Unperfect Souls

15

I didn’t know what to make of Uno. When I told Shay I would look into the whole hellhound thing, it was an academic issue. Motivated by concern, sure, but academic. Now that I had seen the dog without Shay around—and Murdock hadn’t—it had suddenly made itself a more personal issue.

Murdock remained at the scene in the parking lot. I returned to my apartment, feeling winter settle into the bones of the city. The stark slivers of sky between buildings threatened snow. Harsh sunlight cast sharp shadows, the sudden change of white light to black shadows causing afterimages to flash in my vision despite my sunglasses.

A black car idled at the end of my street, an elf in Consortium livery waiting beside the rear door. As I approached, he opened the door and revealed a lone figure seated in back. Eorla leaned forward. Surprised, I slipped in with a gust of cold air.

“What brings you down here?” I asked.

“Aren’t you pleased to see me?” Eorla asked.

“It’s always a pleasure to see you,” I said.

She threw a slight sideways glance at me, a thin smile on her face. “You flatter me often. Is it courtesy or mockery?”

I tilted my head. “Is sincerity so hard to believe?”

She chuckled. “Not in my world. Not always. You don’t have a reputation for respect.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think that’s accurate. Respect is a two-way street. I might respect someone’s authority, but they don’t get to keep it if they don’t earn it. The fact that you’re a Marchgrafin or a Guild director means less to me than the things you do and the choices you make.”

She laughed. “Is the fact that you neglect to mention I am Grand Duchess supposed to prove your point?”

“Not really. I don’t know why you’re called that, so it’s not really relevant to me.”

She arched an eyebrow. “What if it is relevant?”

I smiled playfully at her. “Prove it.”

She settled into the corner of the seat. “I assume you don’t know elven history. The title is mine by right of birth. My father was Elven King before Donor. He died when Donor’s father challenged him. They killed each other. Since I was an only child with the error of being female, the nearest male heir succeeded to the crown.”

“You should have been queen?” I asked.

She pursed her lips. “Not by the custom of my people. When I married, I took the title Marchgrafin to show the world I considered my husband Alvud an equal partner. Now that he is gone, I have resumed the title Grand Duchess to send a different message. Convergence changed the rules of our world, Mr. Grey. Donor Elfenkonig would do well to remember that.”

“And you wonder why I like you . . . Grand Duchess,” I said.

She laughed aloud. “And I, you. I have something I need to do and hope you will accompany me. It shouldn’t take long.”

“Not a problem,” I said.

A sending fluttered in the air, and the driver pulled away from the curb.

“How is your Taint research going?” I asked.

She folded her gloved hands loosely together. “Interesting. I am acquiring an understanding of how the Celtic and Teutonic spells worked together. It’s fascinating, actually. We tend to view the two modes as separate and distinct, but there are fundamental overlaps. I will show you, if you like.”

“I would.”

A moment of comfortable silence. “Bastian Frye wants to meet with you.”

Whatever the errand, I couldn’t help wondering if this was the point of Eorla’s appearance. “Why?”

“If I know Bastian—and I do—he had a hand in what happened in TirNaNog. The Elven King would not have made such a blatant military move against Maeve, but Bastian would have manipulated the opportunity.”

“He’s working with Vize, then,” I said.

Eorla pursed her lips. “I’m sure they have contact. In fact, I know they do, but it’s through layers of deniable channels. If Bergin is doing something Bastian approves of, I am sure paths get smoothed when possible.”

“And why should I help them?” I asked.

She glanced at me with a slim smile. “You don’t have to, but it presents an interesting opportunity. Bastian adores secrecy. If I were you, I would suggest a public meeting. It will irritate Bastian and drive Ryan macGoren to distraction when he receives word that you met.”

Impressed, I nodded. “Tell him it’s a date, then.”

“He will be pleased with me that I persuaded you,” she said.

When I first met Eorla, she said she used her skills best in the political arena. She wasn’t kidding.

The car turned onto Harbor Street. Plywood covered the windows of the building in the middle of a row. A smaller piece of wood had been fitted over the glass door. In a few short months, graffiti had found a home on it, much of it lamenting the closing of the place. The sign across the front, faint beneath a rime of frost, read UNITY. Eorla’s husband, Alvud Kruge, founded the place as a drop-in center to help area kids get off the streets. It was where he was murdered, his body hacked to pieces. Eorla stared out the window.

“Why are we here?” I asked.

Eorla didn’t turn. “You don’t seem to know much of elven history. Do you know much of our religion?”

“Not particularly. Most of what I know is related to how elves manipulate essence.”

She leaned closer to the window to peer up at the building. “Yes, the outward manifestation of power always impresses. I am talking about matters of the soul, Mr. Grey. When at last we leave our bodies, we leave a sign of ourselves behind for a time, a bit of the soul, if you will. That is what my people believe. That is what I believed.

