Summon the Keeper

by Tanya Huff

  Teeth clenched, she gave the shower taps a savage twist, snarled wordlessly when the pipes began banging out their delivery of hot water, and bit back an extremely dangerous oath when the temperature spent a good two minutes fluctuating between too hot and too cold.

  She finally began to calm as she lathered the Apothecary’s shampoo—guaranteed not tested on mythical creatures—into her hair, and by the time she’d sudsed, rinsed, and dried, she’d relaxed considerably. When Hell actually let her blow-dry and style in peace, she left the bathroom feeling remarkably cheerful.

  Her good mood lasted through dressing and right into the day’s search for the Historian.

  Curled up on a pillow, Austin lifted his head as the wardrobe door opened and Claire emerged soaking wet “You’re cutting it close,” he said. “You’ve just barely left. What happened?”

  “Tropical storm,” Claire told him tightly, pushing streaming hair back off her face. “Came up on shore after me and followed me about ten kilometers inland. Good thing I was driving an import or I’d never have stayed on the road.”

  “One of the Historian’s early warning systems?”

  Claire shrugged, her sweater sagging off her shoulders. “Who knows?” Trailing a small river behind her, she picked up some dry clothes, held carefully at arm’s length, and headed for the bathroom.

  Dumping her wet clothes in a pile on the floor, she dressed quickly and, stomach growling, picked up her blow-dryer. “This one’s going to be quick and sleazy,” she muttered, bending over and applying the hot air. “I’m too hungry for style.”

  When she straightened, Jacques stared at her from out of the mirror.

  “Oh, hell,” she sighed.

  “Got it in one, cherie.” His lips curled up into the lopsided smile that raised his looks, from passable to strangely attractive— strangely attractive were it not for Hell’s signature substitution of glowing red eyes. “I’m sorry I missed you earlier.”

  “Just get on with it.”

  The image shook its head. “You would think,” it said teasingly, “that you were in a hurry to get somewhere. You can’t leave, cherie.” The smile disappeared. “Neither of us can leave. We have been thrown together here, why not make the most of it?”

  She had every intention of leaving, but her mother’s suggestion that she not argue with Hell had been a good one. “What did you have in mind?”

  “With the power of the pentagram, you could give me a body nightly as easily as you could snap your fingers.”

  Claire frowned. “Don’t you mean opening the pentagram would give me that power?”

  “Things are not sealed so tightly as all that.” Red eyes actually managed a twinkle. “Augustus Smythe knew the benefits of using the seepage. How do you think he kept himself amused?”

  “I think that’s fairly obvious.” She folded her arms. “If I can use the seepage without releasing the hordes of Hell, what’s in it for you?”

  He looked hurt “Must there be something in it for us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps we find that a happy Keeper is a Keeper easier to live with.”

  “I’m sure that Augustus Smythe was a joy.”

  “He was Cousin, cherie. You are a Keeper. Surely you are stronger?”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “Perhaps.” The image saddened. “You get so few chances to have another’s life touch yours. A frenzied fumbling in the dark—and we have nothing against that, cherie—and then you move on. Only when Keepers are old do they stay in one place long enough to find a mate for the soul and, by then, they are too old to recognize such a one. You have a chance, cherie, a chance few Keepers get.”

  Claire’s nostrils flared. “He’s dead.”

  “Ah, I see. You will not take the risk, even though there is no danger to you, because it is what a Keeper does not do. A Keeper does not take risks for such a minor thing as happiness.” The image saddened. “For once in your life, cherie, can you not give in to desire without questioning if it is what a Keeper should do?” It raised its left hand and pressed it against the inside of the glass. “Can you not reach out and meet me halfway?”

  She felt her right hand lift and forced it back down by her side. “You’re good,” she snarled.

  The image in the mirror let its hand fall back as well, fully aware that the mood had been broken. “Technically, no. But we accept the compliment.”

