Unperfect Souls

by Mark Del Franco

  The dark mass pulsed in my head, a throb of pressure against the back of my eyes. I flushed with warmth despite the cold in the tunnel. The air rubbed against my skin, an itchy pleasure of temperature difference. My peripheral vision narrowed as the dark mass moved, and I navigated the tunnel by instinct and memory.

  The leanansidhe’s room was a shambles. Books scattered across the floor where they had fallen from overturned tables. Burn marks seared the fabric of the armchair Druse used, and her reading lamp lay shattered next to it. I sensed nothing, no essence, the dull, sterile aftermath of the leanansidhe’s ability. At the back of the room, a white-and-silver essence glow drew me to the fissure in the wall.

  Druse hunched over the bloodstone bowl in the chamber. No barrier field prevented me from approaching; the ward stones that generated it lay broken on the floor. The dark mass shifted, a burning sensation down my neck moving with the slow ooze of hot metal. My tongue grew thick with anticipation, a physical reaction to my desire for essence. Or the dark mass’s desire. The difference between what I wanted and what the dark mass wanted blurred in the light of the bloodstone bowl.

  Druse lifted her head, her eyes half-closed in a stupor. Her essence field shimmered in shades of purple, thick, pulpy tendrils of light hanging from her face, their tips silver with fading essence as she absorbed it. Her lips lifted in a lazy smile. “Ah, my brother, come, taste, and sup with me. I feel the need within you.”

  Speech refused to come. Something pierced my right hand with exquisite pain. Something pierced my chest with exquisite pain. Something pierced my cheek with exquisite pain. Dark essence snaked out of me, hungry darkness that danced in ropes of darkness. I stumbled against the bedrock pedestal beside Druse and drank, strands of darkness dipping into the ward stone, eclipsing the essence. Blood pounded in my temples, a steady, sensual rhythm that reverberated throughout my body, my chest filling as I inhaled through blood-gorged lips.

  Druse touched me—with her hand, with her essence—a languid caress on my forehead. “Yes, my brother, surrender to the need, let the desire guide you. It’s not pain, is it? It’s the pleasure in the pain, yes?”

  Her face pressed near mine, her eyes luminous with excitement, and I smiled. I understood her, the pulsing dark things slicing out of me, pulsing with rich essence, a pleasure that demanded payment. My skin shivered, every pore alive with feeling, with need and desire. My face grew hot, blood rushing through me in waves, prickling my skin to life, arousing me like nothing I had ever known.

  Druse whispered in my ear—words, sounds—I was no longer sure. Her essence pressed against me, bulbous tendrils worrying at my face, my eyes. They pressed inward, and I gasped as they cut through, cut through and merged with my own, coiled around my darkness and my need and . . .

  . . . yes yes I feel us we are us and the essence is ours and the want and the need and the same so good so strong so much so more we need more yes more the bowl empties and still we want and still we need and and and still there is more always more we need the prize the treasure the hidden gem we do not need to save it now to cherish it we need it now we want it now we reach for it now . . . oh myself my brother . . . oh there yes there yes it is there oh yes oh yes oh yes here it is so rich so lush we must have it must have it all drink of it take it all in the more the more we will have more and find more and more and . . .

  Something broke in my mind, and I screamed at the pain. Druse vanished out of my mind like an extinguished candle. I opened my eyes. Dark ropelike lines trailed out of me across the floor, trailing off into the darkness of an exit from the chamber.

  “Connor!” someone shouted.

  Essence shivered and oozed through the shadow lines, the living essence of someone fey. As it seeped through me, my sensing ability touched it, and I recognized fairy essence.

  Someone shook my arm. “Connor!”

  I touched the fairy essence through the darkness, Danann fairy essence. Something hit me in the face, jarring the darkness out of the vision in one eye. A haze lifted off my awareness. I shook my head. The dark mass burned with a flow of essence, Danann essence from the next room. I shook my head again. Horrified by what I was doing, I recognized the essence that I was absorbing.

