Loraine was not as shocked as she thought she'd be. “So that rumor is true.” “It'll be necessary for a time. An...indefinite time. You see—”
“Hey, Doc,” Sean said, looking at Helman suddenly with a sneering triumph. “You're gettin' way past 'need to know.'“
Helman scowled, not liking to be brought up short by Sean. But he nodded reluctantly. “I suppose you're right. There'll be time for that later. The general will decide when.”
Loraine took a long breath, trying to center herself. She couldn't let them know how all this made” her feel. Especially the part about the president's plans.
I'm supposed to be loyal to the president— when loyalty is actually treason.
But she nodded, locking eyes with Helman, trying to sound as if she believed what she was saying. As if she didn't privately believe that Dr. Helman was insane. “If the president thinks that this change is necessary for the safety and stability of the country then”—she shrugged—”I've taken an oath: I serve at the pleasure of the president.”
“Must be good to be president,” Sean said. “With you serving at his pleasure.”
Helman winced. Loraine simply stood up and said, “I've given you my answer, Doctor. I'm tired and it's a long trip back to Brooklyn Heights.”
“Actually”—it was General Forsythe, standing in the doorway—”I reckon you won't be going back to Brooklyn Heights tonight.” Forsythe stood there with his hands casually in his pockets; smiling apologetically. And seemingjust as fundamentally insincere as Helman and Sean. “I'm sorry, by the way, that I missed the meeting, turning up at the last moment here like this. I had a kind of a set-to with Mr. Gulcher. Discipline issue.”
“I...didn't come prepared to stay overnight. I need to clean up, get some rest—”
“Oh, we have rooms for officers and government visitors here, you can use one of those. They're a bit dormlike but comfortable enough. I've already sent for your necessities. Your things will be here any minute.”
She stared. “You sent someone to rifle through my apartment? That really wasn't necessary, General.”
He shrugged. His vaguely apologetic look didn't waver. “We've got a state of national emergency coming up here, Agent Sarikosca.” The regret dropped from his face. She saw him, suddenly, as he really was. A cold-eyed slug of a man capable of doing anything to anyone. “This is no time to think like a suburban housewife.”
That one felt like a slap in the face. But she had to ask: “My cats...?”
He snorted impatiently. “We can have them put down for you. You'll be here for a long time, I expect. You'll want to cancel your lease.” “Cancel my...How long will I be here?”
“Oh—you'll be here at Facility Twenty-three indefinitely, Agent Sarikosca. Unless we need you to bring Bleak to us—and then, perhaps, we'll cast that fishin' line in the water. But the bait will be firmly on the hook. You won't be going anywhere we don't want you to go. And now—I believe there is a debriefing we need to get ourselves to. There is a good deal, I reckon, you haven't told us about
Gabriel Bleak.” The two black berets in the hall stepped into view, then, behind him, looking at her coolly, without pointing their weapons at her. But making their purpose clear. And Forsythe told her, “Come right this way, please.”
***
GULCHER SAT ON THE edge of the small bed, looking around at the tiny room they'd given him. Superficially, it was more comfortable than a jail cell. But it was still locked from the outside.
“Fucking college dorm room,” he muttered. “But they don't lock those kids in.” He should be asleep. He was tired, and frustrated. The whisperer wouldn't say much to him. He could sense the ethereal familiars around, but they weren't responsive to him. Forsythe was interfering some way. Gulcher could sense a connection.
A knock on the door. “Yeah, come in, as if I have a fucking choice!”
The door unlocked, and Dr. Helman was there, carrying two tiny liquor bottles, as if from a minibar. Helman's head bobbled. “Mr. Gulcher? Can I have a word? And the use of a couple of glasses?”
What was this all about? “Sure. Glasses over by that dinky-ass little sink there.” Helman closed the door behind him, busied himself at the sink, pouring the drinks. “Water in yours?”
“Hell no, I want to taste it. That all you've brought?”
“It is, I'm afraid, all I could scrounge. I thought—bourbon?”
“Yeah.”
“I'll have the brandy. Here you go.” He handed Gulcher the glass with a little more than a finger of amber fluid in it and actually clinked it with his own. “Chin-chin!” Helman said, taking the merest sip.
