Unshapely Things cg-1

by Mark Del Franco

  "Because I would have sensed his essence."

  Murdock pulled in front of my building. He put the car in park and turned to me. "How do you know you didn't?"

  I looked at him in confusion for a moment, but he just sat patiently staring back.

  "Connor, you said you get a funny vibe from him. Your words."

  I still didn't say anything.

  "And the killer has a weird essence you've never encountered before…"

  I fell back against the seat. "Ha!" I said.

  "Thank you," said Murdock.

  "Let me think a minute." I didn't know if it were possible. Shay definitely had a strong essence, but he was also definitely human. He obviously had a lot of fey paraphernalia in his apartment. I suppose it was possible he had stumbled on something that could alter his essence and even give him strength out of proportion to his actual ability. It would have to be something pretty potent. I doubted a human could sustain it.

  "Why kill Robin?" I asked.

  "Maybe he found out," Murdock suggested.

  "Even if it's him-and that's a big 'if-what's the motive?"

  Murdock shrugged. "Revenge? Jealousy? Thrill? Pick one."

  I let out a sigh. "It's a stretch, but at this point, I won't discount it. I'm so exhausted, I can't think anymore, Murdock." I got out of the car.

  "You look like hell." He smiled and drove off. I love his social skills.

  I lifted my face to a sky white with haze. Already I could feel dense humidity descending. I needed a shower and my bed. I could feel weariness in every bone of my body. I yawned deeply as I let the elevator slowly pull me up through the building.

  Maybe Briallen was right. Maybe I was taking it all too personally. Robin in all likelihood would have ended up dead one way or the other. And Tansy was too naive to stay away from the wrong elements. As I let myself into me apartment, I thought maybe things might not have turned out differently. And I also thought that maybe, just maybe, Briallen was wrong.

  CHAPTER 10

  I've always been fascinated that when I wake up wearing the same clothes from the previous night, they smell a lot worse than I thought they did when I went to bed. Of course, managing to sleep over fifteen hours before waking at four in the morning doesn't help either. I couldn't stand my own stench, so I hauled myself out of a nest of sheets and took a shower. Dried sweat and not a little blood sloughed off like a layer of dead skin. When I came out of the bathroom, I was too awake to go back to bed. I made myself some coffee, slipped on a pair of shorts, and went up to the roof.

  Even though I was practically naked and it was still technically nighttime, the air felt hot on my skin. The humidity of the previous day had never fully dissipated, promising an even muggier day to come. I settled into the lawn chair and sipped from my mug. Regardless of the temperature, I always drink my coffee. A day with no caffeine is like a day with no meaning whatsoever.

  Across the channel, a muddy haze hung around the docks like a dirty skirt. Lighted windows dotted the office towers where no one would be working for hours to come, empty offices vibrating with stillness. The taillights of cabs silently slipped in and out of sight on mysterious nightly errands. The only sounds were the hollow white noise of the city and the occasional siren off in the distance. After the bars have closed and even the drunks have made it home, the city still rustles like an insomniac. Complete rest hovers just out of reach until dawn arrives, then there's no time left. The city doesn't sleep, but it dreams. It dreams of regrets and promises.

  I felt that way too damned much of the time. Ever since my accident, I'd been poised between future hope and past glory. I hated it, hated the unknown state in which I found myself. If I could never regain my abilities, what would I become? Briallen's words kept cycling through my head. What did it mean to be a body without talent? I know she meant that there's no such thing, but that didn't really answer the question.

  For the longest time, I'd beaten myself up over my arrogance. How I didn't appreciate what I had until I lost it. How I'd looked down on everyone else who couldn't compete with me. But now I needed to get past the self-flagellation. I had to find my way back to the path, and the only way to do that was to act. Otherwise, I'd end up with nothing better to do but collect disability checks and sit half-naked sipping coffee in the middle of the night.

  As me sky began to lighten, I sat in front of the computer. Methodically, I recorded everything that had occurred in the past forty-eight hours. It was the longest single entry in the file. Nothing is harder for an investigator than to become part of his own case. Even though Briallen and Murdock came at me from different angles, they had made the same point: Don't make it personal. It was hard not to. They were right, but it was hard.

