Undone Deeds cg-6

by Mark Del Franco

  From the top of the hotel, I could see destroyed buildings. I could imagine the destroyed lives. I had helped stop some of that, keeping it from being worse than it was. I couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that a lot of it happened because of me.

  “What’s Eorla going to do?” I asked.

  “She said it didn’t matter if I stayed or left. She’s going to handle things the same either way,” he said.

  “So your lying was pointless,” I said.

  “I don’t think so. I learned a lot,” he said.

  “Like not lying?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “No. If I hadn’t done this, Con, if I hadn’t fooled everyone, I wouldn’t have met Eorla. Regardless of everything else, I learned from her that sometimes doing the wrong thing can be in the service of doing the right thing.”

  “Is she in danger?” I asked.

  He leaned both hands against the parapet. “Of course she is. She’s the Unseelie Queen.”

  “Have you compromised her, Dyl? I want to know if something you said or did is going to hurt her,” I said.

  He didn’t answer, so I glanced at him. He was pensive, a bit bemused. Then he smiled. “I’ll tell you this, Con. I stopped reporting on Eorla weeks ago. I’ve seen what she wants, and it’s not terrible. I’ve been helping her.”

  “Sounds like you have a need to lie to someone all the time,” I said.

  He flicked his eyebrows. “That’s the business, I guess.”

  “That sounds cold.”

  He shook his head. “I saved your life. I didn’t have to.”

  And I had saved his. He had had a knife in his heart. I had saved his life because he was dying for trying to help people. More than that, I saved his life because I couldn’t imagine a world without Dylan macBain, the guy that made me laugh, the guy that made me feel like I could do no wrong. He was in love with me then, maybe still was, but I was the one who didn’t want to change what we had. “You know what, Dyl? I think I figured out why I left New York. You said you saved my life but didn’t have to. You know what? When the situation was reversed, I saved your life because I did have to.”

  His face went tight. “Ouch.”

  I nodded, staring at the mist wall. The level of essence in it was higher than that of any druid fog I had ever encountered. No good would come of it. When it did whatever it was going to do, I wanted to be someplace good. “Yeah. I think I’m going to go home now.”

  “You’re going back to your apartment?”

  I shook my head. “No. I said home. I’m going to Meryl. She’s home now. Thanks for saving my life.”

  I left him alone on the roof.

  33

  I waited for Meryl in the lobby. Eorla didn’t want me to go out the front, but I was tired of feeling like a fugitive or like I had done something wrong. All I wanted was to sleep in a warm bed and not worry about getting shot at or kidnapped. It wasn’t much to ask. People went to bed every night with that expectation.

  Meryl’s MINI Cooper zipped up on the sidewalk and under the grand arch of the hotel. An escort of brownies followed me outside. Across the street, people shouted about death and murder. My name was mixed in there. A flurry of bottles and cans flew through the air, but they bounced uselessly against the barrier shield.

  Meryl shifted into gear, then rubbed my thigh. “How’re you doing?”

  I dropped my head back against the seat. “Tired—no—exhausted. My brain has turned to mush. How’s Leo?”

  “I think he’s in shock. He can barely speak. What the hell happened?” she asked.

  I gave her the brief version of Gerry’s attack. “I was on the ground at that point. If he had fired again, I would have been dead if Dylan hadn’t shown up.”

  She turned onto the Oh No bridge. Normal-sized cars had to creep over the twisted surface, but Meryl bounced the MINI across without any fear. “Dylan macBain? As in, dead Dylan macBain whose funeral I went to?”

  “Yeah. It was all a setup for him to go undercover. He’s been impersonating Rand for months,” I said.

  It said something about the world I lived in that Meryl wasn’t shocked Dylan was alive and wasn’t furious I didn’t tell her. “Huh. Now I know where all that intel was coming from,” she said with an understanding look.

  “You knew Eorla had a spy?” I asked.

