Conner Grey #03 - Unfallen Dead Mark Del Franco

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UNFALLEN DEAD

eISBN : 978-1-440-68658-0

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY Ace mass-market edition / February 2009

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To my sister Jody,

who hears all and makes coffee.

And to Jack, as always.

Contents

Meet Laura Blackstone

When I find myself walking through dark, unlit hallways in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the night, it means one of two things: I am on my way to an after-hours party—or to a death. Since Detective Lieutenant Leonard Murdock wasn’t prone to inviting me to parties, I knew the only music I’d be hearing shortly was the squawk of police radios.

When Murdock called me out of a nice, quiet dive down on Stillings Street because he had something interesting for me, I didn’t think it meant feeling like a rat in a maze. The warehouse had been easy enough to find because of the police and ambulance out front. Once inside, though, I made a wrong turn and found myself wandering a series of corridors that led back onto themselves. I put my cell phone to my ear. “Which way, Murdock?”

“I have no idea, Connor. Get to a window and tell me what you see,” he said. Amusement colored his voice. I knew what he was thinking. Connor Grey, the great druid and former investigator for the Fey Guild, had gotten himself lost. In a building. Surrounded by police officers. With cell phones and radios. I may no longer have the ability to manipulate essence on a grand scale, but I didn’t think I’d lost my sense of direction, too.

Using the silvery blue glow from the cell phone as a flashlight, I managed to find a window with frosted chicken-wire glass. I pushed at the frame, but years of paint refused to budge. I swore under my breath and put the phone down. Breaking the glass wouldn’t help because of the safety mesh. It’s moments like this that I find particularly frustrating.

I used to have the power to do things humans could only dream of. Essence made it possible, the essence in everything, including myself. The superstitious call it magic. I’ve had some mystical moments, especially lately, but in general I don’t tend toward that kind of thinking. I like things to make sense, to be able to quantify them and apply rules. Essence is no exception.

Back in the day, I manipulated essence and caused it to flow out of my hands, my body—even my eyes—and it did things I intended it to do. Good things and bad things, but powerful things either way. Not anymore. Since the accident that caused the loss of most of my abilities, a dark mass in my brain blocks me from doing what I used to be able to do. Painfully so.

“Are you there?” Murdock’s voice sounded tinny in the small phone’s speaker.

“Yeah.” I had probably been stuck on the same floor for twenty minutes. I decided enough was enough and didn’t want the further humiliation of asking Murdock to send someone to find me. Everyone has body essence to a different degree depending on their species. I can still access my own to an extent, but the thing in my head kicked up a storm of pain when I did. I avoided it most times. I put my hand on the window frame and shot a quick burst of body essence into it. Several things happened simultaneously. The window cracked; the frame cracked; and I’m pretty sure my head cracked. I clutched my temples as a searing pain shot behind my eyes.

“Connor?” Murdock’s voice was now flat with police concern.

I picked up the phone. “I’m good.” I pushed the window up, fighting its years of inertia, and stuck my head out. “I’m on the third floor, looking at an air shaft.”

“Hold on.”

The full moon sent a faint light into the shaft, illuminating it enough for me to see another window ten feet across the way. I craned my head up and saw more windows. The silhouette of a head leaned out above me.

Murdock’s voice echoed from behind me on the phone and above me in the shaft. “I see you. You need to come up two floors. There’s a stairwell about fifty feet to the right as you face the air shaft.”

I startled at a cold touch on the back of my neck. Jumping back from the window, I dropped the phone. The blue screen winked out. Complete darkness surrounded me. I crouched and picked up the phone, feeling cracks on the screen. It didn’t light up at my touch. I’d managed to disconnect Murdock, too. Something moved in the dark, soft and silent. I sensed more than heard it. I slid to the side of the open window so that my head wouldn’t be a nice handy target against the dim moonlight behind me. When you’re in a dark building with a dead body, you think of these things. I stilled my breath, listening. Nothing moved, at least nothing that I could hear. An afterimage of light from the air shaft cluttered my vision, but I couldn’t see anything in the darkness anyway. I opened my essence-sensing ability, trying to perceive whether anyone was in the room with me. As a druid, I was naturally good at sensing essence. I was better at it than most. It was one of the few remaining abilities I had. Faint white light coalesced in my inner vision, faint hints of ambient essence creating the shape of the hallway. Here and there along the edges of the floor, pinpricks of light showed evidence of insects, probably roaches. I made out the pathway. I stepped to the left toward the stubbornly hidden stairwell. Two doors opened to the right, dark and empty. As I passed the second one, cool air fluttered over me. I froze. Just inside the door, essence shimmered in the shape of a man. His indistinct face looked stricken, strange creases crisscrossing his forehead like deep worry lines. He lifted a hand toward me, an innocuous gesture that, under the circumstances, made me recoil.

“Who are you?” I asked.

Confused, he peered at his hand. Blinking slowly, he tilted his head and stretched his hand toward me again. He took a step, then evaporated like pale smoke in the dark. Gone. Even his essence was gone. He wasn’t there, but he had to be. It’s nearly impossible to mask your essence completely, especially from me. I focused my sensing ability tighter, like turning up a dial, but still couldn’t register him. I held my hands out to ward him off if he came at me. Flattening myself against the wall, I slid away from the empty doorway, glancing quickly to the left to be sure I was going the right way, waiting for him to jump me. At the end of the hall, I realized why I kept missing the stairwell. An odd jog in the wall made the hall seem like it was a dead end. I stepped around the partition, pressing myself against the opposite side. I took shallow breaths, straining to hear if I was being followed.

A bright light shone in my eyes, and I startled. The light found me again, and someone said, “Connor Grey?”

Embarrassed, I held my hand up against the beam. “Yeah?”

The flashlight swept down, and a puzzled young police officer observed me in the backwash of the light.

“Detective Murdock sent me down to get you.”

Murdock was not going to let me hear the end of this. I pointed into the darkness of the hall. “There’s someone down here.”

The kid’s training kicked in, and he went for his gun. In that coordinated way police have, he held the flashlight focused into the hallway and used the same hand to call for backup on the radio on his shoulder. I stepped behind him out of the way. I may be able to hold my own in a fight, but I had no idea what the mystery man had with him. Being cautious wasn’t the same thing as being afraid.

“Stairwell’s right behind us,” the officer said in a low voice. I backed into it and heard the clatter of running feet on the stairs above me. Another officer joined us, gun drawn. I leaned away from the door to let him pass. “He’s all yours, guys. First door on the left is where I saw him.”

I mounted the stairs. Police officers get flashlights with their uniforms. I forget that not every building is going to have electricity. One long flight up, white light spilled into the stairwell. In my rush up the stairs, I had turned off a couple of floors too soon.

At the landing, the fifth floor opened as a wide space. The warehouse had been used for some kind of manufacturing, uniform workstations marching across the floor in two rows. I didn’t recognize the rusted machinery, some of it obviously vandalized, all of it coated with dust. About halfway down the aisle between the rows, several police officers with flashlights gathered in a circle. The beams of almost blue light arced in the dark space whenever someone moved.

As my footsteps crackled against the dirty floor, Murdock’s half-shadowed face turned in my direction. He gave me a faint smile, the one he reserves for those moments when my dignity has taken a hit. “Nice to see you.”

I twisted my mouth into a smile. “You could have left bread crumbs for me to follow.”

“Hey, I sent help. It’s not like I just left you lying on a tomb somewhere.”

Murdock and I have had a little disagreement as to the appropriate course of action I had taken on our last big case. “I told you, Murdock, the paramedics were there. I checked your essence before I left. You were fine.”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded toward the center of attention. I joined the group to check out my latest potential paycheck. When I lost my abilities and the Guild kicked me out, I picked up consulting gigs with the Boston P.D. They’re not always equipped to handle cases involving elves or fairies, or most other kinds of fey from Faerie. I know a lot, so they call. At least Murdock does. Hence, paycheck. While Murdock and the officers held their lights on the body, I crouched for a closer look. An emaciated man lay sprawled on his back, his head smooth of hair. Not shaved. You can tell a naturally bald man. Someone who shaves his head gets a five-o’clock shadow. I’d seen it on myself recently. A few weeks earlier, I had lost all my hair in the backlash of a major spell. It started growing back immediately, but I wore a black knit cap against the late October chill. The dead guy didn’t look like he was into a daily hygiene routine that included shaving.

Carved across his forehead was the reason Murdock called. Someone had used a sharp object, a knife being most likely, to make a horizontal gash from temple to temple. Across the sharp line of the gash, several hash marks had been made. Ogham runes, six of them, the old alphabet of the Celts. Deep red marks split the skin with little blood, which meant they were probably made postmortem. The victim’s lingering body essence tickled at my senses, and I pulled back in surprise. Murdock caught my movement. “What’s wrong?”

I frowned. “I just saw this guy downstairs.”

Murdock shook his head. “Not possible. I’ve been here at least an hour. He’s been here longer.”

I pursed my lips. “Have they found anyone downstairs?”

Murdock jutted his chin at one of the officers, who muttered into his radio. A static of muddled words came back, and he shook his head.

Interesting. A puzzle piece for the investigation. Turning my attention back to the body, I sensed that the guy was a human normal. Nothing about him registered as fey. If he were someone from Faerie, his essence would have resonated differently. By the look of his soiled and rumpled pants and thin jacket, I’d guess he had been homeless. He could have been anywhere from late thirties to early fifties. It’s hard to tell with guys like him, who’ve had years of living on the street to ravage their features. The runes on his forehead gave a faint indication of essence. Someone used a spell as they carved them. With yet another jolt of surprise, I realized it had been done by a druid. Essence in and of itself has vague differences based on its source. It’s why certain fey were better at manipulating certain essences than others. Druids were attuned to organics, fairies to ambient air, and so on. Sensing who or what species actually used a particular essence was a separate ability, one I didn’t normally have. A few species, like trolls, could do it—and I had had recent close contact with a troll. I had thought the residual impact of that encounter had dissipated finally, and made a mental note to have myself checked out. I stood. “It’s a safe bet you’re looking for a druid.”

Murdock directed his flashlight toward the guy’s head. “We’re not seeing any obvious trauma. Could those marks have killed him?”

“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure they were done after he was dead.”

“What do they mean?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. Easy translation is ‘The way denied.’ It’s got a spell wrapped in it, too, so that could change the meaning. I’ll have to research it. How long has he been here?”

Murdock inspected the rest of the room with his flashlight. “Probably a few hours. Medical examiner should be here soon. We need a generator, too.”

The body had fallen with his right arm beneath him. As I walked around the other side, I noted the fingernails on his left hand were blackened. “Can someone shine a light on his shoes?”

Several someones did. Sure enough, the cheap leather had burnt toes. I lifted one of the victim’s eyelids. My stomach did a little flip at the sight of his destroyed eyes. I backed away, wiping my hand on my pants. “He was killed by essence shock. Someone hit him with a major charge and short-circuited his system. He probably died of a heart attack or organ damage.”

Murdock directed his flashlight toward the back of the floor. “Looks like his crib’s back there.”

We walked from the body, the essences of the officers fading away from my senses. The residual essences of the dead man and his druid assailant trailed all the way back to the corner of the room. An old mattress was on the floor under a workbench. Murdock’s flashlight revealed the basics of a squat, a meager collection of personal-care products, several books, candles, a few canned goods. Nothing that would be terribly missed if he were robbed while out on the street. It didn’t look disturbed. Another stairwell opened at the rear of the room. We stepped on the landing, Murdock shining the beam down the stairs. Nothing to be seen but years’ accumulation of crumbled debris. The druid essence was more distinct. The killer had lingered here, long enough to leave some residual body essence for me to register her gender. Something about it tugged at my awareness, like searching for a word I knew but couldn’t place.

I looked back to the body. “The killer was a druidess. She waited here for a while. She either hit him with essence from here when he was coming in the other way, or she spooked him out of his sleep and hit him as he ran off. Who called it in?”

Even in the half-lit dark, the sour twist to Murdock’s mouth was evident. “Nine one one. Anonymous.”

Anonymous, the most common surname in the Weird. It’s the Boston neighborhood where the fey go when they’re down-and-out. No one ever saw anything or heard anything in the Weird. I can’t blame folks down here, though. When you had no place else to go and ended up in the Weird, you didn’t want someone more powerful than you breathing down your neck. You had no place else to run except the grave, and most people avoided that. After I lost everything in my life, I moved into the Weird. The implication that I have nowhere else bothers me sometimes.

Something crunched underfoot. The glow of Murdock’s flashlight reflected off a small and shiny object. I picked up a piece of gold worked in a spiral. Sparkles of essence flickered and died on it, leaving me the same vague sense of someone familiar.

Murdock tilted his flashlight toward me. “Find something?”

I rubbed the piece between my thumb and index finger. “Piece of jewelry, I think. I’ll play with it and see if it’s from our druidess.”

Back by the body, a gleam of essence caught my eye. I inhaled sharply. “What the hell?”

“What?” Murdock swung his light as I strode back to the crime scene. A strange flicker of essence neared the body.

