by Tanya Huff
If Hell intended to try anything big, it would make the attempt on October 31.
WELL?
NO. TOO OBVIOUS. SHE’LL BE EXPECTING SOMETHING TO HAPPEN TONIGHT.
BUT IF NOTHING HAPPENS, WON’T THAT MAKE HER SUSPICIOUS?
Hell considered it a moment. YOU’RE RIGHT. It sounded surprised. I WILL BIDE MY TIME. YOU MAY DO AS YOU PLEASE.
BUT WITHOUT YOU…
TRY HARDER.
“Diana’s more likely to be a catalyst than a help, Mom.”
“I don’t like the thought of you there alone, tonight of all nights.”
Which was the truth as far as it went. On the other hand, Claire couldn’t really blame her mother for trying to get Diana out of the house on Halloween, not after the incident with the gob stoppers. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Thanks to the seepage, the shield’s never been as strong.”
Claire felt as much as heard her mother’s sigh. “Just be careful.”
“I will.”
“Doublecheck her shielding.”
“I will.”
“Your father says that you should try to convince Jacques to pass over. He says it isn’t healthy for a spirit to be hanging about on the physical plane and that the links between worlds are weak over the next twenty-four hours. He says…” She paused and turned her mouth from the receiver. “Do you want to talk to her, Norman?” This second sigh held a different timbre. “Your father, who seems to think I have nothing better to do than pass on his commentary, says Jacques’ presence could call other spirits and that you’d best ward against it unless you want to house a whole company of ghosts.”
“Tell Dad that Jacques has been haunting this place for over seventy years and that hasn’t happened yet. Tell him it’s probably because of the nature of the site—ghosts don’t want to be near it.”
“Do you want to talk to him?”
“No, you can tell him. I’d better go now, Mom.” Leaning out over the counter, she peered down the hall toward the dining room but couldn’t see anything. “Dean and Austin are alone together in the kitchen.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It could be. The geriatric kibble has been disappearing, but I don’t think Austin’s been eating it. I want to catch them in the act.”
“Do you think they’re destroying it?”
“No. Dean would never waste food.”
“Surely you don’t think he’s eating it.”
“No, but he does do all the cooking…” After final good-byes, Claire ducked under the counter and headed for the back of the building. Rounding the corner into the kitchen, she stopped short. “What are you doing?”
Dropping a handful of pumpkin innards into a colander, Dean looked up and smiled. “We forgot to get one on Saturday so I went to the market this morning.”
“You’re carving a jack-o’-lantern? Have you forgotten what’s in the basement?”
“No, but…”
“Do you really think that, under the circumstances, it’s a good idea to attract children to the door?”
His face fell. His shoulders slumped. “I guess not. But what’ll we do with all the candy?”
“What candy?”
“All those bags of little chocolate bars and stuff we bought on Saturday.”
“There’s two bags less than there were,” Austin pointed out from his sunny spot on the dining room table.
“Two bags?” Dean stared aghast at Claire who glared at the cat.
“Tattletale.” Assuming there’d be no little visitors to the door, she’d also assumed the candy was for home consumption and acted accordingly. All right; perhaps a bit more than accordingly.
Sighing deeply, Dean stroked his hands down the sides of the pumpkin, fingers lingering over the dark orange curves. “I suppose I could do some baking. If I want to see the kids’ costumes, I guess I can go to Karen’s place tonight.”
It was honest disappointment in his voice. He wasn’t trying to manipulate her—regardless of how she might be responding. Claire couldn’t decide if that was part of his charm or really, really irritating. “All right I guess one jack-o’-lantern and a few candies can’t hurt.”
“Depends on how they’re inserted,” Austin observed.
“So you’re what they call a Keeper these days.” Her mother’s image in the mirror folded her arms over her chest. “Put the boy in danger just because you can’t bear to say no to him.” Red eyes narrowed. “I certainly hope you’re not feeling guilty for continually saying no to him on other fronts.”
Claire finished brushing her teeth and spit “What other fronts?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed his raging desires? His burning passion that only you can quench.”
“Did you just acquire another romance writer?”
“Go ahead, scoff. It’s no skin off my nose…” Skin disappeared off the entire face. “…if you break his heart.”
“Oh, give it up, I am not breaking his heart.” Dropping her toothbrush on the counter, Claire stomped from the bathroom.
The image lingered. “A mother knows,” it said with a lipless smile.
“Is it that you want me to be gone?” Jacques demanded, his edges flickering in and out of focus. “I thought you were happy to have me here, with you.”
Claire hadn’t intended to hurt the ghost’s feelings, but since feelings were pretty much all he was, she supposed it was inevitable. “All I said was that if you want to cross over, tonight would be a good night to go. The barriers between the physical world and the spiritual will be thin and…Austin!”
He looked up and drew his front leg back out of the rubber plant’s green plastic pot. “What?”
“You know what.”
“You’d think,” he muttered, stalking from the sitting room, his tail a defiant flag flicking back and forth, “that after seventeen years she’d trust me. Use a flowerpot just once and you’re branded for all nine lives.”
