Unshapely Things

CHAPTER 4

First thing Saturday, I took a run along the waterfront. Between the gym and the running, I'd gotten myself in the best physical shape I'd ever been in. I took a complicated path along crumbling sea walls, wooden planks thrown across gaps between piers, cracked-pavement parking lots, and rusting rail tracks. The area's history can be read in the remnants of old buildings and twisted alleys marking the neighborhood's evolution from a fishing ground to a working port to a train yard to a warehouse district to, finally, the Weird.

The neighborhood's current residents left their imprint everywhere. Spirit jars crowded along building gutters; random graffiti resolved itself into ogham if you knew how to read it; boards and stones inscribed with old runes lay obscured by weeds; and spent candle stubs littered the docks like confetti. Sometimes the various charms, tokens, and wards gave off such a resonance that I could feel a static discharge lifting the hairs on my arms and legs.

It was one of those early-June mornings that tease you with the promise of summer, the sunlight warm on your face, the sky a rich blue. The wind off the harbor usually knocks the temperature down to a steady chill, but that day it barely registered. My route took me down into South Boston, which diose raised there proudly called Southie. It's an old Irish neighborhood, born of the famine in the old country that brought a deluge of immigrants. No surprise the fey folk gravitated to Boston after them. I ran past men washing their cars and kids playing in the streets while middle-aged women chatted in front of the grocery store. All the things that transpire in a nice neighborhood in a perfect world.

I hit me end of the causeway boulevard out to Fort Independence. The old Revolutionary War fortification sits at the end of a spit with a strategic view of the city. Proper residents call it Castle Island, in deference to the fact that it was once actually an island before all me landfill projects connected it to me rest of the neighborhood. To me uninitiated, me old fort looks like a castle, with its granite sides and five batteries. On summer weekends after Memorial Day, costumed tour guides provide a little local color about me interior portions. Gauging the crowd trooping out for the views, I decided to skip the fort and loop back through Soumie to my apartment.

I slid into my chair before the computer. During my run, I had considered whether I might be approaching the ritual aspect of the murder from the wrong direction. The correct solution to a problem is often the simplest one: If a ritual popped up in a murder scene, then there had to be a tidy proscribed ritual written down somewhere to explain it. A fine premise, provided, of course, you had a way of researching every conceivable ritual. That was where the trail became a bramble. Everything is simply not written down.

But a ritual is merely a means to an end. With the right amount of ability, the correct elements at hand, and the will to use them both, any number of people can perform the same ritual, but for very different ends. I had gotten so focused on the "how" of the Tuesday Killer, I had lost track of the "why."

After my accident, I threw myself into figuring out what was wrong with me. Like everyone who has ever had a serious physical ailment, I started reading and researching until I was more of an expert than the experts. And I came to the same conclusion they had: diagnosis unknown. The biggest problem was that I had a physical ailment that wasn't particularly physical. The darkness in my mind had no mass, no real physical manifestation other than an unexplainable blackness that showed up in every conceivable diagnostic available. Whatever it was, it short-circuited my attempts to activate my abilities on any appreciable level. If I pushed it, my mind felt like it was shattering into shards of glass. Push it far enough, and I blacked out. That fact led me to the assumption that the mass was some kind of energy intimately linked to the essence of being fey.

One shelf of my study was crammed with books dedicated solely to the question of essence. In every age people have examined the issue of what made the fey fey. That interest had accelerated in the last century as more and more humans had the opportunity to join the investigation. At the risk of sounding elitist, the modern druids tended to have some of the best philosophical writings on the subject. We have a long history of researching the world around us.

I pulled down a slim volume called The Essence of Essence. Briallen had given it to me long ago because it was a particular favorite of hers. The unknown author, who I suspected was actually Briallen, took a spiritual approach, heavy on the connectivity of all things. The crux of the discussion poses that everything, organic and inorganic, has an intangible form of energy we have come to call essence, from the most powerful fairy queen to the lowliest pebble. Inorganic matter tends to hold essence uniformly throughout. What prompted me to open the book, though, was its claim that living beings, by virtue of their organic nature, have their essence centered in one place. The heart.

