Summon The Keeper

FOUR

AUGUSTUS SMYTHE HAD WANTED his breakfast every morning at seven o’clock. He’d had a bowl of oatmeal, stewed prunes, and a pot of tea, except on Sunday when he’d had a mushroom omelet, braised kidneys, and indigestion. Guests, and in his experience there’d never been more than one room occupied at a time, ate between eight and eight-thirty or they didn’t eat at all.

Dean found himself in the kitchen, water boiling and bag of oatmeal in his hand before he remembered that things had changed. He’d been feeding Claire like she was a guest, but she wasn’t. Nor, he’d be willing to bet, was she the stewed prunes type.

She wasn’t only his new boss, she was a Keeper; a semimythical being monitoring the potential eruption of evil energy out of a possibly corrupting metaphysical accident site in the furnace room. Cool. He could handle that.

The question was: What did she want for breakfast?

“How should I know?” Foiled in his attempt to gain access to the refrigerator, Austin glared down at the fresh saucer of wet cat food. “But if she doesn’t want the kidneys, I’ll take them.”

The hot water pipes banged at a quarter to eight. Dean had no idea how long women usually took to get ready in the morning, but his minimal experience seemed to indicate they were fairly high maintenance. He waited until eight-thirty, then brewed a fresh pot of coffee.

At nine, he began to worry. Austin had eaten and disappeared, and he’d heard nothing more from Claire’s suite. By nine-thirty, he couldn’t wait any longer.

Had she fallen getting out of the shower? Did that sort of thing happen to the semimythical?

Tossing his apron over the back of a chair, he walked quickly up the hall, ducked under the edge of the counter, and hesitated outside her door. If she’d gone back to sleep, she wouldn’t thank him for waking her. Maybe he should go away and wait a little longer.

If, however, she were lying unconscious by the tub…

Better she’s irritated than dead, he decided, took a deep breath, and knocked.

“Come in.”

It took a moment, but he finally spotted Austin on a pie-crust table beside a purple china basket of yellow china roses. “Is Claire…”

“Here? No.”

“She went out?” He hadn’t heard the front door.

“No. She went in.”

“In?”

“That’s right. But I’m expecting her back any…” The cat’s ears pricked up and he turned to face the bedroom. “Here she comes. I hope she picked up those shrimp snacks I asked for.”

Brow furrowed, Dean stepped forward. He could’ve sworn he heard music—horns mostly, with an up-tempo bass beat leading the way. Through the open door, he could see an overstuffed armchair and the wardrobe Mr. Smythe had used instead of a closet. Obviously Claire hadn’t quite caught on as her clothes were draped all over the chair.

The music grew louder.

The wardrobe door opened and Claire stepped out. Several strings of cheap plastic beads hung around her neck, and a shower of confetti accompanied every movement. She didn’t look happy.

“What do you bet they were out of shrimp snacks,” Austin muttered.

Glancing into the sitting room, the Keeper’s eyes widened. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

“Not you.” She dragged off the thick noose of beads and pointed an imperious finger at Dean. “Him.”

“You were in the wardrobe.”

It wasn’t a question, so Claire didn’t answer it “Don’t you ever knock?”

“I did knock.” Flustered almost as much by the implication that he’d just walk in to her apartment as by her emergence from the wardrobe, Dean jerked his head toward the cat. “He told me to come in.”

Austin stretched out a paw and pushed a pottery cherub onto the floor. It bounced on the overlap of three separate area rugs and rolled unharmed under the table.

Claire closed her eyes and counted to ten. When she opened them again, she’d decided not to bother arguing with the cat— experience having taught her that she couldn’t win. Bending over, she flicked confetti out of her hair. “If that’s coffee I smell, I could use a cup. It isn’t safe to eat or drink on the other side.”

“The other side of what?” Dean asked, relieved to see that the bits of paper disappeared before they reached the floor. Well, maybe relieved wasn’t exactly the right word. “Where were you?”

“Looking for the Historian. The odds of actually finding her are better early in the morning before the day’s distractions begin to build.” Straightening, Claire scowled at the pile of beads. “I lost her trail at a Mardi Gras.”

“In September?”

“It’s always Mardi Gras somewhere.” She reached into her shirt to scoop confetti out of her bra, noticed Dean’s gaze follow the motion and turned pointedly around. So much for his grandfather’s training.

Dean felt his ears burn. “It’s somewhere in the wardrobe?”

“The wardrobe is only the gate.” When she turned back to face him and caught sight of his expression, she added impatiently, “It’s traditional.”

“Okay.” First he’d ever heard that Mardi Gras in a wardrobe was traditional, but at least the music had stopped. If his life was after picking up a soundtrack, he’d prefer something that didn’t sound like a marching band after a meal of bad clams.

“I could really use that coffee,” Claire prodded, taking his arm and propelling him toward the door.

“Right.” Coffee, he understood, although, since he’d thought he understood wardrobes, coffee would probably also be subject to change without notice. “We, uh, we need to work out your meals.”

“What’s there to work out? You do your job, I’ll do mine. You cook, I’ll eat.”

“Cook what?” Dean insisted. “And when?”

Suddenly aware she still had fingers wrapped around the warm, resilient curve of a bicep, Claire snatched her hand back. “I’ll eat anything, I’m not fussy, but I can’t cope with Brussels sprouts, raw zucchini, dried soup mixes, and anything orange. Except oranges.”

