The draw that evening was light, since the original show had been canceled, but we were all on our game. For the first time in a long while I put everything out of my mind, refusing to worry about such mundane issues as carnivorous shape-shifters. My playing was assured; my lines inventive and flowing. Roger was a monster on drums, as usual, and the sound of Bobby’s B3 Hammond was so sweet that it makes every tune seem to groove even if it really doesn’t. So temporarily life was good-right up until the moment I noticed who had taken a seat behind the first row of tables. Our curly-headed friend, the Wendigo.
I immediately went on autopilot, comping behind Bobby’s solo without even paying attention to what he was doing. No one in the audience noticed, but Bobby did. He started to throw me a dirty look, but quickly changed it to neutral and puzzled when he saw the look on my own face.
The Wendigo ignored me, focusing on Roger playing drums. He hunched forward, drumming his fingers on the table, jerking with a little tic every time Roger hit the snare.
Maybe he was just here to listen to an up-and-coming drummer. Maybe he wasn’t here to cause any trouble. Maybe he was just a jazz fan. And maybe pigs really can fly.
We played a couple more tunes before I signaled for a break, a little early. I wiped down my guitar, unhurriedly, watching the Wendigo out of the corner of my eye. He seemed totally at ease, striking up a conversation with a couple of women at a nearby table, throwing back drinks like the original party boy. I quietly sidled over to his table and sat down. He turned to face me, feigning astonishment at my sudden presence.
“Ah, Mason. How good of you to come down and mingle with the hoi polloi.”
I was in no mood for snarky humor. He’d managed to turn a great evening into a bad one in two seconds, just by showing up.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“What, I can’t go out and hear some music, just because I’m not like other people? I thought you’d be more tolerant, being a musician and all.” I wasn’t buying it for a moment.
“What do you want?”
“Well, for starters, how about an intro to that drummer? He’s incredible.” I got up from the table and started to walk away. “Now, hold on,” he said, grabbing at my arm. “You’re right. I didn’t just come down for the music. I came here to help you.”
“Of course you did,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“No, really.”
“And in return?”
“You’ve still got some more of those stones. At least a couple; you didn’t hand them all over the last time.”
“You’re really hooked on them, aren’t you?” I said.
“You’ve become a junkie, basically.”
“And whose fault is that? You’re the one who introduced them to me.”
“So I did. I’ll just have to live with the guilt, I guess.”
“It’s not just about the magic; it’s about the music,” the Wendigo said. “Surely you can understand that. You see, I discovered that with them I’m a great drummer. Without them, just very ordinary.”
“Jesus,” I said. “You might as well be mainlining crystal.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Music’s important, in a way that other things aren’t. You know that. How do you think you found me in the first place?”
“I was following a vision, as I remember.”
“Sure, but a vision just tells you what may happen, and where. It doesn’t tell you why. It’s the creativity that connected us-yours and mine.” A philosophical Wendigo. What next? “Anyway, I thought I’d trade you some more information for the rest of those stones. I know you’ve still got a few of them left.”
“Sorry,” I said. “You’re a junkie. You’d say anything for a taste. Information from you would be worthless.”
“Not a problem. I’ll tell you, and you decide if it’s worth it or not. If so, then you give me the stones. If not, you don’t. Fair enough, right? You see, unlike you, I’m the trusting sort.”
“Right,” I said. We sat looking at each other for a minute. “Well?”
“Well, you managed to kill the shape-shifter that was causing so much trouble, I see.”
“We did. How did you know that?”
“I know things.”
“And you have a problem with that?”
“No, not at all. She, and those like her, aren’t really individuals like you or me-they take on the aspect and intelligence of others, and without a host of sorts they remain basically just animals. But there’s something else interesting about them that you don’t know.”
“They rise from the grave at the new moon?”
“Don’t joke about things you know nothing about. But no, nothing like that.”
I waited patiently. I was fairly certain he was bluffing, trying to pull some sort of scam to get his fix, but he might have valuable information. Or rather, he might be willing to share it. I had no doubt that he knew more than he ever let on.
“All those shape-shifters have their little differences,” the Wendigo said, “but there is one thing about them that’s a constant, that always holds true.”
“And what might that be?” I asked warily. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the answer. The Wendigo smiled, almost gleefully.
“Just this. They seldom enter the world alone, and they never stay alone. They exist in pairs. Always.”
He leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile, proud of the bombshell he’d dropped. When he noticed I was looking at him with no change of expression, he frowned.
“You don’t believe me?” he said.
“No, I believe you. But you’re a day late and a dollar short.”
“Beg pardon?”
“It’s an expression. Not to burst your bubble, but I already figured that out.”
The Wendigo looked positively crestfallen. He’d expected his news to knock me off my feet. Maybe it would have if he hadn’t waited so long.
“Okay, so you know about that.” He paused and thought for a moment. “What about the energy pool-the one I came out of? And the others?”
“Yeah? What about it?”
“It’s an open conduit, you know. Other things can come out of it as well. You really need to shut it off.”
“Yeah, we figured that out as well. But we’ve had more pressing issues lately.” I shook my head. “Anyway, that’s not information. That’s advice.”
“Oh, I know. I was just trying to be helpful, that’s all.”
“And pick up some stones.”
“Well, yes. But you don’t want them anyway, not really. And I did want to help.”
I left the table and played the rest of the gig in a funk. When the Wendigo came into the club, he mixed the two worlds that I tried so hard to keep separate. It was hard to concentrate on the music when the sight of him was a constant reminder that there was unfinished and unpleasant business waiting for me. The simple life of an ordinary musician had never looked so good.
NEXT MORNING I WAS BACK AT VICTOR’S. PROBLEM was, we had nothing to go on. If we waited for more dead people to start turning up, that would give us a place to start, but it would be a little hard on the victims.
But one thing that the Wendigo had said was true-we needed to close off the energy pool. So far, four things had come through-the fake Ifrit, the Wendigo, and apparently two of the shape-shifters. And perhaps even other things we didn’t know about yet. And as long as it stayed open, there was always the chance that something even worse might appear. In fact, I didn’t understand why we hadn’t already been inundated with uncanny apparitions.
Eli thought there must be specific circumstances governing it.
“You mean like the new moon falling on a rainy night?” I asked.
“Something like that, but nothing that simple, I imagine,” he said. “It would take a lot of study to figure it out. It will be a lot quicker just to shut it down.”