Greywalker - Vanished Part 15

He shrugged it off, but he couldn't hide his fear of the hungry void behind him. "As you like! I'm not sure what he did-and I'm not sure how she died neither-but he got them chasing after her, dividing their attention, and then he shot himself, made his brains into pudding. They didn't see it coming, so they couldn't stop him and they couldn't put him back together. The Pharaohn punished him for that, but he couldn't use him for his . . . whatever it is he means t'do. Whatever he's been shaping you for since then. Whatever he put that . . . thing into your chest for."

"What?" I was too shocked to keep pressure on him and dropped the cane. He'd confirmed my worst fear and the implication fell like a blow.

Marsden dropped to the ground and scrambled away from the Hardy tree and its aurora of shackled ghosts and blurring, shining energy. He whipped back around, but even shocked as I was, I wasn't falling for his tricks. I dropped and swept his legs out from under him with a low, round kick. He fell on his back and I knelt down next to him, furious, grabbing a handful of the velvety moleskin coat. I resisted the urge to beat him into the ground. Barely. "Don't try it. I'm not as soft as you think I am and I won't hesitate to throw you in there this time."

"I tell you-"

"Save it. As you say, we're out of time here." I hauled him back to his feet. "There is one way they can't follow us. I know you can manipulate the temporaclines, so shuffle up the right one and we'll go back to the ca.n.a.l. Water's a good barrier. We can take the boat out and they'll have a heck of a time getting to us. Now, do it."

"It's not that easy, girl-"

"Bulls.h.i.t. But I can leave you here if you prefer. . . ."

THIRTY-TWO.

The trip back to the boat basin was faster than the walk to the churchyard had been, but exhausting. We pushed our way through the Grey the whole time, and I at least hadn't eaten for hours and felt wretched by the time we emerged into the normal on the ca.n.a.l side. It might have been less dreadful if I hadn't kept thinking of Wygan and everything that spun out from that.

Wygan was the Pharaohn-ankh-astet. He had to be. He'd tied a bit of Grey into my chest. He'd pushed me. He'd . . . shaped me. He'd tried again and again to make me a bit more dead-I knew this, but I'd never thought there was a plan behind it all. That it had been going on since . . . forever. Since my dad died. Since before that. It hadn't occurred to me. What a fool I'd been.

And now what was he up to? If the asetem had influenced Purcell and that had resulted in Jakob delivering the charmed note to Will, then it was the asetem-and Wygan-who were behind Purcell's disappearance and the destabilization of Edward's control in London as well as the kidnapping of Will. But why? How did any of that fit with Wygan's plans for me? It seemed too elaborate just for a ruse to get me out of Seattle. . . .

Seattle. I felt sick as I wondered what was happening in Pioneer Square, down in the dark where the dead are. And Quinton. It was where Edward held power, but things were falling apart and vampires were attacking one another with tools built to look like Quinton's. I couldn't breathe; my chest felt crushed in a grip of icy steel, squeezing my heart. I wanted to cry with fear for Quinton and my home, but I couldn't let Marsden see me fall apart. I didn't think he was completely on my side and he'd take advantage of any weakness.

My impulse was to flee back home and save my lover and my friends if I could. But I didn't know what was happening or even if my fears were grounded. I knew there was something happening here, in London, but I didn't know how it connected to Wygan or to Seattle, except that it had to and Alice had to be involved. She'd worked for Wygan before. If he'd saved her from the fire, then she owed him everything, and Wygan being what he was, he'd make sure she paid him back.

There was a link between Seattle and London, between my father and me, and the vampires of both kinds-and they all came together in a single plan of Wygan's. Before I could stop it, I'd have to know what it was. I couldn't just run back to Seattle half-c.o.c.ked with hostages left in London, business left undone, and Alice walking the night. I had to move faster, but I couldn't be stupid about it. What was I supposed to do for Wygan that Marsden couldn't-that my father was supposed to have done but hadn't? And what was I going to do about Will? I had to get him back-the rest be d.a.m.ned. It was a nightmare. Wygan running the asetem, who seemed to be central to the whole puzzle of who and what I was and what was happening now. Alice in Wygan's debt. Alice who hated Edward and hated me more. If she had Will, I'd have to negotiate with her or find a way around her. . . . It all whirled in my head and left me fatigued and unquiet.

Michael had the boat warm and lit when we arrived. The sun hadn't been down long, though it felt like hours to me.

"Sorry," Michael said. "There's no food. And I'm starved." He looked me over. "You look awful." "Thanks."

"Umm . . . no, I mean . . . ummm . . ." He gave me a significant look and touched the corner of his mouth. I touched mine and felt something sticky. Blood. I didn't recall having bit my lip or been hit in the mouth, but there it was.

