Hallow Point (16 page)

“That’s a mighty peculiar telephone you got for yourself there, son.”

Voice sounded regular enough, not counting the deep Texas twang, but something in it put me on edge. I swear, hidden beneath the words, I heard the echoes—the
shadows
—of growls and screams.

“I didn’t have your number,” I said. He just smiled wider, so I went on. “Whadda I call you?”

“Oh, let’s go with… Sealgaire.”

Sealgaire
. “Hunter.” Real cute.

But it did more or less erase what few lingering doubts I still had about who he was. And yeah, now I was
real
glad I’d decided against bringing a blade with me tonight. He’d probably’ve found it funny. Or, just maybe, he’da taken offense.

I don’t wanna think about what he’d do if he got offended.

“Okay. Tell me something, Sealgaire. Who’s Master of the Wild Hunt these days, anyway?”

That damn smile got wider still, and I tell you, it didn’t much look human anymore.

“Don’t rightly matter, now, does it?”

In a way, I supposed that was true. Whoever the Master was at any given time—Herne, Gudrun, Hereward the Wake, Arawn himself, or a dozen others—they shaped the Hunt: their targets, their methods, to an extent even their appearance, though
where
they rode also impacted that.

Another glance at Sealgaire and I had a sudden image in my head: a few score like him, wielding spears and rifles and six-guns, pounding along endless roads atop massive, hideous horses, following behind a pack of demonic, slavering, fire-breathing bloodhounds. A sheriff’s posse from hell, damn near literally.

I don’t shudder often, but… yeah. The Wild Hunt takes a lotta forms, but something about that one bugged me in ways I still can’t quite explain.

What’s the Wild Hunt?

Oh, just a ravening horde of Fae, unnatural beasts, and worse, who charge through the world taking lives and souls, sometimes one by one, sometimes in whole villages. We don’t know where they come from, what causes certain Fae to just abandon their lives to become goddamn hounds. Nature’s backlash against some of us abusing our magics? Deal with the devil, if you believe in the mug?

No idea.

All any of us really knows is that they are implacable, constant, and uncontrollable. They don’t take sides, and they don’t do “friends.” This right here, this mighta been the most neighborly talk anyone’s had with one of the hunters in decades, if not centuries.

Where was—? Right. Master of the Hunt. Yeah, the Master shaped the Hunt some, but he was still swept right along with it. Still carried on a primal wave of instinct and bloodlust. He led, but he wasn’t in charge. In some ways, wasn’t really even himself for the duration of…

A prize buzzer went off in my head so loud I’m stunned Sealgaire didn’t hear it.

“That’s why Herne wants the spear! He thinks he can use it to keep control, keep
himself
, next time his turn comes around as Master of the Hunt!”

Got no agreement or even a nod from the Hunt’s emissary, but that wolfish smile did slip, just a hair. The coyotes bowed forward, noses on the earth between their paws, and whined. A breeze kicked up, sending leaves scurrying around Sealgaire’s feet, bobbing like religious postulants.

Actually, they were
all
blowin’ around him, from every direction, as if the wind was sucked his way directly. Didn’t much care for that. Still don’t.

I needed to keep this moving along, I decided.

“So you’re sure it’s really here? Not just chasing rumors and whispers?”

“We don’t cotton much to rumor, Oberon.”

My surprise that he knew my name coulda been measured at exactly zero.

“But there’s been a right heap of ’em,” he added. “Goin’ on for a long time now, longer’n your average hogwash gossip.”

Shit. I’d
really
let myself get too sucked into the Caro case, if they’d been makin’ the rounds for that long without me getting’ wise to ’em. Still, it explained why so many people—well, “people”—took ’em serious.

“Could Herne actually do it?” I asked. “Use the spear to shape the Hunt to his desires, instead of vice-versa?”

“I reckon ain’t nobody gonna be happy with the consequences if he gets hisself a chance to find out.”

“And you’re here to stop that?”

“I’m here to watch, son. See who, if anybody, gets holda Lugh’s pig-sticker. There’s a whole mess of folks we’d rather not come out on toppa
that
little contest.”

That actually worried me worse’n if he’d said he was here to take a direct hand. I didn’t think I much wanted to ask, but…

“And if one of them does?”

