“With the power of the pentagram, you could give me a body nightly as easily as you could snap your fingers.”
Claire frowned. “Don’t you mean opening the pentagram would give me that power?”
“Things are not sealed so tightly as all that.” Red eyes actually managed a twinkle. “Augustus Smythe knew the benefits of using the seepage. How do you think he kept himself amused?”
“I think that’s fairly obvious.” She folded her arms. “If I can use the seepage without releasing the hordes of Hell, what’s in it for you?”
He looked hurt “Must there be something in it for us?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps we find that a happy Keeper is a Keeper easier to live with.”
“I’m sure that Augustus Smythe was a joy.”
“He was Cousin, cherie. You are a Keeper. Surely you are stronger?”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“Perhaps.” The image saddened. “You get so few chances to have another’s life touch yours. A frenzied fumbling in the dark—and we have nothing against that, cherie—and then you move on. Only when Keepers are old do they stay in one place long enough to find a mate for the soul and, by then, they are too old to recognize such a one. You have a chance, cherie, a chance few Keepers get.”
Claire’s nostrils flared. “He’s dead.”
“Ah, I see. You will not take the risk, even though there is no danger to you, because it is what a Keeper does not do. A Keeper does not take risks for such a minor thing as happiness.” The image saddened. “For once in your life, cherie, can you not give in to desire without questioning if it is what a Keeper should do?” It raised its left hand and pressed it against the inside of the glass. “Can you not reach out and meet me halfway?”
She felt her right hand lift and forced it back down by her side. “You’re good,” she snarled.
The image in the mirror let its hand fall back as well, fully aware that the mood had been broken. “Technically, no. But we accept the compliment.”
“Give me back my reflection. Now!”
“As you asked so nicely, cherie…” Jacques’ image faded slowly, calling her name as though he were being pulled into torment.
“You’re not Jacques,” Claire told it and found herself talking to herself.
“Claire!”
When she opened the bathroom door, Austin tumbled in and rolled once on the mat. He took a moment to compose himself, then said, with studied nonchalance, as though he hadn’t just been trying to dig his way through the door, “Dean and Jacques are fighting.”
“You mean they’re arguing.”
“No. I mean they’re fighting.”
“That’s impossible.”
“So one would assume, but they seem to have found a way.”
She tossed her blow-dryer down by the sink and ran her fingers through her hair, forcing most of it into place. “All right,” she sighed, “where are they?”
“The third-floor hall.” Austin paused, licked his shoulder, and stepped out of the way. “Directly in front of room six.”
His foresight kept him from being trampled as Claire raced for the stairs.
The effect depended on who delivered the blow. If Dean punched his fist through Jacques’ immaterial body, then Jacques felt it. If Jacques drove his immaterial fist through Dean’s body, then Dean felt it. It wasn’t much of an effect either way, being closer to mild discomfort than actual pain, but neither the living nor the dead cared. The point was to score the point.
“Stop it! Stop it this instant!” Breathing heavily from her run up the two flights of stairs, Claire flung herself between the combatants, then sucked in a startled gasp as Jacques’ hand sliced through her body from hip to hip dragging a sensation of burning cold behind it. When she staggered back, she found herself pressed up against the warm length of Dean’s torso and that was almost as disconcerting.
Jerking forward, she turned sideways and presented a raised hand to each man. “That will be quite enough! Would one of you like to explain what the h…heck is going on?”
Silence settled like three feet of snow.
“I’m waiting.”
“It is not your business…” Jacques began. His protest died as Claire turned the full force of her disapproval in his direction.
“Everything that happens in this building is my business,” she told him. “I want an explanation and I want it now.”
Jacques smoothed back translucent hair. “Ask your houseboy.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Why? Le cochon maudit, he started it.”
As Claire turned to face him, Dean bit back an answering insult.
“Well?” she prodded.
“He accused me of picking up his anchors. Of keeping him from walking around the hotel.”
“Were you?”
“No!” When he saw Jacques’ mouth open, he shifted his weight forward and said, “Okay, I picked up that picture there, but I didn’t know it was one of his anchors.”
“You accuse me of hiding behind Claire.”
“And look where you are.”
“Fini! Je suis a bout! I have had it up to here!”
“FREEZE!”
Jacques stopped his forward advance, and Dean rocked back on his heels.
Arms folded, Claire turned slowly to face Dean. “Did you really say that?”
Dean nodded sheepishly, gaze locked on the carpet.
“Why?”
Ears red, he shrugged without looking up. “I don’t know.”
Since he was telling the truth, Claire ignored the rude noises coming from behind her. “All right, then, I suggest—no, this needs something stronger than a mere suggestion—I insist that we continue this, whatever this is, downstairs. We’re uncomfortably close to her.”
“Her?” Jacques repeated, coming between Claire and the stairs. “By her, I am wondering, do you mean, her?”
“She’s in room six,” Claire told him, pointing with broad emphasis at the splintered door. She opened her mouth to demand he get out of her way when she realized all his attention was on Dean. The air crackled as he moved past her.
“You thought that I, Jacques Labaet, did want to wake her?”
Several hundred childhood stories of vengeful spirits passed through Dean’s head, but he held his ground, wondering why adults thought it necessary to scare the snot out of kids. “I only thought it at first.”
“You dare to give me this insult!”
“The picture was right by her door.”
“And so were you!”
“I was vacuuming!”
“The carpet,” Jacques spat, drifting up so they were nose-to-nose, “is clean! Perhaps you mean to wake her, and I come in time to stop you!”
It was only twenty after eight, but Dean had already had a bad morning. The carpet was not clean, it hadn’t been vacuumed in a week and it didn’t look as though it was going to get vacuumed any time soon. Sure, he’d discovered a suspicious side of himself he didn’t much like, but he didn’t think he deserved to be accused of treachery by someone intent on necrophilia. Of a sort. “You go to Hell,” he said with feeling.
Jacques disappeared.
“Oh, shit!” Claire clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late.
Dean’s eyes widened and, fumbling for his keys, he raced for room five.
With no time to explain, Claire flung herself down the stairs. How could he have done that? She missed a step, fell five, caught her balance, and picked up speed. There’s no way he should’ve been able to do that. By the time she turned onto the basement stairs, her sock-covered feet barely touched the wood. One more floor and she’d have been the first Keeper to fly with out an appliance.