Stones Unturned (21 page)

"Please, Eve," Conan Doyle scolded. "I can't concentrate with you prattling on."

She threw up her hands in frustration as he intensified his focus on the swirling, gray fumes, willing them to reveal the answer.

Conan Doyle raised his hands, moving them toward the now much-larger cloud hanging over the boiling contents of the glass container. He prodded the amorphous mist with the tips of his fingers, crackling bolts of preternatural power leaping from him into the billowing mass, urging it to take shape.

The shuck began to bark as the mist seemed to come alive, moving in the air, morphing into a three-dimensional shape.

"Shut up!" Eve spat, her attentions also focused on what was forming in the air above Conan Doyle's workstation.

The smoke writhed, a face gradually taking the shape of a demon most foul. Conan Doyle studied the cruel eyes and horrible, jagged grin that looked as though it could still rip and tear the flesh from bones even though composed of smoke. He knew this face, confirming the most disturbing of suspicions.

"Damn it all," the mage cursed as the details on the smoke image became increasingly more precise.

"Is it as you feared?" Ceridwen asked him. "Is it Danny's sire?"

Eve flinched. "Danny's sire? I thought we were talking about the dead kid from Beacon Street."

Conan Doyle sighed, eyes affixed to the frightening visage of Baalphegor-Moabites floating in the air. "I'm afraid they are one and the same."

"You knew who Danny's dad was?" Eve asked, her voice raised in surprise, and perhaps a little annoyance. Shuck leapt to its feet, aroused by her excitement. Its tail of solid black wagged eagerly.

"It used to be a far simpler task to keep track of the comings and goings of demonic entities," Conan Doyle explained calmly.

"Why haven't you told him?" she asked. "Is this one of the little secrets you've kept for a rainy day? Something to use as leverage just in case?"

Conan Doyle felt a spark of anger toward the woman, but it went no further. He and Eve had been associates for many years, and in that time he'd done things that he was not proud of, but knew were completely necessary to achieve his goals, and thusly benefit all of humanity. Arthur Conan Doyle was no angel, but he liked to think that he fought on their side.

"His father is a monster most foul," he said, keeping his voice calm. "And what exactly would the boy take from that?"

Eve said nothing, crossing her arms, temporarily speechless, but it wouldn't last for long.

Conan Doyle was alerted to a sound outside the door.

It was Squire, arguing with somebody, telling whoever it was that he wasn't to be disturbed.

The door to his laboratory was forced open, and Julia Ferrick barged into the room, a befuddled Squire behind her.

"Sorry, boss," he apologized. "I tried to get her to leave but . . ."

"No worry, Squire," Conan Doyle said and then turned his attentions to Danny's mother. "What can I do for you, Julia?" he asked, waving his hands through the smoke, dispersing the demon's head. "You seem rather upset."

"You bet your ass I'm upset!" the woman yelled. "Where is he?" she demanded. "Where's Danny?"

Conan Doyle smiled calmly, walking over to stand beside her. "Danny is an adolescent, Julia," he explained. "Never mind the fact that he has certain preternatural abilities awakening as well. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about."

He glanced toward Eve, wondering if she would decide to hold her tongue.

"Yeah," Eve said. "I'm sure he's fine. Probably just got fed up with all the grown-up bullshit going on around here and decided to get some air."

Julia shook her head slowly. "He hasn't been right," she said sadly. "It's almost as if he's fighting something — on the inside." She touched the center of her chest. "And I think he might be losing the fight."

There were tears in the woman's eyes, and Conan Doyle put his arm around her shoulders. "We won't allow anything to happen to your son."

Ceridwen took Julia's hand. "Come, we'll go to the kitchen and brew ourselves a pot of tea."

Julia pulled a Kleenex from her pocket and noisily blew her nose. "I'd rather a drink of something a little stronger if you've got it."

"Fine then," Ceridwen said, leading her from the room. "A strong drink it is."

"Hey, Julia," Eve called to her, and Conan Doyle tensed.

The woman stopped, wiping at her nose with the tissue.

