Mark Del Franco - Unfallen Dead

The door started closing as she stepped toward me. There was no way I was going to stop it. “Sorry! I owe you one!”

Her sending slammed into my mind. Oh, you will owe me more than one. Trust me.

The twenty-third floor of the Guildhouse existed in two different towers connected by a sky bridge. One tower held meeting rooms and the main elevator shaft, the other a few private temporary offices with a separate elevator for executives to whisk in and out. When the main elevator opened on the public side, Guild security agents blocked my way. With a queen of Faerie in town, they went for the full security package-Danann fairies in black uniform, chrome helmets, and take-no-crap attitude. I didn’t pretend to be oblivious to the process. I flashed my badge and the subpoena without waiting to be asked.

An unusual array of the fey worked the hallway outside the conference rooms. Danann fairies and the lesser clans clustered in groups well away from elves and dwarves. True to their name, solitary fey kept to themselves. Neither the Celts nor the Teuts controlled or cared about them, the outcasts of the fey world. Fey on all sides sported visible injuries from the aborted battle at Forest Hills a few weeks earlier. Every time an elevator opened, all eyes shifted to the newest arrival, seeking a potential ally or noting a potential foe.

I had no time to suss out how the proceedings were going. Within minutes of my arrival, a brownie security guard escorted me to a table outside the door of the hearing room. “Weapons must be left here,” he said.

Without my abilities, physical weapons were my only defense. I understood the protocol. Security was security. I pulled a dagger from each boot and placed them on the table. One was a simple steel throwing knife I had owned for years. The other was a druidic blade, laced with charms and spells, that Briallen gave me last spring. “I suggest no one touches these,” I said.

The brownie wasn’t particularly impressed with the suggestion. Everybody probably told him the same thing. He announced my name and escorted me into the hearing room.

A hearing at the Fey Guild didn’t resemble a U.S. court-room proceeding. The room typically had seats in the back for spectators, a lone chair in the middle for whoever was being questioned, and a raised dais in the front for hearing officials. If the person questioned had an advocate, the advocate stood. Fey folk seeking help subjected themselves to the will and word of High Queen Maeve at Tara. Maeve’s law could be cold and nasty. Sometimes that was good. When it wasn’t, it wasn’t good at all.

The first clue that my hearing wasn’t ordinary was the absence of spectators. The only people present sat on the dais and were among the most-high-powered fey in Boston. Since I wasn’t being charged with anything as far as I knew, no advocates were present. I hadn’t requested one, figuring it would look like I had nothing to worry about. For now.

Ceridwen was, in a word, a babe. Most people found Danann fairies irresistibly attractive. Part of that was glamour, spell-masking that enhanced their best features. Part of that was their Power. The Dananns considered themselves the elite of the Celtic fairies. Without a doubt, they ruled with that attitude. They were a damned attractive bunch with the firepower to cinch it, and Ceridwen was no exception.

She sat tall in the center of the platform, her diaphanous wings undulating on currents of ambient essence, points of light flickering gold and silver in the faint veining. Auburn hair burnished with gold highlights fell in waves down her back. Her eyes glowed amber with an intensity and depth that would humble anyone. Those eyes sent a shiver of awe through me. In a many-ringed hand, she held an ornate spear, intricately carved applewood worn white with age, tipped with a sharply honed claw. A silver filigree depicting leaves and apples wrapped the whole of it. On the shaft near Ceridwen’s hand, ogham runes glowed and formed the words Way Seeker.

On her right sat Ryan macGoren, enjoying his status on the Guild board. We had had run-ins in the past that left me with a less-than-ideal opinion of him. Even other Dananns considered him ambitious, including Guildmaster Manus ap Eagan, who sat on the other side of Ceridwen. Manus looked in rough shape. He had contracted some kind of wasting disease that baffled the best healers known to the fey. Manus’s suspicions of Ryan had drawn me into the investigation that had exposed the coup plot at Forest Hills. Accident, to be sure, but a damned good one. Given that he was suffering from accusations of failure, I had no idea if Manus blamed me or not.

To the left of the Dananns, Nigel Martin and Briallen studiously ignored each other. I suppressed a smile. Those that follow the druidic path by their nature were prone to debate. Briallen and Nigel epitomized those debates. They had been sticking me in the middle of their arguments as long as I could remember. I considered myself lucky to have had them as mentors, but I would be hard put to explain which of them influenced me more.

On the right of the Dananns sat Eorla Kruge, the new elven director. Eorla made eye contact with me and nodded slightly before returning her attention to the papers in her hand. I admired Eorla’s intentions but doubted she believed she’d have much success at the Guild. It was and remained Maeve’s creature, and no elf ever truly influenced the course of Guild policies in their favor.

Last, on the end of the table next to Eorla, was Melusina Blanc, the solitary fey director. Melusina had a strange look, skin unnaturally pale with shades of gray, hair a tangle of silver tinted almost blue, and eyes so light the irises appeared white. Where Ceridwen’s gaze made one look away from amazement, Melusina’s did from discomfort.

If elves had little pull on the board, the solitaries had even less. At best, Melusina was a token nod to the existence of solitaries. The irony was that since neither the Seelie Court nor the Teutonic Consortium thought of solitaries as allies, Melusina’s vote ended up being particularly powerful in close calls. No fool, she used it to gain help and privileges so often denied to her kind.

As usual, the dwarven director was absent. For complicated political reasons I never understood, they refused to attend meetings but did not give up their rights and titles.

Ceridwen stamped the base of the spear on the floor. “We are Ceridwen, Queen. We speak for Her Majesty, High Queen Maeve at Tara. Connor macGrey, Druid, you are hereby sworn to speak truth in matters addressed here. You may sit.”

I took the forlorn chair facing their table. “Just Grey. I don’t use the patronymic.”

She gave no indication that she heard. “We have read your statement of the events of Forest Hills. Can you elaborate on what is not in the report?”

I tried to look innocent so I wouldn’t appear uncooperative. Get in and get out was a good hearing strategy. “Could you be more specific?”

Ceridwen lowered her eyelids and softened her face with a thin smile. “We are Ceridwen, Queen.”

I paused in confusion, then realized the subtle emphasis on her title. “My apologies. I’m not used to using royal protocol. Could you be more specific, Your Highness?”

Ceridwen’s smile flexed slightly higher. “No. Proceed.”

Cute. Ceridwen was on a fishing expedition. I decided to keep to the details of my original statement. “The blood of a living tree spirit called a drys was used to make a drug. The drug activated a control spell that would bind all essence-all of it, everywhere-to one person. That amount of essence couldn’t be contained, and the spell fed on everything around it and grew. I somehow short-circuited it. I have memory loss from the event and do not know how I did it.”