Summon The Keeper

NINE

“THE SEEPAGE IS BUILDING UP AGAIN.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, Claire pulled on a sock. “I can feel the buzz beginning.”

Austin yawned. “What’re you going to do about it.”

“I don’t know. I can stop the buzz by using it—which’ll make Hell happy—or I can endure it and go slowly nuts—which’ll also make Hell happy. There’s got to be an alternative.”

“I’ll let you know if I think of one.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “You do that”

“You going after the Historian this morning?”

Already halfway out the door, she threw an irritated, “What’s the point?” back over her shoulder.

“Boss? You busy?”

Claire looked up from writing Smythe;junk on the outside of the sixth box of assorted odds and ends, mostly ends, she’d cleared from the sitting room. “Not exactly, no.”

“Can I talk to your?”

“I think I can spare a moment.” When he frowned, clearly considering the actual time he’d need, Claire sighed. “Figure of speech, Dean. What did you want to tell me?”

“Well, I was upstairs, wiping down the molding…”

She leaned slightly toward him, as though proximity would help the statement make more sense. “You were what?”

“Wiping down the molding. The trim around the doors,” he expanded with an indulgent smile when she continued to look confused. “It collects dust I didn’t get to it last week because of the renovations. Anyway, you know the two guys in room one; the twins?”

“The triplets.”

“Okay.”

Claire managed to rearrange her face into her most neutral expression. “What about them?”

“I don’t want to get them into trouble or anything, but they came in some late last night and I thought I heard it then, I just wasn’t sure.”

“Thought you heard what?”

“A dog.”

“A dog?” Moving quickly to the counter, Claire swept Austin up into her arms before he could say anything.

“Yeah. And just now, I’m pretty sure I saw half a muddy paw print. I mean, if they’re smuggling a dog into their room…”

Austin started to snicker.

“…we ought to say something when they come back tonight because it’s not necessary.”

“What isn’t necessary?” She shifted the cat’s weight. He was laughing so hard he was becoming difficult to hold.

“Hiding the dog. You don’t mind if they bring in a pet, do your?”

“No. I don’t.” Which was as much as she could manage with a straight face.

“A dog?” The twins exchanged identical smiles. “No,” Ron continued, “we don’t have a dog.”

Dean frowned. “But I heard…” He faltered, caught and held by two pairs of frank gray eyes. They were telling the truth, he’d bet his life on it. “I guess maybe I didn’t.”

“You’re welcome to come up and search the room,” Reg offered.

“Any time,” Ron added suggestively, brows rising and falling.

“No, that’s okay.” Feeling a little like he’d missed the punch line of a joke everyone else found incredibly funny, Dean shrugged. “I, well, we, that is the hotel, wanted you to know we don’t mind animals in the rooms, that’s all.”

“Nice to hear. We’ll remember that…”

“…if we’re by this way again.”

“What’s the lovely young man going to think of you when he finds out you’ve been lying to him?” Claire’s reflection asked.

“I haven’t been lying.” She’d switched to a clear lip gloss on those days she wasn’t able to use the mirror. It was faster than waiting to see what she was doing.

“You didn’t tell him about the vampire, you’re not telling him about the werewolves…” The reflection traced a dark red clown frown a quarter inch from her lips.

“But I’m not lying. If he asks…”

“And he’s so likely to ask, isn’t he? You promised, no more secrets.”

“These aren’t my secrets.”

“We think it’s sweet that you’re trying to protect him.”

Claire blinked, a little confused by the sudden change of topic. “What are you talking about?”

“You know. He’s just a kid. Let’s keep him safe. He’ll thank you for it later.”

No one did sarcasm quite like Hell.

When the twins left later that morning, they took three trophies with them. Although he only saw them from a distance, all three seemed to have a figure of a dog as part of the design. Dean decided not to ask.

“Boss, can I talk to you?”

Breathing heavily through her nose, Claire leaned out from behind her monitor. “What, again?”

“If this is a bad time…”

“A bad time? Would you like to see a bad time?” She waved him under the counter and around to her side of the desk. “Once, just once, I leave the wards off,” she continued as he approached, “…and this is what happens.”

“You spilled a cup of coffee on your keyboard?” Dean shook his head sympathetically. “That’s rough.”

“I didn’t spill it.”

“And don’t look at me,” Austin advised him from the top of the counter.

“It was the imp.” Claire made a valiant attempt to unclench her teeth and nearly succeeded.

“Where’d it get the coffee?”

“I left my mug sitting here, half full, when I went in to lunch.” It didn’t need a Keeper to work out the cause of the two vertical lines over the bridge of Dean’s glasses. He’d probably never left a half a cup of anything sitting around. He’d probably never even left a dirty cup sitting in the sink. “I forgot it was there, all right?”

“Sure.” Head bent, hands dwarfing the keyboard as he gently twisted it from side to side, he remained unaware that the full force of her mood had turned in his direction. “Can’t you drain it?”

“No.” She felt as though she’d slammed into an affable brick wall—and had about as much effect as if she’d run full tilt into a real one. “It’s already dry. Half a dozen of the keys aren’t working.” The wheels on the old chair shrieked a protest as she shoved it away from the desk. “I suppose I can write the stupid site journal out by hand, but it’s a little difficult to build a database without a…”

Something small, something crimson and cream, raced along the wall under the window.

Claire snatched up the empty mug and flung it with all her might.

She missed.

The mug smashed into a hundred pieces.

Austin went three feet straight up.

