Haunted (19 page)

Paul just grinned at me. And something about that grin made my heart rate speed up all over again….

And not because anyone was trying to kiss me, either.

“That’s not why I’m here,” Paul said, showing all of his very white teeth.

I felt Jesse tense beside me. Both he and Spike were behaving with extraordinary antagonism toward Paul. Spike had leaped onto the windowsill and, all his fur standing up, was growling at Paul pretty loudly. Jesse wasn’t being quite that obvious about his contempt for the guy, but I figured it was only a matter of time.

“Well, if you’re here for Brad’s party,” I said quickly, “you seem to be a little lost. It’s downstairs, not up here.”

“I’m not here for the party, either,” Paul said. “I came by to return this to you.” He dug into the pocket of his jeans and extracted something small and dark from it. “You left it in my bedroom the other day.”

I looked down at what he held in his outstretched palm. It was my tortoiseshell hair clip, the one I’d been missing. But not since I’d been in his room. I’d been missing it since Monday morning, the first day of school. I must have dropped it then, and he’d picked it up.

Picked it up and held it all week, just so he could fling it in Jesse’s face, as he was doing now.

And ruin my life. Because that’s what Paul was. Not a mediator. Not a shifter. A ruiner.

A quick glance at Jesse showed me that those casually uttered words—
You left it in my bedroom the other day
—had hit home, all right. Jesse looked as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

I knew how he felt. Paul had that effect on people.

“Thanks,” I said, snatching the hair clip from his hand. “But I dropped it at school, not your place.”

“Are you sure?” Paul smiled at me. It was amazing how guileless he could look when he wanted to. “I could have sworn you left it in my bed.”

The fist came out of nowhere. I swear I didn’t see it coming. One minute I was standing there, wondering how in the world I was going to explain this one to Jesse, and the next thing I knew, Jesse’s fist was plowing into Paul’s face.

Paul hadn’t seen it coming, either. Otherwise he would have ducked. Taken completely off guard, he went spinning right into my dressing table. Perfume and nail polish bottles rained down as Paul’s body collided heavily with the ruffle-skirted desk.

“All right,” I said, stepping quickly between them again. “Okay. Enough. Jesse, he’s just trying to get a rise out of you. It was nothing, all right? I went over to his house because he said he knew some stuff about something called soul transference. I thought maybe it was something that might help you. But I swear, that’s all it was. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened,” Paul said, his voice filled with amusement as he climbed to his feet. Blood was dripping from his nose all over the front of his shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Tell me something,
Jesse
. Does she sigh when you kiss her, too?”

I wanted to kill him myself. How could he? How
could
he?

The real question, of course, was how could
I
? How could I have been so stupid as to have let him kiss me like that? Because I
had
let him—I had even kissed him back. None of this would be happening if I had exercised a little more self-restraint.

I had been hurt, and I had been angry, and I had been, let’s face it, lonely.

Just like Paul.

But I had never purposefully meant to hurt anyone.

This time Jesse’s fist sent him spinning into the window seat, where Spike, not too happy about anything that was going on, let out a hiss and bounded out through the open window onto the porch roof. Paul landed facedown in the cushions. When he lifted his head, I saw blood all over the velvet throw pillows.

“That’s
enough
,” I said again, grabbing Jesse’s arm as he pulled it back to land another blow. “God, Jesse, can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s just trying to make you mad. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

“That is not what I am trying to do,” Paul said from the floor. He had rolled his head back against the blood-smeared cushion and was pinching the bridge of his nose to stem the tide of blood that was flowing more or less freely from it. “I am trying to point out to
Jesse
here that you need a real boyfriend. I mean, come
on.
How long do you think it’s going to last? Suze, I didn’t tell you before, but I’ll tell you now because I know what you’ve been thinking. Soul transference only works if you toss out the soul that’s currently occupying a body, then throw someone else’s into it. In other words, it’s
murder
. And I’m sorry, but you don’t strike me as much of a murderer. Your boy Jesse’s going to have to step into the light one of these days. You’re just holding him back—”

I felt Jesse’s arm move convulsively, and so I threw all my weight on it.

