“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Is that any way to talk to a friend? No thank-you for my troubles?”
“Thanks,” I said grudgingly. He had helped, but the memory of his pushing me into the energy pool was not a pleasant one. “I do appreciate that.”
“De nada.”
He waited for me to say something more, then pouted when I remained silent. Finally he shrugged. “You were out looking for the other shape-shifter, weren’t you? Any luck?”
“What’s that to you?” Victor said.
“Nothing, really. I just thought I might be of some help.”
“And why would you want to help us?”
Eli, who usually smooths over such confrontations, watched and said nothing.
“Well, I don’t, actually. Not you, specifically. But Mason’s not so bad. Almost a kindred spirit. And I’ve decided I like it here.” He pushed himself away from the van. “I was getting bored; now I’m not. But I do want to blend in, and the less trouble, the better. Trouble has a way of expanding outward, and pulling innocent bystanders—like myself—into its orbit.”
“Terrific,” said Victor. He wasn’t impressed by this explanation, but I made a small “cool it” gesture with my hand. I saw no point in antagonizing the Wendigo. He surely had his own agenda, but he could also be a great help.
“Yeah,” I said. “We were out looking for it, but it’s gone to earth. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you know where it is?”
“Not right at this moment, no. But I can point you in the right direction.”
“That would be helpful indeed,” Eli said mildly, finally speaking up.
Victor shook his head in disgust and turned away. He wanted nothing to do with another uncanny creature. The Wendigo looked over at him.
“I get the feeling you don’t much care for me,” he said. “I’m hurt, deeply wounded.”
“I’ll bet,” said Victor. The Wendigo smiled.
“Come on,” he said to me. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
I didn’t trust him any more than did Victor. He wanted something, I was sure, but there was only one way to find out what that might be.
“Sure,” I said.
I climbed into my van and the Wendigo got in beside me. Lou jumped in the back, not happy, but without protest.
“Watch him,” I told Lou. The Wendigo started to say something, but I held up a hand. “I know, you’re deeply hurt.”
“Anywhere in particular?” I asked as I pulled out of the driveway. He held up a hand for silence, as if he were listening for something.
“Do you know where the Beach Chalet is?”
“Of course.”
The Beach Chalet is a café across from Ocean Beach, just down from the Cliff House. They mostly serve food, but you can also get just a beer or a cup of coffee, and they have an outdoor patio around back, right next to one of the Golden Gate Park trails. It’s perfect for Lou—he can wander from table to table, begging snacks from soft-hearted diners.
On the way over, the Wendigo seemed content to sit quietly for once, although he kept up a constant drumming with his fingers. It would have been annoying on a longer drive, but I have to admit he kept good time.
We got a table in the back and ordered coffee and bagels with cream cheese at twice the price of an ordinary café. The Wendigo had no money, naturally, so I had to pick up the check. Lou darted off into the bushes on the other side of the nearby trail as soon as we got there. He hadn’t gone far, I was sure. He was watching us from a secure and undisclosed location under a bush. For once he had taken my instruction seriously; otherwise he would have been making the rounds at the other tables, begging for scraps.
“So what’s up?” I finally said, after we’d chatted for a while about music and ordinary things, just as if we were normal people. “I don’t have any more of those stones, you know. Really.”
The Wendigo crumbled up a corner of bagel and threw the crumbs on the ground, where a horde of small Brewer’s blackbirds were hopping around scavenging.
“I believe you. But I think I’ve found another way to remain here. Something’s happened to me since I crossed over—I’ve become more human, in some fashion I don’t quite understand. And I’ve lost some of my powers—not all of them, not by any means, but some. That’s why I wanted to get away from Victor. If he knew I was weakened, he might decide to do something about me, just in case.”
That was not an entirely irrational fear. Victor was big on preemptive action. And what the Wendigo was saying wasn’t that difficult to accept. Rolf and his friends had once been practitioners, as human as I was. Over the years they’d morphed into something not quite human. Some of them weren’t even remotely human, not anymore. I saw no reason it couldn’t work the other way around.
“Anyway,” he continued, “one of the things I seem to have acquired is a conscience of sorts. Things that once amused me no longer seem quite as funny. Like people dying.”
If he’d acquired a conscience, it would have been in the last couple of days, which seemed rather convenient.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” I said, smiling insincerely. Hopefully he hadn’t yet developed enough humanity to be able to read subtleties.
“So, I do want to help. And as I said, I haven’t lost all my powers. I can still find people, and shape-shifters, even if I can’t call them anymore. I know where the shape-shifter is, and who she’s adopted as an aspect.”
“Who would that be?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“You’re not going to like it.”
“I don’t expect to.”
“It’s your friend Morgan, the woman who helped to find me in the first place.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said, although of course I already did.
An expression of concern appeared on his face. It didn’t look exactly phony, but there was something not quite right about it, either. Maybe he felt nothing and was just aping human emotions. Maybe he hadn’t got the human thing down quite yet. True sociopaths will do exactly the same thing, but they have it down perfectly and it’s almost impossible to distinguish their manufactured emotion from the real thing. And sociopaths are still human, after all. In a way.
“I imagine it’s a hard thing to accept, that a friend could have been taken like that,” he said. “But believe me, it’s true.”
He pointed to the path that paralleled the back of the café. I followed the direction of his finger, and there, walking quickly with her head down, was Morgan. I sat very still, hoping she wouldn’t glance over and notice us. This was no place for a confrontation, and with the shotgun sitting uselessly in my van, it probably wouldn’t turn out well for me anyway. I couldn’t let her just stroll away, though.
