“You’re welcome to it, if you’ll tell me who you are,” I said. I didn’t think the magic circle belonged to this creature; he didn’t look as if he needed anything as crude as herbs and candles to push magic around, much less magical protection. Judging from the way strands of blue and yellow energy reached up from the ground to cling to him, it was more likely people needed protection from him than the other way round.
He made a closed-mouth smile that let the impression of small, curved, interlocking fangs crease his lips from within. “It’s an interesting bargain, since you know I won’t tell you my real name. People here call me Jin, so that will do, if you like. You are . . . Hm . . . What are you . . . ?”
If I concentrated on the normal, the grinding noise in his voice faded. I wasn’t sure if that meant he had two forms or was just very good at projecting his normal-world one. But I did know “normal” wasn’t his home.
I gave him a thin smile back. “My name’s Harper.” I made a sweeping-up gesture at the fading circle. “Did you do this?”
“Some people don’t take proper care of their things.” He shrugged and his massive shoulders made the stitching at his armholes strain, and the sound of it made him wince just a little. He wasn’t entirely a projection, then, which was good and bad for me if we got into a tussle.
“So you know the owner,” I said.
“Of course.”
“Of the house?”
“Leung? Yes. But he’s dead, you know.”
“Do I? That doesn’t seem to be common knowledge.”
“I prefer uncommon knowledge—it’s much more interesting than the sort that’s lying around everywhere. And more valuable.” His eyes gleamed with a light I recognized at once—avarice. I’d have to see what I could do with that....
“How do you know Leung is dead?” He didn’t seem to think the fact was worth a lot, since he’d already tossed it at me; I wanted to know what else he considered cheap enough to give away.
“Oh, ghosts,” he said with a dismissive roll of his eyes. “They always have something to complain about.” It wasn’t as much of an answer as I could have liked, but it was interesting, nonetheless. As he said it, something cold brushed through me. Startled, I shivered, shifting my focus to the Grey to see a ghost drifting toward Lake Crescent. It was an old specter, ragged and thin, but it moved toward the western lake as if drawn into the currents of magic, paying us no heed at all and giving me pause. The unconscious way it moved in a straight line through every obstacle intrigued me, but I had something more immediate to deal with and shook my curiosity off for the time being. “Do you have any real proof of Leung’s death? Something I can show to someone?”
“Proof? Not the kind you mean. I could tell you who killed him, but you’d have to make it worth my while.”
“Then he was killed by another person, not in an accident.”
Jin frowned, both versions of his face creasing their brows for a moment and puckering their mouths as if the taste of slipping up was sour. He growled to himself.
“Jin,” I continued, “I know the car is in Lake Crescent. I just have to get it out or get someone else to dredge it up.”
“I could help you.”
I wasn’t averse to help, but I was pretty sure any assistance from that quarter came with a price—assuming he could do what he said. On the other hand, that he was wearing a very expensive real suit—not just the image of a suit—made me think he might be a little vain as well as greedy. “Sure you can,” I replied with a deprecating smile. “After all, you’ve been so very helpful so far.”
“I told you Leung was dead.”
“Which I already knew, but you won’t tell me who killed him, because you don’t actually know.” I started to turn and walk away. “You seem to be good enough to clean up after other people’s messes, but you’ve done nothing to impress me. So far as I know, you’re just the garbageman.”
Jin bounded to catch up to me in one huge stride reminiscent of the way the white creatures beside the road had moved. “Wait!” He snatched at my nearer wrist and tried to pull me back around to face him.
I twisted my arm and danced sideways, pulling out of his grip and away to a stance that put my feet onto harder, less slippery ground a few feet from him. I flung the end of my scarf back over my shoulder and crossed my arms loosely over my chest. “Wait for what, Jin? My toes to freeze off? Because that’s about all I’ve gained from this conversation so far.”
He stood back and regarded me through narrowed eyes. “You want to know where Leung’s body is. I can show you.”
“I know where his body is. It’s in the car, which is at the bottom of Lake Crescent. I’m not about to swim down there to see it, so unless you can pull that sucker up to the surface where I can show it to someone else and prove he’s dead, you’re no damned use to me.”
He was still looking speculative. “Why do you want to prove Leung is dead?”
“Because you can’t collect on a missing person, only a dead one.”
“But I know who killed him.”
“And are you going to tell me?”
He made a face. “No.”
“See—you’re still useless. Who killed him is irrelevant anyhow if I can’t prove he’s dead in the first place. I can’t run off to the police and say some monster in the woods told me so-and-so killed Steven Leung and pushed his car into the lake with him still in it. Oh, yeah, that’ll fly.”
Jin sniffed in disgust at the word “monster” and muttered something in Chinese under his breath. “If you knew where to look—”
“Exactly.”
He heaved an irritated sigh. “If I bring the car up where you can see it, what is that worth to you?”
Now we were at the crux of the problem. What did I have that Jin would want? I didn’t think he’d want my scarf, I doubted I had enough cash to interest him, and the sex thing was not—ever—going to be an option. But . . . “I might have some uncommon knowledge. . . .”
