The Geomancer's Compass (21 page)

“Video surveillance,” replied Brian, chewing. “I spotted some cameras today, but whoever's doing the monitoring is probably just focussing on the Segway stand and the bag drop – that's where thefts happen. Mind you,” and he gave me a sideways glance, “I
was
thinking of stealing a Segway …”

“Brian!”

“But we've got all this gear to lug!”

“You're unbelievable! Do you know that? No!”

“But it would be exciting!”

“It would
not
be exciting! It would be nerve-racking, and my nerves are racked enough. What is it with you?”

He playacted pouting. “Spoilsport!”

We reverted to an uneasy silence. I felt like a kettle set to boil, my anxiety bubbling along. The sky above the horizon shifted from pale to royal blue. After a moment I asked, “Would there be any other kind of security?”

“Man dog,” replied Brian.

I turned to him. “What?”

“Man dog,” he repeated. “That's short for ‘a man with a dog.' Usually a Doberman pinscher.”

“Doberman pinscher?” I gulped. Don't get me wrong. As I already mentioned, I like dogs. Lassie and Toto? Bring 'em on. Doberman pinschers, on the other hand…

“Yeah, I know,” Brian said. “I've never liked 'em either. Way too alert for my taste. I like my dogs chill.” He glanced at me, then laughed and, reaching over, squeezed my arm. “There won't be any dogs, Randi. We're way out in the country in a place that
is
mostly country. C'mon. Nobody's going to spring for a guy with a dog at a place like this. What's the worst that can happen? Some dweeby junior high schooler takes a Segway for a joyride? Some mini-goths throw a party on the seventh hole? You don't need a dog to break that up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“I don't believe you.”

“That's your problem, not mine.”

Now the horizon simmered into a thin maroon line, and the sky above it turned deep indigo.

“Besides, Qianfu's ghost is a lot scarier than a Doberman pinscher.”

“Shut up!” He just couldn't resist, could he? “Oh, man! Don't talk about that. Not if you want me to be of any use at all.”

By the time nine o'clock rolled around it was pitch-dark, and of the dozen or so cars that had been parked in the lot when we arrived only one remained – a battered, white, windowless van. Brian pointed to it. “That'll be security.”

At 9:30 sharp the clubhouse went dark, and I mean dark. This far out into the country, with no light pollution coming
off a nearby big city and no moon … doesn't get much darker than that.

I peered into the gloom. “No security lighting?”

“It costs to burn sodium-vapor lights all night,” said Brian. “The lights are probably controlled by some kind of motion detector system around the periphery.”

I snorted. “Great! And I suppose the security guy is going to ignore the fact that suddenly the fourth hole is lit up like a Christmas tree?”

“Relax, Randi. He'll assume we're a couple of animals. Nine times out of ten, it's animals that set off motion detectors.”

“Animals? Do you mean, like deer?”

“Like deer. Like hedgehogs. Like coyotes.”

“Coyotes?”

“And bears.”

“
Bears?
”

He checked his watch. “Showtime!”

We'd agreed to wait a few minutes after the clubhouse closed, to let everything settle a little, before downloading the avatar and, you know, heading off into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. But now my mind had snagged on the possibility that there might be bears roaming around. “What kind of bears?” I asked. “Dangerous bears?”

“All bears are potentially dangerous,” Brian replied. “Just remember, if we encounter one, stay calm. Don't run. Back away from the bear slowly. Do not look the bear in the eye –”

“Brian!”

“I'm jerking your chain. This country's too open for bears.”

I started to relax just a bit…

“Besides, Qianfu's ghost is a lot scarier than a bear.”

“Brian!”

“Oh, take a pill, why don't you? C'mon. It's the witching hour. Time to get cracking.” He rubbed his hands together and I realized that he was excited. It wasn't that he wasn't scared; he was that extra bit hyper, his mania cranked up that couple of extra notches, and I knew he was afraid. After all, he wasn't stupid. But he was psyched too, like this was some crazy adventure. Which I guess it was – but still!

I took a deep, tentative breath. My stomach was tied in some kind of Celtic knot and my chest ached from my efforts not to hyperventilate. This has to be done, I told myself. This has to be done whether I want to do it or not. Even if it's the last thing I do, it has to be done. I sat up straighter, squared my shoulders. “OK,” I said, trying to sound resolute. “I'm going to use my GPS to track the grave's coordinates. I don't want to rely on the Zypad for both the GPS and the
feng shui
network in case we lose our connection.” With trembling fingers I set the grave's latitude at fifty degrees, twenty-two minutes, and thirty-six seconds north, and its longitude at one hundred and five degrees, forty-one minutes, and four seconds west. Then I muted the audio. Wandering around a pitch-black golf course at night directed by a woman's
disembodied voice saying, in a posh British accent, “Follow highlighted route … recalculating,” didn't seem very smart. Another deep breath. “Now I'm going to download The Grandfather.”

“Roger that!”

Using the touch screen, I logged onto the Internet, entered through the New Age portal, selected the
feng shui
network, and did a control find for Liu Xiazong. A moment later, the avatar appeared on the tiny screen and lifted its cane in silent greeting.

I swallowed hard. I looked at Brian. “I guess we're really doing this, huh?”

“Looks like it.”

“Give me your I-spex then.” He handed me his pair. I charged them with my CanBoard card and handed them back. “Ready to rock?”

“I'm always ready to rock.”

We put on the I-spex and powered on.

