Courting Trouble (Chapter 3) (Patreon)

Index
Chapter 1
Chapter 2 

Chapter 3

I settled Nemue in as well as I could, providing her with blankets, a spare pillow and giving her food. She ate ravenously, going through crackers, cheese and deli meat so quick I  wondered where she was putting it all. She seemed to prefer milk most of all, so much so that by morning’s end she had polished off the liter I had in the fridge.

In turn, I gathered relevant information from her; several locations the dark elves frequented, where her home was, and the location of the sidhe court. Afterwards I set her up on the couch before catching a few hours of sleep of my own. I woke at the crack of dawn, and started getting ready to set out ahead of sunrise. By the time light crept into the morning sky, I was sliding into a pair of black pants and then buttoning up my white blouse. One quick email check later, the horizon was stained with pink and gold.

I looked across the city skyline, sunlight creating a sharp silhouette over a crimson backdrop. Below cars and taxis rushed by on the street, a few people dotting the sidewalks. I felt a rising pride, like I always do when I look upon my city, my home.

The smell of coffee wafted through my bedroom and I entered the kitchen to see Nemue pouring some into a cup. The blankets were still folded on the couch, and I wondered if, perhaps, her kind were nocturnal.

She turned and offered the mug to me. “ Thank you for taking my case.”

While I appreciated the gesture, I couldn’t help but think it was still my coffee she was brewing to thank me. I took the cup anyway, added cream and sugar, and drank it. 

When the mug was emptied I put it into the sink and shrugged on my shoulder holster and slid on my trench coat. My old coat was ruined on a previous case, the one that opened my eyes to the world of elves, magic and more. The new one lacked the sharp profile of the original but I couldn’t afford a custom coat. Money was tight; few cases for me to take and expenses racking up while digging up more information about the new world I had been exposed to.

“I’ll try to be back with news. Don’t open the door for any reason and don’t answer the phone,” I told her, unlocking the door and walking out. I heard the lock click behind me and a slight scuffling as Nemue retreated back into the depths of my apartment.

Minutes later I was outside, hailing a cab. Flipping through my notepad I decided to head to an address noted as ‘troll bazaar.’ It was the closest, even if I hadn’t heard of it before. gave the address to the cabbie and soon we were driving north.

Ten minutes later, we were coming to a stop in a riverside industrial park, sitting in the shadow of a suspension bridge. I paid the driver with some of Nemue’s money and got out of the cab, looking up at the structure. I double checked my instructions and waited for the taxi to drive out of sight, before slipping into an alley between warehouses.  I navigated the  back ways until I was face to face with a dead end at  the bridge’s base, behind a particularly large, storehouse.

Staring at the stone foundations I felt a chill come over me. Old memories bubbled up as I remembered another bridge. The smell of rot seemed to flow into my nose, the sound of a howling breath, like wind through cobwebs, and a little girl caked in mud and worse things. The old taste of fear and despair roiled up from my belly like bile and I had to swallow it back down.

Pushing the thoughts out of my head, steeling myself, I looked around. Nothing. Nobody here. I searched the wall, running my finger over each brick, eyes following it as if I were reading fine print scrawled over the surface. 

I found it two minutes later. Not quite in the center, I saw a mark, a circular symbol chiseled into the stone, reminiscent of a leaf. It was old, weathered, and if my fingertip hadn’t brushed over it before my eyes did, I may have missed it.

As a detective, one learns the importance of opening doors others want to stay closed. While I was largely ignorant of the supernatural, my investigation into it yielded some basic information I found particularly useful: how to open doors. Not doors with knobs and locks, but ones that hide in plain sight.

Closing my eyes and pressing my palm to the notch, I thought back to a wizened, old Moroccan man who showed me the technique in exchange for my services. He needed an associate found and I offered to wave my usual fees for information. I found his associate, someone who dealt in trinkets and talismans, and he was good to his word.

I recalled his instructions and concentrated on the concept of a river flowing out of my palm, a pond in my chest, flowing down my arm and into the stone. When I saw him open a door in example, a back way into his home, it happened instantly. I wasn’t so adept and the stone stayed hard and firm, sweat beading on my forehead, breath coming out ragged from unseen exertion. After several minutes, I felt something shift.

Opening my eyes again, I saw the mark glowing, a faint blue shimmer traveling down the mortar between bricks like a bead of water. When the light touched the ground there was a quiet grinding of stone and the bricks seemed to part along the line the glowing bead had traced, spreading into a gaping arch.

I slipped inside, nearly tripping over my own feet from the exhaustion, and a second later the wall closed behind me. The dim stairway was barely visible in the dark, spiraling down into the murk. Using the side of the stairway as support I carefully made my way down.

After a minute of descent I began to hear noise, the faint murmur of innumerable voices buzzing like lazy bees. Several steps later a soft, reddish light brought the stairs beneath my feet into focus.

I rounded the last curve, the last couple paces, and I was in the bazaar.