Chapter Twelve

"Some of the Pieces"

The amount of security we brought around the Dark Docks within the next few hours was, let's be honest, borderline insane, but it was absolutely necessary, considering what we were dealing with. Charlotte had brought in several of her hunters to run extra defense, and I made sure she only invited the people she trusted the most. Of course, Charlotte being Charlotte, she insisted all her hunters could be trusted with her life, and me being me, I'd asked her to only bring the ones who I would trust with my life.

We had resealed the steel container back up, so that nobody could see inside, and I'd already sworn Simon to utter silence, as we moved to offload the container from the Dead Letter Office ship and put it onto a set of wheels for a hauler truck to get it out of there. We'd also put together a convoy to move along the front and back of the truck as I sat shotgun in the truck's cab. Charlotte was on her bike, and we moved with a sort of military precision that I hadn't expected.

Charlotte had taken my insistence that we deal with things with the utmost care to heart, and the fact that I was asking for her help was more than enough for her to already be on edge. Every question she asked for further detail about the contents of the container I dodged, and I told her we could talk about it in more detail once we were safely on the Sexton estate.

"You're sure you're not being overly paranoid about this Dale?" she asked me over the phone just as we were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.

"I assure you, sis, I'm not," I told her, one of the SoulEnders resting in my hand, not even wanting to waste the time on the draw, as I kept my eyes sweeping over the area around us. "What we're carrying is the equivalent of a live nuke, and the fact that someone was willing to blow up the Dark Docks just to keep us from finding it should tell you everything you need to know about why I'm so paranoid."

"I would simply like to know whom we're supposed to be on the watch for, that's all, Dale."

"If I knew who our enemy was for certain, I would tell you, sis," I said to her. "I've got some theories but nothing I'd feel comfortable shooting someone in the face over. You can certainly be a little more cautious than normal if you happen to see any vampires, but I'm not crossing anyone off the list yet. Basically, keep on your toes and if you see anyone look at you even a little funny, be prepared to draw down on them."

"We should be that on edge?"

"That much and more."

Things were quiet for the next few minutes, and just two minutes shy of Sexton manor, the convoy came under attack. I saw the rocket flying towards the lead protector vehicle just half a second before it burst into flames, flipping over and crunching down on top of everyone inside of the SUV. I hoped the vehicle was reinforced enough for them to survive, but I wasn't going to take it as a given. I did, however, have a view to trail the line back where the rocket had come from, so I leaned out of the window and fired off a shot in that direction. From a place off on the hill, I saw a flash of green fire and knew that the SoulEnder's round had traveled true and put down whoever had launched a rocket at us. It wasn't that my aim was miraculous at such long range - the reflexive enchantment on the SoulEnders meant that anyone who attacked me (or anyone reasonably close to me) would immediately become the next target of the SoulEnders, even with very little aim.

"Front car down!" Charlotte said to me over the phone link. "Should we--"

"Negative, sis! Get the convoy inside of the compound! They don't care about your people, so either they're gone and you're wasting time, or they're not, and you can come back for them once the cargo is secure but secure this goddamn truck!"

I heard Charlotte growl through her helmet mic, but she stayed with us, and a minute or so later, we were at the gates of Sexton manor, sailing through. As soon as the truck was in, I saw Charlotte's bike skid, turn and start heading back towards her people, zipping past the rear-guard SUV who followed us onto the estate.

The guy driving the truck, who clearly wasn't used to moving cargo under fire, finally released his grip of the steering wheel as he turned to look at me, his voice stuttering out his sentence. "W-w-w-where do you want me to put this, chief?"

"Just drop it off in front of the garage, then you can go," I told him as I opened the door to the vehicle and hopped out. Ellis, the head of the Saxton estate guard slowly wandered over in my direction. He was a big, mountain of a man and had always had fists the size of basketballs, his body built like three linebackers strapped together into one enormous clump of flesh, muscle and sinew. He'd had the big bushy grey beard for as long as I could remember him, and that had to be approaching thirty years. I'd always suspected that Ellis wasn't quite human anymore but had always found it impolite to ask. The guardians and caretakers of the manor were best trusted to tend to their own needs as well as they do the manor, and what they did when they weren't doing those things was none of my business.