“Anything orange except oranges,” he repeated “So carrots…”

“Are out. For as long as I’m here, lunch at noon, supper at five-thirty, so I can watch the news at six. I’ll have cold cereal or toast for breakfast and that I can make myself.”

“You’re after saving the world on a bowl of cold cereal?”

“I’d really rather you didn’t start sounding like my mother,” she told him sharply, stepping out into the office just as the outside door opened.

“Yoo hoo!” Clinging to the latch, Mrs. Abrams peered around the edge of the door. “Oh, there you are, dear!” She straightened and rushed forward. “You remember me…” It was a statement of fact “…Mrs. Abrams, one bee and an ess. You should keep this door locked, you know, dear. The neighborhood isn’t what it was when I was a girl. These days with all the immigrants you never know who might wander in off the street. Not that I have anything against immigrants—they make such interesting food, don’t you think?” Penciled eyebrows lifted dramatically toward a stiff fringe of bangs when she spotted Dean standing on the threshold behind Claire. “How nice that you two young people are getting along.”

“What did you want Mrs. Abrams?” Claire didn’t see much point in asking her if she ever knocked.

“Well, Kirstin…”

“Claire.”

“I beg your pardon, dear?”

“My name is Claire, not Kirstin.”

“Then why did you tell me it was Kirstin, dear?” Before Claire could protest that she hadn’t told her any such thing, Mrs. Abrams waved a dismissive hand and went on. “Never mind, dear, I’m sure anyone might get confused, first day at a new job and all. I stopped by because Baby heard something in the drive last night—it might have been burglars, you know, we could have all been murdered in our beds—and I had to come over and see that you were all right.”

“We’re fine. I…”

“I see you have a computer.” She shook her head disapprovingly, various bits of her face swaying to a different drummer. “You have to be careful about computers. The rays that come off them make you sterile. Has that nasty little Mr. Smythe returned yet?”

Finding it extremely disconcerting to speak to someone whose eyes never settled in one place for more than a second or two, Claire came out from behind the counter. “No, Mrs. Abrams, he’s gone for…”

“I remember how this place used to look, so quaint and charming. It needs a woman’s touch. I hope you realize that you can call on my services at any time, Karen dear. I could have been a decorator, everyone says I have the knack. I offered to give the place the benefit of my own unique skills once before, but do you know what that Augustus Smythe said to me. He said I could redecorate the furnace room.”

Claire managed to stop herself from announcing that the offer was still open—although whether she was sparing Mrs. Abrams or Hell, she wasn’t entirely certain.

“Have you done anything with the dining room, dear?”

Short of a full tackle, Claire couldn’t see how she could stop Mrs. Abrams from heading down the hall.

“I haven’t seen the dining room for years. I hardly ever set foot in here with that horrible man in…”

Although dimmed by distance and masonry, Baby’s bark was far too distinctive to either miss or mistake.

“Oh, dear, I must get back. Baby does so love to greet the mailman, but the silly fool persists in misunderstanding his playful little ways. Mummy’s coming, Baby!”

Claire rubbed her temples, throwing an irritated glance at Dean as he finally stepped off the threshold and closed the door to the sitting room. “You were a lot of help.”

“Mrs. Abrams,’’ Dean told her with weary certainty, “doesn’t listen to men.”

“I doubt Mrs. Abrams listens to anyone.”

The barking grew distinctly triumphant.

“I’m not criticizing,” Claire said stiffly, ducking back under the counter and going to the front window, “but why wasn’t the front door locked?”

Dean followed her. “I unlock it every morning when I get up. For guests.”

They winced in unison as Mrs. Abrams could be heard shrilling, telling Baby to let it go—where it did not refer to the mailbag.

“Were you actually expecting guests?”

“Not really,” he admitted.

The mailman made a run for it.

“I can’t say as I’m surprised.” As she left the office, a wave of her hand indicated the cracked layers of paint on the woodwork and the well-scrubbed but dingy condition of the floor. “This place doesn’t exactly make a great first impression.”

“So what should we do?”

“Do?” Claire turned to face him and was amazed to find him looking at her as though she had the answers. Behind him, Austin looked amused. “We aren’t going to do anything. I’m going to work at sealing this site. You…” About to say “You can do whatever it is you usually do on a Tuesday,” she found she couldn’t disappoint the anticipation in his eyes. “Since it’s not raining, you can get started on repainting that G on the sign.”

With the site journal soaking in a clarifying solution, Claire spent the morning going through the rest of the paperwork in the office. By noon, the recycling box was full, her hands were dirty, and she had two paper cuts as well as a splitting headache from all the dust.

She’d found no new information on either Sara, the hole, or the balance of power maintained between them. Someone, probably Smythe, had scrawled, the Hell with this, then in the margin of an old black-and-white men’s magazine and that was as close as she’d come to an explanation.

“What a waste of time.”

“Some of those old magazines are probably collectible.”

Claire’s lip curled. “They’re not exactly mint.”

“Good point.” Gaze locked on her fingers, Austin backed away. “You’re not planning on touching me with those filthy things, are you?”

“No.” She dropped her hands back to her sides. “You know what the worst of it is? I have to go through Smythe’s suite, too. There’s no telling what he’s crammed in there over the last fifty-odd years.”

