Janey nodded. “I found it under one of her fingernails. It’s not a merrow scale that I’ve ever seen.”
“Eorla has a lot of tree fairies working for her. Can it be a skin cell?” I asked.
“That’s possible, but the color is so strange. My database isn’t that extensive for this type of thing, though. I was hoping you might have seen someone with skin like that,” she said.
I handed it back. “Doesn’t ring any bells. What about the Danann? Any trace evidence on him?”
She shook her head. “No, but he didn’t die in a fall. The organ damage isn’t consistent with a fall. He was crushed under something.”
“That would explain the alcohol. Dananns are strong. It wouldn’t be the first time someone thought to get a Danann drunk before killing one.”
Murdock gave me a significant look. The first major case we worked on together had had Danann fairy victims. The first few had been drunk when they died. Gethin macLoren, the murderer, had been captured and executed. “He’s dead, Leo.”
“He wouldn’t be the first Dead person I’ve met,” he said.
I shook my head. “No, this is something else. Ceridwen would know if macLoren came back. She has the Dead under control.”
“Which brings us back to someone who does know: Keeva,” he said.
A cool fluttering touched my mind, then a sending from my mother hit me like a ton of bricks. “I need to get to AvMem.”
“What happened?” Murdock asked.
“My brother Cal’s in the hospital.”
26
The previous twenty-four hours didn’t feel tethered to reality anymore. The nonstop bombardment of events left me with nothing but the need to react, with no time to think or feel or consider. I was running on adrenaline. My body slipped into automatic, running down the hall, going out the door, rushing to the hospital.
I strode into the emergency room at AvMem without any recollection of the trip. Arriving had been my only focus. I left the car in the drop-off lane with the keys in it. At that point, I didn’t care what happened to it.
In the waiting room, news cycled on a crooked flat screen TV, the volume turned to a whisper. An aerial shot of Eagan’s house appeared. Smoke trickled from the side of the house, but it didn’t look serious. The greenhouse windows were shattered. Dark uniformed figures were scattered about the lawn in an obvious police search grid.
As I approached the desk, Keeva came out the door that led to the treatment bays. She hesitated, surprised to see me. Don’t talk, she sent.
She spoke to the desk nurse and flashed her badge. The woman looked from the badge to Keeva, then nodded. She glanced at me, curious, yet with an attitude of not wanting to draw attention. Keeva waved me around the desk to the door
The emergency room at Avalon Memorial was much like one in any other hospital—professional staff moving quickly, people moaning, bad odors, and blood. An injured fey person brought an extra layer of free-flowing essence that needed to be contained. I peered into the bays as we passed, hoping and dreading to see Callin.
“What was that about?” I asked, as she led me in back.
“Your name is flagged for security. I told the desk you were with me, so you didn’t have to identify yourself,” she said.
“Wow. Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” she said.
“Now tell me why you did it,” I said.
She frowned. “You always have to push, don’t you? Callin’s your brother. While it would please me to see you in handcuffs, you shouldn’t get arrested for visiting your brother in the hospital.”
We walked through the unit to a door at the back. Away from the doctors and patients, I caught the faint scent of ozone coming off Keeva, the telltale trace of essence-fire. “You’re in the field?”
She glanced at me with impatience. “In case you haven’t heard, Connor, the Guild lost hundreds of agents. Everyone’s in the field.”
I took her gently by the arm, and, as usual, she pulled away in anger. “I was going to ask you about the baby,” I said.
Her expression didn’t change. “He’s fine. Thank you for asking.”
“And you?”
She sighed and opened the door. “Take the back elevator to the seventh floor. Callin’s in ICU. Go. Now. Before I change my mind.”
She walked away. Keeva and I had always had a prickly relationship. Since she returned from Tara, she had avoided me like the plague. I wanted to talk to her about what had happened between us, about the night in the leanansidhe’s cave. I wasn’t sure if she had been aware of everything that had happened that night. I had almost killed her. I had drained her life essence. The guilt weighed on me enough that I needed to confess it to her. I needed her to know how sorry I was.
I wondered if hanging around with Murdock and his Catholicism was starting to rub off. I didn’t know if confession was good for the soul so much, but it definitely would have put my mind at ease. Keeva would probably hate me. Hell, she barely spoke to me as it was. She might already know, which would explain her attitude. At the same time, I was bothered by Murdock’s suspicions about her role in the deaths of the double agents. Now my brother turned up in the hospital, and she was there to meet me. Her presence could mean more than compassion about a bad day for the Grey family.
The elevator doors opened onto the seventh floor. Keeva would have to wait. I walked down the hall, peering into rooms. Hospital staff eyed me. Intensive Care Units were not welcoming to visitors. I passed a waiting room and heard my mother call my name.
We met in a hug at the door. She pulled back, touching my cheek, her face pale with worry. “Clure is in with him. He’s allowed one visitor at a time.”
Behind her, Gillen stood watching a nurse lean over my father, who sat in a chair. Blood drained through a tube in his arm to a bag next to the chair. I hurried to his side. “Da, what’s wrong?” I asked.
He gazed at the blood flowing out his arm, wiggling his fingers. “It’s a blood donation. Nothing to worry about.”
My mother came up behind me and slipped her arm around my waist. “Callin lost a lot of blood.”
I unrolled my sleeve. “Hook me up. I’m the same type, too.”
Gillen glanced at my father, then away. “Callin was fighting when he was injured. His blood is saturated with essence. It’s not a normal transfusion. We need a close essence match, too.”
I frowned. “Then all the more reason I should do it. Sibling essence factors are more similar than a parent’s.”
“In this case, Thomas is a better match,” said Gillen.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
My father flexed his fingers. “Connor, let’s get through this crisis without argument. If Gillen says I am a better match, then let’s defer to his judgment.”
I frowned, confused. “You were a field agent, Da. You know this stuff. We stockpiled our own blood, and Callin was my backup.”
“Did you ever need his blood?” Gillen asked.
In my career, I had had two serious injuries that required emergency surgery, one of them serious enough to use the blood on hand. “No. We had enough of my own.”
My mother twined her arm in mine. “Connor, sweetheart, you’re upsetting me. Let Gillen do his job.”
I pulled away from her. “What? No! He isn’t making sense. I don’t understand why I’m not a better match.”
“The dark mass….” Gillen said.
I cut him off. “In three years, Gillen, you haven’t said a word about the dark mass affecting my blood.”
Angry light glinted in Gillen’s eye. I was pushing his patience, but I didn’t care. “Look, Grey. I will do what I think is best for my own damned patients. Is that clear?”
“No, I want….” I said.
“Connor,” my father said, low and sharp. It was that tone, that particular parental tone, that reminded me that I was once ten years old and my father knew how to stop me dead in my tracks with the mere mention of my name. I didn’t shudder, but the memory of shuddering crossed my mind. I composed myself. “Da….” I said.