Unperfect Souls cg-4

by Mark Del Franco

  I went to the window he indicated and found a small glass flask on the floor hidden by the brocade drapery. “Who the hell hides all these flasks for you?”

  He grinned around the neck of the bottle, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “That’s a secret. And speaking of, I assume you have something to report?”

  I nodded. “How familiar are you with the crackdown in the Weird?”

  A cryptic look spread over his features. “I get reports.”

  I spun an antique globe on a stand near the wall. “Are you aware that the Boston P.D. has turned over all security to Guild agents?”

  “Out of political necessity, I had to allow Guild agents to act under civilian authority. The Boston police are powerless against the fey. You know that,” he said.

  I nodded. “Some of their actions are going beyond the law—civilian or Guild. Complaints to the police are referred to the Guild and complaints to the Guild are ignored.”

  A sly smile slid onto his face. “I know you, Grey. You’ve been complaining about that for some time.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been complaining about neglect. This is different. The Guild agents down there are actively breaking the law. They’re encouraging a turf war between the solitaries and the Dead. It’s going to explode if they don’t back off.”

  Eagan frowned. “And the Boston police are involved?”

  I glanced at him. “Human officers have been ordered to stand aside and let the Guild do what it wants. I personally saw Commissioner Murdock meet secretly with a leading perpetrator among the Dead.”

  Eagan rubbed at his chin. “What do you make of it?”

  I smiled at him. “If you ask the Guild, they’re acting on your orders.”

  Eagan chuckled softly to himself. “And when there is blood on the ground, macGoren can blame me and gain the support of the solitaries at the same time. How much time do you think I have?”

  I shrugged. “I think it’s reached a crisis point.”

  Eagan hummed to himself. “It seems I may have to put in an appearance downtown and shake things up a bit. I had hoped to spoil their plans once they had Vize in custody, but I suppose I can adjust.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. “What does Vize have to do with it?”

  Eagan leaned his head back, his eyebrows raised in thought. “Everything, of course. The solitaries have been hiding him for Bastian Frye. MacGoren is using the Dead to find him, particularly a miscreant named Jark. Matters seem to have gotten out of hand. I didn’t anticipate the human police colluding with macGoren. An excellent move on his part, though he seems to have overplayed it. That’s always been macGoren’s flaw—his unwavering surety in the perfection of his plans.”

  My feet felt rooted to the floor. “I can’t believe you let this happen.”

  Eagan shrugged. “I didn’t let anything happen. The whole point of a black ops program is in its unprovability. I couldn’t stop it unless I knew the identities of macGoren’s agents, and that I was still working on. Unfortunately, Jark killed my inside agent before she could expose them.”

  Jark killed his inside agent. The statement sank in with a sense of disbelief at what I was hearing and what it meant. “Are you talking about Sekka?”

  Eagan barely suppressed a look of exasperation. “Of course, Grey. Why do you think I called you in the first place? When Sekka disappeared the same night Jark’s body turned up, I wanted to keep tabs on your investigation.”

  I shook my head with a touch of anger that I had completely missed the connection. “And you had Keeva bury the Guild notice that Sekka was a Consortium agent to keep her Guild double-agent status secure, didn’t you?”

  He tapped his knee in acknowledgment. “And had the damnedest time getting her to do it.”

  “You used me,” I said.

  He managed to look indignant and amused at the same time. “I most certainly did not. You took on Sekka’s murder case before I spoke to you. I gave you a complete choice in the matter. I merely covered my bases.”

  I laughed. The man amazed me. “You’re right. I take it back.”

  He grinned. “I’ll have to deal with this tomorrow. Something tells me the commissioner is in no mood to discuss his failings tonight.” He gestured at the door. “Now, tell me. Why have two of my guests felt inclined to lay hands on you?”

  “Moira I insulted. I have no idea what the commissioner’s problem is.”

  Eagan chuckled again. “I should chastise you for being a rude guest, but that minx has been spying on me for weeks. She’s quite the amateur. I expect better court intrigue from Maeve. She disappoints, she does.”

