Unperfect Souls

37

With the wail of its siren, the fire truck surged by the end of the alley as I reached the street. Murdock perched on the top of the truck with Gerry slumped against his side. The truck vanished into a billowing cloud of smoke. The Dead and the solitaries continued fighting in a fog of the Taint. I skirted the side of a building and ran back to Eorla’s car. Rand kept watch outside. Behind him, the firestorm had abated, a building lying in ruins on each side of the street. I surprised myself with a small prayer of thanks when I saw Eorla in the car. She was okay. I jumped in the back as Rand took the driver’s seat. Eorla reached over and held my hand.

“Vize was captured by Guild security agents,” I said. Rand didn’t wait for Eorla to respond and hit the gas.

A bright pink flash illuminated the interior of the car. Joe shouted as inertia kicked in and zipped him backwards through the car. He hit the rear window and tumbled to the floor as Rand slammed on the brakes. Eorla and I lurched forward. Joe shot into the console between the front seats and fell to the floor again. Seeing we weren’t in danger, Rand hit the gas. Joe pushed himself up with a dazed look on his face. “Meryl didn’t mention you were in a moving car,” he said.

“Where is she, Joe? Is she all right?”

He shook his shaggy head like a dog. “She’s fine. She’s fine. Some chrome-domes were hassling her at your place, but I put an end to that, I’ll tell you. You should have seen them when I was done with them. Actually, you couldn’t see them when I was done because they flew off like little baby birds being chased by a . . . a . . . a littler bird, right? A littler scary bird with a sword . . .”

Eorla cleared her throat.

“Joe, this is Grand Duchess Eorla Kruge Elvendottir of the Elven King’s Court. Eorla, this is Joe Stinkwort. He’s an old friend,” I said.

She held her hand out to him. “I am pleased to meet you, Master Stinkwort. You sound most formidable.”

Joe managed to stand. He examined her hand suspiciously, then touched his forehead to it. “Pleasure, m’lady. And it’s Joe Flit, if you don’t mind.”

“Where’s Meryl?” I asked.

He stepped onto the seat to peer out the window. “I’d say about four blocks ahead.”

Over his head, I met Eorla’s eyes. “We need to go get her.”

Eorla tilted her head. “I don’t think that’s wise, Connor. The Guild’s command center is set up at the end of the bridge. I can assert my rank down by the power plant, but you may end up in their hands if we go back.”

I gestured toward the fighting blocking the street. “That’s not an alternate route.”

“The Oh No bridge is still there,” said Joe. “The steel’s warped a little, but the trolls couldn’t do anything with it.”

“Then we’ll run the bridge if we have to,” I said.

Eorla shook her head. “You’re not making this easy.”

“I don’t care. Tell Meryl we’re coming, Joe,” I said. He winked out.

Rand chanted in the front seat. A shroud of essence poured out of him and enveloped the car. He shifted his tone, and the barrier spell compressed around the car.

Eorla sighed. “Alvud would be disappointed to see this.”

I gently squeezed her hand. Anything I said would be trite to the ears of a widow of a centuries-long marriage. She didn’t withdraw her hand, which was enough to tell me I was right. Silence in the face of grief can be as powerful as words.

Something hit the back of the car, and Eorla clenched my hand. The car lifted on its front wheels and skittered forward. Sparks flew across the windshield as metal met pavement. The car slammed down onto the street and lurched to a stop. Rand accelerated, but we didn’t move. “I believe the axle’s broken, ma’am,” he said.

I looked up out the window. “That was a Danann blast. They’re shooting at anything.”

Eorla opened her door. The fires had not yet spread that far up the street, but fey folk were moving toward us fast. Rand took Eorla’s arm as we struggled through sidewalks obstructed by compacted ice and piles of plowed snow. We took to the street to make faster progress.

No one had any reservations about throwing essence at us. The Taint did that, stripped people of their reason and goaded them into baser aggressions. Even fairies and elves unaffiliated with solitaries and the Dead were firing on us. The oppressive pressure on the neighborhood from the Guild and the police had exploded, and the Taint gave license to express bottled-up rage.

The Old Northern Avenue bridge became visible. Haze from the fires shifted in the arcs of searchlights and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. The patter of gunfire echoed down alleys, but no one armed came our way. Yet. The slow steady bursts of tank gunfire rumbled from the south.

