Summon The Keeper

THIRTEEN

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN WEEKS, as the pipes banged out the news that Claire was in the shower, Dean wasn’t lost in daydreams of soap and water. Kneeling by the bed, he pulled out his old hockey bag, the only luggage he’d brought from back home. It was pretty obvious that Claire thought they could just go on as though he hadn’t been willing to murder Faith Dunlop’s boyfriend for no greater crime than being a total moron. Maybe she could, but that sort of thing changed a guy.

Changed the way he looked at himself.

Maybe it was time he moved on.

“I see Dean’s truck is gone.”

Claire picked up her breakfast dishes, stared at them for a moment, and then carried them over to the sink. “He left about ten minutes ago.”

Austin sat by his empty dish and curled his tail around his front feet. “He left without feeding the cat.”

“You have such a rough life.” She picked up a can and a knife and froze, eyes locked on the empty parking lot.

After a moment, Austin sighed. “Get a grip! He went for groceries, like he does every Saturday morning.”

“I know.” Under blouse and sweater, she could feel goose bumps lifting. “I just had this incredible sense of foreboding.”

“Which is nothing compared to what you’re going to have if you don’t feed the cat.”

“Can’t you feel it?” she asked, scooping food into his dish. “When I think of Dean, I get the feeling that events are poised on the edge of a precipice.”

“A simple solution, cherie; do not think of Dean.”

Straightening, Claire drew in a deep breath. She hadn’t been looking forward to this, not after the way she’d smacked Jacques away from her yesterday.

When she turned, the ghost was sitting cross-legged on the dining room table—a position he favored because of how it irritated Dean. He grinned at her. “Why the long face, cherie? The day, she is sunny, Dean is gone, and me, I am here for company.”

Claire searched his face unsuccessfully for any lingering sign of hurt and betrayal.

“Ah.” The grin broadened. “You cannot see enough of me.”

“Yesterday…”

“I am dead since 1922,” he reminded her, with a matter-of-fact shrug. “I cannot carry all my yesterdays with me. Although,” he winked, “some I remember very well and am anxious to repeat.”

“Not now…”

“Oui, not now, not here. Although,” he glanced around and smiled broadly, “you and me on this table; it would give the old lady something to see, yes?”

“No.”

“Fraidy-cat.” He blew her a kiss and dematerialized.

“Some of us,” Austin muttered, jumping onto a chair and then up onto the counter, “don’t appreciate the word cat being used in a derogatory manner. If you’ve left the television on PBS, he’s going to be right back.”

“It’s probably still on TSN. I didn’t check.”

He rubbed his head against her elbow. “You okay?”

“I don’t know. Nothing’s changed with Jacques and everything seems changed with Dean. I can’t figure it out.”

“It’s simple. Jacques is dead, he can’t change. Dean’s alive, he can’t not change. Now me, I’m a cat. I don’t need to change.”

She reached down and scratched him gently between the ears. “What about me?”

“You need to move your fingers a little to the left. More. Ahhhhh. That’s got it.”

An hour later, perched precariously on top of the stepladder, eyes squinted nearly shut against the thin November sun, Claire razored masking tape off the windows. As expected, there’d been no change in the shields around Aunt Sara and Hell. She’d written as much in the site journal and now had the rest of the day to fill. Jacques was watching television, Dean was still out, and if the masking tape didn’t come off soon, it’d be there until Hell froze over.

SHE’S THINKING OF US.

SO? KEEP WORKING.

WE’LL NEVER WAKE HER USING SEEPAGE. The rest of Hell sounded sulky.

I DON’T NEED TO WAKE HER. I MERELY NEED TO UNBALANCE THE BALANCE OF POWER. SHE’LL DO THE REST.

WHO?

HER.

HER?

NO! HER, YOU IDIOT!

Picking bits of tape off the edge of the blade, Claire could just barely make out the unmistakable shapes of Mrs. Abrams and Baby by the driveway. Baby seemed to be sniffing the fresh concrete around the base of the railings.

“I don’t suppose you want to go chase that dog off our property?”

“You suppose correctly.” Sprawled in a patch of sunlight, Austin didn’t bother opening his eyes. “But I’ll pencil in a visit for later in the afternoon.”

“I can’t see the fun in bothering a dog that neurotic.”

“You can’t see the fun in shredding the furniture either. Don’t worry about it.”

When Baby’s head rose suddenly, ears flattened against his skull, Claire leaned forward to see what had caught his attention. The approaching pedestrian seemed to have no idea of the danger.

“Oh, no.” Although details had been washed out by the light, she knew that shape. Knew the way it moved. Watched it make a fuss over the big dog who, after a moment of visible confusion, actually wagged his stump of a tail.

Climbing down off the ladder, reluctantly deciding it might be safer if she wasn’t holding the razor blade, Claire walked to the door and opened it.

Mrs. Abrams turned as she came out onto the step. “Yoo hoo! Courtney! Look who’s here! It’s your sister, Diana. She’s come for a visit; isn’t that nice?”

“Swell.”

Diana looked up from murmuring endearments in under the points of Baby’s ears. “Isn’t this the sweetest doggie you’ve ever seen?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s a real cream puff.”

Giving the Doberman a final pat and telling Mrs. Abrams she hoped to see her again, Diana picked up her backpack, ran up the front steps, and paused to examine Claire critically. “You ought to let your hair grow out, I can’t believe you’re wearing mascara in the house, and didn’t I tell you that nail polish was bad for the environment?”

Claire stepped back and motioned her sister inside. “I don’t want to. I don’t care. And what are you talking about?”

“Nail polish remover is like, so toxic.” She turned on the threshold to wave at Mrs. Abrams and Baby, then bounded inside. “Nice paint job. Forest green. Very trendy. Hey, Austin.”

He lifted his head, sighed deeply, and let it fall back to the countertop. “Shoot me now.”

ANOTHER KEEPER!

IT’S A CHILD. KEEP YOUR MIND ON YOUR WORK.

BUT THERE’S TWO OF THEM!

AND THERE’S VERY NEARLY AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF ME.

The rest of Hell considered the implied threat. GOOD POINT.

“Diana, why are you here?”

“I’m needed.”

“For what?”

“I’m a Keeper.” She ducked under the flap into the office. “We go where we’re summoned, and I was summoned here.”

“Here?”

“Uh-huh. Right here. Are you still using this old computer? You must’ve bought it, what, two, three years ago?”

“Three and a half, and don’t touch it”

“Chill, I’m not going to hurt it.” She tapped lightly on the monitor. “Oops.” At Claire’s low growl, she grinned. “Kidding. It’s not even turned on.”

“Diana.”

“What?”

Claire took a deep breath and tried to remember where the conversation had diverged from the important questions. “Do Mom and Dad know you’re here?”

“No. I snuck out in the middle of the night.” Diana rolled her eyes. “Of course they know I’m here. They’re Cousins. I’m a Keeper. And, at the irritating risk of repeating myself, I was summoned.”

“All right. You were summoned. So?”

“So I guess I’m here to help you.”

“You want to help?” Austin muttered. “Take a man off her hands.”

“As if. Didn’t Mom tell you? I’m a lesbian.”

Claire sighed. “Isn’t everyone?”

“You know, Claire…” Arms folded over her black jean jacket, Diana’s eyes narrowed. “…I get the feeling you’re not happy to see me.”

“It’s just…”

“…that the thought of you and Hell in the same building is enough to give anyone with half a brain serious palpitations,” Austin finished.

“No problem.” Diana raised both hands to shoulder height, backpack sliding down her arm to swing in the crook of her elbow. “I solemnly swear to stay away from the furnace room. Now are you happy to see me?”

