We were in luck: since it was Friday, the place was busy and not inclined to close any earlier than it had to. I sent Michael in with the stranger to get a table and order some food. I hooked my hand into Marsden’s collar and kept him beside me on the boat’s stern.
“Now,” I started as soon as Michael and our assistant had gone inside, “tell me more about my dad and the Pharaohn-ankh-astet and his followers.”
He heaved a disgusted sigh. “You’d be better off out of it.”
“I like to know what I’m into before I bail out. So start talking and I’ll make up my own mind. Or I can pitch you in the canal and see how well you swim.”
THIRTY-THREE
In the darkness of Regent’s Canal on that cricket-serenaded summer night, Marsden chose to talk rather than let me teach him to swim. I guess he knew my technique would involve a lot of holding him under. “The asetem-ankh-astet are a type of vampire,” he started.
“I figured that out from what Sekhmet said. What makes them special? Why do you seem a bit more freaked out about them than Edward’s kind?” Not that I wasn’t, but I wanted to know if my heightened fear near them was just my problem or if it was their effect on everyone.
“They have a glamour of terror. And they feed on more than blood.”
“All of them do. Sekhmet said these feed on souls—the ka, she called it.”
“Not that I’ve seen, but I suppose you could think of it that way. They dine on emotional energy—on the psychic component.”
“Isn’t that just another kind of Grey power?”
He scoffed. “That’s an expression of the energy. Blood’s just a . . . a fuel source, so t’speak. What makes the Pharaohn so hideous is he eats, he breathes, he lives chaos. It gives him power beyond the ordinary vampire sort of guff. He breeds mayhem, havoc, and destruction. He uses his people to create it through devastation, death, pain, terror . . . whatever it takes. Y’can imagine other vampires don’t care for that.”
“Yeah. So what?”
“The current Pharaohn seems to have some longer-range plan in mind that involves the Grey itself. Something that either breeds chaos or feeds on it to do something else. He’s been looking for a tool that’ll make the Grey . . . flow the way he needs it to—a Greywalker with a special ability plying it as he directs, in the right place. We’re a rare enough bird as it is that he decided not to wait until the right one come along but to grab a few and see what he could do by force. You could say he’s been working on his technique awhile at our expense.
“Your father was a particularly favored experiment of his. Fortunately he ruined the Pharaohn’s plans, but he left you behind for the bastard to try again.”
“And the Pharaohn punished him for escaping. So you said. What did you mean by that?”
“You ever talked to your dad? To his ghost, I mean?”
“No. I tried but it’s like there’s a hole where the ghost ought to be.”
Marsden nodded, his lank hair swinging. “Because the Pharaohn’s got ’im bottled up somewhere. He’s got a hole like that Hardy tree and stuck ’im in it.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “He made a hole like that? I thought vampires didn’t have any magic.”
“He didn’t make it. They just happen. He found it, or moved it. And he shackled your dad’s ghost with torments and stuck him in it to scream and suffer till he’s got something better to do with him.”
I tightened my grip in anger without thinking, pressing Marsden against the boat’s stern rail. “How come I didn’t see the guardian beast around the tree then?”
“What?”
“When I got near where my dad should have been, the beast turned up. You know it?”
“Course! Rattling thing of bones and ghost-sinew. Nasty temper.” His mouth quirked at one corner. “I don’t like that.”
“It’s not high on my hit parade, either.”
“What did this hole look like? Like the tree or different?”
“Very different. It was more like a fire around a core of emptiness. It was a million colors and it was completely silent. The guardian beast didn’t want me to go near it.”
“Colors. That is trouble. Means the white worm’s figured out the beast’s weakness. The guardian’s got a bit of a vision problem, see? Sequences of certain colors cause it confusion and blindness. Whatever he’s up to, the king of worms doesn’t want the beast anywhere near it.”
