Unperfect Souls

by Mark Del Franco

  I tweaked her nose. “Oh, you’re in fine form tonight.”

  She giggled and tilted the bag toward me. “I’m getting bored. We’ve been trapped in here all day. Anything from Murdock?”

  I took a handful of popcorn. “Not since the text.” Just one word: Thanks. He probably didn’t intend it, but I had been worrying over that one word all day. Thanks for what? Letting him mourn his father? Telling him what happened? Or was it sarcastic, implying I said things he didn’t need to hear last night? Was it because I called him a cab? He wasn’t one for long, drawn-out explanations, and I was. The difference made us question ourselves. I think.

  “You know Murdock. Man of few words,” Meryl said.

  Man of few words, indeed. I never thought I’d see Murdock like I did the night before—lost and confused. He always kept control of his emotions—even his anger, which could be formidable. To see him so helpless and riddled with guilt hurt me because none of it would have happened if he had never met me. He would have never had a case that involved Vize. It always came back to Vize.

  “Can you ask Zev where Vize is?” I asked.

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Where the hell did that come from?”

  I shrugged. “Because Zev knows. The night Murdock disappeared, Zev wouldn’t tell me, and I could tell damned well he knew where to find the Hound. I think when Sekka died, Zev took over hiding Vize, and the only other person present when she died was the Hound. Vize is the Hound. That’s why Zev wouldn’t tell me.”

  “But you told me the Hound was one of the Dead,” she said.

  I nodded. “I also told you he had something funky going on with his essence. I’m betting he’s wearing a glamour.”

  Meryl considered the idea, then I felt the flutter of a sending in the air. A moment later, I felt another. “Zev said he’s busy,” she said.

  I snorted and ate some popcorn. “That tells me I’m right. I’ll be talking to Zev again.”

  In addition to all the troubles in the Weird, film crews had descended on the neighborhood, using the commissioner’s death as a prism to view the conflicts he was involved in. By midafternoon, a contingent of solitaries rejoicing at the commissioner’s death had managed to alienate the general public. I supposed their position was inevitable. Bad timing, to say nothing of poor taste, but inevitable. Solitaries in the Weird had suffered under the commissioner’s leadership of the police force. But they did themselves no favors by dancing in the streets over his death.

  When the governor called in the National Guard, the situation had gone national. CNN fed live images of tanks and trucks stationed at the Fort Point Channel bridges at Summer, Congress, and Old Northern. The mayor and governor assured everyone they were precautions and would enter the neighborhood only if the situation deteriorated.

  I reached for more popcorn and paused. Meryl was wearing an old sloppy sweater of mine with an open neck. A purple spot in her cleavage showed above the collar. I pulled her sweater down a few inches. Near the bottom of her right breast, a red circle of teeth marks showed against purple-and-blue bruising. “Did I do that?”

  Meryl tucked her chin and looked down. “Well, I’m not that limber.”

  I slumped against the wall. “Hell, Meryl, I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve had worse. It’s a little out of character for you, though.”

  I was horny as hell when I got back to my apartment and found her sleeping in it. When she woke up, we went at it like rabid cats on a hot summer night. At least, I did. The need was . . . I didn’t want to finish the thought. Something in my brain had clicked off. It hadn’t mattered who was in my bed. A need consumed me, and I wanted release.

  Meryl adjusted her sweater and ate some popcorn. My stomach clenched. “Did I go over the line?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “You would have known that last night, if you had. I’m making an observation, not an accusation. Trust me, if I hadn’t been having fun, you’d be in the hospital.”

  I closed my eyes and dropped my head on her shoulder. “Something dark’s inside me,” I said.

  “Something dark’s inside all of us, Grey. It’s only a problem if we let it too far out,” she said.

  “What happens then?”

  She pushed popcorn in my mouth. “No one shares popcorn with you, except maybe a big burly guy named Bubba. If you’re lucky, he’ll like butter.”

  I twisted my neck to look up at her. “You have a knack for being flip and comforting at the same time, you know that?”

  She grinned. “It’s not a knack; it’s a talent.”

