He jerked back into the wall until only his left side and the destroyed top of his head remained. All the faces in the wall opened their mouths and screamed as the blood above them began to run. . . .
I wrenched myself away and bolted back the way I’d come, blind in sudden darkness, reeling up the scarlet gleam of Simondson’s thread as I ran.
I fell out of the portal that had been the second puzzle ball, tumbling and spinning to swipe at the misty shape of the opening, trying to force it closed and cut off the shrieking that roared out behind me. Desperate, I stabbed the key at the incorporeal door and twisted as if locking the thing closed.
The mist slammed shut with a red gust of magic that knocked me to the ground as the chorus of the grid shouted back to life in my head. The puzzle ball, now closed again, rolled against my side, and I scooped it up, turning and looking for the next door while shaking my head, trying to clear the ringing in my ears that the voices made.
But the first door was gone and I was crouching on the weedy grass of the Rose house’s labyrinth as the red light of Cristoffer’s magic seal faded. Simondson’s tangled red shape glowered from where I’d left him beside the other puzzle, which lay open and scattered into a strange figure that gleamed with every color of the rainbow and showed the flickering phantom of the shape Dru Cristoffer had painted on the ball in blood and fire, hovering in air. If I turned just right, I could see the door.
Thinking of my father’s instructions, I left the puzzle ball and its weird door as they were and tucked the other one deeper into my jacket along with my father’s key. I would want them later. . . .
At the distant edge of the clearing, Quinton turned away from staring at the trees and ran toward me. “Harper!”
Simondson spat an ember of fury into the ground even as he twisted with pain. “When—?”
“Soon,” I snapped back at him. “One more trip and you’re out of here, but first you stand guard over this. Anyone comes to close this door, you scare the hell out of them.”
“Me?”
The clamor, the fatigue, and my fright made me snappish. “You’re a ghost, damn it! Don’t you think you can haunt someone here with all this power to use? Just look! It’s like a dead-guy playground here. Just fade back and wait.”
Simondson peered around and spotted the shadow bear in the distance. He grinned, an expression that was truly disturbed. I snapped the tin closed on the end of his red strand of existence and buried the other in the ground at his invisible feet, feeling the surge of the grid into my fingertips as I did. “If I call you, you come; otherwise, it’s all yours.” I could see him wiggling into the banked fire of the nexus and tugging the monstrous bear around like a toy. The sound he made in the unnaturally still air carved a frozen track of horror into my guts.
Quinton pounded up and swept me into his arms. “Thank God. I thought you were lost!”
“I had Simondson to get me out.”
“He makes an ugly guide.”
“He makes an ugly guard, too. Let’s get out of here before the bear notices us. I think Simondson has plans for it, and I don’t want to see them.”
This time we simply ran through the ruins, didn’t even bother with care or delicacy; Dru Cristoffer’s traps were designed to drive people out, not keep them in. We stayed a hair ahead of the storm of dead avians and animals that rose to pursue us. I was glad of the foresight that had made me park the truck pointed toward the road.
Quinton and I dove into the Rover’s front seats, slamming the doors behind us, and the cloud of reanimated birds splashed against the truck’s metal and glass, dissolving into dust and feathers. I started the engine and jerked the truck into gear, pulling away fast enough to raise the litter and dirt into the air in a plume as the remains of ghastly crows and jays sloughed away on the wind of our passage, the bones of dead deer, cougars, and bears scattering across the road.
I tossed the puzzle ball into the back as I drove, needing both hands free. I wanted out of the town of Leavenworth as quickly as possible. Quinton divested himself of his pack, coat, and hat more slowly, putting them behind the seat and frowning all the while.
I felt wound tight and ready to break. My mind, my thoughts, seemed to have been tossed into a blender with the emphatic blaring of the Grey to chop it all fine. At the bottom of North Road, Quinton urged me to pull over.
“Why?” I asked.
