Uncertain Allies

by Mark Del Franco

  “I guess that’s my fault, too,” I said.

  Meryl didn’t respond. If she had, she would have told me to get over myself. It was what she did, and it was what I needed. I wrapped my arm around her, slipping her head into the crook of my shoulder. It felt good to have her there, and it felt wrong to have her nonresponsive. Pulling away from me I could take; pulling tighter I could enjoy. This nonresponsiveness was wrong in so many ways. Wrong because it violated Meryl’s inherent nature. Wrong because somehow her condition was a result of my failure. Her choice, but my failure. I kissed the top of her head. She hated when I did that, drawing attention to my height over hers, kissing down at her. I loved that it irritated her, and I suspected she enjoyed it, but denying it was also part of who Meryl Dian was.

  I led her away from the gargoyle-cluttered hill and empty pond basin, helping her up the stairs to Beacon Street. We cut up Joy Street to where Briallen lived around the corner on Louisburg Square, an exclusive address behind the State House, prim formal town houses staring at each other over a locked oval park. It was a pretty, cultured block with who knew what went on behind closed doors, especially at Briallen’s house. She had lived there for years, the political and financial fortunes of her neighbors ebbing and flowing around her house, which never changed.

  The pleasant odors of dinner filled the entry hall as I removed Meryl’s jacket for her. Briallen came out of the kitchen, a dish towel in her hands. “How’d it go?”

  “Fine. We walked around the Common and back,” I said.

  Briallen brushed stray hairs back from Meryl’s face, a motherly gesture that surprised and reassured me. Briallen and Meryl had a thorny relationship filled with challenge and verbal sparring. It wasn’t that I thought Briallen didn’t care about Meryl. It was more a pleasant surprise that at the end of the day, all their disagreements were put aside.

  “Well, physically, it probably was a good thing. She has more color in her cheeks. I already brought food upstairs for her in the guest room. Why don’t you make yourself useful in the kitchen while I feed her?”

  She took Meryl by the arm and led her up the stairs. Smiling, I watched them go. The two of them were the most important women in my life, both prone to giving me orders. I wasn’t sure what that said about me, but it did amuse me. I did as I was told, went to the kitchen and washed the dishes in the sink. I had spent my teenage years in Briallen’s house learning what it meant to be a druid. I also learned that not doing my chores brought swift punishment. To this day, I made a mental inventory when I walked in Briallen’s house, checking if the stairs needed sweeping or the woodwork needed polishing. Not that any of that carried over into my apartment. The slob I was at home was an obvious reaction to my youth.

  As the steam rose from the sink, I longed for those days, wanting to shout back through the years to warn my younger self of what was to come. I liked to think I would have done things differently. I doubted it, though. The thought was nostalgic at best. Like everybody else, I made decisions based on what I thought made sense at the time. Listening to some crazed older version of myself was probably not something I would have thought made sense.

  I finished the last of the pots as Murdock arrived. “Tell me he didn’t cook,” he said as he followed Briallen into the kitchen.

  “You’re safe,” she said.

  “Hey, I make a mean mac and cheese,” I said.

  Murdock placed a bottle of French wine on the kitchen island. He knew it was Briallen’s favorite. “Emphasis on the mean.”

  “From scratch. No box,” I said.

  “Can’t prove it by me,” he said.

  Briallen patted my shoulder. “You do make a good one. He’s not always wrong, Leonard. Hard to believe, I know.”

  I made a show of sighing. “It’s going to be one of those dinners, isn’t it?”

  Briallen handed me a knife and loaf of bread. “Don’t worry, dear. We’ll find something else to talk about besides you.”

  Good-natured ribbing aside, meals at Briallen’s house rarely lacked for interesting conversation. We managed to avoid talk of destroyed neighborhoods, decaying political structures, and the deaths of too many people. It felt normal, listening to Briallen talk about her students at Harvard or Murdock recommend books he had read. He favored romance novels and, of course, police procedurals. If the two genres ever overlapped, he would be in heaven.

  The respite lasted until dinner was over. We went upstairs to the second floor, where Briallen had a small workroom. She and Murdock settled on stools facing each other, and she took his hands in hers. “I’m not going to do anything that will hurt.”

  He smirked. “Not the first time someone’s said that to me.”

  She smiled. “Not the first time I’ve said it either. Close your eyes.”

  “Is this the part where we tickle him?” I asked. Briallen glowered at me. I held my hands up. “What? I can’t make silly banter, too?”

  “Emphasis on the word ‘silly,’ ” Murdock said with his eyes closed.

  “Fine,” I said.

  When Briallen closed her eyes, my essence-sensing ability registered the room coming alive with essence. Fey homes have more essence by virtue of their owners. Add someone like Briallen into the mix, and the essence levels escalated. Since we were in her workroom, color glowed and flared from every surface. Briallen performed research and experiments in the room. The bookcases vibrated in dark blues and golds, parchments and paperbacks hinting at spells and chants. Boxes made from wood or cloth or glass gave off unique signatures, some made to restrain particular types of essence, some having their own inherent patterns.

