Haunted (49 page)

I found the Nix in the living room, sitting on a chair—my chair—and staring into space. At first I thought maybe she saw the crying woman residual. She wasn’t looking toward the dining room, though. She was staring straight ahead, eyes as blank as a mannequin’s.

“There you are,” I said, walking into the living room.

“No!” the Nix leapt to her feet, lip curling in a snarl.

“Get out!”

I feigned a wide-eyed back-step. “Jaime? Uh, are you okay?”

Her eyes flicked to mine and she frowned, as if just noticing me.

“What?” she snapped. Then she blinked fast. “Oh, Paige. Sorry.”

“Ghost bothering you?” I asked.

Another quick blink, startled. Then a sharp head shake that morphed into a nod and a wry smile. “Yeah. You know how it is. They never leave us alone. So is your work done?”

“Pretty much. I just popped down to see whether we had anything in the freezer for dessert. I should be able to dig up a pie.”

“Sounds good.”

“If Lucas or Savannah comes in, just tell them I’m downstairs. In the basement. I may be a while—that freezer’s packed with stuff.”

She nodded, then sat back down, gaze going blank, as if she’d already forgotten I was there. I headed for the basement steps. When I reached the back-door landing, I looked outside. Lucas caught the movement and glanced over. I motioned that I was going into the basement. He nodded, then distracted Savannah before she saw me, and they resumed playing.

“Heading downstairs now,” I murmured under my breath. “Into the dark basement. All alone.”

For a second, I thought I heard Kristof’s chuckle, but the sound turned into the thumping of a dribbled basketball against the driveway.

Once downstairs, I had to look around for the freezer. I knew there was one here somewhere, and I was pretty sure there’d be a pie in it. Not a store-bought one, but something homemade, probably from berries picked by hand. I don’t know how Paige found the time. I never did. Of course, I’d never tried to, either.

I finally located the freezer. Sure enough, it was just as full as I’d imagined. There was a whole stack of pies, so I moved some bread on top to hide them, then busied myself pretending to hunt. Upstairs, all was silent.

“Come on, come on,” I muttered. “One secluded victim, head conveniently stuck in a freezer. What are you waiting for? Until I’ve cleared enough room to stash my body?”

The words had barely left my mouth when footsteps sounded overhead.

“About time. Now hurry it up before I get frostbite.”

The footsteps crossed the kitchen, then descended to the landing, and paused there, as the Nix presumably reassured herself that Savannah and Lucas were busy outside. I shuffled two boxes of cookies. Chocolate-chip cookies. Were those made with Ruth’s recipe? Mmmm. It’d been twenty years since I had those. Maybe I could slip a couple—

The Nix’s footsteps stopped.

“I know there’s a pie in here somewhere,” I muttered.

Paige wasn’t the talks-to-herself type, but the freezer was around the corner, meaning the Nix might have some trouble finding me. Yet at least a minute passed, and nothing happened. Would I hear her footsteps? On a concrete floor?
What are you, stupid?
I backed out of the freezer fast, before I did an Abby Borden and caught a hatchet to the head.

Still facing the freezer, I strained my eyes as far as I could to the side. The bare bulb cast my shadow across the floor, along with the shadow of the freezer and stacked washer-dryer combo. But no Jaime-shaped one. For thirty seconds, I stood there, neck cricked slightly off-kilter, watching the floor for a fresh shadow. Finally, I gave up, quietly lowered the freezer door, and slid along the wall to the doorway. Aspicio powers would come in real handy right about now. Damn, I was spoiled.

From the left of the doorway, I could see the bottom of the stairs. No sign of the Nix. I cast a blur spell, then quickly leaned out for a peek, and jerked back. Unless she was hiding in the cold cellar—with the door closed—she wasn’t down here. I’d definitely heard her on the steps. Had I heard her descend all the way? No, because I’d been distracted by cookies. There’s a defense for the books.

I was pretty sure I’d heard her continue past the back-door landing. What was it Lucas had said? Considering what we were dealing with, “quite sure” wasn’t good enough. So “pretty sure” really didn’t cut it. I should have been more careful. She could have headed back up while I was ogling a box of frozen baked goods.

“No!”

I jumped, nearly stumbling into the open doorway and blowing my cover.

“I didn’t ask—No! This is mine!”

