“Grier and I grew up together,” Linus said, crossing the room to stand with us. “We were…friends.”
The slight hesitation shamed me. I should have made more of an effort to befriend him when we were kids. I’d had Boaz and Amelie and Maud and Woolly, and I hadn’t needed anyone else. All Linus had was his mother, and it sounded like he’d learned more life skills from the people in her employ than he had from her.
“We were friends,” I assured him. “We’re even better friends now.”
Which explained why burying the hatchet in his back was going to hurt me as much as it hurt him.
Linus smiled, humanizing him, and Timmy relaxed enough to stop inching behind me. “I’m pleased to meet you, Timmy.”
“My name’s not Timmy.” His square chin hit his tiny chest. “It’s Oscar Horrigan.”
Linus and I exchanged a look over the boy’s head before he asked, “How did you end up here?”
“I don’t remember.” His feet drifted above the floor an inch or two. “I woke up in this room one night, and I can’t leave. I’ve tried.”
Fascinated, Linus tugged on his ear. “What’s the first thing you recall?”
“All the fancy people were sitting at tables, but nobody was eating.” Oscar scrunched up his face. “They were all looking at a couple across the room, and I looked there too.” He drifted in the opposite direction until he stood where he had attacked Marit. “A pretty lady was crying that her son was missing. A man was holding her. He told her they were on a boat, and he could have only gone so far.”
“Oh, Oscar.” His story plummeted my heart into the soles of my feet. The poor kid was remembering his death. The small mercy seemed to be he didn’t recall the event itself, only the aftermath. The specifics he’d shared, paired with a name and his clothing, would make locating his identity easy as pie. But what good would it do him? Or his family?
“Are you happy here?” Linus gentled his tone. “Do you want to stay?”
“No.” Oscar hiccupped on a sob. “I want to go home.”
“Oh, sweet pea.” I squatted to put me at his eye level. “I wish I could make that happen.”
Tears rolling down his cheeks, the boy flung himself into my arms. I didn’t even try to catch him. There was no point. Unless he used anger to hone his focus, he had no substance. Only his fury enabled him to lift weapons and wield them. Without their rage, poltergeists were impotent.
So you can imagine my surprise when he smacked into me bodily and knocked me onto my butt. Oscar didn’t miss a beat and curled up in my lap, his arms linked around my neck, sobbing. He was too old to be held this way, but he hadn’t been held since the early 1900s, if his clothes were any indication.
“Grier,” Linus breathed, his eyes as round as the moon beyond the window. “This isn’t possible.”
While I held Oscar and rocked him, I stared up at Linus. “This isn’t a loop. He’s not repeating. He’s here with us. He’s aware.” This close his neck smelled of boy and linen. “How do we help him?”
“We’ll have to report this.” His lips pursed. “There hasn’t been a documented case of a sentient poltergeist in…” He blinked. “I can’t think of a single instance.”
“Are you sure involving the Society is the best thing for him?” I held Oscar tighter. “I don’t want him to become someone’s science project.”
The bubbling excitement that had been animating Linus fizzled. “It’s the only way to keep him safe.”
“I don’t know.” This had all been so much easier before Oscar became a bundle of child in my arms. “What can they do for him?”
“They’ll give him protected status for starters. I’m sorry, Grier, but they will want to know how he works. I can’t stop that. They’ll confiscate this boat so that his tether is secure.”
“Meaning Cricket will lose out on her haunted cruise idea.” I attempted to unclasp my poltergeist necklace and settled him more firmly in my lap. “She won’t be happy, but she’ll live.”
The more he expounded on the protective measures for Oscar, the lighter I became, until I should have drifted off the floor with him.
This fixed the problem. The Society would stamp their name on Oscar and the boat. The Elite couldn’t touch him now. They would have to find another ghost to…
Blasting out a sigh, I had to stare the truth in the eye. This fixed nothing. This might save Oscar, in a way, but it would condemn him to living in a test tube for the Society. Would he prefer that to acting as dybbuk bait? And who got to pick the replacement sacrifice? Who was to say the next spirit was any less worthy of salvation? Not to mention this threw a monkey wrench into the works as far as the Elite were concerned. How could I say this boy, who was already dead, was more valuable than a vampire living an equally undead—if a substantially more normal by our standards—life?
Philosophy had never been my best subject. All this noodling was giving me a headache.
And then there was Linus. He hadn’t smacked his lips or licked his chops once. He was intrigued. He was fully invested in Oscar’s future, and not as a main course. So what did that mean? That dybbuks were great actors? That Linus had no idea about its murderous leanings? Or that Boaz and I were wrong about him?
Except I had seen Ambrose wearing his shirts, and the resemblance to Linus was uncanny.
A clatter below yanked me out of my head, and I set Oscar on his feet. Or I tried to, but it turned out he was stickier than the saltwater taffy sold in Savannah Candy Kitchen, and he clung to me even as I stood. The kid weighed nothing. I was boosting ether onto my hip, but it was super clingy ether. His arms never left my neck, and his face burrowed against my shoulder.
“Linus,” I hissed. “We have to disappear.”
“Allow me.” He leaned over and swiped an obfuscation sigil on my forearm before doing the same to himself. “Hide in the alcove. I’ll stand guard at the door.”
The sound of approaching footsteps ruled out further conversation, so I tiptoed into position and hid, trusting the sigil to do the rest. Linus was nowhere in sight, and I had to believe his skill would keep us safe.
“No,” Oscar whimpered. “No.”
I stroked his hair, soothing him as best I could without using my voice. It was too late for whispered reassurances. Holding him tight, I rocked a little, the way you calmed babies. It seemed to work for six-year-olds too, until the footsteps entered the dining room with us.
Up to that point, I’d had control of my pulse, but one glance at the doorway had my heart galloping right out of my chest. It was a miracle Ambrose wasn’t leveled in the stampede. But there he stood, clearly not trampled. The twisted version of the Lawson scion, hewn from midnight and flame, licked his berry lips as his nostrils flared. Shutting my eyes, I sent up a prayer to Hecate.
We were going to need all the help we could get.
Fourteen
“Come here, child,” Ambrose crooned. “It’s time. I spared you for as long as I was able.”
Chills dappled my arms as the power in his voice swept through the room.
Suddenly facing the dybbuk alone didn’t seem like such a hot idea.
Had Linus engineered the noise downstairs to throw me off his scent? Once we both agreed to be invisible again, there was no telling what the other was doing. He could have transformed into a slavering beast and been steadily prowling toward me. I wouldn’t find out unless the sigil failed, or his jaws snapped closed over me.
“No,” Oscar yelled. “I won’t go with you.”
“No?” The clarion ring of Ambrose’s voice twisted my heart until it seemed my blood would be wrung out on the floor. “Who are you to say no? Who are you to say anything at all? You’re a bit of inconsequential energy the universe has yet to consume. You’re a snack is what you are, and no one likes it when their food talks back.”
The boy struggled until I set him on his feet. “I’m going to be safe.” His tiny hands formed equally miniscule fists. “Grier told me so.”