Downpour

TWENTY-FIVE

Leung’s house was shuttered tight and silent as ever, and a strange luminescence swirled around the eaves like a flock of ghostly swallows, though the energy playing on the rise nearby had shifted lower and darker since I’d last been there. I hoped that was caused by Jin’s having cleaned up the magic circle there and not by something more sinister. I’d had quite enough of sinister for the day and even though I knew there was something unpleasant behind Quinton’s appearance in Port Angeles, I was hoping it wouldn’t wreck all chance of a quiet night snuggled together under the pile of cheap blankets we’d bought in town. I was counting on Geoff Newman’s wariness to have sealed his lips about lending me the house key, so no one would turn up to disturb us.

The hike in from where I’d left the Rover at a discreet distance from the cabin had left us more than damp around the edges, but the lakefront building with its big decks and upper-floor entry was sound and dry inside even after it had been closed up for five years. Most of the houses around the lakes were summer homes, but this one had been meant for year-round residence, so even though there was no water or electricity, it had everything else you could want, including some old canned goods and a couple of firearms—in case of rampaging bears, I supposed. The shutters kept any movement inside from being visible and it would be cozy enough so long as we didn’t make a lot of noise or wave flashlights around like disco lights. We debated, but in the end Quinton started a small fire in the Franklin stove on the bottom floor and we took the risk that anyone would notice the trickle of smoke it put out the chimney.

We huddled in the dark together before the stove with blankets around our shoulders and sock-clad feet propped on a stool just out of scorching range. A couple of fat little candles provided enough light to see, but we hoped not enough to attract attention if a vagrant flicker fell through the storm shutters and onto the water outside. It was still too tense and soggy to be romantic, but the scene had potential.

“So,” I started, teasing, “where’s the ferret?”

“I left her with Brian Danziger. Oh, that reminds me: Ben gave me something for you.” He scrabbled around in his backpack and handed me a small package swaddled in plastic wrap—not quite what I’d had in mind.... “I guess he was expecting you to come by on Monday, so when I showed up this morning, he gave it to me. Did he tell you about the book?”

I’d forgotten completely to go visit the Danzigers. I winced in shame. “Book?” I looked at the package—it wasn’t big enough for a paperback.... “No.”

“That’s not the book. He’s writing a book. Ben is.”

“Yes, I know—a paranormal field guide. He’s been working on it for a while.”

“He got a publication deal. Some small press, but they’re excited. Mara’s taking a sabbatical at the end of the quarter and they’re going to Europe and Asia for a year to finish up some research for it. She’s going to write something about sacred rocks while they’re out—petroglyphs and dolmens . . . I think.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling odd. I’d never thought about the book seriously or how it might change their lives—and mine. The Danzigers had been my lifeline through the Grey so many times that I couldn’t imagine my life without them nearby. That was silly and selfish of me, and I didn’t realize how much I’d taken them for granted—I’d taken most of my small number of friends for granted, really. . . . I rubbed the plastic-covered packet in my hand and began to unwrap it. “So . . . what’s this?”

Quinton sat back down and snuggled into the blanket beside me, but his body was tense. Even in the dim light from a handful of candles, I didn’t have to look at his aura to know he was nervous about something. “Ben said it’s a spell to banish demons. Or a demon—I’m kind of unclear on how many. . . .”

It wasn’t demons that worried Quinton, though. I suspected he didn’t want to talk about why he was really here and why he’d cut his hair, at least not yet. I gave him some time while I removed the plastic and an inner wrapper of brown paper to reveal an intricately folded piece of yellow silk a little larger than my palm. A Chinese character had been inked on one side in red. I remembered what Ben had said about banishing demons, and I guessed this soft little fabric flower was a spell to do just that. It was small enough to shove into a yaoguai’s mouth—if you didn’t mind the risk of losing a hand.

“Ben doesn’t write Chinese,” I said, putting the bundle back into its wrappers and tucking it into my shirt for the time being. “I wonder where he got it.”

“He said some colleague of his made it.”

I wondered what sort of colleague he meant, since I couldn’t imagine the college professors he knew suddenly changing their minds about how weird and silly Ben’s interest in the paranormal was. “Ah,” was all I said.

Quinton tucked me against his side, putting his arm around my waist and pulling the blankets close. I leaned my head against his shoulder. Silence fell between us, deep enough to hear the muffled hiss of the damp sticks burning in the stove.

“Why—” I started, choking off as I realized the question hurt as I tried to say it; it hurt worse than tearing apart a ghost or a god.

Quinton pulled me tighter against him, up into his lap so he could wrap his arms all the way around me. And he suddenly wasn’t so wary, as if I’d broken the tension by finally asking the stupid damned question that had been hanging there like Damocles’ sword.

“Is that, ‘Why have I been avoiding you’ or ‘Why have I been preoccupied’ or ‘Why am I suddenly here’?”

“All of those.”

“Because I screwed up and I had to fix it and I didn’t want you sucked into my mess. That’s why I cut my hair off and shaved and why I look like a total dork from IT. And now it’s over—mostly over—and I—I just need to be here.”

I felt the edge of tears under my eyelids and I hiccuped over them in my throat. “You—you don’t look like a dork.”

“Then I failed,” he said with a sigh, “because I’m supposed to look like the jerk no one notices around the office until he comes in one day with a clanking duffel bag and a long memory.”

“Why?”

“Because I owed the FBI a favor.”

I sat up so fast and far that I almost burned my back on the stove. “What?”

Quinton shook his head. “I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

“Like is not a factor. I just . . . Just tell me what you did and why you had to do it for the feds.”

He looked up sideways with an anticipatory wince. “You’re going to hate me.”

I gaped at him for a moment. Then I leaned forward and kissed him. “I will never hate you. I love you. So talk.”

He sighed as I settled back on the seat next to him and stole part of the blanket back for myself.

“I love you, too, you know. And that’s why I gave myself up.”