Unperfect Souls

by Mark Del Franco

  Both daggers were out and in my hands in seconds. The dagger that Briallen gave me felt heavier than usual, and a few runes on the blade glowed a soft yellow. I peered into the living room, and every hair on my body bristled at a faint red light in the room. Two glowing eyes stared back. I turned on the reading lamp.

  Uno’s massive head tweaked to one side in curiosity. He relaxed and dropped his jaw, his thick, dark tongue flapping out the end of his muzzle to the rhythm of his panting.

  “Okay, you can’t be good news,” I said aloud.

  I picked up my cell phone. Shay answered on the first ring. “Say ‘Hi, Dad,’ if you’re in trouble.”

  “You don’t strike me as the daddy type, Connor,” he said.

  Relief swept over me. I never knew what Shay was going to say. I don’t think he did either. “Is Uno with you?” I asked.

  “I was debating whether to call you so late. I heard a bark and woke up, and he’s gone.”

  “He’s here.”

  “He’s there? You mean your apartment?”

  “Drooling at the end of my bed as we speak,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about that. The drool disappears at dawn. What do you think it means?”

  Uno dropped to the floor and lowered his head between outstretched paws. “I don’t know. Has anything odd happened to you recently?”

  There was a chuckle. “I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

  Shay’s daily life was pretty damned odd. “Okay, odder than usual.”

  “No. What about you?” he asked.

  When I saw Uno, I assumed something had happened to Shay. Until he asked, it didn’t occur to me that the dog could have appeared because of me. “I had a strange night.”

  I heard a soft clank of metal on the other end of the phone, then water running. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Shay was less than half my age, and here he was offering me a sympathetic ear. I wanted to laugh, but didn’t. He was being sincere and concerned. The kid was sweet, too naïve and too worldly, all at the same time. I worried about people like Shay in the Weird, people on the edge who could fall with the slightest nudge. Shay was dancing near that edge when we first met, but he seemed to be finding his way to safer ground. Except for Uno. “No, that’s all right. I’ll work it out on my own.”

  “Call me if you change your mind.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  “Connor . . . does this mean I’m not going to die?”

  He said it so quietly and matter-of-factly, it pulled at me. I hadn’t considered what he must have been going through. Given that I now had a hellhound lying on my living- room floor, I had a feeling I was going to find out. “It’ll be all right, Shay. Call me if you need me.”

  He didn’t answer right away. “Thanks . . . um . . . you, too.”

  I closed the cell. Uno held eye contact with me, calm and steady, long past the point any other dog would have perceived a threat. He didn’t. He stared with a gaze that said he knew damned well who would look away first. As a hound from Hel whose job it was to suck the souls out of the living, I guessed not much threatened him.

  After several minutes, neither of us had moved. I gave in for what was left of the night. I was drained and tired and not up for vying for supremacy with a supernatural dog. Uno remained where he was while I went through my going-to-bed routine, turning off the light in the study and setting up the coffee for the morning. I sat on the futon, removed my boots, retrieved the spelled dagger from its sheath, and tucked it into my headboard. I leaned on my knees and looked at Uno. “I suppose if you were going to devour me, you would have done it by now.”

  The tufts of hair above his eyes twitched, and he let loose a loud chuff. I reached out and touched his head. He slumped over on his side and wagged his tail. I scratched at the back of his neck, and his tail thumped on the floor. “Just so you know, Uno, petting a soul-sucking hound from Hel is pretty much an unsurprising end to today.”

  I peeled off my clothes and slid beneath the covers on the futon. When I turned off the lights, the room filled with the red glow from Uno’s eyes. I stared at the ceiling.

  Not the least bit surprising.

  14

  Within a few minutes of another early- morning call from Murdock, I was picking my way across an access road overlooking Fort Point Channel. The constant winds off the harbor solidified the snow into dirty banks of gray ice. Tall frozen hills from snowplow deposits ringed a parking lot owned by the Gillette Company. Even with sturdy boots, the thin skin of ice on the ground made walking a challenge. I had to struggle my way to the police cars clustered along the channel side.

