Lupi 08 - Death Magic

away. A research matter.”
    Lily snorted. “Research, my—”
    “A matter of personal research, we might say. Lily, I’m having a terrible time resisting the urge to tuck your hand in my arm and drag you delicately away. Men my age are allowed to get away with that sort of behavior. It’s one of the few charms about growing old. But in your case—”
    “Not a good idea.”
    Dr. Xavier Fagin—BA, MA, MFA, PhD, and for all she knew, DDT, LOL, and RAM as well—was one of the leading authorities on Pre-Purge magical history. He’d headed the Presidential Task Force that dealt with the aftermath of the Turning, which is how Lily knew him. He was also the only other touch sensitive she’d ever met. They’d discovered the hard way that it was best not to shake hands.
    “Alas, it is not, so I must rely on curiosity to lure you away, rather than tolerance for an old man’s peculiarities. You’ve seen a ghost.”
    Carl wanted to know all about it. Annette said that her cousin Sondra had a touch of a mediumistic Gift, so she saw ghosts occasionally. She hadn’t realized Lily possessed that Gift, too.
    “I don’t,” Lily said, “which is why it’s so puzzling.”
    “And so,” Fagin said to the other two, “I wish to ask Lily one or two terribly personal questions, which she will doubtless be inclined to brush off, but I believe if I can get her to myself for a few minutes, I can coax answers from her.” He waggled bushy eyebrows at Lily. “I have a theory.”
    Lily allowed herself to be lured. She and Dr. Fagin meandered toward the tubs of beer and soft drinks set out on the deck. “You’ve been talking to Rule.”
    “I have. I’ve also been collecting data on non-mediums who see or profess to see ghosts.”
    Her own eyebrows went up. “It really is research.”
    He waved that away. “A personal interest. I doubt there’s a paper in it. Too much of the data is anecdotal.”
    “Why are you personally interested in who sees ghosts?”
    He heaved a windy sigh. “I suppose it’s only fair to answer that, since I did promise to ask intrusive questions myself. Fifteen years ago, I saw my mother’s ghost.”
    “Oh.” They’d reached the tubs of drinks. Lily pulled out a Diet Coke and popped it open. “You’re not a medium, so it must have been one of those intimate connection deals. I’m told that happens sometimes.”
    “She wasn’t dead.”
    The can halted halfway to Lily’s lips. Belatedly she took a sip. “Then would it be . . . I don’t know. Astral travel, maybe? Was she Gifted?”
    “No. I saw her ghost at five minutes after midnight—terribly appropriate time, isn’t it?—and she died at 12:49 A.M.”
    That was a new twist.
    “Of some interest,” he went on, “is that she was in the last stages of Alzheimer’s. She’d been at a nursing home in Cambridge for ten years, and hadn’t spoken at all for the last year. That night I was here in Washington to speak with, um, a member of that administration, and I was sound asleep in my hotel room. I woke suddenly with the sense that someone was bending over me . . . and she was. She was wearing a pale blue nightgown and robe I remember from when I was small, and she smelled of White Shoulders. My father gave her White Shoulders every year at Christmas, and she wore the scent every day until he died. Never again after that. Her hair was brown and curly. She’d worn glasses for the last forty years of her life. They were gone. So were all the other accoutrements of aging . . . she tucked me in,” he finished simply. “Gave me a kiss and smiled, then she was gone. I looked around and saw the clock. It changed to 12:06 at that moment.”
    “Wow.”
    “The scent of White Shoulders lingered for several minutes.”
    “That’s incredible. It must have been . . .” Lily shook her head, unable to say what the experience had been like, other than powerful. “Did she physically tuck you in? Actually move the covers, I mean. Did you feel the kiss?”
    “No and no. Her actions did not affect the physical world.”
    “But you smelled her favorite scent.” Scent was physical, but scent memories could be triggered in the brain, so that didn’t prove that she’d been physically present. “You mentioned the color of her hair and her nightgown. Did she look solid?”
    “Almost.” His voice turned dreamy. “She was unusually vivid, but not quite solid, no. I knew she was a ghost right away.”
    “And you’re certain about the