A Dream Of Stone And Shadow Part 11

"The FBI called me. I only happened to mention you were out of the state, investigating another potential connection to David Yarns. And gee f.u.c.king whiz, they were more than happy to a.s.sist."

"Convenient. How did you even know where to send them? The exact address, I mean. You must have given them something more than just Darrington."

"Do you remember that I was going to send Max down to the precinct to attempt a surface scan of David's mind? Turns out there was a connection between your pervert of yesterday and your pervert of today. A big one."

"She's the boss," Aggie said softly, making the intuitive leap.

"Maybe, possibly. You'll need to tell me one day how you knew."

"Ghosts and angels," she murmured. "More mystery than you can shake a stick at."

Aggie disentangled herself from Emma, and with a quick, "I'll be right back," walked a very short distance away. Amiri inched closer to the girl. Aggie saw Emma place a tentative hand on his shoulder.

"Good kitty," she said.

"Roland," Aggie said. "We have to do something about Emma, the victim in this. She deserves better than an FBI social worker and foster care."

"Doesn't she have family?"

"Her mother's dead. I never talked to-I never talked about whether she had other people to take care of her. I've got a feeling, though, that she's pretty much alone."

"s.h.i.t. Aggie-"

"No," she said. "Find a way."

"For what? Do you want her?"

Aggie swallowed hard, thinking about the possibilities, what that would mean. She looked at the girl and saw the future fan out, and for a moment it was like seeing her own fate, her own probabilities; like last night in her home, being slammed with an image of this girl in need. Only now, the girl in her head still had need, but different. Just as important.

"I don't know," Aggie said, quiet. "But she needs something more than what the system can give her. I know it."

There was silence on the other end, and then, "Okay. I'll figure it out, make some calls. That's why we have those expensive lawyers, right? We'll make it happen. In some variation. But Emma will have to leave with the FBI today. That can't be helped. "

"I know," Aggie said. "Thank you, Roland."

"Whatever. You and the boys, though... good work. Really f.u.c.king good work."

"Good boss."

"That's right," he said, and hung up.

Aggie went back to the car and snuggled up next to Emma. She thought about both their futures. Amiri sat still. Quinn trudged over from around the house and joined them.

He took one look at Aggie's face and said, "You okay?"

"No," she said. "But I will be. I need to go away after this."

Emma stirred. "Charlie."

"Yes."

"He's my ghost," Emma said. "My friend."

"He's mine, too," Aggie said. "But he's lost now, and I need to go find him. I need to do for him what he did for you. Take him away from the dark place."

"Can I come with you?" Emma asked.

Aggie shook her head. "You'll need to go with the police today, but that won't be for long. You'll have a better place to live. Safe, with good people."

"I'm scared," Emma said.

"I know." Aggie put a hand on the child, soothing, calming. "You have a right to be, but we'll take care of you. I promise." She gestured to her colleague, who had just appeared. "This, Emma, is my friend Quinn Dougal. He gets kind of cranky, but he's a good person."

"You're little," Emma said to him, with the simple honesty of the very young. "But you don't look like a kid."

"No," Quinn said kindly. "I'm a bit older than that. Humans just come in all sizes, that's all."

Emma still clutched Amiri's shoulder.

"What's your name?" she asked him, and he told her, and she liked that.

Time pa.s.sed. The FBI and police took their statements, and then they took Mrs. Kreer and her son. And sometime after that, as the afternoon stretched into evening, they took Emma.

Before the child left, she reached out with her skinny arms and pulled Aggie in for a hug. Emma smelled better after being away from the bas.e.m.e.nt-like sunlight and sweet gra.s.s-and when Aggie pulled back to look into her eyes she saw a hint of green that she had not noticed before. A flickering light that was pure and shot full of spring and leaf. Otherworldly, almost.

"You'll find him," Emma whispered, with a conviction that was quiet, more confident than her years. "You'll find Charlie."

