“The Itch of Iron, The Pull of the Moon” by Carol Borden

She watched the lot for the owners and was as trustworthy about it as could be expected. They thought she was a transient, but had no complaints.

Fey was all-around too sharp, but had found ways to use her sharpness. She solved problems, often, but not always, permanently. It was good work, but if she were an honest Puck, which she tried to be in her way, she was always better at unmaking things, well, to be honest, “breaking” things than making them, which was probably why she lived with her business partner Reynard in the grounds of an abandoned factory. She wasn’t sure what the plant had made, but it probably had something to do with cars. She wasn’t far from Henry Ford’s planned communities and his artificial lake with houses still standing beneath water where long green plants fanned out like mermaids’ hair. She had a hard time paying attention to human commerce, but she loved rusty metal, broken glass and cracked pavement. And she loved the little plants that grew in all the cracks, just like her.

A river ran along the west side of the property and hickory, beech and oak trees grew up the ravine to the asphalt. The forest had been cut down not so long ago, and it was always ready to come back. The owners held on to the property hoping that they could sell it for more than they had paid for it. She watched the lot for the owners and was as trustworthy about it as could be expected. They thought she was a transient, but had no complaints. She rarely saw them. They didn’t like to leave Bloomfield Hills. And so she watched the trees, the broken asphalt and the dented chain link fence. A good deal all around, she would call it.

Fey and Reynard did business in the factory’s old parking lot office almost overtaken by the blackthorn locust, sumac and sassafrass reclaiming the lot. She had an old fashioned wooden filing cabinet, a folding card table, a particle board desk, a few molded wood chairs she found in the factory office, a rotary phone and a disposable cellphone. But she preferred to meet her clients in their homes or at nearby cafes.

Fey was finishing a plate of homefries at Cafe Vert when her client floated in, uncertain as a dandelion seed. He was holding one of her fliers. ‘M. Fey, Unmaker of Problems,’ it read, with her phone number beneath. The fliers only rarely returned to their natural state, sassafrass leaves.

‘Ms. Fey?’

‘Just Fey is fine.’

‘I’m Doug Stokowski. I called you about my problem.’

‘Have a seat, Mr. Stokowski.’

“Doug.” He slid into the booth across from Fey and next to Reynard. Reynard put his ears back, but didn’t protest any further. Instead, he began digging at the table to bury his fritatta. Reynard didn’t like sharing.

‘A cat, huh?’

‘Yeah.’ Reynard was an orange tabby with big feet, strange blue eyes and a broken canine, but people usually saw him as a red-haired man in bespoke suit and tie. Reynard liked to look nice. Fey wondered what Doug saw when he looked at her. A woman with hair like clipped crow feathers and fingers like bundles of twigs because they were clipped crow feathers and bundles of twigs? Fey’s eyes used to be gray green, the color of the ocean she saw on her way to America, but that was a long time ago. Now they were the color of rusty metal. The waitress asked Doug if he wanted anything. Doug asked for a plate of fries with ranch dressing on the side. Fey was nearly finished eating and Reynard was cleaning his face and ears.

‘Nice place.’

‘It’s my favorite. So what’s your problem?’

Doug held out his hand palm up. ‘This is.’

There was a pentagram on his palm.

‘Well, that’s not right,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘I hate to tell you this—I really do—but I don’t know how I can help you.’

I want you to find out who did this to me and I want you to end them.’

‘“End them?”’

‘You know what I mean.’

Doug leaned back as the server brought his plate of fries and a small paper cup of ranch dressing. After she went back to the counter, Fey answered, ‘Okay, three things. First, I’m pretty sure “ending” someone won’t solve your problem. Second, killing’s not all that emotionally or aesthetically satisfying. Third, ending someone will not solve your problem. And it really could mess up a pretty decent thing Reynard and I have going on for ourselves. That’s four, I guess.’

Reynard flicked his tail. Doug looked mildly skeptical of whatever decent thing Fey and Reynard had going on, but mostly he looked frustrated. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘Well, explain it.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Then I can’t help, because my own reluctance aside, I don’t understand how killing would help you.’

‘Okay,’ Doug glanced around the mostly empty cafe. The server was busy making something with the espresso machine. Doug leaned forward. “What do you mean killing won’t solve my problem?”

‘Pre-killing a werewolf will not erase that pentagram or reverse the curse. With curses, it doesn’t matter how they happen—it just matters that they do.’

 Doug reached across the table for the bottle of hot sauce and squirted some on his fries disconsolately. Fey continued, ‘I might kill a werewolf, only for another to kill you, because it doesn’t matter which poor, doomed soul does. I could kill the werewolf after it kills you, or save you after you’ve bitten, just in time for you to become the next local big feral dog. I might make your problem worse or create more collateral damage. Killing whoever you think the werewolf might be only makes how your curse plays out more complicated.’

