“You okay?” Joe asked.
“Yeah. Can you follow him for me? Something’s not right about him,” I said.
“You’ll want to discuss it over a beer later, right?” he asked.
“As always,” I said. He saluted and blinked out.
The burning warehouse building glowed with the ambient essence of the Weird, a dull, dirty white that wasn’t full gray. My sensing ability didn’t allow me to extend through walls, but I was able to detect a faint shifting essence. Someone was moving inside. Since the firefighters were human, the one thing strong enough for me to pick would be the fey suspect. If the suspect was alive, that might mean the firefighters were, too. “I’m getting moving essence hits inside, Murdock. They’re still alive.”
He focused on the task in front of him without stopping to acknowledge me. We cleared the top off the mound of debris and exposed the door. Frustrated, I slumped back on my haunches at the sight of the hinge. “Dammit. It opens out. We’ve got to get more people back here.”
Murdock threw a brick at the exposed edge of the door. The brick exploded with the force of his throw, denting the metal. Something banged against the inside and a sending hit me hard enough to knock me off-balance.
Can’t breathe. Open, dammit.
I scrambled down the rubble and flattened myself against the brick wall. The stone tickled like static as it bonded to my skin. The body signatures on the other side pushed against my senses like bubbles of pressure. “Here. They’re right here. Someone get a ram.”
Hydraulic pressure rams were standard equipment on fire trucks. Two firefighters ran down the alley toward the nearest ladder truck.
“Get out of the way.”
I pulled myself off the wall, flakes of brick embedded in my skin. Murdock stood fifteen feet away, his body shield rippling with intensity. The firefighters weren’t even to the truck yet. “Where’s the ram?”
“You’re looking at it. Move.”
Murdock ran at the wall. I jumped away as he slammed into the building. The reaction force knocked him off his feet as chunks of brick flew in every direction. Murdock pulled himself up, one side of his face a speckled bruise from the hit. Body shields deflected force, but they didn’t stop it. Head down, he slammed his shoulder into the bricks. The wall sagged inward, mortar cracking and falling in clouds of dust.
“Leo, the ram’s coming,” I shouted.
He charged the wall again. Bricks broke free, falling inside the building. Thick, black smoke coiled out of the hole Murdock had created. I grabbed the edge of it and yanked more bricks away.
“Move,” Murdock said.
“It’s enough, Leo. You’re going to hurt yourself.” He hit the wall right next to me. I ducked as bricks cascaded down. Murdock tripped and fell again.
A raw, burned hand appeared from inside and pulled away bricks, then a gloved hand joined the task. We coughed and gagged as thick smoke continued to roll out. When the hole was large enough, I grabbed the next hand that appeared and pulled. My eyes burned with the smoke as I hauled out a firefighter. Momentum carried me backwards, and we rolled free down the slope. Someone inside flung an arm through the hole, and Murdock grabbed it.
I half dragged the firefighter from the building, and we fell on the uneven ground. Firefighters swarmed around us. Beneath the clouded face mask, Kevin Murdock struggled for breath. I pulled his headgear off. “Easy, easy. Breathe, Kevin,” I said.
Kevin rolled onto his side and coughed up black phlegm. An EMT helped me walk him to where medical equipment waited. Chaos reigned in the EMT triage site. Boston police struggled to keep gawkers and news reporters away from the firefighters as they were being treated for smoke inhalation and burns. No lives had been lost as far as I could tell.
We lowered Kevin onto a gurney. An EMT came to my side and tried to open my jacket. “Are you okay?”
I shrugged him off. “I’m fine.”
I pushed closer to Kevin’s gurney. Kevin lay on his back, an oxygen mask covering his face. I wasn’t going to take that as a bad sign. Even inhaling small amounts of smoke damaged airways, and he had breathed in plenty. It didn’t mean he was in critical condition. He lifted his head as an EMT checked his vital signs. When he saw me, his face turned into a snarl. He ripped the mask down. “Get the hell away from me.”
Surprised, I backed away from the gurney. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Not interested in your concern.”
I looked at the EMT. “Is he okay?”
Kevin tried to sit up, but the EMT held him down. “I’m fine. I know what you did, you bastard. Get away from me.”
Now I understood that his reaction had nothing to do with the fire or his injuries. “Kevin, this isn’t the time, but I’m sorry. For everything. We’re all victims of circumstance here.”
His derisive chuckle faded into a cough. “I’ve heard enough about the shit you’ve caused to understand your circumstances, Connor. Get the hell out of here and stay away from my family. You got it? Stay away, or I’ll make you regret you ever set foot in our house.”
“I’m sorry.” Stunned, I walked away. I understood his anger, but I didn’t expect it while I was saving the guy’s life. I backed off. Like I had said, it wasn’t the time. He was injured and tired, and what happened, happened. I didn’t want to provoke him because I didn’t know how to defend myself.
To make matters worse, when the hole opened in the wall, I realized I wasn’t hearing the sendings from the burglary suspect, and when I pulled Kevin out, my body signature interacted with his. Whatever having mixed-race parents was doing to Leo, it was doing tenfold to Kevin. He read druid without a hint of human body essence. I decided he wasn’t exactly in the mood to hear that.
I found Murdock on the far end of the alley with another group of EMTs. He glanced at me as soon as I neared, and I wondered if it was coincidence or if he had sensed me. His face was swollen on the left side and his forehead had a bruise, signs of body-shield impact. He hadn’t hit the wall with his face, but the shield diffused the force and propagated it against his entire body.
I waited while the EMTs finished with him. “Kevin’s okay,” I said.
He worked his shoulder. “That was the idea.”
“I’m going to make a wild guess and say you told him about Moira,” I said.
“He’s not your biggest fan right now,” Murdock said.
I frowned. “He blames me, too.”
Murdock looked up me. “He grew up without a mother, and his father was murdered. You were there at the beginning and the end, Connor. He’s having a hard time separating that from who was to blame.”
“I guess it’s a rule that at least one Murdock hates me at all times.”
“At least,” Leo said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Stop saying that,” he said. He wasn’t angry, but his tone said how tired he was.
“There’s something else, Leo. I’m reading a druid body signature off Kevin, a powerful one. More than yours,” I said.
Murdock dropped his head back. “Damn. Can we get ten minutes without something blowing up?”
“Are you going to tell him?” I asked.
He winced as he rubbed at his head. “I’ll have to, won’t I? I don’t recommend going anywhere near Southie for a while.”
The EMT returned. “You’re next, Officer.”
Murdock lay back on the gurney. “They want X-rays. Any fey mumbo jumbo I should tell them about?”
I shook my head. “Your anatomy’s the same as always, Leo. I’ll call you later.”
He closed his eyes and let them wheel him away. News vans and curiosity seekers crowded the sidewalks out front. I cut across the street to avoid the reporters looking for someone to interview. The last thing I needed was getting my name in the news again in a story about a fire in the Weird.
Kevin Murdock’s angry face played over in my mind. He was a kid, the youngest member of his family. He had never known Moira Cashel as his mother. She left town not long after he was born. But he knew his father. I didn’t know what that relationship was like, but Scott Murdock was his father. Even Leo, who disagreed with the commissioner on so many things, mourned the man. Death was a lot to process under normal circumstances, but to be dragged into the fey world at the same time had to be overwhelming. I tried not to feel hurt by what was said, but it stung. It stung because deep down, I agreed with him. Without having an inkling as to what I was doing—what I did—I had screwed up an entire family. I didn’t know how to answer for that or even if I could.