Poltergeist

CHAPTER 30

There was a different clerk at the counter of Adult Fantasies that night: a slim young guy with curly blond hair cut so close to the scalp it had become a riot of cowlicks. As I walked toward him, the chilly reek of vampire hit me. I stopped and squinted at him, seeing a cloud of red-swirled smoke dancing around him through the Grey. His black T-shirt read, "Don't make me send my flying monkeys after you." His violet eyes sparked when he caught me reading the words and he smiled with an expanse of sharp white teeth. "Hey, Harper.”

I hadn't recognized him until I saw the unusual eyes; he'd changed a lot from the crippled newbie vampire I'd found in a parking garage. "Cameron. How's it going?”

"Mostly it's going good—except for the occasional dead guy. Carlos is a demanding teacher, and I… I miscalculated on that one. I really owe you for checking him out." A big, ugly pause swelled between us.

He tilted his head side to side with a wry expression. "It freaks you out that I killed someone, doesn't it?”

"Yeah. I remember when it would have freaked you out, too.”

He nodded, eyebrows rising. "Yeah. Sometimes I forget you're not like me. We went through so much together it feels like you ought to know everything I know.”

"I don't want to.”

"I get that. But this you should know—I didn't kill him, or he'd have sat up again the next night. Its kind of a complicated thing—”

I put up my hand to stop him. "Please don't explain it right now.”

He looked surprised, blinking, then shrugged. "OK.”

"I just need to see Carlos.”

"He's out, but he said you can wait in the office, if you want." Cam pointed, a thick scar flashing white on the underside of his wrist. He noticed my gaze, but said nothing about it, just dropping his hand and giving me a vague smile that kept his paranormal presence in check. "He should be back soon.”

I nodded and headed for the storeroom door, banishing speculation about the weal on Cameron's forearm. What Carlos was teaching him, and how, was none of my business and nothing I wanted to know.

I could hear the thumping of sexually suggestive music from above as I wedged myself into the chair in the stockroom office. It was a few minutes past eight o'clock on a Saturday night and the peep show upstairs was just hitting its stride. I considered propping my foot on one of the boxes to relieve my irritated knee, but thought I'd rather not display such obvious disability to a vampire, whenever Carlos got down to me. Cameron had made no comment on it, though he must have seen it, just as I'd seen his wrist.

I forced my mind from that and wondered what level of trust was implied in being allowed to lurk in the gloom with a safe full of quarters and small used bills, in a room filled with boxes packed with thousands of dollars worth of sex toys and bondage gear. Of course, it could always mean that Carlos had put some sort of necromantic curse on the goods that would reduce a thief to a lump of rotting flesh.

I shivered at the thought and dropped a hand onto my knee to check for heat. If rot was imminent I'd expect it there first.

I closed my eyes a moment, acknowledging the day's exertions. I'd been in and out of the Grey three times since morning, brushed it again just minutes ago in Cam's presence, and felt close to exhaustion now. My knee and shoulder ached, though not much worse than a lot of nights when I'd still been dancing for a living. The mild headache and vague nausea were more upsetting, since I associated those with Grey things, for which there was no pill. The nausea worsened and a chill pressed upon me just before the door opened.

I opened my eyes to see Carlos glowering down at me in speculation. His gaze rested on my knee a moment.

"Your quarry plays rough.”

"You could say that." I paused as he moved inside and closed the door. "Cameron seems well. . ”

He waved that aside as he stepped back to the desk but didn't sit. "I have very little time for you tonight." He kept his eyes on me, but without the ire he'd displayed last time. Now he was merely impatient.

"I don't need much. I've found the master of the poltergeist and trapped the thing itself in a bottle. I don't believe that's much of a solution—”

His eyes gleamed. "A respite only.”

I nodded and went on. "In theory, lack of input from the group will weaken it enough to dissipate, but I don't think I can wait that long. It has been suggested that dispersing its property and burning its image will break it down faster, but that's a guess. I have to get rid of this thing as fast as possible and you're the expert. Will you tell me what to do?”

He rumbled, thinking, no doubt sizing the situation up for his advantage. "Dismantling the setting where it was made—its place— will weaken it only.”

"Better than nothing.”

He inclined his head in acknowledgement. "This entity is no true ghost, so I can't help you in this directly. So long as the thing's master continues to feed it, it will maintain its cohesion. Even while it is in your bottle. So long as he finds it useful, it will remain, even if the others withdraw from it. It will be weaker without them, but to get rid of it requires an act of destruction. Its true existence lies in the Grey, so it must be dismantled there. That falls to you.”

I gave him a tight, insincere smile. "I didn't want to hear that.”

He shrugged, rolling black clouds of cold from his shoulders.

"The guy who controls this thing is a psycho and he's loose in the city somewhere, gorging himself on the thought of revenge as soon as he can get this thing back. I don't know if he realizes it's gone yet. .

"It isn't gone. Only blocked. But he knows that, the same way you would know if all of this" — he swept his hand around my head, gathering up strands and shreds of ghost and Grey—"were gone from your sight.”

