Greywalker (34 page)

Brian was at full wail now. Ben stared at me. Mara gaped at me, her mouth forming a little O.

Ben blinked. His face crumpled and he turned toward the stairs. "Brian needs me. And Harper needs you, Mara. She's right. She's right. You'd better go." He stopped on the first landing and glared back at us. "But you had better come back. Brian and I need you, too."

Mara began crying, flew up the steps, and threw herself into her husband's arms. "I love you. I will be very, very careful, I promise. Thank you, love."

Ben looked on the verge of tears himself, his head hanging over her shoulder a moment before he turned to give his wife a kiss.

"I know you'll be careful, sweetheart. I know it. You'll be fine," he added, letting her go. "You two had better get going. It's going to be dark soon." He turned and marched up the stairs.

Mara plodded to me, reaching for her purse by the door as we went out and swiping at her eyes. Albert blinked owl-like at us from the porch, but made no move to come along.

Dejected, Mara sat in the front seat. "I wish I could have Ben with me... though you look like you'll need more help than I. You look one step from dead."

"I think I felt better when I was."

I drove out to the museum and told her the plan. Mara nodded. I felt miserable. Nothing within or without didn't ache with bruises or a wearying, bone-deep illness, and everything I saw was aglimmer with streaks of color and coils of Grey.

I did not park in the same lot as on the previous visits, but several blocks away and around a couple of corners. We got out and walked to the museum.

Clouds obscured the moon, but that wasn't the only source of dark-ness. The Grey around the building had thickened into an artificial midnight, a twist of realities from which light seemed to flee. Quinton had been leaning against a tree by the fence line and now ambled toward us, emerging from the coil of darkness like a ship from fog. I did not introduce my companions to each other. They didn't mind.

"Hi," Quinton greeted us. "I've already got stuff in place and I can control what the cameras see, so the security guys shouldn't be alerted. The perimeter alarm is off at the side door. It's not locked. Don't touch any exterior doors or windows and don't make too much noise." He began to lead us up the darkened edge of the drive, in cover of shadowing trees and shrubs.

I murmured to him, "How'd you manage all of that?"

"I don't want you to know."

"Thanks. Will you come inside?"

"Only as far as the kitchen, where the electrical box is. I want to stay near the switches, in case anyone starts prowling around."

"OK. Have you seen anyone else yet?"

"Vampires and ghosts? Not yet, but I might not see them at all. They're sneaky bastards. Besides, it's barely dark yet."

"'Sneaky.' Charming description." We all turned and faced Edward.

He stood in the shadows under the covered driveway. "I hope I didn't miss much. Eavesdropping is one of my best techniques."

None of us blushed.

"Who else are we to expect?" I asked.

"Only Carlos and Cameron. With your friend here, it should prove sufficient."

"No one rallied to the flag?"

"There were volunteers, but I didn't get to be the lead dog without having some teeth. Occasionally, it's necessary to prove I still have them. It wouldn't behoove me to ask my people to do what I wouldn't. Besides which, they will be busy creating the illusion that all of us were busy elsewhere tonight."

Quinton muttered under his breath, "Teeth and balls. Nice combo—for a pit bull."

Edward turned his gaze on Quinton and skewered him with it. Quinton squirmed a bit, but didn't look down.

"And for lone wolves," Edward added. "Just be careful whose pack you run across this time."

I looked at them both. "You guys know each other?"

Edward gazed at Quinton. "By reputation."

Quinton gave a slight nod and we all chose to look toward the side door.

Edward pointed to it. "Shall we go?"

We went as stealthily as wet gravel would allow—a train of phan-tom follow-the-leader—and let ourselves in. Quinton stood aside and waited for us to pass.

"I'll stay here until I see another vampire," he whispered.

"And Cameron."

"OK. Stay quiet, all right? Neighbors like to walk their dogs around here, even in the rain."

