"You OK?" Novak asked. "You seem to be drifting off."
I shook myself. "I'm fine. Just getting ideas about… various things."
"Work related?"
"Yes."
"Were those bruises work related, too?"
"Yes, but that's not a normal occupational hazard. Most of what I do is pretty low-key paperwork chasing."
"Mind if I ask, anyway?"
I was rattled. With the whiskey and the warm room and a man not hard to look at giving me puppy eyes, the urge to talk was overwhelming. I told him how I got the bruises. He looked horrified.
"And you say that's not an occupational hazard?" he asked.
"I said not a normal one. People go off the deep end sometimes.
"You just push the right button and that's all you get. You must know people like that."
He nodded. "My boss is like that, lately. Irrational about the oddest things."
"Like what?"
"Oh, business things. Doesn't like me to touch things one day, demands that I do all the cataloging, tagging, and hauling the next, while he schmoozes up the clients. Shows up late, then chews me out for taking an extra break. Other days, he just sends me home with no explanation. I've been putting money into the company for a couple of years, but stupid things like this make me wonder if I'm doing the right thing. Are you going to eat that, Ms. Blaine?" he added, pointing his fork at a lonely hors d'oeuvre.
I sat back to allow the waitress to put my dinner in front of me. "Are we still on a formal basis here, Mr. Novak?" Novak stabbed the last antipasto. "Don't we get to graduate to first names once we've shared a drink, salami, and garlic breath?"
He laughed. "On the first date?"
"If you're not prepared for any eventuality, don't take a date to an Italian restaurant. Something about all that marinara sauce and finger food just leads to trouble."
"All right, then—my friends call me Will." He extended his hand to me as if we were meeting for the first time.
I took it. "I'm Harper."
"Funny name."
"My mother has funny ideas. She wanted me to be a dancer or an actress—pushed me into it straight from the cradle. She thought that if I had a movie-star name, I'd have a movie-star life. The road to obscurity is paved with classy names."
"And she named you Harper? Not Marlene or Jean or Rita?"
"Do I look like Rita Moreno?"
"I was thinking of Rita Hayworth."
"I don't look like her, either, but they were both dancers."
"So was Gene Kelly, but you don't look like him, either."
"Thank the gods. He had a cute butt, though." The booze was talking… I hoped.
"Never before have I been envious of Gene Kelly's butt."
I sprayed whiskey, fluffing a laugh, and started to choke. Will reached over and pounded on my back—the advantage to long arms. I managed to swallow and catch my breath. He stayed leaning forward, peering at me with anxiety.
"You OK?"
"Fine. I'm fine. You shouldn't say things like that to a woman with a mouthful of whiskey."
"Yeah, with these rotten candles and the way you spit, we might have set the place on fire."
I broke down, giggling. Shadows and shapes flickered in the corners of the room, but I was laughing too hard to do anything about it, or care.
Will looked mock grave. "I can see that my flirting technique is rusty. I've reduced you to painful laughter and choking. Can you breathe? Are you going to expire? Should I call a doctor?"
"No, no. I'm fine," I gasped. "I'm not even wearing my dinner yet. Everything's fine."
"Good," he said, sitting back. "I'd be embarrassed if you choked to death."
"Imagine how I'd feel."
He looked at me and a wicked grin spread across his face; then he slowly turned red and looked away. "Umm… maybe I'd better not." He got very busy with his dinner and didn't look up to see me
No one had flirted with me—real, serious flirting—in a very long time. Maybe both of us were rusty, but I had to admit, I liked it.
"Another stupid question," he said, watching his knife diligently as he cut through a chicken breast which would have surrendered whorishly to a spoon. "Why private investigator?"
"I'm a mystery freak. And it was as different from my mother's ideas as I could get, which pisses her off to this day. I danced all the way through college to keep her off my back, but I ditched my jazz shoes the minute I had my diploma in my hand."
He looked up. "You entered a potentially dangerous profession to spite your mother?"
