Unfallen Dead

by Mark Del Franco

  I rubbed my hands over my face before answering. “No, I haven’t. Now, can I ask you something? I know you’re loyal to both the Guild and the Seelie Court. If you’re trying to understand the Taint, can you please not assume it has some nefarious Teutonic plot behind it? You sound like Nigel, and he let that assumption blind him to the truth.”

  He pursed his lips. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Con. Part of the reason I am here is to track Teutonic spies. That part of my job led me to the Taint, not the other way around. I’m seeing a correlation. I’m not making any assumptions yet.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Dylan twirled his glass, watching the light reflect in the deep ruby wine. “You’ve had a rough time here.”

  I gave an embarrassed shrug. “It’s been a roller coaster. I was pretty bitter about losing my abilities, but I think I’m getting over it.”

  Dylan’s eyebrows gathered. “You keep saying you’ve lost your abilities, but you seem to end up pulling off some heavy-duty spells. You either have abilities you never knew you had or you sure as hell have some new ones.”

  I hunched forward, cupping my wineglass. “That’s the big question. Most of what’s happened this past year seems lucky, but lately I’ve been starting to wonder. I know I’m blocked from doing lots of things I used to do. At the same time, I can do things I never could before.”

  “Like sensing gender in essence,” he said.

  I nodded. “Yeah. It goes deeper than that, though. Sometimes I can sense what species initiated a spell even if personal essence isn’t left behind . . .” Dylan looked surprise. “. . . yes, exactly like a troll. I had a run-in with a troll not so long ago, and I seem to have gained a faint duplication of his ability.”

  “So, the question is, did you always have the ability to sense like that and never knew it, or do you have a new ability to absorb others’ abilities,” he said.

  “That’s what I’m trying to understand.”

  Our meals arrived, and the conversation drifted to reminiscing. We laughed over shared history as I ate quail with figs and steak au poivre. A decadent chocolate thing appeared for dessert. I relished every bite, marveling that I had forgotten how much I loved high-end food. Now that I knew about Dylan’s relationship with Briallen, I understood where he had developed his taste for expensive port.

  “Do you have many solitary fey here?” he asked, as I finished telling him about the odd essence I had encountered on my way home from Briallen’s the other night.

  I scraped little lines with my fork in the remains of the chocolate sauce on my plate. “Sure. More than most people realize. I certainly didn’t until I started living in the Weird.”

  “Maybe a solitary you’ve never encountered before produced the presence.”

  I shook my head doubtfully. “It wasn’t corporeal, though. With my essence sensing off the scale, I think I would have felt a body present, but it was more vague, like an afterthought. It was like fairy essence, but the whole thing felt random.”

  Dylan leaned on his hand. “This is the type of thing I was talking about earlier. Do you think it could have been someone using the Taint to create a spell?”

  “No, it wasn’t the Taint. I know what the Taint feels like. This thing felt odd and somehow directed at me.”

  Dylan took on a serious look. “You know, you’re right. If I wanted to attack you, I’d send a blobby thing to point at you.”

  I leaned back and shook my head. “You’re hopeless. How anyone promoted you is beyond me.”

  He wore the patented Dylan macBain rogue smile as he met my eyes. “Good luck and charm.”

  I smirked. “You’re half-right.”

  Still smiling, he sipped his port. “Really? Which?”

  I chuckled. “I lied. Neither.”

  When the bill arrived, Dylan didn’t mention it as he slid a credit card into the check folder. There was no question who would be paying in that restaurant. Loddie waited at the curb when we came out. “Take the car, Con. I’m going to walk back to Auntie Bree’s.”

  The sleek black town car idled in the chill night air that surrounded us. “I’m not going to object,” I said.

  Dylan laughed, then became serious. “Come to New York, Connor. Name what you want, and I’ll make it happen.”

  I searched the sidewalk as though an answer might be there. “The Guild tossed me, Dylan. You’d have to expend a lot of political capital to do that.”

