Ghost Dance Page 16

  The other tellers were no more threatening than Sarah, all bent over their own work. But damn it, they were concentrating too hard on what they were doing. Not one of them looked up and caught her eye. It was as if they were afraid to.

  There was no one else. Outside, the traffic grumbled and the sky was clear and blue and this had to work, it had to.

  "You're a strange one," Raven said at her shoulder.

  He was shaking his head, his mouth pulled down at the corners. She bit her lip to stop herself responding. The last thing she needed was to draw attention to herself by talking to thin air.

  "I mean," he said, "you've worked out how to walk through walls, but you can't figure out how to see through them? That's like being able to run a four-minute mile but being incapable of walking to the bottom of the road. Preparing blow-fish flawlessly but being unable to boil an egg. A qualified pilot of the space shuttle, but when it comes to push bikes-"

  "Jesus - I get it!" Alex snapped. The tellers to either side of her jerked quick looks up and away and she blushed, dropping her eyes to the floor. But Raven was right. This bank looked like it had been built in the last decade. No one lived here, no one loved here - and she had to assume no one had died here. In the other world, the place should barely exist.

  She'd grown used to seeing both worlds, overlapping and bleeding into each other. To see through the walls she needed to blot out the real world, and the thought sent a jolt of fear through her. She'd be blinding herself to the mundane, and what if she could never get that vision back? No amount of money would help her then. She might as well return to the Agency.

  She looked at her watch. Sarah had been gone two minutes and not a single other customer had entered the bank. The young man who'd been cashing a cheque to her left had already left and it looked at if the woman and her child were finishing up. When they were gone, Alex would be the only customer in the place.

  Was that what they were waiting for? She gritted her teeth and prepared to let the mundane world fade away entirely.

  Entering the spirit world was a release, a letting go of assumptions. It was almost a rush, and she let herself feel it. A euphoric sort of calm flowed through her as she looked at the marble walls of the bank and allowed herself to recognise that they weren't truly there, not in any way that really mattered. In the eyes of eternity, there was nothing in front of her but air.

  She'd expected the walls to fade gradually, but it was like a blink - one moment solid, the next moment gone. And then she could see exactly what waited for her outside the bank, both in the spirit world and in the mundane.

  The wolves were crouched ready to spring, scores to the front of the bank and more at every exit. In the spirit world she couldn't see their weapons, but she saw the glint of their teeth and the feral gleam in their eyes. They were hunters and they had cornered their prey.

  There was no point pretending any more. She turned to Raven to ask for help and gasped as she saw him. His face was at once beautiful and subtly and terribly wrong. When he smiled it was more frightening than the leer of the wolves who waited for her outside the bank. And she understood that he was many things, but he would never be her friend.

  His smile widened. It looked as if it could swallow her whole. "I never claimed to be other than I am," he said. "You can't blame me if you preferred to believe a comforting lie than see the dangerous truth."

  "What are you?" she said.

  He looked at the agents waiting for her beyond the transparent walls of the bank. "Do you really think this is the time to be asking?"

  "No," she said. "I should have asked you the first time you gave me advice and before I was stupid enough to take it. But I'm asking now."

  Outside, she could see that the CIA's wolves were moving closer. Any second now they'd move in. Raven held out his hand towards her, fingers loose as he wriggled them in a 'come here' gesture.

  She stared at them and didn't move. "What are you?" she asked him again.

  "Oh," he said. "I'm this and that. I'm neither one thing nor the other. I'm the joker in the deck, the one card that doesn't belong to any suit. I'm your only hope of getting out of here, Alex. Take my hand."

  She took it, letting his warm fingers curl around hers.

  "Now what?" she said.

  He shrugged. "Now we walk out of here. To see the spirit world so clearly, you have to be in it. The wolves can see you but the men can't, and the men haven't learnt to listen to the wolves inside."

  "But I'd already done that. I didn't need you." She tried to wrench her hand out of his.

  "Too late now," he said and pulled her through the transparent walls of the bank.

  He dropped her hand when they'd gone a block. She walked a little faster, letting him slip behind her until she couldn't see him even in her peripheral vision. But the prickle between her shoulder blades told her he was still there, and watching her.

  The city burned and shook apart around her. Fully in the spirit world now, she could see only fragments of the modern city superimposed on the old. A splash of blood stained a concrete wall as a man slashed another man's throat and the writhing flesh in the house to her left shone through the flames. She wondered how long the place had been a brothel, and if it was the pleasure or the degradation that the spirit world remembered so clearly.

  While she stayed in the spirit world, she was invisible to the agents pursuing her, but how long could she stay here? Could she eat here? She thought suddenly of the old Greek myth. Persephone had eaten seven pomegranate seeds while in the underworld and been condemned to spend the winter of every year in darkness.

  Maybe she could stay in the spirit realm until she'd crossed the border, at least. That would be less than a day's travel by road, more if she had to walk, and she thought maybe she would. And then she'd need money. It all came back to that. If she wanted to live in the real world she'd need some real cash.