  The dark ropes undulated as the silver mesh in my left arm flared and lit with essence. Like the dark mass, the actions and reactions of the tattoo seemed to have their own agenda, one I didn’t understand and couldn’t control. I shuddered as blades of ice sliced through me, tangling with the streams of darkness from my head. The dark mass convulsed and retreated. The white light from my arm flickered and went out. The backlash of the force and the pain threw me off my feet.

  33

  Wetness touched my face. I wiped at it, feeling something slick and sticky. I opened my eyes and stared into Uno’s fetid, gaping mouth. He barked once softly and sat back on his haunches. The leanansidhe lay beside me, blood smeared across her forehead, the bloodstone bowl on the floor by her head. No essence emanated from her.

  I sat up and reached for the ward stone. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Is it dead?” In his long white coat, hood thrown back, Shay stood near the pedestal nibbling at a fingernail.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked.

  He brushed at dirt and blood smears on his coat. “You know, my friends said I’d never be able to keep this clean.”

  “Shay!”

  Startled, he met my eyes. “What?”

  I stood. A heavy pounding filled my head. The dark mass moved like a restless sleeper at the base of my skull. “How did you find me?”

  He looked down at Uno sitting beside him. “He forced me outside and chased me down the street. I thought he was taking me to . . . to wherever he was going to kill me.”

  “Something’s screwy with that dog,” I said.

  Shay moved closer and stared at Druse. “That thing could use some hair conditioner.”

  I shook my head, too weak to laugh. “Not anymore.”

  Shay froze, blood draining from his face. “I killed it?”

  “What happened?”

  He pointed. “It was hanging off your back. All this black stuff was coming out of you. You wouldn’t answer me. Then that . . . that thing spun its head around and hissed at me. I grabbed the bowl and hit it.

  “What was that black stuff?” Shay asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “It was running into that hole in the wall over there,” he said.

  Memory rose, the darkness pulling in essence, an essence I knew, and gorge rose in my throat at the thought. In two long strides, I reached the exit and found Keeva on the ground. Her pulse beat strongly beneath my fingers, but her essence flickered like a dying lightbulb. Another essence signature glowed inside her, strong and vibrant. Burn marks on her skin and wings showed the remains of a binding spell.

  I patted her cheek. “Keeva?” No response. I pinched her.

  “Help me get her up,” I said.

  Shay gave the leanansidhe a wide berth. Keeva groaned as we turned her over and pulled her into a seated position. I rubbed her arms. “Keeva? It’s Connor. Can you hear me?”

  She lifted her head, her eyelids fluttering. “Danu,” she whispered.

  Relief swept over me. “Keeva, wake up. You’re okay.”

  She opened her eyes, struggling to focus on me. “Connor?”

  “Yeah. Don’t move. You were attacked by the leanansidhe . I think she infected you with a parasite or something,” I said.

  That brought her around. Her hands flew to her stomach. “What do you mean?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sensing another body signature inside you. There’s some kind of protective shield around it, and I can’t see what it is.”

  “Get me up.” She grabbed my shoulder, and we helped her to her feet.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t move until we know what’s wrong,” I said.

  She swayed. “Get me to AvMem.”

  “Keeva . . .”


  “I’m pregnant, you idiot! Get me to AvMem now.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “Oh, congratulations!” said Shay.

  Ignoring him, I draped Keeva’s arm around my neck. “Get that ward stone, Shay. I’m not leaving it here.”

  Easy as he pleased, Shay stooped and picked up the bowl. Supporting Keeva with my other arm, I walked her through the chamber. “What happened, Keeva?”

  She leaned against me. “I followed your ridiculous map. You might have mentioned the binding traps.”

  “Sorry. They weren’t there when I was here last time.”

  “How did you know I was down here?” she asked.

  It was hard to decide which made me look worse, the angry drunkenness or the creepy desire that drove me back to Druse. “It’s a long story.”

  Uno bounded down the tunnel ahead of us, circling around back and running off again. He acted more like an overgrown puppy than what I expected in a hound from Hel. Keeva pressed her arm against me. “Do you feel that?”

