I pulled on a hoodie sweatshirt as lining for my old leather jacket. I had lost my padded leather one in TirNaNog and missed it every day the past few weeks. Winter had settled into Boston with bitter winds and early dustings of snow.
I headed out the door, and from the end of Sleeper Street, I cut over the Old Northern Avenue bridge into downtown proper. It was the fastest way out of my end of the neighborhood. At a hundred years old, the bridge was one of the oldest steel-truss bridges in the world. The swing mechanism even worked, so that at high tides, boats could sail up the channel. People admired it as a piece of old Boston even if they didn’t like the Weird beyond it. Artists painted and photographed it all the time, the four spans of crisscrossing steel making for interesting shapes and shadows. Late at night on a summer evening with the wind kicking up, it hummed and whistled and moaned. In December, I wanted to get off it as quickly as possible. It always felt colder than anything around it.
A typically Boston juxtaposition greeted me at the other end. On one side of the channel sat the Weird, home to a century’s worth of architecturally interesting masonry, then the bridge with its classic erector-set beams, which led smack into the chaotic tangle of asphalt and concrete intersections in the financial district, surrounded by smooth, impersonal skyscrapers. Say what you would about the Weird, but someone was ten times more likely to get mugged at midnight on Summer Street in the business district than on Old Northern at two in the morning.
Despite the cold, I walked through the financial district, then Chinatown, then the theater district. The subway was not the direct route to the Guildhouse and didn’t let off particularly near it anyway. Being chilled waiting in a subway tunnel was little different than being chilled walking. Besides, I was in no hurry to be underground again.
The forbidding presence of the Guildhouse loomed over Park Square. The winter sun bleached the gray stone almost white. Danann security agents circled above the many towers and turrets, while brownie guards moved along the ground perimeter. After the riots of the previous month, everything remained on high alert. A chain of Guild petitioners waited in the cold on the sidewalk. They formed a long, sinuous line that stretched around the far corner. For security, the lobby had been put off-limits to the general public.
Under normal circumstances, I would have challenged the guards and the receptionists for the fun of it. Not so long ago, being barred entrance galled me, but lately, that wasn’t mattering to me so much. I wasn’t the Guild investigator I once was. I was okay with that. Being a Guild investigator didn’t appeal to me anymore anyway. I called Keeva macNeve on my cell.
“I’m downstairs and need to talk to you,” I said, when she picked up.
“And if I say no?” she asked.
“No games, Keev. I’m not in the mood.”
“Fine. I’ll tell them to let you through.”
As she hung up, nearby brownie guards shifted positions, and two led me inside. They escorted me in silence up to the Community Liaison floor and left me in the reception area. The young wood fairy behind the desk stared at me with her pale green eyes as if she had never seen a druid before. I didn’t wait for her to say anything but went down the hall to Keeva’s office.
Keeva was typing aggressively at her computer but threw me a brief glance. I sat while she finished, then she turned to me with a sly smile. “I have to say I’m impressed you came in here.”
I smiled cordially. “That’s high praise coming from you.”
She shook her head. “You do realize the entire building went on alert when you walked in?”
“I’m flattered.”
She snorted. “Yes, I guess you would consider it flattering that people are afraid you’ll cause an interdimensional meltdown.”
I grinned. “And you’re not?”
She shook her head again. “I know better, Connor. You don’t have any other ability than to attract disaster. What do you want?”
“I found a leanansidhe in the Weird,” I said.
She arched an eyebrow. “Oh? I thought you were dating that Meryl Dian person.”
I frowned with amusement. Meryl was not Keeva’s favorite person. The feeling was mutual. “I’m serious. You should send someone down.”
She sighed. “There you go again, telling me how to do my job. We’re stretched thin with all the new security. Frankly, if we’ve got a leanansidhe down there, she’ll probably save us from arresting a few people.”
“That is so not funny,” I said.
She shrugged. “Connor, the solitaries are coming out of the woodwork. I get daily reports from Commissioner Murdock about them. I never realized we had so many in Boston. They’ve become incredibly aggressive.”