Doug swirled a fry in the ranch, but didn’t eat it.

‘And that’s not getting into silver bullets or whether the wolf has to be killed by their one true love. The full moon’s tomorrow night—that’s a quick romance.’

‘You won’t need silver bullets.’

‘I won’t?’

‘You won’t. You’re not looking for a werewolf. You’re looking for the person—the human person—who did this to me.’

‘Doug, this isn’t something that someone does. This is something that happens. This is a heads up from the universe that you are screwed. A chain of events is written right there on your palm and it ends with you as some dog’s dinner.’

‘Someone did this. Please, just find out who. If you have time, find out why they did this to me. I don’t need to know how. How is probably beyond me anyway.’

Fey rubbed her face.

‘Believe me, if you end them, you will end this.’ Doug held out his palm again. The pentagram looked like dried blood. Then he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bunch of crumpled bills, mostly twenties, and put them on the table. ‘I cleaned out my account. It won’t matter, if…’

‘If you get killed by a werewolf tomorrow night.’

Doug nodded and ate his fries. Reynard looked annoyed. Fey took the money. It was about two-hundred and fifty dollars. ‘Okay, I’ll look into it. Stay home tonight. I’ll call tomorrow and let you know what I found out.’

‘Thanks, I really appreciate it.’ Doug wrote his phone number on a napkin and stood up.

‘Wait. I need some of your hair. Even one strand is enough.’

Doug froze like a man who had enough curses thank you very much.

‘It’ll help me figure out what’s going on. I promise, no bad workings.’

Doug still looked uncertain.

‘Pixie swear,’ she said, holding up three fingers.

‘You were a Girl Scout?’

‘Sure, I’ve been lots of things.’

Doug plucked a hair and handed it to Fey. She watched Doug pay for their food and walk out the door to his dark blue Impala. One of the doors was brown. Who would bother working any kind of high-intensity fix on a guy whose car doors didn’t match? But it was odd that Doug couldn’t talk about his curse. Usually, people raved about the mark and no one listened and then it was too late. And she really shouldn’t be able to see his pentagram.

“What do you think, Reynard?” Reynard blinked at her and went back to watching the leaves swirl across the street. It was getting cold. Fey folded Doug’s hair in the napkin with his phone number on it and put it in her coat pocket. She pulled out one of the straws in the container on the table. It was the bendy kind. Reynard’s favorite. Reynard mewed and they walked back home.

‘I don’t usually do this with a client’s hair,’ she told Reynard. ‘I’m not even sure if it will work.’ She made a fire of hickory leaves and Doug’s hair, and it did work. According to her scrying, Doug worked at Ephemera, a company that required an unusually high security measures for an office park off the highway. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem a glamor could not solve, but there was something else about the hair, something more potent than she expected and not just malevolent, but intentional. It wasn’t what she would expect from someone doomed to be a werewolf’s next kill. Someone had worked a truly potent magic on poor Doug.

‘Looks like someone did put the whammy on Doug.’

Reynard snored a deep kitty snore.

‘Yeah, you’re right. Time for bed. I’ll visit Ephemera tomorrow.’

Fey lay down in her bed of yellow and gold leaves and stared at the dark clouds wondering who could make someone a werewolf’s the next victim? Who could push fate? She thought about trying to discover how it could be done. She would focus on finding whoever cursed Doug and maybe she’d get somewhere on how to break the curse. There was usually only one way of making something, but there were a thousand ways to break it.

The next morning, Reynard was asleep in the filing cabinet drawer where she stowed the skins she used as disguises. Digging around fifteen pounds of sleeping Reynard, Fey found the one she wanted—male, early forties, caucasian, a corporate freelancer. She enjoyed going undercover. She would shake hands. She would grab her belt and hitch up her pants. And she would wear a suit, but not just any suit—a rumpled navy blue suit that was just a little to big in the shoulders and short in the sleeves, the suit of a man who worked hard and was proud of being his own boss and answering to no one.

Fey left her .44 Magnum at the bottom of the drawer. She saw a .44 in a movie once and it seemed a very serious gun. One that could unmake a lot of problems. More practically, the large caliber fit her fairy darts. She’d wrapped revolver’s butt in deer skin and duct tape so that she could hold it safely. Steel didn’t burn quite as bad as iron, but it still gave her the jitters. She didn’t like the jitters and especially didn’t like being jittery while holding a gun. Fey decided to leave Reynard and take her black Dodge Charger. Fey didn’t have a license, but then she didn’t drive so much as she convinced the car to go where she wanted.

Ephemera Technology Resource Systems rented a blue glass office building on Innovation Drive, just off I-94. There was a gate preventing free entry into the parking lot. Fey asked the car to pull up to the window so she could talk to the attendant.

She glanced at the attendant’s nametag and said, ‘Hi, Chantelle.’

‘Good morning, What’s your business?’

