Unfallen Dead

I shook my head. Something was wrong. I was missing something. I refused to believe Meryl would kill two people for revenge of some kind. I put the earring back on the desk. She didn’t do it. I trusted my instincts.

I walked back through the wall. The spell resisted a little this time. I groped my way down the dark passage until I came to a staircase. Keeping my hands on the walls, I climbed the long flight of stairs. At the top, pushing hard against the spell blocking the exit felt like sliding through molasses. The receipt essence was almost drained.

I exhaled when I made it through. The dim lighting of the subway tu

The platform at Boylston Street Station sat level with the train tracks. An old wire security fence prevented passengers from wandering into the tu

Concrete arches separated the two halves of the station with wrought-iron fencing preventing anyone from crossing the tracks. An outbound train must have just come through because the opposite platform was empty. A lone man walked down the outbound side. He stared at me. I hate when people stare for no reason, playing their dominance games with strangers.

I stared back. The guy moved to the edge of the tracks, not taking his eyes from me. He seemed angry or a

“Train’s coming,” I said.

Light illuminated the tracks, throwing his solemn face into a white relief.

“Buddy, step back,” I said.

He didn’t move. I shouted as the train pulled in, my voice lost in the screaming of its wheels against the steel tracks. I rushed to the fence. The train stopped with a set of windowed doors opposite me. The man was inside the train. Almost. The floor of the car was several feet higher than the ground, cutting through him at the waist. He hadn’t changed his expression. You’re going to die soon, he sent.

The train pulled away in a rush of color, leaving behind an empty track. I backed away as several people cast anxious looks at me. They probably thought I was nuts. I would have. I was already thinking maybe I was. Really. As in, hallucinating and losing it.

My mind reeled as I rode the next train to Park Street Station. Maybe I couldn’t handle stress anymore. Maybe the thing in my head was causing brain damage. Maybe I was letting everything get to me like I never did before. Keeva was pushing herself beyond her limits; Meryl became more entangled in murder the more I tried to prove otherwise; Dylan was playing both friend and foe. And Joe had been too drunk lately to have a coherent conversation. Murdock might be a good sounding board, but he didn’t appreciate what it was like to deal with Guild messes, never mind the possibility that I was losing my mind. I hit a speed dial on my cell.

“It’s about time you called. Come on up,” Briallen answered. She hung up before I could whine like a scared child.

CHAPTER 23

The door to Briallen’s house was always unlocked to me, allowing me to pass through her protective wards. I did a lot of growing up in her house, spent years learning things I never imagined possible when I was just a little kid. I trusted her with my life.

As I stood in the foyer, I sensed Briallen’s essence trailing upstairs. I found her in the parlor by the fire. She stared into the flames, unmoving, though I knew she had sensed me the moment I’d entered the house.

“Ceridwen had Meryl arrested,” I said.

Briallen didn’t respond immediately. “Sooner than I thought.”

I slumped into the opposite chair. “You knew?”

She pulled her legs up on the seat and adjusted her robes around them. “It was only a matter of time. Ceridwen is afraid of failing. High Queen Maeve doesn’t take disappointment well.”

“But Meryl doesn’t know anything.”

Briallen smiled as she sipped from a large mug. “I’m sure she would dispute that.”

“You know what I mean. She’s told them everything. We both have.”

She leaned her head back in the nook of the chair, her eyes half-closed. “Have you?”

Her tone made me blush, caught out like a ten-year-old telling a fib. It’s the tone she uses on me when she knows something that I think she doesn’t know. “Okay, everything they need to know.”

Briallen tweaked an eyebrow. “Deciding who needs to know what and who gets to decide that is the seed of most arguments in the world.”

I sighed. “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t remember anything but what I’ve told them. Ceridwen essentially threatened me to get me to talk, and even Dylan doesn’t seem to believe me.”

“He mentioned you argued,” she said.

A little anger flared up. “You see? Ceridwen thinks arresting Meryl will put pressure on me to talk, and now Dylan thinks ru

She let out an exasperated sigh. “I think it’s only fair to point out that you’re doing a little ru

“That’s not true.”

She scoffed at me. “Sure you are. You think Meryl’s been arrested to put pressure on you, and you want me to confirm it. Did it ever occur to you that after you spoke to Dylan, he believed you? Has it occurred to you that Meryl doesn’t exactly make any attempt to inspire confidence in her veracity?”

“She’s telling the truth,” I said.

Briallen thrust her index finger at me. “You believe that. You do. Not the Guild. Just like you don’t want the Guild telling you what to do, the Guild doesn’t want you telling it what to think. Meryl’s a big girl. She’ll decide what to do.”

“If there is something she’s hiding — and I don’t think there is — she won’t say it, just to spite Ceridwen for treating her like this. She’s stubborn,” I said.

Briallen shrugged. “Then she’ll have to live with the consequences. Co

“Don’t let Ceridwen hear you say that, or you might end up in a cell yourself.” I couldn’t help the dig.

Briallen gri

Getting slapped down by Briallen didn’t exactly put me in the mood to make myself vulnerable. I feigned i

Briallen laughed. “Oh, bull. You know I knew Meryl was under arrest ten minutes after she did. Something else is bothering you.”

I bit my lower lip. “Okay, you’re right. I came to ask you about something odd. Lately, I’ve been…” I didn’t realize until that moment how strange and embarrassing this was going to sound. “… well, I guess you can say I’ve been hearing things. Like, things no one else does. And I’m seeing people who aren’t there.”

She didn’t laugh or look at me like I was crazy. “What are they saying?”

I slid deeper in the chair. “I’m not sure. It started a little over a week ago. I kept hearing whispering. Then the whispers got louder, and I began to see people, too. At first, I thought it was some kind of spell, but it’s happened too many times in too many places. They’re angry. One of them attacked me, and, just now, on the subway, one of them told me I’m going to die.”