That said, it would be foolish to assume vampires have nothing to fear from werewolves in smaller numbers. When it first formed, the Fraternity had one hundred and sixty nine members. In the almost four thousand years since then, twenty seven have been killed by other vampires, a dozen by human hunters (including those working for the church), nine have simply dropped off the record, and fifteen died or were killed in unrelated incidents such as wars or natural disasters that left them nowhere to go when the sun rose. Of the remaining one hundred and six, a total of twenty lost their lives to werewolf packs.
A nineteenth-century historian named Chorley once wrote that vampires were some divine balancing act; the lesser of two evils that “by the grace of God” kept the wild packs of supernatural animals from the door of civilization.
Imports and Exports
Saturday, March 18th, 8:05 AM
Despite my family arriving here on longboats, something in the last twelve centuries had driven the seafaring gene from my system. The smell of the ocean was invigorating to some, but as we arrived at Malahide Marina, the sea breeze just made me uneasy.
Cormac parked alongside the pier and checked his phone one more time. “He got in late last night. Very late. You want me to handle this? I know Ronnie pretty well.”
“Knock yourself out,” I said. “We’ll have a code word you can use if you want me to jump in.”
“If I need your help, I’ll say ‘Neanderthal’,” he said.
“What if the topic of neanderthals comes up naturally in conversation?”
“With you about, that’s always a risk.”
Ronnie Watts had been an amateur wizard until one-too-many close calls with unearthly forces convinced him to retire. He kept active in the community, though, and we frequently found him around the edges of cases.
Cormac had been keeping tabs on him, and he was the one who had informed the department that Ronnie now owned a boat. He’d been periodically checking one of those websites that showed boat transponders and had spotted a pattern. Ronnie was generally harmless, but it was best to put a stop to these things early, which was the purpose of this morning’s trip.
“Permission to come aboard!” he yelled loudly as we approached the berth where Watts had his boat tied up. There was a stack of small wooden crates the size of shoeboxes on the dockside and Watts was just emerging from below decks carrying another.
“Cormac?” he asked. “How- I mean, how are you?”
“Very good, Ronnie. How are you?”
“Great great. Just eh-” he seemed to notice the crate in his hand and hurriedly stowed it away. “What brings you to see me?”
“Just checking in, Uncle,” said Cormac. Ronnie wasn’t his uncle, as far as I knew, but it was one of those things younger wizards called older wizards, for reasons I would never understand. He pulled his phone from his pocket and unlocked it with a click. “Noticed quite a few trips over the Irish sea lately.”
Ronnie stepped from his boat to the dock and peered at Cormac’s phone. “You can see where I go on that thing?”
As they talked, I examined the stack of crates. It seemed they had originally been made to carry wine or champagne bottles, but each had since had its internal bracings removed and then been stuffed with lots of balled newspaper. Sitting in the newspaper in the top crate was an egg-shaped stone, approximately ten inches in length. I lifted the top crate to see a similar stone sitting in the second one.
“Anything interesting?” Cormac asked me.
“Fae Stones,” I said. I made a show of counting the crates. “At least nine of them.”
“Oh uncle, you’re not bringing Fae Stones into Ireland, are you? You know that’s not allowed.”
“No, no no,” said Watts, hurriedly. “They’re going the other way. Just loading them up.”
“That’s odd,” said Cormac. “You can find buyers for them over there? I thought they were pretty common in Wales. Just lying about the woods…”
Ronnie ground his teeth slightly. “People pay for stranger things, and as I’m going that way anyway, I figured why not?”
“Let me help you load them up,” I said with a smile. “You need these below decks?”
He was clearly stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“That would be great, thanks,” he said with a forced grin.
I picked up the top four crates off the stack and carried them onto his boat and below the hatch. I was greeted by the sight of about sixty similar crates. I carefully stowed the ones I carried before checking them out. Each contained a similar Fae Stone. They were powerful little spell reservoirs - much like a wand or a staff - but for when you needed to cast a spell and leave it in one place. A carefully stored spell could last decades or centuries that way. I returned to the dock and took the remaining five crates below, giving Cormac one of those ‘you were right’ gestures as I did.
“Well, I don’t want to keep you here,” said Cormac, when I was back on the dock. “I imagine it’ll be slow going, with a cargo that heavy, and you’ll want to get off soon.”
“No, well, I mean-” said Ronnie looking deflated. “Yeah, I should head off.”
“I’ll be sure to keep an eye on you on this,” said Cormac, tapping his phone. “When you get back, I’ll be waiting on the dock. We can go for coffee. My treat.”
