Unperfect Souls

by Mark Del Franco

  The floor felt as if it shifted under me, as the reality of what she said sank in. “Holy shit,” I whispered.

  “You bitch,” the commissioner said. A gun appeared in his hand before anyone registered his movement. Tibbet came forward as I yanked Moira back. Eagan shouted.

  The gun went off.

  The flash blinded me. The crackle of essence-fire burned in the air. Something slammed into my face, a searing hot blow beneath my right eye. Pain lanced through my head, then a wash of cold ran down my body. My knees collapsed. Fluid filled my throat as I fell. I coughed a spray of blood into the air. I tried to inhale but choked as more blood entered my lungs. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t breathe. My vision blurred. The room spun in a smear of color andeverything

  went

  white

  29

  White.

  Sound stopped. The music. The shouting. Gone.

  Whiteness filled my vision with nothing to break the relentlessness of it. I coughed, feeling blood in my throat, hot blood welling out of my mouth and down my face. Blood ran into my ears, across my chin, down my neck.

  Above me, the white simply was, as if the air itself was color. Or no color. As if nothing else existed except the white. I lay on the ground, if there was ground, on something. The firmness of it pressed against the back of my head, but nowhere else. My head rolled to one side of its own accord, blood pouring out of my mouth. I wanted to sit up, to stand, to reach up and touch my face, but my body did not respond. Numb. I was numb. Paralyzed. Gods, I can’t move myself.

  Everything was white. I have been here before. This is where it started. Or ended. I don’t remember which.

  Everything around me is white. I lie on my back, staring into a nothingness of white. I am here again. This place. Above me, I see two vast shadow shapes. Powerful shapes speaking with words I do not understand. They move closer.

  Bursts of color flare in my vision, fireworks against the white, fading to darkness. More, then more, the darkness closing on me, like the slow closing of my eyes. My mind, like my eyes, closing, like my eyes blinking. Like my mind blinking.

  My mind blinked.

  I jerked my head up, feeling like I had passed out. People surrounded me, staring at me. Some I recognized, and some I didn’t. Their faces held a multitude of expressions—fear and horror and sadness. Then the screams began.

  My mind blinked.

  Dylan swims up into my sight again. My head hurts with a ringing as loud as a clock tower. I hold my hands to either side of the knife, not touching it. Blood blossoms on his shirt, deep red blood against a deep red shirt. He doesn’t move. He stares at me and stares at me and stares at me. Terror in . . .

  My mind blinked.

  They move closer and resolve into people. A man, yes, a man and woman. Their vast shadow shapes are a wash of gray against the white. Huge and tall, he’s taller, but she . . . she is . . .

  My mind blinked.

  Briallen looks at me in surprise, glowing in the white, a golden Briallen in a sea of white. She lifts her hands, something in her hands is moving, swaying with essence in a rainbow of color.

  My mind blinked.

  Briallen looks at me in surprise and rushes toward me as I lean over Dylan.

  “Tell me what to do.” I hear myself. I hear myself and I hear fear.

  My mind blinked.

  I stand on a plain, white grass waving against a white sky. It’s not winter, pray, what is this new madness? Where have I come? I turn in place, searching, searching across the plain, searching about the standing stones, but Maeve is not there. Was she? What is this place?

  My mind blinked.

  . . . the one who leads. He follows, reluctant in his step. The blood fills my mouth, burns in my chest, and I cannot breathe anymore. I try not to breathe. I do not want any more blood in my lungs. Try not to.

  They stand over me, huge figures, white on white, then faint wisps of essence coursing over them in pale, pale color. He looks at me with a storm in his eyes, and she . . . she is beautiful. She leans down, leans a long way down, her hand outstretched, reaching down. She touches my chest and the pain . . . stops.

  “What are you doing, Mother?” he asks.

  She straightens up, so far up and away, her face a light of glory. She stops. Everything stops. I stop. Everything . . .

  My mind blinked.

