Mark Del Franco - Undone Deeds

Briallen rubbed his arm. “No need. He’s in pain, Leonard.”

“Yeah, well, it has nothing to do with you,” he said.

And everything to do with me. “I shouldn’t have come,” I said.

Exasperated, Leo glanced up at the house. “I didn’t think Faith would rat me out. She usually is the one calming things down.”

“I smelled essence on both of your brothers,” I said.

Briallen nodded. “I did, too. If I’m not mistaken, it was essence-fire residue.”

“Gerry’s right about one thing: We’re not the only ones who know how to teach about abilities. Have they been training with someone?” I asked.

Leo looked down, then away. “I’m not sure. Kev and Gerry have always been pretty tight. They’ve been going out a lot together lately.”

The look said it all. He was sure but didn’t want to think about it. “Maybe you should follow them. If the Guild isn’t involved, it could be anyone,” I said.

He frowned. “I’m not going to put my own family under surveillance, Connor.”

The black car’s driver opened the door for Briallen. She paused with one foot inside the car. “You’re looking at this as a personal matter. It’s not, Leonard. Your abilities are under control, but you have no idea what can happen. I think Kevin, at least, has more abilities. If they’re both using essence-fire, they can be putting themselves in danger, if not everyone else. I don’t want you feeling guilty if something happens.”

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

The expression on Murdock’s face stayed with me the rest of the day, so sad, yet so angry. I knew what it was like to get blindsided by life. It sucked. My problems hadn’t destroyed my entire family, but somehow they had destroyed Murdock’s. I didn’t know what I could do about it, but I hoped I didn’t make it any worse.

The driver drove us back to Beacon Hill, where Briallen lived in a town house on Louisburg Square. The address was tony, the neighbors aloof, and Briallen was indifferent to both. Back at the house, she made coffee because she knew I needed a constant stream of caffeine before noon.

We wandered up to the top floor of her house so she could show me the results of some spells she had been working on. Rather, some spells that she hadn’t had any success with. Briallen faced a sealed stone door on the top landing. Arms crossed, she leaned against the banister. “If I weren’t so angry, I’d compliment her on her skills.”

“She,” of course, was Meryl. I stared at the door, trying to find a break in the stone. Meryl had been in a trance state a few weeks back. Nigel Martin, another old mentor, had devised a spell session to bring her out of it with Briallen’s help. I had been dubious. Nigel and I were on less-than-cordial terms these days, and I suspected his motives, with good reason as it turned out. He had attempted to kill Meryl inside Briallen’s sanctum sanctorum. Meryl had had other ideas. She turned the tables on him, came out of her trance, and sealed Nigel inside the room. He was still in there.

“Is he alive?” I asked.

“I think so. I’m attuned to some of the crystals inside. They continue to indicate a body signature,” she said.

“He probably put himself in a deep-trance mode,” I said. Druids can shut their bodies down to a near-death state. From my own training, I knew how to survive several days with minimal sustenance. Several weeks were another matter. On the other hand, Nigel was an archdruid, the highest attainable level of our kind. He had skills only the High Queen’s closest advisors could match.

“He can’t stay in there forever,” she said.

I ran my hand over the surface of the round door. Deep lines were incised in the stone, classic Celtic swirls that represented water and the sun. Here and there, tiny flashes of essence sparkled in the ridges, which meant the tuning spells were still active. Tuning spells helped make the sanctum more conducive to spell work. The stone door met the stone frame in one fused transition. “If anyone can, I’d bet on Nigel.”

“That’s not helping,” she said.

The surface of the door had been bleached white except for the center, which had a dark scorch mark where the focus of Meryl’s essence blast had struck. “The tuning spell is not working in the center.”

“I tried recalibrating,” Briallen said. “The underlying pathways are either damaged, or she left something that is blocking me.”

“Under the circumstances, I doubt she had time to set a block,” I said.

“You’re making excuses because you’re biased,” she said.

I frowned. “So are you. Just because you’re mad at her doesn’t make her the bad guy.”

“That’s easy for you to say. Half the Guild is looking for Nigel, and I’ve got him illegally imprisoned in my attic.”

I scanned the surface one more time, then held my hands up in apology. “I got nothing.”

Briallen let out an angry sigh and walked away. I followed her downstairs to the kitchen. She poured herself a mug of coffee, then gestured with the pot to see if I wanted any. I always wanted coffee. “You must have some kind of fail-safe to open the sanctum.”

“Of course. It was predicated on, you know, having a door that opens,” she said. I chuckled. I couldn’t help myself. Briallen glared at me. “I fail to see the humor in this.”

“It’s nice not to be the subject of your frustration for a change,” I said.

She took firm swipes with a dishcloth at the counter. I watched her without speaking. Briallen cleaned when she was angry. Back when I was her student, I was usually the one forced to clean. When the counter was shining, her face softened, and she sat at the island counter with me. “Do you really think that?”

“Well….”

“You don’t frustrate me, Connor. The world does.”

I snorted. “Tell me about it.”

She touched my hand. “Through all these years, I’ve always wanted the best for you. If I could have saved you pain, I would have.”

“I know. Half the problem is that neither of us can mind our business,” I said.

She laughed. “True. I wish I could give you better answers, but I haven’t been able to scry.”

Briallen had a talent for perceiving the future. Through chants and spells, she used the surface of calm water to catch glimpses of what might be. Her preferred instrument was the fountain pool in her back garden. The process wasn’t exact because so many variables changed from moment to moment. Sometimes, though, outcomes became inevitable, the various potential strands of events converging into a few and sometimes one. Those times were rarely positive and never good.

“Still?” I asked. When major events became so uncertain, no amount of fey ability was able to penetrate the veil of the future. It had happened a few weeks ago when the Elven King attacked the Guildhouse. Once past the crisis point, the ability returned.

“Not since before the Guildhouse. What about Meryl?” she asked.

Meryl’s talent was druidic dreaming. Her ability came on its own, in her sleep. Hers was a True Dreaming. The things she envisioned came to pass. She didn’t always understand the details because the images often came in metaphors that she had to interpret. Sometimes she did. Sometimes she failed.

“I haven’t thought to ask,” I said. Any type of scrying hurt my head enough to cause me to pass out. The reaction came from the dark mass in my mind. It hurt like hell, and I avoided coming in contact with scrying whenever possible. Now that the faith stone was embedded in my skull, I had my full body shield. It kept out the pain as long as I didn’t try scrying myself.

“Could you? I’ve found no one who can scry,” she said.