Unshapely Things (32 page)

As if on cue, they dropped me to the floor. The driver patted me down. His hands seemed to insist on avoiding my right boot. For a moment, I thought he might be an ally after all. But more likely, Briallen had a warding spell on the dagger she gave me. With his own knife, he sliced some of the duct tape to loosen it. They shoved me inside the dark room and closed me in.

The little square panel opened. "Let me know when you've got the tape off," the driver said.

I sneezed. The room had a rank odor of rot and urine. It was so bad, I could smell it even through my sinus congestion. I flexed my arms and heard the gratifying rip of the tape. After several more tries, I managed to free my right hand and remove the rest along with what felt like most of the hair from my arms. The tape around my legs gave way more easily.

"Done," I called.

"Put out your hand," said the driver.

With not a little reluctance, I put my hand through the opening expecting it to be slapped, followed by giggles. Instead, he pressed a kitchen match into my palm. The beam of a flashlight blinded me, and I stepped back.

"You get the one match. Don't ask for another." The flashlight beam illuminated a small torch a few feet away on the side wall. I felt the wall to make sure it was dry, then raked the match head against it. It flared and before it went out I touched it to the torch. A feeble yellow flame flickered up. I turned back to the door. He slammed the panel closed. I could hear their muffled voices through the door as they settled in to watch.

I took in my surroundings. It was an old storeroom of some kind, forgotten in the depths of the building. A small space near the door remained clear, but the rest was a jumble of boxes and crates and old furniture. And a bad smell. I hoped nothing—or no one—had died. That wouldn't be a very good omen. A coolness permeated the air that the torch would never warm. I knew I should have worn my jacket. A soft sound rustled in the pile of junk. Rats. On top of everything else, I had to contend with rats. At least I understood their motives.

I paced in the dim silence, trying to understand how I ended up in a dark dungeon on a summer's day. I had run too late and hidden too obviously. I wondered if Keeva knew about the recording stone in my apartment, or if she had unknowingly been charging it up for macDuin all this time. I couldn't believe even she would stoop so low. I didn't get it. If she was working against me, why had she bothered saving my ass the last time the two elf goons came around?

I resisted the urge to try the door. Not even these guys would be dumb enough to leave the door unlocked. I had to wait and see what macDuin had planned for me. I just hoped I didn't wait too long. It wasn't exactly cold in the storeroom, but the creeping damp air was already getting uncomfortable. I didn't relish the idea of rummaging around in the pile of junk to find something smelly but warm to wrap myself in.

The fact that Gerda Alfheim's son Gethin was in Boston intrigued me. What were the odds? Too high to be more than coincidence. Was he lured here? I wondered. I thought of Corcan Sidhe, half-elf and half-fairy, just like Gerda's kid. All the other cross-species children had died except these two. Dealle Sidhe had old German connections; that much was clear. Could Gerda have sent Gethin to her? Fostering was far from unusual among the fey. Who better to foster a mentally handicapped child than someone who had one? And macDuin was aware of both of them.

Footsteps sounded out in the corridor, and my guards stopped talking. The gait was long and firm. I didn't need any special ability to recognize it. The bolt on the outside was thrown, and the door opened. MacDuin stood in the doorway flanked by his annoyingly smirky minions.

We faced each other silently. He wore his usual black suit, but here within the confines of the Guildhouse, or maybe just for my benefit, he made no attempt to hide his wings behind a glamour. They rippled up high behind him, their translucent texture reflecting gold and silver pinpoints of light from the torches.

I tried my best to look unimpressed. It wasn't hard. I'd seen it before. "Care to explain why you had me kidnapped, Lorcan?"

He merely smiled. "I came to be sure you were secured. You are fey. I can always say I was holding you for questioning in a case."

"Even the commissioner wouldn't believe that."

If anything, his smile broadened. "I wouldn't expect him to."

That gave me a cold feeling. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He arched a languid eyebrow. "Let's just say that the commissioner and I have come to an agreement, and you are not part of it."