“I know you didn’t get any sleep. If you’re ready to head straight back to Seattle, it might be better if I do the driving. The trip out wasn’t a picnic, remember?”
“True.”
“Besides, you haven’t filled me in on what happened in there.”
I’d become so used to Quinton’s presence by my side in the past few days that I hadn’t given much thought to the fact he’d been locked out of the ghostly labyrinths. My father had implied that non-Greywalkers could use the second puzzle ball as a gateway to the hidden bubble of Grey just as well as I could, but Quinton had been cut off behind the wall of Cristoffer’s magic.
I unbelted and swung out of the driver’s seat. “All right. You drive and I’ll talk.”
I gave him the details of what I’d seen and what I’d garnered from my father—so far as I could since a few points about the possible living, collective nature of the Grey and the grid still refused to come out of my mouth. Quinton looked concerned when I got to the bits about Wygan’s intentions and my guesses on why I was suddenly crying blood.
“So . . .” he started, keeping his eyes on the mountain road we were traveling. “According to your father, you’re sort of . . . becoming part of the flow of magic. And you think you cry blood and bleed light because the . . . pressure of magic pushes into your system whenever there’s an opportunity. Because it’s trying to flow through you.”
“Roughly, that’s what Dad seemed to be saying, and if he’s right about what Wygan’s up to and my part in it, that kind of makes sense. Carlos said I was starting to warp the fabric of magic, or would, and that fits with what Dad said and . . . with what I’m observing.”
“Run through that again. I’m not sure what you’ve observed and what’s just my guess. You said you hear voices. . . .”
“Maybe I’m just losing my mind. Cristoffer wasn’t the first to suggest that Greywalkers go crazy. . . . Marsden gouged out his own eyes. . . .”
“That’s a little extreme. And while it’s possible that you’re cracking up, it’s not a complete explanation. I saw some of this stuff myself and I met that . . . woman, Cristoffer. I can still feel those things crawling up my legs. . . .” He shuddered.
“I wish you hadn’t had—”
He put a hand on my knee for a second before driving demanded it back. “I don’t blame you for anything I’ve seen or experienced. Don’t take it all on yourself. You know what they say: Shit happens.” He made a silly face at me and I huffed a laugh.
“All right, all right: It’s not all my fault. Some of it’s Wygan’s.” I could hear the hate and disgust in my voice for a moment, but Quinton said nothing about it.
Instead he said, “And a lot of other people’s. So . . . voices, doorways, dead dads, and Wygan wants to be the Guardian Beast. Sounds like a pretty crappy job. . . .”
“Only if he plays by the rules—and you can bet he won’t. Dad said something about his becoming ‘the Architect of the Grey’ and I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds like it’s not a good thing.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be, not if it means no more Guardian Beast to keep the nasty stuff behind the veil. Any ideas on freeing your dad?”
I shook my head, eyes closed against both the shocks of passing ghosts and the plain weight of sleeplessness. “None. I think I’ll have to work that out on my own. He doesn’t want me to attract any attention by letting him go, but that implies there’s a way. I can always try it on Simondson first. Oh! Simondson . . .”
“What about him?”
“I left him . . . standing guard on
the labyrinth. So far as I can tell from Dad, I can use the second puzzle ball as a direct jump back to my father’s bit of the Grey labyrinth as long as the first stage remains open. I’m not sure how it works, though. . . .”
“Some type of magical entanglement would be my guess. I suspect the puzzle balls have a similar relationship once they’re open and operating that entangled subatomic particles do. And there may be a series of points between them that are congruent in space-time, effectively making the puzzles doorways to all of those as well as any point one of them occupies. It’s possible that other paths in the second ball’s maze lead to other points of congruence in the Grey. Good thing you had that little skein of ghost to mark your way or you might have gotten lost and popped out in the wrong place.”
“I owe you for suggesting it.”
“I didn’t.”
