“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Telegraph Hill. By Coit Tower. “

“You think it’s up there? How do you know?”

“We have information,” said Eli, “from Bertram.” He lapsed into silence. This was odd. Neither one of them asked anything about what had happened to Lou, or how he was doing. They were focused and intense.

Bertram. I didn’t know how I felt about that. He had been an enforcer for a while, but after a number of unfortunate incidents, Victor had stopped using him for anything. Bertram had a take-no-prisoners attitude, and could easily escalate a minor situation into a major one. Cops have a phrase for that-“badge heavy.”

Eli had already vetoed his involvement once before, when we trapped the Wendigo. But apparently things had got desperate. Bertram could come in handy when results were needed and the methods used to get them weren’t a primary concern. His specialty was intelligence, which in his case meant leaning on people in creative ways until they told him what he wanted to know. I didn’t like him much.

Victor pulled up at the Pioneer Park lot, right next to Coit Tower. Coit Tower is an iconic San Francisco landmark, and although the surrounding Pioneer Park is small, it could provide plenty of cover for something to be lurking in the dark.

Before Victor got out of the car, he checked his fanny pack, the one he carries on many magical sorties, a mini version of his usual black doctor’s bag. Most of the stuff it contains is for magical forensics, but it also contains objects for enabling those spells that need magical props. It contains crystals, small bars of different pure metals, things I can’t identify, and other, more prosaic items such as duct tape and a hunting knife. Finally satisfied, he zipped it shut and exited the car.

“No shotgun?” I said.

“We won’t be needing it.”

Again, no explanation, no conversation. I shrugged and followed him out of the car. I’d seen him like this before, but never so bad. There wasn’t any point in pestering him with questions; he’d tell me what was going on when he was good and ready.

We headed down Greenwich Street in the direction of Bertram’s place over on Montgomery. Victor led the way and Eli brought up the rear. I had a sudden sense of déjà vu. Of course. Morgan’s dream, the one where she had seen Victor, Eli, and me walking down a darkened street. And no Lou. She’d felt an overwhelming sense of dread and danger, but she couldn’t see anything. All she had seen was the three of us.

I hadn’t been feeling very comfortable anyway, but now I was filled with my own sense of foreboding. I kept glancing left and right, expecting something to leap from out the shadows at any moment. When Victor suddenly stopped, I almost ran up on his heels.

“What is it?” I whispered, unwilling to make any noise that might bring something down on us.

He held up a hand for quiet. We had just passed an al leyway, and he turned back to examine something lying on the ground, hidden in shadow. He squatted down to examine it more closely, then whistled softly.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Look at this.”

I walked up obligingly, and that was when Eli grabbed me from behind in a bear hug and lifted me off my feet. Once you’re off your feet, you have no purchase and there’s nothing you can do, especially when your opponent is bigger and stronger. You can try a head butt, snapping your head back with as much force as you can muster, but that’s easy to counter just by keeping your head tucked down behind the other guy’s shoulder. None of that mattered, though. I was too stunned to even struggle.

“What the fuck!” I yelled, but that was all I got to say. Victor had his handy roll of duct tape out and whipped a few turns around my head and mouth in no time flat. Eli pushed me facedown onto the pavement, knocking the wind out of me, and Victor looped more turns around my hands and feet. I was neatly trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and all I could do was glare and make muffled sounds.

I stopped making even those when Victor put a knife blade up to my throat.

“Not a sound,” he said. “I’d as soon cut your throat as not, and the minute you start to change, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Understand?”

Now it started to make sense. Victor and Eli thought I wasn’t me-that I was the shape-shifter. But where in God’s name had they got that idea? However they’d come to that conclusion, I was in trouble. With the duct tape over my mouth I couldn’t explain, and I doubted that Victor would listen anyway. Since the shape-shifter could do an almost perfect copy, complete with memories, nothing I could say would convince him. No wonder Morgan had seen only the three of us. There wasn’t anyone else, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t in serious trouble.

Eli hoisted me up and tossed me over one broad shoulder. With his professorial demeanor, it’s easy to forget just how strong he is. I felt a tickling sensation as Victor laid a slight illusion over my body to make it look like an innocuous pile of coats or some such.

“Bertram?” Eli asked. Victor nodded.

This was getting worse by the moment. Obviously they wanted some information from the shape-shifter. Bertram was notorious about getting answers, but his methods were not for the squeamish. And I was in the unenviable position of having no answers to give. No matter what he did to me, I couldn’t give information I didn’t have, and any insistence that I was really me would just be taken as stubborn intransigence, inviting further unpleasant interrogation.

“Do you think Mason’s still alive?” asked Victor as we walked along. Rather, they walked. I rode.

“I don’t think so,” Eli said. “But it’s possible. Remember, it wouldn’t have had to kill and consume Mason to do a good enough copy to fool us, at least for a while. It wouldn’t fool Lou, of course, but you’ll notice Lou is conveniently missing. Bertram will be able to get the answer.”

“Still, I would have never suspected. Are you positive?”

“Oh, I’m positive, all right. Remember, I saw his hands change when he thought I wasn’t looking. If not for that, he’d have fooled me, too. We’ve got the son of a bitch, all right.”

Saw my hands change? What the hell was he talking about? When had my hands changed? As usual, I was a little slow on the uptake, but in my defense it’s hard to think clearly when you’re trussed up, hanging upside down, and on your way to an “enhanced interrogation.”

What tipped it was simple, though. “Son of a bitch” was not a phrase I’d ever heard Eli use before, and there was a reason for that. It’s not a phrase he would ever use. A shape-shifter was present all right, but it wasn’t me.

The shape-shifter must have assumed Eli’s identity and used that guise to convince Victor it was me who had been replaced. You’d think after that phony phone call out at Hunters Point Victor would have been more skeptical, but apparently not.

One good thing, though-the shifter had used a phrase Eli never would have uttered. Which meant it hadn’t got him down quite right. Which meant Eli possibly hadn’t been killed-it was just aping him.

It was hard to see Victor clearly since my head was hanging upside down, but I was sure I saw a momentary stiffening. He’d picked up on that out-of-character phrase as well. The Eli shape-shifter might have temporarily fooled him, but Victor was no dummy. He hadn’t lived as long as he had by ignoring little things that seemed out of place.

The fake Eli seemed to sense he’d made a false step and went for a distraction. He eased me off his shoulder and dumped me roughly onto the sidewalk. Another atypical behavior that I hoped Victor would notice. I lay there among trash wrappers and unpleasant smells.

“Maybe we should search him,” Eli said. “He might be carrying something.”

Victor nodded and rolled me over so that I was facedown on the pavement and started going through my pockets. He took my folding knife, loose change, and then he came across those leaves I’d stuffed in my pocket. I’d forgotten all about them. He held them out to show to Eli.