  The first thing I did was to retire the Tuesday Killer moniker. It had forced me into a mind-set that left me unprepared for what had happened. I had forgotten that Occam's razor is a process, not a solution. By focusing on the obvious weekly cycle, it never occurred to me to look for something else. A cheap bank calendar would have spelled out the phases of the moon for me had I bothered to look.

  I had the urge to toss all my analysis for fear that I had constrained myself too much. After Murdock's comment in the car, the whole ska thing was starting to bother me. Did Tansy, with her limited vocabulary, have only a word for wrong birth to describe the nasty essence she felt, or was she on the money? Was I congratulating myself a little too much for connecting the cross-species cases in Gillen's files? Avalon Memorial was the only fey hospital in the Northeast outside of New York. It would have been unusual if I hadn't found any. On top of that, I'd only found the connection by following other links. Computer search engines are notorious for linking completely disparate information because they're set up by people who don't think exactly like you do. I was surprised some pornography hadn't popped up. It usually does, no matter what gets searched.

  I called up Murdock's notes on Shay. As far as I could tell, he was born of human parents. The only people from Faerie to appear after Convergence were fey — always some type of druid, fairy, elf, or dwarf — never a normal human without so-called fantastic abilities. According to the stories, humans certainly played a part in Faerie, but they didn't seem to come through in the unexplained merging of the two worlds. Without a distinct connection to Faerie, I could not see how to link Shay into the killer's profile.

  It came down to essence. Essence is like an energy that can be manipulated in different ways. That's one of the things that make the fey races vary from each other. Druids actually join their personal essence to whatever other essence they're working with. It's why we're very good at it, but also why we get tired. Fairies don't have to do that. They can literally pluck essence out of anything with no depletion of their own essence, unless they want to use it. It makes them very powerful, but the trade-off is a lower level of skill in use. And elves manipulate essence only through chanting. They didn't seem to have any direct control of any essence except their own, which they use only in dire circumstances. Humans can activate essence, but only if someone fey has set things up for them. Someone like Shay couldn't do it on his own.

  I jumped as my answering machine beeped loudly to indicate it was full. I had turned off the volume and the ringer before passing out the day before. I raised the volume in time to hear Murdock say, "You idiot." He disconnected. I hit playback. The first message was from Murdock telling me he was sending a case file update via email. The next four were also Murdock, all with the same message to call. The last one was the one that had just come in. An annoyed Murdock said, "Call me. Your cell phone's dead, you idiot."

  I called, and he picked up immediately.

  "The Guild took the case," he said. Good old Murdock, right to the point. I felt like I'd been sucker-punched. "The last victim's father kicked up a stink. I told you he was someone big in New York. I don't think macDuin had a choice."

  "That's too easy. MacDuin knows something. I think he's wanted this buried all along
," I said.

  "Well, it's his case now," said Murdock. "Wrap up your notes and email them to me. I have to turn everything over to the Guildhouse this afternoon."

  I could hear in his voice that he was already thinking of something else. "That's it? You're just going to let it go?"

  Murdock chuckled dryly. "Welcome to the Boston P.D., Connor. Once the Guild asserts its right, we're out of it. You probably did it to us a couple of times yourself."

  He was right. The rules of the game proscribed it. If a crime were fey-related, the Guild could take the case without question. I'd been pissing and moaning that the Guild took only cases it had a political benefit in taking, and they had just proved my point. "Come by for dinner on Sunday," Murdock said into the silence.

  "I'll think about it." Personally, I still didn't think the commissioner wanted to see me at his table. I put the phone back on the cradle and stared out the window. Daylight had returned the city to its waking state. Traffic backed up along the elevated highway; planes took off and landed; and people moved lethargically along the streets in the heat. The Guild had taken the case, and the world hadn't ended. I was mildly surprised.

