Anyan rumbled something conciliatory, but I only had eyes for cheese.
We were at Borough Market, this high end, posh food market. The night before, while Anyan and I were on our date, Blondie had called on Alistair, the guy she’d fingered as having stolen the library book from the Great Repository. Unfortunately, as his freshly bloated corpse attested, she was about three or four days too late. He’d died rather horribly, it appeared, after quite a fight. While she could hardly mourn the passing of a professional petty criminal who should have known better than to play with the big dogs, she did thank him for two things. First of all, he’d left out a drained charm—a simple heart pendant that she could sense had recently released a tremendous amount of power. That cleared up the mystery of how he’d managed to steal the book, since the Alistair she’d known had only been gifted with pretty good glamouring skills, very sticky fingers, and a considerable amount of chutzpah. The second thing for which she was grateful was just how good a fight he’d put up. For at some point during the struggle, the little notebook in which he’d kept his appointments had gotten knocked behind the stove. After fishing it out, she saw that Alistair had an early morning meeting at Borough Market, for the next day. Considering that all he’d had in his fridge were cheap lager and Tesco generic Scotch eggs, she highly doubted he was visiting the market as a foodie.
One thing he hadn’t done, unfortunately, was hide Sarah’s missing textbook so well that his attacker couldn’t find it. But the fact the textbook was missing didn’t have Blondie worried, mostly because she knew who had stolen it and killed Alistair. After all, the only other thing missing was Alistair’s perpetual partner in crime, Reggie. While Alistair had been the (admittedly rather small) brains behind their criminal partnership, Reggie was the muscle. Reggie, like Jack, wasn’t a big man, but he was equally vicious. Reggie also had far less control than Jack did, which was borne out by the fact Reggie liked to masturbate over his victims after he killed them, something both gross and unwise in a world that understood DNA.
Unluckily for the victim, and despite having worked together for so long, even Alistair didn’t warrant any special dispensation from Reggie’s “usual treatment.”
Murdered by his partner, Alistair was now stinking up his empty flat, while Reggie undoubtedly planned on cashing in on what must have been a job so big as to tempt them away from their usual petty shenanigans and rocket them into the big leagues.
Which meant that our team just had to wait for the hand off.
And I got to ogle the cheese.
I knew I should probably take today’s mission more seriously, but I was in such a good mood after last night’s date. It had felt like a real date, and it had finally really felt like I was in the UK. Up till then, we’d just been running around like headless sheep. But last night, sitting in that very English diner eating very English food, I’d remembered I was somewhere I’d always wanted to visit.
After which, canoodling with Anyan had been brilliant. He was making sure we did what I would have thought impossible—really getting to know each other despite all the chaos of this situation.
Plus, from what I’d understood, today was going to be a simple case of thump the minion. We’d wait till the courier came for Reggie’s prize, only we’d be waiting. Then we’d have both the book, and hopefully a soon-to-be-squealing insider telling us everything he or she knew about Morrigan and Jarl’s plans.
There was no way I was wasting artisanal British cheese over a mere minion.
“Would you like a sample?” the man behind the counter said. I think he just wanted to get me away from the glass of his display case. I might have drooled on it.
“Can I?” I asked, beaming at him.
“Of course. What would you like?”
“What would you recommend?”
“How about a bite of this Stilton,” he said, after a brief consideration. “Everyone loves a Stilton.”
He passed me a tiny wedge and I actually saw stars when I placed it on my tongue. It was sharp and delicious, with that unmistakable blue-cheese tang.
“Mmm,” I purred. “Moldy.”
“And this is a bit of Wensleydale,” he said.
This bite was crumbly but creamy, all at the same time. No wonder Wallace liked it so much.
“Would you like a bite, sir?” the man asked, offering Anyan his own small wedge. I watched Anyan take it, greedily eyeballing the cheese as he took a small bite, and then offered me the rest. I ate from his fingers, only just refraining from licking them as I did so.