  I bowed my head. “I apologize anyway.”

  He acknowledged it with a nod. Eagan might have been pleased I had annoyed Moira, but he still liked the niceties of protocol. “Let’s see what they have to say for themselves,” he said.

  A weak sending fluttered in the air, and the doors opened. Moira entered first, her expression firmly angry. She glared at me as she moved to the side of the room and bowed extravagantly toward Eagan. “You have my deepest apologies, Guildmaster. I was provoked in the situation. Allow me to make it up to my host.”

  Eagan hummed. “I’ve already spoken to Mr. Grey and will deal with him as fitting. I will think on your apology. Stay a moment, will you, Moira? I would like your presence while I speak to my other guest.”

  Moira bowed again as the commissioner strode in without acknowledging either of us. Tibbet closed the doors behind him. I will be right outside, she sent.

  “What do you want, Eagan?” the commissioner asked.

  Eagan put on a tolerant smile. “Pray, have a seat, Commissioner, and let us sort through this disruption of my house.”

  “I apologize for involving you in a personal matter. I’m leaving now. Thank you.” He turned and stopped short, obviously making eye contact with Moira over my shoulder.

  Eagan didn’t change his expression. “I appreciate that, Commissioner, but I believe you owe an apology elsewhere as well.”

  The commissioner’s gaze shifted to me. “I’ll be god-damned before you get an apology from me, Grey.”

  Eagan spoke to the commissioner’s back. “I will be the judge of that in my own home, Commissioner. What is the meaning of this?”

  Moira stepped forward. “This is all a misunderstanding, Manus. We should not take any more time from you.”

  Eagan rocked his head against his chair. “I don’t think so, Moira. I invited Grey here, and both of you laid hands on him. I am not pleased.”

  The commissioner stepped toward me. “Where do you think you’re going with this? I will cut you off at the knees, you miserable piece of shit.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

  He grabbed the lapel of my jacket. “I am going to ask you one more time: What little plan did the two of you come up with?”

  Eagan struggled to his feet. “Unhand him now, Commissioner.”

  Moira pushed herself in front of me, forcing the commissioner back. He didn’t let go. I reached up to pry his hand away. Moira shoved him back. “Knock it off, Scott. He didn’t know,” she said. Only she used Amy’s voice.

  The commissioner backhanded her across the face. “Don’t you dare use her voice,” he said.

  The door opened behind me as Moira fell back into my arms. In the blink of an eye, Tibbet was in the center of the room. Her eyes were huge, and her fingers elongated and tipped with claws. She didn’t speak, but I felt sendings fluttering in the air. Tibbet went to Eagan’s side and gently forced him back into his chair.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Eagan said.

  The commissioner faced Eagan. “She’s betraying you, Eagan. Setting you up to take a fall and using me to do it.”

  Moira moved toward the commissioner, her body shield flickering around her as a bitter, angry glint sparked in her eye. “He’s lying, Manus. Scott Murdock has been blackmailing the Guild to force his political
agenda down in the Weird. He’s been taking money to let Guild agents operate in the Weird without human oversight. I’ve been trying to convince Ryan macGoren it’s a trap. He’s going to let you take the fall when things get out of control. This man hates us, Manus. He hates all the fey. It amuses him to get paid to watch them kill each other down in the Weird, all because once upon a time, his pride and ego were damaged by a woman.”

  “Stop using her voice,” the commissioner said through gritted teeth.

  Moira’s face shifted, a ripple of light and color cascading over her. Amy’s face resolved into focus. “It’s my voice, Scott, and I will use it. You’re not going to silence me ever again.”

  “You are not her,” the commissioner said.

  Moira laughed, an unattractive sneer on her face. “Oh, but I am, Scott. I would have been satisfied to watch you lose your precious reputation, and no one had to know why except you. But you had to make a scene. So finish it, little man. Tell them what I did to you and what you did to me.”