"Anything we need to be worried about, Master Sexton?"

"Whoever it is ain't gonna be stupid enough to attack the compound, Ellis," I told him before I turned to gaze at our gate, hoping I wasn't being too optimistic. "At least they shouldn't be. It wouldn't hurt to give the perimeter a once or twice over, just in case somebody's getting bold or desperate."

"You got it, Master."

"And tell Joe and Kilroy to stay on their toes. Either Charlotte's coming back with wounded in tow or she's coming back seriously pissed. Possibly both. Getting on her bad side tonight is probably not the best of choices."

"We'll be tippy top of our toes, Master," Ellis said, giving me a polite salute before starting to walk away, heading off to reinforce the walls of the estate. I was certain whatever potential invaders we might have to deal with would probably take one look at Ellis and then turn tail and flee as fast as they can. Not that I'd blame them. Even with the SoulEnders at my disposal, Ellis knew the grounds better than I ever would or could and would use every bit of it to his tactical advantage. I'd only give either me or my sister a fifty-fifty chance, if it ever came to that.

I walked towards the container we'd hauled over and brought over a ramp so that I could move things out from the inside of it, if I decided to do that. I removed the lock on the back and opened the door again to get greeted by that familiar musky smell I'd endured before. I took a moment to look at the inside of the container, and now with the benefit of time and safety on my side, I could appreciate the intricate and complicated spellwork done on the inside of the container, even if its potency had been lost to the ravages of time.

The container was meant to be impregnable except for those with the correct access incantations, but it wasn't meant to hold for longer than a few years. The more powerful the magic, the harder it was to give it longevity and durability without incurring an insanely high price. When this had been shipped to North America, it had been layered with shield upon shield upon shield, intent on keeping prying eyes out and raiders away. And it had made it to San Francisco just fine.

But no one had been there to pick it up.

And so, it had sat, waiting for someone with the correct credentials to come by and collect it. But for whatever reason, nobody had come. Maybe the person entrusted with it and had died of natural causes or had been killed and not left any instructions. Maybe something had come up? Eight years ago - that fell within the period I was doing the druid's equivalent of a college year abroad, out walkabout, seeking to find myself and trying to prepare myself for the eventuality that I would be Gunslinger sooner or later. That meant I was completely out of the know about what was happening in the area at the time - I'd been out of touch, out of reach and occasionally off world. Local Bay Area supernatural politics at the time couldn't have been further from my mind.

"You're not going in there without me, are you, little brother?" Charlotte's voice said to me. I'd missed her arrival when I'd been considering what I knew about how this sarcophagus ended up in this container at our docks.

"Are your people okay, sis?"

"A little beaten up and bruised, but they'll manage," she said. "You want to tell me what this is all about, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?"

"How well do you remember eight years ago?"

Charlotte frowned at me, an expression of annoyance that I always found a little amusing, since I knew she meant it to be intimidating, but it always just reminded me of when we were children, and I would vex her with silly questions. "As well as anybody else does, I suppose. Why do you ask?"

"Were there any major deaths or incidents around that time involving elves, faeries, merfolk or vampires back then?"

She rubbed her temple, as if scrolling through the file headings in her mind, looking for anything that might have fit the bill before she nodded. "There was a turf war near Chinatown. The vampires, fae and merfolk were struggling to control a central area on the very outskirts of Chinatown, and there was a firefight that actually spilled over into civilian casualties. I remember Dad seeming incredibly cross about it, how supposedly it was going to get handled and it never did. Instead, it was a mess that just kept festering and festering until eventually the three sides killed enough of each other off that they stopped fighting about it. Are you telling me this has to do with that?"