"Don't you worry about a thing," Eve assured her. "Squire and I are taking Shuck here out tonight — we'll find Danny and bring him home."

Conan Doyle breathed a sigh of relief.

The shuck moved to stand alongside Eve, and from the look on Julia's face it seemed to be the first time she had noticed the unusual beast.

"What the hell
is
that?" she asked, her face wrinkling up in disgust.

"This?" Eve said, looking down at the animal.

It looked up at her lovingly, tail wagging furiously.

"This is the ugly son of a bitch that's gonna help us find your son."

Clay did not need to sleep.

And Graves, of course, was dead.

They'd driven all day to reach Rochester, in upstate New York. The dismal Rochester weather seemed entrenched, the skies a kind of gray that Clay thought only existed in shadow dimensions and in old black and white movies set in London.

Kovalik had given them the address of the compound where Zarin lived, surrounded by FBI agents he thought were his loyal servants and suckups. The place was in the northern part of town, in sight of a massive factory, but set atop a hill among trees whose branches seemed almost bare enough for winter. The massive, sprawling house had a Victorian air, but its size was such that Clay felt certain it had once been a hospital, or perhaps a mental asylum.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather try to sneak in?" Dr. Graves asked.

The ghost had taken up his familiar position in the passenger seat of the Cherokee.

"Trust me, Doc. This is what I do," Clay said as he drove up to the guard station at the gates of the old estate.

But as he pulled to a stop by the guardhouse and rolled down the window, it was not Joseph Clay who glanced out amiably at the guard who strode toward the Cherokee. It was Special Agent Al Kovalik, complete with silver hair and circles under his eyes. His suit was even rumpled and ill-fitting, the way that such clothes often fit on men in their seventies whose bodies had begun to diminish.

"Can I help you, sir?" the guard said.

Clay smiled. "Good. The politeness, I mean. It helps to keep up the appearance of a private residence. Wealthy people pay their employees to be polite. The government pays its employees to be wary and brusque."

The guard faltered. Clay studied him. Perhaps twenty-five years old, this was likely his first assignment with the FBI and he figured it was a shit detail. Stuck up here in Rochester, this handsome, dark-skinned kid with intense, intelligent eyes must have been bored out of his mind.

Until today.

He put his right hand on the butt of the pistol that rested on his hip.

"Sir, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you drive on. The center is not expecting any visitors."

Wearing Kovalik's face, Clay smiled. He glanced at the ghost of Dr. Graves — whom the guard, of course, could not see — and then looked back at the anxious young man.

"Kid, I'm reaching into my jacket pocket now for some I.D. Don't spook and shoot me in the head, okay? That would completely ruin my thus far positive impression of your job performance."

The guard narrowed his gaze suspiciously. Clay saw two impulses warring in him. He was not supposed to acknowledge that there was anything government-related going on at "the center," but the temptation to react to Clay's words was great.

"Sir, I have no idea what you're talking about. If you need directions —"

Clay nodded, but reached inside his jacket pocket.

The guard tensed, grabbing a small radio clipped to his jacket with his left hand and unsnapping the guard over his pistol with his right.

"Careful," the ghost said, the voice practically in Clay's ear.

With Kovalik's lips, Clay smiled. He drew out a wallet and slowly let it fall open in his fingers, extending it out the window.

"Special Agent Albert Kovalik. Check my clearance, kid. And then your pulse."

The guard kept his right hand where it was and snatched the ID wallet with his left. He retreated to the guard shack, watching them carefully the whole way.

"You did well, by the way," Clay/Kovalik called to him.

Less than three minutes later they were driving through the open iron gates. The guard had been even more polite once he'd realized who Kovalik was, and beamed under the man's praise and promises to put in a good word. Similarly, as Clay followed the winding drive up to the enormous house with its sprawling wings, they spotted agents on the grounds who watched the Cherokee intently but did not move to stop them.

The ghost shimmered in the gloom of the afternoon. Inside the Cherokee, Graves stared at Clay. "How did you get Kovalik's ID? You can't . . . that isn't part of your shapeshifting?"

