Mark Del Franco - Unperfect Souls

“You sound like you’re quoting something.”

She smirked. “You sound like you made a deep knowledge leap.”

I nodded. “Which is why it makes sense to me, Meryl. I think the thing in my head is outside the Wheel. That’s why no one understands it.”

She tilted her head. The moment lengthened while a cryptic expression passed over her face. “What does this have to do with the leanansidhe ?”

“It was something she said.”

Meryl licked her lips. “You didn’t mention this before.”

I shrugged and failed to look casual about it. “I didn’t think of it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You found her again, didn’t you?”

We had grown close in the past few months, closer than I would have guessed. Despite her insistence that we weren’t a couple or seeing each other or friends with benefits or whatever I wanted to call it, we had made connections that friends without didn’t have. I could lie. She might believe me. But if I lied, and she knew it, I would damage whatever the hell it was that we did have. I took a deep breath. “Yeah. I had to know what she meant when she called me ‘brother.’ ”

Meryl frowned. “It’s a leanansidhe , Grey. If there’s one thing I do know, it’s that they’re liars. They have to be to survive. She’s playing with your mind. The thing in your head has an explanation, and the answer is within the Wheel of the World. It has to be, by definition. If it’s within the Wheel of the World, it’s part of the Wheel of the World, not outside It.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed them. Even as I did it, I knew it was to hide the fact that I was embarrassed. “She made the dark mass in my head move, Meryl. She showed me how to let it free and it felt wrong and it felt amazing. I used to be afraid it would kill me.” I opened my eyes. “Now I’m just afraid of it. I’m afraid of what it makes me want to do. I’m afraid it’s not really making me feel that way and is just exposing something wrong inside me.”

Meryl came around the desk and sat on my lap. She wrapped her arms around my head and pulled me to her chest. My stomach did a little flip as the dark mass pulsed from being near her strong body essence. She tilted my head up by the chin. “Listen to me, Connor. You were one of the biggest assholes I’ve ever worked worth. That was then. If you were in danger of some weird-ass darkness in you coming out, it was before this thing happened to you, not now. Not from what I’ve seen. You might be caught up in some shit lately, but if I thought for one moment there was something seriously whacked about you, you wouldn’t be here.”

I leaned my head against her shoulder. “I hope you’re right.”

She scrubbed her fingernails through my hair and hopped to her feet. “I am. Besides, in any given personal relationship, I have to be the crazier one. It’s a rule. Now, let’s go have lunch.”

I stood. “I want to go talk to Keeva and see if I can find out what’s going on.”

Meryl rolled her eyes. “Yeah, she loves to confide in you.”

I pushed playfully at her shoulder. “Hey, don’t underestimate me. I know someone who never thought she’d confide in me.”

She looked at her watch. “Okay. Go. If you’re not back in fifteen minutes, I’m getting takeout.”

I took her hands, leaned down, and kissed her. She kissed me back with no games. I tousled her hair. She punched me.

Since I wasn’t officially in the building, I used the freight elevator, which was accessible in the basement but the call buttons on the upper floors were disabled. Which meant no guards riding them for routine security. The added benefit was it opened near Keeva’s office, so I could bypass the floor receptionist as well.

Keeva looked up from her desk when I knocked, and I immediately got her narrow-eyed, compressed-lipped suspicious look. “I don’t remember guards locking down the building. How’d you get in?”

I sat in her guest chair. “Nice to see you, too. How are things going?”

She didn’t change her expression. “Busy.”

I nodded. “Good, good. How’s Ryan?”

Her frown deepened. “Busy.”

I looked around the office, then brought my gaze back to Keeva. “You’re still wearing a glamour.”

She leaned back. “Why are you here, Connor?”

“I have a proposal for you. I have a piece of information you might find helpful. In exchange, I need a favor.”

She smiled. “It would have to be some very good information.”

I smiled back. “Is it a deal?”

She shook her head. “You know better than that. I’m not going to obligate myself without hearing the whole story.”

I nodded. “True. That’s smart, of course. How about this, if you use the information, you don’t have to do the favor if you think it isn’t equitable.”

She grinned. “This should be interesting.”

“I know what Sekka was hiding.”

As Community Liaison Director, Keeva saw all open case reports from the Boston P.D. She twisted her lip in dismissal. “Why should I care about a routine murder case?”

“Because it wasn’t routine, and I know you know that. Sekka was a Consortium agent, and macGoren has people trying to find what she had.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“I know where it is.”

She swiveled her chair in a small arc. “Assuming this is accurate, and I’m interested, what’s the favor?”

“I want you to capture the leanansidhe ,” I said.

Her suspicious look returned. “You’re not telling me everything. Assuming what you say is true about the Guild’s interest in Sekka, capturing the leanansidhe pales in comparison. Why are you offering something so important for something so not important?”

“Honestly?” I asked.

“Honestly,” she said.

I took a deep breath. “Because the leanansidhe scares the hell out of me, and I don’t have the power or ability to bring her in. I’m afraid of what will happen to me if she’s left running free.”

Keeva’s jaw dropped in surprise. “Whoa! When you said ‘honestly,’ I wasn’t expecting . . . honesty .”

I laughed. “Yeah, well, that’s how much I need you to do this, Keeva. In fact, to make it even easier for you, the leanansidhe has what Sekka was hiding. It’s in her cave.” I picked up a pen from her desk and pulled a sheet of note-paper toward me. “This is where she’s hiding.”

I handed Keeva a rough map of the tunnel route from the abandoned warehouse. She stared down at the scribble, then at me. “Do you want to tell me why you’re so scared?”

I smiled. “Do you want to talk about your glamour?”

She tossed the map on her desk. “Assuming your theory is correct—and I’m not saying it is—I’ll take your request under advisement. You need to leave now. I don’t want anyone seeing you in here if you’re not officially in the building.”

Keeva and I had a long history, not all of it good. We both had egos, and we had clashed often when we were partners. But at the end of the day, I thought we believed the other would do the right thing. Not necessarily what both of us thought was the right thing, but the right thing in some respect. Now, though, this gulf existed between us that I didn’t think we could bridge anymore. She worked for an organization I no longer believed in. I worked outside the chain of command in a way she couldn’t condone. And that was okay with me. She had a career to think about. If I didn’t think someday we’d see eye to eye, I wouldn’t have bothered talking to her. I gave her a wink and left without argument.

As I rode the freight elevator back to the basement, relief and regret fought in my stomach. The urge to make another visit to the leanansidhe bordered on overwhelming. Asking Keeva to do something to take that option off the table was the right thing to do. I didn’t like how the leanansidhe made me feel precisely because I liked how she made me feel. Keeva could get the leanansidhe into the Guildhouse, a controlled environment. Maybe then Briallen or Gillen Yor would have something to work with. If the leanansidhe held the key to the dark mass in my head, I would rather that someone other than her turned it.