A Local Habitation (7 page)

Read A Local Habitation Online

Authors: Seanan McGuire

Tags: #Fantasy, #Fiction, #General, #Mystery fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fiction - Fantasy, #Science Fiction And Fantasy, #American Science Fiction And Fantasy, #Fantasy - General, #Fairies, #Women private investigators

“Some food and a nice cup of coffee will clear that right up.” Elliot stopped at a blue steel door and pushed it open, letting sunshine flood into the area. From behind the wall, the woman that had been swearing earlier shouted, “Turn off that damn sun!”
“Sorry, Gordan!” Elliot called back, leading us outside. The door slammed behind Quentin, vanishing into the brick wall like it had never existed. If I squinted, I could just make out the handle. Elliot caught my expression, and smiled. “We like things tidy.”
“Right,” I said. Quentin was standing as close as he could manage, nearly touching my elbow. Shaking my head, I turned to consider the grounds—and froze.
The landscaping was better than the interior decoration, possibly because it didn’t exist in the real world. The sky was a nonoffensive shade of blue, and the lush green grass was studded with a froth of tiny white flowers that I recognized from my mother’s estate. Only the cats were the same. They were everywhere, watching us from picnic tables and the crooks of the carefully trimmed trees. At some point between entering and leaving the building, we’d crossed into the Summerlands. That did explain at least part of why the place seemed to be so deserted—someone inside the knowe would be invisible to someone outside of it, and vice versa. I doubled my estimation of the local feline population. If half of them were inside the knowe and half of them were outside . . . that was a lot of cats. They probably avoided the buildings because they didn’t want to transition between worlds again.
Why would a computer company have an unannounced gate between their mortal and fae locations and a cat population the SPCA would envy? I glanced at Elliot. He was continuing blithely, not seeming to see anything strange. Right. If he wanted to play things that way, that was how we’d play them, for now. Keeping my voice level, I asked, “Is everyone here so . . .”
“Weird?” Elliot asked. “Oh, professionally so. If you don’t mind my asking, when was your last shower?” I stared at him.
Quentin’s mouth dropped open, and he sputtered, “How . . . how can you . . .”
“Relax, relax!” Elliot laughed, holding up his hands. “You just look a bit frayed around the edges. May I clean you?”
“What . . . oh,” I said, catching on. The Bannick are bath-spirits; they’re obsessed with cleanliness, and Faerie being what it is, they can sometimes enforce their own ideas about hygiene. Nothing cleans a person like a Bannick. “Sure.”
“Toby . . .”
“Go along with it. This is interesting.”
“So I have your consent?” Elliot asked, looking between us. We both nodded. “Excellent. If you would close your eyes and hold your breath?”
Right. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and held it. Heat and moisture broke over me in a lye-scented wave. I understood why Elliot asked: it was like being scrubbed by hundreds of swift, impartial hands, and I might’ve taken it the wrong way if I hadn’t been prepared. The feeling of damp heat abated after about thirty seconds, and I opened my eyes, looking first at Quentin, then myself. We looked like we’d just received the deluxe treatment at an upscale spa; my tennis shoes were white and clean, and even a small hole in the hem of my jeans had been patched with tiny, near- invisible darns. I pointed at it, glancing curiously toward Elliot.
He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I can’t fix clothes on purpose, but if you’re wearing them when you have your ‘bath,’ they end up mended. All part of being clean.”
“Cool,” I said.
“So that’s what your hair looks like when it’s been brushed.” Quentin grinned.
“Stuff it,” I said.
“Now that you’re presentable, if you’ll come with me, Ms. Daye, Mister, well, Quentin?” Elliot said, opening the door into the next building. We followed him. This one looked more like a dorm, with long halls equipped with dozens of doors. “I hope you like donuts. Our cafeteria staff is out this week, so we’re having to make do.”
He continued to chatter as he led us through a series of increasingly mismatched halls. Some stuck with the dormitory model; others looked like they’d been stolen from hospitals, high schools, or government buildings. I dropped back a bit, drawing even with Quentin, and murmured, “Keep an eye open.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain when we’re alone.” Elliot looked back and waved, urging us on. I flashed a false smile, calling, “We’re coming!”
“Just don’t get lost!” he called, and turned a corner. I exchanged a glance with Quentin, and we hurried to catch up, meeting him just in front of the cafeteria door.
He held the door open for us, offering a shark-toothed grin as he said, “After you.”
“Great,” I replied, and slipped into the cafeteria. It was a vast, echoing cavern of a room, studded with oddly-shaped white tables. Vending machines lined the walls. Quentin and I wound up seated with Elliot pressing coffee and donuts into our hands. That kept us distracted for several crucial minutes, giving him time to murmur vague reassurances and dart out the door.
He’d been gone for several minutes before I put down my coffee, saying, “All right: did you notice anything odd about the landscaping?”
“You mean the part where it’s in the Summerlands?”
“That would be it, yeah. We’re in a Shallowing.” I shook my head. “I think the bawn is at the front door of the other building. We didn’t cross back while we were on the lawn, either.” The bawn of a knowe, any knowe, represented the point where you crossed between worlds. Usually it’s pretty well marked, at least to fae eyes. This one hadn’t been.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. But I think we should be careful. They didn’t tell us we’d entered their knowe, and that’s a little bit suspicious.” I looked at my freshly cleaned hand. “They’re being too friendly without actually telling us anything.”
“Right.” He poked in the box until he found a powdered donut. “Toby?”
“Yeah?”
“You gave your name at the gate. When did we tell him mine?”
I lowered my coffee a second time. “We didn’t.”
FIVE
“
H