“What’re you trying to do to me?” he snarled as he landed, fur sticking out at right angles from his body. “I’m old!”

“It was the imp. You saw it, didn’t you, Dean?”

“I saw…” He paused and replayed the scene as his heart rate returned to normal. “I saw something.”

“A mouse,” Austin told him tersely.

“I don’t know, it was…”

“An imp.” Claire’s tone left no room for argument. “Somebody,” she shot a scathing look at the cat, “has moved the trap.”

“Probably the mice.”

“Oh, give me a break.”

Sitting down with his back toward her, Austin began washing his shoulder with long, deliberate strokes of his tongue.

Although Dean hoped it was his imagination, the air between cat and Keeper felt chilled. “I could take the keyboard apart,” he offered, flipping it and frowning at the half-dozen, tiny, inset screw heads. “Maybe I can clean the coffee out of it”

“Take it apart? As in pieces?” On the other hand, she couldn’t use it the way it was so how much worse could it get. “All right But be careful.”

“No problem.” His enthusiastic smile faded as a bit of broken ceramic crushed under one work boot. “First off, I’ll go get a broom and dustpan.”

“Dean?”

He stopped on the other side of the counter.

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

What was it? The sudden, deliberate destruction of the coffee mug had driven it right out of his head.

“Do you know what you are doing, Anglais?” Jacques leaned over Dean’s shoulder and poked an ethereal finger at the keyboard. “Can you put the pieces back together when they all fall out?”

“That’s not about to happen,” Dean told him, inserting a Phillips head screwdriver into the last tiny screw. “These day’s everything’s solid state.”

Leaning against the other side of the desk, Claire drummed bubblegum-colored fingernails on the CPU and bit her tongue. The buzz of the accumulated seepage had become a constant background noise as impossible to ignore as a dentist’s drill, and the smallest things set her off. She’d yelled at Dean for returning the wallpaper sample books before she’d finished with them after telling him that she’d definitely made up her mind, at Jacques for going through the dining room table rather than around, at Dean again for waiting until after lunch before opening up her keyboard, and at Austin, just because. It was like continual PMS only without the bloating.

“That’s got it.” Setting the screw in the saucer with the others, Dean slid a pair of slot screwdrivers into the crack between the front and back of the keyboard and twisted in opposite directions. The plastic began to creak as the tiny levers moved off the horizontal. When the crack widened to half an inch, he pried the back of the keyboard carefully free.

The sudden flurry of tiny white pieces of plastic exploding into the air strongly resembled a small, artificial blizzard.

“Score one for the dead guy,” Jacques observed when the last piece landed.

Dean scooped up one of the escapees. A tiny spring fell off one end, bounced on the desk, and rolled out of sight. “Sorry,” he said, shoulders up around his ears as he peered up over the top of his glasses at Claire. “But I’m sure I can fix it.”

It took an effort, but Claire managed to count all the way to ten before responding. “Just clean it up,” she snarled, “and move on.”

Dean’s eyes widened and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

“Now what’s your problem?”

“For a minute there you sounded…” He paused and shook his head. “It’s okay. I’ll just clean this up like you said.”

“I sounded like what?” Claire growled. “Tell me. Please.”

He didn’t want to tell her, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “Like Augustus Smythe.”

She stared at him, saw that he was serious, and opened her mouth to call him several choice names. Snapping it closed on the first of them, she stomped into her sitting room and slammed the door.

Jacques snickered. “I must hand it over to you Anglais, you have the way with women.”

“He said I sounded like Augustus Smythe!”

Austin rolled over and stared up at her. “No,” he said after a moment. “Too high-pitched.”

“It’s the seepage.” She rubbed at her temples where the buzz had lodged. “It’s barely been two weeks since I cleared it out, and it’s already making me cranky.”

“Got news for you, Claire, you’re way beyond cranky.”

“Smythe couldn’t have lived like this all the time.”

“Feeling sorry for him?”

“No.” Her lips pulled back off her teeth. “Wanting to wring his neck.”

“Maybe you’re more susceptible because you’re a Keeper and under normal circumstances, which these aren’t, you’re able to adjust the seepage.” The cat washed the black spot on his front leg thoughtfully. “Why not use it to close down the postcard?”

“Because the postcard is using seepage. If I close it down, in a few days I’ll have a worse problem than before. And besides, I don’t want to use it.”

“The postcard?”

“The seepage!” She dropped down onto the couch and emerged from the depths a few moments later to add another forty-three cents and a plain gold ring that smelled of fish to the half-filled bowl of retrieved flotsam on the coffee table. “I can’t go on like this.”

The distant sound of a ten-pound sledge slamming through plaster board jerked her forward, almost tipping her into the precarious area between the coach cushions.

Austin yawned. “Maybe you should cut back on the caffeine.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t say anything if you can’t say something helpful.” Tapping her nails against her thigh, Claire gritted her teeth. “There has to be a logical solution.”

“Why?”

“Shut up. Point: Power is seeping out around the edges of the seal two presumably dead Keepers created with another Keeper’s power. A further point: It’s not my power sealing the site, so I can’t make adjustments. Yet another point: I can’t just leave the seepage be because it’s driving me nuts. And one final point: The only way to get rid of the seepage buildup is to use it, but using the power of Hell can’t help but corrupt the individual using it no matter her intentions. So.” She drew in a deep breath and exhaled noisily. “Where does that get us?”

“Absolutely nowhere,” Austin told her, climbing onto her lap.

