Unperfect Souls

20

Inside, heat and chaos enveloped us. In the flickering half-light, fey of all stripes filled an industrial cathedral of interlocking steel beams and arches. Shouts filled the air with the roaring vibration of cheering spectators. The clank and crash of metal on metal created a shrieking bass line. The air smelled of oil and chemicals, the burnt-ozonelike residue of spent essence and the reek of unwashed bodies. Rhythmic screams of someone in deep pain pierced through it all.

“Cozy,” I said.

“You should be here on a busy night,” Meryl said.

Half the time I thought Meryl said things like that to emphasize the point that I didn’t know everything about her. The other half of the time, I hoped that was true. The reality was I didn’t know everything about Meryl, and I never would. It was the nature of the fey to move in and out of each other’s lives without knowing who the other person had been a generation ago. Long lives trailed long histories, some good, some bad. The fey either accepted that about each other, or they ended up being alone.

No one paid us any attention as we threaded through the crowd on the main floor. I had been to a few places like it before, underground clubs and safe houses where the persecuted hid to be themselves among their own kind. I loved being part of the fey subculture, but I had the luxury of not needing it. I shared a certain sensibility with the lost and shunned in the Weird, but in places like this, I realized a level of acceptance existed that I would never achieve among the solitaries. I was a druid, an acceptable fey to the mainstream. My face wasn’t scarred or scaled, feathered or furred. My skin color fell into the peach to brown spectrum the outside human world understood and accepted.

I brought my own prejudices, too. I recoiled instinctively at times, thought entire species unattractive, or feared people simply by virtue of their race. I could tell myself all I wanted that my attitudes weren’t the same thing as the human racism that was based solely, inexplicably, on skin color. All trolls did like their meat raw and weren’t particular where they got it. Merfolk occasionally did drown air-breathing lovers in the throes of passion. The fey—all fey—were filled with as many of the vicious as the virtuous. My fears and biases might be more reality based, but they were still fears and biases.

“What the hell?” Meryl swung her pocketbook around to her chest and pulled up the flap.

Joe crawled out. “You really need to clean out your purse.”

“It’s not called the Bag of Doom for nothing,” she said.

“How long have you been in there?” I asked.

He fluttered between us, taking in the sight of the ranks of solitaries hanging in the framework of the warehouse. “Just now. I had to come in tight because of all the security these guys have. Last time a vitniri licked me, I licked him back. They’ve had it in for me ever since.”

“Any word on Murdock?” Meryl asked.

Joe shook his head. “I’ve been looking for him ever since your sending. No dice.” He ducked as someone threw a beer bottle across our path. He swooped down, picked it up, and threw it back. “I don’t think he’s dead,” he continued. “His signature vanishes right where you last saw him, Connor. There should have been something for me to follow. Wherever he is, he’s masked by something powerful.”

The crowd thickened, and we pushed toward the center of attention. The screams grew louder. “There were a lot of Dead.”

“They have a knack for hiding stuff,” Joe shouted over the noise.

Chains dangled from the ceiling ahead, the heavy-duty kind for lifting machinery. They swayed and tangled as the crowd cheered. Meryl was a foot shorter than I was. I gripped her hand tighter when I saw over the heads of the crowd.

A Dead man hung by his wrists from the chains, both his shoulders dislocated and his feet just touching the floor. By his essence, he belonged to one of the lesser elven clans I didn’t know well. By what remained of his clothes and his wild, long blond hair, he was a warrior from a few centuries ago. His shirt and boots had been stripped, leaving his torso and feet bare. Blood trickled down his body from numerous slashes, and thick clots of it matted his hair.

Zev stood in front of him and pressed a knife against his chest. “For the last time, where are my people?”

The elf smiled through shattered teeth. “Go ahead and kill me, animal. I will come back and cut you down before you wake.”

Zev sliced the knife against the elf’s skin. The guy squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced. “You think so?”

