Unquiet Dreams

by Mark Del Franco

  “Are you coming?” I asked Joe.

  He swung his legs back and forth from the edge of the coffee table. “Maybe later. I’ve got some business.”

  I smiled. “Be careful.” I’m sure Joe’s business entailed testing his new ideas at the Guildhouse. If there’s one thing a flit despises, it is being told to keep out.

  I passed three security agents on my way out. I jumped in the immaculate passenger seat of Meryl’s Mini Cooper, reveling in the refreshing change of pace from Murdock’s car.

  “We look like catalog models for the goth professional,” she said.

  She wore a body-hugging leather jumpsuit and knee-high leather combat boots with lots of heel and buckles. Not a bit of it was green. In fact, the only green about her was her hair. She slipped on a pair of fingerless calfskin gloves and put the car in gear.

  “My hair’s not dyed,” I said.

  She flipped her hand through her hair. “Do you like it? I have it on good authority it was Alvud Kruge’s favorite shade.”

  “It’s perfect. For you.” I smiled to keep it amusing.

  She zipped around the block and coasted over the Old Northern Avenue bridge. “We’ve got a tail. Want me to lose them?”

  I peered up through the structural beams of the bridge. Two security agents followed. “Nah. They’d be stupid not to know where we’re going. Can we make a pit stop?”

  “Sure, I’ll keep the meter running,” she said.

  “I need to go to Avalon Memorial.”

  She looked askance at me. “Anything wrong?”

  “No. Just need to visit a sick friend,” I said.

  Rather than deal with the street restrictions in place downtown, Meryl scooted up on the highway to loop around to Storrow Drive along the river. “You know you have troll essence all over you?”

  I nodded. “It’s a residual effect from Moke pulling me through stone. He said it has to clear through my system. Look at this.” I held up my left hand, letting the light pick up a tracery of faint patterns across the back. “That’s stone. I keep picking up ambient dust, and it bonds with my skin.”

  Meryl glanced back and forth from the road to my hand. “Does it hurt?”

  I shook my head. “No. It uses my body as an anchor, pulling stuff to me like a body shield. Can’t even feel it unless I focus on it. Now watch this.” I mentally visualized the essence coursing over my body, sensed the difference between my own essence and the ambient troll essence, felt for the bonded stone, and pushed. It separated from my skin and slid off my hand like fine dust.

  “You’re getting my car dirty,” Meryl said.

  I wiped my hand on my pants. “Sorry.”

  She pulled up in front of Avalon Memorial. Guild security guards hovered in the air, with more brownie security on the street. They must have recognized Meryl because they let her park without a word.

  “I shouldn’t be long,” I said.

  “Don’t be. I only have one CD in the car,” she said.

  I found macGoren lying on his side in his room surrounding by ward stone amplifiers. Two bowls of infusions sat at the end of the bed. My nose twitched on the betony and a hint of basil. MacGoren’s left wing fluttered with a rippled texture and a few jagged holes. Danann wings didn’t have the physical property of skin. They didn’t have true nerves for that matter, so pain registered very differently. Regardless, the damage looked painful. The ward stones generated a field that amplified macGoren’s own essence as well as the simply pure air essence that Danann fairies had a natural affinity to. The herbals soothed the spirit with a protective spell working against infection.

  MacGoren overall looked hardly worse for wear. He languished on the bed in his blue silk pajamas reading a magazine. When he saw me, he tossed aside the magazine and stretched onto his stomach. “Ah, good. Company. Gillen Yor says I can’t have my cell phone because it will disrupt the wards. I think he’s just saying that to irritate me.”

  “You look like you’re recovering well,” I said.

  He smirked with amusement. “I’m just here because I’ll heal faster. I assume this isn’t a social call.”

  “And why’s that?”

  He grinned. “No flowers. No candy.”

  “Why were you fighting a troll in the Tangle the night of Kruge’s murder?”

  He gave me a long measured look. “You found the helmet.”

  I nodded. “I found the helmet.”

