Summon The Keeper. The Second Summoning

1. SUMMON THE KEEPER

ONE

WHEN THE STORM BROKE, rain pounding down in great sheets out of a black and unforgiving sky, Claire Hansen had to admit she wasn’t surprised; it had been that kind of evening. Although her ticket took her to Colburg, three stops farther along the line, she’d stepped off the train and into the Kingston station certain that she’d found the source of the summons. It was the last thing she’d been certain of all day.

By the time it started to rain, her feet hurt, her luggage had about pulled her arms from their sockets, her traveling companion was sulking, and she was more than ready to pack it in. She’d search again in the morning, after a good night’s sleep.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

A Great Lakes Hydroecology convention had filled two of the downtown hotels, the third didn’t allow pets, and the fourth was hosting the Beer Can Collectors of America, South Eastern Ontario Division. Claire had professed indignant disbelief about the latter until the desk clerk had pointed out the sign in the lobby welcoming the collectors to Kingston.

Some people have too much spare time, she thought as she shifted her suitcase into her left hand, the lighter, wicker cat carrier into her right, and headed back out into the night.Way too much spare time.

Pulling her coat collar out from under the weight of her backpack and hunkering down into its dubious shelter, she followed her feet along King Street toward the university, where a vague memory suggested there were guest houses and B&Bs hollowed out of the huge old mansions along the lake. Logically, she should have caught a cab out to the parade of hotels and budget motels lining Highway 2 between Kingston and Cataraqui, but, as logical solutions were rare in her line of work, Claire kept walking.

Thunder cracked, lightning lit up the sky, and it started to rain harder. Down the center of the street, where the reaching leaves of the huge, old trees didn’t quite touch, grape-sized drops of water hit the pavement so hard they bounced. On the sidewalk, under the trees, it was…

A gust of wind tipped branches almost vertical, dumping a stream of icy water off the canopy and straight down the back of Claire’s neck.

…not significantly drier.

There were times when profanity offered the only satisfactory response. Denied that outlet, Claire gritted her teeth and continued walking through increasingly deeper puddles toward City Park. Surely there’d be some kind of shelter near such a prominent tourist area even though September had emptied it of fairs and festivals. Tired, wet, and just generally cranky, she’d settle for anything that involved a roof and a bed.

At the corner of Lower Union and King, the lightning flashed again, throwing trees and houses into sharp-edged relief. On the third house up from the corner, a signboard affixed to a wrought iron fence reflected the light with such intensity, it left afterimages on the inside of Claire’s lids.

“Shall we check it out?” She had to yell to make herself heard over the storm.

There was no answer from the cat carrier, but then she hadn’t actually expected one.

In this, one of the oldest parts of the city, the houses were three-and four-story, red-brick Victorians. Too large to remain single-family dwellings in a time of rising energy prices, most had been hacked up into flats. The first two houses up from the corner were of this type. The third, past a narrow driveway, was larger still.

Squinting in the dark, water pouring off her hair and into her eyes, Claire struggled to make out the words on the sign. She was fairly certain there were words; there didn’t seem to be much point in a sign if there weren’t.

“Never any lightning around when it’s needed….”

On cue, the lightning provided every fleck of peeling paint with its own shadow. At the accompanying double crack of thunder, Claire dropped her suitcase and clutched at the fence. She let go a moment later when it occurred to her that holding an iron rod, even a rusty one, wasn’t exactly smart under the circumstances.

White-and-yellow spots dancing across her vision, the faintfizz of an electrical discharge bouncing about between her ears, she stumbled toward the front door. During the brief time she’d been able to read the sign, she’d seen the words “uest House” and, right now, that was good enough for her.

The nine stairs were uneven and slippery, threatening to toss her, suitcase, cat carrier, backpack, and all, down into the black depths of the area in front of the house. When she slid into the railing and it bowed dangerously, she refused to consider it an omen. From the unsheltered porch, she could see neither knocker nor bell but, considering the night and the weather, that meant very little. There could have been a plaque warning travelers toabandon hope all ye who enter here, and she wouldn’t have seen it—or paid any attention to it if it meant getting out of the storm. A light shone dimly through the transom. Holding her suitcase against the bricks with her knee, she tried the door.

It was unlocked.

Another time, she might have appreciated the drama of the moment more and pushed the heavy door open slowly, the sound of shrieking hinges accompanied by ominous music. As it was, she shoved it again, threw herself and her baggage inside, and kicked it closed.

At first, the silence came as a welcome relief from the storm, but after a moment of it settling around her, thick and cloying, Claire found she needed to fill it. She felt as though she were being covered in the cheap syrup left on the tables at family restaurants.

“Hello? Is anybody here?”

Although her voice had never been described as either timid or tentative, it made less than no impact on the silence. Lacking anywhere more constructive to go, the words bounced painfully around inside her head, birthing a sudden, throbbing headache.

Carefully setting the cat carrier down beyond the small lake she’d created on the scuffed hardwood floor, she turned to face the counter that divided the entry into a lobby and what looked like a small office—although the light was so bad, she couldn’t be sure. On the counter, a brass bell waited in solitary, tarnished splendor.

Feeling somewhat like Alice in Wonderland, Claire pushed her streaming hair back off her face and smacked the plunger down into the bell.

The old man appeared behind the counter so suddenly that she recoiled a step, half expecting an accompanying puff of smoke— which would have been less disturbing than the more mundane explanation of him watching her from a dark corner of the office.

“What,” he demanded, “do you want?”

“What do I want?”

“I asked you first.”

Which was true enough.“I’d like a room for the night.”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously.“That all?”

“What else is there?”

“Breakfast.”

Claire had never been challenged to breakfast before.“If it’s included, breakfast is fine.” Another time, she might have managed a more spirited response. Then she remembered. “Do you take pets?”

“I do not! That’s a filthy lie! You’ve been talking to Mrs. Abrams next door in number thirty-five, haven’t you? Bloody cow. Lets her great, hairy baby crap all over the drive.”

Beginning to shiver under the weight of her wet clothing, it took Claire a moment to work out just where the conversation had departed from the expected text.“I meant, do you mind pets staying in the hotel?”

The old man snorted.“Then you should say what you mean.”

Something in his face seemed suddenly familiar, but the shadows cast by the single bulb hanging high overhead defeated Claire’s attempt to bring his features into better focus. Her left eyelid began to twitch in time with the pounding in her skull. “Do Iknow you?”

“You do not.”

He was telling the truth although something around the edges of his voice suggested it wasn’t the entire truth. Before she could press the matter, he snarled, “If you don’t want the room, I suggest you move on. I don’t intend standing around here all night.”

The thought of going back out into the storm wiped everything else from her head.“I want the room.”

He dragged an old, green, leather-bound book out from under the counter and banged it down in front of her. Slapping it open to a blank page, he shoved a pen in her general direction.“Sign here.”

She’d barely finished the final “n,” her sleeve dragging a damp line across the yellowing paper, when he plucked the pen from her hand and replaced it with a key on a pink plastic fob.

“Room one. Top of the stairs to your right.”

“Do I owe you anything in ad…” Claire let the last word trail off. The old man had vanished as suddenly as he’d appeared. “Guess not.”

Picking up her luggage, she started up the stairs, trusting to instinct for her footing since the light was so bad she couldn’t quite see the floor a little over five feet away.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Room one matched its key; essentially modern—if modern could be said to start around the late fifties—and unremarkable. The carpet and curtains were dark blue, the bedspread and the upholstery light blue. The walls were off-white, the furniture dark and utilitarian. The bathroom held a sink, a toilet, and a tub/shower combination and hadthe catchin-the-throat smell of institutional cleansers.

Given the innkeeper, it was much better than Claire had expected. She set the wicker carrier on the dresser, unbuckled the leather straps, and lifted off the top. After a moment, a disgruntled black-and-white cat deigned to emerge and inspect the room.

As the storm howled impotently about outside the window, Claire shrugged out of her coat, wrapped her hair in a towel and collapsed onto the bed trying, unsuccessfully, to ignore the drum solo going on between her ears.

“Well, Austin, do the accommodations meet with your approval?” she asked as she heard him pad disdainfully from the bathroom. “Not that it matters; this is the best we can do for tonight.”

The cat jumped up beside her.“That’s too bad because—and I realize I risk sounding clich?d in saying it—I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Claire managed to crack both eyelids open about a millimeter. No one had ever been able to determine if cats were actually clairvoyant or merely obnoxious little know-it-alls.“A bad feeling about what?”

“You know: this.” He paused to rub a damp paw over his whiskers. “Aren’t you getting anything at all?”

She let her eyes close again.“I seem to be getting MTV on one of my fillings. It’s part of the Stomp tour.” Flinching at a particularly robust bit of metaphor, she sighed. “I’m so thrilled.”

A furry, ten-pound weight sat down on her chest.“I’m serious, Claire.”

“The summons isn’t any more urgent than it was this morning, if that’s what you’re asking.” One-handed, she unbuttoned her jeans, pushing the cat back onto the bed with the other. “Nothing else is getting through this headache except a low-grade buzz.”

“You should check it out.”

“Check what out?” When Austin refused to answer, Claire decided she’d won, tossed off her clothes, and got into a pair of cream-colored silk pajamas—standard operating procedure suggested night clothes suitable for the six o’clock news, just in case.

Tucked under the covers, the cat curled up on the other pillow, she realized why the old man had looked so familiar. He looked like a gnome. And not one of those friendly garden gnomes either.

Rumpelstiltskin, she thought, and went to sleep smiling.

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“This is weird, my shoes are still wet.”

Austin glared at her from the litter box.“If you don’t mind!”

“Sorry.” Claire poured liquid out of the toe of one canvas sneaker, hung them back over the shower curtain rod by their tied laces, then made a hasty retreat from the bathroom. “It’s not that I expected them to be dry,” she continued, dropping onto the edge of the bed, “but I was hopingthey’d be wearably damp.”

It was starting out to be a six of one, half a dozen of the other kind of a day. On the one hand, it was still raining and her shoes were still too wet to wear. On the other hand, her sleep had been undisturbed by signs or portents, her headache was gone, and the low-grade buzz had completely disappeared. Even Austin had woken up in a good mood, or as good a mood as he could manage before noon.

Flopping back against a pile of bedclothes, she listened past the sound of feline excavation to the hotel’s ambient noise, and frowned. “It’s quiet.”

“Too quiet?” Austin asked, coming out of the bathroom.

“The summons has stopped.”

Sitting back on his haunches, the cat stared up at her.“What do you mean, stopped?”

“I mean it’s absent, not present, missing, not there.” Surging to her feet, she began to pace. “Gone.”

“But it was there when you went to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“So between ten-thirteen last night and eight-oh-one this morning, you stopped being needed?”

“Yes.”

Austin shrugged.“The site probably closed on its own.”

Claire stopped pacing and folded her arms.“That never happens.”

“Got a better explanation?” the cat asked smugly.

“Well, no. But even if it has closed, I’d be summoned somewhere else.” For the first time in ten years, she wasn’t either dealing with a site or traveling to one where she was needed. “I feel as though I’ve been cast aside like an old shoe, drifting aimlessly…”

“Mixing metaphors,” the cat interrupted, jumping up on the bed. “That’s better; while there’s nothing wrong with your knees, they’re not exactly expressive conversational participants. Maybe,” he continued, “you’re not needed because good has dominated and evil is no longer considered a possibility.”

They locked eyes for a moment, then simultaneously snickered.

“But seriously, Austin, what am I supposed to do?”

“We’re only a few hours from home. Why don’t you visit your parents?”

“My parents?”

“You remember; male, female, conception, birth…”

Actually, she did remember, she just tried not to think about it much.“Are you suggesting we need to take a vacation?”

“Right at the moment, I’m suggesting we need to eat breakfast.”

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The carpet on the stairs had seen better days; the edges still had a faint memory of the pattern but the center had been worn to a uniform, threadbare gray. Claire hadn’t been exactly impressed the night before, and in daylight the guest house had a distinctly shabby look.

Not a place to make an extended stay, she thought as she twisted the pommel back onto the end of the banister.

“I think we should spend the day looking around,” she said, following the cat downstairs. “Even if the site’s closed up, it wouldn’t hurt to check out the area.”

“Whatever. After we eat.”

Searching for a cup of coffee, if not the promised breakfast, Claire followed her nose down the hall to the back of the first floor.With any luck, that obnoxious little gnome doesn’t also do the cooking.

The dining room stretched across the end of the building and held a number of small tables surrounded by stainless steel and Naugahyde chairs—it had obviously been renovated at about the same time as her room. Outside curtainless windows, devoid of even a memory of moldings, a steady rain slanted down from a slate-gray sky, puddling beneath an ancient and immaculate white truck parked against the back fence.

Fortunately, before she could get really depressed about either the weather or the decor, the unmistakable scent of Colombian double roast drew her around a corner to a small open kitchen. The stainless steel, restaurant-style appliances were separated from the actual eating area by a Formica counter, its surface scrubbed and rescrubbed to a pale gray.

Standing at the refrigerator was a dark-haired young man in his late teens or early twenties, wearing a chefs apron over faded jeans and a T-shirt. Although he wore a pair of wire frame glasses, a certain breadth of shoulder and narrowness of hip suggested to Claire that he wasn’t the bookish type. The muscles of his back made interesting ripples in the brilliant white cotton of the T-shirt and when she lowered her gaze, she discovered, after a moment, that he ironed his jeans.

Austin leaped silently up onto the counter, glanced from the cook to Claire, and snorted,“You might want to breathe.”

Claire grabbed the cat and dropped him onto the floor as the object of the observation closed the refrigerator door and turned.

“Good morning,” he said. It sounded as though he actually meant it.

Distracted by teeth as white as his shirt and a pair of blue eyes surrounded by a thick fringe of dark lashes, not to mention the musical, near Irish lilt of a Newfoundland accent, Claire took a moment to respond.“Good grief. I mean, good morning.”

It wasn’t only his appearance that had thrown her. In spite of his age, or rather lack of it, this was the most grounded person she’d ever met. First impressions suggested he’d never push a door marked pull, he’d arrive on time for appointments, and, in case of fire, he’d actually remember the locations of the nearest exits. Glancing down at his feet, she half expected to see roots disappearing into the floor but saw only a pair of worn work boots approximately size twelve.

“Mr. Smythe left a note on the fridge explaining things.” He wiped his hand against his apron, couldn’t seem to make up his mind about what to do next, and finally let it fall back to his side. “I’m Dean McIssac. I’ve been cook and caretaker since last February. I hope you’ll considerkeeping me on.”

“Keeping you on?”

Her total lack of comprehension appeared to confuse him.“Aren’t you the new owner, then?”

“The new what?”

He jerked a sheet of notepaper out from under a refrigerator magnet, and passed it over.

The woman spending the night in room one, Claire read,is Claire Hansen. As of this morning, she’s the new proprietor. Except for a small brown stain of indeterminate origins, the rest of the sheet was blank.“And that explains everything to you?” she asked incredulously.

“He’s been trying to sell the place since I got here,” Dean told her. “I just figured he had.”

“He hasn’t.” So far, everything young Mr. McIssac had said, had been the truth. Which didn’t explain a damned thing. Dropping the note onto the counter, she wondered just what game the old man thought he was playing. “Iam Claire Hansen, but I haven’t bought this hotel and I have no intention of buying this hotel.”

“But Mr. Smythe…”

“Mr. Smythe is obviously senile. If you’ll tell me where I can find him, I’ll straighten everything out.” She tried to make it sound more like a promise than a threat.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Although two long, narrow windows lifted a few of the shadows, the office looked no more inviting in the gray light of a rainy day than it had at night.

“He lives here?” Claire asked sliding sideways through the narrow opening between the counter and the wall, the only access from the lobby.

“No, in here.” The door to the old man’s rooms had been designed to look like part of the office paneling. Dean reached out to knock and paused, his hand just above the wood. “It’s open.”

“Then we must be expected.” She pushed past him. “Oh, my.”

Overdone was an understatement when applied to the room on the other side of the door, just as overstuffed wasn’t really sufficient to describe the furniture. Even the old console television wore three overlapping doilies, a pair of resin candlesticks carved with cherubs, and a basket of fake fruit.

Tucked into the gilded, baroque frame of a slightly pitted mirror was a large manila envelope. Even from across the room Claire could see it was addressed to her. Suddenly, inexplicably, convinced that things were about to get dramatically out of hand, she walked slowly forward, picking a path through the clutter. It took a remarkably long time to cover a short distance; then, all at once, she had the envelope in her hand.