“I think he’s still alive, Murdock.” As I approached, the essence vanished. I stopped short. Murdock came up beside me. “He’s dead, Connor. I don’t need your sensing ability to know that.”

“I saw something.”

Judging by Murdock’s expression, I must have looked as confused as I felt. “Are you okay?”

I rubbed my hands over my face and adjusted the knit cap. “Yeah. Maybe I’m just tired.”

Murdock nodded. “We’ll let the forensic guys take care of the rest. Come on. I’ll give you a ride back to your place.”

I scanned the body once more but sensed nothing. Maybe I had seen some overlapping essence from the officers around the body. Even with experience, the dual vision of essence and normal sight could be confusing.

We went down the front stairwell. On the ground floor, the medical examiner brushed by, looking none too happy to be roused in the middle of the night for a homeless guy. He didn’t bother to acknowledge us.

I opened the passenger door to Murdock’s car and dropped myself onto the pile of newspapers on the seat. Murdock pulled a U-turn and drove onto Old Northern Avenue. The main drag of the neighborhood had the calm of late night, only a car or two coasting along. Even the Weird quieted down at night eventually. The streetwalkers and spell dealers gave up and went home. The partiers stumbled into the decrepit backseats of cabs. The only people still out and about were the die-hard and the desperate.

Murdock didn’t say anything, and for once I thought he might actually be tired. The man’s a machine and puts in more hours than I want to think about. He pulled up in front of my apartment. “I’ll let you know if we get an ID.”

I let myself out. “I’ll look into the runes, see if it’s a spell that’ll tell us anything.”

He leaned across the seat. “Get some sleep first. You look like hell.”

As I walked up the four flights to my apartment, I couldn’t shake the image of the dead guy. I knew I’d seen his essence before I’d seen his body. I wasn’t that tired. It didn’t make sense. When someone dies, their life essence vanishes. Period. I’d seen it happen enough times. The old faith said we went on to our afterlife in TirNaNog and didn’t come back. Dead is dead.

I entered my apartment, noting the faint odor of old coffee and empty beer bottles doing battle with fresh laundry and Pine-Sol. Home smells. I’m not the best housekeeper and can’t afford one. I did my best but let the dust bunnies roam where they will.

I was tired. Too many late nights and too many bars were catching up with me. Maybe Murdock was right. Seeing dead guys walking around dark, empty warehouses might be a sign it was time to get some sleep.

I cradled a bottle of wine in the backseat of a cab. Guinness is my preferred drink, but Briallen ab Gwyll has a well-known liking for French wines. A dinner on Beacon Hill was always an opportunity for good food and conversation, whether the invitation came via cell phone or sending. Briallen prefers the intimacy of mental contact. Her cool, feathery touch in my mind was a pleasant surprise after so many months. The cab pulled up in front of the townhouse on Louisburg Square. In the cool evening air, I admired the old place—five stories of bricks and mullioned windows that dated back to the late 1800s. The gas lamps flanking the entrance made me feel welcome and reminded me of my teenage years when I had been Briallen’s student. I broke one of the lamps once swinging on it, and a welder patched it, slightly off center if you looked closely. Briallen wasn’t happy and made me memorize an entire land registry in Old Irish as punishment. To this day, I remembered that one Ian macDeare owned all the land from the split oak tree to the ford of a nameless stream by the summer pasture in Ireland’s County Clare. I let myself in. Briallen had keyed the door to my essence long ago with a warding spell on it that told her if I entered. As I set one foot on the stairs leading to the second-floor parlor, noise from the kitchen pulled me to the back of the first floor, where I found the lady of the house busy with a pot at the stove. I placed the wine on the counter and pulled off my knit cap as she gave me a broad smile.

“You look like absolute hell!” She threw her arms around me, tucking her head into the crook of my neck.

“Thanks. You look wonderful.” The last time I saw Briallen, her hair and skin were bleached white from the stress of a major spell. Her color on both counts had returned, her skin a warm peach and the healthy glow of chestnut in her hair, the close-cropped length she had preferred for the past few years. Briallen was a good hugger, but one with ulterior motives. As she released me, her hands came up the back of my head, and she stared into my face. I felt a vague pressure as she used her essence to probe the strange dark mass in my mind. Surprise and intrigue flickered across her face.

“It’s changed. It’s shaped differently. How do you feel?”

I ran my hand over the scruff of dark hair growing in. “I had a tough time a couple of weeks ago, but I’m okay.”

She gave a half smile back. “I heard about Forest Hills.”

Of course she did. Everyone had heard about Forest Hills. When a giant dome of essence implodes and people die, news got around. I stopped the disaster from being worse than it was, but I don’t remember how I did it.

Briallen waved me to a stool as she stationed herself at the stove. Dinner plates were set on the other end of the kitchen island. For all the room Briallen has in the house, she spends most of her time in the kitchen and the upstairs parlor.

I noticed three place settings. “Is someone joining us?”

She nodded, sipping from a spoon. “My nephew showed up this afternoon. I hope you don’t mind.”

That was a surprise. I didn’t know Briallen had any family. “I don’t remember a nephew.”

She handed me a corkscrew. “Well, technically he was a fosterling. Long before you showed up.”

Amused, I lowered my eyes at her as I poured her a glass of wine. “I cannot believe all the things I don’t know about you.”

She handed me a bottle of Guinness and took the stool on the opposite corner. “People a lot older than you still don’t know everything about me.”

Her eyes danced above the rim of her wineglass. Briallen verch Gwyll ab Gwyll lived a life most people would envy and the rest would find exhausting. When she wasn’t teaching at Harvard, she was mentoring at the Druidic College, working behind the scenes at the Fey Guild, or serving as an international ambassador for a variety of people and causes. Sometimes she even took vacations, which supposedly was what a recent trip to Asia had been about. I doubted that, though. Briallen may like Thai food, but she didn’t need six months to learn about it on-site.

I tapped her glass with my bottle. “I’m glad you’re back.” Before either of us could say more, we heard someone coming down the stairs. Briallen slid from the stool and moved to the kitchen door. “I think our guest is joining us.”

I hadn’t sensed anyone when I had entered the house. Briallen kept dampening wards everywhere to prevent her essence-infused artifacts from interacting with one another. Plus, she valued her privacy and didn’t want anyone walking in and sensing who had been in her home. Even so, moments before the man appeared, I sensed his essence, recognizing first that he was a druid, then, surprisingly, who he was. Briallen slipped her arm around his waist and pulled him into the room. “Connor, this is Dylan macBain. Dylan, this is—”

He stretched out his hand. “We know each other, Auntie Bree.”

From the look on Briallen’s face, she hadn’t known.

“Good to see you.” I shook his hand. He hadn’t changed a bit since I had last seen him, still young-looking, dark brown curls snug on his head, dark eyes against pale skin. Briallen looked from one to the other of us. “How the hell do you two know each other?”

Dylan kissed her temple. “Connor and I used to work together in New York.”

Briallen dropped on her stool while Dylan poured himself wine. “I can’t believe I didn’t know that.”

I smirked at her. “I guess we all have things we still don’t know about each other.”

She threw me a grudging smile. “Touché.”

I looked back at Dylan. “What brings you to Boston?”

He helped himself to some bread as he sat down. “Work. I’ve been asked to fill in as field director at the Guild.”

“Keeva macNeve must not be happy about that.” Keeva was the Guild’s Community Liaison Officer for Community Affairs, which everyone knew was a polite title for Director of Investigations. It was Keeva’s job to run field investigations.

Dylan shrugged. “She’s on suspension while the hearings are going on.”

I helped myself to another beer. The Guild leadership was a mess. A crazy druid had tried to grab Power at Forest Hills Cemetery and almost succeeded in destroying the fey. Maybe even the world. It was the Guild’s job to keep stuff like that from happening. Instead, Keeva and a lot of other people who should have realized what was going on fell into his trap. “Keeva almost died. I know for a fact she didn’t know what she was doing.”

Briallen and Dylan exchanged looks. Briallen pulled an envelope from her pocket and slid it to me across the counter. “I was going to give this to you later, Connor. High Queen Maeve is not happy about what happened here. The Guild wants to talk to you.”

I recognized the form letter. I skipped the legal mumbo jumbo and went right to the point:

You are hereby ordered to appear before the inquiry board regarding the events at Forest Hills Cemetery in and around October 1 of this year. Advocacy can be arranged if so desired.

By order of our hand and seal,

Ceridwen, Queen of Faerie

Special Director of Internal Investigations

I let the letter fall to the counter. “Maeve must be pissed if she sent an underQueen.”

Briallen tilted her head down and eyed me from under her brow. “It’s not a good time to antagonize anyone, Connor.”

I splayed my hand against my chest. “Me? I wouldn’t think of it.”

“You’ve had problems with the Guild?” Dylan asked.

I laughed. “I guess you can say neither I nor the Guild is each other’s biggest fan at the moment.”

Briallen rolled her eyes. “Boy, did you just hit a long-running argument, Dylan.” She ladled stew for all of us.

I nodded. “I help the Boston P.D. investigate fey issues the Guild ignores. They ignore a lot.” Which was true. The Guild was supposed to handle all fey-related crime. Any fey species that manipulated essence—fairies, druids, elves, and anyone else who can trace themselves back to Faerie—was supposed to fall under Guild jurisdiction. In reality, though, the Guild ignored anything that didn’t score them political points, especially if it happened in the Weird.

“I remember someone who thought the Guild was the best thing that ever happened to him,” said Dylan. I played with the moisture rings my bottle left on the counter. “A lot has changed since New York.”

No one spoke. I refused to look up at Dylan. Dylan and I had some uncomfortable history. We both almost died on a mission, and I handled the aftermath less than nobly, at Dylan’s expense. It’s one of those things I regret from the time that I thought more about myself than about anyone else. It’s been on my list of things to fix someday, but I thought I’d get to decide when. I was wrong. Again. Briallen looked back and forth between us as she placed bowls on the counter. She sat back onto her stool and lifted a spoon. “Have either of you ever been to the Orient?”

And with that, the conversation lightened. Gathered around Briallen’s table, sharing stories and laughs, felt good. Many people I assumed were friends—real friends—had abandoned me after my accident. It was comforting to enjoy a conversation with people whom I had real history with. After dessert, Briallen cleared a few dishes, at which point Dylan and I both started doing the same. Apparently when he lived with her, he had been given the same chores I was. Briallen watched us jockeying for position at the sink. “Why don’t the two of you go up to the parlor while I clean up?”

Amused, we made our way to the second floor. In the parlor, a small blue fire burned in the grate as it always did. Dylan sat in one of the overstuffed chairs. I went to the window overlooking the backyard. The garden had died off with the cooling weather. The oak tree had dropped most of its leaves, and wind had scattered them to the edges of the small space. The still fountain near the back wall sat cold and uninviting.

“You look good,” Dylan said.

I didn’t answer right away. I could make out his reflection in the glass in front of me, wavy and blurred. Without looking at him, I crossed to a small table and poured three glasses of tawny port. I handed one to him. As our eyes met, I could see that ten years had not dimmed the issue between us. I took the chair opposite him, leaving Briallen’s favorite seat between us. “You seem to have done well.”

Dylan gave me a thin smile. “Nice weather we’re having.”

I sipped the port. “I’m not sure if there’s a storm on the horizon.”

He swirled his glass, watching the light reflect flashes of gold. “No. It’s clear. Everything’s clear.”

“You’re sure?”

He met my eyes. “Ten years is a long time, Connor. The past is past.”

I considered a moment. “I can leave it at that.”

He extended his glass. “To friendship, then.”

I clinked my glass against his. “Friendship.”

“That’s a nice sentiment,” Briallen said as she came in. She lifted the glass I had poured for her and tapped ours as well. She settled in the chair between us. “Dylan’s working on the Met robbery.”

Dylan looked at me. “I have never been able to surprise her, have you?”

I shook my head. “I gave up long ago.”

He settled back. “Yes, the Met robbery. Someone stole several artifacts from the Celtic Faerie collection.”

“Why are you doing footwork for the Met?” I asked.

He stretched his legs out toward the fire. “Someone volunteered the Guild’s help because sometimes a pretty trinket is more than a pretty trinket.”

“Someone?” I asked.

Dylan shrugged. “I didn’t ask, but word did come from above. The Seelie Court’s been very nervous about genuine Faerie objects going missing.”

I frowned. “I can’t imagine something powerful enough to worry the Seelie Court would be lying around in the New York Met.”

Briallen shifted more comfortably in her chair. “You’d be amazed at the things that ended up in museums in the early part of last century. Lots of fey had no understanding of where Convergence had brought them, and they sold things off on a promise.”

Convergence. Depending on whether you were human or fey, Convergence was a blessing or a curse. When the worlds of Faerie and modern reality converged more than a century ago, the old world order in both places disappeared, and we’ve been trying to live together ever since. Dylan yawned and stretched. “I think it has people nervous because Samhain is around the corner. High holidays are always a good time for selling objects originally from Faerie. Some thief is looking to take advantage of the timing to get a good price.”

Briallen grinned. “So young and so tired?”

