Kiss of Vengeance (The Fairchild Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Kiss of Vengeance

  E.A. Copen

  COPYRIGHT © 2016 by E.A. Copen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover Art by Ravenborn

  Published in the United States of America.

  The author respects trademarks and copyrighted material mentioned in this book by introducing such registered items in italics or with proper capitalization.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, persons, places and incidents are all used factiously and are the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or locales is coincidental and non-intentional, unless otherwise specifically noted.

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  Other Books by E.A. Copen:

  The Judah Black Novels

  Guilty by Association

  Blood Debt

  Chapter One

  For all his sins, the one Dallon O’Connor regretted most was not kissing his wife and child goodbye. It’d been snowing, as it often did in early March in Boston, and traffic was always a bitch in the snow. He didn’t want to drive in it. Dal only went out because Mickey, his boss, said he needed his right hand to teach an uppity Jew a lesson with a baseball bat. He blamed himself for not staying to protect his family when they needed him most.

  Standing at their bedside during the wake, Dal gripped his white knit cap in his fists and wrung it. The keening and crying women relatives echoed through the hall of their empty house, but the pounding of blood in his ears drowned it out. A cool rage burned in his heart. He promised them vengeance. If Mickey didn’t approve of that, he could go fuck himself.

  Lena lay on their bed as if asleep. Dal had wanted to put her in a green sundress because of the way it made her red hair stand out. The dress was too low cut, though, and would have shown four of the sixteen stab wounds on her chest. As it was, they had enough trouble covering the deep gash in her throat. Grania, their seven-year-old daughter, lie in the crook of her mother’s arm in a white satin and lace gown. He’d bury her with her favorite doll clasped over her chest, and a crucifix in her right hand.

  A firm hand gripped Dal’s shoulder. He turned his head to Mickey Fairchild, a tall, silver-haired, bushy-eyebrowed man of forty-seven years. Dal offered him a hand. Mickey took it but tilted his head to the side and said, “I think we’re past that now, boy.” He pulled Dal into a suffocating hug, before he pushed him back with both hands on Dal’s shoulders. His stormy, gray eyes traveled up and down Dal’s body. “How you holding up?”

  Dal glanced at the doorway to his bedroom where the front of the queue formed. There were too many people in his home. “Well enough, I suppose.”

  “No need for that. I know it’s not easy.” His eyes traveled over to the bed. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints, Dallon. And that Lena was, a saint among sinners.”

  Mickey crossed himself and stepped over to the foot of the bed, expecting Dal to join him. He didn’t have to ask. It was something everyone who worked under Mickey Fairchild learned. You didn’t wait for him to ask. Dal moved beside Mickey, letting his hands move across his chest in the sign of the cross, and bowed his head.

  “The boys brought Blayne Sullivan in,” Mickey whispered.

  Dal’s eyelid twitched. “Where are they holding him?”

  “He’s in the container. I told them to wait for you.”

  Dal lifted his head and looked at Mickey. “Is he the one—”

  “Quiet!” Mickey hissed. “And no, but if anyone knows who gave the order, it’s Blayne. The boys dragged him out of a confessional at St. Joe’s looking mighty guilty. I told them to wait for you before doing him up bloody.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a folded paper, holding it out to Dal.

  “What’s this?”

  “Lena and Grania are to be buried in her homeland. In Faerie, Dallon.”

  “I thought you were taking that issue to Lachlan directly on my behalf?” Dal said as he took the paper and unfolded it. He glanced through the modified will.

  Lena had died without a proper will. The two of them were still finalizing paperwork, meeting with lawyers and banks and getting the approval of the higher-ups. The mundanity of life. He missed the time when the finality of death didn’t weigh on him. But then, had that ever been true? A man in his position was never more than one step removed from death. It just usually didn’t strike so close to home.

  “I tried,” Mickey protested. “You know Lachlan. Set in his ways. The old ways. He still has pull in Faerie. Lena was a Sidhe. That’s high fae, Dallon, not low-blooded like us. That deserves thought.”

  “In other words, Lachlan intends to parade her in front of the rest of the fae. To cart her off as if she were royalty as a means to remind everyone he’s still in control.” He held the paper stiffly out to his boss who took it.

  “As head of the organization, Lachlan’s got considerations we don’t. When you married into the family, you understood that and abided by it, however begrudgingly. You’ll do the same now.”

  “A man’s more tempted to be lenient on his wedding day than when burying his wife and child.” Dal crossed himself and stepped back away from the bed, headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  Dal pulled the white knit cap over his head. “To the container.”

  He fought through the line of mourners. Some of them he knew. Most he didn’t. There were too many faces for him to keep them straight. One of the women reached out to him as he passed by, squeezing her soft hands over his in a gesture of comfort. All it did was slow him down.

  Bill and Lucky stood on the porch off to the right as Dal came out the front door. Lucky plucked at his banjo while Bill sat opposite him in the rocking chair, tapping his foot. They were young blokes, within three or four years of Dal in age, though not nearly as good-looking. Dal had Sidhe ancestry and the supernaturally good looks that came with it. Age and lack of sleep had darkened his eyes, and more than one fist had broken his nose, but Dal could still draw any lady’s eye with a smile.

