Quinton made a disgusted face. “Is he blaming her in some way? Making the situation out to be some kind of punishment for sin?”
“I don’t get that sense, but apparently he, or the church in question, doesn’t support the Catholic idea of demonic possession and exorcism, so she’s mostly been told to sit tight and pray. Which hasn’t been helping, that the client can see. So she’s desperate and very upset and she’s hoping I can figure out what’s going on. What she expects to happen after that is anyone’s guess. I suppose she’ll want to get rid of the unwanted visitors, but she hasn’t said that or how she’d prefer to see it done. She has hired a medium to sit with her sister and try to converse with whoever or whatever is coming around, but the medium hasn’t had a lot of luck. The babbling appears to be the only communication they’re receiving and that seems to be in a foreign language.”
“Wow. Does the sister know any foreign languages?”
“I don’t know, but if so, I’m guessing either it’s not one her sister also knows or it’s not a language at all.” I took another sip of whiskey and sighed, closing my burning eyes again and tilting my head back against the sofa cushions. “The medium took a digital recording of today’s outburst and said he’d send it to me—”
“Wait,” Quinton interrupted me. “A male medium? Isn’t that a bit unusual?”
“I don’t know. As far as I’ve ever seen, mediums are universally charlatans, regardless of gender.”
“Do you really have room to make that accusation, Harper?”
I pressed my lips hard together and didn’t say anything until I’d thought about it first. “I’m not a medium. I don’t act as an intermediary to spirits or wandering souls—which is what a medium supposedly does. I don’t act as a conduit for their voices or actions, either. I don’t even talk to them in that context. So, no. I’m not a medium. But you’re right. My experience isn’t everyone’s and it’s unfair of me to assume that there aren’t people with other skills related to the Grey. I know witches, shape-shifters, necromancers, sorcerers, vampires, shamans, and plenty of others who have some touch with the Grey that is unlike mine. So I should keep an open mind about whether there might be such a thing as a legitimate medium or channeler.” I opened one eye and peered at him. “And that being the case, you should be equally open-minded about the gender of any mediums that might be running around this case. This one is male and blond and a bit on the pudgy side, none of which is part of the stereotype, anyhow.” I closed my eye again.
“And he uses a digital recorder?”
“Even TV ghost hunters have moved on to high technology.”
“Yeah, but they aren’t likely to be hanging around you while I’m distracted by ruining my dad’s career.”
“Is that your latest project?” I asked.
“It’s a frequent enough accusation that I’ve decided to make it my life’s work, if I have to.” He didn’t sound at all jocular about it. Quinton’s relationship with his father was even uglier than mine had been with my mother until a couple of years ago. James Purlis was an unrepentant manipulator and a professional liar—he was a spy, after all. He worked for some covert branch of the government, running the sort of bizarre and creepy projects featuring alien autopsies or psychics attempting to kill goats with the power of their minds that you usually see only on cheesy documentaries running on late-night TV. Except, in his case, the “Ghost Division” wasn’t a scam or a joke and he was deadly serious about it—whatever it was. He had also seemed set on sucking Quinton back into the espionage business ever since he had confirmed that his son wasn’t dead.
That was my fault. If I hadn’t gone off to get myself killed, Quinton wouldn’t have broken his cover and ended up asking his father for help. I tried not to feel bad about it, not because I wasn’t guilty but because Quinton didn’t like it and tended to tell me off. Aren’t we a fun couple? Though I will admit to a certain degree of sinful glee anytime a wrench was thrown into the elder Purlis’s works—more so if I got to throw the wrench, since I’d disliked him from the first moment we met and he knocked me down.
“Your dad’s a jerk,” I said. “And I promise not to fall in love with any pudgy blond mediums or their digital recorders while you’re busy reminding him of that.”
“All right, then.”
“Hey,” I added, peeling open my eyes again and looking at him. “Can I get a promise from you, too?”
His slightly stiff expression broke and he smiled. “Sure. I’d promise you anything.”
“I only want small things. Don’t let him snatch you and if you have to run, let me know you’re not dead. Oh, and that, too.”
“What too?”
“Don’t get dead. I’m the only one in this family who’s allowed to play that game.”
He leaned over and pulled me into his arms. As he spoke, his voice trembled just a little. “That’s a lousy game. Let’s not play it at all.” He squeezed me and I squeezed back, breathless. “And . . . uh . . . what do you mean ‘family’?” he asked. “Is there something I don’t know?”
I puzzled that one for a moment and gasped once I got it. “Oh. No. No imminent pitter-patter of little geek- feet. Just you, me, and about three million ghosts.”
He laughed and I thought he sounded relieved. “Damn, this town’s got more dead people than live ones.”
“Most do.”
“Then we shouldn’t add to the population.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
He kissed me. “You never do.”
“Hey, the last guy I shot was already dead.”
“Come to think of it, the last guy I shot was, too. Although he was a zombie, so does that really count?”
“I vote no. Doesn’t count.”
“I vote for dinner.”
I wriggled a bit in his arms, but didn’t have the energy to push away and look at him—I couldn’t even get my eyes to open properly. “Dinner? How romantic after zombies.”
“I was thinking more of the fact that you sound like you’re about to fall asleep and food might be a good idea.”
I gave up resisting and put my head on his chest. “OK. It is a good idea. Whiskey was probably not. But I still appreciated it. You’re my knight in silicon armor.”
“I think I’d rather be the frisky rogue in stealth motley.”
“How can motley be stealthy?”
“How is a hipster like a cheap hot pad?”
“What?” I asked, not sure I’d heard that correctly. I felt very sleepy. . . .
“I asked you how a hipster is like a hot pad.”
“Umm . . . they both look ridiculous with a mustache?”
“No. They both only think they’re cool.”
“I’m not sure that explains how motley can be stealthy.”
“It doesn’t, but I need to get up and find some food for you. If you’re laughing, it’s easier to change the subject.”
“Oh. I hear there’s some food hiding in the fridge.”
“Was it Chinese food? Because if so, its hiding place was discovered and ravaged by terrorists.”
“Terrorist forks, I presume.”
“Chopsticks. I would never send a lone fork against Chinese leftovers. Totally against all conventions of food warfare.”
I started giggling and could barely say, “So you’re the food terrorist.”
“I admit it. And I’d do it again—for Queen and Country. Or at least for lunch.”
I kept giggling and Quinton let me slump back into my corner of the couch with my eyes still closed while he picked up my whiskey glass and returned to the kitchen. I could follow his movement through the Grey fog version of the room and was content with that, not even sure I was going to be awake whenever food was ready to eat, and pretty sure I wasn’t going to care.
The smell of food perked me up a bit. Quinton persuaded me to move to the kitchen table instead of trying to eat while sitting on the couch on the supposition that I was less likely to suffocate in my dish if I was upright. The ferret was not invited to join us for dinner and she snubbed us by sleeping in her cage the whole time instead.
Quinton brought the case up again once I’d gotten a few bites down. “Do you think your case is a legitimate
