Summon The Keeper

FIVE

AT SEVEN-FORTY THE NEXT MORNING, at the far end of the third-floor hall, the vacuum cleaner coughed, sputtered, and roared into life. Three-and-a-half seconds later, Dean smacked the switch and it coughed, sputtered, and wheezed its way back to silence. Heart pounding, he stared down at the machine, wondering if it had always sounded like the first lap of an Indy race—noisy enough to wake the dead.

Or worse.

Which is ridiculous. He’d vacuumed this same hall once a week for as long as he’d worked here with this same machine and the woman in room six had slept peacefully—or compulsively—through it. Contractors had renovated the rooms to either side of her and obviously she hadn’t stirred. Mrs. Hansen had all but stuck pins in her, and still she slept on.

The odds were good that he wasn’t after waking her up this morning.

His foot stopped three inches above the off/on switch and Dean couldn’t force it any closer.

Apparently, his foot didn’t like the odds.

So he changed feet.

His other foot was, in its own way, as adamant.

You’re being nuts, boy. He carefully cleaned his glasses, placed them back on his nose, and, before the thought had time to reach his extremities, stomped on the switch, missed, and nearly fell over as his leg continued through an extra four inches of space.

Clearly, parts of his body were more paranoid than the whole.

Okay, uncle. He unplugged the machine and rewound the cord. There had to be an old carpet sweeper up in the attic, and he could always use that.

On his way back to the storage cupboard, he bent to pick up a small picture of a ship someone had left on the floor. He had no idea where it had come from; guests had found Mr. Smythe’s taste in art somewhat disturbing, so the walls had been essentially art free ever since the embarrassing incident with the eighteenth-century prints and the chicken.

Upon closer inspection, the picture turned out to be a discolored page clipped from a magazine slid into a cheap frame. A cheap, filthy frame.

Holding it between thumb and forefinger, Dean frowned. What was it doing leaning against the wall outside room six? And could he get it clean without using an abrasive?

“Put that down!”

Behind his glasses, Dean’s eyes narrowed as he raised his gaze from the felted cobwebbing to the ghost “Is it yours, then?”

“It is mine as much as it is anyone’s.”

If the picture belonged to Jacques, that explained why he’d never seen it before. “Why should I put it down?” he asked suspiciously.

Jacques’ expression matched Dean’s. “Why do you hold it?”

“I found it on the floor.”

“Then put it back on the floor.”

“There?” A nod indicated the picture’s previous position against the wall—far, far too handy to the sleeping Keeper.

“Oui, there! What are you, stupide?”

“Why do you want me to put it there?”

“Because that is where it was!”

“So?”

“Do you try to block my way, Anglais?”

“If I can,” Dean growled, taking a step toward the dead man. The way he understood it, Jacques had been dead as dick and haunting the hotel at the same time as the evil Keeper’s attempt to control the accident site. It wouldn’t surprise him to discover the ghost had been her accomplice and now, with Claire unwilling to give him a body, he had only one other place to turn. Dean couldn’t let that happen, not after everything Claire and her mother and the cat had said. “What are you planning, Jacques?”

Jacques folded his arms and rolled his eyes. “I should think,” he said scornfully, “that what I, as you so crudely say, plan, would be obvious even to a muscle-bound imbecile like yourself.”

“You’re after waking her?”

“Waking her?” The ghost shot a speculative look in Dean’s direction. “Oui, if you like. I wake her to new sensations. And when I tell Claire that you gather what allows me to walk within the hotel, that you try to keep me from her, she will not like that, I think.”

…what allows me to walk within the hotel. Dean’s scowl faded as he realized, for the first time in his life, he’d leaped to the worst possible conclusion, his response based solely on his irrational reaction to a dead man. The picture had nothing to do with the sleeping Keeper. Working from the attic, Claire must’ve sent it to the third floor hall without considering where it might end up.

He’d completely forgotten about Jacques’ anchors. He opened his mouth to explain and was amazed to hear himself say, “Sure, run and hide behind Claire.”

“Run and hide?” Anger blurred Jacques’ edges.

“Too dead to stand up for yourself?”

“Claire…”

“This has nothing to do with Claire.” Dean set the picture back on the floor—as far from room six as he could put it without appearing to give ground—then straightened, shoulders squared. “This is between you and me.”

“Me, I think this has everything to do with Claire,” Jacques murmured, studying the younger man through narrowed lids. “But you are right, mon petit Anglais, this is between you and me.”

Claire had been vaguely disappointed not to find Jacques waiting for her when she passed through the sitting room on her way to the bathroom. Thoughts of him spending the night pressed up against her bedroom door had inserted themselves into her dreams and jerked her awake almost hourly. She’d wanted to share her mood with him while she still felt like giving him a body in order to wring his neck.

It didn’t help that the morning’s measurements had shown a perceptible buildup of seepage. With no access to the power sealing the hole, she couldn’t cut it off, and she certainly couldn’t let it build up indefinitely.

Teeth clenched, she gave the shower taps a savage twist, snarled wordlessly when the pipes began banging out their delivery of hot water, and bit back an extremely dangerous oath when the temperature spent a good two minutes fluctuating between too hot and too cold.