  I rolled up from the futon and opened the fridge. One benefit of having a small apartment is being able to reach for beer practically from bed. “We’re low on Guinness. Do you want to make a packie run?”

  “Whoa! Check this out,” Meryl said.

  The local news station had jumped to their helicopter camera. Black smoke billowed from a building on the far end of the Weird. The helicopter hovered, moving in a slow arc to keep upwind from the pall. Thick flames reflected from beneath, coloring the snow-covered streets a lurid orange.

  I handed her a beer. “That’s Tide Street.”

  She took a swig. “Yeah, tomorrow’s Herald is gonna read, ‘Hel Burns.’ ”

  As I sat on the bed, a sending hit me so hard, it gave me a sharp pain. Get out of the apartment now. They’re coming for you.

  “Did you get a sending just now?” I asked. Meryl shook her head. “Someone warned me to get out of the apartment.”

  “Who?” Meryl asked.

  Sendings usually have personality signatures on them, telltale touches of essence from the person who sent them. “I don’t know. It was stripped. Someone doesn’t want to be known.”

  “Do you trust it?” she asked.

  I drank some beer. “It was pretty strong. People don’t waste that much essence for a sending.” I paced along the foot of the futon. I glanced at the smoke on the TV screen. “I don’t like that it came as soon as that happened.”

  Meryl slipped to the edge of the futon and leaned down for her boots. “So, let’s go watch the fire. Can’t hurt.”

  I wandered into the study and pulled on a heavy black wool sweater and a knit cap. My boots were under the desk. When I leaned in to drag them out, I heard a deep rumble, and the lights went out. “Should I be freaked out by this?” I called out.

  “Give me a sec,” Meryl called back. I carried the boots into the living room. Meryl was mostly dressed for outside, but she paused, hand palm up, with a ball of blue light filling the room. Her eyes shifted back and forth as the soft flutters of sendings tickled my senses. Her eyebrows shot up. “Wow. The power plant blew up.”

  The old Boston Edison plant overlooked the Reserve Channel, not far beyond where the fire on Tide Street was. It serviced the general area, straddling the Weird and Southie. “Who’d you ask?”

  She released the ball of light in order to pull her boots on. “No one. A bunch of people sent.”

  I retrieved my daggers from the head of the futon and slipped them into my boots. With everything going on outside, being unarmed was not the way to go. Meryl pulled her cloak around her. “You know, sane people don’t go for walks after a curfew when the neighborhood is blowing up,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, sane people don’t get warnings to get out of their apartments because someone’s coming for them either,” I said.

  A ripple went through the air, and my ears popped at a sudden release of essence. Meryl pursed her lips. “Um . . . your security wards just died.”

  I nodded, scanning the apartment with my sensing ability. “All of them. All at once. Let’s go.”

  As I opened the apartment door, glass shattered behind us. Meryl whirled, a wall of essence flaring out of her. The yellow barrier slammed against a Danann fairy climbing in the window and knocked him outside. The sound of running echoed in the stairwell. I leaned over the stair railing, then ducked back into the apartment. “We’ve got armed br
ownies coming up.”

  Meryl held her hands out to either side as she powered a barrier on the broken living-room window and pumped essence into the window wards in the study. “I’m getting Danann hits on the roof. What the hell is going on?”

  Basement. Elevator shaft. Now.

  “I just got hit with another sending,” I said. I rushed back out to the hall. Whoever did the sending was accurate. I didn’t have an elevator. I had a shaft. Far below, flashlight beams swept in wild patterns through the cage of the shaft as the brownies ran up. I pulled open the metal gate. The elevator car was in the basement. “Get out of there, Meryl!” I called.

  She was at my side in an instant and surveyed the cables in the open shaft. “You’re kidding.”

  I held out my hand. “Time’s wasting.”

  “Hold on.” She ran back into the apartment and returned with a pair of canvas gloves. “I saw these on the counter. They’ll protect your hands some.”

  “Thanks.” I pulled on the gloves.

  Meryl hugged me from behind, one arm over my left shoulder, the other under my right arm. Her body shield flared around us. “Go!”