“But when I last saw Alvud’s body, there was nothing there, no last thought or emotion. It saddened me that my husband did not leave a final remembrance, and saddened me further that my faith was misplaced. I have had a difficult time these last months with no husband and no faith.”

I clasped Eorla’s gloved hand. She returned the pressure lightly. It was not the first time she shared her grief with me. I don’t know why she did, but Bastian Frye and Brokke didn’t strike me as sources for heartfelt sympathy.

She turned from the window. “You likely know of these decapitation murders in the Weird, yes?”

Change of subject, then. “I’ve been helping the Boston police with them.”

“I overheard a chance remark among my security staff recently. I was not made aware of the full details of my husband’s murder.”

Not a change of subject, then. Because of his high profile, the Guild investigated Alvud Kruge’s murder. I never read the final report. Murdock and I found his body at the murder scene. Kruge’s body was savaged, blown apart by essence. The force of the attack decapitated him. We found his head embedded in a wall.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that, Eorla,” I said.

She withdrew and folded her hands in her lap. “I understand the impulse to protect my feelings, but I wish I had known.”

“I’m still confused by why we are here,” I said.

Beneath her outer calm, I felt her emotions rising. “You were the only one who saw what was behind my husband’s murder. I think it is fitting for you to see the final resolution of his death.”

With the prompting of a soft sending, the driver trotted to Eorla’s side of the car. Even though I overlooked Eorla’s royal privileges, on an embarrassing level, I enjoyed watching Teutonic Consortium agents being used as footmen. They tended to be pushy and arrogant types, so watching them taken down a peg or two was entertaining. Plenty of people felt the same way about me. I joined Eorla on the doorstep of the store as she withdrew a key from her pocket.

“Please wait outside, Rand,” Eorla said. He hesitated but withdrew after sendings flew between them.

The place had not changed since the murder months earlier. Cast-off furniture filled the front of the large, dim room, a Ping-Pong table and old metal desks in the rear. After Kruge’s murder, it was a crime scene. It didn’t look like anyone had been inside since the police released it. “Is UNITY closed down?”

Eorla reflectively observed the room. “I appointed a manager and moved its offices. I haven’t decided what to do with this property.”

“You’ll sell it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to deal with Ryan macGoren asking to buy it. He would be inconsiderate enough to try.”

MacGoren’s desire to turn the Weird into an urban renewal project was one of the reasons Alvud Kruge had ended up dead. MacGoren withheld information from the police, but there wasn’t significant evidence that he could have prevented what happened. Being a callous dirtbag wasn’t against the law. “I’d like to check the office before you see it.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded. Kruge’s office was through a large archway. Unlike the front, the room had changed from my last visit. Kruge’s body, of course, was gone. When we found him, blood bathed the office in horrific red. Now, somber brown stains marked the walls and floors in the muted remainders of the murder. To the right, a few feet above my head, darker stains smeared the cavity in the wall where Kruge’s head had been. His attacker had killed a young man, too, a teenager who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I looked over my shoulder at Eorla. “There are dried bloodstains, but otherwise nothing.”

She wet her lips. “I have seen the carnage wrought on battlefields, Connor, but thank you.”

Despite her boast, I heard a faint intake of breath beside me. It was one thing to see blood and gore. It was another to know it belonged to someone you knew—loved—no matter how old it was. Her eyes went to the cavity in the wall. “That’s where his . . . where he was?”

“Yes,” I said.

She muttered an incantation. In a smooth glide, she rose from the floor until she was eye level with the hole. Levitating your own body was difficult, but Eorla didn’t appear to need much effort to raise herself. She stared at the opening and chanted.

From the darkness of the wall cavity, warm green essence eased into my sensing ability. It peaked and gathered, slowly revolving. Eorla removed a glove and reached in. The essence flowed over her hand and vanished. She stayed with her hand outstretched, as if waiting for more, a subtle look of surprise on her face. She closed the hand into a loose fist as tears sprang to her eyes. Closing her eyes, she brought her hand to her lips and held it with her other hand. A single tear escaped and rolled down her cheek as she descended.

I gently turned her from the wall. She leaned her head against my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her and swayed in place to comfort her. She let me, lost in her husband’s last memories, which had bonded to the blood in the wall.

“His final thoughts were for the human child, then he said my name,” she murmured into my chest.

“He was a good man, and he loved you. You didn’t need to do this to know that,” I said.

She placed her hand on my coat over my heart. Warmth touched me. The dark mass in my head flexed at the sensation but didn’t do anything else.

Eorla took an audible breath. “Thank you.”

She adjusted her hat and took my arm. I escorted her back to the car.