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  Thanks a lot, Pete. You know, you could’ve told the operators to tell callers we sucked!

  “Viv can pay you well,” Iona added. “And it’s for a good cause. The best, in fact.”

  “And that is?” asked Vayl as he dropped the curtain and turned to listen to Viv’s explanation.

  “Finally ridding the world of a murderer.”

  Chapter Eight

  To give the girl credit, Viv didn’t burst into tears again, though it looked for a minute like we were going to have to break out the sponge mop. Then she gave a full-body shudder and went on signing, with Iona launching into first person, probably hoping to affect our decision by speaking as if her words were Viv’s.

  “Last year, when I was at university, my roommates and I were attacked by a man. He raped them and cut their throats. But when it came to me he had to hurry. My mum had been calling all that night, and when no one answered she and my dad had shown up at the door. So he stabbed the knife into my throat, severing my vocal chords. He had a gun too, which he used to shoot through the door. He killed my dad. While my mum was on the floor, trying to stop the bleeding, he ran out of the apartment. She told the police she didn’t get a good look at him. And she made me agree that I hadn’t either.”

  Viv had begun to lose so much color I considered shoving her head between her legs to make sure she didn’t pass out. Her fingers were also shaking so bad Iona couldn’t have been able to tell what she was saying, but she must’ve heard the story before, because she went on without a break. “Mum tells strangers I was born deaf and mute so she doesn’t have to explain the real reason I need to sign. To friends and relatives, she said I’d been injured in a car accident and, because she knows a lot of highly connected people, my part in the tragedy was left out. The newspapers related that I’d gone home for a few days because I was sick and needed tending. And I was ill, too weak and distraught to do much more than cry. It wasn’t just what had happened to me and my friends. He’d killed my dad too. Leaving me with a mum who’d never really understood or connected with me. But she loved me. How much I came to understand months later. When I saw the ghost of my dad’s murderer at the bus stop.”

  I held up my hand. “Hang on. Are you sure it was him? And that you weren’t, you know, having a little bit of a breakdown?” Especially since I knew they could reattach vocal chords. Which meant if she couldn’t talk now, the reason might not be totally physical.

  “I’m positive. Because Mum saw him too. She gave a little scream and said, ‘Viv, that’s him, isn’t it?’ as she pointed beyond the waiting crowd. How could I mistake that thin brown hair and those long yellow teeth?” Viv shook her head. “She was so furious! ‘He’s died!’ she said. ‘I’ve been paying private investigators to find him for months, and he’s gone and snuffed it! What do you think of that?’

  “I said that I thought it was the best news I’d heard in forever. But she couldn’t be consoled. ‘It’s not enough for him to be gone,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to chase him into the afterlife and make his existence there a misery as well!’ And ever since then she’s been obsessed. She only sleeps two or three hours a night. She won’t entertain any other topic of conversation. She keeps me close to protect me, but it’s making me feel wrong now just being around her. I can’t get shed of my past because she won’t let it go. So I want you to do it for her. Kill that ghost. Make it so she can never lay eyes on him again. Can you do that?”

  Oh, shit.

  Cole looked back at me with such hope that I felt doubly guilty for agreeing to a cover that desperate people would flock to. Vayl walked over to Viv and held out his hand for hers. He rubbed the small, nail-bitten fingers between his as he said, “Let me explain what is happening so that you understand what you ask of us.”

  She nodded, as if she believed Vayl really needed permission for anything he decided to do. He said, “Ghosts are not typical spirits, most of whom find absolute release when they die and can only be reached through mediums. Even then contact is limited and communications often confused. They are so far away, you see. Ghosts, on the other hand, exist in a place we call the Thin, because the wall between their plane and ours is so often breached. You do not have to possess special abilities to see or even interact with a ghost, though the latter is highly inadvisable.”

  “Why?” asked Iona. “You do it all the time.”

  After a pause Vayl replied. “We understand the dangers involved. Why do you suppose you have heard so many ghost stories since you were old enough to sit with a flashlight shining into your face?”