She finally began to calm as she lathered the Apothecary’s shampoo—guaranteed not tested on mythical creatures—into her hair, and by the time she’d sudsed, rinsed, and dried, she’d relaxed considerably. When Hell actually let her blow-dry and style in peace, she left the bathroom feeling remarkably cheerful.

Her good mood lasted through dressing and right into the day’s search for the Historian.

Curled up on a pillow, Austin lifted his head as the wardrobe door opened and Claire emerged soaking wet “You’re cutting it close,” he said. “You’ve just barely left. What happened?”

“Tropical storm,” Claire told him tightly, pushing streaming hair back off her face. “Came up on shore after me and followed me about ten kilometers inland. Good thing I was driving an import or I’d never have stayed on the road.”

“One of the Historian’s early warning systems?”

Claire shrugged, her sweater sagging off her shoulders. “Who knows?” Trailing a small river behind her, she picked up some dry clothes, held carefully at arm’s length, and headed for the bathroom.

Dumping her wet clothes in a pile on the floor, she dressed quickly and, stomach growling, picked up her blow-dryer. “This one’s going to be quick and sleazy,” she muttered, bending over and applying the hot air. “I’m too hungry for style.”

When she straightened, Jacques stared at her from out of the mirror.

“Oh, hell,” she sighed.

“Got it in one, cherie.” His lips curled up into the lopsided smile that raised his looks, from passable to strangely attractive— strangely attractive were it not for Hell’s signature substitution of glowing red eyes. “I’m sorry I missed you earlier.”

“Just get on with it.”

The image shook its head. “You would think,” it said teasingly, “that you were in a hurry to get somewhere. You can’t leave, cherie.” The smile disappeared. “Neither of us can leave. We have been thrown together here, why not make the most of it?”

She had every intention of leaving, but her mother’s suggestion that she not argue with Hell had been a good one. “What did you have in mind?”

“With the power of the pentagram, you could give me a body nightly as easily as you could snap your fingers.”

Claire frowned. “Don’t you mean opening the pentagram would give me that power?”

“Things are not sealed so tightly as all that.” Red eyes actually managed a twinkle. “Augustus Smythe knew the benefits of using the seepage. How do you think he kept himself amused?”

“I think that’s fairly obvious.” She folded her arms. “If I can use the seepage without releasing the hordes of Hell, what’s in it for you?”

He looked hurt “Must there be something in it for us?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps we find that a happy Keeper is a Keeper easier to live with.”

“I’m sure that Augustus Smythe was a joy.”

“He was Cousin, cherie. You are a Keeper. Surely you are stronger?”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Perhaps.” The image saddened. “You get so few chances to have another’s life touch yours. A frenzied fumbling in the dark—and we have nothing against that, cherie—and then you move on. Only when Keepers are old do they stay in one place long enough to find a mate for the soul and, by then, they are too old to recognize such a one. You have a chance, cherie, a chance few Keepers get.”

Claire’s nostrils flared. “He’s dead.”

“Ah, I see. You will not take the risk, even though there is no danger to you, because it is what a Keeper does not do. A Keeper does not take risks for such a minor thing as happiness.” The image saddened. “For once in your life, cherie, can you not give in to desire without questioning if it is what a Keeper should do?” It raised its left hand and pressed it against the inside of the glass. “Can you not reach out and meet me halfway?”

She felt her right hand lift and forced it back down by her side. “You’re good,” she snarled.

The image in the mirror let its hand fall back as well, fully aware that the mood had been broken. “Technically, no. But we accept the compliment.”

“Give me back my reflection. Now!”

“As you asked so nicely, cherie…” Jacques’ image faded slowly, calling her name as though he were being pulled into torment.

“You’re not Jacques,” Claire told it and found herself talking to herself.

“Claire!”

When she opened the bathroom door, Austin tumbled in and rolled once on the mat. He took a moment to compose himself, then said, with studied nonchalance, as though he hadn’t just been trying to dig his way through the door, “Dean and Jacques are fighting.”

“You mean they’re arguing.”

“No. I mean they’re fighting.”

“That’s impossible.”

“So one would assume, but they seem to have found a way.”

She tossed her blow-dryer down by the sink and ran her fingers through her hair, forcing most of it into place. “All right,” she sighed, “where are they?”

“The third-floor hall.” Austin paused, licked his shoulder, and stepped out of the way. “Directly in front of room six.”

His foresight kept him from being trampled as Claire raced for the stairs.

The effect depended on who delivered the blow. If Dean punched his fist through Jacques’ immaterial body, then Jacques felt it. If Jacques drove his immaterial fist through Dean’s body, then Dean felt it. It wasn’t much of an effect either way, being closer to mild discomfort than actual pain, but neither the living nor the dead cared. The point was to score the point.

“Stop it! Stop it this instant!” Breathing heavily from her run up the two flights of stairs, Claire flung herself between the combatants, then sucked in a startled gasp as Jacques’ hand sliced through her body from hip to hip dragging a sensation of burning cold behind it. When she staggered back, she found herself pressed up against the warm length of Dean’s torso and that was almost as disconcerting.