  “Give me back my reflection. Now!”

  “As you asked so nicely, cherie…” Jacques’ image faded slowly, calling her name as though he were being pulled into torment.

  “You’re not Jacques,” Claire told it and found herself talking to herself.

  “Claire!”

  When she opened the bathroom door, Austin tumbled in and rolled once on the mat. He took a moment to compose himself, then said, with studied nonchalance, as though he hadn’t just been trying to dig his way through the door, “Dean and Jacques are fighting.”

  “You mean they’re arguing.”

  “No. I mean they’re fighting.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “So one would assume, but they seem to have found a way.”

  She tossed her blow-dryer down by the sink and ran her fingers through her hair, forcing most of it into place. “All right,” she sighed, “where are they?”

  “The third-floor hall.” Austin paused, licked his shoulder, and stepped out of the way. “Directly in front of room six.”

  His foresight kept him from being trampled as Claire raced for the stairs.

  The effect depended on who delivered the blow. If Dean punched his fist through Jacques’ immaterial body, then Jacques felt it. If Jacques drove his immaterial fist through Dean’s body, then Dean felt it. It wasn’t much of an effect either way, being closer to mild discomfort than actual pain, but neither the living nor the dead cared. The point was to score the point.

  “Stop it! Stop it this instant!” Breathing heavily from her run up the two flights of stairs, Claire flung herself between the combatants, then sucked in a startled gasp as Jacques’ hand sliced through her body from hip to hip dragging a sensation of burning cold behind it. When she staggered back, she found herself pressed up against the warm length of Dean’s torso and that was almost as disconcerting.

  Jerking forward, she turned sideways and presented a raised hand to each man. “That will be quite enough! Would one of you like to explain what the h…heck is going on?”

  Silence settled like three feet of snow.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “It is not your business…” Jacques began. His protest died as Claire turned the full force of her disapproval in his direction.

  “Everything that happens in this building is my business,” she told him. “I want an explanation and I want it now.”

  Jacques smoothed back translucent hair. “Ask your houseboy.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Why? Le cochon maudit, he started it.”

  As Claire turned to face him, Dean bit back an answering insult.

  “Well?” she prodded.

  “He accused me of picking up his anchors. Of keeping him from walking around the hotel.”

  “Were you?”

  “No!” When he saw Jacques’ mouth open, he shifted his weight forward and said, “Okay, I picked up that picture there, but I didn’t know it was one of his anchors.”

  “You accuse me of hiding behind Claire.”

  “And look where you are.”

  “Fini! Je suis a bout! I have had it up to here!”

  “FREEZE!”

  Jacques stopped his forward advance, and Dean rocked back on his heels.

  Arms folded, Claire turned slowly to face Dean. “Did you really say that?”

  Dean nodded sheepishly, gaze locked on the carpet.

  “Why?”

  Ears red, he shrugged without looking up. “I don’t know.”

  Since he was telling the truth, Claire ign
ored the rude noises coming from behind her. “All right, then, I suggest—no, this needs something stronger than a mere suggestion—I insist that we continue this, whatever this is, downstairs. We’re uncomfortably close to her.”

  “Her?” Jacques repeated, coming between Claire and the stairs. “By her, I am wondering, do you mean, her?”

  “She’s in room six,” Claire told him, pointing with broad emphasis at the splintered door. She opened her mouth to demand he get out of her way when she realized all his attention was on Dean. The air crackled as he moved past her.

  “You thought that I, Jacques Labaet, did want to wake her?”

  Several hundred childhood stories of vengeful spirits passed through Dean’s head, but he held his ground, wondering why adults thought it necessary to scare the snot out of kids. “I only thought it at first.”

  “You dare to give me this insult!”

  “The picture was right by her door.”

  “And so were you!”

  “I was vacuuming!”

  “The carpet,” Jacques spat, drifting up so they were nose-to-nose, “is clean! Perhaps you mean to wake her, and I come in time to stop you!”

