Labyrinth g-5

by Kat Richardson

  “We also don’t need dead friends on our consciences. We know what’s at stake. Really.”

  Brian came galloping into the hall and grabbed at the bag I was holding. “Gimme!”

  “No,” I replied pulling the bag away.

  Brian jumped and snatched for it. “Mama says gimme! Wanna see the zuzzle ball.”

  “Yes. As I’ve killed something for it and set someone else alight, I’d like to get a look at the infernal thing,” Mara added, leaning in the living room arch. She looked wan but less upset than I’d expected.

  I looked around and saw they were all staring at me. I raised the bag higher out of Brian’s reach. I felt lame saying, “You do not get to touch it until your mother says it’s safe.”

  Brian stuck out his lower lip and looked more pugnacious than tearful. “ ’Snot fair.”

  “Get used to it,” I shot back.

  I handed the bag to Ben since he was the tallest person in the room and most likely to keep the thing out of Brian’s clutches. We all trooped into the living room, Mara in the lead and Brian scampering around, eyeing the bag with a calculating expression. We distributed ourselves on the twin couches, except for the boy, who dragged a child-sized chair up to the coffee table from beside the hearth and plopped into it.

  Mara took the bag from Ben and peered inside. “Ben, would you get the eye out of the bucket? It’s on the front stoop. There’s a pile of clean washin’-up towels on the kitchen counter. Someone fetch those, too, please.”

  I went for the towels and met Ben in the hall to wrap up the dripping disk he’d fished out of the bucket of water. Mara dried off the eye with care and looked it over. Brian stood up and leaned as close as he dared, almost breathing on the object his mother had.

  “What is it y’think you’re doing, little man?” she asked.

  “Lookin’,” Brian replied.

  “Did I say you could? What’s the rule?”

  “ ‘Don’t touch the magic things ’less you wanna wear the warts.’ But I’m not touching it!”

  “If you were any closer, you’d have your nose on it. And a warty, warty nose it would be, too. Now, go into the hall and fetch mama’s shawl and the things she dropped with it.”

  “But—”

  Mara made a sharp little humming noise and glared at her son. “Fetch, boy-o.”

  Brian bit his lip and trundled off. Mara sighed. “Troublesome little mite.”

  I glanced at Quinton with a sudden flare of alarm. “Speaking of trouble ...”

  He unbuttoned one of his pockets and Chaos stuck her head out, making an uncomplimentary grumbling noise. “And the dog’s OK, too,” he added. “I went out to look while you were downstairs.”

  I nodded, relieved the only serious injuries seemed to be the opposition’s. Brian returned, hauling the bundle of shawl, and heaved it up onto the coffee table. In spite of his earlier demeanor, he seemed quite pleased with himself for returning successfully.

  Mara thanked him and opened up the shawl. The contents were a bit of a mess—several of the packages had spilled and the contents were sticking all over the fabric—but she sorted out enough of the various herbs to satisfy her needs and ground them between her palms. Then she dusted them over the flat sides of the disk, which took on a gleam like glass as she muttered and spread the crushed herbs over the surface. The object was still opaque, but it looked shiny.

  “Right, then. Harper, you hold the ball.”

  I dug into the bag and pulled out the wooden puzzle ball, seeing the thin Grey sheen that seeped from its seams. I didn’t see anything else and it didn’t feel any different than it ever had. But it wouldn’t: Phoebe’s saying it was creepy had been directed by—or at—Goodall. I held it at arm’s length, hearing something rattle gently inside, and Mara moved the eye over the ball as she stared at the surface.

  Quinton and Brian both stared at the eye in fascination. As Mara moved it around I could see why: When you looked straight down at the arcanely shining surface, what you saw was an enlarged section of the object below, but glowing with colors and shapes in a strata of glittering dust.

  “Ooo,” Brian sighed. “Pretty animals.”

  Mara laughed and looked up from her work. “Not animals, y’silly boy: anima. It’s girly magic,” she added, glancing at me.

