Tanya Huff - Keeper's Chronicles 2 - The Second Summoning

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For all intents and purposes, the motel room was dark and quiet. The only
light came intermittently through a crack in the curtains as the revolving sign by the
road spun around so fast it caught up to its afterimages and appeared to read Motel
666. The only sound came from the rectangular bulk of the heating unit under the
window that roared out warmth at a decibel level somewhere between a DC9 at
takeoff and a Nirvana concert, although it was considerably more melodic than either.
The smell emanating from the pizza box, crushed to fit neatly into a too-small
wastebasket, blended with the lingering smell of the previous inhabitants, some of
whom hadn’t been particularly attentive to personal hygiene.
The radio alarm clock between the beds read eleven forty squiggle where the
squiggle would have been a five had the entire number been illuminated.
Both of the double beds were occupied.
The bed closest to the bathroom held the shape of two bodies, one large, one
small, stretched out beneath the covers.
The bed closest to the window held one long, lean, black-and-white shape that
seemed to be taking up more room than was physically possible.
The light flickered. The heater roared. The long, lean shape contracted and
became a cat. It walked to the edge of the mattress and crouched, tail lashing.
“This is pathetic,” it announced, leaping upon the smaller of the two figures in
the other bed. “Even for you.”
Claire Hansen stretched out her arm, turned on the bedside lamp, and found
herself face-to-face with an indignant one-eyed cat. “Austin, if you don’t mind, we’re
waiting for a manifestation.”
He lay down on her chest, assuming a sphinx like position that suggested he
wasn’t planning on moving any time soon. “It’s been a week.”
Twisting her head around, Claire peered at the clock radio. The squiggle
changed shape. “It’s been forty-six minutes.”
“It’s been a week,” Austin repeated, “since we left the Elysian Fields Guest
House. A week since you and young Mr. Mclssac here started keeping company.”
The other figure stirred, but the cat continued.
“For the first time in that week, you two are actually in the same bed and what
are you doing? You’re waiting for a manifestation!”
Claire blinked. “Keeping company?” she repeated.
“For lack of a more descriptive phrase, which, I might add, is my point,
there’s a distinct lack of more descriptive phrases being applied here. You could cut
the unresolved sexual tension between you two with a knife, and I, personally,” he
declared, whiskers bristling, “am tired of it.”
“Just pretending for a moment that this is any of your business,” Claire told
him tightly, “a week isn’t that long . . .”
“You knew each other for almost two months before that.”
“... we’re in one bed now because the site requires a male and a female
component . . .”
“You’re saying you had no control over the last seven days?”
“. . . and did it ever occur to you that things haven’t progressed because
there’s been an audience perpetually in attendance?”
“Oh, sure. Blame me.”
“Could I say something here?” Rolling toward the center of the bed, Dean
McIssac rose up on one elbow, blue eyes squinting a little behind wire-frame glasses
as he came into the light from the bedside table. “I’m thinking this isn’t the time or
the place to talk about, you know, stuff.”
“Talk?” Austin snorted. “You’re missing my point.”
The young man’s cheeks flushed slightly. “Well, it sure as scrod isn’t the time
or the place to do anything.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s a dead . . . lady standing at the foot of the bed.”
Claire craned her neck to see around the cat.
Arms folded over a turquoise sweater, her weight on one spandex-covered hip,
the ghost raised an artificially arched ectoplasmic eyebrow. “Boo,” she suggested.
“Boo yourself,” Claire sighed.
Cheryl Poropat, or rather the ghost of Cheryl Poropat, hovered above the X
marked on the carpet with ashes and dust, the scuffed heels of her ankle boots about
two inches from the floor. “So, you’re here to send me on?”
“That’s right.” Claire sat down in one of the room’s two chairs. Like most
motel chairs they weren’t designed to be actually sat in, but she felt that remaining in
bed with Dean, even if they were both fully clothed, undermined her authority.
“You some kind of an exorcist?”
“No, I’m a Keeper.”
Cheryl folded her arms. Half a dozen cheap bracelets jangled against the curve
of one wrist. “And what’s that when it’s home?”
“Keepers maintain the structural integrity of the barrier between the world as
most people know it and the metaphysical energy all around it.”
The ghost blinked. “Say what?”
“We mend the holes in the fabric of the universe so bad things don’t get
through.”
“Well, why the hell didn’t you say so the first time? If I wasn’t dead,” she
continued thoughtfully before Claire could answer, ”I’d think you were full of it, but
since I’m not only dead, I’m here, my view of stuff has been, you know, broadened.”
