“Who is?”
Meryl paused as she listened. “Callies. They were nearby.”
The cailleacha, the Scottish clan of winter women. The storm outside didn’t feel natural. They had to be the cause. I wasn’t going to complain. If anyone knew how to move through snow and ice, they did.
“But he’s alive,” I said.
Meryl’s brow dropped in concentration. “Joe says something’s wrong. He says Murdock doesn’t recognize him.” She put a hand on my chest. “They’re here.”
The doors on the far side of the floor flew open with a gust of wind and snow. Four tall callies rushed in, half walking, half flying, their long white hair trailing into their flowing gray gowns. They carried Murdock with gnarled hands, clutching his arms and legs.
My head screamed as I left the protection of Meryl’s shield. When the callies lowered him to the floor, I pulled him into my arms. His clothing was torn and soiled. Hat, gloves, shoes, and coat were gone. His lips were chalk blue and his skin cold and hard. I searched for a pulse. “I think he’s got hypothermia. We have to get him to AvMem.” I lifted my face to the nearest callie. “Can anyone fly the storm?”
Meryl knelt beside us and placed glowing hands on him. Her face dropped. “We don’t have time, Grey. He’s dying. We need to get him warm now.” She pulled off her cloak and wrapped it around us. “We need blankets or coats. Anything. Zev, we need a warm bath.”
A callie leaned her aged face down. “The ice was in his heart.”
I searched her cragged features. “Can you take the ice out?”
She shook her head. “I withdrew the cold, but I cannae warm it.”
A ripple went through the crowd, and a large wash of essence came toward us. Out of the darkness walked a jotunn—a ten-foot-tall giant of a man. Without asking, he knelt and pulled Murdock from me. Cradling him in his arms like a child, he placed a wide hand on Murdock’s chest. He rocked and hummed. A pool of warm, orange essence welled out of his hand. Joe fluttered down next to them, his pink essence mingling with the giant’s and seeping into Murdock’s chest.
Murdock convulsed. The jotunn held him closer and increased the cadence of his hum. The convulsions settled to a shiver. Murdock opened his mouth, heaving forward with a racking cough that scattered Joe into the air. The jotunn eased him to the floor.
Murdock looked around in a daze. “Is this hell?”
Joe swooped down and laughed. “Nah. That’s two blocks up on the left. Don’t order the chili.”
I squeezed Murdock’s shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
He frowned, pulling Meryl’s cloak around him. “Where are my shoes?”
“You lost them somewhere,” I said.
He struggled to his feet. Meryl grabbed his arm. “Take it easy. Let your body warm up.”
“I want my shoes,” he said.
“We’ll find some, Leo. We have to get you to a hospital,” I said.
“Take me home.”
“Murdock, you need to see a doctor.”
“I said take me home,” he snapped.
I looked at Meryl. “What do you think?”
She stared at him. “He’s okay. Let’s take him home. We can talk about the hospital in the morning.”
I held my hand out to the jotunn. “Thank you.”
He touched his massive palm against mine and wandered into the darkness.
Zev stood alone near the bloodied, dangling chains. “Thank you, too, Zev.”
He nodded. “Remember this, Grey. I helped you and the police. The solitaries are not the enemy.”
“I never thought they were,” I said. Someone found something for Murdock to wear on his feet, and we went back into the storm. The callies followed, shifting and swaying around us through the snow. Essence ringed us, a pale blue light that pressed the wind back. I don’t know why the callies did it for us, but it made walking easier. Murdock tried to shake me off as I supported him, but a few steps later, he leaned on me without argument.
The snowplow sat where we had left it, the protection spell that Meryl had cast almost gone. We bundled inside, with Murdock in the middle. He wouldn’t speak, just stared into the night sky. Meryl wheeled the truck around and drove toward South Boston.
“Take a left,” Murdock said when we reached Broadway.
“Murdock, you live the other way,” I said.