Jerking forward, she turned sideways and presented a raised hand to each man. “That will be quite enough! Would one of you like to explain what the h…heck is going on?”

Silence settled like three feet of snow.

“I’m waiting.”

“It is not your business…” Jacques began. His protest died as Claire turned the full force of her disapproval in his direction.

“Everything that happens in this building is my business,” she told him. “I want an explanation and I want it now.”

Jacques smoothed back translucent hair. “Ask your houseboy.”

“I’m asking you.”

“Why? Le cochon maudit, he started it.”

As Claire turned to face him, Dean bit back an answering insult.

“Well?” she prodded.

“He accused me of picking up his anchors. Of keeping him from walking around the hotel.”

“Were you?”

“No!” When he saw Jacques’ mouth open, he shifted his weight forward and said, “Okay, I picked up that picture there, but I didn’t know it was one of his anchors.”

“You accuse me of hiding behind Claire.”

“And look where you are.”

“Fini! Je suis a bout! I have had it up to here!”

“FREEZE!”

Jacques stopped his forward advance, and Dean rocked back on his heels.

Arms folded, Claire turned slowly to face Dean. “Did you really say that?”

Dean nodded sheepishly, gaze locked on the carpet.

“Why?”

Ears red, he shrugged without looking up. “I don’t know.”

Since he was telling the truth, Claire ignored the rude noises coming from behind her. “All right, then, I suggest—no, this needs something stronger than a mere suggestion—I insist that we continue this, whatever this is, downstairs. We’re uncomfortably close to her.”

“Her?” Jacques repeated, coming between Claire and the stairs. “By her, I am wondering, do you mean, her?”

“She’s in room six,” Claire told him, pointing with broad emphasis at the splintered door. She opened her mouth to demand he get out of her way when she realized all his attention was on Dean. The air crackled as he moved past her.

“You thought that I, Jacques Labaet, did want to wake her?”

Several hundred childhood stories of vengeful spirits passed through Dean’s head, but he held his ground, wondering why adults thought it necessary to scare the snot out of kids. “I only thought it at first.”

“You dare to give me this insult!”

“The picture was right by her door.”

“And so were you!”

“I was vacuuming!”

“The carpet,” Jacques spat, drifting up so they were nose-to-nose, “is clean! Perhaps you mean to wake her, and I come in time to stop you!”

It was only twenty after eight, but Dean had already had a bad morning. The carpet was not clean, it hadn’t been vacuumed in a week and it didn’t look as though it was going to get vacuumed any time soon. Sure, he’d discovered a suspicious side of himself he didn’t much like, but he didn’t think he deserved to be accused of treachery by someone intent on necrophilia. Of a sort. “You go to Hell,” he said with feeling.

Jacques disappeared.

“Oh, shit!” Claire clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late.

Dean’s eyes widened and, fumbling for his keys, he raced for room five.

With no time to explain, Claire flung herself down the stairs. How could he have done that? She missed a step, fell five, caught her balance, and picked up speed. There’s no way he should’ve been able to do that. By the time she turned onto the basement stairs, her sock-covered feet barely touched the wood. One more floor and she’d have been the first Keeper to fly with out an appliance.

She turned the chains and padlocks to rice and then kicked piles of it out of the way as she dragged open the furnace room door.

“Claire!” Suspended over the pit, Jacques flickered like a bulb about to go out. “Help me!”

Skidding to a halt at the edge of the pentagram, Claire hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do. Because of the seal, Jacques hadn’t gone directly to Hell, but there was sufficient power in the area directly over the pit to shred his ties to the physical world. When the last strand ripped free, his soul would be absorbed, seal or no seal.

“Claaaaaaaaire!”

She could barely hear her name in the panicked wail. Making it up as she went along, she reached out with her will.

HE WAS GIVEN TO US!

“It doesn’t work that way.” Slowly, she wrapped possibilities around the thrashing, flickering ghost. “You know the rules.”

RULES DO NOT APPLY TO US.

“You wish. Souls come to you by their own actions. They can’t be given to you.”

BUT HE’S DEAD.

“So?” It was like scooping a flopping fish out of a tidal pool with a net made of wet toilet paper.

WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO JUDGE HIS ACTIONS.

“Not on this side you don’t.”

WE’RE HELPING HIM PASS OVER.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” Holding him as securely as possible, Claire began to pull Jacques toward the edge of the pit. His struggles made it difficult to tell how quickly he was moving, but after a few tense moments he was definitely closer to the side than the middle.

When eldritch power crawled like a bloated fly over the part of her will extending over the edge of the pentagram, she realized Hell was analyzing the rescue attempt. She felt it remove its attention from Jacques and gather its resources. There was barely time to brace herself before an energy spike thrust up out of the depths, dragging both her will and Jacques back toward the center of the pit.

LET HIM GO. HE IS NOTHING TO YOU.

“That’s not what your recent temptation implied.”

WE’RE BIG ENOUGH TO ADMIT WHEN WE’RE WRONG.

Sock feet slid closer to the edge of the pentagram.

