Greywalker

Chapter 4

I trudged up to the main library at Fourth and Madison. The reference librarian knew right where to find Quinton. I walked down the row she pointed out and saw a man seated at a computer workstation at the end. He was slashing away at the keyboard at a terrifying speed and muttering as he did so. His long brown hair was tied back at the nape of his neck and his pale face was decorated with a close-trimmed dark beard.

He stopped what he was doing, blanking the screen, and cocked his head at me.

"Are you Quinton?" I asked. "Who's looking for him?" he countered.

"My name's Harper Blaine. The guy from Mobile Lock sent me." He nodded. "OK. What do you need help with?" "My office was broken into and I need some kind of alarm system right away and cheap."

"Ah. I see." He grinned. "Yeah, I can get something up for you in about fifteen minutes. It won't be perfect, but it should hold back the Visigoths for a while." I goggled at him.

He grinned. "It's not that hard. What's your setup?" "One door, one window, two phone lines," I said. "One of the phone lines is for the modem on my computer." "That'll be cake. How far away is it?"

"About eight blocks."

"Did you walk or drive?"

"Walked."

"OK. Let's go." He logged out of the computer system and grabbed his coat and backpack off a nearby chair.

I had to hurry after him. I'm tall and leggy, but he didn't waste time and keeping up required a brisk stride. As we headed south to Pioneer Square, mid-April was doing its spring fake-out of good weather. Seattleites seem to forget that it usually starts raining again in May; they were out without jackets, enjoying the beginning of an unexpected clear evening that would probably turn cold by nine and produce more fog by morning. In spite of its capriciousness, this was usually my favorite time of year. But this time, I felt grim.

Turning onto Yesler uphill of Pioneer Square, I found myself blinking against a sudden haze in my vision and rising queasiness. As I was walking across the street to my building, a dusty-looking, bearded man in jeans, boots, flannel shirt, and a broad-brimmed hat glared at me, then walked right into me. He bumped me out of his way. His touch sent a cold shock through me, and his smell was worse.

"Hey!" I yelled after him. He stomped on.

"What's the matter?" Quinton asked.

I blinked my eyes clear and caught my breath. "That guy just walked right into me."

"What guy?"

I pointed. "That one."

We both stood and looked at the empty block where the man had been. A few ordinary pedestrians were about, but my rude man had vanished.

"He must have gone down the alley," I said. But he hadn't. I shook off a qualm, frowning.

Up in my office, Quinton started prowling around the window and the doorway. He took a complicated folding tool out of his pocket, then rummaged through his backpack and laid a pile of wire spools, tape, and small-parts packages on the floor.

"This shouldn't take very long," he said and squatted down beside the open door.

While I watched, he stuck something to the doorframe near the floor. He attached some wire and cut off a long piece of the stuff, leaving it hanging like a tail as he taped it into place and closed the door. He went to the window and began on that.

My phone rang. I turned my back on Quinton and answered it.

"Miss Blaine. Sergeyev. I am calling again. Would you have interest in recovering my heirloom?"

I sat at my desk and grabbed a notepad. "Possibly. It would depend on the circumstances. Perhaps we could meet to discuss it?"

He laughed. "No. I am not in Seattle now. But I would pay very well. Two thousand American dollars up front, as you say. And more to retrieve it to me."

"Then I'm interested. Has the item been stolen?"

"Misplaced, only. So many disruptions here. It has gone astray."

"Where are you?"

"I last saw it in Switzerland. Ingstrom, I think, took the cargo to Seattle, 1970, 1980…"

I was getting confused by his odd speech patterns. I tried to put him back on course. "What is the item?"

"A furniture. A parlor organ. Can you find it? It is not rush."

I jotted down what he'd said so far and looked at it. "Your information is pretty skimpy. Do you have any other leads?"

"I shall consider on it and express you papers with the check. We are agreed?"

"Yes, but it may take some time…"

I thought I heard a chuckle and then, "If you'd like to place a call, please hang up and dial again."

I glared over at Quinton, just rising from kneeling by the phone jack on the wall. "What just happened? I lost a client and I don't have his number!"

"Wasn't me. The line's fine. Maybe he'll call right back."

But he didn't. After a few minutes' waiting, I shook my head. "Damn."

