“Ah, yes.” He climbed onto her stomach and sat down. “The creatures of the night, what music they make.”
“Go to sleep, Austin.”
“The boss not back yet?”
“No, not yet.” Austin sprang up onto the coffee table and shoved aside a shallow bowl carved from alternating colors of wood and filled with a dusty collection of old birthday cards. “She got a late start this morning.”
“You know she doesn’t want me in here before she gets back.”
“I wanted my head scratched.”
“She’s likely to be angry.”
“It’s a worthy cause.”
Although he knew he should just turn around and leave, Dean sighed and scratched where indicated, unable to resist the weight of the cat’s stare.
“Hey, go easy, big fella. I’m not a dog.”
“Sorry.”
“Of course you are,” Claire said stepping out of the wardrobe. “The question is, why are you here?”
“It’s Saturday.”
“I knew that.” Setting a pair of plastic shopping bags—one stamped with a caduceus and the other with an ankh—down beside the cat, she began pulling out small packages tied up with string.
“On Saturdays, I do the grocery shopping.”
Understanding dawned. “And you need money?”
Dean was quite certain he saw one of the packages move. Just to be on the safe side, he stepped back from the table. “Unless you’ve already done it?”
“Not quite.” Leading the way to the office, she unwrapped half a dozen pieces of six-inch-high iron grillwork as she walked. “I’m making imp traps this morning so instead of searching for the Historian, I went to the Apothecary for supplies.” The envelope had seventy dollars in it Handing over the money, she said, “Get what you usually get, but add a dozen bagels, ten kilograms of plain clay kitty litter, and a bag of miniature marshmallows— the plain white ones. The Apothecary only had four left, and that won’t be enough if I have to reset the traps.”
“Four bags?”
“Four marshmallows.”
“You trap imps with marshmallows?” Dean asked, folding the money into his wallet.
“We’ve discovered they work as well as newt tongues and get you into a lot less trouble with Greenpeace.”
“What are the bagels and the kitty litter for?”
Claire snorted. “The bagels are for breakfast, and the kitty litter is for Austin to…”
Dean raised a hand and smiled weakly. “Never mind.”
“I thought we were going up to the attic?”
“We are.” Claire took several deep, calming breaths and picked up a bread stick from the counter. “But first, I’m going to ward the door.”
Austin rubbed against her shins. “Why don’t you just lock it?”
“Lock it?”
“Yeah, you know, that thing you turn that keeps the door from opening without a key. Remember what your mother always said.”
“Ripped underwear attracts careless drivers?”
“I was thinking more of ‘try a simple solution before looking toward more exotic possibilities.’”
“Warding the door is hardly exotic.”
“Locking it’s simpler.”
“True enough.” The tumblers fell into place with a satisfying clunk. Picking up a pair of imp traps, she followed the cat upstairs.
“A question, she occurs to me.” Floating just below the ceiling, Jacques watched Claire set the second trap beside the pink-and-gray-striped hatbox. “What will you do with an imp if you catch one?”
“I’ll neutralize it.”
“What does that mean, neutralize?”
“Imps are little pieces of evil; what do you think it means?” Precariously balanced on a pile of old furniture, Claire extended her right leg and probed for the first step down.
“A little more to your left,” Jacques told her.
She moved her foot.
“Your other left,” he pointed out as she fell. “Are you hurt, cherie?” he called when the noise had stopped but a rising cloud of dust still obscured the landing site.
Shoving a zippered canvas bag filled with musty fabric off her face, Claire sucked a shallow, dust-laden breath through her teeth, then took inventory. Her left elbow hurt a lot, and she seemed to have landed on something that squashed. “Where’s Austin?”
“Right here.” He leaped up into her line of sight, balancing effortlessly on a teetering commode. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re just saying that, aren’t you?” Jacques drifted toward her, wearing an expression of poignant concern. “I wish I had hands to help you up, arms to carry you, to comfort, lips to kiss away the hurt.”
His eyes were dark, and Claire found herself thinking of Sasha Moore. “I wish you did, too.”
“You could make it so.”
Austin snorted. “Does she look like Jean Luc Picard?”
“Who?”
The cat sighed. “I have so much to teach you, Grasshopper.”
“What?”
Reflecting how nothing could spoil the moment like a cat, Claire got her legs free, rolled onto her side, and noticed, right at eye level, a stack of ten-inch baseboards. As far as she could tell, given her position, they’d been taken from the wall in ten- or twelve-foot lengths. “This is great!”
“Falling?”
“Baseboards.” Scrambling to her feet, she retrieved her flashlight from a pile of old Reader’s Digest Condensed Books—part of the obligatory attic door—and headed for the stairs. “They were probably taken off when they replaced the plaster and lathe with drywall. Come on. I’ve got to measure the walls in the dining room because I think baseboards go on before the wallpaper.”
Happily working out a renovation schedule that would keep Dean busy for the next six or seven lifetimes, Claire raced down the attic stairs, along the third floor hall, and down to the second floor where she stopped cold. There was a man at the other end of the hall; at the door to room four.
Instinct overwhelmed cognitive function and she ran toward him. “Hey!”
When he spun around, she saw it was the deliveryman—no big surprise—and that he was picking the lock.
So much for the simple solutions. “Get away from there!”
“Don’t try and stop me.” The clichéd warning made his voice sound harsher than it had, the voice of a man barely clinging to sanity.
One hand searching her clothing for a thread, Claire reached for power, touched seepage, and hesitated.
The intruder dove toward her, grabbed her upper arms, and threw her against the wall. He was stronger, much stronger than he looked; madness lending strength.
“Why?” he demanded, smashing her head against the
