Chapter 8 – Lies

“We’ve got a message from someone who isn’t Chester!” Lucy looked up from her laptop, sounding a bit surprised. She had set up some kind of dead drop communications for other people from the American Alliance, but they hadn’t had anyone use it. Which was fortunate, since The Ghost only operated in a very narrow scope and it was never a good thing when someone needed them.

“Who is it?” Callum looked away from the enchanting he was doing, playing around freehand rather than using the inscriber. He was attempting to construct a version of the directed gravity spell form, and considering that he was still fumbling around with a very small amount of proper instruction there was no point in trying to make a permanent version. Instead he was just playing around with brass wire.

“One of the independent fae. Toclerane?” Lucy shook her head. “No idea how to pronounce the name. He’s on the list of signatories so I guess he’s real enough.”

“What does he want?”

“Says that he’s tipping us off to some malefaction – that’s the actual word he used – some malefaction by other supernaturals in his area. Umm.” Lucy’s fingers rattled over the keyboard. “Wichita.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Callum said, putting his wire model aside. “Did he say what kind of malefaction?”

“A-nope. Just has a number so he can consult you.”

“Huh. Wonder what’s going on. He’s part of the Alliance; shouldn’t they be taking care of it?” Callum asked, stepping around the table to peer over Lucy’s shoulder.

“Not everyone is part of the Alliance. Might be the other guy’s still with GAR,” Lucy suggested. “That’d make things complicated.”

“I don’t like it,” Callum grimaced. “But I suppose we’ll have to hear him out.”

“Should I dial him up right now?”

“If there are people at risk we shouldn’t delay,” Callum said, sliding a chair over next to Lucy and seating himself in it. They could and maybe should have gone to the office, but the living room was quite comfortable.

“Right.” Lucy poked at some of the programs she had in her laptop, and her VOIP window popped up. So far, at least so far as either of them knew, nobody had come anywhere near the servers and bypasses that Lucy was using for phone calls. Still, they weren’t about to call directly from the bunker. The phone rang three times before there was a click, and a deep, cultured voice answered.

“Ye-ees?” The person on the other end sounded as if he were delighted to get a call, rich and friendly. Knowing that they were dealing with a fae, that immediately prickled Callum’s instincts and set his teeth on edge. “This is Toclerane.”

“This is The Ghost,” he said, keeping his tone and manner businesslike. “I understand you’ve run into an issue you feel should be brought to my attention.”

“Why, yes!” The voice, if such thing were possible, became even more friendly. “Fantastic! I was hoping you would call.”

“I take supernatural threats seriously,” Callum replied. “Your message was rather short on details. I will need more than that.”

“Oh, certainly, certainly.” Toclerane hastened to assure him. “I have been dealing with this intemperate rake for years, but I’ve never had the thought before that he might be someone who could be permanently stopped. I am hardly capable myself and this notorious villain is protected by his friends in authority.”

“Still short on details,” Callum said. He knew Toclerane’s type. They loved to talk, and could ramble on for hours without actually saying anything. “Who is it? Is he part of GAR? What exactly has he been doing?”

“Ah! This particular scoundrel goes by the name of Anexis and he has been deep in the pockets of GAR – or they in his – for years. He has vexed and hounded me and the people I have protected for some time, and it has only been through my efforts that his victims have not met with utter disaster.” Toclerane sounded rather smug about that.

“The very specific incident as of late, two days ago — Anexis used his particular skills to sabotage an entire building full of children! Poor mundane teenagers who had no idea what could be going on or the danger they were in. He dusted the place with a poisonous gas…” Toclerane paused dramatically. “And it was only by my hand that none came to harm. Yet, I am not powerful enough to confront this miscreant directly. My skills lie in other directions.”

“That does sound bad,” Callum conceded. There were plenty of stories about child-eaters that fae could draw from. In fact, it seemed the majority of monsters were stories for or about kids — and stories being appropriate for children didn’t make the monsters any less horrifying. “I need more details. What does this Anexis look like? Where does he live?”

There were other details Callum needed too, if he were to do anything, but it was clear Toclerane was far from objective when it came to facts. Assuming he wasn’t flat-out lying – which fae could do, for the most part – there was some sort of threat at play and Callum certainly wouldn’t brook anyone threatening children. But there was also no point in going in blind.

“Well! He should be tall but he has a hunch, and a long wicked nose! His hair is like a rat’s nest of dirty straw and—” Toclerane went on in that vein for some time, using ten words when one would do, but eventually Callum had a location and description.

“I will look into it,” Callum said, and waved at Lucy to cut the connection.

“So this Toblerone guy,” Lucy said, after the program showed they were disconnected. “I dunno, he seemed a little overly impressed with himself.” Callum mouthed the words Toblerone guy and laughed, shaking his head.

“Well, at least he had real information. Just have to check it first. Does the GAR database have anything on that Anexis guy?”

“On it.” Lucy’s fingers rattled across the keys again. “They still have too much stuff on paper. It’s annoying.”

“I’m just surprised they have any electronic capability at all,” Callum said.

“Even magic can’t beat email for management,” Lucy said. “I’m pretty sure the only reason we got it is all the office folks wanting to spend more time playing solitaire or whatever.”

“Sounds about right,” Callum agreed.

“Ummm, okay Anexis.” Lucy pursed her lips as she looked over what came up from the GAR servers. “Independent Fae. No address, just a neighborhood, but it’s close to what Toblerone gave us.”

“Anything else?”

