When we were inconveniently distant from the last building, Solis spoke. “So. Tell me what you saw or how.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” I replied, not looking at him but still walking and keeping a moving eye on the area around us.
“Then explain. We’re stranded here until the rush hour is over. I see no reason not to put the time to use.”
“Well,” I started with a sigh, brushing my sea-breeze-tangled hair out of my eyes, “you’re aware of how I seem to attract strange things. . . .”
From the corner of my eye I saw him nod. He, too, was keeping his gaze on the scenery more than looking at me. That was the way this was going to go: talking without looking at each other, as if we didn’t have to acknowledge anything unpleasant if we didn’t see the truth in the other’s face. It felt strange; I’d never been totally honest with Solis but I’d always tried to keep my evasions small and cleave to omission more than outright lies. It’s a bad idea to get in the habit of lying to cops.
“I see things most people don’t. These things see me, too. That can be . . . troublesome.”
“What sort of things?”
I shot him a desperate glance, then turned my head away again, letting the wind off the surf blow my hair into my face and hide my expression. I don’t manage fear very well—I get angry, aggressive, or snarky instead—and here I had no choice but to be afraid. “Do I really have to say this?”
He nodded. “Sí.”
I took a deep breath, not because there was much to say but because it was stupid and annoying to heave the words out, and turned so my face was less obscured by my hair. “I see ghosts. There. OK?”
“Ghosts.”
If the chips were down, I might as well go all in. “And other things,” I said. “Monsters, magic, things that go bump in the night . . . all that stuff.” I didn’t feel much better having said it.
“So . . . you say that such things are real?”
“I wish they weren’t and I wish I wasn’t saying that, but I am. Most of the . . . paranormal is the best word for it . . . paranormal things aren’t strong or active or any kind of threat to regular people. Every once in a while, though, they are. Do you remember the Mark Lupoldi murder?”
“I will never forget it.”
“Did you ever really buy the explanation I gave you for how he was killed?”
“No, but the case didn’t go to trial, so . . . the rigor of proof was never needed.”
“But it bugs you still, doesn’t it? Like all the little odd things about me and my cases bug you.”
He nodded.
“That was one of the cases where the paranormal became dangerous. One of those moments when what should be impossible happened anyhow. And that’s pretty much where I fit in the world: working with the stuff that logic rejects but that exists nonetheless.”
“Are many of your cases like that?”
“No. Most are the routine investigative stuff, but there’s plenty of the other to keep me busy while a lot of my colleagues are looking for new lines of work—what with the Internet making it easier to invade anyone’s privacy. . . .” I slammed the lid on my gripes with that particular aspect of modern living.
Solis ignored that last bit and nodded, his expression thoughtful. I wondered if he actually believed me or if he was just doing a great job of humoring the madwoman. “You are implying you saw something at Reeve’s home that was . . . paranormal. That you see such things frequently.”
“Constantly, in fact.”
He turned his head suddenly and frowned at me.
“It’s always here. Most of it’s like air,” I explained, waving my off hand through the salt-scented breeze. “Most people can’t see it until it’s so thick they choke on it. But I see it all the time. And I can look harder at it to see more if I want, but then I tend to get a little . . . ghostly myself.”
He almost covered it up, but I still saw the rapid flicker at the corners of his eyes as he repressed the impulse to widen his stare in surprise. “You saw that at the boat and again at Reeve’s,” I said. “You almost said something, but then you caught yourself. Didn’t you?”
He hesitated—I’d never known Solis to do that. Then he tightened his mouth into a stubborn line, looking angry, and took in a long breath through his nose.
“Oh, damn it. Just look. Look at me. Look as hard as you can. This isn’t some kind of illusion,” I shouted, and I dropped into the Grey, letting it slam up over me like a steel trap snapping closed.
I hadn’t fallen that fast and hard into the Grey in years and I wasn’t entirely prepared for the sensation of dropping through cold water and mist, falling into the grip of something uncanny and ungentle. I lurched and stumbled onto uneven ground that seemed to shift and roll beneath me, and the sea of mist swirled into hints of faces and forms that snatched and snarled before they resolved into nothing more than raw ghost-stuff. I elbowed something icy aside, mentally counted to ten, and shoved my way back out to the normal world.
This time Solis actually did take a step away from me and his eyes were larger than they should have been. His right hand twitched upward and he stopped it and his movement away from me. Then he put his hand out and touched the edge of my coat.
“I told you it’s not a trick. I’m really here.”
“And a moment ago, you really weren’t.”
“Not quite. I was here but not in a state you could observe. At least that’s the best explanation I can make.”
He frowned, muttering as if to himself, “I didn’t see you, but then you were where you could not have been.” He pinned me with his gaze, as if having made up his mind: He wasn’t going to let me out of his sight now. “It startled me every time. I thought I must have missed your movement, but I’m not that easily fooled. This makes me no happier, but for now . . .” He shrugged, dismissing the rest of his thought. “But tell me what you think you saw at Reeve’s.”
