“And how do you want that handled?” Gannon asked.
“Very carefully. Perhaps you could tag one of them and bring them in.”
“Okay, Mr. Walters. But Hogue first?”
“Oh, yes,” Walters said with a nod. “Hogue first.”
Personnel had brought him the files on two other up and coming researchers, either one of whom would be a good replacement for Hogue. All things considered, anything would be a good replacement for Hogue. He watched Gannon leave the study and picked up the files as the door closed. But while his eyes scanned the computer-generated printouts his mind was still following its old train of thought. Where was Thomas Hengwr?
2:00, Thursday morning.
It was curious, Tucker thought, sitting in his office. Curious how Lawrence Hogue, a nobody researcher with a small firm in Toronto, had suddenly been put in charge of something as prestigious as Project Spook. Having reviewed the case files and found nothing again, Tucker had started on the files of PRB’s personnel, looking for he knew not what, just trying to keep busy. Hogue’s file made him pause.
It seemed that it was Hogue who’d fouled up whenever they were close to something. Tucker’d put that down to inexperience, coupled with the man’s need to be “in charge.” It was that, or plain incompetence. Tucker favored the latter. Unfortunately, there were no revelations hidden away in his file. It was simply the dull history of a dull man who’d just happened to be involved in the appropriate research when Operation Mindreach had been initiated.
Tucker made a mental note to ask Wally about him in the morning. Maybe he had something on Hogue, though what that might be, or what bearing it would have on the problem at hand, was anybody’s guess.
Hogue had to be given credit where credit was due, though. His theories were certainly imaginative. The problem was if the reports of what had happened at Patty’s Place earlier this evening were accurate, they weren’t dealing with super-brained spooks so much as wizards out of one of those hobbit books that he’d tried to read a few years back. Tucker sighed. Maybe he should have stuck with those books. He might’ve picked up something he could use now, instead of running around in circles, dodging reporters who had enough instinct to smell a cover-up but nothing hard to even speculate with.
God, he was tired. What he really needed was some rest. Or at least a breather.
He pushed the stack of files to one side of the desk and reached for the phone. Dialing a familiar number, he listened to it ring on the other end of the line. A half-dozen strident rings later, a woman answered, her voice heavy with sleep.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Maggie. What’re you doing?”
“Doing? I was sleeping until—Is that you, Tucker?”
“Yeah. I thought if you weren’t doing anything, maybe we could—”
“Do you have any idea what time it is? What time is it?”
“Going on quarter past two. It’s a little late. I know.”
“Why are you calling, Tucker? I thought we’d worked things out the last time we talked and decided that this sort of thing wasn’t going to happen any more.”
“Yeah. Well, that was a few weeks ago. I thought maybe we’d have a new perspective on it by now.”
“The only perspective we need is some sort of a commitment, John. From you.”
Tucker sighed. He always liked the way she called him Tucker. Had a nice ring to it. She only called him John when she was upset with him.
“Maybe we could talk about commitment now,” he said.
“I think we’ve talked the whole thing through once too often. I don’t want to argue with you anymore. Especially not in the middle of the bloody night. I’d rather we just stayed friends.”
“So would I. That’s why I called you. To talk to a friend.”
There was a moment’s silence on the line.
“Are you still there?” Tucker asked.
“I’m here. I’m wondering about you. Are you all right? You sound a little strange.”
“No. I’m just a little tired, that’s all. Look, I’m sorry I woke you up and—”
“Are you still assigned to that Special Branch?”
“ ’Fraid so.”
“There was a story on the news tonight—something about an armed robbery in a restaurant of all places. An RCMP officer was killed. Does that have anything to do with the way you’re feeling right now?”
“Yeah. Thompson was one of my men. I put him on that assignment before it blew up in his face.”
“I thought as much. When they named Madison as the RCMP spokesperson, I sort of figured you were involved.” She sighed. “Shit. I don’t know if I want to hear any more.”
“Well, that’s okay. Look, I’ve gotta run, Maggie. It’s been great talking to you.”
“Uh-uh, Tucker. Not so fast. I know just where your head’s at about now. All mixed up with morality and mortality and what’s the point. Why don’t you come over for a little while and we’ll talk. I’ll make you some cocoa.”
“I don’t want to impose. . . .”
“Then why’d you call? I’m going to get dressed. Do you remember the address?” There was a smile in her voice.
“I’m going to forget it in three weeks?”
“I hope I don’t regret that you didn’t. Drive carefully, Tucker.”
She hung up and Tucker regarded the receiver with the faintest trace of a smile softening his grim features.
“You look terrible.”
Tucker leaned against the doorframe and tried on his best Bogart expression.
“Here’s lookin’ at you, kid. You look great.”
“Get out of the hall before one of my neighbors sees you. I’ve been trying to convince them that I’ve given up hanging around with the likes of you. It’s done wonders for my reputation.”
Tucker headed for the living room and sank into the sofa, stretching his legs out before him. The apartment was in Tower A of Riverside Place. The living room window gave a good view of the downtown area—a patchwork of lights like some giant’s quilt. While Maggie was in the kitchen fixing their cocoa, Tucker unclipped his .38, stuck it in the pocket of his jacket, and shoved the rolled-up bundle under the sofa. Leaning back, he stared out the window, trying to blank his mind.
