Lupi 08 - Death Magic

times.”
    “As I said, I saw the clock click over. As soon as she vanished, I called the nursing home and insisted that they check on her. They discovered her in respiratory distress, but still alive by all the measures we use to determine life. Medical personnel were in attendance from that point on. At 12:49, heartbeat and respiration ceased.”
    “A ghost that appears before death. I’ve never heard of that.” She considered it. “Is such a visitor really a ghost? A woman I know—a highly Gifted medium—would probably say it depends on how we define ghost .”
    “Exactly.” He broke into a smile like the merry gamin he must have been back when a woman in a pale blue nightgown and robe tucked him in routinely. “It started me on my little hobby of collecting ghost stories. At first I looked for those like mine—and I found a few—but I grew interested in the question of how and why some people without a mediumistic Gift see ghosts. You’re wearing agate.”
    She blinked. “I am?”
    “Your necklace. The white stones are agates. Were you wearing it when you saw your ghost?”
    “It’s not my ghost.” Lily was already sick of that phrase. “And no, I wasn’t.”
    “You donned it to protect you from the ghost?”
    “I donned it because Rule gave it to me. This evening. Just before we came here.”
    He chuckled. “Perhaps I’m confusing causality with coincidence. White agate is said to enhance dreams and concentration. Because of its connection to the crown chakra, some consider it a way of enhancing spiritual communication, while others wear it for protection from malign or confused spiritual influences. Ghosts, in other words.”
    “Oh. Well, unless Rule has suddenly developed a precog Gift to rival Ruben’s, me wearing agate tonight was a coincidence. You mentioned a theory.”
    “Also intrusive personal questions. This one, however, is not too intrusive. Tell me about the ghost you saw.”
    Lily described it briefly. “. . . so this wasn’t like your experience. Misty form, no color, just a shape, and as far as I know, I’ve got no personal connection to the deceased.”
    “Hmm. Have you ever died?”
    “I . . .” For several heartbeats Lily didn’t know what to say. The story behind “yes” was both complicated and not for public consumption, since it involved the opening of a hellgate. “That’s not a question I get asked every day. I’m going to say yes, but I can’t give any details.”
    “Excellent.” He beamed. “The stories of ghost sightings by non-mediums that I’ve collected fall into three categories. In one, there’s an intimate connection between the corporeal person and the ghost. In the second, the ghost itself appears to be responsible, having acquired the ability to manifest itself visually. For whatever reason,” he added, “English haunts seem to be especially adept at such manifestations. The third category, however, is composed of people who have had what is popularly called a near-death experience.”
    Lily took another swig of Diet Coke. She was uncomfortable, yet fascinated. “I have reason to believe that my, ah, my near-death experience . . .” She shook her head. Near was the wrong word. Part of her absolutely had died, but that part had been embodied separately from the rest of her at the time. “My own experience leaves me sort of open to spiritual stuff that—”
    “Fagin, you’re monopolizing . . . oh, dear.” Deborah Brooks grimaced prettily. “I’ve interrupted.”
    “A beautiful woman is never an interruption.”
    Deborah was that. Her beauty was the classic English sort, with skin like milk and soft brown hair bobbed just above her shoulders. Her eyes were large and heavily lashed; her features were perfectly symmetrical in a heart-shaped face. Men wouldn’t stop and stare when they saw her on the street. They’d hunt frantically for a puddle they could throw their cloaks over. Though given the scarcity of cloaks these days, they might have to settle for casting a T-shirt in the mud.
    That perfectly symmetrical face produced a stiff little smile. “Thank you.”
    “Deborah!” Fagin swooped down upon her like a genial bear, seizing her shoulders and giving her a loud, smacking kiss on the lips. “Don’t do that!”
    A laugh startled itself out of Deborah. “You’re impossible!”
    “Merely highly unlikely. Your mother isn’t here tonight. You can accept the compliment, punch me—not in the face, please—say,