Blood Engines(47)

 

“I think that’s only black bears,” Marla said, recalling a special she’d seen on television.

 

“Sucks,” Rondeau repeated. They went down the hill in silence. “So I guess we have to go after this Mutex guy now,” he said.

 

“Looks like it.”

 

“I might have to invest in some of those rubber hip-waders, then. It didn’t look like those frogs could jump very high.”

 

“That’s a good idea, until they get down in your boots and you can’t get them out.”

 

“You make a good point,” Rondeau said.

 

The trip back through folded space was quicker than the trip in, as was often the case. She and Rondeau passed over the bridge, which was flickering and fading from view, but still solid underfoot. They stepped out of the shimmer of obscurement, into ordinary air.

 

Bradley Bowman was there, sitting on a white-and-red checked blanket in the grass just ten feet away, reading a yellowed paperback with the cover torn off. He looked up, shaded his eyes, and nodded.

 

“Hi there,” he said. “I hear you need to see a man about a frog.”

 

Marla stared at him, this ignorant seer with his fuzzy dreams and annoying persistence, and then began to laugh. “Yes,” she said, eventually, when she was done laughing. “I do.”

 

Bradley stood up, bundling his blanket into a wad under one arm. “Come on, then,” he said. “We have to go across the bay.”

 

 

 

 

 

9

 

 

 

Bradley and Rondeau sat slumped in the train car, while Marla stood holding a handrail. “How did you know where to find us this morning?” she asked. “Another dream?”

 

B shook his head. “I consulted a—I think it was the ghost of a demon—that I found in a Dumpster, and it told me to find you at a sweet red hill in a lake—Strawberry Hill. I had another dream, too, but this time it was about you, looking at a dead frog through a magnifying glass, then smashing the glass in frustration. So I had some idea of what you needed help with.” He shrugged. “I know where you can find out about frogs, so I thought I’d better come find you.”

 

Marla nodded. “These dreams—you interpret them yourself?”

 

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Not always. There’s a…spirit I consult.”

 

“The one in the Dumpster?”

 

“No, a different one. Lives in a sewer grate. Except it doesn’t ‘live’ exactly. ‘Haunts’ might be a better term.”

 

“I see.” She considered her next question carefully. “Exactly how many ghosts, demons, and spirits do you know?”

 

B shrugged. “It’s not like I’m friendly with them. But when I need to know something, I can usually find someone—some thing—to ask. So lots, I guess.”

 

Marla crossed her legs at the ankle and leaned away from him, her arms still holding the grab-rail overhead. She looked at B, trying to activate her spirit eyes, but a headache blossomed just behind her forehead right away—she’d been peering too closely at too many improbable things lately. It was unlikely she’d see anything in him anyway. He really was just a low-grade seer…but maybe he was something more, too. It was possible that B had a kind of power she’d only heard about secondhand, something her spirit eyes wouldn’t be able to discern anyway. If she was right, Bowman could be very useful to her. But that could wait. The first thing she needed to do was find out about the frogs.

 

After several stops, and a dark journey through the tunnel under the bay, B stood up and said, “This is it.” They stepped off the train and took an escalator up a level, into a domed area, and then exited the train station. As always when Marla emerged from an underground place into the light, she felt a sense of new possibilities, as if she’d returned from the underworld and brought back secrets. There was power even in symbolic journeys.

 

B led them outside, to a paved parking lot bordered at the far end by a busy street. “Welcome to Berkeley.”

 

“Huh,” Rondeau said, making a great show of looking around. “Where are the hippies?”

 

“On Telegraph Avenue, up by the university,” B said. “Nowhere near here. This is North Berkeley. And we’re headed to West Berkeley, so I hope you like walking.”

 

“I do,” Marla said. “And Rondeau will do it anyway.”

 

“Don’t you people believe in cabs?” Rondeau said.

 

“Anybody could be driving a cab,” Marla said, and Rondeau sighed; it was a very old argument between them. They walked in silence, Marla falling into pace with B’s easy gait. He was a good walker. Marla decided to pry a little. “When did you start hearing things, seeing things, having dreams?”