It was a small olive branch, but it seemed to do the trick. Ronnie brightened a bit and shook Cormac’s hand, like a defeated sportsman congratulating his opponent.
We waited on the dock long enough to see him push off and make slow sputtering progress out to sea.
“You want me to call Welsh customs and excise?” I asked.
“That’d be cruel,” Cormac said with a laugh.
Life Sentence
Saturday, March 19th, 2:25 PM
Murtagh himself drove the Containment van out to Blessington. I rode shotgun while Symonenko kept Rossier company in the back. Rossier had been silent since yesterday’s arrest, speaking only to Sir Arthur while they negotiated the terms of his sentence. The whole thing had taken place in French, so I only had Sir Arthur’s word and the final report for Archives, but I got the distinct impression from their tone that neither was happy with it and were even less happy with me for proposing it. But they were also both aware that it was better than any alternative.
This time we paused at the chain protecting the road to the halting site only long enough for me to hop out and unhook it. Then I got back in and we drove up to the cluster of caravans.
The site was much more active today. I could see vans and caravans being packed up. JP was overseeing things, but when he saw us he stopped and slowly approached.
I hopped out again and waved a greeting that he returned as soon as he recognised me. Murtagh began a three-point turn on the gravel behind me and I shook hands with JP.
“Two visits in a week?” he asked. He seemed pleased to see me, but was understandably cagey.
“Aye,” I said. “And both visits about JJ’s stag weekend. Is he about?”
JP eyed the van warily. It had completed its turn and Murtagh had alighted and was standing next to its closed rear door. “He’s here. That van for him?”
“That’s up to you,” I told JP. “But we’ll probably be leaving with it empty, if you’re sensible.”
He grunted to himself and walked to JJs caravan. It opened to a few swift thumps and Jamesy Junior emerged, blinking in the sunlight. He carried a hand of playing cards and I could see a few cousins milling about behind him inside.
“What? Ah, fuck, you again?” he said.
“Me again. I’m here to fill in the blanks you left me on Wednesday.”
JJ turned and left his cards on the counter behind him. Then, with an imprecation to the others not to look at them, he stepped out of the van. “I told you everything,” he said.
“Saturday night, you and the pack initiated… Peter, was it? Killed a deer and left it next to the Magistrates house. Sunday night and Monday morning, what did you get up to?”
JJ shrugged. “Just went to a nightclub and had some cans after.”
“And got into a fight that left you limping?”
He hesitated. He was probably trying to remember the excuse he had given me three days earlier, but I did not give him time to remember. I waved to Murtagh, who opened the back door of the van. Symonenko stepped down and led Rossier out by his zip-tied hands. At this sight, JJ let out a growl so deep I could feel it through the soles of my boots. Behind JJ, the door of the caravan opened, and his brothers stepped out. They clearly recognised Rossier as well.
“This is Michel Rossier,” I said to JP. “He’s Swiss. Well, French. And he’s a very special breed of ‘Monster Hunter’. The sort to fly all the way to Dublin to hunt vampires. A bit of a fanatic, if I’m honest, but not untalented.”
JP looked at me in confusion.
“He’s so talented,” I continued, “That within a few hours of arriving in Dublin, he caught wind of a werewolf attack on a deer in the Park, and managed to track down those responsible. He gave your son his limp, and your son gave him his curse.”
JJ turned to avoid his father’s glare.
“You turned him?” JP asked, aghast.
“Was it an accident?” I asked. “Or were you going for some sort of ‘ironic punishment’ thing?”
JJ growled again, but said nothing.
“Either way, he’s been turning at night and hunting. Went after a witch and then after our own department, but the only permanent damage is to him. He’s the biggest victim here. Anything to say?”
JJ mumbled something about ‘self defence’.
“That may be the case, but we have long-term fallout here. He can’t spend the rest of his life in Portlaoise Prison’s special section, and if we send him home his own government will bury him under an Alp.”
Realisation dawned over JPs face and his jaw dropped. “You want us to take him in?”
“That’s right. In exchange for charges against JJ and his pack being dropped. Teach him how to control the transformations. Once Rossier has enough control over the curse so he’s not a danger to others, he’ll be free to make his own way again.”
Symonenko went back inside the van and emerged again carrying Rossier’s suitcases. She put them on the gravel next to him and started work on his restraints.
“He’s not one of us,” said JP, but weakly.
“Not true, since sometime Monday morning.”
“But those who really learn to control it are born to it. He’s starting late. I can’t guarantee I can teach him.”
