Joe made a face at me that implied Murdock was clueless. “Dead folks. It’s Samhain, Murdock. You hear things.”
I whipped my head around. “What did you say?”
Joe started to say something, then snapped his mouth closed. His eyes opened wide and broke open a huge grin. “I hear dead people!”
“Oh. That clears things up,” said Murdock.
Joe wobbled in the air and poked him in the shoulder. “Yes! Yes! Yes! The veil’s thinning! I haven’t heard the voices since home.”
I twisted in my seat. “Wait, wait, wait. Back up, Joe. Dead people? Is that what you meant by singing the other night? You hear dead people?”
Joe fluttered back. “Of course. It’s just the haunts trying to make me regret what I did to them, soften me up for when they come calling on Samhain and try and scare me to death. That never works.”
I slumped back in my seat in relief, too stunned to say anything. I wasn’t going mad. I wasn’t hearing voices that weren’t there. I was hearing voices that were there. I wasn’t going mad, if not going mad meant I was perfectly willing to believe that instead of having brain damage, I was being haunted by dead people. Not mad at all. “Can they attack you?”
He stopped looping. “Nah. Maybe on Samhain itself. The really angry ones can make you think they’re doing it before that, though. I hate those kind. Stupid mind tricks. This is great. I haven’t heard anyone in Anwwn since I was in Faerie.”
“What’s Anwwn?” Murdock asked.
“It’s an hour after eleven,” Joe and I said simultaneously. Joe screamed a laugh and slapped me on the shoulder. It was a favorite bad pun when I was a kid. Apparently, it still worked for Joe.
“Anwwn is what the Welsh folk called TirNaNog,” I said.
Joe fluttered to the dashboard and faced the street. “The Wheel of the World turns, and the realms align. I hope I can get through. It’ll be great to see some old friends,” he said.
“Can you sit somewhere else, Joe? We’re trying to be inconspicuous here,” said Murdock. Joe stuck his tongue out and hopped down to the console between the seats.
“Fairies can come and go to . . .” Murdock paused. “. . . to the afterlife anytime they want?” The thought that the Celts didn’t have a separate heaven and hell wasn’t sitting well with Murdock.
Joe puffed his chest out. “No, just flits. We can get in anywhere.”
“The traditional stories don’t quite say that,” I said.
He shrugged. “Well, of course they don’t. They’re about the kings and queens, aren’t they? They always do what they want. That’s why they’re kings and queens, bringing people in and out with their branch charms and such. But the flits can come and go ’cause we’re flits.”
He jumped up and down. I hadn’t seen him so excited in a long time. “This is the greatest! I have to go check the Ways and see if it’s true.”
He vanished. Murdock didn’t react. He was getting better at it.
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am right now,” I said.
“Yeah, he’s a bit much when he’s drunk,” said Murdock.
“No, I mean I’m not crazy. I thought I was hallucinating and going crazy. All this time, I’ve just been hearing people I killed,” I said.
Murdock slowly turned his head and stared at me. “Uh-huh,” he said.
“No, well, what I mean is . . . Wait a sec, there goes the secretary again,” I said.
I was watching Ardman’s secretary, Sophie Wells, but my mind was reeling with the idea of the dead haunting me. After so many days of anxiety, the things that had been happening to me had a rational explanation. Rational, of course, being a relative thing in my life.
Wells stepped off the threshold of the Ardman house, her movement snapping me back to attention. I’d told her twice to stop that because it made her look suspicious and might tip Powell. At least she had varied the time of her coffee run. She adjusted her scarf against the cold. The scarf was the all-clear signal that Powell had set up with Ardman, and she had worn it every day at the same time. Wells passed the car without looking at us this time, another thing I had had to explain to her. She wasn’t stupid, just inexperienced.
Less than a minute later, she quick-stepped across the street from the opposite direction. I knew I didn’t see her pass us and loop around. She turned the corner onto Pinckney, and her coat fluttered open to reveal her white blouse. No scarf. Suspicious, I did a flash sensing on her and grabbed the door handle. “It’s her.”