Dylan laughed through another yawn. “No fair, old woman. I’ve been awake for three days tying up things in New York and reading the current Boston case files.”

Briallen narrowed her eyes at him. “Who are you calling old?”

Dylan rose and kissed her cheek. “I have no doubt you continue to run circles around me, Auntie.”

I felt a twinge of jealousy at the pleasure on her face.

“I’m going to bed,” Dylan said.

He hesitated, and I held out my hand. “It was good to see you.”

A look of satisfaction came over him, and he shook my hand. “You, too. Good night, Connor.”

He trailed his hand along Briallen’s arm as he left the room. We stared into the fire, sipping the port. Briallen broke the silence first. “I’d like to hear your version of what happened at Forest Hills.”

I kept my eyes on the fire. “You read the reports. You probably know more about what happened than I do.”

“You only gave a statement. You weren’t required to file a full report. Tell me the story.”

I shrugged. “Murdock and I were working on a case that involved a drug called Float. It turned out that it was made to activate a spell that controlled anyone who touched essence. The full spell activated at Forest Hills Cemetery and got out of control. Essence drained from everything into a huge dome. I apparently figured out a way to diffuse it before it exploded.”

“Meryl Dian says you turned yourself into a ward stone,” she said. I looked at her sharply. Meryl told me I had encased myself in granite, that I became a living ward stone and told her I would anchor the control spell. It worked, but I don’t know how or why. I asked her not to tell anyone until I thought through the implications. “I don’t remember any of it.”

“Do you think there’s a connection?”

I knew what she was asking. I lost my abilities two years earlier in a duel with a terrorist, an elf named Bergin Vize. I don’t remember what happened then either. I woke up in Avalon Memorial Hospital with no memory of the event, my ability damaged to almost nothing, and a dark mass in my head that no one could diagnose. “Of course, I’ve been thinking that. But since we don’t know what happened to me with Vize, it’s just another frustrating question.”

Briallen tapped the side of her glass. “Something’s come up that has me thinking about essence barriers. The veil is a strong and fragile thing.”

With a gentle smile, I poured us more port. “Sounds like Halloween has you feeling nostalgic.”

She sipped, gazing into the blue flames in the fire grate. “It was Samhain first, Connor. You know that. The one night of the year that the veil thins between this world and that of the Dead.”

I settled back in my chair. “ ‘Used to thin,’ Briallen. At least, that’s what they say.”

She shifted her eyes at me, mildly annoyed. “It’s what I say, Connor. I don’t speak of Faerie much because so much has been lost. When Convergence happened and this world merged with Faerie, all the Ways between the realms closed. There are things I don’t remember, but I do remember the veil thinning. I remember the Dead walking out of TirNaNog.”

“Convergence was over a century ago, Briallen. What could it possibly have to do with what happened at Forest Hills?” I asked.

She considered her answer before speaking. “Convergence was a huge essence event, and thousands of fey don’t remember their past. An enormous amount of essence was expended at Forest Hills, and you can’t remember it. That’s too much of a coincidence for me to ignore.”

I dropped my head back. “So to understand my injury, we have to solve the biggest mystery in history. What was Convergence, and why did it happen?”

The firelight gleamed in Briallen’s eyes. She lowered her head and laughed. “Of course. Finding out what happened to you is the only reason anyone would want to know why Convergence happened.”

I frowned, but good-naturedly. “That did sound a little self-involved, didn’t it?”

She laughed. “A little. You’re not as bad as you used to be.”

I stared into the fire, letting my mind slide back a few weeks. All hell broke loose, and a war among the fey almost started. I was in the middle of it, did something to stop it but couldn’t remember what. “I’m afraid of what happened at Forest Hills, Briallen. Lots of people died, and there’s another blank spot in my memory. I have no idea how many of those deaths are on me. I might even have killed something sacred.”

“You either accept that might have happened or let it defeat you, Connor.”

I rolled my head toward her. “How can I face something if I don’t know what it is?”

“You do know what it is. It’s what it always is for everyone. It’s you. You have to face yourself. The good and the bad, and, yes, the horrifying. We all have those things within us. You have to remember when to keep it in and when to let it out. Either way, you have to live with the consequences.” She spoke softly, staring into the fire, a memory shadowing her eyes.

“How much have you had to live with?”

She hesitated so long, I thought she was going to tell me to mind my own business. “There are things that I can never speak of, things I’ve needed to do and couldn’t explain, but I did them because they had to be done. Some I did out of love and some out of duty, and, yes, even anger and hatred. But I did them, and I live with it. That’s what you have to do, Connor. Live with it.”

It was my turn to hold my hand out to her. “Will you ever allow me to pity myself?”

She held out her glass. “Wah, wah, wah. Pour some more port.”

Tawny port has the ability to appear sweet and innocent. I think it’s called a fortified wine because it has the tendency to make you think a brisk October evening is refreshing. Which was believable until I found myself more drunk than I thought and lost in my own neighborhood. I wasn’t really lost. I wasn’t paying attention after I crossed the bridge and missed my street. At least, that was what I tried to convince myself.

I looped the long way around the block past the Nameless Deli. I steadfastly tried not to sway in front of it as I debated whether to get something to eat. The lights were too damned bright, and my hangover was kicking in before the alcohol had burned out of my system. I decided against food. After the huge meal at Briallen’s, I couldn’t possibly be hungry. I stubbed a toe rounding the corner onto Sleeper Street, hopping and swearing under my breath.

Just when things in my life finally were marching in some semblance of a positive direction, something new had to kick up and throw me offtrack. Of all people the New York Guildhouse could have sent, they sent Dylan macBain. It’s as if someone wanted to rub my nose in how much I lost when I lost my abilities. I didn’t blame Dylan, of course, though I doubted he had any hesitation about coming to Boston. That didn’t make his success feel any better. After everything that happened before I left New York, he seemed to have handled it better than I did. I kicked a water bottle out of my way. I felt more than saw movement along the curb. This close to the harbor channel that separated the Weird from the financial district, rats strolled at night. They didn’t bother me, but I hated when they popped out of nowhere. The gutter was empty. Something flickered, a brief gleam on the edge of my vision. I opened my essence-sensing ability to see where the critter was. Hazy, indistinct essence floated beside me. Pain twinged in my head as the darkness in my mind squeezed. It does that sometimes around essence. It hurt, and I hated it.

The shimmer leaned toward me. Two blades of light faded in and out above it. More lights appeared, dancing motes that gathered into the shape of a hand. A vague sense of unease shivered over my body, and I moved away. The hand receded into a nebulous lump that groped toward me. My body shields activated. I can turn them on and off at will, but these days they react on their own. They were one of the things that were damaged in my duel with Bergin Vize and weren’t much help anymore other than as warning signals. Whatever was in front of me, my body didn’t like it I put some more distance between me and the thing. It hovered as though it was considering its next move, then rolled toward me on the air. It worried me as much as it made me curious. I tamped down my sensing ability to reveal an empty street in my normal vision. Not a good sign. Ambient essence that moved with purpose was never a good sign.

A sigh tickled my ears, whispering in from all sides, the sibilant pitch sending shivers down my spine. I shuffled backwards toward my apartment, weighing if I had a fight-or-flight situation. My building vestibule had a warding spell on the main door that could be sealed if I was in trouble. Before I had a chance to consider running for my life, the essence dissipated in a current of air, and the whispering cut off. The pain in my head eased when it was gone.

Another flash of essence, this time radiant pink, pulled me up short. Joe Flit hung upside down above my head, his pink wings keeping him hovering in place. “Where have you been?”

I ducked my head away. “I’ll throw up if you stay like that.”

“Sorry.” He shrugged—disturbing upside down—dropped headfirst, and looped a couple of times in front of me.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Okay, not helping, Stinkwort.”

Joe hated his real name, so I used it to give him a subtle hint that he was being annoying. When I opened my eyes, he was in his more normal position when we go for a walk, a few feet in the air to my side. Normal since Joe is a twelve-inch-tall fairy known as a flit, with bright pink wings he found embarrassing. He’s an old friend, which meant we drank together often, laughed at jokes no one else got, and were highly tolerant of each other’s less-desirable personality tics except when we weren’t. Joe raised his eyebrows. “Touchy, touchy. Not my fault you’re drunk.”

“Not drunk.” The burr in my words didn’t help the denial much.

He opened his mouth to reply, but frowned. He flew over my head and hung in the air, tilting his head from side to side. “I feel something unpleasant. Were you on a date?”

I walked away. “Not funny.”

He zipped in front of me. “What’s wrong?”

The cracked sidewalk made it difficult to keep from stumbling. “Just remembering stuff I’d prefer to forget.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “First you complain you can’t remember stuff, then you complain when you do. You’re never happy.”

I gave my shoulders an exaggerated roll. “So leave if you don’t like it.”

He didn’t. Making a point of not looking at me, he flew ahead, humming to himself. Joe put up with a lot from me. Quid pro quo, though. “Sorry, Joe. Dylan’s in Boston.”

Joe cocked his head back. “Ah, that. No wonder you’re drunk.”

“He said he’s over it.”

Joe snorted. “Yeah, people always get over a knife in the heart. Stay away from him.”

“Yeah, I intend to.”

Joe stopped abruptly, then grunted with a sour look on his face. A second later, it hit me, too. Two things happened simultaneously: My sensing ability kicked in, and I threw up in the gutter. Joe wrinkled his nose at the odor. “Port? Ick.”

I ignored him. I was always good at sensing essence, but lately my ability had gone into overdrive. On the one hand, it was great that one of my abilities was getting stronger. On the other, it was so strong, I barely saw past it sometimes. Fortunately, this time it came on an empty street between warehouses. Because essence is organic in nature, stone and brick buildings had little essence of their own. They picked it up passively and could even be intentionally infused with it. The buildings around me had the faint haze of white that all buildings in the Weird have. With so many fey living here, ambient essence was everywhere.

Joe hovered in front of me, a concentrated blaze of pink and white. At his side, a faint sliver of blue flickered. He wore a sword at all times, invisible to normal vision. He used a glamour spell to hide it from sight. My ability was so sensitive now, I could see through his sword glamour. Above us, remnants of the Forest Hills control spell floated, a thin patch of sickly green essence with black mottling shot through it. Even though I had collapsed the main spell at the cemetery, fragments permeated essence everywhere, especially in the Weird, where it had been tested. Anyone with fey ability who touched the essence found their suppressed impulses provoked. The Weird was a cesspool of suppressed impulses, so the spell had ample opportunities to trigger bad behavior. As far as I knew, the only way to get rid of the stuff was a purging spell, and the only person who had been able to do that was Meryl Dian.

Joe shuddered. “That stuff makes me ill.”

I wiped my hand across my mouth. “Me, too, apparently.”

Joe laughed. “Remind me not to get drunk on port.”

I forced my sensing ability off. The haze didn’t affect me the way it did everyone else. The dark mass in my head acted like a firewall. I didn’t need to see it, though. I could feel it.

“Carmine wants to see you,” said Joe.

Carmine. A solitary. Solitary fey fall in two categories: clans of like fey in very small numbers and true solitaries, one of a kind. In Carmine’s case, he’s one of the latter. In certain places, he’s known as a party planner. In less polite places, he’s known as a pimp. We had more than a passing acquaintance in my youth. “I haven’t seen Carmine in ages,” I said.

“He said he needs to talk about a case,” said Joe.

“He wants to hire me?”

Joe screwed his face up in exasperation. “I don’t know. He wants to talk to you, not me. I’m thirsty again. Let’s go find him and grab a drink somewhere,” Joe suggested. We stopped in front of my apartment building. “I’ve probably drunk enough tonight, Joe.”

He looked doubtful. “What’s that like?”

I tried to smile. “Maybe tomorrow.”

He pouted. “Killjoy.”

He vanished in a spark of pink. I inserted the key into the front door of my building. Joe popped back in. “For the record, Connor, you did your best, and Dylan needs to get over it.”

I belched. “Thanks.”

He waved his hand in front of his nose. “And for the love of everything, stop drinking port.” He popped out again.

Between bumping into the corrupted essence and getting sick, I wasn’t that drunk anymore. I made coffee and checked my email. Murdock had sent me a copy of his case report on the warehouse murder. The victim had a name: Josef Kaspar. He had a long list of petty crimes—loitering, shoplifting, breach of peace—typical of a homeless man of his age. I wasn’t in the mood to review the whole file. The end of a long night wasn’t the time to look at someone else’s failed life.

My wooden desk chair squealed as I leaned back and gazed out the window. The lights of the financial district glittered across the channel. So many empty offices and yet so much light. Everywhere I’ve ever been, nobody turned off the lights in offices. It’s as though everyone wanted to give the impression they had only stepped out and would be right back. Only, sometimes, through no fault of their own, some don’t come back.

