“Finally, your chance,” I said. “Shoot me now. I’m helpless—my ankles are still taped together.”
“Sorry about that,” he said, in a tone that lacked any contrition. He looked down at Lou. “Nice work.” No mention of my role in fighting off the shape-shifter. We stared at each other for a few seconds, until he looked away and muttered something.
“What?” I said. “I didn’t catch that.”
“I might have been a bit hasty on this one,” he said. “All things considered.”
I waited, but that was all he had to say. I had a feeling that his almost killing me had shaken him considerably, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. But there were more important things to worry about. I asked the question that I didn’t want to.
“What about Eli? Is he dead, do you think?”
He sighed and dropped down on his heels beside me. He put the pistol away back under his jacket and pulled out the knife that had so recently pressed against my throat. It took only a few seconds to slice through the tape around my ankles.
“No, I don’t think he is. I’m betting he’s alive. This shape-shifter’s incarnation of him was off, not quite right. So I think the shape-shifter was just imitating him—if it had actually killed him, the masquerade would have been perfect and undetectable.” Victor took out his cell and punched in a speed-dial number.
“Eli?” I asked. He nodded, then gave me a thumbs-up and relaxed slightly as the call was answered.
“Eli? Where are you?” There was a brief silence as he listened. “No. It wasn’t me who called.” More listening. “No, everything’s fine. Just go home, but be careful. It’s still out there.” Another pause. “I don’t have time to tell you the whole story. But you could still be in danger, so keep a sharp eye out, and get yourself home. Better still, go back to my house and we’ll meet you there.” He snapped his cell shut.
“I still don’t get it,” I said. “So you did notice something odd about him at the time, but you never even thought twice about it?”
“Actually, I did, but I put it down to his being upset. He’s very . . . protective of you, after all, and when he told me what he saw, I figured that would have been enough to throw him off stride completely.”
“And he saw what? Supposedly.”
“Right before I called you, he showed up at my house.” He waved vaguely at the street stretching off into the darkness. “Or, rather, the not-Eli. He told me he’d seen you earlier and, when you thought he wasn’t looking, seen your hands change. He was sure you were the shape-shifter and thought we should capture you—it—and find out where the real you was and if you were still alive.
“Then, when you showed up without Lou, which is unheard of, any doubts I might have had vanished. You never go anywhere without him.” He looked over at Lou again. “Which is just as well. But your excuse that Lou was sick seemed all too convenient at the time.”
A sound plan, psychologically speaking. By naming me as the shape-shifter, all the focus had been put on me. Victor would be watching my every action and thinking about my every word. He’d never think to put the same scrutiny on the supposed Eli.
“I see. The real Eli thought you had called him. But it wasn’t you; it was the shape-shifter again.”
“Exactly. Before it came by my house, it called Eli, imitating me. It told him to meet me over in Berkeley. Eli’s been waiting for me there, safely out of the picture. It’s a clever beast.”
Speaking of clever, how the hell had Lou found me? Well, that much was a given, but how had he got across town so quickly?
“You’ve got Campbell’s cell number, don’t you?” I asked. Victor nodded. “Give her a call for me, will you?” He punched in another number and handed me the phone.
“Campbell?”
“Mason! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Where are you? Did Lou find you?”
“He did. He’s here with me now, over by Coit Tower. Where are you? How did he get here?”
“I’m fairly close, actually. About an hour after you left the house, I was just dropping off to sleep when Lou jumped up on the bed and started barking at me. I thought there was something wrong with him until he ran to the door and kept barking. So we got in the Land Cruiser and I started toward Victor’s house, but he wouldn’t stop barking until I turned north. Then he quieted down for a bit, then started barking again until I changed direction. It was like playing the hot-and-cold game, but with barks. Eventually we ended up somewhere on Telegraph Hill, and when I stopped at a stop sign, he jumped out the window and was gone. I was beside myself, terrified something bad was going down. I’ve been driving around looking for him ever since.”
“Well, we’re over on Greenwich Street,” I said, “just down from Coit Tower. Come on by.” I handed the phone back to Victor. “I see a problem here. If this shape-shifter can imitate us all, how can we trust anyone to be who they seem? I’ve got Lou to vouch for me, but what if he’s not with me, like tonight? And how would I know you’re really Victor, for that matter?”
“A good question,” he said, which of course was no answer at all.
“And another thing,” I said. “The original shape-shifter knew us all—she’d have had no problem in imitating us. But this one did a pretty good job on Eli, so wouldn’t it have to be someone who knew him? Someone besides Ruby? And you, as well. It imitated your voice. And me, since it knew quite a bit about who I was. Who knows all three of us?”
“Half the practitioners in the city,” said Victor dryly. “And all of the ones who cause trouble.”
“Ramsey,” I said
“Ramsey? You must be joking. Why him?”
“Ruby was hanging around with him when I first ran across her at Mama Yara’s. It made no sense to me at the time, but it does now. The shape-shifters travel in pairs, the Wendigo said. You know Ramsey—the man is a walking disaster. Why else would Ruby keep him around—unless it wasn’t Ramsey?”
“Backup rations? A kind of walking larder if things got too lean? And Ruby could have been using him as an information source—a gofer or a sneak. How could he have guessed she wasn’t what she seemed? We certainly didn’t. And why didn’t you mention this before?”
“Well, when I thought Ruby was Ruby, she asked me not to. At the time, I thought she was just embarrassed to have you think she was with a total geek like Ramsey. After, with everything that was going on, I just didn’t even think of it.”
Victor muttered something under his breath, and I don’t think it was a compliment on my brilliance. “But think about it,” I said. “What better disguise?” Victor was not impressed with my reasoning.