Inside the envelope were half a dozen documents and another note, slightly shorter than the first.

“Senile but concise,” Claire muttered.“Congratulations, you’re the new owner of the Elysian Fields Guest House.” She glanced up at Dean.“The Elysian Fields Guest House?” When he nodded, she shook her head in disbelief. “Why didn’t he just call it the Vestibule of Hell?”

Dean shrugged.“Because that would be bad for business?”

“Do you get much business?”

“Well, no.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised.” She bent her attention back to the note.“Stay out of room six. What’s in room six?”

“There was a fire, years ago. Mr. Smythe didn’t need the room, so he saved money on repairs by keeping it locked up.”

“Sounds charming. That’s all there is.” She turned the paper over but it was blank on the other side. “Maybe these will give us some ans…” Her voice trailed off as, mouth open, she fanned the other papers. Her signature had been carefully placed where it needed to be on each of the legal documents. And itwas her signature, not a forgery. Smythe had lifted it out of the registration book.

Which could only mean one thing.

“Mr. McIssac, could youplease go and get me a cup of coffee.”

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Dean found himself out in the office, the door to Mr. Smythe’s rooms closed behind him, before he’d made a conscious decision to move. He remembered being asked to go for coffee and then he was in the office. Coffee. Office. Nothing in between.

“Okay, so your memory’s going.” He ducked under the counter flap. “Look at the bright side, boy, you’re still employed.”

Jobs were scarce, and he hoped he could hang on to this one. The pay wasn’t great, but it included a basement apartment and he’d discovered that he liked taking care of people. He’d begun to think about taking some kind of part-time hotel management course; when there were no guests, and there were seldom guests, he had a lot of free time.

All that could change now that Mr. Smythe had gotten tired of waiting for a buyer and given the place away to a total stranger. Who didn’t seem to want it.

Claire Hansen was not what he’d expected. First off, she was a lot younger. Although he’d had minimal experience judging the ages of women and the makeup just muddled it up all the more, he’d be willing to swear she was under thirty. He might even go as low as twenty-five.

And it was weird that she traveled with a cat.

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“I can’t feel the summons anymore, because I’m where I’m needed.”

Austin blinked.“Say what?”

“Augustus Smythe is a Cousin.”

“Augustus?”

“It’s on the documents.” Claire fanned them out so the cat could see all six pages. “Printed. He knew better than to sign his name. He’s been here for a while, so obviously he was monitoring an accident site—a site he’s buggered off from and made my responsibility.” She dropped downonto a sofa upholstered in pink cabbage roses and continued dropping, sinking through billowing cushions to an alarming depth.

“Are you okay?” Austin asked a few moments later when she emerged, breathing heavily and clutching a handful of loose change.

“Fine.” Knees still considerably higher than her hips, Claire hooked an elbow over the reinforced structure of the sofa’s arm in case she started to sink again, dropping the change into a bowl of dubious looking mints. It might have made more sense to find another place to sit, but none of the other furniture looked any safer. “The summons wasn’t coming from the site, or I’d still be able to feel it. It had to have been coming from Augustus Smythe.”

The cat leaped up onto the coffee table.“He needed to leave so badly he drew you here?”

“Since he left last night, which is when the summons stopped, that’s the only logical explanation.”

“But why?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? Why?”

Austin put a paw on her knee.“Why are you looking so happy about this?”

Was she? She supposed she was.“I’m not drifting any more.” Starting the day with neither a summons nor a site had been disconcerting. “I have a purpose again.”

“How nice for you.” He sat back. “We’re not going to get our vacation, are we?”

“Doesn’t look like it.” Her smile faded as she tapped the papers against her thigh. “Why didn’t Smythe identify himself when I didn’t recognize him?”

“Better question, why didn’t you recognize him?”

“I was tired, I was wet, and I had a headache,” she pointed out defensively. “All I could think of was getting out of that storm.”

“You think he fuzzed you?”

“Where would he get the power? I was distracted, all right? Let’s just leave it at that.” After another short struggle with the sofa, Claire managed to heave herself back up onto her feet. “Since the site’s in the hotel—or Smythe wouldn’t have bothered deeding it to me—and since I can’t sense it, I’m guessing that it’s so small it never became enough of a priority to need a Keeper and Smythe finally got tired of waiting. I’ll close it, and we’ll move on.”

“And the hotel?” Austin reminded her.

“After I seal the site, I’ll give it to young Mr. McIssac.”

“You think it’s going to be that easy?”

“Isn’t it always?” She picked up a squat figurine of a wide-eyed child in lederhosen playing a tuba, shuddered, and put it back down. “Come on.”

“Come on?” Trotting to the end of the table, he jumped over a plaster bust of Elvis, went under a set of nesting Chinese tables, and beat her to the door. “Where are we going?”

“To get some answers.”

“Where?”

“Where else? Where we were told not to go.”

Austin snorted.“Typical.”

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Room six was on the third floor. As well as the standard lock, the door also boasted a large steel padlock on an industrial strength flange. Both locks had been made unopenable by the simple process of snapping the keys off in the mechanism.

“Seems like a lot of fuss over a small site,” Austin muttered, dropping down from his inspection.

“Well, he could hardly have guests wandering in on it regardless of size.” Releasing the padlock, Claire straightened. There were a number of ways she could gain access to the room, but most of them were labeled “emergency use only” as they involved the kind of pyrotechnics more likely to be deployed during small Middle Eastern wars. “I wonder if young Mr. McIssac has a hacksaw.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Ms. Hansen?” Dean put the tray down on the desk and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. She wasn’t in Mr. Smythe’s suite—her suite now, he supposed—and she wasn’t in the office. He hoped she wasn’t upstairs packing.Am I fired if she leaves?

Footsteps descending the stairs seemed to confirm his worst fears, but when she came into view, she wasn’t carrying her bags. She hadn’t even put her coat on.

“Oh, there you are, Dean.”

There he was? He hadn’t gone anywhere except to get her the coffee she’d asked for. “I brought cream and sugar,” he told her as she squeezed under the counter flap. “You didn’t say how you took it.”

“Definitely cream.” She poured some into the mug and frowned at the sugar bowl. “Do you have any packets of artificial sweetener?”

“Sure.” As far as he could tell, she didn’t need to watch her weight. While not quite a woman a man could see to shoot gulls through, she was on the skinny side and that much cream would pack on more pounds than a bit of sugar. “I’ll go get you some.”

“Dean?”

He straightened in the lobby and turned to face her over the counter.

“Bring your toolbox, too.”

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Cradling the coffee mug in both hands, Claire leaned against the wall and watched Dean work. He’d had no trouble cutting the padlock off, but the original lock was proving to be more difficult.

“I think you should call a locksmith, Ms. Hansen. I can’t get in there without damaging the door some.”

“How much?”

He shrugged.“If I get my crowbar from the van, I could probably force it open. Just stick it in here…” He ran a finger down the crack between the door and the jam where the tongue of the lock ran into the wall. “…and shove. It’ll crack the wood for sure, but I can’t say how much.”

Claire took another swallow and considered her options. As long as Dean stayed out of the actual room, there should be no problem; only the largest of sites were visible to the untrained eye.“Go get your crowbar.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When the sound of Dean’s work boots clumping against bare wood suggested he’d reached the lobby, Austin stretched and glared up at Claire. “Couldn’t this have waited until after breakfast? I’m starved.”

“Could you have actually eaten not knowing what we were in for? Never mind. Stupid question.”

“You’ve got your coffee, the least you could’ve done was given me the cream.”

“The vet said you’re not supposed to have cream.” She squatted and rubbed him behind the ears. “Don’t worry, it’ll all be over soon. Waiting out on this side of the door has me so edgy, I’m positive the site’s in there.”

“In a just world,” the cat growled, “it would’ve been in the kitchen.”

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His boots wet from the run out to the van, Dean slipped them off at the back door and started upstairs in his socks. Making the turn on the second floor landing, he heard voices.Iguess she’s talking to the cat.

Voices. Plural, prodded his subconscious.

You’re losing it, boy. The cat’s not talking back.

She had her back to him when he stepped out into the third-floor hall.“Ms. Hansen?”

Claire managed to bite off most of the shriek, but her heart slammed against her ribs as she whirled around.“Don’t ever do that!”

Jerking back a step, Dean brought the crowbar up between them.“Do what?”

“Don’t ever sneak up on me like that!” She pressed her right hand between her breasts. “You’re just lucky I realized who you were!”

Although she was a good six or seven inches shorter than he was and there was nothing to her besides, somehow, that didn’t sound as ridiculous as it should have. “I’m sorry!”

Austin banged his head against her shins and she looked down.“You took your boots off.”

“They got wet.”

“Right. Of course.” Bringing her breathing under control, Claire waved him toward the locked door. “Break the lock, then step away. If there was a fire in there, you won’t want the mess tracked into the hall.”

Dean flashed her a grateful smile as he jammed the crowbar into the crack. Since coming west, he’d found few people who appreciated the kind of problems involved in keeping carpets clean. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And stop calling me ma’am. You make me feel like I’m a hundred years old.” When she saw him fighting a grin, Claire rolled her eyes. “I’m twenty-seven.”

“Okay.” A confidence given required one in exchange. “I’m twenty-one.” As he pulled back on the bar, he glanced over at her expression and wondered how she knew he was lying. “That is, I’ll be twenty-one in a few months.”

“So you’re twenty?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The shriek of tortured wood and steel cut off further conversation. Hands over her ears, Claire watched muscles stretch the sleeves of his T-shirt as the lock began to give. When it popped suddenly, it took her a moment to gather her wandering thoughts—although, she assured the world at large, it was purely an aesthetic interest. In that moment, the door swung open, Dean looked into the room, and froze on the threshold.

“Lord thunderin’ Jesus! Mr. Smythe’s been hiding a body up here!”

“Calm down.” Claire put her palm in the center of Dean’s back and shoved. She’d have had more luck shifting the building. “And move!” Over the years she’d seen bodies in every condition imaginable—and frequently the imagination had belonged to fairly warped individuals. If this bodyhad merely been left lying around, she’d consider herself lucky.

Dean stayed in the doorway, the breadth of his shoulders blocking her way and her view.

“I don’t think,” he said, grasping both edges of the doorframe, “that this is something a lady ought to see.”

“Well, you got part of it right, you don’t think!” Choosing guile over force, she slammed her knees into the back of his at the spot where the crease crossed the hollow. As he collapsed, she pushed past him, one hand reaching out to the old-fashioned, circular light switch.

The room was a little larger than the room Claire had slept in and the decorating hadn’t been changed since the early part of the century. An oversized armchair sat covered in hand-crocheted doilies, a Victorian plant stand complete with a very dead fern stood between the two curtained windows, and a woman lay fully clothed on top of the bed, a sausage-shaped bolster under her head and a folded quilt under her feet. Everything, including the woman, wore a fuzzy patina of dust. The air smelled stale and, faintly, of perfume.

Claire could feel the edges of a shield wrapped around the body—which explained why she hadn’t been able to get a sense of what room six held. The shield hadn’t been put in place by a Cousin. At some point, a Keeper had been by and wrapped the site up so tightly that even another Keeper couldn’t get through. Had Augustus Smythe not needed to leave so badly, Claire could’ve passed happily through Kingston without ever realizing the site existed. The one thing shecouldn’t figure out was why a Keeper would bother. While people did occasionally manifest an accident site, the usual response was an exorcism, not the old Sleeping Beauty schtick.

A choking noise behind her reminded Claire she had a more immediate problem. The woman on the bed had clearly been there for some years; she could wait a few minutes longer.

When she turned, Dean had regained his position in the doorway. Her movement drew his locked gaze up off the bed, breaking the connection. For a moment he stared at her, eyes wide, then he whirled around and managed two running steps toward the stairs.

“Dean McIssac!”

There was power in a name.

He stopped, one foot in the air, and almost fell.

“Where are you going?”

Shoving his glasses back into place, he tired to sound as though he found dead women laid out in the guest rooms all the time.“I’m after calling 911.” His heart was pounding so loudly he could hardly hear himself.

“After calling?”

He rolled his eyes anxious to be moving, impatient at the delay.“After calling, going to call; it’s the same thing.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!” Frustration had him almost shouting. Suddenly self-conscious, he ducked his head. “Sorry.”

Claire waved off the apology.“I meant, why are you going to call 911?”

“Because there’s a body…”

“She isn’t dead, Dean, she’s asleep. If you look at her chest, you can see she’s breathing.”

“Breathing?” Without moving his feet, he grabbed the splintered doorjamb and leaned in over the threshold. “Oh.” Feeling foolish, he shrugged and tried to explain, “I was raised better than to stare at a woman’s chest.”

“You thought it was a corpse.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Whoraised you?”

“My granddad, Reverend McIssac,” Dean told her, a little defensively.

Claire had her doubts at how often a twenty-year-old male actually followed that particular dictum but had no plans to discourage admirable intentions.“Well, good for him. And you. Now, could you do something for me?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Could you go get me another cup of coffee,please.”

He looked at her like she was out of her mind.“What? Now? What about the woman on the bed?”

“I don’t think she’s going to want one.”

“No, I meant, whatabout the woman on the bed!”

Claire sighed. She hadn’t actually thought it would work, but since it was the simplest temporary solution, it had seemed foolish not to try. Unfortunately, curiosity was one of the strongest motivating forces behind humanity’s rise out of the ooze and, unsatisfied, it invariably caused problems. The safest way to deal with questions was to answer them, then, after all the loose ends were neatly tied up, wipe the whole package right out of Dean’s mind. “If I promise to explain everything later, will you do me a favor? Will you wait quietly while I deal with this?”

“You know what’s going on then?”

“Yes. Mostly,” she amended, conscience prickling.

“And you’ll explain it to me?”

“When I’m done with her.”

“Done what?”

“That’s one of the things I’ll explain later.”

Feeling a pressure against his shins, Dean glanced down to see Austin rubbing against him. It was such a normal, ordinary thing for a cat to do, it made the rest of the morning seem less strange.“Okay,” he said, dropping to one knee and running his fingers along the silky fur. “I’ll wait.”

“Thank you.”

With her unwelcome audience temporarily taken care of, Claire turned her attention back to the bed. In spite of the dust, the woman did bear a striking resemblance to Sleeping Beauty— or more accurately, given her age, to Sleeping Beauty’s mother. Then it became obvious that the blonde curls had been bleached, the eyebrows had been plucked and redrawn, and the lips were far, far too red. The severe, almost military-style clothing covered a lush figure that could by no means be called matronly. For some reason, Claire found the line of dark residue under all ten fingernails incredibly disturbing. She didn’t know why—dirty fingernails had never bothered her before.

It would be easier to work without the shield, but with a bystander to consider, Claire went through the perimeter without disturbing its structural integrity.

The emanations rising from the body were so dark she gagged. Teeth clenched, wishing she hadn’t had that coffee, she forced herself to take a deeper look.

Kneeling beside the cat, Dean watched his new boss stagger back, trip on the edge of the braided rug, and begin to fall. He dove forward, felt an unpleasant, greasy sizzle along one arm, and caught her just before she hit the floor. Under the makeup, her face had gone a pale gray and her throat worked as though she wanted to throw up. Before he could ask if she was all right, Austin leaped up onto her lap.

Her lower body still on the other side of the shield, Claire reached out to stop the cat from crossing over.

Too late.

“Evil!” Without actually touching down, he twisted in midair, hit the floor running, and raced back into the hall.

That was enough for Dean. Hands under Claire’s armpits, he half carried, half dragged her out of the room. When her legs cleared the threshold, he reached over her and pulled the door closed. The damage he’d done to the lock plate meant it no longer latched, but he managed to jam it shut.

Pressed tight against Dean’s chest, her head tucked into the hollow of his throat, Claire shoved on the arm holding her in place. While she appreciated him catching her before her skull smacked into the floor, his interference in something he had no hope of understanding created the distinct desire to drive her elbow in under his ribs as far as it would go. Only the certain knowledge that any blow would bounce harmlessly off the rippled muscle she could feel through the thin barrier of the T-shirt prevented her. That, and the way the position she found herself in radically restricted her movements. Not to mention her ability to breathe. “Let go of me!” she gasped. “Now!”

He jerked and looked down at her like he’d forgotten she was there but eased up enough so she could squirm free. Wedging her shoulder under his, she managed to get him out of the doorway.

His back against the wall, Dean slid down to sit on the hall floor, feeling much as he had at ten when the local bully had smacked him around with a dead cod.“The cat talked.”