Jin barely raised his eyebrows, but in the Grey his eyes glittered and his lips parted just enough to show the tips of his fangs. I love being right. “What would you know that I do not?” he asked.
“One or two things . . .”
“From across the water, from Seattle?”
“Yes.”
“Hm.” Jin fought a smile. “What about the Egyptians? Tell me about them.”
“The asetem? Why should you care?”
“That’s none of your business. Do you know something or don’t you?”
“I know why they came here and why they left.”
Jin seemed startled, his eyes opening wider. “They left?”
“There you go—the asetem have left the building.”
He frowned; apparently Jin didn’t get the reference. “Why? How?”
I shook my head. “No more freebies, Jin. I showed you part of my hand; now you get to show me yours. Let’s go get that car and I’ll tell you more when it’s up where I can see it.”
He narrowed his eyes and glared a bit, an expression that was much uglier on the face with the horns and fangs, though it wasn’t a delight on the human face, either. Then he smiled a little and made a formal little nod. “Very well. Do you know East Beach Road?”
“Yes.”
“Take me there and I’ll show you Leung’s car.”
SEVEN
I was a little reluctant to have Jin in my truck, but I didn’t see an alternative that might not ruin the deal, so I shrugged and led him to the Rover. He made a face as I opened the passenger door for him, and the ferret—who’d been sleeping in her travel cage in the back—pushed her face up against the grille and hissed at him. Then she began pawing at the door and making angry little grunts.
“I don’t think she likes you,” I observed.
Jin didn’t hide his distaste. “The feeling is mutual. Horrible little monster.”
“I have my monster; you have your buddies by the road.”
“Those pat
hetic guai? Strays, slip-gates. Not any friends of mine,” he added with a sniff.
Even monsters have pecking orders. Apparently, Jin was higher up this mysterious food chain than his brachiating relatives—another tidbit to put in my mental file. If I ever figured out what sort of creature Jin was, it might come in handy. There was nothing I could do to pacify Chaos about his presence in the truck, though, so I ignored the ferret and hoped she wouldn’t do herself an injury in her frenzy to take a bite of him. I drove.
The road I was already on turned into East Beach when it crossed Highway 101. About one twisty mile beyond that, Jin told me to stop only a few yards from where I’d first seen the spectral image of Steven Leung’s burning Subaru and directed me down a dirt track so narrow and overgrown, it was visible from the paved road only as a thinness between the trees. The truck’s paint was going to suffer, but I didn’t care to leave the vehicle beside the road and walk this time. I wasn’t entirely sure of Jin or what he was leading me into and I preferred to have as many escape options at hand as possible. The narrow way petered out only a few yards from the water. Once we were out of the truck again and standing on the shore of Lake Crescent, I could see a large house with floor-to-ceiling windows off to my left where the lake formed a sharp cove and a scattering of smaller houses along the shore to the right, past the Log Cabin Resort and nearly to the spot where I’d seen the ghastly figure rising from the water a few days earlier. The ghostlight and whispers were as strong as before and the colored energy mist still flowed and puddled along the shore. Straight ahead was nothing but deep, cold water for twelve miles to Fairholm.
Deep as it was, the lake was beautiful, not just along the heavily forested shore in a hundred shades of green, but the water itself was so clear, it reflected and intensified the colors of foliage and sky so the surface seemed to be made of colored glass.
Jin gazed at it with gleaming eyes and began taking off his shoes, revealing long, weirdly clawed feet. He handed the expensive shoes to me without another word and squatted down at the absolute edge of the lake, plucking fussily at the creases in his trousers as the water covered his toes. It must have been icy, but he didn’t shiver. His illusory human form faded to a ghostly shroud and he stretched his arms out toward the center of the lake.
Jin crouched, his white monstrousness bizarrely clothed in his Italian suit, chanting in a low voice in a language that rose and fell, rose and fell, breeding lassitude and casting a green glow around him. The emerald energy brightened and burned as he continued to call to it, blues and yellows flowing into it like water from nearby patches of surface energy and the thin shadows of ghosts along the shore. Then he threw his arms out farther and gathered something in, as if bodily grasping the sunken car.
I could feel the strain of magic in my gut and across my skin as I waited, watching, sinking into the Grey to see what Jin was doing. The sun, a glittering disk in the Grey, shifted in the open slice of sky above the lake. Through the clear, colorful water I saw something moving, coming toward us, carried in the bright green energy Jin had cast into the lake. The colors around the thing writhed with strange shadows and as I stared, the green light showed a swarm of horrible, wax white things with gaping, toothy jaws and staring eyes pushing and lifting the shape toward the surface. I held my ground, though I wanted to recoil from the sight of this army of swimming undead coming to Jin’s command. Slowly he unbent, standing, then rose to his feet and stepped back from the shore....
The shadowy thing came up, broaching out of the lake like a whale from the sea as the hellish swarm burst to the surface and then plunged back into the depths, flinging their burden toward the shore. It was the car in double image—real and Grey—and it tumbled above the water for a moment before it fell back in only a few yards out from the edge where we stood.
