“Other neighbors?”
“Not really friendly with them.”
“Friends you could ask?”
“Not many. The Danzigers are on the watch list, too, so that’s them out of the picture. And there aren’t a lot of other people I trust in my home . . . except Phoebe.” My shoulders slumped a little and I sighed. “She’s not going to like this.”
Phoebe was my oldest friend in Seattle. I’d met her on a rainy afternoon when I’d hidden in the back of her used bookshop to look through the rental listings. Short and round and fierce as a mother wolverine where her friends and family were concerned, she’d kind of adopted me on first sight. I still had no idea why. We’d had a rough time of our friendship when I’d ended up investigating the death-by-poltergeist of one of her employees, but she was still the closest nonmagical female friend I had.
“She’ll do it, though,” Quinton said.
“Yeah, and if she has any trouble, I’ll hear all about it.”
“Yes. But she’ll still let you come to dinner because that’s how she is. You should call her.”
I was doubtful and frowned. “It’s pretty late.” And I was both tired and afraid I’d babble something inappropriate.
Quinton shot me a disbelieving glance. “It’s Friday and the shop stays open all night. If anyone’s up keeping the drunks from sleeping in the Sociology corner, it’ll be Phoebe.”
I know when to stop fighting and, well, he was right. Unless she was sick or mourning a dead friend, Phoebe never missed Friday Happy Hour at her bookstore, Old Possum’s Books and Beans. I hunted my phone out of my bag and poked the speed-dial button for the shop.
Of course it wasn’t Phoebe who answered the phone but one of the minions; Phoebe was busy stalking the stacks. I waited on hold for a minute or so, trying not to listen to the whispering chorus in my head.
Phoebe’s words danced out of the phone on an island rhythm. “Hey, girl! Where you been? Poppy told me t’have you come t’dinner last week and you weren’t home.”
“I was in London on business.”
“So, you back now. When you comin’ up here?”
“Uh, well . . .”
“Don’t be sayin’ you’re not comin’—and you bringin’ dat man of yours, too. Or Poppy’s gonna skin us both.”
“I would love to accommodate your father, but I am currently in a bit of a jam.”
“Oh? So you’re callin’ me to get you unjammed?”
“Yes, I am. See—”
She cut me off. “No, no. No, you don’t. You come up here and ask my face. I’m not lettin’ you sweet-talk me over the phone. ’Sides, I got some things to show you anyhow.”
“All right. We’ll be there in . . .” I glanced at Quinton, not sure where we were.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said.
I told her.
“All right then. See you
both
,” Phoebe answered before hanging up.
“She’s in a mood,” I warned.
“I guessed. What’s up?”
“I have no idea. So long as it’s not vampires, I think we’ll be OK.”
“I haven’t heard of much weirdness in Fremont—beyond the usual kind.”
I hoped that was true.
We looped around and got back to Fremont in a reasonable time, but finding a parking space on a Friday night was a bit trickier and we were a little late. Phoebe wasn’t in a condition to notice, though: She was glaring at a guy in a trench coat and blocking the door when we arrived—she’s not very tall, but Phoebe’s evil eye can stop rampaging elephants in their tracks.
“You callin’ me a liar, Mr. Thief?” she demanded. “You sayin’ you ain’t smugglin’ some pussy in your coat?”
The patrons of the shop giggled and the miscreant blushed in shame. He wasn’t very old and I guessed he was a college student doing something foolish on a dare or a drunk.
Phoebe softened her scowl and put out her hands, beckoning with her fingers, palm up. “Hand it over, before the poor thing suffocates.”
Slump-shouldered, the guy pulled a black-and-white kitten out of his pocket and gave it to her. Phoebe snuggled the kitten, who was purring nonstop, and stood aside to let the cat-napper make his escape. “Next time, try da pound!” she shouted after him.
She saw us standing outside and waved us in. “Come on in da back,” she said, handing off the kitten to the minion behind the counter. The kitten was shelved in “returns” and went back to purring mindlessly between the books as we followed Phoebe into the back of the shop, toward the espresso machine.