Having just reached Austin’s side, Claire shook her head. “No, he didn’t.”

“Yes, he did.”

Scooping the cat up into her arms, she said in a tone specifically crafted to make the recipient doubt his own senses,“No, he didn’t.”

“Yes, he did,” Austin corrected, his voice a little muffled.

“Excuse me.” Holding him tightly against her chest, she turned so that her body was between Dean and the cat. “I’ll just be a minute.” Tucking her thumb under the furry chin, she lifted his head and whispered, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” His tail, still twice its normal size, lashed against her leg. “I was startled. I hit the nasty on the other side of that shield and I overreacted.”

“And what are you doing now?”

“He’s a part of this.”

“Are you out of your walnut-sized mind? He’s a bystander!”

“Granted, but you’re going to need his help.”

“For what? With what? Withher?”

“Maybe. I don’t know yet.”

“Youare out of your mind! Do you know what that is in there?”

“Excuse me?”

“What?” Dean’s voice pulled Claire’s attention back across the hall.

Caught between a cruel and capricious sea and an unwelcoming hunk of rock, Newfoundlanders had turned adaptation into a genetically encoded survival trait. True to his ancestry, Dean had progressed from stunned disbelief through amazement to amazed acceptance by the time he’d interrupted.

When he saw he had their attention, he said,“I could still hear you. Sorry.”

“Well, she wasn’t exactly keeping her voice down,” Austin pointed out.

Dean met Claire’s gaze almost apologetically. “The cat talks.”

“The cat never shuts up,” Claire replied through gritted teeth.

“He seems to think I can help.”

“Yeah, well when I need something cleaned or cooked I’ll let you know. OW!” Sucking on the back of her hand, she glared down at Austin. “What did you scratch me for?”

He retracted his claws.“You were being rude.”

“Scratch me again and I’ll show you rude,” she muttered.

“You’re frightened, that’s understandable. Even I was almost frightened. You think you can’t handle this, you think it’s too big for you…”

“Stop telling me what I think!”

“…but that’s no reason to take it out on him.”

“You’re frightened?” Dean ducked his head to get a better look at her face. “You are frightened.”

Obviously, she hadn’t been hiding it as well as she’d thought.

“Of what? Oh…” The talking cat had temporarily driven all thoughts of their other discovery out of his head. “Of her?”Evil, the cat had said. Rubbing the lingering, greasy feel off the arm that had been closest to the bed, Dean found that easy to believe.“Don’t worry.” He straightened where he sat. “On the last of it, she’ll have to go through me to get to you.”

“Foreshadowing,” Austin muttered.

Giving the cat a warning squeeze, Claire realized that Dean’s offer was in earnest. He was the sort of person who went out of his way to pick worms off the sidewalk and put them back onto the lawn. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “First of all, I can take care of myself. Second, if you ever face that woman awake, you’d better hope she kills you immediately and doesn’t play with you for a while. And third, there’s nothing you can do.”

“The cat said…”

“He says a lot of things.”

“You said you’d explain.”

“After I’d dealt with her. And I haven’t.”

“I could help you with her.”

“You don’t know what’s going on.”

“I would if you explained.”

“I’ve had as much as I can take of this,” Austin grumbled. “I’ll explain.” Wriggling out of Claire’s arms, he crossed the hall and locked a pale green stare on Dean’s face. “Do you believe in magic?”

“That’s an explanation?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Sure.”

“Sure? What kind of an answer is sure? Do you or don’t you?”

Dean shrugged.“I guess I do.”

“Good.” Stretching out, Austin ripped at the carpet. “Because that’s what we’re dealing with.”

“Magic?”

“That’s right. The woman in the room behind you was put to sleep by magic.”

Dean shifted a little farther down the hall. Drawing his knees up, he laid his forearms across them and frowned.“Like Sleeping Beauty?”

Austin’s ears went back. “The opposite. This time the bad guy—her—got put to sleep by the good guys.”

“Why?”

“How should I know?”

“I just thought…”

“At this point we don’t know much more than you do.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Actually, we know a whole lot more than you, but we don’t knowthat. The important thing for you to remember is that, if you’re lucky, the woman in there is the worst thing you’re ever going to come in contact with. She’s evil sleeping in size eight pumps.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “How do you know her shoe size?”

“I don’t.”

“But you said…”

“I was making a point,” Austin sighed. “Which obviously didn’t make it through your thick head.”

Watching the cat stalk back across the hall and rub his head against a denim-clad hip, Dean suddenly remembered the feel of a body clutched tightly against his. Under normal circumstances, it wasn’t a feeling he’d have forgotten. His ears turned red as he realized just which bits had gone where and he suspected he should apologize for something. “Uh, Ms. Hansen…”

“You might as well call me Claire,” she interrupted wearily, picking at a loose thread in the cleanest carpet she’d ever seen. “If Austin’s right…”

“And I am,” Austin put in, not bothering to glance up from an important bit of grooming.

“…we’re going to be working together. That is,” she added after a moment’s pause, “if you still want to keep your job.”

Austin snorted.“Weren’t you listening to me?”

“Dean has to decide for himself if he’s going to stay.”

Dean shifted nervously under the weight of their combined attention.“What is it we’ll be doing together?”

Claire put her cupped hand over the cat’s muzzle before she answered. “Fighting evil.”

“You’re a superhero?”

Austin jerked free.“Don’t,” he suggested sternly, “give her ideas.”

“No, I’m not a superhero. I don’t even own a pair of tights. Are you blushing again?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

“I am one of the good guys. Andthis is a bad situation. The woman in there…” Claire nodded toward the broken door. “…is only half the problem. Somewhere in this building is a hole in the fabric of the universe.”

About to protest that there were some stories even adumb Newfie wouldn’t believe, Dean hesitated. They’d found a dust-covered woman, dressed in 1940s clothing, asleep in room six and he’d just had the situation more or less—mostly less—explained to him by a talking cat. Evidence suggested it wasn’t a bam. “A hole in the fabric of the universe,” he repeated. “Okay.”

“We refer to it as an accident site. At some time, somebody did something they shouldn’t have. The energy coming through the hole is keeping the woman asleep.” Crossing her legs at the ankle, Claire rocked up onto her feet. “That’s how I know thereis a hole and Augustus Smythe wasn’t here merely to monitor her.” As Dean opened his mouth, the next question obvious on his face, she held up a silencing hand. “It’s nothing personal, but right at the moment, my questions are more important than yours. Since I’m not going back in there to find the answers…”

“You don’t want her to wake up,” Austin muttered at Dean. “Youreally don’t want her to wake up.”

“…I’ve got to find the accident site. Unfortunately, it seems to be at least as well shielded as she is and we’re going to have to search every threadbare inch of this place, unless…you know where it is?”

“The accident site?” He stood. “The hole in the fabric of the universe?”

“That’s right.” She’d never had to explain herself to a bystander before. It was hard not to sound patronizing.

“Sorry. I haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.” Squaring his shoulders, he hiked the tool belt up on his hips. His world had always included a number of things he’d had to take on faith. He added one more. “But I’d like to help.”

“So you’re staying?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Claire.” When he looked dubious, she sighed. “What?”

“You own the hotel, you’re my boss; I can’t call you by your first name. It wouldn’t be right.”

About to tell him that he was being an idiot, Claire suddenly remembered the feel of his arms and the warm scent of fabric softener and decided it might be better to maintain some distance.“What did you call Augustus Smythe?”

“To his face?”

Austin snickered.

“Yes. To his face.”

“I called him Boss.” Dean considered the possibility of calling an attractive woman the same thing he’d called a cranky old man and wasn’t entirely convinced it would work. “Iguess I could call you Boss.”

“Good. Glad we’ve got that cleared up.”

“Should I wire this door shut before we start searching, um, Boss?”

Although Dean don’t seem quite comfortable using the title, Claire found she liked it. It made her feel like the lead in an old gangster movie. “You might as well.” It would be a useless precaution since it was unlikely any of them would now wander into room six by accident, but it would give Dean something to do that he understood. “Just let me turn out the light first.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

The remainder of the third floor, two double rooms and a single, was empty of everything except the lingering smell of disinfectant. Inside the storage cupboard across from room six, Claire emptied the shelves of toilet paper and cleaning supplies, then peered down the laundry chute.

“Don’t even think about it!” Austin spat as she turned and studied him measuringly.

“Suppose it’s between floors?”

“Then it’ll just have to stay there.”

“I’ll keep you from falling.”

“Oh, sure.” He squeezed in behind a bucket of sponges and peered balefully at her over the edge, ears flat against his head.“That’s what you said the last time.”

“Those were extraordinary circumstances. Never happen again.”

“I said no.”

“Okay, okay.” She tried and failed to open the narrow door next to the chute. “What’s in here?”

“Stairs to the attic.” Dean eyeballed the opening of the laundry chute, was relieved to find he wouldn’t fit, and found the required key on his master ring.

Filling an area barely five feet square, a narrow set of metal stairs spiraled upward toward an uninviting square hole cut out of the ceiling.

“Are there lights?”

“Don’t think so. You stay where you’re at, girl, and let me…” At the look on her face, his voice trailed off. “Never mind, then.”

“Girl?”

“It’s just a way we have of talkin’ back home,” he explained hurriedly, his cheeks crimson and his accent thickening. “I don’t mean nothing by it.”

“Then don’t do it again.”

“Yes ma’am, Ms. Hansen.” A deep breath and he tried again. “Boss.”

“Are you certain he’s a part of this?” she demanded, turning toward the cat.

“Yes. Get along.”

Claire sighed. Metal rungs ringing under her feet, she ran to the top of the stairs, crossed her fingers and stuck her head up into what looked like one large room filled with decades of discards, barely lit by the two filthy dormer windows cut into the sloping roof on either end of the building.

It was still raining.

“It’ll take us months to search that place thoroughly,” she announced a moment later backing carefully down the stairs. “Let’s leave it for later. With any luck we’ll find the hole someplace more accessible.”

“Oh, sure, accessible like the laundry chute,” Austin muttered as Dean relocked the attic door.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

The second floor was as empty as the first—more so since there was nothing to match the occupant of room six. Remembering the mess she’d left spread out on the bed, Claire vouched for her room without opening the door. Room four, a comer single with two outside walls and no window, suggested a more thorough search.

Leaning on the edge of the bureau, Dean watched Claire slip into the bed alcove and try the bolt on the inside of the alcove’s steel door. “You know someone actually asked for this room last spring.”

“How would I know that? I just got here.” The high box bed had one shallow drawer under the mattress and two deeper drawers below that. Hands slid between the mattress and the frame found no sign of evil but did turn up a silver earring.

Mortified, Dean apologized for a sloppy job as Claire dropped the piece of jewelry on his palm.“When we’re done searching, I’ll clean this room again.”

“If it makes you happy,” Claire muttered, checking in the bedside table. As far as she could see, the room was spotless.

Dean’s expression softened as he bounced the earring on his palm. “She was a musician. Sasha something. I can’t remember her last name, but she was some h…” Then, he remembered who he was talking to. His boss. A woman. Some things he couldn’t say to a boss. Or a woman. “Cute. She was somecute.”

“H…cute?” Shaking her head, Claire brushed past him.

Mouth partly open, Austin whipped his tail from side to side.“I don’t like the way this smells.”

“Then since it’d take a sledgehammer to air it out, let’s go.” Claire could feel a perfectly logical reason for the design hovering just beyond the edge of conscious thought, but when she reached for it, it danced away and taunted her from a safe distance.Later, she promised and added aloud,“What did you say?”

Dean paused at the top of the stairs.“I said, do you think we should search the rest of Mr. Smythe’s old rooms, then?”

“He wouldn’t have been living with it,” she snapped dismissively. Then feeling like she’d just kicked a puppy, a large and well-muscled puppy, she added a strained, “Sorry. Where Augustus Smythe is concerned, I shouldn’t take anything for granted.”

The sitting room violated a number of rules concerning how many objects could simultaneously occupy the same space, but the only accident it contained involved the head-on collision of good taste with an apparent inability to throw anything away. The bedroom wasn’t quite as bad. Dominated by a brass bed, it also held an obviously antique dressing table, a wardrobe, and two windows. One of them framed into an inside wall.

“Probably the window missing from the room upstairs.” Jumping up onto the bed, Austin began kneading the mattress. “This isn’t bad. I could sleep here.”

Before Claire could stop him, Dean tugged the burgundy brocade curtain to one side and closed it again almost instantly, setting six inches of fringe swaying back and forth.

“Are you okay?” she asked warily. If it was the accident site and he’d been exposed, there was no telling what he might have picked up.

Cheeks flushed, he nodded.“Fine. I’m fine.”

“What did you see?”

“It was, uh, a bar.” He cleared his throat and reluctantly continued. “With, uh, dancers.”

“Were they table dancing?” The cat snickered. “Upon admittedly short acquaintance, that seems like the sort of scene old Augustus would go for.”

“Not exactly table, no.” Shaking his head, Dean lifted the curtain again. “It was dark but…” His voice trailed off.

Claire peered around his shoulder and almost went limp with relief.“That doesn’t sound like a bar to me. Looks like Times Square. And over there, in front of the hookers, isn’t that a drug deal going down?” Leaning forward, she rapped on the glass and nodded in satisfaction. “That put the fear of God into them.”

The curtain fell closed again. Dean’s voice threatened to crack as he asked, “What was it?”

“We call it a postcard.”

“We?” He waved an overly nonchalant hand toward the cat. That smacked-with-a-cod feeling had returned. “You and Austin?”

“Among others.” She glared at the curtain. “Smythe couldn’t have managed this on his own; he had to have been pulling from the site.”

“Is that bad?”

“Well it isn’t good. I’ll know more when we find the hole.”

“Wherever it is,” Austin agreed.

“Since we know it’s not in the dining room, what’s left?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

The basement held, besides the mechanicals, the laundry room, Dean’s sparsely furnished and absolutely spotless apartment, several storage cupboards holding sheets, towels, and still more cleaning supplies, and, across from the laundry room, a large metal door. Painted a brilliant turquoise, it boasted not one but two padlocked chains securing it closed.

“Dean, did you know this was down here?”

He frowned, confused by the question. Since he obviously spent a lot of time in the basement…“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”

“It’s just the furnace room.”

“The furnace room.” Claire exchanged a speaking glance with the cat. “Have you ever been in this alleged furnace room?”

“No. Mr. Smythe did all the furnace work himself.”

“I’ll bet.” The keys were hanging beside the door. The security arrangements were clearly not intended to keep people out but to keep something in. “What was he heating this place with,” she muttered, dragging the first chain free. “A dragon?”

Dean took the chain, removed the second length, and hung them both neatly on the hooks provided.“Are you kidding?”

“Mostly. Any virgins reported missing from the neighborhood?”

“Pardon?”

“Forget it.” Claire pulled the door open about six inches and leaned away from the blast of heat. “Do you mind?” she asked as Austin slipped in ahead of her. “Try to remember what curiosity killed.” Moving forward, she felt remarkably calm. At first she thought she was just numb—it had, after all, been a busy morning—but when she stepped over the threshold, she realized that the entire furnace room had been wrapped in a dampening field.

Much more powerful than a mere shield, it not only deflected the curious but was quite probably the only thing allowing people to remain in the building.

Down nine steps, inscribed into the rough surface of a bedrock floor, was a complicated, multicolored, multilayered pentagram. The center of the pentagram was an open hole. A dull red light, shining up from the depths, painted lurid highlights on the copper hood hanging from the ceiling. Ductwork directed the rising heat up into the hotel.

Must have a helluva filter system, Claire thought, wrinkling her nose at the stink of fire and brimstone.

And then it sank in. Unfortunately, the dampening field had no effect inside the furnace room.

Heart pounding, hot sweat rolling down her sides, she bent and scooped up Austin, who’d flattened himself to the floor. With the cat held tightly against her chest, she forced herself down the first three steps.

“Where are you going?” he hissed, claws digging into her shoulder.

“To check the seal.”

“Why?”

“Because Augustus Smythe couldn’t have held this.”

“Then obviously someone else is. And there’s only one someone else in this building.”

“She’s holding it, it’s holding her.” Claire went down another three steps and nodded toward the pentagram. “There’s her name. Sara.”

“Don’t…”

“It’s all right. If her name could get through the field, they’d have woken her years ago.” There was a vibration in the air, just on the edge of sound, an almost hum as though they were walking toward the world’s largest wasp’s nest. “On the other hand, you know that low-level buzz Imentioned last night? There seems to be some seepage.”