“No point in picking the lock if there’s a chance of finding the key,” the cat agreed.

“Spare me the fortune cookie platitudes.” Searching for at least the illusion of fresh air, Claire walked over to the windows. Outside, the wind hurried up the center of the street, dragging a tail of fallen leaves, and directly across the road two fat squirrels argued over a patch of scruffy lawn. It was strange to feel neither summons nor site. Because of the shields, she had to keep reminding herself that this was real, that she shouldn’t be somewhere else, doing something else.

The sound of Dean’s work boots approaching turned her around to face the lobby.

“Hey, Boss, find anything?”

“No more than on the last two times you asked.”

“Would lunch help?”

“Helps me,” Austin declared, leaping down off the counter.

Claire’s stomach growled an agreement Outvoted, she started toward the door to Smythe’s old suite. “Just let me wash up fir…” The sound of her shin cracking against the bottom drawer of the desk drowned out the last two letters. Grabbing her leg, she bit back her first choice of exclamation, and then her second, and then there really didn’t seem to be much point in a third.

“Are you okay, Boss?”

“No, I’m not okay.” Air whistled through clenched teeth. “I’m probably crippled for life.”

A LIE!

AN EXAGGERATION.

CAN’T WE USE IT ANYWAY? Hell asked itself hopefully.

OH, DON’T BE SUCH A GIT.

“And you know what the worst of it is?” The question emerged like ground glass. Claire tugged her jeans up above the impact point “I closed the drawer. I know I closed the drawer.”

Obviously, she hadn’t but Dean knew better than to argue with a person in pain. “Here, let me look at that then.” Ducking under the counter, he dropped to one knee and wrapped his hand around the warm curve of Claire’s calf.

Her first inclination was to pull free. Her second…

NOW THAT WE CAN USE.

Reminding herself of the age difference, she banished the thought.

DAMN.

“You didn’t break the skin, but you’ll have some bruise.” Stroking one thumb along the end of the discoloration, he looked up at her and forgot what he was about to say.

“Dean?”

The world shifted most of the way back into focus. “Liniment!”

“No, thank you. You can let go of me now.”

Feeling his ears begin to burn, he snatched both hands away, then, suddenly unable to cope with six inches of bare skin, lightly stubbled, reached out again and yanked her jeans back down into place.

“Watch it!” One hand clutching her waistband, she grabbed his shoulder with the other to stop herself from falling.

Stammering apologies, Dean stood.

Things got a little tangled for a moment.

When a minimum safe distance had been achieved, Dean opened his mouth to apologize yet again and found himself saying instead, “What’s that noise?”

“It’s a cat,” Claire told him. “Laughing.”

Claire refused to be constrained over lunch. So what if Dean kept his gaze locked on the cream of mushroom soup, that was no reason for her to act like a twenty-year-old. Biting into a sandwich quarter, she swept a critical gaze around the dining room.

“This is ugly furniture,” she announced after chewing and swallowing. “In fact, it’s an ugly room.”

Grateful for a change of subject, even though the original subject hadn’t actually been broached, or even defined, Dean acknowledged the pitted chrome and worn Naugahyde with a shrug. “Mr. Smythe wouldn’t buy anything new.”

“It’s not new we need.” Claire tapped a fingernail thoughtfully against the table. “I’ll deny this if you repeat it, but Mrs. Abrams gave me an idea that could bring in more guests.”

“Is that a good idea?” Austin asked, jumping up onto an empty chair. “You’re a Keeper, remember? You have a job.”

“And I’ll do my job, thank you very much,” she snapped, turning to glare at him. “But a short break before I face the chaos in that sitting room won’t bring about the end of the world.” She paused and considered it a moment. “No. It won’t. Besides, I have no intention of allowing this hotel to slide any farther into oblivion during my watch. There’s a hundred things that need to be done, that should’ve been done years ago. If Augustus Smythe had kept busy, he’d have been happier.”

The cat snorted. “Have you seen the rest of those postcards? He kept plenty busy.”

“He kept one hand busy at best.” Claire put down her spoon and folded her arms. “He was a disgusting little voyeur. Is that how you suggest I fill my time?”

“Actually, I was about to suggest you share your soup with the cat.”

“I still don’t understand what we’re doing.” Dean twisted the key around in the attic lock and dragged the door open. “There’s nothing up here but junk.”

“The furniture in the dining room is junk,” Claire amended. “The furniture in the attic is antique.” Switching on the larger of the two flashlights, she ran carefully up the spiral stairs.

Dean watched her climb, telling himself it wasn’t safe to have both of them on the stairs at once and almost believing it. When she stepped off the top tread into the attic, he followed her up.

“Look at all this!” Although sunlight streamed in through the grime on the windows, the volume of stored furniture kept most of the attic in shadow. The flashlight beam picked out iron bedsteads, washstands, stacks of wooden chairs, lamp shades dripping with fringe, and rolls of patterned carpet. “Nothing’s been thrown away since the hotel opened.”

“And nothing’s been cleaned since it was put up here.”

Thankful that they’d found the accident site before they’d had to spend days shifting clutter, Claire turned the flashlight on her companion. “What is it with you and this obsessive cleaning thing?”

“It’s not obsessive.”

“It’s not normal.” She pointed the flashlight beam toward room six, one floor below. “You even wanted to dust her.”