Carlos and Cameron joined us as we started up the stairs. We all hesi-tated at the top, glancing about. I don't know what made the vampires scope the area like that, but in my case, it was fear. Mara looked nervous and overwound. She cast a look at me and sketched a sign in the air between us. It sparked a moment and shed warmth on me, then faded.

We went to the parlor. The door was sheathed in a blanket of ugli-ness that oozed and seeped around the edges, flowing onto the floor, creeping like a spreading puddle of blood. Carlos brushed past the rest of us and touched the door, whispering. The darkness squirmed aside. We followed him in. He closed the door behind us.

The room was swathed in the rolling, icy blackness that had retreated from the door. Carlos pushed it back with his hands, clear-ing space. We moved furniture to his direction, shuffling in aching silence. Mara and I were sweating before we were done, and I moved at an old woman's pace. I had to give the organ a wide berth. Every time I came near, it sent a tentacle of darkness toward me. Carlos pinched them off with a smell of burnt flesh.

With all the furniture pushed up to the farthest walls, we rolled up the rug. We stood back as Carlos began to chalk symbols on the floor. Mara held one of my hands and chanted something that kept the Grey back from us. The Grey web inside me buzzed with exhausting activity, crackling and arcing over my nerves and joints as the energy from the nexus hummed through me. I watched the darkness lap at the arc of chalked sigils. After a while, Carlos motioned to Edward and they began to push and pull on the organ. Judging from their grunts and stifled noises, it was terrible work.

Cameron started forward to help. Carlos waved him off.

"Better for us to do it." He gave a rictus grin. "We are old in our own evil."

Once the organ was a few feet from the wall, Edward fell back, looking as ill as I felt. His face and neck bore thin, white weals that had not been there the night before. Carlos crept around the floor, singing in a low voice, drawing a careful circle of runes and symbols that writhed and connected into an endless, glowing gyre enclosing himself and the organ.

Then Mara began a larger circle of her own, outside and around his, that encompassed most of the rest of the room. She muttered as she walked, making a trail of dim sparks along with her chalk line that pushed the darkness into a heavy, gathering storm around the organ. She left a small opening opposite the door. I went to stand by it with her, facing the door. I could feel the organ's power surging.

"The scent of blood to draw him," Carlos said and looked toward me and Mara.

She glared at him.

Carlos watched me and started to reach for my hand.

"No," Mara snapped, her words coming out of her mouth sharp gold and scintillating. "And not mine, either. You know that."

Edward raised a languid hand. "Don't be cruel, Carlos. It's poor form to repay our friends in that coin. I'd give mine, if I had any."

"Maybe your friend downstairs," Carlos suggested. "I could call him here."

I tried to glare at him. "That's not fair."

Carlos growled, "Fair..." Cameron started to say something, but Carlos shut him up with a look. "Very well, then. Cameron, open the door for our guest."

Cameron edged around the circle as Carlos, mumbling something that sounded more like curses than spells, drew a small knife from his clothing. He slashed it across his right wrist.

Nothing happened. Then Carlos closed his eyes. His lips moved but no sound came out. His chest heaved as though from heavy exertion and dark, slow drops of blood welled along the wound, then dripped to the seething floor. They splashed loud as cymbals. Carlos flung his hand in an arc, dark droplets splattering over the organs mirror and stops with the sound of shattering crystal.

Stillness and the sickening stink of corrupted blood held us. I was panting as I called out, "Sergeyev. Grigori Sergeyev. I have your vessel. Come and get it."

A wind burst up from the floor with a roar and a shape rushed through the door. It crossed the edge of the first circle, racing toward me. Mara dropped to her knees and closed her circle with a word. A wall of white light leapt upward. The Grey shape smashed against the barrier and recoiled with a howl of frustration, collapsing into the form of my spectral client, trapped between the two charmed circles.

He cursed us all in vociferous Russian. Cameron stood spellbound by the door and I cowered behind Mara, oppressed by the ghost's withering hatred and battered by my own fear, pain, and exhaustion.