  MacGoren shrugged. “You know I wanted a piece of land Kruge owned. He didn’t want to sell. I thought I’d get on his good side by helping with the drug problem down there. A nightclub was the epicenter. It burned down last night as a matter of fact.”

  “Yeah, I heard about it,” I said dryly.

  MacGoren nodded. “This drug Float was the problem. I analyzed it and found druid essence. I brought it to Kruge.”

  “For which he was extremely grateful,” I said.

  MacGoren shrugged again. “Actually, he didn’t believe me. But he was worried if that were true, then Gerin Cuthbern would try to cover it up to protect the Grove. Then he was afraid if he told Manus ap Eagan, Eagan would think he was maneuvering against Cuthbern and use it against him politically. So, he asked me to help, figuring since both the Guildmaster and I are Danann, Manus naturally wouldn’t think anything suspicious of my motives.”

  It was my turn to smirk. “Naturally.”

  MacGoren ignored the dig. “Anyway, Kruge came up with the idea of recording the drug analysis and sending a sample to Manus via courier. I was supposed to meet the courier on Summer Street and take the evidence to the Guildhouse.”

  A piece of the puzzle fell into place. Fairies, in general, were good weather workers. Some Dananns specialized in it. “He was supposed to meet you up on Summer Street. You pulled the weather trick to drive away any witnesses and give Dennis Farnsworth safe passage through three gang territories.”

  MacGoren nodded. “Correct. When the courier didn’t show up, and Kruge didn’t answer my sendings, I went looking. I found Kruge. I don’t know how the troll found out, but that wasn’t part of the plan that I knew.”

  I could see what Keeva found attractive about him. She liked a good schemer. MacGoren paused, and the superior tone finally left his voice. “Then I saw something incredible, Grey. I saw a troll, in broad daylight, flying. Scared the living hell out of me. He had the courier, so I went after him.”

  “That was brave.”

  The idea clearly surprised him. “Yes, I guess you could look at it that way. I didn’t find the ward stone at Kruge’s, so I figured the kid had it. I took the troll by surprise. I lost the helmet in the tussle but managed to get the kid. The troll chased me almost to Summer Street. I felt a compulsion to drop the boy. It was like I had no choice.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone?”

  He shrugged again. “With Kruge dead, I didn’t have the evidence. If that troll could kill Alvud Kruge, he could kill me. I thought if I kept quiet, he would leave me alone. I didn’t see any percentage in coming forward. Didn’t seem to help in the end, though.”

  I shook my head. “People died, and you didn’t see a percentage in coming forward?”

  MacGoren frowned with a condescending look. “Please, Grey. Don’t be naïve. If it wasn’t this, it would have been something else.”

  “Naïve? You helped start a gang war. Maybe worse now.”

  He sighed as if bored. “It’s all the same, Grey. They’re all gangs. Xeno and elf thugs. The fey and humans. Seelie Court and the Consortium. They look for any excuse to play their games. I didn’t cause anything they wouldn’t have found a way to cause themselves.”

  “And you make a buck in the process,” I said.

  He nodded. “I always look for the percentage.”

  I didn’t say anything. Despite what macGoren thought, I wasn’t naïve. I knew there were people like him, people who single-mindedly pursue a goal and damn the consequences. I knew them. I knew myself. In another life, I was well
on the way down that road. I don’t know if I would have gone as far as macGoren. The fact that I didn’t know, couldn’t emphatically deny it, gave me a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Keeva’s been looking for the troll that died. Why didn’t you tell her where she was?”

  “Because I would have had a lot of things to explain that I wasn’t interested in explaining. Keeva’s good at what she does. She’ll find the troll.”

  “I know she will,” I said.

  “So, am I being charged with something?” he asked.

  “I’ll have to think about it. I know you’re only talking because you know I’ll have a hard time finding something to stick. For now, I’ll keep thinking about it.”

  A shrewd look came over him. “Hold it over my head, eh? A Guild director for less than a week, and already you’re playing games.”

