Greywalker (5 page)

I wasn't so sure this was wise, but I followed as Mara led me into the kitchen and began organizing dinner preparations. Albert shimmered in over her shoulder as she talked. "There's a bit of a place between our world and the next. That's what Ben calls the Grey."

Ben Danziger walked in, carrying a black-haired toddler who was gnawing on the head of a large Russian nesting doll. "Are we ready to talk about Grey stuff now?" he asked. "We'd started on it," Mara replied.

"Aha! I have visual aids to make this easier. If I can just get them away from Brian." Ben put the baby down and wrestled the doll from him. "OK. First, you have to have an overview. Matter, as we know it, is simply a state of energy. Particle physics and so on. It's all just energetic states and interactions. When you strip out the fancy terms, many philosophical and religious beliefs come down to essentially the same thing: being, existence, and consciousness are basically energy states."

He sat on the floor beside a heavy oak table and pulled the doll apart to show the next doll inside. "Now, if what we perceive is just a state of energy, then it follows that there may be other states we cannot perceive because we exist within a different state. Beside our 'nor-mal' world—our normal energy state—there is a parallel or 'paranormal' world where other energy states dominate, and a transition zone where the world states overlap. Like these matryoshka dolls, nesting one inside the next. This transition zone is the Grey, and it has its own special denizens, all the weird crossover manifestations of the paranormal and the normal together. Things like ghosts, vampires, elemental spirits, stuff like that. They're neither one thing nor the other. They have some kind of physical body too massy for a purely paranormal sphere of existence—or can manifest one—but they also manifest the faster, lighter energy transformations that—"

The baby snatched the dolls back and Ben looked up. "You're frowning. I'm losing you, aren't I?" "Yes."

Mara sighed and spoke up from her work by the sink. "It's not so arcane as Ben makes it sound. The world is a sea of energy and most people skim along the surface in the normal world. But when you died, you fell into the sea, and when you came back out, you had a bit of it in you, changing your knowledge and sight of the world. You may try to ignore that knowledge, but it persists."

"I 'fell in.' " I gave her a skeptical look.

"As an analogy, dying is definitely the big plunge. When people say you 'pass over,' they don't know half. You drop all the heavy, slow parts of yourself and zip right through the barrier to... something else. That's the paranormal. But you have to pass through the Grey first, and if you aren't quite ready for the next place, the Grey is where you stop a while, because that's where both worlds overlap."

"Purgatory," I supplied.

Mara laughed, tossing her curls aside and glancing over her shoulder. "That's a Catholic idea. This is nondenominational, and it's nothing to do with either suffering or expiation. But it is full of strange things, you've probably noticed, and it's alive with energy. You notice the house glows, I'm sure."

"Umm... yes, I did."

This house sits on a Grey power nexus—that's why we chose it— which is part of a sort of power grid, though that's a broad analogy. It's the same energy that runs everything psychic or magical. And it may seem chaotic, but it has rules. All you need do is learn the rules."

I sat down at the kitchen table. Mara turned all the way around and leaned on the counter, shaking flour off her hands.

I stared, unnerved a moment, as the flour drifted like a familiar cloud, then settled to the floor. "Why would I want to? I'm fine now. I'm all here, alive, solid. The bruises will fade and then it's over."

They both shook their heads.

"The state change happened," Ben said, "no matter what your state is now. You changed and you can't change back."

The baby flung the Russian dolls across the room, drowning my reply in clatter.

Ben got up and tucked Brian under his arm. "OK, that's enough of that. Your mom'll turn you into a frog if you don't settle down, and then you'll have to live in the yard. Hey... there's an idea!"

Mara twitched a towel at him. "Behave, y'monster, or it's you I'll be turning green and warty. And you can be sure I'll not be kissing you anytime soon for that."

Ben laughed and loped out of the kitchen with the squirming baby.

Mara bent down and picked up the matryoshka dolls, placing them on the table in front of me. "Would you reassemble the universe, please?"

She went to the counter and began rolling out pastry dough. She spoke over her shoulder. "I imagine you find this upsetting."

