of blur and cover spells, I was able to sneak a look in each window. It wasn’t until I hit the last one that I found Luther Ross.
I had no physical description to work with, but I didn’t need it. There were five people in the living room. Four of them were twentyish, female, and varying shades of blond. The fifth was a tall, dark-haired man in his early forties, with a Vandyke beard, mischievous gray eyes, and a hand planted on the ass of one of the blondes as he leaned over her shoulder and pointed at a vase. The girl’s face screwed up in concentration as she tried to displace the vase. When it didn’t so much as wiggle, he patted her rear and waved her to a chair.
Unbelievable. Give a guy the power to move objects across cosmic dimensions and what does he use it for? Screwing cute coeds. No wonder Ross hid out on Roatan—it wasn’t so much about evading the Searchers as limiting his classes to a select type of clientele, those he could handpick and give the transportation code. He probably took on the occasional legitimate student, to maintain his reputation, but if this was an example of his average class, then I understood why he hadn’t been more successful in passing along his skills. From the looks of these girls, they’d be lucky if they could pronounce telekinesis. Nymphs probably. If you’d asked me in life what a nymph’s powers were, I couldn’t have told you. And now that I’d met some in the ghost world, I still wasn’t sure.
Whatever special abilities nymphs once possessed had vanished generations ago, and they’d fully assimilated into the human race, where they could be found filling the ranks of cheerleader squads everywhere. Almost no one in the living supernatural world even knew they existed. Hell, they didn’t know they existed until they popped up here after they died and went, “Wow, we’re, like, magical.”
The supernatural dimensions of the ghost world were filled with extinct races like elves and dryads, beings who’d lost their powers centuries ago but came to our realms after death. I suppose it wasn’t easy, arriving here and finding yourself surrounded by people who could cast spells, change into wolves, manipulate the elements, and more. Not surprising, then, that these extinct races kept the ghost-world black market in business as they desperately tried to find some power, any power, to call their own.
I went back to Kristof and told him what I’d seen.
“Looks like a job for you,” he said. “I’ll stand guard out here.”
I changed into the short black dress I’d worn with the haunters, and left my hair straight. Maybe not Ross’s style, but at least he wouldn’t mistake me for one of his nymphs.
I walked to the front door, opened it, and strode inside. As I entered the living room, every nymph jumped. Ross looked over at me. Then he looked at me some more.
“Well, well,” he said. “A new student, I presume?”
I made a show of looking at each nymph, then cocked a “not likely” brow-arch at Ross.
“You can’t just walk in here—” the girl in the chair began.
Ross lifted a finger and she stopped in mid-squeak.
“It’s a business call,” I said. “I would have phoned but…”
He smiled. “Not that easy in this world, is it? So you’re looking for lessons? Maybe…private lessons?”
I turned a slow smile on him and shrugged. As I strolled closer, his eyes widened briefly, that look of surprise most men get when they realize how tall I am.
When he looked me full in the face, his lips pursed. “I know you, don’t I?”
“Do you think you’d forget if you did?”
He chuckled, and reached to touch my hair, but I swept it out of his reach. His smile only broadened. Around me, the nymphs fairly growled.
“Mind if I sit?” I asked.
“Please,” he said.
I walked to the nymph in the chair and finger-waved for her to get up. She glowered at me.
“Annette…” Ross said.
“Let her find her own chair.” She looked around the room, which had no empty seats, then smirked at me. “Whoops, guess you’ll just have to go home.”
I murmured a spell under my breath. When I finger-waved again, the motion yanked Annette out of her chair. I flicked my fingers and she tumbled to the floor. From the couch came a mixed chorus of gasps and giggles. I swept my skirt under me and sat, then looked up to see Ross grinning.