Greywalker

Chapter 16

"Oh, you're as good as your word, aren't you?" she exclaimed, seeing the wine bag in my hand. "I hope you don't mind the kitchen for a bit, I'm still rolling out crust and I hate to yell at my guests just to have a conversation. I felt I should be making a pie, since you missed the last one." We adjourned to the kitchen, Mara in the lead. "Have a seat, open the wine and we can have a sip while I finish up the crust. Corkscrew's in the drawer of the table, glasses right there on top."

I hung my purse and jacket over the back of a chair and tackled the first wine bottle. With the wine poured and distributed, I leaned against the counter and watched her drape pastry dough into a deep pie plate and cut off the edge.

She started to sip her wine, then held it away, staring at it. "Oh, my! This is green wine. Wherever did you find green wine?" "Larry's. It doesn't seem too bad."

She sipped, then glanced at me out of the corners of her slanted eyes. "It's wicked green, though, isn't it?" Then she let out that wild whoop of laughter, her eyes squeezing to merry slits.

I couldn't help laughing with her. She was more relaxed and outrageous now that we were on a social footing, rather than a…. what? Magical one? Student/teacher?

I noticed she was paying a great deal of attention to the pie preparation and biting her lower lip.

I was about to speak when she beat me to it. "Harper, this morning I was rather too pushy. You're right to be wary and I didn't think of it. You see, I'm used to this sort of thing and I forgot that I'm not like you."

I shrugged and drank wine before answering. "No one's like me, I guess."

"Indeed. And there's quite a lot of guesswork to being what you are. Theory and philosophy are all well and good, but reality can rather rear up and bite you on the bum. It's not a field chock-full of scientific validation, you know—not astrophysics or chemistry, after all—and it attracts sharpers and loonies, if you know what I mean."

"Spoon benders and people who write paperback science about ancient astronauts building the lost city of Atlantis," I suggested.

"Exactly the sort of thing. And that brings me to a point I should make before Ben gets home. You see, he's rather enamored of some theories authored by people who can't be proved wrong any more than they can be proved right. It's impossible to resolve any clash between the theories or practices, or even to sort out the possible from the ridiculous when the scientific world as a whole is skeptical. And Ben, ironically, is just as doubting-Thomas as the rest, at heart. Only someone like you can know for certain—not that science would listen to a word you said—but you'll not know until after one of Ben's pet theories has left you with the baby. Do you see my concern?"

I nodded. "So why don't you just tell Ben that you know some of the theory and philosophy is bunk? You can prove it yourself, can't you? As a witch, I mean. Hell, I would."

She leaned back and narrowed her eyes at me over the rim of her glass. "Never been married, I see."

"No. I'm not even very good at dating," I admitted.

"Many of us aren't. We see too much, and it's difficult to dissemble all the time."

For a moment, I could imagine the look that must have been on Will's face when I called him from the police station. "Yeah," I replied.

We both sipped wine and I decided to wade in with both feet. "Why do you glow?" I asked.

"Do I? It's a glamour, I suppose. A habit. I was a spotty, gawky child, and though Ben is always at telling me I'm lovely, it's hard to get over the idea that I'm not just as awful now as I was then. You know how that is, I'm sure."

I nodded. "Oh, yes. I was fat."

She gave me a sober look, then grinned. "Childhood's a bugger, isn't it?"

Mara and I were sitting at the kitchen table, giggling like longtime girlfriends at a sleepover by the time Ben got home. He stuck his head through the kitchen doorway and smiled at us.

"Hi! I see you two are getting on like the famous house on fire."

"Oh, passing fair," said Mara, rising to kiss him. "How were all the budding little linguists?"

"Lugubrious, possibly even mummified."

She tousled his already unruly hair. "Well, go scrub the tomb dust from your hair and dinner will be ready in about fifty minutes, all right?"

"Sehr gut," he said and smooched her before ducking out. We could hear him ascending the stairs.

Mara and I drank more wine and chattered while she finished up the dinner preparations. As her husband descended toward the main floor, she turned to me with a look of concern.

"You'll not say anything to Ben, will you? About my doubts."

I frowned at her. "Of course not. Who am I to break up a marriage over a theory?"

She was still laughing when Ben entered the kitchen.

"What's funny?" he asked, patting himself down. "Did I forget something? Hair sticking up, soap in my ears?"

"No, darlin'. Harper's just very funny, you know. Go pour yourself a glass of this green wine our guest's brought us and have a chat, while I set the table."

Mara whisked out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with her husband. He settled himself at the table and poured wine into a glass. "You two seem to be getting along."

"Mara's lovely."

