"I'm fine, Rick," I said, shoving the dog back. My head was throbbing and sounds were muffled by a high-pitched whine in my ears.
"What happened?"
"Huh? Just a mugger. And I want to get upstairs and go to bed."
"We should call the cops."
"What? Why? He's gone." I doubted they had a mug book of the undead, and though I didn't know what he was, normal lie was not.
"You don't want me to call the cops? You're sure?"
"Yeah," I said, nodding. "I'll deal with it." I hoped.
Rick preceded me upstairs. The dog wagged like a puppy all the way, grinning a pit-bull grin of satisfaction with the commotion. He, at least, was having a great time.
I woke up in the morning sore and tired. My pumps and skirt were trashed and I had a long, deep scratch on my thigh, but my ears had stopped ringing.
While I waited for the coffee to dribble through the filter in the coffeemaker, I paged Quinton and left my office number. Then I poured the coffee into a travel mug, packed up and headed out.
I walked into my office to the sound of the ringing phone. It was Quinton.
"Hi," I said. "Something was wrong with the office alarm yesterday. Can you come by and take a look?"
"What kind of problem did you have?" he asked.
I described the alarm's nonfunction during Sergeyev's visit. I had to eliminate the plausible first, before I could go leaping to the impossible.
"That's strange. I'll be up in about half an hour. OK?"
"Great," I said and hung up.
I checked my messages and discovered one from Mara Danziger.
"Hmm, Harper, the problem with magic is getting worse. I'd be grateful for your help. Give me a ring."
Curious, I called her back.
"Hello."
"Hi, Mara, it's Harper."
"Harper, I'm worried. The blockage is worsening. To be shocking honest, Ben's no help with this, nor Albert. I simply must be finding the source. And all divinations keep coming back to you." "Still?" "Yes. Have you any idea why this is happening? Could it be Cameron?"
"I don't think so. But I've been mixing with vampires and there've been a few weird things hanging around."
"I told you they would—"
A knock on the door came a moment ahead of Quinton's face peeking around the doorframe. I waved him in and leaned back in my chair. "Mara, I have to deal with something here, but I have to go out to the Madison Forrest House later and look at a piece of furniture. There's something a little strange about the situation surrounding this thing." I paused, thinking, then sat forward. "Would you be willing to come with me to Madison Forrest? We could discuss this other situation then, too."
"Well… I suppose so. I'll have Ben look after the baby for a bit. Then, what say I pick you up?"
"That'll be fine, Mara. Come by in about an hour. OK?"
"All right. Be seeing you, then."
Quinton had already begun poking around with his Multimeter. As soon as I was off the phone, he asked me to move and ran a check of the computer program. He looked at the video capture that should have shown Sergeyev, but didn't.
"I'm not sure why this guy didn't show up, but there's nothing wrong with this system and the diagnostic says there never was," he said, frowning at the computer screen. "You sure he was here?"
"Oh, yeah."
"It's a head scratcher, but the system's working fine now."
"OK."
"Keep an eye on it, and let me know if it does this again. You might try it on that client of yours, because I'm not really sure what effect some people have on electronics."
I wondered how he knew about Sergeyev. Had I mentioned him? "I'm not following you. Which client?"
"The one with the Camaro. The vampire."
"Excuse me?" I choked.
"Don't expect me to believe that you didn't know," Quinton said.
"Took me a while to be sure, but you've been in much closer contact with the guy."
"Why would you think Cameron was a vampire?"
"Lots of little signs. The weird eyes, the dirt in the trunk, the weird habits. The fangs. I've seen plenty of them around here. I steer clear of those guys. Even if they like you, you can't really trust them. 'Course, you can't trust most people. But drinking blood and turning on your fellow man is a bit worse than the usual sort of trust-breaker."
I blinked at him. He finished speaking and looked at me in silence a moment. Then he asked, "You do a lot of work for vampires?"
I shook my head. "This is my first."
