but they don’t. Tell them what they want to hear and they never complain.”
She inhaled and shifted down onto the seat. “When this spook came knocking, I figured it was Dana, so I came back here to talk to her. But she was gone, and my haunter wasn’t, so obviously it isn’t her.”
“Can’t you contact it?” I said.
Jaime shook her head. “That’s what’s so weird. I can’t make contact. Not only that, but it’s behaving…well, it’s just not following ghost-necro protocol.” She looked at me. “Do you know how this works? How a spirit contacts a necro?”
“Vaguely,” I said. “Most necromancers I know don’t really talk about it.”
“Typical. They act like it’s some big trade secret. Way I figure it, my friends—the supernaturals, at least—should know how it works. Otherwise, they see me mumbling to myself and staring at blank walls, they’re going to figure I’ve lost it. There are two main ways a spook says hi. If he knows the proper procedures, he can manifest, and I get sight and sound. If he doesn’t know the tricks, then all I get is audio—the old voices-in-my-head. Any ghost should be able to do the latter. But this one can’t.”
“So it’s throwing things instead?”
“It is now. Up until today, it’s just been hanging around, like a mental stalker. I know it’s there. I sense it all the time, as if someone is looking over my shoulder, and it’s”—she lifted a hand to show her trembling fingers—“making me nervous. Then to start poltergeisting? That’s just—well, I’m spooked, and I’ll admit it.”
“True poltergeist activity is rare, isn’t it?” I said.
“Extremely rare. When I was younger, I did some ghost-buster work to pay the bills. Number one haunted-homeowner complaint? Poltergeists. I went out on dozens, if not hundreds of calls. I found exactly three real poltergeists. The rest of the time, it was clever kiddies looking for attention. I’d tell the people some cock-and-bull about the ghosts wanting to see the family spend more time together, and that usually fixed the problem. Real poltergeist activity, though, means a ghost has found a way to move things in our dimension, and that’s a very special talent.”
Lucas frowned. “So how does a ghost who can’t even contact a necromancer manage to manipulate objects cross-dimensionally? I see the problem. Have you considered the possibility that this isn’t a human-based entity at all?”
“Maybe a minor demon,” I said. “Or a nature spirit.”
“Could be, I guess,” Jaime said. “But I’m a necro. I talk to the dead, like my title says. If it ain’t dead, why’s it bugging me? You guys are the spell-casters—the conjurers—so it should be trying to talk to you. And I’m pretty sure the message is for you, anyway. Until the bookstore, it backed off whenever you two were around.”
“Because it thought you were going to convey the message,” I said. “But maybe the message is to tell us to start conjuring, so it can communicate. When it realized you didn’t understand, it bumped it up a level in the bookstore. So let’s try some group conjuring. Among the three of us, it has to find someone it can talk to.”
Jaime looked up at the ceiling. “You hear that, Casper? We’re going to try making contact, so you can back off now.”
After a moment of silence, I asked. “Did it stop?”
Jaime shook her head. “I think the contact problem goes both ways. I can’t hear it and it can’t hear me. Let me grab my kit and see if we can fix that.”
As Jaime opened her suitcase, Lucas’s cell phone rang.
“Yes, I’m certainly interested,” he said after an exchange of greetings. “However, it may be another week or so before we can see it. Will that be a problem?” He paused. “Good. Thank you.” Another pause. “No, I haven’t had a chance yet and, ultimately, it is her decision, but I would very much like to see it.” Pause. “Yes, I’ll let you know as soon as we return to Portland.”
He signed off, then pulled out his Day-Timer from his satchel and made a note as Jaime set up her implements on the floor. This time, she didn’t bother asking us to leave.
“A real séance,” she said as she finished. “Now all we need is sleeping bags and a pillow fight. When I was young, I was never allowed to go to sleepovers, in case the kids tried a séance. Might have given them more than they expected.”