Unfallen Dead

by Mark Del Franco

  She leaned forward, half-closing her eyes and smiling seductively. “I want you to know that I shall personally be very”—the smile widened—“appreciative.”

  Dylan blushed from his neck to his hairline. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  Ceridwen straightened and became businesslike again. “You may call us at any time.”

  She left. Dylan picked up a sheet of paper and wandered to the door as he read. Pausing at the threshold, his eyes shifted down the hallway for a fraction of a second. He dropped the paper on the desk and faced the wall I hid behind.

  I suppressed a chuckle as he peered at me from inches away. He pressed his hand against the wall. From my side of the spell, the hand flattened as he encountered what he perceived as a hard surface. “I can sense the residue of your essence here, Connor. Are you there?”

  I stepped forward, letting my chest replace the wall beneath his hand. “I see you can still blush on cue.”

  He dropped his hand. “I don’t think she suspected you were here, do you?”

  I shrugged. “You know Dananns are not very good at sensing essence, and there’s a lot of it in here.”

  He nodded at the wall. “Care to explain that?”

  “It’s a hidey-hole Meryl showed me. She uses it when she doesn’t want to talk to people. She keyed it to my essence.” If I revealed it was actually a full-blown exit, Meryl would be less understanding than Dylan would be if he knew I didn’t tell him the whole truth. I felt guilty not telling him, but he would appreciate the nature of confidences.

  A small earring lay on the desk where Ceridwen had dropped it. Something felt naggingly familiar about it. Ceridwen’s brief contact with it had left her essence, but beneath it was Meryl’s.

  Dylan leaned against the desk. “Con, I know there are things you’re not telling me, and I’m letting you. At some point, I expect you to tell me. Am I fooling myself by thinking that?”

  That stung. He had every reason to say it, but coming from Dylan, it was tough to hear. I pretended to be interested in a pile of reports on Meryl’s desk. “I hope not.”

  He bowed his head in thought. “Good. Because I would question my instincts if you walked away without a better explanation. I don’t want that to happen again.”

  I lowered my head, too. “I know. I’ll say I’m sorry now, but I promise this time we’ll talk.”

  He lifted his head. “I’ll take your word for it. Now, give me five minutes to settle in my office, then get out of here without attracting attention.”

  He pushed away from the desk. I waited to make sure he left the floor. I picked up the earring again. It was a triskele, the druidic symbol of three spirals made with one continuous line. The symbol was generic, but something about the earring felt familiar. I stared at it and stared at it. I shivered as I recalled where I had seen it, or rather, its mate. It was bent and broken, but the piece of metal I found at the Kaspar murder scene was the mate to the one I held.

  I stared and stared. The druidess essence I felt at the murder scenes was familiar. Familiar like Meryl. It wasn’t the same, but close. She was angry with the Guild, angry with the way she was being treated. Maybe something happened to her at Forest Hills, something I didn’t know about or understand. I was worried about myself. Maybe I should be worried about both of us.

  I shook my head. Something was wrong. I was missing something. I refused to believe Meryl would kill two people for revenge of some kind. I put the earring back on the desk. She didn’t do it. I trusted my instincts.

  I walked back through the wall. The spell resisted a little this time. I groped my way down the dark passage until I came to a staircase. Keeping my hands on the walls, I climbed the long flight of stairs. At the top, pushing hard against the spell blocking the exit felt like sliding through molasses. The receipt essence was almost drained.

  I exhaled when I made it through. The dim lighting of the subway tunnel blinded me after the total darkness of the stairs. The wall behind me appeared to be a solid concrete slab when I pressed it. I pulled out the receipt. Meryl’s essence had faded to nothing. I would have stuck in the wall like a fly in amber if it had dissipated any sooner.

  The platform at Boylston Street Station sat level with the train tracks. An old wire security fence prevented passengers from wandering into the tunnel. It worked more as a visual deterrent since you could walk around it. If you didn’t want to be seen doing that, a gap near a wall worked just as well. I mingled with passengers coming down the stairs on the inbound side.

