"The younger one is a polter," the first spirit whispered loudly to the second after Sergei introduced himself. "I think she"s what they call a punk rocker."
"I"m not into punk!" Pixie said with a toss of her black hair. "I"m a Goth!"
The spirits peered at her. "Are you sure?" the one named Julie asked. "You look like the people on the TV we saw a few decades back. All black leather and chains and spiky dyed black hair."
"I"m fifteen, not a million years old! I"m a Goth!"
"I talk. I know I"m talking, because I can hear my voice, but no one listens." Adam whumped his head on the door a few more times.
"Goth? As in Visigoth? Is it some sort of alternative lifestyle?"
"We"re all over alternative lifestyles," the first spirit said, nodding.
Pixie heaved a dramatic sigh. I smiled at Adam. He banged his forehead twice more.
"It"s not an alternative lifestyle. Goth is..." Pixie"s hands gestured while she tried to put into words her outlook on life. "It"s...oh, it"s hard to explain.
It"s dark. It"s all about darkness and evil and twisted reality."
"Now you"ve lost me," Julie said.
I took pity on the ghosts. "It"s a somewhat popular movement wherein members express via creative means the duality of man"s nature, exploring everything dark and nightmarish, often through music, poetry, books, and dress style."
"There"s more to it than that!" Pixie said, outrage dripping from her words.
"Yes, but we only have so long before Adam is going to give himself a concussion," I said with a nod toward him.
He glared at me in return.
"Well, whatever you are, it"s a look that works," the second spirit told Pixie, totally ignoring Adam. "I am Jules, and this is my domestic partner, Antony. Please, all of you, do come in and make yourselves comfortable. I don"t think we"ve ever had a Goth in before. We"ll open a bottle of champagne to celebrate!"
"I don"t like champagne," Pixie said with a regal inclination of her head as she marched in the door. "I"d prefer absinthe."
"Do you have any oats?" Sergei asked as he drifted after her.
"You"re not having anything alcoholic-" I said, but was cut off almost immediately.
"This is ridiculous!" Adam shouted, blocking the door again so I couldn"t follow Pixie. He swung around to face his spirits, his arms outstretched to bar the entrance. "You don"t know who you"re talking to. These people are not here on a social visit. They"re dangerous to you all!"
"Ignore Adam. He"s so melodramatic," Jules told Pixie.
I ducked under Adam"s right arm and squeezed into the room before he could grab me.
"I am not melodramatic! I have never been melodramatic a day in my life!
I am the least melodramatic person I know, and I know a lot of people! Now, will you be quiet and listen to me? I"m trying to save your rotten hides!"
"It"s like living with a drama queen," the spirit named Antony said in a confiding tone as he escorted Pixie to a chair. "He"s been very cranky today because some evil a.s.sa.s.sin is on his way here to destroy us. Now, you just sit right there. Serge, darling, you must think us utter pigs for allowing you into a room in such a state, but it"s simply impossible to get good help these days. It"s all Julie and I can do to keep the kitchen running. But that"s another story, isn"t it? Everyone relax, and make yourselves comfy. We"ll be back with a little something to celebrate your visit."
Tony started across the room but stopped when his partner grabbed his arm and nodded toward me.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," Tony said, hustling to offer me a hand, his body suddenly changing from translucent to solid. "I"m the rudest thing ever, aren"t I! Please, do come in."
"Stop! You have no idea who she is!" Adam warned.
Tony waved away the objection as I shook his hand. "Pfft. Any friend of Adam"s is a friend of ours. How d"ye do? I"m Antony."
"Karma," I said, shaking his hand.
"She"s the exterminator come to send you and the others to the Akasha,"
Adam growled behind me.
Tony"s eyes widened, his face freezing. Beyond him, Jules stopped dead, an identical look of horror on his face.
"The a.s.sa.s.sin is here?" a voice squeaked from behind the door. A pet.i.te woman with white-blond hair that stuck out in odd clumps burst out, her large gray eyes dark with fear. She threw her hands over her head, shrieking, "Eeek! I don"t want to die looking like this!"
