He gave me a lopsided grin and picked up a dumbbell set. “What do you want me to do? Go to bed and pull the covers over my head? I got zapped with an essence-bolt that should have killed me and instead made me stronger. What does it mean? Beats me. I can either accept it unless it becomes a real problem, or I can freak out. I’m accepting it.”

He curled the dumbbells with little effort, as if he were only doing toning exercises. With fifty-pound weights. He replaced the dumbbells. “Want to see something?”

I gave him a noncommittal shrug. He faced a wall about fifteen feet away. One moment he stood still; the next he ran full tilt at the wall. Just before he hit, essence flared around him in a full-fledged body shield, stronger than most I had seen. My jaw dropped. He rammed the wall with a crunch, but the crunch came from the cinder blocks cracking. He wasn’t even breathing heavy.

“How the hell did you learn to do that?”

He smiled. “Nigel Martin. He reached inside my mind and somehow switched on the body shield when he needed me to run point for him at Forest Hills. I sort of saw how he did it in my head and figured out how to do it myself. Cool, huh?”

I chuckled. “You know what you just did? When they figure out how to work their body shields, probably every fey runs into a wall to prove it. Usually they’re about twelve years old, though.”

He grinned. “I feel like a kid.”

He pointed at the dumbbells, and I picked up much-much-lighter weights than he had. “Does your father know?”

Murdock scowled. “Now who’s acting twelve? No, my father doesn’t know. You know he doesn’t like the fey. I’m willing to accept what’s happened. He would freak out.”

I let it drop. Murdock kept an open mind until he came to a conclusion. It took an act of Congress to change it after that.

Murdock had dinner plans, so I slipped on my running shoes and waited outside while he hit the showers. An inland breeze took the bite out of the air temperature. When everyone else starts wondering when the weather’s going to change, it’s already changed two weeks earlier in the Weird. Between the channel and the ocean, it’s the first place in the city to get cold or muggy.

Murdock exited the gym smelling like a date. He wore his hair gelled, a department-store cologne, and his camel-hair overcoat. His eyes shifted left and right, taking in the immediate vicinity. I don’t think the cop thing ever turns off for him. We jumped in his car. I tossed his gym bag into the backseat. “Where are you off to?”

He tilted his head to the side to watch the red traffic light he had stopped under. “No place special.”

“Uh-huh.”

He didn’t change his expression. “Uh-huh.”

One of these days, Murdock will tell me about his social life, and it will be a revelation. I can’t complain too much. I hadn’t said a word about what had happened with Meryl. As soon as I could figure it out myself, maybe I’d say something. He drove over the Old Northern Avenue bridge, waving to the cop on duty as we passed the checkpoint. We stopped dead in our tracks behind a traffic jam.

“How ridiculous is it that you had to escort me to the gym?” I asked.

He nodded. “I know.”

“Can’t you say something to your father?”

“I did. Didn’t make a difference.”

People gathered in the street a few car lengths ahead. Two elves, a fairy, and dwarf had tumbled into the street, blocking traffic and drawing a crowd. They were going at one another with fists and the occasional essence-bolt.

“What did he say?”

Murdock drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “He said the Weird is a threat to the city. Pass the carrots, please.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

The brawlers looked awkward, as if they had never been in a fight before. I guessed that was possible, but not for four different people in the Weird. Murdock leaned on his car horn. “Two more minutes and my siren’s going on.”

“I feel like we should be eating popcorn.”

He sighed. “We’re seeing this almost every day.”

My essence-sensing ability confirmed my suspicion. Green essence with black mottling wafted around the fighters. “They’re in a cloud of Taint.”

The two fairies hit the dwarf with a white bolt of essence, and he barreled down the street. The blow knocked him out of the Taint’s field. He got to his feet in confusion. Taking a step back toward the fight, he shook his head, then walked away.

Murdock nodded. “We’ve been given orders to stand down if fights involve the fey. When the Taint hits, they lose control. A couple of patrol guys have ended up in the hospital.”

“Your father must be fuming.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Yeah, I’m kinda torn about that. On the one hand, I agree with his frustration. On the other, it’s nice when he’s in a froth about something that has nothing to do with me.”

At least I could count on Murdock for some indignation about the situation. Even if it was the dry, sarcastic kind.

One of the fairies drifted out of the green haze and seemed to come to her senses because she didn’t rejoin the fight. Her companion flew up beside her. They hovered in the air arguing. They must have both realized what had happened and flew off. The elf looked ready to take on someone else, but at that point the traffic began moving again, and we drove around him.

Murdock pulled to the corner of Sleeper Street. He stretched his right arm behind my seat and retrieved a folder. “Liz DeJesus found this in Olivia Merced’s apartment.”

The file held document photocopies of an old case dating back at least twelve years. I glanced at the first few pages, then at Murdock. “Merced filed for divorce because her husband was a con artist?”

Murdock nodded. “It gets better.”

I flipped through more pages, but didn’t see anything more than an exhaustive list of contempt charges detailing the case against Liddell Viten, Merced’s husband. The last page held the “gets better” part. The Boston P.D. investigation had been suspended and the case turned over to the Guild. “The husband was fey?”

Murdock made the turn onto Sleeper Street. “Yep. He had everyone fooled with a glamour that made him appear human. His real appearance was anything but.”

I raised an eyebrow. “A solitary?”

Murdock pulled up at my building. “Right again. Something called a kobold. There’s nothing else in the archives because that’s what happens when something gets booted to the Guild. I did some digging in the newspaper morgue. The Guild found Viten. He died in detention. Guess who was the Guild agent in charge of the case?” I shook my head. Murdock flashed me a self-satisfied smile. “Keeva macNeve.”

I dropped my head against the seat. “Great.”

“Now, I could go through channels and request the Guild file, which might take weeks…”

I looked at him. “… or I can ask Keeva.”

He gave me an innocent look. “Not that I’m asking.”

I laughed. “Oh, no, not that you’re asking. Fine. I’ll ask her. Just don’t expect her to be all that forthcoming. Given her suspension, two dead human normals related to an old case she had a prisoner die on won’t be high on her priority list right now.”

“Guess you’ll have to charm her.” He pulled away.

I jogged up the stairs to my apartment, dropped my gym bag and the file, and ran down again. As tempted as I was to read the case, if I started, I wouldn’t do my run. I needed to do my run. I used a telephone pole to do some warm-up stretches.

Running at night in the Weird was more common than one would think. Most of the time, though, healthy exercise was not the reason unless you counted running for your life. If someone is moving fast down here, they’re either running from someone or after someone. It attracted attention, if only from spectators waiting to see if a fight would break out. Lately, that’s becoming more the case. If the Boston P.D. was avoiding the essence battles, the Guild still had security agents patrolling the skies. They interfered only when large groups gathered, but other than that, they were more for show.