No promises, p.6
No Promises, page 6
“Thank you anyway.” I motioned to Vicantha. “Let’s try the next place.”
I was halfway out the door before I realized she wasn’t following me.
I turned to see her staring at Lydia like a snake stares at a mouse.
I edged back into the restaurant, trying to put myself between Vicantha and Lydia without making either of them unduly nervous. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“Her first response to my question was hostile,” said Vicantha. “She may be hiding something.”
I ran through my options for getting a fae bent on violence to retreat without engaging in any violence myself. It was a short list. “We’re wasting time here. We have other places to check, and a limited amount of time to do it.”
Lydia had gone still, watching Vicantha as if the fae woman were a rabid animal. “I told you, I don’t—”
Vicantha pounced.
She leapt over the counter in a seemingly effortless motion. She landed on top of Lydia, toppling her to the floor. When they landed, Vicantha was straddling her chest, with one dagger at her neck. The tip of the other grazed the woman’s chest.
“What are you hiding?” Vicantha snarled.
“Nothing!” Lydia stared up at Vicantha with wide, terrified eyes.
“Why did you react to my initial question with hostility?”
“I don’t like people poking around in my business when it comes to who I hire, that’s all.” She tried to squirm away, then thought better of it as both daggers pressed deeper. “I swear, I’ve never seen your sister.”
“If they aren’t here, where would they be?”
Lydia frowned, confusion briefly overtaking her fear. “They?”
The lower dagger ripped through Lydia’s shirt.
“I don’t know!” Lydia answered in a sob. “I don’t know where your sister is. Or sisters. Whoever you’re looking for. I don’t know, I swear to you, I don’t know.”
I circled around the edge of the counter and tried to pull Vicantha back. She didn’t stop me. She didn’t need to. The sudden screaming in my veins did that all by itself.
I let go, and tried to breathe. “This won’t help you get the information you’re looking for.”
“And you think what you’re doing will? Sharing stories about pizza while my people are in danger? If they’re even still alive.” She looked up at me, teeth bared. “If you weren’t the one who took them after all.”
I glanced down at Lydia, to see if she was taking any of this in. I might as well not have worried. All I saw in her was animal fear. She was too far gone to even be confused anymore.
“Look at her,” I said. “If she knew anything, don’t you think she would have told you by now?”
“If she knows nothing,” said Vicantha, “then we leave her body outside as a warning to the other inhabitants of this town, so they know what we’re capable of. Then they’ll answer our questions when we come to their doors.”
I took a deep breath. “You said you trained in infiltration. If that’s true, you must know the importance of secrecy.”
“I’m trained to operate unseen in the parts of Faerie that are hostile to Mab. I’m unconvinced that those rules should apply to this world. Especially when the humans lie so easily, and speak with such open disrespect.” The tear in Lydia’s shirt grew a little wider. “We used to operate openly among humans. The world was better then. Clearer. Humans knew their place.”
“That’s not the world we live in now,” I reminded her.
“No. You live in a world where everything is poison to us. There is iron worked into the bones of this building. Iron in the bones of the apartment whose furnishings you praised so lavishly last night. Iron in every car that passes outside. And five of my people are lost in this poisonous place.”
“If you hurt her,” I said, “they’ll put you in prison. In an iron cage. You’ve seen prisons on TV, haven’t you?”
I knew she understood what I was talking about, because a shudder ran through her at the words.
“You wanted my help in this,” I reminded her. “You forced me to risk my own life to give it to you. That means we do this my way.”
She paused, eyes glazed. I was guessing visions of human prisons were still running through her head. After a few seconds, she pulled the daggers back. “Your way,” she agreed. “For three days.” She looked up at the single-page calendar on Lydia’s wall and shook her head. “Two now.”
She stood and tucked her weapons away. Lydia, shaking and staring up at the ceiling, didn’t seem to notice.
I looked from Lydia to Vicantha. “Wait outside,” I ordered Vicantha.
Vicantha looked at me as if I had suggested she go stand in the middle of the street. “I told you yesterday, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
I barely suppressed an audible sigh. “If I were willing to set off the consequences of breaking my promise,” I said, my voice exaggeratedly slow with artificial patience, “I would have pulled you off her before now. If I’m not willing to break my promise in order to save a human life, I’m not going to run away before getting you your information. Now go wait outside.”
Vicantha stared at me. “You considered risking death to save the life of a human stranger?” She blinked at me, and blinked again. “The stories are true. You do share your father’s sickness.”
I looked away, gritting my teeth. “I didn’t want you to bring the police down on us.”
The look on Vicantha’s face told me how little she believed my explanation. But before I could say anything else, she walked out the door, leaving me alone with Lydia.
As soon as the door chimed shut behind her, I held out a hand to the human woman.
It took Lydia another moment to refocus her eyes, let alone notice me standing above her. I waited, not saying anything, sensing that she needed to come out of her fear on her own. Any words from me would only remind her of what had just happened, and possibly throw her back into full-blown panic. Finally, her gaze focused on me. She looked at my hand like she wasn’t sure whether to take it.
Rather than force her to decide whether to trust me, I lowered my hand, then myself. I sat cross-legged on the floor next to her.