  Concrete arches separated the two halves of the station with wrought-iron fencing preventing anyone from crossing the tracks. An outbound train must have just come through because the opposite platform was empty. A lone man walked down the outbound side. He stared at me. I hate when people stare for no reason, playing their dominance games with strangers.

  I stared back. The guy moved to the edge of the tracks, not taking his eyes from me. He seemed angry or annoyed. Three more steps, and he stopped on the tracks. I don’t know if anyone else had noticed him because I didn’t want to lose the staring game. The echoing station picked up the rumble of an approaching train. I moved closer to the iron fencing. He broke our gaze and looked up the tunnel. Headlights appeared in the tunnel on his side. He turned back to me.

  “Train’s coming,” I said.

  Light illuminated the tracks, throwing his solemn face into a white relief.

  “Buddy, step back,” I said.

  He didn’t move. I shouted as the train pulled in, my voice lost in the screaming of its wheels against the steel tracks. I rushed to the fence. The train stopped with a set of windowed doors opposite me. The man was inside the train. Almost. The floor of the car was several feet higher than the ground, cutting through him at the waist. He hadn’t changed his expression. You’re going to die soon, he sent.

  The train pulled away in a rush of color, leaving behind an empty track. I backed away as several people cast anxious looks at me. They probably thought I was nuts. I would have. I was already thinking maybe I was. Really. As in, hallucinating and losing it.

  My mind reeled as I rode the next train to Park Street Station. Maybe I couldn’t handle stress anymore. Maybe the thing in my head was causing brain damage. Maybe I was letting everything get to me like I never did before. Keeva was pushing herself beyond her limits; Meryl became more entangled in murder the more I tried to prove otherwise; Dylan was playing both friend and foe. And Joe had been too drunk lately to have a coherent conversation. Murdock might be a good sounding board, but he didn’t appreciate what it was like to deal with Guild messes, never mind the possibility that I was losing my mind. I hit a speed dial on my cell.

  “It’s about time you called. Come on up,” Briallen answered. She hung up before I could whine like a scared child.

  23

  The door to Briallen’s house was always unlocked to me, allowing me to pass through her protective wards. I did a lot of growing up in her house, spent years learning things I never imagined possible when I was just a little kid. I trusted her with my life.

  As I stood in the foyer, I sensed Briallen’s essence trailing upstairs. I found her in the parlor by the fire. She stared into the flames, unmoving, though I knew she had sensed me the moment I’d entered the house.

  “Ceridwen had Meryl arrested,” I said.

  Briallen didn’t respond immediately. “Sooner than I thought.”

  I slumped into the opposite chair. “You knew?”

  She pulled her legs up on the seat and adjusted her robes around them. “It was only a matter of time. Ceridwen is afraid of failing. High Queen Maeve doesn’t take disappointment well.”

  “But Meryl doesn’t know anything.”

  Briallen smiled as she sipped from a large mug. “I’m sure she would dispute that.”

  “You know what I mean. She’s told them everything. We both have.”

  She leaned her head back in the nook of the chair, her eyes half-closed. “Have yo
u?”

  Her tone made me blush, caught out like a ten-year-old telling a fib. It’s the tone she uses on me when she knows something that I think she doesn’t know. “Okay, everything they need to know.”

  Briallen tweaked an eyebrow. “Deciding who needs to know what and who gets to decide that is the seed of most arguments in the world.”

  I sighed. “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t remember anything but what I’ve told them. Ceridwen essentially threatened me to get me to talk, and even Dylan doesn’t seem to believe me.”

  “He mentioned you argued,” she said.

  A little anger flared up. “You see? Ceridwen thinks arresting Meryl will put pressure on me to talk, and now Dylan thinks running to you will do it.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “I think it’s only fair to point out that you’re doing a little running to me right now.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She scoffed at me. “Sure you are. You think Meryl’s been arrested to put pressure on you, and you want me to confirm it. Did it ever occur to you that after you spoke to Dylan, he believed you? Has it occurred to you that Meryl doesn’t exactly make any attempt to inspire confidence in her veracity?”

