Meryl nodded. “I heard she wasn’t too happy about it. She’s been desperately trying to impress Manny. It’s driving him crazy.”

“Manny? Since when do you call Manus ap Eagan ‘Manny’?”

“We’re old friends. He wasn’t always Guildmaster, you know.”

That gave me pause. Manus ap Eagan had been Guildmaster almost my entire life. I searched Meryl’s face for some hint of her age, but she looked no older than late twenties, early thirties. I didn’t sense any glamour about her either. It was even possible she was over fifty. Druids and druidesses live extremely long lives, and our physical appearance changes very slowly compared to human normals. I was almost forty years old, but looked and felt like a human normal in my twenties. I could tell she knew what I was thinking by the smirk on her face. Questioning her would be useless.

I smirked. “My, my. Guildmaster Eagan. Nigel Martin. Pretty impressive company you’re keeping these days.”

Her eyes went wide. She leaned forward and grabbed her phone. “Shoot! That reminds me. I was supposed to call Maeve back.”

“What!”

She punched in a phone number. “She called during Buffy. I almost forgot.”

My jaw dropped. “The High Queen of Tara called, and you let the machine pick up because you were watching Buffy?!”

She held her hand over the receiver and pitched her voice low. “It was the ‘Dark Willow’ one. I don’t have it on DVD.”

We stared at each other. The corner of her mouth twitched, then she broke into a grin.

“You’re a jerk,” I said.

She laughed and hung up the phone. “Way too easy, Grey. So tell me about Kruge.”

I filled her in on what I knew, including Dennis Farnsworth. “…and I think this gangbanger might be related,” I finished.

She tilted her head in thought. “I guess it’s possible in a ‘golly gee I hope I can figure out how to get involved with the most important murder case in the world’ kind of way.”

“I can never thank you enough for your support,” I said.

“I think the dwarves are your best bet. They’re very territorial, especially down that end of the Weird.”

“Yeah, I agree. I was wondering if…”

“…I could do you a favor,” she said with an smug, matter-of-fact tone.

I glowered at her. “Yes. Any chance you can score me some gang files?”

She laughed. “I’ll see what I can dig up.”

“So, how long have you known Nigel Martin?” I asked.

She sighed. “I thought you let that go too quickly.”

I threw my hands in the air in feigned innocence. “What? I’m having a casual conversation about a mutual friend.”

She cocked her head again. “There’s really not much to tell. As far as I know, he showed up at the Guildhouse sometime in July—and no, don’t ask me, I am not going to check the ID scanner logs for the precise date. He came to my office one day to ask me about Scandinavian relics. He comes by every couple of weeks to see what I find. We shoot the shit. End of story.”

“What do you talk about?”

“I don’t know. At first it was just business. Lately it’s been music. He has the most archaic taste. I’ve been trying to convince him that the best thing to happen to Faerie music was Convergence.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You were in Faerie?”

She laughed. “Goat’s blood, Grey. I hope this isn’t an example of the investigative skills your reputation claims.”

“Where were you born?” is a game the fey like to play. The fey that came from Faerie were known as the Old Ones: Maeve, the High Queen at Tara; Donor Elfenkonig, the self-styled Elven King; Briallen, though she won’t discuss it; Gillen Yor, High Healer at Avalon Memorial. Certainly, Nigel Martin, but he’d never said anything about it, and no one seems to remember him from there. Lots of others.

Some people believe the Old Ones, the ones directly from Faerie, are more powerful and adept at manipulating essence than their offspring. True or not, most people believe it, so to impress people, more fey than possible claim to have been born in Faerie. While druids and druidesses hold their age extremely well, I doubted Meryl could be that old.

“What kind of relics?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Rune stakes, mostly.”

Rune stakes. Nigel certainly knew enough about Celtic rune stakes. He’d taught me everything I know about them. You get a stick, you scratch some ogham on it, you poke it somewhere. They were like stone wards, only much more precise since you can get pretty detailed with them. Scandinavian rune stakes used old Teutonic runes. So, that meant elf research most likely. Nigel is a political animal as well as a powerful druid. Know your enemy are the watchwords for both.

“Anything interesting?”

She toyed with a strand of her hair. “Sure. Tribal territory markers and a couple of evil eye type of things. I’m definitely going to try one of the evil eye things. I’m infested with Christian missionaries lately.”

“So, let’s go for coffee, and you can tell me all about it.”

She shook her head. “Can’t. I’ve got stuff I have to take care of.”

“Maybe I could come by your place later. You could make dinner. Food’s the fastest way to a man’s heart, you know.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Really? I thought it was the fourth intercostal space between the ribs.”

I shook my head, looking at the ceiling. I pulled myself up out of the chair. “Fine. I’ll just have to catch you when you don’t have ‘stuff.’”

She quirked an eyebrow up. “I’ve got lots of stuff.”

“Okay! Okay! I’m leaving!” I said.

“Give my regards to Manny,” she called as I walked out. I gave her the finger and smiled at the sound of her laugh all the way to the elevator.

The previous spring, I had stopped a madman from destroying reality and gotten my ass kicked. Between the strain of fighting powerful entities and the physical battering I took in the process, I’d almost died again. Meryl had stopped in often at the hospital to see me. Of course, she made a point of reminding me that she had healing abilities and always asked about my health, my treatment, and my essence. When I was discharged and went home, we developed an avid email correspondence. Which led to drinking together. Which led to the occasional lunch or dinner.

I didn’t know what was going on with her. I liked being around her. I liked getting to know her. I liked that she gave me shit at every opportunity. Normally, I don’t start getting those feelings until after I’ve slept with someone and, even then, not usually. This was different. I hadn’t even had a good fevered dream about her, never mind gotten her naked. And it gave me an odd pleasure that if she knew that, she would act all annoyed and dismissive.

I hit the UP button. Due to the odd nature of the Guildhouse, with its towers and arches and spires, the doors opened on the fifteenth or the eighteenth floor, depending on how you counted. In any case, it was the Community Liaison Department, my old haunt where Keeva macNeve now held sway.

Since my accident helped boot me out of the Guild, I had been back only a few times and even then, insultingly, under escort. As I stood in the hall, knowing that Keeva had her job only because I saved her ass on her last major assignment, it finally struck home that I was never going to be back at the Guild as an investigator. The only place to do that was where I was standing, and there was no way in hell I could stomach Keeva as my boss.

The floor was surprisingly quiet. As I looked in at empty office after office, the only person I saw I didn’t know. He didn’t look up as I passed. I was about to turn around, when I found myself outside my old office. I didn’t need a psychology course to get why I had ended up in front of the closed door. Seeing the empty nameplate next to it, I entertained the momentary thought that perhaps they were holding it for me even after all this time.

I pushed the door open and laughed. My desk was still there. My bookshelves. The floor lamp that I banged into every time I pushed my desk chair back. My desk chair was there, too. The credenza that I special ordered out of spite when accounting was giving me a hard time about my budget overruns. And every single flat surface was stacked with boxes. My office had become a storage room for old case files. So much for preserving the memory of me.