A Local Habitation Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  ONE - June 13th, 2010

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  Teaser chapter

  Praise for the October Daye Novels:

  “Well researched, sharply told, highly atmospheric and as brutal as any pulp detective tale . . . sure to appeal to fans of Jim Butcher or Kim Harrison.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The brisk pacing, the effective mix of human and magical characters, and the PI ambience all make this an excellent choice for fans of Butcher’s Harry Dresden series. . . . Toby’s unusual heritage and her uneasy relationships with her mother’s family will remind readers of Brigg’s Mercy Thompson series, and Thompson fans will appreciate Toby’s tough and self-reliant character. This outstanding first novel is a must for fans of genre-bending blends of crime and fantasy.”

  —Booklist starred review

  “This is a wonderful debut. McGuire’s story uses familiar tropes, but she turns them into something new and interesting. The city of San Francisco is as much a character as Toby, with kelpies and the King of Cats lurking in dark alleyways. Toby is a prickly protagonist with a compelling story that readers absolutely should not miss.”

  —Romantic Times

  “McGuire successfully blends Robert B. Parker-like detective fiction with love and loss, faith and betrayal—and plenty of violence. . . . Rosemary and Rue will have readers clamoring for the next genre-bending installment.”

  —www.bookpage.com

  “A refreshingly original story told in a wry, confident voice. Rosemary and Rue is a treat to read.”

  —Kelley Armstrong, author of Frostbitten

  “Seanan McGuire’s Rosemary and Rue has everything you’d ever need in an urban fantasy. It’s a smart story, cleanly told that allows both humor and heartbreak to take their turn on stage but, more importantly, the ‘urban’ and the ‘fantasy’ are of equal importance. McGuire clearly knows and loves San Francisco as much as she knows and loves the world of Faerie and has combined them seamlessly.”

  —Tanya Huff, author of The Blood Books

  “Rosemary and Rue is one of the most successful blends of mystery and fantasy I’ve ever read—like Raymond Chandler by way of Pamela Dean. Toby Daye has become one of my favorite heroines, and I can’t wait to read more of her continuing adventures.”

  —Tim Pratt, author of Dead Reign

  “McGuire knows her fairy lore, bringing the wonder and the danger of the fair folk to the streets of San Francisco so vividly you can smell the rose goblins. Action, intrigue, and a dash of romance make Rosemary and Rue a fun, engaging read. An impressive first novel that leaves you impatient for the second.”

  —Jim Hines, author of The Mermaid’s Madness

  DAW Books Presents Seanan Mcguire’s October Daye Novels:

  ROSEMARY AND RUE

  A LOCAL HABITATION

  AN ARTIFICIAL NIGHT

  (Available September 2010)

  Copyright © 2010 by Seanan McGuire.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Interior dingbat created by Tara O’Shea.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1503.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-17173-8

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly

  coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Nearly all the designs and trade names in this book are registered trademarks. All that are still in commercial use are protected by United States and international trademark law.

  First Printing, March 2010

  S.A.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Amanda and Merav, who helped me find the map when it was missing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

  Writing a book is a solitary exercise; actually finishing a book is not. Large portions of this book were written while traveling abroad, and my thanks go to Rika Koerte, Mike and Anne Whitacker, Talis Kimberley, and Simon Fairborne, for providing me with space while I was working in their kitchens and spare rooms (and who failed to complain about the crazy American who came to England to work on her novel). Forensic help, medical advice, and some serious logic discussion were provided by Melissa Glasser, Meredith Schwartz, and Amanda Weinstein, while my entire crack team of machete-wielding proofreaders provided merciless feedback and a lot of textual baby-sitting. This wouldn’t be the book it is without them, or without Chris Mangum, who listened patiently as I complained about plot during multi-hour telephone calls.

  My agent, Diana Fox, was tolerant of my endless need to whine about punctuation, and provided many excellent suggestions that helped to make the staff of ALH Computing come alive, at least for me, and my fabulous editor, Sheila Gilbert, once again cut straight to the heart of what needed to be done. Finally, thanks are due to Kate Secor, Michelle Dockrey, Rebecca New-man, and Brooke Lunderville, who put up with sharing my time with fictional people while still hitting this book with as many sticks as they could swing. (In Kate’s case, thanks also for letting me use the TiVo. It did a lot to preserve my sanity.)

  My personal soundtrack while writing A Local Habitation consisted mostly of August and Everything After, by the Counting Crows, Engine, by We’re About 9, and Tanglewood Tree, by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer. Any errors in this book are entirely my own. The errors that aren’t here are the ones that all these people helped me fix.

  Thank you for reading.

  PRONUNCIATION GUIDE:

  Bannick: ban-nick. Plural is Bannicks.

  Banshee: ban-shee. Plural is Banshees.

  Barrow Wight: bar-row white. Plural is Barrow Wights. Cait Sidhe: kay-th shee. Plural is Cait Sidhe.

  Candela: can-dee-la. Plural is Candela.

  Coblynau: cob-lee-now. Plural is Coblynau.

