Undone Deeds cg-6

by Mark Del Franco

  That wasn’t a surprise. Watching rescue operations was much like watching a movie shoot—nothing happening for long periods of time, people standing around doing nothing, then a brief flurry of activity. In this case, the rescue workers were obviously waiting for news camera crews to set up closer to the action. There was no rush. The star of the show was dead. Delays wouldn’t cause any harm, but live news shots brought attention. A local on-scene reporter was more attentive to fixing her hair than the scene behind her.

  “I can think of two people who might generate this much interest,” I said.

  Joe settled on my shoulder, the better to avoid attention. “Shall we wager?”

  I glanced around the square. There were more Consortium agents than Guild staff, and a number of them were military as opposed to standard security. When a situation involved terrorists, you called security forces. When it was a high-level diplomat, you called an honor guard. “It’s Donor. He was higher in the building when it came down. Vize is under a few more layers,” I said.

  Joe grabbed my collar to secure himself. “I wouldn’t know about that, being sucked into a spear and all.”

  When the spear was active, it retained its shape and heft, but became a thing of pure essence. When I fought the Elven King, Joe was caught in the cross fire. The spear somehow destabilized his essence and sucked him inside it. I thought it had killed him, but a few days later, the spear returned him. “What was it like, Joe?”

  “Bright. Dreamlike. White. It was like a nap, only awake,” he said.

  “Did it hurt?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer right away. “Only to leave.”

  Police and fire vehicles had pulled up into a cleared stretch of the main intersection. The heap of the building sloped up from the street, the recognizable remains of turrets, windows, and walls loomed in the chronic cloud of dust that hung over the site, a forlorn, ghostly image of war and destruction that evoked a sense of futility.

  Firefighters and paramedics appeared near the top of a stone pile. Between them, they carried a body strapped to a gurney. Behind them, the tall figure of Bastian Frye appeared, confirming not only that the dead man was not from the Guild but that he was a highly placed individual. The group turned around a pile of granite, allowing me a clear line of sight to the dead body.

  To all appearances, the man on the gurney was dressed in the diplomatic robes of Aldred Core, the Elven King’s ambassador. Core was, in fact, a member of the extended royal family and an important figure in Consortium politics. The dead man was not Aldred Core.

  When Eorla Elvendottir established her court in exile, Donor decided to show up in person to convince her to return to the fold. Not wanting to give the appearance of a king begging a subject—even a royal subject—Donor wore a glamour that changed his appearance to Core’s. He showed his true face only in secrecy while in Boston.

  When I fought Donor at the Guildhouse, he had dropped the glamour by withdrawing his essence from the amulet around his neck. Since he had intended to destroy the Guildhouse all along, he didn’t think there’d be any witnesses. He had been almost right. Everyone who did see him was dead, except me and Joe. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the credibility of macGoren, so no one was going to listen to us.

  When the fey died, their body essences faded away. Depending on the intensity, it happened in moments, like with flits, or days, like with an Elven King. Enough of Donor’s body essence lingered to activate the Aldred Core glamour. Even dead, he was able to maintain his subterfuge.

  An honor guard of elven warriors marched into the square. A saddled horse was led behind them and behind it, a woman with an empty quiver and a man with an empty scabbard. The procession usually happened at elven funerals, but the destroyed Guildhouse was prompting more immediate ceremonial displays of grief.

  It irritated me. The banners the warriors carried were of the Teutonic Consortium and the Core clan. Aldred Core wasn’t dead. He was in hiding while the Consortium sorted how to handle the political crisis of a dead king with no heir—a dead king who was also engaged in his own espionage. The display of mourning wasn’t right. No matter what I thought of Aldred Core, someone somewhere cared about him and thought he was dead. They were seeing him dead. The level of callousness in service to political ends was sickening. Besides, if I was going to be accused of being a terrorist, the least they could do was blame me for the right deaths.

  “Joe, how’d you like to cause an international incident?” I asked.

