Paradigms Lost (62 page)

“You mean that the column was deliberately knocked down? Yes, we do. Besides the flash of light we all saw, we found the precise portion of the column that was hit, and it had suffered an impact something on the level of a wrecking ball . . . when there wasn’t anything to be seen, and no trace of chemical explosives either.”

“So now what?”

Achernar hesitated a moment; when he resumed, there was an edge of ironic humor. “Haven’t a clue. But I would like you to ask . . . your own sources . . . if they have any ideas. I’ve got some people of my own, but unless I miss my guess your one friend has some connections I’ll never match.”

That made sense. With something that magical, he’d want advice from anyone he could get. “I will talk to him tomorrow.”

“Excellent. I’ll let you people get back to your own lives, then.”

“No problem; glad you updated us.”

“My pleasure. Good night!”

I hung up and glanced at Syl. “Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.”

She nodded, eyes distant and seeing things beyond the room. “And it’s not over yet.”

PART VIII

Trial Run

July 2001

CHAPTER 87

Back from the Dead

“Yeah, I finally have to admit it,” I said reluctantly. “I can’t do this alone.”

Achernar’s voice held just a touch of amusement, but there was respect in it as well. “Frankly, I’m amazed you’ve hung on this long. Personally, I’d have given it up, oh, a year ago; at most I’d have waited until the Gabon Blast made it obvious that the strange was in our world to stay. Instead, you’ve tried to do it all yourself for
another
three months. So how can we help?”

“Well, I’m going to have to remodel Wood’s Information Service—the building—so I can actually
have
departments. Now that I’m living with Syl away from WIS, I can dedicate the rooms that I used to live in for work purposes. The
hard
part’s going to be personnel.”

The rough chuckle indicated that Achernar understood perfectly. “No doubt. We have the same problem.”

“Exactly. You’ve got experience in finding employees who are both trustworthy and open-minded. Whoever I hire as my right-hand person needs to know a
lot
about what’s going on, including—if I’m going to give them a chance at doing even
part
of my job—some awareness of what’s already happened.”

Achernar was silent for a moment. “You mean about things like actual vampires and such?”

“If you don’t know what’s
really
out there, just how can I expect you to sort out the bullcrap from the real stuff that
sounds
crazy?”

“Point.” A pause. “How many people are you looking for?”

“I’d say . . . three. I mean,
anyone
would be a help right now”—I looked at the three other lines blinking red; the message count on my phone now showed twenty-three new, unread messages since an hour ago—“but I think I need someone to run the business side and a couple more at least, to help sort out the crap from the diamonds, and maybe do initial investigations.”

“And you’d like Pantheon to see what we can do to find appropriate candidates. Not afraid we’ll put a ringer in your organization?”

I grinned, though he couldn’t see it. “If you tried really hard, you could probably convince me to
join
you, so it’s hardly worth the effort to try to trick me that way. So no, I’m not.”

“True enough. Tell you what we can do: you forward all the resumés you get to us, and we’ll have them vetted. We’ll dig deeper on anyone who passes a preliminary sniff test. You’ll interview the ones that pass
that
investigation. We’ll be looking for traits that are useful for you, not necessarily to us, in case you’re wondering.”

“Great!” That took a
huge
load off my shoulders. I heard a chime from the outer door. While Morgantown was pretty far off the beaten track, people were often still willing to make the trip in person and thus get past the answering machine. “Whoops, got to go.”

“We’ll talk later then. Bye.”

I got ready to buzz the newcomer in from the entryway, glancing at the CryWolf image, which focused on his hands; it was unseasonably cold today and the person was wearing a hoodie, so his hands were the only exposed flesh easily visible.

No shimmers or other strange phenomena appeared, so I pushed the button to let him in. “Can I help you?” I asked as the newcomer stepped in and closed the door behind him.

He pushed the hoodie back, and I saw a cascade of long black hair and steel-gray eyes that momentarily struck me absolutely dumb. “Hi, Mr. Wood.”

