“Dad said something about keys, puzzles, and labyrinths. I need to find a labyrinth. But I have a key and a puzzle—a puzzle ball actually, but it’s kind of Grey, so it seems like we ought to start there.”
“Maybe it’s not a physical labyrinth but a magical one,” Quinton suggested.
“Possible. Dad said the puzzles were doors. Maybe the puzzle ball and the key make some kind of door into the labyrinth.”
“Worth a try. Where are the puzzle ball and the key?”
“The key I have with me. I got it in Los Angeles and I’ve been carrying it ever since. It was my dad’s. It looks like one of those pocket puzzle things—the wire kind—but when I shuffle it around, it sometimes becomes a sort of magical key. I used it on a door in the Grey while I was in London. A prison door. I had a run-in with a ghost there. It . . . stabbed me.”
“Stabbed you? How?”
“I don’t quite understand it myself. It was a wraith, really, so kind of a special case, and we had to be in the Grey to get out of the prison—it’s condemned now and the only way out from where we were was blocked in the real world—so . . . a little Greywalking was in order.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“Marsden and me. And Michael.”
“Michael Novak . . . can do that?”
“No. Not normally. But I guess when you have a critical mass of Greywalkers and enough plain old-fashioned fear behind you, you can drag someone normal into the Grey. Kind of. Enough at least. I wasn’t stopping to analyze it at the time. Maybe it was Marsden’s ability—I don’t know. Apparently I have the gift of persuasion. People and things do what I want—at least more often than usual.”
“That’s useful. Go on.”
“So we needed out and the door was locked—”
“No, about being stabbed. I get the rest. This ghost cut you.”
“Wraith. Not a ghost of a person, really. A kind of evil remnant of something. A Grey thing. Anyhow, yeah, it cut me with this knife it made out of the Grey, and apparently that’s all it took to start . . . infecting me.”
“With what?”
“According to Carlos, I can—or will—bend magic. I don’t do magic; I just might be able to move the conduits of it around. Shape the weft, he says. And that, according to him, is what Wygan is after. It makes sense to me as much as anything since Wygan clearly wants some kind of power and is doing something the Guardian Beast opposes—it attacks him whenever it can—so it has to be something in or affecting the Grey. He’s figured out how to confuse the Beast by using colored light. That’s why I shot out the lightbulbs in the studio—those were the gunshots you heard.”
“All right. So you’re getting more powerful in the Grey, and you have some ability to shape things, even if you don’t actually cast spells or anything. And this is useful to Wygan in whatever his plan is. So you want to know the plan before you get stuck in it and that means talking to your dad . . . who is in some kind of magic prison Wygan made?”
“Basically. Not precisely, but close enough. If I can find this back door, I can get to Dad. But I need the puzzle ball. Which is in the condo.”
“Well, that’s going to be fun.”
“We’ll have to break in.”
“You have keys: You don’t have to break in.”
“I’m sure there are still asetem watching the place.”
“For you, yes. Not for other people.”
“But they will be watching for you, so no go on that idea.”
“What about your neighbors?”
“Rick’s probably still staying at his sister’s.”
“Other neighbors?”
“Not really friendly with them.”
“Friends you could ask?”
“Not many. The Danzigers are on the watch list, too, so that’s them out of the picture. And there aren’t a lot of other people I trust in my home . . . except Phoebe.” My shoulders slumped a little and I sighed. “She’s not going to like this.”
Phoebe was my oldest friend in Seattle. I’d met her on a rainy afternoon when I’d hidden in the back of her used bookshop to look through the rental listings. Short and round and fierce as a mother wolverine where her friends and family were concerned, she’d kind of adopted me on first sight. I still had no idea why. We’d had a rough time of our friendship when I’d ended up investigating the death-by-poltergeist of one of her employees, but she was still the closest nonmagical female friend I had.
“She’ll do it, though,” Quinton said.
“Yeah, and if she has any trouble, I’ll hear all about it.”
“Yes. But she’ll still let you come to dinner because that’s how she is. You should call her.”
I was doubtful and frowned. “It’s pretty late.” And I was both tired and afraid I’d babble something inappropriate.
Quinton shot me a disbelieving glance. “It’s Friday and the shop stays open all night. If anyone’s up keeping the drunks from sleeping in the Sociology corner, it’ll be Phoebe.”
I know when to stop fighting and, well, he was right. Unless she was sick or mourning a dead friend, Phoebe never missed Friday Happy Hour at her bookstore, Old Possum’s Books and Beans. I hunted my phone out of my bag and poked the speed-dial button for the shop.
Of course it wasn’t Phoebe who answered the phone but one of the minions; Phoebe was busy stalking the stacks. I waited on hold for a minute or so, trying not to listen to the whispering chorus in my head.
Phoebe’s words danced out of the phone on an island rhythm. “Hey, girl! Where you been? Poppy told me t’have you come t’dinner last week and you weren’t home.”
“I was in London on business.”
“So, you back now. When you comin’ up here?”
“Uh, well . . .”
“Don’t be sayin’ you’re not comin’—and you bringin’ dat man of yours, too. Or Poppy’s gonna skin us both.”
“I would love to accommodate your father, but I am currently in a bit of a jam.”
“Oh? So you’re callin’ me to get you unjammed?”
“Yes, I am. See—”
She cut me off. “No, no. No, you don’t. You come up here and ask my face. I’m not lettin’ you sweet-talk me over the phone. ’Sides, I got some things to show you anyhow.”
“All right. We’ll be there in . . .” I glanced at Quinton, not sure where we were.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said.
I told her.
“All right then. See you both,” Phoebe answered before hanging up.
“She’s in a mood,” I warned.
“I guessed. What’s up?”
“I have no idea. So long as it’s not vampires, I think we’ll be OK.”
“I haven’t heard of much weirdness in Fremont—beyond the usual kind.”
I hoped that was true.
We looped around and got back to Fremont in a reasonable time, but finding a parking space on a Friday night was a bit trickier and we were a little late. Phoebe wasn’t in a condition to notice, though: She was glaring at a guy in a trench coat and blocking the door when we arrived—she’s not very tall, but Phoebe’s evil eye can stop rampaging elephants in their tracks.
“You callin’ me a liar, Mr. Thief?” she demanded. “You sayin’ you ain’t smugglin’ some pussy in your coat?”
The patrons of the shop giggled and the miscreant blushed in shame. He wasn’t very old and I guessed he was a college student doing something foolish on a dare or a drunk.
Phoebe softened her scowl and put out her hands, beckoning with her fingers, palm up. “Hand it over, before the poor thing suffocates.”
Slump-shouldered, the guy pulled a black-and-white kitten out of his pocket and gave it to her. Phoebe snuggled the kitten, who was purring nonstop, and stood aside to let the cat-napper make his escape. “Next time, try da pound!” she shouted after him.
She saw us standing outside and waved us in. “Come on in da back,” she said, handing off the kitten to the minion behind the counter. The kitten was shelved in “returns” and went back to purring mindlessly between the books as we followed Phoebe into the back of the shop, toward the espresso machine.