Unperfect Souls

by Mark Del Franco

  Tiny streaks of white lightning danced over the truck as it passed through a warding barrier. The engine coughed, and Meryl muttered a shield spell as she downshifted. The deeper we drove into the area, the more spells pinged against the shield, bursts of essence in green and white across the hood of the truck, streaks of yellow and brilliant hazes of blue and white. The engine whined higher, and Meryl hit the brake. “We need to get out here. The engine can’t take any more hits. I don’t want to lose it and have to walk home in this mess.”

  My head started aching. The dark mass in my mind hated whenever someone tried to read the future, and the Tangle was a hotbed for scrying. As I trudged through the snow behind Meryl, I fought off the nausea that welled up. My vision blurred as the pain increased. “I don’t know if I can do this, Meryl. There’s too much scrying, and I’m getting hit with sensor spells.”

  She reached out a gloved hand. Her body shield shimmered around her, a faint yellow glow in the thick snow. The essence flowed off her fingers and up my arm. The dark mass flared, sharp little spikes of darkness reacting to the body shield’s intrusion. The mass in my head resisted, intent on blocking outside essence. Including me in her body shield wasn’t a true interaction of the kind the dark mass resisted—Meryl’s shield wrapped around me more like a blanket than a merging of our body signatures. Meryl jerked her head up at me, surprised at the resistance the mass pressed back with. When her shield blocked the emanations from the scryings, the dark mass settled down and didn’t attempt to reject her help.

  “That was different,” she said.

  “I think it’s overly sensitive to being in the Tangle,” I said. I hoped. It was doing a lot of things lately it hadn’t done before.

  We shuffled through the drifts and wind without speaking. Few people were out in the storm except the usual suspects—fey solitaries with weather abilities who didn’t mind the cold and the wind. They ignored us for the most part, though occasionally one of the highland fairies threw an extra gust of wind at us. We circled a block built on a tight crescent, five- and six-story warehouses leaning back from the street. Eccentric additions cast dark shadows over the windows, twisted bricks rising in sinuous lines across the facades, spikes of stone hanging in the air. They radiated with strong currents of essence.

  “We’re walking in circles,” I said through panting breaths.

  Meryl focused in front of her. “It’s the path. Once more around the block, and we should be there.”

  We turned for the third time around a slumped pile of stone. Someone had died under it, the pain of their passing gnawing at the edges of my sensing ability. The rear of the warehouses were no better. Death always leaves a footprint behind, one that can take years to fade.

  Meryl stopped. We stood on the front side of the block in the middle of the crescent. The center building had changed. A door that hadn’t been visible the first two times we passed yawned above us in a white stone carved to resemble oak leaves. Unlike the brick used on the rest of the walls, large blocks of granite in an irregular pattern surrounded the entrance. Clinging to the stones were several vitniri, their lupine faces lifting into howls as we approached. Two jumped down from the lintel and barred our way.

  The Teutonic vitniri were known for their skills at guarding homes. Whether they were humans with wolflike features or wolves with human characteristics was hard to tell. They walked on their hind legs or all fours as it suited them, their limbs ending in rough pawlike clawed hands.

  Meryl took off a glove and held out her hand. “I am Meryl Dian. Connor Grey is with me. We are invited.”

  I took off a glove, too. The vitniri on the walls barked and yipped. The two in front of us rose on their hind legs and came closer. They sniffed at our hands and licked our fingers. A few moments of more sniffing, and they backed away. “You may enter,” one said, his voice a raspy growl. They scrambled back up the sides of the door.

  I resisted the urge to wipe my hand before putting the glove back on. As long as the scent- marking remained, we would be unharmed. By unharmed, I meant not ripped to shreds and maybe eaten. If nothing else, vitniri are dedicated watchmen.

  Meryl pushed open the door. “At least they didn’t pee on me this time,” she muttered.