The woman raced across the polished wooden floor and disappeared up the stairs. The two spirits vanished. Pixie plopped herself down on the sofa and pulled out her iPod. Sergei faded a few notches until he was just barely visible.
I turned to face Adam, who was standing with a belligerent look on his face, the shotgun still clutched in his hands.
"Was that woman what I think she was?"
"Amanita is a unicorn, yes. She"s having a bad hair day. You"re not going to send the ghosts or her to the Akasha." His voice was deep and full of threat.
"No, I"m not," I agreed, taking him by surprise. I smiled and waved my hand somewhat wearily toward the Sergei. "How do you think I ended up with a Russian domovoi?"
"And the imps," Sergei said, a glint of humor in his eye. "And Peter the dada."
One of Adam"s eyebrows rose as he considered me. "You have a vegetable spirit?"
"Doesn"t everyone?"
He just stared at me.
I sighed. "Yes, I have a dada, and imps, although I released them into the wild earlier today, and Sergei, and as you can see, a teenage porter named Pixie."
"Obsidian Angel!"
"I thought it was Desdemona," Adam said, momentarily distracted.
Pixie looked down her nose at him, not an easy task given his height and the fact that she was sitting down. "I changed it! It"s Obsidian Angel now!"
"I know you think I"m the devil himself," I said, turning back to Adam.
"But I"m not. I"m not going to send your charges to the Akasha; I promise. I will, however, have to relocate them."
"No," Adam said, his face growing dark.
I sighed again and took his non-shotgun hand, pulling him over to the settee across from Pixie. "Look, I know you don"t want to go over this again, but we literally are out of time. Spider will be here any minute. I"m surprised he wasn"t here to meet me, actually. This house legally belongs to him." I held up my hand to stop the protest. "I know, I know, he got it from you by trickery, but legally, it belongs to him. He has made a deal with me to clean it. If he shows up and the spirits and your unicorn are not gone, there will be h.e.l.l to pay."
"You made a deal to clean my house?" Adam asked, anger flaring to life in his beautiful light blue eyes. "How much is he paying you?"
"He"s giving me a divorce," I said, ignoring the sarcastic tone. "You said you looked into my background. If so, you"ll know I"m licensed by the League to perform exterminations when a property"s owner requests it, so there"s no legal grounds for you- either in the mundane world or the Otherworld-to stop the extermination from being carried out. What I am offering you is the best compromise possible: I will relocate your charges to the location of your desire. Your spirits and the unicorn will be safe, Spider will never know the difference, and you can get on with your life."
"No," Adam said, shaking his head. "I won"t allow it. They belong at Walsh House, just as I do. None of us will be leaving."
Outside the house, the sounds of voices and car doors closing could be heard.
"You have about ten seconds to change your mind," I warned, nodding toward the window. "It sounds like the ghost hunters are here early, and that man shouting is my husband."
"No one is leaving the house," Adam repeated, giving me a curiously unreadable look.
A man rushed through the door, but it wasn"t who I was expecting.
"Karma! Tell me you haven"t done anything rash! Tell me it"s not too late to reason with you!"
I cast my eyes heavenward for a moment, praying yet again for patience.
"Dad, I told you not to come here. I may be drugged up to the eyeb.a.l.l.s, but I know I told you not to come."
"Dad?" A familiar blond woman stepped into the house behind my father.
She glanced from him to me, her eyes growing huge with wonder and delight.
"This is your father? He ... he has three arms!"
Dad gave her a haughty look. "Haven"t you ever seen a polter before?"
I thought Savannah was going to pa.s.s out from excitement. She positively danced in place. "G.o.ddess above! You"re a poltergeist? A real poltergeist? But you look so normal!"
"My father is a real, honest-to-goodness poltergeist, yes," I said, rubbing my forehead. Despite the potent migraine medicines, pain was beginning to blossom again. Not only that, the faint buzzing noise had started up again. I wondered vaguely if Adam had a faulty electrical connection somewhere.
"Complete with three arms, the inability to sit down for more than five minutes, and an annoying tendency to ignore everything I say."