"Yes. Look, I don't understand this. Even if I accept that I can see a ghost, what about the rest?"

"It's all bundled up together. You see ghosts because you can see and walk into the Grey where they live. That's very rare. Most of us who can see it at all can only stand on the edge of it and cast lines, or draw up water in buckets, or shout across the water and hope some-one answers. We're very limited, weak and in danger of attracting the wrong sort of attention, if you know what I mean. If we want to go in, we're leaving our bodies behind and traveling only with our minds. It's exhausting and dangerous, and few people can do it for more than minutes."

"Psychics and mediums, you mean?"

She laughed, dumping fruit into the piecrust. "Among others. But you, you see, you have the strength and safety of your body when you go there. You don't leave it behind now. You could, if you knew how, walk right through until you found what you were looking for. You wouldn't be asking for intermediaries or hoping the right thing heard you calling. You do have other problems, but the strength you have in the Grey, as a physical person among things that are mostly energy, is very powerful. There are some creatures of the Grey who do have bodies—and they can be strong—but they'll have other weaknesses in exchange."

She carried the finished pie to the oven and waved her hand over the top crust, muttering to it. Her words fell on the pie in a drift of blue.

I noticed. "What are you doing?"

She looked surprised. "Oh! Just sang it a little crusty charm against burning. I hate burned crust."

"A charm?"

She blushed. "Well, you see, I'm a witch."

I blinked at her. "Of course, an expert on the paranormal would be married to a witch."

She grinned and blushed darker. "It's not quite as easy as that. Ben and I don't always see eye to eye on theory versus practice. Fascinates him, of course, but he doesn't take in the real shape of witchcraft so well. He's more interested in ghosts and things like that. And we've had a few goes over it, I'm afraid."

She turned away and bustled for a few minutes, then went back to the stove, putting something into a pot. "Well, that's better. You see, this Grey thing isn't so awful. If you can see that little charm, and Albert, you should come along a treat in no time."

"I can see you cast a spell—a charm—because of... this?"

"Yes, of course. If you have the right skills and you can touch the grid, then you can use that energy for work. Magic is just a way of drawing up some of that energy and directing it. But it requires quite a lot of mediation, and how you have to mediate it determines the sort of magic you can do."

My skepticism deepened. "I can?"

"Oh, no! Not you, actually. As I said, you're a Greywalker. You don't manipulate the material of the Grey. You're in it. And that's a thing we should be discussing. You'll need to learn what you can do and what you can't. And how to protect yourself from the things which will be attracted to you. And there already are a few, I'm sure. Because, like this house, you glow a bit."

I was still skeptical, or perhaps I was tired of wrestling the idea, but it crept into my voice. "I glow? How do you know? Can you see that?"

"Just as you can see me work magic, yes, but as to the rest, that's a bit of guessing. I'm one of those who just stand by the edge of the water and cast lines or haul buckets. And Ben is purely a theoretician. We aren't you. We can't know what you know or experience. We know a lot, and can make best guesses, but it's not quite the same."

"If you don't know, how can you help me? I don't want to be a witch or a psychic or a medium or... whatever."

"You shan't be, for you aren't any of those. But you still need to be learning the principles. Ben and I can teach you what we know about the Grey and how it works, what lives in it, how to fend them off. You'll have to improvise here and there, but you'll have a good foundation. But you'll have to accept that this is real, that it is not going away, and that you must learn to live in it, not just with it."

"No." I stood up from the table. "My brain won't stretch to this right now. It doesn't fit!"

Mara's shoulders slumped a bit. "It does fit. No luck getting out of it. But I will help you, if you let me."

I shook my head hard enough to hurt. "Not today. I need to think. I won't make a leap of faith when I don't have any. And this is still—this is too strange for me to swallow."

I picked up my bag and walked out of the kitchen and met Ben coming in.

"You're not staying for dinner? Mara makes great food."

"I don't think I could digest it. I need to digest something else first."

"Oh. Well. We'll be here if you need us. I know this is a lot of crazy stuff to try and chew up all in one shot."