Claire’s better judgment suggested she send Diana home immediately, summons or no summons. She had no idea what part of her kept repeating, but she’s your kid sister, as though that had any relevance at all. Whatever part it turned out to be, it was doing a good job of drowning out her common sense. “All right I’m happy to see you. Now what?”

“Now, you give me the guided tour.”

There was a soccer game on in her sitting room; a dozen guys in green and white appeared to be running circles around a dozen guys in red and black. Claire wasn’t even certain that they’d played soccer in Canada when Jacques died, but he was interested enough in this particular match that he’d faded out until only a faint distortion remained in the air above the sofa.

“Imbecile!”

Claire’d been half hoping he wouldn’t be there at all, but since he was, and since she couldn’t come up with any kind of a believable reason for him not to meet her sister, she called his name.

“Do you see that? The ball goes right by him, but he does not move to kicks it!”

“Kick it.”

“Tabernac! Qui t’a dit que tu puissejouer a balle?”

“Jacques, there’s someone here who wants to meet you.”

He snorted. “Why not? These people, they are asleep!”

Reaching past him, Claire picked up the remote and muted the TV. “Could you focus?”

“Focus?” He looked down through himself. “Ah, d’accord.”

By the time Diana came into the room, his edges had firmed up. His eyes widened and he walked through the sofa toward her. “Another Keeper? And so young and beautiful.”

Recognizing the reaction, Claire sighed. “Jacques, this is my sister Diana.”

“Diana, fair huntress of the bow. Although,” he added thoughtfully, “given how the rest have fallen, no doubt she is now fat and old.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s a long story,” Claire answered before Jacques had a chance. “There, you’ve met him. Let’s leave, so he can get back to his game.”

Jacques glanced speculatively at her through his lashes. “Are you ashamed of me, cherie?”

“It’s not you,” Diana told him. “It’s me.”

“I’m going to the kitchen for a coffee, you kids have a blast working it out. Wait a minute!” Claire jabbed a finger in her sister’s direction. “You just forget I said the word blast.”

The coffee helped. Claire sank into her regular chair at the dining room table and took another long swallow. Showing Diana the hotel had been exhausting. When they ended up in front of room six for the second time, Claire had accused her sister of clouding her mind. The resultant denials had lasted down all three flights of stairs and had been no more believable in the lobby than they had originally.

She’d emptied the mug and begun worrying about what Jacques and Diana were discussing when Dean’s truck drove up. The feeling of impending doom returned. All the hair on her body standing uncomfortably on end, she hurried outside, ostensibly to help him carry in the groceries.

Reaching past him for a pair of canvas bags, she tried to sound nonchalant as she asked if he was all right.

“Sure.”

He sounded all right; depressed maybe, but not doomed. She checked for the taint of dark or eldritch powers and found only that frozen peas were on sale for a dollar thirty-nine. “No trouble at the grocery store?”

“No.”

“No trouble with the truck?”

“No.” Dean held open the back door and stood aside so Claire could enter the building first. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. I understand now why you don’t trust me.”

Teeth gritted, she put the bags down and turned to face him. “No, really, I don’t know.”

“She doesn’t know why I’m here? Or she doesn’t know when I’m leaving? Which?”

Claire’s nostrils flared. She’d intended to tell Dean about her premonition but not in front of her sister. Diana in the same room with impending doom practically guaranteed Armageddon. “She’ll be leaving on Sunday night because she’s got school on Monday morning and she’s already missed too much of it this year. Dean, this is my sister Diana.”

“Hey.” She waggled a hand in an exaggerated wave.

It was the first time Dean had felt like smiling all morning. Although the sisters looked superficially alike—dark hair and eyes, short and thin—energy popped and fizzed around Diana as though she’d been carbonated. “Hi.”

“So you’re from Newfoundland?”

“That’s right.” Picking up the bag with the produce, he began putting things away.

“I’ve never been there.”

“You’d have noticed,” Claire added, passing over a package of luncheon meat.

“So.” Diana picked up a loaf of bread and examined it critically. “Did you always want to work in a hotel?”

“No. I just needed a job.”

“I hear Augustus Smythe was a real tyrant.”

“He wasn’t so bad.”

“Worse than Claire?”

He stared down into a net bag of cooking onions. “Different.”

“Still, I guess you get to meet a lot of interesting people working here. Vampires and werewolves and…Ow! Claire!”

They were standing about ten feet apart but, obviously, that hadn’t been far enough. Dean had no idea of what was going on and no intention of getting between them. “Yeah,” he said, folding the bags and putting them away, “lots of interesting people.”

“How long are you planning on staying around?”

“Actually…” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned to face Claire. “Actually, I’ve been thinking of leaving.”

“Leaving?”

“Yeah. You know, getting on with my life.”

Silently congratulating herself for maintaining a neutral expression, Claire wondered why her reflection in his glasses looked as though she’d just been punched in the stomach. “When?”

“Soon. If you want, this can be my two week notice.” When Claire gave no indication of what she wanted, he shrugged. “Nice meeting you, Diana. I’ve got to go make some phone calls.”

“Well, thud,” Diana said, as he disappeared down the basement stairs.

Claire felt as though she were waking up from a bad dream, the kind where she was trying to cross the road but her feet kept sticking in the asphalt and there were two trucks and a red compact car bearing down on her. “What do you mean, thud?”

“Thud. The sound of the other shoe dropping.” Diana straight-armed herself up to sit on the edge of the counter. “A little more than a month ago, Mom said Dean was the most grounded guy she’d ever seen and now look at him. You’ve just cut the ground right out from under him, haven’t you?”

“I have not.”

“He must really dig your looks ’cause it can’t be your personality.”

“Diana!”

“I mean, Jacques is cuter than I expected and, okay, he makes me laugh with those corny pickup lines, but he’s dead. In spite of the glasses, Dean’s big-time beefcake. If I can see that, you should be able to. You had the perfect opportunity here, and you blew it.”

“The perfect opportunity for what?” Claire demanded.

“For making the best of the situation and building a partnership with a really nice guy. Not my personal cup of tea, but a lot of people would jump at the chance.”

“Why can’t a man and a woman run a hotel together and just be friends?”

“Well, gee, I don’t know, Claire. You’re the one doing the horizontal mambo with the dead guy, you tell me?”

“We’re not talking about Jacques!”

“Sure we are. Enlighten me; if you needed to bed one of them, and obviously you felt a need, why Jacques and not Dean? Don’t answer, I’ll tell you. They’re both bystanders so that’s not it. Is it because Dean’s alive? No, from what I hear that’s never been a problem in the past. Oh wait, could it be because you’re an ageist?”

“A what?”

“You heard me, an age-ist! You think I’m incompetent because I’m younger than you, and you ignore the evidence and think Dean’s a kid for the same reason.”

“I don’t have to stand here and listen to this.”

“True.”

“I have work to do.”

“Okay. Go do it.”

“Fine. I will.” About to leave the kitchen, Claire whirled back around to glare at her sister. “Don’t blow the place up while I’m not watching.”

“I came to help, remember.”

“Oh, you’ve been a big help.”

Leaning back and kicking her heels against the lower cabinets, Diana waited until she heard the door to Claire’s sitting room slam shut before she smiled triumphantly. “Made her think.”

“And I’m all for that,” Austin agreed, jumping up beside her. “As long as you don’t blow the place up while she’s not watching.”

“I promised I’d stay out of the furnace room.”

“Good for you.”

“How come Claire screwed things up so badly?”

