Mark Del Franco - Unquiet Dreams

She furrowed a brow. “That was strange. Was that strange?”

I dropped myself into the vacated guest chair. “That was strange.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing,” I said, frowning. It hit me immediately. Nigel was pissed because I had done nothing. Here I was, two years after my accident, and I had not made any effort to deal with it until recently. Nigel is, maybe “was” now, my mentor. I had been his prize pupil. Briallen verch Gwyll ab Gwyll had initiated me into the mysteries throughout most of my teen years. When I hit a strapping eighteen years old, she turned me over to Nigel.

Nigel wasn’t in the States when I had my accident. He didn’t come back either. I didn’t take it personally. He often disappeared for months at a time. It didn’t occur to me, though, that this had been the longest stretch of time between our meetings. “When did he come back?”

Meryl closed one eye as she thought. “July.”

“Three months! And you didn’t tell me?”

She looked annoyed. “I wasn’t aware I was your social secretary. Besides, I assumed you knew.”

“And yet you never mentioned him.”

She gave me a level stare. “Uh, excuse me, neither did he, and it’s not my job to keep you up-to-date on my social life.”

I playfully curled my lip at her. “Fine, fine. I’m just annoyed. I can’t believe he didn’t call.”

“If I remember correctly, a lot of people don’t call you,” she said sweetly.

“Ha-ha. Guess why I’m here.”

She rolled her eyes. “You need something.”

“Funny.” I smiled and held up the building pass. “I’m attending a Guildhouse board meeting tomorrow as Briallen’s alternate.”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Priceless. The place really is going to hell.”

“Go ahead, keep that up, and I won’t invite you for coffee,” I said.

She leaned back in her chair. “I hear you got tossed from the Kruge investigation.”

I love the Guild. Like all organizations with secrets, it’s a huge rumor mill. “I didn’t get tossed because I was never on it. I just happened to get to the crime scene before Keeva, and she pulled rank.”

Meryl nodded. “I heard she wasn’t too happy about it. She’s been desperately trying to impress Manny. It’s driving him crazy.”

“Manny? Since when do you call Manus ap Eagan ‘Manny’?”

“We’re old friends. He wasn’t always Guildmaster, you know.”

That gave me pause. Manus ap Eagan had been Guildmaster almost my entire life. I searched Meryl’s face for some hint of her age, but she looked no older than late twenties, early thirties. I didn’t sense any glamour about her either. It was even possible she was over fifty. Druids and druidesses live extremely long lives, and our physical appearance changes very slowly compared to human normals. I was almost forty years old, but looked and felt like a human normal in my twenties. I could tell she knew what I was thinking by the smirk on her face. Questioning her would be useless.

I smirked. “My, my. Guildmaster Eagan. Nigel Martin. Pretty impressive company you’re keeping these days.”

Her eyes went wide. She leaned forward and grabbed her phone. “Shoot! That reminds me. I was supposed to call Maeve back.”

“What!”

She punched in a phone number. “She called during Buffy. I almost forgot.”

My jaw dropped. “The High Queen of Tara called, and you let the machine pick up because you were watching Buffy?!”

She held her hand over the receiver and pitched her voice low. “It was the ‘Dark Willow’ one. I don’t have it on DVD.”

We stared at each other. The corner of her mouth twitched, then she broke into a grin.

“You’re a jerk,” I said.

She laughed and hung up the phone. “Way too easy, Grey. So tell me about Kruge.”

I filled her in on what I knew, including Dennis Farnsworth. “…and I think this gangbanger might be related,” I finished.

She tilted her head in thought. “I guess it’s possible in a ‘golly gee I hope I can figure out how to get involved with the most important murder case in the world’ kind of way.”

“I can never thank you enough for your support,” I said.

“I think the dwarves are your best bet. They’re very territorial, especially down that end of the Weird.”

“Yeah, I agree. I was wondering if…”

“…I could do you a favor,” she said with an smug, matter-of-fact tone.

I glowered at her. “Yes. Any chance you can score me some gang files?”

She laughed. “I’ll see what I can dig up.”

“So, how long have you known Nigel Martin?” I asked.

She sighed. “I thought you let that go too quickly.”

I threw my hands in the air in feigned innocence. “What? I’m having a casual conversation about a mutual friend.”

She cocked her head again. “There’s really not much to tell. As far as I know, he showed up at the Guildhouse sometime in July—and no, don’t ask me, I am not going to check the ID scanner logs for the precise date. He came to my office one day to ask me about Scandinavian relics. He comes by every couple of weeks to see what I find. We shoot the shit. End of story.”

“What do you talk about?”

“I don’t know. At first it was just business. Lately it’s been music. He has the most archaic taste. I’ve been trying to convince him that the best thing to happen to Faerie music was Convergence.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You were in Faerie?”

She laughed. “Goat’s blood, Grey. I hope this isn’t an example of the investigative skills your reputation claims.”

“Where were you born?” is a game the fey like to play. The fey that came from Faerie were known as the Old Ones: Maeve, the High Queen at Tara; Donor Elfenkonig, the self-styled Elven King; Briallen, though she won’t discuss it; Gillen Yor, High Healer at Avalon Memorial. Certainly, Nigel Martin, but he’d never said anything about it, and no one seems to remember him from there. Lots of others.

Some people believe the Old Ones, the ones directly from Faerie, are more powerful and adept at manipulating essence than their offspring. True or not, most people believe it, so to impress people, more fey than possible claim to have been born in Faerie. While druids and druidesses hold their age extremely well, I doubted Meryl could be that old.

“What kind of relics?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Rune stakes, mostly.”

Rune stakes. Nigel certainly knew enough about Celtic rune stakes. He’d taught me everything I know about them. You get a stick, you scratch some ogham on it, you poke it somewhere. They were like stone wards, only much more precise since you can get pretty detailed with them. Scandinavian rune stakes used old Teutonic runes. So, that meant elf research most likely. Nigel is a political animal as well as a powerful druid. Know your enemy are the watchwords for both.

“Anything interesting?”

She toyed with a strand of her hair. “Sure. Tribal territory markers and a couple of evil eye type of things. I’m definitely going to try one of the evil eye things. I’m infested with Christian missionaries lately.”

“So, let’s go for coffee, and you can tell me all about it.”

She shook her head. “Can’t. I’ve got stuff I have to take care of.”

“Maybe I could come by your place later. You could make dinner. Food’s the fastest way to a man’s heart, you know.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Really? I thought it was the fourth intercostal space between the ribs.”

I shook my head, looking at the ceiling. I pulled myself up out of the chair. “Fine. I’ll just have to catch you when you don’t have ‘stuff.’”

She quirked an eyebrow up. “I’ve got lots of stuff.”