Mark Del Franco - Undone Deeds

I crossed my arms. “It would be nice to decide on my own whether I would try.”

She slammed the clutch into a downshift. “Really? Tell me more about your little magic bowl, Mr. Transparency. I don’t seem to remember that coming up in conversation. Or how about using it on Manny? I heard about that from Gillen Yor, for Danu’s sake. You want to go down this road, you better be damned ready to answer some questions, too.”

The car rocked as she swerved around a pothole. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too,” she said.

“No, really, I am sorry. I’ve been bombarded the last few days, and I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Let’s start over. Does Leo hate me?”

“I don’t think he hates you, Grey. Does he associate major hurt with you? Yeah, I think so,” she said.

“How do I fix this?” I asked.

She pulled into a dark alley near the Tangle and parked, not something that would be most people’s first choice. “I don’t think this is something that gets fixed. It’s something that you have to get past. His brother was killed. It doesn’t matter what Gerry was doing when it happened, and it doesn’t matter that it was you it was being done to. Let him grieve.”

We got out of the car. “What are we doing here?”

“We walk the last few blocks. I washed my car, and I don’t want it getting shot at. Ceridwen has the harborfront guarded,” she said. She dropped the strap of her giant bag over her head and wore it across her chest.

I wrapped my arm around her, and we walked amid the burned wreckage of the neighborhood. “Maybe it’s time I left Boston.”

“Yeah, I was thinking I’d dye my hair,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll bite. Meaning?”

We sidestepped a crater in the ground. “Meaning it will reflect my mood, but it won’t change who I am.”

“People don’t die when you’re around,” I said.

“Exactly. People can die as easily somewhere else,” she said.

“You’re not helping my mood,” I said.

We turned the corner into the Tangle. Dead essence rose around us, a haze of blue that lined the streets. Shadows moved among the shadows, and furtive figures appeared in windows and doors. Ceridwen’s people were out in force.

Meryl looked toward the harbor, then up at me. “You see that mist wall out there? That’s Maeve’s doing. Why? Because of something Donor did. Why? Because of something Maeve did. Why? Because of something Donor did. It’s the Wheel of the World, Grey. They play the music, and we dance. I think wherever we are, we’ll hear that music. It might as well be here as anywhere else.”

“You forget. I don’t dance,” I said.

She stopped in front of an old building, its once-beautiful front door scratched and pitted with time, a carved garland of oak leaves chipped and worn. “This is it.”

I could feel the Dead around us, scent the vitniri man-wolves and a variety of solitary body signatures. Ceridwen was taking no chances for me. “Things can’t go on like this, Meryl. I can’t run and hide for the rest of my life. Something’s got to give. I have to find the answers to why this is all happening to me.”

She tugged at my belt loop as she opened the door. “I know, but not tonight. Let’s go upstairs and close the door on the world for a while. Maybe I’ll teach you how to dance.”

I closed the door and followed her up the stairs inside. “Go slow,” I said.

“Not likely,” she said over her shoulder.

I didn’t know what woke me. Maybe Meryl made a noise. Maybe the stone in my head reacted to what was happening. Maybe I sensed the dagger. How didn’t make a difference. What mattered was that I awoke to find Meryl standing beside the bed, the rune dagger clutched in both her hands, ready to plunge it into my head. We stared at each other for a long moment. Her arms trembled, her hands white-knuckled with strain.

In the dark, with the pale silver light of the moon coming through the window, she looked mythic, like a wild goddess intent on a sacrifice. Oddly, I didn’t feel fear. Something told me either she wasn’t going to do it or maybe I was going to let her. In the moment, though, I thought one of us was having a break with reality. The scary part was I didn’t know which.

“Did I leave the seat up again?” I asked.

Meryl dropped her arms, tears welling up in her eyes as she let the dagger fall to the floor. Sobbing, she did a slow pivot and sank to the edge of the bed. I sat up as she covered her face with her hands. Uncertain, I pulled her toward me, hugging her close. She let me but didn’t hold me. I caressed her hair as she cried into my chest. “This is awkward. I appear to be comforting someone who I’m pretty sure was about to stab me to death.”

“That’s not funny,” she said, her voice a strained whisper.

“Am I laughing? I don’t think I’m laughing.”

“I don’t know what to say. Maybe I was sleepwalking?” Meryl said between sobs.

“Well, that would explain the standing-up part, but not the dagger-to-the-head part,” I said.

She pulled away, running her hands through her hair, trying to collect herself. “I don’t know where to begin.”

I slipped off the bed and put my pants on. I didn’t think it was going to be a conversation that made any sense naked or clothed, but given the choice, clothes made more sense. “Were you going to kill me?”

“I think so,” she said.

I checked the windows. Plumes of essence rose from the rooftops. No one moved nearby though I sensed people, guards keeping discreet watch over me. The body signatures were normal, no one powering up essence, no one ready to fight. They assumed an attack would come from outside. “Why?”

She exhaled, the sound of tears and anguish. “It was like a compulsion. I saw myself doing it, and I realized what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop myself. If you hadn’t woken up, I don’t know what would have happened. Does that make any sense?” she asked.

I stared out the window. I remembered back to the night in the leanansidhe ’s lair. I had become aware that I was draining Keeva’s life essence, but I didn’t stop right away. I almost killed her. “Yeah, I can understand how that happens.”

“You’re going to do something. Something terrible,” she said.

I pulled my shirt over my head. “Is this something you dreamed?”

She shook her head. “I saw it in the painting. I saw a circle of light with a spot of darkness. The darkness spread until it covered everything, then it faded away, and the canvas went blank. There’s no essence on it at all anymore.”

“Seems a bit cryptic to be killing me over,” I said.

An edge of anger crept into her voice. “I didn’t say that’s why I did what I did. It was a compulsion. The painting is something greater than itself. There’s a connection. I think you’re the darkness, Connor. I think you’re going to do something that spreads the darkness until it covers everything.”

“Let’s talk about this compulsion. Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know. It has to do with you. I’ve been combing the archives looking for references to the stone and reading them over and….” She stopped talking.

I whipped my head toward her. “What did you say?”

She held her hand up as she stared at the floor. “Give me a sec.”

I grabbed her by the shoulders. “What documents are you talking about?”

She pushed me away, her body shield shimmering into place. “I know what you’re thinking. I just realized the same thing.”

“You never told me you found more documents,” I said.

“I…. I know. I think that’s part of what’s wrong,” she said.