“So?” Reaching down, Dean effortlessly shifted one end of a carpet roll out of his way. “My granddad always said that cleanliness was next to godliness.”

Cleanliness was living next to a hole to Hell, but Claire hadn’t changed her mind about letting him know it. Not even if he flexed that particular combination of muscles again. “See if you can find the old furniture from the dining room.”

“From the look of this place, we’d be as likely to find the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail.”

She shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that.”

Squeezing past a steamer trunk plastered with stickers from a number of cruise ships, including both the Titanic and the Lusitania, Claire worked her way toward the back of the building. It was farther than it should have been; one of the earlier Keepers had obviously borrowed a little extra Space.

Well, I hope they kept the receipt.…Out of the corner of one eye, she saw a bit of red race along the top of a wardrobe and disappear behind a pink-and-gray-striped hatbox. “Oh, no.”

“Trouble, Boss?” She could hear furniture shoved aside as Dean struggled toward her.

“Not exactly, but I saw something; moving very fast. Unfortunately, it would take at least two hours of excavation or an Olympic gymnast to get to the spot.”

The sound of distant movement ceased. “It was just a mouse. There’s prints and turds all over up here.”

He sounded so positive, Claire didn’t bother pointing out that mice seldom came in a bright fire-engine red.

“Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll bring some traps up later.”

So would she, and she rather thought hers would be more successful.

Ignoring the way her reflection moved slightly out of sync, Claire ducked around an elaborate, full-length mirror and finally ended up under the sloping edge of die roof. “This,” she said, turning off the flashlight, “is certainly strange.”

Displayed in relative isolation by one of the windows was a bed and mattress, a set of drawers, an old radio, a washstand with a full china set, and a pair of ladder-back chairs.

As Claire stepped forward, she caught sight of something that drove all thoughts of V.C. Andrews-style decorating out of her mind. Just at the edge of the “room” was the very table she’d been looking for. It could easily seat twelve, and all it needed was a bit of polish.

“Dean! I’ve found it!” She swept a pile of papers onto the floor and had barely emerged, sneezing and coughing from the cloud of dust, when Dean stepped out from between a stack of washstands and yet another steamer trunk, having discovered a slightly wider route to the spot.

“It looks solid enough,” he admitted, circling the table. Frowning thoughtfully, he heaved one end into the air. “It’s some heavy. How are you after carrying it downstairs?” Releasing the table edge, he bent under it for a closer inspection, highlighting the joints with his flashlight beam. “Those stairs are narrow, and it doesn’t come apart.”

“I’ll get it down the same way they got it up.” Dismissing the little voice in the back of her mind that suggested she was showing off, Claire carefully reached through the possibilities and pulled power. “First, I stack the chairs and tables currently in the dining room, out in the hall.”

Listening hard, Dean thought he heard the faint sound of stainless steel chiming against stainless steel and the slightly louder sound of an irritated cat.

“Then…” She traced a design in the dust on the table. “…I send this beauty down to replace them.”

The table disappeared.

“Rapporter cette table!”

Waving one hand vigorously in front of her face, Claire peered through the reestablished dust cloud at Dean. “What did you say?”

He sneezed. “Wasn’t me.”

In the silence that followed his denial, they could hear the dust settling.

“It’s quiet.”

“Too quiet,” Claire corrected.

With a sinister rustle, scattered papers rose into the air, riding an invisible whirlwind. They spun for a moment in place, faster, faster, then whipped forward.

Claire dove for Dean just as he reached out to rescue her. Foreheads connected. They hit the floor together as the papers flew overhead.

Ears ringing, Claire scrambled to her knees. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Trying to save you!”

“Oh? How?”

“Like this!” He flung himself at her and returned her to the floor as the papers made their second pass. The edge of an envelope opened a small cut on his cheek.

“Get off me!”

“You’re welcome!” Too buzzed with adrenaline to be embarrassed, he rolled onto his back and watched her climb to her feet. “What are you doing?”

“Putting a stop to this!” She pointed a rigid finger at the papers. “Right now!”

Everything except a postcard plummeted to the floor. The postcard made one final dive.

“You, too!” Claire snapped.

It burst into flames and fell as a fine patina of ash over the rest.

Hands on her hips, she glared around the open space where the table had been. “We can do this easy or we can do this hard. Your choice.”

The silence picked up a certain mocking quality.

“Just remember, I warned you.”

“Now what?” Dean asked, standing slowly, keeping a wary eye on those larger items, like chairs, that might also be considered movable.

Claire bent down and smudged a bit of ash on her left forefinger. “Now, I’m going to make whatever it is show itself.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course,” she snapped. “Check the card.”

“The card?”

“The business card I gave you.”

He pulled it out of his wallet as she walked over to the window ledge and smudged a bit of dust on her right forefinger.

Aunt Claire, Keeper

Your Accident is my Opportunity

(spiritual invocations a specialty)

“It didn’t say that before.”

“It didn’t need to. Now, be quiet.” With both hands out at shoulder height, she pulled power. The symbol drawn by her left hand glowed green, the symbol drawn by her right glowed red. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Appear because I say you must.”

Dean glanced back down at the card. It now read: (poetry optional). Claire’s sister apparently had a good idea of Claire’s limitations.

