It wasn’t the same bone-spined monster I’d seen the first time I’d entered the Grey; this was the new version, a younger, sleeker thing built of the remains of Will Novak and the Grey’s own memories of guardians past. It didn’t have the clattering ruff of spines around its head or the accompanying sense of bone-jelling terror when it came near that the old one had possessed, but it was already different from the barely sketched form of mist and silver I’d last seen. For an instant I wondered how much of Will resonated in the creature, but the thought was knocked away as it lowered its massive skull and butted me in the chest hard enough to send me onto my back in the cold, roiling cloud-stuff of the world between worlds.
The Beast rumbled a growl and churned up the mist with hooked talons as if it were trying to pick me up and put me back on my feet. The power lines of the Grey—the grid—strobed in sudden flurries of red energy that illuminated the face of the Guardian Beast with a suggestion of flesh that bore an angry expression and then vanished back into nothing. The Beast began circling me, laying coil on coil around me like a boa getting ready to squeeze.... Then it shrieked and launched upward, dragging me into the air for several feet and swatting me violently toward the water with the whiplike end of its tail and the sound of a ton of steel pipes crashing to the ground.
I hit the wall on the other side of the narrow street with my arms up to protect my head, but even in the Grey mist, the impact hurt and now my whole body ached. I held myself up by digging my hands into the cracks between the bricks. I started to turn and the Guardian spun around, coming back to shove me again, westward. It put its long snout against my spine and pushed as if the building had no more substance than fog and the creature could force me through it. But the wall was a hundred years old and even its ghost memories were solid and resisted my passage.
“Stop it,” I yelled, twisting and batting at the Beast’s head, trying to get away before it crushed me. It was a little slower than the old one, which was all the hope I had. As it reared to get another run at me, I dropped down flat into the rising silver mist of the Grey, my hearing suddenly clogged with whispers and muttering.
The massive head of the Beast passed over me and the movement pulled sound from the grid like fingers plucking a chord on a harp. “Go.”
I rolled onto my back and propped myself up against the flickering wall. “OK, OK! I’ll go. Gods, you’re as subtle as a train wreck.”
The Guardian Beast moved its head through the mist and the Grey laughed at me. I felt the sound roll over me and swim outward into the rippling incorporeal world until it died on distant shores of memory and broken time.
Was this better or worse than the old version? I couldn’t decide. The old Guardian hadn’t told me what to do, but it hadn’t really been communicative at all; it was mostly a bundle of inchoate fury drawn by need alone to whatever threatened the Grey. It had been strong and driven, but incredibly stupid, which had made catching and killing it comparatively easy. This version wasn’t so dumb—in either sense. Not that it was exactly chatty, and it certainly didn’t have Will’s reticent personality.
It gave me another look. Then it whipped around and shot away, through the wall, sucking the chuckling mist with it. I found myself sitting against the brick wall of the Post Alley Pizza Company, thin tendrils of ghost-stuff trickling around me while water started soaking into my clothes. Most of the bruised and battered sensation in my body had gone, but not all, and I still felt tender along my belly and where my limbs had hit the not-so-incorporeal bricks of the building.
I picked myself up and brushed the mud off, muttering, “Oh, yeah, that was graceful. Thanks so much.”
But at least I had an answer. It was not an answer I was thrilled with, nor was I thrilled with the manner of its delivery, but still, I couldn’t argue that it was ambiguous. I hoped the Guardian wasn’t going to make a habit of such assistance to my decision making in the future. Among other things, I must have looked like a drunk at the moment; I was glad no one seemed to have observed my sudden stumble, fall, and flop.
But I was wrong about that. As I turned to walk back out of the narrow street, I saw someone at the base of the stairs, watching me. Great. Swallowing my embarrassment, I headed back the way I’d come, toward the person in the long black coat and hat. . . .
Quinton.
I stopped, feeling a flush on my cheeks. “Hi. . . .”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Traction problem?”
“Slippery planar problem.”
“Ah. Do you need a hand?”
“Not with that, but . . . maybe you could see me home?” I added with a grin.
His face went utterly blank, startling me. I’d seen that lack of expression only once or twice before from him and it was still as opaque to me now as the first time. “No.”
I frowned. “Is there something—”
“I have to get back to work. I can come by later.”
“I’ll be out of town for a while.”
His eyes flashed wide for a moment as if in panic and he started to say something. Then he clamped his mouth shut and bit his lip, swallowing hard. “The same case as before?”
“Same area.”
“I’ll come to your place to get the ferret.” He turned from me with a twitch of his shoulders and started off, away from his hidden door.
“Hey,” I called out.
He glanced back over his shoulder. “Not now.” And he strode across the street and turned to dash up the steps of Post Alley toward the multiple paths of the Harbor Steps complex.
It was clear he didn’t want me to follow him or question him, so I didn’t pursue, but I stared after him, confused and bothered. What had he nearly said? Why was he being so cryptic?
