“Why would you come all the way here to see your ex-boyfriend? And why did you? And that phone call—”

“Bad dreams.”

“Huh?”

“I had some awful dreams about your brother—and sometimes you, too—being in danger, hurt, or killed. I don’t have dreams like that; I’m not psychic. But they freaked me out and I had to check in to be sure they were just dreams. So I called.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell him how the golem was probably the channel that sent the dreams and what they meant about what must be happening to Will. It was bad enough to think someone had kidnapped him and substituted a fake Will. But why Will, the ex-boyfriend? Why not Quinton? I had to stuff down an instant’s panic and desire to call and be reassured that he was all right. I had to believe he was fine, or I wouldn’t be able to do anything to help Will or Michael or myself. I was sure this was about me, about my father and whatever had started twenty-two years before. How any of it connected to Edward and his problem—if he really had one—I didn’t know, but I’d find out.

“But I told you everything was all right,” Michael said. He looked distressed.

I nodded. “You did, but the dreams kept coming, and then I had a chance to come here on business and it seemed too good to pass up—way too good, not just a coincidence. My case had a connection to Sotheby’s, so I thought I’d check on Will while I was there. But I found out he hadn’t been there in a while. That didn’t jibe with what you’d told me, and other information about the case tied up to Will. So I knew he was in trouble and I went to your place. ”

Michael frowned. “Would they have brought Will back if you hadn’t come around?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you don’t think so, do you?” he demanded. He screwed his face up against the emotional pain my nonresponse brought. We were both silent for a while until he said, “Now what?”

“We find you a safe place to stay while I finish up this case and get Will back.”

Michael shook his head. “I’m not going to be warehoused somewhere. I’m sticking with you.”

There was no way I’d include Michael in the further investigation of whatever was going on, but I knew I had no power to order him around. I’d have to convince him to keep out of it in some other way, later. I cut him an irritated glance. “Let’s find a safer place to have this discussion.”

We picked ourselves up and made our way down to the Underground station. I paid the fare and in spite of Michael’s annoyance we didn’t replace his Oyster card. I wasn’t sure what the nature of the tracking spell had been and it was always better in these situations to leave as little trace as possible. However else the card could be tracked, I was certain the Underground authorities kept tabs on the cards themselves. Every attachment is a potential point of weakness for an enemy to attack, even a piece of plastic with a chip in it. Or a photo, or a loved one.

CHAPTER 28

We started to come up at Temple Station, but the crowds in the lobby had an unpleasant smell and aura to them. Before we’d reached the upper level, I turned around and pulled Michael along behind me, back to the train platforms.

“What’s going on?” he asked, bewildered but following without a struggle.

“More bad guys. I recognized a face or two. We’ll go on to the next station and walk back.”

The next train gusted into the platform and a familiar figure in a long dark coat and white trousers stepped off, carrying a white cane held out in front of himself. It was Marsden, the unpleasant and uncanny man I’d met in Farringdon Station. He seemed to have an affection for dramatic entrances on Underground platforms.

Marsden turned his head back and forth as if scenting for me. Then he headed directly for us and hooked his arms through each of ours, turning us around.

“C’mon, you two. Not safe above.”

“I had figured that out on my own,” I said.

“Who’s this guy?” Michael asked.

“That’s a good question,” I replied as we stepped aboard the next train into the platform.

Rush hour had faded to a thick trickle and we found some seats at the far end of a car. Michael stared at the blind man and his strange outfit for a moment, making a crooked face. Then he leaned in closer.

“They’re little pelts!” Michael exclaimed, pointing at the uneven texture of Marsden’s coat.

“Moleskins,” Marsden replied, spreading his coattails out. “They little gentlemen in velvet weren’t in need of ’em any longer. Not once I’d done with ’em.” He grinned, showing crooked yellow teeth that seemed unusually pointed, and his odd, colorless aura flashed and moved like a kaleidoscope of clear glass. He turned his attention to me. “I’d a feeling I’d find you at that platform, and there you were with a bloody great lot of Red Guard upstairs.”

“Soviets?” Michael questioned.

“Vampires’ servants,” Marsden corrected.

Michael quirked his eyebrows and twisted his face in incredulous disbelief. “Get away.”

“God’s truth, boy.” Marsden fixed his eyeless gaze on me. “Do I lie?”

I didn’t want to admit it in front of Michael, but I said, “No.” The crowd that had tried to herd us in Trafalgar hadn’t wasted much time once they realized they’d lost us but had come straight to my hotel and the nearest Underground station. I had no doubt they’d be stationed all around the block and probably at each Tube station nearby. They knew where I was staying. As did Marsden, it seemed.

“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.

“As I said, I had a feeling. I always heed those impressions. I imagine you’re much the same, aren’t ya?”

Michael was watching us both with a wary expression.

“I don’t take hunches for granted, no.”

“Your instincts are fine-tuned to the mysterious. Your father wasn’t so good at that.”

Now I was glaring at Marsden with suspicion. “You knew my father?”

“Not in person, but we had some enemies in common. Those same as were lying in wait upstairs at Temple. Not that lot specifically, but the same cut of crypt robbers.”

The speakers in the car blared with the news we were approaching the next station. I stood up. “My father was a paranoid who thought things were watching him. He thought his receptionist was a monster. And right now my instincts aren’t urging me to believe that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

I beckoned to Michael and started for the doors. I didn’t like speaking so harshly of my dad, but I didn’t trust this creepy man and his coincidental appearances. He had been watching my hotel and now there were others staking it out who didn’t have my best interests or Michael’s in mind. I may have tripped up and been careless shaking off watchers and tails, but I thought it more likely someone else had tipped them off.

As we stepped off, Marsden’s whisper carried to my ears. “Your father did you no favors in blowing his brains out and making you the Greywalker in the family. Nor did he do any favors for the rest of us, the bleedin’ coward. May he rot in whatever damned hole he’s been locked in.”

Michael looked at me with wide eyes as I stopped and spun back toward the train car. Had he heard that?

The doors hissed closed and the train hummed before it swept away, leaving us on the platform with the fast-dissipating crowd.

“Second thoughts?” came Marsden’s voice from a shadowed corner.

“This is seriously wigging me out,” Michael muttered to me.

“Just stick with me,” I replied.

Marsden was lurking in his corner, gleams of ghostly white the only sign of him in the darkness. “You and me, we’re the same ruddy thing,” he hissed, furious. “Should have been your dad’s job, but he bunked it and that left you. That monster what’s been stalking one of us for his own all these years, he’s coming for you now. I can see his marks on you—and yes, I see. Clear as you do in this half-a-place.” He stepped forward into a slice of light that silvered his face as if it were made of ice. He folded his cane and tucked it into a pocket of his long moleskin coat. Then he closed the distance between us, growing misty and indistinct as he did.