The first trolls to arrive in Ireland did so in the 9th century. They were brought from their native Scandinavia as slaves in the longships of their countrymen, forced to work the oars and guard the boats while their masters pillaged. When the Norsemen switched from raiding to settling, more were brought to work as labour. But some escaped bondage in the new cities and fled to the mountains and deep woods where they lived in small and isolated communities for several centuries. They interacted rarely with the local population and even less so after the British Colonisation of Ireland. Their numbers gradually dwindled and the last of them were eliminated in the 17th century in a series of purges by the armies of Oliver Cromwell.
- “A History of Magical Creatures in and of the British Isles”, Richard Chorley, 1855.
Yeah, I’ve read Chorley. He’s talking out of his arse. We didn’t come here as slaves and we definitely weren’t all killed by Cromwell, though it wasn’t for lack of trying.
- “Drunken Rant to his Nephew”, Matthew Clancy, 2015.
“So, any plans for Valentine’s Day?” asked Cormac.
“I don’t date women,” I grunted distractedly in response. This was hardly the time or the place for this sort of chat.
“Neither do I, " said Cormac.
"Fair point."
He continued. "But that doesn’t mean-”
“Or men,” I interrupted. “I’m a different species. It’d be like you dating a gorilla.”
“Never say never,” he said, presumably with that grin of his. “And you could have a hot date with a sexy lady troll.”
“Has anything we’ve experienced over the last week given you the impression that my people -” I stopped briefly so I could focus on the task at hand. “- that my people celebrate Valentine’s Day?”
“They can’t all be criminals who lock law enforcement in shady basements.”
“No, just the majority.” With a loud ‘click' the handcuff on my wrist popped open and I stood triumphantly, before turning to work at Cormac’s. The light in the basement was dim, filtered through a small and dirty window near ceiling-level, and the cuffs holding Cormac to his wooden chair were slim and very fiddly.
“Nicely done,” he said before asking, “Do you always carry a lockpick? Where did you even get one?” The runes on the cuffs indicated they were designed to dampen the powers of spellcasters, and the small size made me think they would be harder to pick than the shackles which had been used on me.
“Yes, and ‘on the internet’, now shut up and stop moving. They’ll be back any minute.”
A rattle of keys sounded from the other side of the metal door behind me, so I dropped the lockpick and ducked into the corner of the room, pausing only to grab the chair I had been chained to and hoist it over my shoulder as a weapon. The open shackle still dangled from my right wrist and swung gently with a faint squeaking noise. As the door opened, I wondered briefly if the sound would give me away, but if they weren’t tipped off by the sight of a chair swung towards their face the moment they walked in, I reckoned I’d be OK.
The visit to my Uncle had been prompted by a request from the Garda DOCB a few days earlier. When you work for an almost-fully-autonomous unit of the Irish government, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that you still work for the government, and that they probably know more about you than you realise. So it came as a surprise when members of both the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and the Criminal Assets Bureau showed up at our office promptly at 9am on a Monday morning. By the time I arrived for work they had been waiting about two hours.
When I walked into the lobby, they were deep in conversation but rose uncertainly to their feet when they saw me. The Garda from the DOCB was not one I had met before. He was very young, very clean-shaven and his suit looked like it cost more than I made in a month which, admittedly, was not an insurmountable task for any piece of formalwear. The CAB representative was an attractive woman with red hair, closer to my own age, wearing a tan skirt-suit. Despite her seniority in years, it seemed he was in charge. He had opened the file he was holding cautiously and seemed to be measuring me against something he was reading on the first page.
“Victor Grey?” he asked eventually. I wasn’t sure what was in the file, but I could understand the confusion. Since last month’s Exciting Incidents, I had a new glamour. I hardly recognised myself in the mirror some days. The face I wore now was actually handsome and even had hair. I looked a bit like that mediocre actor from that awful superhero movie that somehow made a billion dollars..
“Ye-es?” Strange people with manilla folders about me always set my teeth on edge.
“Sorry,” said the young officer. “I was expecting some-” he stopped and shook himself before plastering on a grin I’d normally associate with used car salesmen and plastic clown statues outside certain chain fast-food restaurants. “My name is Micheál Doran. I’m with the DOCB, the Drugs and-”
“Organised Crime Bureau, yes, I’m familiar with your work.” Sometimes, it helped to be rude. I was clearly late for work, I had kept them waiting, and he was still grinning and holding out a hand to shake. This meant he was looking for a favour. How big a favour would be revealed by how far I could push him before the first crack appeared in the facade. I returned the handshake. His was firm and went on for exactly as long as a management training manual had probably told him was the perfect duration. I extended my hand to the woman. “Vic,” I said in greeting.
“Sam. Samantha Barrett. C.A.B.” She pronounced the initials.
We shook hands and I opened the door to the bullpen. “If we’re here to talk about my family, then I’m going to need some coffee first.”
Doran started to follow and then stopped dead in his tracks. “How did you know? Has someone already spoken to you about this?”