  She flicked me her trademark of-course look. “Come on, Connor. Everyone spies on everyone. Stop acting surprised.”

  “You could have told me,” I said. Suddenly, I felt like I was having the same conversation as with Dylan.

  “And what? Eorla would have increased security? Double-checked her advisors? She was doing that anyway. That’s how things operate normally. Saying it out loud doesn’t change it.”

  “Still….” I said.

  “Oh, please. You’re looking for an argument. How’s this: The Guild has spies in the Consortium, the police department, the statehouse, and, yeah, Eorla’s hotel. By the way, Eorla and Bastian both have spies at the Guild. I don’t know the names of every single mole, but, yes, occasionally I do see reports. Now, what are you going to do about it, and how will it change anything except that I told you what you already know?”

  I crossed my arms. “It would be nice to decide on my own whether I would try.”

  She slammed the clutch into a downshift. “Really? Tell me more about your little magic bowl, Mr. Transparency. I don’t seem to remember that coming up in conversation. Or how about using it on Manny? I heard about that from Gillen Yor, for Danu’s sake. You want to go down this road, you better be damned ready to answer some questions, too.”

  The car rocked as she swerved around a pothole. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” she said.

  “No, really, I am sorry. I’ve been bombarded the last few days, and I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Let’s start over. Does Leo hate me?”

  “I don’t think he hates you, Grey. Does he associate major hurt with you? Yeah, I think so,” she said.

  “How do I fix this?” I asked.

  She pulled into a dark alley near the Tangle and parked, not something that would be most people’s first choice. “I don’t think this is something that gets fixed. It’s something that you have to get past. His brother was killed. It doesn’t matter what Gerry was doing when it happened, and it doesn’t matter that it was you it was being done to. Let him grieve.”

  We got out of the car. “What are we doing here?”

  “We walk the last few blocks. I washed my car, and I don’t want it getting shot at. Ceridwen has the harborfront guarded,” she said. She dropped the strap of her giant bag over her head and wore it across her chest.

  I wrapped my arm around her, and we walked amid the burned wreckage of the neighborhood. “Maybe it’s time I left Boston.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking I’d dye my hair,” she said.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. Meaning?”

  We sidestepped a crater in the ground. “Meaning it will reflect my mood, but it won’t change who I am.”

  “People don’t die when you’re around,” I said.

  “Exactly. People can die as easily somewhere else,” she said.

  “You’re not helping my mood,” I said.

  We turned the corner into the Tangle. Dead essence rose around us, a haze of blue that lined the streets. Shadows moved among the shadows, and furtive figures appeared in windows and doors. Ceridwen’s people were out in force.

  Meryl looked toward the harbor, then up at me. “You see that mist wall out there? That’s Maeve’s doing. Why? Because of something Donor did. Why? Because of something Maeve did. Why? Because of something Donor did. It’s the Wheel of the World, Grey. They play the music, and we dance. I think wherever we are, we’ll hear that music. It might as well be here as anywhere else.”

  “You forget. I don’t dance,” I said.

  She stopped in front of an old building, its once-beautiful front door scratched and pitted with time, a carved garlan
d of oak leaves chipped and worn. “This is it.”

  I could feel the Dead around us, scent the vitniri man-wolves and a variety of solitary body signatures. Ceridwen was taking no chances for me. “Things can’t go on like this, Meryl. I can’t run and hide for the rest of my life. Something’s got to give. I have to find the answers to why this is all happening to me.”

  She tugged at my belt loop as she opened the door. “I know, but not tonight. Let’s go upstairs and close the door on the world for a while. Maybe I’ll teach you how to dance.”

  I closed the door and followed her up the stairs inside. “Go slow,” I said.

  “Not likely,” she said over her shoulder.

  34

  I didn’t know what woke me. Maybe Meryl made a noise. Maybe the stone in my head reacted to what was happening. Maybe I sensed the dagger. How didn’t make a difference. What mattered was that I awoke to find Meryl standing beside the bed, the rune dagger clutched in both her hands, ready to plunge it into my head. We stared at each other for a long moment. Her arms trembled, her hands white-knuckled with strain.