A small figure dressed in black strode down the middle of the road. I didn’t need to see Joe’s pink essence light swirling around her to recognize her. Meryl didn’t change her pace when she realized it was me, but the moment we were close enough, she threw her arms around me. She eyed Eorla up and down. “Your daring escape skills need some sharpening, Eorla. We should do lunch.”

Eorla didn’t rise to the bait. “Agreed. At the moment, however, we need to keep the rioters from overtaking us and the Guild from arresting Connor.”

Meryl looked down the street at the burning warehouses. “On the plus side, with this fire, I’m not chilly anymore.”

The smoke haze obscured a clear view of the Old Northern Avenue bridge. “Joe, do some recon ahead, then see if we can get out past Summer Street.”

He winked away. And blinked back. “What’s recon?”

“The bridge, Joe. See what’s happening on the bridge,” I said. He saluted and vanished again.

I turned to Eorla. “Can your dwarf friends hide us?”

She shook her head. “The plan was for them to disappear. They’re long gone by now.”

Meryl grabbed my arm. Back toward the bridge, tanks rumbled out of the alleys and swiveled onto Old Northern. National Guardsmen followed on foot, shielding themselves behind trucks and the tanks as they spread out and took positions across the road. In a matter of moments, hundreds of weapons were pointed at us. Behind, the rioting fey churned their way toward us in a maelstrom of dark green Taint. Solitaries backed toward us as the Dead pressed them toward the bridge. And the guns and the tanks.

“This is going to be a slaughter,” I said.

Eorla gazed up at the sky, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the Taint. She faced Meryl. “You know we can stop this.”

Meryl frowned. “Do I?”

Calm as ever, as if we were not about to be crushed between competing factions, Eorla casually folded her arms. “You did it at Forest Hills. You collapsed the Celtic half of the spell.”

Meryl shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

Eorla moved closer to her. “That’s because you didn’t do it. The drys did. You were the means to an end. We can do the same thing here.”

“Wait a minute. I thought I collapsed the spell,” I said.

Eorla shook her head. “I thought so, too, at first, but after examining the runes, I realized you didn’t. You grounded all the essence by anchoring it with stone.”

“I created a short circuit,” I said.

She nodded. “And dissipated the excess essence that the spell had produced. Nigel and I provided a window of opportunity for you to do it. We would have failed if the drys had not collapsed the Celtic side of the spell. She used Meryl as a conduit to channel her counterspell. Even together, Nigel and I did not have the power to hold all that essence at bay and negate the Teutonic half of the spell. We took care of the immediate problem—we held back the essence and gave you time.”

She pointed into the vibrant green sky. “The Taint is the remnant of the Teutonic half of the spell. I reconstructed the rune sequence. We can get the rioters under control by removing the Taint from them. I can do that if I stop the Taint.”

“That’s a big if,” I said.

She stared at the approaching mayhem. “I do not think I can live with what might happen otherwise.”

“Then use me,” I said.

Eorla shook her head. “I do not know what effect your damaged abilities will have. We must use a pure vessel.”

My gut clenched. I’d heard the phrase “pure vessel” the night the Taint was created. It was what the drys called Meryl. Everyone else had been touched by the Taint. Meryl moved several feet away from us. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” she said.

“Nothing more than what I am asking of myself,” Eorla said to her back.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. Time after time, Meryl reminded me that I gave her choices that were not choices. I didn’t know what I wanted her to do this time. What Eorla was suggesting was dangerous. I saw what had happened when the drys used Meryl as a conduit. It was terrifying. I had no idea what the Taint would do to her.

Meryl came to me, and we hugged. Promise me you will kick her ass if I die, she sent. I kissed the top of her head. “Hers won’t be the only one,” I said.

She inhaled deeply and pushed me away. “Let’s do this before I change my mind.”

Eorla placed her hands on Meryl’s shoulders from behind. She closed her eyes and chanted in Old Elvish, the sounds harsh to the modern ear, but in Eorla’s voice, it sounded both soft and mournful. Meryl’s skin bleached to white as essence welled up from within, her body becoming sheathed in a vibrant halo. Eorla’s cadence shifted, her voice growing stronger with the power of her song. Pinpoints of light appeared, dancing around Meryl like green fireflies. Faster and faster they spun, growing larger with each circuit of her body. They shifted and bent, forming shapes in response to Eorla’s voice. They flickered brighter and resolved into the angular shapes of Teutonic runes.

