Neon Stonehenge -

Chapter Five - "Good Hunting"

When I woke up in the morning, both Sirena and Navya were gone, but Gwen was still curled up in my bed, looking a bit more like her normal self. Most people don't know, but succubi take on aspects that those around them find appealing without them even knowing, albeit just temporarily. So when she's around me, the freckles become a bit more prominent, the red stands out a little more in her hair...

It's worth noting that Gwen and I have a pretty steady fuckbuddy relationship and have for several years now. We'd both agreed a few months ago not to fuck anymore, but I suspect we were both being optimistic in that assessment, since we've said that sort of thing before. We both know that neither of us sees anything good coming out of us wanting to take it long-term - she'd have to deal with all of the hassle that comes with being the partner of one of us two Druid positions (my sister as, as Hunt Mistress, has the same issue) and the fear of being constantly hunted as an attempt to get at me, and I'd have to deal with the mental hassle of doing she was constantly being intimate with other sentient beings of all stripes, just as part of her very basic nature. I think I might've been able to get past my hurdle if she'd shown any interest in trying to engage with hers and some compromise where she was still doing her thing and I was still doing mine was a possibility, but an extremely unlikely one, since neither of us wanted to make any changes to who we are.

I hopped into the shower, glancing at my phone to check the time, seeing it was just past 11 a.m., something I was entirely accustomed to. One of the ground rules Dad told me about being the Gunslinger was that I shouldn't get used to seeing a lot of sunrises, and if I did, I was probably going to see them on the wrong side of the day.

I felt absolutely amazing, which made total sense after what I'd gone through the night before. The amount of energy flowing through my body was going to keep me on a high for a few days, mostly because I was carrying around additional lifeforce tipped to me from the three succubi. It's a little hard to explain what it feels like, but there was an extra spring in my step, a sense that whatever I was about to do for the next day, I'd be doing it at 110%. Even the sensation of the warm water rolling on my skin felt more vivid than I'd ever felt before.

My apartment had been decorated extremely tastefully, and I loved my waterfall shower design, stone walls on two sides, and stone floors, with two glass walls on the other, one of which was a door. And after I'd been underneath the hot water for five or six minutes and the room was steamed up pretty good, I heard the glass door open behind me as Gwen slipped into the shower with me, sliding her arms around my waist. "You know, you'd probably have been doing me a favor if you'd executed my cousin last night."

"Mmm," I said, feeling her tits pressed against my back as I kept my head underneath the rush of water. "You don't want to be in that kind of debt to me, Gwen, believe me. She that much of a pain in the ass among the family?"

"They sent her here because she's always leaping before she looks, and her mom wants

me

to try and train her out of that, to get her to be savvier and more cautious," Gwen giggled. "Clearly I'm doing a great fucking job at that, considering she almost got killed before I even knew she was in town."

"That ain't on you, Gwen. If she's going to go about digging herself a grave, there's only so much blocking you can do to keep her out of it," I said, as Gwen snuggled up against me, turning us both so she could share the hot water as it dripped down onto us.

"What're you working on these days, Dale?"

"Probably no big deal, but it's a missing persons case," I said, feeling Gwen's hands massaging my body, not in any sexual way, but still in a comforting and familiar fashion. "The client's a detective for the SFPD, and his girlfriend was faefolk and she's gone missing."

"That kind of thing happens all the time, Dale. Fae finds a mark, takes the mark and then vanishes like leaf on the wind once she's got what she wanted."

"Yeah, but this ain't that," I said to her. "I ruled that out almost immediately. The leannán sídhe in question was planning a wedding, and had even gone to the Queen to ask for permission to make the wedding official, so that's a step beyond it being a quick short con."

"She asked the Queen?"

"Yep, which is why it doesn't seem likely it's a dine'n'dash."

"Impossible," Gwen said as she started to take over soaping me up. "The Queen wouldn't permit marriage for that kind of thing, so if she was asked and it was granted, there is

going

to be a wedding, unless this leannán sídhe is dead."