Murdock didn’t waste time debating and followed. Wells had entered the Ardman townhouse by the time we reached the front door. I tapped on my earpiece. “Keeva, Wells is the target. She’s glamoured.”
Keeva’s voice spoke calmly in my ear. “We’ve got Ardman in her office.”
I nodded to Murdock. “The office off the parlor. You first, then me.”
Murdock pulled his gun and opened the door. He led with his gun, and we strode through the foyer. Both pocket doors were open to the back office. Wells stood in the arch. Lady Ardman rose from her desk as Wells turned toward us with a confused look.
“Police. Hands out,” Murdock said.
“What . . .” said Wells. She raised her hands in front of her.
Murdock rushed her and pointed the gun to the side of her head. “I said hands out, not up.”
Panicked, Wells froze. “I don’t understand, Officer.”
Murdock pressed the gun against her temple. “Hands out or I put a bullet through your head. You know what that feels like, don’t you, Powell?”
The fear slipped from Wells’s face and became anger. “Lady Ardman, please! What’s going on?”
Ardman smiled. “Let’s all drop the masquerade, shall we?”
She slid her hands behind her neck and removed her necklace. Her face rippled, the colors blurring and shifting, and a glamour fell away. Impressed, I nodded as Keeva dropped the necklace on the desk. “Rhonwen ap Hwyl, a.k.a. Rhonda Powell, you are under arrest.”
Wells moved nothing but her eyes, looking first at Keeva, then Murdock, then me. With a shrug, she stretched her hands out to the side as essence rippled over her. There have been moments in my life when I’ve seen things I couldn’t believe, times when my eyes denied the reality in front of them. None of those times prepared me for the woman who stood in front of us. She shrank a few inches in height, her blond hair darkening to a pumpkin orange. I was wrong. I had been wrong. I was wrong, and I couldn’t believe I was wrong.
“I can explain everything,” Meryl said.
Keeva didn’t miss a beat. “We can talk about that at the Guildhouse.”
With a stricken look, Murdock relaxed his stance.
I struggled to find my voice. “Meryl, I don’t understand.”
A sad smile softened her face. “You will, honey.”
Essence surged around her. Murdock’s body shield flashed behind Meryl, filling the room with an angry red glow. In a blur of motion, he coldcocked her with his fist. She crumpled to the floor as Keeva deflected a ball of white essence that shot across the desk. It arced over her head and shattered a window.
Security agents rushed in, their hands primed with white light. Keeva came around the desk and stood over Meryl’s body. “You’re a little rough on the ladies, Detective,” she said.
Speechless, I sank to my knees and checked for a pulse. Relieved, I found it strong and regular. I pulled her against my chest. Even though she seemed fine physically, her essence wavered in my vision in an odd cycle of white and blue. Something was wrong.
Looking deeper, Meryl’s essence shone with a green haze but with an unnatural geometric shape burning blue in the middle of it, as if she had two different body signatures. I opened her coat. Something heavy shifted in the fabric. I slipped my hand into the inside pocket and found a brick of granite shot through with yellow crystal. Exactly like the ward stones Meryl used at the Guildhouse to amplify essence.
Without the ward stone, the woman in my arms b
lurred and changed shape. Her hair lightened to an ashen blond, and her features relaxed into the blunt face of someone I didn’t know. Repulsed, I pushed her away.
“Rhonda Powell. You were right, Connor,” said Keeva.
I looked up at Murdock. “How the hell did you know?”
He shrugged. “She called you honey. Meryl never calls you honey.”
I shot to my feet. “Are you kidding me?”
He backed away as he holstered his gun. “I’d be lying if I said I knew it wasn’t her, Connor. You were looking at her face. I keep my eyes on hands until they’re in cuffs. Hers turned white. I’ve seen that enough around you guys to know what comes next. I hit her when I saw that essence shot about to release. I’d do it again even if I was sure it was Meryl.”