ON SECOND THOUGHT, DON’T LET HIM GO.

If she let him go, the odds were good she wouldn’t fasten onto him again before Hell tore through the bonds holding him to the world. If she didn’t let him go, she’d be dragged through the pentagram and his fate would be a minor footnote to the cataclysm as the seal broke. Her toes dug through her socks and into the imperfection in the rock floor, but that only slowed her.

Jacques or the world?

It was the sort of dilemma Hell delighted in. Claire could feel its pleasure in the certain knowledge that she’d have to sacrifice Jacques for the lives of millions.

Then strong arms wrapped around her from behind. Her toes stopped millimeters from disaster.

“Bring him in,” Dean told her, tightening his grip one arm at a time. “And let’s get out of here.”

Constrained by the pentagram, Hell stood no chance against the deeply ridged treads on a pair of winter work boots designed to get the wearer up and down the chutes of St. Johns.

Weight on his heels, Dean stepped back, once, twice, dragging Claire back with him, dragging Jacques with her. At the outside edge of the pentagram, the tension snapped and flung all three of them against the far wall of the furnace room; first Dean, then Claire, then Jacques, who slapped through them both like a cold fog to smash in turn against the rock.

Teeth gritted, Claire pried herself up off of Dean, used the wall to pull herself to her feet, and attempted to blink away the afterimages caused by impact with limestone closely followed by Jacques’ left knee passing between her eyes. “Is everyone all right?”

“I guess.” Dean braced himself against the floor, separated himself from Jacques’ right arm and shoulder, and stood.

“Jacques?”

“Non. I am not all right. Where are we?”

“The furnace room,” Dean answered, before Claire had a chance.

“What? In the hotel?” The last syllable rose to a shriek.

“Yeah. The furnace room in the hotel.” Dean shot a look both wounded and disapproving at Claire. “But I don’t think we should stay.”

Jacques glanced wide-eyed toward the pentagram. “It is real?”

“It is,” Claire told him, holding her head in both hands. When they’d broken free, her will had retracted and she had the kind of headache that came with trying to fit approximately twelve feet of power in an eight-inch skull.

“Then we talk in the dining room.” Still flickering around the edges, he disappeared.

“The dining room,” Claire repeated. “Good plan.” Staggering slightly, she started up the stairs.

One hand out to catch her if she fell, Dean followed, still far, far too angry to give in to the faint gibbering he could hear coming from inner bits of his brain. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a hole to Hell in the furnace room?”

“I’m a Keeper, it’s my duty to protect you.”

“From what?”

“Living in terror.”

A LIE. A VERITABLE FALSEHOOD!

Claire sighed. She couldn’t believe a headache could pack so much mass; it felt as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. “From having to bear more than I thought you could.”

“Didn’t think much of me, did you? Do you?”

Heaving herself up another step, she waved more or less toward the pit. “Dean, it’s Hell!”

“We’ve a saying back home…”

“Please, spare me.”

“…some don’t be afraid of the sea, they goes down to the sea, and they be drowned. But I be afraid of the sea, and I goes down to the sea, and I only be drowned now and then.”

“What the h…”

SAY IT.

“…heck does that mean?” she snarled.

“Fear can keep you alive. You should’ve told me.”

KEEPERS, ALWAYS THINK THEY KNOW WHAT’S…

Claire slammed the door shut on the last word, spraying uncooked rice all over the basement.

A single grain of those pushed inside the furnace room flew down the stairs and tumbled end over end across the stone floor. It stopped no more than its own width away from the outermost edge of the glyphs that sealed the pentagram.

DAMN.

“Look, Dean, you knew what you needed to know.” Claire kicked at a mound of rice, guilt making her sound petulant even to her own ears. “I told you there was a major accident site down here; I just didn’t name it.”

His back against the furnace room door, Dean stared at her, unable to believe what he was hearing. “You didn’t name it? It’s not like you forgot to tell me it was called Fred or George or Harold. It’s Hell!”

“Technically, it’s energy from the lower end of the possibilities manifesting itself in a format the person who called it up could understand.”

“And that format?”

“Is Hell; all right?” Sagging back against the washing machine, she threw up her hands. “You win.”

Dean jerked a hand back through his hair. “It’s not about winning.” He paused, trying to figure out what it was he’d won. “Okay. Maybe it is. You’re admitting you should have told me, right?”

“Right.”

“That you were wrong?”

She found enough energy to lift her head. “Don’t push it.” One fingernail traced the maker’s name stamped into the front of the washer. “So now you know, what are you going to do? Are you going to leave?”

“Leave?” Leave. He hadn’t actually thought it through that far.

“What’s the point?” his common sense wanted to know. “There’s nothing there that hasn’t been there for the last year.”

“Shouldn’t you be telling me to pack?”

“Too late.”

“Dean?”

He took a step away from the furnace room. He wanted to ask her if she really thought she could close up Hell, but the sound of a hundred grains of rice being ground to powder drew his gaze to the floor. “What’s with all the rice?”

“Conservation of mass,” Claire explained wearily. “It used to be the chains.”

“You changed the chains into rice?”

“It had to be something I could get through even though it weighed the same as the chains.”