"We're not there yet, but it's not out of the range of possibilities either. I'm hoping it doesn't turn out that way, but she's been gone a bit, and so far, I don't have all that much of a trail to go off."

"What have you got so far?"

"I got a detective who's got a missing leannán sídhe fiancée, who's apparently got an Atlantean mage looking out for him after he had a run in with a ghost wolf, but no motive for abduction, no sign of the missing girl, no sign of abductors, no point of capture that reveals force but hey, it's San Francisco so who the hell knows what happens on our streets at night, right? I started with running down a handful of the usual players, shaking the trees, seeing who's got any breadcrumbs I can get started with."

"What did Seymour say?"

"Seymour gave me the Atlantean magician, which didn't mean anything to me until I went to go see Digger, and Digger told me that there's an Atlantean mage called Nigel who wanders out behind the Veil all the time and is currently in town."

"I didn't know Atlanteans ever came out from behind the Veil."

"Me neither. I thought the dome was impenetrable, only to find out from fucking Digger of all people that there's a small number of Atlanteans, about ten or so, who can cross through the goddamn dome at

will

. And what's hilarious is he told me like he thought everybody fucking knew about it," I said, shaking my head. "Trust Digger to not realize he's sitting on a fucking megaton of a secret."

"And yet, you're telling me about it."

"Yeah, because I know you aren't giving shit like that away for free, Gwen, and you let your cousin know how easily I could've snuffed her out, and being well within my rights to do so, and that you thought the offense was bad enough that I

should've

, I don't mind letting you have a little bit of useful information that you can keep in your back pocket."

"What did you go to Digger for?"

"Leannán sídhes visit Digger for all sorts of things - party drugs, maskers, even magic flatteners, not that our girl went for any of that," I said as Gwen put the bottle of liquid soap back on the shelf.

"So, bust other than the Atlantean then."

"Now I didn't say

that

," I chuckled. "She was after Alexandrium, and Digger was the easiest person in town to score that off, even if he did have to take a couple of days to get it for her."

"Don't leannán sídhe usually want the

opposite

of Alexandrium?"

"Yeah, they're looking to fog memories, not clear them up," I said with a shrug. "So I've got a couple of threads to pull on, but neither of them makes a whole lot of sense." I turned off the water and turned to open the door, reaching out to grab a couple of giant big fluffy towels.

"What about the cop himself?" she asked me as she took the towel from my hand.

"What

about

the cop?"

"You do your homework on him, or is he above reproach?"

I rolled my eyes a little bit. "Nobody's above reproach."

"

You

are."

"The

hell

I am..." I laughed. "And my sister isn't either. Nor was Dad. We all have secrets, Gwen; it's just a question of knowing where to dig."

"And where do I dig if I want

your

secrets, huh, Mr. Sexton?"

"You're on the wrong continent for those, Gwen," I said with a smirk. "Most of my secrets are squirreled away in all sorts of places thousands of miles away from here, under hundreds of feet of dirt where nobody's ever going to look."

"Any suggestions on where I should start looking?"

I shook my head. "None that I'm going to give you."

"Then back to the cop," she said, toweling her hair dry as best as she could. "Why did the leannán sídhe get caught up in the cop's orbit in the first place? There's no meet-cute in the world that would overcome the innate paranoia a member of the faefolk would have of local law enforcement."

"Mmm," I said, glancing at my cheeks, wondering if I needed to bother shaving this morning, deciding against it. "I'm not so sure of that. As of late, the line between the supernatural world and the mundane has gotten a lot more blurred. I know we're big on keeping the general population unaware of the supernatural world, but I told my father growing up that sooner or later, it was going to be impossible to keep the whole thing under wraps. There's just too many magical things in this world to keep the lid on it too much further."

"I agree with you, Dale, but it's not up to you and me, and you know that. The forty-nine Houses get to make that call, and they don't seem to have any interest in letting Joe Q. Public see behind the curtain."

