Mark Del Franco - Undone Deeds

Belgor placed the dagger back on the counter. “Someone did you no favor. I do not know this blade, which, I must say, concerns me. There is something of the Wheel about it, something dire. I do not think it serves the wielder but purposes beyond our ken. How much do you want for it?”

That made me laugh. “Like I said, it’s not really mine to give.”

“I do not think it is anyone’s to give, Mr. Grey. Things like this appear where they need to. It will be difficult to move, but I am sure it will find its next possessor,” he said.

“I wanted confirmation that it was as old as I thought it was,” I said.

“Older than any I have seen. I would not use it. Such things appear at times of war and chaos, and bode no good thing,” he said.

I pushed away from the counter. His words echoed Brokke’s too much for comfort. “Thanks, Belgor. Keep your head down. I’d hate to see you get caught in the middle of a war zone.”

Belgor nodded. “I have lived a long, long time, Mr. Grey. When you realize war is imminent, it is already too late to stop it.”

When I reached the door, he called my name. “It occurs to me that you do not seem yourself.”

It would be an overstatement to say that Belgor sounded sincere, but that he was inquiring about me personally surprised the hell out of me. “How do you mean?”

“You seem to be lacking a certain passion in our interaction. I am in your debt, as you know. If there is anything I can do, let me know.”

I didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t smiling, so it wasn’t all warm and fuzzy between us. I had covered up his involvement in a pretty high-profile crime that would have sent him to prison. Whatever Belgor’s motivations, he saw that as an obligation to me. If even he thought I wasn’t myself and was concerned that I wasn’t, then maybe I needed to take a step back for some serious reassessment.

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Outside, the harsh, white sliver of sky between the buildings cast the street in stark, grim light. Spring was having a hard time wrenching winter out of the air. I hesitated at the end of the street as nonchalantly as possible without looking paranoid. Checking my surroundings was second nature at that point in my life and, given recent events, was fast becoming my first nature.

Pittsburgh Street stretched in both directions. Not far off was a door to a basement where I had hidden the stone bowl that generated essence. The dark mass in my head yearned for essence, and the bowl had provided enough to take the edge off my pain. It also filled a deep physical need, one that had clear addiction issues revolving around it. When I had first picked the hideout location, it was convenient to my apartment. In a few short blocks, I was able to sate the urge. Now, my apartment wasn’t safe, and the Tangle was far enough down Old Northern that a quickie wasn’t feasible. It would have been a shame to miss the opportunity.

On this end of the neighborhood, the streets between Congress and Old Northern were longer than the average city block. Warehouses fronted on Stillings and Pittsburgh, with a long central alley between them. At various points along the way, access lanes allowed egress to the back. I ducked down the nearest one, no more than a pedestrian tunnel four feet wide.

The main alley was a picture of waste and abandonment—dumpsters long gone to rust, wood pallets gone gray, and businesses just gone. Belgor’s was the closest thing to a legitimate business on the block. At night, the darkened warehouses came alive with music and dancing down near Congress. Things people didn’t like to think about happened on this end, both day and night. I walked past boarded-up doors and windows, picking up my pace the closer I got to the squat.

A gunshot echoed up the alley, the sound slapping back and forth against the bricks, growing fainter and fainter as it reached me. Gunfire was not unusual in the Weird, during the day it was less common, though.

I hesitated, considering what I was about to do. I’d told myself I wouldn’t do it anymore, wouldn’t seek out the essence in the stone bowl like some junkie after a fix. I’d told myself that it wasn’t me that wanted it, but the dark mass in my head. I’d told myself that giving in to the urge was giving in to the dark mass, giving in to baser wants that I had left behind. I’d told myself all that, yet found myself drawn to the bowl like a moth to flame.

I put my back to the alley, still hesitating. I wasn’t going to do it. I wasn’t going to give in to the dark mass, give in to its control. I wasn’t going to be manipulated like that.

A shot rang out, and this time I jumped at its nearness, the distinct sound of a ricochet off metal close by, then something heavy falling to the ground. I pressed back against the wall, scanning the length of the alley. Row upon row of dark, shattered windows stared back at me. A blaze of essence-fire sliced above the roofline from one side of the alley to the next. Another shot went off farther away, followed by more essence-fire. Whoever was shooting was moving off, the fey pursuer not far behind.

I slipped into the welcome darkness of the next pedestrian alley, a low anger coiling in my chest. I could have been killed in a random shooting all because of a desire that would not go away. I needed to find my focus again, find a purpose for myself other than drifting from one favor to the next.

I wasn’t going to find that in the bottom of a stone bowl.

After leaving Belgor, I did what I do whenever I’m conflicted. I ran. I changed into shorts and a sweatshirt, and jogged the neighborhood. The good thing about hiding out in an essence-saturated neighborhood like the Tangle was that I didn’t have to run very far to go very far. I ran the same loop five times to put some mileage in, but each time the streets shifted, not always in a dramatic fashion, but enough to notice that something had changed—different building façade here, new pavement there, even the way the sunlight filtered down. It was the same route each time, only the visual cues had changed.

The dark mass in my mind yearned for essence and caused me pain without it. When I had found the stone bowl, I found a way to feed that yearning and lessen the pain. I didn’t like it any better. The desire itself became consuming. Instead of dealing with pain, I had to deal with compulsion. The more I gave in to that compulsion, the less I cared about how I satisfied it.

That road led to death. I had almost killed Keeva macNeve, my old partner. I was tapping her essence to feed, but I let my mind deny it. My conscience couldn’t, though, and I stopped. Because of me, she had to go to Tara to heal.

I didn’t need a shot of essence to stem the pain, at least not anymore. Having an unexplained dark mass in my head was bad enough, but now I had a heart-shaped stone nestled against it. The stone and the darkness seemed in their own battle, a stalemate for control of my pain.

Meryl called them metaphors, symbols for things we could not explain. The dark mass, to her thinking, was a manifestation for something we couldn’t describe. The faith stone was a manifestation of power that was sometimes tangible—a stone—and sometimes not—a spot of glowing light. The darkness and the stone had found each other or been attracted to each other and ended up having a happy dance in the neighborhood of my hypothalamus.

Even though I had not given in to the urge to take a hit of essence like a junkie, the fact that I almost did made me angry. It made me angry with my situation. With everything else going on in the world, I needed to find an answer to what had happened to me and how to fix it. Time and again, I found myself doing a favor when I thought someone else’s situation needed more attention than mine, only to have my life take a backseat to the world. So I ran in circles to work off the stress and frustration, another metaphor for my life.