“Not really. But I’d still like to talk to Crystal.”

“Oh, you’d ‘like to talk to Crystal,’” she mimicked. “Get in line, buddy. I haven’t seen her in three days. When I heard about Denny, I thought I might get her here.”

I glanced up at the house. Murdock had made his way onto the steps and was talking to the last couple of kids remaining. “You don’t seem very upset.”

She shrugged. “Not my kid. Shit happens.”

“What can you tell me about Crystal?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Crystal? How about she’s an ungrateful little bitch who owes me seventy-five bucks, and if she don’t turn up real soon, she can just stay wherever she’s landed. How’s that?”

“Very maternal,” I said.

She curled her upper lip. “Go to hell, Mr. Not-really-a-cop. You see Crystal, you tell her I want my cash.” She walked away, her high heels boring holes into the sidewalk. I watched her go and thought you don’t have to be fey to land on the wrong side of the street around here.

I went back to Murdock’s car to wait for him. Night descended on the city, a darker night than usual. Death may be the great equalizer, but the Weird is a close second. That two people died there, one so prominent, the other so not, demonstrates it. The fact that they had a connection to each other shows how the high and low can both find the same knock on the door.

Chapter 5

A high-pitched ringing jolted me out of sleep. I knew that sound and dreaded it every time I heard it. One of my protection wards had gone off. I slid out of bed into my jeans in one smooth motion. In less than two seconds, I was across the room and standing to the side of the door with a classic Louisville slugger in my hand. The bat had two functions: it was charged with a deflector spell that would activate if someone threw essence at me, and it hurt like hell if I whomped someone with it. In either case, the idea was to give me some breathing space to call for help if I needed it.

Several wards protect my apartment. Some of them are passive—they act like barriers against charged essence. Some are reactive—like those that test for an individual’s essence to determine whether that person is someone I trust. That’s how people like Murdock and Joe can come and go without freaking out the wards. And some are active, doing a regular scan for any unusual activity. None of them will completely protect me. That’s where the signal wards come in. They’re scattered around the building and keyed to my essence. I touch one, and an emergency signal shoots to the Guild. Only I know where they all are. They are my fail-safe, presuming I live long enough for help to arrive.

My apartment is on a dead-end hallway, so anyone making the turn at the top of the stairs has only my place to go to. The alarm that had gone off was a simple proximity alert at the end of the outside hall. It’s a silent alarm—only I can hear it in my head. I felt another alarm go off, the one within five feet of the door, followed immediately by a banging.

“UBS,” a voice called out.

I relaxed, but only a little. It wouldn’t be the first time someone pretended to be a delivery service before they turned all assassin on you.

“Got any ID?” I called back. I did not move to look through the peephole. That would be expected. Whoever was on the other side of the door would know where I was standing at that moment and could take it as an opportunity to, oh, blow a hole in my head.

“Hello?” the voice said with an edge of annoyance.

I gave a quick look through the peep. He looked like a brownie—tawny skin, curly hair, button nose. The essence trickling through the door verified it as well. And he had the standard brown UBS uniform with the yellow shield sewn into the pocket, though that could have been filched.

Brownies aren’t the most powerful of the fairies. They didn’t have enough essence to make much of a living charging wards or serving as useful bodyguards. They are good at helping with simple tasks that people hate doing, like house-cleaning. A lot of brownies actually did market themselves as housekeepers. The one drawback is their tendency to take insult over the slightest matters. At which point, they mutate into boggarts and become obsessed with vindication. Where they could be quite shy and pleasant as brownies, their boggart aspect is relentlessly annoying. Some bright guy turned that into an advantage by starting the United Brownie Service, one of the most reliable delivery services in the world. When UBS comes calling, you either answer or risk being stalked by an angry boggart.

“How’d you get in the building?” I asked.

“The door was open. Look, I’m double-parked. I’ve got a letter for Connor Grey. Are you him?”

“Just leave it,” I said.

“I need a signature.” Definitely annoyed now. I gave another look-see. His eyes were bulging a little. If I teased him out a bit more, he’d go boggie. I once knew a guy in a divorce case who lived on the run for three months with a screaming, maniacal boggart chasing him down with a subpoena. Not pretty.

I decided to risk it and open the door. You can’t live your life assuming every nutty fairy at your door wants to kill you. The brownie gave me a grudging, almost relieved, smile. I doubt they like going boggart any more than someone likes being on the receiving end of it. Going boggie is a mania and has got to be exhausting.

“Are you Connor Grey?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I need to see your ID.” I didn’t argue. It would just make him upset, so I pulled out my wallet.

He nodded and made a notation on his clipboard. “An emergency meeting of the Guild board of directors has been called for tomorrow.”

I leaned against the doorjamb. “And that concerns me because…?”

He looked down at his clipboard. “You are the druid Connor Grey, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

“So I have you listed as Lady Briallen ab Gwyll’s alternate. She’s out of town.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”

He gave me an annoyed look and held his clipboard up. There it was, an official notice from Guildmaster Manus ap Eagan for a board of directors’ meeting tomorrow. Sure enough, there I was, listed as Briallen’s alternate.

“Sign here,” the brownie said, pointing. I chuckled and signed. The brownie handed me an envelope and snatched the clipboard back. “Thanks.”

“Please shut the front door for me.”

“Sure!” He gave me a ridiculous smile. I could not fathom being that happy doing errands. They prefer their brownie aspect over the boggart. By their very nature, they can swing between the two in moments, so having the opportunity to be helpful to me probably took the edge off his initial annoyance with me.

Briallen was an old friend and mentor. She had been on the Boston Guildhouse board of directors since its founding. I knew she was traveling in the Far East over the summer on some obscure educational junket that I could never quite clarify no matter how often I asked. I remember a discussion with her years ago about listing me as a temporary alternate director. I couldn’t believe she had never changed it, especially after the events of the last two years. It wasn’t like her to overlook something like that. On the other hand, what would be like her, though, is to remember exactly that and purposely not change it. For all her professions of being a scholar, which she is, she’s not above a little politicking here and there.

Since the accident that left me ability-impaired, I had effectively been banned from the Guildhouse. The envelope contained a copy of the meeting notice and a Guildhouse building pass. Normally, I couldn’t get in the front door of the Guildhouse without an escort, and here I was being invited to a governing board meeting. I couldn’t wait to see the look on Keeva’s face.

I could guess what the meeting was about. Alvud Kruge had been a board member. While the Guildhouse board had become more and more ineffectual over the years, fractured as it was by partisanship, with any luck it should be able to muster a coherent statement of condolences.