SUMMON THE KEEPER

The finest in Fantasy and Science Fiction

by TANYA HUFF from DAW Books:

THE SILVERED

THE ENCHANTMENT EMPORIUM

THE WILD WAYS

The Confederation Novels:

A CONFEDERATION OF VALOR

Valor’s Choice/The Better Part of Valor

THE HEART OF VALOR (#3)

VALOR’S TRIAL (#4)

THE TRUTH OF VALOR (#5)

SMOKE AND SHADOWS (#1)

SMOKE AND MIRRORS (#2)

SMOKE AND ASHES (#3)

BLOOD PRICE (#1)

BLOOD TRAIL (#2)

BLOOD LINES (#3)

BLOOD PACT (#4)

BLOOD DEBT (#5)

BLOOD BANK (#6)

The Keeper’s Chronicles:

SUMMON THE KEEPER (#1)

THE SECOND SUMMONING (#2)

LONG HOT SUMMONING (#3)

THE QUARTERS NOVELS, Volume 1:

Sing the Four Quarters/Fifth Quarter

THE QUARTERS NOVELS, Volume 2:

No Quarter/The Quartered Sea

WIZARD OF THE GROVE

Child of the Grove/The Last Wizard

OF DARKNESS, LIGHT, AND FIRE

Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light/The Fire’s Stone

TANYA HUFF

SUMMON THE KEEPER

The Keeper Chronicles #1

Copyright © 1998 by Tanya Huff.

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-101-65803-1

Cover art by Mark Hess.

DAW Book Collectors No. 1085.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

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Nearly all the designs and trade names in this book are registered trademarks. All that are still in commercial use are protected by United States and international trademark law.

First Printing, May 1998

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES—MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.

For the real Austin, and for Sid and Sam and Sasha.

And in loving memory of Emily and Ulysses.

Because there’s no such thing as just a cat.

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

ONE

WHEN THE STORM BROKE, rain pounding down in great sheets out of a black and unforgiving sky, Claire Hansen had to admit she wasn’t surprised; it had been that kind of evening. Although her ticket took her to Colburg, three stops farther along the line, she’d stepped off the train and into the Kingston station certain that she’d found the source of the summons. It was the last thing she’d been certain of all day.

By the time it started to rain, her feet hurt, her luggage had about pulled her arms from their sockets, her traveling companion was sulking, and she was more than ready to pack it in. She’d search again in the morning, after a good night’s sleep.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

A Great Lakes Hydroecology convention had filled two of the downtown hotels, the third didn’t allow pets, and the fourth was hosting the Beer Can Collectors of America, South Eastern Ontario Division. Claire had professed indignant disbelief about the latter until the desk clerk had pointed out the sign in the lobby welcoming the collectors to Kingston.

Some people have too much spare time, she thought as she shifted her suitcase into her left hand, the lighter, wicker cat carrier into her right, and headed back out into the night. Way too much spare time.

Pulling her coat collar out from under the weight of her backpack and hunkering down into its dubious shelter, she followed her feet along King Street toward the university, where a vague memory suggested there were guest houses and B&Bs hollowed out of the huge old mansions along the lake. Logically, she should have caught a cab out to the parade of hotels and budget motels lining Highway 2 between Kingston and Cataraqui, but, as logical solutions were rare in her line of work, Claire kept walking.

Thunder cracked, lightning lit up the sky, and it started to rain harder. Down the center of the street, where the reaching leaves of the huge, old trees didn’t quite touch, grape-sized drops of water hit the pavement so hard they bounced. On the sidewalk, under the trees, it was…

A gust of wind tipped branches almost vertical, dumping a stream of icy water off the canopy and straight down the back of Claire’s neck.

…not significantly drier.

There were times when profanity offered the only satisfactory response. Denied that outlet, Claire gritted her teeth and continued walking through increasingly deeper puddles toward City Park. Surely there’d be some kind of shelter near such a prominent tourist area even though September had emptied it of fairs and festivals. Tired, wet, and just generally cranky, she’d settle for anything that involved a roof and a bed.

At the corner of Lower Union and King, the lightning flashed again, throwing trees and houses into sharp-edged relief. On the third house up from the corner, a signboard affixed to a wrought iron fence reflected the light with such intensity, it left afterimages on the inside of Claire’s lids.

“Shall we check it out?” She had to yell to make herself heard over the storm.

There was no answer from the cat carrier, but then she hadn’t actually expected one.

In this, one of the oldest parts of the city, the houses were three- and four-story, red-brick Victorians. Too large to remain single-family dwellings in a time of rising energy prices, most had been hacked up into flats. The first two houses up from the corner were of this type. The third, past a narrow driveway, was larger still.

Squinting in the dark, water pouring off her hair and into her eyes, Claire struggled to make out the words on the sign. She was fairly certain there were words; there didn’t seem to be much point in a sign if there weren’t.

“Never any lightning around when it’s needed….”

On cue, the lightning provided every fleck of peeling paint with its own shadow. At the accompanying double crack of thunder, Claire dropped her suitcase and clutched at the fence. She let go a moment later when it occurred to her that holding an iron rod, even a rusty one, wasn’t exactly smart under the circumstances.

White-and-yellow spots dancing across her vision, the faint fizz of an electrical discharge bouncing about between her ears, she stumbled toward the front door. During the brief time she’d been able to read the sign, she’d seen the words “uest House” and, right now, that was good enough for her.

The nine stairs were uneven and slippery, threatening to toss her, suitcase, cat carrier, backpack, and all, down into the black depths of the area in front of the house. When she slid into the railing and it bowed dangerously, she refused to consider it an omen. From the unsheltered porch, she could see neither knocker nor bell but, considering the night and the weather, that meant very little. There could have been a plaque warning travelers to abandon hope all ye who enter here, and she wouldn’t have seen it—or paid any attention to it if it meant getting out of the storm. A light shone dimly through the transom. Holding her suitcase against the bricks with her knee, she tried the door.

It was unlocked.

Another time, she might have appreciated the drama of the moment more and pushed the heavy door open slowly, the sound of shrieking hinges accompanied by ominous music. As it was, she shoved it again, threw herself and her baggage inside, and kicked it closed.

At first, the silence came as a welcome relief from the storm, but after a moment of it settling around her, thick and cloying, Claire found she needed to fill it. She felt as though she were being covered in the cheap syrup left on the tables at family restaurants.

“Hello? Is anybody here?”

Although her voice had never been described as either timid or tentative, it made less than no impact on the silence. Lacking anywhere more constructive to go, the words bounced painfully around inside her head, birthing a sudden, throbbing headache.

Carefully setting the cat carrier down beyond the small lake she’d created on the scuffed hardwood floor, she turned to face the counter that divided the entry into a lobby and what looked like a small office—although the light was so bad, she couldn’t be sure. On the counter, a brass bell waited in solitary, tarnished splendor.

Feeling somewhat like Alice in Wonderland, Claire pushed her streaming hair back off her face and smacked the plunger down into the bell.

The old man appeared behind the counter so suddenly that she recoiled a step, half expecting an accompanying puff of smoke— which would have been less disturbing than the more mundane explanation of him watching her from a dark corner of the office.

“What,” he demanded, “do you want?”

“What do I want?”

“I asked you first.”

