Uncertain Allies cg-5 Read online

  I narrowed my eyes as the light faded. The essence was strong enough for Murdock to see it with natural vision. “I’ve been chasing it all night. Witnesses say it’s like a fastmoving cloud that sweeps up people.”

  “Anyone killed?”

  Death was only a matter of time in the Tangle. “Not yet. Lots of missing, though.”

  An awkward silence settled between us. “I thought I’d run into you at the hospital,” I said.

  A slight smile creased his face. “Are you spanking me?”

  I shifted on my feet. “Sorry. That was passive-aggressive.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah. And that’s one of your better qualities.”

  I frowned. “I was just asking.”

  “Oh, lighten up. Yes, I’ve been to the hospital. Almost every day. Believe it or not, they have morning visiting hours.”

  I was on friendly terms with late-night breakfast at dawn. “I hate seeing her like that.”

  He sighed. “A silent Meryl is a terrible thing.”

  Meryl Dian and I were in a relationship of a sort, but what that sort was eluded me. I didn’t know if it was love or if I didn’t know what love was, but we had something intense going on. During the riots, she’d gotten caught in some kind of spell backlash and had been in a coma ever since. For months, her brain activity had been so minimal, it didn’t even register. All I knew was I missed her terribly and wanted her back.

  “We should have lunch,” Murdock said.

  We hadn’t done anything as normal as have lunch together in weeks. Despite what he said, it was hard not to feel like he was freezing me out, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. “I’d like that.”

  We stepped back as a medical examiner—a human one—arrived. “It never ends, does it, Leo?”

  “Nothing lasts forever, Connor. Things won’t always be like this,” he said.

  After everything that had happened to him, Murdock could still say something like that. Hope drove him and a faith I didn’t have. I tried to hang on, though. I didn’t think I had a choice. It was either that, or let the bad guys win.

  2

  I spent the morning running down contacts, but I didn’t get much information for all my efforts. Morning wasn’t the most popular time of day in the Weird. As I walked the streets, I realized that I had begun to not notice the damage done by the riots a few months earlier. The Guild and the Teutonic Consortium had pitted the Dead and the local solitaries against each other in another of a long chain of proxy wars between the two monarchies. The tension between the two groups flared into a night of rioting that grew while the Weird burned around them. The Guild and the Consortium had lost control of their factions and turned on them, threatening to annihilate the neighborhood.

  If Eorla hadn’t stepped in, a bloodbath would have resulted. With Meryl’s help, she calmed the rioters and stood up to the Guild and the Consortium. A disaster might have been averted, but damage had already been done. Parts of the Weird, a place already falling apart, were now in ruins. And I had almost stopped seeing it. When people stop seeing the neglect around them—decay sets in, and things fall apart. I hoped enough people kept their eyes open.

  As the sun approached noon, I strolled over the Old Northern Avenue bridge toward the financial district—the only bridge left over Fort Point Channel. The other two bridges lay underwater, slumped and broken. During the riots, they had been destroyed by the solitary fey to stop the National Guard from attacking the Weird. The tactic had worked for the most part, but now it made coming and going into the neighborhood difficult. While the government argued about liability and responsibility, no one worried about the inconvenience. At least the Oh No bridge, held together by twisted and warped iron girders, saved a one-mile walk around.

  The atmosphere in the lobby of the Rowes Wharf Hotel had changed since the last time I was there. Then, it had bustled with tourists and businesspeople on the downtown side of the channel. Now, it served as the waiting area for Eorla Elvendottir’s administrative offices. Across town in Back Bay, people waited in poor weather conditions outside the Guildhouse or not at all in front of the Teutonic Consortium consulate. Treating people with dignity and respect was a nice change of pace for the fey. Eorla wasn’t paying lip service to her ideals.

  No one stopped me. Two elves followed me across the lobby at a discreet distance, both in the green livery of the Kruge clan, which Eorla had led since her husband was murdered. After years of working for the Celtic-run Fey Guild, it felt odd to have elves providing me with protection. They used to be the enemy. Most of them were, but the line between who hated me and who hated me more was getting blurred.

