by Tanya Huff
Austin went three feet straight up.
“What’re you trying to do to me?” he snarled as he landed, fur sticking out at right angles from his body. “I’m old!”
“It was the imp. You saw it, didn’t you, Dean?”
“I saw…” He paused and replayed the scene as his heart rate returned to normal. “I saw something.”
“A mouse,” Austin told him tersely.
“I don’t know, it was…”
“An imp.” Claire’s tone left no room for argument. “Somebody,” she shot a scathing look at the cat, “has moved the trap.”
“Probably the mice.”
“Oh, give me a break.”
Sitting down with his back toward her, Austin began washing his shoulder with long, deliberate strokes of his tongue.
Although Dean hoped it was his imagination, the air between cat and Keeper felt chilled. “I could take the keyboard apart,” he offered, flipping it and frowning at the half-dozen, tiny, inset screw heads. “Maybe I can clean the coffee out of it”
“Take it apart? As in pieces?” On the other hand, she couldn’t use it the way it was so how much worse could it get. “All right But be careful.”
“No problem.” His enthusiastic smile faded as a bit of broken ceramic crushed under one work boot. “First off, I’ll go get a broom and dustpan.”
“Dean?”
He stopped on the other side of the counter.
“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
What was it? The sudden, deliberate destruction of the coffee mug had driven it right out of his head.
“Do you know what you are doing, Anglais?” Jacques leaned over Dean’s shoulder and poked an ethereal finger at the keyboard. “Can you put the pieces back together when they all fall out?”
“That’s not about to happen,” Dean told him, inserting a Phillips head screwdriver into the last tiny screw. “These day’s everything’s solid state.”
Leaning against the other side of the desk, Claire drummed bubblegum-colored fingernails on the CPU and bit her tongue. The buzz of the accumulated seepage had become a constant background noise as impossible to ignore as a dentist’s drill, and the smallest things set her off. She’d yelled at Dean for returning the wallpaper sample books before she’d finished with them after telling him that she’d definitely made up her mind, at Jacques for going through the dining room table rather than around, at Dean again for waiting until after lunch before opening up her keyboard, and at Austin, just because. It was like continual PMS only without the bloating.
“That’s got it.” Setting the screw in the saucer with the others, Dean slid a pair of slot screwdrivers into the crack between the front and back of the keyboard and twisted in opposite directions. The plastic began to creak as the tiny levers moved off the horizontal. When the crack widened to half an inch, he pried the back of the keyboard carefully free.
The sudden flurry of tiny white pieces of plastic exploding into the air strongly resembled a small, artificial blizzard.
“Score one for the dead guy,” Jacques observed when the last piece landed.
Dean scooped up one of the escapees. A tiny spring fell off one end, bounced on the desk, and rolled out of sight. “Sorry,” he said, shoulders up around his ears as he peered up over the top of his glasses at Claire. “But I’m sure I can fix it.”
It took an effort, but Claire managed to count all the way to ten before responding. “Just clean it up,” she snarled, “and move on.”
Dean’s eyes widened and a muscle jumped in his jaw.
“Now what’s your problem?”
“For a minute there you sounded…” He paused and shook his head. “It’s okay. I’ll just clean this up like you said.”
“I sounded like what?” Claire growled. “Tell me. Please.”
He didn’t want to tell her, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “Like Augustus Smythe.”
She stared at him, saw that he was serious, and opened her mouth to call him several choice names. Snapping it closed on the first of them, she stomped into her sitting room and slammed the door.
Jacques snickered. “I must hand it over to you Anglais, you have the way with women.”
“He said I sounded like Augustus Smythe!”
Austin rolled over and stared up at her. “No,” he said after a moment. “Too high-pitched.”
“It’s the seepage.” She rubbed at her temples where the buzz had lodged. “It’s barely been two weeks since I cleared it out, and it’s already making me cranky.”
“Got news for you, Claire, you’re way beyond cranky.”
“Smythe couldn’t have lived like this all the time.”
“Feeling sorry for him?”
“No.” Her lips pulled back off her teeth. “Wanting to wring his neck.”
“Maybe you’re more susceptible because you’re a Keeper and under normal circumstances, which these aren’t, you’re able to adjust the seepage.” The cat washed the black spot on his front leg thoughtfully. “Why not use it to close down the postcard?”
“Because the postcard is using seepage. If I close it down, in a few days I’ll have a worse problem than before. And besides, I don’t want to use it.”
“The postcard?”
“The seepage!” She dropped down onto the couch and emerged from the depths a few moments later to add another forty-three cents and a plain gold ring that smelled of fish to the half-filled bowl of retrieved flotsam on the coffee table. “I can’t go on like this.”
The distant sound of a ten-pound sledge slamming through plaster board jerked her forward, almost tipping her into the precarious area between the coach cushions.
Austin yawned. “Maybe you should cut back on the caffeine.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t say anything if you can’t say something helpful.” Tapping her nails against her thigh, Claire gritted her teeth. “There has to be a logical solution.”
“Why?”