Leaves spun faster, ’til they crackled like cooking grease. Branches creaked, turnin’ against the wind to reach his way, and the coyotes—though their whining never ceased—began to bristle and snarl between whimpers.

No smile at all, now, and the growls beneath his words were louder. Like I was listening to something with a much deeper voice talking
through
him.

“If we don’t like where the spear ends up, boy… then we’re coming to Chicago to fix it. Whatever it takes.”

The pack screamed in unison, turned tail, and fled into the night.

“That…”

I was havin’ my own trouble with words, now. The Wild Hunt in
Chicago
? It’d be a fucking massacre, human and Fae both! Even the Unseelie—even the Unseelie
with the Spear of Lugh
—could maybe be fought. The Hunt? The Hunt was a force of nature, and I mean Elphame nature, not your silly nonsense. You don’t fight it, anymore’n you fight a twister. You just hope you can get out of its way.

But I never yet heard of a place you could hide from ’em indefinitely.

And at least all the Unseelie could do was torture and kill you. The Hunt wasn’t near that gentle.

“That… won’t be necessary, Sealgaire.”

Dancing leaves dropped, branches snapped back to their proper angles, wind faded to a gentle breeze.

“Fantastic to hear. See that it ain’t.”

“You
do
know I’m foreswearing myself if I just hand the dingus over to you, don’tcha?” I challenged.

“Yep. Don’t worry, son. The Hunt won’t come after you for that.”

“Swell. And how about everyone and everything
else
that’ll come slaverin’ for my friggin’ soul? You gonna protect me from
them
?”

Just another predator’s smile, a tip of his hat and he was gone, striding off—whistling “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” believe it or not—’til he and his music both were lost in the early-dawn shadows.

I coulda tried to stop him, put him wise to exactly who I was (reluctantly) working for, that expecting
me
to make sure the wrong guys didn’t take home the prize maybe wasn’t the best idea. Somehow, though, I didn’t figure that’d change his mind any—and
that’s
assuming he didn’t already know.

Grumbling all kinda profanities in Old Gaelic, I started the trek through the wilderness, back to civilization and the L that’d eventually carry me home.

N
ot that home was my first stop, more’s the pity.

Between the rain and the tussle, I didn’t exactly look my finest. Thought about going home first to slip into something a little less vagrant, but heck with it. The clubhouse was on… Well, all right, it wasn’t on my way at all. But I knew that after a night like this, once I’d reached my flop, I wasn’t gonna want to leave again.

And if you’re thinkin’ “Ain’t he forgettin’ about someone?” the answer is, yeah. Turns out that no matter
how
taken you are with a dame, a face-to-face with the Wild Hunt’s gonna pretty well occupy your spare thoughts for a while.

So, clubhouse first.

The police station wasn’t just made of bricks, it basically
was
one. Just a big heap of hardness squatting on the corner. I’ve seen more graceful architecture from cultures still working out the kinks in this brand-new invention called “the hammer.”

Wasn’t too packed yet, not at this hour. Most of the owls had already called it a night, and the day folks wouldn’t start showing up to file their complaints in numbers for a while yet. I actually hadda open the door to walk in; usually it’s just held that way by an ongoing current of flesh and sweat and cheap rags.

Know what, though? It was
still
loud enough inside to drown out a couple locomotives making whoopee. Whole place echoes like a big cave—which is what it is, come to think.

I waved at the desk sarge as I pushed into the bullpen, flashed him a gleaming grin when he glared at me for not signing in. Gink knew me by sight, but he still wanted my John Hancock every time. Well, he was too busy right now to fuss—or at least to fuss anywhere near me—so I strolled right on in.

Typewriters clacked; blowers rang; impatient, grumbling voices gave way to impatient,
shouting
voices. You know, cop sounds. I scooted around a couple desks, made my way toward the offices on the far side.

See, after everything that’d gone down last night—and especially now I knew what could happen if the wrong cat wound up with Gáe Assail—I’d decided I was gonna have to choke down my pride and take whatever Galway wanted to scream at me for missing our sit-down. I needed in on the official case after all, needed every damn resource I could get. If I hadn’t already gummed up my one’n only shot.

I was maybe three paces from the office doors when one of ’em swung open and I found myself mug-to-mug with a detective—just not the one I’d been looking for.

