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bigot! You’re a polter bigot!”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. Would I have offered
to take you in if I was?”
    “Then why do you keep asking me and asking me and asking me about my parents? What does
it matter how old my parents were?”
    “Calm down! Polter genetics interests me.
The child in that picture has only three arms, but the woman has
four.”
    “She does? Oh. She does. Maybe she’s not
related or something.”
    Well, now, that was odd. Polters grew up
knowing the ins and outs of basic polter genetics. There were many
times when children had fewer arms than their more-than-two-armed
parents, mixed parentage being the primary reason. But Pixie didn’t
seem to know that… which was very strange.
    “I was just curious if one of your parents
was human, or half-blooded,” I said slowly, doing a little gentle
probing.
    “ Deus! My parents are dead, OK? Dead! Will you stop harassing me about them?”
    “Sorry,” I apologized, letting the subject
drop. Some polters were very touchy about their heritage,
especially those who didn’t have the protection of the Akashic
League and had to make their own way in the mundane world. “Back to
the picture—I think it’s a safe bet to say that the family who used
to live here was made up at least partially of poltergeists. I
wonder what happened to them.”
    “They were driven away by the endless
curiosity of the local townspeople,” a deep voice said behind
me.
    Pixie’s startled jump was almost as high as
mine, although hers had a horizontal element that ended up sending
her across the room, leaving me in apparent solitude with the large
dark-haired man who all but filled the doorway.
    “Who are you?” I asked, reaching behind me
for something I could use as a weapon. My hand closed around
something smooth and cold.
    “I was about to ask you the same question.
Please don’t steal that greyhound. It’s very old, and a favorite of
mine.”
    I held tight to the small but heavy statue
of a sitting dog that I remembered seeing below the picture of the
polter family. “Steal? I’m not stealing anything. For one thing, my
husband owns this house. For another, I don’t steal.”
    He moved into the room in just a few
strides, making it feel suddenly small and cramped and extremely
full of an evidently angry large man. “You what? You’re not my
wife.”
    I frowned, pulling the dog statue around to
my front, hoping he wasn’t so deranged that I had to bean him with
it. “I never said I was!”
    He stopped in front of me, his arms crossed
over a broad chest. Somewhat dimmed beams of sunlight worked their
way through the grime-streaked windows, falling on his face and
revealing that angry, deranged, and largely intimidating though he
might be, he was also incredibly handsome. I think it was the
combination of black-as-sin hair and pale blue eyes.
    “You did. You said you were married to the
owner. That would be me.”
    “No, that is my husband, Spider. Who are
you?”
    The man joined me in a round of frowning.
“Adam Dirgesinger.”
    “Dirgesinger?” That was a polter name. I
looked him over carefully, but there were no signs of a poltergeist
heritage. He had the normal number of arms and didn’t display the
restlessness that was common even in the most human-looking
polters. “That’s your family in the photo?”
    “My grandparents, yes.” His eyes
narrowed.
    “So you’re a third-generation polter?”
    His frown deepened. “What concern is that of
yours?”
    “None, really,” I said with a faint shrug.
“I’m just a bit surprised to hear you acknowledge it. Most people
wouldn’t admit to a polter ancestry to strangers.”
    “Would you?” he asked, a challenge in his
voice.
    I summoned up a smile I didn’t in the least
feel. “I suppose it would depend on the circumstances.”
    “All right, Mrs. Whatever-Your-Name-Is…”
    I straightened my shoulders and tried to
look down my nose at him, something I couldn’t quite pull off,
since he had a