He caught my sour expression and looked amused at it. I shook it off. "Then I hope he's waiting for it to come back and not deciding to go ahead without it. I'm guessing that he's stalking his ex-girlfriend and lying in wait near her home. As soon as he has an opportunity, he'll try to kill her.”

"All the better reason to dismantle this entity soon," Carlos replied. "He gains skill every time he uses it and draws more power, through its connection to the ley line. Here's what you will do.”

He sat down at the desk and dashed notes on a sheet of loose paper, talking as he did. "You control the entity for now and it won't interfere. First, destroy the artifacts—all that pertains to it, everything its contributors have branded as its own. Smash them, break them, burn them. If they cannot be destroyed, they must be separated. Take everything from the room and spread it far and wide.”

"I've got someone to help me with that tomorrow.”

He nodded without looking up. An itching urgency rippled through the Grey to me. "You will have to isolate the weakened entity in the Grey to dismantle it. Talk to your witch friend. Request a charm from her that traps time—she'll know how to make one. With it, you will create a trap for the entity and decant it from the container into the trap. While it is held there, you can dismantle it. This instruction will help you. The charm won't last long. You will have to open the creature and step into its center—this construct appears chaotic but it is not, and only when you are in the center will you be able to see the structure. You must sort through the entity's structure to find the control strand that holds and gathers it. Without its control strand in place, it will have no cohesion.”

He looked up suddenly and caught my gaze with his own. Knives and arctic wind cut me and my stomach heaved. "You should recognize the control—it's like your own connection to power. While the structure is open, the construct will drain more than simple energy if it can. Be very careful of your own connection to this creature—it will attempt to feed on whatever is at hand and it will fight you. There will be limited time. The charm can only hold the creature for a while, so be swift. If you're still inside when the charm expires, the structure will try to return to its original shape, trapping you within. I don't know what will happen to you if it does. It may cripple you. It may drive you insane.”

He paused, thinking again.

"I suppose the worst-case scenario is that I'd be dead," I muttered.

Carlos grinned a wolf's smile of white daggers. "Merely and simply dead might be preferable. But this course is the only chance you have. You can step out of the structure at any time while the charm still works, but once it burns out, the entity will close and return to its master. It will be much wilier the next time you meet—unless you can break its master's control. Then it will be ignorant and easily tricked. But I doubt you'll have another opportunity to take it. Better to attack it now, while it's stupid.”

He finished scribbling and handed me the sheets he'd filled with long, spiked script.

"How am I supposed to dismantle it? I don't see anything about tools here," I said, glancing through his instructions.

He scowled. "With your hands.”

"Grab onto those power strands and just. . pull them apart?" I didn't like that idea. "I'm not even sure I can.”

"You can do more than you realize," Carlos stated.

But did I want to? I had a bad feeling that touching the power lines of the Grey—let alone manhandling them—would effect yet more changes, and I'd never been happy with any change the Grey served up to me. A dozen other thoughts occurred to me about the possible repercussions of trailing through the Grey, looking for a place to trap Celia long enough to break it down to its constituent parts.

"I've been ducking in and out of the Grey all week and it's not entirely inconspicuous," I objected. "This may draw a little attention, even if I can find a quiet place with the right kind of Grey landscape to do it in.”

He looked amused. "Tomorrow is All Hallows Eve. No one will find your actions so strange on that date.”

"All right," I acknowledged. "But there is one more problem. Even if I dismantle this one, what's to stop this young psychopath from building up another, or co-opting some loose entity if he runs across one? The Grey's a free-for-all of monstrosities for anyone who knows how to reach in and grab one. And if he doesn't know now, he'll figure it out damned quick.”

Carlos inclined his head and the desk lamp's sickly glow unveiled the monster's mask. And then he smiled one of his ice-light-on-steel smiles. "He'll have to be broken of the habit.”

I shuddered at the sound of that. I might have no choice but to let Carlos at Ian, but I had to try to maintain control. Starting now. "He'll have to be distracted first," I reminded. "Once the genie is out of the bottle, he'll know and he'll try to use it.”

Carlos had narrowed his eyes and acquired an unpleasant Mona Lisa quality. "I'd like to meet this young man. . ”

"That doesn't surprise me. If you can get to him, you're welcome to try.”

He chuckled and the room rolled. "Show me where he is." He stood up, expectant and looming over me like a storm.

I kept my seat. "I don't know that yet. And I am too tired to fight this thing again tonight. You may have just crawled out of the crypt at sundown, but I've been up to my ass in alligators for twelve hours. Besides, there are other things to do first.”

He lowered his unpleasant gaze. "True. Tomorrow will be. . strange.”

I couldn't—and didn't wish to—imagine what Carlos considered strange. "No doubt. Give me a direct number to call you when things are ready—telephone tag through Cameron is annoying.”

Another seismic chuckle moved the room and he handed me a card from the pocket of his leather jacket. I refused his offered hand and got out of the chair myself. I had no wish to visit hell, and touching his hand would have been the express route for me. He found that amusing, too, but he walked me to the door and let me out.

"I look forward to tomorrow.”

"I'll bet," I replied.

His mouth quirked, and he plucked the bright strand of Grey that linked me to Celia. "Take care, Blaine." Then he turned away and returned to the home of live girls and undead clerks.