The fairy rose higher in the cold night air. She hesitated with her hands out. Confused, she faltered in flight as she flew out of the Taint. Her hands fluttered to her face at the scene below her. With a horrified cry, she descended to the loading dock, where her fellow workers gathered around her.
Screams grew louder from the other car. Murdock yelled to someone inside to open the door. Essence began to shimmer around him in a shade of deep red as he banged on the window.
“Murdock, be careful.” I could see the Taint flickering around him, but it didn’t interact with his essence the way it did with the fey. Or me. The Taint actually withdrew from me as I approached.
Murdock ignored me and kicked at the door. I rushed to the opposite side of the car. Inside, an elf straddled a human male. With methodical repetition, the elf swung his fists at the man’s head and chest. I beat on the window, but the elf seemed in a trance. Joe appeared inside, a little unsteady on the wing, and buzzed the elf’s head. If the elf hadn’t inflicted so much damage on his client, it would have been comical.
Murdock let out a roar of frustration, and his essence blossomed crimson. He smashed the driver’s side window with his fists, grabbed the door, and yanked it off its hinges. It skittered across the pavement in a shower of sparks. Murdock reached into the car and pulled the elf out. He tossed him away as if he were weightless. The elf screamed as he hit the ground and tumbled across the pavement.
Murdock leaned into the car. “Can you hear me?”
The bloodied man did not respond. Murdock stepped back, and he called on his radio for an ambulance. The poor guy inside the car was going to have to do some explaining to someone. Murdock pensively examined his hand as he listened to the garbled radio response.
I jogged over to the elf. He lay on his side, wearing only a T-shirt, an unnatural bend in his arm. He was unconscious, but breathing. I started to take my jacket off to cover him when Carmine’s limo pulled up. The rear window descended, and I heard the trunk pop.
Carmine leaned out. “There are blankets in the back, if you would do the honors. Is he all right?”
I collected the blanket and spread it over the elf. “Looks like a broken arm, but he’s alive.”
Carmine put a cell phone to his ear. “I’ll have my staff healer take care of it.”
I had to shake my head in surprise. “You provide health care?”
The ridge above his eyes went up. “Of course. I have good people, Connor. It wouldn’t do to have them out of commission for long.”
Smiling at the absurdity, I walked back to Murdock. “Are you okay?”
He still had the thoughtful look. “Yeah. I feel like I’ve just gone on a five-mile run.”
I eyeballed the missing car door. “Your essence surged. You get an adrenaline boost when that happens.”
He didn’t respond. “Murdock . . .”
He shook his head. “Not now, Connor.”
I compressed my lips. All summer he had been in and out of Avalon Memorial as one fey healer after another examined him. No one could find any obvious signs that the strange change to his body essence was hurting him. But no one could figure out what had happened to him either. I found it intriguing because I couldn’t tap essence anymore. If we could figure out what happened to Murdock, it might help figure out how to fix me. Not that I was being self-involved. I was worried about Murdock. The whole thing wouldn’t have happened to him if it hadn’t been for me. Briallen thinks I blame myself too much. Sometimes, she’s right. Sometimes, I don’t think I blame myself enough.
The few remaining cars pulled out of the lot as the sound of sirens drew near. Before any official vehicles arrived, a plain black sedan turned in. A dwarf hopped out of the passenger side, while a tall, elderly druid eased himself out of the driver’s seat. They huddled over the elf. The druid’s hands glowed white as he trailed them over the comatose elf. The essence winked off. The two conferred. The dwarf nodded, picked up the elf, and eased him into the backseat of the car while the druid returned to the driver’s seat. They departed as an ambulance and a squad car arrived.
Murdock waved them over. He looked over at me. “Don’t say anything to them about . . . you know. I don’t want this getting back to my father until I’ve had a chance to talk to him.”