I nodded, as I pointed inside of the container. "Yep. And it explains why everything's been so difficult regarding the merfolk for so long. They were told to hold out and that things would be clearer soon, but that day never came. And no one wanted to be specific about what sort of aid was coming, because it would've made the ship a massive target."

"Wait, you weren't kidding when you said it's the Queen of Atlantis?"

"We've thought passage in and out from the Atlantis barrier was impossible for so long, nobody thought to check and see if anyone had been trying new things. Apparently, someone figured out how to breach the barrier a couple of decades ago, but they kept it quiet."

"How do you know that?"

"As it turns out, Digger's known an Atlantean from behind the Veil name of Nigel for years and he didn't think to mention it to anybody because Digger apparently knows fuck all about how Atlantis is supposedly locked behind an impenetrable fucking wall!" I said with a laugh. "Like, he's sitting on easily one of the most valuable pieces of information of the last decade and he doesn't even fucking know about it. My god. Classic Digger. He wasn't the only one, but the other knew better than to go blabbing."

"So one Atlantean has figured out how to cross the Veil, and he's the only one?"

"No, he's not. He was just the first. I think whatever they're doing, it can only get people through every couple of years or so, which is why they sent her," I said, gesturing towards the inside of the container. "The actual Queen of Atlantis, here to petition whatever magicians she can get to help her break down the Veil enough for her people to come and go from Atlantis again," I told my sister. "But she's also here to settle the dispute, by establishing the merfolk's legitimate claim to parts of San Francisco."

"Hang on, I thought the merfolk's claims never extended onto land."

"That's the problem with San Francisco, sis... some of the land is really kind of water," I sighed. "Parts of the city are built upon landfill. Even so, a merfolk's claims can include portions of coastal land, if there's a powerful enough convergence of ley lines there."

She closed her eyes in annoyance, as a few things started to fall into place for her in her mind. "Neon Stonehenge."

"Nailed it in one," I told her. 'Neon Stonehenge' was the nickname for an intersection on the edge of Chinatown, where three streets - Columbus Avenue, Pacific Avenue and Kearney Street - all met in one chaotic intersection that was always lit up, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, near City Lights booksellers and a rather remarkable number of strip clubs. There's always been a powerful energy you can feel just standing there, For those non-magically inclined, it's just an odd intersection with three overlapping streets, but those of us with the sight have always been able to peer with our Second Sight and seen the nine golden ley lines of power crisscrossing right at that exact spot, a veritable well of power for which anyone could draw upon. They're even tangled up in a new public art sculpture of flying, illuminated books that artists recently constructed without knowing they were tapping straight into a wellspring of natural magic resources. The artists called it "Language of the Birds."

Before mankind had shown up, however, the location had always been a sacred site for the merfolk, who had built a shrine there that the human settlers had just mistaken as strange rock formations and disrupted them. As such, people have always been trying to control access to Neon Stonehenge, and we as the Druids have been making sure to provide equal access to anyone and everyone.

"They want to use Neon Stonehenge to, what, help them bust through the bubble and into Atlantis?" Charlotte asked me. "Isn't it far too far from us for that to work?"

"I swear, Charlotte, this is yet another reminder of why I'm the Gunslinger and you're the Huntmistress. You have no love of a bloody good mystery." I shook my head, almost ashamed at how much she'd seemingly forgotten, although maybe she just needed my reminding to jog her memory. "Did you pay zero attention during astral geography classes?"

"I learned everything needed to pass the exams and then flushed the knowledge as soon as I was out of the course, dear brother, because none of it was ever going to be relevant to anyone, ever."

"Except now, of course," I said to her smugly. "Because now it's more relevant than ever. I can't believe you've forgotten this. Alright, so Atlantis isn't an island in the traditional sense like Australia or England, in that it's, essentially, mobile. It's drifting and can be anywhere within the Earth's water system. When humanity first encountered the merfolk home, it was in the Atlantic Ocean, which is why they've called it Atlantis. But for the last hundred years or so, it's been just a hundred miles or so out from San Francisco. No one was quite sure why it moved out this way, because we couldn't communicate with the residents, but we still kept tabs on it, nevertheless. Dad used to tell me at some point the Druids were going to have to do something about Atlantis, especially since it's just off our shores, but I don't think I ever expected it was going to be me as the Druid who had to deal with it."