  It was only twenty after eight, but Dean had already had a bad morning. The carpet was not clean, it hadn’t been vacuumed in a week and it didn’t look as though it was going to get vacuumed any time soon. Sure, he’d discovered a suspicious side of himself he didn’t much like, but he didn’t think he deserved to be accused of treachery by someone intent on necrophilia. Of a sort. “You go to Hell,” he said with feeling.

  Jacques disappeared.

  “Oh, shit!” Claire clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late.

  Dean’s eyes widened and, fumbling for his keys, he raced for room five.

  With no time to explain, Claire flung herself down the stairs. How could he have done that? She missed a step, fell five, caught her balance, and picked up speed. There’s no way he should’ve been able to do that. By the time she turned onto the basement stairs, her sock-covered feet barely touched the wood. One more floor and she’d have been the first Keeper to fly with out an appliance.

  She turned the chains and padlocks to rice and then kicked piles of it out of the way as she dragged open the furnace room door.

  “Claire!” Suspended over the pit, Jacques flickered like a bulb about to go out. “Help me!”

  Skidding to a halt at the edge of the pentagram, Claire hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do. Because of the seal, Jacques hadn’t gone directly to Hell, but there was sufficient power in the area directly over the pit to shred his ties to the physical world. When the last strand ripped free, his soul would be absorbed, seal or no seal.

  “Claaaaaaaaire!”

  She could barely hear her name in the panicked wail. Making it up as she went along, she reached out with her will.

  HE WAS GIVEN TO US!

  “It doesn’t work that way.” Slowly, she wrapped possibilities around the thrashing, flickering ghost. “You know the rules.”

  RULES DO NOT APPLY TO US.

  “You wish. Souls come to you by their own actions. They can’t be given to you.”

  BUT HE’S DEAD.

  “So?” It was like scooping a flopping fish out of a tidal pool with a net made of wet toilet paper.

  WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO JUDGE HIS ACTIONS.

  “Not on this side you don’t.”

  WE’RE HELPING HIM PASS OVER.

  “Not if I have anything to say about it.” Holding him as securely as possible, Claire began to pull Jacques toward the edge of the pit. His struggles made it difficult to tell how quickly he was moving, but after a few tense moments he was definitely closer to the side than the middle.

  When eldritch power crawled like a bloated fly over the part of her will extending over the edge of the pentagram, she realized Hell was analyzing the rescue attempt. She felt it remove its attention from Jacques and gather its resources. There was barely time to brace herself before an energy spike thrust up out of the depths, dragging both her will and Jacques back toward the center of the pit.

  LET HIM GO. HE IS NOTHING TO YOU.

  “That’s not what your recent temptation implied.”

  WE’RE BIG ENOUGH TO ADMIT WHEN WE’RE WRONG.

  Sock feet slid closer to the edge of the pentagram.

  ON SECOND THOUGHT, DON’T LET HIM GO.

  If she let him go, the odds were good she wouldn’t fasten onto him again before Hell tore through the bonds holding him to the world. If she didn’t let him go, she’d be dragged through the pentagram and his fate would be a minor footnote to the cataclysm as the seal broke. Her toes dug through her socks and into the imperfection in the rock floor, but that only slowed her.

  Jacques or the world?

  It was the sort of dilemma Hell delighted in. Claire could feel its pleasure in the certain knowledge that she’d have to sacrifice Jacques for the lives of millions.

  Then strong arms wrapped around her from behind. Her toes stopped millimeters from disaster.

  “Bring him in,” Dean told her, tightening his grip one arm at a time. “And let’s get out of here.”

  Constrained by the pentagram, Hell stood no chance against the deeply ridged treads on a pair of winter work boots designed to get the wearer up and down the chutes of St. Johns.

