Unshapely Things (12 page)

"Something wrong?" Murdock asked as he pulled onto Storrow Drive.

"Nothing. Just a checkup. Don't talk. I'm trying to remember something," I said. While I could appreciate Murdock's concern for my health, I didn't want to forget what was in my head. As a child, I had received standard training once my druidic abilities presented themselves. By far the bulk of my education was oral, in keeping with tradition. As a result, I have excellent memorization skills. To the average person, they might even be considered extraordinary, but to the average druid, they were commonplace. Whether it was a true ability, or a convenient side effect of ability, I didn't know. Whichever, they're extremely helpful.

He took us up on the elevated highway and coasted off again for the Summer Street exit. In moments, we were parked in front of my building. As I unlocked the building door, I noticed someone had scratched their initials in ogham letters and a numeric year date into the paint by the lock. I guess I should be grateful. Kids usually just broke the lock. Or the window. The art students constantly lost their keys and thought that was a solution.

Murdock followed me upstairs. I let us in, waved vaguely at the refrigerator, and went into my study. Sitting at my computer, I entered the information from the abstracts. Murdock came up behind me sipping a glass of water. Once I had everything entered, I sat back and stared at the screen. If I told Murdock the whole truth, he'd chastise me and use the information anyway. I filled him in on my evening with Briallen and just told him that I got the information from a hospital source.

"So what did you find?" he asked.

I scrolled through my notes. "Two dwarf/human crosses, five human/fairy, two human/elf, and five fairy/elf."

"Looks like we can toss the dwarf crosses," he said, reading over my shoulder. I nodded. The dwarf/human crosses had resulted in children more dwarf than human. I hadn't sensed any dwarf essence on the victims, either, so they didn't fit the profile.

"Most of these kids didn't live past puberty," I said. I counted silently. "That leaves two human/fairy crosses, one human/elf, and three elf/fairy."

"Why just the mother's names? Were the fathers not listed?"

I shook my head. "Unless property or royalty are involved, the fey rarely maintain formal marriages. Women tend to raise girls alone and foster out boys."

All the children seemed to suffer some kind of physical deformity in addition to diminished mental capacity. Not an unusual attribute, I noted with irony, in someone who butchers people. Particularly, violent tendencies didn't seem indicated in the material I had, but that didn't mean they didn't exist. The rest of the information was sketchy at best, the details of each child laid out in case files I hadn't had time to explore.

"Okay, let's run 'em down," he said. He read over my shoulder. "I'll take Dealle Sidhe and Teri Esposito since they're both in the Boston area. I can call New York for Ann Cody."

I printed out a copy for him. "I know someone in England, so it shouldn't take me too long to track down Cheryl Atworth. Germany might take a little longer—Gerda and Britt Alfheim sound pretty common. How are we doing with our decoy?"

Murdock frowned and shrugged. "This is Boston, Connor, not Nordic country. Most of the force is Irish, Italian, and Hispanic."

"You can't find one skinny blond cop? We only have twenty-four hours. Got a Plan B?"

"I know you hate when I ask this, but is there anything you can do?"

I tapped my fingers on the edge of my desk, suppressing my impatience. Murdock had every right to ask the question, and my usual annoyance with it came back to my conversation with Briallen. My annoyance wasn't about his expectation of easy answers. It was my inability to deliver them. "I'm trying, Murdock."

"Have you called the Guild about the missing stones?" he asked.

"Damn, I completely forgot," I said, grabbing the phone. I dialed the main number and asked for Meryl Dian, an old acquaintance in the Guild archives. Naturally, I was put on hold, the strains of plaintive flute music to soothe me while I waited.

"Grey! Haven't heard that name in quite a while," Meryl said, when she picked up. I've been on leave."

"Hmph. Fired's what I heard," she said. Startled, I didn't say anything for a moment. "I'm guessing you need a favor. What is it this time? The complete history of the ritual use of toadstools by tomorrow morning? No wait, you already asked for that. If you lost it, like you usually do, I kept a copy. Or maybe you'd like me to stay late and find the name of the last druid priestess of Ulster and those of her pets? I can rush it, of course."

