The next second, I watched a pair of scaly gray horns poke out from Shannon’s forehead, now smooth in the peace death brings . . . usually. Her face turned a brighter shade of red—more demon and less asphyxiation. Without disturbing Shannon’s dead body, Conrad sat up and climbed out, right through Maddy.
Behind me, the door splintered, a small crack appearing in the reinforced wood.
Hand on my scythe, I turned back to Conrad. “Conrad Iver. I hath come to take thine soul to . . . Oh, shit. Hide!” I screamed at Conrad while pointing to the mirror. “You have a reflection. They can see you!”
For a moment I feared Conrad wouldn’t care, but apparently he did. “Where?” he yelled, panic in his voice as the door splintered again. This time the blade of a fire ax put in a brief appearance before being yanked back out.
“There! Quick!” I pointed to a small door at the back near the stalls.
Conrad charged toward it, ripped open the locked door and dove inside what turned out to be a supply cupboard. He tripped over a wheeled washbasin and brought a year’s supply of toilet paper cascading down on his head. He’d been able to pass through Maddy as he’d exited Shannon’s body, but he was solid and visible now. Demons couldn’t manifest and disappear like Reapers could.
I felt strangely calm amid the chaos. Maddy lay where she’d fallen, blood seeping slowly from the wound in her neck. I took half a second to enjoy her pain, my hand going to my own now-bruise-free throat.
Theresa’s body lay lifeless, twisted unnaturally on the cold white tiles. Her soul had already risen unto Heaven, so I figured her body’s death was okay. And Conrad was stuck in a supply closet in a bathroom designed for the opposite gender. Oh, sweet irony. At some point I’d laugh about his predicament, but this was so not the moment.
Now that I was a pure spirit again, I could see Dante and Shannon. Dante looked pale and wan, whatever wan meant, but Shannon? Shannon was almost completely transparent. Not much more to her than a faint outline. I had to get her into a body stat!
Before I could figure out what to do next, the door burst open.
Courthouse security poured in, as many as could fit through the bathroom door. As a single unit, all weapons trained on Maddy—guns, Tasers—the whole arsenal. She lay on her back, groaning. One hand rubbing her head where I’d hit it. It bled a little, dark blood oozing onto one lone yellow tile on the otherwise white-tiled floor. Her other hand poked gingerly at her throat. Judging by the blood running down her neck, Conrad had inflicted major damage.
“Hands on your head, Maddy Stryker!”
“They already—”
Are, I finished mentally. Her voice grated and squawked, sounding like a cross between an angry duck and metal being shredded to pieces.
A gurney appeared at the doorway, but with so many in the room it wouldn’t fit. In seconds, half the security personnel exited, leaving room for the medical team to charge in. One EMT focused on Theresa while the other tended to Shannon.
Both women got emergency paddles, but after only a few shouts of “Clear!” the EMT at Theresa’s side closed her eyes and called time of death. He quickly joined the other at Shannon’s side. Together they administered a much more sophisticated form of CPR than Conrad had done on Theresa yesterday.
There might still be a chance!
I leapt through various personnel to where Shannon’s outline fluttered in a corner. “C’mon, Shannon. C’mon. I tried to grab her arm, but my incorporeal fingers slipped through her insubstantial body. “Shannon. Go to your body. Now! Last chance.”
Shannon seemed to hear me. She nodded faintly and began drifting slowly across the room. “C’mon. C’mon!” I encouraged, staying where I was. No way was I going down that road again.
“Somebody call it,” I heard.
“No, no. Wait! You have to wait!” I yelled, biting all my nails at once. Where was Kali when I needed her? “No, Not you, Shannon. Go! Go!”
Shannon drifted closer. A glance across the room showed me the faintest flicker that could be Dante. I didn’t have time to worry about him now. At least he was as far from Shannon’s body as he could be and still be in the room.
Having its soul nearby must have kicked the body into gear because just as the EMT drew a breath to call time of death, Shannon’s body drew a breath of her own. And in doing so, inhaled Shannon’s pale spirit back where it belonged.
Shannon coughed. Seconds later, an EMT slipped an oxygen mask gently over her face. She blinked her eyes open.
