Ghost Of A Chance Part 21

I kept my expression pleasant despite the backhanded compliment. "What sort of research have you done with the PMS group?"

"We investigate hauntings, primarily. The Admiral's Mansion in Aberdeen-you've heard of it? It's supposedly one of the top twenty-five haunted houses in the U.S. Well, PMS has done extensive research there. We've spent nights in the house filming, conducting seances, and attempting to isolate and identify the hot spots of psychic activity there."

"I see." That wasn't telling me anything useful. "But with regards to polters-have you or your group done any special research on them?"

An odd look pa.s.sed over her face. "Why, no. I just told you that I had no idea that you people were as you are. No idea!"

"Indeed." I leaned forward and looked her dead in the eye, willing every ounce of my polter heritage to let me sense any variations in her body language.

The strange faint buzzing noise caught the edge of my consciousness, but I dismissed it. "But you know the difference between summoning and calling, don't you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

I dropped my voice until it was a whisper, and continued to pin her back with a gaze that sought confirmation of my suspicions. "You mentioned calling a polter. Only someone with experience in the Otherworld would know the difference between summoning and calling."

"I ... I don't quite see..." She looked confused, but I wasn't fooled. She'd slipped up, and we both knew it.

"Spirits and demons are summoned. Polters are called. If you are as naive about polters as you say, why do you know the difference?"

She sat back, a gentle smile on her face, but her fingers were white as they twisted a napkin. "G.o.ddess, you startled me for a moment! I thought something was wrong. I have no idea when or where I learned the difference. I a.s.sume someone at PMS mentioned it. Or I might have read it; I'm very big on doing research, you know."

"How rea.s.suring." I sat back, as well, having gotten my answer. In genetic structure I might not have inherited much from my father along the polter lines, but even I could read Savannah's body language. She was trying very hard not to appear fl.u.s.tered, but it was clear she was lying about something.

Why on earth would she want people to think she was clueless about polters when the opposite was true? And why was she so nervous about my knowing her secret?

17.

I puzzled over Savannah's odd behavior while she chatted brightly to my father and Pixie-neither of whom made much effort to converse. Adam entered the room and served himself, then sat down across from me.

"Meredith says he's feeling better. He'd like some breakfast," he said to Savannah.

She raised an eyebrow. "He's perfectly capable of getting his own breakfast, I a.s.sure you."

"He said he'd prefer you to bring him up a plate," Adam answered, applying pepper rather heavily to his eggs.

Pixie and I both sneezed.

"Sorry. Pepper gets away from me."

"My days of waiting on that man hand and foot are over." Savannah rose with a graceful movement, collecting a plate and a small sampling of the breakfast fare.

"I believe he's expecting you to bring him something," Adam said.

She tossed her head. "He can just wait, then."

"Should I tell him that, or leave him alone?" Tony asked, drifting through the table with a plate of what looked to be burnt toast in his hands. "I was going to take these odds and bobs from breakfast up to Karma's imps. Do they like cantaloupe?"

"They'll eat just about anything but asparagus; that makes them swell up like puffer fish. I'd leave Meredith alone, personally."

"Ew." Pixie made a face at the comment about my imps before dropping her scowl back to her plate.

"Yes, by all means, let the b.a.s.t.a.r.d starve."

My eyebrows rose at the vehemence in Savannah's voice.

She continued on with blithe disregard for her husband's welfare. "Adam, my spirit control suggested I try automatic writing this morning, to contact Spider before the seal is lifted. There will be time for me to do that, won't there?"

"Er...yes." Adam didn't look like he had much faith in her ability to get Spider to do anything, much less tell us who his murderer was.

"Excellent. I've had some luck with automatic writing in the past. Have you ever tried it?"

"No." Adam picked up a section of the paper my father had discarded.

Despite it's being a day old, he propped it up in front of himself and appeared to read the news with a strange avidity.

"Oh." She looked crestfallen for a moment before turning to Pixie. "You'd like automatic writing, Misericordia."

"Nephthys."

I smiled to myself. Nephthys was one of the most famous figures in polter history. Every polter child was taught about how she'd married the Egyptian G.o.d Seth, bringing the polters forth as positive beings rather than frightening ent.i.ties. Pixie had made a fitting choice for her new name.

"Pardon?" Savannah asked.

"My name is Nephthys. Misericordia wasn't working. No one could remember it." The glare she sent me should have singed off at least a hair or two, but I gave her a bland smile in return.

"I see. That's very pretty. It's Egyptian, isn't it?"

Pixie shrugged. "I dunno. I saw it on the Web. It has something to do with the underworld, and it sounds dark. People should be able to remember it!"

I ignored yet another of her glares and glanced with disbelief at Adam and my father. Had neither of them heard her? Apparently they hadn't, for both of them kept their respective noses buried in the newspaper.

"Yes, it's very dark, and I'm sure no one will have any trouble remembering it. You're very into that sort of thing, aren't you? Perhaps you'd like to try automatic writing, as well?"

Pixie frowned down at the tabletop, her face set in a sullen expression.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. ..." She shot me a fl.u.s.tered glance. "Are you people not able to do it? Communicate with spirits, I mean?"

"Dunno, I've never tried. Although I'd prefer to summon a demon. I've always wanted a demon of my own," Pixie said.

All the warning bells and whistles in my head went off at her words. I tossed down my napkin, rising, then took a firm hold on her s.h.i.+rt as I walked past her. "If you're done mauling your toast, I'd like to have a word with you.