Because of the nature of the murders, I had speculated to Murdock that the ritual might involve the giving or taking of power. Most fey know intuitively that the heart holds the essence of their being. The mind might activate our abilities, but the power is drawn from one of the most protected organs in the body. We can feel it whenever we cast the yew rod, breathe over a scrying pool, or summon a friend.

But I had sensed no ritual residue at either the second or third murder scenes. Murdock hadn't called me in until the second murder, but given how things had been playing out, I doubted there was anything at the first scene I would have picked up. The key, as far as I was concerned, was that the hearts were taken. On the basest level, serial killers like to keep souvenirs of their deeds. It gives them a sense of accomplishment and power. Factor in the essence issue and the fact that the removed hearts would retain their power for quite a while, and Power in a more real sense came into play.

My chair protested with a loud squeal as I sat bolt upright. There was no residual ritual magic at the scenes. Maybe the killings weren't the ritual. I had been sitting around trying to understand the reason why the garden was weeded when the herbs were in the pot. The murders could have merely been a means of acquiring hearts for something else. I spun my chair back to the books lining the far wall, ready to dive into researching this new line of thought, when I heard the very loud sound of someone clearing his throat in the next room. As I jumped up, my body warding came up so suddenly the back of my head screamed in protest. I stepped into the living room.

Stinkwort sat on the edge of the kitchen counter with a half-eaten Oreo in his hand. "Got any milk?" he asked around a mouthful of cookie.

Anger and relief swept over me as I murmured the short incantation that dissipated the body ward. It was one of a very few spells I could still work. "Can't you knock?" I said.

He took another bite. "I suppose if I used doors, I would," he said. While he had no problem going in my cabinets, Joe hated touching the refrigerator, claiming something about the cold felt unnatural. It was just a bunch of bull as far as I was concerned. He just likes it when I serve him things. I poured him some milk in a shot glass.

"Make that two glasses," he said.

I crossed my arms and looked down at him munching away. "Why?"

Joe stopped and looked around puzzled. He put the remains of his cookie down, stood up, and began walking along the counter, peering among the canisters. He stopped on the side of the coffeemaker and said something too softly for me to hear. He reached his hand out. "No, really, it's okay," he said.

A bright yellow wing moved into view. A small face darted out, then back.

"Come, there's milk," Joe said in Cornish.

A small flit stepped out. She had bright yellow wings, larger in proportion to her body than Joe's were to his, but she had only a little over half his height. Very pale blond hair hung smoothly down to her waist, almost obscuring her light green tunic. Her skin was so white, it seemed translucent. She regarded me gravely with large green eyes but didn't move any farther.

"This is Tansy," Stinkwort said.

At the sound of her name, she glanced at Joe. Spreading her hands out from her waist with the palms forward, she bowed toward me, and said, "De da."

"De da. Tansy," I said, returning the formal bow when Joe introduced me.

Joe looked up at me. "She doesn't speak English very well."

I smiled reassuringly at her. "She's a wee thing, isn't she? Are you sure she's the right one?"

Joe rolled his eyes in annoyance. "I have spent the last quarter day listening to her ramble about the merits of spring grass. Trust me, I wouldn't have bothered if she weren't the right one."

"Pan wreugh why debryT' she said in a thick rustic accent.

"Cookies and milk," Joe said, snapping his fingers at me.

I pinched my lips and smiled at him at the same time as I poured another shot glass. I pulled the open package of cookies out of the cabinet and put them on the counter. Tansy immediately took one and began eating as she stared around the apartment.

I watched her trail to the coffeemaker, sniff it, and wrinkle her nose. "I can barely understand her. What's her clan affiliation?"

Joe shrugged and shook his head in unconcealed disdain. "Her clan name has something to do with wattle and daub, which fits because she's as thick as mud."

I couldn't help chuckling. While Stinkwort would never concede a pecking order among the fairy races, he had no problem using one in his own species. Flits are pretty tight-lipped about their social structures, but I had long ago surmised that Stinkwort came from an important family. Not royalty — I'm sure he would have let me know that — but important in some way.

"Can she understand me?"

