"Look, Connor," Murdock said, "don't go taking all this personally. To be in the game, you have to play the game. We did good work. We just didn't know we weren't supposed to this time."
"That's a load of bull coming from you."
He gave me a lopsided smile. "It's all part of the game. We're still playing it. The rules have just been changed. Now we have to figure out why."
I let myself out of the car. "I'm still going upstairs to wallow." He shook his head at me and put the car in gear. "I'm getting some sleep."
I watched the car disappear around the corner. Murdock didn't fool me. He was angrier than he was letting on. I recognized the signs: the nonchalance about losing the case, the rationalizations of you-win-some-you-lose-some. I pitied the next person to get in his face. All that pent-up frustration letting loose is not a pretty sight. He was lucky he had a badge, or he'd've been up on assault charges long ago.
As I turned the key in the outside lock, I froze. The ogham glyph on the flyer in Murdock's car wasn't familiar because I'd seen a band advertisement. It was familiar because it had been staring me right in the face the last two days, gouged into the paint on my building's door. I touched the scratch, hoping for an echo of essence. I recognized the vague residue of some of my neighbors, but nothing distinctly around the glyph. It had been too long.
I let myself in, took me steps two at a time, and was running a CD-ROM dictionary before I'd even sat down. Nothing came up, so I tried a couple of online resources with no results either. I knew it wasn't a word, but just needed to confirm it. I had an ogham font for word processing, so I made a copy for the miscellaneous file and a note to show it to Murdock. It had to mean something. And who had left it was an interesting question.
A loud pounding on the door came from the living room. Out of paranoid habit, I checked through the peephole, but no one was visible. The pounding came again, startling me back. I frowned when I realized the sound was emanating from near the floor. I opened the door. Stinkwort stood in the hall, a smug look on his face.
"You put dents in the door!" I said, as he strutted in.
"You're never satisfied." He sighed and flitted up to the kitchen counter. He opened a cabinet, rummaged around, and came out with a box of raisins. I dropped into the armchair. "Have you come to cheer me up?"
He made himself comfortable on the edge of the counter and started eating a raisin almost as big as his head. "Why do you need cheering up?"
"Weren't you listening last night? They took someone into custody."
Stinkwort paused in midbite. "I'm lost. Why is that a bad thing?"
"Because they've got the wrong guy."
He plunged into another raisin. "Are you sure?"
"He's human, for one thing."
Stinkwort dropped the raisin. "What! Who in their right mind thinks a human could take down three Dananns?"
"Lorcan macDuin."
Stinkwort laughed. "Now you're blowin' my wings."
I shook my head. "He brought the guy in. Says he caught him in the act."
Stinkwort shrugged. "Let them take it, Connor. You're always saying they don't do enough."
"But I'm not sure they're doing the right thing this time either. How are your contacts there?"
He laughed and flitted into the living room. "None at all. Flits take care of their own. Let's go drinking. We haven't been on a tear together in a long time."
I watched him hover around the window a few moments. There are worse things to do in a bad mood than drink with a friend who's mostly pink to begin with. I could tell Stinkwort was in too good a mood to let me spoil it. I became aware that he was humming to himself.
"You slept with someone!" I said.
He laughed and did a midair somersault. "I told you I would."
"Tansy?"
He spiraled down behind the couch, laughing all the way, and reappeared from underneath with a huge grin on his face. "It's amazing how impressed these rustic types can be when you show them your sword."
"I've seen your sword. It's not that impressive," I said.
He tapped a finger on his chin. "Hmmm, let me see. When was the last time anyone wanted to see yours?"
"All right, all right, if I go out for drinks, can we drop the bad double entendres?"
"Do I get to tell you all the salacious details?" he asked, racing for the door.
"Only after we're drunk." Which I had already decided meant yes. There was no stopping Stinkwort when he was boasting anyway. If the truth be known, he did get to tell more stories than I did, even if you counted my early twenties. Flits are nonchalant about sex, from the doing to the telling. It wouldn't surprise me if Tansy were somewhere oh-ing and ah-ing with a bunch of her friends.
We trailed into one crowded bar after another. News of the capture had spread. More than a few fairies who had kept a low profile were out and about celebrating their return to walking the streets. The unofficial weeklong party for Midsummer had begun a day early. Stinkwort was in high spirits, and his mood began to rub off on me.
We stumbled out of a nameless bar onto Stillings Street. Stinkwort flew ahead of me in a not particularly straight line. "Wait a minute, Joe, what if Lorcan's involved?" I said in a moment of alcoholic inspiration.
"You're drunk. Lorcan's too much of a coward." He pinged against the edge of a stop sign and almost hit the pavement before recovering his balance.
"I don't know… I've heard some stuff about his time during the War. He sided with the elves. He can't be too happy about the Fey Summit."
"All those stories are about who he knew. There's no blood under his nails."
"Yeah, but first he's not interested in the case. Now he is and obviously wants to bury it. He's only gotten on the good side of the Guild in the last couple of decades. Maybe he's still a bad guy."
"And maybe he's just a jerk. You told me once he liked to screw up your cases."
"Gimme a sec." I faced a warehouse wall and relieved myself in violation of city ordinance and my usual modesty.
Stinkwort waited a few yards off as I finished my business. I paused as I approached him. He hovered about ten feet in the air, the edges of his wings vibrating so fast they hummed. Cocking his head to the left and right, he had a tight, strained look on his face as though he were trying hard to hear something.
"Joe?"
His breath came in short gasps as he revolved slowly in the air intently scanning the street. He went very pale, and his eyes began to bulge.
I had never seen him like this before. "Stinkwort, talk to me!"
He gave me a wild look as a nimbus of ghostly light surrounded him. His hair unfurled in a static halo. Opening his mouth impossibly wide, he screamed, an earsplitting thunderous wail. I clamped my hands over my ears to block the sound as a spasm of grief overwhelmed me. The sound welled up higher in different pitches, and I realized that other flits nearby were screaming.
As the guttural cry ended, Stinkwort's sword materialized in his hand as he withdrew it from its glamoured scabbard. It glowed like a sliver of white fire encased in icy blue flame. He pointed it up the street, flew forward a few feet, and vanished. Instant silence surrounded me as I staggered against the wall. All around me, people wandered into the street, muttering in confusion.
Taking a deep breath to recover myself, I began to run in the direction he had pointed. Adrenaline began to eat up the alcohol in my system as I ran. I just kept going, not knowing what to do, just wanting to move. Cars streamed down the street past me, their horns blowing as people scrambled out of the way. The Avenue was a block and a half away, jammed with people running in every direction and forcing traffic to a standstill.
Stinkwort reappeared right in front of me. He still held the sword, and I could see dark smudges on it. "The alley!" he yelled, and vanished again.