Possession (23 page)

“I have to agree,” I said, “but what is the cause and what the effect? What I’ve seen so far, aside from the state of the patients, is disruption of temporaclines and a rise in magic and ghost activity associated with the tunnel project, which is definitely connected somehow to the patients; James Purlis’s Ghost Division, which I can’t connect to the patients because I don’t know exactly what he’s up to; and the disappearance and death of homeless people, which I can’t connect to anything magical yet, but you seem to. If Quinton were here, he’d probably say it’s a system of some kind—but not necessarily erected deliberately. There’s too much energy in the system—I’ve seen temporaclines out of place, repeaters far from their tied locations, ghosts that can hold a soul out of its body. . . . The energy required to make those things happen is massive and it has to come from somewhere. Disruption releases ghosts and other energy—both the tunneling and Purlis’s project are disruptions but I don’t know if they are connected. If they aren’t, which disruption is powering which anomaly? If they are, what’s the connection?”

Cameron waved Carlos aside so he could see me better without the other vampire in the way. I appreciated the relief from the stomach-turning proximity. “Isn’t it more likely that these problems are all of a piece? If you apply Occam’s razor it would seem they should be—it’s the simplest answer. That would imply that solving one part of the problem will make the rest reducible.”

“You sound like Quinton,” I said. “If you’re suggesting that ‘solving’ Purlis will break the problem down to something easily managed, I’m doubtful. It certainly couldn’t hurt to get him off our collective back, but that could make the situation worse, judging from what Carlos was saying earlier.”

Carlos nodded. “It would be best to avoid killing him—much as it may pain me to say so.”

“I appreciate that. I’ll keep an eye out for your missing dhampir and if I get any ideas about Purlis’s location, I’ll let you know, but for now I’m going to concentrate on the problem of the spirit manifestations and let the rest come as it may. I have to help my client and the other patients—time is against me on that. Besides, I keep thinking I’m hearing the Guardian Beast rattling around nearby and that’s the last thing I want coming down on me for not fixing this problem.” Dead pseudo-relatives and their repercussions in the Grey held considerably less horror for me than the thing that prowled the verges of the world between worlds.

Cameron yawned and looked startled by it. A glance at the view beyond showed the sky just the least bit paler to the east than it had been. “Perhaps—” he started.

“It may be a good time for me to leave,” I said. “I’ll be in touch if anything comes up on the Purlis front, but I don’t know when.”

“That’ll do. We’ll continue to gather information from our sources, too. And I’ll keep your case in mind.”

I stood up, feeling shaky but trying to hide it. “Oh. If I need to contact either of you, how should I do that? I assume you don’t drop notes at the shop anymore. . . .” When I’d first met them, Carlos had been managing a porn store in the Denny Triangle area, but it seemed unlikely he spent any time there now. The length of the sunny summer days complicated the situation by shortening the vampires’ operating hours as well.

Cameron stood and took a card from his pocket. He glanced at it, then offered it to me. “Any of these will do.” I had an old cell number for Cameron and I was a bit surprised to see that still on his card, though it was well down the list.

Carlos gave me a wolf’s smile. “You know mine.”

I shuddered to remember, but I did. I hoped to avoid ever going near his place again. I accepted Cameron’s card and saw myself out, wanting to avoid any intimate conversation with Carlos about my ghostly manifestations. His fascinations were strictly morbid and I would have enough trouble sleeping in spite of feeling nearly somnambulant.

I didn’t see the guard on my way out. Had I not known there were people with guns loitering in the hedges, I would not have guessed it. Seeing my rearview mirror flood with the rose-colored light of dawn, I wondered what had possessed a vampire to own a house that faced east, into the killing sun, but I didn’t imagine I’d ever know.

As I rolled down the hill and headed back through the university, I thought about the tangled strands of attachment that Carlos had said linked me to Quinton and to all of his family besides. I didn’t doubt his identification—Carlos had the skill to do it and no need to lie to me—but I did consider the direction in which the line had pointed—two primary strands running together while two or three others, more slender, wound off to the east, vanishing in the darkness of distance. Wherever the two thicker threads ran, I would find the elder Purlis and probably Quinton nearby. I didn’t like the implication that he was so closely entwined with his devious father, and I didn’t know how to see the thread again or in such detail, so I hoped it wasn’t a permanent situation. It might have been a bad idea to cut a thread off completely, but surely I could pick a few apart. . . .

