Unshapely Things (8 page)

A light shiver ran across my skin. Joe was rarely so serious. "Are you saying it can be done?" I asked quietly.

He hovered up from the counter. "No. The world is still here, isn't it? I have to go." He vanished. A moment later, he popped back in again. "By the way, you need more cookies." And then he was gone.

I cleaned up the white flaky residue from the fire and wandered back into the study, perusing the bookshelves. Most of the titles on essence were philosophical discussions or medical theories. The books on rituals were on process. I could not recall a single book on using someone else's essence. Employing the essence of animals, stones, or plants abounded in rituals, were even the point of rituals in general. In all my years of training, I had never come across any discussion of using fey in rituals. Even the old druid sacrifice stories always talked about human children, usually males, as the sacrifice. But the essences of children were weak, and in humans almost negligible.

I felt a thrill of excitement. Druidic lore had always been an oral tradition dependent on teaching and self-discovery. You moved up in rank only when you were judged ready or had enough intuitive knowledge to discover the next level of mystery on your own. It was a way of managing powerful knowledge so that it could only be used with the wisdom of experience. If everything were simply written down, the temptation to run before you could walk would be enormous. The silence over fey sacrifices had to be secret knowledge, never to be spoken to the unready or written down for the unwary.

Which meant I had no easy way to learn the reasons for the silence. Such knowledge was passed on in a chain of trust, from teacher to student. It wasn't likely that I could walk up to someone and ask. My old mentors were gone, journeying in their own paths. I could track them down, but that would take time I didn't have. I had to see if I could convince Briallen to tell me.

I turned toward the living room a moment before I heard the knock on my door. Anxiety clenched my chest, like it did whenever something unexpected happened. I had made a lot of enemies when I worked for the Guild, people who would have been only too happy to find me in my current more vulnerable condition. The Guild had given me some wards to guard the house, mostly warning beacons. The ones around the windows made them less susceptible to breakage or long-range casting. I had felt none of them go off. And nobody had rung the building buzzer downstairs.

I moved quietly into the living room, listening. The only sound was the distant drone of a plane taking off from the airport. The knock came again, no different than the first time, no more urgent. Maybe it was a neighbor. "Who is it?" I finally said.

"Keeva," came the muffled reply.

Chagrined, I shook my head and opened the door. Keeva macNeve lounged against the opposite wall, the barest hint of a smile on her face. The wards hadn't gone off because she had set them up for me before I moved in. The lock on the building front door certainly wouldn't have deterred her.

Keeva was tall for a fairy woman, almost my height, with lush red hair that cascaded over her shoulders. A touch of haughtiness kept her finely drawn features from being truly beautiful; her green eyes were a bit too cool, her dark lips a bit too thin. We had had a modest flirtation when we first met, nothing serious. But then we got to know each other better, or that is to say, I got to know her better, and the attraction dimmed. She was smart enough to detect the change and didn't pursue. When I'm being kind, I describe her as carnivorous. I take no responsibility for what I might say if she comes up in conversation when I'm drunk.

"Well, hello," I said, managing a smile.

She pushed away from the wall, letting her own smile go a little wider. Not much. We stood looking at each other. "Hello. Aren't you going to ask me in?"

I stepped back and gestured into the room. She walked by me in a faint cloud of honeysuckle, a glamour hiding her wings. Most fairies wear glamours in public—usually they don't like the attention their wings tend to attract otherwise. The form-fitting black jumpsuit she wore seemed genuine though. If I looked closely, I could see a slight shimmer on the back obscuring where her wings began. She walked to the window and stared out for a moment before turning to face me.

"Honestly, Connor, it can't be so bad that you have to live here, can it?"

"Oh, so this is a social call?" I said, smiling to take the sting out of it.

She chuckled, inspecting the armchair briefly before sitting. "How are you? Any change?" Her voice had a neutral tone that conveyed neither sympathy nor indifference.

I didn't want to be rude and stand at the door, so I sat in the chair facing her. "None. So, what brings you to the other side of the channel, Keeva? It's not like you to just stop by."