Maggie came out of the kitchen with a steaming mug of hot chocolate in each hand. “Well, don’t you look comfortable,” she said.
“I’m trying,” Tucker said.
Maggie set his mug down within easy reach and settled in the chair opposite him.
“So how was your day, dear?” she asked.
Tucker laughed.
He’d first met Margaret Finch about four years ago when he was involved with a case of internal sabotage in the Department of Indian Affairs. She was a lawyer and had been representing their main suspect—a young Ojibway brave. Through sheer stubbornness and strength of will, she’d managed to hold Tucker off long enough to clear her client, solving Tucker’s case for him in the bargain. Somewhere along the way they’d become involved with each other on a more personal level, starting an on again, off again relationship that had lasted the better part of three and a half years.
Three weeks ago they’d called it quits and they’d both expressed relief that the question between them had finally been resolved. They were attracted to each other, but their personalities clashed more often than they complemented one another. By calling Maggie tonight, Tucker knew that he’d started the ball rolling all over again.
Funny thing, though. Just thinking that maybe they could work something out made him feel better than he had in a while. The three weeks apart had only served to remind him of what he was losing when he lost her. It was time for them to make a commitment—at least for him to. He wasn’t sure if this would help or hinder his current problems with Project Spook, then decided that he really didn’t care right now. He needed a couple of hours away from the whole mess anyway—and when the whole thing was over with maybe it was abo
ut time he seriously considered some other career options, ones that would allow them to make a life together.
“Why’d we ever call it quits?” he asked suddenly. “I mean, it feels so good, just sitting here with you. . . .”
“Let’s not talk about us right now. There’s no easy solution and I don’t think I’m ready to get into it just now.”
Tucker sat up and regarded her seriously. “Let’s get married,” he said.
“Jesus! That’s a solution?”
“You don’t want to?”
“That’s not it.” Maggie frowned. “Or at least that’s only partly it. I mean. . . .” She sighed and shook her head.
“Okay,” Tucker said. “We’ll talk about something else.”
He took a sip of his hot chocolate, watching her over the rim of his mug. She was a tall lithe woman who could easily have been a model if she hadn’t chosen a more cerebral profession, the sort of person who looked good in whatever she wore, from an evening gown to the flannel shirt and jeans she was wearing right now. Her thick brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, accentuating the lines of her cheekbones and brow. Pale green eyes regarded him steadily. Wide lips shaped a smile.
Christ! Tucker thought. How could he ever have just walked away?
“How does an armed robbery in a restaurant have anything to do with your PRB?” she asked, then paused, frowning slightly. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked that. I’m not sure I even want to know. Highly classified, right?”
“Right. But your security clearance is still operative. I checked before I came over.”
“You would. I’m still not sure I want to know.” She shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m as curious as the proverbial cat. I’m just not sure it’s something I want to be involved in. You know what I mean?”
“Sure. It’s getting pretty weird. So. That’s two things we don’t talk about.”
Maggie reached over, closing her hand around his fingers. “Will it help if you talk about it?” she asked.
“Always does.”
They looked at each other for long moments, then Maggie smiled and seemed to come to a decision. Moving around the coffee table, she sat beside him on the couch.
“So tell me,” she said, her hand resting lightly on his knee.
Chapter Three
The old brass-rimmed clock that straddled the mantle in the Postman’s Room was edging its hour hand to the Roman numeral “XII.” Midnight, Jamie thought. The witching hour. Wednesday’s last breath, Thursday’s first intake of air. The circle of the seasons, of time itself, in microcosm. He looked from the clock to where Thomas Hengwr sat across from him, the big chair swallowing his diminutive form. Puffing on his pipe, Jamie sent a wreath of smoke spiraling up to the ceiling.
“You and I,” Tom said, “are much the same, Jamie. Two old men attempting to unravel the riddles of the unseen world.”
“The same?” Jamie asked. “I always got the impression that you looked down on my studies.”
“I never looked down. I merely questioned your methods and your apparent inability to perceive the reality of what waits for all of us just beyond the here and now. I have the advantage there, Jamie, for not only do I believe in that magic Otherworld, but I have walked its roads, I can draw on its powers.”
Jamie shook his head. “Tell me about Sara,” he said. “I’m not interested in a discussion of the reality or unreality of magic.”
Though that wasn’t entirely true. With every word, his guest set the blood trembling in Jamie’s veins and, strangely, he had the sudden curious impression that Tamson House was listening as avidly as he was. He understood a bond between himself and the House at that moment that he’d never fully appreciated before. This was his forefather’s true heritage—what his father Nathan, and his father Anthony had left him.
It was as though he was a part of its walls, shutting away the outside world, leaning closer so as not to miss a single word that their odd guest might utter. He was a part of the towers that overlooked Ottawa’s skyline, the cellars that sank their stony roots deep into the land that supported the city. His eyes were like the House’s windows at that moment—looking inward and outward at the same time.
