Part 1 (1/2)
Ghost of a Chance.
Katie MacAlister.
(writing as Kate Marsh).
This book is dedicated to my mother, s.h.i.+rley, with much grat.i.tude for all the years of hauling me to the library, letting me confiscate her blue tweed Nancy Drews, and instilling in me a lifelong love of mysteries.
1.
”Hi there! You've reached Spider and Karma's house, but we're busy showing some lovely homes at affordable prices to charming and attractive people, so we can't come to the phone right now. Ha-ha, just kidding. We're really having wild monkey s.e.x on the bathroom floor. Since that'll keep us busy for a while, go ahead and leave us a message, and we'll get to you when we can.”
”Um ... hi. I'm looking for Karma? I heard Marcy at the Quick Stop Java Shop talking about you, and I thought I'd see if you were available to help me.
I'm looking for someone to take care of a problem in my house-”
The answering machine clicked off in the middle of the message as I grabbed the phone. ”Hi. Sorry about that message; it's my husband's idea of a joke. I'm Karma. What did you need?” The groceries made an unpleasant clunking sound as I set the bag down to adjust the phone. A splash of latte hit my knuckles from one of the two cups I held in a cardboard drink carrier.
”Oh, hi. That's OK. My partner has a horrible sense of humor, too. You wouldn't believe the sort of things she says in front of other people. I was told that you...um...clean houses?”
”Not in the usual sense,” I said cautiously, setting down the lattes to wrestle a can of soup from the small yellow creature that had grabbed it as it had rolled out of the bag. ”I don't actually do cleaning, per se. My work is a little more specialized than that.”
”Specialized?”
There was a puzzled pause. I used it to s.n.a.t.c.h a pint of melting Ben & Jerry's from two yellow imps that charged out from behind the toaster, and I stuffed the ice cream into the freezer before shooing the imps back into their home. They eek-eeked at me. I ignored them and used a magazine to push them back into the stainless steel flour drawer, then closed the door firmly and secured it with a bungee cord to keep them from opening it.
”Um...does that mean you don't do windows?”
I sighed to myself as I gathered up a carton of juice, a couple of containers of yogurt, and a bag of grapefruits and ferried them to the refrigerator while clamping the phone between my ear and shoulder. Obviously this caller didn't know the nature of my cleaning services, which was fine with me. ”Sorry, no windows. And no floors, and no dishes, and no dusting, for that matter.”
A domovoi s.h.i.+mmered into view. ”Did you remember the Quaker Oats?”
I covered the mouthpiece of the phone so the woman on the other end wouldn't hear me. ”On the counter. Did you let the imps out again?”
The domovoi wrinkled his nose. ”They got out while I was cleaning their cupboard, but I put them all back.”
”I see,” the woman said slowly. I doubted she did, but I wasn't in the mood to clue her in.
”Next time, put the bungee on the door, or they'll just push it open again.
Have you done the bathroom?”
”On my way.” The domovoi, a Russian house spirit named Sergei, who spent his time being helpful, took the carton of oats, which were his main source of food, and disappeared.
”What exactly do you clean, then?” the woman on the phone asked.
”I'm more of an exterminator than a housekeeping service,” I answered, grabbing an armful of canned goods as I headed to the pantry.
”Good morning, Karma.” Cardea sat cross-legged in the pantry reading a Cosmo, glancing up at me as I put the cans on the shelf.
”Morning,” I said, putting my hand over the phone again. ”I don't suppose you'd like to go for a walk or something? It's a nice day out.”
”And leave the pantry?” she asked, looking a bit wild about the eyes. ”Oh, no, I don't think I'm ready for that.”
”Ah. Well, I don't have any bugs in my house,” the woman on the phone said.
”Maybe another day,” I told Cardea, and made a mental note to find someone, anyone, who was willing to work with an ancient Roman G.o.ddess of door hinges and thresholds with agoraphobia so intense it kept her locked inside my house.
”But my brother has a rodent problem. What sort of exterminator are you? Do you do rats and mice, or just bugs?”
I dumped a couple of packages of pasta on the shelf and made a face as one of them moved back toward me. An imp leaped out from behind it and tried to fling itself upon me. I grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and took it back to the flour drawer, where its brethren lived. ”The technical name is transmortis anomaly exterminator.”
The silence that followed that announcement wasn't unusual or unexpected. ”OK. That went right over my head.”
”Don't worry. It went over mine the first time I heard it, too,” I said, laughing. ”It's just a fancy name, nothing more. I'm sorry I can't help clean your house, but I appreciate the call.”
A couple of bags of salad greens were all that remained from the morning's trip to the store. I stuffed them into the vegetable bin, smiling at the dada (vegetable spirit) as it exclaimed happily, ”Oh, good, you got the kind with arugula. I love arugula!”
”Is there something else I can help you with?” I asked when the woman on the phone didn't make the polite good-bye noises I expected.
” 'Mortis' means death, doesn't it?” Her voice was soft and somewhat rushed, as if she was trying to speak without being overheard.
”Yes, it does.” The fine hairs on my arm stood on end as Sergei drifted through me.
”I thought so. Transmortis anomaly-that's across-death deviation from the norm, isn't it?”
d.a.m.n. She was getting close to the truth. ”That's one interpretation, yes.”
”And you're an exterminator, so that means you get rid of something that deviates from what's normal, and whatever that is, it's already dead?”
I folded the cloth carrier bag and crammed it into a nearby drawer, swearing under my breath at the pair of imps that ran through the kitchen, chasing a tennis ball. ”Something like that.”
”Oh!” The woman sucked in a startled gasp. ”You're a ghost buster?”
”No, I am not,” I answered, allowing myself a moment of teeth grinding over the much-hated term before deciding it was useless to keep mum about something the woman was so clearly determined to ferret out. ”I don't bust anything. I simply clean houses of any unwanted Otherworld spirits, beings, or ent.i.ties. So unless you have an imp infestation, or are bothered by a troublesome ancestral spirit, I'm afraid I can't help you.”
”Good lord. People really buy into that hogwash?” the woman asked, her voice rife with dismissal.
I held my tongue. There were two kinds of people in the world-those who knew about the Otherworld and those who lived in blissful ignorance of it.
I found it was better to leave the latter group alone.
”What happens to the ghosts you clean? Do you kill them?” asked the woman, a slight mocking note evident.
A small herd of imps thundered in from the dining room, running right over the top of my foot. I caught three by their tails, and another two by a couple of their arms, and hurriedly dropped them into the flour drawer.
Annoyed, tired, and with a suspicious notion that another migraine was about to hit, I spoke without thinking. ”You can't kill something that's already dead.