  In the past, I would have taken the opportunity to sweep the desktop clear, perhaps throw a book or two or knock a hole in the wall. After a while though, it began to sink in that I didn't have a maid anymore and would have to clean the mess up myself. Instead, I gripped the edge of my desk and counted to ten. It's not as satisfying, but it is tidier.

  MacDuin probably was forced to take the case officially if the last victim's father had any pull. That much I could believe. I just had no faith the other victims would have any justice. They were important to no one but themselves and maybe a small circle of friends. All macDuin had to do was find the killer, or at least set up another sucker and connect him to the last case, and that would be the end of it. The Guild would focus on the one case and nothing else would matter. The denizens of the Weird wouldn't matter. And whatever macDuin was trying to pull with the fake perpetrator would get buried.

  I checked my records to see which files hadn't been sent to Murdock yet, then checked them again. While I didn't particularly like helping macDuin, I hated not finishing a job more. I dropped everything into an e-mail and sent it off. No sense causing Murdock grief by not closing up the files.

  I wandered about the apartment at loose ends, with nothing to do unless Murdock came up with another case. It was an odd feeling — hoping something bad would happen to someone so that you could get work. Frustration gnawed at me. As a general rule, when all else fails, sublimate. Grabbing a sponge, I cleaned the kitchen and bathroom to occupy my mind. As I tossed the remnants of Chinese takeout from the fridge, I jostled the box of glow bees. I decided to warm one up and send it to Stinkwort. I could at least let off steam by yelling at him for his bad behavior at Briallen's. I didn't know how long it would take for him to get the message.

  As I found myself crouched on the floor hunting dust bunnies from under the couch, I sat back on my haunches. "Okay, this is getting out of hand," I said aloud. I could care less if there were dust bunnies under my couch. I wiped my hands, grabbed my keys, and left the building. I couldn't let it go. I had to go to the Guildhouse and find out what macDuin was up to.

  While I liked living in the Weird, its one drawback was inconvenient public transportation. Nothing goes anywhere in the middle of the day except downtown, then you have to make a connection to get anywhere else. For a small city, it can take way too long to get to where you're going. More often than not, it's easier to walk. I got lucky and caught the number seven bus on Congress Street, which got me to the Orange Line station in fifteen minutes. As I stood at Downtown Crossing, I opted to walk up Washington Street the rest of the way instead of taking the sweltering subway.

  Washington Street used to run right through the old Combat Zone, some urban planner's brilliant idea of a legal human sewer. Now the area consisted of boarded-up buildings and the occasional social service office. Prostitutes still prowled the area at night, which infuriated the residents of nearby Chinatown. Their only consolation was that one of the remaining theaters ran decent chop-socky movies. The other two theaters still catered to the raincoat crowd. During the day the businessmen from the Financial District spent their lunch hours looking for a quick thrill in the peep booths while trying not to soil their suits. It was like the Weird, only for humans. It was an entertaining walk if you didn't think about it too much.

  I turned toward Park Square and paused at the corner of Charles Street The noonday traffic flowed briskly past me. Even with my sunglasses on, the bright sunlight felt like knives in my eyes. All the sleep I had gotten helped, but I still felt like I'd been run over by a truck. I couldn't imagine how I would have felt if Briallen hadn't propped me up a little.

  Across the way, the Park Plaza Hotel retained the air of an old Brahmin stronghold, with its prim cornice and orderly tan blocks of hewn granite. Like so many city buildings situated at the intersection of six or seven streets, it pointed into the square like a ship coming into port. As the traffic slowed for the light, I craned my head up at the building next to me.

  The Guildhouse looked like anything but an old Boston building. Slab upon slab of Portland brownstone towered up haphazardly into crenellated towers that reached heights unheard of back in Faerie. A little fey ability and modern structural engineering knowledge will do that to an architect. Gargoyles perched on every conceivable surface. They weren't part of the original design, but had accumulated over the years, attracted by the levels of power emanating from the building.

