I drained half my drink.
“You were supposedly inducted into the Nightwise, a most prestigious honor for a wizard,” Theo said, not even looking up from his phone. “You are the only member of that august circle to ever be dishonored and cast out.”
“I wasn’t fired; I quit,” I said. “More pricks in that ‘august circle’ than on a cactus.” Mr. White Wine chuckled at that. He covered his mouth as he did. Classy.
“It is claimed that you are the man who stole the philosopher’s stone from the mobster and master alchemist, Joey Dross, in 1999, then lost it in a high stakes poker game, or over a woman, accounts vary. A few years ago, you and some accomplices broke into the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, D.C.,” Ankou said, putting his phone away, “and supposedly made off with rune-etched currency printing plates worth millions, infuriating the All-Seeing Eye in the process. Few men cross the Illuminati, the Secret Masters, and live.
“In 1996 you were the leader and sole survivor of a group of individuals that rescued dozens of Kolkata street children from a Brahmarakshasa lair. You are said to be the only mortal wizard to have ever harnessed the power of the Tianzi Tablets and not gone incurably mad. You are the subject of numerous documentaries, books, magazine articles, and social media ‘fan pages,’ and, if the myth has any truth to it, a cameo in at least one pornographic movie.”
“Hairy Boff-her and the Wand of Wonder,” I offered happily. Ankou crossed his legs, angling his body toward me.
“You have decades of similar anecdotes surrounding you, Mr. Ballard. Depending on whom you ask, you’ve either stolen from, conned, betrayed, saved, or avenged pretty much everyone associated with the occult underworld: ‘the Life,’ I believe you people call it. You’re a legend.”
“Okay,” I said, taking another sip of my drink, “my turn, and I don’t even need to check an eight-million-dollar cell phone for this one. The Ankous are one of the last of the original Fae clans to still reside on Earth. You were building exquisite architecture, creating literature, music, and art, and, oh, being worshiped like gods, demons, and ancient astronauts when humanity was scratching the fleas off our asses in caves and trying to figure out the whole agriculture gig.”
Ankou nodded and sipped from his goblet. He seemed very pleased with himself. “These days,” I continued, “your family is pretty diversified. You own media corporations and banks, you pull diamonds, gold, silver, plutonium, all kinds of goodies out of the Earth, and then you take profits from those and a bunch of other commodities all along the way, from inception to market. You are major players in the Court of the Uncountable Stairs and have treaties and trade deals with everyone from the Grays’ massive collective colony to Rangi, the Polynesian sky god—y’know, the one you see on late-night TV, hocking his self-help books? You own factories, retail chains, and companies that make computers, cell phones, military drones, water purifying straws for the third world, and wind turbines. Oh, and heroin. Lots and lots of heroin. A major part of your bottom line, I’d guess. The Fae families, as a group, including the Ankous, are about the third-largest producers and distributors in the world of ‘smack,’ I believe you people call it.”
The smug smirk slid from Ankou’s face. “So,” I said, finishing off my drink, “how can I be of service to the Sugar Plum Mafia?”
“You live up to your reputation, Mr. Ballard; that much is evident,” Ankou said. “I want you to find my daughter, Caern. She’s missing.”
“You have more money than God’s loan shark,” I said. “You have your own army of house knights”—I nodded toward Burris—“you own security companies; you can buy whole detective agencies and put them to work on finding your girl. You can employ more hackers and data miners than the Chinese government and the Russian Mob combined, not to mention you have enough juice on the street to put a bounty out and have every lowlife, junkie, dirty cop, and street hustler looking for her. Why bring me in?”
“I have done all of that,” Ankou said, “and more. My daughter’s trail is completely cold. I understand you have acquired a reputation for finding things and people that seem to have vanished without a trace. I think Caern has been swallowed up by some part of the Life so deep and so foul that all my resources can’t reach her.”
“But you think I can?” I asked.
“You’re Laytham Ballard,” he said. “Just your name has cachet in some very, very dark places, places my people cannot go.”
“I have unlocked the ‘Master at Slumming’ achievement,” I said, “true.” Ankou’s companion with the wine looked confused by that. “How cold a trail are we talking about here?”
“Caern has been missing since 2009,” Ankou said. “Nine years after my wife, her mother, the Lady Osperia, died in a car accident in Spain.”
“How old was she when she disappeared?” I asked.
“Thirteen,” Ankou said.
Memory bit into me. Thirteen was the age I’d left home.
“You’ve been looking for her for all these years? And not even a lead?”
Ankou shifted in his chair. I didn’t know enough about this guy, except by reputation, to read him, but that squirm was the first tell I noticed. “If my people had made any progress, Mr. Ballard, you would still be in that Houston alley, nestled up with your garbage and your vomit and not drinking my good whiskey. I have exhausted every possible resource at my disposal, including a pilgrimage back to the Shining Lands of our creation to scry in the waters of Elphyne for her. Nothing.”
“You