When the cat’s monologue of ill-usage faded, Claire turned her attention back to Jacques. “You’re stalled here,” she reminded him, “halfway between two worlds and, someday, you’ll have to move on.”
“Someday,” he repeated, his fingers tracing the curve of her cheek. “If I, as you say, move on, will you miss me, cherie?”
“You know I will.”
“Pour quoi?”
“Because I enjoy your company.”
“Not as you could.”
“What you seem to need is Jacques possessing Dean’s body.”
She shook the memory out of her head before Hell could comment but Jacques seemed to see something in her face that made him smile.
“Perhaps you desire me to leave because you are afraid of the feeling I make in you. Of the feeling I have for you.”
“Jacques, you’re dead. Only a Keeper can give you flesh, and I’m the only Keeper in your…” About to say, life, she paused and reconsidered. “…in your existence.”
“Then it is fate.”
“What is?”
“You and I.”
“Look, I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to move on; since you don’t I have things to do.” Pulling enough power to brush him out of the way if he didn’t move, she headed for the door.
He drifted aside to let her pass.
Fingers wrapped around the doorknob, she paused, expecting Jacques to put in one final plea for flesh. When he didn’t, she left the room feeling vaguely cheated.
“What’re you doing. Boss?”
Claire set the silver marking pen on the desk and worked the cramp out of her right hand. “I’m justifying tonight’s potential danger. Trying to be a Keeper in spite of the situation.” She nodded toward the huge wooden salad bowl half full of miniature chocolate bars, eyeball gum, and spider suckers. “Every piece of that candy has a rune written on the wrapper that’ll nullify anything bad the kids might pick up.”
“Like fruit and nuts instead of candy? Kidding,” he added hastily as Claire’s brows drew in. “
I mean, I know there’s sickos out there and I think it’s great you’re doing something about it.”
“Thank you. Every time one of those sickos slips a doctored treat past street-proofing and parents, there’s another hole ripped in the fabric of the universe and, given the metaphysical baggage carried by this time of the year, anything could slip through. Early November is a busy season for the lineage.”
The chocolate bar he picked up looked ludicrously tiny as he tossed it from hand to hand. “Can I ask you something? Why don’t you stop them before the kids get hurt?”
“You mean why don’t we make everybody behave themselves instead of just cleaning up the mess once it’s over? My sister used to ask that all the time.” She’d stopped, but Claire suspected Diana still believed the world would be a better place if she were in charge. So did most teenagers; trouble was, Diana had power enough to take a shot at it “It’s that whole free-will thing; we’re no more allowed to make choices for people than you are. We’re just here to deal with the metaphysical consequences.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“You can stand in the doorway and hand this stuff out.”
“I meant…”
“I know.” There were times, Claire reflected, when a facetious comment just wasn’t enough. “You’re good people, Dean. That helps strengthen the universe all by itself.”
“Kind of like moral Scotchgarding,” Austin told him, unfolding on one of the upper bookshelves. “Now could one of you, preferably the taller one, help me down.”
After the cat had settled on the monitor and Dean had returned to the kitchen to fetch the pumpkin, Claire tossed another chocolate bar into the bowl and said, “Thanks.”
“No problem. You were having an honest in-depth conversation, so I figured you’d soon run out of things to say.”
“You know…” She poked him with a sucker stick. “…you can be really irritating.”
“Only because I’m right.”
The candy hit the bowl with more force than necessary.
“I’m right again, aren’t I?”
“Shut up.”
Dusk settled over the city, the streetlights came on, and clumps of children, many with bored adults in tow, began moving from door to door.
In the furnace room, the bits of Hell left off the newly formed personality, sent out invitations.
As the first group of kids climbed the stairs, the wards incised into the threshold with a salad fork…
“Why a salad fork?”
Claire shrugged. “It was the first thing I grabbed.”
…remained dark.
Only two of the four wore anything recognizable as a costume. One of the others had rubbed a bit of dirt on his face although it might not have been intentional. They stood silently holding out pillowcases as Dean offered the bowl.
“Do you want to take a handful or should I do it?” he asked enthusiastically.
After a silent consultation, the largest of the four jerked her head toward the bowl. “You do it. You got bigger hands.”
“Aren’t you guys supposed to say ‘trick or treat’?” Claire wondered as Dean dropped the runed candy into the bags.
A little boy, dressed vaguely like Luke Skywalker, giggled.
“What’s so funny?”
Their spokesman rolled her eyes. “Trick or treat is way uncool.” Clutching their pillowcases, they turned as one, pounded back to the sidewalk, and raced away.
“When I was a kid, I’m sure we worked harder at this,” Claire muttered as she closed the door.
Cross-legged on the countertop, Jacques rematerialized. “When me, I was a kid, we knock over Monsieur Bouchard’s…How do you say, outside house?”
“Outhouse. Privy.”
“Oui. We knock it over, but we do not know Monsieur Bouchard is inside.”
