Emerald City Dreamer (7 page)

Sandy nodded. "Just remember, it's hard to find good recruits. Keep a lid on your passions."

Jina felt like she often did around Sandy. Their friendship had mutated, and Sandy had become a domineering authority figure. It made some kind of sense; after all, Sandy had an organization to run. But she missed the old times.

Jina was torn between standing up for herself and caving to Sandy's orders. "If you're going to ask me to be someone I'm not-"

"
Just don't ruin it. Anything else?"

"
This guy described a faerie recently in the alley by Trader Joe's. The kid had horns and had been digging in the dumpster. He rode off on his bike."

Jina considered carrying a knife with her at all times. Opportunities were starting to arise... Maybe Hollis could show her how to use a sword. He had made all kinds from iron. In the armory there was a light Japanese-style blade she'd always liked the look of; although it wasn't the sort of thing you could carry everywhere. It was against the law to take any kind of weapon into a bar, so she wouldn't be able to even carry a knife at concerts. Not legally.

At the very least, she should have an arsenal of spells at the ready.

"
We're getting more opportunities," Sandy said. "Three faeborn on the loose. We need this faesight guy on our team. We can't hunt what we can't see." Sandy jotted a few notes in an overstuffed notebook. "He's the most important one. Find him, and we find this horned kid. Good work today, you two."

Jina smiled and stood, waiting a moment for Gretel to walk out. "Sandy... You sure you're okay after that encounter? It must have been triggering."

"
Trigger, what does that mean? Is that part of the lingo you learned so you could fake that support group?"

Good, Sandy was talking. "It's not just lingo. It has meaning. When something traumatic happens, you don't process the memory correctly. Your body and emotions are put on alert, looking for any sign of danger. When something reminds you of the trauma, that's a trigger. The reaction can be very strong, like a racing heart, panic, anger-"

Sandy leaned forward in her chair. "I was in perfect control of the situation."

"
You sure? You could have stalled him, rung up Hollis on the Bat Phone, and captured him right there on the doorstep."

"
I did all of those things. He surprised me and I made some snap decisions. Anything else?"

"
Yeah... I worry about you. Remember how we used to go out? Dance clubs and shows? Parties?"

"
We're grown up now, Jina."

"
Grown up, not old. I understand that we have to keep the world safe from faeries. I want it as much as you." Then, quietly, she said, "There comes a time when determination becomes obsession."

Sandy sighed. "You still don't understand what it was like, Jina. He made me
want
it,
ask
for it. He crawled inside my head and left an oily residue I can
never
scrub clean. And I'm still married to the bastard. I won't be free until he's dead."

"
It's good to talk about it like that. Get those feelings out. That's the kind of thing we share in group."

Sandy rolled her eyes.

"
Look, I just don't want you to burn out. Maybe... Do you want to go to lunch sometime soon?"

Sandy started shuffling the papers on her desk, then paused. "Actually... I could use a break."

Jina grinned. "When?"

"
I'm not sure... with all these people to track down--"

"
In a couple of days? How about Sunday evening. We could go to dinner?"

Sandy hesitated.

"
Come on. It won't be hard." Jina put on her best coaxing voice. "Just commit."

"
Okay, Sunday for dinner then," she said.

"
Sweet."

Jina walked out into the library, triumphant. These days, it took so much to get Sandy out of the house.

It was almost enough to make her forget about Scarf. He would be back, and this time, Jina would make sure he didn't get away.

SANDY DESCENDED INTO THE DUNGEON.

She hated that name. Jina had started calling it that, and it stuck. She wondered briefly where Jina was. They were going to have dinner, supposedly. Sandy worried if she'd have enough time.

Most of the basement had been converted into a lab. Metal lamps hung from the ceiling and brightly lit the clean tiled floor and walls. There were a number of tables covered with scientific equipment and measuring devices, both modern and arcane. The blink of lights and electronic readout screens reflected from candlesticks and crude iron devices.

She smiled proudly. She'd brought these people together, and she'd made all this happen.

"
Hey Hollis." He sat at his computer typing something. Sandy could only see the back of his head.

"
Hey." He didn't turn to look at her, but continued typing. "I'm just making some corrections to this Wikipedia article on limonite. Sorry, I got a little distracted. I was researching photoreactive iron hydroxide in the hopes of making this toradh detector more accurate." He clicked the mouse and then whirled around and she could see that his shirt said, '
You have the right to remain silent, so please shut up
!'

"
No need for excuses, Hollis. I know you work ten hours a day on this." She glanced around the Dungeon hoping to see where Jina was hiding. Nowhere. She wasn't in her room, either.

Hollis wheeled his chair to the table, grabbed a stack of printed pages and wheeled his chair back to her. Today he was wearing pants like a respectable human being, instead of that weird kilt.

"
Check this out," he said. "I found some interesting research papers. I'm thinking it might be more effective if we try enzymes. Enzymes are complex protein structures, almost living things. They convert organic chemicals, so they may also react to glamour or toradh better than the inorganic photoreactive compounds we use now. Life seems to react better to hocus pocus than dead chemicals."