Which was true enough. “I’d like a room for the night.”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “That all?”

“What else is there?”

“Breakfast.”

Claire had never been challenged to breakfast before. “If it’s included, breakfast is fine.” Another time, she might have managed a more spirited response. Then she remembered. “Do you take pets?”

“I do not! That’s a filthy lie! You’ve been talking to Mrs. Abrams next door in number thirty-five, haven’t you? Bloody cow. Lets her great, hairy baby crap all over the drive.”

Beginning to shiver under the weight of her wet clothing, it took Claire a moment to work out just where the conversation had departed from the expected text. “I meant, do you mind pets staying in the hotel?”

The old man snorted. “Then you should say what you mean.”

Something in his face seemed suddenly familiar, but the shadows cast by the single bulb hanging high overhead defeated Claire’s attempt to bring his features into better focus. Her left eyelid began to twitch in time with the pounding in her skull. “Do I know you?”

“You do not.”

He was telling the truth although something around the edges of his voice suggested it wasn’t the entire truth. Before she could press the matter, he snarled, “If you don’t want the room, I suggest you move on. I don’t intend standing around here all night.”

The thought of going back out into the storm wiped everything else from her head. “I want the room.”

He dragged an old, green, leather-bound book out from under the counter and banged it down in front of her. Slapping it open to a blank page, he shoved a pen in her general direction. “Sign here.”

She’d barely finished the final “n,” her sleeve dragging a damp line across the yellowing paper, when he plucked the pen from her hand and replaced it with a key on a pink plastic fob.

“Room one. Top of the stairs to your right.”

“Do I owe you anything in ad…” Claire let the last word trail off. The old man had vanished as suddenly as he’d appeared. “Guess not.”

Picking up her luggage, she started up the stairs, trusting to instinct for her footing since the light was so bad she couldn’t quite see the floor a little over five feet away.

Room one matched its key; essentially modern—if modern could be said to start around the late fifties—and unremarkable. The carpet and curtains were dark blue, the bedspread and the upholstery light blue. The walls were off-white, the furniture dark and utilitarian. The bathroom held a sink, a toilet, and a tub/shower combination and had the catch-in-the-throat smell of institutional cleansers.

Given the innkeeper, it was much better than Claire had expected. She set the wicker carrier on the dresser, unbuckled the leather straps, and lifted off the top. After a moment, a disgruntled black-and-white cat deigned to emerge and inspect the room.

As the storm howled impotently about outside the window, Claire shrugged out of her coat, wrapped her hair in a towel and collapsed onto the bed trying, unsuccessfully, to ignore the drum solo going on between her ears.

“Well, Austin, do the accommodations meet with your approval?” she asked as she heard him pad disdainfully from the bathroom. “Not that it matters; this is the best we can do for tonight.”

The cat jumped up beside her. “That’s too bad because—and I realize I risk sounding clichéd in saying it—I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Claire managed to crack both eyelids open about a millimeter. No one had ever been able to determine if cats were actually clairvoyant or merely obnoxious little know-it-alls. “A bad feeling about what?”

“You know: this.” He paused to rub a damp paw over his whiskers. “Aren’t you getting anything at all?”

She let her eyes close again. “I seem to be getting MTV on one of my fillings. It’s part of the Stomp tour.” Flinching at a particularly robust bit of metaphor, she sighed. “I’m so thrilled.”

A furry, ten-pound weight sat down on her chest. “I’m serious, Claire.”

“The summons isn’t any more urgent than it was this morning, if that’s what you’re asking.” One-handed, she unbuttoned her jeans, pushing the cat back onto the bed with the other. “Nothing else is getting through this headache except a low-grade buzz.”

“You should check it out.”

“Check what out?” When Austin refused to answer, Claire decided she’d won, tossed off her clothes, and got into a pair of cream-colored silk pajamas—standard operating procedure suggested night clothes suitable for the six o’clock news, just in case.

Tucked under the covers, the cat curled up on the other pillow, she realized why the old man had looked so familiar. He looked like a gnome. And not one of those friendly garden gnomes either.

Rumpelstiltskin, she thought, and went to sleep smiling.

“This is weird, my shoes are still wet.”

Austin glared at her from the litter box. “If you don’t mind!”

“Sorry.” Claire poured liquid out of the toe of one canvas sneaker, hung them back over the shower curtain rod by their tied laces, then made a hasty retreat from the bathroom. “It’s not that I expected them to be dry,” she continued, dropping onto the edge of the bed, “but I was hoping they’d be wearably damp.”

It was starting out to be a six of one, half a dozen of the other kind of a day. On the one hand, it was still raining and her shoes were still too wet to wear. On the other hand, her sleep had been undisturbed by signs or portents, her headache was gone, and the low-grade buzz had completely disappeared. Even Austin had woken up in a good mood, or as good a mood as he could manage before noon.

Flopping back against a pile of bedclothes, she listened past the sound of feline excavation to the hotel’s ambient noise, and frowned. “It’s quiet.”

“Too quiet?” Austin asked, coming out of the bathroom.

“The summons has stopped.”

Sitting back on his haunches, the cat stared up at her. “What do you mean, stopped?”

“I mean it’s absent, not present, missing, not there.” Surging to her feet, she began to pace. “Gone.”

“But it was there when you went to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“So between ten-thirteen last night and eight-oh-one this morning, you stopped being needed?”

“Yes.”

Austin shrugged. “The site probably closed on its own.”

Claire stopped pacing and folded her arms. “That never happens.”

“Got a better explanation?” the cat asked smugly.

“Well, no. But even if it has closed, I’d be summoned somewhere else.” For the first time in ten years, she wasn’t either dealing with a site or traveling to one where she was needed. “I feel as though I’ve been cast aside like an old shoe, drifting aimlessly…”

“Mixing metaphors,” the cat interrupted, jumping up on the bed. “That’s better; while there’s nothing wrong with your knees, they’re not exactly expressive conversational participants. Maybe,” he continued, “you’re not needed because good has dominated and evil is no longer considered a possibility.”

They locked eyes for a moment, then simultaneously snickered.

“But seriously, Austin, what am I supposed to do?”

“We’re only a few hours from home. Why don’t you visit your parents?”

“My parents?”

“You remember; male, female, conception, birth…”

Actually, she did remember, she just tried not to think about it much. “Are you suggesting we need to take a vacation?”

“Right at the moment, I’m suggesting we need to eat breakfast.”

The carpet on the stairs had seen better days; the edges still had a faint memory of the pattern but the center had been worn to a uniform, threadbare gray. Claire hadn’t been exactly impressed the night before, and in daylight the guest house had a distinctly shabby look.

Not a place to make an extended stay, she thought as she twisted the pommel back onto the end of the banister.

“I think we should spend the day looking around,” she said, following the cat downstairs. “Even if the site’s closed up, it wouldn’t hurt to check out the area.”

“Whatever. After we eat.”

Searching for a cup of coffee, if not the promised breakfast, Claire followed her nose down the hall to the back of the first floor. With any luck, that obnoxious little gnome doesn’t also do the cooking.

The dining room stretched across the end of the building and held a number of small tables surrounded by stainless steel and Naugahyde chairs—it had obviously been renovated at about the same time as her room. Outside curtainless windows, devoid of even a memory of moldings, a steady rain slanted down from a slate-gray sky, puddling beneath an ancient and immaculate white truck parked against the back fence.