“Just take a left. Please,” he said. I looked over his head at Meryl and nodded. She turned left. “Stop here,” Murdock said after a few blocks. He gestured at me. “I need to get out.”
“Murdock, you had hypothermia. I’m not letting you wander around in the storm.”
Meryl peered out her window. “No, it’s okay, Grey. Let him out.”
I threw her a look like she was crazy. She pointed. In the blur of snow and wind, a brick building stood. I opened my door and helped Murdock out. As we walked around the truck, Meryl remained inside.
“Are you coming?” I called out.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I’ll wait here, she sent.
I put my arm around Murdock’s shoulders and ushered him across the street. We walked into the hushed, silent warmth of St. Brigid’s Church.
22
First thing in the morning, I called to check on Shay. The cops had let him go when Keeva showed up and confirmed he was human. He was more annoyed that a paramedic played cute with him but didn’t follow through with a phone number. The kid killed me. With all the stuff he gets into, he still manages to roll with it.
Murdock didn’t return my phone calls. I didn’t like that, but I had probably been too insistent about taking him to Avalon Memorial. He hated doctors in general, and if he felt fine, he wanted no part of a hospital. That was his choice, and I had to let it go. That didn’t mean I wasn’t worried about him. Whether he liked it or not, I was going to check up on him.
Murdock’s car was right where we’d left it the night before. I dug it out of a snowbank, which was a welcome respite from thinking about anything. Dig the shovel in. Toss the snow. Repeat. Nicely rhythmic and mindless.
Driving wasn’t something I did. Living in cities all my life, there wasn’t much need. Sure, a car was convenient, right up to the point when it was stolen or, worse, needed a parking spot. So, I didn’t drive, and Murdock’s car did nothing to elevate my desire to drive. It was a swamp of trash and papers in contrast to the orderliness of the rest of his life. I guessed he needed somewhere to release his inner slob.
The day after a major snowstorm in Boston was an exercise in dysfunction and denial. Cities, by definition, did not have acres of open space. Thousands of people lived cheek by jowl, sidewalks were narrow strips of concrete with little room for more than three people to walk abreast, and cars weren’t tucked off the streets in driveways or garages. In short, snow had no place to go, shoveled or plowed.
Neighborhoods transformed into mazes, narrow paths along the sidewalks, streets turned into valleys between mountainous ridges, and between the two, snowed-in cars formed a barrier of snow and metal and ice. Snowplows left small hills at intersections to be taken away by front loaders. Shoveling out a parked car was an art in itself, the challenge of finding enough places to throw snow without burying someone else in. The day after a blizzard, the snow walls around a single parking space could rise four feet high.
As dawn broke, people grabbed their shovels, while others pretended the storm didn’t happen and tried to go about their normal routines. The two sets clashed, some idiot tossing snow on some other idiot who could not care less he was in the way. The parking situation devolved into the haves and the have-nots, with the haves leaving their cars until the next warm day freed them or digging them out with great time and effort, while the have- nots either garaged their cars at exorbitant rates or stalked neighborhood side streets for an abandoned shoveled-out space. Which led to a winter peculiarity of Southie: the kitchen chair in the snow.
Finding a parking space took effort. Digging out a car took ef
fort. When someone in Southie snagged a parking space before a storm and dug it out afterward, a certain ownership to the space evolved. A kitchen chair defined that ownership, perching in the vacated space while the temporary owner ran errands or went to work. The kitchen chair sent the message that someone else had put time and effort into clearing the space, not you. The cardinal rule was: You do not mess with someone’s kitchen chair. Violators were subject to snow being shoveled back in, paint scratched, nasty notes, and, for the worst offenders, tires slashed. How long the shoveler maintained ownership was a gray area, but at some point, the kitchen chairs disappeared and the normal parking-space jockeying resumed. The city didn’t approve, but a little anonymous dog feces on a windshield deterred whoever agreed with the municipal authorities.