  20

  Inside, heat and chaos enveloped us. In the flickering half-light, fey of all stripes filled an industrial cathedral of interlocking steel beams and arches. Shouts filled the air with the roaring vibration of cheering spectators. The clank and crash of metal on metal created a shrieking bass line. The air smelled of oil and chemicals, the burnt-ozonelike residue of spent essence and the reek of unwashed bodies. Rhythmic screams of someone in deep pain pierced through it all.

  “Cozy,” I said.

  “You should be here on a busy night,” Meryl said.

  Half the time I thought Meryl said things like that to emphasize the point that I didn’t know everything about her. The other half of the time, I hoped that was true. The reality was I didn’t know everything about Meryl, and I never would. It was the nature of the fey to move in and out of each other’s lives without knowing who the other person had been a generation ago. Long lives trailed long histories, some good, some bad. The fey either accepted that about each other, or they ended up being alone.

  No one paid us any attention as we threaded through the crowd on the main floor. I had been to a few places like it before, underground clubs and safe houses where the persecuted hid to be themselves among their own kind. I loved being part of the fey subculture, but I had the luxury of not needing it. I shared a certain sensibility with the lost and shunned in the Weird, but in places like this, I realized a level of acceptance existed that I would never achieve among the solitaries. I was a druid, an acceptable fey to the mainstream. My face wasn’t scarred or scaled, feathered or furred. My skin color fell into the peach to brown spectrum the outside human world understood and accepted.

  I brought my own prejudices, too. I recoiled instinctively at times, thought entire species unattractive, or feared people simply by virtue of their race. I could tell myself all I wanted that my attitudes weren’t the same thing as the human racism that was based solely, inexplicably, on skin color. All trolls did like their meat raw and weren’t particular where they got it. Merfolk occasionally did drown air-breathing lovers in the throes of passion. The fey—all fey—were filled with as many of the vicious as the virtuous. My fears and biases might be more reality based, but they were still fears and biases.

  “What the hell?” Meryl swung her pocketbook around to her chest and pulled up the flap.

  Joe crawled out. “You really need to clean out your purse.”

  “It’s not called the Bag of Doom for nothing,” she said.

  “How long have you been in there?” I asked.

  He fluttered between us, taking in the sight of the ranks of solitaries hanging in the framework of the warehouse. “Just now. I had to come in tight because of all the security these guys have. Last time a vitniri licked me, I licked him back. They’ve had it in for me ever since.”

  “Any word on Murdock?” Meryl asked.

  Joe shook his head. “I’ve been looking for him ever since your sending. No dice.” He ducked as someone threw a beer bottle across our path. He swooped down, picked it up, and threw it back. “I don’t think he’s dead,” he continued. “His signature vanishes right where you last saw him, Connor. There should have been something for me to follow. Wherever he is, he’s masked by something powerful.”

  The crowd thickened, and we pushed toward the center of attention. The screams grew louder. “There were a lot of Dead.”

  “They have a knack for hiding stuff,” Joe shouted over the noise.

  Chains dangled from the ceiling ahead, the heavy-duty kind for lifting machinery. They swayed and tangled as the crowd cheered. Meryl was a foot shorter than I was. I gripped her hand tighter when I saw over the heads of the crowd.

  A Dead man hung by his wrists from the chains, both hi
s shoulders dislocated and his feet just touching the floor. By his essence, he belonged to one of the lesser elven clans I didn’t know well. By what remained of his clothes and his wild, long blond hair, he was a warrior from a few centuries ago. His shirt and boots had been stripped, leaving his torso and feet bare. Blood trickled down his body from numerous slashes, and thick clots of it matted his hair.

  Zev stood in front of him and pressed a knife against his chest. “For the last time, where are my people?”

  The elf smiled through shattered teeth. “Go ahead and kill me, animal. I will come back and cut you down before you wake.”

  Zev sliced the knife against the elf’s skin. The guy squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced. “You think so?”

  “This is sick.” I moved forward.

  Meryl grabbed my arm. “Don’t interfere, Grey.”

  “Meryl, I won’t watch him torture this guy.”