Lifting his head from the shot glass, Joe gulped, a little drop of milk suspended from his nose. "She's trying to learn English. If you have a few decades, I'm sure you will be able to communicate quite effectively."

"Are you here to help or just eat?" I said.

Joe threw his hands in the air. "You said find her. You said nothing about liking her."

"Okay, fine. Ask her if she knew Gamelyn Danann Sidhe." At the mention of the third victim's name, Tansy straightened up and looked at me.

"I think she understood that one," said Joe dryly.

"Ask her if she was with him last Tuesday," I said.

"A wrussta gweles Gamelyn war Tuesday?" Joe said.

Tansy stared intently at her hand, counting on her fingers. After a long pause, she nodded vigorously. "Me a wrug gweles."

"Did she see the man Gamelyn left with?" I asked.

"A wrussta gweles an den gans GamelynT' asked Joe.

"Me a wrug gweles," she said again.

"What did he look like?"

She paused after listening to Joe, screwing her face up in thought. "Bras ha ska ew den," she said, then in halting English, "He… sick me… yes?.. ef a wrug ow clafvy."

"She says he was a big man that made her sick," Joe said.

"Was he fey?"

"Ska," Tansy spat.

Joe fluttered off the counter in surprise, then settled back down. "She says he was just wrong," said Joe.

"Wrong? How?"

For a few moments, they argued, Joe seeming to insist on something and Tansy repeating herself. She began flailing her arms and shouting in angry frustration. Ska! Ska na ew an den. Ska ew an pysky! Ska ew an aelfl Ska! Me na wra gothvosP'

Joe and I backed away from her. Her rapid-fire speech was indecipherable to me. Joe shook his head in confusion. "She says he was wrong like a fey, not human, I think. She's an idiot, Connor. All she keeps saying is that he's bad."

"Did she see him kill Gamelyn?"

Tansy covered her face when Joe asked her. She began to cry as she spoke, her words garbled by sobs. Joe leaned in to listen, straining to make out what she was saying. "She says Gamelyn asked her to wait for him outside the bar, but she followed him anyway. When she found them in the alley, Gamelyn was on the ground and the man had a knife. He saw her and sent her away."

It took me a moment for that to sink in. "Sent her away? You mean he spelled her away?" I said. Joe nodded. "Well, that definitely rules out human." I went into my study and retrieved Shay's artist sketch from the folder. Coming back to the kitchen, I held it up for Tansy. "Is this the man?"

She hissed at the paper and backed away, muttering and waving her hands. Joe's eyes went wide. "Stop! Stop!" he yelled at her. The sketch burst into flames in my hands. I dropped it and stamped out the fire on the floor. When I looked up they were both gone. Joe came back almost instantly.

"She's upset," he said. He took another cookie.

I fell into a chair in the living room and stared at the ceiling. "I guess we know Shay's sketch is accurate."

"Either that or she's afraid of paper," Joe said.

I didn't rise to his bait. "Would you be able to find her again?"

Joe dropped his jaw. "Whatever for? She's got a head like a bubble."

"She's a witness, Joe. She might be a better witness than Shay." I told him what the bartender had said about him.

Joe shrugged. "So — he didn't lie. He just didn't tell you everything. That's a crime?"

"No," I conceded. "But it undermines his credibility. He's already got one strike against him as a prostitute."

"Oh, I see. Mud brain will be much better in a court. It's no wonder the fey find this country so amusing."

I closed my eyes and rubbed them. "I am not about to debate the American judicial system with you, Joe. If Murdock needs her, can you find her again?"

"Sure. I found her when I didn't know her, didn't I? She won't be hard to keep track of."

I looked at him in thought for a moment. "You don't happen to know how someone might use a fairy heart for its essence, do you?"

He looked down at the floor, idly swinging his feet. If there's one thing flits like less than being around people larger than they are, it's talking about dead fey. As near immortals, it's not a subject they find captivating. "There is no honor in such a thing, Connor. No fey would do it, not even the sad brothers of Unseelie would break such a rule. Destroying someone in the nobility of battle is just. Enslaving their spirit is outside the turning of the Wheel. It would destroy everything."