The cat shrugged. “She’s a Keeper. She’s trained to come in post-disaster and deal with the mess, so she has to make a mess of any potential relationships before she feels competent to deal with them.”

“I’m a Keeper and I don’t do that.”

“Yet,” Austin said, looking superior.

Golf had replaced the soccer game and Jacques was gone. Still steaming, Claire turned off the television and stomped through to the bedroom. In order to get far enough from her sister to keep from wringing her neck, she’d have to leave the hotel. Yanking open the wardrobe door, she stepped inside.

Right at the moment, she’d enjoy dealing with a troop of killer Girl Guides.

Still sitting on the counter, Diana searched the cupboards for cookies, found three-quarters of a bag of fudge creams, and sat happily eating them while she worked out a way to fix Claire’s life.

Obviously, Claire needed to leave the hotel.

Since no other Keeper had arrived to take over the site, the site had to be closed.

In order for the site to be closed, the exact parameters of the current seal had to be determined.

“And since there’s only one remaining witness…” Scattering cookie crumbs, Diana jumped down off the counter. “…the logical solution would be to ask her.” She snapped her fingers toward the kitchen and headed for the stairs.

Behind her, the crumbs cleaned themselves up and dropped into the garbage.

Paying only enough attention to keep from tripping over unexpected phenomena, Claire strode deeper into the wardrobe.

There were, Diana realized, a couple of ways to get into room six. The first involved pulling enough power to melt the locks, but that kind of heat would probably also burn down the building.

She went looking for a set of keys.

I should have told her flat out that it was none of her damn…darned business. Her mind on other things, Claire moved toward a soft gray light. I am not an ageist.

“Hey, Dean, sorry to bother you, but I wanted to go poke around in the attic ’cept the door’s locked and Claire’s gone off with her keys.”

“Claire’s gone? Where’s she at?”

“Oh, she stomped off into the wardrobe.” Rocking backward and forward, heel to toe, Diana grinned up at him. “We had a fight, and she took off to think about what I said. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Keepers have this tendency to think they’re always right.”

Dean’s brows rose. “Aren’t you a Keeper, then?”

“Well, sure, but that doesn’t make Claire any less of a pedagogue.”

“A what?”

“A know-it-all.” Her eyes gleamed. “Although I’m leaving off a few choice adjectives. The attic?”

“Okay, sure.” He pulled his key ring from his pocket dropped it in Diana’s outstretched palm. “It’s the big black one. You, uh, know about Jacques, then? The ghost? He might be in the attic.”

“Yeah, Claire told me all about him.” Closing her hand around the keys, she reached out and punched Dean lightly on the arm. “Don’t worry, you’re better off without her. She snores.”

Don’t worry? If Claire told her sister all about Jacques, Dean thought, watching Diana bound back up the basement stairs, what did she tell her about you, boy?

“Don’t stand around with your thumb up your butt. What do you want?”

Claire’s wandering attention snapped home. She was standing in a long room, lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Directly in front of her, sitting at a library table stacked with shoe boxes, was an older woman with soft white curls, wearing an ink-stained flowered smock. “Historian!”

“I know who I am,” the Historian snapped. “Who the hell are you?”

“Claire, Claire Hansen. I’m a Keeper.”

“You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. Wait a minute.” The Historian’s eyes narrowed, collapsing the pale skin around them into a network of grandmotherly wrinkles. “I remember now, you were here three years, twelve days, eleven hours and forty-two minutes ago looking up some political thing. Did you finish with it?”

“The site?”

“No, democracy.”

“Uh, not yet.”

“Crap. You wouldn’t believe the amount of paperwork it generates.” She sighed and pushed away from the desk, giving Claire her first good look at the computer system nearly buried in shoe boxes.

“Is that one of the new 200MHz processors?”

“New? It was obsolete months ago. History. That’s why it’s here. So, since I tend to discourage social visits, what can I do for you?”

It took Claire a moment to get past her anger at Diana and remember. “Kingston, Ontario, 1945; two Keepers stopped another Keeper from gaining control of Hell.”

“How nice for us all.”

“I need to know how they did it.”

“Damned if I know.” When Claire frowned, the Historian sighed. “Keepers, no sense of humor.” She pointed an ink-stained finger along the bookshelves. “The forties are about a hundred yards that way. The year you’re looking for was bound in green.” Then, muttering, “Hansen,” over and over to herself, she opened up a shoe box that had once held a size nine-and-a-half cross trainer, and pulled out a digital tape. The plastic case appeared to be slightly charred. “When you get home, tell your sister I’d like to have a word.”

The padlock slid into her hand with a satisfactory plop. Diana slipped it into her pocket and returned her attention to the key ring. Dean had the master neatly labeled with a piece of adhesive tape.

All she had to do now was push.

Heart pounding, she gripped the doorknob.

I’ll just bring Aunt Sara up to partial consciousness, ask her a few questions, and take her back down again. Piece of cake.

What good was power if she never got to use it? Claire was going to be so pissed when she got home and found her younger sister had all the answers.

Sara, herself, turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.

While the old adage, the more human evil looks the more dangerous it is, was undeniably true, Diana had been expecting at least some outward indication of the heinous crime Sara had attempted—small horns, visible scars, overdue library books—but from the look of things, she hadn’t even been having a bad hair day. The only incongruous point about her whole body was that her very red lips glistened, dust free.

…but had there not been problems with the sacrificial virgin, the Keepers would never have arrived in time. Not until Aunt Sara had Margaret Anne Groseter suspended over the pit and had made the first cut did she realize that the girl, although only fifteen was not suitable.

Feeling as though the big green binder of 1945, Kin to Kip, had just smacked her on the back of the head, Claire read that paragraph again.

Margaret Anne Groseter.

“Mr. Smythe told me that she lived in the house next door her whole life. He said it used to be Groseter’s Rooming House and Mr. Abrams was a roomer who didn’t move fast enough and got broadsided.”

“It’s not possible.”

For Mrs. Abrams to have been fifteen in 1945, she had to have been born in 1930. Which would put her in her late sixties. With a virtual thumb blocking the bouffant orange hair of a mind’s eye view, Claire supposed it was possible.

“I used to be quite progressive in my younger days.”

It was, Claire reflected, occasionally terrifying knowing the exact measure of the fulcrum that Fate used to lever the world.

Stepping through the shield, Diana had a momentary qualm. The emanations rising from the sleeper were stronger than she’d expected. It wouldn’t be easy accessing power surrounded by such potent malevolence.

“On the other hand,” she cracked her fingers and moved up to the head of the bed, “if it were easy, everybody’d be doing it.”

…however, it took the combined strength of both Keepers to achieve the necessary balance of power between Sara and the pit, and even then she nearly broke free of their restraints.

Given the urgency of the situation, the Keepers on the scene felt it best to use a slam, bam, thank you, ma’am approach.

The Historian clearly believed in making history accessible to the masses.

Reaching carefully through the middle possibilities for power, Diana trickled a tiny amount into the matrix that held Sara asleep.

As the patterns in the dark emanations changed, a howling Austin raced into the room, trailing a cloud of shed fur. “Diana, stop! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

I TOLD YOU NOT TO WORRY ABOUT THE SECOND KEEPER. SHE’S HELPING US!

DO WHAT?

SHUT UP AND BE READY.

The cat gathered himself to leap just as Sara’s lips parted and drew a long breath in past the edges of yellowed teeth.

NOW!

At the top of an infinite number of voices, Hell shouted Sara’s name up the conduit.

With the seepage added to Diana’s power, the balance tipped.

Sara opened her eyes.

Her own eyes wide, Diana tried to block the power surge. One second. Two. A force too complicated for her shields to stop slammed into her, dropping her to her knees.

