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Zoe blinked. "Why? What did she--?"
"You heard where we were, and suddenly didn't want to meet us," he said.
"No, I--" She paused, then shook off the denial. "I'm sure there's nothing wrong with Anita Barrington. She's quite new here, but from what I hear, a nice lady. It's just...well, she's an immortality quester."
Zoe looked across our blank faces. "An immortality quester is--"
"A supernatural trying to find the secret to immortality," Clay said. "Yeah, we know. Ran into a couple of vampires doing that a few years back."
"Edward and Natasha." Zoe nodded, then lowered her gaze for a moment before continuing. "Well, even vampires can catch the bug. But those questers who aren't vampires sometimes develop an...unhealthy interest in our kind, the semi-immortals."
"So Anita's bothered you--"
"No, no. Never met her. But I had an...experience with an immortality quester years ago. It just taught me to avoid them."
Clay studied her face, then grunted. "Let's get inside. Before this Tolliver guy takes off."
We climbed the steps to a set of tall, narrow green-painted wooden doors, propped open to welcome daytime visitors. Inside was a reception area, staffed by a volunteer at a table with guides and history booklets. To our left, a huge framed antique coat of arms hung over recycling containers. On the right, tarnished brass memorial plaques hung above a bulletin board covered in flyers for antiwar demonstrations, AIDS clinics and missing-person notices.
Zoe led us to the left, where the pews were. They were arranged to form a three-sided box that faced a table in the middle. Above the western entrance doors were colorful banners for social justice, peace and cultural diversity. Beneath them, a young man slept on a green sofa.
Zoe headed toward two men talking near an interior door. The younger man, probably in his early forties, turned and started walking briskly down the aisle. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt from the Metro-Central YMCA, he was fit, average height, dark-skinned with a short beard and distracted eyes. In one hand he carried a black bag that looked like an old-fashioned medical satchel.
He almost smacked into me, as if I'd materialized from nowhere. With a murmured apology, he started going around me.
"Randy," Zoe called after him.
He stopped, and turned. "Zoe?"
"Hey, Doc. Do you have a minute? We need to talk to you."
A discreet glance at his watch, then at Clay and me, as if curiosity was warring with an insanely busy schedule. Without a word, he nodded and waved us to a hall on the east side of the church. We went down a few steps, then out a single door into a courtyard.
Brightly painted red and blue metal chairs and tables were arranged around a small fountain. Every chair was empty, but Tolliver still led us around the fountain, to take a table at the far side, where the noise of the falling water would mask our conversation.
He gestured to the chairs. There were only three, and he seemed ready to give them to us, but when Clay took up position at my shoulder, Tolliver turned the third chair around to face ours, then sat.
"So..." he began. "What's this about?"
I told him the story. A version of it, that is. Zoe had suggested we remove the part about stealing the letter ourselves. If that would bother Tolliver, it seemed a little hypocritical, considering he engaged Zoe's services often enough to be on a first-name basis. But she'd advised us to stick to a variation on the truth--that we were interracial council delegates investigating the portal and trying to close it.
I also left out the part about suspecting Shanahan of being the zombie controller.
When I finished, Tolliver looked at Zoe.
"You know that these two are council delegates? For a fact?"
She laughed. "Why else would they be investigating this? It's hardly the kind of thing people vol
unteer for."
"I can think of one group who would, particularly if they could use this portal to their advantage."
"A Cabal?" Zoe waved at me. "Does she look like a Cabal goon?"
"No, which would be a perfect way to convince us she isn't. It would also explain why Patrick is missing. They likely took him into custody themselves."
"Yeah?" Clay said. "Then why would we be looking for him? That's what we're doing here. Trying to find him, hoping he can close this thing."