"And we've got the actual Queen Queen of this floating island mystery country here in a shipping container because the people who were supposed to be picking her up forgot to have a backup plan in case they died?"

"Seems like it."

"And they haven't sent anyone else to figure out what happened?"

"I imagine they did," I told her. "I'm betting it's been the Atlantean who's been keeping protective magic up on Detective Gao. I'm not entirely sure why, but somehow our missing fae girl is caught up in all of this for reasons I haven't quite figured out yet. Just because I have some of the pieces doesn't mean I have all of them."

We stepped inside of the container and felt the dust shaking loose around us as we walked further inside. There were dull stones scattered around the place that had once been glowing crystals, pulsing with power. I could see scraps of paper, and wondered how much information the Queen had been carrying with her when she'd left Atlantis.

"It's hard to imagine this just sitting undisturbed for seven years," Charlotte said as she stepped up into the container.

"Closer to eight," a voice said from behind her, as both Charlotte and I turned to look at the base of the ramp we'd just walked up. There stood Detective Gao, with an older merfolk gentleman dressed in a deep sunset orange suit made of scales, as the two peered into the container. I'd left standing instructions that if Gao showed up to search him, then have him brought to me wherever I was on the grounds. Seemed like that hunch paid off. The merfolk continued as he started walking closer towards us. "Forgive me for not reaching out sooner, Gunslinger, but your kind and ours have not always seen eye-to-eye and I was not sure you could be trusted upon to make the correct judgement. I am Thoypsynx, the Queen's personal troubleshooter, and the person who was dispatched a few months ago during our most recent opening. I am happy to answer any of your questions, but I must ask, is the Queen's health and safety currently still optimal? Is she still in good condition?"

"I think the hibernation spell is the only enchantment still holding in the entire container, but yes, she's still alive and her health hasn't been affected at all," I told him. "I was just about to use one of the SoulEnders to shatter the lock and disrupt the spell to wake her up."

Thoypsynx raised his hand sharply, a worried look on his face. "Please no, Gunslinger. While it's possible that will work fine, I would much rather not risk it and would prefer to use the revival locket to ensure a smooth and traditional reawakening."

"Based on that last power crystal's coloration," Charlotte told him in warning tones, "You haven't got too much longer to do that. A few days at best. Any longer and the spell's going to do whatever it's prepared for when it runs out. I imagine that's got to be to just wake the queen up and send her on her merry way, yes?"

"Unfortunately, no," Thoypsynx sighed. "You need to understand there are two factions at war within Atlantis right now, the old guard, who believe that we should stay within our bubble and not interact with the rest of the world, and then there are those of us who want to rejoin the world, who believe we have learned our lesson."

"And let me guess... the old guard are the ones who have Saoirse Staire held hostage?" I asked them, scratching my head for the piece of information I just hadn't found that would tie it all together. "I still haven't for the life of me figured out how the hell she figures into this."

Gao laughed bitterly, shaking his head. "I'm afraid that's on me, Mr. Sexton. It seems when we were talking about my case, I left out a detail that I didn't even realize was important." He reached into the front of his shirt and pulled out a small silver half-heart locket, not taking it off but showing it off to me. But with even the quickest glance of my Second Sight, I could see the thing glowing like a tiny spotlight before I turned my Second Sight off and let my normal eyes see it again. The two halves of the locket would form the revival spell the Queen was waiting on. "We've got a seven-year evidentiary policy, and at the end of seven years, anything that's left over typically goes up on auction, but the city doesn't mind us snagging a few things here and there."

"Let me guess - remnants from a big mass gang shootout, although there was way more blood than there were bodies," I said with a smirk.