"Believe it or not, I was actually in the neighborhood. I have some friends coming in for Midsummer, and they want to see the Weird. I thought it'd be fun to have dinner down here, so I'm trying a couple of restaurants out. Any recommendations?" I couldn't help hesitating. Keeva macNeve just having lunch in the Weird is like the Queen of England nipping into the pub for a pint. "The Barking Crab's always good and safe. It gets a nice mix," I said. I didn't need to mention that every city guide recommended the place. The last thing I wanted was Keeva's cronies invading my favorite dinner haunts.

She nodded absently, obviously not caring. "You haven't been by the Guildhouse lately. I thought you might like an update. Bergen Vize was spotted in Bavaria a number of times a month ago. There has been an increase in eco-terrorist activity around the Black Forest."

I cocked my head to the side. Of all people, Keeva macNeve had taken on the investigation into my accident. I still hadn't been able to find out if she was assigned to it or requested it. Vize was the jerk with the ring that screwed up my head. Every couple of months, I checked in with Keeva, and it was usually the same useless information with only the location changed. Sometimes he was in London, sometimes Germany. In the States, he seemed to favor California and the Southwest. He was never in New England. I decided to play my part in the charade. "Has anyone gotten close to him?"

Keeva shook her head, of course. "We're trying, Connor. You know he's tough."

I nodded. "So you're still working for macDuin?"

A brief flush of rose colored her cheeks, a physical reaction she either didn't know she had or couldn't control. Lorcan macDuin was head of the Community Liaison Office, the Guild department that monitored local crime. When we were partners, Keeva and I shared a mutual frustration with his poor management skills. Ultimately, it was macDuin who decided whether the Guild would get involved in a fey incident.

During World War II, the elves of Germany actively supported the Nazis, hoping that an Axis victory would help them recreate their Faerie kingdoms in the Convergent world. Lorcan, like many fairies who wanted to go back to Faerie, had been a sympathizer, which made him an outsider in the upper echelons at the Guild. Not something that was openly discussed in the more recent times of political rapprochement between the races. He knew what people thought, though, so he tended to overcompensate with a little more zeal than called for. Keeva chafed under him, knowing full well he couldn't advance her career because of his own circumstances.

She shifted in her chair, crossing her legs. "Yes. Mac-Duin is macDuin. You know how it is."

I nodded. People were hesitant to criticize their superiors openly if they thought it could get back to them. The worst relationship could often be the stepping-stone to something better. "So what are you working on?" I asked again.

She shrugged. "Besides Vize, nothing interesting. I have a missing person right now that I'm hoping to wrap up."

"Anything I can help you with?"

She smiled charitably. "I'm handling it, Connor."

She stood up and wandered about the room, touching a book here, adjusting a picture frame there. She paused by the kitchen counter. Fairies do not have the ability to sense essence very effectively, but with Joe and Tansy so recently there, Keeva probably felt something. She turned back to me, brushing her hands together. "You should clean up these crumbs."

She made her way back to the windows. She glanced at something to her left so that I could see her in profile. She really would be something without that bitter tinge to her mouth. "What about you? I heard you were working on this serial murder thing. What's the status?"

I hesitated, realizing this was why Keeva had just happened to drop in. She confirmed my suspicion when she didn't acknowledge the lengthening silence. "We have a small lead, a possible eyewitness."

She dropped herself back in the armchair. "I read that in the reports."

That surprised me. "Is the Guild investigating?" I asked.

She ran her fingers idly through those long red tresses. "No, it's just the standard review to keep macDuin apprised. Your name caught my eye, of course, so I read the file. What's not in the report?"

I smiled at her, and she smiled back. "What if I told you it might be a fey-on-fey situation?"

She arched an eyebrow. "Might or is?"

"I'm still leaning toward 'might.' The human witness said the guy felt funny, like something was wrong with him."

"That's it? A human prostitute thinks he can sense essence, and you're thinking it's fey?

I shrugged. "Another witness may have placed him in a local bar. A fey witness."