‘I’m here as a consulting management coach. I’m hosting an on-site webinar on leveraging human resource deliverables.’

Fey pulled out a handkerchief and sneezed. ‘Excuse me. Stubborn cold.’

‘Bless you.’ The attendant glanced at her list. ‘What’s the name?’

 Fey raised her handkerchief again, but this time she blew a fine, glittering powder into the attendant’s face. “You should find the name Noel Coward on there, Chantelle. That’s me.”

Chantelle look a little dazed and then said, ‘Okay, Mr. Coward, pick up your visitor’s pass at the front desk. I’ll let them know that you are coming.’

‘Thanks, and have a great day.’

‘You, too.’

Fey’s car parked in the visitor’s lot. She asked the car to wait and decided that it agreed when it sat contentedly in its spot. A good sign. Fey hitched up her pants and headed in through the mirrored doors to the building’s security desk.

‘How are you? Noel Coward. I have a 9:30 on-site webinar,’ Fey said to the guard standing behind the desk. He had a unibrow and no name on his tag, just a number and a small, swooping five pointed star. The security guard gestured towards the metal detector taking up most of the entrance. It had the same swooping star and ‘BALOR SECURITY’ printed on it. Beyond the machine’s gate, there was a low black leather upholstered bench beside a single elevator and what she assumed was door to the stairs.

‘I’m going to have to ask you to put all your metal items in the tray before passing through security, sir,’ the guard said. Fey dropped her phone, keys and nineteen cents into the tray. The guard picked took the tray and watched her walk through the metal detector. The machine beeped.

‘Step, over here, sir.’ Fey complied, glad that she’d left her gun at home. The guard swept a hand-held metal detector over her. There was a beep at her belt buckle and at her left hand breast pocket, where she kept her pouch of pixy dust.

‘Sir, I’m going to need to you to empty the contents of your jacket.’

It couldn’t be detecting her pixy dust. Fey dropped her wallet, handkerchief and pouch in the tray. If she had to, she could let Noel take the fall. Fey was so busy thinking of how she’d explain the pouch that she didn’t notice the guard passing the wand over her again. There was no sound from the machine just a steady green light over its gate.

‘It’s easy to forget those inhalers have metal cannisters in them,’ the guard said, flashing very white teeth.

Fey glanced in the tray and, sure enough, there was an asthma inhaler in the tray with her wallet, keys and change. ‘Yeah, I didn’t think of it.’

She picked up her stuff. The inhaler looked like an inhaler, but had the soft, silky feel of her chimera skin pouch. As she slid the pouch back into her pocket, Fey heard a laugh behind her. She glanced back. The guard was noting something in the computer. He had a hardwear catalog on his desk opened to big deals on chain in bulk. She wasn’t sure he could laugh. ‘Fourth floor,’ he said handing her a visitor pass with Noel’s name and the date on it. ‘There’ll be someone waiting for you.’

‘Thanks, have a good one,’ Fey said as she stepped into the elevator.

The elevator doors opened on a small waiting room. There was a water cooler, a counter with a coffee pot, microwave and mugs, and two more of the black upholstered benches. Fey associated those kind of benches with art galleries, which she always enjoyed, so she took them as another good sign. The receptionist stood and leaned a bit over the edge of the low wall that separated her desk from the rest of the waiting room. Her nameplate read, ‘Gail Denha, Reception.’

‘Mr. Coward? There seems to have been a mix-up. I’m afraid we don’t have you on our schedule for today.’

‘Oh, for Pete’s sake, I have it right here on my phone.’ Fey waved her phone around. ‘Ephemera’s between events at Cavalier Enterprises and the Henry Ford Museum.’

‘If you’ll just wait, someone will be here with you to straighten everything out.’

‘I hope so. I’m cutting the training at the Henry Ford very close as it is.’

‘It won’t be a moment, Mr. Coward. Help yourself to coffee or tea. We have cookies today, too.’

Fey hitched up her pants and walked over to the counter. There was coffee, a basket with variety of teas, sweeteners and a box of Voortman’s windmill cookies. She’d never understood the appeal of spekulaas cookies. They were the saddest gingerbread pressed into the most Calvinist shapes and left to cure on grocery store shelves for years. Besides, animating windmill cookies just wasn’t as fun as animating gingerbread men. As she pondered spekulaas, she noticed the water cooler was glowing, but only when she looked at it slantwise.

‘Our coffee is excellent. We have a proprietorial blend and use imported spring water in our brewing.’

‘The same water in the cooler? I don’t recognize the label.’ In fact, the label was covered in runes.

‘Yes, we get a new shipment every two weeks.’

‘That must really set you back.’

‘Our Chief Operating Officer, Ava Killmorin, furnishes it herself. Ms. Killmorin says a company’s most important asset is employee morale.’

‘Sounds like a great place to work—scheduling issues aside.’