This had been a day for the books: First Solis’s phone call had put me on edge and ready to flee; then Nan had made noises as if she was going to fire me; Michael had flipped my perspective over and driven me right back to Solis, whom I’d had to steer into different lines of investigation; and now I’d had a rough-and-tumble with the new Guardian Beast that dumped me practically into my boyfriend’s lap, where I’d been set down as if I were radioactive. What. The. Hell?
The upside was at least I knew where to go from here. But nothing else made any sense at all.
FIFTEEN
I went home and let the ferret out to “help” while I packed up again. Her assistance was more amusing than useful, but at least something made me smile. Watching her romp in my duffel bag and “redistribute” half my spare pair of shoes to her stash under the TV, I hoped Quinton would actually show up to take care of her. I just couldn’t risk taking her with me again. I liked having her along and she’d been a small amount of help, but she was a liability even in the Grey world, where I’d expected her to be of more assistance. She was as much a stranger to whatever was loose around Lake Crescent as I was, and she’d almost gotten us munched on by the dog-demons with her aggressive attitude.
At least I wouldn’t have to tell Quinton what I was doing; by the time we had the luxury to discuss it, it would be a moot point. I was still confused and annoyed by his behavior. He’d been a little . . . protective since I’d gotten out of the hospital, and while it hadn’t become a problem, I didn’t like it. But now he was acting like a stranger and that didn’t add up. I didn’t want to cause him distress, but I wasn’t going to run my life differently to save him from it. The Guardian Beast had given me the strong impression I wasn’t going to be allowed to anyhow, even if I’d been inclined. Whatever was going on with Quinton would also have to wait until I was done with the immediate problem of Blood Lake.
As I plucked Chaos out of the laundry basket, I considered what I knew and what I might need for this investigation. Money wasn’t going to be an issue—not with the Newmans’ offer—and that alone could grease a lot of wheels, even magical ones. But I was going to need some kind of native guide, for lack of a better description. I wouldn’t get any kind of assistance from the Beast—the Gu
ardian’s duty wasn’t to help me; it was my duty to help it—so I’d have to figure out something else or find someone at the lakes. I half hated this job already, but I was stuck with it. It was my role and I’d do my best, but I was definitely going to take the money.
Once I got packed up and had teased Chaos into exhaustion and locked her back into her cage with food and water, I headed, once again, to the Olympic Peninsula. I’d dawdled so long, I barely made the last ferry, and the rainy passage across the sound was more empty and haunted than before.
The ferry seemed to hold a darker body of ghosts this time, the corners and companionways shadowed even in the sad yellow light of the ship’s overhead lamps, and an impression of watching eyes staring from reflections of invisible faces lingered in the window glass.
I saw a ball of greenish energy rolling across the floor of the main deck, weaving from side to side in the walkways and skittering over the chairs fixed to the floor until it crossed my own wandering path. The energy ball flared blue and turned decisively to follow me, keeping a strict distance, but sticking to me no matter where I went. When the docking announcement came over the PA and I returned to the Rover, the ball followed me until I got into the truck, when it fizzled away in desultory sparks spent against the steel doors.
Even the road to Port Angeles seemed more haunted. Black shapes swooped across the road and flirted with my headlights, more numerous and nearly recognizable as I got closer to the lakes. Again and again the shapes of great birds, bears, and some sort of flying lizard that spat lightning back into the stormy skies drew close to my truck and then fell aside. The hollow eyes of the dead seemed to stare and watch me as I passed, their host growing until, when I left the safety of my truck for the quiet of my hotel, I had a cortege of ghosts pressing close in my wake. I wondered if they were following to assist me, to hamper me, or were merely drawn to me like moths to candle flames. They gave no indication; they only watched. Even as used to phantoms as I’d become, these unnerved me, and I had difficulty falling asleep.
In the morning, I discovered that the Newmans didn’t have a listed phone number. With the dead-slow Wi-Fi connection at the hotel, I gave up on the cross-directory and realized I’d just have to drive up the mountain to their house. When I stepped outside, my entourage of ghosts had thinned but was still there.
As I drove up Highway 101 to Lake Crescent, several of the ghosts in my train fled past and vanished in the direction of the big lake, leaving trails of yellow energy sparkling behind them for a few minutes. I didn’t exactly recognize any of them—they were individually quite weak—but they didn’t look like local spirits; they looked more like shades that had somehow followed me from the city or joined the strange parade along the route. I found the thought disturbing.
With the sun up, I saw Geoff Newman’s Mercedes SUV parked to the side of the house when I arrived. I guessed that meant they were home and I climbed the steps to knock on the front door.
Geoff opened it and stared at me for a moment, blinking as a beam of sunlight pricked at his face. “Miss Blaine?”
I nodded.
He made a couple of indecisive mouth shapes before he stepped back and asked me in. “I’ll take you upstairs.”
I put my hand on his arm, stopping him. “Which of you made that offer the other night?”
He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth before he answered. “Jewel did.”
“And you don’t know if you’re glad to see me or not, do you?”
“That’s about it, yes.”
I assumed he meant he’d be as happy if I lived or died, as long as I did it elsewhere. This job didn’t look any more attractive to me today than it ever had, but there was a big mouth full of Grey teeth that would make the rest of my existence hell if I didn’t take it, and that was considerably more compelling than any other point. Not that I wasn’t going to bear some of those other points in mind . . .
