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he was about to reach the marina. His cruiser, the HMS Crackbrain, was a wedge of darkness against the backlights of the marina, rocking gently on its mooring. He saw no one on it. Felt no one watching him, not from anywhere.
    He cut the engine, put the oars in the oarlocks, and rowed the rest of the way. He was sweating despite the evening cool on the river. He could see lights on at Donner's place, overlooking the dock, ashore. More than one light on. But if Bleak went up to Donner's place, asked him what he'd seen, he might involve him. If he was under surveillance, they might take Donner in as some kind of accessory, or even a suspected Shadow Community rogue.
    Bleak shipped the oars and let the boat drift up to the dock, near the prow of the cabin cruiser. He sat quietly in the inky darkness of its shadow, both hands holding the rope that held the cruiser to the dock, and closed his eyes. He extended his senses into the Hidden, enlarged the field of his awareness to take in the Crackbrain —and immediately sensed someone in the boat. No one should be there. He'd locked it, and no one else but Donner had a key.
    Whoever this was, it wasn't Donner. But a faint fibrillation of familiarity tingled from the person in the cabin cruiser. And something else. Whoever it was...
    Was wide-awake. Tensely aware. And waiting for him.
    Instinct told him to get away from the dock—from any CCA backup that might be waiting nearby. And do it quietly.
    But Bleak tied the metal rowboat to the line dangling from the aft of the cabin cruiser and clambered up the built-in ladder, into the larger boat. He paused on the slightly rocking deck, near the  cowl for the inboard engine, listening. Nothing but the sound of a distant siren from the city, the lapping of small waves on the fiberglass hull.
    He moved down the steps to the door of the cruiser's cabin—and saw that the door was slightly open. He stepped back, curled his right hand, built up power—the river helped, immediately, as running water always did—and readied himself to create an energy bullet.
    The door suddenly popped open. A willowy figure came sinuously through, her eyes glowing with power.
    He stared. “Shoella!”
    A tall, slender black woman, her hair bristly with dreadlocks. She glared at him for a long moment—then gold teeth gleamed amidst a broad white smile.
    “Bleak. Where yat? Pigeon Lady told me what happened today. If they're onto y'alls, maybe they onto us.” She was a mix of Creole and other New Orleans strains; had a soft Cajun accent, though she'd been living in the North for almost ten years.
    He released the energy bullet and shrugged. “If they're onto all of us, maybe they're following you, Shoella. Maybe they followed you here.”
    She shook her head. “We both know when we being followed. But cher darlin'? I made up my mind. You got to meet with our people...and decide whose side you're on.”
    She came a step closer, into the light from the marina. Shoella was a little older and taller than Bleak; she was almost storklike, six foot one, bony, with ropy dreads past her collarbone, a green-and-red silk Chinese mandarin jacket, a wraparound skirt of red silk, high-top, dark green sneakers, jangling copper bracelets. A sardonic expression on a faunlike, cocoa-colored face of indeterminate age. Bleak didn't know her well, though a flirtation had existed between them—at times it had seemed to break through flirtation to something more. He figured her for somewhere past thirty-five. Except for her tallness, she was not the exotic woman some expected to meet. If she was summoning ancestral spirits, or using the strange birdlike familiar that followed her, though, she took on a different aspect. She seemed to grow in bulk and density, and gravitas.
    Just now she was strolling up to the railing, to gaze out at the oozing-slow water, her bracelets jangling, singing softly to herself. Watching a barge pushing by way out on the river. Its wake slowly,