox has it all wrong. Gunfight music is supposed to be heavy metal, techno or classical if you're using a lot of slow-motion shots. Whoever decided to pull a gun at Under the Bridge obviously didn't review proper procedure when they queued up some Blondie.

Plus, you wouldn't expect a gunfight at a Fae bar, nor would you expect a bar full of Fae to clear out as quickly as it did. I guess getting shot likely affects the Fair Folk just as much as us regular folk. Regardless, all I can make out from my limited vantage are overturned chairs, broken beer bottles knocked to the floor by escaping patrons, and a large collection of gum stuck to the underside of the table. Ick.

The second shot is a cannon-fire explosion that can only mean that Bjorn, the bartender, has entered the fray. A seven-foot troll with a Ruger Casull is no one you want tripping over you, so I continue to huddle under the pool table.

Don't look at me like that. I'm a Coyote. We don't do action-movie bullshit.

That I hear dead quiet instead of screaming likely means that either Bjorn missed, it was a warning shot that got the gunman's attention, or there's very likely a dead body. I take the opportunity to peek over the pool table and chance a glance.

A few feet in front of the bar is a woman dressed in stylized blue-steel half-plate, which looks out of place considering the Glock in her hand. (TV gives you a general idea of which guns are which.) Her skin is a dark green, accentuating the cobalt-blue blood that leaks from the stump where her head used to be, attached by a flap of bloody skin and… I'm not going to look at it anymore; I'm feeling queasy as it is. Bjorn is slumped against the bar, holding the Casull and clutching his chest, his breathing shallow.

“Oh shit.” I wish I could be more articulate here, but that's all I've got. I get out from behind the pool table and go to him, considering even if she were a zombie she is not getting up from that. “Stay with me, okay?” I fish out my cell, a burner I picked up six months ago that I've yet to burn. “I'm going to call an ambulance—”

The phone's slapped from my hand by blue-blood-covered fingers. “No humans.”

I'm able to get a look at his injury, and it does not look like the just-a-flesh-wound variety that enables heroes to continue emptying clips into the onslaught. “Jesus, what kind of ammo did she use?”

“Iron. Special.” He swallows, baring his teeth as a wave of pain hits him. “Fae killers. Didn't exit.” The gun is still in his grasp, his knuckles white, the grip cracking under the pressure. My face is suddenly slick with his blood when he takes hold of it. “Tell my stories, Bard, promise me. Let my honor be known, that I outlived the coward sent to kill me.”

Another one of my roles in life, being a Bard. Makes me easy to talk to, but for Fae it holds a special significance.

I gulp and inspect the wound. “Or…I could try to help you. How deep in is it?” Funny, usually I say those words in an entirely different context. “I mean, I don't want to nick an artery or anything and make it worse.” I chew my lip. “You're sure paramedics wouldn't be a better idea?”

The troll glares at me. “And let humans cut into me with
steel
?” Oh yeah, steel has iron in it. Forgot about that.

“Wait, wait, just…hold on a bit.” I retrieve my phone and start dialing. “I know someone who can help you that isn't involved with the Feud or the Fae, and with any luck he can get here soon.” In the meantime I apply pressure to the wound, or rather, help him apply pressure and stuff it with gauze in the form of a clean bar rag.

Help arrives fifteen minutes later, a short red-haired human with a white streak in his bangs. He's tired and wearing thrown-on jeans and a too-large black polo shirt with
Bremen's Automotive
across the breast. Not surprisingly, he chooses to react first to the dead body on the floor instead of his blood-smeared Coyote sidekick and the troll who's in the midst of bleeding out. “Holy fuck, Spence, what'd you do?”

I shrug helplessly. “Mostly? I hustled a commoner sidhe out of ninety bucks, and he fled the
gunfight
that broke out before he could pay me. I was going to go after him, but I didn't want Bjorn here haunting my ass over an unpaid bar tab. So, uh, James, mind doing your thing?”

