Sex and the Single Vampire do-2

by Кейти Макалистер

  I gnawed on my lip a bit. "I see. You're kind of a mental hermit?"

  She grimaced and sipped at her tea. "For lack of a better term, I will accept that. Now what is the problem you're having with Releasing spirits?"

  I explained what had happened the day before with the cat.

  "I tried every variation I could think of, but none of it worked. I thought perhaps there might be something different about English ghosts, and that's why I couldn't send the cat on."

  "Hmmm." The hermit poured more tea into her cup. "You warded yourself before you spoke the words of Release, yes?"

  I nodded. "Left hand, right eye."

  "Just so. And the ginseng? It was ground by a stone mortar and pestle? No metal touched it?"

  "Ground it myself."

  "You haven't been raising demons lately, have you? I've found that even the weakest of demons can wreak havoc on ginseng."

  "I didn't know that, but no, I haven't raised any demons, ever. I'm really not interested in the dark arts, just the Summoning side of things."

  "Hmm. Very bizarre. Now, if it were a human spirit, I would say it had some unfinished business, but a cat… surely a cat cannot refuse to be Released. What do you know of the cat's owner, the one who died in the fire? Perhaps the cat is bound to her, and that is keeping it from transferring."

  "The ghost is a woman. She refuses to leave, too. She told me she's not leaving me until she sees me happy with a… well, with a certain man. It's not going to happen, so I have no idea how I'm going to convince her to move on."

  The hermit set her cup down carefully. "You didn't tell me you'd Summoned a human spirit."

  "Oh. Sorry. I did, last night… er… early this morning."

  "And does the cat seem to be bound to her?"

  I thought about Esme kissing that poor cat's head. "Oh, definitely. She calls him her woogie Woogums. I think that just about says it all."

  "Indeed!" The hermit looked horrified. "Well, then, that is your answer. The human spirit has bound the cat's spirit to hers. If she refuses to leave, the cat will not be able to be sent on."

  "But I tried to Release the cat before I Summoned the other ghost."

  She shrugged and adjusted the string of pearls she wore over a blush-pink blouse. "It is still bound."

  I took notes on some suggestions she had that might help in future Releases, then looked up when she asked, "Tell me about this spirit refusing to be Released."

  I sighed heavily. "Oh, Esme. She's—Oh, my God! What are you doing here?"

  I stared in horror at the translucent image of a woman in a ratty old bathrobe with fat gray curls, holding a three-legged cat. "Good afternoon, Allie. You called?"

  "Go away!" I hissed, waving my hands through her in an attempt to dissipate her ghostly form as I peered around us to see how many people were witnessing a completely unplanned spectral visitation. I was thankful no one was looking in our corner of the room, but it would be only a matter of a few seconds before someone noticed that the third person at our table was floating approximately six inches above the chair.

  Esme looked mildly insulted at both my words and my actions.

  "You didn't seal the ghost to her room?" the hermit asked in quiet surprise.

  "Are we having tea? What a lovely idea. It's been ever so long since I enjoyed a good cuppa. How do you do? I'm Esme Cartwright, Allie's friend. I see you are a Summoner, as well."

  "Seal her? I grounded her, if that's what you mean. Esme, go away! Fade! Dissolve! Make yourself invisible! Someone is going to see you!" I had my head in my hands now, peering out over the top of my glasses to see if anyone was looking toward us.

  "You have to seal a spirit to a physical location," Phillippa lectured, eyeing both Esme and the cat with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "That keeps them bound to one location. Otherwise, as the Summoner, you have the power to bring the spirit to you simply by invoking their name."

  "Oh, God, I didn't know! Esme, will you please disappear!"

  "Mmm, Earl Grey, I always did enjoy a nice cup of Earl Grey. Who is your companion, Allie?"

  The crash of crockery hitting the hard stone floor and a loud, feminine shriek indicated that someone had at last looked our way.

  "Her name is Phillippa and she's a hermit and please, please, please fade away, Esme. You're about to get me into a very sticky situation."

  "Well, as you asked me so nicely…" She faded away until there was only a faint shimmering of the air where she'd been.