Between the symbols, fighting the invocation every inch of the way, the figure of a man began to materialize. Still translucent, he jerked back and forth trying to break the power that held him. When he finally realized he couldn’t win, he snapped into focus so quickly the air around him twanged. Medium height and medium build, he wore a bulky black turtleneck, faded jeans, and a sneer.

The symbols lost their color, glowing white.

“Your name,” Claire commanded.

“Jacques Labaet” Squinting, he tossed shoulder length, dark-blond hair back off his face. “And I am not at your service.” When he tried to stride forward, lines of power snapped him back between the symbols. Brows drew in over the bridge of a prominent nose. “All right Perhaps I am.”

“Give me your word you won’t attack again, and I’ll release you.”

“And if l do not?”

The symbols brightened. “Exorcism.”

One hand raised to shield his eyes, Jacques shook a chiding finger at her. “You are a Keeper. You cannot do that. You have rules.”

“You drew blood.” Claire nodded toward the cut on Dean’s cheek. “Yes, I can.”

“Ah.” He pursed his lips and thought about it. “D’accord. You win. I give you my word.”

The symbols disappeared.

“You are a woman of action rapide, I allow you that.” Blinking away afterimages, he stepped toward her. “For all you are so…beautiful.” His mouth slowly curled up into a lopsided smile that softened the long lines of his face, creating an expression that somehow managed to combine lechery and innocence. Claire found it a strangely attractive combination. “Tes yeux sons comme du chocolat riche de fonce…. Your eyes they are like pools of the finest chocolate; melting and promising so very much sweetness. Does anyone ever tell you this?”

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

He sounded so surprised she had to smile. “I’d have remembered.”

“So foolish are mortal men.” After a dramatic sigh, his voice deepened to a caress. “Your lips, they are like the petal of a crimson rose, your throat like an alabaster column in the temple of my heart, your breasts…”

“That’s quite far enough, thank you.” There was such a mix of sincere flattery and blatant opportunism in the inventory that Claire found it impossible to be insulted.

Jacques spread expressive hands. “I mean only to say…”

Standing at the edge of the cleared space, Dean cleared his throat. “She said that was enough.”

“Really? Et maintenant, what did I say of mortal men?” One brow flicked up to punctuate a disdainful glance. “Ah, oui, that they are fools. Are you mortal, man? No, wait, it is not a man at all; it is a boy.”

Moving up behind Claire’s left shoulder, Dean dropped his voice. “What is this?”

“This is Jacques Labaet.” She couldn’t decide if she were amused or irritated by Dean’s interruption, mostly because she couldn’t decide if he were being supportive or protective. “He’s a ghost.”

“A ghost?” Dean repeated. He turned his head and found himself nose-to-nose with the phantom.

“Boo,” said Jacques.

“We have just left Kingston, steaming for Quebec City; the weather, she is bad, but she is always bad on the lakes in the fall and we think anything is better than being stuck in with the English over freeze up. We barely reach Point Fredrick when things, they go all to Hell.”

Claire winced, but there was no response from the furnace room.

“Pardon. Such language I should not use around a lady.” Blowing her a kiss, Jacques continued his story. “The wind she came up, roaring like a live thing. I remember something hard, I don’t know what, catching me here.” He tapped the sweater just below his sternum. “I remember cold water and then, rien. Nothing.” His shoulders rose and fell in a Gallic shrug. “They said I wash up on shore, more dead than alive. Me, I don’t know why they bring me here. Two days later, I died.”

“And you’re a ghost.” Dean wanted to be absolutely clear on that. Every community back home had at least one story of a local haunting—ghost husbands, ghost stags, ghost ships—and if this annoying little man was the real thing, then the old stories could be real as well and there were a significant number of apologies owed. He’d have to make some phone calls when the rates went down.

“Oui. A ghost.” Jacques favored the younger, living man with a long, hard stare, then deliberately turned away from him. “First, I haunt the room I die in. That was not so bad although, I tell you, this place is not so popular with the living. When that Augustus Smythe, that espece de mangeur de merde, he moves everything up to the attic, I must go as well and I am haunting this place ever since.”

“As a ghost.”

“Does he have to keep repeating?” Jacques demanded of Claire. Before she could answer, he spun around to face Dean. “Would you feel better if I disappear? All of me?” He faded out. “Bits of me?” His head reappeared.

“You’ve been dead seventy-two years,” Dean reminded him disdainfully. If the ghost had thought to frighten him with all the appearing and disappearing, he hadn’t succeeded. The whole performance too closely resembled the Cheshire cat in the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. “Seventy-two years, that’s some time to be dead. You’re used to it, I’m not.”

Jacques’ body came back into focus as he stood, hands curled into fists and chin in the air. “Nobody asks you to be used to it, Newfie. You don’t like it, then you can get out!”

Rising slowly and deliberately to his feet Dean was significantly larger. “I live here.”

“And I died here, enfant, long before you were born on that hunk of rock in water!”

“You know, you’ve got a real bad attitude for a dead guy!”

“Say you?”

“Yeah.”

“This is why we have cats castrated,” Claire said to no one in particular. “Sit down. Both of you. You’re acting like idiots.” While she understood how males were hardwired to defend their territory, this was ridiculous.

“Only for your sake, ma petite sorcière,” Jacques muttered sulkily, throwing himself back down onto the bed, “would I tolerate this lump of flesh.”