"And when I do?" Aggie found herself asking, compelled by strength of the child's voice, the heartbreaking sincerity of her old, old gaze.

Emma brushed her fingers against the corners of Aggie's eyes, and for a moment the air seemed to shimmer, and the child said, "You'll see."

And that was the end of it. Aggie watched her go and felt like another piece of her heart was breaking. She had never realized she could feel so much for others in such a short amount of time. Charlie, Emma. There was something wrong with her. She needed to turn something off.

No, she told herself. Don't you dare. Your isolation is over. All you need now is courage.

"What are you going to do?" Quinn asked, coming up to stand beside her. He took her hand and held it.

"I'm going to find him," Aggie said, glancing down at her partner, wondering if she would ever be able to tell him the whole unbending truth. "One way or another."

Quinn and Amiri returned to California that evening on the private jet, but Aggie did not go with them. She drove back down to Seattle. She did a lot of thinking. She did a lot of listening to herself.

When she got to the airport, she bought a ticket to Scotland.

Chapter Seven.

It took her a month to find him, and even then it was by accident.

Or not. Aggie was never quite certain.

From Seattle to Chicago, and from Chicago to Glasgow, a hop, skip, and a jump. She entered that city and saw that Charlie had been right: it was big. But if a gargoyle could die and leave his body to save a girl and fall in love, and if shape-shifters could walk the earth, changing from animal to man while psychics banded together under the auspices of a detective agency with a really cheesy name, then anything was possible. Anything at all.

She parked herself in a nice hotel on the edge of George Square, the heart of the city. People ma.s.sed, the crowds ebbed and flowed, and from a bench she could watch faces and futures, seeking always blood and sand, and a man who was not a man but something more than human.

She listened to the futures as she walked, too, which was how she spent most of her days. Up at the crack of dawn, and then down to the street where she would stay out until all hours-much to the chagrin of the hotel staff, who always said when she came back through the lobby, "Please, dear, it's not safe, this city isn't safe for young women at night." And Aggie knew this, but no place in the world was safe for anyone, and she kept on prowling, looking, searching.

There were endless paths in Glasgow; the buildings were old and the streets older, the architecture rich and fascinating. She went to Glasgow Cathedral and the Necropolis, hunting for witches amongst the holy and the dead; at the University of Glasgow she talked to historians, delved deep into libraries for clues on haunts and gargoyles, found legend, lore, wondered sometimes, too, if the men she spoke to were not gargoyles themselves, hiding in plain sight. She scanned the local newspapers for anything out of the ordinary-strange deaths, odd sightings, lights in the sky-and she sat in cafes and pubs and watched and watched and watched.

And even then, she got lucky. Or not.

A month after Aggie arrived in Glasgow, she found the witch sitting at an outdoor cafe behind the Gallery of Modern Art, sipping tea. She knew it was the witch because she recognized the face. Aggie, standing on the sidewalk, temporarily lost her mind. Froze up. She saw in her head a pleasant modern kitchen, something cooking in a pot. She did not see anyone who could be Charlie, but perhaps that was yet too far ahead in the future.

But there it was: her. Aggie did not know what to make of the witch. She was, by any definition, a lovely woman: thick brown hair, a delicate thin face punctuated by luscious red lips and two black eyes. A little doll. Given what Aggie knew of her, she was not that impressed.

Aggie waded past waiters and diners and sat down at the witch's table. The woman did not look at her right away; she read a book of poetry by Carl Sandburg. Aggie waited. She was patient. She watched the woman's shifting future.

The witch finished her tea. " 'Broken-face Gargoyles.' It's a very good poem. Have you ever read it?"

"No," Aggie said.

"Oh, you should. It's quite beautiful." The witch put down her book and looked Aggie in the eye. She had a powerful gaze, but Aggie remembered Mrs. Kreer, and this was not as bad.

"You smell like him," said the witch.

"That's some nose you've got," Aggie replied.

