They walk side by side down an old dirt road and their shoes send clouds of dust swirling around them. The sun is warm through his jeans and it heats the leather jacket she's knotted around her waist. They walk side by side past ancient trees, through solitary forests, and reach the end of the road as the sunset streaks orange and red over gnarled branches.
This is not, of course, real, which is not to say that it doesn't happen. When he wakes, he thinks he can still feel the heat of the sun on senseless skin (he remembers that he should do three impossible things before breakfast and wonders if this counts), but it fades when he looks out the window at the cold forever Seattle night, the sharp geometric angles of distant buildings and the sleet-turned-rain falling in accordance with an unknowable algorithm.
Max, he sees, has not yet returned, and he's glad that she didn't find him napping on the job, taking advantage of her willingness to come with him. Not that she would mind, he knows, but the evening would be tinged with a metallic aftertaste, guilt at the edges, no matter how hard he would try to ignore it. That, he thinks, would not be tolerable. Snow in Seattle is rare enough; snowy nights spent ghost-hunting are the sort of thing one should treasure forever, along with memories of the long lonely stretch of road from here to the Canadian border (a path which he hasn't taken for a long time, but which he replays in his mind, just in case) and the time his car broke down on the way to his uncle's cabin in the middle of a freak snowstorm and Leah didn't stop teasing him about the empty gas tank until three in the morning, when they were both too tired to do anything but laugh and murmur into sleep.
Still, he thinks, she should be back soon. How long can it take to verify the presence of a former politician – or anyone at all, for that matter? Either he is or he isn't. Logan crosses his arms and frowns at the clock, the digital display glowing a faint orange in the car's dimness. It's ridiculous for him to be worried and he tells himself that he's not. If anything, he's impatient, in a hurry to get home and get to work, or at least to bed. It's been a long day and he thinks he should have brought a thermos, coffee or tea or some source of caffeine. But that would be sort of like having a picnic while Max is wandering around in the storm, and even if she wouldn't mind, he would. That's how it works, and if it's not broken, why fix it?
Yin and yang, he thinks, are overrated. He has nothing against balance, but it would be nice if for once they would be on the same track, in sync. If his good days would coincide with hers, and if they could spend drizzly afternoons in an equal and companionable melancholy. Instead they have a sort of strange homeostasis; they share a dream and then tear each other to pieces in order to keep the balance.
He blinks and pushes himself upright in his seat, as if proper posture will keep sentimentality and the haze of dreams at a safe distance. His vision is tinted with orange, a remnant of strange visions, and he sighs. Dreams are not supposed to have physical aftereffects.
It occurs to him, finally, that the glow is not in his imagination. A warehouse is on fire, the crackling of flames audible when he unrolls the window. He flinches at the cold breeze, the beads of rain thrown like shards on the wind. Shouldn't the water be putting out the blaze? But they're not enough and a warehouse is burning. He stares at the pyre, flames racing along joists and dancing on the roof. Its reflection on the water is an impressionist painting, all soft lines and blurred curves of color.
He narrows his eyes, calculating distance, and realizes that the burning building is the Lexington unit, the one to which he sent Max. He really should have expected that. Statistics, he's rapidly learning, do not lean in their favor, especially when the consequences of such are high.
He scans the night for movement, for Max emerging from the blaze smeared with soot, answers or apologies in her eyes. When she does not come, he reaches into the backseat, assembling the wheelchair with a speed borne of practice and necessity, an adrenaline boost. Not that he knows what he will do, what difference he will make, but the painting's rapidly going from impressionist to photo-realistic. He transfers as quickly as he can, slams the door behind him. The rain is liquid smoke and his eyes tear as he nears the warehouse, the hissing of tires cutting through water almost lost in the wind.
He stares up at the burning black hulk, the bay's unfathomable depths running alongside the blaze. Fire and water, and where the hell is Max? The snow is already melting, especially this close to the flames, and dark clouds cover the sky. He doesn't see her and has a sudden vision of hell. He coughs and moves closer, shouts, "Max!" There is no need for stealth; the blaze, he thinks, will have drawn the attention of anyone nearby, undead (or whatever it is ghosts are supposed to be) or not.
How strange, he thinks, to lose her to a warehouse blaze with snow melting around him. How strange, how terribly ironic, and he will not let it be true.
He pushes closer to the building, close enough to feel the heat searing across his face, and discovers that he actually has a fear of fire. Pyrophobia, he thinks. A really bad time to find out, though arguably said fear didn't exist until right now.
Something crashes inside and sparks shoot up through the fallen ceiling. He hears glass shattering and wonders what the Lexington unit stored, if the building were truly abandoned or if it had been Halovich's home, if it were not only a building burning, but the material aspects of a man's life, and Max.
Wind throws smoke into his face and he closes his eyes as they burn, pushes himself away from the hottest part of the blaze, and as his vision clears, he sees something moving through the smoky haze, behind the building, where poured concrete meets the water. It is a flash of movement, a blur, inconclusive, and he goes after it; it is all he has. Cats don't like water, but she would head to the sea if necessary.
The air is clearer back there and he takes as deep of a breath as he dares, forcing enough air into his lungs so that he can call out again. What started the fire, he wonders, and is the timing entirely coincidental? He thinks that he should have considered this sooner, though he's not sure what difference it would have made, as he can't see staying in the car and hoping Max finds him eventually.
He blinks, feels water streaming through the soot on his face, and he senses movement behind him, turns into the blow and feels a stinging handprint and the corresponding mental explosion and then the darkness of the bay rushing to meet him.
The water is cold, he thinks, cold, and very, very dark, and he's not free-falling so much as drifting in a general downward direction. He reaches up, his hands cutting through dirty water, and sees the blaze from a distance, distorted as it is by the waves caused by his entrance. It's beautiful in a dangerous, destructive way and he struggles upward for a moment before realizing that he's not making any progress. He's caught on something and the surface is fading ever-further into the distance, and really, he thinks, this does not look good. Starry-eyed messiah meets a violent farewell, he thinks as his arms grow tired and his lungs begin to burn with lack of oxygen, and where, where is Max?
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