The wind moaned dolefully through the chinks in the old brick walls. Ezra munched agitatedly at one of those violet floral cigarettes he was so fond of. Archer kept to the shadows and resisted checking his pocket watch yet again. He wasn’t nervous, exactly—it took a lot to make him nervous—but he wasn’t happy either.
“He’ll be here soon.” Ezra continued to pace up and down before the empty wooden crates with their faded emblems of skulls and crowns, the dully gleaming vats and ducts that looked like nothing so much as a giant steel stomach. “Don’t worry.”
Archer lifted a dismissive shoulder, but he’d already made up his mind to walk if the Moth Man didn’t show by five after. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe the Moth Man had something worth his time and trouble. The Moth Mans of the realms seemed always to have the inside track on beautiful and rare items before they hit the regular black market. Still, Archer would have preferred to know exactly what he was acquiring before venturing out in the dead of night with a wallet full of cash.
“His merchandise is always worth it.” Ezra gulped down the rest of his cigarette and belched an agitated purple puff toward the rafters overhead. “He said he wants to talk to you personally.”
Archer threw him a quick look. “Me? Why me?”
“Eh?”
“Your friend. Why should he want to speak to me in particular?”
Ezra gave a smoky laugh. “Don’t know. Never asked.”
Archer pulled out his pocket watch. Moonlight through the grimy windows illuminated the time. Three minutes after midnight. He snapped the watch closed. “That’s it for me. I’ve an early start tomorrow.”
“No, wait!” Ezra cried. “Don’t leave. I know he’s on his way.”
Archer studied Ezra, studied the beads of sweat popping out over Ezra’s human features, took note of the anxious licking of tongue over lips. Yep, definitely time to say adieu. Archer opened his mouth, but somewhere to the left of where they stood came a ghostly screech of rusted hinges.
Instinctively, they both turned.
“See. Told you,” Ezra muttered.
Archer ignored him, watching warily until at last he spotted a tall figure in a drab overcoat moving through the darkness like a white shadow. The figure moved swiftly, with frequent glances over his shoulder, as though he feared pursuit through the canyons of metal tubes and casks.
“Well! You took your time,” Ezra greeted the Moth Man when he reached them at last.
“Can’t help it. Thought I was being followed.” The Moth Man’s voice was high and breathy. His eyes were large and protuberant. They appeared colorless in the gloom. He was taller than most humans, certainly taller than Archer, and very thin.
“Were you?” Archer asked as Ezra scoffed.
The Moth Man shook his head. He eyed Archer curiously. “You’re him? You’re—”
“No names,” Archer cut in.
“No. No, it’s just I thought you would be…different.”
Archer got that a lot. “What is it you have for me?”
“Have you got the money?”
“Show me the goods first.”
The Moth Man reached into his overcoat and pulled out a long, plain envelope. He picked at the flap with long gray fingernails, plucked it open, and held out an old-fashioned Polaroid. He smiled slyly.
“What is it?”
“Take it.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t buy on spec—”
As he spoke, the snapshot gave a tiny pop and green sparks flew up. The Moth Man giggled. “It likes you.”
Casting him a doubtful look, Archer reached slowly for the photograph. It seemed to slip right into his palm. He gazed down.
He was looking at what appeared to be a small mound of broken glass arranged on a square of black velvet. The picture hummed against his fingertips.
Wonderingly, Archer raised his gaze to the pallid one so closely regarding him.
The Moth Man gave another of those unsettling giggles. “Er, might I interest you in a strand of green glass beads?”
At that instant the tall warehouse doors rolled up with a rattle like a million eyelids snapping awake. Dazzling white light flooded the building, bouncing off the canisters and tubing in a blinding glare. Navy-uniformed VPD poured into the building, shouting orders. Much worse were the familiar dark-clad agents flanking the locals. The regular law enforcement hung back as the men and women in black fanned out behind the slow rolling green-gray of damping dust that tumbled lazily, almost playfully, through the entrails of the machinery and ladders. They wore spell masks and carried mage pistols. The Irregulars. Everywhere you turned these days the Irregulars were underfoot.
The Moth Man gasped in alarm, snatched back the photo, and bolted, his overcoat flapping behind him like failing wings. Archer also bolted—in the opposite direction—ignoring the cries to stop, the shouted warnings, and a few obscenities. He raced for the metal knot of drums and tubing and platforms at the back of the long building. What became of the Moth Man he didn’t see, but his words still echoed in Archer’s mind as he ran.
Green glass beads…
No time to consider it now, but…Was it possible? Had they turned up after all this time?
The air was thick with holy water and incantations that wouldn’t have thwarted a baby brownie. Archer sprang for a sharply slanted ladder, scrambled up, then pelted down a wide landing crowded with mysterious metal silhouettes. Climbing over the rickety safety railing, he leaped across the aisle to another landing. More of a shelf than a landing, but it would do. Below him, the green damping dust billowed up. He pulled his handkerchief out and clamped it over his mouth and nose before dropping down to a large rusted shipping container. He landed with a bang, but what was one more bang in the surrounding pandemonium?
Holding his breath, he sprinted down the scratched and peeling lid of the shipping container, the metallic pounding of his footsteps echoing the beat of his heart. Boom, boom, boom. No time to be subtle. His lungs burned with the need to breathe. The damping dust stung his eyes, but he could still see—an advantage of his half-faerie bloodline. Behind him, he could hear muffled cries falling away.
“Where is he?”
“Where did he go?”
“There he is!”
“That’s not him, dumbass! That’s a pipe.”
Archer dropped to the dusty brick floor behind the container.
Handheld utility lights skimmed the walls of the building and swept the floors. Archer crouched low, breathing hard through the damp silk of the handkerchief. It was not that he was out of shape so much as out of practice. The burst of adrenaline, his human half’s response to threat, left him disconcertingly breathless and a little shakier than he liked. This would do him good. If he got out of it. Out of this trap. That’s what it was. A trap. But was it for Archer or for the Moth Man? Archer had a suspicion and it didn’t make him happy.
Always lovely to be wanted, of course, but that son of a whoring goblin Ezra would regret it the next time they met.
The white beams of the utility lights slid past and Archer took the opportunity to move further away from the approaching tattoo of department-issue boots. Wriggling through a narrow opening between towers of cold and rusted cylinders, he reached up, grabbed for the rough edge along the top of one of the wide vats, and hauled himself up. The soles of his boots slipped on the smooth sides. The muscles in his arms and shoulders, and across his back flared with pain.
Yes, definitely out of practice.
He clambered on top, risked standing upright, and jumped for the landing beneath the giant windows. He almost didn’t make it. Nothing like slamming into a hard, splintery surface to concentrate the mind. The fleshy part of Archer’s thumb caught on a nail as he dragged himself up and then half climbed, half fell over the flimsy railing. He kept clear of the moon-bright window as he scuttled back, vaguely aware that his hand was throbbing. That was going to hurt like hell later on.