“Because the beast would destroy it?” I remembered my first meeting with Wygan as he sat in his broadcast booth, a rack of colored lightbulbs flashing randomly. Now I knew they’d kept the guardian beast at bay; Wygan was already a threat to the Grey and had to hide from the monster that patrolled its borders. Whatever he was planning had to be pretty bad.
Marsden nodded again. “I’d bet my life.”
“Then why doesn’t the beast come after me?”
“Think it reads minds, do ya?” He scoffed. “Got no reason to until you do something to threaten the Grey. So long as you’re not doing nothing, it’s not interested in you, no matter how weird your psychic shape is.”
“My what?”
“What do I look like to you? In the Grey?”
“Like broken glass and mirrors—colorless, moving shards.”
“As I should—I’m neutral to the Grey, as most Greywalkers are. But you are bright white to me—all the colors at once. You’re active to the Grey—you’re tied up in the living Grey itself because he tied you to it, didn’t he?”
I nodded while saying, “Wygan is the Pharaohn—the ‘white worm-man’ my dad wrote about. What’s he up to?” My voice sounded like poison.
“I’ve no idea, but it will affect the Grey—else why would he need a Greywalker for his dirty work?—and he’ll move heaven and hell to get it. He’ll burn you out like a candle.”
“As if you care what happens to me.”
His face twisted into a fearsome expression. “I care what becomes of us all, girl. You’ve a lot of brass, but that’s not enough—he’s three thousand years old and a lot more cunning than you. You’re a bit of flash paper—a fuse—for his bomb. You may have that gift of persuasion, but it’s not going to work on him. You can’t fast-talk him into changing his mind.”
I shook my head as if flinging water from my ears. “What the hell are you talking about now?”
Marsden growled and whipped his head side to side as if he were looking for watchers. “You think it’s just something everyone does? Do you?”
Now he had me frowning. I didn’t know what he meant, but I was annoyed by his tone.
“It’s your particular talent,” he went on. “We’ve all got one or two—us in the Grey. You are unnaturally persuasive. Didn’t you ever notice that everyone answers your bloody damned questions more readily than most people’s?”
“If I was any good at persuasion, why didn’t I get my mother off my back a lot earlier, hm?”
“Maybe y’didn’t really want to.”
“And maybe you’re really full of shit. It’s just a psychological trick. I was taught it in college,” I growled. “It’s not some kind of magic—”
“Bollocks. You got better at it; you learned a new way to pretend it wasn’t special. You learned how to endure, how to act like everyone else, how to blend in, how to lie to yourself so you could lie to others. That’s what you’re good at. And look at what you use it for: snoopin’, pryin’, doin’ other people’s dirty work—”
I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Shut up!”
“You should be home. You should be putting paid to that bastard Wygan and whatever he’s up to, not chasing after Edward Kammerling’s blasted fantasies—that is, if you really think you can.”
“It’s all connected, you blind idiot! You’re such a know-it-all and you can’t see that? I don’t know how it all fits together, but I won’t leave until I do! And I’m not willing to sacrifice others to save my own skin!” I shouted, shoving him over the rail. I startled myself with wh
at I’d said and the heat of the anger that had forced it out.
Marsden flipped over and sprawled on the dock, slowly rolling onto his back, laughing at me. “You’re madder than what I am. You think you need to stay on Kammerling’s good side? Need to keep on with your charade of an investigation? Or are you afraid—”
“I want my friend back!” I spat. I leapt off the boat and squatted down beside him, holding him down on the dock with one hand. He didn’t try to rise but skewered me with his eyeless glance. I met it and didn’t flinch at the eerie sense of vision from those scarred hollows. “I don’t give a crap about Edward’s business except how it might be part of Wygan’s plan. I know it’s all connected: Vampires took Will Novak and I want him back. I will leave when I have him or when whoever took him is back in their grave forever. And I don’t care about your warnings, or the Pharaohn’s lackeys, or the threats of stone goddesses. Do you understand?”
Marsden just lay still and said nothing, his empty eye sockets gleaming a transient blue. “It’s a key.”