  Her eyes lit with warning. “Then don’t watch. We’re on their turf, Grey. You step in, this whole place will come down on you. Let it be.”

  Angry, I yanked my arm away and instantly regretted it. Her body shield slipped off me. The dark mass became exposed to the scrying in the air and spiked with pain in my mind. “This isn’t right, Meryl.”

  Meryl put her hand on my back and replaced the shield. “Sometimes, Grey, people don’t have a choice in doing what they do. We’re here for their help, not to change their ways. This isn’t the time.”

  “It’s torture,” I said.

  She glanced at Zev. “Yes, it is. Can you smell the blood-lust in the air? We’re outnumbered. Let it go. He’s a Dead guy.”

  Zev wiped the bloodied knife against the elf’s cheek. “Bring the leech!” he called over his shoulder.

  The crowd hooted and screamed as it backed away. We didn’t move as the circle withdrew and exposed us. Zev noticed, then turned his attention to a widening gap in the crowd. Meryl sucked in air as several elves with bows loaded with elf-shot appeared, the green essence primed and pointed at the leanansidhe walking in their midst.

  “You weren’t kidding about her,” she said.

  The leanansidhe stopped in front of Zev. She came no higher than his shoulder, her whiteless black eyes fixed on the hanging elf. She wrapped her arms around herself and crooned, pulling her tattered and soiled coat tighter.

  Zev leaned down and picked up a stained sack. From within it, he withdrew the decapitated head of one of the Dead. He held it in front of the prisoner. “Look familiar, elf? Your friend thought I was bluffing, too. When you see Jark, tell him we can play his game, too, but we can take it a step further.”

  He tossed the head at the leanansidhe, and she effortlessly snatched it from the air. Zev grabbed the elf by the hair, forcing him to face the leanansidhe. “Watch, elf. I know your clan can sense essence. Watch and tell Jark what waits for him if he continues hunting us.”

  The leanansidhe cradled the head. With soot-covered hands, she smoothed back the bloodied hair. The deep purple tendrils of her body essence oozed from her fingers and burrowed into the face. They latched onto the faint remains of essence in the Dead man’s head and bulged as they siphoned it off. The dark mass in my head shifted, a strange sensation of hunger that sent a shiver down my spine. My vision darkened, the dark mass rising. The urge to join the leanansidhe tugged at me. I held my breath and pushed back at the darkness. It retreated, slowly, reluctantly. The leanansidhe moaned softly as she savored the essence, pawing at the face until the head was drained. She dropped it on the floor.

  Zev picked it up and dangled it in front of the elf. “Do you see, elf? There is nothing. True death, elf, final and complete. You will live tomorrow, but as you die tonight, think what it would mean if it were your true death. Tell Jark whatever he is seeking, we do not have it. Tell him if he and his brethren do not stop attacking us, the only thing they will find is true death. Tell him in the end, we will drink his soul.”

  Zev shoved his knife into the elf, directly into the heart. The elf gasped, his chest heaving up. His body went limp and swayed from the chains. Zev raised the knife, clenched in his bloody fist as the crowd screamed its approval. “Leave the body somewhere the Dead will find it,” he said to one of the elf guards.

  He leaned toward the leanansidhe. “Remember our pact, leech, and be ready when we call.”

  She smiled and bowed, clearly mocking Zev. He was playing with fire and probably knew it. If he didn’t kill her when he was done with her, the leanansidhe would hunt him down. They both knew one of them would be dead by the end of it. The leanansidhe walked away with the elf guard close behind her. When she reached the edge of the crowd, she paused. Looking over her shoulder, her eyes met mine, her fathomless pools of black to my blue. She turned away again, leaving me a sending. We meet again, brother. That within you calls to me and mine to you. I know you feel it. You will answer it and soon. Thus, we meet and meet.

  21

  With the main event over, the shouting subsided, and people wandered off. A number remained watching, curious about the druid who registered little of his own essence and the druidess with brilliant red hair. Joe crawled out from Meryl’s hood once he was sure the leanansidhe was gone.