  I frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  She put the eye down in her lap and began wiping the surface clean. “Some things, some types of magic, are gendered. I don’t mean that only men or women can do it, but that there’s a tendency or bifurcation that’s analogous to gender.”

  I rested the ball on my knee; my arms were tired from holding it out while Mara inspected it.

  “So,” Mara continued, “either that puzzle was made by a woman, or for some very feminine purpose, or there’s another part that’s the complement to that one. A masculine part with an animus type of magic. There’s something inside that’s not radiating at all, so no concern here. Oh, and it’s quite safe. You can put it down if you like. Aside from the gendering, there’s not much there. Something compacted but neutral, and a partner strand, which I assume is linked to the other-gendered part of whatever that’s supposed to do.”

  “Supposedly, it’s either a labyrinth or a door to a labyrinth. I have a key, which is probably the male half of the equation.” I pulled the small wire toy from my pocket and held it up. It didn’t look much like a key at that moment, but I knew what it could do and they didn’t.

  “Keys would seem pretty masculine by nature,” Ben observed, studying the twisted wire thing in my hand.

  I made a dry smirk at him. “Ha, ha.”

  “I’m serious. Keys tend to be masculine objects.”

  “Magic isn’t subject to concepts like political correctness,” Mara added.

  “All right then,” I said, hefting the ball in one hand and the wire puzzle in the other. “Door, key. Let’s see if they work.”

  “Just a second,” Quinton broke in, putting his hand over mine. “How big a door, or whatever, do you think that thing opens? Just from a physics standpoint, if the area or pressures aren’t the same on both sides, there’s going to be a mess in here when you open it up.”

  “It’s magic,” Ben said. “Physics doesn’t enter into the equation.”

  “Yes, it does,” Quinton argued. “So far, everything I’ve observed says that there are still working laws of physics, like the conservation of mass and fluid dynamics, in play with magic. So if you open an area of different pressure into this room, there’s going to be displacement of whatever fluid you have—be it air or water or giant Cthulhuan horrors from the slime dimension—until the pressure is equalized. Do you really want to risk psychotic killer jellyfish swimming around your head?”

  Ben looked at Mara. “Maybe the yard is a better place. . . .”

  TWENTY

  It took a while to get the backyard into the physical and magical condition that satisfied all of us. Mara was most concerned about reinforcing the magical wards and clearing off the remains of the blood-magic charms and alarms the vampires had left behind. We all figured it wouldn’t surprise anyone by now if they were removed. The men wanted to clean up the yard, burying the scorched and trampled remains of whatever nasty creature Goodall had set on them, while Brian wanted to get the dog to safer ground. I really did start to think Rick was never going to get his pet back at this rate.

  Mara and I also cleared off a bit of ground for a containment circle, marking the area with various signs and symbols as she directed, so if anything did come through the door, it wouldn’t get far.

  In the end, it all proved pointless. I shuffled the wire puzzle until it clicked into a formation that chimed and hummed when brought near the ball, but when the two were put together, the key sinking into an invisible slot and twisting with an ease that surprised me, there was only a breath of hot, plant-scented air and a sound like something heavy settling into the earth at a distance. A small object dropped out the first time, but n
othing else happened. Mara and I tried several configurations and spells, weaving various bits of magic together and trying to cajole the puzzle to work, but the effect only got slightly more fragrant with the odor of flowers and a rustle of invisible leaves that almost covered the persistent muttering in the back of my head.

  We gave up and returned to sit on the back porch.Mara took the key from me and looked it over with the eye as I bent to pick up the thing that had fallen from the puzzle: it was a garnet earring that looked familiar to me. Mara finished her inspection of the ball and then pointed at the bauble in my hand. “May I look at that?”

  I handed it over. She inspected it with the eye before shaking her head. “Neither of these is the second part,” she said. She handed the earring to me and I pocketed it.

  The men had gone out into the yard where we’d cleared the circle and, at Brian’s insistence, were playing a complicated game involving a soccer ball, the dog, and two goalposts erected hastily between the side yard fences. I watched them for a moment, trying to figure out what they were doing. “It’s not the second part of what?”