I let go of the door and sighed. “That’s a homicide file,” I said pointing to the folder Barrett was carrying. “I can tell by the case ID. You’re here to see me, not to liaise with the department, or you’d be inside already. You have my complete personnel file, so this is about my history; not just about me or about a case I’ve worked here. My employment history can’t be relevant, unless the only recent drug-related murders in the state have a connection to a supermarket that fired me in 2007, a warehouse that fired me in 2008, or a shitty nightclub that burned down in 2010. Which means it’s about my family history.” I looked from one to the other. Doran looked annoyed, but Barrett seemed to be suppressing a small smile.
“I should warn you,” I continued, “If you want me to arrest my uncle or my father, I’ll need an extra copy of the warrant, so I can frame it and hang it on the wall.”
In the end, they didn’t want me to arrest either of them, which was a bit of a shame. But I did have to make a visit to my uncle that afternoon.
It was always a good idea to take backup when making an official visit to the Clan, so I exercised my Droit de Seniority and made Cormac take a Mercedes from the impounded vehicles pool and drive me out to the industrial estate.
“You know I have a car of my own we can use,” he bemoaned as we merged onto the M50.
“I’ve been in your car. It’s a Micra. From the Greek meaning ‘too small for human-sized legs’. This is better.”
The gearbox made a tortured sound as Cormac aimed for fourth and missed. “For you, maybe. And you should have said something. I have a spell that makes the inside of containers bigger. I think it might work on the car.”
“I have seen that spell put to great and terrifying use at the circus. So many clowns…” I said with a shudder. “Anyway, the Clan has a certain old-fashioned attitude. If I show up in a bigger car driven by someone else, they’ll be more likely to answer questions.”
“And you don’t have to take the bus.”
“Never underestimate one man’s desire not to take the bus to Blanchardstown. It can move mountains.” I opened the file Doran had given me and idly leafed through the case history: A double-homicide that had already made national news, but had been solved and closed by the investigating Gardai within a few hours. I’d watched the media cycle through the entire story from Friday night until Sunday morning, when they got bored and started speculating about the identity of Ireland’s newest Lotto millionaire instead. The file made for interesting reading and had certainly answered a lot of the questions I had been asking since the story first broke.
“Your uncle…” began Cormac, hesitantly.
“Yes?”
“He’s your mum’s brother?”
“That’s right.” I closed the file again. “What do you know about troll clans?”
“They have weird names?”
I had to laugh at that one. “Yeah, my Uncle is Chief of the Glowing-Sunset-Skies-On-The-Eve-Of-A-Great-Battle-Or-Important-Journey-Or-Birth-Of-A-Long-Awaited-Heir Clan. But it loses something in the translation. Ask anyone born after 1400 and-slash-or who doesn’t speak Troll, and they’re just ‘the Red Clan’. Most have a colourful shorthand like that. It certainly made things simpler on the battlefield.”
“But your dad is in the Grey Clan? That’s why they don’t get along?”
“Grey isn’t a clan. Grey means ‘of no Clan’. It’s all a bit complicated.”
Cormac hesitated. He poised his hand over the indicator lever and I could see he was reluctant to say something. Then, in the same moment, he dropped his hand on the lever and blurted out, “He called the office once.”
“I know.” I grinned a bit, inside, even though it wasn’t the most happy memory. I’d known since the day after, when averted gazes from some coworkers made me suspicious enough to check the phone logs. “He phoned, drunk, and Sir Arthur told everyone not to tell me? It’s fine. Not the first time Victor Grey Senior has gotten morose and wistful and done something stupid.”
“He’s not involved in all of this then?” Cormac asked, making one of those ‘all of this’ gestures with his left hand.
“Nah, this is the other side of the family. The Red Clan, or rather Clancy Trucking and Hauling. Matt hires a lot of trolls to work for him. Hopefully, we’re after a Clan member. If they’re a member of the Red Clan, Matt can pressure whoever it is to do the right thing.” I left the words “for once” unsaid.
The truck company was headquartered in a depot deep inside a labyrinth of sprawling industrial estates on the other side of Blanchardstown village. The sort that had appeared and spread like bread mould during the Celtic Tiger days. Clancy Trucking held a medium-sized warehouse with no branding; just a small sign on the gatehouse to let the rare visitors know they had found the right place. As we parked, a security guard emerged and walked towards the car. To my eyes, he appeared indistinct, like I was only seeing him out of the corner of my eye even when looking straight at him. For non-Trolls, the effect would have been more pronounced. He’d be the sort of person you’d talk to for ten minutes but who you would not be able to recall one distinguishing feature of, later on. It was a crude glamour, but a reliable one. I’d probably still be wearing one like it if I hadn’t earned the patronage of a millennia-old vampire and blood magician who could make me something much better.
With a sigh I reached up and removed it. My pink human form melted away like fog, and the hands that tucked the gold chain and vial away into my jacket pocket were square and rough and grey. The security guard stopped. Then he nodded an acknowledgement and returned to his booth his interrupted nap.
“Before we go in, you should know they’re not likely to be very friendly to us.”
“Because you’re a Grey?”
I laughed sharply. “Because we’re law enforcement.”
Cormac hesitated. “They’re criminals?”