  Gillette was always referred to as being in South Boston. The razor manufacturer had employed a lot of local people over the years and for a time boasted about its Boston-based status, but no one wanted to be associated with what happened around the plant, never mind brag that they lived next to its parking lots. Maybe when its workers lived in Southie, it was a true part of the neighborhood, but these days it was the outer edge of the Weird, more a barrier for the residential area next door than a part of it.

  Emergency vehicles gathered in an empty section of the lot. Beyond them, a number of solitary fey loitered on the seawall by the channel. Seeing that many solitaries in broad daylight made me uneasy. Solitaries don’t like being seen, especially by humans, especially by law enforcement. Forest species with their rough-bark skin and leaf-like hair rarely mingled with the stone-skin denizens of the underground world. Even a few water fey hung over the wall from the channel, their hair rimed with ice. Their odd appearances made them de facto suspects for crimes committed nearby. It was racist, it was unfair, but it was the way it was. They stayed out of sight, worked night shifts, and tried to live their lives without being hassled. Pretty much like everyone else. A group of solitaries, and an odd group at that, hanging around a crime scene signaled something different was happening.

  Officers in winter gear stood inside a ring of crime-scene tape. Murdock wore his camel- hair coat and flat ear-muffs that rode around the back of his head. The wind off the channel brought a flush to his cheeks and nose, but he didn’t look particularly cold. A body lay on the ground in the center of the group. A big body.

  I ducked under the yellow-and-black tape. A few faces in the group frowned or looked away. The Boston P.D. doesn’t like working with the fey, but I thought I had earned a little respect within their ranks in the last year. “What have we got?” I asked.

  “Headless female body,” Murdock said.

  I eased my way between two officers, who gave way grudgingly. Murdock’s description pretty much covered it. The body was about six feet long without the head, clad in a simple wool tunic and leggings, and wrapped in a long, soiled leather coat that clearly had been exposed to water. My sensing ability picked up faint traces of her body signature. “She’s a match to the head from the sewer. It’s Sekka,” I said.

  Pinned with a long nail to the coat, a sheet of paper flapped in the breeze. The medical examiner held it down a moment. It read: Jark.

  “Is that supposed to be some kind of warning?” Murdock asked.

  I shrugged. “Or an accusation. Let’s check out the peanut gallery.”

  Murdock followed me to the seawall. A few solitaries slunk away as we approached. I didn’t worry about them. The ones who slip off when the police approach are usually petty criminals looking to avoid a hassle. The ones who stand their ground are usually the bigger fish who look forward to antagonizing the law. This group was different. They had the look of curious bystanders rather than lowlifes. I wanted to know if that curiosity tipped into vested interest. By the time we reached the wall, half the group had dispersed.

  “Anybody here see anything?” Murdock asked.

  “Her name was Sekka,” someone behind me said, one of the tree folk. Tall with brown bark skin and tangled mossy hair. In the dry winter air, he had the odor of dampness and earth.

  “How do you know it w
as her?” Murdock said, gesturing at the little matter of her missing head.

  The solitary looked at the body. “I knew her. Those clothes are hers. She’s been missed. Word is the Dead were after her.”

  “Anyone in particular?” asked Murdock.

  Eyes shifted to the ground or the horizon, anywhere but at us. One of the merrows from the harbor pointed down. Female merrows didn’t speak much, preferring to use their bodies to communicate. More than a few people have drowned trying to understand them. I leaned over the wall. At low tide, the channel sank over a dozen feet, exposing the foundation stones of the wall. A sewer overflow pipe jutted over the water. “Did you see someone come out of there?” I asked.

  The merrow nodded, her wide, dark eyes like pools of sadness. No surprise there, although coming out of the sewer made a nice connection to where we found the head.

  “Was it anyone you knew?”

  She gazed at the hard gray water. “It is the one we call the Hound of the Dead. He hunts the Dead.”

