Unperfect Souls

6

The answering machine was blinking its little red light when I returned from the consulate. The usual collection of pointless messages droned out. I used my cell phone for people I knew and wanted to talk to. The apartment phone handled the solicitors and the bills. I gave them the courtesy of listening before deleting and ignoring. The last message surprised me.

“Hi, Connor Grey. I don’t know if you remember me, but this is Shay. I need your advice on something. If you could stop by 184 A Street later this afternoon, I’d appreciate it. I think I might have a problem.”

Shay was hard to forget. When I met him, I thought he was female. I’d never met a guy who looked so much like a woman—and an attractive one at that. He flirted with me outrageously—and with Murdock and with anyone who came within ten feet of him.

I never learned his whole story, but he’d had a hard life. Like so many other kids, he thought he’d find a place to call home in the Weird. He did, too, but probably not the one he hoped for. Most people didn’t aspire to turning tricks for a male clientele who were into the transgender scene. As if his luck weren’t bad enough, he got himself tangled in a serial killer’s murder spree and lost his boyfriend. I didn’t think there was a chance I would be forgetting Shay anytime soon.

The address on A Street was near the old Gillette razor plant, a short stretch of warehouses that had been converted to working lofts where painters and jewelry artists tried to stand out by living on the edge of the scary neighborhood. Boston artists were a world of their own. New York was not so far off but was a different scene entirely, more competitive, more commercial. More New York. Boston was about the art and, yeah, the money, but Boston artists had an earnestness about them that you usually see only outside the expensive cities.

I huddled in the doorway of the building address Shay gave me to avoid the cold, stamping my feet to keep the blood flowing. A slender figure in a full-length white down coat appeared at the corner. A lock of jet-black hair escaped the round hood fringed with glossy fake fur and waved in the air. I didn’t need to sense Shay’s essence to know it was him. The wind pinked his face as he walked carefully down the sidewalk. When he saw me, his Cupid’s-bow lips curled into a smile, and he raised a mittened hand, more acknowledgment than wave. “Sorry. Work ran late.”

To my surprise, he pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. Surprise because last I knew, Shay lived in a squat up on Congress Street.

I followed him up steep, wide stairs. “You live here?”

He shifted lightly mascaraed eyes to me. “I have a studio.”

We trailed down a long, high-ceilinged hall with thick, wide-planked floors showing the wear of a century of work. New walls had been constructed to divide a once-open manufacturing space into a warren of small rooms. The odor of thinner, oil paint, and solvents permeated everything. Shay let us through a plain white door that had a yew wreath hung on it.

To the left, a wall ran thirty feet without interruption from the door to a set of windows. Paintings, prints, and other artwork covered every available inch. Nine feet to the right, a large freestanding sink stood next to a homemade wood counter with a two-burner hot plate on it and a small refrigerator of the type that students used in dorm rooms. Two tall bookcases formed a bed alcove in the middle of the narrow studio.

“I never knew you were an artist,” I said.

Shay removed his coat in a whirling motion and hung it among others on a rack by the door. He wore snug blue jeans and a thigh-length charcoal gray sweater. Twisting his lips, he made an exaggerated and amused pout. “You never knew me, period, Connor.”

I smiled. “Does anyone?”

Resting a delicate hand on his hip, he tilted his head. Eyes roved up and down, examining me as if I were merchandise. Maybe I was. I really did not know Shay. “You cut your hair. I like it short. Makes those lovely blues stand out more.”

Shay’s flirting irritated the hell out of Murdock, but I found his brashness utterly amusing. This slender boy, with his stunningly feminine face, had more balls than men twice his size. Shay spoke his mind when he chose to. “You’ve moved up in the world. Still working?”

He filled a small teakettle and put it on the hot plate. “Not how you mean. I work full-time at the Children’s Institute now. The pay’s not great, but I can afford to live here.”

When I first met Shay, he was working the streets. He never was arrested for prostitution, but anyone in the profession knew it was a matter of time. It was good to hear he had gotten out of the life before it was too late for him. Back then, he volunteered at the Institute, where he cared for Corcan macDuin, a mentally disabled elf who became inadvertently involved in a murder case. “How is Corky?” I asked.

Shay smiled. “Amazing. After what happened, his mental capacity improved. He’s reached the mentality of a teenager since midsummer. You should come by and see him. He talks about you.”

“He does?”

The kettle whistled. Shay poured two mugs. “You saved his life. He likes to tell the story of the hero with the shining sword.”

I was about to thank him when something ticked up in my sensing ability. At the far end of the studio, hidden from view by the bed alcove, an essence moved. It hadn’t been there when we’d come in. Before I said anything Shay looked toward that end of the studio. He was human but claimed to have some kind of fey sensitivity. He might. Or he might have timed the arrival of whoever was in the studio to make it look that way. For all his naïveté, manipulation was another of Shay’s skills.

