Seawitch (15 page)

I converse with ghosts and work for vampires; one freakish, talking otter was barely a blip on my personal radar of the weird. That said, the short, swift violence of the moment startled me far more than having even a truncated and garbled conversation with a giant seagoing ferret. Not much fazes me anymore, but the sudden blink of magical conflict did leave me a little unsettled and mildly abraded on my palms and knees.

I sat up with care and peered sideways into the Grey, looking for a sign of what had happened to the otter creature, but the cold depths of the bay were obscured by a scree of visual noise—like the Grey version of a dust devil kicked up in the otter’s wake. I turned my Grey-tuned sight toward the sailboat, but that, too, seemed hidden in a flurry of dimming energetic particles writhing in the water like clouds of agitated, dying krill. I muttered some curse words under my breath and backed away from both the Grey and the precarious, wet end of the dock. I considered walking over to
Pleiades
to investigate the apparent source of the magical flash, or down to
Seawitch
to see if I could get more out of the ghosts, but the fallen night, ringed around with sudden, creeping fog, made me think I’d rather return with Solis in the daylight than face the ghosts of
Seawitch
or, possibly worse, the resident of
Pleiades
alone.

Rattled, I walked back to my car, paged Quinton, and went home.

Quinton had arrived first. Even before I got inside I could sense his frustrated annoyance. He was muttering to himself and swiping at the dishes in the sink as if they had done him wrong. Every angry swish of the scrubber felt like a slap. We’ve had this strange emotional tie for about a year, but while the intensity had faded, the worst sensations apparently still bled through. Quinton was royally pissed and a touch scared and I felt every secondhand stab of it.

“Hey there,” I said, putting down the bell and my bag with care so as not to squish the ferret, and coming over to kiss him on the cheek.

He flinched.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he snapped, throwing down the scrubber.

I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t think so.”

He glared at me. Then he turned away with a jerk. “This hasn’t been as easy as I’d thought it would be—the things I feel, the things I try to shut off in my own head. I didn’t even realize I was this . . . angry about so many things until I started trying to turn it off.”

I watched him and I hurt—my very own ache of sadness and pain for him, not just his upset turning inward and stabbing us both. “It hasn’t been a problem at my end. I don’t want you to shield me from your bad parts; I want you whole—bad things and all. You know I’m not any good at keeping my own horrors at bay. Is that the problem?” I was all too aware of Solis’s worries about his family to discount such a risk to what counted as mine. “Is being privy to my feelings driving you crazy? I’m sorry if that’s the case,” I said. It was so much easier to apologize now than it had been a few years ago. I knew it wasn’t a weakness to own up to causing distress or having made a mistake, or even to take a share of the blame whether you did something blameworthy or not.

“No. No, that’s not it at all.” He still sounded angry, but the fluctuating colors around him told me it was frustration as much as anything. His shoulders were stiff and the set of his head and a ghost pain in my jaw made me think he was clenching his teeth. He kept that posture for a moment, still turned away from me; then he took a deep breath, held it . . . and deflated, the orange sparks around him dying out to only sparking glimmers as his aura settled down. “I’m sorry. I’m overreacting and I’m making this worse. I’m not sure how it could get worse, but I’m pretty sure it will.”

“No. You’re still getting used to a strange situation. It took me a while to accept what I am and what that does to me. Although it’s still hard for me to take what it does to you.

“And what could get worse?” I thought of his hints the night before. “Is it connected to Fern Laguire?” Laguire, his former boss at a government agency people don’t like to talk about, had finally retired and given up her search for the computer geek that got away when she had been persuaded that Quinton—or, as she knew him, J. J. Purlis—was dead. Her obsessive focus and fury went well beyond the normal profile for government spooks as long as her retirement had been at stake, but it appeared she’d let it go once her financial security had been assured by the removal of the threat she had seen in Quinton’s unresolved disappearance from her fold.

He stiffened and swore. “Oh yes. Much worse than Fern. I forgot I mentioned it.”

“You thought I wouldn’t remember what you said earlier? That your past is leaking back?”

“Not just the business past. It’s not Fern this time. It’s my dad.”

