When powerful people showed fear of something, it was a sign to start worrying. “The leanansidhe said something like that to me. She said the Wheel of the World has two sides and that we—she—touches both sides.”
Brokke eyed me. “It’s not a side. It is. It is what was and will be. The Wheel of the World, Grey, is what comes between.”
“The Wheel of the World has no end and no beginning,” I said.
Brokke shook his head. “What is destruction but the seed of creation? What is creation but the fruit of destruction? The Wheel of the World at once turns infinitely in both directions yet begins and ends. What happens between is the Gap, out of which the Wheel might arise again or not. The Gap was there at the beginning and will be there at the end. It is the source of everything and nothing. It drives the Wheel forward and brings It to a standstill. It devours the Wheel as it creates the Wheel. It is greater than the Wheel and less than the Wheel. It will end us all if we let it and it allows us. It is the place of power from which opposing forces spring and create the Wheel of the World. But the Gap never vanishes, Grey. It shrinks as the Wheel grows and turns until there is nothing left but the Wheel, and the Wheel begins to feed on itself, and the Gap appears anew. We cannot escape it, and it cannot escape us.”
His words had the cadence of a chant. He knew this thing, had a sense of it, and there was a sense of truth to what he said. I gazed into my beer. “Why have I never heard of this?”
He made a dismissive sound. “You Celts love to lord over others with your superiority while you wallow in your ignorance. Your people turned away from the truth long ago, Grey, content to indulge themselves with no thought for the future or the past. Do you know why Convergence happened? Because the Celts believed the world would never end because for them it never began. With all your talk of the turning of the Wheel, you and your people act like It turns in place, that nothing was ever different, and nothing would ever change. And that’s why you know nothing of the Gap. You know nothing of the past and have no understanding of the future.”
Annoyed, I sipped my beer. “You want a religious discussion? I could say the Teuts caused Convergence because of their doom and gloom. When you think the world is going to end, you start acting like it, then you cause it. You create a self-fulfilling prophecy. You sit there and tell me the Elven King wants the faith stone so he can challenge Maeve; and then you want to blame the Celts for the destruction of Faerie? Spare me.”
“You cannot stop what is coming. The darkness is beyond comprehension,” he said.
“It can be controlled. I’ve seen the leanansidhe use it. If something can be controlled, it can stopped,” I said.
“That thinking, I fear, will bring ruin to us all. No one can control the Gap,” he said.
“This isn’t an abstract discussion, Brokke. You’re telling me that I’ve handed Bergin Vize a dangerous weapon that can destroy everything. He has to be stopped.”
Brokke pursed his lips. “What makes you think I’m any more comfortable that you have the same power?”
28
I woke alone at midday. Meryl, praise be, had set up the coffeemaker. She left a note to join her for lunch if I managed to get up before the sun went down. The funny part was she wasn’t being sarcastic. We were both night owls and cast no stones in the waking-up-late department. I took a leisurely shower, then walked over the Oh No bridge to catch the subway.
At Boylston Street, the train left me with a screech of metal on metal as it rode a sharp turn out of the station. When no one on the platform or in the token booth was paying attention, I slipped through the break in the fencing near the stairs. I walked the access curbing beside the tracks toward the next station in Copley Square. I had told Murdock that Boston was riddled with tunnels—some official and legal like the subways and some not so much. Not far into the tunnel was a concrete niche that wasn’t concrete but a glamour hiding a not-so-official tunnel that led to Meryl’s office in the Guildhouse.
Meryl had been with the Guild a long time. She had worked her way up in the archives division until she became the Chief Archivist. Despite doing important work, she isn’t respected by the investigative division the way she should be. I should know. I was one of those jerks once. I knew Meryl before I lost my abilities and made assumptions about her that weren’t fair. I thought she was lazy and grumpy. Once I was bounced out of the Guildhouse, I learned she was neither—far from it. Taken advantage of at work, sure, but not lazy. I still think she’s grumpier than she claims, but a lot of that has its reasons. I wouldn’t have her be any other way.
In the course of her career, she had discovered things in the Guildhouse—beneath the Guildhouse—that had been forgotten or lost. Tunnels layered their way into the earth, complicated mazes of stone and brick that only dwarven crafters could have produced. Long-hidden rooms filled with rare treasures lay dormant until Meryl had found them. She had made a few improvements of her own along the way, like the secret bolt-hole out of her office into the subway system.
As our bond grew, Meryl had given me privileges she gave to no one else—like tuning some of her wall illusions to my body signature so that I could enter or leave the Guildhouse unseen. I eased down the steps that led from the concrete niche. At the bottom, a long, narrow tunnel ended at her office, a bright rectangle of light in the distance.
The wall glamour included a warning anytime someone passed through, so Meryl knew I was coming. She worked at her desk, her face intent as she read her computer screen. Both Gillen Yor and Briallen had given her a clean bill of health, and seeing her back in action was an enormous relief.
From the office side, the tunnel exit appeared to be a blank space between a filing cabinet and a credenza. Meryl spun her chair as I stepped through. I leaned over a stack of manuals and kissed her on the lips. She had trimmed her hair and dyed it lemon yellow
“You look great,” I said.