“Shut up. Point: Power is seeping out around the edges of the seal two presumably dead Keepers created with another Keeper’s power. A further point: It’s not my power sealing the site, so I can’t make adjustments. Yet another point: I can’t just leave the seepage be because it’s driving me nuts. And one final point: The only way to get rid of the seepage buildup is to use it, but using the power of Hell can’t help but corrupt the individual using it no matter her intentions. So.” She drew in a deep breath and exhaled noisily. “Where does that get us?”
“Absolutely nowhere,” Austin told her, climbing onto her lap.
Claire slumped back into the sofa. “It was a rhetorical question anyway. What we need is a way to use the seepage without strengthening Hell.”
“Can’t be done. Hell works only in its own best interests.”
Stroking the cat, Claire spent a moment wallowing in the innate unfairness of the universe, and then…
“Hey!” Austin fought his way out from between the two sofa cushions. “If you’re going to stand suddenly, warn a guy!”
“Hell can be made to work against itself.” Claire whirled around to face the cat. “I’ll feed the seepage into the shield around the furnace room!”
The cat stepped over onto the coffee table and, with a solid surface below him, paused to smooth the ruffled fur along his side. “How?” he asked after a moment.
“Adhesion. The moment anything escapes from the pit. Slap!” She smacked her palms together. “Right into the shield but set up so that it’s distributed evenly, like oyster spit building a pearl. Hell sends more out, the shield gets stronger. Hell sends nothing at all, nothing happens because the original shield is still in place.”
After a moment, Austin nodded. “It’s brilliant”
Claire picked him up and kissed the top of his head. “It’s why I get the big bucks,” she agreed.
Sledge over his shoulder, Dean bounded down the stairs into the lobby and rocked to a dead stop when he saw Claire’s door open. “I uh, pi
led all the bits of your keyboard on the desk,” he said as she emerged.
To his surprise, she smiled. “That’s great. When I get a minute, I’ll separate what’s recyclable and throw the rest out.”
He took a tentative step closer. When he realized he was holding the sledge across his body like a shield, he let it swing down until the head rested on the floor. “You’re not angry, then?” he asked tentatively.
Claire shrugged. “Accidents happen.”
“No, I meant about saying you sounded like…” Although she no longer seemed as crusty as she had, it didn’t seem polite to say it again. “You know.”
“I was angry because you were right.”
Coming out from behind the counter, Austin performed an exaggerated double take. Dean tried not to smile.
“But,” she continued, “I’ve come up with a way to solve the problem.” She nodded toward the sledge. “How’s the elevator coming?”
“We’ve got all four doors cleared. They didn’t take anything out when they closed the system up, so it just needs the trim back around the holes. Jacques is in the attic right now having a look at the works.”
“Jacques is?”
“It’s old,” Dean told her cheerfully, as though that explained everything. When it didn’t appear to, he added, “It’s the sort of machinery he’s familiar with.”
Walking over to the recessed doorway, Claire peered through the wrought iron scrollwork into the closet-sized space. She could just barely make out the cables. “Where’s the car?”
“In the basement.”
“Given what’s in the furnace room, is that entirely safe?”
“Given gravity, the basement seemed safest.”
Up on her toes, Claire sent a pale white light into the shaft. Everything she could see seemed in remarkably good shape, but she supposed there was no point in taking chances. “You’re probably right.”
Austin sat back on his haunches and stared up at her in astonishment. “That’s twice.”
She ignored him. “Do you think you can get it working?”
“Sure.” Dean’s grip slipped as he realized what he’d said. “I mean, yeah. No problem.”
“Don’t try it without me. I’d like to be in on the inaugural ride.”
“It might not be safe….”
“It’ll be safer with me in it.” Turning to go, she paused and took a deep breath. There was one more thing she’d resolved to do. “Oh, and, Dean? I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”
“That’s okay. It was nothing.”
“It was something if I’ve apologized for it.”
At that point he decided it would be safer if he just kept quiet.
“Two admissions that someone else might be right and an apology. Circle this day on the calendar,” Austin muttered as he followed Claire toward the basement.
“The boys seem to be getting along better,” Claire noted as she opened the padlocks.
“They’re not boys,” Austin snorted from the top of the washing machine.
“It’s a figure of speech.”
“Dean likes you.”
“Get real, he calls me Boss.”
“He called you Claire when you fell down the stairs.”
“He did?” Given the way her tailbone had impacted with the edge of the step, she wasn’t surprised she hadn’t noticed. “Means nothing.”
“Then what about the way he looks at you?”
“He’s twenty. The way he looks at women isn’t under his conscious control.”
“All right; what about the way you look at him?”
She twisted around enough to grin at the cat. “Like I said, he’s twenty. It’s an aesthetic appreciation.”
Austin’s tail beat out an audible rhythm against the enameled steel. “I know that babysitting a site at your age was the last thing you wanted, but it’s given you a chance few Keepers get and you’ll kick yourself if you blow it.”
“Blow what?”
“The chance for a relationship.”
