As my footsteps crackled against the dirty floor, Murdock’s half-shadowed face turned in my direction. He gave me a faint smile, the one he reserves for those moments when my dignity has taken a hit. “Nice to see you.”
I twisted my mouth into a smile. “You could have left bread crumbs for me to follow.”
“Hey, I sent help. It’s not like I just left you lying on a tomb somewhere.”
Murdock and I have had a little disagreement as to the appropriate course of action I had taken on our last big case. “I told you, Murdock, the paramedics were there. I checked your essence before I left. You were fine.”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded toward the center of attention. I joined the group to check out my latest potential paycheck. When I lost my abilities and the Guild kicked me out, I picked up consulting gigs with the Boston P.D. They’re not always equipped to handle cases involving elves or fairies, or most other kinds of fey from Faerie. I know a lot, so they call. At least Murdock does. Hence, paycheck.
While Murdock and the officers held their lights on the body, I crouched for a closer look. An emaciated man lay sprawled on his back, his head smooth of hair. Not shaved. You can tell a naturally bald man. Someone who shaves his head gets a five-o’clock shadow. I’d seen it on myself recently. A few weeks earlier, I had lost all my hair in the backlash of a major spell. It started growing back immediately, but I wore a black knit cap against the late October chill. The dead guy didn’t look like he was into a daily hygiene routine that included shaving.
Carved across his forehead was the reason Murdock called. Someone had used a sharp object, a knife being most likely, to make a horizontal gash from temple to temple. Across the sharp line of the gash, several hash marks had been made. Ogham runes, six of them, the old alphabet of the Celts. Deep red marks split the skin with little blood, which meant they were probably made postmortem. The victim’s lingering body essence tickled at my senses, and I pulled back in surprise.
Murdock caught my movement. “What’s wrong?”
I frowned. “I just saw this guy downstairs.”
Murdock shook his head. “Not possible. I’ve been here at least an hour. He’s been here longer.”
I pursed my lips. “Have they found anyone downstairs?”
Murdock jutted his chin at one of the officers, who muttered into his radio. A static of muddled words came back, and he shook his head.
Interesting. A puzzle piece for the investigation. Turning my attention back to the body, I sensed that the guy was a human normal. Nothing about him registered as fey. If he were someone from Faerie, his essence would have resonated differently. By the look of his soiled and rumpled pants and thin jacket, I’d guess he had been homeless. He could have been anywhere from late thirties to early fifties. It’s hard to tell with guys like him, who’ve had years of living on the street to ravage their features.
The runes on his forehead gave a faint indication of essence. Someone used a spell as they carved them. With yet another jolt of surprise, I realized it had been done by a druid. Essence in and of itself has vague differences based on its source. It’s why certain fey were better at manipulating certain essences than others. Druids were attuned to organics, fairies to ambient air, and so on. Sensing who or what species actually used a particular essence was a separate ability, one I didn’t normally have. A few species, like trolls, could do it — and I had had recent close contact with a troll. I had thought the residual impact of that encounter had dissipated finally, and made a mental note to have myself checked out.
I stood. “It’s a safe bet you’re looking for a druid.”
Murdock directed his flashlight toward the guy’s head. “We’re not seeing any obvious trauma. Could those marks have killed him?”
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure they were done after he was dead.”
“What do they mean?”
I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. Easy translation is ‘The way denied.’ It’s got a spell wrapped in it, too, so that could change the meaning. I’ll have to research it. How long has he been here?”
Murdock inspected the rest of the room with his flashlight. “Probably a few hours. Medical examiner should be here soon. We need a generator, too.”
The body had fallen with his right arm beneath him. As I walked around the other side, I noted the fingernails on his left hand were blackened. “Can someone shine a light on his shoes?”
Several someones did. Sure enough, the cheap leather had burnt toes. I lifted one of the victim’s eyelids. My stomach did a little flip at the sight of his destroyed eyes. I backed away, wiping my hand on my pants. “He was killed by essence shock. Someone hit him with a major charge and short-circuited his system. He probably died of a heart attack or organ damage.”
Murdock directed his flashlight toward the back of the floor. “Looks like his crib’s back there.”
We walked from the body, the essences of the officers fading away from my senses. The residual essences of the dead man and his druid assailant trailed all the way back to the corner of the room. An old mattress was on the floor under a workbench. Murdock’s flashlight revealed the basics of a squat, a meager collection of personal-care products, several books, candles, a few canned goods. Nothing that would be terribly missed if he were robbed while out on the street. It didn’t look disturbed.
Another stairwell opened at the rear of the room. We stepped on the landing, Murdock shining the beam down the stairs. Nothing to be seen but years’ accumulation of crumbled debris. The druid essence was more distinct. The killer had lingered here, long enough to leave some residual body essence for me to register her gender. Something about it tugged at my awareness, like searching for a word I knew but couldn’t place.
I looked back to the body. “The killer was a druidess. She waited here for a while. She either hit him with essence from here when he was coming in the other way, or she spooked him out of his sleep and hit him as he ran off. Who called it in?”
Even in the half-lit dark, the sour twist to Murdock’s mouth was evident. “Nine one one. Anonymous.”
Anonymous, the most common surname in the Weird. It’s the Boston neighborhood where the fey go when they’re down-and-out. No one ever saw anything or heard anything in the Weird. I can’t blame folks down here, though. When you had no place else to go and ended up in the Weird, you didn’t want someone more powerful than you breathing down your neck. You had no place else to run except the grave, and most people avoided that. After I lost everything in my life, I moved into the Weird. The implication that I have nowhere else bothers me sometimes.
Something crunched underfoot. The glow of Murdock’s flashlight reflected off a small and shiny object. I picked up a piece of gold worked in a spiral. Sparkles of essence flickered and died on it, leaving me the same vague sense of someone familiar.
Murdock tilted his flashlight toward me. “Find something?”
I rubbed the piece between my thumb and index finger. “Piece of jewelry, I think. I’ll play with it and see if it’s from our druidess.”
Back by the body, a gleam of essence caught my eye. I inhaled sharply. “What the hell?”
“What?” Murdock swung his light as I strode back to the crime scene. A strange flicker of essence neared the body.
“I think he’s still alive, Murdock.” As I approached, the essence vanished.
I stopped short. Murdock came up beside me. “He’s dead, Connor. I don’t need your sensing ability to know that.”
“I saw something.”