  “What?”

  “Something’s down here with us. I feel something moving around us. Something malevolent,” she said.

  I didn’t sense anything but Uno. “You mean the dog?”

  She cocked her head up. “What dog?”

  Shay and I looked at each other. He looked away, sad and resigned. He didn’t have to tell me what he was thinking about the dog.

  “Another long story, Keev. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  When we reached the walled-off basement, I sensed the remains of a binding spell across the leanansidhe’s bolt-hole. Threadlike tatters dangled from the walls and ceiling. I hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to notice them on the way in.

  “He wasn’t here,” Keeva said.

  “Who wasn’t?”

  She forced herself to walk on her own. If there was one thing I knew about Keeva, it was that she was tough. “Vize.”

  Guilt swept over me. I had been wrong, and Keeva had walked into the leanansidhe’s chamber unprepared. “I’m sorry, Keev. I’m really sorry. I thought Sekka was hiding the ward stone. That’s what I thought the Guild wanted. I didn’t know that you were looking for Vize until tonight. I’m an idiot.”

  Keeva started up the stairs. “You won’t get any argument from me on that score. Why the hell would we care about a ward stone?”

  I looked back at Shay coming up behind me as he clutched the stone bowl to his chest. “I thought it was important.”

  Uno burst out of the warehouse door. The morning sun blinded us after the tunnels. I blinked hard against the tears in my eyes. As my vision returned, I saw essence building up in Keeva’s wings.

  I pulled out my cell. “You are not flying to AvMem, Keeva.”

  A challenge rose in her eye, but she checked it. Without argument, she leaned against the building while I called the Guild’s emergency line. Keeva held a hand out to Shay. “Let me see that.”

  He pursed his lips and held out the bowl. “I know you meant it, but let me see that ‘please,’ right?”

  When Shay released it, it slipped through Keeva’s hands and hit the ground. She bent to retrieve it, but it wouldn’t budge. “What’s the trick?” she said to Shay.

  He leaned down and picked up the bowl. His finely arched eyebrows drew together as he turned it in his hands. He handed it back to Keeva, and it fell again. I tried to pick it up, but no luck. The three of us must have made an interesting scene as we squatted around a stone bowl in the snow. Shay picked it up again. I took it and couldn’t hold it. I stared at it and remembered what the leanansidhe had said. “Shay, this is going to be an odd question, but are you a virgin?”

  It was an odd question. When I met Shay, he was turning tricks on the street and living with a boyfriend. He pretended to have his dignity insulted. “A gentleman would not ask such things.”

  “Right. That’s why Connor would,” said Keeva.

  I scowled at her. “Funny.”

  The familiar buzz of large wings moving at speed filled the morning air, and two great shadows swept overhead. Danann security agents wheeled above us and descended. “Are you well, Director macNeve?” one of the chrome-domes asked.

  “Take me to Avalon Memorial, please. It’s just a precaution,” she said. She folded her wings against her back as the two agents slipped their hands into straps sewn into her jumpsuit. “Not a word to anyone, Connor. I’ll stop by to kill you after I see Gillen Yor, okay?”

  I smiled weakly. “You sound like yourself already.”

  The security agents flexed their wings and rose on drafts of essence. When they cleared the roofline, they swung around and disappeared. As they left, a movement caught my eye, someone on a roof watching us. The Hound. He ducked out of sight.

  Shay stared at the now-empty sky. “She’s still kind of a bitch, isn’t she?”

  Keeva had been less than kind to Shay in the past. When I say less than kind, I mean ignored him like he didn’t exist.

  “She has her moments, Shay.”

  He picked up the ward stone. “Why did you ask about my virginity?”

  I shook my head. “The leanansidhe said only a virgin could move it.”

  Shay gave me a sly look. “There’s more than one kind of virgin, you know.”

  “One kind of . . .” I laughed. “Gods. You’ve never slept with a woman, have you?”

  He rested his chin on upright fingers. “Look at this face, doll. The only girls in high school who wanted to sleep with me were confused lesbians.”

