She pursed her lips, but nodded.
"Leaving so soon?" I couldn"t help asking as Spider carried two large suitcases out to his car. I leaned against the garage door, suddenly too tired to move.
Spider ignored Pixie, who clutched her cape around herself as she hurried past him to the guest room I"d given over to her.
"I thought it would be best, given our agreement. Or perhaps you"ve changed your mind about that?" he asked, pulling me into an embrace. He rubbed his hips against me and murmured suggestive words as he nibbled a spot on my neck. "Could it be you realize what you"ll be missing by giving me up?"
The headache that had been drugged into submission pulsed to life again.
I put both hands on Spider"s chest and pushed him back, idly wondering if the nausea that accompanied the migraine was entirely due to the pain or if my husband wasn"t the cause of at least some of it. In fact, lately, the headaches seemed to increase intensity, too, whenever he was around. "Stop it, Spider.
Despite your wishes, I will be quite happy on my own. This may come as a shock to you, but you"re not irresistible anymore."
"Just because you don"t get wet at the sight of me doesn"t mean there aren"t plenty of women who do." He laughed as he slapped me on the behind before reentering the house. "Who"s the prime bit in black?"
I dug my knuckles into the pressure points between my eyebrows, praying the migraine didn"t flare up into its full glory. After a few seconds, the pain faded enough for me to make my way into the house. "I told you I was taking in a girl from the children"s home. Her name is Pixie, and she is just fifteen, hardly old enough to be considered a "prime bit." "
"You"d be surprised," he said, waggling his eyebrows at me. "If I"d known you meant such a sweet young thing when you said "girl," I wouldn"t have been so quick to leave."
"That"s not even remotely amusing," I snapped, slamming down my things onto the hall table.
Spider disappeared into the bedroom. I leaned against the door frame, watching as he emptied the contents of a dresser into a large duffel bag. "I went out to the Walsh house today."
"It"s a mess, isn"t it? But it"s going to make us a lot of money. A few fixes here and there, a bit of polish, and it"ll do."
The pain and nausea were back. I slid along the wall to a chair that sat a few feet from the door. "The owner isn"t very pleased, you know."
"Owner?" He looked up from arranging socks. "The previous one, you mean?"
"Yes. He didn"t know the house was in danger of being foreclosed upon."
Spider shrugged. "His loss, not mine. He should have paid closer attention to his affairs."
"He swore you wouldn"t take the house from him, Spider. He sounded like he meant it." My sense of fair play demanded that I warn Spider of Adam"s intention. Fat lot of good that did me. Spider just laughed it off.
"He"s all bark and no bite. Don"t you worry your pretty little head about old Spider. I can take care of myself."
I flinched when he tried to pat my cheek. My head throbbed so horribly for a few seconds I seriously thought I was going to pa.s.s out. When the feeling lessened, I followed Spider out to the living room, where he had packed up various trophies and awards from his sporting days. I collapsed onto the couch, using my knuckles to hit every pressure point on my head that I could recall.
"Did you somehow steal the house from him?"
" "Steal" is such a very nasty word," Spider said, pausing before our wedding picture. He shook his head and pa.s.sed on, moving behind the entertainment center to begin unplugging the stereo equipment. "For six months I"ve made him very attractive offers on the house-offers that far exceeded what the antique junk pile is worth. He refused to negotiate."
The feeling of dread returned to my belly. I had a suspicion I didn"t want to hear what Spider was going to say next.
"Did he tell you that he"d been late with or missed several house payments? The bank has the right to foreclose after so many missed payments, you know. They also have the right to sell the mortgage to others. There was nothing illegal in what I did; I simply waited until his carelessness left the property in a position where I could acquire his mortgage in an expedient manner, then did so. And before you accuse me of conducting any more illegal acts, I did send him the legal notice informing him of the change. I even went so far as to say that unless he paid the past-due amount on the house, I would have no recourse but to foreclose."
I thought seriously of vomiting on him but knew that would provide only temporary satisfaction. "You did all this when? While he was out of town and unable to respond? Unable to save his house? How much time did you give him to pay you? A week? A day?"
Spider grinned. "He had the legal forty-eight hours to respond. He chose not to do so."
"You"re an evil man, but you know that."
"It"s not evil to be savvy, darling. Be a love and grab the DVD player, would you?"