Fortunately, before she could get really depressed about either the weather or the decor, the unmistakable scent of Colombian double roast drew her around a corner to a small open kitchen. The stainless steel, restaurant-style appliances were separated from the actual eating area by a Formica counter, its surface scrubbed and rescrubbed to a pale gray.

Standing at the refrigerator was a dark-haired young man in his late teens or early twenties, wearing a chefs apron over faded jeans and a T-shirt. Although he wore a pair of wire frame glasses, a certain breadth of shoulder and narrowness of hip suggested to Claire that he wasn’t the bookish type. The muscles of his back made interesting ripples in the brilliant white cotton of the T-shirt and when she lowered her gaze, she discovered, after a moment, that he ironed his jeans.

Austin leaped silently up onto the counter, glanced from the cook to Claire, and snorted, “You might want to breathe.”

Claire grabbed the cat and dropped him onto the floor as the object of the observation closed the refrigerator door and turned.

“Good morning,” he said. It sounded as though he actually meant it.

Distracted by teeth as white as his shirt and a pair of blue eyes surrounded by a thick fringe of dark lashes, not to mention the musical, near Irish lilt of a Newfoundland accent, Claire took a moment to respond. “Good grief. I mean, good morning.”

It wasn’t only his appearance that had thrown her. In spite of his age, or rather lack of it, this was the most grounded person she’d ever met. First impressions suggested he’d never push a door marked pull, he’d arrive on time for appointments, and, in case of fire, he’d actually remember the locations of the nearest exits. Glancing down at his feet, she half expected to see roots disappearing into the floor but saw only a pair of worn work boots approximately size twelve.

“Mr. Smythe left a note on the fridge explaining things.” He wiped his hand against his apron, couldn’t seem to make up his mind about what to do next, and finally let it fall back to his side. “I’m Dean McIssac. I’ve been cook and caretaker since last February. I hope you’ll consider keeping me on.”

“Keeping you on?”

Her total lack of comprehension appeared to confuse him. “Aren’t you the new owner, then?”

“The new what?”

He jerked a sheet of notepaper out from under a refrigerator magnet, and passed it over.

The woman spending the night in room one, Claire read, is Claire Hansen. As of this morning, she’s the new proprietor. Except for a small brown stain of indeterminate origins, the rest of the sheet was blank. “And that explains everything to you?” she asked incredulously.

“He’s been trying to sell the place since I got here,” Dean told her. “I just figured he had.”

“He hasn’t.” So far, everything young Mr. McIssac had said, had been the truth. Which didn’t explain a damned thing. Dropping the note onto the counter, she wondered just what game the old man thought he was playing. “I am Claire Hansen, but I haven’t bought this hotel and I have no intention of buying this hotel.”

“But Mr. Smythe…”

“Mr. Smythe is obviously senile. If you’ll tell me where I can find him, I’ll straighten everything out.” She tried to make it sound more like a promise than a threat.

Although two long, narrow windows lifted a few of the shadows, the office looked no more inviting in the gray light of a rainy day than it had at night.

“He lives here?” Claire asked sliding sideways through the narrow opening between the counter and the wall, the only access from the lobby.

“No, in here.” The door to the old man’s rooms had been designed to look like part of the office paneling. Dean reached out to knock and paused, his hand just above the wood. “It’s open.”

“Then we must be expected.” She pushed past him. “Oh, my.”

Overdone was an understatement when applied to the room on the other side of the door, just as overstuffed wasn’t really sufficient to describe the furniture. Even the old console television wore three overlapping doilies, a pair of resin candlesticks carved with cherubs, and a basket of fake fruit.

Tucked into the gilded, baroque frame of a slightly pitted mirror was a large manila envelope. Even from across the room Claire could see it was addressed to her. Suddenly, inexplicably, convinced that things were about to get dramatically out of hand, she walked slowly forward, picking a path through the clutter. It took a remarkably long time to cover a short distance; then, all at once, she had the envelope in her hand.

Inside the envelope were half a dozen documents and another note, slightly shorter than the first.

“Senile but concise,” Claire muttered. “Congratulations, you’re the new owner of the Elysian Fields Guest House.” She glanced up at Dean. “The Elysian Fields Guest House?” When he nodded, she shook her head in disbelief. “Why didn’t he just call it the Vestibule of Hell?”

Dean shrugged. “Because that would be bad for business?”

“Do you get much business?”

“Well, no.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised.” She bent her attention back to the note. “Stay out of room six. What’s in room six?”

“There was a fire, years ago. Mr. Smythe didn’t need the room, so he saved money on repairs by keeping it locked up.”

“Sounds charming. That’s all there is.” She turned the paper over but it was blank on the other side. “Maybe these will give us some ans…” Her voice trailed off as, mouth open, she fanned the other papers. Her signature had been carefully placed where it needed to be on each of the legal documents. And it was her signature, not a forgery. Smythe had lifted it out of the registration book.

Which could only mean one thing.

“Mr. McIssac, could you please go and get me a cup of coffee.”

Dean found himself out in the office, the door to Mr. Smythe’s rooms closed behind him, before he’d made a conscious decision to move. He remembered being asked to go for coffee and then he was in the office. Coffee. Office. Nothing in between.

“Okay, so your memory’s going.” He ducked under the counter flap. “Look at the bright side, boy, you’re still employed.”

Jobs were scarce, and he hoped he could hang on to this one. The pay wasn’t great, but it included a basement apartment and he’d discovered that he liked taking care of people. He’d begun to think about taking some kind of part-time hotel management course; when there were no guests, and there were seldom guests, he had a lot of free time.

All that could change now that Mr. Smythe had gotten tired of waiting for a buyer and given the place away to a total stranger. Who didn’t seem to want it.

Claire Hansen was not what he’d expected. First off, she was a lot younger. Although he’d had minimal experience judging the ages of women and the makeup just muddled it up all the more, he’d be willing to swear she was under thirty. He might even go as low as twenty-five.

And it was weird that she traveled with a cat.

“I can’t feel the summons anymore, because I’m where I’m needed.”

Austin blinked. “Say what?”

“Augustus Smythe is a Cousin.”

“Augustus?”

“It’s on the documents.” Claire fanned them out so the cat could see all six pages. “Printed. He knew better than to sign his name. He’s been here for a while, so obviously he was monitoring an accident site—a site he’s buggered off from and made my responsibility.” She dropped down onto a sofa upholstered in pink cabbage roses and continued dropping, sinking through billowing cushions to an alarming depth.

“Are you okay?” Austin asked a few moments later when she emerged, breathing heavily and clutching a handful of loose change.

“Fine.” Knees still considerably higher than her hips, Claire hooked an elbow over the reinforced structure of the sofa’s arm in case she started to sink again, dropping the change into a bowl of dubious looking mints. It might have made more sense to find another place to sit, but none of the other furniture looked any safer. “The summons wasn’t coming from the site, or I’d still be able to feel it. It had to have been coming from Augustus Smythe.”

The cat leaped up onto the coffee table. “He needed to leave so badly he drew you here?”

“Since he left last night, which is when the summons stopped, that’s the only logical explanation.”