  Blood drained from the commissioner’s face as he began to tremble. “Shut your mouth.”

  Moira shook her head. “Never again, Scott.” She tilted her head toward Eagan. “This man put a gun to my head and threatened to shoot me and my children if I didn’t leave, Manus. He was so horrified that he had married a fey that he was willing to commit murder to hide it from the humans.”

  The floor felt as if it shifted under me, as the reality of what she said sank in. “Holy shit,” I whispered.

  “You bitch,” the commissioner said. A gun appeared in his hand before anyone registered his movement. Tibbet came forward as I yanked Moira back. Eagan shouted.

  The gun went off.

  The flash blinded me. The crackle of essence-fire burned in the air. Something slammed into my face, a searing hot blow beneath my right eye. Pain lanced through my head, then a wash of cold ran down my body. My knees collapsed. Fluid filled my throat as I fell. I coughed a spray of blood into the air. I tried to inhale but choked as more blood entered my lungs. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t breathe. My vision blurred. The room spun in a smear of color and

  everything

  went

  white

  29

  White.

  Sound stopped. The music. The shouting. Gone.

  Whiteness filled my vision with nothing to break the relentlessness of it. I coughed, feeling blood in my throat, hot blood welling out of my mouth and down my face. Blood ran into my ears, across my chin, down my neck.

  Above me, the white simply was, as if the air itself was color. Or no color. As if nothing else existed except the white. I lay on the ground, if there was ground, on something. The firmness of it pressed against the back of my head, but nowhere else. My head rolled to one side of its own accord, blood pouring out of my mouth. I wanted to sit up, to stand, to reach up and touch my face, but my body did not respond. Numb. I was numb. Paralyzed. Gods, I can’t move myself.

  Everything was white. I have been here before. This is where it started. Or ended. I don’t remember which.

  Everything around me is white. I lie on my back, staring into a nothingness of white. I am here again. This place. Above me, I see two vast shadow shapes. Powerful shapes speaking with words I do not understand. They move closer.

  Bursts of color flare in my vision, fireworks against the white, fading to darkness. More, then more, the darkness closing on me, like the slow closing of my eyes. My mind, like my eyes, closing, like my eyes blinking. Like my mind blinking.

  My mind blinked.

  I jerked my head up, feeling like I had passed out. People surrounded me, staring at me. Some I recognized, and some I didn’t. Their faces held a multitude of expressions—fear and horror and sadness. Then the screams began.

  My mind blinked.

  Dylan swims up into my sight again. My head hurts with a ringing as loud as a clock tower. I hold my hands to either side of the knife, not touching it. Blood blossoms on his shirt, deep red blood against a deep red shirt. He doesn’t move. He stares at me and stares at me and stares at me. Terror in . . .

  My mind blinked.

  They move closer and resolve into people. A man, yes, a man and woman. Their vast shadow shapes are a wash of gray against the white. Huge and tall, he’s taller, but she . . . she is . . .

  My mind blinked.

  Briallen looks at me in surprise, glowing in the white, a golden Briallen in a sea of white. She lifts her hands, something in her hands is moving, swaying with essence in a rainbow of color.

  My mind blinked.

  Briallen looks at me in surprise and rushes toward me as I lean over Dylan.

  “Tell me what to do.” I hear myself. I hear myself and I hear fear.

  My mind blinked.

  I stand on a plain, white grass waving against a white sky. It’s not winter, pray, what is this new madness? Where have I come? I turn in place, searching, searching across the plain, searching about the standing stones, but Maeve is not there. Was she? What is this place?

  My mind blinked.

  . . . the one who leads. He follows, reluctant in his step. The blood fills my mouth, burns in my chest, and I cannot breathe anymore. I try not to breathe. I do not want any more blood in my lungs. Try not to.

  They stand over me, huge figures, white on white, then faint wisps of essence coursing over them in pale, pale color. He looks at me with a storm in his eyes, and she . . . she is beautiful. She leans down, leans a long way down, her hand outstretched, reaching down. She touches my chest and the pain . . . stops.

