“I was hoping that’s why you were here.” Even though it had been only yesterday since I had called Callin about C-Note, the connections between C-Note and Kruge had become more firm. I really wanted to meet the troll.

He jabbed me with his toe. “Hey, I don’t have to run messages, ya know. I’m not a glow bee.”

“Sorry. I’ve had a long day already. What does Cal have to say?”

“He said C-Note works out of a club in the Tangle called Carnage. Cal said they’re moving a large amount of some drug called Float tonight, so C-Note will probably be there.”

I frowned. “And why does Cal know something like that?”

Stinkwort rolled his eyes. “You guys aren’t happy unless you’re suspicious of each other, are you? Did you ever stop to think maybe he doesn’t like your friends either?”

“Does he like you?”

Stinkwort gave me his ear-to-ear smile. “Everybody likes Joe!”

I laughed as the train pulled into South Station. Joe winked out before anyone saw him. I rode the escalator, an old wooden one with slats angled down that gave just enough traction to keep you from falling onto the person behind you, up to the street.

Light was already fading as I walked along Summer Street. Joe reappeared when I made the bridge, far enough away from downtown so that people wouldn’t gawk at a flit, close enough to the Weird where he might be ignored. I could see a Guild security squad flying an open surveillance pattern above the Northern Avenue bridge.

“Feel like going for a walk?” I asked.

“Sure. Well, I’ll watch you walk,” he said as he fluttered along beside me at shoulder level.

“How do you always manage to find me, Joe? People had no idea where I was this afternoon, but you manage to show up in a subway car.”

He gave me a confused look. “I look for you.”

“No, I mean how do you look for me? How do you know where I am so you can show up?”

Joe pursed his lips. “I look for the nothing with the spot. You’re the only thing like that.”

“Thing?” I asked pointedly.

He laughed and twirled around again. “Everything is a thing. I look for the thing I want to know, and I find it and then I go. You used to have a flavor, but now you have nothing with a spot in it.”

“This is making my head hurt,” I said. If I ever needed to understand why people get so frustrated studying flits, this would be Exhibit One. Flits have an inability to clarify anything they think is self-explanatory.

“Right! That’s the spot!” he said.

The spot. Oddly enough, I think I understood what he was trying to say. It’s exactly how the doctors at Avalon Memorial have described the thing in my brain from the reactor accident: a dark smudgy spot that shows up on diagnostics but seems to have no mass. They have no idea what it is. Its physical shape tends to change over time. But it never goes away. The doctors, however inept I might consider them, have always had the courtesy not to refer to the rest of me as nothing. But that’s Joe. He doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just his way of stating what, to him, is obvious.

I stayed on Summer Street, avoiding the Avenue since that’s where Keeva’s goons seemed to be focusing their attention. Occasionally, they would hover into view above us but drop back pretty quickly. We were basically walking a vague boundary line between neighborhoods, where people from the Weird and Southie stumble into each other, turn around, and go back to where they feel more comfortable. I made a point of keeping a steady pace and keeping to the open to avoid arousing suspicion.

Unfortunately, to get to where I wanted to be, I had to pass near the Kruge crime scene. There, the security agents had been keeping a constant post, watching everyone who walked by. And walk by we did. I felt a little ping as one of the guards tested my essence, but, given my physical condition, he must not have been impressed because no one followed us.

Turning off Summer Street, I strolled another few blocks, taking a roundabout path to bring me to the Tangle. It was getting near sunset and, as much as Joe made a damn fine bodyguard for his size, I didn’t want any TruKnights to see me after my earlier encounter.

Joe’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Are we going to see this C-Note guy?”

“Not yet. Later, if you’re interested. Right now, I need to preserve some evidence.” We wound through alleys on the perimeter of the Tangle, damaged, sooty places glowing with essence in shades of blue-white and yellow and red. Joe seemed to think he was on a roller coaster as he rode their strange currents with a look of glee. My head had a constant buzz, annoying, but no more painful than my usual headache.

We finally came to the building where Crystal had hidden with Croda. Stinkwort became quiet, his face grim. Flits are sensitive to essence in ways no other fey are. They feel it more, and the nastiness that I felt in the old building probably only hinted at what he was feeling. We came out into the courtyard. Joe gasped when he saw Croda.

She was as we had left her, perhaps a little more menacing looking in the shadows of twilight. My senses picked up no new scents in the area, which gave me some assurance that the site hadn’t been compromised.

Joe hovered up near her face. “How sad. I remember her.”

“You knew her?”

He nodded with a melancholy air. “Yeah. She used to have a cave near Caerdydd in the old country. Loved baby rabbits. Used to eat them like popcorn.”

One thing about being socialized in the Convergent world was hearing something like that and being startled and not startled. Stinkwort was from a time and place where horror was mundane. I knew these things intellectually, but the reality is still disconcerting.

I reached down and tugged at Croda’s hand with the ward in it. It didn’t budge. I tried pulling from various angles, but she had truly become stone. I think if I’d had a sledgehammer, I’d still have had a hard time. I stood back and looked at her, trying to figure another way.

“What, pray tell, are you trying to do?” Stinkwort asked.

“I need the ward in her hand. I need to know what’s on it.”

“Why don’t you just play it?”

“My baseline essence isn’t strong enough. I wanted to avoid calling up more if I could.”

“Is that all? I’ll do it.” He landed on her hand and sat down. A subtle pink glow surrounded him as he let his essence flow. It spread down and wrapped the ward.

“…you’ve gone too far, and I…” crackled through the air. Shots of Stinkwort’s essence glimmered all through Croda, grabbing at bits of the recording that seemed to have flowed out of the ward and into her body. Voices echoed from different angles of her body, sometimes faint, sometimes clear, too often indecipherable.

“…C-Note. Float is more than you…” By the accent, I’d peg that as Kruge.

“…telling you to stay out of it, Kruge, I’m warning…if you’d only stopped following…” Rough, guttural, had to be C-note.

Kruge, again. “…and you. That glamour doesn’t fool me. I’ve seen enough to…to see right through it…worse than I…I’m stunned you would…”

Then a vaguely female voice that must have been Croda. “…it’s him, sir, know it by the feel…”

Kruge: “…macGoren. Manus will hear…messenger. Leave him…”

C-Note: “…too much. You leave me no choice…”

The sound of something falling, maybe a chair, then Kruge: “…run, Dennis. Get out of here…No!..”

A crackle of essence-fire, followed by a jumble of voices.

C-Note: “…no witness. You’ve forced me…”

Kruge: “…stop! stop!..” A substantial amount of hissing played out, the unmistakable sound of essence-fire, then an anguished shriek that had to have been Kruge. Another scream that I took to be Croda. Struggling sounds came next, and the discharge of more essence-fire.

Then Croda again, her breath ragged as she ran: “…children, got you…”

A girl screaming. It had to be Crystal, her voice coming through hysterically. “…Denny! Denny! Say something…”