“And that’ll keep it going?”
“It should.”
And it had.
The imp had, no doubt, been switching off the dryer and, with her standing guard, had now gone off to find other ways to irritate, leaving behind no proof she could use. Weighing the alternatives while her clothes dried, Claire figured that the imp must’ve come through before Augustus Smythe. Or very soon after he arrived, before he began using up the seepage as it emerged.
She wished she knew how long it had taken, how many accidental uses, before it became habit. It would have been so much easier for him to use the seepage—power just lying around for the taking—than to reach into the narrow area of the possibilities that the Cousins could access.
How many excuses had it taken before he didn’t bother making excuses anymore? Before he used what he wanted. And every time he used it, it corrupted him a little more.
Which explained why Dean, who’d lived next to Hell for eight months, hadn’t been affected. He couldn’t use the power. At least Claire hoped he hadn’t been affected. “I shudder to think of what he must’ve been like if he’s this nice after Hell’s been working on him.”
She’d cleared the seepage twice, and she’d only been there a week. They were admittedly low levels of seepage, nothing like the buzz she’d felt on her first night, but she’d still have to start being a lot more careful.
When her laundry was finally dry, she’d lost three socks and gained a child’s T-shirt. Claire would’ve liked to have placed the blame on Hell, but this particular irritant was the result of human error. Given the metaphysical design flaw inherent in clothes dryers, those in the know were fond of pointing out how the loss of an occasional sock was nothing to complain about considering the odds against everything else coming back.
“Jacques, get away from the window!” Running her blade along a piece of molding, Claire scraped off a long curl of medium green paint. The counter had probably never been that actual color—when scraping paint there always had to be a medium green layer. “Anyone walking by and looking up can see right through you.”
“Perhaps they would not see me at all. The vampire-hunter, he did not see me.”
“He didn’t believe in ghosts.”
“I do not see why that should matter.”
“Neither do I, but it does.”
“If you gave me flesh, it would not happen,” he pointed out reasonably.
“Just move,” she told him without looking up.
Jacques glanced down toward the sidewalk, opened his mouth to say something, and shook his head. Floating closer, he sat down on the floor with his back against the outside wall. “So, if someone who believed walked by…?”
“They’d see the sunlight streaming right through you.”
“And that would be a problem because?”
“People who see ghosts seldom keep the information to themselves.” Carefully working stripper-soaked steel wool carefully along the grain of the wood, she wrinkled her nose at the smell. “And I don’t feel like dealing with tabloid reporters.”
“I know reporters, but what are tabloids?”
“Sleazy newspapers that deal in cheap sensationalism. Hundred-year-old woman has lizard baby, that sort of thing.”
“Is that not what Keepers deal in?”
“No.”
“Hole to Hell in basement?”
“It’s not the same.”
“Woman sleeps for fifty years?”
Shifting her weight back onto her heels, she turned and glared at him. “You know what your problem is? You never know when to quit!”
He cocked an eyebrow and spread his hands. “Evidentment. If I knew when to quit, I would not be haunting this place, and if I were not haunting this place, I would not have met you. Voila, all is for the best.” Wrapping a weightless grip around Claire’s fingers, he leaned forward and murmured, “Have I ever told you how sexy I find big, pink rubber gloves?”
She laughed in spite of herself, pulling her hand back through his. “You’re unbelievable.” The laughter vanished when he started to fade. “Jacques?”
“If you do not believe,” he told her mournfully, “you cannot see me.”
“Stop it!”
Rematerializing, he grinned triumphantly. “You do not want to lose me.”
Lips pressed tightly together, Claire bent back over the bit of unstripped molding on the counter. Her search for the Historian had ended up at a medieval bazaar selling Japanese electronics, and her hour with Sara had brought her no closer to an answer. She’d have to study both ends of the balance if she wanted to figure it out and that meant spending time next to the pit. Since she’d been in the furnace room once already today and since stripping the counter had been her idea…
She’d like to see it finished before she left. She’d like to see the dining room finished, too—wallpaper, trim, blinds, maybe new light fixtures.
This is nuts. The steel wool stopped moving. When she closed this site, need would summon her to another. It might be in Kingston—there were, after all sixty thousand people in the city and townships and population density was directly proportional to how often a Keeper was needed—but it might be across the continent. Or on another continent entirely. I am not getting attached to this place.
“Claire? I do not want to lose you either. Please, I am sorry. Come back to me.”
“I haven’t gone anywhere.” The silence clearly stated he didn’t believe her. She shifted from knee to knee and finally sighed, “Could I give you flesh to help me finish this?”
“Non.” Although she didn’t turn to look she could hear the relieved smile in his voice. “I can take flesh only to give you pleasure.”
“It’d give me pleasure to have some help with this.”
“It does not work that way.”
She sighed again, resting her forehead on the edge of a shelf. “Why,” she asked dramatically, “am I not surprised?”
Sasha Moore checked out that evening, paying for her room in cash. “Will I see you in the spring?” she asked, effortlessly
