Summon the Keeper

by Tanya Huff

  Filling an area barely five feet square, a narrow set of metal stairs spiraled upward toward an uninviting square hole cut out of the ceiling.

  “Are there lights?”

  “Don’t think so. You stay where you’re at, girl, and let me…” At the look on her face, his voice trailed off. “Never mind, then.”

  “Girl?”

  “It’s just a way we have of talkin’ back home,” he explained hurriedly, his cheeks crimson and his accent thickening. “I don’t mean nothing by it.”

  “Then don’t do it again.”

  “Yes ma’am, Ms. Hansen.” A deep breath and he tried again. “Boss.”

  “Are you certain he’s a part of this?” she demanded, turning toward the cat.

  “Yes. Get along.”

  Claire sighed. Metal rungs ringing under her feet, she ran to the top of the stairs, crossed her fingers and stuck her head up into what looked like one large room filled with decades of discards, barely lit by the two filthy dormer windows cut into the sloping roof on either end of the building.

  It was still raining.

  “It’ll take us months to search that place thoroughly,” she announced a moment later backing carefully down the stairs. “Let’s leave it for later. With any luck we’ll find the hole someplace more accessible.”

  “Oh, sure, accessible like the laundry chute,” Austin muttered as Dean relocked the attic door.

  The second floor was as empty as the first—more so since there was nothing to match the occupant of room six. Remembering the mess she’d left spread out on the bed, Claire vouched for her room without opening the door. Room four, a comer single with two outside walls and no window, suggested a more thorough search.

  Leaning on the edge of the bureau, Dean watched Claire slip into the bed alcove and try the bolt on the inside of the alcove’s steel door. “You know someone actually asked for this room last spring.”

  “How would I know that? I just got here.” The high box bed had one shallow drawer under the mattress and two deeper drawers below that. Hands slid between the mattress and the frame found no sign of evil but did turn up a silver earring.

  Mortified, Dean apologized for a sloppy job as Claire dropped the piece of jewelry on his palm. “When we’re done searching, I’ll clean this room again.”

  “If it makes you happy,” Claire muttered, checking in the bedside table. As far as she could see, the room was spotless.

  Dean’s expression softened as he bounced the earring on his palm. “She was a musician. Sasha something. I can’t remember her last name, but she was some h…” Then, he remembered who he was talking to. His boss. A woman. Some things he couldn’t say to a boss. Or a woman. “Cute. She was some cute.”

  “H…cute?” Shaking her head, Claire brushed past him.

  Mouth partly open, Austin whipped his tail from side to side. “I don’t like the way this smells.”

  “Then since it’d take a sledgehammer to air it out, let’s go.” Claire could feel a perfectly logical reason for the design hovering just beyond the edge of conscious thought, but when she reached for it, it danced away and taunted her from a safe distance. Later, she promised and added aloud, “What did you say?”

  Dean paused at the top of the stairs. “I said, do you think we should search the rest of Mr. Smythe’s old rooms, then?”

  “He wouldn’t have been living with it,” she snapped dismissively. Then feeling like she’d just kicked a puppy, a large and well-muscled puppy, she added a strained, “Sorry. Where Augustus Smythe is concerned, I shouldn’t take anything for granted.”

  The sitting room violated a number of rules concerning how many objects could simultaneously occupy the same space, but the only accident it contained involved the head-on collision of good taste with an apparent inability to throw anything away. The bedroom wasn’t quite as bad. Dominated by a brass bed, it also held an obviously antique dressing table, a wardrobe, and two windows. One of them framed into an inside wall.

  “Probably the window missing from the room upstairs.” Jumping up onto the bed, Austin began kneading the mattress. “This isn’t bad. I could sleep here.”

  Before Claire could stop him, Dean tugged the burgundy brocade curtain to one side and closed it again almost instantly, setting six inches of fringe swaying back and forth.

  “Are you okay?” she asked warily. If it was the accident site and he’d been exposed, there was no telling what he might have picked up.