She had already passed by when a small black-and-tan head poked its way out from the corner of a bush and looked at me inquiringly. I hesitated. Lou could follow her easily enough and he wouldn’t let himself be spotted, but chances were she was just headed for her car. It wouldn’t do any good for him to lead me to an empty parking spot on a curb.
The Wendigo saw my indecision and laughed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can find her again. I just wanted to show you I’m not full of bullshit.” He laughed again. “Not about this, anyway.”
Lou, meanwhile, was getting antsy. I shook my head, and he stared at me to make sure what I was saying, then disappeared back into the bushes.
The Wendigo sat quietly for a time, no longer fidgeting, again listening. After a while he nodded.
“I think she’s going back to her lair,” he said. “Or close by it. Shall we?”
It was all very convenient—him knowing exactly where she was and where she was going. Could he be in league with her for some reason? That didn’t make much sense, either, though.
“Why not,” I said.
We walked back to where the van was parked, Lou appearing behind us halfway there. He was taking his guard responsibilities very seriously for once, which was a good thing. But it also meant he sensed things were not quite right as well, and that wasn’t so good.
Once back in the van, the Wendigo went through his listening routine again before giving a satisfied grunt.
“Upper Haight,” he said. “Not that far.”
We drove down Fulton to Stanyan, then turned up Haight Street. We hadn’t gone more than a couple of blocks when the Wendigo told me to pull over. Easier said than done. Parking on Haight is as hard as anywhere in the city, harder than most. I pulled off on a side street and finally located a space.
“She’s a couple of blocks away, I think,” he said. She’s staying somewhere near here—I can sense the approximate area, but I can’t pinpoint it exactly. So we’ll have to follow her.”
That presented two problems. First, Morgan might recognize me. Second, the shotgun wasn’t going to do me any good. The Haight sees its share of violence, but I still couldn’t get away with blasting a shotgun at someone in broad daylight. Even if I disguised it, there was no way to disguise its effects.
The first issue was easy to deal with, though. I didn’t need to establish a full-scale illusion. All I needed was a slight alteration—make my hair a shade longer and lighter, change my nose, and put a few lines in my face. If you’re not expecting to see someone, or if you see them out of context, sometimes it takes a moment to recognize them, even if you know them well. A slight veneer of illusion is all you need to throw them off totally.
Lou presented more of a problem. Anyone walking down the street with a small dog by their side would instantly arouse her suspicions, no matter what we looked like. He’d just have to stay well back and out of sight.
I hadn’t been in the Haight for a while. It’s a place that still holds on to the sixties in many ways; the same head shops and coffeehouses, the same kids sitting on the sidewalk harassing passersby for spare change. But if you look at them more closely, they’re not the same at all. Their eyes are sly and knowing instead of open and friendly, cynical and jaded instead of naïve. Their faces are hard and wary. Fourteen-year-olds look twenty, twenty-year-olds look thirty, and their drugs of choice are crystal and smack instead of trippy psychedelics.
“Well, good luck,” said the Wendigo. “This is where I get off.”
“I thought you wanted to help,” I said.
“I have helped. But that thing is dangerous, and it’s your problem, not mine.”
He turned and walked back the other way with a cheery wave of his hand. This was looking more like a setup with every passing moment. But if he expected me to challenge the shape-shifter on my own, he was mistaken. I’d track it to its lair and come back later with the rest of the crew. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold, they say. They don’t mention how difficult it is to eat anything if you’re dead.
Lou and I continued up Haight Street, weaving our way through the people crowding the sidewalk. I didn’t see Morgan until I was almost on top of her and had to back off quickly. She was walking slowly, looking from side to side and occasionally glancing over her shoulder, obviously wary.
She stopped inside a small corner grocery and Lou and I waited half a block away where we had a good view of the entrance. A short while later, she came out holding a paper bag and continued up the street. As she passed by storefronts, she occasionally stopped and gazed in the display windows, just like an ordinary person out for a day of window-shopping. I moved up closer, trying to get a feel for what she was up to. Scoping out the area for potential victims? Picking up a Sara Lee cheesecake to tide her over until brain-eating time?
Farther down the street, she stopped in front of a pet store that featured a box of puppies in the window. I couldn’t tell what breed they were, but puppies are puppies, after all. The tumbled around, falling down randomly and launching mock attacks on one another. One of them, a black-and-white toughie, got hold of a littermate’s back leg and wouldn’t let go, even though he was dragged all over the place.
Morgan stood transfixed, and I took the chance and moved up closer. She was smiling as she watched them, with what I would call a sad, nostalgic air. Then, even though I was still a ways off, I could have sworn I saw tears running down her face. A moment later, she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.
I drifted back, farther away. What was going on here? There was no one watching, as far as the shape-shifter knew. Was it like method acting, where she never slipped out of character? When she took over an identity, did she experience the same emotions, feel the same griefs? Was she becoming more human, like the Wendigo?
The scene nagged at me, instilling a seed of doubt. Maybe this wasn’t the shape-shifter after all. Maybe this was really Morgan, and I’d got it wrong again. It wouldn’t be the first time. But if this was really Morgan, what was she doing wandering around the Haight? What about the fake Ifrit at her home? How had the Wendigo tracked her down, and why was he so sure she was the shape-shifter? And most damning of all, why hadn’t she called me to let me know she was still in town?
She started walking again, so I kept on her tail. Whatever was going on, I was going to follow her until I came up with an answer. She was moving faster now, more purposefully, and before long we arrived at the corner of Haight and Ashbury, that infamous intersection. She hesitated a moment, then turned up Ashbury Street and followed it up the hill until it reached a residential section full of curving streets. Now that we were off the main drag, there were fewer people to blend in with, so I stayed even farther back, a block at least. Lou could always find her again if she unexpectedly turned a corner or entered a house or apartment, now that he had her in his sights.