“But why?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? Why?”

Austin put a paw on her knee. “Why are you looking so happy about this?”

Was she? She supposed she was. “I’m not drifting any more.” Starting the day with neither a summons nor a site had been disconcerting. “I have a purpose again.”

“How nice for you.” He sat back. “We’re not going to get our vacation, are we?”

“Doesn’t look like it.” Her smile faded as she tapped the papers against her thigh. “Why didn’t Smythe identify himself when I didn’t recognize him?”

“Better question, why didn’t you recognize him?”

“I was tired, I was wet, and I had a headache,” she pointed out defensively. “All I could think of was getting out of that storm.”

“You think he fuzzed you?”

“Where would he get the power? I was distracted, all right? Let’s just leave it at that.” After another short struggle with the sofa, Claire managed to heave herself back up onto her feet. “Since the site’s in the hotel—or Smythe wouldn’t have bothered deeding it to me—and since I can’t sense it, I’m guessing that it’s so small it never became enough of a priority to need a Keeper and Smythe finally got tired of waiting. I’ll close it, and we’ll move on.”

“And the hotel?” Austin reminded her.

“After I seal the site, I’ll give it to young Mr. McIssac.”

“You think it’s going to be that easy?”

“Isn’t it always?” She picked up a squat figurine of a wide-eyed child in lederhosen playing a tuba, shuddered, and put it back down. “Come on.”

“Come on?” Trotting to the end of the table, he jumped over a plaster bust of Elvis, went under a set of nesting Chinese tables, and beat her to the door. “Where are we going?”

“To get some answers.”

“Where?”

“Where else? Where we were told not to go.”

Austin snorted. “Typical.”

Room six was on the third floor. As well as the standard lock, the door also boasted a large steel padlock on an industrial strength flange. Both locks had been made unopenable by the simple process of snapping the keys off in the mechanism.

“Seems like a lot of fuss over a small site,” Austin muttered, dropping down from his inspection.

“Well, he could hardly have guests wandering in on it regardless of size.” Releasing the padlock, Claire straightened. There were a number of ways she could gain access to the room, but most of them were labeled “emergency use only” as they involved the kind of pyrotechnics more likely to be deployed during small Middle Eastern wars. “I wonder if young Mr. McIssac has a hacksaw.”

“Ms. Hansen?” Dean put the tray down on the desk and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. She wasn’t in Mr. Smythe’s suite—her suite now, he supposed—and she wasn’t in the office. He hoped she wasn’t upstairs packing. Am I fired if she leaves?

Footsteps descending the stairs seemed to confirm his worst fears, but when she came into view, she wasn’t carrying her bags. She hadn’t even put her coat on.

“Oh, there you are, Dean.”

There he was? He hadn’t gone anywhere except to get her the coffee she’d asked for. “I brought cream and sugar,” he told her as she squeezed under the counter flap. “You didn’t say how you took it.”

“Definitely cream.” She poured some into the mug and frowned at the sugar bowl. “Do you have any packets of artificial sweetener?”

“Sure.” As far as he could tell, she didn’t need to watch her weight. While not quite a woman a man could see to shoot gulls through, she was on the skinny side and that much cream would pack on more pounds than a bit of sugar. “I’ll go get you some.”

“Dean?”

He straightened in the lobby and turned to face her over the counter.

“Bring your toolbox, too.”

Cradling the coffee mug in both hands, Claire leaned against the wall and watched Dean work. He’d had no trouble cutting the padlock off, but the original lock was proving to be more difficult.

“I think you should call a locksmith, Ms. Hansen. I can’t get in there without damaging the door some.”

“How much?”

He shrugged. “If I get my crowbar from the van, I could probably force it open. Just stick it in here…” He ran a finger down the crack between the door and the jam where the tongue of the lock ran into the wall. “…and shove. It’ll crack the wood for sure, but I can’t say how much.”

Claire took another swallow and considered her options. As long as Dean stayed out of the actual room, there should be no problem; only the largest of sites were visible to the untrained eye. “Go get your crowbar.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When the sound of Dean’s work boots clumping against bare wood suggested he’d reached the lobby, Austin stretched and glared up at Claire. “Couldn’t this have waited until after breakfast? I’m starved.”

“Could you have actually eaten not knowing what we were in for? Never mind. Stupid question.”

“You’ve got your coffee, the least you could’ve done was given me the cream.”

“The vet said you’re not supposed to have cream.” She squatted and rubbed him behind the ears. “Don’t worry, it’ll all be over soon. Waiting out on this side of the door has me so edgy, I’m positive the site’s in there.”

“In a just world,” the cat growled, “it would’ve been in the kitchen.”

His boots wet from the run out to the van, Dean slipped them off at the back door and started upstairs in his socks. Making the turn on the second floor landing, he heard voices. I guess she’s talking to the cat.

Voices. Plural, prodded his subconscious.

You’re losing it, boy. The cat’s not talking back.

She had her back to him when he stepped out into the third-floor hall. “Ms. Hansen?”

Claire managed to bite off most of the shriek, but her heart slammed against her ribs as she whirled around. “Don’t ever do that!”

Jerking back a step, Dean brought the crowbar up between them. “Do what?”

“Don’t ever sneak up on me like that!” She pressed her right hand between her breasts. “You’re just lucky I realized who you were!”

Although she was a good six or seven inches shorter than he was and there was nothing to her besides, somehow, that didn’t sound as ridiculous as it should have. “I’m sorry!”

Austin banged his head against her shins and she looked down. “You took your boots off.”

“They got wet.”

“Right. Of course.” Bringing her breathing under control, Claire waved him toward the locked door. “Break the lock, then step away. If there was a fire in there, you won’t want the mess tracked into the hall.”

Dean flashed her a grateful smile as he jammed the crowbar into the crack. Since coming west, he’d found few people who appreciated the kind of problems involved in keeping carpets clean. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And stop calling me ma’am. You make me feel like I’m a hundred years old.” When she saw him fighting a grin, Claire rolled her eyes. “I’m twenty-seven.”

“Okay.” A confidence given required one in exchange. “I’m twenty-one.” As he pulled back on the bar, he glanced over at her expression and wondered how she knew he was lying. “That is, I’ll be twenty-one in a few months.”

“So you’re twenty?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The shriek of tortured wood and steel cut off further conversation. Hands over her ears, Claire watched muscles stretch the sleeves of his T-shirt as the lock began to give. When it popped suddenly, it took her a moment to gather her wandering thoughts—although, she assured the world at large, it was purely an aesthetic interest. In that moment, the door swung open, Dean looked into the room, and froze on the threshold.

“Lord thunderin’ Jesus! Mr. Smythe’s been hiding a body up here!”

“Calm down.” Claire put her palm in the center of Dean’s back and shoved. She’d have had more luck shifting the building. “And move!” Over the years she’d seen bodies in every condition imaginable—and frequently the imagination had belonged to fairly warped individuals. If this body had merely been left lying around, she’d consider herself lucky.

Dean stayed in the doorway, the breadth of his shoulders blocking her way and her view.

“I don’t think,” he said, grasping both edges of the doorframe, “that this is something a lady ought to see.”