  Vize is running. Everything is white. I am running. Everything is white. He looks over his shoulder at me. He looks determined . . . or crazed . . . I can’t tell. Everything is white. One minute we were facing each other, and now everything is white. He stops. He looks surprised. There is someone lying on the ground. Something about him is familiar. Everything is white and there is no ground. There is someone lying in the white. Everything . . .

  My mind blinked.

  “I can’t do this, Briallen,” I shout.

  Briallen kneels by me. Something is not right. Or different. She doesn’t look right. She reaches out but stops.

  “You must. I can’t,” she says.

  I close my eyes and see white and something black, far, far away. Black like a seed in the white. Briallen sings and then she screams and then I know what to do.

  My mind blinked.

  My mind blinked.

  My mind blinked.

  . . . stops. Everything stops. Even me.

  “Thinking,” she says.

  “You interfere with the Wheel of the World,” he says.

  “I am the Wheel of the World. So are you. So is he. So are we all. The all of it is one,” she says.

  He leans toward me, ranks of hair cascading down, wild and wind-wet. “He seems familiar to me.”

  The light of her face moves with her nod. “He is and was and will be.”

  He withdraws, a slow receding of immensity, but I can see his face. “I know what you are thinking,” he says to her.

  “Tell me, then. I do not know,” she says.

  He laughs, something deep, a rumble from the deep that sounds like time.

  My mind blinked.

  Vize looks feverish. “It must happen this way. You must let it happen.”

  “I won’t let you,” I say.

  He looks frightened yet determined as I reach toward him.

  He recedes.

  My mind blinks.

  “He’s dying. That is the Way of the Wheel,” he says.

  “I am here. That is the Way as well,” she says.

  He laughs again. “Yes,” he says.

  “Yes,” she says.

  My mind blinks.

  My hand reaches out for the staff.

  My mind blinks.

  My hand reaches out for the knife.

  My mind blinks.

  My hand reaches out for the ring.

  My mind blinks.

  My hand reaches out . . .

  My mind blinks.

  She extends her hand again, down, down, down, it comes, glowing with light, with essence, with her. My hand reaches out for her hand. We touch. Sensation returns. I scream andeverything

  goes

  white

  30

  I wrenched forward and coughed, spitting blood into my lap. Spots of light flashed across my eyes, red and white and black. Moira gasped, backing away from me in horror. Her hair had come loose on one side. Blood speckled her white wrap, which slipped from her shoulders to the crook of one arm. I wiped at my mouth, and the back of my hand came away covered in blood.

  The commissioner lay facedown at my feet, his arms thrown forward. Beyond him, Tibbet crouched over Eagan where he slumped on the floor against the chair, slack-jawed, chin curled into his shoulder, arms gathered limply in his lap, hands palm up.

  I gathered my feet under me. “What the hell happened?”

  Tibbet rose with tears streaming down her face. She threw herself into my arms. “I thought you were dead.”

  My gut tightened at the sight over her shoulder of the commissioner. Faint wisps of smoke c
urled from his damaged and sunken eyes, a telltale sign of essence shock. Scott Murdock was dead. “Gods, Tibs, did I kill him?”

  She shook her head against my chest. “Manus did it. He won’t wake up, Connor.”

  Eagan’s essence smoldered within him fainter than it had been. He wasn’t dead. “He used whatever he had left, Tibs. He’s alive, though.”

  A pounding on the door sounded. Tibbet lifted her head and grimaced through her tears. I kissed her forehead, leaving a bloody lip print. I blotted it off with my sleeve. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, smoothing her dress as she did so. She opened her eyes, still wet, but clearer and sharper. With an upward tilt of her chin, she approached the door and opened it partway to speak to whoever was on the other side.

  I wiped at my chin, coating my fingers in more blood. Pointlessly, I looked for something to wipe my hand with, then settled on the front of my jacket. The silk was ruined anyway. “Where is all this blood coming from?”

  Moira gathered up her wrap and came closer, lifting the end of the garment to wipe at my face. “Scott shot you in the face.”