  Briallen burned bright gold and white as she tapped her body essence. Murdock glowed, too, his crimson body signature flickering with red and yellow points of light. When I had met Murdock, he’d read completely human to my senses. Since the day he was hit with the spell backlash at Castle Island, his essence read more druid than human. When the changes started a year ago, I had worried about the ramifications for him. He, on the other hand, took them in stride. He exhibited some fey abilities, and his essence strengthened but remained human. In the past few months—since the death of his mother—his body signature had intensified.

  White light flowed from Briallen’s hands onto his. The light separated into delicate filaments that wound their way up his arms. His essence flashed red in response as his body shields flickered on. “Relax, Leonard.”

  “Sorry.” The shield essence faded.

  Briallen’s essence surrounded him, long, lingering strands tapping his body signature here and there. Murdock’s body shield flickered on and off as the exam proceeded, but Briallen didn’t need to remind him to relax again. He had been practicing control of the shield, and I was impressed by how far he had progressed on his own.

  For the better part of an hour, Briallen poked, probed, and manipulated his essence, chanting and muttering as she worked. I had experienced much the same process many times over the years. To someone who couldn’t see essence, it wasn’t that interesting, an exercise in one person touching another. For me, it was like watching someone play an instrument. My essence-sensing abilities had become acute, almost painfully so, and for the first time I saw how someone of Briallen’s skill worked with essence. She moved it through Murdock’s body, tapping essence nodes like a tuning fork, making their bindings dance like reflexes. I never realized the complexity of a single body signature until her work exposed my ignorance. Her precision showed me why I hadn’t sensed anything more than human from Murdock when I first met him. The druidic essence markers were there, subtle but strong, bound so delicately into his dominant human body signature, I would never have known what to look for.

  With a deep exhale, Briallen dropped her hands in her lap. “That’s it. Time for drinks.”

  She hopped off the stool and crossed the hallway to her second-floor parlor. A small blue fire burning in the grate flared brighter as Briallen poured glasses of port, essence dancing through th
e air and boosting her body signature. I hadn’t realized she used the fire as an essence source. We settled into the armchairs facing the flames.

  Briallen held her glass up. “Slainte.”

  Health, of course. We toasted it all the time, but this time it was more than mouthing the words. We tapped glasses.

  “First, let me say, there is nothing wrong with you. Your essence is fine and healthy,” Briallen said.

  Murdock shot me a satisfied look. “I’ve been saying that all along.”

  “A stronger essence shows through a weaker one. You can’t hide druid essence under human. How is it possible we didn’t sense it before Castle Island?” I said.

  Briallen sipped her port. “Leonard doesn’t have a druid essence separate from a human essence, Connor. He has his own unique signature, one that reads more human than not. He’s human, but some essence pathways read druid. For all her flaws, Moira Cashel was a talented druidess. If I can think of a spell to suppress the druidic aspects of Leonard’s essence, I’m sure she could.”

  “By why didn’t we see it before?” I asked.

  “I think when you boys were caught in the spell backlash at Castle Island, Moira’s protection spell was probably damaged. When she . . . died . . . her spell did, too. Whatever her motivations in other matters, she was trying to protect her children,” said Briallen.

  “That’s the part I don’t understand,” Murdock said. “When we worked the Castle Island case, you said interbreeding between species caused problems, that the kids didn’t live past puberty.”

  Case studies showed mental and physical defects whenever two different fey species interbred. The more unlike the species, the greater the chance that progeny wouldn’t survive. “They don’t most of the time,” I said.

  “Moira had seven children. We’re all fine,” he said.

  I used my recall to review the case studies I had read back then. Druids looked human. We blended in without any problems, which was one of the ways Moira fooled her husband. “None of the cross-species cases we saw were druid/ human. Maybe that has something to do with it,” I said.

  Briallen tilted her head back in thought as if searching the ceiling for an answer. “Gillen Yor was researching cross-species children.”

  I glanced at Murdock. “I know. That’s where I got my original data from.”

  “You never told me that,” he said.

  I nodded. “I didn’t exactly ask him, and I know how you get about stuff like that. Does it matter now?”

  He shook his head in exasperation. “I guess it doesn’t. It still doesn’t get us any answers.”

  Briallen gazed into the fire. “Sometimes we look for answers when we should be looking for questions.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like why Scott Murdock? Of all the men Moira could have picked, why him?” Briallen asked.

  “Are you saying it wasn’t accidental they met?” I asked.

  “I’m saying she married a man whose death is causing an international incident. I’m saying one of her sons has helped you stop some catastrophic events. And I have to wonder why?” Briallen asked.

  “She knew something. Maybe she had a vision of the future,” I said.

  “Why would she want a future where my father ends up dead? Or herself? That doesn’t make sense,” Murdock said.

  A thin, bitter smile creased Briallen’s face. “Welcome to the fey world, Leonard. Even our own lives mean little in achieving our goals.”

  She stared at the fire in a way that made me wonder if she was warning Murdock or lamenting her own fate. Briallen had lived through a lot, and no matter how much she danced around it, I believed she was an Old One. She knew pain and sorrow in Faerie and hoped to see an end of it here.

