Ghost of a Chance (11 page)

She pulled her arm away, a wary look on her
face. “I don’t know what’s with you, but you’re acting weird.”

“I’m acting weird? I’m not the one who
doesn’t understand basic polter abilities like flickering and
shadow melding. You act as if you don’t know anything about being a
polter.”

“
Deus!
You’re so nosy! I hate it
here! I just want to be left alone! Why can’t you leave me
alone?”

The anguish in her voice—genuine anguish,
not the normal put-upon teen whine—stopped me from pursuing the
issue. “I’m sorry. I seem to be pushing a lot of your buttons
tonight, don’t I? We’ll leave it for now, all right? As to the
flickering—no. Savannah is bad enough without you displaying the
more showstopping polter abilities.”

“Matthew said you’d say that,” she answered,
apparently appeased by my apology. “He said that it’s against my
civil rights for you to tell me I can’t celebrate my heritage by
flickering.”

“Oh, for god’s sake…” I grabbed her arm and
stopped her before she could reenter the living room. “My father is
not responsible for you; I am. At least… well, we’ll worry about
that later. I’m in charge, and I say no flickering. Got it?”

She tipped her head to the side. “When are
we going to leave?”

I blinked at the change of subject. “I don’t
know. It depends on Adam, I guess. Do you want to leave?”

She watched me silently for a moment.

“We’ll go as soon as it’s possible, OK? And…
er… about the future… I know you’re supposed to stay with me a
month while we see how we suit each other, but I’m afraid that’s
not going to happen.”

Her eyes narrowed, filled with suspicion and
pain. “You don’t want me, do you? No one ever does. It’s OK. I’m
used to it,” she said with an attempt at an indifferent shrug.

I felt about as low as a snail’s belly. The
poor kid desperately needed to find a permanent home, but the
sooner she realized that couldn’t be with me, the happier we’d all
be. “It has nothing to do with not wanting you to live with me.
It’s just that things are a bit complicated right now, and what
with Spider… well, you’re not going to be able to stay. I’m very
sorry. I’ll talk to Mrs. Beckett as soon as the seal is
lifted.”

“Whatever,” she said with another shrug.

Guilt, anguish, dread, and many other
emotions that had been stirred up in the last few hours made my
stomach roil, but there was nothing I could do.

“Thank god you’re here,” a low male voice
rumbled from behind, distracting me from my personal hell.

Pixie turned her attention to the man
marching toward us, his jaw set, his light eyes flashing pale blue.
“He looks pissed again.”

“He certainly does. It seems to be a normal
state for him.”

Pixie snickered as Adam stopped in front of
us. “Your father I can deal with; I know how to keep him occupied.
But that woman—” He waved a hand toward the closed double doors in
front of us. “You’re not going to believe what she wants to
do.”

“That bad, is it?” I asked, raising my
eyebrows.

“Yes. I had to order the ghosts and Amanita
to stay hidden so she wouldn’t see them. Not that they’re of a mind
to come out while an exterminator is present.” He paused, eyeing me
carefully. “You didn’t rest for long. Did it help your
headache?”

“Incredibly so. Oh, before I forget: I owe
you for a towel. I’m afraid I was sick in the bedroom, and I threw
away the towel I used to clean up.”

“Yuck!” Pixie said.

“I have bigger things to worry about than a
towel,” Adam said grimly.

“Oh, there you are!” Savannah slid open the
double doors and hurried over to us. “Head better? You look much
more animated, and not nearly so pale. You’re just in time, too. We
need to get started in the next three minutes. Obsidian Angel, you
must join us, as well.”

Savannah’s hand clamped around my wrist as
she dragged me into the large living room that took up the entire
width of the house. The decor was the same as in the sitting
room—clunky, uncomfortable-looking Victorian furniture, lots of
china, muddy paintings on the wall, and dark, heavy velvet curtains
at the windows. It was slightly less dusty in here than in the
sitting room, but it clearly hadn’t seen a good spring cleaning in
a few years.

“I’m just in time for what?”

“You sit here, Karma, next to me. Obsidian,
on Karma’s left. Matthew… Now where did he go? Matthew?”

