Unperfect Souls cg-4

by Mark Del Franco

  I was tempted to tell her he wouldn’t be getting around to it anytime soon, but I had irritated her enough. Besides, I got what I came for—a quasi promise to deal with the leanansidhe.

  I stood. “Well, good luck to him if that’s what Eagan decides. I’ll let you get on with black-booting the Weird now.”

  “You’re an ass, Connor,” she said, as I stepped out the door.

  I deserved that. “Seriously, Keeva, are you okay?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I’m fine. I’ll let you know if anything happens with the leanansidhe.”

  Downstairs, I paused under the portico in front of the Guildhouse. If I wasn’t mistaken, a crack was forming in Keeva’s unmitigated support of Guild policy. She had spent her career climbing the ladder by agreeing to the right things with the right people. Not vocally supporting Commissioner Murdock’s curfew was unusual, and she knew I would pick up on it. Then again, as time went on, I thought she was becoming less careful with what she said around me. She told me once that my credibility was so poor, no one would believe me if I repeated what she said. I hated to admit it, but she might have a point.

  As I looked up at the sky to see if clouds were rolling in, I noticed the empty expanse of the portico ceiling. The gargoyles that usually clustered were almost all gone. With the extraordinary amount of essence expended on Samhain, they were migrating up to Boston Common, and since the Taint still floated around the Weird, many more were down there, leaving the Guildhouse oddly bare. I wondered what the roof of the place looked like. The heaviest concentration of gargoyles gathered up there.

  I pulled my collar up and walked through the gauntlet of brownie security. For over a year, I had wallowed in despair over whether I’d ever work at the Guild again. In a few short months, my thinking had changed dramatically. I had changed. The place had become alien to me. Despite all my disagreements with the Guild, I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not.

  10

  I retraced my route back to the Weird, turning off a bridge early to enter Southie. By the time I reached the Rose Rose, snow had begun to fall, and my toes became numb. I waited for Meryl in a back booth, enjoying the heater under the table as it warmed my feet. If Yggy’s was the bar in the Weird where fey from across the spectrum gathered to be among themselves, the Rose Rose was where the fey and humans met on neutral ground. People went to the Ro’Ro’ to relax and have a good time.

  Meryl swept through the front door, bringing in a shower of snow with her. People at the tables nearest the door eyed her with irritation. She ignored them as she made a direct line for my table. “You look tired.”

  I pushed a glass of Guinness toward her. “I had a busy night.”

  She tapped my glass and sipped. “You didn’t visit when you were in the building today.”

  Meryl ran the Archives in the subbasements of the Guildhouse. The basements were dark, stone-lined, quiet, and filled with stuff most fey didn’t even know existed. As Chief Archivist, she got to play with everything. I usually took any opportunity to visit her when I was in the Guildhouse. “With all the security watching my every move, I didn’t have the energy for the hassle. You missed me, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. My afternoon was boring. Watching you get dragged out of the building would have broken the tedium.”

  I crumpled a napkin and tossed it at her. “Nice to know I’m entertainment for you.”

  She grinned. “That’s what would have happened, you know. As soon as you entered the building, they doubled the guards on the elevators. They’re watching us. See the cute couple behind me drinking umbrella drinks? Low-level druids with Danann security on speed sending.”

  I laughed and sipped my beer. “Ya know, I thought I saw them on Old Northern this morning. Why the spying?”

  Meryl slowly shook her head. “Don’t be dense. The Guild’s assessing its next move after Samhain. They let me back to work because they can’t figure out if I did anything wrong. You, on the other hand, they saw challenge an underQueen who was investigating you, then she died. Why do you think Nigel went to Tara?”

  “I thought he was going to Russia?”

  Meryl leaned back. “Eventually. I couldn’t find out what that’s about, but he’s stopping at Tara to see Maeve.”

  I caught the server’s attention and ordered another round. I stared in the dregs of my beer. “Meryl, let me ask you something. I’m having this odd moment where I sit here, an unemployed druid with damaged abilities who can barely pay his rent with a disability check, and yet, the High Queen of Tara seems to be oddly nervous about me. Am I suffering from delusions of grandeur, or is that really true?”

