Uncertain Allies

12

I woke with a gasp as cold water poured on my face and spilled down my neck. I hunched forward in the darkened living room, a headache blooming at the sudden movement. My body shields flickered but receded as my sensing ability picked up the body signature beside my futon.

“Ass,” I said.

Murdock smirked down at me, a half-empty water glass poised in his hand to drip more water on me. “Rise and shine, grumpy.”

I wiped the wetness from my face with my hands and winced when Murdock turned on the lights. Sunlight peeked through cracks in the plywood and plastic barrier that served as my replacement window. During the riots, Guild agents had smashed their way in to arrest me, and the landlord wasn’t in any rush to replace the glass.

I swung my feet to the floor and made my way to the bathroom. My head felt like it followed on a tether about two feet behind. A flutter in my stomach tried to get my attention, threatening to become a rush of something trying to get out of my body. I stood in front of the john, steadying myself with one hand against the wall as I relieved myself. “You could have called,” I said.

His voice echoed in from the living room. “I did. And I rang the buzzer, but you didn’t answer. Seemed like a good idea to check if you were on the run or dead.”

I shuffled out of the bathroom and slipped on some black jeans from the floor. I was pretty sure they were the clean ones. “I guess I was in a deep sleep.”

He eyed me with amusement as he washed the glass. “I guess technically that’s true.”

I pulled a clean T-shirt out of the laundry basket. It was clean. I knew for sure. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He leaned against the counter, shaking his head. “Connor, I really don’t care you went on a beer binge. What I do care about is that you got dressed and still smell like ass. Go take a shower. I’ll wait.”

The aroma of bar reek and beer sweat coming off me was not a pleasant combination. I hadn’t realized I wasn’t the only one who could smell it. “Wait for what?”

“We got an ID on the pit victim,” he said.

I pulled the T-shirt off again and shucked my pants to the floor. I lost my balance in the process and almost fell over. “And that concerns me because?”

He smiled and shrugged. “Because you need to do something other than drink and act like Eorla Kruge’s errand boy.”

A thick silence hung between us as I debated whether to be insulted. Murdock’s eyebrows flicked upward, a telltale sign he was more than willing to go toe-to-toe with me on the subject. I checked the rumbling burn of anger in my chest. He was right, a little blunt, but right. I walked back in the bathroom. “Your shirt’s ugly.”

“And for the love of God, brush your teeth,” he shot back.

The hot shower soothed my muscle aches but didn’t get rid of my headache, or, at least, the headache I had in addition to my usual headache. It did help me shed the layer of odor. I came out of the bathroom, rubbing my hair with a towel. “How’d the ID happen?”

He didn’t look up from the home-design magazine he was reading. I might live in a hovel, but I still appreciate a nice design sensibility I will never see again for myself. “Prints. A couple of minor arrests two decades ago,” he said.

I pulled on a clean T-shirt, then a dark gray sweater. “Has Janey done the autopsy yet?”

He dropped the magazine on the floor. It wasn’t rude. It landed on the stack of other magazines there. “Since we got an ID, she’s going to move it up,” he said.

I grabbed my jacket and knit cap. “Ready.”

Downstairs, we settled into Murdock’s car. “When I said ‘ready,’ I meant ready to go through the drive-thru at Dunkin’ Donuts. You knew that, right?”

Murdock lifted a large foam cup from the console and handed it to me. “Took care of it on the way over.”

The cup was warm in my hand, so he wasn’t joking. It’s hard to tell the fresh junk in Murdock’s car from the stale. I took grateful sips. “Do you always stop for coffee when you think someone’s dead in his apartment?”

We hopped on I-93 south to take the shortcut to Albany Street in the South End. “I said I was checking to see if you were dead. I suspected you were hungover. Likely outcomes first, you know.”

“Is that what they taught you in that online detective course you took?” I asked.

He chuckled. “Drink your coffee, Connor. You’re not awake enough to insult me effectively.”

I settled back and did as I was told. Despite everything, the fact that Murdock still joked with me was an enormous relief, even if I was the butt of the jokes. I didn’t cause the pain in his life, but I had been a part of ripping them out in the open. It wasn’t my intention, but it weighed on me.

He was a victim of the Guild as much as I was, more so, really. The Guild used me as a tool, even a weapon, when it suited them. I was the perfect instrument because I believed their lies, thought I was serving some greater good, and, yeah, reveled in the glory and honor thrown my way. Murdock, though, had never been part of their schemes. He was collateral damage.

He recognized that for what it was and didn’t blame me for what happened. I didn’t think I’d ever known anyone like him. Joe had proved time and again that he would stand by me, but Joe was, well, Joe. He rolled with everything, didn’t dwell on the past or worry about the future. Briallen, as much as she supported me, made it clear there were greater issues that demanded the sacrifice of individuals. I took that as a hint that someday, if she ever had to make a choice, she would actually consider the options. For Murdock, there were no options. He stood by me, and I’d be damned if I didn’t stand by him at this point.

I glanced at him. The bruising on his face from smashing into the wall was already healed to a faint red. “You’re awfully chipper for someone who had a fight with a wall yesterday.”

He glanced over at me with a smile. “I won the fight. What’s not to feel good about?”

I forced myself to ask the question I was dreading to hear the answer to. “How’s Kevin?”

The smile stayed on Murdock’s face. “Good. Some notunexpected damage, but a few days in the hospital should take care of it.”

