Kitty Goes to Washington (Kitty Norville 2)

I didn’t answer, and he shook his head. “I’m not sensing anything like that. This whole space feels numb. Asleep, almost.”

Stockton sat forward suddenly and raised his camera. “Here he comes. There.”

Jeffrey and I crept over to join him. Squinting, I looked through the gap.

Smith walked past it. I only saw him for a second. But Stockton muttered, with some satisfaction, “Ha, I got you. If only I could get that on film, damn you.”

I hadn’t seen him do anything. He looked just like he had at the hearing, conservatively dressed, his manner calm. He moved across my field of vision, that was all.

Stockton was insane, suffering from some kind of delusion. And I’d fallen for it.

Before I had a chance to call him on it, he pulled something over his head: a locket on a chain that he’d kept hidden under his shirt.

Handing it to me, he said, “Put that on. The next time he walks by, tell me what you see.”

It seemed like a simple piece of jewelry, not particularly impressive. The metal wasn’t silver. Pewter, maybe. It felt heavy. The locket was a square, an inch or so on both sides, and cast with patterns of Celtic knotwork, worn with age.

I fingered the latch. “What is it?”

“Don’t open it,” he said. “It’s got a little bit of this and that in it. Four-leaf clover, a bit of rowan. Cold iron.”

Some kind of folk magic, then. Now, was it the kind of folk magic that worked, or the kind that was little more than a placebo against the nameless fears of the dark?

I put the chain over my head.

I had to give Stockton credit for being more patient than I was. He was used to waiting for his stories, and he was good at it. We had no guarantee that Smith would pass within our view again. But he did.

And he glowed. His skin wasn’t skin anymore. It looked almost white, shimmering like mother-of-pearl. At first I thought he’d gone bald as well, but his hair had turned pale, almost translucent. He looked completely different, but I knew it was him, because he wore the same clothes, and had that same meticulous bearing. For just a moment I saw his eyes, and they were far too large, and dark as night, dark enough to fall into and never climb out again.

I almost shrieked, but Stockton grabbed my arm and pinched me to keep me quiet. Then, Smith was out of sight again. My eyes remained frozen wide open.

“Holy shit, he’s an alien!” I hissed.

“Um, no.” Stockton donned a not very convincing Irish brogue. “In the Old Country they called them the Fair Folk, the Gentry, the Good People, the Hill Folk—”

“He’s a fairy?” I couldn’t decide which was more completely outrageous.

“Don’t say that word, he’ll hear you. Give that back.” He held his hand out for the pendant. Reluctantly, I returned it. “Nobody was ever able to get close enough to confirm any suspicions until he came to testify. I’m lucky I was in the right place at the right time to see him.”

I had to work to keep my voice a whisper. “You can’t be serious. That’s—it’s all stories, folklore—”

“Pot calling the kettle black, anyone?”

Just when I thought I’d heard everything, just when I thought the last mystery had been revealed and that I couldn’t be shocked anymore, something like this came along. I’d never be able to blow off another story as long as I lived. Flying monkeys? Oh, yeah, I could believe. Stockton was right. I should have known better.

Maybe I should chase a few more rainbows looking for pots of gold.

“How did you know?” I said to Stockton.

“I didn’t,” he said. “My grandmother gave me the locket. For protection, she said. And, well, I couldn’t say no to Grandma. She sets out milk for the brownies, even in the Boston suburbs. What can I say, I believed her. But I didn’t know Smith was one of them until he walked into the room this afternoon. I have to tell you, I didn’t expect the charm to work like that.”

Jeffrey said, “I didn’t know what I was looking at. I can’t see through the disguise, but I can see the disguise. Interesting.” He sounded far too academic about it.

Theoretically, having an answer to one question—what was he?—should have brought us closer to answering other questions. Like, what was he doing with his church? Why was he drawing vampires and lycanthropes to him, and what was he doing with them? Why would an old-style Celtic folklore elf do these things?

Activity within the camp increased. Smith was out of sight again, but people were gathering and filing into the tent. Based on what details I could make out from here, the people looked ordinary, commonplace. Like any fringe church community going to a service. People walked with their heads bowed, their hands clasped. I normally wouldn’t see this kind of patience, this kind of humility, from these groups of people.

They almost looked tired.