The two wards were working together. The more stones involved in a warding, the greater their effect and the more efficient their energy use. The downside was that they were easier to disrupt than single stones. If I touched one of them directly, though, I risked an energy feedback that would not only knock me out but probably cause physical damage as well.

I looked around groggily for something to knock one of them out of the way. Picking up a stapler, I decided against it. With all the base metals in it, it would just act as a conductor. I moved some papers around on the floor next to me and found a wooden ruler. Thanking whatever gods might be listening, I crawled closer to the body. Straining against my protesting head, I shot some of my essence into the ruler as I batted it at a ward, hoping that the momentary burst would block the feedback. I shouted as something convulsed in my head.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to breathe past the pain. Without needing to look, I knew the spell was broken. I no longer felt the compulsion to sleep though I had the desire to for a different reason. My arm tingled a bit where some of the ward energy had filtered through the ruler, but I could still move my fingers.

I opened my eyes and stared at the corpse. My nerves were so jagged, I could feel the faint whisper of old human essences all around me now. What really intrigued was the pulse of elf essence coming off the victim. I leaned forward to peer into his chest, but it was too dark to see inside. Fighting a wave of nausea I reached my hand into the wet, slippery cavity and touched something hard. I jerked my hand back at the sensation of wrongness. Whatever it was, it felt like an elf had powered it. Touching it hadn't seemed to do anything other than startle me, so I reached back in. I could feel a sandy grittiness in the boy's chest, then the stone that had become the killer's calling card. This time it had some kind of charge on it. I grimaced at the squelching sound my hand made as I withdrew.

My hand glistened in the moonlight as I held the stone up. It appeared gray and no more remarkable than the others. The essence radiating from it made no sense. It would seem most like elf, then shift to a subtle fairy, then back again. As I tried to place the feeling, I thought of Shay. It was like looking at Shay, the pretty-beautiful boy, and trying to decide quickly if he were male or female.

The surviving fairy groaned again, and I went to him. Feebly, he curled away from me in fear.

"It's okay," I said, but he wasn't reassured. I pulled out my cell phone and called 911. As the operator took the address and asked me to stay on the line, a flutter in the stone caught my attention. The energy was dissipating. I glanced down at the kid, who was cowering half under the desk. He looked no worse for wear. He probably wouldn't appreciate my telling him that the vagaries of fate that gave him dark hair had saved his life tonight.

I made a decision and disconnected the call. I had already contaminated the crime scene by removing the stone, and whatever charge was on it was fading. I hoped Murdock wouldn't be too mad at me when he found out. Like they say: In for a penny, in for a pound.

"Help's on the way," I said to the kid. "Stay here. Don't touch anything." I went into the alley and ran the block or so back to the Avenue. With all the weaving in and out of the warehouses, I had ended up all the way at the far end of the Weird. To my right, traffic was a barrage of light and sound and backing up toward me. Cars coming in from my left were turning onto the Eastern Service Road to avoid the mess. I cursed my lack of ability to do a sending.

A cab turned the corner slowly as the driver tried to see what all the commotion was about. I jumped in the back before he could pull away. Only in the Weird can a man with obvious blood on his hands get a taxi. I gave him Briallen's address. He immediately made an illegal turn and drove quickly along the edge of Southie. I held the stone gingerly between my index finger and thumb with just enough tension to keep from dropping it. The essence on it was definitely fading. We pulled up onto Louisburg Square in an impressive ten minutes. I was surprised to find Briallen's house alive with light, the front door wide open, and Briallen herself standing on the threshold. I paid the driver and hurried up the walk.

"How did you know?" I asked.

"I didn't, really," she said, closing the door behind us. "It was odd. Not like a sending, but more like an impression of your need. What's happened? What is that?" She gestured at the stone.

"Let's go up to the study," I said. Without waiting for an answer, I rushed up the stairs. Briallen was right behind me with a grace and speed I always found surprising. Not for the first time did I wonder about her age. I entered the study and placed the stone on a clear space on the center table. "Hurry! What is the essence on this?" I said.

Briallen peered down at it for a second, then picked it up. She dropped it and recoiled. "It's saturated in fairy blood!"

"Sorry, I should have warned you."

"Blood of a murder," she murmured, picking up the stone again. Slowly, she rolled it in her palm, staring at it, her lips compressed into a discomforted line. "It's elfin, but twisted somehow. There's a sense of fairy about it, but that feels almost like an afterthought."

"That's what I thought, too. But what does it mean?"

She placed the stone back on the table with a look of relief. "It just feels wrong. What's stranger still is that the stone has been purposefully and intensely infused with it, almost like making a ward. It's almost gone now."

"I'm guessing the other stones were all like this, but I didn't see them until after the essence had dissipated," I said.

"Is this the same type of stone?"

I nodded. "One's white, one's black, and one's gray like this. I'm sure they are all the same crystal, selenite, but they disappeared before tests could be run."

She smiled and arched an eyebrow. "Oh, it's selenite, all right. It's also pre-Convergence."

Impressed, I looked back at the stone. When the fey found themselves bodily transported here after Convergence, pieces of the physical realm of Faerie came with them, sometimes just a house or even less. Those places were very few and are closely guarded. Organic and inorganic material from them is highly sought after because the fey's abilities work best through them. Something pre-Convergence, something actually from the true Faerie, is extremely rare.

"This must be worth a fortune," I said.

Briallen lifted her chin to speak but gasped instead. "Connor, you're bleeding."

Even as she said it, I felt the trickle of blood coming out of my nose. She handed me a tissue, then pressed her hand against my head. "What the hell happened tonight?"

"I think I pushed myself to the limit."

"Go sit in the study. Now."

I took another tissue and did as I was told. Now that my adrenaline rush was over, I felt tired down to my bones, not to mention the pounding headache that threatened to split my forehead open. The usual fire glowed on the hearth, comfortable even though summer heat sweltered outside the windows. I fell exhausted into an armchair.

Briallen came in and wordlessly handed me a cup. I drank it without question, an earthy concoction with the smoothness of honey that permeated my chest with a soothing warmth. Closing her eyes, Briallen held her hands just over my face. They became pale, glowing phosphores-cently. I felt the soft force of her essence begin to emanate from her fingers. It molded itself to the contours of my face. I closed my own eyes as the feeling intensified, a sweetly painful sensation that vibrated through my head down to my groin. After a few moments, the feeling vanished, like a warm compress had been taken away.