"How did--never mind, stupid question. Some kind of supernatural squabble?"

"Looking like," I said. "I wasn't around at the time, but my sister says there was a big kerfuffle between the vamps, the fae and the merfolk, resulted in a whole lot of dead bodies hitting the floor, but a bunch of those bodies wouldn't hit the local morgues, as they'd be taken in by their people, to keep people out of the know. But we have an arrangement with the morgue, which kept the bodies from making the news." I glanced over at the Atlantean. "I'm betting you found a way to get messages in and out of Atlantis sporadically, and used those messages to reach out to some old faerie contacts and set it up so that there would be a fae coyote there to claim and set up your Queen?"

"That's correct," Thoypsynx said. "We were pleased to see old allegiances still held."

"Fae turn into coyotes?" Gao asked me with a scowl. "Was it a fae that looked like that damn wolf that attacked me?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that was a vampire I watched take his own life in front of me a couple of hours back by the name of Viktor," I told him. "You don't have to worry about him anymore. And by 'coyote' I meant it more in the traditional law enforcement sense, as in someone who helps others circumvent borders. If you want someone to help you get in or out of a place, you turn to the faerie, and they know someone who can help. They didn't want the local merfolk to know because they would've made a huge fuss about it. So they reached out to someone who understood discretion. Someone who ended up getting killed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not all vampires are bad, Gao, try to keep that in mind moving forward. But this Viktor you had on you was a real bad apple."

"The little statues I was using were keeping him at bay, Arturo, so once you'd survived that initial attack, you were never really in any danger," Thoypsynx said to him. "Not unless Bwelakyx showed his ugly face, but at that point, then it would've come down to who was better at magic, him or I?"

"Bwelakyx?" my sister asked.

"Ten to one that's the Atlantean name of the mysterious Nigel we've been talking about," I said. "I'm betting he was the first one out of Atlantis. Escaped and maybe thought he'd be the only one, but eventually realized he'd left behind enough notes for you to figure out how to send a second person through, and that was not what he wanted, so he's trying to make sure that you stop sending people."

"And he's the one who's got my fiancée?" Gao asked me.

"I'd say so," I told him. "We just need to go about finding a way to make contact with this rogue Atlantean and I'll see what I can do about negotiating her return."

"I still don't understand why she was taken in the first place, Dale," Charlotte said to me.

"Because this pendant is only half the locket, Miss Sexton," Gao said. "Whatever it is it does, you need both halves for it. I got a message about twenty minutes ago demanding I turn my half over the next time they call or they're going to kill her."

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. "Wow, this guy's gonna monologue me too? He knows he can't kill her, because then he doesn't have any leverage, so why is he even bothering to say that? To a detective no less. This Nigel guy's not the sharpest tool in the shed, is he?"

"Bwelakyx may not be the most experienced kidnapper or blackmailer, Lord Gunslinger, but he is still quite the effective and dangerous mage," Thoypsynx said. "And he is willing to do anything to ensure that Atlantis remains trapped behind the Veil. He was an escaped convict known for practicing reckless and environmentally unsound magics. He was also a meticulous note taker and left his journal behind when he broke through the Veil fourteen years ago. That's how we were able to send the Queen through seven years ago, and myself a month or so ago. I apologize that it took me so long to find my bearings. I... I should have come to the Druids sooner, but we Atlanteans weren't sure whom we could trust, what with our Queen's disappearance."

"Yeah, and Nigel had a fourteen-year head start on you, but he couldn't have known about the Queen being here until recently, otherwise there would've been action on the Dark Docks long before this," I said, glancing around the inside of the container before my eyes settled on a fine metal latticework I could see running along the surface of the interior. "Lemme guess - cloaking spell is the second-to-last to fail, and it was all built around a seven-year lifespan, with the expectation that if something went wrong, the follow up team could come and clean up before things went too far south."

