Unquiet Dreams (12 page)

Midnight. Yggy’s. The low energy of the glow bee made Joe’s voice sound faint. You don’t understand a glow bee like a sending; you actually hear it. People impress messages on them with their own essences. When it lands on you, the essence releases the message. It’s quick, though. Try and put too much information into a glow bee, and it takes a while to sort out. On the other hand, too cryptic a message, and you find yourself scratching your head anyway. Joe and I had been exchanging them since I was a kid, before I was able to do a true sending. Now that I can’t do decent sendings anymore, we’re back to glow bees.

Yggy’s. Interesting location. About the midpoint of the Avenue just beyond what passes for retail shops but before the commercial warehouses begin. Not the worst place in the Weird, but starting to venture into that territory. It was a crossroads bar, one of those places where an elf can sit down with a fairy and either have a civil conversation or end up rolling around on the floor. I had almost forgotten Joe was setting up a meeting with his gang connection, and Yggy’s would be the perfect place for it. The bar’s one rule was no essence fighting.

Murdock didn’t pick up when I tried his cell. He hadn’t checked in at all, which was unusual, so I was relieved when he called me from his car just before midnight. Yggy’s would be a good place for him to check out, learn more about how the fey can sit down and have a drink without all the race drama.

I was happy when Murdock called me from downstairs. It was getting chilly at night, and I didn’t want to have to walk in the cold down to the bar. I tossed some newspapers from the passenger seat of his car into the back, where they landed, not accidentally, on a romance novel. Murdock has a secret passion for them. You might call it a secret, searing passion of towering desire. With flowing hair, ripped abs, and corsets. I tease him about it. He doesn’t read the good kind. Every once in a while, I find a paperback lying around my apartment that he’s left in a subtle effort to get me interested. I have read a couple, well researched, well written, but in the end, not so much my thing. Murdock thinks I’m single because I don’t get romance. I point out he never goes out with someone more than twice.

“Okay, gang fight. Two nights ago. What happened and when were you going to tell me?” I said, as he pulled an illegal U-turn and drove the wrong way up Sleeper Street to the Avenue.

He threw me a look that was at once surprised and annoyed. “What’s with the attitude? I was just going to bring it up.”

“I heard about it from Keeva, who took much joy in my lack of knowledge, thank you. Why didn’t you mention it the other day?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. I must have been distracted by the fire. Nothing much to tell. A face-off between the TruKnights and the Tunnel Rats.”

I grabbed the dash as he took the corner a little too fast. “Okay. TruKnights I know are elf and fairy kids. That makes the Tunnel Rats our dwarf boys?”

He nodded. “Don’t know much about the dwarves. Keep to themselves mostly. You saw the colors: black hoodies and yellow bandanas. They claim a small area south of where the Farnsworth kid was found.”

“Still leaving the question of why a human kid was wearing the colors of a dwarf gang,” I said.

He nodded. “Except for the dead kid, all the members are dwarves as far as we know. The report didn’t have much detail about why the fight happened. The TruKnights claim turf just east, so based on what you picked up from the Tunnel Rats you met, it was probably turf related. Two elves ended up in the hospital pretty cut up.”

Dead kid. Murdock can do that, just refer to him as a dead kid. He’s much better at emotional detachment than I am, at least when he’s working. It’s a cop thing, to an extent. He’s seen more murders than I have, so he’s got an extra layer of protection against the horror of it. Not jaded so much as resigned.

We left the working lights of the Avenue behind and entered a more desolate stretch of road that led to the warehouse district. Murdock pulled the car to the mostly empty curb. It wasn’t an area where you left an unattended car parked for long. We got out and walked toward the harbor.

“I’m still convinced the blood on the kid’s shoe was Kruge’s,” I said.

Murdock gave me a lopsided smile. “Of course you are.”

Joe chose that moment to appear. Murdock is getting better at not being startled by a flit popping into view without warning, but you can still see the surprise on his face when it happens. He has to work on that if he ever wants to do undercover work with the fey.

Joe swirled around us, clearly pleased. “Right on time, guys. I just checked and our guy’s inside. Let’s go, let’s go.”

“What’s the rush, Joe?” I asked.