"That she is. First-class researcher, too. We met over research." He made a goofy grin.

"What sort of research?"

"Mara was doing some geologic studies in a dig out in Ireland that I was also on, doing some ancient religions research. She had some religion questions and I had some questions about ley lines, and we ended up sitting in the pub all night, talking about everything under the sun."

He chuckled. "Sometimes, I'm too much the scientist for Mara's taste." He made a rueful shrug. "I get enthusiastic and bury myself in all the squirrelly little details. Probably can't see the forest for the trees half the time, but she keeps me looking up often enough that I don't go completely into the woods. And speaking of being lost in the woods, how are you doing? Getting any more comfortable with the Grey?"

"Yes and no… there is something I need to ask you—"

Mara came back to the kitchen and we moved the conversation to the dining room.

Once we had food in front of us, Ben prompted me.

"What were you going to ask me?"

"Oh. Why does this seem to be getting worse? More frequent?"

"Well, I think it's kind of like gum on your shoe. Every time you go into the Grey, a bit sort of sticks to you and it keeps on building up."

"But if I'm building up this Grey…. covering, why would the guardian beast-thing attack me sometimes and not others?"

He thought about it, and Mara frowned.

"I'm not certain," Ben replied at last. "Maybe you don't appear to be a threat sometimes."

"I don't see how I could have changed."

"I'm afraid I don't know what triggers acceptance or rejection, but there must be something. There isn't much known about this creature— or creatures. We don't know if it's one thing or a bunch of them. But everyone agrees that it's stupid as a rock. It does its job by a set of rules. So…" He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling.

Mara glanced at me.

"So maybe," Ben continued, "it has a hierarchy to follow. Bigger apparent threats get its attention and it lets small things go, if it has to. So if something is more foreign or threatening than you, it would chase that instead."

"But if I'm a Greywalker, why would I be foreign at all? What kind of threat do I represent?"

Mara looked at Ben, who was stroking his beard in thought. "I'm wondering…," he started. Then he looked at Mara. "Maybe you're bright, for some reason. If you're still not very comfortable in the Grey, maybe that makes you look more foreign and bright to it. What do you think, Mara? Does Harper glow?"

Mara glanced at me. "I suspect she does."

I gave her a sideways look, but she went on. "So long as you're uneasy in the Grey you'll be creating some disturbance. The beast is like a spider and the Grey is like a web, so if you're thrashing about, you probably attract its attention."

I frowned at her and she made a «sorry» face. My pager went off, jittering against my hip. I glared at it and excused myself to use the phone in the kitchen.

My friend at the SPD had left a message: Cameron's car was about to be impounded from a garage near Pioneer Square. He couldn't hold the call. I had thirty minutes to get there ahead of the tow truck.

Yet another great dinner down the tubes. I went back out to the dining room to excuse myself to the Danzigers.

"Something's come up that can't wait. I seem doomed to miss that pie."

Mara smiled at me. "We'll put some aside for you. If you've finished by ten, come back and join us again. We'll still be up."

I exceeded the speed limit, but the old Rover took the twists and turns of Queen Anne Hill nimbly and roared down the Viaduct to Pioneer Square in ten minutes.

There was no sign of the tow truck when I pulled into the garage. I circled down to the lower level, searching for the dark green Camaro, and spotted it in an isolated, dark corner. There were more cars than I'd expected and I had to go around the ramp looking for a place to park. I ended up farther away than I would have liked and had to walk back up.

As I approached, I noticed two young men moving around near the car. I stopped and looked them over from the shadow of a pillar. Neither of them was Cameron. One was black, the other white. Both looked unkempt and dangerous. The black guy, the slimmer and shorter of the two, was hanging back, crouched, acting as the lookout as the taller, white guy tried jimmying the trunk open with a crowbar. I didn't like the look of it, so I hung back, slipping my hand toward my pistol.

The trunk lid flew up with a sudden jolt and a pallid blur exploded out of the dark hole beneath. With a scream of rage, a pale whirlwind descended on the man with the crowbar. I darted forward, hand closing around the grips of my gun, not quite sure who was in more trouble: the two car breakers or the willowy apparition that had erupted from the trunk.

The taller thief dropped his crowbar with a howl of pain as he was grabbed and flung backward. His smaller companion, darting panicked glances between the sudden assailant and me rushing toward him, snatched up the crowbar and tried to smash it into the skull of his attacker. He connected with a forearm instead.

I heard the bone shatter. The chalky one let out a shriek and doubled over, vanishing under the open trunk lid. I had my gun out and started to bring it up.

The dark-skinned man whirled toward me with the crowbar raised. I put the sights on him and held. His eyes met mine for a nanosecond.