Again the entry bump, that spinny sense of dislocation, that feeling of being stretched out. I glanced down at the screen of my Zypad, which looked much farther away than it had a moment before. The avatar had vanished. I squinted at the screen. A second later, “Shall we?” – right in my ear. A hot, electric surge of fear ran right through me; it was like being struck by lightning. My heart slammed into reverse and I twisted toward the voice and, sure enough, there was the avatar,
hovering outside the car window on my side. It was so close that I could make out the polygonal mesh from which it was modeled – tiny vertices in 3-D space connected by firefly-green lines. I closed my eyes and slumped back into the seat, my hand over my pounding heart. “Oh, man! Don't
do
that.”

“Don't do what?”

“Don't just
appear
like that.”

“I really don't have any control over how I manifest.” The avatar floated through the Helio's back door as though it were not there, which I suppose it wasn't in its whatever it was – dimension? frequency? – and took a seat in midair.

Brian twisted around in his seat to face it. “OK, Gramps, what's our game plan?”

“Gramps?” repeated the avatar, as if it could not possibly have heard him correctly. “
Gramps?
”

“Sorry,” Brian apologized hastily. “I mean, Honored Grandfather.”

“That's better.” The avatar was stern. “An ancestor is owed respect, something you will do well to remember, great-grandson. As for our … whatever the sports metaphor was that you used …”

“Our game plan.”

“Game plan,” repeated the avatar. “Ah, yes. Our game plan is very straightforward, Brian. First we must take the precaution of ensuring that the grave in question is indeed that of my brother.”

“Yes,” I interjected, “and how do we do that, exactly? We can't test for DNA in the field and, besides, wouldn't they have scraped his bones clean in the Death House?”

The avatar regarded me gravely. It shook its head. “If this is my brother, there will be no doubt, Miranda. No doubt whatsoever. All we need to do is disturb the grave to determine the identity of its owner.” It turned to Brian. “What have you brought in the way of a body bag?”

“A Pierre Cardin suit bag,” replied Brian.

“Good. Good.” The avatar nodded its approval. “Qianfu always liked quality.” Then its tone turned grave and its mien severe, and it was as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the car. It spoke in a low voice. “You must understand, great-grandchildren: if Qianfu lies buried here, digging up this grave will be tantamount to knocking down a hornet's nest, only a great deal worse. The ghost will resist with all its might and, as you witnessed yesterday afternoon, its powers are formidable. It is not my dear brother we may encounter tonight, but his hungry ghost. I assure you, it would bear no more resemblance to my poor brother than a hummingbird does to a buzzard. What was human and good in Qianfu has been utterly consumed, leaving behind black rage and darkest malice. That distillation of rage and malice would be our adversary, and a worthy and terrible adversary it –”

Brian interrupted. “Uhhh, excuse me, Honored Grandfather. How exactly would we … you know…
deal
with the ghost?”

“That would be my job,” replied the avatar.

“Yeah, but how would
you
deal with it?”

“Brian!” I pleaded. “Not now!” Brian and his thirst for knowledge! It was beyond irritating.

“It's technical,” said the avatar. “You wouldn't understand.”

“Try me.”

The avatar sighed but, seeing Brian's eager expression, launched into the same kind of explanation it had tried to give me during my disastrous encounter with the giant virtual
lo p'an
back in Calgary. “Well, first I must gather the energy from the Twenty-Four Directions. Then I must enhance and direct it, tapping the energy intrinsic in Earlier Heaven and using it to affect the energy flow and avoid the energy inherent in Later Heaven –”

“Hold on. Whoa.” I held up my hand. “Do you see now?” I said, turning to Brian. “Are you satisfied? It's mumbo jumbo.”

“I think it's interesting,” Brian insisted. “I was listening.”

“Well, stop listening and let's get on with this!”

“She's right,” the avatar said. “Now is not the time, but I'm glad to see that you are interested. If we make it through this … ordeal … we shall talk further. Be assured of that.”

“I've been thinking,” I interjected. “If you're the one who will be dealing with the ghost and Brian's doing all the heavy lifting, what's there for me to do? I mean, I don't mind staying back in the car. I could … like … keep watch or something.”

“Absolutely not.” The avatar shook its head. “Your job is essential to this mission. Only a skilled geomancer can deal with a hungry ghost, and I can only do that in this world if you keep me in the picture.”

My hope deflated like a balloon some kid stuck a pin in. “So I'm the nerd on site?”

The avatar nodded.

“But what happens if she can't?” Brian asked. “What happens if it is Qianfu and you time out, or she loses the connection?”

The avatar looked very serious indeed. “Well,” it said, “then you die.”

T
en minutes later, the avatar floating ahead of us like some kind of St. Elmo's fire, we stole across the deserted highway and picked our way through the tangled scrub and weed-choked grass that lined the road to the golf club's parking lot. Brian carried the shovel and hedge clippers, while I carried the suit bag folded over my left arm; the Zypad was fastened tightly around my right arm. Our I-spex bathed the scene as it unfolded before us – the scrub and grass, the gutter of rank-smelling mud that gave the road its ragged edge – in a greenish-golden light. It was a mixed blessing the I-spex conferred: on the one hand, they furnished light and made it possible for us to interact with the avatar; on the other, they seriously messed with our proprioception – our ability to sense exactly where our body parts were in relation to other body parts, or to anything else. The experience was a little
like walking down steps in the dark, when you don't know exactly where the next step is. It was way disorienting; it made us both clumsy, and made me dizzy. I don't do dizzy well. I made a mental note to check with Brian on whether he'd kept his barf bag from the virtual tour. I was pretty sure that, before this night was through, I was going to need it. A barf bag or a body bag, one or the other.

We reached the parking lot. Brian cast a covetous eye toward the Segways ranged alongside the clubhouse. “Are you sure you don't want me to steal a couple?”