A light shiver ran across my skin. Joe was rarely so serious. "Are you saying it can be done?" I asked quietly.

He hovered up from the counter. "No. The world is still here, isn't it? I have to go." He vanished. A moment later, he popped back in again. "By the way, you need more cookies." And then he was gone.

I cleaned up the white flaky residue from the fire and wandered back into the study, perusing the bookshelves. Most of the titles on essence were philosophical discussions or medical theories. The books on rituals were on process. I could not recall a single book on using someone else's essence. Employing the essence of animals, stones, or plants abounded in rituals, were even the point of rituals in general. In all my years of training, I had never come across any discussion of using fey in rituals. Even the old druid sacrifice stories always talked about human children, usually males, as the sacrifice. But the essences of children were weak, and in humans almost negligible.

I felt a thrill of excitement. Druidic lore had always been an oral tradition dependent on teaching and self-discovery. You moved up in rank only when you were judged ready or had enough intuitive knowledge to discover the next level of mystery on your own. It was a way of managing powerful knowledge so that it could only be used with the wisdom of experience. If everything were simply written down, the temptation to run before you could walk would be enormous. The silence over fey sacrifices had to be secret knowledge, never to be spoken to the unready or written down for the unwary.

Which meant I had no easy way to learn the reasons for the silence. Such knowledge was passed on in a chain of trust, from teacher to student. It wasn't likely that I could walk up to someone and ask. My old mentors were gone, journeying in their own paths. I could track them down, but that would take time I didn't have. I had to see if I could convince Briallen to tell me.

I turned toward the living room a moment before I heard the knock on my door. Anxiety clenched my chest, like it did whenever something unexpected happened. I had made a lot of enemies when I worked for the Guild, people who would have been only too happy to find me in my current more vulnerable condition. The Guild had given me some wards to guard the house, mostly warning beacons. The ones around the windows made them less susceptible to breakage or long-range casting. I had felt none of them go off. And nobody had rung the building buzzer downstairs.

I moved quietly into the living room, listening. The only sound was the distant drone of a plane taking off from the airport. The knock came again, no different than the first time, no more urgent. Maybe it was a neighbor. "Who is it?" I finally said.

"Keeva," came the muffled reply.

Chagrined, I shook my head and opened the door. Keeva macNeve lounged against the opposite wall, the barest hint of a smile on her face. The wards hadn't gone off because she had set them up for me before I moved in. The lock on the building front door certainly wouldn't have deterred her.

Keeva was tall for a fairy woman, almost my height, with lush red hair that cascaded over her shoulders. A touch of haughtiness kept her finely drawn features from being truly beautiful; her green eyes were a bit too cool, her dark lips a bit too thin. We had had a modest flirtation when we first met, nothing serious. But then we got to know each other better, or that is to say, I got to know her better, and the attraction dimmed. She was smart enough to detect the change and didn't pursue. When I'm being kind, I describe her as carnivorous. I take no responsibility for what I might say if she comes up in conversation when I'm drunk.

"Well, hello," I said, managing a smile.

She pushed away from the wall, letting her own smile go a little wider. Not much. We stood looking at each other. "Hello. Aren't you going to ask me in?"

I stepped back and gestured into the room. She walked by me in a faint cloud of honeysuckle, a glamour hiding her wings. Most fairies wear glamours in public — usually they don't like the attention their wings tend to attract otherwise. The form-fitting black jumpsuit she wore seemed genuine though. If I looked closely, I could see a slight shimmer on the back obscuring where her wings began. She walked to the window and stared out for a moment before turning to face me.

"Honestly, Connor, it can't be so bad that you have to live here, can it?"

"Oh, so this is a social call?" I said, smiling to take the sting out of it.

She chuckled, inspecting the armchair briefly before sitting. "How are you? Any change?" Her voice had a neutral tone that conveyed neither sympathy nor indifference.

I didn't want to be rude and stand at the door, so I sat in the chair facing her. "None. So, what brings you to the other side of the channel, Keeva? It's not like you to just stop by."