“But you couldn’t feel it this morning.”

“Not outside this room, no. Augustus Smythe probably used it up making his getaway.”

“That’s bad.”

“Well, it’s not good.” Placing her feet with care, she backed up the stairs, squeezed over the threshold, shoved Dean away from the door, and very, very gently, pushed it closed.

“Was it a dragon?” Dean asked, not entirely certain why he hadn’t followed her inside but untroubled by the uncertainty.

“No.” As the dampening field began to take effect, it became possible to think again. “It wasn’t a dragon.”

“Then was it a furnace?”

“Sort of.” She unhooked Austin’s claws from her shoulder and settled him more comfortably in her arms, her free hand rhythmically stroking his fur and sending clouds of loose hair flying. He tucked his head up under her chin, and left it there.

“Was it the hole?”

Claire giggled. She couldn’t help it, but she managed to cut it short; she hadn’t expected such a literal example of the explanation she’d created to fit a bystander’s limited world. “Oh, yes, it was the hole.” Still cradling the cat, she started toward the basement stairs, head up, back straight. “Could you please replace the chains and the locks?”

Dean had the strangest feeling that if he tapped her shoulder as she passed, she’d ring out like a weather buoy. “Are you all right, then?”

“I’m fine.”

“Where are you going?”

“Upstairs.”

He shook his head, thought about opening the door and taking a look for himself and for reasons he wasn’t quite clear on, decided not to. “Hey, Boss?”

It took Claire a moment to realize who he was talking to. Three steps up, she paused and leaned out from the stairs so she could see him.“Yes?”

“What are you after doing?”

“I’m going to do what anyone in this situation would do; I’m going to get a second opinion.”

“From who?”

Her smile looked as if it had been borrowed and didn’t quite fit. “I’m going to call my mother.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Behind the chains, behind the turquoise door, down the stairs, and deep in the pit, intelligence stirred.

HELLO?

When it realized there’d be no answer, it sighed.

DAMN.

TWO

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_4]

“HANSEN RESIDENCE.”

The voice on the other end of the line was not one Claire had expected to hear.“Diana?” Unable to remain still, she picked up the old rotary phone and paced the length of the office and back. “What are you doing home? I thought you were doing fieldwork this weekend.”

“Hong and I had a small argument.”

“Like the argument you had with Matt?”

“No.”

There was a lengthening, a scornful pronunciation of that second letter that only a teenager could manage. At twenty, the ability was lost.Three years, Claire told herself,just three more years. She’d been ten when Diana was born and the sudden appearance of a younger sister had come as a complete surprise. Over the years, although she loved Diana dearly, the surprise had turned to apprehension—being around her was somewhat similar to being around sweating dynamite. “These people are supposed to be training you. You could assume they know what they’re doing.”

“Yeah, well, they’re old and they never letme do anything.”

“I haven’t time to get into this with you right now. Put Mom on, please.”

“Duh, Claire, it’s Sunday morning.”

She took a minute to whack herself on the forehead with the receiver. She’d completely forgotten. “Could you ask her to call me the moment she gets home from church?”

“You didn’t say the magic word.”

“Diana!”

“Chill, I’m kidding. What’s the matter anyway? You sound like you just looked into the depths of Hell.”

Reflecting, not for the first time, that her little sister had an appalling amount of power from someone with an equally appalling amount of self-confidence, Claire smoothed the lingering tremors out of her voice.“Just ask her to call me—please.” She read the number off the dial. “It’s important.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Dean could hear Claire talking on the phone as he came up the basement stairs. Ignoring the temptation to eavesdrop—as much as he wanted to know what she was saying, it would’ve been rude—he continued on into the kitchen, where he found Austin attempting to open the fridge.

“They build garage door openers, push of a button and you can park your car, but does anyone ever think of building something like that for a fridge. No.” He pulled his claws out of the rubber seal and glared up at Dean. “What does a cat have to do to get breakfast around here?”

“Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“A few minutes ago…”

Austin interrupted with an explosive snort.“That was then, this is now.” Rising onto his hind legs, he rested his front paws just above Dean’s denim-covered knee, claws extended only enough for emphasis. “You look like a nice guy, why don’t you feed me?”

“Austin!”

“That’s my name,” he sighed, dropping back to all four feet. “Don’t wear it out.”

As Claire came around the corner, she was amazed at how familiar it seemed, as though this were the twenty-second not merely the second time she’d walked into the kitchen. Layered between the sleeping Sara and Hell, there was a comforting domesticity about the whole thing. She shuddered.

“Are you okay?” Dean asked.

“I’m fine. I just had a vision of an unpleasant future.” Shaking her head, hoping to clear it, she added, “My mother wasn’t home, but I left a message with my sister. She’ll call later.”

Austin jumped up onto the counter.“Why was your sister home!”

“The usual.”

“Anyone get hurt?”

“I didn’t ask.”

Leaning back against the sink, Dean looked down at his sock-covered feet. Had she not been his boss, he would’ve asked her if she wasn’t a little old to be calling her mum when she ran into a problem.

“Dean?”

He glanced up to see Claire staring at him.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Instinct caught the coin she tossed, and to his surprise he found himself repeating his musing aloud.

“No, I amnot too old to call my mother,” she said when he finished, ignoring the cat’s muttered, “Serves you right for asking.”

“My mother has been in the business a lot longer than I have, and I could use her professional advice since not one thing that happened this morning was what I expected. Not room six, not the furnace room, not you.”

“Not me?”

“If Austin wasn’t so convinced that you’re a part of this whole mess, we’d be sitting down to rearrange your memories right about now.”

Dean squelched his initial response—why ask if she could do it when there was absolutely nothing in that statement to suggest she couldn’t. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to keep my memories the way they are.”

“Good for you.” Austin sat down and stared pointedly at the fridge. “So if we’re not going to adjust the status quo until your mother’s had a look, what are we waiting for? When do we eat?”

Claire sighed.“I think Dean’s waiting for an explanation.”

“I already explained,” Austin protested, twisting out from under Claire’s hand. “He told me he believed in magic. I told him that’s what was going on.”

“That’s not much of an explanation.”

“It’s enough to tide him over until after breakfast.”

They surrendered to the inevitable. While Dean cooked for Claire, she ran up to her room to get a can of cat food.

As she put the saucer of beige puree on the floor, Austin glanced down in disgust and then glared up at her.“I can smell perfectly good sausages,” he complained.

“Which you’re not allowed to have. Remember what the vet said, at your age the geriatric cat food will help keep you alive.”

“One sausage couldn’t hurt,” Dean offered, his expression as he looked into the saucer much the same as the cat’s.

Claire caught his wrist and moved the hand holding the fork holding the sausage back over the plate.“Austin’s seventeen years old,” she told him. “Would you feed one of these to someone who was a hundred and two?”

“I guess not.”

“You won’t live forever; it’ll only seem that way,” Austin muttered around a mouthful of food.

As Dean carried the loaded plate over to one of the small tables in the dining room, Claire attempted to organize her thoughts. Of the morning’s three surprises, four if she counted Augustus Smythe disappearing and leaving her the hotel, Dean was actually the one she felt least qualified to deal with. When it came right down to it, Sara and Hell and Augustus Smythe were variations on a theme—extreme variations,really extreme variations, granted, but nothing entirely unique. On the other hand, in almost ten years of sealing sites, she’d never had to explain herself to a bystander. Manipulate perceptions so she could do her job, yes. Actually—to tell the truth, the whole truth—no.

When Dean set down the plate, she stared aghast at the scrambled eggs, sausage patties, grilled tomatoes, and three pieces of toast.“This is more food than I’d usually eat all day.”

“I guess that’s why you’re so…”

“So what?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“Skinny.” Hie ears slowly turning red, Dean set the cutlery neatly on each side of the plate and hurried back into the kitchen. “I’ll, uh, get you another coffee, then.”

While his back was turned, Claire rolled her eyes. She was not skinny; she was petite. Andhe was so—in rapid succession she considered and discarded intense, earnest, and stalwart. Before she worked her way down to yeomanly, she decided she’d best settle on young and leave it at that. “Aren’t you having any?” she asked as he returned with her mug.

A little surprised, he shook his head.“I ate before you got up.”

“That was hours ago. Bring another plate, you can have half of this.”

“IfI bring another plate…” Austin began.

“No.” When Dean hesitated, Claire prodded at his conscience. “Trust me, I’m not going to eat all of it; it’ll just get thrown out.”

A few moments later, a less intimidating breakfast in front of her and Dean eating hungrily on the other side of the table the way only a young man who’d gone three hours without eating could, Claire turned suddenly toward the cat and said, “You’resure he’s a part of this?”

“I’m positive.”

“You were positive that time in Gdansk, too.”

Austin snorted.“So my Polish was a little rusty, sue me.” He stared pointedly up at her, his tail flicking off the seconds like a furry metronome.

“All right. You win.” Chewing and swallowing a forkful of tomato delayed the inevitable only a few moments more. Feeling the weight of Dean’s gaze join the cat’s, she lifted her head and cleared her throat. “First of all, I want you to realize that what I’m about to tell you is privileged information and is not to be repeated. To anyone. Ever.”

Wrapped in the comforting and lingering odors of sausage and egg, Dean ran through a fast replay of the morning’s events. “Nothing personal, but who’d believe me?”

“You’d be surprised. When I got up today, I didn’t expect I’d be telling it to you.” Eyes narrowed, she leaned forward. “If this information falls into the wrong hands…”

Unable to help himself, Dean mirrored her movement and lowered his voice dramatically.“The fate of the world is at stake?”

“Yes.”

When he realized she meant it, he could’ve sworn he felt each individual hair rise off the back of his neck. It was an unpleasant sensation. He pushed his chair away from the table, all of a sudden not really hungry. “Okay. Maybe you’d better not tell me.”

Claire shot an annoyed look at the cat.“Too late.”

“But you don’t even know me. You don’t know you can trust me.”

The possibility of not trusting him hadn’t crossed her mind. Total strangers probably handed him their packages while they bent to tie their shoelaces. If a game needed a scorekeeper, he’d always be the one drafted. Mothers could safely leave small children with him and return hours later knowing that their darlings had been fed, watered, and harmlessly amused.And he does windows.

“I know we can trust you,” Austin muttered, leaping up onto an empty chair and glaring over the edge of the table at a piece of uneaten sausage. “Get on with it. I’m old. I haven’t got all day. Are you going to finish that?”

“Yes.” While she cleared her plate, Claire created and scrapped several possible beginnings. Finally, she sighed. “I suppose Austin’s right…”

“Well thank youvery much.”

“…it begins with believing in magic.”

“And ends with?” Dean asked cautiously.

“Armageddon. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather leave that for another day.” When he indicated that Armageddon could be left for as long as she liked, Claire continued. “Magic, simply put, is a system for tapping into and controlling the possibilities of a complex energy source.”

“Energy from where?”

“From somewhere else.” It was clear that she’d lost him. She sighed. “It doesn’t have a physical presence, it just is.” In fact, a part of it had reputedly once explained itself by saying, “I AM.” but that wasn’t a detail Claire thought she ought to add.

“It just is,” Dean repeated. Since she seemed to be waiting to see if he was willing to accept that, he shrugged and said, “Okay.” At this point, it seemed safest.

“Let’s compare magic to baseball. Everyone is more-or-less capable of playing the game but not everyone has the ability to make it to the major leagues.” Pleased with the analogy, Claire made a mental note to remember it. She could use it should she ever be in this situation again—owning a hotel complete with sleeping evil, a hole to Hell in the basement, and a handsome, young caretaker to whom her cat spilled his guts.Yeah, right. Her nostrils flared.

Taken aback by the nostril flaring, Dean shuffled his feet under the table, glanced around the familiar dining room, and finally said,“Could I do it?”

“With training and discipline, lots of discipline,” she added in case he started thinking it was easy, “anyone can do minor magics—so minor that most people don’t think they’re worth the effort.”

Feeling like he’d just been chastised by his fifth grade teacher, an intense young woman right out of teacher’s college whom every boy in the class had had a crush on, Dean slid down in his chair until his shoulders were nearly level with the table and his legs, crossed at the ankle, stretched halfway across the room. “Go ahead.”

“Thank you.” An irritatedso kind came implied with the tone. Who did he think he was?“Most of the energy magic deals with comes from the center part of the possibilities. The upper end is for emergency use only and the lower end is posted off-limits. For the sake of argument, let’s call the upper end ‘good,’ and the lower end ‘evil.’” She paused, waiting for an objection that never came. “You’re okay with that? I mean, good and evil aren’t exactly late twentieth century concepts.”

“They were at my granddad’s house,” Dean told her. Tersely invited to elaborate, he shrugged self-consciously. “My granddad was an Anglican minister.”

“This is the Reverend McIssac, the grandfather who raised you?”

He nodded.

“What happened to your parents?” Claire didn’t entirely understand his expression, but as the silence went on just a little too long, she suspected he wasn’t going to answer. “I’m sorry, that was tactless of me. I’m not actually very good with people.”

“Quel surprise,” Austin muttered, head on his front paws.

“No, it’s okay.” Dean spun one of the breakfast knives around on the table, eyes locked on the whirling blade. “They died when I was a baby,” he said at last. “House fire. It happens a lot when the woodstove gets loaded up on the first cold night of winter and you find out what condition your chimney is really in. My dad threw me out the upstairs window into a snowbank just before the building collapsed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I never knew them. It was always just me and my granddad. My father was his only son, see, and he wouldn’t let any of my aunts raise me. He’s the one who taught me to cook.” All at once, Dean had to see Claire’s expression. Too many girls fell into a “poor sweet baby” mood at this point in the story and things never really recovered after that. Catching the knife between two fingers, he looked up and saw sympathy but not pity, so he told her the rest. “They could’ve saved themselves if they hadn’t gone upstairs for me. I’ve always known, without a doubt, how much they loved me. There’s not a lot of people who can say that.”

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Claire reached over and lightly touched the back of his hand.“No wonder you’re so stable.”

He shrugged self-consciously.“Me?”

“Do you see anyone else around here who isn’t a cat?” Austin reached up and batted the knife off the table. “Thank you for sharing. Now, can we get on with it?”

Partly to irritate the cat, and partly to allow emotions to settle, Claire waited while Dean dealt with the smear of butter and toast crumbs on the floor before picking up the scattered threads of the explanation.“You ready?”

He nodded.

“All right, back to good energy and evil energy. Between this energy and what most of the world considers reality, is a barrier. For lack of a better term, let’s keep calling it the fabric of the universe. Those who use magic learn to pierce this barrier and draw off the energy they need. Unfortunately, it also gets pierced by accident.” She took a long swallow of coffee. “In order to continue, I’m going to have to grossly oversimplify, so please don’t think that I’m insulting your intelligence.”

“Okay.” It still seemed to be the safest response.

“Every time someone does something good, it pokes a hole through the fabric, releases some of the good energy, and everybody benefits. Every time someone does something evil, it releases some of the evil energy and everybody suffers.”

“How good?” Dean wondered. “And how evil?”

“The holes are proportional. If say, you sacrificed yourself to save another or conversely sacrificed another to save yourself, the holes would be large.” She paused to watch raindrops hit the window behind his head, the drops merging until their weight pulled them in tiny rivers toward the ground. “The problem is that small holes can get bigger. Evil oozing out a pinprick inspires more evil which enlarges the hole which inspires greater evil…Well, you get the idea.”

“Unless he’s dumber than kibble,” Austin growled. “I can’t believe that was the best you could come up with.”

Claire stared down at him through narrowed eyes.“All right. You come up with a better explanation.”

Twisting around on the chair seat, the cat pointedly turned his back on her.“I don’t want to.”

“You can’t.”

“I said, I didn’t want to.”

“Ha!”

“Excuse me?” Dean waved a hand to get Claire’s attention. “Is that what happened in the furnace room? Someone did something evil and accidentally made a hole?”

“Not exactly,” she said slowly, trying to decide how much he should know. “Some holes are made on purpose. There are always people around who want what they’re not supposed to have and are arrogant enough to believe they can control it.” Recalling an accident site she’d come upon her first year working solo, she shook her head. “But they can’t.”

Dean read context if not particulars in the movement.“Messy?”

“It can be. I once found a body, an entire body, in the glove compartment of a 1984 Plymouth Reliant station wagon.”

“The 1.2 liter GM, or the Mitsubishi engine?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does if you need to buy parts.”

Claire drummed her fingernails against the tabletop.“I’m talking about a body in a glove compartment, not a shopping trip to Canadian Tire.”