I could live with a little omission of facts. Happens all the time in law enforcement. Commissioner Scott Murdock was riding the current anxiety against the fey in the city for all it was worth. Politically, he had managed to constrain the less-well-off fey in the Weird, leaving the more powerful ones alone. With the city on high alert, he was more than willing to let the Weird burn a little if it meant the rest of the city felt safer. The fact that his own son insisted on patrolling that same neighborhood galled him no end. If he knew about Murdock’s newly acquired body shields, he’d go ballistic and convince himself that the fey were a contagious infection. He’s the type.
As EMTs unloaded the guy in the first car onto a gurney, I left Murdock to handle the situation the way he wanted. I waited in his car while Joe snored in the backseat.
More emergency vehicles arrived. Carmine had to have someone on the police department payroll for this amount of attention. Help in the Weird tended to happen a helluva lot slower otherwise. Secrets were the true currency of the Weird, and, knowing Carmine, he had a long list of secrets that various people didn’t want revealed. It wouldn’t be the first time someone did favors to keep someone else quiet. But, like all secrets, eventually they would be revealed. Then all good hell would break loose, and it would be fun to watch the reputations fall. As long as one wasn’t yours.
8
The Book Spine was a slice of bookstore on Congress Street. When I say slice, I mean slice. The place was an alley fill-in between two larger buildings, no more than a dozen feet wide. Inside, a checkout counter sat to the right and cubbies for bags and knapsacks rose to the left. You needed the cubbies if you wanted to move around without getting wedged between the stacks or getting a swift kick for bonking someone with a knapsack. There were only three stacks: the right wall, the left wall, and one down the center. The trick was there were five levels. Steep, narrow stairs at the back of the long floor let you up to the first three. The last two were open air. If you couldn’t fly or levitate, you had to rely on the kindness of other browsers or an overworked staff person to lift you.
The symbols carved into Kaspar’s and Merced’s foreheads remained a mystery. I had exhausted my own library, and the Internet had offered little more than amateur sites. It’s impossible to search for a rune if you don’t have a name for it. The symbol had to be a sigil of some kind, either cultic or gang-related. Murdock was looking into the latter, but I jogged around the Weird enough to recognize most of the gang signs and didn’t think that would go anywhere.
I picked up a small dictionary of symbols bound in red leather. The copy was old, handcrafted inside and out. The cramped script flared here and there with essence. Sometimes, when a sufficiently powerful fey writes down a rune, one that needs to exist only as a sigil to activate its purpose, the rune activates. Whoever had written the dictionary had made a classic error by inscribing symbols. Nothing dangerous as far as I could tell, but not the smartest thing to do.
I tucked a larger tome under my arm, a cross-cultural reference on symbols in ancient religions. Depending on one’s view, essence manipulation was either a science or a religion. I had come down on the science side for years, but that was before I met the drys. Druids considered the drys as the incarnate essence of the oak, and therefore sacred. They were something—someone—I had taken for a myth. The old tales from Faerie told of gods and goddesses, minor deities and sacred rites. For most of my life, I assumed they were glorifications of real people lost in the mists of time. Fey people, to be sure, but no more godlike than anyone else who could manipulate essence. After feeling the power of the essence of the drys, I had to wonder if I had been wrong all this time. I still wasn’t sure.
A cell
phone rang. It took me a moment to realize it was mine. After breaking my old one at the Kaspar murder scene, I had replaced it and forgotten I changed the ringtone, too. Before losing the call to voice mail, I juggled the books under one arm while avoiding knocking into a small fairy browsing next to me. I didn’t recognize the caller from the ID, which was surprising since I don’t give my cell number out to many people. I answered it, expecting a wrong number.
“I’ll be damned. It is you,” Dylan said.
The fairy next to me returned my courtesy by slapping my face with his wings as he reached for a book on an upper shelf. “Dylan. How’d you get this number?”
“Should I be concerned that a dealer in stolen goods has your private phone number?”
The undercurrent of teasing was so typical of Dylan. “I assume you are talking about Belgor?”
“Is that a guess? Or do you know more than one?”
I eased my way down to the narrow stairs. “Now, now, Dyl. I have my secrets.”