"The only two dominoes people notice in a rally, Gwen, are the first and the last," I said as I grabbed my boxers and pulled them on, followed by my pants. "We'll see what the world looks like a few years' time, whether or not the Houses even get to make that decision for themselves or if the public decides when somebody stumbles into something and nobody's quick enough on the draw to cover it up."

"I hope I'm right and you're not, truth be told," she said, grabbing her thong off from my living room, stepping into it, followed by the plaid skirt she'd shown up in. "I don't like the idea of my business suddenly being something everyone in the world knows about. It's already hard enough having to be picky about my client list but not so picky that I starve to death. If the whole world finds out what I do for a living, how the hell am I going to screen my clients then?"

"I imagine someone somewhere will make a service to help you do it," I said. "That's how all businesses get started. Shit gets too complicated or hot, and the middleman is thusly born." I'd seen it happen in both worlds - magical and not - and while nobody ever

dreams

of being a middleman, it's where the birth of new enterprises happen in all worlds. I walked over to my dresser and pulled the second drawer open, grabbing a Rival Sons tour t-shirt from within, tugging it down over my head.

"Deal with a lot of middleman, do you, Dale?" she asked me, pulling on the rest of her clothes from where they'd been strewn about my living room. "I can't see you as the kind of person bickering with

anyone

about minute details. If someone gives you shit, you just plow in and handle them."

After closing my dresser drawer, I slowly worked through the ornate puzzle locked box that rested atop of it, where I kept the SoulEnders when I wasn't wearing them. In addition to the puzzle lock which made sure I was of sound mind and body, the box also couldn't be opened by anyone other than the current holder of the title of Druid Gunslinger. I remember when I'd seen Dad open the box for the first time - I couldn't have been more than five or six - and I asked Dad why the lock was even there if nobody other than him could open the box, and he'd told me there'd once been a Gunslinger who'd had someone take over their mind and had tried to use the SoulEnders for purposes they weren't meant for. Because of that, the lock was developed, so that if our bodies were being driven by someone else, they couldn't get at our most powerful weapons.

I hadn't had to rely on that security measure yet, but Dad told me there was no shame in it if I had to and told me he'd needed to use it a couple of times during the course of his career.

That was the most important lesson Dad had taught me. Failure was inevitable, but that just meant it was something that could be learned from, improved upon and adapted to. It was life's way of teaching hard lessons, and the most grievous offense was to refuse to learn them.

I took the two revolvers from their resting space, still snug in their holsters, sliding a shoulder holster over each arm, giving me a moment to fasten them into place, ready for a cross draw at a moment's need. There was a comfortable and familiar weight to them,

"I'm not so uptight that I don't see the need of middlemen, love," I said. "In fact, I do a whole lot of information gathering off the back of middlemen. They're one of my best sources of information. So I'm good to keep the middlemen industry around for as long as possible."

"What's your next step going to be then? Go after the Atlantean?"

"Not exactly sure where to pick that particular thread up, so I may have to do a bit of legwork, see if I can find anybody who knows this Nigel fellow. They probably don't know he's Atlantean, otherwise I'm

sure

my family would've known about it."

Gwen smirked at me. "You don't like being out of the know."

"No, Gwen, I don't like it," I said. "The last thing the Gunslinger wants to be caught off guard because someone's slipping through the cracks. And the idea that we've had Atlanteans crossing back and forth from behind the wall for who knows how long... that's concerning."

Gwen primped her hair a bit, making sure her outfit was in the perfect show off style, because she was likely going to be back on the prowl, trying to find someone to give her the energy she'd lost in infusing me with it the night before. While the three were supposed to have given me equal shares, I had a sneaking suspicion that Gwen had chipped in a little extra, out of guilt, considering her cousin had tapped into a very painful memory of mine in an attempt to get me to lower my guard.

One night, after a particularly brutal day for us both, Gwen and I had broken down crying in each other's arms and had just let all the shit and sludge of our lives come pouring out for the other to see, two people with highly evolved defenses just letting the other see us, warts and all, underneath the naked moonlight, passing no judgment, just acceptance and healing. But there was also a price that came with that level of trust, knowing someone out there understood where at least a few of your weak spots were.