It was the Nix, that same un-Jaime-like snarl I’d heard upstairs. The voice came from the enclosed stairway. Who was she talking to? Not Lucas or Savannah, that was for sure—not in that tone.

A hackle-raising growl reverberated down the stairs. Then a
thud-thud-thud
as the Nix marched, heavy-footed, back up. The screen door squealed open. I hurried from my hiding place to the foot of the stairs.

“Jaime? Is that you?”

She kept walking, letting the door swing shut behind her. I galloped up the stairs and out to the yard. By the time I got there, she was at the edge of the driveway. Lucas stopped mid-throw, and the ball rolled from his hand. Savannah dove to catch it, chortling at his fumble. Then she saw us and stopped.

“Jaime!” I called, jogging after her.

She ignored me.

“What’s with her?” Savannah whispered.

Lucas shushed her and said something under his breath, distracting her attention from Jaime. I caught up to the Nix, and touched her arm, but she flung me off and growled something about needing some air. When I turned, Lucas caught my eye and motioned for me to leave her be.

“Time to order that pizza, I believe,” he said as he scooped up the ball. “What does everyone feel like? I think Hawaiian might be a nice change. We haven’t had that in a while.”

“Duh,” Savannah said, snatching the ball from him. “We don’t have it because I hate pineapple.”

“Really?” he said. “I do believe I saw you put pineapple on your banana split last night.”

“That’s because banana splits are sweet, and pineapple is sweet. Pizza is not sweet. You don’t mix sweet stuff and nonsweet stuff. It’s gross.”

“But you always put plum sauce on chicken strips, and that is definitely mixing sweets and nonsweets, so your logic, it would appear, is faulty, and—”

“Oh, stop being a goof.” She whipped the ball at him.

“I’ll order the pizza and get what I like.”

She marched off into the house, hair flipping behind her, thoughts of Jaime long gone.

“Nice save,” I said when she’d left. “You’re really good with her.”

He only nodded and returned the ball to its place at the foot of the hoop. I often wondered what it was like for Lucas, this package deal. If he’d wanted Paige, he had to take Savannah, too. How many twenty-five-year-olds would have gone for that? Not just accepted the inconvenience of having a kid around, but embraced the whole foster-father role? Well, okay, I’ve known a few twenty-something guys who wouldn’t mind having a teen girl as a ward, but there was never any question of that with Lucas. Right from day one, he’d been exactly what Savannah needed—a combination big brother and father figure who balanced her ideological conflicts with Paige. I wanted to thank him for that. I really did. But I couldn’t think of any way to do it that wouldn’t embarrass him…and probably me, too.

“I think it’s a ghost,” I said when Lucas returned.

“Hmmm?”

“What’s happening with the Nix. She was acting pretty freaky inside, staring into space, then snapping at herself. If I have Paige’s abilities, then she must have Jaime’s, meaning she’s probably seeing a ghost. When I mentioned that, I startled her—maybe she didn’t realize that’s what was happening.”

He nodded. “It could be. It could also be Jaime herself.”

“Trying to get back in, you mean.”

Another nod, then a pause before he glanced over at me. “Does Paige know?” He cleared his throat, tamping down the note of anxiety. “That is to say, you were able to explain this to her, weren’t you? What you did?”

“Uh, no. I couldn’t, or believe me, I would have.”

“So she doesn’t know what’s going on.” He adjusted his glasses, then glanced over at me again. “Is there some way to tell her? To check on her?”

“She’s okay, Lucas. I swear she is. And I’ll get out of here as soon as I can.”

A slow nod. “We should get inside. It doesn’t take long for pizza to arrive, and I doubt Savannah is planning to pay for it.”

“I hope she ordered mushrooms. Pizza isn’t pizza without mushrooms.” I shook my head. “This is getting more absurd by the second, isn’t it?”

“Playing basketball and arguing over pizza while we wait for an evil demi-demon to get around to trying to kill us?” A tiny smile. “Absurd? Not at all. Though I do wish she’d get on with it. Savannah rented
Pirates of the Caribbean,
and Paige really wanted to see that.”

“She’s welcome to it. I’ve had my fill of pirates for a while.”

He arched a brow.

“You don’t want to know. As for the Nix, I’m starting to think we might need to give her a push. Especially if she
is
preoccupied dealing with ghosts or Jaime’s spirit. Maybe—Whoops, here she comes.”

