Chapter Four - "Fucking Tourists"
There were lots of people I hated to go and visit. Usually it was because I didn't want to see them in the first place. Digger Wiig wasn't that way at all. In fact, the reservations I usually had about going and seeing Digger were more about being able to get away from him with some portion of my liver still functioning and a few brain cells rattling around inside of my head. You hear those stories about those folks were the life of the party? I've been convinced for as long as I've known him that Digger Wiig was, in fact, the living
embodiment
of all parties. Now, I know that he
isn't
- Digger's human, and I've had my both late father and my late uncle as well as my sister confirm that - but that doesn't mean that there's a party anywhere in the Bay Area that Digger's not only
at
but is likely closing down.
There is no party in the Bay Area worth going to that Digger Wiig isn't at.
No, I don't know how he does it, either.
Digger would've been an excellent wizard if he'd applied himself to it, but instead, he'd become casually known as 'The Hook Up,' because he'd become the Apothecary to The Parties, providing magical intoxication and inebriation to anyone with the money to pony up for it, and his work did not come cheap. It also meant he had access to pretty much anywhere or anything he wanted, and that he was one of the best sources of information around, whenever I wanted to tap into that particular streak of resources.
Now, normally I wouldn't go do Digger for this kind of thing, because Saoirse Staire wasn't a big party girl, but if the Queen knew who she was without me even so much as having to jog her memory much, there was a good chance that the girl had made an impression on other people in the party scene, and that meant Digger would at least know who she was, and he might have kept track if other people were asking about her.
The funny thing about Digger is that Digger's what's called "Protected Caste," of which there are about two dozen of in the Bay Area at any one time, myself included. That means Digger's sort of got the magical equivalent of diplomatic immunity. More than anything, it means I don't generally have to worry about him saying the wrong thing at a party and turning up dead. But it also means his location is reported to me on a real-time basis, as the Druid Gunslinger. My sister has access to the same data, although she very rarely uses it, and even then, odds are better than most that she's simply checking on
my
location. I'm not so proud as to be unable to admit I've done the same on her myself.
Magic and technology have this weird sort of dislike of each other, but there's a handful of people who've made it work over the centuries, and the technoforgers are a class unto themselves, so it's worth noting that while the tracking technology exists, it's... finicky. Oh, it can find people, but it's terribly with verticality, which was why I found myself standing at the bottom of the W Hotel in San Francisco, looking upwards with a long sigh. He was probably at the top of the building in some sort of club or party atmosphere, but if he wasn't, it was going to be a bit of no fun trying to pinpoint his actual location down. I'd complained about it the representative of the Technoforger's Union, who insisted it was on 'her list of things to work on.' I suspected it was down near the bottom, below 'font choice' and just above 'dark mode.' It's practically criminal how little our input affected the development of the app. I'd suggested as much once, and Lady BitBolt had asked me if I had contributed any jewels or precious metals into their retirement fund within the last decade or so. All of which was a polite way of telling me that if I wanted a feature integrated into the app, I'd better put some money where my mouth was.
One of the many places I'd spent money
instead
was some place a lot more street level - I'd greased the palms of pretty much every nightclub manager, every late hotel shift chief, every struggling motel clerk and so many bartenders that I'd actually used a spell to keep all the names easily accessible in my mind. So as soon as I walked into the lobby, I recognized the night clerk's name was Eli. I headed over towards him with a slight smile. "Digger," I asked him. "You know if he's—"
"Top floor, Mr. Sexton," came back the response before I'd even finished with the question. "He's been up there with the AmperSandyDuncans album release party for a couple of hours, so I imagine he won't be up there for too much longer."
I dropped a twenty on the counter as I walked on by. "Thanks Eli, I'll take it from here."
On the elevator ride up, I had plenty of time to think what an absolutely
awful
name for a band 'AmperSandyDuncans' was. I mean, even now... Just...
Wow.
Like, I'm sure worse band names exist or have existed out there, but I couldn't think of any. In fact, I wasn't thinking about the case, the Queen, the sidhe, or anything even remotely related to our world, other than perhaps idly wondering if maybe someone had cursed this band to be forced to wear this moniker like a mark of shame that they weren't allowed to remove at any costs under penalty of death. There had to be some legitimate cause or trauma that was keeping them releasing albums under this name.
No one could hate themselves this much voluntarily.
I sort of changed my mind about that when the elevator doors opened and I
heard
the AmperSandyDuncans for the first time. It was somehow both sludge rock
and
speed rock all at the same time. Like, it was almost that mumbling 90s grunge era vocals played over these syrupy, almost droning guitars, and yet, the musicians were constantly changing chords, back and forth between an E and an E minor, and there was something so inescapably
dull
about it all. Maybe the name was doing a good thing, I thought to myself, steering people away from having to listen to this monumentally
piss poor
excuse for music in the first place.