“Mmm. I wouldn’t have guessed. Yes, it’s Belgor. There’s been an incident at his store, and he says he will speak only with you.”
I slid the books onto the counter and smiled an apology at the cashier. I hate when people talk on their cells when they interact with other people. “Sounds like Belgor. Has he been raided again?”
“No. He’s been assaulted. At least, that’s what it looks like.”
The cashier rang up the books, and I handed him three crumpled twenties. The budget gets depleted this way all too often. “Is he hurt?”
“Banged up and angry. I’d appreciate it if you came down here and helped sort it out.”
I gathered my change and purchases and walked outside into the dull light of the late afternoon. “I’m around the corner. I’ll be right there.”
I disconnected. Belgor was a snitch. A big, smelly snitch, but a good snitch. He had owned his store on Calvin Place for as long as anyone could remember. It masqueraded as a convenience store and curiosity shop. At some point, it probably was a legitimate business, but these days his profits all come from the back room. He knew how to play the legal game and cover his tracks, but that didn’t make his wares any less stolen. He did a fair amount of buying and selling that could be considered aboveboard, but he wasn’t particular about asking where things came from.
I walked the short distance up Stillings to Calvin Place, a one-lane stretch that ended one block away on Pittsburgh Street. It was best to keep your arm in the car when you drove through, or you risked catching it on a wall.
I stopped short on the corner. On the cold, shadowed side of the street, several people stood in front of Belgor’s Notions, Potions, and Theurgic Devices. The shattered windows of the shop did not look out of place on the dilapidated storefront. Shards of glass littered the ground, but the biggest surprise was Belgor himself. The old elf stood on the sidewalk, his meaty arms crossed over a stained skintight sweatshirt that barely covered his swollen stomach. I had never seen him in daylight. Having done so, I wanted to scrub the memory from my brain. As I recovered from the surreality of his presence outside, his heavily jowled face swayed in my direction. I was surprised yet again by a streak of blood smeared beneath his greasy hairline.
Dylan stood a few feet away talking with a Boston police officer as well as another druid and a fairy who both had the look of the Guild about them. He wore a long maroon coat over one of his signature red-colored shirts, the current one a striped crimson. He gave me a broad smile. “Please ask him what happened. He’s being obtuse and noxious.”
I glanced over at Belgor as he flexed his long, hairy, pointed ears. “He can hear you, you know.”
Dylan rolled his eyes. “Oh, I know. I’ve already told him to bathe if he wants courtesy. If he doesn’t start talking, I’m yanking him in no matter what he says.”
“First tell me why you’re here,” I said. I didn’t want to make any promises to Belgor without knowing the circumstances. With the Guild involved, even if it was Dylan, there would be circumstances.
Dylan gave Belgor a sideways glance as he shot a sending to me. His voice slipped smoothly into my head, ten years’ separation failing to erase the partnership groove we had. The New York robbery. Our information pointed to this location as the likely spot for the transfer of the Met jewelry. We had the place under surveillance. Our agents were distracted by something and didn’t see anyone go in. About an hour ago, the windows exploded and a woman ran out with Belgor hot on her heels. We’re waiting for a warrant, so stall him some more to keep him outside.
Since I can’t do sendings anymore, I looked at Belgor as I chose my words. “Distracted?”
Dylan frowned. I’ll tell you later. Not pertinent, I think. I’d like to hear what you think, though.
I grinned as I walked past him. “I’ll have to bill for consulting.”
Belgor blocked the door to his shop. He appeared wider than the door, so I half wondered whether he had come out through the missing window. The stink of onions wafted off him, competing with his usual bitter body odor. He had swiped at his forehead, smearing the blood and revealing a short gouge above the bridge of his nose.
I didn’t like Belgor. He played games, played loose with the law, and played me for a fool at times. But he knew when to play for me instead of against me. He didn’t like associating with me any more than I did with him. The fact that he told Dylan to call me meant he had information he would trade to make whatever had happened vanish. “Did you have an EMT look at that?”