He panted a moment, then flung the crowbar at me and spun away, running like a scalded dog. I ducked and the crowbar hit the cement with a clang that echoed long after the thief had vanished up the ramp. I could have chased after him, but I wanted to get a look at the guy with the broken arm a lot more.

I edged toward the Camaro. "Hey. You OK?" I called out.

He moaned.

"Cameron? Cameron Shadley?" I led with my left hand out and the gun pointing straight up. I didn't want to take any more damage, but I was prepared to dish a little out, if I had to.

The pale violence leapt at me with a yowl of pain. Hands like a raptor's talons flashed at my face. I backpedaled as fast as I could, turning, my right arm swinging down, left reaching to lock my grip.

"Hal—" I didn't get to finish the warning.

A clawed brick struck my shoulder and scraped up under my hair, yanking out a few strands. Losing my balance, I squeezed on the gun and felt it buck in my hand.

The fury shrieked and flopped onto the ground. He sat there, a haystack of fair hair, cradling his limp right arm in his left hand. Even through the ringing in my ears, I heard him. "You shot me?" he wondered. "Ow! Oh, fuck, that hurts! It's not supposed to hurt!" He lifted his face and glared at me between matted strands of hair. "Why did you shoot me?"

I stayed my distance, the gun firmly gripped, muzzle pointing at the oil-stained cement between us. "You attacked me. I fight back." Everything sounded a little distant to me, still.

"With a gun?"

"It's a much better tool than a stick. Are you Cameron Shadley?"

"Yes," he moaned. "Who the hell are you?"

"Your mother suggested you were a gentlemanly, soft-spoken boy. Now I discover that you swear and hit women," I mused aloud.

"You'll have to excuse me. I'm not at my best when I'm sick and scared out of my socks," he growled. "So, who the heck are you?"

Sarcasm usually indicates a drop in threat level. I put my gun away. "My name is Harper Blaine. I'm a private investigator. Your mother hired me to find you. Are you bleeding badly?"

"It's not too bad now." He winced. "It's closing up already. The bullet must have gone all the way through."

"Let me take you to a hospital."

"Oh, yeah." He started laughing. It didn't sound too rational. "A hospital's going to love me. 'Excuse me, Mr. Shadley, are you aware you haven't got a pulse?»

I stepped closer. "Are you all right?"

"No!" he spat, throwing back his tangled hair. His blood red glower sent a bolt of sickening ice straight through my chest. "I'm not all right! I'm a goddamned vampire with a goddamned hole in his already broken arm. I am not fucking all right, all right!"

Wary, I knelt beside him and looked at the arm he cradled. As I stared, the torn flesh of the bullet wound eased closer together, knit-ting up like a sweater sleeve. Only a couple of millimeters, but enough to convince me that Cameron Shadley was not operating within original design specifications. I looked at him and he glared back. I had to swallow hard a couple of times to work up enough spit to speak and keep my dinner down at the same time.

"I have to get you and your car out of here right away."

"I'll be fine."

"Not once the tow truck gets here."

"Tow truck?"

"Yes." I stood back. "I heard about your car because it's on the impound list. It'll be towed in the next couple of minutes if we don't move it."

He groaned like a soap-opera diva and hung his head back. "Great! Just great! How'm I supposed to drive with one hand? It's a manual."

"I'll drive."

"What about your car? You've got a car, right?"

"My car isn't going to be towed yet. Come on. Let's go. Give me the keys."

Grunting, Cameron reached into the left front pocket of his jeans and flipped me the keys. Miserable, he oozed into the passenger seat as I tied the Camaro's trunk shut around the broken lock, then got into the driver's seat. In five minutes, we were at the payment kiosk.

"Ticket?"

I looked at Cam. He looked back and shrugged. "Lost it."

"Lost ticket pays the maximum—twenty dollars."

I handed over a twenty and asked for a receipt. We passed the tow truck a block away. I parked the car under the Viaduct and turned to Cameron.

"You stay put here while I go back for my truck. I don't want to have to hunt you down again."

"I'll stay right here," he sighed. "Promise."

I got out, taking the keys, and walked back to the garage. The man in the payment kiosk gave me an odd look when I pulled up again.

"Weren't you just here?"

"Yeah. Had to drive my kid brother's car out. He's so smashed he can barely walk."

He grunted and jerked his head, taking my money. "You want a receipt this time, too?"

"Yes. I'm going to make him pay me every cent."

He chuckled and handed me the receipt. I drove away and parked next to Cameron's Camaro. It was right where I'd left it. Cameron didn't seem to be in the front seat, though.