  Cheeks flushed, he nodded. “Fine. I’m fine.”

  “What did you see?”

  “It was, uh, a bar.” He cleared his throat and reluctantly continued. “With, uh, dancers.”

  “Were they table dancing?” The cat snickered. “Upon admittedly short acquaintance, that seems like the sort of scene old Augustus would go for.”

  “Not exactly table, no.” Shaking his head, Dean lifted the curtain again. “It was dark but…” His voice trailed off.

  Claire peered around his shoulder and almost went limp with relief. “That doesn’t sound like a bar to me. Looks like Times Square. And over there, in front of the hookers, isn’t that a drug deal going down?” Leaning forward, she rapped on the glass and nodded in satisfaction. “That put the fear of God into them.”

  The curtain fell closed again. Dean’s voice threatened to crack as he asked, “What was it?”

  “We call it a postcard.”

  “We?” He waved an overly nonchalant hand toward the cat. That smacked-with-a-cod feeling had returned. “You and Austin?”

  “Among others.” She glared at the curtain. “Smythe couldn’t have managed this on his own; he had to have been pulling from the site.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Well it isn’t good. I’ll know more when we find the hole.”

  “Wherever it is,” Austin agreed.

  “Since we know it’s not in the dining room, what’s left?”

  The basement held, besides the mechanicals, the laundry room, Dean’s sparsely furnished and absolutely spotless apartment, several storage cupboards holding sheets, towels, and still more cleaning supplies, and, across from the laundry room, a large metal door. Painted a brilliant turquoise, it boasted not one but two padlocked chains securing it closed.

  “Dean, did you know this was down here?”

  He frowned, confused by the question. Since he obviously spent a lot of time in the basement…“Sure.”

  “Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”

  “It’s just the furnace room.”

  “The furnace room.” Claire exchanged a speaking glance with the cat. “Have you ever been in this alleged furnace room?”

  “No. Mr. Smythe did all the furnace work himself.”

  “I’ll bet.” The keys were hanging beside the door. The security arrangements were clearly not intended to keep people out but to keep something in. “What was he heating this place with,” she muttered, dragging the first chain free. “A dragon?”

  Dean took the chain, removed the second length, and hung them both neatly on the hooks provided. “Are you kidding?”

  “Mostly. Any virgins reported missing from the neighborhood?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Forget it.” Claire pulled the door open about six inches and leaned away from the blast of heat. “Do you mind?” she asked as Austin slipped in ahead of her. “Try to remember what curiosity killed.” Moving forward, she felt remarkably calm. At first she thought she was just numb—it had, after all, been a busy morning—but when she stepped over the threshold, she realized that the entire furnace room had been wrapped in a dampening field.

  Much more powerful than a mere shield, it not only deflected the curious but was quite probably the only thing allowing people to remain in the building.

  Down nine steps, inscribed into the rough surface of a bedrock floor, was a complicated, multicolored, multilayered pentagram. The center of the pentagram was an open hole. A dull red light, shining up from the depths, painted lu
rid highlights on the copper hood hanging from the ceiling. Ductwork directed the rising heat up into the hotel.

  Must have a helluva filter system, Claire thought, wrinkling her nose at the stink of fire and brimstone.

  And then it sank in. Unfortunately, the dampening field had no effect inside the furnace room.

  Heart pounding, hot sweat rolling down her sides, she bent and scooped up Austin, who’d flattened himself to the floor. With the cat held tightly against her chest, she forced herself down the first three steps.

  “Where are you going?” he hissed, claws digging into her shoulder.

  “To check the seal.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Augustus Smythe couldn’t have held this.”

  “Then obviously someone else is. And there’s only one someone else in this building.”

  “She’s holding it, it’s holding her.” Claire went down another three steps and nodded toward the pentagram. “There’s her name. Sara.”