He rolled his large lower lip downward. “Please, Mr. Grey. I’ve had worse cold sores.”
I tried not to think about that. “What happened?”
Belgor’s eyes shifted within their folds of fat. He looked at Dylan first, then the other Guild agents. “I had an unruly customer. Nothing more.” At the same time, he did a sending. I must have a guarantee of discretion.
Though I’d never told him, Belgor knew I couldn’t do sendings anymore. How he knew, like so much else he knew, I wouldn’t venture to guess. “I’ll do what I can to help you, but I need more than that.”
He pumped his lips before speaking. “A woman came in and asked to purchase lottery tickets” . . . It was an appointment . . . “She seemed agitated” . . . I was facilitating a transaction . . . “I gave her what she asked for and she attacked me” . . . I have something that the Guild may misconstrue.
Now I saw his problem. Belgor dealt in stolen goods. It was what made him an excellent information source on occasion. He had years of practice and kept his crimes petty enough not to attract attention. But every once in a while, he moved something bigger. Back when I was an agent, I’d caught him a couple of times but didn’t turn him in. Instead, I turned him. In exchange for information, I’d let the stolen-goods transactions slide as long as he moved the items back to their rightful owners. I wasn’t with the Guild anymore, so I couldn’t make him any promises. On the other hand, I owed him a little at this point, and if I could swing it, it would put him back in my debt.
“Have you ever seen her before?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not that I recall, Mr. Grey” . . . Perhaps a long time ago. There was something familiar about her.
I peered over Belgor’s shoulder into the shop. The setting sun illuminated shelves that hadn’t seen real light in decades. I half expected plant life to spring from the thick dust. “Can I see where she attacked you?”
“I have asked these gentlemen to leave as I do not wish to file a complaint, but they refuse” . . . Just you, Mr. Grey . . . “I know my rights and wish to forget the incident.”
I nodded. “I understand. But you know I’m not with the Guild anymore. I’m only a concerned friend.”
Belgor checked the dubious smile that had begun to form on his lips. “In that case, I will allow you to pass, but no others.”
I glanced at Dylan. He didn’t say anything, trusting me. Belgor followed me over the threshold into the store. He waved a finger acros
s the open doorway, then pointed it across the gaping holes of the windows. A thin streak of essence followed the hand. Dylan would recognize it as a trip-wire alarm if anyone tried to pass inside.
“At the counter,” Belgor said.
He was too large to pass me, so I walked ahead of him down the main aisle. The faint hint of an ozonelike odor filled my nose. Essence-fire left it behind. As I came around the end of the aisle near the back, Belgor didn’t need to tell me where the action had been. The next aisle had a long scorch mark across the floor to the front of the store and the missing windows. The shelves to either side still smoldered from the heat of the elf-shot.
“She attacked you with no warning?”
Now that he had room, Belgor moved behind the counter, where he rested his thick hands. Except for the trashed aisle, that arrangement was how we usually dealt with each other. “She said, ‘Die, betrayer,’ then lunged at me with an essence-charged knife. I returned the courtesy with elf-shot that sent her through the window.”
“ ‘Betrayer’? That’s an odd word, don’t you think? Do any betraying lately, Belgor?”
The sides of his mouth pulled downward. “I am in the business of trust, Mr. Grey. I would not knowingly betray a confidence.”
I had my doubts about that but let it slide. “Let’s cut to the chase. What do you have that you don’t want the boys outside to see?”
Belgor didn’t move, still considering how much to trust me. “Follow me.”
He pulled aside a curtain behind the counter and entered the back room. I had been in there before. The ten-foot-square room was packed with junk and saturated with the charred-cinnamon stench of Belgor’s body odor. It also hummed with essence. This was where he hid his more esoteric goods for a select clientele. A stained, sagging love seat sat to the left, facing a huge wide-screen television showing C-SPAN. DVDs of a different kind of sport littered the top of the TV. Belgor worked a strong market for porn that barely skirted below what even the fey would consider obscene. I remained at the door.
Unfallen Dead Page 8