  Someone gasped behind me, and one of the solitaries made a hissing sound. Whoever this Hound was, he was doing a pretty good job of scaring the hell out of people. “Sekka wasn’t one of the Dead,” I said.

  “No, but I saw him drag her body here,” she said.

  “Did you see where he went?” Murdock asked.

  The merrow subtly bowed her head, fear creeping into her eyes. Behind you, she sent.

  I crouched on the ground, pretending to examine footprints. I pivoted on the balls of my feet to look behind me, as if I were following a trail. On the opposite side of the parking lot, a cloaked figure stood in the alley. He was too far away to get a precise read on his essence.

  A solitary’s mossy hair swayed with a shake of his head. “You don’t find the Hound. He finds you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d like to talk to him about that,” Murdock said.

  “Then ask the Dead. They probably know where he hides, just like they know they can kill us without worrying about being punished.”

  “Not true,” said Murdock.

  The solitary looked over our shoulders. “Tell that to Sekka.”

  We all looked at the victim. The medical examiner had corralled some officers to help lift her body onto a gurney. Murdock turned back to the dwindling group on the wall. The merrow had slipped away. “There’s a community meeting about the murders tomorrow night. Spread the word that we need help,” he said.

  The solitary shook his head. “It won’t make a difference. No one cares.”

  “We do,” I said.

  The solitary sighed. “That’s a comfort.”

  He walked off with his friends.

  “I think we were just insulted,” I said.

  Murdock leaned over the wall to exam the overflow pipe. “Yeah, I get that a lot these days.”

  We walked back to the crime scene as the body was loaded into the examiner’s van. “Take a nonchalant look behind you,” I said.

  Murdock glanced over his shoulder, then back at the activity by the medical examiner. “He was over there when I arrived. Been on his cell phone the entire time. Think it’s this Hound?”

  I stood. “The merrow as much as said he is. Looks like he’s in a chatty mood.”

  As we approached, the cloaked man turned and walked up the alley.

  Murdock broke into a run. “Boston P.D.! Stop where you are!”

  He didn’t stop. We followed, slipping on icy patches. Murdock pulled ahead of me, his body shield glowing a faint red. He’d been practicing with it again. It not only protected him but also had some sort of strength booster. At least, that’s what I was going with as I followed his back, because without abilities, I was definitely a stronger runner than he was.

  “I said stop, dammit,” Murdock shouted.

  The alley turned ahead, a corner building making an L-shape at the end of the block. The building cut off my line of sight as they sprinted ahead. I stumbled after them into a dead-end run blocked by a fence and a massive pile of debris.

  The Hound swerved, propelling over a stack of wooden pallets into the air. He grabbed the bottom of a fire escape and swung over the railing. As he climbed, Murdock mimicked the move. As I closed on them, I put on a burst of speed and reached for the last rung of the ladder pull. I missed and fell hard, my body shields coming on too late to soften the fall.

  Above me, the Hound balanced on a rail of the fire escape, watching Murdock climb toward him. He jumped, sailing across the alley to the opposite building’s fire escape. Without pause, Murdock leaped after him, his coat flaring out behind him like a cape. They climbed again.

  I scrambled to my feet, hoisted myself onto a dumpster, and climbed onto the fire escape. Three stories above, Murdock and the Hound leaped across the alley to the next building. I ran along a catwalk, then up the next set of fire-escape stairs. The Hound sailed past me on his way across again. Climbing again, he backtracked, with Murdock close behind.

  I reached the roofline and swung over the parapet. Below, they crossed to my side, and I dropped down to pin the Hound between us before he was high enough to leap again. Halfway up, he spotted me and charged back toward Murdock. A flight above Murdock, he dodged through a broken window and vanished into the darkness of the building. Murdock reached the opening before I did and ran in.

  My sensing ability tracked the blazing red of Murdock’s essence in the darkness. We pounded down a long hallway of gaping doorways and graffitied walls. The Hound raced ahead, his dark silhouette flashing in and out of my line of sight as Murdock closed in. The hall ended ahead in a shattered hole where a window used to be. The Hound jumped. Murdock launched out after him, shouting as they disappeared from view.