The area immediately in front of the furnace room door looked as though a small blizzard had wandered through on its way to Rochester. Crouching, Dean scooped up a handful of the tiny white grains and frowned as they spilled through his fingers. “Instant rice?”

“What’s wrong with instant?”

“Nothing. I mean, it’s not like you’re cooking with it.” He straightened, dusting his hand against his thigh. “Are you after changing it back?”

Claire shook her head and regretted the motion. “I can’t. I couldn’t change my mind right now.”

“Then should I replace the chains? Mr. Smythe kept a box of extras,” he added in response to her expression.

Claire glanced at the door. The chains, like the locks on room six, were wishful thinking. If Hell got loose, chains wouldn’t stop it. “Why not.”

Picking rice off her socks, she watched him walk to a storage cupboard at the far end of the basement return, and efficiently secure the door. When he turned to face her, she realized there was a reserve in his expression, a new wariness in his gaze, that made her feel as though, somehow, she’d failed him. She didn’t like the feeling.

Keepers weren’t in the habit of apologizing to bystanders. But then, Keepers didn’t usually have to look Dean McIssac in the eye, knowing they were wrong. “All right.” She tried to keep her nostrils from flaring and didn’t quite manage it. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you.”

“I told you so.” Enjoying the startled reaction his unexpected declaration had evoked, Austin picked his way across the laundry room. “What’s with the rice?”

“It used to be the chains and locks,” Claire told him.

“I see. Well, the mice will certainly be pleased.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t think they’re mice!” The need to vent at something pushed the volume up until she was almost shouting.

Austin snorted. “Oh, that’s right; you’re the Keeper and I’m just a cat. What do I know about mice?”

She smiled tightly down at him. “You should know they don’t come in primary colors. Were you looking for us?”

“No. But I was wondering why Jacques is having hysterics in the dining room while you two are hiding out down here.” Fastidiously finding a clean bit of floor, he sat down, wrapping his tail around his toes. “After what I overheard, I’m not wondering any more, but I was.

“This is only a guess,” he continued as Claire raced for the stairs, “based on the really pissed-off ravings of a dead man, but did someone use the h-word out of context and almost condemn his soul to everlasting torment?”

Dean blanched as he realized that was exactly what had happened. “If you’d told me,” he called, hurrying to catch up, “I wouldn’t have done it!”

“Her mother wanted her to tell you.”

“Shut up, Austin.”

When they reached the dining room, a plastic salt shaker, a box of toothpicks, and six grapes flew out of the kitchen. Claire ducked and Dean took the full impact.

“J’ai presque ete a l’Enfer!”

Wiping crushed grape off his chin, Dean stepped forward. His French wasn’t up to an exact translation, but the infuriated shriek suggested a limited number of possibilities. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. It was…”

“It was an accident!” With a well-placed hip, Claire moved Dean out of her way. “Granted, he said the words, but he didn’t mean them as an instruction. He should be able to say what he wants with no effect.”

Austin snorted and whacked the salt shaker under the dining room table. “That thing’s been down there for over a century and the power seepage has permeated this whole building. I’m only surprised that he never told old Augustus where to go.”

“I couldn’t say that to my boss,” Dean protested.

“Not without a union,” the cat agreed.

Jacques surged through the table to stand face-to-face with Claire. “I don’t care what he should have been able to do! All I know is that he tried to throw me into Hell!”

“And then he pulled you out again.”

“You think that makes up for him putting me there?”

“Would you listen to me, Jacques!” Had she been able to get hold of him, she’d have shaken him until his teeth rattled. “He didn’t know it would happen. He didn’t even know what was in the furnace room.”

“He did not know!” Jacques stepped back in disbelief, half in and half out of the table. “You did not tell him?” All at once, he frowned. “Come to think on it, you did not tell me!”

“You’ve been in the same building with it for seventy-two years!” Claire met indignation with equal indignation. “Knowing it’s there won’t change anything.”

His eyes darkened. “You are wrong, Claire. It changes what I know.”

She couldn’t argue with that, even if she’d wanted to. “Okay. Fine. I should’ve told you. I should’ve told you both. But I didn’t. I’m sorry.” And that, she decided was the last time she was apologizing for it. “You both know now. I’m going to have another shower even though it won’t do any good because the touch I can feel is inside my head, and then I’m going to get some breakfast because I’m starving. All right?” Her chin rose. “Is there anything else you’d like me to tell you?”

The two men, now side by side, exchanged interrogative glances.

“Non,” Jacques said after a moment. “I cannot think of anything.”

“No more secrets,” Dean added.

“God forbid I should have secrets.” Her ears were burning and she didn’t want to think about a probable cause. “My cat can’t keep his mouth shut, and suddenly my life is an open book.”

“Hey!” Austin stuck his head out from under the table. “You let the ghost out of the attic all on your own, and I said you should tell them about the furnace room.”

“You did not.”

He thought about that for a moment. “Well, I never told you not to.”

Claire swept a scathing glance over the three of them, suggested they watch their language, and stomped out of the dining room. It would’ve been a more effective exit had she not been in socks and had her heels hitting the floor not set up a painful reverberation in her head, but she made the most of it.

