"Why? Because, espece d'idiot, between a man and a woman, there must be mystery. The worst of h.e.l.l is that there is no mystery."

ROSEBUD IS HIS SLED. When silence was the only response. h.e.l.l sighed. GET IT? NO MYSTERY. ROSEBUD IS HIS SLED DOESN'T ANYONE CARE ABOUT THE CLa.s.sICS ANYMORE?

Dean turned to face the ghost, feeling slightly sick when he thought of what he'd nearly done. "I can only keep saying I'm sorry."

"That is right. Anglais," Jacques agreed. "You can keep saying you are sorry."

"The way I see it," Austin said, leaping from chair to counter-top, "you're even. You unjustly accused each other of wanting to wake her. You, Dean, accidentally almost sent Jacques to h.e.l.l, but then you purposefully went in and rescued him."

"Non. Not even." Jacques glared over the cat's head at Dean. "He also accuses me of hiding behind Claire."

"Yeah, and you called him something pithy and insulting."

"You speak French?"

"I'm a cat."

"Look, I overreacted," Dean admitted. He paused while the hot water pipes banged out the rhythm of Claire's shower. "It's just you've been pretty obvious about how much you want a body."

"I would take a body from the cat before I took a body from her."

"Don't hold your breath," Austin recommended.

Pulling the toaster from the appliance garage, Dean shook his head. He couldn't help feeling he should be more upset about the reality of a hole to h.e.l.l in the furnace room except that reality and hole to h.e.l.l in the same sentence just didn't compute. "Why does she bother me more than h.e.l.l?"

"I could go into the deep psychological problems men experience when they come face-to-face with powerful women..."

"We do not!" both men exclaimed. Standing with their arms crossed, they regarded each other warily.

The cat snickered. "... but it's simpler than that. h.e.l.l is too nasty for mortal minds to comprehend, so they trivialize it, knock it down to size. It's a built-in defense mechanism."

Brow furrowed. Dean stared down at the cat. "So she bothers me more than h.e.l.l because I don't have any natural defenses against her?"

"And because the original Keepers put a dampening field around the furnace room. Without it, business would be worse than it is, as difficult as that may be to imagine, and any sane person would run screaming once they found out what was in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

"And with it?"

"Unnerving but endurable. Kind of like opera."

"A dampening field to dull the reactions." Rubbing at the perpetual stubble along his jaw, Jacques nodded. "That does explain why I take this so well."

"That," Austin agreed, a.s.saulting the lid on the b.u.t.ter dish, "and because you're dead. The dead don't get worked up about much."

"Except getting their rocks off," Dean muttered.

"You desire I should tell Claire why we were really fighting?" the ghost demanded.

"If you know, why didn't you tell her upstairs?"

"Two reasons. If you do not know, me, I am not the one to tell you. And two..." He shrugged. "I remember in the neck of lime..."

"Nick of time."

"What?"

"Not neck," Dean told him. "Nick."

"D"accord. In the nick of time, I remember that women do not always appreciate being fought over the way those who fight might a.s.sume."

"Oh." Opening the fridge, Dean stared at the contents, ignored the little voice suggesting that, under the circ.u.mstances, it was all right to have a beer before noon, and closed the door again, saying, "That's pretty smart for a dead guy."

"I was, as you say, pretty smart for a live guy."

"You're bonding," Austin observed sardonically. "I'm touched. Well, what would you call it?" he asked when both the living and the dead fixed him with an identical expression of horror.

"We're not bonding," Dean declared.

"Not even a little bit," Jacques added. "We are..." He looked to the living for help.

"Not bonding," Dean repeated.

"Oui." Settling himself cross-legged an inch above the table, the ghost leaned back on nothing and studied the other man. "Me, I have no choice, but you, now you know, do you stay?"

"Claire asked me that, too." He folded his arms. "I don't run away from things."

"Perhaps it is wiser to know when to run."

"And leave you alone here?"

Jacques spread his hands, the pictures of wronged innocence, the gesture far more eloquent than words.

"Fat chance." Shoving his gla.s.ses up on his nose, Dean headed for the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs.

"Where are you going?"

He made the face of a man who once a month scrubbed the concrete floor with a stiff broom and an industrial cleanser. "I'm after sweeping up the rice."

"You've had a busy twenty-four hours, Claire. Are you sure you're all right?"

"I have a vicious headache." Cradling the old-fashioned receiver in the damp hollow between ear and shoulder, she fought with the childproof cap on a bottle of painkillers. Teeth clenched, she sat the pill bottle on the table and pulled power. The bottle exploded.

"Claire, what are you doing?"

There were two pills caught in the cuff of her bathrobe. "Just taking something for my headache." She swallowed them dry.

On the other end of the phone, Martha Hansen sighed. "You aren't the first Keeper who's had to apologize to a bystander, you know."

"It's the first time I've ever had to do it."