I could feel blood rushing to my face. The curious look Murdock was giving me told me I probably looked as uncomfortable as I felt. "Meryl, I seem to have caught you at a bad time ..."

"There's never a good time down here, Grey. It's the same old unreasonableness without any gratitude. What do you need?"

"Really, Meryl, if you'd prefer not to ..."

She cut me off. "Connor, spare me the reverse psychology. I've been around that particular block plenty of times, and while you may think it's worked in the past, you're wrong. If I didn't want to do something, flattery and concern from obnoxious imps isn't going to change my mind. Now, spit it out."

"I'm looking for some selenite stones that were recently checked in by the Boston P.D. They've gone missing. They're connected to the fairy murders in the Weird," I said as quickly as possible.

"When were they checked in?" I opened my database and gave her the dates. I could hear her shuffling paper on her desk. She sighed heavily. "Okay, my computer's down right now so I can't check the log. Call me in a few days."

"Just so you know, the stones are confidential and being kept from the press."

"Oh, gee, there goes the announcement I was going to make on the public address system," she said.

I forced myself to chuckle. "You're the best, Meryl."

"I know," she said, and disconnected the line. I set the phone down slowly and looked at Murdock. "Was I that much of a prick when I was at the Guild?"

"I didn't know you then." I frowned. "If it's any consolation, I think you're a prick now." I glowered at him, and he smirked. "Well, not a very big prick."

I gave up and laughed. "Okay, so I've spread a little bad karma around. I'm working on it, I'm working on it."

"I've gotta go." I followed him to the door and let him out. Murdock never says good-bye. When I first met him, the abruptness with which he left bothered me, but I've gotten used to it. It's his way, like mine is to want closure on everything.

I went back into the study, trying to remember how I had offended Meryl Dian. I rarely saw her when I was at the Guild. My office was on the tenth floor, while she maintained one of the archival wings in the subbasement. Most of our contact had been by phone, invariably about research for cases I was working on. She was brilliant, if a bit dark and creepy sometimes, but cute in an as-a-button kind of way. She could recount the politics of tenth-century Britain and digress into the decomposition of bodies on the battlefield without taking a breath. How she knew what body parts crows preferred baffled me.

I remembered the druid priestess question from another murder case I had worked on. That one was actually a human serial killer on Cape Cod who was keeping people as pets before offing them in the bathtub. The toadstool history didn't register with me at all. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I probably hadn't been very considerate of Meryl. In the heat of an investigation, I tended to treat everyone as subordinate staff, and, obviously, I had rubbed her the wrong way on more than one occasion. Which was precisely why I could never take Keeva up on her offer. I wouldn't mind working with Meryl. In fact, I think I'd like it. It's the jerks like me I didn't want to have to deal with.

In less than a week, I had been reminded of my own arrogance, insensitivity, and complacency. Since my accident, I definitely wasn't the person I was at the Guild. It doesn't take too long on the outside looking in to wake you up to a few facts about life, if not yourself. Not that I was suddenly one with the goodness of humanity. I was all too aware of its underbelly to fool myself into thinking it didn't exist. But I definitely didn't see myself arbitrarily dismissing people out of hand anymore. Even if I hadn't been feeling that way, Briallen had opened my eyes to it quite clearly the night before.

I turned back to my database to review the files again. Despite the tugging allure of self-pity, I could always worry about what people thought of me later. I had less than a day to stop an accident of birth from butchering people.

I awoke without moving my body, my eyes fluttering open to stare at the ceiling. Lying in dim gray-white light, I slowly became aware of a subtle desire, like a mild withdrawal. In just a few short days of performing the morning invocation ritual, my body was already becoming synchronized with the dawn. It knew it wanted the pleasant sensation of light washing over it, sparking it awake with renewed energy. When I had first learned the ritual as a young boy, my body's essence took weeks to become attuned to the diurnal rhythm of the sun. Now, it was like resetting an alarm clock.