I gritted my teeth against the pain, picking up the DVD player and following him out to his car. I hated to see the electronics go, since movies and music were two of my few pleasures, but it was worth losing them to see the last of the monster I"d married twelve years before.
"What are you looking so down in the dumps about?" he asked when I silently handed him the player. "You"re getting everything you demanded."
"At the expense of an innocent man, who is going to lose his beloved home."
Spider rolled his eyes and tossed the duffel bag into the car. "He"ll find another. I"m doing him a favor, really. The house is a dump, and it"s full of evil spirits. Better to get it cleaned out and taken care of than let it rot. Besides, you know who used to live there?"
I followed him back into the house.
"Poltergeists." He made a face as if he"d bitten something sour.
"What"s wrong with polters?"
"They"re evil." He looked around the house, clearly scanning for anything else he wanted to take with him.
"Judging by the pictures my father took of your nocturnal activities, I"d have thought you had an affection for polters, not hated them."
He grinned again, giving my b.u.t.t a squeeze. I slapped his hand away and moved to the other side of the dining room table. "Just because I"m not blind to their true nature doesn"t mean I hate them. There are many times when it"s quite the opposite. The young ones are particularly delectable. Naomi-she"s the redhead in the picture-was as limber as the rest of the poltergeists I"ve known. And just as insatiable. Lots of energy. She just kept going and going and going. Oh yes, they can be very tasty in the right circ.u.mstances."
"You really are contemptible; you know that, right?"
"Jealous?" he asked with a loathsome leer.
"Hardly. My tastes don"t run to eighteen-year-olds the way yours do. I just hope that someday you"ll be caught by an irate father."
"Won"t happen, sweetheart. I"m very, very careful. I don"t leave loose ends."
I frowned, wondering what the h.e.l.l that meant. I"d known for the last few months that some of Spider"s lovers had been inappropriately young for him, but I a.s.sumed they had been just as willing as he had. Certainly the partic.i.p.ants in the photos my father had shown me looked enthusiastic.
"Do you have everything?" I asked, changing the subject.
"I"ve probably forgotten something, but I"ll come back later for the things I"ve left." He glanced around the room one more time, his gaze narrowing on my purse and a manila envelope I"d put on the table. "What"s this?"
Before I could s.n.a.t.c.h the envelope from him, he opened it and was quickly scanning the doc.u.ments. He turned the envelope over and read the name stamped in the corner. "Akashic League? What were you doing there?"
"A little research on your house," I answered, seizing the papers from his hands.
He gave me an odd look before dismissively shrugging. He checked his watch and grabbed his keys. "How you waste your time is no longer my business. Be at the house at eight."
"Spider, wait." I bit my lip, hesitating to tell him about the planned seance. Part of me wanted to see Savannah pulling something over on Spider, but the realist in me pointed out that few people have ever managed to do that.
"There"s a ghost-hunting group who plans on investigating the Walsh house-"
"I know all about them," he interrupted with yet another" smarmy smile.
"There"s not going to be anything for them to investigate by the time you"re done, now, is there?"
"But-"
"Don"t be late. I want that house cleaned by no later than ten." The slam of the car door shot through my head like a red-hot bolt. I didn"t so much close the door as slump against it, collapsing to the floor in a giant puddle of pain-racked goo.
Sergei"s concerned face and the sound of the phone were the first things I became aware of when I returned to consciousness several hours later.
Somehow I"d been carried over to the couch.
"You all right?" Sergei asked me. "You look bad."
"Migraine," I croaked, the very act of speaking enough to bring on waves of pain and nausea.
He drifted over with my purse and the phone, silently handing both to me. I took the purse, dug through it for the pain meds, then downed them before collapsing back onto the couch. "Let the machine answer it."
A tinny male voice came from the kitchen as the answering machine kicked in, but I was too out of it to listen. Twenty minutes later I swam up from the blessed numbing action of the medicine and carefully sat up.
Sergei hovered in front of me, holding a handful of papers. "These were on the floor. You want? Or recycle?"
"I want them. Thank you for tidying up so quickly." I put the papers back into the envelope. Sergei continued to hover in front of me, a worried expression twisting his face. "Is there something else?"
He pointed at the envelope. "It says Akashic League."
I stared silently at him, unable to work out in my fuzzy brain what it was he was so concerned about.
"You going to banish me?"
