I didn’t want to think about the structural integrity of the building, but hoped the extra warding I was seeing and feeling was enough to hold it all together. Ripping the floors out to create the open space had weakened the structure, but someone who knew how to work stone materials, probably a dwarf or maybe C-Note himself, had used essence to strengthen what remained. Essence could be used to create tough barriers in and of itself. Bonding it to existing brick and mortar made it even stronger.
I leaned against the bar and caught sight of Callin. He stood across from me, a section of gyrating dancers between us. He talked with a motley crew of fey who looked like trouble. I was going to have a conversation with my brother sometime in the near future. It would end in anger, I’m sure, but I at least had to try to understand why he chose to put himself on the wrong side of things so often. He finally caught sight of me but didn’t come over, making it clear he didn’t want us seen together. After a few minutes, he caught my eye again and with an imperceptible nod indicated a wide set of closed doors visible on the third floor above.
C-Note is up there. Don’t do anything stupid, he sent. The man was hanging out with drug dealers and gangs and was telling me not to do anything stupid. I couldn’t complain too much at the moment, though. He had let me know that C-Note would be here tonight when I asked him to find out.
I shimmied my way back onto the dance floor to Meryl and her dancing fool partner. They couldn’t hear me, but I got them to follow me through the flailing arms and legs and wings to the steel staircases that twisted up to the second and third levels. Once above the band, the sound diminished. People milled about what was left of a floor that had become a balcony overlooking the dance floor.
“What’s up here?” Meryl asked.
I nodded behind me toward the sheet-metal door. “That.”
By the way Meryl’s nostrils flared, I could tell she was sensing what I was. “Haven’t you boys had enough of trolls lately?”
“I wish. Care to join us?”
She held up her hands in refusal. “I’m not a field agent.”
I couldn’t blame her. I was about to nail the connection between my murder case and Keeva’s. Guild politics being what there were, Keeva would find ways to make Meryl miserable if she caught wind of her involvement.
Murdock took up a flanking position on my right as we walked to the door. In the short time we’d been working together, Murdock and I had fallen into comfortable patterns. All my other partnerships had an element of competition in them. Not Murdock and me. We worked well together because we had our own areas of expertise. In fey situations, he had no problem letting me take the lead. In human normal, I let him take it.
An elf shifted in front of the door, a TruKnight by the black and red jacket. He didn’t say a word, just stared. Several others lurked nearby, pretending not to notice us.
“Tell C-Note I want to talk to him about Dennis Farnsworth,” I said.
He didn’t move. Murdock stepped in closer. I had an uncomfortable moment as I felt his essence charging up, but he looked calm. He didn’t make any move for his gun, but from his stance I knew he’d have it in his hand before the elf knew it. “Open the door because you don’t want to make me mad.”
The elf smirked. Any fey would. Most elves are pretty good at sensing essence since they like to manipulate external sources rather than their own. Despite Zev’s ward stone muddying Murdock’s essence so it didn’t feel human, the TruKnight clearly thought whatever Murdock was, he was no match for an elf. After seeing Murdock in action at Yggy’s, I almost wanted to watch him wipe the smirk off the guy’s face. I felt a soft flutter in the air around us, which meant the elf was sending. Sure enough, he nodded a moment later and opened the door.
After we entered, he closed the door behind us, muffling the blasting music to a pulsing bass vibration. The room stretched long and cramped. The air was thick with smoke and incense that my head problem hated. Fey lounged on couches along the walls, elves and dwarves mostly, but with a few drugged-up fairies and brownies. The ones that bothered to notice us gave condescending smiles. The rest were either deeply involved with each other or stoned on something. At the far end sat a table, and behind the table sat C-Note.
As trolls go, he had been hit with the ugly stick more than most. His wide, pockmarked face was cut by a long, sinuous nose with nostrils a man could fit his fist in. He watched us with tight, round eyes nestled deeply at the bridge of that nose, long tendrils of eyebrows twisting up into a thick mane of greasy brown hair. Even seated, both Murdock and I had to tilt our heads up to look at him. By the expanse of his chest, I’d guess he hailed from the mountains. Most of the Teutonic trolls from there seem built from the raw bedrock.