“Well, you got part of it right, you don’t think!” Choosing guile over force, she slammed her knees into the back of his at the spot where the crease crossed the hollow. As he collapsed, she pushed past him, one hand reaching out to the old-fashioned, circular light switch.

The room was a little larger than the room Claire had slept in and the decorating hadn’t been changed since the early part of the century. An oversized armchair sat covered in hand-crocheted doilies, a Victorian plant stand complete with a very dead fern stood between the two curtained windows, and a woman lay fully clothed on top of the bed, a sausage-shaped bolster under her head and a folded quilt under her feet. Everything, including the woman, wore a fuzzy patina of dust. The air smelled stale and, faintly, of perfume.

Claire could feel the edges of a shield wrapped around the body—which explained why she hadn’t been able to get a sense of what room six held. The shield hadn’t been put in place by a Cousin. At some point, a Keeper had been by and wrapped the site up so tightly that even another Keeper couldn’t get through. Had Augustus Smythe not needed to leave so badly, Claire could’ve passed happily through Kingston without ever realizing the site existed. The one thing she couldn’t figure out was why a Keeper would bother. While people did occasionally manifest an accident site, the usual response was an exorcism, not the old Sleeping Beauty schtick.

A choking noise behind her reminded Claire she had a more immediate problem. The woman on the bed had clearly been there for some years; she could wait a few minutes longer.

When she turned, Dean had regained his position in the doorway. Her movement drew his locked gaze up off the bed, breaking the connection. For a moment he stared at her, eyes wide, then he whirled around and managed two running steps toward the stairs.

“Dean McIssac!”

There was power in a name.

He stopped, one foot in the air, and almost fell.

“Where are you going?”

Shoving his glasses back into place, he tired to sound as though he found dead women laid out in the guest rooms all the time. “I’m after calling 911.” His heart was pounding so loudly he could hardly hear himself.

“After calling?”

He rolled his eyes anxious to be moving, impatient at the delay. “After calling, going to call; it’s the same thing.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!” Frustration had him almost shouting. Suddenly self-conscious, he ducked his head. “Sorry.”

Claire waved off the apology. “I meant, why are you going to call 911?”

“Because there’s a body…”

“She isn’t dead, Dean, she’s asleep. If you look at her chest, you can see she’s breathing.”

“Breathing?” Without moving his feet, he grabbed the splintered doorjamb and leaned in over the threshold. “Oh.” Feeling foolish, he shrugged and tried to explain, “I was raised better than to stare at a woman’s chest.”

“You thought it was a corpse.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Who raised you?”

“My granddad, Reverend McIssac,” Dean told her, a little defensively.

Claire had her doubts at how often a twenty-year-old male actually followed that particular dictum but had no plans to discourage admirable intentions. “Well, good for him. And you. Now, could you do something for me?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Could you go get me another cup of coffee, please.”

He looked at her like she was out of her mind. “What? Now? What about the woman on the bed?”

“I don’t think she’s going to want one.”

“No, I meant, what about the woman on the bed!”

Claire sighed. She hadn’t actually thought it would work, but since it was the simplest temporary solution, it had seemed foolish not to try. Unfortunately, curiosity was one of the strongest motivating forces behind humanity’s rise out of the ooze and, unsatisfied, it invariably caused problems. The safest way to deal with questions was to answer them, then, after all the loose ends were neatly tied up, wipe the whole package right out of Dean’s mind. “If I promise to explain everything later, will you do me a favor? Will you wait quietly while I deal with this?”

“You know what’s going on then?”

“Yes. Mostly,” she amended, conscience prickling.

“And you’ll explain it to me?”

“When I’m done with her.”

“Done what?”

“That’s one of the things I’ll explain later.”

Feeling a pressure against his shins, Dean glanced down to see Austin rubbing against him. It was such a normal, ordinary thing for a cat to do, it made the rest of the morning seem less strange. “Okay,” he said, dropping to one knee and running his fingers along the silky fur. “I’ll wait.”

“Thank you.”

With her unwelcome audience temporarily taken care of, Claire turned her attention back to the bed. In spite of the dust, the woman did bear a striking resemblance to Sleeping Beauty— or more accurately, given her age, to Sleeping Beauty’s mother. Then it became obvious that the blonde curls had been bleached, the eyebrows had been plucked and redrawn, and the lips were far, far too red. The severe, almost military-style clothing covered a lush figure that could by no means be called matronly. For some reason, Claire found the line of dark residue under all ten fingernails incredibly disturbing. She didn’t know why—dirty fingernails had never bothered her before.

It would be easier to work without the shield, but with a bystander to consider, Claire went through the perimeter without disturbing its structural integrity.

The emanations rising from the body were so dark she gagged. Teeth clenched, wishing she hadn’t had that coffee, she forced herself to take a deeper look.

Kneeling beside the cat, Dean watched his new boss stagger back, trip on the edge of the braided rug, and begin to fall. He dove forward, felt an unpleasant, greasy sizzle along one arm, and caught her just before she hit the floor. Under the makeup, her face had gone a pale gray and her throat worked as though she wanted to throw up. Before he could ask if she was all right, Austin leaped up onto her lap.

Her lower body still on the other side of the shield, Claire reached out to stop the cat from crossing over.

Too late.

“Evil!” Without actually touching down, he twisted in midair, hit the floor running, and raced back into the hall.

That was enough for Dean. Hands under Claire’s armpits, he half carried, half dragged her out of the room. When her legs cleared the threshold, he reached over her and pulled the door closed. The damage he’d done to the lock plate meant it no longer latched, but he managed to jam it shut.

Pressed tight against Dean’s chest, her head tucked into the hollow of his throat, Claire shoved on the arm holding her in place. While she appreciated him catching her before her skull smacked into the floor, his interference in something he had no hope of understanding created the distinct desire to drive her elbow in under his ribs as far as it would go. Only the certain knowledge that any blow would bounce harmlessly off the rippled muscle she could feel through the thin barrier of the T-shirt prevented her. That, and the way the position she found herself in radically restricted her movements. Not to mention her ability to breathe. “Let go of me!” she gasped. “Now!”

He jerked and looked down at her like he’d forgotten she was there but eased up enough so she could squirm free. Wedging her shoulder under his, she managed to get him out of the doorway.

His back against the wall, Dean slid down to sit on the hall floor, feeling much as he had at ten when the local bully had smacked him around with a dead cod. “The cat talked.”

Having just reached Austin’s side, Claire shook her head. “No, he didn’t.”

“Yes, he did.”

Scooping the cat up into her arms, she said in a tone specifically crafted to make the recipient doubt his own senses, “No, he didn’t.”

“Yes, he did,” Austin corrected, his voice a little muffled.

“Excuse me.” Holding him tightly against her chest, she turned so that her body was between Dean and the cat. “I’ll just be a minute.” Tucking her thumb under the furry chin, she lifted his head and whispered, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” His tail, still twice its normal size, lashed against her leg. “I was startled. I hit the nasty on the other side of that shield and I overreacted.”

“And what are you doing now?”

“He’s a part of this.”

“Are you out of your walnut-sized mind? He’s a bystander!”

“Granted, but you’re going to need his help.”

“For what? With what? With her?”

“Maybe. I don’t know yet.”

“You are out of your mind! Do you know what that is in there?”

“Excuse me?”