  He chuckled in my ear. “Is it Tuesday already?”

  “Think you can get in there and remove that glamour stone without being seen?”

  He narrowed his eyes as he stared at the rescue workers. They were repositioning for maximum exposure to the television cameras. “Now?”

  “Now.”

  He winked out. He was fast. I barely noticed the flash of pink over Donor’s chest, and I knew to look for it. I didn’t think anyone else saw him. One moment, what appeared to be Aldred Core was getting the full military honor, in the next, the body blurred and changed to reveal the battered corpse of the Elven King. Donor was recognizable, but having a few tons of building fall on him had not left him with the most attractive appearance.

  Horrified shouts and screams rose from the crowd. News cameramen scurried around the gurney for better angles as they realized whom they were seeing. Another cluster of shouting came from people near a news van. The local female reporter had transformed into a tall, slender version of Aldred Core. Confused, she spun in place, waving her microphone toward the crowd. Chaos was breaking out, absolute, glorious chaos.

  Joe reappeared and dove onto my shoulder as the crowd surged toward the staging area. I backed against the hotel and let people pass. “You had me worried there, buddy. Where’d you go?”

  He giggled. “I thought someone might sense the glamour gem if I came right back here, so I hid it.”

  “Yeah, no one will suspect that the news reporter has it. I’d say that was a great idea,” I said.

  He shook his head vigorously. “Well, I’ve always been the one with great ideas.”

  Sendings fluttered through the air as fey folk relayed news of the event. Bastian remained calm amid the whirl of activity. He wasn’t watching the emergency personnel hustling Donor’s body into an ambulance. He leaned on his staff and scanned the crowd. A cool touch passed across my face, then returned. Bastian was too far for me to see his face, but I sensed his attention.

  Your doing, Mr. Grey? he sent.

  I shrugged, and Joe grabbed my ear to keep from falling.

  Passions are high. You should have waited. No good will come of this. You were already a target when people thought Aldred was dead. You make things worse for yourself, Bastian sent. He strode down the slope and climbed into the back of the ambulance. It backed slowly through the bystanders, then followed a police escort toward the consulate. The ceremonial warriors milled about the scene with confusion on their faces as the rest of the crowd dispersed.

  Bastian’s comment rankled, like I was participating with him in a shared scheme. The Elven King would have been exposed eventually. The Consortium couldn’t hide his death forever, and I doubted that Aldred Core—the real Aldred Core—would be willing to go into hiding for the rest of his immortal life.

  The truth would come out. If I made a couple of failing monarchies uncomfortable about that, so much the better.

  17

  It didn’t take long for the various players in the city to react to what I’d done. People were angry when they thought I was responsible for killing Aldred Core and the people who died in the Guildhouse collapse. By nightfall, they became outraged when they realized it was the Elven King who had died and not Core. Bastian was right. Death threats flew fast and furious—even from people considered responsible members of society. Ceridwen made me move my quarters—which wasn’t that difficult—and against my wishes, she had people shadowing me if I so much as stuck my nose out the door.


  In the predawn mist, I walked a twisted lane of a cobbled street with no sidewalks. On the edges of my vision, the blue-black buildings to either side shifted in place. The soft whirr of wings in the shadows overhead revealed I wasn’t alone. Ceridwen insisted on the escorts. I told her it wasn’t necessary. She said she didn’t care.

  Through a strange series of events, I counted a Dead fairy queen as an ally, if not a friend. Ceridwen had died in service to the High Queen, an event that did not sit well with her. She had plans for power and plans for revenge. Where I fit into those plans, I wasn’t sure yet, but I knew she considered me a factor. I did promise to help her when she died. Now that she had become the leader of the Wild Hunt, it was going to be hard to say no to her—like accepting bodyguards I didn’t think I needed.

  I turned down a lane that led to the loading docks by the harbor. The sea informed everything about life in Boston, from the way the streets were laid out and named, to the establishment of particular neighborhoods, to the smell of the air. The city’s seafaring heyday lay in the past, but it was still a port with dank buildings on crumbling pilings, brownish green water lapping against skeletal barnacles, and the ever-present tang of rotting fish.