"The fact that a follow team was needed at all meant we were quite deep into our back-up contingencies to begin with," Thoypsynx sighed. "But yes, a few weeks after I arrived here, the cloaking spell expired, and both he and I knew that there was someone in a shipping container at the Dark Docks. I knew who exactly who it was, but it wasn't until the one you're calling Nigel began poking around that any of us knew how to find the restoration locket."

"And by the time you got close enough, Nigel already had abducted Saoirse, and had half the amulet," I said, "and you were stuck playing defense without knowing who to trust. Meanwhile, Nigel had fourteen years of contacts and experiences, knew the lay of the land and knew who a detective would turn to, so he's been doing his best to keep tabs on me and Charlotte. Him and his little vampire flunkies."

"I don't understand the vampires' role in this at all, though, Dale," Charlotte said to me, a cross expression well-settled on her face. "I'm missing something. Explain it to me."

"It's only a theory, but I think it's a good one. I think Nigel promised the K4 - the Soviet bloc vampires who have been moving into San Francisco lately in surprising numbers - control of the Dark Docks," I told her. "He doesn't care a damn about local politics, as long as Atlantis stays behind the bubble, and nobody comes to put him in prison again. Think about it - it's a powerful resource and steady income stream, plus if you're willing to bend the rules, that income stream can get mighty."

"That's assuming the K4 thinks we won't notice."

"I think they're so determined that they weren't going to let us try and stop them," I said with a shrug. "They figured once they'd gotten their claws in, they'd be there like a tick infection, and we'd be prying them out for so long that we'd give up."

We could all hear a slight buzzing sound, and Gao pulled his phone out of his pocket. "He's calling back," he said to me.

"Gimme the phone." I took the phone from him and answered it, but Nigel started talking before I could say anything.

"Are you ready to give me what I want, Detective Gao?"

"Yeah, sorry Nigel, but that play shipped out with the last bit of lifeblood in the last Regent of Tides," I said to him. "You know, the one you had so thoughtlessly killed. You might be used to calling the shots, but we're going to do this my way... you want the locket, and I want the girl. So, I'm going to play you for it."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, as Nigel suddenly tried to recontextualize his entire situation. "You must be the Druid Gunslinger."

"Well, if I must, then I guess I gotta be. You got me."

"What if I don't agree with doing it your way?"

"Then maybe I'll just take my chances and see if I can open the box without the locket," I said casually. "Representatives from Atlantis must be important, but if they have to be in storage to move them across the Veil, nobody's gonna miss if I screw up with one."

"You don't know who you've got there, do you, Gunslinger?"

I grinned as I spotted Nigel accidentally tipping his first hole card for me to see. "Oh, I know exactly who I've got, but I wasn't sure you knew who I've got here. You're really bad at this, Nigel. Lemme do you a favor and give you a nice offer, one that should be very easy for you to take. You let the girl go, you get the hell out of my backyard, and I decide to forget about you until you become a boil on my ass once more. That's my best offer."

"That doesn't sound like it's a good offer for me," Nigel's heavily Atlantean accented voice said to me in scalding tones across the phone line.

"It keeps you alive, Nigel," I told him. "I can't guarantee that for any of the rest of them."

"What about we have ourselves an old-fashioned duel, winner take all?"

I looked over at my sister and rolled my eyes. "You really think you and I are going to agree to terms on a duel? You won't take firearms, and I won't take magic, so unless you really want to do blades at dawn--"

"I accept. Blades at dawn. To the death, no need for seconds. Meet at the unicorn's grove?"

I sighed once more. "You don't want to do this, Nigel."

"Oh, but I do, Mr. Sexton. Either I'm going to ensure that the Queen doesn't live to dispense retribution on me, or I'm going to be too dead for her to do anything about me," Nigel scoffed. "That's good enough for me."

"Alright. I'll meet you at the grove in a few hours. You release the girl at the bottom of the hill and bring her part of the locket up with you, and I'll bring his half with me. Winner takes them both."

"One way or another, Mr. Sexton, I'll be seeing you..."

The line went dead, and soon enough, either he or I would join it.