I didn’t get an answer, or, rather, I didn’t get an answer from Joe. Yggy’s is on the dead-end side of Congress Street north of the Avenue. A few people milled around the black-stained door with a “Y” painted in the middle. No one reputable. We were eyed with wary curiosity, but no one bothered us. The door slammed outward, followed by an airborne body that landed firmly in the gutter. Murdock and I exchanged glances.

Stinkwort laughed nervously. “I guess he decided to meet us outside!”

At that same moment, we were close enough for me to sense the guy’s essence. I stopped short and glared at Joe. I didn’t need an introduction, and I didn’t need the guy to roll faceup for me to recognize him. Murdock paused a step ahead of me, turning back with a questioning look on his face.

Stinkwort zoomed ahead. “Cal! How are you doing, bud?”

Cal opened one eye and smiled. “Hey, Joe, what do you know?”

Joe crossed his arms, sat down on Cal’s chest, and looked up with a self-satisfied, I-dare-you-to-get-mad-at-me smile.

“Hi, Cal,” I said.

When he realized it was me, he opened his other eye in surprise. “Well, well, what do you know, little bro?”

I didn’t hide the displeasure I felt. “Leo Murdock, meet Callin Grey. My brother.”

Naturally, Murdock was surprised as hell. “You have a brother?”

Cal reached up a big, meaty hand. “Pleased to meet you, Leo.”

Murdock shook and found himself pulling Cal off the ground while Joe fluttered up. “Same to you. And it’s Murdock.”

Cal stood a good five inches taller than either of us. We look nothing alike. He takes after our father—broad shouldered, barrel-chested, rough-cut facial features—but has our mother’s coloring—ash-blond hair, light brown eyes that can appear yellow. He has an infectious smile that belies an unpredictable temper. Which is how he ends up in gutters a lot.

Joe clapped his hands. “Drinks are on me!”

“My favorite words,” said Cal. He reached for the door handle to Yggy’s.

“Didn’t you just get thrown out?” I said.

He gave a sheepish smile. “Nah, not really. Just a prelim.” He sauntered inside with Joe on his shoulder.

“You don’t look happy,” said Murdock.

“More ambivalent. Let’s see where this goes,” I said.

I opened the door, and Murdock passed inside. No one really stood as bouncer at Yggy’s. It was the kind of the place that if you needed to rely on a bouncer to get you out of trouble, you didn’t belong there in the first place. When the management wanted someone removed, the bartender usually asked one of the meaner, drunker customers to take care of it for a free round. There were always takers.

Immediately inside the door stood a coat check that no one ever used, but the coat-check girls, usually elves, always got tipped for their outfits, or suggestions thereof. After a short hallway, a large square bar area filled the front of the place. Stools surrounded it on all sides and could easily seat a few dozen people. Beyond that was a dance floor that was primarily an excuse to place wooden barrels to lean on when the bar was full. And beyond that was a pool table. For the right price, pool wasn’t the only action the felt saw.

Cal waved to a sallow-looking fairy with shaggy black hair sprouting from various points on his skin. Not all the Celtic fairies are from the pretty Dananns clans. The fairy frowned and gave him the finger.

“My table’s back here,” Cal said over the low din. Yggy’s is bar-loud, not club-loud. You can carry on a decent conversation without having to raise your voice too much over competing conversations and the new-wave-retro harp and fiddle classics on the sound system. Not far from the pool table, we slid around a battle-scarred table with four chairs in the style every New Englander knows as colonial. Joe flipped over the empty black plastic ashtray and used that as a seat. Cal waved four fingers at a waitress, who nodded and disappeared toward the bar.

Cal smiled down at Joe. “Someone said he had someone I needed to meet. Someone implied it was a date.”

Joe put on an innocent look. “I never said date. Why does everyone think I want to set them up on dates?”

“Maybe because strange women end up with our phone numbers?” I said.

“Not true!” he said. He winked at Murdock. “It’s not always women.”

Murdock shot me a sly glance. Joe thinks I don’t date enough and believes if he throws enough variety at me, someone will stick. Murdock can’t understand how anyone can be without the company of women for more than a week. Since I don’t rise to their baiting, they keep wondering if my interests lie outside the assumed. Of course, not rising to their baiting also means they keep baiting. I think we all enjoy it.

