Таня Хафф - Summon The Keeper

“A Cousin, too.”

“And you and your younger sister, Diana, are both Keepers?”

“Yes.”

Behind his glasses, his eyes twinkled. “So, you’re your mother’s Aunt?”

“No.”

“But…”

“Look, I didn’t make up the stupid nomenclature!” Strongly suspecting that Dean was being difficult on purpose, Claire tossed back her last mouthful of coffee, choked, and ended up spraying the tabletop and both her companions.

“Oh, thank you very much.” Austin jumped down onto the floor and vigorously shook one back leg. “I just got that clean!”

After handing the still sputtering Keeper a napkin, Dean quickly used another to mop up the mess. When things got back to normal, and when the cat had been placated, he asked, “Why won’t your mother be here until tomorrow afternoon?”

“That’s when the train from London gets in. Tomorrow morning she’ll get a lift from Lucan into London, then catch the train from London to Toronto to connect with the 1:14 out of Union Station, which means she’ll be here about four.”

“Oh.” He’d been half hoping to hear that the delay involved for low altitude brooms. After the excitement of the morning, he was ready for his next installment of weird. Things hadn’t been this interesting vacuuming the flying carpet or waiting until the flight path cleared since he’d left home. Actually, things hadn’t been this interesting at home—although his granddad’s reaction to his cousin Todd getting an eyebrow pierced had come close. “Why doesn’t she drive?”

“Because she can’t. None of us can.”

Dean blinked. Okay, that was the weirdest thing he’d heard so far. “None of your family?”

“None of the lineage.”

“Why not?”

“Too many distractions. We see things other people don’t”

There’d been a couple of members of Dean’s family who’d seen things other people hadn’t, but they were usually laid out roughly horizontal and left to sleep it off. “Things like blue mice?” he asked innocently, biting into another cookie.

“No. They’re nothing at all like blue mice,” she told him curtly. If she responded to his teasing, he’d keep doing it, and she already had one younger sibling; she didn’t need another. “They’re bits of the energy, small possibilities that…Austin! Get out of there!” Leaping to her feet, she snatched the butter dish out from under the cat’s tongue. “Do you know what this stuff does to your arteries?” she demanded. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“I’m hungry.”

“There’s a bowl of fresh, geriatric kibble on the floor by the fridge.”

“I don’t want that,” he muttered looking sulky. “You wouldn’t make your grandmother eat it.”

“My grandmother doesn’t lick the butter.”

“Wanna bet?”

Claire turned her back and pointedly ignored him. “Small possibilities,” she repeated, “that sometimes seep through and run loose in the world.”

Dean glanced around the dining room. “What do they look like?”

“That depends on your background. You’re a McIssac so, if you had the Sight, at the very least you’d see traditional Celtic manifestations. Given that Newfoundland has a wealth of legend all its own you’d also probably pick up a few indigenous manifestations.”

“You’re not serious?” he asked her, grinning broadly. “Ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night?”

“If you want.”

His grin faded. “I don’t want.”

“Then don’t mention it.”

Down in the furnace room, having spent the last few hours testing the binding, the intelligence in the pit rested. It would have been panting had it been breathing.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED, it observed sulkily.

Although physically contained, the pentagram could not entirely close it off from the world. There was just no way it was that easy.

It seeped through between the possibilities.

It tempted. It taunted. And once, because of the concentration trapped in that one spot, it had managed to squeeze through a sizable piece of pure irritation.

THE OLD MALE IS GONE.

THE YOUNG MALE IS STILL HERE.

The heat rose momentarily as though Hell itself had snorted. THAT GOODY TWO SHOES. WHAT A WASTE OF TIME.

THERE’S A NEW KEEPER.

WE’VE DEALT WITH KEEPERS BEFORE.

WE DIDN’T EXACTLY DEAL WITH THE OTHER. WASN’T SHE INTENDING TO CONTROL…

SHUT UP!

It also talked to itself.

THREE

“I F YOU DON’T HURRY,”Austin complained from the bedroom, “I’m going down to breakfast without you.”

Claire rummaged through her makeup case, inspecting and discarding a number of pencils that needed sharpening. “I’m moving as fast as I can.”

They’d spent the night back in room one even though Dean had reiterated that the owner’s rooms were now rightfully Claire’s. Although willing to spend the evening watching television and eating pizza in Augustus Smythe’s sitting room, Claire wasn’t quite ready to sleep in his bed.

“I don’t see why you bother with all that stuff.”

“This from the cat who spent half an hour washing his tail.” One eye closed, she leaned toward the mirror. Her reflection remained where it had been. “Oh, no.” Straightening, she put down the pencil and looked herself in the eyes—not at all surprised to notice that they were no longer dark brown but deep red. “Now what?”

A skull, recently disinterred, appeared in the reflection’s left hand. “Alas, poor Yorik. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest.”

“And oft times had you kissed those lips.” Claire folded her arms and frowned. “I’m familiar with the play. Get to the point.”

The reflection lifted the skull until it could gaze levelly into the eye sockets. “Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint her face an inch thick, to this favor she must come…” A fluid motion turned the skull so that it stared out from the mirror. “…make her laugh at that.”

“Not bad, but I imagine you have access to a number of actors. Your point?”

“Open the pentagram. Release us. And we shall see to it that you remain young and beautiful forever.”

“You’re kidding, right? You’re offering a Keeper eternal youth and beauty?”

The reflection looked a little sheepish. “It is considered a classic temptation. We thought it worth a try.”

“Oh, please.”

“That means no?”

Claire sighed and, both hands holding the edge of the sink, leaned forward. “Go to Hell,” she told it levelly. “Go directly to Hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”

The skull vanished. Her reflection began answering to her movements again.

“Was that wise?” Austin asked from the doorway.

“What? Refusing to be tempted?”

“Making flippant comments.”

“It wasn’t a flippant comment.” She finished lining her right eye and began on her left. “It was a stage direction.”

“Hel-lo!”

“Mom?” In the kitchen, using a number of household products in ways they’d never been intended by the manufacturers—not even the advertising department which, as a rule, had more liberal views about those sorts of things—Claire was attempting to remove the ink from the latter third of the site journal. While not technically an impossible task, it did seem to be, as time went on, highly improbable. Laying aside the garlic press, she dried her hands on a borrowed apron—borrowing it hadn’t been her idea—called out that she’d be right there, and tripped over the cat.

By the time she reached the lobby, Austin was up on the counter, having his head scratched and looking as though he hadn’t been waiting as impatiently as anyone.