All through dinner, I had listened to Dylan’s stories—the trials and tribulations of life in the Guild, the puzzle of a complex investigation, the satisfaction of closing a case. Over and over, waves of envy stirred within me. He had the life I used to have. He had the access and the power. The money. My eyes sought a small piece of worked stone on the bookshelf that ran around the top of the wall of my study. Dylan had made it years ago when he was interested in stone carving. A smooth sphere fit snugly inside a larger sphere cut with Celtic knotwork. The inner sphere moved freely, and the knotwork had affirmations engraved in ogham runes. The one most easily read said “Life is a series of trust moments.” After our worst case together, he gave it to me. At the time, I thought he was being overly sentimental, but it was one of the few things I kept when I lost almost everything else. He had seen how a life could be snuffed out in a moment. Even though we hadn’t spoken to each other in a decade, he knew what had happened to me. And yet, the ease with which he talked, how he took for granted what he did, gave no hint of anxiety that it could all disappear. No hint he could end up like me or, worse, a dead homeless guy like Josef Kaspar.

Maybe that was why Dylan had shown up. Briallen always said the Wheel of the World works the way It will. Sometimes It’s clear, sometimes puzzling, but It’s always what It is. Maybe It was showing me that I didn’t have that life anymore, but I still have a life. I still do for a living what I did before. Only I do it differently, without assuming essence abilities will make things right. I had only to engage my mind to figure out how to work with the more mundane tools I had now. But if I could do that and still have enough money to buy the couture sweater Dylan had worn tonight, I’d feel a helluva lot better about it. 4

The Fey Guildhouse loomed over Park Square like an eccentric fortress constructed of New England brownstone. The building occupied an entire city block and rose a full twenty-seven stories above the street, peaking in several towers that in turn sprouted their own little turrets. A series of balconies and ledges staggered up the sides, taking in views of Boston Common to the north, the harbor to the east and south, and the Charles River to the west. The higher up you went, the more important you were. At least that’s the theory I used to subscribe to. Now I’m convinced the opposite is true. Gargoyles crammed every ledge, nook, and cranny of the old place. They clustered in the front portico, clinging to the pillars and the spines of the ceiling vaulting. Essence attracted them, and the Guildhouse vibrated with it. They especially liked the roof, where they basked in the updraft of the building, and the main entrance, where they savored the living essence of people going in and out. I paused under the dragon head above the main entrance. It’s big, intentionally threatening-looking, and not really a gargoyle. Maybe in the old, pre-Convergence sense, when all carvings of fantastic people and animals were called gargoyles. But the dragon had no animated spirit, and that’s what counts as a gargoyle these days. After Convergence, some of them, for want of a better word, woke up. No one knew why any more than anyone knew why Convergence happened. The ’goyles talked to people sometimes, strange mental communications that seemed prophetic but frustratingly obscure. What made me stop, though, was not the gargoyles but the lack of them. Entire sections of the ceiling were bare. No one ever saw a gargoyle move, but they did move somehow. I had a hunch they were checking out the residual essence up at Forest Hills Cemetery. It had to be irresistible to them. More were almost certainly down in the Weird, tasting the strange drafts of twisted essence left over from the control spell.

The Guildhouse’s stark entry hall felt chill from lack of sufficient heat. It was the reverse in the summer. It’s not that the Guild can’t afford to heat and cool the monstrosity. It’s that they don’t want people feeling too comfortable as they wait for help. And wait they did. More people than ever had problems only the Guild could solve, which meant more people left the Guild with their problems unsolved. The line for help and relief looped back and forth through a roped queue that was longer than I had ever seen. I hated to admit it, but I used to laugh at those people. Now I’m one of them. Since the duel with Vize, which left me with the dark blot in my head and a monthly disability check in my pocket, my Guildhouse pass privileges had been revoked. But today, I skipped the public queue and used the shorter one to the right reserved for people with temporary passes or appointments. I flashed my subpoena at the receptionist, a young elf with too much makeup who wore an ill-fitting rust-colored security uniform. The uniform was designed for the brownies who made up the majority of the street-level security guards. It looked good with their tawny skin and sandy blond hair. The elven receptionists, though, wore street clothes until security was tightened, at which point they were made to wear the uniforms. With her pale skin and dark hair, the elven receptionist didn’t look happy with her outfit.

Whenever I got into the Guildhouse these days, I took the opportunity to roam where I could. Certain floors were warded against unauthorized staff, but enough of the building was open that I could have some fun. That usually meant visiting Meryl Dian, druidess and archivist extraordinaire. We had had something going on for a couple of months, though I can’t figure out quite what. When the elevator arrived, a brownie security guard surprised me by acting as an operator. I nodded to him. “Subbasement three, please.”

He held out his hand. “May I see your pass?” I turned it over.

He returned it. “You’re cleared for the twenty-third floor only, Mr. macGrey.” As he faced the floor panel, I jabbed the SUBBASEMENT button, and we descended. He glared. “I’m sorry, sir, but you are not authorized anywhere but the twenty-third floor.”

“I’m visiting a friend,” I said.

The doors opened onto a long, vaulted corridor lined with bricks. The brownie held his hand against my chest while he pressed the 23 button. I placed my own hand on him the same way and pressed him against the wall. “I didn’t say you could touch me.”

I stepped out of the elevator.

“Sir!” the guard yelled. He threw a tangle of essence at me, a binding spell that settled on my shoulders like cold static. Brownies aren’t that powerful, so I found myself moving in slow motion instead of stopping. Annoyed, I started to turn back, but the elevator door closed and broke the spell. I shook off the static and walked down the corridor.

Just before her office, I heard Meryl yell, “Muffin!”

Her office was empty. I continued deeper into the underground maze that led to the Guildhouse storerooms. At an open door, I stuck my head in with a smile. “Would you like blueberry or corn?”

Meryl threw a glare over her shoulder that relaxed into a grin. “Rat, actually. I need help.”

Holding a malachite orb, she stood in a narrow aisle between wooden cupboards, many of which had gouges in them. Above her, a gold dagger hovered. I leaned against the door-jamb and crossed my arms. “Help. From a rat.”

She closed one eye and looked up. “If I recall, Muffin helped you out of a tight spot once.”

I smiled because it was true. “Do I want to ask what’s going on?”

“C’mere. I’ll show you.”

She held out the orb. When I took it, my feet rooted to the floor, and the dagger swung toward me. I cocked my head back, but the blade came no closer than a foot. “Nice piece. Breton?”

Meryl leaned over a nearby case and reached her hand behind it. “Fifth century. You do know your weapons.”

“Why is it pointed at my head?”

She wedged her whole arm behind the case. “It seeks living essence. It’s like Thor’s hammer, only I think it works with anyone.”

“Thor’s hammer,” I said, dubious.

She waved her hand behind her. “Next aisle over.”

I peered through a shelf to the next aisle, trying to decide if I was being played. I never knew with Meryl. Ever since we became friends—real friends, I think—she had shown me things in the Guild’s storerooms I had no idea existed. When I worked at the Guild, I could have come down here anytime I wanted, but back then I didn’t have a clue about what was there. Now I saw only what Meryl let me. She loved her job and was fiercely protective of her charges. “You have Thor’s hammer?”

She giggled. “No, silly. I do have a sawed-off sledgehammer someone used in a robbery a couple of decades ago. Still has the robber’s essence on it.”

I examined the malachite orb. The essence charge produced a static spell holding me in place, one like the brownie tried to throw at me, only this one worked. “What exactly are you doing?”

Meryl tried to wedge her head into the gap between two cabinets to see behind them. “Since the dagger seeks living essence, I had it stabilized with the aspidistra.” In the wreck of the odd scene, I hadn’t noticed the forlorn plant on the display case. “I used that orb as a ward stone to anchor the plant so no one would move it. Then I put an amplifier ward on the plant because its essence is so weak. I think one of the rats knocked the amplifier behind this case. It looks like the damned dagger has been trying to stab its way out of here for weeks. It almost stabbed me when I came in.”

“And it’s not stabbing me because . . . ?” I asked.

“Because I modified the orb you’re holding to create a buffer. It wasn’t a problem with the plant.”

She threw off her center of balance so that her feet barely touched the floor. Since she couldn’t see me, I made no effort to hide my enjoyment of the view. Meryl may be short, but she’s got great legs. She’d probably use them to break my neck if I ever mentioned that out loud. She slid back off the case with a frown. “I can’t feel it back there, and this case is too loaded with crap to move. I’m going to get another one.”

I looked up. “Why do I get to stay with a crazy dagger?”

She stepped around me. “Because you’re spell-stuck until I release it. I won’t be long. Maybe.”

I glanced around the room. Essence swirled around me in various intensities. The room had a lot of metal in it, the essence warping around it. Meryl apparently stored more than one weapon here. I felt sparks of what people called True essence, the residual signature of something pre-Convergence, direct from Faerie. True essence was rare. And Powerful.

Something rustled. I crouched to see if Meryl’s erstwhile helper, Muffin the Rat, had arrived. An odd sigh sounded, and I bolted upright into abrupt silence. A slight vibration trembled in the air, as though something passed overhead. A glance upward showed nothing but shadowed shelves and dark ceiling corners.

“Hello?” No answer. A soft hiss, like the sound of air escaping, tickled on the threshold of my hearing. The thought of snakes flickered in my mind, but the room didn’t seem to be holding anything to attract them. Unless poor Muffin wasn’t as agile as Meryl thought he was. The hiss became louder. I startled at a flurry of unintelligible voices.

“What the hell . . .” I muttered. I tried to release the orb, but it wouldn’t leave my hand. Now I knew what Meryl meant about being stuck. The voices trailed away. The sound of metal sliding on metal pricked my ear. I knew that sound. It’s the distinct sound a sword makes when it’s pulled from a scabbard. I heard the slight crunch of a footfall on grit.

I opened my sensing abilities and regretted it immediately. The heightened state of my ability picked out every mote of essence in the room. Colors raced in a rainbow of shades, so many overlapping that a touch of nausea hit me as they spun, colliding and separating. I couldn’t sort out a damned thing, but I had sensations of movement, people walking the aisles toward me.

Despite the weapons in the room, none was close enough for me to grab. I considered the dagger, but I didn’t know the full extent of its properties. It might have conditions I wouldn’t like. My skin prickled as cool air wafted over me with a ragged sigh.

A voice yelled behind me. “What are you doing in here?”

The ceiling lights brightened, and my body shields slammed on as I twisted toward the door. The security-guard brownie from the elevator had his hand on the light switch, his eyes bulging in their sockets. Even the calmest brownies turned into a boggarts when prevented from performing their responsibilities. They became maniacal and didn’t stop until they completed what they set out to do. This guy was managing to keep himself from going over.

I gave him a sheepish smile. “Hi . . . um . . . Meryl Dian asked me to help with something.”

Since even my meager shields dampened my essence, the dagger swung toward the brownie’s stronger essence. He stepped closer, one eye whirling up at the dagger as the other stared at me. “I don’t believe you. What do you have there?”

I held up the orb. “This? It’s a ward stone.”

He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

I looked down at the stone and back at the brownie. Restraining a smirk, I held it out. “Okay.”

His fingers wrapped around the orb, and the stationary spell slipped off me. I stepped away before he realized he couldn’t move his feet. He twisted to face me, his eyes bulging fully. His cheekbones hollowed out, and his body began to elongate. “Get back here!”

“I’m sorry. I have to find Meryl.” I closed the door against a shriek of frustration. Meryl wasn’t in her office, so I continued to the next open door. The room inside was well lit and meticulously organized, with shelves holding ward stones of different sizes, herbal jars with tidy labeling, and a wide variety of working tools, both fey and mundane. “I can’t believe how neat your workroom is.”

Meryl rummaged through a box on a table. “Yeah, I keep it pretty organized. I thought I had another amplifier stone ready, but I can’t find it.” She placed another box on the table. Flipping it open, she removed several finished bricks of quartz. They were high-end-quality ward stones that could be infused with essence to work or maintain spells. The ones from the box were new, so they had no charge on them.

“Do you ever hear voices in the storerooms?” I asked.

She examined one of the stones and fingered a chip in the veining. “Just the temp on his cell phone when he should be filing.”

“No, really.”

“Yeah, really. Bob spends more time trying to get a signal down here than he does filing.” Meryl stopped shuffling things on the table. “Wait a sec, how did you get out of the storeroom?”

I shrugged. “I came up with a temporary solution.”

She gave a sigh that fluttered her bangs. Meryl changed her hair color like other people changed their clothes. This week, the bangs were a rich brown. The rest was pumpkin orange, in honor of Samhain, knowing Meryl. Halloween might have replaced the emphasis of the old harvest ritual, but it kept the color right. “Thanks. I’ve wasted too much time on this already, and I’m so backlogged.”

She pushed the box aside and came around the table. As she passed me, I wrapped my arms around her from behind and kissed the top of her head. She didn’t move. Didn’t tense, exactly, but didn’t do anything comfortable like lean back into me or rip off my clothes in mad passion. She cocked her head to the side, fortunately with a smile, but still didn’t say anything. Feeling awkward, I released her and followed her to her office. I dropped in the guest chair while she scooted behind the desk.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

She read something on her computer that made her frown. “Yeah, just busy. You must have heard about the hearing.”

“Briallen told me.” Her frowned deepened a bit as she continued reading. “Something going on, Meryl?”