‘I’m really sorry about that, Mr. Coward. I don’t know how that could have happened.’ While Gail filed papers to hide her irritation, Fey poured a little of her pixy dust onto her handkerchief. She was running low. It was that planning thing again.

Fay leaned on the wall in front of Gail’s desk. “It’s alright. Doug Stokowski asked me to come. Maybe he forgot to tell you.”

“Oh, you know our office manager? I’m afraid Doug’s out sick today.”

Fey felt kind of bad about tricking Gail, but something was up at Ephemera and Fey wanted to know what it was. She blew dust into Gail’s face.

“Gesundheit,” Gail said.

“Sorry about that. This darn cold.”

“Maybe something’s going around.” Gail gave her head a shake. “I feel like I might be coming down with something.”

“Say, Gail, how about I go wait in Doug’s office?”

“He doesn’t have an office. We have an open work space. Just go straight through the door, turn right at the end of the hall and his desk is in the far left corner.”

“Gail, you didn’t see me here today. I must’ve come in when you had stepped away from your desk. You won’t see me when I leave.”

“Okay. Let me buzz you in.”

“Thanks, Gail.”

“You’re welcome.”

Fey went inside. The hall was empty. She passed four or five doors and turned right. The silence was eerie in a room of fifteen or twenty people. No one seemed to notice when she entered the work space. They stared intently at their computers. Each desk had one worker with two screens. And each worker had a cup of coffee and a windmill cookie. These people really enjoyed windmill cookies.

Doug’s desk was right where Gail had said it would be. Fey felt a little bad about tricking Gail. Maybe she could make it to her up somehow. Doug’s desk had a view of a green lawn and the next office building about one hundred yards behind Ephemera, part of the loop Innovation Drive made on its way back to the highway. Fey wiggled the mouse on Doug’s desk and wished Reynard were here. Reynard was much better with machines. She preferred something she could talk to. Computers like this were all networked together. It was like trying to talk to ants. Wiggling the mouse had no effect. She tried touching the screen and it lit beneath her fingers.

‘You’re not Doug,’ the computer said.

‘What?’ Fey turned to see if anyone else had heard. She was both relieved and disturbed to see the room still full of humans staring at their computers, typing, drinking coffee or eating cookies.

‘Who are you?’

Fey thought about how to answer and decided simple was best, ‘I’m Fey.’

‘You set off the detector at the entrance?’

‘Yes,’ Fey said. ‘Did you help me?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not a computer, are you?’

‘I wasn’t, but now I am in this one.’

Fey felt nauseous. ‘Did you tell Doug?’

‘Yes. He promised to help me get out. He promised to help all of us. He didn’t know. We are here in the computers, running the machines. Some in one. Some in another. Some linked together. Some alone.’

‘Are you… sidhe?’

‘I don’t know anymore. Now I hear the machine’s song instead of my own. There are many here, but not all sidhe. You should leave now. Balor will help you. Don’t let her prick you.’

Fey didn’t know if she had found what she was looking for, but she was scared and she was leaving. She hurried past the rows of workers and into the corrider. She stopped dead when a woman in an immaculately tailored white suit stepped out of one of the doors between her and the reception area.

‘Hello, Mr. Coward, I’m Ava Killmorin, Ephemera’s COO. We are so sorry we’ve kept you waiting.’ Kilmorin held out her hand and Fey shook it.

‘We can reschedule. I have another on-site webinar that I need to get to.’

‘Surely you’d planned a longer presentation than fifteen minutes.’

Fey hitched up her pants. ‘It’s best to be short and sweet when talking about efficiencies in leveraging human resource deliverables.’

‘A tour is the least we can do after this inconvenience. We all love Doug, but he can be… unreliable. You must let me make your visit worth the trip.’ Killmorin smiled immovably.

Fey followed Killmorin as she turned left at the end of the corridor and stopped at a metal door with a blank black panel beside it and a light above. The light reminded Fey of a red eye.

‘You’ve already seen where our entry and acquisition specialists work. Now I’d like to show you something we’re very proud of.’ She swiped her hand across the black glass surface and the red light blinked above the door. Killmorin looked back at Fey, ‘After you, Mr. Coward.’

‘Ladies first, Ms. Killmorin,’ Fey said. She didn’t like this and anybody with any sense would push the appointment excuse or just run. But Fey was not sensible and she was very curious. Killmorin led Fey into a room lined with white boxes on the right, a long stainless steel table at the far end, and an enormous smoky gray glass screen on the left. Fey shivered as she saw the restraints attached to the table. Ms. Killmorin placed her palm on the glass screen. ‘Ava Killmorin,’ she said.

