Unshapely Things (28 page)

Her eyes narrowed at me. "It's an old stone to work with. I don't care much for the power of the Moon. It's the work of secrets and sunderings."

Personally, I couldn't argue with her. Moon-work was mostly women's. I never had much success with it myself. Give me the Sun and a sharp edge any day.

"It's just a Power. Its use can be positive or negative depending on the user. You know that."

She smiled thinly. "I'm a bit older than you, Connor Grey. I lived in the True Land before we were thrust into this sickened place. Trust me. The Moon is no friend. The Light of Day reveals all."

Her phrasing gave me pause. The True Land was how elves, not fairies, referred to their lost home. I suppose given her choice of mate, it shouldn't be surprising. I had a hunch Dealle was an elf sympathizer, as in superior to the rest of us, we-should-rule-the-world kind of way. "And the True Land remains the True Land, beneath the Light of Day/Take me back to the True Land, and out of the World of Decay," I recited. It was part of an old ballad from World War II that the fey of Germany sang.

Bingo. Dealle's eyebrows shot up. "I didn't think someone so young would know that song."

I shrugged. "I have an interest in history."

She sighed with resignation. "Yes, it is history. I was happy in a very sad time, but this is the world we live in now. Truths were told, and mistakes were made. And love lost. Some of my old acquaintances still fight for Faerie. I only have time for Corcan now."

"I didn't mean to bring up painful memories." I didn't know what to say. She had that exhausted tone that people have when they've lost their ideals.

"You were born here. You know nothing," she said, her voice bitter. She stood and walked out of the kitchen. I hesitated before following her down the hall to where she held the front door open. I had no authority to insist on staying.

"I'll be the judge of my memories," she said.

I bowed slightly. "Of course. Thank you, Dealle. You've been helpful."

As I walked down the front steps, she called my name, and I turned. "My son's a good boy. You remember that."

I didn't say anything, but smiled and nodded. She closed the door. I could feel a little buffer of air tickle my face as the ward reactivated.

I shoved my hands deep into my pants pockets as I strode up the street. I had gone to the house with the hope of finding a killer, with the added bonus of embarrassing macDuin for overlooking evidence in his own files. Instead, I found a mentally challenged man without the skills to find his way home, never mind slaughter six people. Corcan "Corky" Sidhe had vanished for a night about when the selenite stones were stolen. Given that the Guild hadn't officially investigated his disappearance, macDuin's note at the time practically confirmed there must be some connection. What I couldn't figure out was why Dealle's name was in the file if no one had bothered to follow up on it. And why macDuin in particular hadn't followed up made that even more interesting.

For all her willingness to answer questions, Dealle made me uncomfortable. Fairies and elves always made a toxic mix, and Dealle obviously hadn't let go of all her political sympathies. And she knew stone work.

An old man walking toward me glanced uncertainly away as I stopped short on the sidewalk. MacDuin had been an elf sympathizer during the War, too. It was possible he knew Dealle from that time. And if he knew Dealle, he probably knew about her son. Stinkwort had said once that there was no blood on macDuin's hands. I wondered if macDuin or someone he knew was somehow controlling Corcan. But the level of Power required was significant, and I didn't think macDuin had it in him. Still, the reduced mental capacity might make it feasible, especially if macDuin had found a way to augment his abilities.

I started walking again. The frustrating part was motive. If macDuin was connected to the murders, what could he hope to gain? A cold thought occurred to me. Tiamach Ruadan, the father of the latest victim, was a war hero on the front lines for the last push into Berlin. Although the humans had reconciled their differences decades ago, relations between elves and fairies had only begun to approach resolution at the Fey Summit. Could macDuin be seeking some kind of delayed revenge?

If the idea that someone would want to disrupt the peace process weren't so horrible, I would have laughed at myself. But if enough paranoid people believed something, it didn't take too long for them to start their own conspiracy. And if macDuin had come to the conclusion that working within the system wasn't changing anything, maybe he had nothing left to lose.