“She has problems like her sister,” I said, low and steady. “I’m helping her.” It’s handled, was the subtext. Don’t call the police. I could imagine an iron cage as well as Vicantha could. Maybe better, since I had spent my fair share of time in them. In my mind, I saw humans advancing on me. Even now, I thought I could hear the pounding of their horses’ hoofbeats in the distance.
Hoofbeats? No. Those were memories of a bygone time. If they were coming for me here and now, I would hear sirens splitting the air. At the thought, my ear caught the echo of a rhythmic wail.
My imagination. That was all.
Lydia stared up at me, blinking too fast. “Her eyes,” she said in a rough whisper, like she couldn’t force her voice any louder. “Her ears.”
She had seen. I had to force myself not to clamp my hands down over my own ears, safely hidden by my hair, as a sudden burst of adrenaline cascaded through me. My vision narrowed, until all I could see was her. I couldn’t hear the cars outside anymore, or the low hum of the oven. All I could hear was the imagined sirens in the distance.
I pushed myself to my feet. I had no thought of the missing agents, no thought of the way my magic would consume me from within if I failed to provide Vicantha her lead. All I knew was that I needed to run.
Only one thing ever happened after a human saw the truth.
And like a fool, I had stayed behind to help her. The way I had always helped them.
I had thought I had learned by now.
With a gust of breath, Lydia shoved herself up to a sitting position. “She’s one of those ones, isn’t she?” She stared toward the door. Her voice was a little louder now, a little steadier. “They used to call them the Fair Folk, didn’t they?”
“You didn’t see anything.” But what I said wouldn’t matter. I could already feel the fire blistering my skin, the knife sliding into my heart.
Lydia started to stand, then thought better of it and sat heavily back down on the dirty tile. “We see them in town every so often. Everyone knows better than to talk about it. This is Hawthorne—everyone who’s been here longer than a week has seen things that are better left unspoken.” She kept watching the door, but her stare grew less fearful and more thoughtful. “She doesn’t have a sister, does she? She’s here on their business.”
I knew what thoughts had to be running through her head. And if she was losing her fear, that could only be bad for us. I saw that now, with the clarity only adrenaline could bring. I had made a mistake, staying behind to help her. I should have run when I’d had the chance. I should have let Vicantha do whatever she wanted with her.
I loomed over her, letting the overhead lights help me cast a shadow over her face. “If you say anything about what you’ve seen…” But the second half of the threat wouldn’t come. I had never been much good at threats. Maybe that was part of the sickness Vicantha had talked about.
“She’s hurting, isn’t she?” Lydia asked softly. “She may not have lost a sister, but she’s lost somebody. Probably family. I’ve been there. Might have thrown a few people around myself if I’d had the temperament for it, after I lost my husband.” If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that was sympathy I heard in her voice.
I didn’t say anything. Couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Couldn’t run. The energy surging through me locked my lips shut and glued my feet to the floor, even as it urged me to move, move, move.
Lydia grabbed the counter and pulled herself upright. She let go, and tested her weight on her feet. She wobbled, but stayed standing. “Talk to Jimmy down at the Drunken Scarecrow,” she advised. “That’s where they always seem to end up. Best place for them—they blend right in.”
I rearranged her words in my mind, trying to get them to make sense. Where was the knife, the fire, the snapping of bone? Where were the sirens in the distance?
“What are you waiting for? Get going.” She took a deep breath and brushed the dirt off her apron. “Go on, get out of here before any customers show up. I do have a business to run, you know.”
I didn’t begrudge her the harshness of her tone as she tried to reclaim her dignity. But that was the only part of this conversation I understood. She had seen the truth. Why wasn’t she doing anything about it?
“Thank you,” I finally managed. I turned and bolted out the door, leaving my own dignity behind on Lydia’s dingy tile floor.
Vicantha was waiting in the middle of the sidewalk, facing the door with her arms crossed in front of her chest. “What did she say to you?” she demanded as soon as she saw me. “You looked terrified.”
I was the one to grab hold of her wrist this time, stopping just short of a grip hard enough to make my magic remind me of my promise not to harm her. I dragged her down the sidewalk behind me, at a pace that would have been punishing for a human. “You need to be more careful,” I snapped. “She saw your ears. Although keeping them hidden might not have helped. The attack itself, and those daggers, were conspicuous enough.”
Vicantha pulled her arm free, but kept up my pace. “We’ll never get what we want if we don’t show our strength.”
“You don’t know what happens to fae here. You’ll never find your missing agents if you don’t make it out of this world alive.”
Vicantha adjusted her hair around her ears, but her face didn’t show any fear. She didn’t understand what I was telling her. Not really.
Two more days. Two days, and I would be gone from this place. Three days, counting the flight home, until I could step back into my sanctuary, lock the doors behind me, and drink until I couldn’t see.
Or maybe sooner—if the information Lydia had given me panned out.
“I have a tip,” I said. “It may be the lead you’re looking for. We need to find a place called the Drunken Scarecrow.”
