by John Levitt
“She’s on her way,” he said.
* * * *
By two in the morning, everything had been sorted out. Victor had given the police a story about kids with firecrackers and, after a cursory look around the place, they left. I spent an hour going over Christoph’s uninvited visit—exactly what he had said and what he had done.
“What I don’t understand is how he got past the wards into my house,” I said.
Eli gave me an inscrutable look. “I have an idea about that.” He shifted position in his chair and drew in a sharp breath as his arm moved. “Later,” he said. “We’ll talk about that later.”
Campbell had showed up about midnight carrying a traveling bag, an assortment of herbs, and a plastic bag full of plaster of paris. She gave me a quick kiss, and Victor gave her a brief but definite hug, something I had never seen him do before with anyone. After he stepped back, he favored me with a cold stare, and I had the good sense to pretend it was a normal and everyday occurrence.
Campbell wasn’t real happy about having to work away from her home—she said it limited her abilities—but since broken bones, even crushed ones, are relatively straightforward, she could handle it. It wasn’t like what had happened to Louie, where she had needed every possible edge. After she had worked on Eli for a while, she and Victor whipped up a makeshift cast from the plaster of paris. Eli wasn’t happy to learn he was going to have to wear it for the next week or so.
“I have my limits,” she told him. “You’re still going to have to let it heal for a while.”
He muttered something about youngsters today and shoddy workmanship, and then got incredibly embarrassed when he realized she might take him seriously. He started trying to apologize profusely, but Campbell just laughed.
“Glad you’re feeling better,” she said.
By that time, I was so exhausted I couldn’t think straight. I was about to head off home when the sight of Louie curled up in Campbell’s lap reminded me it might be polite, to say the least, to offer her the option of staying at my place for the night. I didn’t think Christoph would be trying anything else for a while. She considered it for a moment.
“Thanks,” she said. “That would be nice.”
She left her car at Victor’s, and I drove us both in the van. At least my house was relatively clean, which wasn’t always the case. When we got there, I wasn’t sure if romantic suggestions would be expected or simply boorish. I was bone tired and the encounter with the Gaki had left me feeling filthy inside and out. Sex was about the furthest thing from my mind.
“I need a shower,” I said, temporizing.
She settled things by jumping on the bed, peeling off her clothes, and crawling under the covers.
“Don’t wake me,” she said. “In fact, if you wake me up before noon, you die.”
By the time I finished my shower, she was dead to the world. I eased into bed beside her, and Louie wedged himself between us. As I dropped off to sleep, I thought, well this is nice.
Twelve
Of course, at nine that morning the phone rang. Campbell pulled the covers up over her head, making complaining noises. I cursed and dragged myself out of bed and over to the phone. Victor. Naturally.
“Mason. My house. Half an hour,” he said, without preamble. He sounded clearheaded and awake. I wondered if he’d gone to sleep at all.
“What, no good morning?” I asked. “No, ‘How are you?’”
“How are you?” he said, and continued without waiting for a reply. “Get over here. You’ve got half an hour.”
“I’ll be there when I can,” I said, glancing at the clock. I wasn’t going to let him push me around. At least, not completely. I hung up before he could say anything further. Campbell’s head emerged from under the blankets and she fixed me with a malevolent eye.
“Not my fault,” I said hastily, remembering her final instructions from last night. “Victor wants me over at his place right away. I’m surprised he didn’t call at dawn.” The accusing glare did not abate.
“Make some coffee,” she ordered, slipped out of bed, and headed for the bathroom. A minute later, I could hear the shower running. Lou was nowhere to be found, which was unusual, but not unheard of. Sometimes he gets up in the middle of the night and takes off on some Ifrit mission I would never understand. He’d turn up when he was finished.
I fired up the coffeemaker and turned on the wall heater to take the chill off the room. I put on jeans and a fresh tee with a flannel shirt over it, and by the time Campbell was out of the shower there was fresh coffee waiting for her.
“Sorry,” she apologized, accepting a cup. “I’m really not a morning person, especially on short sleep.”
“I didn’t get that impression up at your cabin,” I said. “Pancakes. Witty repartee. Gifts.”
“Ah. Well, I was on my best behavior. First date, you know?” She looked around the tiny kitchen. “What, no pancakes? And where’s Lou?”
“He took off. He’ll be back when he decides to. And no breakfast, either. Even though his people skills leave a lot to be desired, Victor wouldn’t tell me to get my ass over there without a reason. We’d better head out.”
I took an extra few minutes to shave and wash up. If this day was going to involve battling evil entities again or casting arcane spells, I at least wanted to look and feel my best.
It was just past ten thirty when we pulled into the driveway at Victor’s. I sauntered through the front door without announcing myself, as usual, and climbed the stairs to the study. Sherwood was talking with Eli, who was sitting in one of the deep armchairs by the front window. She and Campbell appraised each other cooly, then both turned their heads in my direction. Talk about uncomfortable. Eli introduced them, which saved me some adolescent stuttering, and after a brief nod of acknowledgment Campbell examined Eli to see how he was coming along. He looked tired, but she pronounced him otherwise well on the road to recovery.