"No. But it does have that satisfying side effect," I explained. "I suppose, if I was less of a loner, I might have been a cop. But I'm the solitary puzzle-solver. I don't really care about street patrols and drug busts and gang shootings and traffic duty—all that necessary and cooperative community stuff that cops do. I like figuring out the puzzle. If it's interesting enough, I'll work a problem twenty-four hours a day. I get to exercise my obsessive-compulsive streak that way. Want to guess what my favorite movie is?"
"The Maltese Falcon."
"To Have and Have Not."
"That's not a mystery."
"I know, but I still like it better. I adore Lauren Bacall. Falcon comes in second, though, closely trailed by The Big Sleep."
"Bogart fan, eh?"
"Big-time. Bogey got all the great tough guys," I said. "Who did it better?"
"Jimmy Cagney, Alan Ladd?"
"Both very good, but not Bogart. Did you know Cagney started out as a dancer?"
"Yes. So did George Raft."
I stared at him.
He shrugged. "I like old movies, old things. That's how I got into the antique business. Sometimes I think I can hear them talking to me." He blushed. "Too much imagination, I'm sure."
"Better than not enough, in my book."
He shrugged, changed the subject, and we finished dinner talking about old furniture and old movies. I didn't want to leave, but I could barely keep my eyes open. He smiled and walked me to the Rover and watched me go. I was glad I would see him the next day. But the warmth of his company didn't stop me from driving home paranoid.
Nothing happened. The drive was ordinary, and the condo and Chaos were waiting in good order. I flopped down on the couch and called the Danzigers.
Ben answered.
"I know I'm calling pretty late, but I have a question."
"It's not too late yet. What do you need to know?" His voice moved away from the phone. "Hang on." I heard him call for Mara. I heard another phone click and clatter.
"Well… tonight a car tried to run me down. I jumped out of the way and fell pretty hard. I was OK, but there is no way the car could have missed me. The space was too narrow and the car was moving too fast for me to clear the area. It was drizzling. But when I was trying to get out of the car's way, I was in mist. That Grey mist. And then I was in here rain again. And the car hadn't clipped me. So, what the hell happened?"
Ben's voice sounded excited. "Wow… for a second, you must have seemed to flicker or even disappear, I think. Oh, that must have scared the driver!"
The ferret scrambled into my lap and tried to steal the phone. I put her on the floor. "I can only hope. You're saying I disappeared?"
"Not completely. You're a physical being and the Grey is an overlap zone, remember? For a moment, you were basically in both places, switching energy states."
I barked over his enthusiasm. "But how? I don't understand how I can be in two places at once or how I get there. I didn't do anything but try to run away!"
Ben fell silent. Mara slipped into the hole in the conversation. "It's the nature of Greywalkers to move through the Grey, which, as I said, is a bit here and a bit there. But as to how you did it without meaning to, I'm thinking that your mind whizzed through the possibilities and latched on to this one."
"You opened a door and went through it. You've done it before, but you never did it voluntarily until now. Now that you know you can do it
, you did," Ben added.
Mara resumed. "True. But it worries me that it wasn't conscious. This time it was a good choice, but it might not be so safe next time. You're not hurt, are you?"
"Only where I hit the gravel. And why didn't I get hurt worse?"
"I'm not quite certain. You got off lightly, though. You'll need to be controlling it. You can't go blindly popping in and out of the Grey, or being dragged in and out higgledy-piggledy. Something worse than a car might be on the other side."
I didn't respond. I picked up Chaos and teased her with my fingers.
Ben broke first. "Harper, even if you can't quite buy it, at least try to play along, just in case."
Chaos scampered away to wreak havoc elsewhere. My fingers weren't interesting when they stopped fluttering. "What if you're wrong?"
"If we're wrong, you're no worse off. If we're right, then things get better. It's not surgery. And if you didn't think we might be right, why did you call?"
I loosened my shoulders. "What do you suggest that I do?"
"Let Mara help you. I'll get off the phone so you two can work it out."
I could hear Mara hesitating. "It isn't all that hard, really…"
"Yeah. Well. Let's try it."
"All right. You'll need to recognize the barriers of the Grey first. We can try a concentration exercise to narrow your focus. Ever done any yoga?"