“What?” Dean’s voice pulled Claire’s attention back across the hall.

Caught between a cruel and capricious sea and an unwelcoming hunk of rock, Newfoundlanders had turned adaptation into a genetically encoded survival trait. True to his ancestry, Dean had progressed from stunned disbelief through amazement to amazed acceptance by the time he’d interrupted.

When he saw he had their attention, he said, “I could still hear you. Sorry.”

“Well, she wasn’t exactly keeping her voice down,” Austin pointed out.

Dean met Claire’s gaze almost apologetically. “The cat talks.”

“The cat never shuts up,” Claire replied through gritted teeth.

“He seems to think I can help.”

“Yeah, well when I need something cleaned or cooked I’ll let you know. OW!” Sucking on the back of her hand, she glared down at Austin. “What did you scratch me for?”

He retracted his claws. “You were being rude.”

“Scratch me again and I’ll show you rude,” she muttered.

“You’re frightened, that’s understandable. Even I was almost frightened. You think you can’t handle this, you think it’s too big for you…”

“Stop telling me what I think!”

“…but that’s no reason to take it out on him.”

“You’re frightened?” Dean ducked his head to get a better look at her face. “You are frightened.”

Obviously, she hadn’t been hiding it as well as she’d thought.

“Of what? Oh…” The talking cat had temporarily driven all thoughts of their other discovery out of his head. “Of her?” Evil, the cat had said. Rubbing the lingering, greasy feel off the arm that had been closest to the bed, Dean found that easy to believe. “Don’t worry.” He straightened where he sat. “On the last of it, she’ll have to go through me to get to you.”

“Foreshadowing,” Austin muttered.

Giving the cat a warning squeeze, Claire realized that Dean’s offer was in earnest. He was the sort of person who went out of his way to pick worms off the sidewalk and put them back onto the lawn. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “First of all, I can take care of myself. Second, if you ever face that woman awake, you’d better hope she kills you immediately and doesn’t play with you for a while. And third, there’s nothing you can do.”

“The cat said…”

“He says a lot of things.”

“You said you’d explain.”

“After I’d dealt with her. And I haven’t.”

“I could help you with her.”

“You don’t know what’s going on.”

“I would if you explained.”

“I’ve had as much as I can take of this,” Austin grumbled. “I’ll explain.” Wriggling out of Claire’s arms, he crossed the hall and locked a pale green stare on Dean’s face. “Do you believe in magic?”

“That’s an explanation?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Sure.”

“Sure? What kind of an answer is sure? Do you or don’t you?”

Dean shrugged. “I guess I do.”

“Good.” Stretching out, Austin ripped at the carpet. “Because that’s what we’re dealing with.”

“Magic?”

“That’s right. The woman in the room behind you was put to sleep by magic.”

Dean shifted a little farther down the hall. Drawing his knees up, he laid his forearms across them and frowned. “Like Sleeping Beauty?”

Austin’s ears went back. “The opposite. This time the bad guy—her—got put to sleep by the good guys.”

“Why?”

“How should I know?”

“I just thought…”

“At this point we don’t know much more than you do.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Actually, we know a whole lot more than you, but we don’t know that. The important thing for you to remember is that, if you’re lucky, the woman in there is the worst thing you’re ever going to come in contact with. She’s evil sleeping in size eight pumps.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “How do you know her shoe size?”

“I don’t.”

“But you said…”

“I was making a point,” Austin sighed. “Which obviously didn’t make it through your thick head.”

Watching the cat stalk back across the hall and rub his head against a denim-clad hip, Dean suddenly remembered the feel of a body clutched tightly against his. Under normal circumstances, it wasn’t a feeling he’d have forgotten. His ears turned red as he realized just which bits had gone where and he suspected he should apologize for something. “Uh, Ms. Hansen…”

“You might as well call me Claire,” she interrupted wearily, picking at a loose thread in the cleanest carpet she’d ever seen. “If Austin’s right…”

“And I am,” Austin put in, not bothering to glance up from an important bit of grooming.

“…we’re going to be working together. That is,” she added after a moment’s pause, “if you still want to keep your job.”

Austin snorted. “Weren’t you listening to me?”

“Dean has to decide for himself if he’s going to stay.”

Dean shifted nervously under the weight of their combined attention. “What is it we’ll be doing together?”

Claire put her cupped hand over the cat’s muzzle before she answered. “Fighting evil.”

“You’re a superhero?”

Austin jerked free. “Don’t,” he suggested sternly, “give her ideas.”

“No, I’m not a superhero. I don’t even own a pair of tights. Are you blushing again?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

“I am one of the good guys. And this is a bad situation. The woman in there…” Claire nodded toward the broken door. “…is only half the problem. Somewhere in this building is a hole in the fabric of the universe.”

About to protest that there were some stories even a dumb Newfie wouldn’t believe, Dean hesitated. They’d found a dust-covered woman, dressed in 1940s clothing, asleep in room six and he’d just had the situation more or less—mostly less—explained to him by a talking cat. Evidence suggested it wasn’t a bam. “A hole in the fabric of the universe,” he repeated. “Okay.”

“We refer to it as an accident site. At some time, somebody did something they shouldn’t have. The energy coming through the hole is keeping the woman asleep.” Crossing her legs at the ankle, Claire rocked up onto her feet. “That’s how I know there is a hole and Augustus Smythe wasn’t here merely to monitor her.” As Dean opened his mouth, the next question obvious on his face, she held up a silencing hand. “It’s nothing personal, but right at the moment, my questions are more important than yours. Since I’m not going back in there to find the answers…”

“You don’t want her to wake up,” Austin muttered at Dean. “You really don’t want her to wake up.”

“…I’ve got to find the accident site. Unfortunately, it seems to be at least as well shielded as she is and we’re going to have to search every threadbare inch of this place, unless…you know where it is?”

“The accident site?” He stood. “The hole in the fabric of the universe?”

“That’s right.” She’d never had to explain herself to a bystander before. It was hard not to sound patronizing.

“Sorry. I haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.” Squaring his shoulders, he hiked the tool belt up on his hips. His world had always included a number of things he’d had to take on faith. He added one more. “But I’d like to help.”

“So you’re staying?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Claire.” When he looked dubious, she sighed. “What?”

“You own the hotel, you’re my boss; I can’t call you by your first name. It wouldn’t be right.”

About to tell him that he was being an idiot, Claire suddenly remembered the feel of his arms and the warm scent of fabric softener and decided it might be better to maintain some distance. “What did you call Augustus Smythe?”

“To his face?”

Austin snickered.

“Yes. To his face.”

“I called him Boss.” Dean considered the possibility of calling an attractive woman the same thing he’d called a cranky old man and wasn’t entirely convinced it would work. “I guess I could call you Boss.”

“Good. Glad we’ve got that cleared up.”

“Should I wire this door shut before we start searching, um, Boss?”

Although Dean don’t seem quite comfortable using the title, Claire found she liked it. It made her feel like the lead in an old gangster movie. “You might as well.” It would be a useless precaution since it was unlikely any of them would now wander into room six by accident, but it would give Dean something to do that he understood. “Just let me turn out the light first.”