"Not everything, honey. Just the foolish parts."
"Then you"re a poltergeist, too? Oh, merciful G.o.ddess!" Savannah seemed almost to clap her hands with joy. "I never knew that poltergeists could manifest themselves to look human, but I"m thrilled, thrilled to death! Oh, this is perfect! Two poltergeists for our meeting!"
"Try four," I said wearily. Pixie had instinctively grabbed for her cape when people had rushed into the room, but there was little reason to keep her heritage a secret when everyone else"s was out in the open.
I thought Savannah"s eyes were going to bug out when she saw Pixie.
"This is the greatest day of my life," she whispered, a look of utter delight on her face. "She has four arms! But you only have two, and your father has three?
Is it a family trait?"
Pixie rolled her eyes, turned up the volume on her iPod, and, pulling out a book, ignored everyone.
"Um...no. It has to do with the age of the polter. It"s kind of complicated.
My father can explain it better than I can."
"I would very much appreciate an explanation. I"d love to interview you both. But..." Savannah looked around the room. Sergei had disappeared completely at their entrance. "Where is the fourth poltergeist?"
I smiled and tipped my head toward Adam. He shot me a look. I shot it right back at him. If I was going to be the sacrificial lamb for the ghost-hunting group, he was going to be the mint jelly. "I should point out I"m only half polter. My mother is mortal."
Savannah transferred her gawk from the scowling Adam to me. "Four poltergeists! This is unprecedented! I can"t wait to tell the others; they should be here soon. I came a little early to get things set up, but I never in my wildest dreams expected to find poltergeists here! I do hope you"ll partic.i.p.ate in the evening"s events."
"There will be no events, not tonight or any other night," a voice said from the doorway. Spider stepped into the room. "This house is scheduled to be cleaned tonight. Your group will have to find somewhere else to meet."
Adam growled something very rude and lunged at Spider, who sidestepped nimbly away, holding up a sheaf of stapled papers. "Need I remind you who is owner here, Dirgesinger?"
"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d-"
A faint, familiar sound reached my ears. I frowned, turning my head to try to catch it.
A tall, thin man stepped between Adam and Spider just as Adam launched himself forward. "Now, now, there"s no need for violence, Adam."
"Meredith," Adam snarled, his teeth bared. "How much did it take to buy your favors? How much did it take to betray me?"
The noise grew. It was high-pitched, like the sound of distant gulls...only much more ominous.
Spider caught sight of Pixie. His eyebrows rose; a lascivious look was in his eyes. "You took in a polter? My, my, if you"d only told me earlier ... I would have been happy to make the young lady... welcome."
My skin crawled at the tone of his voice. Pixie evidently heard him, because she stuffed her book and her iPod into her bag and moved over to stand behind me.
"Goodness. What"s going on here?" Savannah leaned close to ask, her eyes on the three men standing in the center of the room.
My father flitted around the edge of the room, clearly so wound up that he wouldn"t be able to stand still. I pinched the bridge of my nose, praying the pain in my head would lessen enough to let me cope with the situation quickly spinning out of control.
The noise outside increased. My father listened for a moment, then turned to me with a question in his eyes.
I sighed and braced myself for the onslaught. "Adam is the owner of the house. Or he was until Spider bought it. I gather that the other man is Meredith Bane. He"s the crooked banker who helped Spider steal Adam"s house while he was away."
Savannah stiffened, her gaze sharp. "Meredith happens to be my husband.
He is not crooked!"
"Your husband? Oy. I"m sorry."
"Meredith!" She dismissed me with a cool nod and swept over to her husband, trailing a long gauze scarf that hung down her back. "There is much discord in the house. It will disturb the spirits greatly."
The middle-aged, slightly balding man leaned his head down to that of his wife, evidently cooing rea.s.suring words in her ear.
"That"s all well and fine," she said, pointing at Spider, "but that man said the house is going to be cleaned. That"s a euphemism for exorcism! The house is of no use to us whatsoever if the spirits are driven from it!"
"No one is going to exorcise anything," Adam said loudly. "Isn"t that right, Karma?"