I closed the door and went in to my computer. Opening the database, I quickly scrolled through the victim profiles. The dead faces of Pach, Ragnell, and Gamelyn stared out at me. I wondered what about them could have possibly interested the Guild in general and Keeva in particular. Their appeal to the killer fell into neat categories of appearance, profession, gender, and race. I glanced through their bios, but the information was slight. Pach and Ragnell had been in town long enough to get arrested, but not Gamelyn. I realized that two pieces of information about all of them were missing: where exactly they were from in Ireland and who were their next of kin.

The odds of all three victims having a high profile connection seemed slim, and someone knowing that even more so. I leaned back in the chair. If all the victims were royalty, the Guild would have stepped in long ago if only to protect the family's privacy. On the other hand, the Guild taking an interest in prostitutes would draw attention immediately. I chuckled to myself. What a lovely irony if the Guild were trapped between its own arrogance and indifference. And after all my snide remarks about the Guild not wanting to get involved in the case, the irony of my suspicions about their interest was not lost on me.

Fairies fallen on hard times tended not to broadcast their family names. Blood honor and all that. If a royal link hadn't turned up in the previous arrest records, it probably wasn't going to. Except for Gamelyn. He hadn't been arrested. And Keeva didn't decide to show up until after he died. Maybe he was a one-shot, another high roller slumming at the wrong time and place. I'd have to get Murdock to look into it.

While I waited for fresh coffee to brew, I munched on the one cookie Joe had been nice enough to leave. The revulsion on Tansy's face at the sight of the artist's sketch popped into my mind. Even the lowliest flit liked a little adventure, but she had gotten more than she bargained for. I could still smell the odor of burnt paper. As I poured my coffee, I wondered why Tansy kept calling the killer "ska". My Cornish was sketchy at best, but I had to have at least as good a vocabulary as a peasant flit. I knew the general word for bad was "dmg." I didn't know ska at all and hadn't thought to ask Joe before he left.

As I mentally arranged the rest of my day, I decided it was time to check in with Briallen and see if she could fit some of these pieces together. I could take the opportunity to ask her about fey essence in ritual, too. That thought drove me back into the study for more reading. If I was going to ask her for training help, the last thing I wanted was for her to catch me not knowing enough.

CHAPTER 5

Sunday mornings are for coffee, the newspaper, and, apparently, waiting on the corner of Newbury and Dartmouth for half-a-damned-hour because Murdock was late. Some people know who's calling when their phone rings at midnight. I know it's Murdock when my phone rings at seven o'clock on Sunday morning. He knows he's the only person I won't kill for doing it because I'd have his father and brothers after me, not to mention the entire Boston P.D.

Even on a warm morning, Newbury Street was quiet.

The exclusive boutiques didn't open until ten o'clock or so. The couture fashion parade would start around noon, the cool and the neo-hip strutting their disposable-income purchases while jabbering into the latest in cell phone technology. Most of the people walking about were Back Bay residents retrieving their Boston Sunday Globes and cups of ready-made coffee. They wouldn't be caught dead here in their designer sweat suits in a few hours.

Across the way from me stood the old Prince School. It had gone derelict when me area population started focusing more on having BMWs than having kids and had been a favorite haunt for squatters until a developer decided to turn it into condominiums. Before the owners understood with whom they were dealing, the entire basement had been leased by fey folk, who dubbed it The Artifactory. It's said that the vendors inside provide almost everything fey legally available and, if you had the right connections, a few things that weren't. Human kids liked to hang out watching all manner of folk enter and leave, but they rarely bothered anyone. You only need an itching rash once to convince you staring is rude.

Murdock appeared from around the corner, strolling nonchalantly like he was on time. He gave me a pleasant smile. "Sorry I'm late. Mass went long."

Murdock at Catholic mass, the earliest one on Sunday. Not something I could easily visualize, but also not something he gave me reason to criticize. The Roman Catholic Church had remained in turmoil ever since its encyclical on the fey. The Pope found nothing inherently wrong with being fey, just as long as they didn't act fey. Oh, and became Catholic. Other than that, he had no problem. I figured as long as Murdock didn't act Catholic around me, I had no problem with him either. He obliged me most of the time.

The thing I liked about Murdock's interest in the fey was that he sincerely wanted to understand. He wasn't content just to be handed answers to questions on specific cases. He wanted to accumulate enough knowledge to bring his own thoughts to bear on a given situation. So, every Sunday morning unless one or both of us had a hangover, we would get together for a little tutorial. The Artifactory was one of our usual classrooms.

We crossed the street and entered the grand side door of the building. As we descended into the basement, the intense odor of smoldering lavender slammed into our noses. The staircase bottomed at one end of the building, which stretched out before us for what seemed an entire city block. People milled about the brightly lit main aisle, wandering in and out of the stalls that lined the way. To either side were two secondary aisles, not as well lit, where much of the hard-core business tended to take place away from prying eyes. An herbalist's booth sat right near the entrance, hence the smell.

We slowly made our way among the booths, browsing casually. The vendors along the main aisle tended to have a mix of quality and kitsch. It seemed that for every apothecary, there were two T-shirt hawkers for the occasional tourist that wandered in. Potions had been experiencing renewed interest, and a number of people were offering ways to attract a lover or repel an unwanted suitor. My favorite find was an elixir marketed as a way to cause your boss to forget why he had come into your office. Cloak-makers busied themselves with last-minute orders for the Midsummer festival events. Costumes for the upcoming parade hung from the rafters. Rank upon rank of gem and stone dealers competed loudly with each other to sell the same merchandise.

"So how'd the date go?" I asked.

Murdock shrugged. "It was drinks."

"And?"

He smirked. "And that's it. Maybe it'll go somewhere, maybe it won't."

And that was that. Murdock is, as the old phrase goes, a ladies' man. As in plural. He's got a look that most women find attractive, and he definitely uses it. He doesn't talk much about that aspect of his social life, but I know enough that most of his dates are barely that, and it suits him fine.

Near the center of the room, we found a wand dealer. I picked up a wand of milled pine from a box of several dozen duplicates. It was about a foot and half long, tapering from about a quarter-inch in diameter to a blunt end. Under the watchful eye of the vendor, I leaned over and withdrew another shorter wand from a tangled bundle at the next seller's table, an old piece of warped yew worn smooth along one end, small knots making irregular bumps along its length. I handed them both to Murdock.