His gaze was soft, lit in the glow of this strange display, and then he flicked his fingers and the light show vanished. “You see.”
I nodded, but part of my brain was trying to rebuild parts of that web, to burn a permanent vision of the ties and clues, the hints of things that had momentarily burned so clearly and now were gone again.
“We haven’t been able to stop him,” Cameron said, breaking the shivering moment of dazzled darkness. “We don’t know his plans, but he sent Inman back to spy on us—”
I had to shake myself back to the conversation at hand, remembering that it was Purlis he was talking about. “Probably to find a way to grab a full vampire for his project—whatever it is,” I said.
“You don’t know?” Carlos had fallen back again, letting Cameron take the lead, but he continued to watch me with that unsettling stare. I refocused on Cameron—it was easier, if more cowardly.
I shook my head. “Not really. He calls it the ‘Ghost Division’—which I think is as much an Intelligence-community pun as it is serious—and it’s something to do with studying paranormals and possibly using them but I don’t know how. Maybe as spies, maybe as assassins, maybe as guinea pigs for developing something else. . . . Quinton knows and he says it’s horrifying, but he’s busy staying out of his father’s hands while doing all he can to monkey-wrench the whole thing, so he hasn’t been forthcoming with details. I suspect the project protocols include some rather gruesome practices, since Quinton’s father doesn’t consider most paranormals to be anything but dangerous lab animals and he thinks of humans who display paranormal ability as ‘freaks’ to be studied, analyzed, and used as he sees fit—which probably includes killing them and taking a look at their brains and insides. Do you think he’s taking the homeless, too?”
“How or if they are connected to Mr. Purlis is still a mystery. I have the name correctly, don’t I?”
I nodded. “Yes, James McHenry Purlis—I had to pick at Quinton for quite a while to get that information, though it hasn’t done me much good. He’s very deeply buried in the Intelligence machine and I haven’t been able to make any connections to him—he’s a deliberate blank.”
Cameron gave a thoughtful grunt. “We’ve had no better luck. We can’t seem to track him except in general directions. If his mind is set on taking others of mine captive, we may have to strike, even though the fallout won’t be pleasant.”
“And it appears he’s temporarily redirected Inman to harass you,” Carlos added.
“Inman won’t be as much of a problem now that I know he’s out there. Don’t make a move yet. Purlis thinks I’m obstructing him—which is probably why he’s set Inman on me. He doesn’t seem to know what I am. Yet. Once he figures it out, though, we’ll be in some deep kimchee. Well, I will. Your kimchee remains about the same.” I shut up and thought for a moment. The vampires stayed preternaturally still and let me.
As my brain ground on, trying to put pieces into place, my skin began to itch and burn, my eye stung, and my left hand ached. I tried to shake the sensation off, but it grew quickly and I felt like I was falling out of my body. I groped for the arms of my seat and could see the spiked and bloody darkness of the two vampires flash and flow toward me as my vision darkened. I tried to tell them not to touch me, but it came out garbled. The blacker shape reached toward me. . . .
I jerked in my seat as cold rushed over me, pushing back the burning sensations and easing the pain in my hand. Carlos lifted his own hand away, but hovered, waiting for my momentary debility to return.
I shook my head and took several deep, quaking breaths, feeling hollow and chilled inside while my skin itched. I didn’t want to look, but I pushed back my cuff and saw curls of reddened script swelling on my arms. I swore under my breath and hoped Delamar was not conscious enough inside his sleep-imprisoned body to feel the same sensations I’d just had. If this kept up, I’d start to lose my mind. I didn’t even want to know what the writing on my flesh said—especially since that would involve taking off my shirt in front of Cameron and Carlos, which creeped me out.
“That should not have happened here,” Carlos rumbled. I’d forgotten how close he was and I jumped at the sound.
“I’m not sure it’s bound by location,” I said.
“One of these strange things has attached itself to you. These injuries allowed a spirit to tie itself to you. The protections on this house should have been proof against such an attack.” He glanced at Cameron. “I apologize—this ward is failing.”
Cameron shook his head and I spoke up before they could go off on a discussion of who had screwed up and how to fix it. “It’s something I brought with me, I think. No fault of yours.”
Carlos glowered at me—he doesn’t take correction well. “Where does it come from to attach itself to you?”
“I think a ghost touched me at the market yesterday and somehow brought this on. It’s the same kind of manifestation I’ve seen recently on a . . . not quite a client. He’s one of three vegetative patients displaying old-school séance effects, but these aren’t happening during fake telephone calls to the dead. All the patients are connected to one another in some way that’s also related to the tunnel project and Pike Place Market.”
Carlos nodded. “The case that took you to Post Alley and the spirit whose conversation with you Inman disrupted.”
“Yes,” I replied. “That particular . . . thing also seems to have some relation to the case, but—again—I’m not certain of what it is. What I am sure of is that the anomaly of three patients with the same incredibly rare condition is not a coincidence. I believe that whatever magic links them is also keeping them in their current state or may have brought them to that state to begin with. I don’t think they’re supposed to be locked in this coma-like condition—and the longer they stay that way, the less chance they have of awakening. One of the patients seems to have broken in long enough to express that fear and the idea that he’s weakening to the point of some kind of nonbodily death. I think time is running out for all of them. They aren’t in their own bodies, but they’re dying.”
