Chapter 1
In my opinion, there’s something inexplicably wrong with your life when you find yourself in a strip club before noon on a weekday. To me, it felt as culturally insensitive as using a fork to eat sushi: just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. Of course, maybe that was only me. It’s not like the time of day would make much of a difference to your average person; all strip clubs are kept dark and windowless, which meant most would be hard pressed to tell whether or not it’s night or day outside, let alone guess the hour.
But if you knew what to look for—if you’d been to enough clubs enough times to sense the sun creeping up on the horizon in a windowless room like a hand reaching out for you in the dark—you’d recognize the symptoms. You’d notice the energy of the club was calmer, somehow—the girls less inclined to hustle, their breaks longer, the drinks thinner. The customers would appear likewise changed, their gazes less intent, shoulders slumped, nursing their drinks instead of pounding them.
It felt almost like everyone was catching their breath.
Considering the fact I was nursing a slight hangover of my own, I supposed I couldn’t blame any of them—not the girls for being tired and worn down, or the customers for looking sad and forlorn. I could, however, blame the three people sitting across from me for dragging me out this early. Although I suppose calling them “people” would be stretching things a bit.
One of the individuals opposite me, his back pressed firmly against a red leather couch, was a Faeling—a creature born in the Fae realm, an alternate dimension of sorts which bordered ours and, occasionally, bled over. Robin Redcap, once an infamous castle haunting baddie turned rogue spy, fiddled with his blood red ball cap, a habitual gesture that I couldn’t attribute to any particular emotion. Hell, for all I knew, I brought it on; I’d never seen him fuss with it as much as he did when around me. The Faeling wore a dark blue T-shirt which read “The Hunt for Red Soxtober” in blockish red letters, spread wide across a thick, burly chest—a sentiment which admittedly won him brownie points with me.
I was born here in Boston, after all.
It was Robin who’d requested the meeting and the time, though I’d been sure to pick the venue. Ordinarily, I’d have gone with some place a little tamer, but The Seven Deadly Inn constituted familiar territory, and frankly, if there was one thing I’d learned over years spent making deals with disreputable people as a black magic arms dealer, it was to avoid the nice, relaxed locales when setting up potentially hazardous meet and greets.
Nobody likes it when their favorite park becomes a warzone.
So, here we were, in a strip club in the wee hours of the morning. Of course, while snagging breakfast at a strip club wasn’t exactly on my to-do list, I had to admit the Inn had a few perks—even during daylight hours—that I simply couldn’t get elsewhere: a decent drink selection, privacy, and enough nudity to distract my would-be clients.
What’s more, it seemed that particular strategy seemed to be paying off; the other two individuals crowded beside Robin on the couch had nearly identical, utterly blank expressions on their faces, despite the fact that one was male and the other female. In fact, Hansel and his sister, Gretel, sat with their hands clasped between their knees, pointedly turned away from the stage and its promise of flesh, as if we were sitting in an office and not a lounge. Both Germans had long blonde hair, which might have passed for white in the right light, but which currently reflected the various strobes of color swimming throughout the club: red, green, purple, and back again. They each had pale blue eyes, though neither were as lovely, or captivating, as Robin’s—the Redcap had grown a beard so thick and high on his cheeks that his eyes were practically all I could see of his face beneath the ball cap. His eyes, unlike the cool gazes of his two companions, seemed to be urging me to be civil, as if he were silently worried I’d say something to piss the fairytale siblings off.
Who, me?
“So, what is it ye two want, then?” I asked, finally.
Robin sighed.
“Miss MacKenna,” Gretel began, wisely deciding not to call me by my first name, Quinn, without permission, “I think we should begin by acknowledging that what my brother did to you several months ago was deplorable, and that his behavior during that time was utterly inexcusable.”
I felt my eyes widen as I glanced over at Hansel, hoping to gauge his reaction. But the elder German man had already pointedly looked away. Of course, that meant he’d begun inadvertently staring at an inverted stripper, her legs spread wide on either side of the pole. His gaze quickly shifted to his shoes, his cheeks burning. I would have laughed at his expense, but honestly, I was too busy fighting the urge not to gape at his sister; of all the things I’d expected her to say, that hadn’t been one of them. Thing was, a ridiculous amount of shit had happened since Hansel—Grimms’ Brothers fairytale figure and one of the three attorneys who worked for the Faerie Chancery, an organization designed to both protect and control the Fae population here in Boston—and I had last spoken in his office.
Last spring, following a fresh crop of horrific murders in the Boston area, I’d been manipulated by Hansel and a few select members of the Chancery—including Robin—into finding and taking out the serial killer responsible for the deaths. To say I hadn’t taken kindly to being their pawn would be an understatement. In fact, between that experience and the loss of my aunt this past summer during a cataclysmic altercation with an ancient race bent on the destruction of all things Fae, I’d pretty much written off the fair folk in their entirety; fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, and I’ll fucking end you. And yet, here was Gretel—one-third of the law office of Hansel, Hansel, and Gretel—calling out her brother in public for something he’d done to me months ago.
It was enough to make me suspicious.
“So I’ll ask again, what d’ye want?” I asked.
“To apologize, first and foremost,” Gretel replied. “It wasn’t until I first considered approaching you that my brother confessed to what he’d done. Apparently, he thought you might be reticent to help us, under the circumstances.” When Hansel said nothing, Gretel nudged him. “Tell her.”