  I didn’t show how much he hit the target with that. “You could say that, macGoren. Remember one thing, though: I don’t play by anyone else’s rules.”

  I strode out of the room before he had a chance to respond. As I walked out of the hospital, I felt a dull depression settle over me. Everything that had happened in the past few days could have been avoided if macGoren had just opened his mouth. But he hadn’t. Why bother when the only people hurt were the outcast and the shunned? Why bother when it would just make more headlines supporting his development project? Turf, land, territory. The hood. Whatever you called, Eorla Kruge was right. It was all about who had what piece of it and how they used it. It was always about control and power and greed.

  I opened the passenger door to Meryl’s Mini and let out a roar of rock music. She lowered the volume as I dropped into the seat.

  I could tell by the look on her face that Meryl knew I wasn’t happy. “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah, I just confirmed Ryan macGoren is an ass.”

  She laughed as she started up the car. “I could have told you that, ya big silly.”

  I didn’t say anything as we pulled back onto the riverside drive. Bone white trees stood guard over the thin strip of park. It was beautiful and empty. I stared and watched it go by.

  “So you really met a drys?” Meryl asked, nudging me out of my brooding.

  “Yeah, I did,” I said. “She was…I don’t know. Beautiful seems like such a lame word. I could feel the purity of essence in her. It was like the stories they told us when we were kids. She’s what we strive to be, Meryl.”

  She nodded. “I’ve met a couple a long time ago. I don’t think we can ever be that. They’re more than human, Grey. We’re just flawed vessels for essence. They are essence.”

  “That’s why I’m going to the funeral. C-Note’s tampering with essence on a fundamental level. He’s torturing that drys. If he shows up, we have to get that staff away from him.”

  She sighed. “He said ‘we.’”

  A small flush of anger swept over me. “You have a problem with that?”

  She shrugged and cut someone off. “No. You just assume I’m jumping on this bandwagon.”

  Sometimes Meryl’s flipness grated on me. “Is anything important to you?”

  She frowned. “You know, when people say that, what they really mean is why isn’t what’s important to me important to you? Yeah, Grey, things are important to me. I hate to break it to you, but I get to decide what those things are.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  She cut the wheel hard to make the off-ramp. “Sure it is. Pick me up here. Get me this. Hide this chick. Help me get out of here. I live by the moon, Grey. That doesn’t make me your satellite.”

  I clenched my jaw and didn’t respond. A drys was the female aspect of the oak. As a druidess, she should be the one fired up over what C-Note had done even more than I was. “It’s a drys, Meryl.”

  “I know that. That’s why I’m driving to the cemetery. But it’s my choice, Grey, not yours. I decide for myself whether I help or not. You don’t get to judge that. You haven’t earned it.”

  I dropped my head back and closed my eyes. Counted to ten. Shooed arrogant and controlling personality traits back into the closet. Smiled. “You’re right. I did it again. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and pulled into a line of cars waiting to get into the cemetery.

  I gave her a big-eyed smile. “That was our first fight.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No. Our first fight was about five years ago when you forgot to do some research and tried to cover your ass by telling people I lost the request form.”

  I patted her hand on the stick shift. “No. I meant as a couple.”

  She turned and looked at me, keeping her face completely blank. “If you don’t move your hand, I will gnaw my own off at the wrist.”

  I did move it. “You will succumb to my charms eventually.”

  She smirked. “Let me know when you have some.”

  “I will never have the last word, will I?”

  She parked the car and smiled. “Not my style.”

  18

  The street swarmed with activity. A high-profile fey dying, never mind murdered, simply did not happen often. Everyone from street kids to ranking politicos roamed about, checking out the crowd and trying to get in the background of the live-TV camera shots. Meryl and I skirted around the rubberneckers and walked up the driveway to the cemetery.

