Underground

I shook my head. “I don’t know of anything else. And I only suspected Albert because his behavior didn’t add up in my mind. So far, my experience with lively ghosts has been predominantly unpleasant.”

“I know…”

“I don’t think this monster business is going to be a lot more fun, but it’s at least something I don’t have to chase on my own. So,” I added, standing up, “you guys ready to go catch monsters?”

Ben stood up and put his glass aside. “I don’t have anything I’d rather be doing. I’ll let Mara know I’m going. I’ll meet you in the hall.”

Quinton and I nodded and we all trooped down the first flight of stairs. Ben peeled off to find Mara on the second floor while Quinton and I continued to the first.

As we stood in the entry hall, I concentrated on buttoning my coat. “So… what about the nickname?” I asked.

“The—? Oh,” he said, remembering our interrupted conversation upstairs. “My mother’s name is Qui

“And you’re Qui

“It stuck for a while. But my dad never used it—I don’t know if he even knew it existed—and I never used it around my employers. Everyone there called me J.J.”

Once again, Ben’s appearance was ill—or perhaps well—timed and we dropped the conversation to pile into the Rover and head to Pioneer Square in search of Sisiutl, or his hunting buddy—whichever we got to first.

I let Quinton and Ben out at Second and Cherry so I could scout a parking space Laguire’s watchers wouldn’t pick up instantly and Ben and Quinton could walk down the Cherry Street side of the Square. I found a space on Western and sat in the truck a few minutes to check my cell phone for the first time in twenty-four hours.

I wasn’t surprised to see that the intrusion alarm had signaled my phone about six p.m. on Monday. They’d probably walked into the building and hidden until most of the offices cleared out, and then picked my less-than-stellar locks and been on their way in minutes. I’d have to be very careful what I said in my office for a while. I made note of the other numbers and messages on a pad of paper and shut the phone down again, removing the battery as Quinton had instructed. It was a pain, but I couldn’t risk being stalked by Laguire and her minions. With no other way to find me—and through me, Quinton—I hoped they’d keep their eyes on my office and not start prowling around, stirring up trouble.

I walked up into Pioneer Square and found Quinton and Ben standing by the Chief Sealth bust, talking to Fish. I joined the cabal.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked.

“Grandma Ella called. Which she doesn’t do. So when she said I should come down here and find you, I figured I’d better… come looking for zeqwas.” He blushed and the blanket of color around him flashed in swirls of yellow and green—nerves and uncertainty. “I was thinking… I know… it’s crazy, but… there’s some power in belief and if… someone thinks there might be a monster after them, maybe, in a way, there is. Maybe… maybe there are things I could do to help you. With my people down here. I’m a bad Indian but I speak Lushootseed, at least.”

I nodded, not sure what to say.

“Fish has been talking to Grandpa Dan and some of the other Native Americans down here,” Quinton said. “They don’t think we’re crazy.”

“Grandpa Dan said it was their duty to be attentive—whatever that means,” Fish added. “And that we’d be granted the aid of the spirits to stop the killing.”

“Someone besides us thinks Sistu is eating people?” I asked.

Quinton replied, “They’re not sure of that specifically yet, but they do think there’s something magical going on—they’re getting superstitious and scared.”

“They’re not all scared,” Fish corrected. “Some are mad. They don’t want a monster on the loose. It’s a bad sign. They want it to go away. They”—he looked a little embarrassed again—“they said they’ll help when the time comes. I don’t know what they think they can do…”

“Did any of them have a crow with them?” I asked.

Fish gave a nervous laugh. “There are crows all over around here, with all the garbage from the restaurants. Of course there were crows.” The apple green color of his aura got brighter as he got more nervous. I’d have bet money there had been crows—and ravens, too—in the thick of that discussion, listening in like crafty old women and carrying off their information afterward. It appeared that Quinton and I were no longer the only people taking this seriously. I also wondered how a single phone call from Ella Graham had convinced him we weren’t nuts and wound his nerves so tightly—he’d been on the verge of rejecting the whole thing by the time we’d dropped him off Monday night.

I smiled at him. “I’m glad you came. Let’s go find a monster.”

Ben and Fish stood watch while Quinton and I popped in and out of the underground, looking for any sign of Sisiutl. We had no luck. Even in the monster’s lair, there was nothing, though there was some sign there might be more zombies somewhere around. Recent casts of the Grey zombie nets and a hand that was still fresh enough to ooze blood made me fear someone else was missing and unable to give up the ghost properly. We came back up into the alley knowing time was against us; Sisiutl was moving.

“It doesn’t look like it’s abandoned its den,” I said as we rejoined Ben and Fish, “but where does something like that hide in broad daylight? Where is it now?”

“I don’t know,” Quinton replied. “Just guessing, I’d say it’s sticking close to its master, so we need to find him.”

“Who, what?” Fish asked, looking from one to the other of us.

“Its not down there. We think it’s on the move,” I explained. “It’s been cagey so far, so if its moving, its either following its master, or following his orders.”

“Master? I’m confused. Qamaits is Sistu’s mistress,” Fish said.

“I should say we need to find whoever currently has Sistu on loan from Qamaits. We think someone did her a favor and she lent them the monster’s aid in hunting—like Grandma Ella said. But so far, I haven’t seen any of our likely choices for the role.”

“That’s kind of unusual,” Quinton added. “Most of these guys usually hang out right around here or over in Oxy Park.”

We all walked down to Occidental Park. Under the glass picnic house, enjoying the beam of the sun through the panes in the comparative heat of 34 degrees—the warmest day since the storm—we found Zip and Sandy still standing watch over Tall Grass, who was babbling and looking sick by turns.

“Hey,” Quinton greeted them. “Have you guys been here all night?”

“Of course not,” said Sandy. “Grass didn’t want to sleep inside, so we took turns.”

Fish muttered something in Lushootseed and Grass jerked his attention to him, letting out a torrent of the language too fast for my uneducated ears to make out as anything but shushes and trills. Fish was taken aback and stared at the older man, crouching down beside him to talk.

We all watched a moment as the two Indians conversed in rapid harmonies of speech.

“I wonder if he knows where it went,” Ben said. “That’s a pretty intense conversation.”

“Where what went?” Sandy asked.

“Um… Tanker. Or Lass,” I supplied, speaking the first names on my tongue, pretty sure I didn’t want to ask Sandy if she’d seen any snake monsters with her zombies.

“Lass took off,” Zip said. “Tanker, too.”

“Took off for where?” Quinton demanded.

“I du

“Hey… Do you know if Lass was with Tandy the night Tandy disappeared? Thanksgiving I guess it was,” Quinton asked, forcing himself to lower his intensity, which roared around his head in tangerine spikes.

“Sure was. Hit me up for smokes—traded me a swig on t’J.D. Du

Ben and I didn’t know which conversation to watch.