Mark Del Franco - Uncertain Allies

White light flowed from Briallen’s hands onto his. The light separated into delicate filaments that wound their way up his arms. His essence flashed red in response as his body shields flickered on. “Relax, Leonard.”

“Sorry.” The shield essence faded.

Briallen’s essence surrounded him, long, lingering strands tapping his body signature here and there. Murdock’s body shield flickered on and off as the exam proceeded, but Briallen didn’t need to remind him to relax again. He had been practicing control of the shield, and I was impressed by how far he had progressed on his own.

For the better part of an hour, Briallen poked, probed, and manipulated his essence, chanting and muttering as she worked. I had experienced much the same process many times over the years. To someone who couldn’t see essence, it wasn’t that interesting, an exercise in one person touching another. For me, it was like watching someone play an instrument. My essence-sensing abilities had become acute, almost painfully so, and for the first time I saw how someone of Briallen’s skill worked with essence. She moved it through Murdock’s body, tapping essence nodes like a tuning fork, making their bindings dance like reflexes. I never realized the complexity of a single body signature until her work exposed my ignorance. Her precision showed me why I hadn’t sensed anything more than human from Murdock when I first met him. The druidic essence markers were there, subtle but strong, bound so delicately into his dominant human body signature, I would never have known what to look for.

With a deep exhale, Briallen dropped her hands in her lap. “That’s it. Time for drinks.”

She hopped off the stool and crossed the hallway to her second-floor parlor. A small blue fire burning in the grate flared brighter as Briallen poured glasses of port, essence dancing through the air and boosting her body signature. I hadn’t realized she used the fire as an essence source. We settled into the armchairs facing the flames.

Briallen held her glass up. “Slainte.”

Health, of course. We toasted it all the time, but this time it was more than mouthing the words. We tapped glasses.

“First, let me say, there is nothing wrong with you. Your essence is fine and healthy,” Briallen said.

Murdock shot me a satisfied look. “I’ve been saying that all along.”

“A stronger essence shows through a weaker one. You can’t hide druid essence under human. How is it possible we didn’t sense it before Castle Island?” I said.

Briallen sipped her port. “Leonard doesn’t have a druid essence separate from a human essence, Connor. He has his own unique signature, one that reads more human than not. He’s human, but some essence pathways read druid. For all her flaws, Moira Cashel was a talented druidess. If I can think of a spell to suppress the druidic aspects of Leonard’s essence, I’m sure she could.”

“By why didn’t we see it before?” I asked.

“I think when you boys were caught in the spell backlash at Castle Island, Moira’s protection spell was probably damaged. When she . . . died . . . her spell did, too. Whatever her motivations in other matters, she was trying to protect her children,” said Briallen.

“That’s the part I don’t understand,” Murdock said. “When we worked the Castle Island case, you said interbreeding between species caused problems, that the kids didn’t live past puberty.”

Case studies showed mental and physical defects whenever two different fey species interbred. The more unlike the species, the greater the chance that progeny wouldn’t survive. “They don’t most of the time,” I said.

“Moira had seven children. We’re all fine,” he said.

I used my recall to review the case studies I had read back then. Druids looked human. We blended in without any problems, which was one of the ways Moira fooled her husband. “None of the cross-species cases we saw were druid/ human. Maybe that has something to do with it,” I said.

Briallen tilted her head back in thought as if searching the ceiling for an answer. “Gillen Yor was researching cross-species children.”

I glanced at Murdock. “I know. That’s where I got my original data from.”

“You never told me that,” he said.

I nodded. “I didn’t exactly ask him, and I know how you get about stuff like that. Does it matter now?”

He shook his head in exasperation. “I guess it doesn’t. It still doesn’t get us any answers.”

Briallen gazed into the fire. “Sometimes we look for answers when we should be looking for questions.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like why Scott Murdock? Of all the men Moira could have picked, why him?” Briallen asked.

“Are you saying it wasn’t accidental they met?” I asked.

“I’m saying she married a man whose death is causing an international incident. I’m saying one of her sons has helped you stop some catastrophic events. And I have to wonder why?” Briallen asked.

“She knew something. Maybe she had a vision of the future,” I said.

“Why would she want a future where my father ends up dead? Or herself? That doesn’t make sense,” Murdock said.

A thin, bitter smile creased Briallen’s face. “Welcome to the fey world, Leonard. Even our own lives mean little in achieving our goals.”

She stared at the fire in a way that made me wonder if she was warning Murdock or lamenting her own fate. Briallen had lived through a lot, and no matter how much she danced around it, I believed she was an Old One. She knew pain and sorrow in Faerie and hoped to see an end of it here.

I didn’t think that was going to happen for any of us soon.

After dinner, I left Briallen’s house and found a quiet place down near the Reserve Channel, a small dive, long and narrow. Timeworn wooden stools lined the bar, old Colonialstyle chairs surrounded pitted tables and a three-piece band crammed into the corner next to the bathroom. The patrons slunk in and out, not furtive, but tired and dejected, the type of clientele for which drinking was a necessity, not an entertainment. It was the kind of place people went when something rocked their world and not in a good way.

A fairy from one of the lesser Celtic clans stood at the microphone, singing a song of loss and more loss while the band played melancholy flute and drum. She must have had a decent voice once, broken now by drink and who knew what else. Fairies, especially Dananns, had a weakness for alcohol that turned into a problem with no effort. The rasp in her voice worked for the room. Scattered applause broke the silence whenever she finished a song.

I sat on a stool in a dark corner. I didn’t recognize anyone, but that didn’t mean no one would recognize me. Between those who remembered me from my publicity-rich Guild days and those who had more recent grudges, I had too many people to avoid. Staying home was easier—and safer—but sometimes wallowing alone in a room with other wallowing people fit the bill.

Learning that Murdock was okay was a good thing. For months, I had hoped that the answer to what had happened to him might provide a clue to a cure for me. If he could develop abilities, maybe a way existed for me to get mine back. I didn’t get the answer I had hoped for. Murdock was fey. There was no work-around. The dark mass was in my head and would be in my head until I figured out what it was or I died. With any luck, the two things wouldn’t happen at the same time.

Something rustled in the garbage can near me in the corner. I slid away from it, not wanting a rat jumping out at me. The Weird lay hard by the harbor, and rats were more common than dockworkers. During the day, you might catch a furtive movement in the shadows, but at night the little furries ventured about with little fear. An always-dark bar was like a home away from home.