I looked him hard in the eye. "What if I don't?"

"Then you'll laugh me off as a kook. You won't be the first. I don't think I'm nuts, though, and I don't think you do, either, but you have to make up your own mind. Nothing works if you don't start there. I hope I'll hear from you, though. You seem... nice."

I snorted. "Haven't heard that in a while. Thanks."

Albert trailed after me to the gate and hung in the arch, fading and flickering, until I drove away.

Friday morning I put the strange conversations of the night before out of my head, choosing to concentrate, instead, on my work. I had no doubt about how to do my job, and if I did it with all my concentration, I would not be spontaneously transported to uncanny realms... I hoped. The lurking shadows didn't disappear, but they stayed on the edges and were easier to ignore.

Colleen's list was mostly a bust. When I could reach anyone, the response to my questions about Cameron's whereabouts met with universal ignorance. Most of his friends and relatives had not seen him in an even longer time than his mother. Whatever events had caused him to vanish must have started a lot earlier than the first of March.

I did have one stroke of luck: Cameron's roommate agreed to meet me for lunch between classes.

Richard "RC" Calvin waited for me in front of a Greek cafe on University Way. He was short and muscular and unremarkable other-wise. We ordered at a counter and sat down nearby.

I put my notebook next to my coffee cup. "I know you think you don't know anything, but you might be able to give me a start. When did you last see Cam?"

He rolled his eyes as he thought. "Uh... sometime around the end of February, I think. It must have been a Thursday night, 'cause that's when we were usually both home at the same time. See, Cam didn't have any Friday lectures, like I do, so he'd usually stay up late on Thursdays and be hanging around when I got home from my late class."

"Didn't he go out?"

"Oh, yeah, he'd blow out of there after we talked about the rent and bills and stuff. You know, it's funny, I really didn't remember till just this second, but he said he'd be gone for a while, so not to worry. I guess I really took him serious, huh? 'Cause I didn't think anything of it till his mom called looking for him. Huh! That's kind of weird, isn't it?"

"Not really. Did you ever think that he'd returned to the apartment?"

"Uh, yeah. About a week ago or so some of his stuff disappeared. I was going to borrow a book from him, so I, like, went into his room, and most of his stuff was gone. Little stuff, like clothes and paper-backs, a couple of big things, like his laptop, but a lot of his stuff was still there, so I didn't think he'd, like, skipped or anything. His duffel bags were missing and his backpack, so I figured he'd gone on a trip, y'know?"

"He never called you after that?"

"Well, no. We're just roommates. We're not buddies or anything. We're kind of from different worlds, y'know?"

I nodded. "Was he distracted, seem to have something going on? Did his behavior change suddenly, or his schedule, anything like that?"

"Um... well, I thought he might have got a girlfriend or some-thing for a while, 'cause he got a lot of calls from a chick and he was going out a lot at night, but he told me it was just his sister, so I didn't think any more about it. Then some guy called for him a couple of times, usually late, like when I was about to go to bed. Cam was home both times, so he took the phone to his bedroom, like he didn't want me to listen in. I don't know, maybe he's gay or something. Anyhow, the guy never called again."

"Could the man on the phone have any connection to Cameron's

disappearance?"

RC shrugged his beefy shoulders and dug into his souvlaki. He hunched over the food, eating as if the plate was going to be jerked away any second. He talked with his cheek stuffed with food. "I don’t know. Wouldn't think so. Cam had the flu about then, so he was sleeping all the time. Could have been someone from the U, I guess. The guy sounded older-forty or fifty, maybe. Hard to tell, y'know, and it wasn't any of my business anyway."

"Do you remember the man's name? Did he give it?" He took a swig of his soda before answering. "I can't remember. I think he told me, once... Everett. Something like that. Something snooty. Just can't remember."

"If it comes back to you, let me know. You said Cameron had the flu. How could you tell?"

