Mission Location #Fm-Wd-023, Manchester, England, 13:05

Marty heard only her and Don’s rasping breaths, punctuated by the creaking of rusted chains that hung from the ceiling. Every once in a while, pigeons fluttered outside, unnerved by what had just transpired inside the abandoned warehouse in which the two stood. At least, Marty was standing. Don was half-upright, half-kneeling, his knees bent at an angle sure to set a weaker person’s legs aflame with pain; the faerie he clutched in a chokehold writhed and spat.

Bristling with iron -- nails in her tool belt, nails in the pockets of her camouflage pants, nails poking like brass knuckles between the fingers of one fist -- Marty stalked the salt circle that she’d poured around Don and his snarling capture. In her other hand, she grasped what appeared to be an ordinary radio.

Don held his own weapon of choice, a curve-edged iron blade, solidly nine inches long, to the creature’s throat. Even he had struggled, and at one point, would have lost his grip had Marty not thrown salt into its eyes. Now, he rested the knife against its pulsing jugular with a lightness that was almost teasing: he could end its life at any moment he wished, on a whim, but refrained, listening to the rambling that started to pour from its mouth.

“Wait, wait! I -- I know things. Things about this place.”

“What else is new, bud?” Don spoke with a languid laziness, drawing the words out, as if to savor the moment by tasting it.

“I-I know things you can use! Can help you! Clues!”

“Clues. Y’all think we’re detectives, don’t you?”

“You’re -- you’re looking for bigger problems than me! Problems. I know much bigger ones, here! Here in England!”

“Oh, really?” Marty twisted some knobs and pressed some buttons on her radio-device. It released a stream of static, which settled to a faint buzz, similar to the sound a phone makes when someone is on the line but saying nothing.

“You!” Its broken-glass gaze turned to her, unnaturally yellow. She suppressed a shudder. “You’re a Scottish girl, Scottish lass -- you know of magic! Can’t you feel things?”

“Mhm.” She nodded, glancing upward, pretending to think. “I can feel an urge to heave my lunch into the nearest loo.”

Don allowed himself a laugh, a crooked grin.

The faerie hissed, a sound that sputtered like leaking pipes. “There is something here! In this country, bigger problem than me, bigger problem than you! I feel it!”

Grin ceasing, Don perked an eyebrow.

Marty crossed her arms, facing him over the creature’s scruff of red-brown hair. “This is the ranting of a mad faerie trying to save its own skin. If we’re not turning it in, then kill it.”

The knife pressed closer.

“Turning -- no, no, no!” The creature squirmed with a renewed vigor until Don gave it a squeeze, and it stilled, a rat in a python’s stranglehold. “Kill me. Be done with it.”

Disgust made her lip curl, and she could not help but turn her head away. Pathetic.

Agent Avery’s voice from the radio saved her having to answer. “You two. Stop wasting time. I want this target at headquarters.”

“What?! Why!?” Don’s shouted question stretched the last word into taffy.

“Don!” she snapped. “Please -- quit whining!”

“It’s rare that we have one try and cut a deal,” Avery said, ceasing their argument before it began. “If it’s lying, which I’m sure it is, I’ll execute it myself.”

She and Don exchanged a glance, and for a fleeting second, she glimpsed the exhaustion hiding behind his expression. Faerie opponents presented challenges of their own. As much as his habits grated on her, Marty did not dare interrupt the mental battle in which he engaged every time they caught one.

The faerie trailed off into mumbling, dazed; both Marty and Don had the chance to sigh, shake their heads, and ponder the situation.

“Yes, sir,” she said at last.

Don echoed her, and Avery gave them one more order: “Go to the loading dock of the warehouse. There will be a ride ready for you in four minutes.”

From her belt, Marty grabbed her canister of salt -- purchased at the supermarket for two pounds. It still held a good amount, more than enough to herd the creature from the warehouse floor to the back double doors. She scuffed her foot across the circle, breaking it, and with his knife still at the ready, Don guided it through the gap. As they walked, Marty dusted salt left and right, forcing it to follow a straight line. The doors stood ajar, blocks of mass and steel, once admitting entire machines and now caked in dirt. She braced herself, planting her feet firmly on the ground as she twisted her torso as near to the opposite angle as she could; it took her three shoves, using momentum where she lacked Don’s strength, but on the third, they screeched open. She steadied herself, her arm and shoulder already stinging from repeated impact.

“Coast clear,” she managed after a look from side to side, up and down, at the cluster of other disused buildings around the entrance. They provided the agents and the faerie ample cover. Don dragged it out, and it began to hiss again; she poured a new barrier, eliciting a glare from their capture. He restrained it, a sheen of sweat across his forehead, for the entirety of four minutes.

Marty remembered, her thoughts edging into a tangent, her first target transport. The wait for a ride had only been two minutes then, that year and a half ago, and how long they’d seemed. How sloppy that catch had been, too -- locking the thing in a janitor’s closet and lodging a chair under the handle.