  “She’s telling the truth,” I said.

  Briallen thrust her index finger at me. “You believe that. You do. Not the Guild. Just like you don’t want the Guild telling you what to do, the Guild doesn’t want you telling it what to think. Meryl’s a big girl. She’ll decide what to do.”

  “If there is something she’s hiding—and I don’t think there is—she won’t say it, just to spite Ceridwen for treating her like this. She’s stubborn,” I said.

  Briallen shrugged. “Then she’ll have to live with the consequences. Connor, you know Meryl well enough to know she won’t do anything she doesn’t want to. She’s a druidess. She takes that seriously. Let her decide how to respond. Sometimes the Grove and the Guild do not have the same agenda.”

  “Don’t let Ceridwen hear you say that, or you might end up in a cell yourself.” I couldn’t help the dig.

  Briallen grinned. “I’d like to see her try. At the bottom of all this, she knows the Grove and the Guild want essentially the same things. It’s just a matter of whose means to the end get used. Now, can we put this aside and discuss why you came to see me?”

  Getting slapped down by Briallen didn’t exactly put me in the mood to make myself vulnerable. I feigned innocence. “I came about Meryl.”

  Briallen laughed. “Oh, bull. You know I knew Meryl was under arrest ten minutes after she did. Something else is bothering you.”

  I bit my lower lip. “Okay, you’re right. I came to ask you about something odd. Lately, I’ve been . . .” I didn’t realize until that moment how strange and embarrassing this was going to sound. “. . . well, I guess you can say I’ve been hearing things. Like, things no one else does. And I’m seeing people who aren’t there.

  She didn’t laugh or look at me like I was crazy. “What are they saying?”

  I slid deeper in the chair. “I’m not sure. It started a little over a week ago. I kept hearing whispering. Then the whispers got louder, and I began to see people, too. At first, I thought it was some kind of spell, but it’s happened too many times in too many places. They’re angry. One of them attacked me, and, just now, on the subway, one of them told me I’m going to die.”

  Briallen leaned forward. “You’re a druid. You’ll live a long time, Connor.”

  “Yeah, as long as nobody kills me first. And we don’t know how long a life I have anymore, Briallen. Whatever Bergin Vize did to destroy my abilities might have wrecked my chances for a long lifetime, too,” I said.

  Her eyes shifted to me. “I used to worry that you weren’t going to live long. Do you know I never see you in my visions? The only way I know you’re involved in something I see is because of reactions around you.”

  I exhaled sharply. “A dwarf said that to me not too long ago. You can’t see my future, and I can’t see my past.”

  “It’s all connected, Connor. We are all connected. You know I believe that. Maybe whatever you are hearing and seeing is sending you a message that you haven’t figured out yet. Maybe the Wheel of the World is trying to teach you something about yourself,” she said.

  I frowned. “By making me feel crazy?”

  She smiled. “Maybe, Connor, maybe you’re supposed to do things based on who you are and not what you know.”

  “But if I don’t know anything, who does that make me?”

  She shrugged. “A child who sees ghosts and runs to an adult for help.”

  I closed my eyes. “I hope you mean that metaphorically.” She giggled. Briallen giggles sometimes. It annoys the hell out of me. “Connor, I’m not going to say you’re not hallucinating. You are a druid with damaged abilities. Things are happening to you that never happened to you before your accident. But what you just told me is exactly what’s been plaguing you for two years: You can’t remember, and you’re afraid of the future. Maybe you’re manifesting your own fears.”

  “What if my fears are real enough to kill me?”

  She sighed. “All fears are real. It’s what you do about them that matters.”

  I stared into the fire, letting the flickering light mesmerize me, the warmth soothe my skin. “You’re saying I should let go of the past.”

  She shook her head. “If you think that will help, then do it and see what happens. I can’t give you answers to questions only you can answer.”