"It's pretty easy when the guy's been puking his guts up for a week He was really white when I did see him—pasty, y'know—and kind of thin and wasted-looking. If he hadn't been worshipping the porcelain god, I'd have thought he was on drugs or something. He looked like, y'know, in those old movies when someone's got a terminal disease-all white with big eyes. Couldn't keep anything down. Actually, I don’t think he was eating at all for a while, just drinking water and some kind of nasty-smelling soup." He looked up at me and noticed I wasn’t eating much myself.

"Did I gross you out? Sorry. Nothing makes me queasy anymore. I'm premed. He was starting to look a little better about the time he took off, but he was still pretty pale, y'know?"

"You're pretty sure it was the flu, then, not some other disease or drugs?" I asked, sipping my coffee.

He shrugged again. "Could have been something else, I guess—I mean, I'm not a doctor yet, so what do I really know? but flu can be pretty nasty. People think it's, like, just a little thing, but it can kill you, y'know. And there really isn't such a thing as a twenty-four-hour flu. That's usually mild food poisoning. Real all-out, balls-to-the-wall flu is a killer. The Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 killed millions, and it's just a different strain of the same old bug that makes the rest of us answer the call of the great white telephone. Pretty disgusting, huh?"

I agreed, nodding. "Disgusting. Did anyone come to see Cameron while he was sick? Girlfriend drop by, classmates, anything like that?"

"Nope. Didn't have a girlfriend that I ever heard of—except for the sister thing, like I said. Nobody came around except a couple of my buds and the landlord. Nobody's been around since, either." RC shoveled a last bite of rice pilaf into his mouth and chased it down with a swallow of soda. "You just gonna leave that spanakopita?"

I looked down at my untouched plate. "Uh, I'm not that hungry. Why don't you have it?" I offered, pushing the plate toward him.

He nodded his thanks and forked up a large bite. I watched him, bemused, as I sipped my coffee. I'd read a newspaper article once that claimed interns often suffered from malnutrition and sleep deprivation. Obviously, Richard Calvin was determined to get ahead before the medical profession had a chance to break him down. I wondered if he spent his days off sleeping.

"So you've never heard from Cameron again?" I asked.

"Nuh-uh. Not a word."

"What did you do with the rest of his stuff, and what about the rent?"

"Well, his mom paid the back rent and bills, and she asked me to pack up his stuff and store it till he came back. In the meantime, I'm going to see if I can get another roommate, 'cause I can't meet the rent by myself. Cam's mom said that was OK with her."

"You talked to her on the phone recently?"

"Yeah, I called her and I told her I was going to be talking to you, 'cause, y'know, I didn't know if you were really legit or not. But she told me I should tell you everything I knew, so, like, I guess I have. I mean, I don't know very much about Cam, really. Is there anything else you want to ask me?"

"Not much. Was there anyplace he hung out, where he might have headed, or anyplace where he might talk to people about where he was going?"

RC grunted. I couldn't tell if it was a thinking noise or appreciation of the food. "I don't know exactly, but I do know he was kind of into music, and I think he said he was going to meet his sister down-town once, but other than that, I don't know."

"OK," I said. "Let me give you my business card, and if you think of anything—like that guy's name—or if something comes up, give me a call, OK?"

"OK," he said, swallowing the last of the spanakopita. He ran his tongue over his teeth, eliminating any wayward bits of spinach, and guzzled down the last of his soda as I fished a business card out of my bag.

I handed him the card. "You've been a lot of help, RC."

"I have? Cool." He tucked it into the pocket of his shirt, grabbed his bag and headed for the door. "Hey, thanks for the food."

I watched him go; then I headed down to the administration buildings. I rounded up a list of offices for Cameron's instructors, then walked to the engineering building.

Only one of Cameron's instructors was available. In answer to my question, he blinked and snapped at me, "No. I haven't seen him in class or elsewhere. Haven't heard from him, either. He's failing, at this point. Hasn't shown up in..." He flipped through a notebook. "At least a month. If he doesn't make some kind of arrangement with me, he will not pass. I don't give NCs. What he will get is an F. And you can tell him that."

"When I see him, I'll be sure to let him know. Thank you."

