“There. I’ve opened the warding for you at the top. No one will see you leave.”
“You’re a marvel,” I said.
“I know. Just go straight up. Don’t let me catch you using this without me.”
“Thanks.” I kissed the top of her head and started up the stairs before she had a chance to hit me. I’ve given her the top-of-the-head peck before, and she hates it. Or seems to.
As I went higher I heard a low hum that slowly grew louder. The stone steps vibrated beneath my feet.
“Don’t get hit!” Meryl called up from the darkness.
I reached the top. Seeing nothing but blackness, I stepped forward into another warding. And almost got hit. A subway train hurtled past. I jumped back so fast, I almost fell back down the stairs. After surviving an attack by elves, it would be just my luck to get hit by a train. I could hear giggling down below. Shaking my head, I went through again and found myself on the tracks next to the Boylston Street T station platform. The train that that almost hit me was loading passengers. I ran a few feet along the track, slipped between a gap in some fencing, and jumped onto the nearest car before the doors closed.
I didn’t bother sitting since I needed to change lines at the next station. Down the aisle from me, a well-dressed older woman dozed in her seat, her purse clutched in her lap. She wore a large felt hat with a long pheasant feather. I could just make out the tops of two familiar pink wings coming up the other side of her. Joe peered at me from over her hat and put his finger to his lips. Hovering above her, he bent the feather down and tickled her nose with it. She shifted in her seat without opening her eyes. He did it again, and she waved her hand up. As the train screeched on the curve into Park Street station, he knocked the hat off and vanished. The woman startled awake, looked down at her hat, and glared at me. I tried to maintain an air of innocence, but she looked convinced I had something to do with it.
The train pulled into the station. I hurried down a flight of stairs to the Red Line. I used to take cabs everywhere. I used to have a car service at work when I wanted it. Now I take the subway and hope I don’t miss trains. It bothered me at first. But then I learned public transportation is what real people do. Only the fey thought they were too good for it. But sometimes I still missed the car service.
My next train came in, and this time I sat as close to the corner as possible. Right on cue, Joe appeared unobtrusively on the next seat, hiding between me and the wall of the car.
“That was naughty,” I said.
He shrugged and smiled. “It was an ugly hat.”
“I guess you do have a point.”
He stretched out on the seat. “I heard you were attacked. Elves really don’t like you, do they?”
“A lot of people don’t.”
He chuckled. “I have a message from Callin.”
“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.