She clicked her mouse and shook her head. “No. Briallen and I are having a disagreement about something, that’s all.”

“What about?” She raised an eyebrow that made me shift in my seat. “Fine. Don’t say.”

She leaned back in her chair. “How’d you get in this time?”

The various ways I gained official access to the Guildhouse amused Meryl. “The hearing. I’m scheduled to testify.”

She dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. Not amused. “I did yesterday. They want me back tomorrow.”

“It didn’t go well, I take it.”

She rocked her head back and forth. “Ceridwen’s a pompous bitch. She said she didn’t like my attitude.”

I compressed my lips. Meryl didn’t take criticism well. Since she was already annoyed, I figured I might as well say what I had been wanting to say for the last couple of weeks. “You’re hardly known as Miss Congeniality around here.”

She scowled. “It’s a job, not a beauty pageant.”

“So quit.”

She sighed again. “I would, but I like the job. I stupidly keep thinking one of these days this place will recognize me for what I do and not be so damned political. The last thing I want to hear right now is that I’m cranky to work with.”

I picked up a paper clip and tossed it at her. “You have been cranky lately.”

She tilted her head forward, a healthy anger storm building in her eyes. “Lately? You mean lately, like since I was possessed by a drys and let it die and thought I watched you die and then thought I was going to die? That kind of lately? Or are we just talking this week?”

I felt a flush of heat. Between her words and the exhaustion in her voice, I didn’t know what to say. Nothing bothered Meryl. Actually, everything bothered Meryl, but nothing usually penetrated. We made sarcastic jokes about Forest Hills. I didn’t realize what lurked behind the jokes. “Meryl, I’m sorry. I thought you were talking about work. I wasn’t considering what you went through.”

She shook her head. “You don’t remember it, Grey. It sucked. Now I have Briallen bitching at me, and Ceridwen prying into stuff that’s none of her business.”

A drys was a tree spirit, one druids held sacred, assuming their philosophy went in the way of worship. I wasn’t so sure it was a demigoddess, but it was powerful and humbling. I did remember Meryl’s being possessed by the drys. She looked amazing. She looked powerful. And scary. Then a cloud descended over my memory. I don’t know what happened after that until I woke up with my face in the dirt. “I don’t believe you let the drys die. Whatever happened, happened because it needed to.”

She shook her head. “You don’t remember it.”

I leaned forward. “I don’t need to. You would never have done anything that drastic if it could have been avoided. You did what needed to be done. I believe that.”

The corner of her mouth dimpled. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time.”

I smiled. “I didn’t say it to be nice. What can I do to help?”

Again with the up-and-down shoulders. “Nothing. I’ll figure out something. It’s just crap that needs to be ridden out.” She gave herself an exaggerated shake. “Okay. Pissy fit over. You look like you haven’t slept.”

“The dream. It’s happening more than once a night,” I said. The same dream had plagued me for more than a week. A stone fell through the sky, fell and fell, until it plunged into a dark pool of water. The impact made ripples that grew into waves. The air filled with mist and a sound like thunder. The images became confused, without any clarity, things moving and rushing and calling. The mist vanished, and two figures appeared in the distance, one all black and the other all red. They struggled, then there was a white flash and I woke up with the sound of screaming echoing in my head.

“I still think it’s a simple cause-and-effect metaphor. Something happens and causes something else. Your metaphors tend to be pretty simple.” Meryl was a Dreamer. She had visions in her sleep that told her things, sometimes things about people, sometimes things about the future. The visions tended to be littered with metaphors that mean something only to the people who have the dreams. Meryl was one of the few people who could consistently interpret her dreams. Mine started after my accident, but I never understood them until too late.

“What about the figures?”

She twisted her lips in thought. “Two many possibilities. You’ll have to Dream more to understand if they’re your generic symbology or a distinct message. They could be two sides of an argument or two real people or a past memory or a future struggle or . . .”

“Okay, okay, I get it. I have to figure out my own personal metaphors. At least I’m not seeing dead bodies this time,” I said.

Meryl looked skeptical. “As far as you know. There is screaming involved.”

I slumped in my seat. “You always have a way of looking at the bright side.”

She shrugged. “Can’t help that. It’s my sunny nature. What are you going to say at the hearing?”

I pursed my lips. “Pretty much what I know. I think the part they’ll be most interested in is the part that I don’t remember.”

Meryl leaned back again. “Lots of politics in that room. Briallen and Nigel Martin have a battle of wills going.”

Before she became my friend, Briallen was my first mentor on the druidic path. Nigel took over after her. I used to think he and I were friends. Now I’m not so sure. “Briallen and Nigel have been bickering as long as I can remember.”

Meryl grinned. “Pretty much everyone is angry with him except, ironically, Eorla Kruge.”

“Eorla Kruge’s at the hearing?”

Meryl’s eyes gleamed with mischievous pleasure. “You didn’t know? She got the Guild Director position. It’s driving Ceridwen nuts. Eorla refuses to testify or recuse herself from the hearings.”

That didn’t surprise me. Nigel made some kind of deal with Eorla in exchange for her help at Forest Hills. When Eorla’s husband was murdered, she became the most powerful elf in Boston. Even though she was a high-ranking member of the Teutonic Consortium, her politics were nuanced enough to let me like her. She had the deft ability to anger her elven comrades as often as their fairy opponents and still get what she wanted. I respected that.

I glanced at my watch. “Speaking of hearings, I have to go.”

Meryl rocked out of her chair. “I’ll walk with you. I need to go upstairs and get some supplies before anyone finds out the budget is being cut.”

Out in the corridor, I slipped my hand onto Meryl’s back and gave it a soothing rub. She didn’t pull away. The elevator arrived empty, and she hit the button for the next subbasement up. I hit 23. “How do you always know so much about what goes on around here?”

She eyed me meaningfully. “Because the people upstairs always treat their assistants like crap, and they tell me stuff while they’re waiting for research.”

Once upon a time, I was one of those people upstairs. “You are never going to let me live that down, are you?”

The door opened, and Meryl stepped out. “Not yet.”

That was when I had my oh-shit moment. “Meryl?” She turned with a smile. “I forgot to mention—I left an angry boggart in your storeroom.”

She swept her hands up under her bangs, as anger flooded her face. “I am going to kill you.”

The door started closing as she stepped toward me. There was no way I was going to stop it. “Sorry! I owe you one!”

Her sending slammed into my mind. Oh, you will owe me more than one. Trust me. 5

The twenty-third floor of the Guildhouse existed in two different towers connected by a sky bridge. One tower held meeting rooms and the main elevator shaft, the other a few private temporary offices with a separate elevator for executives to whisk in and out. When the main elevator opened on the public side, Guild security agents blocked my way. With a queen of Faerie in town, they went for the full security package—Danann fairies in black uniform, chrome helmets, and take-no-crap attitude. I didn’t pretend to be oblivious to the process. I flashed my badge and the subpoena without waiting to be asked. An unusual array of the fey worked the hallway outside the conference rooms. Danann fairies and the lesser clans clustered in groups well away from elves and dwarves. True to their name, solitary fey kept to themselves. Neither the Celts nor the Teuts controlled or cared about them, the outcasts of the fey world. Fey on all sides sported visible injuries from the aborted battle at Forest Hills a few weeks earlier. Every time an elevator opened, all eyes shifted to the newest arrival, seeking a potential ally or noting a potential foe.

I had no time to suss out how the proceedings were going. Within minutes of my arrival, a brownie security guard escorted me to a table outside the door of the hearing room. “Weapons must be left here,”

he said.

Without my abilities, physical weapons were my only defense. I understood the protocol. Security was security. I pulled a dagger from each boot and placed them on the table. One was a simple steel throwing knife I had owned for years. The other was a druidic blade, laced with charms and spells, that Briallen gave me last spring. “I suggest no one touches these,” I said.

The brownie wasn’t particularly impressed with the suggestion. Everybody probably told him the same thing. He announced my name and escorted me into the hearing room. A hearing at the Fey Guild didn’t resemble a U.S. court-room proceeding. The room typically had seats in the back for spectators, a lone chair in the middle for whoever was being questioned, and a raised dais in the front for hearing officials. If the person questioned had an advocate, the advocate stood. Fey folk seeking help subjected themselves to the will and word of High Queen Maeve at Tara. Maeve’s law could be cold and nasty. Sometimes that was good. When it wasn’t, it wasn’t good at all. The first clue that my hearing wasn’t ordinary was the absence of spectators. The only people present sat on the dais and were among the most-high-powered fey in Boston. Since I wasn’t being charged with anything as far as I knew, no advocates were present. I hadn’t requested one, figuring it would look like I had nothing to worry about. For now.

Ceridwen was, in a word, a babe. Most people found Danann fairies irresistibly attractive. Part of that was glamour, spell-masking that enhanced their best features. Part of that was their Power. The Dananns considered themselves the elite of the Celtic fairies. Without a doubt, they ruled with that attitude. They were a damned attractive bunch with the firepower to cinch it, and Ceridwen was no exception. She sat tall in the center of the platform, her diaphanous wings undulating on currents of ambient essence, points of light flickering gold and silver in the faint veining. Auburn hair burnished with gold highlights fell in waves down her back. Her eyes glowed amber with an intensity and depth that would humble anyone. Those eyes sent a shiver of awe through me. In a many-ringed hand, she held an ornate spear, intricately carved applewood worn white with age, tipped with a sharply honed claw. A silver filigree depicting leaves and apples wrapped the whole of it. On the shaft near Ceridwen’s hand, ogham runes glowed and formed the words Way Seeker .

On her right sat Ryan macGoren, enjoying his status on the Guild board. We had had run-ins in the past that left me with a less-than-ideal opinion of him. Even other Dananns considered him ambitious, including Guildmaster Manus ap Eagan, who sat on the other side of Ceridwen. Manus looked in rough shape. He had contracted some kind of wasting disease that baffled the best healers known to the fey. Manus’s suspicions of Ryan had drawn me into the investigation that had exposed the coup plot at Forest Hills. Accident, to be sure, but a damned good one. Given that he was suffering from accusations of failure, I had no idea if Manus blamed me or not.

To the left of the Dananns, Nigel Martin and Briallen studiously ignored each other. I suppressed a smile. Those that follow the druidic path by their nature were prone to debate. Briallen and Nigel epitomized those debates. They had been sticking me in the middle of their arguments as long as I could remember. I considered myself lucky to have had them as mentors, but I would be hard put to explain which of them influenced me more.

On the right of the Dananns sat Eorla Kruge, the new elven director. Eorla made eye contact with me and nodded slightly before returning her attention to the papers in her hand. I admired Eorla’s intentions but doubted she believed she’d have much success at the Guild. It was and remained Maeve’s creature, and no elf ever truly influenced the course of Guild policies in their favor. Last, on the end of the table next to Eorla, was Melusina Blanc, the solitary fey director. Melusina had a strange look, skin unnaturally pale with shades of gray, hair a tangle of silver tinted almost blue, and eyes so light the irises appeared white. Where Ceridwen’s gaze made one look away from amazement, Melusina’s did from discomfort.

If elves had little pull on the board, the solitaries had even less. At best, Melusina was a token nod to the existence of solitaries. The irony was that since neither the Seelie Court nor the Teutonic Consortium thought of solitaries as allies, Melusina’s vote ended up being particularly powerful in close calls. No fool, she used it to gain help and privileges so often denied to her kind. As usual, the dwarven director was absent. For complicated political reasons I never understood, they refused to attend meetings but did not give up their rights and titles. Ceridwen stamped the base of the spear on the floor. “We are Ceridwen, Queen. We speak for Her Majesty, High Queen Maeve at Tara. Connor macGrey, Druid, you are hereby sworn to speak truth in matters addressed here. You may sit.”

I took the forlorn chair facing their table. “Just Grey. I don’t use the patronymic.”

She gave no indication that she heard. “We have read your statement of the events of Forest Hills. Can you elaborate on what is not in the report?”

I tried to look innocent so I wouldn’t appear uncooperative. Get in and get out was a good hearing strategy. “Could you be more specific?”

Ceridwen lowered her eyelids and softened her face with a thin smile. “We are Ceridwen, Queen .”

I paused in confusion, then realized the subtle emphasis on her title. “My apologies. I’m not used to using royal protocol. Could you be more specific, Your Highness?”

Ceridwen’s smile flexed slightly higher. “No. Proceed.”

Cute. Ceridwen was on a fishing expedition. I decided to keep to the details of my original statement.

“The blood of a living tree spirit called a drys was used to make a drug. The drug activated a control spell that would bind all essence—all of it, everywhere—to one person. That amount of essence couldn’t be contained, and the spell fed on everything around it and grew. I somehow short-circuited it. I have memory loss from the event and do not know how I did it.”

Ceridwen remained for a long moment with her head tilted to the side. “Tell us again of this tree spirit, the drys.”

I shrugged. “There’s little to tell, ma’am. Her name was Hala. She was the physical incarnation of the oak.”

Ceridwen leaned forward. “And how do you know this?”