  Boston was under martial law. It had to be. When half the city went on a rampage and the other half was terrified, no one complained about curfews. Despite all the security, I didn’t need to show identification. Everyone in the building knew my name, and most people knew my face, one of the perks of being suspected of causing the disaster. It wasn’t because I was popular except among a select group of people. Those people weren’t popular either.

  Eorla held court on the third floor of the hotel in a meeting room that had been decorated to reflect an elven sensibility—woven tapestries featuring woodland scenes and large oaken chairs with intricate carvings lined the walls. Down the center, a long, wide, wool carpet in deep green led to a library table where Eorla received visitors. Courtiers—there was no other word for them—busied themselves along the perimeter of the room, reviewing documents and comparing notes.

  A wood fairy stood by himself in front of Eorla. His crackled gray skin gave him a forlorn air, but all his clan looked like that. “. . . and I’ve lost everything, ma’am.”

  “I can’t replace what you’ve lost, but I can give you work. Can you work?” Eorla asked.

  The fairy lowered his gaze. “I can if it will give me a home.”

  Eorla gestured to an aide. “We need help shoring up damaged buildings. Some of your clan are already lending their skills to the effort. You’ll be provided room and board while you work.”

  The fairy bowed. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Eorla had formed a court that wasn’t divided between Celtic and Teutonic fey. She accepted people from all backgrounds and species as long as they understood her goals. She wanted to bring the fey beyond their eternal bickering and find a new path in the modern world. She had tried to do that through the elven Teutonic Consortium, then the Celtic Guildhouse, but she was one woman against entrenched bureaucracies. In the firestorm of the riot, she had discovered she didn’t have to make change from the top but could make something happen from the bottom. Fey were flocking to her cause—particularly the solitaries of both the Celts and Teuts, who never caught a break from either monarchy.

  The aide escorted the fairy to the side of the room as I approached the table. “Not that I’m against it, but how long can you afford to do this?”

  Eorla looked up at me with amusement. Many fey, including elves, had skin tones that diverged from the human norm. Sometimes it was disconcerting. Eorla’s skin glowed with a subtle green light, a result of containing the spell that had driven people to riot. Green wasn’t a color that appealed to me; but on Eorla, it had a strange effect of enhancing her beauty with a warm tone that accentuated her upswept dark hair and deep brown eyes. “You’d be surprised at the income resources that have appeared. More than a few people support what I’m doing—even among the Celts.”

  Many people supported her cause, but the big money was waiting to see how Donor Elfenkonig would handle what was essentially Eorla’s personal revolt against his rule. “I hope it’s enough.”

  She gestured at the paperwork on the table. “I hope it’s temporary. After everything that’s happened here, I hope the Guild and the Consortium see the error of their ways and change.”

  “What are the odds?”

  Eorla chuckled. “I have more hope than you do, Connor. Change works faster when it’s a long time coming. How did things go last night?”


  I shrugged. “Couldn’t catch a break. No one’s talking down near the Tangle. I saw the essence everyone says shows up before people go missing. It moves fast. I haven’t been able to get a good tag on it yet, but there are definitely some of the Dead involved.”

  “They do continue to be a problem,” she said.

  The Dead had harassed the city for months. They had arrived from the Celtic land of the dead and become trapped in Boston. They were a rambunctious lot, prone to violence—no surprise since each day they woke fully healed of their wounds from the previous day, even fatal ones. People who were already dead had little to fear. They didn’t like authority figures either. “I think they’ve retreated to the Tangle. I haven’t seen them in other parts of the neighborhood.”