“I thought you’d dealt with your dad. . . .”

“I thought I had. But I continue to be wrong every time I think I’ve got the upper hand at last. I saw him today. Or, rather, I heard from him. . . . That’s not quite right. It was a meeting, but it wasn’t a meeting. Telepresence, but I know he was actually nearby. I’ve seen him around Seattle recently.”

I went to him and put my arms around him. “You’re sure? Why would he be in Seattle?”

“Because he’s figured out some of the same things I did—that there are people like . . . well, not like you, but like some of your clients. People like the late Edward Kammerling. And didn’t he make hay out of that. . . .”

“Excuse me? I’m not following you.”

He rubbed his hands over his face, then turned and put his arms around me. The embrace felt a little desperate and more in need of comfort than I had expected. I tightened my hug. “Try again,” I whispered. “What did he want?”

“He’s in charge of a new project. He calls it the Ghost Division and he thinks that’s funny because it’s the sort of project no one wants to admit exists. And it’s looking for . . . paranormals.”

“I see.” Actually I wasn’t sure I did. Various governments have looked into psychic phenomena and other paranormal topics in the past and in the end they all give up or the projects get canceled. It was hard to believe anyone was green-lighting a project like that again. But maybe enough time had elapsed for the collective memory of the government to fade. “How did your father manage to persuade anyone to go down that road again?”

“I have no idea. He’s the proverbial silver-tongued devil to have talked his way not only out of his last debacle but back into a position of autonomous control. Hell, he’s just a step from Satan, anyway. Why I’m surprised, I don’t know. And I wouldn’t care except that he
knows
I know . . . the right people. I don’t think he knows about you—if he does, he’s playing dumb or hasn’t had time to threaten you yet—but he may make the connection once he starts finding the people he’s looking for and notices how many have connections back to you.”

“Is it just the bloodsucking fraternity he’s after or . . . everyone?”

“Everyone, everything. I don’t even know what he’s planning to do once he finds them, except I know what the standard operating procedure is and . . . well, he’s pretty much by the book on that front: catch it, contain it, examine it. If it dies, get another one.”

“This isn’t good.”

“No. Very not good. And he’s putting a lot of pressure on me to do the street work. I don’t want this. I never wanted to be on anyone’s hook again and especially not his, but this is a nightmare.”

I always think of Quinton as strong and balanced, so calm and logical, that it was odd finding this anger and confusion in him. I didn’t know how we’d get past this, but we had to find a way. And we’d have to do it without becoming lunch for the sort of paranormal creatures that enjoy chaos, anger, and fear. I didn’t need any of them hanging around. But I did need Quinton. “We’ll find a way,” I whispered.

“I wasn’t intending to drag you into this. . . .”

“I know that. But I’m glad you’re not keeping it from me. We can’t stay ahead of him or anything else if we hide things from each other. I have your back. I’ll always have your back.”

He gazed into my face, making an effort to turn his emotional state. His eyes sparkled with a distant twinkle as the corners of his mouth fought upward. He rubbed his hands over my spine and shoulder blades. “I have yours, too. And it’s very nice.”

I chuckled at him—I refuse to think I giggle—and gave him a tiny peck of a kiss on the mouth. “You’re wonderfully odd.”

“Am I?”

“I think so. Let me try that again.” I gave him a bigger kiss. “Hmm . . . yes, I definitely taste some odd there.”

“How can you call me odd when I’m concerned for the welfare of the entire paranormal world?”

“Wouldn’t you have to be odd to be concerned about that in the first place?”

“I would think that was your field of expertise.”

“Are you calling me odd?”

“Strange, even.”

“Wonderfully strange? Or just the garden variety of strange?”

He broke down and laughed, a flush of pink and gold sparks zipping around us like champagne bubbles. “Exquisitely, marvelously strange.” He chuckled and kissed me again, spinning us both around like a top until we lurched to a stop against the drain board.

I glanced over his shoulder. I wished I hadn’t.

“Umm . . . what’s that?”

“What?”

“In the sink.”

He blushed. “I burned a pot pie.”