Gulcher snorted. “Whatever. Sit down.” He nodded toward a small chair at the small desk.
Helman sat, cradling the glass in both hands. Sipping the bourbon, Gulcher noticed that despite the hour, Helman still wore his suit jacket and the tie with the flowers painted on it.
Helman sighed. “I am a man of the world. I'm sure it's evident. Yet when it comes to the ladies, I find myself tongue-tied. Loraine Sarikosca is here. I don't know as you've met her. A handsome woman. Perhaps a tad young for me. She's not happy with her current situation—she's under restrictions.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Ah, yes. Oh, you'll be given much more latitude when we have what the general calls 'full control.' And when your loyalty has been tested. But until then...at any rate, I, ah...well, you seem a vigorous sort of man, who doubtless has had women in his time. I mean—the ones you had, who...that is, I don't mean to imply—”
“The ones I didn't pay for, or force?”
“As I said, I meant no offense—”
“It's all right. I'm a con, you rack up a lot of run-ins with the heat, you get to expect people to have, you know, assumptions and shit. I prefer my women voluntary. And I've had plenty of girlfriends.”
“So...with a woman who's a professional—”
“She's a whore?”
“Not that kind of professional, Mr. Gulcher. Troy...1 mean, she's a member of a
profession,
she's a federal agent, she's...not someone to be trifled with. How would one...Well, I was thinking of knocking on her door this very evening. She might be lonely, here.”
“She give you any indication she thinks of you that way?”
“Ah—not as such. No.”
“Then she probably doesn't. Figures you for too old for her. And she's not going to be in the mood, when she's already feeling trapped, for Christ's sake. Hey, Doc?” Gulcher paused to drink off
half his bourbon. Too bad there was only this one baby bottle. “I'm a little, what you might say,
skeptical
that advice about women is the only reason you're here.”
Helman chewed his lower lip, glanced nervously at the door. “Very perceptive. Yes, there is something else. I hesitate to discuss it. What—yes, let's put it this way—what was your impression of the event in the courtyard? With Billy Blunt, the others. Forsythe supervising.”
Gulcher didn't enjoy thinking about it. He didn't like anyone else having the ability to take control of people. What if it happened to him next? He shrugged. “Gave me a feeling you people could lose control of this thing. What do I know, I'm no expert. But for one thing—that Forsythe's got something else going on. He's got his own agenda. Only it's not his. That thing that's in him— something ain't human, in there.”
Helman looked pale. Drank a little more brandy. “What do you mean, he ain't...isn't human?”
“With that mind reading of his. You notice that? And it's not like he's...you know, got a talent, like I do. It's something else. It's like it's not
him
reading the minds.”
“Ah. Yes. I have been wondering about that myself.” Helman made his brandy swirl in the glass. “Forsythe was the first one in our research department to do what he called 'direct outreach' to the... the After. Specifically—to entities in what the Shadow Community likes to call the Wilderness. The part of the Hidden that's kept back from close interaction with our world, in normal conditions. The general bridged that gap—and he says he was rewarded with a certain 'extraordinary sensitivity.' Which we perceive as mind reading. But...I'm not sure that's the whole story.”
“That what he calls it? 'Sensitivity'?” It occurred to Gulcher that the more he knew about what was going on, the more options he had. Just like in jail. Know when they trucked out the laundry—and you might be able to go with it. “So what was this 'outreach' of his?”
“Ritual magic. He was the first to do it, that I'm aware of, in CCA. He has a special room that he performed it in.”
“And he sorta
changed,
after he did that ritual stuff—right?”
Helman blinked, opening his mouth to reply. Then he shut it. Seemed to think for a moment. “I suppose that's true. Not too obviously. But it shows, at times. He's changed. As I said—if it is merely enhanced psychic sensitivity—”
Gulcher made eye contact with Helman and shook his head. “No. And I don't think I'm telling you anything you're not already guessing. You're asking me because I help that kind of takeover happen. So you figure I'd know for sure. I don't. But I can make a good guess. And I'd guess your Forsythe ain't Forsythe anymore. He's only General Forsythe on the outside.”
“You're saying—he's a victim of neurological redirection by an Unconventionally Bodied Predatory Entity?”
