Mark Del Franco - Unfallen Dead

Because of the cold, Murdock offered to drive me to the meeting so I wouldn’t freeze standing out in the frigid air. He slumped in the driver’s seat, not wrinkling his clothes by some miracle. From outside the car, someone might think he was asleep, but up close, no one could mistake his alert eyes. I leaned against the door, trying to keep awake against the onslaught of heat from the vents. The temperature control in Murdock’s car was nonexistent. Joe fluttered around in the backseat, singing dirty bar songs and making us chuckle.

“He knows you’re here, right?” Murdock asked.

I nodded. “He’ll be here.”

Joe fluttered up and hooked his knees around the rearview mirror. He seemed to be into hanging upside down lately. “He’ll be here. I had lunch with Carmine this morning.”

“You had lunch in the morning?” I asked.

When Joe nodded, it amused me that it works the same upside down but wasn’t nearly as nauseating to see when I was sober. “Well… wait… or was it breakfast last night? What do you call it when you eat at dawn and then go to bed?”

“Drunk pizza,” said Murdock.

Joe laughed so hard, he slipped off the mirror and hit his head on the police radio. The whiff of alcohol on his way down told me there was pizza in his future. He crawled in the back, muttering about unstable car accessories.

“I got a subpoena from the Guild today,” Murdock said.

Last spring, Murdock was hit with a stray bolt of essence during a fight with a crazed fey guy. He went into a brief coma, and when he woke up, his body essence had increased. Since then, he seemed to be some kind of living dynamo. He’s not fey, though. His body essence still reads human, but what a human from Faerie might feel like. I don’t know for sure. The humans in Faerie didn’t come through during Convergence, so I don’t know precisely what their essence would be like.

Murdock had been at Forest Hills. His strange essence had kicked in, and he plowed through the fighting like a bulldozer. The last thing I remembered about Murdock that night was hiding in a grave with him hoping no one would kill us. According to Meryl, he was out cold when the big stuff hit the fan. “Don’t let Ceridwen rattle you. She’s only a mouthpiece.”

Joe hooted. “Ha! Don’t let her hear you say that. The underQueens all want to be High Queen, only Maeve knows how to keep everyone arguing with each other long enough to leave her alone.”

“What the hell is an underQueen?” asked Murdock.

“It’s a queen who hasn’t figured out how to kill the High Queen without anyone realizing she did it so that she can get elected the new High Queen,” said Joe.

I threw Joe an amused look. He threw his hands in the air. “What? You think I don’t pay attention?”

A black stretch limo pulled in and parked not far away from us. Carmine liked to be careful when he met someone in private. If he’s feeling safe, the limo will be in sight. If he’s not, strange people start telling you you’re trespassing. He’s been elf-shot and stabbed more times than I can remember, so he makes sure he knows who’s coming at him.

The lights on the limo flashed. “I’ll be right back,” I said.

I left Murdock in his overheated car and approached the limo with my hands out to the side, not so wide as to draw attention from the customers nearby but wide enough to show I didn’t have a knife or gun. Carmine knows I lost my abilities, so while I’ve never given him a reason to fear me, he still prefers to know I’m not holding steel in my hand. People like him live longer that way.

The rear door popped open, thumping R&B rhythms into the night air. I slid inside. Two young fairies, a male and female, slept cuddled next to Carmine while a solitary fey with green, scaly skin sat saucer-eyed, staring out the side window. Up front, beyond the closed privacy window, two dwarves watched the action on the docks.

Carmine lounged in the middle of the side seat wearing a gold lamé suit that matched his hair color and enhanced his crimson complexion. Even though he was a solitary fairy, he had no fear of any other fey. That told me Power lurked within him that he was willing to show. He flashed his row of tiny triangular teeth. “Connor, Connor, Connor, long time, no see. Are you looking to party?”

Once upon a time, I traveled in certain circles that enjoyed a good bacchanal, and Carmine often supplied entertainment. The fey have different notions about sex and drugs than humans do. We’re not restricted by Judeo-Christian ethics for one thing. Most fey don’t breed well for another. Recreational sex was much more recreational than human normals were comfortable with. As long as everyone has fun and no one gets hurt, pretty much anything goes, and when Carmine planned a party, the emphasis would be on the “anything.” “My budget’s a little thin at the moment.”

He laughed, a soft, high-pitched giggle. “Ah, when you lost your abilities, my friend, I lost a good customer. Welcome to my humble carriage.”

Carmine’s charm is so transparently insincere, it’s hard not to be amused. “Thanks.”

He sipped champagne from a glass flute, his eyes thin slits above hard, brick-colored cheekbones. “I understand you’re looking into the death of Josef Kaspar.”

It dawned on me that the warehouse where Josef Kaspar was found was near the Fish Pier, and the Fish Pier, of course, was Carmine’s territory. Anything that happened in a radius of a few blocks, Carmine heard about it. “He turned up dead in a warehouse around the corner from here. Do you know something about it?” I asked.

Carmine hummed, rustling his hair with a few shakes. “Kaspar, poor thing. He dreamed his old despair would end in love, but his love ended in a dream of despair.”

“You knew him, then?”

Carmine shrugged. “Not really. Like all of us, he was in love once. Like some of us, he let it defeat him when it wasn’t returned. He did occasional errands for me in exchange for a little company from my girls.”

“He died of essence shock,” I said.

The ridge of skin above Carmine’s eyes rippled. “Did he now? That’s nasty. He didn’t bother anyone I’m aware of.”

“I think he may have been stalked by a druidess,” I said.

A mischievous smile crossed his face. “We’ve all been there, haven’t we?” He leaned forward and poured himself more champagne. He gestured at me with the bottle, but I shook my head. With Carmine, I couldn’t be sure that alcohol was the only stimulant in the bottle. I wasn’t in the mood for anything unexpected.

Joe took that moment to appear. “De da, fear dearg!”

Carmine flashed his tiny sharp teeth. “Ah, Master Flit, and how is your head this evening?”

Joe did a tight loop around the green solitary, who had not budged an inch. “Couldn’t tell you. I’m keeping myself inebrilated.”

Carmine chuckled. “Indeed, Master Flit. If we could all enjoy the world as much as you, it would be a finer place and I would be a richer man.”

Carmine settled against the seat, sliding his bare feet onto the legs of one of the sleeping fairies. “A woman came around a couple of weeks ago looking for Kaspar. A druidess. Rather shady if you ask me.”

Carmine’s calling someone “shady” bordered on hilarious. “Shady?”

A corner of his mouth twitched in wry amusement. “She was slumming and thought she was getting away with it. Thought if she tarted herself up with secondhand clothes and a spacey voice, I wouldn’t notice that her essence lit up like a lighthouse in a dead calm.”

Joe wandered aimlessly around the floor of the limo. He was half-drunk when he showed up in Murdock’s car, and the faint haze in the limo was making him stagger. He tripped and fell at the feet of the sleeping fairies and decided to lie there.