C-Note rubbed a dull gem on a leather cord around his neck. As we approached, I could see a long, black staff of wood clenched like a royal scepter in his large, taloned hand. A leash wrapped around the other hand and trailed to a collar worn by a naked woman. She crouched on the floor beside him, silvery white skin laced with healing wounds and bruises. Her coarse hair hung to the floor, charcoal gray and matted. She looked at us with no emotion, eyes a deep brilliant green yet empty. Just the hint of saliva glistened at the corner of her parted lips.
“What can I do for you, Connor Grey?” C-Note asked. I recognized the growling sound from the ward stone Croda had.
“You know me. Good. This is Detective Murdock,” I said.
He showed rows of sharp little teeth. “I know him, too. He’s been hassling some of my friends.”
“Your friends are thugs,” Murdock said. Good for him, I thought. It paid not to show intimidation. Not that I had any doubts about Murdock.
“Who’s your date?” I asked.
He looked down at the woman and jerked the chain. She shuffled closer but didn’t change her expression. “Just a pet.”
I clamped my jaw shut. I had no idea what she was about, if she chose to be where she was or not, but the situation made the hair on my neck stand up. The collar on her neck seemed to be constraining her body as well as her essence. I could feel an ache in my head. With all the drugs and essence flowing freely, the pressure in my head had decided to take the worst time to build.
“Where were you Sunday?” I asked.
He leaned back in his chair. “Why should I answer that?”
“Because we have evidence you were at a murder scene, and I’d like to know the tall tale you’re going to tell about not being there,” I said.
A wheezy rumble that I took to be chuckling came up from his chest. “You have nothing to threaten me with. The Guild would have sent someone. Thank you for amusing me, though. Now get out.”
A dwarf with a black hoodie stepped closer. I looked down at him and smiled. “Banjo, right? I told Moke you guys work for the highest bidder.”
“I work for myself. Get moving,” he said. He didn’t have to ask me twice. I wanted out of the room. There’s no direct connection between physical size and essence, but trolls throw off a lot. Between C-Note and all the other fey in the room, my head was splitting with pain. Amused eyes watched from several corners as we left, the patronizing looks of superiority. It works wonders on the less self-assured.
The door opened with a burst of music and closed carefully behind us, too indifferent to give us a good slam. Not that I would have welcomed it. The essence situation was no better out on the balcony and came with a pounding bass line just in case they missed any of my aching synapses.
“Did you get a good sniff?” Murdock asked.
I nodded and tapped my nose. “Yeah. He’s definitely the other troll I sensed in Kruge’s office. We’ve got our murderer.”
Murdock moved to the makeshift railing and looked down at the dancers. I joined him.
“It won’t help us in court. It’ll just be your word,” Murdock said.
“It’ll help with the Guild. We’ve got Crystal, the recording and essence confirmations from me, and Keeva’s medical examiner.” I ticked
them off on my fingers. It was definitely enough evidence. “He just bought himself a murder conviction.”
“That doesn’t help our case,” Murdock said.
I didn’t respond. He was right. Taking down C-Note for Kruge’s murder would work with the evidence we had but bring no justice for Dennis Farnsworth. Lots of fey crimes weren’t considered crimes by human standards and vice versa. Murder overlapped, sure. But satisfaction in one court rarely meant satisfaction in another. But no human court would trust a fey ward stone as firm evidence or the word of a hooker’s daughter as credible. The only satisfaction Dennis’s mother would get was in the fey world, and that might not be enough for her. I still had to figure out macGoren’s involvement. Maybe it wasn’t just going to end up with C-Note.