  Weight on his heels, Dean stepped back, once, twice, dragging Claire back with him, dragging Jacques with her. At the outside edge of the pentagram, the tension snapped and flung all three of them against the far wall of the furnace room; first Dean, then Claire, then Jacques, who slapped through them both like a cold fog to smash in turn against the rock.

  Teeth gritted, Claire pried herself up off of Dean, used the wall to pull herself to her feet, and attempted to blink away the afterimages caused by impact with limestone closely followed by Jacques’ left knee passing between her eyes. “Is everyone all right?”

  “I guess.” Dean braced himself against the floor, separated himself from Jacques’ right arm and shoulder, and stood.

  “Jacques?”

  “Non. I am not all right. Where are we?”

  “The furnace room,” Dean answered, before Claire had a chance.

  “What? In the hotel?” The last syllable rose to a shriek.

  “Yeah. The furnace room in the hotel.” Dean shot a look both wounded and disapproving at Claire. “But I don’t think we should stay.”

  Jacques glanced wide-eyed toward the pentagram. “It is real?”

  “It is,” Claire told him, holding her head in both hands. When they’d broken free, her will had retracted and she had the kind of headache that came with trying to fit approximately twelve feet of power in an eight-inch skull.

  “Then we talk in the dining room.” Still flickering around the edges, he disappeared.

  “The dining room,” Claire repeated. “Good plan.” Staggering slightly, she started up the stairs.

  One hand out to catch her if she fell, Dean followed, still far, far too angry to give in to the faint gibbering he could hear coming from inner bits of his brain. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a hole to Hell in the furnace room?”

  “I’m a Keeper, it’s my duty to protect you.”

  “From what?”

  “Living in terror.”

  A LIE. A VERITABLE FALSEHOOD!

  Claire sighed. She couldn’t believe a headache could pack so much mass; it felt as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. “From having to bear more than I thought you could.”

  “Didn’t think much of me, did you? Do you?”

  Heaving herself up another step, she waved more or less toward the pit. “Dean, it’s Hell!”

  “We’ve a saying back home…”

  “Please, spare me.”

  “…some don’t be afraid of the sea, they goes down to the sea, and they be drowned. But I be afraid of the sea, and I goes down to the sea, and I only be drowned now and then.”

  “What the
h…”

  SAY IT.

  “…heck does that mean?” she snarled.

  “Fear can keep you alive. You should’ve told me.”

  KEEPERS, ALWAYS THINK THEY KNOW WHAT’S…

  Claire slammed the door shut on the last word, spraying uncooked rice all over the basement.

  A single grain of those pushed inside the furnace room flew down the stairs and tumbled end over end across the stone floor. It stopped no more than its own width away from the outermost edge of the glyphs that sealed the pentagram.

  DAMN.

  “Look, Dean, you knew what you needed to know.” Claire kicked at a mound of rice, guilt making her sound petulant even to her own ears. “I told you there was a major accident site down here; I just didn’t name it.”

  His back against the furnace room door, Dean stared at her, unable to believe what he was hearing. “You didn’t name it? It’s not like you forgot to tell me it was called Fred or George or Harold. It’s Hell!”

  “Technically, it’s energy from the lower end of the possibilities manifesting itself in a format the person who called it up could understand.”

  “And that format?”

  “Is Hell; all right?” Sagging back against the washing machine, she threw up her hands. “You win.”

  Dean jerked a hand back through his hair. “It’s not about winning.” He paused, trying to figure out what it was he’d won. “Okay. Maybe it is. You’re admitting you should have told me, right?”

  “Right.”

  “That you were wrong?”

  She found enough energy to lift her head. “Don’t push it.” One fingernail traced the maker’s name stamped into the front of the washer. “So now you know, what are you going to do? Are you going to leave?”

  “Leave?” Leave. He hadn’t actually thought it through that far.

  “What’s the point?” his common sense wanted to know. “There’s nothing there that hasn’t been there for the last year.”

  “Shouldn’t you be telling me to pack?”

  “Too late.”