Excerpt

"The assassin is here?" a voice squeaked from behind the door. A petite woman with white-blond hair that stuck out in odd clumps burst out, her large gray eyes dark with fear. She threw her hands over her head, shrieking, "Eeek! I don't want to die looking like this!"

The woman raced across the polished wooden floor and disappeared up the stairs. The two spirits vanished. Pixie plopped herself down on the sofa and pulled out her phone. Sergei faded a few notches until he was just barely visible.

I turned to face Adam, who was standing with a belligerent look on his face, the shotgun still clutched in his hands.

"Was that woman what I think she was?"

"Amanita is a unicorn, yes. She's having a bad hair day. You're not going to send the ghosts or her to the Akasha." His voice was deep and full of threat.

"No, I'm not," I agreed, taking him by surprise. I smiled and waved my hand somewhat wearily toward the Sergei. "How do you think I ended up with a Russian domovoi?"

"And the imps," Sergei said, a glint of humor in his eye. "And Peter the dada."

One of Adam's eyebrows rose as he considered me. "You have a vegetable spirit?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

He just stared at me.

I sighed. "Yes, I have a dada, and imps, although I released them into the wild earlier today, and Sergei, and as you can see, a teenage polter named Pixie."

"Obsidian Angel!"

"I thought it was Desdemona," Adam said, momentarily distracted.

Pixie looked down her nose at him, not an easy task given his height and the fact that she was sitting down. "I changed it! It's Obsidian Angel now!"

"I know you think I'm the devil himself," I said, turning back to Adam. "But I'm not. I'm not going to send your charges to the Akasha; I promise. I will, however, have to relocate them."

"No," Adam said, his face growing dark.

I sighed again and took his non-shotgun hand, pulling him over to the settee across from Pixie. "Look, I know you don't want to go over this again, but we literally are out of time. Spider will be here any minute. I'm surprised he wasn't here to meet me, actually. This house legally belongs to him." I held up my hand to stop the protest. "I know, I know, he got it from you by trickery, but legally, it belongs to him. He has made a deal with me to clean it. If he shows up and the spirits and your unicorn are not gone, there will be hell to pay."

"You made a deal to clean my house?" Adam asked, anger flaring to life in his beautiful light blue eyes. "How much is he paying you?"

"He's giving me a divorce," I said, ignoring the sarcastic tone. "You said you looked into my background. If so, you'll know I'm licensed by the League to perform exterminations when a property's owner requests it, so there's no legal grounds for you— either in the mundane world or the Otherworld—to stop the extermination from being carried out. What I am offering you is the best compromise possible: I will relocate your charges to the location of your desire. Your spirits and the unicorn will be safe, Spider will never know the difference, and you can get on with your life."

"No," Adam said, shaking his head. "I won't allow it. They belong at Walsh House, just as I do. None of us will be leaving."

Outside the house, the sounds of voices and car doors closing could be heard.

"You have about ten seconds to change your mind," I warned, nodding toward the window. "It sounds like the ghost hunters are here early, and that man shouting is my husband."

"No one is leaving the house," Adam repeated, giving me a curiously unreadable look.

A man rushed through the door, but it wasn't who I was expecting. "Karma! Tell me you haven't done anything rash! Tell me it's not too late to reason with you!"

I cast my eyes heavenward for a moment, praying yet again for patience. "Dad, I told you not to come here. I may be drugged up to the eyeballs, but I know I told you not to come."

"Dad?" A familiar blond woman stepped into the house behind my father. She glanced from him to me, her eyes growing huge with wonder and delight. "This is your father? He… he has three arms!"

Dad gave her a haughty look. "Haven't you ever seen a polter before?"

I thought Savannah was going to pass out from excitement. She positively danced in place. "Goddess above! You're a poltergeist? A real poltergeist? But you look so normal!"

"My father is a real, honest-to-goodness poltergeist, yes," I said, rubbing my forehead. Despite the potent migraine medicines, pain was beginning to blossom again. Not only that, the faint buzzing noise had started up again. I wondered vaguely if Adam had a faulty electrical connection somewhere. "Complete with three arms, the inability to sit down for more than five minutes, and an annoying tendency to ignore everything I say."

"Not everything, honey. Just the foolish parts."