Carlos glanced at Cameron, who was frowning in concern. Then he turned his gaze to me and said, “I’m unfamiliar with your case, but the principle is correct. When a living soul is unnaturally separated from its proper vessel, it dwindles and dies out like a flame without fuel. It would be beyond the realm of chance that your displaced souls have no common cause with the magical disruptions I’ve noted.”
“I have to agree,” I said, “but what is the cause and what the effect? What I’ve seen so far, aside from the state of the patients, is disruption of temporaclines and a rise in magic and ghost activity associated with the tunnel project, which is definitely connected somehow to the patients; James Purlis’s Ghost Division, which I can’t connect to the patients because I don’t know exactly what he’s up to; and the disappearance and death of homeless people, which I can’t connect to anything magical yet, but you seem to. If Quinton were here, he’d probably say it’s a system of some kind—but not necessarily erected deliberately. There’s too much energy in the system—I’ve seen temporaclines out of place, repeaters far from their tied locations, ghosts that can hold a soul out of its body. . . . The energy required to make those things happen is massive and it has to come from somewhere. Disruption releases ghosts and other energy—both the tunneling and Purlis’s project are disruptions but I don’t know if they are connected. If they aren’t, which disruption is powering which anomaly? If they are, what’s the connection?”
Cameron waved Carlos aside so he could see me better without the other vampire in the way. I appreciated the relief from the stomach-turning proximity. “Isn’t it more likely that these problems are all of a piece? If you apply Occam’s razor it would seem they should be—it’s the simplest answer. That would imply that solving one part of the problem will make the rest reducible.”
“You sound like Quinton,” I said. “If you’re suggesting that ‘solving�
�� Purlis will break the problem down to something easily managed, I’m doubtful. It certainly couldn’t hurt to get him off our collective back, but that could make the situation worse, judging from what Carlos was saying earlier.”
Carlos nodded. “It would be best to avoid killing him—much as it may pain me to say so.”
“I appreciate that. I’ll keep an eye out for your missing dhampir and if I get any ideas about Purlis’s location, I’ll let you know, but for now I’m going to concentrate on the problem of the spirit manifestations and let the rest come as it may. I have to help my client and the other patients—time is against me on that. Besides, I keep thinking I’m hearing the Guardian Beast rattling around nearby and that’s the last thing I want coming down on me for not fixing this problem.” Dead pseudo-relatives and their repercussions in the Grey held considerably less horror for me than the thing that prowled the verges of the world between worlds.
Cameron yawned and looked startled by it. A glance at the view beyond showed the sky just the least bit paler to the east than it had been. “Perhaps—” he started.
“It may be a good time for me to leave,” I said. “I’ll be in touch if anything comes up on the Purlis front, but I don’t know when.”
“That’ll do. We’ll continue to gather information from our sources, too. And I’ll keep your case in mind.”
I stood up, feeling shaky but trying to hide it. “Oh. If I need to contact either of you, how should I do that? I assume you don’t drop notes at the shop anymore. . . .” When I’d first met them, Carlos had been managing a porn store in the Denny Triangle area, but it seemed unlikely he spent any time there now. The length of the sunny summer days complicated the situation by shortening the vampires’ operating hours as well.
Cameron stood and took a card from his pocket. He glanced at it, then offered it to me. “Any of these will do.” I had an old cell number for Cameron and I was a bit surprised to see that still on his card, though it was well down the list.
Carlos gave me a wolf’s smile. “You know mine.”
I shuddered to remember, but I did. I hoped to avoid ever going near his place again. I accepted Cameron’s card and saw myself out, wanting to avoid any intimate conversation with Carlos about my ghostly manifestations. His fascinations were strictly morbid and I would have enough trouble sleeping in spite of feeling nearly somnambulant.
I didn’t see the guard on my way out. Had I not known there were people with guns loitering in the hedges, I would not have guessed it. Seeing my rearview mirror flood with the rose-colored light of dawn, I wondered what had possessed a vampire to own a house that faced east, into the killing sun, but I didn’t imagine I’d ever know.
As I rolled down the hill and headed back through the university, I thought about the tangled strands of attachment that Carlos had said linked me to Quinton and to all of his family besides. I didn’t doubt his identification—Carlos had the skill to do it and no need to lie to me—but I did consider the direction in which the line had pointed—two primary strands running together while two or three others, more slender, wound off to the east, vanishing in the darkness of distance. Wherever the two thicker threads ran, I would find the elder Purlis and probably Quinton nearby. I didn’t like the implication that he was so closely entwined with his devious father, and I didn’t know how to see the thread again or in such detail, so I hoped it wasn’t a permanent situation. It might have been a bad idea to cut a thread off completely, but surely I could pick a few apart. . . .
At home I let the ferret out to romp while I showered, improbably imagining I could wash the traces of the message off my skin. Mostly the too-hot water made the rest of me equally red, which was almost good enough. Chaos bounced into the bathroom and hoisted herself onto the edge of the tub, taking a stroll along the shower curtain, chuckling at me for my folly and sounding remarkably like she was chiding me.