“Comas are very refreshing,” she said.
The office was a shambles, filing drawers half-open, with papers jumbled in them, stacks of reports spilled across the floor, the guts of Meryl’s backdoor computer spewed out across the credenza. “What the hell are you doing?”
She blew a puff of air that fluttered her bangs. “Not me. It was like this when I came in this morning. I’ve been looking for patterns.”
I picked my way over a mess of e-mail printouts and tossed a box of old CDs off a chair to sit. “Of what?”
“What they were looking for,” she said.
“Let’s start with who,” I said.
“Let’s call it macGoren, et al. Various agents have been in and out, but the directives are coming from macGoren,” she said.
“Now the what,” I said.
“The who again, actually. You,” she said.
“Me? Why would they be searching your office for information about me?” I asked.
She shrugged. “We’re boinking.”
“We boink?”
“Not for at least three months”—she narrowed her eyes at me—“that I know of.”
I chuckled. “No worry. It’s been that long.” I watched her read through something on her computer screen. “You said Nigel was looking for something you knew, too.”
“I did,” she said, and kept reading.
“So, macGoren and Nigel both think you know something important about me,” I said.
“They do,” she said.
“Aaaaand . . . we’re not really having a conversation, are we?” I asked.
She glanced at me. “They want their weapon back.”
Meryl had made a connection between me and Nigel I had never considered before I lost my abilities. When I didn’t understand Nigel’s coldness, she pointed out that I was his number one soldier in the fight against the Elven King. When I lost my abilities, he lost what he considered his advantage. “I’m not a weapon,” I said.
“But you were a tool and didn’t know it,” she said.
“Regardless, I’m neither n
ow,” I said.
She pursed her lips. “Maybe not a weapon but maybe still a tool.”
I scrunched my face at her. “Are you continuing this metaphor or are you insulting me?”
She grinned. “I so love that you’re uncertain.”
I folded my arms against my chest. “Why does that amuse you so much?”
“Because you used to be this arrogant prick who thought he knew everything even when he didn’t, and now you act sorta human, and that baffled look you sometimes get on your face is incredibly adorable,” she said.
“And you like to kick puppies, too,” I said.
“Gee, Grey. I might be brutally honest, but I don’t think I’m cruel,” she said.
“So, be honest. What have you found?” I asked.
“A lot of chatter about the night of the riots and what you did at the Old Northern bridge. I have to confess to being intrigued by that, too.”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about. I spoke to Brokke last night. He thinks I have the ability to access a primordial darkness he calls the Gap,” I said.
“Nigel talked about that a lot. It’s part of the Teutonic creation myth,” she said.
“Do you think it’s a myth?”
She shrugged. “What’s a myth except a creative explanation for something people don’t understand? Something that is cloaked in myth doesn’t mean it isn’t about something real.”
“We don’t have a myth like that,” I said.
“Myths are created when something is important to a culture, Grey. The beginning and the end of the world isn’t something the Celts focus on. We care about the world as we find it, not as it was or will be. The Teuts took a different approach,” she said.
“So, Brokke could be wrong,” I said.
She shifted her eyes from side to side, pretending to check if anyone was listening. “If anyone ever heard me say this, Grey, I’d get kicked out of the Grove. Celts are interested in questions about the world. Teuts are interested in answers. Either one could be the right path, but that’s not important. Finding a path is. Only you can decide what to believe.”
I sighed. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
A small smile slipped onto Meryl’s lips. “You know what, sweetie? You just made another step on your own path.”
I set my chin. “Then my next step is to kill Bergin Vize.”
Meryl stared, a long, blank stare while she turned something over in her mind. Silence filled the room as we looked at each other, as if a turning point had been reached. Whether it was in our relationship or something greater, I couldn’t tell, but I felt it coming.
“Let it go, Connor,” she said.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Maybe that’s why you should,” she said.
“I can’t. I unleashed something in Vize that can’t be stopped by anyone else,” I said.
“What if you release something in yourself that can’t be stopped?” she asked.
“I’ve never wanted to end the world,” I said.
“Are you sure? Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve been trying to stop something. Every time you do, the world as it is ends and becomes something different, something new,” she said.
Her words twisted in my gut. What was change but the end of one thing for another? “That’s how the Wheel of the World works,” I said.
She looked down, and muttered, “Dammit.”
“Yeah,” I said.
She looked me in the eye then. “What do you want me to do?”
“First, we call Murdock. Then we hit Vize when he least expects it.”
29
Murdock pulled to the curb on Tide Street. He eased out of the car, his tactical uniform all black and business, and scanned the sidewalk like a cop. Meryl pushed herself off the wall she had been leaning against and hugged him. “You finally updated your wardrobe,” she said.
He hugged her back. “I see that a coma hasn’t made yours any more subtle.”
Meryl wore her biker jacket over a black lace top. What the neckline hid, the tight fabric more than made up for. Black leather pants and high, flat-soled boots with lots of buckles completed the outfit. She tilted her head and feigned confusion. “What do you mean? This is my running outfit.”
“Running to or from?” he asked.