I sighed and shook my head, letting the sound of the lapping breakers fill the pause while I pretended not to hear the insult of his doubt. “Something was watching us from the bushes and it wasn’t a cat. It was some kind of paranormal creature about the size of a large dog.”
Solis snorted. “A dobhar-chú?”
“Oh, now you’re scoffing . . . ? After I do the Harper Blaine, Disappearing Girl act?” I shook my head in exasperation, but I did notice his expression wasn’t as doubtful as it had been. I put off my annoyance for the sake of getting on. “Really, I have no idea. It wasn’t something I’ve ever seen before. It wasn’t a ghost. It was something smart enough and mean enough to frighten Reeve into a heart attack, though. It wasn’t me he was staring at but whatever was in the bushes. And then there was some kind of . . . magical smoke from the fountain and that’s when the shit hit the fan.”
“Huh,” Solis grunted, and turned his gaze away again. “If he were afraid of something watching him—be it a monster or not—that implies someone who feels threatened by what he said.”
“Or what he would have said if they hadn’t stopped him,” I suggested.
Solis nodded. “Possibly. But he had already departed from a logical discussion. . . .”
I scoffed this time. “According to you, everything you’ve heard and seen since Reeve sat down is a departure from logic. That doesn’t mean it’s not true and that he wouldn’t have—or hadn’t—given us useful information that would lead to someone who has an interest in keeping the truth of whatever happened aboard Seawitch quiet, whether the explanation is paranormal or not. That is, if you believe all I’ve told you and shown you and that I saw someone or something that frightened Reeve nearly to death.”
“I do believe that Reeve was frightened and I apologize for blaming you. I am . . . struggling with the rest.”
“There was something in the bushes and there is or has been something uncanny on that boat.”
“Perhaps. Can we stick to that which is provable in the world I inhabit for a while longer?
”
“I live here, too, Solis. I understand the problem of legal and material proof. Believe me, there aren’t many people who have the fine grasp of this problem that I do.”
“Yes, I concede! But someone brought the boat to port and abandoned it,” he thought aloud. “Someone of flesh and blood, not a ghost.”
“Don’t be too sure,” I muttered, but realistically I knew that ghosts didn’t have the physical power to move something like the Seawitch.
He glared at me but ignored my jibe to say, “Someone wants this investigation to happen. . . .”
“And someone else doesn’t. Someone skilled brought that boat back to port—it didn’t drift in and it wasn’t brought in by a novice. Someone good at keeping secrets hid it for twenty-seven years. It’s possible they’re the same person, but I’m not sure of that.”
“Do you suggest that one of the crew or passengers is still alive?”
“I am not suggesting anything except that there are still living people to question. And when we run out of the living, I may have to start on the dead, whether you like it or not.”
Solis grunted again. “Let us start first with the log book—with the normal evidence. If Starrett was the hedonist his wife described, he may have written revealing and personal notes as well as maintenance records and the names of the marinas they stopped in.”
It was my turn to snort in derision. “Reeve would have been the one to write the actual records. If Starrett were writing it, I imagine that book reads like excerpts from letters to Playboy.”
“At least it is unlikely to read like a Stephen King novel,” he snapped, and that surprised me more than anything else I had seen or heard that day. He was deeply unsettled and it made neither of us happy.
And I had no choice but to make it worse. “You’re going to have to get used to the creepy factor, Solis,” I said. “Because we’re hip-deep in it.”
SIX
I got back to my condo about six thirty. The trip had been short once traffic cleared and there hadn’t been any point in lingering or stopping elsewhere. I’d type up my notes for the insurance company later; I’d been on the job for only twenty-four hours officially and they didn’t require a report so soon.
I didn’t see any sign of Quinton when I came in so I assumed he was busy elsewhere. We’re a couple but we don’t spend every free moment together, not least because we both have strange jobs, dangerous associates, and eccentric habits. Two born loners living—mostly—together requires a degree of laissez-faire most people haven’t got. I took off my boots and hid them in the hall closet to save them from possible predation by the ferret. Then I flipped on the TV to the first channel I found running a nature documentary and let Chaos out of her cage for a romp around the living room. Chaos loves nature shows, except for any part of Shark Week, which I think demonstrates a lot more common sense than I’d normally credit to a furry mammal the size of a sneaker who looks like an animated kneesock with teeth.
I was staring into the fridge and wondering why I never seem to have any food in the place when I got a whiff of an unpleasant odor that wasn’t coming from the icebox. A cold feeling ran down the back of my neck and I turned around slowly.
My kitchen and living room had vanished behind a wall of Grey mist and a gleaming doorway shape awaited my attention. I hadn’t seen this phenomenon in years—not since I’d first been introduced to the Grey. I’d seen it only once since then and none of these occasions had been pleasant. Apparently the Guardian Beast wanted to see me and was sending a formal invitation, for once. Usually it just showed up and beat me into doing what it wanted—not the most articulate of monsters, it tended toward violent demonstration more than discussion. Since it is, effectively, my boss in the Grey, when it shows up, I pay attention, especially since I’m pretty sure it could take me out permanently if it wanted to. I sighed and gave up on dinner.