  In the dark, with the pale silver light of the moon coming through the window, she looked mythic, like a wild goddess intent on a sacrifice. Oddly, I didn’t feel fear. Something told me either she wasn’t going to do it or maybe I was going to let her. In the moment, though, I thought one of us was having a break with reality. The scary part was I didn’t know which.

  “Did I leave the seat up again?” I asked.

  Meryl dropped her arms, tears welling up in her eyes as she let the dagger fall to the floor. Sobbing, she did a slow pivot and sank to the edge of the bed. I sat up as she covered her face with her hands. Uncertain, I pulled her toward me, hugging her close. She let me but didn’t hold me. I caressed her hair as she cried into my chest. “This is awkward. I appear to be comforting someone who I’m pretty sure was about to stab me to death.”

  “That’s not funny,” she said, her voice a strained whisper.

  “Am I laughing? I don’t think I’m laughing.”

  “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I was sleepwalking?” Meryl said between sobs.

  “Well, that would explain the standing-up part, but not the dagger-to-the-head part,” I said.

  She pulled away, running her hands through her hair, trying to collect herself. “I don’t know where to begin.”

  I slipped off the bed and put my pants on. I didn’t think it was going to be a conversation that made any sense naked or clothed, but given the choice, clothes made more sense. “Were you going to kill me?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  I checked the windows. Plumes of essence rose from the rooftops. No one moved nearby though I sensed people, guards keeping discreet watch over me. The body signatures were normal, no one powering up essence, no one ready to fight. They assumed an attack would come from outside. “Why?”

  She exhaled, the sound of tears and anguish. “It was like a compulsion. I saw myself doing it, and I realized what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop myself. If you hadn’t woken up, I don’t know what would have happened. Does that make any sense?” she asked.

  I stared out the window. I remembered back to the night in the leanansidhe’s lair. I had become aware that I was draining Keeva’s life essence, but I didn’t stop right away. I almost killed her. “Yeah, I can understand how that happens.”

  “You’re going to do something. Something terrible,” she said.

  I pulled my shirt over my head. “Is this something you dreamed?”

  She shook her head. “I saw it in the painting. I saw a circle of light with a spot of darkness. The darkness spread until it covered everything, then it faded away, and the canvas went blank. There’s no essence on it at all anymore.”

  “Seems a bit cryptic to be killing me over,” I said.

  An edge of anger crept into her voice. “I didn’t say that’s why I did what I did. It was a compulsion. The painting is something greater than itself. There’s a connection. I think you’re the darkness, Connor. I think you’re going to do something that spreads the darkness until it covers everything.”

  “Let’s talk about this compulsion. Where did it come from?”

  “I don’t know. It has to do with you. I’ve been combing the archives looking for references to the stone and reading them over and….” She stopped talking.

  I whipped my head toward her. “What did you say?”

  She held her hand up as she stared at the floor. “Give me a sec.”

  I grabbed her by the shoulders. “What documents are you talking about?”

  She pushed me away, her body shield shimmering into place. “I know what you’re thinking. I just realized the same thing.”

  “You never told me you found more documents,” I said.

  “I…. I know. I think that’s part of what’s wrong,” she said.

  “I want those documents,” I said.

  “Of course. But why did I keep them from you? And why don’t I care if you see them now?”

  I walked away from her again. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, Meryl, but I don’t like it.”

  She came up behind me and touched my shoulder. I shrugged her off. “Don’t touch me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  She narrowed her eyes as she gazed out the window. “I found the first document my first day back in the Guildhouse. The one you found on my desk.”

  “I wasn’t even looking for them then,” I said.

  Meryl frowned. “It was the first thing on my mind when I went back. I checked on the leanansidhe, then went and pulled the doc.”

