and my hands cramp and convulse. I’m afraid I’ll pass out again or lose control. I need to find a way to contact these ghosts without reentering the market area. At least not until I know what’s happening and have a way to counter it or break it down.”
“The simplest thing would be to bring a medium into this.”
“There’s already a medium involved. I’ve been trying to listen to some recordings he made of my client’s sister—the first patient I encountered—but they’re extremely garbled. She’s doing automatic painting of the bluff where the market currently stands, but she started speaking recently and none of it makes sense. I’ve been able to pick out one phrase, but the rest is total gibberish. Or it seems that way, since I doubt anything about this case is just sound for the sake of sound. It must mean something. The paintings did. The writings probably do, too—both the dermographia and the automatic work the two other patients are manifesting.”
Carlos raised his eyebrows. “Three unconscious patients and each manifests a different phenomenon. This intrigues me. I will go with you to talk to the medium.”
“Why? Not that I’m not grateful for the offer, but I don’t get the attraction.”
He chuckled. “Very little is new to me anymore, but I have never seen spirits behave as you are describing. I could manage the magic myself to discover what they want and what the cause of their distress is, but my way would be destructive and dangerous to you. That I do not want—and nor would Cameron. But I do wish to see this through.” He paused before adding, “If you allow it.”
I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of spending more time in Carlos’s presence, but I wouldn’t say no to the extra magical muscle he represented. I’m no mage or medium, so I would need help no matter what the solution was. I could probably recruit other assistance, but, to be honest, Carlos was about the most powerful that I could hope for. He’s dangerous and occasionally unpredictable, but we’re friends of a sort and I wasn’t fool enough to throw his offer aside lightly. I hoped he would have no temptation to go further than necessary, though; Carlos’s whims tended to have horrifying consequences.
“All right. I’ll call the man in question and see if he’ll play along.”
Carlos curved his mouth into something less a smile than a smirk.
I got my phone out of my pocket and called Richard Stymak. When he answered I could hear Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers” playing in the background. “Hey,” he said.
“Hi, Stymak. This is Harper Blaine. I’m working on the Goss case. . . .”
“Yeah, I know. Hi. What for you can I do?” His words came out a bit slowly and with an odd flourish of inversion, as if he were a little high or quite tired.
“I’ve found some objects I think belong to the ghosts manifesting through Julianne and other patients —”
He interrupted me with an odd, drawling excitement. “You did find them? The other guys? I knew there had to be some.”
“Yes. But the thing is, Stymak, I can’t seem to make any contact with these spirits, even with the objects in my hand. I was hoping you might be willing to help me.”
“Sure! When?”
“Tonight.”
“Like . . . now?” His voice squeaked and I could hear him scrambling about. “Umm . . . I’m not exactly ready for this.” He sounded less dreamy now that he was panicking.
“How long would it take for you to get ready and where would you like to do it?”
“Um,” he started, still making shuffling noises and possibly shaking himself to greater clarity—I could hear something being whisked about that passed over the phone in sudden whispers. “I could probably do it in an hour or so. I’m . . . well, I’m naked at the moment and while that’s a good guarantee I’m not faking anything, I’m guessing you don’t really want to see that.”
“I’m quite sure I don’t and neither does the other guy.”
“Other guy?”
“Independent witness. He’s helping me out with the identification of the objects.”
“Oh, like . . . a psychometrist? Never met one of those . . .”
“Yes. I’d like to bring him, too, so we have corroboration.”
“Oh. OK. Well, definitely don’t want to be wagging my willie in that case. I . . . uh . . . um, do we have to do it at my place? It’s small and kind of a mess.”
“If you’re comfortable elsewhere and can get set up by”—I glanced at my watch—“say, ten o’clock?”
“Ten? Yeah. I can do that. Umm . . . we could meet at the Goss place. . . .”
“I would prefer not to,” I said, thinking it might not constitute neutral ground for all the spirits and I didn’t want to introduce Carlos to Lily and let him into her house. Vampires don’t really need permission to enter your home, but it’s just better to keep them at a distance when you have the option.
“Oh. Oh! Hey, do you know the CalAska Pub in West Seattle?”
I certainly did, since I lived just a few miles from it. “Yes, I do.”
“The owner has a back room he’d probably let me use for an hour or so. He’s an old roommate of mine. He’s cool with the occult and all that. Kind of owes me.”
“If you’re sure you can get the space . . .” I replied, a little wary, but since I was asking Stymak for a favor on short notice, I wasn’t going to fuss much.
“Sure, sure. I’ll call him and call you straight back, all right?”
“OK.”
“Cool.” Stymak hung up.
Carlos gave me a questioning look.
“He has to check on his work space. He doesn’t want us in his home.”
I assumed Carlos understood the idea of not letting magical strangers into your private space. He nodded and made a silent “ah.”
In a few minutes Stymak returned my call.
“Yeah, Harper, so . . . yeah. John says it’s good to go. Meet you at the bar at ten.”
“Will do. Thanks, Stymak.”
“My pleasure. Want to get to the bottom of this thing myself. And I wouldn’t mind meeting your psychometrist—that’s a cool skill.”
“I’m not sure how much you’ll like it once you’ve seen it up close,” I warned.
“Man, as long as we’re not sacrificing puppies, I’m good.”
I gave Carlos the eye and said, “No. No puppy sacrifices.”
“Cool. See you at ten,” Stymak replied and hung up again.
Carlos returned a long, thoughtful look and then cocked his head with an amused half smile. “Puppy sacrifice? Some people have the strangest ideas.”
“You’re talking about a guy who plays telephone with ghosts. Strange won’t even start in this race.”
NINETEEN
I have no idea how Carlos gets around on his own. He doesn’t seem to drive and I can’t imagine him taking public transit—unless there’s a paranormal bus system I’m not aware of. Usually he just turns up where he agrees to meet me, but this week I seemed to be playing chauffeur to the undead.
We had about an hour to kill and I thought I could skim through some of the books Phoebe had lent me while we waited at the pub. I didn’t want to get sucked into some compelling bit of research and then miss our appointment with Stymak, but since I had the opportunity to glance through the books, I figured I should grab it while I could and Stymak or Carlos would drag me out whenever one of them was ready to work.
CalAska was one of the early self-contained boutique brew pubs in Seattle. It’s small and has changed names and owners several times, but continues to serve decent house-brewed beer and pub food that’s a cut above the usual commercial-grade sandwiches and greasy fish-and-chips. I pored over a book about Linda Hazzard’s career as Washington’s first serial killer with a glass of root beer at my elbow. Carlos had a pint of stout in front of him, but he wasn’t drinking it. Not that vampires can’t drink alcohol, they just . . . don’t. Why bother with