Penciled brows drew in ... “Being dead makes you look at things differently.” . . . and
centered themselves again. “So, how do you do it?”
“Do what?” Claire asked, having been distracted by the movement of the dead
woman’s eyebrows.
“Fix the holes.”
“We reach beyond the barrier and manipulate the possibilities. We use
magic,” she simplified as Cheryl looked blank.
Understanding dawned with returning facial features. “You’re a witch. Like
on television.”
“No.”
“What’s the difference?”
“She’s got a better looking cat,” Austin announced from the top of the dresser
in a tone that suggested it should have been obvious.
Claire ignored him. “I’m a Keeper.”
“Well, jeepers keepers.” Cheryl snickered and bounced her fingertips off a bit
of bouffant hair, her hair spray having held into the afterlife. “Bet you wish you had a
nickel for every time someone said that.”
“Not really, no.”
“They’ve got a better sense of humor on television, too,” the ghost muttered.
“That’s only because Keepers have no sense of humor at all,” Austin told her,
studying his reflection in the mirror. “If it wasn’t for me, she’d be so smugly
sanctimonious no one could live with her.”
“And thank you for your input, Austin.” Shooting him a look that clearly
promised “later,” Claire stood. “Shall we begin?”
Cheryl waved off the suggestion. “What’s your hurry? Introduce me to the
piece of beefcake the cat thinks you should do the big nasty with.”
“The what?”
“You know; the horizontal mambo, the beast with two backs.” Her pelvic
motions, barely masked by the red stretch pants, cleared up any lingering confusions.
“He a Keeper, too?”
Claire glanced over at Dean who was staring at the ghost with an expression
of horrified fascination. Or fascinated horror, she wasn’t entirely certain which. “He’s
a friend. And that was a private conversation.”
“Ask me if I care?” Translucent hands patted ephemeral pockets. “I’d kill for a
freaking smoke. Couldn’t hurt me much now, could they? You oughta go for it,
Keeper.”
“I don’t smoke.”
A ghostly, dismissive glance raked her up and down. “Not surprised, you’ve
got that tobacco-free, alcohol-free, cholesterol-free, is that your natural hair color?”
“Yes.” Claire tucked a strand of dark brown hair behind her ear.
“Hair-color free sort of look. Take my advice, hon, try a henna.”
“I ought to go for a henna?”
“Yeah, in your hair. But that wasn’t what I meant. You oughta go for him.”
She nodded toward Dean. “Live a little. I mean, men take their pleasure where they
find it, right? Why not women? Your husband screws around, you know, and
everyone thinks he’s such a freaking stallion and all you get’s a ‘sorry, sweetie’ that
you’re supposed to take ‘cause he’s out of work and feeling unsure of his manhood,
like it’s your freaking fault he got LAID OFF. . . .”
Claire and Austin, who’d been watching the energy build, dropped to the
floor. Dean, whose generations of Newfoundland ancestors trapped between a barren
rock and an angry sea had turned adaptability into a genetic survival trait, followed
less than a heartbeat behind.
In the sudden flare of yellow-white light, the clock radio and the garbage pail
flew through the air and slammed into opposite walls.
“. . . but if you do it, just once, then BAM . . .”
The bureau drawers whipped open, then slammed shut.
“. . . brain aneurysm, and you’re stuck haunting this freaking DUMP!”
Both beds rose six inches into the air, then crashed back to the floor.
Breathing heavily, which was just a little redundant since she wasn’t breathing
at all, but some old habits died very hard indeed, the ghost stared around the room.
“What just happened?”
“Usually, when you manifest, your anger rips open one of those holes in the
fabric of the universe,” Claire explained, one knee of her jeans separating from a
sticky spot on the orange carpet with a sound like tearing Velcro. “I’m keeping you
from doing that, so the energy had to go somewhere else, creating a poltergeist
phenomenon.”
Cheryl actually looked intrigued. “Like in the movie?”
“I didn’t see the movie.”
“Again, not surprised.”
“Why? Don’t tell me I’ve got that movie-free look, too.”
“All right.”
“All right what?”
“All right, she won’t tell you,” Austin snickered.
Eyes narrowed, Claire glared down at him. “You are supposed to be on my
side. And as for you . . .” She turned her attention back to the smirking ghost. “. . . get
ready to move on.” She wasn’t supposed to make it sound like a threat, but she’d had
just about as much of Cheryl Poropat as she could handle. I’ve got a life, lady. Which
is more than I can say for you.
The ghost’s smirk disappeared. “Now?”
“Why not now?”
“Well, I’m still hanging here because I’ve got unfinished business, right?”
