“And that’s all? That’s the payment for whatever you went through?”
“It’s not payment. It’s just another block in Wygan’s construction.”
“Of what?”
“Some kind of gate . . . I think.”
She snorted. “To hell I hope, and then shove him in.”
“I’ll do my best.”
She made a face but looked less pinched. I guess I scared her less when I made bad jokes. “Mara. Are you still angry at me about Ben?”
“Angry? Y’mean about the swamp? No. . . . Well, perhaps a bit. Y’really shouldn’t have—”
“Taken him where he wanted to go? Mara, could either of us have stopped him once he knew there was a monster to interview? Maybe I shouldn’t have asked at all, but it was Ben’s choice and I needed his help. The same way it was your help I needed and your choice to come with me to the Madison Forrest House. I do ask too much of you guys. I know I do. Thank you and—” There was that word I rarely used, hanging in the air like a sword, like “I love you” and all those other things that are hardest to say when you mean them most. “I’m sorry.”
She huffed in surprise, blinking. “You are. Well.” She stood up. “Next time we’ll know better. You should be after a wash and brush-up. Y’still look like you’ve been run down on the road.”
“I doubt I look that good,” I replied, heaving myself to my naked feet and heading, still unsteadily and stabbed by sudden knives of pain, to the bathroom.
She left me to it and I stepped under the flow of hot water, relieved by the warmth and the sense that water washed away the horror as well as blood and physical discomfort. As the character of my pain shifted from uncanny agonies of fire and cold to ordinary aches of aftermath and injury, sleep nudged at the edges of my mind. I felt soft and dopey by the time I got out of the tiny shower.
Quinton was sitting on the bed, dressed in a clean T-shirt and baggy pajama bottoms, when I came back into the basement bedroom.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself.”
“You look better than I thought you would.”
I made a face at him. “Thanks.”
“No. I mean that I thought you were in pretty bad shape, but looks like I was wrong.”
“No, you weren’t. Mara said I looked like I’d been hit by a truck.”
He got up and put his arms around me, squeezing gently. “You look great.” He kissed my neck and worked his way up toward my ear. “You feel better.”
“Then you forgive me for barfing on you?”
“It washed off. You only ralph on the one you love, right?”
“Or the one who’s crazy enough to put me over his shoulder like a sack of flour.”
“You are much sexier than a sack of flour.” He went back to nuzzling my neck.
“And you are big, goofy geek-boy.”
He raised his head and grinned at me. “Yes, but a goofy geek-boy with taste. And excellent timing.”
“It was pretty good.”
“Only pretty good?”
I shrugged. “You could have come a little sooner.”
“It’s hard to detect gunshots from a soundproof booth. What were you shooting at anyway? It was dark as the inside of a whale in there.”
“Lightbulbs. To let in the Guardian Beast.” I wasn’t sure that made sense, but it came out anyhow.
Quinton looked puzzled. “How would that work?”
“Colored light confuses it. I shot out the bulbs and it got in. It doesn’t like Wygan or whatever he’s up to, so it attacked him. I think. I didn’t stay to watch.” I yawned and felt my legs go weak.
Quinton kept me upright. “Ah-hah. I see. So what did you get?”
“Hints and clues. Talked to Dad. And got a headache that mutters.”
“Interesting collection. Was it worth it?”
“Mara asked that. Some hints from Dad about how to get back to him. And some kind of . . . knowledge I can’t process. That’s what I got. I know it’s in my head but I don’t know what it is. Except it makes me bleed light. Or that’s what I think. ’Cause I wasn’t weeping lumens when I went in....” I was just mumbling, blurting out whatever came to mind. I was too tired to filter it. “It’s loud in here, in my head. I know that’s something . . . and the light thing. Must be related....”
“Wha—?”
I shook my heavy head. “I don’t know either. I healed up on my own. But it’s creepy. Like little eyes all over....” I couldn’t help but shudder. “It’s just little hints and clues, little bits and pieces. About Dad and Wygan and something magic. . . . I need more. I need to know about Edward—I never saw a sign of him, or what Wygan wants him for, but he must be around....” Something more than the oceanic whispering in my ears was growing in my mind. Some idea . . . something about bits and pieces . . .
“Quinton, what happened to the boxes I sent from England?”
“They should have come to the condo, but I was out picking you up at the airport and the FedEx guy left a note. They must be at the depot.”
“We—” I started, yawning myself silent. “We’ll go get them. There might be a clue there.”
He shut me up with a kiss. “In the morning, sweetheart. They aren’t open and you aren’t dressed for more burglary.”
“I could be.”
“Sleepwalking doesn’t become you. And I don’t think there are a lot of vampires working the day shift at FedEx, so it might be safer to wait.”
“You think?”
“Uh-huh,” he murmured, brushing another kiss onto my lips as he scooped me up. This time he didn’t throw me over his shoulder, just snuggled me into his chest for the short walk to the bed. . . .
THIRTEEN
Seattle’s FedEx World Service Center is deep in the industrial district, just north of the train yards from Georgetown and a short drive from both airfields. The bland, two-tone gray structure that looks like a collection of giant shoe boxes, featureless except for the huge purple-and-orange logo on one end. I figured any building that determined to be boring was probably full of troublemaking gremlins or some other supernatural pest equally determined to play havoc with the system from sheer perversity. I didn’t see any, but it seemed like their kind of haunt.
Probably because they’d been sitting for several days, the boxes took a few extra minutes to locate and extract from the delicate architecture of shipping crates into which they’d drifted. Once I had them, I didn’t want to wait to open them any longer than it took to haul them to the Land Rover.
“What’s in these?” Quinton asked as we carried them across the parking lot.
“Stuff of Edward’s. Mostly paperwork and files, but there are some loose things in one of the boxes that might be useful....”
I’d mailed the two boxes from England before I left. They weren’t mine, but I thought Edward wouldn’t mind if I scoured them for tools or clues since I meant to use whatever I found to get him away from Wygan. And me back to see my father so I could stop the Pharaohn-ankh-astet permanently.
Inside the truck, safe behind its locked doors, I slit open the packing tape on the smaller box. The contents had shifted since I’d packed them, and the collection of animal teeth and bones had drifted to the top of the other, heavier bits, tangled in the loops of a black silk scarf. Maybe it was the luminosity of the fabric or just the way it lay, but Quinton and I both paused and stared into the carton, disquieted.
“It looks like a cat,” he muttered.
“It almost looks like it’s breathing, the way the light moves on the silk,” I added. The thin filigree of smoke-colored power that lay over it all only added to the unsettling display in my eyes. Just because it was there and kind of creeped me out, I reached out and tapped the thing lightly, giving it a tiny stroke about where the top of its head would have been. “Good kitty. No biting.”