“Vlad was a truth teller. The way the world is, I’m surprised he lived as long as he did. We kill our truth tellers. If it’s all the same to you, Tammy — and even if it isn’t — you sing your song and I’ll keep my needle in my groove.”
I didn’t envy her job as a funeral director. However, Sam didn’t see the misty wistfuls wandering around. She didn’t have to worry about hitting targets with arrows. She was surrounded by death in the prep room every day, but she thought of herself first as a party planner. Even when she had to take a baby to the crematorium, she didn’t succumb to the easy, morbid, cynical humor common among law enforcement, paramedics and the funeral industry.
With her husband and kids, her fancy clothes and fabulous vacations, Sam’s life looked peaceful to me. She’d never sweated through a day of hauling sandbags back and forth through an obstacle course. For her, all the dead stayed dead.
Okay, so maybe I envied her a little bit. No. Jealousy is the right word, isn’t it?
Though she wanted no part in the Choir, Sam fought for peace in her own way. She dedicated her life to helping clients deal with the darkest moments of their lives. Whether the dead were very old or very young, she took care of the dearly departed and made sure every body and everybody was treated with dignity. The families she helped always thanked her for making the funeral arrangements as painless as possible.
Sam took care of prep room procedures so the grieving families she served didn’t have to think about washing bodies, injecting preservatives or getting false teeth back in dead heads.
Lesson 104: That’s okay. People should have peace. That kind of benign obliviousness is exactly what we’re all fighting to preserve. Warriors should be happy that the Normies are ignorant of what we have to do for them.
Lesson 105: We don’t think about death until the day we are forced to do so. For a sunny outlook and a happy life that’s all waggy tail puppies and wiggly nose bunnies and bright, lemony lollypops, I recommend putting off that day as long as possible. Ignorance is bliss, and required, to be happy.
Chapter 7
After I finished scrubbing toilets and washing the coach, I went to Lynda for the paperwork I needed to deal with the pickup. The two Lindas were dealing with a visitation in the Tulip Room. I found Lynda in the back office.
Lynda was a small old lady. When she looked up at me, the lenses of her eyeglasses became two shining white circles reflecting the fluorescents overhead. “You’ll be here for the papers on a Mrs. Eldora Clemnan from the Mercy hospice.”
She had the transfer papers ready and held them out to me. When I grasped the paper, she didn’t let go.
“What do I always say?” she asked.
“The transfer papers have to be signed and brought back to you.”
“And?”
“And if I don’t bring them back to you signed properly, I’m a body thief.”
Lynda let me take the papers.
“Death certificate and all,” she said, “signed by the attending physician. Just as important as knowing where the body is at all times.” She glanced at her watch. “7:30. I was just on the phone with them. If you could get over there before the shift change at eight, that would be better.”
“Sure, Lynda.”
She bobbed her head. “Good girl.”
I didn’t exactly dislike Lynda, but when she said that, I had to work hard to resist giving her my best Labrador retriever impression. She was one of those old people who seemed very sure anyone younger than her must be an idiot.
“Funny thing about that hospice,” she said. “It used to be a small tuberculosis hospital and after that it was a nursing home. It was always called Mercy. When it was a TB hospital, it was called Our Heavenly Sisters of Mercy. Later, when my mother went there, it was called Mercy Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.” Lynda let out a laugh. “There was no rehabilitation going on there, though. Nobody became a resident there and ever walked out, feeling fresh.”
“No, I guess not.”
“They call that hospice Mercy Village now. I think they should call it Mercy’s End, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “Some people would say Mercy’s end begins the day we are born.”
Lynda returned to her desk. Something about the way she slowly eased herself into her chair and put a palm to her head made me pause. She looked more pale than usual.
“Lynda? Is something wrong?”
“They’re going to legalize assisted suicide in Canada soon, you know that? I might have to make a trip north of the border when my time comes.”
I thought of the bathtub suicide in Hell’s Kitchen again and made a mental note to get a passport, just in case.