On a stove or a hot plate, Quinton can make a decent meal out of anything—or almost nothing. But where a microwave is concerned, he’s jinxed. I suspect that nature compensates for genius in one field by making people stupid in a related one. Quinton, who plays with electrical and quantum theory and can build an alarm system from a greeting card, two rolls of wire, and a tube of toothpaste, can’t use a microwave without setting his dinner—or the oven—on fire. I’ve been told Albert Einstein had difficulty tying his shoes.

“Oh, my,” I muttered, trying not to break the fragile mood.

He sighed first, the brightness of the moment fading but not collapsing completely, I was glad to note. “I’ll clean it up,” he said, turning back toward the sink.

I held him back long enough to kiss him again and then left him to it while I went to write up some notes on my home computer.

Chaos the ferret was sitting on my chair, attempting to heave herself up onto the desk to wreak some havoc on my paperwork. I picked her up, giving her a quick scritch behind the ears, and deposited her on the floor, much to her ire. As I watched her dance in mustelid fury I remembered the way Solis had kissed his kids and his wife with casual ease, and for a moment I felt a pang of loss that I had never had that comfortable acceptance of place with a family. My family was Quinton, the ferret, and my annoying mother. I didn’t dare bring a child into the world; I didn’t know what might happen to it developing half in the Grey all the time. And if it emerged into the world healthy and human, what might happen to it then, surrounded by ghosts and monsters? It wouldn’t be like Brian Danziger, who seemed to be a perfectly normal little boy except for the educational effects of growing up with a witch and a paranormal researcher for parents.

I sat down, feeling a little melancholy, and turned on the computer. I logged in to check my e-mail while the word processor started up.

There was still no message from Ben or Mara Danziger. I typed up my paltry notes for the insurance company, then sat and poked at a few Web sites, trying to find some information about dobhar-chú, but it’s not easy to search for something you can’t spell and don’t have any keywords for. I swore under my breath and muttered, “Damn it, Mara, why don’t you write back?”

I hadn’t noticed Quinton walking up behind me and I jumped a bit when he said, “You wrote to Ben and Mara.”

I replied a little defensively, “Yes, I did. I know you thought I shouldn’t, but they are the experts . . . and I miss them. But what does it matter, since they didn’t write back?” The thin glow of our good humor of minutes ago collapsed and I felt cold and dreadful.

“You’re still treating them like resources, not friends.”

“That’s not fair. Or true. Even if you think it’s selfish and unfair of me, this at least gives me an excuse to communicate with them. I have to say
something. . . .”

Quinton humphed.

I was a little ashamed of myself, but that wasn’t going to stop me asking them questions. “I suppose the issue is whether picking people’s brains and asking favors is the
only
interaction I have with people. . . .”

“Not entirely, but it’s a big one.”

“Would it help if I wrote back about something
other
than the only thing we have in common?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “
That’s
the problem: You assume that you have
nothing
else in common, nothing else
to
talk about. So you don’t bother.”

“I do! I just don’t know what to say! What the hell else
should
I say? I don’t have kids. I’m not married—well, not the same way they are. And we don’t have any other activities or hobbies in common. Where does the conversation start?”

“Do you like Mara?”

“Of course I do! I like Ben, too.”

“And Brian?”

I thought about it. “I don’t know. He’s a kid. I guess he’s all right. For an alien.”

Quinton laughed. “I will grant you that most children are like aliens to many of us who don’t have any of our own. But he’s a good kid.”

“You know I
am
trying. I can fake friendly long enough to interview someone, but I don’t know how to just . . .
be
friendly. It doesn’t come easily to me, and if I’m faking it, I’m plainly not being a real friend.”

“Sometimes you just have to fake it until it’s true.”

“I can try, but I’m a cold, prickly bitch. So I hear.”

He sighed and I could feel him trying to exorcise the last of his own pique. “Not from me. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ride you about it. I was out of line the other night. I know that social butterfly is not in your repertoire.”

I made an effort to turn the conversation to a lighter note and swiveled my chair around to face him. “Oh, come on. I don’t have to learn the whole butterfly thing, do I?” I teased. “You have to wear toe shoes for that. I hate those.”