“That’s because the Dead are killing them. They’re defending themselves.”
She rubbed her neck. “And whose fault is that, I wonder?”
I pulled in my chin. “Are you really going to lay that on me? I stopped whatever was happening on Samhain. If I hadn’t closed the veil, we’d have a bigger problem than the Dead.”
Keeva looked doubtful. “Let’s see: an underQueen of Faerie died, your old partner Dylan died, several dozen fey and humans died in the rioting, you destroyed a possible way back to Faerie, and, oh, by the way, the Dead of TirNaNog are roaming the streets of Boston. Next time you feel like helping, Connor, stay inside whatever bar you’re in and resist the impulse.”
I slouched in the chair. It sounded pretty awful when she put it like that, but, really, it wasn’t my fault. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. “Don’t change the subject. I can’t believe I told you there’s a leanansidhe out there, and you’re not itching to hunt it down yourself.”
A conflicted look came over her. “I’m too busy. If I can, I’ll get an agent to help your buddy Murdock for a day or two, but no guarantees.”
“Busy? It’s a leanansidhe, Keeva. You can’t tell me you’re not concerned or interested.”
She pursed her lips. “Is there anything else, Connor?”
Keeva’s body signature rippled. I tapped my essence-sensing ability and sensed a thin layer of additional essence around her. “Are you wearing a glamour, Keeva?”
Her eyebrows drew together. “It’s rude to look at my essence without permission.”
“You are wearing a glamour! I’ve known you for years, Keeva macNeve. I know what your body signature looks like. Why are you wearing a glamour?”
She became decidedly uncomfortable. “I don’t want people asking me about my health, Connor. I’m here to do my job, not answer questions about my body signature.”
I leaned forward, concerned. Genuinely. Keeva and I didn’t agree on a lot of things, but I didn’t hate her enough to wish her ill. “Are you all right? Have you seen Gillen Yor?”
She pulled herself in toward the desk. “Connor, I said I didn’t want to talk about my health. Yes, I’m fine. Yes, I’ve seen Gillen Yor. My condition is no one’s business and doesn’t affect my ability to do my job. Next subject.”
She had taken some serious essence hits in the last few months. I had walked in on her exam at Avalon Memorial a few weeks earlier and seen the damage. Danann fairies were strong—incredibly strong. I thought she’d be recovered by now. “Does macGoren know?”
Ryan macGoren was powerful, but essence sensing was not an ability Danann fairies worked well. They could do it with physical touch—and I assumed he touched her, since they had been a couple for months—but if he wasn’t looking for something and Keeva didn’t want him to know, she would have no problem hiding it from him.
“That’s even more off base. If I promise to send someone down to the Weird, will you drop it?”
“Okay.” Keeva’s temper was short normally, but she was more on edge than usual. Actively helping the human police force against fey people couldn’t be sitting well with her. Keeva might enjoy the privileges of her position, but she was still fey and took pride in that.
I changed the subject. “Any idea when this curfew is going to e
nd?”
“That’s Commissioner Murdock’s call. The Guild board supports his decisions.”
“And you agree with it?” I asked.
She sighed with impatience. “I don’t have to agree with it. Ryan is Acting Guildmaster, and I act under his direction. It’s the job.”
She didn’t say she agreed with it. “Since when is Ryan Acting Guildmaster? I didn’t hear he was named.”
She shrugged. “He is in everything but name. Eagan hasn’t gotten around to making it official.”
I was tempted to tell her he wouldn’t be getting around to it anytime soon, but I had irritated her enough. Besides, I got what I came for—a quasi promise to deal with the leanansidhe.
I stood. “Well, good luck to him if that’s what Eagan decides. I’ll let you get on with black-booting the Weird now.”
“You’re an ass, Connor,” she said, as I stepped out the door.
I deserved that. “Seriously, Keeva, are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m fine. I’ll let you know if anything happens with the leanansidhe.”
