by Gina Ardito
No easy punishment, either. Instead of the joyful reunion she’d dreamed of, she arrived here and learned her suicide had damned them both to never see each other again. As much as that knowledge had devastated her, some kind of ripple effect had pulled an even worse voodoo on her son. No matter what kind of lifetime the Elders sent him to, he kept screwing up, kept winding up back here in the Afterlife before he reached adulthood.
“What happened this time?”
“He stole a car and was killed in a high-speed chase with the police.”
Police. Always the police. Her son, Noah, had been gunned down by a trigger-happy cop two blocks from their apartment in Bed-Stuy. At the time, Noah and a friend had been shooting out windows with a pellet gun. The idiot cop thought the gun was real, panicked, and shot her son straight through the heart. Since then, every time Uriah summoned her to one of these meetings, the scenario remained constant: Noah, caught doing something illegal, would come up against the Wall of Blue and lose. Every single time.
“He can’t make peace with the universe until he makes peace with me,” she told Uriah.
“That door has been sealed from both of you,” he replied.
“Then why bring me here to tell me about his problems? You won’t let me fix them, so what’s the point?” He said nothing, which only enraged her. “You once told me there is no heaven or hell—only the Afterlife. Well, guess what? I’d rather be in hell than stuck here for eternity, talking people off their private ledges, and knowing my son and I can never find our own comfort. If that ain’t hell, Uriah, what would you call it?”
“Karmic justice.”
“Bullshit.”
His composure didn’t crack at her vulgarity. He sank into Grammy’s rocker and pushed the chair into motion with a pointed toe. “We’ve never discussed karmic justice before, have we?”
“No.”
“Ah.” The rocker creaked as it moved back and forth in a slow rhythm. “Allow me to explain.”
She nodded. Not like she had a choice.
“Usually, the sins we visit upon others in life are revisited upon us while we still reside on Earth. It is expected that the wrongdoer will learn from the experience and better himself in the future.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t the wrongdoer. The wrong was done to my son. And by extension, to me.”
“Yet, you didn’t wait to see how justice would deal with the wrongdoer.”
Was he kidding? “I knew what would happen. Nothing! A black boy from the slums against a cop?” She blew a burst of irate air out her nostrils. “Please.”
“So you devised your own solution. Tell me, are you happy with the results?”
“You know I’m not,” she snapped. “I hardly think it’s fair that my son and I will suffer for eternity while his killer is probably honored as some goddamn hero.” His expression remained inscrutable, and that confirmed her suspicions. “I’m right, aren’t I? He’s living some cushy life with awards and a pension and a happy family, untouched by scandal, poverty or tragedy. Right?”
“What happened to him is of no consequence to you now. Had you weathered your personal storm and lived to fight on, you might have seen a different outcome for you and your son. You changed your fate, and the fates of all those who would have faced karmic justice on your behalf.”
“A fact you guys drill into my head every single damn day. Who knew I had so much power? I’m like that butterfly that flaps its wings at the wrong time and brings about the destruction of the world.”
“Not the world. Just your role in it.” He stopped rocking, his almond gaze steady on her. “Suicides often do not receive their karmic justice on Earth because they screw up the natural timeline that has been predestined for them. Thus, it is the responsibility of the Elders here to devise a fitting end that will serve to teach the wrongdoer and prevent them from carrying those same errors forward into new incarnations.” He frowned. “Unfortunately, like Noah, you have continued to make the same mistakes, lifetime after lifetime.”
A guilty flush crept into her cheeks, and she looked at the weathered wood beneath her feet rather than face Uriah’s disapproval head-on. “Not exactly the same,” she murmured. Upon her arrival here, after choosing Uriah as her Elder Counselor, she and he had reviewed several of her past lives. She’d relived her self-destructive behavior, lifetime after lifetime.