My eyes shifted momentarily to Briallen and Nigel. “I am a druid, ma’am. Sensing essence is one of the abilities the Wheel of the World grants us.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are we to assume that you believe this tree spirit can govern the use of essence?”

I saw where she was going. Ceridwen—and probably Maeve and the rest of the Dananns at Seelie Court—were spooked that druids could use a drys to gain controlling power over essence. If druids did, they could trump the power of the Seelie Court and risk the Danann’s perceived superior status. “No, ma’am. I do not believe that. In fact, before she died, the drys Hala was horrified by what had happened. It was the spell that affected essence, not the drys. The drys’s blood was merely the catalyst of the spell.”

She nodded. “Explain.”

I felt a flicker of essence from Briallen, as though she momentarily had activated her body shield. Then I realized what was annoying Meryl. Dananns were fey of the air. Ceridwen was looking for druid lore, which focused on organic matter. Even as a powerful Danann, she wouldn’t understand the use of tree essence personified by the drys. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. The hearing was an excuse for another political fencing game. I answered her honestly. “I cannot, ma’am. I only felt the results of the spell, not how it was created.”

Twin spots of rose appeared on her cheeks. “I see. Then can you tell us why the effects of the spell remain?”

I shook my head. “No, ma’am. The remnants of the spell haven’t dissipated yet. Others more knowledgeable than I might understand that.”

Ceridwen stood abruptly, her eyebrows drawing together. “Druid macGrey, come before us.”

I glanced at Briallen, but she did not meet my eyes. I did what Ceridwen asked. She positioned the spear between us. “This is the spear Way Seeker, the Finder of Truth. Place your hand upon the spear and answer us.”

I stared into Ceridwen’s fathomless golden eyes. I could refuse. Since I was born in the States and had never sworn fealty to Maeve, I was not a subject of the Seelie Court. I wasn’t even a Guild agent anymore, which would have obligated me to follow her request. I brought a slow hand up to the spear. I didn’t think I had anything to lose.

My hand closed around the spear. The silver plating and heartwood beneath pulsed cold. When I wrapped my fingers around it above Ceridwen’s hand, more ogham runes flared into view below the first set. Way Maker . Another moment later, yet a third set of runes appeared. Way Keeper . A subtle touch in my mind warned me I was about to receive a sending. From experience, I recognized Nigel Martin’s deft touch. I see the runes. Say nothing of them. I had trained with Nigel a long time. No one in the room would know by looking at me that he had spoken in my mind. Ceridwen cocked her head first to one side, then the other. She might not know Nigel had spoken to me, but she had enough ability to know something had passed through the air. “There is no private communication in our presence.” She didn’t take her gaze off me. “Tell us again, Druid macGrey. What do you know of the taint that infects the essence of this place?”

The spear glowed with a harsh golden light as essence shot up my arm. Sensing the surge, the dark mass in my head convulsed and deflected it. The essence shot back down my arm, and the spear flared. With a concussive force, the spear jolted itself out of Ceridwen’s hand and threw her back in her chair. Her eyes blazed with light as she leaped to her feet. “You dare!”

Baffled, I held the spear between us. “I don’t know what . . .” I didn’t get to finish. Ceridwen raised a clenched fist that glowed with white power. She brought her arm back to cast the essence at me. Briallen and Nigel jumped to their feet. With a shout, Briallen threw a protection barrier between us while Nigel held his own hand out with essence forming in it.

“This man’s essence is damaged, Your Highness. I do not believe he intended anything,” Nigel said. Anger suffused Ceridwen’s face. “Leave us. All of you but macGrey.”

The other directors filed out with a mixture of sentiments on their faces. Eorla Kruge looked curious, while amusement spread on Melusina’s face. Ryan macGoren had paled. Manus hesitated. As Guildmaster, I would guess he could insist on staying, but he bowed to Ceridwen instead. Nigel and Ceridwen locked gazes. She let the power ebb out of her hand. Only then did he do the same and leave. Briallen moved closer to me. “Are you all right?” I nodded. She gave my arm a squeeze and walked to the door.

“Remove this protection spell,” Ceridwen said to her.

Briallen lifted her chin. Yellow light danced in her eyes. “Remember to whom you speak, under Queen. You have no authority over me, Ceridwen.” With an angry flick of her hand, the protection barrier rolled over and surrounded me completely rather than dissipating. Briallen slammed the door behind her. Ceridwen stood in a cloud of essence, a barely contained flame. She held her hand out and said,

“Ithbar.” The spear jerked out of my hand and back to hers. “We are bonded to this spear. How did you take it from us?”

I held my hands out to either side. “I don’t know.”

She placed the butt of the spear on the floor between us. “Grasp the spear and answer us.”

The angry demand rubbed me the wrong way. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t need to be compelled.”

She took a step forward. “We are not asking, druid.”

“I noticed. The answer is still ‘no.’ ”

She took another step, and Briallen’s protection barrier glistened between us. My body shields kicked in as essence built up in Ceridwen’s eyes. Without Briallen in the room, I didn’t know if the protection spell would hold up against whatever Ceridwen was about to do. I decided not to find out. I held my hand up and took a gamble. “Ithbar.”

Ceridwen’s jaw dropped as the spear wrenched out of her hand and flew into mine. It was almost as tall as I was, with a balance to it that felt like it was carved for me. I pointed it at her. “I may not know how to use this, but I’m willing to bet this nice, sharp point can pierce your body shield before you have a chance to throw that essence at me. Shall we test that theory?”

Ceridwen went white with rage. “This is treason.”

I threw the spear to the floor. “I’m not your subject. Threaten me again, Ceridwen, and I’ll give you more than your little toothpick to worry about.”

I stalked from the room, leaving the door open behind me. Sweeping up my daggers, I secured them in their boot sheaths without pausing. People loitering outside the room tilted stunned faces in at Ceridwen. They drew away from me as I passed. Not the Guild security agents. Five of them blocked my way at the elevator. “Her Highness demands your attendance immediately,” one of them said from behind his featureless chrome helmet.

“Tell Ceridwen she can call me and make an appointment at my convenience,” I said. His body stiffened at my casual use of her given name. Nothing insults royals more than treating them as equals. I moved to step around the agents, but they shifted in front of me again. I glared at the agent who had spoken. “I am not going to say this again. I do not answer to Tara. Now move.”

Manus pushed his way through the gathering onlookers, with Nigel at his side. “Let me speak to the queen,” he said. He closed his eyes and frowned. If doing a sending over such a short distance caused him that much pain, he really was in bad shape. He opened his eyes. The security agents nodded and moved to one side.

I inclined my head toward Manus. “Thank you, sir.”

He held my shoulder. “A small favor at most, Grey.”

Nigel joined me in the elevator. When the doors closed, I glared at him. “What the hell happened in there, Nigel?”

He raised a calm eyebrow. “Technically, you insulted the High Queen Maeve via her proxy.”

I frowned. “I know that.”

Nigel smiled. “Yes, but this time she might actually hear about it.” He extended a long, thin finger and pressed the elevator STOP button. “Now, you tell me what happened.”

I leaned against the wall of the car. Nigel was healthier-looking than he had been a few weeks earlier, though more gray hair mixed in with the brown. The way he wore it swept straight back and falling to the back of his neck gave him an academic air. Academic he certainly was. He was also a powerful druid. He had been pushed to the limit at Forest Hills and almost died. “It’s the thing in my head, Nigel. It rejected the compulsion spell from the spear, just like it resisted the control spell at Forest Hills.”

He nodded. “Yes, well, you were difficult to compel even before you had that problem. But why did you knock Ceridwen off her feet? Not very polite.”

“I didn’t. At least, I don’t think I did. I think the spear was reacting to what it perceived as my desire.”

Nigel slipped his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor. “Hmm. The spear. I think this spear is more than it appears to the Seelie Court.”

“The runes.”

He pursed his lips. “Yes. I could feel that they were made for druid eyes only. Those runes invest whoever holds the spear with the authority of law.”

“Me? I’m not at that level.” I had left my druidic studies long before I completed a mastery of law. Nigel’s eyes shifted back and forth as he considered the implications. “I agree. It’s curious that it responded to you. It means you have the right to use the spear just as Ceridwen does, maybe more so because of the second runes.”

I nodded. “She said it was bonded to her. When I called it, it came to my hand.”

His eyebrows shot up. “It came to you? How did you know how to call it?”

I shrugged. “Ceridwen used the command in front of me. When I used it, the spear jumped to my hand.”

Nigel’s eyes wandered again as a slight smile came to his face. I’d seen the look before. He liked nothing better than a puzzle. “That means it’s now bonded to you, too. If we can figure out the command for the second line of runes, the spear will surrender itself to you alone. She won’t like that.”

I sighed. “Why me?”

I meant it only rhetorically, but Nigel answered anyway. “These things follow a pattern of circumstance. The right conditions at the right time and the right person.” Then he dropped a slight sarcasm into his voice. “Of course, Briallen would probably tell you it’s the Wheel of the World, but you know I don’t subscribe to such notions.”

I shrugged. “Either way, I didn’t ask for it. What about the other runes?”

“When the bonded holder of the spear holds it, everyone can see the Way Seeker set. Many spears like it were made for court purposes. They’re not that rare among the fey. Maeve probably gave it to Ceridwen not realizing it was something more. When you touched the spear, I felt druidic resonance from the Way Maker runes. I’d wager that no one in that room but you, Briallen, and I could see them.”

He stopped speaking, lost in thought. When he didn’t continue, a suspicion came to my mind. I didn’t think he knew about the third set of runes. “Successive sets take precedence over the last?”

He shrugged. “Of course. That’s the way these things work. The spear responds to need. Ceridwen came on a truth-seeking mission, and the spear bonded with her on that level. If your need were only truth, the druid runes would not have activated, and you and Ceridwen would simply share ownership. For some reason, the spear is responding to your need for the rule of law. Full ownership will pass to you if we can learn the command word for the second set. If another druid has the need and knows the command, you would then share ownership with him. What doesn’t make sense is you’re not trained in the law. It’s curious.”

Again Nigel stopped speaking and confirmed my suspicion. He had not seen the blaze of essence that read Way Keeper . I pushed it one more time but in a way that I hoped wouldn’t arouse his suspicions.

“What about a third set?”

He looked up and smiled. “That would be extremely rare, especially on a spear of truth and law. Very little takes precedence over those two. A third set is feasible, but usually for a unique purpose.”

Great. There was no way the spear reacted to my legal abilities. I always wanted to be the guy who hired lawyers, not the guy who had to take someone else’s call. My gut told me the spear was responding to me for the third set of runes, which the spear or whoever made it decided I was the only one to see them. “I don’t want it.”

Nigel released the STOP button on the elevator, and the car descended again. “Just because it’s yours doesn’t mean you have to use it. It will come if you command, no matter where it is. What you do with it from that point on is your choice.”

The doors opened on the main lobby, and I stepped out while Nigel remained. He held the door. “Do me a favor, Connor? I know you don’t have enormous respect for the monarchy, but could you keep it reined in until Ceridwen leaves? She’ll understand why I called up that essence, but she won’t be pleased with me. I have much to do, and keeping her calm is difficult enough as it is.”

A favor. Nigel Martin, my old, domineering mentor, was asking me for a favor. Not too long ago, he would have told me to do as he said and expected me to do it. I guess the ass-chewing I had given him a few weeks ago had had its effect. “Not a problem, Nigel. The last thing I want to do is talk to Ceridwen again.”

He sighed and pushed the elevator button. “That’s what I’m afraid of. After what just happened, I’m sure she’s going to want to talk to you.” The doors closed.

Out in the afternoon sun, Briallen waited on the sidewalk. Two Guild security agents and a few brownie security guards made a not-so-subtle perimeter around her. Other pedestrians gave them a wide berth. She looked relieved when she saw me. “Walk me home?”

“Of course,” I said.

Tension flowed off her as we made our way toward Boston Common. The brownie security unit stopped following when we moved through the tingle of the invisible shield surrounding the Guildhouse. The Danann security agents remained a few paces behind us. Briallen didn’t speak. We crossed the street and entered the broad lawn of Boston Common. About halfway across the open green space, Briallen wheeled around to face the agents. “I told Manus I don’t need security.”

One of the agents inclined his chrome helmet toward her. “We have our orders, ma’am.”

She set her face in annoyance. “I don’t care what your orders are. I don’t want . . . oh, dammit, I don’t have time for this crap.” She muttered something Gaelic and waved her hand at the agents. In the cool air, a puff of steam wafted over them. They both startled, then looked around in confusion. They turned and went back toward the Guildhouse. Briallen slipped her arm through mine, and we resumed walking.

“That’s better.”

At the base of the fairy hill in the center of the Common, we threaded our way through a number of gargoyles in the grass. “That’s odd,” I said.

Briallen hummed agreement. “Yes, I find it very interesting. Gargoyles are sensitive to essence. I think they’re sensing something about the fairy ring at the top of the hill. There are indications that a veil may form for the first time since Convergence.”

