“Dr. Moriarty!” Sam called, relief coursing through her as she caught sight of Hel striding toward them, Heathcliff perched on her shoulder like a parrot, her long tan coat whipping in the wind. Sam was gratified to see Van Helsing lurch away from her.
Hel’s gaze flicked toward Sam.Are you all right?
Where were you?Sam’s look returned.
Van Helsing interposed himself between them, cutting their game of glances short. “Miss Moriarty,” he said, as if he hadn’t just been trying to turn Sam against her, “you’re from Ireland, right?”
“How spectacularly observant,” Hel said dryly. “Did you figure that out yourself?”
“What are we looking at?” Van Helsing continued. “I’m afraid I’m a little rusty on Irish monsters. Do you think it’s fairies? They’re the ones that abduct people, aren’t they?”
“Don’t call them that,” Sam said sharply. Hadn’t he read any books on the Good People at all? Sam was afraid to think the word, let alone give it breath.
Van Helsing snorted. “What,fairies? Whyever not? They seem easy enough to deal with. Vulnerable to iron, right? Or a net, I imagine.”
“If you don’t stop,” Hel said, “you’re going to find out.”
“Fine then, what do you call them?”
“The Good People,” Hel said. “Or the Folk. Anything so long as it’s not their name.”
“What are they, really?” Sam asked. The books Sam had read were unclear on the subject, full of contradictions and what she was fairly certain were metaphors. But the Folk couldn’t truly be “the scream before a death” or “the laughter when you lost your way,” could they?
Hel shrugged. “They are Themselves. Some call them the old gods, and others the dead. Some call them nature spirits, and others fallen angels.”
Sam remembered her grandfather’s stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann: Manannán mac Lir, the son of the sea and guardian of the Otherworld; Brigid, goddess of poets and wisdom, healing and smiths; and the Mórrígan, also known as the phantom queen. But also, the humble brownie, the shapeshifting pooka, and the mischievous leprechaun.
“You’ve got to be joking,” Van Helsing scoffed. “They’re monsters, like all the rest. Not gods or fallen angels. Besides, nothing can be all those things at once.”
“That is exactly what they are, and only fools call them by name,” Hel said, with a hard look at Van Helsing, who had the decency to flush. “But we can count ourselves fortunate: They’re not the ones behind the disappearances.”
Van Helsing frowned. “How do you figure?”
Sam understood at once. “The Folk tend to take people they like.”
The very fact that the English were upset meant the people who had disappeared were unlikely to be the sort the Folk might take a liking to, let alone love well enough to abduct. Even if they were, these people had likely lived in cities, to which the Folk had a particular aversion on account of all the industry and iron.
Sam couldn’t help but feel a vague sense of disappointment. She knew the Folk were nothing like the winged nymphs of English imagination, but she couldn’t help but find them fascinating. Inconstant, glorious, and undefinable, they were a dangerous puzzle.
Sam glanced at Hel, but the other woman’s face was a mask.
“Well, there are plenty of other monsters in Ireland,” Van Helsing said. He was right, of course. Sam had cut her teeth on stories of kelpies, the vicious water horses who drowned and devoured their prey, leaving only their livers to catch in some fisherman’s net, and there were plenty more besides that.
“If the monster is even from Ireland,” Sam murmured, half to herself.
Van Helsing’s brow furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Hel said, “that between the Chimera in the southern heath and the strigoi in the salt flats of France, the creatures can’t be counted on to stay in their usual ranges. My father’s business trafficking monsters on the underworld’s shadow market has seen to that.”
Van Helsing frowned. “Why haven’t I heard of this? Does Mr. Wright know?”
“Yes,” Sam and Hel said simultaneously. Though why Professor Moriarty’s monstrous affairs had been kept from Van Helsing, Sam could only guess. Perhaps it had something to do with his lack of subtlety. Or his inability to blend in. Or the sheer decibels of him.
Van Helsing gave them an odd look, and seemed as if he might say something more, but then the captain was calling him over as sailors threw lines over to the dockhands and readied the gangplank.
“Where were you?” Sam asked Hel once Van Helsing was out of earshot, trying not to sound accusing. It wasn’t Hel’s job to stay by her side, whatever Van Helsing might imply, but Sam had thought she might want to. “I looked everywhere for you.”
Gently, Hel slipped Heathcliff into her pocket. She didn’t meet Sam’s eyes. “We’re in my family’s territory now.”
