cell phone … Why did you wait so long to kiss me back?”
“Because I have this weird policy against kissing girls under a magical compulsion to obey my father.” There was a loaded pause and then, “After we find Alexis, it will be a different story. Just so you know.”
Great. Now my heart was racing as fast as my brain. What would he say if I told him that I hadn’t felt coerced much at all since we hit the road?
I wasn’t going to find out what he’d say to that, because the next thing I heard from his side of the wall were his snores.
• • •
I finally slept, dreamless as the dead. But when the washed-out light of dawn edged the curtains in the unfamiliar room, I heard a voice calling me, so faint that I wasn’t sure I wasn’t still asleep.
“Wake, Daughter of the Jackal. You’ve slept too long.”
Awake or dreaming, I opened my eyes to find a spirit beside the bed.
For a second, my sleep-fogged brain Saw a canine-headed figure, but it faded, leaving a gray-haired man dressed in sweat-stained khaki, looking down at me with a benevolent smile.
“At last! Wake up, young lady. I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.”
25
WAKING UP WITH a dead guy standing over me was a helluva way to discover that my systems were back online.
I shot to the head of the bed in a crab-walk that knocked over all the pillows and woke Carson. He pushed off the avalanche of bedding and searched for the threat.
“What’s going on?” he demanded when he didn’t see anything.
I grabbed his shoulder and pointed, not sure what I expected to happen. Or maybe I had some idea, because I wasn’t totally surprised when Carson Saw the khaki-clad shade across from him and vaulted out of the bed.
“What the—?” He looked from the apparition to me and back again. “How am I seeing this?”
When he’d moved, I’d pictured my psyche stretching to keep contact. It was only a few feet, and we couldn’t hold hands all the time. “I’ve got my groove back,” I told him. “And I’m sharing. Like in the museum, but with less life-and-death peril.”
“Are you sure about that last part?” He eyed the shade warily. A full apparition was an unnerving thing to wake up to, even if you’re used to them.
The ghost raised his hands in apology. “I beg your pardon. I am intruding on your tryst.”
The old-fashioned word made everything—the mild-mannered shade, my pajamas, Carson’s wicked case of bedhead, the fact that I was crouched like a ninja on the mattress—feel kind of farcical. I edged over and stepped down to the floor. That was a little better.
“It’s not a tryst,” I said.
Carson, still wary, or maybe just grumpy, said, “That’s not his business. Who is he?”
I already had a good idea. The shade had gray hair and a close-cropped beard, and a tanned face, lined from years of squinting in the sun. But he looked hearty and ready for an expedition, dressed in a field jacket and cargo pants.
He gave a small, good-natured bow. “Professor Carl Oosterhouse, at your service.”
Yes! I tried to be cautious about my excitement, but maybe, finally, we were getting answers.
I glimpsed a writing desk against the wall, where two messenger bags—Carson’s and Johnson’s—hung from the back of the chair. On the blotter were the netbook, the flash drive, and the jackal-headed figure from the museum, unwrapped and lying carefully on top of its padding.
“This must be why the Brotherhood wanted to steal the artifact yesterday,” I said to Carson, not hiding my hope very well. The shade was attached to the figurine, and when my mojo kicked back in, it must have pulled the remnant out of hibernation.
“Do you know where you are?” I asked Oosterhouse carefully. He seemed very coherent for a recently dormant spirit. But you can’t just spring on someone the fact that they’re dead.
“Beyond intruding on your privacy?” asked the professor, the glow of his good mood undiminished. “I am uncertain. But when I felt myself pulled from my own slumber, I couldn’t quite contain my excitement.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, assuming I hadn’t dreamed the words that had woken me. “How could you have been waiting for me?”
“An overdramatization.” He gave a rueful grimace. “It’s a failing of mine. I should have said, I’ve been waiting for someone who can do what you do. You’re the answer to a lonely soul’s prayer.”
Ah. Unfinished business. That