Every year, a circle of flat-top mushrooms grew near the grassy summit of the hill. How the ring appeared was a mystery, one of those places that had been unnoticed, yet known for years. Who used it first and whether it sprang organically from the ground or was seeded, no one knows. There was a Power in the ring even human normals could feel. I’ve been seen a lot of fairy rings, and the Boston ring was one of the strongest. “That’s wishful thinking, Briallen. It’s just Samhain. They could be attracted to the increase in fey people performing seasonal rituals up there.”

She stopped again. “Maybe.”

She placed her hands on either side of my head and sent warm lines of essence into my head. “That’s a relief. I was worried that damned spear did something to the darkness in your mind.”

“I’ve bonded with it.”

She shook her head. “I hate those stupid things. Nigel loves them, but in my experience, artifacts like that have a way of screwing up things.”

I tilted my head down at her. “I seem to recall someone giving me a charmed dagger.”

She gave me a friendly poke. “That’s different. I gave it to you. Things like the spear work of their own accord. Some idiot puts a bonding criterion on it, and who the hell knows where the thing will end up.”

After what Nigel said, I couldn’t resist. “Maybe the Wheel of the World influences where it ends up.”

“Yes, well, the Wheel of the World functions quite fine on Its own, thank you. It doesn’t need some old druid making weapons that can muck things around.”

We reached Beacon Street and crossed into the Beacon Hill neighborhood. Cheerful pumpkins and cats decorated doors and windows as we strolled past the old townhouses. Samhain was one of those holidays that everybody celebrated in some form. It had different levels of meaning depending on the culture. For the Teutonic fey, it was a celebration of the continuity of life. For the Celts, it was a more mournful affair of remembrance for those who had died. For both sides of the fey divide, it was the start of the new year. Of course, for human normals, it was all about candy. Given a choice, I preferred the candy.

On the sidewalk in front of Briallen’s townhouse, she took both my hands in hers. “Listen to me, Connor. The Guildhouse is in absolute turmoil. I actually like Ceridwen, but I’m worried she’s going after Manus. My suspicion is that she wants to replace him with Ryan macGoren because he’ll be more obedient to Maeve. If that happens, I’m afraid it will fracture the board even more.”

I cocked my head. “And I care about this because . . .”

She tugged my hands. “Because the Dananns are terrified of this taint on the essence here, and they don’t want it to spread. You accidentally got in the middle of all this, and you know macGoren is not your friend. I have influence, but at a certain point, I may not be able to keep them from bothering you. They think you might be lying about what you know of the Taint. It was made by a druid and stopped by a druid. All the Seelie Court sees is a threat to its power, and when that stuff starts happening, people get hurt.”

I brought her hands up to my lips and kissed them. “I promise not to poke or tease the Faerie queen, okay?”

She chuckled. “Don’t make promises we know you can’t keep. If I could make you go on a vacation right now, I would.”

I swung her hands playfully. “No, really. I have an odd little murder case I much prefer dealing with. I will avoid Ceridwen completely if I can.”

She nodded. “Okay, that I can believe.”

I gave her a wicked smile. “Am I mistaken, but did you imply back in that room that you are peer to a Faerie queen?”

She laughed again. “Oh, I’m not implying. I am. Years ago, I was made an honorary underQueen for services rendered to the Seelie Court. Since Convergence, none of the underQueens and underKings have physical realms anymore, so I ended up on equal footing. See what I mean about criteria? You never know what the results will be.”

I shook my head. “The more I learn about you . . .”

She kissed my cheek. “The less you know. Go solve your murder, sweetie. I have a political crisis to manage.”

I waited for Murdock in what had to be the most run-down doughnut franchise in the city. I liked doughnut shops. They’re one of the few places that cross all social lines. Everyone likes doughnuts. If they say they don’t, they’re lying. At a doughnut shop, you can get a sense of a neighborhood in ten minutes. And, of course, the coffee kept me alive. Murdock wouldn’t be caught dead in one, but I didn’t have a public image to maintain.

Murdock pulled up in front, and I left the shop. I tossed a tattered magazine off the passenger seat and handed him a cup of coffee as I dropped into the squalor of his car.

“That’s going to cost you,” he said, as I shoved the last bite of a glazed doughnut in my mouth. I smacked my lips. “There’s no other reason to go to the gym.”

Murdock turned off the Avenue and down D Street. “Got a call down on Boston Street in Dorchester.”

“That’s out of your jurisdiction.”

Murdock tapped the steering wheel as we waited at a red light. “Yep. Someone thought I might be interested. Even mentioned your name.”

Boston had absorbed the town of Dorchester years ago, but it retained its name and its smaller neighborhoods. Some were nice, and some had pockets as bad as the Weird, only guns were the threat instead of spellcasters. Boston Street off Dot Ave was one of the nicer places, young professionals, decent restaurants nearby, and working streetlights.

We pulled up to a typical triple-decker—a three-level wooden building with bay windows that looked like it came from a Monopoly game. The usual assortment of police vehicles clogged the street. The front door of the building stood open, crime-scene tape flanking the steps. Uniformed officers kept the human normal crowd back. A plainclothes officer dressed in dark brown pants and a Red Sox jacket nodded at Murdock when she saw him get out. “Hey, Murdock, long time, no see.”

Murdock gave her a wide grin. “Hey, Liz.” There was a subtle shifting of eye contact between them that told me all I needed to know about at least one part of their past. Murdock has a knack for loving and leaving without trailing broken hearts in his wake.

Murdock jogged the short flight of steps. “This is Connor Grey. Connor, Liz DeJesus.”

She shook with a firm grip I liked in anyone, man or woman. “Good to meet you. One of my guys was talking to one of yours, Murdock, and gave me a heads-up. I’d appreciate anything you can tell me on this.”

As I joined them on the top step, the essence hit me immediately. Druidess, definitely, and a personal essence I recognized in particular. I looked over Liz’s shoulder.

The open door revealed a small landing with a crooked area rug. To the left stood a narrow mail table, knocked askew, a vase of dried flowers on its side. To the right, a staircase went up to the second floor. Next to it, a hallway led back to an open apartment door. In front of the apartment door, the victim lay on her back like a discarded doll.

Liz led us in. “Olivia Merced, sixty-seven years old, single. An upstairs neighbor found her like this. He remembers hearing a door buzzer about seven A.M.”

Olivia Merced looked fit and young for her age. By her outfit, I guessed she had been dressing for the day when the door buzzer went off. She wore black dress slacks with a light blue T-shirt and a pair of fleece bedroom slippers. My stomach fluttered at the sight of scorch marks at the toes of her slippers.

“Did she work?”

Liz shook her head. “No. According to the neighbor, she did mostly volunteer work. Check out her face.”

Her head had turned to the side when she fell. I had to press myself against the staircase to lean over her without touching her body. Slashed across her forehead were six ogham runes. “Same as our guy the other night, Murdock.”

I pulled back and rejoined them at the threshold, trying not to think about the pain the woman must have felt. “Same killer, too. The essence matches what I felt at the warehouse.”

Murdock’s eyebrows were drawn down. “What could a homeless man in the Weird have in common with a retired woman in Dorchester?”

My eyes scanned the hall. “As victims, they’re too random to be random. No one kills like this without a reason. For one thing, you have to store up essence to do this. For another, it’s exhausting. The murderer had a real motive to connect them. That makes them calculated executions.”

Liz stared at me with a classic yeah-right look. Lots of cops did when I talked about essence or the fey or Faerie. It was easier to believe it was all something called magic, that there were no rules or process or limits.

Liz shook her head. “You know what the media’s going to do with this.”

I felt a little flash of anger. “You mean now that a nice old-lady charity volunteer bought it instead of just a homeless guy in the Weird?”

Murdock cleared his throat. “We’re all on the same side here, Connor. Liz is only stating the obvious.”

Liz gave me a tight smile. “Everyone’s tense right now. Let’s look at the bright side. With all the resources the mayor’s pulling for security, maybe a little media attention might remind him there’s still real crime out here.”

I glanced at her with an embarrassed smile. “Sorry. Some people think I have a hard time not getting personally involved in my cases.” With all the street fighting going on in the Weird the last couple of nights, the Josef Kaspar murder scored one sentence on the evening news. The one mention in the local section of the newspaper I found was an inside item. It’s hard not to get aggravated about it. Whenever a crime involves the fey, a report goes to the Guild. They’re the best equipped to handle them. In reality, they picked and chose what they wanted and left the rest to the Boston P.D., which usually didn’t know what to do with them. More often than not, most of the cases got filed and ignored. Especially if they involved the Weird. It’s bad enough too many poor people don’t ever see justice done. It’s worse when officials claimed it was someone else’s problem to solve. If it weren’t for people like Murdock, people who didn’t care where you lived or what you were or how much money you made, the Weird would have had no hope at all.

Murdock stretched his neck and sighed. “Okay then, we should start cross-referencing the victims, see if we can find a connection.”

I wandered down the steps as he and Liz hashed through procedures. A large telephone switching unit stood on the curb across the street. It would make an inconspicuous place to stand with a straight-shot view of Merced’s building. I kept my body language casual so that the scene gawkers wouldn’t follow me. Sure enough, as soon as I neared the big silver box, I felt the essence. The killer had lingered there, using the box to hide behind. From the strength of the essence she had left, I’d guess she waited an hour or two. Again, I felt the strange layer of an essence signature that I could almost recognize. Familiar, but off somehow.

Olivia Merced lived on the first floor. The neighbor had said he heard a buzzer around 7 A.M., which would have been around dawn. The killer would have watched her lights come on and waited until she was sure Merced would be dressed to come to the door. That made twice the killer had shown up early and waited. Whoever she was, she was patient.

The metal surface registered several patches of the same druidess essence. She must have touched the box or leaned on it. I waved over one of the patrol officers and asked him to secure the area. It was a long shot, but they might be able to lift a fingerprint.

Murdock came down the stairs, and I joined him at the car. As I slid into the passenger seat, I gave Liz a wave, and she returned it. I took it as a sign she wasn’t angry. “Old friend?”

Murdock didn’t react as he pulled a U-turn. “Yep.”

“That’s all I get?”

“Yep.” Murdock kept his social life close to the vest. I couldn’t complain, though. I hadn’t told him much about what was going on with me and Meryl.

We rode back to the Weird in bumper-to-bumper traffic, watching the neighborhood change from a livable stretch in Dorchester, to a desolate stretch under the Southeast Express-way and elevated subway tracks, and into the residential section of South Boston. Home once. Long ago, my brother Callin and I played stickball on those streets. Cars were fewer then, and more families raised their kids in town.

Murdock knew those streets, too. His own family lived down on K Street. His sisters had an apartment together nearby, but he and his brothers still lived with their father, who was the police commissioner. They had all joined the force, except Kevin, the youngest, who was a fireman. Public service had become genetic.

With a few turns through side streets, Murdock avoided the lights and ran a straight shot up D Street. As we neared the Weird, the streets got dirtier, the sidewalks more crumbled, and the houses more run-down. Late-October weather made it all worse, with the vestigial front yards dried and patchy, and the few surviving trees bare. We slipped into the warehouse alleys and left South Boston. Everyone who grew up in Southie and left says they want to move back there. But I had nothing to draw me back. My parents sold years ago and moved to Ireland, and my brother Callin lived who knows where. No, for me, Southie was just a memory. A good one, mostly, but not a place I could go back to. Murdock pulled up in front of my building. “I’ll send you the file when I get it from Liz.”

I hopped out. “Trust me. We’re going to find an obvious connection on this one.”

Murdock gave me a crooked smile. “Yeah. It always works that way.”

As I waited for Carmine to arrive, the cold wind off the harbor couldn’t hide the odor of rot wafting up from the Fish Pier. No matter how often the loading docks were washed down, the parking lots swept, and the dumpsters sealed, the accumulation of years of dead fish permeated the concrete and asphalt. It was enough to put me off tuna. Only almost. If I knew how most of the food I ate had gotten on my plate, I’d probably be vegan. Clams might look like something hacked up from a watery hell, but, damn, they tasted fine with beer.

While you could find someone to pay for sex almost anywhere in the Weird, the Fish Pier was ground zero for it. That’s what people came down here for. Only steamy windows kept the place from becoming an orgy late at night. If people could see what was going on in the car next to them, I had no doubt they’d join in. Car after car circled in and out, cruising the loading docks to survey the merchandise huddling against the closed doors of the truck bays. Someone would see something he liked, point his car at the bay, and flash his lights. If more than one worker stood in the bay, the regular johns had a system for flashing their blinker lights to indicate whom they were interested in. The seller would respond with a sending giving a menu and prices. If the john was interested, he flashed again, and they closed the deal somewhere else in the lot. The city could do little to stop it. There was no verbal solicitation to record, and no fey who could lure a john with a sending worked on the force. The entire situation drove the Boston P.D. crazy.

Because of the cold, Murdock offered to drive me to the meeting so I wouldn’t freeze standing out in the frigid air. He slumped in the driver’s seat, not wrinkling his clothes by some miracle. From outside the car, someone might think he was asleep, but up close, no one could mistake his alert eyes. I leaned against the door, trying to keep awake against the onslaught of heat from the vents. The temperature control in Murdock’s car was nonexistent. Joe fluttered around in the backseat, singing dirty bar songs and making us chuckle.