"Cameron?" I yelled, looking around. I didn't see him anywhere around the car. I stared at the passenger seat, furious and grinding my teeth. Something flickered. I breathed deeply and looked harder along the wavering edge of the Grey. I reached out and jerked the door open.

Cameron rolled onto the ground.

"Hey!" he yelled, jumping up. "You're not supposed to be able to see me. That's my best trick!"

"I didn't have to see you, just your Grey shadow."

"I don't cast a shadow anymore."

"You do if you know where to look."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I can see you. What I want to know is why can I see you in the paranormal?"

"I told you—I'm a vampire," he snapped. There was that glare again. This time I was better prepared, but it still felt like an arctic wind had blown through my rib cage.

I studied him a little harder this time. His skin had a pallor that went beyond merely ill, all the way to waxy, and his eyes seemed to have an opaque glaze over the irises, deadening the vibrant violet I had expected to a pastel lilac. His grin was a dead giveaway: his canine teeth were prominent points and the gums had drawn back. I caught a whiff of something and gagged.

"Jeez, Cam, don't you brush?" I asked.

"Kinda hard to see myself in the mirror, you know."

"Not your hair, your teeth."

Embarrassed, he rolled his lips over his teeth and looked abashed.

"OK, now tell me if I'm wrong. You've been sleeping in your car and cruising the Square at night for over a month now."

"Mostly. I had another place for a while, at the beginning, but I got thrown out."

"The beginning of what, Cameron?"

"Are you thick? Since the beginning of this vampire thing. I wasn't born this way, you know."

"Yeah, I figured. Your mother and sister seem pretty normal. So what happened?"

"I got into some trouble with a guy down here."

"Getting turned into one of the living dead is the current rage in payback?"

"No," he drawled at me as if I were not too bright. He stood there looking grim, then glanced around. "Could we get out of here? I feel kind of conspicuous."

As he mentioned it, I remembered how often I'd felt observed lately myself. "We can go over to my office. It's not far and we can park your car nearby."

He gave a reluctant nod and we both got back into the Camaro. I drove to my building, concentrating very hard on looking calm and thinking fast. We parked and I led him up to my office, ignoring the alarm.

"Listen," I started, sitting behind my desk. "I'm going to deal with your most immediate problems first and get the long story afterward, but you are going to tell me the story, one way or another."

Cameron threw himself into the client chair. "Fine."

"I take it you don't feel safe, or you'd have gone back to your apartment, right?"

"Right. I was afraid I'd hurt RC, if I did. I get really hungry and kind of irrational right after I get up."

I narrowed my eyes. "Hungry. How are you doing right now?" In the back of my head I was gibbering, but had no time to listen to that voice now.

"Not so good. Those two guys woke me up."

"Tough. I'm not opening a vein for you. What else can we do? What do you normally do?"

"Well," he mumbled, looking around the floor, "I catch rats, sometimes."

"What?"

"Rats," he repeated, looking anywhere but at me. "I eat rats a lot."

"That's kind of disgusting."

"Yeah, it's pretty gross, but I figure it's better than attacking someone on a street corner. When the bar crowd gets pretty well lubed, I start cruising the drunks. Usually I can find someone who'll help me out."

I started to ask, then decided I didn't want to know right now. He saw me shake my head and looked relieved.

"It's a long, nasty story," he said.

"I can imagine. In the meantime, it looks like your trunk is broken. That a problem?"

"Yeah. See, I sleep in there."

"You sleep in the trunk?"

"It's good and dark and I don't get rousted by cops. Besides, my dirt is in there."

"Dirt?"

"Haven't you ever heard about the native earth?"

"No. What about it?"

"A vampire must sleep in his native earth every day. Well, or at least close to it."

"Why?"

"I don't know. That's just what I was told."

"You ever tried to sleep without it?"

"No. I'm afraid to try. What if I shrivel up or something? It's not a great life—or unlife if you like—but it's mine and I'd like to keep unliving it a little longer, if you don't mind."

"Sounds like you need a more secure place to stay."

"What do you suggest? The county morgue?"

"No. Give me your car keys."

"Why?" he asked, reaching for them again.

"Because I'm going to take care of it while you go out for something to eat. Also, this way I know you'll come back."

"You're not very trusting," he said, handing me the keys as he stood up.

"I'm a professional not-truster," I answered. "Now go out and do what you need to do, but don't break any laws I'm going to hear about."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied with a sarcastic salute as he marched out.

I paged Quinton. In less than a minute, he called me back.

"Hi, Harper." I could hear him smiling. "What can I do for you?"