“Sorry.”

“May I continue?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you. Most holes can be taken care of with the magical equivalent of a caulking gun. Some are more complicated, and a few are large enough for a significant amount of evil to break through and wreak havoc before anything can be done about them.”

His eyes widened, appearing even larger magnified by the lenses of his glasses.“Has this ever happened?”

She hesitated, then shrugged; this much she might as well tell him.“Yes. But not often; the sinking of Atlantis, the destruction of the Minoan Empire…”

“The inexplicable popularity of Barney,” Austin added dryly.

Claire’s eyes narrowed again, and Dean decided it might be safer not to laugh.

“Holes,” she announced, her tone promising consequences should the cat interrupt again, “that give access to evil draw one of two types of monitors.”

“Electronic monitors?”

“No.” She paused to rub a smear of lipstick off her mug with her thumb. This was turning out to be easier than she’d imagined it could be. At the moment, before the tenuous connection they’d acquired over the course of the morning dissolved back into the relationship of almost strangers, she suspected Dean would accept almost anything she said.

GO AHEAD, TAKE ADVANTAGE. HAVE SOME FUN. WHO’LL KNOW?

The mug hit the table, rocking back and forth.

Dean grabbed it before the last dregs of Claire’s coffee spilled out onto the table. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She blinked four or five times to bring him back into focus. “Of course. Did you hear anything just now?”

“No.”

He was clearly telling the truth.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” The voice had sounded slightly off frequency, as though the speaker hadn’t quite managed to sync up with her head. Considering the nature of the site in the furnace room, there could be only one possible source for that personal a temptation. And only one possible response.

“Right, then, the monitors. Now what?” she demanded when the pressure of Austin’s regard dragged her to a second stop.

“Nothing.”

“You’re staring.”

“I’m hanging on your every word,” he told her.

He was looking so irritatingly inscrutable, Claire knew he suspected something. Tough.“The monitors,” she began again, fixing her gaze on Dean and blocking the cat out of her peripheral vision, “are magic-users known as Cousins and Keepers. The Cousins are less powerful than the Keepers, but there’re more of them. They can mitigate the results of an accident, but they can’t actually seal the hole. They watch, and wait for the need to summon a Keeper.

“For the sites thatcan’t be sealed because the holes have already grown too large, Keepers, who’re always referred to as Aunt or Uncle for reasons no one has ever been able to make clear to me, essentiallybecome the caulking and seal the hole with themselves. A lot of eccentric, reclusive old men and women are actually saving the world.”

Dean took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.“So the Keepers are the good guys?”

“That’s right.”

“And the woman asleep upstairs is one of the bad guys?”

“She’s a Keeper gone bad.” The words emerged without emotion because the only emotion applicable to the situation seemed a bit much to indulge in over the breakfast dishes. “An evil Keeper.”

“An evil auntie?” he asked, unable to keep one corner of his mouth from curving up.

“It’s a title, not a relationship,” Claire snapped. He looked so abashed she couldn’t help adding, “But, essentially, yes. We found her name written in the furnace room. For safety’s sake, we can’t tell you what it is.”

Replacing his glasses, Dean straightened in his chair, shoulders squared, both feet flat on the spotless linoleum.“Written in the furnace room? On the wall?”

“The floor actually.” It was very nearly the strongest reaction he’d had all morning. Claire wasn’t entirely certain how she felt about that.

“Okay. As soon as you’re done, I’ll get right on it.”

“On it? And do what?”

“Get rid of it. I’ve got an industrial cleanser designed for graffiti,” he told her with the kind of reverence in his voice most males his age reserved for less cleansing pleasures. “Last spring, some kids decorated the side wall, the one facing the driveway, and this stuff took it right off the brick. Took off a bit of the mortar, too, but I fixed that.”

“You’ll just stay out of the furnace room, thank you very much.” Although it would be a unique solution, it wasn’t likely to be a successful one. Fortunately, the dampening field would keep him from attempting it on his own.

Brow creased, he shook his head.“I hate to leave a mess….”

“I don’t care.” Claire smiled tightly across the table at him. “This time, you’re going to.”

“Okay. You’re the boss,” he sighed, slumping back into his chair. “But why can’t you tell me her name?”

“Because Austin was right….”

“I usually am,” the cat muttered.

“…and we really don’t want to wake her.”

Dean nodded.“Because she’s evil. What did she do? Try to use the power coming out of the hole for her own ends?”

Claire felt her jaw drop.“That’s exactly what she tried to do? How didyou know?”

“I just thought it was obvious. I mean, she was corrupted by the dark side of the force, but another Keeper showed up to stop her just in time, and although she was beaten in a fair fight, she couldn’t be killed because that would bring the good guys down to her level, so they put her to sleep instead as kind of a temporary solution.”

Mouth open, Claire stared across the table at him.

Dean felt his cheeks grow warm.“But I’m just guessing.” When she didn’t respond, he squirmed uneasily in his chair. “It’s what they’d do in the movie.”

“What movie?” The question slipped out an octave higher than usual.

“Not an actual movie,” Dean protested hurriedly, not entirely certain what he’d done wrong. “It’s just what they’d do in a movie. If they did a movie. But they wouldn’t.” He’d never actually heard a cat laugh before. “I still don’t know why her name would wake her.”

Ignoring Austin, who seemed in danger of falling off the chair, Claire wrapped the tattered remains of her dignity around her, well aware that this bystander seven years her junior had offered his last statement out of kindness, deliberately handing back control of the conversation.“Names,” she said, coolly, “are more than mere labels; they’re one of the things that connect us to each other and to the world.” Which was one of the reasons she wasn’t planning on identifying the hole in the furnace room. If Dean thought of Hell by name, it could give the darkness a connection and easier access.

One of the reasons.

What they’d do in the movie, indeed.

“If she does get woken up,” Dean wondered, frowning slightly, “is she able for you?”

“Say what?”

He hurriedly translated his question into something a mainlander could understand.“Is she stronger than you?”

“No!”

Austin snorted.

“All right. I don’t know.” Claire glared at the cat. “She’s a powerful Keeper, or she wouldn’t have been able to seal the hole, not to mention attempting to use it. But…” Her eyes narrowed. “I am also a powerful Keeper, or I wouldn’t have been summoned here. Waking her would be the only way to find out which of us is stronger, and I’m not willing to risk the destruction of this immediate area on a point of ego.”

“So she’s still sealing the hole? Like a cork in a bottle?”

“Essentially.”

“You’re here to pop her out and close the hole?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“And that’s why you called your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath, and laid both hands flat on the table. “The woman in room six is an evil Keeper.”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re a good Keeper?”

Claire leaned back and pulled a vinyl business card case out of her blazer pocket.“My sister made these for me. She meant them as a joke, but they’re accurate enough.”

Aunt Claire, Keeper

your Accident is my Opportunity

(abilities dependent on situation)

The card stock felt handmade and the words had the smudgy edges of rubber stamp printing.“ShouldI call you Aunt Claire?”

“No.”

He’d never heard such a definitiveno before. There were no shades ofmaybe, no possibility of compromise. When she indicated he could keep the card, he slipped it into the pocket of his T-shirt.“I’ve always wanted to see real magic.”

Claire leaned forward, eyes half lidded, palms flat on the table.“You should hope you don’t get the chance.”

It would’ve been more dramatic as a warning had she not placed one palm squarely on a bit of spilled jam.

Dean handed her a napkin and managed not to laugh although he couldn’t quite control a slight twitch in the outer corners of his mouth. “So was Mr. Smythe a Keeper, too?”

Claire showed her teeth in what wasn’t quite a smile. “Augustus Smythe was, and is, a despicable little worm who walked out and left me holding the bag. He’s also a Cousin.”

“Did he put her to sleep?”

“No, a Cousin can’t manipulate that kind of power.” As much as it irritated her to admit it, Dean’s little synopsis had to have been essentially correct. “At some point, there was another Keeper involved.”

“But Mr. Smythe is a Cousin, and you said Cousins monitor unsealed sites.”

“Your point?”

“You said this site is sealed, that she was sealing it like a cork in a bottle…”

“No, you said like a cork in a bottle.”

“Okay. But if the hole is sealed, what was Mr. Smythe doing here?”

“Probably monitoring the seal since she can’t and monitoringher since the power that’s keeping her asleep is coming from the site.”

“Evil power is keeping her asleep?”

“Trust me…” She tossed the napkin down onto her plate. “It’s not likely to corrupt her.”

“But if it was a temporary solution, why has Mr. Smythe been here since 1945?”

“Has he?”

“Sure. He complained about it all the time.” With a flick of two fingers, Dean began spinning the knife again. “Why did Mr. Smythe sneak out like he did?”

“I have no idea.” The handle of her mug creaked slightly in her grip. “But I’d certainly like to ask him.”

“What are you after doing now?”

“Nothing hasty. Nothing at all until I get that second opinion. When I have more information, I’ll get to work closing things up but as long as the hole remains sealed, it’s perfectly safe. We’re in no immediate danger.”

“No immediate danger?” Dean repeated. When she nodded, he leaned back in his chair, continuing to spin the knife. “That’s, um, interesting phrasing. What about long-term danger?”

“That depends.”

“On what, then?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“There’s a whole lot you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

“There’s a whole lot I don’t know.”

“Mr. Smythe was supposed to leave you more information?”

Claire snorted, sounding remarkable like Austin at his most sardonic.“At the very least.”

“Which is why we need you,” the cat told him, looking up from a damp patch of fur. “Smythe’s not here, and you are.”

“But I don’t know anything,” Dean protested.

“You should make a good pair, then. She thinks she knows everythi…Hey!” he protested as Claire picked him up and dropped him onto the floor. “It was ajoke! Keepers,” he muttered, leaping back up onto the chair, “no sense of humor.”

The wisest course, Dean decided, would be to ignore that observation altogether. Stilling the knife, he looked up from her elongated reflection in the blade.“If you don’t mind me asking, where do Keepers and Cousins come from?”

“Just outside Wappakenetta.” When both Dean and Austin stared at her blankly, she sighed. “We have a sense of humor, it’s just no one appreciates it. If you’re asking historically, Keepers and Cousins are descendants of Lilith, Adam’s first wife.”

Dean started to grin.

“I’m not joking.”

“You’re not serious! Adam’s first wife?”

Enjoying his reaction, she waved off his question with a dismissive gesture borrowed from Marlon Brando inThe Godfather.“I only know what I’m told, but some of our people are very into genealogy.”

“But you’re talking aboutAdam and Eve!”

“No, I’m talking about Adam and Lilith.”

“The Bible, the Christian Bible, as literal truth?” Dean suspected that his granddad, who held some fairly radical views for an Anglican minister, would be appalled.

“No. Not truth as such. The lineage—that is, Cousins and Keepers—consider all religions are attempts to explain their energy. Think of them as containing capital T Truths as opposed to merely being true.”

“But you said Adam and Lilith,” Dean reminded her. “Twice.”

Were all bystanders so literal, she wondered, or was it just this one?“Forget them. Forget them twice. If you prefer, there had to have been, at some point, a breeding pair of what was essentially the first humans. Postulate, a second female, with genetic coding to handle magic that the other didn’t have. It’s the same story in a different language.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath, followed that theory out to its logical conclusion, and half prepared to duck. “So essentially, you’re not—that is, not entirely—human?”

She took it better than he’d thought she would and seemed more intrigued than insulted, as though the idea had never occurred to her before. “I suppose that depends on where you set your parameters. If you’re speaking biologically…”

“I wasn’t,” Dean interrupted before she could add details. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop her.

“…we’re, certainly able to interbreed, but that doesn’t really mean anything because so could the old Greek gods.”

“They were real?”

“How should I know?” One painted fingernail tapped against the side of her mug as she thought it over. “Under those parameters, I suppose you could say, we’re…” She smiled suddenly and taken totally by surprise, he found himself lost in it. “…semimythical.”

Austin snorted.“Spare me. Semimythical indeed.”

“It does cover all the bases,” Claire protested.

“You want to cover the bases? Play shortstop for the Yankees.” Swiveling his head around, Austin stared up at Dean. “She’s human. The Keepers are human. The Cousins are human. I barely know you, but I’m assuming you’re human. I’m not saying this is a good thing, it’s just the way itis.”

“Okay.” Dean held up both hands in surrender. “So, if Mr. Smythe is a Cousin, and she’s a Keeper, what are you?”

Austin drew himself up to his full height, his entire bearing from ears to tail suggesting he’d been mortally insulted. “I am acat.”

“A cat. Okay.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

While Dean did the breakfast dishes and slotted the morning’s experiences into previously empty places in his worldview, Claire went through the papers Augustus Smythe had left in the hotel office in the hope of discovering some answers. If the registration books were complete, the hotel had never been a popular destination and bookings had fallen off considerably after Smythe had changed the name from Brewster’s Hotel to The Elysian Fields Guest House in 1952.

“Might as well call it The Vestibule of Hell,” she muttered mockingly, turning yellowed pages and not at all impressed by her earlier flash of prescience. It appeared that windowless room four had been popular throughout the existence of the hotel, and the guests who stayed in it seemed to havehad uniformly bad handwriting.

She had to call Dean out of the kitchen to open the safe.

“The very least Augustus Smythe could’ve done,” she grumbled, arms folded and brows drawn into a deep vee over her nose, “was leave me the combination.”

“He left you Dean,” Austin observed from the desk. “Something he probably figured you’d get more use out of.”

Ears red, Dean cranked the handle around and got up off his knees as the safe door swung open.“Anything else, Boss?”

Having chased Austin halfway up the first flight of stairs before being forced to acknowledge that four old legs sufficiently motivated were still faster than two, Claire ducked back under the counter.“Not right now.”

As she straightened, their eyes locked.“What?”

Dean felt a sudden and inexplicable urge to stammer. He managed to control it by keeping conversation to a minimum.“The combination?”

“Good point. Write it down. Use the back of that old bill on the desk,” she added, walking over to the safe. Squatting, she heard pencil move against paper then the combination appeared over her shoulder. “Six left, six right, seven left?”

“That’s right. I should, uh, finish the dishes now.”

“Good idea.” As he returned to the kitchen, Claire grinned. He really did turn a very charming color at the slightest opportunity. Then she looked back down at the piece of paper and shook her head. Six sixty-seven. Cute. Hell was in the basement; the safe was on the first floor, one up from the Number of the Beast.First the Elysian Fields, now this. Augustus Smythe seemed to delight in throwing about obscure hints.A cry for help or sheer bloody-mindedness?

In the safe, she found a heavy linen envelope marked with the sigil for expenses. On the back,Taxes, Victuals, Maintenance, andStaff had been written in an elegant copperplate. Another, later hand had added,Electricity andTelephone. The envelope was empty.

No outstanding bills. Claire put the envelope back in the safe and closed the door.Great. When the seal goes and something calling itself Beelzebub leads a demonic army out of the furnace room, the lights’ll stay on and a well-fed staff can call 911 as they’re disemboweled.

As she sat back on her heels, a flash of brilliant blue racing along the inside edge of a lower shelf caught her eye. Thumb and first two fingers of her right hand raised, just in case, she leaned over and with her left hand yanked a dusty pile of ledgers onto the floor. The hole in the corner was unmistakably mouse.

Which didn’t mean that only mice were using it.

Mice weren’t usually a brilliant blue.

She moved closer and sent down a cautious probe.

“Problem?”

“OW!” Rubbing her head, she crawled back from the shelf and glared up at Dean. “Try and make a little more noise when you sneak up on people!”

“Sorry. I’ve finished the dishes and I was wondering if you want me to put a new padlock on room six.”

“Definitely.” It was an emotional not a rational response. Sara wouldn’t be leaving the room any time soon and—should she decide to—a padlock wouldn’t stop her, but for peace of mind there had to be a perception of security. “I’ll have a locksmith repair the door plate.”

“But he’ll see her.”

“No, he won’t.”

It was another one of those statements, like“rearrange your memories,” that Dean had no intention of arguing with.“Okay.” He squatted beside her and peered at the hole. “Looks like a new one. I’ll set out some more traps.”

“Mousetraps?”

The sideways look he shot her seemed mildly concerned.“Yeah. Why?”

“Have you caught anything?”

“Not yet.” Rising, he held out his hand. “They’re smart. They take the bait and avoid springing the trap.”

Claire debated with herself for a moment, then put her hand in his.“They might not be mice,” she said as he lifted her effortlessly to her feet. “All I’m reading is the residual signature of the seepage, but this place could easily be infested with imps.” Which would explain why her running shoes had still been wet this morning.