  Not so for Bill and Lucky. Bill was a dullahan, meaning he didn’t have much of a head on his shoulders. The one he had left him pug-nosed with fat cheeks and a protruding forehead. Bill was as dumb as a box of pig shit, but he was good for muscle.

  Lucky had the brains and, like most dwarves, was good with his hands. He was short, standing no taller than five foot two, and wore glasses that made his intelligent eyes sparkle. His lips were too thick, and his facial hair too uneven to be good-looking. It was a good thing most dwarven women didn’t care much for looks. It was brains that got them going, and Lucky had that in spades.

  As soon as Dal came through the door, Lucky put aside his instrument. Both rose and fell into step behind him. They were the boys Mickey had referred to earlier. Dal used to be one of Mickey’s boys, too. He still considered himself one but, when he married into the boss’ family, the dynamic between him and the other low-bloods changed. Mickey was afraid Dal would piss them off and get a knife in the back, so Mickey promoted him to a bullshit position that meant he ran Mickey’s underlings. Dal was effectively middle-management. He was also Mickey’s bitch, on call night and day to handle the shit the rest of the boys couldn’t get done right. That’s why he’d been awa
y from Lena when it happened. Dal hadn’t forgotten that.

  But Bill and Lucky were just fine for rotten bastards.

  Since he was with Bill and Lucky, he didn’t have to worry about a car. They climbed into a big, black van, windowless in the back, the kind normal businessmen might use for deliveries.

  He climbed in and sat with his back against the driver’s seat while Lucky took the wheel, and Bill sat in the passenger seat. They didn’t exchange words or discuss destinations. Mickey had briefed them.

  Sleepy houses overlooking quiet streets passed by. It was early yet, before sunrise, as that was the best time according to the old fae for a wake. The chill in the air kept normal folk at home in the warmth of their beds. Any other Saturday morning and Dal would do the same, lying next to Lena until Grania came in to bounce on their heads. Instead, he spent the fifteen-minute ride from Dorchester Street to Conley Terminal in sullen silence, considering the best way to extract information from Blayne Sullivan.

  The Sullivans had killed Lena. That much everybody knew. The Sullivans and the Fairchilds had been going back and forth for two years now. Somehow, Lachlan had kept it from getting bloody. Mostly. Dal didn’t have much work save for settling disputes with his fists and running out the gang bangers whenever they tried to set up shop.

  But the game changed when the Sullivans started dealing in crank. Illegal glamors and rem were one thing. At least glamors and rem helped people in their own twisted way. Dal didn’t think much of rem, the magick enhancing drug, but then a pusher never tries his own product, not if he wants to sell it.

  Crank made everybody look stupid. It was a human thing, something fae shouldn’t have dirtied their hands with. Handling crank made them more likely to get caught, too. The pigs were always on the lookout for it. Lachlan decided not to let that stand and sent a message that couldn’t be misinterpreted. Dal and the rest of Mickey’s boys grabbed one of their distributors and carved up his face in the back of the very van they were driving around. Blew the hell out of the cook house, too. Lena and Grania might have been retaliation for that, now that he was thinking about it.

  The van hit a bump, jostling Dal out of his thoughts. He smacked his head on the seat with a grunt.

  “Sorry, boss,” Lucky said. “Roadkill.”

  Dal sighed. “It’s fine.”

  Bill leaned around his seat to look at Dal. “Kink has him in the container,” he said, referring to Blayne. “Probably be nice and softened up by the time we get in there.”

  Dal said nothing.

  “You want me to call ahead for the cement shoes?”

  “He won’t need ‘em when I’m done,” Dal answered.

  Bill and Lucky exchanged glances.

  “Did Mickey give you my scythe?” Dal asked.

  “He did,” Bill answered. “You want it now or when we get to the container?”

  Lucky reached across the gap between seats and flicked Bill on the forehead.

  “Ow! What the hell was that for?”

  “The man just lost his wife and kid, asshole. Quit harassing him.”

  Bill turned around in his seat and rubbed his forehead. “I was only trying to be helpful.”

  The three of them were quiet the rest of the way to the terminal.

  Conley Terminal was a shipping container graveyard and processing center all at once. Every shipping container that came to port in Boston eventually wound up in Conley. Stacked into towers of dirty yellow, rusty brown and faded red, and stretched across acres of land the city didn’t have to spare. Two hundred thousand containers called Conley Terminal home at any given time.

  The container they were looking for was in a different place every time. A result of a special agreement Lachlan had with the port authority. It was also veiled by magick to keep any curious passersby from stumbling into it. Lucky had jokingly called it Schrodinger’s container. It was both there and not there at the same time.

  The van took a right and drove to the end of the row before veering left. They zig-zagged in and out of row upon row of dead metal, leaving lines in the fallen snow. Surrounded on either side by iron, Dal shifted uncomfortably. Brushing skin against any one of those containers would leave him with blisters. Just being in the iron jungle was enough to make him cringe. That’s how it was to be fae in the city. Too much iron and not enough sense, as Mickey used to say.

