I leaned against the building next to the box and realized that somewhere else in the city, other people were probably in similar predicaments to mine. Maybe they didn’t leave a dead body behind, but they’d fled a situation out of control, something that would lead to more problems in time. Shit happened. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but always and often, and sometimes there was nothing to be done about it. The thought didn’t make me any happier, but it gave me a little perspective as I waited alone on the desolate street. I bet myself that no one else had an intangible stone in their head or a gaping dark hole that sucked the life of everything around it. Those were my special treats.
Meryl pulled up in her MINI Cooper, and I hopped in. Without a word, she handed me a black T-shirt, pursing her lips as she eyed my bloody clothes. I leaned across the console and kissed her as she knocked me in the leg shifting gears. “Thanks,” I said.
She pulled a perfect U-turn and headed back toward the Weird. “Gods, I haven’t been down here in ages. Were you at the safe house over on Dewey?”
That Meryl knew about the house didn’t surprise me. I struggled out of my jacket and pulled off the sliced-up T-shirt. “It wasn’t very safe,” I said.
Meryl glanced at me. “So I notice. What were you doing? Your mom said you left the waiting room and never came back,” she said.
I pulled on the clean shirt. “If I told you I was kidnapped by Brion Mal and macGoren tried to kill me but Keeva showed up and killed him and let me go so I called my girlfriend to come pick me up, would you believe me?” I asked.
“You never told me you had a girlfriend,” she said.
“I’ll take that as a yes. First, tell me about Cal,” I said.
“He came out of surgery fine. The recovery is expected to take a while because of some essence and blood issue,” she said.
“A full recovery?” I asked.
She gave me a brief tilt of the head. “I’m not privy to everything, you know. I’m not family.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Meryl downshifted and turned off Dot Ave. “Why did she kill him?”
“She refused to talk and threw me out.”
“Did you call Leo?”
“I can’t do that.”
She made another turn, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Why not?”
“I don’t think Leo needs any more to deal with right now. Gerry Murdock was involved at Eagan’s. He killed Shay,” I said.
Shocked, Meryl slammed on the brakes. “Tell me that didn’t happen.”
I looked out the window. “We were trying to escape. Shay was shot, and Uno…. ate him, I guess.”
“That poor kid,” she said. Meryl liked people to think she was a mean hard-ass, but she had a soft spot for kids who got mixed up in the Weird.
“Gerry basically confessed to it when he tried to arrest me,” I said.
“Whoa! When the hell did that happen?” she asked.
According to my cell phone, I had been under the sleep spell for over a day. “Day before yesterday, before I got the call about Cal,” I said.
She started driving again. “Danu’s blood, Grey. This is a freakin’ mess. So, no police and no Guild for help. Can Eorla protect you?”
“She’s my best bet at this point, unless I go to Bastian,” I said.
“That might be the plan—force you to publicly align with the Consortium,” Meryl said.
“Keeva’s using me for something. She didn’t have to kill macGoren to save my life. She planted evidence right in front of me to make it look like I killed him,” I said.
“Then you need to keep a low profile until you see what she does.” She turned again, making it the fourth unnecessary turn since I got in the car.
I twisted in my seat and checked the rear window. “Are we being followed?”
Meryl pulled back onto Dot Ave. “Yeah. He’s being pretty obvious about it. Picked him up about a block after you.”
She stopped at a red light and revved the engine. A block behind, a small dark car idled in the middle of the street. “Why is he sitting there?”
The light turned green. Meryl hesitated, but the car behind us didn’t move. She drove on. “He’s pulling our chain. Someone wants you to know you’re being watched.”
I slouched in the seat. “Yeah, big news flash.”
We entered the Weird, driving down the back end of Summer Street over the Reserve Channel. In the odd way nighttime neighborhoods worked, we were safer in the industrial zone in the middle of the night than a few blocks away, where people lived. Muggers hung out where they expected to find people, which wasn’t warehouses closed up for the night. The people on the streets around the channel were people you didn’t want to mess with, and people who were not likely to help if you needed them.
Meryl glanced at her mirrors. “Tail’s gone.”
“Guess he either got his message across or he was too chicken-shit to come into the Weird,” I said.
Meryl cut across Drydock Avenue and pulled up near the edge of the Tangle. She patted the dashboard. “Poor baby takes a nap if I drive in any closer. You going to be all right from here?”
“Yeah. Want to come spend the night?” I asked.
She leaned over and kissed me. “We already played man-on-the-run-meets-hot-chick-for-sex this week.”
“Yeah, but this time I have wounds and bloody clothes,” I said.
“Here,” she said. She placed her hand on my chest and built up essence. A warm layer of light spread across my skin. A burning sensation ran across the slash on my chest. Short pops of pain shot in my cheek and ear. The warmth slid away, and Meryl withdrew her hand.
I kissed her again. The healing spell didn’t wipe away the injuries, but it pushed them past the pain and discomfort phase of healing. My druid nature would speed up the rest, and within a day the cuts would be gone. She put her hand on my neck and rubbed her thumb along my cheek. “Are you going to be okay?”