East Broadway was an obstacle course of pedestrians, delivery vans, double-parked cars, and piles and piles of snow. Tempers flared as someone had the audacity to stop her car to allow someone else time to find the least-slush-filled path cross the street. Deliverymen frowned as they climbed over salt- and sand-caked snow. I took my time, unimpressed with the frustrations. People didn’t seem bothered by a few decapitations up a few blocks. Not when something important was happening, like missing a yellow traffic light.
A sea of kitchen chairs lined the edges of K Street. I drove down the ice-slick lane until I reached the Murdock house. A thrill of victory and doubt ran through me as I pulled up. In front of the black- shuttered row house stood an empty space with no chair. The spaces in front and behind it were meticulously cleaned and chairless as well. I parallel-parked between the spaces and sat in the car, considering whether I was violating any neighborhood tradition. Three empty spaces in a row—with no chairs—in front of the police commissioner’s house could not be a coincidence. K Street apparently had its own subset of unwritten rules. I turned off the engine and lifted a box from the passenger seat.
Salt on the shoveled sidewalk crunched under my boots as I walked up the short steps and rang the bell. A large Christmas wreath with small white bows hung on the door. The cement urn to one side was filled with greens and decorated presents.
Kevin Murdock, an earnest kid in his twenties and the youngest of the family, opened the door. Unlike the rest of his police brothers, he had joined the fire department. He was dressed in his day uniform, his dark hair cut in a buzz. “Hey, Connor . . .” He paused when he saw the car. His blue eyes met mine. “Did you actually drive that trash heap here?”
I grinned. “I’ve had all my shots.”
He stepped back with the classic Murdock smirk. “Get inside before my dad yells about heating the neighborhood.”
I wiped my feet on the mat. Row houses were long, narrow buildings, the rooms stacked one behind the other. In the front parlor, a Christmas tree took up the small space near the windows. The house smelled of evergreen and roasted meat.
Kevin gestured at the box. “Can I take that for you?”
I shook my head. “It’s for Leo. Is he here?”
He pointed with his thumb at the ceiling. “He’s in his room.” He picked up a uniform overcoat. “I have to get back to work. Can you tell him to get his ass out of here and get to work like the rest of us?”
I looked up the stairs. “How’s he doing?”
Kevin’s smiled dropped. “He’s okay, I think. A little shook-up. You know him, he doesn’t say much, but I think he’s okay. He won’t tell me what happened.”
I smiled. “Then I’ll kick his ass out of here for you.”
Kevin winked. “Thanks.” He patted me hard on the shoulder. “Good to see you, Connor. Merry . . . um . . . holidays.”
I laughed. “You, too.”
Kevin was a good guy. As the baby of the family, the Murdocks doted on him. Leo was almost twenty years older, so they tended to have a more mentor/protégé relationship than simple brotherhood.
The rest of the Murdock men—Gerry, Bar, and Bernard—were local cops, and their sister Faith had gone the state police route. They all lived at home except Faith and Bernard, who had separate apartments not far away. The coming year looked interesting for them all, with the other Murdock sister, Grace, getting married, and Bernard deciding to run for city councilor. Politics and public service ran deep in the blood.
The commissioner’s wife was gone, and while the impression I had was that she was dead, there was an underlying silence about her absence that hinted at tragedy. Despite the sisters, the house didn’t have the feel of a woman’s presence. It was very much the commissioner’s.
Murdock’s bedroom was on the second floor. Shifting the box to one hand, I knocked on the slightly ajar door.
“I’ll be down in a bit, Kev. You don’t need to keep checking on me,” Murdock said.
I pushed the door open. “Not Kevin.”
From his desk chair, Murdock gave me a tired smile. “Sorry. Kevin’s been like an old-lady gnat all morning. Come on in.”
He swiveled in the chair. Other than some darkness under his eyes, he looked fine, to the point of wearing his usual work attire—neatly pressed dark pants and a white collared shirt—sans tie. Papers from an open file on the desk were stacked neatly in a row. More files in file boxes lined the wall. All copies of case files.