Joe popped back in. “Whoa! What the hell are they doing?”

“I’ll explain later. Who’s on the bridge?” I asked.

He swooped around me, keeping his eyes on Eorla and Meryl. “It’s a war party up there. That Frye guy from the Consortium, macGoren. Lots of security agents from both the Consortium and the Guild. And”—he eyed me significantly—“a bunch of chrome-domes just brought Vize in.”

The air vibrated as Eorla pulled more essence from her surroundings and funneled it into the rune spell. The dark mass in my head spiked into a ball of claws as her essence touched our surroundings. My eyes watered as I struggled to hold in the darkness. Moving away didn’t help. The desire to touch Eorla’s powerful essence burned in my gut. The dark mass moved, spreading inside me, hungering to cross the distance between Eorla and me.

I clenched my jaw, refusing to let the darkness free. It wanted the essence. It wanted Eorla and Meryl. It wanted too much. I pushed back against it with my mind. My left arm flared with cold as the tattoo burned on the surface of my skin. The dark mass didn’t retreat, but it paused. I stepped farther back. My stomach churned. I almost didn’t care if I did interfere, if I reached out and touched them, touched the luscious reams of essence coursing from them.

A wind sprang up, biting and cold. Essence circled Meryl and Eorla in vibrant streams of green and blue and white. Meryl trembled as the runes swept around her. Her head fell back, the cords in her neck straining against the power coursing through her. The light in her face pulsed and flared and obliterated her features.

Eorla shouted above the rising wind. Clenching the back of Meryl’s neck, she thrust her other hand up. A surge of blue-white light leaped from her palm, pure essence fanning across the sky, crackling with power and piercing the clouds of Taint. The rioters paused in confusion as the green haze rippled. The wind rose to a gale, spinning the Taint into a whirlpool of sickly green light. A funnel formed beneath it, dancing in the air like an appendage groping for contact. It lashed like the tail of an angry beast and plunged into Meryl.

The Taint poured down. The funnel sucked it out of the sky and more shreds of green haze gathered from all directions. Meryl convulsed with shock as the Taint coursed through her. Eorla sang higher, her song becoming a roar of power. The Taint surged out of Meryl, along Eorla’s arm and flooded her body. The dark mass in my head contracted abruptly. It had never liked the Taint, had avoided it as much as the Taint avoided the darkness. I stumbled toward the bridge but the pain refused to subside. With the amount of essence powering in, no place within walking distance would be far enough.

Everything stopped. An utter silence hung over the street. Eorla and Meryl swayed on their feet. I searched the sky and found nothing but ambient essence. I didn’t sense Taint anywhere. They had done it. Eorla and Meryl had done it. The Taint was gone.

Up the street, the fey folk broke into a babble of confusion. I jogged toward Meryl and Eorla. Rand rushed to Eorla’s side as she stumbled and fell, and Meryl crumpled to the ground at the same time. I threw myself onto my knees beside her and pulled her to my chest.

“Meryl?”

Her head lolled to the side, her eyes glazed and sight-less. I grabbed her chin and turned her face toward mine. I shook her gently. “Meryl? Answer me.”

Not a flicker of awareness. I hugged her to my chest and rocked her. “Come on, Meryl. Wake up.”

I stroked her face. Her skin was hard and cold. She lay in my arms, deadweight. I sensed nothing from her at all. Whatever made Meryl Meryl was gone. I lowered her to the ground. Eorla’s essence glowed like an emerald star as Rand held her, but her head fell back slack. She lay still and insensate in his arms. He stared at me, stricken.

The Weird was not their home. The solitaries were not their people. Vize was not their problem. Or Moira. They could have walked away. They had wanted to help. They wanted to help me. But I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t stop the madness. I was useless and now they were—I didn’t know what they were. Mindless. Brain-dead. I didn’t know.

I lifted my head at the sound of a tank moving at the end of the Avenue. It shifted into place, its gun turret rotating toward us. Another moved forward. More National Guardsmen arrived through the side alleys. They pointed their guns at us.

I rose to my feet. “Stay with her, Joe.”

Agitated, he whirled around me. “What are you doing?”

I thrust my hand at him, and he somersaulted out of reach. “Just stay with her and don’t argue,” I said.