"Believe it or not, I was actually in the neighborhood. I have some friends coming in for Midsummer, and they want to see the Weird. I thought it'd be fun to have dinner down here, so I'm trying a couple of restaurants out. Any recommendations?"

I couldn't help hesitating. Keeva macNeve just having lunch in the Weird is like the Queen of England nipping into the pub for a pint. "The Barking Crab's always good and safe. It gets a nice mix," I said. I didn't need to mention that every city guide recommended the place. The last thing I wanted was Keeva's cronies invading my favorite dinner haunts.

She nodded absently, obviously not caring. "You haven't been by the Guildhouse lately. I thought you might like an update. Bergen Vize was spotted in Bavaria a number of times a month ago. There has been an increase in eco-terrorist activity around the Black Forest."

I cocked my head to the side. Of all people, Keeva macNeve had taken on the investigation into my accident. I still hadn't been able to find out if she was assigned to it or requested it. Vize was the jerk with the ring that screwed up my head. Every couple of months, I checked in with Keeva, and it was usually the same useless information with only the location changed. Sometimes he was in London, sometimes Germany. In the States, he seemed to favor California and the Southwest. He was never in New England. I decided to play my part in the charade. "Has anyone gotten close to him?"

Keeva shook her head, of course. "We're trying, Connor. You know he's tough."

I nodded. "So you're still working for macDuin?"

A brief flush of rose colored her cheeks, a physical reaction she either didn't know she had or couldn't control. Lorcan macDuin was head of the Community Liaison Office, the Guild department that monitored local crime. When we were partners, Keeva and I shared a mutual frustration with his poor management skills. Ultimately, it was macDuin who decided whether the Guild would get involved in a fey incident.

During World War II, the elves of Germany actively supported the Nazis, hoping that an Axis victory would help them re-create their Faerie kingdoms in the Convergent world. Lorcan, like many fairies who wanted to go back to Faerie, had been a sympathizer, which made him an outsider in the upper echelons at the Guild. Not something that was openly discussed in the more recent times of political rapprochement between the races. He knew what people thought, though, so he tended to overcompensate with a little more zeal than called for. Keeva chafed under him, knowing full well he couldn't advance her career because of his own circumstances.

She shifted in her chair, crossing her legs. "Yes. MacDuin is macDuin. You know how it is."

I nodded. People were hesitant to criticize their superiors openly if they thought it could get back to them. The worst relationship could often be the stepping-stone to something better. "So what are you working on?" I asked again.

She shrugged. "Besides Vize, nothing interesting. I have a missing person right now that I'm hoping to wrap up."

"Anything I can help you with?"

She smiled charitably. "I'm handling it, Connor."

She stood up and wandered about the room, touching a book here, adjusting a picture frame there. She paused by the kitchen counter. Fairies do not have the ability to sense essence very effectively, but with Joe and Tansy so recently there, Keeva probably felt something. She turned back to me, brushing her hands together. "You should clean up these crumbs."

She made her way back to the windows. She glanced at something to her left so that I could see her in profile. She really would be something without that bitter tinge to her mourn. "What about you? I heard you were working on this serial murder thing. What's the status?"

I hesitated, realizing this was why Keeva had just happened to drop in. She confirmed my suspicion when she didn't acknowledge the lengthening silence. "We have a small lead, a possible eyewitness."

She dropped herself back in the armchair. "I read that in the reports."

That surprised me. "Is the Guild investigating?" I asked.

She ran her fingers idly through those long red tresses. "No, it's just the standard review to keep macDuin apprised. Your name caught my eye, of course, so I read the file. What's not in the report?"

I smiled at her, and she smiled back. "What if I told you it might be a fey-on-fey situation?"

She arched an eyebrow. "Might or is?"

"I'm still leaning toward 'might. The human witness said the guy felt funny, like something was wrong with him."

"That's it? A human prostitute thinks he can sense essence, and you're thinking it's fey?"

I shrugged. "Another witness may have placed him in a local bar. A fey witness."

"Working for one of the meat joints, no doubt," she said.