"Thought so. Be careful. They're a tricky bunch. Magic kind of gives me the willies. It's cool to watch, but it's… disorienting to think about. I prefer electronics, physics, stuff I can grab on to and get a good look at myself." He played with the probes of the meter and gave me a nervous glance. "Watch your step around this stuff, all right? I can fix a lot of things, but curses and that stuff I'm not so good with."
I smiled a little. "I'll be careful."
"Good. And if you need anything, call me. I'll be around."
"Thanks, Quinton. I'll do that. I have to get going, though. I have an appointment."
"That's OK. But hey, don't get killed. You still owe me for the car," he added with a forced grin. He packed up his things and took off.
I locked up and walked down to meet Mara.
We drove east toward Lake Washington and found the Madison Forrest House Museum. We pulled into a graveled lot nearby. Mara sat for a moment behind the wheel and looked at the house with a puzzled expression.
We got out of the car in silence and walked. I had no idea who Madison Forrest had been or why his house had become a historic building and museum, but it was an impressive pile. The foundation and ground floor were built of fitted stone. The second floor and the high, pointing gables were all native cedar. Lots of glass windows shone under the wooden overhangs and must have cost a fortune when the house was built. Four gas lamps, now converted to electricity, bracketed the path from the open iron gate to the front doors. Like the Danzigers' house, it glowed, but the glow wasn't so friendly.
Mara stopped and looked at the ground. "I didn't realize there was a nexus of this size on this side of the lake. It's just a bit off the property, about… here, in the street." She stepped out a few feet from the curb. "And I can't even draw on it standing right on top of it. I'm not at all sure there isn't something rather unpleasant going on here. Maybe even the power blockage. Take a look at it sideways, like I taught you. Tell me what you see."
I peered at it from the corner of my eye. The off-color glow of the house seemed to start under her feet, like a fog that wafted toward the house. "It looks… sick to me."
"Funny way to describe it."
I shrugged and tried not to look anymore.
We walked up the path to the massive, carved cedar doors. Mara and I paid the entrance fee and began to wander around. After a while, we found the upstairs parlor and the organ. It was hideous: six feet of tortured wood flecked with ivory, bone, and gilt and upholstered with garish red fabric panels, all of it wrapped in a sucking web of black and red energy I couldn't avoid seeing. I stayed well back from the instrument, feeling ill and threatened.
"Is this it?" Mara asked, staring at it with horrified fascination.
"I think so." I got the description sheet out of my bag and com-pared it as best I could from my distance. It seemed an exact match.
"Oh, my," she breathed. "It's dreadful, isn't it?"
"It's pretty terrible," I agreed, feeling pain and nausea growing in my belly as a familiar anxiety began to rattle on my vertebrae. I closed my eyes, but the sense of the coiling horror in front of me didn't go away.
"No, I mean it's full of dread, though it's terrible, too. It's horrific, really. It gives me the wailing creepies just looking at it."
"What do you think of it?" I asked.
"Interesting." She made a glittering gesture and threw it at the organ. It dissolved as it hit the writhing mass of Gr
ey. "Swallowed it… Very interesting, indeed. I think I've seen enough, what about you?"
I circled a little closer to the thing, like a wary cat, getting a better look at its shape, both physical and paranormal, while trying to keep my distance. It was impossible for me to ignore the warped, twined normal and Grey that had tangled around it, though I couldn't imagine what had caused their knotting up. Sympathetic knots tied up my nerves and muscles with pain, disgust, and despair.
"I've had enough," I gasped, backing off. "Let's get out of here." Mara looked at me and saw my distress. She put an arm around me, which seemed to help. We hurried back to her car and sat in the front seats, staring back at the Madison Forrest House with combined horror.
Mara shook her head. "There's an incredible amount of energy flowing round that thing, but none of it seems to be going anywhere. That must be the source of the blockage. And it's so… dark. I've never seen an artifact that was dark like that one before. Of course, I've rarely dealt with them, so I'm no expert." "Artifact? I don't understand."
