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Authors: Ari Marmell

Hallow Point

BOOK: Hallow Point
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Contents

Cover

Also by Ari Marmell

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

A Brief Word on Language

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Fae Pronunciation Guide

Mobsters of Chicago

Acknowledgments

About the Author

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM ARI MARMELL AND TITAN BOOKS

Hot Lead, Cold Iron: A Mick Oberon Job

Hallow Point
Print edition ISBN: 9781781168257
E-Book edition ISBN: 9781781168264

Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: August 2015
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Ari Marmell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright © 2015 by Ari Marmell. All rights reserved.

www.titanbooks.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For Eugie, who had so many of her own stories left to tell.
I miss you.

A BRIEF WORD ON LANGUAGE

T
hroughout the Mick Oberon novels, I’ve done my best to ensure that most of the 30s-era slang can be picked up from context, rather than trying to include what would become a massive (and, no matter how careful I was, likely incomplete) dictionary. So over the course of reading, it shouldn’t be difficult to pick up on the fact that “lamps” and “peepers” are eyes, “choppers” and “Chicago typewriters” are Tommy guns, and so forth.

But there are two terms I do want to address, due primarily to how they appear to modern readers.

“Bird,” when used as slang in some areas today, almost always refers to a woman. In the 1930s, however, it was just another word for “man” or guy.”

“Gink” sounds like it should be a racial epithet to modern ears (and indeed, though rare, I’ve been told that it
is
used as such in a few regions). In the 30s, the term was, again, just a word for “man,” though it has a somewhat condescending connotation to it. (That is, you wouldn’t use it to refer to anyone you liked or respected.) It’s in this fashion that I’ve used it throughout the novels.

CHAPTER ONE

P
ools of light and waves of shadow.

After hours, the museum’s Hall of Africa was a waking dream, and not a good one. Lit only by sporadic fixtures, the light shook and shifted with every running step, so a great mask or bronze statue loomed out of the darkness here, a wave of blindness swept between me and my quarry there.

Jeez, but this cat was fast! I’m pretty speedy when I go all out, and he was still pullin’ a good lead on me.

About time to change up the odds a bit.

I had my trusty old Luchtaine & Goodfellow wand already drawn and aimed, so all I hadda do was wait another tick, let him pass from another patch of shadow into what little illumination I had, and…

Bang.

Or
whoosh
.

Abracadabra
.

Whatever you care to imagine magic’d sound like if it sounded like anything.

It shoulda torn every shred of good fortune from the sap, sent him stumbling, crashing into all sorts of crap, probably even breaking some bones. I wasn’t goin’ easy on him. No way he shoulda been able to outrun me, and I don’t like it when people do shit I don’t expect.

I
missed
.

You got any idea how hard it is to miss with
magic
? Ain’t as though there’s a bullet involved, as though you need a straight line of fire.

But even as I felt the power discharge through the wand, the bastard leapt like he knew it was coming. One jump, up and over, he tucked his drumsticks under him, and cleared a seven-foot display case holding a bunch of necklaces and those earlobe-plug things and whatnot, made outta stone and hardwood and seed shells.

The exhibit made like it had a bomb in it. Glass shattered with a single caboose-clenching
crack
, thick, ugly shards sailing in all directions. Old twine rotted and frayed, and burst apart, sending pretty little rocks tumbling and bouncing all over the floor.

I didn’t even wanna know how much that display was worth. Pretty sure there ain’t enough zeroes in Chicago…

Acrobatics like that, and the goofy hombre wasn’t done yet!

Me, I’d frozen for just a blink, surprised by the detonating case and having to lean back outta the path of the glass.

He hadn’t.

Seemed his dogs barely hit the floor before he jumped again, almost as if he’d
bounced
. Up high, spinning like Newton’s laws had been repealed, then kicked off the wall beside him.

And, mid-tumble, he chucked something back at me.

Couldn’t tell edge-on what it was, just that it was coming
fast
, and aimed right at my neck. I’d swiped a
lot
of luck from those necklaces and stuff, and I burned
all
of it, and
still
didn’t have enough swift to duck completely clear.

Sharp pain sliced through my right ear, and a warm wetness ran down the side of my head, making my hair all thick and matted.

I slapped a mitt to the wound, and tossed the L&G to my other hand. Yep, it had taken a chunk of my ear clean off, right at the pointy part. Hell, if I had human ears, it mighta missed outright. Hopefully, it’d be one of those details you schlubs—that’d be humans, for those who ain’t payin’ attention—don’t ever notice about me. It was gonna be days growin’ back!

Then again, without my magic, that coulda been a lot more’n a piece of skin and cartilage lying flopped on the ground behind me, beside a bloody…

Shard of glass?

