Greywalker - Vanished Part 6

Mother glanced at the photo. "Oh, I took that. You loved that ridiculous hat and boots your grandfather gave you for Christmas. He said you were a real little cowgirl and you decided to wear them all the time. I never could understand it: You hated the ranch-a girl after my own heart-but you loved that stupid cowhand hat."

"Cowboys are cool. Cows are not. At least when you're three."

"Trust me, sweetie. Cowboys may remain cool but cows never get better."

We both giggled, which was very odd to me; when you've gotten used to despising someone, sharing a joke with them feels weirder than bathing in gelatin.

A few pictures later I stopped and stared at a snapshot of a bunch of teenagers and younger kids goofing off in bathing suits on a river-bank. Yet another execrable Blaine family photo complete with spots and smears, except that this one showed me and a pretty blond girl with a long ponytail-longer than mine had been when it was caught in the doors of my fatal elevator-standing off to the side with our arms over each other's shoulders in the cla.s.sic Best Friends Forever pose. We were thirteen or fourteen in the photo, and she was the girl whose watery specter had accused and harangued me through my flight to Los Angeles.

I held the photo out to my mother. "Who's this? With me?"

Mother took the photo and glanced at it. Then she put it facedown on the table and frowned at me. "That's your cousin Jill. You don't remember her?"

"No." Well, at least not from that photo or that age. I could recall a younger girl named Jilly who I'd liked, but not this living version of a dead teenager. And yet the photo indicated a close friendship. How could I forget that?

My mother sighed. "This is so painful. Jilly drowned. About three days after that picture." "What happened?" I demanded.

Mother recoiled a little from my tone. "I just told you: She drowned."

"How?"

She put her hands over mine and squeezed a little. "Oh, baby, I know you don't want to remember this-maybe that's why you made yourself forget Jilly. Are you sure you want to hear this . . . ?" "Yes, Mother. Tell me what happened."

She swallowed, looking down at the concealed picture. Then she licked her lips and drew a long, slow breath. "Well . . . You and Jill . . . wanted to swim in Danko Pond, down at the bottom of your uncle Ron's property. Do you remember that?"

"I think I remember the pond-it had a little dock someone had built for a sailboat no one ever sailed." She looked up and met my gaze with hers, her brow puckered in concern and unhappiness. "Because the pond wasn't safe. There were snags and holes down there and current from the river that came in underground to feed it. But you girls wanted to prove to the boy cousins that you were as tough as they were, so you two wanted to swim in the pond. We all said no-the parents, I mean-so of course you and Jilly snuck off to do it anyway."

"And Jilly drowned."

"Baby. You almost drowned, too. If it hadn't been for Jilly's hair floating on the surface, they wouldn't have known where to look. Ron and your cousin Grant got you both out from under the snag, and you were both not breathing, and it was so horrible-" She started crying but she didn't take her eyes off me. "You started coughing up the water as soon as Grant picked you up, but Jilly . . . She didn't." "Was it my fault?"

"Oh, no, baby! No! It was just a stupid, stupid accident. If we'd all just not made such a big deal about that stupid pond, you wouldn't have cared and the boys wouldn't have cared and it would never have happened. Now you see why I get so worried about you and your crazy job? You're my only baby and I almost lost you once!"

Under any other circ.u.mstances her melodramatic hypocrisy would have made me indignant-she hadn't shown any such concern while I was in the hospital after having my head knocked in-but right then I was too stunned. "How many times has this s.h.i.t happened to me?" I muttered.

My mother stared back at me with tear-reddened eyes, her makeup running down her face. "Just the once, honey."

I grabbed the photo. She tried to resist my pulling for a moment. Then she gave up. I stared at the picture, studying it closer than I had the first time.

The spots and smears weren't all just dirt. Some of them looked like tiny blurred faces. Ghosts. Cameras sometimes caught the images of ghosts as they literally pa.s.sed through the thick material of the gla.s.s lens. Some odd property of gla.s.s slowed them down enough to make a kind of shadow on the film beyond. I'd learned this on a case almost two years earlier. The picture was busy with phantoms-although it was also just a plain c.r.a.ppy photo full of dust and sunspots.