I debated bringing up the whole fostering thing but decided not to, not tonight. I was tired and had a lot to think about. “Cal’s going to be okay now. That’s all that matters. I do want to talk to you about it, though. I learned some family history. It’s kinda world-altering.”
She stared out the windshield. “Families usually are. Go get some sleep.”
29
The white noise echo of the city faded as I entered the Tangle, the sound of my footsteps becoming louder in the narrow space between buildings. The Tangle exaggerated everything, like a focusing lens for our baser instincts. What was commonplace to me—even before I ended up in the Tangle—outsiders saw with fear and wonder. The illicit tryst in a darkened doorway heightened the passion of the moment. The shimmer of essence in an eye held the promise of love or danger, maybe both. The swagger of a step promised confidence and menace. The bones of old buildings were at once beautiful and foreboding, flickering candlelight hinting of both refuge and danger. A stranger was as likely to hurt as help.
Even my feelings about the place existed in a nervous tension. I didn’t like the pain the Tangle produced, nor the sorrow. Blood and hate flowed in the gutters as often as rain. Yet I couldn’t deny the rush of life that permeated the air, of dramas and fates unfolding in unexpected directions. People lived in the Weird, but they resonated with life in the Tangle. A lifetime could be lived in a single night.
My thoughts played along those lines, musing on the last twenty-four hours that began with the fear of a hospital room and ended with death in a cell. I saw no irony that places that others found safe—a hospital, a residential neighborhood—were places of pain for me, and the Tangle, where dead bodies were statistics instead of events, had become a place of comfort. Until, of course, a blaze of essence nearly took my head off, and I remembered that I wasn’t safe anywhere anymore.
My body shield flickered on the moment I sensed the attack, and I bounced against a brick wall as I ducked. The shot struck high, hitting a row of second-story windows. The essence raced in
lightning streaks around the metal frames, ricocheting back on themselves before the glass dissipated them.
The narrow pedestrian alley was empty, a common shortcut people used to get through condemned warehouses, a lane of bricked-over doors and worn advertising posters. That didn’t make it a busy place to be even in the late night of the Tangle. I pressed myself into a doorway of a former garage as another blaze of essence split the air.
I craned my neck to get a handle on the source. The trajectories were angled down, so the shots were coming from above. My sensing ability picked up hints of druid essence, but deadened, as if it were weak or muffled.
Near the entrance to the alley, a couple paused, their attention attracted by the electric sizzle of essence-fire. They stood under a vapor lamp, curiosity on their stark faces. Their body language didn’t convey any threat or aggression, so the shots didn’t come from behind them.
I leaned back into the doorway and tried to call Meryl. Static crackled from the receiver, the weave of metal fire escapes and tendency of the Tangle to screw up tech. Annoyed, I closed the phone.
A woman entered the lane from the opposite end. Another essence-bolt shot down, fracturing the pavement at her feet. Panicked, she backpedaled, running when she reached the corner. No one seemed to be interested in helping a trapped druid, a classic reaction in the Tangle.
I dodged across the alley into the next doorway. An essence-bolt from ahead of me struck the wall. Shots from two different directions meant I had a tag team. Random essence strikes showered. Neither attacker seemed skilled at what they were doing. At such close range, they should have been able to sense my body shield and pick up that it was from a high-level druid.
I was caught in a standard Tangle jack-up: target someone, gauge the response, move in on the weak, and collect any valuables. I was wearing nondescript clothing, so maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. My options were to fight, which I couldn’t because I had no offense abilities, or reason with them, which was pointless when dealing with a street mind-set prone to random violence. That left running. Running was always good.
The pauses between strikes were similar in length, which meant the attackers needed to give their bodies a chance to recharge. Higher-powered fey didn’t need any recovery time. I gauged the timing of the shots and the distance to the next doorway, and made a dash for it. Wild essence struck the walls around me. I had taken them off guard, and their already poor skills couldn’t cope with the surprise. I relaxed, confident I’d be able to outwit them now that I had their measure. It wasn’t the fastest way to get home, but I would get out of the alley without much more trouble
Two essence-bolts streaked toward me. I dove behind a dumpster, my shield flashing with sparks as I was grazed. The first attacker had moved in closer behind me, which helped improve his aim.
I pulled my daggers from my boots. The gold dagger warmed in my hand, then shifted and stretched, becoming a sword. That wasn’t good. I hadn’t been able to figure out how to turn the dagger into a sword, but every time the thing grew on its own, I was in trouble—as in near-death trouble.
To add a new complication, the stone in my head pulsed with heat, not painful like the darkness but a wave that cascaded through my body. My body shield reacted to it and hardened, golden-faceted planes refracting the ambient light.
I huddled between the dumpster and a wall. The sword was nice to have—if a bad omen—but without abilities, surprise was what I had to work with. I darted from the dumpster and ran back the way I had come. As I hoped, the one who had been blocking my exit mistook my direction, and his shots fell short. The other fired from a second-story window, the strike warping off course around the metal of the dumpster. The mistake gave me a twenty-second clear run to the end of the alley before they recharged, and I took the chance.