Lynda put her head in her hands. “I’m not going where there’s no mercy like my mother and father and husband did. Damn hospices and nursing homes. I hate them. I’d rather die on my feet or right here at my desk.”
“You feeling okay, Lynda?”
She waved me away. “My day’s coming. Nothing you have to worry about, dear. Not for years and years.” Her eyeglass lenses were white circles of light again as she gave me a long look. “I wish I were you.”
Lesson 106: Everyone’s day is coming. A day in the sun. Every dog has his day. A last day. A worst day and a best day is always in the mix. But our worst day is never behind us.
I’d thought my worst day was behind me then, though. I hadn’t learned that lesson yet. Maybe Lynda was at least a little right about young people being stupid.
I didn’t have the pleasure of remaining ignorant for much longer.
Chapter 8
I didn’t drive the coach to the hospice. It looked like rain and I’d just made it very shiny. I left the hearse in the garage at the back of Castille. Besides, the people who run nursing homes, hospices and retirement communities don’t like hearses parked out front of their establishments.
Spatters of rain began to hit my windshield hard, so I was glad I was driving the bus. It wasn’t a bus, of course. It was Castille’s Honda Odyssey. The van bore no markings and, with blacked out windows, no curious kids could peer in at a stoplight to check out my passenger.
Lesson 107: Never call a dead body a stiff. Don’t call drowned people, “floaters.” Burned corpses are not “crispy critters,” and hit and run victims are not “roadkill.” And don’t call a dead person an “it.” Though it helps to think of them that way sometimes, “it” makes you sound like a serial killer.
Every dead person was somebody’s son or daughter once. Sam taught me that and seeing misty wistfuls all over New York City reinforced the ban.
I picked my way through Brooklyn, making slow progress toward the hospice. There are no shortcuts in New York City. If you’re driving, everything’s a crawl. The hospice wasn’t that far from Castille, but I doubted I’d get there before the nurses’ shift change.
Mrs. Eldora Clemnan’s body would have to wait. She was probably off to Elsewhere, wherever that is. Whoever’s in Charge only knows.
Then, of course, there are the dead who refuse to slip away politely. Gray ghosts dotted the city sidewalks. Just as with the homeless, ignore them and they’ll mostly ignore you. I’d grown used to seeing the same misty wistfuls on the way to work and back.
There was a six-foot prostitute on a street corner off President Street and Kingston Avenue whom I was sure was alive. Then one sunny day she turned her head my way and I saw that half her head was gone. She blinked at me with one perfect eye. Her remaining hair was matted but her blue eye shadow — still adorned with a hint of glitter — swept up like a superhero mask. I mentioned that ghost to Victor. He told me that dead woman had been waiting on that corner since the ’70s.
Presumably the ghosts don’t feel pain in their in-between dimension. Otherwise, standing for years in those five-inch spiked heel thigh-high hooker boots would kill her all over again.
As the rain began to fall harder, the wind picked up and the water flew at me sideways. I turned the switch and the windshield wi
pers beat back the rain. A chill came over me and I thought this might be the first night of the year the rain might turn to snow. I turned up the heat, too.
As traffic slowed, I drummed my fingers on the wheel and glanced in my rearview mirror. Nothing, of course. The rear of the bus carried a couple of gurneys and extra sheets, body bags and blankets, but I was riding empty. Still, I didn’t feel like I was riding empty.
I’d read somewhere that scientists had proved there was one verified extrasensory perception. Humans can feel if someone is watching them. We feel it on the back of our necks. (Not just Chumele, the Filipina seer and the other Magicals who kept to themselves in the bowels of the Keep. Normies can sense prying eyes, too.)
As the rain began to turn to ice, I knew something was very wrong.
That’s when I noticed the misty wistfuls were not minding their own business. Some ghosts watch the crowds, probably out of boredom. Ghosts often congregate outside of cemeteries, wishing they could enter, lay down in some consecrated dirt and truly die. No misty wistfuls sleep. The weather that drives mortals to shelter does not touch them. They are barely in this world and not all the way into the next. It’s difficult to guess their thoughts, but their faces usually tell tales of regret. Tonight, for the first time ever, every ghost I saw was turned my way to watch me pass by.
