Ghost Of A Chance Part 6

"I'll be OK," I said, slipping into my jacket and staggering toward my tool bag. "I just need to take things slowly. Well, as slowly as I can, which isn't very slow at all, but what the h.e.l.l. Spider can just deal with me being a little late."

"You are going to clean a house?" Cardea asked, panic rising in her pretty green eyes. Her hands fluttered around helplessly. "Oh, I couldn't leave here; I just couldn't!"

"Someone must take her," Sergei insisted. "She isn't safe to drive as she is."

"But ... I couldn't ... so many people..."

"Deus! I'll drive!" Pixie s.n.a.t.c.hed the keys from the hall table, grabbing her cape and a black leather messenger bag before stalking toward the garage.

Sergei frowned. "You're not old enough to drive, are you?"

"Hel- lo! Driver's ed? I so pa.s.sed that months ago," she told him with an impatient gesture.

"Do you have a license?" I asked, unable to believe I was seriously considering letting her drive me anywhere.

"I had the highest score in the cla.s.s," she said, tossing her head.

"Which means you don't have a license." I sighed. I'd just have to get myself to the house on my own.

"I have a permit! It says I can drive with an adult present, and since you're, like, ancient, that means I can drive you."

I hesitated, weighing the h.e.l.l it would be driving myself against the concern of bringing Pixie with me to an environment that was hostile, if not downright dangerous.

"Come on, Karma," she said, her dark eyes curiously vulnerable. "I'm a good driver. My last foster mom used to have me drive her to the liquor store all the time."

I winced. "All right. But only on my conditions!" I said, holding her back when she leaped for the door leading to the garage. "You have to promise me you'll do as I say when we get to the house. If Spider or any of the ghost people are around, keep your cape on. d.a.m.n, I wish I'd thought of sending my dad out for a glamour."

"Mrs. Beckett says glamours give you brain cancer if you use them too much."

"That's just an old wives' tale." I fretted for a few moments more about taking Pixie with me but didn't see a way around it.

"Do you think the flower chick would freak out at a real live polter?" she asked, waving her arms around in an exaggerated manner.

"I have no idea how she or the other ghost hunters would react. Some people have no issues with the Otherworld; others refuse to believe the truth.

Until I can judge which group they fall into, I want you to keep a low profile."

"Maximus deus!" she swore, rolling her eyes. "Fine! Have it your way! I'll keep my cape on, OK?"

"OK," I said, going against my better judgment. I kept one hand on the wall for support as I walked to the car.

"It's automatic, right? I can't drive a stick. My foster dad was going to show me how, but he was arrested for DUI."

"What lovely people they must have been," I murmured, then gave her instructions on where we were headed.

To my surprise, Sergei followed us.

"You need me," Sergei said by way of explanation.

"I do?"

"I would come with you, but I have all this pantry rearranging to do,"

Cardea called from the doorway, giving us a little wave. "Have fun!"

"You need me," Sergei repeated, shimmering into nothing as he melted into the backseat of the car.

There wasn't much I could say to that. I didn't have the energy to fight a determined spirit, so I gave in with as much grace as I could muster. Before we reached the car, the phone rang. I hesitated, looking at the garage phone for a moment, a.s.sessing my need to leave against the possibility of a phone call I shouldn't miss. "Just a second, guys. I'd better see who it is."

"Probably your father," Sergei said as I picked up the phone. "He called earlier and left a message saying he wanted to see you immediately."

"Karma? I forbid you to go out to that house," my father said even before I could say h.e.l.lo.

"Dad, I really don't have time for this. I'm late, and I have a killer headache."

"It's payback for what you're about to do," he snapped.

"I'm sorry; I really have to go. Can we have this argument another time?"

"No! This is important, Karma. I can't let you destroy any more spirits!

It's wrong-wrong on a cosmic scale. I will not have a daughter of mine being the angel of death!"

I would have rolled my eyes at my father's dramatics but didn't have the energy. "I'm hanging up now. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"I'm coming out to the house!"

"Like h.e.l.l you are! Spider will have the hissy fit to end all hissy fits if he sees you there. Not to mention ghost hunters are going to be there. Just stay home, and we'll work it out tomorrow."

"Don't do anything until I get there and can talk some reason into you!"

he shouted into the phone as I hung up the receiver and turned to face three inquisitive expressions.

"Honestly, there are times when I wish I could divorce my father. Pixie, I need to get to the Walsh house as fast as legally possible."

"Obsidian Angel!"

"Sorry." I took the pa.s.senger seat, buckling myself in as I shied away from the thought of what Spider would have to say about my father's showing up.

"Let's see ... R for 'forward'?" Pixie started the car and immediately hit the accelerator. We shot backward into a series of shelves that lined the back wall of the garage, boxes of Christmas decorations perched on the beams overhead tumbling down onto the car.

I glared at her. "R for forward?"

"Heh-heh. Little joke." She smiled. I continued to glare until she made a face and put the car into the proper gear.

"I will clean it later," Sergei rea.s.sured me as I slowly turned to look out the back window at the spilled garlands of gold and silver, the tinsel fluttering to the ground on either side of the car, and the soft stuffed Santa that tangled itself on the car's antenna. The shelves looked a little worse for wear, but not totally destroyed.

The car jerked forward four feet. My forehead hit the padded dash.

"Sorry. This car is a little different from my foster mom's. I have it now."

We shot out of the garage, trailing tinsel and garlands, some of it flying off the car as we careened around the corner on what felt like only two wheels. I clutched the dashboard with both hands, mute with horror.