Campbell tactfully made noises about having to get back home and a few minutes later was gone. Eli settled back in his chair and fixed me with an uncharacteristic glare.
“What?” I asked.
“I’d like to know exactly how Christoph got into your house,” he said. “I designed those wardings, remember, and ego as well as common sense tells me that no one could just waltz in past them the way you described. I don’t care how powerful they are.”
“Well, he did.”
“Yes. And how long has it been since you did any maintenance on them?”
I thought back. “I’m not sure,” I admitted.
“And how often are you supposed to check on them?”
“Once a month?”
“Correct. At least you can remember that much. And how long has it been?”
It had been at least a year, but I wasn’t about to cop to that. “It’s been a while, I guess,” I said vaguely.
“A while. And what happens when you don’t maintain the spells properly?”
I sighed resignedly. “They grow weak.” Victor made a tch tch sound with his tongue.
Eli continued glaring at me. His injuries were making him uncharacteristically cranky. “They do not grow weak. If they grew weak, you would notice it. They fray. They unravel! Have you ever had one of those CDs covered with shrink wrap that you just can’t seem to get open?”
“Of course.”
“Now imagine that you can’t use your teeth or nails or a knife. Frustrating, no? Now imagine that one corner has split leaving you a nice piece to get hold of. Wonderful! Now you can peel it off like the skin off an onion. That’s what happened to the warding on your house.”
“Oh.”
“Mason, you have got to be more responsible.”
“Okay,” I said. “I get it.”
Sherwood spoke up softly from her chair by the window. “I hope you do, Mason. I know you didn’t mean it to, but the consequences of your laziness were almost fatal for Louie.”
Ahh, nothing like a good woman to illuminate your personal fai
lings. “I said, I get it.”
“Enough,” Eli said. “We have more important things to discuss. We’ve come up with some very interesting information on Christoph, or I should say, Sherwood has.”
“What kind of information?” I asked, glancing over at her. She curled up in her chair, tucking one foot underneath her. Victor answered.
“It will be a lot easier if we just show you,” he said. “Sherwood?”
She got up and walked over to Victor’s desk, where a PC with a twenty-inch LCD monitor was quietly humming. She put her hands on the tower and said something under her breath, spreading her fingers as wide as possible.
“Download,” Eli explained. “We’ll be able to view what she saw on the monitor. Who says magic and technology aren’t compatible?”
We gathered around and the monitor flared to life. It showed what appeared to be a bedroom from a point-of-view perspective. There was a man naked from the waist up sitting on a bed, and as he turned his head I recognized Christoph.
“What exactly—?” I started to ask, but Eli and Victor both shushed me.
“Just pay attention,” Victor said.
Christoph was speaking, answering a question put to him by the unseen other party, obviously Sherwood. I wanted to ask her why he had no shirt on, not to mention what the hell she was doing there, but I held my tongue. Then I realized that if Christoph had no clothes, it was highly unlikely that Sherwood was chastely covered.
“What exactly is going on here?” I asked, unable to keep quiet.
“Grow up, Mason,” said Victor. “What does it look like?”
Sherwood spoke up, annoyed, but also defensive. “Double standard,” she complained. “If you had sex with someone in order to get information, you’d be strutting around like James Bond. When I do it, you’re horrified.”
“You had sex with him?” I yelped. I hate to admit it, but that’s what I did. I yelped.
“So what? It’s not like I particularly enjoyed it.” A smug expression flitted across her face. “Not that he’ll ever know.”
“You can’t just go to bed with someone like that. You don’t even know him, and besides, he’s…he’s…What, are you Mata Hari now?”
“Well, I did. Besides, who are you to talk? You had sex last night yourself.”
“I did not,” I automatically denied. “It was the night before. And that was entirely different. And it’s none of your business. And I hate that! I can’t ever do anything without you knowing about it the minute you see me. That’s why we broke up.”
“It was not.”
“Well, no, it wasn’t, but it could have been.”
Eli intervened as usual. “This is not the time,” he said. “Watch the monitor, please.”
Victor leaned over and touched the screen to replay it from the start. I turned back to the monitor just as Christoph was beginning to speak.
“It’s not that way at all,” he said. “Power is only the means to an end, and in this case, we’re talking about more money than you can imagine.”
“I don’t see money as the all-important thing,” she told him.
“No, of course not. But think of all the good you could do. Foundations. Environment.” He smiled winningly. “Baby seals.”
“Yeah, right. And where does all this money come from?”
Christoph pulled out the same string of gems that he had displayed at my flat. Sherwood reached for them, but he pulled them back out of her reach.
“These stones are more valuable than anything you’ve ever seen. They’re almost impossible to obtain.”
“So where did you find them?” Sherwood asked. She couldn’t take her eyes off them. I could hear real curiosity in her voice, beyond any attempt to merely get information.
“I didn’t exactly find them,” Christoph said, self-satisfaction evident. “I made them.”
“That’s impossible. No one could do anything like that.”
“Not until now. Of course, I have had to absorb some extra power from other practitioners.”