I walked toward the waiting tanks and soldiers, the pain in my head tearing at my mind. Essence light flared on the bridge—powerful Danann and Teutonic body signatures. The power players. The elite. The ones who played games while innocent people died. Something broke inside me, and I shouted in rage.

The darkness answered.

My head exploded with a visceral pain. My vision blurred and faded away into a relentless black field. Essence exploded everywhere into my awareness, every body signature, every nuance, and every mote blazed around me against a black, hungry night. The ambient essence of the Weird crackled and flickered, buildings a pearlescent white, the street a rainbow oil slick of fractured color. Human soldiers moved like soft shadows of azure against the dead null zones of their tanks and trucks. The bridge became defined by its negative space, its steel beams a nothingness of essence that formed a cage for the fey who waited there—blue-white Dananns, amber brownies, the green streak of elves, and yellows and whites and everything between.

The Guild. The Consortium. Safe in the steel nest of the bridge. Safe from the essence-fire of the rampaging solitaries and the Dead. Safe from the collateral damage of their own agents firing on innocent bystanders. Safe from the tanks and the guns and the soldiers prepared to attack on their orders. Safe from the ramifications of their own decisions.

The dark mass surged within me, feeding my anger and need. I let it. I wanted it. I didn’t care anymore about what it could do or not do. My chest ached as hot spikes of shadow pierced my skin. Darkness blossomed around me like a pall of smoke. I stalked toward the bridge, toward the waiting tanks and soldiers.

The faint echo of gunfire sounded as if from far, far away. Pinpricks of red-white lights shot toward me, then sparkled and vanished in the darkness. Humans scattered away from me as I approached, their faint blue body signatures fleeing into the distance. The shadows extending from my skin shuddered and coiled, enormous waves pressing against the null void of the tanks. They scattered like leaves before me, the shadows flinging them aside like the nothingness they were.

Essence flared ahead, delicious strikes of light that pulsated in the darkness only to evaporate as they neared me. I savored them, tasted the hot, burning flavor through all my senses, a rush of ecstasy coursing through me as I consumed them. The body signatures on the bridge shifted in place, uncertain hoverings of fear and confusion that heightened my desire. Fear was there. Delicious fear. I wanted them. I wanted them all.

Darkness split my forehead like a blade. A nightness blossomed out of me, long ribbons of it unfurling and slithering in and out of the dull shape of the bridge, wrapping itself around the beams and tension cabling. The body signatures retreated, then stopped moving as the darkness out-paced them to the other end of the bridge. They huddled in the center. Trapped. I had them trapped together, wrapped in an embrace of the darkness.

My mind clenched. The thing in my mind clenched. The long ribbons flexed and yanked. The bridge shuddered and twisted as I pulled, bending and peeling it open like a tangled knot of metal. The channel waters beneath it teemed with shots of essence, water fey and sea creatures fleeing the strands of darkness that waved over them. I pulled at the darkness as it pulled at me.

I reached the bridge. The fey who cowered there surrounded themselves with a shield barrier, thick and powerful. My shadows ripped at it, shredding it layer by layer the closer I got. Their fear was palpable now, delicious and sweet. Satisfaction coursed through me, a deep pleasure that for once the powerful and the strong felt the profound helplessness of the weak and desperate. I wanted them to know what they had done to the Dead and the solitaries. I wanted them to feel the burn of flames tearing through the Weird, the rending of flesh from blades and bullets. I wanted them to know what they had done to us, to all of us. To me. To Meryl.

The darkness—my darkness—slithered among them, snaring their essence, siphoning their power. I moved without thought, watching their lights fade one by one. As the essence around me diminished, another darkness appeared in its midst. Something moved in my vision, something dark and familiar. Insignificant in size, weak in force, but nevertheless there. It recoiled from me and my darkness danced and swirled around it, resisting its presence.

Realization pushed itself into my hunger. Another darkness. Another window into this nameless other that I was setting free. Another mark of everything that had gone wrong since that day we fought and he destroyed my abilities as he tried to destroy the world.

Vize.

Rage rose higher within me. He would not hide among the powerful fey. He would not escape by claiming safe harbor. I wasn’t going to let him. I forced the darkness out of me, forced it toward the dark thing in front of me.

I touched his darkness and met the thing within myself.

My mind exploded in a cacophony of pain.