I started pawing through the photos we'd already looked at, searching for more signs of ghosts. In the cowboy hat photo, I saw more of them, but they were cl.u.s.tered around my dad. The photo of Dad and Uncle Ron didn't have a wayward column of cigarette smoke: It had a ghost. Picture after picture showed something weird hanging around the Blaine family-mostly around my father and me. Or rather, I realized as I looked again, it hung around my father and only incidentally around me until after he died. Then it was all mine. Was my Greywalking ability some kind of . . . legacy? It still just didn't make sense, but it sent a chill through me.

I needed confirmation, evidence. "Do you have more pictures of me after Dad died? I mean just ordinary photos, not the pro headshots from my resume."

"Well, of course, sweetie." She seemed happier that I wanted to indulge in some vanity and move off the subject of dead cousins.

We dug through the second box in haste, unearthing every photo we could find of me after age twelve. Every one had a spot, a smear, or an impossible streak of light at the least. Several had unexplainable faces peering from the edges. They had become more common as I'd gotten older. I felt sick. Only the professional photos were clear and I'd have bet large sums the photographers had spent a good deal of time in their darkrooms or computer suites removing inexplicable anomalies from my headshots and dance poses. Even candid photos of me at rehearsals and in shows had odd blurs and "tricks of the light" near my figure.

I'd been unwittingly haunted most of my life, and now those things from long ago-forcibly forgotten-were coming back.

FOURTEEN.

As if someone had drawn a cork from the bottle of memory, things flooded back. I did remember long-haired Jill,A smiling and yelling and urging me into all sorts of trouble. Not that much urging had been needed. Rare holidays at Uncle Ron's had been some of the few times I'd spent whole days goofing off with other kids. During the school year my life had been nonstop cla.s.ses-at school or dance studios-rehearsals, and performances, or exhaustion and hiding in my room to steal an hour reading my precious mystery novels.

In the midst of memory, there came a rising nausea, and a sharp pain cut through my left hand. The slicing sensation brought on a bright instant of vision, like a single frame of film flashed on a rough white wall: Will Novak, his left hand severed at the wrist, blood bright scarlet on plaster walls. I gasped and jerked reflexively toward the vision as if I could stop him bleeding.

"Sweetie? What? Are you OK?" my mother asked, startled.

"Fine," I snapped. Then I caught my breath properly and replied in a quieter voice, "It's nothing. Just some kind of muscle spasm. In my hand. Cramp, I guess."

She glanced at my hand clenched in my lap. "Are you sure? I have some warming gel if you want it. . . ." I shuddered at the thought of the smelly companion of so many casual injuries in my youth. "No, thanks, Mother. I'll be fine. Really."

I was as startled by the vision as by the content. It wasn't quite identical to the previous night's bad dream, but it was close enough to be of the same moment. But I wasn't sleeping, and Michael had said there was nothing wrong with Will. Was this what had happened to my father? No. His visions seemed to come only after paranoia. I wasn't paranoid-just cynical. And I couldn't stop wondering what was happening to Will. Was this some kind of portent or just a fab ulation? The logical part of my brain said he was fine, just as he'd been fine when I'd called before, but some terrified monkey part was screeching that he was dismembered and stuffed in trash bins spread across half of central London. I forced the thought away, clenching my teeth at the mental effort. The horror wanted to stay. I'd never had visions before, and I'd been a.s.sured over and over that I wasn't psychic and didn't have the power to see anything beyond what was actually present in the Grey. Still, it gave me the creeps. "Mother, have there been other . . . deaths in this family, like Dad's and Jill's?"

"Good heavens, sweetie, how ghoulish of you!"

"No, Mother, I just wonder if we have some . . . curse."

She tossed her head so her glossy hair flipped and swung. "No! We're not some family from a Southern Gothic novel, for goodness' sake!"

I nodded. I wasn't sure if I should believe her, but surely she wouldn't start hiding things now. She hadn't needed a lot of prompting to tell me about my father's suicide or Jill's accidental death. The frustrated actress in my mother relished the recitation of tragedy.

I'd have asked more questions, but my phone rang and without thinking, I answered it. I could see a message icon from earlier and reminded myself to check it when I was done with the current call. "Harper Blaine."

"This is Carol, Mr. Kammerling's secretary. We're very anxious to have a meeting with you as soon as possible. Would you be available tonight?"