“There will be secrets,” Jacques observed, as the door to her suite slammed shut. “Women must have secrets.”

“Why?” Dean asked, going into the kitchen.

“Why? Because, espece d’idiot, between a man and a woman, there must be mystery. The worst of Hell is that there is no mystery.”

ROSEBUD IS HIS SLED. When silence was the only response, Hell sighed. GET IT? NO MYSTERY. ROSEBUD IS HIS SLED…. DOESN’T ANYONE CARE ABOUT THE CLASSICS ANYMORE?

Dean turned to face the ghost, feeling slightly sick when he thought of what he’d nearly done. “I can only keep saying I’m sorry.”

“That is right, Anglais,” Jacques agreed. “You can keep saying you are sorry.”

“The way I see it,” Austin said, leaping from chair to counter-top, “you’re even. You unjustly accused each other of wanting to wake her. You, Dean, accidentally almost sent Jacques to Hell, but then you purposefully went in and rescued him.”

“Non. Not even.” Jacques glared over the cat’s head at Dean. “He also accuses me of hiding behind Claire.”

“Yeah, and you called him something pithy and insulting.”

“You speak French?”

“I’m a cat.”

“Look, I overreacted,” Dean admitted. He paused while the hot water pipes banged out the rhythm of Claire’s shower. “It’s just you’ve been pretty obvious about how much you want a body.”

“I would take a body from the cat before I took a body from her.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Austin recommended.

Pulling the toaster from the appliance garage, Dean shook his head. He couldn’t help feeling he should be more upset about the reality of a hole to Hell in the furnace room except that reality and hole to Hell in the same sentence just didn’t compute. “Why does she bother me more than Hell?”

“I could go into the deep psychological problems men experience when they come face-to-face with powerful women…”

“We do not!” both men exclaimed. Standing with their arms crossed, they regarded each other warily.

The cat snickered. “…but it’s simpler than that. Hell is too nasty for mortal minds to comprehend, so they trivialize it, knock it down to size. It’s a built-in defense mechanism.”

Brow furrowed, Dean stared down at the cat. “So she bothers me more than Hell because I don’t have any natural defenses against her?”

“And because the original Keepers put a dampening field around the furnace room. Without it, business would be worse than it is, as difficult as that may be to imagine, and any sane person would run screaming once they found out what was in the basement.”

“And with it?”

“Unnerving but endurable. Kind of like opera.”

“A dampening field to dull the reactions.” Rubbing at the perpetual stubble along his jaw, Jacques nodded. “That does explain why I take this so well.”

“That,” Austin agreed, assaulting the lid on the butter dish, “and because you’re dead. The dead don’t get worked up about much.”

“Except getting their rocks off,” Dean muttered.

“You desire I should tell Claire why we were really fighting?” the ghost demanded.

“If you know, why didn’t you tell her upstairs?”

“Two reasons. If you do not know, me, I am not the one to tell you. And two…” He shrugged. “I remember in the neck of time…”

“Nick of time.”

“What?”

“Not neck,” Dean told him. “Nick.”

“D’accord. In the nick of time, I remember that women do not always appreciate being fought over the way those who fight might assume.”

“Oh.” Opening the fridge, Dean stared at the contents, ignored the little voice suggesting that, under the circumstances, it was all right to have a beer before noon, and closed the door again, saying, “That’s pretty smart for a dead guy.”

“I was, as you say, pretty smart for a live guy.”

“You’re bonding,” Austin observed sardonically. “I’m touched. Well, what would you call it?” he asked when both the living and the dead fixed him with an identical expression of horror.

“We’re not bonding,” Dean declared.

“Not even a little bit,” Jacques added. “We are…” He looked to the living for help.

“Not bonding,” Dean repeated.

“Oui.” Settling himself cross-legged an inch above the table, the ghost leaned back on nothing and studied the other man. “Me, I have no choice, but you, now you know, do you stay?”

“Claire asked me that, too.” He folded his arms. “I don’t run away from things.”

“Perhaps it is wiser to know when to run.”

“And leave you alone here?”

Jacques spread his hands, the pictures of wronged innocence, the gesture far more eloquent than words.

“Fat chance.” Shoving his glasses up on his nose, Dean headed for the basement stairs.

“Where are you going?”

He made the face of a man who once a month scrubbed the concrete floor with a stiff broom and an industrial cleanser. “I’m after sweeping up the rice.”

“You’ve had a busy twenty-four hours, Claire. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I have a vicious headache.” Cradling the old-fashioned receiver in the damp hollow between ear and shoulder, she fought with the childproof cap on a bottle of painkillers. Teeth clenched, she sat the pill bottle on the table and pulled power. The bottle exploded.

“Claire, what are you doing?”

There were two pills caught in the cuff of her bathrobe. “Just taking something for my headache.” She swallowed them dry.

On the other end of the phone, Martha Hansen sighed. “You aren’t the first Keeper who’s had to apologize to a bystander, you know.”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever had to do it.”

“It’s the first time a bystander’s ever been involved in what you do.”