Dean moved toward the chair, then shook his head and remained standing. “No. He called me a Newfie like it’s an insult. I don’t take that from anyone, living or dead.”

“You think I am to apologize?” Leaning back on one elbow, Jacques raised his free hand scornfully. “I think not.”

“Okay.” Full lips pressed into a thin line, Dean turned on one heel and started toward the stairs. “I’m sorry, Boss, but if you want me, I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“Ha! Go on, run away! I scare off better men than you!” When Dean disappeared behind the stacked furniture, Jacques quieted and turned a speculative glance on Claire. “You will not stop him?”

“How?”

“Ah, oui, you cannot wave the dreaded exorcism over him.” Then his expression softened, and he laced his fingers behind his head, the lopsided grin not so much suggestive as explicit “Or perhaps you want to be alone with me as I want to be alone with you. Yes?”

“No. Did you intend to drive him away?”

“Non. But I intend to take advantage of it.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “I think not. Perhaps I should leave, too.”

“You would leave me alone?” Letting his head fall back against the mattress, Jacques sighed deeply. “For still more long and weary years. Alone.” He paused for a moment then repeated, “Alone.”

All the playacting, all the cheerful seduction, had disappeared. Although she knew she should maintain both a professional and personal distance, Claire couldn’t help responding emotionally. Rising out of the armchair, she walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed. It sagged under her weight. “You don’t have to stay here alone, Jacques; not any more. I can send you on.”

“On to where? That is the question.” His eyes serious, he laid his hand over hers. “I tell you, Keeper, I was not the best of men. A bad man, no, but I cannot say and be certain that I was a good man. I would like to be certain before I go on.”

Claire could understand that. Especially considering what waited in the furnace room.

“So.” He rolled over on his side and his fingers tightened around hers. “Since I seem to be remaining for a time and we seem to be alone together, so conveniently on a bed, perhaps we could get to know each other better?”

Snatching her hand through his, his grip no more confining than cool smoke, Claire leaped to her feet “Don’t you ever let up? While I appreciate your need for companionship, I do not appreciate being continually propositioned!”

His eyes widened, his expression injured innocence. “But when first I see you, you are so beautiful, how can I not want you?”

“That has more to do with how long you’ve been alone than it does with me.”

“I do not want that Dean and I see him, too,” he pointed out reasonably. “And I am not to blame that it has for me been such a very long time.”

“What do you expect? You’re dead.”

Back up on one elbow, he rested his chin on his palm and waggled both brows suggestively. “The spirit is willing…”

“But the flesh is nonexistent.”

“You are a Keeper. For a time, I can be incubus for you.”

Claire groped behind her for a chair and sat down rather abruptly. “How do you know that?”

“There was a Keeper when I was dead no more than ten or fifteen years. She came to my room, de temps en temps—that is, from time to time. She is not so young as you, but when no one else makes offers…”

The hair lifted off the back of Claire’s neck and she fought the urge to turn and check the space behind her. “Bleached blonde, full-figured, pouty mouth, very red lipstick?”

“Oui.” His eyes narrowed. “You know Sa…”

“Don’t say her name. She’s still here.”

“Then I…” He disappeared. “…am not.”

A little surprised, Claire scanned the area, trying to find him. She didn’t want to have to compel him to return. “I thought you two…you know?”

“Non. You do not know.” His voice came from near the window. “There are legends about women like her, try to suck a man’s soul out his…”

“I get the picture,” Claire interrupted hurriedly, not really in the mood for a graphic description in either language.

“Why is that one still here?”

How much to tell him? “Do you know what Keepers do?”

“She told me. They guard the places where evil can enter the world.” He rematerialized, cross-legged on the bed, expressive features folded into worry. “But me, I think she want the evil for herself. I do not know what happened, but all at once, she did not come and Augustus Smythe was here. He is not a Keeper.”

“No, he’s a Cousin. Less powerful. She…” It was impossible not to pick up Jacques’ inflection. “…was put to sleep for trying to take over the, um, evil.” Claire could see no reason to be more specific, especially considering Jacques’ transitional state and his lack of certainty over his final destination.

“She was put to sleep?” His voice rose, making it more a shriek than a question. “And if she wake up?”

“It won’t happen.”

“So you say. Me, I learn a lullaby or two. And now, what happens? To me?”

Claire frowned, uncertain of what he meant “Nothing happens to you. She can’t do anything while she’s asleep or she’d have done something by now.”

“Je ne demande pas ce qu’elle peut faire a moi!” Agitation threw him back into French. “I know what she can do to me.” He raised both hands and made a visible effort to calm down. “I am asking what do you do now with me.”

“What do I do?” He was persistent, she’d give him that. “Nothing.”

“Nothing happens to me for years.” Jacques lay down again and flung an arm up over his eyes.

“Could you please reattach that? It looks disgusting.”

Jacques sighed but complied. “At least will you visit?”

“When I can.”

“Ah, you have no time because you must guard the place where evil can enter the world?”

“I’m working at sealing the hole.”

“And when the hole is sealed?”

“Then I’ll move on.”

Opening one eye, he peered up at her. “Will you bring back my table?”

“No. You don’t need it.” When he began a sorrowful protest Claire cut him off. “You began haunting the attic when Augustus Smythe moved the furniture up from the room you died in, right?”