  The Weird sat in isolation from the rest of the city, bounded by the interstate to the west, the working area of the port to the south, and the channel to the north. Old Northern Avenue ran through it like a fetid artery feeding into a series of subneighborhoods—dwarf and elf gang turfs, the bar strip, the squatter warehouses—and ended in the Tangle, a chaotic mishmash of the worst the Weird had to offer.

  People down in the Tangle didn’t bother anyone as long as no one bothered them. The people who made eye contact with strangers were either looking to kick ass or get theirs kicked. Etiquette dictated that entering the Tangle meant you were not visible. Wanted criminals walked its streets and byways, and no one said a word. Law enforcement feared the place and left it alone. That I was safer among the most dangerous people in the city than I was in my apartment up the street said a lot about my life.

  The lane ended on a broken wharf, ancient planks of wood thicker than my arm running parallel to the shore. The occasional boat docked, but its business was more likely to be unregistered with the harbormaster’s office. I turned south toward the working port area, acres of windswept land piled with discarded shipping containers.

  Strange things happened so close to the Tangle. Mechanical devices didn’t work well. The landscape seemed subject to random change. People disappeared. The city had ceased operations along that section long ago. “Abandoned the place” was a more accurate description.

  Something scurried in the deep shadows of the containers. Its stealth would escape the notice of most people, but I sensed its body signature. Druids had the ability to sense essence, the powerful energy that ran through all living things. My ability was more acute than most. In addition to the Dead fairy in the air, two vitniri tailed me. The lupine men kept out of sight, marking a perimeter around me. More bodyguards I didn’t ask for.

  Coming out of a narrow gap between stacked containers, I paused to watch the gantry cranes across the Reserve Channel. The giant steel towers stood several stories high like skeletal beasts grazing on the tanker ships below them. The stark brightness of phosphorus lights illuminated their movements, dockworkers moving like ants beneath their massive supports.

  On my side of the channel, different lights flickered, the blue and red of emergency vehicles. Police officers and EMTs wandered along the wharf or leaned against their cars. No one seemed anxious or concerned except a lone figure standing on the edge of the wharf, hands on his hips as he stared down at the water.

  “Hey, Leo,” I said.

  Murdock cocked his head at me, the annoyance on his face slipping toward relief. “After this afternoon, I wasn’t sure you’d come out of your secret lair, Connor.”

  “It was a tad quiet in the Batcave.”

  He gestured at the water. “Well, riddle me this. I have no idea what’s going on or what they’re saying, but that’s a dead body if I ever saw one.”

  Several feet below us, a Coast Guard skiff was pulled up to a decrepit floating dock. Two cadets lifted a naked woman onto a tarp on the dock, her skin bone white and mottled with gray spots, eyes a milky glaze that stared unseeing at the lightening sky. Three pale-skinned women treaded water near the skiff, thick cascades of their deep green hair floating around them. They shot angry stares at Murdock and me as they swam back and forth in the water.

  “Those are merrows. They’re sea fey,” I said.

  Nonplussed, Leo cocked an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, I got the sea part. I’m more interested in why they’ve got a dead body and almost drowned anyone who came near them.”

  I crouched near a piling. The merrows chattered among themselves, arguing, maybe. Their language was hard to decipher. Their soft voices rose and fell in clicks and whistles I didn’t understand. “They’re reclusive. They tend to spend most of their lives out at sea and don’t trust outsiders. They haven’t had a lot of good experiences with humans. I’m not sure what they’re doing with the body.”

  I swung my leg over the side of the wharf and held my breath as I stepped onto an ancient wooden ladder. It held my weight. Murdock followed me down, waiting a judicious few seconds so that we weren’t on the ladder at the same time.