  I made my way to the arched main entry facing the square. The sharp end of a portcullis hung suspended over the huge glass doors. I didn't know if it was operational or just kitsch. Directly over the main doors, a stone dragon's head jutted out, its mouth agape, long sinuous tongue curling over needlelike teeth. Unlike the other gargoyles, the dragon was part of the original design of the building but never seemed to attract a resident spirit. Too stressful a position, I guessed.

  I felt a flutter across my mind, like a cool dry puff of wind. The feeling was familiar but one I hadn't experienced in a long time. It came again, followed by a sound like stone grating against sand. You return, whispered the dull dry voice in my head. I leaned back, scanning the upper vault of the entry way. Hundreds of gargoyles clustered in the recesses of the arcli- demons, animals, reptiles, and the occasional human joke all staring back at me.

  Here, said the voice. I stepped back from the building and examined the pillars near the front. After a moment, I spotted him — a squat little man, no bigger than a house cat, nestled in among the acanthus leaves of a capital. He was chubby, naked, and enormously endowed for his size. A single eye stared out from the center of his forehead, right under a small spiraled horn, and his ash gray face bore a noncommittal expression. As gargoyles went, he was a nice guy.

  I relaxed my mind and thought, Hello, Virgil. It wasn't quite a sending. You didn't so much send your thoughts to gargoyles. They just listened if they chose to. Virgil was an old friend of sorts. At one time, he sat on the ledge outside my office window in the Guildhouse. The first time he spoke to me, I was rereading Dante, hence the name. I have no idea what his real name is or even if he has one. I was surprised to find him in such a conspicuous place.

  Have waited, he said.

  For me? I asked.

  Yes.

  Gargoyles are the damnedest things. They come from their own tradition out of Europe, but you can find them most anywhere. It's not clear if the animated ones became animated post-Convergence, but they definitely went on the move at about the same time. They love Guildhouses especially. The first Guildhouse in New York collapsed from their weight, so later Guildhouses were all built with the eventuality of a couple tons of stones sitting on them.

  They almost never speak. I don't know if all of them can, but the ones that do, do so rarely. They move only at night, very slowly unless under extreme duress,
and never when anyone is watching. I once monitored the progress of a winged frog from my window ledge to the floor below. It took him a month and a half. He stayed there a day or two, then disappeared. I still don't know why.

  Can I help you with something? I asked. I couldn't imagine how I could help a spirit-inhabited lump of stone that had been around for centuries. Gargoyles didn't need a lot of taking care of. A dry, rasping sound answered me, which I think might have been laughter.

  Not your moon, Virgil said.

  I don't understand, I thought.

  Do not know. Will.

  Will? Do you mean you will or I will? I thought as loudly as I could. Even though none moved, I felt the attention of several other gargoyles. Virgil didn't respond. I stood patiently, waiting for him to say more, but he just stared resolutely down at me. When it became clear he wasn't going to speak again, I nodded courteously. Thank you.

  A cold knot formed in my stomach. Had I leaped to yet another wrong conclusion? Was the lunar cycle yet another too-convenient theory? I had never quite figured out why Virgil spoke to me at all and whether it was supposed to help. His words only made sense after the fact and usually referred to something incredibly obvious I had missed. I knew I would end up kicking myself when I finally understood.

  For the first time in almost a year, I walked into the Guildhouse. The vaulted marble foyer rose two stories, lit by wall sconces resembling torches. A tour group huddled to one side while their guide pointed out the nondescript space. The Guildhouse is a working building, not a museum, but that doesn't stop people from wondering what it looks like. They don't get any farther than the foyer most of the time unless they're lucky.

  To the left of the entrance, a long curving line of fey and humans waited, their faces in various stages of desperation or fear or hope. I used to call them supplicants. Some were looking for lost loved ones, others had a grievance against a iey, and still others had nowhere else to turn for help in whatever dire circumstances they found themselves. They came every day to wait in line to fill out audience requests that were rarely granted. What most people don't realize is that they have better odds of getting into Harvard than getting an appointment with a Guild member. When I bothered to notice them before, they annoyed me. I was like everyone else who worked upstairs; I couldn't care less if it didn't help my career. Now I just saw them as people who could probably use some help.