“Imps?”

“I saw something and it was bright blue.” A little surprised that he hadn’t released her, Claire pulled her fingers free of his grip.

“Imps.” Dean sighed. “Okay. Is there anything I can do about it now?”

“Not now, no.”

“In that case, I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

“Don’t go into the room.”

He looked uncomfortable.“I was thinking about dusting her.”

“Don’t.”

“But she’s covered in…”

“No.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

According to the site journal, found tucked under a stack of early seventies skin magazines in the middle left-hand drawer of the desk, three Keepers had sealed the hole before Sara; Uncle Gregory, Uncle Arthur, and Aunt Fiona. Aunt Fiona had died rather suddenly which explained why Sara had been summoned off active service at such a relatively young age—she’d been the closest Keeper strong enough to hold the seal when the need had gone out.

“Relatively young age,” Claire snorted, rubbing her eyes. The yellowing papers she studied seemed to soak up the puddle of illumination spilled by the old-fashioned desk lamp without the faded handwriting becoming any more legible. “She was forty-two.”

Sara had made it very clear in her first entry in the site journal that she hated the hotel and everything to do with it. It was also her one and only entry.

“Oh, this is a lot of help. A considerate villain would’ve had the courtesy to keep complete notes.”

Confident of her abilities, Claire had no doubt that she’d been summoned to the hotel to finally close the site. It was the only logical explanation. Unfortunately, sealing the hole would cut the power that kept Aunt Sara asleep, and Claire had meant it when she’d told Dean she didn’t want to find out which of them was more powerful.

Keepers capable of abusing the power granted by the lineage were rare. Claire had only heard of it happening twice before in their entire history. The battles, Keeper vs Keeper, good vs evil, had been won but both times at a terrible cost. The first had resulted in the eruption of Vesuvius and the loss of Pompeii. The second, in disco. Claire had only a child’s memories of the seventies, but she wouldn’t be responsible for putting the world through that again.

Augustus Smythe’s entry, which should have, and possibly did describe how he’d come to monitor the site, was unreadable. Ink had been spilled on the last third of the ledger, had soaked through the pages, and dried to create what could most accurately be described as an indigo blue brick. The skin magazines would’ve been as helpful.

“Coincidence?” Claire asked the silence. “I don’t think so.” The sound of something scuttling merrily away inside the wall only confirmed her suspicions.

She was searching through yet another pile of paid bills in the top drawer of the desk when, for the first time that day, the phone rang. Used to the polite interruptive chirp of modern electronics, Claire had forgotten how loud and demanding the old black rotary models could be.

Coughing and choking, she picked up the receiver.“Hello?”

“Claire?”

“Mom…”

“What’s the matter?”

Startled by the intensity of the question, Claire jerked around but could neither see nor hear anything moving up on her.“What do you mean? What do you know?”

“You were choking.”

“Oh, that.” Wiping her chin with her free hand, Claire relaxed. “The phone startled me, and I tried to breathe spit. It’s nothing.” Breath back, she explained the problem.

“Oh, my.”

“Exactly. Do you think you could come and have a look at it? At them. Tell me what you think.”

“I’d like to help you, Claire, but I don’t know. If I were needed, I’d have been summoned.”

“I need you. Who says a summons can’t use the phone?” She could feel her mother weakening. “This is huge. I’d hate to screw it up.”

“Under the circumstances, that wouldn’t make anyone very happy.” She paused. Claire waited, poking her finger through the black coils of the cord. “It would be nice to spend some time with you. Would you like me to bring your sister?”

“I don’t think so, Mom.”

“You haven’t seen her for almost a year.”

“We talk on the phone.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Yes, I know. But, please, leave her home anyway.” The thought of Diana within a hundred miles of an open access to Hell brought up an image of the Four Horsemen trampling the world under their hooves as they fled in terror.

After supplying detailed directions, Claire hung up, glanced out into the shadowed lobby, and sighed.“Are your work boots dry, Dean?”

He looked down at his feet.“They should be. Why?”

“You walk too quietly without them.Please, put them on.”

With no memory of turning, he’d taken three silent, sweat sock muffled steps toward the back door before he recalled what he’d come out to the lobby to say. “I made a fresh pot of coffee, if you’re interested. And pecan cookies.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Dean stared at Claire over his seventh cookie.“So your mother is your cousin?”

“No. She’sa Cousin.”

“And your father’s…?”

“A Cousin, too.”

“And you and your younger sister, Diana, are both Keepers?”

“Yes.”

Behind his glasses, his eyes twinkled.“So, you’re your mother’s Aunt?”

“No.”

“But…”

“Look, I didn’t make up the stupid nomenclature!” Strongly suspecting that Dean was being difficult on purpose, Claire tossed back her last mouthful of coffee, choked, and ended up spraying the tabletop and both her companions.

“Oh, thank you very much.” Austin jumped down onto the floor and vigorously shook one back leg. “I just got that clean!”

After handing the still sputtering Keeper a napkin, Dean quickly used another to mop up the mess. When things got back to normal, and when the cat had been placated, he asked,“Why won’t your mother be here until tomorrow afternoon?”

“That’s when the train from London gets in. Tomorrow morning she’ll get a lift from Lucan into London, then catch the train from London to Toronto to connect with the 1:14 out of Union Station, which means she’ll be here about four.”

“Oh.” He’d been half hoping to hear that the delay involved for low altitude brooms. After the excitement of the morning, he was ready for his next installment of weird. Things hadn’t been this interesting vacuuming the flying carpet or waiting until the flight path cleared since he’d left home. Actually, things hadn’t been this interestingat home—although his granddad’s reaction to his cousin Todd getting an eyebrow pierced had come close. “Why doesn’t she drive?”

“Because she can’t. None of us can.”

Dean blinked. Okay,that was the weirdest thing he’d heard so far. “None of your family?”

“None of the lineage.”

“Why not?”

“Too many distractions. We see things other people don’t”

There’d been a couple of members of Dean’s family who’d seen things other people hadn’t, but they were usually laid out roughly horizontal and left to sleep it off. “Things like blue mice?” he asked innocently, biting into another cookie.

“No. They’re nothing at all like blue mice,” she told him curtly. If she responded to his teasing, he’d keep doing it, and she already had one younger sibling; she didn’t need another. “They’re bits of the energy, small possibilities that…Austin! Get out of there!” Leaping to her feet, she snatched the butter dish out from under the cat’s tongue. “Do you know what this stuff does to your arteries?” she demanded. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“I’m hungry.”

“There’s a bowl of fresh, geriatric kibble on the floor by the fridge.”

“I don’t want that,” he muttered looking sulky. “You wouldn’t make your grandmother eat it.”

“My grandmother doesn’t lick the butter.”

“Wanna bet?”

Claire turned her back and pointedly ignored him.“Small possibilities,” she repeated, “that sometimes seep through and run loose in the world.”

Dean glanced around the dining room.“What do they look like?”

“That depends on your background. You’re a McIssac so, if you had the Sight, at the very least you’d see traditional Celtic manifestations. Given that Newfoundland has a wealth of legend all its own you’d also probably pick up a few indigenous manifestations.”

“You’re not serious?” he asked her, grinning broadly. “Ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night?”

“If you want.”

His grin faded.“I don’t want.”

“Then don’t mention it.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Down in the furnace room, having spent the last few hours testing the binding, the intelligence in the pit rested. It would have been panting had it been breathing.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED, it observed sulkily.

Although physically contained, the pentagram could not entirely close it off from the world. There was just no way it was that easy.

It seeped through between the possibilities.

It tempted. It taunted. And once, because of the concentration trapped in that one spot, it had managed to squeeze through a sizable piece of pure irritation.

THE OLD MALE IS GONE.

THE YOUNG MALE IS STILL HERE.

The heat rose momentarily as though Hell itself had snorted. THAT GOODY TWO SHOES. WHAT A WASTE OF TIME.

THERE’S A NEW KEEPER.

WE’VE DEALT WITH KEEPERS BEFORE.

WE DIDN’T EXACTLY DEAL WITH THE OTHER. WASN’T SHE INTENDING TO CONTROL…

SHUT UP!

It also talked to itself.

THREE

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_4]

“IF YOU DON’T HURRY,” Austin complained from the bedroom,“I’m going down to breakfast without you.”

Claire rummaged through her makeup case, inspecting and discarding a number of pencils that needed sharpening.“I’m moving as fast as I can.”

They’d spent the night back in room one even though Dean had reiterated that the owner’s rooms were now rightfully Claire’s. Although willing to spend the evening watching television and eating pizza in Augustus Smythe’s sitting room, Claire wasn’t quite ready to sleep in his bed.

“I don’t see why you bother with all that stuff.”

“This from the cat who spent half an hour washing his tail.” One eye closed, she leaned toward the mirror. Her reflection remained where it had been. “Oh, no.” Straightening, she put down the pencil and looked herself in the eyes—not at all surprised to notice that they were no longer dark brown but deep red. “Now what?”

A skull, recently disinterred, appeared in the reflection’s left hand. “Alas, poor Yorik. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest.”

“And oft times had you kissed those lips.” Claire folded her arms and frowned. “I’m familiar with the play. Get to the point.”

The reflection lifted the skull until it could gaze levelly into the eye sockets.“Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint her face an inch thick, to this favor she must come…” A fluid motion turned the skull so that it stared out from the mirror. “…make her laugh at that.”

“Not bad, but I imagine you have access to a number of actors. Your point?”

“Open the pentagram. Release us. And we shall see to it that you remain young and beautiful forever.”

“You’re kidding, right? You’re offering a Keeper eternal youth and beauty?”

The reflection looked a little sheepish.“It is considered a classic temptation. We thought it worth a try.”

“Oh, please.”

“That means no?”

Claire sighed and, both hands holding the edge of the sink, leaned forward.“Go to Hell,” she told it levelly. “Go directly to Hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”

The skull vanished. Her reflection began answering to her movements again.

“Was that wise?” Austin asked from the doorway.

“What? Refusing to be tempted?”

“Making flippant comments.”

“It wasn’t a flippant comment.” She finished lining her right eye and began on her left. “It was a stage direction.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Hel-lo!”

“Mom?” In the kitchen, using a number of household products in ways they’d never been intended by the manufacturers—not even the advertising department which, as a rule, had more liberal views about those sorts of things—Claire was attempting to remove the ink from the latter third of thesite journal. While not technically an impossible task, it did seem to be, as time went on, highly improbable. Laying aside the garlic press, she dried her hands on a borrowed apron—borrowing it hadn’t been her idea—called out that she’d be right there, and tripped over the cat.

By the time she reached the lobby, Austin was up on the counter, having his head scratched and looking as thoughhe hadn’t been waiting as impatiently as anyone.

“You’re certainly right about those shields,” Martha Hansen said, as Claire came into the lobby. “I can’t feel a thing.”

Catching Austin’s eye, Claire mimed wiping her brow in relief. Austin looked superior;he’d had a bad feeling about it from the start. So there.“Thanks for coming, Mom.”

“Well, I could hardly refuse my daughter’s call for help, now could I? Besides, your sister’s in the workshop today and it’s your father’s turn to deal with the fire department.” The three of them winced in unison. “And it did seem a shame not to work in a quick visit with you so close. You’re looking well.” She wrapped Claire in a quick hug. “Maine must’ve agreed with you.”

“I was in and out too fast for it to disagree with me. Easiest site I ever sealed.”

“Good. At least you’re not facing this site exhausted and cranky.”

“Cranky?” Claire repeated, shooting a warning look at the cat. “Mom, I’m twenty-seven. I’m a little old for cranky.”

Her mother smiled.“I’m glad to hear that. How did you sleep last night?”

“Like a log. I expect it’s another effect of the dampening field.”

“I expect it is.” Unzipping her windbreaker, Martha turned back toward the counter. “What about you, Austin?”

“I slept like a cat.” One ear flicked back. “I always sleep like a cat.”

“That’s very reassuring. Any developments since you called, Claire?”

“Nothing much. We might have an imp infestation—I’m fairly certain it, or they, damped down my shoes the first night I was here.” She saw no point in mentioning the voice. Not only had it been a highly subjective experience, but she’d stopped telling her mother everything that went on in her head the day Colin Rorke had kissed her behind the football bleachers. “This morning, my reflection offered me eternal youth and beauty.”

Martha sighed as she shrugged out of her jacket.“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, evil has no imagination. Probably why so much of it ends up in municipal politics. They’ll be back, you know, and the temptations will escalate as they come to know you better.”

“I expect I’ll seal the site before that becomes a problem.”

“But surely it’s already sealed.”

“No, Mom, I mean seal it closed.”

“Closed?”

“That must be why I’m here,” Claire asserted. “I couldn’t possibly have been summoned to an epistemological babysitting job as though I were too old to do anything but slap my power over a site and make sure nothing creeps out around the edges.”

“This hole…”

“Is huge, but it doesn’t change the job description.”

“And have you determined how you’re going to close the hole and simultaneously take care of…” She jerked her head toward the third floor.

“Not yet, but I’m working on it. I was hoping that you, with your greater experience and years of work in the field, could throw a little light on the problem.”

“Suck up,” Austin muttered.

Lips twitching, Martha bent and picked up her overnight case.“Let me drop this off in my room, and then I’ll go take a look at your problems. The sooner I see them, the sooner I can tell you what you need to hear.”

Claire grabbed the key to room two and hurried to catch up on the stairs, frowning as she got a good look at the feet she followed.“I wish you wouldn’t wear socks and sandals, Mom.”

“It’s the end of September, Claire, I can hardly wear either alone.”

“But they make you look like an aging hippie.”

“Truth in advertising; nothing wrong with that. Now,I wish you’d wear a little less makeup. It makes you look like…”

“Don’t start, Mom.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“My. Thisis medieval.” Walking slowly, examining each line, Martha circled the pit. “In my experienced opinion,” she said after a moment, “you do, indeed, have a hole to Hell in your furnace room. Or more specifically a manifestation of evil conforming to the classic parameters of Hell—the popularity of which, I’ve never entirely understood.” Glancing up at the ductwork, she added, “Mind you, I expect it keeps the heating costs down.” Her hand shot out and jerked Claire back a step. “Don’t pace on the pentagram.”

Folding her arms, Claire mirrored her mother’s ?lan. Mostly, it was an act although as the second exposure came without the shock of discovery, she found it a little easier to cope. “Iknow it’s a hole to Hell,” she said, trying to sound as if her teeth weren’t clenched together. “But since it’s linked rather irrevocably to room six, I was hoping you might have some ideas on how to separate them. Some advice on what I should do first.”

YOU COULD RELEASE US.

“Nobody asked you.”

WE’D BE GOOD.

“Liar.”

WELL, YES.

“I don’t think you should argue with it, Claire.” Slipping on her glasses, Martha pointed toward the lettering etched into the bedrock, being very careful not to trace anything in the air that could be interpreted as a pattern. A Cousin shouldn’t be able to affect an accident site but, given the site in question, that wasn’t a tenet she intended to test. “That,” she said, “is the name of the person responsible for this situation. I expect he died right after he finished the invocation. Notice the similar pattern around Sara’s name.”

Eyes beginning to water from the sulfur, Claire studied the design. It wasn’t an exact match, but close enough for Keeper work. “Just as we thought, she tried to gain control. If Hell offered her power in exchange for freedom, that must’ve come as an unpleasant surprise.”

“I can’t say that I find myself feeling too terribly sorry for it,” her mother murmured.

NO ONE EVER DOES, Hell sighed.

“Do shut up. Now then, I think we’ve been in here long enough.” Martha took hold of her daughter’s arm and guided her up the stairs. “Hopefully, we’ll find out more from a thorough examination of Aunt Sara.”

GIVE HER OUR REGARDS.

“Don’t count on it”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Well?” Austin asked from the top of the washing machine as they tightened the chains across the closed door. He had point-blank refused to go back into the furnace room.

“She wants to go seeher,” Claire told him, pointing upward.

“You should take Dean with you.”

“Are you out of your mind? Has he been feeding you on the sly?”

The cat’s eyes narrowed. “Read my lips, he’s a part of this.”

“You don’t have lips.”

“A moot point. Your mother will have to meet him sooner or later.”

“She can meet him later.”

Martha started toward the other end of the basement“Are his rooms down here?”

“Yes, but…”

“Austin thinks we should take Dean, and I’m inclined to agree.”

Claire threw up her hands.“Mom, Austin thinks baby birds are a snack food.”