OW LONG HAVE WE been sitting here?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“It feels like hours.”
“The clock says fifteen minutes.”
“Maybe the clock isn’t running on normal time?”
“Possible, but unlikely.” I stood, leaving my half-eaten donut on the table.
Quentin frowned. “Where are you going?”
“Out. This is unacceptable. They shouldn’t be leaving us here.”
“He said to wait—”
“And we waited. And now I’m leaving.” I grabbed the door handle and pulled. It didn’t budge. “Oh, great. Did they lock us in?”
“Try pushing.” Quentin rose, coming to stand next to me.
Eyeing him, I pushed the door. It swung open a few inches before swinging closed again. Quentin was trying not to smirk. He wasn’t doing a very good job.
“Very funny,” I said, and shoved the door open as hard as I could. There was a startled yelp, accompanied by the flat smack of wood hitting flesh. The door swung back, and there was a loud thumping noise—whoever it was, I’d knocked them down.
What a great way to meet people. I rushed into the hall, already apologizing. “I am
so
sorry! I didn’t know you were there! I—”
“It’s okay,” said the man on the floor, flashing a grin that made my stomach do a lazy flip. I recognized him as the blond surfer-type from the first building. I just didn’t have a name to go with his undeniably appealing face. “That door should probably be labeled an unmarked traffic hazard—only then I guess it’d be a marked traffic hazard, so what’s the point?”
“You’re probably right about that,” I said, grinning back. “I’m—” I paused as Quentin came skidding out of the cafeteria. “Hey. I appear to have found the locals.”
Rather than offering the expected greeting, Quentin frowned, saying, “Oh. It’s
you
.”
“Quentin!” I stared. “Don’t be rude.” Rude, and out of character.
“It’s okay, let him be,” said the man, laughing as he held up his hands. “I’m used to it. I’ve got the sort of face that just pisses some people off.”
“It’s not pissing
me
off,” I said, giving Quentin another sidelong look before turning to the man on the floor. “Quite the opposite, actually. Do you need help getting up?”
“That would be good of you, since you’re the reason I’m down here.” He reached up, and I grabbed his hands. He had a good grip; not too light, but not crushing. This was a man who didn’t feel the need to prove much of anything.
Smiling despite myself, I said, “I didn’t do it on purpose!”
Quentin rolled his eyes. “Oh, whatever.” Turning, he stalked back into the cafeteria.
I stared after him, confused, only to be distracted by the sound of the man next to me laughing. It was an unreservedly happy sound, and it warmed me to the toes.
“Wait—you mean it
wasn’t
calculated? I was just a victim of circumstance? I’m hurt.” He pressed a hand to his chest, trying to look wounded. “There I was, walking down the hall, minding my own business, when a mad-woman tries to kill me with a door.”
“Cut that out,” I said. It’s hard to stay grumpy when there’s a nameless six- foot-something surfer boy mugging for your amusement, even if your erstwhile assistant has just stalked off in an unexplained sulk. Besides, he was a cute surfer boy—not exactly handsome, but cute, with an angular face and freckles scattered across his nose. The cut of his sun-bleached hair was casual enough to look accidental, falling across his eyes in a rakish fringe. A small scar marred one cheek. It was the sort of face you don’t see in the movies, but you’d take home to mother without a second thought. Definitely
not
the sort of thing I thought of when I heard the phrase “computer programmer.”
“Why?” he asked, smile broadening. He had a nice smile. I upgraded my estimation from “cute” to “damn cute.” “Anyway, I’m Alex. Alex Olsen.” He held his hand out for me to shake, the other hand smoothing his bangs away from his eyes. His hands never seemed to stop moving. It was like they might get tired of our conversation and start performing sign language arias at any moment. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Finally?” I arched an eyebrow, shaking his hand. “I’ve been sitting in the cafeteria.” He was almost a foot taller than me, with the comfortable sort of solidity that only comes from too many years spent playing sports and doing a certain amount of heavy lifting. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a T-shirt that read “Nobody Does It Like Sara Lee” in bright red letters.
Alex laughed again. “Not quite that short term. When I start hearing stories about changelings coming back from the dead and tearing San Francisco apart, I start thinking, ‘Now there’s a lady I’d like to meet.’ ”
“That shows an interesting way of picking your friends.”
“At least you know it’s not going to be boring.”
“That’s true.” I reclaimed my hand, using it to tuck my own hair back behind my ears. “Still, I’m surprised you heard about all that.”
“News spreads fast these days. There’s this amazing invention called ‘the Internet’—have you heard of it? We use it to tell each other things.” I wrinkled my nose at him, and he shook his head. “Oh, come on. We’re sandwiched between two major Duchies. You really think we wouldn’t have the best rumor mill in the Kingdom?”
He had a point. Dreamer’s Glass was gaining a reputation for strangeness when I vanished in ’95. Being considered weird by a race of people who don’t see anything wrong with turning their enemies into deer and hunting them through downtown Oakland is an achievement. From what I understood, the Duchy just got stranger as Duchess Riordan, the local regent, became more paranoid about insurrection. Eventually, it got to be too much, and one of the larger fiefdoms declared its autonomy and split off, forming the County of Tamed Lightning.
The politics almost make sense. The technological advances behind them, not so much. Faerie was just starting to dip its toes into computer science and the Internet, and Tamed Lightning wanted autonomy partially so they’d be free to push those borders even further. I don’t get it. The world I’m used to is simpler than the one I’m living in. There’s too much steel and silicon these days, and I’m still not sure whether that’s better than iron; I can barely handle my answering machine, much less all these strange new methods of keeping in touch. The technology that was in its infancy when I left had grown into a spoiled teenager by the time I returned, complicating everyone’s lives and making a nuisance of itself down at the mall.

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