“I’m okay?” she rasped. “I’m me again?”
The EMT smiled at her. I might have noticed he was really cute. And probably so did Shannon. “You are, indeed, you, Ms. Iver. Can you tell me what day it is?”
Whoa. That was a hard one. How ’bout starting with the year and working up to it?
Another EMT had finished bandaging Maddy’s head and neck. The guard responsible for her grabbed her hands and cuffed them roughly behind her back. Gripping her by her sizable biceps, the EMT and the guard helped Maddy to her feet.
“What’s that?” the guard asked, picking up the parchment contract from the floor. It was flipped to the signature page where Conrad had left it when he’d finished photographing it. Due to the scuffle, the contract looked like it’d gone through hell. It was now torn, bore several overlapping footprints and a giant pool of bright red blood.
Wait, what? Blood? Not mine—well, Theresa’s. I’d only bled a dark drop or two on the yellow pages. Yellow. Of course! That was why the floor beneath Maddy’s head had seemed yellow when the rest of the tiles were white. The contract amendment was now awash in Maddy’s bright red blood. She’d lain on it when she’d been knocked off Conrad, bleeding from both the gash in her neck he’d inflicted and the head wound where I’d left my own mark.
And because Maddy had a soul and Theresa didn’t, her blood on the signature line actually meant something.
Oh, no. It meant Conrad was going to get his twenty-five-year extension after all. Now what was I going to do?
Unlike Dante, who was weak from being away from Hell for so long, I’d gotten my batteries recharged by being in Theresa’s living body. It was up to me to salvage this fiasco.
In my mind’s eye, I replayed every time Dante had manifested. Again I wished for Amber’s eidetic memory. A vague notion swam up from the bottom of my brain. I put both hands on my scythe, screwed my eyes closed and wished as hard as I could that my best friend in life could see and hear me.
Feeling nothing new or different, I figured it hadn’t worked. I opened my eyes and checked myself out. If I was glowing as Dante had, it was hard to tell in the bright bathroom fluorescents. A busy EMT rushed through me. Okay, well at least I hadn’t manifested to everyone. Or corporealized. Now to see if I’d managed to manifest only to Shannon. I crept toward her voice in case the slightest movement could jar me into visibility.
I followed the sound of Shannon protesting she was fine only to find her being supported by two EMTs. So much for fine. Her voice sounded froggy but not as bad as Theresa’s had after Maddy’s previous strangulation attempt.
“Shannon. Can you see me?” I waved frantically in front of her face, my hands passing through first one EMT and then the other on the return trip.
Her eyes followed my waving hand, then crossed. She blinked a few times and cut her gaze to the medical personnel surrounding her. “Okay, Yes. Please help me up.” They lifted her onto the gurney and she lay back. One paramedic draped a blanket over her. “Does the head section raise?”
The cute paramedic turned a crank, stopping when Shannon’s head and upper body had been raised to a comfortable angle.
“Thank you. Could you please give me a moment?” She gifted EMT Cutie with a weak smile. He nodded and stepped away to speak to someone. The inevitable clipboard put in an appearance. Boxes may have been ticked.
Shan
non turned my way and nodded once. She met my gaze but didn’t speak.
“That’s good, Shannon. Don’t say anything or they’ll think you’ve hit your head and you’ll have to do a bunch of tests and just don’t. ’Kay?”
She answered with the tiniest nod. I’d had twitches more enthusiastic than that. Still it was exactly what I’d told her to do. The last thing we wanted was to attract attention or have them question her sanity.
“Tell them the contract belongs to you. We need it. Don’t let anything happen to it.”
“Excuse me,” she called toward the door, her voice husky but loud. “That document. The parchment one? Is mine. It’s very important. If you could just hand it to me.” Shannon’s request was repeated to the personnel remaining in the bathroom. There were a few comments about it being evidence, but eventually someone handed it to one of the EMTs, who handed it to Shannon.
“Thank you,” she said, stuffing it under the blanket. Good thinking. Now it couldn’t fall off even if she passed out. Probably not the first time someone had gotten blood on the emergency blanket.