Yowling, Austin landed on the end of the bed.

Sara smiled and raised a finger.

The energy flare caught him full in the face, lifted him into the air, and smashed him against the wall between the two windows. The first bounce dropped him into the remains of the fern. The second dropped him unresisting to the floor.

“NO!” Unable to stand, Diana crawled toward the body. A warm hand clamped down on one shoulder stopped her cold.

“I don’t think so.”

As Sara’s grip dragged her around to face the bed, Diana put up no resistance. When Sara’s eyes met hers, she grabbed for all the power she could handle and smashed it down on the other Keeper like a club.

Sara didn’t even bother swatting it aside. She absorbed it, twisted it, and wrapped it around Diana like a shroud. “My mouth tastes like the inside of a sewer,” she muttered, running her tongue over her teeth. “Christ on churches, but I could use a cigarette.”

…unfortunately, as both Keepers were drawn from troops about to leave for the European theater, this temporary solution…

“Claire Hansen?”

“In a minute. I’ve almost got it”

“Suit yourself, Keeper, but I just got an e-mail telling me to reactivate that bit of history you’re reading.”

Claire looked up from the binder. “What do you mean reactivate?”

“Probably got a couple of loose ends tying themselves up.”

“Probably?” Claire scrambled to her feet. Any loose ends had come untied since she’d left. “What’s happening?”

“How should I know? I don’t mess with the present I do history. Put the book back on the shelf before you…” The Historian sighed and moved a black three onto a red four as Claire raced away through the ages. “And they wonder why I don’t like company.”

“Would it have hurt them to have dusted me on occasion? I don’t think so.” Lifting a thrashing Diana about three feet off the floor, Sara tied the laces of the young Keeper’s black high-tops together and used them as a handle to drag her through the air toward the door.

Chewing on the power gag that held her silent, Diana dug her fingers into the doorjamb.

“Let go or lose them, your choice.” It was clearly a literal offer. “I, personally, don’t care. I know what you’re thinking,” she continued as Diana reluctantly released the wood. “You’re thinking that all you have to do is delay me and sooner or later more Keepers will arrive. Well, they won’t. And do you know why? Of course not, you’re a child….”

Tiny wisps of steam rose up from Diana’s ears.

Sara smiled and ignored them. “…you couldn’t possibly comprehend how I work. Over fifty years ago, two interfering busybodies put a shield around me. Specifically, around me. It’s still there. No one will know I’m awake until it’s much too late.”

As the sound of Sara’s gloating receded down the hall, several small, multicolored figures came out from behind various pieces of furniture and moved purposefully toward the limp body of the cat.

Running full out, Claire still hadn’t reached the end of the bookshelves.

“Stop thinking about the past!”

Distorted by echoes, it could have been anyone’s voice. Claire didn’t waste time turning to check. She needed a door. She couldn’t get home without going through a door.

“Hello, handsome. Are there any more at home like you?”

Pressed up against the wall in the lobby. Dean had a sudden memory of a fish flopping about the gaff that pinned it to the bottom of the boat. It didn’t stop him from struggling, but it did give him a pretty good idea of how successful that struggle would be.

When he finally sagged, exhausted, he felt the sharp points of fingernails lift his chin off his chest.

“Very nice,” Sara cooed. “I’ve always been a big fan of flexing and sweating.” Slipping her fingers into the front pocket of his jeans, she pulled the denim away from his body and dropped the keys into the pouch. “Thanks so very much for your help. I don’t suppose you have a cigarette on you?”

Dean shook his head and dragged himself out of the pale depths of her eyes. They were same gray/blue as the heart of an iceberg only less compassionate. He nodded toward Diana’s thrashing body. “She said she was going into the attic. I thought Keepers couldn’t lie.”

“Bystanders can’t lie to a Keeper, but we’re actually very good at lying to…” Sara ducked and the old leather-bound registration book whipped over her head and slammed corner first into the wall. As the ancient binding gave way and yellowed pages fluttered to the ground, she measured the dent between thumb and forefinger. “Nice try, Jacques. I’m amazed you managed that much ectoplasmic energy.” Leaning toward Dean, she whispered, “He must’ve gotten lucky in the last couple of days.”

Eyes watering, Dean turned his head away. Her breath would’ve peeled the paint off the gut cans at the processing plant.

“Hey!” A fingernail opened a small cut in his cheek. “You sleep for that long and see what kind of a morning mouth you wake up with.”

The brass bell rose off the counter and smacked into her shoulder.

“This is getting tiresome, Jacques.” She turned to face the office. “Technically, I should have dust and ash for this, but we’ll just have to make do with an abundance of dust.” A gentle push sent Diana down the hall toward the basement stairs. With both hands free, Sara scraped a bit of fuzz off the front of her skirt and drew two symbols in the air.

Dean braced for bad poetry, but he needn’t have bothered.

Both symbols glowed red.

Jacques snapped into focus between the symbols. Eyes wide with terror, he twisted and fought, and when Sara smacked her palms together, he exploded into a thousand tiny lights that scattered in all directions.

Praying silently, Dean worked his left hand free and snagged two of the lights as they went by. They burned as they touched his skin, but he closed his fingers around them and faced Sara with both hands curled into fists.

“Well,” she said, “that takes care of him. You, however, I can use.”

SHE’S GOING TO TRY IT AGAIN!

WOULD YOU STOP WORRYING! A FEW DECADES AT HER BECK AND CALL AND THEN WE’RE FREE.

AND YOU THINK SHE’LL WANT HELL WAITING FOR HER WHEN SHE DIES?

After a long silence, Hell muttered, YOU MIGHT HAVE BROUGHT THAT UP BEFORE.

SHE’S SEALING THE PIT! WE CAN’T STOP HER!

NO. NOT FROM IN HERE….

First there were no doors, and then there was nothing but doors. Claire’d charged into three saunas, two walk-in freezers, something animated she couldn’t identify, and more hotel rooms than she wanted to count.

“Yoo hoo! Cornelia! Diana! I was taking Baby out for his walkies and I just popped by to see if you…” Mrs. Abrams froze on the threshold, her mouth opening and closing but no sound emerging. Finally she managed a strangled, “I remember you!”

“That was an oversight on somebody’s part,” Sara observed as she tied the laces of Dean’s work boots together. “Please, come in and close the door.”

One hand pressed against the polyester swell of her bosom, Mrs. Abrams shuffled forward.

“And the door,” Sara prodded. “Don’t forget to close it.”

Although her movements were pretty much limited to impotent thrashing, Diana managed to bring herself closer to the wall. Twisting left, she slammed her heels into the plaster.

Mrs. Abrams jerked at the sound and took a step backward, toward escape.

Sara raised a hand, and Diana found herself wrapped even more tightly in power. All her strength, all her attention, focused on drawing air through constricted passageways.

“Margaret Anne. Close the door.”

Margaret Anne Abrams, née Groseter, had been fifteen the last time Sara had commanded her. A lot of water had passed under the bridge since then, and little old ladies were not without power of their own. Taking a breath so deep it stood each orange hair on end, she rallied. “Don’t you talk to me in that tone of voice, young woman! I’ll have you know that I’m the head of the Women’s Auxiliary at our church and I’ve five times been volunteer of the year at the hospital. Look at you, you’re all covered in dust. If I were you I’d be ashamed to go out in that…” Her voice trailed off as Sara’s pale eyes narrowed and she expelled the last of the breath in a squeaky cry for help. “Baby!”

Secured by a leather leash to his own front porch. Baby lifted his wedge-shaped head off his paws.

He heard his master calling.