  "Oh, thank God she's gone," I moaned, banging my forehead against the palms of my hand, sending out the only kind of mental push I used—one to muddle the memory of Esme in the mind of the woman who was hysterically telling her friends what she'd seen. She quieted down immediately.

  "I'm not gone, dear; I'm still here safe and sound. Do you want me to rematerialize?" Esme's voice might have been disembodied, but it could still be heard loud and clear.

  "No!" I shrieked, then lowered my voice and hissed through my teeth, "Just stay the way you are, and don't move. Phillippa, what am I going to do? How do I get you-know-who back to our room? I can't have her coming with me—I have things to do this afternoon, and she's likely to—" I waved my hands around to indicate a person's form.

  "I won't be any trouble, dear."

  "No," I said firmly to the shimmering air, then turned back to the hermit. She opened her mouth to speak.

  "It's been so long since Mr. Woogums and I have been anywhere," the chair intoned mournfully.

  "Another time, Esme."

  The hermit waited a moment to see if there would be a reply, then tapped her fingers against the teapot. "Do you have any keepers on you?"

  "Keepers?" I looked down at my sweater and jeans. The sweater was the most feminine thing I had, worn because I had a nasty suspicion that Christian was going to make an appearance at Joy's tea. The sun set shortly after five o'clock, so it wasn't out of the question that he'd pop in. I didn't relish the comparison that could be made between frumpy little me, the statuesque and obviously pregnant, very feminine Joy, and the petite, pretty beauty of Roxy. All of which goes to explain—at more length than anyone probably cared to know—why I was at that moment wearing a cream, pink, and gray sweater in a rose trellis design, with little yarn bobbles accenting each of the rose stems. "Um. I don't think I have any keepers. I'd know, wouldn't I?"

  The hermit sighed. "A keeper is a talisman, something you inscribe with the power to bind an unsealed spirit. It is a way for you to contain the spirit and move it without its becoming visible."

  "My name is Esme Cartwright," the chair said indignantly, trembling a little. "I am not an it."

  "Ah. I must have missed the class on keepers. What do I need to make one? Some sort of a bottle or something with a lid?"

  The hermit shook her head. "No, any object will do. The spirit doesn't go inside the keeper; it becomes part of it, bound to it until you release the spirit from it."

  I looked around me. "Okay, so… how do I go about making a keeper? I'll take a few notes now and make some up later tonight."

  "Allie, I would suggest you think about this before you take such a radical action. You don't really know this hermit woman. I am quite happy to stay invisible for however long you desire, and I can assure you that both Mr. Woogums and I will be no trouble as you go about your day. Now I think on it, I can see a benefit to you in having us along with you, a great benefit. I will be able to offer you such advice as you may need when you next meet Christian. I know you are very nervous about your date tonight, and I would be happy to act as a chaperon if it will make you feel more comfortable. I shan't leave you alone for a minute."

  I pulled a fuzzy bobble off my sweater. "Now," I said to the hermit in a tone of voice that had her raising her eyebrows. "Tell me how to do it right now!"

  She showed me the wards to trace over the keeper, followed by the words of binding. During the whole time I was preparing the keeper, Esme first pleaded with me not to do such a cruel
thing, then threatened to make herself visible if I didn't stop. I rushed through the last few words as the air over the chair started to thicken, growing milky white and solidifying into a familiar form, then hastily cleared my mind and visualized the sweater bobble trapping Esme's spirit.

  "I'm warning you, Allie, I'll not be treated like some sort of spectral good luck chaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—"

  The bobble trembled in my hand for a moment, glowed with an inner light that is not normally found in a yarn bobble, then settled back into normal, albeit slightly tingly, bobbleness.

  "Whew! That was close. Thank you for your help. I don't know what I'd have done without you."

  The hermit accepted my thanks with a nod, then glanced at her watch. "I must be leaving; I have an herbal to translate. Do not leave your keepers lying about; they should be carried with you at all times."

  I looked at the bobble resting on the table. "Oh? Why is that?"

  "Possession of the keeper grants control over the spirit within. If it is destroyed or damaged, the spirit is destroyed with it."