At home I let the ferret out to romp while I showered, improbably imagining I could wash the traces of the message off my skin. Mostly the too-hot water made the rest of me equally red, which was almost good enough. Chaos bounced into the bathroom and hoisted herself onto the edge of the tub, taking a stroll along the shower curtain, chuckling at me for my folly and sounding remarkably like she was chiding me.

Still feeling itchy, but at least a bit more warm and pliable, I put on a fluffy bathrobe and wandered barefooted into the kitchen, pursued by the ferret. I mourned for the dinner I’d lost and warmed up some soup to fill the void in my middle. I ate and fended the ferret off from my bowl, but lost a chunk of bread to the marauder as we wrestled for control of the slice of chewy seven-grain. “Pest,” I said as she danced around her prize in glee. I still felt hungry, even though I’d eaten plenty of food, but I didn’t have more, since I hoped to fall asleep soon. The state of my nervous energy was unlikely to allow that, but I wished for it anyhow.

In spite of myself, I fell asleep on the couch while the morning selection of talking heads jabbered about the upcoming Independence Day festivities and what we should all be cooking on the grill. Chaos has no interest in people on TV, so I didn’t get a dose of her tiny cold nose or tickling whiskers in my ear until someone started talking about protecting your dog from being frightened by fireworks and she felt I needed to pay attention. Not that she had ever paid any attention to fireworks, but she apparently felt I should take note in case our neighbor Rick needed them for managing Grendel, his pit bull. Grendel was easily upset by things that went “bang.”

The whiskery snuffling in my ear woke me and I put the carpet shark back into her cage and dragged my suddenly listless self to bed. Alone. No sign of Quinton—not that I’d expected him after he’d said he wasn’t coming . . . or I had and I was lying to myself. I was far too used to his presence and I had to admit that one of my primary reasons for despising his father was the way he stirred up Quinton’s sense of imminent danger and pulled him away from me. Pure resentment, that’s what I felt—well . . . and disgust because Purlis Senior believed in Ideals without pausing to think of people. No. On second thought, I just didn’t like him. I wasn’t up to hate yet, since that required a depth of passion I didn’t feel for the man at this point, but “healthy dislike” was well in the ballpark.

My thoughts went round and round as I lay in bed, not quite sleeping and not quite awake. After a few hours of nonsleep, I gave in and got up again. My injured eye didn’t ache and itch as it had the night before, but the annoyingly persistent Grey vision remained. I used my ointment and drops and thought I should probably call Skelly—once this case was over.

I considered taking the ferret along, but I thought it was going to be a long day and didn’t like the possibility of her getting hurt if I had any other confrontations with monsters or ghosts, so I put her back into her cage before I left. I got a glare for my trouble. “I’m just trying to protect you,” I said. Chaos was not impressed.

I drove up to Pioneer Square and left the Land Rover in my parking garage so I could walk around and find out if any of the street people had seen Twitcher recently or could tell me why he’d relocated to Steinbrueck Park, or who else might be missing. Or if he was dead, as a small part of me I did not want to listen to kept suggesting. Cameron’s mention of the homeless had made me worried. I knew quite a few of them—by sight at the very least—and had spent a lot of time with some a few years back when I’d been looking into some deaths in the area. A few of them were criminals, some were injured or addicted, and some were crazy as a quilt full of mice, but most had just been screwed over by circumstances and were doing their best to get out of the situation. I was fond of some of them. Others I’d be happy to leave alone. Pretty much the way anyone would feel about any group of people. These were just more transient and desperate than most. I grabbed a cup of coffee from the bakery and started on the rounds.

The historic district was looking pretty decent these days. A lot of junk, rickety kiosks, and general bad design from the eighties had been cleared off and in spite of the economy the place seemed a little cleaner and more prosperous than it had in a while. There was still plenty that was old and dirty and scary, but the overall demeanor of the area was not as broken down as it had once been. The construction of the new seawall and the tunnel, as well as the phased demolition of the viaduct, was taking a toll, and in spite of the summer boom, it wasn’t as crowded as it usually was this time of year. The merchants were doing enough business to keep their doors open, though—for the most part. There were more empty shop fronts than there had been in 2008. Clouds overhead scurried by in a haphazard parade, casting shadows that passed on after a few minutes to let the sun through. It wasn’t a bad day to be outdoors, looking for people.