  “Because it’s fun?” suggested Cole.

  Since I sat too far away to kick him I shot him a shut-up! look instead. He zipped it. Vayl continued. “Most cultures understand how important it is to instill the fear of ghosts into their children. Because they truly are the shades of their former souls. The dark and hungry remainder of what was abandoned when the rest was either saved or condemned.”

  “I don’t understand,” Viv signed. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because these creatures exist in torment. Think of it. When a soul is offered paradise, it sheds all that was evil and despicable within it. But that part does not always dissipate. In the same way, when a soul is ravaged unto hell, a section is sometimes left behind. Like a lobotomy, the soul’s rebellious tendencies are ripped away, so that the tortures Lucifer designs for his victims are endured rather than revolted against.”

  “But it doesn’t happen in every case?” asked Iona.

  “Only in extremes,” he said. “But this causes the Thin to be a savage world from which ghosts constantly seek escape. When they find a way to rip through, into our plane, sometimes they find a moment of tranquillity. A time when they remember who they were. What you are asking us to do by releasing this man from the Thin, the man who raped and murdered your friends, who killed your father and tried to kill you, is to give him peace.”

  Vayl paused, searching Viv’s eyes. “Are you ready to do that?”

  Viv had begun to shake. Just a fine tremor throughout her body that hardly even moved her unless you looked closely. And then you could see it everywhere, as if we’d connected her to a low-voltage current while Vayl talked. And he wouldn’t stop. He said, “You must also understand that even if we lay his ghost to rest, your mother would still be obsessed. Her fury at your father’s death and your injuries is so immense that it terrifies her. So she pushes it outward.”

  “Still,” said Iona, not even looking to Viv for confirmation, “maybe this would help her.”

  Vayl nodded. “Perhaps. I simply want you to understand all the parameters of this solution before you make the choice.”

  Viv sighed and dropped her hands to her lap, her eyes studying the painting of a bright red poppy that hung over the bed on which she sat. She signed something and when Iona nodded without speaking I asked Cole, “What did she say?”

  He looked up at her sadly. “She said she just wants it to be over.”

  I would’ve suggested that she talk to her mom about how she felt, but I also had a bullheaded parent who wouldn’t listen to reason. Eventually Viv would have to figure out that she was a grown-up, and it was time for her to do what she needed to make herself whole again. Even if that meant she left Rhona alone, ranting about organizing ghost town so she could somehow achieve revenge on the shade of her husband’s killer.

  Cole stood up slowly and rubbed the kinks out of his legs. Without consulting either one of us he said, “We’ll do whatever you need, Viv. Just let us know your decision, okay?”

  She nodded, tugging at the scarf around her neck like it was a noose. As I stood to leave, hefting the goddess lamp and scratching Jack on the head when he leaped to his feet, Vayl said, “I wonder if you would mind answering one last question for us. Floraidh seemed anxious to avoid discussing the man we nearly ran over in her lane. Are you sure you have not seen him walking in that area?”

  Iona said, “Actually I did, just as we turned i
n. I hated to mention anything earlier; Floraidh seemed so disturbed by the idea. But he was standing on the corner with his hands behind his back, watching us rather mournfully. I pointed him out to Viv, but when she tried to get a glimpse, he’d gone. He seemed an old-fashioned dresser to me. Almost like an actor in a costume, wouldn’t you say?” she asked.

  Vayl nodded. “Indeed. The longer I think on it, the more I believe his suit was from a different era. Perhaps the late 1800s.”

  Cole asked, “How could you tell?”

  “I recalled his suit coat was buttoned only at the top. And his vest was cut straight across at the waist.”

  “So you’re into period clothing?” asked Iona.

  “We run into a lot of ghosts from that age,” I said. “Don’t know why. Just plenty of remnants from the 1880s.”

  “So we saw a ghost?” Cole asked.