Lips pulled back off his teeth, the big Doberman surged up onto his feet and out to the end of his leash. The leather held.

The porch, on the other hand, surrendered to the inevitable.

Claire knew she was close. She could feel the hotel, but a dozen doors remained between her and the end of the hall, and she couldn’t shake the fear that time, usually so fluid outside reality, had decided to march to a linear drummer. In other words, it was passing. Quickly.

Behind the first door to her right, sat a tiger. Fortunately, judging from the debris around its cell, it had just eaten.

“You’re only delaying the inevitable,” Sara muttered, as with a crooked finger she drew Mrs. Abrams farther into the lobby. “There’s nothing you can summon, old woman, that can hurt…” Her eyes widened.

Baby had lived his whole life for this moment. Years of frustration propelled him over the threshold in one mighty leap.

The remains of the porch swept Mrs. Abrams off her feet, tangling her in the twisted wreckage.

Baby’s front paws slammed into Sara’s chest.

She hit the floor, bounced once in a cloud of dust and lost the collar of her jacket as the extra weight on the end of Baby’s leash stopped him a mere fraction of an inch short.

Breathing heavily, the Keeper scrambled to her feet careful to stay clear of the snapping mouthful of too-long, too-pointed, and too-many teeth.

Fixated on her throat Baby missed his chance at a number of other body parts as they passed.

A wave of Sara’s hand closed the door. The sound it made, the sort of sound that put a final period on both rescue and escape, was almost a cliché.

“Margaret Anne, as much as I’d love to finish what we started so long ago, I’ve got all the sacrificial bodies I need.” She raised her voice to be heard over Baby’s frantic snarling. “This time, there’s no mistake about the qualifications.”

Dean hung limp in the air, but Diana took a moment out from breathing to glare.

Sara ignored them both. “Please, go to sleep, Margaret Anne.” As Mrs. Abrams slumped forward, Sara glanced down at the Doberman, still desperately trying to rip her to pieces. “You,” she said, “have got a single-minded way of going after a goal I rather like.”

Nearly throttling himself, Baby made an unsuccessful lunge for her ankle.

“In fact you remind me of me. Good dog.”

The words meant nothing. The tone sent Baby into a frenzy of barking.

Dragging Dean and Diana behind her, Sara started down the basement stairs.

With seven doors to go, Claire paused in the center of the hall.

She could hear barking.

The distinctive, just barely sane barking of a big dog forced to live a lapdog’s life. Who, with the fraction of brain that hadn’t been bred out of it, intended to get even.

Laying her ear against each door only long enough to check for a rise in volume, Claire moved quickly down the hall.

Three doors. Four.

She opened the fifth door and flung herself out of the wardrobe. The volume of the barking didn’t so much rise as expand to fill every available space with sound.

Baby was in the hotel.

Under normal circumstances, that would have been a problem, but being torn apart by a psychotic Doberman would be significantly preferable to life with Sara controlling Hell. Claire leaped over a pile of laundry, raced through the sitting room, and slid to a halt in the office.

Baby ignored her. Toenails scrabbling against the lobby floor, he dragged the ruin of the porch and the snoring Mrs. Abrams another inch closer to the basement.

Unwilling to scan the hotel lest she give her presence away, Claire decided to follow Baby’s lead. Adding up the dog, the porch, and Mrs. Abrams, the odds were good Austin hadn’t been responsible; not one hundred percent, but good.

Her back against the wall, she slid past, losing nothing more significant than a percentage of her hearing, and sped down the basement stairs, grateful that Baby’s barking would cover any possible noise she might make.

The door to the furnace room was open.

Her heart beating so loudly she could hardly hear herself think, Claire paused by the washing machine and reached for calm.

A Keeper without self-control could control neither the power accessed nor where in the possibilities that power was accessed from.

Evil favored the chaotic mind.

Whites and colors should be sorted before washing.

Claire blinked, breaking contact with the box of laundry detergent. This was as calm as she was going to get.

Wiping damp palms against her thighs, she slipped behind the masking angle of the furnace room door and peered inside.

Still wearing the dusty clothes she’d been put to sleep in so many years before, Sara stood on air over the pit, back to the door, both hands raised, head bowed. Her fingertips were red where the blood had dripped down from her nails.

Suspended horizontally over the pit in front of her, shirtless, blood dripping from a number of shallow cuts on his chest, Dean appeared to be unconscious but still alive. It took a moment to spot Diana wrapped in overlapping bands of power and propped, mummylike, against the wall.

Wait a minute…Dean was over the pit and Diana was up against the wall?

Claire took a closer look at the power holding her sister. Most of it held her in place and kept her quiet but threaded throughout it, head to toe, was a conduit set up to pour Diana’s considerable power into Sara—already in place because there’d be no opportunity to stop the invocation and set it up later.

Which meant that Dean was over the pit because…

No wonder he was always blushing.

But at twenty? Looking like a young, albeit myopic, god?

Hey! she told herself sternly, now is not the time. The problem was, it was easier, much, much easier to think about Dean than to come up with a plan to save the world.

It had taken two Keepers to stop Sara the first time she’d tried this. How could she possibly do it alone?

Not alone—if I can reach Diana without attracting Sara’s attention, I can use the conduit myself. With Diana’s power joined to mine, Sara’s extra twenty years of experience shouldn’t count for much.

As the evil Keeper began a new chant, Claire realized that were two small problems with her plan. The first was that Sara sealed Hell. With Sara removed, Hell would surge free. Claire would have to sign herself onto the site so that her power would become the seal when Sara’s power was removed. Which meant, if there wasn’t power enough left to close the hole, she’d be stuck here. In the hotel. For the rest of her life.

And Dean was leaving.

She didn’t even know where he kept the toaster.

The second problem was that Sara also held Dean. Literally. Attacked from behind, Sara would let go and Dean would fall into the pit.

When she hooked up with Diana, Sara would know. She’d have to strike immediately. If she saved Dean first, Sara would have time to marshal a defense.

If she let Dean fall…

What point in saving the world if she let Dean fall?

She’d just have to find a way to save him, and that was that. Timing her footsteps to Baby’s frenzied barking, she crept down the stairs toward Diana.

Down in the pit. Hell gloried in the strength it gained from each drop of sacrificial blood.

THERE ON THE STAIRS, the rest of Hell pointed out to itself, IT’S THE OTHER KEEPER.

SO?

SO SHOULD WE TELL HER?

Another drop of blood evaporated in the heat. Hell breathed it metaphorically in and laughed. YOU MEAN, SHOULD WE HELP HER? WE DON’T HELP. ANYONE.

Baby had managed to drag the whole mess another three inches toward the basement stairs. Tongue hanging out, collar cutting into the thick muscles of his neck, he kept barking and pulling in the certain belief that he had his enemy on the run.

And then, in the fraction of a second between one bark and the next, a familiar voice told him to be quiet.

The barking stopped. Claire froze.

Sara drew her fingernails along Dean’s side. As blood welled up from four parallel lines, she began a new chant.

Claire recognized the guttural Latin. There wasn’t much time left. Lower lip caught between her teeth, she started moving again.

A sterile dressing wrapped around his head and over his left eye, Austin had the rakish look of a wounded pirate. Breathing heavily, slightly scorched, he lay on his side on a litter made of an old silk scarf carried by twelve mice wearing multicolored frock coats, breeches, and tricorn hats.

This was so far outside Baby’s experience, he sat panting and stared.

Still a safe distance away, the mice stopped and Austin opened his one good eye. “Somebody,” he said without lifting his head, “is going to have to undo that collar.”