“All right, I’m coming,” I muttered, and stepped toward the glowing portal of ghost-stuff, sinking out of the normal world and fully into the realm of shadows and magic.
The Guardian resolved from the boiling fog of the Grey, a long, sinuous, and coiling shape of silver reflection and ghostlight. The unpleasantly dragonlike head swooped down to my own eye level and looked me over, breathing cold and the odor of forgotten crypts on my face. Cold wisps of Grey mist suggested the imminent shapes of sharp horns and fangs.
I pushed the head back with the flat of my hand. “What do you want?” I asked. I would have demanded, but where’s the point in that?
“Seawitch,” the Grey sighed around me, silver-mist faces momentarily evolving from the cold steam of the world between worlds to give voice to the Guardian’s thoughts.
“I’m already on it, but I don’t have much to go on yet. You have to be patient.”
“Valencia,” the voices whispered.
“What?” I had no idea what the Guardian was alluding to. A city in Spain? An orange?
“Find . . . the lost.”
Not helpful, that. “That was on my to-do list already. If you have a more articulate or specific clue, I’d really appreciate it. I think I liked you better when you couldn’t speak at all.”
It laughed at me, the Grey rippling and rolling with its amusement. Then it coiled around me, wrapping its snakelike length up my body in cold loops that sent a metallic shock over my skin like touching the live contacts of a small battery. This time it didn’t pull me up and drop me down again, as it had once, but spun me round and round, the Beast uncoiling into a dark panorama before my dizzy gaze.
I reeled out of its clutches and stared at the scene it had composed of the Grey. A dark place with two large humped shapes and a black stain that thickened the air in one corner. . . . I’d been there, but it hadn’t looked quite like this. . . . Where was it?
As I looked, the dark clot of something widened and became more solid, spreading out to form an impossible crowd of black human shapes that couldn’t really fit in the confined space, yet they did—all contained as if warped into the area by some freak of black-hole physics. I thought there must have been a hundred or more, trapped behind the large, cold iron shapes of engines. . . . Yes, that’s what they were: engines. The space was Seawitch’s engine room. Not as I’d seen it last, but as it might look from within the Grey.
I pulled back from the Guardian and its vision with an effort. “OK, I see it. The engine room. I’ll go there tomorrow and take another look. Is that what you want?”
The Grey made a hissing noise that slowly faded to a chuckle as the mist drained away, leaving me flat-footed in the arch between my kitchen and the living room. “Wait,” I cried. “What sort of creature—” But it was too late and I couldn’t call the Guardian Beast back. I felt cold and my skin was damp and stiff. “Thanks,” I muttered. “Next time I’ll bring a towel.”
“Don’t you always know where your towel is?” Quinton asked. “What sort of Hitchhiker are you?”
I whipped around to glare in the direction of the front door from which his voice was coming.
Quinton was smiling at me from just inside the closed door. “Hi. Sorry if I startled you. I didn’t realize you were . . . here/not here.”
“Just having a little conference call with the Beast and its Greek chorus.”
“And this leads to towels . . . how?”
I shook my hands out, flinging salty water at him. “I’m wet. This case revolves around a boat that was lost at sea and has now returned like a bad penny—a very wet bad penny. So I got drenched. The new Guardian has what passes for a sense of humor. Mostly on the verge of nasty.”
He looked at the puddle developing around my feet, which had now attracted the ferret, who darted in to take a taste and then backed off, making a face that clearly said the water was vile and she disapproved of it intensely. “You need a towel. Luckily, like a good Hitchhiker, I know where they are.”
“What is with the hitchhiker reference?” I asked, grabbing a dish towel off the drain board t
o wipe the worst of the moisture off my face and hair.
Quinton ducked into the linen closet in the hall and brought back a large bath towel. “You might want to change out of your clothes here, where the floor’s easier to mop up. And haven’t you read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?”
I took the towel and rubbed some more water out of my hair before I started to disrobe. “Nope,” I replied. “If it isn’t shelved in the mystery section, I haven’t read it.”
He heaved an exaggerated sigh and scooped up the ferret as she rampaged past. “One of the guiding principles of intergalactic hitchhiking is ‘Always know where your towel is.’”
I gave him a blank stare.
“I guess you had to be there,” he replied.
“I guess,” I echoed, taking off the last of my damp clothes. “This is the second time I’ve been soaked today by water that wasn’t there. Maybe I should be taking a towel with me.”
“The point isn’t that you have the towel with you—although that is implied—but that you know where it is.”
“Huh,” I grunted from under the terry cloth. “That almost makes sense.”
“How did you end up soaked with invisible water the first time?”
“Something on the boat we’re investigating doused me.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” he asked.
“Rey Solis—of all people to get stuck with a cold case that’s straight out of the Twilight Zone.”
“How’s he taking it?” Quinton asked, as I popped back out from under the towel.
“Better than he could have but not as well as I’d like. I think he’s actually taking in the idea that I’m not normal in a way that goes beyond his usual experience. We had the Chat.”
“The I-talk-to-ghosts chat?”
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