Claire slumped back into the sofa. “It was a rhetorical question anyway. What we need is a way to use the seepage without strengthening Hell.”

“Can’t be done. Hell works only in its own best interests.”

Stroking the cat, Claire spent a moment wallowing in the innate unfairness of the universe, and then…

“Hey!” Austin fought his way out from between the two sofa cushions. “If you’re going to stand suddenly, warn a guy!”

“Hell can be made to work against itself.” Claire whirled around to face the cat. “I’ll feed the seepage into the shield around the furnace room!”

The cat stepped over onto the coffee table and, with a solid surface below him, paused to smooth the ruffled fur along his side. “How?” he asked after a moment.

“Adhesion. The moment anything escapes from the pit. Slap!” She smacked her palms together. “Right into the shield but set up so that it’s distributed evenly, like oyster spit building a pearl. Hell sends more out, the shield gets stronger. Hell sends nothing at all, nothing happens because the original shield is still in place.”

After a moment, Austin nodded. “It’s brilliant”

Claire picked him up and kissed the top of his head. “It’s why I get the big bucks,” she agreed.

Sledge over his shoulder, Dean bounded down the stairs into the lobby and rocked to a dead stop when he saw Claire’s door open. “I uh, piled all the bits of your keyboard on the desk,” he said as she emerged.

To his surprise, she smiled. “That’s great. When I get a minute, I’ll separate what’s recyclable and throw the rest out.”

He took a tentative step closer. When he realized he was holding the sledge across his body like a shield, he let it swing down until the head rested on the floor. “You’re not angry, then?” he asked tentatively.

Claire shrugged. “Accidents happen.”

“No, I meant about saying you sounded like…” Although she no longer seemed as crusty as she had, it didn’t seem polite to say it again. “You know.”

“I was angry because you were right.”

Coming out from behind the counter, Austin performed an exaggerated double take. Dean tried not to smile.

“But,” she continued, “I’ve come up with a way to solve the problem.” She nodded toward the sledge. “How’s the elevator coming?”

“We’ve got all four doors cleared. They didn’t take anything out when they closed the system up, so it just needs the trim back around the holes. Jacques is in the attic right now having a look at the works.”

“Jacques is?”

“It’s old,” Dean told her cheerfully, as though that explained everything. When it didn’t appear to, he added, “It’s the sort of machinery he’s familiar with.”

Walking over to the recessed doorway, Claire peered through the wrought iron scrollwork into the closet-sized space. She could just barely make out the cables. “Where’s the car?”

“In the basement.”

“Given what’s in the furnace room, is that entirely safe?”

“Given gravity, the basement seemed safest.”

Up on her toes, Claire sent a pale white light into the shaft. Everything she could see seemed in remarkably good shape, but she supposed there was no point in taking chances. “You’re probably right.”

Austin sat back on his haunches and stared up at her in astonishment. “That’s twice.”

She ignored him. “Do you think you can get it working?”

“Sure.” Dean’s grip slipped as he realized what he’d said. “I mean, yeah. No problem.”

“Don’t try it without me. I’d like to be in on the inaugural ride.”

“It might not be safe….”

“It’ll be safer with me in it.” Turning to go, she paused and took a deep breath. There was one more thing she’d resolved to do. “Oh, and, Dean? I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”

“That’s okay. It was nothing.”

“It was something if I’ve apologized for it.”

At that point he decided it would be safer if he just kept quiet.

“Two admissions that someone else might be right and an apology. Circle this day on the calendar,” Austin muttered as he followed Claire toward the basement.

“The boys seem to be getting along better,” Claire noted as she opened the padlocks.

“They’re not boys,” Austin snorted from the top of the washing machine.

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“Dean likes you.”

“Get real, he calls me Boss.”

“He called you Claire when you fell down the stairs.”

“He did?” Given the way her tailbone had impacted with the edge of the step, she wasn’t surprised she hadn’t noticed. “Means nothing.”

“Then what about the way he looks at you?”

“He’s twenty. The way he looks at women isn’t under his conscious control.”

“All right; what about the way you look at him?”

She twisted around enough to grin at the cat. “Like I said, he’s twenty. It’s an aesthetic appreciation.”

Austin’s tail beat out an audible rhythm against the enameled steel. “I know that babysitting a site at your age was the last thing you wanted, but it’s given you a chance few Keepers get and you’ll kick yourself if you blow it.”

“Blow what?”

“The chance for a relationship.”

“A relationship?” Claire sighed. “Have you been watching Oprah again?”

“No! Well, actually, yes,” he amended. “But that has nothing to do with this.”

“Forget it, Austin. Dean’s attractive, yes, but he’s too young.”

“Jacques isn’t.”

“Jacques is too dead.”

“Dean isn’t.”

She hung the chains on their hooks and turned to glare at her companion. “You’re not the only one concerned about my having or not having a relationship; Hell suggested Jacques and I settle down for the duration.”

“Just because something is an anthropomorphism of ultimate evil, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t your best interests at heart.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Fine. But your health is important to me.”

“My health?”

“It’s been nearly six months.”

“So?”

“If I remember correctly, the last incident wasn’t terribly successful.”

Her brows drew in. “What are you talking about?”

“I was under the bed.”

“You were under the bed!”

“Hey, it’s all just loud noises to me.” He stretched out a back leg and stared down at the spread toes. “Mind you, some loud noises are more believable than others.”

Claire counted to ten and let it go, reminding herself, once again, that no one ever won an argument with a cat.