I clenched my teeth at the barely concealed scorn in her voice. It was a ploy of Keeva's I had fallen for a few times earlier in our acquaintance. She would express skepticism in my theories in an effort to demoralize me. I would reveal everything I knew to prove myself, which played right into her hands. She was not above making someone feel like an idiot while she co-opted an investigation. I wasn't about to tell her about Tansy.

"The fey may not be the best witness, but it's all we have right now. Why the interest?"

She shrugged. "Professional curiosity. And personal. You're wasted down here, Connor. All you have to do is ask, and I can get you a position in research."

I pretended to consider it, again. From all directions, the idea was foul. I'd be working for people I used to supervise and working on cases I was assigned instead of those I requested. If I had taken some half-ass support position, I would never have gotten any respect even if my abilities came back. I'd be considered tainted goods, which people probably thought anyway. And I certainly didn't want to be beholden to Keeva macNeve. It was bad enough competing with her. I didn't want to do her paperwork.

"No, thanks," I said. "I'd prefer to see how things work out first."

She stood up and spread her hands. "Okay. You can't say I didn't offer. I should be going. If there's anything I can help you with, let me know."

I walked her the few steps to the door. "I will. If this does turn out to be fey-on-fey, you'll be the first to know."

She smiled smugly. "Yes, I will be. It'll probably end up my case."

We chuckled in feigned companionship. She patted me on the shoulder and sauntered away. I coldly watched her back until she turned down the stairs.

It occurred to me that with her connections, Keeva might have known one of the victim's families. Naming fairies Danann Sidhe bordered on calling them Smith. Sidhe, obviously, was a race affiliation and Danann indicated the clan. Occasionally, someone connected to the royal line would call themselves Aes Sidhe to distinguish themselves from the commoners. More often, though, they used family names. I knew Keeva's full name, for instance, was Caoimhe ap Laoire mac Niamh Aes Sidhe; she had anglicized the spelling for ease and went by her grandfather's name for prestige. Niamh was very well connected in the old country, something Keeva had no problem mentioning.

I closed the door and went in to my computer. Opening the database, I quickly scrolled through the victim profiles. The dead faces of Pach, Ragnell, and Gamelyn stared out at me. I wondered what about them could have possibly interested the Guild in general and Keeva in particular. Their appeal to the killer fell into neat categories of appearance, profession, gender, and race. I glanced through their bios, but the information was slight. Pach and Ragnell had been in town long enough to get arrested, but not Gamelyn. I realized that two pieces of information about all of them were missing: where exactly they were from in Ireland and who were their next of kin.

The odds of all three victims having a high profile connection seemed slim, and someone knowing that even more so. I leaned back in the chair. If all the victims were royalty, the Guild would have stepped in long ago if only to protect the family's privacy. On the other hand, the Guild taking an interest in prostitutes would draw attention immediately. I chuckled to myself. What a lovely irony if the Guild were trapped between its own arrogance and indifference. And after all my snide remarks about the Guild not wanting to get involved in the case, the irony of my suspicions about their interest was not lost on me.

Fairies fallen on hard times tended not to broadcast their family names. Blood honor and all that. If a royal link hadn't turned up in the previous arrest records, it probably wasn't going to. Except for Gamelyn. He hadn't been arrested. And Keeva didn't decide to show up until after he died. Maybe he was a one-shot, another high roller slumming at the wrong time and place. I'd have to get Murdock to look into it.

While I waited for fresh coffee to brew, I munched on the one cookie Joe had been nice enough to leave. The revulsion on Tansy's face at the sight of the artist's sketch popped into my mind. Even the lowliest flit liked a little adventure, but she had gotten more than she bargained for. I could still smell the odor of burnt paper. As I poured my coffee, I wondered why Tansy kept calling the killer "ska". My Cornish was sketchy at best, but I had to have at least as good a vocabulary as a peasant flit. I knew the general word for bad was "dmg." I didn't know ska at all and hadn't thought to ask Joe before he left.

As I mentally arranged the rest of my day, I decided it was time to check in with Briallen and see if she could fit some of these pieces together. I could take the opportunity to ask her about fey essence in ritual, too. That thought drove me back into the study for more reading. If I was going to ask her for training help, the last thing I wanted was for her to catch me not knowing enough.