She grinned, showing me all those pointy teeth. "I've slaughtered worse than you, Siobhan Quinn."
"Wrong answer," I said, and drew the Glock from my duster. Maybe she had a deep pocketful of carnage and annihilation, but I was fast. Thank you, Mercy Brown. I put a bullet in both Amity Maidstone's pretty shoulders and two more in her kneecaps. Nothing she'd die of, or at least nothing she'd died of before she'd ceased to be of use to me.
As you can imagine, there was a lot a screaming.
It was all Amity's, though. Berenice just turned and watched her sister curled fetal on the sofa and writhing in what I suppose was some excruciating fucking pain.
"What are you doing?" Berenice asked. The words came out small and bewildered. They came out breakable.
"The two of you put me and B in Dutch with Miss Harpootlian, and I'm about to square things by honoring her with a modest blood sacrifice. Well, actually, the blood part, that'll be up to her."
"No. I don't believe it," Berenice said with a few more of those breakable words. "You'll never get away with this."
"Don't be too sure," I told her, "I'm as stupid as I'm supposed to be."
"My father-"
"The guy you and Morticia there have been trying to fuck over? The man you were out to stab in the back by getting your hands on this artifact that would unseat him as Grand Poobah of your whole crummy family? I don't think he's gonna shed too many tears when he gets the news. He made the two of you. I imagine he can make a couple more. Shit, I might even get a reward."
"You're insane," she said.
"That's the word on the street. Now shut up, or I'll shoot you, too."
Probably, Berenice had a lot more to say, but right then's when the pretty dark-skinned, red-eyed boy in the blinding white gown showed up. He wasn't there, and then he was, standing over the mess I'd made of Amity. I can't say he seemed especially happy.
"Our agreement, Twice-Damned," said Harpootlian, "was that they would be delivered unharmed."
I put the Glock back in its holster.
"Well, she's not too harmed," I said. "Still plenty there for you to get creative and play around with. Hours of fun and all that."
"I suppose," she said through the boy's mouth. "Though I cannot stop contemplating how much more fun I would have playing with you. You are far, far more durable than either of these women. And you did fail me, as regards the Horn of Malta."
"True on all counts," I said, hoping Harpootlian wasn't hearing more than half how freaked out I was. "But you're a businesswoman, right? Last thing you want is word to get out you welched on a deal. People talk."
"Perhaps we'll talk again one day, Twice-Damned."
"You never can tell."
The boy nodded, and he reached down and touched Amity's forehead with a delicate index finger. The woman just . . . well, she wasn't squirming around on the sofa anymore. She was just gone.
Berenice bolted for that window, clearly willing to take her chances with a broken neck. I drew my pistol, but by the time I'd aimed at her left knee, she'd vanished as well. Apparently, an actual laying on of hands wasn't necessary for the Demon Madam of the Lower East Side to claim her pounds of flesh and soul.
"Walk in the light, Twice-Damned, Twice-Dead," she said, "and do pray our paths never cross again."
By the time I'd turned back towards where the boy had stood, Harpootlian was gone, and I made it to my knees before I vomited.
• • •
Out into the winter wonderland again, and watching the leaden sky shitting snow, and watching the people, and the cars, a snowplow rumbling along-all this time I'm thinking, That was too damn easy. No way, no way in hell it's gonna be that easy.
The day had careened into late afternoon by the time I made it to the shelter of Aloysius' underpass. I'd stopped along the way and picked up 3 Musketeers bars and a pint of Jacquin's ginger-flavored brandy. Hobo booze, that's the way I always think of it. Old man liquor. Vile stuff. But it's what the troll likes to suck down with his chocolate, and who am I to judge another nasty's tastes?
Usually I have to call him out, but this time he was sitting way back from the road, nibbling on the carcass of a run-over skunk. Smelled just about like what you'd imagine it smelled like. Only worse. I made my way over the guardrail, through the dry brown weeds and gravel. He stopped eating the roadkill and frowned at my approach.
"What you got there?" he asked, dropping the skunk and jabbing a finger at the plastic bag I was carrying. "Might it be for me?"
"It certainly isn't for me," I replied, and set the bag down at his enormous feet, not far from the dead skunk. He snatched it up and peered inside.