I had some luck pretty quickly, since the bakery has a door onto Occidental Park—a popular place for the homeless with its high tourist flow and its odd nooks in which a smallish person can easily hide from the persistent rain. So long as the homeless are clean and don’t cause any fuss, the cops around Pioneer Square mostly leave them alone during the day. The authorities step in if someone complains or if the situation is dangerous, and they make a point of checking on the “regulars,” if they can, since it’s useful to have the homeless community on your side when you need information about things happening on the street. Things still looked odd to me since my left eye continued to see through the Grey more than the normal, but when the sun cut through the clouds, the effect was much easier to ignore. I found one of my best informants leaning against the wall outside the bakery door: Sergeant Sandy. She’s an elderly woman with a small wire shopping cart always in tow who claims to be an undercover police detective, but no one at SPD has ever heard of her. So she’s either the deepest-cover agent in the Western Hemisphere or she’s just a half bubble off plumb. She would have made a good detective, though: She’s observant, patient, and almost unnoticeable. On seeing her, I ducked back inside and bought a cup of tea and a roll stuffed with ham and cheese.

I walked outside and held out the cup of tea to her. “Hello, Sergeant Livengood. How is your duty going today?”

She took the cup with a grateful nod as the sun hid for a moment behind a cloud. “It’s a little slow. This unpredictable weather’s been keeping the subjects indoors a lot. How are your cases doing?”

“Pretty much the same. I was looking for Twitcher. I’d swear I saw him up at the market a few days ago. Did he move on?” I took the roll out of my pocket and offered it to her.

Sandy sipped her tea and took the roll. “Thank you.” She took a discreet nibble and thought while she chewed and swallowed before addressing my question. “Twitcher . . . ?” she confirmed, then shook her head. “Couldn’t be. I’m afraid he died a while back.”

I had hoped to hear something else, but I hadn’t really believed I would. Confirmation of suspicion saddened me. “It must have been someone who looked like him. What did he die of? Was he outside?”

“Oh yes. He went back to Western State for a little while, but they let him go again and he came back, but he seemed to be having some kind of problem with his digestion after that—they may have poisoned him, you know. They don’t like admitting how many folks they kick out to fend for themselves.”

In my experience, all homeless develop a streak of conspiracy theory if they’re on the street long enough, whether they start out a little paranoid and freaked out or not. The hard part is figuring out when they’re right and when they’re confabulating. It was entirely possible that Twitcher had been poisoned—and equally possible that he hadn’t. I’d have to check with other sources to find out.

“Has anyone else moved on or died recently? Like, since December?”

“Oh, there’s always a few on the move all the time. As you know. There’s been a few deaths, though. Winter was rough and with the economy so down, it’s been a little harder to stay fed and dry.”

“Who died, aside from Twitcher?”

She kept her eyes moving, watching everyone but me as she answered between sips of tea. “Samuel died a few months back, and Ron—you know, the one with the stick people.”

“Any idea how?”

“Not sure about Samuel, but Ron was hit by a truck in the alley behind the Indian place. Not a great loss. Upset the poor trucker something awful, though. Wasn’t his fault, of course. Ron was lurking around the trash bins, probably planning to rob the cab when the driver got out to make his deliveries—he’d done that before—and stepped out before the guy’d set his brakes. Got crushed into the wall, the fool.”

I made an acknowledging sound. No one had been fond of Ron. He’d been a leering, unpleasant man who made figures out of sticks and scraps and intimidated tourists into buying them so he’d leave them alone. Such a death wasn’t pleasant, but it was hard to feel much sadness for the passing of a man who’d stolen from anyone he could take advantage of and had the habit of groping any woman he could reach. He’d been in and out of jails, just skirting a long sentence several times. He was, as Sandy had said, not a great loss. It appeared I’d get no more from her, though; she was focused on other people and giving me only the selvage of her attention.