Naming Day (Jake Underwood Book 1) (4 page)

Ten minutes later after backing out a Lexus SUV,  I was standing in the garage as a tear in the garage floor begin to appear and run until it covered about ten square feet in crackling red energy that smelled faintly of smoke and roses. It takes some pretty impressive work to open the veil in the mundane world. There was a loud “wumph” and an implosion and cloud of smoke and dust settled to reveal a very tough looking group of Fey warriors. They wore black armor that covered most of the vulnerable spots. I could see the glint of chainmail in the joints. They also wore helmets or masks that concealed their faces. There was one that had to be at least 8 foot tall with giveaway horns that marked him as a Troll. There was a shorter one there who was probably a dwarf, what clan I had no idea. Usually dwarves wear some kind of pleating in their beards that corresponds to their clan. In the Black Watch, they give all that up. Everyone in the Black Watch only had the Black Watch as a clan and the squad as a family. When they showed up, you didn’t even know who they were. This kept their families clear of vendettas.

One of the human sized Fey pulled what looked like an Uzi and lined it up with my chest and nodded to the squad commander. The squad commander removed his helmet and glared at me with disdain. I wasn’t sure if it was because of who I was or it was of why I had called him in. I think he was wondering if he should kill me or what until I told him what he wanted to know.

I led them into the house and the bedroom where Husband was in shock and staring numbly at the poker. I had covered the wife up but had left Fey lord where he had fallen. Husband stood up and freaked when the Black Watch walked in he raised the poker and rushed the squad. Uzi Boy moved like a striking snake and expertly gave Husband the butt of the Uzi straight to temple. He collapsed into a heap on the floor

I quickly filled the commander in on what had gone on here and what Fey Lord had said. I took oath under the compact and one of the Guard cast a geas on me to make sure that I was true speaking. See, the thing was, while they could care less about the humans present and probably would have whipped up a murder/suicide setup to cover things, they couldn’t really do that with me there. Not that they gave a rat’s ass about me, but I was protected under the Compact. Further, dead Fey Lord had broken the Compact. There were restrictions on what the Fey could do in the mortal world, agreements that they had made when they quit this world in centuries long past. As long as no one knew about it, the restrictions could be and often were ignored, but if someone noticed, then the problem was much more complicated. I was the fly in the ointment and I had protection under the Compact.

The squad quickly conferred and the commander started issuing instructions. The guard who was obviously some kind of craft user began to remove evidence of the struggle. Troll picked up dead Fey Lord and unconscious Husband. One of the medium sized elf types started to gather up the half naked wife and slung her over his shoulder. I protested that she should probably be dressed as she was probably traumatized about what had happened without waking up in her panties in room full of heavily armed creatures would not help matters.

The commander shrugged and told me if I was so worried about it I could either dress her or take some clothes with me as I was going with them. They didn’t ask, they just told you and expected that if you planned to see many more dawns you would play frog to their “jump”.  I quickly gathered the discarded clothes that dead Fey Lord had removed and wrapped a sheet around the wife.

In about an hour we found ourselves at the Court or Dawn. The Black Watch conversed in quite tones with someone who I didn’t recognize except as someone was at least third circle, someone damned important. He dismissed the commander and had a quick look over us. He nodded and clapped his hands. A door opened and in rushed a group of Fey in working smocks and a few in cloaks. I didn’t recognize them or what place they held at court, but honestly, I hadn’t spent enough time here to actually be familiar with most of the ranks or what required dress was.

It turned out that these were, for want of a better word, medics or doctors. They pretty much ignored me and started working on the husband and the wife who seemed in a bad way. I didn’t like the way her head lolled from side to side or the large amount of crusted blood that had come from her head wound.