I wasn't sure if I was being ordered around or begged. I'd talked to Edward's various secretaries and a.s.sistants-both the mortal ones and the vampiric-and the tone from this one was a bit less imperious than usual. Of course, she might just be new and not yet used to being the daytime minion of Seattle's top vampire.

"I'm in Los Angeles at the moment," I replied. "Edward will have to wait until I get back. What is he so eager to meet with me about, anyhow?"

"I'm sorry; Mr. Kammerling's instructions don't say. It is extremely urgent, though. I can have a corporate jet bring you to Seattle this afternoon and return you to LA tomorrow, if you like." Corporate jets aren't that big a deal to someone with Edward's fiscal standing, but the urgency was a bit unusual. Time has a different scale when you're three hundred years old, and while Edward Kammerling isn't known for his patience, he's gotten cagier since he's known me. Things in the vampire world rarely need to move at the speed of sound, but if his problem were a corporate, daylight-world one, he had a stable full of lawyers, a.s.sistants, runners, and two-legged sharks to deal with it. This must have been something of the nightsider kind, but putting his cards on the table was definitely not Edward's standard operating procedure in either realm.

I thought I'd test the waters before I committed to anything. "I should be done with my business here tomorrow," I told Carol. "Can't he wait that long?"

"No. He could come to you if it's necessary. . . ."

"He must be desperate."

She didn't reply to that.

I sighed. "All right. I'll wrap this up and come home today. If you can have the plane ready to go at Burbank airport by eight, I can be on it."

With the daylight lingering into the evening hours, Edward and his bloodsucking kind wouldn't even be moving until after nine p.m., so he wouldn't be much put out by my arrival at ten. And I wanted to see just how desperate he was.

"I can arrange that," Carol replied. I could hear her keyboard clicking in the background as she spoke. "The plane will be waiting for you at the executive terminal on Clybourn Avenue. I'll have a car meet you at Boeing Field when you land and bring you to the meeting."

Either Edward was very sure of himself and had already arranged the flight-somehow already aware of where I was-or his secretary had carte blanche to make it happen. Either way, I was impressed and a little worried.

My mother was glancing at me with suspicion as I hung up.

"Are you really leaving, just like that?"

"I have to. And I'm pretty well done here, anyway."

"But you just got here!"

"And I never meant to stay very long. I think I have most of what I wanted."

"I don't understand what it is you needed to know."

"I told you. I wanted to know if there was anything weird about my past-"

"It's not that weird," my mother objected.

"Oh, come on, Mother. Surely it's not normal to have a father who killed himself and a cousin who drowned with you, as well as a boyfriend who was killed in an accident and a near-death experience of your own in the first thirty years of your life. That's just a little too much death and devastation for one woman who isn't in the military or a Tennessee Williams play."

She heaved a dramatic sigh. "If you must dwell on the negative, I suppose it would seem that way." I closed my eyes and breathed slowly before responding. "Yes, it does seem that way. Thanks for your help and understanding, Mother. It's not my choice, but I need to leave tonight. Let's finish up with these photos, all right?"

She stood up and flapped her hands over the table covered with pictures. "No, no. Don't worry about that. I'll finish them up. It's already five. If you have to go, you should get moving. Go, go, go." Ah, the guilt trip . . . I guess my mother hadn't learned that I'd become immune. I took a few of the photos and tucked them in with my father's journals and the puzzle. Then I let my mother chivvy me toward the door. She was mad, but she'd be d.a.m.ned if she'd show it.

At the blue-painted front door-less conveniently located for the carport under which my rental was parked-we paused and stared at each other, already turning back into strangers as we stood. I bent down and kissed my mother's powdered cheek. She was so tiny I felt like a giant.

"Congratulations, Mom. Take care of yourself, OK? And gain some weight."

She bit her lip and smacked my arm. "Don't be fresh." I could see moisture gathering in her eyes. "I'll send you an invitation. And I'll be very upset if you don't come to this one."

"You mean that?"

"Of course! We're not best friends, but . . . I'm still your mother!"

"Undeniably." I nodded, reluctant, but feeling I had to. "I'll come if I can."

She didn't try to hug or kiss me. She just waved me away and watched me go.

FIFTEEN.

