Page 38 of Thirsty

Rachel glared at him. “Who do you think is right?”

Charlie gaped for a moment. “Well, I—”

“She has to respect everyone else who lives here,” Rachel spat.

“You have no respect for me or my kind,” Isolde shot back.

“What if,” Charlie said, “we agreed that—Isolde is new to human society, so we could cut her a bit of slack when it comes to social graces—”

Rachel started to object, while Isolde spoke over her. “I don’t want or need your slack,” she said sharply.

“Great,” Rachel said, baring her teeth at IsoldeandCharlie. “Then here’s your first lesson onsocial graces: no one wants to talk about their purity, ever! Human or otherwise.”

“You,” Isolde intoned, staring her down. “Youhave voluntarily chosen to give yourself over to a malevolent poltergeist, a creature of pure filth from which I can detect a distinctly violent energy.”

Rachel crossed her arms. “I thought you could only detect sex things.”

“Its violent urges are carnal in nature. You crave bondage and brutality and blood,” Isolde said, unblinking. “But they are not the only impurities staining your soul.”

Rachel went white, her jaw clenching.

“Hey, uh, maybe we should just head out,” one of her friends said in a desperate sort of way.

“No,sheshould leave,” Rachel spat back. “She’s the one upsetting everyone. You can’t talk to people like that.”

“I am not a person,” Isolde replied, her own flinty composure starting to crack. If he wasn’t mistaken, Lorenzo thought he could see two spots of faint blue rising in her cheeks.

“That,” Rachel bit out, “is obvious.”

“Y’know, Rachel,” Maggie said, “you’re the one who voted for Isolde. I wanted that gremlin guy to move in.”

Isolde stared at Maggie coldly, as a dawning look of horror covered Maggie’s face. “I—no—Ilovethat you’re here,” she said. “I’m just saying, Rachel, y’know, that she—that you—”

Rachel looked from Maggie to Charlie back to Isolde, her face darkening; then she took a step back from the table and roared up at the ceiling—a painful burst of noise that made everyone flinch and rattled the game pieces. In the next moment she shook her shoulders and shed what looked like a full-body suit—a sort of mystical snakeskin—shimmering, translucent purple ephemera that fell off her like thick, gelatinous dust.

When she was done, she stormed off to her room. Isolde glided away to hers, as Maggie ran after her, shouting, “Isolde!”

There was a near-simultaneous slamming of doors, followed by a long, quiet moment. “Wow,” Charlie said, sitting down slowly. “I made that situation a hundred percent worse.”

He looked crestfallen. And it occurred to Lorenzo, for the first time, that when Charlie meddled in other people’s lives like this, he was actually trying to help.

It was enough to prompt him to be kind. “No,” Lorenzo told him. “Fifty percent, at most.”

Charlie peered at the floor where the purple cloud Rachel had left behind was still hovering, glinting in the light. “What’s this stuff Rachel...shed?”

“Ectoplasm,” Lorenzo said. “Don’t touch it.”

Charlie shrunk back. “Is it toxic?”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Magic works off intent,” Lorenzo said. “And Rachel was very upset. I wouldn’t touch it.”

“Well,” Charlie said, sighing. “I guess we can’t have a two-person game night.”

“I suppose not,” Lorenzo said.