Suddenly, I heard shouting and the far too familiar sound of a skull smacking a wall. “Be right back,” I told Shannon as I stepped through the wall and back into the bathroom. It appeared Maddy had chosen that moment to struggle. Jeez, what was the point?
The evil murderer had managed to shake off her guard. The woman lay dazed on the floor, one hand on her head. I guessed it had been her skull I’d heard thunking against the wall.
Maddy ducked under several pairs of grasping hands and threw herself at the back wall, her own hands still cuffed behind her. She turned to face the room, where various people were saying rational things like, “Calm down now, Maddy,” and “There’s nowhere to go, Maddy.”
Two other guards had guns trained on her.
Using her cuffed hands, Maddy reached behind her to yank the supply closet door open. She then spun back toward it, probably hoping it was an exit.
Instead, she froze. I’d come up behind her, so I could see Conrad huddled in the corner, trying to make his massive demonic frame as small as possible. A roll of toilet paper had fallen hole-first onto one of his rough gray horns, a long two-ply streamer trailing across his forehead.
For the moment, Maddy’s body and the angle of the room kept the rest of the assemblage from seeing Conrad.
“If you’ll come quietly, Maddy,” said her guard, reaching out one hand in a beseeching manner, the other holding a bloody cotton pad to her own head.
“Resistance is futile,” said one of the courthouse security staff, obviously a Star Trek fan.
I closed my eyes and touched my scythe again, this time willing myself to manifest for Maddy. I might as well not have bothered because even when I stepped up behind her, scythe activated and raised, and began speaking for her ears alone, she couldn’t drag her eyes off Conrad.
“Neither you nor he realize it yet, Maddy Stryker, but that demon you’re looking at has gained ownership of your living body because you got your blood on his contract. You can file a Wrongful Reapage Appeal later. In the meantime, it’s my job to taketh thine soul to Hell!”
I swept my scythe down on the murderous woman.
Just like I had a year ago, her body fell to the floor. Her soul sprang up instantly, ready to charge me.
But I was a trained professional. “Maddy, look!” I shouted, pointing at her scarred and tattooed body lying on the floor. The shock of seeing herself lying there froze her long enough for me to get my Reaper manacles on her. Click, on the right wrist and click, on the left.
An EMT raced through us, quickly setting up CPR on Maddy’s body. Her soul stayed stunned and I led her out of the way.
Oh, my God. If the EMT or anyone else chanced to look into the supply closet, they’d see Conrad. Then there’d be no hope for Dante and me. We’d be in such trouble with our boss and probably Lucy Phurr, too.
There was no way to close the door even if I knew the trick of it. Maddy’s body blocked it open.
Maybe I could get Shannon to fake a seizure to draw everybody’s attention. I turned to look for her through the open doorway, but her gurney had been wheeled away. A second gurney had taken its place. Two quiet and respectful EMTs gently loaded Theresa’s body onto the new gurney.
Hearing a gasp, I turned back, expecting to see the paramedic gaping at the massive red demon hiding amid the cleaning supplies. Instead, I saw the last bit of Conrad—only the horns—blurring as Maddy’s recovering body sucked him in.
Oh, great. How were we supposed to bring him back to Hell for his creative punishment if he was stuck in another body?
Maddy’s body coughed and a smug smile bloomed on her face. Conrad believed he’d won. He’d merely ride this body out and then forcibly take another. He’d leap from one body to another, displacing souls along the way until he got one he liked. I didn’t give great odds for the poor soul—and I mean that both figuratively and literally—who had the job of Shannon’s second-in-command at Iver PR.
Or for Shannon, either, if she stood between Conrad’s newly stolen life and the job of CEO.
I still had my scythe out, glowing dark purply black. From the corner of my eye I saw an answering glow.
It was the stapler. Someone must have kicked it out of the way in all the confusion. It ended up near the last stall closest to the supply closet.
“Aaarrrrggghhh!” I yelled, more frustrated than I’ve ever been before. I dove right through the EMT as he helped Conrad into a sitting position. Through sheer force of will, I grabbed the stapler and held it high. It didn’t enter my mind that I didn’t know how to affect Coil objects. I just did it. I pressed the little button on the bottom of the stapler and the base swung out of the way. Now the “jaws” could operate independently.