Anyan laughed. “I think we better take some home,” he told the man. “Wrap up four or five of your favorites, if you don’t mind.”
The man nodded and then began scanning his selection as if he were a master craftsman figuring out which tool would be the best for a job.
“I warn you,” I said to Anyan, sidling up to stand close to him and craning my neck to see his face once I’d done so, “if you feed me good cheese, you’ll never get rid of me.”
“Is that all I have to do?” he asked. “What happens if I sweeten the pot with some of that bread and homemade chutney over there?”
My eyes followed where his fingers pointed and my mouth began watering like a fountain. I was so distracted my libido answered for me.
“Then I’ll sweeten your pot,” it said, much to my virtue’s evident consternation.
All I got in reply was a growl and a fierce kiss, but those little tokens of affections were almost as satisfying as the Stilton.
Soon enough I was clutching a bag of incredibly stinky cheese, which had cost Anyan what might have been the GDP of some tiny country somewhere. “Artisan” apparently translated as “fuck-off expensive.” I considered putting the bag in my backpack, but I didn’t want anyone to see I was carrying around an ax when I unzipped it. Plus I didn’t want to risk the cheese next to the ax-head.
So I hung onto my prize, happy to play the part of the tourists we were pretending to be. As good as his word, Anyan steered me over to look at another stall’s chutneys and dried fruits when he received a text.
“There’s action near Roast,” Anyan said. “Our man’s showed up, and he’s clearly waiting for someone.”
A second later, Blondie called and Anyan answered. After a minute, he said, “Agreed. We’ll head that way.”
I cocked my head at him as he replaced his cell in his back pocket.
“Reggie’s got the book. There’s no sign of the courier, but they’ll show up soon enough.”
Browsing along as we went, we slowly meandered our way through the market. I realized how strangely relaxed I was, as we wandered around the delicious smelling stalls. If I ignored the kidnapping—which really hadn’t been much of a kidnapping, really—nothing much had happened on this trip except for a cool visit to the museum. I could almost pretend the barghest and I were just a couple on holiday, enjoying the sights
It was only when I saw a flash of something moving above me that I was reminded we were on a mission. Magog, I knew, was covering the rooftops. Borough Market felt like it was open air, but most of it was really part of an old, awesome structure with rooftops high over our heads. Only the occasional girder would remind one to look up, and admire the view.
I sighted Blondie and Gog next: Blondie was wearing her hair down, instead of in a Mohawk. If you didn’t look too close she looked like a young, blonde businesswoman, dressed as she was in a conservative suit she’d stolen from the owner of the flat we’d commandeered last night. She was sitting, sipping a coffee and pretending to read a paper. Meanwhile, Gog was standing a few feet behind her, wearing green coveralls and a brightly colored vest that marked him as a Council employee. A close-fitting black cap pulled down low over his neck disguised the majority of his grey skin, and he kept his head bent low to hide his face. To complete his disguise, he was busily sweeping around a set of trash cans.
I could see the creature that had to be Reggie—a rather seedy looking character standing in an awkward spot by a couple of vending machines selling water. According to Blondie, Reggie’s lineage was a hodgepodge of various factions, and the only way I knew he wasn’t human was the very faint glamour sparking around him to dissuade humans from coming near.
The only creature not accounted for was Hiral, who was nowhere to be seen. I wasn’t even sure if he’d come with us, however. He’d shown up the previous evening, with no explanation as to where he’d been all day or where he’d gotten to when we were kidnapped. I wasn’t impressed with his lack of answers, but everyone else seemed to take it in stride as “just Hiral for you.”
When we’d left for today’s mission, he’d just grunted and waved his long-fingered hand, as if to say, “I’ll join you later. Maybe.”
I shook my head, again wondering why everyone appeared to trust the little gwyllion, when something else caught my eye.
“What’s a butty?” I asked, pointing at the sign for a cart also labeled “Roast.” I guessed Roast was the larger restaurant, and this was its food cart.