It's complicated. We're complicated.

Life was simpler when I was younger and not quite as burdened.

"I shouldn't keep you from your hunt, Dale," she said as she kissed my cheek. "And while I would've been okay with you killing my cousin, I guess I'm a little glad that you didn't, even if she

is

an utter pain in the ass."

"Thanks for giving a shit, Gwen," I told her. "About me, and not just the job."

"Hey, if you were dead, who would I talk to?"

"Gwen, you're the friendliest person I know," I laughed. "If you can't find someone to talk to, what hopes do the rest of us have?"

She winked at me as she made her way to the door. "You'll make do, Dale." She was most of the way out of the door before she poked her head back in for one final statement. "Good hunting." And then she was out and gone and away and the room was a little less bright for it.

I'd had a thought when I'd been talking with Gwen about the mysterious Atlantean and realized that maybe I

did

have a thread end I could start pulling on. Atlantis was starting to feel like maybe it was more than just an indirect link to this mess, which meant maybe I should pay a visit to Claire DiMaggio, the Lady of Tides.

It can seem like we've got a representative for everything, but for as long as I've been paying attention to supernatural politics, the Atlanteans haven't had anyone to speak for them, and as such, the Lady of Tides has taken on the voice of speaking for them, making sure we're still generally respectful for their area of the globe, even if nobody can get in and out.

I mentioned the erection of the Veil there, and it's probably the greatest single spellwork our planet has ever seen. The reports are that Merlin wasn't seen in public for almost a decade after he built it, it had taken that much from him. The Veil is the reason why all the magic in the world doesn't get picked up on cell phones or traffic cameras. It's why the idea of Bigfoot seems so silly. It's why the almost impossible preponderance of evidence suggesting magic is real gets lost in the shuffle.

The Veil touches the mind of every person born on the planet and installs a sort of mental trap door, so that if you're out minding your own business some night and you happen to stumble across a vampire feeding on someone in a back alley, you'll convince yourself you just saw two people making out, and there was nothing supernatural about it.

I know

some

magic - every Gunslinger and Huntsmaster is required to be at least a rudimentary spellcaster - but the more time I spent studying the Veil, the more terrified of Merlin I got. It's been said that the SoulEnders can kill anything on the planet, and that includes Merlin, but I've never wanted to put that to test. The few times I've met Merlin, he scared the shit out of me, and I don't frighten lightly. Not because of what he did when I'd met him, but simply how he talked about things. The level of power him and Morgana Le Fay wield is beyond comprehension, meaning they just have a fundamentally

different

view on, well,

everything

. There's big picture and there's

ultra

big picture.

Anyway, because of all of that, when the Veil was constructed in 989, give or take (calendars get especially untrustworthy around that time frame, for reasons that I would think are obvious), the Atlanteans were permanently sealed in their bubble, away from the rest of the world and a small part of the Northern Pacific Ocean, about the size of Hawaii, just stopped existing. All the merfolk were trapped there but as such, someone needed to oversee the way all the other tribes were treating the oceans, and as such, the Leader of Tides position was created.

Sometimes it's the Lord of Tides, sometimes, like now, the Lady of Tides. Claire had held the job for just shy of forty years now, so as such, she'd been a regular around many of the socials and parties held each year. But I'd rarely had the reason to visit her on a business call. There just isn't much need for the dispenser of justice on the high seas all that often.

Her office was up near Fisherman's Wharf, so it wasn't going to be too far out of my normal path, assuming I could find the damn thing. You get close to Fisherman's Wharf and it can be very easy to get lost or have trouble finding your way around. That's not magic; that's just the power of architecture at work.

Eventually, though, I located the building in question and made my way inside, but as soon as I got to the door of her office, I immediately began to get nervous, as there was a small stack of mail outside.

"Great," I said before kneeling down to pick the lock. "Let's see what's behind door number one..."

As soon the door opened, I winced, because I knew that smell.

Dead bodies.