He’d snatched a goddamn shard of glass from the display case
out of the freakin’ air
and hurled it back at me! Who the fuck
was
this guy?

I still hadn’t gotten a clean slant on him, and that wasn’t so natural, either. Even in the pools of light, the darkness somehow clung to him, trailing off like vapor until he reached the next patch of shadow. I had seen enough to know he was a big son of a bitch—not a whole lot shorter than the glass case he’d hurdled—and that he was wearing something on his head. Weird hat? Crown?
Something
.

This is when anyone with half a brain in their conk woulda decided it was time to leg it, but I didn’t get where I am by
not
doing ditzy shit. Anyway, I was way too caught up in the chase, and
way
too curious.

Figure I was a cat in a past life, and that’s
why
it’s a past life.

We were in the main hall, now. The place was
huge
, stretching up through the next story to a couple light fixtures and skylights with the black of night beyond ’em. Thick pillars and lengths of wall topped with open arches, that let patrons on the second floor look in and down, separated it from the smaller halls on either side. Display cases ran down both sides of the hall, directing traffic to the final exhibit: a pair of full-sized African elephants, preserved in eternal combat.

Even
they
didn’t reach halfway to the ceiling. They coulda stuck a whole dinosaur in here and it wouldn’t have made the place feel any less spacious.

Some of those upper arches had banners hanging, advertising coming exhibits, and that’s where my quarry’d gone. I’d come in just in time to see him bounding like a rubber kangaroo again. From the floor to the top of a glass display, which didn’t tremble let alone break when he landed. Then from there to the back of one of the elephants, where he took two running paces to the beastie’s head and leapt for a banner just above.

Something to do with a new addition to the Ancient Egypt section. No idea why I remember that.

You know what, though? Don’t matter how nimble and tricky you are, you bouncing bastard, you ain’t dodging a damn thing in mid-air!

I was running again as I fired, and this time I felt the impact. Wasn’t able to hit him nearly as solidly as I’d tried to before—that earlier blast took a lot out of me—but it was enough. The banner, which
shoulda
taken his weight without hassle, tore from its moorings. I heard him slam hard into the bottom of the archway, and then tumble over onto the floor on the other side.

All right, not as keen as if he’d fallen back my way, but between the crash and the entangling fabric, he was down for a minute, if not longer.

More’n I needed, even if I can’t jump like him.

Wand back in my right hand, I took a sprinting start at the wall, hit it, and kept going. The stone was smooth, too smooth for you—but not for me. Both feet and left hand carried me up in a roachy climb. Matter of seconds, I was at the arch, leaning over, L&G aimed and ready to—

Urk
.

Couple of fists that seemed less ham hock-sized and more like full sides of beef, closed on me, hard and choking. One on my throat held me aloft over the drop; the other squeezed my wrist until it almost quit in protest and went to find work somewhere else. I couldn’t even try to aim at him.

What I
could
do, now—way, way too late for me to undo some real poor decisions—was see him clearly.

Heavy riding boots. Thick wools and leathers, older’n my wand. A massive chain wrapped around his shoulders, which weren’t
that
broad across, really. Woulda only taken two of me to equal ’em, two and a half, tops.

Heavy beard, dark, not so much trimmed as looking as though it’d just naturally grown into a semi-neat shape. Eyes that were pools of liquid dark, like a stag’s. And, of course, his head.

He wasn’t wearing a hat. Or a crown.

They were antlers—and they were attached.

Fuck. Me.

“Herne,” I croaked.

“Oberon.” His voice was the growl of the leopard, the roar of the bear.

“How you doing?”

Yeah, I know. It’s called “stalling.” Or maybe “panic.”

Herne the Hunter. Keeper of the ancient boles of the British Isles. Former and probably future master of the Wild Hunt. And
not
, in general, a mug you want as an enemy.

Up until two minutes ago, we hadn’t been. Now?

“Can we just…” I wasn’t in any danger of suffocating, but not breathing
does
make bumping gums kinda hard. “Just talk for a minute?”

Looking into Herne’s lamps is like trying to stare down a cat. A cat whose best pal, the grizzly, is standing right behind you. I did it anyway.

For a long moment, there was bupkis; no emotion, no communication, just my own reflection. And then…

“No.”

* * *

Hmm. Mighta started off telling it with me in too deep already. All right, lemme back up a few steps—and a few hours. Pick this up earlier that night…

Voices. Voices and muffled pounding from far away, like somebody hammering his way free of a vat of cotton candy. I grumbled something that wasn’t even kissing cousin to a real word, and ignored it harder’n a fourth date.

BOOK: Hallow Point
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