  I pushed her hand away, taking hold of the white cloth myself. She let it slip off her arms. I bunched it into a usable rag and wiped at my face and neck. “I think I’d know if I were shot.”

  Moira focused on my face and the movement of my hands, her forehead smoothing in surprise. “You were. That’s part of your jaw on the floor. I would swear you were dead. Do you have some kind of self-healing ability?”

  The bloodstain on the floor did have pieces of something in it. The idea that it was pieces of me seemed inconceivable. I wasn’t wounded. I was covered in blood “Why did you do that to him?”

  Without the slightest remorse, she gazed at the commissioner’s body. “Why did he do it to himself?”

  “You made him believe you were Amy Sullivan.”

  One corner of her mouth turned down. “Murdock, Connor. I was Amy Sullivan Murdock. He believed it because it’s true. I suppose a husband would know his wife before her lover does. He really did put a gun to my head, you know. I wanted him to suffer for that and for taking away my children. This was too easy for him.”

  “Leo went to your funeral,” I said.

  She met my eyes. “You’re a detective. Go investigate. If anyone was in that casket, it wasn’t his mother.”

  “I still don’t believe you.”

  She sighed. “I don’t care, Connor. He had me followed all those years ago. He knew who you were. Your youth saved you then. I’m surprised he didn’t shoot you long before now.”

  A conflicted look passed over her face as she stared down at Scott Murdock. “I did love him then, you know. That surprised me more than anything. He was a strong and attractive man. I knew he hated the fey, but my heart ruled my head, and I didn’t want to lose him. So I said nothing and married him. I never intended any of this to happen, Connor, but I didn’t deserve what he did.”

  I frowned. Her story kept getting better all the time. “If you expect me to say ‘boohoo,’ don’t hold your breath.”

  Tibbet allowed six brownie servants into the room and closed the door again. “Bring him up the back way. I have Dananns guarding the upper floors.”

  They lifted the old man with care, shifting and folding his wings gently around him. Tibbet let them through a door at the back of the room.

  “The police are arriving,” she said.

  Moira went to the door. “I will be tending Manus.”

  “Stop right there, Cashel,” Tibbet said. “I am barring you from his presence. Once you deal with the police, you will be escorted to your rooms to retrieve your possessions. They are being packed as we speak. You are no longer welcome in this house.”

  Moira drew herself up in a classic court hauteur. “The Queen’s Herbalist does not take orders from a servant.”

  Tibbet strode toward her with a predatory grace, her fingers elongating as she edged toward her boggart nature. I followed, ready to pry them apart if necessary. She stopped inches from Moira. “Listen carefully, Cashel. You will leave this house on my orders. Maeve is far away, and I am very, very near. Do not think for one moment you can best me in the house of Manus ap Eagan, underKing.”

  Moira didn’t completely back down, but the truth of what Tibbet said penetrated. “As you wish, then. Maeve will hear of this.”

  Tibbet nodded once sharply. “As will all the underKings and -Queens. Now, go.”

  Moira slipped out the door. Tibbet’s eyes glowed with a fierce yellow light. She touched my face. “Gillen Yor is on his way. Are you okay?”

  I took her hand in both of mine and kissed it. “All I remember is the muzzle flash and a sharp pain, then waking up.”

  She examined my jawline. “It was horrible, Connor. After the commissioner shot you, a bright flash came from your body. When you sat up, I thought I was seeing something I only wished to see.”

  “I’ll let Gillen look me over. Right now, we have an international disaster on our hands,” I said.

  She gave me a crooked smile. “My hands, handsome. It’s my job. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s damage control.”

  “You are good at more than that. You and Manus would not have stayed together all these years otherwise,” I said.

  She smiled more fully. She paused, her eyes shifting as she received a sending, probably several under the circumstances. Her eyes came back to mine. “Leonard Murdock is here and one of his brothers . . . Gerard? . . . Yes, Gerard. I need to be out there.” She moved to the door. “You can stay here tonight. I can protect you from what’s coming for a while.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, as she slipped out into the grand hall.