“Shut up, Paul,” I said.

“And what about you, Jesse? I mean, what the hell can you give her?” Paul was laughing now, in spite of the blood that was still dripping from his face. “You can’t even pay for her to have a damned cup of coffee—”

Jesse exploded from my grasp. That’s the only way I can describe it. One minute he was there, and the next he was on top of Paul, and the two of them had their hands wrapped around each other’s necks. They went crashing to the floor with enough force to jolt the entire house.

Not, I was certain, that anyone could hear them. Brad had turned on the stereo downstairs, and music was now pulsing up through the walls. Hip-hop—Brad’s favorite. I was certain the neighbors were going to enjoy being lulled to sleep tonight by its dulcet tones.

On the floor, Jesse and Paul rolled around. I thought about smashing something over their heads. The thing is, they were both so hardheaded, it probably wouldn’t do any good. Reasoning with them hadn’t helped. I had to do something. They were going to kill each other, and it was all going to be my fault. My own stupid fault.

I don’t know what put the idea of the fire extinguisher in my head. I was standing there, watching in dismay as Jesse sent Paul crashing very hard into my bookshelf, when suddenly I was just like,
Oh, yeah. The fire extinguisher
. I turned around and left my room, hurrying down the stairs, the pulse of the music getting louder and louder—and the sounds of the fight going on in my room growing farther away—with each step.

Downstairs, Brad’s party was in full swing. Dozens of scantily clad, gyrating bodies crowded the living room, dancing to the beat. Half of them I didn’t even recognize. Then I realized that was because they were Jake’s friends from college. In my hurry I saw Neil Jankow holding on to one of those blue plastic cups Debbie Mancuso had been stacking so carefully on the kitchen counter. He sloshed foam everywhere as I tore past him.

So Jake, I knew now, had arrived with the keg.

I had to flatten myself against the wall just to make it past the people crammed in the hallway to the kitchen. Once I got there, I saw that it, too, was packed with people I had never seen before. A glance out the sliding glass doors revealed that the hot tub, which had been designed to hold a total of eight people, was currently holding close to thirty, most of whom were straddling one another. It was like my house had suddenly become the Playboy Mansion. I couldn’t believe it.

I found the fire extinguisher under the sink, where Andy kept it in case of grease fires on the stove. I had to shout “excuse me” until I was hoarse before anybody would move enough to let me back out into the hallway. When I finally got there, I was shocked to hear someone screaming my name. I turned around, and there, to my utter astonishment, stood CeeCee and Adam.

“What are you doing here?” I yelled at them.

“We were invited,” CeeCee yelled back—a little defensively, I noticed. I guessed that maybe the two of them had been getting some weird looks. They did not travel in the same social circle as my stepbrother Brad, by any means.

“Look,” Adam said, holding up one of Brad’s flyers. “We’re legit.”

“Well, great,” I said. “Have fun. Listen, I have kind of a situation upstairs—”

“We’ll come with you,” CeeCee shouted. “It’s too noisy down here.”

It was not, I knew, going to be any quieter in my room. Plus there was the whole thing about Paul Slater fighting the ghost of my would-be boyfriend in there.

“Stay here,” I told them. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Adam, however, noticed the fire extinguisher and said, “Cool! Special effects!” and started after me.

There was nothing I could do. I mean, I had to get back upstairs if I was going to keep Paul and Jesse from killing each other—or at least Jesse from killing Paul, since Jesse, of course, was already dead. CeeCee and Adam were going to have to deal with whatever they might see if they followed me.

I had hoped I might lose them on the stairs, but those hopes were dashed when, upon finally reaching the staircase, I saw Paul and Jesse tumbling down it.

That’s what I saw, anyway. The two of them locked in a life-and-death struggle, rolling down the stairs on top of each other, each holding fistfuls of the other’s clothing.

That’s not what CeeCee and Adam—or anyone else who happened to be looking at that point—saw. What they saw was Paul Slater, bloody and bruised, falling down my stairs and seemingly hitting—well, himself.

“Oh, my God!” CeeCee cried, as Paul—she couldn’t see that Jesse was there, too—crashed heavily at her feet. “Suze! What’s going on?”

