Mark Del Franco: Unquiet Dreams

“I’d go for dropped,” I said. “There’s no slippage in the mud. He looks like he came straight down. I suppose if he were flung the right way from the street, he wouldn’t slide, but dropped is the easier explanation.”

Murdock nodded as though he had come to the same conclusion. “Naturally, that leads to ‘why?’”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, Murdock. Look at the gear he’s wearing. I think you’re looking at a gang fight.”

He tilted his head to the side as he continued looking at the body. “No physical signs of struggle, no visible bruises. We might find something when he’s stripped, but why would a fey bother with him?”

“Fey gangs are out there, too, Murdock. The xenos figure out how to hold their own against the fey ones. You know that,” I said. “And the human ones have been known to hire freelancers for a little revenge. I’d check that angle.”

He didn’t look convinced, but that’s Murdock’s nature. He wouldn’t be happy until he nailed it down precisely. I know he has more than a few files of unsolved cases that he uses for bedtime reading. He’s the type.

“Can you sense anything off him?” Murdock asked.

At one time, I had the ability to manipulate essence on a high level. I was growing, maturing into my skills to the point where I thought I might end up being one of the most powerful druids alive. It sounds vain and ambitious, which is why I would never have admitted the thought aloud to anyone. I had attracted the attention of some very powerful people, who took me under their wings, some of them literally. The more I learned, the more I saw that I hadn’t peaked yet.

But I fell. More like, “was knocked on my ass.” Hot on the trail of a miscreant terrorist elf named Bergin Vize, I had cornered him in a power plant. Just when I thought I could take him out, Something Happened. No one knows quite sure what, but it involved a lot of essence, a Teutonic ring of power, and a smidge of nuclear energy. I don’t remember anything after catching up to him. I woke up dead inside, with no real ability anymore, a mysterious mass in my head that feels like molten knives stabbing my brain whenever I try to manipulate essence. It gives me a really, really bad headache.

Now I have just a few abilities, none of which is extraordinary for someone of my kind. Human normals can replicate most of what I can do with the right accessories. Except for one thing, which is literally sense essence. For some reason, that skill remains strong. It might be because it’s a biological function. Receptors in my nose and eyes are what make it work. Most fey have the ability to some extent, but not as strongly as druids. Researchers have been studying the phenomenon for decades with no real understanding.

So, it was time for my parlor trick. “Can I have everyone step away from the body a moment?” I said.

Since working with Murdock, I was beginning to recognize more of the local force. In turn, they were getting used to me being around to help. The officers and medical examiner shuffled back to allow me a clear space.

I crouched over the victim, trying not to think about how young he was. Sometimes when you see dead bodies, you can tell if they knew what was coming. This kid did. He died scared. I shook the thought away and inhaled. The boy had been dead awhile. Between the cold and the rain, most of the essence he had recently come in contact with had faded. What hit me immediately was troll. Trolls have a strong essence that lingers. They also stink. That lingers, too. The next strongest essence was human, but not the victim’s. He had been with another human for an extended period before he died. To complicate matters, I picked up traces of two different elves and a fairy, all weak enough that I could not place the actual clans.

I told Murdock what I had found. “Our victim keeps very strange company.”

“Well, it is the Weird,” he said.

I stood up. “True. But you don’t get elves and fairies hanging out together much. And everyone is creeped out by trolls.”

“That’s Guild talk, Connor. Politics don’t mean shit down here.”

He had a point. Publicly, the Guild was all about fey crime investigation first, politics second. Operatively, it’s the other way around. It makes a show of unity between the fey races—druids and fairies, elves and dwarves all one big happy family. But underneath lies chronic suspicion of each other’s motives. It’s been going on for over a century. The Celtic and Teutonic races had a little war that got out of hand, and somehow it caused the event known as Convergence. Modern reality found itself merged with parts of Faerie that it thought were just myth and legend. And the fight continues, sometimes physically, but mostly in boardrooms now.

Me, I couldn’t care less about Faerie. I was born here. I have no nostalgia for a place I’ve never known. While leaders of both sides talk about return, I’ll take this reality, thank you. Besides, I’ve asked people who would know, and there’s no Guinness in Faerie, so it couldn’t be that great.

“You’re right. But it still complicates things. He came in contact with two of the races that could have dropped him here. If I thought about it, I could probably come up with a way for an elf to do it, too. They’re pretty strong,” I said.

Murdock shrugged. “Hence, the job. We have some leads now. And unless this kid ends up being the son of the president of the United States, you know the Guild is not going to take the case. So it’s mine. Ours, if you want in.”

I didn’t have to think about it. I hate unsolved kid murders, human or fey. “I’m in.”

He turned his face to the sky. “What about this cold? It’s only around here.”

I had a little mind hiccup. Seeing Murdock check out the sky had me thinking for a moment that he could see the residual essence I was seeing, which wasn’t possible for a human. Then I realized he was just doing what everyone does when they talk about the weather; they look up.

I scanned the strip of sky above us. The haze of essence covered the entire block we were on. “I’m curious about that myself. There’s a residual haze of essence up there. Let’s check it out.”

I walked across the field, with Murdock a step behind me. We crossed the street to an abandoned warehouse. Grabbing the end of a fire-escape ladder, I gave it a hard tug. It clattered down to within a few feet of the pavement. I gave the metal rungs a good shake to make sure they’d stay attached. Even as I did it, I tried to understand my logic. Why would potentially pulling a fire escape down on top of me be somehow safer than having the fire escape collapse under me? Fortunately, it held.

We jogged the six flights without speaking, our breaths streaking warm plumes into the cold air. Murdock and I work out often together. The fire escape was like doing the StairMaster, only colder. At the top, we used a vertical ladder to the roof. Actually, the remains of the roof. Most of it had fallen in, creating an open crater of space with a lovely view of the rubble-strewn top floor.

The rising sun hit us full in the face, and I felt a surge of essence from Murdock. Even as I turned to look at him, it faded. As a human normal, Murdock’s essence should register on the low end of the scale. A few months earlier, he had helped me accidentally save the world and caught a nasty blast from an insane fairy. Or elf. It’s hard to describe. Anyway, since then his essence has been mucked up.

Everyone’s essence is unique, like fingerprints, and the different species of fey resonate differently. Murdock’s essence fluctuates throughout the day from normal to damn strong. What makes that odd is that usually only the fey have strong essence. Elves and fairies. Trolls and dwarves. Druids and the like. Yet, Murdock always feels human. He says he doesn’t feel any different except for an occasional adrenaline surge. He’s on outpatient from Avalon Memorial Hospital now. I’m no healer, but I have a sneaky suspicion they’re as baffled as I am.