They began with her days as a house slave in Mississippi, where she’d taken care of her master’s children. Overhearing her master’s plans to sell her, she’d devised a plan to make herself indispensable to the household. If, she thought, the family became sick and only she knew what to do to cure them, her master would be so grateful, he’d never sell her. She chose the wrong poison—rhododendron—and the wrong cure—fennel seeds boiled in vinegar, killing all three of the children. It didn’t take long for her secret treachery to be discovered, and she was hanged, her body left as carrion, a stark warning to the other slaves.
In another lifetime, she’d been Colette Deveraux, assistant to Josephine Baker when the “Creole Goddess” served in the French resistance movement. Josephine, while on tour in Europe, managed to acquire and pass intelligence information to Allied forces in several different ways. She carried messages in invisible ink embedded in her sheet music, listened in on discussions when German soldiers attended her shows, and even pinned directives inside her underwear—what little she wore with her skimpy feather costumes. When the Gestapo caught Colette on a message run for Miss Baker, they imprisoned and interrogated her over several days. Throughout the brutal beatings and threats, she swore she knew nothing, and claimed she was just a simple chorus girl on her way to her next show in some small German town a few miles away. On the fourth night, the Gestapo leader announced he would take her to this town in the morning to see the show for himself. Since there was no upcoming show in the town, Colette realized her lies would soon be revealed. To avoid discovery, she spent the night repeatedly slamming her head into the stone wall of her prison cell in the hope she’d require hospitalization. She did, but she lapsed into a coma and eventually died from her self-inflicted injuries. The only benefit? The interrogator was blamed for her head injuries, and Josephine Baker and her associates escaped suspicion.
“In every cycle,” Uriah said, “you opt to take fate into your own hands, rather than play the cards you’re dealt.”
“Because my cards suck!” Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she hated the fact he thought he was all that. “Maybe, if, just once, I got a decent hand, I’d be willing to play it out. Let’s give it a try. Send me back to Earth as some rich man’s daughter, instead of stacking the deck against me. Let me be Muffy Vanderbilt or some European princess for a change.” Her thoughts veered to Isabelle Fichetti. “Or a spoiled Hollywood actress.”
One sculpted eyebrow quirked. “Like the woman Sean Martino’s working with?”
She shrugged. “Why not? I bet I could handle that kind of life a lot better than she did.”
“Including the physical abuse, the unresolved dreams—”
“You wanna talk about unresolved dreams, Uriah?” She thumped her chest. “I’m the one who never got to see her child become a man. Who never will see what he becomes. That’s unresolved.” She waved him off before he could interrupt. “Yeah, I know. My own fault.” Leaning forward, she glared at him with the hostility every black woman raised in the New York projects wore like cheap jeans. “You know what the real difference is between me and Isabelle Fichetti? She had a friend to stop her. If that Justin character hadn’t shown up when he did, she’d be sitting across from some soulless counselor, trying to deal with her hellish penance while I had the white guy with the soulful eyes invading my dreams and looking out for me on Earth.”
“‘The white guy with the soulful eyes’? You mean Mr. Martino?”
“Yeah.” His scrutiny unnerved her, and she glanced down at her hands, at the perfect manicure that never chipped and could be changed to match any outfit with just a thought.
“But don’t read nothing into that. Those were Isabelle’s words, not mine. I’m still not happy you shoved him in my department. He just happens to have nice eyes. A shitty personality, but nice eyes.”
“Is Mr. Martino giving you difficulty?”
“Difficulty? Well, lemme see.” She counted on her fingers. “He’s bitter, angry, stubborn, and disrespectful. But difficult? Nah. He’s a piece of cake.”
Once again, Uriah remained passive, despite her sarcastic edge. “Have you spoken to him about his past? About why he’s here?”
“No. You made it pretty clear he wasn’t Mr. Popularity when you assigned him to my department. I don’t need any trouble. So long as he does his job, I don’t care about his past or why he’s here. This ain’t no church social. He stays out of my way, and I’ll stay out of his.”
“The Board and I would prefer you worked more closely together.”
Suspicion bounced inside her like popcorn kernels on hot oil. “Why?”