Two responses warred within me. I wanted to thank him. I did. With Keeva’s physical condition weakened, he’d probably saved her life. Without her, Murdock would have his body shield, but I would have had no protection. But hearing the truth of the matter, that at the right moment, he put his personal feelings aside and hurt someone he thought a friend, struck a very deep chord. It was exactly what I feared I would do to Dylan. No matter how justified, it didn’t make me feel any better.
Keeva saved me from speaking. “Impressive reflexes, Murdock. I guess I owe you my thanks.”
He inclined his head to her. “You’re welcome.”
Keeva gestured to the Danann agents. “Make sure she’s properly secured. If she tries to escape, you are authorized to use any means necessary to take her down.” The agents wove a binding spell around Powell’s inert body, strands of fierce light winding about her body like rope. With practiced ease, they chanted a levitation spell to carry her out of the room.
“You could have told us you were here,” I said.
Keeva gathered up her necklace glamour. “I don’t believe in using civilians as bait.”
Murdock and I exchanged glances. It was a dig at us. We had used a young human as bait not too long ago. It hadn’t ended well.
“She should be in police custody,” said Murdock.
Keeva sighed. “You’re never happy, Murdock. You complain about the Guild not taking cases, and now you’re complaining that we are.”
“You’re not taking the murder cases. You’re taking a blackmail case,” he said.
Keeva walked to the front door. “Have your father call me. I’m sure the commissioner and I can work something out.”
Murdock’s strange essence surged again, a crimson flickering that enveloped him like a shroud. “Let it go, Murdock. She’s baiting you.”
He nodded without speaking, and his essence settled. “I want to be there for the interrogation.”
I hefted the ward stone Powell had used to create the Meryl glamour. “I think we’re all going to enjoy this one.”
25
Another day, another visit to the Guildhouse holding cells. Keeva had locked Rhonda Powell in the deepest subbasement the Guild had to offer. The only furniture in the granite-block cell room was the chair that Powell occupied. Five-foot-high quartz obelisks tipped with silver surrounded her to form a triangular essence barrier—standard protection wards. They suppressed most fey abilities. Protocol called for an added calming spell in case the suspect became agitated and tried to use essence anyway. Not that Powell needed it. For someone in as much trouble as she was, she acted like she was bored waiting for a doctor’s appointment.
Against the chill in the room, Powell wore the brown plaid coat that matched Wells’s. Glamours can change clothing, but it makes them harder to maintain over time. Without the glamour, Powell had the kind of bland, round face that’s easily overlooked in a crowd. Like her lover Viten, that plainness was an advantage when using glamours. It’s a heckuva lot easier to maintain strong facial features over slight ones than vice versa.
Keeva leaned against the wall near the door with her hands in the pockets of her black jumpsuit. To anyone who didn’t know her well, she maintained an air of calm. I knew her, though. The set of her jaw and the steady stare meant she was in no mood for games. I couldn’t blame her. The downside of being one of the good guys was you didn’t get to kill someone who tried to kill you. At least not so you would get caught.
Dylan stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He glanced at Murdock and me when we walked in. “We know you arranged the Met robbery with money you extorted from Ardman. We have video surveillance of you at the Met,” he said.
She shrugged. “Lots of people go to the Met.”
“Dead people?” Murdock said.
She sneered at him. “Obviously you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I demand to be released.”
Keeva cleared her throat. “I’ve heard that before. A little over ten years ago, someone else sat in that chair. Someone you know.”
Scorn filled Powell’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Keeva strolled closer to the barrier. “We know you were Liddell Viten’s partner, Powell. Viten shot you in the head, yet here you are. I’m wondering if Viten’s not dead either.”
Powell’s gaze fell away. “He’s dead.”
“Then why kill people who could identify him?” I asked.
She looked at me with an impatient arrogance. “I killed no one.”
“I can identify your essence at the murder scenes,” I said.
A crooked smile broke across her face. “I doubt it. You would have to testify to what you truly sensed, and what you truly sensed was not me. I believe you already have the murderer in custody.”
I kept my voice even. I didn’t want her to have the satisfaction of knowing how angry I was. “Meryl Dian killed no one. You had the means and motive.”