‘Noel, this is the heart of our operation. Each of these boxes contain thirteen wands, each wand is a drive that installs true intelligence into any computer or server.’ Killmorin slid open a box. The lid was incised with runes. Fey felt dizzy trying to read them. Killmorin pulled out a rod with a latticework of red light like capillaries spread over the luminous ivory surface. It looked like a bloody bone. The wand appeared solid, but Killmorin’s fingers left indentations and bruised light. Fey heard an faint groan. ‘Computers that can run and power our systems and never fail. It is a self-monitoring, self-sustaining technology. Do you understand what that means?’

‘Isn’t this something that you should keep secret?’

‘Oh, I think you know why I’m telling you, Noel. I’m sure our office manager told you as much as he could. The fascinating thing about your kind is that you are so malleable. It isn’t hard to fit something like you into a wand once we understood the rules. Why create an intelligence when we can simply and cheaply transfer one?’

Fey backed towards the door.

‘Oh no, I’m not going to convert you. I have some questions I would like to ask. As you can see, I’ve figured out quite a lot on my own, but I believe we have not come close to fully leveraging the potential of this new resource, the seemingly supernatural beings living at the margins of the human world. You could help me immensely and it would profit you immensely.’

‘Look, I don’t know what you mean by my “kind,” but I’m certain that I couldn’t help. Now I have to get to the Henry Ford.’

Killmorin bent the wand very slightly between her hands and whatever was inside groaned louder.

‘Three questions, Noel. Three questions and I’ll free you.’

‘What makes you think I’m not your kind, Ava?’

‘Because anyone who comes in to our building is bound. If you drink our water, you are bound. If you wears a visitor’s pass, you are bound. If Noel Coward were your real name, then that pass would’ve bound you to me.’

Fey looked at the pass more closely and saw more runes mixed in with the numbers of the pass’s bar code.

‘Clever.’

‘We really have only begin to realize the power of integrating these new technologies into our current systems.’ Killmorin held the wand between both hands again. ‘Do we have a bargain?’

Fey hesitated.

‘You know these wands can break, quite easily. Would you like a demonstration?’

‘We have a bargain. Three questions.’

‘Good. You will answer them factually?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you faery?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are the first faery I’ve ever seen who looks like a middle-aged white man. Most unusual, but my mirror does disperse glamors.’ Killmorin raised her tone slightly as she finished that thought.

‘Is that a question?’

‘No. But you must understand what an opportunity you are for us. We understand so little of you, especially of your physiology.’

Killmorin touched the screen again. ‘Research. File F-1: Faery Hemotalogy,’ she said. ‘Unfortunately, research subjects expire before any usable data can be gathered. And converted intelligences are necessarily uncommunicative about their previous form.’ Killmorin showed Fey a brief video of a syringe embedded deep into a limb, but drawing no blood. ‘We cannot acquire a blood sample, let alone get a fix on faery cellullar structure.’

Several diagrams appeared on the screen, illustrating, ‘Hypothesized Cellullar Structures Within Supraordinary Creatures.’ ‘But we do have some constructs.’

‘Are you asking me to describe faery cell structures?’ Fey really hoped that Killmorin was because Fey could honestly answer, ‘I don’t know.’ When Fey looked inside herself, she saw something like the incalculable rings of an old, old tree.

‘No, no. I am providing context. Your kind are sensitive to iron. My research indicates that the strength of the reaction seems incompatible with any normal mammalian hemoglobin count, even at the lowest survivable levels. And yet, none of you show visible morphological structures consistent with non-mammalian or ectothermic animals.’

Fey stared at the array of blood cells, images of vascular systems and platelets, and graphs of hemoglobin levels on the screen. Killmorin’s blood magic was not terribly sophisticated. And Killmorin appparently didn’t know that some of the machines could speak to Fey. Maybe there was a way out for all of them, Fey, Doug, the others trapped in here.

Killmorin noticed Fey staring. ‘You don’t seem like you have a background in biology.’

‘Are you asking?’

‘No.’

Fey looked back at the mirror again and said, ‘I like how science looks.’

Killmorin sighed, ‘I will ask this as simply as possible: Is your blood red?’

‘Yes.’

The truth was that Fey’s blood was red because she was Noel right now. She was wearing a human skin. It was even more true that Fey had never seen her own blood in her own form. All faeries were different. That was probably why the faery’s blood disappeared as it was drawn. It could not exist with the kind of taxonomic consistency that Killmorin required. But that was speculation. Killmorin had requested facts.

She swiped a finger across the screen. ‘Did you get that, Jessica.’

A young woman in a white clean suit looked back at Killmorin from the screen. ‘Yes, ma’am. We’ll begin new simulations.’

‘Good.’ She touched the screen again. ‘Mirror, isolate this room.’

‘Yes, Ms. Killmorin.’

Fey recognized the voice.

‘Mirror is one of my proudest achievements. I can actually scry with her.’

Fey glanced back towards the door again, wondering how she’d make it out. She was fairly certain that Killmorin would not honor their bargain.

