Something hit me hard in the back of the knees, and I fell. As I rolled onto my back, the elf in the shorts grabbed me by the shirt and hit me in the face. The blow glanced off my cheekbone, but still hurt. The other elf was chanting again from a safe distance. As the one who held me hauled his fist back for another blow, I could feel my limbs starting to compress against my sides. Before I lost all mobility, I heaved up and grabbed him in a hug. We fell to the ground together in a tangled knot of arms and legs. I would have laughed if my situation hadn't been so precarious. I had broken the spell by using the puncher as a shield. Whoever the guy in the jeans was, he wasn't adept at spell-casting if he needed a clear line of sight and an isolated target to succeed. Score one for me.
Before short pants could get his bearings, I bit him on the shoulder. No one ever expects a guy to bite. It's dirty fighting, but so's two on one. He made an odd barking sound and wrenched himself away. I scrambled to my feet. The apartment building door was still too far away to make a run for it fully exposed like I was, so I turned toward the spellcaster and ran right at him, my knife held ridiculously out in front of me like a spear. He tried his damnedest to keep chanting this time, but he still didn't get that the knife was just a feint. I didn't want to kill him, just shut him up. He backpedaled away in fear and never noticed my fist making for his throat until the last second. With a pained choking sound, he grabbed his neck. I gave him a knee in the stomach for good measure, and down he went.
Before I could step back, short pants sucker punched me in the kidneys, and I clumsily fell over the caster. He recovered enough to grab my legs. This time I slashed at him for real. He gasped as the cloth and skin split open on his chest but held on to me. The other one kicked the knife out of my hand and hit me in the ribs. As he leaned over to punch me again, a blaze of white lightning shot over our heads. I could feel the electric charge dance through my hair.
"Leave off!" someone shouted.
We all froze. At the end of the street, the black silhouette of a woman strode toward us, her hand raised palm out and glowing white. Short pants chose to ignore her and hit me in the face again. Blood shot out my nose. Another bolt of light blazed at us and knocked him off his feet.
She came nearer. "I said leave off!"
The spellcaster released my legs and crawled away a few feet.
"Face me or flee!" she shouted, boosting a little power to her hand to make her point. They didn't need any more time to consider. In seconds, they were on their feet and running.
I sat up and cradled my nose with my hand. With all the blood pouring out, I couldn't sense who my savior was. She moved out of the light from the end of the street and leaned over me, and I saw her face more clearly. "Hi, Keeva."
She knelt on one knee beside me with a concerned look on her face. "Is it broken?"
I shook my head. "Looks worse than it is."
She stretched her hand toward my face. "Here, let me. I'm not much of a healer, but I can mute the pain." I felt a brief surge of warmth, and the pain did lessen. The blood still flowed copiously though.
I let her help me to my feet. "Don't waste time here. Go get them."
"It's over, Connor."
"They were trying to kill me!"
She sighed and shook those long red tresses. "Only you can turn a mugging into a murder conspiracy."
I peeled off my T-shirt and wadded it up. Gingerly, I pressed it to my nose. "What are you doing here?"
"Saving your ass, as usual."
"I want to know what you're doing on my street."
"I don't need this." She started to walk away, and I grabbed her arm. She glared at me with her best imperious haughtiness. "You dare!"
I dropped my hand. "Can the more-royal-than-thou crap. You know I couldn't care less. I want to know what you're doing here, and you're going to tell me or I will make your life miserable until you do."
She compressed her lips into a very thin line. I didn't have much concrete to hold over her except for the same petty stuff everyone has. But I had gotten hints of bigger stuff here and there when we were working together. Nothing I couldn't follow up on if need be. I could see Keeva's mind working through the same chain of thought.
"I'm working on an investigation that macDuin wants kept quiet."
"And how does following me fit into it?"
She folded her arms across her chest. "I am not following you. I had no idea I'd end up talking to you tonight If I see you getting beat up again, I promise I won't interfere."