We made our way downstairs and found Meryl dancing up a storm all by herself. She had attracted quite the crowd of onlookers, some of them basking in the glow of her natural essence, some of them turned on by a lone woman dancing with such confidence. Clouds of fog steamed onto the floor, laced with an herbal concoction I recognized as a euphoric. I glanced at Murdock, saw the glitter in his eye from the drug reaction. I followed his gaze to the vents above us. C-Note had come out of his office to check out the scene.
He leaned on his black staff as he watched the crowd. Only his eyes moved, faint points of light buried deep. A Danann fairy soared up and hovered in front of him. Her wings undulated with the rhythm of the music as her head fell back in an ecstatic roll of pleasure. Her body swayed to the right and back. Another Danann joined her, and a third. The three of them began to move in unison, arcing backward to dive toward the dancers, only to loop away just above their heads. I felt a shiver as I realized they were mimicking the rhythm of C-Note’s staff. He was playing with his compulsion drug. Then I realized, the dancers moved in a rhythmic shuffle, hands up and moving as if in a breeze. They wound in a coiling circle, lost in the music, yet nearly synchronized in their movements. Float apparently was fairly potent.
Flushed with exertion, Meryl appeared in front of us. “I see the Big Ugly is still on the loose. I’m thinking he didn’t confess and beg for mercy.”
I smiled down at her. “Something like that. You looked great out there.”
She nodded at the dance floor. “It was fun until the fog. There’s something in it I don’t recognize. I’ll take my own drugs, thank you.”
“Float. It’s what C-Note’s been dealing.”
Meryl cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Do you feel the essence? It’s odd.”
“What’s odd?” asked Murdock.
“The essence,” I said. “Most drugs are what you would expect—some kind of chemical-based reaction. They have essence like everything else, but this stuff has more essence infused in it. It gives me a headache, actually.”
Meryl pursed her lips. “I have cramps again.”
Murdock shot me a look that was all about what-the-hell-did-she-just-say.
“Thanks for sharing,” I said.
I felt Meryl bring on her body shields. “Thought so. They’re gone. I had cramps just like this at the Bosnemeton.”
“Why are we having this conversation?” I said.
She poked me in the chest. “You just said Float gives you a headache, and you had one earlier at the Bosnemeton.”
I looked up at C-Note, but he was gone. The headache had spiked again in his office. Meryl grabbed my arm and pushed out her body shield. A momentary coolness spread over me as it interacted with my own essence and the heat in the club. The pain in my head instantly became its usual dull background buzz. She released me, and it spiked again. Too bad I didn’t have enough body shielding to pull that trick.
I could barely hear our conversation, so we moved into a hallway that led deeper into the building. I leaned in close to them. Probably one of the few places that doesn’t look suspicious is a loud club. “Kruge seemed to be arguing with C-Note about Float getting out of control. If Meryl’s right, it’s already spread beyond the Weird.”
“But what does it do?” Meryl said.
“Janey Likesmith says it has some sort of compulsion in it.”
Murdock startled us by laughing. “I was wondering why I wanted to dance so much.”
“At least you can dance, unlike some people,” Meryl said, eyeing me.
“Focus, please. We need to find out what’s in this stuff,” I said.
Meryl raised an eyebrow. “We?”
“You don’t want to help?”
She shook her head. “I told you, Grey, I’m not a field agent.”
I gave her a slow smile. “Are you afraid of Keeva?”
She smiled back. “Hardly. I just want to make sure I steal enough office supplies before getting booted out of the Guild for getting involved in another one of your harebrained ideas. Besides, this is no outfit to play Nancy Drew in.”
She had a point. The only women I knew who wore vinyl tube tops and miniskirts on secret missions were comic book superheroes. I can just imagine what Meryl would do to me if a supervillain looked up her skirt.
I shrugged. “Okay, I’ve got my cell phone in case I need the cavalry.”
“Don’t be too long. I’d kill for some Chinese food right now,” she said.
I gave her a coy smile. “A kiss for luck?”
She pecked Murdock on the cheek and smirked at me. “Good luck.”
Murdock looked surprised, then embarrassed, then cocky.