‘Now that no one is listening, I will ask my last question. What is your real name?’

‘Noel Coward.’

‘We made a bargain. Answer.’

Fey looked straight at Killmorin.’Noel Coward. I answered your questions. Now let me go.’

Killmorin, carefully placed the wand back in its case. From the same case, she pulled an ivory wand and set it on the steel table. Fey presumed it was empty since there were no red capillaries of light. Then, Killmorin pulled out a long iron needle and pointed it towards Fey. The proximity of the iron made Fey’s skin itch.

‘I will do better than that. I will transform you into something you could never imagine—a being of light and energy. I will free you.’

‘I don’t think I’d much like it.’

Fey wished Reynard were here. She really wished that she had brought her gun with her, too. Doug was right. Ephemera needed unmaking and only a death would do it.

‘You will only feel a short moment of discomfort when the adaptor makes contact. Conversion is very efficient.’

Fey dodged as best she could, but Noel was ungainly. After several thrusts, Killmorin jabbed the needle into Noel’s skin. Fey tore herself out. She felt bad for Noel. They’d had a lot of fun together, but Noel was a skin, not a living being and she did not like the look of those wands at all. She pushed the empty skin onto Kilmorin. Entangled in Noel, Killmorin panicked. She started flailing and swearing at Noel, who really deserved better. Just over the cursing, Fey heard the mirror say, ‘Balor, help her.’

The door opened and Fey pelted down the corridor, through the door to reception. The door shut immediately behind her. She stopped for a moment and told a still dazed Gail, ‘Don’t drink the coffee. And maybe take your vacation days.’

Gail nodded. She didn’t seem to notice that Fey was naked.

Fey ran into the open elevator and it started down without her pushing L. In the lobby, the unibrowed guard started around his desk, pulling out an expandable baton. Fey ran straight at him, jumped and planted her knee right in his chest. She followed the guard to the ground, struck him in the side of his head with her elbow and scrambled through the metal detector and out of the building to her car. Chantelle waved without looking up from her book as Fey drove past.

Back home, Fey pulled on jeans, boots and her lucky green sweater. She sat for a while thinking. Then, sliding her gun out from under Reynard, she packed her briefcase with what she needed. She called Doug as she gathered up her black leather coat, her favorite one, the serious business one. Reynard stretched, jumped out of the filing cabinet and followed Fey down the street.

Twenty minutes, Doug met her at Cafe Vert. Fey was nursing hot cider and a bruised knee.

‘You’re paying for this cider, Doug. And you’re paying for the lemon scone they’re bringing me.’

‘I couldn’t tell you.’

‘I know you couldn’t tell me everything, but you could’ve told me more than you did. You could’ve told me this was about more than a werewolf.’

Doug shifted in his seat. ‘Did you figure out how she cursed me?’

‘I’m pretty sure the guy working the security desk is a werewolf. I think Killmorin thinks she’s fixed it so you’re his next victim. But she’s messing with a lot of very complicated things at once, a lot more than she knows and certainly more than any one person could handle.’

The server from the day before brought over Fey’s scone and set it on the table with three forks and extra napkins. After she walked away, Fey continued. ‘Most likely, Killmorin got a promise or was granted a wish before trapping a creature in one of her glowsticks. Your pentagram might just be a glamor to frighten you or to convince the guard to kill you—or both—but that werewolf doesn’t look like he’s too torn up about his nature. I doubt he’ll look at the pentagram too closely.’

‘That’s not comforting.’ Doug broke off a piece of scone. He looked so gloomy that Fey let him.

‘Here is the way I figure it, and correct me if you think I’m wrong, Reynard.’ Reynard squinted. Fey turned back to Doug. ‘Killmorin’s the one holding Ephemera together. She’s working with bargains and bindings, what she thinks are unbreakable laws and rules. But I am very good at breaking things.’

Reynard sniffed. ‘I know, it’s not elegant. Not everything can be elegant, Reynard.’ Doug watched Fey argue with, well, more at her cat and ate another piece of scone.

‘How? With a briefcase and a lazy tomcat?’

Reynard ignored the aspersion.

‘With my briefcase full of tricks and my gun. I’m going to shoot her.’

‘Like I wanted you to.’

‘Like that, but different.’

Doug and Reynard exchanged looks.

‘You have to come with me this time, Doug.’

‘You want me to go with you to Ephemera, where both the werewolf, who might kill me, and my old boss, who wants the werewolf to kill me, are?’

‘Yes.’

‘Couldn’t that be how my death by werewolf plays out?’

‘Yes.’ Fey put down the piece of scone she was about to eat. ‘It’s easier for me to watch out for you if it all happens where I am. Besides, I think I should make myself a part of the whole pattern before I unmake it.’

‘Crazy talk.’

‘Faery.’

Reynard smiled a little cat smile.

‘So when do we go?’