I dabbed at my nose. The bleeding had slowed, but some swelling had begun. I knew Keeva well enough to know that would be the end of her explanation. I couldn't force her to tell me any more than she had. I leaned down and picked up my knife. "Who's working the serial killer case?"
She smiled smugly. "I am, like I told you I would. MacDuin spent today reviewing the files. I'm getting it tomorrow."
"Want some help?"
She laughed, like I knew she would. "You are priceless, Connor. The last thing macDuin wants is you anywhere near this case."
I shrugged. "He doesn't have to know."
"But he would. He probably has someone watching us right now."
Looking for a clean spot, I refolded the bloody T-shirt and pressed it against my nose again. "And you like working under those conditions?"
She found something fascinating to stare at on the ground. "It suits my purposes for the moment. Stay out of it or he'll force me to bring you in on interference charges. We've already got you for tampering with a murder scene."
"You forget, Keeva. I was born here. I may be fey, but I'm also an American citizen. He only has free rein with non-citizen fey. He'd need the Commissioner's approval — which I'm betting he won't get — and a federal court order — which won't happen quickly on such a minor charge."
"Just stay out of it," she said.
"Suit yourself. I'm not backing off." I walked angrily away from her toward Summer Street.
Scanning the sidewalk, I found my sandwich and picked it up. Thankfully, the bag was still intact and closed. I walked back to Keeva and passed her without a word. "I can make your life miserable, too, you know," she called out.
I looked back at her, but kept walking. "Keeva, I just picked my dinner out of the gutter. I doubt you can make my life any worse."
CHAPTER 12
The Murdock residence on K Street in South Boston had the kind of silent repose that buildings have on Sunday mornings. The well-kept row house had stern black shutters and double-mullioned windows in a brick facade, the forest green door firmly shut. A cement urn on the top step overflowed with white petunias. It was all very respectable. I felt awkward hesitating on the sidewalk, praying that I had arrived after Mass. The Murdocks were church-going Catholics, and I had a vague recollection that services ended about noon. Dinner followed at two, so I had planned on arriving about an hour before. Whenever I had visited in the past, the door had stood ajar, and someone was either coming or going. Most people seemed to just walk in without knocking, a custom I had not grown up with just a few blocks away. That kind of familiarity meant family or very close friends. As I debated whether to knock or ring the bell, someone called my name, and I turned.
I breathed a small sigh of relief at the sight of Kevin Murdock. I had debated how casually to dress for dinner and gambled that even the commissioner would not mind shorts in such unbearable heat. To hedge the bet, I wore a polo shirt so I would at least have a collar. Kevin strode toward me wearing cargo shorts and a T-shirt. Cradling several loaves of bread in one arm, he extended the other to shake my hand.
"Nice eye. What's the other guy look like?" he said, as we walked up the steps.
My hand went up to my cheekbone, and I winced. It was still tender, a little dark under the left eye, with a nice red-black smear near the bridge of my nose. "I think I broke his sunglasses."
Kevin mock-cringed, sucking in air between his teem. "Damn. Oakley's, I hope?"
I followed him into the
oddly quiet house. "Urn, a drugstore brand, I think."
He led me through the front hall, past the formal parlor, and into a kitchen rich with the smell of pot roast. He dropped the bread on a pink Formica counter and opened the refrigerator. He handed me a beer and started pulling plates out of a cabinet. Checking the stove, he sipped broth out of a pot and adjusted the spice. I couldn't help thinking of him as a kid. He was still in his early twenties, the last of seven children, and given that the next oldest sibling was pushing thirty, probably a surprise baby. He didn't even look like a Murdock, with his almost black hair and deep blue eyes, but then I'd never met Mrs. Murdock. All I knew about her was that she was gone some fifteen years and not a topic for conversation with anyone.
"Your turn to cook, I see."
