Assuming there was a later on.
For a few seconds, Archer sprawled on the narrow ledge, catching his breath and observing the activity below.
A number of regular police officers now searched the narrow walkways of the warehouse. So many cops, in fact, that they were starting to get in each other’s ways. Not so with the Irregulars. They were systematically sweeping the building from one end to the other. Black and silver figures moved quickly up the ladders to the landing across from Archer.
Archer rolled away from the edge and stared up at the rafters far above. What a pity he couldn’t fly. But being a half-blood did have its advantages. There were still one or two tricks up his sleeve.
He scooted over to the wall between the banks of multi-paned windows. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on melding with the deep shadows. He pictured the edges of his outline softening, blurring, becoming part of the gloom. Yes, that was it. Fade into the darkness. Let it swallow him…
Footsteps were coming his way. He gathered his nerve and stood, taking a careful, silent step back and flattening himself against the bricks. His heart thumped crazily as the march of feet came closer. Two of them. The beams of their utility lights scudded lightly ahead of them like dogs tugging on leashes.
Archer closed his eyes so that this last telltale gleam would not give him away.
They were nearly on him now. He steadied himself, stilled his breathing, willed his heart to pause.
Down below, the noise and activity continued.
They passed so close Archer felt the sleeve of the nearest brush his arm. His heart did truly stop then, but the agents moved past, slow and deliberate and blind to him.
True faerie glamour. To the casual mortal eye his silent figure would appear to be nothing more than shadows and the outline of post or beam. That was one magic that even the Irregulars with all their special forces high-tech equipment hadn’t figured out how to dismantle yet. Too old and too simple perhaps.
Archer remained stone still as the agents continued to prowl the landings and sweep through the puzzlework of aisles below.
“Clear up here.” One of the agents who had passed Archer signaled down.
“Check again! He didn’t go out the back. And he sure as hell didn’t go out the front.”
Archer sank further back into the shallow brick recess.
The agents retraced their steps, moving in unison.
And in unison moved right past him. Archer waited to expel a long, soft breath until the two Irregulars had reached the end of the landing and were starting down the ladder. Their boots clanged on the rungs. They muttered their discontent to each other.
Tense, alert, Archer continued to watch, but at last he accepted they had no more sense of his presence above them than would any civilian. He slid slowly down the wall and sat, knees hugged to his chest, waiting.
It was a long wait.
A very long, very dull wait.
They did not give up easily. In fact, Archer wondered at one point whether they would give up at all, if they would perhaps stake out the warehouse entrance and wait until hunger and thirst drove him out in a day or two.
Had they captured the Moth Man? Archer saw no indication of it, which reinforced his suspicions. Ezra, of course, was long gone. Dear old Ezra. But Archer wasn’t concerned with Ezra. It was the Moth Man he needed to speak to. He wanted to hear more about those green glass beads. Much more…
***
The hunt ended at last. The Vancouver police had long since called it quits by the time the Irregulars reluctantly gave up the search and withdrew to the alley outside. The warehouse lights died out, row by row, leaving the great empty barn of a building to the shadows and moonlight. The heavy doors slid shut with a roll like thunder.
Through the dirt-streaked window Archer watched the agents milling dispiritedly. A tall figure appeared in their midst and began to speak. Archer looked more closely and thought he could make out the glittering insignia of a commander.
He swore softly. He’d heard the Irregulars were replacing Brennan. Inevitable, probably, but still too bad. Brennan had been easy to work with. Or work around, as the case might be. No one knew anything about this new man, except that he was not local, not from British Columbia, perhaps not even from Canada. Apparently the rumor that the higher-ups had been worried about Commander Brennan getting slack had been true.
Thus, Commander Spit and Polish.
Archer rested his head against the rough brick and listened to the agents reporting their failure. The alley would have been too far away for human ears to catch a word, but Archer’s ears were the least human thing about him. In fact, those small but definite points of cartilage were pretty much a dead giveaway of his half-faerie heritage. The difference wasn’t all cosmetic, either. His hearing was as inhumanly keen as his sight.
The commander heard his team out and then reassured them that the night’s efforts had not been a waste.
Which meant…what exactly?
Then, finally, the Irregulars departed in an official rumble of government-owned vehicles. The alley stood empty.
Still Archer waited. One could never be too careful.