Tuesday morning I returned to my apartment without the usual cleansing feeling I get from my five-mile run. Instead of doing my normal route around the old fort, I had spent much of the time running through the Weird and passing the murder sites. The experience was both frustrating and strange. I tried to find some pattern to the locations, some unifying characteristic that would clue me in to where the killer might pick next. A simple glance at a map demonstrated no pattern other than the general neighborhood and opportunity. All the deaths had occurred in places with only the similarity of isolation. Not much help—most people try to keep out of sight when they are gutting someone. Running from empty, trash-filled alleys into the brash activity of the Avenue made the whole experience surreal. Midsummer activities were coming into full swing, with all manner of people roaming the main streets, laughing and singing. I had to wonder if they were blissfully unaware of the killer in their midst, coldly indifferent, or merely unconcerned. As I sat at my computer, I reviewed the evidence again. Contrary to my conversation with Stinkwort, I wasn't all that sure I had the stone ritual nailed. I had a strong hint at best, but the effects of substituting different types of stone remained a mystery, to say nothing of whatever incantation might be involved. Thinking of the stones made me realize I hadn't heard from Meryl. I took that as a sign she was keeping her word not to disclose their mysterious return to the Guild until Thursday.

I looked back at the case files. All the evidence had been consistent until the last death. The killer had left dirt in the chest cavity of the most recent victim. Or, more precisely, sand. Clean, sterile sand according to the analysis. I had an uncomfortable tactile memory of my hand covered with sand grit and blood.

I opened the file on Ragnell, the first victim. The P.D. had taken its time with tests because Ragnell's clothes were so dirty. He had been sleeping on the street. He couldn't have charged much for his services unless the client was into unwashed clothes. I had no delusions that such people didn't exist. Murdock had appended an undated forensics report. It read like a catalog of debris: cat and dog hair, multiple human hairs from different people, food particles, bits of lavender, hawthorn leaves, horehound, cloves, unidentifiable ash, and good old marijuana stems.

The hawthorn leaves didn't surprise me. The tree was sacred to fairies, and many of the fey carried leaves as protection or touchstones. The lavender, clove, and dope didn't surprise me either. Even humans, mostly of the alternative music bent, would have them these days. But the horehound struck me as odd. It was used mainly as a curative for coughs and colds. I skimmed back through the rest of the report, but I didn't see any indication that Ragnell was sick. A red flag jumped out at me. The medical examiner had made a note that ash had been on the body, not just the clothes, but the body itself. Some of it was near the chest wound. I sent Murdock an email to see if he could find out if any herbs were in the wound. I didn't think I was wrong though. I had no doubt they were on the body, at least in charred remains. Ingested in certain forms, horehound could be used for colds. But burning it in conjunction with hawthorn leaves was a restorative of spirits. That fit neatly with my theory about the killer trying to heal himself.

I scrolled through the forensic reports of the other victims. My momentary elation began to fade. No herbs showed up in the other cases. The only odd thing about Pach, the second victim, besides the gaping hole in his chest, were a couple of fresh minor burn marks. No ash residue. There were no indications of anything like herbs or ashes on the third victim. It had been raining that night, and the body, like all the others, was naked. Some evidence had probably been lost. And then the fourth victim just had the sand.

I made a list of one to four on a piece of scrap paper and wrote the anomalies for each victim: ash, minor burns, nothing, and sand. The first two items obvious were connected by fire, but that left me with two more unrelated items. I looked back at Gamelyn, the third victim, and read through the file again slowly. Nothing. I stared at the crime scene photos.

I remembered that my senses were in overdrive that night. Because of the rain, everything had smelled more intensely. It was how I had caught Tansy's essence even over the stench of the dumpster. That night had been the last time it had rained in two weeks. Weather forecasters, the meteorologist kind, had remarked that every storm front in the last two weeks had skittered south toward Cape Cod without touching the Boston metro area. Strange for the region, especially this time of year. At number three on my list, I wrote the word "rain" next to the nothing.