Jesse recovered himself before Paul did. He climbed to his feet, reached down, seized Paul by the arms, and pulled him up—just so he could hit him again.

That was not what CeeCee, Adam, and everyone else who happened to be looking in the direction of the stairs at that moment saw. What they saw was Paul jerked up by some unseen force and then thrown, by an invisible blow, across the room.

Much of the gyrating stopped. The music pounded on, but nobody was dancing anymore. Everybody was just standing there, staring at Paul.

“Oh, my God,” CeeCee cried. “Is he on
drugs
?”

Adam shook his head. “It would explain a lot about that guy,” he said.

Jake, meanwhile, apparently alerted by someone, pushed his way into the living room, took one look at Paul, writhing on the floor—with Jesse’s hands around his neck, though I was the only one who could see this—and went, “Aw, Jesus.”

Then, seeing me standing with the fire extinguisher in my hands, Jake strode over, took it away from me, and sent a jet of foamy white stuff spraying in Paul’s direction.

It didn’t do any good, really. All it did was cause the two of them to roll into the dining room—making a good many people jump out of the way—then crash into my mother’s china cabinet—which of course teetered and fell, smashing all the plates inside.

Jake looked stunned. “What the hell is wrong with that guy? Is he wasted or what?”

Neil Jankow, who’d been standing nearby with his cup of beer still in his hand, said, “Maybe he’s having a seizure. Somebody better call an ambulance.”

Jake looked alarmed.

“No,” he cried. “No, no cops! Nobody call the cops!”

At least, that’s what he was saying right up until Jesse threw Paul through the sliding glass door to the deck.

It was the shower of glass that finally alerted all the people in the hot tub to the life-and-death battle that had been taking place inside. Screaming, they struggled to get out of the way of Paul’s flailing body, only to find their escape dangerously impeded by shards of broken glass. Being barefooted, the people in the hot tub had nowhere to go as Paul and Jesse battered each other around the deck.

Brad, one of the people trapped in the hot tub—Debbie Mancuso hanging off him like a pilot fish—stared disbelievingly at the gaping hole where the sliding glass door had been. Then he thundered, “Slater! You are paying for a new door, you freak!”

Paul, however, wasn’t in a position to be paying much attention. That’s because he was struggling just to breathe. Jesse had him by the neck and was holding him over the side of the hot tub.

“Are you going to stay away from her?” Jesse demanded, as the lights from the Jacuzzi bottom cast them in an eery blue glow.

Paul gurgled, “No way.”

Jesse dunked Paul’s head beneath the water and held it there.

Neil, who’d followed Jake out onto the deck, pointed and cried, “Now he’s trying to drown himself! Ackerman, you better do something, and quick.”

“Jesse,” I cried. “Let him go. It’s not worth it.”

CeeCee looked around. “Jesse?” she echoed confusedly. “He’s here?”

Jesse was distracted enough that he loosened his hold somewhat, and Jake, with Neil’s help, was able to pull Paul up, gasping for air, with blood now mingling with chlorinated water all down his shirt front.

I couldn’t take it anymore. “You have to stop it,” I said to Jesse and Paul. “That’s enough. You’ve wrecked my house. You’ve made a mess of each other. And—” I added this last as I looked around and saw all the curious, half-frightened gazes aimed at me “—I think you’ve pretty much destroyed what little good reputation I once had.”

Before either Jesse or Paul could reply, however, another voice broke in.

“I can’t believe,” Craig Jankow said, materializing to the left of his brother, “that you guys had a kegger, and no one invited me. Seriously,” Craig continued, as I threw him an incredulous look, “this is some good stuff. You mediators really know how to throw a party.”

Jesse wasn’t paying any attention to the late-comer, however. He said to Paul, “Don’t come near her again. Do you understand?”

“Eat me,” Paul suggested.

Back he went into the hot tub with a splash. Jesse ripped him right out of Jake’s grip.

The surprise was, this time Neil went under with Paul. That’s because Craig, a quick learner, had decided to go ahead and follow through with his whole if-I’m-dead-my-brother-should-be-too thing, now that Jesse had shown him how.