  "Oh, yeah, I suppose that isn't too good."

  "Good?" She stood up and gathered up an expensive-looking briefcase. "Such an event would rend your soul in two. As the Summoner of a spirit, your soul is bound with it. To destroy the spirit's soul is—"

  "—to destroy mine," I finished, feeling a little sick as I carefully tucked the bobble away in my inner coat pocket. "Gotcha. Thanks again. Once I can convince you-know-who to be Released, I'll let you know if your suggestions help."

  She traced a protection ward on my forehead, and left with a brisk good-bye. I sat at the table, feeling a bit drained by the creation of the keeper, not to mention all the worry that Esme's unexpected appearance caused. I made notes on the keeper process, and half an hour later limped out to find a taxi to take me to Jamaica House, where Joy and her fiancé lived in a top-floor flat.

  Luckily it had an elevator, so I could stand composed and dignified as I rang the bell, rather than gasping for breath and clutching my bad leg.

  "Oh, it's you. She's heeeeeeere," Roxy bellowed over her shoulder, grabbing my wrist and pulling me inside. "Did you have any trouble finding the place? It's a bit out of the way, huh? I told Raphael and Joy that, but they like it. It's an historic building, you know. Used to be some sort of a coffee shop, one of the old-timey ones, not a modern one. Johnson and his dictionary and all that. I wonder if it has any ghosts. Hey, maybe you could look around and see? Here, let me take your coat."

  Roxy started tugging my coat off just as Joy and an extremely large man with yellowish eyes (no wonder she didn't find my eyes that strange) emerged from a sitting room.

  "Allie, how nice to see you again. This is Raphael, my husband-to-be. Roxy, let her get her arm out of the coat before you take it."

  Somehow—and I swear that someone who shall be nameless had a hand in this—as I was reaching to shake Raphael's hand, Roxy jerked my coat from my left arm, and the Esme'd bobble bounced onto the floor. Roxy started forward toward a coat stand. I shrieked.

  "Oh, my God, stop! You'll crush Esme!"

  A name has power, thus the ability to Release, bind, and enchant a spirit by means of the entity's name. As I had seen in the British Library restaurant, speaking the name of a spirit bound to me had the effect of calling that spirit forward, bringing it to wherever I was. Hence the need, the hermit had explained, for sealing a spirit to a location if one did not want it to come running everytime its name was spoken.

  True to form, the second Esme's name left my lips she was released from the bobble, just a scant nanosecond before Roxy trod upon it.

  The appearance of a middle-aged ghost in a bath-robe, holding a three-legged cat, did much to stop conversation. In fact, it was a pretty fair bet to say that you could have heard an individual atom of oxygen hit the floor.

  I closed my eyes for a second and wondered why I couldn't have a nice, normal life with nice, normal ghosts.

  "Good afternoon, everyone. Allie, you didn't tell me we were going to pay calls. I'm all at sixes and sevens today. Is that scones I smell? I haven't had scones in years! I do hope you make the kind with dates in them, not sultanas. Sultanas give me the wind. Just let me freshen up a bit and I'll be ready for a nice little chat."

  Three pairs of extremely surprised eyes turned to look at me. I did my utmost to rally a smile. "Are we early?"

  Chapter Six

  "I know there's nothing she can eat, but I feel terribly rude not even offering her a cup of tea," Joy said a few minutes later, after we had survived the introductions. Raphael, on his way out to do some work with the security firm he owned, looked more than a bit startled, but all in all, everyone took Esme's presence pretty well.

  Roxy was in seventh heaven, sitting next to Esme on the couch, grilling her as to what life after death meant. Esme had met her match in Roxy—for every morsel of helpful advice that was offered ("Petite women should never wear horizontal stripes; it makes you look like a munchkin"), Roxy parried with yet another pointed question about the afterlife.

  "What was the first moment you knew you were dead? How come you look like you did shortly before you died, rather than at the moment of death? I mean, if you burned to death, shouldn't you be all smoldering, blackened flesh and gooky stuff? Did you see a light at the end of a tunnel? And what's the deal with angels—are they real, or is it all just a bunch of hooey?"

