I hid my face in my pillow and moaned, "Make it go away."

He flopped backward with the pager on his chest. "It's just Mikey, letting me know he's at work." "He works on Sunday?"

"Usually it's me. Mike volunteered to do the paperwork so I could sleep in." He rolled over and grinned at me. "Wanna go back to sleep?" I peeled the pillow aside. "No."

His smile got wider as he felt my toes sliding up his leg. "Feeling better?"

"Much," I replied. If I focused my attention on Will, I didn't have to think about what had happened in the night, didn't have to look at it, shimmering in the verges.

I had forgotten the note I'd left with Michael. The sight of the scarecrow figure in the darkened hall outside my home had made me recoil in fear. When Will stepped into the light, my relief flooded out as a puddle of idiotic tears and shaking. He was very sweet, even when he told me I stank and put me in the shower. I kept sliding down into the bottom of the tub and crying until Will gave up being a gentle-man and got in with me. I clung to him and things improved from there, even though I refused to tell him what had happened.

Now I was disgusted with myself for having blubbered and oozed like a jellyfish.

He caught me frowning as he snatched away my pillow. "Hey. Want to take another shower?" he asked, laying on a wicked grin.

I was slow on the uptake. "Do I need one?"

"From a hygiene point of view, no. But interesting things seem to happen in your shower, so I thought it was a good place to start."

I made a rude noise, grabbed back the pillow, and swatted him with it. He dove under the covers and tickled me.

Will let the horrors of Saturday night lie and kept me too distracted to think about them most of Sunday. After an afternoon of goofing off, he even agreed to come and look at the parlor organ with me on Monday and never speculated about whatever it was we were doing together.

After Will had gone, the misery and uncertainty began to close in again. Typing up my notes sent me into fits of shivering and crying. I thought of quitting. I could not face any more nights like Saturday, but I wasn't sure I'd done enough to destabilize Edward. And if I could not move him in the direction I wanted, neither Cameron nor I stood a chance of seeing another spring. What did I have to offer Edward that was more attractive than the pleasure of taking my head off? I couldn't trust vampires. I wasn't even sure that I could look at Cameron without either screaming or putting a bullet in him—not that it would do any good.

I closed my eyes, trying to think, but only slipping around the edges. The Grey washed against me, chill and nauseating. I felt that I was standing on a dock—a world—afloat on the surface of another world, pitching with the motion of unknown tides. The disconcerting feel of electricity zipped along my nerves, but I kept my eyes closed against those twisting threads of fire. I didn't want them, or anything to do with Wygan's realm or vampires or ghosts or any of the rest of it. I felt the insubstantial ground shivering and thought of stepping oil the dock…

Chapter 26

The sound of little claws on woodwork pulled me back from the bloody edge. I picked up the ferret and snuggled her to my face, smelling the warm, corn-chip odor of her fur. For once, she didn't wriggle.

Close to that soft warmth, I relaxed, taking deep, easy breaths. Everything Grey seemed to flow like silk thread, shimmering with strands of energy, and I could feel every movement I made through it. I pushed on it and it bent, stiffening into a reflective curve around me. Even the chill was less now. I tried to push it away completely, but it would not recede below a constant bright softness lying over everything. Grids of energy gleamed on the threshold of light. Peeking side-ways brought it all up to a bright blaze. I did not wish to step inside and see how the normal world looked from there.

But the constant presence was like acid on my nerves. I didn't want to be near it or anything associated with it. I didn't even want to talk to the Danzigers. Then I would have to think about it.

I shoved it back to the limits. I shivered and found myself crying into Chaos's pelt. Shuddering, I carried her off, crawled back under the covers, and hid from the ugly world.

Monday morning Will met me at a cafe near the Madison Forrest House for breakfast. He greeted me with a more-than-friendly kiss and we sat at a table outside. I told myself the thin golden line around him was a trick of the cool spring sunshine.

I smiled at the delicious quivers he sent over me. "When do you have to go to work?" I asked.

"Closed on Mondays," he replied, draping an arm over my shoulders, "and probably forever afterward, too, thanks to Brandon—who's not returning phone calls and seems to be dodging some guys in dark suits, sunglasses, and grim looks."

I raised my brows. "Who do you suppose they are?"

"I don't know. Mikey spotted them hanging around. They didn't bother to introduce themselves, and their cars had rental plates."

"He noticed that? Sounds like Michael could be a detective, too."

"I hope not. I'd rather admire your technique than watch Mike do it." He wiggled his eyebrows at me. "Want to show me your technique?"

I giggled. "Right here? Heck, no. What about Mike?"

"Let him get a girl his own age. I'm not sharing."

"You know what I mean."

"He's fine. Thinks it's funny. He's in school today."

"Does that mean you have nothing to do?"

He ran a finger along the curve of my ear and down my neck. "Mmm. I wouldn't say nothing."

I shivered. "Unfortunately, I have things to do that preclude dancing the horizontal tango with you all day—much as I might like to. Or had you forgotten this is supposed to be a professional meeting?"

"Spoilsport."

I poked him with a finger and made a face. "The curator will meet us in a little over an hour, so take a look at this and give me your professional opinion."

He glanced at the description sheet I offered him. "Without even looking at it, I expect that my professional opinion will be that it's a piece of grot."

"It does make me rather suspicious of the client's motives." I was suspicious of Sergeyev in general, but I wasn't going to discuss that with Will. "I need to know as much about it as possible."

"You think your client is up to something?"

"Something doesn't smell right, if you know what I mean. He said there was no rush, but he's thrown an awful lot of money at the project and he's shown up once, although he said he was in Europe the first time we talked. His check was drawn on a Swiss bank, but the rest of the packet came from London."

"I'm surprised it wasn't an Irish bank," Will commented. "The Swiss aren't as reticent about giving out information as they used to be, and the Irish make them look like pikers."

"Irish offshore banks? I've never heard of such a thing."

"It was on the horizon the last time I was in England," he explained.

"They've tried a lot of things to bring international business to Ireland. Most didn't pan out, but you don't need any special resources to be a banking power, especially if you're willing to buck the bully tactics of the US and the EU and maintain absolute discretion about your customers."

"Really? You're a guy of unknown depths, Mr. Novak."

"Yep. A diamond of the first water. Better grab me while you can."

I laughed. "I'll consider doing that."

We ate and joked around some more, then headed for the museum.

I parked the Rover in the gravel lot across the street. Will pulled his truck in beside mine. The house was forbidding, all its windows frowning and clouded through a thick bank of Grey. Even the glow of the nexus seemed to have died out. We crossed the street, but this time the gate was locked. I rang the bell on the intercom.