  Eorla glanced at Rand, her bodyguard, who kept tabs on everyone near her. I didn’t count many elves as friends, and, while I didn’t know if Rand was one, I respected the hell out of the guy. In the short time I had known him, he had stepped up in ways I hadn’t expected. Consortium guards weren’t known for defying the king, no matter if they were attached to other royals. A flutter went through the air, indicating that Eorla had done a sending, a mental communication much like telepathy but keyed to personal essence. Rand ushered everyone out of the room, then took a relaxed stance facing the door halfway down the carpet.

  “I’m having trouble bringing people in that end of the neighborhood to my cause. I was hoping you could provide some insight,” she said.

  I sat on the corner of the desk. “No one has ever had much luck with the Tangle, Eorla.”

  “Our goals are aligned, are they not? The Tangle wants to operate outside the influence of the Guild and the Consortium,” she said.

  I shook my head. “The flaw in your thinking is that you’re assuming the Tangle doesn’t want to be the way it is. It already operates outside the law. That’s its point, and no matter who’s in charge—even if it’s you—it will still fill a need outside the rules.”

  She leaned back and steepled her fingers. “I hadn’t thought about it in that way. I wonder, though, that they would not prefer to operate as they do with the knowledge that they won’t be interfered with?”

  “Maybe. But it really is a free-for-all down there. You have no one to make a deal with,” I said.

  She arched an eyebrow. “Connor, I think you are a smart man, but you are not a warrior. When a group has no leader, that is the perfect time for one to arrive.”

  When Eorla made a comment like that—or any of the Old Ones who lived in Faerie—it reminded me that I was dealing with people who had lived in warring, often brutal, times. Growing up in Boston, in a democratic system, I tended to forget that majority rule wasn’t the only way to gain power, only one that did it with a lot less bloodshed than war.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

  She rose from her seat and went to the window, gazing toward the horizon. To the east lay the harbor, sparkling in the midday sun. To the south was the Weird, dim, gray, and sad, a jumble of warehouses and office buildings that had seen better days.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said.

  “It’s what gets me up in the mornings,” I said. I didn’t always believe that. Once upon a time, the Weird had no more concern for me except as a place to get a little down and dirty. The lives of the people who lived there weren’t an issue when I was flying high and having fun. I used to think people lived their lives by choice. Losing my job and my abilities—my world and way of life—changed all that. Not everyone in the Weird was there because they wanted to be. Not all of them chose to put themselves in a failing situation. Discovering how much the power elite caused their plights made the matter worse to me. It didn’t have to be this way.

  Eorla slipped her hand into mine. “I check on her every day.”

  She meant Meryl. Eorla and Meryl had worked together to stop the rioting in the Weird. They succeeded at Meryl’s expense. When Meryl volunteered to help Eorla, she made me promise to take revenge if she died. She didn’t die. She didn’t live either. I didn’t know what to do about it. I wasn’t sure Meryl would appreciate the nuance. She’d want me to kick someone’s ass. The fact that Eorla followed Meryl’s progress despite everything else she had to deal with told me that she cared. Whether she cared because of me, or on principle, didn’t matter. She cared.

  “I know,” I said. I squeezed her hand, and she returned the pressure.

  3

  Outside the hotel, a bus trundled up Atlantic Avenue toward Avalon Memorial Hospital. I hitched a ride, deciding to visit Meryl earlier in the day than usual. I didn’t like being at the hospital when lots of people were around. Too many people and too many rumors flying around the floors dragged me down, so I visited people after hours.

  The dark underbelly of the elevated highway slid by above, sunlight peering in through the occasional gaps between girders and nearby buildings. The highway formed an enormous barrier across the city, cutting off the North End from the rest of the neighborhoods. It stood ten stories high, double-decked and rust-cancred green—the other Green Monster in Boston. The more well-known one was the wall towering over left field at Fenway Park. At the ballpark, you could get beer. Under the elevated, you could get mugged.

  The bus cut through an intersection and rocked side to side as it settled in at the Haymarket stop. Like so much Boston transportation, the route didn’t quite take me to where I wanted to go. Waiting for a connection would take longer than hoofing it, so I walked the final blocks to Cambridge Street.