“Not in this database. No commentary on powers or attitude or anything. I’m sure there’s something somewhere in GAR but these entries are pretty bare bones. No records associated with him though, so nothing to do with Acquisitions or BSE.” Lucy shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “So if he’s causing trouble there’s nothing in it that has reached the level of an official report.”

“Yeah, well, given that it’s a bureaucracy there’s a million ways for any such report to get ‘lost.’ I suppose you should keep digging and see if there’s any incidental information, but the easiest thing would be to just put an anchor there and check.” Callum sighed. “There’s no point in delaying if this fae is going after kids. Hopefully in the future the American Alliance can deal with this sort of thing themselves.”

“We could run it past Chester,” Lucy suggested, tapping her laptop meaningfully.

“I mean, yeah, shoot him an email, but it’s not like he’s in charge of anyone outside his pack,” Callum pointed out, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Honestly Toclerane is doing the right thing in contacting us.”

“Maybe, but I could do without this kind of work,” Lucy said with a frown.

“Me too,” Callum sighed. “But if I don’t do it, nobody will, so best get it over with.” He reached through the nexus and located the drone closest to the area. Since he couldn’t sense writing with his perceptions, Lucy had ended up engraving numbers on the portal anchors so he could keep track of which was which. Anchor two was the only mobile one in Chester’s general area, since he didn’t want to mess with the anchor in the compound, and a short jaunt down to Wichita wasn’t that much of an imposition.

At the very least it seemed like he wouldn’t have to break out the stealth ball. The target area was an ordinary residential address, not some fae reality pocket. Presumably most of the fae he’d seen in various cities had the same arrangement, for all that he’d been concerned with enclaves. Though maybe the inclination to live outside enclaves was also an inclination to act more like a human and less like a monster.

When the drone got closer he could see through Lucy’s cameras that the region was a slice of Kansas suburbia, almost disturbingly generic in its appearance. A sprawl of endless identical houses covered the flat landscape, and with no apparent magical current to follow Lucy had to actually aim the drone camera at street names and house numbers to find the target.

“What a dreary place to live,” Lucy said.

“Right?” Callum shook his head. “It looks so weirdly inhuman that it seems like it’s fae place anyway.” Of course it wasn’t, since suburban sprawl was a perfectly normal phenomenon, if one he didn’t much like.

His perceptions encountered a few lone supernaturals as they swept over the houses, probably fae and possibly shifters, living as ordinary folks. Or at least among them. Since they were just mowing lawns or playing fetch with pets, Callum wasn’t about to bother any of them. There weren’t any piles of skulls or anything else like he’d seen in other places, so it definitely wasn’t any of his business.

The address they had for Anexis was superficially identical to any of the other surrounding dwellings, but there was a definite concentration of swirly fae magic about the house and the yard. Lucy set the drone down on the roof of the next building over, while Callum took a moment to survey the situation. They were actually lucky, since it seemed Anexis was home. Or at least, some fae was home, tending a grill in the back yard.

“Gimme a second, going to see if I can get an actual eye on him,” Lucy said, fiddling with the drone and the cameras. It took a little bit of repositioning, but after a couple minutes they had an image of someone who looked like just a normal suburban dad. He was blond, and did have an aquiline nose, but no hunch was evident, nor the issues of complexion Toclerane had described.

To Callum’s perceptions, the fae’s real form wasn’t too much different. A little taller and a little broader, which considering the frame and paunch of the glamour made him large indeed, though not outside human standards. The features were a bit more exaggerated, but it seemed that Anexis, or whoever was at Anexis’ house, was basically human-looking.

“Box?” Callum asked, and Lucy took one from the stack and toggled it on to check that it worked, then handed it to him. He teleported it onto a small table in the backyard, and turned on the microphone. Normally he didn’t communicate with his targets, but so far they had nothing but Toclerane’s unsupported word that there was anything going on. After all, he had claimed that he’d stopped most of what Anexis had been doing.

“Anexis?” Callum asked, and the fae spun away from the grill. Magic swirled a moment in startled reaction, but when the man spotted the box on the table it condensed down to coat his skin. Which Callum didn’t blame him for.

“What is it? Who?” The voice over the mic sounded ordinary enough.

“Are you Anexis?” Callum repeated.

Stolen novel; please report.

“I am,” he said, approaching the box.

“This is The Ghost,” Callum said.

“Oh, what? Shit. Why?” Anexis said, backing away from the device. He seemed wary, but not panicked.

“I received certain information about your activities and, finding it suspect, decided to give you the chance to address it directly.” Callum didn’t like it. He wasn’t equipped for investigating thing beyond obvious evil, and for all he knew Anexis’ homeowners association was more evil than him.

“Information from who?” Anexis said sharply, then realizing who was talking to, moderated the question. “If you’re willing to say.”

“Perhaps. When I have satisfied myself that you are not a threat to the people around you.”

“I’m not!” Anexis waved the spatula that was still in his hand around at the neighborhood. “”Do you think I’d live here if I were?”

“Possibly,” Callum said, unmoved by the argument. “How do you account for the accusations that you attempted to poison a number of teenagers two days ago?”

“What? Two days ago?” Anexis turned back to the grill, but the spatula in his hand trembled as he flipped the burgers there. “Look — I’m a bit of a prankster, okay? It’s my thing. So there was a school dance my friend’s kids were at and I did a bit of magic shenanigans. Just a, you know. Fart bomb, basically.”

Lucy dissolved into helpless giggles as Callum shook his head. Of all things, he was not expecting juvenile pranks. Of course, there was every chance that Anexis was lying too, which was why Callum didn’t like being put in this position. His role was not to arbitrate in spats between supernaturals.