At last, she got a rise out of him. His eyes narrowed to feline slits. “It is not your place to question the Board’s directives, merely to follow them.”
The damn Board. Nothing she’d ever seen in the bible or heard in church had prepared her for the Afterlife. Along with learning about the lack of heaven and hell, she had to come to grips with the Board. Not God, but the same general idea. If God did exist, He held no sway here. The Board—so named because all beings in the Afterlife received communications through the magical clipboards they were required to carry—had full control. Even the Council of Elders answered to that same enigmatic power.
In some ways, the Board made sense to Xavia. Grammy used to tell her, “Only the righteous shall look upon the face of God.” In that case, anyone stuck here—the suicides and other assorted losers—certainly hadn’t lived a righteous life on Earth. So why not make them communicate with the Almighty through impulses delivered via a clipboard to their fingers—rather than with face-to-face dialogue?
Uriah’s scrutiny burned holes through her, a stark reminder he expected her surrender. As usual. She didn’t disappoint. She sighed. “Okay, fine. How close do you want me and Sean to be? Like babysitter-close? Am I supposed to keep him from sticking his fingers into electrical outlets?”
“As close as necessary for you to communicate without animosity. We believe you and he can learn from each other.”
“Yeah? What’s he gonna teach me? How to be snotty?”
“I would say you already excel in that area.”
She squirmed, but said nothing.
~~~~
With Isabelle safe in the hands of her friends, Sean believed he had enough free time for a quick visit to Reception. The kid was probably long gone by now. But Sean wouldn’t rest until he’d tried to track the kid down, to verify what his instincts suspected. First, though, he’d jump to his room at the Halfway House for his clipboard. He’d prefer his own over Xavia’s, which gave off the same angry vibes as its owner. Go figure.
In any event, he couldn’t work surrounded by rage, especially not when another woman’s life hung in the balance. He might be long dead—his former vocation a blip on the charts of time. But the NYPD motto he’d lived by, Fidelis Ad Mortem, still defined him, as long as he could remember the words and their meaning: Faithful Until Death. Or into death. Or beyond death.
On the sneak, he checked out the other probation officers. All had their attention riveted to their clipboards and took no notice of him. Just as well. None of them could mark his absence and time his disappearance. Sean would do this fast. If the boss lady came back before he took care of his errands, he’d use the clipboard excuse to explain his AWOL status. Mind made up, he slipped into a quiet corner of the open space. After spinning into astral dust, he poured from his new desk to his old shabby room with its harvest gold carpet, barren walls, and the bitter memories of loss.
When he landed near the bed, he collided face-first with an invisible wall. He pulled back slowly, gauging the changes. Had he entered the wrong room? Maybe. Every suite in the Halfway House looked the same, with no variation in furnishings or décor. A long counter with two barstools cut the space between the front door and the sleeping area. No sinks, no bathroom, no coffee pot. No clocks, no paintings on the walls. No windows. On the other side sat the full-sized bed, complete with a mattress full of painful springs, two lumpy, rock-hard pillows, a sheet, and a blanket. Army barracks had more personality.
The only individuality came from the occupants. Each bounty hunter had a unique electrical makeup—the DNA of the Afterlife—and a homing sense of his/her own quarters. So, had Sean’s radar gone out of whack? Or had someone else taken his place already? A quick glance confirmed the latter. Nothing of his remained. Not that he’d had much here to begin with. The Board forbade personal items of all kinds: no photos or mementos. Even smells were whisked away by cyclonic air purifiers before they might trigger a recollection of Earth.
Afterlife memories, like his vivid images of the destruction of Luc and Jodie, couldn’t be erased, no matter how the Board tried. Sean would never forget. Fidelis Ad Mortem. A motto the Board and its Elders knew nothing about.
Now, an unknown presence tinged the air of his room with foreign electricity. He’d been replaced—both as a bounty hunter and a resident here. Bastards. How long did they wait before installing someone else in his post? In his room? Suspicion burned hotter than the sun. Did Verity transfer him because she was concerned about his welfare, or because the Board wanted him out altogether?