  Cornish Pixie: Corn-ish pix-ee. Plural is Cornish Pixies.

  Daoine Sidhe: doon-ya shee. Plural is Daoine Sidhe, diminutive is Daoine.

  Djinn: jin. Plural is Djinn.

  Ellyllon: el-lee-lawn. Plural is Ellyllons.

  Gean-Cannah: gee-ann can-na. Plural is Gean-Cannah.

  Glastig: glass-tig. Plural is Glastigs.

  Gwragen: guh-war-a-gen. Plural is Gwragen.

  Hippocampus: hip-po-cam-pus. Plural is Hippocampi.

  Kelpie: kel-pee. Plural is Kelpies.

  Kitsune: kit-soo-nay. Plural is Kitsune.

  Lamia: lay-me-a. Plural is Lamia.

  The Luidaeg: the lou-sha-k. No plural exists.

  Manticore: man-tee-core
. Plural is Manticores.

  Nixie: nix-ee. Plural is Nixen.

  Peri: pear-ee. Plural is Peri.

  Piskie: piss-key. Plural is Piskies.

  Pixie: pix-ee. Plural is Pixies.

  Puca: puh-ca. Plural is Pucas.

  Roane: ro-an. Plural is Roane.

  Selkie: sell-key. Plural is Selkies.

  Silene: sigh-lean. Plural is Silene.

  Tuatha de Dannan: tootha day danan, Plural is Tuatha de Dannan, short form is Tuatha.

  Tylwyth Teg: till-with teeg. Plural is Tylwyth Teg, short form is Tylwyth.

  Undine: un-deen. Plural is Undine.

  Will o’ Wisps: will-oh wisps. Plural is Will o’ Wisps.

  ONE

  June 13th, 2010

  And as imagination bodies forth

  The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

  Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

  A local habitation and a name.

  —William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

  THE LAST TRAIN OUT of San Francisco leaves at midnight; miss it and you’re stuck until morning. That’s why I was herding Stacy and Kerry down Market Street at fifteen to the witching hour, trying unsuccessfully to avoid wobbling out of my kitten-heeled shoes. After the number of drinks I’d had, my footwear had become my new arch nemesis. None of us were in any condition to drive, and only Kerry was still walking straight. I blamed her stability on her fae heritage—pureblood Hob mother, Hob changeling father—giving her the alcohol tolerance of a man three times her size. No one keeps a house cleaner than a Hob, and there’s never any dust on the liquor cabinet.

  Stacy stumbled against me. Being little more than a quarter-Barrow Wight, she didn’t have Kerry’s alcohol tolerance to help her cope with the number of drinks she’d had. I grinned down at her. “Did you tell Mitch you’d be coming home smashed?”

  “He’ll have worked it out,” she said. “I told him we were going out for girl-time.” She burst out laughing, taking Kerry with her. Even I couldn’t help giggling, and I was trying to stay focused long enough to get them to the train.

  The lights of the station entrance beckoned, promising freedom from my drunken charges. “Come on,” I urged, trying to nudge Stacy into taking longer steps. “We’re almost there.”

  “Almost where?” asked Kerry, setting Stacy giggling again.

  “The train.”

  Stacy blinked. “Where are we going?”

  “Home,” I said, as firmly as I could with my heel caught in yet another crack in the sidewalk. I would have taken them off, but my fingers didn’t seem to be working well enough to undo the straps. “Hurry, or you’ll miss the train.”

  Getting down the stairs was an adventure. I nearly twisted my ankle, while Kerry skipped blithely on ahead to the ticket machines, returning with two one-way passes to Colma. I live in San Francisco; they don’t.

  “I’ve got it from here, Toby,” she said, taking Stacy’s arm.

  “You’ll be okay?”

  Kerry nodded. “I’ll get a taxi on the other side.”

  “Great,” I said, and hugged them both before waving them through the gates. I love my friends, but seeing them safely on their way was a relief. I have enough trouble taking care of myself when I’m drunk. I don’t need to be taking care of other people.

  Market Street was buzzing with club hoppers and people stepping outside to sneak a cigarette—California banned all smoking in bars while I was still busy being a fish. That’s one of the few positive changes made during those fourteen missed years. No one gave me a second glance.

  Catching a cab in San Francisco is practically an Olympic sport. I spared a thought for calling Danny, a local cabbie who’s more than happy to give me a free ride whenever I need one. We met six months ago, about five minutes after I got shot in the leg with an iron bullet. That’s never an auspicious way to start a relationship. Fortunately, it turned out that Danny knew me a long time before we actually met; I worked a case for his sister about sixteen years ago, and that’s left him inclined to help me out. He’s a nice guy. Bridge Trolls usually are. When you’re effectively denser than lead, you don’t have much to prove.

  Calling Danny would mean finding a phone. Despite Stacy’s hints, I’ve been refusing to get a cellular phone; none of my experiences with the things have been positive. Besides, Danny probably needed to make a living more than I needed to spare myself the walk. Heels clacking staccato against the pavement, I teetered around a corner and started for home.

