Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara (20 page)

“What coincidence?”

“Why, that the beads should turn up at the same time this Commander Rake does.”

“You think Rake is working with Gaki to trap me? If the badges knew the truth about Gaki, they wouldn’t waste any time on me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

“I left SRRIM years ago. I’ve been a law-abiding citizen of the earthly-realm ever since. Whereas Gaki—”

“George Gaki bends the law for his own personal gain. In the eyes of the government—any government in any realm—that is never as dangerous as political fanaticism.”

“But I’m not a fanatic.” Archer turned back to the computer screen. “I just want what belongs to me.”

“Those beads don’t belong to you.”

Archer didn’t bother to reply.

“Even if you’re right,” Barry began at last. He fell silent again.

“What?”

“Have you stopped to consider why these beads are so important to you?”

Archer repeated, “They belong to me. They belong to my family.”

“Archer.”

Archer could feel himself tightening up, getting angry. He forced himself to relax. Summoned a smile. “What?”

“Say you recover the beads? What then? Do you think you can barter your way back into the faerie realm?”

“I wouldn’t try,” Archer said shortly. When he had been a boy, yes, he had dreamed of buying his way back into the faerie realm, of recovering his family’s lost honor. As an adult he had faced the fact that the faerie realm could no more give him back what he yearned for than could the human realm.

Which didn’t change the fact that he wanted the beads with all the desperate passion of any lovesick suitor.

They are better than stars or water,

Better than voices of winds that sing,

Better than any man’s fair daughter,

Your green glass beads on a silver ring.

“Then what?” Barry was frowning worriedly.

Archer shrugged. “They’re a family heirloom. Like Great-Aunt Esmeralda’s cloisonné clock.”

“
Not
like Great-Aunt Esmeralda’s cloisonné clock. The beads are an obsession with you. You’ve been hunting them ever since I met you.”

“Some people hunt first editions,” Archer said lightly. “Some people hunt bottle caps.”

“Most people wouldn’t kill for bottle caps.”

Archer said slowly, “Kill?”

“You might have to kill to get the beads away from Gaki. Have you not considered that?” Barry added, “Your eyes are glowing.”

“I can’t help that.” Archer turned his profile to Barry. “I’m not going to commit murder. Give me a little credit.”

“My dear boy, Gaki will have taken every possible security measure to protect his possessions. He has armed guards patrolling his estate. The choice may not be yours.”

Archer reached out and absently clicked the keypad. The picture of the beads and a benign-looking Gaki disappeared. Archer swiveled the chair to face Barry and offered a smile. “Don’t worry. These things have a way of working themselves out. What time is this gala fundraiser?”

***

The ghost of a slight girl in a red dress waved cautiously to Archer as he exited the revolving doors into the marble lobby of the Fairmont. He nodded politely.

Formerly known as Hotel Vancouver, the Fairmont was a designated heritage building. It had opened in May of 1939, for the royal visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, but the girl ghost looked circa the forties.

Voices and music drifted from the 900 West Lounge and Archer followed the sounds of celebration past gilt-framed paintings, art deco lamps, and palms in black urns.

A seventy-million dollar restoration in the mid-1990s had secured the hotel’s reputation as the favored hangout for the city’s hoi polloi, and Archer had attended a number of events there. It was not the kind of thing he particularly enjoyed, but taking his turn representing the public face of MoSSA was part of his responsibilities as curator. Barry was much better at this kind of thing, but Barry firmly believed it was good for Archer to “get out and meet people,” as he quaintly put it.

Archer milled around the fringes of the crowd, chatting when spoken to and otherwise smiling pleasantly and thinking of Commander Rake and wondering if the man really had been flirting with him the night before or if Archer was so out of practice he had read the signs wrong.

“What exactly is the Museum of State-Supported Archives?” a portly woman in a purple-flowered gown inquired, referring to the name by which the general public knew MoSSA.

Archer rattled off the usual spiel. “We catalog articles that are difficult to store in the official facilities, but that might be eventually required for study by the state examiners.”

“You mean like tax records and deeds and those kinds of documents?”

“Not so very unlike.”

She smiled politely, eyes already glazing over. “It sounds fascinating.”

“Oh yes! Very much so.” Unlike a full-blooded faerie, Archer was capable of lying, but he didn’t enjoy it. He was relieved when the woman spotted someone she urgently needed to speak to.

He checked his pocket watch. Barry would expect him to put in another hour. He sighed.

Waiters in red jackets were circulating with trays of champagne, but Archer did not care for champagne. Nor did he care for the caviar on crackers and smoked salmon moving in the opposite direction. He had missed supper and was hungry, but his appetite veered more toward fae than human, and the fae ate no flesh, be it fish, fowl, or animal. Archer went in search of a crudités platter he had spotted earlier.

So it was that he happened to be in perfect position to see George Gaki arriving with his entourage. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, really, that Gaki would attend the fundraiser. He was a major figure on the Vancouver art scene, both as a patron and a critic, but Archer hadn’t been thinking his method of approach could be anything so simple as walking up and saying hello.

Eye on his quarry, Archer made his way through the crowd, waiting for the moment when he could introduce himself. In the end, that too was made ridiculously simple. One of the gala organizers spotted him hovering and did the honors.

“Ah! The curator of MoSSA?” Gaki said with interest. “At last we meet.”

Gaki was a large, rawboned man, nearly as tall as Commander Rake, and quite a bit broader. His hair was salt and pepper, worn in a style popularized by Julius Caesar. His eyes were a color close to yellow.

“How do you do?” Archer shook hands with the one person in the room, aside from himself, who understood MoSSA’s true purpose.