“He knows you’re here, right?” Murdock asked.

I nodded. “He’ll be here.”

Joe fluttered up and hooked his knees around the rearview mirror. He seemed to be into hanging upside down lately. “He’ll be here. I had lunch with Carmine this morning.”

“You had lunch in the morning?” I asked.

When Joe nodded, it amused me that it works the same upside down but wasn’t nearly as nauseating to see when I was sober. “Well . . . wait . . . or was it breakfast last night? What do you call it when you eat at dawn and then go to bed?”

“Drunk pizza,” said Murdock.

Joe laughed so hard, he slipped off the mirror and hit his head on the police radio. The whiff of alcohol on his way down told me there was pizza in his future. He crawled in the back, muttering about unstable car accessories.

“I got a subpoena from the Guild today,” Murdock said.

Last spring, Murdock was hit with a stray bolt of essence during a fight with a crazed fey guy. He went into a brief coma, and when he woke up, his body essence had increased. Since then, he seemed to be some kind of living dynamo. He’s not fey, though. His body essence still reads human, but what a human from Faerie might feel like. I don’t know for sure. The humans in Faerie didn’t come through during Convergence, so I don’t know precisely what their essence would be like. Murdock had been at Forest Hills. His strange essence had kicked in, and he plowed through the fighting like a bulldozer. The last thing I remembered about Murdock that night was hiding in a grave with him hoping no one would kill us. According to Meryl, he was out cold when the big stuff hit the fan.

“Don’t let Ceridwen rattle you. She’s only a mouthpiece.”

Joe hooted. “Ha! Don’t let her hear you say that. The underQueens all want to be High Queen, only Maeve knows how to keep everyone arguing with each other long enough to leave her alone.”

“What the hell is an underQueen?” asked Murdock.

“It’s a queen who hasn’t figured out how to kill the High Queen without anyone realizing she did it so that she can get elected the new High Queen,” said Joe.

I threw Joe an amused look. He threw his hands in the air. “What? You think I don’t pay attention?”

A black stretch limo pulled in and parked not far away from us. Carmine liked to be careful when he met someone in private. If he’s feeling safe, the limo will be in sight. If he’s not, strange people start telling you you’re trespassing. He’s been elf-shot and stabbed more times than I can remember, so he makes sure he knows who’s coming at him.

The lights on the limo flashed. “I’ll be right back,” I said.

I left Murdock in his overheated car and approached the limo with my hands out to the side, not so wide as to draw attention from the customers nearby but wide enough to show I didn’t have a knife or gun. Carmine knows I lost my abilities, so while I’ve never given him a reason to fear me, he still prefers to know I’m not holding steel in my hand. People like him live longer that way. The rear door popped open, thumping R&B rhythms into the night air. I slid inside. Two young fairies, a male and female, slept cuddled next to Carmine while a solitary fey with green, scaly skin sat saucer-eyed, staring out the side window. Up front, beyond the closed privacy window, two dwarves watched the action on the docks.

Carmine lounged in the middle of the side seat wearing a gold lamé suit that matched his hair color and enhanced his crimson complexion. Even though he was a solitary fairy, he had no fear of any other fey. That told me Power lurked within him that he was willing to show. He flashed his row of tiny triangular teeth. “Connor, Connor, Connor, long time, no see. Are you looking to party?”

Once upon a time, I traveled in certain circles that enjoyed a good bacchanal, and Carmine often supplied entertainment. The fey have different notions about sex and drugs than humans do. We’re not restricted by Judeo-Christian ethics for one thing. Most fey don’t breed well for another. Recreational sex was much more recreational than human normals were comfortable with. As long as everyone has fun and no one gets hurt, pretty much anything goes, and when Carmine planned a party, the emphasis would be on the “anything.” “My budget’s a little thin at the moment.”

He laughed, a soft, high-pitched giggle. “Ah, when you lost your abilities, my friend, I lost a good customer. Welcome to my humble carriage.”

Carmine’s charm is so transparently insincere, it’s hard not to be amused. “Thanks.”

He sipped champagne from a glass flute, his eyes thin slits above hard, brick-colored cheekbones. “I understand you’re looking into the death of Josef Kaspar.”

It dawned on me that the warehouse where Josef Kaspar was found was near the Fish Pier, and the Fish Pier, of course, was Carmine’s territory. Anything that happened in a radius of a few blocks, Carmine heard about it. “He turned up dead in a warehouse around the corner from here. Do you know something about it?” I asked.

Carmine hummed, rustling his hair with a few shakes. “Kaspar, poor thing. He dreamed his old despair would end in love, but his love ended in a dream of despair.”

“You knew him, then?”

Carmine shrugged. “Not really. Like all of us, he was in love once. Like some of us, he let it defeat him when it wasn’t returned. He did occasional errands for me in exchange for a little company from my girls.”

“He died of essence shock,” I said.

The ridge of skin above Carmine’s eyes rippled. “Did he now? That’s nasty. He didn’t bother anyone I’m aware of.”

“I think he may have been stalked by a druidess,” I said.

A mischievous smile crossed his face. “We’ve all been there, haven’t we?” He leaned forward and poured himself more champagne. He gestured at me with the bottle, but I shook my head. With Carmine, I couldn’t be sure that alcohol was the only stimulant in the bottle. I wasn’t in the mood for anything unexpected.

Joe took that moment to appear. “De da, fear dearg!”

Carmine flashed his tiny sharp teeth. “Ah, Master Flit, and how is your head this evening?”

Joe did a tight loop around the green solitary, who had not budged an inch. “Couldn’t tell you. I’m keeping myself inebrilated.”

Carmine chuckled. “Indeed, Master Flit. If we could all enjoy the world as much as you, it would be a finer place and I would be a richer man.”

Carmine settled against the seat, sliding his bare feet onto the legs of one of the sleeping fairies. “A woman came around a couple of weeks ago looking for Kaspar. A druidess. Rather shady if you ask me.”

Carmine’s calling someone “shady” bordered on hilarious. “Shady?”

A corner of his mouth twitched in wry amusement. “She was slumming and thought she was getting away with it. Thought if she tarted herself up with secondhand clothes and a spacey voice, I wouldn’t notice that her essence lit up like a lighthouse in a dead calm.”

Joe wandered aimlessly around the floor of the limo. He was half-drunk when he showed up in Murdock’s car, and the faint haze in the limo was making him stagger. He tripped and fell at the feet of the sleeping fairies and decided to lie there.

“Did you tell her where to find Kaspar?” I asked Carmine.

He shook his head. “No. I know she hung around for some time afterward. Either she found Kaspar on her own or found someone willing to talk.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?”

He took a long sip of his champagne. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Strangers have been asking questions about people in the Weird. This woman was seen associating with these people. When I received word she wanted to talk to me about someone, I was immediately suspicious.”

I shifted in my seat. “What do you mean by ‘strangers’?”

Carmine licked his lips as if deciding whether to keep talking. “People of a distinct Teutonic persuasion, shall we say? They are asking for information about the Red Man. You can guess why that might give me pause.”

He did pause, as if I needed time to notice his rich red skin tone. I thought of my dream of the red and black figures. “What was the druidess wearing?” I asked.

I couldn’t blame Carmine for the surprised look on his face. “A ridiculous clown outfit of secondhand clothes. Why ask?”

A man wearing a gold lamé suit insulted by poor fashion sense can only amuse. “Just curious. Were these people maybe, um, unhappy with your services?”

Carmine shook his head with exaggerated slowness. “On occasion I have a dissatisfied customer, but not groups of them. Too many for it to be a coincidence and too many pretending to need my services. Naturally, it made me a bit cautious. They’re not local, so it’s either the Guild or the Teutonic Consortium. I only spoke to the druidess because I thought I might find out what was going on. Instead, I seem to have picked the one person who had her own agenda. I don’t like hidden agendas that aren’t mine.”

I chuckled. “How do you know I don’t have a hidden agenda?”

He stared at me with hooded eyes, so long that I thought he might be more drugged than I imagined. He broke into a startling smile. “Don’t take this wrong, Connor, dear friend, but your motives are often transparent to me. One of my talents is to sense desires. When you wanted to make money, you made money and didn’t care who knew it. When you wanted to get laid, you practically wrote ‘one-night stand’ on your forehead. And when you wanted to catch someone, only a blind fool would stand in your way. You always have your reasons, but you’re not very good at hiding them.”

I reminded myself not to ask questions I didn’t want to hear the answers to. I was about to protest, in what I’m sure would have sounded a pathetic, self-defensive way, when a shiver of pain made me wince. The essence inside the limo became visible as my ability came alive. Carmine gleamed a shade of gold, while the fairies glowed pale white. The other solitary shone with dim blue light so faint, I wondered if she were dying. Joe looked his normal pink self.

“Did you see her alone?” I asked.

His eye ridge flexed. “I consider you a friend, Connor. Are we alone?”

“Then maybe you caught her off guard, and she bluffed about having an interest in Kaspar,” I said. Carmine showed his row of fine, sharp teeth. “And then killed poor Kaspar to cover herself? That’s a level of deceit even I find impressive.”

He had a point. “What would you like me to do, Carmine?”

He tilted his glass again in a toast to me. “Bear in mind, our druidess may have friends. Dig a little deeper, and I won’t have to.”

He drained his glass and stared, a hard glint in his eye. Carmine might have a party-man reputation, but he knew how to take care of himself and his business. I had no doubt that included eliminating distractions and threats to either. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

The dwarves in the front seat sprang into motion and hustled out of the car. Carmine leaned forward and stared out the windshield. “We have a little problem.”

I peered out the driver’s side of the car. Near the loading docks, the green and black of tainted essence wavered between two parked cars. An essence-bolt flashed in one of the cars. Carmine leaned back again. “Damned Taint. It’s upsetting my staff terribly. We try to keep the trouble to a minimum, but business has been off.”

Before I could say anything, Murdock ran across the parking lot. “Damn. Gotta go, Carmine. Thanks for the talk.”

I jumped out. The green-black Taint danced on an eddy of wind that trapped it between the cars and the loading dock. The dwarves pounded on the windows of one car, while Murdock tried to see inside the other. Once I was away from Carmine’s music, I could hear screaming. An explosion of essence from the first car blew the passenger door off. It struck one of the dwarves full on the chest and knocked him to the ground. An angry fairy wearing only a short skirt emerged from the car. Bright flashes popped in her agitated wings as her eyes blazed a neon yellow. She shot into the air and fired down at the car. The driver inside ducked as the windshield shattered and a rain of glass showered in on him.

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.

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—some one—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 across 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. He lifted a shirt box from the side of the love seat. Looking at me briefly, he tilted the lid of the box open. A gold neck-ring known as a torc nestled in a pile of tissue. Torcs are neck jewelry favored by the fey, C-shaped and worn by sliding the open gap around the neck. The age and gold content of this one made it worth a pretty penny. The essence wafting off it—pure Faerie—made it more rare and doubled its value. Any kind of original material from Faerie demanded high prices. Fey abilities worked better with it.

“Why didn’t she wait until you handed it over before she tried to kill you?”

Belgor closed the box. “She wasn’t here for the torc. She came for some jewelry. The torc was my . . . processing payment, shall we say?”

It didn’t make sense to me. The torc was worth a fortune. “How much jewelry are we talking about?”

“Three fibulae, pre-Convergence, very nice quality, made of gold and silver, and a lovely ring, from Saxony, I would say, by its craftsmanship.”

It was a decent list. Fibulae were old brooches used to clip clothing together. Old, as in the previous millennium. Still, the torc looked priceless. It had to outvalue the sum of the other items. “How did the deal came about, Belgor?”

His eyes shifted for several moments as he decided what to tell me. His risk. If he didn’t tell me enough and got screwed by the Guild, his fault. If he told me too much and I could hold it over him, my gain. “A courier I occasionally work with told me he had an opportunity. His client did not want to conclude the transaction with him directly for personal reasons, but asked that I hold the material until she arrived. In exchange, I could retain the torc.”

“You were directly asked for?”

“Apparently.”

“And the torc was specifically offered as payment?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

I shook my head. “You were baited, Belgor. You let your greed overwhelm your usual caution.”

Nodding, he frowned. “So it would seem, Mr. Grey. I have not erred like this in many years. The question now is what we do about it.”

I chuckled. “ ‘We’? I’m not seeing a ‘we’ here, Belgor.”

Annoyance flickered in his eyes. “I believe I know the source of this material. It would be of particular interest to the Guild. I will pledge to you that I will find the name of the purchaser in exchange for helping my role in this unfortunate affair be overlooked.”

Given Dylan’s stakeout, I knew what particular Guild interest he might be talking about. “You know I’m not Guild anymore.”

He smiled. “Yes, but you are not held in high esteem at the moment. Providing this information would go far to ingratiate you with your former masters.”

I let slide the crack about former masters. “That would benefit me with the Guild. Why should I do this for you?”

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