“Morning, Detective Keenan.”

“Oberon.”

The homicide dick looked like the contents of a clogged drain. Stubble was even thicker’n normal, hair didn’t so much need a brush as a sedative, and his outfit—brown, everything always brown, as if it was a uniform—had more wrinkles than Baba Yaga’s backside.

“I hope you’re just comin’ off an overnighter,” I told him. “Otherwise I think you need a hospital.”

Me’n Keenan weren’t close, but we’d worked together a few times, and we had a mutual buddy in Pete, so normally joking around with him that way shoulda been fine. Today, though, he scowled.

“You can’t be here,” he said. “Not right now. Not for a while.”

“What? Now wait a minute. I get that Galway’s pretty steamed at me, but—”

“Not about Galway. Not anymore.”

“What then?”

Keenan’s scowl frowned—don’t ask me to explain that, it just did. He spotted an empty desk, and half-guided/half-dragged me over to it. He sat. I couldn’t help but notice he didn’t ask me to do the same. Once we were there, though he didn’t seem to know what to say.

“Lemme guess,” I said. “Galway rescinded the job offer? Keenan, I can help with this. I know things. It’s—”

“Not only is the offer off the table,” the detective said, “but nobody in the department’s supposed to work with you until further notice. Pete’ll be
personally
ordered not to talk to you for the duration.”

I think, if I
had
sat down, I’d have been up again in that moment anyway.

“
What?
What’d Galway—?”

“Not him, Oberon. Not any of the boys.” He cocked his head to one side, back toward the offices. “Order from the chief. And
he
got it from…”

Another office door opened.

“…him,” he finished, sounding even more tired.

The “him” in question was tall, almost painfully slender as best I could tell, given the tailored suit. Oh, yeah, and “he” was also a “she.” Hair was gold as a good pancake with a thin layer of syrup, and unfashionably long. Down-to-the-backs-of-her-knees long.

She also had no eyes. Just dark, empty hollows where her peepers shoulda been.

I may or may not have jerked Keenan a nod in farewell, I don’t really remember.

I walked over to her, slow and steady. She just crossed her arms and waited.

“Oberon.” Voice was deep, musical.

“Áebinn. Been a while.”

“Some would say not long enough.”

I call what I did next
smiling
, but some mighta described it as
showing my teeth
.

“Some, but not you, right?”

“Oh, of course,” she said in a dull tone that translated loosely as “Fuck off. Preferably in front of a fast-moving truck.”

So, all right, quick skinny. I met Áebinn years ago, back when I was working as hotel detective at the Lambton Worm. She’s
bean sidhe
, or “banshee” to you. Feed on proximity to death, though not normally the sort to cause ’em.

Most
bean sidhe
are tied to a specific bloodline; it’s why you hear ’em howl when one of the family’s about to croak. It’s sorta a wail of anticipation. But the bloodline Áebinn was linked to died off some time ago. I mean, completely. I dunno the full story behind it, but rather’n find another to attach to, she wound up here in Chicago. Well, the Elphame side of Chicago. Been using her ability to sense imminent or recent death as an investigator for the Seelie Court.

In other words, she’s basically a cop.

Well, Raighallan
had
told me he had a partner…

I chucked a thumb over my shoulder.

“So what’re they seeing when they look at you?”

“Generic mortal male. With the proper documentation to convince whoever I need to that I’m a high-ranking agent of their ‘Bureau of Prohibition.’” She shrugged. “Simple charm, and it excises a great deal of hassle.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. What’re you doing here, Áebinn?” Then, at her raised eyebrow—which is a
weird
thing to see when there ain’t any accompanying eye—“Pretty sure we’re out of your jurisdiction.”

“We’re making an exception.”

“Uh-huh. So what’re you doing
here
here? Not the mortal world. I mean
here
. The clubhouse.”

“Inconveniencing myself,” she sniffed. “To avoid greater inconvenience later.”

“You mean cutting me off from police resources.”

“I told you, Oberon,” Raighallan’s voice came from behind me. “Stay outta this.”

I hadn’t heard him approach. Managed not to start, though. I think that’s something to be proud of.

“Lemme guess.” I was still talking to Áebinn. “Your partner agent from the bureau?”