“What exactly are you asking me to do?” James gives the corpse a wide berth, shuddering visibly at the spreading pool of blue blood. “Jesus Christ, what happened to her?”

I point at the revolver in Bjorn's hand to answer his question, the troll still gripping it to focus his pain.

James does the math after seeing the pistol in the dead Fae's hand. “Okay, okay, what's wrong with him? It
is
him you want me to work on, right? Because I don't do…” he gestures futilely at the body, “…that.”

“Gee, James, they're both holding guns, I'd guess he's got a sniffle.” I help Bjorn pull his hand away from the wound. The troll hacks up some blood, and that's never a good sign. “He's been shot. God, I thought you had to be smart to be a—”

He holds up a hand as he kneels next to the troll and me. “Seriously, Spence, that's just getting old.” James looks at me. “Regular bullets or…”

“Iron.”

He winces, but he levels his gaze on the wound, holding his fingers just in front of the opening that pulses out blue blood (different shade than the sidhe, but I guess it's just a difference in type) at a much weaker pace.

“Spence, I need the name for iron.” He clicks his tongue a couple times and touches the troll's forehead, a word coming from his mouth that's contorted into English, not quite matching his lip movements, like a bad dubbing job. The word is in Sigil, the language of magic. “
Sleep
.” After the troll's eyes close and James confirms he's breathing, he looks at me. “That enough to go off?”

A handy trick Bards have is that we can speak in any language as long as we've heard it before. Granted, I usually sound like a tourist that drunkenly memorized a phrase book, but it's enough to be understood. Sigil, being a magical language, is a bit trickier, so I need to hear it every now and then or I'll forget it. The upside is that when I
can
speak it, I'm fluent as a Fae. “
Iron
.”

There's a reason James needs me to translate for him despite the fact that he's the one who gave the damned language its current name.

“
Iron no want here. Iron go turn be blood now yes.
”

See what I mean? Ironic that he thinks I sound like an idiot most of the time, but then again he does have a good reason. Magic's pretty complicated, and James is possibly the only one in the world who can really do it. When he does it right, some amazing things can happen. When he does it wrong, well, there's an elevated train in the City that now has some serious self-esteem issues.

Still, you'd think the guy who named the language would know more than fifty words of it.

TV gives you expectations where magic is concerned, you know. There's supposed to be lights and sounds and ripples in the air and a general shudder that goes through your soul. Flashy stuff. Instead there's nothing but James breathing almost as shallowly as the ventilated troll. “We need to close the wound,” he rasps. “The healing spell I know only works on me.”

“Got it covered.” I dig into my pocket and take out my deck of cards, which no Coyote ever leaves home without, and draw out one of the few remaining clubs in the deck, since it's been dwindled lately. I press the card (the Jack, in case you're curious) against the wound and stuff the bloody bar rag in the sleeping troll's mouth. “Brace yourself, Bjorn.”

James's eyes go wide as he sees the card. “Spence, is that the Jack?”

“
Hi.
” No, I didn't just say hi, I said
Hi
, the Japanese element of Fire, seeing as I filched this trick from a Fox. I don't really get James's concern, though, until the trick literally fires—a gout of flame bursting from the card that burns closed the wound while it singes my eyebrows and a fair bit of my bangs. Oh, right. The Jack. Ranks a lot higher in the suit, so…a lot more powerful.

Could've been worse, could've been the Ace.

The troll awakens, screaming through the cloth, some fresh blood dripping from his mouth until he spits out the rag, which hits me in the chest, getting even more blood on me. It's a good thing that I've seen a zombie exploded by a wave of thunder before, otherwise all the blood might make me ill. Well, it is, but I can hold off on puking for a while.

“Spence, he's probably still bleeding internally…”

I wave James off and shake my head. “He's a troll. They regenerate, remember?” I have to chuckle at him. “Jesus, James, isn't that covered in the
Monster Manual
?”