I placed the box on the foot of the bed and took a side chair. “What are you working on?”
He rotated the chair. “Not really working. Reviewing the nanny case.”
Several years ago, a young student from Europe summering in the United States was murdered. She was found in a dumpster, just her torso. The list of suspects was bizarre—a photographer, a panhandler, a rock musician, and a guy who walked his dog while dressed as Superman. The woman’s complete remains were never found. Neither was her murderer. That Murdock would decide to read that case was no surprise. Every cop in the city wanted to know what happened to the nanny. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather you read one of those romance novels you don’t want anybody to know you read.”
He smiled and jutted his chin at the box. “What’s that?”
I flipped open the top. “This, my friend, was in my building vestibule this morning addressed to me. It’s your coat, hat, and gun.”
Murdock was on his feet and at the box in an instant. He grabbed the gun and checked it, spun the chambers and sniffed it. Relief washed over him. “It hasn’t been fired.”
“Neither has your bug,” I said.
Murdock pulled the coat out and found the backup gun. Despite what I said, he checked it, too, then locked both guns in his nightstand. “That gives me one less hassle today. I was about to go to the station house and report them gone. What the hell is going on?”
“No one gives up a free gun in the Weird. Someone’s being helpful.”
He pursed his lips. “Do you think it was Zev’s people?”
I shook my head. “That was my initial thought, but it’s got Dead essence all over, several signatures.”
He sat back in his chair. “That doesn’t make sense. They’re the ones that grabbed me.”
“I don’t think they meant to grab you, Murdock,” I said. “Zev told me last night that only solitaries were swept up. The patrol officers who got snagged were returned almost immediately.”
He swiveled slowly in his seat, then met my eyes. “I talked to one of the guys who was there last night. He said they were ordered to stand down and get off the street.”
I frowned. “I can see pulling back if the crowd dispersed on its own, but getting off the street? Who the hell gave that order?”
Murdock glanced toward the door. “I’ll find out.”
He let the silence hang, his face troubled. Two people could have given the order: the senior officer on-site or the police commissioner. But with a couple of hundred angry solitaries out there, an officer on the street would not have made that call. Murdock removed a black shoe from the box. “They only found one shoe?”
“I guess. What’s up with the shoes?” I asked.
&n
bsp; He gave me a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
“You were all upset about your shoes missing last night.”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember that.”
I leaned forward. “What happened, Leo?”
He went to the window. “You drove my car here?”
I tossed him the keys. “The keys were in your coat, so I picked up the car on the way over. Don’t change the subject.”
He looked down in thought. “I don’t think the Dead are really people, Connor. I’ve been thinking all morning that these Dead we’re seeing are some sort of manifestation of our, I don’t know, hopes? Fears? I don’t think they’re real.”
“They felt pretty real when they tried to kill us in TirNaNog,” I said.
He shook his head. “You know I don’t understand all this essence stuff, but I’ve read enough about psychology to know it’s possible to see—and feel—stuff that’s not real. I’ve seen crowds panic for no reason except that one person did. Maybe between essence and the Taint and mass hysteria, these Dead folks aren’t really there.”
“Murdock, I saw you pulled into the air. You experienced it independently of me. How can we both hallucinate the same phenomenon that neither of us ever experienced before?”
He scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know.”
“I’m no psychologist, but maybe you’re having some kind of denial reaction to what happened. Maybe you should talk to someone.”
He frowned. “I know what happened, Connor. I don’t need a shrink.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve seen you do when it comes to the fey, Leo, it’s keep an open mind. This isn’t like you.”
He rubbed his hands against his thighs. “Maybe one Murdock mind is closing and another one is opening.”
“I have no idea what that means,” I said.
“My father is sleeping with Moira Cashel,” he said.
I blinked several times. “Um . . . did hell just freeze over?” He shook his head. “Murdock, I do not believe your father is sleeping with a powerful druidess. He hates the fey.”
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