Worse? They all looked distressed. This was new and alarming.
A naked Hispanic woman ran up to the car. A knife stuck out of the center of her chest. She waved her arms as I passed, mouthing a silent scream.
With an open stretch of road ahead, I gave the bus a little gas to speed away. A moment later I had to stomp on the brakes to avoid hitting an old man. The bus slid an extra few feet on the slick street. Before I rocked to a stop I hit him — or would have, had he been corporeal.
At first, I was sure I’d run down an old Orthodox Jewish man. I was already out of the driver’s seat and into the cold rain, hands trembling, before my mind registered that there had been no thump.
When I came around the front of the bus, there was no dent or cracked plastic. More important, there was no crushed body under my front tires. I spun to find him standing behind me, a forboding specter in black. He said nothing, but his eyes were kind and concerned.
I reached out and touched his hand. A single moment of contact with a misty wistful can seem like a long night on a raft in the middle of an ocean with no shore. I felt colder and older and shivers worked up my spine.
When I dropped my hand from his, I was sure I was going to vomit. I gasped. “I’m in danger, aren’t I?”
He nodded.
A horn blared and a black SUV missed me by inches. I blinked again and the misty wistful was gone, replaced by a large angry man in a gray leather jacket. He jumped out from the SUV, cursing me with every step as he stalked toward me.
“What are you doin’ in the street, you moron? I don’t know whether to take you over my knee or maybe I should plow you in the face with my goddamn fist, you useless — ”
I look like a thin girl in an old suit wearing an ugly striped tie. I am also Iowa, Castrator of Demons. A guy from Jersey carrying extra ego and a bad attitude is not something I ordinarily worry about. My umbrella sword sat in the passenger seat of the Odyssey. The blades in the sheaths along my forearms were closer. Excuse my pun, but my fist was even handier than that.
Lesson 108: at the base of each human throat, dead center between the collar bones, lies a little divot called the sternal notch. It’s a good place for a quick punch when somebody needs it. Jersey needed it.
He went to one knee, gasping, choking and coughing. When he looked up, the tip of the blade from my left forearm dripped ice water into his right eye. “Thank you for your concern for my well-being. Now get back in your vehicle, Normie,” I said in a low voice.
“I. Uh? Guuuh — ” he said.
“You have a lovely way with words.” Sleet ran down my face. My hands weren’t trembling from nerves anymore. I didn’t even feel the cold. “I’ve apparently got much heavier problems than what you can bring at me, big guy.”
“Guh?”
“Good question. Run. Run for your life.”
Still gasping and coughing, he scurried backwards on his hands and heels. He got to his feet, still staring at me. The Normie stumbled to his car, climbed behind the wheel and tore off down the street to escape my wrath.
He was gone, but I stood frozen in the headlights of the Odyssey. I could still smell the fear in his sweat. I wanted to chase him down and open him up, from guts to throat. I wanted to see the whirl of his terror spin through the clockworks in his chest. I hated him and I loved the terrifying thing I became in his eyes.
Blink.
Whoa.
Where did that come from?
“That’s not me,” I said aloud. But I don’t know if that was true. As I drove on, I wondered if it was true for any of us, or can we all be monsters beneath the mask?
Sam had asked me if, considering how I filled my days, didn’t I get enough violence? Good question, but there’s nowhere to go where there isn’t any. Not anymore.
Chapter 9
Lesson 109: when in doubt, call for backup.
I got back in the bus and called Manhattan. She answered on the first ring.
“Manny? Something’s going on.”
“I know,” she said. “I tried texting you a minute ago.”
“I was busy threatening a Normie with death and liking it a bit too much.”
“What?”
“Never mind. The misty wistfuls are acting weird. I’ve never seen them like this. Is the Keep under attack?”