  I reached the opening. The Hound dangled in the air, swinging himself hand over hand across a tension wire to the next building. Not far below, Murdock hung from a bent streetlight, his hands grappling with ice-slick metal. He kicked his legs up to wrap them around the arm of the lamp, but his coat tangled around his feet. He jerked back, losing the grip of one hand.

  My mind raced. He was too far for me to reach, either from the building or from the ground three stories below. A loose phone cable hung next to me against the building. I yanked it free and knotted it around a drainpipe. “Catch!” I shouted.

  Murdock grabbed the flung cable with his free hand. I spiraled the slack around my arm, dropped to my ass inside the hallway, and braced my feet against the edge of the opening. “Come in feetfirst and kick off the building.”

  As he twirled the cable awkwardly with one free arm, his other hand slipped off the light. Murdock fell, the cable a sinuous line of black against the white ground. The line pulled taut, biting into my arm as Murdock hit the end. Then the cable snapped, and Murdock plunged in a spread-eagle free fall.

  “No!” I shouted.

  I tore down the stairs, slamming into the walls as I fought my way at a full run. A broken door blocked the exit, and I ran at it without stopping. Rotted wood gave way as I burst through it and sprawled into the alley.

  Murdock lay on his back, arms flung out, in a shallow crater of snow and jumbled ice. His chest heaved, his breath a cloud of steam. I stumbled to him across the ice. He curled to a sitting position as I reached him. Relieved, I helped him up. He leaned one hand against a wall, gasping. I hunched over, holding my knees, trying to catch my own breath. Murdock smirked through heavy breathing. “Why’d you let him get away?”

  I grinned back at him, then shook my head and laughed.

  “Gods, are you okay?” I said when I recovered.

  Murdock stretched and grimaced. “Yeah, the body shield came in pretty handy.”

  “That was insane.”

  “Did you tag his essence?” Murdock asked.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t get close enough.”

  Murdock covered his disappointment by brushing at his coat. It didn’t help the rips and tears and the rust smears. “I’m billing the city for this one.”

  The tens
ion wire that the Hound had used was anchored next to a fire escape and a window on an abandoned building across the street. I didn’t see which way he went. “He’s gone,” I said.

  Murdock nodded with an exaggerated motion, and we walked up the alley. The large dark shape of Uno sat at the turn, watching us approach. He trotted out of sight.

  “Did you see that dog?” I asked.

  Murdock looked behind him, in the wrong direction. “Where?”

  Uno was hard to miss. Murdock thought I had enough problems without him thinking I was hallucinating. “It must have been a shadow,” I said.

  When we reached the corner, Uno wasn’t visible anywhere. He left no paw prints in the snow.

  15

  I didn’t know what to make of Uno. When I told Shay I would look into the whole hellhound thing, it was an academic issue. Motivated by concern, sure, but academic. Now that I had seen the dog without Shay around—and Murdock hadn’t—it had suddenly made itself a more personal issue.

  Murdock remained at the scene in the parking lot. I returned to my apartment, feeling winter settle into the bones of the city. The stark slivers of sky between buildings threatened snow. Harsh sunlight cast sharp shadows, the sudden change of white light to black shadows causing afterimages to flash in my vision despite my sunglasses.

  A black car idled at the end of my street, an elf in Consortium livery waiting beside the rear door. As I approached, he opened the door and revealed a lone figure seated in back. Eorla leaned forward. Surprised, I slipped in with a gust of cold air.

  “What brings you down here?” I asked.

  “Aren’t you pleased to see me?” Eorla asked.

  “It’s always a pleasure to see you,” I said.

  She threw a slight sideways glance at me, a thin smile on her face. “You flatter me often. Is it courtesy or mockery?”

  I tilted my head. “Is sincerity so hard to believe?”

  She chuckled. “Not in my world. Not always. You don’t have a reputation for respect.”