“Xavier?
Xavier Ross?
What the—how . . . ?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I’m
very
sorry that I caused you all that trouble,” he said, and I could tell he was being earnest and honest. “I came here straightaway to apologize so you’d get it from me instead of hearing it on the news or something.”

I finally recovered enough to think. Xavier looked nearly identical to the way he had when I first met him; the only difference I could see was a very thin, white scar on one cheek. “I sure hope you went to your
mother
first.”

His gaze dropped to the floor. “Yeah, I went home first.” His voice wavered. “She . . . Mom and Michelle . . . they were really happy I came back. Not
too
mad. And they understood that I had to come here fast, before the news got out.”

“What
happened
to you?”

He laughed shortly. “You . . . and that cop, Lieutenant Reisman . . . well, basically I got in the trouble you warned me about. I was almost killed by a gang.” His hand went to his stomach, which was where reports said he’d been stabbed.

“That much I knew. Where’d you go? Did the old man who beat up the gang take you to a hospital?”

He looked up, startled. “You know about him?”

“Not much, but there were eyewitness reports from some of the gang members. Said he trashed all of them at once.”

Xavier grinned. “And it was
awesome
,” he said emphatically. “Wish I could’ve seen it clearly but I was kinda dying at the time.”

He hesitated, then shrugged and went on. “Hospital . . . yes and no. He took me somewhere safe and took care of me until I healed. Then . . . he made me look at myself and what I’d been doing.” Now his gaze was more distant, looking at things that weren’t in the room. “I’m . . . kind of obsessive. And after what that . . . girl did,” for a moment his tone returned to the furious, cold, brittle sound it had held during his earlier visits, “. . . I don’t think anyone could really blame me. But he made me see how much I was hurting Mom and ’Chelle by what I was doing. And at the same time, that I probably would destroy myself if I just went home and tried to ignore it.”

“And so . . . ?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

I laughed. “You can always choose
not
to tell me, Xavier, but I guarantee that I’ve seen things
you
wouldn’t believe.”

He laughed, a little nervously. “I guess. Man, I’m gone for a couple of years and the world goes crazy. I mean . . .
werewolves
?” He looked serious. “He taught me how to fight.
Really
how to fight. So I could take care of myself when I went on to find . . . her.”

I frowned. “So did you? Find her?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. I finished my training with him and came home.”

I remembered the reports that Jeri had brought me. “Where does the guy with the five-sided hat come into this?”

His eyes snapped back to mine. “Him?
He
was the one who
sent
me into the alley and almost got me killed!”

“You ran into him again, about a year later.”

He blinked. “I don’t remember seeing him again—and he’s kinda hard to forget. I just came straight home from Chicago. Hitching and walking, of course.”

Now
that
is interesting. He
did
run into Khoros again, a year ago. What’s up with that?

It was obvious, though, that he either really didn’t remember, or didn’t intend to say any more on
that
subject, so I just nodded. “All right. I’m glad you’re okay, Xavier; I was kinda blaming myself for you getting killed, you know.”

He winced. “Sorry.
Really
, really sorry. I . . . wasn’t thinking. At all.”

“Okay. Apology accepted.”

He straightened up, looking relieved. “I guess I’d better go find Lieutenant Reisman and—”

Crap
. “Renee Reisman’s dead, Xavier. Sorry. She’s been dead about two years.”

He looked horrified. “Oh, man. I’m sorry. You . . . knew her, right?”

“She was a good friend of mine,” I said; it still hurt to use the past tense. “And a damn good cop, too. All I can say is she’d have been glad to know you aren’t dead. And both of us would hope you’ve learned your lesson.”

He bit his lip, then nodded. “Yeah, I have. I have to think about the people who are
alive
first, instead of the dead.”

And that’s a pretty good summary.
“Good. Then you get on back home; I bet they’ll want you to stick close for a while.”

He grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, I’ll probably be grounded for, like, ever. Or at least a month. And I deserve it, but I don’t care; I’m
home
.” He turned back to the door. “Thanks, Mr. Wood.”

“Thank
you
for stopping in, Xavier. Good luck.”

“Bye!”

I shook my head after he left.
There’s more to this than I’m seeing. Maybe it’s connected with some other things . . . but I’m not sure I want to poke into it
.