“Oui.”

She chewed on a corner of her lower lip. “Did he know you were there?”

“He knew. He did not care.” Jacques rolled back up onto his side. Misery made his eyes surprisingly dark. “For so many years with no one who cared; do you know, cherie, I think that is worse than Hell.”

Which explained why there was no response from the basement. Hell appreciated pain. “I have an idea.”

Something heavy hit the floor in the room above the dining room. Dean and Austin stared at the ceiling.

“What do think she’s doing up there?”

“She’s still in the attic,” Austin told him. “And so the question becomes, what’s she doing up there?”

Dean leaned into his polishing cloth with a certain amount of violent activity. “Finding antiques.”

“I’m amazed you left them up there together.” The cat flopped down on the polished end of the table and stretched to his full length. “A woman. A man. Didn’t you say he was a sailor? You know what they say about sailors.”

“They don’t say it about dead sailors.” He peered sideways at the cat. “Austin, can I ask you a personal question? Were you castrated?”

Austin rolled over and blinked up at him. “My, that is personal. Why do you ask?”

“Something Claire said.”

“She sees all, she tells all.” The cat snorted. “If you must know, yes, I was. I was with a less enlightened—and, as it turned out, allergic—family before I moved in with Claire.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“It broadened my horizons. I was no longer forced by biology to endlessly pursue females in heat and could turn my attention to philosophy and art.”

Dean nodded, understanding. “It pissed you off.”

“Of course it pissed me off!” Ears back, Austin glared up at him. “Wouldn’t it piss you off? But…” he spent a moment grooming the dime-sized spot of black fur on the side of a white paw. “…I got over it. Eventually it was a relief to be able to go outside and not come home with my ear shredded by some feline Goliath out to overpopulate the neighborhood.”

“Did you talk to the other family?”

“Not after that.”

A crack of displaced air heralded the sudden appearance of a ladder-back chair in the far corner of the dining room. Closely followed by Jacques, who displaced no air but made up for it in personal volume.

“Liberté! I am free! She was right! I go where the furniture is!” He advanced on Dean, his arms flung wide. “Freed, I gladly apologize to you.”

Dean backed up a step as Jacques walked through the table.

“You are not a Newfie like an insult even though you are from the colony of the despicable British.”

“Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949,” Dean told him stiffening.

“Bon. Just what this country need, more Anglais. It has no matter, we start again, you and I. So tell me, Dean, why do you stay here in such a place?” He paused and looked him up and down. “Should you not be fishing or whacking on the seals or something?”

Dean folded his arms. “I stay,” he said through clenched teeth, “because Claire needs me.”

“For what?” As Dean’s expression darkened, Jacques raised both hands, palms out. “No, no, it is not another insult. I want to know because I think of you. Since I must stay, you can go if I can do for Claire what you can do.” His volume dropped dramatically. “You know of her? Sleeping upstairs? I tell you, it is not safe for a young man in a building where she is.”

“You must think I’m really stupid,” Dean snarled. “It’s sure as scrod not my safety you’re thinking of.” If he’d ever even considered packing it in and shipping away from this weirdness, he certainly had no intention of going anywhere now.

“Then think of the Keeper’s safety. When you are here she must protect you all the time. Her attention it is divided.”

“I can protect myself!”

“How?”

“His strength is the strength of ten,” Austin muttered, dropping his chin onto his paws, “because his heart is pure.”

Nose-to-nose, both men ignored him.

“If Claire allows me a body…”

“If Claire what?” Dean interrupted.

The cat looked up. “It’s an incubus kind of a thing. Not generally approved of by the lineage, but there have been exceptions.”

“And I have been already excepted,” Jacques announced smugly, and disappeared.

“I hate it when they do that,” Austin said, dropping his head again. “You never know when they’re really gone.” As Dean turned toward him, eyes wide behind the lenses of his glasses, he added, “I know, of course, but you don’t.”

“Is he gone?”

“Yes.” Claire answered as she came into the dining room brushing cobwebs off her shoulders. “He’s upstairs investigating the rest of the hotel. I spread the stuff from the room he died in as widely as possible.”

“In my apartment?”

“Of course not. I didn’t put anything in the basement at all.”

Dean folded his arms. “Is it true what he said?”

“That depends. What did he say?”

“That you…” She lifted an eyebrow and Dean suddenly found it difficult to continue. “That you gave him a body.”

“He said I gave him a body?”

Her tone lowered the temperature in the room about ten degrees. His crossed arms now a barricade, Dean couldn’t stop himself from stepping back. “Not exactly.”

“What exactly did he say?”

It wasn’t a request. Moistening dry lips, Dean repeated the conversation.

Claire sighed and lifted her right hand into the air, fingers flicking off the points. “First according to my mother and my cat, you don’t need my protection and, as things stand right now, there’s nothing to protect you from. Second, I need you to run this place. Jacques certainly isn’t going to be cooking, cleaning, or unclogging toilets. Third, I didn’t make the exception for him, she did.”

Feeling both foolish and reassured. Dean watched his finger rub along the edge of the tabletop. “Will you?” The silence drew his gaze back to Claire’s face. “Uh, never mind.”

“Wise choice,” Austin muttered.

