Uncertain Allies

29

Murdock pulled to the curb on Tide Street. He eased out of the car, his tactical uniform all black and business, and scanned the sidewalk like a cop. Meryl pushed herself off the wall she had been leaning against and hugged him. “You finally updated your wardrobe,” she said.

He hugged her back. “I see that a coma hasn’t made yours any more subtle.”

Meryl wore her biker jacket over a black lace top. What the neckline hid, the tight fabric more than made up for. Black leather pants and high, flat-soled boots with lots of buckles completed the outfit. She tilted her head and feigned confusion. “What do you mean? This is my running outfit.”

“Running to or from?” he asked.

“At,” she said.

He leaned against his car and crossed his arms. “What’s the plan?”

Meryl looked at me. “You’re sure you want to do this?” she asked.

“I’m sure,” I said.

She lifted her head, and the subtle flutter of a sending wafted through the air. In the distance, a howl mixed with the sound of sirens. Something primal tugged at me, raising the hair on the back of my neck. Another howl joined in, and another, until we were ringed with the sound of yips and barks drawing closer. A dark shape leaped from a building in the distance and landed on all fours. As it scrambled down the street toward us, more figures appeared from every direction, dark and howling.

Responding to some instinct, Murdock and I backed next to Meryl, who lounged in a casual pose against the wall. Murdock’s hand went to his gun holster, but Meryl put her own hand on his arm. “Don’t,” she said.

The figures bounded closer, bunching together until they formed an arc of rippling muscle and fur. They ranged along the edge of the circle of light, wiry lupine bodies darting forward and back, agitation showing in the orange gleam of their eyes. Some pulled up onto their hind legs and howled against the sky.

The vitniri surrounded us. An unsettling merging of man and wolf, they struck terror in everyone who crossed their path. The tang of musk and sweat hung in the air as they jostled each other, pawing and nipping at one another. Their howls and barks receded as one broke through the circle into the light. He loomed over us, peering down his long-snouted face as he licked his tongue across sharp teeth. “We came,” he said.

“We need to find someone,” Meryl said.

He growled deep in his throat. “Give us a scent. We will find him.”

Meryl gestured at me. “He smells like this one.”

I resisted the urge to shudder as the vitniri regarded me. The leanansidhe had called me “brother.” I suppose it made sense that Vize could be considered the same. I smiled. “Hi.”

He leaned in close, his nostrils flaring. His eyes never left mine as he sniffed, his face hovering over my face. He stopped and exhaled, a rancid odor hitting me as a plume of essence settled on my skin. His lips curled back, and I flinched as a long tongue snaked out and licked my cheek.

He retreated, hunching his shoulders as his body signature brightened around him in a halo of deep orange light. He arched his spine and roared. A cloud of essence burst from his mouth, curling in the night air as the pack around us barked and howled. They danced in the cloud, the essence heightening their excitement. They jumped and leaped down the dark street in several directions. The lead vitniri dropped to all fours, howled at me, then dashed up the alley.

I reached up to wipe my face, but Meryl grabbed my hand. “Leave it. It’s a tag so the pack doesn’t confuse you with its prey.”

“Can someone explain to me what’s happening?” Murdock asked.

Meryl walked into the street and peered into the distance. “The vitniri can scent essence over long distances for a brief period.”

“Why the hell didn’t you mention this before?” he asked.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Uh . . . coma?”

Murdock had the good sense to be chagrined. I couldn’t blame him though. The vitniri freaked me out a little, too. My body was taking its time settling out of fight-or-flight mode, and I knew what the damned things were. They had protected Vize during the riots without knowing it. With their strong sense of honor, they wanted to repay the error. “How do we follow them?” I asked.

“The alpha will send the location,” she said.

“They’re not going to kill him when they find him, are they?” Murdock asked.

“The alpha will do his best to prevent that,” she said.

“ ‘His best’?” Murdock asked.