Young Keepers started out believing that accessing the possibilities required inner calm and outer silence. After their first couple of sites they realized calm and quiet were luxuries they’d seldom have. Claire’s first site had been in the sale bin at a discount department store. It hadn’t been pretty, but it had prepared her for eventually working through the catcalls and attempted interference of Hell.

Breathing shallowly through her mouth, she adjusted the possibilities on the inside of the shield until the seepage began to adhere. It was a simple, elegant solution and she left the furnace room three hours later stinking of brimstone and feeling inordinately pleased with herself.

PRIDE IS ONE OF OURS, Hell called after her. When the only response was the slamming of the furnace room door, it examined the addition to its binding. IS SHE ALLOWED TO DO THAT? it asked sulkily.

NOTHING SEEMS TO BE STOPPING HER.

WE SHOULD BE STOPPING HER.

WELL, DUH.

As he heard Claire come into the lobby, Dean looked up from sorting the mail. “Good timing, Boss; you…you look like something they dragged off the bottom of the harbor.”

“Thank you, Dean, I’m touched by your concern. You forgot to mention that I smell like something from the sewage treatment plant.” She paused, took a deep breath, and ducked under the counter, swaying a little when she straightened on the other side.

Dean took a step toward her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You look exhausted.”

“I’m a bit tired, yes. I’ve been working.”

“On the pit?”

“By the pit.”

“Is that safe?”

“It is now.”

“I don’t understand.” He frowned. “Did you figure out how to seal it?”

“Wouldn’t that be good news?” Austin asked before Claire could respond.

“Well, sure…”

“Then shouldn’t you sound happier about it?”

“Stop being annoying just because you can,” Claire suggested. Turning back to Dean, she shook her head. “No, I haven’t figured out how to seal the pit, but I have solved a smaller problem. What did you mean when you said, good timing?”

It took him a moment to follow the path of the conversation. “The mail’s finally here. You got a postcard.”

Claire took the cardboard rectangle between thumb and forefinger, glanced at the photograph of a tropical paradise, then flipped the card over.

“Who’s it from?” Dean asked, leaning forward.

“My sister, Diana. Apparently, she’s in the Philippines.”

Austin’s ears went back. “Didn’t they just have a huge volcanic eruption in the Philippines?”

“We don’t know that was her fault.” A tooth mark on the edge of the postcard had the distinct, punched hole appearance of Baby’s games with the mailman. “Speaking of natural disasters, we haven’t heard from Mrs. Abrams for a while.”

“Maybe the blinds discouraged her?” Dean offered.

“Maybe we should put the wagon train in a circle,” Austin muttered. “You should start to worry when the drums stop.”

After a long hot shower, Claire spent the rest of the day sprawled in an armchair, watching a National Geographic video about killer whales. It was one of only eleven tapes she’d salvaged from Augustus Smythe’s extensive collection. The pornography hadn’t been the worst of it; his video library had also included every episode of “Gunsmoke” plus a nearly complete collection of “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

Hell was not only murky, it filled out subscription forms.

“You coming, Austin?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Tail lashing from side to side he backed up a step just in case Claire decided to force the issue. “You actually want me to get into that cross between a cage and a coffin, allow myself to be lifted three stories off the ground by an antique mechanism reinstalled by a cook under the direction of a dead sailor? I think not.”

“It’s perfectly safe.”

“That’s what you said about that cruise.”

“Cruise?” Jacques asked by her ear.

“Bermuda Triangle. Long story,” Claire told him.

“I wouldn’t get into that thing,” Austin continued, ears flat, “if I still had all nine lives. Not even if I’d rescued Princess Toadstool and picked up another life. If anything goes wrong, somebody has to be around to say I told you so.”

“Suit yourself.” Unfortunately for any second thoughts she might have been having, Claire couldn’t back out now, not with the cat so vehemently opposed. He was quite smug enough without her giving him more ammunition. She closed the door, dropped the inner gate, and turned to the more corporeal of her two companions. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“It’s simple.” Dean flashed her a confident grin. “All you do is turn this level from the off position to either the right or the left. Right takes us up, and left takes us down.”

Claire sighed. “That’s probably why they labeled it that way. I was asking on a more esoteric level, but never mind. Let’s get this ride over with, shall we?”

“Anything you say, Boss.” Feet braced, Dean wrapped both hands around the gleaming brass lever and swung it to the right.

Up in the attic, ancient machinery gave a startled jerk and wheezed into life, sending wave after wave of vibration through the stored furniture. The small, multicolored creature removing the last of the most recent marshmallows from the imp traps whirled around and fell to what served it for knees. In all of its short existence, it had never heard such a sound. Extrapolating from limited experience, it created a wild and metaphysical explanation that changed its life forever.

But that’s another story.

Claire pressed one hand flat against the wall as the elevator lurched upward. “It works.”

“I never doubted it.” Looking like the captain at the wheel of a very small ship, Dean kept his eyes locked on the edge of the floor joists moving down on the other side of the iron gate. When the top edge of the first floor was almost even with the floor of the elevator, he lifted the switch back up into the off position. In the few seconds it took for the machinery to stop, the floors came level.

“Good eye, Anglais,” Jacques muttered. “Such a pity you were born too late to make this a career.”