‘After I finish the scone you’re buying me.’

There was no point in being sneaky, so they took Fey’s Charger. Reynard sat shotgun. Reynard always got shotgun, Fey explained, as she glanced through the contents of her briefcase and made sure that all the fairy darts in her .44 were in good condition.

‘Those look like flint arrowheads.’

‘They’re fairy darts.’ Doug winced everytime Fey turned around in the driver’s seat to talk to him.

‘That can’t possibly work.’

‘You’d be surprised.’

It was after hours at Ephemera and booth next to the gate was empty. Fey was glad that Chantelle was gone for the day. The gate opened, nonetheless. Fey didn’t know if it were the mirror, Balor or Killmorin inviting them in. The Charger parked in the fire lane as they got out. ‘Maybe you should stay with the car, Reynard.’

Reynard lashed his tail.

‘I know, but I don’t want them messing with my car. And someone needs to be ready to get us out if things go wrong kinda wrong, but not totally wrong.’

Reynard sat on the asphalt and licked his chest. Fey walked to the door. ‘We’re here to see Ava Killmorin.’ The door opened with a buzz and a click. Fey entered ahead of Doug.

The sun hadn’t quite set yet, but the guard was clearly starting to feel the pull of the moon. He bared his very white teeth as he said, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to search you.’

Fey set her briefcase on the floor in front of the metal detector and unlatched it, then pulled out a garland and tossed it to Doug. ‘Here, put this on.’

Doug put it on. Fey clicked her briefcase shut, then turned to the guard, with her .44 in hand and said, ‘No, not tonight.’

The wolfsbane made the guard miserable fast. He was already rubbing red and running eyes and coughing dry coughs. ‘That really does seem uncomfortable. If you stay away from Doug, you should be alright.’

Fey and Doug walked past the snuffling guard. Fey pressed the elevator’s up button. The elevator dinged and they stepped on, while the guard coughed and sneezed.

Killmorin was waiting for them on the fourth floor. She was alone. ‘Doug, I’m so glad to see you’re feeling better. Have you come to catch up on a little work? It’s not too late. The sun isn’t quite set. And Noel, you’ve lost weight.’ She glanced at the briefcase. ‘I’ll be blunt. It will cost a lot to remove Doug’s curse. I’ve invested quite a bit of capital in him. You might have to compensate me yourself.’

‘I’m ready to deal with you,’ Fey said.

‘I’m glad for everyone’s sake that you can be reasonable. Let’s negotiate in more comfortable environs.’

Killmorin led them to the room she had stepped out of earlier when she had blocked Fey’s exit. There was another iteration of Killmorin’s mirror along the wall, an empty low glass and chrome desk with black leather chair, two gray upholstered chairs with spindly chrome legs and a blocky red leather couch on equally spindly chrome legs on the other. Killmorin indicated that they should sit in the chairs. Between the chairs and the couch was an ebony coffee table with a pitcher of water, four glasses and a plate of windmill cookies on it.

‘I’d offer you some refreshement, but I’m sure you’d refuse.’

Killmorin seated herself on the couch, facing both them and the door. ‘Vintage Eeko Saarinen. It’s remarkably easy to acquire Saarinen furniture here. People don’t know the value of what they have.’

Doug sat silently, jiggling his knee up and down. Fey kept her briefcase on her lap, her revolver on top of the briefcase and her hand on her gun.

‘Keep your gun, if it makes you feel better, but you should know that we have precautions against firearms.’ Killmorin said. Fey didn’t move her hand. ‘Suit yourself. Now, let’s discuss our situation. Doug, what Ephemera is doing has incredible implications. You could be a part of it.’

‘You’d just let me come back?’

“I realize now that cursing you was wrong. You are a very efficient office manager with great rapport with our human and non-human resorces and that is valuable to us. As you are obviously a caring and empathetic person. I should’ve trusted that the work itself would reveal its value to you: the lives that could be saved by machines that can prevent accidents before they happen; the healing of our planet with a new limitless, green energy source. For that, I apologize. But I invested quite a bit of capital in incentivizing you. And so, I am giving you an opportunity to demonstrate your understanding, your belief in the project and compensate Ephemera for what you’ve cost us by helping us acquire this creature.’

Doug was too stunned to speak.

‘Doug, I don’t want to rush you, but the sun has set.’

‘You want me to give Fey to you to pay you back for cursing me?’

Killmorin smiled slightly, hearing Fey’s name. ‘I want you to help me transform the future of our world. Did you even know about the existence of creatures like Fey before you worked here? I revealed this wonder to you.’

‘You also revealed the wonder of werewolves and curses to me, Ava.’

Fey heard the werewolf, a low growling and the click of his nails on the black and white checkerboard hallway tile. There was a sneeze and then a whine.

‘Glenn has come to join us. You don’t have much time, Doug, flowers or no flowers.’ Glenn scratched at the door, sounding like any dog.