  “The key is not the second part of the mechanism,” she explained. “Nor is the earring, incidentally, but that’s a bit off the point since it seems to be here almost by accident. This key isn’t actually animus. It’s neutral. There’s another part somewhere. But beyond that, this puzzle ball seems to be keyed to a location.”

  “Meaning . . . ?”

  “Y’have to use it in the right place. So, y’need to get all the parts, mate them together, and then use them in the correct location, or nothing happens. Or nothing much.”

  I blew a silent whistle. “Well, we wouldn’t want this to be easy, would we?”

  “Certainly not. Consider the potential: If the complete mechanism does open a way into the Grey that is invisible to the Guardian Beast, unregulated, and accessible to folk who’ve had no prior contact with magic at all, it could be disastrous. Imagine the cataclysm one ignorant action could set in motion. Whoever made this was remarkably careful, though why they didn’t destroy it when they were done, I can’t guess. It hardly seems the sort of thing y’leave lyin’ about.”

  “They didn’t. They put the pieces away carefully, somewhere most people would never look for them: in plain sight.”

  Mara frowned at me. “I don’t follow. . . .”

  A memory jogged loose in my head and I pointed at the puzzle ball, which was resting on the table. “That was one of a pair that came from an old house that was torn down or damaged—I forget. Anyhow. Will got it from a friend of his who dealt in architectural antiques. He said the other one was stuck. But what if it wasn’t? What if the pieces are nested and to get the second one open, you have to open the other one first?” That jibed in a way with something my father had said about doors inside doors. Or was it mazes inside mazes . . . ? Whatever the case, I thought I was onto something. “Maybe whoever made it wasn’t sure he’d ever need to use it again, but he doesn’t want to risk just throwing it away—maybe he knows there’s going to be a need for it someday. So he puts the parts away and he gives the key to someone he thinks no one will ever associate with him: a kid in Montana, or a dentist in Los Angeles. Someone who has no apparent link to him.”

  Mara nodded thoughtfully and went on with the idea. “Except that the magical world is really very small, so . . . it’s not entirely surprisin’ that the key ends up with a Greywalker.”

  “The key and the first part of the machine—whatever it is.”

  “Seems obvious you’ll have to get the rest of the pieces and take them back to wherever they came from. That should be where the mechanism comes together and where y’can activate it once you have all the parts.”

  “That’s not going to be so easy: I got the ball from Will Novak and the last time I saw him, he . . . wasn’t doing very well.”

  She asked and I had to tell her what had happened in London and how I had last seen William Novak bloody and broken, raddled by the horrors of imprisonment and torture at the hands of vampires and their pet sorcerer. By the time I was done with the tale, Ben, Quinton, and Brian had given up their game and come up onto the back porch. Grendel flopped at the foot of the steps, tired out and with tongue lolling. Ben took Brian inside to wash up and avoid the more graphic parts of my description.

  “So they’re still in England?” Mara asked.

  “I think not. The only thing Will was clear about was that he wanted to come home. The doctors didn’t want to release him but even if his mind was going, his desire to get away from London might have been enough to motivate someone to let him go. So he and his brother could be stuck in England or back in Seattle. It’s been almost a week since I saw them and I just don’t know.”

  “You could call Michael and find out,” Quinton suggested.

  “Yes, but it’s Will who knows where the puzzle balls came from,” I replied.

  “No, Will knows who had them last. That guy would know where they came from. Michael might know which of Will’s friends that is.”

  I conceded that. I wasn’t sure my relationship with Michael Novak was any better than my relationship with Will was after what had happened, but I could try. The only number I had for him was a London mobile, but I thought it unlikely he’d already have replaced the phone if they’d left England. It was hard to remember that I’d seen him less than a week ago because it felt like more.

  I called, half expecting no answer, but Michael picked up and spoke from somewhere so loud it was hard to hear him. Clanging metal and shattering glass punctuated an erratic symphony of mechanical roars and human shouts.

  “Michael,” I started.