I frowned at him. “Druids heal faster than baseline humans. Did you tell him about his druid signature?”

“Yeah. You really don’t want to know what he said,” he said.

I sipped my coffee. “What about the suspect?”

We coasted off the exit for Albany Street. “He’s in worse shape. The hospital won’t let anyone talk to him for another day or so,” he said.

I sipped my coffee. “I don’t pity that guy. Being to blame for injuries to fire and police officers is a tough rap to beat.”

“You should know,” said Murdock.

I gave in and chuckled. I was not going to win with him today.

The Office of the Medical Examiner building had that bleak cast that made one wonder if it was built to be depressing. The bones of the building hinted at an older, dignified past, maybe not grand, but at least presentable. What existed these days was a pitted structure, graffiti painted over in mismatched shades of gray, windowpanes repaired with cardboard when they weren’t sooty, and a much-patched asphalt driveway that led around back to the receiving bays. Despite having a grungy, years-old car, Murdock didn’t risk a parking space on Albany Street, so he parked behind the building in someone’s reserved space.

The bustle inside the OCME startled me. It had been so long since I had been in the lower level during normal business hours that I had forgotten how many people worked there. Murdock flashed his badge at the security booth. Once inside, no one paid us any attention.

At the far end of the hallway, Janey Likesmith moved with a deliberate step as if she were concentrating on the act of walking. Dark circles under her eyes marred her smooth skin. “Nice to see some friendly faces,” she said.

“If Connor’s a friendly face, it must be bad,” Murdock said.

Janey shot him an uncertain smile.

“It’s Whack Connor Day. Feel free to join in,” I said.

“Ignore him. He thinks it’s Pity Connor Day,” Murdock said.

Janey’s smile became more amused as she led us up the hall. She dropped it as we entered the autopsy room. A plaque on the wall read Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae. “This is the place where the dead delight in helping the living.” I don’t know how delighted they were, but more often than not they did provide answers.

The recent riots had produced a lot of death and now, months later, the unidentified and unmissed were being processed. Bodies occupied every table in the room, surrounded by pathology teams, some of them joined by photographers and evidence technicians. At the far end, a draped form lay without anyone attending. It wasn’t a coincidence that it was the only body in the room that had a fey body signature.

Janey received no support at the OCME. Dead fey bodies that ended up there were from the edges of society with nowhere else to go. She worked hard to give them dignity and some final recognition that they had once lived. The OCME had Janey on staff because someone had to take the fey cases the Guild didn’t want. That didn’t mean the humans welcomed her. Janey managed to ignore the politics of the situation a lot better than I would have.

She lifted the cloth off a shallow stainless-steel bowl with a single dull brown stone in it. “I’ve started the physical but thought you might want to see this.”

I used a set of tongs to pick it up. “There’s a touch of essence on it.”

“Too faint to make anything of it, though. Guess where I found it?” she asked.

“I’m not going to say what I’m thinking,” Murdock said.

Janey poked him. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t think that. It was in his stomach. I’m not seeing any bruising that might indicate a struggle. He may have been forced, but I’m inclined to suggest he swallowed it on his own.”

I turned the stone one way and the other. Except for a lone rune scratched on it that could mean anything, it looked like a plain stone. “You’re suggesting he wanted to hide it.”

Janey shook her head. “No, that’s for you guys to decide. I’m pointing out that the physical evidence might support it.”

“What’s the issue with the essence?” Murdock asked.

I dropped the stone in the bowl. “It was charged with essence, which makes it a ward stone of some kind. It was meant to do something, but the residue is too slight to figure out what.”

Murdock gave Janey a playful bump with his arm. “You called us down here for something that could be anything?”

She bumped him back. “Yes, and something else, Detective. Come take a look.”

She led us out of the examining room and down the hall to her office, a cramped space far from the other offices with a ground-level view of the parking lot. She handed Murdock a file. “This is the file for another body found on the edge of Southie three nights before our friend up the hall. He was a dwarf, too, with little essence on him.”

I read over Murdock’s shoulder. “That’s the other side of the Tangle. Same general location. Same species. Similar body signature status. Sounds like a lot, but nothing surprising for that area of town, no?”

Janey nodded. “True, but it prompted me to review the file. When the first one came in, I took tissue samples for testing because the body had negligible essence that didn’t track with the time of death. A little unusual, but not unheard of. The second body has reduced essence in a similar profile. That moves them into something less coincidental.”

“Why?” asked Murdock.

Janey leaned against the wall of drawers that held her files. “Because losing essence has a purpose. I’ve seen this patterning before, particularly in dwarves. I think you have two dead essence sellers on your hands.”

Surprised, Murdock looked up. “People sell essence?”

I held my hand out for the file. “Where do you think those ward-stone security systems come from? I have one. Even the governor does. Someone creates the stone wards, installs them in a building, then someone shows up regularly and charges them.”

Murdock opened the other file. “They get paid much for that?”

“Some do. Some don’t. It depends on how complicated the system is,” I said.

Janey opened a drawer and held out a small bag with a stone in it. “Guess what I found sewn into the lining of the Southie victim’s jacket?”

I held the bag toward the light. “Same rune marker on it, too.”

Murdock grunted in approval. “And two rap sheets that show they knew each other. Looks like we have some other associates here, but no known addresses.”

“And I know where to start looking,” I said.