Victor pulled up at the Pioneer Park lot, right next to Coit Tower. Coit Tower is an iconic San Francisco landmark, and although the surrounding Pioneer Park is small, it could provide plenty of cover for something to be lurking in the dark.
Before Victor got out of the car, he checked his fanny pack, the one he carries on many magical sorties, a mini version of his usual black doctor’s bag. Most of the stuff it contains is for magical forensics, but it also contains objects for enabling those spells that need magical props. It contains crystals, small bars of different pure metals, things I can’t identify, and other, more prosaic items such as duct tape and a hunting knife. Finally satisfied, he zipped it shut and exited the car.
“No shotgun?” I said.
“We won’t be needing it.”
Again, no explanation, no conversation. I shrugged and followed him out of the car. I’d seen him like this before, but never so bad. There wasn’t any point in pestering him with questions; he’d tell me what was going on when he was good and ready.
We headed down Greenwich Street in the direction of Bertram’s place over on Montgomery. Victor led the way and Eli brought up the rear. I had a sudden sense of déjà vu. Of course. Morgan’s dream, the one where she had seen Victor, Eli, and me walking down a darkened street. And no Lou. She’d felt an overwhelming sense of dread and danger, but she couldn’t see anything. All she had seen was the three of us.
I hadn’t been feeling very comfortable anyway, but now I was filled with my own sense of foreboding. I kept glancing left and right, expecting something to leap from out the shadows at any moment. When Victor suddenly stopped, I almost ran up on his heels.
“What is it?” I whispered, unwilling to make any noise that might bring something down on us.
He held up a hand for quiet. We had just passed an al leyway, and he turned back to examine something lying on the ground, hidden in shadow. He squatted down to examine it more closely, then whistled softly.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Look at this.”
I walked up obligingly, and that was when Eli grabbed me from behind in a bear hug and lifted me off my feet. Once you’re off your feet, you have no purchase and there’s nothing you can do, especially when your opponent is bigger and stronger. You can try a head butt, snapping your head back with as much force as you can muster, but that’s easy to counter just by keeping your head tucked down behind the other guy’s shoulder. None of that mattered, though. I was too stunned to even struggle.
“What the fuck!” I yelled, but that was all I got to say. Victor had his handy roll of duct tape out and whipped a few turns around my head and mouth in no time flat. Eli pushed me facedown onto the pavement, knocking the wind out of me, and Victor looped more turns around my hands and feet. I was neatly trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and all I could do was glare and make muffled sounds.
I stopped making even those when Victor put a knife blade up to my throat.
“Not a sound,” he said. “I’d as soon cut your throat as not, and the minute you start to change, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Understand?”
Now it started to make sense. Victor and Eli thought I wasn’t me—that I was the shape-shifter. But where in God’s name had they got that idea? However they’d come to that conclusion, I was in trouble. With the duct tape over my mouth I couldn’t explain, and I doubted that Victor would listen anyway. Since the shape-shifter could do an almost perfect copy, complete with memories, nothing I could say would convince him. No wonder Morgan had seen only the three of us. There wasn’t anyone else, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t in serious trouble.
Eli hoisted me up and tossed me over one broad shoulder. With his professorial demeanor, it’s easy to forget just how strong he is. I felt a tickling sensation as Victor laid a slight illusion over my body to make it look like an innocuous pile of coats or some such.
“Bertram?” Eli asked. Victor nodded.
This was getting worse by the moment. Obviously they wanted some information from the shape-shifter. Bertram was notorious about getting answers, but his methods were not for the squeamish. And I was in the unenviable position of having no answers to give. No matter what he did to me, I couldn’t give information I didn’t have, and any insistence that I was really me would just be taken as stubborn intransigence, inviting further unpleasant interrogation.
“Do you think Mason’s still alive?” asked Victor as we walked along. Rather, they walked. I rode.