  That seemed strange. “You checked on the leanansidhe?”

  She looked baffled, as if trying to make sense of her memories. “I remember thinking I needed to secure the room in case anyone found it.”

  “You knew she was there?”

  “Yes—I mean, no. Before I returned to the archives, I did not know she was there. I’m sure I didn’t.”

  “You said you found her when you were securing the archives,” I said.

  Meryl sat on the bed, her face contorted with concentration. She was using her druidic recall, reviewing her memories with a precise clarity. “I did. I”—her eyebrows arched—“lied. I lied about it. I started to tell you but changed the details. The same thing happened when you were in my office. I started to tell you, but I didn’t.”

  “You’re not making any sense” I said.

  She stood. “Don’t you see the pattern? It’s all about you.”

  “And?”

  “There’s only one person who could have done this to me, Connor. Nigel must have known I might beat him at his own game. He made me his fail-safe. He put a compulsion in my mind,” she said.

  Angry, tired, I leaned against the sill. “Convenient it was Nigel. Shall we ask him?”

  “This wasn’t my doing, Connor,” she said.

  “Where are the documents?”

  “They’re all in my office,” she said.

  “Go get them,” I said.

  She hesitated, then started dressing. “I didn’t want this to happen.”

  “It has,” I said.

  She opened the door, her face stained with tears. “I stood over you for ten minutes fighting the urge to stab you in the head. I didn’t do it. If I meant to kill you…. if I didn’t love you, Connor…. you would be dead.”

  I had nothing to say to that, so I gave her my back. The door closed, and I listened to her footsteps fade off down the hall. I stared across the rooftops, across the city at night, watching the essence play in swirls through the air.

  I was alone.

  35

  Meryl sent the documents by courier first thing in the morning. Inside a sealed box, several dozen parchments were tied with a ribbon. She had attached a note: “Believe me.” I didn’t. Not when I got out of bed after having not slept much. Not after the box arrived. Not
even after struggling through translations that weren’t telling me much. But as the day wore on, I calmed down and thought more about it.

  Gods knew that I understood uncontrollable compulsions. I had seen myself do and say things I didn’t mean, didn’t want to do, and still did them. I also knew Nigel Martin. Nigel always had a backup plan. He knew it was risky doing what he did in front of Briallen. He knew it had a chance of failing—or worse, that he would get caught. He would have had a backup plan. Burying a compulsion in Meryl’s mind would qualify. Why that included an impulse to kill me was the part I couldn’t understand.

  I spent the day reading through the documents, trying to decipher the arcane language with little success. I was fluent in modern fey languages, but Early Elvish and Saxon were tough without a dictionary—or a Saxon elf.

  I had been trapped inside all day, venturing out only for food. My involvement with Gerry’s death had triggered an elevated military presence around the Rowes Wharf Hotel. Apparently, because I had left with Rand, people assumed I was at the hotel. When I showed up at a vendor stall for some lunch, I got anxious looks and sent more than a few people running. Some of that was fear, of course, but I knew well enough that some of that was informants.

  The sending from Melusine couldn’t have come at a better time. She had updated information she wanted to share about the dead merrow. The police weren’t interested, and Eorla wouldn’t respond. I had less chance of getting the police to investigate anything at the moment, but at least I could pass information to Murdock. He might not be on the cases anymore, but he liked closure.

  As night fell, I made my way unseen down to the waterfront. With all the law-enforcement focus on the Rowes Wharf Hotel and the Tangle, Melusine and I agreed to meet behind the Fish Pier. The sex trade down there held little interest for anybody under the present circumstances, which meant we could talk unobserved. I slipped through the police checkpoints around the Tangle easily enough—skirted the falling pilings on the harbor and cut across the destroyed buildings behind the World Trade Center through one of the many neighborhood exits. Just like Ceridwen’s people couldn’t cover them all to protect me when Gerry attacked, the police didn’t have a hope of containing anyone in the Tangle determined to leave it.