Claire sighed again. Her life used to be so simple. “Look, Dean, I realize Jacques made it sound like he and I, that we…” She paused, wondering why she was so embarrassed about something that hadn’t happened. Maybe because somewhere deep in the back of her mind she’d considered it? Clearing her throat, she started again. “Put yourself in his place, trapped between life and death, trapped alone in that attic for decades.”

“Okay. I guess I feel sort of sorry for him,” Dean allowed reluctantly. “But every ghost story I’ve ever heard says he’ll be a nuisance at best.”

The can of furniture polish crashed suddenly to the floor.

“See?”

“That was Austin.”

A cupboard door opened and one of the plastic salt shakers put out for guests flung itself halfway across the room.

“That was Jacques.”

“Just meeting expectations.” He materialized by Claire’s side, grinning wickedly.

“Ground rules,” Claire told him, folding her arms and trying not to smile. “First, no throwing things.”

“He started it.” Jacques nodded at the cat.

“If he took poison, would you?”

“What would be the point?”

She had to admit that under the circumstances it was a stupid question. Actually, under most circumstances it was a stupid question. “Second, when you’re in a room with either Dean, or me, or both of us, you must be visible.”

“And thirdly? There is always a thirdly, yes?”

“Thirdly, if we’re all going to live together for a while, let’s make an effort to get along.”

“I cannot go down there with you.” Jacques squatted at the top of the stairs to better watch Claire descend. “Why not?”

“Because there’s nothing of yours in the basement.”

“Is it because he lives in the basement and you keep us from fighting over who is most important in your life?”

“Something like that.” Claire smiled as she moved out of his line of sight. For the moment, it was surprisingly entertaining being the center of someone’s universe.

“Cleaning is woman’s work.” Sprawled on the bed, the ghost peered around the room.

Dean very carefully coiled the vacuum cleaner cord around the back of the machine. “Is it?”

“Oui. Any man would know.”

“Like you know it?” He picked up his divided bucket of cleaning supplies.

“Oui.”

“Why don’t you tell Claire?”

“That cleaning is woman’s work?”

“Yeah.”

“I cannot. She is in the basement.”

Dean mourned the missed opportunity. Even after only three days he had a fairly good idea of Claire’s response to a declaration of that type.

“I think you need to rub harder.”

“Don’t you have something to do?” Dean growled, scowling up at the ghost. While searching for paint for the sign, he’d come across a can of paint remover and, although the dining room was still a catastrophe, Claire had decided he should spend the rest of the afternoon stripping the front counter.

Sitting on the countertop, Jacques thought about it, soundlessly drumming his heels. “No,” he said cheerfully after a moment. “I will remain here and watch you.”

“Don’t”

“Dean.”

He leaned around the flailing legs. “Yeah, Boss?”

Carrying a second box of triple-X videos from the sitting room, Claire pushed her hair up off her face with the back of her hand. “Jacques isn’t hurting anything. He’d help if he could.”

“I would,” Jacques agreed cheerfully. “Truly I would help if I could.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Until this point, Dean had always been able to give any new acquaintance the benefit of the doubt. Until this point they’d all been alive, but if he disliked Jacques solely because he was dead, didn’t that make him as much of a bigot as if he disliked him because he was French Canadian? Now, if he disliked him because of the way he acted around Claire, that opened a whole…

He threw his weight behind the scraper.

…new…

Muscles bulged in his jaw as he gritted his teeth.

…barrel of fish.

“I think you reached the wood right there,” Jacques pointed out conversationally.

“Claire?”

She paused, one hand on the doorknob. “What is it, Jacques?”

“You have put nothing of me in your bedroom.” Standing on the threshold, he pushed against an invisible barrier. “I cannot come in.”

“I know.”

He stared soulfully at her. “I want only to be where you are.”

“Why don’t you try being back in the attic where your bed is and I’ll see you in the morning.” She pushed the door closed.

“Even though you close the door on my face, I still desire you!”

She had to smile. “Good night, Jacques.” Switching off the light and dropping her robe, she climbed into bed.

“Claire?” His voice came faintly through the door. “I would just sit in the chair. My word as a Labaet.”

“Good night, Jacques.” After a moment, she sighed. “Jacques, go away. I can still feel you standing there.”

“I am on guard so that your sleep is not disturbed.”

“The only thing disturbing my sleep is you. Why won’t you go away?”

“Because…” He paused and she felt him sigh. Or she felt the emotion behind the sigh; as he wasn’t breathing, he didn’t actually exhale. “Because I have been so many years alone.”

Alone. Once again, the word throbbed between them, and once again it evoked an emotional response. Claire couldn’t deny the urge to bring the small tapestry cushion—the cushion that gave him access to her sitting room—into the bedroom. She couldn’t deny it, but she managed to resist it. “You can stand at the door if you want to.” After a moment, she pushed her face into Austin’s side and murmured, “This could become a problem.”

“I told you so.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, I would’ve if I’d been there.” He touched her shoulder with a front paw. “You’re attracted to him, aren’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m a Keeper.”

“So?”

“I feel sorry for him.”

“And?”

“He’s dead.”

Down in the furnace room, the flames reflected on the copper hood were a sullen red. It could have told the Keeper that the spirit was trapped in the same binding that held it—accidentally caught and held.

BUT SHE DIDN’T ASK US.

It would have been even more annoyed had it not recognized all sorts of lovely new tensions now available for exploitation.