“What doesthat have to do with this?”

“Listen to your mother, Claire,” Austin murmured as he padded by.

She managed to resist kicking him and hurried to catch up, wishing she’d remembered that her mother’s professional opinion carried personal baggage along with it. “I don’t want Dean told about what’s in the furnace room.”

“You don’t think he deserves to know the truth?”

“He knows there’s an accident site; telling him that he’s bedding down next to a hole leading to a classical manifestation of a Christian Hell will only compromise his safety.”

“In what way?”

“He’s a kid. Minimal defenses. The knowledge could give Hell access to his mind.”

“I think you’re afraid he’ll leave if you tell him,” Austin said, rubbing against the edge of a low shelf. “And you don’t want him to leave.”

“Of course I don’t want him to leave—he cooks, he cleans, I don’t. But neither do I want him blundering into situations he has no hope of understanding.” She turned to her mother. “He’s already in deeper than any bystander I’ve ever been in contact with. Isn’t that enough? How am I supposed to protect him?”

“If he’s been here since last February, I’d say he has pretty powerful protections of his own,” Martha said thoughtfully. “But you’re the Keeper, it’s your decision whether you tell him or not.”

“Then why isn’tthis my decision?” Claire asked as her mother knocked at the basement apartment. She didn’t expect an answer, which was good, because she didn’t get one.

Dean came to his door holding a mop.

“Merciful heavens.” Unable to stop herself, Martha glanced down at his feet.

Claire hid a smile. It seemed clear that any member of the lineage meeting Dean for the first time couldn’t help but check for tangible evidence of how very grounded he was.

Completely confused, Dean set the mop to one side, scrubbed his palm off on his jeans, and held out an apprehensive hand.“Hello. You must be Claire’s mother.”

“That’s right I’m Martha Hansen.” Recovering her aplomb, she took his offered hand in a firm grip. “Pleased to meet you, Dean. Claire’s told me so little about you.”

Half expecting a female version of Augustus Smythe, Dean was pleasantly surprised to find there were no similarities whatsoever. Mrs. Hansen looked remarkably like many of the artists who spent their summers in the outports. She wore her long, graying hair pulled loosely back off her face, no makeup, baggy pants, a homespun vest over a turtleneck and the ubiquitous sandals. Dean wasn’t sure why sandals were considered artistic, but they certainly seemed to be. While a resemblance to the summer people wasn’t entirely a recommendation, working for Mr. Smythe had taught him it could’ve been a lot worse. “You’ve been in the furnace room already, then?”

“We have. How could you tell?”

He felt his ears redden.“You’re sweating. Mr. Smythe was always sweating when he came out of the furnace room.”

Martha smiled and dabbed at her forehead with a tissue pulled from her vest pocket.“How observant of you. We have, indeed, been in the furnace room, but we’re on our way up to room six now and we’d like you to come along.”

He glanced over at Claire and noticed her slight hesitation before she nodded.“I don’t want to be in the way.”

“Nonsense. As Austin says, you’re a part of this.”

“Then just let me hang up my mop.”

When he disappeared into his apartment, Martha turned toward her daughter.“He’s a kid?”

“He’s barely older than Diana.”

“Sweetie, I hate to tell you this, but your sister isn’t exactly a kid any more either.” When Claire’s brows drew in, she patted her on the arm. “Never mind. I don’t think you’ll have any problems with Dean. He’s a remarkably stable young man, not to mention very easy on the eyes. Ilike him.”

Forced to agree with the first two sentiments, Claire snorted.“You’d like an Orchi if it did housework.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“This is incredible.” Remaining within the shielded area, attention locked on the sleeping Keeper, Martha moved around to the far side of the bed. “Just think of all the factors involved in achieving such an intricate balance of power.”

“I am thinking about it, Mom. Or more specifically, I’m thinking about what’ll happen if I unbalance it, ever so slightly.”

“Don’t.”

Safely outside the shield, Claire sighed. Had she forgotten her mother was prone to those sorts of facetious comments?“I don’t suppose you can see a way to break the loop without precipitating disaster?”

“No, I can’t. I’ve never seen anything so perfectly in balance. I’m very impressed. Such a pity I’ll never have a chance to tell the Keepers who designed it.”

“Keepers.”

“Oh, yes, this definitely took two people. You can see a double signature in the loop.”

“Where?”

“Here. And here.”

Claire pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. She shouldn’t have missed the signs her mother had just pointed out. After all, she was a Keeper and her mother only a Cousin. “How can you stand to get so close to her?”

“I concentrate on the binding, not on her. Still…” Dusting off her hands, she stepped out through the shield. “…that was nasty.”

Crouched in the doorway, rubbing Austin behind the ears to keep him distracted, Dean shook his head. They were like TV cops standing over a body matter-of-factly discussing multiple stab wounds.“You don’t get disturbed about much, do you, Mrs. Hansen?”

Martha turned to face him.“Actually, I’m very disturbed.”

“It doesn’t show.”

“After a few decades spent dealing with various sundry and assorted metaphysical accidents, I’ve gotten good at hiding my reactions. Also, the lineage is trained to remain calm about these sorts of things. It wouldn’t do to have us yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, now would it?”

Not entirely certain that he understood the analogy, he let it go.

“Don’t worry about it,” Austin murmured. “Just try sharpening your claws on the sofa and you’ll see how disturbed she gets.”

Arms folded, Claire frowned down at the woman on the bed. In a strange way, Hell was the lesser of two evils. Unlike Aunt Sara, hell had done nothing it wasn’t supposed to do. “All right, Mom, you’ve seen the situation. Where should I begin?”

“I suggest we begin by leaving the room.” Shooing Dean, Claire, and Austin out in front of her, she pulled the door closed then frowned at the splintered wood. “Then I suggest you get this fixed. Thank you, Dean.” She stepped aside as he snapped the padlock back on. “Finally, I suggest you get used to the idea of being here a while.”

“I never thought I’d work out how to close this down in a day or two, Mom.”

“You may not be intended to close it down, Claire. You may have been summoned here as a monitor.”

Claire blinked.“I find that highly unlikely. The last monitor was a Cousin.”

“And the site was clearly too strong for him to manage. It needs a Keeper.”

“If it needs me,” she said, her eyes narrowing, “then itdoesn’t need a monitor.”

“I can’t see a way for you to safely interfere with the current arrangement. I think Dean’s idea is correct; given there was a war on, the Keeper, or Keepers, who dealt with this situation probably intended their solution to be a temporary measure. They plugged in the first available Cousin, then were killed during the fighting. Augustus must have been quite young and would have agreed to watch the site until the Keepers returned. They never did, and he was held by his word until another came along.

“Just at the point where the site was about to destroy him utterly, there was Claire, drawn by his need to leave. I realize I’m speculating here, but I find myself feeling quite sorry for him.”

“I don’t.” Claire flinched under her mother’s gaze. “All right, yes I do. He got a raw deal, but I don’t see why I should be happy to have the same one.”

“Not exactly the same deal, if the site was intended to have a Keeper as a monitor.”

“Or,” Claire insisted, “if that Keeper was intended to close the site down. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, I’m going to find the Historian, find out exactly what those two Keepers did, then undo it. I have no intention of either allowing this to continue or of spending the rest of my life here.”

“The Historian is seldom easy to find.”

“That’s only becauseI’ve never gone looking for her.”

“True enough. Meanwhile,” Martha glanced up and down the hall. “You have a guest house to run.”

“Run?” Claire stared at her mother in astonishment. “Have you forgotten what’s in the basement?”

“This was probably set up as a guest housebecause of what’s in the basement. This is a unique situation. The more you think about the site, the more attention you pay it, the stronger it becomes. You need a distraction, something to occupy your time.”

“But the guests…”

“They’re here two or three nights at most. Hardly long enough for a sealed site inside a dampening field to have much effect.”

“But I already have a job; I’m a Keeper. I don’t know the first thing about running a guest house.”

“Dean does.” Martha looked remarkably like Austin as she added, “And you said you didn’t want him to leave.”

“Because I need a cook and a caretaker,” Claire explained hurriedly, picking at a wallpaper seam.

“You still do.”

“If I’m really a part of what’s going on,” Dean broke in, “I couldn’t just walk out.”

“You couldn’t walk out on old Augustus,” Austin sniggered, “and he didn’t have Claire’s…”

Claire’s head jerked up. “Austin!”

“…sunny personality.”

“Good, that’s settled.” Martha smiled on them both in such a way it became obvious the problem had been solved to her satisfaction.

Since there seemed to be no point in continuing the argument, and since she wasn’t entirely certain which argument to continue, Claire started down the stairs, her heels thumping against the worn carpet. Dean fell into step beside her. “I want you to know that things are not going to continue the way they were under Augustus Smythe. I am not going to watch passively. I’mgoing to take action.”

“Okay.” When she glared at him from the corner of one eye, he smiled and added, “Sure.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“I was trying to cheer you up.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right, then.”

As they disappeared down the stairwell, Austin wrapped his tail around his toes and looked up at Claire’s mother. “Nice to have things settled.”

Smoothing down the wallpaper Claire’d been picking at, Martha frowned. “It’s hard to believe that all this has been sitting here for so many years with no one aware of it.”

“It was a bit of a surprise,” the cat admitted. “You can’t blame Claire for wanting to wrap it up and leave.”

“Staying does ask a lot of her.”

“Not the way she sees it. She thinks she’s been declawed.”

“That’s only because she was looking forward to doing things, not merely waiting for all hell to break loose.”

“Oh, that’s clever,” Austin snorted as he stretched and stood. “Come on, just in case the world’s about to end, you can feed me.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Mr. Smythe has prog enough to last through freeze up,” Dean explained, setting the supper plates on the table.

“Very reassuring, or it would be if I had the slightest idea of what you meant.”

“I mean he has food enough to last the entire winter.”

“Then why didn’t you say so.” Claire moved her chicken aside and tentatively tried a forkful of the wild rice stuffing. Her eyes widened as she chewed. “This is good.”

“Try not to sound so surprised, dear, it’s rude.” Her mother waved a laden fork in Dean’s direction. “You cook, you clean, and you’re gorgeous; do you have a girlfriend?”

“Mom.”

“It’s okay.” His father’d had six older sisters and after twenty years of holiday dinners with his aunts, Dean pretty much expected both the comments and the question from any woman over forty. They didn’t mean anything by it, so it no longer embarrassed him. “No, ma’am, not right now,” he said, sliding into his seat.

“Are you gay?”

“Mom!”

“It’s a perfectly valid inquiry, Claire.”

“It’s a little personal, don’t you think?And it’s none of your business.”

“It will be if you’re here for any length of time. I could introduce him to your uncle.”

“He’snot gay.”

“He most certainly is.”

“I wasn’t talking about Uncle Stan! I was talking about Dean.”

“And why are you so certain he’s not?”

“I’m aKeeper!”

Ears red, Dean stared intently into his broccoli.That was not a question he’d expected, at least not from Claire’s mother, although Uncle Stan did make a change from being set up withmy best friend Margaret’s youngest daughter, Denise.“Um, excuse me, I was wondering, who’s the Historian?”

“Heavens, I’d have thought you’d had enough exposition for one day.”

Claire sighed.“He’s attempting to change the subject, Mom, you’ve embarrassed him.” She ignored her mother’s indignant denials. “The Historian is a woman…”

“We don’t know that for certain, Claire,” Martha interrupted. “You may see her as a woman, but that doesn’t mean everyone does.”

“Doyou want to tell him?”

“No need, you’re doing fine.”

“The Historian,” Claire repeated through clenched teeth, “whoI see as a woman, keeps the histories of all the Keepers.”

“Is she a Keeper?” Dean asked, bending to pick up his napkin and slipping a bit of chicken under the table to the cat.

“We don’t know.”

“Then what is she?”

“We don’t know.”

“Okay. Where is she?”

“We don’t know that either; not for certain at any given time. The Historian hates to be bothered. She says she can’t finish collecting the past with the present interrupting, so to protect her privacy she moves around a lot.”

“Then how do you find her?”

“I go looking.”

Dean paused, wondering if he was ready for the next answer.Oh, well, the boat’s past the breakwater, I might as well drop a line.“Where?”

“She usually sets up shop just left of reality.”

“What?”

“If reality exists, then it stands to reason that there must be something on either side of it.” Claire tapped the table on both sides of her plate with her fork as if that explained everything.

He ate some chicken, delaying the inevitable.“Okay. Whyleft of reality?”

“Because the Apothecary uses the space on the right.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Dean? If I could have a few words?”

“Sure, Mrs. Hansen.”

“Martha.” She took the tea towel from his hand. “Here, let me help.”

He watched as she dried a plate, decided her standards were high enough, and plunged his hands back into the soapy water.“Where’s Claire?”

“Watching the news. I was wondering, did she explain her family situation?”

“Both you and Mr. Hansen being Cousins?”

“That’s right It’s a very rare situation, two Cousins together, and it’s why both our girls are Keepers. Now, usually Keepers become aware of what they are around puberty…are you blushing?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Must be the light.” She took a dry tea towel off the rack. “Because of their double lineage, my girls not only knew what they were from the start but were unusually powerful. Although they’re better socialized than many Keepers—my husband and I tried to give them as normal an upbringing as possible—they’ve been told most of their lives that with great power comes great responsibility—clich?d but true, I’m afraid. Now, Claire’s willing to give her life for that responsibility, but, like all Keepers, it’s made her more than a little arrogant.”

Dean set the plate he was washing carefully back into the water and slowly turned.“What do you mean, give her life?”

“Evil doesn’t take prisoners.” Martha shook her head, wiping a spoon that was long dry. “That sounds like it should be in a fortune cookie, doesn’t it?”

Pulling the spoon from her hand, Dean locked eyes with the older woman and said softly,“Mrs. Hansen, why are we having this conversation?”

“Because all power corrupts and the potential for absolute power has the potential to corrupt absolutely. This site has already corrupted a Keeper and made a Cousin, at best, bitter and, at worst, mean. I don’t want that happening to my daughter. She’s going to need your help.” When he opened his mouth, she raised her hand. “I realize your natural inclination is to immediately assure me you’ll do everything you can, but I want you to take a moment and think about it. Their abilities tend to deemphasize interpersonal relationships; she can be downright autocratic at times.”

He dropped the spoon in the drawer.“What happens when she finds this Historian?”

“I don’t know.”

“She thinks she’s too powerful to be here just as a monitor, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

Dean watched the iridescent light dance across the soap bubbles in the sink.“I’ll tell you, Mrs. Hansen…”

“Martha.”

“…I don’t know Claire and I don’t really understand what’s going on, but if you say she’s after needing me, well, I’ve never turned away from someone who’s needed me before and I’m not after starting now.”

Long years of practice kept her from smiling at the confidence of the young. At twenty-five that speech would’ve sounded pompous. At twenty, it sounded sincere. “She won’t make it easy for you.”

“You ever gone through a winter in Portuguese Cove, Mrs. Hansen?”

“Martha. And no, I haven’t.”

“Once you can do that you can do anything. Don’t worry, I’ll help her run things and I’ll try not to let her push me around because of what she is.”

“Thank you.”

“Everyone likes to be needed.”

She studied him thoughtfully for a moment, then said,“You’re taking this whole thing remarkably well, you know. Most people wouldn’t be able to cope with having their entire worldview flipped on its side.”

“But it wasn’t my entire worldview, now was it?” He plunged his hands back into the soapy water. “The sun still comes up in the east sets in the west, rain falls down, grass grows up, and American beer still tastes like the water they washed the kegs out with. Nothing’s changed, there’sjust more around than I knew about two days ago.” With a worried lift of his brows, he nodded toward the rest of the silverware on the tray. “If you could, please finish that cutlery before the water dries and makes spots…”

They worked in silence for a while, the only sound the wire brush against the bottom of the roasting pan.

“Mrs. Hansen?”

“Martha.”

“What is it you do?”

“Claire’s father and I watch over the people who live in an area where the barrier between this world and evil is somewhat porous.”

“But I thought Cousins couldn’t use the caulking gun.”

Martha stopped drying one of the pots and stared at him.“The what?”

“The magical equivalent of the caulking gun that seals the holes in the fabric of the universe.” Dean repeated everything he could remember of Claire’s explanation.

When he finished, Claire’s mother shook her head. “It’s a bit more complicated than that, I’m afraid.” Then she frowned as she thought it over. “All right, perhaps it isn’t—but it’s certainly less rational. We’re not dealing with a passive enemy but a malevolent intelligence.”