“I am sorry, Miss MacKenna,” Hansel said, head bowed so far down his hair trailed over the lip of his shirt collar. “I have been among the Fae a long time. I fear I have come to think as they do. To plot as they do, with little consideration for those we use to achieve our aims.”
I found myself shaking my head. “We Fae don’t plot, ye know.”
Both lawyers frowned, wearing eerily similar, disbelieving expressions. “What do you mean ‘we Fae’?” Gretel asked, incredulously.
Now it was my turn to look away. I studied the dancer’s gyrations and knew, from nothing but the exposed back and curve of ass, that Heresy was on stage. True to the Inn’s tradition of naming the dancers after one of the many, many Biblical sins cited in scripture, Heresy moved like a caged animal, prowling the edges of the raised dais on her knees, her dark brown skin so smooth it looked like it had been poured on. Unlike Hansel, I didn’t bother looking away; I’d always enjoyed watching Heresy move, especially through a crowd—she drew more stares at just over five foot than I did at six, although my flaming red hair and bright green eyes tended to earn more lingering attention. “I meant what I said,” I replied, at last. I turned back and gave the lawyers my full attention. “I’m guessin’ Robin kept me little secret to himself, then.”
Robin cleared his throat. “The Huntress said that if I told anyone anything about you, she’d—and I quote—‘shove my hat down my throat and sew my mouth shut’.”
That made me smile. The Huntress, an infamous warrior woman named Scathach, was essentially my twisted rendition of a Faerie godmother. Of course, the fact that she was training me three days a week to fight and kill using my newfound abilities—not to mention the fact that she apparently went around threatening to maim people on my behalf—should go to show exactly what kind of Faerie godmother I needed in my life.
Basically, the only reason I’d wear glass slippers was so I could turn them into shivs.
“Aye, that sounds like her,” I said.
Robin grinned and nodded, his gruff voice carrying a little over the sound of Heresy’s set. “I wasn’t planning on telling anyone anyway.”
“Is that so?” Hansel asked, eyes narrowed.
Robin’s grin faded. “I don’t work for you anymore, Hansel. For anyone. What I keep from you is my business.”
“Went freelance, is that it?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. Trouble was, as long as I’d known Robin, he’d been a spy—albeit a spy whose loyalties I’d never entirely sorted out. But the fact remained that, while he may have kept information from Hansel and Gretel, I still wasn’t entirely sure I could trust him.
“Sort of,” Robin replied, staring down the elderly German man. “I applied to become an Adjudicator.”
I raised my eyebrows at that. As far as I knew, the Adjudicators—of which there were only two—were Faelings responsible for governing the Faerie Chancery and its various factions. Last I’d spoken with Robin, he’d been pretty dissatisfied with that system, even going so far as to contemplate rebellion. Which meant either something significant had changed, or he had.
“That application is still pending,” Hansel growled.
“That’s enough,” Gretel interjected. “We didn’t come here to bicker like children.”
“We should not have come here at all,” Hansel muttered.
“How about ye tell me why ye came here, and we go from there?” I asked, ignoring Hansel’s jibe. I settled back in my chair and turned my full attention to Gretel. I knew I could always pull Robin aside later and force him to tell me what was really going on, but for now it seemed like—if I wanted to get the hell out of here before the sun went down—Gretel was my girl. Woman. Whatever.
“Members of the Chancery are being taken,” Gretel replied.
“Taken,” Hansel scoffed. “They’re being hunted.”
I leaned forward, interlacing my fingers. “What d’ye mean, hunted?”
“We’ve had members go missing,” Robin clarified.
“Which is why we were hoping you’d help us, Miss MacKenna,” Gretel added.
I studied the faces of the German siblings and their Faeling companion, trying to decide which angle they were playing. I’d been right about what I said earlier: the Fae didn’t plot. They bargained. Plotting was something unique to the human race, most of whom preferred to get as much as they could for as little as possible. Usually I didn’t mind that distinction, but lately I’d come to realize that the Fae way of doing business was—while barbaric at times—at least transparent. You get what you pay for, more or less.
And yet, something told me not to discount or dismiss these two. Maybe it was the sincerity in Gretel’s voice, or the barely contained anxiety in Hansel’s face. Or maybe it was the fact that—despite Robin’s role in what transpired months ago—I still wanted the burly bastard at my back in a scrap. I sighed. Either way, I’d dragged my sorry ass out of bed to a strip club in Bay Village in the wee hours of the morning—the least I could do was hear them out. “Alright,” I said, “how about we start with the obvious question. Why me?”
“Because, we have no one else,” Gretel replied. Hansel made to interrupt, looking alarmed, but his sister held up a hand. “No, we either tell her everything, or we may as well not have bothered coming at all.”
“Well, that’s a refreshin’ change of pace,” I said, smirking.
“What is?” she asked.
“Bein’ told everythin’. You’d be surprised how rare that is, especially comin’ from the Chancery.”
“I promise this is not a trap, Miss MacKenna. Our members are being taken, perhaps even hunted, as my brother says. An alarming number have gone missing, and there’s at least one dead, as far as we can tell.”
“At least one?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.
All three exchanged pained looks, their differences momentarily forgotten beneath the weight of shared knowledge. A burden heavy enough to bind them together, even for just a moment. Which probably meant I really didn’t want to know.
Damn it.
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