  Forest Hills Cemetery covers almost three hundred acres in the city of Boston. If there’s one thing the old Brahmins did well, it was die in style. Fine landscaping, rolling hills, public art, and even a lake with an island. The trust that ran the place even encouraged the public to use the grounds as long as the graves were respected. I liked the attitude of life and death coexisting.

  We went through the first security checkpoint at the main gate. I didn’t know what Keeva’s criteria were for access, but Guild members and guests were all allowed through with no questions. Once inside, the volume of curiosity seekers went down considerably. At a turn off the main path, the Boston P.D. had its own checkpoint for humans. Murdock strolled out from behind a van.

  “I have some seats for us,” he said as he fell into step with us.

  “You’re not on duty?” I asked.

  He smiled. “I’m always on duty. They’re only letting bodyguards into the main site. I said I was yours.”

  “Who’s going to protect you from him?” Meryl asked.

  He grinned at her. “I thought that’s why you came.”

  “Don’t go there,” I said. Meryl jabbed me in the side.

  He checked his watch. “Almost dark. The ceremony’s going to start soon.”

  We walked briskly along the tidy lanes as dusk fell. Monuments stared at us with solemn gravity, growing luminous in the fading light. The essence of a cemetery is a strange thing. It’s tinged with melancholy, of course, but also an unsettling amount of want and even rage. Not everyone goes gentle into the good night, and they leave a resonance behind them. I couldn’t sense individual essence like Joe apparently did. It’s more like a stew of emotion, each new voice adding to it, changing it, inflecting it. Ultimately, getting lost in it. Because that’s how we end. Lost in the mix.

  The mix ramped up as we came around a curve in the path and walked through an essence barrier. Murdock didn’t feel it. From our brief passing, I could tell it had a sensory ability, registering the essence of everyone who passed through. Whoever was monitoring the shield must have been puzzled by a high-powered druidess, a human normal who felt fey, and a druid who reeked of troll traveling together.

  The path rose between two oaks. With all the members of the Grove wandering through, the trees gave off a low hum, their essence glowing with the Power of the wood. I looked up at a majestic white oak, its many limbs branching and tangling, its thick roots gnarling into the ground, and thought of Hala, trapped in the last living bit of a tree, confined to nothing more than a sliver of a memory.

  The crowd thickened over the rise. All manner of fey had come to pay hom
age to Kruge, a fitting final tribute to a man who had advocated unity. If anything summed up the difference between Seelie Court and the Teutonic Consortium, their approach to death did. Fairies dimmed their wings and walked, eyes downcast, as if acknowledging that even in their immortality, death was always hovering in the shadows. The elves, though, they strode forward, heads up, singing dirges, honoring life and defying death. Brownies and dwarves were not as dramatic as their more powerful cousins, but brought their own drama to the party.

  A surprising assortment of solitary fey haunted the edges the crowd. Usually they avoid being noticed, fearing the domination games that go on among them. In the gathering shadows beneath the trees, I could see them furtively moving, their limbs glistening silver or red or green. Most solitaries make people uncomfortable. To human eyes, they resemble the stuff of nightmares, long-snouted faces and horned heads, hairy coats instead of skin or oddly jointed arms and legs that spoke of birds or lizards. Some wore smiles that sent chills and others held such sadness that no comfort could touch. Their eyes glittered in the dark, streaks of red and yellow as they moved among the graves, clawed fingers leaving white lines on tombstones.

  Human normals make the mistake of thinking all solitaries are Unseelie, standing in opposition to High Queen Maeve. It’s more complicated than just that. The Unseelie Court exists, but it shifted alliances more often than the weather, with solitaries moving in and out as the wind blew. Only when they all stood together did they form a true Court, and when they did, wars broke out. Of all the fey, they enjoyed Convergence most, if only because Seelie and the Consortium were too involved with each other to bother them. Kruge’s unity message had to have rung deeply with them.

  Torches lined the final path to the burial site, their flames edged in white and blue. Not ordinary fire, but druid-fire. They enhanced the ambient light and gave off a comforting heat as night fell, no small feat on a cool October evening.