Last time…
Owan and Roe were cornered by a minion of the notorious fae gangster Niall Byrn, and coerced into going to talk to him about a job.
It was a seedy section of the Jersey City waterfront. The docks stretched out over the black water of the bay. Across the channel, the lights of Manhattan glimmered red and gold. There was probably some fae glamour in there somewhere, adding to the dazzle, but it didn’t really need it.
A huddle of several men stood next to a pier under one of the street lights. One, tall and lanky with a tail of dark hair trailing down the back of his overcoat, I recognized as Niall Byrne.
Roe shivered. The night was a bit nippy, but not that cold. I reached over and put my arm around her shoulders.
Niall left the group of men and walked back towards us. His sharp fae features looked even less human in the uneven shadows of the street, and I held back a shiver of my own. He grinned at us. “Mr. Craig. Miss Gillam. Wonderful to see you again.”
“Save the small talk for the fish, Niall,” I said shortly. “What do you want? I thought we had a deal.”
Niall’s dark eyes glanced at Roe. She raised her chin and crossed her arms.
Niall chuckled. “Fine then.” His almost-Gaelic accent was more pronounced than the last time I’d met him.
What was so troubling that he let it slip now?
“Two hours ago, four of my men were attacked.” Niall gestured to the side of the pier, where a set of stairs led down to what I assumed was a smaller dock. “One of them got away, although he is...injured.”
“A family squabble over your latest elfwine import?” I asked, plastering a concerned smile on my face.
Niall gave me an icy look. “Would you like to interview the witness first, or view the carnage?”
The way he said ‘carnage’ gave me pause. It wasn’t a word I would have thought Niall, a man used to violence, would say in such a grave tone.
I turned to Roe.
She shrugged. “Personal preference?” She said to Niall. “I’d rather not be here at all. But you didn’t exactly give us a choice, so let’s just get this over with.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “That reminds me.” I tugged the thick links of the chain around my neck out of my coat collar with my thumb. On the drive here, Roe had let me borrow her compact mirror so I could examine the necklace for myself. It was made of links as thick as my pinky finger and sat right against my collarbone. I could see the glamour emanating from it, an ever-present faint mist at the edges of my vision.
Niall grinned. “Now that’s an interesting development, isn’t it, Mr. Craig?” He cocked his head towards Roe. “Couldn't your pet curator tell you what that was?”
“I’m no one’s pet,” Roe snapped.
“Well. Maybe once you complete your training, we can change that.”
“You reek of death and destruction and your own ruin, Niall. I’d sooner--”
Niall’s hand twitched as if he was going to slap Roe. I reached forward and caught Roe’s elbow, ready to jerk her away from him, but Niall met my gaze. His eyes slowly flickered, threads of gold shooting through his black irises. The d’anam fueinneog, the soul window of the fae. We were forever cursed to show our emotions in our eyes, unless we kept careful, tight rein on ourselves.
The last time we’d met, Niall’s eyes had remained a steady, flat golden-brown. He’d been smooth talk and careful threats. He hadn’t laid a hand on me or Roe himself, as if he didn’t want to stain his fingers with our blood. He still hadn’t laid a hand on us, but that twitch…
He was jittery tonight.
That meant we needed to be careful.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Let’s hear it. What do you want us for? You’ve got some kind of scheme in mind.”
Behind me, I heard the puca say in a low sing-song voice, “Changed your tune, didn’t you.”
I ignored him.
Niall nodded. “Find the man who did this to me. Who killed my men. Until you do, that cursed necklace will slowly tighten around your neck. You have twenty-four hours until it gets too tight for you to breathe.”
I sighed. “Was that step really necessary?”
Niall smiled tightly. “I don’t know, Mr. Craig--you tell me. Would you have come if I’d asked politely?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked away, tucking his hands into his pockets.
I snorted and turned to the púca. “Looks like you’re the tour guide, schmuck. Lead on.”
The puca rolled his eyes and wordlessly led us to the stairs. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket and offered it to me. I flicked it on. A set of dilapidated steps led down to a long, narrow dock closer to the water, as if it was made for a motorboat. It stretched along the retaining wall out of sight of the flashlight beam.
The dark wood of the steps was spattered with blood. I carefully stepped around it. Niall’s men didn’t follow us down.
A tangle of...something...lay at the edge of the wood. The stink of blood and offal was thick in the air, making it difficult to breathe.
Roe coughed and dug a handkerchief out of her pocket, pressing it to her nose and mouth.
I didn’t want to move forward. But I did anyway, holding the flashlight low.