Dean didn’t so much regain consciousness as hijack it; consciousness wanted nothing to do with the whole situation.

HOW YA DOIN’ GORGEOUS?

He’d have jerked back at the sound of the voice, but he couldn’t figure out how to operate his body. Which scared him a lot more than Hell. He had a friend, Paul Malan, who’d gone into the boards at the wrong angle and now Paul played ball hockey from a wheelchair.

HE’S IGNORING US!

CAN HE DO THAT?

HEY, BUDDY! IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED, THIS IS A LOT WORSE THAN BALL HOCKEY!

Thankful that somewhere along the way he’d lost his glasses, Dean ignored the voices because Claire had asked him to. She’d even said, “please.”

He blinked, hit by a sudden realization. The voice he’d heard yesterday in the hall had been the voice of the pit.

BINGO.

And he’d listened. He’d hesitated.

OH, FOR…SIX SECONDS OUT OF TWENTY SQUEAKY CLEAN YEARS!

He deserved to go to Hell.

YOU’RE KIDDING, RIGHT?

Except he didn’t want to die.

Over, or maybe under, the voices in his head, he could hear the drone of words chanted in a language he didn’t understand. Slowly, working within the invisible bands that held him, he turned until he could see along his left arm. Gazing past his clenched fist, out over the edge of the pentagram, he could see Diana Hansen. She was just a kid, he realized, she’d never have believed that she’d set this whole mess in motion. If by some miracle he got out of this, he was after kicking her right in the butt.

Her back against the wall, barely daring to breathe, Claire crept the last few feet to her sister’s side. Once she took Diana’s hand, she’d control both their power.

Dean’s eyes widened as Claire slid into his field of vision.

Rescue!

Claire saw the word in Dean’s eyes and flinched.

Dean saw her flinch.

Sara chanted louder, spitting out consonants. The pentagram began to glow.

Maybe because he was suspended over a hole to Hell. Maybe because he’d been breathing the fumes of his own evaporating blood. Maybe because he’d spent almost a year next to a metaphysical accident site.

Maybe just because he could read it on Claire’s face.

Dean knew.

She couldn’t save him and the world.

He’d hesitated.

He was being given a chance to make up for that.

Hell could have him, but it couldn’t have the world.

Do it, he told Claire silently.

Claire shook her head. There had to be another way.

The pentagram began to dissolve.

It was almost worth it to know she was willing to risk the world for him.

Do it.

Because she had no other choice, she did.

Claire grabbed Diana’s hand and opened the conduit Quickly retracing the pentagram, she etched her own name into the pattern.

Sara turned.

Dean fell.

Claire hit the other Keeper with everything both she and Diana had.

Suddenly finding herself in a sphere of blinding white light, Sara flung up a bloodstained hand to cover her eyes. Lips too red parted…

…and she laughed.

Designed to prevent any sort of metaphysical power from waking a Keeper bent on cataclysmic evil, the shield Sara had worn for more than fifty years held.

Stepping down to the floor, Sara straightened her jacket and nodded toward Diana. “I thought our friend here too young for this site. Not,” she added after a critical inspection of Claire, “that you’re so much older.” Her smile was frankly patronizing. “You killed him for nothing, you know. Power can’t pass into this shield.”

Claire dragged Diana aside as a bolt of red light blew chunks of rock out of the wall.

Sara’s smile broadened. “How nice for me that it passes out of it just fine.”

Teeth clenched against rising nausea, Claire stepped forward, but before she could speak, Sara raised her hand again.

“Oh, yes, you can enter the shield physically, pummel me if you like, but don’t expect me to stand here and allow…”

Which was when Baby launched himself from the top of the stairs.

Sara had time to scream as she fell back but only just.

Clinging to each other for support, Claire and Diana walked to the edge of the pentagram and cautiously leaned forward.

GOT HER!

OW! BE CAREFUL, SHE KICKS!

Claire felt her power fill the pentagram, holding Hell off from the world. That was it, then. A lifetime in the Elysian Fields Guest House.

Diana swallowed and found her voice. “Poor Ba…”

THAT’S OUR PUPPY! IS HE GLAD HE’S HOME?

WHO’S A GOOD DOGGIE-WOGGIE, THEN? WHO’S A GOOD BOY!

“Doggie-woggie?” Claire repeated.

Before Hell could answer, Diana dug her nails into Claire’s arm. “Look! She’s still part of the pattern. If you tie the pentagram to her before it fades, she’ll pull the hole in after her!”

Still buzzing from the power she’d passed, it took Claire a heartbeat to understand. “I can close the site?”

“Yes!”

“Forever?”

“Yes!”

Sara’s name had begun to fray. “No.”

“Are you out of your mind? This may be your only chance!”

“No!” Claire yanked her arm free. “Dean’s in there and I’m not closing that hole until he finds his way out.” When Diana began another protest, she cut her off. “Hell can’t hold a willing sacrifice. They have to let him go.”

“They do?”

“If you paid more attention to what was going on and less to what you just happen to be powerful enough to do…” She bit it off. Now was not the time. “Yes. They do.”

“Okay, fine, but they’re not going to help him find his way or give him a boost out, and Sara’s name is already fading! You haven’t got time to wait. Don’t let his sacrifice be in vain.”

Claire reached for more power and poured it into the pentagram. From where she was standing, it was a long reach to the middle of the possibilities. Her vision was starting to blur, and she wasn’t entirely certain she could feel her toes. “I can hold it,” she snarled through clenched teeth. “I can hold it for as long as it takes.”

“All right.” Diana shrugged out of her jean jacket. “Then I’m going in after him.”

“Oh, no, you’re not!” Claire had a strong suspicion she sounded like their mother. At the moment, she didn’t much care. “This isn’t like going across the border for cheap electronics! You want to help, reactivate the conduit and start feeding me…” The “S” tried to straighten out. She forced it back into a curve. “…power.”

“That’d make me part of the seal and we could be stuck here together indefinitely. You want him out, someone has to go and get him.”

“Not you!” A subliminal growl snapped the second “a” back into line. “You’d never survive.”

“But Dean…”

“Dean has the strength of ten because his heart is pure.” Which was when Claire drew a second conclusion from Sara’s choice of sacrifice. Fortunately for Diana, she had other things to deal with at the moment. “The rules protect him.”

“What rules?”

“I know this is hard to believe at seventeen, but there are always rules.” She definitely couldn’t feel her toes and was starting to have doubts about her entire left foot. “It takes extraordinary conditions for the living to pass over and then come…The living!” Eyes locked on the pentagram, Claire grabbed her sister’s arm. “Find Jacques!”

“Jacques’ gone. She blew him into ectoplasmic particles.”

“Then gather him!”

“Me?”

“You’re always complaining how no one ever lets you do anything. Just be careful where you’re pulling power from this close to the pit.”

“You had to ruin it with advice,” Diana complained as she started to spin. “Couldn’t just assume I’d do it right.”

All things considered, Claire felt she had precedent for that assumption, but she let it go as the wind began to swirl around the furnace room. A moment later, a stream of tiny lights poured down from the basement.

“There’s two missing,” Diana panted as the lights refused to coalesce. “I don’t know where they are.”

Vaguely Jacques-shaped, the lights dove into the pit.

“NO!” Claire reached out but caught only a single light.

Teetering as the room continued to spin, Diana stared at her sister in astonishment. “I thought that’s what you wanted him to do?”

“He doesn’t know that! He doesn’t know Dean’s down there. Jacques has still got connections to her, she could’ve dragged him down.”

“So what do we do now?”

Claire gritted her teeth, clenched her fist around the single piece of Jacques she’d managed to save, and dug in. “We wait.”