The problem was, of course, that there were elements of this
too
close to that of Aurora Vanderdecken. If I got the timing right, Aurora vanished very nearly the same time that Xavier Ross had been seen for the second time by David Ringo. And now he’d returned, within a few months of Aurora’s reappearance, and neither he nor Aurora apparently remembered much of that period of time, if I was right about his reaction to my saying he’d met Khoros a second time.

After a few minutes, during which all of my phone lines were ringing or blinking, I came to a decision.
I’ll leave it for now; neither Xavier or his family need any more crap in their lives, especially since there’s bound to be news stories and police interviews.

But eventually—and not too long, either—I’ll have to ask Verne what the
hell
is going on.

CHAPTER 88

Bad Day, Bad Client

There are days when everything goes right. The shower’s the perfect temperature, breakfast’s cooked perfect, you hit all the green lights when you drive to the city, every client’s problem has a blindingly obvious solution that makes you look like a genius, and then when you get home your wife’s decided to arrange a romantic dinner that’s
just
what you were in the mood for.

This was not one of those days.

I won’t even go into the fiasco that was my morning, except to say that the expression “got up on the wrong side of the bed” would apply if you assume that I had a stone wall on the wrong side of the bed and kept trying to get up on that side anyway. But that might have been the high point of the day. Unlike my bachelor days, I now had to drive to work, since Wood’s Information Service was in Morgantown and our home was several miles out. The flat tire happened in the most inconvenient location: a stretch of road with no shoulder. During the heaviest rain of the day. At that point I discovered my cell phone battery was dead, then I cut my hand getting the so-called jack out of the back of the car.

As one might imagine, I was not in a chipper mood when I finally arrived at WIS about an hour and a half late. I spent the next several hours dealing with what seemed an endless parade of lunatics and flakes; my association with the Morgantown Incident had made me a focal point for anyone thinking they had a paranormal problem. Unfortunately, even with the increase in real “weird stuff,” ninety-nine percent of my callers and visitors were still lunatic-fringe whackos. By lunchtime I was approaching homicidal; I ushered the last person out of the office, locked the door, and switched on my “closed” sign. “Jeeeesus.” I sighed. “I
have
to get myself some helpers . . . and ones with good BS filters.”

Syl helped when she could, of course, but she hadn’t given up on running the Silver Stake when she married me—and, truth be told, with her being one of the few with real magic potential and being taught the real deal by Verne Domingo, it’d probably be a bad idea for her to stop dealing in the occult directly. More than once she’d found something useful and interesting through her connections, and I suspected that would be more common, not less, if things continued as they were.

I was looking for help that could be trusted. That was of course even harder than it sounds, since anyone who worked with me was going to at least touch on the fringes, and possibly get sucked right into the middle, of Things Man May Be Killed If He Knows. James Achernar of Pantheon was helping me look for candidates, and if we found likely ones they’d have to get past me, Syl, and eventually Verne. This seriously limited my potential pool of applicants. So far, we hadn’t found a good one that met all the requirements.

I pulled out my pack . . . to find that my lunch was not in it. Of course now I remembered putting it on the counter just before I left because I had to put something else into my pack first. And I didn’t have much in the office fridge.

“Fine,” I growled. “I’ll order out.”

I went back to my desk. As I was looking up the number of the local Chinese takeout, the phone rang. I found myself reflexively picking it up—years of customer service training taking over. I cursed at myself even as I said in my best Professional Courtesy voice, “Wood’s Information Service, Jason Wood speaking.”

“Mr. Wood! Thank goodness I got through!” The voice was soft and light, giving me the impression of a woman Syl’s size and younger, maybe barely out of high school. “Um, my name’s Angela McIntyre.”

I took a deep breath. If you’re going to answer the phone, suck it up and do the job right. “Thanks for calling, Angela. What can I do for you? I have to warn you, I’m extremely busy, as you might guess. Technically, this is my lunch break.” I heard faint sounds of other phones and talking in the background. She was calling from some kind of public area . . . airport? Conference?