Claire sighed. She should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy. “If
that’s what you think.”
“And just what’s THAT supposed to mean?”
There was another small flare of energy. In the bathroom, the toilet flushed.
“With metaphysical phenomena, belief is very important. If you believe
you’re here because you have unfinished business, then that’s why you’re here.”
“Yeah? What if I believe I’m alive again?”
“Doesn’t work that way.”
“Figures.” She looked from Claire to Dean and back to Claire again. “Okay.
Unfinished business, I want to talk to my husband. You bring him here, you let me
have my say, and I’ll go.”
“Bring your husband here?”
“Can I can go to him?”
Claire shook her head. “No, you’re tied to this room.”
“Doomed to appear to couples and give them unwanted advice,” Dean added
from where he was kneeling in the narrow space between the bed and the bathroom
wall.
“No one ever wants relationship advice, sweet-cheeks.” For the first time
since she’d appeared, Cheryl looked at him like he was more than pretty meat. “But
how did you know?”
He sighed and tried not to think about what he was kneeling in. “We spoke to
Steve and Debbie.”
“Nice kids.”
“They’re some scared.”
“Yeah, well, death’s a bitch.”
“Can you believe that she died right after a nooner with my best friend?”
Howard Poropat sounded more resigned than upset by the revelation, his light tenor
voice releasing the words in a reluctant monotone that lifted slightly at the end of
each sentence, creating a tentative question. “Did she tell you that?”
“No, she didn’t mention it.” Claire braced herself as the car turned into the
motel parking lot, sliding a little in the accumulated slush. When she thought it was
safe to release her grip on the dashboard, she pointed. “There. Number 42.”
Jaw moving against a wad of nicotine gum, he steered the station wagon
where indicated. “Let’s just go over this again, can we? Cheryl’s ghost is haunting the
room she died in?”
“Yes.”
“And she can’t move on until she says something to me?”
“Apparently.” It hadn’t taken much effort to persuade him that it was possible.
For all that he reminded her of processed cheese slices, he had a weirdly egocentric
view of his place in the world.
“You think she wants to apologize?” The car slid to a stop, more-or-less in
front of the right room.
“I honestly don’t know,” Claire told him, slamming her shoulder against the
passenger side door and forcing it open. “Why don’t we go inside and find out?”
While Claire’d been gone, the room had been redecorated in early playing
cards. Most of them were just lying around, but several had been driven into the
ceiling’s acoustic tiles.
“What happened?”
Dean nodded toward the ghost and mouthed the word, “Boom!”
Brows drawn in, Cheryl folded her arms. “We were playing a little rummy to
pass the time, but he cheats!”
“Dean? I doubt that. He spent six months living next to a hole to Hell, and the
ultimate force of evil couldn’t even convince him to drop his underwear on the floor.”
“Not him, the cat!”
Austin continued washing a spotless white paw, ignoring both the
conversation and the seven of spades only partially hidden by a fringe of stomach fur.
Claire snorted. “What did you expect? He’s a cat.” She had no iIlea how a cat,
a ghost, and Dean had managed to play rummy when only one of them could actually
manipulate the cards, nor did she want to know. Shrugging off her jacket, she moved
farther into the room, pulling a suddenly reluctant Howard Poropat along with her by
the pocket on his beige duffle coat.
The ghost’s eyes widened. “I don’t believe it! How’d you convince him?”
“I asked him nicely.” She dropped down onto the edge of the bed, out of the
reconciliation’s direct line of fire.
“Cheryl?”
“Howard.”
The bed dipped as Dean joined her. Claire leaned back and, when her weight
pressed into his shoulder, turned her head to murmur, “You okay?”
“I got clipped by the six of clubs, but my sweater deflected it.”
Dean’s sweater was a traditional fisherman’s cable knit. Handmade by his
aunt from wool so raw it had barely paused between sheep and needles, Claire
suspected it could, if not deflect bullets, certainly discourage them. “Thanks for
staying with her.”
His arm slipped around her waist. “No problem, Boss, always willing to help.”
Austin’s right, Claire thought as they turned their attention back to the couple
staring into each other’s eyes in the center of the room. It’s been implied for a week,
what are we waiting for?
There’d been contact, touching, kissing, more touching, gentle explorations all
crammed into those rare moments when they were actually alone and not likely to
hear a speculative comment just as things got interesting, but somehow they hadn’t
moved on to that next step.
Maybe I should lock Austin in the bathroom.
The next level of intimacy.
Not that he’d stay there.
The horizontal mambo . . .
Stop it.
“Howard.”