I nodded again, thoughtful and not making any moves or expression Newman could interpret as eager. I studied him a moment. Then I said, “I’m not finding the prospect much more pleasing than you are, but something does have to change here, before someone else goes missing.”
He scoffed. “So long as the tourists are still out of town, no one’s going to ‘go missing’ here. They’ll just show up dead.”
I raised my eyebrow.
He continued. “I don’t begin to think I understand the . . . craziness that’s going on here, but I do know this for a fact: Once the resorts reopen for the season, the battles change. They get subtler. Until then, it’s cutthroat and damn it all. Jewel can’t hold out against that anymore. She’s too sick. Whoever’s got control of the lake come May, that one’ll hold the rest in the palm of their hand until October when the park shuts down again and the knives come back out. I don’t think she can last until May and unless something changes, she won’t get any stronger by October even if she did last that long. Something’s gotta give and much as I don’t think I like you or this plan of hers, I would rather the ‘give’ be in my wife’s favor, and you seem to be the one she thinks can make that happen.”
“She may be right, but if I can do it, the cost won’t be small.”
He snorted in derision. “You’re that greedy that a quarter of a million dollars isn’t enough?”
“That’s not the cost I mean. You say the magic users around here fight dirty in the off-season. How dirty?”
“Used to be they just did what they were going to do and pretended everything was free for the taking—even if it was someone else’s. They’d at least say sorry if they stepped on one another’s toes, though that was about all they’d do. Now they’re getting mean and trying to control things, and whatever they need to do it, they will. Even if it means doing some serious hurt. There used to be more of ’em.”
“What happened to the rest?”
“Some left of their own accord. Some of ’em . . . I don’t want to think about it.”
“What do you think I’m going to do about them? Your wife wants them to go away, but originally she told me she wants them dead. It sounds like she’s not the only one to have that idea. She even suggested that one of them killed your father-in-law and dumped him in the lake for the power. If the rest of the crooked magicians around this lake think the best thing to do is kill people and one another, what alternatives do you think I’m going to be able to offer?”
He stared at me and I stepped past him, going up the stairs on my own to Jewel’s room.
Jewel Newman didn’t seem much more excited to see me than her husband had. Maybe she’d had time to reconsider . . . but I doubted it. Probably she just didn’t like me any more than Geoff did; an ugly necessity is the least loved thing in the world. She didn’t turn to see me as I let myself in. She just sighed heavily as she sat in the chair between the bed and the window, staring at the lake outside with a tray resting on her lap. Tarot cards lay in a random spill across the surface.
“I knew you’d come back.”
“I imagine you know a lot of things you don’t talk about.”
“What good would it do me?”
“Probably none. The people who believe would use that knowledge against you. The rest would just laugh and think you’ve lost your mind.”
She made a noise that might have been a laugh or might have been a cough. “As if some of them don’t already think I’ve lost that.”
“I don’t think you’ve gone around the mental bend, just that you’ve lost control—or want to grab it.”
She sniffed. “You’re brash, but you’re not foolish, at least.”
“Oh, I’m definitely foolish. Only a fool would take this job.”
“Oh really?” she asked, finally turning her head to look at me. “If you’re a fool, then what good will you be?”
“What else is a fool good for but walking into danger? Of course, I’m not a complete fool, just enough of one to say yes to this insanity.”
“And to my money.”
“I think I liked you better when you weren’t so venal.”
“No, you didn’t. Because you couldn’t figure out what handle to twist me by. But I’ll tell you, the money’s not enough.”
“I won’t go higher.”
I walked closer and pulled one of the hard little chairs away from the table at the end of the bed and sat down on the other side of the window so I could face her. I noticed in passing that the card topmost on her pile showed a man in motley about to step off a cliff. “It’s not money you have to give me,” I started. “I want your promise—the most binding promise you can give—that you’ll let me do what I consider necessary.” I started to press on the Grey, letting the black needles of compulsion and persuasion grow between us. I didn’t try to hide them from her, but I wasn’t sure she noticed as I continued. “You’ll back me if I ask you, even against your family or your husband or the law. Do you understand?”
She shivered and pulled back from me. “What? How dare you ask that of me? Don’t you know who I am, what I can do to you if I choose? I may be sick and dying, but I’m not gone yet and I don’t—”
I cut her off, pushing harder as she resisted. “I know exactly what you are.” OK, I was lying, but I bluff well. “But if you could do this yourself, you wouldn’t need me. I’m not afraid of you and I won’t be hampered and hog-tied by any sudden regrets or attacks of conscience from you. If you want this done, it will be my way. It was your father’s ghost who got me into this and it’s his murder I have to solve. After that, this whole nasty web of magic and murder has to be torn down. I won’t kill these people for you—I’m not an assassin—but I’ll make them go away. I’ll break their hold on the lakes and find a way to take down whoever killed your dad. After that . . . it’s on you. Because I’m not here to build anything: I’m here to destroy something. Do you understand that?”
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