Chapter 5
What I had seen of Hawthorne so far bore out what I had read online. For the most part, the residents of this place wanted to pretend the less-explainable aspects of the town simply didn’t exist. Like Lydia had said, they all knew better. It had been there in the private groups I had browsed last night, with newcomers to the town complaining about whispering voices at night and strange shapes floating past their windows. It was here in the streets, with newly-constructed office buildings—the kind with money poured into the gleaming walls, as plainly visible as the glass and chrome—dotted between the faded brick structures, as out of place as a ball gown on a battlefield. It was here in the skeletons of those same office buildings, hastily abandoned with a halfhearted For Rent sign placed in the window, sometimes before construction had even finished. But none of the posts in the groups had come out and said the place was haunted, and nothing advertised that Hawthorne was a perfect place to open a business—or a perfect place to lose your fortune.
Hawthorne was a town in denial—everywhere except the Drunken Scarecrow.
There was an actual scarecrow sitting outside the bar, with two plastic ravens perched on its shoulders. The sign above the door spelled out the bar’s name in a garish orange, with letters that dripped like blood. Vicantha hung back to gingerly prod one of the ravens, then the other, as I pushed the door open.
The place smelled thickly of beer. Most of the long, skinny room was taken up by the bar counter, although there were a few booths crowded against the opposite wall. The walls were the same orange as the sign, with painted ravens flying across the pumpkin sky. Ghostly howls and witches’ cackles were playing on a loop. Someone had even hung a couple of oversized plastic bats from the ceiling.
There were no customers to be seen. A youngish man with an untidy mop of blond hair was lazily wiping down the bar. A second employee, draped in a white sheet with two eyeholes cut out and “Boo!” written across the front, glided across the floor, sweeping up the previous day’s crumbs.
“We don’t start serving alcohol until five,” the man from behind the counter called without pausing his work. “And nobody comes here for our lunch menu. If you’re new in town, here’s your first tip: come back once the sun goes down.”
Vicantha pushed in after me and strode toward the counter. I tried to catch her eye long enough to shoot her a warning look. If she was going to repeat her performance from Lydia’s, I had no way to stop her.
When she didn’t stop moving, I ducked past to lean across the counter, positioning myself between the man and Vicantha. “I don’t suppose you’re Jimmy.”
He shook his head. “Jimmy’s in the back.”
I waited. He didn’t volunteer anything else. But at least Vicantha had paused to let me work. Her eyes flashed with impatience, but she didn’t get any closer to the counter. As the silence dragged on, she reached one hand toward her waistband, shooting me a questioning look. I shook my head.
“What do you need?” the man finally asked. He sounded like he wanted to ask the question about as much as he wanted to serve the two of us lunch.
I couldn’t bring myself to say the word “fae” out loud, whatever Lydia had said. “It’s a private matter.”
The man’s lips thinned. “Jimmy doesn’t talk to just anyone.”
The ghost stopped sweeping. The man hit a button, and the spooky sounds stopped. Even the painted ravens seemed to be watching us.
Vicantha shoved me aside, reaching for her weapons. “Not yet,” I snapped.
But the man didn’t look like he was going to give us anything else. Not unless I told him why I was here and what I was looking for.
Hoofbeats thundered in the distance. Sirens wailed. I couldn’t say it.
The man waited another moment for me to elaborate. When I didn’t, he shrugged. “All right, then. I’ll tell him you stopped by.” I didn’t think there was a way he could have made that sentence sound less sincere. With that, he looked away, and started wiping down the bar again.
Vicantha pulled the daggers from her waistband.
“Wait,” I snapped. I didn’t know whether I was talking to her or the man behind the bar. Or both.
“You going to order lunch?” the man asked. “Or are you going to waste my time? Because I can tell you right now, Jimmy won’t see you unless he’s sure you’re worth the effort.”
The skin under my fingernails turned white as I gripped the edge of the bar. “I hear he’s the person to go to if you have questions about… unusual matters.”
That caught his attention. He let the cloth rest on the counter, studying me with a slight tilt to his head. Trying to figure out what I was, I realized. I forced myself to breathe.
“Unusual how?” he finally asked. He must not have been able to figure it out by sight. My next breath came a little easier.
But I was still going to have to answer his question. “People who aren’t from around here, let’s say.”
“We don’t get a lot of tourists. Anyone wants the spooky stuff, they go to Salem. They want a regular old good time, they go… well, just about anywhere else.” He picked up the cloth again. I was losing him.
I lowered my voice almost to a whisper. “How about the ones with pointed ears?”
He didn’t answer. But he didn’t start up with the cloth again, either. He just looked at me, silent, like he was waiting for me to continue. Or to give him some kind of signal. When I didn’t give him whatever he was looking for, he shook his head. “Sorry. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You have one more chance to get answers from him your way,” Vicantha murmured in my ear. “After that, I take over.”
“You promised me two days,” I reminded her.
“That was before the human woman told you this ‘Jimmy’ had information. If we leave now, we’ll be giving him the chance to flee. I can’t allow that.”
My heartbeat pounding in my ears like hoofbeats, I leaned closer over the counter. With fingers that had gone numb, I brushed my hair aside and showed the man the tip of my ear. Only for a fraction of a second, before I pulled the dark strands back into place again.