  “Certainly this discussion has made me wonder,” said Vayl. “I suppose there is only one way for us to find out. We will simply have to set up our equipment. With Floraidh’s permission, of course.” He turned to Viv. “As for your issue, it is as Del, here, suggested. We will await your decision and act accordingly.”

  She nodded, the contemplation on her face transforming it into a beautifully fragile portrait. But I realized that behind that delicate picture lurked the soul of an Amazon. Those funky shoes proved it. And if she could just get through this terrible time, I had a feeling Viv would finally discover it for herself.

  Chapter Nine

  We left Iona and Viv with the agreement that we’d sit with them at GhostCon’s opening ceremonies, and split up in the hallway outside their door. Vayl and Cole went to track down Floraidh. Their plan: charm her into saying anything-you-like to setting up our cameras and various other phantom detectors, which, of course, detected no such thing. We’d already manufactured an excuse to flood the house with our Bergman-made goodies, all of them meant to help us track an assassin’s movements. But our experience on the lane had provided us with a better story, one Floraidh might buy. Especially when Vayl waved a few hundred-pound notes under her upturned nose.

  Since the guys had deserted us, I grabbed Jack’s supplies from my trunk and we trotted downstairs to the kitchen. Like the other rooms in the house, this one tried its hand at cozy. A farmer’s table holding a blue bowl brimming with fruit and surrounded by six tall chairs dominated the south side of the pea-green room. On the north side, a work island and white cabinets whose doors had been stenciled with red flowers connected by leafy vines gave it balance. Though when I began to imagine what all the coven members chopped on the hard maple surface of that island, the kitchen stopped seeming so quaint.

  The fake wooden countertops held your typical assortment of canisters, cookbooks, and small appliances. A refrigerator took up space by the door we’d just entered, and an oven stood by the second exit, the window above it overlooking the backyard.

  After supplying the dog with his supper, I checked the fridge and found it packed with leftovers and bottled drinks. As I helped myself to a couple of waters, I noticed Jack had deserted his Iams to sniff at the spotless white stove.

  “Whatcha got there, pal? Something fall out of a casserole dish that you need to sample?” I opened the door only enough to get a look, since I could imagine him shoving his whole face in and licking charred grossness off its floor. He didn’t even try. Just looked up at me as I tried to decide why Floraidh would store a bowl full of ashes on its bottom shelf.

  It’s probably just burned hickory. Maybe she flavors roasts that way, I told myself as Jack trotted back to his dinner. If it had been any other B and B I’d have left the bowl alone. Since it was Tearlach I pulled it out and set it on the counter.

  Time to check for unscheduled interruptions. All I could see out the window was an herb garden leading to a stretch of deep green lawn and a stone barn with red doors and matching roof, all of it backed by a thick, spooky forest called Culloden Wood. So I tiptoed to the lounge. Yup, the Scidairans stood out front with Vayl and Cole, who seemed to be deep into their sales pitch. Albert had decided that meant he was dismissed and turned to come inside.

  I rushed back to the kitchen, put a finger to my lips when Jack looked up at me in surprise. As he shoved his nose back in his food I returned to the ash bowl. Okay, I’ll play archaeologist. But only for a minute. I found the silverware drawer on the third try. Used a spoon to sift through. Because not everything burns when . . . yup. There it was. A human tooth.

  Fuck!

  The thoughts hit me simultaneously. I’m scooping through human remains like they’re freaking Raisin Bran! And. I have to put them back where I found them. I hated the idea of not rescuing them, giving them a proper burial, or at least scattering them somewhere so the coven couldn’t use them for their obscene little rituals. But that would so blow my cover.

  I found a Baggie in another drawer, deposited the tooth, some ashes, and the spoon, stuffed it in my jacket pocket and returned the bowl to the stove. Albert had stumped upstairs by now. And since Jack had nearly finished his grub, I grabbed a banana and an apple out of the fruit bowl.