  “Hang on!” I could hear him moving around; then the noise faded down a bit. “Whatever you want, Harper, make it fast—have to get back inside before he notices I’m gone.”

  “Who?”

  “Will. He’s totally lost it since we got home. Come on, come on! We’ve got about a minute.”

  I would have asked what was going on or where in Seattle he was, but I could tell he didn’t have time for that. “What is the name and business address of Will’s friend here who breaks down antique houses?”

  “Breaks—? Oh. Charlie Rice. Rice House Antiques—it’s under the viaduct on Alaskan Way. Not the aquarium end of the row, but the ferry dock end. Big warehouse space. Look for a red London phone box on the loading dock.”

  Something hard crashed against something made of wood and the background noise rose again. “Gotta go!” Michael shouted and cut the connection. I blinked at the ground in a fog of sudden disquiet while a bitter sensation curdled my stomach. Something was askew with Michael and Will. . . .

  As I worried that thought, Quinton dug a small device out of his pocket and detached the clinging ferret, which he handed to me. Chaos wriggled into my shirt and went back to sleep, while Quinton flipped the little box open and turned it on: some kind of tiny palmtop computer.

  “OK, what did you get?” he asked, poised to type on the miniature keyboard. I told him, and he had the address and map location in seconds. “Should we just go, or should we call first?”

  “We?” I asked. It didn’t sound like a dangerous trip, but I was feeling off-kilter and wasn’t sure I should drag anyone else deeper into this mess if I could avoid it.

  “You, me: intrepid investigator and faithful sidekick—who still has the keys to the truck.”

  “Ah. Well, in person is usually better.”

  “Then we’d better pack our stuff into the Rover, just in case there’s a hot lead to follow up.”

  I pointed at the ferret in my shirt. “What about the furry knee sock?”

  Quinton and I both looked toward Mara. She shrugged. “Another day or two with the weasel won’t hurt us. Brian’s too taken with the dog to bother her much and she hasn’t been any trouble. Except for the smell and stealin’ shoes.”

  “Wait until she notices the key chains and cell phones,” Quinton said.

  It took
us longer than expected to get things into the Rover and clear off since we had to scout for any remaining friends of Goodall’s and any new spells that might have been laid. We got down to the waterfront near Rice House Antiques about forty minutes later.

  The building was an aging brick warehouse a block from the seawall and just at the edge of the tourist zone. I’d been there back when I was more active in hunting up interesting old things for my place, but the average size of the inventory items—from carved entryways and massive chandeliers to whole fieldstone fireplaces—was too large for me and I’d taken the place out of my mental directory. The loading area under the viaduct faced the old, disused municipal dock that lay just south of the ferry terminal across the double row of city parking under the elevated roadbed. Rumor had it the old stacked highway was going to be replaced with a tunnel someday, but so far, the crumbling concrete structure was still in place and still dropping bits of cement and road dirt at irregular intervals. The location had a lonely feel, despite traffic near enough to see; even the glow of the grid seemed a bit tired here.

  Rice House Antiques was painted once-cheery yellow and green that made it look like a faded and forgotten carnival building. An old red British phone box stood on the loading ramp, adding another splash of aging color to the frontage. Quinton and I left the Rover in a parking space beside the loading ramp and walked up. Being nearly noon on a Saturday, the business was open—literally. One of the two huge freight doors was rolled all the way up to expose some of the treasures inside. But of customers, there wasn’t a sign.

  Once inside the door, we could hear someone talking and moving around near the back of the shop, but the words were indistinct, muffled by racks full of carved doors and leaded windows between the massive pieces of architectural whimsy. Failing to see anyone else, I headed for the sound. Quinton trailed a bit, staring at the odd collection.

  I came around a corner to a room that was built of antique half-glass doors—they looked a lot like the door to my own office—and could see someone moving around inside beyond the frosted glass, between hazy shapes that stood here and there inside. “All right, all right . . . it’s got to be here. . . .” It was a masculine voice, but not one I recognized. Elderly and quavering.