Mark Del Franco - Unperfect Souls

She steepled her fingers, the gems on her many gold and silver rings glittering in the firelight. “It’s not my secret, but yours. Don’t misinterpret Bastian. He speaks truly when he says many people are watching you, Connor. Maeve sent an underQueen to interrogate you after what happened at Forest Hills. Now my dear cousin, Donor, has sent Bastian. When you have the two most powerful fey in the world interested in you, it doesn’t go unnoticed by others. The less nervous people are about what you know or can do, the safer you will be.”

“What’s in it for you?”

She stared at me with an amused look, drawing the moment out. “I don’t know yet. But since we are the only two that know we remember some of the runes, I suggest we trust each other, shall we?”

I held my hand out. “You have my word.”

Without hesitation, she clasped my hand. “And you have mine. Thank you for coming.”

I bowed. “Eorla, it was a pleasure as always.”

Out in the hall, guards positioned themselves around me as an escort. They didn’t follow me more than a few feet out of the building, but I felt their eyes on my back the rest of the way down the block.

I didn’t doubt for one minute that Eorla would throw me to the wolves if it suited her purpose. We played an interesting hand together to our mutual benefit. I had held back one of the runes I remembered. I’m sure she had, too. Until we knew we could trust each other—really trust each other—that was how the game was played. I agreed with her assessment of my position. I was caught between High Queen Maeve and the Elven King. It amused me that it wasn’t until I lost my abilities that I came to the attention of the movers and shakers of the world. Once that happened, I needed all the allies I could get, and Eorla Kruge, Grand Duchess of the Elven Court, was not a bad one to have.

The answering machine was blinking its little red light when I returned from the consulate. The usual collection of pointless messages droned out. I used my cell phone for people I knew and wanted to talk to. The apartment phone handled the solicitors and the bills. I gave them the courtesy of listening before deleting and ignoring. The last message surprised me.

“Hi, Connor Grey. I don’t know if you remember me, but this is Shay. I need your advice on something. If you could stop by 184 A Street later this afternoon, I’d appreciate it. I think I might have a problem.”

Shay was hard to forget. When I met him, I thought he was female. I’d never met a guy who looked so much like a woman—and an attractive one at that. He flirted with me outrageously—and with Murdock and with anyone who came within ten feet of him.

I never learned his whole story, but he’d had a hard life. Like so many other kids, he thought he’d find a place to call home in the Weird. He did, too, but probably not the one he hoped for. Most people didn’t aspire to turning tricks for a male clientele who were into the transgender scene. As if his luck weren’t bad enough, he got himself tangled in a serial killer’s murder spree and lost his boyfriend. I didn’t think there was a chance I would be forgetting Shay anytime soon.

The address on A Street was near the old Gillette razor plant, a short stretch of warehouses that had been converted to working lofts where painters and jewelry artists tried to stand out by living on the edge of the scary neighborhood. Boston artists were a world of their own. New York was not so far off but was a different scene entirely, more competitive, more commercial. More New York. Boston was about the art and, yeah, the money, but Boston artists had an earnestness about them that you usually see only outside the expensive cities.

I huddled in the doorway of the building address Shay gave me to avoid the cold, stamping my feet to keep the blood flowing. A slender figure in a full-length white down coat appeared at the corner. A lock of jet-black hair escaped the round hood fringed with glossy fake fur and waved in the air. I didn’t need to sense Shay’s essence to know it was him. The wind pinked his face as he walked carefully down the sidewalk. When he saw me, his Cupid’s-bow lips curled into a smile, and he raised a mittened hand, more acknowledgment than wave. “Sorry. Work ran late.”

To my surprise, he pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. Surprise because last I knew, Shay lived in a squat up on Congress Street.

I followed him up steep, wide stairs. “You live here?”

He shifted lightly mascaraed eyes to me. “I have a studio.”

We trailed down a long, high-ceilinged hall with thick, wide-planked floors showing the wear of a century of work. New walls had been constructed to divide a once-open manufacturing space into a warren of small rooms. The odor of thinner, oil paint, and solvents permeated everything. Shay let us through a plain white door that had a yew wreath hung on it.

To the left, a wall ran thirty feet without interruption from the door to a set of windows. Paintings, prints, and other artwork covered every available inch. Nine feet to the right, a large freestanding sink stood next to a homemade wood counter with a two-burner hot plate on it and a small refrigerator of the type that students used in dorm rooms. Two tall bookcases formed a bed alcove in the middle of the narrow studio.

“I never knew you were an artist,” I said.

Shay removed his coat in a whirling motion and hung it among others on a rack by the door. He wore snug blue jeans and a thigh-length charcoal gray sweater. Twisting his lips, he made an exaggerated and amused pout. “You never knew me, period, Connor.”

I smiled. “Does anyone?”

Resting a delicate hand on his hip, he tilted his head. Eyes roved up and down, examining me as if I were merchandise. Maybe I was. I really did not know Shay. “You cut your hair. I like it short. Makes those lovely blues stand out more.”

Shay’s flirting irritated the hell out of Murdock, but I found his brashness utterly amusing. This slender boy, with his stunningly feminine face, had more balls than men twice his size. Shay spoke his mind when he chose to. “You’ve moved up in the world. Still working?”

He filled a small teakettle and put it on the hot plate. “Not how you mean. I work full-time at the Children’s Institute now. The pay’s not great, but I can afford to live here.”

When I first met Shay, he was working the streets. He never was arrested for prostitution, but anyone in the profession knew it was a matter of time. It was good to hear he had gotten out of the life before it was too late for him. Back then, he volunteered at the Institute, where he cared for Corcan macDuin, a mentally disabled elf who became inadvertently involved in a murder case. “How is Corky?” I asked.

Shay smiled. “Amazing. After what happened, his mental capacity improved. He’s reached the mentality of a teenager since midsummer. You should come by and see him. He talks about you.”

“He does?”

The kettle whistled. Shay poured two mugs. “You saved his life. He likes to tell the story of the hero with the shining sword.”

I was about to thank him when something ticked up in my sensing ability. At the far end of the studio, hidden from view by the bed alcove, an essence moved. It hadn’t been there when we’d come in. Before I said anything Shay looked toward that end of the studio. He was human but claimed to have some kind of fey sensitivity. He might. Or he might have timed the arrival of whoever was in the studio to make it look that way. For all his naïveté, manipulation was another of Shay’s skills.

“Who’s back there?” I asked.

He handed me a mug. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You saved my life, too, but I think it delayed the inevitable.”