Chapter 15 – Favor

“There’s something I think we need to discuss face to face.”

Callum frowned at the phone-portal he was using to talk to Alpha Chester and then glanced at Lucy. She shrugged back. That sort of wording always made Callum think that he was in trouble somehow, but he was absolutely certain he’d done nothing that would irk Chester.

“What’s this about?” He asked, not quite ready to pop through on Chester’s say-so.

“I have a favor to ask. Or maybe a job for you to do.”

“Ah.” Callum wasn’t much enamored of doing jobs for other people, but so far Chester hadn’t asked for anything too outrageous. More importantly, he’d taken Callum’s rejections of direct employment with enough grace that it wasn’t like Chester as pressuring him into anything. “Is now good?”

“Yes.”

“Right, we’re coming through.” He would have preferred to be more indirect than opening a portal directly from the bunker, but they still didn’t have the new portal anchors made. There were language barrier issues and just finding a machine shop with the right stuff in South or Central America was more difficult. Not impossible, by any means, but they’d only just found someone who seemed like he could do it properly.

The reason he’d sent his only free portal anchor over to Chester was to see about actually selling another set of telepads. Perhaps even two. With the GAR system temporarily shut down, he was sure it’d be an easy sell, and perhaps not even to Chester. There had to be others out there willing to take the risk, even though Chester would probably play intermediary.

He opened up a portal for himself and Lucy, and stepped through from the Texas trailer into Chester’s basement. It was significantly warmer than their trailer and its relatively anemic heater, and Lucy happily shed her sweater before flopping down into one of the overstuffed armchairs in the room. For the first time Callum appraised it as a room, rather than as a secret meeting place, considering how much work it might be to put something like it into his cave.

“Thank you,” Chester said, in his half-form rather than human. Somehow even as a ten-foot hyena-cat-wolf, he still looked to have a viking beard with the ruffles of his white fur. “Please, have a seat.”

Callum took the chair next to Lucy’s, as Chester’s wife Lisa came down the stairs carrying a tray of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and an assortment of drinks. Lucy visibly perked up at the smell of the cookies, which Callum had to admit was quite enticing. Though really it only made him worry about what exactly Chester had in mind that required buttering up. Though it wasn’t Chester that started things.

“Look at you two,” Lisa said with a grin. “You’re so cute together!”

“Um,” said Lucy. Callum suppressed a smile, well recognizing the signs of the interested mother or grandmother.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Lisa asked Lucy as she put down the cookies. “Time’s a wasting. When are you going to make it official?”

“Ummm,” said Lucy, her face red. Callum laughed and rescued her.

“We’re discussing that,” he said. “Things are a little crazy right now.”

“They’re always like that,” Lisa said dismissively. “Put off having a family for any reason and you’ll put it off for every reason. Then you’ll regret it.” She waved a cookie threateningly in Lucy’s direction. “So I’m expecting to see babies soon.”

“Ugh. Now I know how your kids feel,” Lucy complained. “Do you have to put it that way?”

“Yes,” Lisa said unrepentantly. Lucy looked at Callum helplessly and he put his arm around her.

“It’s a mom thing,” he told her. Lisa wasn’t Lucy’s actual mother, but considering that Lucy had been completely disowned by her blood family, the shifter matriarch was clearly the better parent.

“With that out of the way,” Chester said, unfazed by his wife’s behavior as Lisa sat down beside him on the couch. “GAR is beginning to fragment, and some people who were previously behaving no longer are. I don’t complain of this to you, since people have been chafing at their bonds for a while. Sniping and nibbling where they could get away with it. The only difference is that things have started happening much faster.”

“Someone’s giving you trouble?” Callum asked, taking a cookie for himself and getting a knowing smile from Lisa. He couldn’t imagine that anyone could cause Chester issues short of GAR itself, or maybe an Archmage or the highest-powered vamp or fae.

“Let us say King Ravaeb has decided to embrace certain aspects that he had not emphasized before,” Chester replied. “There are a lot of, frankly, monsters that he’s let run rampant. Really, actively directed toward us.”

“That certainly does not sound good,” Callum said cautiously. Part of him wanted to protest that it wasn’t his business, but he knew that wasn’t entirely true. From any angle.

“No. His people have been killing mine, as well as any mundanes that have gotten in their way,” Chester said bluntly. “I have had my differences with Ravaeb in the past but I did not realize he had been so constrained by oversight. Now he’s been granted full latitude by GAR.”

“Wait, wouldn’t he get in trouble for killing non-magical folks?” Lucy protested. Callum was happy to hear her not calling them mundanes.

“Normally yes, but they’ve got dispensation from Constance herself to be rather more profligate than before.” Chester shook his head. “It’s been practically a war between my people and his. Maybe the fae don’t care about deaths, but I do.”