The rumble of an engine and the crunch of tires on gravel returned her to the present. A black van rounded the corner, Thorne & Sons Electrical printed on the side in plain white lettering, complete with a phone number and website. Its side window lowered and the driver peered down at them. He looked for all the world like a normal man: heavy-set, balding, oil smears staining his uniform. His nametag said Jerry.

Marty felt herself slump in relief.

“How’d this one go?” the man asked, jabbing his thumb toward the faerie.

“Well enough, Jerry,” was her reply, and she pulled the door open for Don, who hoisted the creature in. Instead of seats, a two-walled cage occupied the back of the van -- steel bars inside, iron outside. She reached around him and swung it open; he unceremoniously tossed their capture inside, then slammed and locked it.

Marty’s adrenaline crashed. She hadn’t realized how intense it had been, how buzzing and wired she’d felt, until it was gone. Every single catch was the same: the burn of searching, the blaze of fighting, the crash. She sank into the seat behind Jerry’s, eyes drifting closed; the van gave a slight sway as Don shut the door and sat next to her. She took a long, deep breath, inhaling the plastic-and-upholstery smell of a clean car.

“Least we’re just going from Manchester this time,” Jerry said, seeming oblivious to her reluctance for conversation.

Don, though he knew it or not, gave her room to rest when he answered. “Drive’s only about four hours.”

“Only?” Marty muttered.

“Marty, where I’m from, you can drive for eight hours and still be in the same state. You seen the size of Texas? California?”

She groaned in response.

Their driver laughed, gesturing behind him to his seat pocket. “Snacks in there. You both could use some. Water’s by the cage.”

Don’s arm brushed her knee as he reached over. There came a crinkling sound, then a smack when something landed on her lap. Her eyes snapped open and she snatched the two bags of peanuts he’d given her. Don took an energy bar for himself.

The drive was a silent affair. Marty was partially aware of the sky deepening to violet, the van stopping, Jerry coming back with some kind of food in a brown bag, Don snoring. Overhead, the sky was a sweeping plane, swaths of stars emerging as they trawled further and further from Manchester. They glittered and shone a light only seen in wild places, free places, like the scattered-lake plains of central Scotland, where the hills still rolled green as spring, green as life.

❦❦❦

The agents’ base was, supposedly, a hotel. Locals found it odd that they saw the same people arriving, day after day, in different vehicles, some marked and some not. But the city of Glasgow saw more than its fair share of the odd, and as such, they learned not to question it.

Having exchanged salt-and-dirt encrusted pants for leggings and a too-large tee shirt that hung well past her thighs, Marty lounged in bed, headset on. Beside her, Marty’s laptop poured its glow out over her face. Their permanent residences being hotel rooms had taken some adjusting, but having two queen-size beds and a mini-fridge restocked daily with beer had made it a given in the end. She now slurped her usual ramen noodles from a thermos, and took orange slices from a plate on the nightstand. A bottle of Belgian ale was, of course, wedged into the pillow mound against the headboard. Marty was a master in the art of not spilling one’s beer.

She adjusted her microphone, chewing a piece of orange, as she waited for Don to answer her call.

When her pointer hovered over the cancel button, he replied, voice slurred. “I’m here.”

“Are you drunk or tired?”

“Not drunk. Damn sure ready to sleep for a week -- was gonna take a nap.”

“I swear, if Avery sends us that far for the next mission...”

“It ain’t far.”

“Not,” she corrected. “It’s not.”

“Whatever. Did he tell you anything?”

“Avery? No.” She checked the time on her laptop -- 22:14, and 10:14 p.m. below that. “It’s been a while since we got home. Sort of expected to hear something by now.”

“You reckon he made the deal?”

“Avery’s not daft. Does make me wonder, though... of all the ways to try and save itself, why would the faerie say that?”

In his silence, she imagined that he shrugged, as if to say, You tell me --You’re the experienced one.

“Bigger problems in England,” she quoted, musing. “Bit weird, isn’t it?”

“Weird is par for the course.” It seemed that he’d say nothing else, but he added, “If we’re assigned to England again, something might be up.”

“Mhm. And even if we’re not... when we can, we should keep an eye out.”

“What, unauthorized?”

“No! Shut up. I just mean it’s a good idea when we are not on assignment. In case.”

“Whatever... I’m gonna log out of here. Come wake me if something else happens.”

“Right. Don --” She stopped, deciding better than to say what she’d planned, and took her last swig of ale.

“What?”

“Nothing. You did good for once, that’s all. Don’t screw up again.”

“Love you, too, best friend.”

Without another word, Marty hung up and removed her headset. She placed the empty dishes and bottle on the nightstand; mere moments after her head met the pillows, she plunged into sleep.