Tough shit. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not when he had responsibility for Isabelle Fichetti now. She needed him, and despite the Board, Verity, and Xavia Donovan, he wouldn’t abandon his charge.
Fidelis Ad Mortem.
Well, obviously his clipboard no longer resided here: a hidden benefit. Because now he’d have to go to Reception to ask Sherman where the Board had stashed it. As he transformed for the trip, he shook his head at the nonsensical statement. Gotta ask the Board where they’d stowed his board. Only in the Afterlife.
The usual crowds crammed Reception, but Sean didn’t care. He had one destination: the luscious Samantha, Sherman’s administrative assistant. He wished Luc were here right now. No one could schmooze Samantha into bending the rules the way Luc used to. In fact, when Luc went missing, the admin had provided Jodie with the coordinates to go after him—against the Board’s express directives. Sean often wondered if Jodie might still be here if she’d obeyed her Elder Counselor, rather than flying headlong to the Chasm to bring back the man she loved.
The Chasm. Shivers skittered through him at the memory of that bleak desolate prison for the unredeemable.
Focus, Martino.
Channeling the easygoing attitude of carefree Luc Asante, he sauntered toward the strawberry blonde’s desk. “Sammie, sweetheart, how are you?”
She didn’t even look up. “Whaddya want, Sean? I’m busy, in case you didn’t notice.”
He cast a glance skyward. Come on, Luc. Wherever you are now. Help me out, pal. For old times’ sake. Loosening his posture, he poured a hip on the corner of her desk in fluid Luc Asante fashion. “Two things. First, I lost my clipboard.”
“And this is my problem because…?”
“Because I know you’re the real power here.”
That confession brought her head up and a smile to her lush lips. “Really?” she retorted without concealing her sarcasm. Folding her arms on the desktop, she pulled her chair closer until her hand sat a whisper from his thigh. “Okay, Sean. I’ll play. Give me a few minutes to warm up the positioning system, and I’ll see if I can locate your clipboard. If I can’t, I’ll activate a new one for you. What else?”
“I’m looking for a kid. I think he came through here a little while ago.”
One perfectly sculpted eyebrow arced. “How little a while ago?”
“I saw him when I brought Mercedes—”
“Mercedes?”
“The drag queen,” he rem
inded her. “Mercedes Bends. My last bounty.”
“Oh, you mean Harris Walcott.”
He twisted his lips and leaned his head toward his left shoulder. “He prefers his stage name.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she replied with a dismissive wave. “Would you believe me if I told you, in this go-round he’s slated to be the first openly gay President of the United States?”
“That should take the sting out of his last life disappointment.”
“Oh, it gets better. He’ll be a female.”
He fumbled against the desk in mock surprise. “A lesbian president? What year are we talking about?”
“I don’t have access to that info—no matter how much power I secretly wield here. I only wish I was there to see it.” Shaking her head, she stared at the silent crowd with no interest. “You think you’ll ever get out of here, Sean?”
“Who knows?” he replied with a careless shrug.
The Afterlife was a weird place, and not just because the inhabitants were all dead, which, in itself boggled the unimaginative mind. The best comparison Sean could come up with was to JFK or any hectic international airport: arrivals from everywhere on Earth en-route to a multitude of different destinations. Some, like Mercedes, would return to Earth to begin new lives. Others, like a lot of the bounties he used to wrangle, moved on to new incarnations in different realms, realms he knew nothing about. No one knew what criteria determined a traveler’s destination. The Afterlife didn’t exactly have charts with gold stars like elementary school. Fill up the column and graduate to the next level.
Samantha fiddled with a dashboard of blinking buttons and the familiar purple characters glowed across a black screen. While her fingers absorbed the data, she kept her gaze pinned to the newcomers, her expression unreadable.
“Sammie?” he prompted to refocus himself as well as her. “The kid?”