Another hour passed. The last of the damping dust flattened and its green faded out to nothing. The moon had now slipped down a few squares in the window panes.
Archer walked lightly down the ledge and let himself over the side, dropping quietly onto one of the oddly shaped containers. From there he jumped to the mossy bricks.
A crosshatch of moonlight lay across the open space of the floor. He stuck to the shadows and headed for the rear entrance.
The door was locked, but it took only a few seconds’ work to fiddle the mechanism. He eased the door open.
The alley behind the warehouse was silent and empty. The smell of garbage and cold exhaust lingered in the damp air. Nothing moved. Not so much as the flick of a rat’s tail stirred the darkness. And yet…unease slithered down his spine. The same unease he had ignored earlier—a few minutes before the Irregulars had burst in.
Archer retreated, slipping back inside the building, slipping back into the shadows, slipping back into the glamour, fading away into the bones of the old building.
He didn’t have long to wait.
The door to the alley opened soundlessly. A man stood framed in moonlight. His face was silhouetted; Archer saw only that he was tall and disconcertingly broad.
“I know you’re here.” The deep voice was conversational, yet it carried. “I know who you are and I know what you are. Why not dispense with these childish games?”
It wasn’t a question. He didn’t really expect Archer to give himself up. Archer wasn’t convinced he even wanted him to give up. There was a certain note in the shadow’s voice. Not amusement…something more like anticipation.
Archer kept moving, intangible as a shade, heading for the side entrance. This one was clever and patient, but he couldn’t be two places at once, and since he was busy talking to Archer…
“You’ve had a good long run, but your time is up.” The voice found Archer as he reached the door.
Archer waved his hands in front of the lock and felt the tumblers turn, felt the outside bolt slide. He inched the door open just wide enough to step through.
“Another time,” he whispered and let the door fall shut.
Just before it sank into the frame, cutting the connection between them, there came a whispered answer to Archer’s own whisper, which should have been inaudible to human ears.
“Sooner than you think.”
Scholarly texts are full of information on what faeries will and will not eat. Archer had read many an earnest description of rose petal sandwiches, of button mushroom and wild root soup, of mashed quince and honey. And in fact, he did like honey very much, though he preferred it on hot, buttered English muffins.
He was cramming a honey-drenched muffin in his mouth and trying not to get sticky crumbs on his white silk shirt as he juggled his keys and briefcase when the Irregulars turned up on his Gastown doorstep.
Not the best start to any day, finding members of the elite task force charged with regulating interactions between humans and the inhabitants of all the other realms hovering outside the front door. Archer nearly put a hand up to shield his eyes from all that hardware shining in the sun. “Hardware” as in the buttons and chrome adorning the commander’s black uniform, not the high-tech weapons his flunky special agents carried, although they were clearly armed to the teeth.
Archer let the muffin fall from his mouth. He raised his hands—still clutching keys and briefcase—above his head.
Since no one was aiming anything at him, the agents exchanged uncertain glances.
“You can lower your hands, Mr. Green,” the commander said dryly after a moment.
He was a big man. Big and brown. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin. Built to move mountains. Come to think of it, he rather looked like a mountain. Craggy and intractable. His eyes met Archer’s and Archer knew his little performance had been interpreted perfectly. The mountain’s expression wasn’t amused so much as sardonic. It was the fact that he had any expression at all that caught Archer’s attention.
He had thought he recognized the voice; now he was sure that this was Commander Brennan’s replacement, Archer’s shadow foe of the night before. The knowledge didn’t do a lot to improve his morning. Brennan had been careful, conscientious, and occasionally a genuine nuisance, but this one…this one was going to be trouble.
But if there was one thing Archer had learned over the years, it was the human maxim “never let them see you sweat”. There had been many wise mortals in the history of the earth, but the man who had come up with that one had been a genius. So Archer smiled at the commander, letting his mockery show, slowly lowering his arms.
The commander’s eyes narrowed. He said, “Commander Rake, NATO Irregular Task Force, Vancouver Division. We have a warrant to search these premises.”
On cue, the tight-faced agent to Rake’s left proffered a sheet of official documentation. Archer took it and studied it.
And studied it.
And studied it.