  “We need to go,” I said, reaching for the leash. I didn’t have a lot of free minutes. Cole and Vayl would convince Floraidh to allow them to set up the equipment, and one of them would keep an eye on her while the other worked. That just gave me time to call a courier for my gruesome find and run the names of the guests through the Agency’s database. Then it’d be my turn to shadow her.

  This sucks! There’s human ashes in the oven. I’m fetching food for my dad like the Tearlach bellboy. And I have to play bodyguard to the bitch who recently advised Edward Samos to burn me alive.

  I tried to console myself with the memory of how my brother had come up with the idea of escaping Samos’s trap. How we’d turned his magic against him and ultimately watched him die. He is dead. And you’ll only have to protect his former ally until you find Bea. Or maybe till you figure out who’s in the bowl. It wouldn’t be the first time Pete changed his orders midmission.

  My mood lifted suddenly, and as he often did, Jack took note with a curious look and a pricking of his ears. “Come on, dog. Let’s go feed the gorilla.”

  We ran upstairs. Our doors stood in a row, Vayl’s at the head of the steps, mine next, and Cole’s last, with a sauna-sized shared bathroom across the hall. Cole had agreed to room with Albert, so I strode to the door with the little basket of fake daisies nailed to it and the numbers 203 painted in bright red underneath.

  “How pissed is he gonna be when he finds out we got him something nutritious?” I asked Jack as we stopped. I paused with my hand on the knob when I heard a voice from inside that didn’t belong to Albert. Though I couldn’t make out the words, they sounded threatening.

  “Go to hell!” he yelled.

  I threw the door open as a second voice murmured, “I’m already there.”

  Albert stood between twin beds covered with blue flowered spreads, holding a long black remote control in his shaking hand. As Jack stuck his nose in the back of my leg and I reached for Grief, I looked sharply to my left and right. “Who were you talking to?” I asked, striding toward the wardrobe. I threw open the door. Nothing there but some shirts and a stack of underwear. Geez, how long was he planning on staying?

  “It was the TV,” he said, clenching his teeth so hard I could hear his molars rub. I turned to look at where it sat on a corner entertainment center stacked with videos and games. BBC was showing one of my favorite cop movies.

  “You’re yelling at Simon Pegg?”

  “He’s . . . such an ass.”

  “What?”

  “Just—he just pisses me off is all!”

  “How is that possible? He’s playing this unbelievable policeman—”

  “Did you bring me anything to eat?”

  I looked at the food in my left hand, feeling off balance and slightly bewildered. As if I’d come in to find my father dancing around in ballet slippers and a tutu.
He grabbed the fruit and, without a single complaint as to its lack of chocolate content or sugar glazing, bit into the apple.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “Are you dizzy? Do you need to do a test? Did you shrink your sweatshirt again?”

  “I’m fine,” Albert growled. “Quit hovering. You remind me of one of those goddamn blimps.” That sounded more like him. “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” I turned to leave.

  “Hey.”

  “What?”

  “You taking the mutt with you tonight?”

  I looked down at Jack, who blinked at me soulfully. “I figured I would.”

  “Why don’t you leave him with me?”

  “Huh?” The offer caught me so far off guard I was sure I looked like a total cave brain, with my mouth hanging open to give all my loose gray matter a straight shot to the floor.

  “He could keep me company while I watch TV.”

  “Are you going to yell at him?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You mean like you’re yelling at me right now?”

  “I’m not yelling!”

  “Promise to talk nice or he leaves with me.”

  Albert shook his head and stared at Jack. “Do you want to stay with me for a while, Jackster? I may have a few treats for you in my suitcase to help pass the time.” Albert hobbled to the dresser and threw open the lid to his luggage. Right on top lay a box of doggy snacks.

  “You didn’t.”

  For answer, Albert dug one out and offered it to Jack, who immediately deserted me to make friends with the man who had informed me, at the age of eight, that if I couldn’t figure out how to manage all by myself I might as well skip my independence and check right into Greenfields Assisted Living.

  I left my dad and my dog bonding over Milk-Bones and Hot Fuzz, thinking, The way this day is going, things are only gonna get weirder.