The witch's lips thinned. "I was referring to energies, darling. Although you do have an odor. Not bathing much lately, are you."

"I've been busy."

"Yes, I know. You're in love with an a.s.sociate of mine."

"How interesting you know that. I've been looking for him."

"I know that, too. Would you like me to take you to him?"

"If I say yes, will I be writing my own death?"

"Oh," said the woman, and her red lips curled, just so, like petals. "I can think of something far more interesting than mere death."

"That's good," Aggie said. "Let's go."

The witch lived in the Merchant City, a place where Aggie had spent quite some time. Apparently the wrong time, because she certainly had not seen anything that would indicate a witch keeping house with a captive gargoyle.

But there, at a warehouse Aggie remembered pa.s.sing on at least three separate occasions, the witch pulled out a set of keys and said, "Mi casa es su casa."

"That's quite all right," Aggie said. "I think you have enough people in your home."

The witch smiled-and her teeth are white and sharp, and the pot bubbles as she says, "Have a bite, you'll like this, since gargoyles are to your taste"-and a shift, a-knife that she holds-and-blood-and pushed open the door. Aggie, blinking, reading violence and sickness and death, followed her up the stairs.

The home was surprisingly mundane. The kitchen was dressed in steel and black and gray, with splashes of red tile; fruits and vegetables covered a long wood table. Something boiled on the stove. Aggie remembered gargoyle, and her stomach hurt.

"So," said the witch, as she put away her book and purse. "Let's get down to business. I a.s.sume you've come to fetch Charlie."

"Yes," Aggie said, and the future spun yet more blood, more viscera; the knife in the witch's hand was long and sharp. The probabilities were high. Aggie was going to die very soon.

The witch made a humming sound. Aggie wondered just what the limits of her powers were, but she decided the woman was not a mind reader when she said, "I can't imagine what you plan to offer me-or even if Charlie would go with you. He has his brothers to think of, and I simply won't allow them to leave. It's a matter of pride."

"I don't know anything about his brothers," Aggie said, "but I do understand Charlie's loyalty."

"Yes, I suppose you do." The witch wandered to the stove. "Are you hungry? I think you might like this. Charlie... made it."

Aggie thought, I am going to f.u.c.king rip you apart. But instead she said, "No, thank you."

The witch smiled. She opened a drawer and picked up a knife, pressed the tip of it against her palm until she bled. She spoke a sharp word. Aggie felt the hairs on her body lift. Aggie saw in her head-bullets. .h.i.tting the witch's chest and falling harmlessly to the ground-the knife darting quick at her neck, blood spurting-her heart in the pot, cooked with gargoyle in a soup-and variations of the same: Aggie fighting, Aggie screaming, Aggie being killed. The witch always deflecting her blows with a smile.

Except for one time. One precious variation.

"You're scared," said the witch. "I can see it on your face."

"Yes," Aggie said. "You scare me. Does that make you happy?"

"I suppose so, though it also disappoints me. I... studied you, when I discovered Charlie's fascination. Very tough woman. Macho, even. Take no prisoners. And you are different"-she tapped her head-"up here. All of your friends are different."

Aggie said nothing. The witch tilted her head. "I have been entertaining guests lately, people who are like you. They also work for an organization. For a time, I thought perhaps yours was one and the same."

Aggie buried her emotions, the conflict those words stirred in her. Only recently had the agents at Dirk & Steele discovered they were not alone. The other side-and there appeared to be several groups, all rivals-was dangerous. And if one of them was trying to recruit this woman, who was so patently cruel and powerful...

We're in deep s.h.i.t. They're one step ahead of us, and we don't even know we're in a race.

"Where's Charlie?" Aggie asked. "I want to see him."

"A kiss before dying?"

Aggie did not answer. The future had suddenly gone dark inside her head. Book closed, probabilities lost. Her gift had copped out on her, and again, at the worst time.

Remember what you said? You're making your own future now.