The Lord who had summoned the medics , who was some kind of judge or arbitrator, told me that what dead the Fey Lord had done was clearly a violation of the Compact and he wanted to know what compensation I would want to settle the debt of honor. When I asked about the victims, he shrugged and wanted to know what about them. Typical, they were just humans after all, only marginally covered under the Compact. I told him that I wasn’t satisfied with this and that what I wanted was the marriage restored via memory altering. This was a technique used when a mortal saw something they shouldn’t, a simply editing and everything was just fine.

He looked at me like I was a three day old dead fish laying in the sun and told me that there were complications. The husband could be fixed, no problem, but the wife had suffered a bad concussion and while she could be healed, memory editing might leave her a vegetable and this was an unacceptable to risk to her unborn child.

Child? Yep. Apparently dead Fey Lord swimmers had been a little more lively than he had thought. No Fey ever practiced safe sex or birth control with humans and he had managed to knock up the wife. Technically, that made the unborn child one of his heirs and it had rights under the Compact if it could be carried to term. That also meant that the mother would have to be more gently treated than leaving her dead or a vegetable.

I cursed a blue streak about stupid Fey lords and god damned domestic cases. The judge looked like actually agreed with me, but would never admit such a thing. His solution was to just disappear the wife and return the husband with memories of how she ran away. Once the child was born it would be taken and raised by the dead Fey Lord’s family if they wanted it or it could be raised by commoners at the Court. The woman could serve as a servant at whatever house the child ended up in until it could be weaned and then she could find her own place with rest of the mortals who lived at the court.

As calmly as I could I told him that his solution was a huge crock of shit and that it would have to up to the couple to decide what to do. I told him that this was the only way that my honor could possibly be satisfied. I also reminded him that dead Fey Lord’s family had no claim on the child because it was conceived during a violation of the Compact.

That tore it. He called me an ungrateful whelp whose father must curse the day of my birth. I agreed that he probably did. He threatened me with exile until I reminded him that I don’t live at the Court anyway. My counterproposal was to tell all of dead Fey Lord’s enemies about how he died and what he’d been doing. The resulting blood feuds should empty quite a few spots in the court. He finally agreed after consulting with his Lord and with great reluctance agreed to do everything possible to see to the care of the family. His eyes were filled with anything but love as he agreed.

Happy ending right? Wrong. Husband was still a jerk. Despite everything I could tell him about what had happened to his wife, that essentially she had been raped and had been impregnated by her rapist, he wouldn’t believe she wasn’t somehow at fault. He said she should have resisted and that if she really loved him, Fey Lord’s hypnosis wouldn’t have worked. I told him that it wasn’t hypnosis it was a spell and no one could have withstood it. He looked right through me like I had never spoke. The wife was devastated by all of this. Not only did she lose her husband, who she really did love, but she had doubts of her own about what had happened. She remembered the dreams for what they were and had a hard time believing her responses to Fey Lord could have been forced. She felt guilty. The knowledge of her impending motherhood brought no solace. It took me months of talking and explaining to convince her that her child needn’t be like his father and that she had nothing to feel guilty about. I was never able to get the husband to come around. He divorced her. Dumb bastard. He got his memory edited and the murder was replaced with a vivid memory of a fight where he said things that couldn’t be taken back.

The Court, after some prompting, agreed to provide for her and the child until her death or the child’s Naming Day. It was then that they made me swear under the Compact to keep all identities involved quiet. It was a powerful oath and ritual involving my blood and the blood of the child as a stand in for dead Fey Lord.

I still see the mother from time to time. She’s always glad to see me because I am about the only person she can talk to about what happened. I help her daughter deal with being a half breed and try and prepare her for the challenges of being part Fey. Her mother and I got together for a little while but it didn’t work, there was just too much history. She’s always a little glad to see me go too.

So you can see why I haven’t been around the Court of Dawn very much in the last fifteen years. Not that I count this a huge loss, but it has put me out of loop as far as the games being played at court.