“Wait?” Diana’s voice rose nearly an octave. “For how long?”

“Until we can’t wait any…” All of a sudden, Claire could feel a familiar twisted touch groping up toward the pentagram. “She’s using her name to pull herself free. Link with me!”

“No! I’ll be stuck with you, holding that thing, and there’ll be two Keepers lost because you can’t let Dean go. Because you feel guilty about how he felt about you when you didn’t feel the same for him and turned to Jacques, who you can’t possibly have a future with instead.”

“Diana! This is no time for relationship therapy!”

“You’ve lost them both. Let them go before she starts this whole thing all over again.”

Her connection to her name had strengthened. The sound of triumphant laughter boiled up over the edges of the pit.

“I’m not leaving them there!”

Diana laid her hand on her sister’s arm and to Claire’s surprise her voice was gentle as she said, “You’re a Keeper. Seal the s…son of a bitch.”

Down in the pit something that had once been Mrs. Abrams’ Baby barked as Dean rose up into the furnace room surrounded by a cloud of tiny lights. When both his feet were on the ground, and before either Claire or Diana could get their mouths shut to say anything, he opened his left hand.

Two lights few out.

Claire peeled her fingers back off her palm. The final light spun up into the air.

Jacques rematerialized.

Dean coughed once and stumbled forward. Together, Claire and Diana eased him down onto the bottom step, then Claire turned back toward the pit.

She could feel Sara clawing her way up her name, closer and closer to the edge of the possibilities. Holding tightly to the seal, Claire broke all the remaining links but Sara’s.

The building shook as the pentagram, etched into solid rock, slid toward the center of itself. The inner edges disappeared. Flickering through the visible spectrum and one or two colors beyond, hundred-year-old words of summoning poured into the hole.

“Claire!” Stretched out like smoke in a wind, Jacques streamed toward Hell, caught in the binding.

Even if there was time, unraveling the binding would free Sara’s name.

“I don’t think so…” Wielding power like a sword, Diana slashed through the pattern where Jacques was caught.

Not subtle, but effective.

As the points flipped up and over, Claire broke her name free.

CURSES, FOILED AGAI…

The unmarked bedrock of the furnace room floor steamed gently.

Diana let out a breath she couldn’t remember holding. “Wow.”

Dean jerked to his feet as Claire swayed. “You okay?”

Actually, she had no idea how she was, but okay would do for the moment. “Sure. What about you?”

He frowned. Until Jacques had appeared out of the darkness, he’d stood on the slope leading upward toward the glow of what were probably the fires of the damned and had known he’d been forgotten. Sure, Hell was busy with Sara, but still…“I hesitated,” he said.

Claire felt her lip curl. “Get over it. You were willing to die to save the world. You’re a terrific person!”

“You mean that?”

She cupped his face between her palms and moved close enough that he could see her clearly without his glasses. “Yes. I have never meant anything more in my life.”

Keepers lied quite easily to bystanders; but he believed her. The load of guilt lifted off his shoulders. “Thanks.” Pulling free, he took a step back. “There’s something I need to do.”

“Ow!” Diana rubbed the spot where Dean had applied the side of his work boot. “What did you kick me for?”

His silence said it all.

“Oh. Never mind.”

“You’ve done a wonderful job, Claire, but are you certain you don’t want me to come to Kingston and check things out?”

“Quite certain, Mom. The site is closed.” Claire had put the furnace room through every test she could think of, and she’d even allowed Diana to come up with a few. To all intents and purposes, there’d never been a hole to Hell. Or an Aunt Sara. “Dean drove Diana to the train station. She’ll stay with friends in Toronto tonight and head home first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Well, I’m sure that’s the plan.” Martha Hansen sounded doubtful.

“Don’t worry, she gave me her word she’d go straight home.”

“Claire Beth Hansen! Did you put a geas on your sister?”

Claire grinned. “Yes.”

“Good. But how on earth did you manage it?”

“I agreed with her when she opened her defense with ‘all’s well that ends well,’ and while she was still reeling in disbelief I slipped it by.”

“You agreed with her?”

Her grin broadening, Claire explained. “I had every intention of tearing a strip off her for being so adolescently arrogant, thinking she could wake Sara without consequences, but then I realized that she was right. Keepers go where they’re needed. The two of us in combination were needed to close down the site, so it’s entirely possible that everything that happened was intended to happen. Diana, me, Dean, Jacques; even Hell had a hand in its own demise by squeezing a Hell Hound through the tiny window of opportunity between Sara’s original capture and her power being used to temporarily seal the site.”

The phone remained silent.

“Mom?”

“If Diana’s reckless disregard for consequence was necessary to help save the world, she’s going to be impossible to live with.” Claire very nearly felt her mother’s sigh. “Still, I expect your father and I can come up with a few things to say to her when she gets home.” Sara’s choice of sacrifice had not been elaborated on, but parents were perfectly capable of drawing their own conclusions. “You said that Dean was driving her to the station; how is he? Is it safe for him to drive?”

“He’s fine, Mom. Really. He was a willing sacrifice, completely ignorant of what that meant, and he believed that in falling he’d burn in Hell forever. With that kind of karma, he could’ve just walked through the possibilities to the light. If Jacques hadn’t found him so quickly and brought him back to the basement, I expect he’d have started tidying the place up.”

“What do you mean, he had no doubt he’d burn in Hell forever? He’s been living next to the site for almost a year completely unaffected.”

She’d been hoping she’d slipped that by. “There was an incident.” Leaving out the bits that Diana would be sure to embellish on later, Claire explained about the elevator and Faith’s boyfriend. “He hesitated.”

On the other end of the phone, Martha snorted. “Oh, for…”

“That’s what I said. But this whole sacrifice thing grounded him again. He’s as good as new.”

“I see.” The pause spoke volumes. “What happens now?”

Claire chose to misunderstand. “Now, I expect I’ll be summoned somewhere else. Austin says I’ll be able to leave by tomorrow, that help is on the way.”

“Claire…”

“He’s down to his last life, you know. But he says he’s not worried.”

“Very well. If that’s the way you want it. Give Austin our love.”

An uncomfortable moment later, Claire hung up and sighed.

What happens now?

Jacques was waiting in her sitting room. He had to know she’d be leaving—that she couldn’t stay and he couldn’t come with her.

This wasn’t going to be a pleasant interview.

“Jacques?”

He stopped pacing and turned to face her. “Vôtre mère, your mama, is she good?”

“She’s fine.”

“Bon.” Drifting out through the coffee table, he waved a hand at the sofa. “Please, cherie, I have things to say.”

Since she wasn’t looking forward to saying the things she had to, Claire sat. If listening was all that she could do for him, she would at least do that.

“You are ready? D’accord.” He rubbed his hands against his thighs, a living gesture Claire’d never seen him make before. “I am decided, it is time I move on.”

You’re leaving me? Somehow, Claire managed not to voice her initial reaction.

His expression grew serious. “I have seen Hell and I do not belong there, or they would not have allow me to leave. There is not enough evil in me for them to hold.” The corners of his mouth twitched up. “It helped that you held my heart.”

When he smiled, Claire had to smile with him. “That wasn’t your heart.”

“Non? Ah, well, close enough.” He took a step back and held out his hand. “Will you help me?”

So much for her speech about change being constant. Claire ripped up her mental notes, stood, and laid her palm against Jacques’, his fingers wrapping around hers like cool smoke. “Of course. When?”

“Now. I have found the courage to face her. I have found the courage to descend into Hell for l’âme, the soul, of Dean, who I do not even entirely like. I think while I have found my courage, I should use him, it, to face what is on the other side.”