“Does Claire know this?”

“Of course she does, she’s a Keeper. But she’s young enough to believe—in spite of what you might think of her advanced age,” she interjected at his startled expression, “that it’s not the energy that’s the problem, it’s what people do with it. While that may be true in a great many cases, there’s also energy that you simply can’t do good with, no matter what your intentions are.”

“Evil done in God’s name is not God’s work. Good done in the Devil’s name is not the Devil’s work.” He set the last pan in the rack to drain. “It’s what my granddad used to say before he clipped me on the ear.”

“Your granddad was very wise.”

“Sometimes,” Dean allowed, grinning.

Without really knowing how it happened, Martha found herself grinning back.“To finish answering your actual question, the site we monitor is too porous to be sealed—think T-shirt fabric where it should be rubberized canvas—so there’s constant mopping up to do. I do the fieldwork, and my husband teaches high school English.”

“Teaching high school doesn’t seem very…” He paused, searching for a suitable word.

“Metaphysical?” Martha snorted, sounding like both her daughter and the cat. “Is it possible you’ve already forgotten what it’s like to be a teenager?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Are you going to be all right?”

“I’ll be fine, Mom.” Claire reached out and fixed the collar on her mother’s windbreaker as the early morning sun fought a losing battle with a chill wind blowing in off Lake Ontario. “And don’t worry. I’ll monitor the situation while I gather the information I need to shut it down.”

“I would never worry about you not fulfilling your responsibilities, Claire, but it took two Keepers to create the loop. What if it needs two Keepers to close it?”

“Then I’ll monitor the situation until the other Keeper shows up. This is not going to be my final resting place.”

Because even Keepers needed the comfort of hope, Martha changed the subject.“Be nice to Dean. He’s exactly what he seems to be, and that’s rare in this world.”

“Don’t worry about Dean. Austin’s on his side.”

“Austin’s on the side of enlightened self-interest.” A pair of vertical lines appeared above the bridge of Martha’s nose. “I think you’ll manage best with Dean if you treat him like a Cousin.”

“A Cousin?” She stared at her mother in astonishment. “He’s a nice kid, Mom, but…”

“He’s not a kid.”

“Well, not technically and certainly not physically, but you’ve got to admit he’s awfully young.”

“And how old were you when you sealed your first site?”

“That’s beside the point. He’s not of the lineage.”

“No, he’s not, but he is remarkably grounded in the here and now, and he’s going to be your main support. The less you hide from him, the more he’ll be able to help.”

“Mother, I’m a Keeper. I don’t need help from a bystander. All right,” she went on before her mother could speak, “I need his help running the guest house but not for the rest.”

“Just try to be nice to him, that’s all I ask.” She gripped Claire’s hands in both of hers. “If you must check the contact points of the loop, be very, very careful. You don’t want to wake her up, and you don’t want to believe anythingthey tell you. Don’t lose track of time when you’re searching for the Historian; you know what’ll happen if you come back before you’ve left. Try and make Austin stick to his diet, and you should eat more, you’re too thin.”

Claire opened her mouth to argue but said instead,“Here’s your ride,” as a battered cab pulled up in front of the guest house and honked.

“If you need me, call.” She frowned as the cabbie continued to hit his horn, the irregular rhythm echoing around the neighborhood. “Would you do something about that, Claire?”

The echo gave one last, feeble honk, then fell silent.

“Thank you. Come to think of it, even if you don’t need me, call. Your father’s likely to be worried about you being in such proximity to the hole in the furnace room.”

“There’s really no need to tell him about Hell, Mom.”

“He’s teaching in the public school system, Claire. He knows about Hell.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

Standing in the open doorway, Claire released her hold on the horn as the cab pulled away. Through the broad back window of the vehicle, she could see her mother giving emphatic instructions. If the driver thought he knew the best way to the train station, he was about to discover he was wrong.

At the last possible moment, Martha turned and waved.

Claire waved back.

“So. It seems I own a hotel.” A distraction, something to keep her mind off what was in the furnace room. “Who knows,” she said with more resignation than enthusiasm. “It might be fun.”

Raising her body temperature enough to fight the chill, she went down to have a look at the sign. To her surprise, her first impression had been correct. The sign actually said“Elysian Fields ’uest House,” the “g” having disappeared. “Dean’s going to have to repaint this.” She frowned. “I wonder what I’m paying him?”

A low growl drew her attention around to the building on the other side of the driveway. An apple-cheeked, old woman with brilliant orange hair, wearing a pale green polyester pant suit and a string of imitation pearls, stood on the porch, waving at her enthusiastically. Also on the porch was the biggest black-and-tan Doberman Claire had ever seen.

“Hello, dear!” the woman caroled when she saw she had Claire’s attention. “I’m Mrs. Abrams—that’s one b and an ess— who are you?”

“I’m Claire Hansen, the new owner of the guest…”

“New owner? No, dear, you can’t be.” Her smile was the equivalent of a fond pat on the head. “You’re much too young.”

“I beg your pardon?” The tone could stop a political canvasser in full spate. It had no effect on Mrs. Abrams.

“I said you’re too young to be the owner, dear. Where’s Augustus Smythe?” She leaned forward, peering around like she suspected he were hiding just out of sight. The Doberman mirrored her move—twitching as though anxious to get down and check it out personally.

Claire fought an instinctive urge to back up and held her ground.“Mr. Smythe’s whereabouts are none of your con…”

“None of my concern?” A flick of her hand and a broad smile took care of that possibility. “Of course I’m concerned, you silly thing; I live next door. He’s avoiding me, isn’t he?”

“No, he’s gone, but…”

“Gone? Gone where, dear?”

“I don’t know.” When Mrs. Abrams’ expression indicated profound disbelief, Claire found herself adding, “Really, I don’t.”

“Well.” The single word bespoke satisfaction that years of suspicions had finally been justified. “They took him away, did they? Or did he run before they arrived? If truth be told, I can’t say as I’m surprised.” She fondled one of the dog’s ears. The twitching grew more pronounced. “You would never, not ever, hear me say anything against anyone—live and let live is my motto, I’m very active in my church’s Women’s Auxiliary you know, they couldn’t get along without me—but Augustus Smythe was a nasty little man with an unnatural dislike of my poor Baby.”

Showing more teeth than should’ve been possible in such a narrow head, Baby’s growl deepened.

“Would you believe that he actually had the nerve to accuse my Baby of doing his business in your driveway?” Her voice dropped into caressing tones. “As if he didn’t have his own little toilet area in his own little yard. He didn’t repeat those vile and completely unfounded accusations toyou, did he, dear?”

It took Claire a moment to straighten out the pronouns.“He did mention…”

“And you didn’t believe him, did you, dear? I’m afraid to say that he told a lot of, well, lies—-there’s no use sugar coating it. I don’t know what else he told you, Caroline…”

Claire opened her mouth to protest that her name was not actually Caroline but couldn’t manage to break into the flow of accusation.

“…but you mustn’t believe any of it.” A plump hand pressed against a polyester-covered, matronly bosom. “Now, me, I’m not like some people in this neighborhood, I mind my own business, but that Augustus Smythe…” Her voice lowered to a conspiratorial tone Claire had to strain to hear. “He not only lied, but he kept secrets. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had unnatural habits.”

Neither would Claire, but she was beginning to feel more sympathetic. No wonder Baby twitched.

“I’d love to stay and chat longer, dear, but it’s time for Baby’s vitamin. He’s not a puppy any more, are you, sweetums? He’s a lot older than he looks, you know.”

“How old is he, Mrs. Abrams?”

“To be perfectly honest, Christina—and I assure you I am always perfectly honest—I don’t actually know. The little sugar cube showed up on my doorstep one day—he knew I’d take him in, you see, dogs always know—and we’ve been together ever since. Mummy couldn’t do without her Baby.Ta, ta for now!” She yanked the dog around and, with a cheery wave and a bark that promised further confrontation, they disappeared inside the house.

Stepping to the edge of the driveway, Claire peered toward the back of the property. Too far away to make a positive identification, a large brown pile had been deposited, nicely centered in the lane.

“Unfounded accusations,” Claire muttered, carefully climbing the stairs and going back inside.

Stretched out in a patch of sunshine on the counter, Austin yawned.“Where have you been?”

“Out meeting the obligatory irritating neighbor. How do you tell if a pile of dog shit came out of a Doberman?”

The cat looked disgusted.“How doI tell?I don’t.”

“All right, how would I tell?”

“Check it for fingers. Why are we talking about this?”

“I’m beginning to think Hell wasn’t the only thing Augustus Smythe wanted to get away from.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Are you staying in the official residence, then?” Dean asked as Claire came down the stairs with her belongings. Sliding his hammer into the loop on his carpenter’s apron, he leaped down off the ladder and held out his hands. “Can I help?”

“Yes.” Pride not only went before a fall, it also went before dropping everything she owned. She shoved her suitcase at him, caught her backpack as it slid off her shoulder, and barely managed to hang onto the armload of clothes that she hadn’t bothered to repack. “What were you doing?”

“Attaching that bit of molding over the door. It’d gone some squish. Out of plumb,” he added as her brows dipped down.

“I see.” Glancing at the repair, Claire wondered what, as his employer, she was supposed to say. Her mother wanted her to be nice to him…“Good work. You matched the ends up evenly.”

“Thank you.” He beamed as he held up the folding section of the counter and waited for her to go through.

She didn’t think he was being sarcastic. Stopping by the desk, she lowered her backpack to the center of the ancient blotter. “Since this appears to be the only available desk, I guess I’m leaving my computer out here. I can use it for hotel business.”

“Laptop?” Dean wondered, studying the dimensions of the pack curiously.

“No.” Once everything else had been dumped in the sitting room, she returned to the desk. Opening the backpack, she pulled out a fourteen-inch monitor and stand, a vertically stacked CPU with two disk drives and a CD-Rom, and a pair of speakers.

“You’ve got to love the classics,” Austin snickered, watching Dean’s jaw drop. “Now pull out the hat stand and the rubber plant.”

“Hat stand and rubber plant?” Dean repeated.

“Ignore him,” Claire instructed, untangling the cables. “I’m hardly going to put a rubber plant in here with all these electronics.”

Dean removed his glasses, cleaned them on the hem of his T-shirt, and put them back on just as Claire unpacked a laser printer.“This is incredible. Absolutely incredible.”

She shrugged, rummaging around for the surge suppressor.“Not really, it only prints in black and white.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

“Boss?”

Squinting a little in the glare from the monitor, Claire leaned left and peered out into the lobby. Although all available lights were on, her computer screen was still the brightest source of illumination in the entire entryway.“What is it, Dean?”

“I thought I’d head downstairs and I just wondered if there was anything I could get you before I went.”

“Nothing, thank you. I’m fine.”

“You could getme a rack of lamb, but we all know who’d object to that,” Austin muttered without lifting his head from the countertop.

When Dean showed no sign of actually heading anywhere, Claire sighed and saved her file.“Was there something else?”

Fingers tucked second-knuckle-deep into the front pockets of his jeans, he shrugged, the gesture more hopeful than dismissive.“I was just wondering what you were doing.”

“I’m treating this site like any other I’ve been summoned to seal.” She was not going to surrender her life to a run-down hotel; no way, no how, no vacancy. “I’m writing down everything I know, and I’m prioritizing everything I have to do.”

Head cocked speculatively to one side, Dean grinned.“I wouldn’t have thought you were the ‘lists’ type.”

“Oh?” Both eyebrows rose. “What type did you think I was.”

“Oh, I guess the ‘dive right in and get started’ type.”

Either he hadn’t heard her tone, or he’d ignored it. Claire took another look at his open, candid, square-jawed and bright-eyed expression. Or he hadn’t understood it. “Well, you’re wrong.” His smile dimmed, his shoulders sagged slightly, and his head dipped a fraction—nothing overt, nothing designed to inflict guilt, just an honest disappointment. She felt like such a bitch, her reaction completely out of proportion to his. “But how would you know differently?” Impossible not to try and make amends. “I do have something for you to do tomorrow, though.”

“Sure.” His head lifted, erasing the fractional droop. “What?”

“TheG needs replacing on that sign out front.”

“No problem.” Smile reilluminated, he glanced down at his watch. “I’d better get going, then; it’s almost time for the game on TSN.”

“If he had a tail, he’d be wagging it,” Austin observed dryly as Dean’s work boots could be heard descending the basement stairs. “I think he likes you.”

Claire found herself typing to the rhythm of heels on wood and forced herself to stop.“I’m his new boss. He just wants to make a good impression.”

“And has he?”

“How can you make such an innocent question into innuendo?”

The cat looked interested.“I don’t know. How?”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

The room was completely dark. The air smelled faintly of stale cigar smoke. The silence was so complete, the noises her body made were too loud to let her sleep. The cat was taking up most of the room on the bed.

That, at least, she was used to. The rest, she decided to do something about. Slipping out from under the covers, she felt her way over to the window in the outside wall.

There’s nothing out there but the driveway. No harm in opening the curtain a bit and letting in some air.

It wasn’t that easy. After forcing her will on a heavy brocade curtain that didn’t want to open and struggling with the paint that sealed the sash, Claire managed to shove the window up about half an inch. Breathing heavily, she knelt on the floor and sucked an appreciative lungful of fresh air through the crack. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she made out a window across the drive, the silhouette of pointed ears and, beside them, a pair of binoculars resting on their wider end.

No wonder Augustus Smythe had kept the curtains so emphatically drawn.

A thump behind her warned her to brace herself for the furry weight that leaped onto her lap and then onto the windowsill.

“Could I have a little light here?” Austin murmured.

“What for?” Claire asked as she cast a glow behind him. “You can see perfectly well without it.”

“I can,” the cat agreed placidly. “But he can’t.”

Across the drive, the pointed ears flicked up and Baby threw himself at the window.

Claire doused the light, but the damage had already been done. Baby continued to bark hysterically. She grabbed the cat and let the curtains fall closed as a lamp came on and a terrifying vision in pink plastic curlers snatched up the binoculars.

Austin squirmed out of her arms and jumped back onto the bed.“I think I’m going to like it here.”

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

CAN WE USE THE CAT?

DON’T BE RIDICULOUS.

FOUR

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_4]

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

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

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

The question was: What did she want for breakfast?

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

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

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Come in.”

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

“Here? No.”

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

“No. She went in.”

“In?”

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

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

The music grew louder.

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

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

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

“I live here.”

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

“You were in the wardrobe.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“In September?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, Kirstin…”

“Claire.”

“I beg your pardon, dear?”

“My name is Claire, not Kirstin.”

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

“We’re fine. I…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I doubt Mrs. Abrams listens to anyone.”

The barking grew distinctly triumphant.

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

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

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

“Were you actually expecting guests?”

“Not really,” he admitted.

The mailman made a run for it.

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

“So what should we do?”

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

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

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

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

“What a waste of time.”

“Some of those old magazines are probably collectible.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey, Boss, find anything?”

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

“Would lunch help?”

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

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

“Are you okay, Boss?”

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

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

A LIE!

AN EXAGGERATION.

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

OH, DON’T BE SUCH A GIT.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

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

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

Her first inclination was to pull free. Her second…

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

NOWTHAT WE CAN USE.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

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

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

DAMN.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

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

“Dean?”

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

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

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

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

Stammering apologies, Dean stood.

Things got a little tangled for a moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s not obsessive.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The table disappeared.

“Rapporter cette table!”

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

He sneezed.“Wasn’t me.”

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

“It’s quiet.”

“Too quiet,” Claire corrected.

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

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

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

“Trying to save you!”

“Oh? How?”

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

“Get off me!”

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

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

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

“You, too!” Claire snapped.

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

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

The silence picked up a certain mocking quality.

“Just remember, I warned you.”

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

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

“You can do that?”

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

“The card?”

“The business card I gave you.”

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

Aunt Claire, Keeper

Your Accident is my Opportunity

(spiritual invocations a specialty)

“It didn’t say that before.”

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

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

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

The symbols lost their color, glowing white.

“Your name,” Claire commanded.

“Jacques Labaet” Squinting, he tossed shoulder length, dark-blond hair back off his face. “And I amnot at your service.” When he tried to stride forward, lines of power snapped him back between the symbols. Brows drew in over the bridge of a prominent nose. “All right Perhaps I am.”

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

“And if l do not?”

The symbols brightened.“Exorcism.”

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

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

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

The symbols disappeared.

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

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Boo,” said Jacques.

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_5]

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

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

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

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

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

“As a ghost.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Say you?”

“Yeah.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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