My father, his eyes avoiding mine, flitted
in through the far door, wearing an air of suppressed excitement. I
wondered what he’d been up to. “Right here. I wanted to have a look
around the place.” A faint pattering followed my father as he
hurried over to us.

Adam bent to pick up a small smooth stone,
looking at it curiously before narrowing his eyes at Dad. I did the
same. My father normally had unusually good control over things
like apports.

“Excellent. Now we just need Meredith and
Spider, and we can get the séance started. Matthew, you’re on my
right. I’ve never had a real poltergeist in my circle before, so I
expect great things with three and a half polters!” she said,
beaming at us all.

My father beamed back at her, taking her
hand in two of his own. “I am honored.”

“We can even call one of your kind, if you
like! Wouldn’t that be an experience!”

“I suppose, although I can’t think of anyone
I’d like to see right now,” Dad said after a moment’s
consideration.

She squeezed his hands, then moved to the
doorway and opened the door to bellow toward the stairs, “Meredith!
Séance! Bring Mr. Marx!” before turning back to us with another of
her sunny smiles. “Meredith should be right along. Shall we take
our places?”

“I’m not sure a séance is really such a good
idea,” I said, not wanting to participate, but not sure how to
avoid it without offending her.

“Sit!” she ordered.

I gave in and sat. Hopefully it would be
over quickly.

“Adam, if you could sit across from me, that
would be lovely.”

“Er… you don’t really need me, since you
already have the others,” Adam said, clearly trying to get out of
the séance.

“Nonsense! I don’t know much about
poltergeists, but I am guessing that the more of you we have, the
better our chances at making contact,” Savannah said, giving him
such a pointed look he reluctantly pulled out one of the dining
room chairs she’d set around a large round table.

“Misery loves company,” I murmured to him as
I sat to the left of Savannah’s place. “I’m surprised you’re giving
in to her, though.”

“I think she’ll continue to nag if I don’t,”
he answered, then cocked an eyebrow as he asked, “What’s got you
looking so confused?”

“I don’t exactly know. I’ve got a horrible
feeling that Savannah just said something I should have paid
attention to, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

“What was the something about?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s just…
have you ever had a feeling like something important was said, but
you missed it?”

“No.”

“Then you’re lucky. Somehow, I feel like she
said something that I wanted to think about, but I was distracted,
and now it’s gone.”

“It’ll come back to you.” He watched
Savannah at the door for a moment. “Will you come with me when I
try to talk to your husband?”

“Sure, although I doubt it will do any good.
He seldom listens to me in the best of circumstances.”

He gave me a long look with his icy blue
eyes.

“Spider is extremely stubborn; I’m just
warning you of that.”

“I intend to make him see reason.”

“Well, we can but try. Pixie, what on earth
are you doing?”

“It’s
Obsidian Angel
!
Deus
,
you have the memory of an
ice cube
!”

“Fine, Obsidian Angel, what are you doing
with that bar of soap?”

“Drawing a circle,
obviously
.” The
look she gave me said in no uncertain terms what she thought of my
IQ. “So we can summon a ghoul. I’d give
anything
to be able
to talk to a real ghoul.”

“You wouldn’t get much talking done before
it tried to strip the flesh off your bones,” Adam said under his
breath. “Stop rubbing soap on my floor.”

She threw down the bar of soap with a
muttered oath. “You people are Nazis! First you question me; now
you’re telling me what to do! What’s next, the rack? Hot irons?
Bamboo under my fingernails?”

“That’s tempting… ,” Adam said, giving her a
gimlet eye.

She threw herself into a chair, arms
crossed, her expression hostile.

“Honestly, men! And they say women take
forever. Shall I go over the procedures while we wait for Meredith
and Mr. Marx?” Savannah asked, coming back to the table. I stopped
fidgeting and tried to put a pleasant expression on my face, but
judging by the sympathetic looks my father was sending my way, I
was afraid my reluctance was all too apparent.

Savannah chatted for a few moments about the
séance, what she would be doing, along with our role in the
proceedings.

“It sounds pretty straightforward. Does your
group do many séances?” A thought struck me. I glanced at my
watch.