The remainder of the third floor, two double rooms and a single, was empty of everything except the lingering smell of disinfectant. Inside the storage cupboard across from room six, Claire emptied the shelves of toilet paper and cleaning supplies, then peered down the laundry chute.

“Don’t even think about it!” Austin spat as she turned and studied him measuringly.

“Suppose it’s between floors?”

“Then it’ll just have to stay there.”

“I’ll keep you from falling.”

“Oh, sure.” He squeezed in behind a bucket of sponges and peered balefully at her over the edge, ears flat against his head. “That’s what you said the last time.”

“Those were extraordinary circumstances. Never happen again.”

“I said no.”

“Okay, okay.” She tried and failed to open the narrow door next to the chute. “What’s in here?”

“Stairs to the attic.” Dean eyeballed the opening of the laundry chute, was relieved to find he wouldn’t fit, and found the required key on his master ring.

Filling an area barely five feet square, a narrow set of metal stairs spiraled upward toward an uninviting square hole cut out of the ceiling.

“Are there lights?”

“Don’t think so. You stay where you’re at, girl, and let me…” At the look on her face, his voice trailed off. “Never mind, then.”

“Girl?”

“It’s just a way we have of talkin’ back home,” he explained hurriedly, his cheeks crimson and his accent thickening. “I don’t mean nothing by it.”

“Then don’t do it again.”

“Yes ma’am, Ms. Hansen.” A deep breath and he tried again. “Boss.”

“Are you certain he’s a part of this?” she demanded, turning toward the cat.

“Yes. Get along.”

Claire sighed. Metal rungs ringing under her feet, she ran to the top of the stairs, crossed her fingers and stuck her head up into what looked like one large room filled with decades of discards, barely lit by the two filthy dormer windows cut into the sloping roof on either end of the building.

It was still raining.

“It’ll take us months to search that place thoroughly,” she announced a moment later backing carefully down the stairs. “Let’s leave it for later. With any luck we’ll find the hole someplace more accessible.”

“Oh, sure, accessible like the laundry chute,” Austin muttered as Dean relocked the attic door.

The second floor was as empty as the first—more so since there was nothing to match the occupant of room six. Remembering the mess she’d left spread out on the bed, Claire vouched for her room without opening the door. Room four, a comer single with two outside walls and no window, suggested a more thorough search.

Leaning on the edge of the bureau, Dean watched Claire slip into the bed alcove and try the bolt on the inside of the alcove’s steel door. “You know someone actually asked for this room last spring.”

“How would I know that? I just got here.” The high box bed had one shallow drawer under the mattress and two deeper drawers below that. Hands slid between the mattress and the frame found no sign of evil but did turn up a silver earring.

Mortified, Dean apologized for a sloppy job as Claire dropped the piece of jewelry on his palm. “When we’re done searching, I’ll clean this room again.”

“If it makes you happy,” Claire muttered, checking in the bedside table. As far as she could see, the room was spotless.

Dean’s expression softened as he bounced the earring on his palm. “She was a musician. Sasha something. I can’t remember her last name, but she was some h…” Then, he remembered who he was talking to. His boss. A woman. Some things he couldn’t say to a boss. Or a woman. “Cute. She was some cute.”

“H…cute?” Shaking her head, Claire brushed past him.

Mouth partly open, Austin whipped his tail from side to side. “I don’t like the way this smells.”

“Then since it’d take a sledgehammer to air it out, let’s go.” Claire could feel a perfectly logical reason for the design hovering just beyond the edge of conscious thought, but when she reached for it, it danced away and taunted her from a safe distance. Later, she promised and added aloud, “What did you say?”

Dean paused at the top of the stairs. “I said, do you think we should search the rest of Mr. Smythe’s old rooms, then?”

“He wouldn’t have been living with it,” she snapped dismissively. Then feeling like she’d just kicked a puppy, a large and well-muscled puppy, she added a strained, “Sorry. Where Augustus Smythe is concerned, I shouldn’t take anything for granted.”

The sitting room violated a number of rules concerning how many objects could simultaneously occupy the same space, but the only accident it contained involved the head-on collision of good taste with an apparent inability to throw anything away. The bedroom wasn’t quite as bad. Dominated by a brass bed, it also held an obviously antique dressing table, a wardrobe, and two windows. One of them framed into an inside wall.

“Probably the window missing from the room upstairs.” Jumping up onto the bed, Austin began kneading the mattress. “This isn’t bad. I could sleep here.”

Before Claire could stop him, Dean tugged the burgundy brocade curtain to one side and closed it again almost instantly, setting six inches of fringe swaying back and forth.

“Are you okay?” she asked warily. If it was the accident site and he’d been exposed, there was no telling what he might have picked up.

Cheeks flushed, he nodded. “Fine. I’m fine.”

“What did you see?”

“It was, uh, a bar.” He cleared his throat and reluctantly continued. “With, uh, dancers.”

“Were they table dancing?” The cat snickered. “Upon admittedly short acquaintance, that seems like the sort of scene old Augustus would go for.”

“Not exactly table, no.” Shaking his head, Dean lifted the curtain again. “It was dark but…” His voice trailed off.

Claire peered around his shoulder and almost went limp with relief. “That doesn’t sound like a bar to me. Looks like Times Square. And over there, in front of the hookers, isn’t that a drug deal going down?” Leaning forward, she rapped on the glass and nodded in satisfaction. “That put the fear of God into them.”

The curtain fell closed again. Dean’s voice threatened to crack as he asked, “What was it?”

“We call it a postcard.”

“We?” He waved an overly nonchalant hand toward the cat. That smacked-with-a-cod feeling had returned. “You and Austin?”

“Among others.” She glared at the curtain. “Smythe couldn’t have managed this on his own; he had to have been pulling from the site.”

“Is that bad?”

“Well it isn’t good. I’ll know more when we find the hole.”

“Wherever it is,” Austin agreed.

“Since we know it’s not in the dining room, what’s left?”

The basement held, besides the mechanicals, the laundry room, Dean’s sparsely furnished and absolutely spotless apartment, several storage cupboards holding sheets, towels, and still more cleaning supplies, and, across from the laundry room, a large metal door. Painted a brilliant turquoise, it boasted not one but two padlocked chains securing it closed.

“Dean, did you know this was down here?”

He frowned, confused by the question. Since he obviously spent a lot of time in the basement…“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”

“It’s just the furnace room.”

“The furnace room.” Claire exchanged a speaking glance with the cat. “Have you ever been in this alleged furnace room?”

“No. Mr. Smythe did all the furnace work himself.”

“I’ll bet.” The keys were hanging beside the door. The security arrangements were clearly not intended to keep people out but to keep something in. “What was he heating this place with,” she muttered, dragging the first chain free. “A dragon?”

Dean took the chain, removed the second length, and hung them both neatly on the hooks provided. “Are you kidding?”

“Mostly. Any virgins reported missing from the neighborhood?”

“Pardon?”

“Forget it.” Claire pulled the door open about six inches and leaned away from the blast of heat. “Do you mind?” she asked as Austin slipped in ahead of her. “Try to remember what curiosity killed.” Moving forward, she felt remarkably calm. At first she thought she was just numb—it had, after all, been a busy morning—but when she stepped over the threshold, she realized that the entire furnace room had been wrapped in a dampening field.