"Oh," I said, the light finally dawning. "No, the League hasn"t ordered me to banish you. I was simply using their library to do some research on the house I"m going to clean tonight. Speaking of that, what time is it?"
Sergei moved so I could see the clock above the mantel.
"Oh, no! How could you let me sleep so long? I only have twenty minutes to get to the house...Urgh."
"You look horrible. More horrible than you did earlier when you fainted,"
a voice said from the doorway." Pixie stood watching me with arms crossed over her chest. "Are you going to barf?"
"I don"t think so. I"m sorry if I frightened you." I pushed damp hair back from my forehead, trying to think. My head was woozy and felt like it was filled with mola.s.ses, making my thoughts thick and slow-moving. I shook it in an attempt to clear it.
"I wasn"t scared," she said as she strolled into the room, trying hard for nonchalance in her voice, but I heard an undertone of relief that warmed my heart. "There was a turkey sandwich in the fridge. I ate it."
"That"s fine. I"m sorry I was so out of it. This has been some first day for you."
She shrugged. "I"ve had worse."
"I"m sorry to hear that. And I"m sorry to have to leave you, but I need to go. Will you be all right by yourself? There"s food, and the TV, and I"ll have my father check on you to make sure-"
"I"m not an infant!" Her back stiffened with indignation. "I can be left by myself, you know."
I rubbed my numb head. "I"m sorry, Desdemona-"
"Obsidian Angel," she interrupted.
"What?" I wondered if the drugs were making me hallucinate. "Obsidian what?"
"Angel. It"s my new name. I"m done with Desdemona. You may now call me Obsidian Angel."
I stared at her for a second, wondering if the repayment for my sin was worth having Pixie in my life. "We"ll talk about that later, OK? Right now I need to get going. Sergei, can you please get my bag of tricks?"
Sergei toddled off to get the bag in which I kept my tools. I tried to get to my feet, gritting my teeth to keep the waves of nausea roiling around inside me from coming to fruition. "Can you help me get up, Pixie ... er ... Des...oh, whoever you are? I think once I"m on my feet I"ll be OK."
"I doubt it," she said, hauling me to my feet. I stood weaving for a second, my vision swimming "Thanks. Sergei? Where are...What"s wrong with you?"
The domovoi was a dim figure in the darkness of the hallway. He was evidently struggling to pull together enough energy to move my bag from the other room. That surprised me. "Why are you so wiped out?"
Sergei left the bag halfway down the hall and floated into the living room.
"I did the windows while you were gone. And vacuumed, and dusted in the attic, and washed the kitchen floor, and then there was a rattling in the dryer, so I took it apart to find the bit that was loose, and after that I-"
"Oh, please stop," I said, rubbing my head. "I feel guilty enough that you"re working around here without knowing you"re a virtual slave to housecleaning."
"I like it," Sergei insisted. "I am sorry I did so much today. If I"d known you were going to need me-"
"It"s not a big deal. I can do this. ..." I ignored the groan forced out as I bent to retrieve my bag from the floor.
"You"re going to wrap yourself around a tree or something if you go out like that," Pixie said, watching me with a dispa.s.sionate eye.
"I"m OK. Just a bit woozy. It"ll pa.s.s in a minute."
"The young lady with many arms is right," Sergei said slowly. "It would not be safe for you to drive as you are. Cardea must help you."
He hurried to the kitchen before I could protest, and returned with a worried-looking Cardea.
"Sergei says you need me?"
"I"m fine," I repeated, my vision slowly clearing. I took a tentative step forward. "He"s overreacting."
"Just look at her," Sergei said, gesturing toward me. "You must drive her to the house she is to clean tonight."
Cardea glanced back toward the kitchen. "You know I would be happy to help you, Karma, but I really do have much to do in the pantry. There"re all those cans of soup to be organized, and some of the potatoes are growing eyes, and I thought I would arrange the pasta by expiration date rather than shape, as they are now."
"You must put your own desires aside for the mistress," Sergei said.
I slowly bent to retrieve my jacket, pausing a moment to breathe deeply as a wave of red wooziness washed over me.
Cardea bit her lip. When I had first discovered her, she had been haunting a small dank bas.e.m.e.nt. The owners of the house had sympathy for the agoraphobic G.o.ddess but wished to finish the bas.e.m.e.nt to house their growing family.