He narrows his eyes at me crossly. “The trolls in the game aren't Fae.” James looks into the troll's eyes. “You going to make it?”

Bjorn sniffs at James and promptly spits in the human's face. “
Keth
.” Then the troll glares at me. “You brought a
sorcerer
here?”

I tilt my head. “Sorry. Next time I'll just let you die. And tell really embarrassing stories at your funeral. Remember that time I ralphed on your boots? Classic. I'm sure it'll go over well.”

James in the meantime is wiping his face clean. “Don't worry about it, Spence. I'm used to it.” He pokes the troll in the shoulder, the one that's not near the wound. “You didn't answer my question, are you going to make it?”

Bjorn snorts but after a second nods silently.

“Fantastic.” I get up, and help James to his feet as well before motioning to the dead Fae. “Mind telling us what this is all about?”

The barkeep looks away. “Nothing that concerns you.”

I scoff. “I would say getting shot at concerns me.”

“Especially,” James chimes in, “if this spills out onto the street and innocent people get shot.” The troll starts to respond, but James holds up his hand, static jumping between his fingertips. “I swear to God, you had better not be about to imply that I don't care about innocent people because I'm a sorcerer.”

Bjorn takes a moment to select his words. “It is an internal matter. Humans will not even be aware.”

The troll has a point. Trolls and Coyotes and sidhe and sorcerers are only stories, remember? Much easier for humanity to subconsciously ignore it or see the gunfight here as a robbery gone wrong or something.

The sorcerer shrugs simply and glances at me. “Spence, you okay getting home?”

I'll admit I blink a few times. “That's it? You're going to let this go?” I point at the dead woman a little more, well, pointedly. “That woman is dead, James.”

“It's two in the morning, and I'm not a cop or a PI or any of that shit. My job is to stay alive and not rock the boat because this City alone is filled with people who'd love nothing more than to see me dead. Considering that, do you really think I want to get involved with the Fae? I can't name one story where dealings with them end well for the human. The last six months have actually gone
nicely
for me. I don't want to jinx that.” To his credit, he reaches over and knocks the wooden bar. “Now, as I was saying, do you need a ride back to the diner?”

I shake my head, and with that James leaves as easily as he arrived. I can't blame him, really, considering everything he's been through, but simply because I see where he's coming from doesn't mean it's right. After all, we were both here in this moment. If there's one thing a Coyote can pick out, it's Fate weaving up something big, and I can definitely get a feeling about what happened here tonight, and not because I was shot at. (Okay, maybe the shots weren't aimed at me, but they could've been!)

Bjorn is still leaning against the bar, but his breathing sounds better, his face turning blue. He's a troll, so the blue skin's actually a good sign here. “Leave me, Trickster.”

I mockingly play up considering it a few seconds longer than I probably should, and then pull over a chair and sit in it backwards, resting my elbows on the back while I peer at him. “No can do. I'd rather stick around, make sure no one comes in and clips you while you're waiting for help. The Keth might not give a damn but this whole ordeal has sparked my curiosity.”

He hardens his stare at me. “You'll get nothing from me.”

I give him a Coyote smile, easy and confident. “You're adorable. I'm a Bard, remember? And we're in a
bar
. This is my natural habitat, Bjorn. Do you really believe you're not going to tell me the stories I need to hear?”

It's another upside, and I would consider it the biggest one, honestly. Bards need to collect stories to tell, and we can't do that if everyone's tight-lipped. As a result it's easy to let things slip around a Bard, simple to trust us. We're better than a stranger's confessional, single-serving friend and bartender combined.

“Bjorn, I've taken stories from the gods and the King of the Phouka himself. Do you really think a troll who defeated a mortal enemy in single combat is going to resist bragging about it to someone like me?”

Bjorn snorts at that. “She wasn't a mortal enemy, just a minor noble carrying heraldry of the Cobalt…” He blinks at me. “I
despise
Coyotes.”