“A relationship?” Claire sighed. “Have you been watching Oprah again?”
“No! Well, actually, yes,” he amended. “But that has nothing to do with this.”
“Forget it, Austin. Dean’s attractive, yes, but he’s too young.”
“Jacques isn’t.”
“Jacques is too dead.”
“Dean isn’t.”
She hung the chains on their hooks and turned to glare at her companion. “You’re not the only one concerned about my having or not having a relationship; Hell suggested Jacques and I settle down for the duration.”
“Just because something is an anthropomorphism of ultimate evil, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t your best interests at heart.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Fine. But your health is important to me.”
“My health?”
“It’s been nearly six months.”
“So?”
“If I remember correctly, the last incident wasn’t terribly successful.”
Her brows drew in. “What are you talking about?”
“I was under the bed.”
“You were under the bed!”
“Hey, it’s all just loud noises to me.” He stretched out a back leg and stared down at the spread toes. “Mind you, some loud noises are more believable than others.”
Claire counted to ten and let it go, reminding herself, once again, that no one ever won an argument with a cat.
Young Keepers started out believing that accessing the possibilities required inner calm and outer silence. After their first couple of sites they realized calm and quiet were luxuries they’d seldom have. Claire’s first site had been in the sale bin at a discount department store. It hadn’t been pretty, but it had prepared her for eventually working through the catcalls and attempted interference of Hell.
Breathing shallowly through her mouth, she adjusted the possibilities on the inside of the shield until the seepage began to adhere. It was a simple, elegant solution and she left the furnace room three hours later stinking of brimstone and feeling inordinately pleased with herself.
PRIDE IS ONE OF OURS, Hell called after her. When the only response was the slamming of the furnace room door, it examined the addition to its binding. IS SHE ALLOWED TO DO THAT? it asked sulkily.
NOTHING SEEMS TO BE STOPPING HER.
WE SHOULD BE STOPPING HER.
WELL, DUH.
As he heard Claire come into the lobby, Dean looked up from sorting the mail. “Good timing, Boss; you…you look like something they dragged off the bottom of the harbor.”
“Thank you, Dean, I’m touched by your concern. You forgot to mention that I smell like something from the sewage treatment plant.” She paused, took a deep breath, and ducked under the counter, swaying a little when she straightened on the other side.
Dean took a step toward her. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look exhausted.”
“I’m a bit tired, yes. I’ve been working.”
“On the pit?”
“By the pit.”
“Is that safe?”
“It is now.”
“I don’t understand.” He frowned. “Did you figure out how to seal it?”
“Wouldn’t that be good news?” Austin asked before Claire could respond.
“Well, sure…”
“Then shouldn’t you sound happier about it?”
“Stop being annoying just because you can,” Claire suggested. Turning back to Dean, she shook her head. “No, I haven’t figured out how to seal the pit, but I have solved a smaller problem. What did you mean when you said, good timing?”
It took him a moment to follow the path of the conversation. “The mail’s finally here. You got a postcard.”
Claire took the cardboard rectangle between thumb and forefinger, glanced at the photograph of a tropical paradise, then flipped the card over.
“Who’s it from?” Dean asked, leanin
g forward.
“My sister, Diana. Apparently, she’s in the Philippines.”
Austin’s ears went back. “Didn’t they just have a huge volcanic eruption in the Philippines?”
“We don’t know that was her fault.” A tooth mark on the edge of the postcard had the distinct, punched hole appearance of Baby’s games with the mailman. “Speaking of natural disasters, we haven’t heard from Mrs. Abrams for a while.”
“Maybe the blinds discouraged her?” Dean offered.
“Maybe we should put the wagon train in a circle,” Austin muttered. “You should start to worry when the drums stop.”
After a long hot shower, Claire spent the rest of the day sprawled in an armchair, watching a National Geographic video about killer whales. It was one of only eleven tapes she’d salvaged from Augustus Smythe’s extensive collection. The pornography hadn’t been the worst of it; his video library had also included every episode of “Gunsmoke” plus a nearly complete collection of “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
Hell was not only murky, it filled out subscription forms.
“You coming, Austin?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Tail lashing from side to side he backed up a step just in case Claire decided to force the issue. “You actually want me to get into that cross between a cage and a coffin, allow myself to be lifted three stories off the ground by an antique mechanism reinstalled by a cook under the direction of a dead sailor? I think not.”
“It’s perfectly safe.”
“That’s what you said about that cruise.”
“Cruise?” Jacques asked by her ear.
“Bermuda Triangle. Long story,” Claire told him.
“I wouldn’t get into that thing,” Austin continued, ears flat, “if I still had all nine lives. Not even if I’d rescued Princess Toadstool and picked up another life. If anything goes wrong, somebody has to be around to say I told you so.”
“Suit yourself.” Unfortunately for any second thoughts she might have been having, Claire couldn’t back out now, not with the cat so vehemently opposed. He was quite smug enough without her giving him more ammunition. She closed the door, dropped the inner gate, and turned to the more corporeal of her two companions. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”