Case 24: Entry 2

As a general rule, I avoid faeries. I don't bother them, they don't bother me, and if they do bother me I  check to see how dangerous they are and then either get out of the way or respond with overwhelming hostility. I was actually sort of doubtful of the existence of the fey until the Agency accidentally trounced all over a spat between two of their nobles and everyone involved in the case (including the analysts) spent the next week having spiders and similarly unpleasant things crawling out of various orifices. So when I met more faeries this afternoon than I had ever encountered before, I was less than thrilled.

Due to the whole pilgrimage thing, Brennen Pollexfen had his birthday party a day early, and the guests turned out to be a very...diverse crowd. Anyway, I think there may have been more fey well-wishers than actual guests. Of course, it was hard to tell since any respectable faerie isn’t going to show up in public looking like a faerie. But while they’re all very good at looking like humans, they’re not very good at all at looking like normal humans. They tend to be rather eccentric.

     

Mostly I just stood awkwardly in the corner and watched while trying not to make eye contact with anyone. As I said, I try to stay out of the affairs of the fey, but from everything I’ve read on the subject a changeling noble is kind of a big deal. Fey like to play around in the mortal world, so a halfblooded noble with just enough status to be taken seriously and who happens to be at home in the mortal world is kind of a major factor in their politics. Basically, if he makes it through the pilgrimage he’ll be perfectly positioned to meddle in their meddling. So all the fey who showed up were there to ingratiate themselves to the lad through gifts of varying degrees of usefulness. I had my own gift (a large silver knife which had been given a minor blessing from the Lord of the Wilds) but I didn’t really feel comfortable approaching the lad until things had settled down a bit and the crowd had thinned. Also, I wasn’t sure how much or even if he’d been told about me so I was a bit nervous about the conversation that might emerge. After a while I decided to stop being a wuss and went over to sit next to the birthday boy.

     

He didn’t seem very impressed. Not that I can blame him. I’m only a few years older than him, I’m a little on the scrawny side, and the utility belt and other practical items of clothing I tend to wear usually just make me look all the more silly. Apparently he hadn’t heard much about me except that I was on speaking terms with a big time spirit and that I’d killed a vampire. I pointed out with what he’s going to go through he needs a nerd way more than he needs a thug, but he seemed unconvinced. I would have kept going, but that was about when I noticed a familiar face staring at Brennen's drink.

There's a handful of human criminals who are clued in to the supernatural world and who tend to get hired by nasties for jobs that they themselves would find difficult. They help set up false identities, launder money, and steal items from locations that warded or otherwise protected against the spooky side. The Agency has a very relaxed policy when it comes to these criminals and has even been known to interfere with normal law enforcement because their presence actually makes it easier for them to track malevolent supernatural activity. It turns out it's easier to track a vampire's human thug than it is to track the vampire itself. Anyway, I guess this thug upgraded to assassin. And he noticed me notice. And he didn't have to take an extra second to explain why no one should eat or drink anything else. If it had just been a matter of speed I would have got him, but that's not how foot chases work. He just had to get out of my line of sight long enough for me to lose the trail.

Oh well. I found his picture in the files after I got home, so the Agency will take care of him at the next opportunity. Thieves, frauds, and money launderers they don't mind, but assassins are another matter. At least I got a little more respect when I got back. When Brennen asked what I actually had to protect him I told him a little of my expertise, I showed him a few of my tools, and I let drop that I had spent the last two nights coming up with a secret weapon. It never hurts to have an ace in the hole.

Case 24: Entry 1

I got a call last afternoon from Dr. Wundenhex, requesting a meeting about one of his patients. The good doctor is a psychologist who specializes in patients with one foot on the spooky side, and he's got an incredible amount of renown in both arcane and mundane society. The Agency isn't sure exactly what he is, but they know that they're scared of him; he's one of the few people who can get them to back off once they take interest some supernatural matter due to his position in the community and his sheer force of personality. 

Naturally, I made preparations. In addition to packing the usual tools and weapons, I also came in to San Francisco an hour early to call up Joshua Abraham Norton. Norton was a homeless citizen of San Francisco who lived over a hundred years ago and believed himself to be the emperor of America. He was sort of a city mascot and he even has a plaque commemorating him. And his ghost is kind of a patron spirit of the city. Despite being surprisingly versatile while within the bounds of the city he's pretty much benevolent and whenever I do a job in San Francisco I call him up to find out information and possibly get a guide. 

