Austin rolled over and blinked up at him. "My, that is personal. Why do you ask?"

"Something Claire said."

"She sees all, she tells all." The cat snorted. "If you must know, yes, I was. I was with a less enlightened, and, as it turned out, allergic, family before I moved in with Claire."

"How do you feel about it?"

"It broadened my horizons. I was no longer forced by biology to endlessly pursue females in heat and could turn my attention to philosophy and art."

Dean nodded, understanding. "It p.i.s.sed you off."

"Of course it p.i.s.sed me off!" Ears back, Austin glared up at him. "Wouldn't it p.i.s.s you off? But..." he spent a moment grooming the dime-sized spot of black fur on the side of a white paw. "... I got over it. Eventually it was a relief to be able to go outside and not come home with my ear shredded by some feline Goliath out to overpopulate the neighborhood."

"Did you talk to the other family?"

"Not after that."

A crack of displaced air heralded the sudden appearance of a ladder-back chair in the far corner of the dining room. Closely followed by Jacques, who displaced no air but made up for it in personal volume.

"Libene! I am free! She was right! I go where the furniture is!" He advanced on Dean, his arms flung wide. "Freed, I gladly apologize to you."

Dean backed up a step as Jacques walked through the table.

"You are not a Newfie like an insult even though you are from the colony of the despicable British."

"Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949," Dean told him stiffening.

"Bon. Just what this country need, more Anglais. It has no matter, we start again, you and I. So tell me, Dean, why do you stay here in such a place?" He paused and looked him up and down. "Should you not be Fishing or whacking on the seals or something?"

Dean folded his arms. "I stay," he said through clenched teeth, "because Claire needs me."

"For what?" As Dean's expression darkened, Jacques raised both hands, palms out. "No, no, it is not another insult. I want to know because I think of you. Since I must stay, you can go if I can do for Claire what you can do." His volume dropped dramatically. "You know of her? Sleeping upstairs? I tell you, it is not safe for a young man in a building where she is."

"You must think I'm really stupid," Dean snarled. "It's sure as scrod not my safety you're thinking of." If he'd ever even considered packing it in and shipping away from this weirdness, he certainly had no intention of going anywhere now.

"Then think of the Keeper's safety. When you are here she must protect you all the time. Her attention it is divided."

"I can protect myself!"

"How?"

"His strength is the strength often," Austin muttered, dropping his chin onto his paws, "because his heart is pure."

Nose-to-nose, both men ignored him.

"If Claire allows me a body..."

"If Claire what?" Dean interrupted.

The cat looked up. "It's an incubus kind of a thing. Not generally approved of by the lineage, but there have been exceptions."

"And I have been already excepted," Jacques announced smugly, and disappeared.

"I hate it when they do that," Austin said, dropping his head again. "You never know when they're really gone." As Dean turned toward him, eyes wide behind the lenses of his gla.s.ses, he added, "I know, of course, but you don't."

"Is he gone?"

"Yes." Claire answered as she came into the dining room brushing cobwebs off her shoulders. "He's upstairs investigating the rest of the hotel. I spread the stuff from the room he died in as widely as possible."

"In my apartment?"

"Of course not. I didn't put anything in the bas.e.m.e.nt at all."

Dean folded his arms. "Is it true what he said?"

"That depends. What did he say?"

"That you..." She lifted an eyebrow and Dean suddenly found it difficult to continue. "That you gave him a body."

"He said I gave him a body?"

Her tone lowered the temperature in the room about ten degrees. His crossed arms now a barricade, Dean couldn't stop himself from stepping back. "Not exactly."

"What exactly did he say?"

It wasn't a request. Moistening dry lips. Dean repeated the conversation.

Claire sighed and lifted her right hand into the air, fingers flicking off the points. "First, according to my mother and my cat, you don't need my protection and, as things stand right now, there's nothing to protect you from. Second, I need you to run this place. Jacques certainly isn't going to be cooking, cleaning, or unclogging toilets. Third, I didn't make the exception for him, she did."

Feeling both foolish and rea.s.sured. Dean watched his finger rub along the edge of the tabletop. "Will you?" The silence drew his gaze back to Claire's face. "Uh, never mind."

"Wise choice," Austin muttered.

Claire sighed again. Her life used to be so simple. "Look, Dean, I realize Jacques made it sound like he and I, that we..." She paused, wondering why she was so embarra.s.sed about something that hadn't happened. Maybe because somewhere deep in the back of her mind she'd considered it? Clearing her throat, she started again. "Put yourself in his place, trapped between life and death, trapped alone in that attic for decades."

"Okay. I guess I feel sort of sorry for him," Dean allowed reluctantly. "But every ghost story I've ever heard says he'll be a nuisance at best."

The can of furniture polish crashed suddenly to the floor.

"See?"

"That was Austin."

A cupboard door opened and one of the plastic salt shakers put out for guests flung itself halfway across the room.

"That was Jacques."

"Just meeting expectations." He materialized by Claire's side, grinning wickedly.