She play-slapped my hand. “Exactly.”
“When does he want to do this?”
“Tomorrow,” she said.
“I want to be here.”
She settled herself onto a stool. “Of course. I’m sure Meryl will be happy to see you.”
I sipped the coffee, its rich flavor hinting at one of Briallen’s secret additives. Everything Briallen made had a little something extra. “The reason I wanted to talk to you is because I ran into something last night. It looked a hell of a lot like the Wild Hunt.”
Briallen groaned and slumped against her hand. “Can we have one month when no one starts a new pissing contest? It’s bad enough Donor Elfenkonig’s in town.”
“You knew about that?” I asked.
“You did?” she asked.
We contemplated the countertop. “So . . . anyway . . .” I said.
Chuckling, she sipped at her coffee. Briallen knew more than anyone about what went on among the fey in Boston. She had connections everywhere. While Nigel saw the Teutonic fey as straight-up enemies, Briallen considered them the friendly opposition. “Yes, anyway, why do you think the Wild Hunt is here?”
I described what happened to Murdock and me in the Tangle. She played particular attention to the description of the rider. “That doesn’t sound like Arawn.”
In Celtic tradition, Arawn ruled over the Land of the Dead. “He’s for real?”
She nodded. “I’ve met him. I’m sure I would have heard if he was in Boston.”
“You’ve met Arawn, as in ‘King of the Dead’ Arawn,” I said.
“Why does that surprise you? I may not remember everything pre-Convergence, but Arawn is hard to forget. One of the most courteous kings I’ve ever met,” she said.
“Did you just out yourself to me as an Old One?” I asked.
She smirked and lifted her coffee. “I don’t know, did I? I don’t remember saying when I met him.”
“How did you meet him?” I asked.
“That’s a story for another time. If the rider you met were Arawn, he would have spoken to you, taken you with him, or killed you.”
“So it was an imposter?” I asked.
She pursed her lips and gazed into her mug. “ ‘Imposter’ is the wrong word. The Wild Hunt rises for many reasons, and Arawn doesn’t always lead it. How did you run into it?”
“I’ve been tracking missing persons in the Weird. Witnesses report a blaze of essence followed by disappearances. I thought it might be related to the solitary/Dead conflict because the surge seemed to be following old Dead essence, but last night Murdock and I encountered the surge, and it was all Dead essence.”
She squinted. “It’s a leap to call it the Wild Hunt, don’t you think? I mean, the original hunt was about weather superstitions and enforcing conformity. You’re talking about a few kidnappings,” she said.
“True—but right now the Weird is full of centuries-old Dead who believe that stuff.”
“Aren’t they calmer now that the Taint is gone?” she asked.
“ ‘Calm’ isn’t a word I would use to describe the Dead, Briallen. Maybe they’re more rational in their approach— and forming a unified band could be evidence of it. There’s a guy wearing an antlered helm and riding a dream mare,” I said.
“You said people are going missing. Is there a pattern, or is it random?” she asked.
“Mostly scryers and fortune-tellers,” I said.
She tapped her nails against the sides of her mug. “People seek the future when the present is unsettled.”
“That pretty much describes the Weird,” I said.
She arched an eyebrow at me. “That pretty much describes everything right now. I don’t have to remind you of the uncertainty around here. We have an acting police commissioner, an Acting Guildmaster, no one directing the Consortium consulate since Eorla left, and Eorla setting up her own court. People are worried.”
“But what would the Dead gain by forming a hunt? TirNaNog is gone. The Dead have no place to go.”
She made a slight swirl of her coffee. “The social structure is destabilized. While people in power struggle to get their acts together, one person has managed to bring order to the situation: Eorla. Maybe the Dead see what she’s done and want to duplicate it on their own terms.”
“Are you suggesting they’re setting up their own version of TirNaNog?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s another power play by another player,” she said.
“People join Eorla willingly. The Dead are kidnapping people. Eorla doesn’t do that,” I said.
Briallen gave a sly smile as she drank her coffee. “A little defensive about her, aren’t we?”
I frowned. “I know you’ve been talking to Nigel. I didn’t think he’d be able to poison you against her that easily.”
She poked me. “I’m teasing, but I should point out that Eorla is hard to say no to. People may join her, but there’s more fear involved than you’re willing to admit.”
“And I should point out she’s not the only person like that around here, Ms. Gwyll,” I said.
Briallen chuckled. “I do take that for granted, I guess. Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone is rallying the Dead. People down in the Weird might not trust the Guild or the Consortium, but that doesn’t mean they will automatically trust Eorla.”
“I told her pretty much the same thing,” I said.
“And, don’t forget, the old gang structure fell apart last fall. Whoever’s riding that dream mare might be making a power play.”
“Well, if the Weird falls any more apart, there won’t be much to play with,” I said.
“Something new will form, Connor, maybe not down in the Weird, but somewhere else. It always does. That’s the Way of the World. One thing ends, and another begins, but the World goes on,” she said.
Briallen and I had an old argument about whether places like the Weird had to exist. She believed they did, that society always had a class of people who didn’t succeed for one reason or another. Solving that problem always created a new one in her view. She had no hesitation helping to make people’s lives better, but she assumed the same issues would crop up elsewhere. Nigel, though, accepted the existence of places like the Weird as necessary evils. If improving the lot of most people meant sacrificing a few, he could ignore the Weird. A few desperate or dead didn’t bother him. Between those views, everybody else fought over turf and power.
“Donor might have a role in this. He’s actively campaigning against Eorla with the Guild. Aldred Core has shown up several times warning macGoren that Eorla is a threat.”
“She’s more a threat to Donor,” I said.
“True. But if he can isolate her politically because he says she’s dangerous, he forges alliances elsewhere,” she said.
“There’s a platoon of U.S. Marines at the airport,” I said.
“And a frightened human population in the city. Creating more trouble in the Weird would work in Donor’s favor,” she said.
I leaned my forehead against my hands. I didn’t care about Donor or macGoren. I didn’t care about their strategies and games. I cared about the woman upstairs and wanted her back. “Do you trust Nigel?” I asked.
She studied her cup. “No, but I trust the Wheel of the World. It’s given us a path to take, and I think we should take it. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t watch our step.”
22
Later that afternoon, I waited in a small anteroom at the Rowes Wharf Hotel. The strange behavior of Eorla’s people in the Weird concerned me. Some seemed to have crossed the line from not helping to interfering in the community policing Eorla was trying to establish. Keeping fey away from the warehouse fire when they could have helped or hindering investigators from doing their work were not the best ways to create a safer environment. Eorla might have her reasons, but it was getting to the point where her people needed to stay out of the way.
Security had been tightened in the building. I had been asked to show identification even though the person asking me for it addressed me by name. I didn’t take it personally. They were doing their jobs, and the policy wasn’t directed at me. At least, I didn’t think so.