“Constance again,” Callum sighed. While he was sure that Chester was telling the truth, he also knew that Chester’s goals had to do with his own stability and power. Callum did not like being used as a political pawn, even if the target absolutely deserved it. “Okay, so it’s sounding like Ravaeb needs to go. Would that actually stop these attacks? I mean, if the fae are just monstrous wouldn’t they rampage anyway?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask for proof,” Chester said.

“Oh, I’ll want whatever you have, certainly, but you wouldn’t pitch something like this to me unless you could back it up.” Callum rubbed at his forehead, contemplating it. A fae king would actually be easier to take out than an Archmage with a teleport redirection, but he was pretty sure he couldn’t actually manage such a thing. Especially not now.

“For your question, no. With the chaos of having a king missing, and the way the kings make the enclaves, no. Even those that decided to run amok would not be nearly as empowered. Then there would be the infighting…” Chester shook his head as he contemplated it. “I do not think they would be nearly the threat without Ravaeb.”

“Mmm. I have a grudge of my own, but that wasn’t enough to justify going after him. This, though.” Callum pressed his lips together. “Those that prey on people cannot be suffered to live.”

“That feels a little strong,” Lucy said. “I mean, I guess I can’t argue but it kinda sounds fanatical.”

“Perhaps it is,” Callum conceded. “But it’s what I can point to and feel absolutely firm about. All the supernaturals are too complicated and all the infighting is old politics that I can’t really comment on. It’s not my place to deal with old grudges or the like. But preying on people? That makes you a monster.”

“You know, some would stretch that definition to include an awful lot of people,” Chester said.

“Sure, but you know what I mean and I know what I mean. You can pick apart words forever, make anything mean anything.” Callum shrugged. “I know I’m not good enough to debate semantics so I won’t even try.” He knew he was being a bit defensive, but he’d run into the word-twisting type more often than he’d liked, especially in his former life as a consultant.

“I do know what you mean,” Chester said. “So I can rely on you for help?”

“Tell me what we’re up against, first,” Callum said, glancing over at Lucy. “I have certain advantages but I’m not some tactical genius.”

Callum found it surprising that Ravaeb’s kingdom was located deep in Yellowstone National Park, though he couldn’t say why. Maybe because the names of the fae that Ravaeb commanded were from entirely different areas — though as he understood it, the fae were aping the legends rather than the other way around, after Lucy had filled him in on how fae tended to follow stories. Though just being in Yellowstone didn’t narrow anything down, considering how huge the park was.

Specifically, Ravaeb was located in the rugged mountains near the continental divide, his enclave twisting space and time so there was far more room than appeared on any map. Fae magic was, properly speaking, complete bullshit, as unlike shifters or vampires or even mages it could do almost anything. That was, fortunately for everyone, balanced by the fact that it was restricted by its own arcane rules, further twisted and turned by the fae’s odd psychology. So the spatial stuff was not at all like what Duvall or, to a lesser extent, Callum could do, and only worked exactly where the fae court was.

Callum had seen something related to that kind of work down in Florida, but he hadn’t stumbled across wherever the actual fae kingdom was — if indeed it was at all hidden, and not just located in one of the giant skyscrapers in Miami. Ravaeb’s location needed a little bit more to obscure it, so he wasn’t surprised they had their own version of glamour. While Callum expected that his senses would be able to see through that kind of trickery, he didn’t actually know.

“Most fae kings are surrounded by their court, though not too much of it,” Chester said. “I obviously haven’t been to Ravaeb’s but you’d expect to see all kinds of smaller fae around the periphery and nobles in close to Ravaeb.”

“So I probably couldn’t fly the drone in,” Callum said thoughtfully.

“Even if we could I wouldn’t trust it afterward,” Lucy said. “Fae magic does some spooky stuff.” Callum nodded grim agreement.

“Yeah I’d have to throw it into Mictlān to get purged and I’m not sure how much I’d trust that either.” Callum shook his head. “Is there any chance of luring Ravaeb out? Some kind of GAR meeting or something?”

“Maybe, if you hadn’t sent everyone scrambling after you killed Fane,” Chester said, though there was no bite to his tone. “Though I expect it wouldn’t be particularly healthy for me to show up to a meeting either. There’s probably more than a few people who’d like to catch me out in the open.”

“Ugh.” Callum grimaced. He knew that there’d be fallout from his defiance of GAR and his removal of people like Fane, but it wasn’t pleasant to hear about it. Not that he would change what he did. Other people reacting badly wasn’t something he had control over.

“So if we can’t lure him out then we have to get into his kingdom, and that sounds pretty difficult. At least, not without being noticed.” Callum drummed his fingers on the chair arm. “Is there some fae that are friendly that could give us advice? Maybe some kind of material we could disguise a portal anchor with?”