Meryl nodded once. “His best. The pack is in heightened hunt mode. They listen to the alpha, but emotions can get out of hand. Be glad you weren’t down here when the Taint was loose.”

I paced the sidewalk, alert and anxious. An occasional howl brought me to a stop, and we tensed, waiting to see if Meryl received a sending. She remained still, head cocked toward the sound. The first few times, she shook her head to indicate she hadn’t heard anything. After a while, she took to filing her nails without acknowledging the sounds.

An hour later, Meryl stood in the middle of the sidewalk, hands planted on her hips. “Let’s move,” she said.

Murdock and I trailed after her as she walked down the alley. “Have they found him?”

“They hit two old traces but nothing solid. They’re running a grid pattern. This area’s clear for a couple of blocks,” she said.

As we rounded the corner to the next street, my head buzzed with the effects of scrying. Without being asked, Meryl took my hand and activated her body shield. The shield draped over us, deadening the threat of pain. “No one’s getting any good reads on the future lately, mostly static. People keep trying, though.”

“That happened before Castle Island, you know,” I said.

She glanced at me from under her yellow bangs. “And before Forest Hills and before Boston Common and before the riots.”

“I get it, I get it,” said Murdock. “Something bad’s going down. Can we focus on the problem at hand instead of going all ominous?”

“Just stating the facts,” said Meryl.

“Can the facts be more about succeeding than dreading?” he asked.

Meryl started to say something but snapped her mouth closed instead. A reflective look came over her face, and she swung my hand. “They found him,” she said.

She pulled me along the sidewalk into the next alley, a sinuous gauntlet of brick and trash. Howls filled the air as we approached the end, the buildings curving over the next street like cupped hands. We stopped in an intersection of six streets, vitniri running in circles around a cluster of darkness pressed against the narrow end of a corner building. The dark mass in my head contracted and flared with heat.

“All I see is shadow,” said Murdock.

“It’s him,” I said. The darkness in front of me swelled and undulated against the building, feathering along the cornice of the first floor. Around it, vitniri darted and snarled, avoiding its edge. Whenever the shadow shifted, the lupine figures backed away. Whether the alpha held them in check or they sensed danger in the shadow’s touch made no difference to me. They weren’t going to die because I had asked for their help.

Meryl primed her hands with essence but left them at her sides. “He’s using some kind of shield to hide behind. It’s being generated by an essence spot near the ground.”

I peered into the shadow with my sensing ability. The darkness made a pale white haze seem brighter than it was. It moved and shifted down near the curb. Living essence moved around, not stone wards. “He’s got Gretan with him. She has a cloaking ability.”

“The nixie who left the bite scars in your neck?” Meryl asked.

“She left scars?” My hand went to the back of my neck. The last time I had encountered Vize, the small blue nixie jumped on my back and bit me. Her tiny claws left their marks, too. I hadn’t realized they scarred.

“Upper teeth. She could use an orthodontist,” Meryl said.

The dark mass in my head ached as it contracted again. Across the square, a tendril of darkness snaked out of Vize’s shadow and stabbed at one of the vitniri. The lupine jumped away without being touched as his brothers moved closer on the other side. Another tendril shot out as the first one withdrew, and the shadow shifted. Vize seemed unable to spread his attack, and the vitniri used their numbers to keep him pinned. Even though he had the power of the darkness, he was outnumbered. It was a stalemate.

“What’s our plan?” Murdock asked.

Meryl hardened her shield as some vitniri danced around us. “When you fought him in TirNaNog, I saw a shadow like that appear when you made contact. It knocked you off your feet.”

“It hurt like hell, too,” I said.

“If you do that again, maybe Murdock and I can subdue him before he regains his balance,” she said.

“Not with the nixie shielding him,” I said. Vize didn’t have a body shield anymore. Despite her small size, Gretan generated a formidable shield for both of them. Meryl would be able to penetrate it, but that would draw their attention and make her a primary target. I didn’t want that, not after her coma and not after her doubts about the sanity of my plan. A physical assault wasn’t going to get us anywhere.