"Working for one of the meat joints, no doubt," she said.

I clenched my teeth at the barely concealed scorn in her voice. It was a ploy of Keeva's I had fallen for a few times earlier in our acquaintance. She would express skepticism in my theories in an effort to demoralize me. I would reveal everything I knew to prove myself, which played right into her hands. She was not above making someone feel like an idiot while she co-opted an investigation. I wasn't about to tell her about Tansy.

"The fey may not be the best witness, but it's all we have right now. Why the interest?"

She shrugged. "Professional curiosity. And personal. You're wasted down here, Connor. All you have to do is ask, and I can get you a position in research."

I pretended to consider it, again. From all directions, the idea was foul. I'd be working for people I used to supervise and working on cases I was assigned instead of those I requested. If I had taken some half-ass support position, I would never have gotten any respect even if my abilities came back. I'd be considered tainted goods, which people probably thought anyway. And I certainly didn't want to be beholden to Keeva macNeve. It was bad enough competing with her. I didn't want to do her paperwork.

"No, thanks," I said. "I'd prefer to see how things work out first."

She stood up and spread her hands. "Okay. You can't say I didn't offer. I should be going. If there's anything I can help you with, let me know."

I walked her the few steps to the door. "I will. If this does turn out to be fey-on-fey, you'll be the first to know."

She smiled smugly. "Yes, I will be. It'll probably end up my case."

We chuckled in feigned companionship. She patted me on the shoulder and sauntered away. I coldly watched her back until she turned down the stairs.

It occurred to me that with her connections, Keeva might have known one of the victim's families. Naming fairies Danann Sidhe bordered on calling them Smith. Sidhe, obviously, was a race affiliation and Danann indicated the clan. Occasionally, someone connected to the royal line would call themselves Aes Sidhe to distinguish themselves from the commoners. More often, though, they used family names. I knew Keeva's full name, for instance, was Caoimhe ap Laoire mac Niamh Aes Sidhe; she had anglicized the spelling for ease and went by her grandfather's name for prestige. Niamh was very well connected in the old country, something Keeva had no problem mentioning.

I closed the door and went in to my computer. Opening the database, I quickly scrolled through the victim profiles. The dead faces of Pach, Ragnell, and Gamelyn stared out at me. I wondered what about them could have possibly interested the Guild in general and Keeva in particular. Their appeal to the killer fell into neat categories of appearance, profession, gender, and race. I glanced through their bios, but the information was slight. Pach and Ragnell had been in town long enough to get arrested, but not Gamelyn. I realized that two pieces of information about all of them were missing: where exactly they were from in Ireland and who were their next of kin.

The odds of all three victims having a high profile connection seemed slim, and someone knowing that even more so. I leaned back in the chair. If all the victims were royalty, the Guild would have stepped in long ago if only to protect the family's privacy. On the other hand, the Guild taking an interest in prostitutes would draw attention immediately. I chuckled to myself. What a lovely irony if the Guild were trapped between its own arrogance and indifference. And after all my snide remarks about the Guild not wanting to get involved in the case, the irony of my suspicions about their interest was not lost on me.

Fairies fallen on hard times tended not to broadcast their family names. Blood honor and all that. If a royal link hadn't turned up in the previous arrest records, it probably wasn't going to. Except for Gamelyn. He hadn't been arrested. And Keeva didn't decide to show up until after he died. Maybe he was a one-shot, another high roller slumming at the wrong time and place. I'd have to get Murdock to look into it.

While I waited for fresh coffee to brew, I munched on the one cookie Joe had been nice enough to leave. The revulsion on Tansy's face at the sight of the artist's sketch popped into my mind. Even the lowliest flit liked a little adventure, but she had gotten more than she bargained for. I could still smell the odor of burnt paper. As I poured my coffee, I wondered why Tansy kept calling the killer "ska" My Cornish was sketchy at best, but I had to have at least as good a vocabulary as a peasant flit. I knew the general word for bad was "dmg." I didn't know ska at all and hadn't thought to ask Joe before he left.