Mark Del Franco - Unperfect Souls

I slouched in the chair. It sounded pretty awful when she put it like that, but, really, it wasn’t my fault. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. “Don’t change the subject. I can’t believe I told you there’s a leanansidhe out there, and you’re not itching to hunt it down yourself.”

A conflicted look came over her. “I’m too busy. If I can, I’ll get an agent to help your buddy Murdock for a day or two, but no guarantees.”

“Busy? It’s a leanansidhe , Keeva. You can’t tell me you’re not concerned or interested.”

She pursed her lips. “Is there anything else, Connor?”

Keeva’s body signature rippled. I tapped my essence-sensing ability and sensed a thin layer of additional essence around her. “Are you wearing a glamour, Keeva?”

Her eyebrows drew together. “It’s rude to look at my essence without permission.”

“You are wearing a glamour! I’ve known you for years, Keeva macNeve. I know what your body signature looks like. Why are you wearing a glamour?”

She became decidedly uncomfortable. “I don’t want people asking me about my health, Connor. I’m here to do my job, not answer questions about my body signature.”

I leaned forward, concerned. Genuinely. Keeva and I didn’t agree on a lot of things, but I didn’t hate her enough to wish her ill. “Are you all right? Have you seen Gillen Yor?”

She pulled herself in toward the desk. “Connor, I said I didn’t want to talk about my health. Yes, I’m fine. Yes, I’ve seen Gillen Yor. My condition is no one’s business and doesn’t affect my ability to do my job. Next subject.”

She had taken some serious essence hits in the last few months. I had walked in on her exam at Avalon Memorial a few weeks earlier and seen the damage. Danann fairies were strong—incredibly strong. I thought she’d be recovered by now. “Does macGoren know?”

Ryan macGoren was powerful, but essence sensing was not an ability Danann fairies worked well. They could do it with physical touch—and I assumed he touched her, since they had been a couple for months—but if he wasn’t looking for something and Keeva didn’t want him to know, she would have no problem hiding it from him.

“That’s even more off base. If I promise to send someone down to the Weird, will you drop it?”

“Okay.” Keeva’s temper was short normally, but she was more on edge than usual. Actively helping the human police force against fey people couldn’t be sitting well with her. Keeva might enjoy the privileges of her position, but she was still fey and took pride in that.

I changed the subject. “Any idea when this curfew is going to end?”

“That’s Commissioner Murdock’s call. The Guild board supports his decisions.”

“And you agree with it?” I asked.

She sighed with impatience. “I don’t have to agree with it. Ryan is Acting Guildmaster, and I act under his direction. It’s the job.”

She didn’t say she agreed with it. “Since when is Ryan Acting Guildmaster? I didn’t hear he was named.”

She shrugged. “He is in everything but name. Eagan hasn’t gotten around to making it official.”

I was tempted to tell her he wouldn’t be getting around to it anytime soon, but I had irritated her enough. Besides, I got what I came for—a quasi promise to deal with the leanansidhe .

I stood. “Well, good luck to him if that’s what Eagan decides. I’ll let you get on with black-booting the Weird now.”

“You’re an ass, Connor,” she said, as I stepped out the door.

I deserved that. “Seriously, Keeva, are you okay?”

She nodded. “Yes. I’m fine. I’ll let you know if anything happens with the leanansidhe .”

Downstairs, I paused under the portico in front of the Guildhouse. If I wasn’t mistaken, a crack was forming in Keeva’s unmitigated support of Guild policy. She had spent her career climbing the ladder by agreeing to the right things with the right people. Not vocally supporting Commissioner Murdock’s curfew was unusual, and she knew I would pick up on it. Then again, as time went on, I thought she was becoming less careful with what she said around me. She told me once that my credibility was so poor, no one would believe me if I repeated what she said. I hated to admit it, but she might have a point.

As I looked up at the sky to see if clouds were rolling in, I noticed the empty expanse of the portico ceiling. The gargoyles that usually clustered were almost all gone. With the extraordinary amount of essence expended on Samhain, they were migrating up to Boston Common, and since the Taint still floated around the Weird, many more were down there, leaving the Guildhouse oddly bare. I wondered what the roof of the place looked like. The heaviest concentration of gargoyles gathered up there.

I pulled my collar up and walked through the gauntlet of brownie security. For over a year, I had wallowed in despair over whether I’d ever work at the Guild again. In a few short months, my thinking had changed dramatically. I had changed. The place had become alien to me. Despite all my disagreements with the Guild, I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not.

I retraced my route back to the Weird, turning off a bridge early to enter Southie. By the time I reached the Rose Rose, snow had begun to fall, and my toes became numb. I waited for Meryl in a back booth, enjoying the heater under the table as it warmed my feet. If Yggy’s was the bar in the Weird where fey from across the spectrum gathered to be among themselves, the Rose Rose was where the fey and humans met on neutral ground. People went to the Ro’Ro’ to relax and have a good time.

Meryl swept through the front door, bringing in a shower of snow with her. People at the tables nearest the door eyed her with irritation. She ignored them as she made a direct line for my table. “You look tired.”

I pushed a glass of Guinness toward her. “I had a busy night.”

She tapped my glass and sipped. “You didn’t visit when you were in the building today.”

Meryl ran the Archives in the subbasements of the Guildhouse. The basements were dark, stone-lined, quiet, and filled with stuff most fey didn’t even know existed. As Chief Archivist, she got to play with everything. I usually took any opportunity to visit her when I was in the Guildhouse. “With all the security watching my every move, I didn’t have the energy for the hassle. You missed me, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “Yeah. My afternoon was boring. Watching you get dragged out of the building would have broken the tedium.”

I crumpled a napkin and tossed it at her. “Nice to know I’m entertainment for you.”

She grinned. “That’s what would have happened, you know. As soon as you entered the building, they doubled the guards on the elevators. They’re watching us. See the cute couple behind me drinking umbrella drinks? Low-level druids with Danann security on speed sending.”

I laughed and sipped my beer. “Ya know, I thought I saw them on Old Northern this morning. Why the spying?”

Meryl slowly shook her head. “Don’t be dense. The Guild’s assessing its next move after Samhain. They let me back to work because they can’t figure out if I did anything wrong. You, on the other hand, they saw challenge an underQueen who was investigating you, then she died. Why do you think Nigel went to Tara?”

“I thought he was going to Russia?”

Meryl leaned back. “Eventually. I couldn’t find out what that’s about, but he’s stopping at Tara to see Maeve.”

I caught the server’s attention and ordered another round. I stared in the dregs of my beer. “Meryl, let me ask you something. I’m having this odd moment where I sit here, an unemployed druid with damaged abilities who can barely pay his rent with a disability check, and yet, the High Queen of Tara seems to be oddly nervous about me. Am I suffering from delusions of grandeur, or is that really true?”