It leapt toward him. But before it could reach him, I struck. I reached out and swept all the trash I could find up into a swirl-wrappers, paper, leaves, and dirt-then mixed in the sticky properties of duct tape and threw the entire mess into its face. The trash stuck fast, effectively blinding it. It pawed at its face, trying to clear the mess away. The mask of gunk it wore wouldn’t last long, but it gave Victor his opportunity and he scooted over to retrieve the gun. The fake Eli realized what was happening and stopped trying to get rid of the trash covering its face and eyes. Instead, it darted away, blindly but with determined speed. It didn’t want to face firepower. It bounced off a couple of cars it couldn’t see and disappeared into the darkness before Victor could level the gun and get off another shot.
I took a deep breath and started working on the tape that still bound my feet. Lou flopped down next to me, looking exhausted. For a moment Victor started to go after the shape-shifter, but saw it was hopeless. Finally he shook his head and walked over toward me, gun still in his hand.
“Finally, your chance,” I said. “Shoot me now. I’m helpless-my ankles are still taped together.”
“Sorry about that,” he said, in a tone that lacked any contrition. He looked down at Lou. “Nice work.” No mention of my role in fighting off the shape-shifter. We stared at each other for a few seconds, until he looked away and muttered something.
“What?” I said. “I didn’t catch that.”
“I might have been a bit hasty on this one,” he said. “All things considered.”
I waited, but that was all he had to say. I had a feeling that his almost killing me had shaken him considerably, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. But there were more important things to worry about. I asked the question that I didn’t want to.
“What about Eli? Is he dead, do you think?”
He sighed and dropped down on his heels beside me. He put the pistol away back under his jacket and pulled out the knife that had so recently pressed against my throat. It took only a few seconds to slice through the tape around my ankles.
“No, I don’t think he is. I’m betting he’s alive. This shape-shifter’s incarnation of him was off, not quite right. So I think the shape-shifter was just imitating him-if it had actually killed him, the masquerade would have been perfect and undetectable.” Victor took out his cell and punched in a speed-dial number.
“Eli?” I asked. He nodded, then gave me a thumbs-up and relaxed slightly as the call was answered.
“Eli? Where are you?” There was a brief silence as he listened. “No. It wasn’t me who called.” More listening. “No, everything’s fine. Just go home, but be careful. It’s still out there.” Another pause. “I don’t have time to tell you the whole story. But you could still be in danger, so keep a sharp eye out, and get yourself home. Better still, go back to my house and we’ll meet you there.” He snapped his cell shut.
“I still don’t get it,” I said. “So you did notice something odd about him at the time, but you never even thought twice about it?”
“Actually, I did, but I put it down to his being upset. He’s very… protective of you, after all, and when he told me what he saw, I figured that would have been enough to throw him off stride completely.”
“And he saw what? Supposedly.”
“Right before I called you, he showed up at my house.” He waved vaguely at the street stretching off into the darkness. “Or, rather, the not-Eli. He told me he’d seen you earlier and, when you thought he wasn’t looking, seen your hands change. He was sure you were the shape-shifter and thought we should capture you-it-and find out where the real you was and if you were still alive.
“Then, when you showed up without Lou, which is unheard of, any doubts I might have had vanished. You never go anywhere without him.” He looked over at Lou again. “Which is just as well. But your excuse that Lou was sick seemed all too convenient at the time.”
A sound plan, psychologically speaking. By naming me as the shape-shifter, all the focus had been put on me. Victor would be watching my every action and thinking about my every word. He’d never think to put the same scrutiny on the supposed Eli.
“I see. The real Eli thought you had called him. But it wasn’t you; it was the shape-shifter again.”
“Exactly. Before it came by my house, it called Eli, imitating me. It told him to meet me over in Berkeley. Eli’s been waiting for me there, safely out of the picture. It’s a clever beast.”
Speaking of clever, how the hell had Lou found me? Well, that much was a given, but how had he got across town so quickly?
“You’ve got Campbell’s cell number, don’t you?” I asked. Victor nodded. “Give her a call for me, will you?” He punched in another number and handed me the phone.
“Campbell?”
“Mason! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Where are you? Did Lou find you?”
“He did. He’s here with me now, over by Coit Tower. Where are you? How did he get here?”
“I’m fairly close, actually. About an hour after you left the house, I was just dropping off to sleep when Lou jumped up on the bed and started barking at me. I thought there was something wrong with him until he ran to the door and kept barking. So we got in the Land Cruiser and I started toward Victor’s house, but he wouldn’t stop barking until I turned north. Then he quieted down for a bit, then started barking again until I changed direction. It was like playing the hot-and-cold game, but with barks. Eventually we ended up somewhere on Telegraph Hill, and when I stopped at a stop sign, he jumped out the window and was gone. I was beside myself, terrified something bad was going down. I’ve been driving around looking for him ever since.”
“Well, we’re over on Greenwich Street,” I said, “just down from Coit Tower. Come on by.” I handed the phone back to Victor. “I see a problem here. If this shape-shifter can imitate us all, how can we trust anyone to be who they seem? I’ve got Lou to vouch for me, but what if he’s not with me, like tonight? And how would I know you’re really Victor, for that matter?”
“A good question,” he said, which of course was no answer at all.
“And another thing,” I said. “The original shape-shifter knew us all-she’d have had no problem in imitating us. But this one did a pretty good job on Eli, so wouldn’t it have to be someone who knew him? Someone besides Ruby? And you, as well. It imitated your voice. And me, since it knew quite a bit about who I was. Who knows all three of us?”
“Half the practitioners in the city,” said Victor dryly. “And all of the ones who cause trouble.”
“Ramsey,” I said
“Ramsey? You must be joking. Why him?”
“Ruby was hanging around with him when I first ran across her at Mama Yara’s. It made no sense to me at the time, but it does now. The shape-shifters travel in pairs, the Wendigo said. You know Ramsey-the man is a walking disaster. Why else would Ruby keep him around-unless it wasn’t Ramsey?”
“Backup rations? A kind of walking larder if things got too lean? And Ruby could have been using him as an information source-a gofer or a sneak. How could he have guessed she wasn’t what she seemed? We certainly didn’t. And why didn’t you mention this before?”
“Well, when I thought Ruby was Ruby, she asked me not to. At the time, I thought she was just embarrassed to have you think she was with a total geek like Ramsey. After, with everything that was going on, I just didn’t even think of it.”
Victor muttered something under his breath, and I don’t think it was a compliment on my brilliance. “But think about it,” I said. “What better disguise?” Victor was not impressed with my reasoning.