Phoebe’s accent was thicker than usual from her annoyance. “I swear, dem boys steal anyt’ing and Beenie’s too stupid not t’go along. He been in dat boy’s pocket twice now. Usually dem snatchy-hands jus’ take da books—now dey takin’ da cats, too!”
She stopped at the espresso machine and grabbed three cups of coffee off the back counter, muttering to herself. She shoved two of the cups at us. “You’re late, so it’s cold.”
It wasn’t very cold, and I decided I didn’t care so long as it was coffee and took the closest chair in the nook. Phoebe plopped down into another beside the fake fireplace that hid the door to the office. Quinton seemed to think standing was safer and kept on his feet. None of us doctored the coffee.
I waited for Phoebe to settle in and calm down before I said anything, but she beat me to it. I suppose she wasn’t quite so angry about Beenie’s near kidnapping as she seemed. It only took her two long sips before she asked, “So, what sort of trouble you want me to get you out of?”
I had to swallow quickly to reply. “I need someone I can trust to go fetch a puzzle ball from my place.”
“And you can’t go . . . why?”
“Because some guys I really don’t want to tangle with are staking the place out, waiting for me. You they don’t know, so they won’t give you any hassle if you show up.”
“You think they aren’t gonna notice some black woman ain’t you sneakin’ into your place and not think that’s kinda strange?”
“They aren’t watching the inside of the building, just the outside.” I hoped. “They won’t know which condo you go into.”
“Uh-huh. They any kind of observant, they
will
notice I wasn’t in there very long.”
“They won’t care. You could be any one of my neighbors or one of their friends dropping something off. Take a box of books with you and leave it if you think that’ll fool them better.”
Phoebe looked thoughtful. “Hm . . . I could do that. I could take the safes.”
“The whats?” I asked.
“Safes. That’s what I wanted to show you. I got a bunch of these ‘book safes’—they’re those hollowed out books that people hide stuff in—in a box of books I bought at a big sale on Capitol Hill. Some of the book safes have things inside and I thought you might help me find out who they belong to. No one from the sale knew. So. I help you out and you help me.”
That was a no-brainer. “OK. I’ll give you my keys and if you can go tomorrow, I’ll meet you here when you’re done.”
“Fine. I’ll leave the safes at your place, say . . . tenish. Where’s this puzzle ball?”
“On a bookshelf by the TV. It’s wood, about eight inches across. You can’t miss it: There’s only one.” I handed over the condo keys, showing her which one was for the exterior door and which the interior.
Phoebe took them and nodded like the deal was done. “Dinner next Sunday. And you’re both comin’ or Poppy’s sendin’ da braas for you—don’t think he wouldn’t.”
Intimidating as they look, Phoebe’s brothers don’t scare me except in terms of sheer bulk. Phoebe is the oldest but she’s also the smallest, and you could lift three of her for one of her brothers. But the oldest brother, Hugh, would do anything for her, so I like to stay on his good side. And Poppy’s, because I sometimes suspect he sees a lot more than he lets on.
“Sunday. All right,” I agreed, hoping I’d be alive to see it.
NINETEEN
I
did not sleep well that night in the Danzigers’ basement. I might have been sending Phoebe into danger and I hadn’t been honest about it. I couldn’t get the sound of the Grey out of my head, nor could I push aside my own internal voice that worried at the things Carlos had implied about my own motives. I felt bloody and raw inside and even my dreams were haunted by that voice. My brain was as loud as an asylum without drugs and even Quinton’s attentions didn’t push it back far enough.
The ferret tried to haul me off the bed in the morning by biting my toes and heaving backward with all her two-pound might; she didn’t quite shake the turmoil from my mind, but she did get me upright.
“Stop that!” I snapped, flailing the air as I tried to catch the escaping miscreant. She danced backward, chuckling and flashing her teeth until she fell off the bed and had to retrench underneath it.