She turned to me. "It's a dark artifact. That's an object that's acquired an energy aura. They store some of the energy, and if you know what you're at, you can use it—directly or indirectly, depending on your skill and the object. You can tell a great deal about the object and what's happened to it by looking at the color, size, and activity of the energy corona around it. 'Dark' is usually a misnomer.
"But that one is dark in fact. Means there's been something rather nasty associated with it for a long time. Bleak things, grim doings. Dreadful, as I said."
I sighed. "And my client wants it. He claims it's a family heirloom, but having seen it—and him—I'm starting to wonder."
"He must be a rather unusual person."
"I don't know if he's a human being. He's… Grey, but I don't know what. Not a vampire, though."
"That would explain why signs point to you. I don't like the idea of a thing like that on the loose with someone Grey. Why does he want it? I mean really?"
"It's certainly no sentimental heirloom. I have a bad feeling there's a purpose for that thing."
Mara thought a moment. "We'll have to do something about it, if for no other reason than that it's blocking magic that could be useful other places." She wrinkled her brow and toyed with the steering wheel. "If we could discover why it's a dark artifact, we might be able to figure out what to do about it. I don't usually care for them, but a necromancer would be useful here."
"What? Why?"
"A necromancer manipulates magic through the auspices of death."
"Hang on. They kill things?"
"Not necessarily, though a large number of their rituals can only be effective in the presence of death, and the easiest way to get that is to kill some sacrificial animal. When I say death, I mean not just dead bodies or something of that ilk, but the change in the power state that happens when someone or something dies. Y'see, the force, or energy, of a living thing becomes free at the moment of death—it's one of the things which causes ghosts, too. The right kind of magical attractor in the immediate area can capture the energy, and a great deal of energy and information are available for a little while to anyone who can manipulate that attractor. It's terribly dangerous stuff, though, to those who can touch it at all. Many of us feel it, but necromancers are among the few who can use it. The necromancer exchanges some of his own life-force energy for control of the new energy source, so long as it lasts—giving up life for the knowledge and power of death, for a time."
"Ugh," I said with a shudder. "What good would that do us?"
"A necromancer can create dark artifacts or examine their history. Necromantic artifacts are always grim and lowering like that organ because of the thread of death tied up in their creation." "Are they worse than any other kind?"
"Can be. The power of most dark artifacts comes from a sort of accreting process, where layers of use, power, and purpose adhere to the object and become bound up in it. Many necromantic dark artifacts are relatively harmless. Since they are created for specific purposes and only used once or twice, they don't build up that sort of power. But that one…" She shuddered.
"All right," I said. "So why would we want a necromancer here?" "A necromancer can look back to a dark artifacts moment of creation and see what caused it. Don't know how they do it—it's bloody spooky. If we knew what the artifacts purpose and process of creation was, we would know how to neutralize or destroy it. This is not going to be easy. If we go about it wrong, we run the risk of increasing its power by having our own sucked into the artifact."
"I'd rather not see that thing get any stronger," I said. "You don't know any necromancers then?"
"No. I find their practices a bit disgusting, and they're a dying breed. Necromancers aren't just created out of practice and determination. They're born with the potential talent and develop it as they age. It's not a very politically correct profession, you can imagine. Boys and girls who kill their pets so they can 'touch the power' usually end up in mental institutions. The right type of conditioning and therapy breaks the potential and steers them into more normal courses."
"So psychos who torture animals are potential necromancers?" "Oh, no. One in a million children is a potential necromancer, and he—or very rarely, she—may never tap the power, never even know that there is any power to tap. They never harm anyone or anything, but some slip through and survive long enough to learn. That's the one who becomes a necromancer. They're very secretive and paranoid. Well, wouldn't you be?"
A connection closed in my mind. "Mara, what happens to necromancers when they die?"
