It was a hell of a story but as plausible as anything coming from a living nightmare. “So what you want, in brief, is to find out why Purcell stopped talking and what’s become of your stuff.”

“Not exactly. I’m more concerned with the situation than the assets. It will hurt to lose them, but the greatest threat is what’s made those assets inaccessible. I suspect a situation is developing in London that does not favor me at best and may threaten my position here as well, and I want that put to a stop.”

“So. this is a search-and-destroy mission? I don’t do that sort of thing.”

“I shan’t ask you to. Only to discover what is going on. After that, I can find suitable contractors for whatever may need doing.” He shut up and looked at me, quiet and intense.

I didn’t like the sound of it. But whenever he said “London,” my thoughts flew to Will and my disturbing visions. It would be as good an excuse as any to check on him in person, and I felt an increasing need to do that and discover if there was any connection to the events of my death and the nightmares I’d been having about him. The job Edward was offering wasn’t something I’d enjoy, but it would pay a lot of bills and serve my own ends at the same time.

“All right,” I said.

He blinked, frowned. “Just like that?”

“You’d prefer to have to ‘persuade’ me some more?”

He turned up the heat. “You know how I’d like to persuade you. ”

I felt mildly unwell again at the thought. “Save it for someone without a pulse.”

“They are considerably less interesting than you, my dear.”

“I hear that’s a problem with being dead—it’s terminally boring.”

He laughed and rose to his feet, putting out a hand to me. “It does pall. Come with me and I’ll arrange everything.”

I started to rise on my own, but he caught my hand, and this time he didn’t crush it in his grip but brought it to his mouth and kissed the back. I recoiled but didn’t pull my hand away, no matter how much I wanted to escape from the fire and ice that seared into me from his touch. I didn’t have enough energy to fight him again right then, and insulting him wouldn’t be my best move at that moment. Instead I stood up and smiled, taking my hand back as a matter of course.

He smiled back through slightly narrowed eyes, as if he knew I was faking something. Then he led me to the big table and revealed a computer under the surface, from which he extracted information and made various arrangements for my journey and my stay. Everything was to be at his expense, and he saw to it that no expense need be spared, either. I felt a bit mercenary for it all, but that is sometimes the nature of my job. We agreed on a price for my services that would clear my normal expenses for a long time.

“Do you have a passport?” he asked.

“Of course. I keep it up to date, just in case.”

“Very good. When can you leave?”

“I may need to clear some things up, but that won’t take long. Two days will be sufficient. That’s not counting today.”

“And you’ll want to make arrangements about your home and pet, no doubt.”

“No doubt.”

He nodded to himself. “I’ll have the tickets delivered to your office with the relevant information and paperwork.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

He showed me to the door, pausing only to take my hand one more time. He seemed to enjoy my discomfort before letting me go.

In the outer chamber, Bryson Goodall was waiting for me. He didn’t say much and his face didn’t give away anything, but the nimbus of color around his head and body had turned a brighter blue. He saw me safely home and carried my luggage up the stairs to my condo. I didn’t much like his presence as an adjunct of Edward on my literal doorstep, but there wasn’t much I could do. He nodded to me as I turned back from entering my condo and then he left.

As I was unpacking, I realized someone had gone through my things. They hadn’t taken anything or added anything, but that someone—probably Goodall and probably at Edward’s direction—had snooped through my belongings at all was bizarre and disturbing. There couldn’t be anything in my bags that told Edward anything he didn’t know. But it left me unsettled and more anxious than ever to see Quinton.

CHAPTER 17

Quinton tucked me tighter against his body under the covers of his narrow bed. “You’re not going to change your mind and stay home?” he asked.

“No,” I replied. “I took the job; I’ll do the job.” We’d discussed Edward’s proposition twice by now, trying to suss out every possible pitfall and hidden agenda. Neither of us liked the situation and we were both convinced whatever was developing in Seattle’s Grey world wasn’t a coincidence, but if Edward felt the London situation took precedence, we’d have to take his word. Previous upheavals of the local vampire community didn’t go unnoticed; they just got explained away. They hit the human population as crime waves, gang killings, and warehouse fires and took down both the agitators and the innocent. If a power struggle was violent and widespread enough, it would break out into open warfare between the vampire factions and no one would be safe. If the skullduggery in London was the key to the unrest Edward had hinted at in Seattle, then solving the London problem was priority one. I didn’t know how the London vampire community worked or what the problems there might be. I’d have to trust Edward’s assessment.

Quinton nuzzled his nose into my hair and murmured, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“I’m not exactly getting a vacation-at-the-beach vibe off it myself. And don’t suggest you come with me. I need you to keep an eye on the situation here while I’m gone.”

“And take care of Chaos. I know.”

“Hey,” I said, rolling over to face him, “you’re not just the pet-sitter, you know.”

He grinned and kissed me. “I know. The pet-sitter never gets the girl.”

“The pet-sitter usually is the girl.”

“Not in John Cusack films.”

“Which film was that? The last one you saw, Cusack was an assassin trying to date his old high school sweetheart from Grosse Point, Michigan.”

“Hey, I’d move to Michigan to date you.”

“Does that mean there are still things I don’t know about what you used to do for the government?” I asked, teasing.

“Well. yeah, but not that kind of thing.”

“You’re sure, now? Because if I get back and my condo has been used to stash the bodies of victims killed with ballpoint pens, I may be a tad upset.”

“I promise: no bodies stabbed with ballpoints. Maybe just a Sharpie or two. ”

“Quinton!” I yelled as he tickled me, grinning.

The conversation dissolved into amorous wrestling in the sheets for a while, until an alarm went off somewhere.

“What the—?” I started, jerking up out of the tangled sheets.

For a second, Quinton looked blank, trying to identify the sound. Then his eyes got wide and he pulled in a sharp breath. “It’s the ghost detector. It works! Maybe. ” He twitched his attention to me. “Do you. see anything?”

Not only did I see something, it was looming over the bed. Or rather, they were. The Grey was overwhelming my senses and a crowd of ghosts filled the tiny bedroom of Quinton’s hidden home, leaving smudges of color like smoke in the silvery world around me, colors that ghosts shouldn’t display. Some seemed familiar, others not at all, but they were all staring at me in the humming intensity of the Grey. I shivered.

“Umm. yeah. about fifty of them,” I said, staring back. I feared to blink in case they rushed the bed. I don’t know why I thought that, but the feeling of imminent motion pressed on me like an incoming storm front.

Quinton rolled out of bed and darted through the assemblage of specters to one of his workbenches. He didn’t even twitch and I envied him that oblivion for an instant. He plucked a small LCD display out of a nest of wires that clung to it like fur and squeezed the rim, silencing the alarm while he studied the screen. Unconscious of his nudity, he turned slowly, treading the cold floor on bare feet as he swept the room with the ghost detector.