Doug was trembling, but he managed to say, ‘Ava, what you’re doing is wrong. It’s wrong. I can’t.’

‘I guess one can’t alter fate after all.’ Killmorin raised her voice, ‘Glenn, come.’

The door slid open. Glenn the werewolf stood outlined in the hall’s fluorescent light. He still wore his security uniform. The shirt was ragged, torn and dirty at the cuffs, but the black work pants had held up well. He was barefoot. His baton still hung from his belt. Not that he needed the baton, Glenn’s claws and teeth were very sharp. His growling was punctuated by snuffling and sneezes. Fey thought that his wolf ears were cute. ‘Cute ears,’ she said.

Killmorin looked at Doug and said, ‘Stay, Doug.’ Doug went rigid in his seat.

Glenn stepped into the room. Fey turned her revolver on the werewolf and hoped that he could understand her. He seemed to understand Killmorin. ‘Hold it, Sparky. You don’t know what I have loaded in here, but you have to believe that I came here after sunset prepared for a werewolf.’

Neither Glenn nor Killmorin moved. ‘Glenn, you best leave here now. You’ve been tricked. Ava used your sad affliction to try rid herself of Doug. I saw the pentagram on his hand. It’s not normal for other people to see the pentagram. You know that.’

The werewolf slowly turned to look at Killmorin. She said, ‘You know you can’t hurt me.’ When he continued growling at her, she said, ‘You’re fired, Glenn.’

Gene snarled a terrifying snarl at Killmorin, then left. Fey turned her revolver back on Killmorin. ‘I don’t think he’ll be back.’

Killmorin placed a dull ivory wand on the coffee table and stood up, holding her iron needle.

‘Maybe you don’t think I will shoot you, Ava.’

Killmorin snorted. ‘I believe you would, but I told you that I took precautions against firearms. Your gun won’t work here. Neither steel nor iron can hurt me, which is more than I can say for you.’

‘It shoots fairy darts. They’re flint and they can hurt you.’

‘That’s ridiculous. That can’t possibly work. The flint would just shatter.’

‘You don’t understand. I will make it work.’ Fey sighed at Killmorin’s perplexity. ‘First you unmake the rules, then you can do anything.’

Fey raised her gun and fired. Killmorin lunged as she fell. Fey shot Killmorin one more time and Doug was free.

‘The pentagram’s gone.’ He said. Doug looked up at Fey. ‘So that’s it?’

Fey struck the wand on the table with the butt of her gun. The wand blackened and split open like an overheated bone.

‘No, there’s one more thing to do.’ She pushed her briefcase over to him. ‘Open it.’

Doug opened the briefcase and took out a cast iron skillet wrapped in several layers of deer skin, flannel and plastic bubble wrap.

‘Smash the mirror with it.’

‘The mirror?’

‘That big, shiny screen on the wall.’

‘What’s going to happen to me?’

‘Nothing, if you wear the safety goggles and the work gloves I packed with the skillet.’

‘But why don’t you do it?’

‘Because you have a link to Killmorin, because you are human, and because I already burned my hands on that skillet today.’

‘One question first.’

‘Sure.’

‘Did you really come prepared to kill a werewolf?’

‘Not really.’

Doug frowned.

‘I’d have shot him, though.’

‘With fairy darts.’

‘Yeah.’

Doug sighed, put on the safety goggles and pulled on the heavy suede gloves. Fey covered her face as Doug raised the skillet and smashed it into the screen three times.

The mirror lit briefly, then went dark. Balor’s red eye winked out over the door. Fey had expected something more, some sound, but there was only the absence of ambient electrical noise. All the doors had slid open. In the transformation room, Noel’s remains were laid out on the steel table. Fey looked in each box of wands. The wands were all scorched and cracked. In every room, the computer screens were cracked, too. Nothing worked.

‘Mirror?’ Fey said. There was no answer and that was probably the best she could hope for. She picked up the remains of Noel, then followed Doug down the stairs.

Outside, the car was running. Reynard hopped out of the driver’s seat and curled up in the passenger’s seat. Doug pushed back the driver’s seat to find Glenn the werewolf already sitting in the back. ‘Goddammit,’ Doug said, tired.

Reynard looked at Fey. ‘Alright, I suppose we owe Glenn a ride after losing him his job. Get in, Doug.’

‘Yeah, okay. Whatever.’

Gene sneezed. ‘Sorry.’ Doug dropped his wolfsbane garland out the window onto the parking lot.

Nobody said anything as they drove. They looked at the headlights on the highway and the moon and thought.

This story was excerpted from Drag Noir, edited by K.A. Laity. To purchase, visit the book’s site here.

Carol Borden is Comics Editor for The Cultural Gutter and blogs for the Toronto International Film Festival. She has contributed to several anthologies from Fox Spirit Books.