  “I guess whoever put the taboo on the stone was a little old-fashioned,” I said.

  He pouted coyly. “I try to be modern.”

  “Hang on to that for me, okay? And don’t tell anyone you have it. The last thing you need is someone coming to look for it.”

  He pulled his hood up. “Are you going to be all right, Connor?”

  I shrugged. “I need to get some sleep. You should, too.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to do that for a while.” He clutched the bowl to his chest again and started up the street.

  “Hey, Shay?” He turned his head, but his hood didn’t move. Half his face showed along the edge of fur, a few strands of his long dark hair waving in the wind. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  He wiggled his nose at me. “Karma, doll.”

  He weaved down the sidewalk, following a sinuous path of compacted snow. When he was a block or so away, Uno lumbered out from between two cars and followed him.

  I checked the roofline again. The Hound was gone. Exhaustion weighed down on me. Thinking about Keeva and Shay—and even the Hound—were just avoidance tactics. I didn’t want to think about what had happened down in that tunnel. The thing in my head could be used. I could guide it. It reacted to what I was feeling, and I could use it. Only it seemed to work with aspects of myself that made me feel wrong. And ashamed. The worst part was, that wasn’t enough to make me not want to use it.

  And that scared me.

  34

  Meryl was asleep in the middle of my futon when I arrived at the apartment. After hearing about what happened at Eagan’s the night before, she had surmised I was with Murdock and had let herself in to wait for me. How she got in with all the security warding, I didn’t know, but it didn’t surprise me. Very little stopped her when she put her mind to it. Without a word, she wrapped her arms around me and drew me into bed. Exhausted, I slept the morning away. By the time I woke up, the governor had called in the National Guard, and the Weird was under curfew. Meryl and I spent the rest of the day in various stages of undress, lolling about the apartment and watching TV.

  The scent of popcorn filled the air. Meryl watched the bag revolve in the microwave while I sat on the edge of the futon annoyed by the television news.

  “They’re doing the ‘Wasn’t-Scott-Murdock-a-Noble-Guy? ’ piece again,” I said.

  The news had settled on its angle for the life of Scott Murdock. Television station after station outlined the
life of a man who walked the fine line in Boston between fey dominance and human accommodation. Parts of it were even true. Scott Murdock was no fan of the fey, but he also knew he couldn’t ignore or eliminate them. Helping them, of course, was not on his list. That was the Guild’s job, and as long as it dropped the ball, it played right into his political maneuvering. I saw it time and again. Someone could blame the Boston P.D. for its ineffectual approach to fey crime, but its failings always paled in the face of the Guild’s indifference.

  In the end, he had crossed the line. Why, only he could answer, and that wasn’t possible anymore. Maybe the catastrophic events of the last months overwhelmed him. Maybe he realized his contrived failures to protect the human populace had mutated into real ones out of his control. And maybe Moira Cashel pushed him over the edge with her revelations of his past and her revenge for his actions. She seduced him once and seduced him again. That had to suck for him.

  The microwave dinged. Meryl juggled the hot bag to the counter, pulled the corners of the bag open, and let out the steam. “Eh, I’m indifferent. Police commissioner in this town is a no-win job. Whoever gets it is going to end up sucking at it one way or the other.”

  I cocked my head toward her. “Are you defending him?”

  She pushed a kernel of popcorn into my mouth as she settled on the futon. “I didn’t say I liked him.”

  I slid back to sit next to her against the wall. “Did I mention the part where he shot me in the face?”

  She grinned, watching the television. “Who am I to criticize someone who succeeds where others failed?”

  I poked her, and she laughed, sending some popcorn flying as she pulled away. “It hurt,” I said.

  “Yeah, your poor wallet. The dry cleaning bill’s gonna be a bitch.”

  I ate popcorn off the blanket. “Ha-ha.”

  She fished in the bag, as if looking for a particular kernel. “Do you think Moira healed you?”

  “I was wondering that myself. What I can’t figure is why she would.”

  “Maybe she thinks you’ll forgive her and be her boyfriend again,” Meryl said.