“And what the hell's that mean?”
“The conventional term is...
possessed.”
Helman looked nervously at the door.
“Possessed?!
wouldn't use that term. That's like you're talking demons. I've seen some things,
“1
since I got this power. You know what it's more like? When I was a kid, I lived in a shitty part of Philadelphia. Then they started building a shopping center in there. We figured that'd make things better. My old man opened a car-supplies store in this shopping center—and then some wise-guys came around, the whole operation got taken over. Pretty soon they were asking twice the rents, and protection too. They were from the Florida mob, these guys. That's what you got here in your CCA now. These aren't, what you call them, devils. Oh, people took 'em for gods and devils once. But these are—just things that ain't human. They're from
outside.
They're—what's that term you use, UB something?”
“Ah. Unconventionally Bodied Entities. UBEs. Or UBPE in the case of some of the more aggressive individuals.”
“Well, you got that right, seems to me. That's what they are. They've got an agenda, that's all. Like any other hustler. They're moving into your operation, pretending it's still what you say it is—but just like that shopping center, pal, it ain't what it seems. Not no more. They got their chance when your
General Forsythe stuck his nose too far into their world, and I figure they used him to come partway over here. And they're gonna use your operation to make things safe for them once they're here. Because there's cops, over here, too. I mean, you know, spirit cops. And these hustlers that are pushing the general around, they need to protect themselves from that. And you guys, you're providing their, what you call it—their camouflage. The mob from the other side is moving in, and the general, now— he's one of them.”
Helman looked at Gulcher blankly. “Oh, no. I don't believe it could be quite so...so dire. That we're being used so...” Helman shook his head, drained his glass, set it down on the desk, and stood up. Seeming hostile to Gulcher, now, in a passive-aggressive way. “Well. I'll take your...your
opinion
under consideration.... And thank you for the advice on the fairer sex. Good evening.”
Just like that, boom, he walked out. Locking the door behind him. Gulcher chuckled, thinking,
He's been wondering the same thing. Wanted we to tell hiw it wasn 't so. Doesn't like hearing that what he's scared of Just might be real.
“I know the feeling,” Gulcher said aloud. He drank the last piddly little drops of bourbon, adding, “I sure know that feeling.”
***
AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME. Embedded in the sticky New Jersey night.
“Greg? You there?” Bleak called—both in his mind and out loud. He was sitting at the kitchen table in Shoella's house, waiting for her. She'd been closeted with the loas in her summoning room for two hours. Bleak had got tired of puzzling over the Scribbler document.
He had reached out to Greg the Ghost through the Hidden; had felt him responding, hearing his name called from the shadows within shadows. But the voice was faint, the ghost seeming distant, unable to get through.
Bleak tried again, his eyes focused on a blank spot in the wall. “Greg Berne...it's Bleak...come to me.” The off-white wall seemed to ripple, becoming a blizzard—all one color but with depth, something you could walk into. A tiny little dark figure was there, in the apparent blizzard—at first Bleak thought it might be a housefly walking down the wall. Then it came into focus, growing, as if someone were walking toward him in a snowfall. Closer...
And he stepped out of the rippling wall, to stand before Bleak in the kitchen, floating there, really, about a foot off the floor. Greg the Ghost.
“You got something needs fixing here?” Greg asked, looking around vaguely. “Somebody call me?”
“Greg? It's Gabriel Bleak. Remember?”
“My wife...you know she was banging someone else?”
“No, Greg, I didn't know that.” Bleak had a bad feeling about this. “Greg—you've been wandering around in this plane too long. You're starting to forget your mission. You're starting to forget basic things. You need to move on, man. And you can. I spoke to Roseland.”
The ghost looked at Bleak, frowning—then his eyes focused, and he nodded. “Bleak! Gabriel Bleak! I remember. Roseland the detective. To clear my name!”
“With luck—it will be cleared. I told Roseland that I had information that Mormon kid was in the neighborhood where that new murder was. They found DNA evidence there—they're testing him. And comparing with the DNA in that condom. They've already got a sort of confession out of him, though they can't use it, exactly—but the DNA will cinch it. Your family will be informed. Roseland promised. It'll be all over the news too. You can move on, Greg.”