“Yeah?” Stepping left, Dean hooked up the gate and reached for the latch on the outer door. “Well, it’s a pity you died too early for me to…”

“To what, Angla…”

Careful not to step over the threshold, Claire leaned out of the elevator and peered up and down the beach, eyes squinted against the ruddy light of the setting sun. “This doesn’t look like the lobby.” The touch of the breeze on her cheek, the sound of the waves curling and slapping into pieces against the fine, white sand, the smell of the rotting fish they appeared to have cut in half worked together to convince her it wasn’t illusion either. “I’m beginning to see why Augustus Smythe closed this thing up.”

“Because he does not like to take the vacation? Perhaps because he did not have a beautiful woman to walk with by the sea.” Wafting past her, Jacques turned and held out his hand.

Claire stared at him, horrified. “What are you doing out there? In fact, how can you be out there?” A quick glance showed that a doily taken from his old room remained crumpled in the back corner. “Your anchor’s in here!”

“As to how, I do not know. As to what, I am inviting you to go for the walk.”

“The walk? Jacques, I don’t think you quite realize where you are.” Had she been able to hold him, she’d have grabbed his hand and yanked him back into the relative safety of the elevator.

“And where am I, cherie! Where is this place that gives me such freedom?”

“I don’t know. And that’s my point!”

“Ah, you are frightened of the unexpected. I understand, cherie, you are a woman, after all.” Lit from behind by the sun, his eyes gleamed.

She folded her arms. “If you’re implying I’m not taking the same stupid chance you are because I’m only a woman, go ahead. I’m not going to fall for it.”

“You wound me, cherie. I said I understood why you are frightened.”

Dean moved out of the elevator too fast for Claire to grab him. “Are you saying I’m a coward?”

“Am I saying that?” Jacques drifted backward, toward the edge of the water. “Non. I would never think of such a thing.”

“You better not be,” Dean muttered. He drew in a deep lungful of air and smiled contentedly. “Man, this place smells just like home.”

The ghost snorted. “If your home smells like this, Anglais, it is no wonder you clean so much.”

The familiar salt air had put Dean in too good a mood to continue the argument. Shaking his head, he wandered down to meet the next wave coming in.

“Excuse me!”

Both men turned and, drawn by Claire’s expression, found themselves returning to the elevator considerably more quickly than they’d left it.

“If you two are quite through exposing yourselves, maybe we could think about getting…now what?”

Dean had disappeared around the doorframe.

“This is some weird.” His voice came from directly behind her. “There’s just this door in the sand. From this side, you can’t see the elevator at all.”

“Don’t step where it should be!” Claire shouted. She didn’t want to think about what could happen should three realities—elevator, beach, and Dean—suddenly find themselves sharing the same space. When Dean reappeared, she backed away from the door, leaving him room to get in. “Come on.”

Jacques stepped between them, his long face wearing the half rakish, half pleading expression she found so difficult to resist. “Cherie, how often is there the chance to enjoy such a sunset?”

“And how enjoyable will it be if I leave the elevator and it disappears?”

“So before you leave, we prop the door open with a rock. If only the door is real here, then the elevator will go nowhere.”

“You don’t know that,” Claire muttered, but she could feel her resolve weakening. It was a beautiful beach; brilliant white sand stretching down to turquoise water, the setting sun brushing the entire scene with red-gold light.

“If I cannot convince you, cherie…” His eyes twinkled under lowered lids. “…then I dare you.”

“You dare me?”

“Oui. I dare you to enjoy yourself, if only pour un moment.”

“You think I’m incapable of enjoying myself?”

“I did not say that.”

“Well, I’m not Dean…”

Dean had already found a rock. He rolled it up against the open door and, telling herself that Jacques’ theory made a great deal of sense, Claire stepped over the threshold.

After a few moments of anticipatory silence, when neither the elevator nor the beach seemed affected, Jacques threw up his hands in triumph. “You see,” he said, catching them again. “I am right.”

Nearly body temperature, the water invited swimming, but both mortals contented themselves with tossing shoes and socks back into the elevator and wading through the shallow surf. Behind the open door, the beach rose up to become undulating dunes and finally a multihued green wall of jungle vegetation.

“Austin would love it here,” Claire laughed, digging her toes into the sand. “It’s the world’s biggest litter bo…oh, my God! He’ll be frantic!”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

Fighting to keep her balance in the loose footing, she whirled to glare at Dean. “What makes you such an expert?”

He held out his arm, watch crystal reflecting all the red and gold and orange in the sky. “The second hand hasn’t moved since we got here.”

“Oh, I see,” she snarled, “time has stopped. Did it ever occur to you that it might be your watch?”

Crestfallen, he shook his head.

“Excusez-moi.” Jacques’ tone laid urgency over the polite form of the interruption. “Something happens in the water.”

About twenty feet from shore, the waves had taken on a lumpy appearance. Bits of them seemed to be moving in ways contrary to the nature of water, rolling from side to side as they headed for the shore. Then the center hump of a wave kept rising past the crest, the mottled surface lifting up, up, until it became obvious, even staring into the sunset, that what they were watching wasn’t water.

“If I didn’t know better,” Dean murmured, one hand shading his eyes, “I’d swear that was an octopus.”

“Octopi do not come so big,” Jacques protested weakly.

“Well, it’s not a squid.”

A tentacle, as thick as Dean’s arm, broke through the surf no more than four feet from where they were standing.

“Octopi, regardless of size, don’t come up on the shore,” Claire announced as though daring the waving appendage to contradict her.

The twenty feet had become fifteen. Fourteen. Twelve. Ten.

“On the other hand,” she added as a suckered arm fell short and gouged a trench in the sand at her feet, “I don’t think this is an octopus either. RUN!”

Stumbling and falling in the loose sand, they raced for the elevator.