THIRTY-FOUR
I jerked Marsden up to me from the surface of the creaking, darkened pier. “What?”
“It’s a puzzle,” he replied in a distant voice. “That is a key. A key to an enigma. That is the way. A . . . door at the center of a labyrinth.” He shook himself and sagged onto the dock. “Will you bloody well unhand me, girl? You’ve got the damned thing in your pocket. I’d like to see it for myself.”
“What damned thing?” I asked, eyes slitted.
“The puzzle. It belonged to your dad, yeah? It’s in your pocket. Show it me!”
That was when Michael stepped back out onto the dock and stared at us, lit from behind by the lamps of the floating restaurant. “What are you two doing? If you’re going to kill each other, can you do it later? There’s food in here and I, for one, want to eat it. Are you coming in or not?”
“Lad’s got a better head than either of us, I think,” Marsden mumbled. “Food first, eh? Fight later.”
“Don’t tempt me. . . .” I muttered, letting him up.
Marsden brushed at his moleskin collection and straightened his clothes. “I shall still want to see that puzzle.”
He started into the restaurant and I followed him as he followed Michael. “What’s it got to do with saving Will?” I hissed under my breath.
“Nothing. It’s for later. If you insist on being a bloody heroine.”
“Don’t start.”
He cackled and ignored me until we reached the table. We eased into our seats and kept an ugly silence while we fell on the food Michael had ordered. Meat pies, salad, bread, and beer vanished and I didn’t even taste it. Marsden and Michael did theirs in with equal speed, though they seemed to enjoy it more. Marsden finally leaned back and patted his mouth with his napkin before holding up his glass for a refill.
As we waited for the new round, Marsden put his hand out on the table palm up. “C’mon, girl. Show it me.”
Glowering, I brought the little metal puzzle out of my pocket and put it on Marsden’s palm.
“What’s that?” Michael asked.
“It’s a puzzle my dad used to carry around. This guy seems to think it’s important.”
“It is,” Marsden said, fidgeting with the puzzle. He didn’t bend his head to look at it. It wouldn’t have done any good, but the effect of him scrambling the puzzle with deft fingers while he kept his head tipped back and his wrecked eyes turned toward the ceiling was still unsettling.
He grunted and scowled. “Here,” he said, forcing it back into my hands. “You’ll have to do it—it only likes you.” He put his hands over mine.
I wasn’t sure why he said it liked me—objects rarely have any “feelings” about people one way or another—but this one did seem to . . . fit me better than it had him. Maybe because it had been my dad’s, but I doubted that was the only reason. Where or when had my father gotten it? Somewhere in the Grey? But he couldn’t have. He would have said something about it in his journal. And it seemed to me he’d always had it, as far back as I could remember.
Marsden’s cold, dry touch guided my fingers. I repressed a frisson as the metal links slid into positions I’d never seen before, making low, sure clicks with every change. The little puzzle gleamed pale blue until something fell into place. Then it blazed gold and settled down to a dull humming in my hand that felt like a fistful of bees. Yet another strange link between my past and the present.
It didn’t look like a key—actually it looked more like a mutant fork or a lock pick—but the satisfied sensation it gave off left me with the conclusion that it was pleased with its current shape and ready to do something. I wouldn’t call it alive or sentient, but the odd, flat prong I now held did seem . . . ready for something, even eager.
The thought left me uncomfortable. My dad had never made such a configuration with the puzzle that I’d seen. If it was something only I could do . . . was that a sign of the direction in which Wygan was pushing me, of the purpose to which he’d already bent me? I didn’t like that. It stunk of Fate and Destiny and a lack of free will.
I pressed on the last puzzle piece that I’d moved and bent it back until it clicked again. The golden glow drained away, and the whole thing faded back to an inert collection of metal parts as I shuffled the surfaces around and wondered what it was meant to do. Or I with it. Besides the useless drivel Marsden had spouted on the dock, that is.