Eventually Rake caught on and signaled for his minions to proceed. They brushed past Archer and a few moments later he heard the smash of glass in the entryway. Hopefully not Great- Aunt Esmeralda’s cloisonne clock. He was not particularly fond of the clock, but it was worth a lot of money and easily liquidated —in lean times he made a habit of pawning it and then redeeming the thing when he was flush again. It was a useful item to keep on hand, that’s all.
There was another crash from inside the condominium.
“My tax dollars at work?” Archer handed Rake the warrant.
Rake didn’t take the paper. “That’s your copy.”
“Thank you.”
“As a dual citizen of the Glastonbury Faerie Court and the United Kingdom, you have the right to representation from the Glastonbury Court Ambassadorial Corps.”
“Dual representation?” Archer took his time folding the document into neat squares and tucking it in his raincoat pocket. Where had the Glastonbury Court Ambassadorial Corps been when he’d been handed off into mortal foster care following the death of his mother? Now, suddenly, he was entitled to dual citizenship? That was rather funny. He said gravely, “Thank you for your meticulous attention to the letter of the law, Commander.”
Rake returned, as if by rote, “The laws exist to protect us all, Mr. Green.”
Another crash issued from inside the house. Archer’s smile tightened. “Great. What does the law have to say about being recompensed for property damaged in the course of an Irregular search?”
“That would depend on what might be discovered during the course of the investigation.”
Archer made a rude sound. Commander Rake was sadly out of date. These days nothing in Archer’s home would get him arrested, though the French postcards depicting ninetheenth century demons might raise some eyebrows.
“Wouldn’t it be faster to tell me what you’re looking for?”
Rake was suddenly and, Archer suspected, uncharacteristically urbane. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Green, we’d like to discuss that with you, if you’d be good enough to accompany us to headquarters.”
Archer tilted his head, considering. “Headquarters? That sounds serious.”
“Just a few questions,” Rake said in that same intractable, unnervingly pleasant way.
“Well…the thing is, I’m late for work now.” It wasn’t that Archer imagined there was any getting out of this, but he hated to make it too easy. He felt certain Rake needed more trouble in his life. Something Archer could offer in great supply.
“That’s all right. We’ve spoken to your boss. Mr. Littlechurch, is it? He said he—and you—would be only too delighted to cooperate with our investigation.”
“But what are you investigating?”
“We can talk about it downtown.” Rake’s tone remained smooth, but there was a glint in his eyes that was almost…derisive.
A frisson of unease curled down Archer’s spine. For the first time it occurred to him that he might actually be in trouble. Brennan had had his suspicions, of course, but Brennan had been such a stickler for proof, for evidence. Archer had the uncomfortable feeling that Rake might play by a different set of rules. The same set Archer played by.
Which meant
He didn’t even hear what he’d said till Rake gave a curt laugh. “It is at that. Shall we go?”
They departed with the sound of the Irregulars laying waste to Archer’s home.
***
Archer lived in old downtown Vancouver, the neighborhood affectionately known as Gastown. It was an eclectic and trendy mix of boutiques, cafes, galleries, and overpriced apartments and condominiums. The courtyards and mews had cobbled streets and were lined with old trees and historic buildings. It looked like a well-scrubbed Disney version of the Old World but with all the conveniences of the New.
Needless to say, the Irregulars were not headquartered in Gastown. The black SUV sped silently through the rush hour traffic. No one spoke. The dashboard radio—could equipment that expensive and advanced be called a
It was not particularly cramped inside the official vehicle, but Archer was uncomfortably aware of Commander Rake. Rake was a big man. Not just physically big. He had presence. Still, he kept his muscular length and his muscular presence to his own half of the backseat. Though Archer felt crowded, his personal space was being scrupulously observed. Maybe it had to do with Rake’s aftershave, a blend of spicy vanilla and something woodsy. The faerie half of Archer responded instinctively and enthusiastically. He quelled that gut reaction, not that he really suspected the commander of choosing his personal scent based on its power to attract and disarm half-humans.
Then again, Rake didn’t seem like the type who left much to chance.
“How did you injure your hand?” Rake asked casually as the tall art deco building that housed city hall appeared ahead of them.
Archer glanced automatically at the white strip of bandage neatly wrapped around the base of his thumb. A few drops of blood collected in a DNA kit by the magical forensics team were as good as the ink on the signature line of a confession. The odds of Rake’s team finding where he’d snagged himself on that fucking nail were slim. Slim, but not nonexistent.