  “What are you doing, Mother?” he asks.

  She straightens up, so far up and away, her face a light of glory. She stops. Everything stops. I stop. Everything . . .

  My mind blinked.

  Vize is running. Everything is white. I am running. Everything is white. He looks over his shoulder at me. He looks determined . . . or crazed . . . I can’t tell. Everything is white. One minute we were facing each other, and now everything is white. He stops. He looks surprised. There is someone lying on the ground. Something about him is familiar. Everything is white and there is no ground. There is someone lying in the white. Everything . . .

  My mind blinked.

  “I can’t do this, Briallen,” I shout.

  Briallen kneels by me. Something is not right. Or different. She doesn’t look right. She reaches out but stops.

  “You must. I can’t,” she says.

  I close my eyes and see white and something black, far, far away. Black like a seed in the white. Briallen sings and then she screams and then I know what to do.

  My mind blinked.

  My mind blinked.

  My mind blinked.

  . . . stops. Everything stops. Even me.

  “Thinking,” she says.

  “You interfere with the Wheel of the World,” he says.

  “I am the Wheel of the World. So are you. So is he. So are we all. The all of it is one,” she says.

  He leans toward me, ranks of hair cascading down, wild and wind-wet. “He seems familiar to me.”

  The light of her face moves with her nod. “He is and was and will be.”

  He withdraws, a slow receding of immensity, but I can see his face. “I know what you are thinking,” he says to her.

  “Tell me, then. I do not know,” she says.

  He laughs, something deep, a rumble from the deep that sounds like time.

  My mind blinked.

  Vize looks feverish. “It must happen this way. You must let it happen.”

  “I won’t let you,” I say.

  He looks frightened yet determined as I reach toward him.

  He recedes.

  My mind blinks.

  “He’s dying. That is the Way of the Wheel,” he says.

  “I am here. That is the Way as well,” she says.

  He laughs again. “Yes,” he says.

  “Yes,” she says.

  My mind blinks.
/>   My hand reaches out for the staff.

  My mind blinks.

  My hand reaches out for the knife.

  My mind blinks.

  My hand reaches out for the ring.

  My mind blinks.

  My hand reaches out . . .

  My mind blinks.

  She extends her hand again, down, down, down, it comes, glowing with light, with essence, with her. My hand reaches out for her hand. We touch. Sensation returns. I scream and

  everything

  goes

  white

  30

  I wrenched forward and coughed, spitting blood into my lap. Spots of light flashed across my eyes, red and white and black. Moira gasped, backing away from me in horror. Her hair had come loose on one side. Blood speckled her white wrap, which slipped from her shoulders to the crook of one arm. I wiped at my mouth, and the back of my hand came away covered in blood.

  The commissioner lay facedown at my feet, his arms thrown forward. Beyond him, Tibbet crouched over Eagan where he slumped on the floor against the chair, slack-jawed, chin curled into his shoulder, arms gathered limply in his lap, hands palm up.

  I gathered my feet under me. “What the hell happened?”

  Tibbet rose with tears streaming down her face. She threw herself into my arms. “I thought you were dead.”

  My gut tightened at the sight over her shoulder of the commissioner. Faint wisps of smoke curled from his damaged and sunken eyes, a telltale sign of essence shock. Scott Murdock was dead. “Gods, Tibs, did I kill him?”

  She shook her head against my chest. “Manus did it. He won’t wake up, Connor.”

  Eagan’s essence smoldered within him fainter than it had been. He wasn’t dead. “He used whatever he had left, Tibs. He’s alive, though.”

  A pounding on the door sounded. Tibbet lifted her head and grimaced through her tears. I kissed her forehead, leaving a bloody lip print. I blotted it off with my sleeve. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, smoothing her dress as she did so. She opened her eyes, still wet, but clearer and sharper. With an upward tilt of her chin, she approached the door and opened it partway to speak to whoever was on the other side.