That gave me a hollow feeling inside. I’d heard a voice distinctly and imagined it was his. . . . I shivered and didn’t want to think more about what had spoken. I would have to be very careful about which advice I listened to in the Grey from now on. But I did have an idea. I’d have to discuss it with Carlos, but I thought I had a way to put him out of Edward’s—and therefore Wygan’s—control without their knowledge that it had happened. I didn’t like my part of it, but if I was going to stop the Pharaohn’s plans, I needed Carlos on my side, free to act, not compelled to obey.
In spite of the sun suddenly piercing into the Rover as we headed down the western slope of the pass, I fell asleep somewhere east of Monroe and stayed out until we were past Edmonds, just north of Seattle. I woke up to the smell of hamburgers.
I blinked and rubbed my face, trying to clear the sleep and soften the noisy babbling of the grid in my head. “What’s this? Where are we?”
“Outside a McDonald’s in Mountlake Terrace. I thought we’d better figure out where we’re going before we hit Seattle.” He held a sack out to me and pointed one finger at a drink cup sweating in the console cup holder. “And eat, since it’s now almost six and breakfast was ten hours ago.”
I grunted as I adjusted my posture in the passenger seat and unlatched my seat belt. “I didn’t mean to sleep like that.”
“It’s all right. You needed it. You need food, too. ’Cause I was thinking that if you’re being drawn into the Grey’s power system, then blood may not be the best conductor, and maybe you’re replacing blood every time you’re injured with something . . . non-blood, and you might be a little anemic. Thus: hamburgers. Rare meat might have been better, but I couldn’t find a drive-through steakhouse in the area. See: That’s something the U.S. really needs. Cow-n-Carry: for steak on the run.”
“What’s it on the run from?” I asked grabbing a wrapped burger from the bag. The smell of hot, greasy ground chuck, usually a bit off-putting, was making my mouth water.
“Probably from these guys. Also all manufacturers of gelatin, leather products, and dog toys.”
“I’d say you’re killing my appetite, but right now, I could probably eat at an autopsy.” I folded back the wrapper and took a large bite of the steaming burger.
“Now you’re ruining my appetite. Autopsy? My delicate sensibilities are offended.”
“This from a man who accepts payment for work in mystery beer.”
“By its nature, beer is safe—it’s alcohol—so long as it’s still sealed.”
“Beer. I wonder if a couple of beers would make these guys in my head shut the hell up. It’s like living downstairs from a rehearsal hall.” I smacked the glove box in a four-four rhythm. “Smile, smile, keep the line. Three, and four, and do it again!”
“Do choreographers all sound like that? Or is it just in movies?”
“Yes. They all want to be Bob Fosse or George Balanchine.”
“So . . . you’re feeling a little better . . . ?”
I smiled in spite of the clamor in my head. “Yes.”
We finished up our food and I took over the driving to head back into Seattle.
“Where are we going this time?” Quinton asked.
“Remember how Dru Cristoffer mentioned Edward’s wards?”
“Yeah, something about using the bypass idea to get around them.”
“Yeah. I figure, even crazy as she is, she’s not wild about having the Pharaohn in charge of magic—which is what it sounds like he’s chasing—so she gave us a hint on surviving long enough to stop him. If we can get past the wards, Edward’s bunker is the most secure place for us and the least likely to be under any attack by Goodall or anyone else. Goodall’s burned his bridges with TPM as well as Edward. By now, he’s on the security blacklist, so he won’t be coming to visit and Wygan pretty well can’t. But we can. I’m still on Edward’s pass list, or I was the last time I went there and it’s unlikely the head of building security would take me off it on Goodall’s recommendation. So we go to TPM and see if we can get into the bunker. It should have almost everything we need, except food.”
“What about the ferret and the dog?”
“Better off where they are. If we go to fetch them, we may pick up a tail, and unless the Danzigers are in trouble, they’re safer without our presence. I’ll need to contact Carlos again and make some plans, but I can do that from TPM.”
