Trapped

Myoko growled in exasperation. "There's a shapeshifter thing called a Lucifer. It pretended to be a man named Josh Jode. It killed a Spark Lord, leaving behind little white nuggets. Rosalind died the same way… so she must have been killed by a Lucifer too."

I remembered Dreamsinger grabbing me in Nanticook House, calling me a fool for thinking the curds had been a bioweapon. All along, it had been the Lucifer. Probably the same Lucifer. But Dreamsinger said it had mutated. Somehow it changed itself so its metabolism no longer matched its former profile.

Did that explain what happened to Mind-Lord Priest? He must have had some kind of detection equipment that registered Josh Jode as alien… but thanks to the Lucifer's mutation, the equipment couldn't identify what kind of alien Jode was. The Mind-Lord hadn't suspected he was dealing with a Lucifer; therefore, he'd been taken by surprise.

But why did Priest come after Jode in the first place? Had Jode done something to attract attention? Or had…

Wait. Opal told us she was stationed in Feliss because the Sparks believed something bad would happen in the neighborhood. Given that kind of advance information, the Sparks would take the precaution of sweeping the area now and then for anything unusual. Priest had shown up a few days ago; he'd set his detection gear to search for alien life-forms; and he'd got a reading on a species his equipment didn't recognize.

The Mind-Lord had confronted Jode. But Priest hadn't been careful enough.

"And now," Myoko said, finishing her summary for Pelinor's benefit, "the shapeshifting Mr. Jode is pretending to be Rosalind Tzekich. Heading for Niagara Falls with Sebastian."

"Oh," said Pelinor. "And Sebastian doesn't know? I thought he was a top-notch psychic."

"He is. But his powers don't usually activate unless he tells them to. What are the odds he's explicitly going to check if his girlfriend is an alien in disguise?"

"I've wanted to check that with some of my boyfriends," Gretchen said.

Everyone ignored her.

"Zunctweed," the Caryatid called. "How long has Jode been in Dover?"

"Five years," came a voice from just above the waterline. "A long, long time. When one compares five years to the short period I've been suspended above this lake, I know I shouldn't complain. Still, there you are. They say one's experience of time is relative to one's mental suffering… and I discover it to be true. Isn't that interesting? Perhaps Dr. Dhubhai would like to write a scientific paper."

Myoko, who'd been holding Zunctweed all this while (and who'd been so distracted by my tale of Opal and the Lucifer that she'd let her hair fall back to normal), made a disgusted face and flipped the Patata captain back onto the deck. Meanwhile, the Caryatid said, "If Jode was here five full years, you have to wonder why."

"Sebastian," Impervia answered immediately. "Jode was watching Sebastian."

"You think so?"

Impervia nodded. "You saw how Dreamsinger reacted when she realized a Lucifer was taking the boy to Niagara Falls. She squealed like a stuck pig. Obviously, Dreamsinger had a suspicion Jode would use Sebastian for something horrible."

"Like what?" Pelinor asked.

"Damned near anything," Myoko told him. "From Opal's story, these Lucifers hate Spark Royal. There must be something Sebastian can do in Niagara Falls that will drive the Sparks wild."

"Like what?" Pelinor asked again.

"We don't know," Myoko said. "But Jode's been watching Sebastian for five years. Perhaps waiting for the boy's powers to mature. Sebastian has always been gifted, but it's taken him time to gain control."

"Also," Impervia said with disgust, "Jode may have been waiting for Sebastian to discover the opposite sex. This Lucifer is clearly a vile creature; from the first, it must have intended to control Sebastian through seduction, so it had to wait until the boy was old enough to be seduced. It could easily check on Sebastian from time to time-a shapeshifter would have no problem disguising itself as someone else and spying to its heart's content. When it got back from the winter anchorage, it learned Sebastian had finally fallen in love. Jode eliminated Rosalind and took her place."

"But how did Jode know about Sebastian's powers?" I asked. "Weren't they a secret?"

"I'd hoped so," Myoko said. "But I told you there were incidents when Sebastian was young… like that time the horse tried to kick him. I was always afraid word might leak out. Silly me, I was only worried about slavers; I didn't even think of shapeshifting aliens."