“Her name was Sekka,” someone behind me said, one of the tree folk. Tall with brown bark skin and tangled mossy hair. In the dry winter air, he had the odor of dampness and earth.
“How do you know it was her?” Murdock said, gesturing at the little matter of her missing head.
The solitary looked at the body. “I knew her. Those clothes are hers. She’s been missed. Word is the Dead were after her.”
“Anyone in particular?” asked Murdock.
Eyes shifted to the ground or the horizon, anywhere but at us. One of the merrows from the harbor pointed down. Female merrows didn’t speak much, preferring to use their bodies to communicate. More than a few people have drowned trying to understand them. I leaned over the wall. At low tide, the channel sank over a dozen feet, exposing the foundation stones of the wall. A sewer overflow pipe jutted over the water. “Did you see someone come out of there?” I asked.
The merrow nodded, her wide, dark eyes like pools of sadness. No surprise there, although coming out of the sewer made a nice connection to where we found the head.
“Was it anyone you knew?”
She gazed at the hard gray water. “It is the one we call the Hound of the Dead. He hunts the Dead.”
Someone gasped behind me, and one of the solitaries made a hissing sound. Whoever this Hound was, he was doing a pretty good job of scaring the hell out of people. “Sekka wasn’t one of the Dead,” I said.
“No, but I saw him drag her body here,” she said.
“Did you see where he went?” Murdock asked.
The merrow subtly bowed her head, fear creeping into her eyes.
I crouched on the ground, pretending to examine footprints. I pivoted on the balls of my feet to look behind me, as if I were following a trail. On the opposite side of the parking lot, a cloaked figure stood in the alley. He was too far away to get a precise read on his essence.
A solitary’s mossy hair swayed with a shake of his head. “You don’t find the Hound. He finds you.”
“Yeah, well, I’d like to talk to him about that,” Murdock said.
“Then ask the Dead. They probably know where he hides, just like they know they can kill us without worrying about being punished.”
“Not true,” said Murdock.
The solitary looked over our shoulders. “Tell that to Sekka.”
We all looked at the victim. The medical examiner had corralled some officers to help lift her body onto a gurney. Murdock turned back to the dwindling group on the wall. The merrow had slipped away. “There’s a community meeting about the murders tomorrow night. Spread the word that we need help,” he said.
The solitary shook his head. “It won’t make a difference. No one cares.”
“We do,” I said.
The solitary sighed. “That’s a comfort.”
He walked off with his friends.
“I think we were just insulted,” I said.
Murdock leaned over the wall to exam the overflow pipe. “Yeah, I get that a lot these days.”
We walked back to the crime scene as the body was loaded into the examiner’s van. “Take a nonchalant look behind you,” I said.
Murdock glanced over his shoulder, then back at the activity by the medical examiner. “He was over there when I arrived. Been on his cell phone the entire time. Think it’s this Hound?”
I stood. “The merrow as much as said he is. Looks like he’s in a chatty mood.”
As we approached, the cloaked man turned and walked up the alley.
Murdock broke into a run. “Boston P.D.! Stop where you are!”
He didn’t stop. We followed, slipping on icy patches. Murdock pulled ahead of me, his body shield glowing a faint red. He’d been practicing with it again. It not only protected him but also had some sort of strength booster. At least, that’s what I was going with as I followed his back, because without abilities, I was definitely a stronger runner than he was.
“I said stop, dammit,” Murdock shouted.
The alley turned ahead, a corner building making an L-shape at the end of the block. The building cut off my line of sight as they sprinted ahead. I stumbled after them into a dead-end run blocked by a fence and a massive pile of debris.
The Hound swerved, propelling over a stack of wooden pallets into the air. He grabbed the bottom of a fire escape and swung over the railing. As he climbed, Murdock mimicked the move. As I closed on them, I put on a burst of speed and reached for the last rung of the ladder pull. I missed and fell hard, my body shields coming on too late to soften the fall.
Above me, the Hound balanced on a rail of the fire escape, watching Murdock climb toward him. He jumped, sailing across the alley to the opposite building’s fire escape. Without pause, Murdock leaped after him, his coat flaring out behind him like a cape. They climbed again.
I scrambled to my feet, hoisted myself onto a dumpster, and climbed onto the fire escape. Three stories above, Murdock and the Hound leaped across the alley to the next building. I ran along a catwalk, then up the next set of fire-escape stairs. The Hound sailed past me on his way across again. Climbing again, he backtracked, with Murdock close behind.