They turned to look at Dean.
He shrugged. “I don’t really notice any difference.”
One princess, one pirate, and four sets of street clothes later, the wards on the threshold blazed red.
Claire opened the door.
The Bogart grinned, showing broken stubs of yellow teeth. “Trick or treat.”
She dropped a handful of unruned candy on its outstretched hand. “Treat.”
“You sure?” It looked disappointed at her choice. “I gots some good tricks me.”
“I’m sure.”
Without bothering to rip off the wrappers, it popped a pair of chocolate bars into its mouth. “Good treat,” it announced after a moment of vigorous masticating and an audible swallow. “Same times next year?”
“No promises.”
The Bogart nodded. “Smart Keeper.” A backward leap took it to the sidewalk where it paused, almost invisible in the increasing dark. “Biggers coming,” it called and vanished.
“That wasn’t a kid in a really good costume, was it?” Dean asked as Claire stepped back and closed the door.
She checked the wards. “No. And on any other night you probably wouldn’t have seen it.”
“What was it, then?”
“Do you remember those sparks off the energy that I told you about the first day I was here?”
He frowned thoughtfully and scratched at the back of his neck. “The ones you see that keep you from driving?”
“Essentially. There are places where the fabric of the universe is practically cheesecloth tonight so a lot of sparks are going to get through. Once through, it seems some of them are being called here. That was a Bogart.”
“Humphrey?”
“I doubt it.”
“Was it dangerous?”
“No.” Dropping down onto the stairs, she stretched her legs out into the lobby. “But it could’ve gotten destructive if I hadn’t bought it off.”
He glanced down at the salad bowl. “With chocolate bars?”
“Why not?”
“Okay. What did it mean by biggers?”
“Bigger than it. More powerful, more dangerous.”
“Will they be coming all night?”
“I don’t know. They might stop coming if we blow out the jack-o’-lantern and turn off the front lights, but they might not.”
“So we should blow out the candle and turn off the lights and see what happens.”
Her eyes narrowed. “No.”
“No?”
“I’m not cowering in the dark.”
“But you didn’t even want to do this.” He was wearing what Claire had begun to recognize as his responsible face. “It was my idea and…”
“So?” She cut him off and stood as Austin announced more children approaching. “Since we’ve started it, we’re going to finish it. And you might as well enjoy it.”
The gypsy and the ghostbuster—although they might’ve been a pirate and a sewer worker, Claire wasn’t entirely sure—looked startled when she opened the door before they knocked.
“How did you know we was coming?” the gypsy/pirate demanded.
Claire nodded toward the window where Austin could be seen silhouetted beside the pumpkin. “The cat told me.”
The ghostbuster/sewer worker snorted. “Did not.”
“My dad says this place is haunted,” the gypsy/pirate announced.
“Your dad’s right.”
“Cool. Can we see the ghost?”
“No.”
They accepted her refusal with the resigned grace of children used to being denied access to the adult world.
“The cat told me?” Austin asked as she closed the door.
“Hey, it’s Halloween.”
“Then you should have shown them the ghost,” Jacques pointed out with a toss of his head.
“Jacques!”
Catching it one-handed, he set it back on his shoulders at a rakish angle. “If you give me flesh, I could not do that.”
Suppressing a shudder, Claire glared at him. “If I gave you flesh right now, I’d smack it.”
His grin broadened. “D’accord.”
&nbs
p; “No.”
“Tease.”
The wards blazed red.
“Well…” Claire glanced around at the man, the cat, and the ghost as she reached for the door. “…let’s check out the next contestant.”
A young woman stood on the step. She had short brown hair, brown eyes, and matching Satin Claret lipstick and nail polish.
Claire tapped her own Satin Claret nails impatiently against the doorjamb. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
The young woman shrugged. “Trick or treat?”
Behind her, Claire heard Dean gasp. “Boss. It’s you.”
“Not quite. It’s a Waff, a kind of Co-walker. Technically, it’s a death token.”
“A what?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Folding her arms, Claire looked the Waff in the eye and said in her best primary schoolteacher voice, “You’ve no business being here. Go on, then. Off with you! Scram!”
Looking embarrassed about the entire incident, the Waff slunk down the steps and out of sight.
“Honestly,” Claire sighed as she closed the door. “They used to get chased off by mortals, you’d think they’d know better than to even try against a Keeper.”
“I doubt it had a choice,” Austin pointed out, scratching vigorously behind one ear. “Once it was called, it had to come. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.”
“Do you know that, or are you pontificating?”
He licked his nose and refused to answer.
Three sets of street clothes, a couple of Disney characters and a Gwyllion later, Dean headed for the kitchen under the pretext of getting coffee. He was going to get coffee, but that wasn’t his only reason for going to the kitchen.
The Gwyllion had looked rather like one of the city’s more colorful bag ladies and had been mumbling what sounded like directions to the bus station when Claire’d banished it with an iron cross she’d pulled out of her backpack. Without a backpack of his own, Dean opened the bread box for the next best thing.