"I've got a weird situation and I need some kind of security system rigged in a car ASAP."

"Can't wait, huh?"

"No. Not really."

"What sort of thing are you looking for?"

"Ignition cutout, lots of noise, armed and disarmed from the trunk, and extra security for the trunk itself."

"The trunk?"

"Don't ask. Oh, we probably need to add some kind of handle inside the trunk lid and fix the lock."

"What kind of car is this?"

"'Sixty-seven Chevy Camaro."

"It'll take me a couple of minutes to collect my stuff and get over there. OK?"

"Great. Thanks."

"For you, no problem."

Quinton showed up before Cameron did. I took him down to the parking lot.

"Very nice car. Who's Cam?"

"The owner. He's in some trouble and he's worried about the car. I think he's been living out of it. He hides in the trunk to dodge the police— that's why we need a handle and an arm/disarm switch in there."

"He wants to get in the trunk and stay there for a while with the alarm on?"

"I think so."

Quinton rolled his eyes and blew a strand of hair off his face. "That's going to be a bit more complicated. This could take a little longer than I thought."

"Like how long?" asked Cam, looming up behind me. I spun and glared at him. Quinton just blinked.

The silence began to stretch. The males stared at each other.

"Hey, that's enough," I said. "Cameron owns the car. Cam, this is Quinton. He's going to build an alarm for the car so it's safer for you to use. Any problems?"

I glanced between them. They each shrugged. "Good. I have to go move my truck. Cameron, you come with me. Then we'll have a chat in my office. Quinton, if you need anything, come up and knock." I pivoted and stalked away.

So long as I was boiling, the discomfort of Cameron's Grey presence was easier to ignore. It only took a few minutes to move the Rover and get Cameron back up to my office. I kept my temper on simmer.

"OK," I started, sitting again, "the car is taken care of. Now let's deal with the rest of this mess."

Cameron stared down at his hands clasped in his lap. He sighed in disgust. "It really is a mess, isn't it?"

"It could be worse, but it's not good. Why didn't you get in touch with anyone?"

"At first, I thought I was just… sick. I didn't believe all that vampire junk. I thought I might have something really nasty, but I figured I'd either get better soon, or I'd have to go to a doctor. When I found out what was happening to me—I mean when I believed it—I panicked."

"You seem to have adapted. If you'd called your mother, you could have avoided panicking her, too." I wanted to kick myself for sounding like a stereotype.

"What was I supposed to say? 'Hi, Mom. Sorry I can't make the birthday party, I'm a vampire and I wouldn't want to upset you by biting the guests'?"

"How about 'I'm sick, but I'm going to be fine and I'll see you soon?"

He sighed again and lowered his head even farther. "I guess I didn't think, but I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not very good at this vampire stuff."

"You mean you don't just wake up one night and know how to be a vampire?"

"No. Usually you have somebody around to take care of you, teach you, until you can take care of yourself."

"So, what happened to your… tutor?"

Cameron shrank. "He threw me out," he whispered.

In a cartoon, the wooden desktop would have slammed into my lower jaw as my mouth popped open. Cameron squirmed and snuck a peek at me out of the corner of his eye. I clenched my eyes shut and smoothed out my face.

"Threw you out?" I repeated, choking on a dry throat. I swallowed and restarted. "Why?"

"He said— He didn't— I didn't want— I—" Frustrated, he plunged his face into his hands. "I can't do this!" he howled. "I suck at this!"

I didn't laugh. I stood up and walked over to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder… and fell straight through to the Grey.

I couldn't breathe. I was cold, frozen, falling, sliding through something writhing, oozing, squeezing into me. Black cold. Cameron raised his head and looked through me with a gaze like a razor. I yanked my hand away from that burning cold/hot, live/dead flesh… and stumbled backward, falling against the desk and sitting down hard on its top, gasping.

"What's wrong?" he asked, jumping up to offer assistance.

I pushed at the air between us. "Don't touch me!"

He recoiled as from a blow, drawing his hands back against his chest.

I gnawed air and fought back to some kind of equilibrium.

"I–I really wasn't expecting that." I straightened myself up and tried to smile.

"What happened? Are you OK? You… flickered." He peered at me, ducking his head to squint at my face. "What are you?" he asked, backing away a step.

I laughed. "Are you afraid of me?" I waved a hand over my body. "Look at me—an ex-dancer with a run in her stocking and rips in her blouse. Why should you be scared of me? You're the vampire, the transcender of death. Who the hell am I?"

"You… you're something—I don't know. You're—you're more here than most people."

"I'm more somewhere. Look, Cameron, I'll tell you my nasty secret, then you can tell me yours. OK?"