Downstairs, I paused under the portico in front of the Guildhouse. If I wasn’t mistaken, a crack was forming in Keeva’s unmitigated support of Guild policy. She had spent her career climbing the ladder by agreeing to the right things with the right people. Not vocally supporting Commissioner Murdock’s curfew was unusual, and she knew I would pick up on it. Then again, as time went on, I thought she was becoming less careful with what she said around me. She told me once that my credibility was so poor, no one would believe me if I repeated what she said. I hated to admit it, but she might have a point.
As I looked up at the sky to see if clouds were rolling in, I noticed the empty expanse of the portico ceiling. The gargoyles that usually clustered were almost all gone. With the extraordinary amount of essence expended on Samhain, they were migrating up to Boston Common, and since the Taint still floated around the Weird, many more were down there, leaving the Guildhouse oddly bare. I wondered what the roof of the place looked like. The heaviest concentration of gargoyles gathered up there.
I pulled my collar up and walked through the gauntlet of brownie security. For over a year, I had wallowed in despair over whether I’d ever work at the Guild again. In a few short months, my thinking had changed dramatically. I had changed. The place had become alien to me. Despite all my disagreements with the Guild, I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not.
10
I retraced my route back to the Weird, turning off a bridge early to enter Southie. By the time I reached the Rose Rose, snow had begun to fall, and my toes became numb. I waited for Meryl in a back booth, enjoying the heater under the table as it warmed my feet. If Yggy’s was the bar in the Weird where fey from across the spectrum gathered to be among themselves, the Rose Rose was where the fey and humans met on neutral ground. People went to the Ro’Ro’ to relax and have a good time.
Meryl swept through the front door, bringing in a shower of snow with her. People at the tables nearest the door eyed her with irritation. She ignored them as she made a direct line for my table. “You look tired.”
I pushed a glass of Guinness toward her. “I had a busy night.”
She tapped my glass and sipped. “You didn’t visit when you were in the building today.”
Meryl ran the Archives in the subbasements of the Guildhouse. The basements were dark, stone- lined, quiet, and filled with stuff most fey didn’t even know existed. As Chief Archivist, she got to play with everything. I usually took any opportunity to visit her when I was in the Guildhouse. “With all the security watching my every move, I didn’t have the energy for the hassle. You missed me, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “Yeah. My afternoon was boring. Watching you get dragged out of the building would have broken the tedium.”
I crumpled a napkin and tossed it at her. “Nice to know I’m entertainment for you.”
She grinned. “That’s what would have happened, you know. As soon as you entered the building, they doubled the guards on the elevators. They’re watching us. See the cute couple behind me drinking umbrella drinks? Low-level druids with Danann security on speed sending.”
I laughed and sipped my beer. “Ya know, I thought I saw them on Old Northern this morning. Why the spying?”
Meryl slowly shook her head. “Don’t be dense. The Guild’s assessing its next move after Samhain. They let me back to work because they can’t figure out if I did anything wrong. You, on the other hand, they saw challenge an underQueen who was investigating you, then she died. Why do you think Nigel went to Tara?”
“I thought he was going to Russia?”
Meryl leaned back. “Eventually. I couldn’t find out what that’s about, but he’s stopping at Tara to see Maeve.”
I caught the server’s attention and ordered another round. I stared in the dregs of my beer. “Meryl, let me ask you something. I’m having this odd moment where I sit here, an unemployed druid with damaged abilities who can barely pay his rent with a disability check, and yet, the High Queen of Tara seems to be oddly nervous about me. Am I suffering from delusions of grandeur, or is that really true?”
“Well, both. I thought that goes without saying,” she said.
“Seriously, please.”
She wrapped both hands around her glass. “I think you’re a victim of circumstances. You’re right: You’re pretty much washed-up as a druid of any ability. Most fey, never mind the High Queen, would be expected to ignore you as inconsequential.”
The server dropped two more pints on the table, and we ordered food. I took a deep gulp of my beer. “Okay, this is encouraging so far,” I said.