“Cheryl?” Pulling off his glove with his teeth, he held out his hand and
stroked the air by her cheek. “The, uh, Keeper, says you got something to say to me?”
“That’s right.” She leaned into his touch. His baby finger sank into her eye
socket. She didn’t even notice, but Howard shuddered and snatched his hand away.
“It’s about me and Tony.”
“Tony? My best friend who you betrayed me with?”
“Yeah. Tony. I got something I need to say.”
Howard spread his hands, the picture of forgiving magnanimity. “What is it,
babe?”
Cheryl smiled. “I just wanted to say, had to say, before I left this world forever
. . .” All four of her listeners leaned into the pause. “... that Tony was a better lover
than you ever were. Bigger, better, and he knew how to use it! We did it twice, twice,
during his lunch hour, and he bought me a hoagie! He made me forget every
miserable time you ever TOUCHED ME!”
In the silence that followed the sound of Howard slamming up against the
inside of the door, the queen of hearts fell from the ceiling and Austin murmured, “I
gotta admit, that wasn’t totally unexpected.”
Calm and triumphant, Cheryl turned toward the bed. “All right, Keeper. I’m
ready.”
“Dean . . .”
“I’ll see that he’s okay.”
It only took a moment for Claire to send Cheryl on. Thinned by a distinct
sense of closure, the possibilities practically opened themselves.
“Remember what I said, hon.” Scarlet lips made a suggestive kissing motion.
“You oughta go for it.”
Keepers were always careful not to respond emotionally to provocation from
metaphysical accidents. Unfortunately, Claire remembered that after she shoved
Cheryl through to the Otherside just a little harder than necessary. A lot harder than
necessary.
Howard seemed essentially unaffected by both his dead wife’s parting words
and the impact with the door. As Claire resealed the barrier and turned, blinking away
afterimages of the beyond and of a translucent figure bouncing twice, Dean was
helping him onto the end of the nearer bed.
“Is she gone?” he asked, searching through thinning hair for a bump.
“Yes.”
“Is she in Hell?”
“Not my department.” Grasping the soft lines of his chin lightly with one
hand, Claire tilted his head up. “It’s time you went home, Howard.”
Pale blue eyes widened.
“You were thinking about your late wife and you couldn’t sleep, so you went
out for a drive.”
“For a drive. . . ?”
“You found yourself outside the motel room where she died, and you got out
of the car.”
“Out of the car. . . ?”
“You stared at the door to the room for a long moment.”
“Long moment... ?”
“Then you got back into the car and you went home.”
“Went home... ?”
“You don’t know why, but you feel better about her death and the way things
were left between you. You’re glad it’s over.”
“Glad to be rid of her.”
“Close enough.” It was the first definitive statement he’d made. She carefully
used the new, more probable version of events to wipe out his actual memories. Then,
still holding his chin, she walked him out to his car where she released him.
“Is he gone?” Dean asked as Claire came back into the room and sagged
against the door.
“Oh, yeah. I demanded to know what he was doing staring at my room and he,
after telling me his wife had died there, asked me if I wanted to comfort him.”
“He was sad?”
“Not that kind of comfort, Dean.”
“What . . . oh.”
“Lovely couple, weren’t they?” Rubbing her temples, she walked to the end of
the bed and scuffed out the X with the edge of her shoe. “Makes you want to swear
off relationships for the rest of your life.”
It took her a moment to figure out why the answering silence resonated like
the inside of a crowded elevator after an unexpected emission. Then she realized what
she’d said.
And who to.
“Open mouth, insert other foot,” Austin advised.
“But they were nasty.”
“No one’s arguing. Although I can’t understand why you’re afraid that you
and Dean will someday morph into them.”
Claire had a sudden vision of herself in red stretch pants and a turquoise
sweater and shuddered. “I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
Austin snorted. “My mistake.”
“You’re not getting a ... a feeling about it, are you?” No one had ever
determined if cats were actually clairvoyant or if they just enjoyed being furry little
shit disturbers. Claire usually leaned toward the latter, but tonight . . .
“It won’t happen, Claire.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I’m a cat.”
Claire used a finger to smooth down the soft fringe of hair behind Austin’s
ear. “Do you think I should wake him up and apologize?”
摘要：

Forallintentsandpurposes,themotelroomwasdarkandquiet.TheonlylightcameintermittentlythroughacrackinthecurtainsastherevolvingsignbytheroadspunaroundsofastitcaughtuptoitsafterimagesandappearedtoreadMotel666.Theonlysoundcamefromtherectangularbulkoftheheatingunitunderthewindowthatroaredoutwarmthatadecibe...

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