That really didn't sound good. I decided to bluff. "People are going to be looking for me, and you're the first place they'll go. I was on the phone when your goons grabbed me."

"He's lying. He didn't have time to say anything," said the elf who had driven the car. He leaned in toward me with a sneer. "He didn't even know what hit him."

I rolled my eyes toward him. "Don't make me bite you again."

A touch of real amusement came to Lorcan's smile. "You should have stayed out of this, Connor." He turned to the spellcaster. "Keep him here for now. He will prove useful in a day or two." He began to walk away.

"I know about Germany."

Lorcan put a hand up to stop the door. He gave me a measuring look. "What do you know about Germany?"

I had to bluff him. I didn't know if he was lying about having been there. "I know what you did."

"Meaningless. Many people knew I was there last fall." He turned his back and gestured for the driver to close the door.

"I know about Gerda Alfheim."

That got him. He froze in place for a long moment before facing me. With a placid stare, he took several more moments as he seemed to digest what I said. "That does complicate things. I didn't think you had gotten this close. I had hoped when this was all over, your conspiracy theories would look like a desperate alibi. You might provoke a few unwanted questions now."

"You're going to pin this on me? Do you think Gerda Alfheim will keep quiet if I go to jail?"

He shrugged. "I wouldn't place my trust in Gerda if I were you, Connor. She will be taken care of in due course."

I took a step forward. MacDuin raised his eyebrows in response, but otherwise didn't move. "Lorcan, you can't believe what you're doing will help. You won't be able to control it. No one will."

"You are not the first person to underestimate me, Connor. I haven't worked to convince Maeve of my sincerity only to have your pathetic interference ruin everything now."

He turned to leave again. "How did you do it, Lorcan? Does Dealle Sidhe know what you're doing, or is she just as blinded by her political ambitions as you are?"

He gave me a curious stare, then amusement glittered in his eyes. He gave a long, low chuckle. "As usual, you think you have all the answers, but you're the same arrogant fool you always were. As you sit rotting in a jail cell, you still will have no idea what happened here. And I like that very much." He spun on his heel and swept out of the room. One of the goons slammed the door. I deducted points from both of them for melodrama. I kicked the door to make us all even.

What had I missed? Meryl had said the spell she found would unbind an old power. If it had come out of The Brown Book of Cenchos, it had to be a Fomorian power. The only reason macDuin would want to release something like that would be to cause chaos. Just like he wanted during the war. I doubted anyone living would know how to counter Fomorian abilities. Hell, they had ruled over the Tuatha De Danann at one time. They were a race so forgotten even Briallen thought their rituals were nonsense. MacDuin had to be insane if he thought he could handle whatever came through the opening the spell would create. I shook my head. With six people dead, I had no business being baffled by macDuin's sanity.

Another rustling sound caught my attention, and the culprit made its appearance. A large brown rat skittered along the edge of the room, lifting its nose to scent the air. It had a thick patch of fur on its head that looked charmingly like a crown. Rearing onto its hind legs, it sniffed in my direction. I looked around for something to throw and picked up a split chair leg. The rat had already turned away, but I took a shot at it anyway. I missed but scared the hell out of it. It plunged into the pile of trash, and I could hear it scratching its way frantically toward the back of the storeroom.

The voices on the other side of the door faded away. I stood listening to the silence, willing myself not to focus on how angry I felt. Anger clouded thinking. Having been in enough locked rooms in my time, I knew that thinking was usually the only way to freedom. Of course, if that failed, I still had the dagger in my boot.

A shrill screaming filled the air, punctuated with flashes of color. I huddled close to the ground, my heart racing in what I wanted to think was excitement but really was ordinary fear. Something closed in on me, something dark and huge. I fumbled for the dagger in my boot. As I pulled it from its sheath, it blazed with a white light. A scream rent the air.

I awoke in darkness. Cold air pressed against my skin, and the hard stone floor beneath me felt more unforgiving than ever. The torch had gone out. My breathing seemed louder than it was, fast and ragged from the nightmare. I took deep breaths to slow my heart rate and shake off the dream.