“This is another of your unwarranted leaps in logic,” he said. “The shape-shifter that was Ruby could have provided her partner with all the information she’d need.”
“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “Maybe it is a stretch. But it’s still worth checking out.”
“Agreed,” said Victor. “I don’t suppose you know where he lives?” Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I did. Ramsey had invited me over so many times that I eventually relented and once showed up against my better judgment. It wasn’t much fun.
“He lives over on Sutter Street, around Fillmore,” I said. “Not that far from here, actually.”
“Good. We’ll head over there.”
“What, right now?” I had the feeling I was repeating myself. Hadn’t I just said that the other day?
“If you’re after someone, you don’t want to give them time to catch their breath if you can help it. If Ramsey is the shape-shifter, which I doubt, it won’t be expecting us so soon.”
CAMPBELL’S LAND CRUISER CAME INTO VIEW, driving slowly up the street. She caught sight of us and pulled over. I looked over toward Lou, who was stretched out on his side, sound asleep again.
“Can you take Lou home?” I said, before she had even got out of the car. “It looks like he’s about had it.” She looked at me doubtfully through the car window.
“What about you?”
“The night’s not quite over yet. Things to do, people to see.”
“I could try to take him back, but I’m not sure he’ll go for it.”
“Sure, he will. Look at him.” I poked him gently and he raised his head and looked at me bleary-eyed. “Go home with Campbell,” I said, gesturing toward the car. “I’ll be fine.
Lou climbed wearily to his feet and headed off toward her Land Cruiser, stumbling a couple of times. He was used up. A couple of quick assurances to Campbell that things were under control, a brief explanation of our next stop, and she drove away without much protest. I was on my own again, and hopefully I would take better care of myself this time.
Victor and I made our way back to his car, and ten minutes later we were in front of Ramsey’s place, a huge Victorian on Sutter Street broken up into apartments, the way a lot of those old buildings are. Ramsey’s apartment was number 4, but only three apartments were visible. A walkway leads around to the back, though, where a rear door reveals another apartment that you wouldn’t know was there unless you’d visited before. The door was warded of course, since a practitioner lived there.
“Do we knock?” I asked in a low voice. Victor shook his head without hesitation.
“We go right in. If he’s the shape-shifter, we’ll need the surprise. If he’s not—” He shrugged. “We’ll just apologize. He won’t give a damn when he sees it’s us.”
He was right. Ramsey would be so thrilled by the thought of being in on something exciting that he wouldn’t care that we’d just waltzed in uninvited, even though that’s unforgivable by practitioner etiquette.
Victor looked up and down the door, examining the warding. You can’t actually see warding unless you’re another practitioner, and even then you don’t exactly see it. You feel it and sense it, in a way ordinaries can’t. It’s an overlay, and for someone like Victor, or even myself, it’s as obvious as a new paint job on an old rusted car.
The warding was not only over the door but the entire side of the building. Quite ambitious, but pitiful even for someone as unskilled as Ramsey. Worse, he hadn’t kept up with it—warding doesn’t last forever; it needs to be maintained. I’d neglected that myself a couple of years ago, much to my sorrow. I’m a lot more conscientious these days.
“Give me a hand with this,” said Victor, pointing to a spot right over the door.
The warding there had completely degraded to the point where it was nonexistent. He reached out with his talent, I did the same, and together we peeled the rest of the warding off like loose skin off an onion. Victor reached under his jacket and brought out the Glock. He motioned toward the door with it.
“Kick the door. Hit it right next to the lock, and hit it hard.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t just knock?” I said. He looked at me in exasperation.
So I was to be the muscle. I don’t mind being the B player in the movie, but Victor is the one with martial arts skills. He doesn’t often use those skills; he prefers simple weapons like guns, things that won’t mess up his hair. But he’s got those skills in reserve if he needs them, and even though he’s not a very big guy, I’m sure he would have done a better job at door crashing than me. But he had the gun and wanted to stand back, ready in case anything came flying out. Or maybe he thought it would be good for my self-esteem to feel useful. More likely he just wanted me in front if things went sour—sometimes I think he feels that in the grand scheme of things I wouldn’t be that much of a loss.
I was still wearing my heavy boots, though. I gathered myself, got my balance, and unleashed a side kick, striking the door just above the lock right next to the doorjamb. I could feel the shock all the way up my leg. The door remained stubbornly fast, and I bounced off and lost my balance, falling to the ground.
Victor smirked at me and stepped forward. He spun around with one of his tricky martial arts moves and hit the door, which of course obligingly flew open. It was like the pickle jar, I was sure. I’d softened it up, almost breaking my foot in the process, and then he stepped in. It would have flown open if he’d simply breathed on it. One good thing—he was now the first through the door.
I scrambled to my feet and followed him inside. We didn’t have to secure the room—it was tiny, consisting of a kitchenette with a ratty table and plastic chairs, plus an additional living area no more than six feet square. It made my in-law space seem like a mansion. Stairs led to an upstairs room that clearly couldn’t be any larger than the downstairs.
There was that familiar taint of corruption in the air, along with the musky odor of a bear’s den, but I wasn’t sure it came from any creature’s lair. Bags of overflowing garbage were piled up in the kitchenette, leaving almost no floor space. The burners of the electric stove were crusted over with a year’s worth of spilled soup and ramen noodles. In one corner near the stove was a shriveled piece of bacon, so old even Lou wouldn’t have touched it. It looked like it could have been there since the earthquake of ’89, if not the big one a century earlier. Maybe it was a lair, but more the one of a total slob than of a monster.
Victor was up the stairs in two seconds, not waiting for me, and back down in less than a minute.