  She waited until she was on Nob Hill, the city undulating towards the sea all around her, before she took out her iPhone. She hadn't known if it would travel into the spirit world with her, but it seemed solid enough in her hand as she switched the power back on. She wasn't sure what she was going to tell her father, but she would talk him into helping her. He was her dad. That was his job.

  The welcome screen flashed on - and a second later, the phone rang. For a disoriented second she thought it was him, somehow anticipating her need. But the number was unfamiliar.

  She hesitated, finger poised over 'end call'.

  "You should probably hear what he has to say," Raven said, and though she'd determined not to take his advice again, she pressed 'answer' and put the phone to her ear.

  "Alexandra," Hammond said, "stay on the line, do you hear me? Stay on the damn line."

  She hadn't spoken to Hammond since Eastern Europe, but his voice instantly took her back to that time, in the grim prison in a nameless forest, when she'd realised there would be no escape for her.

  "We can mend this," Hammond said. "It's one hell of a mess, but it's not irreparable."

  "What, we're just going to kiss and make up?" she choked.

  There was a small but telling pause before Hammond said, "You've got amends to make, no question. But maybe I pushed you too hard and too fast. I know I'm not blameless."

  He was talking like a hostage negotiator, she realised. Making promises that were meant to be comforting, not kept. But there were things she could learn from him, too.

  "All right," she said. "Tell me what I can do."

  "Good. Good. That's the right attitude, Alexandra. Well, I guess telling you to give yourself up isn't going to fly."

  "You guessed right."

  "Then let's talk about PD."

  "I am sorry about that. But no harm no foul, right?"

  This time, the pause at the other end of the line was longer. "You think he's with us," Hammond said eventually.

  Alex felt the first twinge of unease. "Well, yeah. Curtis knew where we were. She must have call
ed in reinforcements."

  "She did. By the time they arrived, you were gone - and so was PD."

  "Well get him back then! You know who's got him and where they're based."

  "Really? That never occurred to us. As it turns out, he's not at their office on Haight. And we were lucky they let us look. Because how exactly, Alexandra, do you think we can go about getting a search warrant? We can't go public with the fact we've been spying on a domestic religion. The first amendment nuts will have their usual hysterics. They'll say it's Waco all over again, and this time the shit will rain down on us, not the feds."

  Alex felt a knot of something she didn't want to recognise as guilt in her stomach. "You're a covert fucking agency - do something covert and get him out."

  "Perhaps we could, if we knew where they'd taken him."

  "If anyone can find him, you can."

  She could imagine Hammond's thin-lipped smile on the other end of the line. "You've seen the Croatoans, Alexandra. PD told me what you saw. Who do you think is better placed to find PD - us or you?"

  The knot of guilt tightened unpleasantly. She fidgeted a moment, not sure how to reply. She'd stopped to talk in one of the quieter cross streets, foot braced against the steep gradient. She'd been keeping her voice down as she spoke, but she realised that in the last few minutes, no one had passed.

  It was a quiet street, but it was the middle of the day. And now she thought about it, there hadn't been a single car, either.

  "Alexandra," Hammond said. "Damn it, are you still there?" There was a note in his voice, something off - too anxious.

  She dropped the phone and stamped on it. It cracked beneath her heel but the screen remained lit, like a beacon, which she realised far too late was exactly what it was. As soon as she'd switched it on they'd been able to track it.

  She leapt to the side seconds before the hooks of the taser scraped against the pavement where she'd been standing. She smelt the ozone tang of the electric charge which had been meant to pass through her body and, for a second, came face-to-face with her attacker. He was an SFPD beat officer, but his eyes were blanks, hidden behind the heavy black of night-vision goggles. A wolf's snout stuck out beneath them, teeth bared in a snarl.

  They'd found a way to see her, even hidden behind the veil of the spirit world.

  She ran, gasping for breath after only a few paces, her chest too tight with panic to take in the oxygen she needed. She heard the pounding of other footsteps behind her and when she pelted past a cross-street she could see more men waiting for her there. They were only just jerking into motion. Perhaps they hadn't expected her to spot the trap before she'd sprung it.

  She descending the hill, each step a mini plummet and each landing an impact that jarred from her foot to her spine, but her pursuers drew nearer no matter how fast she ran. And then she saw the road block ahead of her, more SFPD uniforms behind it, wolf tongues lolling below black night-vision goggles.

  She was boxed in. There were cops at each end of the street, and a solid wall of buildings at either side.

  But of course she was being a fool. The buildings were solid to them - not to her. And they might be able to see her in the spirit realm, but they couldn't travel into it.

  She was running so fast that stopping tumbled her to the pavement with all the momentum of her flight. The bullet graze on her side opened and bled. The men behind her were so close she could smell their sweat, and then they were over her, leaping to avoid her prone body. She heard them curse and one of them fired, but the taser went wide and in the minute it took them to come to their own, more controlled, halt she rose to her feet and ran straight at the nearest house.

  It was only as her shoulder struck the wooden slat and she felt the grain of the wood against her bare arm that she realised what she should have noticed far earlier. The spirit realm was fading - or rather she was, fading back into the mundane world. She'd seen the policemen as men rather than wolves. Reality was reasserting itself.