“If we can get in.”
“I have a key, but I don’t know if it will still work to get into the building. And after that we can only know by trying.”
TWENTY-FIVE
It wasn’t quite that simple. The key did get us into the parking structure and the building. Getting past security was a little more complicated: I was still on the pass list, but the key cards I’d taken off Goodall were dead and I didn’t have an appointment with anyone. Finally, a late call to one of Edward’s many secretaries produced a pissed-off young woman with interesting marks on her wrists and blood in her eye. Her name was Carol Linzey, and she fixed a glacial glare on the current chief of security and signed me through. Then she handed me her own card to the lower level and elevators before turning back to flay the man with a whiplash tongue and language you don’t expect out of the mouths of executive assistants for making her come downtown to show him how to do his job right. She dressed him down about everything from his lack of protocol or common sense to his hairstyle and he cowered as she did. I’ve heard milder manners from felons and parents in custody battles. I’d prefer the felons.
Down below, the elevator lobby in front of Edward’s bunker was empty. It was not, unfortunately, any quieter in the Grey. Normally I found the magic in that area muted, but as we faced the inner doors the chorus of the grid broke into a warring cacophony of advice and warning. “Shut up,” I muttered.
Quinton cut me a curious glance. “What?”
“Them,” I replied, shaking my head and tapping on my temple.
He frowned. “Have to do something about that.”
“That would be nice. . . .” I said, distracted by my study of the problem before us. I had Carol’s card to open the door, but I knew the wards hadn’t been told to let me in. The card alone wouldn’t get us past them or the other nasty things that had been twined into the protective magic around the portal. I doubted I could shut down the wards on the door itself, but I could get the door to open automatically if I could reach the key reader.
A secondary loop of protective magic circled the doorway and the card pad. I’d seen an invisible eye above the reader and the snapping teeth of something hungry under it the first time I’d come with Goodall. That monstrosity was right where I’d have to put my wrist to use the card, exposing the vulnerable skin, veins, and tendons to the horror beneath. Whether the card worked or not, I thought that the dreadful biting thing would rip open the arm of anyone it didn’t recognize or hadn’t been told to admit and I wasn’t sure it felt friendly toward me. I’d seen it take a chunk out of Goodall while he was still on the security pass list. Since I also qualified as a potential threat in both the normal world and the Grey one, I was more than a touch reluctant to put my fle
sh near the disembodied thing in the wall.
“What did Cristoffer say about this again . . . ?” The noise in my skull was making it hard to recall anything but what I was staring at right now. This time, the voice of the grid was not so much a song as a hooligan rabble.
“She said she probably hadn’t buried the tap as well as she would have now,” Quinton replied. “I would guess that’s sort of the power line feeding whatever magical alarm she put on the door for Edward.”
“It’s a little more complex than that. There are at least three linked systems here: two magical and one mundane. We have the card for the normal system, but we have to get past the others: recognition and defense. At least one of them took a bite out of Goodall—and I mean that literally.”
“OK, door bites man. I’d like to skip that.”
“Then don’t touch the door or the wall near it.” I crouched down to look harder at the bottom of the wall where it met the floor, searching for the power line up from the grid. I hoped Cristoffer hadn’t been teasing us with her hints. She had seemed angry and annoyed more than cruel, but I wouldn’t have put any sort of mean-tempered joke past her.
Even sliding deeper into the Grey, I found it hard to get a clear look at the spell around the door and card reader. The magical structure was almost Byzantine in the degree of twisting and doubling back that it displayed. I wondered how much of it was really necessary and how much was there to disguise the important parts. I wished I had Quinton’s knowledge of circuits but I couldn’t show it to him and describing it seemed impossible. Along the edge of the carpet that touched the wall, I could see a narrow, dark gap, as if the carpet hadn’t been stretched as tightly as usual when it was installed.
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