  I didn’t think that was going to happen for any of us soon.

  10

  After dinner, I left Briallen’s house and found a quiet place down near the Reserve Channel, a small dive, long and narrow. Timeworn wooden stools lined the bar, old Colonialstyle chairs surrounded pitted tables and a three-piece band crammed into the corner next to the bathroom. The patrons slunk in and out, not furtive, but tired and dejected, the type of clientele for which drinking was a necessity, not an entertainment. It was the kind of place people went when something rocked their world and not in a good way.

  A fairy from one of the lesser Celtic clans stood at the microphone, singing a song of loss and more loss while the band played melancholy flute and drum. She must have had a decent voice once, broken now by drink and who knew what else. Fairies, especially Dananns, had a weakness for alcohol that turned into a problem with no effort. The rasp in her voice worked for the room. Scattered applause broke the silence whenever she finished a song.

  I sat on a stool in a dark corner. I didn’t recognize anyone, but that didn’t mean no one would recognize me. Between those who remembered me from my publicity-rich Guild days and those who had more recent grudges, I had too many people to avoid. Staying home was easier—and safer—but sometimes wallowing alone in a room with other wallowing people fit the bill.

  Learning that Murdock was okay was a good thing. For months, I had hoped that the answer to what had happened to him might provide a clue to a cure for me. If he could develop abilities, maybe a way existed for me to get mine back. I didn’t get the answer I had hoped for. Murdock was fey. There was no work-around. The dark mass was in my head and would be in my head until I figured out what it was or I died. With any luck, the two things wouldn’t happen at the same time.

  Something rustled in the garbage can near me in the corner. I slid away from it, not wanting a rat jumping out at me. The Weird lay hard by the harbor, and rats were more common than dockworkers. During the day, you might catch a furtive movement in the shadows, but at night the little furries ventured about with little fear. An always-dark bar was like a home away from home.

  A thumping sound came from the barrel, and I moved off my stool. I wasn’t afraid of rats. I was afraid of what a startled rat might do. They avoided people, but they had tiny brains and didn’t know the difference between someone trying to avoid them and a big scary mammal looming over them.

  A crumpled ball of paper popped out, then an empty beer can. The barrel wobbled as something inside shrieked. I backed away as it fell over with a loud crash, newspapers and more cans scattering onto the ground. Heads turned at all the noise as a bright pink ball of essence shot across the floor and hit the wall.

  “I’m trying to be inconspicuous here, Joe,” I said.

  He rubbed his head. “There’s a big brown rat in there with the longest tail I’ve ever seen.”

  I picked up a brown-paper shopping bag, rolled up and dangling its broken rope handle. “This rat?”

  Joe made a show of dusting himself off. “It was dark.”

  I tossed at him. “What the hell were you doing in there anyway?”

  He straightened with dignity. “Looking for you.”

  “In a trash barrel? What would make you think . . . never mind.” It took me a second, but I saw the setup.

  Joe fluttered to the stool and sat down. “What are you doing here?”

  “Pondering the meaning of life and the Wheel of the World,” I said.

  He peered off at the dark bar. “Really? The beer’s that cheap here?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Joe banged his fists against his forehead. “Can’t you get drunk like a normal crazy person?”

  I righted the barrel and glanced around. After the initial noise, the bar patrons had gone back to staring into space. “I don’t think I’d fit in this barrel.”

  Joe pouted, letting his eyes grow wide with sadness. “I wish I could ponder life, too, but my hands are empty.”

  “Would you like a beer, Joe?”

  He grinned. “Why, yes, I would love to discuss philosophy with you, kind sir.”

  A strange vibe swept the room, an air of tension that prompted people to look toward the exit. Drinkers at the b
ar shifted in their seats, leaning toward each other to whisper. Joe flinched and squeezed his eyes shut. “Ow! People need to tone down their sendings.”

  “I’m not getting anything,” I said. I couldn’t do sendings anymore, but I could receive them. Whatever was happening, no one thought I’d be interested.

  Joe shook his head. “Another fire. Big one over on the haul road.”

  Ever since a quarter of the neighborhood had burned down the night of the riots, people had been jumpy. The bar was on the edge of the burn zone, and while some might argue not much was left to burn, that wasn’t a joke to people who lived and worked nearby.

  “Is the fire department responding?” I asked.

  “Lots. It’s a big one. Do they have nuts here?” Joe asked.

  “Just one. Let’s go check out the fire,” I said.

  Joe gave me a horrified look. “But the beer is here.” “We’ll get some later. Promise,” I said.

  Outside, a muddy orange light smeared across the night sky, never a good sign when it came to fires. I hurried down the sidewalk, dodging puddles and broken cement and made it to the haul road in two short blocks. Thick smoke plumed off the top of a warehouse. From the number of units on the scene, the fire had gone to at least six alarms. On the corner, an elf in a green uniform stopped us. “This is a secure area. You need to move on.”

  “I’m here on business for Eorla Elvendottir,” I said. It wasn’t quite true, but he didn’t need to know that.