A man in black stepped into the street ahead, a ski mask hiding his face and a weak body shield shimmering on him. He fired a jagged burst of essence at me. My sword hummed and leaped to the side, deflecting the bolt of its own accord, dissipating it into the air. Things like that would have been nice to know, but Briallen didn’t see it that way.
Unharmed, I came up from a crouch, preparing for his next move. I stepped from the wall and marched toward the figure in black. He fired again, but I shunted the essence away with the blade. He wasn’t that powerful, yet he seemed surprised that I had more than a shield to protect myself. He wasn’t going to like it when I reached him.
The sword pulled in my hand, like a ship yawing with the wind. I followed my instinct and let it be, spinning in the direction of the stroke. The blade knocked down another essence strike—my second attacker was still in play. I had twenty or so seconds before the next strike. I pivoted back to the man in black, then froze. He had pulled a gun—a druid with a gun—aiming down the sight even as I registered the situation. He fired.
The bullet struck my shield as streaks of green fire lanced over my head. I ignored a scream behind me, focusing on the bullet sizzling into my shield. The shield dimpled as the bullet funneled through the hardened essence. I twisted, torquing the bullet’s path, my own shield acting against me as it pulled the bullet in. More green fire flashed above as I forced myself to the pavement, trying to bend the bullet’s trajectory away. The disintegrating edge of the shield prickled against my cheek. Flat on my back, I twisted my neck as I watched the relentless approach of the bullet. It seared across my scalp. I flinched as it hit the pavement next to my face, shards of asphalt digging into my skin.
Someone leaped over me firing elf-shot, the source of the green essence flashes. An elf, red-uniformed, landed at my feet. He thrust his arms apart, pointing to either end of the alley and fired simultaneously from both hands. Silence settled over the alley. The elf relaxed his stance and turned. Rand leaned a concerned face over mine. “Are you hit?”
I pulled myself up with his outstretched hand. “Grazed. I’m okay. Nice timing.”
His hands glimmered as he scanned the windows behind me. “You were fortunate I was nearby.”
The black-clad figure lay still near the entrance to the alley. Beyond him, people peered from the far side of the street. Most pretended not to see anything and continued on their way. I held my sword and dagger at the ready as Rand and I approached the body. He gestured me back as he squatted by the still form, keeping a handful of essence charge at the ready in case of an ambush. Rand relaxed his hand, the line of tension across his shoulders easing. He pulled off the ski mask. “He’s dead.”
Stunned, I dropped my arms to my sides. “Shit.” I turned and walked away, then stopped. “Shit. This isn’t happening.” I turned again and walked back to Rand. “Danu’s blood, Rand. Tell me this didn’t happen.”
The dead man was Gerry Murdock.
30
I leaned my head back against a brick wall. A block away, police lights flashed up the alley from dozens of cars parked far enough away to avoid the mechanical dead zone of the Tangle. About twenty feet away, a wrinkled sheet covered Gerry Murdock, the stillness of his body a stark counterpoint to the activity around him. A stalled paramedic van had been pushed down the alley. Uniformed police officers and administrative police staff crowded near the crime scene. Whenever an officer was killed, the brotherhood turned out. It was understandable. They put their lives on the line every day. Until the dust settled, it didn’t matter whether the cop was doing the right thing or the wrong thing. Respect was paid.
Rand stood guard over me, and I kept my body shield hardened. My presence brought an added knee-jerk reaction to the situation. A number of people remained suspicious of my involvement in Commissioner Scott Murdock’s death. That investigation remained stalled until—if—Manus ap Eagan recovered. Now I was involved in another cop’s death and another Murdock—one who was convinced I was to blame for his father’s death. I wasn’t going to get any objectivity while Gerry’s blood was on the ground.
Leo stared at his brother’s body. Grief etched his face, a confused
shock of denial and anger. When he had arrived on the scene, he hadn’t come near me. I didn’t approach him either. A ring of police officers surrounded me and Rand, and I was getting enough angry glares without giving someone an excuse to pull a weapon.
Meryl stood next to Leo, her arm around his waist. I had asked Rand to do a sending to her, and she had been among the first to arrive. Leo wasn’t reacting to her presence, but she talked to him, shutting out the scene around her and focusing her words on him alone. They were too far away for me to hear.
“I need you to tell me there was no other choice,” I said.
Rand watched the officers, his face intent and alert. “There was. He could have not fired his gun.”
I grunted but did not laugh. The last thing I needed was to be seen smiling. I knew where he was coming from. Regardless of what the public preferred, policing authorities did not shoot to incapacitate. The risk of missing far outweighed the risk of getting killed by the bad guys. Gerry pulled his weapon. Gerry fired his weapon. Gerry paid the price for his decision.
I bowed my head, staring into the space between my feet, shifting my gaze between one boot and the other. The sword had resumed its dagger size when Gerry died. I had returned both daggers to their sheaths before the authorities arrived. The first responder had demanded I turn them over, but I had refused. I had a right to carry them, especially in that end of town, and hadn’t used them for anything other than defense. Rand took my side, asking the officer if he would like Rand’s hands, since those had been used to kill Gerry.
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