I annoyed her by chuckling. “Thanks. Let’s go.”
As we walked away, a sending hit me like a slap at the back of my head. Be careful. I glanced back, but Meryl had moved over to the bar.
“What’s the plan?” Murdock asked.
“Callin told Joe that a major shipment of Float was moving tonight. I’m guessing that fog on the dance floor was a quality check, and it’s still here.”
“So what if it is? We don’t know if it’s illegal yet.”
I had considered that. Lots of fey drugs were technically legal, only because human courts had no real way of determining what the heck they did unless they were sampled. And no court yet had upheld a ruling based on the idea that someone in the DA’s Office testified they got high.
“Because we need to know why it’s important enough to C-Note to murder one of the most prominent people in Boston.”
The sounds of the club receded as we took a dim side corridor grimed with the evidence of an old fire sooting the walls. The only essences I felt back here were the lingering trails of people consummating their desires, Murdock’s strange billow of more-than-human colored by Zev’s ward stone, and the thrumming of raw essence holding the stressed building up. We moved deeper into the darkness, the band whispering its bass line through the floor like a warning.
Chapter 15
We picked our way through a collection of needles and condoms and discarded clothes to a boarded-over door marked as an exit. With a few yanks, we made enough space to slip through into a stairwell. Dead buildings have a stink of their own, an organic smell that’s a rank mélange of dampness, dirt, and unwashed bodies. We made our way up to the second floor and stopped on the landing.
Murdock leaned over the railing and looked up. “Big building. This is going to take a while.”
I tapped the side of my head. “Maybe not. I can feel this crap. It’s above us.”
What I didn’t say was that I could feel Float as pain, a constant pressure from the blockage in my head. I don’t know if it hurt because my abilities wanted to reach out to the essence or because they wanted to avoid it. We moved up two more flights, the pressure increasing. As we turned on the landing to the next floor, I stopped. “Here. The pain lessened when we came up here.”
We moved back to the fourth floor and pushed against an access door. It gave grudgingly from long disuse. An intersection of hallways faced us, shattered walls with gaping holes revealing empty rooms streaked with graffiti. A green triangle with a futhark rune for “F” figured prominently, the sigi
l of the TruKnights. When you find yourself on gang turf, it always feels like trespassing, no matter what badge you may have in your pocket. Turf is turf, and you know when you’re on someone else’s uninvited.
The floor vibrated from the dance floor directly below us. Eerie lights flickered through chinks in the flooring, lighting tendrils of smoke that trickled up from downstairs. Despite the pain, I opened my mind a crack, letting my sense feel the essences in the air. It hurt like hell, tight pinpoints stabbing at my temples. I was going to have a hell of a residual headache the next day.
“Back here,” I said. My voice felt louder than it was. I could feel Float essence increasing as we wound our way through a warren of rooms. It flared up suddenly, as if someone had opened a door. I stopped. Murdock had his gun out of his waistband even before I had chance to say anything. I nodded in front of us.
A wall hid our view, an open door to the left. I could feel the distinct signature of a living being, the raw essence that I used to identify people, but I couldn’t quite place what was in the next room. I sensed something else, a mix of energies and smells that spoke of an herbal lab, like an unventilated version of the one back at the Guildhouse. Something squeezed my brain like a claw, and shots of blackness dotted my vision. Not good. I had to pull back and tighten my range.
We edged toward the door, the silence broken by the steady thump of the club music mixed with the softer sounds of a working lab, things boiling and dripping, the steady hum of a gas flame. I peered into the room. We were on the short end of a long room, laboratory counters laid down the middle to the opposite side. Glass and copper tubing coiled from a series of glass vessels, a fantastical array of decanting apparatus strung across the space. I could feel a presence, rich and intoxicating, that pushed back against the ache in my head.
“Someone’s in here,” I whispered. I crouched and slunk into the room. The distillation gear pulsed with malevolence. Float. I could feel its essence battering at my mind.
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