“Isn’t that sort of thing…”
“What? Unethical? Not allowed? You’ve been hanging around with Victor and Eli too long. It doesn’t hurt anyone, not permanently. Those two just can’t stand to see anyone do something they can’t.”
I shook my head in amazement. Christoph must think Sherwood was a complete idiot. Then I remembered—Sherwood could shield from anyone. He might well think she was nothing more than a marginally talented groupie who had no idea what the true state of affairs was.
“That’s amazing,” she said, all wide-eyed innocence. “But how do you do it?”
It seemed incredible that Christoph, for all his vaunted potency, didn’t seem to realize he was being played. Then again, Sherwood without any clothes might be short-circuiting his thought processes, especially if she was subtly enhancing. She was really good at disguising that particular talent.
A hand appeared on the screen, then disappeared as Christoph covered her mouth. “Shh,” he said. “I’m tired of talking.” His face spun around until she was staring up at him, and as his face came up to meet the screen. Sherwood reached over and wiped the screen blank.
“I don’t think we need to see anything more,” she said primly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Victor, almost lewdly. “You never know when some small scrap of information might prove useful.”
I wisely kept my mouth shut. I had no desire to view what followed anyway. The whole thing left me feeling uncomfortable. I mean, Christoph, for God’s sake. Eli was shaking his head slowly.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. I couldn’t have agreed more.
“I know,” I said, looking at Sherwood. “What were you thinking with a stunt like that? Do you know how dangerous that was?”
“No,” said Eli. “I mean I don’t believe what Christoph was saying.”
“You think he’s lying about creating the stones?” Victor asked.
“Not exactly. But I don’t think he’s giving the whole story. He couldn’t create something like that, no matter how much power he has. He’s just not that good. Remember, Geoffrey thought the same thing. Something else is going on here.”
“Like what?” I asked.
Whatever Eli was about to say was interrupted by an angry hissing coming from across the room. Maggie was staring out the open window, fur standing on end. Victor glanced at her, then at the window, then motioned Sherwood to move away from where she was sitting. She eased away from the desk and Victor glided up noiselessly from the other side. Just before he reached the window there was a harsh squawking sound and a black figure dropped off from the eave and flapped away into the cloudy sky.
“What was that?” asked Sherwood.
“A raven,” Victor said grimly.
“That’s not good. Christoph’s Ifrit is a raven.”
“Yes, I know,” I said.
Sherwood didn’t seem overly bothered. “How bad can that be?” she said. “Christoph’s aware I hang out with you guys. I think he even sees it as insurance, a pipeline into this house.”
“Ravens overhear. Ravens can speak. Ravens can tell tales.”
“Oh. That is bad.”
“Well, it’s not good,” said Eli. “Sherwood, you’d better stay here with Victor for a while. Christoph will be furious with you. Nobody likes to be played for a fool, and male ego, if nothing else, will demand revenge. But not even Christoph will be able to break the wards on this place.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Sherwood said. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can finesse this.”
“No,” I told her. “Trust me.”
Sherwood shrugged. “Oh, well. I wish I could have found out more, but at least I got something out of him.”
“Whatever,” I said, still pissed about the whole thing. I cast around for something to change the subject before we got into another fight. “How is that girl we found in the Tenderloin doing?” I asked. “Any problems?”
&n
bsp; Sherwood made that back-and-forth hand gesture that means yes and no. “Jenna? No, not really. Turns out she is a Finder after all, along with possessing other talent. And she’s a good kid at heart, but she does have issues. Remember, she’s been on the street since she was thirteen. No one changes overnight.”
“In other words, she’s a piece of work.”
Sherwood smiled, admitting it. “Well, I prefer to think of her as a work in progress.”
* * * *
We left it there. I wasn’t convinced we had learned anything important, and I was worried about Sherwood. Christoph had a large ego, and he didn’t strike me as the type to let bygones be bygones. If he caught up with her, she’d be in real trouble.
I stopped on my way home for a bagel and some coffee and picked up a ham croissant for Lou. After the stuff he’d been through, he could use a treat. I was surprised to find him still gone when I got home. Maybe he was still recovering in some way that had nothing to do with me. The faintest shadow of worry crept into my mind, but I dismissed it without too much problem. He’d been gone for a day or so before.
By night, the worry was stronger, poking its head from around a corner whenever I looked up, nipping at me with sharp teeth whenever I stopped concentrating on whatever I was doing. I didn’t sleep well, waking up whenever I heard a hint of a sound, and when morning arrived, still no Lou. I called Eli, who tried to be reassuring, but I could hear worry in his voice as well.
It wasn’t so much that I thought anything had happened to him; Lou could take care of himself, probably better than I could. But at the back of my mind was that same old fear that all practitioners with Ifrits suffer from—that sometimes Ifrits leave. And when an Ifrit leaves, that’s it. No one ever sees them again. Ever.
By the second day, I was numb with worry. After a week, I was hanging on to hope by a thread. When I tripped over his water dish and it flipped over, I saw it was dry and empty. That’s when it finally became real. Lou had left and he wasn’t coming back. It seemed a thousand years ago when I was comforting Sandra at Pascal’s North Beach party after Moxie had left her. I had felt sorry for her then. Now I felt sorry for myself.