Claire opened her mouth to disagree, then realized that her previous involvements with bystanders were not something she wanted to discuss with her mother. Nor, she acknowledged with a small smile, were they something she had to apologize for.

“Claire?”

Pleasant memories fled as the current situation shoved its way back to the forefront of her thoughts. “At least I needn’t worry about it happening again. Dean’s too nice a guy to even think of doing it on purpose.”

“And Jacques?”

Her lip curled. “Jacques is dead, Mom. He can’t affect anything.”

“Ah. Yes.”

Claire decided she didn’t want to know what that meant. Had the phones been Touch-Tone, she’d have suspected Austin had been talking to her mother behind her back. Since there was no way the cat could use a rotary phone…All at once, this conversation was not making her feel any better. “I’d better get dressed and get back to work.”

“I hope it helped you to talk about it, Claire. You know you can call any time. Speaking of calling, you haven’t heard from your sister, have you?”

She could feel her jaw muscles tightening up. “No. Why?”

“We had a bit of a disagreement, and she stormed out of here last night. I’m not worried, I know where she is, I was just wondering if she’d spoken to you.”

“No.”

“If she does call, would you please explain to her that turning the sofa into a pygmy hippo for the afternoon might be very good transfiguration, but it’s rather hard on the carpets and it confuses the hippo.”

A dry, tearing sound, the sound of something large and ancient clearing its throat, pulled Dean up from the basement. Fighting against the natural inclination of his legs to get the rest of his body the hell out of there, so to speak, he made his way to the dining room where he found Claire on her hands and knees, surrounded by pieces of broken quarter-round, ripping up the linoleum.

“She’s venting frustrations on inanimate objects,” Austin explained from the safety of the countertop. “You should consider yourself lucky.”

“Boss?”

She shuffled backward and tore free another two feet of floor covering before the section detached from the main. “There’s hardwood under here. We’re going to refinish it.”

“But I thought…”

“Congratulations.”

“…that you were after working on closing the site.”

“To close the site, I need to study it. To study it, I need to get close. To get close, I need to be calm.” Claire ripped up another ragged section. “Do I look calm?”

“I guess not.” Amazed by the extent of the mess, Dean wasn’t entirely certain he wouldn’t rather have faced the demon he’d expected. “But what about the front counter, out in the lobby.”

“I know where the front counter is, Dean.” She tossed aside a crumbling piece of linoleum. “I’m not asking you if you want to refinish the floor, I’m telling you we’re going to.”

Dean glanced over at the cat who looked significantly unhelpful. “Where’s Jacques?”

“Staying out of my way.”

“Ah.” He cleaned his glasses on his shirttail and squinted unenthusiastically at the exposed wood. “Should I go rent an industrial sander?”

“Yes, you should.” Claire rolled up onto her feet and headed down the hall toward the office.

“Why should we be the ones who suffer?” Dean muttered at the cat as he turned to follow. “She was in the wrong.”

“And you’re just going to keep that thought to yourself, aren’t you,” Austin told him.

Dean knew the envelope Claire pulled the money from—Augustus Smythe had paid him out of it every Friday. He could’ve sworn it had been empty on Saturday when he’d unlocked the safe. “Where did you get the cash?”

“Lineage operating funds.” Claire tossed the envelope back in the safe and closed the door. “When people, or institutions, or pop machines lose money, it becomes ours, available to draw on when we need it.”

“This is where lost money goes?” Fanning the bills he counted four twenties, three tens, and a five with Mr. Spock’s haircut penciled onto the head of Sir Wilfred Laurier. It was a remarkable likeness. “What about socks?”

“Socks?”

“Where do lost socks go?”

Claire stared at him as though he’d suddenly sprouted a third head. “How the he…heck should I know?”

When Dean returned just before noon, all the furniture in the dining room had been rearranged on the ceiling and the linoleum had been completely removed. It was still lying around in messy heaps, but it was no longer attached to the floor.

Tired and filthy, Claire watched appreciatively as he wrestled the heavy machine in through the back door. Having actually been able to accomplish something had put her in a significantly better mood.

They ate soup and sandwiches sitting on the counter, discussing renovations in perfect harmony. Two hours later, the debris bagged, Claire left to finish sorting through Augustus Smythe’s room while Dean used the sander.

As the layers of glue and old varnish began to disappear, he grew more confident. Finished with the edging, he began making long, smooth passes up and down the twenty-three-foot length of the room. After the third pass, he began to pick up speed. All at once, a body appeared too close to the drum to avoid.

Jacques screamed in mock agony as the sander split him in two.

Somehow, Dean managed to maintain enough control so he only gouged a three-foot, shallow, diagonal trench into the floorboards before he got the machine turned off. Ripping off his ear protectors with one hand and the dust mask with the other, he whirled around and yelled, “That’s not funny!”

Jacques waved a hand made weak by laughter. “You should see your face. If I am here another seventy years, I will never see anything so funny.” As Dean sputtered inarticulately, he started laughing harder.

“Why have you stopped? Have you finished?” Claire halted in the doorway, took in the tableau, and shook her head. “Jacques, pull yourself together!”