I rolled out of bed and stood before the window with my head bowed and arms crossed over my chest. As the disc of the sun pierced the horizon, its warm glow touched my forehead. Inhaling deeply, I raised my arms. I had forgotten how soothing the ritual felt, chanting the ancient Gaelic paean, waking my body with the stretching postures. I could not remember why I stopped doing it. I couldn't believe I had gotten to a point in my life where doing something so simple had become so inconsequential to me. As the sun climbed to sit momentarily on the edge of the horizon, I ended the chant in the final stance, head thrown back, arms down and out, with the light centered on my chest, the seat of my essence.

The reality that Tuesday had come again pressed itself upon me while I was under the water in the shower. The word beat at my mind, its innocent sounds colored with dread. Another week had passed since I had stood in a wet alley looking at a chest with a crater in it. Today, the cycle was likely to repeat. I dried myself off, picked up my coffee mug, and went into the study.

My first order of business was to call Murdock to see where we were with our decoy. He hadn't checked into the station house yet. It was still early. Rather than call his beeper or his house, I left a message for him. Thinking about the decoy reminded me that I wanted Tansy to observe the stakeout if she were willing. Pulling a glow bee out of the fridge, I held it tightly in my hand, feeling it come to life. It surprised me how quickly it responded. I sent it off to Joe with a message to find Tansy and meet me later in the day.

Before it got any later, I decided to place my calls to Europe. Working internationally usually meant east, which meant I had to make contact before noon. Otherwise, everyone would be going home for the day. I didn't expect the bad guys to accommodate my schedule.

The Avalon database had listed Cheryl Atworth, a human who had given birth to a boy named William, last reported in England. The father was a fairy. She would have been in the States in 1960, making her around sixty-five years old today. The Ward Guildhouse in London was a little sloppy with its paperwork, but since the fey were welcomed and admired in the British Isles, Atworth wasn't likely to hide her association with a former lover. That made my first call to Rory Dean, an old drinking buddy of mine from poorly remembered bacchanals in the early nineties. He definitely owed me a few favors, if not a few beers. After an interminable time wandering through the voice mail system, I finally got Rory's cheery voice informing me that he had gone to lunch. I left a message with what details I had, a plea to rush it, and a promise to visit.

Germany was another matter. The only people I knew there showed bare disdain for Americans, which is at least nicer than what they thought of the Brits and Irish. In the early part of the century, the dwarves and elves had formed the Teutonic Consortium and caused havoc. At the end of World War II, they cut a deal with Russia not to impede the final push into Berlin in exchange for northeastern Germany. When the Berlin Wall came down, a demilitarized fey zone went up next to the city where it abuts Consortium territory. Even now, one of the big issues of the Fey Summit was the constant skirmishing between the Teutonic Consortium and Maeve's fairy defender warriors. The elves routinely threatened to push the border back to France. Humans might have resolved a lot of their differences with the fall of the Soviets, but the fey still stared at each other, spears at the ready, always in danger of resuming their part of the war.

I really didn't have any contacts, but I had no doubt the Guildhouse would be able to find the two people I sought. Berlin kept careful track of fey folk. The fey folk were allowed a Guildhouse only on the condition of strict government oversight. Before the War, the fey had ignored the edict, but once atomic energy had been harnessed, the playing field had leveled, so they acceded to the more stringent demands.

The only details I had were names and dates. Gerda was in the States in and around 1948 and had a son named Gethin. Britt was here in 1972 and had given birth to a daughter she named Welfrey. Their surnames were given as Alfheim, which was just a general elf clan affiliation. The Berlin Guildhouse used a customer-service center that was derisively referred to as the informant center. Nondescript agents, many of them human and suspicious of everyone, took notes, gave no information, and occasionally actually called back. I knew the officious agent I snagged would complain that clan affiliations were scant detail at best, and he did. Still, as politely as possible, I gave him the names and dates, diplomatically asked for urgency, and supplied him with the case number and Murdock's name and my cell number to assure them it was an official investigation.

Frustrated, I wandered out to the Avenue and gazed at the shops, the pubs, and the stores. They were all familiar but, really, they changed every day. A little more wear or a fresh coat of paint. People frequented them, or never came again, or arrived for the first time. Yet I felt as though they were always the same, especially in the morning when everything was devoid of activity. The long street felt like a stage waiting for a play.