“So, you do know about the wraiths,” Ray said, getting up off of Willow’s lounging sofa.
“I know about all sorts of things,” Willow said. “Everything, really.”
“What can you tell me about them?”
“They don’t exist.”
“Okay, thanks,” Ray said. “Except they do. We’ve seen them.”
“Do you see them now?” Willow asked, laying down on her side in the sunny seat.
“Do I see them here, in your… office?” Ray asked.
She looked at him over the tops of her sunglasses.
“Do you see them now, in the daylight?” she asked.
“No,” Ray said. “Though I’m thinking that might just be because they aren’t really into the art scene.”
“I don’t see them, either,” Willow said. “So they don’t exist.”
“Uh huh,” Ray said. “I seem to recall China giving you the same problem.”
“Did you come to talk to me about wraiths or about made up countries?” Willow asked. “They don’t exist during the day. At night, they do.”
“And you know this because you can ’see’ them,” Ray said. Willow didn’t respond to confirm or deny what he was saying, or even to acknowledge it. “From here. You can sense mystic threats? Is that how you and your sisters hunted monsters?”
“No.”
“No, you can’t track things like that?”
“No, my sisters didn’t use me to track monsters,” Willow said.
“Did your sisters know you could do this?”
“Maybe.”
“Did you ever tell them?”
“I might have,” Willow said. She yawned and stretched. “Eventually, I mean.”
“You mean you’ve got powers your sisters didn’t even know about?” Ray asked.
“It’s possible.”
“All those years of going out at night and wrestling zombies, or whatever it was you guys did, and they never had any idea how powerful you actually are?” Ray asked.
“I told them I’m awesome,” Willow said. “I think that covers a lot of ground, don’t you?”
“Don’t you think it might have been helpful to them to know that you can do more than turn into a cat?”
“I don’t turn into a cat.”
“You know what I mean,” Ray said.
“Of course I do,” Willow said. “I know many things.”
He shook his head… this was exactly what he’d been afraid of. It wasn’t that Willow wouldn’t know anything helpful in fighting the Bone Lords, but it might not matter. If her own sisters had barely been able to coax her into coming along on their hunting excursions, Ray didn’t think he’d be able to do much better.
He might be able to get her to follow him… whether he wanted to or not… but that didn’t mean she’d help him.
Anyway, he knew how to take them down. As it happened, their weakness was his strength: fire destroyed them utterly.
“Thanks a lot, Will, but I can see you’ve got a lot on your stomach,” Ray said. He headed for the door out to the upper walkway.
“There is an intelligence behind the Bone Lords,” Willow said as he was reaching it.
“You mean some kind of spirit or demon?” Ray asked.
“Worse,” Willow said. “Human. Not strong, not even smart, but clever. It learns, it adapts. It works around its weaknesses and makes them into strengths. The same tactics won’t work forever.”
“What else can you tell me?” Ray asked.
“Come back tomorrow,” she said. “Bring me something.”
“What?”
“Something I’ll like,” she said.
“And you’ll tell me more about this ‘intelligence’?”
She shrugged.
“It’s possible,” she said.
“Great,” Ray said. He pushed the door open and stepped outside. Willow yowled in protest at the draft. Sunny as it was, it was a rather cool morning out of doors and steam rose from his skin. “This is why I hate cats,” he said as he headed for the stairs.
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