That said, it seemed like most of the local scenesters were lingering around the place - label heads, PR managers, trade industry press, models wanting to get noticed, musicians wanting to get noticed, dancers wanting to get noticed... and then maybe a dozen or so people who seemed to genuinely love the sound of the band, and were out on the floor doing something no sane human being alive would describe as 'dancing.'
It was coming up on midnight, which meant this party would be going for another two to three hours, whether it wanted to or not. Those wise enough to leave had probably gotten out after taking half an hour to make appearances, make sure they were noticed and then slipped out the back, and everyone now was basically pot committed into losing the night.
Over at the bar was the person I was looking for. It was never all that hard to spot Digger. He's got to be like 6'5" and weighs over 300lbs. He's almost shaped like the Michelin Man, sort of like a swollen person, like there's water in every part of him. His hair's thinning, but to compensate for that, he's letting the rest of it grow long, pulled back into a hipster's rat tail. He had a pair of circular shaped Harry Potter style glasses that I'd always told him made him look ridiculous, but then again, he was always pulling women left and right, so who was I to tell him he was in the wrong. Not that I do so bad myself.
He was talking to an Indian woman who had certainly dolled herself up for a night out on the town, a dress that was basically two pieces of red fabric - one front and one back - with laces running from the neckline all the way down to mid-thigh on each side, exposed windows of bare flesh on each side of her, sleeveless, with a very daring and plunging neckline down the front. Her black hair was pulled back tightly into a ponytail of onyx curls that basically exploded out of the back of her head. She had a gold ring through one nostril and a red bindi in the center of her forehead. The way she was smoothing her hand atop of Digger's forearm made it clear that they'd been in this conversation for a while.
"Hey Digger," I said, stepping up on the other side of him. "Who's your new friend?"
He turned to glance at me, and I noticed his eyes seemed a little bit glossy, something very much unlike Digger. "Oh, hey man. This is my new friend Navya. Navya, this is my old friend Dale."
For those kids at home keeping score, this was the moment where I screwed up, and it nearly cost me. But thankfully, some very ingrained defenses were about to kick in.
"Hey Navya," I said to her, not really giving her much more than a cursory glance. "I need to borrow Digger for a bit."
"Why don't you sit and join us for a bit first, Dale?" Navya said, as she reached over and placed her other hand on top of my forearm.
In that moment, my olfactory senses were hit with a very familiar blast, a combination of scents I'd not experienced for some time. It was sandalwood, a combination of orange and pineapple citrus and a hint of old school watch oil. It was a combination of scents designed to evoke a period in my life where I was my most trusting, my most open, my most honest...
...my most vulnerable.
In the space between heartbeats, I'd erected an illusion of normality around us with my left hand, stepped behind Navya, and drawn one of the SoulEnders and pressed the eldritch steel tip of the barrel to her throat, hearing her flesh sizzle in unwelcome response. The hammer was already back, and the slightest move would've sent the round in the chamber to action.
"You're
new in town
, aren't you, Navya?" I snarled.
"I don't—"
"You have a SoulEnder pressed against your neck right now, so I think you best reconsider that thought you were just having about lying to me," I said, absolutely zero fucks to be given in my tone of voice. "According to the Predator Accords, what's the first thing a Predator does when entering a new zone they intend to hunt in?"
"Dale," Digger said to me, trying to shake the confusion from his eyes. "What's—"
"Shut up, Digger," I told him. "I'll get to your ass in a minute. Go on, Navya, Rule #1 about a Predator entering a new zone. What is it?"
Nayva swallowed a breath, wincing as she did, because the very act of swallowing made the gun barrel move and singe a different part of her exposed neckflesh. She was holding perfectly still, so I have a feeling the gun barrel against her neck had illuminated just how badly she'd fucked up to her. "Check in with the local captains."
"Goooood," I sneered. "And
why
do you have to check in with the local captains?"
"To get the Protected List. So as to not upset the balance."
"And you didn't do that because...?"
"I was hungry, human, and I think that trumps some silly list."
I inhaled a
very
controlled breath then exhaled it. I would entirely within my rights to blow this damn succubus's head off right here in the W, and the SoulEnder would only thank me for getting the chance to use its abilities once more in this world. "You really want to make that point with a SoulEnder against your throat?"
"You're just
saying
it's a SoulEnder," she scoffed. "You're far too
young
to be Lane Sexton."
"You're right about that, moron. I'm
Dale
Sexton, son of the late Lane Sexton, and current holder of the title of Druid Gunslinger," I said, letting the barrel drag along her throat, making sure her flesh boiled and scabbed a little as it moved past. The moment the words left my lips, she knew they had to be true, and that made her start to quake in fear. "And you attempted to instigate a hunt on not one but
two
members of the Protected Caste here in the Bay. I
should
put you down on general fucking principal, and then call Sirena myself, let her know that somebody's relative wasn't going to making that first meeting any more, because they'd decided to try and go hunt the fucking