A tentacle slammed into Claire’s hip, throwing her sideways into Dean. He caught her and held on, dragging her forward with him, her feet barely touching down.

From the water’s edge came the sound of a large, wet, leather sack being smacked against the shore.

Unaffected by the footing, Jacques reached safety first, turned, and went nearly transparent. “Depeche toi!”

Gesture made his meaning plain.

Dean shoved Claire forward, over the threshold and bent to roll away the rock. A tentacle wrapped around his right leg but before it could tighten, he pulled free and stomped down hard. It might’ve been a more effective blow had he not been in bare feet, but it bought him enough time. He leaped inside, dragging the door closed with him.

Claire slammed the gate shut.

The deep blue/gray tip of a tentacle poked through the grill-work in the small window.

Wrapping sweaty hands around the lever, Dean yanked it right.

The floor joists nipped off an inch of rubbery flesh. When it dropped to the floor, Claire kicked it into the back corner and turned on Dean. “Why up?” she demanded, loudly enough to make herself heard over the pounding of her heart. “We came into this through the basement and that’s very likely the only way we’ll get out The basement is down!”

The floor of the elevator level with the second floor of the guest house, Dean locked the lever into its upright position. “I guess up just seemed more natural,” he said. Grinning broadly, he sank down and reached for his shoes and socks. “Besides, we haven’t seen what’s on two or three.”

Claire stared down at him in silence.

After a moment, one sock on, the other in his hand, he lifted his head. “What?”

“We haven’t seen what’s on two or three?”

The grin slipped. “Well, yeah.”

She could see her reflection in his glasses. “Are you out of your mind?”

His brow furrowed. “We have to see what’s on two and three. We can’t quit now.”

“Oh, yes, we can. We just got chased by a giant tentacled thing; that’s quite enough excitement for one day.”

After a moment, he shrugged. “You’re the boss.” Sighing, he pulled on his other sock.

“Do you believe him?” Claire asked Jacques, dusting the sand off her own feet. “He thought that was fun.”

“Not fun,” Dean protested. “Exciting.”

“Dangerous,” Claire corrected.

“But we all got away. We’re all safe.”

“We could have been eaten by something out of a bad Lovecraft pastiche!”

“But we weren’t.”

“Jacques.” She turned to the ghost. “Help me out.”

“He has a point, cherie. No one was hurt. And we are at the second floor. It would be a shame not to look.”

Arms folded, she sagged back against the elevator wall. “There’s just way too much testosterone in here.”

“My watch seems to be working again, Boss.”

“I’m thrilled.”

Standing, Dean shot Jacques a “now what” glance, and received a “how the hell should I know” shrug in return.

“All right.” Claire straightened. “A compromise. We’ll look through the grille, but we won’t actually open the door and we certainly won’t join in the fun.”

“Fun?”

“It’s a figure of speech, Dean. Together on three so that we all see the same thing…one, two, three.”

A familiar hallway stretched off in both directions, the doors to rooms one and two clearly visible.

“This is the second floor.” Shoving up the gate, Claire pushed the door open and barely managed to stop herself from stepping out onto a familiar starship bridge.

“Make it so, Number One.”

Slowly and quietly, she closed the door again. “And that wasn’t.”

“But what was it?” Jacques asked, peering out in some confusion at the second floor hall. “It was a military vessel?”

“It was an imaginary vessel, Jacques.”

“What is an imaginary vessel? It is not real?” He shook his head. “But it was as real as the beach. And the not-a-squid.”

“It was real here. And now. With the door open.” The scene through the door remained the second floor. “But everywhere else, except on those occasions when it’s a way of life, it’s a television show.”

Dean shook his head, as though trying to settle himself back into reality. “I could’ve walked out onto the real bridge of the starship….”

“No.” Claire reached out, intending to lock up, and found herself, instead, opening the door a crack. For one last look at the real bridge of the starship…

It looked like a balmy evening on top of Citadel Hill in downtown Halifax. Except for the two moons riding low in the sky and the woman in the distance with an agitated shrub on a leash.

Behind and above her right shoulder, Claire heard Dean murmur, “It changes every time you reopen the door.”

“So the not-squid, it is gone? We could return to the beach?”

“Sure. Except the beach is gone.”

Claire quietly eased the door shut, so as not to further agitate the shrub, and latched the gate. “All right,” she sighed, her head falling forward until it rested against the fifty-year-old paint. “We’re in this so far now we might as well see what’s on the third floor. But…” Straightening, she folded her arms, turned, and fixed each of her companions with her best I’m a Keeper and you’re not stare. “…no one gets out. Understand?”

“But what if…”

“I don’t care. No one leaves the elevator.”

Through the grille, it was the third floor. It even smelled like the third floor.

“Do you think that she might have an effect?” Jacques asked nervously as Claire locked back the gate.

“Do I think that proximity to her could affect the elevator’s destination? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Those are strong shields.” A puff of noxious air wafted in as she opened the door and stared out at the piles of blasted rock and steaming lava pools. “And then again, I suppose it’s possible that…”

A terrified shriek cut her off.

Dean pushed forward, allowing himself to be stopped by the flimsy barricade of Claire’s arm only because he wasn’t certain of where the sound had originated.

A second scream helped.

Off to the right, close to one of the steaming red pools, two large lizardlike creatures held a struggling shape between them, snapping and snarling at each other over their captive’s head. While accumulated filth and long dreadlocks made guessing age difficult, they did nothing at all to hide the gender of what seemed to be a completely naked twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy.