He pointed the way to the "head" when I asked: a compact little room-cabin, I guess-with a small toilet and a shower and a sink with a metal mirror over it. I looked like I'd been dragged backward through a wood chipper, and I had no idea how I'd gotten so filthy, cut, rumpled, and bruised. The shower was very tempting, but I put a hold on that and settled for washing my face and finger combing the worst of the rats' nests from my hair.

When I'd washed and brushed enough dirt and anxiety off, I snuck out into the kitchen, listening to the lap of water on the hull and the mutter of Michael and Marsden outside, and paged Quinton. I left an urgent reply code and hoped he'd call soon. I waited but no call came.

I forced my fears down and rejoined Michael on the aft deck. Marsden was sitting on the edge of the railing as if he'd jump off and vanish any second. He might at that, I thought. I put one hand on his nearest forearm to keep him still. His skin was cold and felt like paper.

"Michael, do you think you can get this boat moving?"

He gave me a puzzled look. "Sure . . . but why?"

"Some things don't like water. I'd like to reduce the number of things that might show up unannounced. I think we've had enough for one day." The G.o.ds knew I had.

"Oh. OK. Yeah. The fuel gauges show full, so I suppose we could go a while if you want." "Any place we could tie up and buy food?"

"Umm . . . I think there are a couple of inns and pubs that have docks in both directions, but it's a bit late for the shops."

I glanced at Marsden.

"Head for Little Venice-we shan't have to go through the lock," he said, his eyes darting about and not meeting anyone's.

Michael pottered around and had the boat ticking happily away within ten minutes. I helped cast off, forcing Marsden to stay aboard. I still had a lot to discuss with him, and I didn't trust him, but he seemed disinclined to swim for it.

Sailing in the dark on the unlighted ca.n.a.l was eerie. Only our quiet chuffing and the lap of our wake bounded from the brick embankments. Light reflected off the water's surface from buildings and distant sources, and streamers of colored Grey power lines drifted, distorted by the waves, just beneath us. Occasionally, eyes peeped at us from corners of the towpath or within the water itself. I told myself they were cats and fish and reflections, not the luminous saucer eyes of Jakob's kin.

The boat moved along the ca.n.a.l for less than an hour before Michael spotted a lighted building above the dark jut of a small dock. As we drew near, it became obvious that the restaurant was floating on the water, moored to the ca.n.a.l side, on a long barge. Another narrow boat and a small motor cruiser were tied up to the water side, but Michael reversed the engine and our yellow vessel stopped a foot or two from the float. I grabbed a mooring line and jumped across the gap as someone trotted out from the restaurant and offered to help tie us in. With his help, we were safely docked within minutes. We were in luck: since it was Friday, the place was busy and not inclined to close any earlier than it had to. I sent Michael in with the stranger to get a table and order some food. I hooked my hand into Marsden's collar and kept him beside me on the boat's stern.

"Now," I started as soon as Michael and our a.s.sistant had gone inside, "tell me more about my dad and the Pharaohn-ankh-astet and his followers."

He heaved a disgusted sigh. "You'd be better off out of it."

"I like to know what I'm into before I bail out. So start talking and I'll make up my own mind. Or I can pitch you in the ca.n.a.l and see how well you swim."

THIRTY-THREE.

In the darkness of Regent's Ca.n.a.l on that cricket-serenaded summer night, Marsden chose to talk rather than let me teach him to swim. I guess he knew my technique would involve a lot of holding him under. "The asetem-ankh-astet are a type of vampire," he started.

"I figured that out from what Sekhmet said. What makes them special? Why do you seem a bit more freaked out about them than Edward's kind?" Not that I wasn't, but I wanted to know if my heightened fear near them was just my problem or if it was their effect on everyone.

"They have a glamour of terror. And they feed on more than blood."

"All of them do. Sekhmet said these feed on souls-the ka, she called it."

"Not that I've seen, but I suppose you could think of it that way. They dine on emotional energy-on the psychic component."

"Isn't that just another kind of Grey power?"

He scoffed. "That's anexpression of the energy. Blood's just a . . . a fuel source, so t'speak. What makes the Pharaohn so hideous is he eats, he breathes, he lives chaos. It gives him power beyond the ordinary vampire sort of guff. He breeds mayhem, havoc, and destruction. He uses his people to create it through devastation, death, pain, terror . . . whatever it takes. Y'can imagine other vampires don't care for that."

"Yeah. So what?"

"The current Pharaohn seems to have some longer-range plan in mind that involves the Grey itself. Something that either breeds chaos or feeds on it to do something else. He's been looking for a tool that'll make the Grey . . . flow the way he needs it to-a Greywalker with a special ability plying it as he directs, in the right place. We're a rare enough bird as it is that he decided not to wait until the right one come along but to grab a few and see what he could do by force. You could say he's been working on his technique awhile at our expense.