I felt a little silly admitting to it. "A little meditation breathing."
"Then you'll be having no problem. It's a bit like mindful breathing. So sit and breathe like that, then remember the sensations you had just before you crossed to the Grey. They're the clues. When you can recognize the barrier and re-create the sensations at will, you should be able to open a doorway and just step across. Or not. As you wish. Shall we give it a whirl?"
"Hang on." I got comfortable, taking off my shoes and sitting on the couch with a pillow in the small of my back. "OK. Now what?"
"Just breathe and feel. When you have the balance of it, then try re-creating the sensations of the Grey. Then open your eyes and try to spot it. Then close them and push the barrier away again. I'll be right here, on the phone, until you've done."
It had been a while. I put the phone on the couch beside me. I closed my eyes and tried to narrow my concentration to one small part of my body, until I was no longer aware of any other part. That went all right. I started clearing my thoughts, putting away every thought and feeling I didn't need this moment, breathing, reaching for poise.
When I felt empty and balanced on that point, I turned my concentration to the feeling of falling through the thick, stinking air, the Seattle mist dissolving from my face, giving way to the Grey. I opened my eyes and looked straight ahead, searching for the overlap of worlds.
It looked like a curtain of clouds and mist—literally gray, the intersection of the ordinary with the extraordinary rippled with an energy Jitter that sparkled like fat raindrops falling in fog.
I dosed my eyes again and pushed the sensation away. It resisted at first and I started to pant; then I calmed down and tried again. The vertigo, the smell and the chill receded. I opened my eyes to my plain old living room.
I picked up the phone. "It worked."
"Wonderful! Now again. But this time, go in."
"No!"
"It won't harm you. It's you who must be controlling it, not the other way about. Just open the door, step in, then turn round and step out. Then push it away and we're done. You'll be feeling much better for it. I'm sure of it."
I wasn't. But I tried. I sat up, relaxed, mindful, feeling for the barrier. I floated and felt warm. I opened my eyes and it was there again. I rose and walked toward it, stroking my right hand over the small warmth in my left. The interface got thinner as I moved forward, becoming insubstantial as smoke. I stepped through into the living fog of the Grey.
It surged and pressed on me. My stomach pitched and twisted like spaghetti around a twirling fork. I breathed deep and held on tight. Chaos gave an angry chuckle.
I looked at my hands and the Grey writhed around me. I was holding on to the ferret. She must have crawled into my lap again. I cursed. The ground? the floor? bucked, and I looked around, on the edge of panic. No sign of the big ugly this time, nor of the strange human/not human creature that had spoken to me before. This time, I was alone in the restless mirror-steam mist.
"Slow and easy," I muttered and took a couple of steadying breaths, which did little to steady me. I was queasy with trepidation as well as from the whiff of rot. "OK. OK, little fuzzy, let's get out of here."
I turned around, looking for the edge of the curtain, but couldn't detect it. I couldn't see my living room from here at all, yet I knew here was there, too. I was tired, frightened, and I just wanted out. I was losing concentration, panting. Unthinking, I squeezed the ferret and she screeched, chittering and wriggling.
I felt a breeze, a rippling of the Grey around me. I thought I could see the Grey edge. Close, and very thin. I started for it, then felt a dread cold sweep me, like a wind coming up on the Sound with a noise of storms: cold with an old chill that cuts like glass. I twisted around trying to escape the wind. The edge of the Grey fluttered an arm's length away. Chaos chittered again and dove into my shirt. The weight of something dark and furious was massing behind me.
I lunged forward, thrashing for the edge. The roiling black beast struck me in the back and shook me. Chaos screamed. I yelled and leapt as hard as I could. Something rigid and cold scraped across my flesh as I dove away…
and then I was tumbling onto the living room rug. Exhausted tears streamed down my face as I reached for the ferret, rolling onto my back. Chaos struggled out of my shirt and bolted for her cage. I looked back, ready to grab on to whatever might pursue me. There was nothing to see, nothing to smell. Just the living room like it always was and me lying on the floor, panting.
I rolled slowly to my knees and knelt. My chest ached.