“Better than I expected when I decided on impulse to attend this event. I’ve been hoping to meet you, Mr. Green.”

“Have you?” Was this conversation taking an odd turn or was it Archer’s imagination?

“I believe you and I have something in common.”

Archer knew of only one thing they had in common and he could hardly believe Gaki would bring up the subject in public. “Oh yes?”

“You’re a collector of clocks, are you not? You have a very fine piece, as I understand from Mr. Littlechurch. A large nineteenth century cloisonné clock with cherubs.”

Archer relaxed. “Yes. But they’re not cherubs. They’re fairies.”

Gaki’s unruly brows rose. “How charming. You’re half faerie yourself?”

For a second Archer thought he’d misheard. Had Gaki truly made a reference to the immortal realms aloud? “I…” He couldn’t help an uncertain look around, but Gaki’s bodyguard was staring into space, and the other guests seemed to be absorbed in earnest conversations of their own.

“Delightful,” Gaki was saying, as though unaware of Archer’s shock. “Such a rare pairing, but the children are always exquisite. Rarely does the intermingling of bloodlines turn out so fortunately.”

Archer colored. Now he was getting angry. Not merely at being appraised as though he was an inanimate object, but at this old fool’s arrogant flaunting of the Secrecy Act, which decreed that the human realm should be kept in blissful ignorance of the others.

“As a matter of fact,” Gaki observed quietly, “I believe we have much more in common than you realize.” He glanced around, rested his large hand on Archer’s shoulder, and said in carrying tones, “I assure you, I’ll more than match any offer you receive for the clock.”

“I’m not going to sell my clock.” Archer found he was being steered through the crowd, whether he willed it or not. He tried to regain some control of the situation. “As a matter of fact, I was interested in an item you purchased from Christie’s recently.”

“You must mean the water beads. Quite a find, I agree. And in marvelous condition. Yes, I imagine you would be interested in those. What a small world it is.”

“This one, certainly,” Archer said.

“And getting smaller all the time.”

They had stopped walking next to a glossy table in the center of the lobby. A giant blue basket with a flower arrangement roughly the size of a small garden allotment sat on the table. They were safely out of earshot of anyone but the bodyguard, who stood a few feet away.

“I’m not sure I understand you,” Archer said.

“I believe I belong to an organization that you were once a member of.”

Archer’s heart stopped. He recovered and asked coolly, “The International Council of Museums?”

“No. Let’s not waste time fencing. I belong to the Society for the Rescue and Restoration of Indigenous Magic.”

It seemed to take a long time to find the words. “The society no longer exists.”

Gaki’s eyes kindled with a fanatical light. “But it does—and we’re even stronger than before.”

“Well, that’s nice,” Archer said vaguely. “I like to see people getting involved.”

“You’re very glib about something that I believe once meant a great deal to you.”

Archer kept his voice low. “Like many, I remain sympathetic to the goals of SRRIM, but I couldn’t condone the tactics being used at the time I left.”

“Fight fire with fire.”

“That can end creating a bigger fire.”

“Let it. Sometimes it takes razing the old to the ground for the new to spring forth.”

Archer stared at Gaki’s sharp, ageless features. “What are you getting at? What do you want?”

“We need your help.”

“What does that mean?” Something clicked in Archer’s brain. “Let me guess. The Stone of Fal. I don’t have it and I don’t know where it is.”

“But you could use your position at curator of MoSSA to find it.”

“No.”

Gaki said good naturedly, “Hear me out.”

“I don’t want to hear you out. I’ve already heard too much. This conversation alone could get us arrested.”

Gaki ignored that. “If you do this one little thing for us, the beads are yours.”

Across the room, Archer could see the woman in purple he had spoken to earlier. She was laughing, but the sound of her laughter, bouncing off the marble ceiling and floor, sounded disembodied and out of time.

“We’re not asking you to place yourself in any danger. Just do this one little task. Help us recover the stone. That’s all.” Gaki was still smiling. “Do it and the beads are yours again. Forever safe from the threat of state-sanctioned neutralization. Think about it.”

 “I can’t do that. I’ll pay you for the beads. I’ll pay you anything you like. Anything I can.”

“The price of the beads is your help.”

Speaking the words was physically painful, but what choice did Archer have? “That price is beyond my means.”

Gaki made a dismissive sound. “Nonsense. For old times’ sake. One last job for your old comrades?”

Archer shook his head.

Gaki seemed to contemplate him for long, solemn seconds. “You disappoint me.”

Archer said wearily, “The feeling is mutual.”

“There’s been talk about you, you know, Green. Certain of your old comrades dislike the fact that you’re roaming freely in the world knowing all that you do. Helping us just this once could go far toward proving that there is no need for…worry.”

“There’s no need for anyone to worry.”

“So you say. But then you would. Think about it. It’s a generous offer. You say you’re still sympathetic to SRRIM’s aims.”

Archer met and held Gaki’s gaze. It wasn’t easy. “I’m not going to change my mind.”

Gaki’s regard never faltered. Then he smiled suddenly and broadly. “Then there’s nothing more to be said. It’s disappointing for both of us, of course.”

“Yes,” Archer said huskily.

“I’d have liked nothing better than to see those beads rightfully restored to you. But I always say, if a thing is worth collecting in the first place, it’s worth hanging onto forever.”

“Forever is a long time.”

“No one knows that better than me.” Gaki grinned, his teeth very sharp. He reached for a champagne flute from the tray wafting by. “Cheers.” He turned his back and walked away.

Archer watched him go. Watched the bodyguard fall into respectful step behind.