“For you, cherie, anything.” Continuing amusement kept his upper half vibrating and Jacques finally had to reach down, grab his jeans, and yank his legs back onto his torso.

“Was there an accident?”

“No, not an accident,” Dean growled. “The jerk suddenly showed up in front of me. Look at what he made me do to the floor! I should’ve run over his head.”

“Be my guest,” Jacques told him, still snickering.

“Jacques!”

The ghost set his head back on his shoulders.

“You know,” Claire told him pointedly, “just for the record, I don’t find that sort of thing attracti…” She jumped as an air raid siren began to sound. “Mrs. Abrams. I set up an alarm on the front steps to give us a little warning. Jacques, you’d better disappear.”

“Why can’t I meet this Mrs. Abrams?”

“Yeah, Boss, why can’t he?” Dean asked with feeling. “Why should we have all the fun.”

The siren shut off as the front door opened. “Yoo hoo!”

Jacques flinched and disappeared.

Suddenly inspired, Dean switched the sander back on.

As clouds of dust billowed up around him, Claire dragged herself reluctantly out to the front hall.

“Oh, there you are, dear.” Her voice rose easily over the background noise roaring out of the dining room. “As I was letting Baby out into his little area I heard horrible sounds coming from the back of this building and I rushed right over in case the whole ancient firetrap had begun coming down around your ears.”

Claire crushed an impulse to ask her what she would have done had it been. “We’re refinishing the floor in the dining room, Mrs. Ab…”

“Of course you are. Didn’t I say this fine old building needed a woman’s touch? So nice you have a strong young man around to do the work for you.” She darted purposefully down the hall, caroling, “I’ll just go and have a little look-see,” as she went.

For a woman of her age and weight, Mrs. Abrams moved remarkably quickly. The defensive line of the Dallas Cowboys might have been able to stop her, but Claire didn’t stand a chance without using power. With no time for finesse, she reached out and slammed to her knees.

Five feet out in front, Mrs. Abrams didn’t even notice.

Blinking away afterimages, Claire dragged herself up the wall. It’s that damn sander, she decided, perfectly willing to condemn it to the flames. How’s anyone supposed to concentrate through all that noise?

Innate good manners forced Dean to turn the sander off when Mrs. Abrams charged into the room.

“Mercy.” She coughed vigorously into a handkerchief she pulled from her sleeve. “It is dusty, isn’t it? And this room looks so small and dreary with no furniture in…” Her voice trailed off as she noticed just where the furniture was. “Oh, my. How did you ever…?”

“Clamps,” Claire told her. The older woman looked so relieved she could almost hear the sound of possibilities being discarded. Meeting Dean’s incredulous gaze, she shrugged—the gesture saying clearly, people believe what they want to believe.

A LIE!

A LIE IN KINDNESS. THEY CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT. NEITHER SIDE IS STRENGTHENED. NEITHER SIDE IS WEAKENED.

BUT…

INTENT COUNTS. Had anyone been there to overhear, they might have thought that Hell spoke through clenched teeth. IT’S IN THE RULES.

Suddenly inspired, Claire took hold of one polyester-covered elbow and turned the body attached to it back toward the front door. “You shouldn’t be in here without a dust mask, Mrs. Abrams. What would Baby do if you got sick?”

“Oh, I mustn’t get sick, the poor darling would be devastated. He’s so attached to his mummy.” Craning her head around, she took one last look at the dining room ceiling. “Clamps, you say?”

“How else?”

“Of course, clamps. How else would you be holding furniture on the ceiling. How very clever of you, Karen, dear. Have you heard from that horrible Mr. Smythe?”

“No, and my name isn’t…”

“He’s going to be so surprised at all you’ve done when he comes back. Are you going to open up the elevator?”

“The what?”

“The elevator. There’s one in this hall somewhere. I remember it from when I was a girl.”

Claire opened the front door, but Mrs. Abrams made no move to go out it.

“You ought to open the elevator up, you know. It would lend the place such a historical…” Her eyes widened as the sound of frenzied barking echoed up and down the street. She darted out the door. “What can be wrong with Baby?”

“The mailman?” Claire asked, following from the same compulsion that stopped drivers to look at car accidents on the highway.

“No. No. He’s long been and gone.”

They were side by side as they crossed the driveway. Claire, on the inside track, looked toward the back in time to see a black-and-white blur leap from the fence to the enclosure around the garbage cans to the ground and streak toward the hotel.

When Claire stopped running, Mrs. Abrams never noticed.

The noise coming from Baby’s little area—after a few years of Baby, it could no longer be called a yard in any domestic sense of the word—never lessened.

If the flames reflected on the copper hood were sullen before, they were downright sulky now.

IT ISN’T FAIR.

WHAT ISN’T?

THAT THE KEEPER SHOULD ALWAYS WIN. IF WE HAD ONLY PULLED HARDER. WE WERE SO CLOSE.

CLOSE! The repetition resounded in the heated air like a small explosion. CLOSE ONLY COUNTS IN HORSESHOES AND HAND GRENADES.

AND DANCING.

WHAT?

CLOSE DANCING.

SHUT UP.