I reached the roofline and swung over the parapet. Below, they crossed to my side, and I dropped down to pin the Hound between us before he was high enough to leap again. Halfway up, he spotted me and charged back toward Murdock. A flight above Murdock, he dodged through a broken window and vanished into the darkness of the building. Murdock reached the opening before I did and ran in.
My sensing ability tracked the blazing red of Murdock’s essence in the darkness. We pounded down a long hallway of gaping doorways and graffitied walls. The Hound raced ahead, his dark silhouette flashing in and out of my line of sight as Murdock closed in. The hall ended ahead in a shattered hole where a window used to be. The Hound jumped. Murdock launched out after him, shouting as they disappeared from view.
I reached the opening. The Hound dangled in the air, swinging himself hand over hand across a tension wire to the next building. Not far below, Murdock hung from a bent streetlight, his hands grappling with ice-slick metal. He kicked his legs up to wrap them around the arm of the lamp, but his coat tangled around his feet. He jerked back, losing the grip of one hand.
My mind raced. He was too far for me to reach, either from the building or from the ground three stories below. A loose phone cable hung next to me against the building. I yanked it free and knotted it around a drainpipe. “Catch!” I shouted.
Murdock grabbed the flung cable with his free hand. I spiraled the slack around my arm, dropped to my ass inside the hallway, and braced my feet against the edge of the opening. “Come in feetfirst and kick off the building.”
As he twirled the cable awkwardly with one free arm, his other hand slipped off the light. Murdock fell, the cable a sinuous line of black against the white ground. The line pulled taut, biting into my arm as Murdock hit the end. Then the cable snapped, and Murdock plunged in a spread-eagle free fall.
“No!” I shouted.
I tore down the stairs, slamming into the walls as I fought my way at a full run. A broken door blocked the exit, and I ran at it without stopping. Rotted wood gave way as I burst through it and sprawled into the alley.
Murdock lay on his back, arms flung out, in a shallow crater of snow and jumbled ice. His chest heaved, his breath a cloud of steam. I stumbled to him across the ice. He curled to a sitting position as I reached him. Relieved, I helped him up. He leaned one hand against a wall, gasping. I hunched over, holding my knees, trying to catch my own breath. Murdock smirked through heavy breathing. “Why’d you let him get away?”
I grinned back at him, then shook my head and laughed.
“Gods, are you okay?” I said when I recovered.
Murdock stretched and grimaced. “Yeah, the body shield came in pretty handy.”
“That was insane.”
“Did you tag his essence?” Murdock asked.
I shook my head. “I didn’t get close enough.”
Murdock covered his disappointment by brushing at his coat. It didn’t help the rips and tears and the rust smears. “I’m billing the city for this one.”
The tension wire that the Hound had used was anchored next to a fire escape and a window on an abandoned building across the street. I didn’t see which way he went. “He’s gone,” I said.
Murdock nodded with an exaggerated motion, and we walked up the alley. The large dark shape of Uno sat at the turn, watching us approach. He trotted out of sight.
“Did you see that dog?” I asked.
Murdock looked behind him, in the wrong direction. “Where?”
Uno was hard to miss. Murdock thought I had enough problems without him thinking I was hallucinating. “It must have been a shadow,” I said.
When we reached the corner, Uno wasn’t visible anywhere. He left no paw prints in the snow.
15
I didn’t know what to make of Uno. When I told Shay I would look into the whole hellhound thing, it was an academic issue. Motivated by concern, sure, but academic. Now that I had seen the dog without Shay around—and Murdock hadn’t—it had suddenly made itself a more personal issue.
Murdock remained at the scene in the parking lot. I returned to my apartment, feeling winter settle into the bones of the city. The stark slivers of sky between buildings threatened snow. Harsh sunlight cast sharp shadows, the sudden change of white light to black shadows causing afterimages to flash in my vision despite my sunglasses.
A black car idled at the end of my street, an elf in Consortium livery waiting beside the rear door. As I approached, he opened the door and revealed a lone figure seated in back. Eorla leaned forward. Surprised, I slipped in with a gust of cold air.
“What brings you down here?” I asked.
“Aren’t you pleased to see me?” Eorla asked.
“It’s always a pleasure to see you,” I said.
She threw a slight sideways glance at me, a thin smile on her face. “You flatter me often. Is it courtesy or mockery?”
I tilted my head. “Is sincerity so hard to believe?”
She chuckled. “Not in my world. Not always. You don’t have a reputation for respect.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think that’s accurate. Respect is a two-way street. I might respect someone’s authority, but they don’t get to keep it if they don’t earn it. The fact that you’re a Marchgrafin or a Guild director means less to me than the things you do and the choices you make.”
