Murdock followed me upstairs. I let us in, waved vaguely at the refrigerator, and went into my study. Sitting at my computer, I entered the information from the abstracts. Murdock came up behind me sipping a glass of water. Once I had everything entered, I sat back and stared at the screen. If I told Murdock the whole truth, he'd chastise me and use the information anyway. I filled him in on my evening with Briallen and just told him that I got the information from a hospital source.

"So what did you find?" he asked.

I scrolled through my notes. "Two dwarf/human crosses, five human/fairy, two human/elf, and five fairy/elf."

"Looks like we can toss the dwarf crosses," he said, reading over my shoulder. I nodded. The dwarf/human crosses had resulted in children more dwarf than human. I hadn't sensed any dwarf essence on the victims, either, so they didn't fit the profile.

"Most of these kids didn't live past puberty," I said. I counted silently. "That leaves two human/fairy crosses, one human/elf, and three elf/fairy."

"Why just the mother's names? Were the fathers not listed?"

I shook my head. "Unless property or royalty are involved, the fey rarely maintain formal marriages. Women tend to raise girls alone and foster out boys."

All the children seemed to suffer some kind of physical deformity in addition to diminished mental capacity. Not an unusual attribute, I noted with irony, in someone who butchers people. Particularly, violent tendencies didn't seem indicated in the material I had, but that didn't mean they didn't exist. The rest of the information was sketchy at best, the details of each child laid out in case files I hadn't had time to explore.

"Okay, let's run 'em down," he said. He read over my shoulder. "I'll take Dealle Sidhe and Teri Esposito since they're both in the Boston area. I can call New York for Ann Cody."

I printed out a copy for him. "I know someone in England, so it shouldn't take me too long to track down Cheryl Atworth. Germany might take a little longer — Gerda and Britt Alfheim sound pretty common. How are we doing with our decoy?"

Murdock frowned and shrugged. "This is Boston, Connor, not Nordic country. Most of the force is Irish, Italian, and Hispanic."

"You can't find one skinny blond cop? We only have twenty-four hours. Got a Plan B?"

"I know you hate when I ask this, but is there anything you can do?"

I tapped my fingers on the edge of my desk, suppressing my impatience. Murdock had every right to ask the question, and my usual annoyance with it came back to my conversation with Briallen. My annoyance wasn't about his expectation of easy answers. It was my inability to deliver them. "I'm trying, Murdock."

"Have you called the Guild about the missing stones?" he asked.

"Damn, I completely forgot," I said, grabbing the phone. I dialed the main number and asked for Meryl Dian, an old acquaintance in the Guild archives. Naturally, I was put on hold, the strains of plaintive flute music to soothe me while I waited.

"Grey! Haven't heard that name in quite a while," Meryl said, when she picked up.

"I've been on leave."

"Hmph. Fired's what I heard," she said. Startled, I didn't say anything for a moment. "I'm guessing you need a favor. What is it this time? The complete history of the ritual use of toadstools by tomorrow morning? No wait, you already asked for that. If you lost it, like you usually do, I kept a copy. Or maybe you'd like me to stay late and find the name of the last druid priestess of Ulster and those of her pets? I can rush it, of course."

I could feel blood rushing to my face. The curious look Murdock was giving me told me I probably looked as uncomfortable as I felt. "Meryl, I seem to have caught you at a bad time…"

"There's never a good time down here, Grey. It's the same old unreasonableness without any gratitude. What do you need?"

"Really, Meryl, if you'd prefer not to…"

She cut me off. "Connor, spare me the reverse psychology. I've been around that particular block plenty of times, and while you may think it's worked in the past, you're wrong. If I didn't want to do something, flattery and concern from obnoxious imps isn't going to change my mind. Now, spit it out."

"I'm looking for some selenite stones that were recendy checked in by the Boston P.D. They've gone missing. They're connected to the fairy murders in the Weird," I said as quickly as possible.

"When were they checked in?" I opened my database and gave her the dates. I could hear her shuffling paper on her desk. She sighed heavily. "Okay, my computer's down right now so I can't check the log. Call me in a few days."

"Just so you know, the stones are confidential and being kept from the press."

"Oh, gee, there goes the announcement I was going to make on the public address system," she said.

I forced myself to chuckle. "You're the best, Meryl."

"I know," she said, and disconnected the line. I set the phone down slowly and looked at Murdock. "Was I that much of a prick when I was at the Guild?"

"I didn't know you then." I frowned. "If it's any consolation, I think you're a prick now." I glowered at him, and he smirked. "Well, not a very big prick."

I gave up and laughed. "Okay, so I've spread a little bad karma around. I'm working on it, I'm working on it."

"I've gotta go." I followed him to the door and let him out. Murdock never says good-bye. When I first met him, the abruptness with which he left bothered me, but I've gotten used to it. It's his way, like mine is to want closure on everything.

I went back into the study, trying to remember how I had offended Meryl Dian. I rarely saw her when I was at the Guild. My office was on the tenth floor, while she maintained one of the archival wings in the subbasement. Most of our contact had been by phone, invariably about research for cases I was working on. She was brilliant, if a bit dark and creepy sometimes, but cute in an as-a-button kind of way. She could recount the politics of tendi-century Britain and digress into the decomposition of bodies on me battlefield without taking a breath. How she knew what body parts crows preferred baffled me.

I remembered the druid priestess question from another murder case I had worked on. That one was actually a human serial killer on Cape Cod who was keeping people as pets before offing them in the bathtub. The toadstool history didn't register with me at all. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I probably hadn't been very considerate of Meryl. In the heat of an investigation, I tended to treat everyone as subordinate staff, and, obviously, I had rubbed her the wrong way on more than one occasion. Which was precisely why I could never take Keeva up on her offer. I wouldn't mind working with Meryl. In fact, I think I'd like it. It's the jerks like me I didn't want to have to deal with.

In less than a week, I had been reminded of my own arrogance, insensitivity, and complacency. Since my accident, I definitely wasn't the person I was at the Guild. It doesn't take too long on the outside looking in to wake you up to a few facts about life, if not yourself. Not that I was suddenly one with the goodness of humanity. I was all too aware of its underbelly to fool myself into thinking it didn't exist. But I definitely didn't see myself arbitrarily dismissing people out of hand anymore. Even if I hadn't been feeling that way, Briallen had opened my eyes to it quite clearly the night before.

I turned back to my database to review the files again. Despite the tugging allure of self-pity, I could always worry about what people thought of me later. I had less than a day to stop an accident of birth from butchering people.