“I thought you were going to sleep all day,” Quinton said, watching me from across the room at his makeshift worktable. “Not that what you were doing was really sleeping. . . .”
“What was I doing?” I asked, shooting him a questioning glance and grabbing the nearest clothes my size.
“Mostly muttering and thrashing around. Mostly.”
“And when I wasn’t?”
“That’s when you scared me. About four a.m., you made this gurgling sound and went rigid. Then you stopped breathing. And when I touched you, you gasped, whipped around, and kneed me about . . . here,” he added, pointing to his navel. “I’m really glad I’m shorter than you. After that, you scrambled over me and when your feet hit the floor, you went limp. It was fun getting you back into bed. But you slept a little better after that.”
I bit my lip and frowned in confusion. “I don’t remember any of it.”
“You weren’t exactly awake when it happened.” He looked back at his work and picked up his soldering iron, prodding something with the hot tip. “I don’t know what you’d call it. It’s not really sleepwalking; more like . . . sleep-fighting. I figured you were dreaming and the cold floor shocked you enough to stop but not enough to wake up.”
I sat back down on the edge of the bed with my clothes half on, trying to remember what I’d been dreaming, what might have made me act like that in my sleep. I studied his half-turned back, watching him for a moment. His posture was a little odd, as if he were pulling his shoulders in. Defensive. He wasn’t telling me something.
“Did I say anything?” I asked.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“What?”
“That’s what you said: ‘I’m going to kill you.’ ”
“You don’t think I was really talking to you. Do you?”
“Well, I admit, I wasn’t sure. It was very clear and your voice was very cold. It’s a little freak-worthy when someone stops breathing, says something like that, and then attacks you. I’m not even sure how you managed to say anything when you weren’t breathing—holding your breath, maybe?”
I felt something well in my eyes. “Oh, no . . . Quinton. . . .” My chest ached and it was hard to breathe around what felt like a rock in my throat. I got up and rushed toward him but stopped short of the intended embrace. My vision was going blurry and red, and I sank to my knees, wiping my eyes while I bowed my head. I felt an unusual stickiness against my skin and knew it was blood.
I didn’t want him to see it and tried to turn aside, but I felt his arms come around me as he slid down onto the floor. I kept my face down and pressed it into his shoulder. Oh, gods, I was going to stain his shirt. . . .
He stroked my hair, shushing me as I hiccuped on the tears I tried to hold back. “Hey, hey . . . it’s all right.”
I let the awful feeling go, let it roll out and over me and tumble away on a series of shaking breaths. “Y-you know I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it,” I cried.
“I do. I know.”
“You’re afraid of me.”
“I’m not. I’m not.”
I raised my face. His eyes flashed wide and he jerked back a little before he caught himself. He blinked a few times. “All right . . . that’s disturbing.” He took a deep breath. Then he shrugged and pulled me back into a hug. “You know, in horror movies that’s usually just a picturesque trickle. . . . You kind of look like someone broke your nose.”
I mumbled against his chest. “Oh, thanks.”
“Do you remember what you were dreaming?”
I shook my head. “No.” It wasn’t like the disturbing dream-sendings I’d had about Will; this was a regular dream, if a horrible one. Pieces came back as I thought about it, but not the whole and none of it made sense alone. The only thing that seemed clear was the lingering sensation of electricity across my fingertips and a soreness at my neck and shoulders as if I’d been hanged.
“Maybe you should take a shower and then call Phoebe back,” Quinton suggested. “She left a message on your phone.”
“Oh, damn. What time is it?”
“After ten.”
I cursed and scuttled for the bathroom, confusion and upset pushed aside for more practical concerns. I focused on the routine: wash, brush, dress. . . . I extracted Chaos from my right boot, from which she was trying to remove the insole, as I simultaneously juggled the phone to make the call.
“Hello, Harper.”
“Hi, Phoebe. Did you get the ball?” Chaos gave me a dirty look as I took the insole away.
