Mark Del Franco - Unperfect Souls

Wetness touched my face. I wiped at it, feeling something slick and sticky. I opened my eyes and stared into Uno’s fetid, gaping mouth. He barked once softly and sat back on his haunches. The leanansidhe lay beside me, blood smeared across her forehead, the bloodstone bowl on the floor by her head. No essence emanated from her.

I sat up and reached for the ward stone. It wouldn’t budge.

“Is it dead?” In his long white coat, hood thrown back, Shay stood near the pedestal nibbling at a fingernail.

“Where did you come from?” I asked.

He brushed at dirt and blood smears on his coat. “You know, my friends said I’d never be able to keep this clean.”

“Shay!”

Startled, he met my eyes. “What?”

I stood. A heavy pounding filled my head. The dark mass moved like a restless sleeper at the base of my skull. “How did you find me?”

He looked down at Uno sitting beside him. “He forced me outside and chased me down the street. I thought he was taking me to . . . to wherever he was going to kill me.”

“Something’s screwy with that dog,” I said.

Shay moved closer and stared at Druse. “That thing could use some hair conditioner.”

I shook my head, too weak to laugh. “Not anymore.”

Shay froze, blood draining from his face. “I killed it?”

“What happened?”

He pointed. “It was hanging off your back. All this black stuff was coming out of you. You wouldn’t answer me. Then that . . . that thing spun its head around and hissed at me. I grabbed the bowl and hit it.

“What was that black stuff?” Shay asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

“It was running into that hole in the wall over there,” he said.

Memory rose, the darkness pulling in essence, an essence I knew, and gorge rose in my throat at the thought. In two long strides, I reached the exit and found Keeva on the ground. Her pulse beat strongly beneath my fingers, but her essence flickered like a dying lightbulb. Another essence signature glowed inside her, strong and vibrant. Burn marks on her skin and wings showed the remains of a binding spell.

I patted her cheek. “Keeva?” No response. I pinched her.

“Help me get her up,” I said.

Shay gave the leanansidhe a wide berth. Keeva groaned as we turned her over and pulled her into a seated position. I rubbed her arms. “Keeva? It’s Connor. Can you hear me?”

She lifted her head, her eyelids fluttering. “Danu,” she whispered.

Relief swept over me. “Keeva, wake up. You’re okay.”

She opened her eyes, struggling to focus on me. “Connor?”

“Yeah. Don’t move. You were attacked by the leanansidhe . I think she infected you with a parasite or something,” I said.

That brought her around. Her hands flew to her stomach. “What do you mean?”

I shook my head. “I’m sensing another body signature inside you. There’s some kind of protective shield around it, and I can’t see what it is.”

“Get me up.” She grabbed my shoulder, and we helped her to her feet.

“Maybe you shouldn’t move until we know what’s wrong,” I said.

She swayed. “Get me to AvMem.”

“Keeva . . .”

“I’m pregnant, you idiot! Get me to AvMem now.”

My jaw dropped.

“Oh, congratulations!” said Shay.

Ignoring him, I draped Keeva’s arm around my neck. “Get that ward stone, Shay. I’m not leaving it here.”

Easy as he pleased, Shay stooped and picked up the bowl. Supporting Keeva with my other arm, I walked her through the chamber. “What happened, Keeva?”

She leaned against me. “I followed your ridiculous map. You might have mentioned the binding traps.”

“Sorry. They weren’t there when I was here last time.”

“How did you know I was down here?” she asked.

It was hard to decide which made me look worse, the angry drunkenness or the creepy desire that drove me back to Druse. “It’s a long story.”

Uno bounded down the tunnel ahead of us, circling around back and running off again. He acted more like an overgrown puppy than what I expected in a hound from Hel. Keeva pressed her arm against me. “Do you feel that?”

“What?”

“Something’s down here with us. I feel something moving around us. Something malevolent,” she said.

I didn’t sense anything but Uno. “You mean the dog?”

She cocked her head up. “What dog?”

Shay and I looked at each other. He looked away, sad and resigned. He didn’t have to tell me what he was thinking about the dog.

“Another long story, Keev. It’s nothing to worry about.”

When we reached the walled-off basement, I sensed the remains of a binding spell across the leanansidhe ’s bolt-hole. Threadlike tatters dangled from the walls and ceiling. I hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to notice them on the way in.

“He wasn’t here,” Keeva said.

“Who wasn’t?”

She forced herself to walk on her own. If there was one thing I knew about Keeva, it was that she was tough. “Vize.”

Guilt swept over me. I had been wrong, and Keeva had walked into the leanansidhe ’s chamber unprepared. “I’m sorry, Keev. I’m really sorry. I thought Sekka was hiding the ward stone. That’s what I thought the Guild wanted. I didn’t know that you were looking for Vize until tonight. I’m an idiot.”

Keeva started up the stairs. “You won’t get any argument from me on that score. Why the hell would we care about a ward stone?”

I looked back at Shay coming up behind me as he clutched the stone bowl to his chest. “I thought it was important.”

Uno burst out of the warehouse door. The morning sun blinded us after the tunnels. I blinked hard against the tears in my eyes. As my vision returned, I saw essence building up in Keeva’s wings.

I pulled out my cell. “You are not flying to AvMem, Keeva.”

A challenge rose in her eye, but she checked it. Without argument, she leaned against the building while I called the Guild’s emergency line. Keeva held a hand out to Shay. “Let me see that.”

He pursed his lips and held out the bowl. “I know you meant it, but let me see that ‘please,’ right?”

When Shay released it, it slipped through Keeva’s hands and hit the ground. She bent to retrieve it, but it wouldn’t budge. “What’s the trick?” she said to Shay.

He leaned down and picked up the bowl. His finely arched eyebrows drew together as he turned it in his hands. He handed it back to Keeva, and it fell again. I tried to pick it up, but no luck. The three of us must have made an interesting scene as we squatted around a stone bowl in the snow. Shay picked it up again. I took it and couldn’t hold it. I stared at it and remembered what the leanansidhe had said. “Shay, this is going to be an odd question, but are you a virgin?”

It was an odd question. When I met Shay, he was turning tricks on the street and living with a boyfriend. He pretended to have his dignity insulted. “A gentleman would not ask such things.”

“Right. That’s why Connor would,” said Keeva.

I scowled at her. “Funny.”

The familiar buzz of large wings moving at speed filled the morning air, and two great shadows swept overhead. Danann security agents wheeled above us and descended. “Are you well, Director macNeve?” one of the chrome-domes asked.

“Take me to Avalon Memorial, please. It’s just a precaution,” she said. She folded her wings against her back as the two agents slipped their hands into straps sewn into her jumpsuit. “Not a word to anyone, Connor. I’ll stop by to kill you after I see Gillen Yor, okay?”

I smiled weakly. “You sound like yourself already.”