I left his office grateful I was no longer in college.

I was walking across one of the many quads when my pager went off. I couldn't see any phone booths around, so I entered the nearest building and found a pay phone near the math department office. Someday, I swear, I am going to get a cell phone. I called my pager number and listened to the voice message.

"Hi, Harper, this is Quinton. I've got the stuff to set up your alarm system, though I've still got a couple of questions before I install some of it. I'd like to get onto it today, if that's convenient for you. Give me a call," he added, rattling off a phone number, "but do it before two, if you can, because I'll be leaving this location then, and may not get near a phone for a couple of hours after that. Thanks."

I checked my watch. "Ah, hell..." It was 1:55. I punched the number and waited through the rings.

Through the noise in the background, I just made out a male voice saying, "...garage."

"Is Quinton there?" I asked, raising my voice.

Hang on.

In a second, a slightly quieter environment reigned as Quinton answered the phone. "This is Quinton. How can I help you?"

"This is Harper Blaine. I'm returning your call."

"Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, Harper. I can go ahead with your project whenever you can get me access. When would be convenient?"

Was I talking to the right guy? I could almost hear the necktie strangling him. "Are you at work?" I asked.

"Not precisely, but that's a good suggestion. Three o'clock would be fine."

"Actually, I was going to head downtown to do some research, so I might be a little late back to my office. Could you wait a few minutes if I'm not there?"

"Certainly. I'll be seeing you then. Thanks for calling." The connection cut off with a click.

I went back and climbed into the Rover, trying to concentrate on what I planned to do next, rather than obsessing about Quinton's odd behavior and odder job. He was just not in the same game as the rest of us.

I turned onto the freeway and headed back downtown. I thought about the job, the job... but phantom images seemed to press in harder than before, trailing their cold mist and rushing around the truck. When I got off the freeway downtown, I was firmly back in Ghostville. I parked the car and shouldered my way, shivering and queasy, through a thin fog of shadow-things, toward the main records repository in the county building.

A cold gust blew through me. I shuddered and leaned against the Metro tunnel facade to catch my breath. Several scruffy panhandlers cast suspicious glances at me. I figured I'd better move on before they took exception to my sullying the tone of the neighborhood.

Once in the records room, where even ghosts fear terminal boredom, I started searching for any sign of a furniture company, importer, or freight handler doing business under the name Ingstrom in the last twenty-five years. The list was short, but discouraging: a shipwright, a real estate office, and a bakery. The residential listings were more daunting. There were a lot more private citizens named Ingstrom, since one-fifth of what is now the city of Seattle had been settled by Norwegians and Swedes. I paid for photocopies of the listings.

By the time I'd finished, it was nearly three fifteen. I trudged back toward my office. I'd taken Sergeyev's money but done almost nothing so far, and that rankled. I hadn't done more than glance at the papers he'd sent. The hour-plus I'd just spent could be a washout. Maybe the Ingstrom he wanted wasn't even in KingCounty. Seattle may have been just an unloading point for a pickup. The guy could have driven from Pullman, for all I knew, and then taken the parlor organ away again. I didn't even know for certain what a parlor organ was.

Quinton was sitting on the floor just down from my door, leaning against the wall, reading a paperback copy of de Tocqueville. He was wearing a button-down shirt and trousers under his jacket. No sign of a tie. Without even glancing up, he got to his feet and fell in beside me. Finishing his paragraph, he marked his place with a ticket agency stub for the Paramount Theater and stuffed the book into his back-pack.

"Hi," he said. "I was starting to get worried. There were a couple of two-legged rats scratching around your door when I came up, about half an hour ago. When they figured out I wasn't going to leave, they slunk off, but I thought they might have been waiting for you down-stairs. Did you see them?"

"No," I answered. "What did they look like?"

"One nondescript in a very concentrated sort of way. Very beige, very bland. Very spooky. The other was scruffier, but nothing unusual for this neighborhood," he added as I unlocked my door.

I nodded. "Probably the same guys who tossed my office. Either that or tax collectors."