  An old brick building overlooking the river had been home to Avalon Memorial Hospital for decades. When the fey got sick, they went to Boston for the best healing expertise. Gillen Yor was chief of staff, and no one knew more about fey medicine than he did. He had been High Queen Maeve’s personal physician until he left for the States. She wasn’t happy about that. He didn’t care.

  I passed through the main entrance, its lintel carved with apples dangling from trees in a nod to its Faerie namesake. Avalon was an island, a place of healing, shrouded in mystery. The island didn’t come through during Convergence, when other parts of Faerie merged with reality. The fey did the next best thing and opened hospitals that specialized in essence-related maladies and injuries.

  The elevator doors opened on Meryl’s floor, and the scent of dill and lavender tickled my nose. It said something about my life that the odors of a hospital had a familiarity that had become a comfort for me. Hawthorn, birch, latex, and bleach mixed in an aroma that meant hope and healing. Healers did the best they could with the knowledge they had, and then some. They didn’t always succeed, but AvMem was the best bet for most anyone.

  Last year, a tainted form of essence had infected the fey down in the Weird. The Taint caused anyone who encountered it to lose control and become violent. It was a major factor in the rioting. With Meryl’s help, Eorla absorbed the Taint and contained it. In the process, they had been bombarded with the Taint and fell into comas. Eorla woke up. Meryl didn’t. Since then, she had been in a trance state, with no explanation or cure in sight.

  Essence was a tool with no will of its own. Depending on the user’s intent, it could heal or kill. In the main hallways of AvMem, stone wards dampened ambient essence. The stones were infused with spells to reduce interference with the delicate precision of healing spells that operated in patient rooms. Powerful wards made even the trace of essence disappear, but those took time and ability. AvMem’s wards ran a middle ground—strong enough to dampen wayward essence from interfering with healing spells but not so strong that the ability necessary to create them wasted energy, which was why I sensed body signatures as I came out of the elevator, a strong one in particular. I quickened my pace to Meryl’s room.

  Seated with his back to the door, Nigel Martin cocked his head to the side as I entered, sensing me as I had sensed him. Meryl faced me from a chair opposite him, her stare the same vacant stare it had been for months. I walked around
the bed and stood between them.

  “What are you doing in here?” I asked.

  Nigel tipped his head back, his hands propped on a cane between his knees. The past year had aged him, more white in the dark brown hair that swept over his ears to the nape of his neck, more lines networked in the crow’s-feet of his eyes. As much as I wanted to dismiss the stress he had been under, I had a momentary pang thinking that my former mentor was getting old. It was momentary, though. Nigel and I weren’t on good terms.

  His eyes narrowed. “Your body signature becomes more a mystery to me each time we meet, Connor. Are you in any pain?”

  I’d had my own accident with a spell backlash. Almost three years earlier, I was hunting down a terrorist by the name of Bergin Vize. I caught up with him at a nuclear power plant north of Boston, and all hell broke loose. Vize had a ring of power—what it was for I still didn’t know—and a feedback loop with the reactor caused an explosion. When I woke up, I had no ability to manipulate essence anymore and the shadowy black mass in my head. It hurt like hell, but as far as I was concerned, it was no longer any of Nigel’s business.

  I gave him my back as I tugged Meryl’s hand. She didn’t have any awareness of her surroundings, but she responded to some stimuli. I slipped my hand along her arm and guided her back to the bed. As she settled against the pillows, I faced Nigel. “I asked you a question.”

  He flicked an eyebrow in annoyance. “There are those, believe it or not, Connor, who seek my help. Gillen Yor told me he cannot detect any brain activity, yet she isn’t vegetative. I came to see for myself.”

  I used my sensing ability—the only ability I had left—to check Meryl. Other than her dimmed body signature, I detected nothing different from my last visit. “Did you do anything to her?”

  He shook his head. “Why does my friendship with her bother you so?”

  I frowned. “I’ve had your friendship, Nigel. It’s a fickle thing.”