A tangle of flesh lay on the edge of the dock, dripping into the water. Limbs, I thought. It was so mangled that it was hard to tell if any of it had once been human.
Roe flicked on her own flashlight--she must have gotten it from one of Niall’s goons--and looked away from the carnage, searching along the back of the dock. I let her. I couldn’t ask her to look any closer. I crouched down, forcing myself to scan along the blood and mess. Some bite marks on what I thought had once been an arm caught my eye. Whatever had done this, it was big.
“Well?” the puca called down.
I turned to him. “You said there were three men?”
He nodded.
“Doesn’t look like three men.”
He shrugged.
I shone my flashlight up and down the dock, but nothing caught my eye. Smears of what might have been footprints streaked the blood along the dock towards the stairs, but there was nothing usable. I sighed, feeling my throat tighten as if the necklace was already strangling me. I just hoped the witness could give us more to go on.
“I’ve seen enough.” Roe stepped to my side and gently nudged me with her elbow.
When I glanced down at her, she winked.
She’d found something. Something she didn’t want Niall’s goons to know she’d found.
I held back a grin.
As we met the puca back at the top of the stairs, I clicked the flashlight off and handed it back to him. “So. You have any insight as to what happened here?”
“Thought that’s what you were supposed to be doing.”
I shrugged. “Well, your boss wasn’t all that forthcoming.”
“Stuff like this, it’s bad for business. Of course he’s gonna be in a rotten mood.” The puca shrugged back. “It’s not like it’s a hit or something, though.”
I nodded, but kept my thoughts to myself. If it was a mob hit, it had been done by a particularly sick individual. Though personally, my bet was on some kind of monster. Which meant that if it had been a hit, it was one of the other sidhe mobs. And that posed its own problem. A gang war wasn’t any good for anyone--especially if the gangs were sidhe. And especially if one of those gangs had finagled a deal with something with big, sharp teeth.
The puca led us into the warehouse. Almost as soon as we stepped inside, he turned and opened a door into a small office. Three men looked up at our entrance. One was hunched in a chair, and the other two had been leaning over him. A tangle of bloody gauze lay next to an open first aid kit on the desk, and on a table to the side of the three stood an open, unlabeled bottle of booze and an empty glass.
“Walker, you up for a chat?” the puca asked.
The man in the chair nodded weakly.
“Great. Tell these two what you saw.”
Walker’s face paled even further. I glanced over his face, noting the lack of d’anam fueinneog in his eyes. No points to his ears. He was human. I’d heard that sometimes humans who spent a good deal of time among fae sometimes developed immunities to sidhe glamour, but between his blood and the shock of the attack, I wasn’t betting on much.
Walker straightened a bit, and I saw the bloody hand wrapped in bandages.
“We’d come back from a trip across the harbor. Manhattan. Delivery.” Walker’s voice was slurred.
I wondered how much they’d given him to drink...and what nightmares they were trying to drown out of him.
Walker cleared his throat and continued. “Just a few--”
The puca cleared his throat.
Walker stopped for a minute. Too bad. I’d been looking forward to knowing what Niall had been smuggling over to Manhattan.
“We were just mooring the boat when this...thing...burst out of the water and lunged onto the dock. It tore through the men closest to the water faster than I could think.” He shuddered.
“What did it look like?” I prompted, when it seemed like he was done talking.
“Black skin. Slick and oily. Big, sharp fangs and hooves.”
“Hooves?” Roe repeated.
Walker nodded. “It came after me and I dodged to the side, but...my hand hit it in the side, and...I stuck to it. It couldn’t turn around and get me with the hooves or the fangs, so it plunged back into the water. I couldn’t get free. But I had my boot knife, and I…”
My stomach churned. He’d cut his own fingers off.
Walker’s eyes glazed over, and he hunched forward again, staring at the floor.
“Walker?” Roe said softly.
He didn’t answer her. Instead, he shut his eyes and started shaking.
“We have enough,” I said. “Let’s go.” I left the office and headed for the warehouse door. Roe’s hand found mine and squeezed my fingers tightly. I squeezed her hand back, feeling her slight tremble.
“You know what happened?” the puca demanded.
I turned around and sighed. “Look, bub, it’s got to be 2 am. Both Roe and I are beyond tired, and we just saw something absolutely horrific. I think we have some solid ideas to go on, but don’t go expectin’ miracles, ok?”
The puca nodded and let us go.
Thank you for reading! If you’re enjoying The Case Files of Owan Craig and don’t want to wait to read it week by week, it is available in ebook or print form on Amazon!