"Gotta have tunes while I'm driving," Pixie said, fiddling with the radio. I screamed and pointed. She jerked the car back into our lane, narrowly missing plowing headlong into a semitrailer. "It's not what I normally listen to, but it'll have to do."

Rap exploded from the radio.

I closed my eyes and prayed to every deity I could think of to just get us to the house without anyone being maimed or killed.

6.

"Well, that doesn't look good."

As I got out of the car, a large shadow arose from a settee on the verandah and stood at the top of the steps. It was Adam, and he was holding a shotgun.

"Wow. He's really p.i.s.sed-looking." Pixie eyed Adam for a moment before waving me ahead. "You go first."

"It is not proper that Karma be exposed to such danger. I will go first,"

Sergei said, floating to the front of our little group.

"He's not going to shoot me," I a.s.sured my sweet domovoi. "He's just trying to make a statement."

"Yeah. A statement like a herkin' big hole blown through your head,"

Pixie added in a suspiciously cheerful voice.

"You are a morbid little girl," Sergei told her.

"At least I'm alive, and I'm not a slave," she snapped back.

"I am a domovoi! I am not a slave-"

"Knock it off, you two," I interrupted, squaring my shoulders and starting up the flagged pathway. "This is difficult enough without you going at it. If you all could be quiet and let me deal with the situation, I'd appreciate it.

h.e.l.lo, Adam."

"I told you that you were not welcome on my property," Adam called down from the verandah. "I meant it, Karma. You will step foot in my house over my dead body."

I ignored the fact that he made an impressively threatening figure-with or without the gun-and slowly climbed the stairs until I was directly in front of him. Pixie trailed behind me. Sergei was beside her, materializing only enough to be vaguely visible. "That's going to be a little difficult given that you're a polter, isn't it?"

Even in the failing light, I could read the irritation that flashed through his eyes. "My heritage has nothing to do with the situation."

"No? I have always believed that orthodox polters were bound to their domiciles, guardians of their homes, unable and unwilling to leave them so long as they stood. That sounds to me like very good motivation for not wanting to face the reality of the loss of your property."

His face tightened. "You've been busy. Looked me up, did you?"

I smiled. "I work for the Akashic League. Their records are extremely extensive when it comes to Otherworld citizens, so it wasn't difficult to find a background on you. You're an orthodox polter, born 1902-which means you've had long enough to drop the extra arms, and you work in the mundane world as a U.S. marshal. Your family has guarded this house since it was built, although it wasn't until the 1990s that you bought it outright and took over ownership from the mortal family who inhabited it. I believe those are all the pertinent facts."

"Not quite all," he said, shifting the shotgun to his left hand. I fought the urge to back up a step or two at the hard look on his face. "You missed one: I, too, work for the Akashic League."

That took me aback for a moment. "You do? In what capacity?"

"I am a member of the watch," he said with a smile that was far from rea.s.suring.

"He's a watch?" Pixie asked in a puzzled whisper. "How can you be a member of a watch?"

I didn't have time to do more than wonder why she wasn't aware of the Otherworld police system. Evidently Sergei filled her in, because it wasn't a few seconds later that she said, "Oh, great, he's a cop. They were always arresting my foster dad. Although he had it coming a couple of times."

" 'Mad, bad, and dangerous to know,' " I quoted softly.

Adam all but smirked. "I'm not Lord Byron, but it fits well enough. And you aren't the only one who used the League's archives to look things up. I know all about the wergeld."

I narrowed my eyes at him, considering his unspoken threat.

"You know? Who did Karma kill? She won't tell me anything!" Pixie complained.

I prayed for patience. "Many people know about my history. It's not relevant right now, however. My husband, who is due here at any minute, is relevant. He will have little respect for the fact that you're a marshal, and none for the fact that you're a member of the Otherworld's elite police force. You're going to have to face that legally he owns your house, Adam. He's mortal.

You're not. By the laws that govern the League, you can't do anything to seriously harm him."

"Except in self-defense," he corrected, taking up an aggressive stance. "I have no doubt he will attempt to attack me, at which point I will legally be able to defend myself and my home."

"You don't know Spider," I said, shaking my head. "He's-"

"Oooh, guests! Adam, you didn't tell me we were to have guests! And me without mint juleps or fresh gingerbread. A domovoi! And merciful Scot, another polter!"

Pixie, who had been loudly chewing gum, stopped to eye the young man with long blond curls, clad in what seemed to be late-Victorian garb, as he appeared in front of her. He wore a highly anachronistic bright yellow ap.r.o.n bearing the words IS THAT A SAUSAGE ON MY GRILL, OR AM I JUST HAPPY TO SEE YOU? "Not more bigots!"

The spirit squealed. "Not in the least, my dear girl! We positively love polters here! Adam, why didn't you tell me we were going to have guests?"

"Get back in the house!" For a moment, Adam looked disconcerted as he attempted to shoo the spirit back through the front door. "I told you it wasn't safe out here!"

"Don't be ridiculous; these lovely ladies wouldn't dream of harming anyone! Julie! You simply have to come out here! We have guests!"

"No," Adam said, throwing himself across the front door. "No one else- ".

"This had better be important, because my egg whites aren't even close to stiff yet, and you know what a disaster limp whites can be. ... Sweet St. Peter and all the saints! Lady visitors!" The spirit of a second young man swept right through Adam, stopping next to his friend. He was likewise dressed in Victorian clothing, although his waistcoat was a shimmering turquoise, while the first spirit's was a gorgeous patterned silver and green. "Welcome to our home. It's been forever and a day since anyone has paid us a call. We must warn Amanita."

"Oh yes, absolutely," the first spirit agreed.

Adam banged his forehead on the door frame a few times. "Why don't you listen to me? Why does no one listen to me?"