Unperfect Souls (16 page)

The merrow nodded, her wide, dark eyes like pools of sadness. No surprise there, although coming out of the sewer made a nice connection to where we found the head.

“Was it anyone you knew?”

She gazed at the hard gray water. “It is the one we call the Hound of the Dead. He hunts the Dead.”

Someone gasped behind me, and one of the solitaries made a hissing sound. Whoever this Hound was, he was doing a pretty good job of scaring the hell out of people. “Sekka wasn’t one of the Dead,” I said.

“No, but I saw him drag her body here,” she said.

“Did you see where he went?” Murdock asked.

The merrow subtly bowed her head, fear creeping into her eyes.
Behind you,
she sent.

I crouched on the ground, pretending to examine footprints. I pivoted on the balls of my feet to look behind me, as if I were following a trail. On the opposite side of the parking lot, a cloaked figure stood in the alley. He was too far away to get a precise read on his essence.

A solitary’s mossy hair swayed with a shake of his head. “You don’t find the Hound. He finds you.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to talk to him about that,” Murdock said.

“Then ask the Dead. They probably know where he hides, just like they know they can kill us without worrying about being punished.”

“Not true,” said Murdock.

The solitary looked over our shoulders. “Tell that to Sekka.”

We all looked at the victim. The medical examiner had corralled some officers to help lift her body onto a gurney. Murdock turned back to the dwindling group on the wall. The merrow had slipped away. “There’s a community meeting about the murders tomorrow night. Spread the word that we need help,” he said.

The solitary shook his head. “It won’t make a difference. No one cares.”

“We do,” I said.

The solitary sighed. “That’s a comfort.”

He walked off with his friends.

“I think we were just insulted,” I said.

Murdock leaned over the wall to exam the overflow pipe. “Yeah, I get that a lot these days.”

We walked back to the crime scene as the body was loaded into the examiner’s van. “Take a nonchalant look behind you,” I said.

Murdock glanced over his shoulder, then back at the activity by the medical examiner. “He was over there when I arrived. Been on his cell phone the entire time. Think it’s this Hound?”

I stood. “The merrow as much as said he is. Looks like he’s in a chatty mood.”

As we approached, the cloaked man turned and walked up the alley.

Murdock broke into a run. “Boston P.D.! Stop where you are!”

He didn’t stop. We followed, slipping on icy patches. Murdock pulled ahead of me, his body shield glowing a faint red. He’d been practicing with it again. It not only protected him but also had some sort of strength booster. At least, that’s what I was going with as I followed his back, because without abilities, I was definitely a stronger runner than he was.

“I said stop, dammit,” Murdock shouted.

The alley turned ahead, a corner building making an L-shape at the end of the block. The building cut off my line of sight as they sprinted ahead. I stumbled after them into a dead-end run blocked by a fence and a massive pile of debris.

The Hound swerved, propelling over a stack of wooden pallets into the air. He grabbed the bottom of a fire escape and swung over the railing. As he climbed, Murdock mimicked the move. As I closed on them, I put on a burst of speed and reached for the last rung of the ladder pull. I missed and fell hard, my body shields coming on too late to soften the fall.

Above me, the Hound balanced on a rail of the fire escape, watching Murdock climb toward him. He jumped, sailing across the alley to the opposite building’s fire escape. Without pause, Murdock leaped after him, his coat flaring out behind him like a cape. They climbed again.

I scrambled to my feet, hoisted myself onto a dumpster, and climbed onto the fire escape. Three stories above, Murdock and the Hound leaped across the alley to the next building. I ran along a catwalk, then up the next set of fire-escape stairs. The Hound sailed past me on his way across again. Climbing again, he backtracked, with Murdock close behind.

I reached the roofline and swung over the parapet. Below, they crossed to my side, and I dropped down to pin the Hound between us before he was high enough to leap again. Halfway up, he spotted me and charged back toward Murdock. A flight above Murdock, he dodged through a broken window and vanished into the darkness of the building. Murdock reached the opening before I did and ran in.

My sensing ability tracked the blazing red of Murdock’s essence in the darkness. We pounded down a long hallway of gaping doorways and graffitied walls. The Hound raced ahead, his dark silhouette flashing in and out of my line of sight as Murdock closed in. The hall ended ahead in a shattered hole where a window used to be. The Hound jumped. Murdock launched out after him, shouting as they disappeared from view.

I reached the opening. The Hound dangled in the air, swinging himself hand over hand across a tension wire to the next building. Not far below, Murdock hung from a bent streetlight, his hands grappling with ice-slick metal. He kicked his legs up to wrap them around the arm of the lamp, but his coat tangled around his feet. He jerked back, losing the grip of one hand.

My mind raced. He was too far for me to reach, either from the building or from the ground three stories below. A loose phone cable hung next to me against the building. I yanked it free and knotted it around a drainpipe. “Catch!” I shouted.

Murdock grabbed the flung cable with his free hand. I spiraled the slack around my arm, dropped to my ass inside the hallway, and braced my feet against the edge of the opening. “Come in feetfirst and kick off the building.”

As he twirled the cable awkwardly with one free arm, his other hand slipped off the light. Murdock fell, the cable a sinuous line of black against the white ground. The line pulled taut, biting into my arm as Murdock hit the end. Then the cable snapped, and Murdock plunged in a spread-eagle free fall.

“No!” I shouted.

I tore down the stairs, slamming into the walls as I fought my way at a full run. A broken door blocked the exit, and I ran at it without stopping. Rotted wood gave way as I burst through it and sprawled into the alley.

Murdock lay on his back, arms flung out, in a shallow crater of snow and jumbled ice. His chest heaved, his breath a cloud of steam. I stumbled to him across the ice. He curled to a sitting position as I reached him. Relieved, I helped him up. He leaned one hand against a wall, gasping. I hunched over, holding my knees, trying to catch my own breath. Murdock smirked through heavy breathing. “Why’d you let him get away?”

I grinned back at him, then shook my head and laughed.

“Gods, are you okay?” I said when I recovered.

Murdock stretched and grimaced. “Yeah, the body shield came in pretty handy.”

“That was insane.”

“Did you tag his essence?” Murdock asked.

I shook my head. “I didn’t get close enough.”

Murdock covered his disappointment by brushing at his coat. It didn’t help the rips and tears and the rust smears. “I’m billing the city for this one.”

The tension wire that the Hound had used was anchored next to a fire escape and a window on an abandoned building across the street. I didn’t see which way he went. “He’s gone,” I said.

Murdock nodded with an exaggerated motion, and we walked up the alley. The large dark shape of Uno sat at the turn, watching us approach. He trotted out of sight.

“Did you see that dog?” I asked.

Murdock looked behind him, in the wrong direction. “Where?”

Uno was hard to miss. Murdock thought I had enough problems without him thinking I was hallucinating. “It must have been a shadow,” I said.

When we reached the corner, Uno wasn’t visible anywhere. He left no paw prints in the snow.

 

 

 

 

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.”