Mara was shouting my name on the phone, a tiny tinny voice of terror. I snatched the phone and yelled into it, "Goddamn it! Something tried to eat me in there! I couldn't get out! It was going to eat me!"
"Harper! Harper. Harper. It's all right, you're out. You're out and you're alive. It's all right." She babbled at me until I stopped freaking. Then she asked me what happened and I told her.
"Oh, my. It wasn't going to eat you. It just wanted to push you out of its territory. Look, you'd better stop by tomorrow and we can discuss this. We'll need to be working out a way for you to protect yourself."
"What is that thing?"
"A guardian beast. But never mind it now. It's gone. You're OK. You got distracted and things went to Halifax, but you did well. Really. You did marvelous. Are you hurt any? Is your pet all right?"
I looked down at myself, feeling weak and stupid. My torso was covered in slime. I crawled to the cage and checked on the ferret. She gave me a dirty look and then snuggled down deeper in her nest of old T-shirts, not deigning to spare me another glance. Fine. I closed the cage door and crawled back to the phone.
"Some kind of slime all over me.»
"Heavens! That's unusual."
"I didn't want to hear that."
"Come for breakfast tomorrow. We'll have to talk. Now you need to rest. Sleep is the best cure."
"All right. All right." I hung up. Shaking, I crept to the bathroom. I loathed the feel of my skin where the slime touched me. Even exhausted, I couldn't face sleeping in that feeling. I peeled off my gooey shirt.
As I turned my back to the mirror, I noticed the redness: a large semicircle of small punctures, starting into shallow scrapes across my right side. It looked like an unsuccessful bite by a very large animal with needle teeth. I shuddered at the thought of legions of hungry Grey things, waiting to rend me. Tears of frustration and fear scalded under my eyelids. I wanted to give up and hide.
"Stop that," I gulped. I glared at myself in the mirror. "You can't quit," I hissed. "You can't quit." A lot of ugly mem
ories crashed past my mental eye. I had no choices and no place to retreat to. There was no place to hide from a creature who stalked the edges of death itself. I would have to learn my way around it, and I would have to watch my back.
Chapter 11
I slept in fits and woke to a Saturday morning clear and blue and mild. I argued with myself all the way up to Queen Anne. What was I doing? Did I really believe in ghosts now? Monsters, witches? It was nuts. But the bite on my side itched and even the hottest shower had not washed the eerie marks off my skin.
I parked in the same place and stared at the Danzigers' house. Ben Came out onto the porch with the baby in a backpack and trotted down the steps. The baby squealed in ear-piercing delight.
Ben spotted me and waved, shouting, "Brian and I are going to the park for a while."
I gave a token wave back. Couldn't get out of this now. I forced myself out and up the steps to the door. Mara let me in.
We went into the living room, a bright, warm space lit by a bank of windows, and sat on matching sofas facing each other across a low table. A tang of lemon oil and recent baking floated on the pale green light filtering through the spring leaves outside. Mara tucked her feet up under her skirts and looked at me, biting her lower lip a bit. "Last night wasn't such a grand success, was it?" "No."
"Still. Not a complete disaster."
"I don't see it that way. I got attacked by some… thing and chewed on like a rawhide bone. I don't even know what happened. Or how."
"You got stuck because you lost your concentration. You were fine up till then. You found the Grey on your own, instead of slipping, and you pushed it back, as well. It was the second time things went badly."
I snorted. "Tell me something new."
Mara narrowed her eyes at me. The air felt a touch chillier. "That is part of the problem."
I looked askance. "What is?"
Mara shook her head and made a motion with her hand. Albert filtered into view. He almost looked like a whole person this time, wrapped in a buffer of swirling mist, like a cloud of impending snow. "You're looking at a ghost. And you know it's as real as… as that sofa. But you've closed your mind to it, telling yourself you'll not believe it. When you dig in your mental heels, that's when things go bad. Ceasing to believe and panicking when you're in the thick of it, that's dire. You lose control, for how can you control something you'll not believe in? And so long as you're fighting it, you'll not be able to protect yourself or control your slipping."
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