  “Don’t…”

  “It’s all right. If her name could get through the field, they’d have woken her years ago.” There was a vibration in the air, just on the edge of sound, an almost hum as though they were walking toward the world’s largest wasp’s nest. “On the other hand, you know that low-level buzz I mentioned last night? There seems to be some seepage.”

  “But you couldn’t feel it this morning.”

  “Not outside this room, no. Augustus Smythe probably used it up making his getaway.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “Well, it’s not good.” Placing her feet with care, she backed up the stairs, squeezed over the threshold, shoved Dean away from the door, and very, very gently, pushed it closed.

  “Was it a dragon?” Dean asked, not entirely certain why he hadn’t followed her inside but untroubled by the uncertainty.

  “No.” As the dampening field began to take effect, it became possible to think again. “It wasn’t a dragon.”

  “Then was it a furnace?”

  “Sort of.” She unhooked Austin’s claws from her shoulder and settled him more comfortably in her arms, her free hand rhythmically stroking his fur and sending clouds of loose hair flying. He tucked his head up under her chin, and left it there.

  “Was it the hole?”

  Claire giggled. She couldn’t help it, but she managed to cut it short; she hadn’t expected such a literal example of the explanation she’d created to fit a bystander’s limited world. “Oh, yes, it was the hole.” Still cradling the cat, she started toward the basement stairs, head up, back straight. “Could you please replace the chains and the locks?”

  Dean had the strangest feeling that if he tapped her shoulder as she passed, she’d ring out like a weather buoy. “Are you all right, then?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Upstairs.”

  He shook his head, thought about opening the door and taking a look for himself and for reasons he wasn’t quite clear on, decided not to. “Hey, Boss?”

  It took Claire a moment to realize who he was talking to. Three steps up, she paused and leaned out from the stairs so she could see him. “Yes?”

  “What are you after doing?”

  “I’m going to do what anyone in this situation would do; I’m going to get a second opinion.”

  “From who?”

  Her smile looked as if it had been borrowed and didn’t quite fit. “I’m going to call my mother.”

  Behind the chains, behind the turquoise door, down the stairs, and deep in the pit, intelligence stirred.

  HELLO?

  When it realized there’d be no answer, it sighed.

  DAMN.

  TWO

  “HANSEN RESIDENCE.”

  The voice on the other end of the line was not one Claire had expected to hear. “Diana?” Unable to remain still, she picked up the old rotary phone and paced the length of the office and back. “What are you doing home? I thought you were doing fieldwork this weekend.”

  “Hong and I had a small argument.”

  “Like the argument you had with Matt?”

  “No.”

  There was a lengthening, a scornful pronunciation of that second letter that only a teenager could manage. At twenty, the ability was lost. Three years, Claire told herself, just three more years. She’d been ten when Diana was born and the sudden appearance of a younger sister had come as a complete surprise. Over the years, although she loved Diana dearly, the surprise had turned to apprehension—being around her was somewhat similar to being around sweating dynamite. “These people are supposed to be training you. You could assume they know what they’re doing.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re old and they never let me do anything.”

  “I haven’t time to get into this with you right now. Put Mom on, please.”

  “Duh, Claire, it’s Sunday morning.”

  She took a minute to whack herself on the forehead with the receiver. She’d completely forgotten. “Could you ask her to call me the moment she gets home from church?”

  “You didn’t say the magic word.”

  “Diana!”

  “Chill, I’m kidding. What’s the matter anyway? You sound like you just looked into the depths of Hell.”

  Reflecting, not for the first time, that her little sister had an appalling amount of power from someone with an equally appalling amount of self-confidence, Claire smoothed the lingering tremors out of her voice. “Just ask her to call me—please.” She read the number off the dial. “It’s important.”

  Dean could hear Claire talking on the phone as he came up the basement stairs. Ignoring the temptation to eavesdrop—as much as he wanted to know what she was saying, it would’ve been rude—he continued on into the kitchen, where he found Austin attempting to open the fridge.