I finally directed the cab driver through the last of the lunch time traffic and arrived at the Double Tree hotel. As soon as I hit the lobby, I knew something was wrong. There were a lot of Fey around. Fey in the mortal world are actually pretty rare. To find a dozen or so in the lobby of the Doubletree was distressing. I also noticed a rather solemn looking elf standing watch at the edge of the mirror that lead to the Silver Tree.

It only took a moment to make my way across to the mirror that concealed the entrance to the Silver Tree. Upon closer inspection, the elf was wearing a glamour that concealed his height and bulk. Concentrating, I saw the glamour flicker and fall revealing the tallest, broadest looking elf I had ever seen. He noticed me at about the same time I noticed the nubs of horns peaking out of his hair.

“Sorry. Bar’s closed.” He intoned the words in a whisper that sounded like a low rumbling of thunder. He was probably a troll half breed of some kind.

“Oh? Why?”

“There has been an accident. The sheriff is looking into it and needs a moment with the staff.”

“Accident? What kind of accident?” I had a feeling I already knew what kind of accident. The sheriff doesn’t show up because a cook drops a pan of hot grease on his foot.

“I’m not at liberty to say. Can I have your name?” Suspicion crossed his face and slightly elongated tusks peaked from the corner of his mouth as he grimaced. He was a cop for sure. Cops always have a way of making a question seem like a demand.

I don’t have anything against cops or policemen if you prefer. They serve a valuable function in society and in the life of PI as well. But the problem is that they want to have a hand in everything, whether it is their business or not. Most cops are a pretty decent lot, but first and foremost they are cops. Cops divide the world into “Cops” and “Non-Cops”. They may call themselves constables, sheriffs, patrolmen, detectives, police or even bulls, but they are all cops.

The thing about lying to cops is that you had better be pretty good at it or you are actually likely to get yourself in more trouble than you would have if you just came clean. It’s generally a good idea to tell the truth to cops unless you’re guilty of something that they shouldn’t know about. Of course, in my case I almost lie by habit to them, unless I decide to tell the truth just to mess with their heads. The trick is that you should never tell them a lie about something they already know the truth about. There was almost no chance that there wasn’t somebody here who knew my name. I came here often enough that I was a regular.

“Jake Underwood.” I said. Another thing about talking to cops: Don’t volunteer information. Believe me, they can ask plenty of questions so only answer what they ask, not anything extra. Sometimes you just shouldn’t say anything at all, but that always makes them suspicious and if the goal is to assuage their fears, clamming up is a great way to make them even more interested in what it is you’re not saying.

“Jake Underwood. You’re a private investigator?” He asked it like a question but left no doubt that he already knew the answer.

“Yes. That’s right” I decided to venture a question of my own. Asking questions of cops could be dangerous too. Once they knew what you wanted to know it could lead to all kinds of interesting questions that you would rather they ignored. “How do you know me?”

“Well sir, you are on my list as a person of interest. I think you better come with me.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. A ‘Person of Interest’ is what they call someone who they think might be a suspect. They usually don’t have anything on them but a hunch or maybe they just happen to be in the vicinity where something bad happened.

The half troll narrowed his eyes and loosened his stance, obviously preparing himself for anything that I might do. His muscles rolled under his tailored suit as he clinched his large fists and I was again reminded of how strong trolls were. I wonder if half trolls were just as strong. I decided this wasn’t the time to find out.

“Easy there constable, let’s not do anything that my doctor might regret happening to me.”  I raised my hands and stood still. “Look, before you get all physical, let me just tell you that I have a gun in my holster. I don’t want any trouble and I assume that somebody here wants to talk to me and I would just as soon not do it through a busted lip and cracked teeth. So what do you say to me carefully handing you my piece and you in turn not driving my head down about four inches into my neck?”