  “Well, both. I thought that goes without saying,” she said.

  “Seriously, please.”

  She wrapped both hands around her glass. “I think you’re a victim of circumstances. You’re right: You’re pretty much washed-up as a druid of any ability. Most fey, never mind the High Queen, would be expected to ignore you as inconsequential.”

  The server dropped two more pints on the table, and we ordered food. I took a deep gulp of my beer. “Okay, this is encouraging so far,” I said.

  She smirked. “But you can’t deny that some pretty strange and powerful events seem to be sucking you into their paths. Maeve’s a strategist. If she thinks you might be some kind of power locus—despite your lack of ability—she’s going to want to exploit that.”

  “Over my dead body,” I said.

  Meryl shrugged. “That might work in her favor.”

  “What about Bergin Vize? He was involved in at least two of those events. Why isn’t she after him?”

  Meryl gave me a look of disappointed amusement. “How you ever got a reputation for being a brilliant investigator I cannot fathom. Think about it, you idiot. Do you think it was coincidence Keeva macNeve was assigned the Castle Island case? She’s a bitch, but she’s the best agent the Guild has now that you’re gone—and she captured the perpetrator. He only escaped because someone else screwed up. Do you think an underQueen was sent here because Maeve’s main concern was you and the Taint or the fact that Bergin Vize was moving an army through TirNaNog?”

  She was right. I hadn’t thought of it. “What about Forest Hills? Vize wasn’t involved in the Forest Hills event.”

  “As far as we know. That spell was created through a combination of Celtic druid lore and elven rune spells. Don’t forget—I was helping Nigel with his rune research. We never did find out who supplied the elven aspect of the spell. It could have been Vize. Suborning high-level Guild officials and attempting to destroy Maeve’s access to essence has his fingerprints all over it. She’s watching him, too, Grey. Don’t think for one minute you’re her only concern. Maeve’s sandbox is a lot bigger than yours.”

  I feigned a pout. “I think you just pointed out the delusion of grandeur part.”

  She drank. “Without breaking a sweat, my friend.”

  “So, I’m a power locus.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe Vize is. Maybe his destiny is bound to Maeve’s and yours to his. That doesn’t make you bound to Maeve. Destiny may be transitive, but that doesn’t mean you’re the most important link in the chain.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t say I was right. I’m poking holes in your assumption that Maeve’s interest in you is an either/or proposition. You could be a much bigger problem for Vize than you are to Maeve.”

  I nodded. “Eorla Kruge said something like that to me once.”

  “She’s a smart lady. Maybe too smart. She requisitioned the rune research I did for Nigel,” Meryl said.

  “She’s trying to reconstruct the runes on the oak staff,” I said.

  Meryl twisted her lips in thought. “I don’t know if I like that.”

  “If it means the end of the Taint, yeah, it’s a good thing,” I said.

  “What if it means she re-creates the spell that destroyed Forest Hills?”

&
nbsp; “I don’t believe that’s her goal,” I said. “She had the opportunity at Forest Hills to take control, and she rejected it. I believe her when she says she wants peace. It’s why her husband died.”

  She sighed. “I always have a hard time believing people with noble causes. It usually means someone’s gonna die.”

  “Dying can be noble,” I said.

  She made an exaggerated shiver. “Yeah, that’s what nobility turns into—the rationale for every authoritarian regime I’ve ever seen.”

  “Anyway, I wanted to ask you something about the decapitation murders.”

  Meryl leaned her elbows on the table and propped her chin in her hands. “Severed heads and dinner. Who said romance is dead?”

  I leaned forward, lowered my eyes, and dropped my voice to a husky whisper. “Wait until I tell you about the rotting bodies Murdock and I found in the sewer.”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “Oh, Grey, I think something’s happening to my naughty bits. Tell me more, please.”

  I tapped her nose. “You are a whack job.”

  She picked up her beer. “That makes you a whack-job chaser.”

