Part 7 (1/2)
”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.”