This time I wanted him to have my back. I didn't think there was going to be an ambush or anything, but I liked the idea of having a ghost to counter any attempts at intimidation. I offered the Emperor some whiskey (yes, ghosts can consume food and drink while in corporeal or semi-corporeal forms, and no, I don't know where it goes), I went through the proper courtesies, and he agreed to tag along. He vanished after that, but I had a sense of being followed that I usually would have found creepy. I was feeling sort of smug until that feeling went poof upon my entering the waiting room. Apparently Dr. Wundenhex also likes to take precautions. I had a strong urge to run away and come up with a new plan, but that was stupid. It was probably just a normal meeting with a potential client. Probably.

Eventually Dr. Wundenhex finished with the patient he'd had scheduled before meeting me, and he asked me to come in. I was watching his every movement and remembering rumors about him being some kind of therianthrope as he went back behind his desk. And then he handed me the file.

"His name is Glen Ridley, he lives in Fairfield, and he's a changeling," said the psychologist. "His father is a fey noble, although I don't know who exactly, and in a few days he'll turn eighteen. Do you know what that means?"

I nodded and said, "If I understand the lore properly, he'll have to go on a pilgrimage. Or it might be better to call it a quest. If he completes it he'll hold an acknowledged position within faerie society, and his fey and human nature will settle into a natural balance allowing both to flourish. If he fails, well there's a lot of stories about what happens then. The least nasty possibility is that he loses his magic."

I looked down at the file and asked, "So you want me to help him cram or something?"

"No," answered the doctor. "I want you to be his guide. I've heard a lot about you recently, and I'm convinced you're the man for the job."

There was a lot of argument after that point, but I already knew I was going to lose. So I eventually agreed to take the job. 

Maybe I should update my will.

Case 20: Entry 6

It was shortly after two in the morning when the vurdalak came to visit. I had been waiting on my porch since nine with the standard monster hunting equipment, a bag of snacks, a pint of coffee, and a specially designed arcanometer I had built specially to detect the vampire. I also took twenty milligrams of adderall. Or thirty. Anyway, it was around two when the modified arcanometer started beeping and a few minutes more before the vampire showed itself. The thing walked down the street until it was right across from me like some kind of wild west standoff. It had curling blonde hair, was of about average height, and it seemed to have a traditional sense of wardrobe. There was a long coat and plenty of black.

"You should have fled," said the vampire. "Or did you think I would run from so meager a threat."

"I was about to say the same thing, shithead," I said. "Also, I realize you're trying be all elegant and a tiny bit archaic, but we both know you only got turned a few years ago. So stop trying to talk like you're three hundred or something; you're embarrassing yourself."

"Fine," said the vampire. "Let's just fight it out then. I hope you do better this time. I've never had a chance to really throw down with someone."

"Sorry," I said. "But I don't give a crap about an intense fight or your delusions of grandeur. I'm here to seek justice for the dead and protection for the living." Then raised a hand to the air and said (in my very best black preacher voice), "For whosoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall blood be shed. Can I get an 'amen'?"

At that moment, Cynthia blew a low note on her flute and lifted the concealing enchantment she had placed at the beginning of the night. She started another tune to help bind the vurdalak, but we all knew it would probably be over before she was finished. Before she started on the tune, Mr. Reynolds fired a shot from a hunting rifle. The silver bullet hit the vampire in the abdomen, and I could see it still working out what was going on when Mr. Reynolds landed another shot on the leech. Then it got a dart in the shoulder from Shauna Freeman, the single greatest crypto biologist I have ever met. The dart carried a specially designed serum, but since most vampiric bloodlines don't have beating hearts it wouldn't be able to spread very fast. But I did think I could detect a slight limpness coming into the leech's right arm. I started to advance, calmly firing silver bullets as I did. The vampire may have been a noob, but it still had enough sense to know things were not going as expected. It ran.

Too bad Lucia's brother was there with a tetsubo. The weapon is basically a giant baseball bat covered with metal studs, and it was used in feudal Japan to bust through armor. This one belonged to a famed monster hunter from the nineteenth century named Miyako Oshiro. He hit the vampire squarely in the chest, knocking it to the ground. In a few moments Shauna and Mr. Reynolds had joined us along with a few others to hold it down as I hammered a stake into its heart.

By the way, a stake to the heart doesn't actually kill most vampires. It just puts them in a sort of stasis. I would have finished the job, but I owe Shauna, and she's never had an undead specimen to play around with. I look forward to reading her reports.

Anyway, I just finished talking to the cops who responded to the gunshots. Who by some bizarre coincidence happened to be the Agency's local police contacts. Life is so strange sometimes. I'm in the clear, and between the fact that he's totally innocent and whatever cleanup the Agency will be sending I'm pretty sure Esteban Ramirez will be clear too soon. In the meantime I'll see about helping to provide for his defense and all that jazz. But not right now. Right now I need to sleep.