“I don’t think so,” Eli said. “But it’s possible. Remember, it wouldn’t have had to kill and consume Mason to do a good enough copy to fool us, at least for a while. It wouldn’t fool Lou, of course, but you’ll notice Lou is conveniently missing. Bertram will be able to get the answer.”
“Still, I would have never suspected. Are you positive?”
“Oh, I’m positive, all right. Remember, I saw his hands change when he thought I wasn’t looking. If not for that, he’d have fooled me, too. We’ve got the son of a bitch, all right.”
Saw my hands change? What the hell was he talking about? When had my hands changed? As usual, I was a little slow on the uptake, but in my defense it’s hard to think clearly when you’re trussed up, hanging upside down, and on your way to an “enhanced interrogation.”
What tipped it was simple, though. “Son of a bitch” was not a phrase I’d ever heard Eli use before, and there was a reason for that. It’s not a phrase he would ever use. A shape-shifter was present all right, but it wasn’t me.
The shape-shifter must have assumed Eli’s identity and used that guise to convince Victor it was me who had been replaced. You’d think after that phony phone call out at Hunters Point Victor would have been more skeptical, but apparently not.
One good thing, though—the shifter had used a phrase Eli never would have uttered. Which meant it hadn’t got him down quite right. Which meant Eli possibly hadn’t been killed—it was just aping him.
It was hard to see Victor clearly since my head was hanging upside down, but I was sure I saw a momentary stiffening. He’d picked up on that out-of-character phrase as well. The Eli shape-shifter might have temporarily fooled him, but Victor was no dummy. He hadn’t lived as long as he had by ignoring little things that seemed out of place.
The fake Eli seemed to sense he’d made a false step and went for a distraction. He eased me off his shoulder and dumped me roughly onto the sidewalk. Another atypical behavior that I hoped Victor would notice. I lay there among trash wrappers and unpleasant smells.
“Maybe we should search him,” Eli said. “He might be carrying something.”
Victor nodded and rolled me over so that I was facedown on the pavement and started going through my pockets. He took my folding knife, loose change, and then he came across those leaves I’d stuffed in my pocket. I’d forgotten all about them. He held them out to show to Eli.
“Here’s something interesting,” he said. “These leaves are unusual, and they’re sticky with dried blood.”
“Interesting. Have you got enough in your forensics bag to test them?”
Victor nodded again, but he didn’t look happy. Something was bothering him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. I made a couple of muffled grunts, trying to get his attention, but he ignored me.
He took off his fanny pack and moved out of my range of vision. A couple of minutes later, he walked back and handed the leaves to Eli.
“Not from this world,” he said. “No doubt about it.” How damning was that bit of evidence? Victor had no idea I’d been through the pool to another world. He turned to look at me, and his face was as hard as I’d ever seen it. “And the blood on them is from an Ifrit.” For a moment I thought he was going to shoot me right then and there, and so did he. I realized with surprise that he was fond of Lou in his own way.
“I can explain,” I said, desperately. Actually, I didn’t say anything; I could only make grunting sounds again.
The fake Eli saved me by interrupting, although he didn’t realize he’d done so. He couldn’t read Victor like Eli would have.
“Let’s get him up to Bertram,” Eli said, and after a moment, Victor turned on his heel and walked away from me.
Victor really should have known better, but he put great store in measurements and numbers and tests, things that could be quantified. He knew in his heart there was something not right about the whole thing, but the damning evidence of the leaves and blood was powerful, enabling him to brush aside his inner reservations. He’s always been a head-over-heart guy.
The fake Eli walked away from me, following Victor, and I took the opportunity to roll over on my side to where I could see. I kept testing the duct tape bonds, but they held fast. Victor had done his usual competent job.
You’d think I could have used talent to free myself, but it’s not that easy. I don’t have any preset spells in hand; I don’t operate that way. And although I could gather what I needed from the world around me, with no ability to speak or move or even gesture, I had no way to actualize anything. It was like having a loaded gun in your pocket, but with no way to use it.