Much more powerful than a mere shield, it not only deflected the curious but was quite probably the only thing allowing people to remain in the building.

Down nine steps, inscribed into the rough surface of a bedrock floor, was a complicated, multicolored, multilayered pentagram. The center of the pentagram was an open hole. A dull red light, shining up from the depths, painted lurid highlights on the copper hood hanging from the ceiling. Ductwork directed the rising heat up into the hotel.

Must have a helluva filter system, Claire thought, wrinkling her nose at the stink of fire and brimstone.

And then it sank in. Unfortunately, the dampening field had no effect inside the furnace room.

Heart pounding, hot sweat rolling down her sides, she bent and scooped up Austin, who’d flattened himself to the floor. With the cat held tightly against her chest, she forced herself down the first three steps.

“Where are you going?” he hissed, claws digging into her shoulder.

“To check the seal.”

“Why?”

“Because Augustus Smythe couldn’t have held this.”

“Then obviously someone else is. And there’s only one someone else in this building.”

“She’s holding it, it’s holding her.” Claire went down another three steps and nodded toward the pentagram. “There’s her name. Sara.”

“Don’t…”

“It’s all right. If her name could get through the field, they’d have woken her years ago.” There was a vibration in the air, just on the edge of sound, an almost hum as though they were walking toward the world’s largest wasp’s nest. “On the other hand, you know that low-level buzz I mentioned last night? There seems to be some seepage.”

“But you couldn’t feel it this morning.”

“Not outside this room, no. Augustus Smythe probably used it up making his getaway.”

“That’s bad.”

“Well, it’s not good.” Placing her feet with care, she backed up the stairs, squeezed over the threshold, shoved Dean away from the door, and very, very gently, pushed it closed.

“Was it a dragon?” Dean asked, not entirely certain why he hadn’t followed her inside but untroubled by the uncertainty.

“No.” As the dampening field began to take effect, it became possible to think again. “It wasn’t a dragon.”

“Then was it a furnace?”

“Sort of.” She unhooked Austin’s claws from her shoulder and settled him more comfortably in her arms, her free hand rhythmically stroking his fur and sending clouds of loose hair flying. He tucked his head up under her chin, and left it there.

“Was it the hole?”

Claire giggled. She couldn’t help it, but she managed to cut it short; she hadn’t expected such a literal example of the explanation she’d created to fit a bystander’s limited world. “Oh, yes, it was the hole.” Still cradling the cat, she started toward the basement stairs, head up, back straight. “Could you please replace the chains and the locks?”

Dean had the strangest feeling that if he tapped her shoulder as she passed, she’d ring out like a weather buoy. “Are you all right, then?”

“I’m fine.”

“Where are you going?”

“Upstairs.”

He shook his head, thought about opening the door and taking a look for himself and for reasons he wasn’t quite clear on, decided not to. “Hey, Boss?”

It took Claire a moment to realize who he was talking to. Three steps up, she paused and leaned out from the stairs so she could see him. “Yes?”

“What are you after doing?”

“I’m going to do what anyone in this situation would do; I’m going to get a second opinion.”

“From who?”

Her smile looked as if it had been borrowed and didn’t quite fit. “I’m going to call my mother.”

Behind the chains, behind the turquoise door, down the stairs, and deep in the pit, intelligence stirred.

HELLO?

When it realized there’d be no answer, it sighed.

DAMN.

TWO

“HANSEN RESIDENCE.”

The voice on the other end of the line was not one Claire had expected to hear. “Diana?” Unable to remain still, she picked up the old rotary phone and paced the length of the office and back. “What are you doing home? I thought you were doing fieldwork this weekend.”

“Hong and I had a small argument.”

“Like the argument you had with Matt?”

“No.”

There was a lengthening, a scornful pronunciation of that second letter that only a teenager could manage. At twenty, the ability was lost. Three years, Claire told herself, just three more years. She’d been ten when Diana was born and the sudden appearance of a younger sister had come as a complete surprise. Over the years, although she loved Diana dearly, the surprise had turned to apprehension—being around her was somewhat similar to being around sweating dynamite. “These people are supposed to be training you. You could assume they know what they’re doing.”

“Yeah, well, they’re old and they never let me do anything.”

“I haven’t time to get into this with you right now. Put Mom on, please.”

“Duh, Claire, it’s Sunday morning.”

She took a minute to whack herself on the forehead with the receiver. She’d completely forgotten. “Could you ask her to call me the moment she gets home from church?”

“You didn’t say the magic word.”

“Diana!”

“Chill, I’m kidding. What’s the matter anyway? You sound like you just looked into the depths of Hell.”

Reflecting, not for the first time, that her little sister had an appalling amount of power from someone with an equally appalling amount of self-confidence, Claire smoothed the lingering tremors out of her voice. “Just ask her to call me—please.” She read the number off the dial. “It’s important.”

Dean could hear Claire talking on the phone as he came up the basement stairs. Ignoring the temptation to eavesdrop—as much as he wanted to know what she was saying, it would’ve been rude—he continued on into the kitchen, where he found Austin attempting to open the fridge.

“They build garage door openers, push of a button and you can park your car, but does anyone ever think of building something like that for a fridge. No.” He pulled his claws out of the rubber seal and glared up at Dean. “What does a cat have to do to get breakfast around here?”

“Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“A few minutes ago…”

Austin interrupted with an explosive snort. “That was then, this is now.” Rising onto his hind legs, he rested his front paws just above Dean’s denim-covered knee, claws extended only enough for emphasis. “You look like a nice guy, why don’t you feed me?”

“Austin!”

“That’s my name,” he sighed, dropping back to all four feet. “Don’t wear it out.”

As Claire came around the corner, she was amazed at how familiar it seemed, as though this were the twenty-second not merely the second time she’d walked into the kitchen. Layered between the sleeping Sara and Hell, there was a comforting domesticity about the whole thing. She shuddered.

“Are you okay?” Dean asked.

“I’m fine. I just had a vision of an unpleasant future.” Shaking her head, hoping to clear it, she added, “My mother wasn’t home, but I left a message with my sister. She’ll call later.”

Austin jumped up onto the counter. “Why was your sister home!”

“The usual.”

“Anyone get hurt?”

“I didn’t ask.”

Leaning back against the sink, Dean looked down at his sock-covered feet. Had she not been his boss, he would’ve asked her if she wasn’t a little old to be calling her mum when she ran into a problem.

“Dean?”

He glanced up to see Claire staring at him.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Instinct caught the coin she tossed, and to his surprise he found himself repeating his musing aloud.

“No, I am not too old to call my mother,” she said when he finished, ignoring the cat’s muttered, “Serves you right for asking.”

“My mother has been in the business a lot longer than I have, and I could use her professional advice since not one thing that happened this morning was what I expected. Not room six, not the furnace room, not you.”

“Not me?”

“If Austin wasn’t so convinced that you’re a part of this whole mess, we’d be sitting down to rearrange your memories right about now.”

Dean squelched his initial response—why ask if she could do it when there was absolutely nothing in that statement to suggest she couldn’t. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to keep my memories the way they are.”

“Good for you.” Austin sat down and stared pointedly at the fridge. “So if we’re not going to adjust the status quo until your mother’s had a look, what are we waiting for? When do we eat?” ...