  He shrugged. “No, I wouldn’t. I’ve looked at your file, Connor. Your expulsion is on a pretty technical point. The Boston Guild may claim they’re afraid of the liability because of your loss, but they make exceptions to that all the time. Someone wanted you out. There’s a smoking gun lying on a mantel somewhere. Come to New York. We don’t have to abide by Boston’s decisions.”

  I gave him a sheepish grin. “I’ll have to think about it. Can I take a rain check on the offer?”

  He gave my arm a squeeze. “Of course. Take as long as you need.” He pointed at the car as he walked away. “Enjoy the ride, buddy.”

  His maroon coat swayed as he strode up toward the statehouse and turned the corner. Briallen lived a couple of blocks farther. I slid into the passenger seat of the car. “Mind if I sit up front, Loddie?”

  His neutral expression didn’t change. “Whatever sir prefers.”

  I snorted. No one had deferred to me like that in a long time. As he drove me back to the Weird, I resisted the urge to play with the stereo system. I slumped in the seat and let the heat lull me into a doze.

  Dylan could do what he said. He always came through on a promise. I wouldn’t be a full field agent, though. The Boston Guild was right about one thing—my lack of ability would be a liability in the field. I could leave Boston, set myself up as a prime researcher. I would be willing to work for Dylan like I never would work for Keeva macNeve. I’d be able to pay my bills again. Have a nice apartment again. I let myself imagine living that life again, racing around the streets of New York in black cars and taking calls from power brokers. I could have more tales to tell like the ones Dylan and I had spent the evening reliving.

  As the car pulled up in front of my building, a depression settled over me. I could do all that, but it would leave too many questions behind me. I had lost my abilities in Boston. I had lost my memory here. I had lost a way of life I enjoyed. If I went to New York, I would always wonder if I’d walked away from finding the answer to what had happened. Maybe I’d even be giving up the chance to figure out why it happened. It was tempting, yet . . .

  But then there would be Dylan. I left New York because of things that happened involving him, and he knew that. Despite the evening and the ease in which we fell into our old familiarity, I didn’t know if either of us could work with the other again. And if I felt that, he had to be wondering the same thing. We hadn’t been partners for nothing. We had the same concerns and drives. Well, up to a point. And that was the point I left.

  “Sir? Would you like me to take you elsewhere?” said Loddie.

  I had been woolgathering while the car waited at the curb. I looked up at the crumbling facade of my building. “No thanks, Loddie. I think I’ll stay home for now.”

  I let myself out, and he drove away. I felt rooted to the sidewalk as I stared at my desolate street. I pulled out my cell phone and hit speed dial. It picked up on the second ring.

  “Hi. I really need to see you right now,” I said.

  “I’ll be right there,” Meryl said.

  10

  Sunlight crept into the living room, spreading across me as I sprawled on the futon. Meryl unconsciously moved into shadow. As a die-hard moon daughter, she preferred to revitalize her essence at night.

  She looked at me intently, curling sideways. “So, you’ve told me what you loved about New York. You’ve told me what you love about Boston. But you’ve avoided what happened with Dylan. I think we’ve come to the point where you let it out.”

  I stretched and rolled off the fut
on. I turned away from her, knowing full well physically turning away was more evasion. I refilled our coffee mugs without speaking, putting sugar and cream in mine. Meryl took hers black. I handed her the mug and sat in the chair opposite the one she had occupied most of the night.

  I sipped the coffee. “This isn’t quite the way I pictured you in my apartment first thing in the morning.”

  She grinned. “Really? It’s exactly what I pictured.”

  I shook my head, smiling, and sipped the coffee again. “Coffee’s good, huh?”

  Meryl propped her feet on the edge of the futon, her big, chunky thigh-high boots scuffing the sheets. “And the weather’s lovely. Get on with it, Avoidance Boy.”

  I sighed. “Have you ever seen a Staten Island Ferry?”

  She cocked her head at me. “Nope.”

  “They go back and forth from Staten Island to the Battery in lower Manhattan twenty-four hours a day. They’re huge. The larger boats can carry six thousand passengers. The Pride Wind was one of the smaller ones, only about three thousand five hundred capacity. Still big.”