I had a h.e.l.l of a time arranging to return the car at Bob Hope Airport, rather than the larger rental stand at LA International, but the company finally agreed to let me leave the car at the smaller airport if I paid an additional fee. Getting out of LA was worth it. I packed up, checked out, and headed for Burbank by way of some more substantial food, since I wouldn't have any time for or interest in eating once I was in Edward's presence.

Sitting in a restaurant in Burbank, I paged Quinton again with a code that requested an immediate callback. I wanted to let him know I was heading back to Seattle as well as the how and why. In a few minutes, my phone rang from an unidentifiable number.

"Hi," I answered.

"Hey," Quinton replied. "What's up?"

"I'm on my way back. Edward's sending a plane for me."

Quinton was silent.

"Yeah," I said, filling in his thoughts. "I don't like that much, either."

"Be careful, Harper."

"I plan to. I'll be in touch as soon as I know anything, like where this meeting he's dragging me to is going to take place."

"How much time do you have before the plane?"

"An hour or so . . ."

"All right then, I doubt it's about me, but you should know before you go in that Edward is probably not my biggest fan right now."

"He's not your fan at the best of times. What happened?"

"Remember I said there'd been more vampire activity in the underground . . . ?"

"Yeah. And . . . ?"

"One of the vamps got a stunner."

"What? How?"

"I don't know. And I'm not sure it's one of mine. I mean, it looked odd, but it was slagged when I got to it, so that might account for why it looked funny."

I marshaled a calming breath before saying, "Give me details. I need to know, in case Edward brings it up."

"Well . . . I've been working on the ghost detector, right? So I was down in the underground with the ferret and the prototype, trying to measure changes wherever Chaos got excited and started doing that weird chasing-around thing she does. Last night the vampires were pretty quiet so I figured it was safe down there, but I heard one of the undergrounders freaking out, so I went that way. And you remember we wondered what happened if you electrocute a vampire with one of the stunners?" "Yeah," I replied. Quinton had speculated that at a higher voltage the device might be capable of taking a vampire out permanently, but he'd been reluctant to incur Edward's wrath by trying it. "What happened?"

"They combust. Violently enough to suck the air out of a small room. It wasn't a problem for the bloodsucker who used it, since they don't need air, but I do. I thought I was next, but the discharge melted the device, and fangface wasn't interested in hanging around after that. I pa.s.sed out for a minute until the b.a.s.t.a.r.d opened the door and let the air back in. But here's the freaky bit: There was no one else there. No undergrounder. Only the remains of the vamp who got shocked-they turn into piles of nasty, wet ash stuff that's pretty disgusting. I think I was lured there so I'd be found with the burned bloodsucker."

"You didn't mention this last night."

"You said you didn't want to talk about ghosts and that stuff and you seemed down, so I figured it could wait."

I thought about it. "You're right. Last night was a rough one for both of us and it can't matter that you didn't tell me then. I know about it now and that's good enough. Did you recognize either of the . . . guys?"

"I'm not so sure about the dirt pile, but the zapmeister looked like one of the uptown floaters-the guys from Queen Anne, not the ones who usually hang out down in the Square."

There were several factions within the Seattle vampire society, small as it was. Technically they all bowed to Edward, but there were always groups trying to undermine him or one of his favorites. The factions shifted constantly, but they tended to congregate by neighborhoods: Pioneer Square; lower Queen Anne near Seattle Center and the s.p.a.ce Needle; the University District; and over in the Central District and southern Capitol Hill.

By agreement, the downtown core was a free zone in which vampires were supposed to keep a low profile. If one of the Queen Anne faction was doing dirty deeds below Pioneer Square, Edward would not be pleased. He wasn't particular about his punishments or upon whom they fell, but he was swift-recently he'd learned to make retribution quickly rather than let situations fester into more trouble. Or give the appearance of weakness.

"What did Edward do about it?" I asked.

"Nothing. He'd love to say I did it and put the arm on me, but he hasn't. He's been very quiet." "That doesn't sound right."

"No. It doesn't. And now he's bringing you back to Seattle on his personal express route, so . . . he's either a lot more upset than he let on, or there's something big distracting him."

"Edward wouldn't ask me to mediate between the two of you, so that can't be it. It's got to be something else."