My knees crackled when I stood. I rubbed my arms to bring blood to the surface. Every time I dozed off, I felt colder when I woke up. It wasn't so cold that I would die, but it was damned uncomfortable in the meantime. I wind-milled my arms to try to force more blood into my hands. It only helped a little.

* * * *

When I still had light, I had gone over the room. While I found a fair-sized inventory of old office furniture, a hidden exit did not appear. The only outlets were two small drainage grates in the back, which the rats probably found convenient.

In darkness, boredom set in, followed by sleep. The faintly luminous face of my watch displayed the progression of time with agonizing precision. Every time I awoke from a nap, I was equally surprised whether five minutes or two hours had gone by.

Around four o'clock in the morning, my certainty that they would not be so stupid as to leave the door unlocked lost to my fear that they were that dumb, and I was even dumber for not trying. I tugged at the handle. It was locked. I went back to sleep.

The silence gave me a sick, frustrated feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had never been imprisoned before. I had been trapped under various circumstances but always in the context of moving events. I had known that just on the other side of a door or up on a roof or just a block away in a car, someone knew where I was and was coming to help. Now events were moving, but I had been taken out of the flow. I had no control. Not enough time had gone by for me to lose hope, but outside was a different matter. Outside Midsummer was coming. Night would fall and with it the official new moon of Midsummer's Eve. Someone would die, but this time chaos would break out. I dozed off again.

Breakfast came in a paper bag dropped out of a blaze of light from the corridor that was cut off when the panel slammed shut. I groped around until I found it. The reek of greasy fries plumed out of the bag so strongly I could smell it through my congestion. Burgers, fries, and a water bottle. The food was cold and the water was warm. Not my usual morning fare, but my stomach had given up trying to tell time somewhere around midnight. At least the crinkle of burger wrapper was a new sound.

I still had Briallen's dagger. Before the torch died, I had tested the strength of the door. The wood was old, but by no means rotten. Hacking around the hinges until they fell off would take a while, and the elf goons would stop me before I got very far. I'd only end up losing the dagger. I might be able to take at least one of them out if I tricked them inside. But that was the oldest gimmick in the book.

I didn't relish stabbing one of the guards. They didn't seem to have an agenda other than being macDuin's strong-arms. That didn't mean I liked them any better, but I doubted they had signed on for the job expecting to get killed. Maybe I'd just wound them really, really bad. I stared at the door, willing it to open, and eventually fell asleep again.

Some hours later, I lifted my head from my knees. I had the vague sensation of being awakened by some kind of noise. Voices could be heard out in the corridor, rising and falling in intensity. At least two. A moment later, I realized one of them was a woman's. A third voice chimed in, low and urgent. The guards had company. I couldn't make out what was being said, but the tenor was rising.

The voices grew louder as they approached.

"I don't care. The plans have changed," the woman said.

"He said tomorrow," one of the elves said in German.

"I'm not leaving without him. We don't have time."

The door flew open, and blinding light hit me full in the face. Amplifying the effect was the vision of a fairy in full blaze of anger, her wings flaring up and out. I held up my arm to deflect the glare after so much time in the dark. My eyes ran as I blinked hard to focus.

"Keeva?" I said.

"Come on, Connor. I don't want any trouble from you either."

"I want to call macDuin," said one of the elves.

Keeva spun toward him. "He's busy, you idiot. Why do you think he sent me?"

Something didn't feel right. My sense of perspective seemed to be off as I looked down at her. Keeva was tall enough to look me in the eye, yet I found myself staring at the top of her head.

"Keeva?" I said again.

"Let's go, Connor. I'm on a schedule."

She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the corridor.

She shot a sideways look at the elves. I could see them more clearly then. They were pissed off and confused. Keeva peered into the dark storeroom. Standing so close to her, I could see a mild blurring about her features.

"MacDuin wants you to go to the bookstore in Kenmore Square and wait for us. We'll be there in half an hour," she said to the elves.