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In the confusion of three bodies and various pieces of furniture hitting the floor, Dean managed to get across the room to Claire’s side before Mrs. Abrams could react to his presence. One of the bureau drawers bounced off his left shoulder, but he considered bruising of minor importance compared to being caught with his arm, uninvited, around her waist Shemight thank him for keeping her out of the whirlwind, but the odds weren’t good.

“Claire! Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine when the room stops whirling,” she muttered.

“The room isn’t moving.”

“Says you.” But she opened her eyes and lifted an arm. “Help me sit up.”

“Candice! I demand an immediate explanation!”

With his left arm supporting her back, Claire shifted her weight against Dean’s chest. “Mrs. Abrams,” she sighed “Go to sleep.” They winced in unison at the sound of another body hitting the floor. “Put her back on the bed, would you, Dean.”

The warmth of the sigh had spread through fabric to skin.

“Dean?”

He released her reluctantly.“But you…”

“I’m okay. Nothing wrong that a little vomiting couldn’t cure.” Dragging a dented wastebasket out from under the lamp and cradling it in her arms, she smiled wanly up at him. “No problem.”

“If I could help,cherie?”

This was not something Dean could face on his knees. He stood, then turned, to find Jacques shrugging into a red-and-gray-checked flannel bathrobe. Reality, he noticed as the robe closed, appeared to have returned to normal proportions.

“Help Dean,” Claire instructed from the floor. “I’ll crawl over and check the professor.”

“Butcherie…”

“I know. But not until we’ve got this mess cleared up.”

About to add his protest to Jacques’, Dean suddenly realized that if the ghost—or whatever he was now—was with him, he wouldn’t be with Claire. “Come on.” He jerked his head toward the bed. “You take her feet.”

“Cherie…”

“Not now.”

As Claire started crawling toward the professor, Jacques shrugged and, stroking both hands down the nap of the robe, followed Dean.

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Austin had reached and done a preliminary diagnosis on the sprawled body of Professor Jackson by the time Claire arrived.“He’s having trouble breathing.”

“He’s got a ten-pound cat sitting on his chest.”

“I’m big-boned,” Austin amended, primly stepping off onto the floor. “I think he’s blown a fuse or two.”

“Serves him right.” Setting the wastebasket to one side, Claire bent over the professor and lifted his left eyelid between her thumb and forefinger.

“So giving Jacques flesh was the only solution?”

“If you had a better one…?”

“Me? Oh, no.”

Letting the eye close with an audible snap, Claire glared at the cat. Traces of the matrix Aunt Sara had created to give Jacques flesh had been causing the problem; it made logical sense, therefore, to use those traces to solve the problem. She couldn’t have come up with a faster or more efficient solution. That was her story and even in the relative privacy of her own mind, she was sticking to it. “What are you implying?”

“Me? Nothing.” As the professor’s head gently lolled toward him, Austin reached out a paw and pushed it back. “Hadn’t you better pay attention to what you’re doing?”

Teeth clenched, Claire carefully pulled power. After a moment Professor Jackson moaned and opened his eyes.“Where am I?” he asked breathily.

In ten years as an active Keeper only one person had asked a different question upon regaining consciousness and since,“Do it again,” was actually a statement Claire had always assumed it didn’t count. “Never mind,” she said, brushing his eyes closed. “Go to sleep.”

When he, too, had been laid out on the bed, at a respectable distance from Mrs. Abrams in spite of Dean’s protest and Jacques’ alternative suggestion, Claire told the two men to leave the room.

“Cherie, we have not so much time.”

“I know. But I gave you flesh to save you—and to save him,” she added nodding toward the bed. “Not to…um…” Very conscious of Dean’s presence, she couldn’t finish, but when Jacques took her arm and turned her slowly to face him, she didn’t resist. His fingers, lightly stroking her cheek, were cool. His mouth had twisted up in the smile she found so hard to resist. When his lips parted, she mirrored the motion.

“Ow! Austin!”

“May I remind you,” he said as she stumbled backward and would have fallen had not Jacques and Dean both grabbed an arm, “that the bodiesalready on the bed need tending; memories need changing.”

“I was going to…”

“Please, no details. Just take care of these two first.”

Lips pressed into a thin line, she jerked free and nodded toward the door.“Fine. Everyone out.”

Not even Jacques argued.

“You take this calmly,” he said thoughtfully to Dean, as the door closed behind them.

Dean shrugged. He didn’t feel calm. He didn’t know how he felt. “You don’t seem very affected either,” he pointed out as they followed Austin down the stairs. “Except that you’re walking kind of carefully…”

“I am not use to feeling the floor.”

“…and you keep touching yourself.”