“Mind your own damned business.”
“It’s Rae,” Charlene said helpfully.
“Traitor!”
“Oh, hush up.” She turned back to a bemused Janameides. “As you can see, we’re doing just fine. Please give Pot our warmest regards.”
“Don’t give her my regards,” Rae bitched. “She took off, so she’s dead to me.”
“Says the dead woman,” Charlene muttered.
“I heard that!”
“What are you still doing here, Rae?” Janameides asked.
“Why do you care?”
“I do not know,” he admitted. His queen had told him about the ghost, not glossing over her unpleasant personality, but he was intrigued despite his queen’s well-meant warning. He felt sorry for Rae, stuck in this house for almost a century. “But I am interested.”
“I’m the handyman.”
“It’s true,” Charlene piped up. “She keeps the furnace running, she keeps everything up to code. I never have to so much as call a plumber.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” the ghost said sourly.
“But do you not wish to—to move on?”
“Move on
“Wherever people go when they die.”
“Rae will never admit it,” Charlene said, “but she loves it here. And she loved Potameides.”
“Didn’t!”
“Without a house to take care of and my husband and me to nag, she’d be lost.”
“Lies!”
From down the hall, they heard a baby start to cry. “Oh, nice going,” Charlene said, exasperated. “You woke the baby.”
“Oh, like that’s a big trick. That thing doesn’t sleep; it catnaps for thirty seconds at a time.”
“That thing,” she said sternly, “is my daughter, and that’s quite enough of your attitude, miss.”
“Mmmph,” the ghost said.
“Excuse me,” Charlene said, and hurried out of the room.
“So, Jan,” the ghost said, “anybody ever tell you, you smell like the deep end of a swimming pool?”
“No.”
“Not that it’s a bad smell,” she added hastily. “It’s just different. Pot smelled the same way, that abandoning cow.”
“I must ask you not to speak so about my queen.”
“Ask away, pal, and see where that gets you.”
“She did warn me about you,” he admitted.
“What? That jerk was talking about me? What’d she say? Ooooh, I’ll kill her!”
“How can you, if you’re discorporated?”
“Just never mind. What’d she say?”
“She said you were unpleasant and rude as a defensive mechanism because you’re really quite lonely.”
“Lies!”
“Well,” he said, drumming his long fingers on the kitchen table, “perhaps we can discuss that.”
Eight
Thad managed to stay away from Withering Desdaine for a whole day, until he gave in and brought a pizza to her house. He was knocking on the door when he felt cold steel slip around his throat. This was disconcerting, to put it mildly.
“Uh . . .” He coughed. Cripes, he hadn’t heard her move, much less get the drop on him. “Lunch?”
“Oh! This woman apologizes. Old habits, you know.” He turned and saw Withering sheathe her knife. She had obviously been taken shopping, because she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, both of which fit snugly. Also, she had on her sword and both knives. It was startlingly sexy.
“And you brought food!” She greedily snatched the pizza box from him. “This woman is so grateful.”
“This man says it’s no sweat. Invite me in?”
She blinked at him with those big baby blues. “Why?”
“Uh . . . so we can share the pizza?”
“Oh. Oh! Of course. Yes, indeed, please come in. My honored mother is at her job, but my sisters are here.”
“Terrific,” he muttered, following her inside.
“Oh,” Scornful said, eyeing him in a distinctly unfriendly way. “It’s you.”
“It’s me,” he agreed. “Want some pizza?”
“No.”
“Please excuse me for a moment,” Withering said. “I was just about to urinate when you came.”
“Oh. No problem.”
Withering was barely out of the room when Scornful started in. “Look, pal, I know what you’re up to.”
“You do?” It was downright unnerving, looking at a much younger version of Withering. Same blond hair, same riveting blue eyes. “Odd, because I hardly know myself.”
“You’re sniffing around my sister like some kind of speed freak dog.”
“A speed freak d—?”
“Leave her alone! She’s still adjusting to being back. And we’re still adjusting to her being—ugh—a grown- up.”
“It’s just a pizza,” he huffed, offended.
“Suuuuuure, McHorny, whatever you say.” She was seated at the kitchen table, flipping through a book that was not written in English but instead covered in runes and various squigglings. She slammed the book shut and added, “Look, you think we don’t know she’s a knockout? That whole polite/tough/vulnerable thing prob’ly works on you like a hormone shot.”
“We are not,” he decided, “having this conversation.”
“Look, we get it. But she’s got enough on her mind right now. Not to mention she’s trying to find a way
“Wants to go back? Why in the hell—”
“We don’t know, nimrod! She’s not talking.”
“All right, calm down, don’t have a stroke and
“You know how capricious that thing is. There’s no guarantee she’d end up exactly where she wanted to be.”
“Why would she even want to—” He shut up as Withering entered the room. “Have a slice of pepperoni?” he finished.
Scornful looked amused but said nothing.
“Do you think Derisive would like some food?” Withering asked.
“No. She’s deep in the Web right now, trying to research your weirdo demon kingdom.”
“She’s in a web?” Withering looked alarmed. “That doesn’t sound safe at all.”
Scornful stifled a groan. “Never mind.”
“How could she search for another dimension on our Web?” Thad asked.
“Magic, dummy.”
“Scornful,” Withering said sharply.
