Unperfect Souls

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?”

“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.