I pulled back to the normal before Jin could see me and studied the car. Though dented and misshapen by pressure, rusted where the paint had burned off, it was still undeniably a Subaru Forester. It sank back into the shallow water on its side, leaving one door just below the surface, the rest covered by the clear water, but still visible.
Jin leaned back against the Rover, reassembling his human appearance in haste as a trio of ghostly shapes shivered and then blinked out of existence beside him as they were sucked away into the lake, leaving a moment’s strange silence. In the Grey, Jin was panting a little, but the normal image wore a superior smile. “There is the car.”
I made a show of peering toward the hulk in the water, shading my eyes from the sun that was much brighter in the real world, and taking a surreptitious glance at my watch. It seemed ridiculous, but an hour had passed and it was nearing noon. The Grey has a strange way of warping time, but I felt as if I’d labored every minute of the elapsed time, even though Jin had been doing the real work. “How do I know it’s Leung’s?” I asked, hiding my own relief that the magic and its ugly cohort had dissipated.
He rolled his eyes and snapped at me. “How many of these do you think there are in this lake? You’re oblivious trash-mongers, but even your kind don’t go tossing dozens of these stinking conveyances into water like this!”
I put up my hands to calm him. “All right, all right. I’ll assume you’re as good as your word. It does look like Leung’s car.”
Jin resettled his face in a disdainful sneer. “Of course it’s his. Now you tell me about the asetem. Why did they leave?”
“Because I killed their king.”
Jin straightened so fast, the air cracked. “You what? You what? You what?” he babbled, rushing close to me.
I shrugged and pushed away from him, getting back into the Rover. “I killed him. Whacked him. Discorporated his nasty, manipulative hide,” I replied, closing the door between us. Jin reached for me through my open window as I started the engine. I pushed his shoes into his elongating black-clawed hands. “Tell you the rest later. Gotta go get someone to haul this car all the way out of the lake before dark.” I pushed the power window switch and let the window roll closed as I put the truck into reverse. Jin stared at me. Then he sat down hard and howled. I backed the Rover the hundred feet or so onto East Beach Road at a dangerous speed and pointed the truck toward Highway 101 and the nearest ranger station. Jin didn’t pursue me and I could hear his uncanny, grinding howl for miles as I drove away. I wondered why he was so upset and if I would later regret giving him that piece of information. The ferret made a huffing noise in her cage and I hoped she wasn’t privy to something I didn’t know, since she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell me what was making her chuff. But I had promised Jin I’d tell him the rest and maybe that would hold him off for a while. I hoped.
The closest place I thought I might find anyone was the Storm King ranger station where the ferret and I had taken our break the day before. Technically it was closed until May, but there’d been signs of life around and there was a pay phone. The mountains cut off cell service, so the old landline was the best bet I had. If that failed, I’d have to drive to Fairholm or Piedmont. At least it wasn’t raining at the moment; that would have made getting the waterlogged car out of the lake nearly impossible.
By the time I reached Storm King’s ranger station, Jin’s howling had died away. Once I parked in the lot, I got the ferret out of her cage again and wrestled her into her harness for a walk around the station in search of a ranger or any other help, hoping Jin hadn’t followed us or wasn’t interested in taking a piece out of me if he had. Chaos was nonplussed about the recent encounter with whatever he was, but she settled down to some intense exploring once I got her leashed and on the ground.
Chaos headed straight for the water, hopping and scampering across the chilly clearing in front of the ranger station. She diverged twice to check something on the ground, each time pausing only long enough to dig at a bright knot of Grey-stuff that had buried itself in the dirt. She lost interest in the hot spots after a few paws full of gravel and skipped back to her original path, but I noticed that the lake a
nd the ground that sloped down into it had an unusual gleam, similar to the intrusive Greyness I’d seen near Lake Sutherland in the morning. I’d have expected so much effort to have drained, rather than added to, the freakish energy around the lake. The area near the car had seemed quieter and more normal. But here, near the ranger station, there were actually more bright lines shooting southwest than I’d seen the day before. The phenomenon seemed to ebb and flow to some rhythm I didn’t know. The power lines in the lake were apparently the source of massive energy, but . . . where did it come from in the first place?
A white pickup truck bearing a green stripe and the U.S. National Park Service emblem on the side was standing to the left of the boat ramp and dock that pointed at the northeastern shore, just a few degrees west of where Jin had raised Leung’s car from the depths. I couldn’t make out the spot from the dock as Chaos humped and skipped her way along the planks, but I found myself straining to see if there was an angry white monster on the other side. I didn’t see anything. The ferret looked over the side of the dock at the water and I did the same.
Below us, scattered branches and stones rested on pale green sand and gravel a dozen or more feet below the surface. Looking straight down into the incredibly clear water, I could see every bump and knot as well as if the branches still grew in air. As I stared down, Chaos—the ferret version of Kipling’s ’satiable Elephant’s Child—made a barking noise and jumped into the water.
“Damn it!” I spat, hauling her back up by her harness and leash as she attempted to paddle across the lake. She squirmed and wriggled as I picked her up and tried to brush the worst of the water off her, but she was soaked and shivering and stopped fighting me as soon as the cold really penetrated her skin. Then she wanted only to burrow into my clothes as quickly as possible.
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