"I suppose that would depend on how they died. I suspect that many of them don't truly die, but linger in some fashion or become something new. If they survive bodily death and still have their minds intact, they could still wield their powers, but I think it would be very dangerous for them. Casting would suck away a lot of whatever life energies they still had, and the recuperation afterward would be extraordinary. But their relationship to the power would be different, and they could probably conserve a great deal of their own energies— even feed them—by killing as part of the ritual. If they're corporeal enough to use the knife or what have you." Then she stared sharply at me. "That's a rather strange question to ask. Why did you?"
"Because I think I've met a necromancer."
"My God, Harper. Where?" "I can't say."
She glowered at me. "You must be very careful. Use what I've taught you to protect yourself, or these powers may harm you. I know you don't quite believe it all—"
"I'm beginning to."
Chapter 23
Mara dropped me near my office. Before I took another step for Sergeyev, I wanted to know more about that organ in the normal world, and though it made me uncomfortable, I knew where to start. I didn't even bother going up to the office, I just went straight to the Rover.
The street outside the Ingstrom house was full of cars. The auction of the personal property was under way and the house was packed with bidders. I wished I felt something more useful—like anger—but all I felt as I stepped up onto the screened porch was an uncomfortable confusion.
Michael was at his table inside. His eyes got wider when he saw me. "Hi, Michael," I said. "H-hi, Ms. Blaine." "Is Will on the podium?" He replied slowly. "Yeah." "Is Brandon around?" "Brandon's not here." "Why not?"
Michael shrank. "I don't know. He was supposed to be here but he didn't show up. Did you want to talk to him?" "No. I wanted to avoid him." He nodded. "Yeah, he's not too cool lately."
I heard Will's gavel drop, and then a murmur of sound rose to a growl and people began to boil toward the outer doors. I stepped back and hid in the crowd-shadow of the table.
Michael shot me a quick look of nervous apology. "Lunch," he explained. "Without Brandon, we're running kinda late."
"That's OK."
He smiled and turned to face the first of the exiting bidders. I was pushed farther into the corner by the eddying humanity an
d trapped there when Will came out.
He patted his brother on the shoulder and glanced at the screen of the laptop computer. "Everything OK out here, Mikey?"
"Yeah." Michael shot a quick glance in my direction and went back to his computer and the couple in front of him.
Will raised his head and turned. He stiffened when he saw me and froze in place behind Michael's chair, until his brother elbowed him in the side.
"Hey, I'm trying to work here," Michael growled.
Jarred, Will walked toward me but kept the table between us. He stopped and clasped his hands in front of his belt buckle. His long fingers squeezed white. "What… what can I do for you?" His voice was cool, but I could almost see it, like a staff of music quivering on the air, thin as smoke.
I looked up at him, and all I could think was, "My God, he's tall!" I felt stupid, and something hurt inside which had nothing to do with recent physical bruises. "I wanted… to talk to you on a professional matter."
Will looked blank. "Professional. That's all?"
"Yeah."
He glanced at the tide of people, then back to me. "Let's take this someplace a little quieter."
"All right," I agreed, perversely reluctant to be alone with him.
"Mrs. Ingstrom left some lunch for us in the kitchen and I'm starving. You don't mind, do you?"
"No, I don't mind if you don't." I followed him toward the door.
"Hey," Michael called over his shoulder. "Bring me some when you're done. I could use a bite, too, you know. Us boy wonders have to keep up our strength!"
"Right, Mikey. I won't let you starve," Will called back.
"It's Michael!"
We walked back through the house to the kitchen. Will offered me sandwiches and coffee, too. I took a cup of coffee and watched him sit at the kitchen table to eat. I stood against a counter and sipped for a few minutes in silence as he got through half a sandwich.
"All right," he started, sitting back and leaving the rest of his lunch sprawling on the plate, "now that I'm no longer faint with hunger, what did you want to discuss?"
"First, I wanted to say I'm sorry, Will. I—"
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