Kat Richardson - Seawitch

He blinked in surprise and took a step aside. “I thought you—” he started, then cut himself off. He looked back toward the EMTs, who had just finished loading Reeve onto a collapsible gurney. I turned my head that way, too.

The EMTs raised the gurney quickly, locking it into position to be pulled out to the aid car, and rushed their burden through the yard and house. We trailed behind. After loading Reeve into the back, one of the EMTs paused long enough to say, “He’s holding on but he’s not stable. We’ll take him to Highline—it’s the closest trauma center.”

The emergency medical crew left us in the front yard in a swirl of retreating sirens and a cluster of concerned neighbors. Solis and I had to find someone to look after Reeve’s home until he came back—if he did—before we could leave, too.

I walked back to Reeve’s garden to grab my bag and paused to look at the dry fountain that had seemed to pour out so much of the Grey energy that had attacked Reeve. The bottom was painted with a brown scalloped pattern, like waves, obscured by a handful of sand, colored stones, and dried grasses.

Solis called to me to join him in the more pressing business of securing Reeve’s house. As we answered questions discreetly and asked after someone to take charge, I kept catching him scowling in my direction. I wasn’t surprised when he buttonholed me beside my truck as I tried to slip away from the diminishing crowd.

“I did not see you when the EMTs arrived. Where did you go?”

“I didn’t go anywhere.”

He frowned at me. “You did. As you did on board the Seawitch . You were not where you were.”

I crossed my arms over my less-than-impressive chest—I’m not built to win any wet T-shirt contests—but I felt suddenly defensive in the beam of Solis’s intensity. “I didn’t actually go anywhere. I saw something and I had to take a closer look. And my way of taking a closer look . . . it’s complicated.”

I knew he wanted to say something else but he settled for, “What did you see?”

“Come and take a look for yourself.” I led him to the backyard again and pointed into the bowl of the dry fountain. “Does that look to you like what we saw on the boat down in that crew cabin?”

Solis knelt and studied the red-brown figure under the blown sand and dried grass. “Similar . . . the same encircling waves . . . But what lies at the center?” he added. He took a pen out of his pocket and poked the dried grass aside. A tiny spark of oily green energy flared and died out as he moved the detritus.

Small fragments of beach glass and shell rolled around the bottom of the cement bowl, playing hide-and-seek with the tiny twelve-pointed star drawn at the center of the figure. It wasn’t as complex as what we’d seen on Seawitch , but it was similar enough to claim kinship. “It doesn’t look like the same person made it, but it’s got to be related,” I said. “I think some of the grass and stones are part of the figure, but they’re out of place now, so we’ll never know exactly what it looked like.”

Solis grunted. “I shouldn’t have touched it.”

“You couldn’t have known.” But I took a photo of the revealed sigil with my little digital camera, anyhow.

“You did.”

“No, I didn’t. I saw something that looked familiar, but I’d have done the same thing. It just looks like trash. At least you didn’t touch it with your hands. That’s probably blood.”

“What else did you see?”

“Excuse me?”

Solis stood up. “You weren’t near the fountain when I tripped over you. What were you pursuing then?”

“Oh. Um . . . this will sound pretty loony.”

“I’m prepared for that.”

“All right. What I saw . . . might have been a dog.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Really. How did you see it? I saw no dog and I am hardly blind to something of that size.”

“Well, it was not exactly . . . here. I mean it was here, but only partially.”

Solis continued to stare at me without saying another word. His tight-clinging aura flicked out whips of aggravated orange and red, but he didn’t let it show on his face.

I sighed. I couldn’t have dodged this particular push coming to shove once I’d dived for the Grey aboard Seawitch , so I had no one to blame but myself for this corner I was in. I didn’t like it, however, and I wasn’t pleased to be risking this tenuous partnership so soon with the big reveal of just how freakish I was. “Do we have to do this here? It’s kind of public.”

“Where do you prefer? I tell you, I will not let this drop.”

I resisted an urge to roll my eyes. “So it’s better for me to get it over with. Yeah, yeah. I know. But you aren’t going to like my answers—that is what I’m telling you .”

“I understand.”

“My office?” I offered reluctantly.

He glanced at his watch. I did the same. It was five fifteen. He looked skeptical. “Closer will be better.”

I waved in the direction of the waterfront. “Something here? Not likely to be very private, though.”

“Agreed. But there is privacy to be found in the open. Let’s take a walk along the shore, then.”

I raised my eyebrows in amusement. “How romantic of you, Solis.”

He snorted and turned away. “At the boardwalk by the marina in five minutes.”

We drove separately to the parking lot next to the marina and shops and met up again on the shorefront walkway. Without a word we turned together and started strolling north along the shoreline and away from the buildings. The fog had burned off here long ago and we would have been a curious sight on the strand if there had been anyone looking: tall, skinny me dressed for urban hiking more than beachcombing, and older, shorter Solis in his suit and overcoat in spite of the pleasant warmth of the early-summer afternoon.

When we were inconveniently distant from the last building, Solis spoke. “So. Tell me what you saw or how.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” I replied, not looking at him but still walking and keeping a moving eye on the area around us.

“Then explain. We’re stranded here until the rush hour is over. I see no reason not to put the time to use.”

“Well,” I started with a sigh, brushing my sea-breeze-tangled hair out of my eyes, “you’re aware of how I seem to attract strange things. . . .”

From the corner of my eye I saw him nod. He, too, was keeping his gaze on the scenery more than looking at me. That was the way this was going to go: talking without looking at each other, as if we didn’t have to acknowledge anything unpleasant if we didn’t see the truth in the other’s face. It felt strange; I’d never been totally honest with Solis but I’d always tried to keep my evasions small and cleave to omission more than outright lies. It’s a bad idea to get in the habit of lying to cops.

“I see things most people don’t. These things see me, too. That can be . . . troublesome.”

“What sort of things?”

I shot him a desperate glance, then turned my head away again, letting the wind off the surf blow my hair into my face and hide my expression. I don’t manage fear very well—I get angry, aggressive, or snarky instead—and here I had no choice but to be afraid. “Do I really have to say this?”

He nodded. “Sí . ”

I took a deep breath, not because there was much to say but because it was stupid and annoying to heave the words out, and turned so my face was less obscured by my hair. “I see ghosts. There. OK?”

“Ghosts.”

If the chips were down, I might as well go all in. “And other things,” I said. “Monsters, magic, things that go bump in the night . . . all that stuff.” I didn’t feel much better having said it.