Right now!"

Adam glanced up questioningly. I shook my head at him and hustled a sputtering Pixie into the next room, closing the door firmly behind us.

"Stop it! You're hurting me!" she complained, jerking her arm out of my grip and smoothing over the rumpled bit of s.h.i.+rt. "Deus! This is child abuse, you know! I could complain to the League about you!"

"Oh, really? You know what they'd say? You haven't been a polter long enough to be considered a real citizen, and thus aren't eligible for protection."

She froze, her pupils dilating slightly. "What?"

"Just how long have you been a polter?" I asked, crossing my arms in an attempt to look as intimidating as possible.

"I don't know what you're talking about." The expression on her face might be stubborn, but she couldn't look me in the eye when she spoke.

I relaxed slightly as another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. "Let's go over the facts, and I'll see if I can't make myself a little clearer. First, there's the matter of your name."

"What about it?" She peeked up at me from under her dense overhang of bangs.

"Names have power. Everyone in the Otherworld knows that. People here don't change their names at the drop of a hat."

She said nothing.

"That can possibly be explained away by your youth and desire to blend into the Goth lifestyle. What can't be explained is the fact that you don't know who Nephthys is."

Her head snapped up, her eyes mutinous. "Are you calling me stupid?"

"No, I'm not. The tale of Nephthys is something that is taught to every polter child, from a very early age. For you to be ignorant of it says you weren't raised in a polter home...which leads me to your wanting to summon and command a demon."

"What, is it like a crime to summon a demon?"

"No, it's not a crime," I said quietly, eyeing the stormy, troubled girl in front of me and wondering who she really was. "It is, however, quite impossible for a polter to summon a minion of a demon lord. Everyone knows that.

Everyone who was raised in the Otherworld, that is."

Her gaze faltered and dropped, her shoulders slumping. She swayed for a moment, and I put a hand out to steady her, but she jerked backward, stumbling over to the window seat. "Leave me alone. Just leave me alone."

I squatted down next to her while she curled up into a ball of misery.

"What happened, Pixie? Why were you made a polter?"

She mumbled something that sounded like "Stupid demon lord."

"Pixie, I'm sorry I have to ask you to tell me about something that's obviously very painful. But I need to know the truth."

"Why?" she asked sullenly.

It took me a few seconds to sort through what I wanted to say.

"Protection, mostly. I'm...We're not going to be together much longer, but I will do everything I can to protect you until the seal is lifted. After that-well, things are going to be a bit dicey, but I will talk to the League home and make sure they understand that you have to be protected."

She raised her head enough to ask, "Protect me from what?"

"From the mundane world. And from situations in our world. What happened to you?"

"You won't understand." She wrapped both arms around herself, burrowing next to the wall and turning her face to look out the window.

"You'd be surprised what I can understand."

"Oh, that's right, you're a murderer. Maybe you will understand."

I didn't even flinch at the accusation. "What happened?"

"Deus! You're not going to leave me alone, are you? You're going to keep picking on me until I tell you!"

"Persistence, thy name is Karma," I agreed.

She heaved a martyred sigh and traced a protection-ward symbol on the gla.s.s. I wondered where she'd learned to draw wards. "I borrowed a ring from my stepsister, OK? She cursed me. Or had a demon lord do it. I don't remember much about it. All I know is I borrowed it and she had me turned into a polter."

"I see."

"No, you don't see," she suddenly snapped, turning an agonized face to me. "You were born this way. You weren't born normal, then turned into this, and kicked out of your family and school, and all your friends wouldn't have freaked if they'd seen what you really were. You don't know what it's like to be me!"

"Just because I haven't lived your life doesn't mean I can't empathize," I said, handing her a box of tissues from the table next to me. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it from me and angrily scrubbed at her wet cheeks. "Although I'm puzzled why your stepsister took such an extreme action for so minor a situation."

"She was a Follower."

"Ah. Which demon lord was she bound to?"

"Bael."

I flinched. Bael was the premier prince of Abaddon, the ruler of all the demon lords. If Pixie's stepsister had sworn to serve him, it was entirely possible she wielded a lot of power through him. I'd run into only one Follower in my time, but the aura of dark power that surrounded him had given me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s.

I would have liked to question Pixie more about her past, but I'd been intrusive enough. I contented myself with patting her on the leg and saying, "I don't understand why the League felt they had to conceal your origins, but that's neither here nor there. Now that I know you're a neophyte, I can help you over possible stumbling blocks."

"I'm not a neophyte, whatever that is," she grumbled, but her dark scowl eased a little.

"You certainly won't be for long." I glanced at the closed door to the dining room, getting to my feet with a sigh. "I'd better make sure my father isn't being obnoxious to Savannah."

"Karma..." Pixie bit her lip and looked out the window again.

"Hmm?"

Her thin shoulders twitched in wordless emotion. "You said I can't stay with you. Is it because I'm a freak?"

Sadness tinged my smile. "You aren't a freak in any way."

"Then why can't I stay with you?" she asked, her eyes dark with pain.

"Spider...," I said, and choked to a stop. 'Spider's death has changed things, I'm afraid. If the situation was different, I'd be happy to have you stay with me; I truly would. But sometimes life just doesn't work out the way you would like it to, and regrettably, this is one of those times."

"That's just lame," she said, turning her face away from me.