Eli casually strolled over to where Victor was stuffing items back into his fanny pack. He slipped in behind him, and as I watched, I thought I saw his hands start to change. I looked again and this time I was sure—the hands began to gradually lengthen and change shape. Familiar six-inch claws spurted out in slow motion where fingers once were. The rest of him didn’t change; that would have taken too long. He was the same benign, reassuring presence I’d always known. Victor heard him come up and glanced back over his shoulder. Eli’s familiar presence reassured him, and he turned his attention back to his pack.
There was nothing I could do. It would get Victor first, then me. To make things worse, if possible, a movement in the shadows caught my eye. A rat, maybe, coming to investigate my helpless position. It loomed out of the darkness and poked its snout toward me an inch from my face. Only, it wasn’t a rat’s snout at all. It was a sharp black-and-tan muzzle, as familiar as my own face.
Lou disappeared behind me, and I could feel sharp teeth working on the duct tape that held my wrists. It was going to be a race. Would he be able to free me before the fake Eli grew those talons and sank them into the back of Victor’s neck? Lou should have ignored me and warned Victor first, but he doesn’t think that way. I was his first priority, and if Victor’s fight with the shape-shifter gave him some extra time to free me, so much the better. If Victor bought the farm as a result, it would be unfortunate, but war always has collateral damage. He’d help Victor if he could, but not at my expense. Better Victor than me, was his opinion. Or maybe I was being too harsh—Lou has trouble keeping more than one thought at a time in his mind, anyway.
He chewed through half the tape, and with that start, I was able to rip the remainder in half. I reached up with fumbling fingers to rip off the tape across my mouth, but my fingers were numb and I couldn’t get a grip. Eli’s arms came up toward Victor. I looked down at Lou, pointed at the two of them, and grunted wildly.
He got the message and charged toward them, rattling off his usual volley of high-pitched barks. Victor spun around immediately, just in time to see the claw at the end of Eli’s arm descending toward his face. He threw himself sideways, landing on one shoulder and rolling, bouncing immediately back to his feet. You had to admire the guy.
The Eli shape-shifter lunged at him, but Victor was too quick for it. If the shape-shifter had been in its natural form, it might have been a different story, but it was limited by the form it had taken. I had finally managed to tear the tape off my mouth, but the band around my feet was still secure. I couldn’t move from my spot on the ground, but I was no longer helpless.
I wasn’t much help, though. I knew from experience that it would be hard to affect the shape-shifter directly, and if I did something simple, like making the pavement as slippery as an ice rink, Victor would be affected as well. The two of them would go down together, and only one of them would get up.
Victor didn’t wait for me to weigh in. As he dodged to one side, he pulled the Glock out from under his jacket. The first round missed as the shape-shifter dodged sideways, surprisingly quick, and there wasn’t time for a second. A sweeping claw knocked the pistol from Victor’s hand, and now it was Victor’s turn to dodge again.
It leapt toward him. But before it could reach him, I struck. I reached out and swept all the trash I could find up into a swirl—wrappers, paper, leaves, and dirt—then mixed in the sticky properties of duct tape and threw the entire mess into its face. The trash stuck fast, effectively blinding it. It pawed at its face, trying to clear the mess away. The mask of gunk it wore wouldn’t last long, but it gave Victor his opportunity and he scooted over to retrieve the gun. The fake Eli realized what was happening and stopped trying to get rid of the trash covering its face and eyes. Instead, it darted away, blindly but with determined speed. It didn’t want to face firepower. It bounced off a couple of cars it couldn’t see and disappeared into the darkness before Victor could level the gun and get off another shot.
I took a deep breath and started working on the tape that still bound my feet. Lou flopped down next to me, looking exhausted. For a moment Victor started to go after the shape-shifter, but saw it was hopeless. Finally he shook his head and walked over toward me, gun still in his hand.