“Then let’s get rid of her.” Before I could stop her, Meryl set her stance, stretched her arm out, and fired a tight, intense burst of essence from her hand. It sliced through the nixie’s shield and hit the faint hazy body signature dead-on. The shield evaporated as the nixie tumbled out of the shadow, a blur of blue skin and white hair that stopped splayed out on the sidewalk. Vize’s image resolved into view within the darkness.

Meryl waggled her fingers. “Damn, that burned.”

The nixie didn’t move. “Is she dead?” asked Murdock.

Meryl flicked her bangs back. “Nah. Precision stun. Word to the wise, Murdock: Having a kickin’ body shield doesn’t mean it’s invulnerable if someone knows what they’re doing.”

A plume of darkness raced across the intersection and slammed into Meryl. Her body shield collapsed. She stumbled, and I caught her as she shielded herself again.

“Point taken,” Murdock said.

Vize leaned over Gretan, shadows swirling around him.

“Shoot him,” I said.

Murdock aimed his gun. I don’t know what was sadder about that moment, that I asked my friend to shoot somebody or that he considered doing it. “Bergin Vize, this is the Boston police. Get down on the ground with your hands out.”

Vize ignored him as he lifted Gretan from the ground.

Meryl held her hand out for the gun. “I’ll do it.”

Murdock relaxed his stance but didn’t holster the gun. “No. There has to be another way.”

“If killing one person could save the world, would you do it, Leo?” I asked.

“No one’s that important, Connor,” he said.

I stared at the darkness, stared at Vize in the darkness. He stared back, keeping the vitniri at bay with feints and starts of shadow, but he didn’t take his eyes off me. He acted too calm for the position he was in. He had a plan. I didn’t want to give him any more time to execute it. “You’re right, Leo, but not the way you meant.”

As I walked away from Meryl, her shield slipped off me and the staccato beat of scrying hit my mind. She started to follow. “Please, stay back, Meryl. Leo’s right. I started this, and I have to end it. One person doesn’t matter.”

She put her hand on my arm. “Don’t do this, Connor.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m the one here he’s afraid of,” I said.

She pressed against me. “You don’t know that. You don’t.”

I glanced at Murdock. “You can always shoot him if you change your mind.”

He shook his head and looked away. “Maybe I’ll shoot both of you.”

Despite my lack of popularity with the Murdocks, I told myself he was joking. I was sure he was. Pretty sure.

Vitniri paced beside me as I crossed the intersection. Several ran close in, their eyes glazed with the heat of the hunt, tongues lolling as they scented me. One or two nipped at my clothing, then backed off, barking in frustration or confusion.

I hadn’t seen Vize since the night of the riots in the Weird. Then, he had been a little worse for wear—binding burns, cuts, bruises, and a nice split across his cheek where I had clocked him. He pulled the darkness back, let it rise and curl over us like a canopy. It didn’t touch me. Touching each other had ramifications, usually bad ones. That much Vize understood.

He cradled Gretan against his chest. “Odd company you are keeping,” he said.

“I’m going to kill you,” I said.

“You’ll miss the point of all this if you do,” he said.

“There is no point, Vize. There never was. It’s all chaos and power games,” I said.

He arched his eyebrow. “And you’re playing and being played. Of course, it’s chaos and power. The reach for power always causes chaos. It’s the Wheel of the World, Grey. Without chaos, there is no change, and without change, nothing progresses.”

“You expect me to believe you’re in this for progress? This city is in ruins because of you. You’re not going to spread your brand of progress. I won’t let you. It ends here.”

“You know you can’t touch me,” he said.

“I don’t have to,” I said. I pulled the dagger from my boot, the enchanted one that Briallen had given me. It radiated heat, the runes on the blade glistening with pale fire. The air around my hand rippled, and the blade stretched to the length of a sword. I held it with the tip stopping short of Vize’s chest.