“Then what you need to do is ensure he doesn’t harm anyone,” I explained. “The Magistrate has made it clear: Charges for whatever damage he does will be laid at the feet of JJ. And that goes double for any damage done to him. No fights and no accidents. We’ll be checking in, and we want to see him healthy and unharmed.”
As we drove away, Murtagh and I watched Rossier standing in a shrinking circle of new pack members in the van’s mirrors.
“You sure he’s gonna be OK?” Murtagh asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m not sure at all.”
Sudden Reversals of Fortune
Saturday, March 19th, 3:55 PM
Symonenko rode back to the department with us in the cab of the van. None of us are small, so conversation was stilted as the three of us were squeezed tightly onto the bench seat.
When we arrived back at the department, I climbed out gratefully and stretched my cramped legs while Murtagh drove the van around to the garages at the rear of the building. I walked a slow circuit of the grounds once, then again. As I looked towards the front door of the department, I felt a low sense of foreboding I couldn’t quite explain.
Inside, I was greeted by a sight that told me my feelings were correct. The usual Saturday staff were here, but each sat alone at their desks. Cormac didn’t even look up as I approached but when I saw Kim in one of the visitor’s chairs, she raised a tear-streaked face to me. She bolted from the chair and gripped me in a hug.
I heard The Magistrate’s voice. “Victor, when you have a moment.” I released myself from Kim’s grasp and turned to see Sir Arthur standing in the door that let to his staircase. I glanced at my watch, to make sure, but I was fairly convinced this was the latest in the day I had seen him awake.
“You OK?” I asked Kim.
She sniffed and nodded in answer, wiping her nose with a balled-up tissue that had already seen a lot of work. “Go talk to him. I can’t-” she trailed off.
I joined Sir Arthur downstairs in his study. Murtagh’s gloves and helmet sat in one chair, so I guessed he had already been spoken to. “What’s going on?” I asked as I took the other chair.
“First, I’d like you to remember that I let you all have a lot of freedom,” said Sir Arthur. “I don’t involve myself in your day-to-day operations and investigations. I do this for two reasons. The first is so that I can act as an uninvolved party when it comes to prosecution and sentencing. The second reason is because I trust you. I trust all of you.”
“Thank you for that,” I said, after a moment.
“I say this because I know that you and Daniel Finlay have been running some sort of investigation on your own for the last five weeks.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“Last night, Mr. Finlay was driving back from Athlone and turned off the motorway to get petrol near Kinnegad,” said Sir Arthur. “According to the Garda Roads Policing Unit, he was on his way back to the motorway, when he hit a curb and he then over-corrected. He was going too fast and his car impacted a lamp-post on the other side of the road. I am very sorry to say that Mister Finlay did not survive.” He waited after that, studying me carefully.
“Shit,” was the best I could do.
A slight twitch of his features was Sir Arthur’s only reaction.
“Sorry. I mean, that’s so unexpected. It was definitely an accident?”
“I’m led to believe it was caught on traffic cameras, and I have requested a copy of the footage,” he said. “Were you and he working on something that may have got him killed?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think so…”
“I think the time for secrecy has passed, Victor. What exactly were you two working on?”
I rose from my chair and closed the door to his study.
“The fae we captured on New Years? The one called Buckley? Just before he died, he told me he wasn’t a fae.”
By the time the telling was done, it was fully dark outside. There was some noise from the basement, where I understood that Containment was planning an impromptu wake that I had no intention of joining. As I passed through the darkened offices, I could see Cormac had already left. I pulled out my phone and stared at it for a few minutes. I knew I should call him, but I had no idea what I could say.
I left the office and walked back to my flat. There, I gathered up all of the notes I had compiled about the Buckley threat. When I had folded the last chart and stacked the last notebook, I felt Sir Arthur’s presence behind me. I turned and handed over the stack.
“Thank you for this,” he said. “Though you should have come to me much sooner.”
“I know, I know. It just seemed so absurd. I wasn’t even sure if I could believe he wasn’t fae.”
Sir Arthur reached into a pocket and pulled out a key. “Take my car. Go find Mr. Francis. I suspect he needs a friend at this moment.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but Sir Arthur waved me into silence.
“Mr. Francis is currently sitting on a dock in Malahide Harbour.”
“I don’t even know what to say to him.”
“Listen, if he wants to talk. Otherwise, just sit by his side.”
I turned to go, then stopped. “But-”
“I know your license has expired, Victor. But I also know you haven’t forgotten how to drive.”
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