Undone Deeds

by Del Franco, Mark

  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 wh
at 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.

  I gave the darkened cars along the back of the pier a wide berth. Business was going on in those cars, the oldest business in the world. They didn’t need to think I was checking them out. The police had long ago given up rousting people from the place at night. Fey folk knew how to cover their tracks, didn’t fall prey to sting operations, and cleaned up after themselves. As long as the local street workers didn’t cause problems for the daytime fishing operations, the two businesses coexisted.

  No one would bother Melusine and me—either the police or the locals—in the middle of the night. The tide rode high as I walked along the concrete head of the pier. In the near distance, the mist wall shimmered in the harbor, a cloud of soft light that shifted in shades of blue and gray. Helicopters circled above it, their searchlights scanning for a glimpse of what lay beneath. All sea traffic had been routed out of the inner harbor until someone could figure out whether the mist itself was dangerous or what it hid.

  No one had taken credit for the mist, but given that similar oddities had appeared off the coast of Germany, everyone knew it was some kind of defensive measure by Maeve. Another two were in New York and Washington, but the Seelie Court had not responded to inquiries. Maeve liked to operate in secret, and keeping people off-balance—even her theoretical allies—was normal for her.

  Down here, Melusine sent.

  A ramp led off the pier to a floating dock in much better condition than the one Murdock and I had had to deal with the other night. Two large fishing boats were tied up, their rise and fall in the slack tide barely perceptible. I checked over my shoulder. The floating docks were considered off-limits. Crossing the owner of a working boat happened once. They were not people to anger. I hopped over the thin chain barring the way. I liked it better down by the boats. I wasn’t visible from the pier, and unless either of the boats had guards, Melusine and I would have privacy.

  “Melusine?”

  End of the dock, she sent.

  “What’s with the sendings?” I asked.

  From what I understand, something about the configuration of my vocal cords in the water only allows the sounds of my native language, she sent.

  I stopped short. If Melusine was in the water, she wasn’t in human form. I had never seen her in her natural state. “I’m not a big fan of boats.”

  A sound like laughter rippled across my mind. Neither am I. We will need no boat.

  I edged toward the water and peered into the darkness. Something moved beneath the surface, wellings of silvery flesh sliding by—and sliding by and sliding by. Melusine wasn’t a merrow. In polite conversation, she was referred to as a mermaid. In reality, in her natural form, she was a huge serpent with a bad temper.

  A set of fins coasted by. Despite asking me to meet her, she was using her form to intimidate me. At least, that was what I thought, so maybe I was intimidated. Her silvered length sank deeper beneath the surface, and I lost track of her.

  “Melusine?”

  The soft slap of water against the boats answered me. A ripple trailed across the water, and Melusine’s head broke the surface. Her face hadn’t changed though it had grown in proportion to her body. At first, she appeared to be a nude woman rising from the water, straight into the air, her pale skin glittering with moisture in the darkness, deep gray aureoles marking almost vestigial breasts. Her hair shivered out in thick dark strands that stood out from her head and flowed down her back. She rose a few feet higher than her waist, revealing a thick swell of dark gray scales. She agitated the water around her, several yards of her tail writhing to keep her afloat.

  I have made contact with someone within the mist wall, she sent.

  “How? No one can get in from what I’ve been told,” I said.

  Look at me, Connor Grey. I am not “no one.” The wall does not recognize me, she sent.

  Essence barriers were keyed to prevent specific types of essence from passing through. Their level of sophistication depended on the skill and ability of the creator. If someone had never encountered a specific body signature, it wasn’t possible to defend against it. Melusine took her name from the progenitor of her race. It was within the realm of possibility that she was the original Melusine, which would make her centuries old. In either case, it wasn’t likely that whoever created the mist wall had ever encountered someone like her.

  “What does this have to do with the merrow’s death?”

  Redemption. I made a mistake thinking Bastian was responsible for the murders. Eorla no longer trusts me, and I would find her trust again.

  “It was a pretty big mistake,” I said.

  I agree. I strove to uncover the truth, and I found something more. Someone in the mist wall is willing to trade information for gain, she sent.

  “So why tell me?” I asked.

  She shifted in the water, her torso sinking so that we were eye to eye. Eorla will listen to you. Will you help me?

  I stared at her face, strangely beautiful in the midst of her ropy hair. I had believed her when she pointed me toward the Consortium because the conclusion had been plausible. Bastian would have killed his own men to save an operation. I moved to the edge of the dock. “Who’s out there, Melusine? I know that mist wall is the work of the Seelie Court. Who would betray Maeve at this late date?”

  She leaned closer. He does not want his name known until you speak. If you do not go, he fears you will reveal him, she sent.

  I knew how these things went. Espionage and counterespionage were delicate games of feints and promises built more on trust than hope. Someone highly placed couldn’t let it be known that he had decided to betray his queen. He would operate through a chain, each link in that chain depending on the strength of the next, risking all yet protecting the whole.

  Connor? Time grows short, Melusine sent.

  I nodded. “He’s out there in the mist?”

  Melusine leaned down, the scent of the sea washing over me. He will show you what Maeve is planning.

  I didn’t like it. Melusine had been wrong about Bastian. Regaining Eorla’s favor was in her interest, but helping her didn’t
seem to be in mine. Going into the mist wall was like entering the lair of the lion, but this lion wouldn’t be sleeping.

  “I said I don’t like boats.”

  She reached out her hand, the fingers long and tipped with sharp gray talons. I will bring you personally. My essence will mask your passage.

  I decided to believe her. The tides of war always turned on fortune. Maeve had enough enemies in the States. It wasn’t beyond comprehension that she had enemies at Tara—maybe even Ceridwen’s underground opposition.

  I took Melusine’s moist hand, hard muscle like wet marble beneath the skin pressing against my palm. Melusine twisted, presenting her back to me. I coiled her hair in my other hand, its texture like bulbous seaweed. Something splashed out in the water, and I paused. “What was that?”

  Melusine turned, her head winding on her neck farther than natural. We must hurry before we are discovered.

  I loved her eyes, the glitter in their depths like a promise of home. Their phosphorescent glow assured me that she understood the water like no one else. “I thought I heard something.”

  I pulled myself onto her back, my feet finding loose purchase among the strands of hair and fins.

  Use your knees to steady yourself, she sent.

  Another noise caught my attention as I adjusted my position. My sensing ability kicked in, and the area glowed with essence, the silky pale green of the water, the blue-white of barnacles and crustaceans embedded in the pilings and dock, and deep emerald streaks coursing under the water—the large streaks of several body signatures. Startled, my grip slipped, my hand slick on her skin. “Melusine!” I said.

  She drifted from the dock as my legs lost their purchase. They are my protectors. Remain calm.

  As the gap of water between us and the pier grew, panic and fear of the water overcame me. I flung myself off her and caught the edge of the floating dock, my fingers clawing at the rough wood as my feet kicked water. The splashing of Melusine recoiling her body filled the air. I was soaked as I pulled myself onto the dock. Down at the other end, a merrow hauled himself half-out of the water, propping himself up with massive hands, his hatchet-shaped face arcing over the dock. I spun back to Melusine. “We’ve got trouble.”