He went back into the fridge and rummaged around. "Oh, we always follow the schedule around here. Everyone's up on the roof. Go on up. I'll call everyone down in a bit."
I had never been beyond the first floor of the Murdock house. As I climbed the stairs, I passed two men in deep conversation on the first-floor landing. I recognized one of them as a city councilor. They nodded courteously as I passed but continued talking. On the next floor, Grace Murdock sat in one of the bedrooms talking with her sister Faith and two other women. They waved at me in a way that said join us or not, either way's fine. I didn't know them more than to say hello, so I waved back and kept going. I always had to make a conscious effort not to make fun of their names in front of Murdock. Whatever his religious convictions were, his father's were definitely enough for the whole family. The next two floors held more bedrooms and a closed door that, by the look of the other rooms, probably was the commissioner's bedroom. To the left of the door, a last flight of stairs was a little steeper, added on well after the townhouse was built, when homeowners finally shed the old Brahmin decorum and started hanging out on the roof.
A burst of conversation surrounded me as I stepped out of a skylight and onto the deck. My eyes picked out faces I knew: Murdock, of course, his brother Bar, the commissioner, a couple of obvious cop-types, a neighborhood activist whose name I didn't think I knew, several more people whose identities I couldn't begin to guess.
"Glad you came," Murdock said from behind me. When I turned, he pulled back in mild surprise. "Whoa! Do I want to know what happened?
"Let's just say it was a mugging that went bad."
He grinned. "You should have called the cops."
"I had some unexpected backup."
Murdock looked at me with curiosity, then smiled. "House rules: no business discussions on Sunday. Let me introduce you around." He ran through the guests, giving me brief bios under his breath. Nearly everyone had some political agenda, which was no surprise given whose house we were in.
"I never realized you can see the harbor from here," I said, changing the subject. The Murdocks' home sat in the middle of Southie, with the Weird and the downtown skyline beyond it to the north and the harbor directly east. West and south, the low-rise neighborhoods of Dorchester and the South End out to Roxbury spread out. If the neighborhood ever got discovered, they could make a mint selling the place.
"It's going to ruin the whole damn game!" said the man standing next to me and talking to the commissioner. Murdock had said he was a local political fund-raiser. I groaned inwardly because I knew what was coming. A fairy had just won a case before the Supreme Court, allowing him to play for the Red Sox. Always a place where baseball ruled the hearts, if not the minds, of its fans, most of Boston was in an uproar over it.
"I think we'll have to wait and see," the commissioner said diplomatically.
The man looked at him in horror. "Wait and see? Come on, these guys got powers the average Joe can't compete with. How are we going to keep 'em from flying from base to base? The only way to compete will be to just hire more of them until there ain't any normal people playing."
The commissioner seemed to look around to see who was listening. He glanced once at me before saying, "I agree that will probably happen eventually. The only way to fight fire is with fire sometimes." The fund-raiser nodded vigorously. The commissioner placed a companionable hand on his shoulder. "The fey may intrude in areas they don't belong, but God knows we need a better outfield."
"What!" the fund-raiser said, then almost choked on his own laughter. "You're too much, Commissioner."
He smiled indulgendy. "Yes, well, I believe dinner should be about ready." The fund-raiser laughed again and followed the commissioner downstairs.
I arrived in the blessedly cool dining room just as everyone was jostling for chairs and ended up sitting between the fund-raiser and a young black woman from a nonprofit arts council. The dinner was served family style, and dishes were passed with the overt politeness of people who did not normally share food. That is, until the banal pleasantries became exhausted, and someone said something more pointed.
I had only half an ear to an arts funding lament, when the woman next to me said, "And, of course, the fey don't help."
"How do you mean?" I asked.
She shrugged as she moved steamed potatoes around on her plate. "It's trendy to be associated with fey art, so fey artists attract money that should rightly be going to struggling organizations."
"But is that the fault of the fey or the people who buy their art?"