Clay laughed. "Not hardly. Clothes I can do. Something like this requires more finesse. I lifted it from his pocket before we left."

"Is he going to be angry?"
All the humor went out of Clay, then. "Probably more frustrated than angry. But angry would be fine with me. He could stand a little inconvenience now and then."

Graves did not ask him to elaborate, and Clay was glad. Now wasn't the time for talking about the things that haunted him. They were here about Graves, and
his
ghosts.

A pair of agents met Clay at the front door. Graves remained invisible to the mortal eye. They all politely pretended not to notice the snipers on the roof of the rambling Victorian asylum as they walked inside, the agents just as polite as the guard at the gate, now that they knew who they were dealing with. Or who they thought they were dealing with.

Kovalik might be old, but he was powerful and influential and had been involved in creating Zarin's fictional environment here in the first place. Yet if Clay understood the situation correctly, he had never visited. Until now, of course.

An icy blond woman with hard, angular features met them in the foyer, a vast room with high ceilings and a grand staircase at the back. There was a long counter at the front that might have been an admissions desk when the place still served its earlier function — whatever that had been. Now it was a kind of command center with rows of small monitors showing the video feed from dozens of security cameras. Two agents stood behind the counter, one of them paying attention to the cameras and the other quite obviously intrigued with the new arrivals.

The blonde was flanked by two younger agents, men who seemed eager to impress their visitor. The fortyish woman did not seem nearly so interested in sucking up.

"I'm Special Agent Munson. I'd like to say we're prepared for your visit, but since I received no notification that you would be coming —"

"As you know, Agent Munson, our business lends itself to things happening quickly and quietly. Had I been at leisure to call ahead and make an appointment, I would have done so."

"Well, let me give you the five-cent tour," she said, still obviously ticked off. "The west wing is used for sleeping quarters and common areas for the agents attending to this project. This main section is security, of course. And the east wing remains the province of our special guest and all of the work he does for us."

While Clay spoke to Agent Munson, the ghost of Dr. Graves floated around the foyer, inspecting the security command station, studying Munson and the other agents, and finally passing through the steel door that led into the east wing.

Clay wondered what he was up to, but could not speak to him, given that no one else could see him.

"I haven't come for the tour," he said, putting an edge on Kovalik's voice. "I need to see Zarin."

All five of the agents in the foyer stared at him. One of the men with Munson actually flinched. Munson narrowed her eyes and shook her head.

"I'm sorry, Special Agent Kovalik, but you know that's impossible. You helped set up the protocol for this project yourself. What kind of cover could we give you? What explanation could we provide to Professor Zarin to explain your presence here? And even if we were clever enough to do that, whatever you might want to learn from him might endanger the careful fiction we've created for him."

Clay crossed his arms, attempting to make Kovalik's thin, old-man body as imposing as possible. "Just the same, I've come to see Zarin. There are questions that must be answered. You'll have to trust me to be as circumspect as possible."

Now Munson grew angry. Her fair skin flushed deeply. "I can't allow that. His phone calls are created by us. The newspapers he sees are all fiction. He doesn't even know the Internet exists. Do you have any idea how much work has gone into this?"
Clay walked over to the security desk and peered at the various monitors. In one of them he thought he saw a metal apparatus of some kind with a man's head thrust out of the top, but then the image went dark. The security guard had shut off the monitor.

He spun to stare at Munson. "You're actually asking me that question? Have you ever thought about how much this operation costs the United States government? It's all about value, Agent Munson. The benefits of having Zarin around, the things he's created for us, have outweighed the costs up until now.

"But understand what I'm saying to you. The conversation I'm about to have with the professor has benefits that far outweigh the costs of fucking up your op. If that wasn't true, I wouldn't be here. The powers that be have decided that we've squeezed most of the value out of Zarin anyway, and now we need him for something else. Maybe the last thing we'll ever need him for. And maybe that means all of you will get assignments where you're not sitting on your asses in this gray factory town all year.

"On the other hand, none of that matters. I say that all as a courtesy to you, Agent Munson. Or do I need to give you a lecture about command structure?"