Michael had watched it like a hawk does a mouse.
“Did you see something?” I asked.
He hesitated. Then admitted with a drooping head, “No. I was hoping . . .”
“Haven’t you seen enough uncanny stuff for one day?”
Michael shrugged. “Not so much, really. I mean . . . there was Will—that thing that wasn’t Will—and the Tube station. . . . Everything else is just creepy stuff you and this guy have told me.”
He was trying to forget the extent of the weirdness and I wasn’t sure that was wise just yet. “That’s not enough to convince you something strange is going on?”
“Oh, I’m convinced! It’s just . . . y’know . . . if there’s vampires and witches and stuff, it might be fun to see—”
“Don’t think it, boy. That lot’s fun like being thrown off a cliff,” Marsden said.
The waiter brought our drinks and we set to them for a moment, each in our own thoughts. Or at least Michael and I were. Marsden somehow gave the impression of watching us both.
Michael shot him a nervous glance. “Why do I feel like you’re staring at me . . . ?”
Marsden snickered. “More perceptive than I’d have credited. I’m wondering what we shall do about you.”
“We who?” Michael demanded. “Do what about me?” He turned a furious expression toward me. “Who is this guy, anyhow? How do we know he’s not with them?”
Marsden patted at the air with one lazy hand. “We’ve been through that already.”
“Not with me you haven’t!” Michael snapped.
I sighed. “He’s not with the enemy. But that doesn’t mean he’s trustworthy, either,” I added, giving Marsden a sharp look.
Marsden almost smiled. “You’re getting smarter. But I am not going to do you any harm, boy. You’re a bystander in this—like your brother.”
I almost choked on my beer. “You two-faced rat bastard,” I muttered.
He made a little shrugging motion on one side. “All right. I admit I don’t give a tinker’s about this missin’ brother, but the lady here says she ain’t leaving without ’im. The sooner she’s gone and out of reach of certain people, the safer we all are. So. I’m for finding that brother quick and gettin’ shut of the lot of you.”
“Yeah? Well, isn’t that lovely of you?” Michael sneered.
“Michael,” I started, “he’s a lying, manipulative, sneaky—”
“Rat bastard,” Michael reminded me.
“Yes. But he knows the lay of the land and I don’t. I don’t know where to start loo
king for Will.”
Michael glowered at Marsden. “He does?”
“Probably.”
“Of course I do. Mind, I don’t say I know where he is or who’s got ’im, so don’t get shirty ’bout that. But I have an idea where to start lookin’ . ”
I hated having to cooperate with Marsden. I knew I couldn’t trust him; he had an agenda and I wasn’t sure it had changed since we’d left St. Pancras churchyard. But he was the only resource I had left.
“Where should we start?” I asked.
“The Greek sisters,” Marsden said.
THIRTY-FIVE
Michael had, of course, wanted to go see these mysterious sisters at once but as it was growing later—and deeper into the most active part of any vampire’s evening—both Marsden and I quashed that idea. The sisters, Marsden assured us, would be as easy to find and interrogate in daylight as night and far safer. Michael found a place along the canal to moor the boat after dinner and the two of us readied for bed. Marsden slipped away during our inexperienced scrambling about in the dark, but much as I didn’t trust him, he’d had ample opportunity to rat us out to the vampires and hadn’t. So whether he was telling the truth about Wygan or not, he was at least not working against me at the moment.
I slept worse than I had in years. Quinton never did return my call, and that along with the exertions and revelations of the previous days made me miserable and woke me in a foul mood at an ungodly hour. I went up on deck to get a break from the tiny, shared space of the boat.
A couple of hours later, as I’d hoped, Marsden turned up at the canal side, alone. Unexpectedly, he was carrying a canvas sack that clanked. He stopped at the edge of the towpath and tapped on the side of the boat with his cane. “Here,” he called to me as I sat on the stern rail, watching him. “I need a hand with this.”
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