“At,” she said.
He leaned against his car and crossed his arms. “What’s the plan?”
Meryl looked at me. “You’re sure you want to do this?” she asked.
“I’m sure,” I said.
She lifted her head, and the subtle flutter of a sending wafted through the air. In the distance, a howl mixed with the sound of sirens. Something primal tugged at me, raising the hair on the back of my neck. Another howl joined in, and another, until we were ringed with the sound of yips and barks drawing closer. A dark shape leaped from a building in the distance and landed on all fours. As it scrambled down the street toward us, more figures appeared from every direction, dark and howling.
Responding to some instinct, Murdock and I backed next to Meryl, who lounged in a casual pose against the wall. Murdock’s hand went to his gun holster, but Meryl put her own hand on his arm. “Don’t,” she said.
The figures bounded closer, bunching together until they formed an arc of rippling muscle and fur. They ranged along the edge of the circle of light, wiry lupine bodies darting forward and back, agitation showing in the orange gleam of their eyes. Some pulled up onto their hind legs and howled against the sky.
The vitniri surrounded us. An unsettling merging of man and wolf, they struck terror in everyone who crossed their path. The tang of musk and sweat hung in the air as they jostled each other, pawing and nipping at one another. Their howls and barks receded as one broke through the circle into the light. He loomed over us, peering down his long-snouted face as he licked his tongue across sharp teeth. “We came,” he said.
“We need to find someone,” Meryl said.
He growled deep in his throat. “Give us a scent. We will find him.”
Meryl gestured at me. “He smells like this one.”
I resisted the urge to shudder as the vitniri regarded me. The leanansidhe had called me “brother.” I suppose it made sense that Vize could be considered the same. I smiled. “Hi.”
He leaned in close, his nostrils flaring. His eyes never left mine as he sniffed, his face hovering over my face. He stopped and exhaled, a rancid odor hitting me as a plume of essence settled on my skin. His lips curled back, and I flinched as a long tongue snaked out and licked my cheek.
He retreated, hunching his shoulders as his body signature brightened around him in a halo of deep orange light. He arched his spine and roared. A cloud of essence burst from his mouth, curling in the night air as the pack around us barked and howled. They danced in the cloud, the essence heightening their excitement. They jumped and leaped down the dark street in several directions. The lead vitniri dropped to all fours, howled at me, then dashed up the alley.
I reached up to wipe my face, but Meryl grabbed my hand. “Leave it. It’s a tag so the pack doesn’t confuse you with its prey.”
“Can someone explain to me what’s happening?” Murdock asked.
Meryl walked into the street and peered into the distance. “The vitniri can scent essence over long distances for a brief period.”
“Why the hell didn’t you mention this before?” he asked.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Uh . . . coma?”
Murdock had the good sense to be chagrined. I couldn’t blame him though. The vitniri freaked me out a little, too. My body was taking its time settling out of fight-or-flight mode, and I knew what the damned things were. They had protected Vize during the riots without knowing it. With their strong sense of honor, they wanted to repay the error. “How do we follow them?” I asked.
“The alpha will send the location,” she said.
“They’re not going to kill him when they find him, are they?” Murdock ask
ed.
“The alpha will do his best to prevent that,” she said.
“ ‘His best’?” Murdock asked.
Meryl nodded once. “His best. The pack is in heightened hunt mode. They listen to the alpha, but emotions can get out of hand. Be glad you weren’t down here when the Taint was loose.”
I paced the sidewalk, alert and anxious. An occasional howl brought me to a stop, and we tensed, waiting to see if Meryl received a sending. She remained still, head cocked toward the sound. The first few times, she shook her head to indicate she hadn’t heard anything. After a while, she took to filing her nails without acknowledging the sounds.
An hour later, Meryl stood in the middle of the sidewalk, hands planted on her hips. “Let’s move,” she said.
Murdock and I trailed after her as she walked down the alley. “Have they found him?”
“They hit two old traces but nothing solid. They’re running a grid pattern. This area’s clear for a couple of blocks,” she said.
As we rounded the corner to the next street, my head buzzed with the effects of scrying. Without being asked, Meryl took my hand and activated her body shield. The shield draped over us, deadening the threat of pain. “No one’s getting any good reads on the future lately, mostly static. People keep trying, though.”
“That happened before Castle Island, you know,” I said.
She glanced at me from under her yellow bangs. “And before Forest Hills and before Boston Common and before the riots.”
“I get it, I get it,” said Murdock. “Something bad’s going down. Can we focus on the problem at hand instead of going all ominous?”
“Just stating the facts,” said Meryl.
“Can the facts be more about succeeding than dreading?” he asked.
Meryl started to say something but snapped her mouth closed instead. A reflective look came over her face, and she swung my hand. “They found him,” she said.
She pulled me along the sidewalk into the next alley, a sinuous gauntlet of brick and trash. Howls filled the air as we approached the end, the buildings curving over the next street like cupped hands. We stopped in an intersection of six streets, vitniri running in circles around a cluster of darkness pressed against the narrow end of a corner building. The dark mass in my head contracted and flared with heat.
Uncertain Allies Page 20