  It only took a few blocks for me to exit the commercial district and move into the residential neighborhoods, leaving the sounds of human celebration behind. There were fewer streetlights here, but that wasn’t an issue; good night vision is a standard benefit of fae heritage. My lack of coat, now—that was more of a problem.

  Several pixies had congregated around a corner store’s front-porch bug zapper, using toothpicks as skewers for roasting a variety of insects. I stopped to watch them, taking the pause as an opportunity to get my balance back. One of them saw me looking and flitted over to hover in front of my nose, scowling.

  “S’okay,” I informed it, with drunken solemnity. “I can see you.” It continued to hang there, expression turning even angrier. “No, really, it’s okay. I’m Dao . . . Dao . . . I’m a changeling.” Whoever was responsible for naming the fae races should really have put more thought into making them pronounceable when drunk.

  It jabbed the toothpick in my direction. I blinked, perplexed.

  “No, it’s okay. I don’t want any of your moth.”

  “He’s offering to stab you, not feed you. I suppose the difference is trivial, but still, one assumes you’d want to avoid finding that out firsthand.” The voice behind me was smooth as cream and aristocratically amused. The pixie backpedaled in midair, nearly dropping his toothpick as he went racing back to the flock. They were gone in seconds, leaving nothing but faint trails of shimmering dust in the air.

  “Hey!” I turned, crossing my arms and glaring. “I was talking to him!”

  Tybalt eyed me with amusement, which just made me glare harder. “No, you were inciting him to stab you with a toothpick. Again, the difference is small, but I think it matters.”

  My glare faded into bewilderment. “Why was he gonna stab me? I was just saying hi. And he came over here first. I wasn’t saying anything before he came over.”

  “Finally, a sensible question.” Tybalt reached out to brush my hair back behind one ear, tapping it with the side of his thumb. “Round ears, blue eyes, smell of magic buried under the smell of alcohol . . . it’s the perfect disguise. Well done. Although it doesn’t suit you.” My confusion didn’t fade. Tybalt sighed. “You look human, October. He was protecting his flock.”

  “I said I was a changeling!”

  “And he, quite sensibly, didn’t believe you.”

  “Oh!” I blinked, reddening. “Oops.” Then I frowned. “What do you mean, it doesn’t suit me? I like this skirt!”

  Tybalt pulled his hand away, stepping back to study me. I returned the favor, looking him up and down.

  As the local King of Cats and the most powerful Cait Sidhe in San Francisco, Tybalt rarely bothers to go anywhere that requires him to wear a human disguise. As far as I can tell, it’s not that he feels it’s beneath him; it’s just that he doesn’t care enough about the human side of the city to bother interacting with them. This was one of the few times I’d seen him passing for human, and he wore it well. Tall, lean, and angular, he held himself with a predatory air that would translate into feline grace when he moved. His dark brown hair was short, curly, and banded with streaks of black that mimicked the stripes on a tabby’s coat. The human illusion he wore concealed his sharpened incisors, pointed ears, and cat-slit pupils, but left his simple masculinity a little more noticeable than I liked. I tore my eyes away.

  Saying that Tybalt and I have a complex relationship would be understating things just a tad. I endure his taunting
because it’s easier than having my intestines removed by an angry Cait Sidhe. On top of all that, I owe him for services rendered following the murder of Evening Winterrose. Sadly, my being in debt to him encourages him to prod at me even more frequently. It’s getting to be a habit.

  “The skirt passes muster,” said Tybalt, finishing his survey. “I might have called it a ‘belt’ rather than a ‘skirt,’ but I suppose you have the right to name your own clothing. While we’re on the subject of apparel, tell me, were you intending to walk all the way home in those shoes?”

  “Maybe,” I hedged. The straps were starting to chafe my ankles, making walking even less comfortable than it had been to begin with, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “You’re drunk, October.”

  “And you’re wearing really tight pants.” I paused. That hadn’t come out right. “I mean, those are really nice pants. I mean . . .”

  Crud.

  Tybalt snorted. I glanced up to see him looking decidedly amused, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “Indeed. I don’t suppose you’d consider taking a taxi?”

  “There aren’t any,” I said, feeling as if I’d won a battle with that stunning point of logic.

  “Did you consider phoning for one? I understand they can be summoned.”

  “Didn’t have a phone.”

  “I see,” said Tybalt. “Well, as there are no taxis, and you have splendid reasons not to summon a taxi, and you are, in fact, drunk enough to be making comments about the tightness of my trousers, I believe it would be a good idea for me to escort you home.”

  “I don’t need you to.”

  “That’s nice,” said Tybalt, shrugging out of his jacket and draping it around my shoulders. “You look cold.”

  “I’m not cold.” That was a lie—it was a nice night, but even the nicest night gets chilly after midnight in San Francisco. I pulled the jacket tight, trying to preserve the illusion of dignity. The leather smelled of Tybalt’s magic, all pennyroyal and musk. “I can get home just fine.”