Captured. About to be devoured. Pushing Claire aside, Dean leaped forward, the porous surface of the rock crunching under his work boots. He heard her yell his name, felt her grab at his shirt, and kept running, throwing, “Stay where you’re at!” back over his shoulder. With any luck she’d see that there was no sense them both going into danger. If he concentrated on speed rather than concealment, he’d could reach and rescue the kid before the two lizards finished quarreling over their catch.

The closer he got, the more the snarling began to seem like…

“Because it’s my nesting site and I don’t want the dirty little egg-sucker cooking right beside it. That’s why!”

“So I have to carry it out of the nursery, all the way to cool ground? Is that it?”

“You caught it!”

“Crawling into your nest!”

“So now it’s my nest, is it? And I suppose they’ll be my hatch-lings? My responsibility while you’re off hunting with your friends.”

…words.

And familiar words at that. Through a thick sibilant accent it sounded remarkably like an argument his Aunt Denise and Uncle Steve’d had about dispatching a rat caught live in the kitchen. Which didn’t actually change anything.

“Our nest sweetie. I meant to say, our nest.”

“You say that now. You don’t mean it.”

Through eyes beginning to water from the volcanic fumes, Dean noticed that the lizard with his aunt’s lines was the larger by a significant margin. Sucking warm air through the filter of his teeth, he altered his path slightly so that he’d enter the smaller lizard’s space.

The boy screamed again and lashed out with one filthy, callused heel. The smaller lizard howled and lost his grip. For a moment the boy twisted and kicked, dangling only a foot or so off the ground then, just as it seemed he might get free, the larger lizard grabbed his ankle with her other hand.

“Honestly. You can catch them, why can’t you hold onto them?”

“It kicked me!”

“Stop acting like such a hatchling and remember you’re about to be…” The lizard’s amber eyes widened. “Behind you, Jurz! It’s another one!”

Belatedly, Dean realized that the “other one” she was referring to was him. He realized it when Jurz, moving much faster on his bulky back legs than he’d expected, whirled around, pushed off with a thick tapering tail, and landed behind him, grabbing both his upper arms in a painful grip. He froze as talons pierced his shirt and punctured the skin. Even if he’d been able to turn, the lizard’s body would have blocked his view of the elevator.

“Good gorg, Coriz, this one’s huge!”

Coriz leaned forward and peered nearsightedly down at him, holding the boy tighter against her chest. “And it’s a funny color.”

Dean felt his hair being lifted by the force of Jurz’ inhalation.

“And it’s clean! Maybe,” he added thoughtfully, “we could eat it.”

“Eat it! Are you out of your mind?” Coriz sat back on her tail, shifting her hold on the boy. “It’s still a filthy egg-sucker no matter how clean it is. People get sick from eating those vermin!”

“Hey!” The insult broke through the terror. “Who’re you callin’ vermin?”

Both lizards stiffened. The boy continued struggling.

“Look, this whole thing is a major misunderstanding.” It took an effort to speak calmly with five small, painful holes in each arm, but Dean managed. Coriz stared at him—with no nose, nor eyebrows, nor lips to speak of, he couldn’t read her expression, but he could feel the weight of Jurz’ gaze on the top of his head. He obviously had their attention. All he had to do was stall until Claire arrived to save him. “Why don’t we just talk this over….”

“Talk?” Coriz squeaked and dropped the boy.

Who took off at a dead run, occasionally using his hands against the rock for better speed as he escaped.

“Talk?” she repeated, rearing back on her tail. “It TALKS?”

“Of course it doesn’t talk,” Jurz muttered nervously. “It’s just making sounds, imitating speech.”

Although he couldn’t be positive, Dean thought the female lizard looked relieved. “No! You’re wrong!” Struggling drove the talons in deeper. “I’m talking!”

They ignored him.

“Imitating speech, of course.” Coriz sighed, the tension leaving her narrow shoulders.

“I’m not imitating…”

“Still, it does seem somehow more evolved than the others we’ve caught.”

Jurz’ grip shifted, poking new holes into his left arm. Without the talons filling the punctures, the originals began to dribble blood. “Do I kill it?”

“Of course you kill it.”

“Hey!”

“Hopefully, it hasn’t bred. Just imagine if the egg-suckers started to think.” She shuddered. “They do enough damage to the nests now.”

On cue came the horrible sound of smashing shells.

“MY BABIES!”

Jurz dropped Dean, smacked him toward the lava pit with his tail, and raced after his howling mate. Fortunately, he misjudged either the distance or the weight of the object he was attempting to sink.

Legs out over the pit, bottoms of his jeans beginning to scorch and his feet inside the steel toes of his workboots uncomfortably hot, hands abraded by the hardened lava, Dean stopped himself at the last possible instant. Rolling forward, he collapsed as flat as the terrain allowed, trying to catch his breath.

“Come on!” Claire knew she didn’t have a hope of lifting Dean if he was actually injured, but that didn’t stop her from grabbing at his arm and hauling upward. “Jacques isn’t going to hold them for long.” The fabric compacted warm and damp under her hands.

Sucking in an unwelcome lungful of air, Dean shook her off and, coughing, heaved himself up onto his feet. “Jacques?”

“He’s dead. They can’t hurt him.” Claire gaped at the smear of red across her palms. “How bad is it?”

“Not bad.”

“Can you run?”

He shoved his glasses back into place. “Sure. No problem.”

Side by side they pounded back toward the elevator propelled by enraged howls and French Canadian invective.