  Meryl dropped her feet to the floor and straightened in her chair. “You were there that day?”

  I nodded. Everyone knew the Pride Wind and what happened. It was a major disaster averted, but still a disaster. “Dylan and I were on Governor’s Island that morning running security for the diplomatic reception that never happened. We were checking the perimeter of the island when we saw the first explosion on the ferry. A Danann fairy from the Washington Guildhouse was with us, and he flew us out.”

  Meryl’s jaw fell open. “Wait! You were on the ferry?”

  I let my head fall back against the chair. “Yep. The records were sealed because of national security. I’m not supposed to talk about it. Anyway, the Danann dropped us on the stern, then went back to get help. We never saw him again.

  “At first, we didn’t know what had happened. Remember, this was ten years ago. No one really thought ‘terrorists’ then. It was in the backs of our minds, though, because of our security job for the diplomatic reception. We didn’t know the reception and the attack were connected until later. The terrorists intended to blow up the ferry in view of the reception because they knew news crews would be filming. The reception was supposed to be outside, and the attack was supposed to happen as the ferry passed, but the terrorists screwed up their communications.

  “After the initial explosion, the captain stopped the ferry. Dylan and I guessed something had blown in the hold. People panicked, pushing their way to the port side to get away from the smoke. We tried to keep things calm. We did sendings among the passengers to find more fey to help, but very few were on board that morning. Dylan decided to go to the bridge to find out what was going on. I stayed behind to keep the passengers away from the smoke coming from the starboard side. Then the second explosion went off on the port side.

  “Chaos broke out. No one knew where to run, so people were running everywhere. I managed to get the crowd to go to the stern. That’s when the bridge blew. The whole boat shuddered and began to list to port. It was hard to see through all the smoke. People were screaming and crying and fighting over life jackets.

  “The next thing I knew, I heard essence-fire. I pushed my way through the crowd midships and found Dylan. Two fairies were attacking him, which confused me. I thought they were panicked or something, or that maybe Dylan had tried to press them into service, and they’d refused. Then they started firing into the crowd, and my instincts took over. I deflected what I could of that first barrage, then flanked Dylan and struck back at them. I was the more aggressive offense fighter, so Dylan let me coordinate our defense.”

  I paused, realizing where my need to talk about this had come from. Talking to Dylan, who was on the Pride Wind with me that day, and telling him about the strange attack in the alley had dredged everything up again. Maybe that was why I had gotten so down last night, given how it all ended in New York.

  Meryl waited while I gathered my thoughts. “In the middle of all this, Dylan managed to tell me what had happened. The fairies had blocked his access to the upper decks and the bridge. They were lookouts, protecting three druids who were detonating the bombs. Unfortunately for them, preventing Dylan from going up to the bridge saved his life and sealed their own fate.

  “When the fight started, anyone who could get away did. We had a large span of the middeck to ourselves. The fight with the fairies was at a stalemate until the druids showed up. They had good coordination and pushed us back toward the stern, where the passengers were.”

  I stopped talking but didn’t look at Meryl. She kept silent and let me have the moment. It was at that point in the fight that I’d made my first hard decision. I took a deep breath and continued.

  “We were already outgunned, and still another fairy turned up. Six against two with no help coming yet. A couple of low-powered druids and solitaries among the passengers took occasional shots at the attackers, but they weren’t enough. They were civilians. Office workers and families. They’d probably never used their abilities to fight like that in their entire lives.

  “I knew Dylan and I couldn’t protect the passengers much longer, so I told him to build an airbe druad behind us. I figured a druid hedge would at least buy us some time and stop the essence strikes from hitting anyone. Dylan couldn’t split his essence to form the hedge and continue the fight. I couldn’t let up my defense to do it myself. I had the command, so I ordered him to use the passengers’ essence. That was hard. I had never drained the essence from bystanders to power my abilities. I had never needed to. It was the lesser of two evils at that point, drain them and hope they didn’t die, or not drain them and watch them die.