He considered it for a moment and gave me a large smile that actually revealed the previously barely visible tusks. “Okay. I can see you’re a very sensible fellow and don’t want any trouble. There’s always less paperwork when people cooperate. Here’s how we’ll do it. You just reach into that coat and pull out the Glock with two fingers and squat down and place it on the floor. While you’re down there, just reach under your pants cuff and place the holdout piece down there and place it with its friend. Also, I believe that you keep a knife strapped to your other wrist. Just slide it out and drop it with all the others. There’s a good fellow.” He smiled and waited. He didn’t relax but he did seem less anxious.

“You know about the knife too? I haven’t been carrying it for very long. That’s pretty impressive.”

“Not really, one of the people that you passed on the way in is scryer who has a talent for on the scene weapon spotting, among other things. She had you zeroed in before you got out of the cab. I didn’t know who you were, but you were coming in pretty well armed. The cold iron bullets marked you as someone who was clearly too well armed and informed to come in here, so she alerted me.”

I gingerly reached into my coat and pulled out the Glock 17 and squatted and placed it on the floor. I raised the cuff of my pants and unhooked the holdout holster and placed Kahr P-9 beside its big brother. I rolled up my sleeve and undid the Velcro straps that held the sheathed knife to my wrist.

“I am Sergeant Angel Bermuda and if you’ll accompany me we can meet with the sheriff and see what’s what.” He looked a little pained as he introduced himself and waved me through the mirror and into the Silver Tree. I noticed a frail looking elf woman come up behind us and carefully collect my weaponry. For a fey to pick up a weapon loaded with cold iron was akin to a Mortal picking up gun covered with scorpions. It can be done, but you are damned careful about it.

“That is Lady Kerry Watashi of Special Services. She’ll take charge of your weaponry while we conduct your interview. She gave me a grim nod and gingerly picked up the Glock and placed in a bag along with the other weapons.

“Angel Bermuda? That’s a little...uh…unconventional for a half troll isn’t it?” I didn’t want to offend him, especially considering how physically impressive he was, but I was quite curious.

“A legacy from mother. She had quite an unusual sense of humor.” I waited for him to expand on this but apparently this was a need to know type thing and I didn’t qualify.

I stepped through the silvered plane in front of me and felt the usual disorientation as I passed into the outer lobby of the Silver Tree. Inside stood two members of the Black Watch looking ominous and foreboding, armed to the teeth and pissed off, as usual. I think they might give asshole pills to these guys at breakfast.

Sergeant Bermuda quickly covered the distance between the entrance and the Watch members and said something that I couldn’t hear. I heard one of them grunt and gesture into the bar proper.

He turned to me, “This way please, wouldn’t want to keep the sheriff waiting. It makes him testy.”

Great. I figured that almost everyone I had met since arriving was a little testy so the guy was likely to be a corker.

In the bar itself I saw more members of the Black Watch standing guard and various employees they looked nervously about while being guarded.

“Wait here a moment.”  Sergeant Bermuda raised a hand for me to stop and he continued on to a table near the bar where two gentlemen, one of whom had to be the sheriff were busy interrogating Lucinda Flagg, a Fey waitress who didn’t look to happy to be there.

This was not good. I had been in situations like this before. It usually meant a nasty crime of some kind had been committed.  Further, it had high level attention written all over it. There were too many members of the Black Watch here and the Sheriff himself. He only showed up when somebody important got curious. That meant pressure from above. When Alicia Morning’s Gate had been killed in the bathroom a few years back a single deputy had showed up for a few hours, asked some stupid questions and then we never heard anything from him again, not even when the head of the murderer turned up a week later pickled in brine and sitting on the bar, along with a note about what could happen to people who did things to the staff at the Silver Tree. Kevin ran a clean place and frowned mightily on those who hassled, let alone killed, the staff. When Kevin frowned his bouncers scowled and made fists. Jerryk and Tarryk were a pair of brothers who were part ogre and part something else. No one is really sure what the something else is because the Ogre is dominant. Not too sharp but great at using sharp pointed objects and strong enough to put the sword in the stone. I had worked with them a couple times and they were the best trained attack beings I had ever seen. Not bright, but deliberate and followed orders without elaborating on them. They were geniuses when it came to controlling exactly how much violence to release. If you wanted a guy’s hair barely mussed they could oblige. If you wanted every other bone in his hand broken they would be just as happy to do that. It’s not that they enjoyed inflicting pain, they just didn’t mind doing so and they could soak up punishment like a sponge soaks up water. I had no doubt that last thing that Alicia’s killer had seen was a massive hand closing on his soon to be bodiless head.

