“Maybe you should take a shower and then call Phoebe back,” Quinton suggested. “She left a message on your phone.”
“Oh, damn. What time is it?”
“After ten.”
I cursed and scuttled for the bathroom, confusion and upset pushed aside for more practical concerns. I focused on the routine: wash, brush, dress. . . . I extracted Chaos from my right boot, from which she was trying to remove the insole, as I simultaneously juggled the phone to make the call.
“Hello, Harper.”
“Hi, Phoebe. Did you get the ball?” Chaos gave me a dirty look as I took the insole away.
“Yes. And I want to get rid of it fast as I can. Somet’ing ’bout it make my skin crawl.”
That made me frown as I stood up, watching the ferret attack my reassembled footwear from the outside. “I can be down at the store in about twenty minutes—”
“No. I’ll bring it to you. I just want this t’ing gone.”
Her response surprised me, but I gave her the Danzigers’ address and she hung up.
Quinton watched me. “So she’s bringing it here? Is that safe?”
I bit my lip before answering. “I hope so. I mean, it should be safe for Phoebe. If she’s being followed or something, it’s not so safe for the rest of us, but she was adamant about getting rid of the ball as quickly as possible.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah,” I replied, thinking. Was there something I’d never noticed about the puzzle ball or was it something about Phoebe? Or maybe something about the ball had changed since I’d seen it last. . . . I scooped up the ferret and went upstairs to find Mara. Quinton followed.
It was Saturday, so there were no classes to teach and the Danzigers were both home, entertaining Brian. Or rather, watching Brian be entertained by Grendel in the backyard. There was a lot of running in circles and rolling on the ground going on, in spite of a lingering morning cloud cover that kept the day unusually cool for late May. The adults wore extra layers, but Brian made do in just a shirt, jeans, and sneakers—little boys being their own heaters.
Mara looked up as we came onto the back porch. “Morning. There’s coffee and brekkie in the kitchen if y’like.”
“Thanks. I’ll get it in a minute,” I said. “My friend Phoebe wants to drop something off for me here.”
“That’ll be fine.”
“She may be here pretty soon and I hoped you’d take a look at it when she arrives.”
“Oh?” Mara looked curious. “What sort of thing is it?”
“It’s a puzzle ball—a large one that used to be on a newel post in an old house. It might or might not be part of a back door into the Grey.”
“Now that’s an odd sort of thing to have layin’ about.”
“Will gave it to me. Phoebe picked it up from my condo this morning, but she says it gives her the creeps. It’s never bothered me, but . . .”
“You’re wonderin’ if there’s more to it.”
“Yes.”
Now Ben was watching us too. “You think it could be dangerous?”
“I never thought so, but my place has been empty for a few days and I don’t know what’s been going on while we’ve been gone.”
“Ah. All right then,” Mara said. “We’ll take a look.” She stood up and started inside, tossing one end of her woolen shawl over her shoulder. “Let me get a few things. Ben, don’t let the mud monster into the kitchen without a rinse down.”
“No problem. I have the hose right on the porch.”
I started to follow her and Quinton caught my eye, raising a questioning eyebrow. “I just want a second with Mara,” I whispered and passed him the ferret.
He nodded and sat down near Ben, watching the boy and the dog out in the yard, while the ferret took possession of the table and went hunting for crumbs. I headed for the kitchen.
Mara was climbing a step stool to get to the top of a cabinet. Even with her height, the shelf was well over her head in the lofty old kitchen. “If I toss this down, will y’catch it?” she asked, without turning her head. It was disconcerting that she always knew when I was in the room.
I stopped next to her. “OK.”
She dropped a round black thing about the size of a salad plate toward me. It was heavy and I almost dropped it in surprise. It was a thick disk shape with some kind of black cloth stretched over it and a stubby handle on one side. She made a sling out of her shawl and piled a few more things into that before she stepped down.
I held up the disk. “Why couldn’t you put this in the shawl?”
“Shouldn’t mix with the herbs. Devil to clean off, and if it’s dirty, it shan’t shut down.”
“What is it?”
“It’s an eye. Sort of a magic magnifyin’ glass. But like a convex lens, it can concentrate light and energy. Tends to set things on fire. You can see why I keep it as far from Brian’s busy little fingers as possible.”
“Mara . . .” I started.
She stepped off the stool and laid her hand on my arm. “Don’t vex yourself. I’ve been thinkin’ on what I said before. After last night, it seems to me it’s a bit of omelets and eggs. Things will get broken when there’s wicked magic afoot, and you’ve been the one to take the brunt when it must be done, but it will splatter about sometimes. I don’t say I like it, nor that it’s all right, but ’tis better you do the things you do than that you stand aside and let worse happen.”
This was about 180 degrees from what Carlos had implied. Or was it . . . ? I found myself frowning and shaking my head.
“Never mind. You’ll do what you have to.”
I would have asked her what she meant, but the doorbell rang and, still carrying the eye, I followed her into the front hall. Mara opened the door and started to say hello.
Phoebe, holding a sack and looking horrified, lunged forward, knocking us both down as a shot cracked off the doorframe. The open portal flushed red, the house rang with an alarm, and the door tried to slam closed. Mara and Phoebe were scrambling on the floor to clear the doorway. I was to the right of the frame, on the knob side, and I grabbed Phoebe, the closer of the two, and hauled her to me along the polished floor. Mara rolled away and the unobstructed door snapped closed as a second shot made an odd crackling sound against the scarlet haze between the lintels.
Brian shrieked in the backyard. The house was still making noise. I reached for my pistol, but it was not on my hip. I cursed: I’d left the gun downstairs when I finished dressing.
Mara snatched the eye off the floor where I’d dropped it and pulled the cloth off it as she flew to her feet and charged toward the kitchen. I jumped up to follow her and something crashed against the front door.
“Dat’s him,” Phoebe croaked, her voice and accent were so thick with fear I could barely understand her. “Dat mon what was in your house. He say he gwine t’kill you.”
I pointed at the basement steps. “Go down there and lock the door. No one is killing anyone today. There’s a gun on the bedside table. You hold on to that until I come downstairs for you.” The door bulged and cracked as something rammed against it. “Go!” I gave her a shove along the floor and Phoebe scrambled the rest of the way on her own.
I had no idea what I was going to do. The alarm was still howling and there was noise from the backyard that I didn’t have time to investigate. I cast a quick glance sideways into the Grey and saw the shape of the house touched in crimson at the front and back, wavering as something attacked it both physically and in the Grey. To the rear, two small black shapes wrestled in the center of three white ones with one more white shape and a tower of emerald green bearing down on them. Outside the front, something indigo and red reared back to make another strike at the buckling door.
I crouched, tight as a spring, wrenched the door open, and leapt forward, keeping low and ramming my shoulder into Bryson Goodall’s midsection. He lurched backward into the porch rail. I ducked down and yanked his legs upward, sending him over the barrier and into the rosebushes below.