  She heard the click of multiple weapons being cocked behind her and she closed her eyes and pushed against the wall with both her mind and her body. She felt resistance, the painful press of wood against bruised skin and then, finally, something gave - and slow as molasses her body seeped through and into the house beyond.

  She'd entered a white-painted living room. Bland, motel-print posters flicked past as she sprinted into the corridor beyond. The house was empty but her pursuers would be through the door soon. Though Hammond might not want to cause an incident by raiding the Croatoan headquarters, she was sure he'd risk almost anything to get her back.

  The corridor led to a kitchen, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the overgrown yard beyond. She tugged at the doors, but they were locked tight, and when she leaned against the glass it was just glass, cold and impenetrable against her shoulder.

  The spirit world was gone entirely now. But she'd been living in the real one for twenty-three year, damn it. She wasn't helpless. She felt along the shelf above the door then yanked open kitchen draws, scattering silverware on the floor before she found the key in a small bowl beside the sink. Her fingers fumbled with it as she heard a booming impact behind her, the sound of something metal hitting the front door.

  The key scratched shrilly across the glass before it slid into the keyhole. It turned easily and she had her hand flexed to push open the door when she saw what waited for her outside. The brick walls of the yard were swarming with uniformed men, night-vision goggles beetle-black over their eyes.

  She snapped a look over her shoulder, expecting to find Raven standing there, ready to give advice she shouldn't follow and would anyway. But Raven was lost to her in the world he inhabited and she had only visited.

  The men outside were over the wall. She stepped back from the window as they crept closer. They were being cautious, still unsure of her powers, but that bought her five minutes at most. And the men at the front would be through the door before then. The only escape was sideways - through the rows of houses.

  Her hand drifted to her pocket and she didn't know why until she pulled out the packet half full of brown flakes. It was the remains of the peyote PD had given her in the restaurant.

  She opened the bag and tipped the contents onto her palm. It was a large dose. If she took it right now, she might slip into the spirit world fast enough to make her escape. But the last dose she'd taken had been smaller and the effects had lasted for nearly a day. Each time she travelled, she travelled further and for longer. If she took the drug this time, she might travel so far that she could never return. That was the fate she'd fled the Bureau to escape.

  Outside the window, the men crept nearer, faces intent as they hunted her. The sounds coming from the front door had changed, softer now as the wood splintered and gave.

  She could return to the Bureau. They wouldn't kill her - but she'd never be free again. Or she could take the drug and take her chances in the world it opened to her.

  Her hand shook as she lifted it to her lips. The peyote stuck to her tongue and the roof of her mouth, all the saliva having dried at the prospect of taking it. She ducked her head under the tap to sluice it down with water, wincing at the taste.

  As soon as it was in her throat, something insubstantial but powerful forced its way past and through her. More suddenly than she could have imagined, the spirit world was back and Raven with it. He looked like the man she'd first seen, harmless and a little absurd. She wondered if it was his choice to seem that way, or if her mind had simply refused to face up to the truth of him again.

  "Well, about bloody time," he said, grinning as he held out his hand.

  She didn't hesitate before taking it this time, but she shut her eyes as he pulled, letting him lead her where he wanted.

  She didn't know how long the journey had taken, but when they stopped she found herself on a narrow wooden pier with the Bay to either side of her, a sailing ship that looked two centuries old tossing and tearing apart in a storm that moved
only the sea directly beneath it.

  Ahead of her, a figure walked away across the water, curly hair hanging lank in the salt spray. Though she'd grown used to seeing him every time she travelled here, she still found him disturbing. He was linked to her in some way she couldn't understand and she felt his presence even when she turned away from him. Behind her the city burned, but the streets were empty of wolves. She'd escaped, she just didn't know the price.

  She squinted her eyes and tightened something less tangible inside her mind, trying to return to the mundane world, at least a little.

  "Word of warning," Raven said. "Time doesn't pass here, it lingers. In the spirit realm you're both now and then. If you're careless - and I have known you to be careless - you could step into the past rather than the present. And then where would you be?"

  She shivered, understanding what he meant. To the spirit world, San Francisco had been most vivid when it was torn apart by earthquake and fire. If she let it, it would spit her out into that moment of history. She thought very hard about her own time instead, its speed and cruelty as well as its comforts and conveniences.

  The ancient sailing ship paled to a phantom, the modern tugs and pleasure boats hardening into visibility around her.

  "So," Raven said, slouching against a railing. "Your daring - if somewhat last-minute - escape has freed you from the clutches of the CIA. What now?"

  Yes. What now? "I need to get away. I need money."

  He smiled. "And how do you intend to get it?"

  "I don't know. I thought you could tell me."

  His smile dropped. "Oh. Well, no. The acquisition of wealth has never been one of my top priorities."

  "I don't want to be wealthy. I just want to have enough money to live." There was something else she wanted, too, but she was very carefully not thinking about it. She didn't want to want it. She didn't want to care.

  "That's a laudable goal," Raven said. "Good luck with that."