The Nix strode around the house, without so much as a glance our way.

“Jaime!” I called. “We’ve ordered pizza. It should be here—”

“Not hungry,” she snapped. “I’ll be upstairs unpacking.”

Lucas and I waited until she was gone, then exchanged a look.

“I believe a firm push is in order,” he said.

“Before or after the pizza?”

“After. While I trust that we will be able to resolve this situation satisfactorily, in the unlikely event that things do go awry, I believe I am entitled to a last meal, even if it is pizza without pineapple.”

“You want cookies?” I said. “I saw cookies downstairs.”

“Chocolate chip?”

“Sure looked like it.”

“Paige has been hiding them on me, has she? Bring some up, then. Savannah knows how to bake them.”

The Nix spent dinner in Savannah’s room, ostensibly unpacking. As we ate, I tried to resume the boy-talk conversation with Savannah, and earned myself a look of such horror that I spun around, expecting to see Jaime behind me with a hatchet. Seems that engaging in boy-talk while boys—or men—are present just isn’t done, at least not if you’re fifteen. Lucas seemed more than willing to join in, but after a murderous glare from Savannah, I changed the subject.

After dinner, I helped Lucas load the dishwasher and, with the aid of privacy spells, we discussed our next move. We decided to give the Nix one last chance. Lucas would help Savannah with her math homework while I retreated to Paige’s office.

Once the cleanup was done, I thumped upstairs loud enough for the Nix to hear me. Then, for good measure, I called down from the top of the stairs, telling Lucas to hold my calls for the next hour.

Thirty minutes later footsteps sounded in the hall.

“Ready, Trsiel?” I whispered. “You’d better be right where you said you were going to be, ’cause this demi-demon is going down.”

I reached up to Paige’s hair and fingered the ribbon. As much as I longed to use my hands for this job, the situation seemed to call for something different. I slid from my chair, grabbed the second one, and pushed it behind the door. Then I climbed up on it, adding the extra elevation I needed. Life is so much easier when you’re tall.

Balancing on the chair, I tugged out the ribbon. Then I wound it around my hands and waited. The doorknob turned. I crouched, ribbon at the ready.

The door opened, and Lucas walked in.

49

“
DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT WOULD HAVE WORKED
?” he asked, looking from the ribbon to me.

“With a binding spell, it would have,” I said as I hopped down. “Let me guess. Our Nix is showing no signs of impending murderous rage.”

“She came down to ask me to take a look at Paige’s car.”

“Huh?”

“She said it was making a noise when she drove it this afternoon.”

I slumped into the chair. “I don’t believe this.”

“She insisted on giving me a demonstration, even when Savannah ‘reminded’ her that I know nothing about repairing automobiles, that my mechanical expertise is limited to motorcycles.”

“Oh? Oh. I get it. She wants you outside. Away from me, and away from Savannah.”

“Precisely. Either she is uncomfortable taking on you with me in the house, or she wants to begin with me, preferably outside, where”—he waved at the window—“it is fast growing dark.”

“Ah-ha. Maybe we’re making progress after all. But if you go outside, I’m going with you, which is going to cause a problem if I’m the target—”

A scream ripped through the house.

“Oh, my God,” I said. “Savannah!”

As I jumped from the chair, Lucas raced across the room, toward the window.

“They’re in the living room,” he said as he yanked open the window. “Take the stairs. I’ll come in the front door. Whoever is first, distract. Whoever is second, attack from the rear.”

I was in the hall as his last words floated out to me, muffled as he climbed through the window. I hit the top of the steps running so fast I nearly flew down them face-first.

Another shriek. Then, “You little bitch!”

A blur raced around the corner from the living room and plowed into me as I galloped down the last few steps.

“Get down!” Savannah hissed, pushing me down on the stairs.

“Sav—”

She clamped a hand over my mouth and, holding me down, cast a cover spell over both of us. The Nix strode into the doorway, knife in hand. Blood poured from her nose. She swiped a hand across it.

“Where’d you go, bitch?” She looked from side to side. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

She smiled, voice taking on a high-pitched singsong that I knew didn’t come from the Nix. A ghost had indeed crashed the Nix’s party—but it wasn’t Jaime.