“Not exactly, but we’re in lockdown and expecting an attack any minute. The whole Choir is armored up and ready to rock.”
“I need Rory out here,” I said. “I need my favorite ghost to be my radar.”
“No good,” Manny said. “Rory’s why we’re Code Red.”
“Explicate. Details. Quickly.”
“Rory’s trapped in the central courtyard. He’s in agony, Iowa.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Chumele says it’s some kind of powerful binding spell. He tolerates the Keep by being in multiple places at once. With all the church stones…”
“Got it.”
The misty wistfuls and demons had few things in common. Both species of weird could occupy the space between dimensions. Neither are supposed to be on sacred ground. Dangerous to demons and punishing to ghosts, sacred ground is their crucible. The courtyard was lined with stones from churches from all over the world, blessed with the echoes of thousands, maybe millions of earnest prayers. For Rory to be in the Keep, fully present and nowhere else, would feel like being stung by wasps.
I was afraid to ask, but I had to know. “What is Rory doing?”
“Screaming. He looks like he’s on fire. But it won’t stop. It won’t end.”
A fragment of a church sermon floated up to me out of a mostly forgotten Sunday morning in Medicament, Iowa. Our minister argued with himself from the pulpit about whether fire would consume sinners forever or just for a really long time.
“What are we going to do?” I asked. “Rory’s our eyes and ears. With him down, D-Day could be happening right now. What if we’re wrong? What if they hit Washington instead?”
“I don’t know,” Manny said. “Before Rory got trapped, he said something about how New York was lighting up with evil everywhere. Next thing I know, he’s in the middle of the courtyard and it’s…it’s bad, Tam.”
I looked around. Aside from a few cars rolling by, the street looked peaceful. “Evil’s not everywhere, Manny, but it’s always somewhere, working away on getting bigger.”
“Smokescreen,” she agreed. “This is the fog of war. The demons are up to something.”
“What are Victor’s orders? Should I come back?”
She paused and said something to someone beside her I couldn’t quite hear. When she returned to her phone, she was crying. �
�Victor’s talking about going out there with a blessed blade, Tam.”
“He’d send Rory on?”
“They’re debating. If he dies for real, on sacred ground…we don’t know if that’s better or worse for him. But the screaming. Misty or not, Rory’s in pain and he’s one of us. We owe him mercy.”
“Rory’s been clear on many occasions he’s in no rush to get to the next dimension.” This was true. Rory was the oldest ghost I’d encountered and one of the few that was so chatty. He enjoyed his relative omnipotence, scanning for enemies of the Choir Invisible. Rory had made it clear he didn’t want to go Elsewhere before the war was done. “I’ll be a hero before I go,” the old ghost said. “That way, if there is a Heaven, they’ll have to let me in.”
“Don’t let Victor do it unless he really has to, Manny.”
“It’s Victor’s call. He’s the conductor. You know that.”
“Don’t do what your enemy wants you to do!” I said. “Besides, if we lose Rory, we lose radar. We’ll be lost in the fog. We don’t have anything as good as Rory. Those remote viewers Victor got on loan from the CIA are a joke.”
“If you’ve got a better plan,” Manhattan said, “it would be really good to tell me what it is now.”
The old man I thought I’d run over appeared at my driver’s side window.
I jumped. “Damn it! I hate it when they do that!”
The old man gazed at me. He raised one arm and pointed up the street. He shook his head, warning me off.
Manny called to me. “Hello? Are you there?”
“Stall Victor on sending Rory to Elsewhere.”
“But the screaming — ”
“If you guys do it, do it for Rory, not because it’ll make you feel better.”
“Iowa, we need you here.”
“I think I’m needed here. The misties don’t want me to go, so I’m going.”
“Where are you?”
“Mercy’s End,” I said, and hung up.
Lesson 110: when you’re on your own, you are on your own. Deal with it.
Chapter 10
The End of the World As I Know It (The Ghosts & Demons Series Book 2) Page 4