  I dropped my head back against the chair. “You kick me in the balls every time I come here, and I still come back for more.”

  She laughed. That laugh, that lovely Briallen laugh. “And then you leave with tougher balls.”

  24

  From our parking spot on Charles Street, Murdock and I had a good view of the Ardman townhouse. At least four Danann security agents monitored the area, two along the roofline across the street from the townhouse and two more nearby posing as shopkeepers. The Flat had enough fey living in it that Powell wasn’t likely to notice anything unusual. As a concession to me and Murdock, Keeva agreed to use wireless headsets instead of sendings. As security agents cycled through a check-in every fifteen minutes, I heard at least one voice I didn’t recognize. If I knew Keeva, she had more agents squirreled away along the street than she had told me about.

  Murdock sipped his coffee. “She hasn’t shown in two days.”

  “She’ll show. Ardman is on her hit list,” I said.

  “Maybe Ardman signaled her it’s a trap,” he said.

  I rocked my head against the headrest. “I doubt it. She’s too scared Powell will crush the soul stone.”

  “So why doesn’t Powell just do it?”

  I crooked my neck toward him. “You know, that’s an interesting question. She got the money and museum stuff, too. What’s the delay?”

  “The whole soul-stone thing bothers me,” he said.

  “Let it go, Murdock. Just because tradition says it’s the soul doesn’t mean it is. It’s just a powerful spell,” I said.

  He sipped his coffee again. “Said the man who didn’t believe in a drys until he met one.”

  He had a point. Meeting an actual incarnation of essence gave me pause on the whole faith issue. “I said it was possible the drys was a demigoddess. She could just as easily have been a powerful species of fey I’d never met before.”

  “Meryl believes in them.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. “When did you talk to Meryl?”

  He kept his eyes on the townhouse. “I ran into her on Oh No the night you had dinner with Dylan. She was shopping for something I couldn’t pronounce.”

  The night I had dinner with Dylan. The same night Belgor was attacked. Meryl was in the Weird. I pushed the thought away. I was not going to go there. “And you talked about the drys,” I said.

  “Just briefly. She was asking about my body shield. She said she had a dream about me. Said I was riding a f
lying horse on fire.”

  Meryl has a geasa on her about her dreaming. It’s an obligation—deeper than a command, really—to do a certain thing or suffer dire consequences. Meryl’s geasa is that if she has a dream and knows someone in it, she has a duty to tell that person. “Stay away from carousels. Her dreams come true,” I said.

  He took another sip of coffee. “Will do.”

  Something rustled within the pile of discarded fast-food bags in the backseat. I knew the cause because I sensed the essence. Murdock didn’t react, which I thought was kind of curious. People hear something mucking around in their car, they tend to react a little. Then again, Murdock’s car is such a sty, he’s probably used to all kinds of critters roaming around in it. The rustling sound came again.

  “There’s no food back there, Joe,” Murdock said nonchalantly.

  “Who says I’m looking for food?” Joe’s muffled voice came from beneath several layers of paper.

  I chuckled. “How’d you know?” I said to Murdock.

  Murdock kept his eyes on the street, but amusement played on his lips. “The first time I thought it was a rat. I whomped him with the billy club.”

  Joe crawled out of the paper wreckage. “And I gave him a nice zap back.”

  Murdock shifted his coffee to the side away from Joe. “It didn’t hurt.”

  “Did, too,” said Joe.

  Murdock sipped his coffee. “Did not.”

  “Liar.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Am I hearing this?” I asked. Murdock laughed silently. Since we’d first met, I had been teaching him about the fey and how to react to them like a fey person would. Flits were a hurdle because he had a hard time not acting surprised when they teleported. Not flinching at Joe’s arrival was a definite improvement. Engaging in Joe’s penchant for squabbling wasn’t. It was bad enough I did it.

  Joe poked a finger in his ear, then scratched his head vigorously. “Still hearing singing?” I asked.

  “At least a week now,” Joe said.

  Murdock kept his eyes on the street. “What singing?”