“This is sick.” I moved forward.

Meryl grabbed my arm. “Don’t interfere, Grey.”

“Meryl, I won’t watch him torture this guy.”

Her eyes lit with warning. “Then don’t watch. We’re on their turf, Grey. You step in, this whole place will come down on you. Let it be.”

Angry, I yanked my arm away and instantly regretted it. Her body shield slipped off me. The dark mass became exposed to the scrying in the air and spiked with pain in my mind. “This isn’t right, Meryl.”

Meryl put her hand on my back and replaced the shield. “Sometimes, Grey, people don’t have a choice in doing what they do. We’re here for their help, not to change their ways. This isn’t the time.”

“It’s torture,” I said.

She glanced at Zev. “Yes, it is. Can you smell the blood-lust in the air? We’re outnumbered. Let it go. He’s a Dead guy.”

Zev wiped the bloodied knife against the elf’s cheek. “Bring the leech!” he called over his shoulder.

The crowd hooted and screamed as it backed away. We didn’t move as the circle withdrew and exposed us. Zev noticed, then turned his attention to a widening gap in the crowd. Meryl sucked in air as several elves with bows loaded with elf-shot appeared, the green essence primed and pointed at the leanansidhe walking in their midst.

“You weren’t kidding about her,” she said.

The leanansidhe stopped in front of Zev. She came no higher than his shoulder, her whiteless black eyes fixed on the hanging elf. She wrapped her arms around herself and crooned, pulling her tattered and soiled coat tighter.

Zev leaned down and picked up a stained sack. From within it, he withdrew the decapitated head of one of the Dead. He held it in front of the prisoner. “Look familiar, elf? Your friend thought I was bluffing, too. When you see Jark, tell him we can play his game, too, but we can take it a step further.”

He tossed the head at the leanansidhe, and she effortlessly snatched it from the air. Zev grabbed the elf by the hair, forcing him to face the leanansidhe. “Watch, elf. I know your clan can sense essence. Watch and tell Jark what waits for him if he continues hunting us.”

The leanansidhe cradled the head. With soot-covered hands, she smoothed back the bloodied hair. The deep purple tendrils of her body essence oozed from her fingers and burrowed into the face. They latched onto the faint remains of essence in the Dead man’s head and bulged as they siphoned it off. The dark mass in my head shifted, a strange sensation of hunger that sent a shiver down my spine. My vision darkened, the dark mass rising. The urge to join the leanansidhe tugged at me. I held my breath and pushed back at the darkness. It retreated, slowly, reluctantly. The leanansidhe moaned softly as she savored the essence, pawing at the face until the head was drained. She dropped it on the floor.

Zev picked it up and dangled it in front of the elf. “Do you see, elf? There is nothing. True death, elf, final and complete. You will live tomorrow, but as you die tonight, think what it would mean if it were your true death. Tell Jark whatever he is seeking, we do not have it. Tell him if he and his brethren do not stop attacking us, the only thing they will find is true death. Tell him in the end, we will drink his soul.”

Zev shoved his knife into the elf, directly into the heart. The elf gasped, his chest heaving up. His body went limp and swayed from the chains. Zev raised the knife, clenched in his bloody fist as the crowd screamed its approval. “Leave the body somewhere the Dead will find it,” he said to one of the elf guards.

He leaned toward the leanansidhe. “Remember our pact, leech, and be ready when we call.”

She smiled and bowed, clearly mocking Zev. He was playing with fire and probably knew it. If he didn’t kill her when he was done with her, the leanansidhe would hunt him down. They both knew one of them would be dead by the end of it. The leanansidhe walked away with the elf guard close behind her. When she reached the edge of the crowd, she paused. Looking over her shoulder, her eyes met mine, her fathomless pools of black to my blue. She turned away again, leaving me a sending. We meet again, brother. That within you calls to me and mine to you. I know you feel it. You will answer it and soon. Thus, we meet and meet.