"Do you promise, Susannah?"
Father Dominic's blue-eyed gaze bore into mine. What could I do but swallow and nod?
"Sure, Father D," I said, not having the slightest idea what I was promising.
"Well, I must say, that makes me feel better," he said, and it was true that his shoulders seemed to lose some of the rigidity with which he'd been holding them as we'd talked. "I know, of course, that I can trust the two of you. It's just that . . . well, I would hate for you to do anything - er, stupid - in my absence. Temptation is difficult enough for anyone to resist, particularly the young, who haven't fully considered the consequences of their actions."
Oh. Now I knew what he'd been talking about.
"But for you and Jesse," Father Dominic went on, "there would be especially catastrophic repercussions should the two of you happen to, er - "
" - give in to our unbridled lust for each other?" I suggested when he trailed off.
Father Dominic eyed me unhappily.
"I'm serious, Susannah," he said. "Jesse doesn't belong in this world. With any luck, he won't continue to remain here for much longer. The deeper the attachment you form for each other, the more difficult it's going to be to say goodbye. Because you will have to say good-bye to him one day, Susannah. You can't defy the natural order of - "
Blah blah blah. Father D's lips were moving, but I tuned him out again. I didn't need to hear the lecture again. So things hadn't worked out for Father Dominic and the girl-ghost he'd fallen in love with, way back in the Middle Ages. That didn't mean Jesse and I were destined to follow the same path. Especially not considering what I'd managed to pick up from Paul, who seemed to know a good deal more than Father Dom did about being a mediator. . . .
. . . Particularly the little-known fact that mediators can bring the dead back to life.
There was just one little fly in the ointment: You needed to have a body to put the wrongfully deceased's soul into. And bodies aren't something I happen to stumble across on a regular basis. At least, not ones willing to sacrifice the soul currently occupying them.
"Sure thing, Father Dom," I said as his speech petered out at last. "Listen, have a real good time in San Francisco."
Father Dominic grimaced. I guess people who are going to San Francisco to visit comatose monsignors don't necessarily get a lot of time off for touristy stuff like visiting the Golden Gate Bridge or Chinatown or whatever.
"Thank you, Susannah," he said. Then he pinned me with a meaningful stare. "Be good."
"Am I ever anything but?" I asked with some surprise.
He walked away, shaking his head, without even bothering to reply.
Chapter three
"So what were you and the good father gabbing about during lab today?" Paul wanted to know.
"Mrs. Gutierrez's funeral," I replied truthfully. Well, more or less. I've found it doesn't pay to lie to Paul. He has an uncanny ability to discover the truth on his own.
Not, of course, that it means what I tell him is the strictest truth. I just don't practice a policy of full disclosure where Paul Slater is concerned. It seems safer that way.
And it definitely seemed safer not to let Paul know that Father Dominic was in San Francisco, with no known date of return.
"You're not still upset about that, are you?" Paul asked. "The Gutierrez woman, I mean? The money's going to good use, you know."
"Oh, sure, I know," I said. "Dinner at the Cliffside Inn's got to run, what, a hundred a plate? And I assume you'll be renting a limo."
Paul smiled at me lazily from the pillows he was leaning against.
"Kelly told you?" he asked. "Already?"
"First chance she got," I said.
"Didn't take her long," he said.
"When did you ask her? Last night?"
"That's right."
"So about twelve hours," I said. "Not bad, if you consider that for about eight of them, she was probably sleeping."
"Oh, I doubt that," Paul said. "That's when they do their best work. Succubuses, I mean. I bet Kelly only needs an hour or two of shut-eye a night, tops."
"Romantic." I turned a page of the crusty old book lying between us on Paul's bed. "Calling your date for the Winter Formal a succubus, I mean."
"At least she wants to go with me," Paul said, his face expressionless - with the exception of a single dark brow, which rose, almost imperceptibly, higher than the one next to it. "A refreshing change, I must say, from the usual state of things around here."
"You hear me complaining?" I asked, turning another page. I prided myself that I was maintaining - outwardly, anyway - a supremely indifferent attitude about the whole thing. Inside, of course, it was a whole other story. Because inside, I was screaming, What's going on? Why'd you ask Kelly and not me? Not that I care about the stupid dance, but just what game do you think you're playing now, Paul Slater?
It was amazing how none of this showed, however. At least, so far as I knew.
"It's just that I'd have appreciated some advance notice that I'd been stricken from the agenda," was what I said aloud. "For all you knew, I might have already blown a fortune on a dress."
One corner of Paul's mouth flicked upward.
"You hadn't," Paul said. "And you weren't going to, either."
I looked away. It was hard to meet his gaze sometimes, it was so penetrating, so . . .
Blue.
A strong, tanned hand came down over mine, pinning my fingers to the page I'd been about to turn.
"That's the one." Paul doesn't seem to have the same problem looking into my eyes (probably because mine are green and about as penetrating as, um, algae) that I have looking into his. His gaze on my face was unwavering. "Read it."
I looked down. The book Paul had pulled out for our latest "mediator lesson" was so old, the pages had a tendency to crumble beneath my fingers as I turned them. It belonged in a museum, not a seventeen-year-old guy's bedroom.
But that was exactly where it had ended up, pulled - though I doubted Paul knew I was aware of it - from his grandfather's collection. The Book of the Dead was what it was called.
And the title wasn't the only reminder that all things have an expiration date. It smelled as if a mouse or some other small creature had gotten slammed between the pages some time in the not-so-distant past, left to slowly decompose there.
"If the 1924 translation is to be believed," I read aloud, glad my voice wasn't shaking the way I knew my fingers were - the way my fingers always shook when Paul touched me - '"the shifter's abilities didn't merely include communication with the dead and teleportation between their world and our own, but the ability to travel at will throughout the fourth dimension, as well."
I will admit, I didn't read with a lot of feeling. It wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs, going to school all day, then having to go to mediation tutoring. Granted, it was only once a week, but that was more than enough, believe me. Paul's house hadn't lost any of its sterility in the months I'd been coming to it. If anything, the place was as creepy as ever . . .
. . . and so was Paul's grandfather, who continued to live what he'd described, in his own words, as a "half-life," in a room down the hall from Paul's. That half-life seemed to be made up of around-the-clock health attendants, hired to see to the old man's many ailments, and incessant viewing of the Game Show Network. It isn't any wonder, really, that Paul avoids Mr. Slater - or Dr. Slaski, as the good doctor himself had confided to me he was really named - like the plague. His grandfather isn't exactly scintillating company, even when he isn't pretending to be loopy due to his meds.
Despite my less-than-inspired performance, however, Paul released my hand and leaned back once more, looking extremely pleased with himself. "Well?" Another raised eyebrow.