  “They build garage door openers, push of a button and you can park your car, but does anyone ever think of building something like that for a fridge. No.” He pulled his claws out of the rubber seal and glared up at Dean. “What does a cat have to do to get breakfast around here?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “A few minutes ago…”

  Austin interrupted with an explosive snort. “That was then, this is now.” Rising onto his hind legs, he rested his front paws just above Dean’s denim-covered knee, claws extended only enough for emphasis. “You look like a nice guy, why don’t you feed me?”

  “Austin!”

  “That’s my name,” he sighed, dropping back to all four feet. “Don’t wear it out.”

  As Claire came around the corner, she was amazed at how familiar it seemed, as though this were the twenty-second not merely the second time she’d walked into the kitchen. Layered between the sleeping Sara and Hell, there was a comforting domesticity about the whole thing. She shuddered.

  “Are you okay?” Dean asked.

  “I’m fine. I just had a vision of an unpleasant future.” Shaking her head, hoping to clear it, she added, “My mother wasn’t home, but I left a message with my sister. She’ll call later.”

  Austin jumped up onto the counter. “Why was your sister home!”

  “The usual.”

  “Anyone get hurt?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  Leaning back against the sink, Dean looked down at his sock-covered feet. Had she not been his boss, he would’ve asked her if she wasn’t a little old to be calling her mum when she ran into a problem.

  “Dean?”

  He glanced up to see Claire staring at him.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  Instinct caught the coin she tossed, and to his surprise he found himself repeating his musing aloud.

  “No, I am not too old to call my mother,” she said when he finished, ignoring the cat’s muttered, “Serves you right for asking.”

  “My mother has been in the business a lot longer than I have, and I could use her professional advice since not
one thing that happened this morning was what I expected. Not room six, not the furnace room, not you.”

  “Not me?”

  “If Austin wasn’t so convinced that you’re a part of this whole mess, we’d be sitting down to rearrange your memories right about now.”

  Dean squelched his initial response—why ask if she could do it when there was absolutely nothing in that statement to suggest she couldn’t. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to keep my memories the way they are.”

  “Good for you.” Austin sat down and stared pointedly at the fridge. “So if we’re not going to adjust the status quo until your mother’s had a look, what are we waiting for? When do we eat?”

  Claire sighed. “I think Dean’s waiting for an explanation.”

  “I already explained,” Austin protested, twisting out from under Claire’s hand. “He told me he believed in magic. I told him that’s what was going on.”

  “That’s not much of an explanation.”

  “It’s enough to tide him over until after breakfast.”

  They surrendered to the inevitable. While Dean cooked for Claire, she ran up to her room to get a can of cat food.

  As she put the saucer of beige puree on the floor, Austin glanced down in disgust and then glared up at her. “I can smell perfectly good sausages,” he complained.

  “Which you’re not allowed to have. Remember what the vet said, at your age the geriatric cat food will help keep you alive.”

  “One sausage couldn’t hurt,” Dean offered, his expression as he looked into the saucer much the same as the cat’s.

  Claire caught his wrist and moved the hand holding the fork holding the sausage back over the plate. “Austin’s seventeen years old,” she told him. “Would you feed one of these to someone who was a hundred and two?”

  “I guess not.”

  “You won’t live forever; it’ll only seem that way,” Austin muttered around a mouthful of food.

  As Dean carried the loaded plate over to one of the small tables in the dining room, Claire attempted to organize her thoughts. Of the morning’s three surprises, four if she counted Augustus Smythe disappearing and leaving her the hotel, Dean was actually the one she felt least qualified to deal with. When it came right down to it, Sara and Hell and Augustus Smythe were variations on a theme—extreme variations, really extreme variations, granted, but nothing entirely unique. On the other hand, in almost ten years of sealing sites, she’d never had to explain herself to a bystander. Manipulate perceptions so she could do her job, yes. Actually—to tell the truth, the whole truth—no.