"Your father was a particularly favored experiment of his. Fortunately he ruined the Pharaohn's plans, but he left you behind for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d to try again."

"And the Pharaohn punished him for escaping. So you said. What did you mean by that?" "You ever talked to your dad? To his ghost, I mean?"

"No. I tried but it's like there's a hole where the ghost ought to be."

Marsden nodded, his lank hair swinging. "Because the Pharaohn's got 'im bottled up somewhere. He's got a hole like that Hardy tree and stuck 'im in it."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Hemade a hole like that? I thought vampires didn't have any magic." "He didn't make it. They just happen. He found it, or moved it. And he shackled your dad's ghost with torments and stuck him in it to scream and suffer till he's got something better to do with him." I tightened my grip in anger without thinking, pressing Marsden against the boat's stern rail. "How come I didn't see the guardian beast around the tree then?"

"What?"

"When I got near where my dad should have been, the beast turned up. You know it?" "Course! Rattling thing of bones and ghost-sinew. Nasty temper." His mouth quirked at one corner. "I don't like that."

"It's not high on my hit parade, either."

"What did this hole look like? Like the tree or different?"

"Very different. It was more like a fire around a core of emptiness. It was a million colors and it was completely silent. The guardian beast didn't want me to go near it."

"Colors. That is trouble. Means the white worm's figured out the beast's weakness. The guardian's got a bit of a vision problem, see? Sequences of certain colors cause it confusion and blindness. Whatever he's up to, the king of worms doesn't want the beast anywhere near it."

"Because the beast would destroy it?" I remembered my first meeting with Wygan as he sat in his broadcast booth, a rack of colored lightbulbs flashing randomly. Now I knew they'd kept the guardian beast at bay; Wygan was already a threat to the Grey and had to hide from the monster that patrolled its borders. Whatever he was planning had to be pretty bad.

Marsden nodded again. "I'd bet my life."

"Then why doesn't the beast come after me?"

"Think it reads minds, do ya?" He scoffed. "Got no reason to until you do something to threaten the Grey. So long as you're not doing nothing, it's not interested in you, no matter how weird your psychic shape is."

"My what?"

"What do I look like to you? In the Grey?"

"Like broken gla.s.s and mirrors-colorless, moving shards."

"As I should-I'm neutral to the Grey, as most Greywalkers are. But you are bright white to me-all the colors at once. You're active to the Grey-you're tied up in the living Grey itself because he tied you to it, didn't he?"

I nodded while saying, "Wygan is the Pharaohn-the 'white worm-man' my dad wrote about. What's he up to?" My voice sounded like poison.

"I've no idea, but it will affect the Grey-else why would he need a Greywalker for his dirty work?-and he'll move heaven and h.e.l.l to get it. He'll burn you out like a candle."

"As if you care what happens to me."

His face twisted into a fearsome expression. "I care what becomes of us all, girl. You've a lot of bra.s.s, but that's not enough-he's three thousand years old and a lot more cunning than you. You're a bit of flash paper-a fuse-for his bomb. You may have that gift of persuasion, but it's not going to work on him. You can't fast-talk him into changing his mind."

I shook my head as if flinging water from my ears. "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about now?" Marsden growled and whipped his head side to side as if he were looking for watchers. "You think it's just something everyone does? Do you?"

Now he had me frowning. I didn't know what he meant, but I was annoyed by his tone. "It's your particular talent," he went on. "We've all got one or two-us in the Grey. You are unnaturally persuasive. Didn't you ever notice that everyone answers your b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.ned questions more readily than most people's?"

"If I was any good at persuasion, why didn't I get my mother off my back a lot earlier, hm?" "Maybe y'didn't really want to."

"And maybe you're really full of s.h.i.t. It's just a psychological trick. I was taught it in college," I growled. "It's not some kind of magic-"

"b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. You got better at it; you learned a new way to pretend it wasn't special. You learned how to endure, how to act like everyone else, how to blend in, how to lie to yourself so you could lie to others. That's what you're good at. And look at what you use it for: snoopin', pryin', doin' other people's dirty work-"

I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "Shut up!"

"You should be home. You should be putting paid to that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Wygan and whatever he's up to, not chasing after Edward Kammerling's blasted fantasies-that is, if you really think you can." "It's all connected, you blind idiot! You're such a know-it-all and you can't see that? I don't know how it all fits together, but I won't leave until I do! And I'm not willing to sacrifice others to save my own skin!" I shouted, shoving him over the rail. I startled myself with what I'd said and the heat of the anger that had forced it out.