“Yes. And I want to get rid of it fast as I can. Somet’ing ’bout it make my skin crawl.”
That made me frown as I stood up, watching the ferret attack my reassembled footwear from the outside. “I can be down at the store in about twenty minutes—”
“No. I’ll bring it to you. I just want this t’ing gone.”
Her response surprised me, but I gave her the Danzigers’ address and she hung up.
Quinton watched me. “So she’s bringing it here? Is that safe?”
I bit my lip before answering. “I hope so. I mean, it should be safe for Phoebe. If she’s being followed or something, it’s not so safe for the rest of us, but she was adamant about getting rid of the ball as quickly as possible.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah,” I replied, thinking. Was there something I’d never noticed about the puzzle ball or was it something about Phoebe? Or maybe something about the ball had changed since I’d seen it last. . . . I scooped up the ferret and went upstairs to find Mara. Quinton followed.
It was Saturday, so there were no classes to teach and the Danzigers were both home, entertaining Brian. Or rather, watching Brian be entertained by Grendel in the backyard. There was a lot of running in circles and rolling on the ground going on, in spite of a lingering morning cloud cover that kept the day unusually cool for late May. The adults wore extra layers, but Brian made do in just a shirt, jeans, and sneakers—little boys being their own heaters.
Mara looked up as we came onto the back porch. “Morning. There’s coffee and brekkie in the kitchen if y’like.”
“Thanks. I’ll get it in a minute,” I said. “My friend Phoebe wants to drop something off for me here.”
“That’ll be fine.”
“She may be here pretty soon and I hoped you’d take a look at it when she arrives.”
“Oh?” Mara looked curious. “What sort of thing is it?”
“It’s a puzzle ball—a large one that used to be on a newel post in an old house. It might or might not be part of a back door into the Grey.”
“Now that’s an odd sort of thing to have layin’ about.”
“Will gave it to me. Phoebe picked it up from my condo this morning, but she says it gives her the creeps. It’s never bothered me, but . . .”
“You’re wonderin’ if there’s more to it.”
“Yes.”
Now Ben was watching us too. “You think it could be dangerous?”
“I never thought so, but my place has been empty for a few days and I don’t know what’s been going on while we’ve been gone.”
“Ah. All right then,” Mara said. “We’ll take a look.” She stood up and started inside, tossing one end of her woolen shawl over her shoulder. “Let me get a few things. Ben, don’t let the mud monster into the kitchen without a rinse down.”
“No problem. I have the hose right on the porch.”
I started to follow her and Quinton caught my eye, raising a questioning eyebrow. “I just want a second with Mara,” I whispered and passed him the ferret.
He nodded and sat down near Ben, watching the boy and the dog out in the yard, while the ferret took possession of the table and went hunting for crumbs. I headed for the kitchen.
Mara was climbing a step stool to get to the top of a cabinet. Even with her height, the shelf was well over her head in the lofty old kitchen. “If I toss this down, will y’catch it?” she asked, without turning her head. It was disconcerting that she always knew when I was in the room.
I stopped next to her. “OK.”
She dropped a round black thing about the size of a salad plate toward me. It was heavy and I almost dropped it in surprise. It was a thick disk shape with some kind of black cloth stretched over it and a stubby handle on one side. She made a sling out of her shawl and piled a few more things into that before she stepped down.
I held up the disk. “Why couldn’t you put this in the shawl?”
“Shouldn’t mix with the herbs. Devil to clean off, and if it’s dirty, it shan’t shut down.”
“What is it?”
“It’s an eye. Sort of a magic magnifyin’ glass. But like a convex lens, it can concentrate light and energy. Tends to set things on fire. You can see why I keep it as far from Brian’s busy little fingers as possible.”
“Mara . . .” I started.
She stepped off the stool and laid her hand on my arm. “Don’t vex yourself. I’ve been thinkin’ on what I said before. After last night, it seems to me it’s a bit of omelets and eggs. Things will get broken when there’s wicked magic afoot, and you’ve been the one to take the brunt when it must be done, but it will splatter about sometimes. I don’t say I like it, nor that it’s all right, but ’tis better you do the things you do than that you stand aside and let worse happen.”
