Morgan opened his mouth to reply when Coby said, "It's OK, he's a friend. We're just horsing around - sorry."
The shopkeeper frowned, unconvinced, but when Morgan rocked back on the balls of his feet, releasing Coby from his weight, he muttered and headed back into the shop. Morgan closed a hand around Coby's wrist to tug him to his feet then pull him down the street, away from the shopkeeper's watchful eyes.
"Well? Why the fuck are you following me?" Morgan said when he was sure they were out of earshot.
Coby ran a hand through the curly tangle of his hair, pausing with his fingertips caught at the nape of his neck in a gesture that reminded Morgan painfully of Julie. "I know why Dr Granger died," he said. "And if you don't help me, I'm afraid I'm going to be next."
CHAPTER EIGHT
When Alex woke her head felt clogged with exhaustion and her body ached like she'd been beaten. She rolled to the side and found herself lying against the warm obstruction of another body. PD slept with one arm flung above his head and another curled on his stomach. He looked almost childlike and she smiled. When she ran a hand the length of his arm, snaking to avoid the bruises which mottled it, he stirred but didn't wake.
She could tell by the quality of light seeping through the slatted blinds that it was well past sunrise and she knew she wouldn't go back to sleep. After a moment more enjoying the warmth she rolled to her feet and walked to the window. The blinds rattled as she raised them and she heard a mutter of discontent from the bed. She ignored it, leaning her forehead against the cool glass. Her breath fogged the window, blurring the view of downtown and softening the point of the Transamerica Pyramid to a white blob.
"You're drifting," a voice said, and for a second she thought it was in her head. But when she spun around, Raven was there, black feathers glossy in the light. The orange disc of the sun reflected in its eye as it cocked its head.
She squeezed her own eyes closed then blinked them slowly open again, but it was still there. She'd taken the peyote more than 16 hours ago. She couldn't still be tripping.
"A child thinks when she shuts her eyes the world disappears," Raven said. "But the adult knows the world existed before her and will exist after. The world is permanent and the child is temporary."
"You sound like a fortune cookie," she said.
The bird couldn't smile, but its eye twinkled. "Would you like to hear your fortune, Alex?"
"No," she said. "Please, just leave me alone."
"Too late," it said. "Too late."
There was a rustle of wings as it took to the air and she saw that PD was standing behind it. The graze on his face had begun to congeal into a scab. It looked diseased in the pale morning light. His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. "Alex," he said, "who are you talking to?"
Raven settled on her shoulder and its weight felt like an anchor, tethering her to a place she wanted to escape. Her eyes twitched, wanting to look at it, but she kept them focused on PD. Reality is what you want it to be, she thought. The world you live in is the world you choose to see.
"Sorry," she said. "Just thinking aloud."
She reached out a hand towards his cheek, but he flinched away from it, turning his back on her as he scooped his clothes from the floor. "We should grab breakfast," he said. "And decide on our next move."
Heat rose in her cheeks that was part shame and part anger. "So we're just going to ignore last night?"
He laced his shoes as he spoke, leaving her nothing to look at but his mussed black hair. "We're partners, Alex - we shouldn't have. And we can't again."
"You knew it all along," Raven cawed in her ear.
She shook her head, but there was nothing to say, nothing that wouldn't humiliate her further. Her dress was wrinkled and dirty when she picked it up from the floor. She pulled it on, then followed PD out of the door.
Raven flew beside her as she walked the length of the corridor and a figure walked ahead of her, curly brown hair looking almost black in the subdued lighting. In the elevator car, Raven's reflection blinked at her from every surface but the figure who'd preceded her was gone. PD avoided her gaze and left her nothing to concentrate on but the spirit realm, still there no matter how hard she wished it away. Sixteen hours already. How long would she have to endure before it faded and the mundane world returned? Would it return?
Outside it was worse. San Francisco was on fire, orange flames licking at the rubble of a city in ruins. The streets were crowded, but there was something wrong with the image, like a film that had been double-exposed.