  I jumped and grabbed the nearest cable. Momentum carried our weight across the shaft. “I’m sliding,” I said.

  “I thought that was the plan,” Meryl said to the back of my head.

  I relaxed my grip, and we started down. Meryl chanted behind me, and a thick mist billowed around us as she created a druid fog. The flashlight beams of the brownies drew closer. The brownies shouted as the fog obscured their vision. The gloves were coming off, and I grabbed the cable tighter. We jerked to a stop, my shoulders threatening to dislocate. We hung in the fog as a half dozen brownies on the stairs circled obliviously around us. I settled my hands deeper into the gloves when they passed and let go again. We spiraled around the cable the last three floors and hit the top of the elevator. Meryl’s body shield bounced us off the mechanics of the lift, and we rolled apart. The hatch on the elevator popped open. Meryl thrust essence-charged hands at the opening.

  “Hurry up before they realize you’re gone,” a deep voice said.

  Through the elevator hatch, a dwarf I didn’t know stared up at us. I gave Meryl a shrug and jumped. I landed on my feet and held my hands up to break Meryl’s fall. I didn’t need to. She grabbed the edge of the opening and swung herself through, landing with a lot more grace than I had.

  “This way,” said the dwarf. He darted out of the propped-open gate, and we followed him through a twisting basement corridor. Another dwarf stood at a door, gesturing us in. We ran through to a sizable room with several couches arranged around a wide shallow bronze vessel of water. A scrying pool. Someone slammed the door shut. “I thought you guys moved,” I said.

  “That’s what everyone was supposed to think,” the first dwarf said. He joined his partner in pushing a large bookcase out of the way to expose a short, finished opening in the wall. “Through here. Don’t stop until you get to the car.”

  “Whoa, whoa. Who the hell are you people?’ I asked.

  The dwarf threw me an annoyed look. “Does this look like a party? Everything you need to know is in the car. Get moving.”

  We moved toward the opening, but the dwarf held his hand in front of Meryl. “She can’t go.”

  I glared at him. “What the hell? I’m not leaving her here.”

  “No, go ahead,” Meryl said.

  “What!”

  She nodded. “No, really. I’ll be fine. I’ll scrub your essence trail and slow them down.”

  “No,” I said.

  She turned back to the door. “Just go, Grey. They’re not after me. You’re going to screw up whoever did this for you. Move!”

  I hesitated. The dwarf sighed heavily and pushed me. I fell through the opening, and someone grabbed my arm. I looked back at Meryl’s retreating figure. “Get Joe for me, Meryl!”

  The bookcase slid back in place. I jerked my arm away. A flashlight clicked on. In the backwash of light, another dwarf smiled at me. “Hey, Grey. Fancy meeting you here.”

  Banjo turned and walked away. “Will you please tell me what’s going on? Is this Moke’s doing?” I asked.

  Banjo and Moke had helped me out of a tight spot a few weeks earlier. Moke’s troll essence was still bonded to me from the experience. “No, he’s taking care of one of the bridges. This is just a side job I picked up from an old friend,” Banjo said over his shoulder.

  He led the way in the dark through some kind of rough tunnel. My sense of direction told me we were somewhere behind my building under the street. “Side job for who?” I asked.

  “Whom,” Banjo said. We passed through another opening into a dark basement. “You don’t need to know. Keeps things safer that way.”

  “Did you foresee this?” I asked.

  Banjo was one of the best seers in the Boston, or at least claimed to be. Dwarves were damned good at scrying. “Parts of it,” he said. He pointed to a door. “That’s the exit. Car’s waiting.”

  I gave up. My experience with Banjo was that if I didn’t pay for his predictions, I wasn’t going to get them. I opened the door. “Thanks. Tell Moke I said hi.”

  “He’ll be flattered, I’m sure. Mind your—” I stumbled in a pothole but kept my feet. Banjo shrugged. “Step.” He closed the door.

  I was in the alley behind the building next to mine. A black car with diplomatic plates idled in the lane. The rear door opened on the passenger side.

  “You arrived faster than I anticipated,” Eorla said.

  35

  “The early warning you sent helped,” I said, as the driver gunned it up the alley.