“Did you want to wait and say good-bye to Dean?”

“No. You tell him I say au revoir, adieu, bonne chance, and that if he does not use it, it will fall off.”

“Maybe you’d better stay a few more minutes and tell him yourself.”

Jacques shook his head, a strand of translucent hair falling into his eyes. “No, cherie. Now. There has always been—will always be—an excuse to stay. Dean, he will understand. It is a guy thing.”

“A guy thing?”

He shrugged. “I hear it on Morningside.” One hand still wrapped about hers, he laid the other against her cheek. “Thank you for the night we shared. I think I saw heaven a little bit in your arms.”

“You think?”

“I am fairly certain.” He grinned. “When you talk of me, could you perhaps exaggerate a little?” When she nodded, her cheek moving up and down through his hand, he squared his shoulders under the heavy sweater. “D’accord. Then I am ready.”

Claire reached through the possibilities and opened the way. Squinting a little, she stepped back to give him room. “Just follow the light.”

His features almost dissolving in the brilliance, he took a step away from the world, and then he paused.

“Au revoir, cherie.”

“Good-bye, Jacques.”

“Si j’etais en vie, je t’aurais aime.”

And then he was gone.

“If were alive, I would have loved you?”

Blinking away the spots in front of her eyes, Claire tried to focus on the cat.

Austin carefully climbed onto the hassock and sat down. “Not a bad exit line.”

“You’re supposed to be resting?”

“I am resting, I’m sitting.”

“You should go to the vet.”

“No, thank you.” He twitched his tail around his toes and his lip curled under the lower edge of the bandage. “It’s been taken care of.”

“By the mice?”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

Locked in the gaze from his remaining eye, Claire shook her head. “No. Not as such. But if I may point out, I haven’t seen any mice.”

“You haven’t seen Elvis either.”

Claire glanced over at the silent bust. “So?”

“So that doesn’t mean he’s not working in a 7-11 somewhere. Did you take care of Mrs. Abrams?”

“She thinks Baby died a natural death about six months ago, and now that she’s done mourning, she’s going to get a poodle. But while we’re on the subject; how long did you know Baby was a Hell Hound?”

“I knew it from the beginning.”

“Well, why didn’t you tell me?”

Austin snorted. “I’m a cat.” Before Claire could demand a further explanation, he cocked his head. “There’s Dean’s truck. Maybe you’d better go take care of that last loose end.”

“The hotel is yours if you want it.”

Dean paused, one hand on the basement door, and turned to face Claire. “No, thank you. I don’t want it. You’ll be leaving?”

She nodded. “Soon. Tomorrow, probably. Austin says that someone’ll be along.”

“So you pretty much knew my answer before you asked?”

“Pretty much. But I still had to ask. How long…”

“I guess I’ll wait until that someone shows up and play it by ear.”

“Okay. Good. Um, Jacques is gone. He said to tell you goodbye and that you’d understand why he didn’t wait.”

“Sure.”

When the silence stretched beyond the allotted time for a response, Dean nodded, once, and went downstairs.

As the sound of his work boots faded into the distance, Claire pounded her forehead against the wall. That hadn’t gone well. There were a hundred things she wanted to say to Dean, starting with, Thanks for driving Diana to the train station, and moving on up to: Thanks for sacrificing yourself to save the world. Somewhere in the middle she’d try to fit in Maybe you and I…

“Maybe he and I what?” she asked herself walking back to the office and jerking her backpack down off the hook. “Could be friends? Could be more than friends?” Yanking the cables from her printer, she shoved them into the pack. “He’s an extraordinary guy. Not brilliant maybe, but good, kind, gorgeous, accepting…” The printer followed the cables. “…not to mention alive.”

Maybe she’d had that rare chance that few Keepers ever got and for whatever reason, pride or blatant stupidity, she’d blown it.

What happens now?

The site was sealed.

She was leaving.

He was leaving.

It was over.

Folding a pair of jeans neatly along the crease, Dean set them into his hockey bag. He wanted to be ready to go as soon as possible after that someone arrived.

“Austin says that someone’ll be along.”

He’d never be able to look at a cat without wondering. As for the rest of it, well, he knew who he was again, so the rest of it didn’t matter.

A stack of white briefs, also neatly folded, tucked in beside the jeans.

There’d been a lot left unsaid upstairs in the hall. Claire’d been looking sort of aloof and unapproachable, but also twisting a lock of hair around one finger. Dean had to smile at the combination as he added all but one pair of socks to the bag.

Diana had given him continual advice on the way to the station. About half of it, he hadn’t understood.

It didn’t much matter.

Claire was leaving.

He was leaving.

At least she hadn’t offered to rearrange his memories. He’d have fought to remember the last eight weeks.

“What in tarnation have you done to my hotel?”

Claire, who’d been waiting in the office, stared down at Augustus Smythe, opened and closed her mouth, and finally managed a stunned, “You?”

“Who else would be willing to run this rattrap?”

“But…”

“Used to be a hole to Hell in the basement. That sort of thing has to be monitored.” He shrugged out of his overcoat and tossed it up on the counter. “They say I’m retired, with full pension for years of service rendered, but I know better.” Bushy brows drawn in, he glared around at the renovations. “So you opened up the elevator; lose anyone?”

“No.”

“Tried it since the hole closed?”

“No, but…”

“Never mind. I’ll convince that harpy next door to go for a ride.” To Claire’s astonishment, he smoothed back his hair and grinned. After a moment, the grin rearranged itself into the customary scowl. “Well? Haven’t you got somewhere else to go?”

Now that he mentioned it, she had.

The summons grew stronger as she shrugged into her backpack and held open the cat carrier for Austin to climb in. Reaching for her suitcase, she stopped, straightened, and decided Jacques was right. There’d always be a reason to delay.

She reached for the suitcase again, shifted it to her left hand, and picked up the cat carrier with her right. “Tell Dean I said good-bye.”

And then she left, ignoring the muttered, “Idiot,” that could have come from either the Cousin or the cat.

The summons drew her west. She passed the park, and the hospital, and the turnoff to a house Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister had lived in briefly before he entered politics.

The definitive November wind, cold and damp, blew in off the lake, stiffening her fingers around the handles of her luggage. By the time she reached the lights at Sir John A. MacDonald Boulevard, she decided that the summons was taking her farther than she wanted to walk. Even in a bad mood and feeling vaguely guilty about pretty much everything.

“You need a lift?”

He wasn’t entirely unexpected.

Frowning, Claire turned to face the truck. “You don’t know where I’m going.”

Leaning across the front seat, braced against the edge of the open window, Dean shrugged. “So?”

“Just get in!” The cat carrier rocked in Claire’s grip as Austin shifted his weight. “I’m freezing my tail off out here.”

“You told him which way we’d be heading.”

“What part of get in don’t you understand?” he snarled, poking a paw out through the wider weave in the front of the carrier.

There were people crossing the street toward her. Another few feet and they’d be close enough to hear.

Claire got in the truck.

Fastened her seat belt.

As Dean shifted into drive and started across the intersection, she held the top of the cat carrier open just far enough for Austin to climb out.

“What happens next?” Dean asked.

Claire shrugged and squirmed around to set the carrier behind the seat with her suitcase. “I don’t know.”

There was still a lot that had to be said.

“You did know the speed limit on this street is 40k?”

And a lot that didn’t.

Dean nodded. “Okay. We’ll play it by ear.”

“You’ve been to Hell,” Austin snorted, stretching out on Claire’s lap, “you should be up to it.”

HEY! WHO TIDIED THE BRIMSTONE?

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