I crashed down onto the coffee table, landing butt-first on the serving plate of honeybuns. My momentum sent me and the buns sliding across the table and onto the floor where I ended up wedged between the couch and the table with my legs up in the air. Thankfully, I was still wearing my yoga pants, or Harvey would have been singing about seeing London and France along with my underpants for the rest of the damned day.
“Damn it, Parker!” Cooper barked as I huffed with my neck all cricked so that I was practically kissing my kneecaps. “Does everything have to be a circus act? What are you going to do for an encore? Juggle chainsaws?”
“Fuck you, Coop.” I blew a curl out of my face, my cheeks burning. Criminy! Prudence had a way of bringing out the clown in me without even trying.
“You okay, Sparky?” Harvey looked down at where I leaned against his leg.
“Not really, and you have crumbs in your beard.” I could see them clear as day from my vantage point.
Cornelius leaned over, peering down at me. His cornflower blue eyes sparkled with laughter. “I don’t know why you were surprised. I told you it wasn’t Zelda.”
I scowled up at him, trying to reach up and knock that stupid hat off his head, but he pulled back too quickly.
“Next time try not to be so damned cryptic!” I struggled to unwedge my butt from between the couch and the coffee table.
Doc set the mirror down on the carpet, leaning it against the side of the couch safely out of the way. “Let me help you up, Killer.” He gripped my outstretched hands, tugging me back over the table and onto my feet. “Anything bruised?” he asked as he brushed some curls out of my face.
“Besides my ego?”
He tried not to grin and failed. “You keep life exciting.”
Something brushed against my butt. Twice.
I looked around in time to see Harvey peeling a couple of flattened honeybuns off my derrière.
“No need to be wastin’ these beauties,” he said as one came free. He frowned down at the flattened mess, shrugged, and then took a big bite. “Mmmm-hmmm. Still good. Doesn’t taste like ass to me.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” I snatched what was left of the honeybun out of his hand and crammed it into my mouth. He was right. It was smashed but still delicious.
“See,” Harvey said, apparently reading my expression. He grabbed another smashed honeybun from the serving plate on the floor.
Doc picked up the other honeybun Harvey had peeled from my backside and took a bite. “This gives me an idea for later, Tish,” he said with a wink.
I poked him playfully in the side, making him chuckle.
Turning toward Cooper, I said, “Damn it, Prud—”
But she was gone.
Cooper stood there with his arms empty.
“Where’d she go?” I asked him.
He rubbed the back of his neck, his expression about as befuddled as I felt when it came to Prudence’s parlor tricks. “I don’t know. I was distracted by your circus act, and when I looked down my arms were empty.”
Cornelius cleared his throat. “Like I said, the entity was using a variation of astral projection with physical manifestation.” He picked up the serving plate of remaining flattened honeybuns from the floor and set it on the table. “I’ll have to make note of this for future reference.”
“Are you going to write a book or something?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” One of his dark eyebrows crept upward. “Maybe you should use your psychic abilities to look into the future and tell me if I’m going to write a book.”
“Cornelius, if I could see into the future, don’t you think I’d have told myself how to catch this damned lidérc?”
“Maybe. Or maybe your future self doesn’t want to ruin any surprises for you. I believe my future self would enjoy playing practical jokes on me.”
“I think my future self would sit on your future self for even starting this conversation.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Cooper huffed. “Can we get back to the problem at hand and this astral projection business?”
“It was quite a remarkable feat to witness,” Cornelius told nobody in particular and took another bite of his honeybun.
“So was Sparky’s sideshow act,” Harvey joined in, snickering under his breath.
I glared holes through each of them before turning to Doc. “What’s astral projection?”
“It’s sort of like an out-of-body experience for Zelda, only in this case, Prudence created an apportation.” At my blank look, he added, “An in-body materialization projecting Zelda’s body on this plane of existence.”
My facial expression didn’t change.
He shrugged. “She did a very complicated magic trick using Zelda as her assistant.”
Before I could reply, Zelda walked into the living room carrying an empty serving plate much like the one I’d sat on moments before.
“I’m sorry for the delay, you guys,” she said. “But I sort of blacked out for a moment in the kitch—”
She stopped midstride when her gaze dipped to Harvey and the honeybun in his hand. Then she saw the mug of milk sitting on the table. Thankfully, I’d missed knocking that onto the floor while doing my imitation of a bowling ball.
Zelda frowned down at her empty plate. “That’s so weird. I could swear I hadn’t brought you the honeybuns yet.” She blinked several times, her skin paling. “Or the milk either. How did you …”
Doc crossed the room and took the large dish from her. “Why don’t you have a seat for a moment.” He led her to the chair. “I think Prudence might have manipulated you in order to demonstrate her psychic expertise during your blackout.”
“Demonstrate?” I scoffed. “More like show off.”
Doc shot me a warning look. “A demonstration that we appreciated, as we still need Prudence’s help today.”
In other words, I needed to zip my lips before I pissed off the dang ghost and she refused to tell me how
