Orange lights kindled in the skull's eye sockets. "Can I talk now?"
"Yeah," I said. "You been listening to things?"
"Yeah," Bob said, depressed. "You are never going to get laid."
I glared at the skull.
"I'm just sayin'," he said, voice defensive. "It isn't my fault, Harry. She'd probably bang you if you didn't take it so godawful seriously."
"The subject. Change it," I suggested in a flat voice. "We're working now."
"Right," Bob said. "So you're planning on a standard detection web-ward for the building?"
"Yeah," I said.
"It isn't going to be very helpful," Bob said. "I mean, by the time something manifests enough to set off your web, it's going to be all the way into the real world. While you're running for the stairs, it's already going to be tearing into somebody."
"It isn't perfect," I said. "But it's all I've got. Unless you have a better idea?"
"The thing about having several centuries of experience and knowledge at my disposal is that it doesn't do me any good unless I know what it is you want me to help you fight," Bob said. "So far, all you know is that you've got an inbound phobophage."
"That's not specific enough?"
"No!" Bob said. "I can think of about two hundred different kinds of phobophages off the top of my head, and I could probably come up with two hundred more if I took a minute to think about it."
"That many of them who can do what this thing did? Take a solid form and attack?"
Bob blinked his eyes at me as though he thought me very thick. "Believe it or not, the old 'take the form of the victim's worst fear' routine is pretty much the most common move in the phobophage handbook."
"Oh. Right." I shook my head. "But this whole place is open territory. There's no threshold to use to anchor anything heavier than a web. At least if I do that much, maybe I can get into position fast enough to directly intervene when the thing shows up again."
"Things," Bob corrected me. "Plural. Phages are like ants. First one shows up, then two, then a hundred."
I exhaled. "Crap," I said. "Maybe we can come at this from a different angle. Is there any way I can redirect them while they're crossing over? Make it harder for them to get here?"
Bob's eyelights brightened. "Maybe. Maybe, yes. You might be able to raise a veil over this whole place-from the other side."
"Urk," I said. "You're saying I could hide this place from the phages, but only from the Nevernever?"
"Pretty much," Bob said. "Even then, it would be a calculated risk."
"How so?"
"It all depends on how they're finding this place," Bob said. "I mean, if these are just naturally arriving phages finding a hunting ground, a veil won't stop them. It might slow them down, but it won't stop them."
"Let's assume that it isn't a coincidence," I said.
"Okay. Assuming that, the next variable is finding out whether they're being summoned or sent."
I frowned. "There are things strong enough to send them through from the other side? I didn't think that ever happened anymore. Hence the popularity of working through mortal summoners."
"Oh, it's doable," Bob assured me. "It just takes a hell of a lot more juice to open the way to the mortal world from the other side."
I frowned. "How much power are we talking?"
"Big," Bob assured me. "Like the Erlking, or an archangel, or one of the old gods."
I got a shivery feeling in my stomach. "A Faerie Queen?"
"Oh, sure. I guess so." He frowned. "You think this is Faerie work?"
"Something is definitely screwy in elfland," I said. "More so than normal, I mean."
Bob made a gulping sound. "Oh. We're not going to go visiting the faeries or anything, are we?"
"Not if I can help it," I said. "I wouldn't take you with me, if it came to that."
"Oh," he sighed. "Good."
"One of these days, you're gonna have to tell me what you did to make Mab want to kill you."
"Yeah, sure," Bob said, in that tone of voice you use while sweeping things under the rug. "But we should also consider the third possibility."
"A summoner," I said. "Given that someone actually threw a ward in my way the last time the phage showed up, that seems to be the most likely of the three."
"I think so, too," Bob said. "In which case, you're in trouble."
I grunted, and started unpacking candles, matches, and my old army-surplus knife. "Why?"
"Without a threshold to build on, you can't put up any proper defense. And even if you do cross over and set up a veil to try to keep the phages from finding the place..."
"Their summoner is going to draw them in," I finished, following the line of reasoning. "It's like... I could blanket the surrounding area in fog, but if they have someone on this end, the phages will have a beacon they can use to home in on the hotel."
"Right," Bob said. "And then the summoner just opens the door from his side, and they're in."
I frowned and said, "It's all about finding the summoner, then."
"Which you can't do, until they actually summon something," Bob said.
"Hell's bells," I complained. "There's got to be something we can do to prevent it."
"Not especially," Bob said. "Sorry, boss. Until you know more, you can't do anything but react."
I scowled. "Dammit. Then it's the web or nothing. At least if I use that, I might be able to identify the summoner." At the low, low cost of the phages mauling or killing someone else. Unless...
"Bob," I said, frowning over the idea. "What if I didn't try to hide the hotel or keep these things away. What if I, uh... just put a little topspin on the phages on the way in?"
Bob's eyelights brightened even more. "Ooooooo, classic White Council doctrine. When the phages come through, you point them straight at the guy who summoned them. Give him a dose of his own medicine."
"Right up the ass," I confirmed.
"There's an image," Bob said. "A summoning suppository."
"It's doable, isn't it?"
"Sure," Bob said. "I mean, you have everything you need for that. You know the phages are after fear, and that they're probably using his power as a beacon. Your web tells you something is stirring. You conjure up a big ball of fear, target the same beacon the phages are using, and let it fly."