  “Dylan didn’t hesitate. He trusted my decision and acted on it. He has an amazing command of essence control. Not a single person he tapped that day died from the spell. The entire time, he shot back at the attackers whenever he could. He was incredible.

  “I kept firing. I deflected their shots, wove nets of essence out of them and threw it all back at them. They didn’t give me a chance to rest, and I did the best I could to return the favor. We reached another stalemate. I lost all sense of time. I remember wondering why no one came from shore to help. When I saw the case report later, I couldn’t believe that the entire event transpired over twenty minutes from the time the first bomb went off to when . . . to when it all stopped.

  “When I thought it couldn’t get worse, the strangest thing happened. Human normals showed up with guns. They weren’t there to help us. They were with the fairies and the druids. They fired at the airbe druad, trying to kill passengers. But Dylan . . . Dylan held the hedge. The fey passengers still standing did their best to help him.

  “But we were losing. I couldn’t stand much longer by myself. I had been forced all the way back to the hedge. Dylan blazed with essence, keeping the barrier up with one hand and firing at the terrorists with the other. He was burning out. The essence channeling through him was tearing him apart. But he didn’t stop.

  “Another bomb went off, the last one, but we didn’t know that then. We both fell to the ground. The druids and the human attackers fell, too. The fairies were airborne and continued firing, pinning us to the floor. I managed to get to my knees.

  “Something flew through the air toward me. I thought it was debris. I couldn’t do anything about it without taking my attention off the fairies. Dylan shouted and pushed me out of the way. A second later, I heard this sound, this wrenching groan, come out of him. I knew something was wrong. He was sprawled on his back. It wasn’t debris that had flown by me. It was a knife. A cheap, stupid knife. It had struck him in the chest, right in the heart.”

  I stopped speaking again. My face felt warm, my heart pounding in my chest as I remembered the moment. I closed my eyes, steeling myself to finish. I had told the whole thing only once and never said a word about it again, but I needed to finish it for Meryl. And for myself.

  “I don’t remember
what the terrorists were doing at that moment. I just don’t remember. I wasn’t looking at them anymore. All I saw was this dark red stain pouring across Dylan’s shirt, this dark red stain against a red shirt. The look of horror on his face is etched in my mind forever. I leaned over him. He reached up for me, his hands shaking uncontrollably. I will never forget the shock and fear in his eyes.

  “Everything seemed to stand still. Everything seemed to fall away from me, nothing but me and Dylan on a blank white canvas. To this day, I don’t understand how I knew to do what I did, but I must have released a huge pulse of essence into him. The next thing I knew, Dylan gave a strangled gasp. I had stopped his heart, frozen it in place, and shut his whole body down into a deep trance state. My own essence wrapped into his. I felt the pain of the knife, felt what he felt as he lost consciousness.”

  I was breathing faster, avoiding looking at Meryl. Heat rushed into my face, and I knew I wasn’t going to be the stoic, emotionless man telling a story. I opened my mouth to speak, but closed it again. After another long pause, Meryl shifted in her seat. “It’s okay, Connor. Finish it.”

  I met her eyes. They brimmed with tears.

  “I killed them, Meryl. With a single, searing thought, I killed three fairies, three druids, and three humans. They were mind-linked to others, and I killed them, too. I killed fourteen people in an instant with my mind, burned them to empty husks. I saved over two thousand people that day, but I did something I can’t ever take back.”

  Meryl didn’t hesitate. She got up from the chair and curled in my lap. Wrapping her arms around me, she buried her face into the side of my neck. I felt tears on my cheeks, felt her tears on my neck.

  I held her tightly against my chest. “For a few hours with Dylan last night, I really wanted it all back. But then what happened came back in a rush, and I didn’t know what to think. I thought of you. I don’t know exactly what happened to you that night at Forest Hills, Meryl. But when I saw you standing there, blazing with essence, I knew what you had to be going through. I knew and was horrified for you. Don’t think for one moment I don’t understand something of what you gave up that night.”