“Good, I hope.”
“Fella he talked to seemed to think you’re a good hand—if a little crazy.”
I nodded. That would be Solis’s opinion.
Ridenour sucked on his teeth a second, thinking. “Maybe Willow won’t bolt so fast if she sees a woman.... Got a piece on you?”
“Yes,” I replied, touching the grip of my HK pistol for a fleeting moment to be sure it was where I’d put it: tucked into the holster at the back of my hip—I’d never had a lot of luck with shoulder rigs. I hoped there’d be no need for them, but I had a spare magazine and my cell phone in my coat pockets, and I thought I was as ready as I was going to get for whatever Ridenour had in mind. I had no intention of shooting anyone or letting Ridenour do so, either, but this wasn’t my show, and I had to go along with his paranoia if I was going to get a chance to talk to Willow.
“All right,” Ridenour said. “We’ll have to walk up from here. If Strother can make it, he’ll join us in a while, but we need to get a look at the place and see what’s going on. The greenhouse is just below the old observation tower and slightly to the west of the ridge, so anyone up there can’t see us down here, but we’ll have less cover while we’re near the tower. I’ll have to shut off my radio so it won’t squawk, so stick with me, move fast, but stay quiet.”
That was going to be a bit more of a challenge for this city girl than for Ranger Ridenour, but I could always slip into the Grey if I had to. I nodded and followed Ridenour out of the truck and into the brush.
The ice and snow on the ground were harder and thicker here near the top of Pyramid Mountain. It wasn’t the tallest peak in the area, but it was the farthest northwest, and even on the ground it had a mesmerizing view toward the ocean in one direction and back down into the lakes on the other. A spindly wood-and-steel tower poked out of the ridgetop. I guessed it was some kind of fire watch station, but no one seemed to be in it today. Glancing back toward Lake Crescent, I could see a sheet of white reflection off the windows of the Newmans’ house and starlike gleams from the buildings at the Lake Crescent Lodge resort near the Storm King ranger station. I could even spot the blue glimmer of Lake Sutherland from this height and, peering sideways through the Grey, see the thick river of magical energy flowing between the two lakes and sending thin creeks of power out over the ancient landslide toward Storm King Mountain on the east.
Ridenour ushered me off the ridgetop and into a stand of trees, the lower trunks of which were buried in chest-high seedlings and ferns sprouting from an old, dead log. He pointed through the undergrowth to the south of our position and whispered, “That’s the greenhouse.”
I looked through the leaves and saw the low building of wood and glass just on the ocean side of the ridge. I didn’t have the time or privacy to try to look down at the lake again through the Grey, so I concentrated on the task at hand.
The trees around the building had been cleared away when the tower was erected years ago and had not grown back, leaving an open field of low-growing scrub on the rocky ridge. The greenhouse roof stuck up a bit on the east side to catch the early hours of sunlight the ridge would otherwise block.
I couldn’t see into the building, the glass walls being steamed with moisture, but I could see the silhouette of a human shape moving around inside.
I patted Ridenour on the shoulder and pointed him toward the shadow.
“Do you think that’s Willow?” I whispered.
“Hard to say.”
He sized me up again before he said, “I feel funny asking, but would you head down there first? I’ll move around to come from the blind spot on the left of the door. Make all the noise you like. I’m thinking she’ll concentrate on you and maybe even come outside to see what you want. Then I can catch her from behind.”
I shrugged. “It’s worth a try. If she doesn’t come out, I’ll try going in. If I don’t come back out in ten minutes, you can assume Willow’s still in there with me and make your move.”
“I’m beginning to believe that ‘crazy’ thing,” Ridenour muttered as I started off to work my way around to the tower and walk along the exposed ground to the greenhouse. I didn’t have a pack and I didn’t look like a hiker, but I figured that anyone really suspicious wasn’t going to care. If Willow bolted, we’d have to give chase, but I thought I might be able to get inside and talk to her before Ridenour came barging in like the cavalry. Either way, I didn’t think the risk to me was that great—I was just a civilian getting into as much trouble as she was by breaking and entering the greenhouse.
The bare, scraped rock of the mountaintop was slippery wherever there wasn’t a patch of the stubborn, nubbly ground cover that had made a few inroads on the surface chinks and pits. I had to watch where I put my feet, trying to step on the hardy little plants only enough to keep my footing as a chilly breeze rushed over the mountaintop. I hoped the greenery wasn’t some rare species of something Ridenour would have to cite me for trampling. I could see him from the corner of my eye, edging around to his own position until he disappeared behind the legs of the tower. I kept going for the door, making a little ordinary noise and swearing under my breath—as you do when you’re out walking on the top of a mountain and thinking your feet are going to slide out from under you any second.
My angle on the greenhouse didn’t give me a view inside now, but I could see something ripple through the Grey, like the visual representation of a single sonar ping across a dead sea. Willow—or whoever was inside—had noticed me. It would have been hard not to. No one came out to evaluate me, so I stumbled up to the door and pulled on the handle.
The door opened, making only a tiny squeak as the long rubber flap over the hinge rubbed against the glass wall beside it. The warmth of the greenhouse and the smell of mulch and cedar trees made me shiver with pleasure. I hadn’t realized how cold my walk had been until I was inside again. I rubbed my hands together and cast a glance into the Grey, looking for Willow or whoever was lurking in the greenhouse with me.
The power lines of the Grey seemed distant here, deep in the strata of rock and dirt between me and the ocean that looked like a dark blue ink stain spreading to my right as far as I could see. But the zipping, whirring bits of energy I’d seen down closer to the lake were here, if a bit less active and numerous. In the silver mist of the Grey, a whirling column of colored threads and spinning lights, wound in a whiff of scent like incense and hot brass, hovered near the back corner of the greenhouse. It was dense enough to cast a sort of shadow onto the rolling fog of the world. “Get out,” it said.
I adjusted my view and turned my head to look toward the corporeal source of the voice. The young woman occupying the swirling cloud of energy had to be Willow Leung. Her skin was much paler than her sister’s and she was distinctly more Asian in appearance. She also looked a lot younger—mid-twenties—and I wondered about the differences, but not for long. She moved toward me with a swift gliding motion, dodging the long tables full of seedlings like a feather on an updraft, her loose-fitting dress fluttering behind. The balls of energy around her flushed blue and green and glowed brighter as she started to thrust her arms out at me.
I ducked and swung around under Willow, pushing on her arms so I came up behind her. She spun to face me again so fast I was barely straight when she glared up at me. I had a good six inches on her as she dug her bare feet into the ground to hold her balance. “You must be Willow,” I said before she could make another gesture.
Even with her clothes on, she was still easy to connect to the quickmoving woman I’d seen trying to snatch a ghost on the highway with Jin a few nights earlier. The round little wads of energy were exactly the same. I wondered if she always went barefoot, or if she had just dropped her shoes someplace in the greenhouse for the pleasure of digging her toes into the warm, feathery cedar mulch on the floor.