Quinton frowned at the phone. "You think he's not calling back?"

I was miffed. "Not right now."

"I only have to do one more thing. I'll need the phone for a couple of minutes. You have a pager?"

"Yeah."

"What's the number?"

I looked sideways at him and felt a little dizzy, then looked away. "Why do you need it?"

He held up a birthday card in a clear plastic envelope with the words "Record your own greeting!" on it. "I'm going to program the chip to call you with a code if someone breaks in here."

"Oh." I rattled off the number.

He stripped a small, dark object out of the card and placed it next to the phone. Then he placed the handset next to the chip and dialed my pager number and an extension, then hung up. In a moment, my pager went off at my waist, vibrating silently.

"Did you get it?" he asked.

I read the page. "Nine-nine-nine."

"That's the code you'll get whenever the door or window opens. Just ignore it if you do it yourself. I should be able to get a better sys-tem up for you in a day or two. Just a couple of quick things and we're done, for now."

He made several strange-looking connections to my phone and electrical system, covering them neatly with white tape so they were invisible to a casual glance.

"That'll do it," he said, putting his tools away and picking up the backpack.

"How much do I owe you, Quinton?"

"How 'bout dinner? I've got a couple of other questions about the permanent system. If you're still interested?"

I thought about it. "I guess I am. Can you make a ballpark estimate?" I asked.

"I don't make estimates as sloppy as that." His eyes were twinkling over a smothered laugh.

I gave him a suffering look.

I got an apologetic grin in return. "Unless the parts have gone up a lot, it'll be under two hundred, including the stuff I used today."

It was only a small gamble. "OK. We can talk over dinner. What do you want to eat?"

"Some kind of dead animal will do me fine," he answered. "I like veggies well enough, but I'm too much the carnivore to give up meat."

I started picking up my things. "Good. I was leaning toward a steak, myself."

"Sounds great."

We walked up First to the Frontier Room. It's divey, kitschy, and the menu runs to barbecue and stiff drinks, but they have a good steak and it's cheap.

"So," Quinton started, separating brisket with his fork, "what situation am I dealing with on this alarm? You don't seem like the type to lock the barn after the horse is gone, to drag out a cliché. Are you expecting more trouble?"

"I'd rather not take the chance."

He glanced at me from the side. "OK. I assume you don't want the cops on your doorstep every time the alarm goes off. Right?"

"Yes. And I don't want this to be out of my control or open to prying by some security company. My clients pay for confidentiality, but I still need records if someone does break in again."

Quinton nodded, a comma of barbecue sauce lending him a quirky smile. "Quiet, reliable notification—no false alarms to the cops—and admissible in court. I think I can do that pretty easily with the setup you've got. I may have to drill a few holes, though. Is that a problem?"

"The manager's a bit of a jerk, but I'll get around him. The owner couldn't care less, as long as he gets his tax credit."

We hammered out a few more details, but by the time we'd finished eating and were chasing the meal down with coffee, the conversation had gotten onto other topics. Maybe it was the glass of wine I'd had, but I felt comfortable. Quinton made easy conversation, and a business dinner turned into just hanging out.

We walked back toward Pioneer Square afterward. Quinton stopped at First and Columbia.

"This is it for me. I'll get in touch as soon as I've got the parts. And… thanks for dinner. That was good."

"Yeah, it's a pretty good place."

He grinned and started down Columbia toward the waterfront, turning back to wave before disappearing below the freeway ramp on the steep downgrade.

I strolled on, heading for the Rover a few blocks away, feeling warm and full and a little drowsy. It was getting colder, as I'd expected, though. As I passed my office building, a swirl of clammy steam licked up from the street. The cold slither of the mist around my ankle made me shiver and raised the hair on my nape.

I looked around, feeling observed and started arguing with my paranoia. It was just steam. All the steam covers leaked a little wisp into the cooling air and made tiny ghosts dance a moment on the cobbled street. But this steam slunk up a shape in an alley nearby.

I gave a start. Someone was standing, shadowed, in the alley, watching me. I turned and strode toward the gleam of eyes. The shadow moved, flickering through light from a window above. A female shape and a flash of wine red hair, then she was gone around the next corner without a sound.

