"Let me help you," said Shay. "At a glance, only three of those kids have Down's, though I'm betting you think they all do. Two of them have a different genetic physical retardation. Their ages range over fifteen years. One of the two with thick sideburns is actually female. Now, before I knock you over the head, what the hell do you think you're implying about Corky?"
I'll give this to Shay. I had a foot and half in height and more than fifty pounds in weight on him, and the kid still had the balls to threaten me physically. It didn't mean I was amused. "Look, Shay, the only thing keeping you out of jail at this point is the fact that I haven't put in a call to Murdock, so knock off the attitude. Now, tell me about the pentagrams." He crossed his arms again and threw himself back against the bench.
He looked at me suspiciously. "Corky's pentagrams? They're for meditation." He considered for a moment and nodded. "I added them one at a time. The first one was about a month ago." A chalky pallor swept over his face. "Oh my God, Connor! It's not what you think."
"What do I think?"
"Corky wouldn't hurt anyone. I just showed him how to calm himself when he was upset. I don't have any fey ability — I couldn't even get aromatherapy to work on Robin. Corky doesn't even go out at night! He's afraid of the dark!"
"You might have activated something, Shay. Cross-species children have all kinds of mutations. You might not have been calming him."
Shay's hands flew to his mouth as tears sprang to his eyes. "No. It can't be. Tell me Robin isn't dead because of me!"
I couldn't help myself. I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder to reassure him. "I'm not going to lie to you, Shay. I don't know."
"What's the matter, Shay-shay?" Corky said, popping up in front of us. His face looked stricken.
Shay brushed the tears off his own face. "It's nothing, Corky. Something got in my eyes."
The big man grabbed his hand. "Let's go to the Castle. That will make your eyes better."
Shay forced himself to smile. "Thursday. We'll go then. Okay, Cork?"
Corky pouted. "Okay."
He let Corky pull him off the bench, and as Corky led him away, Shay looked back at me, hurt and confusion flickering in his eyes. Back on Ninth Street, I slipped into a cab and asked the driver to take me to Avalon Memorial. Fresh cash in my pocket tended to make me lazy. I had to see Gillen Yor. If anyone knew the effects a mixed essence had on spells, he would. I had to agree with Shay, though. Something as simple as meditation could not possibly go that haywire.
I stared unseeingly out me window. If he hadn't already, I'm sure Murdock's brother Bar would tell him I was at the Institute. He was going to want to know why. With another link to Shay, Murdock would lock him up in a second. He would have every reason to do it. I would have in his shoes.
Shay's continuing involvement had to be more than coincidence. He'd attempted things he did not have the ability to perform. Given his blackouts, he might not even have known what the hell he was doing. I had to wonder if the whole mess was a result of an accident on his part, an accident he didn't even know he had caused. But I couldn't find any convincing evidence. The sad little room he shared with Robin held no trace of powers being worked. As Shay admitted, even the pathetic parlor tricks he had tried with wards were useless.
I felt a light touch on my forehead, like someone had placed a cool fingertip just above the bridge of my nose. If anyone had been there to see, they would not have noticed any reaction on my part, so subtle was the sensation. I was about to receive a sending, a true sending that no glow bee could hope to imitate. From experience, only one person contacted me so gently. As the cab made its way over the Broadway Bridge, Briallen's voice filled my head with sound.
I need to see you immediately.
I waited to see if there was more, but the cool feeling slipped away. Sendings were wonderfully convenient and precise, but they worked best if kept simple. I tapped on the scarred plastic partition and changed my destination. As I got out on Louisburg Square, I tipped the driver generously to make up for the loss of the longer fare to Avalon Memorial. I didn't knock. The house felt empty. I paused by the newel post at the foot of the stairs, my skin alive with tension. Just as I set foot on the first step, I heard Briallen call from the back of the house.
With a sigh of relief, I relaxed and made my way through the kitchen to the back door. Briallen sat on the edge of her fountain, wearing a black swaddle of fabric that was too shapeless to call a dress. The fountain's spray was off, giving the backyard an uncommon stillness. Briallen lifted her head and smiled when she saw me, reaching out a beckoning hand.
"That was fast," she said.
"I was halfway here."
I took her hand and sat next to her. She looked much better than the last time I saw her. Placing her hands on my head, she looked directly into my face. I felt the usual pressure. As she released me, her brow creased for just a moment, and she touched me once more briefly.
"What is it?"
She shook her head. "I thought I sensed something, but it's gone now. The darkness felt, I don't know, smoother."
"I did the sun invocation with Joe yesterday. It made the headache go away for a while."
"Yes, he told me."
I raised an eyebrow. "And what else did he tell you?"
"That you're investigating blood rituals and won't listen to reason."
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. "I didn't come here for a lecture."
"You're not getting one."
"Oh. Good. Then maybe you can help me. What do you know about The Brown Book of Cenchos?"
She wrinkled her nose. "Not that old thing."
"Why would macDuin be interested in it?"
"I don't know. Why do people collect clown figurines?"
"Briallen, I'm serious."
She shrugged. "Connor, it's apocryphal. It makes no sense. There are spells in it that claim to do things they would never do."
"Like maybe something that looks like a meditation ritual can actually send someone on a murderous rampage?"
"Well… not that clear-cut. It's more like explaining gravity by denying its existence."
I thought about it. "I don't get it."
She nodded. "Exactly."
"Okay, let me take it from a different angle. How could a simple meditation ritual have the opposite effect?"
"I don't know. Maybe you need to see something." She twisted slightly on the edge of the fountain and waved her hand gently above the water as though she were caressing it.
"Briallen, scrying splits my head open."
"Yes, yes, I know. I'll take care of it."
She held her other hand up toward me and began to chant. My body shields activated, not from an instinctual response to danger but merely from her command. I shivered. No one had ever done that to me before. With an ache of remembrance, I felt my fragmentary shields pulse with life again as their edges flowed out to meet each other. Seamlessly, they joined over the entire surface of my body as they once had, an invisible layer of armor to defend against unwarranted intrusions. It caused me no pain since it was not of my doing. Except for the small part of my own essence in the fragments, the protections were all of Briallen's power.
All the while, Briallen continued setting up the scry. Even when you were fey and could do things humans couldn't, watching Briallen work was both awe-inspiring and humbling. She needed no accoutrements, only the raw power of her concentration and her knowledge of invocations. Even as she worked my shields, her hand smoothed the water of the fountain to an unnatural stillness. Once I was fully warded, the cadence of her chant shifted into an older Gaelic, its rough sounds oddly soothing from her lips.
She spread both hands over the water. The surface reflected the dull haze of the sky. The image shimmered jarringly as though someone had tapped the edge of the fountain. A curling wisp of gray smoke rippled on the edge, eating at the reflection of the sky until the entire visual surface pulsed with shadows of mists just beneath the still water's surface. With hands spread wide, Briallen did not move at all, her taut form leaning forward. Her eyes shone whitely as she increased the urgency of the chant. Something seemed to roll sensuously beneath the surface, pale green, men silver and white.