  I reached down and closed the commissioner’s eyes. His sons didn’t need to see the damage. Guests clustered outside the door, shock and excitement on their faces. The music had stopped long ago. Police officers marched in, Leo and Gerard pushing to the front. My chest ached at the pain on their faces. When they reached me, I held my hand lightly to Murdock’s chest. “He’s on the floor. He was essence-shocked. I don’t think he even knew what hit him.”

  Gerard muscled in front of Leo. “Let me through, dammit.”

  I let them pass and followed another four officers inside. They closed the doors. A strangled sob came from Gerard as he stood with hunched shoulders. Leo knelt on one knee and checked his father for a pulse. He knew what essence shock looked like. His hand fell away slowly, and he stared at his father as the other officers spread around the room. He rose, and Gerard clung to his lapel, shaking it with his fist. Murdock hugged his brother close as he shook with sobs. Our eyes met.

  “You’ve got blood on you,” he said.

  “It’s mine. He . . . I was shot,” I said. It didn’t seem like a good time to tell them their dead father shot me.

  Gerard whirled around. “Who did this?”

  “Manus ap Eagan. He’s in a coma,” I said as neutrally as possible.

  Gerard’s face became redder. “I want to see him. I want to see the bastard. Where is he?”

  I lightly put my arm across his waist as he tried to pass. “Give yourself a minute, Gerry.”

  Leo hugged him from the side, his body shield flickering. I gently squeezed Gerry’s arm, then dropped my hand. Murdock closed his eyes and touched his forehead to his brother’s.

  Paramedics and more police entered. The medical examiner hovered in the background like a carrion crow. I didn’t know the Chestnut Hill police, but they were a lot more professional in a fey situation than I was used to. Maybe because Chestnut Hill had a lot of fey folk—a lot of rich fey folk. One of the officers moved me to a couch on the far side of the room and began to interview me. He asked several times if I were injured, confused by all the blood on me. A paramedic made me take off the jacket, convinced I was in shock and bleeding profusely somewhere. I didn’t blame them. I was uninjured, yet soaked in my own blood.

  The interview was thorough. It hel
ped that I was a druid. Between my inborn talent for instant recall and my understanding of what the police needed to hear, it went quickly under the circumstances. I did not hide the fact that Manus killed the commissioner. There was no need. Eagan’s essence signature saturated the commissioner’s body. When his body arrived at the morgue, Janey Likesmith would have no difficulty registering it. Besides, the Guildmaster was acting in my defense in the confusion of the moment, though why he used so much essence I didn’t understand.

  The real aggressor in the room was dead.

  31

  I waited on the second floor of the Guildmaster’s house. At either end of the hall, Danann security agents guarded the stairs. The Guild and police had locked down the entire property while the local police went through the list of guests and released them one by one. Commissioner Murdock’s body was long since gone. Ryan macGoren had arrived shortly after the first responders, along with the mayor of Boston and the governor of Massachusetts. They spent time behind closed doors in a meeting room downstairs, emerging hours later with grim faces.

  Tibbet came out of Eagan’s bedroom, and we hugged. As a fey, she could count on a resilient physical constitution, but that didn’t prevent deep worry lines from forming around her eyes. She idly rubbed my arm. “I’ve had a room prepared for you upstairs.”

  I adjusted some of her braids away from her forehead. “I’ve been thinking about that, Tibs, and decided I should go home. Eagan had his reasons for keeping a public distance from me. I don’t think he’d want me here. You have enough to deal with anyway without me complicating things.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  A commotion at the top of the main stairs drew our attention. Several police officers—Leo and Gerard among them—were arguing with the Danann agents. I trailed after Tibs as she rushed toward them. Halfway down the flight of stairs, Barnard and Kevin Murdock waited with intent, angry faces. Davis Jones, the Superintendent in Chief and the commissioner’s second-in-command, gestured for the officers to step back as Tibbet approached.