Sergeant Angel Bermuda motioned me over by waving and I moved through the small knots of people that were waiting and milling about. As I moved closer to the table I could see that Lucinda had been crying. The Sheriff had a grim look about him and one of his flunkies, Deputy Crosswich was looking pleased with himself. Deputy Crosswich and I had met previously and agreed to detest each other for our entire lives and that happy state of affairs, I am pleased to say, continues unabated to this day. When he showed up to investigate the death of Alicia Morning’s Gate, he spent as much effort as he would trying to discover who had stolen his morning paper. He had treated the staff poorly and they wouldn’t tell him if he was on fire.

Luncinda looked at me and turned to leave. Crosswich gave her look over somewhat short of a sneer. “Keep yourself available. We may have more questions for you.”

“Underwood. Have a seat.” It wasn’t quite an order, but it certainly wasn’t an invitation either. I glanced at Sergeant Bermuda. He couldn’t like Crosswich. The guy was a bigot. He believed only purebloods had rights. I would have bet a week’s pay that Sergeant Bermuda really got under his thin skin.

“Lord Sheriff, this is Jake Underwood. One of the regulars here at the Silvertree. He’s…” Crosswich was just about to start in on his spiel about what a disreputable character I was when his boss raised his gloved hand.

“I know who he is deputy. We have quite a thick folder on him.” He looked at me in the same way that cat looks at a trapped mouse, hungry and playful. ‘Please, Mr. Underwood, sit.” He waved at the chair opposite him.

“Since you ask so nicely, it will be a pleasure.” A made a show of sitting, mainly just to piss off Crosswich. This is a really a bad idea when dealing with cops. Tweaking their nose is something that clever boys do when they want to spend some time having their internal anatomy rearranged by some backroom type with a club. But Crosswich always managed to torque me up.

“Now, You are the son of  Lord Stavros Mellinscant? Holder of Lord Kareen’s Blight?” The Sheriff consulted a notebook that he had pulled from his pocket. Crosswich was smiling. That couldn’t be good.

“Yes, I am his son.”

“Would you care to call for a Noble’s Privilege? It is your right.” The sheriff looked at me levelly. A Noble’s Privilege was basically the right to be questioned in the presence of your liege lord. If you didn’t have one, then your family could act in stead of your lord. Failing that, your superior at court could do so. Everyone at court reports to someone else, sometimes several someone else’s. It could get quite complicated depending on who you actually were at any given moment.

“I think you know that my father and I do not speak and that my rank at court is the barest minimum allowed by custom. We can dispense with the liturgy of custom and cut right to the rat killing. What the hell’s going on?”

“Very Well. Let us proceed with the conversation.” The Sheriff, Lord Dunsany, favored me with a brief smile. “Do you know a Goblin who goes by the name of Kevin?”

“Yes, he tends bar here at the Silver Tree.”

“Just so. Tell me, when was the last time that you saw him?”

“Yesterday, here at the bar.”

“How would describe your relationship with Kevin?” His eyes darted to Crosswich. Usually it’s a little trickier to try and figure out what the cops know, but Crosswich telegraphed it with his eager smirk and his nod.

“Oh I like to drink here from time to time. Kevin also employs me upon occasion.”

“So you admit that you work for him.”

“I admit nothing. I declare it. Sometimes Kevin has some work for me in the mortal world where it’s easier for me to move about. Occasionally, he’ll use me to help deal with internal matters involving the staff.”