Kat Richardson - Possession

Seems there’s always something crazy happening the past few years, and this book had to dodge a lot of angst and problems to get into your hands, so I’m indebted to a lot of people for various chores in that respect. Many thanks to: minions Thea and Eric Maia (Thing One and Thing Two); Nancy Durham and Elisabeth Shipman; the fabulous Cherie Priest; Robin MacPherson; Rhiannon Held, who provided all sorts of information about archaeology in Washington, and the tunnel and seawall projects, as well as beta reading, advising, and being a stellar friend and wonderful writer; Mary Robinette Kowal for writer hang-outs online and encouragement in person even in the face of freakish weather and cross-country moves; Dr. Martha Leigh for medical information; Sally Harding and the whole crew at Cooke International—you guys rock; my long-suffering husband for sticking with me through all this; my totally amazing team at Roc—especially Anne Sowards and Rosanne Romanello—for continuing to make these books such a success; Anton Strout, who made me laugh at Comic Con when I wanted to scream; Paul Goat Allen, who continues to say nice things.

And to my mother-in-law, Sandra Carpenter: Thanks for being here—I love you very much.

Idon’t like dying. No one does and no matter how many times I’ve done it and how much I know about what lies beyond that thin edge of existence, I still dread it enough to wish for no more—or at least only one more and stay down for good. I’ve died three times that I’m sure of and that’s enough for anyone. I shouldn’t complain—I’m still alive at the moment. I seem mostly normal, I suppose—I have a boyfriend and a pet and a job—but even those things aren’t quite ordinary: The boyfriend is an ex-spy, my pet is a ferret, and I work as a private investigator. I sometimes think it would be nice to just be normal and have a normal job and a normal family, but that isn’t going to happen. I have been down to death and back and whether that is the reason or whether it’s the other way around, I am a Greywalker—one of the rare few who can move through the overlapping fringes of the world of the normal and that of the paranormal. That here / not here world is the Grey and it lies just beside everything you see and contains everything you don’t and never want to. Magic streams and sings through the darkness and the mists of the possible as hot neon light in lines and tangles that burn with power; spirits, monsters, and nightmares are its native inhabitants and I am one of its naturalized citizens. I have been called the Hands of the Guardian—the eldritch creature that prowls the borders of the Grey—and the paladin of the dead. I remain in the “real” world as the go-between, negotiator, troubleshooter, and general fixer for all things Grey. I dance on a hair-thin high wire, balancing between the uncanny and the mundane while trying to keep myself alive a little longer, because I’m sure that my next death will be my last.

The thing about this twilight freak show is that I sometimes know more about the dead than I know about the living, and the ghosts and monsters just keep coming around. They all have problems and the problems seem to be stranger with each new case. Sometimes the Grey things impose themselves on my life with such force and vehemence that the world changes, even if only a few of us can see it. It’s part of my job to make sure these changes don’t destroy the balance between this world and the next without destroying myself or the people I hold dear.

Idon’t usually acquire clients in secondhand stores. Books, jackets, furniture, knickknacks—yes. Clients—not so much. I was lurking in the nook at Old Possum’s Books ’n’ Beans where the volumes about music, theater, and philosophy were currently kept—more a comment on the owner, Phoebe Mason’s, sense of humor than any practical filing system—when a woman approached me. Even before I saw her, I felt the touch of her desperation and fear like a cloud of bad perfume.

Her footsteps stuttered as she walked across the scarred old wooden floor, and I looked around and down to find the source of the uncertain sound. Thus, the first thing I actually saw were her shoes: good-quality leather loafers with low heels that had become unevenly worn so each step wobbled just a bit, the dark brown leather scuffed along the sides and toes as if they’d been scraped repeatedly through rough stones. Her designer jeans were baggy at the knee, cinched in at the waist with a belt that didn’t match the shoes, and fit like they’d been meant for a curvier body, while her blouse was so rumpled it appeared she’d misbuttoned it.

I looked up to study her face and saw a once-lovely middle-aged woman with shoulder-length black hair, the gray roots leaving an undyed band about an inch wide along her part. Her cheekbones stood in high relief, hinting at some mix of Asian ancestors with taller Europeans, under skin that was dry, fine-lined, and too tight, as if she’d given up eating and was subsisting on nerves and dry toast. She stopped, her eyes widening as she bit her lip and stared at me for a second. Then she drew a deep breath and asked, “Are you the detective? A friend of Phoebe’s?”

Her question seemed to hang in the air and I took a beat before I replied, frowning a little at the weight it seemed to add to the room. Phoebe had been my first friend in Seattle, but I answered hesitantly, not sure which role this woman expected me to fill: detective or friend. “I . . . am.” The fading ghost of a former customer wafted obliviously down the aisle and through the pair of us as we stood there.

The woman didn’t see it, but she twitched at its cold passage and gave me a deer-in-the-headlights stare, while a drained shimmer in shades of olive and charcoal around her told me she was terrified. For another moment we just blinked at each other, until I prompted her to tell me what she wanted.

“What can I do for you?” I held back my desire to frown or look sideways at her to see whether she was entangled in the Grey, since I thought either would seem unfriendly and drive this skittish creature away.

“I need—um, I have a sister—” She stopped and shook her head as if she could shake her words into the right order. “I need help. I came here because I’m desperate to find out what’s happening. I was told I should talk to you—” She wrung her hands as she babbled, her body slightly bent, stooped forward as if her chest ached.

I touched her hand and felt a chill of distress twine up my fingers like the tendrils of a climbing vine. I didn’t jerk away, though that was my first impulse. “It’s all right,” I started, patting her hand very lightly and then closing mine over it to stop her churning motion. “Let’s sit down and you can tell me about it.”

She returned a jerky nod, her hands stilling as she let her gaze slide away from mine. I led her down the aisle and around the corner to the coffee nook, where there were a few cushy armchairs set between a fake fireplace and the espresso counter. A one-third-scale replica of a Triceratops skull looked down on us from the wall above the espresso machine, just a few feet from a round traffic mirror that showed the alcove to whoever was manning the front desk. We were alone, but not unobserved, and that was fine.

One of the chairs was occupied by a massive golden feline that laid claim to being a house cat only because we’d never been able to prove it was a mountain lion. “Hump it, Simba,” I ordered, with a dismissive jerk of my head.