Some people get goose-bumps when they realize something exciting. Me, I get a rush of adrenaline. As I looked at my list, I got one huge burst. It wasn't about the ash. Ash was just the residue when incense is burned. Incense is burned to invoke the power of Air. Another check of Ragnell's scene photo revealed a candle stub in plain sight. Dripping wax could burn skin. Candles are lit to invoke the power of Fire. Gamelyn was killed on a rainy night. That everything at the scene was wet would have obscured the fact if Water had been present in the ritual. And then there was the sand at the last scene. Earth. I knew now that only one more murder waited to occur in two days' time. A new moon on Midsummer's Eve would complete the lunar cycle of the ritual. While many people work with the four natural elements, a fifth element can be included, and I was sure it was about to be invoked: Spirit, which some call Essence.

Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Spirit. The five primal elements of Power. The five points of invocation of every ritual invoked with a pentagram. With his surprising room decorations, Corcan Sidhe was back in the picture.

In reviewing macDuin's files, I had come across numerous library searches for old grimoires. I had reprints of some of them in my study, but none made any connection for me. I spun in my chair and called Meryl. She answered on the first ring.

"Hi, Meryl. I'm in my apartment. I feel safe here because the Guild put in protection wards."

I listened to several moments of nonresponse while I hoped Meryl got the message.

"I'm busy now. I'll call you tomorrow." She hung up. I quickly turned off the ringer. Anxiously, I stared at the caller ID on the receiver. The display changed from idle mode to indicate someone was calling from a masked phone number. I put the receiver to my ear and hit the on button. A familiar sensation of static bristled out of the phone and surrounded my head.

"So you think your apartment's bugged?" she said.

"Just a precaution. I'm getting paranoid."

She sighed. "Hang on." I heard her drop her phone, papers rustling, the crash of something falling followed by cursing—the vulgar kind—then some typing, some tapping, a couple of beeping tones and, finally, an ear-piercing wave of static.

Meryl got back on the line. "Oh, okay. You're cool. As far as I can tell, your line's clean."

"I need you to do something for me."

She sighed so heavily, I thought I could feel a ripple in the envelope of static. I was starting to get used to the feeling. "You really don't know when to stop, do you?"

I grinned. "No. I get that a lot. I don't need anything that will jeopardize your position. MacDuin was researching books. Two in particular I know aren't available outside the Guildhouse. One is a collection of manuscript fragments of the writings of the druid Cathbad. The other is something called The Brown Book of Cenchos."

She laughed. "That's a joke, Connor. It's a book of nonsensical spells attributed to the Fomorians. They call it the Brown Book because it's supposedly bound with the tanned skin of a Tuatha de Danann king. Cenchos is the mythical bogeyman of the Sidhe. Legend has it that he twisted the de Dananns he captured and founded the Unseelie Court. He was defeated by being spell-bound into the sea with his followers."

"What makes the spells nonsensical?"

"They mix things up, use herbs and stones in ways that make no sense. Plus, they're written in what is supposedly Fomorian, which apparently sounds like a garbage disposal backing up."

"I still need to know if any of its spells have to do with blood, selenite, and pentagrams."

"You're assuming I can read Fomorian."

"I've never underestimated you, Meryl."

She snickered. I read the call numbers off to her. "I'll call your cell phone if I find anything."

"Wait, before you go, I wanted to ask you why macDuin's interview about the selenite theft isn't in the file."

"Oh, that's easy. He wasn't here. He was on leave."

"Meryl, he was here. He did these library searches the week of the theft, and if I'm reading these codes right, he entered several storerooms in the Guild basement, including the one where the stones were."

"Hold on." I could hear her typing for several moments, then the sound of a chair being pushed back. Several papers were shuffled around. "Nope. I was right. There are several references to preparing reports for when he came back. He was in Germany. He was gone about a month and mad as hell about the stones when he came back."

I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Meryl, listen to me carefully. I think macDuin may be involved in the murders. I'm finding several connections, and if he said he was in Germany, I think he's lying. I need that spell info, but don't let anyone know what you're doing. Don't leave a trail of any kind. And whatever you do, don't tell macDuin you found the stones."