Haunted

Lucas was already on his feet and flying out the door. I jumped off my chair and tore after him.

"Hey!" I called as he bounded down the stairs.

He didn't even slow. He hit the bottom step and wheeled through the dining room doorway, disappearing. I ran into the dining room just as he flew through the kitchen, pausing only to grab his keys.

"Oh, shit!" I said. "She's already here, isn't she? That's who's with Sava

I caught up with Lucas in the lean-to, as he yanked the cover off his motorcycle.

"Hold on," I said. When he didn't listen, I snatched the keys from his hand. "Lucas, hold on! She's not after Sava

He turned to me, mouth opening to say something, then stopping as he saw me, a look of disconcertment passing behind his eyes.

"Cast the glamour spell," I said.

"Hmmm?"

"This is making you uncomfortable-me looking like Paige. You know what I really look like, so cast the glamour spell, so you'll see that instead."

He nodded, and cast it. When he finished, his eyes darted my way, shoulders tense, as if bracing himself. Then he relaxed.

"Better?" I said.

He nodded. "Thank you."

"You'll have to uncast it when they come back, so you remember who I'm supposed to be. So when did Jaime get here?"

"This morning. Sava

"She didn't seem at all… odd?"

"Had it been anyone else, I'm sure I would have thought so. But Jaime's moods-and behavior-can be… erratic. She called after she heard about the shooting, and was concerned about Sava

He looked back at the keys in my hand. I clasped my hand around them, hiding them.

"Trust me," I said. "I want to go after her at least as much as you do, but so long as you don't have the keys, and I can't drive a motorcycle, we're pretty darned safe. So where'd they go? Will they be gone long?"

"They're just going to the video store, and picking up a few groceries. They should be back any moment." He walked out of the lean-to, and peered down the driveway. "Perhaps I should call on my cell-"

"Good idea. Tell them you forgot you're out of milk or something."

He nodded and called. From his voice, I knew he'd phoned Sava

"She's fine," he said when he hung up. "They're finishing up at the store now, meaning we have about ten minutes to devise a plan."

We came up with a decent basic premise. Well, Lucas came up with most of it, but that was his thing, so I left him to it and refined as necessary. It was still impossible to plot a complete strategy like "when she comes in the house, you send her upstairs, and I'll hide, then…"

The moment the Nix realized she'd been led into a trap, she'd jump free from Jaime's body. So the mortal blow had to come as a surprise. Or, as we decided, maybe not as such a surprise. There was one time when we could battle the Nix without her realizing what was happening and leap clear: when she was the one who initiated the fight. In other words, we had to wait until she made her move to kill one of us. She'd expect us to fight then.

"Quickly," he said, as the car sounded in the drive. "Get upstairs, back into Paige's office, and close the door. I'll tell them that a client's Web site crashed, and you're not to be disturbed. I'll bring di

"Whoa, hold on. If I hide out in the office, the Nix will probably need to change her plans."

"That's a chance we'll have to take."

"But the longer it takes her, the longer I'll be here."

He paused. "I'll call you down for di

"Hey, just because I can't fool you doesn't mean I can't pull off a damned good Paige impersonation."

He looked at me.

"Er, a pretty good one," I said.

He kept looking at me.

"I'll keep my mouth shut."

A car door slammed. Sava

I spent the first thirty minutes in Paige's office browsing through the stuff on her computer. I wasn't being nosy. I had nothing better to do. Okay, maybe I was being nosy… just a little. After a half hour, though, Lucas popped in to check on me and asked me, very politely, not to mess with Paige's stuff, shutting down her e-mail and other windows, and leaving open only two-solitaire and some file that looked like programming stuff. If Sava

That lack of trust kind of stung. Okay, not kind of. It did sting, almost as much as the distrust I'd gotten from Paige when I'd looked after her in the ghost world. Did I blame them for not trusting me? No. I'd earned it, if not by doing anything to them personally, at least through my reputation. And I guess if you count that broken arm I gave Lucas when he tried to take my grimoires, I had done something to them personally. But, still, I would have thought rescuing them from the ghost world would have counted for something. Maybe it did. If not for that, I suspected I'd be sitting in this chair, not with a game of solitaire thoughtfully set up for me, but tied down and awaiting an exorcist.

So I played solitaire and tried very, very hard not to hear my daughter's voice downstairs, not to think about her down there, finally within reach-physically within reach, that I could go down there and hug her and tell her-But I wasn't thinking about that.

Forty minutes passed, and the back door banged shut downstairs. I looked out the rear window, but no one stepped outside. I tugged open the window and listened. After a moment, I caught two voices: Lucas and Jaime.

I strained to hear what they were saying.

"… really a beautiful bike," Jaime said. "And you restored it yourself. That is so amazing."

Lucas answered as easily as if he really was talking to Jaime. It didn't take long to realize the Nix had initiated the trip outside. Was she going to kill him in the lean-to? But how did that set up Sava

The phone rang.

I froze, halfway across the room. Okay, Lucas, I'm sure you can hear the phone. This is the perfect excuse to come back inside-

The phone stopped ringing. Good. Now-

"Paige!" Sava

Shit! Now what? No, wait, Lucas told her to leave me-Paige-alone, so she'll take a message and-

Footsteps banged up the steps. I didn't move. Couldn't move.

The door swung open, and there stood my daughter. My beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter. Standing there. Looking right at me. At me-not glancing at a spot just to the left of her mother's invisible ghost-but actually at me, seeing me-