“Only when we have a truly promising
location, like this wonderful house.”

“Ah. Um… what happened to your group?”

She blinked at me. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your group, the PMSers. You said they were
due here at eleven, yes? It’s a quarter to midnight. They must have
discovered by now that they can’t get into the house, and are
probably worried sick about your safety.”

“Oh!” She beamed a happy smile at me.
“You’re sweet to worry, but there’s absolutely no need. I called
Mac—he’s the vice president—a little bit ago and told him the event
was canceled.”

“Ah. You must have a cell phone?”

She made a little face. “Goddess, no! I am a
complete technophobe. No cell phone or computer for me. I prefer to
do things the old-fashioned way. I used Adam’s phone to call Mac.”
She leaned toward me, lowering her voice. “I didn’t think it was
wise to tell them
everything
that’s happened here.”

“I’m sure that’s for the best. Things are
confusing enough.” I met Adam’s gaze. He raised both eyebrows,
indicating he’d caught Savannah’s lie. The sealing he had enacted
affected the structure of the house—including the landline. A cell
phone could get out, but not a phone with lines physically inside
the house.

She clearly didn’t know that, but her
ignorance highlighted the question of why on earth she had lied
about phoning someone. Evidently Adam didn’t think it was a big
deal. I wondered if her group could be quite as enthusiastic as she
was. Perhaps no one had shown up, and she decided to cover up that
fact by making it seem she’d sent them away.

Then again, maybe she had an ulterior motive
for making us think she was a member of a psychic group when she
wasn’t… I shook my head at such unfounded suspicions. I’d been
around my father too long and was obviously seeing mysteries where
there were none.

After a desultory bit of conversation
dropped off entirely, Savannah tsked at her watch and frowned at
the door. “Where can they be? You said they couldn’t get out?”

“No. The house is sealed,” Adam said. “No
one will get in or out until Spider agrees to go to a mediator
about the house.”

“I hope you have plenty of food stocked up,
because that could be a very long time,” I warned.

“I’m working on it. I’ve got a call in to my
lawyer.”

“Well, just so long as this sealing is
finished by morning, I’m fine with it,” Savannah said, blithely
unaware of the glances Adam and I were exchanging. Clearly she had
no concept of just what Adam had done.

“Do you want to tell her, or should I?” I
asked him.

“Tell me what?” she asked, looking from me
to Adam.

“This ought to be good,” Pixie told my
father as he returned from the bathroom. He just smiled happily at
her.

Adam cleared his throat. “You’ll probably do
it better than me. I’m not good with explanations.”

“That’s a cop-out if I ever heard one,” my
father said.

Unable to sit next to Savannah while I
worked out a way to tell her what was going on, I got out of the
chair and went over to the fireplace, then fiddled with the
porcelain figurines on the mantelpiece.

“What are you talking about?” Savannah
asked. “What do you need to tell me? Why is Karma so nervous?”

“I’m not nervous, I’m just… oh, never mind.
The sealing that Adam has conducted won’t be over in a few hours,”
I said, moving on to the window. “Adam is a member of a powerful
group of people in the Otherworld.”

“Otherworld?” She frowned.

I tidied up a collection of postcards in a
bowl on the sideboard. “It’s a collective name for those people who
aren’t mortal. There’s a French term for it, too, but I can never
pronounce it. Most people call it the Otherworld. Adam is a part of
that, and as such, he has powers that go beyond those of mortal
people. Seals last for twelve hours.”

“But I have appointments in the morning!”
Savannah said hotly. “I have things to do! I can’t stay here in
this house for another ten or eleven hours! Why can’t this
Otherworld place make Spider give back the house?”

“I’m hoping we can clear this up by mundane
legal means, without involving the Otherworld any further,” Adam
said with a frown at me as he rearranged the things I had just
tidied.

She didn’t looked soothed by his words. “I
don’t care. I’m not going to stay here once the sun is up. My
husband will have something to say about that, as well. Meredith!
Meredith!
Oh, where is that man…?” She jumped up and headed
out the door, calling for her husband.

“We aren’t going to have the séance?” Pixie
asked, pouting just a little.