"Well, it's hoora good, you thinkin' a' me like that, Quinn lass."
"Sure," I said, kicking at the gravel. "Sure, but I don't have much time, Aloysius. That thing I gave you, I need it back now."
He sighed, exhaling the comingled reek of skunk rot and troll breath. His frown became frownier. He scratched at that warty chin. "Be a toaty spot of trouble there. Fear I cannae do so easy a thing as-"
"You lost it?" I probably sounded a whole lot more surprised than I should have. After all, hadn't I, just a few hours earlier, admitted to Mean Mr. B there was a chance I might not be able to get the dingus back from Aloysius, that you can't exactly consider trolls the same as safe-deposit boxes?
"Naw," he grunted. "Weren't like that. But the Court got wind I was roamin' 'bout with your doddle-case French-tickler, an' when Lady Mab Underhill decides ‘'Ah'm gantin' my paws on it.' Don't say no to the Queen of the Daoine Sidhe, oh, no, Quinn lass."
Next stupid question:
"What the fuck does the Queen of the Faeries want with a damn dildo? Don't you people have unicorns practically falling out your asses?"
"Not no yooycarns, nay. Not in the Hollow Hills."
"But what the fuck does she want with it?"
Because, see, maybe if you ask a stupid question twice, it stops being stupid. I don't know. Words were just coming out of my mouth.
"The Tithe, be on her heels, an' Mab, she got to fancyin', 'stead of givin' over her mortal loves this round, why, she'll gan geez Hell that fine, fine wang you gan me."
And then he belted out a few lines of "Tam Lin," so astoundingly off-key it's a miracle the interstate didn't come toppling down on us:
At the end of seven years,
She pays a tithe to Hell.
I so fair and full of flesh,
I fear it be myself.
"Jesus, I know the fucking song," I growled, and smacked him in the belly, which is about as high up as I could reach. "The dildo wasn't yours to give away!"
"Ahyacunt!" he howled, like I'd dropped a damn Acme cartoon anvil on his head. "Gonnae no dae that!"
"Can you at least speak English? You didn't used to talk like that!"
"Weren't my fault! She'd'a seen me chibbed me good and then some, had me malkied, ya mumpty boot! I was feert she'd'a counted me amongst the Tithe had I said no! Now gan, bolt, Quinn gone wolfish and dead fud!"
I thought about pulling out the Glock and putting a few rounds in his skull. But I had no idea if you can shoot a fairy. Well, sure, you can shoot a goddamn fairy, but I had no idea if it would even hurt the asshole. Then again, blaming Aloysius for turning over the unicorn when Mab had ordered him to, that was sort of like getting pissed at a dog for barking. So I just slapped his belly again, instead. This time he didn't protest. He only looked sort of disgusted and hurt. Not "in pain" hurt. More like, "your BFF just told you you're worthless" hurt.
"Jesus, Joseph, and Mary," I sighed, and turned my back on him. It truly had been far too easy, handing over the Maidstone sisters and thinking the worst was over, and all I had left to do was slip Szabó the loving cup to send her happily packing back to her dimension.
"No call you skelpin' me like that," Aloysius huffed. "No cause in all the worlds."
"No, there wasn't. Sorry." In the back of my mind, I hoped I meant it, that it was a sincere apology. Aloysius had always given me a fair shake-well, more often than not-and he deserved better. "Just, dude, I am so screwed."
"How? Hoot are you talkin' aboot?"
"A righteously pissed-off bitch whore of a succubus who's gonna have my head on a pike if she doesn't get that dildo sometime in the next couple of hours. The end of me, Aloysius, that's what I'm talking about. Me and Mr. B and that skank Drusneth."
"That's a sin, 'tis, Quinn lassy."
"A sin?"
"A shame," he said, then continued. "Eh, not such a sin for that bastirt B whose-'is-name and for no sort of hoor succubus."
"Agreed. I'd be plenty happy to be free of B, and . . . fuck Drusneth."
"I'd not fuck her, not even if I was pished blind."
"Don't be an idiot. You know damn well what I meant."
"Were a joke."
I glared at him; then I reached into the plastic bag and pulled out the bottle of Jacquin's brandy, unscrewed the top, and took a very long hit. Gods, it tasted sort of like hair tonic made from gingerbread and lighter fluid.