I strode back over to Conrad. With my free hand, I shoved the stapler at him, connecting with the bloody gash in his new head. The bandage had slipped from Maddy’s overprocessed hair during her collapse. I pushed the device hard, not caring if the EMT saw a floating stapler hit the murderer. I pushed harder, plunging a staple into Maddy’s skull. The stapler’s purple glow winked out, as if the last of the original magic Conrad had purchased to steal my soul had finally depleted.
“Ow!” Conrad yelled, twisting away from me.
I dropped the stapler to the ground.
“Where’d this come from?” Maddy’s guard asked, joining the EMT by her charge.
For the first time, his eyes flickered up toward the closet, empty of demons at this point. “Must have slipped off a shelf.” He shrugged and added more adhesive to the bandage on Maddy’s head wound. He pulled back when she began to chuckle.
It sounded like a cement mixer filled with drunken cats.
Conrad coughed and tried to speak. “Why can’t—Voice! I . . .”
Maddy’s voice wasn’t just raspy as Theresa’s or Shannon’s had been after Maddy’s earlier attempts at strangulation. This was an abrasive squawk. Stephen Hawking would have turned down a chance to have a voice like that.
Already, bright red blood had seeped through the bandages at Maddy’s throat. Conrad had done real damage to Maddy’s vocal cords when he’d slashed her with the stapler. Never had the words he brought this on himself rung truer.
In his ruined voice, he croaked, “I may not—” He coughed. Red spittle dampened one corner of Maddy’s mouth. “See you, but—” He coughed again, his face growing pale. “You’re there. Just pop out.”
He stopped trying to speak. He clenched Maddy’s bound hands into fists and screwed up her—now his—face. After only a few moments, his face went from bloodless to red and sweaty. His new tattooed arms quivered.
Conrad made this awful sound like running a stick across corrugated iron. It might have been the sound of frustration, the damaged-vocal-cord equivalent of my earlier argh.
&nb
sp; “Why can’t—?” he ground out.
Oh. He was trying to exit Maddy’s body. For some reason he couldn’t. He was stuck.
The EMT slipped a needle into his trembling arm. “Just a little something to relax you.” And Conrad slowly slumped back down on the dirty tiles.
“Okay, let’s get her onto a gurney and to a proper medical facility. Someone needs to get a look at her neck, but I’m pretty sure the damage is permanent.”
They scooped Conrad up and carried him to a third gurney, the other two long since wheeled away. He smiled dreamily as Maddy’s guard recuffed him to the gurney’s metal frame on both sides. Pinkish drool trailed from the corner of his new mouth.
Ignoring the remaining people who puttered around the crime scene, I fisted the air and, without taking my hand off Maddy’s soul, tried to locate my boyfriend.
Dante managed to manifest a little, looking nearly as far gone as Shannon had just before being re-homed. I forced a fake smile on my face so he wouldn’t worry. All thoughts of anger and jealousy left my body like a soul departing a fresh corpse. “You okay?” I asked. I could see right through him now. We needed to get back to Hell as quickly as possible, Conrad or no Conrad. We could always come back for that skegger.
In twenty-five years.
If Schotz let us.
If we were still Reapers.
If we were still together.
Dante returned my smile with one just as fake. And very, very faint. He knew he was in rough shape. I’d deactivated my scythe at some point. Dante didn’t look strong enough to activate his own, but I knew Reapers can transport souls of the newly dead. So why not the oldly dead? After seven centuries, Dante was well and truly dead. They didn’t get much deader than him. Oh, sure his friend Virgil was . . . I yanked my attention back and I reached out to touch Dante. As had happened back at the jail, my hand passed right through him.
Now what? I could teleport myself back to Hell, but if I couldn’t touch him, I couldn’t take him with me. Dante’s mouth moved, but even though I was a spirit now like him, I couldn’t make out what he was trying to tell me. I could barely hear a whisper, like branches rustling in the breeze.
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