Poltergeist

"And Celia took revenge like you said she would?”

"Yeah! Maybe she did!”

"How do you know Mark faked the phenomena?”

She caught her angry breath and held it, huddling herself in her coat and gnawing lipstick from her bottom lip. Then she let her breath out slowly. She turned and started to walk toward the corner. "Ken told me.”

That brought my eyebrows up. I caught up to her. "How did Ken know?”

She shrugged, looking down the steeper incline on the other side of the street, toward First Avenue and Puget Sound beyond. "He used to do acting when he was a kid. He and Mark used to talk about it. I think he always knew Mark faked it.”

"When did he tell you?”

The light changed. "Wednesday. Wednesday night. I saw him at the hospital when I was waiting for Ian. Everyone was upset. We talked a lot.”

I stopped her again on the other side of Third in the clouds of fragrant steam that escaped from Wild Ginger's kitchen vents. The light from the huge readerboard on the side of Benaroya Symphony Hall sent shadows scurrying around the intersection with the smell of garlic and ginger. "Did you ever go to Old Possum's?" I asked.

Ana looked blank. "Huh? What's that?”

"It's in Fremont.”

She was about to shake her head when she got it. "Oh! Right, right! Mark's bookstore. No, I never go there. Fremont's hard to get to without taking two or three buses. We have the Kinokuniya and Elliott Bay near my house.”

She didn't seem to know Old Possum's was a used bookstore.

She cast a look over her shoulder. "I need to go," she pled. Paranormal ribbons of yellow and blue wove around her and a slow flush pinked her cheeks. "I don't have anything else to tell you. I have to go-”

I put my hands in my pockets. She gave me a strained smile and turned away. I stepped back into the shadow at the corner of the building and watched her scamper down the steep sidewalk to the Triple Door—the jazz club underneath Wild Ginger. The hazy smear of Celia's sliced energy followed her, benign as a pet. Another thread twined and writhed toward the shape of Celia like an inquisitive snake. The thread was the same color, but was disco

I wanted a better look at that wandering thread. In the dark and the bustle of rush hour I took a risk and sank back into the shadow, into the Grey, feeling the slight jolt and nauseating slip of the worlds in transit.

The mist-world of the Grey was bright silver and knotted with tangled embroideries of energy moving and darting through the cloudscape. I looked for the seeking thread and found it broken by the heavy bulk of a building and the cold blackness of a rail that guarded the edge of a pit. I sidled around, but couldn't find a door through it to pick up the other side of the thread. Frustrated, I stepped back into the normal.

I got a stare from a panhandler and a squeak from a woman who had nearly trodden on my foot. I was still next to the Wild Ginger, but I'd moved out a bit onto the edge of the sidewalk that led down to the Triple Door. I put my hand on the wrought iron rail that rimmed the air shaft around the club's frontage. Glancing down the street, I saw Ana, distinctive in her fluffy white coat, standing in front of the club and looking down the road when she wasn't checking her watch.

I spotted the curious yellow snake of energy I'd seen before uncoiling around the Second Avenue corner. Ana didn't see it, but I did, and watched it coming. Limping a little, his jaw tight with each step, Ken George came around the corner at the other end of the questing yellow thread. Ana spotted him and bounded down the hill to meet him and put her arm around his waist. His blank planes of Grey fell away, the energy threads braided up together, mingling around the couple and the gleam-shot mass of Celia that hung close beside them. Sparks of pink, white, and blue fizzed like firecrackers around the couple, and red bolts shot across the reflective blades that thrust through the entity following Ken and Ana into the club and out of my sight.

The diminished size and the passivity of Celia left me scowling. The fake ghost had rattled the glass at us in City Centre, but took no other actions as Ana and I had walked down the street. And now it had floated behind them brilliant-colored, but passive. I wished I knew what the display meant, but I was still learning—I had avoided deeper knowledge of the Grey at times and now wished I hadn't. Every time I thought I had eliminated something, or gained information, I came up against contradiction as dense as the sudden wall in the Grey.

I toyed with the idea of following the couple into the club and hanging out in the lounge to see what happened next, but I knew they would spot me. Sight lines in the Musiquarium lounge were short and broken, and if the two had gone into the main showroom, I'd have to take potluck on a seat—if the show wasn't sold out already. I'd have to let it go and turn my energy to something more productive.

I called Mara Danziger.

CHAPTER 24

When I called, Mara was stuffing food into Brian and had to relay her answers to me through Ben. She made some guesses, but said she could only confirm them in my presence, so I was heading for another evening with the Danzigers. I hoped Brian would be in a calm mood, as I was already tired.

Mara let me through the door to wonderful quiet. I stood in the entry hall and blinked, looking around for signs of rhino. Mara gri

I cast her a wary glance. "You've put him in a barrel in the basement," I stated.

"No," she replied, laughing, "though I'm sure he'll be as hung-over in the mornin' as if we had done. His Irish nature is showin' through— I'm afraid he snatched a whiskey glass and helped himself before we could stop him. He was as fluthered as a fiddler at a wedding, then out like the proverbial light." She fairly skipped ahead of me to the living room.

"Brian didn't have any help getting at that whiskey glass, did he?" I asked.

"Not a bit," she replied, plumping down on one of the pale green sofas with a whoosh of breath. "The horrors'll probably cure him of ever drinking another drop again. If the Children's Services ever get wind, they'll call me an unfit parent for letting him at the booze the once and I'll never hear the end of what damage I've done my poor child. But it's blessed quiet for once. Ben just took him up to bed.”

"How much did he get?”

"Oh. . not much—less than half an ounce, and that watered. He just grabbed the glass and took a drink, then made the most awful face! You'd have thought he'd swallowed fire. Then he dropped a perfectly good glass of Jamey on the floor and ten minutes later he was passed out on the rug. I finally understand why my aunt used to slip a tot into my cousin's bedtime milk. He was a right monster." She caught her breath, then blew it back out in a cheek-bulging gust. "My, I am blathering on. Now, let's see what's on with you. Oh.”

I stopped on the verge of sitting down as Mara stared at me with surprise. "What?”

"There's somethin' tangled on ya. Some magical thing.”

I looked down at myself. "It must be the damned poltergeist, though I don't see anything.”

"Well, you wouldn't, would you? It's rather like tryin' to see the back of your own head without a mirror. Every time you look it moves around. I suppose I could snip it off…”

I had an idea and I put up my hands to keep her back. "No. If I'm co

"Would you want to?”

I thought about it. "I might. Can you remove it later?”

"Well. . yes. I don't see why not. Its not the same as that knot or whatever it is that monster stuck in you—though that might be why it's caught on you. Attracted like to like. Grey things sticking together like Velcro.”