She smirked. “But you can’t deny that some pretty strange and powerful events seem to be sucking you into their paths. Maeve’s a strategist. If she thinks you might be some kind of power locus—despite your lack of ability—she’s going to want to exploit that.”
“Over my dead body,” I said.
Meryl shrugged. “That might work in her favor.”
“What about Bergin Vize? He was involved in at least two of those events. Why isn’t she after him?”
Meryl gave me a look of disappointed amusement. “How you ever got a reputation for being a brilliant investigator I cannot fathom. Think about it, you idiot. Do you think it was coincidence Keeva macNeve was assigned the Castle Island case? She’s a bitch, but she’s the best agent the Guild has now that you’re gone—and she captured the perpetrator. He only escaped because someone else screwed up. Do you think an underQueen was sent here because Maeve’s main concern was you and the Taint or the fact that Bergin Vize was moving an army through TirNaNog?”
She was right. I hadn’t thought of it. “What about Forest Hills? Vize wasn’t involved in the Forest Hills event.”
“As far as we know. That spell was created through a combination of Celtic druid lore and elven rune spells. Don’t forget—I was helping Nigel with his rune research. We never did find out who supplied the elven aspect of the spell. It could have been Vize. Suborning high-level Guild officials and attempting to destroy Maeve’s access to essence has his fingerprints all over it. She’s watching him, too, Grey. Don’t think for one minute you’re her only concern. Maeve’s sandbox is a lot bigger than yours.”
I feigned a pout. “I think you just pointed out the delusion of grandeur part.”
She drank. “Without breaking a sweat, my friend.”
“So, I’m a power locus.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe Vize is. Maybe his destiny is bound to Maeve’s and yours to his. That doesn’t make you bound to Maeve. Destiny may be transitive, but that doesn’t mean you’re the most important link in the chain.”
“What if you’re wrong?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t say I was right. I’m poking holes in your assumption that Maeve’s interest in you is an either/or proposition. You could be a much bigger problem for Vize than you are to Maeve.”
&nbs
p; I nodded. “Eorla Kruge said something like that to me once.”
“She’s a smart lady. Maybe too smart. She requisitioned the rune research I did for Nigel,” Meryl said.
“She’s trying to reconstruct the runes on the oak staff,” I said.
Meryl twisted her lips in thought. “I don’t know if I like that.”
“If it means the end of the Taint, yeah, it’s a good thing,” I said.
“What if it means she re-creates the spell that destroyed Forest Hills?”
“I don’t believe that’s her goal,” I said. “She had the opportunity at Forest Hills to take control, and she rejected it. I believe her when she says she wants peace. It’s why her husband died.”
She sighed. “I always have a hard time believing people with noble causes. It usually means someone’s gonna die.”
“Dying can be noble,” I said.
She made an exaggerated shiver. “Yeah, that’s what nobility turns into—the rationale for every authoritarian regime I’ve ever seen.”
“Anyway, I wanted to ask you something about the decapitation murders.”
Meryl leaned her elbows on the table and propped her chin in her hands. “Severed heads and dinner. Who said romance is dead?”
I leaned forward, lowered my eyes, and dropped my voice to a husky whisper. “Wait until I tell you about the rotting bodies Murdock and I found in the sewer.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “Oh, Grey, I think something’s happening to my naughty bits. Tell me more, please.”
I tapped her nose. “You are a whack job.”
She picked up her beer. “That makes you a whack-job chaser.”
“You said the Dead can’t regenerate without the head, right?”
The server gave me an odd look as she placed our dinners in front of us. Meryl plucked a fry from my plate. “Honestly, it’s conjecture. Good conjecture, but still conjecture. In TirNaNog, the head didn’t matter. The Dead were in the Land of the Dead. No matter how they were killed there, they reappeared the next day. Here, though, if you killed someone fey and kept the head separate from the body, you denied them entrance to TirNaNog. That much I know for sure. Under the current situation, TirNaNog is closed. No one’s getting in. When someone Dead dies here, they regenerate here. So, by taking the head, I think the Dead can’t regenerate here. Make sense?”
Unperfect Souls Page 8