Unimpressed, Vize looked down at the blade, then back at me. “You think you can kill me. You’re not who you think you are.”

I pressed the tip against his tunic. “Last chance to surrender.”

He lifted his hand, not toward the sword, but toward empty space. “And you.”

The air crackled with a blinding white flash of essence, and a spear appeared in his hand. Not any spear, but the spear—the one that had disappeared when I closed the gate into TirNaNog. The spear had bonded to me, to my body signature back then. It operated by some arcane set of rules no one knew. Vize had bonded with it, also, and, for some reason, it preferred him to me at that moment.

Vize pressed the tip against my jacket. The dark mass in my head burned against my skull. Spots flashed before my eyes as I tried to fight against the pain they generated. “Where did you get that?” I asked.

With a flip of his wrist that I should have seen coming, he parried the sword away and slammed the spear against the side of my knee. I fell on all fours. The dark mass bulged against the back of my right eye, pressing forward. Vize grabbed me by the hair and wrenched my head back. “I will have the stone, Grey. The only way to stop the Seelie Court is to destroy it.”

Streaks of essence-fire rained into the intersection. Vize tilted his head up to watch. “And I am not without allies.”

In TirNaNog, a ragtag collection of Celtic and Teutonic fey had joined his cause, some powerful enough to take on Danann fairies and Alfheim elves. I didn’t realize how many of them had managed to hide in the city.

Darkness sprang from my eye and hit Vize in the face. The contact jolted me to my feet as it slammed him against the wall. I staggered back as essence seared the air between us.

Get out of there. I flinched at the force of Meryl’s sending.

Vitniri screamed and howled as they scattered. Fairies swept the air, firing down. Solitaries flooded into the streets from the surrounding buildings. Behind me, Meryl and Murdock pushed across the street, their hardened body shields sizzling with the incandescent light of essence strikes.

Vize smiled at me as he pulled darkness around him and Gretan like a cloak, the spear blazing within it like white flame. The dark mass seeped out of my eye. With a shout of pain, I contracted my body essence, helping the darkness release.

The darkness boiled out of my chest in a cloud. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t care. I fed it my anger, and the darkness leaped forward, hitting Vize’s cluster of darkness like a fist. I flew backwards from the contact, hitting the pavement. I blacked out, my vision, already cluttered, going darker. The blackout lasted a few seconds, my awareness returning to see the backs of Meryl and Murdock over me as they held off attacks from either side.

I pulled myself up a wrought-iron fence. Essence-fire pinned us down, but Meryl’s and Murdock’s shields held it off. The air in front of us rippled, and Uno’s hulking form appeared, his shape swelling in size as he howled against the sky. Fey folk scrambled away in fear. Murdock swung his firing arm back and forth, panic etched on his face.

“What the hell is that?” Meryl shouted.

“I told you I got a dog. A big dog,” I said.

The sky lit with a growing halo of blue light that swept into the square as a boiling haze. Uno pressed against us, forcing us away from the fighting. Shouts echoed against the shadowed walls of a narrow street. The essence billowed toward us, clouds of indigo and white filling the width of the street. It hit Murdock’s shield in a shower of yellow sparks. His hardened crimson body shield bent and shifted, forcing itself back against the wave. He had learned how to deal with the essence wave from our last encounter.

Figures ran in the fog, distorted human shapes that leaped and screamed. They swept by us in eddies of blue, essence I recognized. The Wild Hunt had come calling, and it was attacking Vize’s allies.

A deep indigo light flickered in the midst of the Hunt. As it rolled closer, people fled in confusion. The shape resolved into a huge figure on a dream mare, its eyes burning with fierce red light. The rider reined the beast and turned it toward us. The horse stamped its feet, bloodred sparks flying up from the pavement. The rider stared down, eyes glowing with flames from a helmet mounted with enormous antlers.

Follow. The sending had a rich, deeper baritone that made me shiver. With a jab of sharp-heeled leather boots, the rider wheeled the dream mare about and cantered down the street.