Marsden flipped over and sprawled on the dock, slowly rolling onto his back, laughing at me. "You're madder than what I am. You think you need to stay on Kammerling's good side? Need to keep on with your charade of an investigation? Or are you afraid-"

"I want my friend back!" I spat. I leapt off the boat and squatted down beside him, holding him down on the dock with one hand. He didn't try to rise but skewered me with his eyeless glance. I met it and didn't flinch at the eerie sense of vision from those scarred hollows. "I don't give a c.r.a.p about Edward's business except how it might be part of Wygan's plan. Iknow it's all connected: Vampires took Will Novak and I want him back. I will leave when I have him or when whoever took him is back in their grave forever. And I don't care about your warnings, or the Pharaohn's lackeys, or the threats of stone G.o.ddesses. Do you understand?"

Marsden just lay still and said nothing, his empty eye sockets gleaming a transient blue. "It's a key."

THIRTY-FOUR.

I jerked Marsden up to me from the surface of the creaking, darkened pier. "What?" "It's a puzzle," he replied in a distant voice. "That is a key. A key to an enigma. That is the way. A . . . door at the center of a labyrinth." He shook himself and sagged onto the dock. "Will you b.l.o.o.d.y well unhand me, girl? You've got the d.a.m.ned thing in your pocket. I'd like to see it for myself." "What d.a.m.ned thing?" I asked, eyes slitted.

"The puzzle. It belonged to your dad, yeah? It's in your pocket. Show it me!"

That was when Michael stepped back out onto the dock and stared at us, lit from behind by the lamps of the floating restaurant. "What are you two doing? If you're going to kill each other, can you do it later? There's food in here and I, for one, want to eat it. Are you coming in or not?"

"Lad's got a better head than either of us, I think," Marsden mumbled. "Food first, eh? Fight later." "Don't tempt me. . . ." I muttered, letting him up.

Marsden brushed at his moleskin collection and straightened his clothes. "I shall still want to see that puzzle."

He started into the restaurant and I followed him as he followed Michael. "What's it got to do with saving Will?" I hissed under my breath.

"Nothing. It's for later. If you insist on being a b.l.o.o.d.y heroine."

"Don't start."

He cackled and ignored me until we reached the table. We eased into our seats and kept an ugly silence while we fell on the food Michael had ordered. Meat pies, salad, bread, and beer vanished and I didn't even taste it. Marsden and Michael did theirs in with equal speed, though they seemed to enjoy it more. Marsden finally leaned back and patted his mouth with his napkin before holding up his gla.s.s for a refill. As we waited for the new round, Marsden put his hand out on the table palm up. "C'mon, girl. Show it me."

Glowering, I brought the little metal puzzle out of my pocket and put it on Marsden's palm. "What's that?" Michael asked.

"It's a puzzle my dad used to carry around. This guy seems to think it's important."

"It is," Marsden said, fidgeting with the puzzle. He didn't bend his head to look at it. It wouldn't have done any good, but the effect of him scrambling the puzzle with deft fingers while he kept his head tipped back and his wrecked eyes turned toward the ceiling was still unsettling.

He grunted and scowled. "Here," he said, forcing it back into my hands. "You'll have to do it-it only likes you." He put his hands over mine.

I wasn't sure why he said it liked me-objects rarely have any "feelings" about people one way or another-but this one did seem to . . . fit me better than it had him. Maybe because it had been my dad's, but I doubted that was the only reason. Where or when had my father gotten it? Somewhere in the Grey? But he couldn't have. He would have said something about it in his journal. And it seemed to me he'd always had it, as far back as I could remember.

Marsden's cold, dry touch guided my fingers. I repressed a frisson as the metal links slid into positions I'd never seen before, making low, sure clicks with every change. The little puzzle gleamed pale blue until something fell into place. Then it blazed gold and settled down to a dull humming in my hand that felt like a fistful of bees. Yet another strange link between my past and the present.

It didn't look like a key-actually it looked more like a mutant fork or a lock pick-but the satisfied sensation it gave off left me with the conclusion that it was pleased with its current shape and ready to do something. I wouldn't call it alive or sentient, but the odd, flat p.r.o.ng I now held did seem . . . ready for something, even eager.

The thought left me uncomfortable. My dad had never made such a configuration with the puzzle that I'd seen. If it was something only I could do . . . was that a sign of the direction in which Wygan was pushing me, of the purpose to which he'd already bent me? I didn't like that. It stunk of Fate and Destiny and a lack of free will.

I pressed on the last puzzle piece that I'd moved and bent it back until it clicked again. The golden glow drained away, and the whole thing faded back to an inert collection of metal parts as I shuffled the surfaces around and wondered what it was meant to do. Or I with it. Besides the useless drivel Marsden had spouted on the dock, that is.

Michael had watched it like a hawk does a mouse.

"Did you see something?" I asked.

He hesitated. Then admitted with a drooping head, "No. I was hoping . . ."

"Haven't you seen enough uncanny stuff for one day?"

Michael shrugged. "Not so much, really. I mean . . . there was Will-that thing that wasn't Will-and the Tube station. . . . Everything else is just creepy stuff you and this guy have told me."