"There's nothing he can do to you, so long as the circles remain intact," Mara whispered, as I held her shoulders. "The only one at risk is Carlos, and no ghost wants a taste of a necromancer's fury if he can avoid it." She looked uncertain and pale with fatigue, hands wound into her circle's spell, keeping the ghost confined between it and Carlos's circle of necromancy. Her own power strained to maintain the circle's integrity as Sergeyev stormed against it. I hoped whatever flowed, pulsing, through me was helping her, but I didn't know.

Carlos reached out and yanked one of the stops out of the organ. Sergeyev turned with a jerk and threw himself against the inner circle with a shriek. The ivory decoration on the knob crumbled to dust and sifted to the floor, frosting the blood with a thin coat of white. Carlos dropped the knob and reached for another.

"Nyet!" Sergeyev screamed, followed by a babble of Russian sound-ing imploring and threatening by turns.

Carlos answered him. "We come to release you, you ungrateful wretch. Seven hundred years of torment and all you can think of is revenge. Against whom?"

Sergeyev spat out a name, stalking in frustration around the perim-eter of Carlos's circle. His appearance wavered and flickered through a vertigo-inducing montage of every person he'd ever worn, stolen, or devoured. I leaned one shoulder against the wall, which flickered with strange lights.

"Dead," Carlos snapped back. "A long time dead. I knew of him." He yanked out another stop. "From his torments, I release thee. From this prison, I release thee..."

The revenant shrieked and howled, clawing at the air between them and cursing in gouts of fiery storm until my knees shook and I thought my ears would bleed. Carlos screamed back at the ghost, long, entwining words that wove around the spirit, loosening and thinning him as the vampire dashed more and more of the organ to the ground. Music rails and preset knobs rattled to the floor and sloughed into dust. Keys groaned as they were wrenched from the boards and fell away in slivers of memory.

The hallway boomed. I was slow to turn my head, but heard Cam-eron scream and fall.

"What a lovely party," Alice hissed from the doorway. "And I wasn't invited." The flesh on her face still showed deep gashes, but her hair, face, and dress were covered in fresh blood.

The sight staggered me, and I leaned one hand hard onto Mara. Quinton...?

"Bitch," Edward spat, whirling toward Alice.

She laughed and darted forward, tearing a hole in the circles on the floor. She snatched the mirror from the organ. "Mine!" she shouted. Colors and streamers of power roared around her, twining over and through her. "I am your mistress now. Attack the ones who would harm you!"

Sergeyev howled unholy glee and rushed into the inner circle, pouncing on Carlos and the organ.

Mara sobbed and rocked backward. We lurched back against the flickering wall, cringing.

Edward flew toward Alice, who danced sideways from the circle, clutching her prize to her chest. She howled mad laughter and shouted, "Edward! It's only you I want! Run away, mice! Run and hide, or I'll eat you, too!" She fired a cold glare of triumph at me and laughed harder.

Cameron lurched to his feet near the door, his neck and head looking lopsided and loose. He snatched at her, missed, and swung his arms again.

Carlos had fallen back against the organ, his arms up, warding against Sergeyev's slashing energies. Shrieking faces and savage blades of light lashed from the instrument. Single-minded, the necromancer swiped at the music rail, dislodging the last of the spindles, which dissolved and powdered on the floor as they came away from the instrument. The ghost yowled and wavered a moment, then attacked with savagery.

Mara struggled up out of my arms and flung a ball of blue light at the ghost's back. It splattered across him and he howled as Carlos howled, too.

She winced. "They're too close together. We'll have to reclose the circle. Come and help me."

I tried to move and felt ice tighten on my limbs and a sharp shortening of my breath. Sickness and revulsion held me back with a muttering in my brain: "Neither help nor hinder..."

Mara threw herself onto the floor and began to crawl, drawing new symbols and chanting in gasps. She looked up at me, desperation in her eyes. "Come on!"