  The van stopped at the designated place in front of a rusty brown shipping container, and Dal hopped out the sliding door. The sky was gray and threatening more snow. All around it was a cold, miserable fucking day, and Dal just wanted it to be over.

  Lucky stayed in the van and drove it to the end of the row, parked, and sat to keep watch. Bill scanned the area once before he pulled a metal cylinder from the inside of his jacket and tossed it to Dal. Made of solid, polished silver, it was worth a pretty penny, but it was useless to anyone else. In Dal’s hands, it was a deadly weapon.

  Like most fae, Dal had a special kinship with silver. Silver was an excellent channel for magick, and Dal had spent his entire life cultivating the relationship his magick shared with that particular silver cylinder until two were one. It was both a weapon and a key. An extension of himself and the embodiment of his will. Every time he held it in his hand, it buzzed faintly with recognition.

  Gripping the cylinder in his right hand, Dal extended his left palm out and pulled in the energies from the earth and air around him. He fed them in a straight line up his arm, through his chest and down the other arm into the cylinder. Once he’d pumped enough power into it, the silver changed shape, growing leaner and longer, shifting into a scythe. The transformation complete, Dal dropped his left arm and sliced the newly formed silver scythe through the air in front of him. The air split in two, and darkness leaked from one plane into another. Dal gripped the hole in the air on either side and stretched it, drawing it wide enough for him to pass through. He’d opened a Way, a gateway, to a strange world of shadow and emptiness, situated in the space between Earth and Faerie.

  The other side was darker and colder. Blackness stretched in all directions. Only a single floating orb of light ten yards ahead broke the monotony. Underneath that light, tied to a wooden chair and bleeding from a cut to the face, was Blayne Sullivan, the middle-aged, balding and dark haired bastard who could point him to his family’s killer. Bent over him was a black Irishman named Connor O’Shea, better known by his nickname, Kink.

  Kink looked back at Dal, pausing with a fist drawn back and aimed at Blayne’s fucked up face. “About time you showed. We was just getting acquainted, weren’t we, lovey?”

  Dal took off his jacket and handed it to Bill who’d come through the Way behind him. “Blayne Sullivan,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt sleeves and rolling them up. “Do you know who I am?” He handed the scythe off to Bill as well. As soon as it left Dal’s hand, it shrank back into an unassuming, silver cylinder.

  “A cock sucking bastard.”

  Kink drew his fist back further and landed the punch, this time, lower than where he’d been aiming the first time. Blayne bent forward with a high-pitched whine and a gasp.

  “I’m the man whose wife and kid your boss had murdered. And Mickey tells me you know who did it.”

  “I don’t know nothing about that!” Blayne insisted and tried to sit up again. “I swear on my mother’s grave I don’t!”

  Dal put a hand on Kink’s shoulder as he passed, a signal to back off. As soon as he was close enough, he laid into Blayne, punching him so hard it overturned the chair. With a roar, he bent over, picked Blayne back up, and righted the chair only to knock it the other way with the next strike.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Blayne pleaded when Dal picked him up for another. “Ain’t you going to ask me a question first?”

  “You said you didn’t know anything,” Dal growled through clenched teeth. “I figure I might as well beat the shit out of you until one of us feels better. You let me know if you get there first.”

  Blayne’
s eyes widened. Dal landed another punch, this time in his gut, and felt the telltale crack of ribs under his fist. Bill and Kink stood back and averted their eyes as Dal sank into the one thing he knew how to do right.

  ***

  Dal left Blayne able to speak, but only because his knuckles were cut to shreds. He walked away and sat in the dark, flexing his hand, examining the damage done. Blayne had a thick skull, but that hadn’t split his knuckles open. It was the bastard’s crooked teeth. No matter. Blayne wouldn’t have to worry about straightening them when Dal was done with him.

  Kink came over with a bottle of water and handed it to Dal who uncapped it awkwardly and poured it over his bloody hands before handing it back. With a shake and a toss, Kink used his magick to turn the water into a slushy semi-solid before he gave it back to Dal.

  “Do you think he actually knows anything?” Kink asked as Dal rolled the icy cold plastic against his throbbing knuckles.

  “Mickey seemed to think so.”

  “My condolences, Dal. Lena deserved better.” Kink shifted his weight and glanced behind him. “Between you and me, that bastard deserved every bloody thing you did to him and more.”

  Behind them, Bill righted the chair with Blayne in it. Blayne groaned. He was a bleeding, sobbing mess. “Please,” Blayne pleaded. “I swear, I don’t know nothing about the woman and kid. I’ll tell you anything else you want to know, but I don’t know about that!”

  “You want me to do him, boss?” Kink asked.

  Dal pushed himself back up and handed the bottle of frozen slush to Kink. “Thanks for the cool down,” he said and walked over to Blayne.

  “Oh, Christ,” Blayne sobbed. “Oh, Jesus! Please don’t kill me!”

  Dal held his hand out as Blayne continued to beg and sob. Bill slapped the silver cylinder into Dal’s fingers. The cool of the metal in his hand made his knuckles throb, but the familiar buzz of magick was comforting. “If you don’t know then who does?”