“You would have to go to the fae for that last one,” Chester said. “So far as friendly — well, I’m not sure I’d consider any fae to be particularly friendly. Not really. But doing business with the Ghost? That would probably work.”

“That nickname,” Callum said with a wince. “I guess it’s worth a shot. The only one I’ve had any dealings with is Ferrochar. Would you recommend him?”

“Actually no, the others might get jealous,” Lisa said. “I’d actually recommend King Jissarrel. You killed some of his nobles so dealing with him would end up with more credit to the fae mind.”

“They are so weird,” Lucy muttered.

“So long as I can do it at a distance, I suppose that’s okay,” Callum said with a frown. That was definitely business to transact through a warded portal, or really, one of Lucy’s boxes with the transceiver portal hidden somewhere nearby. Or, the easiest option, by phone. “I don’t suppose there’s a number I can call him at?”

“I don’t know of one,” Chester said. “Lucy?”

“I’m pretty sure not, but I’ll check after this,” Lucy said.

“He probably doesn’t, considering where his kingdom is centered,” Lisa said. “Over in Europe most of the fae kings have a phone somewhere, but some of the ones here are pretty well closeted away in wilderness.”

“Hmmkay.” Callum took a bite of his cookie and considered for a moment. He didn’t mind doing preparatory work — in fact, he needed to, since he could only get things done with tricks. But considering how irritating his last deal with the fae was, he really didn’t look forward to it. Especially if Jissarrel figured out what Callum was up to, since he was pretty sure that somehow Ravaeb would end up knowing about it.

“Right, then. Do you think he’d care about telepads? There’s not much I can trade without giving away my goal.”

“Everyone cares about telepads since Duvall shut down the network. Even back-country fae.” That made Callum wince. While he didn’t viscerally understand how much GAR had depended on the teleports, he knew that it had a deep impact. It was absolutely bizarre to contemplate that a few moves on his part had crippled a global magical authority.

Of course, it wasn’t like one incident would shut down an entire network. That didn’t happen in the mundane world and it wouldn’t happen in the supernatural one. People must have been just waiting for an excuse, some inciting incident to seize on. It was just luck, good or bad, that he’d been that incident.

“Right, well.” Callum pursed his lips. “Then I think we have a plan.”

“We do?” Lucy said, looking skeptical.

“An idea of a plan, at any rate.”

“I would offer you more material support if I could,” Chester said. “I’m aware this is not a simple task, but we are very low on cold iron ourselves and I suspect you don’t intend to stick him with a knife anyway.”

“What about the enchanting metalwork?” Lucy asked. “We’re having to do things the long way around for that.”

“I’d love to,” Chester said. “But all our businesses are under scrutiny of some sort. That would almost certainly get caught.”

“Oh, boo,” Lucy said, wrinkling her nose.

“You know,” Callum said, after considering a moment. “I actually have an idea for something your people could do that wouldn’t look suspicious. Do you happen to have anyone who does carpentry? I have a place that needs furnishing.”

***

“This is an absolute mess,” Ray Danforth said.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“This scene isn’t much different than the last eight.” Felicia scrawled on her tablet.

“I mean everything,” he sighed.

The scene in question was one of shattered furniture, carpets crusted with blood, steel frames bowing out from the walls, and debris scattered about as if a tornado had hit the place. It wasn’t even the first one like that the pair had seen in the past few weeks. So far the fighting between various factions was quiet from the outside, but that didn’t make it any less vicious.

There were no bodies. The two of them could very well guess who had been involved from the sorts of damage that had been done to the suburban house. The brute force physical violence was vampire, considering the time frame and lack of any claw marks, while the odd patches of perfectly unmarred floor or wall indicated fae trickery at work. The glamours had failed along with the creators’ lives, which was one reason why they were there. Someone had called the police after hearing the ruckus, as they put it.

The DAI was one of the few departments left in GAR operating mostly at full strength, but that hardly helped when there was more to investigate than ever. People had been taking advantage of the muddled enforcement and even open encouragement to settle old scores. It had reached the point where Ray and Felicia had been pulled off the useless Chester investigation again.

The sudden explosion of violence was strange if for no other reason than the perpetrators would be caught eventually. The supernatural world wasn’t that large and people had loose lips no matter the species. It was as if people thought they’d never be held to account, even when GAR recovered. Which might well be the case; neither Ray nor Felicia really knew much about some of the people who’d been brought in as the DAI and BSE reshuffled themselves.

In a way it wasn’t surprising. Most of the grudges weren’t something generations past; they were within living memory for most fae and quite a few vampires, and GAR had made sure there was little goodwill between the different factions. Ray wouldn’t go so far as to say GAR and the mages had played them off against each other in the past, but that was certainly going on now.

“What do you expect? There’s basically bounties out now.”