"Of course, it's the fey," the fund-raiser interrupted, as he took an oversize bite of pot roast. "They push in everywhere — sports, politics, the arts."
A quick glance around the table made me realize there were no other fey present, unless someone was a druid I couldn't sense. "Isn't that generalizing a bit?" I tried to maintain a neutral tone.
"It's hard not to be annoyed by someone who smears some paint on pointed ears, then rolls on the canvas. That idea is decades old, but it sells simply because a fey is doing it now," said the woman.
"And now they want to be categorized as a minority so that they can force themselves into other neighborhoods and destroy them like that Weird place," said the fund-raiser.
I sipped water from my glass to remain calm. I had grown up not two blocks from the table we were sitting at. "The fey live all over the city, even here in Southie," I said.
"Oh, I don't mean those. They're working folks like you and me. I don't think I've met you before, by the way."
"I'm a friend of Leo's," I said. It always felt odd for me to use Murdock's first name. "Are you on the force?"
"No. I run an art gallery for druids."
The fund-raiser chuckled. "Everyone's a comedian today."
"I don't think that's funny," the arts woman snapped as she shifted her back to me slightly. That pretty much killed the conversation. As I finished eating, I glanced up at the commissioner. He was nodding as the man on his left spoke, but his eyes were on me. He didn't change his expression for a long moment, then the slightest smile fluttered across his lips. No business on Sunday, my ass, I thought.
After the meal, I lingered in the parlor mentally debating how long I had to remain in the name of politeness. The conversation often veered into complaints about the fey — sometimes subtly, sometimes obviously. I kept quiet, merely nodded at occasional remarks to fend off any actual verbal exchanges. It struck me at how vocal people could be with their animosity when they found themselves in like company. I had done it myself at the Guild, but the level of anger, even hate, in the room surprised me, all the more so considering so many of those in attendance were theoretically civic leaders.
After another hour, I approached the commissioner when he was briefly alone.
"Thank you for dinner. I'm sorry I can't stay longer, but I have an appointment," I said.
"Really?" he said in a way that made me feel instantly guilty. I wanted to say, no, I just can't stand being around your guests anymore, but I refrained. He continued smiling. "Well, it was good to see you under less unfortunate circumstances. Have a good evening."
Maybe from his point of view, I thought. We shook hands, and I
made for the door. As I stepped outside, the doorknob pulled out of my hand, and I turned to see Murdock standing on the threshold. "Leaving so soon?"
"Why did you invite me today?"
He glanced over his shoulder, stepped fully out of the house, and closed the door. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. You knew who was going to be here today, but you invited me anyway. I haven't heard so many sophomoric comments about the fey since, well, since I was a sophomore."
He crossed his arms and leaned against the arch of the doorway. "I thought it was important for you to see you're not the only one who dislikes the Guild."
"You could have just told me."
He shrugged. "You wouldn't have heard me."
Annoyed, I looked away up the street. I didn't like being played, but he was right. After a couple of calming breaths, I felt the anger in my chest dissipate. Murdock was one of the few people I knew who could get away with a stunt like this, especially when he was right. "Okay, lesson learned. Happy?"
"Satisfied is more like it. You have a tendency to get incredibly focused, which is a good thing sometimes. But you need to keep it in perspective. The Guild doesn't do what it does just to personally piss you off. It pisses off a lot of people."
"What, so I should ease up on the Guild?"
He gave an exasperated sigh. "No, I'm just trying to tell you that the only way to change the Guild is to work with it, not against it. Though they wouldn't say it quite that way, most of the people inside the house understand that. That's what they work for every day: change everyone can live with."
"Even people who hate me?"
"The way of the world is conflict, Connor. That won't change. You can only change the resolution."
I looked at him curiously. "When'd you become such a philosopher?"
He grinned broadly then. "I keep telling you not to make things personal. You'll accomplish more and regret less. If that makes me a philosopher, then, hell, kiss my ring."
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