  I turned away from Roxy and Esme and made an apologetic face at Joy. "I'm really sorry about this. I realize you thought you were just getting me when you invited me to tea. If Esme makes you uncomfortable, I'll just turn another bobble into a keeper and tuck her away."

  Joy, sitting with her hands resting on her ample stomach, eyed my sweater. "You keep your ghosts in sweater bobbles?"

  "Sometimes," I said cautiously. "But really only in cases of emergency. Not to change the subject, but could you tell me what this step business is that you and Roxy mentioned last night? I meant to ask Christian about it, but what with him making snide comments at me, and then there was Esme and the two of them ganged up on me… well, it just kind of got pushed aside."

  Joy's mouth hung open for a minute before she snapped it shut. "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm sure it's going to make a fascinating tale. The steps, oh…" She looked over at Roxy, who was sweeping her hands through Esme's midsection, much to the latter's delight. "Well, the steps are part of the Joining. Do you know anything at all about Moravians?"

  "Other than that they are not quite vampires, no."

  Joy leaned toward me a little. "You know, you really should read Christian's books. Much of what he writes about is actual Dark One lore, although, of course, he presents it as fiction. I will be happy to lend you my copies."

  I gnawed on my lower lip. "I'm not really much of one for romances," I said carefully.

  She smiled, her eyes dancing with inner laughter. "Trust me, you'll like these. And anything you don't understand, you can ask Christian about. Now, the steps… we were talking about that. Let's see… well, each Dark One is born having one true love, his Beloved. That's Beloved with a capital B, by the way. Anyhoodles, a Dark One's Beloved is his soul mate, the woman who was born to redeem his soul and balance his life. We had thought that there was only one Beloved for each Dark One, but…"

  She looked uncomfortable. I couldn't tell if the baby was dancing on her bladder, or if it was something she was about to say, but I suspected the latter.

  "It's really not important in the least. I don't want you thinking that it is, because it isn't, not truly."

  I blinked. "Okay."

  "And I don't want you thinking that there's anything between Christian and me, because I love Raphael more than anything on this earth, and I always will. Christian was just a little confused about me for a short while, and took things a bit hard, but in the end it all worked out well, even though Raphael did get fired, and he does have a scar, but at least the tattoo is safe, so that's good."
>
  I opened my mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

  "But I did promise Christian, you see. I swore to him that I'd help him find his Beloved, and then Roxy had this crazy idea about writing a book to draw her out, and I knew that wouldn't work, but I thought if Christian did a book tour to a number of countries, that might stand a fair chance of working, and Roxy came over just for the book signing because she said Miranda—that's a Wiccan friend of ours—Miranda said the goddess told her that Rox was needed in London. And it worked, because here you are!"

  Finally, something I could understand. "Wait a minute, if you're talking about my being Christian's main squeeze, I have to correct that misimpression. I talked to him about this last night, and he himself told me that I wasn't his Beloved. He said he would break the news to you." I took in her crestfallen expression and gentled my words. "I see that he didn't bother to do that."

  "I haven't seen Christian since he saw us home after the book signing," Joy said, pinching worriedly at a ginger cookie. She frowned for a minute; then her face cleared. "No, he's wrong, that's all."

  "Who's wrong?" Roxy asked as she scooted forward to snag a handful of cookies.

  "Christian. He told Allie she wasn't his Beloved."

  "Oh, is that all. Sure, he's wrong. He was wrong about you being his Beloved; makes sense he'd be wrong about her, too. Poor man is a bit stunted in the Beloved-recognition department," she told Esme in a confidential tone of voice.

  "Really? And he seemed so nice."

  "Wait a minute." I held up my hand, feeling like the conversation was getting beyond my control. "Can we back up a minute? Christian thought you were his Beloved? Is that what all that 'I don't want you to think it's important' business was about?"

  Everyone started talking at the same time, Roxy to tell me that although Christian was a pussycat and she loved him dearly (in a purely platonic way, since she had a husband she adored, he was still a man, and everyone knew men were idiots, Esme to inform me that girdles worked wonders where nothing else could; and Joy to add that Christian had been just a little confused, but that was all straightened out now.