“Some type of magical entanglement would be my guess. I suspect the puzzle balls have a similar relationship once they’re open and operating that entangled subatomic particles do. And there may be a series of points between them that are congruent in space-time, effectively making the puzzles doorways to all of those as well as any point one of them occupies. It’s possible that other paths in the second ball’s maze lead to other points of congruence in the Grey. Good thing you had that little skein of ghost to mark your way or you might have gotten lost and popped out in the wrong place.”
“I owe you for suggesting it.”
“I didn’t.”
That gave me a hollow feeling inside. I’d heard a voice distinctly and imagined it was his. . . . I shivered and didn’t want to think more about what had spoken. I would have to be very careful about which advice I listened to in the Grey from now on. But I did have an idea. I’d have to discuss it with Carlos, but I thought I had a way to put him out of Edward’s—and therefore Wygan’s—control without their knowledge that it had happened. I didn’t like my part of it, but if I was going to stop the Pharaohn’s plans, I needed Carlos on my side, free to act, not compelled to obey.
In spite of the sun suddenly piercing into the Rover as we headed down the western slope of the pass, I fell asleep somewhere east of Monroe and stayed out until we were past Edmonds, just north of Seattle. I woke up to the smell of hamburgers.
I blinked and rubbed my face, trying to clear the sleep and soften the noisy babbling of the grid in my head. “What’s this? Where are we?”
“Outside a McDonald’s in Mountlake Terrace. I thought we’d better figure out where we’re going before we hit Seattle.” He held a sack out to me and pointed one finger at a drink cup sweating in the console cup holder. “And eat, since it’s now almost six and breakfast was ten hours ago.”
I grunted as I adjusted my posture in the passenger seat and unlatched my seat belt. “I didn’t mean to sleep like that.”
“It’s all right. You needed it. You need food, too. ’Cause I was thinking that if you’re being drawn into the Grey’s power system, then blood may not be the best conductor, and maybe you’re replacing blood every time you’re injured with something . . . non-blood, and you might be a little anemic. Thus: hamburgers. Rare meat might have been better, but I couldn’t find a drive-through steakhouse in the area. See: That’s something the U.S. really needs. Cow-n-Carry: for steak on the run.”
“What’s it on the run from?” I asked grabbing a wrapped burger from the bag. The smell of hot, greasy ground chuck, usually a bit off-putting, was making my mouth water.
“Probably from these guys. Also all manufacturers of gelatin, leather products, and dog toys.”
“I’d say you’re killing my appetite, but right now, I could probably eat at an autopsy.” I folded back the wrapper and took a large bite of the steaming burger.
“Now you’re ruining my appetite. Autopsy? My delicate sensibilities are offended.”
“This from a man who accepts payment for work in mystery beer.”
“By its nature, beer is safe—it’s alcohol—so long as it’s still sealed.”
“Beer. I wonder if a couple of beers would make these guys in my head shut the hell up. It’s like living downstairs from a rehearsal hall.” I smacked the glove box in a four-four rhythm. “Smile, smile, keep the line. Three, and four, and do it again!”
“Do choreographers all sound like that? Or is it just in movies?”
“Yes. They all want to be Bob Fosse or George Balanchine.”
“So . . . you’re feeling a little better . . . ?”
I smiled in spite of the clamor in my head. “Yes.”
We finished up our food and I took over the driving to head back into Seattle.
“Where are we going this time?” Quinton asked.
“Remember how Dru Cristoffer mentioned Edward’s wards?”
“Yeah, something about using the bypass idea to get around them.”
“Yeah. I figure, even crazy as she is, she’s not wild about having the Pharaohn in charge of magic—which is what it sounds like he’s chasing—so she gave us a hint on surviving long enough to stop him. If we can get past the wards, Edward’s bunker is the most secure place for us and the least likely to be under any attack by Goodall or anyone else. Goodall’s burned his bridges with TPM as well as Edward. By now, he’s on the security blacklist, so he won’t be coming to visit and Wygan pretty well can’t. But we can. I’m still on Edward’s pass list, or I was the last time I went there and it’s unlikely the head of building security would take me off it on Goodall’s recommendation. So we go to TPM and see if we can get into the bunker. It should have almost everything we need, except food.”
“What about the ferret and the dog?”
“Better off where they are. If we go to fetch them, we may pick up a tail, and unless the Danzigers are in trouble, they’re safer without our presence. I’ll need to contact Carlos again and make some plans, but I can do that from TPM.”
“If we can get in.”
“I have a key, but I don’t know if it will still work to get into the building. And after that we can only know by trying.”
TWENTY-FIVE
It wasn’t quite that simple. The key did get us into the parking structure and the building. Getting past security was a little more complicated: I was still on the pass list, but the key cards I’d taken off Goodall were dead and I didn’t have an appointment with anyone. Finally, a late call to one of Edward’s many secretaries produced a pissed-off young woman with interesting marks on her wrists and blood in her eye. Her name was Carol Linzey, and she fixed a glacial glare on the current chief of security and signed me through. Then she handed me her own card to the lower level and elevators before turning back to flay the man with a whiplash tongue and language you don’t expect out of the mouths of executive assistants for making her come downtown to show him how to do his job right. She dressed him down about everything from his lack of protocol or common sense to his hairstyle and he cowered as she did. I’ve heard milder manners from felons and parents in custody battles. I’d prefer the felons.
Down below, the elevator lobby in front of Edward’s bunker was empty. It was not, unfortunately, any quieter in the Grey. Normally I found the magic in that area muted, but as we faced the inner doors the chorus of the grid broke into a warring cacophony of advice and warning. “Shut up,” I muttered.
Quinton cut me a curious glance. “What?”
“Them,” I replied, shaking my head and tapping on my temple.
He frowned. “Have to do something about that.”
“That would be nice. . . .” I said, distracted by my study of the problem before us. I had Carol’s card to open the door, but I knew the wards hadn’t been told to let me in. The card alone wouldn’t get us past them or the other nasty things that had been twined into the protective magic around the portal. I doubted I could shut down the wards on the door itself, but I could get the door to open automatically if I could reach the key reader.
A secondary loop of protective magic circled the doorway and the card pad. I’d seen an invisible eye above the reader and the snapping teeth of something hungry under it the first time I’d come with Goodall. That monstrosity was right where I’d have to put my wrist to use the card, exposing the vulnerable skin, veins, and tendons to the horror beneath. Whether the card worked or not, I thought that the dreadful biting thing would rip open the arm of anyone it didn’t recognize or hadn’t been told to admit and I wasn’t sure it felt friendly toward me. I’d seen it take a chunk out of Goodall while he was still on the security pass list. Since I also qualified as a potential threat in both the normal world and the Grey one, I was more than a touch reluctant to put my flesh near the disembodied thing in the wall.