Poltergeist

"This is the trace of your ghost.”

"So it was here.”

"It was. A strange ghost, as you said. It is very difficult for me to read—it's not dead. It's alive. It is a living thing of this power, created by ignorant will, thriving on many power sources. One is not alive—a natural power source, but not that of a human life. It is not the life of the man who died here. He is not part of this. . entity.”

"What is it, then? They call it a poltergeist, but it doesn't seem to be that.”

"A thought-entity," he answered. "The accumulation of their will with this power source they stumbled on, displaced time, memory, things dragged from their proper place in the net of combined human desire. It should not be as powerful as it is, except for whatever power source they found. A strange creature. .”

He rubbed the strands between his fingers and breathed in whatever odor rose from it, frowning and casting his glance to me.

I looked at the bloodied wall. "Could it have caused that?”

"It did. I would not expect it of daylighters, usually. But the mind that guided it is unrestrained.”

"It was controlled? By a single person?”

"Without doubt. The smell of this is strange, though." He plucked another thread of it and I shivered. "It has a scent of you, also, and has the tang of fury and madness, surprise. . desire? Odd." He crushed the strand in his hand and drizzled it out as dust on the floor. "Why does it smell of you?”

"I fell in it earlier today and got caught in it at least one other time at one of their séances," I replied. "I suppose that would account for the smell of it on me.”

Carlos frowned cold ripples across the surface of the Grey. "I did not say you smelled of it—though it clings to you. It brought the odor of you with it here.”

I stared at him and my mind spun through the chronology of Mark's death. "Wait. When I first investigated the lab, some of the threads of it were gathered under a table—I didn't know what it was at the time. I slipped and my head and shoulders plunged into the knot of threads, like a large version of that little snag here. That was the day Mark was killed. Maybe an hour or two before he died.”

Carlos closed his eyes and smiled.

A surge of despair swamped me. "Did I have something to do with this?”

"No. The trace of you is a mere shred and I wouldn't have recognized it without your presence now.”

"But—" I started to object, unsure I hadn't somehow pushed this thing.

His glance cut through me. "You own nothing of this.”

"Then what happened here?" I asked.

"I can't see the whole of it—the death was quick and the shock short. The man who died did not linger. This thing came as fury and struck him with its power unleashed. It flung him, crushed him, sweeping the room like flash fire, then was gone.”

"Did it take anything?”

Carlos snorted. "If it did, I ca

"I think I know where the extra power came from. The room the group picked to work in has a power line nearby.”

"A ley line.”

"It seems like a feeder line to a grid nexus, not a big source, but they seem to have dragged it from the position I'd expect.”

He nodded, narrowing his eyes in thought. "Dangerous enough on its own and remarkable that they've moved the ley line—such things are not easily diverted.”

He seemed less bothered by that than I was. I refocused the conversation on the events around Mark's death. "Do you know who controlled it or how? Is there any way to tell from what you can. . see?

"No. It is a single mind, though, and not the caprice of the collective personality that usually animates the entity. A powerful mind, unfettered by artificial limits.”

"They're all a little 'unfettered'—they've been encouraged to believe in what most people around here think is impossible.”

"This one is less restrained than any of them—it must be, to embrace the form of this thing. More like one of my kind than yours.”

"Psychopathic?”

Carlos rumbled amused gales of ice. "A matter of perspective.”

I frowned. "Then whichever one of them sent Celia here killed Mark and they meant to do it.”

"The details are unclear, but isn't it still murder to you if the killer has used this harmful thing knowingly even if they may not have meant to kill?”

"Yes.”

"Then, yes, one of them murdered this man.”

"How could he or she know they could do this?”

"There would have been a previous event in which the murderer realized the power—even if they did not understand it." He seemed to linger over the word "murderer," turning my spine cold.

"Would it have to be by the same person against the same person?" I asked.

"Not necessarily, but it would be most likely.”

"Then I have one more thing for you to see.”

Carlos growled. "This begins to tire me…”

I was surprised. "You're tired?”

"Bored.”

I pretended a cavalier attitude I didn't feel—Carlos didn't respect quailing. "Indulge me a little longer. It's not far from here.”

I could feel his a

"I have a more general question.”

He didn't ask.

"Are glass or mirrors special in some way? Magically, I mean.”

He sent me a sideways glance of interest tinged with irritation. "Mirrors have an unusual quality of resonance and reflection. The glass slows the reflection of magical things. If it reaches the silvered surface, the energy that made the reflection is captured as a charge in the metal until it dissipates or is discharged at the edge of the glass.”

"Like a battery?”

"The charge is not indefinite. It dissipates with time, bleeding slowly away through the glass. The scientific uses of glass also serve magic—when pure it reacts to nothing and collects nothing. But it is much denser than meets the eye and its common resonance is not that of magic. Energies much greater or less than that resonance have difficulty passing through it and will seek other paths or become slowed in their passage.”

I mulled that over as we turned in at the bookshop door.

I didn't recognize the wild-haired man behind the cash desk, happily bopping to his iPod. Carlos ignored him and followed me into the coffee alcove at the back. He glanced around, casting a dark eye on the room.

"And what is this place to your problem?”

"I think the first incident happened here. Mark—the man who was killed—was standing…" I looked around and went to a spot near the shelf marked "Biography," checking the mirror to see if the cash desk was visible as it should have been. "He must have been standing here, having an argument with someone when that gargoyle flew at him," I added, pointing to the listing figurine.

Carlos turned his head slowly, sca

"This." In the light of the shop, his face had become drawn and the network of scars was more obvious, looking like sharp ridges in a wind-scoured landscape.

"Yes. The autopsy showed a bruise on his shoulder from something and one on his chest from the book, and though I was told the gargoyle was only thrown at him, that was third-hand information. Supposedly no one touched the figure or threw it, but I think it did hit him and that a book also hit him. I think the person he was arguing with must have been the same one who sent the. . entity after him later. Can you tell if I'm right?”

Carlos glowered at me with impatience. "Very little remains—as I expected. No one—no murderer—has touched this, so there is no trace of death to it. Only the finest thread of the entity. It has the scent, but no more.”