“Well, if you want to call people who smuggle contraband and traffick in stolen goods ‘Criminals’, then sure. Just don’t open any unlabelled crates, unless you want to start a fight you probably can’t win with magic.” I looked his slender form up and down. “And you definitely can’t win any other way.”
Uncle Matt's office was a small port-a-cabin inside the warehouse that was held twenty feet off the floor by a narrow iron scaffold. A third-cousin led us up rusted steps and inside where Matt’s desk was piled high with folders full of shipping dockets and invoices. Similar piles and binders of paper filled one of the two visitors’ chairs and just about every other surface, including the floor. The only clear spots of carpet were just inside the door and in front of the large window that overlooked the warehouse floor. Matt was standing there, arms behind his back, sagely overseeing operations and reminding the Clan members below who was in charge. It was cheap and obvious theatre, but we were not a very subtle people. It worked.
Matt usually wore no glamour, unless he had face-to-face business with a human who wasn’t part of The World. His skin was dark grey and pitted like a statue lifted from a century at the bottom of the ocean. This impression was enhanced by his lack of ears. Family legend says a rival of my grandfather or great-grandfather had removed them with a knife when Matt was just a teenager.
“Thank you, Robin,” Matt said, without taking his eyes off some activity below, and added gravely, “tell Phil to come see me at the end of his shift.”
“Yes, boss,” said the cousin I’d just learned was named Robin, as he backed out and closed the door.
Cormac and I stood in silence for a half-second before I said, “Tax season?”
Matt half-turned to me and raised an eyebrow.
I gestured at the files about me. “Let me guess: Revenue wanted to see your records, so you’re complying. To the letter.”
Matt’s impassive face broke into a grin. Cheap theatre, indeed. “My nephew the detective!” He carefully stepped through the mess on the floor and gripped me in a bear-hug. “It’s been too long!”
There’s few trolls in the Clan taller than me and only a handful stronger, but Matt was one of each. He gripped harder and tilted back until I could feel my ribs creak and my heels lift off the floor. He then dropped me back on the carpet and turned to Cormac.
“And who’s this? A friend?”
“Colleague,” stammered Cormac in surprise, before recovering slightly. “Cormac. Cormac Francis. Office of Special Investigations. Wizard.”
Matt took a half-step backwards. “This visit is for work? C’mon, Vic, you know I don’t do any business that OSI would care about.”
“This isn’t about you,” I said, “don’t worry. But we do need to ask about an employee. Can we sit?”
Matt retreated to his chair and gestured at us to take a seat. I took the empty chair, and Cormac lifted the stack of folders from the other and made one of those ‘where should I put these?’ gestures with his shoulders.
“Oh, put them anywhere. Please.”
Cormac thought for a second, then muttered an incantation under his breath. With a strange folding motion, the folders crumpled and vanished. I’d seen him do that trick in his stage-performing days and once or twice since, but never on anything bigger than a coin or a playing card. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They’re still in the room. They’ll appear when someone looks for them in a place they don’t expect to find them.” It seemed Cormac was also no fan of Revenue. He then reached into his satchel and withdrew the DOCB file and handed it to me before taking a seat.
I dropped the file on my uncle’s desk and flipped it open to the photos at the end of the report, and spun it around for him. “You probably heard about the double homicide at the petrol station outside Dundalk last week?”
Matt nodded and leaned in to study the photos.
“Drug deal gone wrong,” I continued, as I flipped over to the next photo. “Low-level member of a gang you’ve probably dealt-” I stopped myself almost in time. “… heard of. He was buying a metric shit-tonne of meth off someone from north of the border. Someone was probably sampling too much of their own product, and an ill-judged comment by one of them got taken personally by the other. It turned ugly and they ended up shooting each other.”
“I heard about this, yeah,” said Matt. “How do they know what happened between them?”
“Our guy was an informant. He was wearing a wire. Part of a long-term operation by the DOCB to map drug networks around the island. They have the whole thing on tape.”
Matt let out a low whistle of surprise. “That wasn’t on the news.”
“Shame they weren’t listening live, or what happened next may have been avoided.” I flipped to the last four pictures in the file and spread them over the desk. “They met in a corner of the car park not covered by cameras. But three minutes after they shot each other, this individual was caught passing an ATM on the forecourt by its CCTV camera. He crossed back two minutes later carrying a duffel bag.” I tapped the next pictures in turn as I continued, “then a truck with green livery pulled out of the car park where a motorway camera saw it heading south.”
Matt squinted at the grainy picture of the individual carrying the holdall. “Hard to say who it is.”
“That’s the thing. The ATM is new and its camera is usually crystal clear. It normally catches everything in 4K but it suddenly went all fuzzy and you can’t even tell this person’s height or gender. It seems some clever clogs at the DOCB knows what a cheap glamour does to cameras, and enough about green trucks to put two and two together.” I gathered the pictures back together and closed the file. “Someone who works for you stumbled on a crime scene. They were smart enough to leave the drugs where they were, but they walked away with almost four hundred thousand euros of the government’s hard-seized cash, and the Criminal Assets Bureau really wants its money back.”
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