Prescient dreams are metaphorical, and since I have little experience with them, I’m not very good at parsing the metaphors. For that matter, I’m still not sure when I’m having a prescient dream or just sleeping on too full a stomach. My morning dream consisted of apples falling and a chain that moved like a snake. That segued into Moke swinging Meryl and me in his hands. I woke just as he was about to smash us together. Nothing that Freud wouldn’t be able to explain, particularly since, I have to admit, I was aroused by how it ended. At the same time, I had a sense of danger that I couldn’t articulate. The last time dreaming felt that way, I almost died.
I called Meryl. She mumbled something into the phone about death and mornings, but I think she agreed to drop Crystal Finch at my place by noon. Meryl actually hates mornings more than I do. She’s a Daughter of the Moon and avoids sunrise salutations except on the high holidays. I left Murdock a message to meet us.
She showed up on the dot of noon and summoned me downstairs with her cell phone. The Mini was parked neatly by the door, engine running, with Meryl in her leather and Crystal in her pink. They made an odd couple but were in an animated conversation.
Meryl powered down the passenger window when she saw me. “Thanks, Meryl. Was she any trouble?”
“He-llooo. She’s right here, dude,” said Crystal. She even waved. I hate the word “dude” from sixteen-year-old tough girls. I’m not their dude. As soon as I thought that, I felt way old.
“She can go wait in the vestibule,” I said.
Crystal glared at me, then turned to Meryl. “Thanks. Again. I really appreciate what you said.” Damned, if the kid didn’t tear up and hug Meryl. And damned if Meryl didn’t hug her back. Without another word, she got out of the car, looked quickly up and down the street, and ran to the front door I had left ajar. She closed it behind her.
I slipped into the passenger seat to get out of the cold. “That was sweet.”
Meryl shifted in her seat to look at me. “She’s had it tough, Connor. Cut her some slack.”
I stopped myself from making another sarcastic comment. Meryl was right. I had no reason to dislike the kid just because she had managed to put me on her schedule instead of mine. She had reason to be afraid.
“Did she tell you anything about Kruge?” I asked.
“No. We talked about Denny. He sounds like he was a nice guy. She didn’t need me interrogating her last night.”
I nodded. “Yeah, okay. I’m guessing a troll doesn’t have a very good shoulder to cry on.”
Meryl gave me a stern look. “She’ll help you. Just make sure you protect her.”
I slouched in the seat. “I’m not made of stone, Meryl. I got into this because a kid got killed. I’m not looking for it to happen to another one.”
She nodded. “I meant her feelings, Connor. You get a little single-minded sometimes. Remember, you don’t know what she’s been through. She did try to tell me what happened but froze up every time. Today’s not going to be easy for her.”
I heard a car come up and looked out the rear window. Murdock pulled in behind us and parked. I leaned forward and brushed Meryl’s nose with my finger. “Thanks. You’re a regular Jiminy Cricket sometimes.”
She smiled. “Do that again, and I will bite you.”
I chuckled. “I’ll call you later, crazy woman.”
I got out of the car, and she drove off. When I banged on the vestibule door, Crystal opened it and peered out.
“Are you ready?” I said it nicely. She nodded and followed me to Murdock’s car. I tossed a donut bag into the back and sat down. Crystal pushed away a pile of newspapers on the backseat and made herself comfortable.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” Murdock said. He pulled away from the curb and almost looked in his side view mirror when he did it. He felt different—smooth, for lack of a better word, as if his essence were spread over him in an even layer. Human normals usually feel that way to me because their essence is so weak. The fey tend to have variable flow about them, the essence more intense about their heads and hearts. His midach must have done something to moderate the extreme fluctuations I had been sensing.
“Where to?” I asked Crystal.
“The Tangle,” she said. Of course. Murdock had already turned onto the Avenue, so we just drove in silence through the main part of the Weird. He stopped the car at Harbor Street. We could see the yellow crime scene tape on the Unity storefront. A Guild security guard hovered into view at the far end of the street, then flew back up.
I twisted in my seat. “Okay, Crystal, first you have to tell us what happened at Unity,” I said.
She looked out the window with a look I’ve seen before, a slack look of disbelief at what she had seen. “Mr. K asked Denny to make a run for him. I went with him for the pickup.”
“Do you know what he was running?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It had something to do with Float. Denny bought some somewhere. I found it. I was pissed ’cause I’m clean now, and I didn’t want any drugs around. Denny said he wasn’t using. Mr. K asked him to buy it for him and that he had to bring it to Unity, then do a run.”
“Did Kruge use kids from Unity for runs a lot?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. Regular errands type stuff, if that’s what you mean.”
I looked over at Murdock. He didn’t say anything. At the end of the day, this was still his case. I let the moment hang to give him a chance to jump in, but he didn’t.
“Okay, so you got here and then what?” I said.
She wrapped her arms tightly against her chest. “Mr. K was here with Croda. He asked me to wait in the printing room. I couldn’t hear anything at first, but then there was shouting. I opened the door a crack to see what was going on, and there was this big ugly troll yelling at Mr. K…”
“Would you recognize him?” I interrupted.
“Huh? Yeah, sure. Croda’s the only other troll I met until Moke. Anyway, the troll said something about Denny having something and grabbed him. Mr. K got mad and pushed the troll and told Denny to run. Denny started running toward me, and the troll threw a fey-bolt at him.”
“Wait a minute, a troll threw a bolt of essence?” Crystal nodded. Trolls manipulated essence, but not offensively. They worked it within things, particularly stone, but I’d never heard they could send it through the air. Unless C-Note had figured out how to work around it. And the idea of a troll doing that was pretty scary.
“And then Denny…he…he…” She started to cry.
Even though I’ve seen enough manipulation-by-tears, Crystal’s reminded me to take it easy on her like Meryl asked. “It’s okay, Crystal. Tell us so we can figure out what to do.”
She nodded and took a deep breath. “The bolt hit Denny, and he flew through the air right at me. He hit the door, and we both fell. He didn’t move at all after that. I think…I think that’s when he died.” The last part came out in a whisper. She started to sob again.
“You’re doing good, Crystal. Take a breath and tell me what happened next.”
It took a few moments for her to calm down. Any annoyance I had for her from the previous night was gone. “The next thing I knew, Croda was in the room. I could hear fey-fire and screaming. Croda grabbed me and Denny and ran out the back door. She took us into the Tangle.”
“Can you show us?”
She nodded. “Take a left into the next alley.”
Murdock crossed over Harbor and took the left. We were in the alley across the Avenue from the Unity alley. So far, it made sense. It was the direction I had sensed troll essence trailing away when Murdock and I checked out the back door of Unity. We crept down the narrow lane, large warehouses looming up on each side of us. Sunlight fell in complex patterns on the ground as it filtered through the network of fire escapes above. Old wooden pallets, an array of boxes and bags and tossed papers littered the gutters. At the end of the alley, a rusted car sat to the left.