Powell feigned surprise. “Meryl Dian? I never mentioned her. But now that you bring her up, I had lunch with poor Meryl not too long ago. She’s very troubled, you know. Something terrible happened to her a few weeks ago, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s become unbalanced. And bitter. Very bitter. She intimated that she would get what was coming to her from the Guild. In fact, she hinted about an old case she knew about with lots of money lying dormant. I have to wonder if there’s some improprieties in her financial situation. Poor thing probably thought she didn’t get enough recognition and decided to take matters into her own hands. I’d look into that if I were you.”
I didn’t exactly count to ten, but I did stop myself from saying anything. Powell was a con artist and, like all con artists, knew how to push people’s buttons. I didn’t let her. Instead, I looked at Murdock. “Meryl’s going to love this story.”
Keeva moved from the barrier and leaned against the wall again. “Nice theory, but it doesn’t quite explain why you showed up at Rosavear Ardman’s disguised as Meryl Dian. That, my friend, will throw more than enough doubt on your story.”
Powell pursed her lips. “Did Lady Ardman ever mention her love of antique jewelry to you? She asked Meryl to arrange something for her, a purchase I believe. Meryl told me she was overworked and feared she wouldn’t have time to complete the transaction with Ardman, so when we had lunch, she asked me to help her. She told me Ardman was a little paranoid so it would be better to glamour myself. I was under the impression it was a legitimate transaction. An old friend involved me in murder and robbery. I feel used.”
Keeva withdrew a dull stone from her pocket. She held high it enough for Powell to see. “This stone was found in your possession. You threatened to crush Ardman’s soul stone unless she cooperated.”
Powell emitted a small surge of essence, the kind that reflects a change in emotion. She shook her head, but her eyes were riveted to the stone. “Soul stones are a myth. Meryl gave me that ward stone for safekeeping.”
Keeva withdrew another stone from a different pocket and looked at it reflectively as she rolled it around in the palm of her hand. “Do you recognize this stone?”
Powell affected boredom.
“It’s an interesting story how I came into
possession of this particular stone,” said Keeva. “A long time ago, I had a small case that turned into something much bigger. A con artist was implicated in a murder in New York. I handled the extradition, packed up the evidence we had collected, and sent it to the Guildhouse down there. Things didn’t work out as planned, though, and the murderer ended up dead before trial. Months later, the unopened evidence was returned to me. I sent everything to the archives but kept this stone in my office as a reminder that I should be more vigilant in the future.”
Keeva lifted her gaze to Powell. “It occurred to me recently that it could be a soul stone. Why else would Liddell Viten risk going down to the archives instead of escaping? But, you know what, Powell? I agree with you. The idea is absurd.”
Keeva’s hand glowed white with essence. She clenched her fist, and the stone crumbled. Powell blanched, clutching her chest in panic. Keeva brushed dust from her hands as Powell regained her composure. Keeva took yet another stone out of her pocket. “What an interesting reaction, Powell. That stone was a fake. Lady Ardman told me that you asked her for your soul stone, and you didn’t believe her when she said she gave it to the Guild. Lady Ardman identified it for me. This one’s yours, Powell, the very one you tried to steal out of the archives a couple of weeks ago and were sorely disappointed to find missing.”
Powell finally showed a break in her demeanor. She struggled to remain unimpressed, but real fear crept into her eyes. Keeva placed a hand on the obelisk nearest her and shot a bolt of essence into it. The essence barrier collapsed. She stepped up to Powell. “I’m no fan of Meryl Dian, but I know a setup when I see one. Where are the artifacts you stole from the museum?”
“I told you I didn’t . . .” Powell didn’t get to finish. Keeva’s essence pulsed to life, her wings flaring huge and white. With one hand, she grabbed Powell by the throat, lifted her from the chair, and thrust her against the back wall.
Dylan moved forward. “Director macNeve . . .” he said.
I grabbed his arm, and he stopped. I had never seen her lose her control when she was angry. Her methods could be aggressive sometimes, but she never crossed the line too far. Besides, I liked the look of terror in Powell’s face. She was getting a taste of what her victims must have felt.
Unfallen Dead Page 21
