.”
“If you’re done trying to kill us for today, can we come inside and talk?”
Suddenly, he looked old and frail with his pale skin exposed to the inhospitable weather. He nodded jerkily and waved us up to the porch, clearing his misty minions aside with a gesture of one hand. “Well, I ain’t gonna waste no more time trying to kill you out here. Might as well come inside.”
“Where you can kill us in private,” Quinton muttered.
I turned back to Quinton. “Are you all right?”
He started to put his hand to his face but, wincing, pulled it back before his palm quite touched. “Feels as if something burned me, but . . . it’s cold. I’m going to be a wuss and admit it hurts. Make that ‘fucking hurts.’ A lot.”
“Anything else hurt or feel . . . strange?”
He paused as if taking a mental poll of his body parts. “No. I’m OK otherwise.”
“You don’t have to come. Maybe you shouldn’t. . . .”
“You’re kidding, right? I’m not going to go hide in the truck like a five-year-old and let him kill you—or whatever he’s planning to try. Besides, if he did this to my face, I want him to fix it.”
“All right, then. Come on.”
We walked the last few yards to the house. I kept a wary eye on the Grey, just in case, but nothing molested us.
We stepped up onto the wooden porch, which creaked like a giant cricket. Up close, Costigan’s skin was the color of old ivory, as if it had once been darker and had faded under a merciless light, his features slightly flattened. His eyes were ice blue.
Costigan just waited until we were close enough to peer at, which he did. “Lord have mercy, boy. What happened to your face?” he asked, snickering. His accent sounded as if he came from the swampy bits of Louisiana so long ago and through so many other places that he’d forgotten how it should go.
“Cut myself shaving,” Quinton snapped at him. “What do you think?”
Costigan shook his head on his scrawny neck and turned to lead us into his house. Up close, he looked about ninety and more like an animated sack of bones than some of his creations had. “Well, I never seen ’em do that before. Not that I ever seen anybody still standing when they were done with ’em, neither. Today’s a ponder, that’s for sure.”
Quinton blinked at me and made a bemused face. “I think he’s crazy.”
“What would give you that idea?” I replied.
Costigan snorted a chuckle and kept walking ahead of us into the living room.
The room was not what I’d expected at all. With its low roof and long, rambling lines, I’d thought the interior would reflect the same traditional look, but the cabin was a deceptive shell around a modern, cantilevered structure that seemed to hang over the shore from interior braces of white-painted steel. The water-level view filled the wall from side to side without a deck to ruin the illusion that the lake was coming right into the living room. The only thing that seemed to keep the roof from simply collapsing to the floor was a narrow steel fire pit and its collection of hanging organ-pipe chimneys that ran to within six feet of the window on the front and the exterior wall on the back. A folding screen of glass and metal rods held the smoke and fire at bay and reflected on the polished wood floor—where you could see it. Shapeless couches like sleeping buffalo lay here and there on the floor facing no particular direction and in no apparent plan. Small lost ottomans snuggling against the couches made it look like the herd of furniture had just settled itself down for the night. A slab of black granite stood on a pair of trestles beyond the fire curtain, pretending to be a table, its surface dusty with motes and swirls of colored powder and grit. Colored candles stood in slumps of melted wax on the table and lay in pyramid stacks in the corners of the room.
The floor was partially covered by mismatched rugs that had once roamed around as the skins of bears and sheep and now lay about as aimlessly as their sofa companions. I could see traces of chalk and salt on the floor under the rugs, and the air smelled of burning herbs and pine needles, with a faint, clinging odor of dead things under it all. I imagined the furniture could be moved quickly against the walls when needed, the rugs thrown over them to clear the floor for whatever work Costigan got up to. In the Grey, the room breathed slow gusts of dark mist.
Costigan pointed at the sofas as he went toward the worktable. “You sit. I’ll get something for the boy’s face.” He cackled to himself as he strolled away.
Quinton looked at me and mouthed, “Boy?”
I shrugged and sat on one of the couch lumps, which gave under me as if it were stuffed with down. In spite of the fire in the fire pit, the room was chilly, but the squishy embrace of the sofa made me too warm and I was panting in a minute. Quinton yanked me back up, and I realized the couch hadn’t been warming me up so much as smothering me. I gave it a dirty look and stayed on my feet with my coat on.
“Think we can trust whatever crazy thing he’s bringing back?” Quinton muttered.
“Not sure. But I won’t let him do anything to you,” I replied, then added, “That would hurt you.”
Costigan shuffled back from the far side of the fire pit, a bowl in one hand and a bottle of rum tucked under his other arm. A thin Grey shadow that didn’t bear his shape followed him. He frowned at us. “Whyn’t you sit?”
“I think it’s feeding time,” I said.
“Eh?” Costigan muttered. Then he glanced at the couch I’d escaped from. “Ah. Well, I been busy.” He kicked at the sofa in passing and his shadow did the same. The furniture whimpered. “Now, lemme see your face.”
Quinton turned his cheek toward the old man warily, watching him from the corners of his eyes as he did.
Costigan huffed. “Looks nasty. You gonna get a scar there. Little scar, but you still be pretty; don’t worry.” He held the bowl in front of Quinton’s face. “Spit.” His shadow, flickering the color of budding leaves, reached to stroke the blackened weal and I blinked, conscious of its fingers.
“What?”
“Spit, you fool. Otherwise the spirits think it’s me. You don’t want them fix you up to look like me, do you?”
Quinton made a face and spit into the bowl. Costigan cackled to himself and poured in a stiff shot of rum before he used his fingers to stir the glop in the bowl around. Then he scooped up some reddish brown paste and patted it on the black line across Quinton’s cheek. The shadow did the same while Costigan muttered under his breath. Quinton winced and so did I, which seemed to amuse the old man. “Just poultice, boy. Not gonna kill you, so stop squealing.” The crazy old sorcerer shot me a glance, but didn’t say anything.
I watched as the old man smeared the stuff on, seeing little green and gold threads, fine as spider silk, weaving out of the goo and settling into Quinton’s skin. Where they touched, the skin turned a little rosier and sparkled slightly. The effect spread slowly over the bluish patch on Quinton’s face until there was a fine gauze of magic clinging to the injury. I almost sighed in relief and felt the last of the tension drop from my own aching fingers.
But mention of a scar had made me think. “Is that how Faith got his scar?” I asked.
Costigan laughed. “No. I hear he had him a argument with a fella had a rifle and he only had him a dog. Before I come here, though, so I ain’t sure.”
“Why did you come here?” I asked as he poked at Quinton’s face.
He shrugged one shoulder, screwing up his face the way you do when you watch a man shave. “This old lake full of power. I want me some, I come take it. That damned witch ’cross the way don’t want no one else round. I say, ‘To hell with her,’ and I make me some helpers to show her the way to the door.” He cut a glare at me. “Until you went and ruined’em all.” He patted Quinton’s face aside. “You’ll do. You let that set till it get hard and fall off. Or until it start to itch. Whichever.” Then he muttered some more words and crossed himself like a Catholic at Mass.
“How long’s that going to be?” Quinton asked, looking askance at the half-naked old man.
Costigan looked up again and frowned at him. “Few hours.” Then he grabbed Quinton’s chin and gave him a fast kiss on the lips before he backed off, laughing. “You gonna be fine, boy. Just fine!”
I think Quinton would have taken a swing at him if I hadn’t put a hand on his arm. “He’s just messing with you,” I said, but I wasn’t sure of that. The pale green shadow had remained next to Quinton, keeping its head near
