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.Or in my bedroom or my apartment.Or within the Boston city limits; it was too quiet for Boston.The shushing murmur overhead wasn't tires on asphalt but a breeze through branches, and that was all I could hear.That, and: "David, where are you?" Ferdie's voice, just like he'd sounded in my dream, only even more worked up.Ferdinand George Griffon the Third (or Sixth, or Esq., or whatever he was going by this week), most lately of Boston, the sole employee of David Sleight, psychic investigator for hire.The irony being that his paycheck came out of the funds he'd paid me when he'd hired me those months back.Or it would, if I gave him an actual paycheck, which I don't, since it's a pain working out the tax paperwork for a guy with no social security number or birth certificate.The volcano he'd hatched in hadn't had a registrar's office.I wasn't sure if it even had a name.Ferdie, my—partner.Yeah, let's go with partner.Ferdie, who last week had been given a backpacking magazine by some friends.We didn't have any urgent cases, and the White Mountains weather report had predicted sunny and fair days, hot but not too humid, and warm, perfect-for-camping nights.Theresa offered to loan us her tent and sleeping bag, and Ferdie dug another bag out of my closet, dusty but no moth holes, and, "Please, David, it will be fun; I've never been camping before!""So go with whoever gave you that magazine," I'd told him, but got back, "Ted and Kimberly were just biking through, they're already gone—and besides, Theresa's tent is only big enough for two, so I can only go with one other person, so."So, he wanted it to be me.And maybe someday, my ego would be strong enough that I'd stop being flattered that a preternaturally sexy, ungodly powerful, and all around extraordinary being was into a mostly-ordinary, fast-approaching-middle-aged human such as myself—but I wasn't there yet.I really had to work on that."David!""Here!" I yelled back, and instantly regretted it.Between my own noise and the effort of sitting up, the pain in my head spiked to the point of nausea.I tasted the hot dogs we'd roasted for dinner burning in my throat, clapped my hand over my mouth, and swallowed them back."David?" Crashing sounds in the darkness off to my right, and then a white beam of light struck me like a lance in a jousting match, right between the eyes.It hurt almost as much as actually being stabbed, and I cried out in protest.Opening my mouth was a mistake.Seeing its chance, dinner made a desperate run for the exit.I gave up and gave it to the forest floor."David?" The crashing stopped beside me.Warm hands fell on my shoulder, and an unavoidably charmingly-accented tenor asked, "David, are you okay? I'm so sorry about getting the torch in your eyes—""S'okay," I mumbled.Difficult to talk when you're trying not to taste your own tongue.I pushed myself up to my knees."I'm okay.""Are you sure?" Ferdie asked worriedly."It sounded like you were throwing up." His thoughts were even more fretful—Light doesn't usually make you throw up—never has to me—vampires feel sick in sunlight? But a torch isn't sunlight—"And I'm not a vampire," I said.Ferdie was definitely worried, to be trying hard enough to make his mind this clear to me.While I hang out the shingle as a psychic detective, technically speaking, as a regular, non-magical human, my abilities are limited at best.My telepathy is short-range read-only, and it's a bust with non-human brains—and with Ferdie what you see is not even close to what you get.His unreadable mind was my first clue that he wasn't actually human when he first showed up at my office last spring.It took me a little longer to figure out what he really was—and even longer than that to believe it.Some days, I still don't.I risked squinting my eyes open.The flashlight was off, and my vision was adjusting to the dark; I could just about make out Ferdie crouching next to me, the shadowy silhouette of curly hair and the faint gleam of his eyes.They didn't reflect quite like a cat's or Theresa's witchy retinas, but even with the majority of his magic sealed, his eyes still showed up in the dark, just a bit of an unearthly glow."But you were throwing up," Ferdie said."A little." I grimaced and spat on the ground over my shoulder but it didn't improve the taste.And my head was still killing me."Could use some water." We'd had a water bottle in the tent.Where was it now?For that matter, where was the tent? There were leaves and dirt under my hands, not nylon.And I hadn't heard any zipper or tent flaps flapping when Ferdie came over to me."What happened?" I said."Where are we? How'd we get out here?"Ferdie paused.You don't remember? "You don't remember?" he unnecessarily asked aloud, sounding even more worried."Remember what?""The noise," Ferdie said."We were trying to figure out what it was," couldn't be a bear— only it could be a bear, there are bears here—ranger station's sign, don't leave food out—never seen a bear in the wild—island was too small—but David said it couldn't be—and bears don't usually explode do they?"Explode?" I repeated out loud."What bear exploded?""You really don't remember at all?" Ferdie asked again.We were still sitting on the ground, and his hands were on my shoulders; they tightened now."Really don't." I shook my head in the dark."Last I remember, we were asleep in the tent."I hadn't been sure I'd be able to sleep when we first lay down.The air mattress was comfortable enough, but the confines of the tent were weird, both too close and too open; I could reach out and touch a nylon wall, but also feel the open breeze and hear the rustle of branches overhead.Then Ferdie had crawled into the double sleeping bag with me and shown me the advantage of being out in the wilderness with no irritable neighbors living on the floor below.It hadn't taken him very long to convince me.The last thing I remembered thinking before drifting off was that maybe we should invest in a tent of our own.Preferably a tent that stayed with us, rather than vanishing in the night."What happened after we fell asleep?""We woke up," Ferdie said unhelpfully.He must have sensed my invisible glare, because he quickly went on, "There was this sound—like a thumping?" It was clear in his memories if not in his words, a rapid thudding like a drum beat, pounding faster and faster.A giant drum, and far away.But still loud enough to wake us up."We couldn't figure out what it was,"—You said not a bear, but it wasn't construction, either, not metal or concrete—"but it was keeping us up.So we decided to drive down to the ranger station.Except when we left the tent, the car was gone—""Gone? Where?" We'd set up the tent ten feet from where we'd parked; surely we would've heard a car thief starting the engine.Car thieves, but no, David, it couldn't be—didn't hear the engine—no exhaust smell either—the debate continued in Ferdie's mind, a memory of a previous argument that I didn't share.Aloud, he went on, "We were looking for the car, when a little further down the road, we saw something moving in the trees—" Ferdie had seen it first, naturally; I saw it now in his mind's eye, a blink of motion and a glimpse of a tall, dark shape looming between tree trunks."You called out," Ferdie said."Shined your flashlight at it, and then it.exploded
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