  Zev wiped his hands on a soiled cloth while two Dokkheim elves lowered the Dead man to the floor. He examined his fingernails. “You don’t approve,” he said.

  “You didn’t ask for my approval,” I said.

  He tossed the rag aside and crossed his arms. “ ’Struth. But you still don’t approve.”

  I pursed my lips. “I watched you murder someone.”

  He shrugged. “He was Dead anyway. He’ll be fine tomorrow.”

  I shook my head. “That’s a dark road you’re walking, Zev.”

  He gestured to the remaining watchers. “I gave them what they needed.”

  I snorted. “Bread and circuses, is that it? Read some history, Zev. You may not like where that led.”

  He fixed his white eyes on me. “The Dead are killing us, Grey, and no one gives a damn. If we don’t stand up to them, they will kill us all. They want us truly dead, and the cops and the Guild are just watching it happen.”

  “The Guild is working on tonight’s kidnappings as we speak,” I said.

  He laughed. “Really? You think so? I’ve got my people out looking for everyone who went missing tonight. Can the Guild say the same?”

  My conversation with Keeva chose that moment to remind me that she only mentioned missing police officers. I decided not to share that with Zev. “You’re playing with fire and gasoline. You keep pumping these people up like this, you’ll lose control of them. Whatever the Guild and the police aren’t doing is beside the point.”

  Will you knock it off? Meryl sent to me.

  He nodded dismissively. “And what they are doing is the point. They created the situation by boxing us in. With the Dead hunting us down and the law locking us in, we’re trapped, Grey. Solitaries live without hope most of the time, but things have never been this hopeless. If giving them hope breaks the chains that bind them, so be it. Let the humans reap our wrath.”

  Meryl tugged at my arm. “We’re not here for a political discussion.”

  I ignored her. “Sekka is dead, Zev. That will never change no matter how you dress your revenge.”

  He locked eyes with me. “Jark must pay for her death.”

  “The Hound killed her,” I said.

  Zev shook his head. “The Hound saw Jark kill her.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  Zev lowered his eyes. “Let’s just say I know people who know people who know.”

  “So if that’s true, then why is Jark afraid of the Hound?” I asked.

  “Because all the Dead are afraid of him. The Hound is hunting the Dead whenever they cross the line. He may be Dead himself, but he’s not their ally. Jark’s lying to get you to focus your attention somewhere else. And if you eliminate the Hound for him in the meantime, even better.”

  �
�The Hound killed Jark?” I asked.

  Zev pursed his lips. “He’s not dead, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “Where can I find the Hound, Zev?”

  He gave me a grim smile. “I wouldn’t tell you if I knew. Whenever the Dead go on one of these rampages, he’s there for us, not them.”

  His flat white eyes fixed on me with a blank stare. It was one of those moments when one group—in this case solitaries—closed ranks against another—me, who wasn’t a solitary. I wasn’t going to get any more from him about the Hound.

  “Aaaaand, we’re not here for this,” Meryl interrupted. “What’s the situation?”

  Zev took a deep breath. “Eighteen solitaries and three cops were grabbed. Six solitaries were killed. The cops were dumped alive not far from the meeting.”

  I fought down the urge to continue the argument. Meryl was right. Murdock was more important at the moment. “Any pattern to the dumps?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “All in the Weird. The cops were dropped fast. Your friend will be fine, Grey. The Dead don’t want humans.”

  “Murdock doesn’t read full human anymore.” The silence among us was lost in the rising and falling sounds of the solitaries around us.

  “Got him!” Joe shouted and vanished.

  Joe sensed people at greater distances than I could. It’s one of the ways he understands where to go when he teleports. Even with my hypersensitive ability, my sensing range was limited by my physical location. Meryl’s, too. But she could do sendings.

  “Where is he?” I said to Meryl.

  She held her hand up. “Give me a sec.” She closed her eyes. “Joe says he’s not far. They’re bringing him in.”