“The magic cannot be ignored,” Tom said. “It is because of it that I sit here speaking with you, that your niece walks the Otherworld, that so much has been set in motion.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because of events that have their beginning fifteen hundred years ago.”
Jamie sighed and set his pipe aside. “All right,” he said. “I’ll listen. I’m not saying that I’ll believe anything. I just want some answers. And if that means a history lesson. . . .”
He let the sentence hang there unfinished and Tom nodded. “I will be as brief as possible, Jamie.”
He folded his hands on his lap and regarded his host for long moments. “There was a king in Wales by the name of Maelgwn who had a druid and an enemy. The enemy was the bard Taliesin. Are you familiar with their history?”
“I think so. Taliesin won a riddle contest, didn’t he? And in the process managed to make fools of Maelgwn’s bards, druids, and the king himself. Is that right?”
“That and more. Maelgwn was a vindictive man. Though honor forbade his retaliating at the time, he did not—could not—forget that Taliesin had made fools of them all. He was determined to have his revenge. But bards could not be dealt with as ordinary men in those times—especially not a bard such as Taliesin was. Yet while one could not physically harm them, one could banish them.
“Maelgwn’s chief druid forced the bard into a coracle and set him adrift. It was a fitting fate, he thought—for from the sea in a coracle Taliesin was cast up on those same shores many years before. How better to deal with him than return him to the sea from whence he came? In this way they—Maelgwn and his druid—could not be held responsible for the bard’s fate. It was in the hands of Dylan Eil Ton. They thought: Let the sea’s god decide what must be done with him.
“But a price was paid for that deed. As the tide dragged Taliesin’s coracle out to sea, he cried forth a curse and the king’s druid was turned to stone. He became a menhir and for a thousand years he stood on that desolate stretch of coastline, a tall grey-backed standing stone pointing westward across the great seas.”
“Like some Welsh Merlin,” Jamie remarked.
Tom shook his head. “Myrddin, who you call Merlin, was Welsh, Jamie. And he was neither turned to stone nor trapped in one, despite all the tales that say otherwise. He was both bard and druid, a powerful combination that made him the greatest wizard that the Green Isles ever knew. When his work in the Isles was done, Ninane, the Lady of the Lake, led him back to the Summer Country—the same land that birthed Taliesin, though he never returned to it.”
“Fascinating,” Jamie said. “If true.”
“Oh, it is true enough.”
“Though what bearing it has on Sara’s disappearance remains oblique. At least to my humble understanding. Where is she, Hengwr?”
“You have listened to me this much. Allow me to finish. Imagine that those two—Taliesin and the king’s druid—imagine that they survived the span of all those years. Survived, but were changed. That the druid had taken up the Way of Light and the bard now walked the realms of shadow. In a time such as this, technological achievements soar, new wonder piling on new wonder with bewildering ease. But imagine such men warring with magic now, when the gods have retreated from the world and nothing remains to check their struggle.
“They could make a ruin of this world, for who could stop them? Can a bullet kill a man who can become a wind? Can imprisonment hold a man who can become shadow?”
Jamie shook his head—not in reply, but in disbelief.
“Earlier this evening,” Tom replied, “Taliesin attacked my apprentice in a restaurant. Kieran was with your niece. Taliesin changed a man into some terrible werebeast and it was only through Kieran’s quick
defense that Sara’s and his own deaths were averted. Taliesin has changed, Jamie. He has become evil. Though it was Kieran who slew the werebeast—slew an innocent man shapechanged by that bard—I lay the onus for that deed at Taliesin’s feet. He will stop at nothing now, Jamie. And unless he is stopped, there will be many more deaths.”
“Just . . . just suppose I believed any of it,” Jamie said. “What has that got to do with me? Or Sara? What does this Taliesin want?”
“Power. And the death of the druid.”
“Where’s the druid?”
“In hiding.”
“God!” Jamie rubbed his face. “And you’re on the druid’s side, I take it? What makes him right and Taliesin wrong?”
“As Taliesin changed, so did the druid. He became a force for good, Jamie. Believe me. I would not aid such a man if he was still evil. In the passage of years, their roles have reversed. I admit that Taliesin was wronged. He had just cause to lay his curse on the druid. But the druid paid his price; a thousand years locked in stone. Surely he has suffered enough?”
Jamie took a couple of long breaths and tried to think. It was obvious that Tom believed what he was saying. Impossible though it all was, Tom believed. So what was he supposed to do? Play along?
“You said that you thought that I’d be able to help you,” Jamie said at last. “That you thought you and I would . . . finish all this. But that now it’s up to Sara and your . . . what? Apprentice?” Did people still have apprentices? He supposed people like Thomas Hengwr might. “What are they supposed to do? What are you doing here?”
“After the attack in the restaurant . . . friends of mine took them into the Otherworld.”
“That’s the second or third time you’ve mentioned this ‘Otherworld.’ What is it?” He paused, but before Tom could reply, Jamie held up his hand. “Never mind. I assume it’s just more of this magic, right? But tell me what sort of friends took them away. Was it this druid?”
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