Greywalker - Kat Richardson [15]
I fell hard onto the cobbled alley. Something roared, and the bright darkness vanished with the sound of a door slamming.
I thrashed around, looking for the black thing or the vile mist. Just an alley, stinking slightly of urine and garbage and spilled beer. Thin wisps of ground fog danced across the surfaces of tiny puddles between the stones, but nothing else.
A door hinge squealed, then trash cans clattered as a busboy heaved bags into a Dumpster next to Merchants Cafe. I swallowed the urge to heave, myself, and slowed my breath. I pulled myself up with one hand pressed on the rough brick wall of the café and brushed at my backside, shaking. Pedestrians went past the ends of the alley. There was no crowd of onlookers. No one had seen or heard what I had.
I wobbled across the alley, found my purse, and faltered away.
I quivered as I drove home across the West Seattle Bridge. Whatever had happened was not a momentary visual aberration from a head injury. What was the thing that had lunged at me? Where had I gone? The only word I had for the creature I’d spoken with was “ghost,” and I didn’t like that word at all.
At home, I scrabbled up the business card that Skelleher had given me from the bottom of my bag. It was ten o’clock, but I couldn’t wait.
A cheery male voice answered. “Danzigers’. This is Ben.”
I don’t know what I’d expected but it wasn’t this.
Shivering, I bumbled into speech. “Uh, my name is Harper Blaine. Dr. Skelleher suggested you or . . . Mara might be able to help me.”
“Skelly! Yeah. What kind of help do you need?”
I hesitated. “I . . . don’t know. He thought . . . you might have some ideas. Maybe I’m seeing ghosts or something. . . .”
“Oh. I see. Yeah, they’re annoying, pesky things when you’re not sure they exist in the first place.”
“Yes! And there’s this living mist. . . .”
“Ah. That’s interesting. This—these occurrences are new to you?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” He turned from the phone and I heard a muffled conversation. Then he came back. “Well, I think we can help—at least a bit. Maybe we can help you figure out what’s going on, maybe make you a little more comfortable about it. Could you drop by for an hour or two?”
“Now?”
He chuckled. “No, no. Tomorrow. Could you come about . . . four? Mara will be home by then.”
I leapt. “Four is fine. Where?”
“Upper Queen Anne, above the Center. Let me give you directions. . . .”
FIVE
As I walked toward my office the next morning, I saw the rude man in the hat who had bumped into me the night before. He paid me no attention this time and strode away toward First. Despite the sunlight diluted by a high, thin cloud cover, the day seemed shadowy and dark. I was inclined to write off the vaguely human shapes where no humans stood as an insufficiency of caffeine in my morning-shocked system. I hustled upstairs and wrapped myself in still more paperwork and phone calls, sending Cameron’s picture out to be copied.
I detected no watchers in alleys or elsewhere, but couldn’t banish the unease itching at the back of my neck. Even in my office, I felt observed.
I was interrupted when an express service messenger knocked and entered my office. She shoved a clipboard at me and I asked what it was for.
“Letter pak from a G. Sergeyev,” she answered.
It was a large express envelope. Tearing it open, I found a few sheets of cheap, typed paper, and a cashier’s check drawn on a foreign bank. I looked that over carefully, but never having seen a European check before, I couldn’t tell if it was legitimate or not. The express routing slip gave a London origin, far from the origin of the check. I figured my bank would know what to do with the check, and I took a break to walk it over.
Coming out of the bank, I pulled my jacket close against a sudden bluster of wind. The air seemed to be getting darker and thicker, misting up despite the thinness of the cloud cover, and my ears were ringing a little. The wind between the buildings whispered, and my hair blew into my face, flickering in the edges of my vision. I hunched a little deeper into my jacket,