  “You said the Dead can’t regenerate without the head, right?”

  The server gave me an odd look as she placed our dinners in front of us. Meryl plucked a fry from my plate. “Honestly, it’s conjecture. Good conjecture, but still conjecture. In TirNaNog, the head didn’t matter. The Dead were in the Land of the Dead. No matter how they were killed there, they reappeared the next day. Here, though, if you killed someone fey and kept the head separate from the body, you denied them entrance to TirNaNog. That much I know for sure. Under the current situation, TirNaNog is closed. No one’s getting in. When someone Dead dies here, they regenerate here. So, by taking the head, I think the Dead can’t regenerate here. Make sense?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “We can test it,” she said.

  “How?”

  She shrugged. “Let’s kill a Dead guy and see what happens.”

  I considered the idea. “Is it better to use a sword or an axe to behead someone?”

  “Sword. A nice big one.”

  I tapped the edge of the table without looking at her. Meryl had access to all kinds of artifacts at the Guildhouse, including weapons.

  “Can I borrow one?”

  She stole another fry. “Sure.”

  I nodded in deep thought. “Okay, after dessert, then. I want to behead someone tonight if you don’t mind bringing me a sword.”

  “Okay.”

  I sprinkled salt on my burger, tossed the tomato aside, and closed the bun. I took a big bite and stared at Meryl. She stared back. She ate a chicken finger. I put a solemn look on my face and chewed mechanically.

  “You’re serious,” she said. I nodded.

  “Wow,” she said.

  I smirked. “Gotcha.”

  Her jaw dropped, then she laughed. “You did, you jerk.”

  I hooted and clapped. “It’s about damned time, I did.”

  Embarrassed, she shrugged. “Yeah, well, too bad you don’t have witnesses.”

  I shook my head laughing. “I think your theory is right. In fact, I think we can test it. We already have a beheaded body and its head.”

  “You found the head of the sewer guy?” she asked.

  “Yeah. We found a leanansidhe who was having it for lunch.”

  She frowned and rolled her eyes. “I am so not falling for that.”

  I grinned. This dinner was going to be deeply satisfying.

  11

  Meryl took off on one of her none-of-your-business evenings. I had a hard time understanding if our seesaw relationship was a game or a reality. Either way, it was very Meryl. She liked keeping me off-balance and, considering my history with relationships, that maybe wasn’t a bad thing. It made me pay attention, kept me curious and, dammit, interested. And she knew it. The one message Meryl gave me loud and clear was that she had a life without me, and giving that up was solely on her terms. I was cool with it because she allowed me my time alone, too.

  Meryl’s absence was for the best anyway since later on Murdock and I were hitting the morgue now that we had both the head and the body of the Dead guy. Until it was time to leave, I scoured my library for whatever I could find on hellhounds, but I didn’t make much headway with Shay’s dog problem. Despite plenty of references in my personal library, twentieth-century texts added nothing new about them because the hounds hadn’t been seen since Convergence. A hellhound was what it was. You saw it; you died. I was convinced, though, that with it trapped outside of TirNaNog, its harbinger-of-doom status had to be compromised. With no Land of the Dead for anyone to go to anymore, what was the doom?

  Lost in thought as I watched a plane take off across a dark sky, I jumped when the apartment buzzer went off. Murdock was picking me up so we could go down to the morgue and try the experiment with the decapitated Dead guy. I hit the intercom. “Hey, you’re early.”

  “Are you really so poor you live in the Weird?”

  Moira. My first impulse was to not respond. “Who gave you my address?”

  “I’ve lived at court for years, Connor. I know how to get an address when I want one.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To talk. You left so abruptly the other day, and I don’t understand why,” she said.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” I said.

  “Maybe I have something to talk about,” she said.

  When it came right down to it, Moira Cashel was trouble, one way or another. Either she was Amy Sullivan and her interest in me was sincere and she had no idea of how I had become entangled with High Queen Maeve despite her current connection to Maeve, or she wasn’t Amy and it was all a ruse for Maeve to lay some kind of trap for me. Despite what Tibbet said, I didn’t want Moira wrecking my memories.

