The sounds of the club receded as we took a dim side corridor grimed with the evidence of an old fire sooting the walls. The only essences I felt back here were the lingering trails of people consummating their desires, Murdock’s strange billow of more-than-human colored by Zev’s ward stone, and the thrumming of raw essence holding the stressed building up. We moved deeper into the darkness, the band whispering its bass line through the floor like a warning.
Chapter 15
We picked our way through a collection of needles and condoms and discarded clothes to a boarded-over door marked as an exit. With a few yanks, we made enough space to slip through into a stairwell. Dead buildings have a stink of their own, an organic smell that’s a rank mélange of dampness, dirt, and unwashed bodies. We made our way up to the second floor and stopped on the landing.
Murdock leaned over the railing and looked up. “Big building. This is going to take a while.”
I tapped the side of my head. “Maybe not. I can feel this crap. It’s above us.”
What I didn’t say was that I could feel Float as pain, a constant pressure from the blockage in my head. I don’t know if it hurt because my abilities wanted to reach out to the essence or because they wanted to avoid it. We moved up two more flights, the pressure increasing. As we turned on the landing to the next floor, I stopped. “Here. The pain lessened when we came up here.”
We moved back to the fourth floor and pushed against an access door. It gave grudgingly from long disuse. An intersection of hallways faced us, shattered walls with gaping holes revealing empty rooms streaked with graffiti. A green triangle with a futhark rune for “F” figured prominently, the sigil of the TruKnights. When you find yourself on gang turf, it always feels like trespassing, no matter what badge you may have in your pocket. Turf is turf, and you know when you’re on someone else’s uninvited.
The floor vibrated from the dance floor directly below us. Eerie lights flickered through chinks in the flooring, lighting tendrils of smoke that trickled up from downstairs. Despite the pain, I opened my mind a crack, letting my sense feel the essences in the air. It hurt like hell, tight pinpoints stabbing at my temples. I was going to have a hell of a residual headache the next day.
“Back here,” I said. My voice felt louder than it was. I could feel Float essence increasing as we wound our way through a warren of rooms. It flared up suddenly, as if someone had opened a door. I stopped. Murdock had his gun out of his waistband even before I had chance to say anything. I nodded in front of us.
A wall hid our view, an open door to the left. I could feel the distinct signature of a living being, the raw essence that I used to identify people, but I couldn’t quite place what was in the next room. I sensed something else, a mix of energies and smells that spoke of an herbal lab, like an unventilated version of the one back at the Guildhouse. Something squeezed my brain like a claw, and shots of blackness dotted my vision. Not good. I had to pull back and tighten my range.
We edged toward the door, the silence broken by the steady thump of the club music mixed with the softer sounds of a working lab, things boiling and dripping, the steady hum of a gas flame. I peered into the room. We were on the short end of a long room, laboratory counters laid down the middle to the opposite side. Glass and copper tubing coiled from a series of glass vessels, a fantastical array of decanting apparatus strung across the space. I could feel a presence, rich and intoxicating, that pushed back against the ache in my head.
“Someone’s in here,” I whispered. I crouched and slunk into the room. The distillation gear pulsed with malevolence. Float. I could feel its essence battering at my mind.
On the far side of the room, a woman lay on a table. It took a long moment to realize she was bound and another to see that it was the woman C-Note had had leashed. Leather straps held her down, one across her head, torso, hips, and legs. Still naked, she looked even more tragic. An IV line ran from her arm to a bag hanging off the table, dark blood dripping with slow rhythm through the tube. She sensed my presence and shifted her eyes toward me, more aware now than when I had first seen her.
I stood and motioned Murdock in behind me. He moved in, gun out, and flanked me on the other side of the lab table. I crept down the room to the woman.
“Free me,” she said, not so much an order, but stated in a way that said she expected me to help. There was no question as far as I was concerned. I started undoing the strap across her torso.
“What are they doing to you?” I asked.
“Stop,” said Murdock.
Surprised, I looked over at him, then down at the woman. A wave of essence cascaded over me. It felt warm and pleasant, dulling the strange headache that Float gave me.
“Free me,” she said with a bit more force this time.
My hand went back to the strap. Murdock stepped forward, a look of concern on his face. “Connor, what the hell are you doing?”
Confused, I looked up at him. “What gives, Murdock? She’s in pain.”
He kept scanning the windows and door behind him. “I’m just wondering why something as strong as a troll would feel the need to restrain a small woman.”
He had a point. Of course, size meant little in the fey world. I’d seen Joe take down a Danann fairy in a swordfight. I dropped my hand.
“Why do you stop? What does this man say that makes you stop?” She sounded genuinely surprised and confused.
I felt it again, an essence surge surrounding me. Looking down, I realized I had put my hand on the strap again. I pulled it away. “Don’t you understand him?”
Her eyes went to Murdock. His head flinched a moment, but he remained where he was. “I do not know this language,” she said.
“What is she saying?” Murdock said.
I tilted my head at him. “You don’t understand her either?”
He shook his head. “It’s Greek to me.”
“Free me,” she said. I felt the compulsion to release her again. I forced myself to listen to her speak, heard rough rolling sounds through an auditory illusion of English. “How are we speaking?” I asked.
“You are druides. I am drys. By the wood, I beg you, free me, cousin.”
My jaw dropped. As she said it, I knew it for truth. Many fey like to style themselves as higher beings, even gods and goddesses. But they’re nothing more than different species. A drys, though, a drys is the real deal, essence incarnate, the heart of the oak. I didn’t believe they really existed. I thought they were just mystic mumbo jumbo.
“Shit, Murdock. I think I just found religion,” I said, loosening her restraints. “Trust me, Murdock, it’s okay. We have to get her out of here.”
He nodded, but didn’t move to help. “Make it fast. I don’t like this.”
I pulled the needle out of her arm and helped her into a sitting position. Even seated, I could see she wasn’t going to be able to walk out easily. She slid off the table to stand unsteadily. Searching the room, she pointed. “The staff. I will need it.”
I followed her gesture to an oak staff leaning in the corner near a closed door. I took it in my hand, almost dropping it in surprise. A field surrounded the wood, thin, but strong. “The wood’s alive. Why put a field on a staff to keep the wood alive?”
“It’s all that’s left. If it dies, I die. He needs me,” said the drys.
“Yes, he does,” a voice said. Murdock dropped behind the table, his gun sighted on a figure in the doorway. The drys stood between us, her overwhelming essence blotting out everything to my senses. I hadn’t felt C-Note at all.
The drys lifted her hands and stepped toward him. “I would be free. You promised.”
“You will be soon,” he said.
She moved closer to him, her hands raising higher. “Please, I cannot wait. You will have to bury me if we wait any longer.”