Meryl knelt beside us and placed glowing hands on him. Her face dropped. “We don’t have time, Grey. He’s dying. We need to get him warm now.” She pulled off her cloak and wrapped it around us. “We need blankets or coats. Anything. Zev, we need a warm bath.”
A callie leaned her aged face down. “The ice was in his heart.”
I searched her cragged features. “Can you take the ice out?”
She shook her head. “I withdrew the cold, but I cannae warm it.”
A ripple went through the crowd, and a large wash of essence came toward us. Out of the darkness walked a jotunn—a ten-foot-tall giant of a man. Without asking, he knelt and pulled Murdock from me. Cradling him in his arms like a child, he placed a wide hand on Murdock’s chest. He rocked and hummed. A pool of warm, orange essence welled out of his hand. Joe fluttered down next to them, his pink essence mingling with the giant’s and seeping into Murdock’s chest.
Murdock convulsed. The jotunn held him closer and increased the cadence of his hum. The convulsions settled to a shiver. Murdock opened his mouth, heaving forward with a racking cough that scattered Joe into the air. The jotunn eased him to the floor.
Murdock looked around in a daze. “Is this hell?”
Joe swooped down and laughed. “Nah. That’s two blocks up on the left. Don’t order the chili.”
I squeezed Murdock’s shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
He frowned, pulling Meryl’s cloak around him. “Where are my shoes?”
“You lost them somewhere,” I said.
He struggled to his feet. Meryl grabbed his arm. “Take it easy. Let your body warm up.”
“I want my shoes,” he said.
“We’ll find some, Leo. We have to get you to a hospital,” I said.
“Take me home.”
“Murdock, you need to see a doctor.”
“I said take me home,” he snapped.
I looked at Meryl. “What do you think?”
She stared at him. “He’s okay. Let’s take him home. We can talk about the hospital in the morning.”
I held my hand out to the jotunn. “Thank you.”
He touched his massive palm against mine and wandered into the darkness.
Zev stood alone near the bloodied, dangling chains. “Thank you, too, Zev.”
He nodded. “Remember this, Grey. I helped you and the police. The solitaries are not the enemy.”
“I never thought they were,” I said. Someone found something for Murdock to wear on his feet, and we went back into the storm. The callies followed, shifting and swaying around us through the snow. Essence ringed us, a pale blue light that pressed the wind back. I don’t know why the callies did it for us, but it made walking easier. Murdock tried to shake me off as I supported him, but a few steps later, he leaned on me without argument.
The snowplow sat where we had left it, the protection spell that Meryl had cast almost gone. We bundled inside, with Murdock in the middle. He wouldn’t speak, just stared into the night sky. Meryl wheeled the truck around and drove toward South Boston.
“Take a left,” Murdock said when we reached Broadway.
“Murdock, you live the other way,” I said.
“Just take a left. Please,” he said. I looked over his head at Meryl and nodded. She turned left. “Stop here,” Murdock said after a few blocks. He gestured at me. “I need to get out.”
“Murdock, you had hypothermia. I’m not letting you wander around in the storm.”
Meryl peered out her window. “No, it’s okay, Grey. Let him out.”
I threw her a look like she was crazy. She pointed. In the blur of snow and wind, a brick building stood. I opened my door and helped Murdock out. As we walked around the truck, Meryl remained inside.
“Are you coming?” I called out.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I’ll wait here, she sent.
I put my arm around Murdock’s shoulders and ushered him across the street. We walked into the hushed, silent warmth of St. Brigid’s Church.
22
First thing in the morning, I called to check on Shay. The cops had let him go when Keeva showed up and confirmed he was human. He was more annoyed that a paramedic played cute with him but didn’t follow through with a phone number. The kid killed me. With all the stuff he gets into, he still manages to roll with it.
Murdock didn’t return my phone calls. I didn’t like that, but I had probably been too insistent about taking him to Avalon Memorial. He hated doctors in general, and if he felt fine, he wanted no part of a hospital. That was his choice, and I had to let it go. That didn’t mean I wasn’t worried about him. Whether he liked it or not, I was going to check up on him.
Murdock’s car was right where we’d left it the night before. I dug it out of a snowbank, which was a welcome respite from thinking about anything. Dig the shovel in. Toss the snow. Repeat. Nicely rhythmic and mindless.
Driving wasn’t something I did. Living in cities all my life, there wasn’t much need. Sure, a car was convenient, right up to the point when it was stolen or, worse, needed a parking spot. So, I didn’t drive, and Murdock’s car did nothing to elevate my desire to drive. It was a swamp of trash and papers in contrast to the orderliness of the rest of his life. I guessed he needed somewhere to release his inner slob.
The day after a major snowstorm in Boston was an exercise in dysfunction and denial. Cities, by definition, did not have acres of open space. Thousands of people lived cheek by jowl, sidewalks were narrow strips of concrete with little room for more than three people to walk abreast, and cars weren’t tucked off the streets in driveways or garages. In short, snow had no place to go, shoveled or plowed.
Neighborhoods transformed into mazes, narrow paths along the sidewalks, streets turned into valleys between mountainous ridges, and between the two, snowed-in cars formed a barrier of snow and metal and ice. Snowplows left small hills at intersections to be taken away by front loaders. Shoveling out a parked car was an art in itself, the challenge of finding enough places to throw snow without burying someone else in. The day after a blizzard, the snow walls around a single parking space could rise four feet high.
As dawn broke, people grabbed their shovels, while others pretended the storm didn’t happen and tried to go about their normal routines. The two sets clashed, some idiot tossing snow on some other idiot who could not care less he was in the way. The parking situation devolved into the haves and the have-nots, with the haves leaving their cars until the next warm day freed them or digging them out with great time and effort, while the have-nots either garaged their cars at exorbitant rates or stalked neighborhood side streets for an abandoned shoveled-out space. Which led to a winter peculiarity of Southie: the kitchen chair in the snow.
Finding a parking space took effort. Digging out a car took effort. When someone in Southie snagged a parking space before a storm and dug it out afterward, a certain ownership to the space evolved. A kitchen chair defined that ownership, perching in the vacated space while the temporary owner ran errands or went to work. The kitchen chair sent the message that someone else had put time and effort into clearing the space, not you. The cardinal rule was: You do not mess with someone’s kitchen chair. Violators were subject to snow being shoveled back in, paint scratched, nasty notes, and, for the worst offenders, tires slashed. How long the shoveler maintained ownership was a gray area, but at some point, the kitchen chairs disappeared and the normal parking-space jockeying resumed. The city didn’t approve, but a little anonymous dog feces on a windshield deterred whoever agreed with the municipal authorities.