“Who’s back there?” I asked.

He handed me a mug. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You saved my life, too, but I think it delayed the inevitable.”

He led me around the bed alcove to a cramped living room with a small couch and two overstuffed chairs. A large black dog—large in that way that made people stop and gape—sat on the couch and stared at us. Shaggy, glossy coat, massive head and jowls. The kind of dog that, even though an owner claims it is very sweet, you suspect might enjoy kittens for breakfast.

I sipped my tea. The dog wasn’t alive. Its essence resonated like the Dead from TirNaNog, but something was off about it. “That’s a Dead dog, Shay. Do you know what I mean?”

Shay held his mug with both hands. Resigned, he nodded. “I thought so. He started following me right after Samhain. He seemed to like me, so I brought him home. He wasn’t eating when I left food out, so I thought someone else must be feeding him. Then I found out the Dead were in the Weird, and I thought, what the hell, maybe there are Dead animals, too.”

“I saw some pretty strange ones on Samhain,” I said.

Shay frowned. “I have a feeling this isn’t a normal Dead dog, Connor.”

He put his mug down and pulled the drapes across the windows. Darkness blanketed the room except for a red glow. Every hair on my body stood on end, and I sloshed tea on the floor as I stepped back. The dog’s eyes burned like embers. “Holy shit, Shay!”

Shay swept the drapes open, and the red glow vanished. He crossed his arms and stared at the dog. “It’s a hellhound, isn’t it?”

Hellhound. Cu Sith. Cwn Annwn. The dog went by various names in various places. Sometimes it was white furred with red ears. Sometimes it was a big, freaking black dog with glowing eyes. Its purpose remained the same everywhere. If it came for you, it came from the land of the Dead, and it meant you were going to die. “I think so,” I said.

“I’m going to die,” he said.

The dog opened its mouth and panted. “I don’t know,” I said.

Shay didn’t take his eyes off the dog. “Liar.”

I don’t know which was creepier, the dog’s presence or Shay’s calmness. “Shay, nothing is what it was. The Dead are trapped here, so maybe the dog is, too. Maybe it reacted to the fact that you brought it home. Dogs respond to kindness, right? It’s still a dog.”

“His name is Uno,” he said.

“What?”

Shay gave me a wry smile. “I thought it was a joke at the time. He had only one head, so I named him Uno.”

“The three heads are from Greek myth, not Faerie,” I said.

Shay sat in an armchair. “That’s the joke, isn’t it? I came up with the name based on something that didn’t exist. Only, the joke’s on me. It’s a hellhound, and I’m going to die.”

“Stop saying that,” I said.

Shay shrugged. “That’s the only way it goes away that I’ve ever heard.” He pursed his lips. “Actually, it sort of gets rid of you.”

“This isn’t my area of expertise. Let me look into it,” I said.

Shay stared into his tea mug. “Funny thing—I dreamed of Robyn the night the dog appeared. Robyn would have tried to do something about it showing up, but there was nothing he could have done. He couldn’t stop his own death.”

I poked him against his leg with my boot. “Will you stop? Robyn died trying to do a good thing. He loved you. I thought he was kind of a jerk, but he loved you.”

Shay leaned his head back and laughed. “The two of you had something in common. He thought you were a jerk, too.”

He looked back at the dog. “I just thought of something, Connor. If Uno came for me, maybe I’ll get to see Robyn again. I never had much faith in Christianity. Maybe TirNaNog is where I’ll end up.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the reason the Dead were roaming the Weird was because TirNaNog might not exist anymore. “Yeah, maybe, but as far as I’m concerned, I didn’t save your ass last midsummer for you to end up dog food.”

Shay chuckled. “Now you have something else in common with Robyn: promising to protect me when you know you can’t.”

“I’m not listening to any more of this. I’m going to find out how to get rid of this guy,” I said.

Shay shifted closer to me. “I don’t think I can ask for more than that, but don’t feel bad if you can’t. It’s not your fault.”

“I’ll find something, Shay,” I said.

He took the cold tea from my hand and walked me to the door. “Thanks, Connor. Maybe some revelation is at hand for me, no? Maybe it means something important. I bet not every human gets to have a hellhound in their living room, even in the Weird.”

“Be careful, Shay. I’ll get back to you.”

Shay amazed me. I didn’t think I could do anything for him. I had never encountered a hound from TirNaNog, but all the old tales ended the way Shay said they did. Whoever the hound came for, died. If he was doomed, the least I could do was try to help. I wasn’t really big on abandoning people to fate. My life would be a lot easier if I were.