This was about 180 degrees from what Carlos had implied. Or was it . . . ? I found myself frowning and shaking my head.
“Never mind. You’ll do what you have to.”
I would have asked her what she meant, but the doorbell rang and, still carrying the eye, I followed her into the front hall. Mara opened the door and started to say hello.
Phoebe, holding a sack and looking horrified, lunged forward, knocking us both down as a shot cracked off the doorframe. The open portal flushed red, the house rang with an alarm, and the door tried to slam closed. Mara and Phoebe were scrambling on the floor to clear the doorway. I was to the right of the frame, on the knob side, and I grabbed Phoebe, the closer of the two, and hauled her to me along the polished floor. Mara rolled away and the unobstructed door snapped closed as a second shot made an odd crackling sound against the scarlet haze between the lintels.
Brian shrieked in the backyard. The house was still making noise. I reached for my pistol, but it was not on my hip. I cursed: I’d left the gun downstairs when I finished dressing.
Mara snatched the eye off the floor where I’d dropped it and pulled the cloth off it as she flew to her feet and charged toward the kitchen. I jumped up to follow her and something crashed against the front door.
“Dat’s him,” Phoebe croaked, her voice and accent were so thick with fear I could barely understand her. “Dat mon what was in your house. He say he gwine t’kill you.”
I pointed at the basement steps. “Go down there and lock the door. No one is killing anyone today. There’s a gun on the bedside table. You hold on to that until I come downstairs for you.” The door bulged and cracked as something rammed against it. “Go!” I gave her a shove along the floor and Phoebe scrambled the rest of the way on her own.
I had no idea what I was going to do. The alarm was still howling and there was noise from the backyard that I didn’t have time to investigate. I cast a quick glance sideways into the Grey and saw the shape of the house touched in crimson at the front and back, wavering as something attacked it both physically and in the Grey. To the rear, two small black shapes wrestled in the center of three white ones with one more white shape and a tower of emerald green bearing down on them. Outside the front, something indigo and red reared back to make another strike at the buckling door.
I crouched, tight as a spring, wrenched the door open, and leapt forward, keeping low and ramming my shoulder into Bryson Goodall’s midsection. He lurched backward into the porch rail. I ducked down and yanked his legs upward, sending him over the barrier and into the rosebushes below.
A pitiful scream came from the backyard and the alarm shut down. A moment later a stink of singed hair rose on the wind as I stepped down to haul Goodall to his feet.
He was hard to see: He’d learned the vampire trick of sliding into the Grey so his normal shape was dim in the real world, but see him I did and I reached for him in a hot rage. But I didn’t grab him by the shirt or shoulders. Instead, I let my hand pierce through the shell of his thrashing, thorn-pricked body and into the whirling colors of his energy corona. I don’t know what I did or how but I closed my hand around the core of his strength and yanked him upright by it. I didn’t think it would tear away and it made as good a handle as anything.
He made a strangled gurgling sound and I shook him like a rat. I felt like I could have snapped his neck with a flick of my wrist and I dropped him only long enough to change my grip to his throat. The shouting chorus of the grid roared in my ears like a conflagration. The voices were obscured individually, but their collective urged me to go ahead and kill him. I quivered, resisting. I wanted to, but I knew I shouldn’t, though why was lost in the crackle and gust of noise. I shook him again. He clutched my forearm and I shoved him back toward the street, watching the flashing, writhing threads of his power try to crawl up my arm. I flicked them off with my other hand and squeezed his throat.
“Harper, don’t.”
I ignored the voice behind me and kept pushing Goodall backward, cutting off his air as I went. He glared pure hatred at me and clawed at my arms, but the dark blue of his aura didn’t move so strongly this time; it only flickered at my grip like the tongue of a dying snake. I could just take that energy, I could push it into the earth like a grounded wire. . . .