Half the people sauntered casually, tourists with nowhere important to go and in no hurry to get there. The other people ran and screamed. Some faces were blackened with soot while others ran red with blood. Alex saw the terrified people pass through the calm - or maybe it was the other way round. Neither group seemed more or less real than the other, and she dodged both, weaving madly across the sidewalk. PD gave her a puzzled stare but his eyes slid away from hers when she tried to meet them. And Raven flew above it all, floating like a burnt-out ember on the wind.
She knew what she was seeing. Years ago, back when this whole nightmare had first begun, Hammond told her that the future and the past had no meaning in the realm of spirit. A hundred years ago, San Francisco had shaken and then burnt to the ground - and in the spirit world, it was burning still.
She stumbled against PD, tripping on a paving slab that both was and wasn't torn from the ground. He grabbed her arm to steady her, then dropped it immediately and turned to go inside a small diner. Here she saw nothing but the burnished chrome counter and tastefully abstract paintings on the walls. She guessed the earthquake had left this building standing and felt a little of the tension leave her as she slid into her seat.
But Raven remained. The bird perched on the edge of their table, beak poised to peck at their food.
"Alex," PD said, finally looking at her. "You've got to get your head in the game. I'm sorry about last night, but let's move on."
"
Sorry?"
she said, voice shaky.
"I know what happened yesterday freaked you out. Last night was... a reaction to that."
Raven laughed in her ear and she felt her spine stiffen. "It's not last night that's bothering me. It's today. It's still here. Or I'm still there. Christ, I don't know!"
"What's still here?"
"The spirit world. I'm..." She gulped a breath. "I'm trapped in it. I can't get out."
"You're not trapped, kid - you're right here."
Her feelings had been teetering all morning between panic and anger. Now they settled firmly on fury. "What the hell would you know about it? You made me take that peyote, and now I'm losing my mind!"
Her words left silence in their wake, and she realised she'd been shouting. People sitting at the tables around them shifted their chairs. One couple near the door slapped down two twenty dollar bills and left with their eggs Benedict and French toast congealing half-eaten on their plates.
PD shifted uncomfortably. "You're not going crazy. You had a big scare yesterday. You've got to expect some after-effects."
"Jesus Christ, you think I'm imagining this? I'm tripping! That damn Raven's still there. He's sitting on the table right by your hand."
PD shot a short startled glance at the table, frowning when he saw nothing.
"I
know
it's not really there," Alex snapped. "Which means even though I've taken no drugs, I'm still hallucinating. Which means I'm clinically fucking insane, no matter what you say."
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, and she could see his mind whirling behind his eyes.
"Didn't expect that, did you?" she said. "What's the matter, your last tame spirit traveller just toed the company line and didn't complain?"
"There
was
no other spirit traveller." He squeezed his lips together, as if realising he'd said something he shouldn't. But after a moment, he continued, "We've got some people who can visit the place when they're dreaming, but that's it. You're the first we've ever managed to recruit who can go there in the waking world. That's what makes you so valuable."
"The first?" She thought back to what Hammond had told her. He'd said something about her being the first traveller of her generation, and let her assume that the CIA had worked with others. She knew why he'd lied. "Which makes me what, your guinea pig? You bastards. You're making me take all this stuff and you don't even know what it's doing to me.
"It's not like that, Alex," PD said. "We wouldn't...
I
wouldn't treat you that way."
"You
are
."
They stared at each other for a moment of silence. PD looked pained and Alex felt a flash of hope. "Please," she said. "If last night meant
anything
, you've got to help me get away from this."
He clenched his hand and when she saw the flash of undisguised rage on his face, she thought for a moment that he was going to hit her. But he brought his fist down to the table with deliberate gentleness. It lay between them like a warning. "Oh, I get it. Nice plan, kid.
Seduce
me into doing what you want. I've got news for you - it was good, but not
that
good. And your poor little rich girl act doesn't cut it with me. You're like the player who gets dealt a pat straight flush, then complains that the deck's stacked. You have no idea, do you, how lucky you are?"
