13

The idea to negotiate with Troykin was to get them stirred up some, and then you could get them to agree to most anything. Plus, losing face was a big thing to Troykin, so what they agreed to they'd stick with, however they agreed to it. I had asked Fawn about the Troykin up here, and she had told me that they were generally willing to work with humans.
Larry Potter was a name known up here, as his shop catered to all races, and considering a lot of the wild racist xenophobia practiced by humans and the non-human on each other, Larry was considered a good man to know and helping his sister-in-law could be seen as getting a big discount on something. All told it was a good thing to be Larry's sister-in-law.
The Troykin almost fell over themselves when I told them who I was. They didn't believe it for a moment. I sighed to myself. “Okay, what will prove who I am?” I asked the supposed leader of the bunch. “We know of the name of the Ne...pilim you fought, what was the name you called that creature?” The name I called him. “That piece of filth was called Ahiah, but I called him 'Baldy'.” It was the right answer. What did I tell you about magic and coincidences? How likely do you think that the bottle and the name of the Nephelim would come up on the same day, and linked to each other? Really? You're a bigger believer in coincidence than I am, that's for certain.
“Now you are free to ask one of us to help you, but I recommend Zik'k. His family owes Mr. Larry very much for his kindnesses, and has the largest honor-debt.” A lean, scarred-up Troykin stepped forward, then put his hand over his face and bowed. Hmm, some kind of ritual greeting? “No need to be formal, Zik'k, we'll work better if you just call me Fern.” I said. Zik'k straightened and held his nose. “Peeee-eew, human, what kind of magic have you been rolling in? Gah, the smell's awful!” I blinked in surprise.
Troykin could smell magic? “You can smell magic?” I blurted out. All five heads on five Troykin nodded. The leader who'd suggested Zik'k said “That we can, but it's not something we advertise much. You have to be a pretty powerful wizard to have a smell on you, and yours is,” I watched his face screw up in concentration as he hunted for a suitably diplomatic word, “pungent.” “Are you going to get all huffy about it?”, I asked, getting huffy about it myself. Hey, it's a girl's privilege to be huffy when called pungent.

12

For the life of me I couldn't see any connection other than the one “Mr. Cobb” had pointed out. Someone wanted to use it to increase their personal power. Pardon, some fucking lunatic was power-mad and somehow figured out how to remake the damn soul bottle. But the big reason is why? Just making the bottle was horrific, but no one I could imagine would just make that kind of bottle for no reason at all. It was a huge magick battery, which meant huge powerful spells.
I rubbed the nub of my little finger, where it had been torn off by Ahiah, the Nephelim. I had the last joint still but just the thought of that bottle being around made it ache badly. Okay, who knew about the bottle? I went though and tried to remember each person that had contact of knowledge of that bottle. Fawn, her team, me, Larry, Rynun, Uncle Todd, and Ahiah. I couldn't think of any others, but for that bottle to be around, someone must know of it, and of me and Fawn.
Our folks had been a full-bubble-off-level crazy, and had made of Fawn and I huge storage batteries of magic. We couldn't touch it, but it stayed with us. I don't know how much was there, but Larry said it was a LOT of magic. No one that I knew really wanted to touch it either. Magic like that draws other magic like a magnet draws iron filings. We both are a magnet for weird coincidence.
The bottle showing up after seven years was just another one of those coincidences that really weren't. Right now, the bottle concerned me most and who was casting spells on me. Both seemed very connected, and the only person that had both was “Mr.Cobb”. So the question became why did he ask me to help him and warn me about the bottle? I'd have to ask him when I found him. But with something like this I needed back up. Good, reliable, backup.

#

Dayning is that part of Halifax that grew up after the magic cam back with a huge bang almost sixty years ago now. It is mostly the non-human section. Most all of them have their own enclave here in one or more places. I came down here because I preferred a non-human partner for this. Humans like myself are good at most anything. We're nature's great generalist. But if you want a specialist species, Dayning is the place you'd come to find one.
What I wanted was smart and tough. There were a lot of races like that, Trolls were the biggest example. But I hadn't felt right about hiring trolls since Zhirk died. Call it stupid, maudlin, prejudice, or superstitious, I just never wanted to hire a troll again. There were other races beyond them. What I wanted was one who stood a chance against fae magick, and there was only one that had any kind of resistance that I knew were the Troykin.
Troykin are bad news. They have outsider blood in their veins. Most spells will just blow apart unless you prepare the spell carefully, or are hideously powerful. The other side of things is that they are affected by silver and the merest touch causes gaping wounds as their skin dissolves. Salt hurts them, and repels them but doesn't do much more than that, and a determined Troykin has been known to resist being repelled by salt on occasion.
They are also unstable, which may be due to the outsider blood. They are not quite hair-trigger on the emotions, but the next closest thing to it. It generally made them a poor choice, but considering the opposition, I was willing to have one with me, as it would make “Mr. Cobb” at least have to work at doing us in. I was more guessing he wanted something from me, otherwise why the elaborate illusion?
Too much speculation would start to hurt, so I backed off and concentrated on the problem at hand, negotiating with one of the local Troykin gangs to get my help. I parked my car and stepped out, all five foot nothing, ready to brace five six foot plus tall Troykin. I had the advantage that I was human, and a human seen this far into Dayning was generally considered crazy and/or dangerous. I figured crazy worked well.

11

I picked up some of the salt, some of the iron, and placed them under my tongue. the reason for that is that although contact with iron will dissipate a spell, residual traces of magic remain and will still react to cold iron. A human's fingers are not sensitive enough to feel the reaction, so the lips and tongue are used.
There was a scalding 'zing' that made me yelp, and I spit the iron filings out. Ow, yeah, fae spell. I looked around, everything in the room had been pushed up against the wall for the most open space possible. There were scuffs on the floor and chops in the wood it looked like someone had attacked the floor. My possibles bag peeked out from under the secretary's desk in the small outer office, along with any other steel and iron object I owned. All I had on were my clothes, even my belt and shoes had been removed.
As the last residual effects of the glamour faded, I came to realize I had never actually left my office. Everything had happened here, there had been no monster. All of it had been under the control of Mr. Cobb. I did a very quick burn from puzzled to royally upset, and the only thing I could think was to find Cobb and rip an explanation out of him. A more rational part of me however, smothered the anger after a few minutes and I sat down to puzzle a few things out.
The big question was why he took the time to do this. An even bigger question was where and how did that damn soul bottle fit in all this? The bottle scared the crap out of me. It had been the cause of my parents' deaths, and almost mine and Fawn's as well. It was the kind of magic that only crazed, powerful, and/or really stupid magickans got close to.