Still feeling itchy, but at least a bit more warm and pliable, I put on a fluffy bathrobe and wandered barefooted into the kitchen, pursued by the ferret. I mourned for the dinner I’d lost and warmed up some soup to fill the void in my middle. I ate and fended the ferret off from my bowl, but lost a chunk of bread to the marauder as we wrestled for control of the slice of chewy seven-grain. “Pest,” I said as she danced around her prize in glee. I still felt hungry, even though I’d eaten plenty of food, but I didn’t have more, since I hoped to fall asleep soon. The state of my nervous energy was unlikely to allow that, but I wished for it anyhow.
In spite of myself, I fell asleep on the couch while the morning selection of talking heads jabbered about the upcoming Independence Day festivities and what we should all be cooking on the grill. Chaos has no interest in people on TV, so I didn’t get a dose of her tiny cold nose or tickling whiskers in my ear until someone started talking about protecting your dog from being frightened by fireworks and she felt I needed to pay attention. Not that she had ever paid any attention to fireworks, but she apparently felt I should take note in case our neighbor Rick needed them for managing Grendel, his pit bull. Grendel was easily upset by things that went “bang.”
The whiskery snuffling in my ear woke me and I put the carpet shark back into her cage and dragged my suddenly listless self to bed. Alone. No sign of Quinton—not that I’d expected him after he’d said he wasn’t coming . . . or I had and I was lying to myself. I was far too used to his presence and I had to admit that one of my primary reasons for despising his father was the way he stirred up Quinton’s sense of imminent danger and pulled him away from me. Pure resentment, that’s what I felt—well . . . and disgust because Purlis Senior believed in Ideals without pausing to think of people. No. On second thought, I just didn’t like him. I wasn’t up to hate yet, since that required a depth of passion I didn’t feel for the man at this point, but “healthy dislike” was well in the ballpark.
My thoughts went round and round as I lay in bed, not quite sleeping and not quite awake. After a few hours of nonsleep, I gave in and got up again. My injured eye didn’t ache and itch as it had the night before, but the annoyingly persistent Grey vision remained. I used my ointment and drops and thought I should probably call Skelly—once this case was over.
I considered taking the ferret along, but I thought it was going to be a long day and didn’t like the possibility of her getting hurt if I had any other confrontations with monsters or ghosts, so I put her back into her cage before I left. I got a glare for my trouble. “I’m just trying to protect you,” I said. Chaos was not impressed.
I drove up to Pioneer Square and left the Land Rover in my parking garage so I could walk around and find out if any of the street people had seen Twitcher recently or could tell me why he’d relocated to Steinbrueck Park, or who else might be missing. Or if he was dead, as a small part of me I did not want to listen to kept suggesting. Cameron’s mention of the homeless had made me worried. I knew quite a few of them—by sight at the very least—and had spent a lot of time with some a few years back when I’d been looking into some deaths in the area. A few of them were criminals, some were injured or addicted, and some were crazy as a quilt full of mice, but most had just been screwed over by circumstances and were doing their best to get out of the situation. I was fond of some of them. Others I’d be happy to leave alone. Pretty much the way anyone would feel about any group of people. These were just more transient and desperate than most. I grabbed a cup of coffee from the bakery and started on the rounds.
The historic district was looking pretty decent these days. A lot of junk, rickety kiosks, and general bad design from the eighties had been cleared off and in spite of the economy the place seemed a little cleaner and more prosperous than it had in a while. There was still plenty that was old and dirty and scary, but the overall demeanor of the area was not as broken down as it had once been. The construction of the new seawall and the tunnel, as well as the phased demolition of the viaduct, was taking a toll, and in spite of the summer boom, it wasn’t as crowded as it us
ually was this time of year. The merchants were doing enough business to keep their doors open, though—for the most part. There were more empty shop fronts than there had been in 2008. Clouds overhead scurried by in a haphazard parade, casting shadows that passed on after a few minutes to let the sun through. It wasn’t a bad day to be outdoors, looking for people.
I had some luck pretty quickly, since the bakery has a door onto Occidental Park—a popular place for the homeless with its high tourist flow and its odd nooks in which a smallish person can easily hide from the persistent rain. So long as the homeless are clean and don’t cause any fuss, the cops around Pioneer Square mostly leave them alone during the day. The authorities step in if someone complains or if the situation is dangerous, and they make a point of checking on the “regulars,” if they can, since it’s useful to have the homeless community on your side when you need information about things happening on the street. Things still looked odd to me since my left eye continued to see through the Grey more than the normal, but when the sun cut through the clouds, the effect was much easier to ignore. I found one of my best informants leaning against the wall outside the bakery door: Sergeant Sandy. She’s an elderly woman with a small wire shopping cart always in tow who claims to be an undercover police detective, but no one at SPD has ever heard of her. So she’s either the deepest-cover agent in the Western Hemisphere or she’s just a half bubble off plumb. She would have made a good detective, though: She’s observant, patient, and almost unnoticeable. On seeing her, I ducked back inside and bought a cup of tea and a roll stuffed with ham and cheese.
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