  Eorla tilted her head. “I sent no warning.”

  I shook my head in exasperation. “Great. Whatever. What the hell is going on?”

  Eorla glanced out the window as we crossed Old Northern Avenue. Fire lit the night sky in several places. “The Guild either overplayed or underplayed its hand. I haven’t decided.”

  “The Guild? That’s the Guild in my apartment building?”

  She nodded. “Of course. Didn’t your security system fail? Who else has the knowledge and ability to do that?”

  “Is this because of what happened at Eagan’s?”

  Eorla placed a delicate hand on my thigh. “Bastian told you before that happened that the Guild was working through legal channels to arrest you. With the unrest caused by the commissioner’s death, they panicked that they might lose you.”

  We slowed as we turned onto Congress Street. Brownie security guards were marching on a group of elves in the street after curfew. Eorla pursed her lips as she assessed the scene. “Overplayed, I think. They started something with these people and have lost control.”

  “Eorla, I do not have any idea what you are talking about,” I said.

  She shifted on the seat. “The Guild was using the Dead to flush out Bergin Vize. The solitaries were hiding him at the power plant.”

  “Danu’s blood, Eorla. Are you saying the Guild blew up the power plant?”

  She nodded. “There was an emergency evacuation of the human staff a short time ago. It was an excuse to clear the building, of course. That’s when I knew the Guild was moving. They were hoping to capture both of you in the confusion.”

  “So, the Consortium is kidnapping me instead,” I said.

  Eorla turned to me with amused insult. “The Consortium has no idea I’m here. I’m helping you move across the board, Connor. You are free to get out of this car anytime you please, but do remember you are free to do that because I made it possible.”

  Bemused, I shook my head. “Why are you doing this?”

  She shrugged. “For the same reason I investigated the Taint. Maeve and Donor are playing a far more dangerous game than I think any of us understand. I truly believe keeping their power in equilibrium is the only thing keeping us all safe.”

  “So Maeve gets Vize, and I go on the run from her and the Elven King,” I said.

  Eorla chuc
kled. “You know better than that, Connor. You tried to capture Bergin for years. I doubt Ryan macGoren can. No, it would not surprise me at all if Bergin is sitting in another car somewhere nearby having this same conversation with someone equally interested in the game.”

  On Summer Street, the car rocked as people crowded near it. Eorla leaned forward. People filled the street between the concrete barriers on one side and buildings on the other. The car slowed to a crawl. A block ahead, tanks lined the Summer Street bridge as searchlights arced through the sky above them.

  “Rand, please send ahead to the checkpoint and see if they can clear a path for us.” She leaned back with a sigh. “You need legal help, Connor. Unless you have truly important allies in the Seelie Court, you should consider Bastian’s offer.”

  “You knew about that?” I asked.

  “I know more about what Bastian knows than he will ever realize. His major flaw is a chronic habit of underestimating me,” she said.

  “He’s an idiot,” I said.

  She laughed. “Yes, I’ve told him so, many times. Do you feel that?”

  A faint vibration trembled through the car, a sensation like a large truck or a train passing by. “We’re nowhere near a subway line,” I said.

  On the bridge, National Guardsmen ran for a wall of sandbags on the Weird side of the channel. Danann security agents hovered over the command post on the downtown end of the bridge. The vibration increased to a rumble. The crowd shifted direction as nervous people sidetracked into the nearby alley. The solitaries who had been making their way to the bridge turned and began to run.

  “Your orders, ma’am?” Rand said.

  Eorla watched with confused interest as people streamed by. “This might be happening to get us through. Let’s see if they clear the way.”

  The car rocked on its suspension and a fracture appeared in the road. Rand backed away, turning the car amid a sea of people. The car bounced as another large rumble filled the air. With a loud snap, the edge of the bridge shifted on its supports. My teeth rattled as the shaking increased. With a roaring rumble, the bridge buckled, chunks of concrete and stone bursting into the air. Soldiers scrambled as tanks slid off the crumbling pavement. With a slow shudder, the bridge collapsed into the river. Essence shimmered over us like a wave front.