“How ya been, bro?” Cal asked. I hated the “bro.” Even though Cal always used it, it felt like an affectation. The constant reminder of our relationship was a constant reminder that we were hardly buddies. When I lost my abilities two years back, Cal managed to show up at Avalon Memorial a week later, mildly sober, with enough contrition for the delay to indicate he meant it. It still irked me that he took so long. Our parents called the day I woke up, and they were in Ireland.

“Okay. Not much change. You?”

The waitress returned and dropped three tumblers of whiskey in front of us and a smaller one for Joe. We tapped glasses. While the three of us sipped, Murdock placed his back on the table. He wasn’t on duty, but I could tell by the way his eyes kept shifting to the crowd, it was not the kind of place he liked to drink in.

“I’m okay,” Cal said. “Been doing a little of this, a little of that.”

We always started this way. Wary. Not going too deep.

“Heard from Mom and Dad?” I asked. Safe, yet unsafe, territory.

He shook his head. “You know them. They’ll remember us eventually.”

I didn’t respond. Like all siblings, Cal and I have very different relationships with our parents. Cal sees their lack of contact as indifference. I see it as two people who get incredibly caught up in each other and their own lives. They care. Cal never realizes they call him more than me. But then, they worry about him more. If and when they return from meddling in Celtic politics, Cal will complain they won’t leave him alone, and I will pretend I don’t like their attention.

No one spoke for a long minute, while Joe hummed to himself watching us. I’ve got to give it to the little guy. He never quite gives up on getting the two of us back together.

“So, Joe’s led me to believe you travel in interesting circles these days,” I said.

Cal sipped his drink again, eyeing Joe. “Does he, now? Perhaps Joe might be more careful what he says where.”

Joe barked like a dog at Cal. It’s one of his nervous tics when someone throws a dig at him that lands. “I didn’t say anything about your buried treasure, secret harem, or wine cellar. I just told him you might know about gang stuff down by the Tangle.”

From the look on Cal’s face, I think he would have preferred Joe told us about women or money. I already knew about the booze. Cal downed his whiskey and nodded at the waitress. Not a good sign.

“Why would I talk about something I know nothing about with a cop?” asked Cal.

Murdock’s mouth went to a tight, straight line. Murdock hated being made as the law. Of course, Cal wasn’t stupid. Wearing a trench coat and tie in Yggy’s and not drinking a free shot were dead giveaways. I felt Murdock’s essence spike, and I could tell Cal felt it, too. He gave me a look that told me he found it odd. The waitress dropped him another drink on her way by.

“We’re just looking for background, Cal,” I said.

“Still don’t know why you’re talking to me.”

I sighed. Every time Cal and I encounter each other, the animosity starts. It goes back a long way. We’re never at outright war with each other, but there are too many issues between us for outright peace. “Look, Joe brought us to you. If you can’t help, fine. I’m not looking to cause you trouble.”

“Calm down, Con.” He nodded at Murdock. “You trust him?”

“With my life. I can’t say the same for him. I almost got him killed on our last case together.”

Murdock chuckled. His essence settled down, more human normal.

Cal leaned forward, not looking me in the eye. “What do you want to know?”

“What about the Tunnel Rats?” Murdock asked.

Cal shrugged. “Enforcers mostly. T-Rats don’t usually start something, but they’ve been known to end things pretty quick.”

Murdock leaned forward, too. “My info is they’re all dwarves, but we’ve got a dead human kid wearing their colors. Would they have killed him for wearing their colors?”

Cal shook his head, examining the swirling amber liquid in his glass. “No, they’re not that sick-petty. They might rough someone up for it, but it’d be odd for them to go that far.” He paused. “Oh, wait—did the kid have knots in his bandana?”

We both nodded. “That’s why. The kid had something he didn’t want his gang identified with, but the T-Rats wanted done. So, they let him wear their colors. Knots in a bandana are a heads-up that the kid isn’t a T-Rat but has their protection.”

“Sounds dangerous. If someone wanted to kill a Tunnel Rat, why would they care if someone was pretending to be one?”

Cal smiled. “’Cause they don’t know if they’re bringing double hell down on themselves. Someone might not be afraid of the T-Rats but scared spitless of an associate. Kill the associate, get the T-Rats and the associate’s gang in on your fight uninvited.”