He flipped through the pages showing charts, tables, molecular chains, and paragraphs of text. He pointed at a line graph. It looked like the printer was running out of toner.

Sandy tried to pay attention, but her neck hurt. It was important information, but couldn't he just build the damn thing?

"
Did you get all that?" he asked.

"
Yeah, you did a good job explaining it, I think," she said. "Let's give it a try. Anything you need, just put it on order. These materials are all legal, right?"

"
Oh course. Most of them."

"
Good. Do it."

"
No one has the guts to hunt faeries except you, Sandy. Though I am itching for some action."

"
You'll see some action, soon enough. Where's the redcap?"

"
Stupid motherfucker is over there." He motioned to a spot across the room where a small iron cage, about 2 feet on a side, held an apparently empty large glass jar with a stainless steel lid. A couple of tubes and wires grew out of the lid, leading to a small panel with a blinking red light outside the cage. A lit candle flickered in front of the jar.

Redcaps were one of the easiest types of fae to identify, once she could actually see them. Using the old lore, she had classified and reclassified all the different types of fae and spirit beings from around the world, with a focus on European fae. Some defied classification, so she hesitated to call them "breeds" or "species". Pygsies and pixies, brownies and hobgoblins had enough traits in common that it was conceivable for one specimen to be a pixie-hobgoblin-brownie.

Perhaps the lore wasn't reliable enough. After all, the tales were told by uneducated farmers in the backwaters of Wales and Brittany, remote villages of Switzerland and Romania. How would they know the technical difference between puca and cait sidhe?

One old anonymous writer claimed that the fae themselves referred to the types as "ilk", though Sandy had never become comfortable with that term, probably because it was as shifty a word as the fae themselves.

Some fae were unique, and didn't fall into any ilk. There was only one each of Grindylow, Jenny Greenteeth, and Maggie Molloch. And thankfully, only one hideous Nuckelavee haunting the Scottish seas.

Sandy had searched for commonalities between all cultures, and she had found some. Some ilk only appeared in specific local areas, so she theorized that cultural dreams affected which fae were born, or even that fae might change over time to fit the expectations of the people who lived nearby.

But to understand it all, she needed more data. If it meant spending her entire life in this lab, that's what she'd do.

"
What's with the candle?" she asked. "Is it some kind of experiment?"

"
The redcap kept bothering me so I gave it something to do."

Sandy stepped over to the apparatus and practiced what she had before, remembering what the redcap had looked like, and trying to believe it was real.

And there it was. It stood about a foot and half tall, pressing his hands against the glass, and trying, with a great deal of effort, to blow the candle out. Of course the glass prevented it, and all the iron and spells prevented his magic from escaping. As she approached, it turned toward her.

Sandy fought an urge to strangle it. The burn marks from the trap that still crisscrossed his face gave her some satisfaction.

"
I'm pretty sure it can't escape; the candle distracts it from even trying," Hollis said. He wheeled closer.

"
Maybe it thinks blowing out the candle will set it free." Sandy had some idea of how it might feel, struggling under false pretenses, if it had feelings, which of course it didn't. "The iron should be sufficient if it happens to get past the glass and wards."

Through their experiments on previous, now dead, fae spirits, they found that wrought iron worked best on faeries. Cast iron had some effect, and most types of steel didn't even leave a rash. At first they thought it has something to do with the iron content of the alloy, since wrought iron is 99.0-99.8% ferrous. However, when they tested mild steel, which has almost as much iron, it might as well have been plastic. Cast iron had the least iron content, and it made the faeries uncomfortable.

It didn't entirely make sense, but then, they were talking about faeries. Just when they thought they'd found some consistent pattern, the pattern would be broken.

Wrought iron was the hardest to find. None had been made since the reduced price of steel forced the closure of the last ironworks in 1973. So they bought up antique and scrap which Hollis simply reworked. The other large room in the basement served as Hollis's workshop for forging.

Sandy bent over and blew the candle out. Immediately the faerie looked up at her and snarled. The sight of its teeth made her finger throb beneath the bandaid. Its eyes made her remember Haun's eyes, how he had caressed her, the blue butterflies...

She held herself tightly and walked over to the hook where her lab coat hung. She slipped it on.

They'd been working on the concept of a glamour generator for months. They had ample supply of toradh, but that did them no good. They needed a faerie to make glamour, and glamour to make spells.

The jar rocked back and forth as the redcap slammed against the glass.

"
It was quieter in here when the candle was lit," Hollis said, dangling a pen over its head. It scrabbled at the top of the jar trying to get at it.

"
Obviously. It'll tire out."

"
Where's Jina?" he asked.

"
I wish I knew. Probably making out with a stranger or at one of her music things."

There was no end to the work that needed to be done. Sandy looked at her watch. Only one in the afternoon. It would be nice to just sit and relax, talk about whatever random subjects Jina happened to think of.

It was so taxing, having to be the one everyone looked to.

"
Gretel is on her way down," Sandy said. "Hopefully her eyes can tell us if this thing is converting toradh. Speak of the devil."

Gretel moved slowly with a small bowl in her hands, filled completely to the top with milk. A bead of honey encircled the rim.