"I used to," she hissed. "I used to have the sort of life other people envied - and then you took it away from me."
"The self pity... Your life was empty. It meant nothing. And now..." Between them on the table, his fist was clenched so tight that his knuckles stood out white against his brown skin. "Did you ever wonder why they recruited
me
? No, of course not, because you never think about anyone except yourself. Well, I'll tell you. They recruited me because I'm a direct male-line descendant of Wovoka - Jack Wilson to your people. If you'd bothered to study what you were meant to study, you'd know who he was."
"I know who Jack Wilson is. He was the prophet who invented the Ghost Dance. He claimed it could bring paradise on earth."
"And drive the white man from our lands." PD's voice was soft but his anger burned behind his eyes. "He was a spirit traveller like you. Our employers hired me because they hoped I'd inherited his powers. Every test they've done on you, they did on me first - only with me it never worked. I know exactly what you're going through because I went through it too. I wasted years of my life. And now some pissy little white bitch has everything I always wanted."
It was the most honest she'd ever heard him, and it made her feel small and cold and hard. "So you're punishing me because you turned out to be such a failure? You only want what I've got because you don't know what it is. It's
killing
me, don't you understand?"
He shrugged. "We're at war and you're a soldier. Soldiers fight and they die. It's what they're for. You're twenty-three now. Grow up."
So that was it, the bottom line. He didn't care about her or what this cost her. He'd make her keep doing it until it destroyed her, and then he'd look for someone else and do exactly the same to them.
The waitress refilled their coffee cups. PD sipped his as if nothing had happened as the bitter smell surrounded them. "We need to find out more about Maria and the man she was with," he said. "I was going to tell you to take more peyote, but I guess that won't be necessary."
"No, I guess not." She stood and PD did too. His hand reached out to stop her and she slapped it away. "I'm going to the bathroom. If that's
permitted
."
He nodded and she squeezed through to the tiled, low-lit room at the back of the diner. The lock gave a satisfying click as she turned it. She'd sat down, dress bunched around her waist, when she saw Raven's eye twinkling at her from the gloom near the door.
"Jesus!" she shouted, springing up. The heat of her anger burnt low in her chest, still simmering from her argument with PD. "If you want to say something, say it. You're supposed to be my spirit guide, aren't you? Well fucking guide me!"
The bird didn't answer, its black eyes blank. After a few seconds staring into them, she began to feel as if she could fall through and into whatever lay beyond. Her head spun with vertigo and she gasped and covered her face with her hands.
When her hands fell away, she gasped again. The Raven was gone and a man stood in his place. For a second she thought it was PD. He was Native American too, young and handsome. But PD would never have worn what he was wearing, the moccasins and the hide breechcloth and most of all the feather headdress.
Then she registered the glossy black feathers that made up the headdress and the black shine of the eyes beneath it, and she knew who this was.
"Raven?" she said.
He cocked his head, the human gesture exactly like the bird's. "Well, no, I'm human."
"But you
were
the Raven?"
"Oh yes. Or he was me. Or maybe both of us are someone else."
She huffed in exasperation.
He looked hurt. His face was far more mobile than PD's, the expressions flicking across it almost comically broad. "Sorry, am I boring you? I don't usually do that. Irritate, yes. I might go so far as infuriate. But I'm seldom actually tedious."
"Could you just..." She sighed. "Could you just go away?"
"But I thought you wanted my help. You were quite explicit about it. 'Fucking guide me'. Those were your exact words." He grinned idiotically.
"Jesus," she said. "I think I preferred you when you were a bird."
"I'm less obliging when I'm a bird."
The bathroom was too hot, condensation sweating from its white walls and coating the lid of the toilet when she lowered it. She sat gingerly and studied her spirit guide. He was as solid and real as anything else in the room.
"Can you make it go away?" she asked him.
"Make
myself
go away?"
She shook her head to deny it and then realised that of course that was exactly what she meant. "Make all of it go away. Make it stop. PD
wants
this - why not give it to him?"