He growled, looking me over. "He roughed you up?"

"I fell on some stairs."

He shot a queer glance at me.

"It's the truth. Look, Quinton, I have a problem a lot worse than a tumble on the steps."

"What do you need?"

"I need to get past a security system so I can break something."

He blinked a few times. "Umm…. that's often illegal."

"Yeah. But I can't come up with another option. If it doesn't get done—I just have to."

He frowned at the desperation in my voice. "Must be something pretty bad. Why do you need to do this?"

I shook my head at myself. "It's nuts."

"What can be weirder than putting an alarm in a car trunk for a vampire?"

"How 'bout exorcising a ghost and defusing a paranormal time bomb?"

He rocked on his heels and nodded. "OK. That's weirder. How did you get mixed up in that? Your client?"

"The guy who broke my windows. He's a ghost. I didn't know it when I took the job."

Quinton sat down and waited for the rest.

I sighed. "He hired me to find a piece of furniture. I found it, but couldn't get it for him. He got rough and I figured out what he was. I didn't want to keep working for him. He made it clear he would do whatever it took to get what he wanted and if I stood in his way, he'd go through me. I can't run from him—he's a ghost—and I can't imagine what he's capable of. I figured the only way to get rid of him was to find out why he really wanted the thing. Now I know. And it's terrible. There is no option but to stop him."

I closed my eyes a moment, tired, but relieved to have gotten it all out. I wondered if Quinton thought I was crazy yet.

He mulled it for a moment. "Why does this job fall on you? Why do you have to stop it?"

I played with a pencil and didn't look at him. "I'm afraid that this thing will hurt me, too. I'm a little bit ghost or monster myself, connected to all of this stuff. Horrible things have happened, and I'm just too much a coward to let this happen, too. This is the only thing I can think of to stop it."

Quinton was quiet. I continued playing with the pencil and breathing around the stone in my chest.

Finally he asked, "So what building are we breaking into? Give me all the information you've got and I'll hunt down the rest. By the way, when are we doing this?"

I glanced up. "Tonight."

"Tonight? Oh, boy… Miracles 'R' Us. I assume that we're not going to go and ask permission for this."

"I already offered to buy the thing—the museum won't sell. That's what made my client so angry. If I could think of another way, I'd do it."

"All right," he sighed. "Let's get to it."

I sketched out the plan and gave him everything I knew about Madison Forrest House security. Quinton soaked it up without taking notes.

"OK. I'm going to the library. I'll call you when I've got it figured out."

I thanked him, but he was already heading out the door.

Mara called later in the afternoon. With an edge in her voice she told me she would do it, but needed a lift to the museum. She didn't give me time to ask any questions.

At six, Quinton called.

"I got it. I can do it. I'll see you there a little after sunset, OK?"

"OK," I agreed.

I drove up to Queen Anne to get Mara. The house did not look quite as inviting as normal, the color of the light in the windows an unpleasant green. Albert met me on the walk again. I limped to the door, alarm racing my heart.

Mara answered my knock. Her face was pinched.

"Come in," she clipped out. "Ben's upset."

"Oh?"

"He doesn't want me to go. Now that he knows the threat is real, he thinks I can't help and will be in harm's way needlessly. Imagine!"

Ben stepped into the arch from the dining room. "I'm worried about you. What's wrong with that? You're my wife, our son's mother. I don't want anything to happen to you. I think that's reasonable."

She turned to glare at him. "Now that it's down to theory versus practice, you don't really believe in magic at all. You think it's just feel-good hocus-pocus and dancin naked under the moon with a bunch of March-hare feminists."

"That's not true!"

"'Course it's not, but it's what you think—" Somewhere in the house a tiny sound started up.

I waded in. "Stop this. I need Mara. I know she can do it, because I've seen her do it. It has to be this way."

"I could come along."

"No." The sound grew into a distant, hiccupping cry.

Ben and Mara both looked toward the stairs.

Mara looked panicked. "Someone needs to stay with Brian. Besides, if something does go wrong—"

"Then you admit that something could go wrong, that you may not be competent to—"

Mara's panic turned to ire. "I certainly do not admit I'm not competent! I only meant that no plan is completely foolproof. Don't assume you know better than I what I—"

Ben cut her off. "It's too dangerous! It's irresponsible and unsafe and—well, it's destruction of private property! It's just not right! Harper," he added, turning to me, "you know this isn't right."

I cocked my head at him and leaned against the doorframe. "What is right? Letting the ghost do whatever he wants with it? Allowing everyone who treads in the Grey to be fried like an egg when it blows up? If you have a better plan, I'd be glad to hear it, because frankly this one stinks, but it's all I've got."

Brian was at full wail now. Ben stared at me. Mara gaped at me, her mouth forming a little O.

Ben blinked. His face crumpled and he turned toward the stairs. "Brian needs me. And Harper needs you, Mara. She's right. She's right. You'd better go." He stopped on the first landing and glared back at us. "But you had better come back. Brian and I need you, too."

Mara began crying, flew up the steps, and threw herself into her husband's arms. "I love you. I will be very, very careful, I promise. Thank you, love."

Ben looked on the verge of tears himself, his head hanging over her shoulder a moment before he turned to give his wife a kiss.

"I know you'll be careful, sweetheart. I know it. You'll be fine," he added, letting her go. "You two had better get going. It's going to be dark soon." He turned and marched up the stairs.

Mara plodded to me, reaching for her purse by the door as we went out and swiping at her eyes. Albert blinked owl-like at us from the porch, but made no move to come along.

Dejected, Mara sat in the front seat. "I wish I could have Ben with me… though you look like you'll need more help than I. You look one step from dead."

"I think I felt better when I was."

I drove out to the museum and told her the plan. Mara nodded. I felt miserable. Nothing within or without didn't ache with bruises or a wearying, bone-deep illness, and everything I saw was aglimmer with streaks of color and coils of Grey.

I did not park in the same lot as on the previous visits, but several blocks away and around a couple of corners. We got out and walked to the museum.

Clouds obscured the moon, but that wasn't the only source of darkness. The Grey around the building had thickened into an artificial midnight, a twist of realities from which light seemed to flee. Quinton had been leaning against a tree by the fence line and now ambled toward us, emerging from the coil of darkness like a ship from fog. I did not introduce my companions to each other. They didn't mind.

"Hi," Quinton greeted us. "I've already got stuff in place and I can control what the cameras see, so the security guys shouldn't be alerted. The perimeter alarm is off at the side door. It's not locked. Don't touch any exterior doors or windows and don't make too much noise." He began to lead us up the darkened edge of the drive, in cover of shadowing trees and shrubs.

I murmured to him, "How'd you manage all of that?"

"I don't want you to know."