  Bodies in the water were one of the most unpleasant crime victims to deal with. Water did strange things to bodies, turning them into macabre versions of their former selves. With a body on land, insects were the primary living creature to deal with. With a drowning, just about anything in the sea might have something to contribute to the disintegration of a dead body.

  Beyond signs of early bloating, the woman didn’t appear to have any major injuries. “How does a sea fairy drown?” Murdock asked.

  I crouched, taking a deep breath. The body gave off a rancid odor of rot mixed with the sea. “They’re not fish, Leo. They’re mammals like you and me. They hold their breath when they dive.”

  Murdock pressed his hand against his nose. “Her hands are pretty mangled.”

  I held out my hand. “I need a glove.”

  Murdock handed me a latex glove from his coat pocket. I pulled the glove on and lifted the woman’s arm. The hand bent at the wrist. The flexibility coupled with the smell told me she had gone beyond rigor mortis, which meant she had been in the water a while. The ends of her fingers were torn and ragged. “Could have been something nibbling at her,” I said.

  Murdock leaned in closer. “The damage looks uniform on all her fingers. She was scratching at something.”

  I lowered the arm. “Maybe she got trapped under something.”

  Murdock swayed from side to side over the body to get a better view. The motion caused the dock to rock, something that my inner ears did not care for at all. “I’m not seeing any bruising. If she were trapped, whatever held her would have left a mark.”

  At her stage of decomposition, bruises would have shown up as dark gray blotches. “And also would make me ask why she stopped being trapped.”

  Murdock eyed the merrows treading water near the dock. “Maybe they know.”

  The merrows circled and thrashed but kept their distance. I stepped to the edge of the dock. It dipped below the surface of the water, and my shoes got wet. I moved back a little. “My name is Connor Grey. Can you tell us what happened?”

  The merrows exchanged more angry glances and chattered in their own language.

  “Do you speak English? Gaelic?” I asked.

  One of the women peered up at me. “Whom do you speak for?” she asked in Gaelic.

  “No one. I’m helping out the police,” I answered.

  She made a guttural sound deep in her throat. “Need Guild.”

  I translated for Murdock. “That’s going to be a problem. Since your stunt in Park Square, the Guild has pulled most of its investigators out of the Weird,” he said.

  “The Guild cannot come,” I
said to the woman.

  She slapped the water, sending a spray that landed on my legs. “Guild must come. Guild matter.”

  “Ask her to come with us, and we’ll see what we can do,” Murdock said.

  I translated his suggestion into Gaelic, but she wasn’t having it. She spoke to her companions, and all three began whistling and slapping at the water. I smiled up at Murdock. “I think she said no.”

  Frustrated, Murdock stepped forward. With the weight of both of us, the dock sank beneath the water. I lost my balance and grabbed Murdock’s arm. The water dragged at our feet, and I slipped onto my knees. Murdock lost his balance, tripped over me, and we went over the edge.

  I came up for air, spitting water and wanting to vomit. I did not want to think about what was in the harbor water, especially that close to the Tangle. I didn’t know how the merrows survived in the polluted stew. Murdock came up swearing like I had never heard him do.

  “That was not my fault!” I shouted.

  He grabbed the edge of the dock. I waited as one of the laughing cadets helped him out. When he was far enough back to keep the dock from submerging again, I swam closer, and they pulled me out.

  Anger etched his face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I wiped at my forehead, trying not to laugh. “Don’t worry about it. Unless I get plague or something.”

  “They’re gone,” he said.

  I faced the water. Bubbles spiraled and trailed along the surface, but there was no other sign of the merrows. “We probably scared them.”

  “How long can they stay under?” he asked.

  I shook my arms to shed some water. “An hour or so.”

  He slicked his hair back and held his hands against the back of his neck. “Do you know anyone who speaks their language?”

  “There are a couple of people I can ask,” I said.

  I climbed the ladder back to the wharf. A light breeze made me shiver in my wet clothes. Murdock swung over the pilings next to me. “You doing okay?” he asked.

  “I’ll dry,” I said.