Penumbra (Spook Squad 3)

But Mary appeared not to hear her, caught up in her distress. “He’ll be back. Now that they know I’m here, he’ll be back.”

“No, he won’t. My partner’s out there right now, hunting him down.” But who the hell had Mary seen? If only she could get an answer. “He’ll catch him. That’s what he does.”

Mary pulled back a little. “I know. I was talking to him.”

Sam frowned. “You were talking to Gabriel?”

Mary looked annoyed. “I don’t know a Gabriel. I meant Joshua. Joshua will catch him. Where is he? I want to talk to him again.” Her voice was petulant, like that of a child deprived of a toy. And in many ways Mary was a child. Much of her mind had gone, lost in memories of the past.

But did that mean she was lost now, or had she really seen Joshua? And if it wasn’t Joshua who had scared her—as her words seemed to indicate—then who or what had?

“Maybe Joshua will come by later.”

Even as she said it, Sam glanced up at the dark-haired nurse, who shook her head and said, “There were no visitors today.”

So, it was all in Mary’s imagination. But that didn’t mean Sam couldn’t get something useful, as long as she didn’t push Mary too far. She motioned toward the sofa. “Mary, why don’t you come sit down on the sofa with me?”

“Oh, all right. As long as they don’t stick me again. They’re always sticking me with things.”

The second nurse came back into the room with a medical trolley at that precise moment, and Sam couldn’t help smiling. “You don’t want to be sick when Joshua visits again, do you?” She helped the elderly woman onto the sofa and knelt down in front of her. “How about you talk to me about his visit while the nurses make sure the other man didn’t hurt you.”

The old woman’s smile broke loose at the mention of Joshua. “He was such a bonny child. You both were.”

“When was he here, Mary?”

“Today, like I said. Just before that other man appeared.” She shuddered. “I never did like the look of that one. He was nasty.”

“Who was he, Mary?”

The woman frowned, as if trying to search for the memory was painful. “I…I can’t remember his name, I’m afraid.”

Clearly this was Hopeworth’s blocks at work. Time for another tactic.

“So how did Joshua get here? He never checked in with the nurses.”

The old woman snorted. “Well, he wouldn’t, would he? He hates medical types. It’s far easier for him to fly in through an open window and avoid all the fuss.”

“So he came as a bird?”

“Yeah.” Mary smiled. “You both had to be electronically chipped as kids so you didn’t fly beyond the compound restrictions.”

It sounded like Mary was getting her mixed up with someone else, because while she had changer genes, she certainly wasn’t able to change. Though, admittedly, she’d never tried to, either.

A chill ran over Sam’s skin and she rubbed her arms. Whoever had blocked her memories had been very thorough indeed if she could not remember something as basic as the fact that she could change shape.

Why block it in the first place, though? She could understand why Hopeworth and everything that had happened there might have been erased, but why the total erasure? Why take away something as harmless as the fact that she had a brother, or that she could shapechange?

And how was any of this connected to the mythical Sethanon?

“How many bird forms did he have?” she asked.

“Several. You always seemed to prefer being a small hawk, but he liked variety. A hawk, a crow, sometimes even a pigeon. None of those could fit through the window, though. So today he came as one of those annoying birds—minors, I think they call them.”

Again Sam wondered if Mary’s memories were true, or if she was getting imagination and reality mixed up. She glanced up as the nurse finished her exam.

“She’s fine,” the nurse said. “Just keep her calm.”

Sam nodded, waiting until the two nurses had left the room before continuing her questions. “Did Joshua say why he was here, Mary?”