  “Are you there?” she asked into my silence.

  I had to know. Whatever Maeve’s strategy was, I was intrigued that I was still enough a part of it for her to dig into my past. “Okay, I’ll meet you.”

  “I’m downstairs. Can I make it to the front door without being mugged?”

  I snorted. Of course she was downstairs. “I’ve got a meeting. You can have until my ride shows up,” I said. I buzzed her in and went out to the hall. She came up the stairs directly to the top floor without having asked where my apartment was. It didn’t surprise me, but if she thought she was hiding that she knew about my current life, she was awfully sloppy. Wrapped in a full-length fur coat, she stepped onto the landing.

  “Wearing animal fur is frowned on in the States,” I said.

  She paused at my door, a deep frown on her face. “I’m beginning to wonder if this bitter, angry person is the same happy young man I used to know.”

  I rolled my eyes and gestured into the living room. Which was basically the room we were already in. My apartment wasn’t big enough to get lost in, not when the kitchen and the living room were essentially the same place. Even more cozy since it was where I slept, too. “So, what is it you want to talk about?”

  She looked troubled as she unbuttoned her coat and sat in an armchair. “I almost don’t know. Believe it or not, Connor, after we met, you changed my life. At the time, I thought it was for the worse, but after all the emotion and drama died down, things were not as bad as I feared. I thought it would be interesting to get reacquainted, see the man you’ve become.”

  I crossed my arms. “I don’t believe you’re Amy Sullivan.”

  She cocked her head, a willing smile on her face. “What can I do to prove it to you?”

  “Explain why you’re here.”

  “I told you. I came to see if I could help with Manus.”

  “No, I mean what else does Maeve want you to do here?”

  Her eyebrows drew together. “Nothing but heal Manus ap Eagan. I was ordered to find a cure or confirm there was none.”

  “Why?”

  She looked startled. �
�Because he’s dying.”

  “Why would Maeve care? Eagan threatens her. Her pet macGoren is waiting to make the Guildmaster’s office his own.”

  Moira stared at me with troubled confusion on her face. Her expressions did remind me of Amy, even without the glamour. “You seem to misunderstand some of the politics of court, Connor. Eagan’s dying does not help macGoren’s bid for the Guildmaster position. Anyone the High Queen installed against Eagan’s wishes would be fought by the other underKings and -Queens. She can’t afford to lose their support. She needs Eagan alive and answerable to her, or he needs to resign his position with an appointed successor. All Maeve wants is clarity on the situation.”

  I leaned against the kitchen counter. “Interesting analysis for a Chief Herbalist.”

  Spots of color rose on her cheeks, and she compressed her lips. “Connor, I live and work at Tara. If you think that means I spend my time pressing flowers into books, you are naïve.”

  “Where did Amy and I meet?” I asked.

  She answered quickly. “Flanagan’s market.”

  “Where was I living?”

  “With Briallen ab Gwyll. You were staying with your parents that weekend. Your mother sent you to the store.”

  “Who spoke first?”

  “You did. You asked me whether I liked the crackers you were holding. You were a terribly obvious flirt.”

  “What happened next?”

  Moira looked down at her hand. “You kissed my hand. It was very sweet. Then you asked if I would like to have a cup of tea with you sometime. I said yes, thinking that would end the flirtation, but you asked to go right then. So we did.”

  “Was it raining or snowing?”

  “Neither. It was supposed to rain. I left my umbrella in the shop.”

  She knew all the right answers—even the umbrella, which I had forgotten about. I went back later to find it for her, but it wasn’t there. “You could have gotten those answers from the real Amy Sullivan.”

  She nodded. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. But if I weren’t Amy Sullivan, would I know what it felt like to meet this brilliant young man at the beginning of his career who was so excited and nervous to start training with Nigel Martin? Would I know how lonely I felt and how that young man made me want adventure again? Would I have turned my life upside down because of him and left Boston in shame?”