"Do you think it's a guard dog?" asked Moon.

"I don't know," said Kyle. "It could be a watch dog. It could be a stray. There's no way to tell from here."

"Let me see if I can get a better look from the physical world," Moon said, and Kyle saw the spirit's form shift slightly, become more solid, as it took physical form. "No," he said in Kyle's mind. "I can't see any better. There is-"

Moon quieted as the lone normal-sized door opened and a man stepped out. He had a strong aura, extreme strong, but Kyle couldn't tell if he was a magician, or something else, at this distance.

"How does he look?" Kyle asked.

"He's wearing work clothes, one-piece coveralls," Moon said. "And he's bald."

The man threw something that looked like a large white garbage bag onto a pile of similar objects near a dumpster. The dog watched idly and then dropped its head back down. The man stepped back inside. Up on the roof, blocks away, Seeks-the-Moon slowly turned and looked over his shoulder.

Kyle turned too, but saw nothing that would attract the spirit's interest, only the dull grays and black of the roof and assorted air conditioning and heating machinery.

"I heard something," Moon said, stepping back from the edge, this time looking slightly upward at the small metal structure that supported a half-dozen old and rusted microwave dishes. Moon circled the tower, approached it, and then began to climb.

"What is it?" Kyle asked. "I can't see anything."

"Wait. Wait," said Moon. He climbed about his own height from the roof and leaned in. After a moment, he slipped into astral space and floated down to Kyle's side.

"It's a camera of some sort, pointed at the warehouse. I don't know technology well, but I heard it move to follow the man."

"Someone's watching the building." Kyle looked up at the tower even though he couldn't distinguish the small device among the other metal and electronics up there.

"So it would seem," Seeks-the-Moon said. "Who do you think?"

"Well, Eagle wouldn't bother with anything that fancy. They'd simply assign some slag to sit up here with binoculars or a camera. Which leaves only Knight Errant, unless there's someone else involved or this has nothing to do with anything."

"Is that likely?"

Kyle shook his head. "Not in the least. But if it's Knight Errant, they've got to be around here somewhere in order to get the transmission from the camera." "Won't they simply come up here now?" Moon asked.

"Why?"

Moon shrugged. "Someone would have seen me standing at me edge of the building when I became physical."

"No, probably not. Cameras that can see that far have a very narrow field of view. You'd have to stand almost in front of it for them to see you."

"Ah, I'd thought maybe we could follow them if they came up here."

"We can still do that," Kyle said, and began looking around me roof. "Do you see any pieces of paper or newsprint or heavy cardboard?"

"Yes," the spirit said, having returned to manifest form. There's a bag over there. It says 'McHughs'."

Kyle chuckled, imagining a crumpled, greasy, fast-food bag. "That'll do."

"I'm confused." Seeks-the-Moon said. "What will it do for?”

"Pick it up and put it on the camera, blocking the lens," Kyle said.

"Ah. Then they'll come to fix it"

Kyle smiled. "We can hope."

The bag in place, Kyle and Seeks-the-Moon quickly retreated into a nearby ventilation duct, passing easily through the machined metal and plastic of its construction, and then descended to slightly below roof level. There, Kyle carefully constructed a spell that would project his vision into the physical world and allow him to observe the tower and the camera. Compensating for the drain the effort put on his body, he surveyed the area.

Finally able to see the camera, he confirmed Seeks-the-Moon's report. But his own experience also told him some things. It was quite small, very concealable, and of a kind often used by corporate or government surveillance teams. He had, in fact, worked a number of times with a very similar model in his FBI days. Like that one, this unit also has a small shotgun microphone attachment that, with the proper filtering software, could easily pick up any conversations that might take place on the loading dock.

A shadow loomed over the tower, and Kyle shifted the spell's point of view back and around to view the source. A thick, flat dish, slightly larger than a garbage can lid, hung in space over the edge of the building. It was a drone, some sort of remotely piloted vehicle, equipped with a camera system and other sensors, undoubtedly sent to determine the cause of the camera outage. It slid in closer, angling the protected rotor blades that made up much of its center, until it got a better look at the camera and the obstruction blocking the lens.

Kyle immediately knew what the operator would do once he or she saw what the problem was, and he quickly began to cast another spell. The strain was greater; the distraction of maintaining the far-seeing spell combined with being in astral space made the casting harder than it should have been. But as the drone's pilot angled the craft to blow the offending bag off the camera, Kyle's spell applied force of its own, holding the bag in place. The pilot swung the drone quickly around to the far side, hoping to blow the bag off with a gust of air from that direction while minimizing the vehicle's exposure to view from the warehouse. But Kyle held the bag in place. The drone backed off, hovering for a moment, and then zipped away out of view. Kyle tried to follow it with the vision spell, but me drone was too fast and the range of the spell too short.

A short time passed, and Kyle was becoming concerned about the amount of time he'd spent in astral space. His body, back on Bern's couch, could only support itself for so long without its spirit, and based on the sun's position in the sky, he'd already been traveling astrally for some time. He decided to risk it, waiting to see whether he was experiencing the telltale weakness that would be a warning of danger. In the meantime, he combined a spell that let him hear what was going on up on the roof with the one that let him see. Just as he completed the combination, the sound of scraping metal attracted his attention.

He shifted the point of view of the spells and saw a well-built man climbing up through the access door and onto the roof. He quickly approached the tower, vaulted up onto it, and deftly yanked the bag clear of the camera.

"Repairman's here," Kyle told Moon, using the mental speech they shared.

"About time." The spirit, it seemed, was slightly claustrophobic.

The camera now unobstructed, the man leaped nimbly down and headed for the trap door.

"All right. You know the plan," Kyle said. With his sight and hearing extended through the spells, there was no way he was going to be able to guide himself through astral space. Moon would do that for both of them, responding to Kyle's mental instructions.

Kyle waited while the man climbed down, men shifted me point of view of his spells to follow him. The trap door opened onto a ladder leading to a stairwell that seemed to extend down through the building.

Kyle followed the man down as far as the spell's range, and then told Moon, “Take us down."

The spirit, holding Kyle's astral body carefully, began to descend through the ventilation shaft. At Kyle's prompting, Moon paced their descent so that the man stayed just inside the edge of the spell's effect.

They followed him, using the buildings along the street as cover, until the man made a turn at Randolph. But from their position, Kyle could clearly see a pair of large tractor-trailers, casually surrounded by a half-dozen nondescript light vans and trucks parked a few blocks down. The area was a mix of commercial and light industrial, so the vehicles almost seemed part of the environment.