I started after her, pursuing the Cabernet gleam of her cropped hair. Alternating heat and cold rushed over me. I darted around the corner into indeterminate light and a deep, low thrumming. Everything was shrouded as if within a dense snow cloud, always moving, almost revealing… something, then closing up again. The light— hazy gray and impossible to look at as sun-glare in the desert—wiped out detail in a fuzz of visual noise. Shapes seemed to surge and stream just at the knife-edge of perception, flickering with black dots in the corners of my eyes.

I stopped short and whipped around. More of the same. I quailed, gripped by vertigo, and swiped at my eyes as if I could wipe my dimming vision clear and find the way out.

I turned again, but the alley had become an unending plain of cloud-stuff.

I shouted, "Where are you? Where are you!" Panic rushed my breath. I staggered backward in circles, panting and calling.

Something murmured, "Be quiet or it will hear you."

I spun toward the whisper. A face had formed out of the thick atmosphere, glowing with a pale, internal light—a soft-edged human face, but with no defining factors and no real color, just a thicker, more luminous density of the wavering not-mist. My heart stuttered in my chest.

I shook and stammered, "Who are you?"

"I am… I. I am… he. I am she…"

I didn't care about philosophy. I waved a shaking hand in front of the face. "Strike that. Just get me out of here."

The face murmured and began to dissolve. "Shhhh… be patient." The formlessness distorted and writhed as if unseen snakes rolled within it, dragging the face back into its depths. I was alone in my pocket of the haze-world.

A shriek and a moaning howl ripped the thickened light. Shudders racked my spine. Something screamed back. A shape bulged out of the mist, brushing hard against me, spinning me.

A maw of dripping teeth snapped at my head, rushing ahead of a toiling blackness that drove a wave of shock through the mist. It turned, drawing a shape to it, gathering itself—massive, dark, with a snarling, eyeless head. A mane of bone spines whipped the smoky light. It screamed, lunging.

I caught its scream and stumbled backward. Then I felt a touch on my head and another on my chest that resolved into a shove. The unseen force flung me away.

I fell hard onto the cobbled alley. Something roared, and the bright darkness vanished with the sound of a door slamming.

I thrashed around, looking for the black thing or the vile mist. Just an alley, stinking slightly of urine and garbage and spilled beer. Thin wisps of ground fog danced across the surfaces of tiny puddles between the stones, but nothing else.

A door hinge squealed, then trash cans clattered as a busboy heaved bags into a Dumpster next to Merchants Cafe. I swallowed the urge to heave, myself, and slowed my breath. I pulled myself up with one hand pressed on the rough brick wall of the cafe and brushed at my backside, shaking. Pedestrians went past the ends of the alley. There was no crowd of onlookers. No one had seen or heard what I had.

I wobbled across the alley, found my purse, and faltered away.

I quivered as I drove home across the West Seattle Bridge. What-ever had happened was not a momentary visual aberration from a head injury. What was the thing that had lunged at me? Where had I gone? The only word I had for the creature I'd spoken with was "ghost," and I didn't like that word at all.

At home, I scrabbled up the business card that Skelleher had given me from the bottom of my bag. It was ten o'clock, but I couldn't wait.

A cheery male voice answered. "Danzigers'. This is Ben."

I don't know what I'd expected but it wasn't this.

Shivering, I bumbled into speech. "Uh, my name is Harper Blaine. Dr. Skelleher suggested you or… Mara might be able to help me."

"Skelly! Yeah. What kind of help do you need?"

I hesitated. "I… don't know. He thought… you might have some ideas. Maybe I'm seeing ghosts or something…"

"Oh. I see. Yeah, they're annoying, pesky things when you're not sure they exist in the first place."

"Yes! And there's this living mist…"

"Ah. That's interesting. This—these occurrences are new to you?" Yes.

"Hmm." He turned from the phone and I heard a muffled conversation. Then he came back. "Well, I think we can help—at least a bit. Maybe we can help you figure out what's going on, maybe make you a little more comfortable about it. Could you drop by for an hour or two?"

"Now?"

He chuckled. "No, no. Tomorrow. Could you come about. four? Mara will be home by then."

I leapt. "Four is fine. Where?"

"Upper Queen Anne, above the Center. Let me give you directions…"