Twenty feet from safety, Jacques caught up. “I have no smell,” he explained, effortlessly keeping pace. “Les lezards, they count the eggs but that should not take them…”

The howls changed timbre.

“…long.”

When Dean stopped to roll a hunk of obsidian away from the door, Claire hip-checked him over the threshold, grabbed the rock, and flung it toward their pursuers.

The howls changed again.

“OW! Coriz, they hit me with a rock!”

“Egg-suckers don’t use weapons.”

“But I’ve got a bump!”

The door cut off further diagnosis.

“What part,” Claire gasped, dropping the gate into place and turning to glare at Dean, “of no one leaves the elevator did you not understand?”

“They were about to kill the kid.”

“So? He was robbing their nest. Stealing their eggs. Making omelets.”

“I couldn’t just watch him die!”

“Then we should have closed the door.”

“You don’t mean that.”

She did. Or she thought she did until she met his eyes and discovered that he believed she’d have gone to the rescue herself had he not been there. “Forget it. Go straight to the basement. No arguments.”

Dean pushed the lever all the way to the left “No arguments,” he agreed. Passing the second floor, he glanced over at Jacques. “Did you really break one of their eggs?”

“And how do I do that?” the ghost asked, pushing his hand through the wall of the elevator. “I touch nothing.”

“I stomped on a bunch of shells that had already hatched,” Claire explained. “Jacques stayed behind to distract them.”

“Why didn’t you…”

“Use magic? Because the possibilities were different there and, since you decided to play hero, I didn’t have time to work out a way through. Look at me, I’m filthy. I had to lie down on that black stuff with my feet still in the elevator to reach a rock for the door, and if you ever pull such a stupid, boneheaded stunt again, I’m leaving you to cook in the lava pit! Do I make myself clear?”

Ears burning, Dean ducked his head. “Yes, Boss.”

“When we reach bottom, I want a look at those arms.”

“It’s nothing.” A drop of blood traced a trail over the back of his hand, down his index finger, and dripped onto the floor.

She glared at him through slitted eyes. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“A glass of rum in the belly and one on the wounds. He will be fine, Claire.”

“I have antibiotic cream in my bathroom,” Dean offered hurriedly. “I can take care of it.”

“Bring the cream to the dining room.” As the bottom of the elevator settled into its concrete basin, Claire tossed up the gate, picked up the doily, and stomped out into the basement.

“You stink like an active volcano,” Austin complained, jumping down off a shelf. “Have a nice time?”

All three brushed by him without answering. Dean went into his apartment. Jacques followed Claire up the basement stairs.

“Guess not.” He stuck his head over the threshold and sniffed at the bit of tentacle lying on the floor. His ears went back. “Who let the sushi out of the fridge?”

“So stoic,” Jacques murmured sarcastically as Dean, sitting on the dining room table, tried not to jerk his arm out from under Claire’s ministrations. “So much a man.”

“Stuff a sock in it,” Dean grunted.

“So articulate.”

“Stop it. Both of you.” Shirtless, Dean had pretty much lived up to Claire’s expectations. Eyes locked on the wounds instead of the rippling expanse of bare chest, she dabbed antibiotic cream on the punctures and fought to keep her mind on the job. “None of these are deep. You were lucky. He could’ve ripped your whole arm off. Both arms.” She was babbling. She knew it, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “Ripped both your stupid arms off and thrown them on the ground.” He not only looked great, he smelled terrific. Which had nothing to do with the matter at hand. Nothing at all. “You’d have bled to death before I could get to you. You could have been killed.”

Jacques snickered. “Such a magnifique manner beside the bed, cherie.”

“I’m just saying,” she began, and stopped. “I’m just saying,” she repeated, “that I need him to run this hotel and…” If she hadn’t looked up and seen Dean watching her, his expression teetering halfway between hope and disappointment, she could’ve left it at that. “…I’ve gotten used to having him around and I don’t…” The end of one finger covered in cream, she poked at the last three punctures. “…want him dead.”

“Ow.”

“Sorry.”

“About what?” Austin asked, jumping up onto the table beside Dean. “And what happened to your arms? And, just out of curiosity, why don’t you have any chest hair?”

While a blushing Dean shrugged into his shirt, Claire answered the first two questions.

“And the chest hair?” the cat prodded when she finished.

She picked him up and dropped him on the floor.

“You’re just mad because I was right,” he muttered as he jumped back up again. “I can see the sign now. This elevator holds a maximum of…How many dimensions?”

“That’s not important.”

“It will be to the elevator certification guys.”

“I’ll get some drywall and reseal the doors tomorrow,” Dean offered.

“No.” When three pairs of eyes locked on her, she shrugged. “I’d like to study it for a while, maybe I can fix it. It’s perfectly safe if you all stay off it.”

“And if you stay off it cherie.”

“I know enough to stay in it.”

“Penny for your thoughts?” Austin asked from the other pillow.

Claire rolled onto her side and stroked his head. “That only works if you hand me the penny,” she reminded him.

“If I had hands…”

She smiled. “I was thinking about…” How Jacques and I make a good team. How I felt when I saw Dean lying on the rocks. How one of them’s too young and the other’s too dead. How a Keeper should be able to keep her mind on the job even if it has been six months which is a bit of personal information relevant to absolutely nothing. “…the elevator.”

“Really?”

Why doesn’t Dean have any chest hair? “Uh-huh.”

“Liar.”

ISN’T THAT OUR LINE?